What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?

CanadianMikey asks: "The debate with the business side of computing rages on about the validity of Open Source. Is it good or bad? What is the future of computing? Could it have been different, and where will the 21st century take us? Is Microsoft just the big nail that always gets hammered first and will someone step in to take their place when they are finally taken down? If Microsoft were to close up shop, who do the readers of Slashdot think would be tomorrow's Microsoft? What about the forgotten windows?"

Comments

Standards

[BWJones]

As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards". Only the benefits are not quite in their definition as they want to control all of the standards and get a cut of all money from the use of those "standards". Also, it should be noted that Microsoft is not all bad. They actually produce some nice code (Office for OS X is quite nice), however, they always seem to be behind the curve as if they are not able to innovate anything. They missed the GUI, the Internet and now notably the search engine all by quite a while only to turn the company around and focus all of their efforts on exploiting what they missed. The market dominance however, has shown us the benefit of having "standard" file types such as .doc that just about everybody in certain industries uses exclusively.

Re:Standards

[SatanicPuppy]

Actually, I think IBM, the original scary tech monopoly, showed us the benefit of standards (abliet mostly hardware standards).

Microsoft just shows us how little we learn from historical mistakes, REGARDING standards. This is the one place where I wouldn't mind a little government intervention, toward an open and efficient standard. They could hardly screw it up worse than it is now.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

'Tis a silly place.

Maybe it could be more like castle anthrax...

Re:Standards

[TykeClone]

This is the one place where I wouldn't mind a little government intervention, toward an open and efficient standard. They could hardly screw it up worse than it is now.

Doesn't sound like you work in a regulated industry.

Hi. I from the government. I'm here to help you.

Re:Standards

[xs650]

Microsoft's "standards" are the artifact of a partially failed attempt to completely dominate software and operating systems.

Re:Standards

[Snad]

As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards".

That's true, but in the absence of a behemoth like Microsoft dictating what a "standard" is we would probably be working with true (ie open) standards rather than simply what Bill declares is Good For You(tm).

I'd like to think that absent a Microsoft-like controlling entity, the continuing mayhem of opposing formats and standards for data and documents would have become so untenable that developers would have been forced towards working together to come up with standards that actually worked. And that were actually supported and were actually standard. This would be simply to ensure that the multitude of word processors (for example) could reliably utilise each other's documents since none would have the market leverage to ignore the others.

This assumes, of course, that not only is there no Microsoft, but that there is no company in a similar position of power.

There is also an Easter Bunny, and I saw Santa yesterday at his summer job at the beach...

Re:Standards

[mingot]

That's true, but in the absence of a behemoth like Microsoft dictating what a "standard" is we would probably be working with true (ie open) standards rather than simply what Bill declares is Good For You(tm).

Nah, we'd just be running OS/2 or OSX.

But lets answer the actual question that was asked... What would the world look like if we were all running Linux. In my view, it would look a lot different since I'd probably be an auto mechanic or cabinet maker instead of a programmer.

Re:Standards

[WindBourne]

They could hardly screw it up worse than it is now.
Actually, they could. Government went after MS and found them guilty. New President and suddenly we let the company go with only simple agreement and monitoring that shows MS is still disobeying the agreement. Things can always get worse with the feds in control.

Re:Standards

[MBCook]

Standards are nice, but it's NO PLACE for government. An industry board of some kind (like IEEE, or whatever) maybe, but NOT the government.

If the government were to decided the standards, we'd all be writing programs in Ada. In other news we would just be getting the standard for 10Base-T later this year (because of the special interest groups for the lithium industry trying to require the the wires in Cat5 cable are made of 20% lithium), and a byte would soon be 37 bits long (becuase it's the only number that doesn't offend lacto-vegitarian-femi-nazi-free-range-chicken-head s) or some other weird thing.

I would be nice to have the government say something like "OK all you companies, decided on a format for word processor documents and stick to it untill the you issue a new standard after that", but for government to decide the standard its self probably wouldn't be good.

I agree, though, that open standards are important. We have standards now (.doc, Internet Explorer, etc), but they're not open. Opening them would make all the difference.

Re:Standards

[JebusIsLord]

Lets not forget that the internet was originally a government project founded on government standards.

Re:Standards

[MBCook]

Yes, but it was part of another project, and it was something they needed. All to often what would happen (IMHO) if the government was asked to make standards now would be a big committe would be formed that would take recomendations for years, then argue for years, all while various groups lobby their own odd ideas.

It's one thing to have a group of engineers sit down to decide a standard. It's another to have a panel of engineers hear a bunch of companies argue why their product is better.

Re:Standards

[Monkelectric]

As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards"

In the same way fucking that crazy girl down the street reminds you its not good to fuck crazy girls... I suppose

Re:Standards

[gfody]

Microsoft is an inevitability, just like Neo. Asking what the world be like without microsoft is like asking what the world would be like if WWII never happened.

To answer the question, the world would be exactly the same.. except the software company holding a monopoly on operating systems wouldn't be called "microsoft" it would be called g-soft.. and today you would be asking the question "what would the world be like without g-soft?"

a better question would be why is the microsoft-anomoly inevitable.. that one, I think, is because anything that makes up an integral part of our infrastructure (such as an OS) that isn't yet mandated by government will naturally fall into a monopoly simply because it's convenient.

Re: Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Office for OS X is NOT quite nice. Have you ever used it?

Aside from the fact that it seems to built on approximately Office 97-level code (I base this on the features I've seen, and certain buggy behaviour I remember from 97 that has been modified in newer versions), it's just not stable. When editing large (20 page) word docs, I find myself habitually saving every minute or so because the damn thing crashes every 10 minutes!!

Re:Standards

[Anopheles]

Is it just me or is it not a a coincidence that they are always running to catch up with these technologies?

It's not as if they are hurting for money and can catch up easily after a year or two of research.

Innovation? It doesn't pay to innovate! People don't want innovation (read feature-creep), they want a safe and stable system that does what they want it to.

And for that, isn't it better to wait until the emerging technologies emerge before throwing any money at it? Let somebody else figure it out, let two rivals fight for the standard, and once the dust settles, then grab it, modify it enough to make it proprietary, and release it as IIS, or Office, or Windows...

If the world didn't have Microsoft, we'd have somebody else, whether it be Novell, IBM, or some other corporation popping out of nowhere and taking over the world by surprise.

Re:Standards

[slowbad]

Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards".

If not for Microsoft's corruption of SLIP and PPP in 1994...
my very own TRIPLE Challenge Handshake Authentication
(CHA CHA CHA) would have ruled the dialup world instead!

Re:Standards

[Johnny Mnemonic]

It doesn't sound like you do, either. You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed to "innovate" their own designs? Do you think the highways would work better if each one was a toll road, allowed to design to their own needs? Do you think it would be better or worse for communications if ATT and Verizon each designed and developed phone technology independently of each other, meaning interoperation didn't happen?

Actually, IINM, there is some historical precedent: the South had different guage of train tracks than the North, and it's part of what led to the cultural divide, which in turn led to the Civil War. Relaying tracks so that troops could be moved was a great burden--but once accomplished, and the standard set, notice how it's been preserved since.

Institutions that purport to operate on a national level, and become part of the national infrastructure, should be standarized so that there are no boundaries of information exchange. On this point I agree with Ashcroft, who said as much when Bush took office. However, I disagree that one company should be in control of that standard; instead, it should be controlled by an open forum. As was the early internet, and it's why it remains as strong as it is and grew to the popularity that it acquired.

Do you think that if Microsoft was in control of the early HTML specifications, or even TCP/IP for that matter, that we'd have the ubiquitious internet now?

Re:Standards

[jcr]

You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed to "innovate" their own designs?

You put "innovate" in quotes?

We have tort law to deal with the problem of buildings that fall down. What building codes do is impede the development of new construction techniques.

-jcr

Re:Standards

[tdemark]

I would be nice to have the government say something like "OK all you companies, decided on a format for word processor documents and stick to it untill the you issue a new standard after that", but for government to decide the standard its self probably wouldn't be good.

It's actually much simpler than that. The government doesn't need to dictate that a standard be agreed upon... what it can dictate is that "We will only purchase products that read and write open, pubically documented formats by default."

In this case, there doesn't need to be agreement between companies in the form of a standard. But, it brings all the benefits of a standard in that the "popular" products will be well-documented.

- Tony

Re:Standards

[TykeClone]

Yes, I do. I work in banking. Most of the regulations imposed upon that industry are there because of the bad actions of the stupid few - and they do little good.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act added financial privacy regulations. What difference does it make to the consumer - precious little, they get a mailing once per year saying something about privacy. Like most other regulations, it's a paper chase for the financial institutions - we've got to send out those pieces of paper to stay in the good graces of the regulators.

I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but to say that the government can't make things worse is just plain silly.

Re:Standards

[Felinoid]

IBM and S-100 in hardware and Unix in software.
All the standards organisations were in place long before PC Dos hit the market. All becouse there has been a long proven need for standards organisations.
(Reguardless of how slow they are to react.. The S-100 standard was published once the S-100 buss computer became obsolete... Posix came about long after many Unix forks came into existence.)

An interesting side note....
About the DOC file format... Visit <a href="http://www.totse.com/">TOTSE</a> they have an archive of BBS age documents many under the file extention .doc and none of them have anything to do with Microsoft word. .doc and .txt were long used for text documents untill Microsoft desided to save Word documents under the extention .doc using Word format not ASCII the preveouls standard.

Microsofts better for pushing aside standards than folowing them. Even when they create it themselfs.

Re:Standards

[Bastian]

There are standards out there that aren't owned by any one group that have worked. The inner workings of the Internet and networking are full of examples.

I think the problem is that these standards have a problem with stagnation (SMTP comes to mind). Where closed standards win out is in innovation. For one, there's a profit to be made in making protocols and file formats that outperform others. Second, standards that are made by committee tend to have the problems that are associated with things that are made by committee - the size of ATM cells being a perfect example.

So I don't think we'd get solutions in the forms of standards that actually work - we'd get standards that are close to working the way they should, and folks would figure out how to make the standard work for them. But God save us if the standard needs an update.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the "Official US Government Standard" was OSI networking. TCP/IP was skunkworks project that published their specs in a cheezy ASCII layout.

Re:Standards

[seasleepy]

Yes, governments have stupid regulations sometimes. See the topic, though? We're discussing standards, which are different from regulations.

Standards are always a good thing for consumers. They can, however, give businesses trouble (you're allowing their customers to potentially go elsewhere but still be able to have the service they want and/or interoperability between their new widget and the original company's widget), which is why the companies on top of a field tend to not push standards.

Re:Standards

[flacco]

In the same way fucking that crazy girl down the street reminds you its not good to fuck crazy girls...

god i hate that fucking bitch. did you hit her too?

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with the President. Last I checked we had a balance of power with a legislative, executive and judicial branch. regardless I thought the Judges on the case where around prior to Bush.

Re:Standards

[Warlok]

You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed to "innovate" their own designs?

Yes. Before building codes, people built buildings that stood and worked properly because if they didn't, they might die. New materials meant innovations meant new ways of building buildings - all without building codes. Building codes are ways for government and unions to assert control over individual builders.

Do you think the highways would work better if each one was a toll road, allowed to design to their own needs?

Again, yes, like the Dulles Greenway, a successfully run private toll road to Dulles Airport.

Do you think it would be better or worse for communications if ATT and Verizon each designed and developed phone technology independently of each other, meaning interoperation didn't happen?

You mean like the competition between RSS and Atom news reader formats? How long do you think the market would stand two incompatible standards before one of the two started specing in some interoperability? In any case, your point is moot - basic telephone service was set up by a monopoly (remember the break-up of AT&T, aka Ma Bell?) - wireless phone service had to interoperate with the baseline to be useful and adopted. The standard was set in place by a single company - all the others had to deal with the existing infrastructure to be picked up by the market. Look at how much fun IPv6 is having trying to be adopted and spec'd - it needs to interoperate with the existing standard or it's just another hobby platform.

the South had different guage of train tracks than the North, and it's part of what led to the cultural divide, which in turn led to the Civil War.

It was a part, but a very small part. The bigger issue was the fact that the Federal government was trying to impose its standards on the southern States, leading to the seccession of South Carolina. Train track guages was a small factor - the big problem was that Lincoln's government was trying to dictate what the States could and could not do, imposing one set of standards for radically different geographies and economies.

I disagree that one company should be in control of that standard; instead, it should be controlled by an open forum. As was the early internet...

Look it up - the early internet was controlled by the DoD under the DARPA program, one government agency dictating the standards, protocols, even the people who could connect. Even now, one corporation controls DNS, arguably the backbone of the modern internet (anyone know the IP address of slashdot.org? Thought not...)

The fact is Microsoft is involved in standards bodies and works to define and refine standards in use by everyone. Yes, MS embraces and extends, but even back in the day, compiler authors did the same to programming languages (Borland C anyone? UCSD Pascal?). Even modern BIOS manufacturers extend their products over and above the base spec. Extensions to standards lead to future extended standards - ever wonder what the world would be like with Bjarne Stroustrup's C++? How about Emacs Lisp?

Re:Standards

[barthrh2]

Sir, I have some bad news... the building collapsed and your family is dead.

The good news is: (handing card) Lionel Hutz, Attoney at Law! Sir, today is your lucky day!

Seriously, you'd be hard pressed to find a more unscrupulous group than building developers. Because of the incorporation techniques that they use, getting sued is essentially no problem. They hide behind the corporate veil and just declare bankruptcy for the shell corporation that built that 30 story condo building that now leaks like a sieve. That's if the company hasn't been wound down by the time the problem crops up.

Using tort is completely reactive. The burden on police, fire, hospitals and the legal system itself is only increased because the building has already burnt down. Standards are preventative.

Re:Standards

[nick_danger]

I would be nice to have the government say something like "OK all you companies, decided on a format for word processor documents and stick to it untill the you issue a new standard after that", but for government to decide the standard its self probably wouldn't be good.

And that very same approach is why HDTV in the US is so hopelessly screwed up. Industry couldn't settle on a standard, so the FCC adopted 17 different digital formats, and left it up to the TV manufacturers to come up with a chip that automatically displays the correct picture no matter which format the broadcaster chose to use.

Simply telling industry to work it out themselves doesn't always work, especially in the software realm. Remember back to the early days of the PC? The 8-bit to 16-bit transition era? Remember all of the different word processors that were available? WordStar, WordPerfect, PC-Write, Write, Word, and I'm sure there's dozen's of others I never got a chance to use. They all had different file formats, and the only way to exchange information with someone on a different platform was on paper.

More importantly than simple file formats though, is the notion that the Internet is like a public service or utility -- like railroads or electric utilities or public highways. The government has to be the one to establish certain standards to ensure that everyone can participate.

Re:Standards

[UnknownSoldier]

> You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed to "innovate" their own designs?

Reminds me of that quote off my giant poster on Murphy's Law about Computers ...

"If engineers built buildings the way programers write code,
the first time a woodpecker came along, it would destroy civilization."

And yes, I am a programmer. :)

Re:Standards

[RetroGeek]

And using a document framework called OpenDoc.

Another great concept buried by Microsoft.

Re:Standards

[Fuzzy Bo]

"We will only purchase products that read and write open, pubically documented formats by default."

I *knew* it was a curly question!

Re:Standards

[KamuSan]

Standards and regulations are the same when we're talking about government. How do you think those standards will be enforced?

And given governments' track record those regulated standards will be:
- years late
- still in effect when they're useless
- more formed by political considerations and those of pressure groups than technical necessity.

Re:Standards

[jcr]

Sir, I have some bad news... the building collapsed and your family is dead.

That can happen with buildings that meet the building codes, too. It does not follow that only government can inspect a building.

-jcr

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Blaming MS for the death of OpenDoc is stupid. Between IBM, Apple, and Novell, none of the "founders" of OpenDoc ever bothered shipping a product that used it.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a lacto-vegitarian-femi-nazi-free-range-chicken-head , you insensitive clod!

Re:Standards

[ortholattice]

If think Microsoft really promotes good standards, ask Andrew Tridgell (Samba team leader) who's practically dedicated his life to reverse-engineering Microsoft's SMB protocol. In this interview he says:

"The protocol is so incredibly convoluted and bloated and badly designed -- there are ten ways of doing everything. You end up with these massive exchanges going on the wire between Windows 95 and NT, just because they are trying to work out exactly which sets of bugs the other guy has so they can figure out how to actually stat a file or find its size or date or something. And we've found from talking to people who work at Microsoft how much of a headache it is to maintain the damned thing and keep it secure."

This, my friend, is a Microsoft "standard".

Re:Standards

[Brandybuck]

If the government were to decided the standards, we'd all be writing programs in Ada.

Well that certainly cut through all the crap! While there certainly should be standards, they should be designed and enforced by committee bound bureaucracies.

Re:Standards

[eelke_klein]

The market dominance however, has shown us the benefit of having "standard" file types such as .doc that just about everybody in certain industries uses exclusively.

.doc a standard!?

Allmost every version of Word uses another format, yes it has the same extension but internally its different. Transfering complex documents from one version of word to another is allmost impossible without loosing the correct formatting.

Re:Standards

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Re:Standards

[Penguinshit]

slashdot.org has address 66.35.250.150
:-)

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone know the IP address of slashdot.org?

66.35.250.150

Although I admit, I had to ping it first.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is truly a very cutthroat competitor that is teaching future generations on how to do business. Your "behind the curve, and then all of a sudden dominance" has to deal with a lot more about the size of microsoft's business, once any other company begins to make any sizable amount of money in the horizontal markets, Microsoft pounces. They have an enormous army of programmers that can bang out a whole bunch of decent code with all the necessary lock-in wrinkles in no time. Johnny independent programmer doesn't have a chance. They are a big company, with an army and they can do that. GM is an excellent example of this, kinda wait around and see what every body else is doing then rush to get other people's features on their car. In the 70's in the days of John Delorean, GM would wait around until they could see what Ford or AMC was offering that year, then they would rush to build essentially the same product. The reason they could sit on their thumbs and be throughly uncreative and completely not innovative was they had armies of people that could bang out a car quickly. The benefits of the .doc standard? Everybody gets to use Word? Everbody gets an interface that really doesn't change from 1995 to 2002?(Well I guess consistency is allright for Aunt Marge, but still no innovation while StarOffice was not a viable contender) Everybody gets to know that freakin paperclip? Everybody gets "to collaborate on projects" using their MS Word programs? Everybody gets macro viruses? I guess pain likes company.

Re:Standards

[Angry Pixie]

Seriously, you'd be hard pressed to find a more unscrupulous group than building developers.
Real estate people. They often work with unscrupulous building developers, especially in small towns where their power can rise to the level of local magistrates. Real estate people and building developers, by setting the market price for space, have the ability to influence countless many others. Consider cities like New York, LA, San Francisco, or Chicago. Rent is a big determinant of the kind of job you can accept in order to make ends meet. If it didn't cost $1200 for a shack just because it a real estate company decided to milk the value of a hip area code or high-growth zipcode, people could afford to accept one of the many wonderful thousands of jobs El Presidente has created for us.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft sure has shown us the benefit of standards.
They have shown us how crappy standards can be if the marketplace isnt allowed to evolve standards. Whenever a new technology hits the marketplace, there is a period of chaotic experimentation and competition that allows the best "standard" to evolve. Microsoft allowed us to skip that period of chaos that would have possibly led to better standards.

Re:Standards

[Endive4Ever]

How is the POSIX standard 'enforced'?

How is the C Programming Language standard 'enforced'?

The fact that there isn't a 'C Nazi Squadron' who bust down your door at 3AM because you omitted a semicolon debunks your assertion.

Standards can be 'enforced' through a consensus process. We all agree to do things a certain way, etc.

Re:Standards

[delong]

however, they always seem to be behind the curve as if they are not able to innovate anything.

That's just good strategy for a market leader. If you are the dominant firm, there is little payoff in innovation. Rather you tack to the innovation of smaller upstart firms, which have an incentive to innovate (gain market). You co-op the innovations of others to maintain market share.

The same strategy can be seen in yacht races. The lead yacht takes a conservative strategy, and tacks to the moves of the trailing competitor, maintaining its lead. The leader follows to stay ahead.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Office for OS X is quite nice

Saying that is like wearing a sign on your forehead: 'My IQ is under 50 - please pity me.'

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't mind a little government intervention

It's round - the planet that is. And despite the fact that the locusts attacked Bill Pullman and Will Smith in the US, their country is not the only one. And every country has its own government. Maybe you didn't realise that.

So Einstein: what government intervention are you talking about? Sanctions by the inventors of the 'Freedom Fries'? How many more of the hundreds of governments will have to be involved?

It's things like this - this presumptiveness on the part of you cultural morons - that get buildings attacked by hijacked airplanes.

Re:Standards

[Endive4Ever]

Wasn't 'Cyberdog' a web browser from Apple that used OpenDoc?

I remember it as having been a pretty nice browser in it's day.

Re:Standards

[fucksl4shd0t]

The fact that there isn't a 'C Nazi Squadron' who bust down your door at 3AM because you omitted a semicolon debunks your assertion.

Um, yes there is.

Re:Standards

[rixstep]

It's not right that people should have to speculate in what things would be like without Microsoft. The whole situation is so out of balance, so out of control, that something will have to give or a cataclysm will otherwise force a change. Personally, I think Scott Adams's weasels rule: people are too cowardly to take action. They'll wait until the man (Gates) is down and then they'll pummel him mercilessly, but while he's standing they will not make a move.

Re:Standards

[Endive4Ever]

You know, of course, that you're quoting a guy who's resentful that he doesn't get invited to the discussions, right?

Not to discredit Tidgell or Samba, which I've used for close to 8 years now, but he's the one who chooses to reverse-engineer from the outside.

What Microsoft does internally is chaotic, messy, etc. But you have to understand that Microsoft's first primary objective has always been 'compatability.' You can run a certain portion of the binaries written for MS-DOS 2 still, ya know. That's one hell of a legacy.

Re:Standards

[hedge_death_shootout]

Real estate people ... setting the market price for space

But if they charge too high nobody will buy what they're selling.
If they charge too low somebody will, and they'll sell it on for the correct price (what people are prepared to pay for it).
How do they manage to set the price too high?

Re:Standards

[senahj]

> > You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed
> > to "innovate" their own designs?

> Yes. Before building codes, people built buildings that stood and
> worked properly because if they didn't, they might die.

Bah.

The Great Chicago Fire.
The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.
Bam, Iran.
the Lisbon earthquake that stars in _Candide_

Left to their own devices, people continually, seemingly irrepressibly
build unsafe houses on beaches, cliffs, floodplains, earthquake faults, mudslide-prone hillsides -- and die in droves in consequence.

Without building codes, 10 X more fatalities in
the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California.

Re:Standards

[Endive4Ever]

The GCC doesn't even send a regular representive to the C Standards Committee meetings.

Not sure where you were going there...

Re:Standards

[Flashbck]

You can run a certain portion of the binaries written for MS-DOS 2 still, ya know. That's one hell of a legacy.

I fully understand that M$ has a large amount of backwards compatibility, and that can be nice...but there comes a time when you have to admit that a bug ridden failure is not something that you wish to support anymore. At least not when it means that you have to have so many workarounds and hacks set up that it makes everything totally confusing.

I used to own a pair of jeans that kept getting holes in them and I kept patching them. Eventually I had enough of it (mainly I think b/c I patched a completely new pair of jeans) and bought a new pair of jeans becuase the old ones looked like cripe. Sometimes you just have to let go of the old stuff and move on.

Why can't M$ just supply a win9x emulator like the OS9 emulator for osX? Yeah it sucks, but eventually the old stuff phases out and the potential for properly working new stuff grows tremendously. C'mon, how many times a year do you pull out some old DOS version of WordPerfect(I still have mine) and try to run it?

Re:Standards

[KamuSan]

There will be a C Nazi Squadron knocking on your door when you make government responsible for enforcing standards, like the parent of my previous post suggested.

Re:Standards

[nickos]

Yeah, and you can certainly tell. I love the GCC, but I wish they would follow the standards. Taken from here:

It [GCC] will compile and link almost anything. It would probably compile Perl without too much modification and wouldn't even emit that many warnings. Look! Look at this!

*&(int)f = 1;

Is that C? I don't fucking think so. And look at this:

FILE *
concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
{
char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1];
...
}

Yes, that's supposed to be C, not C++, because the things they've done to C++ are almost bloody unspeakable. The words "embrace" and "extend" come to mind. How about this, for instance:

It is very convenient to have operators which return the "minimum" or the
"maximum" of two arguments. In GNU C++ (but not in GNU C),

a <? b
is the minimum, returning the smaller of the numeric values a and b;
a >? b
is the maximum, returning the larger of the numeric values a and b.

What? What the hell is that about? And you know the worst thing? People actually use these abortions in real code, because obviously, if it compiles on Linux with gcc, it'll compile anywhere. That's why you're having problems linking on AIX - because nobody's even thought about AIX before. We use autoconf, right, so it must be portable? Yeah, fucking right. Portable between GNU OSes, I think you'll find.

Part of the reason Parrot 0.0.1 was so slow getting out of the door was because of all these stupid idiots writing GCC "C" and not realising how completely fucking broken it was.

And while we're on the subject of standards, does anyone know if Linux has a standard way of treating the keys that Microsoft added to the keyboard. Is the left Windows key Super_L or F13, and is it a modifier or not? Enquiring coders want to know.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

> The market dominance however, has shown us the benefit of having "standard" file types such as .doc that just about everybody in certain industries uses exclusively.

which is that you're forced to use their software or to reverse-engineer .doc formats because they refuse to provide specifications for their so-called standard. A standard which was achieved by market demand for certain sw isn't a standard. Fortunately there's some serious hope - OOo.

Re:Standards

[g-san]

> Do you think it would be better or worse for communications if ATT and Verizon each designed and developed phone technology independently of each other, meaning interoperation didn't happen?

You mean like the competition between RSS and Atom news reader formats?

though ye may be trolling, i must say thats the second worst comparison i have ever heard, besides the apples and oranges one.

count how many people on this planet use/care about phones vs. news readers.

btw, the width of railroads was determined by the width of a horses arse.

Re:Standards

[stephanruby]

"The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire."

The fire-part was because of the ensuing riot. The mayor of San Francisco was so afraid that San Francisco would lose its reputation that he had the riot covered up.

"Without building codes, 10 X more fatalities in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California. "

Please note that the overwhelming majority of people who died during that earthquake were located on *government* built/maintained structures (i.e. the Oakland freeway and the bay bridge).

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a few posts in, and we are down analogy alley. What is it about programmers that makes them draw on analogies at every opportunity? This is not a critisism, I'd realy like to know.

Re:Standards

[Nexum]

Office for OS X is NOT nice.

It's much nicer to use than the Windows version butt, still uses 14% of CPU when idling with one 5 page doc open in the background, mistreats a few GUI standards, and is riddled, absolutely riddled with bugs. SO many that you just forget after you see them -

the tooltip that shows you what page youre on as you scroll with the scrollbar broke yester day and insisted I was always on page two, and the dirty flag (dot in red close button) refused to disappear once I saved the document.

Undo-ing a auto-format with Apple-Z (like where Office tries to add numbering to bulleted lists etc.) causes the entire page to blank for up to four seconds (REALLY panicking you) then it redraws the text as it should be.

Several times a minute the blinking cursor disappears so you don't know where text will appear when you type.

Most of the big features are implemented ok, so I ask myself why why why why whyw hy must they continue to destroy their own reputation with these REALLY simple bugs???

Re:Standards

[basingwerk]

Laws are standards, so who would make them if the government doesn't?

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all quite simple really:

Standards == good
Proprietary standards == bad

Re:Standards

[Daengbo]

Reposted from another topic (my post, originally) because it seems appropriate. Don't mod me up, though, because the original post already got several points.

I think this unity argument is just propoganda that we've heard for years coming to rest as truth. Really, before Windows, there were a multitude of DOS variants, operating as the launcher for programs written directly to the metal, for the most part. MS owned this one from early on with IBM, but DR-DOS might've had a chance. These were all effectively neutral as far as the program went.
Then we had the window managers which appeared on top of DOS. There were several, including the fledgling Windows, but I don't remember them, because my Model I had died, and I didn't own a non-DOS computer for several years after that. Anyway, MS didn't own that part for a long time, and programs were still pretty much DOS.
But no matter what, it wouldn't have stayed that way. Toolkits other than MS versions would have appeared. We could have seen DOS cores with competing window managers and toolkits, and things would look pretty much like they do now on Linux. And, just like now, computer manufacturers would be integrating these components looking for consistent appearance and behavior, leading to standardized APIs, most likely.
So, I don't think that MS brought unity to the computer industry, because I think that it was an inevitable result of market pressure. MS was simply in the right place at the right time (because of their contracts with OEMs) and used the right (aggressive) business tactics to own the whole thing.
We can argue whether this is all true or not, and certainly whether the result under MS is better or worse than what I've laid out, but I do believe that, if MS had not taken the desktop, someone (probably several someones) would've done it in MS's place, and we'd have unity in the form of standard APIs.

Re:Standards

[include($dysmas)]

well done, have a standard-conforming biscuit

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter when the prosecuter says:
"We won? We surrender!"

Cheese eating surrender monkey.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

And H2SO4 has actually show us the benefit of "water"

Re:Standards

[WampagingWabbits]

There's a good parallel in political systems. This would be like saying that a dictatorship is inevitable. Probably it is most convenient early on in a political system, but political systems eventually tend towards more democratic models. (Someone who's read Plato's "Republic" can correct me ;-)

I think open source, and it's inherent open standards are a natural evolution, like democracy in politics, that is moving to supplant Microsoft's dictatorship. The dictatorship served its purpose, albeit leaving a few competitors "executed" along the road, but it's time for the new system to come into power.

Of course, dictatorships don't go quietly. Once all that power has vested in a dictator they aren't happy to let it go.

Re:Standards

[gtall]

I beg to differ. PowerPoint is still an unmitigated pile of fetid dingos' kidneys. The rest may be okay, but I'm sure when I'm forced to use them, I'll find them similarly challenged. I wish Apple would pluuuueeese get Keynote up to reading all PowerPoint files. If I must use a braindead, bullet-speckled, PHB wet dream, at the least it ought to work like Keynote.

Re:Standards

[blancolioni]

If the government were to decided the standards, we'd all be writing programs in Ada.

My god, software would be delivered on time with less defects! Programmers would be more productive, because of the hours of debugging time saved, and because of the high-level expressiveness of the language, and the richness of the type system. Buffer overflows would be a thing of the past.

I can't bear to even think about it.

Re:Standards

[robinsoz]

In the county where I grew up, (Josephine County, Oregon) we have no building codes. Actually, the county does have building codes but the voters passed a law 30 years or so ago that it was illegal for the county to enforce its building codes so it amounts to the same thing. You see some very interesting buildings in places, especially out in the country, but I can not remember any cases where a building fell down and injured anyone. It can also be very handy, when we decided to remodel our house we just bought building supplies and started building...no permits or anything.

Re:Standards

[hasdikarlsam]

What about Emacs Lisp?

It's a bug-ridden, cripple nightmare to program for. Well, okay, not bug-ridden: Those problems are mostly called "features". The fact remains, it doesn't let me do a number of things that I consider basic; I'm not sure it's actually even a Lisp, truth to tell.

The true standard there is Common Lisp. It's a monster too (or maybe a mudball), but it lets me do whatever I want to. That's the point, really.

And, oh yes - Common Lisp was created by a standards organization. So much for hackish ingenuity.

(To be fair, Elisp wasn't *supposed* to be complete; it's just the subset of CL that was considered neccessary to write an editor. CL would probably be better if made by hackers, too - but that's what Arc is for. :)

Re:Standards

[plusser]

If Microsoft were to develop property building standards, then you would be charged 50% of the property value for use of Microsoft's building standards. Then if the toilet broke 2 years later, you would have to purchase an upgrade standard to get it fixed, otherwise there was a risk that the building might collapse.

However, if this happened and property developers countinued to use building standards set by goverments, then SCO would try to sue the builders of the Empire State Building for $50billion (been there this week) for use of Intellectual Property regarding the use of open source calculations for load bearing, building structure and the like.

That is the problem with the computer industry at the moment. There is currently no real innovation and everything new just requires more processing power. When the industry understands that most home PCs are nothing more than games machines and word processors, then computers will be designed more for their final application and not for the benefit of the few people that actually can program them. The computer industry would belive that most consumers would prefer a 50 story office block rather than a four bedroomed house to live in, and charge you the appropriate amount.

The problem is Microsoft are learning, they already have the X-Box and the Pocket-PC....

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, it's like a little child who has just learned that there is snow in the artic, but thinks that because that is true, there is snow everywhere and that in germany the ground is made of chocolate chips, mmmm

Re:Standards

[v01d]

Poor communication skills. Shorter explanations. Programmers tend to learn by example so "teaching" by analogy seems like a logical step.

Re:Standards

[hak1du]

They actually produce some nice code (Office for OS X is quite nice),

That would be the same sense of "quite nice" in which being run over by a BWM is "quite nice" compared to being run over by a Yugo?

Seriously, there is something fundamentally wrong with the concept of an office suite, whether it's MS Office, MS Office X, or OpenOffice. The only reason people don't notice anymore is because they have gotten used to the pain and can't imagine anything different anymore.

Re:Standards

[Jexx Dragon]

(anyone know the IP address of slashdot.org? Thought not...)

66.35.250.150

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not get into futile points here. Sure you can cite a few exceptions, but if we really get down to gritty reality. Then the basic truth is that in places where building regulations are poorly maintained like in forinstance turkey or iran. That many structures are destroyed. Secondly noone ever said you can exceed building specs. But you seldomly see someone do it.
What this all comes down to is, is that people are cheap, they don't want to expend to much money on reinforcing there houses, if they wern't forced to the larger majority wouldn't do it. Some argue that historic buildings hold up better, when regulations were weaker. But people tend to forget that you only see the surviving buildings, all the cheapshot building were long gone destroyed. Just something to think about.

Quickshot

Re:Standards

[ovlaski]

All to often what would happen (IMHO) if the government was asked to make standards now would be a big committe would be formed that would take recomendations for years, then argue for years, all while various groups lobby their own odd ideas.

Huh, kinda like the W3C ... I think that's the nature of agreeing on standards, it takes a while. Might be worth the wait.

Re:Standards

[anothy]

[on Building Codes]

Yes... ...Building codes are ways for government and unions to assert control over individual builders.

nonesense. the fact that some people did, indeed build safe buildings for a variety of reasons before the widespread adoption of building codes does nothing to change the fact that codes have generally made buildings substantially safer. i've had the benefit of being involved in small-scale construction projects in areas with various degrees of strictness in their codes (or just none at all for the scale we were working on), and i can tell you first hand the codes result in a much safer construction on average.

[on private-owned roads]

Again, yes, like the Dulles Greenway...

having lived in the DC area, this is indeed a tempting example, but one example does not an argument make. as a counter, i would point to the entire US Interstate system - much larger in scope, highly efficient non-toll, and federally defined. the US Route system is a less formal example of much the same thing.

[on Communications Standards]

How long do you think the market would stand two incompatible standards before one of the two started specing in some interoperability?

quite some time, and we've all seen it! GSM vs. CDMA? DVD*? MP3 vs. WMA vs. Real vs. whatever? PPTP vs L2TP? the list goes on. there's plenty of innovation here, but it's all hugely inefficient. AT&T, for all their faults, did an excellent job of offering a unified, consistent, and efficient communications system to their users, and without a tenth the abuse much smaller modern monopolies heap out on people. the result is the PSTN and SS7, which provides a solid framework so that users are assured some minimal interoperability, but other operators still have the ability to innovate. recognition of this is why people like vonage and packet8 are "real", and all the folks who're just doing VoIP without paying attention to the PSTN are toy players.

