They do not understand the break up. Microsoft has been pretty good at pretending just to be Big Business that government says cannot exists. People really have something against the government controlling their lives. That government factor can is even evident in our geek culture with our privacy issues and all our goofy licenses that we use. I guess if someone pays x% of their income they want it spent on something important and not a "meaningless" trial but on Presidential Aids.

Interestingly, Bill Gates did a Larry King interview earlier this year (I think on Jan 1) where a caller called in and asked Bill about the monopoly ruling (not so much the trial). The caller explained that he felt that he needed all of the MS products because they were great and blah blah blah. Bill just said that he was baffled and blah blah blah but I think the answer was in the question. Why would the caller need all MS products? Common sense is lacking.

Their lack of ability to follow anything closely can be seen in each excretion of windoze.

Then again for applications running on windows (We'll only give you windows if you agree not to sell ).

--
Too stupid to live.
Too stubborn to die.

Then again for applications running on windows (We'll only give you windows if you agree not to sell ).

--
Too stupid to live.
Too stubborn to die.

Nothing exists exept atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
-Democritus of Abdera

Actually... It had the stability pretty early. Read page 39 of OpenSources.

1. M$ changes things to make it harder for the application to run under Windows. People give up on the product, and the company goes under.
2. M$ announces that they will soon release something similiar. Everyone drops the product and waits for the M$ version which might ever actually be produced.
3. There is already too much support for #2 to happen (e.g., Netscape), and M$ actually does make another product, using libraries that aren't as broken as the ones they license out to companies to make Windows-based applications. It runs faster (comparatively) then the product or (more common) gets bundled in with the OS, and the company goes under.

I find it interesting to note that the last few weeks of Doonesbury have been targeting just this very effect. Mikim didn't go under because they didn't have a good product. They entered the market. They just lost everything immediately because when they didn't sell themselves to M$, they had no way to compete.

Of course, in that example, M$ made a comparable product to Mikim's freely available on their website. Were Linux to be, say, 70% of the market share, I wouldn't expect many people to be all that interested in Win2000. But the similarity doesn't exist because open source groups lack the capital (and market share) that M$ has.

In any case, the claim that M$ isn't a monopoly by using a dictionary definition of "monopoly" isn't really valid. IMHO, the definition needs to be broadened to cover "effective" monopolies as they can exist now (and couldn't years ago when the definition as offered was valid).

Me, I don't see where breaking them up really solves anything. If you want real competition, then require that the licensed libraries that are made available to developers be the same libraries that M$ itself uses! Then, companies can compete, because they can integrate their software to the OS the same way that M$ does. Furthermore, 3rd parties will be able to fix long-standing bugs in the M$ code (or work around them), etc. At worst, at least there'd be a more-stable version of Windows produced.

To my knowledge, none of their current applications development use anything that isn't available in the Platform SDK.

Grow a skin, will you? If MS was manipulating the media as you imply, then they would have chosen a higher figure than 63%. My reaction to the article was "only 63%?? That sucks!"

Furthermore, any savvy company will spin whatever news they generate in the best light. Any savvy company will paint the prettiest pictures of the products they make. You can't blame MS for promoting the Windows platform; it's their product and they need to sell it to survive.

"It's like you think your fellow americans are a bunch of stupid sheep and only the elite like you can possibly understand how evil Microsoft is"

Well...YES. At least where I live (Oklahoma). If you want to get a good laugh, watch our local media try to cover a tech story!

Believe me, people know that GPFs and BSODs are bad.

_____________________________

Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.

_____________________________

Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.

• MTV
• "Chicken Soup for the Soul"
• Jesse Ventura
• Britney Spears/NSync/Backstreet Boys/Third Eye Blind
• Miller Lite

So do a lot of other people. Hmmm. I wonder if that means anything?

If you are hell-bent on accepting pro-forma everything that Microsoft cronies advance, that is your choice. We are pointing out the improbability of the "results".

The correct way of interpereting this Microsoft-sponsored survey is that "most people who aren't paying much attention don't see what the big deal is." That is a true statement, but it says more about people and opinions than it does about Microsoft.

-Eugene

Most hacker-types are utterly convinced of their mental superiority over the rest of humanity. They confuse computing skill with true intelligence and assume anyone that does not see things as they do must be mentally deficient. Many seem to have a problem understanding that Microsoft software functions perfectly well for 99% of the population. It seems to offend them somehow that so much of the population does not care to convert to their techno-religion and wage crusades against the great heretic Microsoft. Hackers are a small, insular and elitist sub-culture that needs to see that the whole world does not share their ideals.

Arrogant, superior, patronising, condescending, elitist, closed-minded, etc etc etc. ad nauseum.

For many days now, I have been attempting to get this point across to the Slashdot community. The man in the street does not care about Linux, and is reasonably happy with Microsoft. When he looks at the Linux phenomenon, he sees long haired aggressively superior "nerds" and is instantly alienated from the product.

As a highly qualified and well-respected marketer, I have to wonder at the "marketing intelligence" of some of the posters to this forum.

For examples of typical reactions to my well-meant and free advice from the elitists take a look at the following threads.

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

And finally Here

The lesson is clear. Despite what Linux bigots would have you believe, "ordinary users" are not made welcome in their so-called community. This is not a generalization to all Linux users, just a certain vocal and irritating minority.

dmg

Who are you saying acts arrogant, superior, patronizing, etc? After reading a few of your posts, I am amazed at how well the description fits you. You whine and moan about how Linux only appeals to the sort of nerds who wrote the operating system in the first place, as if WE should care that this interferes with your ability to make oodles of money repackaging a product you did not help to create. That is the height of arrogance.

