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13 Oct 2026 19:40:27 EDT (-0400)
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From: scott
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 07:49:15
Message: <4a572abb$1@news.povray.org>
> It's difficult to see how you could make a web browser more attractive 
> to the casual user than IE already is 

BINGO!


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 07:55:01
Message: <web.4a572bb6697b63d15fd99d9e0@news.povray.org>
Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >>> Do you also think Coca-Cola is wrong for banning pubs and restaurants
> >>> from selling Pepsi?
> >>
> >> Yes. (It's news to me that they can legally do this...)
> >
> >     Both Pepsi and Coca Cola do this in the US. They offer a nice rate
> > if the business signs an exclusive contract. It really, really sucks.
>
> They offer a nice rate if the business signs an exclusive contract? Or
> they won't sell to the business at all if they don't sign an exclusive
> contract?

I can answer that question about Coca-Cola in Europe as I’m working for
Coca-Cola Enterprises ATM. If a customer wants a Coca-Cola cooler (fridge) for
Coca-Cola products then they get it free of charge. If they want it for other
products they get charged a rental fee. If they want a vendor (can/bottle
dispensing machine), either it belongs to CCE and it is stocked by CCE then the
customer gets a percentage of the profit or they can rent it from CCE and stock
it themselves. The fountains (those terrible machines that you see in pubs and
MacDoughnuts etc.) are owned by CCE and rented to the customers, they buy the
syrup themselves.

Stephen


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 07:57:21
Message: <4a572ca1$1@news.povray.org>
>> (Recall that Java isn't like C; the source files have to have 
>> particular names, and have to be located in particular folders, and so 
>> on.)
> 
> As so the IDE is not really to blame then if you haven't followed the 
> Java rules exactly.

I did follow Java's rules. Apparently not VS's rules though...

>> Well, it's not like anybody showed us how to use the software...
> 
> LOL.  Reminds me of when you said that 3D Studio was rubbish, but it 
> turns out you were just guessing how to use it and got stuck (surprise 
> surprise!).

It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?

>> Who knows? Perhaps in the 7 years since then, VS has become actually 
>> useful in some way. But I doubt it...
> 
> Yeh I doubt it too, I guess all those companies than spend tens of 
> thousands of dollars on VS licenses are just doing it for fun.  I guess 
> all their employees are secretly using notepad...

Well, I'm sure if they've spent money on licences for something, people 
are going to use it, no matter how lame it is. (Where I work, people use 
Word...)

I'm just saying. Word hasn't changed noticably since 1995 or so. I see 
no particular reason to except VS to have changed drastically. (It 
probably supports quite a few languages that it didn't back then, mind 
you...)


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 08:06:59
Message: <4a572ee3$1@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
>> From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called 
>> Spyglass.
>>
>> Spyglass were selling a web browser, M$ licenced the code from them, 
>> developed IE, and then gave it away for free (in violation of the 
>> terms of the licence with Spyglass). Spyglass promptly went bankrupt 
>> before they could sue M$.
> 
> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.

...this page does not exist?

>> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or 
>> you can't have our product".
> 
> That's impossible, because as pointed out you can just go to a normal 
> shop and buy it if you can't get it directly from MS.  The worst MS 
> could do was "you will agree to these terms or you will have to buy it 
> at the normal price the public pays for it".

I was under the impression that they could put terms into their licence 
to prevent companies doing this. But IANAL...

>> Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people 
>> aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get 
>> government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no".
> 
> Or offer 2000 GBP for your old cars if you buy a new one :-)

I have no idea who came up with that one, but it seems like a pretty 
dumb idea to me...

>> Like, if Tesco decided to start giving away a free bestselling book 
>> with every purchase, they'd have a problem because they'd be using 
>> grocery sales to put book sellers out of business.
> 
> That's not illegal.  In fact it's common practise for supermarkets to 
> use "loss leaders" like petrol and milk/sugar that actually lose them 
> money, to encourage people to come in and spend on the more profitable 
> items.  What *is* illegal is if the manufacturer tries to tell Tesco 
> what price they should sell at.

Tesco might sell petrol at a loss, but they don't give it away *for 
free* to get you through the door, do they?

> Charities are for being fair, businesses are for making money and 
> crushing the competition.

Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody would 
bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find ways to 
screw customers out of their money without providing anything in return.

>> Oracle didn't get to be where they are now 
>> by stealing other people's stuff,
> 
> Oh really:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle

Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.

> As I said, pretty much any large company is going to have done some 
> "unfair" things, otherwise they wouldn't have grown to be a large company.

So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in business 
is to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with cheap 
defective goods at extortionate prices?


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From: scott
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 08:24:34
Message: <4a573302$1@news.povray.org>
> It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?

LOL.  Editing the text files is a fairly minor part of an IDE, and as you 
say shouldn't be that hard.  The complicated parts come when you start 
configuring the build tools, using the debugger, and of course the form 
designer.  If you don't know how to use them properly it's going to be hard 
work and very frustrating.

By the way, I don't know how you could ever write a program without using 
the debugger, but hey maybe I just make lots of mistakes...


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 08:28:53
Message: <4a573405@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
>> It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?
> 
> LOL.  Editing the text files is a fairly minor part of an IDE, and as 
> you say shouldn't be that hard.  The complicated parts come when you 
> start configuring the build tools, using the debugger, and of course the 
> form designer.  If you don't know how to use them properly it's going to 
> be hard work and very frustrating.

Mercifully, VS seemed to already know how to compile stuff, so that 
wasn't too hard. (Persuading it to build a JAR file was another matter...)

> By the way, I don't know how you could ever write a program without 
> using the debugger, but hey maybe I just make lots of mistakes...

The debugger, at least, was relatively intuivite to use. IIRC, the only 
tricky thing was figuring out how the hell to invoke it in the first 
place. (Oh, and the fact that the bug is almost never where you think it 
was, so you invariably put the breakpoints in the wrong place...)

Can you see why I like statically-typed programming languages? ;-)

On an unrelated note, the debugger that comes with GHC is... unhelpful, 
to put it generously.


