How The Web Was Almost Won 287
radiator wrote to us with the latest writing from Tim O'Reilly, currently running on Salon. Tim, as always, does a great job writing, this time dealing with the Microsoft trial, the server market, and how close we really came to an Internet ruled by Microsoft.
World War II (Score:2)
I'm waiting to see who plays the role of Japan.
Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitive? (Score:2)
Re:World War II (Score:1)
Probably a cable company, or some other company that is not really a computer company but has the leverage to move the computer industry.
Steven Rostedt
An underemphasized moment in MS history (Score:3)
Speaking of not getting attention, I was amazed that Salon's recent "How Slashdot Will Destroy Society" article [salon1999.com] didn't rate a mention here. I wrote up a comment as soon as I saw the story, and was surprised that it wasn't linked here.
ServerSide Bullying (Score:1)
The War Has Not Been Won. (Score:3)
Back to my comments now - he's right about everything except one. Microsoft is winning hand over fist in the intranet market. By standardizing on one browser, one OS, and one platform, companies can more easily deploy things onto the intranet - add hooks to MS-word documents, place Powerpoint presentations and Excel worksheets about company performance on the intranet, and do collaborative projects.
By combining "directory" functionality into NT5 and W2K like LDAP only a thousand-fold more complex, Microsoft will gain in the intranet market what it lost in the internet market - control over the protocols and clients. They have a solid browser now... a full-featured office suite that blows the competition out of the water (hey - I don't care what you think about Microsoft; MSO is a damn good product, minus that damned Clippy guy).
The war is very much still on. We can't keep the internet open forever if all the networks connecting to it have Microsoft as their gatekeeper.
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Microsoft will still rule the web (Score:1)
If you can't call that controlling the web, I don't know what to call it.
A bit too far? (Score:1)
just how close? (Score:1)
Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:2)
No. The bottle necks in Linux are already being wrung out. But the Apache/Linux combo still outperforms todays bandwidth. As long as that is true, performance is not too much of an issue. Remember that this test was only on static pages. It would be interesting to see how the tests go on dynamic ones, and with the 2.4 kernel.
Also the Linux/Apache is still the best band for the buck (with the exception of maybe *BSD/Apache). I still believe that Linux will continue to advance in its development faster than any of the other *nixs and definitely MS.
Steven Rostedt
A close shave? I don't think so... (Score:2)
I don't believe in monopolies. Sooner or later it is doomed to crash: I have been living for 17 years in a perfect monopol - everything was run by one and single company, called The Party. Monopols are ineffective, and not stable, although they can persist for a certain period. Even if Microsoft was ten times bigger than it is now, I doubt it could ever monopolize the Internet - for a long time. Imagine the Internet, monopolized by MS, and Linux - coming up, say, five years later. Microsoft, having a perfect monopol, is expensive, really expensive, but its products have an even lower quality than today. In especially, security is a problem. Maybe in America MS stays a monopol for a long time: but in poorer countries, which cannot afford new hardware and $1000 for every update, simple, low-end solutions start to play an important role. The force of natural selection is very harsh, but possible gains are huge: therefore, evolution is quick.
No. I really don't think it could happen. And if it did, it wouldn't last very long.
I think I am in an optimistic mood today...
Regards,
January
Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:2)
Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:2)
First off, it's Netcraft [netcraft.com] that does the web server stats, not Mindcraft.
Is this bad? Granted, it'd be nice to see Apache-on-an-Open-Source-OS as the dominant "platform", but that's already the case, isn't it? Linux is not the be-all and end-all of server OSes. I couldn't find any OS stats on Netcraft, so I couldn't tell how Apache is broken up among Linux, *BSD, NT, AIX, Solaris, etc.
Also, as you said, Apache is largely platform independant, as long as your platform smells like *nix. (Although I don't know about how Apache runs on BeOS.) The Apache group admits that Win32 is a second-class platform for Apache. How important this is is debatable.
Godwin's law (Score:1)
Re:A bit too far? (Score:1)
Not getting attention (Score:1)
Go and read it, NOW.
Jón
Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:3)
Certainly, NT/IIS is faster than Linux/Apache at the extreme high end. But it's considerably less reliable, the OS has a greater overhead (both $ and speed :), and requires more time to maintain. In other words, you might save a few bucks on hardware, but you aren't getting a better deal.
Microsoft sucks. (Score:1)
Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:1)
Would you rather tires on your car that were rated to 1000 mph that had blowouts every ten miles to tires that were solid and only rated at 500 mph?
Re:The War Has Not Been Won. (Score:1)
.... which would explain the 'accidental' crippling of Lotus Notes as well.
Can't deny MS is a smart business (Score:1)
1) Control the beach-head (client)
2) Leverage the supply line (server)
3) Buy out the pipes (communications infrastructure) to charge transaction fees
4) Price the talent of the really smart people out of the reach of competition (stock options)
5) Dictate to the content providers to compete away their brand premium (AOL, media, etc)
It worked for the railroads and highway builders, why not communications and IT? Of course, now that the other big media groups are somewhat aware, perhaps the execution will be a little bit more difficult. The point of real interest is can a grassroot social philosophy (OpenSource) do anything except offer a temporary delaying action against the forces of big business and money?
I wonder what the stock markets will be like in 10 years time
LL
As if windows or msie were stable... (Score:1)
"Pages are written to work better with MSIE and have MSIE specific tags." Here is where you are right, and this is one of the bases for my dislike of Microsoft. The Web has the potential of being something great--a place where people using different computers running different OS's have access to uniform data. Microsoft, in the span of maybe five years, has absolutely destroyed this philosophy. Does MS own the Web? Not all of it, but enough to count.
Semper vigilens
Re:Microsoft will still rule the web (Score:1)
Bottom line, my objection still isn't the browser (IE is impressive most of the time), it's the combination of bloated, often-buggy code (NS is equally guilty here) with nasty market practices.
-Drayke
Re:The War Has Not Been Won. (Score:1)
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Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:1)
Oops...didn't realize you were talking about performance -- that is indeed Mindcraft. Don't mind me.
Re:A bit too far? (Score:1)
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Boy, this is delusional (Score:3)
Judge Jackson's analysis completely avoided the server side of the equation -- and it is the server which has turned out to be the real next-generation platform.[snip]Yet the most interesting new applications of the past few years don't reside on the PC at all, but on remote Web servers. I'm talking about Amazon.com, eBay, E-Trade, Yahoo Maps and so on.
I'm blinking but the words I'm reading don't change. Is O'Reilly expressing regret that Judge Jackson won't prevent Microsoft from growing its share in the server market? Excuse me, but Microsoft only has about a quarter of the world's web servers. They are decidedly an underdog. But because Tim prefers Linux, he wants to see MS legally crippled in every possible market, regardless of whether they enjoy any sort of dominance. This is where anti-trust can get ugly. Once the giant stumbles, the feeding frenzy begins. Everybody wants to have legal protection against competition, regardless of whether they personally have been wronged. Yes, Microsoft did a lot of bad things on the Internet and with OEM's and it will be punished. But web servers?