[on the Civil War - wow]
okay, i totally agree that the parent is off in attributing such importance to the difference in rail gauge... but you're on pretty thin ice yourself.

...the big problem was that Lincoln's government was trying to dictate what the States could and could not do, imposing one set of standards for radically different geographies and economies.

that's a pretty darned one-sided view of things. the South was also pissed that the federal government wouldn't impose the standards they wanted. the north was perfectly happy (as political entities, anyway - not all the people) to have slavery continue in the south, they just didn't want to have to respect it. there was a huge issue around the South's desire to force the North to recognize their individual laws. you could even say that this tension was all caused by the lack of firm, clear standards early on, and that - as is always the case - back-fitting them afterwards caused things to break. but, of course, this was a real war, not a point in an argument, and the real reasons were tremendously more complex than we're going to work out in a slashdot article.

[on the early and current Internet]

...the early internet was controlled by the DoD... ...Even now, one corporation controls DNS

the early internet was a DARPA project, yes, but implemented by a handful of universities. there were mandated standards, yes, but that's exactly the point! these standards allowed interoperability, but were minimal enough to allow for a tremendous amount of innovation (even if much of it does suck - i'm no fan of most Internet tech). and i'm curious which company you think controls DNS. it's a cooperation between a number of companies appointed by an organization (supposedly?) operating in the public trust. verisign's recent stupidity with SiteFinder should show that there's less central control t

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe you are correct.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

splint --ansi --strict foo.c && gcc -ansi -Wall -pedantic foo.c

And AFAIK, Linux treats the windows key as a fourth modifier key, ie shift = MOD1, ctrl = MOD2, alt = MOD3, windows = MOD4 (from memory, I haven't checked)

Re:Standards

[hak1du]

Standards are nice, but it's NO PLACE for government.

Of course, standards are a place for government. The government doesn't need to set every standard, but there are many areas for which the government is the best single body to pick the standard or even to define the standard.

If the government were to decided the standards, we'd all be writing programs in Ada.

Instead, we have millions of programmers writing C++ and MFC code because a completely unaccountable entity that's larger than many governments made that choice. It's a tough choice, and we are picking from the bottom of the barrel here, but frankly, we might actually be better off with Ada.

In other news we would just be getting the standard for 10Base-T later this year [...]

In other news, because Microsoft picked it, we still don't have a decent interoperable object standard--we have been stuck with 1970's technology (COM) until this very day.

and a byte would soon be 37 bits long (becuase it's the only number that doesn't offend lacto-vegitarian-femi-nazi-free-range-chicken-head s) or some other weird thing.

And with corporate-defined standards, companies make stupid choices because they have some stealth patents or other weird interests. Frankly, I'd rather make "lacto-vegitarian-femi-nazi-free-range-chicken-hea ds" happy than pay an extra dime for each music download because Sony decided to use their market position to screw me over even more.

I would be nice to have the government say something like "OK all you companies, decided on a format for word processor documents and stick to it untill the you issue a new standard after that", but for government to decide the standard its self probably wouldn't be good.

That's how almost all government standards get created anyway: by private companies. Or do you think George W. Bush sits down and drafts them up? Even when a standard was "created by" the government, it's usually contracted out.

Re:Standards

[pinkUZI]

True - all things considered, the best thing the government ever did for the internet was recognize the need to privatize and get their hands off. Not that something great didn't stem from their efforts, but the internet is one of those things that falls in to a category that should not be a function of government.

When it comes to Microsoft - I think we've all got a love/hate relationship with them of sorts. I try to keep in mind that Microsoft is under constant attack as well. Sometimes I wonder if people just hate them because they win more, but companies like IBM and Novell are no angels. Take a look at all the comments and discussion on this thread and replace the word Microsoft with IBM everywhere it appears. I think that very well may have been the discussion at hand if IBM had not let Gates have software rights. Let's face it - it isn't that the individuals at IBM are more righteous than those at Microsoft - it's that Microsoft gives individuals more power that caters to their sinful nature because of it's market position, so that sometimes Microsoft needs to be reminded of what is unfair.

Re:Standards

[wtrmute]

Just put "-ansi -std=c89 -pedantic-errors" into your CFLAGS variable and then chew the developer team whose code doesn't compile. Send them a list of the errors; most teams will be glad to fix them if they're aware of what they are.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget about standards. If it weren't for Microsoft, we'd still be staring at low res green text screens all day and editing text in vi. Strangely enough Linux and Unix people still prefer to do this today for some reason. They hate GUI, because it's so childish and "Microsoft". And they want to dominate the desktop????

Re:Standards

[plugger]

I guess that would work in a place with plenty of free space. I'm in the UK, and space is pretty tight. We need building codes to make sure our neighbours don't block all the light from our houses with their new garage, or cause our house prices to fall by erecting a rickety shack at the end of the street.

Re:Standards

[Chauncy]

Actually, it goes more like:

-std=c99 -W -Wall -ansi -pedantic -Wbad-function-cast -Wcast-align -Wcast-qual -Wchar-subscripts -Winline -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested-externs -Wpointer-arith -Wredundant-decls -Wshadow -Wstrict-prototypes -Wwrite-strings

A common mistake is using just '-Wall' and thinking that turns all these on, it doesn't.

That'll be five dollars please.

Re:Standards

[Doc Squidly]

they are not able to innovate anything

You are correct but, Microsoft's strength hasn't come from innovation rather they taking what someone else has created and make it there's.

Makes good business sence. No need to create something new that might not catch on, when can just hop on the bandwagon and own it.

Re:Standards

[42forty-two42]

FILE *
concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
{
char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1]; ...
}

This is actually legal in C99, though the others aren't.

Re:Standards

[Chauncy]

blah, i mistakenly put -ansi in there.

ANSI C is dead, long live ISO C

Re:Standards

[nattt]

Standards are only worth anything if they're open standards. If I can't open an MS Word doc in a foreign application because they keep the "standard" proprietary, then that's not a "standard" at work, but a competition crushing monopoly!

Re:Standards

[evil_one666]

As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards"

must resist urge to flame.... must resssissssst.... ...move hands away from keyboard... take deeeeeep breaths....

The market dominance however, has shown us the benefit of having "standard" file types such as .doc that just about everybody in certain industries uses exclusively

resistance fading... cant hold out much longer... cant stay quiet in the face of such insanity... must... leave... slashdot...

Re:Standards

[dpilot]

Darn. My modpoints expired today. Oh well, maybe my response will help others read your post, and get it some modpoints.

Re:Standards

[dpilot]

Forget building codes. Problems like you mention are what Neighborhood Thermonuclear Weapons were made for.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...

FILE *
concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
{
char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1];
...
}

That is C, specifically the latest standard (C99) has a section (6.7.5.2 Array declarators) that discusses this. Bottom line is that it is part of the standard, even if you do not know it or some oher compiler does not support it.

Re:Standards

[dpilot]

But last I knew, ftp and smtp worked on DOS, Windows, OS/2, Linux, Unix, and who knows what else, without a pile of kludges for backward compatibility.

Standards should be as clear and simple as possible. (and no simpler, though you can never get too much clarity in a standard) Part of the problem happens when things may not have been intended to be a Standard, but became so though wide usage. Another part happens when 'clear and simple' are not only not followed, but are deliberately avoided in order to establish a 'proprietary standard'.

Re:Standards

[gbjbaanb]

but there comes a time ....

and I think that point came ages ago. but who gets to say when you may drop that support? yup, the Bosses - and they dont have the pain of making it work, do they.

Its a bit like if your mum patched your jeans, you wouldn't ever think how hard it was to patch them, just that they were there.

If Tridgell wants to drop support for Win95/Win3.1 from Samba, then he should do it. and live with the complaints from the people who still want the backwards compatibility.

Re:Standards

[happyEverGeek]

I work in banking, too. Please note that you need only look as far as the savings and loan industry (12 years ago) to see what happens when the government is not sufficiently involved (and oh, yeah - ENRON and WorldCom). If you really think GLB is just about sending a privacy notice to your customers once a year, you should look here to see the other ways the government wants you to protect your customers' assets.

I personally have a lot of faith in the people around me, and in the people at the top of my institution. But even when good prople are working hard for safety and privacy, profit motive and merely the need to survive is a strong force in the opposite direction. The support of laws like GLB is appreciated by those in the intustry who want to be sure they do their jobs right.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think it would be better or worse for communications if ATT and Verizon each designed and developed phone technology independently of each other, meaning interoperation didn't happen?

AT&T had TDMA, Verizon has CDMA. The two networks do not interoperate without a phone that can transmit on both.

Re:Standards

[Glonoinha]

The US government loses money as a drug dealer. The most profitable 'job' on the planet is dealing drugs and the US government is losing money doing it. That pretty much sums it up.

I love my country, would happily kill in all sorts of violent manner any foreigners that try to harm my country - but that doesn't make the current (or any recent) administration angels. They are a hell of a lot less corrupt than other country governments but they are still a corrupt bunch of thieving losers.

And part of the reason tracks had to be relayed in the South is that the North Army pulled up rails, heated them on a fire and twisted them around trees - in effect destroying the South's ability to travel. Good tactic (it worked) but afterwards it sort-of needed to be fixed.

If I was going to trust all of this computer standards stuff to anybody it would be either PARC, IBM, or a combination of the two. PARC did a pretty good job, who funded them, Xerox?

Re:Standards

[b-baggins]

That's what homeowners associations are for.

I am always amazed at how eagerly people are willing to give their freedoms up to a government.

You really need to read the Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. Pay particular attention to the graduation speech given by Screwtape in the appendix.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, that C code is perfectly valid.

And every compiler has extensions. g++ lets you disable any options that aren't standard, and never promotes them as the best way, unlike others I could mention.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

You are insane. Microsoft take standards, as set by designated standards bodies and then *change* them willy-nilly.

Take your stupid example of ".doc":

a.) Its not a standard. Its made-up by Microsoft.
b.) Its not a benefit, its a bane.
c.) Its not a standard. Its made-up by Microsoft.

ASCII is a standard. ANSI is a standard.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Re:Standards

[mkoenecke]

Re: "It was a part, but a very small part. The bigger issue was the fact that the Federal government was trying to impose its standards on the southern States, leading to the seccession of South Carolina. Train track guages was a small factor - the big problem was that Lincoln's government was trying to dictate what the States could and could not do, imposing one set of standards for radically different geographies and economies."

You do know that South Carolina seceded in response to Lincoln's election, before he was even sworn in, right?

Lincoln made a big point in his speeches of not wanting to (or claiming to be able to) interfere with the South, BUT was firmly opposed to expansion of slave states at all. The South saw that, as the United States continued to expand, its influence would continue to wane since no new slave states would be added under a Republican administration.

Re:Standards

[Glonoinha]

-The Brain: The single most powerful computer that I will never be able to upgrade.

You can't upgrade it but you can overclock it.

Re:Standards

[mkoenecke]

The original judge (Pickering) was a Reagan appointee. Amazing, isn't it, that if he'd just kept his trap shut in talking to the press that the order to break up Microsoft would have been upheld!

Re:Standards

[mknewman]

Now you know why Sun has been reluctant to release the Java specs to PD, as I would expect IBM to run all over Sun (ne: Netscape) and HP and Weblogic, all who want their Enterprise Server to become the standard. IBM is expected to win the battle, so Sun doesn't release the standards. In the end this is bad because it keeps chipping away at the portability of Java, and in the end you will have very different languages and programming environments.

Re:Standards

[dedalus2000]

The prosecutor's fall under the DOJ the DOJ is under the executive branch the slap on the wrist compromise was a result of backpedaling under the control of the president.

Re:Standards

[pboulang]

Is this a rally against capitalism?

If the people that are being milked had no other options, then yeah, I might be able to see your point. However, it is the high demand that drives the prices, not some guy with a price gun. Don't you think that maybe if there ceased to be a demand and vacancies went up, then the prices would drop?

Sounds to me like you are simply bitter that you can't afford to live in a hip place. Be that as it may, I think you need to re-evaluate who/what you are railing against.

Re:Standards

[OneEyedApe]

From what I have read, Common Lisp was originally specified by Guy Steele, in the first and second editions of Common LISP: The Language. This has now been superseded by an ANSI Standard.

Re:Standards

[strapon]

What did Neo find in the toilet? .... .... ....
A core dump!

Re:Standards

[palutke]

Do you think that if Microsoft was in control of the early HTML specifications, or even TCP/IP for that matter, that we'd have the ubiquitious internet now?

We'd be even worse off if the US Federal Government was in control of those standards. If the feds were dictating things like that, the internet would quickly be devolved into uselessness. Have you ever used any software developed by the feds, or written to their specifications? Horrible!

Re:Standards

[FlyGirl]

The bigger issue was the fact that the Federal government was trying to impose its standards on the southern States, leading to the seccession of South Carolina... the big problem was that Lincoln's government was trying to dictate what the States could and could not do, imposing one set of standards for radically different geographies and economies.

Completely off the main topic, I know. But I am always happy when SOMEONE sees that issue in the Civil War and the damage that Lincoln did.

Sure, he ended up freeing the slaves, but that was not his goal. His goal was essentially to control what the states could and could not do from Washington, DC.

Since then states have had less and less independence and, therefore, the main ruling government has been further and further away from the people it is supposed to serve.

Re:Standards

[Pig Hogger]

Standards are always a good thing for consumers. They can, however, give businesses trouble

Consumers vote.
Businesses don't.

Re:Standards

[davidstrauss]

Why can't M$ just supply a win9x emulator like the OS9 emulator for osX? Yeah it sucks, but eventually the old stuff phases out and the potential for properly working new stuff grows tremendously. C'mon, how many times a year do you pull out some old DOS version of WordPerfect(I still have mine) and try to run it?

They do. It's called "Windows on Windows." You'll see it as wow.exe when you run old binaries.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was going to trust all of this computer standards stuff to anybody it would be either PARC, IBM, or a combination of the two. PARC did a pretty good job, who funded them, Xerox?

Xerox PARC == Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. So name cause it was in Palo Alto, Ca :) It was originally founded in the early seventies but was recently(cant recall when but had to have been a few years ago... maybe 1999) as a seperate company. Oddly I was just in a job interview for Xerox Nywelyn Garden City in the UK and was talking about PARC to the guy. PARC probably isnt nearly as influential as it was as it was mostly split into different research centres(again according to the guy)

On another note... perhaps IBM could do it. I wouldnt hand it to a single company tho... the creation of standard tend to be dynamic, chaotic and disorganised. But to be honest I cant see a better way... generally things work themselve out one way or the other with standards tho :)

Re:Standards

[ChrisMaple]

Homeowner associations can be good, but they cause their own problems. Some are essentially micro-tyrannies, where, for instance, you are forbidden to use any but one lawn care service, or make your house look nicer than your neighbor's.

Re:Standards

[Lars T.]

Instead we have two guys botching together a programming language, and over 20 years of many thousands of people trying to form that "standard" into something remotely making sense. Unsigned Char my ass.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to Europe and see how many buildings that are hundreds or thousands of years old are still standing, many unmaintained for the last 200+ years.

Re:Standards

[essreenim]

That's not so.
Variety is the spice of life. It's better to have loads of different models - they still become interoperable in the end anyway i.e. Samba etc.
i don't understand this idea of making everything generic for lazy way out. Keep the options/choices open.

Booooo

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think so. Prior to Windows95 standards were off the wall. Microsoft has given us directx and plug n play. Prior to that installing a video card, sound card, hard drive was a nightmare. Setting IRQ's and IO values in games? Remember that shit? I do. A lot of the ways Linux does things were stolen by looking at the microsoft/3rd party drivers. You can't deny otherwise. Without MS in place and where it is today Linux would've never evolved.

Re:Standards

[palutke]

Instead, we have millions of programmers writing C++ and MFC code because a completely unaccountable entity that's larger than many governments made that choice. It's a tough choice, and we are picking from the bottom of the barrel here, but frankly, we might actually be better off with Ada.

No, we have millions of programmers writing C++ and MFC code because they made that choice. Nobody is compelling them to, and they could have chosen Ada if they were so inclined.

That's how almost all government standards get created anyway: by private companies. Or do you think George W. Bush sits down and drafts them up? Even when a standard was "created by" the government, it's usually contracted out.

They may be created by contractors, but they're enforced by an army of bureaucrats. Government standards enforcement becomes expensive and ineffective.

Re:Standards

[ChrisMaple]

So, the best way to get solid housing is to spend money on quality construction and pay enough attention to not being cheated. Or build it yourself.

Codes don't stop Californians from building in temporarily dry riverbeds or on top of sheer cliffs of mud.

Re:Standards

[4of12]

IBM, the original scary tech monopoly, showed us the benefit of standards (abliet mostly hardware standards).

Maybe for computers.

I would have thought it was AT&T.

There was a great line in some movie that came out a few decades back, something like

"Don't mess with the phone company! They'll send the phone police after you and then you'll really be in trouble!"

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a hell of a lot less corrupt than other country governments but they are still a corrupt bunch of thieving losers.

I hope that by "other" you are referring to "some" countries and not "all" countries. There are many countries with less corrupt politicians (or at least the public is not aware of this)

Re:Standards

[tkr]

Standards are nice, but it's NO PLACE for government.

It's NO PLACE for a government in thrall to corporate interests, that is.

On the other hand, consensus standards are good, and democratic government could be a way to express consensus, so long as it is open and honest.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

100% Bullshit. Open standards were the rage in late 80's early 90's when MSFT was a 2-bit company. MSFT copied the standards - remember the Gates quote that "NT is Unix" - and otherwise has sought to produce the sorriest quality version of any standard. Consider ActiveDirectory (X.500(LDAP) is some hackers hierarchical db before rdbms's were mainstream/had security features) but MSFT did not even implement LDAP in a compatible, standard way. No to say MSFT has in any positive way contributed to cooperation and standards is a sure sign of ignorace.

Thinking MSFT has positively contributed to techological advance is like defining differences in Republicans and Democrats because you can make some artificial points to support the argument but there's no underlying truth. A government built on spending will eventually self destroy and a company built on giving away cheap knockoffs has all but destroyed the software industry.

Re:Standards

[bonch]

The reason this article was posted was so that Slashdotters could cry out about how Linux would be everywhere if Microsoft wasn't around. Sorry, it would all be OS/2 or, possibly more likely, an Apple-dominated world. Linux would be the same level it's at now.

Re:Standards

[SatanicPuppy]

The executive branch is tasked with enforcing the law. The fact that the microsoft rulings have not been enforced is directly related to the president, which is why, even though they were found guilty, nothing has happened.

Re:Standards

[TykeClone]

First, I have no problem with banks being regulated - I have no desire to ever see a run on banks like the great depression. Safety and soundness should be the goal of all regulations.

Our motto is "Whatever is seen here or heard here stays here" and we've lived by that for 80 years.

GLB was prompted by a "bad actor" bank in Minnesota that thought that they'd make some extra money by selling information that they had no business selling. Those guys should have been strung up.

Because of the bad actions of a small number of banks, all of us need to generate extra paperwork for the customers, and need to keep track of it. You send out privacy notices once per year to your entire customer base - what percentage of them do you think actually read that? What good does it actually do?

Re:Standards

[colinferm]

It was a government project, sure, but the only thing the government specified was the *ends* not the *means*. If the government had tried to define all the protocols I doubt it would have worked. It's like all defense department contracting. They tell the contractor they want their jet to take of and land vertically and to go so fast with so many weapons and it's up to the contractor to figure out how it gets done.

Re:Standards

[EtherMonkey]

Do you think it would be better or worse for communications if ATT and Verizon each designed and developed phone technology independently of each other, meaning interoperation didn't happen?

But they already have: Cellular telephone service.

"Can you hear m... [call dropped]"

Re:Standards

[!Freeky2BGeeky]

If MS designed buildings: 30% of the time, you put your key in the front door and the whole house collapses, causing you to rebuild.

Re:Standards

[AshtangiMan]

Consumers vote. Businesses don't.

Interesting idea.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

*&(int)f = 1;

That is C (weird, but legal).

FILE *
concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
{
char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1];
...
}

That is ISO 1999 C, but ANSI C.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever wonder why a 7.0 earthquake kills 10,000 in Iran, 1,000 in Turkey, but nobody dies in a 7.0 earthquake in California?

Building standards, and, more importantly, enforcement of those standards.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cyberdog" never got out of Beta, so I wouldn't say that it "shipped". The betas were very slow and buggy, so nobody would say that it was "nice" -- even though it had a few cool features.

Re:Standards

[fsbilly]

Actually, it is common practice for real estate people to set the prices too high. If no one takes the property, there is money to be made at tax time for the incurred "loss"

My mom does it all the time.

Re:Standards

[gratefully dead]

Consumers vote.
Businesses don't.

This makes sense when you are talking about an ideal, efficient market. However, the monopoly that Microsoft has is anything but efficient. For example, consumers buy Microsoft Word because it is the only way to reliably read the current standard doc format. This is only because Microsoft used underhanded tactics to make their format hard to understand.

It would be much more ideal if somehow Microsoft was forced by the government to use an open standard document format. If you use something like XML for the format, then it is EXTENSIBLE, and nobody can make the argument that it stifles innovation.

The benefit to the software industry and US economy would be tremendous.

Re:Standards

[nelsonal]

The root cause of the S&L bankruptcies was S&L's making uneconomic loans to developers who were after the old limited partnership real estate tax deductions. Once the tax deductions were reomoved (years before) real estate prices crashed and the S&Ls that had only real estate loans followed suit. So the whole thing was caused by poor tax code and then changes to that poor tax code.
Not that regulation isn't neccessary just that the best method to regulate is to have it done by those with a financial interest in the outcome. In an ideal world the owners of Enron would have hired their own audit team to comb through management's financials looking for fudging. However since auditing has positive externalities that are difficult to enforce (if Vangard performs audits Fidelity could benefit from the results without paying their share of the costs) we toss the whole thing to governments who make rules that change the incentive set for managment and auditors (never to quite what the owners would have but closer) and hope for the best.
Ideally consumers would be in a position to negotiate with their financial institution regarding privacy disclosures, but since it is still too costly we use laws like GLB to reduce those costs of individually negotiatin what privacy disclosures are acceptible and what are not.
Standards are a very valuble thing for all invovled just look at the PC industry and internet (an older example is fasteners, nuts and bolts) as examples of how a standard can be very very useful. However it makes it very difficult to compete (since all the products meet the standard. Because of this value owning the rights to a standard is highly sought look at IBM, Visa, Microsoft, and Rambus' attempts just a few top of my head examples of companies or organizaitons that have profited from their control of a standard.
The balancing point lies in giving companies an incentive to work together for standards based solutions while preserving some rewards for developing a standard (and eventually passing it on to an open group). Imagine either of two senarios we still paid US Steel (or anther company) per SAE bolt wrench or socket produced or we had 50 slightly different patterns for fasteners. Neither solution is ideal the balance comes from giving the originator of a standard a decent return for their innovation with the tremendous gains from having an open standard.

Re:Standards

[out180]

It's just like what Richard Clarke said in the 9/11 hearings on Wednesday. It's not a question of morality at all. It's a question of politics." I believe this statement sums up most, if not all of the problems the feds introduce.

Re:Standards

[nelsonal]

I think it's the mindset that draws someone to programming. It's a worldview that looks at the world trying to connect patterns rather than seeing specific instances. Most of the mindset does very well in the sciences because to that mind set all pythagorean theorum problems are applications of a consistant pattern rather than individual equations to be solved (which is how other mindsets view math and science). As a result they tend to think about things like standards and look for other cases in which standards apply. It's one of the reasons that they love to learn as once a pattern is learned all future problems are just an application of the pattern rather than new patterns to be learned.

Re:Standards

[Fjord]

*&(int)f = 1;

That's not C? I thought *value is an lvalue, and lvalues could be to the left of an assignment. I knwo the C compiler I wrote in 93 would allow that. You should be able to go *(int*)0x0 = 1; to generate a fault. If tehre is some explicit rule that the value in the lvalue could not be from a dereference, I've never heard of it.

Re:Standards

[cellocgw]

>>Standards are always a good thing for consumers. They can, however, give businesses trouble
>Consumers vote.
Businesses don't.

Businesses don't have to. They have things called lobbyists. And after all, businesses are run by people called CEOs (or the like). And they are the ones who give politicians million-dollar fundraising dinners.
Plain vanilla voters don't stand a chance.

Re:Standards

[IvoryRing]

I should re-read Screwtape, as it is a lovely bit of craft at several levels.

I agree with you that people are generaly far too willing to give up their freedom (or someone else's freedom).

Unfortunately, my observation of homeowner's associations is that they exhibit all the worst traits of democracy, melded with the worst kinds of 'cliques'. Perhaps that hasn't been your experience. Many times a community can come together and do some things that individuals can't do on their own. Unfortunately, that same community can often be quite oppresive to those people that elect to stay within it for whatever (valid or not) reason.

The solution of course is StarTrek teleporters, so I can live in the middle of nowhere without being cut off from society (and/or spending even MORE time commuting than I already do).

Re:Standards

[Endive4Ever]

If 'pedantic' behavior were the default and not the exception, people who don't know better would likely be writing better code for GCC. As it stands, that's an 'extend and embrace' feature that encourages sloppy code that will build only with GCC.

It's been discussed at great length in the past.

Re:Standards

[anactofgod]

You are SO right! The government shouldn't set standards under which businesses need to operate. They aren't good at it, and it's never in the public interest. They don't do it for medical devices and drugs. They don't do it for the automotive industry. They don't do it for the petroleum industry. They don't do it for food industry. They don't do it for the building industry. Name any industry, and you'll see that its one free of government-defined standards.

In fact, whenever the governmental know-nothing-types try to impose some sort of crazy standards scheme on Business, it has always been an abject failure and has always turned out to be detrimental to the public interest. Heck, we ALL recognize that we can trust that in every other industry, Business always acts in the public interest, and never makes decisions merely to generate short-term profits, so why should we allow the government to impose regulations on the computer industry?

It just doesn't make any sense! Laissez-faire is the only way, baby!

With that out of the way, to address the only concrete example you provided of a government-defined computing "standard", Ada is not just a standard. It is a *language*, developed to fulfill specific requirements, for the DoD, and it does that well. Has it lived up to all of the expectations? No, but what technology ever has?

Now, you're probably itching to answer that the DoD action of developing Ada by definition makes it a standard. Well, you'd be right, there. It is *a* standard, just not *the* standard. I do alot of consulting of the DoD, and there are many, many projects utilizing languages other than Ada that are ongoing. It was never intended to be a single solution for the entire computer industry, let alone the entire Federal government.

I only mentioned these things since you appear to be prostelitizing about something about which you know little.

---anactofgod---

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, but businesses can pressure parties to form policies, and parties can get elected and enact them... just look at the republican party in america!

Re:Standards

[DjMd]

But what if you live here... City of Cleveland Heights .... the East Side's "Nuclear-Free Zone"

The city signs actually reads:
Cleveland Heights
A Nuclear-Free Zone

There goes my unlicensed nuclear reactor....

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

The radioactive boy scout

Re:Standards

[Coffeesloth]

Or on a more worldwide scale you forgot the London Bridge. I've seen pictures of the buildings on the old London Bridge, if there had been building codes then perhaps the fire there never would have occured.

Oh, and a lot of those homes built on beaches, cliffs, floodplains, etc...were built to standards, so the existence or lack of standards doesn't guarantee a thing. People will be people and will make bad decisions.

Purely in the interest of standards, I for one am glad there are building codes so I can be sure of the wiring and plumbing of my house being built...

Re:Standards

[AlienRelics]

Benefit of standards?? Until Open Office could crack their proprietary "standards", the only way to open MS's files were to buy MS Office. That's not a "standard", that is a proprietary format. It doesn't even guarantee opening the same on another version of MS Office, sometimes it looks different even opened in the same version of MS Office on another computer.

There are plenty of true standard file formats out there. Do you understand that MS's newsspeak "embrace and extend" means "make proprietary"?

Standards... you keep on using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Re:Standards

[dgatwood]

I always had a feeling of glee every time I used a microwave oven in Santa Cruz, a similarly declared "Nuclear-Free Zone". :-)

Re:Standards

[BWJones]

You did not read my post very carefully. Reread it and you will see that we are not very far apart in our opinions.

-BWJones

Re:Standards

[Frizzle Fry]

Not if you compile with the -nosquadron flag.

Re:Standards

[Tantrum420]

>As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards".

Microsoft!?

I'm sorry, I must've forgotten.... What was IEEE for again?

T

Re:Standards

[hak1du]

No, we have millions of programmers writing C++ and MFC code because they made that choice. Nobody is compelling them to, and they could have chosen Ada if they were so inclined.

I suppose if someone holds a gun to your head and asks for your money, nobody is "compelling you" to hand over your money either--after all, you have a free choice--you can choose a bullet through your head.

In reality, Microsoft has forced Microsoft's preference of language and toolkit on developers far more effectively than any government standard could. Their "bullet" is that if you don't follow their preferences, you will be later to market and your software won't integrate as well with their software. And it's not even because Microsoft is evil that they do this, it's because it's just the simpler thing for them to do. But stop whining and pretending that when Microsoft makes choice on your behalf it's somehow better than if the government does--at least with the government, you get to vote.

They may be created by contractors, but they're enforced by an army of bureaucrats. Government standards enforcement becomes expensive and ineffective.

Nonsense. Most government standards are not enforced in private transactions. Generally, governments (in particular, the US government) tells you what standards to follow when you do business with them. Since they are the largest business in the nation, when they set a standard for themselves, private enterprises usually follow.

And in some cases, the failure of the US government to go further is known to have really hurt people: the US cell phone system is primitive compared to what you can get in other nations, for example. At least the government forced a common television standard on everybody, otherwise you would probably only be able to watch ABC channels on ABC televisions (or, more likely, Gates channels on Gates televisions).

Re:Standards

[dup_account]

I know I'm not supposed to say this... But, dude... you are a moron.

Re:Standards

[jcr]

Well, same to you, you socialist prat.

Now then, would you care to actually address any of the points I've made?

I want safety inspections to be carried out by people who actually have something to *lose* if they're wrong.

Relying on government for safety is simply irresponsible.

-jcr

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1];

Valid ISO-C.

Re:Standards

[Zasten]

Isn't that because the crappy ones have all fallen down so, of course, only the good ones remain?

Re:Standards

[mackstann]

Super_L is an X11-ism, not really a linux issue. I doubt it's in any standard anywhere, but my windows keys are always made Super modifiers by XFree86. I imagine it totally depends on the keyboard layout that you tell XFree to use.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Look! Look at this!

*&(int)f = 1;

Is that C? I don't fucking think so.

Neither do I. Neither, for that matter, does gcc 3.2.3. It says "invalid lvalue in unary `&'" and refuses to produce a binary.

Re:Standards

[portnoy]

You do know that South Carolina seceded in response to Lincoln's election, before he was even sworn in, right?

Which shouldn't be that surprising, since Lincoln wasn't even on the election ballot in most of the southern states. As far as the South was concerned, Lincoln only won by courting the votes of a handful of the larger states with more electoral votes, despite getting less than half of the popular vote. Sound familiar? :-)

(Actually, I believe all the southern states had seceded before Lincoln's inauguration.)

Re:Standards

[Laetor]

Unlikely. Horses are built very differently depending on latitude, breed, use, feeding and other genetic and environmental factors. In an era where tools and materials had no industrial manufacturing or standards, and artisans created their own tools to build with themselves for the most part, it is highly unlikely that two chariots even built by two artisans living next door to each other would come within 10% of the same range of sizes, especially taking into consideration the different horses and uses to which chariots could be put. A wagon to haul materials would require horses and dimensions of a radically different size than a war chariot using fast, sprinter breeds. Plus, wheel ruts do not stay in roads. With the first spring rains or winter freezes and thaws roads are completely torn asunder and reformed. The wheel ruts would never have dictated wagon wheel distances, espeically over the course of hundreds of years and varying manufacturing methods.

Re:Standards

[ahodgson]

I just hope they remembered to tell the Russians. And Chinese. And North Koreans.

Re:Standards

[mjmalone]

Your analysis of the situation in this case is incorrect... I'm not quite sure where you got your information, but I can assure you that building standards are very important when it comes to failure investigations the outcome of most civil cases is based on whether the builder took a rational approach to interpreting the standards set forth and the building met all per se requirements for the structure.

In fact, the investigation of structural failures and the subsequent litigation is big business in the US, and in most cases equity is restored. My dad is a forensic engineer and has worked for the two major firms in the industry Exponent and forensic technologies, incorporated. He recently incorporated his own company, doing the same thing, and I can assure you that there is no shortage of clientelle.

I have heard stories of insurance companies or corporations found guilty of not meeting standards writing settlement checks of hundreds of thousands of dollars each to members of class action lawsuits involving hundreds of people (tens of millions of dollars in total). Not to mention the typical forensic engineer charges in the somwhere between $250 and $700/hour for his time and several experts are generally required on each side of a case, all of this is separate from the insane legal fees.

In any case, standards are typically met because construction companies realize the potential losses that can occur if they are not.

Re:Standards

[luwain]

Actually, the government can ALWAYS screw things up worse than they are now.

Re:Standards

[Endive4Ever]

I remember installing MacOS 8 and CyberDog being part of the distribution. I remember installing and running it. It was pretty nice. It wasn't buggy, and I didn't feel it was slow on my 7300.

Re:Standards

[drsmithy]

Just a few posts in, and we are down analogy alley. What is it about programmers that makes them draw on analogies at every opportunity? This is not a critisism, I'd realy like to know.

Probably because they're trying to explain something that requires a not-insignificant amount of existing knowledge to even start to understand. It's hardly limited to programmers - pretty much anyone trying to explain something requiring specialised skills will have to use analogies to "everyday things".

Re:Standards

[drsmithy]

The US government loses money as a drug dealer. The most profitable 'job' on the planet is dealing drugs and the US government is losing money doing it. That pretty much sums it up.

I would propose to you that prostitution is a vastly more profitable enterprise.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

> Not to discredit Tidgell or Samba, which I've used for close to 8 years now, but he's the one who chooses to reverse-engineer from the outside.

? You mean all the documentation needed by the Samba team is freely available, including the implementation details that make such interoperation possible? Wow, you'd think Microsoft had been keeping all that stuff secret or something.

Re:Standards

[stephanruby]

I only brought up those two examples because out of all the examples that were cited, they were the only two that I really knew about. May be someone from Chicago or from the other cities mentioned can talk about those as well.

And as to Turkey and Iran, they're both cheap examples to begin with. Nowhere there is more government regulations than Turkey and Iran. You can blame the death toll on lack of building regulations, I can blame it on buildings made of stone, lack of wealth to build anything else, and an overly oppressive government in each country. In the end, who would be right? I don't know. In any case, I'm pretty sure you know very little about building regulations in Turkey or Iran.

Re:Standards

[Angry Pixie]

Unfortunately certain businesses do not follow logical rules of economics. In real estate, you never worry about setting a price too high that *no one* will buy the property. There will always be someone. Of course, selling at a rate much higher than the true market value of property still doesn't have to imply an astonomical amount. Take for instance the Kelly blue book value for a car. It's a pretty fair assessment of the value of a car, but when we look at real estate, especially with developed properties, we find that one can still be charged four digits for a place with 1950s era improvements and little more. Back to selling at too a high price to find customers, this behavior is actually encouraged. Setting prices higher than market value make it possible for the real estate business to engage in exclusionary practices. You can keep a pretty large group of undesirables out of your property if you use price as a barrier.

