Posts by John Sanders 1735 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Sep 2006
"" "At that point .NET really is cross platform. Personally I think its a really exciting prospect, and I think they are serious about Open Source now."""
No, it is not serious, at least not until they release code under the BSD or GPL licenses.
And I will add that it will be considered serious when they opensource anything that is really useful outside the MS world and its beneficial for many others, not just MS.
It is MIT licensed, the difference between this and licences such as GPLv3, Apache2, or Mozilla2 is that this licence only covers the code "as part of either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a .NET Runtime".
So if there's a useful library or subroutine and someone inserts it into Python or GNOME or whatever, then MS have retained their rights to sue you with their patents.
Further, ".NET Runtime" is defined as being a "compliant implementation". So if you take the code and remove some parts so that it fits on your embedded device, then you're out of compliance and MS can sue you.
So it's a fine patent licence for use of the code as-is, but the protection disappears quite easily if anyone modifies the code.
Like I said, A TRAP!
MS is not serious about open source at all, all they are after is nice and warm PR provided by gullible people in media.
The future for Microsoft is like this:
If someone else comes with a clever brand new market idea, (IE: the internet, smartphones, consoles, et all)
We'll throw endless amounts of cash into creating our own version of it.
In the mean time we will kill as many old APIs, programs and platforms as we see fit.
There, that's MS's vision of the future, one where they dominate, because they have to.
Why would anyone in this day and age would pay attention to MS in other areas than how expensive and confusing their licensing is, its a mystery to me.
"""We don't know what it is that enables a society to progress."""
Yes we do, it is a mix of individual freedom, including separation from state and church, and rule of law, including both the rights to private property, and some decent-quality democratic political system.
The more a country conform to that the more prosperous they become, the farther from that, the less prosperous they become.
""that no technological advances could keep pace with.""
70 years is a way too-long period of time to predict what would happen.
I would not bet against human ingenuity.
Plenty of times it was predicted in the past that we would perish or will not be able to produce enough for everybody.
Enough of that old tired argument.
Just say it proper, sytemd is shit because it has too many problems, because it does way too much.
I would not have a problem with it (I like the idea of systemd) if it wasn't trying to reimplement, cron, anacron, iptables, rsyslog, xinetd, and more.
Seriously somebody has to stop the madness.
Pragmatic solution:
Use systemd just as an init replacement and polish it, http://freshcode.club/projects/uselessd make everything else really optional. (like all the crap with the binary logs)
Give the boot to Gnome until they get their act together again, and tell the Gnome developers they can not dictate shit.
To understand Gnome's attitude go to this link, and read the comments https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685
The fun begins at comment n4 from the top
Whitewash and orchestrated marketing campaigns does not make MS suddenly good.
The day Ballmer & Gates do not have any more involvement in MS (for real) that day I would believe that MS "may", and I repeat "may" become something else.
Two recent examples: Nokia & the OOXML fiasco, where Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony 'open' document format.
MS Never plays fair, they turn to crooked tactics even when they do not need them, because their motto is to annihilate competition.
The main reason for the implementation of the ribbon is to make an interface that once the majority of people get used to, have a lot of trouble changing platforms. It is mostly about locking people in.
The ribbon does not rely on a hierarchy of categories that you can navigate and interpret logically, instead it relies on a combination of spatial+muscle memory, ideal for people accustomed to treat computers like an old VCR, a TV or a toaster.
Follows the paradigm that if you want to make an interface easy, just add a dedicated button for each function. (Works only for <= 15 buttons)
So:
1) Is MS patent encumbered, if you implement it on your OS you can be sued.
2) Fixes the problem of the floating toolbars (a problem created by MS in the first place)
3) People have difficulties changing product if they get used to it.
So it is win win win... Windows!
I'm actually more worried about the industry reliance and assumption that you will use a computer running windows to set infrastructure up, and that a MS ecosystem is mandatory in every office to do absolutely anything.
Are you for real?
Do you understand how MS operates? (and has been operating for the last 30 years?)
If any company produces a competing product, unless is 200% perfect compatible and looks suspiciously similar it will always be compared on a bad light, and if anybody manages, MS will shoot them down.
The only people who can produce an implementation of MS software is MS.
I could go on a million reasons as to why this is like it is, but the best explanation is what one of the commentators said earlier, MS is like smoking, at some point people want to stop, but few can achieve it.
I ultimately get the same response out of all MS people that I know,
"10 MS keeps me on a job"
"20 We're implementing the latest (365) because it is what MS is pushing and we want to keep up to date"
"30 Goto 10"
I call it the path of least resistance.
That is because it is common practice these days in finance departments to run business analysis on Excel, rather than on the database's backed or CMS via pre-configured reports.
Every finance department these days just downloads the entire database (or portions of it) to an Excel file and run their stuff locally.
Yes I know, I know.
Do not dream.
Almost the entire IT industry sings and dances the Microsoft tune.
They will get the majority of customers into Azure, and make the remaining ones pay lots.
And everybody will do so complaining happily, some may grind their teeth, but that's about what 90% of business will ever do.