As for narrowness, all you can think about is marketing. We have already seen what happens to an operating system when marketing is more important than technical issues: that is how we got the travesty known as windows. Well, we techies are sick of it. We are kicking you out of the drivers seat, and taking our rightful place behind the wheel. So don't complain if we have a different set of priorities than you do: that's the point. If you want "business as usual", go back to Windows.

The lesson is clear. Despite what Linux bigots would have you believe, "ordinary users" are not made welcome in their so-called community. This is not a generalization to all Linux users, just a certain vocal and irritating minority.

We do not make all ordinary users feel unwelcome, just a certian vocal and irritating minority... people like you, for instance.

What the hell's so wrong with it? I love KDE, and I assume it works even better on Linux (I'm a NetBSD person).

perhaps the better question is what's so great about Winduhs? Menus that collapse just as you get to the entry you want? apps that freeze up and refuse to relinquish the focus, or iconify, or move, or anything (apps freeze on *nixen too, but hardly ever do they take the system with them)? Jam everything into one window MDI? Info dialogues that steal the focus and do Very Bad Things with what you were typing? Hm?

Criminalize spam and telemarketing!

Based on a survey I took in our office - 65% of the population is left handed and 10% are female. Polls are meaningless - take a statistics class.

GO WINGS!

I find your lack of faith disturbing Lord Vader after Open sourcing the Death Star plans

I'll have you know William Shatner is one of Canada's finest Shakespearean actors. So was Lorne Green.

Dammit.

I Polled the office and 65% of the population is left handed and 12% of humans are female.

GO WINGS I find your lack of faith disturbing Darth Vader during discusion of open sourcing the death star plans

Read Judge Jackson's Finding of Fact. He seems to think so, and it's his opinion that matters.

Microsoft may have taken advantage of many market barriers and created a couple (exclusive licensing) - but they did not have much to do cuonsumers becoming resistant to change - it's a human condition (look at the reactionaries around you). Linux and Open Source are growing because they have prostletysed (sp?) continually and convinced the business community that they are an excellent alternative. There still has not been a large impact in the consumer impact

That may be true - but they certainly weren't marketed at the consumer now were they. This survey is almost certainly been answered in the majrotiy by a consumers - not geeks. Consumers wanted "user friendliness". No one marketed Xenix or Minix as a consumer OS.

I agree that a motivator is necessary. The previous poster was thinking too narrowly there. The motivator doesn't need to be fear of the Russians gaining technological superiority during a time when we could have gone to war with them at any moment. It could be something much more benign, but it must be something that people will respond to. People respond to fear and patriotism, which motivated things back in the 50s. People also tend to respond positively to a challenge if they feel that there is something to be proven. If we could come up with some suitable goal, perhaps we could motivate kids and adults alike by challenging them to help us meet some goal. Just a thought.

.oO=----------------------=Oo.

IRIX, BeOS, and Mac OS.

Quake is a game. Religion is intended to be serious, and seriously taken, and precisely a guide for persons' actions. When your sacred book, suppossed to be the word of God himself, mandates the killing of witches, homosexuals, adulterers and those who work on Sabbath (to name just a few), the very least that can be said is that your religion is not to be credited if you don't kill such people. So, it is not the same, and you can blame a religion in certain circumstances.

And if I may just defend Americans for a second here, we are not the only weak-minded people in the world, just usually the loudest.

The public might really be pro-Microsoft. And yet... Microsoft still felt obliged to rig the poll by slanting the questions. The main question was:

QUESTION: Recent press reports suggest that the Justice Department will seek to break-up Microsoft into separate companies. Do you favor efforts by the government to break-up Microsoft, or do you think a penalty like break-up would be too extreme given what you know about the case?

This is not the natural, neutral yes/no question, "Do you favor efforts by the government to break-up Microsoft?" Instead, it goes on (in the italicized part) to provide a rationale for ONE answer-- the preferred one. If you give the right answer (don't break up Microsoft), the question has a line of reasoning all ready for you (it's just too extreme). Not so if you answer the wrong way.

Here is the second most important question:

As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsofts business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more?

Again, the extraneous, italicized part cues the correct answer: "repeatedly benefited" vs. "hurt", and not "benefited" vs. "repeatedly hurt".

Well, there's massaging the data and massaging the questions. Not that MS would have been able to get "Do you think the government should impose extreme penalties to break Microsoft's "supposed" monopoly?" on the quiz, but no doubt they could slant the questions so as to make people view the proposed governmental action in a negative light. Add to that the fact that 90% of people don't really know or care about "scary computer stuff," and you get that people aren't likely, on the whole, to want to break MS up. Add to that that many people own stock (or know and care for someone who owns stock) in MS and thus have self-interested reasons not to want to see MS broken up (not, of course, that a breakup of MS entails their stock would devalue, but as long as they believe it's likely, they'll have the motivation).

Moreover: since when do we take polls on technical questions anyhow? ("63% of people say the sun is five million miles from earth") The degree of harm caused by MS is a matter to be decided by looking at evidence most people (including, I bet, you and me) don't really know that much about. So the poll results don't seem all that meaningful anyhow.

I go for penguins -- Lyle Lovett

When we are following the advice of a prestigious Public Relations firm?

Three easy steps:

• Grab the PDF file.
• Read it.
• Decide for yourself.