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From: scott
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 08:50:23
Message: <4a57390f@news.povray.org>
>> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
>
> ...this page does not exist?

Make sure you include the final full stop.

> Tesco might sell petrol at a loss, but they don't give it away *for free* 
> to get you through the door, do they?

No, but there's no law stopping them if they wanted to.  Like when petrol 
stations give away glasses or model cars or oil for free when you buy 
petrol.  WHSmith gave me a free newspaper last time I went to get some food 
in there, I guess if there was a newspaper shop next door they might be out 
of business by now?

> Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody would 
> bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find ways to 
> screw customers out of their money without providing anything in return.

Generally you go bankrupt pretty quickly if you try to do that.

> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.

Oh I see, so when you're talking about MS, "stole" means "bought", but when 
you're talking about Oracle "stole" really does mean "stole" as in acquired 
illegally without paying for it.  Hmmm ok whatever.

> So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in business is 
> to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with cheap defective 
> goods at extortionate prices?

You can't be general like that, most of those things generally lose you 
customers and profit, but you can use your judgment in certain situations. 
(eg if MS had told the people they were buying DOS from that they were 
planning to license it to IBM, they likely wouldn't have been able to buy it 
or been charged 100x more, and then MS probably wouldn't have existed 
today).


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From: scott
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 08:57:49
Message: <4a573acd@news.povray.org>
> Mercifully, VS seemed to already know how to compile stuff, so that wasn't 
> too hard. (Persuading it to build a JAR file was another matter...)

Yes it has pretty good defaults that work straight out of the box (debug and 
release).  But there is a huge amount you can configure, especially if you 
start adding custom build events and more complicated projects with 
installers, dlls, database servers etc.

> The debugger, at least, was relatively intuivite to use. IIRC, the only 
> tricky thing was figuring out how the hell to invoke it in the first 
> place. (Oh, and the fact that the bug is almost never where you think it 
> was, so you invariably put the breakpoints in the wrong place...)

The DirectX debugger is pretty cool too, it can actually record every single 
call to the GPU each frame and store it in a file while your program is 
running.  Then you can go back into the debugger and step through each frame 
or call and see what is rendered on each call, check the textures and vertex 
buffers etc.  I found out I was drawing the terrain in my game 4 times each 
frame this way :-)


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 09:24:29
Message: <4a57410d$1@news.povray.org>
>>> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.

OK, well here we have a question of facts. One Internet source asserts 
that Microsoft licenced a browser from Spyglass and then released it for 
free in violation of the licence terms, and it put Spyglass out of 
business before they could sue. Another Internet source asserts that 
this was not in fact a violation of the licence terms, and that it 
didn't kill Spyglass. At this point, I'm not sure who to believe.

>> Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody 
>> would bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find 
>> ways to screw customers out of their money without providing anything 
>> in return.
> 
> Generally you go bankrupt pretty quickly if you try to do that.

Unless you're Microsoft, at least...

>> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.
> 
> Oh I see, so when you're talking about MS, "stole" means "bought", but 
> when you're talking about Oracle "stole" really does mean "stole" as in 
> acquired illegally without paying for it.  Hmmm ok whatever.

If you pay to use some code in a certain way, and you use it in that 
way, that would be "buying" it. If you pay to use some code in a very 
limited way, and then go on to use it in a completely different way 
while denying that you're doing so, that would be "stealing". Much like 
all those DVD players which secretly use GPL code for their video 
decoding in violation of the licence terms...

>> So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in 
>> business is to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with 
>> cheap defective goods at extortionate prices?
> 
> You can't be general like that, most of those things generally lose you 
> customers and profit, but you can use your judgment in certain 
> situations. (eg if MS had told the people they were buying DOS from that 
> they were planning to license it to IBM, they likely wouldn't have been 
> able to buy it or been charged 100x more, and then MS probably wouldn't 
> have existed today).

Well, all I'm saying is that lots of other large companies seem to get 
by without having to resort to cheating to stay in business...


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From: scott
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:03:01
Message: <4a574a15@news.povray.org>
> OK, well here we have a question of facts. One Internet source asserts 
> that Microsoft licenced a browser from Spyglass and then released it for 
> free in violation of the licence terms, and it put Spyglass out of 
> business before they could sue.

Care to quote the source?

> Another Internet source asserts that this was not in fact a violation of 
> the licence terms, and that it didn't kill Spyglass. At this point, I'm 
> not sure who to believe.

Try this official document from the US government archives:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/945256/0000950137-97-004112.txt

"On January 21, 1997, the Company amended its license arrangement with
Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") to convert Microsoft's existing license 
for
the Spyglass Mosaic browser technology into a fully paid-up license in
consideration of an additional $8,000,000 payment from Microsoft."

Also I don't see how OpenTV were able to buy Spyglass for $2.5b in 2000 if 
they had gone bankrupt :-S

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/327661

> Unless you're Microsoft, at least...

If MS suddenly released a product that nobody wanted to buy they would go 
out of business quite quickly.  The only way they can survive is by 
convincing people that they want the next version of windows, and the 
previous version is going to be outdated soon blah blah blah.  It's the same 
with phones, cars, computer hardware etc.

> Well, all I'm saying is that lots of other large companies seem to get by 
> without having to resort to cheating to stay in business...

And all I'm saying is the, let's be honest here, pretty minor bad things MS 
has done in its lifetime are not at all unusual in big business.  That's why 
I said that if you give me the name of a large company, I bet it has done 
some similar minor bad thing too.  The company I work for is currently in a 
patent battle about some technology used in its displays, and it also got a 
fine from the EU competition place for talking too much with competitors 
about prices.  Things like that just happen to big companies, it's normal, 
and why every single big company has a sizeable legal department.

If you want to start to talk about *real* unfair and illegal business 
practices then you need to look outside of the software industry.  How about 
pharma companies and pseudo-doctors pushing drugs that don't really do 
anything (or worse cause negative effects), what about companies knowingly 
selling products that will be smuggled into high-tax countries, or selling 
cigarettes to children, or using toxic chemicals in children's toys? 
Stealing some GPL code to put in a DVD player suddenly doesn't seem so bad.


