It's not about the size of the fine, it's about the publicity. Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the operating system market. I don't want to get into an argument about Europe's economic models, but even if you're a capitalist monopolies are bad news. It's proven historical fact that modern monopolies tend to lead to higher prices and lower quality products and services. The whole basis of modern capitalism is competition - competition promotes innovation and leads to higher quality products at lower prices. Most modern companies exist for one reason - to make money. Once a company obtains a monopoly they still want to make more money - and the best ways to do that are:
1) Artificially raise prices. 2) Artificially lower costs (often leading to lower quality). 3) Maintain their monopoly by preventing any possibility of competition. 4) Leverage their monopoly to gain control of other markets, especially ones related to their monopoly.
Microsoft has done all four of these things, but the last one is what they're getting fined for right now. Prices are pretty standard so they don't have much room for #1 and they can't exactly buy Apple or Linux so they've been concentrating on #4 with a natural bit of #2 that's more of a side effect of not having much competition than a conscious decision. For those of you who don't know, Microsoft was found guilty of breaking the law in the US as well. The difference is that Microsoft used its influence to prevent any actual punishment.
Microsoft will pay this fine and the fine itself will not hurt them. What is (and will continue) hurting them is the negative publicity. When headlines read "Microsoft fined $XXX million for breaking the law" it makes investors nervous and hurts their rep with the general public. I can only assume that Microsoft has some sort of plan in place to prevent this from spiraling out of control. Either they are going to continue to ride the line and pay some fines (cost of doing business) or they have a card up their sleeve to make sure this doesn't escalate. Given their business model and practices I find it extremely unlikely they are going to become a good corporate citizen and stop trying to rule the virtual world.
I can only pray that one day the United States Department of Justic will come to its sense and break Microsoft into very little peices. The OS situation is bad enough without Microsoft trying to gain control of every single aspect of computer software. It is absolutely killing innovation and lowering the overall quality of computer software by an absurd amount.
Is started off as a CS site, we're slowly expanding to non-CS related FPS of all kinds. I will forward your interest in that game to the powers-that-be, they're always thinking about which games to add.
I won't bother replying to 85% of your comment. As to the rest:
You're right that you can't prove that the lack of viruses for OS X is due to lack of anyone trying to make them. However, there are estimates of the amount of malicious software out there for both OS and there are market share numbers as well. If you take your Calculator and do some math you will find that even on a percentage basis, there are still less viruses for OS X.
You are proving my point for me. The fact that you're proposing a HARDWARE firewall and education to solve Window's security problems instead of simply fixing the security issues themselves is a great example of what is wrong with Windows and the philosophy behind it. When Apple find a security flaw, they fix it. When Microsoft finds a security flaw, it gets exploited, people buy 3rd party applications to attempt to fix it, and then, sometimes, Microsoft fixes it if it's easy enough to do so or serious enough not to be able to ignore.
FYI there's nothing "slower" about OS X, especially when compared to Vista (so far). OS X is equally if not more flexible than Windows which tends to (illegally in some cases) favor Microsoft proprietary technology to an even greater degree than OS X favors Apple. That wouldn't really be so much of a problem if Microsoft proprietary technology didn't tend to be riddled with problems or bad performance that Microsoft refuses to fix while simulatenously refusing to share necessary details with competitors.
You're assuming that those people would want this type of distribution system in the first place - methinks they prefer buying DVDs at Target and Wal-Mart.
Some of you are confusing passion with obsession. A passionate employee loves his or her job and strives to do a good job - they don't necessarily devote their entire life to it. I know plenty of passionate people who have lives outside of the office. You can really love your job and try really hard without even taking it out of the office.
In my experience some of the people who are obsessed with their job (spending nights / weekends) actually hate it.
Does anyone else see a creepy Apple vs. Microsoft comparison here? I know a couple of managers at Microsoft, and the "old" rules sound exactly like what they do.
I wouldn't be too sure. Pretty much at any point Microsoft can screw up (or get screwed by antitrust decisions). If the PS3's pricetag kills its sales Nintendo has a chance. If sales are fast enough and 3rd party game makers take it seriously Nintendo can probably regain its rep and erase the "kiddie" image that is plaguing it right now.
As for Apple, all it really has to do is make the decision and necessary preparations to sell OS X first and Macs second.
As I mention below I was under the impression this was supposed to be targeted at a technologically savvy audience. If it really is intended for "everyone" than you're right. Of course, there's absolutely no reason why my internet connection is 2 mb/s - we have much faster technology that I'm told is being buried all over the place.
