Allowing Microsoft to take control of DRM and hence hedge it's position into a new market as a monopoly would be an incredibly negative thing. They are trying this with Vista with all the DRM implementations and the fact that they have required hardware manufacturers to comply nor not be certified. This makes Microsoft Windows the defacto iPod of computers. You know you are locked into the iPod if you buy from Apple's music store. This means that anyone developing for Windows Vista would be essentially locking in their customer's content to that platform. You may purchase a new video but you can't play that on say a Macintosh or Linux because Microsoft won't license that technology to those platforms. Instead they want to become the monopoly in another market. They are using Vista to do that. They are using the hardware requirements put to manufacturers to make that happen.
DRM is to data what the OS is to program. You don't write your program to work on multiple platforms (with some exceptions), you write software to a specific platform. Microsoft knows this. They are happy to have your software product locked into their OS because it props up their monopoly.
DRM will do the same thing except at the content level. Gates stated that content consumption is the future of computing and that most computers are used to consume that content. Giving them control of DRM, at any level, gives them a monopoly into another market.
If you do not enjoy knowing that Microsoft is spying on you with WGA/WGN and other features of Vista then you should move to another platform now and ensure that those favorite movies, music, etc aren't going to be purchases that lock you into a platform that provides Microsoft with the power to spy on you.
Microsoft has become hostile to its customers and Ballmer is getting hostile toward Linux users. You want to support a company that is hostile not only to its competition but also to its customers? You would not be seeing this had there been adequate competition all along.
To limit your access to content and hence choice is to allow Microsoft to implement their DRM into your OS and into your devices. This is not something we want. We want less encroachment into our lives. We don't let the police encroach on your life and you should not let private entities encroach. To allow this is to say that it is all right for everyone to have their rights encroached.
Linux is the only true answer. It currently out paces the Macintosh world wide and is growing by leaps and bounds. With the distro's such as Ubuntu you can have a fantastic desktop environment that plays your movies, music, and other forms of content without those spying prying hostile hands of the convicted monopolist. Linux protects your privacy. Linux protects your future, our future.
To promote the Zune as a media player worthwhile is to tell everyone that you accept that Microsoft should have control over DRM in that market. We don't want that, we don't need that. We don't need the mediocre nature of Microsoft's products. We need to rapid solid development that projects such as Ubuntu provide us.
Everything I have been reading about Microsoft in Redmond and about products surrounding them give me the eerie feeling that Microsoft is struggling desperately. Why else would they put out such false number!?! I think they are desperate to get their stock value up. There are a lot of reasons for this, not solely the fact that their employee's equity in the company is declining and there's no bright future there for new top of the line employees. Give them good value in stock incentives and you can keep them, but if your stock is down and dwindling you do everything you can to make it appear high.
The below article describes nicely how Microsoft is fudging the numbers to make it appear that sales were higher than they actually are. Essentially the conclusion is that sales of Vista are weak. It's just sad that a company like Microsoft has to fib in such a way in order to artificially inflate their stock value.
The issue is longstanding. Most companies look for every angle to keep from honoring their warranties. If you can think it up you they won't honor the warranty for that reason.
I don't think this has necessarily to do with Linux being installed but that they decided that anything other than the exact configuration that the machine was sold in will cause the warranty to be void.
It isn't right. It is nothing more than the large company called HP dumping on the little guy.
Either way, a keyboard is nothing. They are cheap and those keyboards on the HPs, like the rest of the unit, are extremely cheap.
I reported this and many other related bugs to Microsoft when I beta tested this DRM infected nightmare months before the official release. I reported it to various web news sites. It appears no one even addressed it. Also, I reported incredibly slow wireless connectivity and throughput and that wasn't addressed either. I also reported that AERO didn't work on various video cards under Vista. No joy on that either.
It certainly is exaggerated and is being used for stock speculation. They are telling the world they are selling twice as good to get that stock up. It'll go up and then fall back down as the real numbers rear their heads. I've done my part and continue to do so in telling customers about the spying and the other DRM/CRM implemented into Vista and how Microsoft is now hostile towards its customers. I describe it as an example with Walmart entering your home to search your belongings to ensure that you have not stolen anything from their store. Most people understand that their computer is an extension of their homes and that they certainly would not let the government enter without warrant and when I then tell them that they would certainly not allow a private entity to enter they agree wholeheartedly.
Sheesh, what does it take to understand that Microsoft is doing the equivalent of searching your home when they enter your computer and search. No, they don't have the right to enter my computer or home to search for any reason. If they feel I have stolen from them let them hit the courts and sue/arrest me. They'll find I am above board. But the sentiment stays. Hit the courts and do it legally. Even the police can't keep entering your home over and over to search. If they do it is harassment. The problem is that people don't know that or don't initially understand it as a search and seizure procedure.
Let me repeat. They have no right to enter my home/computer/business to do anything unless I give them permission even if it is to protect their IP. If they think I am stealing they can hit the courts up and to through due process to convict. I say this even though I am 100% legit on all copies of Windows. You would not let Walmart enter your home or business to search for goods that might be stolen and hence you would not let, should not let, Microsoft do the same.
The state makes up the remaining amount of the roughly 46.8% on other forms of taxes such as extremely high property tax. There are constant levies, constant increases in other forms of tax as well, but the property tax is what is supposed to make up for the difference. Then there is a problem where WA state seems to think that everyone should be an employee of the state. The state provides nearly no benefits to those below poverty and puts nearly no money into the coffers of the school system instead they waste it all on employing everyone. The state also just implemented a 8 cent tax on every gallon of gas and when you consider that gas prices are already high that's pathetic. On top of that the state can't get its act together on getting mass rail transit implemented. They constantly increase fees for the ferry system while cutting services. The roads in the towns that have been paying the 8 cent tax haven't been improved much to note.
Tho the governor signed this bill it will not last. It will be challenged. The participation in this special group of states soon will be challenged also.
So, WA is a state that taxes it's residents to death. In fact, it is considered one of the most heavily taxed states in the nation with the high property taxes, high sales tax, added taxes on business, transportion, gas. It's a bit out of hand.
