As I see it, introducing PR based on money-to-google will only complicate the situation. For example, when I search for "operating system", I want a definition of it on top and not a link to windows.com or apple.com/macosx. IMHO the natural search is the way to go, even with its problems of being abused for revenue. Google should remain an engine that just reflects the relevance and the contents of websites.
That being said, your idea sounds nice. Paid placements would be interesting (I differ only on that by default such a thing should be turned off). But it also would open google up to lawsuites, unless it can come up with a way to fairly rank their customers, (one that would stand up in a court of law) as they would have to provide a fair service. And also, I'm guessing such a system would actually kill off newcomers, as entrenched companies would have more money to throw at it, despite probably being more relevant in a search of products or services. So, this has to be tweaked to not happen and at the same time, entrenched companies have to be OK with this. But it would be interesting to see a business-related google though.
Here's the problem: computers aren't cars. Now, while the good old "car analogy" has some valid uses, this is not one of them. A car is a device manufactured, designed and optimised to do a fairly small set of well-defined tasks. Take the car outside of its "normal" parameters (eg: overloading, driving on ice with regular tyres, using the wrong type of fuel) and the car - and possibly the user - will be damaged. This is not a failure in the engineering of the car, it is a user error.
Computers are designed to handle, essentially, completely arbitrary, end-user defined tasks. Even when you throw an operating system into the mix, which reduces the set of possible tasks slightly, you *still* have a list of potential uses which is, for all intents and purposes, infinite.
Trying to design a "computer" (and by this I'm talking about the hardware+OS combination) so that it can only perform "good" tasks and not allow anything "bad" to happen is, essentially, impossible. As long as the design requirement of "arbitrary code execution" remains, the onus is always on the end user to decide which code is "good" and which code is "bad".
I was thinking: "just the same way it is impossible to make a completely safe car", but lets drop the car analogy. You sir have just explained why TC will be a flop in this area, but I still have to disagree to a point. The User will always have the power to trash his sytem. But, I'm talking about minimizing damage, not avoiding it completely, which as you pointed out nicely is impossible. With user accounts, in theory, if I'm stupid enough to trash my account, my sister which is extremely intelligent and also has an account on my system, won't go down for my stupidity. Also by restraining damage to 1 user account without system privelages, malware can't damage system files and therefor can be easily removed by my sister when I ask her for help. If the world was to run more OSs than just windows, the damage a single piece of malware could do would be greatly reduced. Security precautions such as user accounts are designed to add difficulty in executing whole subclasses of code (good or bad) until someone more intelligent then I am (administrator) authorizes it. Surely, this isn't a silver bullet and sure enough it is a tradeoff between user-friendlyness for security. ACLs are also a good step in this direction.
Problem is most malware a) doesn't really require anything more than a standard user account and b) isn't exploiting software vulnerabilities (let alone unpatched ones). Which is not to say doing this things is a worthless endeavour, merely that it's nothing close to a "fix".
Yes. But nimda was fun when I lost alot of important files, on the other hand I was lucky with blaster, having a firewall up.Again, this isn't a silver bullet and my examples are extreme ones, but we can't stop designing systems to minimize damage because ultimately a user can blow any precaution away. Damage needs to be restrained and minimized wherever possible. This doesn't defeat the "the computer has the ability to execute arbitary code" axiom, just that by default it should protect itself and files when possible.
This is something they can - and are - doing with Vista. But they can't do it retroactively.
And I recognize their effort. This is a good step forward.
Build it and they will come.
But there are already alot of alternatives. OSX, linux, BSD, Solaris... Microsoft pushing an edition of windows without ie and wmp would be a good step forward. It would take the pressure off wmp and ie developers so they can focus more on the OS, but unfortunantely microsoft doesn't want to lose her stronghold on formats. Even if it means that a vulnerability in wmp would provide malware with a huge audiance of vulnerable systems around the world.
It's true on all platforms and it's not going to change as long as computers are able to run arbitrary code.
Sure is. Just that a blow to a default windows confi
I'm not sure this assumption is warrented. First, the advertiser thinks it's relevant, and they're putting their money where their mouth is.
Well, to the point that you wouldn't throw money at it if you didn't benefit from it, yes. But when you add PR for a fee, the semantics of adding such a vector in their engine is: "This is important because we are getting paid for it". For that to be translated to "They're putting their money where there mouth is" they have to filter out attempts at abusing this feature.
Second, it's highly likely that a paid product or service is more relevant to my search than, say, Fred's Families' Home Page.