Microsoft argued, quite rightly, that it had the right to create two different versions of NT, with different price points, and different functionality. [snip] Microsoft's public rationale for the policy -- that it was protecting its customers because NT Workstation was not suitable for use as a server operating system -- was proven false by my colleague, former O'Reilly editor Andrew Schulman (working with Mark Russinovich). Shulman and Russinovich demonstrated that it was possible to convert NT Workstation to NT Server by changing only a few registry entries.
This proves exactly nothing. I'm amazed that Tim O'Reilly, of all people, would think that when you buy commercial software you are actually paying for the bits on the CD. Of course you aren't! Those bits cost next to nothing intrinsically. You are paying for the license, which in turn is the software company's way of recouping the salaries of its developers, testers, and managers.
If you buy a license for NT Workstation instead of NT Server, then you are agreeing to pay for the workstation features, but not for the server features. Thus you get a lower rate because Microsoft agrees to ship you a more restrictive license at a discount. If they also ship you other bits on the disk, it is illegal (although maybe not unethical depending on how you view piracy) to use those bits because you didn't pay the premium for them. I can see why you might not agree with that practice, but I don't see why is this difficult to understand.
The main point is that in each case, Microsoft used its power over the operating system to tilt the playing field in its favor, doing its utmost to crush the competition in a hotly contested Internet application area.[snip]In the server arena, Microsoft used a very similar tactic; it bundled the IIS Web server software with the NT operating system and then created roadblocks and financial disincentives for NT users to use alternate server applications.
I just installed Win2k two days ago, and IIS was indeed an installation option. If I didn't want to use it, of course, I could always turn the bitch off with a single click on the checkbox (for those who haven't installed NT server before, this is just like unchecking the checkbox for "games" or "accessibility" in win98). Simple as that - there is no integration, nothing to get in the way of installing Apache or any other server you please. What O'Reilly really wanted was for Microsoft customers who pay the lesser license fee for Workstation could nonetheless have server capacities by buying a comptetitor's product which would deliberately re-enable NT server functions through the registry, thus subverting Microsoft's licensing paradigm. In this way, users have a dubiously legal fiscal incentive to buy O'Reilly's web server instead of Microsoft's because Microsoft makes them pay for the NT Server functions as well as the IIS. I really have trouble understanding why O'Reilly could think this is irresponsible of Microsoft. On the contrary, it seems an obvious act of aggression on the part of the third party web server companies who are facilitating the theft of a server license from MS. Now, again, whether you think stealing a license is wrong is entirely another matter. But it is illegal.
Microsoft's IIS is today the number two Web server -- with 25 percent market share to Apache's 54 percent, according to an October survey conducted by Netcraft. But for the Justice Department scrutiny, might not Microsoft have mounted an all-out attack next on the open source technologies and open protocols of the Web?
Please tell me how this could have happened. Is O'Reilly saying that Microsoft is going to change HTTP so that it only works on IIS? With 25% of the market share that sounds about as stupid as I can imagine. Or, will they "embrace and extend" server-side extensions so that certain rich webpages will run only on IIS? They've already been doing that for ages. It's called "Front Page Server Extensions" and all it does is allow the web admin to enhance the content of pages on that web server. Now why, oh why, would that be in any way unethical. It doesn't violate a standard because it's server side and the user sees only the end result, regardless of their browser. It is, to put it briefly and sweetly, a feature. If the competition doesn't have that feature, and if customers want it, then whose fault is that? Not Microsofts as far as I can see.
It reminds me a bit of World War II. France (Netscape) has fallen, and the Battle of Britain is being fought for the Web, with the stalwart resistance of the Apache Group holding up the juggernaut till the rest of the free world can get its act together. Whether Linux and the rest of the open source movement, or the Justice Department and the courts, play the role of America, I leave to history to determine.
Godwin's law makes its sooty appearance once again. Microsoft wants to gain market share for its IIS? Hmm... that reminds me a lot of HITLER!
-konstant
Apache Numbers - Virtual Servers = ? (Score:1)
Now don't get me wrong, I think Apache is great and I run a site on it, and have steered others away from IIS/ASP to Apache/PHP, but...
What I'd really like to see is a count of servers by how many boxes run them. My site is on one machine with 150 others, so that's 150 for Apache. Meanwhile, the web startup I work for has fifteen clustered machines running IIS/SQL7 and that counts as one seat NT.
Obviously both sides are inflated by the virtual seats, but I get the sense that Apache benefits more from these numbers than MS...
-cwk.
How the web was almost won, part II (Score:3)
notice that they never said "you must get rid of your SGI boxes, fire your unix jockeys, and burn your copies of netscape server", but that was effectively what they were saying. since these proprietary web extensions could of course only be served off of NT/IIS, we needed to buy new hardware, hire new admins and cgi coders, and how long can you afford to support parallel hardware and software development paths? eventually you dump that which you're not contractually obligated to M$ to support, and goodbye netscape server. (by the way, i notice that they are still serving some of their content off of netscape server, but i recognize none of the names in the Interactive Technology department, so i assume they all left for this reason.)
now, what if this site was the one reason you went online? (i'm sure this isn't the case, but map the analogy to your favorite site...) when they finally go M$, do you just give up browsing forever? or do you just knuckle under and go get IE?
they put pressure on the browser/server wars from every direction, brilliant, evil, but not necessarily illegal.
Who's Russia? (Score:1)
So who's Russia? In a typically American* view of history, O'Reilly ignores that. Maybe he just does so for the purpose of analogy, but I think it might be interesting to think of IBM as Russia. A big behemoth that dominated, but was backstabbed by ally Microsoft/Germany, but is now mounting a strong recovery and is an important player in preventing Microsoft/German domination. In WWII, after all, Russia did as much or more than the West (granted, with aid). You can carry that IBM/Russia analogy pretty far, though it does require some future prediction.
* Yes, I am American.
DoS (Score:2)
Microsoft surely doesn't handle the routing of the Internet. I've heard of something called the UDP - USENET Death Penalty - whereby some ISP's are blocked from USENET.
Could something similar be done to prevent MS from usurping the net? Something like a refusal-to-route if certain protocols aren't followed or perhaps if bandwidth is consumed by all those propritary barnacles on MS-software produced documents?
This question should be considered in at least three ways:
1. Is it possible in code?
2. Could it be implemented?
3. Would such a thing be desireable?
Re:World War II (Score:1)
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
I want some of what you're smoking. (Score:1)
;)
Re:A close shave? I don't think so... (Score:1)
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
MS and their "Principles of Warfare" (Score:1)
1. The Web and the tech industry in general runs on the backs of smart folks. Microsoft's current position is due to Bill's cleverness.