What Gregoire sees is the rich in the Seattle/Redmond area where incomes are high, but that's only a tiny part of the state. It is a meager portion of the state's overall population. The vast majority of the residents of the state live in other parts such as the Spokane area and the east and south sound. What Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, etc bring are very little to the overall residents.
Let's not forget that this $40 million annually will not even come close to touching the $9 billion dollar tax break that the state gave to Boeing a couple years ago. $40 million wouldn't cover the interest on that.
The idea that the state is going to take that and run with it fast is so that those who object to it aren't able to catch up or they have to chase it down. What'll happen is that it'll be challenged in the courts, temporarily stopped as it violates federal rulings, and ultimately have its day in court and probably be ruled against. That'll take time. The state in the meantime will be hiring people like crazy to enforce it and wasting all the first $40 million on nothing.
As far as I can recall the federal government regulates this and has shot it down repeatedly. It will be challenged and shot down again. There's no sales tax for interstate purchases for a reason. This is a usurpation of those reasons.
There's little they can do to enforce it as purchases from out of state are not trackable. Also it puts a burden on businesses with licenses to set up with every possible company they do business with in line to verify their business license.
It will also turn many companies away from doing business with the state businesses.
For the decade of the 1990s I used to purchase CDs regularly. But by the mid to late 90s the CDs that were available had diminished in talent. What I mean is that many groups that produced CDs were based on their ability to play instruments (making them musicians) instead of their ability to perform and produce quality music (which would make them artists). What happened seems to be this. The music industry (the RIAA and whatever) were signing musicians to produce albums at a record pace. The idea was that the contract was written (as usual) where the artist has to pay all expenses--and that MEANS ALL. So, even if a group didn't sell they were covered because if the group didn't come up with the funds to cover the expenses they could just sue and try to recover that way.
With that in mind I noticed a large increase in albums but really the music was created by musicians instead of artists. We all know and have heard of musicians playing in bands but it takes more than being a musician to succeed and since the record companies were being paid for all expenses any profit was literally free.
Now they are in a position where music can be downloaded, albeit not within the confines of the law. This means that consumers are hearing more band's tracks before purchasing. It also means that even if a band produced one good song and the rest sucked consumers could know this before purchasing.
The obvious end result is more information about musicians posing as artists and fewer groups making money for the record companies. The Internet distribution was negating the flood of poor quality music that the record companies were dumping on the consumer. So, there was an acquiring of music outside the law and the fact that that chance to hear the band before purchasing the music all conspired to nullify the dumping of musicians on the consumer. The consumer recognizing this purchased the good CDs, until a time in the late 90s and early 20's that people started just copying for spite, to get back at the money grubbing record companies that have so blatantly riped off the bands, thus forcing them to self produce and distribute.
So, the RIAA and the record companies that belong to it, have essentially committed suicide by their hostile actions toward the consumer. The consumer recognized this even if it wasn't overt they knew bad things were happening and that they were being flooded with junk music (like junk bonds).
I miss the times when I purchased a CD and would take it home and listen to it over and over till I knew the tunes, the words, and could hope to get another CD similiar or by the same band at a future date. I enjoyed reading the album inserts and taking care of the platters to ensure they didn't get scratched. I didn't necessarily enjoy knowing I had so many CDs and that it was getting to be a burden managing them all. Then the hostilities started by the RIAA and I haven't purchased a single CD since. It's been probably 8-9 years since I purchased a CD. I am sad that Tower Records is having trouble but the store I used to go to had massive displays of CDs and books. Hopefully their book business is doing well.
The more hostile the record companies get through their agent, the RIAA, the less likely I'll be to ever purchase another CD. I still purchase movies and I rent them through my local video store and through netflix, but they seem to be getting more hostile toward the customer. With Microsoft implementing DRM and convincing the content creators to use their DRM and CRM tools the less likely it'll be that I purchase or rent any videos in the future as well.
The artists pays for everything, including pens, pencils, paper, toner cartridges, phones, then all the marketing, and on and on. The record companies only loose if the artist make no money and can't pay for those things in which case they sue the artist to recoup those costs. You can eliminate everything except the lawyer costs involved directly in suing their customers.
You absolutely can't have open source ATI drivers due to ATI licensing technology from other companies.
You won't have absolute open source and you need to get used to that idea. You will always have a mishmash of open source and closed. What's important is that the OS and the underlying major technologies be open source. Drivers and applications do not need to be Open Source, and rightly shouldn't always be. You can see this by looking at gaming. No gaming developer is going to release their game into open source upon launch. It may be released 10 years later. There's absolutely no need to and should never be a pre-requisite for running on linux. The Kernel to the OS or the OS itself is licensed this way but that doesn't give zealots in the community the right to demand everything be open sourced or be no good.
Just accept that. It is important to bring in commercial ventures and you won't do it with the pure open source ideology. In fact, that would be killer to any attempt to bring in companies such as game developers. The OS yes, quality productivity apps yes, utiliites yes, drivers yes, games and other such products such as photoshop NO (and don't even consider it).
You know that Microsoft keeps the monopoly going by hedging certain technologies with that monopoly and they are extending that due to one very important lesson learned from Apple.
You know you are locked into your iPod (if you have one) because of Apple's DRM on their music.
It took people a while to actually understand that and it took the nations of Europe to actually say it loud enough to get everyone to listen. Now people understand it and it is a simple principle. Lock your customers in with proprietary technology protected by the DCMA of the US and attempt to spread that ideology world-wide.
This is what is at the heart of Vista. It is attempting to lock people into Microsoft's DRM by using it's Windows monopoly. Can anyone say without hesitation that the DRM that Microsoft has implemented in Vista is meant to be open and used by any software developer of any OS including the Mac and Linux?
I think you see the correlation there when you think about it in those terms. I've stated repeatedly over the past year that to allow Microsoft to gain a foothold and control the DRM was to lock people into Windows. As Bill Gates stated a while ago, computers are used more for consumption these days than creation of content.
Microsoft has to ensure that you have reasons not to leave. If content creators produce products using Microsoft's DRM, and Microsoft forces hardware manufacturers to put this same DRM into their hardware, all of which is pinned together with Microsoft's Vista, then you have one monopoly hedging other markets to gain share and establish another monopoly.
