20 Aug 2003
Open Source Guitars

Not being a musician (or anything resembling it) I'd never heard of Sterling Ball. But he does a GREAT interview on why he's gone 100% Microsoft free, and it's noteworthy that it was an audit by the BSA than initially set him off. I think he was being a bit petulant in rejecting Apple as being "owned by Microsoft", but hey: his heart's in the right place, which is with his employees and customers.

This story should serve as an object lesson to those who demand strict and absolutle compliance with copyright law in a digital age. When your business model demands that you treat customers like thieves and criminals, your customers are probably going to go elsewhere.

Rockin' on without Microsoft. Sterling Ball, whose company is the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings, explains why he made the move to open source and why he's never looked back since. [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Remember SP6

More Microsoft news: after the commotion this week of worms and virii they've decided that the best solution would be for them to sutomatically update users computers, even without the users knowledge or consent. I don't think so ... you see, I remember:

"Anyone that remembers Service Pack 6 (a collection of security patches for system NT 4.0) will never let MS perform automatic updates on a system. SP6 was released and it promptly blew away thousands of servers, and there was not any recovery method other than a reinstall. Which is why Service Pack 6 now is SP6A."

Geeks Grapple With Virus Invasion. Security experts are finding plenty of targets to blame for an onslaught of worms and viruses over the last two weeks. Among the targets: ego-ridden hackers, bad Microsoft code and clueless users. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Poor Quality Is No Excuse For Failure

From the comment:

The movie industry is blaming poor sales of such movies as Gigli, The Hulk and Charlies Angels not on the fact that they were poor quality, but because people text message other people telling them that the movie stinks. Industry executives say that this undermines a carefully crafted marketing image. Expect texting to be banned by the MPAA in the near future.

Movie Industry Blames Texting for Bad Box Office [Slashdot]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link