Re:Standards

[Bob Davis, Retired]

The stupid few.

More like the greedy millions. Banking is about the most corrupt industry around aside from insurance and military contracting.

Re:Standards

[Angry Pixie]

Sounds to me like you are simply bitter that you can't afford to live in a hip place.
Nope. That can't be it. I can afford, and do live in, a hip place.

it is the high demand that drives the prices
Not in every case. The whole supply-dmand curve is not as simplistic as Economics 101 makes it out to be. Prices are influenced through mechanisms other than demand. For example, there are taxes and tariffs. There is also non-competitive behavior. Take for example natural monopolies such as what we call, utilities. The price for electricity at the local coop or for water and garbage is rarely based on demand. Consider sin taxes for products such as cigarettes, liquor, or porn. Following your logic about it being the high demand that drives the prices, the price for these products should have declined significantly in relation to demand; and yet this is not the case.

Is this a rally against capitalism? No, it isn't, nor is it a comment about capitalism. Price fixing exist independent of economic models. You'll find price fixing in planned economies just as easily as you would in capitalist economies.

Of course, we can always fall back on simple defenses like "people have options." This is fine in arguments about software giants setting prices above the market value, but it doesn't work when it comes to certain basic needs like housing and healthcare.

I think you need to re-evaluate who/what you are railing against.
Yeah, okay.

Re:Standards

[plugger]

That sounds like my fantasy home. A castle or tower somewhere in the Scottish Highlands with a helicopter and pilot on 24 hour call.

Re:Standards

[Sri Lumpa]

"blah, i mistakenly put -ansi in there."

Then I want my $5 back.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

-ansi -Wall, now go and stand in the corner!

Re:Standards

[NDPTAL85]

You think real estate agents are the cause of high home prices? Did it ever occur to you that it is because of supply and demand? More people want to live in NYC than in any other city, THATS why its the most expensive. Its already the largest city in the US.

You don't WANT to live in a city where rents are cheap. That means a bunch of poor folk live there and thus the crime will be way way higher than you'd like.

Re:Standards

[Angry Pixie]

I thought I made it clear that there's more to the curve than just supply and demand. NYC isn't the only expensive city to live in, and it's a bit of a myth that small towns are cheap. There are small towns all over the mid-west and south with tax bases equal to that of the major cities, and where prices are just as high. I'm not talking about rich places like Aspen or Pinehurst. I never said that real estate agents are the sole cause of high home prices. Of course the demand has something to do with it; but minus demand realtors (not agents) and developers can influence prices above market price through the use of monopolistic and cartel-like behavior.

You said that a bunch of poor folk live in the city and that crime is way higher. This isn't always case either.

Re:Standards

[ACPosterChild]

Yes. Before building codes, people built buildings that stood and worked properly because if they didn't, they might die. New materials meant innovations meant new ways of building buildings - all without building codes.

Ya, but guess what? There are plenty of people that will happily turn a profit and not give a crap if other people die. I'm sure they make sure their houses are built well.

Look it up - the early internet was controlled by the DoD under the DARPA program, one government agency dictating the standards, protocols, even the people who could connect.

So, do you like standards or not!?

Re:Standards

[hedge_death_shootout]

I was taking 'too high' to mean higher than people will be prepared to pay for it.
If somebody pays for something, it implies that the price isnt 'too high'.

I'm not sure, but you seem to think 'too high' means 'higher than I think it ought to be sold for'. I dont agree with that definition, because it's too subjective.

Re:Standards

[Angry Pixie]

I was taking about the more objective connotation of "too high" that you mentioned. I know I pay a premium for the goods and services I purchase because of my location. When I talk about real estate cartels fixing prices, I am talking about prices that are above the market price. Anyone who comments should already know that market price is variable. Slashdotters already understand what a monopoly is and how roughly how it affects the market, but my guess is that many don't understand what an oligopoly is and how it affects the market more. So far the responses have indicated that some Slashdotters think that the real estate market is in perfect equilibrium and unaffected by cartels. Perhaps they'll further to argue that business cartels in anything other than the computer industry is a myth... like dry land.

But I'd agree with you, "higher than I think it ought to be sold for" is subjective, just like the one comment about me railing against capitalism is also subjective.

Re:Standards

[Warlok]

So, do you like standards or not!?

Depends on the standard and where it originates from. Industry standards, brought about by market needs, competitive designs, and free association and agreement between parties - no problems there. MP3 v. WMA, DVD*, etc - all are standards based on the market and what it will bear. How long did DIVX hang around?

Building codes and other standards imposed and enforced by government I don't agree with, as they leave no room for innovation and assume that I have no say in the risks I choose to take by not following the standard.

As for standards that cross the line, look at how much more has been done with them since they were turned over to private control (like TCP/IP), or how stagnant they became when they were controlled by one and only one entity with the capability to enforce them (like AT&T before the breakup).

the real problem is...

[Zorak Man]

All the wrath of the open source community could be focused right on Mr. McBride.

If Windows were to diappear

[Ralph JH Nader]

Apple would see a rather large market for all the inexpensive x86 machines and would likely port a version of OS X to run. Given the commercial applications available already for OS X and a big name such as Apple, they could step in and dominate the industry in a rather short time.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

That myriad of x86 software out there wouldn't run because they require the Win32 API

Apple is NEVER switching to x86. There is NO POINT.

And how the hell is Apple going to dominate a market that Dell already owns (x86 hardware)?

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[nacturation]

The inexpensive x86 machines out there all run Windows. Would people have bought them if there were no OS to run on them? Odds are likely that Apple would be the already dominant force in the home, similar to how they were in the Apple ][ days.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's referring to Apple applications written in C which could be ported over without great difficulty. He just means that there's a large about of x86 machines which would be waiting to have the market tapped.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the applications would not all just run on Mac OS X x86 flawlessly, Apple would need to provide some sort of emulation, as they are all compiled for the PowerPC.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[clifyt]

Why?

Apple is based on having decent and predictable hardware to run the OS.

OS X is great software -- I'm using it right now, but unless you are using the hardware along side it, its not the same. One of the problems with Windows is that there is WAY too much hardware to support relyably...thats not totally their fault either. The fact that you want to encourage folks to make hardware for your platform means that you have to make the code easy to program against -- which means you have folks vastly unqualified to write driver software writting it.

Apple raises the bar and makes it a bitch to program some drivers for this very reason. That probably means that having a dozen types of motherboards with different integrated parts would not work as relyably...or if Apple kept their standards - not at all. Witness every so often when they patch their systems to remove specific pieces of hardware that is known to be buggy -- I've been told some updates were there to simply KILL some hardware so that it wouldn't make the machine unstable. There was substandard RAM that was sold for a while on the G4s and Apple put out a patch that disabled all of this from being used and they pissed off a LOT of folks -- but Apple needed to do this to keep their standards up (otherwise folks were bitching about stability issues that had nothing to do with the OS or Apple branded hardware).

So would they move over to inexpensive x86s? They might. probably not...at least not from a supported perspective...

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

of course, because everybody would buy x86 machines which do nothing, hoping Apple would come along and create some software so they'd have more than just a doorstop.

ps: you're the original poster... admit it

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Ralph JH Nader]

Actually, the move wouldn't be entirely unprecedented. Even if the OS wouldn't run quite as well, it'd still be in the interest of Apple's profits for them to take advantage of such a market. Why do you think Sun Microsystems releases Solaris for x86? They see that people are interested in running UNIX on relatively inexpensive hardware.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Daleks]

If Windows were to disappear the world would be very, very dark inside.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

There wouldn't have been any inexpensive x86 machines because the IBM PC's OS would probably have been retained by IBM and thus the clone market would not have been created. If Gates hadn't had the gaul to ask for the right to relicense DOS to third parties, we'd probably be paying 10K for a basic PC.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely companies like Commodore, Tandy, Texas Instruments would own the home computer industry, while IBM would own the business market, and Apple would have lower educational markets. A lot like it was before MS.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[pebs]

The inexpensive x86 machines out there all run Windows.

Not this inexpensive x86 machine.

Say hello to my little friend...

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Scottaroo]

I think that you are overestimating Apple's ability to produce a stable system on x86 hardware. Part of Microsoft's problem (and Linux's for that mater) is the amazing diversity of hardware available on the x86 platform. Someone's got to write all those drivers, and because they are kernel level code, when you screw them up bad things can happen to the stability of the system.

I wouldn't call it an insurmountable problem, but it wouldn't be as easy as cross-compiling the source code, either.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you're from, but where I come from Commodore, Tandy, TI, were the dominate force in the home. The only place you saw an Apple was at school.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Ralph JH Nader]

I can't be nearly as sure about Tandy and Texas Instruments, but it'd be hard to see Commodore still being around even had Microsoft never existed. Even though Commodore produced a superior product to the rest of the home computing industry, they lost out because they were quite lousy at marketing their products. Had it not been IBM and Microsoft, someone else would've run them out of busines. It's kind of sad, actually, that winning and losing in the computing industry isn't determined so much by producing a superior product than it is by how well you market your product.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

What about MS moving to Power PC architecture?

Whoops, they killed that off back in the NT4 days in a monopolistic deal with Intel.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[petabyte]

One of the problems with Windows is that there is WAY too much hardware to support relyably...

Yeah, right. Because you know, this Yellow Dog Linux thing I'm typing this on is so unstable. My Macs and PCs run all run Linux (one that dual boots with XP). In both cases I have full support for my equipment. Linux supports all of my hardware as well because I'm capable of checking compatiblity before I buy. Comparing XP to OS X for hardware compat these days you're not going to find many people complaining on either side of the aisle. In alot of cases you can use "PC" parts in a Mac. If you want to talk security, thats another matter though I'm sure if Apple had the marketshare Windows had, it would suffer its own security worries.

I agree though, Apple wouldn't touch x86 if Windows dropped out as it would kill their hardware market. I'd see IBM building an OS X-esq OS for Windows from Linux and shipping that.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux supports your hardware (or, more likely, you bought hardware that Linux supported), but that's a *very* different thing from saying that Linux supports all of the hardware that Windows does. In fact, I would wager that we're talking an order of magnitude more devices that are supported by Windows than are supported by Linux. Basically, I think your argument is crap.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

"There wouldn't have been any inexpensive x86 machines because the IBM PC's OS would probably have been retained by IBM and thus the clone market would not have been created. If Gates hadn't had the gaul to ask for the right to relicense DOS to third parties, we'd probably be paying 10K for a basic PC."

-- but it would be one kick-ass reliable, secure and pleasant to use machine ;-)

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[petabyte]

Then you didn't read my argument. My argument was that the grandparents argument is false. There was a proposal that OS X has the advantage of hardware support, whereas I countered that XP tends to have drivers for just about all modern hardware made for a PC. I don't know where you got linux out of that. Honestly, I have pretty standard hardware that is supported very well in Linux and in Windows.

That said, I think your order of magnitude statement is crap. There are scores upon scores of devices Linux will support that Windows won't. For example, this iMac.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Mr Pippin]

Actually, we might all be complaining about the legacy requirements of all of our systems to run APPLE II software with ProDOS compatibility. The major CPU of the day would be a derivative of the 6502. Had the PC not overtaken Apple in those days, Apple would likely still be in control of that market.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[clifyt]

Actually, YellaDawg should run a little more stable than other linuxes (theoretically) simply because it has less hardware it has to configure for. The exact opposite of what I was arguing against and you kinda make my point.

I know a lot of PC hardware the just won't work relyably on the Mac. I deal with a lot of estroic audio interfaces and some work well on the Mac, while others work well on the PC -- all claim to be xplatform, but they really aren't.

As for using standard PC parts -- a lot do work, some need their internal bios flashed and I've done this to save $100 over the price of the PC Version (my last SCSI card for example). Exact same hardware, different bios.

As for the security -- thats all conjecture. Microsoft wouldn't have all the security problems if they implemented a way to deal with this crap that didn't involve trying to prove they weren't at fault, it was just because they left a hole open so that others didn't have to change their code and users wouldn't have broken apps and blame M$ that this is the case.

M$ *IS* working on the security problems in a more proactive way -- they've already said the next service pack is going to kill a lot of software that didn't take security into account and used shortcuts in their programming. Its something that can be guarenteed to piss off their client base and folks that make software for windows users. They've realized that if they don't take the hard choices now, they will never have decent security -- even if it means a few months of folks blaming them for breaking their applications (instead of the idiots that programmed the stuff in the first place). As I mentioned, Apple already does this and pisses off a lot of people when they do something Apple says not to do and some smart ass wants to prove he can do it anyways, and then Apple fixes it and the stuff stops working -- and who gets the blame.

I can say if Apple were in the same situation, it is clearly uncertain if they would have the same security problems...they seem to fix things as rapidly as the OS guys...mainly because its the same software...there have been a few times where Apple has supplied the fix to the OS guys (and then they reported the fix across the other platforms a few days later).

Its just an asinine statement to say just because something has a monopoly type marketshare that they will abuse it and take their users for granted simply because they know even if they don't take the time, the sheep will buy it either way. M$ treats users like sheep...we don't know how anyone else would react under the same circumstances...

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Kris Magnusson]

With or without Windows, Apple would probably be in the same boat.

Porting MacOS to Intel would have only happened under a Jobs regime at Apple during the period Windows was gaining its dominance. Remember, Jobs was not CEO of Apple during this period--Sculley was. Sculley pushed for a "margin" over "volume" business strategy--this would have still limited their market penetration had Windows not been around, just as it did when Windows was making its inroads into the PC market and Apple was trying to squeeze every last penny from its installed base.

In summary, Jobs would have had to still be CEO of Apple if it were to port MacOS to Intel and adopt a business strategy based on volume and not margin. But I strongly believe, based on his move to port NeXTstep to Intel after recognizing he could make more money on software than hardware, than Apple would have become a software company that made cutting-edge x86 hardware.

.............. kris

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

He was from the rich side of town, you were from the poor side.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

"though I'm sure if Apple had the marketshare Windows had, it would suffer its own security worries"

yeah, right....and if I was bill gates, I'd think it was a good idea to build versions of office that can't read the previous versions' files.....sure....

Save it for professor farnsworth (futurama)'s what if machine. Believe it or not, it is actually possible to write a more secure OS than windows, and OS X is one of the many current realizations of that fact.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[razmaspaz]

it is microsofts fault. they created the whole reverse engineering fad and the whole pc clone market. They are completely to blame for the glut of both crummy hardware and lack of support for it.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[cpt kangarooski]

True, but OTOH, I would like to see Apple move to x86. Even if the motherboards remained proprietary, the CPUs are better and some marketing problems would be solved.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[vonsneerderhooten]

Did anyone else chuckle at seeing 'dominant' and 'Apple ][' together in the same sentance?

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[evilad]

No point? Au contraire. If it existed, I'd buy a copy and run it on my existing hardware. And if I liked it for functionality, but was disappointed by driver support, my next machine would probably be an Apple. Hell, it might be anyway, just 'cause I'm curious.

I'd say that an inroad into a market 20x bigger than your current customer base constitutes "a point."

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod down. Fake Ralph JewHater Nader.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[gunix]

then I would be freezing. It is cold outside.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Nutria]

The inexpensive x86 machines out there all run Windows.

Not this inexpensive x86 machine.

I guarantee that your x86 box is capable of running MS Windows.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Nutria]

And imagine how stuffy houses would get after being closed up tight all winter, with no way to air them out!

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[amorangi]

There wouldn't have been any inexpensive x86 machines
I can build a very very reasonable machine right now for US$400, but Windoze would add another 20% to that. That is a ridiculous amount for something whose value whichever way you measure it is significantly less.
In real terms all hardware has decreased in price - even as its power has increased. Windoze hasn't despite it's historical and aging base from which its excessive profiteering is made off of.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[parksie]

Not mine :) First-revision VIA chipset, neither Win2K nor XP would run. 2K blue-screened during the *install*, while XP randomly froze.

So I installed Linux (well, what else could I do?) and it ended up being my router. It's been replaced now, of course...I may use it to play old DOS games...

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Endive4Ever]

You weren't around back in the seventies, I take it, to run the unpleasant proprietary stuff IBM and everybody else was producing.

IBM knew they had let the genie out of the bottle, as far as controlling the 'PC' market, about the time they decided to roll out OS/2 and the MCA hardware. They wanted the franchise back. A bit too late, though. Back then the real nerds and hackers wore anti-OS/2 buttons.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Endive4Ever]

I can top your '$400' thing. Last week I bought two skids of PCs for fourty bucks. There were 8 Pentium III 500's and about sixty Pentium II 350 systems in the bunch. Most had SDRAM, they all had 32-40x CDROM drives. They're all 100 MHz FSB stuff, none of the tired old first-gen P2 crap. They are actually damned fine machines, with on-board ethernet, ATI video, etc. I'm making a mint reselling them on eBay, though the temptation to string up a big cluster does loom.

All that stuff was so cheap because Microsoft's bloatware obsoleted it, so it ended up at the auction block. Who cares that I can't afford to put Windows on all those boxes. My eBay customers are responsible for that, and I bet less than one in ten will buy a 'legitimate' License for the OS they put on their new box.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[fucksl4shd0t]

Actually, Commodore failed to market their product, and that was caused by a much larger problem they were having, namely the President and his accounting stooge were embezzling money from the company. Commodore went bankrupt because of this, not because they didn't sell enough stuff. How do you go bankrupt shipping 1 million units a year? Either your prices are too low or somebody's stealing the profit.

Those guys left the country and as far as I know haven't been heard from since.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Kardamon]

ARM is one of the most popular architectures today, but not in PCs. It was built by Acorn (originally ARM was "Acorn RISC Machine", after the joint venture with Apple & DEC (later Compaq, now HP; but DEC gave their StrongARM to Intel, which renamed StrongARM to XScale) it became "Advanced RISC Machine") and was heavily inspired by Acorn's 6502 experience in their System 1/Atom/BBC/ABC computers. One could say that ARM is a 32-bit 6502 with poor man VLIW - a great CPU!

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Kardamon]

Replying to self: their was of course also the 65816 16-bits CPU which was used in the Apple ][GS and Super Nintendo consoles.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Kardamon]

s/their/there/

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Endive4Ever]

Jobs wasn't interested in 'margin' or 'volume' back in the Sculley era. He was too busy being a weird meddler who would wander into areas of the company he didn't have a clue about, and messing it up.

He was an example of 'wiz-kid with too much power and no damn business sense' back then, and he needed to be fired to save Apple.

NeXT is an interesting parallel to Be. Both companies first produced an expensive proprietary hardware box and both then evolved into companies that produced 'ports' for various hardware platforms. Then they both became candidates for the 'next generation' MacOS after Apple's incompetent, effete fumblecoders proved they could burn many millions of dollars and not produce a damn thing anybody wanted.

I would love to find a copy of NeXTstep from the olden days when it would run on HP-9000, x86, and wasn't there a Sparc port too? I don't want it badly enough to pay the extortion prices that package gets on eBay, though.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely the PC clone market is the fault of IBM, for making the PC spec open thus enabling huge numbers of beige box mfrs to commoditise the hardware.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

I guarantee that your x86 box is capable of running MS Windows.

There is a difference between "run" and "capable of running"... I assure you my x86 has never, is not, and never will run Windows.

Many computers are capable of running Windows, provided Microsoft spends the time to port it to those platforms. You can even say Mac G4's are capable of running Windows thanks to Virtual PC.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[PantsWearer]

Yep, they did and then along came the XBox2. I find it especially strange that it seems all three of the major consoles will be buying their PowerPC architecture based chips from IBM.

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[razmaspaz]

Sure, but MSDOS was sold to all the clone makers which created the clone market, if IBM had owned the os it was game over for the clone makets

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that "Windows supports more hardware" a lot, yet when I do a fresh install of Windows on a machine and a fresh install of linux on the same machine, linux is what supports MORE hardware out of the box. Windows literally needs to have a video driver be downloaded and installed to get more than 640x480 at 60hz. Sound doesn't work out of the box in windows, I can't print, scan, use my network card or ANYTHING until I go and grab all my driver disks/CDs and install the drivers and do > 5 reboots. Meanwhile, on the same machine 30 minutes after linux is installed, I can print, web browse, scan pictures, play music in linux without even inserting a single driver disk/CD and without rebooting even once for anything. Windows supports *LESS* hardware than linux in my eyes. What you and many people really mean is that more *HARDWARE VENDORS* support WINDOWS, not Windows supporting more hardware.

We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

And we'd be loving it!

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[larry bagina]

OS/2 was a joint venture between MS and IBM.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

In the beginning, but IBM took it over mostly after 2.0.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[geekoid]

yes, and when MS sucked all they could out of IBM, they abadonded it and crated on OS/2 bastard called NT.

OS/2 was damn good. It's marketing sucked.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[AKAImBatman]

Forget that. VisiOn from VisiCorp all the way baby!!! :-D

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[jsse]

OS/2 was a joint venture between MS and IBM.

Without Microsoft, OS/2 would be a joint venture between Apple and IBM. IBM would insist that it should have 3270 terminal session program in it, and Apple'd turn out making an OS/2 which could be able to open one 3270 terminal only, while incorporating multiple 3270 terminal sessions capability in their latest Mac OS release. To fight against it, IBM would release 'OS/2 for Mac' but later got sued by Apple for licenses infringement, which forced IBM making its own version of OS/2 which enable OS/2 having multiple 3270 terminal session, but then the market in general doesn't care.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[TykeClone]

I worked in an AS/400 shop in 1995 and 1996. At that time, OS/2 wasn't quite dead (I think that they had just launched Warp!) and OS/2 actually integrated quite well into that environment.

I think that IBM probably launched OS/2 Warp a bit early - they had an OS designed to take advantage of the internet (as opposed to Windows 3.1), but that was before the internet had taken off.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[larry bagina]

Apple and IBM don't have a good track record for combined OS development.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[mingot]

Heh. Sorta. When IBM had promised customers running AT class (286) machines a version of OS/2 Microsoft wisely decided that coding a 16 bit OS was a waste of time and money and left IBM to their own silly devices. IBM through loads of money at the 16 bit version and wasted loads of time. Microsoft must have noticed the way capacity doubled and prices halved when it came to hardware and did the right thing in response.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Made a big bloated OS that didn't get stable until 1999?

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Trejkaz]

You might be partially right. Some other big company certainly would have the footing, but I'm not sure whether it would have been IBM, or Apple.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[IntlHarvester]

It would have been IBM. Apple was a boutique player even back in the 1980s.

People forget the enormous influence IBM had over the PC business back in those days. Microsoft was literally the only company that was willing to go toe-to-toe with them. If MS had fought and won the "war", I think it's quite certain that OS/2 would have 90% marketshare right now.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas OS/2 was a big bloated non-portable OS that didn't get stable until 1996.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

It was stable for me in 1993. Ran a BBS on it 24/7 without problem.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Remeber the old Chevy comercials "What would America be like if Rock and Roll hadn't been invented?"
I often think, "What would the world have been like if IBM had bought Multics for the mainframe, and had told the ambitious kid from the west coast, "No thanks, we're going with a castrated single user unix."?

Better yet, what if Jobs had decided to license the apple architecture to compete with the upstart IBM PC?

We're living in Bizarro World because of those three bad decisions.

Gates might be a brilliant hard working tenacious megalomaniac, but he's also the luckiest sob on the planet.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that the biggest OS/2 fanboys were BBS sysops? The stupid thing was supposed to be a business desktop or a low end server (which it sucked at).

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone's got a deal with Satan, it's Gates. Having IBM, Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, Apple, and the UNIX collective self-destruct due to stupidity was a draw you can't explain with luck.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it worked? If you wanted to run a BBS and use your PC, it was really the only way to do it well. Windows sucked at it horribly, and DESQView barely managed. Plus, DOS under OS/2 really was better than straight DOS for a bunch of reasons, and HPFS was much faster than FAT.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Billly Gates]

Name one free OS that was mature in 93?

To run the earliest builds of Linux circa 93, assuming you knew what it was( 500-1,000 users total!), you had to hack makefiles and .h files yourself to get anything to run. Literally! I remember old documentation from the newsgroups with things like edit this file sdsfn.h and go to line 435 and add ....

Remember most people who ran gnu used a real unix os like SCO, and Irix or SunOS back then.

I do remember an add from back then for the ultimate BBS called BSD/OS UNIX. It costs $999 but os/2 was what? $179??

Its a no brainer.

NT was a brand new experimental OS at the time requires a ungodly 16 megs of ram! This cost thousands of dollars back then much like 4 gigs cost today. Amazing isn't it?

Not to mention there were no win32 apps. Since dos apps could not run because of memory protection you could only run windows 3.11 programs with the overhead of 16 megs of ram???

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Endive4Ever]

I worked at the largest (then) 'embedded OS/2' shop from 1998 to 2001. They were STILL bound to an OS/2 platform, and people HATED it. I think they're now an embedded-NT shop. The machines said code is embedded in control pacemakers and other critical-care implanted devices, by the way.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

Naah... we'd all being using c64 still...Commodore would rule the desktop...:-)

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Trejkaz]

I guess. Only by now it would be called OS/2 XP or something similarly cheesy.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[a1englishman]

Or CP/M.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[billnad]

Actually I briefly ran OS/2 on a 486 when I had 8 megs of ram in '94 The extra 4 megs for my PC was $225 but there was an expectation at the time that there was a need for more ram anyway for the upcoming Windows 95.

Then just as now people would not switch becuase the greatest OS ever Windows 95 was just around the corner and IBM still dropped the ball in marketing OS/2

noo...

[Hello this is Linus]

With out Microsoft, who would I have hate?

My life would be pointless...but virus free.

Re:noo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. There are viruses on Windows because it is popular. If Mac OS X had a large market share there would be just as many viruses. But, Apple would work hard to remove them. :) Still love my Mac :P

probably using something like CPM

[SmartyPants]

or out of jobs completely.
MS brought computers to peoples desktops.
without DOS & Windows we would probably still be on green screens.

Re:probably using something like CPM

[TheSpoom]

Bullshit. Without DOS we'd be using QDOS, and without Windows we'd probably be using Apple computers or the like.

Re:probably using something like CPM

[AaronD12]

Wow. I didn't know the Macintosh ever came with a green screen...

Re:probably using something like CPM

[Throtex]

While I'm not a Microsoft hater nor lover, your scenario sounds rather bleak. I'd take Microsoft any day.

Re:probably using something like CPM

[Sir Holo]

Bullshit. Without DOS we'd be using QDOS, and without Windows we'd probably be using Apple computers or the like.

DOS is QDOS. MS just renamed it, and pretended it stood for "Disk Operating System," and not "Quick and Dirty Operating System," which is what is was.

Re:probably using something like CPM

[Lord of Ironhand]

If you mean that, you either are a Microsoft lover, or you've never used MacOS. Possibly both.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of either; but I'm forced to use both on a regular basis and MacOS, while still "dumbed down", seems to be dumbed down in a more predictable way.

Re:probably using something like CPM

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Bullshit. We dould have never used QDOS for anything. It was the product of a small Seatle software company that had no such dreams of grandur. It never would have been used on a mass scale.

AOL member page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this is a troll post. Why in $diety's name did you post a link to an AOL member page?

Re:AOL member page?

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL can't be Slashdotted

Re:AOL member page?

[Borg_5x8]

AOL can't be Slashdotted It's more a case of not wanting to touch something gross, even with gloves on, incase it somehow gets on to you.

Re:AOL member page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't knock AOL's servers. I recall amazing bandwidth rates when mozilla.org was hooked into the AOL pipeline. Nowadays, mozilla's servers are much less capable.

Without Microsoft...

[bfg9000]

... we'd have no idea how bloody good Linux and Mac OSX really are.

Re:without microsoft...

[Lord of Ironhand]

Although the idea is interesting, you are blindly assuming quite a lot. Microsoft, DOS and Intel were all filling a gap, and if they hadn't, it's not at all unlikely that another entity would have. I refuse to believe that without MS, in an age of great technological advances, there wouldn't be commodity hardware these days.

I think it is however quite possible that without the Intel/MS interaction going exactly as it has, the OS market these days would be much more diverse and evenly divided.

Re:without microsoft...

[spitzak]

When Linux appeared there were at least a dozen other equally developed unix clones, including the Minux that Linux was somewhat based on. And there was BSD which already matched what Linux would be perhaps 4 years later (BSD's main holdup was that it was not designed for 386). Yes it is highly likely that any major change in the 1980's would mean the guy named Linus would not have been the developer of the main alternative operating system. But somebody would have.

The only thing that would have stopped a Linux from appearing would be if the main popular system was based enough on Unix to stop the desire for a Unix clone. Unfortunately at the time all possible Unix clones cost money and it was quite obvious that making a CLI and floppy-based filesystem was cheaper than buying anything powerful like Unix. Unix would certainly have worked on even the earliest PC's, it was desinged for PDP-11 that had 64K of memory and disks smaller than the 5.5 inch floppy!

Re:without microsoft...

[Brandybuck]

BSD's main holdup was that it was not designed for 386

At the time, it was. There was 386BSD. By one account I've heard, Linus looked at 386BSD but was scared away by the USL lawsuit happening at the time.

Re:without microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, you should be -1 Idiot based solely on the Reagan crap in your .sig.

I'll start. Get a clue, idiot.

Re:Without Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

We might not have a Linux without Microsoft, after all would Linus created Linux if he wasnt unhappy about his desktop? Maybe we would all had been sitting with sucky Sun och HP with CDE right now. Dont get me wrong, they both Unix, but I cant say I enjoy CDE that much. I do love my WindowMaker and KDE. Actualy I do use WinXP at home, but thats only cause theres where the games are. Without Windows with all its shortcommings, maybe, just maybe there wouldnt been a linux?

Re:without microsoft...

[ocie]

It is also possible that the hardware market might be more diverse. Motorola might be the top now, or someone else.

Re:without microsoft...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Microsoft's products might suck, but they made Intel hardware the comodoty that it is today in order that you can afford to tinker with Linux or whatever it is you want to do.

I don't think that the lack of Intel's 386 would have meant the end of hardware & software hacking and no Linux. IIRC, various forms of hacking has been around long before Intel came around. It isn't necessarily the unified commodity for computers that is necessary for affordability either, witness the cheap game consoles.

Who knows, maybe Motorola would have had dominance in its place, but that might have depended on its business manager. There were some pretty nifty Motorola based systems in its time. I read somewhere that IBM chose Intel because its chips did the job and weren't as powerful, they didn't want to poach the sales of their heavy iron. In retrospect, maybe going with Mot might have been a better choice, but we'll never know.

One thing's for sure

[-kertrats-]

A lot less /. comments. With no microsoft to complain about, half the comments wouldn't have anything to rant about.

Re:One thing's for sure

[LGagnon]

Sure we would have things to rant about:
- George Lucas messing up Star Wars
- SCO
- duplicate articles
- the lack of an MS substitute to complain about

Re:One thing's for sure

[el-spectre]

No doubt... most folks would bitch about them decreasing the number of companies to badmouth... encouraging monopoly..

Re:One thing's for sure

[System.out.println()]

That wouldn't change anything. People rarely need to talk about anything to post comments....

Re:One thing's for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

>> A lot less /. comments. With no microsoft to complain about, half the comments wouldn't have anything to rant about.

IMO, rants expand to fill up the available space. We'd be complaining about CP/M or MacOS -- or touting Billux, the "other" operating system by that guy who lives in a basement in Seattle somewhere, while complaining about the Linusoft "Tuxopoly."

Re:One thing's for sure

[razmaspaz]

forget that there would be no slashdot. The popularity of linux is due mostly to a backlash from windows poor qa. Slashdot is primarily a linux/oss forum, it wouldn't exist.
The sad truth is that the Internet in its current form wouldn't exist either. Sadly windows created the cheap influx of x86 hardware. We all know apple wouldn't have created a comoddity market out of mac's. The vast majority of Internet users are on a computer that they paid 400-800 for. This is why the Internet is so diverse; and because Al Gore was sitting at his MSDOS terminal when he had a vision of a worldwide connected network of computers with vast amounts of information freely available to the masses.

Re:One thing's for sure

[SwellJoe]

- SCO

SCO would already be dead now, without the 86 million in funding they received from Microsoft (through a shill capital firm, so it all looks innocent, of course). So, without Microsoft, we wouldn't have SCO to rant about.

Re:One thing's for sure

[hillg3]

Although, SCO might not be doing what it is doing now if it wasn't for M$.

Re:One thing's for sure

[OwlWhacker]

A lot less /. comments. With no microsoft to complain about, half the comments wouldn't have anything to rant about.

This is true, and I'd probably get a lot more work done.

Re:One thing's for sure

[Endive4Ever]

Also, since SCO was founded as a Microsoft subsidiary to produce Xenix, Microsoft's UNIX variant (yes, Microsoft did the first UNIX that ran on x86, I used to have a copy of Microsoft Xenix on an Altos 8086 box), SCO wouldn't have even been born without Microsoft.

Re:One thing's for sure

[razjml]

I see your point.

Re:One thing's for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot without Microsoft would be like Rush Limbaugh without President Clinton. We'd all be addicted to pain killers.

Re:One thing's for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

you left out OGG Vorbis support

Apple of course!!!

[Jubii]

If Microsoft were to close up shop, who do the readers of Slashdot think would be tomorrow's Microsoft?

I honestly believe if there were no Micro$oft we'd all be sitting around here bitching about Apple. They "owned" the education market for a long time. So long that those students that first learned on an Apple are now consumers. I believe that alone makes Apple a strong contender for the desktop crown ... if only....

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Neo-Rio-101]

Blah, there were never any decent games on the Apple.
We were all Commodore's slaves back in those days. By the time the Amiga went away, we were all slaves to the PC.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[St4rScream]

I trully believe we would be in a worst spot if Apple had become the dominant player. Apple wants to control both the software and hardware.

How easy is it to get G4 or G5 machine without OS-X ?

At least the dominance of Microsoft resulted in very inexpensive hardware that for the most part is a completely open standard. This is a huge reason that an OS like Linux or Free-BSD even has a platform to run on.

Honestly if Microsoft somehow dropped out, Apple would still not become the dompinant player, Steve Jobs would still have a very closed and elitest attitude, just like the first time they had a shot.

At this point A few flavors of linux would become the dominant desktop if Microsoft fell off, since the hardware is already arround, it has a huge buzz and all the major PC builders already have hardware that Linux runs on.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Yort]

They "owned" the education market for a long time.

Yup, I remember that. I grew up in that. And I, ever the agent for change, was one of the principle students actively working to break the Apple monopoly and get Windows computers installed as well, mainly because at that time Windows tended to piss me off just a little bit less.

Now, of course, I am learning that life has a wicked sense of humour, and have spent the last 5 years or so prying the beasty Microsoft fingers from my family and friends, mostly in the area of moving them off IE/OE and onto Mozilla, or maybe even off Office and onto Abiword or OpenOffice. And of course, I am still personally a bit of a geek - my entire music collection is in Ogg Vorbis, and I usually run some distro of Linux on my home box. But I'm much more even tempered - I keep Windows and Office around for my wife's grad school studies, because that just makes more sense, and try to stick with the battles that win themselves (Mozilla vs IE/OE) rather than those that are uphill (Linux vs. Windows) with others.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Lane.exe]

How easy is it to get G4 or G5 machines without OS-X?

