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Feature: News
Microsoft desperately wants my love -- and yours
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
on
December 12, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
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I spent December seventh, eighth, and ninth in Seattle as Microsoft's guest. Microsoft flew me there from Florida at its expense, put me up in a nice hotel, provided decent food, and comped me and four other invitees to this "special conference" with presentations about the marvels of Vista and other recent or upcoming Microsoft products. They didn't quite play the old Beatles song "Love Me Do" in the background, but it was the event's unstated theme. And, as a free bonus, Microsoft gave me a free Zune to pass on to a developer who wants to put Linux on it or make a utility that will allow it to interact with a PC running Linux.
I went to work before the appetizers were served at the opening supper by asking event organizer Nick White (whose business card describes him as "Product Manager, Windows Marketing Communications") why I should trust a company whose CEO consistently threatens to sue me and other Linux users over unspecified patent violations.
"That's history," Nick said. "We're trying to move forward."
"I was referring to some comments Steve Ballmer made just a week or two ago," I said.
"Well, that's not really anything I can comment on," he replied. "I'm a product marketing guy."
This was the kind of answer I got to all the hard questions I asked, including several suggested by Pamela Jones of Groklaw. None of the Microsoft people I met had anything to say about their deal with Novell, working with the Open Document Format (ODF), acceptance of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as a legitimate software license, how DRM built into Vista may anger users, or other topics I thought might interest you.
Let me backtrack a little on that last statement: Tyler Welch, a Zune marketing guy, seemed to understand that there's a delicate balance between satisfying the movie and music companies enough that they'll sell content for online devices and giving customers the unrestricted use and copying freedoms they demand. And instead of giving some sort of flip or PR-speak canned response, he admitted that he had no ready way to solve the conflict between these competing constituencies and that this is something it's going to take a long time to work out.
The wonders of the Microsoft Home of the Future
Junket participants included Gina Trapani of Lifehacker and Ken Kurokawa of the CCIA. Mike Magee of the Inquirer couldn't make it and sent his 19-year-old son in his place. There was also an older gentleman from Boston who runs a tech blog of some sort whose name I didn't write down. And me.
Supposedly, a total of 10 people were invited, specifically chosen because they were not friendly toward Microsoft. (Microsoft reps said they invited Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of eWeek, but Vaughan-Nichols told me he never got an invitation.)
In any case, there were five participants. And our first formal event, the morning after the introductory supper, was a tour of the Microsoft Home of the Future -- under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
The young gent from the Inquirer wouldn't sign the NDA, so he didn't take the tour. Since I wanted to immerse myself in the fullness of the Microsoft experience I signed it and took the tour. Funny thing: I didn't see any really new technology that warranted an NDA. "But you've never seen all that technology put together like that, have you?" Asked/stated a Microsoft marketer. No, I replied, I hadn't. But I've seen the same or similar technologies used or speculated about in many other contexts, usually less-glowing ones.
The examples that popped into my mind most during the NDA tour were Marshall Brain's online books Robotic Nation and Manna . Bits of Kurt Vonnegut's 1952 novel Player Piano also boiled up from my memory.
Microsoft has a positive take on many of these technologies and how they can work together to make our lives different in the future, but since it won't allow me to share its optimism with you, Brain and Vonnegut's dystopian visions will have to do.
Security is #1! Yay, security!
Yes, Microsoft does have a security program manager. His name is Michael Howard. He has a blog. He writes books and articles. He says that even with many, many eyes security bugs are not shallow, and that every product touched by Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) "has fewer security defects. Period. And that certainly makes it worth pursuing."
A cynic might wonder why, since Howard has been a Microsoft employee for a good number of years, there have been so many security problems with the company's software in the past. The answer (or at least the Microsoft PR-approved answer) seemed to be that The Bosses have now converted to the Security Religion and everything is different these days. Howard claimed IIS is now more secure than Apache (as witnessed by number of patches, a measure with which many might quarrel) and Vista is the most secure version of Windows ever, so secure that you may not even need antivirus software for it.
And with that, let's segue to Vista itself.
Rah, rah, Vista! Go, Vista, go!
Vista is great. Vista will capture and edit high definition video. Vista will make your computing experience so much better than it is now that your heart will sing and skies over your computer will always be blue and sunny.
Lifehacker's Gina inconveniently pointed out that many of the Vista so-called innovations have been available in Mac OS X for a good while, but she was carrying an Apple laptop so her viewpoint was obviously suspect.
I asked whether Vista's hardware hunger, combined with the hardware hunger of the video editing software I use (my only personal use of Windows is video editing) might not force me to make a major investment in new hardware to run Vista. In fact, I wondered aloud, might not the extra hardware investment I'd need to run Sony Vegas or other pro-level video editing software on Windows suddenly make Apple hardware cheaper than hardware that could run Vista for video editing?
I got no good answers. Shanen Boettcher -- title on business card: General Manager PMG Future (LH) -- said maybe, maybe not, surely things would get better once applications "are optimized for Vista."
Poor Boettcher's main job with this group, though, was to help us make sense of the five versions of Vista, six if you include the Starter Edition available only in "emerging markets," that will soon be available, all at different prices, for different purposes.
I am still confused about why it offers so many choices. Apparently the only one useful for someone who uses both media-type apps and business apps is the top-priced "Ultimate" version. Even then, if you modify your computer often, you may have trouble using any version of Vista for long, because Vista incorporates a juiced-up version of the activation utility that already plagues XP.
Microsoft seems to have backed down on some of the dumber Vista license terms but isn't making any provision for the growing number of us who run multiple OSes on a single computer through virtualization, which is still a sticking point for many leading-edge computer users.
For many years I have maintained that Windows is too geeky for me; that as a mere user it is easier and safer for me to stick with Linux. Now, with Vista weighed down by all these choices, license confusions, and installation restrictions, Mac OS X (with its simple "Server" or "Desktop" choice) is looking more and more attractive for sophisticated video editing -- and, of course, Linux does everything else I need a computer to do.
Continue reading on page 2...
Comments
on Microsoft desperately wants my love -- and yoursNote: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.
So, Microsoft want my love, eh?
Ok. I want £1 billion, a 26-bedroom house, all taxes paid for 10 years. Once Microsoft give me that we'll negotiate as to them wanting my love!
If they don't give me the above they can go lie with the prostitutes in Ipswich!
Ok. I want £1 billion, a 26-bedroom house, all taxes paid for 10 years. Once Microsoft give me that we'll negotiate as to them wanting my love!
If they don't give me the above they can go lie with the prostitutes in Ipswich!
That's in very bad taste.
Wine with supper, not free-flowing booze. I'm not a huge drinker anyway, especially during the daytime, more especially while working -- and for me this was a work trip.
But all work and all that... I broke away and spent Saturday afternoon with Chris Nandor (Pudge on Slashdot) and his wonderful family who live about an hour N. of Seattle; wife Jennifer's homemade lasagna was excellent, tastier than the expensive restaurant/catered food MS bought. Truly the high point of the trip.
Also, being with Pudge & family was excellent decompression/rehabilitation time after too many hours of Microsoft PR deluge.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
- Robin
But all work and all that... I broke away and spent Saturday afternoon with Chris Nandor (Pudge on Slashdot) and his wonderful family who live about an hour N. of Seattle; wife Jennifer's homemade lasagna was excellent, tastier than the expensive restaurant/catered food MS bought. Truly the high point of the trip.
Also, being with Pudge & family was excellent decompression/rehabilitation time after too many hours of Microsoft PR deluge.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
- Robin
Re:Aw maaaan, Robin always get the GOOD assignment
Posted by: Administrator on December 13, 2006 04:10 AMI'm not a huge drinker anyway,
Huh? Seems I remember you drinking me under the table at Linuxworld a coupla years ago.
Must be my memory goin' bad on me...
Terri Stratton, publisher and news editor of MVPS.org, told me she was on Microsoft's payroll. Maybe to you this does not constitute "endorsement" or "affiliation," but it's certainly a type of sponsorship, and I specifically used the phrase, "Microsoft-sponsored."
