I like this strategy of interchange by SUN. Very smart!
First they try to conquer China and Latin America... and as everybody knows, the install base grows because businesses actually interchange documents with eachother. I use Microsoft Office because our relations do.
As Europe is very Open Source minded and embraces non Microsoft Technology (such as Java, Open Source etc.) much more than the US, it might be a possible scenario that more and more US businesses will adopt something like StarOffice in order to interchange documents with their (foreign) relations. And then they'll adopt because their national relations use it.
Ofcourse, SUN has a long way until the turning point is achieved, but I think it's a smart idea to conquer the US via China and Latin America.
The Eola patent doesn't only hurt Microsoft, ofcourse. It's a viable conspirecy theory, but I didn't see many java applets on the net anyway. In the big picture this could hurt other browsers as well - Mozilla, Netscape, perhaps even the Norwegian Opera (because of US import restrictions). We can say goodbye to funny sites, entertaining sites, informative sites and so on.
In my opinion, the plugin scheme is really a sort of "crummy patch" to a widespread used technology (the browser). I think that these guys understood that and chose the path of a new internet client.
Now it's a conspiracy theory, tommorow it could kill all sorts of products and projects, like the browsers I mentioned. This patent could be bad for internet advancements anyway; it might be very hard to create an alternative scheme flexible enough to work around this patent.
This is not the first time I read/hear about a "fantastic" hypothesis, with a quite sensible basis, but which is drawn into incredibility due to sensational speculation....
I once heard about a hypothesis on the evolution of the laws of physics. The interesting story this guy told was that evolution is not only about "survival of the fittest", but also very much about "survival of the accepted".
This guy speculated Black Holes to be the wombs of universes, wich alternative physical laws. He played games with other scientists "suppose the speed of light would be a little faster" it would mean speed of electrical currents be faster and it would mean (I don't know why) more black holes.
What I do find interesting about the constants not constant hypothesis is that it would mean that a lot of our measurements are not so correct. Stars could be closer to us, or even further away, big bang theory may need a revision etc. My guess is that only Moore's laws could gain from this....
The developments in the "sue all the world" process:
* DMCA law seems to be extende to other countries (now I'm gonna question politicians about this)
* Belgium has a law that anyone who commited a (Belgian law) crime, independent of *where* it was commited, you can start a legal process. Currently being sued: Arafat and Saddam
* The "The Hague Treaty", not yet signed by the European Union, kills any European democracy, perhaps me might become a fascist state like the US
Fortunately, the Skylarov case, AFAIK, is a legal test whether the DMCA actually *does* extend beyond US law.
If it is really true what Fuergisson says in his paper, then it might be a good thing the Euro takes its entrance in 2002, this could be the fundamental base of Europower and independency. My opinion is definately the US leaders need to be put back onto their feet.
It's impossible to write a sensible net-statement
on
Taming the Web
·
· Score: 1
Though I've read a lot of stuff which the author of the article mentions, I do not agree with his pessimism.
If bandwith is an issue, and the US is legally a business problem, then perhaps businesses could choose other world regions where there is infrastructure, and where they're safe from US legislation.
Software patents are not legal in Europe. It is certainly not going to happen that the "The Hague Treaty" will change that. It is not going to happen that the US will extend their own laws to any other part of the world (the UK excepted) via this treaty. The treaty could end democracy and could create a situation of "US law is universal" which won't be accepted (I'd like to refer to the G8 Riots in Genua and the Kyoto treaty in Bonn).
Although Napster and Gnutella have not succeeded (according to the article), the author lacks good arguments why Freenet would fail in their quest, my guess is that it's hard to tell the future.
If they wil tweak the hardware, the news that old PC's are still free will spread like fire. It could mean that old PC's could become more expensive than new ones.
And if authorities just simply shut down the internet... then I fear the uprising of more "Timothy McVeighs", because if governments want a war with their own people, they will certainly get it - that's exactly what's happening nowadays...
I'm not sure, but I heard that this is about 128 CPU's. In that case the overhead is so big, that adding another CPU would only slow the whole system down.
They discovered this when designing computer algorithmns for parallel systems. So even when there's no Operating system running the CPU's - only the program (ie "Occam" like), the overall overhead needed for the CPU's to cooperate, and safe concurrency, simply becomes too big.
