Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright

The Microsoft Corporation has prepared a blistering attack on rival Google, arguing that the Web search leader takes a cavalier approach to copyright protection. The attack, such as it were, came from Microsoft's Associate General Counsel who was giving a speech to the Association of American Publishers...who have a copyright lawsuit against Google for the last sixteen months. So, an audience ready to hear about how Bad Google is.

Oh boy.

[Sneakernets]

Let the chairs fly!

Oh boy.

[Uknowwhoibe]

I am so excited that someone is finally taking MS on and not just competing with them, but afaik, coming up with a better product. I will be switching to Google's apps when they are live.

Re:

[cmacb]

They are "live" now. Still a bit rough around the edges, but getting there.

Re:

[Gerzel]

It is better because it doesn't have the same monopolistic bulk that MS branded evil does. Google may have a monopoly of sorts in the search engine business but it isn't nearly of a scale of domination that MS has for operating systems.

Re:

[zippthorne]

Explain how they are not leveraging their monopoly position in the search engine business to unfairly compete in the word processing & spreadsheet business? They are GIVING AWAY their product FOR FREE. In other industries, this would be called "Dumping."

Re:

[Ngarrang]

Yes, divert the attention on to someone else while your own search engine is just as guilty. The FUD is really flying today.

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

Huh? Show me where Live search is fully indexing print books and offering them up as search results? You know, the whole point of the damn lawsuit referred to in TFS, let alone TFA?

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

That's fantastic... "they don't, but they could!" Is that really the basis of your argument?

Re:

[pak9rabid]

This is the beginning of a series of lawsuits we will be seeing from The Beast as they slowly but surely die. It will be a painful death not only for Microsoft, but as well as everyone around them. Hang on, it's going to be a wild ride...

Microsoft's half finished sentence.

[pallmall1]

From TFA:

Microsoft, he said, asks the copyrights owner for permission first...

They should have added:

...unless it's software.

no doubt; kettle meet pot.

[WindBourne]

amazing that MS says these things when they are well known in and out of the industry for their large amounts of theft and patent/copyright abuse, let alone their total abuse of their monopoly.

Re:

[Goaway]

What are some examples of these "large amounts of theft"?

Re:no doubt; kettle meet pot.

[WindBourne]

1. Apple Quick Time; Lead to a major 150 million settlement.
2. The code and idea for the embedding in MSIE. Still in the settlement as I recall.
3. How about MSIE itself. they cut a deal to pay the mozaic group spin-off a .01 / each one sold and then embedded it (i.e. the company got SQUAT).
4. Or how about the theft of the stacker's work in dos 6.2. IIRC, they had to pay something like 75 million (not chump change back in the 80's).

And that is just off the top of the head.
Man, you MS types have incredibly short memories on MS's actions, let alone how to use google.

Re:no doubt; kettle meet pot.

[Achromatic1978]

How about MSIE itself. they cut a deal to pay the mozaic group spin-off a .01 / each one sold and then embedded it (i.e. the company got SQUAT).

While definitely not fair, and not really moral either, MOSAIC got their ass handed to them on a platter. Nowhere in the deeds of contract for the agreement did they ever specify minimum sales prices, minimum volumes, etc., hell they didn't even have a clause that required the product to be sold at all.

If MOSAIC is to be pissed at anyone, they should be going after their law firm, for letting such a gaping, gaping hole slip through the contract - it wasn't even a minor loophole that MS used, it was the entire point of the freaking contract!

Re:

[WindBourne]

The precursor was the Sybase/sql-server deal (or was it the other way around?). You would think that the MOSAIC group would have learned that when you play with MS, you are playing with the devil. Both Sybase and Mosaic have only themselves to blame. And to be honest, I do not blame MS for these, but it was basically legally stolen (in the moral sense). But even now, the media groups think that MS will play nicely. If MS ever wins out, they will make the issues that the audio ppl have with Apple seem positi

Re:

[MeanderingMind]

Mosaic and Sybase may have left the door open to be backstabbed, but Microsoft still had to make with the pointy sharp knives. You can put some blame on them for being naive, but saying they have no one to blame but themselves isn't a fair statement.

