The last time I built a 500 Watt Amplifier from a kit, the instructions emphasized polishing the heat sink to a mirror finish - he claimed this was very important, and to use polishing compound and a wheel in a drill, which I did untill I could almost see reflections in it. It was in no way perfectly flat but that's what the thermal heat sink compound (available at Radio Shack) is for, to fill the gaps between the device and heat sink. (and a 500 watt amp comes with a BIG heat sink with 2 4" fans on top!)
the double meaning of the term 'innovate' or 'progress' which to one party means "make a product better" and to the other party means "make a product incompatible". Certainly Msft want to project the impression that "we've made kerberos better, but, opps! sorry it doesn't work with Solaris anymore! Guess they'll have to sign our NDA to get our specs to make their kerberos compatible with our new, improved kerberos" (thereby subordinating SunMicro) While the other side sees 'innovate' as a monopoly power free to change the specs at will in order to break, control and subordinate competing products, which is an abuse of that monopoly power. So what I'm asking is, do the Msft extensions actually create a 'better' product for the consumer, with genuine real benefits but purely coincedental, accidental damage to competitors, OR are the extensions primarily an exclusionary tactic with little consumer benefit?
(that's a rhetorical question, I already know what the answer in this forum is!)
For example, Beethovens Ninth Symphony is public domain (?), anyone can perform it w/o having to cough up royalties to the Beethoven estate - however, a particular instantiation or performance, the specific interpretation and an orchestral styling of the 9th by a certain orchestra on a certain lable CAN be copyrighted and protected.
What I think some judge needs to determine is if this particular instantiation of the embrace/extend innovation process, in this case kerberos, is actually an innovation that benefits the consumer, creating a better, competitive product, OR it is primarily a misrepresentation on Msft's part to appear to be standards compliant to customers, who DO WANT interoperability amongst systems from various vendors (want a choice, at least I do) while actually using the extensions to make them incompatible? This is a subtle differentiation of intent to make. Should not Msft at least be required to disclose this, like a warning lable on the box that states "This product uses open standards in order to work with your existing non-Msft products like you want, but we've taken the liberty of improving upon those old standards so this product may NOT actually work with other non-Msft products, but that's their problem because we rule the market and it's their burden to have to pay us for the priviledge of keeping up with our private extensions, if THEY want to remain compatible with our ever expanding monopoly."
Sustained. The jury will disreguard the questions as immaterial to the case at hand.
Ok, since when is it illegal to take an 'open protocol', enhance and extend it, make it 'better' if you will, altho this has the unfortunate side effect of making it incompatible with other non-Msft products; and copyright those proprietary extensions? That's the 'gray zone' Msft is exploiting, the want to keep 'innovating', which we all know is double-talk for "making incompatible with industry standards so they'll HAVE to use our products, haha!" altho agreeing to a static protocol is pretty progress halting - the question for the judge is: is this (proprietary kerberos extensions) really making innovative progress in software technology that benefits the customer, fixing 'issues' in the open standard, or a monopolizing tactic? Both?? Neither???
"In the future, when all the worlds electronics are networkd, a 'leet group of govt agents, outfitter with the latest in tracking gear, neat-o flying cars and spiffy firearms quietly hunt down unsolicited bulk email perps and 'terminate' them, usually with lots of fighting and evasive action scenes ending up with an aweful bloody death for the spammer."
it was all just a big misunderstanding, nothing to see here, move along now, move along to the next article; we apologize for the inconvenience and will be more clear about it next time, move along now.
At least it doesn't state that you MUST release source code with binary distributions,;)
"I explained how just making the switch would yield very little benefit while misleading folks into thinking they were more secure"
I guess we're really getting into the twilight zone now - actually, making ppl feel secure and confident in a product is a great marketing strategy - they used to teach us that at one big old-iron firm I worked for, that "consumer confidence" is key. A customers 'mental image' of a company/product is much more important than the actual quality/security of the product, which is often beyond their ken anyway, the sales is there to keep the 'warm fuzzy's' going and the payments coming. Msft can get away with all this as long as they have the public trust and someone else to blame it on (hackers, inept McSE's, etc etc etc). It's amazing how much all of this is a smoke&mirrors, Wizard of OZ, managed media public relations image projection game.