Unimaginable? What's the deal:
* amount of productive CPU-cycles for overhead (Po) per second
* amount of improductive CPU-cycles for synchronizing waits (Pw) (waits for other CPU's, waits for communication bus, wait for memory access etc. -> concurrency cycles) per second
* amount of real CPU-cycles per second (Rc)
* amount of application productive CPU-cycles (Pa) per second
Now put those into a formula, and suppose that Cs is a constant... or a slow changing constant:
Total overhead cycles: Toc=(c1*N*Po)+(c2*N*Pw) (where N is number of CPU's, c1 and c2 some constants...)
Total application productive cycles per CPU, per second: Pa = Rc - Toc
The formula's aren't probably like this, but I'm trying to give an indication. From "Toc" we now know that Pa reduces (above lineairly - probably not true in real life) with every added CPU.
I know 20+ languages, included assembly's, wrote about 6 my own languages/interpreters/syntax parser (whatever language or language like), and now busy writing 7 and 8.
There is more to a language than just the language itself. As a C++ programmer, you live in the world of C++ and its limits. As a Java programmer, you live in the Java world and its limits. So there you have it: "choose the right tool for the right job". So let's do a C++ vs Java.
Do you want to do something technically complex - then choose C++, do you want to connect all sorts of servers/applications into one enterprise application? choose Java.
Java has become -the- platform for middleware applications, C++ is unsuitable. So why is C++ unsuitable... because of IBM, Sun and Oracle. They chose Java to be the industry standard, so they provided an install base and lots of libraries.
One could argue that a developer has nothing to do with politics, industrial trends etc. My guess is that it's everyone's own choice. I know guys who don't give a damn about EJB limitations, but are too stubborn to listen and try (unsuccesfully) to introduce complex design patterns at entity bean level. The point I want to make is that ignoring non-technical issues can make life much harder.
I clicked on that "link" and it seems that it tries to shutdown your PC.
Fortunately, I'm using Linux, but what if I was a Win user, having some files opened? Clicking that link (I'm only asking for a warning please) would make me loose some precious work.
Micheal, please add a warning about what that link actually does, now my machine was tested while I didn't even know upfront what was going to happen. Yes, I know, if I were infected, I'd be unhappy too, but please show some understanding.
I believe you're right. Compressing 200 bytes into 16-24 bits is superior than the Hammingway code. I've never heard of better compression than Hammingway, and this is basically used for strings, compressing XML, you need to process the hierarchial structure of XML documents into the compressed format. I couldn't find a compression spec. so, until I haven't seen that, I tend to be sceptical.
In Europe, software patents aren't legal, business model patents probably aren't either. Does this mean that all ASP companies will move to Europe?
How's this in Asia? I read this week that there are more Asian internet users than there are US internet users. I believe that non-US ASP's tend to be cheaper than US ASP's due to lack of patent royalties if this gets through.
Isn't McAffee making itself very impopular this way? That usually means they won't survive for very long any more...
I'm a little sceptical about the succes of this language. Making use of the mainstream install base, your browser yet needs another plugin, y'know that Flash comes with the package these days? Joe Sixpack probable doesn't know what a plugin is, but Joe is necessary for success...
Being sceptical about succes does not mean it's a bad idea, I'm doing some research myself, on a new language of which I'm not too sure about its success - but still, it's a good idea.
I read some posts below, and the viewpoints are very different.
I once read that people won't switch to better quality if it takes away their freedom, perhaps that's why commercial MP3 competitors are not becoming more mainstream. As for Ogg Vorbis, it is clearly a good alternative to those commercial competitors. The fact that it's free makes a great advantage commercially. On the other hand, there's the install base.
At this moment, (in my country) the video rent shops is trying to shift from VHS tapes to DVD discs, this shift takes a long time. It does remind me of the shift from records to CD's.
Ogg Vorbis becoming a hit is not something to happen overnight. It needs a few other qualities becides being free - it must have better compression and better sound quality (sorry, I'm undereducated here, I don't know whether this is the case). Anyhow, I'm sticking to my posting subject - it's hard to tell the future.
Re:Um, what the reviewer said ....
on
Breaking Windows
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You are right, there is no difference in linux horror stories or microsoft horror stories. In the company I work for, we have two 'departments' one specialised in MS technology and one (I'm in this one) specialised in Java/Solaris/Orcale/Linux/etc. technology. Perhaps we got carried away with our passions one day as we started quareling our personal passions, which was just bad for the good workfloor atmosphere. We worked things out, sometimes somebody places a joke, but we work together, we are a team.
In my proffesional life, I therefore choose to be platform neutral and pragmatic: the right tool for the right job. In my private life I have an absolute preference for Linux.