DOS

[David Off]

You forgot DOS which was a decompiled version of Digital Research CP/M for x86 that some guys sold to Bill Gates for 50 grand. The whole Microsoft edifice is built on stolen IP.

Re:

[This is outrageous!]

MS types have incredibly short memories on MS's actions, let alone how to use google.

We're telling you, we can't! We won't be caught using such a cavalier resource!

You are correct.

[WindBourne]

And the next time that I need a spelling lesson from 40 years ago, I will look you up or at the least, think of you. In the mean time, this is the Internet and more specifically, this is /.. It would behoove you to get out of it what you can.

Re:

[TheNetAvenger]

MS says these things when they are well known in and out of the industry for their large amounts of theft and patent/copyright abuse

Well known = Your biased Opinion....

MS has always paid rather well to companies they aquire technology from, and in terms of literature or artwork, again they pay well for the content. Look up Gates and buying digital artwork.

Just because you believe myth, does not make it reality.

Re:

[WindBourne]

Well known = Your biased Opinion

Google is your friend (and a friend to the copyright folks). At the least, you would have done well to read the 2'nd post where I detailed just a few of MS's dirty deeds (that were done dirt cheap).

Look up Gates and buying digital artwork.

And your point? Hitler did the vast majoirty of things legally as did Idi Amin, Al Capone, Scooter libbey, Carl Rove, Dick Cheney, GWB, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, and Brian Flannigan (a hooligan that I grew up with) and the next person who s

Re:

[Austerity Empowers]

Microsoft asks the copyright owner for a business arrangement in which both parties can get rich at the expense of the consumer. That is somehow less evil because I used the "business" word.

Re:

[fymidos]

A lot of time has passed, since a microsoft partner "got rich"... nowadays they just get some discount when they are buying office.

More fun from TFA

[Mateo_LeFou]

"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us -- you're protected. We'll keep the digital copies secure, we'll only show snippets, we won't harm you, we'll promote you,' "

Bad news, Rubin: Google is exactly right to say that. Fair Use Rule #4 evaluates "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." And I don't think it's hard to show that prominence on a Google property affects this potential market *extremely positively.

Re:More fun from TFA

[tha_mink]

Bad news, Rubin: Google is exactly right to say that. Fair Use Rule #4 evaluates "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." And I don't think it's hard to show that prominence on a Google property affects this potential market *extremely positively.

I'd love to see how many "copyright holders" would actually make the choice of being delisted from any and all google enterprises rather than expose the copyrighted work. I'd love it if Google said something like..."All right , no soup for you" and then just delisted everything that had anything to do with them. I doubt they'd care much about infringement then.

It's all bullshit. They don't care about their copyrights until they think they can squeeze money from someone. When YouTube was just YouTube, there was just as much copyrighted stuff there ans there is now. "Google has deep pockets now. They must be infringing something of ours. Let's get em." It's bullshit, plus Google hasn't even started to realize the profit from YouTube advertising. If you were producing a sitcom, wouldn't you want clips of your crap to go viral on YouTube? It's got much better chance happening there than it does on mystupidsitcom.abc.disney.com that's for sure.

Re:More fun from TFA

[iluvcapra]

I'd love it if Google said something like..."All right , no soup for you" and then just delisted everything that had anything to do with them.

That comes dangerously close to Google abusing its search monopoly.

on mystupidsitcom.abc.disney.com

You mean mystupidsitcom.abc.disney.go.com. They paid a lot of money for the "go.com" TLD, and damn it they're gonna use it!

Re:

[Veilrap]

No it is no where near an abuse of monopoly not to list someone on your search service. Google is a private company and is fully allowed to customize its survice as it sees fit. If google feels that having a company listed will detract from google's customers' overall satisfaction they are perfectly allowed to do as they please. Don't give me anymore of this monopoly bs.

Re:

[iluvcapra]

Google is a private company and is fully allowed to customize its survice as it sees fit.

