I have recently hit an extremely frustrating realization regarding Microsoft's continuing monopoly of the desktop computing environment. In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact that I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word. In addition, I am required to have a Microsoft OS in order to do any kind of serious Web development. It has now been over a year since they were found in violation of antitrust statutes, and yet they continue to consolidate their tyrany over the computing industry without any adverse consequence, injunction, or punishment for their crimes. It seems very few people appreciate the significance of what is going on. I am completely beside myself in outrage. There is no point in insisting this should be illegal. That has already been determined. It is illegal, nonetheless, it continues unchecked. The longer they are able to forstall the consequences of the judgment against them, the greater the advantage they have due to their crimes. I truly fear that they will be able to drag this out to the point where they have completely destroyed all alternatives. This situation has a similarity to one of the most important incidents leading to the American Revolution. That incident is the Stamp Act imposed on the American colonies by the King of England. The stamp act required that paper used for most forms of comerse, communication, and official business bear a stamp indicating a tax had been paid to the Crown. Today's medium of communication is more and more becoming the desktop operating system, and particularly the internet browser. In 1997 Netscape declared their intention to build a cross platform browser which would provide a uniform interface for all operating systems. Microsoft, realizing the threat to their existing monopoly, dumped IE on the market with the stated intent of running Netscape out of business, and in particular, to prevent Netscape from succeeding in their effort at establishing true platform independence. In order for me to do business, we are required to pay Microsoft for the means of communication. The government established to protect us against such crimes has, thus far, not been able to effectively defend our interests. To me the requirement that I pay Microsoft in order to conduct business is a tax forced upon me without representation through elected delegates. -- Open Source Software depends on your support. If you use it, be sure to give something back. http://www.suse.com | http://www.kde.org http://www.mozilla.org | http://www.xemacs.org
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 21:36 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
In order for me to do business, we are required to pay Microsoft for the means of communication. The government established to protect us against such crimes has, thus far, not been able to effectively defend our interests. To me the requirement that I pay Microsoft in order to conduct business is a tax forced upon me without representation through elected delegates.
Although I agree with you 100%, what would you say if 10% of the people you wanted to give your resume to needed a Mac/OS formatted document? Rail against Apple for making you pay an Apple tax? Use paper, it's universal. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 10/02/01 22:28 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Do not take life too seriously: you will never get out of it alive."
My reply is short... Today American's are drones who just buy the next neat thing they see on T.V. because they are comfortable in that if it's on T.V. it must be cool. They are told what to do .. when to do it and how to do it. It's the same with computers...companies tell their employee's what to use..school's tell the children what to use. Microsoft bribes or strong arms companies and schools into submission. Until people learn once again to think for themselves..change is very, very slow in coming. Cranky and pissed off as always, -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 18:36, Steven T. Hatton wrote: - - - snip - - - In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and
purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact that I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word.
Hi, Steven: C'mon. Get a Grip! Why do you need a job, anyway? <grin> You know, Batik and SVG were looking real promising for overcoming this problem, but the W3C.org has gone commercial, and is no longer setting standards for the world community, but setting standards for private industry. So, that option won't be available. Well, what options do you have? Can you use RTF? Are you limited to text and html? How about sending some poor sucker a text document, have them pretty it up, and send it back. You upload it, and then the recruiter/HR can choose which they like best to download, text or M$WORD.doc. It shouldn't be too long, between StarOffice and KDE [maybe Gnome?] will be able to put out comparable stuff. What do you think? Just a thought, Tom
* tom poe (tompoe@renonevada.net) [011002 20:13]: -> ->It shouldn't be too long, between StarOffice and KDE [maybe Gnome?] will be ->able to put out comparable stuff. What do you think? Just a thought, Tom Well, I just spent 2.5 hours downloading StarOffice 6.0 beta whatever..and it does the same thing that OpenOffice build 638 does..when I hit a popdown menu it has an unrecoverable error and exits. Until Sun gets it to run on all current Linux distributions it's dead as fara as I am concerned. I've been running 5.2 under 6.4, 7.0, 7.1 and now 7.2 with little more trouble then it's a bit slow. This POS doesn't run at all. :( It's a case of "get it out the door" and it's sad. -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
On 2 Oct 2001, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
Well, I just spent 2.5 hours downloading StarOffice 6.0 beta whatever..and it does the same thing that OpenOffice build 638 does..when I hit a popdown menu it has an unrecoverable error and exits. Until Sun gets it to run on all current Linux distributions it's dead as fara as I am concerned. I've been running 5.2 under 6.4, 7.0, 7.1 and now 7.2 with little more trouble then it's a bit slow. This POS doesn't run at all. :(
It's a case of "get it out the door" and it's sad.