Real easy. Both BSD and Linux have PPC distros. Of course, by the time you bought a G4 or G5, why the hell would you want to put Linux or BSD on there? I can't think of an app that I can't compile on OS X that I could compile on Linux.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple can be said to have owned education at some point, it was with its Apple ][ series of computers. There were zillions of cool Apple ][ games back in the day and there was a lively and most excellent (although often disputatious) 300-baud cracker* community dedicated to removing the copy protection from those games. Those were excellent times.

Yeah, I used the Commodore as well. Also, in England, a machine called a Merlin which took input from audio cassette, as well as a TRS-80, a TI-(i forget), and all those other old school machines. I make no explicit comparison between them and Apple. I merely dispute your statement that there were no good games for the Apple ][, because, man, there were tons.

* at that time no one used terms like "white hat," "black hat," grey hat," or "cracker." There were hackers and there were phreakers and there were rodents (and later leeches) and some other lingo. I reject the idea that "hacker" doesn't refer to us back then because even if it wasn't the original meaning of the word, language evolves and it changed to embrace us, even if "hacker" in that context had a different shade of meaning. People who disagree either (but usually not xor) (1) have never studied how language works or (2) just want to be self-righteous. Still, this is /., and I don't need that argument in this thread.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Cyno01]

Number Munchers.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[dasmegabyte]

Escape Velocity.

Oh, and Snood.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[spanklin]

Blah, there were never any decent games on the Apple.

Dark Castle - greatest game ever.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[anaesthetica]

All the Sim* games started out on Macintosh. Where would we be without Sim City (and its rather random cousins, Sim Earth, Sim Ant (which was awesome), Sim Tower, etc)?

Re:Apple of course!!!

[johneee]

I honestly believe that without Microsoft it wouldn't be Apple - at least the way they are now...

If Apple allowed clones, then yes, but otherwise, it would be whoever it was that published the specifications for an open and extensable hardware set which many people could compete on and extend.

There is NO way we would have the huge base of installed machines all pretty much built on a standard without many people competing with interoperable hardware, whatever the software was that ran on it.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[stor]

The Apple //gs had some of the best games I've ever played:

- Task Force
- Xenocide
- Zany Golf
- The Immortal
- Tetris
- Arkanoid I and II
- Thexder

and of course the silly Frogger clone:

- Senseless Violence

The Apple // also had great games:

- Drol
- Conan
- Prince of Persia

Note that The Immortal and Zany Golf were written by Will Harvey, the founder of the "There" MMPORG, recently referenced by /.

Cheers
Stor

Re:Apple of course!!!

[CaptainCarrot]

Geez, you could at least provide a link to Ambrosia Software, especially since the latest installment of Escape Velocity has been ported to the PC and the earlier versions have been provided as free plug-ins.

PC users can finally see what they've been missing all these years.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Billly Gates]

THe reason being of course was because of MS being a monopoly. Why would a game maker invest money to a 5% market when they could market for the other 95%?

If Apple were king guess what?

You would be complaining that there are no good games for any non apple systems.

My guess is we would be using an OS/2 variant. IBM had to team with Microsoft because MS owned the internals for DOS and IBM needed them to run dos apps.

Either way Apple would be cut off.

But you know what? Back in the day IBM's were a rip off and outrageously expensive compared to the clones. We would all be using expensive pentiumII systems. Only pentiumII because the clones are what created the warfare for faster and cheaper systems.

MS took the monopoly from IBM. It was always there.

I do wish we would have no monopoly from the start and just have Commodores, Apples, Radio Shacks, and Atari's.

The software industry would be alot bigger and we would probably have cross platform api's from vendors like QT and Borland. Life would be good.

I hate having everything from one company.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Beliskner]

We would all be using expensive pentiumII

Hey! My computer's a Pentium 2 you insensitive clod!

Re:Apple of course!!!

[pommiekiwifruit]

Wavy Navy!

Dung Beetles (We Gotcha!)

Bug Attack!

Karateka!

Hard Hat Mack!

LodeRunner (with map designer)

Of course the C64 had better games than that, but that was long after the Apple 2 game out. The PET and the VIC-20 weren't as well-served (GridRunner was cool though) although they were much more affordable and sounded better.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[St4rScream]

I am well aware that other O/Ss run on G4s and G5s

But you are paying for Apple's bios and OS-X.

My point was apple will not sell you hardware without charging for OS-X. And you can not build a G5 system from of the shelve parts.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

PC users can finally see what they've been missing all these years.

What, you mean... nothing?

Re:Apple of course!!!

[TwistedGreen]

It's a dumb question to begin with. The fact is, anything could have happened without Microsoft as an obstacle. Apple wouldn't be what it is today without Microsoft.

That said, perhaps the "ease of use" of the Macintosh environment has made it trivial to learn and therefore insignificant as a valued skill. If anyone can use an Apple, there is no desire to hold on to that knowledge and stick with them, since it is so poorly valued. Usability is a double-edged sword.

Re:Apple of course!!!

[TwistedGreen]

That's a good point. Perhaps, if MS failed with its Windows 95 roll-out (which might have happened), OS/2 Warp would have gained power and we'd all be using OS/2 XP or something. And if that were the case, IBM sure as hell wouldn't be funding Linux development. :)

Re:Apple of course!!!

[Bob Davis, Retired]

You've GOT to be shitting me!

He's a sad soul who hasn't played Castle Wolfenstein.

The world without windows

[QEDog]

Yikes! That is scary! But not as scary as a world without doors.

Re:The world without windows

[kfg]

Without doors you could always climb in through the Windows. They're always the greatest security/intrusion risk, being, by their very nature, terribly insecure. You'll never find a maximum security facility with Windows where they want to be absolutely sure no one can get, or even see, inside.

I'm not exactly sure how chimneys fit into this, but be extra careful around Christmas time. Leaving out a honeypot is reputed to work against malicious behavior in case of actual intrusion though.

And maybe some cookies.

KFG

Re:The world without windows

[PlusFiveTroll]

A world with out windows would be a much stuffier place.

Re:The world without windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but dude, if there were no windows how could I spy on the girl next door?

Re:The world without windows

[biisonbrenta]

the world without doors is simple, just use A/C vents/conduits!!

Re:The world without windows

[blair1q]

>But not as scary as a world without doors

They took the doors off our building yesterday.

And haven't put them back yet.

It's kinda nice.

what would it be like

[starworks5]

what would the world be like without microsoft?

what would the world be like without GW?

what would the world be like if there was no hate, war, stupidity?

some say it would be harmony, but humans bring these things upon ourselves, its our nature i believe. not that WE like to be subjected to these sort of things, but many of us like subjecting them on others. why else do we watch professional wrestling, reality tv. why else do we say "at least im not him", instead of say "man i should help him out" these are more important questions that we should ask ourselves

Re:what would it be like

[Flying high]

what would the world be like without microsoft?
what would the world be like without GW?
what would the world be like if there was no hate, war, stupidity?

Just Imagine.
It's easy if you try...

Re:what would it be like

[workingstiff]

why else do we watch professional wrestling, reality tv.

Man, I don't know exactly your reasons for watching wrestling are, but I watch it because I like seeing hot women slap each other.

I'll have that subjected on me anytime!

Re:what would it be like

[Brandybuck]

We wouldn't have had a decade of programmers ruined by exposure to BASIC?

Oh... Wrong GW. Sorry. I'm still trying to imagine what the world would have been like without BC.

Re:what would it be like

[Anonymous Coward]

what would the world be like if there was no hate, war, stupidity?

No hate or stupidity? That's 99% of the posts to Slashdot gone then...

IT folks would be worth more

[superpulpsicle]

Windows has made things easier with the GUI. We need to go back to that world when unix and wang computers dominated the scene. Things were ugly and only techies have the answers. Windows has made things harder with all these security BS. Unfortunately HR don't give a fuck, they won't hire people just to install patches. Security folks I think, have too much on their hands nowadays. In the end, windows put IT folks in a shitty situation. Abandoned by HR, abandoned by economy, screwed by viruses and hackers on a daily basis.

Re:IT folks would be worth more

[Fancia]

What about the Macintosh, Lisa or Amiga, all of which either predate Windows or came out at around the same time? Microsoft didn't invent the GUI; if they hadn't been around, someone else would have made it big in their place. Really, it took them ages to clone what Apple and Commodore had earlier on.

Re:IT folks would be worth more

[QuasiCoLtd]

Screwed by hackers? If not for hackers my AC friend, IT professionals would barely exist as you would only need 2-3 IT people in a large company. And their only job would be installation of software and setting up hardaware. As much as we all bitch about hackers we should also realise we wouldn't have jobs without them.

Re:IT folks would be worth more

[PlusFiveTroll]

Fixing contrived problems is not productive.

Re:IT folks would be worth more

[ryanjensen]

We need to go back to that world when unix and wang computers dominated the scene. Things were ugly and only techies have the answers.

The above is equivalent to: "We need to go back to that world when horses and carriages dominated the scene. Things were ugly and only blacksmiths have the answers." Therefore, "buggy folks would be worth more".

More like...

[Anonymous Coward]

What would Bill Gates be like without Microsoft?

Now THATS something I'd like to know.

Re:More like...

[Anonymous Coward]

What would Bill Gates be like without Microsoft?

He'd be CEO of Apple by now.

Previous Interesting Thread

[robbyjo]

Check this thread for an interesting discussion. This is just posted around today...

Less microsoft means...

[zaunuz]

more people use open source software, which means
more people will develop open source software, which means
more and better open source software

The downside would be that not 'everyone' can use a PC, the way they can today, since MS Windows is by far the most newbie-friendly operating system availible for PC.

Re:Less microsoft means...

[geekoid]

". . . since MS Windows is by far the most newbie-friendly operating system availible for PC.

It's no better the GEM. or OSX.

Re:Less microsoft means...

[zaunuz]

ok, i am not familiar with those OSes, but...

Could someone who has never used a PC before sit down and understand the basics of how it works, without reading the manual first?

Re:Less microsoft means...

[larry bagina]

the downside means most people wouldn't buy a computer to begin with, so there would be *less* people writing and using open source software.

Programmers start somewhere. Mom and dad buy little johhny a computer so he can do his homework (and play games), daddy can bring work home with him, mommy can organize her recipes. a couple years later they get a new one and johhny installs linux. or maybe he's so interested in them he goes to college, majors in CS and learns the joys of unix and open source. take away the MS gateway and you're shrinking the pie for everyone.

Re:Less microsoft means...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're kidding yourself -- the only reason Unix/Linux has gotten half-decent on the desktop is the hatred and envy of Windows.

Otherwise, you Unix folks would be stuck with CDE 4.0 or be dinking around with GeekWankerWM 0.023.

(Oh, I take that back. CDE was an attempt to copy Windows also.)

Re:Less microsoft means...

[jtev]

Um You've never heard of a Mac? what rock have you been living under, yes a newbie can understand enough about one to make it work. In fact a Mac is only dificult to use if you've used another operating system and are used to thinking in terms of how a computer works. Then they become very dificult to use. As far as Gem is concerned I'd say RTFA but that of course would go against slashdotness

Re:Less microsoft means...

[B3ryllium]

No. That's why they call tech support and complain that they turned the computer on (they mean the monitor, of course) but it just stays black ...

Re:Less microsoft means...

[zaunuz]

Yes, ive heard of a mac.. and yes, ive heard of Mac OSX (especially, since its based on FreeBSD which i use and love). I just said that i am not familiar with them, which means i havent used them.

Re:Less microsoft means...

[dacarr]

Is that really a downside?

Re:Less microsoft means...

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest downside is that all /. would have to bitch about is SCO. :)

Re:Less microsoft means...

[Coryoth]

The downside would be that not 'everyone' can use a PC, the way they can today, since MS Windows is by far the most newbie-friendly operating system availible for PC.

Did you get around to playing the BeOS? Now that was a user friendly operating system, and it was available for PC. Easily comparable in ease of use to Macintosh, and realistically better than Windows. Of course, it never had quite the same level of hardware support and applications available to compare to Windows - but then if there wasn't any Windows, all of a sudden that wouldn't be an issue.

Unfortunately (mostly due to aggressive leveraging of monopoly upon OEMs forcing manufacturers to never provide PCs with BeOS preinstalled) BeOS is now effectively dead. There are some efforts to resurrect it, but if you actually want to give the real thing a go, some interesting licensing games ended up with YellowTab managing to sell what amounts to BeOS 6 as Zeta. Check it out, it is actually very impressive.

Jedidiah.

Re:Less microsoft means...

[zaunuz]

Apart from lack of good hardware support, i've heard lot of positive speech about BeOS, so dead or alive.. i will try it out some day.

Re:Less microsoft means...

[BerntB]

more people use open source software

I'm not certain.

I think that the reason the free software world took off so fast, was that it's impossible to compete with a monopoly.

A monopoly product is made to create "lock in" and make writing a compatible O/S so slow that a new version is out before it's finished. The monopoly product uses really complex (and noncompatible) protocols, undocumented APIs that the main applications uses and subtle bugs.

So people that wanted a good product -- without the "lock in" ugly garbage -- had to make one.

And the only thing Microsoft couldn't remove the oxygen supply of was open software. (If Apple were to open a damn hotel chain, then Microsoft probably would, too! Just to keep Apple from getting too much money to invest...)

Re:Less microsoft means...

[PaladinAlpha]

Oh yeah, that reminds me. I drive a Ford, and anyone should, since they're the most economical, reliable, and efficient cars. Of course, I've never owned, driven, reviewed, read about, or looked at any other kind of car.

Down And Out

[LGagnon]

Try reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. It should give some hint at least to what the world could be like without MS (ideally, that is).

What will happen to ./ !!!

[vinit79]

If microsoft disappears I guess ./ will be the worst hit.

Just like ,if there is only good left in the universe then wont religion be redundant!
Dont let it happen !! Save microsoft so we can have something to bitch about .

As a social service I am accepting contribution for saving MS. I promise all the money will be spent on buying licenses of MS Office and Windows XP.

Re:What will happen to ./ !!!

[LGagnon]

I think ./ will be fine without MS. I still run my executables in Linux perfectly fine, and MS never touched them. ... Oh, you meant /. ;)

Re:What will happen to ./ !!!

[PsiPsiStar]

if there is only good left in the universe then wont religion be redundant!

Nope. In that case it would be the only morally acceptable excuse for getting drunk.

I think we all know what we would be using...

[Valar]

A certain popular open source unix operating system. The one that is way more secure than Windows, much lighter on resources, but has a few usability issues to hammer out.

That's right...

OpenBSD!!

Re:I think we all know what we would be using...

[PacoTaco]

Slashdot readers already complain about everything Theo does, so it would be an easy transition.

forgotten windows?

[VValdo]

What about the forgotten windows?

Or the other one. (Apple II Version)

W

Re:forgotten windows?

[ChipMonk]

Yes, GEM is nearly forgotten, but it was not the first (so suggests the linked page in the article). The honor of being first belongs to the Alto, from Xerox PARC.

Google

[cft_128]

If MS went down people's insatiable need to have something to gripe about would focus on the next large company that dominates a sector. If that were to happen soon google looks to replace it. Large, dominates the space, and can be abusuve with its powers.

one word

[Anonymous Coward]

What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?

Better.

Re: One Word

[seaswahoo]

Imagine a world without...Microsoft Bob!

But what would we do without Microsoft?

[mboos]

We would have no one to blame for all of our computer problems.

open source has a long history

[Anonymous Coward]

The various algorithm books, complete with source, predate the existence of MS by a longshot.

And CP/M had a open source replacement, ZCPR that was doing pretty well for awhile.

I'd say Microsoft is an abberation, one that will gradually lose ground and fade.

Information and knowledge want to be free. Imagine a world where opening a math or physics book required a license...I'm sure the publishers would love it, but the fact is, it's kind of unimaginable now that we have had a taste of freedom.

Software is getting to be this way, too. A time will come when all the licensing and secret codes will seem quaint. At least I hope that time comes...it's hard to tell what will happen with all the laws being twisted by money and influence.

Re:open source has a long history

[ClosedSource]

"Imagine a world where opening a math or physics book required a license...I'm sure the publishers would love it, but the fact is, it's kind of unimaginable now that we have had a taste of freedom."

You mean the hundreds of dollars I paid for books in college wasn't necessary because only MS makes you pay for IP? Get real.

Re:open source has a long history

[jtev]

You're free to write your own physics book as long as you don't copy the one you read verbatim. Or Mathmatics. Just because the information is free (You aren't restricted in how you can use it) doesn't mean it's without cost. There are costs to the printing and distobution of the colege texts. Now if you go to the MIT open courseware website you can get much of the information in many college textbooks gratis as well because production and distrobution costs are greatly reduced by the internet. If the professor at the college you chose to attend insists that you use a particular book that's one thing, however the information itself is available, and in usable ways for free in many places.

Re:open source has a long history

[ClosedSource]

"If the professor at the college you chose to attend insists that you use a particular book that's one thing"

That's one think you can count on. I never took a class where the instructor let you choose what book you wanted to use.

It's great if supplemental information is available (and it always has been in libraries and book stores long before the Internet), but having everyone choose their own books as the core reference material doesn't make much sense. How would the instructor know what was fair to include on a test?

Re:open source has a long history

[jtev]

Of course it is. It's also completly tangental to the point of the post. And to the point of the thread. If the instructor choses a book that costs a fortune that's not that the information doesn't want to be free, it's that the instructor things that a book that costs $100+ covers the material best. I'm still not seing a problem here, the actual representation of the ideas costs money, it costs money to create, to print, and to distribute, and of course the publisher wants to make money, however if you want to LERN material there is plenty out there that is readily available.

Re:open source has a long history

[ClosedSource]

You've completely lost me.

The original post I responded to implied that MS was unique in it's desire to protect its IP. He speculated what if books were treated the way MS treats software. My point was that books are already treated that way and have been for a long time.

I don't dispute that there is plenty of material out there that is readily available, but it doesn't have anything to do with this thread as far as I can see.

What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?

[sharkey]

Anybody else flash to what Lionel Hutz envisioned a world without lawyers to be like?


"I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony."

It's always somebody

[kefoo]

I think if Microsoft never existed we would have had to deal with some other company doing whatever it can to dominate everything.

Never underestimate the power of greed.

Now that the computer world is more mature (for better or worse...) we might be able to do it right, if we can get rid of Microsoft. It would be much harder for any one company to take over now.

Re:It's always somebody

[kefoo]

Which isn't to say Microsoft didn't do some good. They did make computers more accessible to the average person. It's just their methods (and software quality) I disagree with.

That's easy

[geekoid]

IBM.

If Microsoft ceased to exist today...

[cipher chort]

Well it's pretty clear that Apple would win a huge chunk of the desktop market by default, but probably not the the extent that Microsoft has today. The rest would be carved up by various Linux distros, and maybe new or revitalized OSs?

The server market would just be consumed by UNIX-like OSs and probably Apple would gain ground there as well, but not nearly like the desktop situation.

It would be a huge win for IBM and Apple, and even Sun could probably make some ground.

I wonder if Dell would come up with their own OS to start selling, or a highly customized version of Red Hat? Hmm... one would think that Dell wouldn't want to lose it's grasp on the PC market.

The real problem would be all the chaos that would ensue when no one was dominating the standards. Despite being Pure Evil, Microsoft *does* give everyone else standards to integrate with. Everyone at least makes their stuff as compatible with Windows(TM) as possible. Without the standards, companies like IBM, Sun, Apple, Cisco, HP, etc would all compete with their own proprietary stuff and it would probably be a real nightmare for application developers.

Re:If Microsoft ceased to exist today...

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing Dell's penchant for "quality" and function (selling things) over form (actually making good products) they'd probably just buy stakes in Lindows.

"Michael (Dell's) Minutes" anyone?

Re:If Microsoft ceased to exist today...

[AstroDrabb]

Microsoft *does* give everyone else standards to integrate with. Everyone at least makes their stuff as compatible with Windows(TM) as possible.

And what standards are they? What are the standards that MS gives us to interoperate with? An office document format? That is not a standard that one can work with unless you pay for the program and it is not published so there is no way for a competitor to use this "standard" without reverse engineering it. I am not trolling, I just want to know what standard MS created that _anyone_ can use and interoperate/compete with.

Re:If Microsoft ceased to exist today...

[cipher chort]

FAT/FAT32, CIFS, office formats, etc... Apple has Office, Sun has an Office that can import MS docs, there's a free suite that can import MS docs... FAT is the standard for removeable media. CIFS is much more popular than NFS for local file shares.

Basically all the formats that people use to share documents in one way or another (the file system, the network share, and that document formats themselves).

Re:If Microsoft ceased to exist today...

[DerekLyons]

I wonder if Dell would come up with their own OS to start selling, or a highly customized version of Red Hat? Hmm... one would think that Dell wouldn't want to lose it's grasp on the PC market.

Dell probably wouldn't even exist. Keep in mind that Dell got started by selling cheap PC clone hardware out of his college dorm room. Something that would be all-but-impossible in an Apple dominated world. Sure, there was aftermarket stuff, but the real money is in systems, not cards, and in the Appleverse systems come from Apple, not a college dorm room.

Many folks today forget that in it's day Apple was every bit as evil, sly, underhanded, and monopolistic as Microsoft is today.

Re:If Microsoft ceased to exist today...

[AstroDrabb]

And exactly how are the MS Office formats open? Where can one download the full specs to the formats? MS guards their office formats because MS Office is one of their cash cows. Any other product that can use MS Office formats is because they reverse engineered them and those products generally have sub-par support for those MS Office formats. FAT/FAT32? There is nothing special there. Any file system can replace that. When was the last time someone emailed you removable media or when was the last time you downloaded some removeable media? Real standards like HTTP, FTP, HTML, XML, TCP/IP, POP, SMTP, etc are what have allowed people to share documents, not FAT/FAT32. CIFS? MS doesn't even stick to their own standards. They always "embrace and extend". With "standards" MS put out, there are the published standards and the standards that MS uses, the former are open, the latter are not. This is one of the tactics MS uses to stop competition and lock-in customers. People start to use this published "standard" from MS and then once it is popular, MS "embraces and extends" it and now the customer is locked-in to the MS implementation. Why did the Samba guys have to do so much reverse engineering if MS's SMB stuff is so open and MS sticks to their own standards?

without Microsoft

[morelife]

IBM would be the three headed monster, devouring everything in sight.

Re:Without Microsoft

[trouser]

100% troll. Or perhaps you are retarded.

Cheap hardware is what brought PCs to the masses. Bugs are inevitable in software, not fixing them or at times even acknowledging them is Microsoft's forte. The problem with security holes is that they are security holes. The problem with Microsoft's security holes is that they create so farking many of them and don't fix them.

Windows is a harmless amusing piece of junk. Microsoft's illegal monopoly is pure evil from the darkest pits of hell. They are the enemy of the free market, they oppose and destroy competition. So there.

And you are a troll.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, and you thought he was a troll..

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

Cheap hardware is useless if nobody knows how to do anything with it. If you don't like Microsoft's history with bugs, don't use it, which I'm sure you don't. Microsoft fixes all it's major bugs and security holes. People buy software knowing it's not perfect. If you want your software to be emaculate, don't buy any. You're entitled to your opinion, how ever thick, and close-minded you may be. No matter what you say about Windows, the fact remains that it is the most widely used OS on Earth. If Windows remain's bigger than Linux, it's because it obviously offers something that Linux doesn't to the normal user. What will happen if Microsoft falls? Nothing for you. You will just have one less thing to bitch about.

Re:Without Microsoft

[citking]

People often complain about how buggy and how full of security holes. Bugs are what occur when you make something that is very large and very complex. People want stuff to be easy to use, which means advanced programming, which in turn results in bugs. As for security holes. This is a subject that really bugs me. The people that tend to be the most critical of microsoft for their numerous security holes (which also result from having such a complex system), also tend to be the ones that like to exploit them. Which is a damn hipocracy if you ask me. Security holes exist, they always have, they always will, and there is nothing whatsoever that you, I or Mr. Gates can do to change that. The problem isn't the security holes, it's the fact that there are people that exploit them. And then those innocent people who don't exploit them will get mad at Microsoft, effectively siding with those malicious jerks who exploit the holes. People should be supportive of Microsoft to fix the holes and bugs, while denouncing the jerks, letting them know that they are neither cool nor respected.

You say that the problem with bugs are that they are present in complex programs and the people who exploit them should be beaten with a donkey. I concur.

HOWEVER, it's not the fact that the bugs were created in the first place that pisses most people off. It is:

-Microsoft consistently releases software with known bugs...23,000 such known in Windows 2000 upon its deployment.

-Microsoft takes its time to fix even the smallest bugs. Remember this?

-Microsoft's patches often cause compatibility issues on down the road for enterprise systems (I don't think I need a link to prove that one).

My point is, you can whine about Microsoft being exploited all you want and complex software having bugs...it's life, it happens. But when the company in question releases buggy software on purpose, takes months to fix critical issues, gouges customers on support costs, releases patches that are not working and/or break other parts of the operating system, etc etc it shows a level of deception that rivals only the tobacco companies.

That's why, for one, I don't complain about release dates being shoved back and the public beta of Windows XP SP2. This shows that Microsoft is trying to become more responsible...but those few actions are but a whisper in the jet engine of Blaster et al.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of us probably like it or not, owe it to MS for making the PC almost a household appliance. MS didn't have to resort to monopolistic strong arm tactics to ensure their spot in computing history, that's the sad fact.

My reply to the question would be, we WOULD NOT KNOW WHY A COMPUTER NEEDS REBOOTING. Thanks to MS (and I'm not bashing here, it is the truth that we all know), it's almost an automatic reflex with my kids to hit the 3finger salute. I wish that MS had come up with the more solid Win2k sooner before this reflex became commonplace.

Re:Without Microsoft

[1000101]

please turn off the lights, because you sir, are completely blind. EVERY OS has security holes, EVERY piece of hardware can be hacked. If Windows was a "harmless amusing piece of junk", I seriously doubt that thousands of very intelligent people would spend their entire lives developing it. Step off the high horse, look at the IT industry as it stands today, and realize that without Microsoft, you probably wouldn't even be doing what you do today (including reading ./).

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

Okay, perhaps I was a bit hasty in my cursory dismissal of Microsoft's track record when it comes to patching. You're right, and I agree.. to a point. I don't have any logical arguements for that, but personally, I think people should ignore the minor bugs and flaws (some of which, I do realize, are the ones you're speaking of), and let them focus on creating newer (and hopefully better) software. That is, of course, just a personal preference, as many would prefer that older platforms are as stable and bug-free as can be before they even consider moving on.

Re:Without Microsoft

[arkane1234]

No matter what you say about Windows, the fact remains that it is the most widely used OS on Earth. If Windows remain's bigger than Linux, it's because it obviously offers something that Linux doesn't to the normal user.

That tends to happen when every machine sold on the market has it.

It's like saying that because a majority of Vette owners have a standard non-turbocharged engine that it's obviously better than the aftermarket turbocharged model. It's just not a mainstream addition by the dealer. (okay, so Callaway did it for a year or so) Linux is the same way, although some places dabble(d) in it.

Re:Without Microsoft

[k_head]

You've never used a Mac have you?

Re:Without Microsoft

[arkane1234]

I seriously doubt that thousands of very intelligent people would spend their entire lives developing it.

People also did the same with MS-DOS.

look at the IT industry as it stands today, and realize that without Microsoft, you probably wouldn't even be doing what you do today

I don't know about that. I'm sure BSD would be a major player. The IT industry would be vastly different, but it'd be the same outcome: providing data and services.

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

Aye, yet there has to be some underlying reason for it, no? This may not so much apply today, but, at some point or another, Windows had to stand out so as to make everyone say, "Hmm, I want to put this on the computers I sell, and not the other guy." I agree that nowadays, more than anything else, Windows has perpetuated itself so that it quite possibly will never go out of style. But, if Windows is as horrible as certain people claim it is, the masses, however ignorant, would start to get a clue. That hasn't happened yet.

Re:Without Microsoft

[burns210]

Agreed, bugs are inherit to a large program (or OS or set of programs, etc)... Two things make the difference.

1. The style and process taken in coding and trying to catch bugs before they are released into a final product.

2. The manner in which bugs are corrected and patched once discovered....

Apple and the Open Source Community are both using systems AS or More complex than Windows (accomplishing the same level of tasks, atleast). Yet the way Microsoft handles bugs compared to Apple or the OSC is hugely different. The OSC has a turnaround on a discovered bugs that is quite high. A critical level bug may be patched in a matter of hours. Apple's policies are nearly as good, where most important bugs are handled in a matter of several days, to, a couple weeks(the more important the quicker, ofcourse)... Microsoft however, has left(and still leaves) critical remote bugs unpatched after a matter of years, relying more on the publicitiy to the masses of a bug rather than the severity of it... When Microsoft is in a hurry, there turnaround is much closer to the level of Apple, releasing a patch in a few weeks... However, Microsoft has repeatedly taken months, years and even ignored critical bugs in the OS.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Hello this is Linus]

Bugs are what occur when you make something that is very large and very complex.

Isn't linux very large and complex? What about OSX? They don't nearly have as many bugs as Windows, do they? No.

In other words, a large complex program or OS can be bug free, if it is done correctly...

The problem isn't the security holes, it's the fact that there are people that exploit them

If there weren't any security holes in the first place, no one would exploit them, therefore there would be no problem. The problem of having people exploit the code can only be fixed by writing better code, where there would be no security holes. We should blame both the company who writes the buggy code and the person who exploits it.

Re:Without Microsoft

[matt_martin]

People often complain about how buggy and how full of security holes. Bugs are what occur when you make something that is very large and very complex.

Is this what you tell yourself when you board a commercial jetliner ?
You are spouting excuses. The software industry is still very immature in terms of quality and reliabilty. The standard is "if it kind-of works, ship it". Try that in the household, automotive, aviation, etc and the lawyers would eat you alive
Monopoly or not, you and I should be angry with MS for siphoning their gobs of cash (into pockets, FUD, XBOX, MSBOB, etc) instead of fixing their product.

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

Isn't linux very large and complex? What about OSX? They don't nearly have as many bugs as Windows, do they? No. In other words, a large complex program or OS can be bug free, if it is done correctly...

I garrauntee you (though I do so without physical proof) that an Operating system such as Windows XP is exponentially more complex than about any Mac or Linux system. And you think that OSX or and Linux distro is bug free? You're sadly mistaken, my friend.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same way there will always be bugs, there will always be people to exploit them. It's a question of getting rid of most of the bugs before they are released in the latest "secure" product, not after.

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

The key difference in your examples is that an aircraft being faulty may cause people their lives. They can't afford to have any issues. Now, if there is anyone stupid enough to put a Windows system in a position that puts people's lives are at stake, they need to be slapped. Do you honestly want every minute bug to be fixed before they move on? I'm sorry, but that's just silly. There is a point at which it makes more sense to move on that to spend all your resources correcting every minor error. Albeit, Microsoft seems to have some major issues with determining where that line is.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

> I garrauntee you (though I do so without physical proof) that an Operating system such as Windows XP is exponentially more complex than about any Mac or Linux system.

What makes you think that? MS marketing???

I work with all three of these systems along with BSD. I have written software for both Win2K/XP and OS X and I can tell you with certainty that the size of the code base is similar when you line up the services being provided (each has slightly different features). What I have learned without doubt is how the code is written for MS systems is inherently more complex than for any other OS. And this is not out of need but out of faulty design of the Win32 AIs. Just try writing code for DirectX vs Quicktime (on native platforms, learning each from scratch). Both are large and complex including much legacy interfacing but Quicktime is by far easier to code things that consistently work. I had servers running this code on OS 9 serving video that would run for weeks without failing, and anyone who has used OS 8/9 this way knows that one code mistake will take everything down in a ball of flames.

Note, my Quicktime vs. Direct X comparison is not comparing Quicktime on Windows which has its own quirks because of the Mac ported nature of it. I would put this about on par with Direct X difficulties which is a sad statement about MS APIs.

BC

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

People also did the same with MS-DOS

People knew they had better options than MS-DOS and chose it despite it's limitations because it was the "devil you know". That in itself made it valuable (to the its users).

I'm sure BSD would be a major player

BSD was pretty much retired by the UNIX industry in the early 90s. This had nothing to do with Microsoft.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is used inside many medical systems: GE MUSE (EKGs), Pyxis medication stations, Cerner front ends (VMS/AIX with Oracle backend thankfully), medical imaging equiment, and countless others. And it is used in many other industries where failure is not a viable option such as goverment computer systems. MS markets to these industries as well because sadly most people think it is stable enough.

BC

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, I hope you don't write software for a living. *Every* piece of software this size has bugs. Microsoft makes a conscious decision to release with bugs that they know about, because fixing them could cause bugs that they don't know about. Every single checkin of a complicated piece of code is likely to break something.

Re:Without Microsoft

[ePINOY]

How could a world without Microsoft be harder? If we're accustomed to how the world worked without Microsoft, then I imagine we thought that living was easy at the time. Of course, some things are easier with computers these days, but people still progressed without computers. Hell, some people still don't know how to use a computer, they seem to be fine. ;)

Re:Without Microsoft

[Billly Gates]

Shit.

Do you remember running memaker and creating boot disks under Dos6 just to run some dumb game?

Extended memory, expanded memory, conventional memory?

What if you had a situation that took 2 minutes to log into a network and 2 minutes to boot Windows3.1. Now lets say this system ran Borland C++ and was cooperatively multitasking as usual back then. What if you accidently create an infinite loop?

Boom 5 minutes of time gone!

This was just one example I can remember back in my early highschool years. God it was a piece of crap.

How many years since the 386 was launched until we had protective memory and premptive multitasking? how many more years did we all have to wait before it became reasonable stable and reliable?

Answer is 10 years to turn 32 bit... and 15 years before it became reasonable stable!

Os/2 by the way did all of the above in just a few years after it came out if you ran it on a 386 or 486.

Now fast forward to the 21st century. How many years or decades did we have to wait for a 64 bit OS for AMD's Opteron? Try a mere few months.

Thank god for opensource.

I remember being told in 1995 that we would have to wait until 2015 before Microsoft would make Windows 64 bit.

Hate to say it but MS was AWEFULL!

Today they are alot better and some of their software is good. But they surly were the worst software maker in the world in my opinion back in the 80's and 90's. Shudder.

Re:Without Microsoft

[TrancePhreak]

-Microsoft's patches often cause compatibility issues on down the road for enterprise systems (I don't think I need a link to prove that one).

So what you're saying is that these programs worked because of the flaw and that fixing the flaw is bad?

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

Were you disagreeing with me? It sounded to me more like you were agreeing... Microsoft marketing has nothing to do with it. I say Windows is more complex because of my own experience with programming and stuff. Windows is easier to use. 9 times out of 10, the only way to make an OS easier to use is to make the code for it more complex. Direct X coding is quite complicated, I say that from my own experience, though I have no experience with Quicktime, so I am unable to compare the two.

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point. Quicktime and Direct X are comparable technologies with very similar capabilities. There is nothing that I am aware of that Direct X Audio Video layers can do that Quicktime can't on a Mac. They are equivalent technologies between platforms.

Easier does not have to mean more complex, although often this is the result. I spent quite a bit of time working on making software easy yet still simple internally. This makes for much more stable software.

Part of this problem though has to do with programming practices and differences in how MS vs. Apple treats them. Microsoft will often obscure API details so you end up tinkering with it to find a way to make it work (poor dev docs). Apple generally (you can find examples of poor docs also, but not on the same scale and for critical areas such as the registery) documents things quite clearly and warns you that if you take a shortcut you will likely break in the future. If you follow their API docs you are much more likely to maintain stability and reduce flaws. Often in Win32 this simply is not an option.

