Linux-Advocacy Digest #595, Volume #31 Fri, 19 Jan 01 23:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: NTFS Limitations (Was: RE: Red hat becoming illegal?) ("Chad Myers")
Re: Windows curses fast computers ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? ("Chad Myers")
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? ("Chad Myers")
Re: M$ *finally* admits it's OSs are failure prone ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? ("Chad Myers")
Re: KDE Hell (Bob Hauck)
Re: A salutary lesson about open source ("Les Mikesell")
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server does support the "five nines" ("Adam Warner")
Re: Windows curses fast computers (mlw)
Re: KDE Hell ("Kyle Jacobs")
Re: Windows 2000 Datacenter Server does support the "five nines" ("Bobby D. Bryant")
Re: New Microsoft Ad :-) (T. Max Devlin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: NTFS Limitations (Was: RE: Red hat becoming illegal?)
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:19:31 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Said Ayende Rahien in alt.destroy.microsoft on Fri, 19 Jan 2001 06:58:01
> >"." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> > > Linux is not at all at fault in this scenario. You have issues with
the
> >> > > limitations of one filesystem. Exactly like the limitations of FAT or
> >> > > NTFS (I know NTFS can handle larger files than ext2, but that doesn't
> >> > > mean it doesn't have its limits).
> >> >
> >> > The only real limitation of NTFS I'm aware of is slow new-file creation
when
> >> > dealing with orders of tens of millions of files.
> >>
> >> There are limitations on file sizes and numbers, as there must be...
> >> luckily, the max filesize with NTFS is huge, but it wont be long before
> >> people are hitting that limit too (if they haven't already).
> >
> >16 Exabytes ???
> >16 billion Giga byte.
> >
> >I'm not sure exactly *what* you can put into a file to get into that size.
>
> Precisely what they said about the 2 Gigabyte limit. ;-)
>
> And they were really sure *they* were right, too. ;-)
It's even more embarassing when Linux STILL doesn't have a fully released
and tested FS that supports > 2GB files. Only a measly 2GB. NTFS has supported
multiple-exabyte files on 32-bit for nearly 5-6 years now.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows curses fast computers
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 21:41:33 -0600
"mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> >
> > "mlw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Actually, I think this *IS* a fault of the drive. The drive should
hold
> > > > enough capacitance to finish writing out it's cache and then park,
but
> > > > aparently the drive doesn't do this.
> > >
> > > You are so full of it.
> > >
> > > Microsoft has been dealing with this problem for at least a year. If
you
> > > reference this Knowledge base article:
> > >
> > > http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q153/2/96.asp
> >
> > Note this text from the above document:
> >
> > "The IDE/ATAPI specification does not define a command to determine if a
> > write cache is present or to explicitly flush the cache. "
> >
> > There is no way for the OS to know when the cache is fully flushed. As
> > such, it can only wait a certain amount of time and then shut down,
hoping
> > it's flushed. When IBM added a bigger cache to a slower drive, it
caused a
> > much larger flush time and Windows didn't know anything about it.
> >
> > Of course the OS has to be patched to wait longer, since the OS must
deal
> > with whatever quirks the hardware presents, but the true fault is with
both
> > the ATAPI spec for not providing a command, and IBM for not providing
enough
> > reserve capacitance to allow the drive to flush and park.
>
> Then how do the have a patch for NT 4.0? Shouldn't they have been
> checking this in QA as a known problem? Obviously any idiot should have
> known if they had a problem, they should be checking for it.
They knew it was a problem on NT4, that doesn't mean it's a problem on 98.
And, in fact, it wasn't a problem on 98 until the new drives were released.
Again, I ask you, just how long is the OS supposed to wait? No matter what
value you use here, except indefinately, a large enough cache will cause it
to have problems.
> > > The last review date is March 2000.
> >
> > And?
>
> And they have had a year that they have know this was a potential
> problem. And OH! surprise, it bit them again. Pathetic.
It wasn't a potential problem until IBM released a new drive with twice the
amount of cache of typical drive. So, they extend the shutdown to adapt to
this drive, now what happens when they double it or quadruple it again?