Well yeah, and Microsoft bundles WMP and makes Internet Explorer unremovable, and various state, federal and foreign governments enjoin and penalize it for that. It's a no-no to use your monopoly power to give yourself an uncompetitive advantage in another business. This can be seen as Google becoming a victim of its own success. If it's ubiquitous and a one-stop-search shop, it becomes a kind of gatekeeper to the d

How would you stop it?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Just what, exactly, do they expect Google to do with YouTube? Screen submissions by hand?

Re:More fun from TFA

[93 Escort Wagon]

"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us -- you're protected. We'll keep the digital copies secure, we'll only show snippets, we won't harm you, we'll promote you,' "

It's also an interesting criticism coming from Microsoft, since with just a few wording tweaks that's exactly what Microsoft tells consumers when it comes to things like Trusted Computing.

Re:Microsoft's half finished sentence.

[j00r0m4nc3r]

asks the copyrights owner for permission

They ask permission like the mafia asks permission.

Kafka

[goombah99]

Kafka said, "You become what you hate". The collorary is you hate what you wish you could be. The thing is I don't know which direction to apply these lemmas.

Re:

[Technician]

Microsoft, he said, asks the copyrights owner for permission first...

On a more serious note, I thing Microsoft is upset because Google got all that content making it useless to Microsoft who wants to buy exclusive distribution right to it. How can you sell a monopoly product when the competition gives it away for free?

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

Of course, given that the lawsuits are not completed/settled yet, and despite the Slashdot lawyer brigade being determined to believe Google will be found in the right, either due to correct interpretation of law, or because "They're Google, they don't want to be evil!", it is far from clear that they will get off scott-free, or at all.

So MS can be upset... buying rights (and compensating people for their work) is far 'neater' than wandering down to a library, photocopying it wholesale, and proceeding to p

Re:

[CarpetShark]

...unless it's software.

Or an industry standard.

mmm...

[rbochan]

mmm... glass houses...

Who's more evil?

[truthsearch]

And Microsoft takes a "cavalier approach" to their users, to privacy [msversus.org], to the free market... so who's more evil?

If Google really didn't care they could do far far worse to abuse copyright than anything they've done so far. Microsoft is just placating an audience.

um, not to defend MS but

[Mateo_LeFou]

"Wed, 17 May 95 13:44:40 EDT"

The bad news, of course, is that I haven't seen a tangible sign of change in the intervening 12 years.

Re:

[truthsearch]

Nope, I'm saying the pot is calling the kettle black. Microsoft lives in a glass house. Or some such saying.

Yeah...

[Moggyboy]

Microsoft guy: "And... and... stop creating tools that people actually find USEFUL and giving them out for FREE, goddamnit! And... and... ummm... Google is a stupid name... and... ummm..."

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

"And Google smells bad. And is on my side of the seat. And won't stop bothering me."

English?

[adavies42]

Is this submission even English? "The Microsoft Corporation", "The attack, such as it were", "who have a copyright lawsuit against Google for the last sixteen months"--none of these are right. And to top it off, it ends in a sentence fragment.

Re:

[GiovanniZero]

we try so hard edit the submissions but is not have time always to finish! as it were!1@!!@

Re:

[StarvingSE]

It's called Engrish... I hear they will start certifying teachers in it throughout the San Fransisco Bay area...

Re:

[Palshife]

And to top it all off.

Re:

[adavies42]

There's nothing wrong with initial "and" [upenn.edu]. (I.e., YHBT, YHL, HAND.)

Yesterday, today, tomorrow

[vivaoporto]

Yesterday: Microsoft watches with disdain while $company break through unknown waters
Today: Microsoft attacks $company initiative as being illegal, immoral and bad for business in general
Tomorrow: Microsoft try to embrace the very same business model of $company, only with a layer of DRM on top of it, and try to leverage it using the profits of the OS and Office division.

Nothing different from all other endeavors from our good old Microsoft. Who didn't have it coming?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Content is not the holy grail it's made out to

[zotz]

"and published their content online, Google would be swamped with free books."