In that case there is no target audience for movies. 99% of regular people do not download movies on BitTorrent, they buy DVDs. I assumed this was aimed at the "edge" market, if it isn't then it's completely doomed. mp3 players represented a very easy to use and much more conveinent alternative to lugging around CDs. There's an analogy to this and DVDs, but I honestly don't think it fits because those "99%" still use a TV, and that TV stays in one place with a stack of DVDs right next to it.
I certainly don't claim they're legal but the chances of someone being prosecuted for downloading or seeding one (as far as I can tell) is ~0%. If someone did decide to start suing they'd almost certainly start with the fansub groups or the BitTorrent trackers. There is no way they'd sue fansub watchers. Many aforementioned fansub groups already comply to any request to remove fansubs, further decreasing the chance of someone getting (much less getting sued for getting) a fansub that isn't "tolerated." If they're going to start suing anyone, it's going to be fansub groups that continue to sub something after it's "licensed" and they're told to stop. Even if everyone loses patience they're still going to sue fansub groups and trackers - just more of them.
The anime DVD market in the US, for example, is not the movie or music industry. It would not withstand the bad publicity of a large number of fansub fans being sued. Cartoon Networks doesn't give a rat's ass, the people we're talking about are the DVD producers.
As far as the Nintendo / Apple comparisons go, I think it's safe to say that they are kindred spirits. While it's true that Apple lives off high-end high priced products, it's their quality, image, innovation, loyal customer base, appeal to the average user, and reputation for being worth it just for Apple's software alone that really make them successful. There are plenty of high-end computer makers out there, but none of them enjoy Apple's reputation.
Nintendo simply takes a different lane on the same road, one more appropriate (and more profitable) for their market. They do all the same things, except instead of producing high end high priced hardware they produce right down the middle. Apple could do the same thing if the computer industry only had 3 manufacturers and 2 of them were stupid enough to produce overly expensive boxes. The low end positions in the computer world are already taken, and require really high volume to maintain. So Apple naturally took the high end.
As for the DS, I'm not a fan of the direction handhelds are taking in general. Of course, I'm even less of a fan of the direction Sony is going so the DS is my natural favorite of the two. I'm honestly not sure how it has done as well as it has, other than relying on the reputation Sony got overnight when the Playstation became the "adult" that it is now forced to share with Microsoft (at least in the US).
The only thing that angers me is the color of the Lite. White sucks. There should be some sort of rule aginst only releasing one color (unless it's black).
I'm a Safari user, but I support Firefox because it takes market share away from Microsoft (which can only be a good thing). Any word on how spell checking is implemented in the OS X version of FF 2.0? I was under the impression that any application in OS X can use the OS to do spell checking. Is FF 2.0 going to utilize that or is it going to do a bunch of work it doesn't have to?
After reading everyone's comments I've come to the opinion that they're going to hit a big roadblock with this. The people most interested in this type of distribution model are the exact same people least interested in putting up with restrictive digital rights management, especially of the Microsoft variety.
It's almost like these companies don't do any market research at all:(. I, for example, would love to lay the DVD (and all physical distribution formats) to rest in favor of files downloaded over the internet (hint: I already have). It's cooler, it SHOULD be cheaper, files don't get scratched every time I touch them, and I plan to have a computer screen bigger than my TV screen anyway. But there's simply _NO_ way I'm going to pay money for something that requires a Microsoft product to work. I'd rather climb up a skyscraper, wrap one end of a chain of Windows 98 CDs around my neck, tie the other end to a lightning rod, and jump off. I'm also not going to put up with a proprietary DRM of any kind.
If someone can develop and popularize an open source standard DRM format that has REASONABLE (or at least adjustable - so that I can choose to buy things with less restrictions) restrictions call me.
This is a tough call. Who still uses Windows 98 or ME? Most likely PC users with very old boxes. While that screams Linux to people like me, the kind of people with such boxes probably don't know what Linux is.
More than likely this will be a boost for cheap Dell and HP sales, if anything. That's assuming the people using them know or care that Microsoft no longer supports their OS. They'll probably just keep their boxes going until something breaks, this will just help speed things up.
Their motives were questionable. Their evidence was lacking. But they were right. No matter how much the Microsoft trolls talk the fact remains that there is far less malicious software for OS X, even if you take into account its relatively tiny market share. It's also more secure by design, no matter how many minor flaws they find they haven't even come close to what has been (and is currently) wrong with Windows.
I'm not really surprised that everyone supporting an illegal monopoly has been brainwashed, but it's still kind of sad.
This is completely feasible and it could bring computers and the internet to anyone with a high speed hookup. Unfortunately, most of the people with high speed connections already have computers... and the internet.
