Comments for This Operatic madness must not succeed

Ok first up, i apologise, when i said throttled, i meant throttled UP. (in hindsight i should have been more specific.)

My point was, is that this entire free browser war, was created by Netscapes Death. And had they not released Mozilla, we would still be with IE4, which is not a good thing.

You are free to keep giving Microsoft $400+ dollars for something that is available for nothing. And then of course you're also welcome to shell out several hundred dollars more for software that should have come with the OS in the first place to make it usable. In a free world you are allowed to do that. You can't (or shouldn't) legislate against blind stupidity.

So after you tell me that paying for netscape was a good thing, you are trying to tell me that paying for a fully featured OS is a bad thing. To be quite honest, all of vistas so called problems are overhyped by the internet, despite Microsofts current success. It is a great operating system, and one i will definitly get around to paying for. This isnt stupidity, it isnt stupid to enjoy quality, actually having access to drivers, and a support base. Sorry, but Linux is still 5 years behind microsoft, and until they catch up (and stop pretending that they already have) i am not gonna give them any credit.

I'm not that worried about Microsoft. They are flailing at the moment - clutching for straws as so much stuff passes them by. If the free software world is such a non-issue, then why does MS spend so much time complaining about it?

your world is an interesting one. lets analyse this

Flailing.

I do recall reading that this is Microsofts most profitable year ever, they have released the greatest update to any operating system ever, and on top of that have launched a few hundred more lawsuits against Spammers and Malware creators.

Doing pretty well for me, and all.

Non Issue.

So i guess you havent heard of Microsofts open source Labs huh.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/aug05/08-10OpenSourceLab.mspx

Basically they monitor and assist all open source efforts. This is where the Novell people have been invited to. You know them, the ones they are slowly surrendering the Server Market too, in exchange for a business partenership. One that is benefitting small and large businesses all over the world? I see what you mean, it is quite obvious that microsoft thinks that Open Source is a non issue...
Novell is now the recipient of Open Source Help from microsoft, to make its future server operating systems more compatible with windows based servers and clients, in payment, novell coders are writing the Linux based version of microsfts new web program suite, aka Silverlight. (its a big .NET push)

Complaints.

There are serious issues with the way Open Source stuff works. It will become more of a problem as it actually becomes popular. However these security risks are nothing compared to the way microsft communicates. Now, while you are all gonna go devil in the pants at MS, the way big companies operate is through lawsuits, its called leverage. and they arent the only ones that do it. Say, when the iPhone came out, they sed for patent infringement. this is just positioning. It wouldnt even be news if Microsft wasnt microsoft. You guys should seriously get over it.

I'm glad to see Apple doing well at the moment - at least two commerical entities creates some sort of competitive market, but they're both doomed in the end at least on the commercial software end of things. As free and open source software becomes more viable and continues to proliferate both in the personal and commercial computing spaces I think it's only inevitable that MS and Apple will fail. We're not talking two years, or five years, it may take ten or twenty, but their model just doesn't make any sense in the long term. If people can produce (and are willing to produce) free software for nothing and the tools to create it cost nothing, it just doesn't make sense to spend billions making it and selling it for hundreds of dollars.

Apple isnt a competitor. Apple has never believed that there is a PC market. Listen to a macworld conference, they legitimatly believe that the "Pc maket" is made up of Apples, and that 3 or 4 people have installed vista on them, so they have a 96 percent share of the market. Also long standing deals between MS and Apple sorta allow for alot of cross polination, and very little in the way of conflict.

And it is not Inevitable that they fail, as you have forgotten what the product is. Support. Companies dont give a rats about what they install on their networks, as long as it is backed up by a large tech support base. and as i have to keep pointing out to linux users, a whole bunch of forums and 3 guys on IRC does not count as a support base. Novel is the closest to competing with MS and Apple on this. But the rest fall flat on their face. and as well as being stuck 5 years ago in terms of Drivers and Technology, linux based companies, generally do not have the business acumen to make this happen without some serious unity.

I don't care if Windows removes IE. It wouldn't make me sleep any better. There is nothing that Microsoft has done technology-wise in the last 5 years that should make any free or open-source advocate uneasy. They have produced an OS that is over-priced, under-baked, terribly inefficient and saddled with crippling DRM. You are free to like Windows stuff better. It's just good that you know that there is an alternative. As long as more and more people become aware that there are alternatives then all is well.

apart from the fact that i have not seen an ounce of evidence toward anything you have said (other than the DRM, which i guess is a fair cop because you linux users obviously dont like having to change a simple setting). I do tech support for a large base of Vista users, and the worst problems are hardware compatibility issues, that have all been fixed with bios updates in the last 6 months. You remember compatibility dont you?