1. Google goes into publishing business.
2. Google announces it will only publish copyleft books.
3. ???
4. Profit.

(??? might be puts ads on each page of the books which are online and pays the authors...???)

Hey, google and a slashdot business model. Does it get any better than that?

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzbr o&search=Search [youtube.com]

Bad Google

[ack154]

Just how is "Bad Google" these days? I haven't seen him in ages!

What is with the capital B?!

Re:

[imroy]

The last time I saw him he had a pretty mean goatee.

As an author

[tomstdenis]

of two books that have sold upwards of 2000 copies (yipee I suck!) I have to say, STFU Microsoft. The day my books came out they were on the torrent websites (thanks to my publisher releasing the book in ebook format the same day). Google archiving the book would have ZERO effect on my sales (which are low because nobody knows who I am, and I suck at teh English) and in effect may actually help them if key passages are searchable.

If publishers want to stop piracy of texts, STOP RELEASING EBOOKS THE SAME DAY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Tom

Re:

[novus ordo]

Just out of curiosity, have any of those that downloaded the torrent bought either of your books? If somebody found some value in your work they would surely encourage($$) you to produce more. Especially if you're small-time when it's much harder. Maybe the bagel man [uchicago.edu] analogy doesn't work on the Internet?

Re:

[tomstdenis]

Most people who would pirate my books are college bound students getting into cryptography (and mathematics). They're the people the books are aimed at since they're not very advanced texts (more pratical than theoretical).

I don't know if people who torrented the books later bought copies. For me, I wasn't really that motivated by getting rich (or making more than a couple grand). I was more into getting the ideas out there. The first book, is actually available [legally] for free from the LibTomMath ar

Re:

[Ash Vince]

Books are the one format I will carry on buying regardless. I enjoy reading in places where a laptop or whatever just isnt practical. I have a PDA but I can't imagine reading an ebook on it.

If I ever found something I could only get in ebook format I might print it out to read at my leisure but I would rather buy a neatly bound copy.

This especially applies to text books. I know they are usually more expensive but I like the ease of use a good old fashioned paper book provides. I also like the neatness that

Re:

[novus ordo]

And you don't need to change the batteries.

Re:

[stubear]

You are free to do with your intellectual property as you see fit. Others get to make these same choices for themselves with their intellectual property. It is not for the mob to decide how one is allowed to exercise their rights. When will slashbots get this through their puny little brains? You are free to create and release to the public he fruits of our artistic labors. The RIAA cannot stop you from releasing your own albums unless you are contractually obligated through one of their members but th

Re:

[tomstdenis]

I never said what Google was doing was *right*, I said it probably doesn't hurt sales. Just like me picking your lock and sitting in your house doesn't "hurt" you but it isn't right. If anything, sales are hurt by over zealous publishers who push content the wrong way, especially such as in ebook form at the same time.

I'm positive that, at least in my case, my sales suck due to me being a first time author, relatively unknown outside my circle, and not advertising the books. However, on the very same day

Re:

[tomstdenis]

Depends on the book. Most comp.sci books are just fine on the screen (e.g. PDF) as opposed to in your hands in print. Sure it's nice to have a printed copy but it's not always better. I was hoping to have my first book be picked up by some crypto oriented comp.sci group. As far as I know that hasn't happened. Oh well, i'm just happy that some people have read it and that the related OSS projects are being found useful.

The thing that drives legit audio downloads is the quality control. For less than a

Re:

[jedidiah]

Except WE DO GET THAT RIGHT. It's called fair use.

Google is doing NOTHING wrong legally, morally or pragmatically.

The publishers are just going on a control freak rampage because they are (much like you are) trying to perpetuate the misguided and incorrect notion of copyright as something comparable to real property rights.

Google is doing nothing different than any other dead tree published index that you might have been forcibly exposed to as a child.

Re:

[tomstdenis]

Fair use means you can include non-substantial portions of a copyrighted work for the purposes of education or parody. Google is archiving random portions of copyrighted text for the purposes of making sales. That isn't fair use.