I don't think it's that. The initial estimate for a release date for SO 6.0 was by the end of the year. Once this beta came around, the release date was pushed back to the first half of 2002. I don't think Sun is afraid to push it back farther, if need be. If the product is good (my _only_ gripe with SO 5.2 was its bloatedness), I am more than willing to pay for it, especially if they have a subscription option where I get the newest version on CD by mail. -- noodlez: Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 0x3A1446A0
On Wednesday 03 October 2001 05.29, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
* tom poe (tompoe@renonevada.net) [011002 20:13]: -> ->It shouldn't be too long, between StarOffice and KDE [maybe Gnome?] will be ->able to put out comparable stuff. What do you think? Just a thought, Tom
Well, I just spent 2.5 hours downloading StarOffice 6.0 beta whatever..and it does the same thing that OpenOffice build 638 does..when I hit a popdown menu it has an unrecoverable error and exits. Until Sun gets it to run on all current Linux distributions it's dead as fara as I am concerned. I've been running 5.2 under 6.4, 7.0, 7.1 and now 7.2 with little more trouble then it's a bit slow. This POS doesn't run at all. :(
It's a case of "get it out the door" and it's sad.
I don't know what a popdown menu is, but if you mean the 'File' 'Edit' 'View' etc, they work just fine here. Did you install sun's jdk 1.3.1 that came with it? And it's not really 'out the door' is it. It's a beta. I'd be surprised if it didn't crash every now and then. Most betas do Anders
* Anders Johansson (andjoh@cicada.linux-site.net) [011003 02:58]: ->On Wednesday 03 October 2001 05.29, Ben Rosenberg wrote: ->> * tom poe (tompoe@renonevada.net) [011002 20:13]: ->> -> ->> ->It shouldn't be too long, between StarOffice and KDE [maybe Gnome?] will ->> be ->able to put out comparable stuff. What do you think? Just a thought, ->> Tom ->> ->> Well, I just spent 2.5 hours downloading StarOffice 6.0 beta ->> whatever..and it does the same thing that OpenOffice build 638 ->> does..when I hit a popdown menu it has an unrecoverable error and ->> exits. Until Sun gets it to run on all current Linux distributions it's ->> dead as fara as I am concerned. I've been running 5.2 under 6.4, 7.0, ->> 7.1 and now 7.2 with little more trouble then it's a bit slow. This POS ->> doesn't run at all. :( ->> ->> It's a case of "get it out the door" and it's sad. -> ->I don't know what a popdown menu is, but if you mean the 'File' 'Edit' 'View' ->etc, they work just fine here. Did you install sun's jdk 1.3.1 that came with ->it? yes...didn't make a difference. -> ->And it's not really 'out the door' is it. It's a beta. I'd be surprised if it ->didn't crash every now and then. Most betas do I haven't seen SO 6.0 work for 3 builds..so I guess running the installer and starting the program isn't doing it correctly? Do I have to tweak it to make it work? -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
On Wednesday 03 October 2001 20.20, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
* Anders Johansson (andjoh@cicada.linux-site.net) [011003 02:58]: ->On Wednesday 03 October 2001 05.29, Ben Rosenberg wrote: ->> * tom poe (tompoe@renonevada.net) [011002 20:13]: ->> -> ->> ->It shouldn't be too long, between StarOffice and KDE [maybe Gnome?] will ->> be ->able to put out comparable stuff. What do you think? Just a thought, ->> Tom ->> ->> Well, I just spent 2.5 hours downloading StarOffice 6.0 beta ->> whatever..and it does the same thing that OpenOffice build 638 ->> does..when I hit a popdown menu it has an unrecoverable error and ->> exits. Until Sun gets it to run on all current Linux distributions it's ->> dead as fara as I am concerned. I've been running 5.2 under 6.4, 7.0, ->> 7.1 and now 7.2 with little more trouble then it's a bit slow. This POS ->> doesn't run at all. :( ->> ->> It's a case of "get it out the door" and it's sad. -> ->I don't know what a popdown menu is, but if you mean the 'File' 'Edit' 'View' ->etc, they work just fine here. Did you install sun's jdk 1.3.1 that came with ->it?
yes...didn't make a difference.