Slashdot's comment system is flawed by design. I'm not saying an edit button should just be added, the whole thing needs to be scrapped. I know none of you are going to listen to me, but that's my opinion.
I honestly don't know what the rating system is for, that's one of the reasons I turned it off and don't even look at my comment's ratings. Unless you set your filter really high (more or less hiding all comments) it doesn't really do anything. In fact, it's kind of annoying not to be able to see all the comments immediately - especially because some of the worst ones can be entertaining.
I'd much rather see the ability for people to fix / improve their comments than the ability to filter them based on a very poor rating system. Everyone seems to make a big deal out of it, but I don't think it actually has any effect on the quality of comments. The point of a moderation system is to improve the quality of comments, if it doesn't do that what exactly is it for?
Call me crazy, but editing just seems like a more useful feature than a lame duck rating system that doesn't have a net effect on anything.
In terms of big money, casual gaming is undoubtedly the future. Just as "family" movies consistently dominate more audience specific movies at the box office casual games will eventually start to dominate hardcore games.
As time goes by, a larger and larger percentage of the population plays video games. Yes, there is the young male crowd (including some older ones who continue being "hardcore":) but the real size of the market is everyone - men, women, and children - not just young males. If you can sell a game to a good percentage of everyone you can and will make a shitload more money than someone who sells a game to a huge percentage of young males.
Note: I'm not saying that there aren't hardcore female or old gamers, just that based on statistics many of the most "hardcore" gamers tend to be young and male. Gamers in general are actually getting much older.
That's not really true. The "wartime" powers we're talking about were intended for wars - as in, country declares war on you, you declare war on country, or both. They're supposed to go through Congress too.
After WWII we just started attacking people - no declaration of war, nothing. Now it's at the point where they call fighting terrorists a war, even though none of these "wars" were formally declared by Congress and, as you and I both point out, in some cases are not really wars at all.
The problem is very similar to the one you point out. It's not that we don't other words, it's that the Executive branch of our government (and the media) is trying to convince us that these conflicts qualify as wars - in which case all of the wartime powers arguments remain valid.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like Reuters committed a classic internet blunder: doing the very thing you're critisizing while critisizing it.
Yay for ducktape, British ISPs with balls, and the State of Maine (why the hell are they getting iBooks though?).
It's not about the size of the fine, it's about the publicity. Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the operating system market. I don't want to get into an argument about Europe's economic models, but even if you're a capitalist monopolies are bad news. It's proven historical fact that modern monopolies tend to lead to higher prices and lower quality products and services. The whole basis of modern capitalism is competition - competition promotes innovation and leads to higher quality products at lower prices. Most modern companies exist for one reason - to make money. Once a company obtains a monopoly they still want to make more money - and the best ways to do that are:
1) Artificially raise prices.
2) Artificially lower costs (often leading to lower quality).
3) Maintain their monopoly by preventing any possibility of competition.
4) Leverage their monopoly to gain control of other markets, especially ones related to their monopoly.
Microsoft has done all four of these things, but the last one is what they're getting fined for right now. Prices are pretty standard so they don't have much room for #1 and they can't exactly buy Apple or Linux so they've been concentrating on #4 with a natural bit of #2 that's more of a side effect of not having much competition than a conscious decision. For those of you who don't know, Microsoft was found guilty of breaking the law in the US as well. The difference is that Microsoft used its influence to prevent any actual punishment.
Microsoft will pay this fine and the fine itself will not hurt them. What is (and will continue) hurting them is the negative publicity. When headlines read "Microsoft fined $XXX million for breaking the law" it makes investors nervous and hurts their rep with the general public. I can only assume that Microsoft has some sort of plan in place to prevent this from spiraling out of control. Either they are going to continue to ride the line and pay some fines (cost of doing business) or they have a card up their sleeve to make sure this doesn't escalate. Given their business model and practices I find it extremely unlikely they are going to become a good corporate citizen and stop trying to rule the virtual world.
I can only pray that one day the United States Department of Justic will come to its sense and break Microsoft into very little peices. The OS situation is bad enough without Microsoft trying to gain control of every single aspect of computer software. It is absolutely killing innovation and lowering the overall quality of computer software by an absurd amount.
Is started off as a CS site, we're slowly expanding to non-CS related FPS of all kinds. I will forward your interest in that game to the powers-that-be, they're always thinking about which games to add.
Very good point.
I won't bother replying to 85% of your comment. As to the rest:
You're right that you can't prove that the lack of viruses for OS X is due to lack of anyone trying to make them. However, there are estimates of the amount of malicious software out there for both OS and there are market share numbers as well. If you take your Calculator and do some math you will find that even on a percentage basis, there are still less viruses for OS X.