2. I may be alone, but I don't think so, in thinking that I'm working to better society, and not just make money. "Yeah right" some readers are saying, but I wouldn't go to work on "The Campus" (microsoft) if they paid me a 2 million dollar salary.
So, back to what I was saying, if people in the tech industry are principled, ethical, clear-headed folks, item #4 (price out the talent) falls. The monster strangle-hold companies (like microsoft) have their knees cut out without the gray matter.
So why will OpenSource win? Because it makes sense. Because it's easy. Because it's free. I'm kinda interested to see what others think about this...
Semper vigilens
Mindcrafts tests don't saturate anything. (Score:2)
T-3
OC-45 (?)
10 base T
100 base T
1000 base T
Granted, gigabit ethernet isn't exactly common, but 5 T-1's is not the be all end-all in terms of high bandwidth. A busy intranet could theoretically bog down one a linux box sooner than a NT box. Supposing you had a help system, which wouldn't require much dynamically generated pages, there you go.
A real world application that this test could apply to.
Re:World War II (Score:1)
MMC as the standard breaker (Score:1)
MMC is the new 'wonder tool' for administration - one standard interface able to display a wide variety of information supplied by the server. (Gee, sounds like the web, doesn't it?) It relies very heavily on custom Active X controls, ASP and MS-Java. It requires IE5.0 to be installed (spot the bundling!). It vaguely uses HTTP, but breaks several standards, such as the URL forming rules. In short, there's no way that anyone else could supply a similar console using, say, Netscape.
So, once again, Microsoft is finding yet another way to ensure that its own products dominate the user base, and deliberately exclude competitors. But, most significantly, this is the standards perversion we had feared. Because, of course, you can't get a standalone program to manage those remote services (we're not just talking about NT here - MMC is required to maintain SQL, Exchange, and IIS).
So keep using Opera and Netscape - while you can...
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:1)
Since the tactics, and effects were the same, I believe yes, Jackson, and the DOJ's lawyers did overlook this area.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
You missed the point (Score:5)
The issue is that MS required you to effectively pay for their product in order to be able to use another product.
In other words, they realized that NT Workstation was much too viable a server platform using 3rd party daemons, and changed the license to make sure you were paying for the MS daemons. That's way more insidious than the bullshit about including a browser in the operating system -- clearly the webserver is not part of the OS here, but if you're going to use anybody's, you've got to pay for MS's.
I'm not sure if I consider that unethical or illegal. It doesn't really matter. No company is going to put up with that -- it's too direct an example of the Free software rationale: if you buy it from one vendor, that vendor can screw you. This has been demonstrated time and time again in the computer industry, starting with the original "renters" of mainframe technology in the 60s.
I could not in good faith recommend a completely proprietary system (i.e. one which could not be replaced by an equivalent system provided by another vendor if necessary) today. It's too dangerous -- no company should be willing to take that risk.
Re:Will Linux and Apache continue to be competitiv (Score:1)
At a certain point, it was cheaper to write that code, and buy less quantity of hardware to obtain the same service level. But that point is probably far beyond any web site's needs today.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
www.webjump.com did it (Score:1)
Good title, wrong story (Score:2)
First, the action to limit connections to NTWS was outrageous, perhaps, but perfectly within the limits of reasonable action. Non-Unix OS's have charged per connection for quite some time. If they insist you need a more expensive license for unlimited connections, that seems perfectly within their rights.
The real danger from MS is using non-open protocols to run their browser. And they're making major inroads in that area right now. The web integration of MS Office with IIS and IE is the kind of thing that I'm really hoping Judge Jackson does something about.
IIS inherently gains certain advantages in the corporate area, since many places wish to standardize on a single OS (to lessen training costs for one thing). But directly using their desktop application advantage to force use of their server (through proprietary protocols, etc.) is exactly the kind of thing that this lawsuit was about.
Intel only? (Score:1)
It looks like intel is the only architecture in question here. I think that until "Hotmail" is run by NT servers, noone with brain should say that NT is very high-end.
Solaris is very highend. There is a difference between beeing good and beeing the best. If linux is upto it remains to se
you post too much (Score:1)
Yeah yeah SOMEONE will moderate this down, but before you do, take a look at his User Info [slashdot.org]. Some flames are deserved.
Blah.
Thank God For Open Source (Score:2)
Thank God for BIND, Apache, Perl, Linux, BSD, Emacs, etc.
Please, support Open Source software. Send in a check, buy a product, order a book. They are the only ones out there fighting for us. MS is only fighting for its shareholders.
Re:Microsoft will still rule the web (Score:1)
Front Page is a perfect example of using a position of power in one area to try and exert power in another area. The bundling of Front Page makes it easy for companies to build sites themselves rather than paying a good web designer to build one.
Most companies don't care that Front Page creates slow, shoddy HTML, with inappropriate use of frames. They've got one of those 'new fangled' websites they hear they need to survive. MS leverages this IT ignorance in decision makers. The saying used to be No one gets fired for buying IBM but in the minds of corporate purchasers and middle management decision makers it is now a case of No one gets fired for buying MS.
The greatest threats MS faces are:
- Technical people getting decision making powers (requires techs to talk in terms of business cases), and
- Decision makers becoming IT literate (requires techs to educate the great unwashed).
It will continue to be an uphill battle while MS can appear to make life easier for users with one hand and break standards (and reduce competition) with another.MS may have lost some battles in trying to gain control of the server market and the web, but the 'war' is not over yet.
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
In other words, they realized that NT Workstation was much too viable a server platform using 3rd party daemons, and changed the license to make sure you were paying for the MS daemons.
This all boils down to one question: Can you run an httpd on an NT Workstation box using none of the NT Server code implemented by Microsoft that you did not pay to license?
If the answer is Yes, then you are correct and MS behaved badly. If the answer is No, even for a handful of DLL's, drivers, API's, whatever, then MS is completely within the law.
-konstant
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:2)
The second point O'Reilly was saying is against MS' rational for not letting the users use server options with the workstation. that it was protecting its customers because NT Workstation was not suitable for use as a server operating system This is saying that the Workstation version is not made for acting as a server. Thus they showed that it was basically the same code as the server with some options turned off. Their argument about the Workstation version is not valid. No where did they say, don't use it with server functions because you didn't pay me for it. If the money for the Server is for development, then so must be the money for the workstation. If I buy the workstation, why can't I use it the way I want? The competetion also paid for developers to make the workstation act like a server. The point O'Reilly made is that MS was upset that you used the workstation and paid someone else to make it into a server. This is called competition!