It's Msft's job to SELL LICENSES . - period. That's what fills the coffers and keeps stockholder grinning. Market research show that ease of access to data is more important than security. Putting security into a system turns users off, and thus sales droop. The teeming millions have enough problems just learning Word, without having to jump thru hoops just to get access to their files. Untill ppl have enough bad experiences to learn to demand security, it won't be a development priority.
Not when dealing with the teeming masses, it's all emotional appeal, using the proper buzzwords, etc. The 'logic' is this: ppl don't want viri, Msft doesn't want to be broken up, therefore the 'party line' is: breaking up Msft with bring you a plague of viri! No technical linkage required at all, Msft users wouldn't understand it anyway, just simple 'association'. Retroactive damage control. And yes, the EULA *does* exempt them from liability for damages caused by defects in the code - that's why it's such a great biz, you can sell not ready for prime time products out the yin/yang but as long as you can hold a monopoly position and positive market image, your in fat city.
What is it, something like 80% of people polled think Msft is 'doing a great job' as it is? Who wants to be a billionaire? Nothing succeeds like success.
there were a complex of things moving the space program of the 60's forward - AISB (as I said before) cold war competition, Werner Von Braun, a post 2nd wwar techno 'can do' spirit, a public primed for a real 'Buck Rogers', presidential backing and congressional funding, etc. Just like they said in the movie version of 13, by the early 70's a moon shot was about as exciting as a flight to Milwaukee. Even then, there were plenty of folks who decried spending all that 'money in space' (as if it were all going to alien banks and not creating interesting jobs here on earth) when there's plenty of poverty on earth still. Even colonizing the America's (to further that analogy) was in part a race by several different countries to claim land by populating it, as well as a 'promised land' for the oppressed to go to start over if they're not doing well or are stigmatized in their 'home' land. People seek gold , a pleasant climate and fertile land to raise a family on, like California - the moon just ain't got that appeal! It lacks a really good 'reason' to do it.
another story about blazingly fast communications records being set & I'm still waiting for Bell Atlantic to run a string out to my tin can.
<OFF TOPIC>I'm wondering if the Bull system does loop qualifying for DSL by a certain list or is there some way to let the last mile monopoly know your waiting for it and please DO ME FIRST & stop wasting time qualifying people who can't even spell DSL.</OFF TOPIC>
This may be considered 'off topic' - I consider it 'meta-topic', and all this may just be an emergent phenomenon of the 'info age' but I'm seeing a lot of people going public and expressing disbelief in many of the 'plans' exposed by govts., whereas it may just be perfectly 'normal' contigency planning. Folks: govt's almost always 'plan' for every imaginable situation possible, and thankfully few of them ever come to pass. E.g., a local city bought a truckload of "this city is under martial law" in preparation for Y2K, is just one example. Naturally they try to keep it under wraps for public relations purposes, so as not to spook the public to riot. It doesn't mean we should run around screaming "the govt threatened to impose martial law!". I'm sure there's even a 'plan' for alien invasion, and you may not like what it entails, but it's probably there, waiting to be exposed so everyone can be shocked at what they were planning to do. Imagine if a city near a river felt exposed to flooding so the city wisely makes plans to deal with it in private, because if word got out a segment of the population would start panicking about a 'coming flood that they're not telling us about', when it may or may not.
that 'one click' agreements, which appearently have the power of signature, don't apply to people under the age of majority?