Zune is a failure in so many ways in that particular market that Apple owns, but Microsoft knows that DRM/CRM can be extended far beyond music. So they provide an elaborate system protected by the DCMA that allows them to gain and maintain a monopoly status in other content areas such as video, artwork, etc. If you can imagine any content other than music, video, and artwork Microsoft's people have been thinking about how to include it in their DRM/CRM for a long time.
Without that acceptance (due to business and individual consumers not purchasing Vista) then the DRM/CRM fails, at least until the old machines are purged and the new machines replace them (new enough to have Vista pre-installed). This also means that Microsoft's value doesn't go up in any measure similar to their past growth. This hurts their financial projections and it hurts their stock value. They've conducted themselves in such a manner over the years in order to ensure that their stock value doesn't do the big nosedive. Their employee's satisfaction is also predicated on that stock value. If Google's stock is higher and looks to have a brighter forecast and Google is offering stock options to hire away employees, then Microsoft looses on both fronts. The lack of workers (as Gates states in his address to Congress--competition in the US for valuable workers is being stolen from him by the likes of his competition), and workers abandoning them due to a loss of stock value and financial outlook while Google's is much greater hurts their ability to hire talent to further their monopoly. In the end, if they can't prop up that monopoly and create other hidden monopolies (such as in DRM/CRM)--and hence the control of your computer, then they have a much dimmer financial outlook. They must do something now to ensure they keep their bright employees (stock isn't going to cut it), and they must hold more monopolies because their old one (Windows) is falling behind and ultimately market share will be eaten away by Linux and the Mac. Essentially it is doom and gloom for Microsoft unless they can manage to prop up their market position with other technologies, hidden as they are, in order to keep their valuation high enough for long enough so the important guys at Microsoft can divest themselves.
In light of those ideas Ballmer's statements are highly juvenile. He's like a kid attacking another kid for having the raw talent t
Can be surmmarized easily. It depends on your level of knowledge and how you implement it.
If a bank is considering Linux and has to hire special and retrain the others than of course TCO will be higher. Once that level of skill is normalized with Windows then the TCO has to be lower. For the average person Linux would have a lower TCO in every aspect of their lives. It simply can't cost more to buy the OS, the programs, take the classes on how to use them at the level you would expect from bank employees, then to protect it with a firewall, antivirus, and several adware/spyware detection and removal tools.
In the least those professing lower TCO and assenting to it are being very disingenuous.
The Patent Office is either way off its rocker and/or it is not a far stretch to understand that a company that controls your computer, the content, the OS and that of 90% of the rest of the world, would make it also a threat to National Security and the security of every other nation on the planet. Microsoft with Vista can turn off your ability to use the computer. Through tools like WGA and WGN it can monitor your computer and your use. Since there is no competition out there to give consumers and government a choice then we are all bound to something that is unprecedented in the history of the world. The OS. No other time in the history of the world has one company held such influence on the lives of virtually everyone in the world in the same way.
To say that file sharing allows for children to have access to this or that harmful content, and be subject to other bad things, and to say that files can be put at risk and therefore risk the national security, it would not be a far stretch to understand that to allow one company to essentially enter every computer (as the computer is an extension of your home/business) as they are able to enter your home and business to search, inventory, and accuse (and ultimately with Vista shut down your home/business) then that company and it's product could be considered a threat to national security. P2P is not used solely by children and since it can be useful in business and government it is a lesser threat than that posed by one company having control of the computers of the world. You have unprecedented control and access which creates a major possibility of security threats, if not primarily by Microsoft then by some enterprising vicious terrorist hoping to exploit Microsoft's buggy OSes and buggy spy tools.
You can't go from P2P and the concept of access without going to Windows and WGA/WGN. Whatever applies to the concept of access over the Internet via P2P also extends to any product that could be used to yield the same type of invasive behavior that leads to stealing trade/national secrets be it by a controlling monopoly previously convicted in numerous nations of the world or by someone attempting to exploit the fact that exploits to tools like WGA/WGN could present unprecedented access to terrorists and the governments of other rogue nations.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. You won't get anywhere if you don't push for it. Dell isn't going to give you Linux unless you push for it. Windows being good enough and vanilla enough is a negative thing, not a good things. It is important that we don't let the "good enough" vanilla OS be the reason that the monopoly exists one second more. Promote Linux in every way. Push every company to promote Linux. Get Linux more press than Microsoft. Bring America to Linux. The rest of the world is smart enough to understand Linux has real value and lower total cost of ownership, let's get America involved in this. Freeing us from the Microsoft monopoly can only have extremely positive effects on our economy and allow us to progress our technology further. Microsoft has done very little to progress our technology. In fact, they are centering Vista on Content Consumption instead of moving it ahead to make it a tool for the mind (they took all the innovative new features out and left consumers with draconian technologies used by content creators to control your use of the computer). They'd rather serve the big corporate content creation interests instead of driving it to innovation and new technologies. They patent the old and obvious in hopes of reaping rewards when their products begin to yellow with age.
Linux is the bright child of the future and it has the support of the world to make it a strong desktop, strong enough to surpass Windows and still allow everyone to maintain their privacy and to feel free of the draconian control that Windows exerts. Allowing Microsoft to continue to hold their monopoly is a bad thing and will harm our futures more than you can imagine. I feel pity for those that have not been around long enough to understand the drive that brought the personal computer into being. It was the very dissatisfaction with the big iron of big blue that created these machines and changed the world. Allowing Microsoft to hold onto this monopoly is to never present the world with the challenges similar to what eventually broke IBMs hold on the computer world and provided us all with these amazing beautiful tools to help us grow our minds and lives.
Giving Microsoft continued control means just that, control. They have control so they can direct other software, other OSes, even your data. Microsoft wants the DRM control so that you are locked into Windows by virtue of the DRM, just as you are locked into the ipod and apple due to their DRM. You wouldn't have anyone develop to the standards of DRM (even at the hardware level) if there was competition and unless standards boards reviewed and agreed upon them.) You get content creators making DRM only for windows and you have more foundation to keep Windows the monopoly it is. Remove DRM and you remove another beam that props up Microsoft's monopoly. That control has lead to FUD about IP in Linux, it has lead to the discontinuation of the only real gaming standard other than DirectX. So many people have said they would go to Linux if gaming was viable. Developers won't develop but for what is supported and if Microsoft discontinues OpenGL then they are going to be developing for Directx which is Windows, so to control gaming you can use it as another beam to prop up the monopoly. Remember it is the content that drives computing today. In the past two decades it was software development and those standards. Today it is what you consume and if Microsoft can lock your consumption into Windows then they will maintain their monopoly.
