I blame this on the OEM's who could have escaped the grasp of Microsoft but, in their haste, failed to ensure that the customer experience was a good one.

On the OEM side, the urgent need is to build a rapidly sale-able product. Microsoft is a good way to sell product for an OEM. Brands like Dell and HP sell lots of boxes with Windows on them. OEM's know this and tailor product accordingly. End users know Microsoft's Windows and are comfortable with it. Add to that the strong likelihood there are Marketing dollars committed by Microsoft to help sell the device.

If an OEM takes a huge chance and has an alternative OS, the business climate inside an OEM is as obsessed with capturing as much value as possible, so building their own distro seems like the best choice. Weird, but true. Look at the OEM that shipped Linux to Walmart. Their own distro.

What about Ubuntu? They can't possibly make a viable deal with an OEM. No money, no market penetration. Very little money in end-user sales like Ubuntu's so they will scrape along until the patriarch is tired of funding the project and fires most employees to get it breaking even.

It takes quite a bit to line up a deal where an OEM is shipping Linux. Especially with Microsoft discouraging the presence of Linux distro-equipped end-user devices like notebooks, tablets, phones, etc.

1. the supernode requirements suggest that most skype calls use some kind of NAT helper that proxies the call between two or more people. The 'brain' of the NAT helper (aka supernode) is centralized. There are very likely lots of conventional ways to halt supernode service if one spent the time to analyze supernode packets.

2. the fact that 2/3 of users can't log in is an authentication problem, not a 'calling' problem. The auth system has to be centralized.

It looks like ebay Engineering is going to be busy over the Christmas holiday!

100% accurate

Some of you should check the statistics on global smart phone dominance. You'll find Nokia in top spot by a very wide margin. Right now, it looks like more breathless anticipation for a platform that has a very, very long way to go to threaten Nokia's worldwide dominance.

You guys should try one sometime. The e7x series is great. Relatively open platform, lots of apps, total media freedom, total device freedom like tethering, turn it into a wireless access point, free maps/gps features, and reliable. The Communicator is awesome too. I couldn't afford to replace my old one.

I hereby dub thee, Android Reality Distortion Field.

They have plenty of stats already.

I had a 2003(?+/-) version of Office that contacted a server at port 80 every time the send/recieve went off. This was in a bulk-licensed office. I could deny the activity with the software firewall I had, but that stopped Outlook from downloading mail.

My current employer's Office 2007 license is the super-duper-no-holds-barred license bonanza for Microsoft version. I don't recall if it phones home.

Another nice one is the windows update still phones home even with the Windows Update service shut off. This is on XP and Server 2003. I don't know what it's doing, but it sure is doing it.

  I think Microsoft's management is strangling any notion of new and exciting features that might/might-not grow the product beyond a single quarter. Instead, more hard to explain features requested by customers number 1 and 2 that don't mean much to the rest of the world. The only thing left to do is make it cheaper/easier to get and look the other way.

Hardly a phenomena unique to the University of Illinois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois_clout_scandal

t Linux Security is somewhat atrocious these days with the whole security via obscurity approach

Your ideas are intriguing to me. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

News that matters.

Next up, Microsoft/Symantec/Cisco security product and costs 10's of thousands more! Can't leave the point-and-click jui jitsu black belts out.

Either we have a Constitution, and it applies, or it does not.

Why is this insightful? Human language, the U.S. Constitution in particular, is not a finite state machine.

And then you follow with an artful interpretation of the situation. Good work making us all poorer!

Every time I see Visa/Mastercard news I and dumbfounded at the ignorance some smart people have regarding payment networks.

1. visa and Mastercard are bank associations.
That means a bank can join either one. Banks can and do belong to both associations. Banks get revenue a variety of ways when they issue Visa/Mastercard products. That's why they join!

2. Payment services inflate the cost of all goods at a retailer who accepts cards and cash.
The consequence is the cost of all goods is inflated. Anyone familiar with the merchant end of accepting these payment types can fill you in.

3. The associations have a duopoly on payment services in the U.S.
Resulting economic activity is constrained by the duopoly and wealth is destroyed. Look up the Visa and Mastercard anti-trust rulings won by Discover and Amex.

4. Paypal is not a bank and does not have a bank charter. Not even a 'commercial' bank charter. Paypal is its own 'closed' payment system.

You too can start a payment system. So long as you do not cut into Visa/Mastercard's business, you will not be bothered.

Really. It's essentially a marketing front end. By itself, it does not generate revenue for Mastercard.

Prosecution in this case is an opportunity to fabricate 'damages' and 'lost revenue' from losing access to an electronic version of a brochure.

in reading the article, not compensating the owners struck me as just being mean.

Really? Run an equity into the ground in clear violation of untold number of regulations and reward the owner. That's going to end badly for everyone.

Think about it and apply this thinking to other things like, oh, banks for instance. How about extending it to any corporation in the industry you choose to dislike the most?

Sure, I had $30,000 worth of pirate software when I was in college, and I went legit after my student discount was up

And there you have it boys and girl. The exact reason why the vast majority of commercial software approve of violating the terms and conditions of using their software. You will in all likelihood become their customer.

And what about the other users who don't go legit? Well, you certainly don't want them to use your competitor's software, right?

Now, how does the evil BSA figure into this? Like the RIAA, they make an example out of an individual/organization to instill fear. Again, the idea is to discourage the violations, not actually prevent them from happening.

What Canon can do?

-With current available models nothing
-With future models blah... blah... blah...
-Hire people who really understands security

Having been on that side of the industry, there's no way Canon's putting a smart card chip in camera. Why? Cost mostly. And then there's the significant problem of communicating from the camera OS to the smart card chip. And then there's the significant increase in the cost of manufacturing.

They aren't going to hire anyone either. This decision was made long ago and the constraints are still cost and calendar. Both extraordinarily tight.

Canon will generally defame Skylarov to any agency that feigns interest and be generally dishonest about the whole thing.

So not only are you battening down the hatches for the present when you lay them off, you're mortgaging your future by destroying the core intellectual base for the stuff you have.

The buyers in this case and most others are not planning for a future. They are extracting as much wealth as possible as quickly as possible with no regard for a future that will never be. If it blows up in 2, 3, or five years is only a matter of finding more suckers to take money from while Novell's business prospects end.

People with a mindset like yours are not valued because you are not looking to extract maximum value today with only a pretty presentation and pro-forma statements. You might add a little value to a pillager's target that is with certainty headed to bankruptcy and dissolution, but that's about it.