I must admit that the review states some interesting business strategies, in which I believe it can be a commercial success. RedHat adopts some of these strategies - ie limited suppliance of software in their product. Anyhow, as Microsoft has internal strubbles, I still think it is interesting to read about them. Microsoft really does influence every day life for many people, so it's nice to know that there are vulnerable people working for that company.
I think your criticism is a little unjust, as we're not discussing Linux versus Microsoft here, I gues it is temptation.
I didn't know all this about passport, but it has great resemblance with paypal. The bogus site exploit has been done there as well.
The difference between paypal and microsoft merely is the fact that passport is not intended for micropayments, as I believe that ms will mostly focus on the b2b market.
For micropayments, Paypal has low risk because they have taken a mix of all sorts of measures. An ex-FBI agent is in charge of two or three fraud detection teams, their "IGOR" system is an automated fraud detection system. Because the wallet contains such small amounts of money, the loss risk is therefore much smaller than if you'd use big amounts - necesary for b2b transactions.
I do notice the resemblance between PP and MS that they are dealing with the same security problems, perhaps this is why PP and MS are collaborating. When MS chooses not to work with micropayments, my guess is that they could get a lot of security problems, not only the ones written in the article, also the securite problems Paypal hasn't solved technically, but manually.
Protest is a form of free speech. Every democratic country gives the right for protesting. What you say is unfortunately true. It's what Bush said just before the G8 top in Genua: "these people are hurting poor countries" as if the anti-globalisation lobby lacks intelligence. I heard the CNN reports and some other stuff, the reporters seemed to have forgotten that there were thousands of peaceful demonstrators present in Genua, even helping the police with riotors.
The press media and Bush insinuated that the protestors were criminals anyhow, so that's just plain FUD. If they take away the right for protest, either by public opinion or by making protesting physically dangerous, people will find another way to express their minds. This won't necesarry have to be peaceful actions. Look at the "animal liberation front" who blow up meat-companies, these people are against animal abuse, but no-one listened, they got fed up with the situation and started to do some bad things.
Bush has identified Iraq and Libia as the enemy states, but the terrorism he wants to fight doesn't necesarry have to come from abroad, I fear more Oklahoma's if the politicians won't listen.
It would be essentially an Internet ID. All Internet transactions could be based on it. Anyone who sends me e-mail can be identified.
Spoofing and sniffing is one of the most common hack tools used.
If kids want to install an Internet game, the game's IP port would be registered and permitted to operate, hopefully by the parent. If kids wanted to install an Internet chat program, too bad -- it wouldn't work if Dad didn't want it to work.
I understand that most kids are usually farout smarter than Dad. Suppose they download hack software at their freinds place or their primary school onto floppy, then dad's got another problem.
severely limit the use of TCP/IP by applications on your PC. And what happens when you do so? Everything works just fine. So rather than ripping the protocol stack wide open, let's do the exact opposite. Restrict access to it.
Perhaps a physical seperation of socket services in the operation system, making a distinction between (machine) local and (machine) foreign use would be a good compromise between security and userfriendlyness. Problem is that all internal and external traffic is merely seperated between a IP-number system most people don't understand.
The only e-mail activity on my PC should be initiated by me, personally.
How does the machine know it is 'me'? Anything can be spoofed - keyboard buffer, event buffer etc. Or are we going to enter a password for every click we do?
Microsoft wants to replace TCP/IP with a proprietary protocol -- a protocol owned by Microsoft
I've been scared for this as well, fortunately I heard a story which made me quite confident this can not happen: The main reason why Ipv6 hasn't become mainstream is that the millions of old Cisco Routers in the field are IPv4 compliant, not IPv6 compliant. If Microsoft is to come with a propriaty protocol, their communication won't come very far. They need to buy Cisco in the first place... protocol X over TCP/IP has been done millions of times, so that's not a big deal, the underlieing TCP/IP is as secure or insecure as ever - the propriaty protocol won't change that, it can be sabotaged. The author mentions a smooth and easy upgrade of all routers, sorry, this is the whole point the new protocol won't work as long this hasn't happened, and it wont't happen if there's no need for because its fukkin expensive.
Microsoft can promise open support, but make it financially impractical
Antitrust cases are about this. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the world is bigger than the USA only. Europe is doing two antitrust cases against MS, MS has problems propagating in Korea etc. I think political resistance and the Open Source alternatice will effect that Microsoft will change from operating in a global market changing into operating in a local (US) market.
