* Posts by Richard Plinston

2608 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2009

Windows 10 a failure by Microsoft's own metric – it won't hit one billion devices by mid-2018

Richard Plinston

due to the focusing of our phone hardware business

> due to the fscking of our phone hardware business

FTFY

Damn the autofix spell checker.

Microsoft silently kills dev backdoor that boots Linux on locked-down Windows RT slabs

Richard Plinston

Re: not long before RT slab-tops are completely worthless

> you would be able to DISABLE the 'secure boot'

With Windows 10 x86 devices this is now officially optional. The OEM can make it so that it can't be disabled if they wish*.

* ... to keep their 'loyalty discounts'.

Webpages, Word files, print servers menacing Windows PCs – yup, it's Patch Tuesday

Richard Plinston

July Flash Player update.

> July Flash Player update. Windows, OS X, Linux, and ChromeOS users should check to make sure they don't have any version of the software.

FTFY

Win 10 Anniversary: 'We're beginning to check in final code' says Microsoft

Richard Plinston

Re: 'Free' update to end.

> Not going to happen without some big corporate getting behind it to give some semblance of predictability and supportability,

ChromeOS is the desktop Linux with "some big corporate" behind it. It is happening.

IBM, Red Hat and SUSE are corporates behind server Linux (and desktop). Google is behind smartphone Linux

> which will bring instant revile from the OSS community.

Didn't happen.

Richard Plinston

Re: "including Ubuntu on Windows 10"

> I wonder if Ubuntu applications such as LibreOffice ...

Ubuntu on Windows 10 is command line bash and utilities. In theory you could run GUI apps but would need an X-Server.

Microsoft: Enterprise Advantage will be 'a step in quite a long journey to modernize our licensing'

Richard Plinston

360-degree view

> a 360-degree view of what they’re buying from us.

That sounds like they are completely surrounding the customer so that he can't see (or buy) anything other than what Microsoft sells (eg in their store).

Android tablets too bitter a pill for Dell

Richard Plinston

It's all about 'Loyalty'

Microsoft has probably been waving 'Loyalty Discounts' at them: "Be loyal to us or pay retail for every copy of Windows and Office for the machine that you make."

It work for netbooks, it worked for HP WebOS.

Microsoft's Windows 10 nagware goes FULL SCREEN in final push

Richard Plinston

Re: Over 300 million people...

> "Over 300 million people have upgraded". Is that a lie?

It doesn't need to be a lie, it is just that many have done so by upgrading their hardware as well.

What Microsoft have claimed elsewhere is that 300 million are running Windows 10. It all those were 'upgrades' in situ from Win7 or 8 then they would be claiming the 500 million are running Win10.

Richard Plinston

Re: Your Mac's what?

> For similar reasons, we don't write "laser's".

'laser' is not an abbreviation, it is an acronym.

"""The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"."""

Richard Plinston

Re: Your Mac's what?

> better yet "I use a Macintosh" does not imply a specific quantity

Yes it does. 'a' -> 1.

Richard Plinston

Re: Over 300 million people...

> Which at a modest $50 a pop means ...

Actually, approx 230 million of that 300 million is one year's sales of new computers with OEM Windows 10 pre-installed (for which Microsoft was paid).

We have no information on the number that have overwritten Windows 10 with something else.

Richard Plinston

Re: A final throw of the dice before

> especially since the free upgrade to win10 made no mention of this.....

What they actually said was:

"""This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no additional charge."""

What was not explained was what the "supported lifetime of the device" meant. The device hardware is supported by the warranty. Once your warranty expires then it is no longer "at no additional charge".

Note that they did _not_ say: 'for the supported lifetime of the OS'.

Microsoft releases open source bug-bomb in the rambling house of C

Richard Plinston

Re: >handling pointers directly makes for efficient, “close to the hardware” programming>

> But what happens when you have to deal with UNstructured data, like a live stream?

