I wouldn't be so quick to jump on the editor for this. I saw your original post on the Firehose, in which you claimed Microsoft is redirecting 404s -- this would be monstrous and bad, and while "hijack" is a term you can quibble over, your original report was significantly more dire, and objectively false. A 404 is the HTTP response when you ask for a file that's not on the server. In this case, we don't even get as far as asking the server for the non-existent file, because we can't find its IP -- so we get the 404's cousin in DNS, the NXDOMAIN. The editor caught your mistake and corrected it.

If I understand you right, you're saying that your salespeople were used to being directed to Google. So, you guys were already comfortable with this behavior from a technical standpoint, and you're annoyed that it changed from Google to Bing. I'm not an IE user, so I don't know exactly how this behavior worked, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I were in your position and learned that Microsoft has decided to stop using their browser to promote their competitor in favor of their new product.

From reading the comments here, if you don't want it to use Bing, you can tell your sales guys to set Google as their default browser, because it sounds like that's what it's redirecting to. And as a guy who really dislikes Windows, IE and Microsoft in general, let me say that sounds like a reasonable enough deal.

As an experiment, I just tried typing "wolverine/some/long/path/?with=variables" into my Firefox address bar.

Result: I was dropped off at http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=wolverine

So, in this respect, Firefox is no better than IE.

I think you've grabbed every DNS-related RFC you can find, hoping that I had not read them. I have, and so I will ask you to be more specific. Which part of RFC 2065 (DNSSEC) is violated? Are you suggesting that IE is a poorly-implemented DNS caching server which does not cache negative results (RFC 2038)? I'm particularly curious why you cited RFC 1536. Did the subject of the conversation turn to whether IE is appending your local domain to DNS queries for non-explicit FQDNs?

The only specific citation you've made from the DNS-related RFCs is about structuring the DNS header. I have yet to see anyone point to any claim that IE sends improperly formatted DNS headers. What they ARE doing is presenting your NXDOMAIN result accompanied by results for a search on the missing domain.

I still do not see a standard which requires a browser or other application's response to an NXDOMAIN to not accompany it with search results, and I do not believe one exists. If your script relies on IE presenting NXDOMAINs in a specific way, then you have a badly-written script, and you shouldn't have expected it to keep working.

Can you point me to the relevant RFC, or at least a standard from a recognized standards body which is being violated here?

This philosophy applies to closed-source software. However, this software was released under the GPL. The entire POINT of the GPL is that you can take code that you like, and port it to whatever device that you like, so long as your changes are also released under the GPL. That is exactly what they have done here. Separately, Apple has decided to charge for the tools to download code onto the device in question. This is hardly unheard of, and it is outside the control of the submitter. The developers here have freely provided the source code, and you are free to port it on your own to Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Android or whatever else, or to get your own developer account and make changes and put those changes up on the app store, or even to take their existing product as-is and put it up for free on the app store. They have done nothing on their own to restrict the freedom of the software.

Yes. They firmly believe in your right to choose between radical Islam and death.

I'm not sure what a crowd of angry MythBusters fans would do, but I'm sure that it would involve large amounts of kinetic energy.

From what it sounds like, this is more like:

I have free energy, and I invite you to come take a look. Oh, you've come to take a look, have you? Wonderful, just have a seat over there while I go work out where I put that damned free energy machine... Hmm... Yes, just be patient now, I'm sure it's probably in one of these cabinets. Or maybe one of the boxes? I've moved recently, and I must admit it might be in my storage shed.

In the meantime, let me tell you how it works. It's really quite simple, based on the principle of mag-- oh, HELLO Mrs. Reynolds! No, I'm not busy. How IS your cousin doing? Oh, fantastic... ...

Sorry about that, gentlemen, Mrs. Reynolds is a lonely widow, and needs all the social contact she can get. I'm so glad you're still here. In any case, down to business. The notion is really quite simple: use magnets and induction to generate unlimited power. Well, yes, there IS quite a bit more to it that that, but it's all quite technical. Oh yes, quite right, you are trained scientists and engineers, and I suppose you would be interested. All the necessary information is in my notes... Now, where did I put those...

You know what, I think my brother has a copy, I'll just drop him a note. He's living as a vagrant in Somalia, trying to explore the human condition. I'll just send him a quick e-mail, and when he makes his way to a city with working telecommunications infrastructure, I'm sure he can tell me where to find them. In the meantime, who's up for some Boggle? It's really a fantastic game. ...Wait, where are you going? Come back! Demonstrating free energy is a difficult task, and while I understand your frustrations with the process, you must be patient! Come baaack!

Pah. The scientific establishment has ONCE AGAIN proven that they are unwilling to consider new ideas. Now, where DID I put that perpetual motion machine...

Yeah, but he does spend a lot of time with his LED projector watching "home made movies" with his girlfriend.

If the service does indeed belong to history, then let's see history pay its bills.

Ain't it the truth. Geocities attracted some of the most eye-gougingly terrible amateur designs, but shit, a lot of those people went on to lose the colorblindness, but kept the technical know-how they gained with their first little hobby site. I certainly did.

EFF: Two is the loneliest number since the number one.