This story is very US-specific. In my country, the BSA is not only sending the letters, they're also the Gestapo visiting companies. In my opinion I think corps can refuse them entrance of the office building, and ask for a police warrant. But as ever - everybody fears the consequences of "bad attitude", perhaps it's a cultural problem here because everybody here believes that co-operation proves half of your innocence. --
I'm a bit skeptical. IANAL, but one thing in his story struck me: The Tasini case is about a (legal) person relationships and the rights in the matter. But the Napster comparison is a three (legal) person case, with Napster having not much relationship with the other two parties (except for Bertelsmann).
Suppose John lets Alice to publish his work, and John gets a reward. Then as I understand it, it is Alice who has now the rights to republish John's work and put him for an arbiter in worst case.
In that story, Alice and John had a relationship, but if now somebody called Pete drops in, does Pete *really* have the right to put Alice for an arbiter? Or does Pete need to negotiate with John? Isn't it like this: Alice has the right to republish such that John doesn't get a monopoly? --
Hmm, that's not what I meant. I actually meant is that not every act of breaking the law is criminal behaviour, take speeding tickets for example.
So if barriers for using this go down, you can actually try it on anybody, as no-one is innocent. If a police officer were to walk next to me for a week - holding up the law, I'd be bankrupt for the rest of my life. The same goes for any person. --
Slashdot Mirror
First they try to conquer China and Latin America... and as everybody knows, the install base grows because businesses actually interchange documents with eachother. I use Microsoft Office because our relations do.
As Europe is very Open Source minded and embraces non Microsoft Technology (such as Java, Open Source etc.) much more than the US, it might be a possible scenario that more and more US businesses will adopt something like StarOffice in order to interchange documents with their (foreign) relations. And then they'll adopt because their national relations use it.
Ofcourse, SUN has a long way until the turning point is achieved, but I think it's a smart idea to conquer the US via China and Latin America.
Freenet is doing this. Have a look: Freenet
The article states clearly that these balls run uphill too. Hey, it now does actually become interesting right?
Seems that I'm too late again for an obvious karma-joke... ;-)
It's a classic -think big- strategy. Maybe some day HTML will be replaced with something else, with hypertext features - the patent still stands.
In my opinion, the plugin scheme is really a sort of "crummy patch" to a widespread used technology (the browser). I think that these guys understood that and chose the path of a new internet client.
Now it's a conspiracy theory, tommorow it could kill all sorts of products and projects, like the browsers I mentioned. This patent could be bad for internet advancements anyway; it might be very hard to create an alternative scheme flexible enough to work around this patent.
I spend "midsummer night" in Helsinki Finland... great! Met a young feminine lawyer there... oh my god... Have a nice holidat Linus!
I once heard about a hypothesis on the evolution of the laws of physics. The interesting story this guy told was that evolution is not only about "survival of the fittest", but also very much about "survival of the accepted".
This guy speculated Black Holes to be the wombs of universes, wich alternative physical laws. He played games with other scientists "suppose the speed of light would be a little faster" it would mean speed of electrical currents be faster and it would mean (I don't know why) more black holes.
What I do find interesting about the constants not constant hypothesis is that it would mean that a lot of our measurements are not so correct. Stars could be closer to us, or even further away, big bang theory may need a revision etc. My guess is that only Moore's laws could gain from this....
* DMCA law seems to be extende to other countries (now I'm gonna question politicians about this)
* Belgium has a law that anyone who commited a (Belgian law) crime, independent of *where* it was commited, you can start a legal process. Currently being sued: Arafat and Saddam
* The "The Hague Treaty", not yet signed by the European Union, kills any European democracy, perhaps me might become a fascist state like the US
Fortunately, the Skylarov case, AFAIK, is a legal test whether the DMCA actually *does* extend beyond US law.
If it is really true what Fuergisson says in his paper, then it might be a good thing the Euro takes its entrance in 2002, this could be the fundamental base of Europower and independency. My opinion is definately the US leaders need to be put back onto their feet.
If bandwith is an issue, and the US is legally a business problem, then perhaps businesses could choose other world regions where there is infrastructure, and where they're safe from US legislation.
Software patents are not legal in Europe. It is certainly not going to happen that the "The Hague Treaty" will change that. It is not going to happen that the US will extend their own laws to any other part of the world (the UK excepted) via this treaty. The treaty could end democracy and could create a situation of "US law is universal" which won't be accepted (I'd like to refer to the G8 Riots in Genua and the Kyoto treaty in Bonn).
Although Napster and Gnutella have not succeeded (according to the article), the author lacks good arguments why Freenet would fail in their quest, my guess is that it's hard to tell the future.