It's about time consumers get SOME rights back - the illegalily of circumventing protection mechanisms is another case of banishing a tool of crime rather than the crime itself, presupposing criminal tendancies, like the DAT tax, reduction of freedoms, etc. It's not addressing the root cause, just the symptom and is right up there w/ other bad laws like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, passed on behest of the cell phone business/lobby, which makes it illegal to own a device and merely 'tune in' certain bands of radio frequencies, such as old 70's era TV UHF sets can. The law used to be you could listen to anything, but it was a crime to use that ill gotten information. Another of it's problems is that it's horribly unenforcable and thus innately unjust, as it can only be used selectively at chosen 'enemy' targets, it can't apply to everyone equally. You end up with a society with many people happily scanning and evesdropping on what the calling parties consider a 'secure' conversation (that's what the phone sales flak said!) that really isn't, and a few unlucky evesdroppers who get the book thrown at them and made an example out of which doesn't stop the others from secretely scanning away, with very little chance of ever getting caught. As we all know, Msft has about a 27% unlicensed software 'shrinkage' and I'm sure there are lots of developers out there who will ask friendly Bob down the hall for the Kerberos spec printout with impunity, while highly visible sources like Dash Slot here get trounced on.
Let me get this straight (not entirely up on the issues so might be misunderstanding): This information in question is PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE on the Msft automated information distribution web site to ANYONE who, I guess, checks a box or clicks on a button that states that they'll abide by a non-disclosure agreement? To ANYBODY? That don't make no sense. If so that's a pretty liberally watered down non-disclosure agreement if ANYBODY can access it. Who are you going to refrain from disclosing it to if they can simply go to the Msft site and make the same agreement? If so this is clearly an abuse of power that has nothing to do with keeping proprietary information out of potential competitors hands, just showing who's the boss.
1. Describe Your problem: ___________________________ 2. Now, describe the problem accurately: ___________________________ 3. Speculate wildly about the cause of the problem: ___________________________ 4. Problem Severity: A. Minor _ B. Minor _ C. Minor _ D. Trivial _ 5. Nature of the problem: A. Locked up _ B. Frozen _ C. Hung _ D. Shot _ 6. Is your computer Plugged in? Yes_ No_ 7. Is it turned on? Yes_ No_ 8. Have your tried to fix it yourself? Yes_ No_ 9. Have you made it worse? Yes_ 10. Have you read the manual? Yes_ No_ 11. Are you sure you've read the manual? Yes_ No_ 12. Are you absolutely sure you've read the manual? No_ 13. Do you think you understood it? Yes_ No_ 14. If 'Yes' then why can't you fix the problem yourself? ________________________ 15. How Tall are you? Are you above this line? ________________________ 16. What were you doing with your computer at the time the problem occurred? ________________________ 17. If 'nothing' explain why you were logged in. ________________________ 18. Are you sure you aren't imagining the problem? Yes_ No_ 19. How does this problem make you feel? ________________________ 20. Tell me about your childhood. ________________________ 21. Do you have any independent witnesses of the problem? Yes_ No_ 22. Can't you do something else, instead of bothering me? Yes_
if there's any doubt BEFORE starting the job. This case is too late now and probably hinges on who's lawyer can make the best case (i.e., $$$) - but I see this all the time: people in general are so uninformed about IP law, and personal computers are so new in many business that many times a business will hire, say, a database developer and if you ask any one of them, "well, who holds the rights to the finished product?" they will just stare and blink like it's a non-issue. This should be settled during the negotiation phase - naturally the business would want the source and exclusive rights ("hey, your not going to write this on our dime and then turn around and sell a copy to our competitor!") and the developer would want to be able to reuse code on other projects.
Windows advocates would rightly point out that Mutt is to Outlook as a warehouse is to a furnished apartment. It's not as comfortable and pretty as an apartment
Well, is that how people judge a software product, by it's superficial appearence? I guess so... While aesthetics are important, I would give emphasis on performance, stability, etc. Like, I gave up using LookOut! due to it's inexplicable delays, and one day it was a cpu hog for some reason - SO switched to Eudora (Hey, pro is now Free!!!) and while a bit uglier enjoyed the added features of being able to 'filter' mail (You need Msft Exchange Server to do that in LookOut!) plus the $avings make it well worth the switch.
