Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

File Extensions And Monopolies

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuff-to-think-about dept.

A_Non_Moose sent us an article from Salon that talks about how file extensions are one of the tools used by Microsoft to extend their mind and market share. It's a very simple idea but its honestly something I'd never thought about. Definitely worth a read, and a few neurons to realize how its really the simplest of things that will guarantee that this monopoly isn't stopped even if Microsoft's deep pockets didn't let them buy the law.

8 of 881 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Give me a break. by Jebus_the_spork · · Score: 0, Funny

    telling people to "hold down shift" is more complicated than it seems.

    althought I agree with you. the majority of computer users are far too inadept to comprehend holding down shift.

    what we need to teach to people is commen sense, and basic computer skills. no, you do not put your damn cretid card in the floppy drive.

    --
    I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows - Bart Simpson
  2. Re:CLI by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 4, Funny

    We don't need no stinkin' file extensions!

    Really? You don't put ".c" at the end of C source files? Hmmm. I used those kind of extensions under UNIX ten years ago.

  3. Re:Yea, it's really hard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny



    Right, now I'm going to call your mom and ask her to make winamp the default mp3 player instead of realaudio. I think she'll have to use a life-line, so get ready for that call :)

  4. Re:Monopoly for the illiterate... by wfrp01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Exactly. I can see it now... In an effort to please each and every technophobe's desire to have their all-important feature be only one click away, Microsoft releases "Windows Flat". No menus. No directory trees. No dialogs. Instead, each and every pixel is assigned a function.

    Oh my god, I better go patent this...

    --

    --Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
  5. How about this line... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "There are millions of Windows users who barely know what "right-clicking" is."

    I think he meant Macintosh users ;)

  6. Re:This is silly... No its most definitely not by warmi · · Score: 0, Funny

    No, you don't.
    This whole business of loading itself automatically and stealing relevant extension should be set to "OFF" by default.
    I have fucking more interesting things to do than search for some obscure config tab just to prevent RealPlayer from taking over half of my machine.

    RealPlayer is one of the most fucked up and annoying apps ever.

  7. Re:This is silly... No its most definitely not by tristan+f. · · Score: 0, Funny

    He probably couldn't understand you because of your questionable syntax and god-awful grammar.

    --
    Hi, I'm a pretentious cock who will make some gay comment about ignoring AC posts here.
  8. Re:Its not just MS . . . by dimator · · Score: 5, Funny

    Open COMMAND.COM with PSP?

    I'll save you the trouble: it's porn.

    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"