If they wil tweak the hardware, the news that old PC's are still free will spread like fire. It could mean that old PC's could become more expensive than new ones.
And if authorities just simply shut down the internet... then I fear the uprising of more "Timothy McVeighs", because if governments want a war with their own people, they will certainly get it - that's exactly what's happening nowadays...
Mac: Cult of the dead coat? :P
They discovered this when designing computer algorithmns for parallel systems. So even when there's no Operating system running the CPU's - only the program (ie "Occam" like), the overall overhead needed for the CPU's to cooperate, and safe concurrency, simply becomes too big.
Unimaginable? What's the deal:
* amount of productive CPU-cycles for overhead (Po) per second
* amount of improductive CPU-cycles for synchronizing waits (Pw) (waits for other CPU's, waits for communication bus, wait for memory access etc. -> concurrency cycles) per second
* amount of real CPU-cycles per second (Rc)
* amount of application productive CPU-cycles (Pa) per second
Now put those into a formula, and suppose that Cs is a constant... or a slow changing constant:
Total overhead cycles: Toc=(c1*N*Po)+(c2*N*Pw) (where N is number of CPU's, c1 and c2 some constants...)
Total application productive cycles per CPU, per second: Pa = Rc - Toc
The formula's aren't probably like this, but I'm trying to give an indication. From "Toc" we now know that Pa reduces (above lineairly - probably not true in real life) with every added CPU.
There is more to a language than just the language itself. As a C++ programmer, you live in the world of C++ and its limits. As a Java programmer, you live in the Java world and its limits. So there you have it: "choose the right tool for the right job". So let's do a C++ vs Java.
Do you want to do something technically complex - then choose C++, do you want to connect all sorts of servers/applications into one enterprise application? choose Java.
Java has become -the- platform for middleware applications, C++ is unsuitable. So why is C++ unsuitable... because of IBM, Sun and Oracle. They chose Java to be the industry standard, so they provided an install base and lots of libraries.
One could argue that a developer has nothing to do with politics, industrial trends etc. My guess is that it's everyone's own choice. I know guys who don't give a damn about EJB limitations, but are too stubborn to listen and try (unsuccesfully) to introduce complex design patterns at entity bean level. The point I want to make is that ignoring non-technical issues can make life much harder.
Fortunately, I'm using Linux, but what if I was a Win user, having some files opened? Clicking that link (I'm only asking for a warning please) would make me loose some precious work.
Micheal, please add a warning about what that link actually does, now my machine was tested while I didn't even know upfront what was going to happen. Yes, I know, if I were infected, I'd be unhappy too, but please show some understanding.
I believe you're right. Compressing 200 bytes into 16-24 bits is superior than the Hammingway code. I've never heard of better compression than Hammingway, and this is basically used for strings, compressing XML, you need to process the hierarchial structure of XML documents into the compressed format. I couldn't find a compression spec. so, until I haven't seen that, I tend to be sceptical.
How's this in Asia? I read this week that there are more Asian internet users than there are US internet users. I believe that non-US ASP's tend to be cheaper than US ASP's due to lack of patent royalties if this gets through.
Isn't McAffee making itself very impopular this way? That usually means they won't survive for very long any more...
Being sceptical about succes does not mean it's a bad idea, I'm doing some research myself, on a new language of which I'm not too sure about its success - but still, it's a good idea.
I once read that people won't switch to better quality if it takes away their freedom, perhaps that's why commercial MP3 competitors are not becoming more mainstream. As for Ogg Vorbis, it is clearly a good alternative to those commercial competitors. The fact that it's free makes a great advantage commercially. On the other hand, there's the install base.
At this moment, (in my country) the video rent shops is trying to shift from VHS tapes to DVD discs, this shift takes a long time. It does remind me of the shift from records to CD's.
Ogg Vorbis becoming a hit is not something to happen overnight. It needs a few other qualities becides being free - it must have better compression and better sound quality (sorry, I'm undereducated here, I don't know whether this is the case). Anyhow, I'm sticking to my posting subject - it's hard to tell the future.
In my proffesional life, I therefore choose to be platform neutral and pragmatic: the right tool for the right job. In my private life I have an absolute preference for Linux.
I must admit that the review states some interesting business strategies, in which I believe it can be a commercial success. RedHat adopts some of these strategies - ie limited suppliance of software in their product. Anyhow, as Microsoft has internal strubbles, I still think it is interesting to read about them. Microsoft really does influence every day life for many people, so it's nice to know that there are vulnerable people working for that company.
