Microsoft’s Very Good Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#211

Post by hga » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #210

hga wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting the direct example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio He was convicted of 19 counts of insider trading in Qwest stock on April 19, 2007 – charges he and many others claim are U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February, 2001. Given the iffiness of such charges when it's your own company's stock, we have to at least entertai…

Yeah; I remember that one too. The Smisek one was just more recent, and Smisek was also a much more visible CEO than Nacchio given United's place in the airline industry. From what I can tell, the Smisek issue may have genuinely involved some wrongdoing, but Smisek may only be involved because the ultimate target is Chris Christie. But he was a titan of his industry, and when he left there was no retirement party or…

Refusing to comply with an NSA order will likely just end you up in jail on something else because the government has the power to lock you up.

That's the thesis of Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/...), that:

The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague....

He'll have a lot more examples, I'm sure.

So we can't hold the companies who complied with them entirely responsible, as those companies are made up of individuals who have families to think of.

Especially since the Feds have no compunctions against going after your family if they can't pin something on you. E.g. junk bond figure Michael Millikan, who's real crime was creating a market for poorly managed companies.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#212

Post by Keyframe » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

I don't have much feelings towards companies and technology. I use ones as I see fit. Windows has, since 7, been very useful to me. Even 8 (8.1 which I'm on right now). Windows has been my primary OS since 7. I augment it with Total Commander and Babun (cygwin) and that's it. Everything is great, except Babun which could use some more work (or I don't know how to use it). I also use Redhat on other workstation (due to graphics software dictating it) and it's not as usable on desktop as Windows and OSX are. That's not a surprise though. I also use OSX on my macbook air, because that's the best laptop I could've got for what I needed (lightweight, moderately powerful, battery life). I carry around Android Nexus 7 tablet as well, so new Surface Book looks like a good deal to me in order to get rid of macbook air/nexus 7 combo. Microsoft research also does some cool stuff in graphics which I've used (through their papers). I use Word and Excel all the time as well, along with Google Docs. those are just some random thoughts as I perceive them from my POV now.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#213

Post by LLWM » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #38

sz4kerto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/google-and-micros... "Microsoft and Google are pleased to announce an agreement on patent issues. As part of the agreement, the companies will dismiss all pending patent infringement litigation between them, including cases related to Motorola Mobility. "

Those are just lawsuits between the two, wasn't the nature of the royalties for Android devices that they contacted OEMs and said "we have these patents, you better pay us or we'll sue you", and the OEMs paid up? That's different than cancelling outstanding lawsuits.

That's how patent licensing works (albeit a comically overaggressive caricature). Do you fundamentally oppose the concept of patents or do you think Microsoft is doing something else wrong by asking to be paid license fees by competitors using their patents?

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#214

Post by Raesan » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:22 PM UTC

tacticus wrote: post #208

Raesan wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When powershell comes up, someone always gripes about how they can't do this or that like they can in bash. I'm not going to deny that grep is nicer to use that the powershell equivalent (Select-String). But you don't configure Windows and other software in the Microsoft ecosystem by messing around with text. For example, if you had a new user and you wanted to set up an account, email address, and phone number (so A…

the problem with powershell is that it is incredibly stupid if you're not on a full windows stack (desktops, servers and near enough to everything inbetween) and running the most recent version of windows (ever tried getting winrm installed and reliably working on a 2008 box?) perhaps if they were not too opposed early on to horrible open source things and just one of the languages that already fit fairly well in tha…

Yeah, PS remoting is basically a no-go before server 2012, and even then it's just barely functional enough to be occasionally useful. They're planning on adding SSH support though, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I don't think something like Python would have been a good choice to use instead of PS. While I'm sympathetic to the complaint that PS is more of a programming language than a shell, that's even more true of Python. I use PS as a shell far more often than I use it for complicated scripting, and as much as I like Python, I just can't see using it as a shell.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#215

Post by throwaway2048 » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:25 PM UTC

cwyers wrote: post #128

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To cool down some of the optimism in this comment section: Microsoft is still accepting cash for practically every Android phone made because of their patent threats, or did they change their ways in this regard as well? (I am genuinely curious whether this continues; I tried to google "microsoft android patent threats" but found only news articles from 2013/2014 about the practice.)

I don't exactly understand the objection to this. Microsoft has the patents (and they don't seem to be spurious patents). Google used techniques covered by the patents in Android without paying Microsoft or indemnifying their OEMs. Microsoft is actively competing with Android. They should let the Android OEMs by because... why? Even assuming for a moment that patents are inherently wrong (rather than our current pate…

The act of never leaving a cent on the table is what i find loathesome about a ton of companies.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#216

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #92

codeulike wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what they did to destroy netscape (bundling a competing app with some other thing) is now a tactic so common that it is taken for granted. I guess what made it scary is that they really did have a strong monopoly and it looked like they might dominate forever. So its not so much the tactics that offend people, but how much power they had when wielding those tactics. Seems to me like every big tech firm now makes…

Indeed. Even at the time it seemed like the silliest possible thing you could get upset about. I remember not being able to parse why anybody thought it was bad. They had the unmitigated gaul to include software with their operating system. Kinda like wordpad, file manager, hearts, calculator and dozens of other things that you'd expect to find on a computer. All those things had (and still have) alternatives that yo…

This is very much my version of the rant, too. Today it would be absolutely unspeakable for a computing device to boot up for the first time without a web browser installed. Microsoft may have jumped the gun by a half-minute or so, but they saw that future coming.