Surely this relies also on what you are searching for, but you are assuming that most people search google for online products or services (in that case you are right). Fred's Families' Home Page may be a very insightful one when it comes to hacking an xbox than microsoft's page (who has put its money where its mouth is) on how you can't hack an xbox. Then there is the issue of how much a PR boost do you give and how do you determine fairness. When I search for "sex", all other things equal, which company gets the first page considering hundreds paid for a PR boost. Is the one throwing the most money at it more relevant than others?
Third, if it worked like, say, AdWords, then irrelevant placements would get modded down over time as users failed to click on them. Yes, you can pay more to get higher ranking, but that process tends to be self-correcting. How many dollars are you going to waste paying for a placement that doens't perform?
Fourth, any such system would probably, at least from my standpoint, would just be another factor that combines to give you a boost in relevance. So while you may place higher, your site, page, content, keywords, title, etc., would still need to actually be relevant to the query at hand.
All that said, however, I'm not sure that such a system fulfills a genuine need. After all, you can already use paid AdWords to get a prominent place on the page...
I think you're dead right on these points though. Especially this one: "After all, you can already use paid AdWords to get a prominent place on the page..." (sorry for any crude errors, it's late at night here!)
Than and 70% lose of income due to google is pretty exagerative.
I wonder how they could justify that it was google's fault. It's almost like suing your mirror because you're accusing it of showing you ugly!:)
It would also be interesting to see how such a case would go. How much of how google's engine actually works would have to be exposed in such cases? Could someone use this or similar cases to take a peek into google's internals?
Likewise, IF Google is determined to have a monopoly on the search engine market, some restrictions should be placed on how they index pages on their site. Now some will say that "no one is forcing you to use Google" but likewise no one is forcing you to use MS products. However, 95% of people do whether or not they are forced and Google can have a monopoly even though other search engines exist. For example, if Google suddenly decided to require companies pay for their page ranking, many lawsuits would follow, justifiable lawsuits, in my opinion.
I have to disagree. Google's engine is designed to spit out results in order of relevance to entered search strings. Their job is for you to find relevant information as soon as possible. If Google was to tamper with their algorithm by adding money-boosted page ranks, it would be a major blow to their engine's performance, because it would add an extra money-factor that in the majority of cases is irrelevant to your search. So if anyone, Google would lose from this. On the other hand, you have alot of companies abusing Google for the PR, so Google has to play a bit with its algorithm to avoid this. This 'playing around' almost definitely has some 'unfair' results to some websites. But, fairness is not a factor in Google's engine, relevance is. The important thing to remember is that Google doesn't provide brand recognition to companies, it reflects it. So if a company is serious about its business, their job is to provide a relevant website, provide googlebot with the info it needs and to get theirselves known by other means, like providing an excellent product, advertising in other media, etc.
Having said all this, if Google is actually taking money to boost PR (after weighing in the damage it would do to its PR algorithm), that would be an interesting thing to talk about. But I am not aware of proof to support such a case.
I agree with you to a point. Sure, the user needs to be more informed on basic security practices and nothing can defeat a secure system better than a 'stupid user'. But, every product made to interact with human beings take this as a given: "Shit happens". In cars you'll notice that instead of using heavy metal for the car's body, as done in the past, the industry changed to lighter more crash-friendly materials. The goal was, when the 'stupid driver' got himself into an accident, the car takes the damage and the user gets out alive. The same is and should be done in computers. User accounts are a must. Patching vulnerabilities should also not be mandatory. Even for the pirates. Microsoft has the power to enforce better security in windows by using better default configurations (your average user won't bother hardening his OS). The other thing we need is diversity. Having one OS to rule them all is a vulnerability within itself, it just amplifies the damage. It's making it damn easy for the malware side. Security is a process that will never practically end, and blaming the user for "Almost all" malware infestations is to much ostrich-reasoning for my likings, not that it isn't true as things are today, especially on the windows side...
Well, yes. Google denied giving over information that would be considered a breach of privacy for citizens all around the world to a government that is considered bad all over the world. And I'm not talking about China here. And it is censoring searches in China but at the same time not limiting the people's ability to 'out-smart' google and eventually find what they want about 'tiennamenn square'. So, the coloring part is right to the point.;)
Well, I'm guessig Sony solely holds the patent for the ble-ray, so they do have a hand in its price. The EULA part may be a bit far-fetched, but I'm sure DRM will insure enough lock-in to make up for that problem.