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From: Neeum Zawan
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:26:31
Message: <4a574f97$1@news.povray.org>
On 07/10/09 08:24, Invisible wrote:
> OK, well here we have a question of facts. One Internet source asserts
> that Microsoft licenced a browser from Spyglass and then released it for
> free in violation of the licence terms, and it put Spyglass out of
> business before they could sue. Another Internet source asserts that
> this was not in fact a violation of the licence terms, and that it
> didn't kill Spyglass. At this point, I'm not sure who to believe.

"Thou shall not take all sources to be of equal value"

-- 
"Class, please! If you don't learn Roman numerals, you'll never know the 
dates certain motion pictures were copyrighted." -- Mrs. Krabappel in 
The Simpsons.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:31:48
Message: <4a5750d4$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?

It does a LOT more than just edit text files.

Code folding.
Syntax highlighting.
Auto-formatting (it works for me, sorry)
IntelliSense (the autocomplete thing you mentioned... again, it works 
great for me)
Debugging

That's just the stuff I use on a regular basis.  It's loaded with 
features that I never even touch, as well.

>>> Who knows? Perhaps in the 7 years since then, VS has become actually 
>>> useful in some way. But I doubt it...

Funny, I first used it back in the days of  VC++ 6, and even then it was 
considered better than the competition.

> Well, I'm sure if they've spent money on licences for something, people 
> are going to use it, no matter how lame it is. (Where I work, people use 
> Word...)
> 
> I'm just saying. Word hasn't changed noticably since 1995 or so. I see 
> no particular reason to except VS to have changed drastically. (It 
> probably supports quite a few languages that it didn't back then, mind 
> you...)

Actually, I really like the new version of Word (2007) as well.  I've 
never had any problems with it being unstable, OR with it not doing what 
I wanted.

Maybe the problem is user error? ;)

-- 
Chambers


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:35:30
Message: <4a5751b2@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> Before Internet Explorer, web browsers used to cost money. After IE, it 
> was basically impossible to sell them for money. Why would anyone pay 
> money for something that they can get for free anyway?

I don't recall ever paying for Lynx or Netscape, before IE.  And wasn't 
there an NTSC Browser that was free, too?

-- 
Chambers


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:36:17
Message: <4a5751e1$1@news.povray.org>
>> It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?
> 
> It does a LOT more than just edit text files.
> 
> Code folding.

Yeah, I guess that's vaguely useful...

> Syntax highlighting.

True. I'm used to using a text editor which does this for me.

> Auto-formatting (it works for me, sorry)

Apparently your coding style matches the hard-coded assumptions of the 
software then. :-P

> IntelliSense

Could be useful - if it actually worked right.

> Debugging

Sometimes quite useful. Depends what the bug is.

>> I'm just saying. Word hasn't changed noticably since 1995 or so. I see 
>> no particular reason to except VS to have changed drastically. (It 
>> probably supports quite a few languages that it didn't back then, mind 
>> you...)
> 
> Actually, I really like the new version of Word (2007) as well.  I've 
> never had any problems with it being unstable, OR with it not doing what 
> I wanted.

I haven't seen Word 2007 yet. Still using Word 2003 here.

> Maybe the problem is user error? ;)

You know what? The Internet abounds with people complaining about Word 
not working right, yet nobody ever seems to complain about Excel or 
Access or PowerPoint or Outlook... Wanna take a guess why that is?


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:37:58
Message: <4a575246@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> If I wanted to be cynical, I could point out that I've never met anybody 
> who owns a copy of 3D Studio or Paintshop *legally*. ;-)

Criminal!  Criminal!

;)

I've met plenty of people who owned licences.  Well, not 3DS, but 
Photoshop (which isn't the same, I know, but pretty close for the 
purposes of this discussion).

-- 
Chambers


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:52:04
Message: <4a575594$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> A similar story happened at the beginning of the Microsoft story, but 
> since I don't recall the precise facts right now I'll leave that one.

IIRC, IBM wanted an OS and a BASIC interpreter.  They went to MS for 
MS-BASIC, and said, "By the way, do you have an OS?"  MS purchased QDOS 
from some other guy, then licensed it to IBM.

The other guy started b*tching because he only got the one flat fee 
instead of all those licensing fees, but hey, he's the one who signed 
the deal.

> Sure, nobody forces web developers to use IE-specific extensions. Yet 
> 90% of all websites work properly only if you use IE.

Have you surfed the Web recently?  I haven't used IE in years.  I've 
been using Firefox and, more recently, Chrome, and I can't remember the 
last time I had a page display incorrectly.

Granted, there are pages that check the useragent string, and then give 
you a *message* saying they might not work properly... but then they 
proceed to work properly.

> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or 
> you can't have our product".

Yeah, that's called a "license."

> Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people 
> aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get 
> government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no". When Microsoft 
> lobbies for something, people seem to think they have a point.

I don't know if you read the news or not, but when the automakers in the 
US complain about people not buying cars, the USG falls all over itself 
trying to placate them.

They do the same thing for corn growers, too.

> Microsoft made their money from Windows. They can afford to give 
> products away with it for free. People who's entire business is selling 
> those other products can't do this. It's using sales from one product to 
> pay for another product; last time I checked, that's not legal.

Walmart and BestBuy do that every day... research "loss leader."  (To be 
fair, I think the practice could be illegal in the UK, but it's popular 
throughout the rest of the world).

>> Nobody's forcing you to use it.
> 
> I'm sure this one has been argued to death. While *technically* this is 
> true, the reality is that M$ has carefully engineered a situation where 
> little viable alternative actually exists. (Let's face it, if somebody 
> else was producing decent software, M$ would go under fairly quickly.)

So, first you complain that MS sucks, then you admit that everyone else 
sucks worse.

Maybe you just don't want to admit that making software is hard, and MS 
is doing they best they can given current market conditions and user 
requirements?