The third point, like you mentioned about paying for development and not the bits on the computer, is... I don't want to pay for the development of IIS. I should have a cheaper version of W2K without IIS that I can place Apache on. This isn't competition just because I can turn IIS off and use Apache. MS doesn't care because I already bought IIS! This is the case with IE. I don't want to pay for the development for IE and then pay for the development of Netscape. If it is bundled, that just means you paid for it, thus MS doesn't care if you use it or not.
It's like Caldera's arguement. They went to OEM's with their product, but was told that they have an agreement with MS that they must pay MS for every computer they sell, with or without windows. So why be forced to pay two companies for one system?
Steven Rostedt
Re:A close shave? I don't think so... (Score:2)
Regards,
January
IE on Mac sux (Score:1)
IE on MacOS is the *most* broken browser. This is because they had to "strip" the browser code out of Winblows "OS" just to port it to the Mac...
;)
Re:Apache Numbers - Virtual Servers = ? (Score:1)
Re:A bit too far? (Score:2)
Then somebody else said: Why? One operated in the political arena, the other the business. They are both meglomaniacs, and I imagine history would unfold the same way if they switched places.
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? Hitler was a mass murderer, a wildly fanatic racist, a man comsumed with hate who unleashed war against the entire world. He may be responsible for more suffering and death than anyone who has ever lived. You are loathsome for suggesting any such parallel.
I think Bill Gates is rotten, and that his comeuppance in federal court was richly deserved. But this kind of talk is disgraceful. Will somebody please moderate this idiot to negative infinity?
Re:Who's Russia? (Score:1)
Typical? Is that why cold war hungover ours heads? Because we ignored them and their history? Is that why it was a requirement at my high-school to study Russian/Soviet history and politics?
I don't think there is a "typical" American anyways. Not anymore.
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:1)
Only on IIS? Actually, You can get the FPSE working on almost any web server that supports SSE nowadays.
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Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:3)
Consider DivX. The movie was there on the disc, but you couldn't watch it unless you agreed to the merchant's terms. After all, when you buy a movie on DVD, are you paying for the bits, or are you paying for a license? There are certain implied restrictions on how you can use those bits, but those fall under IP law, not under the terms of the license agreement. No one thinks that movies should be controlled by this kinds of license, so DivX died. This happened not only because the terms were lousy, but because it got a lot of bad press as a result. I wonder what would have happened if there had been a similar stink about the difference between NT Server and NT workstation.
The idea that MS can set its license requirements to whatever it likes is specious. THE central theme of the trial is the underhanded way in which MS used its power as the dominant OS maker to position its applications. Why did they use such sneaky techniques? If you put "You cannot install any non-MS browser on this operating system" in the license, that would have made the DoJ's case MUCH easier. Such a license would be an obvious antitrust violation. But, this is essentially what they did, making it economically unfeasible from a business perspective to install a non-MS webserver on NT. It's a classic example of predatory behavior on the part of a monopoly.
Re:You missed the point (Score:1)
Steven Rostedt
Re:An underemphasized moment in MS history (Score:1)
I'm sorry, I read slashdot for the technology news and intrinsicly highly educated comments and analysis, at least here you can say there are no market forces or capitalist influences, and if there are they tend to balance each other out.
You will always get the rubbish, it's unavoidable even on
It seems to me that people are starting to fear
In my opinion this article is a compliment to the good ethos Rob and co. have created and long may it continue!
Another problem in the server war: Policies. (Score:2)
Two cases, same story:
I worked for small web projects of two different big, multi national companies. We had ready-to-run Unix based solutions at hand, but both companies had an NT-only policy.
Both projects were short-term, small things that could have been done on a temporarily installed Unix box. We had all the software ready, since we did those things required times and times before.
But it had to be NT, no matter what. We spent 90% of the project porting the code to NT; of course, it finally did not even work the way it should. (That one company's main network tech spent two days installing NT with direct premium support from Microsoft and still couldn't even get the basic services to run...)
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Re:An underemphasized moment in MS history (Score:2)
Maybe I'm missing something. It wouldn't surprise me considering the windbag, thesaurus abusing nature of Salon's writers.
Re:you post too much (Score:1)
Web War II (Score:1)
Intel = Japan
Intel can be considered the technological equivilant of japan for several reasons, the most obvious being that its allied with microsoft, the germany in our little analogy, the second bain that its big and powerful.
Public = America
The most powerful force, and also the most unwilling to become involved in the fray. The american public needs to be directly harmed in order for them to get involved in the war.
Justice Department = Russia
Clearly the justice department is russia, because just as russia had a "nonagression" pact with Germany, so Microsoft had an agreement with the government to not take advantage of its monopoly position. Also like Russia, theyre good while they beat up on microsoft, but heres where the cold war will be once its all over.
Linux/Open Source = England
Bravely defiant, but unable to take down the juggernaut by themselves, they need the help of "America" or "Russia" to deal the final blow, without the help of either, even Linux will fall
Apple= France
Capitulated on the outside, but with an underground like you wouldnt believe, plus, they have style, like the french.
IBM = China
The oldest tech kid on the block, like china, they have seen their once vast empire carved up by newcomers like MS and Intel.
The fronts:
Battle of the atlantic= War for the web
If MS loses this, they lose the war
Fortress Europe = OS Market
Linux needs to establish a beachead, perhaps with the help of the Apple underground heh.
Eastern Front = MS vs DOJ
The DOJ has been screwed, and now their out for blood.
War in the pacific= nonexistant at this point
The public has yet to really become involved in all these events, so far, their hasnt been a real pearl harbor to galvanize them.
I fail to see what people see in Office* (Score:2)
...sorry for ranting/running on but I feel people give it far too much credit. I've been using spreadsheets and word processing since before Wordstar and Lotus123, and ignoring the snazzier graphics/printing its net effect is pretty much negative. What annoys me most is that it is unnecessary--I know they could do better. Though I admit, they don't have any competition in terms of a complete Office Suite. Maybe Star Office...but they seem to be falling into a similar trap....but I digress....
Re:MS and their "Principles of Warfare" (Score:1)
So, back to what I was saying, if people in the tech industry are principled, ethical, clear-headed folks, item #4 (price out the talent) falls. The monster strangle-hold companies (like microsoft) have their knees cut out without the gray matter.
Your sentiments are very noble and I hope you get your chance to demonstrate your commitment. At this stage, I am reminded of the old saying, "If you're not a socialist by 20, you've got no heart. If you're not a capitalist by 40, you've got no brain".
Business is in the business of accumulating capital (ie wealth) and maximising its growth, usually by exchanging a slice of it (like from pension funds) for your time/labor/ideas. Good, bad or indifferent, the system has been structured to act that way through enforced laws and ingrained habits. The bottom line is that if you don't make enough to cover your own salary (or at least what the general market thinks you're worth working for another job), much less make a profit, then you (or your company) will get bought out and absorbed by a more efficient organisation. The only way OpenSource path can prove superior is only if it is more efficient at achieving business solutions or satisfying consumer desires. The evidence is still out on this but all is not lost as some studies show that cooperative behaviour creates long-term benefits (but as they say, in the long term we're all dead and giving away the fruits of your labor is not a obvious solution to paying bills the next day).