Ask a socialogist and statician. When compiling data it is very important to ask the question properly to remove any biases. For example it has been claimed that durring an election the first name on the ballot will get 4% of the vote. It would be very easy for to ask a substlely biased question.

However I agree with other posters that this is probably valid as most people just don't know any better.

Ask a socialogist and statician.

Glad you asked. ;) (I am not one, but I am studying in the field...)

I looked over this survey, and it is basically a 'push poll'. That is where you ask questions which are designed to influence a person's opinion. You do this by asking questions about one point of view, especially agree/disagree questions which bring up points in a person's head. By manipulating the questions, and the order in which they are asked, and getting the wording right, you have maneuvered a person who previously didn't have an opinion into having the one you want. Especially if you imply that a person should have an opinion.

They ask all these questions which imply the importance of the trial, then ask how closely they are following the MS trial. The options were 'following closely', 'somewhat closely' and 'not following'. Surprise surprise, people pick the middle answer.

I wouldn't put too much stock in this. In fact, we should be happy that people have this instinctive fear of regulation and government intrusion into our field. If they learn the details of the MS suit, then we'll see if opinion shifts, but the last thing we want is a list of rules and procedures which would strangle the small startups before they got off the ground.

I'd say there is virtually nothing we want the government to do about MS's monopoly. Now that we have the finding of fact, there are grounds for lawsuits against MS. I can see an argument for taking the "MS embraced and extended" proprietary standards and releasing them to an industry coalition. But open sourcing Windows 2000 would accomplish nothing (except reveal to programmers what they already know about the Mother of All Kludges). Break up MS? It would be like those slime monsters in D&D which when you cut them in half, now there are two of them! We'd have three or four MS monopolies (OfficeCorp, WindozeCorp, etc).

Mainly, we can watch the companies MS buried in the past go after them now. Since the industry is moving away from the desktop anyway, MS might be contained by technology already.

99.9% of statistics are unrelated to the real world

It should be a little like a unix system, the X server can crash, yeah, sure... shit happens.

But, because video driver's aint part of the kernel, the GUI doesn't bring the machine down... I mean isn't that how every OS work?

So crashing the GUI and so revealing the underlying system (DOS) does not surprise me much... DOS should still be able to server http or files or do a million other things that do not require GUI... OR am I missing something? :-)

"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

You're joking, right? It would be difficult to be more flexible than X is (just look at the choice in window managers). That's always been its boon and bane in fact; it's been a wonderful platform for GUI research but absolutely horrible when you want a consistent LookNFeel.

I'm not sure if you were just trolling but in case you aren't I thought this might be helpful. I realize some people haven't had much exposure to multi-OS evironments. Everyone should try it at least once. Nothing like complicating your life by throwing in an AS/400 or running a mixed environment.
Hey, what's this button do? Everybody calmly file out, nothing to see here.

• Ferrari make superb cars but most people accept a Ford/VW/GM car that is 'good enough'
• I'd love a washing machine that ironed and shelved my clothes. It's technically possible but my Zanussi is 'good enough'
• It would be nice if my kettle didn't always boil the water but allowed me to preset the stop temperature. It doesn't, but the one i have is 'good enough'.
• For 10,000 quid I could get a stereo that would make my heart weak at the beauty of the music it produces. But the 1000 quid one i have is 'good enough'. As is the 20 quid Sony radio I use most of the time.
• Japan and France have 200mph+ trains. Ours peak at 140mph. But that's 'good enough'.
• The chair I'm sitting on cost 50 quid. It serves the purpose. It's not leather, it's not deeply padded, it wasn't custom-built to meet my personal ergonomic needs. but it's 'good enough'

And people who can't afford the 'ultimate' product have every right to expect a 'good enough' alternative.

<Sarcasm> Personally, i only ever use AT&T System V on my System/370. And i pity the poor saps who can only afford Sparc.</Sarcasm> sorry about that last bit

TomV

Our world is highly reliant on IT, and instabilities translate to real costs.

.

.

.

Whenever I see her mouth on TV, I lose my appetite.

...richie

It's time for some of us to wake up and realize that the rest of the world does not always think the same way the Slashdot community does.

If the results had come from a Linux company and indicated that 75% of Americans wanted Microsoft to be broken up into Baby Bills, would anyone be spouting claims of bias?

Powers  &8^]

Furthermore, I submit that regulation is frequently a good thing:

• Would you like to travel on a plane in a country in which there was no FAA, maintenance was performed whenever it made sense economically (rather than on a basis of safety) and pilots took off and landed when and where they pleased?
  
• How about chucking the FDA - who needs medicines to be carefully tested before being approved for use or foods to be inspected for quality and disease?
  
• Naturally the SEC is useless, as insider trading actually promotes the economy.
  

You see Noke, we don't live in a free market. The government, acting on the authority of the people, passes laws for the general good, even if this might constrain some individual freedom (like man x's freedom to rob man y). If they go to far, it tends to get overturned. Often though, everyone agrees that it is well worth it.

America would be a very different, and probably very lousy place had the government not regulated various industries. Though it should be noted that regulation usually only comes after that industry has gone beyond the bounds of what decent people are willing to put up with.

MS is turning out to be one of the first, although I'm sure you already knew about IBM's famous antitrust suit in which they were nearly broken up. IBM's business practices had to be significantly altered to avoid that fate, and it has improved the industry greatly. Hell, there probably would never have been an MS (or an Apple, or a Sun, or a Compaq, or a Dell, or an SGI...) had it not been for the government stepping in.