Thanks for writing,
- Robin
Thanks for writing,
- Robin
I have tried Cinellera a number of times. Sadly, I find it nowhere near as efficient for production-speed video editing as Sony Vegas, Final Cut Pro (or Express), or any of the better Avid products.
Most of the video work I do is far more complex than the little clips you see on OSTG sites, and while Cinellera is wonderful in every way -- as I'm sure you know from your own extensive experience with it -- when you're doing high-level editing it is slow and crashes far too often to be practical for work done on tight deadlines.
Thanks for writing,
- Robin
Most of the video work I do is far more complex than the little clips you see on OSTG sites, and while Cinellera is wonderful in every way -- as I'm sure you know from your own extensive experience with it -- when you're doing high-level editing it is slow and crashes far too often to be practical for work done on tight deadlines.
Thanks for writing,
- Robin
Hello Robin,
Thanks for the article, it was interesting, and well written. As an aside, I bought your book on SimplyMepis, started dual booting Windows and Linux, and now dual boot SimplyMepis and Unbuntu, no Windows for over a year, and I'm loving it!
jwwjr
Greensboro, NC
Thanks for the article, it was interesting, and well written. As an aside, I bought your book on SimplyMepis, started dual booting Windows and Linux, and now dual boot SimplyMepis and Unbuntu, no Windows for over a year, and I'm loving it!
jwwjr
Greensboro, NC
I thought this was an excellent, well-balanced piece of journalism. Thank you Rob. While I've moved away from Linux and spend more time on my new Intel Mac Mini, I am always interested in what MS is doing... in the hope that maybe they will change their corporate culture to attact people like me who just want everything to work (which is not so much in Linux these days) and who don't mind paying something for software but don't want to be overly restricted when they do. The Vista license mess is a case-in-point.
Anyway, thank you again for the informative look into the world of Microsoft. Maybe one day MS will shed it's attitude and superiority and embrace a culture of truth and service to its customers/users (GPL, non-threatening patent suits, etc.) That's when I'll come back to my Windows roots. Until then, Apple seems to work for me.
Al Canton, CEO
Adams-Blake Company, Inc.
Jaya123: Run your business on the web
<a href="http://www.jaya123.com/" title="jaya123.com">http://www.jaya123.com/</a jaya123.com>
Anyway, thank you again for the informative look into the world of Microsoft. Maybe one day MS will shed it's attitude and superiority and embrace a culture of truth and service to its customers/users (GPL, non-threatening patent suits, etc.) That's when I'll come back to my Windows roots. Until then, Apple seems to work for me.
Al Canton, CEO
Adams-Blake Company, Inc.
Jaya123: Run your business on the web
<a href="http://www.jaya123.com/" title="jaya123.com">http://www.jaya123.com/</a jaya123.com>
While I've moved away from Linux and spend more time on my new Intel Mac Mini...Maybe one day MS will shed it's attitude and superiority and embrace a culture of truth and service to its customers/users (GPL, non-threatening patent suits, etc.)
Umm, in all of those ways, Apple is as bad as, or worse, than Microsoft. They have a far worse track record of "not invented here" syndrome, they supported the effort to legalize software patents in europe SPECIFICALLY to hurt open source (despite basing their most important product on it), and have repeatedly used lawsuits to push hardware and software competitors out of business.
in the hope that maybe they will change their corporate culture to attact people like me who just want everything to work
Oh, but they are. They've already tried shipping two pieces of unmodifyable hardware that can't be extended except for blesses parts. They're learning from apple already.
who don't mind paying something for software but don't want to be overly restricted when they do
That's pretty insightful, you're definately CEO material!
Maybe one day MS will shed it's attitude and superiority [.....] Until then, Apple seems to work for me.
That's rich, as in sigline-rich.
Oh, but they are. They've already tried shipping two pieces of unmodifyable hardware that can't be extended except for blesses parts. They're learning from apple already.
who don't mind paying something for software but don't want to be overly restricted when they do
That's pretty insightful, you're definately CEO material!
Maybe one day MS will shed it's attitude and superiority [.....] Until then, Apple seems to work for me.
That's rich, as in sigline-rich.
Hahaha! Al Canton, CEO, you have a funny way of making a point when you declare opposition to MS on the grounds of an EULA being "overly restricted," non-GPL, and employing measures for patent protection while you openly admit you use an operating system that restricts you to Apple-based hardware, isn't GPL, and is from a company suing the crap out of anyone who uses the syllable "pod" in any product. For all Microsoft's faults, and they are legion, their EULA doesn't forbid you from choosing your own mobo and CPU like Apple's does. Read your Mac EULA if you don't believe me.
And Robin Miller is a hypocrite on the same grounds for complaining about MS on the one hand and considering Apple on the other. If anyone objects to MS' EULA, how can he find any comfort in Apple's knowing that they'll go after him just as hard as MS if he puts a copy of any Mac OS on someone else's hardware (much less show anyone else how to do it) -- except on some briefly Apple-sanctioned and -licensed third-party PPC-powered hardware from the mid-1990s?
I have no objection to those who choose one OS over another, or even who feel they must run more than one (I run Linux and am very happy with it). Choice is great that way -- people should be allowed to use what they need even if they choose to pay more and be bound by certain restrictions imposed by restrictive EULAs. I think you're disingenuous (and wrong), though, if you suggest Apple's restrictive EULA is less onerous than Microsoft's, or if you overlook Apple's heavy-handed restrictions simply because you find their OS and hardware "seems to work" for you.
And Robin Miller is a hypocrite on the same grounds for complaining about MS on the one hand and considering Apple on the other. If anyone objects to MS' EULA, how can he find any comfort in Apple's knowing that they'll go after him just as hard as MS if he puts a copy of any Mac OS on someone else's hardware (much less show anyone else how to do it) -- except on some briefly Apple-sanctioned and -licensed third-party PPC-powered hardware from the mid-1990s?
I have no objection to those who choose one OS over another, or even who feel they must run more than one (I run Linux and am very happy with it). Choice is great that way -- people should be allowed to use what they need even if they choose to pay more and be bound by certain restrictions imposed by restrictive EULAs. I think you're disingenuous (and wrong), though, if you suggest Apple's restrictive EULA is less onerous than Microsoft's, or if you overlook Apple's heavy-handed restrictions simply because you find their OS and hardware "seems to work" for you.
"Two peas in a pod" shall henceforth be known as "two peas in a green holding thingy" to keep Jobs and Co from siccing lawyers on gardens.
All in all I find the piece pretty condescending and written to draw "hear hear"s from the slashdot crowd.
It's not without merit, but far from unbiased or fair.
Nice for a weblog, but not really fit for an article.
It's not without merit, but far from unbiased or fair.
Nice for a weblog, but not really fit for an article.
This article merely asks the tough questions that Linux users are interested in hearing the answers to.
He's writing an article for a site called "Linux.com". He is primarily a GNU/Linux user. He's likely (like me) older than you are and remembers Microsoft's history very well. Since I, too, know that history very well, I can tell you that the article is 100% correct in describing Microsoft's actions. I've been to similar events before.
It's tough not to criticize the playground bully when he's punching you off of the swing that he wants to use. It's equally tough not to criticize Microsoft, for similar--and ongoing--attempts against us. We're simply willing to call them on it and defend ourselves. If you want to call that "biased", well, then God bless you.
And yes, I am a MS-to-Linux convert.
It's tough not to criticize the playground bully when he's punching you off of the swing that he wants to use. It's equally tough not to criticize Microsoft, for similar--and ongoing--attempts against us. We're simply willing to call them on it and defend ourselves. If you want to call that "biased", well, then God bless you.
And yes, I am a MS-to-Linux convert.
>He's writing an article for a site called "Linux.com". He is primarily a GNU/Linux user.
