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Newly-leaked Antitrust Memo: Bill Gates on Making ACPI Not Work with Linux

antitrust.slated.org — Bill Gates: "Maybe we can define the APIs so that they work weel with NT and not the others even if they are open. Or maybe we could patent something related to this." [PDF Warning]

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  • matthekc, on 10/18/2007, -46/+233I'm just disgusted. I'm not even mad at Gates he just disgusts me as a human being.
    • justnick, on 10/12/2007, -154/+42yeah, at the very least he could set up some foundation for charity and give some of his money away to do some good. Heck, he could even let his wife get involved if she so felt inclined to do so.
    • aussieNickuss, on 10/18/2007, -27/+208Gates is able to start up and give money to charities because he made that money by ripping other people off. I suppose its a case of Robin Hood, but it hasn't helped the computer industry move along as quickly.
    • jacobmp92, on 10/12/2007, -60/+15That's kind of ironic, why would they want to block Linux users when they just made the big evil patent deal with Novell?

      Microsoft is a bitch.
    • Futurepower, on 10/12/2007, -21/+119See this comment on Slashdot, about Bill Gates killing Windows XP:

      Dr. Death strikes again.
      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=230471&cid=18700381

      "Sometimes it has seemed to me that Microsoft is not really primarily a software company, but primarily an
      abuse company that accomplishes abuse through software."


    • Futurepower, on 10/12/2007, -46/+18See this comment on Slashdot, about Bill Gates killing WindowsXP:

      Dr. Death strikes again.
      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=230471&cid=18700381

      "Sometimes it has seemed to me that Microsoft is not really primarily a software company, but primarily an abuse company that accomplishes abuse through software."

      Hope this posting of this comment gets it right. Digg is primitive: "HTML tags aren't allowed."
    • jacobmp92, on 10/12/2007, -28/+6Futurepower: both of your comments are the same, with the exception of a linebreak in one.
    • blaze03, on 10/12/2007, -57/+23Um, every business does this. Maybe not every corporation has leaked emails spelling it out, but I gaurantee you that there is not one company out there that doesn't think and act exactly along these lines.

      The comments so far in this thread are ridiculous. If the title read Apple instead of Microsoft, everyone would be defending them like the fanboys they are.
    • Futurepower, on 10/12/2007, -43/+23Digg: "HTML tags aren't allowed."

      Digg needs some improvement. First Digg posted my comment with a errors in the generated HTML, then it fixed the errors, automatically, but I didn't see the fix until I refreshed the page.

      Digg should allow HTML tags. Digg should also allow multi-level nested comments, as does Reddit. It seems that it would be good if edits after two minutes were allowed as extra lines at the end of an original comment.

      Digg should remove blank lines at the end of comments, too.
    • tvc15, on 10/12/2007, -11/+52@blaze03
      Yes, it might be true that "every business does this" but not all of them are monopolies. Being one isn't illegal but doing things like this while being a monopoly is.
    • scullyshouse, on 10/12/2007, -11/+16@blaze
      its hardly sensible for a business to make a model based on annoying your customers. There is a tenancy to forget how they became so big and powerful and thats when complaisance sets in.

      example IBM used to be where MS are now.
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -13/+145"Um, every business does this."

      No, they don't. Businesses write these things called "Standards" to comply to them and make it easy for everyone to support them. ACPI is one of such standards: it was _designed_ to make it easy for both hardware manufacturers and software manufacturers to build a computer that could be controlled by the same interface, so that you didn't have to code specifically for each and every board you ran into in the environment. And now we find out that Microsoft's head completely circumvented that Standard in order to get ahead of other companies, "even if they are open".

      Let me use the ever-important Car metaphor to explain it better. Everyone in the car industry gets together and says "Hey, let's all agree to build batteries the same way so that all of our cars can use interchangeable batteries", and everyone signs it, agrees, smiles gleefully and goes about making their cars so they support this Advanced Car Power Interface. But, as it turns out, someone in the biggest battery manufacturer's out there has written entire sections of this agreement in Hieroglyphics, left out entire other portions, and signed agreements with all of the car manufacturers not to tell how the standard works to other companies (in exchange for money for advertising, clearer versions of the standard, and cheaper versions of their batteries). All the sudden, every other battery manufacturer is now at least 6-18 months behind on interfacing with these new cars and they're all left out in the dust.

      No matter who you are, you should realize that what's going on there is wrong, downright fraudulent. So called "Open Standards" being corrupted so that one company can use it to gain a stranglehold on the market. And when that stranglehold is so tight, the legislators come in. This is _yet another_ time Microsoft is to stand before the government and defend themselves in a class action antitrust case. Any act of using their massive girth to squish other projects or companies is going to be damning. And this is the blood coated murder weapon with Microsoft's fingerprints all over it.

      If every company out there was doing this, nobody would be rallying behind Apple for their championing of non-DRMed music, nobody would bother funding Linux at all (and Red Hat, Canonical, Novell in its current iteration might as well not exist). Most companies are too busy working to move forward rather than setting bombs for other companies to step on.
    • Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -36/+51Wow, that's sad. No wonder networking on Windows is such a ***** pain in the ass.
      I can't speak for Linux, as I've never really used it, but I know the people who have developed OS X have tried very hard to try and get Macs to network well with Windows... but here you have Windows developers purposely trying to make it harder for other OS' to network with it...

      Disgusting.
    • joshman5k, on 10/12/2007, -61/+6How dare Bill Gates funds something and doesn't want it to be used elsewhere....

      The only thing you can really accuse him of is that he shouldn't have made it open in the first place....
      And then when he does make so much money he gives it to charity...
      Discussing human being!!!
    • craz3d, on 10/12/2007, -5/+84@zippo.