-- 
Chambers


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:54:22
Message: <4a57561e@news.povray.org>
Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> >> But they should call it Linux if they really base it on Linux
> > 
> >   I don't think using the linux kernel requires for the OS to have the
> > word "linux" in its name.

> As far as I can tell, if you want to be technical about it, "Linux" is 
> the tiny bit of code that runs tasks, handles interrupts, manages memory 
> and has a few device drivers.

  In other words, the kernel.

> When you install "Linux", 90% of the stuff 
> you're installing isn't actually "Linux" at all; it's mostly the GNU 
> toolchain, GNOME or KDE, Firefox and half a million other 3rd party items.

  You don't install "Linux". You install, for example, OpenSUSE, or Ubuntu.
or Debian, or...

  Those are the kernel + gnu tools + extra distro-specific stuff, which
in conjunction form the OS.

> Whatever happened to HURD?

  Linux ate it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:55:47
Message: <4a575673$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> You know what? The Internet abounds with people complaining about Word 
> not working right, yet nobody ever seems to complain about Excel or 
> Access or PowerPoint or Outlook... Wanna take a guess why that is?

Because more people use Word than the others, so more people complain 
about it.

Like I said, I use it all the time, and I never have problems.

-- 
Chambers


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:57:36
Message: <4a5756e0$1@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
> You can't be general like that, most of those things generally lose you 
> customers and profit, but you can use your judgment in certain 
> situations. (eg if MS had told the people they were buying DOS from that 
> they were planning to license it to IBM, they likely wouldn't have been 
> able to buy it or been charged 100x more, and then MS probably wouldn't 
> have existed today).

They would exist, but they would be in their original business of compilers.

We'd probably all be running a variant of OS/4 or something.

-- 
Chambers


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From: Chambers
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 10:59:33
Message: <4a575755$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
>>> Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody 
>>> would bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just 
>>> find ways to screw customers out of their money without providing 
>>> anything in return.
>>
>> Generally you go bankrupt pretty quickly if you try to do that.
> 
> Unless you're Microsoft, at least...

Umm... MS DOES provide a product in return.  You might not like the 
product, but it's there, and a lot of other people DO like it.

-- 
Chambers


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:16:34
Message: <4a575b52$1@news.povray.org>
Chambers wrote:
> IIRC, IBM wanted an OS and a BASIC interpreter.  They went to MS for 
> MS-BASIC, and said, "By the way, do you have an OS?"  MS purchased QDOS 
> from some other guy, then licensed it to IBM.
> 
> The other guy started b*tching because he only got the one flat fee 
> instead of all those licensing fees, but hey, he's the one who signed 
> the deal.

The way I heard it was that Gates got some code off a mate and then 
decided to sell it for money, pretending it was his own. And the other 
guy was naturally a little upset that somebody was selling his product 
without his permission.

The facts of the story you present are significantly different.

>> Sure, nobody forces web developers to use IE-specific extensions. Yet 
>> 90% of all websites work properly only if you use IE.
> 
> Have you surfed the Web recently?  I haven't used IE in years.  I've 
> been using Firefox and, more recently, Chrome, and I can't remember the 
> last time I had a page display incorrectly.
> 
> Granted, there are pages that check the useragent string, and then give 
> you a *message* saying they might not work properly... but then they 
> proceed to work properly.

At work, I use two web-based applications which actually don't work 
without IE. (And work correctly only with certain versions of it, for 
that matter.) In general, most sites out there do now work with Firefox, 
although it definitely depends on which kind of sites you visit. I'm not 
sure if more sites work with Firefox because the web is becomming more 
standards-compliant, or because Firefox is getting better at emulating 
the brokeness of IE...

>>> Nobody's forcing you to use it.
>>
>> I'm sure this one has been argued to death. While *technically* this 
>> is true, the reality is that M$ has carefully engineered a situation 
>> where little viable alternative actually exists. (Let's face it, if 
>> somebody else was producing decent software, M$ would go under fairly 
>> quickly.)
> 
> So, first you complain that MS sucks, then you admit that everyone else 
> sucks worse.

No, I said M$ has carefully arranged it so that you don't have much 
choice. They deliberately stop people from making better products. Or if 
better products get made, they make it as hard as possible for regular 
users to be able to use them.

I wouldn't mind if M$ was top dog because they actually made the best 
products, but that's simply not true. They're top dog because they use 
trickery to keep the competition out.

> Maybe you just don't want to admit that making software is hard, and MS 
> is doing they best they can given current market conditions and user 
> requirements?

Yes, making software is hard. Making software is *so* hard, in fact, 
that a bunch of people who don't even have access to the spec for the M$ 
Word file format managed to write a word processor that reads M$ Word 
files more reliably than M$ Word itself, and can repair files that M$ 
Word cannot. Clearly M$, the richest software producer on the face of 
God's Earth, is doing the very best they can.

(The best they can to screw you out of money for an inferior product, 
that is...)


Post a reply to this message

From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:17:16
Message: <4a575b7c$1@news.povray.org>
>> Whatever happened to HURD?
> 
>   Linux ate it.

Heh. The GNU guys must have loved that...


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:37:41
Message: <4a576045$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> Microsoft's entire history seems to revolve around stealing other 
> people's stuff and watching them go bankrupt faster than they can sue.

Cite?

>> Name two competitors. Were you even in the market at the time it was 
>> hashing out?
> 
> When the hell was the IBM PC invented anyway?

I rest my case.

> Actually... I'm not aware of anything else that does what Exchange does. 
> Which is a little bit odd, really.

There ya go.

> I know of a few office suites that manage to not constantly crash like 
> MS Office does. 

 > Apache is notable for doing the same thing as IIS

Only in the broad sense that UNIX does the same thing as Windows. They 
really aren't comparable.

> There are lots of database engines out 
> there; I doubt many of them are worse than SQL Server.

You haven't tried MySql then.