BC

Re:Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

way to dish your own company billy g.

Re:Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

I may still be missing your point, but that has to do with the information that they each let out.. which doesn't coincide with the complexity of the coding used to create the system

Re:Without Microsoft

[atlasheavy]

I remember being told in 1995 that we would have to wait until 2015 before Microsoft would make Windows 64 bit.

In 1983, William Gibson foresaw a time distant in the future where 3 megabytes of RAM was worth something, and crazy artificial intelligences would be running rampant. ;-). Also, Microsoft did have a pre-emptive multitasking OS available long before Apple did. There was many a time when I was learning to program C under Mac OS 7.5 that I would do a div/0, or do something silly with scanf() and the like. It certainly wasn't specific to Microsoft.

Re:Without Microsoft

[arkane1234]

People knew they had better options than MS-DOS and chose it despite it's limitations because it was the "devil you know". That in itself made it valuable (to the its users).

MS-DOS filled a void. That's the reason.

BSD was pretty much retired by the UNIX industry in the early 90s. This had nothing to do with Microsoft.

BSD could have filled a void, and not have been "retired" by the Unix industry. Besides, what does the Unix industry have to do with BSD? I know the Unix industry has nothing to do with Linux and it's making inroads to filling a void. If Microsoft wasn't around, and BSD was able to fill the void it would have been a contender. Of course, Linux would have still been around dispite that. Everything in general would have taken a different evolutionary path.

a world without microsoft would be ...

[Anonymous Coward]

like a bicycle without depth charges!

mmm

[gho]

We'd all be running (and enjoying) AmigaOS 8.

Re:mmm

[Ziviyr]

If the early OS3.5 didn't piss a year of my computing life away with near random freeze-ups I might take more enjoyment in your statement.

Truth is AmigaOS got it's first stunting blow to the head from Commodore mismanagement. If the topic was "What Would the World Be Like Without Two Commodore Higher-ups" then you might be dead on.

Re:mmm

[gho]

Nah, MS had taken away a big chunk of the market as well as any kind of business software development on the Amiga before problems at Commodore, they would have survived if it weren't for that and even if they did still go under it would have been quickly revived.

Re:mmm

[Tumbleweed]

And if you go a bit farther back, what if Jay Miner had never left Atari, and the Amiga had been born an Atari, first? If you check out the design of his earlier creation, the Atari 800, you'll notice some striking hardware design similarities.

Re:mmm

[Anonymous Coward]

AmigaOS wasnt all that great. Sure the machine itself kicked .. compared to what the PCs did at the time.

Re:mmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimme!

Re:mmm

[Ziviyr]

I think awareness of the platform plus a number of the really cushy features we generally don't enjoy today would have made Amiga a force to be reckoned with.

The Mac wouldn't have had it's own niche.

I miss the creative days of the Amiga...

Re:mmm

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd all be running (and enjoying) AmigaOS 8.

Ahem, you mean TOS v8.0 :-P

Without Microsoft?

[ObviousGuy]

IBM needed an OS, and if MS wasn't there, CP/M was. So on that front we'd just have different person reaping the rewards there. Of course, Kildall was a business moron and blew his chance at that time.

Apple would have risen much more strongly, as well as console/PC makers like Atari and Commodore. We'd probably see computers with more advanced graphics systems, but with less memory and less hard disk space as most media would be self-contained cartridges. Which is an interesting idea, that we wouldn't have software available separate from a cartridge. We would have to have the physical cart to plug into the slot array on our PCs to enable software, but it would also be easier to move software from one machine to another as well as conserve primary disk space as documents could be saved directly onto the cartridge.

We wouldn't have the powerful CPUs that we have now, we'd probably be a couple generations behind as the hardware demands of the software would be much lower. Hard disks would be small, memory would be low, and video screens would be optimized to view on both TV and computer monitors. Digital TVs that could display computer video output at high resolutions would be the standard as the console/PCs would have merged the computer into a central position in the home entertainment cabinet.

Many companies would only just now be moving their businesses to computerized systems. Until now, computers would have been viewed as toys. Without Microsoft, the concept of a computer for business would be unthinkable except for large institutions, so many smaller accounting firms, warehouses, and mom'n'pop stores would still be doing their paperwork by hand.

In short, the computer as a personal entertainment device would be much more ingrained in our culture, but the computer as a business tool would only be catching on. The prices of "serious" personal computers useful for business purposes would still be astronomical and software would be expensive to purchase.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[geekoid]

If IBM went with CP/M in all likly hood they would have retained the rights and we would all be locked into IBM.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[ObviousGuy]

I don't think we'd have seen a proliferation of the PC as a personal computer that we had with MSDOS. I doubt IBM would have had any idea what to do with the PC and after a couple years would have abandoned the PC project altogether, focusing on their profitable high-end business machines.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[chickenrob]

I'm not sure I go along with you on the whole everythings an entertainment console and nothing is a business pc. Any os IBM used would have been capable of spreadsheets and probably decent word processing which were the keys to makeing pcs invaluable to any business of any size. True, apple may have had much more dominance in this world, but IBM was going to face business in the direction they were headed, weather it payed off for them or not...

Re:Without Microsoft?

[cgenman]

Let's not forget, Atari died of its own mismanagement, not because Microsoft quashed it.

Smaller HDDs? Slower CPU's? Because of Cartridges? That doesn't make any sense. If companies are competing as games platforms, don't you think we'd have a dramatic rise in power every few years... like we've been having in the console arena? Games always require faster processors. Furthermore, how would this tap the demand of the PC crowd, instead of drawing from the console group? Wouldn't the people be interested in this kind of networking.

BTW, the cartridges you describe are also known as "disks," like the things that the PC used for memory. Otherwise you're talking real chip-based cartridges, which were too expensive to use compared to other mediums of the time (such as floppys), and had no storage.

If there were no master operating system out there, the computing demands would go up significantly as many more pieces of software would be running in JAVA or envoking other forms of cross-platform compatibility. Once again, I fail to see how software would not be keeping up with hardware.

Have you never used a business Tandy? Saying that companies would have held off moving to computerized systems is forgetting that long before Windows was out many businesses were using computerized systems. You still get people complaining about not being able to upgrade their OS2Warp systems. And as OS2 was an IBM creation, and was adopted by the FBI, it could very easily have "legitimized" the personal computer industry.

I hate posts like this. People attributing to Microsoft what is really the broader fault of technology. Automated systems and informational conduits are sufficient reasons to adopt computing systems, and the armies of salesmen for IBM and SUN are enough to replace those of Microsoft.

Once people had computers, networking became obvious. Once people had networking, communications became obvious. Once people had communications, e-mail became obvious. Once people had e-mail, HTML became obvious. Once people had HTML, the personal computer became inevitable. Right up until that last prerequisite, the network only needed (and was developed on) UNIX based systems. That would still put the personal computer boom in around 97/98.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[k_head]

I think you are playing revisionist history here.

You are forgetting the revolution in business brought about by dbase and visicalc.

By the time MS came on to the scene business had already embraced computers.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[C10H14N2]

My family's "mom-and-pop" business had multiple computers from 1981 on and was pleasantly Microsoft free for quite some time. We had Osbornes, Sperrys, various Commodores for play(C64s and Amigas) etc. We ran CP/M and DR-DOS. We used MicroPro and Wordperfect software and had contract programmers for specialized software to run the business. We only bought Microsoft when it was clearly becoming the only game in town, starting in around 1988. Functionally speaking, everything Microsoft has developed--or imitated and/or outright stolen--would have been developed otherwise, possibly worse, very likely better. The flagship MS products are not unique and they never have been. Personal computers were entering the home long before Microsoft had anything to sell and would have continued their progression unabated regardless.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[_Sprocket_]

IBM needed an OS, and if MS wasn't there, CP/M was. So on that front we'd just have different person reaping the rewards there. Of course, Kildall was a business moron and blew his chance at that time.

Maybe, maybe not. This is one bit of computing history that has me stumped. MS-DOS exists because CP/M wasn't an option for IBM. Or at least wasn't an option at the time IBM needed it to be.

MS-DOS was, essentially, QDOS. QDOS existed because Digital Research was slow to produce a version of CP/M for the newer 8086 line of processors. Seattle Computer had a new line of hardware based on the 8086 and eventually created their own CP/M clone to fill the void lefted by Digital Research - QDOS. Microsoft licensed QDOS.

Oddly enough, IBM had approuched Digital Research about CP/M. However, they were not greeted with much enthusiasm (some niggling over a non-disclosure agreement). It seems that Digital did not have a version of CP/M ready. The question I have is - why not?

Apple would have risen much more strongly, as well as console/PC makers like Atari and Commodore. We'd probably see computers with more advanced graphics systems, but with less memory and less hard disk space as most media would be self-contained cartridges.

I disagree here. Yes - Atari and Commodore did have an early preference for cartridges. However, that mode was quickly overcome by a growing industry of software producers selling software on cassette tape and floppy disk. In short, cartridges were being out-moded. Floppy disks were catching on. And that was happening on every microcomputer platform.

We wouldn't have the powerful CPUs that we have now, we'd probably be a couple generations behind as the hardware demands of the software would be much lower.

I'm curious as to what you base this on. If IBM hadn't lost control of its platform, I could this this happening. But once the IBM PC became a commodity platform, competition began driving performance as hardware producers grabbed whatever edge they could - and as fast as Intel (and then later AMD and Cyrix) could provide one (and thank AMD for pushing this cycle even faster).

Now - the question would be... would Compaq been successful in starting the commodity / clone market if Microsoft hadn't been there to license MS-DOS?

Hard disks would be small, memory would be low, and video screens would be optimized to view on both TV and computer monitors. Digital TVs that could display computer video output at high resolutions would be the standard as the console/PCs would have merged the computer into a central position in the home entertainment cabinet.

I'm not so sure about the whole monitor bit. Sure - the ability to use a TV tube as a monitor was a consumer-friendly practice. A practice started by Apple. However, dedicated computer monitors weren't too uncommon even with consumer systems from Commodore and Atari. I don't see things going any differently.

Many companies would only just now be moving their businesses to computerized systems. Until now, computers would have been viewed as toys. Without Microsoft, the concept of a computer for business would be unthinkable except for large institutions, so many smaller accounting firms, warehouses, and mom'n'pop stores would still be doing their paperwork by hand.

First, you're giving credit to Microsoft for the IBM PC platform. IBM drove sales of the PC - by name alone.

Secondly, IBM itself was playing catch-up. They ignored the microcomputer market. That is, until the first killer app. That application was Visicalc - the dawn of the spreadsheet. Microcomputers stopped being simply hobbiest curiosities and became a tool for business. It might be

Re:Without Microsoft?

[Billly Gates]

Hmmm

The business world back then viewed PC's as hobbiest toys. Real power was from the mainframe where most "Cricital" tasks should be done. A terminal on everydesk was teh mantra.

My father was very closed to being fired in 1985. How? He implemented a plan to use IBM XT's instead of buying an IBM 380 mainframe with dumb terminals.

His boss that he was nuts and qoute "ya a pc on everydesk, and a million flowers all growing in the desert".

visicalc and dbase( mainframe) were cool but toys besides a few engineers who used them. Wallstreet might have been different because they needed such machines but they were an exception to the rule.

But IBM is what convinced them that perhaps they may have something here and if it fails these pc's would make great smart terminals instead of our dumb terminals.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[Brandybuck]

IBM needed an OS, and if MS wasn't there, CP/M was.

There was also the UCSD P-System available at the time. Imagine how different the world would have been today if that had been IBM's choice!

From day one of the PC era, portable byte code would have been the norm!

Re:Without Microsoft?

[k_head]

You are way offbase. I was around back then and visicalc was mainly used by accountants not engineers. I was also friends with people who made a living writing dbase applications. It was an entire cottage industry of people writing dbase applications and not one of them was a game.

It sounds like you also are not aware that dbase ran on CP/M based machines and apple II (and it's clones). Rbase was the big mainframe database back then. Again Dbase had no real practical use for an engineer it was mainly used for inventory and POS type applications and of course accounting applications.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[DerekLyons]

I think you are playing revisionist history here.

You are forgetting the revolution in business brought about by dbase and visicalc.

By the time MS came on to the scene business had already embraced computers.

No, he's got it pretty much bang on. Despite Apple's claims to the contrary, most businesses *didn't* have computers. Personal computers didn't really start to penetrate to business desktop until around 1985/86, and they were almost universally x86 machines.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Of course, Kildall was a business moron and blew his chance at that time.

This is highly disputable FUD - part of the legend of Kildall being out flying when IBM came to discuss licensing CP/M. Someone apparently traced this version of the story back to Gates in an interview with the Times. Kildall's version was much different.

Kildall was being forced into a non-disclosure agreement by IBM that he and his legal counsel found objectionable. Eventually a deal was done but there were delays in getting the product out. Meanwhile MS had mugged IBM into buying a CP/M work-a-like along with their BASIC and IBM were able to bundle this as a temporary solution. IBM provided CP/M-86 as well but the pricing was prohibitive for many users who only wanted to run MS BASIC.

CP/M *was* the standard at the time and Kildall's business model was perfectly adequate for the market that existed.

The face of computing would have been a lot different without MS - Digital Research later produced a far superior operating system in DR-DOS and also had a multi-user, multi-tasking OS long before MS realised there was a market for one. Digital Research's GEM - used on the Atari ST as well as the PC - was a better windowing environment than anything MS could produce for a number of years and there were also plans to produce an multi-platform version which was pitched to the X consortium.

If GEM had not been permanently crippled by the Apple lawsuits - which MS Windows somehow avoided - it would have ben the market leader. Just compare GEM 1.1 from 1985 - with moveable, scaleable, overlapping windows - to the post-lawsuit versions with fixed, immoveable windows! MS Windows eventually evolved into what GEM had once been...

Remember that Kildall was the man behind the first useable disk OS for microcomputers, the first BIOS, the first multi-user and multi-tasking micro OS, the first windowed environment for the PC and more.

Oh...and in this age of software patents, Kildall's only patent was for a hardware device - a screen magnifier for the Mac...

rb

Re:Without Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly enough, IBM had approuched Digital Research about CP/M. However, they were not greeted with much enthusiasm (some niggling over a non-disclosure agreement).

There were some other issues. (a) It's widely rumored that Kildall was engaged in an extra-marital affair with an IBM exec. (b) It's known that Bill Gates' mother was a close friend of one of the senior IBMers involved in the PC project; they were on the board of the local United Way together. She was the one who said "Oh, my son Bill can write you an OS..."

Re:Without Microsoft?

[petrus4]

>Many companies would only just now be moving >their businesses to computerized systems. Until >now, computers would have been viewed as toys.

I have to disagree here. The Amiga and Macintosh were both developing office software independently of Microsoft. The Amiga had word processing software...it wasn't just a multimedia machine. Also, even though Wang was flogging his embedded word processors back then, the move eventually would have been made to word processing on a PC/Apple/Amiga, even if not straight away. Say you want to listen to a MOD file or MP3 while doing your homework, for instance.

Personally I also tend to doubt that Microsoft had anything to do with the demise of Commodore in particular. The sales/distribution lines for Commodore software in particular were screwed...back in 1990 when I had an Amiga, the main reason why we pirated software was because at the time, piracy via user distribution was the only way to get it. Also, 1990-92 was when a lot of busts of people in the Amiga warez/cracking scene happened, and those who didn't get busted stopped releasing out of fear that they'd be next. With the piracy that had been the machine's main form of software distribution dying, and with IBM and Microsoft beginning to gain speed, gaining new converts to the Amiga format gradually became impossible.

>We wouldn't have the powerful CPUs that we have >now, we'd probably be a couple generations >behind as the hardware demands of the software >would be much lower. Hard disks would be small, >memory would be low, and

Yes, this is true. I've always realised that to a degree, the fanaticism of the Amiga users was indeed justified. Hardware wise anyway, the Amiga was for it's time an incredibly advanced design. Of course, these days we all have sound and video cards with dedicated chips and in some cases memory, and we think nothing of it. But at the time (late 80s, early 90s) such an idea was otherwise unheard of. The Amiga's CPU also leant a lot more heavily on it's sound/graphics processors as well...the CPU from memory was around 7 mHz, and on some models I saw the graphics and sound chips were the same speed. Because of this, although the XT's processor was the same speed as all three (around 18-21 mHz, from memory) the Amiga was able to do things graphically that the XT couldn't concieve of.
Microsoft and Apple might have developed the microcomputer software wise in the early days, but Commodore deserve an enormous amount of the credit for refining the hardware. The main reason why in a world without MS we'd still have less advanced hardware would simply be because we wouldn't need anything more powerful. Commodore's machines might have been very small on paper, but the hardware/software combo had a level of efficiency unheard of these days.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[Mike McCune]

"IBM needed an OS, and if MS wasn't there, CP/M was. So on that front we'd just have different person reaping the rewards there. Of course, Kildall was a business moron and blew his chance at that time."

If Kildall signed a deal with IBM, it would have been Bill Gates who died in a bar fight.

Re:Without Microsoft?

[Lord Raze]

IBM needed an OS, and if MS wasn't there, CP/M was. So on that front we'd just have different person reaping the rewards there.

This is a really good point. Additionally, without DOS, there wouldn't have been a perception that it was absolute shit, leading the OS/2 project. Remember, OS/2 happened because it was felt by IBM and Microsoft that DOS was just unfixable, so they started over from scratch. Was CP/M-86 just as brain damaged at it's core? Would it have needed to be scrapped and rewritten (i.e. CPM/2) the way DOS was, or would IBM just have fixed it in a major overhaul release? Without Microsoft, OS/2 would probably not existed... not even as "CPM/2".

Of course, Kildall was a business moron and blew his chance at that time.

He did at that. How do you live that one down? Yikes...

Apple would have risen much more strongly, as well as console/PC makers like Atari and Commodore. We'd probably see computers with more advanced graphics systems, but with less memory and less hard disk space as most media would be self-contained cartridges.

I have to call Bullshit on you here. Software would be on self-contained cartriges? No way! There was a steady move to floppy disks even as far back as the C64 (which I owned), and the first 3.5 that I ever used was on an Apple ][ GS. The hard drive revolution would still have come, and CD-ROMs, as you may recall, were spurred by the penetration of the CD audio format.

It's an interesting idea, 'what would our industry look like if we were all still using carts', but I just don't think it would have happened that way, even without a Microsoft.

We wouldn't have the powerful CPUs that we have now, we'd probably be a couple generations behind as the hardware demands of the software would be much lower.

This is another good point. The CPU arms race may not have happened... then again, it may have been the other big guys in our hypothetical world, Apple and Commodore, who started to ship overdone bloatware OSes... Commodore would, judging by the way the AmigaOS was crafted, probably have endeavoured to keep things lean and tight, but Apple may still have wound up with Scully, and MacOS would still have bloated out of proportion.

Hard disks would be small, memory would be low,

Not sure about that... Moore's Law was proposed long before Microsoft was founded.

and video screens would be optimized to view on both TV and computer monitors.

This is a good point. With Commodore leading the pack, I think there would have been a much stronger push toward TV use, as you suggest, but remember, Apple has from the first Mac had an integrated monitor, so maybe not. It's an interesting thought.

Digital TVs that could display computer video output at high resolutions would be the standard as the console/PCs would have merged the computer into a central position in the home entertainment cabinet.

I disagree with this, but I have nothing solid to buttress my position. I just feel that the PC would stull have catipulted into the desktop, even if the industry was dominated by Apple or Commodore. It might have taken a little more time, maybe a year or so. Or possibly it would have happened faster... remember how Apple used to own the education realm?

Many companies would only just now be moving their businesses to computerized systems. Until now, computers would have been viewed as toys. Without Microsoft, the concept of a computer for business would be unthinkable except for large institutions, so many smaller accounting firms, warehouses, and mom'n'pop stores would still be doing their paperwork by hand.

I disagree. I think we witnesse

That's easy!

[pergamon]

There'd be no war, starvation, or crime, and every child would have a pony.

Re:That's easy!

[chickenrob]

I hate every child that ever had a pony.

Re:That's easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like enough of a reason to start a war :).

Re:That's easy!

[TrancePhreak]

The ponies would eat children when no one was looking and they would greet us first with a book titled "How to serve man"

Re:That's easy!

[pergamon]

I had a pony! We all had ponies! My sister had pony, my cousin had pony, so what's wrong with that?

Re:That's easy!

[dpilot]

And we'd all be listening the Wyld Stallions music, and Keannu Reaves would never have gotten enough spare time to make Speed or The Matrix.

Re:That's easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

what's wrong? you're a fag! that's what's wrong!

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think Louis Armstrong wrote a song about it.

No more Kill Clippy!

[mrklin]

Replaced by

Kill the AOL Running Man or

Kill the Puma/Jaugar/Panther/or whatever cat the next OS X version is called after or

Kill the (gasp!) Penguin

without microsoft...

[bsDaemon]

I'll likely get flamed to hell and moded out of existance, but I believe every word of this:
Gary Kildale died in a plane crash and never got the chance to give CP/M to IBM. Without Microsoft getting DOS for IBM, Intel never would have gained the marketshare. Linus would not have been hacking on the 386 and needing badly to break the confines of what he had available. Therefor, the likelihood of Linux existing today would be significantly lower. It may not have happened. You might still be waiting for HURD (or, more likely, using BSD). Hell, Intel woulde never have gotten so popular. You all might all be on using Macintoshes right now like I am.
Microsoft's products might suck, but they made Intel hardware the comodoty that it is today in order that you can afford to tinker with Linux or whatever it is you want to do.

Where will the EU get money from !

[vinit79]

If MS goes **whoff** poor EU wont have anyone to fine and the whole of Europe will go in a major economic depression dragging US and the rest of the world with it which will lead to unrest and wars and destroy the human race. This will make the mice angry as they wont find the question to 42 and being hyper projections of super intelligent beings they will end the universe and everything.

Good thing I have a life insuarance.

Re:Where will the EU get money from !

[surprise_audit]

Assuming that the software doesn't evaporate along with the company, losing Microsoft wouldn't make a lot of difference to anyone. Not immediately. We'd all trundle along with Windows 9x/XP for a while, until virus writers find the killer vulnerability that allows them to completely own everything. Even then, people will just wipe and reload, much as they do at the moment. Firewalls will become much more interesting to the general population, though.

What would be worth watching would be if Microsoft sticks around, but withdraws from the EU market. I think we would see several stages:

1) Microsoft withdraws from EU. EU doesn't take much notice because everything still works.
2) Microsoft issues a statement claiming that some clause in the EULA allows them to revoke the license to use Windows. EU companies fail to panic because, hey, the software still works even without a license!
3) Microsoft revokes licenses from all of EU. BSA starts spamming EU with audit notices. EU declares click-through EULA and shrink-wrap licenses invalid and advises EU companies to show BSA the finger.
4) With Microsoft software no longer available in EU, international companies in the US ship MS software to their EU branches anyway.

All though this, some other OS gains significant acceptance and becomes the dominant desktop OS.

Taken down?

[pebs]

Is Microsoft just the big nail that always gets hammered first and will someone step in to take their place when they are finally taken down?

By taken down what do you mean? Microsoft is not going away for a long time. They have the resources to continue survival as long as they change to fit the market. They will do what they have to do to be profitable. And they will buy out technology that is already successful in order to do this.

Unless you mean lose their stranglehold on the desktop OS market. I certainly hope this happens soon. Maybe the snowball effect Linux is having will grow big enough to cut into this. Apple already has a great product that is catering to the premium market. Maybe someone else will step into the game?

In any case, a world without Microsoft is not going to happen. For example, if Linux became the desktop standard, Microsoft would certainly get involved with it and somehow make money off it. A world without Windows as the desktop standard, that's certainly possible.

Re:Taken down?

[dtfinch]

By taken down what do you mean?

I suppose taken down as in Canadian forces launch a surgical strike into Washington state, bomb Microsoft's headquarters, and shoot down Bill Gates' private fleet of hypersonic jets, the smaller jet that pops out of one of the exploding wrecks, all of the parachuters that ejected, most of veteran navy seals made up to look like Bill, and one mutilated corpse drained and refilled with blood that had been drawn from Bill and stored over a period of 5 years. Little would they know that the real Bill Gates will have been surgically altered to look like your average billionaire Columbian druglord. The US will retake Redmond, nuke the crap out of Canada, and everyone will assume that Billy was killed in the initial onslaught. Strong lobbying in Congress will end the drug war and subsidize Columbian drug imports to undercut local competition as reparations for decades of past mistreatment. Everyone lives happily ever after and Gill Bates becomes the world's first trillionaire.

Re:Taken down?

[pebs]

yeah.. that's pretty much the only scenario that I imagined Microsoft being taken down :)

Well, at least, I imagined it would involve nukes somehow.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[Trogre]

"Could you imagine a world without Lawyers..."

<utopian scenes of happy people holding hands, dancing round maypoles, rainbow in background>

<the lawyer shudders>

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[Bull999999]

That would be unfair to the Democrats because it will seriously hamper their ability to raise money.

Well... there's the obvious

[ValourX]

Well Jim's been dead for more than thirty years... Robby, Ray, and John are still around though. They don't play much anymore.

Or were you talking about ports to games on old Amiga BBSes?

-Jem

Re: Obligatory Quote

[seaswahoo]

And we wouldn't have the obligatory quote: "640K of memory should be enough for anybody." (Bill Gates, 1981)

As much as

[AnonymousCowheart]

As much bashing as MS gets, computers wouldn't be as cheap as they are today, without MS making it possible for joe 6 pack to operate one. Same thing counts for AOL, ppl love to bash them (mostly their users i guess) but if it weren't for them, the internet would be as popular-and before someone says that's a good thing, less spam, etc, there would also be MUCH less content out there too. Let's not forget that MS has done some good for computer users, maybe not computer users USING their software. Remember, with competition, everyone wins!

Re:As much as

[geekoid]

nope.

Joe6Pack could have used GEM, or the MAC, or any other GUIs that where being developed.

There where many GUI systems that where equally, if not more, intuitivilly designed the windows.
The internet content was ramping up before it was 'discovered' by MS.

Why do you think only MS culd have come up with a GUI? Any number of companies could have done a better job, and probalby would have behaved better, which means we would be farther ahead.

Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Very boring for the average Slashdot poster, that's what.

An Interesting Idea

[MBCook]

Without MS, where would we be? That's a very good question.

First off we have to consider the fact that MS has really pushed the PC market very far. Without MS, IBM may have made their own OS for the PC or had a company make it that wouldn't have sold it to clone makers. This would give IBM a monopoly on (what became) Wintels, so we would have had more kinds of computers (at least for a longer time). Would this have forced more innovation, or would everyone be re-implementing everyone else's ideas so things would have slowed down?

The standardization of MS has also pushed us a long way. I know that I can take a disk from my computer (Win XP right now) and read it on nearly every other computer I'll find (Windows PCs, Macs, BSD, Linux, BeOS, etc). When Microsoft has backed a standard, often it's the one that survives so who knows how many more VHS/Betamax type fights computer users would have had to go through without them. At the same time, who's to say Apple wouldn't have become dominant and caused the same kind of standards.

In software innovation, MS has done many things too. While they are stagnating now, back when Apple was a major contender they really pushed things. Some things have really improved because of them (most computers run the same API for games, DirectX), but then again they have tried to strange/take over other things (Java).

So I guess it all depends on who would have existed if MS didn't become who they did. There are a couple of options.

• A bunch of companies competing - Great for consumers, quite possibly where we would have ended up
• A different monopoly, but with stiff competition - Like when Apple still kept MS on their toes all the time (unlike what we saw when the Mac wasn't much of a challenge, like the OS 9 days). I think we're approaching this thanks to OS X and Linux
• A different monopoly who would have done the same - From a business point of view, a (near) total monopoly with a strangle hold on the market is a great place to be in

While computers have stagnated (relativly) in the last few years due to lack of competition, I think the increased incompatabilites that would have stayed around if there were many computer standards for a while might have kept the computer from becomming any more advanced from what it is now. So I guess I don't things would be too different (ability wise), although interfaces and such would probably look quite different.

Re:An Interesting Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I apologize ahead of time....

IBM may have made their own OS for the PC

You mean OS/2? It existed and is still run on cash registers around the world. Remember, microsoft screwed IBM with Windows 95.

The standardization of MS has also pushed us a long way

I have to disagree, Microsoft hasn't done much for standards. Instead, they take other peoples standards and screw them up. Example? Java(screwed), Javascript(screwed), HTML(screwed), Word Document(closed format), WMA(closed format), win32(closed format)... standards my ass.

back when Apple was a major contender

Are you smoking crack! Have you been asleep the last 4 years of OS X? Hello, Expose! OpenGL accelerated! lets not forget about hardware. Microsoft rarely invents? Evidence... GUI - no, Games - no, Security - no. About the only thing that I see Microsoft pushing is the damage that Viruses can unleash on us.

Your post seems to worship Microsoft for what it has done, I just don't see it that way. Microsoft brought us Office for Mac first. So without Microsoft, we would all be driving around OSX or OS/2 with Word Perfect.

Re:An Interesting Idea

[glMatrixMode]

As read in your signature :

Read an intelligent book like "The New Thought Police" or "The War Against Boys", and learn the TRUTH.

Dude, as far as I know, the "TRUTH" can't fit in a book !
(just my $0.02...)

Re:An Interesting Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The standardization of MS has also pushed us a long way. I know that I can take a disk from my computer (Win XP right now) and read it on nearly every other computer I'll find

Actually, that was the primary motivation of Tim Berners-Lee when he developed the WWW.

Fast-forward ten years, and you find you can't reliably write an HTML document because Internet Explorer doesn't implement the standards the way everyone else does.

Re:An Interesting Idea

[TwistedGreen]

What? Haven't you heard of the BIBLE?

Just a thought..

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd all be using Netscape on BeOS?

What would the world be like...

[starseeker]

We'd probably all be using OS2/Warp clones right now - IBM's hardware would have been reverse engineered, they wouldn't have licensed OS2/Warp, and people would have cloned it as the "standard" PC interface.

Whether that would be an improvement I have no idea. It probably would have slowed the adoption of the PC in the US (come to think of it, that might not have been a bad idea). It probably would have forced universal standards that everybody actually followed, since it would have been a heterogeneous environment. Also a lot more response to customer needs/wants probably would have gone on, due to actual competition.

BUT - Open Source probably wouldn't have taken off, since that initial pool of tech savvy people pissed off at Microsoft and having no affordable alternatives wouldn't have been there. It would still probably be a movement, but I don't think it would have the star power and momentum it has now. Maybe we should be thanking Microsoft for that, actually. Tilting is more fun if you have a nice big windmill to run into.

Round

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure the world would be round without Microsoft. Here is a rendering:

. <--- you are here

Here is a closeup:

o

Without Microsoft, there wouldn't really be anywhere to put Bill Gates. I guess we'd have to send him into space. I found an artist's conception of what Bill Gates might look like orbiting the Earth:

\o/ -- AUGH! HELP!
| .
/ \

I'm tearing up, here, just thinking about it....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like some beautiful dream... no words... no word to describe it... should have sent... a poet

[sniffle]

one word comment

[Anonymous Coward]

happy.

History will tell us

[obeythefist]

Assuming a couple of things:
a) Microsoft never existed
b) All else in history is more or less unchanged before MS moved in

The server market in the high end was controlled by mainframes and big tin servers running *nix. Without Windows to replace these systems, the companies that ran them (Sun, HP, IBM) would keep doing so for longer. Eventually the rise of the powerful small end server would still leave these older big tin servers by the wayside, as we are seeing today.

The small end market was completely owned by Novell. Novell would progress at the same rate from 3.12 up to 6, but market penetration in their segment would be phenomenally higher than even Windows over a long enough period.

IBM's OS/2 completely dominates the desktop market. Intel and AMD continue a fierce price war, although Intel's market share is damaged as IBM is a more cosmopolitan company than MS, and so offers support for AMD and Cyrix processors quite happily. For this reason Via never acquires Cyrix, making Cyrix dominate the market segment at the cheap and cheery level. Likewise, as Cyrix has a much stronger hand, Transmeta never gets the Crusoe off the ground.

Apple is relegated to its current niche as higher than OS/2 pricing and interoperability difficulties with Novell servers push the Macintosh away from the corporate spotlight. Apple nonetheless is a much stronger company and is presumably embroiled in near eternal court battles with IBM over antitrust issues.

Assuming the Linux movement begins to attempt to thwart IBM's OS/2 (the dominant desktop OS) offering seamless compatibility with Novell Netware on the server side. A few niche groups attempt to weedle market share away from Novell, but Novell's interoperability with Linux and more open software philosophies make the advantages of Linux appear much smaller than when compared with Windows.

OpenOffice and StarOffice are the first to compete heavily with IBM's 123 Suite that has held the market captive for over a decade.

Lotus Notes is much more pervasive and dominates several custom business flows in most major corporations across the world. People recognise that Novell is the most stable and solid platform for Notes deployment, and the Linux equivalents are shaping up and looking promising but still aren't viewed as "Ready for business".

Re:History will tell us

[Senjutsu]

IBM's OS/2 completely dominates the desktop market.

IIRC, the early versions of OS/2 were a joint IBM - Microsoft effort to replace MS-DOS.

So if MS never existed, neither did OS/2.

Re:History will tell us

[IntlHarvester]

No, IBM would have bought out Gates and Microsoft would become the IBM PCSoft Division.

The World would be worse off...

[ath0mic]

...since we wouldn't have the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Regardless of your feelings for Microsoft and Gates, you have to respect his philanthropy.

Re:The World would be worse off...

[veddermatic]

IF donating only after your government agrees to an MS licensing deal is your idea of charity....

I gave more than 0.04 percent of my income charity last year... why don't I get any puff pieces written about ME!

Re:The World would be worse off...

[Snad]

Regardless of your feelings for Microsoft and Gates, you have to respect his philanthropy.

If he donated a worthwhile proportion of his money to worthwhile causes like some of us do then he might be worth some respect.

Spending (the equivalent of) petty cash in an effort to somehow buy good karma is not something we should respect him for. If you've seen interviews with Bill Gates discussing his "charity work" then you'll realise that this is all it is - simply a way for him to buy a profile he hopes will offset his lack of conscience.

Cue Led Zepplin here...

Re:The World would be worse off...

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe you should look at other rich people in the world and what they do with their money, many people are suffering from tall poppy syndrome.
If you think you can do better, go innovate and invent something, then give hundreds of millions of your money, id like you to see how easy it is

Re:The World would be worse off...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had as much money as Bill Gates I'd give it all away except for maybe $1m to live off the investment return for the rest of my life.

I've known "rich" people giving millions anonymously. Do you think Bill Gates would ever give an anonymous donation, let alone one worth truly millions of dollars?

It's not tall poppy syndrome at all. Gates "philanthropy" is smoke and mirrors. There are others out there doing much better things for human beings than Gates, and doing it without the publicity.

There are also others doing much worse, but that doesn't make Gates somehow worthy of "respect" for doing badly.

What would the world be like...

[Anonymous Coward]

...without people asking stupid, senseless questions. I mean, really, this is a completely idiotic question. It's pointless. It's mental fucking masturbation. It's the geek equivalent of a dozen fratboys sitting around with a half ounce of Northern Lights and a 48-pack of Pabst asking what happened, man, if the tail chased you?!

Aren't there any REAL questions being asked, or is /. so desperate for material that this is what passes as discussion fodder?