      ACPI is a set of standards that mainly define the way that the OS handles power consumption by the actual hardware. Among many other things (ie, Suspend&Hibernate modes, auto shut-off of devices, etc), this means that instead of the old time "It is OK to turn off your PC" messages you used to see with older versions of Windows, you can instead have Windows (or any other OS for that matter) turn off your computer automatically when it has completed shutdown procedures. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but ACPI has little (or nothing) to do with network protocols and the problems experienced when setting up multiple OS networks.
    • UrsusMorologus, on 10/12/2007, -31/+7@aussienickus "I suppose its a case of Robin Hood, but it hasn't helped the computer industry move along as quickly."

      Uh, Microsoft was a principal developer of ACPI. How is that not moving the industry along?

    • AJH16, on 10/12/2007, -27/+7Digg me down, but I don't see this being a terrible problem. They were working on something that they could use. If I'm going to spend millions to develop something that I'd like to have be private, but I know there is no way I can, I don't see why it is a problem to atleast try to make it harder for those who didn't contribute to use it. Now if they intentionally blocked someone from contributing so they could do this, that would be another story. I guess I just don't see why someone should spend lots of money developing something simply so that other people can benefit from their work. Sure it is the open source model, but Microsoft is a proprietary company and while I respect the ideals of OSS, I don't see a problem with this.
    • aussieNickuss, on 10/12/2007, -11/+25@UrsusMorologus

      My comment wasn't specifically about ACPI....just Microsoft/Gates as a whole. I'm sure there are a lot of technologies that have been held back becuase MS got their grubby little hands on them and buried them. Look at IE....its only come into the 21st century because there was a sniff of competition from Firefox. Same with Vista....we'd probably still have square grey borders and buttons if it wern't for Mac OS X.
    • tamrix, on 10/12/2007, -27/+63OMG I FOUND A NEW MEMO!!

      http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8292/px03020nd8.jpg

      THIS CANT BE TRUE!! IT JUST CANT!
    • beercosoftware, on 10/12/2007, -14/+6@matthekc

      http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060330_000890.html

      http://crime.about.com/library/blgatesbill.htm
      "in 1989, he was arrested for suspicion of driving drunk, but the charges were later reduced."
      (hmm....)

      http://news.com.com/2100-1014-6153904.html

      http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=555641

      http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=296548#296548

      http://www.skrause.org/computers/gates.shtml

      To top that at early Microsoft there was a sexual discrimination lawsuit headed by Maria Wood where Microsoft, headed by Gates refused to pay women for overtime. I can't get a reference on that one though, but IT HAPPENED!

      There are the facts, judge for yourself.
    • wiivangelist, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2geminitojanus - Dugg for use of term "massive girth"
    • generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Just in case some are confused by Tamrik's comment...the memo is real and can also be found in this 2004 article from The Register (right at the end): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/18/ms_exec_lists_joys/
    • immrlizard, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm

      He actually has done a lot of good. He was trying to keep his OS safe from an os that is quickly catching them. At the rate that Linux is progressing, it is only a matter of time before MS is irrelevant. You can't blame him for trying.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Microsoft claims to help, but all its help is sabotage and extortion. Microsoft is a mafia, just like any other evil, monopolistic megacorporation that's gotten too big for its own good.

      I know some Diggers must think I have some grudge against MS, when I write things like "Microsoft scumbags" but I don't. I oppose ANY oppressive, predatory corporation or government that behaves the way the Microsofts of this world do. I am no fan of Apple overpriced hardware and love of DRM either. Or of Sony's media extortion. Or Halliburton's rape of American taxpayers. Do I need to go on? Microsoft is part of that group of villians and no good comes from their business, except when they spread around some of their ill-gotten gains for charity to make themselves look benevolent perhaps.

      Microsoft must ACTIVELY be fought, it is a special case, not just some innocent little corporation run by geeks. There's nothing innocent or humble about Microsoft, and their only passion, as they say in their Vista ads, is greed.
  • justnick, on 10/12/2007, -37/+11I am no fan of microsoft but it basically says how he doesn't like Linux using things they work on for free. We all knew they felt like that and it is their right if they made it. Fortunately it was meant to be an open standard and it remained an open standard.
    • arbiterxero, on 10/12/2007, -6/+47ACPI wasn't created by microsoft, and the linux adaptation wasn't any code or anything ripped off of microsoft. Microsoft has NOTHING invested in this beyond attempting to crush a competitor by restricting their access. It's kinda like patenting ink. Printer makers didn't invent ink, but they sure make a buttload off it.


      They just wanted to make it difficult to get common functionality in something they don't have their tax on.
    • jjesusfreak01, on 10/12/2007, -8/+41OK, lets be fair here. ACPI does not even work right on my Windows machine half the time.
    • macewan, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2@jjesusfreak01, Then Linux should follow suit and move towards a crappy implementation also.
    • ToddFFW, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1mod parent, err, sibling up!
  • matthekc, on 10/12/2007, -12/+57i understand why it would make sense in a business to do things like this but i don't see how you can sit there and think of ways to screw with people trying to give away software. I would just feel wrong and dirty about it
    • justnick, on 10/12/2007, -36/+10Microsoft is Gates business. He was making those statements from a business stand point. He is just saying how Microsoft and their partners worked on it and he doesn't think it is right for Linux to just use it without putting any work into it. I am very happy it remained an open standard and Linux can use it freely but this is not something to "feel dirty" about.
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -11/+176"From: Bill Gates
      Sent: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:41 AM
      Jeff Westorinon; Ben Fathi
      TO: Carl Stork (Exchange); Nathan Myhrvofd; Eric Rudder
      Cc:
      Subject: ACPI extensions

      One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn’t try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows
      specific. If seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without
      having to do the work. Maybe there is no way Io avoid this problem but it does bother me.
      Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.
      Or maybe we could patent something related to this.
      "

      This is quite possibly the most damning email of them all, and if there's _ever_ a question as to if Microsoft's being anticompetitive, this answers it. Not only speaking of making it hard for others to use, but including the possibility of patenting the technology to keep it out of the hands of others, "even if they are open". It's way past time for the Open Computer, no more of this ACPI *****, no more of Microsoft's designs influencing the way Linux users have to use their machines. This is quite possibly the scummiest thing I've read to date about Microsoft.
    • DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -8/+33I believe I'm going to attach that email to every 7of7, naio, and flag post I see. OK, maybe not but it's tempting.
    • tony134340, on 10/12/2007, -21/+5Fake...?

