On Mon, 04 Sep 2006 17:29:55 -0500, Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> On 4 Sep 2006 08:07:44 -0700, Rex Ballard wrote:
>
>>> No, Rex. The first 56Kb modem was released in 1997. The USR X2 and
>>> Rockwell K56Flex. Stop making shit up.
>>>
>>> http://ittimes.ucdavis.edu/v6n5feb98/cait.html
>>
>> You are correct. Windows 3.1 supported 9600 baud maximum speed.
>
> Of course I'm correct. You're ALWAYS wrong.
>
>>> You keep repeating that lie about NT. NT was released as both a
>>> workstation *AND* a server at the exact same time. Both were released on
>>> July 27, 1993. Stop making shit up.
>>>
>>> time.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
>> True, but Microsoft expected the PRIMARY source of revenue from NT to
>> be from workstations. They were hoping to sell about 10 million of
>> them in the six months. Instead, they sold about 300,000
>
> No, they weren't, Rex. For one thing, Office didn't run on NT 3.1. It
> didn't support OLE. There was no way any but a handful of early adopters
> were going to buy into it, and Microsoft knew that.
>
>> Mind you, they only shipped the licenses. Far fewer of those licenses
>> were actually deployed.
>
> That's always the case with every OS. How many of the copies of Linux
> download are 'deployed'?
>
>>>> Microsoft had completely hyped Windows NT, so by the time the OEMs were
>>>
>>> While NT was hyped, it was never expected to be a big seller at first.
>>> Microsoft knew it would be a 5+ year struggle, in part because NT was
>>> designed for hardware requirements that didn't yet exist in an affordable
>>> manner, and in part because it would take a great deal of time for 32 bit
>>> apps to be rolled out into the marketplace.
>>
>> But that's NOT how they promoted it during 1993.
>
> Of coruse it's not how they promoted it. They wanted to sell as many as
> they could. That's now how IBM promoted OS/2. That's not how Red Hat
> promoted any of it's distributions, etc.. Promotion involves being overly
> optomistic.
>
>> They made it sound,
>> to corporate CIOs, and to OEMs, like Windows NT was going to be a huge
>> moneymaker, that they shouldn't even think about anything other than
>> Windows NT, and that once NT hit the market, it would be a "better UNIX
>> than UNIX". It was vaporware.
>
> There you go again, using a word in a way it doesn't really mean.
> Vaporware mean it's announced but never ships.
>
>> Bill was trying to keep the industry from going to OS/2 or UNIX. IBM
>> had a strong OS/2 platform, and Sun had Solaris on Sparc and Intel.
>> Slackware Linux was being circulated, Caldera had been formed, and Red
>> Hat was offering quantity discounts to OEMs.
>
> IBM screwed up OS/2 well enough without much of Microsoft's help.
>
>>>> looking at "Chicago", and after nearly 18 months of delays and missing
>>>> 3 critical market windows, they were seriously considering
>>>> alternatives. OS/2 2.0 wasn't that great, but Warp 4.0 was very stable
>>>> and had some great new features, including very robust support for the
>>>> Internet. Novell had shut down their UnixWare workstation division,
>>>> but those people formed Caldera with Ray Noorda's financing, and were
>>>> loaded for bear. Bob Young was willing to offer Red Hat Linux to any
>>>> OEM or VAR for as little as $2/copy in quantities of 1,000 or more.
>>>
>>> Yet none of that happened.
>>
>> Right Erik. If you can't find it in Google, it never happened.
>
> No, Rex. I'm saying that OS/2 didn't take over. Caldera didn't take over.
> Etc.
>
>>> No, that would not be competition. "Competition" is the act of competing.
>>> It has nothing to do with whether or not any of the participants even
>>> finish the "race", much less whether they make it to the customers
>>> doorstep.
>>
>> Would you consider breaking a boxer's arm before putting him in the
>> ring to be "competition'?
>
> That's not what happened. But even if it did, yes, that would be
> competition. Competition is the act of competing no matter how strong or
> weak that competition may be.
>
>>> You really need to look up the meanings of these words you use. They don't
>>> mean what you think they do. You use the word "ironically" wrong all the
>>> time, you don't seem to know what competition means, and you claim that a
>>> company that freely agrees to a licensing agreement is being "extorted"
>>> because they can't break the terms of the license they agreed to.