What happens in 2015, once neither high-speed ISP in your geographic area works with anything older than Vista or any Linux kernel that isn't the official unmodified kernel of a major commercial Linux distribution? Would you move house to escape Trusted Network Connect?
What better way for him to defy the TNC movement than to jump ship now? How will the big corporations avoid anti-competetive laws when they are locking out everybody else? Why should any corporation benefit from TC and not my own goverment (read country)?
What you are arguing is that TC will oneday prevail and then it's adios-linux-as-we-now-it. But I'm betting that TC, as you fear it, also equals to adios-independant-developers, and this includes the big number of windows developers. So there is to much at steak for TC to pass without a fight. IMHO, in time it will just be rendered a useless overhead and if anything, another technology that will plague windows with stifness...
So, to GP: Don't let Billy-Gates scare you away. The linux way is the future. Microsoft is fighting a losing battle...
Sorry, but: 1. Perhaps the EU is a larger market space than the US - that's not subject to debate. What is up for discussion here is the EU subjecting a corporation to change their practices simply because other ventures are unable to parallel.
Not exactly. A corporation is subjected to change their practices by the EU because it is preventing competition. I'm sure a big factor of why the EU isn't giving in, like the DOJ did in the US, is because microsoft isn't a european corporation. But even this is irrelevant. The law is the law.
2. Is it OK for Americans to whine - YES - There have not been any fines for Japanese cap manufacturers imposed here, or at least none that I know if. In fact - the decrase in US car sales is pushing US car manufacturers to be more competitive - a great thing for the car marketplace.
Sure, this is the case with cars. The problem with software is that you don't have a leveled field of competition. I can buy a Toyota even if I am a long supporter of Ford without thinking twice about it. But if I have a windows infastructure, I better think twice about buying another solution. Not because linux isn't good enough, but because windows won't play nice with it. Anti-competitive.
3. Were Boeing or Airbus ever fined or forced to share their competitive techniques with competitors?
Sorry, again Boeing, Airbus, BMW, Ford... have NO WAY of locking you in. You don't like your Ford? Buy a BMW next. Don't like Airbus? Order Boeing. Don't like windows? Prepare to have problems with your formats, or your windows systems not playing nice.
4. I use a MAC, almost never Windows, so I'm not a pro-Windows by any means - but considering the volume of applications that exist for Windows, you'd have to form the opinion that the API's must be very much so "open" and "well documented". Why on earth should Microsoft be forced to remove elements of Windows simply because some other companies are jealous? I mean, Windows is a product, right? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to do whatever they want with thir product? If people don't want it - don't buy it! On the same level - remove "grep" from commercial distros of Linux please, it is hindering my crappy home made search code from becomming mainstream!
Oh yeah, bundling. I also am with you on this one, with a small differance. Let MS bundle anything it wants with windows. Just give me the choice to uninstall them. If I don't want IE, I'll remove it. Don't like wmp? Let me throw it out. The problem with bundling as I see it, is not that you already have IE so browser makers are doomed. But because IE is surely on 90% of computers on earth, you can safely code your web page to work OK only with IE. Because wmp is on 90% of computers on this earth, you can safely distribute wmv files. So the problem with bundling is essentialy microsoft using one monopoly to form monopolies in other areas. If it was about giving their costumers a better experience, why do you suppose they don't ship wmp with all codecs? (Divx included) this is clearly a format war.
5. Open source, closed source - I don't really care, again, that's not really the discussion, from what I've heard it's just what Microsoft volunteered to give up. If people don't want to make money from Software, then they distribute freeware - fine. If people don't want to spend money on software then the get Linux or something. Either choices are fine, but for the EU to force a corporation to modify it's product under these circumstances is perposterous. There are countless other media programs and browsers that are thriving - there is no case here for anti-trust, only lack of competence from those that wish their programs were making them more money, or bitter competitors of Microsoft - and of course the EU.
I also am not a zealot. OSS, CSS, I don't care relegiously. I don't don't have a probem with paying for software, as long as it provides me value. When I invest in MS, I know I'm gonna have a problem with having any
If you are right, this is exactly why the government should not permit this kind of business. And again this is where I don't know how laws work in the US. This could be business as usual there. But it is anti-competetive and helps the rich stay rich which as I see it, is anti-american.
Let's say skype has 100 users, 50 AMD, 50 intel. With this move it is telling their 50 users that their CPU isn't dandy enough to play with 10 conference calls. So these 50 users either don't care so they stay with skype or they turn to the competition where the calls are supported (some previous posts pointed this out). I'm sure the majority doesn't need a 10-way conference call, but this shows that skype must be benefiting in a non-competetive way.
