Thank you for posting this. It is most interesting and enlightening piece I've read on the subject. After spending a year teaching a coding class in middle school, I realized that nothing anyone says about education is worth a cent unless they have actually tried to teach the material they're proposing messing with.
If you think about how someone would make money from this stunt, consider whether the TruCrypt developers are now working with a vendor that makes a product with similar functionality to TruCrypt (just to be clear : I'm not saying anything bad about any such company or their products, in fact I found one with a few minutes reading on Wikipedia that looks like a plausible alternative to TC for many people, which made me think -- I bet their sales will go through the roof now, then go on to wonder if there is a causal link...).
A definition for you, dude : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vacuous
So yes I did completely read the list of documents, and there are no exchange-related ones there.
And what, pray am I supposed to glean from the press release ? It only has the same information as
TFA : that they claim to be documenting, among other things, the Exchange protocols (the actual
documents have existed for months if not years), but it seems that those documents are not posted
today. So are they a) in some other place that I haven't discovered yet or b) not yet posted,
but they will be (but why??? since they exist and could have been posted along with the
stuff they have put up on the web) or c) the press release is incorrect in citing Exchange
as being covered by the document release.
I just spent ten mins grokking the documentation linked from the MS press release page.
There's plenty of protocol documentation, but none that I can see relating to Exchange,
as mentioned in TFA. I'm looking for protocols such as the MAPI RPC and EAS sync protocols.
Everything I can see published relates to protocols implemented in the base OS (which makes
sense, since the court action was in relation to the OS, not other MS applications such
as SQLServer and Exchange).
If anyone can point me to any non-OS doc published as part of this disgorging, please do.
btw, this step was inevitable imho : MS was made to write all the protocol documentation
by the EU some time ago. Initially they attempted to control access to it tightly with
licensing and special legal agreements, but clearly
they were going to be napsterized eventually -- these documents, once they exist, will get out to
the wide audience one way or another. So simply publishing them saves years of RIAA-style
nonsense where developers are sued for having seen these magic documents while working
on one project, then go work on some 'non kosher' project later. Better to publish and
be damned.
I worked for VMX, just after they were acquired by Octel.
I began work there in 1994 and when I started the visual
voicemail application was the 'old' thing that was already in the field.
So it existed long before the patent filing date.
Reading the patent, they just have to be kidding.
Everything described was already available well before the filing date.
It's just hard to do, and I've never seen a good book on the subject (in fact I've considered writing one on and off for years but sadly the $$ I cam make as a consultant on performance, scalability and availability far exceeds the likely rewards from publishing a book).
Best advice is to look at some open source projects that are used in highly scalable applications. The other thing I'd say is that there isn't one true technique -- at this point everyone makes up their own solution as they go. Often the applications' characteristics drive the scaling architecture so each application is different.
underlying all this is the simple fact that joe blow residential customers are not willing to pay a reasonable price for their internet service. I run a small ISP and I can tell you that there's no way on earth that anyone is making money at $25/mo regardless of how poor the service delivered. And yet that's what the bulk of the population is willing to pay and not a cent more.
So what to do... oh yes ! Let's go get the remainder of the money from the content providers... they have plenty of money.
Therefore one solution to this problem is for you all to pony up $80 or so so for your internet connections.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for posting this. It is most interesting and enlightening piece I've read on the subject. After spending a year teaching a coding class in middle school, I realized that nothing anyone says about education is worth a cent unless they have actually tried to teach the material they're proposing messing with.
If you think about how someone would make money from this stunt, consider whether the TruCrypt developers are now working with a vendor that makes a product with similar functionality to TruCrypt (just to be clear : I'm not saying anything bad about any such company or their products, in fact I found one with a few minutes reading on Wikipedia that looks like a plausible alternative to TC for many people, which made me think -- I bet their sales will go through the roof now, then go on to wonder if there is a causal link...).
The cited page is a copy/paste of Linda Cureton's blog post. Lame and uncool to copy someone's article whole without a link, don't you think, even if they are paid with taxpayer $$? Here's the original article : http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/NASA-CIO-Blog/posts/post_1329017818806.html
I heard that Friendster also managed to get a patent on social networking.
Then users could sync all their data (calendar, email push, tasks to phones that have that) as well as contacts.
You can get an Exchange, or Exchange compatible service for less than $90/yr, and use that for remote wipe. For example NuevaSync is $25/yr.
Nice, so now thousands of developers will have to buy an Apple machine. That sales spike should give the stock a nice boost...
A definition for you, dude : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vacuous So yes I did completely read the list of documents, and there are no exchange-related ones there. And what, pray am I supposed to glean from the press release ? It only has the same information as TFA : that they claim to be documenting, among other things, the Exchange protocols (the actual documents have existed for months if not years), but it seems that those documents are not posted today. So are they a) in some other place that I haven't discovered yet or b) not yet posted, but they will be (but why??? since they exist and could have been posted along with the stuff they have put up on the web) or c) the press release is incorrect in citing Exchange as being covered by the document release.
I just spent ten mins grokking the documentation linked from the MS press release page. There's plenty of protocol documentation, but none that I can see relating to Exchange, as mentioned in TFA. I'm looking for protocols such as the MAPI RPC and EAS sync protocols. Everything I can see published relates to protocols implemented in the base OS (which makes sense, since the court action was in relation to the OS, not other MS applications such as SQLServer and Exchange). If anyone can point me to any non-OS doc published as part of this disgorging, please do. btw, this step was inevitable imho : MS was made to write all the protocol documentation by the EU some time ago. Initially they attempted to control access to it tightly with licensing and special legal agreements, but clearly they were going to be napsterized eventually -- these documents, once they exist, will get out to the wide audience one way or another. So simply publishing them saves years of RIAA-style nonsense where developers are sued for having seen these magic documents while working on one project, then go work on some 'non kosher' project later. Better to publish and be damned.
I worked for VMX, just after they were acquired by Octel. I began work there in 1994 and when I started the visual voicemail application was the 'old' thing that was already in the field. So it existed long before the patent filing date. Reading the patent, they just have to be kidding. Everything described was already available well before the filing date.
It's just hard to do, and I've never seen a good book on the subject
(in fact I've considered writing one on and off for years but sadly
the $$ I cam make as a consultant on performance, scalability and
availability far exceeds the likely rewards from publishing a book).
Best advice is to look at some open source projects that are used
in highly scalable applications. The other thing I'd say is that
there isn't one true technique -- at this point everyone makes up
their own solution as they go. Often the applications' characteristics
drive the scaling architecture so each application is different.
postgresql has a native Win32 version, complete with an installer, service support and does not depend on cygwin.
Watch this space...
I used a CD rental service in England back when CD's came on to the market (1986 or so?). It worked in essentially the exact same way as Netflix.
I know Mike, that that's him talking.
Well yes this is typical telco greed.
But...
underlying all this is the simple fact that joe blow residential customers
are not willing to pay a reasonable price for their internet service.
I run a small ISP and I can tell you that there's no way on earth that
anyone is making money at $25/mo regardless of how poor the service delivered.
And yet that's what the bulk of the population is willing to pay and not a cent more.
So what to do... oh yes ! Let's go get the remainder of the money from the
content providers... they have plenty of money.
Therefore one solution to this problem is for you all to pony up $80 or so
so for your internet connections.