You may argue that's not harmful to the rights owners, but that's not the point. They're not exercising fair use when they take snippets out of my book, and then link to amazon to say "you can buy it here." As odd as that sounds...

Tom

Re:

[russotto]

If publishers want to stop piracy of texts, STOP RELEASING EBOOKS THE SAME DAY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Right. It'll take a week or so for the paper versions to be pirated.

teacup calling the teapot fat

[mastershake_phd]

Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and I.P.O.s," said Mr. Rubin, who oversees copyright and trade-secret law.

Is either buying out your competitors or putting them out of business "creating content"?

Re:

[zotz]

"Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content"

What, is this insult your audience 101?

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzbr o&search=Search [youtube.com]

Of course...

[RyanFenton]

Aren't the processes of indexing servers, and the exclusive right to make copies of information inherently in conflict? Same thing with a system that by default allows anyone to share any information publicly, like the phone system, open public speech, or, in this case, the Internet. I don't think the 'copy right' was originally intended to apply beyond books and blueprints anyway, but the way it has grown, I don't know how one would get a representative view of our world without breaking copy rights along the way in at least many small ways.

That's why there have classically been exceptions allowed for sampling information, why one case of illegal copying haven't been used to call every tangential person involved in the copy from being punished, and that the original intent of copyrights, to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", has classically been the focus, rather than just blindly punishing people, who naturally tend to share information.

Ryan Fenton

Re:

[novus ordo]

There are 2 arguments here and Rubin is spreading FUD hoping nobody will notice. One is the private caches of copyrighted data--Google Books and Youtube now. The other--"Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop" that he's piggybacking on top of the prior one. However that is the law according to DMCA, not according to Google's wishes.

Another comment "Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on t

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

However that is the law according to DMCA, not according to Google's wishes.

Huh?

You might not be aware that the Publisher's lawsuit against Google is the wholesale photocopying of their texts in paper form to their 'electronic retrieval system'.

Last I checked, content on paper was not subject to the DMCA.

Google is trying to create a protection where it doesn't exist. "Oh, but the end product of our wholesale real world photocopying is an electronic product, ergo the whole thing must be subject to DMCA"

Can I be the first to say....

[hairykrishna]

"...arguing that the Web search leader takes a cavalier approach to copyright protection."

Good.

Re:

[pembo13]

+1 Agreed

blistering?

[oohshiny]

Whining and throwing tantrums is not a "blistering attack".

Is this April 1st?

[tkrotchko]

This sounds like an April Fools article.

Next Article:
    RIAA concerned about musicians being ripped off by lopsided contracts

After that:
    Auto Makers insist Congress must tighten emissions and fuel economy standards.

strange relationships

[bcrowell]

The really weird thing about the google lawsuits is that the publishers suing google are also google's business partners. It's basically a dispute between business allies that's being handled partly in the courts. There's speculation that the outcome will end up being harmful to fair use. Google has tons of cash, and can afford to pay the publishers a certain amount of money to end the suit, even if they really have a good fair use defense that might eventually have held up in court. If that happens, then everybody else's fair use rights could be diminished, because it will be seen as normal that you have to pay for what really should be fair use. Google could end up with a de facto monopoly on indexing books, because competitors wouldn't have enough money to pay the publishers what google paid. (This is mostly paraphrased from a long article in the New Yorker, IIRC.)

Anyone Else Seeing a Pattern Here?

[jeevesbond]

GNU/Linux

1. Microsoft attempt to compete with GNU/Linux via conventional methods: reducing cost (releasing free [microsoft.com]--as in beer--versions of products), advertising that TCO is higher for Linux than Windows [microsoft.com] (it's a lie, but what else should we expect them to say?)
2. Conventional methods fail so Microsoft falls-back to good old fashioned dirty tricks: making spurious allegations [slashdot.org] about 'intellectual property'.
3. ...
4. Profit!