You'd do well to remember that the US does not operate as a free market. The only well-known free-marketeers I can think of offhand - the only people who will sell, buy or trade absolutely anything - would be the Mafia. Heck, they'll sell you your life, and they don't take kindly to government regulation. But I don't think you want to do business with them all the same ;)
-- I support anonymous posting.

That said, I agree that polls can be notoriously inaccurate. You'll notice that my original post makes no claims as to the veracity of the poll results.

My point was that many of us here on Slashdot need to step back sometimes and stop pouncing on every little tidbit that may or may not point to even the most insignificant wrongdoing by Microsoft.

I'm afraid I also have to comment on your suggestion that I go form my own non-MS-bashing version of Slashdot. I should point out that the snowball effect could quickly result in thousands of mini-slashdots, which would defeat the whole purpose. The point is the interaction, and you can't interact if you're segregated.

Powers  &8^]

Then I took a deep breath, downloaded the PDF file, and decided to read for myself the questions that were asked and the corresponding responses. Questions like...

If you knew that the DoJ was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose it?

Not surprisingly, 72% either strongly or moderately oppose having to pay more money for their software. The survey later asks about the DoJ "slowing the pace of technological innovation". If that isn't MS spin doctoring, then I don't know what is.

Often you should trust your gut reaction (i.e. Microsoft biased the report). It's usually correct. But don't take my word for it. Read it yourself.
Linux: The choice of a GNU Generation

Powers  &8^]

Powers  &8^]

It wouldn't surprise me if something like that could form between a company and it's customers, under the sorts of conditions Microsoft has developed.

Certainly, the kinds of responses that are being reported by people shifting away from Microsoft (eg: SGI, IBM and the NSA) are far more dramatic and sudden than you would expect from just changing one program on a machine holding thousands. But it's -exactly- the sort of response you could expect from people who have experienced traumatic bonding.

20% have trouble finding power switch of a computer.

20% are absolutely certain that their computers are manufactured by MS.

3% of Americans like MS the way it is.

All this survey means is that MS is able to portray itself as a good company to the average joe. The ever popular Mom OS for people has be considered Windows- and people think they understand that "easy" concept of Windows. Your average joe just accepts the crashes and bugs because he experience does not make him expect more.

Of course, the survey is really showing how many people think a successful company is a good company. These are the people that Linus talks about being negative towards Linux because it is free. People just go to a store and see that all the computers have Windows on them and they go to your average computer lab and see more Windows then they think that Windows has to be pretty good.

You would be surprised how many people out ther do not realize that there is life past MS. When I mention to people that I do not prefer Windows they look at me ask is I am using somekind of MS DOS. Your average dude does not care so much about the software as long as it kinda works. Besides, we are kinda living in a backwards world today because people are blaming things on those "dumb computers" but they do not know the problem so it is always generalizd.

To paraphrase another poster: "even if a thousand people say a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing."

In the UK the Death Penalty is still pretty popular according to a lot of surveys (see above posts for a general discussion of surveys <g>)

We abolished it, in spite of popular opinion, because it is murder.

TomV

Well, in a democracy, the laws should me made by the people. If the people decide that a law is wrong then it should be repealed.

Then it's a good thing we don't live in a democracy :) . Seriously, the United States is not a democracy, has never been a democracy, and was never intented to be a democracy. We are a Republic, and the people who claim otherwise have listened to too much of Ross Perot's "direct electronic referenda" rhetoric.

The founders of this country were well aware of the problems attendant with democracy as a form of government, they were classically educated and had all read their Plutarch (democracy will invariably degenerate to mob rule). Consequently, they adopted a system based on elected representation, where the people, who in the course of their daily lives as farmers or bankers or whatever could not be troubled to know enough to make intelligent decisions about every issue confronting the country, would instead elect representatives, whose jobs it would be to make the intelligent and informed decisions. We can lament about how the republic has degenerated in its own way, but the reality is that the current system, with all its faults, is still the best there is -- we can work to improve it, but the last thing we need (for example) is a system whereby people vote to prevent the government from breaking up Microsoft because they like the fact that a 4-year-old can use Excel competently. In fact, if you read the Constitution, Article 4 Section 4 states that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," indicating that the founders' commitment against democracy extended beyond just the Federal government, down into the states as well.

The fact is, the public doesn't generally think things through very well, study issues, and understand the ramifications of its decisions. If you were to conduct a poll, I'm quite sure that most people would oppose milk price supports; what they don't realize is that without those supports, most dairy farmers would go out of business, the industry would be controlled by a handful of mega-producers, and they'd be paying twice as much for milk as they do otherwise. Unpopular government exercises generally do serve a purpose, and in many instances it involves getting the government we need rather than the government we say we want.



This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.

"Sometimes a little brain damage can help." -- George Carlin

... The United States is a democracy, has been a democracy since 1917, and was never intended to be a democracy.

The only Republic like facility we still share is the famed electoral college which also does not operate as intended. US Constitution

To explain further:
Since 1917 Income Taxes Authorized. and United States Senators to Be Elected by Direct Popular Vote.
Now you have to understand how things worked before to appreciate how they work now.

Before 1917, the census roles were used by the federal government to determine the tax burder of each of the *STATES* so it was the states which held the power of the country. The federal governement could not dictate to the states any laws by using monetary incentives. Along with the money that was collected the States (ie. the State Governments) sent Sentors, essentially their limited grip on the -- not infinite supply -- of money. This is why budgets go from house to senate. BTW: If a Senator shirked his responsibility he could be recalled and replaced ... usually the Senator was a very known quantity however, having been a respected member of the State's own house.