I think your criticism is a little unjust, as we're not discussing Linux versus Microsoft here, I gues it is temptation.
The difference between paypal and microsoft merely is the fact that passport is not intended for micropayments, as I believe that ms will mostly focus on the b2b market.
For micropayments, Paypal has low risk because they have taken a mix of all sorts of measures. An ex-FBI agent is in charge of two or three fraud detection teams, their "IGOR" system is an automated fraud detection system. Because the wallet contains such small amounts of money, the loss risk is therefore much smaller than if you'd use big amounts - necesary for b2b transactions.
I do notice the resemblance between PP and MS that they are dealing with the same security problems, perhaps this is why PP and MS are collaborating. When MS chooses not to work with micropayments, my guess is that they could get a lot of security problems, not only the ones written in the article, also the securite problems Paypal hasn't solved technically, but manually.
The press media and Bush insinuated that the protestors were criminals anyhow, so that's just plain FUD. If they take away the right for protest, either by public opinion or by making protesting physically dangerous, people will find another way to express their minds. This won't necesarry have to be peaceful actions. Look at the "animal liberation front" who blow up meat-companies, these people are against animal abuse, but no-one listened, they got fed up with the situation and started to do some bad things.
Bush has identified Iraq and Libia as the enemy states, but the terrorism he wants to fight doesn't necesarry have to come from abroad, I fear more Oklahoma's if the politicians won't listen.
Spoofing and sniffing is one of the most common hack tools used.
If kids want to install an Internet game, the game's IP port would be registered and permitted to operate, hopefully by the parent. If kids wanted to install an Internet chat program, too bad -- it wouldn't work if Dad didn't want it to work. I understand that most kids are usually farout smarter than Dad. Suppose they download hack software at their freinds place or their primary school onto floppy, then dad's got another problem.
severely limit the use of TCP/IP by applications on your PC. And what happens when you do so? Everything works just fine. So rather than ripping the protocol stack wide open, let's do the exact opposite. Restrict access to it.
Perhaps a physical seperation of socket services in the operation system, making a distinction between (machine) local and (machine) foreign use would be a good compromise between security and userfriendlyness. Problem is that all internal and external traffic is merely seperated between a IP-number system most people don't understand.
The only e-mail activity on my PC should be initiated by me, personally.
How does the machine know it is 'me'? Anything can be spoofed - keyboard buffer, event buffer etc. Or are we going to enter a password for every click we do?
Microsoft wants to replace TCP/IP with a proprietary protocol -- a protocol owned by Microsoft
I've been scared for this as well, fortunately I heard a story which made me quite confident this can not happen: The main reason why Ipv6 hasn't become mainstream is that the millions of old Cisco Routers in the field are IPv4 compliant, not IPv6 compliant. If Microsoft is to come with a propriaty protocol, their communication won't come very far. They need to buy Cisco in the first place... protocol X over TCP/IP has been done millions of times, so that's not a big deal, the underlieing TCP/IP is as secure or insecure as ever - the propriaty protocol won't change that, it can be sabotaged. The author mentions a smooth and easy upgrade of all routers, sorry, this is the whole point the new protocol won't work as long this hasn't happened, and it wont't happen if there's no need for because its fukkin expensive.
Microsoft can promise open support, but make it financially impractical
Antitrust cases are about this. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the world is bigger than the USA only. Europe is doing two antitrust cases against MS, MS has problems propagating in Korea etc. I think political resistance and the Open Source alternatice will effect that Microsoft will change from operating in a global market changing into operating in a local (US) market.
This story is very US-specific. In my country, the BSA is not only sending the letters, they're also the Gestapo visiting companies. In my opinion I think corps can refuse them entrance of the office building, and ask for a police warrant. But as ever - everybody fears the consequences of "bad attitude", perhaps it's a cultural problem here because everybody here believes that co-operation proves half of your innocence.
--
Suppose John lets Alice to publish his work, and John gets a reward. Then as I understand it, it is Alice who has now the rights to republish John's work and put him for an arbiter in worst case.
In that story, Alice and John had a relationship, but if now somebody called Pete drops in, does Pete *really* have the right to put Alice for an arbiter? Or does Pete need to negotiate with John? Isn't it like this: Alice has the right to republish such that John doesn't get a monopoly?
--
So if barriers for using this go down, you can actually try it on anybody, as no-one is innocent. If a police officer were to walk next to me for a week - holding up the law, I'd be bankrupt for the rest of my life. The same goes for any person.
--