>>
>> If an agreement is entered under duress, it's extortion.
>
> Please show me a case of any OEM claiming Microsoft put a gun to their head
> and made them sign their license.
>
>> Microsoft obtained something of extremely great value - exclusive
>> access to the OEM channel, through a carefully structured series of
>> threats coupled with offers.
>>
>> MITS - "Pay me $150,000 or I'll port BASIC to SWTP"
>
> According to this, this is what REALLY happened, not your fantasy:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC
>
> "Under the terms of the purchase agreement, MITS would receive the rights
> to the interpreter after it had paid a certain amount in royalties.
> However, Microsoft had developed versions of the interpreter for other
> systems such as the Motorola 6800. When they decided to leave MITS, a
> dispute arose over whether the full amount had been paid and whether the
> agreement applied to the other versions. Microsoft and MITS took the
> dispute to an arbitrator, who much to Roberts's surprise decided in favor
> of Microsoft."
>
>> Compaq - "Remove my competitor's product or I'll revoke your licenses".
>
> That's not what happened, and you know it. They only required Compaq to
> NOT remove IE. They could have shipped both IE and Netscape and not
> violated their license.
>
>> IBM - "Remove OS/2 from the market or we'll audit you and publish how
>> many licenses you have stolen from us".
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that IBM should have been allowed to cheat on
> their licenses?
>
>> IBM - "Remove OS/2 from the market or we'll melt your CPUs".
>
> No, you made this up, Rex. This is your fantasy.
>
>> WinXP - "Give us exclusive control of the hardware and don't disclose
>> to Linux, or we will tell your customers that your drivers are
>> viruses".
>
> More of your fantasies.
>
>> Vista - "Give us exclusive control of your hardware or your drivers
>> won't be installed".
>
> More fantasies.
>
>> In fact, this is the first year in many years that the OEMs are making
>> any profit, and most of that profit seems to be coming from "Linux
>> Ready" AMD-64 and Intel DUO machines featuring OpenGL optimized video
>> cards.
>
> Lol, right. What "OpenGL optimized video cards" might those be? Dell has
> always sold workstations for CAD and other work.
>
>>> Hey, there's another word you don't know the meaning of. EXACTLY doesn't
>>> mean "kind of, sort of" or "vaguely similar" or anything else you might try
>>> to apply. Unless you can prove that Microsoft actually threatened any OEM,
>>> and such threats could be legally considered to be extortion, then it's
>>> hardly "exactly".
>>
>> In the court reports, Microsoft executives admitted that they sabotaged
>> DR-DOS, putting code in to detect DR-DOS and causing Windows to
>> malfunction when this was detected.
>
> How would you know what Microsoft addmited to, Rex? The details of the
> case were sealed. Oh yeah, this must be more of your "It could have
> happened this way" bullshit.
>
> The code you're talking about was only active in a beta version of the OS
> that went to limited developers.
>
>> The Judge ruled against Microsoft who argued a technicality.
>
> No they didn't. Microsoft and Caldera settled for pennies on the dime.
> There was no ruling at all. Stop making shit up.
>
>> Microsoft immediately offered a settlement which resulted in the
>> sealing of all records, immunity from further lawsuits, and immunity
>> from prosecution for all Microsoft executives involved with the
>> decision.
>
> No, Rex. No ruling was ever made. Further, Caldera was the one that
> offered the settlement, and settled for pennies on the dollar according to
> estimates.
>
>> After a few years, even the records were destroyed. It seems that it
>> was not possible to get them or store them in electronic form, and
>> Caldera couldn't afford to store them in a u-haul locker anymore.
>
> Oh yeah, that $100 a month was really killing them.
>
>>> Once again, Rex. Compaq had agreed to, and signed a legally binding
>>> contract that stipulated the terms upon which they were licensed the OS.
>>> Compaq violated those terms. That's not 'extortion'. That's simple breach
>>> of contract.
>>
>> Under what terms did Compaq sign the contract.
>> The point is that making this a matter of public record, was a threat
>> to the OTHER OEMs.
>
> Microsoft didn't make it a matter of public record, Compaq did.
>
>> When Microsoft lets itself be prosecuted, it's to demonstrate their
>> ability to circumvent the law. "We can do it to them, we can do it to
>> you."