It sounds more like "I don't know the capabilities of Microsoft systems, so 
I listen to what Linux enthusiasts tell me about it." :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:39:40
Message: <4a5760bc$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> Both also had a nasty habit of the metadata not matching the source 
> code. Like, open a file, add a new method, and VS seems not to "know 
> about it" until you close and reopen VS. (You'd hope that just saving 
> the file would be enough. No. Maybe just compiling it then? No.)

And how long ago was this, and how out of date were the university's 
computers? I was pretty impressed when VS2005 would add intellisense for 
routines I'd typed into other files and *didn't* save yet.

> I imagine on today's computers it's probably not quite so slow, but I 
> doubt it's become any less inflexible.

So, "I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'll guess it's bad." Cool.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:41:09
Message: <4a576115@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
> I've never made any multi-file projects, but I would be very surprised 
> if you couldn't set what is run.

I'll grant you that one is buried a little deep in the menu structure. It 
always takes me maybe 2 or 3 minutes to remember where it is. Assuming you 
didn't actually, you know, type the question into the help system.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:44:01
Message: <4a5761c1$1@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
> start configuring the build tools, using the debugger, and of course the 
> form designer. 

And the source code repository, the debugger, the regression test tools, the 
planning, the bug tracking, ...

Your university probably didn't pay for the big version that has all that 
stuff, too.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:45:47
Message: <4a57622b$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> You know what? The Internet abounds with people complaining about Word 
> not working right, yet nobody ever seems to complain about Excel or 
> Access or PowerPoint or Outlook... Wanna take a guess why that is?

Perhaps because most everyone uses Word, while only people motivated enough 
to look up things in the help pages use stuff like powerpoint or access?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:47:54
Message: <4a5762aa$1@news.povray.org>
Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     Fractint on DOS. Can't think of a single criticism. Awesome program.

Cool. I think I ran this once.

>     Midnight Commander on Linux. 

I have yet to try this out. I open a shell window and maximize it when I use 
Linux. Indeed, I giggle uncontrollably every time someone at work tries to 
help me and opens up a Gnome file browser to look for something.

I grant that VIM doesn't suck. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:53:18
Message: <4a5763ee$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that one was Kerberos. And the point was they made it so 
> their Kerberos implementation wouldn't work with anybody else's.

But the standard allowed for that, is my point. Why have a "reserved for use 
by vendors" field if you're going to break when vendors use it.

> leaves the issue of these fields being reversed for future use, and when 

It wasn't "reserved for future use" as I understand it. It was "reserved for 
relaying hidden information we failed to account for in the standard that 
your OS needs".

>> What other standards have they done this with.
> 
> *cough* The web?

Sorry? In what sense? That the web browser doesn't follow standards set 
after the browser was written doesn't really mean they intentionally broke 
the web.

>> What I haven't figured out is the huge number of people screaming at 
>> Microsoft for bundling programs with Windows that competes with 
>> programs they give away for free. Say what?
> 
> Before Internet Explorer, web browsers used to cost money. 

No they didn't. Netscape at one point *tried* to charge for their browser 
for *corporate* use, but since they'd cloned it from a free browser to start 
with, nobody ever paid for it.

> So yeah, the products they give away for free compete with other 
> products which are free *now*... because you can't sell them for money 
> any more.

People are *still* complaining about it, tho. Google is suing Microsoft for 
bundling IE right now. The EU is suing MS for bundling Media Player, in 
spite of every other operating system coming with the manufacturers media 
player and in spite of there being half a dozen highly capable free media 
players available.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:53:57
Message: <4a576415$1@news.povray.org>
>> start configuring the build tools, using the debugger, and of course 
>> the form designer. 
> 
> And the source code repository, the debugger, the regression test tools, 
> the planning, the bug tracking, ...
> 
> Your university probably didn't pay for the big version that has all 
> that stuff, too.

Well, it had the debugger, and that worked. The rest of what you talked 
about would probably be pointless in a 2-week programming project anyway.


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:55:02
Message: <4a576456$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> It's difficult to see how you could make a web browser more attractive 
> to the casual user than IE already is - at least, enough to make them 
> reach into their pockets anyway...

And part of that is how much everyone commoditizes the browser.

Don't complain that everyone has to follow the exact same standards and 
render everything pixel-perfect identical, and then complain it's difficult 
to differentiate your product enough to sell it.

> If I wanted to be cynical, I could point out that I've never met anybody 
> who owns a copy of 3D Studio or Paintshop *legally*. ;-)

Yes you have. I own *two* copies of paintshop.  You bastard - I wondered why 
they started adding DRM to the install.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Invisible
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 11:56:25
Message: <4a5764a9@news.povray.org>
>> Actually... I'm not aware of anything else that does what Exchange 
>> does. Which is a little bit odd, really.
> 
> There ya go.

I'd actually be interested in finding such a beast... It seems odd that 
nobody has made one.

>> I know of a few office suites that manage to not constantly crash like 
>> MS Office does. 
> 
>  > Apache is notable for doing the same thing as IIS
> 
> Only in the broad sense that UNIX does the same thing as Windows. They 
> really aren't comparable.

So what does IIS do that Apache doesn't then? (Aside from giving root 
access to anybody who types their URLs with backslashes instead of 
forward slashes...)

>> There are lots of database engines out there; I doubt many of them are 
>> worse than SQL Server.
> 
> You haven't tried MySql then.

OK, so *some* of them are worse. ;-)

> It sounds more like "I don't know the capabilities of Microsoft systems, 
> so I listen to what Linux enthusiasts tell me about it." :-)

What makes you think it's the Linux enthusiasts? I hated M$ long before 
anybody had even heard of Linus Travolds... And I don't buy it when 
people say Linux is the answer. It's too messy and laden with backwards 
compatibility...


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 12:12:26
Message: <4a57686a$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
>  From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called 
> Spyglass.

You need to stop listening to whoever tells you this crap. "We bought your 
code" isn't "we stole your code."  Similarly, "we paid everyone in your 
company huge amounts of money to come work for us" isn't "we drove you out 
of business."