Where does it end and when does the hardware manufacturer start to take some
blame?
How about IBM's blame for not testing their drive with the common OS before
releasing it?
> > > They knew about this problem and didn't test for it in QA. They have a
> > > patch for NT 4.0 and 3.51.
> >
> > Probably because the drives didn't exist then. Windows NT writes much
more
> > data on shutdown than Windows 98 does, since NTFS uses write-back
caching.
> > FAT/FAT32 do not, therefore it wasn't a problem in 98 until IBM released
the
> > slower drive with larger cache.
>
> Oh, bogus, you're kidding right? I don't know how you can write this
> stuff. They knew they had a problem with shutting down a machine with a
> write cache hard disk. They should have been checking this. Any
> competent company would. There is no excuse.
They knew they had a problem with NT. 98 was perfectly able to deal with
the problem with the hardware of the time.
I suppose you'll blame MS for not supporting IDE drives larger than 8GB as
well, despite the fact that the spec hadn't been written on the method to
access drives larger than 8GB until much later.
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:23:07 GMT
"Steve Mading" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:94a0f2$lqs$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> : - MS has one of the best security response time to discovered exploits.
> : Even better than Red Hat in most cases. And MS even tests their patches
> : and then does a full regression test each Service Pack, something
> : Red Hat doesn't do.
>
> Nice try, Oh deceptive one, but you know damn well that the time a fix
> appears FROM REDHAT is typically NOT the first moment the fix is
> available to the public - it is available first from the original
> project that wrote the software redhat is *redistributing*. A fix for
> a kernel bug will appear at the kernel site long before Redhat echoes
> that fix on its own site. A fix for apache will appear at the apache
> site long before Redhat echoes that fix on its own site, and so on
> and so forth. What you did would be just as dishonest as me measuring
> Windows' security response time by measuring how long it takes to
> get the fix from an OEM like Compaq instead of measuring how long
> it takes to appear from Microsoft itself.
Enterprise customers (where Red Hat claims they compete in, which is
a joke in and of itself) LOVE to go scouring out around the net spending
copious amounts of time finding the latest gaping-hole patches for
each and every little package that ships with their "Enterprise Linux
OS".
This is why Red Hat provides support and immediate response services.
Customers expect to go to one place for all their updates. Besides,
Red Hat has to test them and even regression test them to make sure
that one fix doesn't break another component.
Regardless of your misleading statements, if MS isn't #1, it's
certainly #2, in either case my statement is true: "Microsoft
has _ONE OF THE BEST_ [if not THE best] security response times".
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:25:02 GMT
"Steve Mading" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:94a0ud$lqs$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> : - Import the video from firewire (usually 3:1 or 5:1 with good capture
> : cards)
> : - Load the video into Premiere or whatever app they're using for editing
> : - Save raw video file for posterity.
> : - Perform edits, insert audio, stills, etc
> : - Save edits to video file
> : - Resize video to internet video size (192x144)
>
> Alarm bells went off when I read this. How long is this video that
> it takes 2 GB at 192x144 size?? Does the video last all day?
Well, thank you for clipping the part that answered your own question.
By the time its resized, it's rarely 2GB. However, we did have some
videos that, when resized to 192x144, were still over 2GB (they were
30-45 minutes in length). This was before heavy amounts of
compression.
Had you posted the full portion, everyone would've seen where I noted
that the compressed files rarely were >2GB.
However, each of the steps before hand were almost always >2GB.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: M$ *finally* admits it's OSs are failure prone
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 21:47:28 -0600
"sfcybear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:94astg$krs$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <1L5a6.972$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > "Bobby D. Bryant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> > >
> > > > "sfcybear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Based on nubers from Netcraft and Uptimes I would find this
> claim hard
> > > > > to believe. Just guessing without documentation to back it up is
> > hardly
> > > > > being realistic.
> > > >
> > > > Really? Why don't you list every Linux system listed in Netcrafts
> > database
> > > > and give the average uptime of all of them combined.