Then you choose a language and/or system that is appropriate for that particular problem domain.

Richard Plinston

Re: Bounds checking for C and C++

> Guess what? Those are real-life concerns.

But are entirely spurious in the discussion about whether a language can or will do bound checking.

Richard Plinston

Re: Bounds checking for C and C++

> they would be the languages of choice for highly-constrained applications

FORTRAN _is_ the language of choice for certain applications. Not for embedded though, mainly because it doesn't cope with low-stuff well.

I already have indicated areas where other languages may be able to outperform C. For example multidimensional array numerical processing can be faster in FORTRAN because these are direct language features and the compiler can implement the code inline, while C would use a library (such as matrix) which would introduce call overheads, plus it may implement this as arrays of pointers to arrays of pointers to ... which could lead to running out of registers.

If you rewrite FORTRAN programs in C they may run slower. If you rewrite C programs in FORTRAN they probably will run slower. Use appropriate languages for the problem domain.

Richard Plinston

Re: >handling pointers directly makes for efficient, “close to the hardware” programming>

> HOW can a language be more efficient that one that's close to the metal like C. Close to the metal means more like Assembler which is more like machine code,

A language implementation can have specific features which are faster than the equivalent provided by a C implementation. For example, C's string handling can be inefficient due to the need to search along the string until the null terminator is found while Pascal implementations often use a length count at the start of the char array.

FORTRAN uses array descriptor blocks to cater for multidimensional arrays and the compilers and libraries handling these have been written in assembler. C multidimensional arrays could be done using arrays of pointers to arrays of pointers or by writing routines to calculate the array access but doing either in C will be less efficient than those in the best FORTRAN.

I rewrote a C program in Python and had it running about 10 times faster. It was almost entirely string handling - it was processing a postscript template file substituting data into embedded tags to produce invoices and statements (and others) that were then converted to PDFs.

Richard Plinston

Re: Bounds checking for C and C++

> I'm saying what if the malware finds a different way into the bounds data to alter it out of band? That's the thing: for the most part, data is data, and you can perhaps perform something like a Confused Deputy (aka "Barney Fife") attack to mangle the bounds data with another routine. Or mangle the descriptor in transit between programs and/or libraries.

Or what if the memory doesn't store the bits correctly, or the CPU executes the instruction badly !!!

You are just making up spurious situations which have nothing to do with whether the language implementation can do bound checking.

Richard Plinston

Re: Bounds checking for C and C++

> Externally-passed or dynamically-generated data can have fungible or simply unknown bounds.

The bounds won't be 'unknown' in that the malloc() (or equivalent) must ask for a specific size. There may well be implementations of particular high-level languages that don't bother to pass size information, but there are implementations, such as ones that I used, that pass an array descriptor that has bounds for each subscript, _even_ if it was created dynamically or passed externally.

With multi-dimentional arrays (such as often used in Fortran) the code must have the descriptor block in order to convert the several subscripts into a specific memory address.

> Plus, as noted, what if something manages to get into the bounds information and messes with them?

If the only way to access the array is via the descriptor then the bound checks, or other, can prevent access to the descriptor block.

Not all languages are like C.

Richard Plinston

Re: Bounds checking for C and C++

> Even fortran can't bounds check an array passed to a subroutine.

While 'FORTRAN' language may not be able to check, particular compilers can generate code that does check, even on arrays passed to subroutines. It is only necessary for the compiler to generate code to pass an array descriptor that includes the bounds of each subscript, such as was done by compilers that I used in the past.

Richard Plinston

Re: C is not an applications programming language

> Is C£ any good ?

The octothorpe is an approximation of several distinct graphics. In this case he was using it in one of the common approximations, that of 'lb' the symbol for pound weight.

Personally I refer to C# as 'making a hash of C'.

You may also note that the US keyboard has 'hash' above the 3 while you have 'UKP'.