> Spyglass were selling a web browser, M$ licenced the code from them, 
> developed IE, and then gave it away for free (in violation of the terms 
> of the licence with Spyglass).

Why do you think it was in violation of the terms of the contract?

> A similar story happened at the beginning of the Microsoft story, but 
> since I don't recall the precise facts right now I'll leave that one.

Heh heh.

> Sure, nobody forces web developers to use IE-specific extensions.

No. The real main problem is the number of people unwilling to continue to 
use the standards that were settled and widespread when IE6 was around. IE6 
breaks some stuff, but it works fine if you're not trying to do 
sophisticated layout crap the web was never designed for. If your site works 
in Navigator 4, it'll work in IE6.

>>> 3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
>>
>> They didn't force anybody.  They signed agreements with manufacturers, 
>> and the manufacturers agreed to those contracts.
> 
> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or 
> you can't have our product".

Who do you listen to?

> Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people 
> aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get 
> government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no". 

I'm sorry??  What era of history are you living in? Have you heard of AIG? 
Perhaps GM?

> Microsoft made their money from Windows. They can afford to give 
> products away with it for free. People who's entire business is selling 
> those other products can't do this. It's using sales from one product to 
> pay for another product; last time I checked, that's not legal.

Only if you properly distinguish "products". Some companies sell car 
stereos. When cars started coming with nice stereos, those companies went 
out of business.

Who is to say a web browser isn't part of the OS but a graphical file 
browser is? Who would have guessed that a program to play MP3s would be 
illegal to include with an operating system?

> Like, if Tesco decided to start giving away a free bestselling book with 
> every purchase, they'd have a problem because they'd be using grocery 
> sales to put book sellers out of business.

Sure. And when Microsoft starts giving away groceries and paying for it with 
the OS, then you can make that argument. But first you have to tell me the 
objective criteria by which a media player or a web browser aren't part of 
the OS, but a text editor or file browser is.

> Well, that's fair enough. But when a business announces something they 
> have no intention of making just for the financial effect it will have 
> on a potential competetor... that's not really fair.

Cite? Or is this another "story you heard"?

> I'm sure this one has been argued to death. While *technically* this is 
> true, the reality is that M$ has carefully engineered a situation where 
> little viable alternative actually exists. 

Operating systems are a natural monopoly.

>> Why don't you use Linux instead?
> 
> Sure. Except that the vast majority of the software I want to use won't 
> work with Linux.

That's because operating systems are a natural monopoly.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 12:16:58
Message: <4a57697a$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> Tesco might sell petrol at a loss, but they don't give it away *for 
> free* to get you through the door, do they?

What makes you think IE is free? You keep saying this, but you don't give 
any evidence for it.

Tell me, please list the parts of the code that come with Windows that are 
free, vs the parts that are "too expensive"?

>>> Oracle didn't get to be where they are now by stealing other people's 
>>> stuff,
>>
>> Oh really:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle
> 
> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.

So, when Microsoft buys a license for PC-DOS or Spyglass, it's stealing, but 
when Oracle does, it isn't stealing?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Neeum Zawan
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 12:21:17
Message: <4a576a7d$1@news.povray.org>
On 07/10/09 10:47, Darren New wrote:
>> Midnight Commander on Linux.
>
> I have yet to try this out. I open a shell window and maximize it when I
> use Linux. Indeed, I giggle uncontrollably every time someone at work
> tries to help me and opens up a Gnome file browser to look for something.

	I hiss and cuss at any Linux machine I'm on that doesn't have mc. Often 
people either stop asking me for help or just install mc so that they 
can be helped. Unintended effect, I assure you.<G>

> I grant that VIM doesn't suck. :-)

	It sucks on the beep-o-meter scale.

-- 
BASIC isn't; C stands for Confusing...


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 12:23:13
Message: <4a576af1$1@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> The way I heard it was that Gates got some code off a mate and then 
> decided to sell it for money, pretending it was his own.

Where did you hear it?  Hint: don't trust that source.

Nobody goes "Gee, I happen to have an OS for a new CPU. Want a copy of the 
source and all the development notes?"

> At work, I use two web-based applications which actually don't work 
> without IE. 

There's a tremendous difference between using a browser as a smart terminal 
for a limited application, and browsing the general public web.

Know what? I can dial 3 digits at work and get any other phone in the 
office, too. But that only works on my office phone.

>> So, first you complain that MS sucks, then you admit that everyone 
>> else sucks worse.
> 
> No, I said M$ has carefully arranged it so that you don't have much 
> choice. They deliberately stop people from making better products. 

Give an actual cite with some actual data, rather than just pulling stories 
out of your butt. :-)

> I wouldn't mind if M$ was top dog because they actually made the best 
> products, but that's simply not true. 

So, nobody makes any better products, but MS doesn't make the best?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 10 Jul 2009 12:42:02
Message: <4a576f5a@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> I'd actually be interested in finding such a beast... It seems odd that 
> nobody has made one.

It's only odd because what Exchange does is inherently difficult to do well. 
  Who is going to write such a thing, and try to compete with Exchange? It's 
not cool enough for random Linux enthusiasts to write from scratch, any more 
than OpenOffice was.

> So what does IIS do that Apache doesn't then? 

Windows logins. ASP.NET. Remote administration. A whole different processing 
module method. Interesting deployment options where you don't have to roll 
your own. Etc. Go read up on it.

> (Aside from giving root 
> access to anybody who types their URLs with backslashes instead of 
> forward slashes...)

Cite?

> OK, so *some* of them are worse. ;-)

Most of them are worse for *developers*, for one thing.

>> It sounds more like "I don't know the capabilities of Microsoft 
>> systems, so I listen to what Linux enthusiasts tell me about it." :-)
> 
> What makes you think it's the Linux enthusiasts? I hated M$ long before 
> anybody had even heard of Linus Travolds... And I don't buy it when 
> people say Linux is the answer. It's too messy and laden with backwards 
> compatibility...

OK, so who is telling you these things? You keep saying things that ought to 
be easy to support, but attributing them to "some guy told me"?


