Very Computer

and if they couldn't kill them off... they bought them outright and
brought the product into the MS range... eg. Visio. I don't think we'll
ever get the Visio file format released to the general public now...

ISTR that Equation Editor started off as a totally separate program
(copyright Design Science, inc 1990-1996) and as MS couldn't better it
with their own, bought it up wholesale and passed it off as their own
just giving the clues to the original owners in the About Box which the
vast majority of users never look at anyway.

I've still got the original Shareware version of Equation Editor on a
CDrom compilation somewhere.

Paul Cooke

--
I tried to come up with an original signature, I failed, so this is what
you're getting instead

MS never tried to "kill off" visio, in fact they even created a similar
product, ever.  Visio had always been a very strong MS supporter and was sort
of MS's posterchild for various OLE and ActiveX technologies for years.

I think you need to reevaluate your argument.

How quickly people like you forget.  Do you not recall the kernel 2.4.11, 12,
and 13 fiasco, where they rushed out kernel patches so fast to fix things they
screwed up that they broke other stuff?

Quote:> Now look at Microsoft's handling of the UPnP vulnerability. They took
> five weeks to fix it, during which time they kept their users in the
> dark about the existence of the vulnerability and even continued to
> advertised the supposed security of Windows XP to consumers *despite*
> knowing it wasn't.

Oh yes.  Vendors *NEVER* take weeks or months to fix things on Linux, right?
Oh, wait..

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2001/1129linftp.html

"A Linux security vulnerability related to FTP, first spotted in April, is
finally getting the attention it deserves as Linux vendors and the Washington
University WU-FTPD Development Group issued software patches to fix it."

By the way, the article is dated November 29th, 2001.  That's 7 months from
reporting the issue to a fix.

Quote:> I think it's pretty damn clear who is more accountable to their
> customers.

Yes, clear as mud.

Quote:>MS never tried to "kill off" visio, in fact they even created a similar
>product, ever.

so WTF are autoshapes in MS Word then if not a competing product. Visio
set the standard for Shape set drawing packages and customers preferred
to stick with that standard because they had a lot of money invested in
corporate procedures etc. drawn up in Visio and didn't want to go to the
trouble of changing over to a competing Microsoft product. I have been
using Viso ever V1.0 and the company I used to work for had a lot of
manhours tied up in QA procedures drawn up in Visio drawings. We never
went up to the current version though when Microsoft took it over
though. We could do everything we needed to with V4 as it was.

The company I previously worked for are still using Office 97 as the
standard package and are taking a long hard look at jumping ship now to
using Linux. They are sick and tired of the overheads incurred in
managing licences for software packages. And they definitely do not want
to get locked into the XP path with all that that entails in replacing
perfectly serviceable hardware just because it will not be supported in
XP.

Oh, we also had plenty of experience of being part owned by Microsoft as
well. They bought a share in us for our technology but we never saw any
benefit in the long term. Because of legal matters, I cannot go further
into this matter at all.

Paul Cooke

--
I tried to come up with an original signature, I failed, so this is what
you're getting instead

Not really a complete product, now is it?  In fact, I think it was licensed
from Visio.

Quote:> Visio
> set the standard for Shape set drawing packages and customers preferred
> to stick with that standard because they had a lot of money invested in
> corporate procedures etc. drawn up in Visio and didn't want to go to the
> trouble of changing over to a competing Microsoft product.

A product that has never existed.

Quote:> I have been
> using Viso ever V1.0 and the company I used to work for had a lot of
> manhours tied up in QA procedures drawn up in Visio drawings. We never
> went up to the current version though when Microsoft took it over
> though. We could do everything we needed to with V4 as it was.

Actually, Visio produced both Visio 5 and Visio 2000 before being bought by
MS.  MS bought Visio shortly after Visio 2000 was released.

[snipped: last wuftpd exploit]

Quote:> By the way, the article is dated November 29th, 2001.  That's 7 months from
> reporting the issue to a fix.

Erik, this keeps coming up, and Linux users keep pointing out that wu-ftp
has been known as hole-ridden software for some time. That is why nearly
every Linux distributor has dumped wu-ftpd as the standard FTP daemon in
their installations.

It's not that big of a deal when users know the history of the program (and
avoid it), and when the problem daemon isn't installed and activated by
default. To be accountable, the vendor must do these things:

   * Pay attention to input from users who find bugs or exploits

   * Inform all users of potential problem, and ways to avoid it

   * Create patches for bugs and exploits

   * Distribute patches in a timely manner

Microsoft did only one of the three above items with the UPnP exploit, and
that was to create a patch for the exploit. Note that with the wu-ftp
exploit, it was spotted in April, people were informed, and could actually
do something about it (which didn't matter since most had moved to ProFTPd).
Washington U may have been damn slow to issue a patch, but on the other
hand, they aren't collecting $100 for every copy of wu-FTPd that is
distributed.

----
Bones

The opinions  stated  here are
my own, and do not necessarily
reflect  those of my employer.

The first I ever do is installing the newest kernel version on all
production systems. I must do this because of the incredible security
breaches in the installed kernels. And my hope is that the newest
version is more secure. They promise it. It's a horror to be
*d.