      "shouldn’t try and make the" and note the excessive use of and's in the second sentence.

      Now would Bill (Harvard dropout) really use improper English such as that?
    • insovietrussia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15For the uninitiated, the ACPI spec was drafted in the mid-late 90's (?) by Microsoft, Intel and some others. It allows for a unified interface to common hardware components for software - mainly Operating Systems.

      Basically it allows your computer to go into sleep mode where it can be woken by keypress and other interrupts. It also facilitates the Hibernate and Standby features.
    • pellinore, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3@tony134340 - and spelling mistakes "Maybe there is no way Io avoid this problem but it does bother me."
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17"@tony134340 - and spelling mistakes "Maybe there is no way Io avoid this problem but it does bother me.""

      That's an OCR artifact (and a fairly common one with typographic "l"s being "i"s, "t"s becoming "l"s, etc); when these documents are scanned in from xeroxes (that are themselves probably xeroxes of xeroxes), the quality drops and the OCR program can fowl up the conversion.
    • TeatimeGrommit, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2It's the difference between being someone who is capable of writing software and being someone who pays others to write it. If I have to pay millions of dollars out of my own pocket, I want some way to get a return on investment. It's easy to see, in this context, how Gates might lose it one morning and write a retarded memo like the one in question.

      Trying to go back and patent a technology that one was promoting as a standard is impossible in Europe (patent applications must be filed before _anything_ is published. This is the way Europe promotes fairness and prevents bait & switch patent tactics). While I suppose it is technically feasible to patent something that was supposed to become a standard in the USA (one has a year after first publication if one changes one's mind), a year isn't very long in terms of defining a true standard. By the time one has enough people on board, the year is likely already gone. Gates surely knew this and just had a bad morning.

      The real question is whether they wrote any code to sabotage the standard. Doing so may be illegal for a company the size of Microsoft, as others point out on this thread a company with monopoly power has serious restrictions on allowed behavior. Ever wonder how AMD continues to compete with Intel? Intel is so large, that to avoid anti-trust they actually tell AMD exactly how to stay compatible! That levels the playing field and the result we see is the fastest CPU crown passes back and forth between the two companies. Someday MS will have to start playing ball like that. It's not a game Gates wants to play, so he's leaving to do other things.
  • matthekc, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28if he tried to work with community on a fair and even field I'm sure he could get a lot out of it. would take a long time to build up trust though ms's track record isn't very good for partners.
  • matthekc, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15it's not like open source doesn't make it's fair amount of standards to share. I run windows and linux I don't think windows would automatically die if linux took off I like Xp. I guess i would like to pay about 60 dollars or less for it though. So if Linux took off i could see ms's profit margin eroding quite a bit.
  • scooper86, on 10/12/2007, -6/+88Instead of wasting resources on trying to stop the open source community maybe Microsoft could put more resources into a better operating system and beat them the good old fashioned way of having a better product, but I don't think this is going to happen.
    • korashime2001, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0___

    • bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I really liked Windows 98. After they put out SE, most of the annoying crashes went away. A lot of the people I knew installed Windows 2000 and ME on their computers, but I didn't see any advantages to them; they simply didn't seem "better" to me. I never bought a computer with XP; by that time, I was building my own computers. I bought a copy of Windows XP for $5 (due to my university's administration sleeping w/ MS higher-ups). Back then, XP was worth $5 for me. Now, I wouldn't switch to Vista if you gave me a copy. If I come across a key, I'll give it to the first person I see that wants it.

      Didn't 95 look a lot like 98? When was the last time Microsoft made a big innovation? The "Start" menu with 95? Ever since then, each release puts on about 100 more pounds and sucks the life out of your processor. I loved running sans Windows, right in good old MS DOS. I saved my CPU for WarCraft, Magic Carpet, etc.

      MS should stop trying to set the standard; they do a horrible job. Let the other operating systems do their thing. Mac, *nix, etc. are creative, progressive, and productive; conformity destroys this.
  • n0c0ntr0l, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Well we all knew that bill will do whatever he can to make his billions into more billions.... why are you so surprised. He's after money so he ain't happy when people can create Os's and software that is better than his for free.... it puts his business in trouble.
    • Eccohawk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Personally, I feel like Microsoft and Bill saw themselves a few years down the line and didn't like the end result, and were trying to come up with ways to survive, as any company might do facing possible extermination (from linux)... Let's face it, the Software industry is one of the only business mediums that have a direct threat to their entire business model (with open source software). You don't see McDonald's worrying about 30,000 farmers getting together and saying, hey, we can make a billion burgers for free and make them better and tailored to every person's individual tastes. Nor do they have 30k worth of farmers saying hey, we'll even release our bigger, better burger recipe to everyone so that anyone can make a better burger for free and no one will ever need to pay for a burger again. Imagine some of the frantic inter-office memos flying around Mickey D's if that were to happen...

      Am I the only one thinking that this would be pretty much in line with any company's strategy if faced with that kind of situation???
    • bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3OS X is Linux with an interface designed with end users in mind, POSIX-compliance, and commercial support. The only OS that'll get exterminated is Windows.
    • mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No one is surprised, the point is that its long overdue for Microsoft to cease to exist, heres why:

      The problem is not that they are the major supplier of software, rather that they do not deserve this position of dominance because they have shown repeatedly they are not capable of living up to their position. They are either not willing, or not technically capable of keeping their products secure, for 5 years they operated on the idea that it is more important for windows to be easy to use and left all security features turned off by default.

      They have also screwed up a number of other areas, either because of incompetent executives, or because they are wasting a majority of their time on things like windows genuine advantage and making sure Linux has a hard time. If they spent 1/10th of that time developing windows they would succeed anyway regardless of Linux.