Fight to have the major manufacturers offer alternatives and push the likes of Dell, HP, Compaq, etc to satisfy our demands. It makes no sense, absolutely none, to consider that to be fussiness. It is simply the consumer exerting itself into the being of those that control the markets. The more Linux you have coming out from the majors the more the other companies will want to play ball. Keep up asking for Linux pre-installed. Keep those requests in the headlines and if that is fussiness then be even more so. Fight to break the monopoly and to get choice and innovation back in our beloved field.
Although some good points those guys were blowing smoke up their own asses. They want to set themselves up as the figureheads to follow for managing open source. Give them 20 more years of dealing with hard to work with people and they'll say everything they said should have been reevaluated. I was troubled throughout the whole thing. They acted like they had all the answers and they had a pool if people and that one project is enough to make someone who has been a solid open source contributor a shunnable person. They didn't even begin to touch on the fact that they need to teach instead of direct. If they lost time due to people that's the cost of doing business. You can't drive people like machines, and in the end they are trying to manage people as if they were managing a project. Never works, never has, never will.
There are always two sides to a story and I'm sure these guys aren't telling both sides. I think the most important thing is that any open source project needs to be able to take criticism even if sometimes it isn't constructive. If an open source project can't survive criticism then it didn't have the wherewithal to survive anyway.
Those that may seem to attack open source project in particular without regard to the status of the project are turkeys and probably need to be shunned. On the other had the open source projects that are mavericks that won't listen to user input should also be shunned.
The most important thing about open source that one sees once they use it are the rough edges and incompleteness of the project. Yes, some of them are exquisitely done, others, and there are a lot of them, are poorly organized and implemented as if a firstimer was managing the project. If I were critical of open source it would be the latter and to see the open source project begin to deride the criticism is very damaging.
Amarok, which now is a great project, but with a lot of bugs and some very incomplete areas used to be highly buggy and when people went to their site asking for answers on how to overcome these problems even the administrator would denigrate them for asking questions. In one case the administrators actually attempted to publicly humiliate those asking questions. What they should have done is listen and fix the issues. It is only through some criticism that things get fixed. The windows world is unforgiving, extremely unforgiving. If Amarok plans to move to the windows platform they are going to have to come up with some major changes to their philosophy when dealing with people pointing out problems and asking for help.
An old saying from way back and it is a saying that holds water today is that you never give a programmer a screwdriver because he'll blame everything that's wrong on the computer and try to fix the computer. Another rule is that a programmer should never be charged with testing their own code. Another is that a little observation goes a long way to detecting problems.
If I were to complain about any solid open source project today it would be about gnome. It has some serious foundational issues that need to be resolved. I've laid some of them out for the developers and let others become aware of them. It has at least one major show-stopper that you don't encounter unless you copy mass files over your intranet from a folder to another on a remote drive.
One thing about this guy's article. It won't work. If someone is intent on destroying your project they will and to make them angry by appeasing or using other tactics mostly will backfire. To breed resentment of people giving criticism (that may not be well received by the project) is the most negative thing to happen to their software.
Essentially, you can resolve discontent by listening, fixing the problems, and releasing code that is well tested and relatively bug free. If you want linux on the desktop you need to understand that most programmers in the windows world were forced to improve their quality or die. In open source there's really no competition, especially for those wanting to be just open source projects, so there's little incentive other than personal pride to make a project look and operate beautifully.
Listen to those criticizing your project and correct what they identify. That's the best way to get rid of those that will publicly attack you till you decide to quit.
Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, and for a long time Steve Wozniak didn't graduate from college. Is he trying to say that some of the richest people in the world have not contributed enough because they lack a college degree? Is he attacking the American working class (or any working class of any country)? He insults the hard working people of the world when he makes crude statements such as those.
Children have opinions that differ from their parents about taking baths, brushing their teeth, going to bed, eating the right food. Do those children have an opinion worth furthering?
I think you can see that this guy's opinion about this is obviously very childish and highly uninformed. He's literally using his emotional gut feelings, as illogical as they are, and trying to make them sound logical. He's doing it because he's being paid to, not because he's right. You can see that it isn't a matter of an opinion. You can declare the sky is green and it is falling but most logical people would go outside and look and see it is still blue and still up there. We don't give those that continue to claim, in the face of verifiable fact, a podium to continue to spew their drivel--except that some will bring their own podium and continue to blather even if no one is listening.
Hopefully, if/when he checks his logs he'll find that I visited his site with Firefox running on Linux, heh. He's a wounded slug heading for a mountain of salt with a blindfold on.
Within the first few lines of his article he expects you to suspend your disbelief as if you were watching a sci-fi movie. I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief; in reading his article I essentially considered it to be total drivel.
He is asking that you not even consider Linux to be an OS and asks you to not even try to compare it to the likes of Windows because it isn't done by an established company. That's like saying something isn't a parcel of land in the traditional sense because it has a forest on it instead of a mall.
There's no Linux like there is no air. At least you can see and Linux, air you can't without some help. His attempt to undermine Linux security is by saying that there's no security because there's no Linux. Of course there's a Linux.
The guy just drivels on with utterly false unsupportable logic. What's good about it is that it is completely unbelievable from the beginning to the end. If one could say anything, it is that it is a non-article.
If you read the deposition of one of the computer scientists that the RIAA uses to verify whether a computer was used to steal music on line via p2p networks you can see that from just a tiny bit of information they can find who you are, where you live, whether you are on wireless, etc.
If you don't think from the information collected that they can absolutely identify your computer, your location, and many other things from this xml file you are as stupid as Microsoft thinks you are.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't so isolated that I haven't encountered the problem 2 times already in one day in my shop--I fix computers for a living.
/places an iPod in his hand. /hands his dad a chair.
That's about as ridiculous as you even considering the Zune.