Since 1917 we have seen many ways that the federal government as forced states to act according to it's wishes. 55 mph speed, 21 drinking age, sane lanes. These were all accomplished through hold back of payments collected directly from the citizens of the states. Direct taxation is one which cannot be avoided. If you tax land, I can choose not to own land, but I have no choice on whether I choose to have an income. It is therefore unavoidable and before 1917 unconstitutional. Because now the money supply is essentially infinate. We are a democracy because we can, and have, act like one. The processes that have kept us from being a democracy have been derailed.

Who has the gold makes the rules. Who makes the rules and how the rules are made are exactly what is central to a republic.

A rough parallel would be if the UN could tax the citizens of all the world directly and then hold back payment(s) to the countries that the UN wanted to force policy changes within.

The only Republic like facility we still share is the famed electoral college which also does not operate as intended.

I disagree. Your arguments about direct election of Senators are a good indication that the United States has ceased to become as Federal as it once was, but don't bear on the fact that it's a republic and not a democracy. It doesn't matter that the extra tier was removed between the people and their elected senators (that tier being the state legislatures which used to designate senators), the senators are still delegated representatives whose responsibility is to make decisions on behalf of the public; that is, by its very nature, a republic. Nor does it matter how taxes are collected, or whether they are collected from the people are the states. You've effectively confused federalism with republicanism....

Like I said in my earlier post, the only people who are seriously discussing democracy in the US are the Perot groupies with their rhetoric about "direct electronic referenda". Just because we've effectively eliminated through constitutional amendement an extra layer between the people and some of their representatives does not mean we've fallen down the slippery slope into democracy. If you want to be particular about areas where we have, there are a number of conservatives I know who have real issues with the "Oregon System" (statewide ballot initiatives) adopted by a number of states, because it (1) does trample down that slippery slope and (2) appears to be unconstitutional under Article 4 Section 4 that I discussed previously.

Not that I disagree with you entirely in philosophy, however: the break from federalism that we have made has had fairly substantial consequences, many of which are negative. Like you said, the ability of the federal calf to wean itself off the tax teat of the states with the income tax has resulted in a far-less-restrained federal government than was originally envisioned. On the other hand, the relative drop in importance of the states has helped forge more of a national identity in the last several years, where people consider themselves "Americans" more than "Nutmeggers" or "Hoosiers," and that is in-and-of-itself arguably an improvement; I myself have lived in five different states during the last five years, migrating as my needs progressed, something I'm quite sure would have been unthinkable had I perceived myself as a fiercely committed and patriotic "Idahoan."

In fact, it is arguable that we are, by creating communities in the virtual realm that are forged out of common interest rather than common geography, effectively rendering irrelevant governments themselves which are predicated on common geography. Do I, for example, have more in common, in terms of political interests, with the people who live three miles away on the other side of my current town, or with the people three thousand miles away on the other coast who practice the same profession I do and have remarkably similar social and economic interests? In my case, it is quite clearly the latter, yet my voice is heavily diluted by having the intermediary layers of our republic divided along geographic boundaries. Will states ever be completely obsolete? No, somebody has to collect the garbage and franchise electric utilities. But in twenty-first century America, has their relative importance diminished? Certainly, and that is not altogether inappropriate, for the reason I described above.



This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.

"Sometimes a little brain damage can help." -- George Carlin

The death penalty has been abolished in a lot of countries because those countries pander to the whims of groups like Greenpeace, Amnesty International and the UN. They don't have the balls to tell these groups (one of which is starting to look like an attempt at world governance) to go fuck off because the application of one soverign nation's laws has ZIP to do with another's..
"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin, 1755

A large portion of the /. population is, while often educated and knowledgeable, extremely narrowminded and biased.

And that guy who ate human body parts.. what was his name..

he probably helped an old lady across the street once..

I have never in my life seen a Kettle that wasn't black. Not just black, but the Kettle PR department spends all it's time and money convincing my Mom that their pretty 'dark brown' kettles are the best.

The Kettles have always been black. This kettle is black. I expect the next kettle I see to be black.

Kettles are black, and I'm calling them on it.

In other news, MPAA is helping consumers by preventing copyright violations, SDMI is useful for consumer and music artists alike, and rich corporations are found to be the least arrogant of all commercial entities.

Yeah, and next we'll see cloned bulls from cloned bulls. Sure.

A scare campaign is the easiest campaign on earth to run- especially about things most people don't understand - computers, economics & law.

If that is the best MS can do they really need to worry.

Go grab the PDF file, and read for yourself how loaded these questions are. Here's a quick sample:

<RANT> Most regulations are not designed to specifically slow down technical innovation. How do we know a priori that a given regulation will slow down innovation? Sure, a regulation could be designed to do that specifically, but in most cases, regulations are meant to stimulate and guide industry, while curtailing harmful practices that hurt everyone in the long run. This question begs the person being asked to oppose this particular form of regulation (regulate to slow down innovation), and then tacitly extends the answer to cover all possible forms of regulation.</RANT>

*sigh*

Alot of the questions are of this form. Go read it.

Good, Quick, Cheap: Choose Two.

Other examples are the government ban on thaladomide, the closing of love canal, the unwarranted declaration of war upon peacefull Germany in 1939, and banning those xray machines in shoe stores that people used to use to look at their feet thru their shoes.

thanks for setting /. straight.

Or the US Government requiring all new PCs use MS Windows and MS Office.

M$ wouldn't have got our of control without the help of the government.