Could have been worse then microsoft

[zakezuke]

Microsoft's business model, like it or not, made the clone industry possible... causing the clone PC to actually take a hold of the market. If it wasn't for the fact that you could buy / pirate a copy of MS-dos for your clone... we may have had no alternative but to buy from IBM / Apple / Commodore / Atari / Dec / Sun what ever what have you. While this may have been good in many ways, all seem to have been more interested in the end user just buying a new PC every few years without assurances of binary downward compataiblity. If we're talking Sun / SGI / Dec... I highly doubt that your typicaly home user would be able to afford a license. Microsoft was sub $100 for your sub $1000 pc... and like it or not, this wasn't a bad deal esp to those who just pirated a copy from a friend... as it was the custom.

Re:Could have been worse then microsoft

[xzoon]

Microsoft was sub $100 for your sub $1000 pc

Now a days it's more like $1000 for your sub $100 pc. ;)

Re:Could have been worse then microsoft

[nathanh]

Microsoft's business model, like it or not, made the clone industry possible... causing the clone PC to actually take a hold of the market.

Nonsense. CP/M would have filled the same niche. Bill Gates was just lucky that the Kildalls (specifically his wife) stuffed up the deal of a lifetime.

If not CP/M, then UNIX would almost certainly have filled the same niche. UNIX was already well on its way to being a "generic" OS. However, with UNIX as the primary platform it's likely we would have seen a faster convergence of the standards and the utter destruction of Intel. Motorola would have cleaned their clocks a thousand times over.

Re:Could have been worse then microsoft

[zakezuke]

Nonsense. CP/M would have filled the same niche. Bill Gates was just lucky that the Kildalls (specifically his wife) stuffed up the deal of a lifetime.

If you'll note, I said, "Microsoft's business model"" not Microsoft Dos... I was very careful in the way I phreased my statement. It had little to do with Microsoft and their product... it had alot to do with the fact they were willing to license it to anyone with the cash.

Re:Could have been worse then microsoft

[jafac]

we may have had no alternative but to buy from IBM / Apple / Commodore / Atari / Dec / Sun what ever what have you.

Sounds like plenty of alternatives to me.
Without Microsoft, don't you think that all of these players would have been able to step into the desktop market and compete with eachother?

I believe that these guys would have realized, (in this alternative sans-Microsoft universe) that they needed a set of standards to work with. We'd probably be without NETBIOS, SMB, WINS, and Microsoft-embraced versions of Java, DHCP, Kerberos, and soon, XML. There would be no "AGP" and PCI probably would have been evolved forward. There would probably also be no Rambus RAM either.

But I agree that Linux probably would not exist. More likely, a BSD variant in it's place.

Re:Could have been worse then microsoft

[zakezuke]

Sounds like plenty of alternatives to me.
Without Microsoft, don't you think that all of these players would have been able to step into the desktop market and compete with eachother?

Again... I said "Microsoft's Business model", not Microsoft. I believe that any one of these players had the ability to step up to the desktop market, each of whom had their own OS they were perfectly happy with. I'm sure any of them would have been willing to sell a license to their OS... but I doublt highly that any would be willing to sell such a license sub $100... after all hardware companies have much higher overhead then software ones.... and for each sale of a licensed OS to a third party means one less PC sale.

I believe that these guys would have realized, (in this alternative sans-Microsoft universe) that they needed a set of standards to work with. either.

This may be true... or another software company may have made an operating system they were willing to sell to anyone who wanted it. Keep in mind that in the early 80s... it was believed the money was in the hardware, not the software. Microsoft was unique in the fact that their flagship product was easily coppied... and to the old school types this wasn't considered to be a viable business plan. Cloning the PC and selling a product that could be duplicated for pennies with an insane profit margin was, I argue, the whole reason the PC world is what it is today.

Otherwise, we would be at the mercy of HP / Dec / Sun / etc's prices. Plenty of alternatives... but it's the whole decentralization of PC software production that cause the revolution as we know it.

What would the world be like without Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question. I think IT managers wouldn't walk so funny anymore. They'd probably be able to sit down without wincing too.

Apple would likely dominate

[ripbruger]

I think that Apple would likely dominate with the Mac. We wouldn't have Windows/DOS, but we might have other idiosyncrasies from the Apple world that might have been left in the OS if there wasn't any competitive "instinct" to innovate the product any further than need be.

Instead of DirectX, the big question remains as to if Apple would incorporate OpenGL, or develop their own 3D API. With no X-BOX competing against the PS2 and GameCube, it'd be interesting to see if Sega would still be around (or Infinium La....nevermind, we're talking about plausible things here).

The most interesting thing would be to see how business networking would have evolved as well. Would we all be on AppleTalk for sharing files and printing, and what would you use for a server? There's no WinNT in this hypothetical reality, but would we have a UNIX variant, or something else entirely.

As said previously, a lot has come out of Microsoft's Research division for many different ares of computer science, and most importantly, usability.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Re:Apple would likely dominate

[Dr. Manhattan]

Instead of DirectX, the big question remains as to if Apple would incorporate OpenGL, or develop their own 3D API.

They did make their own 3D API. We might have been lamenting QuickDraw 3D instead of OpenGL games...

no hotmail

[Rotworm]

Without Microsoft less people would be going to hotmale.com out of curiosity and the need for a giggle.

Re:no hotmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Hotmail existed long before MS bought out the guy...

A world without Microsoft.

[fruity1983]

Imagine a world without war, without famine, without murder or theft or sorrow.

Imagine no traffic jams, low taxes, a scenic house on the waterfront...







Then close down Simcity and spend the next 14 hours recompiling your kernel.

Without Microsoft...

[_Potter_PLNU_]

I believe the average computer user would have been left in the dark, and the computer industry would not have boomed as much as it did in the last 20 years. At least some other company would have come along and taken the market that Microsoft has.

I mean, how many people would have wanted to learn the CLI in order to use computers? Someone eventually would have come along and done exactly what Microsoft has done, because it is what the general population needed to start using computers for personal use.

And the point of this discussion is?

[syousef]

I'm sure this won't be popular but I don't see the point of this hypothetical. Like it or hate it Microsoft is very big on the landscape of computing at the moment. You might as well ask what if I won a billion dollars.

A better question is where do we want to be tomorrow, as oppossed to where the hell did you want to be today. (Sorry I couldn't resist).

What would the world be if people...

[Anonymous Coward]

would not ask loaded questions.

Why stop at only 20+ years ago, go back a little bit further, and ask yourself, what if Gates' mother had an abortion.

Mod away bastards.

One word

[azav]

Better.

Then everyone would hate IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone here even remember when Microsoft was the good guys and IBM was the bad guys???

Companies like Compaq that reverse engineered the BIOS were the equivalent to open source is to Microsoft today.

If Microsoft were to vanish ...

[SmoothTom]

... there would be a huge effect on the economy and on future development of computer operating systems and other softwear.

If Microsoft were to vanish, it would become very difficult to maintain or improve their closed, proprietary software. If their softwear wer to vanish along wioth them, it would be utter disaster for a good while until everything could be pieced back together with other softwear.

Some of us would only have secondary effects felt because others use Microsoft softwear. For example none of my computers have any Microsoft softwear installed, and I try to ensure it remains that way.

A related question is "Would I *like* Microsoft to disappear."

No, I wouldn't. I'd very much like for them to be broken into independent, managable-sized pieces ("bite sized chunks"), as that wouild likely help innovation and pricing by making it possible for others to compete without suddenly vanishing away ...

--
Tomas

"But o beamish nephew, beware of the day
If your snark be a boojum for then,
you will softly and suddenly vanish away
and never be met with again." (Lewis Carrol)

I'd be out of a job

[Stonent1]

But probably be much happier.

Not in a plane crash

[geekoid]

from http://www.maxframe.com/DR.HTM

"On July 11, 1994, Gary Kildall passed away following a blow to his head at the Franklin Street Bar & Grill in Monterey,"

I think his son would no when his father died.

IBM didn't go with CP/M because Bill Gates mother knew a VP at IBM, and got him in. Using that, he was able to convince the rather shortsighted IBM to go with MS.

If they went with CP/M, IBM would be king of the world because Gary, in all likley hood, would not have asked to retain the rights.

The PC popularity was a large art do to the fact that you can tinker with it. When Macs started, they went out of there way to prevent you from opening them up.

Re:Not in a plane crash

[Fortunato_NC]

The PC popularity was a large art do to the fact that you can tinker with it. When Macs started, they went out of there way to prevent you from opening them up.

I think if you really looked, you'd find that the PC's popularity had more to do with the fact that it wasn't locked to one particular manufacturer. Once Compaq clean-roomed their own BIOS and built the first PC compatibles, it wasn't long before half of Taiwain was making motherboards and selling components to white box computer builders. Remember how many computer manufacturers there were and how big Computer Shopper magazine was in the eighties and early nineties? Those guys weren't building computers for people to tinker with, they were building IBM compatibles because the parts were cheaply and easily available. If someone had reverse engineered the Apple MAC ROMs and not been pounded to dust by the Apple Legal Team, we might well all be using Macs today.

The ironic thing is that without two things that IBM would view as absolute disasters - the non-exclusive deal Bill Gates and Microsoft cut with IBM to supply DOS, and the arrival of the "clone" market, the IBM PC line might well have been a commercial failure. But once all the clone makers were pushing "IBM compatible" everywhere you turned, computer manufacturers who kept their designs proprietary simply couldn't get and keep the shelf space/mind share they needed to keep their platforms viable. (With the exception of Apple, of course - having a rabid fan base helps, but as the Amiga folks know, it's not a 100% guarantee of success)

Re:Not in a plane crash

[bsDaemon]

well, he was flying when they came to visit. i guess i mixed that up with the fact that he died. i was 10 in 1994, so i wasn't exactly "clued in"
fuck...i am as old as the Macintosh!!! that's a sobering thought..

Re:Not in a plane crash

[ClosedSource]

In yet another version of this story, MS was asked by IBM to write Basic for the PC (they were the leading Basic vendor for microprocessor based computers at that time). They also asked MS for a recommendation for OS makers and they referred IBM to Kildall. Kildall either missed the appointment or was unavailable so IBM came back to MS. MS bought another companies OS and it became DOS. I have no way to determine if this story is more acurate than the others.

Re:Not in a plane crash

[Alomex]

you'd find that the PC's popularity had more to do with the fact that it wasn't locked to one particular manufacturer.

Nope. It was also critical that once the BIOS was cloned, you could get your hands on the OS.

Otherwise the Mac would have been cloned too long ago.

Re:Not in a plane crash

[Anonymous Coward]

The storie was that he was flying when IBM came to talk about the original PC. He left his wife to talk to them. She did but most people do not know was that she was the Companies attorney.

IBM found Gates because MS was the source of BASIC. They wanted to include basic. MS offered to sell them a OS but IBM did nor want to buy (anti-trust issues) So they argeed to have MS keep the rights. Gates Mother was on the United Way board wit the Chairman of IBM who said that he knew "Mary Gates's son" and IBM would do business with his small company.

DR lost out to DOS because they were 7 months late in releasing thier PC product and cost $145 to DOS's $45.

God

[110010001000]

Can we shut up about Microsoft already? Damn, every other story is some "anti-M$" drivel. Lets imagine life without these kinds of "discussions", just for one day.

Re:God

[TravisW]

Hear, hear! Just earlier today, the following was posted on the front page:

Ballmer On Microsoft's Search Goofs Posted by timothy on 2004.03.25 14:12 from the at-least-that's-honest dept. An anonymous reader writes "AP reports on CEO Steve Ballmer's regret over Microsoft's failure to get into the search market early on. Best quote? 'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.' Nice to see they're still user-oriented."

Now, what Microsoft execs tell AP reporters may well often be important to the industry, but Ballmer announcing that he'd like his company's advertising to be more permeating is a boring example of marketing principles, not a /. subject worthy of discussion. (What? You're saying you'd like your advertisements to reach and possibly affect more potential customers?) Microsoft has definitely done some dirty things in its day, and many of them are /.-able (and deserve more media attention), but the above is a thin excuse to rail against them. No matter how you feel about Microsoft, you could probably agree that the energy devoted to that discussion would have been more informatively spent on, say, a science topic, than on an anti-Microsoft Two Minutes' Hate.

Re:God

[Dirtside]

Feel free to change your preferences so that Microsoft stories don't appear on the front page. Then we can find out what the world would be like if people stopped whining about seeing stories they're not interested in.

Nobody forces you to read or look at them. Demanding that we don't talk about Microsoft is neither appropriate nor helpful.

Re:God

[Mike Hawk]

And whining about his whining is?

Re:God

[Dirtside]

Yep! Tactful meta-whining is just peachy. :)

MS Bashing

[thirdofnine]

I am an avid Slashdot reader, and I regularly moderate, and attempt to even the balance here (which is very difficult with so much bias).

I do not have any affiliation with MS, and have both Linux and MS machines at home.

I know someone will probably mod me down for this, but why does it appear that Slashdot has a tendency to continually bash MS.

I mean at the end of the day, if Windows was really as crap as some people make it out to be, no-one would use it, simple as that. I have used many OSes over the years, W95, WNT, W2K, WXP, W2K3, OS2, Linux, UNIX. I know that they all have their problems, but really, name an OS that doesn't have a problem in it.

Not only that, a computer is very much like a car, if it is not looked after, it will eventually die, be it Linux, Windows, UNIX or MAC OS.

I am not claiming that MS does no bad, but really there is not many large companies out there that have not done something bad at some stage. And there is not one company out there that would not defend themselves the same way that MS has, if they were under attack, be that a legitimate attack or not.

Now, I understand the concerns of the Open Source community, and Linux has come a hell of a long way in recent years (which is why it is starting to be used in the real world now), but do not think for a second that the tables would not be turned if Linux was in MS's position. I do not like SCO's tactics, but if they do prove that Linux has their source code, then you might as well put Linux in the same box as MS, as it would prove that not even the open source community is always the GOOD IT community member it claims to be.

So mod me down if you wish, but really, the MS bashing is starting to get boring.

But to answer you question, someone else would be in their position, with a different name, with it's own bugs, exploits and vulnerabilities (just as every program and OS does), and would probable cop the same bashing that MS does.

Third of Nine.

Re:MS Bashing

[craXORjack]

You must be fairly new to computers. I dare you, No I triple dog dare you to get a copy of Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and some old programs and try to actually use it for your main desktop. Say hello to UAE (Unexplainable Application error) and GPF (General Protection Fault) about every 10 frickin minutes. It won't crash that often on a clean install so use it for a while. Load some old shareware crap. Try to make a soundcard work. Get your hands dirty on it. It won't take long till you change your tune. Oh and don't try this with Windows386 or 2.0. I am just trying to teach you a lesson but I'm not sadistic.

Re:MS Bashing

[tuxedobob]

I am reasonably certain that the only reason (today) that everyone uses Windows is because everyone uses Windows.

Just my two cents...

Re:MS Bashing

[Soko]

You know, I don't bash Microsoft for thier products or thier successes. (Well, OK, I do spin out about Win9X now and again, and if it's crap I just don't buy it, but I digress... ) I too use thier products on a regular basis, and actually like Windows XP.

What I don't like is the fact that they are trying to lock up the whole of the IT industry for themselves, and to some extent are being succesful at doing just that.

When Microsoft shows that they want a vibrant, eclectic industry - with many different ideas that aren't just thiers - to flourish, for the sake of the industry and thier fellow humans and not just for the sake of thier bottom line, I'll re-think my opinion. Until they demonstrate that in material means, I'll keep a wary, very critical eye on them, thankyouverymuch.

Soko

Re:MS Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, but there was a sunny day back in 1992 when some of us affirmatively choose to use Windows. And then install it on all our colleagues' machines.

Sorry about that. Guess it was partially my fault we're stuck with Windows.

Re:MS Bashing

[Zakabog]

Not only that, a computer is very much like a car, if it is not looked after, it will eventually die, be it Linux, Windows, UNIX or MAC OS.

If you never touch a computer, nothing will happen to it. If you do a base install of windows, or any other OS, and just leave it on the computer, offline, nothing bad would happen. The computer would probably never crash (unless there was a memory leak somewhere) and as long as you never touched it, it would remain in perfect working order. Now if you bought a brand new car, had it towed home, and let it sit in a driveway for a year, it wouldn't start. The tires would have flat spots, the gas would be in horrible shape (it would have seperated with a lot of your other fluids.) Anyway, there's a sig on slashdot, forgot the user, says "Anyone who compares a computer to a car knows very little about both", or something like that.

Re:MS Bashing

[zrobotics]

Sure, windows isn't the greatest, but then again, examine the average user. If most of the people that I knew used Linux, their machines would crash & burn within a week. Fact is, microsoft is easy to use, so most people use it. If set up correctly Windows can be very stable, provided you know what you are doing. Linux is more stable because the user base is more knowledgable. There are less security holes found because less hackers are looking. I don't condone Microsoft's business tactics, but that doesn't make Bill Gates satan.

Re:MS Bashing

[dswensen]

It's true that it is an imperfect analogy, but to some degree it creates an example people can understand. Working in tech support I hear a lot of things along the line of "but it was working yesterday!" and users who are outraged that their computer will not run forever without any kind of maintenance.

What I tell them is that a person generally wouldn't buy a car, drive it constantly without checking or changing the oil, putting gas in it, or doing any maintenance at all, and then take it to the car dealership, furious, when suddenly it will no longer run for whatever reason, and say "but it was running yesterday!" Yet people do this all the time with computers.

Computers are a mechanical device and require maintenance to keep running properly. True, they are unlike cars in most other respects, but it is a helpful primer for people so clueless they think computers operate on a mix of fairy dust and moonbeams.

Re:MS Bashing

[Lord of Ironhand]

It might just be me, but the number of MS-basher-bashers often seems to exceed the number of MS-bashers here.

I'm of the MS-basher kind, and not without reason. MS-bashing is necessary. Why? It's only natural that in a market where one product is dominant, the people who actually are aware of the many shortcomings of that product AND of the totally unfair behaviour of the product's manufacturer, try to make the general public aware of this.

If "we" wouldn't bash MS, probably no one would, and MS wouldn't be slowly losing its grip on the market like it is now. It would probably be growing even stronger every day.

It should be noted however, that mindless bashing is quite useless, or possibly even good for MS.

Re:MS Bashing

[quax]

If you turned the table on Linux and Windows the former would still be Open Source. Big difference.

Re:MS Bashing

[Lochin Rabbar]

Computers are a mechanical device and require maintenance to keep running properly.

You have a clockwork computer?

Re:MS Bashing

[k_head]

I am so tired of this same old liteny here. But what the hell I don't have anything better to do.

"Slashdot has a tendency to continually bash MS."

SO FUCKING WHAT? Shut up already about this. If you don't like MS bashing go to someplace else. May I suggest you hang out at gotdotnet.com. There you will see people continually bash linux 24X7. Hell if you post a message defending open source or java too ardently they will even remove your posts for you. If you want to visit a site that bashes slashdot itself there are no shortages of that either.

This is the internet. There are forums to bash MS, Linux, Barney, Wesley Crusher or redheads. Go find one that suits your needs.

"I am not claiming that MS does no bad, but really there is not many large companies out there that have not done something bad at some stage. And there is not one company out there that would not defend themselves the same way that MS has, if they were under attack, be that a legitimate attack or not."

This is my favorite. I call the "my standards for myself are very low" defense. Rephrased it goes like this.

"Gee mommy I know I killed the neighbors dog but lot of people kill dogs and that makes it right"

And

"Gee mommy I know I killed the neigbors dog but johny over there would have also killed the dog if he just had the chance so that makes it right"

"So mod me down if you wish, but really, the MS bashing is starting to get boring."

You may be bored but I am disgusted. I am disgusted that an ordinary person would spend some time defending a multi billion dollar corporation and the worlds richest man from the unwashed masses of slashdot. I am disgusted that you feel that you need to add your voice to the din raised by marketing companies, PR firms, paid for politicians, bought out analysts. MS spend tens of millions of dollars a year telling the world how great they are and yet you feel that somehow if you just added your voice it would make all the difference.

Poor old helpless Microsoft. Getting attacked by those mean little slashdotters. I better to come to Bill gates aid right away lest he be crushed.

You are pathetic. More pathetic then any stereotype you may have about pimply faced slashdot kids living in their mom's basement.

why would you pledge your allegience to some company? Why do they need your help? What do you care if some company suffers? honestly do you go around ford when people say bad things about their cars? Do you go around defending Toshiba if somebody tells you their TV sucks?

Of all the millions of corporations in the world why did you choose MS to pledge your allegience to?

Re:MS Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a solid-state computer?

Re:MS Bashing

[dasmegabyte]

I use Windows. I also use the MacOS and Linux. But mostly I use windows. Not because it is better, but because it has the fewest amount of hassles overall.

I should point out that I don't get viruses, filter spam, block popups and the firewall stops DoSs. Because if I had to contend with those things, I'd probably shift platforms.

Re:MS Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I have one of those special computer with no moving parts. The hard drive is solid-state. 120 gigs and no drive heads! No CPU fan either!

Fucking moron.

Re:MS Bashing

[TravisW]

I am reasonably certain that the only reason (today) that everyone uses Windows is because everyone uses Windows. Certainly. Just like any product where inter-user compatibility is important, who already uses the product has a dramatic effect on adoption. But adoption doesn't occur in a vacuum -- at some point, the reason that many people used Windows is because it was the OS that best suited their needs. Otherwise, they would have picked a different product. For all its foibles, XP surely has some of the features that made earlier incarnations of Windows appealing enough that users adopted them.

Re:MS Bashing

[Pieroxy]

While what you're saying is true, please just point to me another OS (Or let's say windows manager ?) that would give approx the same features as Windows 3.0 at the same time.

Got it? ok, now was it any better?
No. None of them. So what exactly do you have to bash over 3.0?

Don't get me wrong, Windows 3.x was a horrible piece of crap. But it wasn't much worse than its competitors.

Re:MS Bashing

[igloo-x]

"Slashdot has a tendency to continually bash MS."

SO FUCKING WHAT?

You sound like a retard, that's what's 'what.' The original poster made a lot of excellent and valid point. Then you come along, tell him that bash MS because you can, go off on a tangental tirade about the evils of capitalism, and get modded up for it.

Stop me if I'm wrong here, but I thought the tagline says 'News for NERDS.' Now, unless I missed the memo the queen sent out this morning that changed the meaning of the word 'nerd' to be synonymous with the word 'moron,' I'd say that Microsoft have a rather large part to play in that role. So, enter people such as yourself stage left, who are just going to bash them continually, blisfully ignorant of all the technology in question, simply because they're the biggest player in the field. And god help anyone who tries to reason otherwise, they're clearly leftist pinku commy faggots.

Christ, I'd swear allegience to satan if I knew you were batting for the other team. You are what is wrong with slashdot. Congratulations.

Re:MS Bashing

[k_head]

"Christ, I'd swear allegience to satan if I knew you were batting for the other team."

You have pledged your allegience to Microsoft so in effect you have already pledged your allegience to satan.

Apparently not only do you not have morals but you also can't read. I said nothing about capitalism or the evils thereof.

I am honestly curious though. Why did you pledge your allegience to MS? Why not Honda? They make nice stuff. Why not ghirardelli? They make tasty choclate. Why did you choose MS over all the other corporations in the world.

I really want to know.

Re:MS Bashing

[MoneyT]

Mac OS 6.0

And yes it was better.

Re:MS Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

All bashing is mindless. No bashing is necessary.

What you need is action. If you are not contributing to some kind of better solution, then you are fuck all.

You cannot justify being a MS-bashing nerd on slashdot, no matter what.

Re:MS Bashing

[igloo-x]

You have pledged your allegience to Microsoft so in effect you have already pledged your allegience to satan.

LOLL0RZ BCUZ M!CRO$HAFT R EVIL AM I RITE GUYS???? RITE????

Apparently not only do you not have morals but you also can't read. I said nothing about capitalism or the evils thereof.

Well gosh darn shoot if that isn't just me giving people the benefit of the doubt again. See, the mistake I made there was that I assume that:

I am disgusted that you feel that you need to add your voice to the din raised by marketing companies, PR firms, paid for politicians, bought out analysts.

was actually you commenting on the state of american business, and not just re-gurgitating the same old tired spiel that you heard some bigger boys use without actually taking the time to think about what it meant first. My bad!

See, politicians getting paid off is part of every day business in America. Money buys the laws that keep these monopolies in the position they're in - money that goes to line the pockets of politicians to pay for their advertising campaigns to keep them in power! Money, advertising, greed, power! Tell me all that filth doesn't make your pecker just a little bit hard! You're starting to agree with me now, aren't you?

But resist! I know, pull out "your" my standards for myself are very low defense. Rephrased, it goes something like this:

Gee mommy, I didn't kill the neigbours dog, but then johnny went ahead and did it anyway, and now I can't do shit because Microsoft have a monopoly over the industry!

Tough shit, junior. That's the way it is. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the rich buy laws to make sure it stays that way. That's capitalism.

I am honestly curious though. Why did you pledge your allegience to MS? Why not Honda? They make nice stuff. Why not ghirardelli? They make tasty choclate. Why did you choose MS over all the other corporations in the world.

Honestly? Just because it pisses you off. That's about the only reason, really. You should be flattered!

Re:MS Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

You have pledged your allegience to Microsoft

Not true.

in effect you have already pledged your allegience to satan.

There is no such thing as satan so this has no meaning...

I am honestly curious though

No you're not.

Why did you pledge your allegience to MS?

Didn't.

Why not Honda? They make nice stuff. Why not ghirardelli? They make tasty choclate.

Irrelevant, this is slashdot.

I really want to know.

No, you still don't.

You're welcome k_head! I know you're a nice boy in real life!

Re:MS Bashing

[Pieroxy]

Although Mac OS 6 was notably faster than Windows, it can't be really compared to for the following reasons:
1. It did not run on cheap hardware.
2. Its application base was notoriously smaller than Windows, although not that small
3. It's development APIs were tightly locked-up. This hasn't changed either, as Apple wants to retain a good control over what runs on their HW/SW. This leads to a few controlled app enhancing greatly the stability of the system, since there is no crappy stuff running (or few). I know that Word for mac was one of these bad apps crashing the whole Mac OS in no time, highlighting the fact that Mac OS and Windows were both based on cooperative multitasking, inherently unsafe with any unsafe app.

BTW, I've had a bunch of MacOS6 on my hands and crashes were as frequent as with Windows, but maybe it's just me...

Re:MS Bashing

[k_head]

I am flattered in a way. Of course it would be better if this kind of attention did not come from an insane person but really thanks.

I am also happy that you can admit you were wrong about the whole capitalism thing. I see you went on a nice tangent rant on it too. Very entertaining.

I still maintain that if you are the type of person who feels obligated to dedicate themselves to some organization you'd be better off choosing a cause rather then a corporations. You know help the poor, feed the hungry and all that. I don't think Bill gates will ever notice you valiantly defending him here on slashdot but if you helped out your local food bank they would notice.

If on the other hand you feel like you must dedicate your life to some corporation I'd still suggest a better one. I mentioned Honda, they make great products. They also make a wide variety of products. I think they are more deserving of your worship then MS don't you?

Re:MS Bashing

[lth]

I am reasonably certain that the only reason (today) that everyone uses Windows is because everyone uses Windows.

I'm reasonably certain that you're wrong.

Personally I use windows because I choose to. Why? Better hardware support, apps I don't want to do without and the occasional game.

I've tried Linux regularly since Redhat 4.2, and I basically think Linux seems like a fine OS. But guess what? I don't really care what OS I'm running as long as I can use the programs I like, and can do what I want.

I've thought about running things with Wine or installing VMWare and running my windows apps this way. But every time I just stop short, because it doesn't seem worth the effort. I can't find Linux' killer app.

Linux needs to be able to do something, that I can't do with Windows, and that I would actually want to do. :-)

All the arguments about bugs and security don't work on me. I'm pretty well firewalled, and I choose my hardware with care. I can't remember the last time I experienced a blue screen but its several years ago..

I'm using lots of open source software, and I think open source is a great movement.. But I'm always going to use the tool that fits the task, and doesn't steal my time away from reading Slashdot. ;-)

Perhaps the introduction of DRM in Windows, will be what gives me enough incentive to switch to Linux..

Re:MS Bashing

[thirdofnine]

craXORjack

You think I am new to computers? Well lets see......

I grew up programming on a C64 and VIC20, first used an IBM clone with the AT, and spent many many hours playing with Autoexec.bat and Config.sys just trying to get that 628k of free base memory so that I could play that latest game in MS-DOS.

I setup my first coxal network when I was at school in the very early 90's, using DOS, which was a great leap from cloning PC's using a Serial or Parallel cable and Norton Commander or Laplink.

I first used the internet on a text based browser, dialling into the only access point in Australia at the time, and before that spent many hours dialled into BBS's, the first file sharing networks.

Shall I continue? Why not, you deserve this.

I did use the earlier incarnations of Windows, starting with Windows 286, and agree, they were absolute garbage, just as the first incarnations of Linux were crap as well, and in some respects, still has some downfalls, just as Windows still does.

I remember the days of running IBM OS2, rather than Windows 3.1, as it was a better OS at the time.

So I feel that I do not need to obtain a copy of Windows 3.0 or 3.1 as you suggest. I have had many years of experience with them, and spent a lot of time supporting them, at school and for friends, and was well aware of the problems you would encounter.

I would suggest that in the future you do not make assumptions, and reserve your comments, like this one "I am just trying to teach you a lesson but I'm not sadistic.", for yourself.

Third of Nine

Re:MS Bashing

[igloo-x]

I'm glad you're amused, although at this point i'm obliged to refer you a physician regarding that attention-deficit disorder you seem to be displaying.

The really LOL part is that you continue to contradict yourself in each post and you don't look as though you even know it! Although I should probably feel bad laughing, after all, it isn't your fault.

I'm going to bed now, in the mean time I'd recommend you busy yourself with some colouring books or anything else that doesn't involve consuming sugar. If you find yourself getting overstimulated by what you read, take a break and count to ten. I'll be back in the morning.

Re:MS Bashing

[quintesse]

Outdated by the standards of this day, but even the AmigaOS was way better than the pittyful excuse for an OS called Windows 3.x. It wasn't until Win95 that I even wanted to consider using a PC, in comparison to the rest of the systems out there it was just a piece of (expensive) crap.

Re:MS Bashing

[thirdofnine]

k_head,

It would certainly appear that you are the one with issues here. What the f@#k does killing dogs have to do with this? Seriously?

I read Slashdot for several reasons, but some people here seriously need to take a step back, and look at the bigger picture, and stop painting Linux as the solution to all mans problems, which seams to be the case for many people here. Linux has its place in our society, just as it also has it's own problems.

With regards to your comment "This is the internet. There are forums to bash MS, Linux, Barney, Wesley Crusher or redheads. Go find one that suits your needs.". I do not feel the need to bash an OS, be it Linux, Windows, MAC OS, UNIX, people with gingerism or whatever, as far as I am concerned, they all have their place in our society, and they all have their problems.

Third of Nine

Re:MS Bashing

[thirdofnine]

Hmm, mechanical, well, Hard Disk Drive has moving heads, and spinning disks. Your CD/DVD ROM has mechanical parts, a motor to spin the disk, and also the laser head moves. The fans.....

Third of Nine

Re:MS Bashing

[surprise_audit]

at some point, the reason that many people used Windows is because it was the OS that best suited their needs

I think it's more likely that many people used Windows initially is because MS had that (illegal) deal going whereby the only way for PC manufacturers to keep their OS discount was to install Windows on every PC they sold. Any company that even considered selling a no-os PC would get a visit or a call from an MS salesdroid who would politely explain that their OS discount would be up for renewal soon and by the way, renewal would only happen for MS-loyal companies.

I'm sure I missed some details in there, but I think I covered the essentials. Anyway, that deal gave MS a big part of their stranglehold - every PC came with an OS anyway, so few people would bother to buy some other OS. Once people (and companies) were locked into the Windows "keep updating or risk becoming incompatible" cycle, inertia kept them there. It became easier to simply re-buy the OS and apps every year or two.

Re:MS Bashing

[Deternal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI

Lots of stuff was better then Win 3.0 :)

Re:MS Bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimme a break...I've also used (unfortunately) W95, W98, NT, XP, etc. and thank god, I've gotten rid of those and have been using Linux exclusively for a couple of years both at home and work. There is no comparison. I get my work done on Linux. Everywhere around me, I see people on a regular basis who are cursing and swearing about their M$ boxes...I just shake my head when I hear..."...does anyone know the serial number so I can re-install program xyz?...guess I'll have to reformat and reinstall...guess I'll have to defrag for a start...etc., etc., ad infinitum"
Yes, you should be modded down. M$ more than deserves all of the bashing it gets...in fact, I don't think they get nearly enough. There are still plenty of idiots in the world who waste my time and want me to fix their M$ box. I simply tell them "I don't do windows anymore...:-)" And at work, I tell them "I don't feel any particular need to do free tech support for Microsoft...:-)".

Re:MS Bashing

[Urban Garlic]

> But to answer you question, someone else would be in their position, with a different name...

Several people have given answers like this, and I admit I'm baffled. Is it really so hard to imagine that the office computer world might have been like, say, the academic workstation market in 1986 or so? Lots of powerful machines, Sun, HP, Apollo (pre-takeover), and even Digital (remember the microVax?) slugging it out within a Unix-like context? Contrary to MS FUD, it actually was possible to port software then, not only between Ultrix/SunOS/HPUX/Unix, but even, I am told, between Vaxes and the Unix-like systems. Yes, even commercial software!

If there had been no MS, it's at least possible that the workstation vendors would have found the business market. Everyone would use Unix-like workstations (with happy friendly desktop GUIs, of course) at work, and have Apple machines at home. It's also possible that heterogeneous hardware would have made software API standardization more urgent, and consequently, better.

Also, mandatory Slashdot MS bash:
> ...if Windows was really as crap as some people make it out to be, no-one would use it....
Depends which people, I suppose, but this sort of reasoning is dangerous -- it may be that Microsoft systems could survive in an honest competitive environment, but we don't know, because in actual fact, they don't -- Microsoft does manipulate people's choices, by sweetheart deals with hardware manufacturers, exclusive/punitive licensing arrangements, and so forth. They weren't convicted of monopoly practices in Federal court out of spite, you know.

Re:MS Bashing

[colinleroy]

1. It did not run on cheap hardware.

At the time Windows 3.x and MacOS 6 were around, peecees weren't commodity, "cheap" hardware. They did cost a lot too.

Re:MS Bashing

[e-Motion]

"I am reasonably certain that the only reason (today) that everyone uses Windows is because everyone uses Windows."

I'm reasonably certain that you're wrong.

Personally I use windows because I choose to. Why? Better hardware support, apps I don't want to do without and the occasional game.

This is because everyone uses Windows. Companies and software developers tend to focus their attention on the larger population of consumers/users. Few people use Linux as their desktop OS, therefore fewer desktop programs are available on Linux, and those that are available on Linux are generally less "polished". For most major efforts aimed at the desktop user, Windows compatibility is priorty #1, because that's where the users are.

Unfortunately, it's a vicious cycle. If the OS has more apps and better support, then it will probably draw more users. More users means more attention from the software suppliers, yielding more apps and better support, and so forth and so on.

Re:MS Bashing

[Pieroxy]

They did cost a lot too.

Yeah, but a lot less than macs.

Re:MS Bashing

[AlienRelics]

> Personally I use windows because I choose to.
> Why? Better hardware support, apps I don't
> want to do without and the occasional game.

You are missing the point. You only have a very few choices of OS and software -because- of MS's predatory market practices. Saying you use MS Windows because it has the best support... well, it has the best (3rd party) support because most people use it. Most people use it because it has the best support. It's still running in a circle.