As for alternatives, on a business level, they all just make Vista look good. Linux has solved alot of core problems, but from an integration standpoint you may as well be using Windows 3 (oh i went there)

You are free to live the Open Source dream, you may believe what you like about a changing world. But Linux forgets business. Apart from individually tailored solutions, that we are assuming a company can train its own tech support staff for. If OpenSource advocates want to look the other way, when microsoft is innovating, your ignorance is only going to pull you down faster.

To be quite honest, linux cant really work without microsft behind it. It needs a business plan, and "The Man" to back it up. Say what you like, but just like the chocolate bar you find under the park bench, Linux isnt good just because it is free.

McBeard,

This isnt stupidity, it isnt stupid to enjoy quality, actually having access to drivers, and a support base. Sorry, but Linux is still 5 years behind microsoft, and until they catch up (and stop pretending that they already have) i am not gonna give them any credit.

Tell me again why Dell insisted on extending the deadline to keep selling XP on it's machines instead of Vista? Quality was it? The problem with proprietary software is it's rate of change. It took them 6 years to update their OS. A lot of popular linux distributions do it every 6 months. You underestimate the power of people passionate about what they do.

I do recall reading that this is Microsofts most profitable year ever, they have released the greatest update to any operating system ever

Is that greatest as in 'largest' or greatest as in 'best'. You may be right about the former, but good gawd man, not about the latter.

(other than the DRM, which i guess is a fair cop because you linux users obviously dont like having to change a simple setting)

You obviously don't know many linux users. Most of us LOVE to change settings. ;) But what does this have to do with DRM? What I'd like to do is buy a DVD and be able to play it on a variety of devices. I don't want someone else to determine what devices I can play it on. Apple is no better (maybe worse). I also realize that the movie and music companies want DRM, but Microsoft and Apple have huge influence on their own and can change this. Look at how Amazon now sells completely DRM-free music. If they can do it, why not Microsoft?

You are free to live the Open Source dream, you may believe what you like about a changing world.

Without people wanting to change the world, it would never happen. Be glad we're here. And don't confuse 'Open Source' with 'Free' software. They are not necessarily the same thing.


Oli,

We're getting a little OT here, so let's drop the Windows vs FOSS side of things.

done. ;)

Fun this will be.

Oh and after this, entire topic will be dropped, except for the specific Operaness (you can’t expect me not to rebut, I mean, it is the internet)

Emphasis mine - that's a hilarious statement =) I was a legal Vista user for a long time (November '06 through this September) and it drove me nuts. First there was no driver support for the Operation Human-shield (early adopters) and although that was slightly anticipated, there are still missing drivers for my system. After a couple of months the other SKUs were released, including Ultimate that added features that should be in all SKUs. The upgrade to Ultimate from Business was (and still is) more than whole new OEM copy of Ultimate which is disgusting. The little bugs where the least of my problems but it just have the impression of being a shoddy system, especially when you compared it against a lean install of XP.


I am a legal vista user. And by saying that I mean I haven’t bought it for my PC, just all the ones I use. I do a lot of vista tech support, and I see a lot of small things, but a lot of great improvements. Using it on a daily basis has been nothing but joy. When I got it running perfectly on my friends 3 year old completely unsupported laptop, I was elated (and he was very happy with his MSDNAA free copy of Business)

Now there are two issues here.

Driver Support is two words that I hate having to be together. Technically you can load any XP drivers into vista. However if they aren’t supported there is no help. At one stage I tried making my own support base wiki type thing for people hot loading this stuff onto older machines using XP drivers only (I have a knack for it) didn’t work out.


The upgrading is stupid, and one of the things that will probably be next to go. Completely removed from the fact that the difference between an upgrade version and a normal one is an ini file, there is the fact that you can't just go online and buy a new key and have your desktop upgrade itself. This is probably two things

1. An "all your eggs in one basket" sort of thing, is probably just asking to be hacked (despite the fact that there was vista hacked a couple days after launch using a totally scammed beta installer = thing of beauty)

2. They are Microsoft, they sell boxes. They still aren’t all the way onto the web yet.

it’s not that clean-cut. MS came out and said 200-odd unspecified patents were being infringed by open source, Linux, et al; and then offered a patent exchange/protection program. By doing this they scare people away from [F] OSS (why use it if they're going to be sued into the ground?) and scare [F] OSS groups into binding treaties to try and protect against Armageddon. It's not nice behavior and certainly in the realm of clutching at straws.