Quote:> "A Linux security vulnerability related to FTP, first spotted in
> April, is finally getting the attention it deserves as Linux vendors
> and the Washington University WU-FTPD Development Group issued
> software patches to fix it."

And it is also a horror that all the linux distros have the WU-FTP
(well known as a very secure ftpd for a long time) activated by
default. No option but to switch it off.

Good examples Erik, your option is to walk their (one) way. Easy,
insecure and boring.

After takin' a swig o' grog, Erik Funkenbusch belched out this bit o' wisdom:

Quote:> MS never tried to "kill off" visio, in fact they even created a similar
> product, ever.  Visio had always been a very strong MS supporter and was sort
> of MS's posterchild for various OLE and ActiveX technologies for years.

> I think you need to reevaluate your argument.

Yeah, MS didn't kill off Visio, it bought Visio and converted it to
a sluggish, bloated, buggy monstrosity with UML support that is
almost laughable.

MS merely crippled Visio.

Chris

--
Living large and loving Linux!

After takin' a swig o' grog, Erik Funkenbusch belched out this bit o' wisdom:

Quote:>> so WTF are autoshapes in MS Word then if not a competing product.

> Not really a complete product, now is it?  In fact, I think it was licensed
> from Visio.

Not mentioned in the Help About for Word 2000.  How about in earlier
Word versions?

Quote:>> Visio
>> set the standard for Shape set drawing packages and customers preferred
>> to stick with that standard because they had a lot of money invested in
>> corporate procedures etc. drawn up in Visio and didn't want to go to the
>> trouble of changing over to a competing Microsoft product.

> A product that has never existed.

Actually, many people tried to use PowerPoint and Word drawing
for purposes better suited to Visio.

Quote:> Actually, Visio produced both Visio 5 and Visio 2000 before being bought by
> MS.  MS bought Visio shortly after Visio 2000 was released.

Interesting factoid there.

--
Living large and loving Linux!

so now you are claiming that the drawing package in Microsoft Word doesn't
exist???

I call Microsoft Word a competing package if it allows you to draw shapes
and link them to other shapes with lines that automatically stretch etc.
:)

One of the fundamental features of Visio, so Word is a competing product.

Quote:>Actually, Visio produced both Visio 5 and Visio 2000 before being bought
>by MS.  MS bought Visio shortly after Visio 2000 was released.

We didn't bother to upgrade our packages to Visio 5 or 2000 when they were
released as there was no business advantage that could justify the cost of
the upgrade to our site wide licence... One or two users did upgrade to
the more recent versions, but they were producing specialised graphics
that were being exported to locked .pdf files for company and customer
distribution. Those files produced by the later versions, did not require
further editing by other business units or users apart from the original
content creators.

We did give all users access to Visio 4 for the creation of their own
graphics for their own particular business units and personal purposes.
This enabled us to concentate the training on just one package for common
use and enabled us to avoid the monstrosities of drawings produced using
the drawing tools in Word.  This was because we were able to produce blank
templates that had certain layers that were common, locked off from normal
editing and could thus be controlled for QA purposes.

Paul Cooke

The list is ENDLESS...............

-  MS-DOS      (was Tim Patterson's Q-DOS)
-  Excel       (was Multiplan)
-  MS C        (was Lattice C)
-  DoubleSpace (was Stacker, see court case)
-  Powerpoint  (was Powerpoint)
-  MS FoxPro   (was Dave Fulton's FoxBase)
-  IE          (was NCSA Mosaic)
-  SQL Server  (was Sybase)
-  WinNT       (a re-write of DEC VMS, cf Jim Alchin)
-  Visio       (see above)

...........so how much software did "the world's biggest software
company" actually write in-house?  Did Computer Associates actually
write more?!!!!

Sean

I take issue with that one.  According to Microsoft.  

Quote:>The current path is simply to copy everything that Netscape does
>packaging and product wise.  

:o)
LShaping

Quote:>-  SQL Server  (was Sybase)
>-  WinNT       (a re-write of DEC VMS, cf Jim Alchin)
>-  Visio       (see above)

>...........so how much software did "the world's biggest software
>company" actually write in-house?  Did Computer Associates actually
>write more?!!!!

>Sean

Ok Eric what about Foxpro for Unix and Visual Foxpro???? why did M$
buy the Foxpro company and the very first thing they did was kill Unix
version of Foxpro??.
And before you say they are still supporting Visual Foxpro it is
WINDOW Dressing in comparison to ACCESS

Jim

:W!
zz
:X!

And Now your Viso4 Will Not be supported in the next year I Bet YA as
they will
Phase out all Visio's to make room for their new Viso XP which by the
way is NOT Backwards Compatible hehehhehehe
I can see it now.......

Jim

:W!
zz
:X!

Microsoft Word   (was Wordstar)

Theres another one
P.S> Remember the days when "ALL" Software could read competitors
Formats ergo.. Wordstar could read AMI PRO etc etc etc
I think Bill Gatus of Borg was still in his Garage in those days.....

Jim

:W!
zz
:X!