-> ->And it's not really 'out the door' is it. It's a beta. I'd be surprised if it ->didn't crash every now and then. Most betas do
I haven't seen SO 6.0 work for 3 builds..so I guess running the installer and starting the program isn't doing it correctly? Do I have to tweak it to make it work?
No, it worked just fine here out of the box. I'm thinking the one thing they have to adjust more than everything before 6.0-final is the installer. On my machine everything worked, but based on what I've seen on my friends' computers, it seems SO6 is very sensitive to your environment. More so than 5.2. I haven't seen your problem exactly, but I have seen other problems, that I haven't solved, but which seem to be SO colliding with local settings in some arcane way. Anders
On Wednesday 03 October 2001 14:20, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
I haven't seen SO 6.0 work for 3 builds..so I guess running the installer and starting the program isn't doing it correctly? Do I have to tweak it to make it work?
You have, of course reported the bug? -- Open Source Software depends on your support. If you use it, be sure to give something back. http://www.suse.com | http://www.kde.org http://www.mozilla.org | http://www.xemacs.org
Yes...about 3 months ago when I downloaded a previous build from OpenOffice.org. I figured this build would fix it..I was wrong. * Steven T. Hatton (hattons@bellatlantic.net) [011003 15:54]: ->On Wednesday 03 October 2001 14:20, Ben Rosenberg wrote: ->> ->> ->> I haven't seen SO 6.0 work for 3 builds..so I guess running the ->> installer and starting the program isn't doing it correctly? Do I have ->> to tweak it to make it work? -> ->You have, of course reported the bug? ->-- ->Open Source Software depends on your support. ->If you use it, be sure to give something back. ->http://www.suse.com | http://www.kde.org ->http://www.mozilla.org | http://www.xemacs.org -> ->-- ->To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com ->For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com ->Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the ->archives at http://lists.suse.com -> -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
On Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 08:17:29PM -0700, tom poe wrote:
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 18:36, Steven T. Hatton wrote: - - - snip - - - In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and
purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact that I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word.
Hi, Steven: C'mon. Get a Grip! Why do you need a job, anyway? <grin>
You know, Batik and SVG were looking real promising for overcoming this problem, but the W3C.org has gone commercial, and is no longer setting standards for the world community, but setting standards for private industry. So, that option won't be available.
Well, what options do you have? Can you use RTF? Are you limited to text and html? How about sending some poor sucker a text document, have them pretty it up, and send it back. You upload it, and then the recruiter/HR can choose which they like best to download, text or M$WORD.doc.
It shouldn't be too long, between StarOffice and KDE [maybe Gnome?] will be able to put out comparable stuff. What do you think? Just a thought, Tom
If appearance is important, how about learning TeX/LaTeX, which will produce a far better looking document than MS-Word if used properly, and then use pdflatex to get an Acrobat file, which will be almost universally readable by any browser, since most of them come with the Acrobat plug-in standard now. But if something works in Opera I am sure it will work fine in Internet Explorer, if it is important for you to use html. Corvin -- Corvin Russell <corvinr@sympatico.ca>
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 09:36 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
I have recently hit an extremely frustrating realization regarding Microsoft's continuing monopoly of the desktop computing environment. In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact that I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word.