Google

1. Microsoft attempts to compete with Google via conventional methods: producing a competing [live.com] services [microsoft.com] with similar capabilities. Then advertise the services as usual, and throw in a bit of IE7 integration in the name of 'choice'.
2. Conventional methods fail so Microsoft falls-back to good old fashioned dirty tricks: making spurious allegations [nytimes.com] about 'intellectual property'.
3. Throw chair across room
4. ...
5. Profit!

Personally am getting a feeling of: 'same bilge, different day' from Microsoft.

Re:

[zotz]

Another slashdot business model fan! Congrats...

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1QealrmLk [youtube.com]

Microsoft is attacking Apple indirectly.

[QuietLagoon]

This speech is an indirect attack by Microsoft upon Apple's success in the digital media world. This article [reuters.com] details the tightening of Google/Apple ties as they reach further into technology's future. Microsoft is clearly being left behind, so Microsoft needs to start stirring up the legal battles.

Wasn't it always Microsoft that accused competitors of fighting in the courtroom because they were not able to win in the marketplace?

This translates to "Google is BAD"

[unity100]

- "They are earning cash we were craving, but are too uncompetitive to get".

MSN search cache?

[mph]

"Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop," Mr. Rubin said. Microsoft, he said, asks the copyright's owner for permission first.

I just checked search.msn.com [msn.com] and it has a cached copy of my webpages. I don't remember Microsoft asking me for permission. (Not that I mind, but it's at odds with Rubin's statement.)

Copy this..!

[Co Starring]

What's next?

Parents getting sued because they are telling a story from a children's book?
Me talking about a movie explaining how great the storyline is?
Am I still allowed to sing my favorite songs under the shower?

Re:

[SirWhoopass]

Me talking about a movie explaining how great the storyline is?

"Fair use of a copyrighted work... for purposes such as criticism, comment... is not an infringement of copyright." Title 17, US Code.

Am I still allowed to sing my favorite songs under the shower?

Yes, unless you are showing in public and charging admission or trying to gain some commercial advantage. See Section 110.

Not even pot kettle black

[gamer4Life]

The difference is that they're not the same. Microsoft is evil, Google isn't. Microsoft's approach to copyright and DRM is despicable, while Google's practices are to be admired.

We should all boycott Microsoft's products (if we can), like the Zune, Vista, the XBox 360, Office, etc...

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

while Google's practices are to be admired

You'll forgive me and the sizable portion of people who don't find the wholesale photocopying of people's works and the profiting therefrom as being "admirable".

Re:

[gamer4Life]

Sizable, but ultimately, a very small fraction of people. Unfortunately, you guys are also the loudest too.

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

Unfortunate? Or just unfortunate for the agenda you're trying to push? (Of course, don't interpret that as me claiming that I don't have an agenda of my own.)

Attack from the MS legal dept

[shadowspar]

The fact that threats against Google are being launched by Microsoft's legal team instead of their engineering department tells you all you need to know.

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

Huh? You're a clown. What threats? One of their corporate lawyers, in a speech that he was asked to present to a group of publishers, queried Google's interpretation of copyright law.

The real deal

[Vexorian]

Microsoft might be preparing the ground to a software patents law suit against google. They patented evil after all...

What is content?

[mlwmohawk]

I take great issue with the statement:

"Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and I.P.O.s"

For what it is worth, Google does make a lot of money on the work of others, but not by copying or stealing it. Google and other search engines analyze, categorize, and parse copyrighted material and create indexes that make it easy to search. Makes that one document in billions findable.

This is no small feat, and copyright holders are making more money with google than without. Google indexes about 8-10 billion documents. They make zero cash for the documents. They make money providing a service to the people searching for material. That service is finding documents. The copyright holders should count themselves fortunate.

It is a self serving argument that some of google's cash belongs to me because they use my documents. Google drives people looking for your data to you. If you don't want this service that is done for you for free, then you can opt out at any time.

ouch!

[rilister]

"Competition is heating up between Google, the world's dominant search engine, and Microsoft, which recently entered the Web search market."

OUCH! That's gotta hurt...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Don't embarass yourself

[goombah99]

Far from displaying your superior intellect, You embarass yourself. "such as it were" is a traditional phrase in english literature and writing. Try to read more than "learning perl" and the "python cookbook", you might find it eye opening, such as it were.