Mostly a GNU/Linux user, when it is convenient and earns brownie points which can be traded for credibility when writing against Microsoft, it seems.
>He's likely (like me) older than you are and remembers Microsoft's history very well.
That's an unfair argument and probably a wrong assumption.
>Since I, too, know that history very well, I can tell you that the article is 100% correct in describing Microsoft's actions. I've been to similar events before.
So what actions are described apart having an ordinary sales pitch ?
Making a zune available for porting ?
Or perhaps making their earth application only run against DirectX instead of OpenGL ?
At least they're not asking developers to stop working on an open-source replacement.
>It's tough not to criticize the playground bully when he's punching you off of the swing that he wants to use.
So you build your own swing, and you share it with others. Now the bully comes around and says he finds this sharing principle scary but intriguing.
And now that you are empowered you ridicule *him* you do so because of past transgressions.
>It's equally tough not to criticize Microsoft, for similar--and ongoing--attempts against us.
So why Microsoft ? Because it's the biggest ?
Because as far as I'm concerned it at least had a clear position on Free Software instead of shimmy-shammying around it and selling proprietary software on top of it.
>We're simply willing to call them on it and defend ourselves. If you want to call that "biased", well, then God bless you.
Yes, biased, microsoft is not *the enemy*. It simply is *a* proprietary sofware vendor, who may or may not mend its ways. It's no different than Google or Apple except for not being anti-MS.
>And yes, I am a MS-to-Linux convert.
I run GNU exclusively, yet still find all this emotional anti-MS, pro everything that is anti-MS, sentiment inapropriate.
There's truth to Gates praise of Stallman as being "pure" and consequently the rest just being out to kick against the big guy and exert as much influence as possible by doing the exact same thing yet waiving a little "open-source friendly" banner around.
Mostly a GNU/Linux user, when it is convenient and earns brownie points which can be traded for credibility when writing against Microsoft, it seems.
>He's likely (like me) older than you are and remembers Microsoft's history very well.
That's an unfair argument and probably a wrong assumption.
>Since I, too, know that history very well, I can tell you that the article is 100% correct in describing Microsoft's actions. I've been to similar events before.
So what actions are described apart having an ordinary sales pitch ?
Making a zune available for porting ?
Or perhaps making their earth application only run against DirectX instead of OpenGL ?
At least they're not asking developers to stop working on an open-source replacement.
>It's tough not to criticize the playground bully when he's punching you off of the swing that he wants to use.
So you build your own swing, and you share it with others. Now the bully comes around and says he finds this sharing principle scary but intriguing.
And now that you are empowered you ridicule *him* you do so because of past transgressions.
>It's equally tough not to criticize Microsoft, for similar--and ongoing--attempts against us.
So why Microsoft ? Because it's the biggest ?
Because as far as I'm concerned it at least had a clear position on Free Software instead of shimmy-shammying around it and selling proprietary software on top of it.
>We're simply willing to call them on it and defend ourselves. If you want to call that "biased", well, then God bless you.
Yes, biased, microsoft is not *the enemy*. It simply is *a* proprietary sofware vendor, who may or may not mend its ways. It's no different than Google or Apple except for not being anti-MS.
>And yes, I am a MS-to-Linux convert.
I run GNU exclusively, yet still find all this emotional anti-MS, pro everything that is anti-MS, sentiment inapropriate.
There's truth to Gates praise of Stallman as being "pure" and consequently the rest just being out to kick against the big guy and exert as much influence as possible by doing the exact same thing yet waiving a little "open-source friendly" banner around.
"At least they're not asking developers to stop working on an open-source replacement."
Well yes they are actually, have you read the terms of their recent Patent covenant for "hobby" programmers? It's an outright threat to sue if you publically use one of "their" patented methods, and they have a heap of them in VE...
And I assume you refer to Googles request to Gaia to shut down? While not happy with it myself, he was breaking the T&C's so Google were within their rights. Don't like it? Hack on the Worldwind java/linux port instead.
John.
Well yes they are actually, have you read the terms of their recent Patent covenant for "hobby" programmers? It's an outright threat to sue if you publically use one of "their" patented methods, and they have a heap of them in VE...
And I assume you refer to Googles request to Gaia to shut down? While not happy with it myself, he was breaking the T&C's so Google were within their rights. Don't like it? Hack on the Worldwind java/linux port instead.
John.
"microsoft is not *the enemy*"
You must have very short memory because we're _not_ talking about just "*a* proprietary software vendor", the say that is disingenuous, we're talking about THE largest software vendor in the world with an enormous amount of power whose president has said that they will do anything to _destroy_ Linux.
Those are not the words of a responsible company, those are words for somebody looking for a kill.
And maybe for you that is acceptable behavior but I prefer companies that realize that they are part of an ecosystem and that they can compete on merit alone.
You must have very short memory because we're _not_ talking about just "*a* proprietary software vendor", the say that is disingenuous, we're talking about THE largest software vendor in the world with an enormous amount of power whose president has said that they will do anything to _destroy_ Linux.
Those are not the words of a responsible company, those are words for somebody looking for a kill.
And maybe for you that is acceptable behavior but I prefer companies that realize that they are part of an ecosystem and that they can compete on merit alone.
Ganging up with the raptors to take down the T-Rex is not a solution if you're evolving. Otherwise down the line you'll be the little bird picking up scraps from between teh crocodile's teeth.
Best is to let the reptiles duke it out between themselves and create a real ecosystem in a protected valley.
Best is to let the reptiles duke it out between themselves and create a real ecosystem in a protected valley.
Ganging with the what to take what and let the what duke what and create a what what what?
i gotta agree, i might have said it somewhat more diplomatically, but I did notice also that while robin made a point of "having an open mind" the article did not so much resemble that sentiment. sure vista has security problems. so does Linux. the very idea of a piece of software being 100% bug free and secure is preposterous. sure they promote it rather shamelessly. if they didn't believe in it how could they work on it every day? in the Linux community we have evangelists too. while robin might not be impressed by directx10, or games in general, the public ARE. including me. were it not for games i might have given up on windows the 3rd time 98 BSOD'ed on me. which was about 5 mins after i installed it. but honestly and truthfully, since windows 2000, microsoft has evolved and improved their product substantially with each version. nothing matches windows for compatibility, capability for a wide variety of tasks, and especially support for application developers. while microsoft claims to innovate in their windows/office products, we know they don't really, the innovation comes elsewhere. things like xbox, XNA,<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.NET, those are their real innovations.
i came away from this article convinced only that robin didnt give it a chance.
i came away from this article convinced only that robin didnt give it a chance.
I think the reason he overdid it a bit in this article is the fact that he was invited as a Microsoft-hater to be persuaded to go Microsoft.
Maybe because Microsoft didn't give _him_ a chance either? Seems that each time he asked a difficult question they either didn't know or cut off the persons trying to answer. Doesn't seem to be a good way to try to convince a skeptic.
Because for sure Microsoft knows how to do things right at times, you give examples like XBox and<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.NET (although properly speaking those are not very innovative, they are just GoodStuff(tm) coming from MS, which is maybe the greatest innovation) but if the company behind it doesn't change the way it treats it competitors there is not much use in giving a big round of applause for some neat features they put in their new flagship product from Roblimo's point of view.
So I find his article perfectly normal, MS invited a skeptic and were unable to dazzle him with all the new features in Vista and he writes a cynical article describing his experiences.
Because for sure Microsoft knows how to do things right at times, you give examples like XBox and<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.NET (although properly speaking those are not very innovative, they are just GoodStuff(tm) coming from MS, which is maybe the greatest innovation) but if the company behind it doesn't change the way it treats it competitors there is not much use in giving a big round of applause for some neat features they put in their new flagship product from Roblimo's point of view.
So I find his article perfectly normal, MS invited a skeptic and were unable to dazzle him with all the new features in Vista and he writes a cynical article describing his experiences.
Heh, I'm a MS user and developer. All of my work is on windows in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.NET. True, I dabble in Linux at home, but not enough to be converted yet.