> > > >
> > > > I'll bet you it'll be a lot worse than the MTTF listed in this
> report.
> > > >
> > > > Provide the statistics, since you claim to have them.
> > >
> > > I have already posted a semi-random selection of uptimes from
> Netcraft,
> > mostly
> > > including sites run by the software's own vendors. Linux beat W2K
> by over
> > > 4:1.
> >
> > semi-random? As in "I posted the sites that met my criteria". You can
> have
> > 100 sites with 10 year uptimes, but if you have 10,000 sites with 1
> day
> > utimes you're average is going to be quite low. Since you chose to
> ONLY
> > include high uptimes in what you posted, that is not a valid
> statistic.
>
>
> The numbers for netcraft show about the same thing as the numbers from
> uptimes.org. a while back I put forth a interesting little fact. If you
> took ALL the uptime attriobuted to ALL of the MS OS's listed at
> uptime.org and attributed ALL that time to the W2K servers then used
> THAT number to calculate the aveage uptime for W2K, W2K's average uptime
> is still less than Linux's average uptimes!
>
> Here is the method I used (the numbers are out dated now):
>
>
http://x76.deja.com/threadmsg_md.xp?thitnum=5&AN=702846300.1&mhitnum=6&CONTE
XT=976374076.1878327313
Not only that, but even uptimes.net has acknowledged that their methodology
for desktops doesn't work.
http://www.uptimes.net/
"Windows 95/98/ME no longer supported
08.01.2001, tgm
============================================================================
----
As of today, Windows 95/98/ME machines can no longer compete in this
project. Windows 95/98/ME is used for desktops and desktops are rebooted too
often too have high uptimes. Support for Windows NT and 2000, being a server
OS (yes I know Windows 2000 is used for desktops as well), will stay. "
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:27:58 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Said Steve Mading in alt.destroy.microsoft on 19 Jan 2001 18:27:25 GMT;
> >In comp.os.linux.advocacy Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >: - Import the video from firewire (usually 3:1 or 5:1 with good capture
> >: cards)
> >: - Load the video into Premiere or whatever app they're using for editing
> >: - Save raw video file for posterity.
> >: - Perform edits, insert audio, stills, etc
> >: - Save edits to video file
> >: - Resize video to internet video size (192x144)
> >
> >Alarm bells went off when I read this. How long is this video that
> >it takes 2 GB at 192x144 size?? Does the video last all day?
>
> Its most probably like this:
>
> The production company gets a post-production video tape. Their task is
> to produce a number of short, small 'clips' that will be presented as
> 'web video' on some web site. (Probably ASF format. Guffaw.) Reduced
> size and resolution, etc, would result, but the input data is still in a
> >2Gig file.
>
That's wrong.
We shot the videos ourselves. Hours and hours of video. They broke the
videos into shorter segments (they were college educational lectures)
which were typically 15minutes to 60 minutes in length depending on
the subject matter. We had to digitize the videos to the computer
and archive the raw video for prosterity in case we had to re-edit
the video due to errors or style change.
At the end, we compressed them in all the major formats (Quicktime -sucked,
RealVideo -really sucked, and Windows Media ASF/MPEG3 which was by far
the best quality and the smallest in size, ironically).
Your "ASF format Guffaw" only further demonstrates your ignorance.
-Chad
(Note: that was yet ANOTHER factless post from Max)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: KDE Hell
Reply-To: bobh{at}haucks{dot}org
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:43:42 GMT
On 19 Jan 2001 13:14:06 GMT, Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Jan 2001 11:17:27 GMT, Tom Wilson wrote:
>
>>If you want a vivid example of that, just take a look at the JPEG group's
>>source code. I'm still debating whether the programmer was a genius,
>>masochist, or simply insane.
>
>Probably all three. And the same is true for pretty much anyone who
>does OO in C
Sure, if you get carried away and try to implement inheritance and
virtual member functions. I did that once. It was a blast and I
learned a lot. I don't plan to ever do it again.
>There's a lot of messy C code out there that does this kind of thing.
