Forums Developers Linux MiRC

Completely wrong wrong wrong.

Any decision made by a US court could only ever be enforced in the US. Or does whoever wants M$ split up plan on filing claims in the high courts of all 200-odd sovereign nations?

Corporate law differs vastly in many countries. Read some legislation before you make such statements.

As I said earlier, I'm not a lawyer and I dont know everything, however, I expect that your statement is wrong
A split was ordered - if there was any chance that that split was not legally enforcable, i doubt it would have ever got that far. There was also talk of the EU also having the jurestiction(sp?) to split microsoft, but they chose not to

I have been following this case for several years, and I've not seen any serious comments that the split ordered back in 2000(?) would not be enforcable - were it not overturned on appeal.

I have done several searches but havent yet been able to find a page that explains the proposed remedy - but I shall look for more information for you tonight which will explain more

well, it was interesting to see cuch a long thread here about windows/linux. as it is, there aren't any perfect operating systems, yet, in the world. Windows has undoubtely the better GUI, at the moment anyway ( not talking about MacOSX here, i like that too, but i haven't worked with it, so i can't say anything else than i like how it looks

but there are a few facts here which either aren't exactly correct, or haven't been said ... for one, it is not true that linux is not useable as desktop machine. the last releases of RedHat, SuSe, Mandrake and Xandros prove indeed that it is very useable. among other things, i hold linux courses here at the university, not for students, but for the scientific and normal employees, and especially among the scientific emplyoees, more and more tell me that after they got into contact with linux as desktop OS, they are more and more using it, for many everyday things, OpenOffice can replace MsOffice sucessfully for most users.

but, undoubtely, linux has still some way to go, until it's gui will be as potent and easily useable as Windows. OTOH, it gathers ground very quickly.

however, that is not the real problem. at this moment, M$ is on a course, which is more or less dangerous in many ways, for many of us here, especially if you do NOT live in the US ... but even then, i would say it is bad enough. i do not know how many of you have followed the ideas M$, along with Intel, and many other large companies has, about TCPA ... TCPA Homepage ... of course, on the website, they say how good it will be for every user, the machine will not be able to run any code which hasn't been allowed to run, documents can be encrypted and only read on specific machines, or sound and video files won't be copied from machine to machine, and M$ will be able to tell your machine which programs may be run, or not, it can install automagically updates, and the user won't need to bother, remove what isn't needed ... oops .. i am sure that many of you recognise what this means. DRM will be enforceable, at last, and whomever thinks that your data will be actually safe, i ask you something. do you really think the US governement will give any user such a OS, where noone else than the owner can read a file, because it will be automagically encrypted ? surely not, it means that there will be some Master-Key which law-enforcment agencies can use to decrypt every file you have created. and PGP won't run anymore, since M$ won't simply let you run it. ok, now some of you will say i am paranoid. perhaps i am OTOH, it gets worse. imagine .. files aren't readeable anymore on other systems, ok, so what happens if you fry some integral part of your hardware ? how can you re-use your DRM encrypted files ? by re-inputting the same key ? oops, but that means it is probably hackeable. and what of non US companies, or even worse Countries ? i tell you, as European citizen, i do not like the idea at all, that my governement should use an OS which has these restrictions, and possible holes. hacking will find a way to get past it, it was proven in Hamburg, at the CCC ( Chaos Computer Club ) meeting, where a new DRM system of M$ was hacked ... and once you've hacked a TCPA system, you can abuse computers much worse than today. you can't boot a virus-program from a CD-ROM anymore, since this CD-ROM would have to be able to unlock the TCPA chip ... etc. etc.

Trusted Computing doesn't mean that you can trust your computer, it means that M$ can. i do use WinXP at work and home, next to my windows machines. as long as TCPA won't be part of the OS ( the palladium module of the new Windows, codename LongHorn ) .

but till then, linux will be as useable as windows, seen from a GUI point of view

There was also talk of the EU also having the jurestiction(sp?) to split microsoft, but they chose not to

They do have the jurisdiction, but only over inside their own sovereign borders, the same as any other place. The point I was trying to make is that one court in one country cannot make a world-wide ruling for a company just because their head office is in the same country as the relevant court. Sure they could split Micro$oft into an OS company and an Applications company. They couldn't, in the same ruling split Micro$oft's overseas operations though, because they come under the coporate laws of the other countries. There would ahve to be seperate hearings in all countries where Micro$oft has operations. it would also be easy enough for the currently singular Micro$oft to bring it's overeas operations under the umbrella of a new corporate entity which could infact (depending on US corporate law) evade any decision currently under consideration.

(replying to myself 'cause I dunno who to reply to anymore!)



tbh, I've done half of the posts ;P
But, in all seriousness...
On this forum there are 3 mirc in linux questions, and they have got 1st place, 4th place and 6th place in the most-read threads - I think that shows that theres continued interest in mirc in linux (even though khaled has stated that there will not be a version)


Yes, linux has made some great improvements (KDE 3.1 is pretty darn good) - but linux is still not ready for joe consumer (whether it will be or not is a different question) - try stuff like USB webcams and less than half of them can be used in linux
If you only need to do "normal" stuff, then linux is as usuable as a desktop OS as windows is



The more intelligent or computer literate have no problems using linux - the main problems are when something "goes wrong" (because its designed for windows) - u could easily be screwed
Until more companies make the same stuff for windows and linux such as drivers, support documents and applications *cough*mirc*cough* then the world of linux wont be ready for joe consumer

[even_more_offtopic]

What will happen with developers? some people are saying that you wont be able to turn this stuff off... what happens when I want to write my own program?
Anyway, IMO the only way this initiative would work is if linux was not an alternative (e.g. it became law that you HAD to have it)
[/even_more_offtopic]



microsoft-UK, microsoft-germany and microsoft-france all use/sell/profit from the software made by microsoft-US (even though some is written in india)

This what would happen if they were split all came from the statement you made...



Any split in the US would have drastic effects for all other microsoft-US owned companies since it is the US company which owns the rights for windows and office (and prolly the others too, but I dunno tbh). I have to admit that I dont know all the details of what the UK presence of microsoft does (apart from organising educational licenses etc) but their core business of selling the microsoft-US produced software would be hugely affected

of course you won't be able to turn it off. that is the point of it ... as for developers, they will have a hard time, since they will have to buy from one of the companies of the TCPA alliance a key to sign your programs ... and this will cost some $$. as for initiative, that is not an initiative. Dell and Intel already sell notebooks with an inbuilt TCPA chip. of course, right now, it remains dormant. until for example, the next update of the media-player, which might start using it for DRM management. and then, you will update to the new version of windows, codename longhorn, which will suddenly take possession of your TCPA-ready machine, and suddenly ... ohmy ... and no, i am not paranoid, that is how it is planned. no consumer will feel it at once, or it wouldn't work at all. TCPA is a danger to our personal freedom. but if you think that this is bad, imagine how bad it will get, if someone manages to actually bypass it. it means this person will be able to bypass all the security measures on the machine. he can do everything without a chance to know what happens.

the "Trusted" in TCPA doesn't mean you can trust your machine. it means M$ can trust it.

(replying to myself 'cause I dunno who to reply to anymore!)

That's actually quite amusing. Perhaps if you'd have stuck to the original topic the thread wouldn't have stretched half way around the world.

I'll show some leadership here and reply in this thread no longer. Well I will attempt to anyway... :tongue:

Eesh. I'm closing this thread. Any future "why isn't there a Linux version of mIRC" posts will be deleted as soon as I spot them. There's no debating this issue.

-chris