Differences between version 7 and predecessor to the previous major change of MeetingTopics.2007-02-26.
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| Newer page: | version 7 | Last edited on Monday, March 5, 2007 6:08:25 am | by IanMcDonald | Revert |
| Older page: | version 6 | Last edited on Sunday, March 4, 2007 9:08:05 pm | by LawrenceDoliveiro | Revert |
@@ -3,11 +3,11 @@
The meeting was at 7:30pm, [TW.2.05|TW].
Brett claimed that most users didn't need to access source code. Lawrence tried to point out the SealedBonnetFallacy. Not sure if the point was understood.
-Brett said Microsoft was trying to become more of an IP-licensing company. In this case, "IP" seemed to mean "patents". He claimed it was already getting
10 times in revenue from licensing its patents to others, than it was paying out
for licences of others' patents
. But this didn't seem to include payouts for patent lawsuits against Microsoft.
+Brett said Microsoft was trying to become more of an IP-licensing company. In this case, "IP" seemed to mean "patents". He claimed that they were paying
10 times as much
for licenses for IP than they received at present
. But this didn't seem to include payouts for patent lawsuits against Microsoft.
Brett agreed the US patent system sucked. (Someone else pointed out that the NZ patent system was just as bad.) But change would take a very long time, a decade or more.
Brett tried to claim that about half of the PCs sold through NZ retailers like Harvey Norman were "media centre" PCs. When pressed as to what this meant--did they include special hardware like TV tuners?--he had to admit it simply meant they were being bundled with Windows XP Media Center Edition.
When various questionable comments by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were mentioned, like claims that [Linux violates Microsoft's intellectual property|http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7228555922.html], or that Windows Vista isn't selling well because of ["piracy" so they'd better tighten the WGA screws|http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37721], he had an interesting defence: that there were other behind-the-scenes aspects to these utterances, that Brett was privy to but could not tell us about, that if revealed would cast those statements in an entirely different (and presumably less uncomplimentary) light. He brought up the old adage, "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity", but then had to back off the conclusion that these remarks from Microsoft's top management were evidence of stupidity.
