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Gates Provides Windows Crash Statistic
cybercuzco writes "In an otherwise innocuous article at they NYT (FRRYYY) Bill Gates says that according to error reporting software in windows, 5% of all windows installations crash two or more times every day. Gates goes on to state that Microsoft is looking at charging for some of its software updates that it now distributes for free."
doesn't that give MS an incentive to leave bugs in?
The numbers they quote are system crashes, not application crashes. An operating system that allows a user-level app to cause a system crash is poorly designed. It doesn't matter if the fault originated in the OS itself or not.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And those Macs are running on adverage 24 hours a day whereas the PC's are shutdown every night since they seem to crash less than when we did leave them on everyday.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
The "10" part is mostly marketing. 10.1 to 10.2 was in no way a mere "point release". Substantial portions of the OS we're rewritten and optimized, plus added a ton of features. Apple doesn't have an obvious page describing just what's new anymore since they're pushing 10.3 now, but the main OS X is loaded with goodies^gpropaganda [1]
Think of Jaguar as OS X v2.0 and Panther as OS X v3.0 and you'll be all right. That makes the current OS version 2.6.
WinXP was only a point release to the "kernel" but XP's userland is (supposedly) significantly differnet. Sadly, Win2K's userland was only really needed a point release, and the kernel needed a thorough overhaul [2]
[1] I just noticed (pause for laughter) that the current technologies page is now highlighting Applescript as a top-level component of the OS, on the same conceptual level as Aqua. Imagine that, an OS that considers scripting and automation to be equally as important as the GUI. That's a nice balance.
[2] Admittedly only in comparison to operating systems which I'd consider well-designed, which would be almost anything.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Yeah... But.. in windows, the machine manages to hang on the simpliest of errors by other programs. And what probably causes those hangs in the 3rd part vendors? Some of those undocumented hooks into the api which haven't been secured/stabilized/coded correctly at MS. At least in linux/BSD/UNIX you usually know what happened, and have a chance of fixing it. I can deal with popup errors, I just want to still be able to work, damn it! It just comes down to what's best for how one works. And how much one is willing to sacrifice for security and stability. Every OS balances between these three pilars. MS can't seem to get all three legs to balance on the floor. :) And now they want us to pay for the wood filler. :)
-=fshalor
The interesting thing, of course, is that so few bugs have been found. Imagine if M$ had this policy!