Richard Plinston

Re: C is not an applications programming language

> Applications used to conduct bank transactions are written in COBOL

FTFY

Richard Plinston

Re: C is not an applications programming language

> Unlikely, since Windows and IE are almost certainly written in C++

"""Cutler set three main goals for Windows NT. The first goal was portability: in contrast to previous operating systems, which were strongly tied to one architecture, Windows NT should be able to operate on multiple architectures.[60] To meet this goal, most of the operating systems, including the operating system core, had to be written in the C programming language.[61] """

The graphics system was in C++.

> MSVC is a C++ compiler and, much to the annoyance of C fans, MS don't actually *do* a C compiler

"""Visual C++ 2015 [MSVC 14] further improves the C99 support, with full support of the C99 Standard Library"""

You lucky creatures! Mammals only JUUUST survived asteroid that killed dinosaurs

Richard Plinston

Re: Yep, there's a huge difference between ''wiped out" and "nearly wiped out".

> big dinosaurs didn't because being able to hop around in the treetops was just too advantageous.

Moa, Ostrich, Rhea, Elephant Bird, Penguins, ...

I don't see many of those 'hopping around in the treetops'.

Raspberry Pi distributor Premier Farnell in £792m Swiss buyout deal

Richard Plinston

Raspberry Pi distribution firm

It was the only way to get hold of a Pi Zero.

Google doesn’t care who makes Android phones. Or who it pisses off

Richard Plinston

> Does OS/360 mean anything? VMS?

Were you running those on CP/M-class computers ?

Perhaps you missed that I qualified my reply with "_Those_ computer makers OS ..."

Richard Plinston

> Back in the mists of time computer makers provided their own OS. It was an additional cost for them and an additional cost for customers who had to maintain the required expertise for each platform they had in the business. Commodity OSs solved that. CP/M in particular allowed a lot of startups to offer H/W.

Those computer makers OS were generally very simple boot loaders and/or language based systems (such as ROM BASIC). There was very little 'expertise' required and very few businesses had more than one 'platform'.

Before CP/M there were several other OSes that were available to HW makers: notably Unix from various software houses. The notable thing about CP/M was that it was a microprocessor based OS that had a proper Disk Operating System. There were many clones of CP/M, such as Turbo-DOS. MS-DOS 1.x was a CP/M clone for 8086/8088.

> Maybe the H/W manufacturers need to look at setting up a consortium to deliver OSs for both PCs and phones that they can shape to what they perceive to be the market's needs.

Maemo, Moblin, Meego, Tizen, ... Been there, done that, still got the T-shirt.

Richard Plinston

> Phone OEMs seem to be in the same situation with Google that PC OEMs have been with MS. They are entirely subject to the S/W maker's diktats

Except for those that aren't, these include Nokia/Mocrosoft X, Amazon Fire, Cyanogenmod, and many Chinese makers.

> and are vulnerable to the S/W makers moving into H/W any time they choose.

Google moved into HW with Motorola and with Nexus. That didn't make anyone feel vulnerable.

Richard Plinston

Re: Linux for Phones

> As far as I know every PC nowadays is basically a PC2001 on steroids...

That is merely defining the term 'PC' as something that fits what PC2001 requires it to. In fact PC2001 was just a list of features that were already available in most 'x86 PCs' at the time and did not create anything new.

Richard Plinston

> after which the hardware starts to die,

It seems that, more often, it is the 'street cred' that dies. They laugh when you pull out your 2 year old phone, so you have to buy the latest model.

Richard Plinston

> We need something like linux for phones.

Android _is_ 'Linux for phones'. Linux is the kernel of Android.

Perhaps you meant 'GNU for phones' or 'KDE for phones'. Well you can do that too. Maemo/Meego was 'Linux/Gnome for phones' and later, 'Linux/QT for phones' from Nokia and would run such desktop programs as Gnumeric, Abiword and OpenOffice.org. I wrote stuff in Python/Glade that would run unchanged on N800, Windows and desktop Linux.