This was the second time I had ever seen Microsoft scared. The patents in question related to Microsoft technologies that could feasibly be used to increase another operating systems compatibility with Microsoft programs. Think WINE on steroids (or actually working, whichever puts you in the right frame of mind). Microsoft was running in terror, for the first time, from the Open Source guys. Now in a situation like that Microsoft has only two tactics. Fear and Lawsuits. Now the lawsuit (as I mentioned in here somewhere) was just positioning for the fear tactics. For the lawsuit could never come about, as it would mean explaining to the Linux guys and some legal types exactly how they could properly exploit this stuff. (And seeing as Microsoft is now starting to learn how the internet works, they know they can no longer make it just go away)They kicked up some sand, and came to a favorable middle ground, sharing these secrets with Novell and aiding them in the server market.

So you're contesting that it's not over-priced, under-baked or terribly inefficient? Are you sure you're using Vista? Have a look at some of the things I've written about it - here are 3 things that eventually drove me off to Linux (written before my move)

.

Yes and no. To be honest I have encountered and toppled that stuff before. Actually part of that can pertain back to the original opera argument. The burning software included with windows is pretty average, and at a guess it is a lot like IE6, it is just a bit of an OS extension to add functions but not usability. Now Windows can burn as well, however you are better off with something else. Like the difference between iMovie and Final Cut Pro for example. Or even worse, Windows Movie Maker and Final Cut Pro. As for overpriced and under baked, they sort of pertain to each other. The only reason I have not purchased Ultimate, is that not all of the Ultimate Extras (which is half the reason I want the OS, otherwise it’s just pretty XP with some nice features) have been released so far. So why pay full price to join a waiting list right? But after I get all of that, I will be content to pay that price. I think partly the price argument comes from the fact that XP was out way too long. And people have forgotten that you pay for operating systems.
I will not concede inefficient. I have gotten great use out of it. As a standalone OS, I believe it is capable and functional. (Once you have supportive BIOS)

It has many "The Man"s to back it up. Lots of distributions have enterprise-catering backed and run by large businesses like Red Hat and Novel (SUSE). If they didn't, Linux wouldn't have the server client-base that it already enjoys so enterprise desktop-Linux is really just a case of waiting for the critical mass in applications.
No, those companies are playing both sides against the middle. They do not have the business acumen. They are competing against each other in a market that really needs one big large face, to show MS that it needs to keep on its game. Yet they sit around bickering with each other as bad as the Linux fan boys do and get nothing done. If Microsoft is playing catch-up with IE then they are playing Catch-up with Operating Systems.

Tell me again why Dell insisted on extending the deadline to keep selling XP on its machines instead of Vista? Quality was it? The problem with proprietary software is its rate of change. It took them 6 years to update their OS. A lot of popular Linux distributions do it every 6 months. You underestimate the power of people passionate about what they do.

Because Vista was so over hyped by the Open Source community (who have also gotten the attention of Dell) that even solitary consumers now think vista is bad without having any facts whatsoever.
I will not defend Microsoft’s windows division. Before the shakeup of a couple years back their business plan was to creep little updates out for XP every now and then. It took Billy gates to go in there and fix things with an Iron Fist to even get vista out close to the release date. The turnaround on vista will only be a year or two.
Yes, a lot of passionate people solving problems in a disorganized manner. It's monkeys on a typewriter and me thinks your Shakespeare needs a spell-check.
You obviously don't know many Linux users. Most of us LOVE to change settings. ;) But what does this have to do with DRM? What I'd like to do is buy a DVD and be able to play it on a variety of devices. I don't want someone else to determine what devices I can play it on. Apple is no better (maybe worse). I also realize that the movie and music companies want DRM, but Microsoft and Apple have huge influence on their own and can change this. Look at how Amazon now sells completely DRM-free music. If they can do it, why not Microsoft?

Actually I am friends with tons of Linux users. This brings me to the whole Zune thing. People were complaining that you couldn’t copy your DRM’d music, even though you can copy the same music onto the Zune through media player, without DRM. Microsoft is trying to help a growing industry play fair for once and you complain about that also. I know it is fashionable to have a go at MS these days but you should probably attain life.

Without people wanting to change the world, it would never happen. Be glad we're here. And don't confuse 'Open Source' with 'Free' software. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Oh my problem isn’t with the dream, but the disorganized rabble that thinks they have already changed the world.