      That underscores the problem, they are more concerned with forcing the computer industry to use windows, and ensure they get 99.999% of the profits, than producing a good product. As well they have broken a number of laws to get where they are, edging out other companies who in fact had better products, yet another reason they don't deserve the position they have.
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Am I the only one thinking that this would be pretty much in line with any company's strategy if faced with that kind of situation?"

      I certainly hope so. The facts you keep overlooking here are twofold: one, Microsoft is a multiple _billion_ dollar company with some of the most talented scientists and engineers and money to hire more of the best, and two, Microsoft has already been convicted of abusing their monopoly to kill competition. Knowing both of these things, they should have sat down at the round table and said "Okay, we know this Linux thing is creeping up on it, so we've got to move faster, be more agile, make our product better than they can possibly ever hope to. Let's go into the lab and get the most talented engineers and scientists together and let's knock the next Windows operating system out of the ballpark. Features nobody could hope to reproduce in a years time. Let's keep ahead of everyone, and not look back."

      Notice the difference in styles? Instead of actively supressing others from working, they simply /work faster/ themselves. Look at Windows Vista. How many of the promised "Innovations" have incarnations that are clones of others or that simply didn't make it to release (Vista is a gutted fish compared to its "Longhorn" promises). Step back to Windows XP and you see the very same thing.

      What's worse is that Microsoft corrupted _Standards_, things that at the lowest level that need to _just work_ in order for everyone's PCs to work as they were designed. That not only hinders their own workforce and makes their own code bad, it makes everyone else have to work that much harder just to work around the cludge. You can take 30,000 people, line them up in a line and kill them all, lay their bodies down and call it a bridge (and have it rot away in a few years, smell like ***** to even be near, and collapse at its own will), or you can use those same 30,000 people, go out and have them cut down a forest, fashion lumber, build a real bridge and have everyone be able to use it (and still be 30,000 people ahead of the next-best team). Which sounds like the right way to do it to you?
    • JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@bmartin
      OS X is _NOT_ Linux, it is BSD with some GNU stuff.
  • purplegecko, on 10/12/2007, -33/+12Ok, before you all read this comment and self-destruct - remember this - I use Linux everyday. I have it installed as my main system at home, and the only time I use windows is when I'm at work.

    That said, Microsoft is in the business of making money. If they work on something, it is expected that they would want their competitors to not benefit from it. Yes, even if they are working on an open standard. They are under no obligation to make something work well with any other system but their own. Now if companies from the Linux community were involved with the standards building, they would bring their own agendas, to counter Microsoft's.

    It's not like the Open Source community would do anything like this is it? I mean, no open source license would make it impossible to use their code in a closed source system would they?

    I'm not saying it's wrong, in fact I whole heartedly support it, but we can't do one thing, then throw our toys out of the pram because Microsoft do effectively the same thing!
    • fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21"If they work on something, it is expected that they would want their competitors to not benefit from it. Yes, even if they are working on an open standard."

      If it's an open standard, anyone can benifit from it, that's part of the nature of open standards. If they don't want that, they shouldn't make it an open standard.

      "I mean, no open source license would make it impossible to use their code in a closed source system would they?"

      Are people implementing the ACPI standard using code generated by MS or are they using their own code to implement the standard? Because there is a huge ***** difference.

      Also, your OS of choice has no bearing on your rationale.
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11"It's not like the Open Source community would do anything like this is it? I mean, no open source license would make it impossible to use their code in a closed source system would they?"

      There is a huge difference between standards and implementations. If MS wanted to use my code they should damn well pay me for the privilege or respect the license. OTOH if MS came to 99% of people involved in low level development of Linux and said 'Hey, we want to develop an open standard for x with you.' barring the natural mistrust that MS has earned most would love to work with the industry leader on an open standard provided it made technical sense. The problem is that MS seems to be going in the opposite direction and is continually trying to scupper standardisation efforts with pseudo standards like OOXML.
    • jonhohle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"It's not like the Open Source community would do anything like this is it? I mean, no open source license would make it impossible to use their code in a closed source system would they?"

      You probably want to read about the BSD license. Anyone can use BSD licensed code for anything they want, as long as they include attribution (that's paraphrased, but the general point). Its a short license, and not written in legalese.

      I've often read Microsoft's original network stack was taken from BSD, but I cannot verify the validity of that.

      Here's the BSD license:

      Copyright (c) ,

      All rights reserved.

      Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

      Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
      THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
      "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
      LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
      A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
      PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
      LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
      NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
      SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
    • ezweave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@jonhohle:

      Not ripped of from BSD... "borrowed" from NetBIOS (IBM).

      Of course the actual concept is much older and most of Winsock 1 (which was not publicly released for a while) holds up to the Berkley sockets paradigm, just like every Unix/Linux variant. Of course Winsock 2 makes everything look like those God-awful Win32 calls... cause you know how good MS is at writing APIs.

      Unix Foobar in C:

      void foo(char *junk)

      Win32 Foobar:

      UINT16 WINAPI __FooWin(UINT cBk_addr, DWORD hF_addr, A* pObj, UINT16[] u_flags, char *param)

      Haha.



      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkley_sockets
    • ezweave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I should add...

      Except for that annoying thing when you call "Send" on a Socket in Windows you have to loop until all the bytes go. Since ws2_32.dll is still what .NET uses we can celebrate the 16 year anniversary (1991 was Winsock 1) of a crappy implementation of sockets in Windows.

      When .NET came out, that was the first thing I checked out. What a shocker... still the same damn source.
  • Kdurrty, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13Wow. I'm totally suprised.
    (note the sarcasm)
  • macjonesnz, on 10/12/2007, -24/+25It's worth noting that this e-mail printout could very easily be faked in photoshop, sent through a copier a few times and bingo, I could make Bill Gates say anything I want.

    I'm sure it's not a fake, but just making the point.....