But I have to state that I agree with Robin's views. And I also state that his views are in line with a lot of developers working with MS products. This is our bread and butter, not our enemy, but the view expressed is right on.
It sounds like you're more of an apologist than someone dealing with the core issues honestly.
But I have to state that I agree with Robin's views. And I also state that his views are in line with a lot of developers working with MS products. This is our bread and butter, not our enemy, but the view expressed is right on.
It sounds like you're more of an apologist than someone dealing with the core issues honestly.
Yea, this was just bad.
If you actually read the page, you'd see, at the bottom, "Microsoft is in no way affiliated with, nor offers endorsement of, this site."
MS owns the MVP program, but not MVPS.org.
MS owns the MVP program, but not MVPS.org.
Microsoft made a mistake wasting time communicating with a first class buffoon like you, Robin.
Microsoft wasted their time. You wasted your time. Robin had a great time. Who are you calling a buffoon?
I'm calling Robin a buffoon because he writes pieces like this to get browny points on slashdot. If he had toned down the rhetoric a bit, his "article", I mean "hit piece", would have some credibility (or at least the pretense of such). But he so wanted slashdotters to masturbate to this drivel that he went over the top and flushed the article's and his own credibility down the toilet.
Why do you come to Robin's site and post if you hate him so? Doesn't really seem to make a great deal of sense. If you don't like him or what he writes there is plenty of other material on the internet.
DougInKY
---
Nothing remains as constant as change.
DougInKY
---
Nothing remains as constant as change.
May I suggest you try out Cinellera for GNU/Linux video editing? It may be just what you need to finally kick Windows.
The disparity in the number of iPod (>100) and Zune (0) projects on sourceforge might have something to do with the fact that iPod has been on the market for a couple of years, and the Zune has been on the market for a couple of weeks.
Or maybe I am completely missing some attempt at humor?
Or maybe I am completely missing some attempt at humor?
No, not at all. You just missed the point. If Zune should be of any interests to his (Robins') readers, you should be able to use it with Open Source software.
I was curious about that statement too, so I did a little digging. I checked for the oldest registered iPod projects on sourceforge and found the top five dated from 2001-09-06 to 2002-05-06. I checked with wikipedia and found the original release date as 2001-10-23 for the first iPod. Oddly enough, there were two projects on the search that turned up older than the iPod release date. The same is true for the other mentioned source forge project libmtp in regards to zune, which was started at the beginning of the year.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it bears much weight comparing apples to oranges with the two units being released with a 5 year gap into different market/development cultures.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it bears much weight comparing apples to oranges with the two units being released with a 5 year gap into different market/development cultures.
Following many of the links, I was informed by Norton that the monkey video at Google video had the Bloodh@und code. (@ symbol for o since I wasn't sure if it would be filtered from our firewall)
Robin,
I find that MS *tried* this kind of junket a little strange, and maybe indicative of deeper issues at MS. They have people on staff who understand OSS, the alternative media, and its communities, but obviously none of them were involved in planning your visit.
It sounds like a bunch of MS marketing guys just together and said "if only we could get up close and personal with these MS-haters we could convert them to the Microsoft Way!" and then turned on you the same direct marketing they would use with a junior procurement manager. Far more clueless than MS has been in general lately with their OSS relations; I have to wonder if the event was even fully sanctioned by execs.
Overall, very strange<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and very 1999, especially the "house of the future" and the NDAs.
--Josh Berkus
I find that MS *tried* this kind of junket a little strange, and maybe indicative of deeper issues at MS. They have people on staff who understand OSS, the alternative media, and its communities, but obviously none of them were involved in planning your visit.
It sounds like a bunch of MS marketing guys just together and said "if only we could get up close and personal with these MS-haters we could convert them to the Microsoft Way!" and then turned on you the same direct marketing they would use with a junior procurement manager. Far more clueless than MS has been in general lately with their OSS relations; I have to wonder if the event was even fully sanctioned by execs.
Overall, very strange<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and very 1999, especially the "house of the future" and the NDAs.
--Josh Berkus
Before you try Vista or OS X for video editing...
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 13, 2006 07:14 AM
Take a look at Studio64
It's a new Linux distro based on Debian Etch's AMD64 'pure 64' port. It has commercial support, but all the software used on it is completely Free and Open source.
<a href="http://64studio.com/" title="64studio.com">http://64studio.com/</a 64studio.com>
Advanced non-linear video editing, as well as 3d modelling, animation, and video composition. 2-D editing and image creation tools. And the ability to be used as a state of the art digital audio workstation with special low-latency kernel by default. As well as normal desktop and office functionality typical to desktop linux distributions.
Expect higher levels of stability and completeness then what your normally accustomed to for compiling and installing stuff by hand.
I don't know if it'll replace Vegas for you, but you'll get everything aviable for Linux as far as multimedia goes without the need to compile or install anything. Also I expect that they would love to have good feedback from somebody who is experianced in Linux and has found it lacking for video editing at the same time.
It's specificly optimized for 64bit machines, but they have a legacy 32bit version.
It's a new Linux distro based on Debian Etch's AMD64 'pure 64' port. It has commercial support, but all the software used on it is completely Free and Open source.
<a href="http://64studio.com/" title="64studio.com">http://64studio.com/</a 64studio.com>
Advanced non-linear video editing, as well as 3d modelling, animation, and video composition. 2-D editing and image creation tools. And the ability to be used as a state of the art digital audio workstation with special low-latency kernel by default. As well as normal desktop and office functionality typical to desktop linux distributions.
Expect higher levels of stability and completeness then what your normally accustomed to for compiling and installing stuff by hand.
I don't know if it'll replace Vegas for you, but you'll get everything aviable for Linux as far as multimedia goes without the need to compile or install anything. Also I expect that they would love to have good feedback from somebody who is experianced in Linux and has found it lacking for video editing at the same time.
It's specificly optimized for 64bit machines, but they have a legacy 32bit version.
Full disclosure - I'm a Microsoft employee, but not based in Redmond.
I did find the article biased - there were comments and quips that indicated the predisposition of the author. However, that does not lessen the objective truth of the things he observed (an NDA for home of the future is silly, the inability of his hosts to comment on what should be easily anticipated questions from a FOSS crowd, etc)
What I found most interesting was this:
"I also think, from what I heard during my visit and what other Microsoft employees and customers have told me at other times, that it has degenerated into a series of disconnected fiefdoms that aren't all moving in the same direction.
This sort of corporate disorganization might be expected in a fast-moving startup with 50 employees, but in a mature company with more than 70,000 people on its payroll it is not acceptable."
One conclusion I've come to since starting at MSFT is that it's the balkanization that has helped this company survive - it makes it easier to kill product groups that aren't performing, and encourages incubation of new technologies without over engineering. It has caused problems with product groups working at cross purposes on occasion, but it seems that in general MSFT makes a gestalt out of it.
What's *really* funny to me, though, is someone who seems to generally dislike MSFT is asking it to behave like the general<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/. impression of it - "why can't Microsoft be the single-minded juggernaut we all accuse it of being?"
I'm just sayin', is all...
I did find the article biased - there were comments and quips that indicated the predisposition of the author. However, that does not lessen the objective truth of the things he observed (an NDA for home of the future is silly, the inability of his hosts to comment on what should be easily anticipated questions from a FOSS crowd, etc)
What I found most interesting was this:
"I also think, from what I heard during my visit and what other Microsoft employees and customers have told me at other times, that it has degenerated into a series of disconnected fiefdoms that aren't all moving in the same direction.
This sort of corporate disorganization might be expected in a fast-moving startup with 50 employees, but in a mature company with more than 70,000 people on its payroll it is not acceptable."
One conclusion I've come to since starting at MSFT is that it's the balkanization that has helped this company survive - it makes it easier to kill product groups that aren't performing, and encourages incubation of new technologies without over engineering. It has caused problems with product groups working at cross purposes on occasion, but it seems that in general MSFT makes a gestalt out of it.