Slashdot Mirror
The last time I built a 500 Watt Amplifier from a kit, the instructions emphasized polishing the heat sink to a mirror finish - he claimed this was very important, and to use polishing compound and a wheel in a drill, which I did untill I could almost see reflections in it. It was in no way perfectly flat but that's what the thermal heat sink compound (available at Radio Shack) is for, to fill the gaps between the device and heat sink. (and a 500 watt amp comes with a BIG heat sink with 2 4" fans on top!)
the double meaning of the term 'innovate' or 'progress' which to one party means "make a product better" and to the other party means "make a product incompatible". Certainly Msft want to project the impression that "we've made kerberos better, but, opps! sorry it doesn't work with Solaris anymore! Guess they'll have to sign our NDA to get our specs to make their kerberos compatible with our new, improved kerberos" (thereby subordinating SunMicro) While the other side sees 'innovate' as a monopoly power free to change the specs at will in order to break, control and subordinate competing products, which is an abuse of that monopoly power. So what I'm asking is, do the Msft extensions actually create a 'better' product for the consumer, with genuine real benefits but purely coincedental, accidental damage to competitors, OR are the extensions primarily an exclusionary tactic with little consumer benefit?
(that's a rhetorical question, I already know what the answer in this forum is!)
For example, Beethovens Ninth Symphony is public domain (?), anyone can perform it w/o having to cough up royalties to the Beethoven estate - however, a particular instantiation or performance, the specific interpretation and an orchestral styling of the 9th by a certain orchestra on a certain lable CAN be copyrighted and protected.
What I think some judge needs to determine is if this particular instantiation of the embrace/extend innovation process, in this case kerberos, is actually an innovation that benefits the consumer, creating a better, competitive product, OR it is primarily a misrepresentation on Msft's part to appear to be standards compliant to customers, who DO WANT interoperability amongst systems from various vendors (want a choice, at least I do) while actually using the extensions to make them incompatible? This is a subtle differentiation of intent to make. Should not Msft at least be required to disclose this, like a warning lable on the box that states "This product uses open standards in order to work with your existing non-Msft products like you want, but we've taken the liberty of improving upon those old standards so this product may NOT actually work with other non-Msft products, but that's their problem because we rule the market and it's their burden to have to pay us for the priviledge of keeping up with our private extensions, if THEY want to remain compatible with our ever expanding monopoly."
Sustained. The jury will disreguard the questions as immaterial to the case at hand.
Ok, since when is it illegal to take an 'open protocol', enhance and extend it, make it 'better' if you will, altho this has the unfortunate side effect of making it incompatible with other non-Msft products; and copyright those proprietary extensions? That's the 'gray zone' Msft is exploiting, the want to keep 'innovating', which we all know is double-talk for "making incompatible with industry standards so they'll HAVE to use our products, haha!" altho agreeing to a static protocol is pretty progress halting - the question for the judge is: is this (proprietary kerberos extensions) really making innovative progress in software technology that benefits the customer, fixing 'issues' in the open standard, or a monopolizing tactic? Both?? Neither???
Standards plus!
this ModernHumorist episode of 'Encyclopedia Brown - Case of the Missing MP3's' just kills me :))
Thanks, those are great..
Geez, between that, LostBrain, ModernHumorist and others I've spent way too much time laughing this week.
Now that would be a cool movie I'd pay to see!
"In the future, when all the worlds electronics are networkd, a 'leet group of govt agents, outfitter with the latest in tracking gear, neat-o flying cars and spiffy firearms quietly hunt down unsolicited bulk email perps and 'terminate' them, usually with lots of fighting and evasive action scenes ending up with an aweful bloody death for the spammer."
waiting for Rob to toggle in a boot loader to IPL from the punch card reader?
right here.
[ps - the above 'toon was pre '29]
it was all just a big misunderstanding, nothing to see here, move along now, move along to the next article; we apologize for the inconvenience and will be more clear about it next time, move along now.
;)
At least it doesn't state that you MUST release source code with binary distributions,
a commercial project may have bit the financial big one but it /could/ have well written and/or still userful parts for other projects...
asshole
Sargon - it was also the name of a cool Z80 chess program by Dan and Kathy Spracklen
"I explained how just making the switch would yield very little benefit while misleading folks into thinking they were more secure"
I guess we're really getting into the twilight zone now - actually, making ppl feel secure and confident in a product is a great marketing strategy - they used to teach us that at one big old-iron firm I worked for, that "consumer confidence" is key. A customers 'mental image' of a company/product is much more important than the actual quality/security of the product, which is often beyond their ken anyway, the sales is there to keep the 'warm fuzzy's' going and the payments coming. Msft can get away with all this as long as they have the public trust and someone else to blame it on (hackers, inept McSE's, etc etc etc). It's amazing how much all of this is a smoke&mirrors, Wizard of OZ, managed media public relations image projection game.