It would be more than ok in my book if Intel implemented a set of extensions specifically for conference calls and skype used them giving people with intel an added advantage. Like the case was almost a decade back with the mmx extensions and some games. (My am486 couldn't play them... bastards!:) ) AMD eventually licensed mmx to compete with Intel. Which is completely fair. But, removing features from a program because it is Prejudice of the color of my CPU only? No.
Exactly. So, why would skype want to make such a move if it obviously would lose sales from it also? If Intel has a hand in this, I don't see how it is legal for Intel and skype to make a deal that would make AMD and/or other CPUs look bad when they most likely can handle the conferences. Or if not, they can probably 'catch up' with Intel really quick. I don't know how the law works in the USA exactly and IANAL, but this sort of defamation is illegal in Europe (I don't know how much this is relevant to this situation). It's one thing to add value to skype when you buy Intel (optimize it for intel CPUs) and another thing to remove value when you buy AMD (remove features it probably is capable of handling), ultimately making AMD look bad unfairly.
I could be sort of ok with this if it was a QoS thing, but if it was, it shouldn't have been implemented by checking for the chips manufacturer and th user should be given the opportunity to "use at his own risk". At least skype should have announced the feature Intel's CPUs have AMD lacks. I think this is a dangerous road to go down. Imagine a future where you would choose the programs you run based on the manufacturer of the CPU you use. Even worse, imagine the deadlocks where you need to run 2 programs that favor different manufacturers. The worst part being that the 'obsticales' are completely artificial. And the competition wouldn't be on each cpu's merits, but on the manufacturer's connections.:(
I wonder what your reaction would be if microsoft announced they believe Intel's CPUs aren't powerfull enough to run Vista in all its glory. So if it detects an Intel CPU, you can only open 2 windows at a time. It's microsoft's product, so their free to market it as they like. So either you don't buy Vista which has previously informed you about this limitation (there are plenty of alternatives), or you throw away your Dell... How about if Oracle started thinking the same way and limited the conections to their DB buy CPUID (just so people don't exclude MS for their monopoly)? With all do respect, it isn't so funny now, General 8883 sir, is it?:)
One thing I also haven't seen pointed out yet is this: Let's say that AMD's CPUs really can't handle 10 conferences at the same time. How can skype guarantee that this will be the case six months down the road. Determining the CPU's capabilities by its manufacturer is lame...
I was applying the same critisism his links were using on the bible to yoism. The funny thing is that they all worked. Some fun points:
Bible:Israel and the chosen nation of God
Yoism:Open the page and look at the background. An American flag
Bible:God is cruel because he destroyed Sodom and Gommora. If you read the bible, this was an act of devine justice for Sodom and Gommora's sins. He actually spared them a couple of times before on Lot's orders.
Yoism: I'll use your words: Rapists would deprive others of their liberty and happiness (and sometimes their lives). So they would need to be controlled, imprisoned, or whatever it takes to stop their raping. Realistically I have never seen a modern penal system that works or isn't as cruel as god in the bible. Being raped in prison, or being beat up by gangs or the gaurds inside or drugged up is more then someone deserved realistically for their sins/illegal actions.
Bible: Hank told me so. (which was a really funny reading, I liked it. It expressed how sometimes relegious people can be brain dead. But missed my point by a mile. If you follow a relegion because you have to, you better as well not follow it at all.)
Yoism: Substitute Hank in that link for the law/goverment and you have the same outcome. Blindly obey them. also as I said, democracy at this point in time is a perfect dillusion. Hot examples here: Iraq, the patriot act.
So basically you kiss law's ass without question, even if most of the times it doesn't deliver what it promised in this lifetime.
-Did your aunt ever get rich before she left?
-No, the law doesn't work that way. You'll find a dollar bill or something... LOL!
As I said, I'm not trying to flame here, but this person does a great job in rediculing brain-dead relegious people and passing FUD about the bible, but he doesn't look like a guy who has actually tried out the alternatives and "chosen on his own readings", sorry... He wouldn't bash any religion if he did...
Oh my God people, plz mod parent up and grand parent Troll. Carpetshark is absolutely right about Slashdot being targetted by Microsoft in a PR offensive, It's more than obvious...
Slashdot Mirror
Most importantly, will I be able to open 10 Open XML documents at the same time if I have an AMD CPU?