You are proving my point for me. The fact that you're proposing a HARDWARE firewall and education to solve Window's security problems instead of simply fixing the security issues themselves is a great example of what is wrong with Windows and the philosophy behind it. When Apple find a security flaw, they fix it. When Microsoft finds a security flaw, it gets exploited, people buy 3rd party applications to attempt to fix it, and then, sometimes, Microsoft fixes it if it's easy enough to do so or serious enough not to be able to ignore.
FYI there's nothing "slower" about OS X, especially when compared to Vista (so far). OS X is equally if not more flexible than Windows which tends to (illegally in some cases) favor Microsoft proprietary technology to an even greater degree than OS X favors Apple. That wouldn't really be so much of a problem if Microsoft proprietary technology didn't tend to be riddled with problems or bad performance that Microsoft refuses to fix while simulatenously refusing to share necessary details with competitors.
You're assuming that those people would want this type of distribution system in the first place - methinks they prefer buying DVDs at Target and Wal-Mart.
Lol, my post giving constructive criticism of the moderation system was modded down to 0, I couldn't have asked for better evidence.
Checkmate.
Some of you are confusing passion with obsession. A passionate employee loves his or her job and strives to do a good job - they don't necessarily devote their entire life to it. I know plenty of passionate people who have lives outside of the office. You can really love your job and try really hard without even taking it out of the office.
In my experience some of the people who are obsessed with their job (spending nights / weekends) actually hate it.
Does anyone else see a creepy Apple vs. Microsoft comparison here? I know a couple of managers at Microsoft, and the "old" rules sound exactly like what they do.
I wouldn't be too sure. Pretty much at any point Microsoft can screw up (or get screwed by antitrust decisions). If the PS3's pricetag kills its sales Nintendo has a chance. If sales are fast enough and 3rd party game makers take it seriously Nintendo can probably regain its rep and erase the "kiddie" image that is plaguing it right now.
As for Apple, all it really has to do is make the decision and necessary preparations to sell OS X first and Macs second.
As I mention below I was under the impression this was supposed to be targeted at a technologically savvy audience. If it really is intended for "everyone" than you're right. Of course, there's absolutely no reason why my internet connection is 2 mb/s - we have much faster technology that I'm told is being buried all over the place.
In that case there is no target audience for movies. 99% of regular people do not download movies on BitTorrent, they buy DVDs. I assumed this was aimed at the "edge" market, if it isn't then it's completely doomed. mp3 players represented a very easy to use and much more conveinent alternative to lugging around CDs. There's an analogy to this and DVDs, but I honestly don't think it fits because those "99%" still use a TV, and that TV stays in one place with a stack of DVDs right next to it.
I can see it for TV shows though.
I certainly don't claim they're legal but the chances of someone being prosecuted for downloading or seeding one (as far as I can tell) is ~0%. If someone did decide to start suing they'd almost certainly start with the fansub groups or the BitTorrent trackers. There is no way they'd sue fansub watchers. Many aforementioned fansub groups already comply to any request to remove fansubs, further decreasing the chance of someone getting (much less getting sued for getting) a fansub that isn't "tolerated." If they're going to start suing anyone, it's going to be fansub groups that continue to sub something after it's "licensed" and they're told to stop. Even if everyone loses patience they're still going to sue fansub groups and trackers - just more of them.
The anime DVD market in the US, for example, is not the movie or music industry. It would not withstand the bad publicity of a large number of fansub fans being sued. Cartoon Networks doesn't give a rat's ass, the people we're talking about are the DVD producers.
As far as the Nintendo / Apple comparisons go, I think it's safe to say that they are kindred spirits. While it's true that Apple lives off high-end high priced products, it's their quality, image, innovation, loyal customer base, appeal to the average user, and reputation for being worth it just for Apple's software alone that really make them successful. There are plenty of high-end computer makers out there, but none of them enjoy Apple's reputation.
Nintendo simply takes a different lane on the same road, one more appropriate (and more profitable) for their market. They do all the same things, except instead of producing high end high priced hardware they produce right down the middle. Apple could do the same thing if the computer industry only had 3 manufacturers and 2 of them were stupid enough to produce overly expensive boxes. The low end positions in the computer world are already taken, and require really high volume to maintain. So Apple naturally took the high end.
As for the DS, I'm not a fan of the direction handhelds are taking in general. Of course, I'm even less of a fan of the direction Sony is going so the DS is my natural favorite of the two. I'm honestly not sure how it has done as well as it has, other than relying on the reputation Sony got overnight when the Playstation became the "adult" that it is now forced to share with Microsoft (at least in the US).