Re:

[networkBoy]

Tangential topic but....
"As it were" is more of a colloquialism at this point is it not?
I work in a diverse company and one of my (now former sadly) supervisors was from Lebanon. He dropped by my office to see how I was doing and I beat him to the punch and asked: "How goes it?"
This, apparently, broke the English parser in his brain as he disassembled the sentence fragment and tried to make sense of it.
"how goes it?"
"... how it goes?"
"!"
"man, that just doesn't make any sense!"
"What's this means, how goes i

Re:

[goombah99]

I'd say your answer "begs the question". :-)

But I found it funnier than a fart in a phonebox.

Re:

[belg4mit]

No you don't. You should learn to be aware of them, as should the other party,
but that's not a sufficiently compelling reason to expunge them from your noggin;
because some might not grok your froodiness. How mind-numbingly bland, man.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"I say not this, for that I think the action such as it were disadvantage to be
thought the projector of it ; but I say, and say truly, that my lord admiral ..."
-Francis Bacon, 1859

"I had heard such, as it were, sing before Jordan was half forded. I had seen
faces where, pallid as they were, I beheld more celestial triumph than I had ..."
-William Fishbough, 1874

"... the covetous cruelty of the common sort, by their eager biting at gold, being
such as it were enough to eclipse the brightness of a Prince's bount

Fancis Bacon Salutes you!

[goombah99]

try googling "as it were" [wordwebonline.com] instead and you will discover it's what is know in the trade as an adverbial clause. It's closest translation is another adverbila clause "so to speak". It's used in every day english.

I'm glad you feel that you can correct francis bacon's english, but your response is unknowingly funny. You see Francis Bacon was noted for his discourses on the use of syllogism [wikipedia.org] in argument. Your insult to Bacon is a pure example of syllogism. 1) I think the english phrase is bad 2) francis b

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[goombah99]

true, but it would not have been as funny. Time to reflect on humor.

Such as it were, indeed

[P0ldy]

Perhaps this comment is superfluous since the only person backing you up is an Anonymous Coward, and maybe that's you attempting to vindicate yourself. However, no reply attacking your intelligence, right though they were, gave the reason why the phrase is correct. "Such as it were" is an example of the subjunctive. It's a mood. Pick up a grammar book if you want further explanation. The selfsame mood is the reason for the phrase "Were I to go out...". What?? Were I? You don't say I were. You say I was! Yes, it's the subjunctive, and it's a part of so many languages and would still be important even if it were as little used as it is in English.

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[goombah99]

Interesting. I'm not quite sure I understand "mood" as language case, or the tense of "were" that you are describing as subjunctive. Care to elaborate?

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[mykdavies]

If force of numbers is required, I'll back him up as well :-).

The subjunctive mood is commonly used to introduce a hypothetical case (often contrary to fact) which is then considered in the remainder of the sentence, exactly as your example used it, e.g. "Were I to go out, I would need a coat (but I don't intend to, so I'm fine without)".

In this case the writer's intention appears to be to imply that either this wasn't actually intended as an attack, or that it was intended to be an attack, but that he thi

Re:It is so sad

[UnknowingFool]

If Microsoft would spend all the cash they give to lawyers on R&D, they might actually produce decent product. Instead, they pump out crap after crap after crap.

MS spent $1+ billion in R&D last quarter so it's not for lack of funding. It's not that they don't have brilliant people. It's that MS as a corporation has conflicting and competing goals. Their different divisions could come out with great products but on the whole, their products must not undermine the whole corporation. Namely they must do everything to ensure Windows is the only operating system, Window Media the only media format, SQL server the only SQL database, etc. The Office division could do a port to Linux. There is some money to be made, but that would undermine Windows. Zune could have been tied to more open formats but that would hurt Windows and the Media division. And the list goes on.

Sony has the same problem. Their MP3 players could have been great and taken the market from Apple but they had to protect their content division. Thus the first versions used proprietary formats that all but crippled them.