Of course, I get even rantier about the "antivirus" companies blocking Microsoft from including Defender (nee Security Essentials) out of the box with XP and Vista, under similar reasoning to the Netscape decision. How is antivirus not an Operating System feature (system protection)? I'm glad that decision has finally passed and I really hope that people stop paying for the security theater "antivirus" programs that remain out there as OEM bloatware and those "products" will finally die a long, much deserved death.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#217

Post by cwyers » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #215

cwyers wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't exactly understand the objection to this. Microsoft has the patents (and they don't seem to be spurious patents). Google used techniques covered by the patents in Android without paying Microsoft or indemnifying their OEMs. Microsoft is actively competing with Android. They should let the Android OEMs by because... why? Even assuming for a moment that patents are inherently wrong (rather than our current pate…

The act of never leaving a cent on the table is what i find loathesome about a ton of companies.

I can make a case for leaving money on the table for your customers, or your employees, or for some greater social good. I'm not seeing a case for leaving money on the table for your direct competitor in the abstract, though.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#218

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

greyman wrote: post #18

emerongi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe so as well. They've switched focus and are going in the right direction now. A few years ago I actually advised everyone to not use Microsoft's products. Every single product was subpar (Windows, Windows Phone, their laptops etc). Today, I'm happy to advise Surface Pro, Windows Phone, etc to anyone. They're striving more for innovation (e.g. Surface Pro, Surface Book), which is cool and will bring them succ…

I agree with the general sentiment, but imho Windows Phone is still not there. Lot of apps are iOS+Android only, or the WP alternative is sub-par.

The app situation is going to change very rapidly in the next few months. It's why Microsoft is making a big deal of the Windows 10 install base. There was a quick slide follow up in the devices announcement that showed that the growing install base has already attracted some big companies to the UWP [Universal Windows Platform] that previously had be meh on Windows Phone.

With Windows 10 on phones in November that platform will light up on phones finally. (Already the UWP Facebook app, as one example, is a leap forward in cross-OS feature parity compared to previous versions and it will be great to see that "day one" on Windows 10 phones.) On top of that you have "Project Astoria" which will mean very easy ports of existing Android apps to Windows 10 Phones for developers looking to leverage existing code investment. (Already somewhat released and being utilized is "Project Islandwood" and we're starting to see some iOS software ported to Windows through it.)

The UWP support on the Xbox One (and the merging of the Xbox and Windows Stores, huzzah) is supposed to light up as soon as November and we now know that a lot more developers will have access to HoloLens (which will also utilize the UWP) early next year. I think that access to Xboxen and HoloLens will encourage more developers to also consider cheaply scaling "down" to people's phones as well. So too should Continuum phones and their ability to offer side-by-side run "desktop-like" versions of UWP apps may drive some interesting apps to Windows Phone moving forward that have ignored it thus far.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#219

Post by acqq » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #20

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To cool down some of the optimism in this comment section: Microsoft is still accepting cash for practically every Android phone made because of their patent threats, or did they change their ways in this regard as well? (I am genuinely curious whether this continues; I tried to google "microsoft android patent threats" but found only news articles from 2013/2014 about the practice.)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/google-and-micros... "Microsoft and Google are pleased to announce an agreement on patent issues. As part of the agreement, the companies will dismiss all pending patent infringement litigation between them, including cases related to Motorola Mobility. "

Microsoft can still get money from Samsung, as Google produces much less phones and Samsung a lot of them, and simply using Android doesn't mean that Samsung doesn't have to pay for the patents.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#220

Post by DrShephard » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

novaleaf wrote: post #134

togusa wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an MSDN subscriber, write C# all day and am sitting in front of Win8.1, writing this in IE11 with a Lumia 640 next to me. They are still utter bastards and I sleep with one eye open. Currently the tally of bad stuff is pretty high: Patent wars against competitors, forced bundling agreements, lock in despite the open specification stuff which is mostly just wrong, being fucked over on audits and licensing agreemen…

I went all in on XNA, and got very, very burned. It taught me a great lesson though: don't be locked into any vendor. I'm very happy about the .NET and Typescript developments as of late, and use Typescript for my web coding. But only because if Microsoft abandons it right now, I can continue on in plain JavaScript.

Have you looked into MonoGame (http://www.monogame.net/)? It is basically a fully open source re-implementation of the XNA framework with support for almost every major platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox, OS X, Linux, etc.)