As I see it, introducing PR based on money-to-google will only complicate the situation. For example, when I search for "operating system", I want a definition of it on top and not a link to windows.com or apple.com/macosx. IMHO the natural search is the way to go, even with its problems of being abused for revenue. Google should remain an engine that just reflects the relevance and the contents of websites.
That being said, your idea sounds nice. Paid placements would be interesting (I differ only on that by default such a thing should be turned off). But it also would open google up to lawsuites, unless it can come up with a way to fairly rank their customers, (one that would stand up in a court of law) as they would have to provide a fair service. And also, I'm guessing such a system would actually kill off newcomers, as entrenched companies would have more money to throw at it, despite probably being more relevant in a search of products or services. So, this has to be tweaked to not happen and at the same time, entrenched companies have to be OK with this. But it would be interesting to see a business-related google though.
Here's the problem: computers aren't cars. Now, while the good old "car analogy" has some valid uses, this is not one of them. A car is a device manufactured, designed and optimised to do a fairly small set of well-defined tasks. Take the car outside of its "normal" parameters (eg: overloading, driving on ice with regular tyres, using the wrong type of fuel) and the car - and possibly the user - will be damaged. This is not a failure in the engineering of the car, it is a user error. Computers are designed to handle, essentially, completely arbitrary, end-user defined tasks. Even when you throw an operating system into the mix, which reduces the set of possible tasks slightly, you *still* have a list of potential uses which is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. Trying to design a "computer" (and by this I'm talking about the hardware+OS combination) so that it can only perform "good" tasks and not allow anything "bad" to happen is, essentially, impossible. As long as the design requirement of "arbitrary code execution" remains, the onus is always on the end user to decide which code is "good" and which code is "bad".
I was thinking: "just the same way it is impossible to make a completely safe car", but lets drop the car analogy. You sir have just explained why TC will be a flop in this area, but I still have to disagree to a point. The User will always have the power to trash his sytem. But, I'm talking about minimizing damage, not avoiding it completely, which as you pointed out nicely is impossible. With user accounts, in theory, if I'm stupid enough to trash my account, my sister which is extremely intelligent and also has an account on my system, won't go down for my stupidity. Also by restraining damage to 1 user account without system privelages, malware can't damage system files and therefor can be easily removed by my sister when I ask her for help. If the world was to run more OSs than just windows, the damage a single piece of malware could do would be greatly reduced.
Security precautions such as user accounts are designed to add difficulty in executing whole subclasses of code (good or bad) until someone more intelligent then I am (administrator) authorizes it. Surely, this isn't a silver bullet and sure enough it is a tradeoff between user-friendlyness for security. ACLs are also a good step in this direction.
Problem is most malware a) doesn't really require anything more than a standard user account and b) isn't exploiting software vulnerabilities (let alone unpatched ones). Which is not to say doing this things is a worthless endeavour, merely that it's nothing close to a "fix".
Yes. But nimda was fun when I lost alot of important files, on the other hand I was lucky with blaster, having a firewall up.Again, this isn't a silver bullet and my examples are extreme ones, but we can't stop designing systems to minimize damage because ultimately a user can blow any precaution away. Damage needs to be restrained and minimized wherever possible. This doesn't defeat the "the computer has the ability to execute arbitary code" axiom, just that by default it should protect itself and files when possible.
This is something they can - and are - doing with Vista. But they can't do it retroactively.
And I recognize their effort. This is a good step forward.
Build it and they will come.
But there are already alot of alternatives. OSX, linux, BSD, Solaris... Microsoft pushing an edition of windows without ie and wmp would be a good step forward. It would take the pressure off wmp and ie developers so they can focus more on the OS, but unfortunantely microsoft doesn't want to lose her stronghold on formats. Even if it means that a vulnerability in wmp would provide malware with a huge audiance of vulnerable systems around the world.
It's true on all platforms and it's not going to change as long as computers are able to run arbitrary code.
Sure is. Just that a blow to a default windows confi
First off: good points.
I'm not sure this assumption is warrented. First, the advertiser thinks it's relevant, and they're putting their money where their mouth is.
Well, to the point that you wouldn't throw money at it if you didn't benefit from it, yes. But when you add PR for a fee, the semantics of adding such a vector in their engine is: "This is important because we are getting paid for it". For that to be translated to "They're putting their money where there mouth is" they have to filter out attempts at abusing this feature.
Second, it's highly likely that a paid product or service is more relevant to my search than, say, Fred's Families' Home Page.