    Future Letter for printing and copying the copy 5 times...

    ---------- CUT HERE -------------
    From: Bill Gates
    Sent: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:42 AM
    Jeff Westorinon; Ben Fathi
    TO: Carl Stork (Exchange); Nathan Myhrvofd; Eric Rudder
    Cc:
    Subject: ACPI extensions part 2

    One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn’t just give up on this proprietry windows stuff.

    We're putting so much effort into it, and it's just not as stable as DOS was.

    Look how far Apple has come piggybacking BSD!

    Maybe we could work together with those Linux guys, I think they might really have something.

    Let me know your thoughts.

    Bill
    ------------
    • michelr, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7Good observation. Now we'll see how good their e-mail archiving is ..
    • Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4"Good observation. Now we'll see how good their e-mail archiving is .."

      Suddenly today's comic at http://www.ubersoft.net/ makes a lot more sense..!
    • SuperSloth, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2@Greyarea:

      It makes even more sense if you pay attention to national events.
    • Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"It makes even more sense if you pay attention to national events."

      Which nation would that be then?
    • generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This was _evidence_ used in court. Part of it is also in this "The Register" article from 2004, and if you google the quote you can find it elsewhere, too..

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/18/ms_exec_lists_joys/
  • Exero, on 10/12/2007, -51/+7Windows FTW! screw linux.
  • lkjashdflk, on 10/12/2007, -24/+8WHOA RLY LIK OMG MS IS ANTICOMPETIVE
  • upsilonh24, on 10/12/2007, -7/+40Dugg for PDF warning.
    • geoboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Buried for PDF warning. I like to be surprised!

      j/k
  • drg73, on 10/12/2007, -38/+12Why would Microsoft help Linux advance on the research of MS? It is not like Microsoft is getting back anything at all from the GPL camp. Shareholders would not be amused if MS would release specs that could be copied verbatim by them GPL folks. This e-mail is default business practice for 95% of the companies, why should MS suddenly be treated like it's operating on some global communist market?

    Three cheers for capitalism, stop whining about companies trying to make money. People have had a choice for 'free' cq copycat operating systems for many years now (not counting Linux in that list due to the fascistoid GPL), stop whining about MS misusing powers to stay monopolist. People clearly choose MS as their favorite OS maker. If you don't like MS, use anothr OS and stop whining. You are completely free to create your own ACPI like spoecs and release them for free.
    • ekso, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21Have you ever heard of 1929?
      Free market colapsed before communism did. Neither of them work. You are free to try to figure out something else together with your ACPI specs.
    • Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -5/+46"Why would Microsoft help Linux advance on the research of MS?"

      There's an important difference between 'not helping' and 'actively hindering'.
    • Yoshi39, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34Yes you're right microsoft have never gotten anything for free from the Open-source community

      "software connected with the FreeBSD open-source operating system is used in several places deep inside several versions of Microsoft's Windows software, such as in the `TCP/IP' section that arranges all connections to the Internet."
      http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/6/19/05641/7357
    • dwhitbeck, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Monopolies are not supposed to be a part of capitalism. Capitalism is supposed to have some amount of fair play and competition.
    • Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -9/+11"Monopolies are not supposed to be a part of capitalism."

      Monopolies aren't bad in and of themselves, it's how they're used that matters.
    • oliveroms, on 10/12/2007, -3/+35I wonder how much you would love your windos if you couldn't connect to the internet anymore, cause, yes, the internet was brought to you over tcp/ip. doesn't windos use the BSD networking stack? Oh why yes it does. And so there are many, some less subtle technologies they use. Your precious OS might end up being quite useless if they removed all the code they 'borrowed' from others.
    • bentman78, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5@ekso

      Yes, but unlike communism, capitalism is still around. Granted Cuba and Vietnam are still here (and largely ineffective on the world stage), even China was developed a capitalist economy. They still keep an authoritarian government, but it's no communist.

      Of course if you want to see the full benefits of a communist society you can always move to Cuba and Vietnam and tell us how that works out for you.


      People have a choice for what OS they use. If you don't like MS's practice than use something else. Microsoft would naturally want to protect what they consider it's creation. Let me ask you this, if you create something and work hard on it, would you want someone taking that idea and making money off of it? Or at least making you loose money? In the real world R&D takes time and money.

    • duality, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Unfortunately, monopolies are an issue with capitalist economies, just as deadlocks are an issue with operating system processing.

      There are three techniques to deal with both monopolies and deadlocks:

      * Set things up very carefully and intricately so that they are not permitted to occur.
      * Allow them to occur, but then destroy them soon afterwards.
      * Pretend that they don't exist, and just move on until something REALLY goes wrong.

      Unfortunately, in both cases, it's the third option that is most commonly put to use. Nobody wants to write tough rules to prevent this kind of thing from happening, and nobody wants to take responsibility for the hard decisions that need to be made to fix this problem when it crops up. People have gotten complacent, and they see this kind of conflict as something that just has to be tolerated. Unfortunately, this type of problem, by definition, will not solve itself. It can only get larger and more expansive as time passes, and the more we wait, the more damage control we will have to perform when we actually decide that we need to do something!
    • ray901, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24"Why would Microsoft help Linux advance on the research of MS?"
      Rubbish. Do you even know what a 'Standard' is?
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16It wasn't solely the project of MS. This is an industry standard that MS contributed to and used their clout to essentially break the standard.
    • diazamet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15"Three cheers for capitalism, stop whining about companies trying to make money"

      Nobody can complain about a company making money but how about making money by making a better product, not by putting out ***** and then putting obstacles in everyone else's way.
    • lexbaby, on 10/12/2007, -9/+9Digg's bias against MS comes shining through.

      First, everyone gets upset that MS wants to create their own ACPI standard. (Note Bill used quotes around ACPI. To me that means he was using ACPI for the lack of a better word.) There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Changing an open standard? Yes, a problem. Making a competing standard? That's just business. Look at the AAC/WMA war heating up.