The government would do 3 studies and then take 6 years to grab the water hose if their ass was on fire.

Yep, that's about how long it is taking for them to finally take care of MS.

The first question on page 5 is a false dilemma, both options can be true. ("Some people say that MS has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say MS's business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with?") Since 95% of the respondents have only a limited experience to base their opinion, they're likely to think that since Windows and Office work fine for them, MS has help consumers.

Although the "break-up" question is better in that it is not a false dilemma, but the number of repondants that are clueless (95%) remained the same. Given the general cluelessness, it's not surprising that most people would rather take less invasive action.

Walter Lippmann's classic Public Opinion specifically talks about the problem of relying on public opinion when the public doesn't really have a grasp of the situation. It doesn't matter that 63% of people don't want MS broken up since 95% of the public doesn't understand the issues involved.

Not to even mention the probability that, of those who "closely" or "somewhat closely" follow the trial, the definition of "follow the trial" actually means "accept without question whatever Ted Koppel says about the trial".

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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
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QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up slowing the pace of technological innovation

The same asi saying "if you knew the government is evil, would you be against it?". The answer is obvious.

--
this is the last post of the milenium. buy now

> History has shown us that ALL regulations have thwarted innovation. Look at when the government granted AT&T a monopoly on phone service.

Try this statement instead: History has shown us that ALL monopolies have thwarted innovation.

In the AT&T example, when the government (finally) broke up AT&T, innovation flourished. This situation is exactly the same as the Microsoft one. You picked the very example I think of often...for the opposite argument.

(And, yes, I know the government gave AT&T its monopoly. People make mistakes. Governments make mistakes. But in this case, our government corrected its mistake.)

All [people polled] said they vote regularly in general elections.

Since the voting rate in *national* elections (which tends to get the highest percentage of eligible voters voting of any level of government) is around 60% (IIRC), we can conclude either that:

1. The polled are prone to exaggerating or lying on surveys
2. The polled do not constitute a representative sample (or a random sample) of Americans

Just a thought =)

I go for penguins -- Lyle Lovett

Question 1: STATEMENT: Increased government regulation and litigation of the Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices.

Loaded question number one. Litigation => lawyers. Higher costs are inevitable in this scenario, and not surprisingly, over half the respondents thought this was the case. Had they bothered to separate regulation from litigation it's not so clear what the answer would be.

Question 2: Do you think increased government regulation, including the regulation of software design, will have a negative or positive effect on the high tech industry and companies, like Microsoft, to innovate and bring new products to consumers?

This is another interesting slant. Regulation of software design? Wow. Just load those questions with negative impact - the idea of regulating software 'design' would have the whole of Slashdot up in arms faster than a DVD case. Funnily enough, over half the respondants felt this was a bad thing too.

Question 3: The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing Microsoft. How closely are you following the trial - very closely, somewhat closely, or not closely at all?

Now this is an interesting question. And the answer is very revealing - only 5% of the respondants were paying close attention to the trial. So this survey, even given it's headline claim of 63% Americans thought that breaking up MS was a bad thing, actually managed to pick a group of people who were split between having occassionally heard of the MS vs DOJ case and those who haven't followed the case at all.

I could go on. Most of the questions are too loaded to be worth discussing. If you are planning on spending money on a real survey, just remember that you must not lead the interviewee by loading up your questions one way. I would also suggest asking questions in random order. Once you find someone leaning one way at the start of a questionnaire, people tend to follow that path. So, had the questionnaire started with:

Question: If there were more alternatives to the Microsoft Windows platform available to you at lower cost, would you be interested?

... and ...

Question: If the MS vs DOJ trial results in Microsoft being broken up and you end up having a wider choice of quality software for your computer as a result of the increased competition in the software market, would you be interested?

... the results might just have been different :-)

Cheers,

Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.

• Do you agree or disagree with Increased government regulation and litigation of the Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices. First question, sets the tone of the survey.
• Do you think increased government regulation, including the regulation of software design, will have a negative or positive effect on the high tech industry and companies, like Microsoft, to innovate and bring new products to consumers? Second sentence, and the associative principles have now set in that technology == microsoft. Further, this is about innovation and consumer interest.
• third question finally asks whether the respondents are following the Microsoft trial. All I'll note here is that there are only three choices - very closely, somewhat closely and not at all - and that "not at all" is 44% for the population as a whole. I wonder what would have happened if they'd added the fourth choice between somewhat and none to get a balanced Leikert scale?
• As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsoft's business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more? The earlier questions have biased the respondents to support Microsoft. Please remember how many of these people are following the case "somewhat closely" or better.
• And my favorite, a sequence of questions which all use this format: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat? Notice the amazing jump from the DoJ considering any regulations to the assumption that any such will raise the cost. And, of course, the sudden switch to 4 choice Leikert scales.

-Elendale (That's a pretty big number, if you think about it...)

So I am not surprised that a bunch of part-time users don't feel harmed. They have their WIMP interface and their PowerPoint and they think they've got it made. They don't appreciate problems like software bloat and embrace-and-extend strategies.

The media have done a nice job of speculating about an MS breakup, but they have done a poor job of explaining what MS has done wrong. Are you really surprised a majority don't support major penalties?

After reading the poll beginning to end, I have no choice but to conclude the poll was not-so-subtly biased in Microsoft's favor.

Example:

Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsoft's business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more?

Another example:

Some people say Microsoft has strong competitors -- they point to the recent merger of America Online and Time Warner, as well as companies like Sony, Sun, and Apple. Other people say Microsoft doesn't have strong competitors. Which side do you agree with more?