Allowing Microsoft to take control of DRM and hence hedge it's position into a new market as a monopoly would be an incredibly negative thing. They are trying this with Vista with all the DRM implementations and the fact that they have required hardware manufacturers to comply nor not be certified. This makes Microsoft Windows the defacto iPod of computers. You know you are locked into the iPod if you buy from Apple's music store. This means that anyone developing for Windows Vista would be essentially locking in their customer's content to that platform. You may purchase a new video but you can't play that on say a Macintosh or Linux because Microsoft won't license that technology to those platforms. Instead they want to become the monopoly in another market. They are using Vista to do that. They are using the hardware requirements put to manufacturers to make that happen.
DRM is to data what the OS is to program. You don't write your program to work on multiple platforms (with some exceptions), you write software to a specific platform. Microsoft knows this. They are happy to have your software product locked into their OS because it props up their monopoly.
DRM will do the same thing except at the content level. Gates stated that content consumption is the future of computing and that most computers are used to consume that content. Giving them control of DRM, at any level, gives them a monopoly into another market.
If you do not enjoy knowing that Microsoft is spying on you with WGA/WGN and other features of Vista then you should move to another platform now and ensure that those favorite movies, music, etc aren't going to be purchases that lock you into a platform that provides Microsoft with the power to spy on you.
Microsoft has become hostile to its customers and Ballmer is getting hostile toward Linux users. You want to support a company that is hostile not only to its competition but also to its customers? You would not be seeing this had there been adequate competition all along.
To limit your access to content and hence choice is to allow Microsoft to implement their DRM into your OS and into your devices. This is not something we want. We want less encroachment into our lives. We don't let the police encroach on your life and you should not let private entities encroach. To allow this is to say that it is all right for everyone to have their rights encroached.
Linux is the only true answer. It currently out paces the Macintosh world wide and is growing by leaps and bounds. With the distro's such as Ubuntu you can have a fantastic desktop environment that plays your movies, music, and other forms of content without those spying prying hostile hands of the convicted monopolist. Linux protects your privacy. Linux protects your future, our future.
To promote the Zune as a media player worthwhile is to tell everyone that you accept that Microsoft should have control over DRM in that market. We don't want that, we don't need that. We don't need the mediocre nature of Microsoft's products. We need to rapid solid development that projects such as Ubuntu provide us.
Everything I have been reading about Microsoft in Redmond and about products surrounding them give me the eerie feeling that Microsoft is struggling desperately. Why else would they put out such false number!?! I think they are desperate to get their stock value up. There are a lot of reasons for this, not solely the fact that their employee's equity in the company is declining and there's no bright future there for new top of the line employees. Give them good value in stock incentives and you can keep them, but if your stock is down and dwindling you do everything you can to make it appear high.
k ing_vista_licenses_too_high.html
The below article describes nicely how Microsoft is fudging the numbers to make it appear that sales were higher than they actually are. Essentially the conclusion is that sales of Vista are weak. It's just sad that a company like Microsoft has to fib in such a way in order to artificially inflate their stock value.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/stac
The issue is longstanding. Most companies look for every angle to keep from honoring their warranties. If you can think it up you they won't honor the warranty for that reason.
I don't think this has necessarily to do with Linux being installed but that they decided that anything other than the exact configuration that the machine was sold in will cause the warranty to be void.
It isn't right. It is nothing more than the large company called HP dumping on the little guy.
Either way, a keyboard is nothing. They are cheap and those keyboards on the HPs, like the rest of the unit, are extremely cheap.
I reported this and many other related bugs to Microsoft when I beta tested this DRM infected nightmare months before the official release. I reported it to various web news sites. It appears no one even addressed it. Also, I reported incredibly slow wireless connectivity and throughput and that wasn't addressed either. I also reported that AERO didn't work on various video cards under Vista. No joy on that either.
It certainly is exaggerated and is being used for stock speculation. They are telling the world they are selling twice as good to get that stock up. It'll go up and then fall back down as the real numbers rear their heads. I've done my part and continue to do so in telling customers about the spying and the other DRM/CRM implemented into Vista and how Microsoft is now hostile towards its customers. I describe it as an example with Walmart entering your home to search your belongings to ensure that you have not stolen anything from their store. Most people understand that their computer is an extension of their homes and that they certainly would not let the government enter without warrant and when I then tell them that they would certainly not allow a private entity to enter they agree wholeheartedly.
Sheesh, what does it take to understand that Microsoft is doing the equivalent of searching your home when they enter your computer and search. No, they don't have the right to enter my computer or home to search for any reason. If they feel I have stolen from them let them hit the courts and sue/arrest me. They'll find I am above board. But the sentiment stays. Hit the courts and do it legally. Even the police can't keep entering your home over and over to search. If they do it is harassment. The problem is that people don't know that or don't initially understand it as a search and seizure procedure.
Let me repeat. They have no right to enter my home/computer/business to do anything unless I give them permission even if it is to protect their IP. If they think I am stealing they can hit the courts up and to through due process to convict. I say this even though I am 100% legit on all copies of Windows. You would not let Walmart enter your home or business to search for goods that might be stolen and hence you would not let, should not let, Microsoft do the same.
The state makes up the remaining amount of the roughly 46.8% on other forms of taxes such as extremely high property tax. There are constant levies, constant increases in other forms of tax as well, but the property tax is what is supposed to make up for the difference. Then there is a problem where WA state seems to think that everyone should be an employee of the state. The state provides nearly no benefits to those below poverty and puts nearly no money into the coffers of the school system instead they waste it all on employing everyone. The state also just implemented a 8 cent tax on every gallon of gas and when you consider that gas prices are already high that's pathetic. On top of that the state can't get its act together on getting mass rail transit implemented. They constantly increase fees for the ferry system while cutting services. The roads in the towns that have been paying the 8 cent tax haven't been improved much to note.
Tho the governor signed this bill it will not last. It will be challenged. The participation in this special group of states soon will be challenged also.
So, WA is a state that taxes it's residents to death. In fact, it is considered one of the most heavily taxed states in the nation with the high property taxes, high sales tax, added taxes on business, transportion, gas. It's a bit out of hand.