Surely this relies also on what you are searching for, but you are assuming that most people search google for online products or services (in that case you are right). Fred's Families' Home Page may be a very insightful one when it comes to hacking an xbox than microsoft's page (who has put its money where its mouth is) on how you can't hack an xbox. Then there is the issue of how much a PR boost do you give and how do you determine fairness. When I search for "sex", all other things equal, which company gets the first page considering hundreds paid for a PR boost. Is the one throwing the most money at it more relevant than others?
Third, if it worked like, say, AdWords, then irrelevant placements would get modded down over time as users failed to click on them. Yes, you can pay more to get higher ranking, but that process tends to be self-correcting. How many dollars are you going to waste paying for a placement that doens't perform?
Fourth, any such system would probably, at least from my standpoint, would just be another factor that combines to give you a boost in relevance. So while you may place higher, your site, page, content, keywords, title, etc., would still need to actually be relevant to the query at hand.
All that said, however, I'm not sure that such a system fulfills a genuine need. After all, you can already use paid AdWords to get a prominent place on the page...
I think you're dead right on these points though. Especially this one: "After all, you can already use paid AdWords to get a prominent place on the page..." (sorry for any crude errors, it's late at night here!)
Than and 70% lose of income due to google is pretty exagerative.
:)
I wonder how they could justify that it was google's fault. It's almost like suing your mirror because you're accusing it of showing you ugly!
It would also be interesting to see how such a case would go. How much of how google's engine actually works would have to be exposed in such cases? Could someone use this or similar cases to take a peek into google's internals?
Likewise, IF Google is determined to have a monopoly on the search engine market, some restrictions should be placed on how they index pages on their site. Now some will say that "no one is forcing you to use Google" but likewise no one is forcing you to use MS products. However, 95% of people do whether or not they are forced and Google can have a monopoly even though other search engines exist. For example, if Google suddenly decided to require companies pay for their page ranking, many lawsuits would follow, justifiable lawsuits, in my opinion.
I have to disagree. Google's engine is designed to spit out results in order of relevance to entered search strings. Their job is for you to find relevant information as soon as possible. If Google was to tamper with their algorithm by adding money-boosted page ranks, it would be a major blow to their engine's performance, because it would add an extra money-factor that in the majority of cases is irrelevant to your search. So if anyone, Google would lose from this. On the other hand, you have alot of companies abusing Google for the PR, so Google has to play a bit with its algorithm to avoid this. This 'playing around' almost definitely has some 'unfair' results to some websites. But, fairness is not a factor in Google's engine, relevance is. The important thing to remember is that Google doesn't provide brand recognition to companies, it reflects it. So if a company is serious about its business, their job is to provide a relevant website, provide googlebot with the info it needs and to get theirselves known by other means, like providing an excellent product, advertising in other media, etc.
Having said all this, if Google is actually taking money to boost PR (after weighing in the damage it would do to its PR algorithm), that would be an interesting thing to talk about. But I am not aware of proof to support such a case.
I agree with you to a point. Sure, the user needs to be more informed on basic security practices and nothing can defeat a secure system better than a 'stupid user'. But, every product made to interact with human beings take this as a given: "Shit happens". In cars you'll notice that instead of using heavy metal for the car's body, as done in the past, the industry changed to lighter more crash-friendly materials. The goal was, when the 'stupid driver' got himself into an accident, the car takes the damage and the user gets out alive. The same is and should be done in computers. User accounts are a must. Patching vulnerabilities should also not be mandatory. Even for the pirates. Microsoft has the power to enforce better security in windows by using better default configurations (your average user won't bother hardening his OS). The other thing we need is diversity. Having one OS to rule them all is a vulnerability within itself, it just amplifies the damage. It's making it damn easy for the malware side. Security is a process that will never practically end, and blaming the user for "Almost all" malware infestations is to much ostrich-reasoning for my likings, not that it isn't true as things are today, especially on the windows side...
Well, yes. Google denied giving over information that would be considered a breach of privacy for citizens all around the world to a government that is considered bad all over the world. And I'm not talking about China here. And it is censoring searches in China but at the same time not limiting the people's ability to 'out-smart' google and eventually find what they want about 'tiennamenn square'. So, the coloring part is right to the point. ;)
Well, I'm guessig Sony solely holds the patent for the ble-ray, so they do have a hand in its price. The EULA part may be a bit far-fetched, but I'm sure DRM will insure enough lock-in to make up for that problem.
What happens in 2015, once neither high-speed ISP in your geographic area works with anything older than Vista or any Linux kernel that isn't the official unmodified kernel of a major commercial Linux distribution? Would you move house to escape Trusted Network Connect?