In short, this poll radiates bogusity.

-- WhiskeyJack

Here is the survey:

I'm going to read a statement and would like you to tell me if you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with it.
STATEMENT: Increased government regulation and litigation of the Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices.

QUESTION: Do you think increased government regulation, including the regulation of software design, will have a negative or positive effect on the high tech industry and companies, like Microsoft, to innovate and bring new products to consumers?

QUESTION: The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing Microsoft. How closely are you following the trial - very closely, somewhat closely, or not closely at all?

QUESTION: As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsoft’s business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more?

QUESTION: Recent press reports suggest that the Justice Department will seek to break-up Microsoft into separate companies. Do you favor efforts by the government to break-up Microsoft, or do you think a penalty like break-up would be too extreme given what you know about the case?

QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up slowing the pace of technological innovation, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would give government the power to decide how to design parts of Microsoft's software, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

QUESTION: Some suggest that regulation of Microsoft will require the creation of a new government office or agency. Do you support or oppose the creation of a new government office or agency to regulate or monitor Microsoft's business practices? Do you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

QUESTION: Some people say Microsoft has strong competitors - they point to the recent merger of America Online and Time Warner, as well as companies like IBM, Sony, Sun, and Apple. Other people say Microsoft doesn't have strong competitors. Which side do you agree with more?

To summarize: That survey said *nothing*

Also they fail to say wether knowledge of the case had any impact. And just calling registered voters creates a bias too (even if that probably does not matter here).

I actually *tried* not to be partial here, but that was one of the most crappy surveys I'vs seen (and i've seen some)

All opinions are my own - until criticized

As a political consultant, I would not have my candidate base his decisions on this poll. But in the same capacity, I would use this poll to spin a press release.

The poll is biased in it's sampling of only regisered voters (although polling public at-large would, I think, generate a higher percentage of "Don't break up MS" responses.) The poll questions are slanted with heavy libertarian phrases. Finally, the break-downs provide only limited information (although Mason-Dixon may have provided ATL with a more detailed break-down that they didn't publish.) This isn't a crappy poll, it's a poll that was clearly intended to produce a certain result. As we can all guess, that last fact won't get any play in the general press.

As I mentioned in another reply to another thread, this poll is useless to determine a course of action. It would be more useful if we could see the results from just the 5% of respondants who know what they were talking about. This poll is misinformation. It reflects on the most vague assumptions of the public.

The danger with this poll is that it will be reported unquestioned. The general public will hear neither about the biases in it, nor about the significant problems in its methodology. Instead, the public will hear about the poll and incorporate into their "pseudo-environments" that MS is good. Then, when time someone asks them about MS, they'll just reguritate that MS is good.

In more /.y terms...it's FUD.

All opinions are my own - until criticized

If popular opinion rule, we would still have slavery, Jim Crow Laws and the civil rights movement would have been for nothing.

Maybe the US Government should do like the old English common law and deny MS protection under the law unless they make restitution. That would be a worse penalty than any of the current proposed penalties.

Furfu!

Stephan

How dare they compare themselves to me! I'm not a useless, afunctional load of code. I work.

Check it out at C/Net

Question: Some people say Microsoft has stifled competition with it's business practices. Other people say that consumers benefit from the reliability of their products. Which do you agree with more? [emphasis mine]

Oh, that's good! Give yourself a cookie for that one.

Schwab

As Mr. Z's comment points out, the survey questions were of the unfair "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" variety.

Back in the spring of 1998 Microsoft attempted to orchestrate a "Grassroots" movement, in which they staged a phony letter writing campaign to the press. Here's a little article about the incident, from the Detroit News, "Microsoft may try to orchestrate grassroots support":

"...The Los Angeles Times, in an article Friday, disclosed plans for a media strategy that includes opinion pieces and letters to the editor that appear to be local testimonials but are written by Microsoft's publicity machine..."

"...The documents reported by the Los Angeles Times, some labeled as draft copies and carrying [MS Spokesman] Shaw's name, stated that the media blitz was "geared to generating leverageable tools for the company's state-based lobbyists" and positive press clippings that "state political consultants can use to bolster the case..."

I'll bet this latest survey will be used as part of their "Freedom to Innovate" program. Here's a little quote from that page:

"...Contact Your Elected Officials Think your public officials need to hear from real consumers about Microsoft and the industry? Send them an e-message..."

"...We formed the Freedom to Innovate Network (FIN) as a response to the overwhelming amount of correspondence we received from around the U.S. and overseas regarding the trial with the Department of Justice and other public policy issues. The FIN is a non-partisan, grassroots network of citizens and businesses who have a stake in the success of Microsoft and the high-tech industry..."

So let's all do as they suggest, and "Contact Your Elected Officials" and let them "hear from real consumers about Microsoft and the industry." And then let's see just exactly what our congressmen think of MS's tactics.

Although Microsoft is a native-born American citizen, it is younger than 35 years old and if elected it will be unable to serve. Its Regent, Bill Gates, is expected to act on its behalf until it becomes legal President.

Now there's an idea - you don't get directly involved in lobbying on your own behalf - you support a bunch of other groups and let them lobby for you?

1) The survey questions were formulated to elicit responses that produced the resulting numbers

2) The public at large knows little about Microsoft's business practices or the DOJ suit agains MS

3) The public at large knows so little about technology that their opinions about it bear the same weight that their relative benefits for new prescription drugs might

4) Large corporations are centers of lots of money and ambition, and tend to do stuff to further the wealth and ambitions of their owners/employees

5) MS is a large corporations and tends do lots of PR work which is shady and underhanded to further it's own ends

Let's talk about something more interesting now.