What's *really* funny to me, though, is someone who seems to generally dislike MSFT is asking it to behave like the general<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/. impression of it - "why can't Microsoft be the single-minded juggernaut we all accuse it of being?"
I'm just sayin', is all...
Hello,
I, too, was a MSFT employee at one point (in Redmond, no less), and I used to preach the Windows Religion (TM), especially Windows NT (I *hated* Windows 95/98), every chance I could get. Far as I was concerned, NT was Da Bomb. Anything else, including other versions of Windows, was crap.
Today, I am a F/OSS user, especially GNU/Linux.
It shouldn't surprise you that Roblimo's article was biased. It would be like Charles Simoniyi talking about MS Word vs. WordPerfect. Remember that everything that Microsoft itself writes or has written for it, including its paid-for, so-called "objective studies," is biased in favor of the company. Since you're there, you know how the company works; there, Windows isn't just a product, but rather a religion. That aspect scared me even as they were throwing stock at me.
F/OSS folks do, as a general rule, do tend to think more logically and critically, even about their own positions, than I've seen Microsoft proponents do. MCSE's, for example, write some of the most biased--and incorrect--drivel that I've seen outside of the "Cult of Mac." Imagine a Windows Magazine editor going to, say, a Red Hat conference, and you'll see what I mean.
The trade press that takes all that advertising money from MSFT is equally biased. Oh, they've got the occasional OpenOffice article here or there, but they're too busy talking glowing terms about Windows than actually doing real journalism and real research (e. g. PC World, PC Magazine). By *that* standard, Roblimo's article is a study in objective skepticism.
That said, you should learn a lot during your time at MS. I sure did, and yes, I'm better for it. Good luck!
I, too, was a MSFT employee at one point (in Redmond, no less), and I used to preach the Windows Religion (TM), especially Windows NT (I *hated* Windows 95/98), every chance I could get. Far as I was concerned, NT was Da Bomb. Anything else, including other versions of Windows, was crap.
Today, I am a F/OSS user, especially GNU/Linux.
It shouldn't surprise you that Roblimo's article was biased. It would be like Charles Simoniyi talking about MS Word vs. WordPerfect. Remember that everything that Microsoft itself writes or has written for it, including its paid-for, so-called "objective studies," is biased in favor of the company. Since you're there, you know how the company works; there, Windows isn't just a product, but rather a religion. That aspect scared me even as they were throwing stock at me.
F/OSS folks do, as a general rule, do tend to think more logically and critically, even about their own positions, than I've seen Microsoft proponents do. MCSE's, for example, write some of the most biased--and incorrect--drivel that I've seen outside of the "Cult of Mac." Imagine a Windows Magazine editor going to, say, a Red Hat conference, and you'll see what I mean.
The trade press that takes all that advertising money from MSFT is equally biased. Oh, they've got the occasional OpenOffice article here or there, but they're too busy talking glowing terms about Windows than actually doing real journalism and real research (e. g. PC World, PC Magazine). By *that* standard, Roblimo's article is a study in objective skepticism.
That said, you should learn a lot during your time at MS. I sure did, and yes, I'm better for it. Good luck!
Why should MS have to use a competing product? They make directx, they are experts at it, why should they have to learn a new product and make it for that? MS shouldn't even have to be making anything for non-windows.
Because the software world is changing from a product business model to a services based business model.
Services need to be platform agnostic. That can't happen when using proprietary APIs like directx. OpenGL is an open spec that is not platform specific.
Services need to be platform agnostic. That can't happen when using proprietary APIs like directx. OpenGL is an open spec that is not platform specific.
""I don't understand complex legal issues because I'm in product marketing" really is a valid answer. "
So they invited a bunch of anti-MS linux/mac-lovin IP-stealing communist hippies to convince them of the error of their ways, and then didn't have anyone there who could answer the obvious questions???
I think Rob's point was that if you're trying to convince people to change their mind, you don't dodge the big questions, you make sure your big guns are there to fire back straight answers.
John.
So they invited a bunch of anti-MS linux/mac-lovin IP-stealing communist hippies to convince them of the error of their ways, and then didn't have anyone there who could answer the obvious questions???
I think Rob's point was that if you're trying to convince people to change their mind, you don't dodge the big questions, you make sure your big guns are there to fire back straight answers.
John.
It appears that the organizers of the One Laptop Per Child project never watched the documentary that showed how Microsoft arose from a hack by Gates, fooling IBM by Gates getting them to allow MS to license the OS to other hardware manufacturers ("the profit's in the hardware...we're the main brand...sure"), then the critical part of the documenatary, Gates fools Jobs, when Gates sees what Jobs was developing (their original version of windows), and Gates convinces Jobs to send Microsoft several hundred Apple desktops so Microsoft could make some of their applications compatible with the Apple hardware. The documentary shows Ballmer cracking up in front of Apple headquarters when he hears this. The rest of Windows is history.
Today, we have the organizers of the OLPC project agreeing to add a port to enable additional memory to be used, and OLPC sending a number of samples over to MS to "enable a low resource version of Office to work on the unit".
My jaw hit the ground when I read that a few days ago. The organizers of the OLPC project giving MS many months earlier than would otherwise be possible, dozens of these units so they can find a way around this obstacle months earlier? This is a project that can die or survive based on the number of months head start it gets out of the manufacturing plant and into the hands of children compared to how fast and how subsidized Intel/MS are going to be with their alternate solution. Anything MS can throw in front of the OLPC project to slow it down or temporarily stop it in its tracks, MS is going to jump at the opportunity. They are already hurting from Apple laptop adoption at universities here in the US, said to be around 25% by one university CIO, already hurting from Firefox marketshare, already hurting by Linux server marketshare and free installs, already hurting by OS and browser marketshare declines in France, Germany, Italy, and other EU and non-EU countries, already hurting from their lack of China penetration, throw on top of that the OLPC project that is putting a non-MS OS in the hands of millions of children with each additional unit measurement being one million additional laptops, add all this together and you have MS being shaken to the core over whether they will be able to continue to grow revenue in the future, or at what point in the future their revenue numbers actually decline.
MS got it right. The children are the key. Train the children on MS, and MS wins the war. The OLPC organizers got it right from the beginning, up until this mistake. A serious mistake. They never should've handed any units over to MS for their evaluation. Too bad the organizers didn't watch the MS documentary, or weren't paying attention to or remembered the documentary, especially the part where MS gets their hands on the Apple desktops. MS should've been stalled until the laptops actually shipped, a point where MS could've obtained the units from the end using governments participating in the project, and until more commitments were in hand on purchasing the units.
Today, we have the organizers of the OLPC project agreeing to add a port to enable additional memory to be used, and OLPC sending a number of samples over to MS to "enable a low resource version of Office to work on the unit".
My jaw hit the ground when I read that a few days ago. The organizers of the OLPC project giving MS many months earlier than would otherwise be possible, dozens of these units so they can find a way around this obstacle months earlier? This is a project that can die or survive based on the number of months head start it gets out of the manufacturing plant and into the hands of children compared to how fast and how subsidized Intel/MS are going to be with their alternate solution. Anything MS can throw in front of the OLPC project to slow it down or temporarily stop it in its tracks, MS is going to jump at the opportunity. They are already hurting from Apple laptop adoption at universities here in the US, said to be around 25% by one university CIO, already hurting from Firefox marketshare, already hurting by Linux server marketshare and free installs, already hurting by OS and browser marketshare declines in France, Germany, Italy, and other EU and non-EU countries, already hurting from their lack of China penetration, throw on top of that the OLPC project that is putting a non-MS OS in the hands of millions of children with each additional unit measurement being one million additional laptops, add all this together and you have MS being shaken to the core over whether they will be able to continue to grow revenue in the future, or at what point in the future their revenue numbers actually decline.