It's Msft's job to SELL LICENSES . - period. That's what fills the coffers and keeps stockholder grinning. Market research show that ease of access to data is more important than security. Putting security into a system turns users off, and thus sales droop. The teeming millions have enough problems just learning Word, without having to jump thru hoops just to get access to their files. Untill ppl have enough bad experiences to learn to demand security, it won't be a development priority.
Not when dealing with the teeming masses, it's all emotional appeal, using the proper buzzwords, etc. The 'logic' is this: ppl don't want viri, Msft doesn't want to be broken up, therefore the 'party line' is: breaking up Msft with bring you a plague of viri! No technical linkage required at all, Msft users wouldn't understand it anyway, just simple 'association'. Retroactive damage control. And yes, the EULA *does* exempt them from liability for damages caused by defects in the code - that's why it's such a great biz, you can sell not ready for prime time products out the yin/yang but as long as you can hold a monopoly position and positive market image, your in fat city.
What is it, something like 80% of people polled think Msft is 'doing a great job' as it is? Who wants to be a billionaire? Nothing succeeds like success.
there were a complex of things moving the space program of the 60's forward - AISB (as I said before) cold war competition, Werner Von Braun, a post 2nd wwar techno 'can do' spirit, a public primed for a real 'Buck Rogers', presidential backing and congressional funding, etc. Just like they said in the movie version of 13, by the early 70's a moon shot was about as exciting as a flight to Milwaukee. Even then, there were plenty of folks who decried spending all that 'money in space' (as if it were all going to alien banks and not creating interesting jobs here on earth) when there's plenty of poverty on earth still.
Even colonizing the America's (to further that analogy) was in part a race by several different countries to claim land by populating it, as well as a 'promised land' for the oppressed to go to start over if they're not doing well or are stigmatized in their 'home' land. People seek gold , a pleasant climate and fertile land to raise a family on, like California - the moon just ain't got that appeal! It lacks a really good 'reason' to do it.
another story about blazingly fast communications records being set & I'm still waiting for Bell Atlantic to run a string out to my tin can.
<OFF TOPIC>I'm wondering if the Bull system does loop qualifying for DSL by a certain list or is there some way to let the last mile monopoly know your waiting for it and please DO ME FIRST & stop wasting time qualifying people who can't even spell DSL.</OFF TOPIC>
This may be considered 'off topic' - I consider it 'meta-topic', and all this may just be an emergent phenomenon of the 'info age' but I'm seeing a lot of people going public and expressing disbelief in many of the 'plans' exposed by govts., whereas it may just be perfectly 'normal' contigency planning. Folks: govt's almost always 'plan' for every imaginable situation possible, and thankfully few of them ever come to pass. E.g., a local city bought a truckload of "this city is under martial law" in preparation for Y2K, is just one example. Naturally they try to keep it under wraps for public relations purposes, so as not to spook the public to riot. It doesn't mean we should run around screaming "the govt threatened to impose martial law!". I'm sure there's even a 'plan' for alien invasion, and you may not like what it entails, but it's probably there, waiting to be exposed so everyone can be shocked at what they were planning to do. Imagine if a city near a river felt exposed to flooding so the city wisely makes plans to deal with it in private, because if word got out a segment of the population would start panicking about a 'coming flood that they're not telling us about', when it may or may not.
that 'one click' agreements, which appearently have the power of signature, don't apply to people under the age of majority?