By the way, be prepared for the fact that some (or many) companies demand that you sign over every piece of intellectual value you create (even off-premises). Protecting yourself through foreknowledge is the only way to avoid becoming an economic slave to the system. Correct me if I'm wrong but some people complain that with the current starting salaries and cost of living in Silicon Valley, they are actually earning negative net income.
There's a reason why they call it the business jungle out there. Best of luck in your studies and in finding a worthwhile job when you get out.
LL
Re:Thank God For Open Source (Score:1)
Which they are pretty much required to do. Maximize profit for your shareholders, or get canned.
--
Apache-BeOS combo :-) (Score:1)
Re:You missed the point (Score:1)
What is the code that differentiates NT Workstation from NT Server? There is none and that is the point Tim O'Reilly made. The only difference was a registry setting.
If MS had said they were charging the extra $800 for the webserver and other related server technologies (DHCP, DNS, etc.) there wouldn't be an issue. I don't think MS was trying to implement a "web tax" as Tim asserted, rather it thought that most users would be too stupid to realize that they were being fleeced. The EULA stipulation that considered web connections as analagous to being a user was their attempt to protect themselves from the Tim O'Reilly's of the world who have half a brain and would figure out what was going on.
O'Reilly, Torvalds entirely too complacent (Score:2)
The objective is the same as in any war, the conquest of territory and resources. In this case, the territory is the servers of the world.
I agree with several posters in this and other threads, that the devastating problem is the integration of Microsoft's applications into the fabric of the web. This is what MS calls 'the digital central nervous system', and if they do achieve hegemony over it; they will have won the war.
It astonishes me that O'Reilly finds it merely 'ironic' that Judge Jackson didn't respond to the IIS-bundling/server-prohibition fiasco that is referred to in this article. As as citizen, I'm tempted to sue the Justice Department for malpractice! It's absolutely central to the Government's argument. I believe that, unfortunately, there is no lobby behind Apache (like there is behind Netscape, Compaq, AOL et al) so there was less interest.
You can almost be complacent with operating systems. You'll always be able to run Linux. It will be a wonderful standalone operating system. But, if the battle for servers is lost; you won't be part of the internet-space.
thad
Office is NOT a good product. (Score:1)
- Word is not that great. In fact, I don't find it useful at all. Granted, I use it for very few things, but every time I do, I feel like I banging my head against a wall.
- Excel - Excel is great for very simple graphs and data plots, I'll give you that. But if you want to do anything even remotely complicated, and it stinks.
- Curve fits. It only does a few types of curve fits, not including sinusoidal ones. Also, it only does exponential ones under certain conditions. If you don't give the data to it in just the right way, it'll choke.
- Copying Data. To copy values (just their numbers, not their formulas), requires my to click on "paste special" every time I want to use it. With several regions of data I want to do this with, such a process becomes very time consuming.
- It crashes, especially when you try and save. We use Excel heavily in Physics (that's why I find it annoying). Too many times to count, we do 15 minutes of work and then go to save our work and Kaboom! GPF! Excel crashes, and we loose all of our work. When doing a lab, this isn't just data we have to re-type. This is data we have re-do in the lab. This type of thing is very very annoying.
- PowerPoint Sucks. I've never actually used, and never plan to. My opinion of PowerPoint stems solely from all of the terrible slide shows I have had to sit through. I have one CSE class that is taught using only PowerPoint. It's the most boring, useless, impersonal way that I imagine for someone to make a presentation.
- Outlook is insecure and requires you to keep it open. If you want something to constantly check your mail (i.e. Biff), you have to leave Outlook open at all times; that's a major memory hog. Secondly, as proven by all of the recent virii, it's terribly insecure. Plus, all if it's calandering/tasking is pretty useless as far as I can tell.
- All the other products are jokes. Access might be good for keeping a address database, but that's about it. Frontpage is the second worst HTML producer I have seen (right behind Word). PictureIt! or whatever is obviously not a serious graphics package.
Am I forgetting anything? Basically, I'm sick of people whining about Linux not having Office, when every experience I have had with Office has been terrible unpleasant.- Clippy, as you mentioned, is terribly annoying and pops up at the most inopportune of times. Because of him, I don't ever want to go into the help. Some help system that is!
- Words formatting is terrible. I'm not sure if this is a problem with word processors in general or just Word, but its terrible at formatting things. If you want a table to look a certain way, you have to jump through 10 different hoops to get it close. Sometimes, you can't get it at all what you want. It's formatting simply cannot hold a candle to something like LaTeX/TeX.
- Its autoformating is counterproductive. My roommate, for instance, had to write a technical paper on the software project he is currently working on. One of the objects they use is called JSat. Of course, having two capitalized letters in a row, the Nazi-grammar checker in Word decides to rewrite it as Jsat. Very Annoying. As another example, at a meeting for this same software project that I attended, a team member was editing the agenda and typed "-------" to make a psuedo-horizontal line. Word automatically turned this into a long, horizontal line (one you might find in HTML). At first, he thought this was great. But then when he didn't want it anymore, he tried to delete it. Unfortunately, Word wouldn't let him even select the darn thing, let alone delete it. He still hasn't figured that one out, and our agenda still has a silly, useless line.
- The Equation Editor really stinks. Maybe I'm just spoiled at knowing TeX, but trying to get Word to display mathematical formulas correctly is the biggest pain in the arse I have ever had to deal with. Anybody who thinks their equation editor doesn't suck is crazy.
- Word crashes, especially when you try and print. Both my roommate and I have had this happen several times (him more than me). What's worse is that it doesn't just take down Word, it takes down the whole system!
In short, Word stinks because it goes way overboard and tries to do everything for you. This eventually makes very simple things very difficult. It's also very unstable.Animations do not help me learn. Sliding frames do not help me learn. Different colored text does not help me learn. Sounds do not help me learn. Being able to ask the professor/presnter questions does help me learn. PowerPoint combines all of the problems that TV and Videos have as a presentation tool, but without any of the advantages. It makes the presentation distant and impersonal without having the flexibility and quality a video can provide.
Anyone else realize why Office is not a good product? Or do you guys want to refute me and convince me that it's actually pretty good? Please, give me your input.
Web Warriors (Score:2)
While you may have an intimate knowledge of man grep, the foot soldier in this war won't ever use such a weapon. It's all in the numbers. the team with the most players win - hands down. Microsoft has been actively training it's Army for over 15yrs. Top to bottom, there are more Foot Soldiers in the M$ camp, then all of the rest of the Amry's combined.