There is also Ubuntu for phones, Tizen, Jolla and probably some others.

You can also run GNU stuff on Android such as Terminal-IDE.

Just go and buy them otherwise they will fold for lack of demand.

Richard Plinston

Re: Sounds risky

> You still have to run the core Google proprietary stuff or else the phone doesn't work at all.

That may be true of some Android phones, but it is _NOT_ true of Android in general. examples such as Amazon Fire, Nokia/Microsoft X, Cyanogenmod and many Chinese phones do not have Google proprietry stuff and still work fine.

On those phones you can still access services and can even get Google services if you want them.

> And -possibly more to the point- allow it access to the internet otherwise -again- nothing works.

Nonsense. Phones can phone, message and such without internet access, they can even run local apps. If you want to use an internet service then you will have to .... access the internet.

Get ready for Google's proprietary Android. It's coming – analyst

Richard Plinston

Re: And the bigger picture!

> Google said Chromebooks would move to Android and Lockheimer had to back-pedal?

That is not what Google said, and there was no 'backpedal'. What they said was that they would merge the two development teams. Both OS are based on the same Linux kernel and use the same browser base. The intent was to bring Android apps to Chromebooks, and this is happening.

Richard Plinston

Re: And the bigger picture!

> Google will have to go through the same pain as MSFT has in creating a platform with Windows 10 OneCore that can be deployed across all types of devices.

They already did that: it is called 'Linux' and is the kernel that will run on anything from Pi Zero to the largest supercomputer, a much wider range than Windows can manage.

Richard Plinston

Re: Orealy?

> after HTC never delivered 3.0.

Android 3.x was for tablets only and not for phones. 4.x merged 2 and 3 to be for all devices.

Richard Plinston

Re: They already have

> Microsoft might pick up the ball and write in support for Bing and sell their own Android

They already did, or actually Nokia did it for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X_family

Even in remotest Africa, Windows 10 nagware ruins your day: Update burns satellite link cash

Richard Plinston

> They should be installing licensed copies of whatever OS they choose to use

They did that, but apparently Microsoft decided to choose a different OS for them - one they did not want.

Richard Plinston

Re: Oh for...

> Seriously people, how hard is it to use the right damned tool for the job?

People buy computers to run applications, not operating systems. This particular system was chosen because the applications were the 'right tool for the job'. The fact that it ran on Windows, and possibly only on Windows, was neutral _at_the_time_it_was_chosen_.

Microsoft _changed_ the behaviour of Windows 7 and 8 into being an aggressive and disruptive network capacity consumer. Once it has updated itself to 10 it will continue to use more network capacity as it reports telemetry back to base, sucks in updates (which can't be disabled) and spews ads.

Windows is no longer the 'right tool for the job' for _anything_ and this is entirely the fault of Microsoft.

Windows 10 market share jumps two per cent

Richard Plinston

Re: No, the figure the Reg shows from them only show Microsoft

Is Firefox really only 8% of their visits,

I suspect that more Firefox users have NoScript, Ghostery, AdBlock and similar and thus don't run the Javascript that reports back to the stats site.

> and IE only 18%?

Yes. IE has been declining year by year.

Richard Plinston

> these figures are generated from active Internet browser use. i.e. page access data etc.

It is often done by Javascript running in the browser reporting directly to the stats sites.

Anyone with two clues will be running NoScript and Ghostery or similar and will not be in the stats at all*.

* Which explains the huge preponderance of Windows user in the stats.

Richard Plinston

> Every modern OS needs app sandboxing, an app store, and guaranteed updates.

Maybe, but the users don't.

Richard Plinston

> You are so stuck in the old ways of doing things, and you want to hold back Microsoft while you refuse to change.

"Refusing to change" does not "hold back Microsoft" in any way, shape, or form. They can modify their system any way they want, just don't force me to be a part of it.