What Gregoire sees is the rich in the Seattle/Redmond area where incomes are high, but that's only a tiny part of the state. It is a meager portion of the state's overall population. The vast majority of the residents of the state live in other parts such as the Spokane area and the east and south sound. What Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, etc bring are very little to the overall residents.
Let's not forget that this $40 million annually will not even come close to touching the $9 billion dollar tax break that the state gave to Boeing a couple years ago. $40 million wouldn't cover the interest on that.
The idea that the state is going to take that and run with it fast is so that those who object to it aren't able to catch up or they have to chase it down. What'll happen is that it'll be challenged in the courts, temporarily stopped as it violates federal rulings, and ultimately have its day in court and probably be ruled against. That'll take time. The state in the meantime will be hiring people like crazy to enforce it and wasting all the first $40 million on nothing.
As far as I can recall the federal government regulates this and has shot it down repeatedly. It will be challenged and shot down again. There's no sales tax for interstate purchases for a reason. This is a usurpation of those reasons.
There's little they can do to enforce it as purchases from out of state are not trackable. Also it puts a burden on businesses with licenses to set up with every possible company they do business with in line to verify their business license.
It will also turn many companies away from doing business with the state businesses.
For the decade of the 1990s I used to purchase CDs regularly. But by the mid to late 90s the CDs that were available had diminished in talent. What I mean is that many groups that produced CDs were based on their ability to play instruments (making them musicians) instead of their ability to perform and produce quality music (which would make them artists). What happened seems to be this. The music industry (the RIAA and whatever) were signing musicians to produce albums at a record pace. The idea was that the contract was written (as usual) where the artist has to pay all expenses--and that MEANS ALL. So, even if a group didn't sell they were covered because if the group didn't come up with the funds to cover the expenses they could just sue and try to recover that way.
With that in mind I noticed a large increase in albums but really the music was created by musicians instead of artists. We all know and have heard of musicians playing in bands but it takes more than being a musician to succeed and since the record companies were being paid for all expenses any profit was literally free.
Now they are in a position where music can be downloaded, albeit not within the confines of the law. This means that consumers are hearing more band's tracks before purchasing. It also means that even if a band produced one good song and the rest sucked consumers could know this before purchasing.
The obvious end result is more information about musicians posing as artists and fewer groups making money for the record companies. The Internet distribution was negating the flood of poor quality music that the record companies were dumping on the consumer. So, there was an acquiring of music outside the law and the fact that that chance to hear the band before purchasing the music all conspired to nullify the dumping of musicians on the consumer. The consumer recognizing this purchased the good CDs, until a time in the late 90s and early 20's that people started just copying for spite, to get back at the money grubbing record companies that have so blatantly riped off the bands, thus forcing them to self produce and distribute.
So, the RIAA and the record companies that belong to it, have essentially committed suicide by their hostile actions toward the consumer. The consumer recognized this even if it wasn't overt they knew bad things were happening and that they were being flooded with junk music (like junk bonds).
I miss the times when I purchased a CD and would take it home and listen to it over and over till I knew the tunes, the words, and could hope to get another CD similiar or by the same band at a future date. I enjoyed reading the album inserts and taking care of the platters to ensure they didn't get scratched. I didn't necessarily enjoy knowing I had so many CDs and that it was getting to be a burden managing them all. Then the hostilities started by the RIAA and I haven't purchased a single CD since. It's been probably 8-9 years since I purchased a CD. I am sad that Tower Records is having trouble but the store I used to go to had massive displays of CDs and books. Hopefully their book business is doing well.
The more hostile the record companies get through their agent, the RIAA, the less likely I'll be to ever purchase another CD. I still purchase movies and I rent them through my local video store and through netflix, but they seem to be getting more hostile toward the customer. With Microsoft implementing DRM and convincing the content creators to use their DRM and CRM tools the less likely it'll be that I purchase or rent any videos in the future as well.
The artists pays for everything, including pens, pencils, paper, toner cartridges, phones, then all the marketing, and on and on. The record companies only loose if the artist make no money and can't pay for those things in which case they sue the artist to recoup those costs. You can eliminate everything except the lawyer costs involved directly in suing their customers.
You absolutely can't have open source ATI drivers due to ATI licensing technology from other companies.
You won't have absolute open source and you need to get used to that idea. You will always have a mishmash of open source and closed. What's important is that the OS and the underlying major technologies be open source. Drivers and applications do not need to be Open Source, and rightly shouldn't always be. You can see this by looking at gaming. No gaming developer is going to release their game into open source upon launch. It may be released 10 years later. There's absolutely no need to and should never be a pre-requisite for running on linux. The Kernel to the OS or the OS itself is licensed this way but that doesn't give zealots in the community the right to demand everything be open sourced or be no good.
Just accept that. It is important to bring in commercial ventures and you won't do it with the pure open source ideology. In fact, that would be killer to any attempt to bring in companies such as game developers. The OS yes, quality productivity apps yes, utiliites yes, drivers yes, games and other such products such as photoshop NO (and don't even consider it).
No linux no go. There are probably 2-3 times as many linux users are macintosh. No linux, no go.
You know that Microsoft keeps the monopoly going by hedging certain technologies with that monopoly and they are extending that due to one very important lesson learned from Apple.
You know you are locked into your iPod (if you have one) because of Apple's DRM on their music.
It took people a while to actually understand that and it took the nations of Europe to actually say it loud enough to get everyone to listen. Now people understand it and it is a simple principle. Lock your customers in with proprietary technology protected by the DCMA of the US and attempt to spread that ideology world-wide.
This is what is at the heart of Vista. It is attempting to lock people into Microsoft's DRM by using it's Windows monopoly. Can anyone say without hesitation that the DRM that Microsoft has implemented in Vista is meant to be open and used by any software developer of any OS including the Mac and Linux?
I think you see the correlation there when you think about it in those terms. I've stated repeatedly over the past year that to allow Microsoft to gain a foothold and control the DRM was to lock people into Windows. As Bill Gates stated a while ago, computers are used more for consumption these days than creation of content.
Microsoft has to ensure that you have reasons not to leave. If content creators produce products using Microsoft's DRM, and Microsoft forces hardware manufacturers to put this same DRM into their hardware, all of which is pinned together with Microsoft's Vista, then you have one monopoly hedging other markets to gain share and establish another monopoly.