In the Article, Tim says,
- "the most interesting new applications of the past few years don't reside on the PC at all, but on remote Web servers. I'm talking about Amazon.com, eBay, E-Trade, Yahoo Maps and so on"
99% of these new applications are for the "average" user. Hopefully, there will be an increasing effort towards "bridging" the gap between theGates = Hitler. (Score:1)
Re:Apache Numbers - Virtual Servers = ? (Score:2)
Re:Apache is losing ground! (Score:2)
I don't care about Apache. The issue is Microsoft, and they have lost market share for 6 out of the 7 last months. Their jump up last month was due to one large free hosting service switching over.
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:2)
Yes, but it is precisely this licensing model that is the problem, and it is Microsoft that had this stroke of evil genius. If I buy product X, which is essentially identical to product X+, but crippled to sell it cheaper, I feel ripped off.
Welcome to the world of market segmentation. Do you feel ripped off when you get that special discount air ticket that allows you to book holidays 4 weeks in advance? But surely (shock, horror) you get to your destination just as quickly as a first class passenger? The point is that the airlines deliberately add extra constraints and conditions to price match the demand of people and their willingness to pay. In effect, you pay extra for greater degrees of freedom (but don't tell the other passengers this
Now MS applies this principle to software and you think it is outrageous? I believe IBM had something similar with mainframe machines which were physically the same internally but had their clock speed governed by a hidden switch? If you didn't know about this switch, would you complain about paying less for a slower machine? Ignorance is bliss sometimes.
Differential pricing is not new and sooner or later, somebody will come up with an equivalent for the internet (e.g. jump to the head of the queue if willing to pay a premium). It would be very very interesting to see the pricing calculations and models MS (or any other software company) uses to determine market demand. Any ex-marketing guys out there?
LL
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:3)
I understand your point, but it sounds like you missed all the hubbub that was going around when this came to light. In fact, Microsoft plainly claims that you can buy two products (aside from Windows 9x): Windows NT server and Windows NT workstation. It also claims (and has claimed since several years ago) that IIS, DNS, etc. are FREE software that comes with the inherently better underlying operating system.
The discovery of the two "I'm not NT server" registry entries made a lot of people upset because it turned out that bit for bit, NT workstation and server are the same product. Microsoft WAS indeed selling the included daemons for the $800 difference between workstation and server. The biggest issue was that workstation has a client limit (5 clients I believe) that Microsoft says is inherent in its lower performance and NT -should- be used for anything larger. The fact of the matter is, they just put licensing restrictions into effect to prevent you from using more than 5 users on it.
Netscape server was often sold on the cost basis that although ISS was 'free' with NT server, Netscape server + NT workstation cost less than NT server and you could have a better webserver platform (a completely serperate argument). MS insisted through many many documents that Workstation was not -capable- of running a webserver and NT -should- be used instead. They didn't have a licensing problem here, just that they weren't making the money off of selling NT server (with its "free" and competing web server software). Netscape lost a lot of webserver sales because of this.
In fact, it didn't matter if you used the registry entries at all
... anyway
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage [linuxsupportline.com]>
Re:Who's Russia? (Score:2)
...phil
How MS _can_ break Apache's dominance [retry] (Score:4)
One simple way for Microsoft to change and break Apache's dominance of the web server market is to introduce 'feature creep' with IIS and NT, by integrating new features into the OS and IIS that aren't accessible to other servers.
An example was given with intranet corporate web posting. Sharing files and documents over a corporate intranet is the way to go. Email exchange and document sharing can be made much easier if it's all simply accessible with just a few mouseclicks from your Win98 desktop.
Now, everybody will want to put his drafts and whitepapers online quickly - and hey, look, there's a button just for that in Office2002.
And it all integrates nicely with Win2k and IIS. Why run Apache, which doesn't support all those nifty features and makes it 'more difficult' for admins to install and run it? If the users clamor for it, they'll get it, right?
After all, having admins mess about with incompatible stuff will annoy the management - this is all productivity loss, remember? Can't we just go with The Standard?
That'll be the first step.
Then, how does all that integrate with the outside world? Of course everybody in the firm will be using IE6 or 7, since it came with the OS and servers, and supports all the funky features Word2002 and IIS offer, 'for enhanced productivity and ease-of-use'. After all, it's all in the name of innovation - and annoyingly enough, it would make many things easier. But back to our example.
To tie everything in with the outside world, the corporate VPN and WAN, we need for our servers to communicate with each other. For instance so the offices everywhere can share the same documents. And send corporate email back and forth. And all of that ties in nicely with Exchange2k and all other corporate network solutions. From MS. All run on Win2k, with MS databases at the end.
After the internal structures of a business work so nicely together, we'll want the customers to be able to co-operate with all this. So we're adding special features. IE has an market dominance, anyway, and it ties in with everything else we're running.
Oh, you don't run MS? We're sorry, but our web logs and in-depth market research have shown that 92% of our customers are from home and corporate environments, which in turn mostly run IE. I'm afraid we can't support niche systems, Sir. We don't have the time, you understand?
This is how the web will be won. Unless Mozilla, Navigator 5, Konqueror, and Apache manage to impose a client-side as well as the existing server-side architecture on the market - an architecture that MS won't be able to break.
Does anyone remember 'Chrome', MS proprietary web enhancements? Or ActiveX-only pages? Guess what - if MS manages to fight back in the server market, it'll flood it with proprietary tech that will be tied to its OS, its servers, and its browsers. And then it will be all over.
So don't stand around idly, but go over to the Konqueror and Mozilla pages, and contribute. Even non-coders can write man and help pages and contribute to design decisions. Even you can add bug reports. Everybody can help - but as long as the infighting and holy wars continue, MS can only win.
And do you really want to see the message
Sorry, only for MS-enhanced browsers
on your screen? They can win it, and they will win it from the server side. We're already retreating in mass from the client side. Tim O'Reilly isn't an idiot, and he isn't a firebrand - he makes valid points: The entire MS case, and the FoF will be utterly pointless if the market decides to vote for MS servers in the end.
Apologies if this sounds inflammatory - I don't advocate that all MS products are bad, some of their software is awesome - but the way they market things goes against everything I believe in.
Alex
"Your telnet is talking to itself. Welcome to the wacky world of TCP/IP."
"Go Away!" signs on the web (Score:4)
This could be the future for all of you radical non-Microsoft web users out there.
L&A not competitive: They are superior. (Score:2)
* The only category this has been disproven is in serving static pages using multiple network cards at outrageous bandwidths. Hardly worth this footnote.
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:3)
God dammit, get this through your thick skulls: Shrinkwrap licenses are a legal fiction.