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 06:49:27
Message: <4a586e37$1@news.povray.org>
>> I'd actually be interested in finding such a beast... It seems odd 
>> that nobody has made one.
> 
> It's only odd because what Exchange does is inherently difficult to do 
> well.  Who is going to write such a thing, and try to compete with 
> Exchange? It's not cool enough for random Linux enthusiasts to write 
> from scratch, any more than OpenOffice was.

What Exchange does is store your mailbox in a central database rather 
than locally on your PC. That's pretty trivial.

OTOH, I'll grant that it's not very "shiny", so that's probably why 
nobody else has done it...

>> So what does IIS do that Apache doesn't then? 
> 
> Windows logins. ASP.NET. Remote administration. A whole different 
> processing module method. Interesting deployment options where you don't 
> have to roll your own. Etc. Go read up on it.

None of that made any sense to me, but hey...

>> (Aside from giving root access to anybody who types their URLs with 
>> backslashes instead of forward slashes...)
> 
> Cite?

I *think* this is the correct one:

https://services.netscreen.com/restricted/sigupdates/nsm-updates/HTML/HTTP:IIS:ASP-DOT-NET-BACKSLASH.html

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 06:52:25
Message: <4a586ee9$1@news.povray.org>
>> It's difficult to see how you could make a web browser more attractive 
>> to the casual user than IE already is - at least, enough to make them 
>> reach into their pockets anyway...
> 
> And part of that is how much everyone commoditizes the browser.
> 
> Don't complain that everyone has to follow the exact same standards and 
> render everything pixel-perfect identical, and then complain it's 
> difficult to differentiate your product enough to sell it.

There are plenty of things a browser can do differently - it's just that 
the casual user isn't going to *care* about such things. (E.g., if there 
was a browser that had more reliable printing capabilities, would *you* 
pay money to use it?)

>> If I wanted to be cynical, I could point out that I've never met 
>> anybody who owns a copy of 3D Studio or Paintshop *legally*. ;-)
> 
> Yes you have. I own *two* copies of paintshop.  You bastard - I wondered 
> why they started adding DRM to the install.

Don't look at me - I've never owned a copy of either of those things. :-P

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 06:54:58
Message: <4a586f82@news.povray.org>
>> I'm pretty sure that one was Kerberos. And the point was they made it 
>> so their Kerberos implementation wouldn't work with anybody else's.
> 
> But the standard allowed for that, is my point. Why have a "reserved for 
> use by vendors" field if you're going to break when vendors use it.
> 
> It wasn't "reserved for future use" as I understand it. It was "reserved 
> for relaying hidden information we failed to account for in the standard 
> that your OS needs".

OK, well that would make the situation rather different...

>>> What other standards have they done this with.
>>
>> *cough* The web?
> 
> Sorry? In what sense? That the web browser doesn't follow standards set 
> after the browser was written doesn't really mean they intentionally 
> broke the web.

If I'm not mistaken, HTML was a standard long before M$ started adding 
nonportable attributes and entities.

> People are *still* complaining about it, tho. Google is suing Microsoft 
> for bundling IE right now. The EU is suing MS for bundling Media Player, 
> in spite of every other operating system coming with the manufacturers 
> media player and in spite of there being half a dozen highly capable 
> free media players available.

OK, that doesn't make a lot of sense, no...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


Post a reply to this message

From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 06:57:14
Message: <4a58700a$1@news.povray.org>
>> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.
> 
> So, when Microsoft buys a license for PC-DOS or Spyglass, it's stealing, 
> but when Oracle does, it isn't stealing?

When you buy a licence for something and then use it in a way that the 
licence prohibits, that's stealing. Same way that if I buy a copy of 
Excel and put it on one PC, that's buying, but if I put that same copy 
onto 2,000 PCs, that's stealing.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


Post a reply to this message

From: Eero Ahonen
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 07:44:29
Message: <4a587b1d$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> What Exchange does is store your mailbox in a central database rather
> than locally on your PC. That's pretty trivial.
> 
> OTOH, I'll grant that it's not very "shiny", so that's probably why
> nobody else has done it...

Every IMAP server does that. Lotus Domino does that. It's a bunch of
other features in Exchange that just IMAP servers won't do. I haven't
actually used Exchange so I can't know what it does compared to Lotus
Domino, but I'd guess that Domino is the most realistic choice for Exchange.

>> Windows logins. ASP.NET. Remote administration. A whole different
>> processing module method. Interesting deployment options where you
>> don't have to roll your own. Etc. Go read up on it.
> 
> None of that made any sense to me, but hey...

It does for a bunch of people. I personally don't really agree on Apache
not having remote administration, but I can be mislead what Darren
really means (I haven't used IIS in years) - I assume he means that one
can run the administration console from another Windows-PC.

-Aero


Post a reply to this message

From: somebody
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 12:12:52
Message: <4a58ba04$1@news.povray.org>
"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4a572297$1@news.povray.org...
> scott wrote:

> > Of course you can if your product is more attractive for customers to
> > want to pay for it.

> It's difficult to see how you could make a web browser more attractive
> to the casual user than IE already is

Besides complimenting IE, what's your point?


Post a reply to this message

From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 13:00:33
Message: <4a58c531$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> What Exchange does is store your mailbox in a central database rather 
> than locally on your PC. That's pretty trivial.

It does a lot more than that. It has the calendering, reserving of 
conference rooms, meeting scheduling, to-do lists, all the permissions of 
getting heirarchical groups of people looking at calendars and to-do lists, 
revocable email, one message shared between lots of poeple, offline 
synchronization of all that stuff, etc etc.

It does *tons* of stuff. You just don't use it.

>>> So what does IIS do that Apache doesn't then? 
>>
>> Windows logins. ASP.NET. Remote administration. A whole different 
>> processing module method. Interesting deployment options where you 
>> don't have to roll your own. Etc. Go read up on it.
> 
> None of that made any sense to me, but hey...