What better way for him to defy the TNC movement than to jump ship now?
How will the big corporations avoid anti-competetive laws when they are locking out everybody else?
Why should any corporation benefit from TC and not my own goverment (read country)?
What you are arguing is that TC will oneday prevail and then it's adios-linux-as-we-now-it. But I'm betting that TC, as you fear it, also equals to adios-independant-developers, and this includes the big number of windows developers. So there is to much at steak for TC to pass without a fight. IMHO, in time it will just be rendered a useless overhead and if anything, another technology that will plague windows with stifness...
So, to GP: Don't let Billy-Gates scare you away. The linux way is the future. Microsoft is fighting a losing battle...
FTFA: Multiple virtualized Linux kernels running deprivileged on the L4/Fiasco microkernel
:)
Gold I tell ya!
Sorry, but:
1. Perhaps the EU is a larger market space than the US - that's not subject to debate. What is up for discussion here is the EU subjecting a corporation to change their practices simply because other ventures are unable to parallel.
Not exactly. A corporation is subjected to change their practices by the EU because it is preventing competition. I'm sure a big factor of why the EU isn't giving in, like the DOJ did in the US, is because microsoft isn't a european corporation. But even this is irrelevant. The law is the law.
2. Is it OK for Americans to whine - YES - There have not been any fines for Japanese cap manufacturers imposed here, or at least none that I know if. In fact - the decrase in US car sales is pushing US car manufacturers to be more competitive - a great thing for the car marketplace.
Sure, this is the case with cars. The problem with software is that you don't have a leveled field of competition. I can buy a Toyota even if I am a long supporter of Ford without thinking twice about it. But if I have a windows infastructure, I better think twice about buying another solution. Not because linux isn't good enough, but because windows won't play nice with it. Anti-competitive.
3. Were Boeing or Airbus ever fined or forced to share their competitive techniques with competitors?
Sorry, again Boeing, Airbus, BMW, Ford... have NO WAY of locking you in. You don't like your Ford? Buy a BMW next. Don't like Airbus? Order Boeing. Don't like windows? Prepare to have problems with your formats, or your windows systems not playing nice.
4. I use a MAC, almost never Windows, so I'm not a pro-Windows by any means - but considering the volume of applications that exist for Windows, you'd have to form the opinion that the API's must be very much so "open" and "well documented". Why on earth should Microsoft be forced to remove elements of Windows simply because some other companies are jealous? I mean, Windows is a product, right? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to do whatever they want with thir product? If people don't want it - don't buy it! On the same level - remove "grep" from commercial distros of Linux please, it is hindering my crappy home made search code from becomming mainstream!
Oh yeah, bundling. I also am with you on this one, with a small differance. Let MS bundle anything it wants with windows. Just give me the choice to uninstall them. If I don't want IE, I'll remove it. Don't like wmp? Let me throw it out. The problem with bundling as I see it, is not that you already have IE so browser makers are doomed. But because IE is surely on 90% of computers on earth, you can safely code your web page to work OK only with IE. Because wmp is on 90% of computers on this earth, you can safely distribute wmv files. So the problem with bundling is essentialy microsoft using one monopoly to form monopolies in other areas. If it was about giving their costumers a better experience, why do you suppose they don't ship wmp with all codecs? (Divx included) this is clearly a format war.
5. Open source, closed source - I don't really care, again, that's not really the discussion, from what I've heard it's just what Microsoft volunteered to give up. If people don't want to make money from Software, then they distribute freeware - fine. If people don't want to spend money on software then the get Linux or something. Either choices are fine, but for the EU to force a corporation to modify it's product under these circumstances is perposterous. There are countless other media programs and browsers that are thriving - there is no case here for anti-trust, only lack of competence from those that wish their programs were making them more money, or bitter competitors of Microsoft - and of course the EU.
I also am not a zealot. OSS, CSS, I don't care relegiously. I don't don't have a probem with paying for software, as long as it provides me value. When I invest in MS, I know I'm gonna have a problem with having any
If you are right, this is exactly why the government should not permit this kind of business. And again this is where I don't know how laws work in the US. This could be business as usual there. But it is anti-competetive and helps the rich stay rich which as I see it, is anti-american.
Let's say skype has 100 users, 50 AMD, 50 intel. With this move it is telling their 50 users that their CPU isn't dandy enough to play with 10 conference calls. So these 50 users either don't care so they stay with skype or they turn to the competition where the calls are supported (some previous posts pointed this out). I'm sure the majority doesn't need a 10-way conference call, but this shows that skype must be benefiting in a non-competetive way.
