Thanks - I was after responses, not mod points, and have been educated by the responses I've got.

I was being deliberately provocative, because I wanted insightful answers why Microsoft isn't the way to go in this field.

Sorry I got modded up, but that's /.

Cobblers.

The correct reaction to 'piracy' is to enable the consumers of 'pirated' goods to access your content at reasonable cost - a cost that makes the 'pirated' goods less likely to be consumed.

The content producers have to face reality - they are charging too much for their product, especially in a world where disposable income is not only decreasing, but has other calls (mobile phones, games consoles, beer) on it.

Their problem is that their pricing model hasn't changed since the 1970s, when the other demands on disposable income did not exist, and digital formats for media did not exist either.

Now that people have less of their disposable income to spend on content, and the means exist for the virtually cost-free exchange of the content, the content producers need to bite the bullet and change their pricing and marketing models.

Face it - copyright laws intended to protect physical products aren't appropriate to the digital realm, and a new approach is needed.

That's unlikely to be the case in the HPC market, though - Microsoft will never get the penetration it would need to control that market.

Browsers are a different matter - Microsoft already had a near monopoly on the desktop when it shafted Netscape with the vastly inferior IE.

Microsoft is trying to enter a market here that they don't stand a chance of controlling, mainly for bragging rights - I think that's got to be good for the market as a whole, because as I said, they have a lot of bright people working for them, and may bring some useful tricks to the party.

I hate to defend Microsoft, but...

Crap hardware support? Who cares - you're running numerical calculations, not a bloody game on some tossy video card.

Crap vendor support? This vendor will have been given full support by Microsoft, and will be equally supportive of their users.

Performance? They're in the top 10.

Stability? If you're not dealing with odd hardware / crappy drivers, Windows Server versions are actually fairly stable.

Why not run your compute nodes under Windows?

You can actually run Windows Server 2000 and above headless, removing any GUI overhead - so why not?

I still agree that on any particular hardware configuration, Linux or another *nix will likely be faster, but your experience of desktop applications doesn't necessarily translate to HPC.

Well, since the arse is likely to fall out of the office applications market soon (due to Google Apps and Open Office), perhaps Redmond has decided to take HPC seriously?

I'm no Microsoft fan, but so long as their HPC solutions don't require any vast learning curve, then I welcome their interest in the market - they have developers (and chairs) to throw at it, and diversity is A good Thing®, surely?

Arr, ye scurvy landlubber - that be a galley ye were looking for!

An' there be plenty o' reasons for lassies on ships, me hearty :o)

The GGGP was specifically referring to using rail for long haul, trucks for short, so I was tailoring my response to that idea.

OK, so you may not have the infrastructure in place now, but for us Europeans, who are overexposed to Russia for our natural gas supplies, it's a good idea.

I reckon you could produce a truck with acceptable performance (but less range) very easily with this technology - especially if you only need short-haul capability.

For you bass/spl junkies it could sense demand and crank up a few more coils.

I live in a house with no double glazing, on a street where youths in pimped-up shopping trolleys regularly make a right racket outside my front windows.

Please don't give the little buggers any ideas - it's enough of a pain having to go outside and threaten them as it is :o)

They obviously aren't a legitimate commercial enterprise, though - their actions in attempting to transfer control of the botnet on Saturday prove this.

To use your 'war on drugs' analogy, they are like a bunch of dealers operating under cover of a pizza delivery service.

They get shut down, and people like you whinge because you liked their pizza, even though you never bought their drugs.

Get over it and choose a different pizza joint.

Apparently TeliaSonera shut down the link as soon as they realised what was happening - the contract was through a proxy company.

See the Register article for more details.

So we can't really blame TeliaSonera.

Why the spamming bastards didn't just courier a hard drive to Russia instead is a mystery, though.

Q: Whats the difference between GW Bush and Hoover?

One sucks, the other sells vacuum cleaners?

The appeal is to 'the common good' - and each individual weighs his or her actions against that common good.

It's pure practicality - there might be some short term personal gain from lying, cheating and ignoring the needy, but the thought of what sort of world would arise if everyone were to behave like that implies that the common good is best served by honesty and altruism.

My partner's a Christian - I'm an atheist, but our ethical standards are the same, because that's just the best way to live a life without screwing things up for everybody else.

Kant sums it up perfectly - 'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law' dovetails very nicely with 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'.

What's even funnier is that the DMCA isn't the law at issue here - it's the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 that is being used against filesharers.

I wonder if there is some wit in the Tennessee legislature having a good laugh at the expense of the RIAA?