For some reason the entirety of the business world, including the IT industry has accepted that they have to pay and be accommodation to whatever lord Microsoft wishes.
I could give you lots of details, but you know them all already.
Take somebody like VMWare, they have an incredible product, yet to take advantage of most of its usefulness you need to buy MS-SQL and Windows server licenses.
Everybody, almost Everybody is buying into Office 365.
And what VOIP solution is the favourite of the masses? Lync.
And lately everybody you speak to talks about its inevitability, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Ok, I understand you may think that, but Good Old Reg is not a movie site.
So suddenly recommending a movie which is currently being exhibited in cinemas looks strange to me.
Also I'm sorry but the article doesn't read like a critique of the movie, and more like a commercial, it verbatim repeats the entirety of what can be seen in the trailer.
And the trailer I must insist looks VERY formulaic to me, in fact I originally saw it in the theatre and originally dismissed as another teenager dystopia flick.
Perhaps I'm wrong, and the movie is not bad, but then the marketing is not doing it any benefit.
These are my honest thoughts.
And having said that, I'm going to read the entire synopsis to confirm it.
Sad the sequels were crappy, but the original is a classic, the ending was a bit predictable to me, but nonetheless satisfying.
If you haven't seen Snow Piercer this year go watch it, it is a very different movie than Cube but has kind of a similar vibe in which it is sci-fi-ish, not expensive, well acted, and you want to know what happens in the end because as crazy as the premise is the story and the characters on it are interesting.
This one looks too formulaic and the trailer gives away half the history, the effect this causes on me is to find the entire synopsis and not bother to go to the cinema to watch it even if it is any good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlU5XcYH8m4
Is the register being sponsored by movie studios now? Me wonders
The CGI vector is one of possible vectors, anything that creates or invokes a sub-shell is at risk if that sub-shell is bash.
With such a hole in bash parsing I'm sure that someone with more imagination and more free time than me will find creative ways to exploit plenty of systems, not just those that run CGI's on a web server.
The patch is straight-forward people, go and patch!
All my servers
And the servers in the company I work for that are internet facing. (Tomorrow I will patch the 100+ internal ones)
This is not good, but at least it is a painless straight forward patch, even considering that I had to resort to a manual compile for a couple of servers.
Interesting links:
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2014-6271
https://access.redhat.com/solutions/1207723
https://securityblog.redhat.com/2014/09/24/bash-specially-crafted-environment-variables-code-injection-attack/
https://marc.info/?l=oss-security&m=141157106132018&w=2
OEMs could differentiate their phones if they were willing to improve their GUI/UI skins, if they were to produce less models and if they were willing to produce timely software upgrades.
It will also help if they tried do things like qwerty keyboards on a phone that doesn't suck.
Everybody in the industry is obsessed with the iPhones, its like if suddenly all perfume manufacturers became obsessed with Channel n5, and all their products were "inspired" to smell the same.
Obviously whoever likes Channel n5 will buy just that rather than a very expensive perfume from the competence which is not the one they want.
This is very funny when you think that Chinese OEMs are mostly busy making Samsung knock-outs.
Lots of fun playing with my children, the suspense of exploring caves, building castles, cottages, roller-coasters and strongholds, mining for diamonds, etc.
Minecraft was the cool toy I played with my children, a toy that will be forever ruined as soon as MS gets their paws on it.
It has a charming simplicity to it (from the graphics to the gameplay) that it is hard to explain if you haven't played it.
I have to admit that when I first heard about it I didn't saw the point either.
This is what you get wrong, I have been a paying customer since he made the game available.
In fact one license for me and another per child, three in total.
I paid so I could run my own server.
I hacked/cracked the versions I currently run so I can run them without MS interference. I get the feeling in my guts that I paid for nothing.
I'm royally pissed off not just because he sold the game to MS (fcuk MS!!!) but because he's crying all the way to the bank, he's so sensible such a good human being.
Cut the crap, he got 2.5B from MS we deserve to be treated like adults, and be told some cute history of how much hate he got from the community, only very gullible people would believe that, he did not sell it out of anguish or stress. It was a business decision on something that it is his property. You do not cut a deal like that in a couple of weeks. This was long in the making.
And we do not need to be told a fairy tale of stress. When you make millions with a product, and then even more millions you PAY others to deal with the stress.
Excuse me, but this guy is one of the best examples of hypocrisy ever made, and people is feeling sorry for him?
It is me slow clapping.
Dear Notch
Cut the crap, your game made you a millionaire, not a victim, I can understand you selling your property because it is yours, but come on, it had to be Microsoft? Really????
And I bet you did not ensure that contractually they carry on developing the Linux version, or that community mods are still possible in the future...
And that shit about not wanting to change the world, no one ever realizes, it just happens, thats why people change the world, if it could be pre-planned Microsoft, Sony or EA would have made Minecraft.
Now go to your corner and cry over your big pile of money, tell the money how sad you are that people on the Internet is mean/stresses you out, you do not owe us anything.
Me in the mean time cracked Minecraft 1.7.9 client and server so I can play with my kids on my Linux boxes.
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