This is why I HATE Microsoft ...

[RoyGBiv]

This sums up the whole damn thing. It's not their software. It's their fucking attitude.

I in support of their patent application (granted today) for "intentionally crippling the functionality of an operating system" (funny ... I thought that was already patented and called Vista) Microsoft's position stated, and I quote:

"An additional problem with open architecture systems" is that "virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system."

Did you get that? The problem with open architecture systems is that anyone can write software for them.

Now, I do understand how from a business perspective this is, in the short term, a flipping brilliant statement. It's just business, after all.

Dinosaurs. Hypocritical dinosaurs at that. All of them. The whole damn lot of them.

[Why Syzygy]

1. What was this?

Patent? I don't get that part of your post. Toss in hypocritical because how many hackers have written code to disrupt MS? Must not be that big of a secret if it can be exploited so easily.

[RoyGBiv]

2. Patent ...

Here's the link to the patent: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,536,726.PN.&OS=PN/7,536,726&RS=PN/7,536,726

The abstract:

Restricted software and hardware usage on a computer

Abstract

A client computer runs an operating system that executes additional applications by loading them using an application loader and executes device drivers for peripheral devices by loading the drivers using a device loader. The operating system restricts the functionality of the operating system, such as by making selected portions and functionality of the operating system unavailable to the user or by limiting the user's ability to add software applications or device drivers to the computer. Additionally, various techniques can be used to remove or reduce the functionality limitations of the computer.

It's a patent on a method to allow an operating system to disable all or part of itself from functioning. Software manufacturers already do this. The particular patent in question was filed in 2005, and the technology is part and parcel of Vista's method of distribution, i.e. you get a "version" of the OS and have to pay to "unlock" greater functionality.

That doesn't really bother me as such. They can do what they want with their software, and I can choose not to buy it because they do that.

What bothers me is the belief system at work, to wit that open architecture systems are flawed because any old code monkey can write software that runs on those systems. The patented technology allows the operating system to disable that ability, e.g. to prevent from functioning device drivers that would provide functionality to hardware the creators of the OS don't want working with their OS. You can read that as a method of preventing high definition display systems from functioning properly if they have not passed the RIAA "security" tests.

[charlie]

3. There's more self-justifying codswallop...

One problem inherent in open architecture systems is they are generally licensed with complete use rights and/or functionality that may be beyond the need or desire of the system purchaser. Consequentially, the purchase price of these systems being indifferent to usage scenarios means users with limited needs pay the same rate for these systems as those with universal needs.

Good ol' Microsoft, always looking out for us.

Funny, it sounds like -- sounds like, mind you -- they could be talking about the fabled Windows Tax. But, that's clearly wrong, so it's probably just me.

They must be thinking of Apple. Those guys shove the full meal deal down your throat whether you need it all or not. And they do it at a price point that matches MS's crippled basic versions, the unscrupulous bastids.

[RoyGBiv]

4. Bless their little hearts ...

I guess the irony need not be mentioned, but I'll do it anyway. MS wouldn't even exist if all these "problems" hadn't been present before its existence.

I haven't had a good bout of righteous indignation lately. Gets the blood flowing.

[charlie]

7. I don't even know

if that kind of willful disregard of their own history counts as irony. The word seems too small for such honking hypocritical douchebaggery.

They so need to be right about what they're up to, they threw in that paragraph, which has feck-all to do with their patent. What they charge is a purely market matter, they aren't compelled by some immutable law of nature to use either single or tiered pricing. It isn't a problem the patent can solve, since it isn't a problem at all, but a business choice.

Of course, they know that.

[struggle4progress]

5. Do you remember about, oh, 15 years ago IBM developed a printer, which they decided

to market in two versions: fast-expensive and slow-cheap. The essential difference between the printers was the speed of printing. And here's how they did it: they built fast printers -- but then performed an extra step on some of them to cripple the microchip and slow the printer down to make the slow printers!