I consider MS Windows to be "death of a thousand cuts" in that there are a thousand little things that don't work quite right. Why does my mouse get jerky and pause even in Windows 2000, 768M of RAM, 1.2GHz? Would you pick an OS that makes the mouse stop working just because it's downloading a virus update? Or an OS that -requires- virtual memory useage, no matter how much RAM is installed? But due to -market- dominance, not technical merit, I'm forced to use MS Windows.

I know I'm probably going to get bashed for being another Amiga fanatic: On my 50MHz Amiga 3000 with 128M of RAM, just to see if I could I had it rendering 4 separate 3D scenes at 2400x3000 each, printing to two printers at once (a color inkjet and a Fargo dye sub with no internal processor), surfing websites and reading my mail. Rendering the scenes took longer than usual as expected, but printing was no slower and the mouse pointer stayed smooth and typing did not pause.

None of those processes used virtual memory, just the printer buffer (of course) and the browser's cache.

Why can't I do that on a 1.2GHz 768M RAM MS Windows 2000 computer? Could it be the operating system isn't as good?

Oh, and didn't MS switch to a different crash screen with W95? I haven't seen any blue screens since then, but I -have- seen MS Windows lock up or become useless and require a reboot plenty of times.

Re:MS Bashing

[k_head]

You know I was also thinking that Maytag might be a good corporation for you to worship too. I noticed that there are web sites which discuss appliances and some people seem to critize them. They need somebody to defend them against the attacks.

Appliance boards probably don't get as heated (pun intended) as the automobile boards but still I think Maytag deserves your vigorous defence just as much as Microsoft does don't you think.

Re:MS Bashing

[Valar]

This may seem like the typical knee jerk pro linux reponse, but I'll let you in on why I use linux.

I don't play games anymore, I'm too busy. I'm sure if I did, I could find some that played on linux (I used to be a halflife fiend, and I know lots of people who run that under WineX; or maybe UT2004).

My linux system is stable, and is a great development platform for the kind of work I do.

When I need a program to do something, I type one line, wait a bit, and it is installed. In order to uninstall it, I type one more line.

It has everything I need-- development tools, internet utilities (browsers, ftp, IM, ssh, etc), word processors, lots of scientic tools.

I like KDE and GNOME both more than I like the windows ui, but slightly less than I like the ui in os x.

As far as hardware support, I don't own anything that isn't supported. This isn't because I don't buy things linux doesn't support, it is because I built the machine, booted it up and everything "just worked." My friend has the same sound card as me (a sound blaster variant) and couldn't find drivers for it for anything less than windows XP.

That's another thing. When linux upgrades, it doesn't cost me $200s to upgrade with it.

Re:MS Bashing

[craXORjack]

I bash MS because they deserve it. They have abused their monopoly power to maintain their monopoly and to try to obtain new ones in related areas like office software and ISP's and game consoles. The saddest part is that they never even earned the original monopoly. It was given to them by IBM. If IBM had preloaded some other OS called Megahard Disk Operating System, then Megahard would own the market now just as MS does. On that we do seem to agree.

However, the difference between us is that you are an apologist for a corporation which has exhibited criminal behavior and never accepted responsibility for its actions nor admitted its guilt. To this day it uses its monopoly power, hordes of lawyers, and a mountain of undeserved wealth to threaten the future intellectual freedom of the entire human race. If that sounds melodramatic to you then I suggest you head over to the EFF and the ACLU to hear my side of the argument.

There are two main types of Microsoft trolls that lurk here. One actively attacks Linux and the other whines defensively that Windows is always being bashed unfairly. Guess which type you are. If Windows doesn't seem to be fairly treated to you here in this one tiny part of the internet then too damn bad. Go anywhere else online or in the real world and you will be surrounded by Bill Gates fan-boys and get along just dandy.

Imagine how it has felt to Linux users over the last 10 years. I have used it for that long and been discriminated against and ridiculed for it. But when I return just a little of that same kindness you want to call it Miscrosoft bashing and pretend that they are the underdogs. If you really believe what you say then go hang out on any of the other 99 million websites where there is a preponderance of Microsoft lovers and you will be much happier. Don't come here and act as though we are aggressors for venting some little bit of our frustration. Let us have one little refuge where we can dream of world domination and commiserate with each other about our Windows woes.

OK I believe that you have been working with PC's for a long time. But what I can hardly believe is that you expect us to evaluate Microsoft only on the merits of its latest round of products and to ignore its history of bullying and stamping out of competive innovation through the unlawful use of its OS monopoly. Take your blinders off and you can teach your own self a lesson.

Furthermore your statement that 'the first incarnations of Linux were crap' is itself crap. You hoped you could get away with it because it supports your claim that Linux is no better than Windows. But I have used Linux since kernel .95 so I know better. 'Crap' crashes. By my estimation all DOS based versions of Windows were utter crap and subsequent versions are successively less crappy. Linux has always been more stable and more versatile than Windows. I used to work with over a hundred computer techs who loaded Windows and OS2 and MacOS all day long and when I showed them Yggdrasil Linux running kernel .99 their jaws hit the floor.

You said in your first post that 'if Windows was really as crap as some people make it out to be, no-one would use it, simple as that.' But then you agree that the early versions of Windows were garbage and that OS2 was superior which disproves your statement since Windows 3.x was the version that first hit big numbers. So tell me why should I have any respect for Microsoft when they only leveraged their existing OS monopoly (DOS) into a GUI OS monopoly, never earning their position or my respect?

Re:MS Bashing

[petrus4]

>All the arguments about bugs and security don't >work on me. I'm pretty well firewalled, and I >choose my hardware with care. I can't remember >the last time I experienced a blue screen but >its several years ago..

Yes, assuming you're clued in on security, are not using IE or Outlook Express, have a decent firewall, and also preferably have a third party file manager, (Explorer is a lot more stable now than in the past, but it can still have hiccups) XP can be a good enough end-user system, as far as it goes...and the interface can certainly be very pretty if you throw enough RAM and CPU cycles at it, and download some third party apps.
I'd possibly also go as far as to say that XP is the most decent platform to have come out of Redmond, at least that I've seen...although many seem to swear by Win2K. Of course, the issue of bloat with XP is worse than ever, but if that doesn't bother you it won't be a problem. Gaming support exists out of the box as well of course...you're right there. Getting most games working with Linux from what I've seen isn't too arduous...at least for me...but it probably wouldn't be at the level of something Joe Sixpack would want to do.

>Linux needs to be able to do something, that I >can't do with Windows, and that I would actually >want to do. :-)

Mmmmm...Let's see. *Total* customisability is probably the main thing I can think of. As a case in point, I installed Xandros recently and was put off by the level of bloat/instability I saw with KDE there, so for my upcoming non-distro custom install I'm going to have a stripped version of GNOME with Enlightenment, maybe Fvwm's dock if I can figure out how to incorporate it, and the GTK/KDE *libs* so I can run isolated apps from those two environments if I want to. The other reason why I want a custom install is because I want to learn about my processor and compile a kernel customised to it's particular strengths. The other thing is, if you design a system based intimately around your own particular hardware, keep the bloat out of X, and try and steer towards apps written along the lines of ESR's seperate app/frontend/protocol model, you will get a level of stability Windows won't be able to come anywhere near.

>I'm using lots of open source software, and I >think open source is a great movement.. But I'm >always going to use the tool that fits the task, >and doesn't steal my time away from reading >Slashdot. ;-)

I do understand this argument, and it's one which actually kept me from switching to Linux myself for a long time. However, my answer to it now is that I am going to spend two or so weeks of solid work initially to get the system exactly the way I want it, and I'm hoping that after I've done that, apart from incremental upgrades I'll never have to touch the fundamental layout again. Because it will also be tailored to exactly how I as an individual work, I also expect to achieve a level of productivity unattainable on anything from Microsoft, who adopt the one-size-fits-all philosophy.
Although the Linux kernel revs very rapidly, being on the upgrade treadmill is a choice, and unless you're a developer it's not a good idea to be on it anyway. I can still to .0 releases of everything if I want to, and I'm going to.

Another point, and perhaps the most crucial one, is that if you buy Microsoft you're relying on their roadmap, and from what I've seen after 2000/XP, they really don't have one. With Linux, by contrast, the only real "roadmap" you follow is your own. Sure, other people decide which features they develop, (if you're not a programmer) but you decide which ones you install, and unlike with Windows, you also have the choice to remove them if they don't work. I do not believe Microsoft have a long-term future...It's not a case of Linux taking over the world, but rather a case of Microsoft having built a house of cards which is on the verge of collapsing on it's own...the company is creating it's own demise.

Re:MS Bashing

[Ben Urban]

Linux needs to be able to do something, that I can't do with Windows

As one example of many, have you ever tried Knoppix?

Re:MS Bashing

[tuxedobob]

If you aren't talking about OS X, skip this comment. I'm not familiar with Linux enough. But what hassles do you deal with on the Mac?

Re:MS Bashing

[tuxedobob]

Well, I'm sitting on the Mac side, and it looks pretty sweet over here. Have you tried one?

Cheaper Computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really understand why everyone's saying that without Windows, computers wouldn't be as cheap. Doesn't the Windows license take up a disproportionate chunk o' change in the total cost of the computer? Wouldn't somebody else have been able to produce a cheaper OS?

Without Microsoft

[RufusDark]

Personally I have nothing against Microsoft. People constantly complain about Microsoft, yet Microsoft has certainly made things a lot easier for the standard end-user. Windows 95 was a near revolutionary thing. It brought computers into most households which otherwise probably wouldn't have had computers. A world in which microsoft never existed would be harder on all of us because it would make little things that we all do every day that much more difficult. If Microsoft were to fall right now, I would silently applaud their former riegn of the PC industry. Corporations don't become giants without reason.

People often complain about how buggy and how full of security holes. Bugs are what occur when you make something that is very large and very complex. People want stuff to be easy to use, which means advanced programming, which in turn results in bugs. As for security holes. This is a subject that really bugs me. The people that tend to be the most critical of microsoft for their numerous security holes (which also result from having such a complex system), also tend to be the ones that like to exploit them. Which is a damn hipocracy if you ask me. Security holes exist, they always have, they always will, and there is nothing whatsoever that you, I or Mr. Gates can do to change that. The problem isn't the security holes, it's the fact that there are people that exploit them. And then those innocent people who don't exploit them will get mad at Microsoft, effectively siding with those malicious jerks who exploit the holes. People should be supportive of Microsoft to fix the holes and bugs, while denouncing the jerks, letting them know that they are neither cool nor respected. Okay.. I went quite a bit off subject. But essentially I'm saying that Microsoft has been a *good thing*. And while whether or not they do or will continue to be is up for debate, they have been. And I will always chear on a nobody that can go from being nothing to the world's most powerful corperation and only a decade or two's time.

Rufus Dark

Microsoft is Morgoth

[jhoger]

Microsoft is the foil to FOSS. It is like Morgoth's part in the Ainulindale... it plays some seriously sour notes, but it is folded back into the Song and makes it better in the process.

Without Microsoft, there would be no wind in the sails of the FOSS movement. I think they're kind of a stage rocket... don't need that impetus any more, but it was definitely necessary.

Tolkien hated allegory. Wonder how he felt about allusion. Either way I'm sure he'd hate this post.

Re:Microsoft is Morgoth

[dasmegabyte]

Wow, that was...uh...pretty dorky.

And this is coming from somebody with a rhetoric degree. Also, you mix your metaphors like a cement machine.

Re:Microsoft is Morgoth

[Rallion]

Tolkien would have loved you.

He hated allegory because that means referring to a specific thing. He preferred writing that was could be compared to many things. You just proved that his work could be applied to things he never even heard of, which is exactly what he though the best writing could do.

Re:Microsoft is Morgoth

[DaveAtFraud]

I have argued the same point but offer some more specific reasons.

1) If you assume that, without Microsoft, there would be multiple competing OSes (e.g., the multitude of Unix variants in the 1980s) then just having FOSS to provide a choice wouldn't be needed. For all intents and purposes, the only alternative to Microsoft on i386 hardware is FOSS. This leads to:

2) The FOSS movement is getting support from various companies (e.g., IBM, Novell) since FOSS is the only way they can compete against Microsoft's lock-in with hardware vendors through marketing agreements. If you dig into the record of the Microsoft anti-trust case you'll find that Microsoft even had enough leverage to pressure IBM into not offering alternatives to Microsoft products (e.g., OS/2) on IBM made PCs by threatening to no longer provide IBM a price break since they weren't giving Microsoft an exclusive.

3) Kind of fall-out from item 1, above, but if you had competition in OS and applications, you wouldn't have Microsoft's monopolist pricing on buggy bloatware. Choice means the freedom to choose between different products basd on their merits. Generally, in a competitive market this means that price goes down while quality goes up.

I'm not saying that FOSS wouldn't exist without Microsoft but it would be one player among many instead of being the only alternative.

Re:Microsoft is Morgoth

[Anonymous Coward]

God! You are such a fucking dork!

Get your head outa your ass and go play in the fresh air!

Loss of microsoft now....

[Anonymous Coward]

...would be a disaster. The majority of the United States( and maybe the World) use Windows, and a major change at this point would be very difficult. Most people don't care what their operating system is, at this point they know windows and don't want to have to learn a new one.
Also think of embedded systems that use Windows, could you imagine retooling everything for that change? Scary thought.

Re:Loss of microsoft now....

[RufusDark]

Indeed. There would almost undoubtably be a widespread economic depression. People are stubborn. The masses would just stick with whatever the latest version of Windows was when Microsoft went down. Most people probably wouldn't buy a new computer until they had to, because like you mentioned, they don't want to have to learn how to use another one. Hell, most people barely know how to use Windows, as easy as it is. It would be years before people started buying personal computers again on a large scale. The PC gaming industry would likely never recover. But worst of all? I'd have to get a new email address.

Microsoft again?!

[borg1238]

Without Microsoft we wouldn't have posts asking what the world would be like without Microsoft.

Aren't there enough articles about Microsoft on Slashdot? Do we really need to delve into the hypothetical?

MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I can't believe what I'm reading here. Computers weren't easy to use until Windows 95? Hello? HELLO???!! Evidently we've all forgotten that Windows '95 == Macintosh '84 == Xerox '81 ?? Easy-to-use desktops are just one more thing that were invented elsewhere and didn't go mainstream until later because IBM and later Microsoft were keeping the drooling masses locked into inferior technology. Sheesh. There are already too many people who think that Microsoft invented the PC and even the Internet. You'd think even the lamest Slashbots would know otherwise about the GUI.

Computers would be ubiquitous.

[mike collins]

If not for the wintel cartel we would not even know computers were around by now. They just would be. The Commodore and Timex form factors would have led the way. One was a keyboard the other almost a handheld. What was wrong with that?

x86 machines would not exist.

[markv242]

Without Windows, x86 would be the busted platform that it really is. AMD probably wouldn't be a player at all, and Motorola would probably be where Intel is today. Let's not forget that when Windows came out, the Mac and the Amiga absolutely ruled the desktop GUI world. Chances are really good that DOS-based machines would have simply succumbed to the Mac paradigm, and Amiga might even still be alive today (Amiga zealots: flame off for a moment).

On the other hand, we almost certainly wouldn't see OS X in the form its in-- FreeBSD almost certainly wouldn't exist. Linux _might_ exist, in some strange Yellow Dog format, but I have no doubt that Apple would be the marketshare leader.

The better question is: what sort of power would computers of today have, if Microsoft didn't exist? Other than gameplay, Office and Windows are the two biggest reasons that Intel/AMD/etc make faster processors. Chances are really good that Apple and Motorola machines wouldn't be as fast as they are today, because there'd be no speed gap to close up.

My hypothesis: Sun on the server side, Apple on the client side, and small offerings from companies like Be, or Amiga, or other nontraditional platforms. (NeXT?)

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[moosesocks]

BSD has existed as long as if not longer than Microsoft.

According to Wikipedia, it's been around since the early 70's. Back then, AT&T was the big player, not microsoft. If anything, MS was the underdog.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[macjohn]

IBM begat Microsoft which begat Windoze. All on x86. If the butterfly hadn't flapped it's wings at just the right moment, the Motorola line would have won, and the industry would have taken off running something based on PDP-11 code (which was damn good) on 68xxx hardware instead.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[dasmegabyte]

AMD existed before windows, you know. My first x86 computer had an AMD chip in it, and it didn't have Windows. As for the Apple machines not being as fast as they are today -- the speed gap isn't as big a factor in Apple's product design as you seem to think. They're lagged "disastrously" behind at various times and never really scrambled to keep up...instead, they moved at their own gradual pace. They did the same thing in the 1980s with basically no competition in the market.

Actually, if Microsoft didn't exist, it's more likely that one of the other companies of the day would have taken the inexpensive ubiquity of IBM's business platform someplace similar to where Windows is now. Norton maybe, or Lotus. In fact, there were a number of pre-windows graphical "commanders" that I experimented with before going whole-hoc Win3.1. I don't think IBM would have done anything...I shopped PCs in the late 80s, and IBM salesman couldn't care less about the scholastic and home users who helped popularize windows. They only wanted BUSINESSES...and the software showed it. The closest thing to a game on the machine I looked at was fucking QBASIC.

Anyway, Microsoft had a bit of a lead by basing windows on dos. But anybody could have cloned the Mac -- the difference was, MS had the tenacity to keep going, releasing numerous bad products until eventually they got a good one, and trust marketing and word of mouth to do the rest. Sound familiar? It was this tenacity that got them where they were today. After all, wasn't it tenacity that encouraged them to say, "hey guys, nice standard. Mind if we change it a bit? After all, we use it more than you."

Incidentally, I remember exactly why I got Windows in the first place, before I had any software to run on it: Windows had a really neat paint program! If Linux had some really neat app, and not just a bunch of advanced clones that do basically the same things as Windows, people like me might be more likely to use it. At this point, it's not worth the hassle (since I don't intend on ever upgrading Win2k anyway...that's why i got this tattoo!).

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[the_womble]

IBM would have entered the market with another OS which may or may not have got where Windows is now (remember MS was free to license DOC to anyone, and IBM's BIOS was sucessfully reverse engineered). If this did not happen we would have had a bigger diversity of OSes. We may also have had abigger diversity of hardware.

It is also unlikely that the same combination of monopolies would have been established (i.e. Windows + MS Office) and the monopolies do significantly strenghten each other (people buy Windows to run MS OFfice, MS used Windows to get OFfice into its current position).

Less commoditization would have meant slightly higher prices, but whatever the software there would always be demand for faster hardware (hardware was developing pretty fast before MS).

On the other hand more diversity would have porbably meant more innovation. OPen standards would be used mroe to cope with the diveristy, so it woudl be easy to make a completely new product (BeOS, Open Office) compatible with what already exists.

For the same reason we would probably use open stadards a lot more for everything.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Alternate Interior]

>> Let's not forget that when Windows came out, the
>> Mac and the Amiga absolutely ruled the
>> desktop GUI world.

You mean the cumulative total of eight, nine machines :P Seriously though, theres no way to make a platform that satisfies everyone. It could be reversed - 95% apple, 5% x86 on the client side. But there would be multiple platforms. Inversly, there likely _would_ be hundreds of flavors of *nix for the Mac, and only a few for x86.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM begat Microsoft which begat Windoze. All on x86. If the butterfly hadn't flapped it's wings at just the right moment, the Motorola line would have won, and the industry would have taken off running something based on PDP-11 code (which was damn good) on 68xxx hardware instead.

Not necessarily; if the head of Digital Research hadn't been more interested in flying his freshly-overhauled Bearcat than in meeting with the suits from IBM, the IBM PC would have run CP/M -- and there was already a multitasking version of that OS, MP/M. The PC could have been a much different and much more flexible tool years before Microsoft released Windows 1.0.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Billly Gates]

Nope IBM brougth the X86 rather then the Motorolla 6800 which was far supperior.

What would happen without MS?

We would be using OS/2 by now perhaps in character mode or a gui. The first pc's would of used the other OS IBM decided agaisnt which was cp/m based.

We also would have NO CLONES!

We would all be stuck with proprietary IBM boxes everywhere that would still be using pentium1's since it costs money to innovate.

Its the clones wars with each other that brought prices down.

It would be possible that sun and unix workstations would be very popular. After all the reason MS stayed was because Bill obsessed about locking customers in. After buying the OS, MS bought applications and made proprietary api's and hooks with there os since they also sold development tools.

If the other company only wrote cp/m then it would be easier to port applications to different systems since api makers want there products cross platform but MS had a financial incentive to lock customers into dos/windows.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Brandybuck]

FreeBSD almost certainly wouldn't exist.

Why not? It might be descended from M68BSD instead of 386BSD, but it would have still be here along with NetBSD. That's because Microsoft did nothing to influence the history of BSD, and the only thing IBM did was to provide a cheap popular platform.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[inertialmatrix]

"BSD has existed as long as if not longer than Microsoft.

According to Wikipedia, it's been around since the early 70's. Back then, AT&T was the big player, not microsoft. If anything, MS was the underdog."



If you notice the parent never said "BSD"... instead he was refering to FreeBSD and the FreeBSD project - which began in the early 90's, and in case you were wondering....

IT'S NOT DYING, AND NEVER, EVER WILL!!
oh, did I forget to mention how supperior it is to Linux?


now let me get back to pissing away my karma.
-cheers!

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Endive4Ever]

Let's not forget that when Windows came out, the Mac and the Amiga absolutely ruled the desktop GUI world.

That's a little bit like saying that the janitor 'runs the company' because he's the first person in the building, at 6:15 am each morning.

The 'desktop GUI world' was a little playland back then. Similar in a way to the way the 'Java world' was a bunch of little useless animations on Web Pages back in 1996.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Let's not forget that when Windows came out, the Mac and the Amiga absolutely ruled the desktop GUI world. Chances are really good that DOS-based machines would have simply succumbed to the Mac paradigm, and Amiga might even still be alive today (Amiga zealots: flame off for a moment).

Mmm, go with this. Commodore went under because they were drained from the top, and the embezzlers got away with it. That was completely independent of the market. If Microsoft wasn't there pushing x86, would anybody have been pushing it? If not, what would have happened next?

See, I'm thinking that Apple would have finally taken over the desktop market. They were always fighting Commodore and Atari over it, and then Atari lost first, iirc. Then Commodore got taken down from the inside, and that would've left Apple in the clear to take the desktop market. What actually happened is that that particular fight left a hole in the business sector for Microsoft to pursue, and when Commodore finally went down, Apple was too weak to stop Microsoft from dominating the desktop market.

So we need to back up a little bit first and figure out who would've been in the business market for Apple to face when they were finally the last man standing in the desktop wars, and what would they have done?

Personally, I'm thinking it would have been IBM itself, still a dirty rotten monopolistic company. Sun never had any interest in the desktop, which is a shame because they could've competed there. DEC got taken out on their own by someone, and I don't recall who all else were in the high end market. So I'm thinking IBM would have showed up in the early '90s with most of the business desktops under its belt, looked at Apple and laughed.

So now what happens? Apple is beaten and hurting badly from their fight with Commodore, a fight they won narrowly, and IBM shows up tough and mean, but with a vastly inferior machine + OS combination powered by Intel.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Endive4Ever]

Incidentally, I remember exactly why I got Windows in the first place, before I had any software to run on it: Windows had a really neat paint program!

That's the reason I first started running Windows, too. Windows 1.03 on my 8088-based XT clone with it's hercules-clone graphics card and all 640K of RAM. I ran it because of a cool vectored-drawing program called In*A*Vision put out by Micrografx, that later became Designer. Back then In*A*Vision and one or two other programs were the only reason to run Windows.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Endive4Ever]

My coolest 'proprietary IBM box' is an RS/6000 system that I got last week. I've finally installed AIX on it. It's an ancient, ancient AIX box, the 'Power PC' processor is a set of five or so big chips.

Bill obsessed about Microsoft's OS continuing to run all the software their customer base wanted it to run (virtually anything people had coded for the PC in like forever). It wasn't about 'lock in' back then, it was about 'compatability.'

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[lefticus]

My hypothesis: Sun on the server side, Apple on the client side, and small offerings from companies like Be, or Amiga, or other nontraditional platforms. (NeXT?)

I find this highly unlikely since NeXT was founded by Steve Jobs, who would have likely never been ousted from Apple if they had not faced such stiff competition from Microsoft. Which also means that the recent innovation from Apple (spurned by Job's return) such as the iMac and ipod may not have happened ...

And most importantly, we may not have had Pixar.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[llywrch]

> Without Windows, x86 would be the busted platform that it really is.

I think you give too much credit to Microsoft. It was IBM that created the x86 platform, created from a second-tier chip from Intel (they were working on a better CPU, IIRC the i960), an O/S created as a quick port of CP/M, & a proprietary BIOS. None of the items were more than barely acceptible; yet it took over the PC market.

Why? The accepted wisdom at the time was that when IBM created a microcomputer for the masses, it would define the standard. So when IBM did, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, the proprietary BIOS was soon reverse-engineered, & IBM lost its grasp on the market. Microsoft has repeatedly shown it would do whatever it took to be number one in the industry -- even if it was not ethical or legal.

Had the stars not been right (to borrow a phrase from H.P. Lovecraft), & Digital Research had gotten the contract from IBM to supply the O/S, I doubt DR could have been as driven & tenacious to be the same presence Microsoft is now. Maybe without Microsoft, we'd all today be using Macs, or Amigas, or UNIX-like systems; maybe we'd be using something created by one of those many companies that Microsoft bought up years ago, & the Slashdot question would be something like "What would the world be like without Nathan Myhrvold's company?" But I suspect that we'd be complaining about software that was completely different from the existing Windows/Office/IE/Outlook environment -- yet with the same number of flaws & frustrations. And that there was a Open Source/Free Software alternative available. The community that was responsible for creating BSD, Linux & the other pieces of the pie came into being independantly of the actions of Microsoft. This community was just a bunch of guys who felt creating an Operating System was more fun than having a life, & their efforts took on an increased importance with the Internet.

Geoff

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[malfunct]

What MS did do is sell enough software cheap enough that nearly everyone had a computer. Who needs FreeBSD if they don't have a cheap computer to run it on?

BSD would definitely have existed, it was academics that built and used it, but FreeBSD probably wouldn't have happened. The fact that MS build an os that could be thrown on every x86 built for a pittance is why there are millions of computers on peoples desks. Face it, if you had to pay 2x the price of a current computer in order to have an OS with it too, you wouldn't be happy.

I love hope people fail to realize that the open source movement became a really big deal AFTER computers were a commodity. There were always hobby circles sharing software with each other, but until there was a huge common platform it didn't take off as a worldwide phenomena.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Brandybuck]

I love hope people fail to realize that the open source movement became a really big deal AFTER computers were a commodity.

Yes, we all realize this. And while Microsoft certainly had a hand in it, they were not necessary to achieve it. IBM PC without DOS probably would have had CP/M. Or without the IBM PC, we would have had some non-PC x86 or 68K boxes instead.

The 386BSD project was not so much about the i386, as it was about getting BSD off of expensive minis and onto cheap micros.

Changing one event in the past can certainly change all of history, but it is ludicrous to think that without that one event history would not have happened.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[malfunct]

My only point is that to get cheap mass market pc's we needed cheap mass market software. Microsoft was one of the first companies to do that in a widespread fashion. Other companies wanted to sell a few copies at ridiculous prices.

I think that without microsoft to commoditize software, we would not have commodity pcs at this point.

Now certainly some other company would have made commodity software, but it just would have been a microsoft by another name.

Re:x86 machines would not exist.

[Brandybuck]

Now certainly some other company would have made commodity software, but it just would have been a microsoft by another name.

But that alter-Microsoft might not have become an embrace-and-extend monopoly monopoly devoted to released bug ridden security nightmares.

What was the genesis of MS power?

[mtelbert]

At the risk of my precious "positive" karma, I'd like to know what /.'ers opinions are about how MS got to be who they are today.

Since it wasn't overnight their current power came to be, they must have done *something* right (at least in the context of American capitalism).

Re:What was the genesis of MS power?

[surprise_audit]

What they did was to coerce PC manufacturers into bundling Windows with each PC sold. The threat used to guarantee compliance was the potential cancellation of the 95% (or whatever) discount for Windows.

A.) A Good Start

[craXORjack]

Q.) What do you call a thousand lawyers jumping off buildings because the hand that feeds them closes up shop?

I've read and don't inderstand?

[zippo01]

All this talk of apple and how Microsoft has made PC useable and such. I disagree, Redhat and other have a better install and more reliable. If Microsoft fell, simply a linux or unix based distro would fill the void, for most and others would just never upgrade there PC software. IF some company didn't just consume Microsoft on the way down and keep it going. To the normal user, they fight for there windows and there not haveing to think PC. And they don't want it to go.

You might as well ask ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... what would the world be like without Organized Crime?

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony is that most of those same geeks never lived in a world where a CLI wasn't a livestyle choice, it was the only choice (except for punched cards and toggle switches).

I keep waiting for this retro-worship to blow over but it shows no sign of abating.

What if...

[inode_buddha]

...Microsoft used the same tactics that Henry Ford did up until the 1930's? The entire US mass market had "standardized" on 1/16-inch screw thread dimensions, with a thread angle of 60 degrees by that time. The upper and lower 1/8 of the thread were truncated. Ford insisted on 1/32-inch dimensions, and the tools sold with new autos conformed to this. The warranties were voided by using non-Ford dealers and tools; people soon discovered new uses for metal files and "standards". IMHO, Microsoft is the "Henry Ford" of the computing industry, and is going through the same growing pains. This only serves to show what a huge shift computing represents.

dare I say it

[Anonymous Coward]

we probably be bitching that Apple is evil because they rule the GUI world. But I think there would be far fewer complaints, since Apple GUI is much better than windows.

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep waiting for this retro-worship to blow over but it shows no sign of abating.

I can understand some of it. QD2 is still the best operating system I've used-anything that's simple enough for a 5-7 year old(which I was at the time) to create directories, navigate them and get addicted to Hack(now NetHack) without any instructions deserves credit

One of two situaions

[Sycraft-fu]

1) The same as it is now, more or less. It is probably that had Microsoft not come to dominance, someone else would have. Apple perhaps, or IBM. Their OS would dominate most systems and would be around what Windows is. IT would suffer from the same problems, instutional rot, trying to block competitors, sacrificing security for ease of use and would probably have the same benefits. While it would, of course, be good and bad in different areas, I imagine qualitatively it would be on par with Windows (much as MacOS is today).

2) We'd have two or more incompatible camps duking it out, probably at the stratification of the market along usage lines. If you did X, you'd use system A since it would be the ONLY system that did that well, if you did Y, you'd use system B, etc.

It's a cycle that many industries have taken. You get divergence, sometimes dominance, and then convergence. The computer industry did diverge, I mean there was a time when it was UNIX or nothing (almost exclusively on big iron) for servers/science, DOS/Windows for bussiness and MacOS for graphics/sound. There was little crossover. Then MS moved to dominance and became viable for about everything, though not always the best option. Now I think we're seeing more convergence, slowly. Windows is getting a real worthwhile POSIX layer, many apps are being written for more than one platform, and cross platform dev tools and APIs are becoming more prevelant.

If you look at the history of other industries, you'll find this isn't an uncommon cycle, though not all of them grow to have one dominant player.

It's so very simple...

[TempusMagus]

We wouldnt have Microsoft...we'd have Microsofts and they would collectively kick-ass and we'd thank them for it.

We also probably have holographic web-browsers by now if there was no Microsoft.

Wait a Minute

[nightsweat]

Isn't this tomorrow's Photoshop on FARK?

VisiOn

[Anonymous Coward]

We would have been on the 10th version of VisiOn from VisiCorp, the makers of VisiCalc.

Without MS?

[King_of_Crunk]

Simply put:
A world filled with mainframes and very few PC's.

That's a simple answer...

[cmathison]

...a better place.

I'd be running

[wobedraggled]

Workbench 10.2 on my AMIGA 12000+ And I'd be damn ahppy about it.

Imagine

[Rufus88]

With apologies to John Lennon.

Imagine there's no Microsoft
It's easy if you try
No DLL-hell below us
To make us weep and cry
Imagine no email virus
Vulnerabilities...

Imagine there's no BSOD
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to Ctrl-Alt-Delete for
No hard reset too
Imagine all computers
Never seem to freeze...

Imagine no Windows Tax
I wonder if you can
No need for non-Free software
Ever on our LAN
Imagine all programmers
Sharing all the code...

You may say I'm a commie
Or just un-American
I hope some day you'll join us
And software will work right again.

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[fiendracer]

Like what would the internet be like without AOL?

For many AOL was/is "the" internet. Until they learned that they were mistaken. Learned they didn't have to go through all the hoops, learned they could "do it" themselves.

People investigate, learn, adjust, and then are better off.

gunnar.

Inevitable

[John Hasler]

Microsoft's existence is a consequence of copyright. If it hadn't been them it would have been someone else. Gary Kildall could have been the hated billionaire.

Flying

[squashed]

We might have those flying cars by now.

There would be no Open Source...

[spectecjr]

Because without a large "evil" bad guy to rail against, no-one would bother writing OSS.

The only reason you're using Linux today is because people hated Microsoft enough to write OSS to compete with it.

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[Zardus]

RMS started GNU in the 80s, and not because Microsoft pissed him off, but because he didn't like proprietary software overall. Linus didn't make Linux because he wanted to kill Microsoft, it just kinda developed to scratch an itch, the itch being Minix's simplicity.

Its really not definite that Microsoft is a catalyst for Open Source. Without them helping commercialize computers, OSS could very well have developed as the standard.

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[spectecjr]

RMS started GNU in the 80s, and not because Microsoft pissed him off, but because he didn't like proprietary software overall. Linus didn't make Linux because he wanted to kill Microsoft, it just kinda developed to scratch an itch, the itch being Minix's simplicity.

That's great. That's two people. I thought a lot more people worked on OSS?

Do you read Slashdot often? Doesn't this give you a bit of a clue as to the OSS mindset? Namely that Microsoft must be crushed?

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[zakezuke]

Because without a large "evil" bad guy to rail against, no-one would bother writing OSS.

[x] Strongly disagree

I believe OSS would have continued to develop regardless of the existance of microsoft. If i'm not mistaken, Linux it self was developed so one could play with a *nix type system on x86 hardware without the high cost. If this is true, then it has little to do microsoft at all, but rather something to do with the very high cost of a true blue AT&T licensed *nix.

My belief is based in part of all the free software I could get on compuserve pre 1985... many of the applications you could request the source. Also, basic code was commonly published in computer mags, which is about as open source as you can get.

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[dasmegabyte]

No.

The only reason people are using Linux today is that they are too cheap to buy Macintoshes.

Most are too proud to admit it. After all, they're using the world's first all-clone operating system, and they didn't even have to pay for it. Its mascot is a flightless bird! And that, my friends, is an acheivement to be proud of.

Incidentally, I have half a chocolate bar left, if anybody's hungry, it's Free as in Sugar Free.

(Wow, what a vindictive and bitter post. Guess the past 8 hours spent trying desparately to get this fucking piece of shit program to compile have really worn down my normally cautious and tolerant exterior. I mean seriously, if it weren't for OSS, I probably could have just BOUGHT a program from somebody and not wasted my time. I could have gotten LAID tonight if I wasn't working on this).

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[Brandybuck]

Do you read Slashdot often? Doesn't this give you a bit of a clue as to the OSS mindset?

The vast majority of Slashdot posters couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. They have nothing to do with the development of Open Source software.