OTOH, one can make good use of some OO ideas in non-messy C code. One
doesn't need to get into Macro Masochism to use some OO-style techniques
in C. The Information Hiding idea in particular is easy to do in C
without getting all ugly (the static keyword is underused, IMO). The
idea of accessing instances via an opaque pointer is also easy to do and
quite useful.
>IMO, once you start abusing macros, you sign away one of the
>main advantages of C -- simplicity.
I agree.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A salutary lesson about open source
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:49:48 GMT
"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:VJ5a6.2074$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> "T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Said Chad Myers in comp.os.linux.advocacy on Sun, 14 Jan 2001 04:17:11
> > [...]
> > >But no one knew about it, there were no cases of exploitation.
> >
> > This is the ultimate fallacy which requires your argument to contradict
> > itself. You assume that it was not exploited, because no one knew about
> > it, and believe that your not knowing about it indicates it was never
> > exploited.
>
> Have you seen any reports about it being exploited? Search all the
> security sites. I searched a few major ones and turned up nothing.
> How 'bout you?
How would anyone know if someone had read their confidential
data through this backdoor? If they don't know, how can they
report it. As long as the source was closed they didn't even
know they should suspect such a problem.
> So your basic argument is that you think there were exploits, but you
> have no proof of it.
What kind of proof would you expect? Do you think the person taking
advantage of the exploit is going to report it?
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Windows 2000 Datacenter Server does support the "five nines"
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:50:48 +1200
This is according to this document posted by Microsoft on 5 December 2000:
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows2000/guide/server/solutions/relavail.asp
---Begin Extract---
The result: Windows 2000 is the most reliable operating system Microsoft has
ever produced. A common IT industry term for maximum reliability is "five
nines," meaning that a server is running 99.999 percent of the time. (Which
translates into just 5 minutes downtime over a year.) Although most
businesses do not need such stringent uptime requirements, a system built on
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server can meet this level of reliability.
---End Extract---
Note that the full document can only be downloaded as a Win32 executable.
No-where for example in this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/guide/server/solutions/overview/reliabl
e/default.asp
Does Microsoft say "can meet this level of reliability".
The most Microsoft says in this second link is that "So Microsoft created
the Datacenter Server Program, which can help you achieve 99.999 percent
uptime with Windows 2000 Datacenter Server on qualified systems from
Microsoft OEM partners." Note the "can help" instead of "can".
So there you go. Microsoft has now stated that at least one of its
Datacenter Server offerings can be 99.999% reliable. I wonder if the phrase
"can help" might appear some time soon :-)
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows curses fast computers
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 22:55:29 -0500
Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:94agkc$amc$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > Let me ask you a question. How long is WIndows supposed to wait?
> > Suppose
> > > IBM introduces a new drive with a 10GB buffer in it. It takes 10
> > minutes to
> > > flush the buffer to disk. How long is Windows supposed to wait before
> > > shutting down? The drive provides no way for the OS to know when the
> > buffer
> > > is fully flushed, so what is the OS supposed to do?
> >
> > Windows is supposed to wait long enough for the buffer to be safely
> > written to the disk. And yes, the drive can tell you if that has
> > happened.
>
> Fine, the please provide the ATA spec reference that shows how the drive
> does this. I can't find it in the spec. Since the spec isn't available
> publicly, you can just give me a reference and i'll look it up in mine. The
> spec is called NCITS 340-2000 and is available from ANSI for $18.
If they fixed it once on NT4, why didn't they make sure that procedure
was in ME?
Why? because MS does not know how to make decent software. Hece a 38 day
MTTF for NT 4.0.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: "Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: KDE Hell
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 03:51:09 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >I don't ever recall a situation where the Supreme court (the only body
with
> >the power to revoke protections under a federal statute) has revoked all
the
> >exclusive rights provided to an indivudial, or firm in reguard to their
> >intelectual property.
