User talk:Hillfoundation4

Hello and Greetings to all persons of good will the world over.

IT IS MY HOPE THAT THERE ARE ENOUGH PEOPLE INTERESTED IN WORKING TOGETHER TO COME UP WITH MAJOR MODIFICATIONS TO CERTAIN MAJOR PROBLEMS THAT EXIST IN ALL SOFTWARE THAT IS NOT OPEN SOURCE CODED. If there are a few, or many, willing to do a little bit to examine the problems I am going to refer to, I truly believe that the computer world as we now know it WILL BE CHANGED FOREVER FOR THE BETTER. Computers will be easier to use for the consumer and everyone involved with designing software or writing code or any other hi-tech job in the computer or software or in chip design will have a much easier job.

I want to know if people who are fairly knowledgeable about using software programs and installing them have ever taken the time to read ALL of the terms and conditions that are required to use the program. THERE IS A MAJOR PROBLEM with this practice that needs to be modified to make it acceptable. You do not have to be a technology pro or have degrees or be certified in anything. Just being a computer user who would like things to work smoother and more seamlessly is good enough. A healthy dose of curiosity helps also.

I will give you an example. Have you ever bought a new computer and try to set it up for the first time and register it. There comes a point in the installation at which there is a notice to you that you should actually READ and fully understand a number of enormously long legal documents before continuing to install or setup your program. There are at least two of these "documents that you MUST AGREE that everything that was written is O.K. with you. However if you have EVER read ALL of one of these Documents you will realize that you have just been stripped of ANY and All constitutionally guaranteed rights and privilages.  You will find within one of these document many more links to other sites withing the same program that if you were a lawyer you would most certainly click on those links to see what they contained and how if affected the user's legal rights.

I have done just that over many years time as I upgraded my computers or downloaded some new software. I can tell you that you do not need to cite your sources because these things are boilerplate legalese with only slight modifications to every single commercial software program you MUST install to get a new computer up and running (Such as Microsoft Vista. ) You can download an upgrade of Adobe or Java or sign up to be a YAHOO CLIENT).  The list is endless and IF YOU DO NOT CLICK ON  "I AGREE"  YOU MAY NOT USE YOUR NEW COMPUTER or Download your software.  SUFFICE TO SAY 99% of all computer users NEVER look at or read ANY of the MULTI-PAGE "terms and conditions" information that IS available to them.  What good would it do to read any of it because if you did it is so full of legal nooses and disclaimers and statements that are worded in such a manner that one paragraph may say YOU MUST ACKNOWLEGE SOME LENTHY OBTUSE FACTS as acceptable to you and in the very next paragragh worded only slightly differently but with an addendum or such which makes the prior statement have a meaning in direct contradiction.

The very worst of this is that it is ALWAYS stated that they may change any and or ALL the terms of the contract at any time with no notice to you the user. Further, in most cases it is stated that "they" (** did you ever wonder who "they" actually are??) can at any time completely withdraw an entire program or parts of one or even remotely lock your computer so that it may never be used again. There is no mechanical fix for that.

I have tried to not get to technical or too accusatory of any group, individual, or entity but what I hope I have accomplished is that I have convinced you the reader of this that you might want to write down a paragraph or two of some of these "terms of use" & some of the other links within any of the agreements that have to be agrred to and then start a new project to discuss and make suggestions as to how these no contract "contracts" might be be altered for the better. It is necessary for all companies to protect themselves legally, but what we now have is not acceptable. Much of each of these "contracts" simply have a large amount of nonsensical verbage that can simply be redacted.

I would like to see the Microsoft terms examined especially because most computers do have Microsoft operating systems and run under Internet Explorer.

During the Clinton Administration, the Supreme Court finally ruled that Microsoft WAS A TRUE MONOPOLY WORLDWIDE. This after many years of legal battles from major, innovative companies who simply were locked out of improving the technolgy that would have made whatever version of Microsoft a better platform, easier to use and much faster.

However the case was so complicated that the major political, scientific, and technologically advanced minds in the country were brought together to mediate a solution that would be satisfy everyone.

What came of this was a decree that Microsoft could still be a monopoly but an innocuous one. It was agreed that Microsoft could continue operating just as it had but with the following provisions. 1. MS would share necessary software and coding with any company that needed it to innovate and 2. MS must not engage in any anti-competitive activities.

A large panel was set up that was to meet every 3 months into perpetuity to examine all that MS had done and examine all complaints of non-compliance and investigate any more lawsuits or complaints of any kind against MS.

Unfortunately some politicians slipped in wording into the mediated settlement that said that even though a meeting was scheduled it was not a requirement for anyone to be there. A close examination of the records of these meetings show that all were held and positive results came of the meetings, IN REALITY very few meetings have ever been held and so many lawsuits from competitors have been filed it is worse now than it has ever been. Additionally these men given responsibility for the court ordered oversight are paid an enormous amount of money but do little or nothing to earn any of it.

Whenever a major company sues MS, MS crossfiles saying that the company suing them is stealing proprietarty information, or code, or whatever they need to say to force the competitors to spend so many billions of dollars on lawyers that they were willing to settle with MS and get only a small percentage of what they set out to get. This would go on and on until the competitor had a functional operation again and had most of what they wanted. In the meantime Microsoft was using the very technology that had to be revealed in courts by the competitors suing them to always stay far ahead of any competitor. The only notable exception is that Microsoft is considerably concerned that APPLE has captured about 10 percent of the world's market and is on the rise while the worlds beleif in the continued viability of Microsoft to exist much longer is considerably shaken.

Microsoft's stock during the last year or so has slowly declined from around $125. a share to around the mid $20's to the $30's depending on the PR generated about MS technical innovations and the stock speculators activities.

There is so much more that could be said with exacting references that are verifiable and are publicly available that it would scare too many people if I included them. Also I am only one person and it is going to take a real large village of people willing to help me.

PLEASE! Feel free to locate exact details and edit this and add to it's believability. It is hoped that I have not violated any copyrights though I know that the word MICROSOFT is a registered trademark but it has long ago passed into the realm of common public usage as a generic word having connotations meaning a gigantic multiarmed octopus that should not be messed with. I have heard in many company boardrooms someone ask an overbearing CEO or such; "Who do you think you are?  Bill Gates?  Oh, and by the way this company sure is not Microsoft".

I hope the powers that be who determine whether to allow a post to stand or not will give me some leeway and understand that this is the firt time ever that I have begun to share the vast amount of knowledge I have about all things technical. I will return to this post and view changes and post more technical details and source references as required provided that there is sufficient interest by the public to ammend and append this and providing Wikipedia oversight personnel allow this subject to stand.

Sources Verifiable: Supreme Court Records, U.S. Atty General's office, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, TechWorld, Legal News Bulletins, U.S. Registry of lawsuits and disposition of same. Computer World, Microsoft Web Sites, as well as APPLE Corp., Eastman Kodak, Hewlett Packard, G.E. U.S. Department of Defense Contracting Records, and many others. Hillfoundation4 (talk) 06:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Hillfoundation4 (talk) 06:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)