Why? I don't own a copy of Windows, yet I recently was quite successful in distributing my resume' online. I used W3C-standard HTML formatting and also made it available in plain text. During my entire job search (thankfully now ended) I had not a single complaint about my resume' being unreadable. That being said, I agree with your sentiments about Microsoft's perpetration of illegal activity. They have time on their side, and our government (even before Sept 11) had dawdled and dragged its feet in implementing any kind of restraint action. Obviously "the system" works: Give enough campaign money, and you need not fear the law. <soapbox> My solution to the Microsoft Monopoly doesn't involve breaking up the company, nor even forbidding preloads. I simply want to require the following: 1. Any sale of an operating system must be shown as a separate invoice line item, even if the operating system is bundled with a hardware product. 2. The customer must have the option to purchase the hardware without any operating system, and must receive a discount equal to the standard invoice amount for that operating system. 3. To discourage computer makers from simply pricing the operating system at some ridiculous value such as $1, thereby making it not worth anyone's time to decline its purchase, they must be required to *also* offer unlimited copies of the same operating system for sale separately, at the same price, to anyone who cares to buy it. 4. Any contract clause which would prevent a computer maker from complying with the preceding is nullified by the court. So if Dell wants to say that Windows is "free" with their computers, they can do that. But they must offer unlimited free copies to anyone who asks, and it becomes their problem to settle up with Microsoft. They are thus forced to show the customer that Windows is actually $75 or $150 or whatever it actually costs Dell to put it on the machine. This will level the playing field for other operating systems and sofware which have to be purchased separately. Now the consumer can decline to order Windows, receive a measurable discount, and apply that cost savings toward purchase of Linux, BSD, OS/2, or whatever. </soapbox> Of course, this would be a lot less fun than simply dumping thousands of Microsoft employees into Boston Harbor. But at least my suggestion won't cause water pollution. Scott -- -----------------------+------------------------------------------------------ Scott Courtney | "I don't mind Microsoft making money. I mind them courtney@4th.com | having a bad operating system." -- Linus Torvalds http://www.4th.com/ | ("The Rebel Code," NY Times, 21 February 1999)
On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Scott Courtney wrote:
<soapbox> My solution to the Microsoft Monopoly doesn't involve breaking up the company, nor even forbidding preloads. I simply want to require the following:
1. Any sale of an operating system must be shown as a separate invoice line item, even if the operating system is bundled with a hardware product.
2. The customer must have the option to purchase the hardware without any operating system, and must receive a discount equal to the standard invoice amount for that operating system.
3. To discourage computer makers from simply pricing the operating system at some ridiculous value such as $1, thereby making it not worth anyone's time to decline its purchase, they must be required to *also* offer unlimited copies of the same operating system for sale separately, at the same price, to anyone who cares to buy it.
4. Any contract clause which would prevent a computer maker from complying with the preceding is nullified by the court.
I would add one other point: A manufacturer of computer hardware should sell a product which is not dependent on any particular OS for its operation. This includes any configuration or diagnostic utilities which are necessary to utilize the product fully. I'm currently trying to set up a microsoft-free Dell laptop. The bios on this laptop supports a suspend-to-disk function, but the utility to format the S2D partition runs only under DOS, and the S2D function itself depends on the 'standard' MSDOS boot loader residing in the MBR. I'm lucky - this laptop came with the partition already formatted, and I can use dd to make a bit-image copy of it, just in case I sometime have to format another HDD. The S2D function works on the principle of marking the S2D partition as 'active', and expecting the boot loader to boot whatever partition is 'active'. Does anyone know, or is willing to write, a GPL'd boot loader that will simply look for the 'active' partition and branch to the boot record of that partition? -- Rick Green "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
[snipofgoodidea]
Of course, this would be a lot less fun than simply dumping thousands of Microsoft employees into Boston Harbor. But at least my suggestion won't cause water pollution.
Why not just dump a ton of (bio-degradable) MS Windoze boxes into Boston harbour instead? The Tea Party is still remembered... :-) Have Fun, Jim. -- James McBoyle /"\ james.mcboyle@sun.com \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign Software Engineer X Against HTML Mail Integrated Software QED / \
I'm running my own little war agains M$ by installing SuSE servers wherever I can, and I do it with little or no money at all, more like hobby (I do have nice payed full-time job!). I also engourage customers to buy the original package to get the manuals, and usually they do so. This to support SuSE also! I have been successful doing so for several places, so I have kicked out quite many NTs and 2000 lately.. Customers have been happy with Linux-solution, and more installations are coming all the time, so M$ is loosing ground all the time. Word is spreading... I believe, that showing the strength of Linux this way will start a snow-ball phenomena, that is impossible to stop by M$. Training the IT staff for Linux is quite simple. And leaving a "backdoor" open with SSH I can remotely manage their installations, and get a nice money compared to the work... Usually things takes few minutes, and they are more than happy to give some 10-20USD for that.. nice hour-pay! I would succest that other people start doing this too, just to get more Linuxes out there! Jaakko Tamminen Finland Viestissä Keskiviikko 3. Lokakuuta 2001 10:32, James McBoyle kirjoitti:
[snipofgoodidea]
Of course, this would be a lot less fun than simply dumping thousands of Microsoft employees into Boston Harbor. But at least my suggestion won't cause water pollution.