      Next, we hear "just make a better product." Hello!?! How can you make something better, if it's just like everyone else's product? I'm sick of all the "Microsoft killed [insert standard/protocol/language here]!!! Those bastards!" Listen, if you want progress, you have to try to change things and break the "rules" sometimes. I don't hear people complaining that iPods support AAC and not WMA. (Yes, I know WMA isn't an open standard, but you get my point.)

      Above there was a good analogy comparing this issue to car batteries and auto manufactures. I agree with that, however, you need to be upset with the auto makers accepting the proprietary battery. Sure it's a lucrative deal, but you need to have the guts to honor standards you signed up to support. Again, it's all about the money.
    • geoboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Greyarea

      "[Dictatorships] aren't bad in and of themselves, it's how they're used that matters."

      That is essentially what you've said. Just something to think about.
    • ezweave, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@oliveroms

      Once again, Windows does not use BSD that is a rumor... and misleading.

      NetBIOS was ripped off from IBM for that purpose.

      BSD started the "Berkley Sockets" de facto standard that EVERYONE uses for Socket programming, however this is just an interface/concept. The implementation details are different. If you have ever done Winsock programming you know you have to do lots of stupid little things (like looping on Send until all the bytes are transmitted, starting up the WS service, etc) that you never have to do in other OSs.

      So stop spouting rhetoric when you really don't know what you are talking about.
  • kipkeston, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12if that is bill, he has difficulty composing coherent sentences
    • Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -5/+49That's nothing, you should see his source code.
    • oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5however Bill says "linux works great". check the pdf [not at all out of context :)]
  • goodbeershow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Must have worked. ACPI runs like ***** on my Compaq laptop booted to Linux.
    • baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6ACPI works fine on my PCs (both lappys & desktops), could be a Compaq thing...
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+42ACPI has always been a piece of ***** to support, especially in Linux. Google "ACPI Linux" and read through the thousands of mailings about people with ACPI support problems and nobody knowing which way was up in the standard. It's so convoluted, fragmented and horribly written that nobody's implementation "Just Works", and the whole codebase ends up looking like "//this fixes compaq bug #3342", "//this file supports toshiba laptops", "//can anyone explain to me what the hell these lines do?", "//awful cludge ahead", etc.

      It's always been a ***** standard, and is reason #1 laptops running Linux don't get nearly the battery life as their counterparts running Windows (and often a sticking point for many people trying to move from Windows to Linux; "my computer froze when I suspended it! Help!") It's _way_ past time we fix this situation.
    • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3@naio21:
      Implementing a standard is easy as long as it is a good standard and well documented...blame the programmer for their faults in the code, not when the standards are broken!
  • EllaTheCat, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7
    "If seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that $COMPETITORS_PRODUCT works great without having to do the work"

    doesn't sound that bad from a business perspective. I think a useful counter-argument needs to be more persuasive than simply hurling abuse.
  • colonels1020, on 10/12/2007, -14/+42Hey...Mr. Gates!
    ***** YOU!
    ^_^
  • goteki, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1SHOCKING. NOT.
  • Misfitpierce, on 10/12/2007, -15/+142 words.... Microsoft sucks!
  • aiten, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26It's called stifling innovation.

    I'm all for business being a dog eat dog world, but purposely crippling something to prevent a competitor from innovating, especially a competitor which makes no money, is not business.

    I would like technology to advance, not one company to advance and then give up, as they did with IE, when they feel far enough ahead. That is not technological innovation.

    So, sorry, but i'm with the screw microsoft camp. Screw them and their weak, pathetic software.
  • tvc15, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4@blaze03
    Yes, it might be true that "every business does this" but not many of them are monopolies. Being one is not illegal in itself, but doing things like this while being one is.
  • MilesTeg, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2@aussieNickuss:
    On the other hand. Bill is just investing his money to improve his reputation... What else would you do if you already have a highend house and so much money you could never use in your live?
    • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Relax and play games all day long...maybe spread some peace in the world...what about you?
  • Markus123, on 10/12/2007, -28/+4Yawn, looks very fake. Bad grammar and spelling mistakes? Honestly if this was on a non-biased site it might be partially believable but a site run by anti-microsoft linux fanboys... pfft.
    • Greyarea, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that anyone who uses the word 'fanboy' is actually deeply worried that the 'fanboys' are right.
    • arcangelgabriel, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4Yawn is right...
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30It's been entered into evidence in an antitrust trial. Its authenticity has most certainly been validated.
    • joshman5k, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4digg... fan boys.... Get outta here!!!

      You can see the slogan now:
      Digg
      fair and balanced
  • JasonCox, on 10/12/2007, -14/+5Hey noobs, please check the date on the email before you flame. Thanks.
  • tuzziel, on 10/12/2007, -22/+3Gates is too gentle. Linux is devastating value, work and wealth of America. Could you imagine the value of GM and Ford if some zealots was able to mass produce cars for free ? All the people laid off and the consequeces on the market ? The monopoly is bad, but fighting monopoly with free product is such an unbelievable twist.. 3-5 "Microsofts" likes with fair pricing would do much better then this ridiculous situation.
    • Ssullivan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20You better tell Red Hat and Novell that you can't make money off Linux.
    • Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Could you imagine a steering wheel manufacturing company that makes steering wheels that can't make left hand turns ONLY in a Ford?

      Sounds funny, right? Well, Microsoft IS that steering wheel manufacturing company.
    • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14If people lose jobs you find more jobs spring up elsewhere. Such retarded comments assume a static economy.

      As mentioned above though, many people make money from or are paid to develop OSS. Most developers are actually in house people who target specific tasks in any case. OSS does nothing to harm their job prospects and indeed reduces the cost of their work which means more money can be spent on their wages.
    • toddji, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16It's quite the opposite.

      Do you know how many startups have sprung up using Linux as the base of their product? I have worked for several, and I know of dozens more. There are many high profile Linux devices being used today, you probably don't even recognize when you are using it (many DVRs, including Tivo. a growing number of cell phones. etc.) Just about every networking startup is using Linux for their product.