This lie has been repeated so often and for so long that reasonable people are starting to believe it. When selling in a retail venue, software vendors have no rights over and above what is granted to them under copyright law; you own the bits. That's why they're trying to cram the UCITA through the state legislatures, which will cement their ability to continue abusing consumers. I have never, nor shall I ever, consider myself bound by any so-called "license" unless you get me to actually sign the thing. The ethical consequences of believing otherwise are just too staggering.
Read this editorial [best.com] and this essay [best.com]. The freedoms of your children may depend on it.
Schwab
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
If the answer is Yes, then you are correct and MS behaved badly. If the answer is No, even for a handful of DLL's, drivers, API's, whatever, then MS is completely within the law.
In theory, if Microsoft offers a "lite" version of Windows98 with a license that says you can't use it to connect to the Internet and disabled tcp/ip, you are not allowed to use it for that even if you get a third party winsock program.
A license can put limits on how you use code as well as whether you can use it. Some licenses won't let you use the code to make money, some will let you see the source but not modify it, etc etc. It stinks, but its how our current legal system works.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Re:You missed the point (Score:2)
In a word, yes. That is, until Microsoft redefined (both technically and legally) after the fact just what was and wasn't "server code."
I was around when this whole thing happened, working as chief software engineer for a startup (NetCount) doing server-based statistics collection. Having only one server (instead of four) to deal with on NT would have made our lives a lot easier. But just because it would have benefited us didn't make it right. The O'Reilly piece is spot-on. MS changed the rules and cut its competition off at the knees...
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:2)
That's hard to say. I don't have the knowledge to discern wether it is illegal for Microsoft to charge different prices on identical products depending on use and upheld by a license. If that's true then I believe this to be valid. If not, it's simply a matter of Microsoft offering their product for "free" when netscape was charging for it.
They really are pushing the limit though. There are a number of server based applications that run on even windows98 as well as NT. What if MS just decided to outlaw them as per license because they had competing products on their "server" os and this was causing a revenue leakage? Therefore I'm leaning towards the possibility that this is illegal due to Microsoft using OS leverage to exclude competitition from certain application markets. The problem is proving that they did so based on netscape offering a cheaper solution for consumers -- not just because they just felt like changing the license (because monopoly by itself isn't illegal).
----------
Re:Not getting attention (Score:2)
If you find stories of this type tiring, then don't read them. If you really want to stop the blind MS hate and Linux roolz attitude, then just reply to comments that are blatantly so.
----------
Re:The choice between Microsoft or Netscape? (Score:2)
If I had to choose one of the other owning the internet I'd much rather have Netscape. Netscape doesn't control the OS and most of the applications too.
Remember, Microsoft is working on buying up cable companies, it tried a proprietary competitor to the internet (MSN), it has been buying up content like collections of photographs, it has a big interest in NBC, and so on.
I can't think of a more scary situation than having Microsoft dominate the internet server market along with having cable systems and ownership of content providers like NBC.
This company has to be stopped.
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:2)
By that logic, I can possess a photograph, but I can't look at it, or show it to other people, since I haven't been given a "license" to make any use of the "representation." Try explaining that logic to people you meet on the street, and see how far you get.
Correct. The proper and natural use of a book is to read it. The proper and natural use of a CD is to listen to it. And the proper and natural use of computer software is to stick it in a computer and let the CPU churn on it. The ability to make use of a copyrighted work is concomitant with purchase; the "license" doesn't enter into it.
If usage rights must be explicitly granted in writing, then why don't audio CDs come with a license "agreement" stipulating listening privileges?
Schwab
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:2)
This is not what he was arguing about. If company a wants to implement a product that is either:
a) cheaper
b) better
c) both
then what Microsoft produces, then they should be able to do so. If microsoft effectively changes their licensing schemes to bar competition and only allow a selected few applications enter the market, then that is illegal. It's similar to the Intel case. They were prevented from producing multimedia software and codecs that had perceived benifits to end users and developers. MS doesn't have the right to pick and choose what applications can be developed for their operating system. It's open to anyone with said programming tools to build applications on their platform. the problem, however, is proving that they did so based on netscape's applications, using OS leverage to make sure that their more expensive alternative solution was bought instead.
Now that I think about posters further down. The license seems rather bogus. If windows 98 was stable and fast, then maybe some guy would produce a viable solution for it using his *own* code. Would it be right or even legal for MS to arbitrarily say that he now couldn't? If its MS own product and they want to charge more per processor or user, then I don't see anything wrong with it. If its someone elses product, then they shouldn't have any business doing so. You can't offer a product to developers but include exclusions based on the fact that you have a higher priced product that you want them to buy instead "just because".
If MS decided tommorow that they would outlaw all daemons on windows 98, then I'm sure Oracle, IBM, and any number of small proxy/firewall and ftp server application companies would be very angry. Oh wait, they couldn't. They already include nat gateway software in windows 98 second edition that would classify itself as a server.
----------
Re:"Go Away!" signs on the web (Score:2)
http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=www.fox.com
seems to show that www.fox.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/2.01 on DIGITAL UNIX?
But when I go there from Netscape in Linux I get...
---
Unfortunately, you are unable to access FOX.com. You have been
denied access for one or both of the following reasons:
You are using a browser below version 3. We recommend upgrading to
version 4 or higher with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape Navigator 4.0.
You are running on a platform other than a PC or a Macintosh. Unless you run
on one of these platforms, you will be unable to access FOX.com.
---
If true, it truely is a sad day...
-eddy
Re:Go [well, I worked on it a bit and...] (Score:2)
http://www.fox.com/nonflash_front.html [fox.com] I mean, at least have an else in their big if-tree that says, "if I don't know this browser, I'll assume it's not broken"
You're quite right: (Score:2)
The question is not whether such an overpowering monopoly can literally crush out any opposition at all costs- that's not likely. Instead you should be asking this question: where would I draw the line? Do you want your mom or grandmother or non-geek friends to be stuck with the monopolistic, low quality and extortionate products, or do you want to give them a better shot at being able to choose something that suits their needs? I think it is quite reasonable to want the monopoly reined in: not for the sake of the hardcore 'freedom fighters' who'll fight for their ability to make choices and take some damage willingly to do so, but for the sake of the uneducated and the lazy, who are more easily exploited.
You may disagree and feel that people _should_ be exploited if they won't take responsibility for themselves, in which case we'll have to disagree. I'm not saying every AOLer needs to be handheld and taught what the web is: I'm just saying that it behooves proper geeks to make some kind of effort to protect the people who are the most easily exploited by monopolies. They need to have choices even if they are not seeking them out- if they don't have choices or freedom, most of them will not realize they _could_ have choices.
Why be so shocked? (Score:3)
Hitler was filled with vengefulness towards the world due to the Versailles Treaty, and his main thesis was getting revenge for that 'insult' to the German people, and indeed the treaty was a great blow to German pride and helped create conditions for the Third Reich.