The only thing that angers me is the color of the Lite. White sucks. There should be some sort of rule aginst only releasing one color (unless it's black).
I'm a Safari user, but I support Firefox because it takes market share away from Microsoft (which can only be a good thing). Any word on how spell checking is implemented in the OS X version of FF 2.0? I was under the impression that any application in OS X can use the OS to do spell checking. Is FF 2.0 going to utilize that or is it going to do a bunch of work it doesn't have to?
After reading everyone's comments I've come to the opinion that they're going to hit a big roadblock with this. The people most interested in this type of distribution model are the exact same people least interested in putting up with restrictive digital rights management, especially of the Microsoft variety.
:(. I, for example, would love to lay the DVD (and all physical distribution formats) to rest in favor of files downloaded over the internet (hint: I already have). It's cooler, it SHOULD be cheaper, files don't get scratched every time I touch them, and I plan to have a computer screen bigger than my TV screen anyway. But there's simply _NO_ way I'm going to pay money for something that requires a Microsoft product to work. I'd rather climb up a skyscraper, wrap one end of a chain of Windows 98 CDs around my neck, tie the other end to a lightning rod, and jump off. I'm also not going to put up with a proprietary DRM of any kind.
It's almost like these companies don't do any market research at all
If someone can develop and popularize an open source standard DRM format that has REASONABLE (or at least adjustable - so that I can choose to buy things with less restrictions) restrictions call me.
The more legit BitTorrent makes itself look the better. As long as I can get quasi-legal fansubs I'm happy.
This is a tough call. Who still uses Windows 98 or ME? Most likely PC users with very old boxes. While that screams Linux to people like me, the kind of people with such boxes probably don't know what Linux is.
More than likely this will be a boost for cheap Dell and HP sales, if anything. That's assuming the people using them know or care that Microsoft no longer supports their OS. They'll probably just keep their boxes going until something breaks, this will just help speed things up.
news - plural noun - information about recent events or happenings.
Their motives were questionable. Their evidence was lacking. But they were right. No matter how much the Microsoft trolls talk the fact remains that there is far less malicious software for OS X, even if you take into account its relatively tiny market share. It's also more secure by design, no matter how many minor flaws they find they haven't even come close to what has been (and is currently) wrong with Windows.
I'm not really surprised that everyone supporting an illegal monopoly has been brainwashed, but it's still kind of sad.
This is completely feasible and it could bring computers and the internet to anyone with a high speed hookup. Unfortunately, most of the people with high speed connections already have computers... and the internet.
Slashdot's comment system is flawed by design. I'm not saying an edit button should just be added, the whole thing needs to be scrapped. I know none of you are going to listen to me, but that's my opinion.
I honestly don't know what the rating system is for, that's one of the reasons I turned it off and don't even look at my comment's ratings. Unless you set your filter really high (more or less hiding all comments) it doesn't really do anything. In fact, it's kind of annoying not to be able to see all the comments immediately - especially because some of the worst ones can be entertaining.
I'd much rather see the ability for people to fix / improve their comments than the ability to filter them based on a very poor rating system. Everyone seems to make a big deal out of it, but I don't think it actually has any effect on the quality of comments. The point of a moderation system is to improve the quality of comments, if it doesn't do that what exactly is it for?
Call me crazy, but editing just seems like a more useful feature than a lame duck rating system that doesn't have a net effect on anything.
In terms of big money, casual gaming is undoubtedly the future. Just as "family" movies consistently dominate more audience specific movies at the box office casual games will eventually start to dominate hardcore games.
:) but the real size of the market is everyone - men, women, and children - not just young males. If you can sell a game to a good percentage of everyone you can and will make a shitload more money than someone who sells a game to a huge percentage of young males.
As time goes by, a larger and larger percentage of the population plays video games. Yes, there is the young male crowd (including some older ones who continue being "hardcore"
Note: I'm not saying that there aren't hardcore female or old gamers, just that based on statistics many of the most "hardcore" gamers tend to be young and male. Gamers in general are actually getting much older.
That's not really true. The "wartime" powers we're talking about were intended for wars - as in, country declares war on you, you declare war on country, or both. They're supposed to go through Congress too.
After WWII we just started attacking people - no declaration of war, nothing. Now it's at the point where they call fighting terrorists a war, even though none of these "wars" were formally declared by Congress and, as you and I both point out, in some cases are not really wars at all.
The problem is very similar to the one you point out. It's not that we don't other words, it's that the Executive branch of our government (and the media) is trying to convince us that these conflicts qualify as wars - in which case all of the wartime powers arguments remain valid.
Call me when slashdot is revolutionized by the feature every other site has had for over a decade - an edit button.