>
> It was a "lower" court (federal circuit appeals court), not the Supreme
> Court. The most clear case was Lasercomb America v. Reynolds. Reynolds
> included Lasercomb's software in their product without permission, and
> specifically in contradiction to the license agreement, in addition to
> copyright law. But because the license was 'over-reaching' (effectively
> requiring a non-compete in order to use the software), the court through
> out the license, and literally revoked the copyright protection. Vault
> v. Quaid was another big one.
>
> http://www.urich.edu/~jolt/v1i1/liberman.html
Well, the garbage crammed into their liscense wasn't provided to them under
USC Title 18, so there was no right to enforce it. When you try to enforce
that stuff, THAT'S when you get slapped. Microsoft hasn't yet tried to
persecute, err, prosecute anyone for violating an EULA for reasons that
didn't violate Title 18.
> >The lawyers who wrote the EULA wrote it under full knoledge that no one
> >would ever call Microsoft on it. Think about it. Microsoft was, in
> >essense, revoking rights from their customers that Microsoft themselves
> >didn't even have to their own software.
>
> Well, its not possible to not have rights to your own software; I'm not
> sure what you mean. But, yes, I do agree that both the executives and
> the lawyers are culpable for writing EULAs which are over-reaching (and
> therefore potentially unenforceable.)
Actually, it IS possible not to have rights to your own software. Microsoft
has a limit on what they can do to people once they own a copy of Windows;
which is what people do, own a COPY. Microsoft used to claim that selling a
copy of Windows WITHOUT an OEM vendor status was a "violation" of their
rights, which it isn't. Microsoft DOES NOT have the right to control who
owns their software, nor who sells it. Once someone obtains a copy of
Microsoft Windows, it is theirs. They may sell it to whoever they wish,
provided that the technology inside the application is not controlled by the
US Department of Commerce (who as I can recall, controlls where that
encryption software get's sent if it leaves the US.)
If someone buys a copy of the Austrailian English version of Windows 95 in
America, Microsoft can NOT take ANY action against the vendor; if the state
has "Grey Market" (international product prohibition) then only the state
and consumer affairs office may persue the matter. Microsoft has no
exlcusive rights to their Austrailian software being distrubuted in the US
(Quality King Distributors, Inc. v. Lanza Research Int., 523 U.S. 135 (1998)
Unless the Austrialian Goverment had restrictions on the product LEAVING
Australlia. Then that's an issue with the smuggeler, and the Australian
government...
> >The Microsoft standard EULA has changed conciderably since 1995, when the
> >company hit the US-DOJ with their business practices. The EULA has since
> >then, included more "standardized" langugage in reguard to restrictions
on
> >the liscense. Language that is conciderably more similar to the
e-liscense
> >provided at the install-time of a lot of other software makers.
> >
> >I think this is when Microsoft got a new law firm.
>
> Actually, it was probably the change to Maryland law, so that they could
> claim that they have no legal responsibility to ensure their software is
> usable at all for any purpose. I posted a message on that yesterday.
This law made NO sense to me. Sorry.
> >Microsoft can put all the intimidating language they want into an EULA.
>
> No, they can't. Including 'intimidating language' for its own sake
> would invalidate the license.
It's not concidered unnessecary intimidation when Microsoft actually fools
themselves into thinking it's enforcable.
> >It's taking action that they have no right to take, which they haven't.
> >Microsoft doesn't attempt to prosecute people selling their software WITH
> >original media, and liscense copies IF the seller doesn't have an offical
> >OEM status with the company. This is a violation of first sale statutes
> >provided by Title 18, which basicly provide the ability to do just that.
> >
> >The same action under a 1997 revised EULA is "a violation" (or maybe the
> >1995 era revision, I can't keep track) of the EULA and could warrent the
> >*GASP* retailiatory actions based upon the violation.
>
> The real meat of MS's licensing shenanigans is in the OEM licenses,
> anyway, not the EULA. In Germany, Microsoft was prosecuted for trying
> to stop an OEM from selling 'excess' Win98 CD/licenses. They lost, of
> course, even though their OEM license explicitly said they can't do
> that.