Why not just dump a ton of (bio-degradable) MS Windoze boxes into Boston harbour instead? The Tea Party is still remembered... :-)
Have Fun, Jim.
On Wednesday 03 October 2001 03:32 am, James McBoyle wrote:
[snipofgoodidea]
Of course, this would be a lot less fun than simply dumping thousands of Microsoft employees into Boston Harbor. But at least my suggestion won't cause water pollution.
Why not just dump a ton of (bio-degradable) MS Windoze boxes into Boston harbour instead? The Tea Party is still remembered... :-)
Have Fun, Jim.
But that would just help Micros~1 sell even more. Besides, then their logo would be all over Boston Harbor. Apart from that being free advertising for them, they would send their lawyers into court to "prove" that they had created -- and therefore own -- Boston Harbor and all bodies of water (such as the Atlantic Ocean) connected to it. Cynical? Me? Nah. ;-) -- -----------------------+------------------------------------------------------ Scott Courtney | "I don't mind Microsoft making money. I mind them courtney@4th.com | having a bad operating system." -- Linus Torvalds http://www.4th.com/ | ("The Rebel Code," NY Times, 21 February 1999)
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 23:31, Scott Courtney wrote:
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 09:36 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
I have recently hit an extremely frustrating realization regarding Microsoft's continuing monopoly of the desktop computing environment. In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact that I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word.
from the employer's perspective, i recently posted a job opening on monster.com and seriously considered asking for resumes in plain text only.....................i have a sparc on my desktop running SuSE 7.0 and i had to download all of the replies to the ad on a W$ box that was in another office because of the chance i might not be able to view a resume. i don't know if the standard can change or not, but i'd rather .html or .pdf be the accepted universal document format, than MS .doc files........ just my .02 don
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 09:36 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
I have recently hit an extremely frustrating realization regarding Microsoft's continuing monopoly of the desktop computing environment. In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact
Why not to use wvHtml? _____ < http://members.home.com/asolofnenko/ > Alexey N. Solofnenko < http://www.inventigo.com/ Inventigo LLC Pleasant Hill, CA (GMT-8 usually) -----Original Message----- From: Donald Knecht [mailto:donk@hastys.net] Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 5:15 PM To: Scott Courtney; suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Microsoft and the Stamp Act On Tuesday 02 October 2001 23:31, Scott Courtney wrote: that
I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word.
from the employer's perspective, i recently posted a job opening on monster.com and seriously considered asking for resumes in plain text only.....................i have a sparc on my desktop running SuSE 7.0 and i had to download all of the replies to the ad on a W$ box that was in another office because of the chance i might not be able to view a resume. i don't know if the standard can change or not, but i'd rather .html or .pdf be the accepted universal document format, than MS .doc files........ just my .02 don -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the archives at http://lists.suse.com
On Thu, 4 Oct 2001 10:15, Donald Knecht wrote:
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 23:31, Scott Courtney wrote:
On Tuesday 02 October 2001 09:36 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
I have recently hit an extremely frustrating realization regarding Microsoft's continuing monopoly of the desktop computing environment. In order for me to distribute my resume on line, I am, for all intents and purposes required to poses a Microsoft OS. This is due to the fact that I must ensure that my code runs and renders properly under IE, or MS Word.
from the employer's perspective, i recently posted a job opening on monster.com and seriously considered asking for resumes in plain text only.....................i have a sparc on my desktop running SuSE 7.0 and i had to download all of the replies to the ad on a W$ box that was in another office because of the chance i might not be able to view a resume. i don't know if the standard can change or not, but i'd rather .html or .pdf be the accepted universal document format, than MS .doc files........ just my .02
Why not just request resumes in RTF format ? If someone doesn't know what RTF is, I'd question their usefulness to any organization - it's been around LOOOOONG before *.doc. Although get them in DOC format and pipe them through strings - it's amazing what you can find. Jon
participants (14)
-
Alexey N. Solofnenko -
Anders Johansson -
Ben Rosenberg -
Bruce Marshall -
Corvin Russell -
Donald Knecht -
Jaakko Tamminen -
James McBoyle -
Jon Biddell -
Karol Pietrzak -
Rick Green -
Scott Courtney -
Steven T. Hatton -
tom poe