In an effort to whip people into a frenzy over the upcoming “Longhorn” operating system, Microsoft:
It’s like they’re trying to one-up Apple’s horrible P.R. moves.
In a joint effort, Microsoft Canada and the RCMP built a piece of software to ferret out child pornographers. It’s not open source software; why would it be? You would just naturally assume that it isn’t. Nowhere does Microsoft call it open source, or the RCMP for that matter… So why do news sources that supposedly “get” technology like Wired and Slashdot calling it open source? Maybe I missed something.
Maybe it’s only supposed to find child pornographers who write open source software.
Update: I e-mailed Slashdot, Wired and now the Associated Press about the bogus information; Slashdot changed the title of their story to reflect that it’s not open source about five minutes after I wrote them. Very nice. Wired sent me a simple message telling me that they don’t correct wire stories (which is I guess no surprise).
It seems that the MSN Search service is getting better everyday. I noticed in the stats page for my site that I’m now the number 4 result when searching MSN for “tubgirl” as seen here. Rock on.
Not licenses to get fat. I don’t like parroting Slashdot, but has everyone seen the announcement about Microsoft now charging for use of the FAT filesystem? Great googa-mooga.
They’re charging on either of two methods: Per chunk of media, like for SD/CompactFlash/floppy manufacturers, and per device (like a digital camera or MP3 player).
Now the expected thing is that both objects, when manufactured, incur licensing fees of 0.25USD. But the weird thing is each manufacturer is capped at 250,000USD.
This strange cap makes no sense at first glance. Then I started thinking that it’s a huge PR move on Microsoft’s part, and they’re not really going to enforce any of it. Then I started thinking maybe not - maybe they will enforce it, and the two hundred and fifty grand is the limit on litigation costs.
It does seem though that they’re not going to prosecute software that uses the FAT filesytem, which - I hope - leaves projects like FreeDOS, and oh, I don’t know, Linux in the clear.
Or - and this is a big or - maybe they’re just licensing their specific implementation of the patents in question. Aimless speculation is fun, isn’t it?
…for talking about G5s. And the best part is, this guy was talking about Microsoft buying a bunch of them. Nice.
I can’t even comprehend this. I mean, we all know Microsoft makes Macintosh software - why the fuck are they so concerned about an employee talking about them buying some? I saw one comment on Hanscom’s site talking about how an NDA would cover this. Fuck that! Nothing proprietary whatsoever is exposed with the photo.
Microsoft May Face Class Action Over Security. Also on the BBC. I just have one thing to ask - where do I sign up?
Air Canada got really fucked up by the Blaster virus, right? OK, so a lot of big companies won’t use open source and free software because there’s no one to hold responsible when shit hits the fan.
Well, the shit hit the fan - and no one is even thinking of holding Microsoft responsible. They shipped every OS they make with freakin’ DCOM enabled and listening on an open port - does the average user even know what the hell COM, DCOM, or COM+ is? Do any of them need it? You’d think there’d be class action suits flying left and right. But no.
So everyone’s talking about Microsoft entering the search-engine arena with their new MSNBot. Ok, good luck. Let’s search Google for Linux:
You can always depend on Google, nice relevant results. Let’s try the MSN search for Linux:
Yeah, they have a ways to go.