Microsoft's OEM"s are nearly as toothless. Controlling the aletrnative
actions of a company after they have purchased a liscense from you is
impossible, but Microsoft does have the right to STOP selling liscenses to
companies they don't like. They just can't prevent a company they don't
like from selling off already purcashed liscenses... The OEM just puts on
paper what Microsoft does when they don't like you any more. Of which you
CAN always go to another software supplier of MIcrosofts, buy those
liscenses, and redistribute those other liscenses with your product. But
your product would become unaffordable.
THAT is truly bad for consumers.
> I read an article in Maximum PC yesterday (Jan 2001 issue) that
> erroneously said that a license can not just contradict, but supersedes
> copyright law. This is not the case; no license can ever prevent a user
> from doing what the copyright law already allows them to do (such as
> make a backup copy).
I'd love to meet the idiot editor who let THAT slip through.
> >Now, if you sell a computer WITH Windows, and don't give the new owner
the
> >liscense (which is embodied in both the original CDROM and "unlock" code
> >papers) THAT Is a violation of the 1996 Telecomunications act, which
> >provided definitions toward "copies" and they're status as
indistributible.
>
> I think it would be safer to just ignore the 1996 'telecommunications'
> act. Ripping someone off was already illegal before that.
Not really, it was kinda hard for a court to define "electronic media"
before that one. It was a definition missing entirely from Title 18, which
was concidered "modern" when it was refering to audio cassetes in the 90's.
> >And finaly, I'm one to think that Sherman Antitrust needs a make over.
This
> >is the same law that nearly bankrupted IBM back in the 80's... The case
> >against Microsoft is five years old, based on laws that are nearly 80
years
> >old. Times change, and legislation NEEDS to as well.
>
> No, it was IBMs anti-competitive behavior, not the law, which "nearly
> bankrupted" them. The only change that is necessary with anti-trust law
> is it needs to be more routinely enforced. Times might change, but the
> tricks used by profiteers and monopolists do not.
IBM freely liscensed the design of the PC platform. And they still got
slammed for anticompetitive actions. Of course, massive 80's downsizing
hit, I guess IBM was just in bad company allaround.
> >Linux's existance, Microsoft's pathetic server dominance, Apple's new OSX
> >are all poised to change the computing market against Microsoft. It's
time
> >for a reevaluation.
> >
> >What a shame John Ashcroft is gonna be the guy to do it.
>
> Don't bet on it. Something tells me Mr. Ashcroft is going to have an
> uphill battle.
I wouldn't call capital hill an "upward" one for a Republican. Ashcroft is
going to be the next Attourney General. Oh well. I suppose he couldn't
possibly be worse than Janet was, I mean, come on. WACO. They wanted to
crusify Reno after THAT one, and she was a Democrat!
------------------------------
From: "Bobby D. Bryant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 Datacenter Server does support the "five nines"
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 21:56:31 -0600
> The result: Windows 2000 is the most reliable operating system Microsoft has
> ever produced.
Wow. They really raised the bar with *that* one, didn't they!
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: New Microsoft Ad :-)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 04:03:07 GMT
Said Erik Funkenbusch in alt.destroy.microsoft on Fri, 19 Jan 2001
>"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
[...]
>> Actually, and not surprisingly, you're mistaken, Erik. Although your
>> confusion is understandable, a "mean time to failure" metric is not a
>> simple "average" of times systems were up. It is the projected average
>> time before *any* system, statistically, *will* fail. It is *possible*
>> a system can be up longer. It is *probable* it will fail earlier, given
>> anything but idealistic circumstances.
>
>In a true MTBF statistic, yes. That's not how the study worked though. It
>simply took the number of hours monitored and divided by the number of
>failures.
I don't know where you got that idea. That's not what a 'mean time to
failure' is. And it is indeed MTTF that they "computed". I was
questioning myself the validity of the metric for software, but that
doesn't mean it isn't actually MTTF. You don't think they actually had
W2K systems up for longer than 72 forty hour weeks without a crash, did
you? Again, you illustrate your lack of awareness of how such
statistics work. No, this wasn't an average; you just imagined that.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
------------------------------
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