It's about time consumers get SOME rights back - the illegalily of circumventing protection mechanisms is another case of banishing a tool of crime rather than the crime itself, presupposing criminal tendancies, like the DAT tax, reduction of freedoms, etc. It's not addressing the root cause, just the symptom and is right up there w/ other bad laws like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, passed on behest of the cell phone business/lobby,
which makes it illegal to own a device and merely 'tune in' certain bands of radio frequencies, such as old 70's era TV UHF sets can. The law used to be you could listen to anything, but it was a crime to use that ill gotten information. Another of it's problems is that it's horribly unenforcable and thus innately unjust, as it can only be used selectively at chosen 'enemy' targets, it can't apply to everyone equally. You end up with a society with many people happily scanning and evesdropping on what the calling parties consider a 'secure' conversation (that's what the phone sales flak said!) that really isn't, and a few unlucky evesdroppers who get the book thrown at them and made an example out of which doesn't stop the others from secretely scanning away, with very little chance of ever getting caught. As we all know, Msft has about a 27% unlicensed software 'shrinkage' and I'm sure there are lots of developers out there who will ask friendly Bob down the hall for the Kerberos spec printout with impunity, while highly visible sources like Dash Slot here get trounced on.
Let me get this straight (not entirely up on the issues so might be misunderstanding): This information in question is PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE on the Msft automated information distribution web site to ANYONE who, I guess, checks a box or clicks on a button that states that they'll abide by a non-disclosure agreement? To ANYBODY? That don't make no sense. If so that's a pretty liberally watered down non-disclosure agreement if ANYBODY can access it. Who are you going to refrain from disclosing it to if they can simply go to the Msft site and make the same agreement? If so this is clearly an abuse of power that has nothing to do with keeping proprietary information out of potential competitors hands, just showing who's the boss.
1. Describe Your problem:
___________________________
2. Now, describe the problem accurately:
___________________________
3. Speculate wildly about the cause of the problem:
___________________________
4. Problem Severity:
A. Minor _
B. Minor _
C. Minor _
D. Trivial _
5. Nature of the problem:
A. Locked up _
B. Frozen _
C. Hung _
D. Shot _
6. Is your computer Plugged in? Yes_ No_
7. Is it turned on? Yes_ No_
8. Have your tried to fix it yourself? Yes_ No_
9. Have you made it worse? Yes_
10. Have you read the manual? Yes_ No_
11. Are you sure you've read the manual? Yes_ No_
12. Are you absolutely sure you've read the manual? No_
13. Do you think you understood it? Yes_ No_
14. If 'Yes' then why can't you fix the problem yourself?
________________________
15. How Tall are you? Are you above this line?
________________________
16. What were you doing with your computer at the time the problem occurred?
________________________
17. If 'nothing' explain why you were logged in.
________________________
18. Are you sure you aren't imagining the problem? Yes_ No_
19. How does this problem make you feel?
________________________
20. Tell me about your childhood.
________________________
21. Do you have any independent witnesses of the problem? Yes_ No_
22. Can't you do something else, instead of bothering me? Yes_
if there's any doubt BEFORE starting the job. This case is too late now and probably hinges on who's lawyer can make the best case (i.e., $$$) - but I see this all the time: people in general are so uninformed about IP law, and personal computers are so new in many business that many times a business will hire, say, a database developer and if you ask any one of them, "well, who holds the rights to the finished product?" they will just stare and blink like it's a non-issue. This should be settled during the negotiation phase - naturally the business would want the source and exclusive rights ("hey, your not going to write this on our dime and then turn around and sell a copy to our competitor!") and the developer would want to be able to reuse code on other projects.
Windows advocates would rightly point out that Mutt is to Outlook as a warehouse is to a furnished apartment. It's not as comfortable and pretty as an apartment
Well, is that how people judge a software product, by it's superficial appearence? I guess so... While aesthetics are important, I would give emphasis on performance, stability, etc. Like, I gave up using LookOut! due to it's inexplicable delays, and one day it was a cpu hog for some reason - SO switched to Eudora (Hey, pro is now Free!!!) and while a bit uglier enjoyed the added features of being able to 'filter' mail (You need Msft Exchange Server to do that in LookOut!) plus the $avings make it well worth the switch.
With all the news about the Internet super highway, I suppose I should mention that the world wide web is being sued by the rock band Metallica. Unfortunately, I don't know what for. It's definitely news, though, and so long as something is news, I should mention it. For more information, consult your local library.