MS got it right. The children are the key. Train the children on MS, and MS wins the war. The OLPC organizers got it right from the beginning, up until this mistake. A serious mistake. They never should've handed any units over to MS for their evaluation. Too bad the organizers didn't watch the MS documentary, or weren't paying attention to or remembered the documentary, especially the part where MS gets their hands on the Apple desktops. MS should've been stalled until the laptops actually shipped, a point where MS could've obtained the units from the end using governments participating in the project, and until more commitments were in hand on purchasing the units.
I don't think it was a documentary. It was a movie called "Pirates of Silicon Valley". It clearly shows both the mistakes of IBM and the cunning of Microsoft at the time. (I guess it does explain why IBM is siding with Linux/Open-source AND going against OpenXML...They want payback).
You do have it right. Microsoft does use the "get them while they're young" approach to maintain a source of MS solution users. (or computing drones).
They infect schools and universities with their solutions and offer MASSIVE discounts to encourage some CIOs to stick with them.
I have seen courses where they don't teach about word processing (demonstrate and educate the various apps one can use)...They teach MS Word and that's it!
You do have it right. Microsoft does use the "get them while they're young" approach to maintain a source of MS solution users. (or computing drones).
They infect schools and universities with their solutions and offer MASSIVE discounts to encourage some CIOs to stick with them.
I have seen courses where they don't teach about word processing (demonstrate and educate the various apps one can use)...They teach MS Word and that's it!
It appears that the organizers of the One Laptop Per Child project never watched the documentary that showed how Microsoft arose from a hack by Gates
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/" title="imdb.com">Pirates of Silicon Valley</a imdb.com>. More of a Crock-umentary than a documentary.
It was basically a hit piece intended to put pretty much everyone in the worst possible light. IIRC it was produced by Ted Turner. 'Nuff said.
It was supposedly adapted from the (now out of print) first edition of the book Fire In The Valley, which I found factual (there is now a <a href="http://www.fireinthevalley.com/" title="fireinthevalley.com">second edition</a fireinthevalley.com> out). However, the movie bears almost no resemblance to that book.
As much as I detest Bill Gates and especially Steve Ballmer, I was personally offended by the cheap shots made against them in that "film". I was also offended by the cheap shots made against Steve Jobs. None of this garbage was in the book.
Not to worry. Extensive information on the OLPC hardware and software is available via the OLPC Wiki. For example:
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines/" title="laptop.org">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Gu<nobr>i<wbr></nobr> delines/</a laptop.org>
By the time Microsoft gathers an army of 10,000 developers and produces the first version of Windows for the OLPC in five years time, the Fedora Linux OS will be at version 16.
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines/" title="laptop.org">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Gu<nobr>i<wbr></nobr> delines/</a laptop.org>
By the time Microsoft gathers an army of 10,000 developers and produces the first version of Windows for the OLPC in five years time, the Fedora Linux OS will be at version 16.
the fact there were no real executive, code or legal folks from MS tells you how seriously they take roblimo and his half-ass video. shit, they might just threaten to pull their ads, which are a good chunk of VA SW/OSTG Media's revenue. maybe you guys will have to play host next time.
Talk about deja vu. In 1995, a month or two before the release of Win95, MS identified around a hundred "influential developers" who were making noise on various online fora that was generally not favorable to their efforts and invited us out to Redmond for a similar junket.
Just so nobody would think there weren't marketers involved, they titled the event Summer Camp '95, gave it a friendly, sunny logo and handed out all sorts of logo'd summery trinkets like shirts, shorts and insulated mugs.
They put us up in a nice hotel, wined-and-dined us handsomely, gave us pretty presentations and access to suposedly knowledgeable techies for Q and A sessions about Win95. Oh yes, and they shipped to us afterward large boxes of all of their enterprise and developer products so we could try them out and be suitably impressed.
This was back when many techies had adopted OS/2 and recognized that at the time it was far superior to anything MS offerred (might still be, but I won't go down that rathole), much along the lines of Linux's popularity with the same sorts of folks today.
In short, it sounds like they're still doing the same thing, with similarly dismal results. Of the group I was with, I don't know as they changed anyone's opinion of them, and perhaps only reinforced our belief that they were astonishinly arrogant and not particularly interested in what was actually best for their customers.
All of the comments in this article about softies trying to put on a good show but avoiding questions when they got into uncomfortable territory resonate from my experience. It's almost like spam - they figure if they pitch enough people they'll get one or two "sales" (change someone's mind), even in a generally hostile environment. The difference here is that it costs them thousands of dollars per recipient, but I guess when you have essentially unlimited funds available you can do things that wouldn't make any sense to most of us.
Since they're not likely to run out of money anytime soon, nor learn that there's no net benefit to these things, I suppose it'll just continue to be beusiness as usual.
Just so nobody would think there weren't marketers involved, they titled the event Summer Camp '95, gave it a friendly, sunny logo and handed out all sorts of logo'd summery trinkets like shirts, shorts and insulated mugs.
They put us up in a nice hotel, wined-and-dined us handsomely, gave us pretty presentations and access to suposedly knowledgeable techies for Q and A sessions about Win95. Oh yes, and they shipped to us afterward large boxes of all of their enterprise and developer products so we could try them out and be suitably impressed.
This was back when many techies had adopted OS/2 and recognized that at the time it was far superior to anything MS offerred (might still be, but I won't go down that rathole), much along the lines of Linux's popularity with the same sorts of folks today.
In short, it sounds like they're still doing the same thing, with similarly dismal results. Of the group I was with, I don't know as they changed anyone's opinion of them, and perhaps only reinforced our belief that they were astonishinly arrogant and not particularly interested in what was actually best for their customers.
All of the comments in this article about softies trying to put on a good show but avoiding questions when they got into uncomfortable territory resonate from my experience. It's almost like spam - they figure if they pitch enough people they'll get one or two "sales" (change someone's mind), even in a generally hostile environment. The difference here is that it costs them thousands of dollars per recipient, but I guess when you have essentially unlimited funds available you can do things that wouldn't make any sense to most of us.
Since they're not likely to run out of money anytime soon, nor learn that there's no net benefit to these things, I suppose it'll just continue to be beusiness as usual.
See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law/" title="wikipedia.org">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law/</a wikipedia.org>.
By definition, you've automatically lost the debate. Way to go, Churchill.
No, more like Santayana's law:
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Godwin's Law applies to people who try to win an argument by associating, in some way, their opponent with Hitler -- which the GP clearly did not do.
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Godwin's Law applies to people who try to win an argument by associating, in some way, their opponent with Hitler -- which the GP clearly did not do.
And Churchill was on the winning side.
I am a fan of Microsoft specifically from a development standpoint. But I agree you need to learn from history. Microsoft set a precedence for the business practices when they effectively crushed the original Netscape browser. And you're right, open source needs to be weary of this practice no matter what Microsoft's says.
I am not sure if there was "secret meeting" that resulted in the notion to exterminate the GPL. But I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is plotting against it.
I am not sure if there was "secret meeting" that resulted in the notion to exterminate the GPL. But I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is plotting against it.
Windows is running on hundreds of millions of PCs and has every dumbass hacker and spyware company on Earth sitting around thinking, "How can I fuck your computer today?" Understand that there is practically an army of smart programmers who spend all their time thinking up ways to screw over PC owners.
The same threat just plain doesn't exist for Linux or Mac. How many virii are there for linux? 30? 3? 2 and a half?
So, just ponder that a little bit. First of all - consider all those hundreds of millions of windows machines out there. How many unix/linux/unix machines are there out there? Maybe not as desktops, but if you include servers? My guess is that it's not an order of magnitude less than the number of Windows machines. If you think there are 400 or 500 million windows machines out there, I'm guessing around 100 million mac/unix/linux machines. Think servers. Heck, Google alone has probably over a million linux servers by now.
As for your second argument - there are practically no virusses out there for Linux, Mac or Unix. That's correct. Have you ever considered that there might be another reason for that? Like, maybe these systems are actually well-designed from a security perspective?