Zune is a failure in so many ways in that particular market that Apple owns, but Microsoft knows that DRM/CRM can be extended far beyond music. So they provide an elaborate system protected by the DCMA that allows them to gain and maintain a monopoly status in other content areas such as video, artwork, etc. If you can imagine any content other than music, video, and artwork Microsoft's people have been thinking about how to include it in their DRM/CRM for a long time.
Without that acceptance (due to business and individual consumers not purchasing Vista) then the DRM/CRM fails, at least until the old machines are purged and the new machines replace them (new enough to have Vista pre-installed). This also means that Microsoft's value doesn't go up in any measure similar to their past growth. This hurts their financial projections and it hurts their stock value. They've conducted themselves in such a manner over the years in order to ensure that their stock value doesn't do the big nosedive. Their employee's satisfaction is also predicated on that stock value. If Google's stock is higher and looks to have a brighter forecast and Google is offering stock options to hire away employees, then Microsoft looses on both fronts. The lack of workers (as Gates states in his address to Congress--competition in the US for valuable workers is being stolen from him by the likes of his competition), and workers abandoning them due to a loss of stock value and financial outlook while Google's is much greater hurts their ability to hire talent to further their monopoly. In the end, if they can't prop up that monopoly and create other hidden monopolies (such as in DRM/CRM)--and hence the control of your computer, then they have a much dimmer financial outlook. They must do something now to ensure they keep their bright employees (stock isn't going to cut it), and they must hold more monopolies because their old one (Windows) is falling behind and ultimately market share will be eaten away by Linux and the Mac. Essentially it is doom and gloom for Microsoft unless they can manage to prop up their market position with other technologies, hidden as they are, in order to keep their valuation high enough for long enough so the important guys at Microsoft can divest themselves.
In light of those ideas Ballmer's statements are highly juvenile. He's like a kid attacking another kid for having the raw talent t
It's TOTAL cost of ownership. That includes everything, hence the term "TOTAL".
Can be surmmarized easily. It depends on your level of knowledge and how you implement it.
If a bank is considering Linux and has to hire special and retrain the others than of course TCO will be higher. Once that level of skill is normalized with Windows then the TCO has to be lower. For the average person Linux would have a lower TCO in every aspect of their lives. It simply can't cost more to buy the OS, the programs, take the classes on how to use them at the level you would expect from bank employees, then to protect it with a firewall, antivirus, and several adware/spyware detection and removal tools.
In the least those professing lower TCO and assenting to it are being very disingenuous.
The Patent Office is either way off its rocker and/or it is not a far stretch to understand that a company that controls your computer, the content, the OS and that of 90% of the rest of the world, would make it also a threat to National Security and the security of every other nation on the planet. Microsoft with Vista can turn off your ability to use the computer. Through tools like WGA and WGN it can monitor your computer and your use. Since there is no competition out there to give consumers and government a choice then we are all bound to something that is unprecedented in the history of the world. The OS. No other time in the history of the world has one company held such influence on the lives of virtually everyone in the world in the same way.
To say that file sharing allows for children to have access to this or that harmful content, and be subject to other bad things, and to say that files can be put at risk and therefore risk the national security, it would not be a far stretch to understand that to allow one company to essentially enter every computer (as the computer is an extension of your home/business) as they are able to enter your home and business to search, inventory, and accuse (and ultimately with Vista shut down your home/business) then that company and it's product could be considered a threat to national security. P2P is not used solely by children and since it can be useful in business and government it is a lesser threat than that posed by one company having control of the computers of the world. You have unprecedented control and access which creates a major possibility of security threats, if not primarily by Microsoft then by some enterprising vicious terrorist hoping to exploit Microsoft's buggy OSes and buggy spy tools.
You can't go from P2P and the concept of access without going to Windows and WGA/WGN. Whatever applies to the concept of access over the Internet via P2P also extends to any product that could be used to yield the same type of invasive behavior that leads to stealing trade/national secrets be it by a controlling monopoly previously convicted in numerous nations of the world or by someone attempting to exploit the fact that exploits to tools like WGA/WGN could present unprecedented access to terrorists and the governments of other rogue nations.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. You won't get anywhere if you don't push for it. Dell isn't going to give you Linux unless you push for it. Windows being good enough and vanilla enough is a negative thing, not a good things. It is important that we don't let the "good enough" vanilla OS be the reason that the monopoly exists one second more. Promote Linux in every way. Push every company to promote Linux. Get Linux more press than Microsoft. Bring America to Linux. The rest of the world is smart enough to understand Linux has real value and lower total cost of ownership, let's get America involved in this. Freeing us from the Microsoft monopoly can only have extremely positive effects on our economy and allow us to progress our technology further. Microsoft has done very little to progress our technology. In fact, they are centering Vista on Content Consumption instead of moving it ahead to make it a tool for the mind (they took all the innovative new features out and left consumers with draconian technologies used by content creators to control your use of the computer). They'd rather serve the big corporate content creation interests instead of driving it to innovation and new technologies. They patent the old and obvious in hopes of reaping rewards when their products begin to yellow with age.
Linux is the bright child of the future and it has the support of the world to make it a strong desktop, strong enough to surpass Windows and still allow everyone to maintain their privacy and to feel free of the draconian control that Windows exerts. Allowing Microsoft to continue to hold their monopoly is a bad thing and will harm our futures more than you can imagine. I feel pity for those that have not been around long enough to understand the drive that brought the personal computer into being. It was the very dissatisfaction with the big iron of big blue that created these machines and changed the world. Allowing Microsoft to hold onto this monopoly is to never present the world with the challenges similar to what eventually broke IBMs hold on the computer world and provided us all with these amazing beautiful tools to help us grow our minds and lives.