      So, are we better off ensuring that Microsoft has a tighter lock on the market, and another few billion goes to Bill and his shareholders? Or, are we better off with thousands of new companies started, with hundreds of thousands of jobs, and all the associated commerce (and Microsoft still making many billions, regardless).

      Linux, and other open source efforts like Apache, etc. have been an unbelievably positive force for innovation.
    • ordminute, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Linux is devastating value, work and wealth of America. Could you imagine the value of GM and Ford if some zealots was able to mass produce cars for free?"

      Hehe oops. Is Ford a Great American Company? Do you find it disturbing then that Ford is one of the biggest corporate Linux switchers?:

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/15/motor_giant_ford_to_move/

      Shocking! Commies in our midst! Now the switch is completed they're even talking about huge cost savings. See, there's plenty enough to go around. Isn't that weird?

      You sure have some loco logic there buddy.
    • loconet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Is that you Ballmer? Talking smack again? Aren't you supposed to be picking up Bill's laundry?
  • evilpaulie, on 10/12/2007, -19/+0I think he is too late, ACPI is already developed and is a mature technology. he should have done this crap in 2001 when it was still in ts infancy in Linux. Bill Gates needs to die in a horriable Space travel accident.
    • Markus123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14If you actually read it, you would see that is was done before 2001, "January 24, 1999"
  • iqula, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Yea its over for MS I just been trying to install exchange. It was impossible with conflicting patches and updates, phoning MS resulted in me spending more $$$ to get it to work and it still does not its impossible... So a bit of googling and I got a virtual server for $9 per month and typed "yum install sendmail" ... done in less that 30 mins. Lets now see if I can get back the hundereds of $$$ I spent on MS crap from old Billy boy.
  • gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6You could replace ACPI with so many things from these documents. The kerberos rant from Microsoft is pretty good defending how they preserve the standard. That said I
  • z00s, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1@scooper86

    How do you beat an awesome product that costs nothing?
  • Grout58, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1I dont understand why it makes everyone mad. Microsoft will be investing millions of its own money and making its partners do the same. If I was to do that would I want my competitor to profit from it? Hell no! Let Linux do its own damn work!
  • mastastealth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Though this wouldn't really surprise me, I still can't seem to believe this. It seems a little fake to me. It's just so...blunt.
  • qmeister, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2Uh, does anyone use Linux? If you want to compete with microsoft, come up with a platform that a non-technical person can manage. Convince mainstream hardware manufacturers that your platform is better and get them to use it. Microsoft has spent billions on their platform. Sure, they've done some things to squelch competition, but do you think you wouldn't do the same if you were spending billions of dollars on your platform?

    No, you want people to install software that costs nothing. That's not a business model, that's stupid.
    • Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Did you not read the damn article?

      If Linux weren't a threat.....why would Bill Gates even be wasting his time?
  • morphie, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4What surprised me is that Bill gates talks about Linux in the days that no one at Microsoft considered it a serious thread to Windows, they said. Now it seems that this statement has been a myth...
    • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9You obviously don't know your history. MS saw Linux as very big threat (can be witnessed among this and many more leaked emails). The only problem was they weren't open about it. You might recall the "Get the facts"-campaign where MS sponsored researches concluded Windows had a lower cost of ownership and better performance. MS has never liked competition and has done everything it could to halt innovation from their competitors which is what this email proves.
  • commiecat, on 10/12/2007, -11/+12"Gates is able to start up and give money to charities because he made that money by ripping other people off. I suppose its a case of Robin Hood, but it hasn't helped the computer industry move along as quickly."

    To say that Bill Gates hasn't helped the computer industry move along as quickly is the most ridiculous comment I think I've ever read on this generally-tech-savvy site. That's about as similar as saying that Steve Jobs hasn't helped the digital audio industry move along. Microsoft didn't invent the GUI but they marketed it in such a way that they got the vote of the general public because of its ease of use (GUI vs. CLI). Apple didn't invent the MP3 or the MP3 player but they marketed the iPod in such a way that *they* have the foothold in their respective market. Microsoft is a huge part of the reason that there are so many computers (and now, alternatives) and computer users just as Apple is a huge part of the reason that there are so many people with MP3 players.

    A license of Windows sells about as much as an iPod or a license of Red Hat Enterprise. I'd say that none of those are rip offs. Please don't demean his charitable contributions by calling him a rip off artist.

    Hate him all you want but you can't deny the fact that it's because of him (and MS), good or bad, computers are everywhere and that it's finally cool to be a geek.
    • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I would have loved a world without MS(tm) software cause people such as yourself choose to ignore what competition MS had and what they did. MS only revolutionized the PC industry but there where several other and more advanced computers that existed. Maybe you recall something called the Atari and Amiga. Computers which where way ahead of their time and used GUI based desktops as a standard years before MS finally pushed Windows into the standard PC:s and they where cheaper. There isn't one example of what MS has done which a competitor hasn't done better but due to them being the monopoly this is what people remember, who likes to recall the losers even if they where better at innovating and where more user-friendly?

    • skOre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1non sequitur.
    • commiecat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3That's exactly my point. Their genius has never been in their technical ability -- but rather their ability to market it. Apple gets praised for doing this to the iPod and Linux gets praised for doing this to UNIX. Apple took the MP3 player, which was already in production and being used, marketed it and sold it. Torvalds took an OS, changed it a bit and released it as Linux.

      I know about Atari because I had an Atari 800XL PC to start with. I've used Windows since 3.0 and MS-DOS before that. I have a little home server running FreeBSD, an OS that I've been using as a hobby for the last 8 years. I listen to my iPod Mini all the time.