Seriously, I'm really tired of the 'there is not the same level of exposure' argument. That's nonsense. There are more than enough Linux/Unix/Mac machines out there to make cracking them attractive. Particularly because your average Linux/Unix/Mac owner (as in person or organization) is more wealthy or more high profile and therefore a more interesting target for cracking.
So why are there no virusses out there for Linux/Unix/Mac? Because these systems are Unix based, and they actually have a security model built in that does not look like Swiss cheese. Microsoft products are not secure. Period. That's why there are so many virusses out there. There is no other reason.
Just counting the top 7 computer manufacturers - not including all the homebrew and smaller companies, 180,000,000 pc's (not including apple which has sold about 40 million) have been sold in the last 2 years. (dell has sold 133 million pcs in the last 5 years) Approximately 5%-10% (depending on vendor) of computers being sold are servers.
Of those computers Microsoft still leads the market share with over half of all servers being sold today running a windows product. (including mainframes)
It doesn't take a lot of math to see that there are a LOT more windows machines out there then there are all other operating systems combined. The numbers aren't even close.
As far as security goes, microsoft has proven itself to be highly exploitable. But you're not saying *nix isn't exploitable I hope? I can't tell you how many times I've had to patch sendmail, dns, ftp, etc services on linux boxes. Sure there might not be a lot of viruses floating around for them, but if programmers wanted to write them they would be just as effective on one computer as another. Microsoft by being seen as the 'corporate bad guy' defintely gets targetted for bashing and hacking for that reason alone sometimes.
Of those computers Microsoft still leads the market share with over half of all servers being sold today running a windows product. (including mainframes)
It doesn't take a lot of math to see that there are a LOT more windows machines out there then there are all other operating systems combined. The numbers aren't even close.
As far as security goes, microsoft has proven itself to be highly exploitable. But you're not saying *nix isn't exploitable I hope? I can't tell you how many times I've had to patch sendmail, dns, ftp, etc services on linux boxes. Sure there might not be a lot of viruses floating around for them, but if programmers wanted to write them they would be just as effective on one computer as another. Microsoft by being seen as the 'corporate bad guy' defintely gets targetted for bashing and hacking for that reason alone sometimes.
Robin Miller, Gina Trapani and Ken Kurokawa came in sometime after 13:00 on the December 13 to the emergency care at the Seattle University Hospital. Things remain pretty uncertain as of yet, but doctors suspect poisoning by the radioactive isotope Polonium-210.
You managed to be completely irrelevant to vista, by questioning the personel instructed on showcasing vista to people interested on subjects completely unrelated to the showcase...
Did you really expect any different answers?
They're t here to discuss features and expectations of vista, meanwhile you're more interested in politics and pushing file structure formats that change too frequently for anyone to properly develope for...
Those poor microsoft techs & reps who had to deal with your arrogant self...
Sorry to inform you, the high and mighty, that microsoft isn't the borg like you make them out to be.
Did you really expect any different answers?
They're t here to discuss features and expectations of vista, meanwhile you're more interested in politics and pushing file structure formats that change too frequently for anyone to properly develope for...
Those poor microsoft techs & reps who had to deal with your arrogant self...
Sorry to inform you, the high and mighty, that microsoft isn't the borg like you make them out to be.
So let me get this straight. You accepted an invitation knowing that the topic was Vista. But once there, you tried to subvert the discussions with your own private agenda, one that was completely irrelevant to Vista. Then you criticize your hosts for trying to get the conversation back to the agenda that you knowingly accepted the invitation for.
Arrogant, inconsiderate, rude and juvenile behavior. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Arrogant, inconsiderate, rude and juvenile behavior. You should be ashamed of yourself.
You know what my favorite part of the story was? The end. Not the Zune section, below that. It was a Microsoft ad. Linux.com is allowed to thrive, because Microsoft generates revenue, and can afford advertising in the most unlikely places.
What you open source extremists fail to realize is that Microsoft has produced the most successful operating system. Period. Your mom doesn't need to know how to use a bash shell. Linux no longer innovates, they simply play catch up. How's Mono coming along?
What you open source extremists fail to realize is that Microsoft has produced the most successful operating system. Period. Your mom doesn't need to know how to use a bash shell. Linux no longer innovates, they simply play catch up. How's Mono coming along?
I am over 40 years and consider is as poor to respond to such incitive comments as it is to make them (and I haven't for many years) but this one seem to have irritated me no end. Not because it is pro MS, but because of it's emotive (plain obnoxious in fact) tone and complete lack of reasoning.
1. I don't think much of having MS addverts on sites like this, but I can't see it as clearly inappropriate and certainly doesn't make the article less credible.
2. How does being less sucsesful make linux wrong in any sense? How does it address any technical argument? By the same argumanent you should be writing in chinese, and MS should have closed shop in all those years it held only a tiny share of the market. And by the same arguiment we should have never moved out of the dark ages.
3. What does anybody's mom have to do with things? On top of that people have been pointing out for at least 10 years that you don't need to use the Bash shell in linux any more than you need the command prompt in windows.
4. Who says "Linux no longer inovates and plays catchup" besides MS marketing (and you)? Considering the number of features in each, how is it even possible to compare? (You woudn't know I am sure.)
5. I don't have much intetest in Mono, but I bet you have no idea of what<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.net is all about. And we could as easilly ask how is Internet explorer coming along or IIS (compared to Firefox and Apache which may need pointing out to you)? (Neither of which really proves anything anyway.) And by the same reasoning you could argue MS is backwards for all the open standards they have not "been able" to implement.
1. I don't think much of having MS addverts on sites like this, but I can't see it as clearly inappropriate and certainly doesn't make the article less credible.
2. How does being less sucsesful make linux wrong in any sense? How does it address any technical argument? By the same argumanent you should be writing in chinese, and MS should have closed shop in all those years it held only a tiny share of the market. And by the same arguiment we should have never moved out of the dark ages.
3. What does anybody's mom have to do with things? On top of that people have been pointing out for at least 10 years that you don't need to use the Bash shell in linux any more than you need the command prompt in windows.
4. Who says "Linux no longer inovates and plays catchup" besides MS marketing (and you)? Considering the number of features in each, how is it even possible to compare? (You woudn't know I am sure.)
5. I don't have much intetest in Mono, but I bet you have no idea of what<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.net is all about. And we could as easilly ask how is Internet explorer coming along or IIS (compared to Firefox and Apache which may need pointing out to you)? (Neither of which really proves anything anyway.) And by the same reasoning you could argue MS is backwards for all the open standards they have not "been able" to implement.
You know what my favorite part of your reply was? The end.
That you, closed source and minded fascists, fail to realize is that the story of Microsoft's struggle to be the most successful dictator in the operating system's era has not finished. PERIOD.
Mi mom is 77 years old, knows less about computers and desktops than a 4 year old boy (but cooks whatever you want) and uses Linux with the same difficulties as windoze. She doesn't need to install firewalls and antiviruses, neither fix things in the register nor use the DOS emulator. And above all: she doesn't need to adore a king that kicks her ass.
Microxof stinks. Stinks a lot! and is not a 'responsible company'.
That you, closed source and minded fascists, fail to realize is that the story of Microsoft's struggle to be the most successful dictator in the operating system's era has not finished. PERIOD.
Mi mom is 77 years old, knows less about computers and desktops than a 4 year old boy (but cooks whatever you want) and uses Linux with the same difficulties as windoze. She doesn't need to install firewalls and antiviruses, neither fix things in the register nor use the DOS emulator. And above all: she doesn't need to adore a king that kicks her ass.
Microxof stinks. Stinks a lot! and is not a 'responsible company'.
As I was reading the article, I was struck by how similar your experience was to people who visit North Korea, or during the Cold War, China and the old USSR.
It seems that you had a "handler" with you at all times, speaking the party line, and doing his/her best to make sure you didn't get any real information from the "man on the street".
Pretty sad, really...