> Microsoft is trying to modernize Windows to keep pace.

I do not want _my_ computer 'modernized', I do not care what Microsoft does with their products.

> Take your 15 year old apps and 7 year old OS and run it in a virtual machine, and get with the times.

> That is just a complexification that is entirely unrequired.

$10bn Oracle v Google copyright jury verdict: Google wins, Java APIs in Android are Fair Use

Richard Plinston

Re: Phew...

> to get the whole thing probably required extracting it from code.

Or reading a book.

Richard Plinston

Re: The saga goes on

> One thing I have learnt from SCO suing IBM.

One other thing that you should learn is that TSG (The SCO Group - not the original SCO) paid 34 million (IIRC) to their lawyers upfront to keep the case going forever. This was so that there was no money left in the kitty that Novell or IBM could win. The lawyers would be quite happy to dump the case because a) they will never get any more from TSG. b) they will never win (they would get a percentage of any win). But they can't because if the did give up TSG would sue them for breach of contract and ask for the 34 million back.

Richard Plinston

Re: It's just business

> Yeah, what ever happened to Linux?

It became the core of the most popular OS on the planet, outselling the next one by 400%.

Richard Plinston

Re: Phew...

> Some copy of code was also involved

My understanding is that the original author of the initial implementation wrote much the same code in a re-implementation. It was just a few lines of code. The judge stated that it was an obvious block of code and thus was not copyrightable.

Surface Book nightmare: Microsoft won't fix 'Sleep of Death' bug

Richard Plinston

Re: Still copying Apple

> some of us, like the over 40 crowd, never use anything other than Windows. It is not realistic that they learn ...

It is so sad that you, being 'over 40', feel that you are incapable of learning anything. I am a quarter century more than that and I learn new stuff every day.

Richard Plinston

Re: You cannot install another OS on the Surface Pro

> The choice of whether to implement the feature and the details of its implementation (from an end-user standpoint) are business decisions made by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)."

> so I don't know how MS implemented Secure Boot.

You acknowledge that manufacturers can choose to enforce Secure Boot or not, you admit that you have no clue about what Microsoft have done, have provided several irrelevant and spurious examples about how others have done it (including non-Windows machines) and start by claiming the previous poster was talking rot about Surface Pro.

I suggest that offer an apology to previous poster and admit that you are completely clueless.

Microsoft's Windows Phone folly costs it another billion dollars

Richard Plinston

Re: No surprise here

> I don't think Microsoft is trying to dump the phone business,

No, of course they aren't, it is the [lack of] customers that is dumping it.

> the hope that OEM's will start making Windows phones

Many OEMs have tried making Windows Phones but failed to get customers to buy them in sufficient numbers. Microsoft only implement it only a small number of semi-obsolete SoCs and won't let the OEMs tailor it to the hardware that they want to use. This makes WP permanently half a generation behind the leading edge. They are cheap relative to other models because they are being put in the remainder bins.

Nokia phone division lost money in every quarter in spite of being given a billion dollars a year by MS. Microsoft have lost 14 billion or more (7.6b + 950m + 1b/year to Nokia), why would any OEM want to get back on that treadmill?

> yet still take a growfalling share of the phone OS business.

FTFY

Richard Plinston

Re: The very high price of loyalty

> It could have lent Nokia a few billion dollars to survive a few years, knowing full well it would never get the money back.

Part of the deal with WinPhone was that Microsoft paid Nokia a billion dollars a year. That 4 or 5 billion cost is in addition to the $7.6billion writedown and this new one billion.

90 days of Android sales almost beat 9 months' worth for all flavours of Win 10

Richard Plinston

PCs still ship at a rate of 230m units a quarter

Follow the link and it has:

"""Shipments of PCs have sunk over the last five years ... from 343 million units in 2012 to an estimated 232 million units in 2016."""

That is only ~ 60m units per quarter.