It would be more than ok in my book if Intel implemented a set of extensions specifically for conference calls and skype used them giving people with intel an added advantage. Like the case was almost a decade back with the mmx extensions and some games. (My am486 couldn't play them... bastards!:) ) AMD eventually licensed mmx to compete with Intel. Which is completely fair. But, removing features from a program because it is Prejudice of the color of my CPU only? No.
It would lose sales for them, though.
:(
Exactly. So, why would skype want to make such a move if it obviously would lose sales from it also? If Intel has a hand in this, I don't see how it is legal for Intel and skype to make a deal that would make AMD and/or other CPUs look bad when they most likely can handle the conferences. Or if not, they can probably 'catch up' with Intel really quick. I don't know how the law works in the USA exactly and IANAL, but this sort of defamation is illegal in Europe (I don't know how much this is relevant to this situation). It's one thing to add value to skype when you buy Intel (optimize it for intel CPUs) and another thing to remove value when you buy AMD (remove features it probably is capable of handling), ultimately making AMD look bad unfairly.
I could be sort of ok with this if it was a QoS thing, but if it was, it shouldn't have been implemented by checking for the chips manufacturer and th user should be given the opportunity to "use at his own risk". At least skype should have announced the feature Intel's CPUs have AMD lacks. I think this is a dangerous road to go down. Imagine a future where you would choose the programs you run based on the manufacturer of the CPU you use. Even worse, imagine the deadlocks where you need to run 2 programs that favor different manufacturers. The worst part being that the 'obsticales' are completely artificial. And the competition wouldn't be on each cpu's merits, but on the manufacturer's connections.
I wonder what your reaction would be if microsoft announced they believe Intel's CPUs aren't powerfull enough to run Vista in all its glory. So if it detects an Intel CPU, you can only open 2 windows at a time. It's microsoft's product, so their free to market it as they like. So either you don't buy Vista which has previously informed you about this limitation (there are plenty of alternatives), or you throw away your Dell... How about if Oracle started thinking the same way and limited the conections to their DB buy CPUID (just so people don't exclude MS for their monopoly)? With all do respect, it isn't so funny now, General 8883 sir, is it? :)
One thing I also haven't seen pointed out yet is this: Let's say that AMD's CPUs really can't handle 10 conferences at the same time. How can skype guarantee that this will be the case six months down the road. Determining the CPU's capabilities by its manufacturer is lame...
I was applying the same critisism his links were using on the bible to yoism. The funny thing is that they all worked. Some fun points:
Bible:Israel and the chosen nation of God
Yoism:Open the page and look at the background. An American flag
Bible:God is cruel because he destroyed Sodom and Gommora. If you read the bible, this was an act of devine justice for Sodom and Gommora's sins. He actually spared them a couple of times before on Lot's orders.
Yoism: I'll use your words: Rapists would deprive others of their liberty and happiness (and sometimes their lives). So they would need to be controlled, imprisoned, or whatever it takes to stop their raping. Realistically I have never seen a modern penal system that works or isn't as cruel as god in the bible. Being raped in prison, or being beat up by gangs or the gaurds inside or drugged up is more then someone deserved realistically for their sins/illegal actions.
Bible: Hank told me so. (which was a really funny reading, I liked it. It expressed how sometimes relegious people can be brain dead. But missed my point by a mile. If you follow a relegion because you have to, you better as well not follow it at all.)
Yoism: Substitute Hank in that link for the law/goverment and you have the same outcome. Blindly obey them. also as I said, democracy at this point in time is a perfect dillusion. Hot examples here: Iraq, the patriot act.
So basically you kiss law's ass without question, even if most of the times it doesn't deliver what it promised in this lifetime.
-Did your aunt ever get rich before she left?
-No, the law doesn't work that way. You'll find a dollar bill or something... LOL!
As I said, I'm not trying to flame here, but this person does a great job in rediculing brain-dead relegious people and passing FUD about the bible, but he doesn't look like a guy who has actually tried out the alternatives and "chosen on his own readings", sorry... He wouldn't bash any religion if he did...
-Alex
Conspiracy Theories? The Official response from Microsoft may interest you...
Oh my God people, plz mod parent up and grand parent Troll. Carpetshark is absolutely right about Slashdot being targetted by Microsoft in a PR offensive, It's more than obvious...