      And to suggest that Windows wasn't the most "user-friendly" OS during its prime is nonsense. How come Linux and Mac are so popular now? I say it's because they're much more user-friendly (even more now than Windows at times) today than they used to be. BSD and Linux both were applauded because of how robust/secure they were -- but there was a long time where you couldn't just throw in your Ubuntu disc and install everything easily. If you didn't know about partitioning a drive and how to navigate CLI and man pages, you weren't going to attempt to install it. And the problem I had with Macs was the difficulty in customizing my hardware. I could build a Windows PC out of almost anything but I couldn't do that with Mac.

      I stand by my point and I understand that pro-Microsoft is almost blasphemous in some of these articles. No matter how much you hate MS, they're the majority of the reason that computer use grew exponentially during the '90s. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find die-hard *NIX users/coders who didn't start out with MS either using DOS or Windows.
  • senfo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Let me get this straight. Microsoft puts money into extending ACPI and Linux gets a "free ride" by being able to take advantage of it? I don't seem to remember hearing Microsoft bitching when they got a free ride by using the BSD implementation of TCP-IP. And who knows exactly how many other free rides they've gotten along the way?
  • sbgskl, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Dugg from Windows XP, just like all the other diggers. :cool:
  • pixelat3d, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6I usually defend Windows, Microsoft, and even Gates himself, not this time.
    I guess I'm going to have to give up on PC gaming and go buy a Wii and a PS3 instead. What a waste.
  • dgh1973, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Well it's no wonder why everyone who writes ACPI related kernel stuff says it sucks.
  • ducktomguy, on 10/12/2007, -15/+0Go to http://correlations.paytoreplace.com and click on the Answer tab. Search for the term 'Microsoft' (it should be question number 77) and answer honestly.
    Thanks
  • dontdiggthis, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4bury this crap. i'm so sick of pencil-necked geek linux-lovers whining how evil Gates is. he is worth BILLIONS now get over it and go back to your kernel-compiling, friendless, blog spamming, useless lives. oh, wrote this response on a laptop with Vista you bitches.
    • justice7, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6even tho you're trolling, i agree with you

      i have a severe distaste for the original poster due to his anti-microsoft pure blind linux fanboyism

      its to the point its almost unhealthy
  • nofrak1, on 10/12/2007, -13/+7Even though I'm a linux user I'm going to stand up for old Billy Boy here. Why should linux, after all, benefit for free from microsoft's work? Not that Linux ACPI support is great anyways.

    Much better, I think, to try and develop an entirely open alternative to ACPI, so that we don't have to worry about things like this.
    • alx242, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Yeah thats right, why should MS not keep to standards and possibly try to implement a good working protocol when they could include stuff which makes it break easily, use security by obscurity and maybe help hinder innovation among all the platforms...why should they indeed?
  • jbus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Republicans have shown that they don't have it in them to deal with abusive monopolies like Microsoft. What we need is an Attorney General appointed by a Democratic President, along with a Democratic Congress, otherwise Microsoft and other monopolies will continue these abuses against consumers & competition without any fear of prosecution.
    • xDibblerx, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4jbus, you are an idiot. Take a few economics courses before you start spewing your junior high level understanding of how the world works. Please don't come back with some bs about how you teach economics at Yale or something. You really need to look back at some of the decisions the Clintons made before you start preaching your liberal crap to us.
  • linkin1, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5Bill Gates is a f****** moron, he is apparently going into space soon, i hope he never come back. p.s. remember how bill gates always talk about global warming..etc...he is a hypocrite, why is he going into space, paying some $25M, burning tremendous amount of rocket fuel..not only that..but rocket fuel goes through all atmospheres, and when it reaches high, it is extremely destructive to the ozone/and other atmospheres.

    do me a favour, either:
    1)switch to linux
    2)if you depend too much on windows, then please please don't upgrade to vista.
    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1That one trip into space isn't going to matter much about pollution.
  • voidvector, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not that this isn't already the case.

    Some of the vendors are so poor at writing DSDT code that it breaks power management in Linux out of box. We have to decompile them fix the bug and then recompile to get them working.

    See http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/
    • Altotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I was going to point that out myself. ACPI is great, but no better than the ACPI support in the machine. Lots of vendors play fast-and-loose with their implementation (DSDT) and then supply after-the-fact run-time patches in their OEM Windows install on their computers. Problem is, if you aren't using their OEM version of Windows or install a patch form their website, ACPI simply falls apart (some vendors contribute system-specific ACPI goof-fixes too, so in a few cases the patches are supplied by MS).

      It's really awful and it belies an ever increasing problem: vendors are getting sloppy and shipping increasingly shaky hardware and drivers.

      I used to not care so much, but I'm increasingly of the mind that more of this needs to be completely open or require rigorous validation by a third party before the hardware ships. It was once acceptable to me that things could be tricky under Linux, or older version of Windows, etc. But there's not really any excuse to it. Shoddy work and heroic efforts to cover it up are becoming increasingly pervasive and it's affecting the whole market (not just a single OS or platform).
  • qwikmr2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It really does not surprise me that this is the case with microsoft. They have always been the ones to control the market and squeeze the other guy or buy them up. I fail to see the difference between this letter and the general state of evil that is microsoft. (BTW this is written on a Vista Machine...(running like crap)) I embrace the joys of opensource and want fully make the move but I am so entwined within all that is microsoft and also loosing my beloved Adobe suite. Yes I know there are alternatives but they are pale in comparison and they do very bad things to my existing works.
  • bradpitcher, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The HTML version:
    http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:FvUukrjBRR8J:edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf+PX03020.pdf&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
  • SirBotchness, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4This is 8 ***** years old. Get over it.
    • stoppedcode12, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Time cures corruption? Since when?
  • djGentoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The memo is dated Jan 24, 1999.
    Ah well, it still screws Microsoft over. All your standard are belong to us! Corporate scum.
  • n8o8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Just another example of why people are jumping ship from Windoze, Gates does not think customer first! Jobs, on the other hand, gets it! Do you think you would have ever seen a "thoughts on music" Anti-DRM post on the front page of Microsoft.com?! I think not.
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