Gates was filled with vengefulness towards the world due to his Altair Basic tapes being wildly pirated, and his main theme was getting revenge for that 'insult' by never letting anyone 'steal' from him again, by making his software so necessary that he could never again be treated as just another hacker to take ideas from. Gates wanted control, and to punish the 'hacker', and indeed nobody'd asked his permission or opinion on the copying of his port of Basic: the hackers 'liberated' it instead, enraging Gates and setting the tone for his style of technology, always centralising control of the software somewhere other than the computer user, a path of vengeance that continues to this day, and colors all of Microsoft's technological developments right down to the ideas for 'Office on the Web'.
Honestly, when you look at the two men in terms of being driven by vengeance and hunger for power and control, they are very similar indeed. They even generate comparable 'reality distortion fields', in that their vengeances are so fierce that neither was an uncomplicatedly charismatic leader: in both cases the man was compelling but alarming at the same time, causing a polarisation between the hardcore devotees ('brownshirts' and 'microsofties') and others who would be disconcerted by the ferocity of the movement and try, fatally, to be quiet and hope things would settle down.
There are profound and fascinating parallels between the men and their movements, and to deny this is foolish and shortsighted. Microsoft is far too recent to expect these things can be discussed sensibly- they will never be discussed dispassionately, because on the one hand mass murder and Master Race theorising, and on the other hand crushing of all choice and Industry Standard theorising, are ugly things, and it's shocking to consider what each concept means and how far the respective movements were willing to take their viewpoints. We all know what the Nazis were willing to do, and conversely, Microsoft was and is actively trying to create a digital Third World, and literally disenfranchise and exile anyone not ready to first go all-MS in all things, and more disturbingly, to equally punish those not willing or able to spend substantial amounts of money keeping pace with an arbitrarily set technological limit that serves nobody but MS.
It's all very well that MS isn't out to kill anybody, but when their whole approach is to punish 'holdouts' and keep things unstable and madly upgrading, we are talking about digitally disenfranchising most of the world, as very very few human beings can afford to drop as much money on technology as MS requires. The ability to run dos or Linux or old Macintoshes means absolutely squat when the entire infrastructure of the Net is continually changed to lock these aging tools out, and as Net access becomes ever more important, we are very much talking about the establishment of a technological ruling class with the only access to information, influence, possibly the only class allowed to participate in newly invented online politics, possibly the only class allowed to use certain types of electronic banking (already a problem for non Windows consumers) or travel booking or any of a number of other resources.
If a country decided to invade the US and forbid the poor from using banks, voting, travelling, and set up a class of Americans which were allowed full privileges, while everyone else was denied those privileges, it would be considered an act of war.
Why is it so different when Bill Gates consistently moves in the direction of this exact state of affairs? In what way is Gates' obsession with control and establishing a privileged class of Windows users, with holdouts punished and ideally locked off the Net entirely in the long run, so different from the motivations of a politician acting in the interests of their own privileged class and trying to punish and suppress all other classes of people? You can't say it comes down to killing people: even before the Nazis were killing people, they were out to restrict rights and punish those not of the privileged class. How is this different from what Gates does in the technological sphere? In the modern, Internet age, how can anyone claim that the technological sphere has no civic relevance, or significance to a citizen?
I guess I am saying this: you're wrong, because Hitler and Gates are far more similar in motivation than you're ready to admit. Hitler was not simply a frothing psychopath, he was a particular _kind_ of frothing psychopath, one with a lust for vengeance and the ability to inspire the tyranny of a privileged class. Gates doesn't lack the lust for vengeance, or the ability to foster a privileged class, and he is every bit as hungry for control, plus he arguably has more money than the Third Reich had. Downplaying this is stupid, as Hitler's dead but we're still stuck with Gates.
Webjump reliability. (Score:2)
Scheduled down time: none
HTTP/FTP Servers are experiencing intermittent problems.
File Manager Tool is temporarily unavailable.
Site Statistics are temporarily unavailable.
New, fully-qualified Domain Name Registration is temporarily down.
Re: Moderators!!! (Score:2)
This guy is talking out of his ass. No help system in the world is ever going to bog down gigabit ethernet. We're talking 100 million hits per day here. Here's a hint: Microsoft take about 400 million a day (I think) and distribute that load over a farm of around 50 boxes. Do the maths and moderate this guy down.
Re:Tim is another JUST Open Source Wierdo (Score:2)
Does Six million Jews killed by Hitler equal to all the Bad things that Bill did.
As much as I despise the tactics of Bill and MS, personally, I don't think so.
MS has better support for W3C standards then Netscape.
Yes, the embrace phase of their typical strategy is nearly complete. I wonder what they will do next? Probably the same thing they ALWAYS do. The web derives it's ubiquity and usefulness from it's basis in standards. The last thing we need is for it to become a moving target filled with hidden hooks like the windows API is.
Re:Mindcrafts tests don't saturate anything. (Score:2)
A busy intranet could theoretically bog down one a linux box sooner than a NT box.
If you choose to use 4 100Mb ethernet cards, yes. If you choose to use a Gb ethernet card, the whole equasion changes. Part of NT's advantage in the test was that Linux has a performance issue with 4 ethernet cards. (BTW, there is no point in using 2 Gb ethernet cards, the PCI bus is nearly saturated by just 1!).
Supposing you had a help system, which wouldn't require much dynamically generated pages, there you go.
Most help systems (the really helpful ones anyway) have a search function. That is dynamic content.
Re:you post too much (Score:2)
And as for the accusation that he doesn't listen to others, have a look at his user page yourself. Nearly all replies. He reads opinions, and is prepared to have a discussion about them. People like him are the life-force of slashdot.
Re:Office is NOT a good product. (Score:2)
2.Excel - Excel is great for very simple graphs and data plots, I'll give you that. But if you want to do anything even remotely complicated, and it stinks.
You left out that it drops whole rows when you do an ascii export. Considering the sorts of things Excel is used for, that could be a REALLY serious problem ("Well, you see, er....em....eh.... When we figured the budget for this fiscal year, .......WELL!,....We sort of lost a $20M line item expense, and .....WELL!...ah,.....we're bankrupt.)
Re:As if windows or msie were stable... (Score:2)
He didn't comment on the stability of Linux vs. Windows. He commented on the stability and capability of the browser.
It's only as stable as it's weakest link. In this case, the OS is the weak link. The instability of the Netscape-Linux combination can be fixed by replacing the browser. Guess what you have to replace in the IE-Windows case?
Re:Boy, this is delusional (Score:2)
That's a pretty big claim, and I don't see any facts in your post to back it up. Are you a lawyer? Which law would the user be breaking, exactly?
Re:As if windows or msie were stable... (Score:2)
That doesn't change the fact that when browsing the web, IE does a better job that Netscape's browsers.
Sad, but undeniably true.