Giving Microsoft continued control means just that, control. They have control so they can direct other software, other OSes, even your data. Microsoft wants the DRM control so that you are locked into Windows by virtue of the DRM, just as you are locked into the ipod and apple due to their DRM. You wouldn't have anyone develop to the standards of DRM (even at the hardware level) if there was competition and unless standards boards reviewed and agreed upon them.) You get content creators making DRM only for windows and you have more foundation to keep Windows the monopoly it is. Remove DRM and you remove another beam that props up Microsoft's monopoly. That control has lead to FUD about IP in Linux, it has lead to the discontinuation of the only real gaming standard other than DirectX. So many people have said they would go to Linux if gaming was viable. Developers won't develop but for what is supported and if Microsoft discontinues OpenGL then they are going to be developing for Directx which is Windows, so to control gaming you can use it as another beam to prop up the monopoly. Remember it is the content that drives computing today. In the past two decades it was software development and those standards. Today it is what you consume and if Microsoft can lock your consumption into Windows then they will maintain their monopoly.
Fight to have the major manufacturers offer alternatives and push the likes of Dell, HP, Compaq, etc to satisfy our demands. It makes no sense, absolutely none, to consider that to be fussiness. It is simply the consumer exerting itself into the being of those that control the markets. The more Linux you have coming out from the majors the more the other companies will want to play ball. Keep up asking for Linux pre-installed. Keep those requests in the headlines and if that is fussiness then be even more so. Fight to break the monopoly and to get choice and innovation back in our beloved field.
Although some good points those guys were blowing smoke up their own asses. They want to set themselves up as the figureheads to follow for managing open source. Give them 20 more years of dealing with hard to work with people and they'll say everything they said should have been reevaluated. I was troubled throughout the whole thing. They acted like they had all the answers and they had a pool if people and that one project is enough to make someone who has been a solid open source contributor a shunnable person. They didn't even begin to touch on the fact that they need to teach instead of direct. If they lost time due to people that's the cost of doing business. You can't drive people like machines, and in the end they are trying to manage people as if they were managing a project. Never works, never has, never will.
There are always two sides to a story and I'm sure these guys aren't telling both sides. I think the most important thing is that any open source project needs to be able to take criticism even if sometimes it isn't constructive. If an open source project can't survive criticism then it didn't have the wherewithal to survive anyway.
Those that may seem to attack open source project in particular without regard to the status of the project are turkeys and probably need to be shunned. On the other had the open source projects that are mavericks that won't listen to user input should also be shunned.
The most important thing about open source that one sees once they use it are the rough edges and incompleteness of the project. Yes, some of them are exquisitely done, others, and there are a lot of them, are poorly organized and implemented as if a firstimer was managing the project. If I were critical of open source it would be the latter and to see the open source project begin to deride the criticism is very damaging.
Amarok, which now is a great project, but with a lot of bugs and some very incomplete areas used to be highly buggy and when people went to their site asking for answers on how to overcome these problems even the administrator would denigrate them for asking questions. In one case the administrators actually attempted to publicly humiliate those asking questions. What they should have done is listen and fix the issues. It is only through some criticism that things get fixed. The windows world is unforgiving, extremely unforgiving. If Amarok plans to move to the windows platform they are going to have to come up with some major changes to their philosophy when dealing with people pointing out problems and asking for help.
An old saying from way back and it is a saying that holds water today is that you never give a programmer a screwdriver because he'll blame everything that's wrong on the computer and try to fix the computer. Another rule is that a programmer should never be charged with testing their own code. Another is that a little observation goes a long way to detecting problems.
If I were to complain about any solid open source project today it would be about gnome. It has some serious foundational issues that need to be resolved. I've laid some of them out for the developers and let others become aware of them. It has at least one major show-stopper that you don't encounter unless you copy mass files over your intranet from a folder to another on a remote drive.
One thing about this guy's article. It won't work. If someone is intent on destroying your project they will and to make them angry by appeasing or using other tactics mostly will backfire. To breed resentment of people giving criticism (that may not be well received by the project) is the most negative thing to happen to their software.
Essentially, you can resolve discontent by listening, fixing the problems, and releasing code that is well tested and relatively bug free. If you want linux on the desktop you need to understand that most programmers in the windows world were forced to improve their quality or die. In open source there's really no competition, especially for those wanting to be just open source projects, so there's little incentive other than personal pride to make a project look and operate beautifully.
Listen to those criticizing your project and correct what they identify. That's the best way to get rid of those that will publicly attack you till you decide to quit.
Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, and for a long time Steve Wozniak didn't graduate from college. Is he trying to say that some of the richest people in the world have not contributed enough because they lack a college degree? Is he attacking the American working class (or any working class of any country)? He insults the hard working people of the world when he makes crude statements such as those.
Children have opinions that differ from their parents about taking baths, brushing their teeth, going to bed, eating the right food. Do those children have an opinion worth furthering?
I think you can see that this guy's opinion about this is obviously very childish and highly uninformed. He's literally using his emotional gut feelings, as illogical as they are, and trying to make them sound logical. He's doing it because he's being paid to, not because he's right. You can see that it isn't a matter of an opinion. You can declare the sky is green and it is falling but most logical people would go outside and look and see it is still blue and still up there. We don't give those that continue to claim, in the face of verifiable fact, a podium to continue to spew their drivel--except that some will bring their own podium and continue to blather even if no one is listening.
Hopefully, if/when he checks his logs he'll find that I visited his site with Firefox running on Linux, heh. He's a wounded slug heading for a mountain of salt with a blindfold on.
Within the first few lines of his article he expects you to suspend your disbelief as if you were watching a sci-fi movie. I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief; in reading his article I essentially considered it to be total drivel.
He is asking that you not even consider Linux to be an OS and asks you to not even try to compare it to the likes of Windows because it isn't done by an established company. That's like saying something isn't a parcel of land in the traditional sense because it has a forest on it instead of a mall.
There's no Linux like there is no air. At least you can see and Linux, air you can't without some help. His attempt to undermine Linux security is by saying that there's no security because there's no Linux. Of course there's a Linux.
The guy just drivels on with utterly false unsupportable logic. What's good about it is that it is completely unbelievable from the beginning to the end. If one could say anything, it is that it is a non-article.
And you want to tell me how over 140,000+ people were suspected of terrorism or affiliated to it, in the USA?
If you read the deposition of one of the computer scientists that the RIAA uses to verify whether a computer was used to steal music on line via p2p networks you can see that from just a tiny bit of information they can find who you are, where you live, whether you are on wireless, etc.
If you don't think from the information collected that they can absolutely identify your computer, your location, and many other things from this xml file you are as stupid as Microsoft thinks you are.