>
> Man, what paranoia and conspiracy goes through your mind? I guess that's
> why they have hundreds of millions in fines in the EU.
>
>> Do you honestly think that the OEMs cheerfully sign contracts that
>> force them into a commodity business with 3-5% margins, or even losses,
>> while giving Microsoft an 85% profit margin? I know for a fact that
>> Sam Palmisano has voiced his resentment of this little business
>> practice - in his addresses to the employees. Lou Gerstner wasn't too
>> happy with it either.
>
> How many vendors cheerfully sign ANY contract? They always want to make
> more money.
>
>> Michael Dell has been playing "cat and mouse" (as the mouse), with
>> Microsoft for about 10 years now. Dell announces that they support
>> Linux, and Microsoft beats them up. Dell announces that they support
>> Linux, and Microsoft beats them up...
>>
>> Every time it looks like Dell is about to break loose, something
>> happens, and they are back in the corner like a whipped puppy again.
>> Over the years, Dell has tried to offer SCO Unix, Interactive UNIX, Red
>> Hat Linux, Caldera Linux, and SUSE Linux. I think they even tried to
>> offer OS/2. Each offer is withdrawn or modified, usually within 48
>> hours, to a much more limited offer, under very limited terms.
>
> More likely, Dell makes such announcements in order to get better deals
> from Microsoft. They have no intention of following through with them.
>
>>> No, Rex. NT4 SP2 was a bad service pack all around. It had serious bugs
>>> in the NTFS code, among other things, that caused all kinds of problems for
>>> everyone, not just IBM. It hadn't been tested well enough and it prompted
>>> major changes in the way Microsoft handled service packs after that.
>>
>> But in the preliminary hearings of the IBM vs Microsoft lawsuit
>
> Stop it, Rex. Just stop it. That lawsuit never happened. IT DID NOT
> HAPPEN. Period. Stop forcing your fantasies on this newsgroup. You have
> not been able to provide one *SHRED* of evidence that it existed, and no
> search can come up with it. Not even at findlaw, which should at least
> reference that the case existed.
>
> Stop repeating this lie or prove that it happened.
>
>> (1996?), IBM identified the exact lines of code which tested for the
>> Cyrix chip, and called the F00F bug.
>
> No, Rex. The F00F bug was something totally different. It affected
> Pentium processors, not Cyrix.
>
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/f00f-bug.html
>
> The Cyrix chip had what was called the Coma bug:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix_coma_bug
>
> And unlike your fantasies, it did not permanently damage the chip. It just
> locked it up until power cycled.
>
>> Microsoft even admitted to the
>> sabotage, but moved for total suppression based on the premise that IBM
>> had violated their license by "reverse engineering" that code. The
>> Judge ruled that Microsoft could not use their license agreement to
>> obstruct justice. Microsoft offered a settlement the following day,
>> including SP3, which they had been holding back.
>
> No, Rex. The lawsuit you keep talking about never happened. IT NEVER
> HAPPENED.
>
>>> However, I haven't missed that you're trying to peddle that old Cyrix
>>> lawsuit lie again, especially after you were so bitch slapped about it the
>>> last few times you did. No such lawsuit happened. There is no evidence of
>>> it existing. Stop making shit up.
>>
>> http://www.plex86.org/linux/Microsoft-fumes-about-security-bounty.html
>
> What's the source of this? It reads suspiciously like one of your rants.
> Did you write this, Rex? are you seriously referencing your own words as
> evidence to support your claims?
>
> Ah yes, I knew I'd read this before.
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/8763fb5ef6ce1cc1/b66d90c9715544f6?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en#b91f1043e8b41661
>
> Yes, you are in fact referencing your own words that someone else
> apparently put on a web page without attributing them to you.
>
> And my response to you then pointed out everything I've said here about
> this and more.
Erik..........
Why do you waste time replying to this nutsack (Rex Ballard) ???
It's been proved over and over again that the guy is way, way, way off his
rocker.
He re-writes history so that it fits his warped views.
He has yet to prove a single one of his points.
Also, notice how the COLA gang is strangely silent about his obvious lies?
All except Roy Shysterwitch of course who posts atta boy posts..
Maybe he feels sorry for Rex?
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