I particularly liked how many of the questions seemed to come from the assumption that anything that the DoJ does that might change how Microsoft does business is somehow going to cost comsumers more money. What proof exists that this would happen? Well, of course there's the additional cost of the lawyers that Microsoft'll have to hire to ensure that they're in compliance with those heinous regulations. And you know it's going to cost Microsoft a ton of money to design (actually it might jut be that they'll need to introduce an actual design phase into their software process (wink)) software that plays nice with other vendor's software.

Really, this is just more Microsoft FUD designed to turn public opinion against the DoJ. (``You know, Bill, we could raise prices and make consumers believe that those additional costs are directly due to the government's case against us. Those sheep'll believe anything.'')

Guess I need to put smileys in my posts so that the Microsoft drones can tell when someone's poking a little fun at something.

I was a Word user back when it came on floppies and ran on my XT clone with a CGA adapter and watched become the most bloated hunk of junk I could imagine. I can't imagine the so-called ``effort'' that went into turning Word from a nice little word processor into the monster that it is today. I don't know anyone who bothers to learn what Microsoft passes off as essential features. There's so much crap in it that most people glaze over when they try to do something that they used to be able to do in previous versions. And what's their problem with file format consistency. If Microsoft is putting any effort into their software ``design'' it's aimed toward screwing their customers into spending more money for a new version of a product that they don't need but have to buy because the newer versions make using their own already paid for version essentially unusable (``Sorry Bill, couldn't read your document. My version of Word doesn't recognize the Word document format du jour that you sent me.''). Is there some burning need, beyond making working software break, that requires changing the format of a document? I cannot see anything new to Word that requires this.

While you might not like recompiling code, I've still got code that was written way back when my home UNIX setup was Coherent running on a 2MB 386 (dual booting to Windows 3.1). I can still use that code today. The version of vi that I used back then is still available and runs under Linux and I'll bet that it'd even compile nicely on my Tru64 box at work. I can barely read old Word documents from that time using the new versions of Word without losing a good portion of the formatting. Gee, my code still works but my data is invalid. How does Microsoft's design effort allow this to happen unless breaking your data was part one of the design goals?

``Whatever the artisans in the "bazzar" come out with this week gets piled in.''

That's: ``bazaar'' (call me picky). Although I can see how some programmers used to working on a large corporate environment might see that as ``bizaare''. You should spend a little time reading the dialog that takes place on Kernel Traffic and you'll find, I think, that not just anything makes it into Linux. The discussions that take place there are the equal to any design meetings that I've ever been involved in. And just as heated, as well.

And yes, I am a big fan of Linux. If you looked at it and were able to get past its not having a ``Start'' button, you'd see the underlying design and how consistent it is. Of course, being a long time UNIX user I've had the time to become familiar with the UNIX way of doing things. Most people fail to understand a new operating system because of all the baggage they bring with them. Mainframe users griping about their PC because that they can't find the PF1 key, VMS users complaining that UNIX needs to have God's own editor, TPU, before they use it, etc.

What was it that Benjamin Disraeli (already then!) used to complain about? Oh yes:

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

--
``Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose.''

But even more damning is the lack of need for the ATL. Couldn't most, if not all, of the ATL's main goals fit withen the charter of the Business Software Alliance or the Software & Information Industry Association? So, why aren't we seeing a survey from the BSA? Or at least a responce from the BSA? If more of us email the BSA about this then maybe we can get an unbias survey conducted.

I found it very interesting that, even though only Microsoft employees were polled (hey, it's in the findings, as cited in earlier posts), 37% of them agreed that the company should be somehow punished or compromised. Let me clarify that: It's odd that only 63% of respondents felt that their bread and butter should not be diminished in some way.

If there's any truth to these stats (and I personally don't think there is; it is a blatant push poll after all), I'd be very afraid if I were Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer. A sizeable number of my employees wouldn't object in principle to the compromising of my empire.

Any thoughts?
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"I sometimes wonder why some people don't like John Tesh. And then I realize it's because he sucks." - Anonymous

Not only is M$ a founding member of ATL itself, but they're behind some of the other ATL members too, e.g., ACT. They're heavily involved in others, e.g., Clarity.

There's more (but I don't think I can stomach any more right-wing conservative propaganda. Yikes.

-- This .sig intentionally left meaningless.

Someone, I figure this is directly related.

Cheers,

Didn't M$ do *exactly* these things? I am fairly certain they did the first, or something very similar, with the Netscape browser. I believe they also did the second, but I don't recall specifics there.

Now, I actually agree with most of what Kevin said, but I don't want to think that M$ has not abused its power. Their business practices *are* reprehensible, and they should be punished; I just don't see how breaking them up is going to help.

One question reveals that significantly more Democrats would support a government regulation even if it meant that technological innovation would be slowed. In other words, Democrats are more likely to agree with the unabomber that technology is bad, and they are more likely to think that the government would never make a regulation if it were harmful.

Another question reveals that significantly more Democrats would want to see Microsoft regulated even if it meant they would have to pay more for software. In other words Democrats are more likely to prefer to see everyone equally poor than to see a world where everyone is wealthy but some are much more wealthy than others.

This guy's post referred directly to two questions on the survey, and the survey WAS the topic.

There sure is some funky censorship on Slashdot.

Guess who is one of the Founding Members of ATL.