You often seem to argue from a position of ignorance. Rather than argue "X 
doesn't do anything more useful than Y", you should probably ask "What does 
X do that's more useful than Y" when you don't know the answer.

How can you be IT support for a windows-based company and not understand the 
terms "windows logins" and "remote administration"?

>>> (Aside from giving root access to anybody who types their URLs with 
>>> backslashes instead of forward slashes...)
>>
>> Cite?
> 
> I *think* this is the correct one:
> 
>
https://services.netscreen.com/restricted/sigupdates/nsm-updates/HTML/HTTP:IIS:ASP-DOT-NET-BACKSLASH.html


And where does it say anything about root access there?

> 
> 


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 13:05:32
Message: <4a58c65c$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Don't complain that everyone has to follow the exact same standards 
>> and render everything pixel-perfect identical, and then complain it's 
>> difficult to differentiate your product enough to sell it.
> 
> There are plenty of things a browser can do differently - it's just that 
> the casual user isn't going to *care* about such things. 

Well, yes, that's my point.  Everything the users actually care about have 
been standardized, and it's a big selling point that the browser actually 
follows the standards.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 13:05:34
Message: <4a58c65e$1@news.povray.org>
Eero Ahonen wrote:
> It does for a bunch of people. I personally don't really agree on Apache
> not having remote administration,

Apache doesn't have remote administration, as far as I know. Linux has 
remote stuff in general, but you actually have to log into the machine 
running Apache to restart it, and you have to look at the files that Apache 
instance is reading to change the configuration.

There's no tool for Apache, as far as I know, that lets you change the 
configuration on 300 distributed web servers and then sequence a restart of 
them in such a way that you're not killing anyone's page-serve as the 
servers restart. You have to roll your own using scp (or shared directories 
holding the configuration), ssh, etc.  You can't turn off an Apache server 
without logging into the machine where it's running, and you cant change the 
configuration without logging into whatever machine is holding the 
configuration files.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 13:06:19
Message: <4a58c68b$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> If I'm not mistaken, HTML was a standard long before M$ started adding 
> nonportable attributes and entities.

Err, no.  Remember <blink>?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 13:06:51
Message: <4a58c6ab$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.
>>
>> So, when Microsoft buys a license for PC-DOS or Spyglass, it's 
>> stealing, but when Oracle does, it isn't stealing?
> 
> When you buy a licence for something and then use it in a way that the 
> licence prohibits, that's stealing. 

Good thing Microsoft didn't do that!  Did you not even read the article?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 15:36:17
Message: <4a58e9b1$1@news.povray.org>
>> What Exchange does is store your mailbox in a central database rather 
>> than locally on your PC. That's pretty trivial.
> 
> It does a lot more than that. It has the calendering, reserving of 
> conference rooms, meeting scheduling, to-do lists, all the permissions 
> of getting heirarchical groups of people looking at calendars and to-do 
> lists, revocable email, one message shared between lots of poeple, 
> offline synchronization of all that stuff, etc etc.

In other words, it stores more than email messages in a central 
database. Still conceptually the same deal, just with a few minor 
details on top.

Now the offline synchronisation... *That* is at least nontrivial to do 
right.

> You often seem to argue from a position of ignorance. Rather than argue 
> "X doesn't do anything more useful than Y", you should probably ask 
> "What does X do that's more useful than Y" when you don't know the answer.

Well, when somebody says that two identical things are not, in fact, 
identical, I ask what they think is different...

> How can you be IT support for a windows-based company and not understand 
> the terms "windows logins" and "remote administration"?

I don't see what "windows logins" have to do with a generic web server, 
that's all.

>>>> (Aside from giving root access to anybody who types their URLs with 
>>>> backslashes instead of forward slashes...)
>>>
>>> Cite?
>>
>> I *think* this is the correct one:
>>
>>
https://services.netscreen.com/restricted/sigupdates/nsm-updates/HTML/HTTP:IIS:ASP-DOT-NET-BACKSLASH.html

> 
> And where does it say anything about root access there?

It says that you can "bypass all security controls". How is that 
different from root access?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: O RLY?
Date: 11 Jul 2009 16:46:17
Message: <4a58fa19$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> In other words, it stores more than email messages in a central 
> database. Still conceptually the same deal, just with a few minor 
> details on top.

No, not really. Shared stuff like calendars is not conceptually the same as 
a central email store. What exchange does is inherently hard to get right 
because (in part) of the administration/configuration problem and in part 
because of the shared part.

A centralized email server isn't sharing anything between users, nor 
updating things already in the database.

> Well, when somebody says that two identical things are not, in fact, 
> identical, I ask what they think is different...

No. You say "Apache is notable for doing the same thing as IIS", not "What 
does IIS do that Apache doesn't?"

>> How can you be IT support for a windows-based company and not 
>> understand the terms "windows logins" and "remote administration"?
> 
> I don't see what "windows logins" have to do with a generic web server, 
> that's all.

Have you ever used an intranet application where you had to log in to the 
web page?   It means it uses the Active Directory kerberos password stuff to 
let you log into web pages.

MS SQL server allows this too.

>>>>> (Aside from giving root access to anybody who types their URLs with 
>>>>> backslashes instead of forward slashes...)
>>>>
>>>> Cite?
>>>
>>> I *think* this is the correct one:
>>>
>>>
https://services.netscreen.com/restricted/sigupdates/nsm-updates/HTML/HTTP:IIS:ASP-DOT-NET-BACKSLASH.html

>>
>>
>> And where does it say anything about root access there?
> 
> It says that you can "bypass all security controls". How is that 
> different from root access?

Where do you see it say "bypass all security controls"? I see it say "bypass 
ASP.NET authentication capabilities". I see "bypass authentication required 
to access files in secured directories."

What this bug is, in practice, is a way to go
   "http://blah.com/yadda\..\..\hello.txt"
and get out of the DocumentRoot defined by the web server. For example, they 
could use
   "http://blah.com/yadda\..\..\cgi\script.php"
to see the source of your PHP CGI script.

Still not root access.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."


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