It seems that you had a "handler" with you at all times, speaking the party line, and doing his/her best to make sure you didn't get any real information from the "man on the street".
Pretty sad, really...
Re:favorite part of the story (Neutral)
By Anonymous Reader on 2007.01.03 20:52 (#94550)
You know what my favorite part of your reply was? The end.
That you, closed source and minded fascists, fail to realize that the story of Microsoft's struggle to be the most successful dictator in the operating system's era has not finished. PERIOD.
Mi mom is 77 years old, knows less about computers and desktops than a 4 year old boy (but cooks whatever you want in the world wide histroy of cuisine) and uses Linux with the same difficulties as windoze. She doesn't need to install firewalls and antiviruses, neither fix things in the register nor use the DOS emulator. And above all: she doesn't need to adore a king that kicks her ass.
Microxof stinks. Stinks a lot! and is not a 'responsible company'.
By Anonymous Reader on 2007.01.03 20:52 (#94550)
You know what my favorite part of your reply was? The end.
That you, closed source and minded fascists, fail to realize that the story of Microsoft's struggle to be the most successful dictator in the operating system's era has not finished. PERIOD.
Mi mom is 77 years old, knows less about computers and desktops than a 4 year old boy (but cooks whatever you want in the world wide histroy of cuisine) and uses Linux with the same difficulties as windoze. She doesn't need to install firewalls and antiviruses, neither fix things in the register nor use the DOS emulator. And above all: she doesn't need to adore a king that kicks her ass.
Microxof stinks. Stinks a lot! and is not a 'responsible company'.
It was funny at first but by the end it was starting to sound more than a tad bitter and kinda harsh.
And their products aren't even that bad usually. I've had Windows 2000 running stable for ages.
I've had Ubuntu running okay but I go two of my friends to try it and they both had major problems. One of them actually completely puked it's own filesystem because it crashed and had to be rebooted manually.
Dont' get me wrong, Ubuntu's great and all, but Linux software is loaded with bugs that us techies just don't notice or run into that don't really flesh themselves out until they get to a wider, less experienced audience.
Windows is running on hundreds of millions of PCs and has every dumbass hacker and spyware company on Earth sitting around thinking, "How can I fuck your computer today?" Understand that there is practically an army of smart programmers who spend all their time thinking up ways to screw over PC owners.
The same threat just plain doesn't exist for Linux or Mac. How many virii are there for linux? 30? 3? 2 and a half?
And why pester these marketing people anyway? Marketing people don't know anything! Don't you read Dilbert? "I don't understand complex legal issues because I'm in product marketing" really is a valid answer.
And their products aren't even that bad usually. I've had Windows 2000 running stable for ages.
I've had Ubuntu running okay but I go two of my friends to try it and they both had major problems. One of them actually completely puked it's own filesystem because it crashed and had to be rebooted manually.
Dont' get me wrong, Ubuntu's great and all, but Linux software is loaded with bugs that us techies just don't notice or run into that don't really flesh themselves out until they get to a wider, less experienced audience.
Windows is running on hundreds of millions of PCs and has every dumbass hacker and spyware company on Earth sitting around thinking, "How can I fuck your computer today?" Understand that there is practically an army of smart programmers who spend all their time thinking up ways to screw over PC owners.
The same threat just plain doesn't exist for Linux or Mac. How many virii are there for linux? 30? 3? 2 and a half?
And why pester these marketing people anyway? Marketing people don't know anything! Don't you read Dilbert? "I don't understand complex legal issues because I'm in product marketing" really is a valid answer.
Aw maaaan, Robin always get the GOOD assignments!
Posted by: Administrator on December 13, 2006 02:15 AM
Cool assignment, Rob. Must've been a little weird spending all that time in enemy territory, knowing that at any moment you could disappear and no one would ever know what happened to your body. I hear there are mountains just across the river in Oregon where people can just disappear in the snow....
Make sure you get checked for radioactive contaminants since you returned from eating the food they provided you, dude.
But I jest. In all seriousness [crossing fingers behind my back] though, you left out the really important stuff, such as...
Was there an open bar?
Make sure you get checked for radioactive contaminants since you returned from eating the food they provided you, dude.
But I jest. In all seriousness [crossing fingers behind my back] though, you left out the really important stuff, such as...
Was there an open bar?
Microsoft's behavior towards some "specifically chosen because they were not friendly toward Microsoft" reaffirms other recent comments I made regarding Microsoft's campaign of deception against Miguel de Icaza.
The Microsoft tactics are straight from the history books, such as the 1941 Operation Barbarossa (see Wikipedia for more details). In that operation, Hitler totally deceived Stalin about his true tactics. Hitler had a passionate desire to exterminate the slavic population in Russia and signed a peace pact with Stalin for short-term convenience. However, as later became obvious, he continued to harbor his passion to destroy Russia and her slavic population.
What is clear from more than twenty years of Microsoft history is that Microsoft senior management (or at least some of them) have a deep-seated desire to exterminate both the GPL and Linux. These people seem ready to go to any length to deceive competitors about their true intention.
However, one only has to study the outpouring of misinformation in its 'Get the Facts' campaign to get some sense of how intent Microsoft is on destroying Linux. Furthermore, the recent Novell agreement was a clear step towards disrupting Linux (especially Red Hat), ODF and the GPL; a step that Novell refuses to acknowledge because of its own passionate desire to collect a short-term financial bonus.
Thanks Roblimo for the transparency and exposing these recent efforts by Microsoft to spread deception and falsehoods.
Frank Daley
The Microsoft tactics are straight from the history books, such as the 1941 Operation Barbarossa (see Wikipedia for more details). In that operation, Hitler totally deceived Stalin about his true tactics. Hitler had a passionate desire to exterminate the slavic population in Russia and signed a peace pact with Stalin for short-term convenience. However, as later became obvious, he continued to harbor his passion to destroy Russia and her slavic population.
What is clear from more than twenty years of Microsoft history is that Microsoft senior management (or at least some of them) have a deep-seated desire to exterminate both the GPL and Linux. These people seem ready to go to any length to deceive competitors about their true intention.
However, one only has to study the outpouring of misinformation in its 'Get the Facts' campaign to get some sense of how intent Microsoft is on destroying Linux. Furthermore, the recent Novell agreement was a clear step towards disrupting Linux (especially Red Hat), ODF and the GPL; a step that Novell refuses to acknowledge because of its own passionate desire to collect a short-term financial bonus.
Thanks Roblimo for the transparency and exposing these recent efforts by Microsoft to spread deception and falsehoods.
Frank Daley
If you don't know any Zune project that has to do with Linux, let me introduce you to <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/libmtp" title="sourceforge.net">libmtp</a sourceforge.net>.
Its an opensource project which supports the MTP protocol many portable players use. Zune also uses MTP but currently there is some hacking that has to be done for libmtp to work with Zune.
So if you look for someone to send a free Zune and get it working with Linux, I believe Richard Low, libmtp and <a href="http://www.wentnet.com/projects/xnjb/" title="wentnet.com">XNJB</a wentnet.com> developer, is your man. XNJB is a Mac project but libmtp can be integrated in linux projects also.
Its an opensource project which supports the MTP protocol many portable players use. Zune also uses MTP but currently there is some hacking that has to be done for libmtp to work with Zune.
So if you look for someone to send a free Zune and get it working with Linux, I believe Richard Low, libmtp and <a href="http://www.wentnet.com/projects/xnjb/" title="wentnet.com">XNJB</a wentnet.com> developer, is your man. XNJB is a Mac project but libmtp can be integrated in linux projects also.
Well... if they couldn't make your minds, at least now they have in first hand smart arguments, and they can use it to create more better answer... some kind of linguistic, pragmatic work, over your comments.
You (all of you 5) probably didn't like it, but they must have loved it...
You (all of you 5) probably didn't like it, but they must have loved it...
I'm jealous
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 13, 2006 11:37 AMAnd he can't even tell us what he saw.
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