[RoyGBiv]

6. Sounds familiar ...

I don't remember the details, but I know that was about the time I decided I hated all printers and printer manufacturers. I'm pathological about it. People think I'm a freak. I actually do not own a printer. I have a computer system with about 4K worth of hardware shoveled into it and don't own a printer. I haven't owned one that worked since ... ummm ... 2000, and that was some old refurbed early-edition laser that was only barely faster than a dot-matrix.

Anyway ... this is a great racket they have going. I love what these companies do with printer ink and the cartridges that hold it nowadays. SUPER AWESOME MONDO WONDER PRINTER - $5. (proprietary printer cartridges $200,000 -- each of which will allow for printing 50 sheets of paper ... those caught using refill kits or third party cartridges will be shot on sight)

Okay ... I exaggerate. :)

[pengillian101]

12. Printer/toner racket...

"Anyway ... this is a great racket they have going. I love what these companies do with printer ink and the cartridges that hold it nowadays. SUPER AWESOME MONDO WONDER PRINTER - $5. (proprietary printer cartridges $200,000 -- each of which will allow for printing 50 sheets of paper ... those caught using refill kits or third party cartridges will be shot on sillegal codemakeRemote('duboard.php?az=emotion_table')ight.

Okay ... I exaggerate."
****************************************
Well, you don't exaggerate so much. :-)

Buying toner for my HP 3015 costs about $80 + S&H at most places. By contrast, if you used a refurbished cartridge, the whole thing just might explode if the scaremongers get to you. ;-)

I have been bidding at EBAY because $80+ is just too much for a home printer's toner cartridge good for 2,000 B&W pages in my estimation. It took a couple weeks to get an original in-the-box cartridge for the money I was willing to pay, but just got one for $49 including shipping.

I wanted to be sure and get a new in-the box so I had a return ship label to HP for my old cartridge. Well, I wonder who they sell those empty cartridges to so they can refill them with new toner and sell them over and over again.

You bet it's a racket! :hi:

(PS, how do you print anything?)

[RoyGBiv]

13. How I print ...

For the most part, I have very few uses for paper. (The last time I owned one coincides with my last semester of college, when I did have to print damn near every day.) Some things I do would seem to require paper or at least be more convenient with it, but I tend not to think so. For example, one of my several side-jobs is doing editing work for someone writing a dissertation. That person *has* to have paper copies of everything. I don't. So, I do what I do on the computer and e-mail them so that anyone who wants a paper copy can print it himself.

I also "appropriate" printers when I find I need one. I have five of them in my office, for example, and I have friends and relatives and people who rely on me to keep their computers working. I call it the old hacker mentality. I may not have a mainframe with a compiler in my house, but I can gain access to one when need be. :)

[charlie]

8. Intel has crippled CPUs

for different price markets. I wonder they've gotten themselves a nifty US patent for such non-obvious trailblazing innovation?

[Why Syzygy]

9. gawsh that sounds like government work

emachines must have crippled their soft modems for those give away machines they put out about a decade ago.
FREE (with five paid years of MSN).

[EvolveOrConvolve]

10. As a Microsoft developer myself

"An additional problem with open architecture systems is that virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system."

I'm calling Microsoft out on their bullshit here. Even thought Windows is a supposedly "closed" system, the API for the entire operating system is well known, mostly because Microsoft publishes the API. Functions in the API that are considered undocumented are still usable by anyone who can then write software that can be executed on the system. I know because I've done it too many times to even count. Even though we may not know what actually happens when an API call is made, the API call is all that's needed to develop software for the machine. Microsoft cultivates a huge developer community that uses the Windows API, and that simple fact renders the entire argument I quoted above as ridiculous.

Patents like this are a ploy to make more money, plain and simple.

[canetoad]

11. I hate Microsoft because

For all their billions, their brainpower, their developers.....they still have not bothered to make the install new fonts window resizable.