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[Zardus]

There are quite a few people on slashdot. Many (most?) of them are raving lunatics with no connection to actual programming of Open Source projects. If you go by what you see on Slashdot, then BSD is dying, Natalie Portman is petrified in hot grits and Taco molests young children. I don't suppose you think all that is also true, do you?

Most of the open source programmers I know, including myself, hate Microsoft as a hobby at best. We code for fun or, as this slashdot poll if you worship slashdot opinion so much, because we like the feeling of pasting SCO code into the kernel. Forget Microsoft, its SCO that's the reason for Open Source :-)

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[Openstandards.net]

"Open source" came about because when the Internet just included educational, scientific and government people, and sharing documents became popular (e.g., Gophers and then Lynx), that excitement transfered over to the idea of "what would happen if we shared source code?"

We shared visions of how quickly we could solve problems together, developing and advancing technology at an astounding rate that would be good for everyone. We then began to wonder how we could declare software to belong to the "public domain" while simultaneously protecting it from being stolen by a bogus claim that someone has it, since copyright and the public domain were viewed as oppositional. This lead to the creation of the open source license

In all this discussion, no one ever thought about Microsoft or doing it because they were anti anything. There really were no technology enemies to us back then. Microsoft was simply irrelevant in these discussions, particularly since the Internet was almost exclusively Unix based. Even IBM hadn't yet become an issue to the technology to the Internet community. There were no corporate Interestes on the Internet, at least none that I was aware of. Most companies didn't even know what the Internet was, and any non-techie I talked to never heard of it.

Open source was born out of the ideal that a globe of people working together could accomplish so much more than isolated pockets.

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[JCholewa]

> Because without a large "evil" bad guy to rail
> against, no-one would bother writing OSS.

Open source software predates closed source software. Or, at least, the two developed at the same time in parallel. At one point in the past, it was *normal* for people to share code in their programs, especially among hobbyists. Code was frequently printed out in magazines for people to implement on their systems. Computing was a largely *scientific* endeavor, so the impulse to lock everything down wasn't very strong until the profit motive started really kicking in.

Movements like GNU were started in reaction to when companies and universities started rejecting OSS. One of the big events back then was when Bill Gates sent out a letter to the hobbyist community urging them to stop freely giving out their code, because (according to him) it encouraged theft.

Yeah, Linux wouldn't be around (or, at least, strong) without Microsoft. But we'd probably have a heterogenous computing world where simple macro worms couldn't take down ninety percent of the planet, and Apple would be duking it out with IBM, Atari and Commodore for the desktop. And they'd all be bastards, but the fact that nobody's dominant would mean that everybody would have to interoperate with everybody else.

And FreeBSD would probably have still come out, and certain types of open source software (like office suites) would be more advanced than they are today, because file format standards would be a bit more rigidly applied (and these particular programs would support more file formats than the proprietaries, which would actually be more important in this hypothetical world).

--
-JC
coder
http://www.jc-news.com/coding/main

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[spectecjr]

Movements like GNU were started in reaction to when companies and universities started rejecting OSS. One of the big events back then was when Bill Gates sent out a letter to the hobbyist community urging them to stop freely giving out their code, because (according to him) it encouraged theft.


Highly factually inaccurate. He sent out a letter to the hobbyist community urging them to stop copying his code, because that was copyright infringement and theft.

He couldn't care less what they were doing with their stuff - but he did care what they were doing with his.

Intresting question for linux

[SmallFurryCreature]

Exactly wich OS was linux written on? Does history record?

Anyway MS got its chance when IBM decided to launch a cheap crap machine. IBM wanted one since Apple was doing not to bad selling very light hardware and software (compared to the big iron of IBM) to both consumers and horror of horror even businesses. IBM didn't want to let that market go but neither thought it to be very big or important. It just wanted to be in there fast.

So they let two upstart outsiders do a lot of the work. Intel for the hardware and Microsoft for the software. There is probably a dungeon somewhere at IBM where a couple of bodies lie behind glass where new bosses are taken and shown the ghastly remain of those who drew up the Microsoft contract.

Microsoft was loose and all has not been well.

So where would the world be without Micosoft? Pfff that is a thoughie. Would IBM have developed their own software instead? Would it have been a solid piece of software as we find on big iron but immensly expensive? (if you think unix is good you never worked on a mainframe)

Then apple would have been the low end supplier with IBM PC's coming in at the top end, you know like now but in reverse. Would apple have allowed clones? If not then PC's would still be expensive, the lowest price would be Apples, yes ouch, and the top segment of PC's would be IBM's, take it bitch.

MS was told to build a dirt cheap OS and Intel to build a dirt cheap piece of hardware. IBM never really intended the PC revolution. It wanted thin clients powered by big hardware. Not dozens of single task crap machines. It just wasn't prepared to let apple take that market.

Maybe the PC market would be better without MS but there also might not be a PC market without MS. or might there? We do have the home computers. Might they have filled the role? C64000 anyone? The sinclairs, the ataries and god knows what else?

I think a world without MS is certainly a world that would have been a whole lot more fun.

This is where we'd be right now.

[rice_burners_suck]

The following does not represent fact. Only opinion. And it might not even be my opinion. I'm only listing here the things that sound reasonable that I've read elsewhere.

Microsoft has caused numerous quality products and the quality companies that produced them to disappear. They would either buy them out for peanuts or put them out of business with their illegal carnivorous business practices. Databases, word processors, development tools, web browsers, and media players are only a few of the examples that come to my mind. The existing products were far superior to those of Microsoft, in terms of reliability and efficiency, but Microsoft managed to hack together some crap to compete and used their marketing muscle to destroy the other guys. That's why people are used to the concepts of computers crashing, being bogged down by "crap" that somehow gets installed and runs in the background doing Lord knows what, etc. If there were no Microsoft, who knows where we'd be today, but I'm certain of one thing: At the very least, the software industry, consisting of many players of many different shapes and sizes, would produce rock-solid, efficient software, and by now, in 2004, nobody would accept the concept of a computer crashing and losing information.

Does this mean that Microsoft should not exist? No way! I really like one thing about them: Their marketing is awesome. I believe they should stop wasting their time and effort making software, and should turn into a computer systems marketing organization for software, hardware, and related products and services, all produced and served by others. They would earn some small percentage on the profits of sales for their marketing efforts. Increased competition would mean that lots of products and services would exist. Microsoft could be a directory connecting people, businesses, and governments to the proper places to obtain the results they need. Want standards? They could serve as the forum for designing and approving of standards, so that everything could eventually interoperate. No fixing dangling pointer bugs and the like. Only strategic thinking. And I think that if Microsoft were to do this, they would be ten times more influential, powerful, and profitable than by selling Windows XP at $200 a pop to people who hate Microsoft but feel compelled to buy their crap because there is no other choice, and who will move to something else as soon as it becomes available... But that's just the opinions of others that I've read elsewhere.

Ahhhh... the venerable old GEM

[Trolling4Dollars]

As a longtime Atari ST user, I have a fondness for GEM. So much so that when I moved to the PC in 1994, I bought a used copy of GEM for DOS and ran with that baby for quite a while. Looking at that simple desktop (luckily the ST still was able to use the disk and trash can icon metaphor unlike GEM for DOS) and the simple fonts really takes me back to when computers were REALLY fun. All those old ST games, paint programs, and of course MIDI software and the demo scene. Sure the Amigas had slightly better graphics (duck) but you couldn't beat the ST for MIDI. And since I was a musician at the time, that's mostly what I used the ST for, everything else was just nice icing on a very sweet cake. I also used to subscribe to ST Format magazine and hav it shipped from the UK to the states. I looked forward to those cover disks every month. You never knew what was going to come next. Somehow, it seems the Brits know how to do cover discs. Even with last year's issues of Future Music, there's actually useful stuff on cover disks. Here in the states, all we get is crappy AOL CDs or shit game previews. Oh well... it's been a long time since I've bought print magazines on a regular basis. But sometimes you just mss the old days, when magazine were glossy and used dense paper covers and there was a floppy with an attractive game or two on it. Ahhh... the old days.

Old Friend MS

[buddydawgofdavis]

Microsoft software played a major role in my life. It was the tool that helped me in my career for nearly a quarter of a century. The ease of use allowed me to express myself and share my thoughts with friends, classmates, relatives, and fellow emplyees. I wrote love letters with Word, presented ideas to co-workers with Excel, and even created my first personal webpage with Frontpage. Microsoft is no enemy of mine, more like an old friend.

probably someone like them

[hak1du]

I suspect that if it hadn't been Microsoft, it would have been some other company like them. The PC market shows that there have been plenty of other companies willing to take shortcuts for quick time-to-market and for hardball business strategies.

If you recall Apple's history, first, they claimed to own "the GUI" and started suing people over it, then they saddled us with a decade of horrendously poorly designed and flaky operating systems (until OS X). Sun hasn't been much better: they took BSD UNIX, created a proprietary product around it, and more recently claimed to establish Java as an "open standard" only to protect it heavily with patents and try to keep complete control of it. And the only reason IBM didn't try to monopolize the PC market was because they were already under intense scrutiny for anti-trust violations and couldn't do so.

On the whole, among the potential monopolists that could have assumed the role of evil monopolist, Microsoft was probably one of the less harmful ones: they didn't wise up to patents until recently, they bungled a lot, and their technology was so poor that it allowed UNIX and Apple to co-exist for a while and OSS to take off.

But the fact that the combination of our laws and the computer market seems to predispose us to having an evil monopolist around doesn't mean we have to accept their behavior as natural. Just because lots of people loot when there is a natural disaster doesn't make the behavior acceptable. Likewise, just because people can behave like monopolists in the PC market doesn't mean that they are justified in doing so.

Fortunately, a company as big and predominant as Microsoft is also a big target. In the long run, they won't keep their position: the combination of antitrust enforcement and plain old free market forces (including open source) brings companies like Microsoft down in the long run.

Well....

[Shadwell]

...people on Slashdot would have a lot less to complain about.

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey I think Plug and Play rocks! No more setting dipswitches on modems on old 286 boxes!

Obligatory The Simpsons quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Hutz: Can you imagine a world without lawyers?
(Hutz pictures a circle of people of different races, religions, and colors dancing around a hill on a sunny day. Hutz shudders in disgust)

Bubblegum Crisis ..... Parallels.

[GrpA]

Does anyone else remember Bubblegum Crisis ep8? (Scoopchase for those who don't remember the episodes...)

I always liken Genom in that series to Microsoft. As was pointed out, although Genom did a lot of bad things, it also did a lot of beneficial things...

Microsoft is *very* like this. Although they are kind of evil, much of what they have done has benefitted us all.

Unfortunately, we don't have the Knight Sabers to kill off their worse plans, but then again, we do have the Open Source movement, so overall, things aren't too bad.

But personally, I think having had MS around for the past few decades has been one of the greater factors in the explosion of computer technology. Good or bad, it really has been Microsoft's existance driving this.

Even for those of us who are anachronistic and still prefer DOS and Debug... :(

Let's see...

[bryan1945]

No Microsoft, no Steve Ballmer (well, maybe not so prominent), so no "DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!"

I.E., no geek workout sessions, therefore no sweet hot female geek love, there.... snnrt! Dang, it's time to wake up already!

In a parallel universe...

[ktakki]

I'm sure this has been discussed on soc.history.what-if or alt.folklore.computers, but I'll take a wild-assed stab at this...

1. What if Microsoft hadn't bought QDOS from Tim Patterson and licensed it to IBM? IBM would have come to terms with the mercurial Gary Kildall, licensed another OS (like CP/M), or developed one in-house (a Unix derivative like Xenix?).

2. Given the above, would PCs have become as pervasive as they are now? A lot of the success of the PC depended on the clone makers, like Compaq, who lowered the price point considerably. The clone's popularity depended in no small part on their ability to run MS-DOS, thanks to the non-exclusive agreement MS had with IBM. Had IBM chosen a different OS, the licensing terms would have probably been different, and the clones would have never been, well, cloned.

3. Had the PC not taken off as it did, who would fill the gap? At the time, the Apple II and the TRS-80 led the home/small business markets, though the Macintosh was still a couple of years from its introduction. The conventional wisdom is that the PC killed the market for minis and micros; would DEC still be alive today? I'm of the opinion that DEC would find a way to die, no matter what. But it's entirely possible that enterprise computing would still be a mini in each department and a VT-100 on every desk.

4. It's easy to conclude that, without Microsoft dominating the desktop, Macintosh, Amiga, and various flavors of Unix would split that 95% share. But I think that would be wrong. One of these, or perhaps a contender we'd never heard of, would take the lion's share because of the nature of the network effect. The "winner" might not get a 95% share, but 66% to 75% is not out of the question, IMHO.

5. Pure serendipity on my part: I think the Mac would have become dominant, but not without Mac clones. One software company could dominate the market (as we have seen), but hardware is different: the market is too big for just one company.

k.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as eas

[westlake]

Easy-to-use desktops are just one more thing that were invented elsewhere and didn't go mainstream until later because IBM and later Microsoft were keeping the drooling masses locked into inferior technology. Sheesh.

Open, modular, easily upgradeable, hardware design and a GUI and operating system tied to no one manufacturer made the PC affordable and accessible to the "drooling masses" you despise.

A Slashdot record?

[Anonymous Coward]

5 MS stories in one day.

A world without MS...

[i love pineapples]

Happy?

Just let us dream for a while eh?

[SmallFurryCreature]

With all the recent stories it become pretty clear that MS has become a loose cannon. Yes once usefull for making computing afforable but now a dangerous element that might threaten our way of life.

Now if only we could get the CIA to find some kids website with quotes on Redmond having weapons of masdestruction.

Solaris 2004 Home Edition

[gopherd00d]

Maybe if there were no MS, we'd all have a SparcStation on our desks instead of a PC, and we'd be complaining about the latest CDE virus. There would be an ongoing religious debate over the merits of Apple vs Sun, and an ever-growing third faction would be educating both sides about the wisdom of Open Source.

Realistically, folks, if there wasn't a Microsoft, someone else would take their place. Perhaps we should be grateful for Microsoft's existence, because if someone more competent were in that position (say, some company that could write good code, for example), there'd be a whole lot less need for open source. So, thanks Microsoft for showing us all just how bad an operating system can be!

are you kidding me?

[Rooked_One]

MS mae the computer world what it is.

If you can't understand what I mean by that, then you have no biz in the computer world as it is. Take your PC... smash it to bits, and forget everythign you know and learn how to throw a garbage bag into a dumpster.

What about Speech Server?

[Tibor the Hun]

OK, I don't like Microsoft no less than the next guy, but maybe they've got something with their speech server?
Does anyone else know how easy this is to implement, and or how well it works?

Comdex 1983

[rixstep]

There's an old story oft repeated back home and taken as truth. It's about Comdex 1983. Microsoft were still a small company back then, still in Seattle, and had a minimal representation in Vegas with Gates himself behind the counter.

All of a sudden there was a bit of a stir, and Gates found out it was a demonstration of GEM. He wandered over and pulled one of his big poker bluffs.

Heckling the product demonstrators, he told everyone who he was, what company he represented, claimed his own company had a similar product in the works, far more developed than this beta of GEM, but his company, ethical as it was, would never dream of luring the public with a demonstration of a product what wasn't ready for market.

He then supposedly stalked back to his own exhibit, closed it down demonstratively, and proclaimed that he was leaving Comdex in protest. He traveled immediately back to Seattle.

Where he immediately convened the 'board' of MS and appointed Steve Ballmer manager of the phantom project. Ballmer started getting phone calls from the media who wanted to know what the product would be called (here Ballmer was impressively creative) and also wanted to know why it was taking so long: Gates intimated MS had been working on it for several years already in 1983.

When the 'product' finally surfaced in 1985, and looked (and performed) as poorly as it did, a few people understood: it hadn't taken that long at all.

Re:Comdex 1983

[razmaspaz]

thats funny change 1983 to 2003, GEM to linux, and the phantom product to longhorn and you realize microsoft has gotten nowhere in 20 years.

Re:Comdex 1983

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what "apocryphal" means?

Re:Comdex 1983

[mah!]

At Comdex 1983, Microsoft announced [...] Windows, competing directly with [...] "Vision". After all, Microsoft had been given a prototype pre-release Mac since late 1981!

More such information at Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org

Re:Comdex 1983

[rixstep]

It didn't even have overlapping windows, preferring a simpler technique called "tiling"

No. I still have a copy of this somewhere. They don't tile. They come up in a static position. Tiling implies the ability to overlap, and Windows 1.0 windows could definitely not overlap.

Check this URL:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/winui/WinUI/WindowsUserInterface/Wi ndowing/Windows/WindowReference/WindowStyles.asp

Check down the page: it says clearly that 'WS_OVERLAPPED' equates to 'WS_TILE'.

But the joke is even better, for WS_OVERLAPPED is today defined as zero, and with bitwise flags...

Windows 1.0 could not allow windows to overlap at all. To do this, they would have had to master the art of bit block transfers (bit blitting), and we all know things like that go in Redmond...

Re:Comdex 1983

[Ian.Waring]

Gates demo'd a Windowing system to us at DEC (albeit in Reading, UK) in May 1983 - on the Compaq Plus he carried in. At the time, the car parks at dealers were full of people getting demos of the Apple Lisa, VisiOn and (later) Quarterdeck DesQ. The first question he asked everyone was when they were going to drop CP/M and use DOS instead. Meanwhile, the management in LJ02 (Barry James Folsom and co) were happy to wait for CCPM and it's 4 hot-switchable tasks it could run, and largely ignore MS-DOS. They got back to the instruction Olsen gave them ("to produce a machine to run industry standard software, whatever it was") a bit later. At the time, they thought it would be a Motorola 68K box running CCPM or some kind of UNIX derivative. The success of PC-DOS dictated otherwise... Ian W.

Re:Comdex 1983

[leandrod]

Any references about this CCPM?

Re:Comdex 1983

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most people called it "Concurrent DOS" -- it was a multiuser CP/M that was usually used for POS and other vertical systems.

Re:Comdex 1983

[Ian.Waring]

It was Digital Research's next generation CP/M - called Concurrent CP/M. Allowed 4 different tasks to be run simultaneously, and for the user to hot switch between them (and each task had the full screen real estate while it was running).

It's use in niches like cash tills came much later - after Charlie Chaplin had washed the Rainbow (and lots of other non-IBM PCs) aside.

In fact, there was a 5th screen that just listed the tasks running in the other 4...

Ian W.

Re:Comdex 1983

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right that it was originaly called "Concurrent CP/M". However, Concurrent DOS is still being sold, so I wanted to give him something he could google on.

Your entire argument is wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

If windows wasn't so bad people wouldn't use it? WTF people are you around? Remove yourself from the computer literate population for a minute and see reality. People don't even know what windows is, or what an OS is. They use their computer, period, as is, the way they got it. These are the people who need to not use windows the most, the people running virii, installing spyware laden crapware to do shit like change their wallpaper for them, or make their cursor gay.

Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean you can dismiss them as "MS bashing".

Like the saying goes

[suso]

A computer without Microsoft is like ice-cream without Ketchup.

Re:Like the saying goes

[metlin]

I like ice-cream with Ketchup, you insensitive clod.

Re:Like the saying goes

[suso]

I like ice-cream with Ketchup, you insensitive clod.

Yeah, and appearently so do hundreds of millions of other people. But only because they are told to like it. Or because others like it. Go jump off a bridge too.

Re:Like the saying goes

[Anonymous Coward]

You HBT YHL HAND

Re:Like the saying goes

[gitana]

I preffer salsa actually. mmmm . .. . Vanilla ice cream and salsa! Tasty!!!! What topic???

I sincerely hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that every astroturfing M$ shill that modded that insightful gets meta-modded to hell. Microsofted introduced the GUI to computing? Puh-leez.

So many hours.

[openmtl]

So many hours of our lives have been spent fixing SCANDISK, SCANREG and missing DLLs.

So many hours of our childrens lives asking "Why has it stoppped working"

So many hours trying to get DOS to do simply tasks. So many hours spent on Legal, Licencing, and reboots.

I see computing technology as allowing humanity the freedom to explore and innovate. The games industry has driven the hardware manufacturers and their engines stay well away from Microsoft except in recent years.

The Internet is run by Open Source, yet it has been polluted by Microsoft through their poor security model. Where would we be without open relays, zombies and Windows scripting hosts ?. Microsoft have regulated our freedoms too long.

Like some command-economy control, it regulates what it wants and suffocates what it doesn't.

It is also NOT the largest IT company in the world by any means; IBM has many time its turnover so the loss of Microsoft in percentage terms of the Worlds top 100 companies, will barely be felt.

Without Microsoft.....

[vwjeff]

Let's see. A world without Microsoft. What would I be complaining about right now. Oh, yeah, I would be talking about the evil empire Apple and how they have a hold on the market.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[WookieinHeat]

Yes but they would be a monopoly because they are good, they're business tactics are not quite as harsh as Microsft's and I doubt they would push EVERYONE out of the market.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[tonywong]

Your comment reminds me of the ST:TOS episode where Spock had the goatee.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[DrHyde]

Not to mention the Evil Cisco Monopoly.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Endive4Ever]

Oh, yeah, I would be talking about the evil empire Apple and how they have a hold on the market.

That's not at all far off from the truth.

Apple intended for quite awhile to own the GUI market and be it's only vendor. They sued various entities and ran some of them out of the market. Because that's just how Apple does things.

When Microsoft came out with Windows, Apple sued Microsoft in the famous 'look-n-feel' lawsuits.

If Microsoft hadn't prevailed in those lawsuits, Apple would own the GUI market and be it's sole vendor.

That would suck bigtime. Microsoft plowed that ground for us. In fact the legal precedent that Microsoft set by fighting that fight for us is what allows people to 'clone' Windows GUI concepts and incorporate them into Linux/Free Software projects.

If Apple were in charge it would suck a hell of a lot more.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[flab007]

Hell no .. we'd still be bitching about the Evil Big Blue!

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, we'd be forced to use computers which just work.

I'm a Windows developer because there are very few Mac development jobs over here. I would put money on the fact that I wouldn't have any grey hairs if my life didn't revolve around constantly overcoming features of the wonderful Windows platform.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right, we'd be forced to use computers which just work.

Haven't you learned anything from the problems of OS dominance? Sure, an OS that "just work" is nice and all, but once again evolution and innovations would go to hell since they wouldn't have a reason to do it.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[BerntB]

Apple intended for quite awhile to own the GUI market and be it's only vendor. They sued various entities and ran some of them out of the market. Because that's just how Apple does things.

Apple more or less invented most of what you think of as the GUI. It was their property. The world might be a better place if ownership of lots of property was moved around, but without general respect for ownership rights, the world doesn't work.

Microsoft plowed that ground for us. In fact the legal precedent that Microsoft set by fighting that fight for us is what allows people to 'clone' Windows GUI concepts and incorporate them into Linux/Free Software projects.

In short (from the reference above):
Microsoft got a license from Apple to port their applications to other platforms and managed to get a judge to allow them to copy the GUI. So this was original work from Apple that Microsoft managed to steal.

Well, low business morals are something that you could admire Microsoft for... (You're a big fan of the mob, too?)

It is really strange that this is not written in articles. It probably have something to do with the large Microsoft ad budget -- and helped along historically that companies with large ad budgets was dependent on the Msoft monopoly for their survival...

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[BerntB]

Hell no .. we'd still be bitching about the Evil Big Blue!

IBM avoided bundling so they wouldn't get problems in their monopoly trials.

Microsoft keeps on bundling and instead buys politicians.

Say what you want about IBM (there are lots of things to say), but they had some business morals. Not even magazines getting lots of ads say that about Microsoft...

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting, that was John "Do-you-want-to-sell-sugar-water-for-the-rest-of-y our-life" Sculley's Apple.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[anothy]

When Microsoft came out with Windows, Apple sued Microsoft in the famous 'look-n-feel' lawsuits.

If Microsoft hadn't prevailed in those lawsuits, Apple would own the GUI market and be it's sole vendor.

um, no.

Apple sued Microsoft not because they had produced a GUI, but because they had produced a GUI that was largely a clear derivative of Apple's. i really wish Apple had won that suit. not because i wanted to see MicroSoft get it (hey, i thought Macs were dumb back then, and was a DOS user!), but because it would've forced them to do something else. there are other ways to do GUIs. look at the dozens of X11 window managers that use totally different designs (okay most are trying to be just like MS or Apple, but some aren't). Look at Plan 9, with rio and especially Acme - or Oberon, for that matter. there's tons of sucky examples, too (Bob!). hell, some were even concurrent with Apple's work! read up on the blit/jerq from Bell Labs and all the PARC stuff Apple got their ideas from.

Apple has certainly used litigation to achieve some goals in the past, but i've seen no evidence of them holding the same "we'll sue you if we can't come up with a better way to own everything " model MicroSoft seems to have. i can see no support for the statement that Apple was trying to "own" the GUI market or the GUI - although you could argue that they were trying to "own" the metaphor and design. but i think that's justifiable, and would likely have been a good thing, forcing people to come up with other ideas.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple more or less invented most of what you think of as the GUI.

The reference you cite doesn't back you up. It states that icons, menus, mice, etc don't originate with Apple. News for you buddy: those things are what most people think of as the GUI. Directly from your source:

Saying that Apple learning some of the base concepts and then applying them was "ripping-off" is like saying that Air-Bags are ripping off Newton -- because Air Bags work because they adhere to some of the laws of physics first expressed by Sir Isaac. A silly silly argument.

Quite clearly, Apple's work was an application of Xerox's ideas. The whole document goes into how Apple's developers toured Xerox. Your claim that Apple "invented" the GUI and it is their "property" is ludicrous.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Doooh_head]

Without Microsoft we'd be using OS/2...and IBM would be the "evil empire"!

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[ArhcAngel]

It seems every few years the Apple vs. Microsoft lawsuit debate gets refueled. It also seems that the reason the debate rages is that the facts have nothing to do with the debate. These are the facts IIRC:

Apple was working on porting this new cutting edge operating environment, GUI, for the Apple hardware Steve Jobs had seen while visiting Xerox Park.

To speed up development Steve Jobs contracted a little software company called Microsoft to help in development of what became the Macintosh OS.

In said contract was a clause prohibiting MS from creating a GUI for any other platform.

Now this next part I gleaned from the made for TV movie about the subject so it's validity is suspect but as the story goes MS created MS Windows and began selling it in Asia. Since Asia is outside the US market MS didn't feel they were bound by the contract.

Apple found out about the new GUI and the lawsuit ensued. The case was pending for over ten years until a couple of years back they finally settled (read no court ruling) and MS invested a few million into Apple and agreed to keep making Office for the Mac for a few more years.

disclaimer: I didn't say anything you think you just read.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Sharkford]

Or the evil empire DEC and how you wished Ken Olsen had never realized that people would want personal computers.

Or that fiend Sinclair and how nasty it is to suppress news of future upgrades until we've all bought the soon-to-be-obsolete model.

Or the evil empire IBM and how their OS/2 hegemony was stifling competition from that nice geeky kid who wrote the original DOS.

In other words, we'd find *something* to complain about.

Sharkford

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[scrytch]

> Apple more or less invented most of what you think of as the GUI. It was their property.

I really don't think I need any longer to point out these astonishing hypocrisies in that revisionist partisan history (anyone who wants to see real mental gymnastics of justifications and rationalizations, do click through to it). I have seen and used a port of the original Globalview, which predates Apple's GUI system. It's a lot more primitive, yes, but Apple's GUI is most certainly evolutionary. About the only thing Apple added was overlapping resizeable windows; menus, icons, and of course the pointer controlled by the mouse, those were all there.

Apple sued people for making things that looked like their things. I'm happy the courts and eventually the market repudiated this behavior and forced Apple to compete on merit.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[AmigaBen]

Oh the horrors! All these years we would have had to suffer with a stable, multitasking, REAL OS...

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[a1englishman]

Your outlook on the Apple lawsuit is a bit simplistic. One of the complaints in the suit dealt with Microsoft's addition of overlapping windows to Windows 2.0. Had Apple won, we would all have been buggered. A GUI without overlapping windows is shite. Since Apple wasn't the originator of the technology, it wouldn't have been fair for them to become the sole vendor. That was Xerox's to take, if they wished.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Anonymous Coward]

"In fact the legal precedent that Microsoft set by fighting that fight for us is what allows people to 'clone' Windows GUI concepts and incorporate them into Linux/Free Software projects."

I don't think Microsoft fought that fight for us...unless 'us' = investors for microsoft.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the most inaccurate, most amazingly full of shit summary I've ever read of this subject. You didn't even watch the TV movie without being on five pounds of LSD, did you?
For fuck's sake, quit relying on what your cat tells you and go look up some history. Court reports maybe, or scan the Win32 API(a good windows worshipper such as yourself has to have the MSDN bookshelf laying around, right?) for fun, and count the system calls that are identical to the system calls in, say, Mac OS 9. Oh wait, they won't be quite identical, they swapped the order of some parameters, as well as swapping some words in the function names, to weasel out of the fact that MS did a cut and paste job from Mac OS to Windows.
No, I won't help you. No, I won't answer any replies to this. Yes, I'm feeling cantankerous whenever this subject gets brought up, especially when anyone claims that Microsoft (spelled without the $! ha!) "wrote" "invented" or "saved" the Mac OS.

This is a flame. Also, an invite to go eat a bag of flaming hell. Your plan is stupid. Your sig is stupid. Your stupidity is stupid. READ A BOOK, YOU'RE PART OF THE REASON STUPID PEOPLE WILL BE BREEDING.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[anothy]

you're right, that was too simplistic. Apple was not beyond reproach in that, as (as you noted) much did indeed come from Xerox PARC. but the main thrust of the suit was not that, but the "look and feel" - hence the name. the main issues of contention were the metaphor and the specific design choices.
oh, and Xerox weren't the only people doing overlapping windows back then. again, the blit/jerq family had them before the Mac came out, and i believe they were the first with concurrently running multiple overlapping windows.
anyway, that's not the core point here (although it's certainly interesting). while i was simplifying, the point remains that Apple does not have microsoft's history of using litigation as a core business tool.

but your observation raises another question: i wonder if Apple would have been more successful had they stuck to more constrained suits. huh. i could probably draw parallels here to another current lawsuit that should've stayed a pure, simple contract dispute, but the plaintiff has blown way out of proportion, thus torpedoing their own case.
but i won't do that. nope.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[BerntB]

the original Globalview, which predates Apple's GUI system.

Can you give a reference to this?

If this was not from Xerox, boy, Apple must have been pissed since they paid a lot of stock to get the information from Xerox... :-)

If this was Xerox, read the article. It follows what I've read in other sources that say that the Star was later than the Lisa project. It was mostly done after Apple got their famous tour.

(Lisa was released January '83, right?)

Please note, in today's patent environment, the Mac interface (both look and API) would have been patented airtight -- by both Xerox and Apple. I think we can agree on both that and that the world became a better place that the cat got out of the bag.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[scrytch]

Globalview was a Xerox thing, I used it at Xerox (never seriously, there was a Sparc port lying around that I tried) It never escaped Xerox alive -- and probably couldn't have survived anyway if it did. The Globalview name might have been a more recent coinage, but it was a direct descendant of the STAR gui.

Or so I was told at any rate... There was an updated windows (3.x) port of Globalview as well, but that was more of a klunky "document centered" application toolkit and runtime, and really had little in common other than some odd widget behavior.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[Bob Davis, Retired]

Please, don't quote MacKiDo if you want to give the impression that you are clued-in. That site is the most ludicrous bunch of half researched tripe that I've ever seen. Apple most certainly didn't invent the GUI, Jobs saw a lisp machine at PARC and copied the look of it. He was an idiot for not copying the underlying parts of it, but we'll take what we can get here.

I like my TiBook, but there's no excuse for the bullshit spewing from MacKiDo.

I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Sean Clifford]

I am writing in Ada, you insensitive clod! :)

Seriously, though, I have to agree with you that the government is the last place you want programming standards to come out of. Shudder. The technology sector should develop its own standards in cooperation - sure, it leads to a BetaMax versus VHS situation sometimes, but in the end you get general interoperability.

Much as I hate to say it, I don't think that the computer industry would be as far along as it is today without games.

Games have driven the market and the platform of choice has been the PC. Why? Because it was there.

Apple became tied to its hardware/software model, expensive. (And excellent.) The IBM PC clone gained ubiquity by being cheap (And...cheap). Microsoft was in the right place at the right time and kept on the ball in crushing competition and playing bondage with PC manufacturers.

And here go my mod points and karma

I doubt that Linux would be where it is today without the domination of Microsoft.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[hyc]

Apple's hardware has always been uninspired, 2nd rate dreck. The best hardware designs came from Jay Miner and friends in the Atari and Commodore camp. While Apple was inventing new ways to make a fast processor slow (single 68000 CPU running the entire system, no DMA, etc. etc.) the Amiga and Atari had custom coprocessors for disk I/O, graphics, sound, keyboard, mouse etc., getting *great* performance out of the same CPU. And doing it all for less $$ overall.

I totally agree that Microsoft *and Intel* have retarded the state of the art by at least 15 years. There have been so many other worthwhile, efficient CPU architectures (MIPS, Alpha, 680x0) that have gone by the wayside, while the bloated hulk of x86 keeps rolling on.

I really do wonder where Linux would be today without Microsoft. I wonder why Minix didn't experience the same explosive growth. (Anyone even remember it?)

One can only hope that as we push thru the 21st century, marketing will less frequently win out over superior technology.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Endive4Ever]

I wonder why Minix didn't experience the same explosive growth. (Anyone even remember it?)

Minix still exists, and there is a Minix usenet group that gets traffic. It was never intended to be anything like what Linux became. It's a pedagogical OS whose main method of distribution is a CD in the back cover of a textbook. It 'inspired' Linus to go off and do something of his own. It's wrong to act like it 'died' or in any way is a failure because it's still primarily a pedagogical OS.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[RAMMS EIN]

``I really do wonder where Linux would be today without Microsoft.''

Keep in mind that GNU/Linux has mainly been taking market share from commercial unices. This is to be expected, as it has much in common with those and their technical strengths and weaknesses are very similar.

As far as competition with MicroSoft goes, the GNU system just doesn't have what it takes. Windows has all these graphical configuration tools and wizards that can make even a complete agnostic feel in control. These are just not there for Linux, so you'll need people with actual knowledge of the system as sysadmins. With companies hiring only people with x years of experience, this is just not going to work. Besides, Linux has this hippie feeling to it that companies are uncomfortable with.

As for the home desktop, don't even think about it. People want their gadgets supported and they want their games to run. They don't want to break their system, so they'll stick with what it ships with and not experiment.

The successes of Linux, clearly, are in the server area, particularly against commercial UNIX systems. MicroSoft hardly has anything to do with it. Of course, some people like to run Linux on their PCs, because they feel it goes against MicroSoft, but keep in mind that most PC users think MicroSoft is GOOD.

``I wonder why Minix didn't experience the same explosive growth. (Anyone even remember it?)''

MINIX was never meant to be big. It's a teaching OS and it strictly abides the KISS principle. No improvements that increase the complexity of the system are accepted. I believe there was or is a fork that tried to expand the system and make it more useful, but it obviously hasn't made high-profile achievements.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[robnauta]

Minix still exists, and there is a Minix usenet group that gets traffic. It was never intended to be anything like what Linux became. It's a pedagogical OS whose main method of distribution is a CD in the back cover of a textbook. It 'inspired' Linus to go off and do something of his own. It's wrong to act like it 'died' or in any way is a failure because it's still primarily a pedagogical OS. I once used Minix 1.3. It was an OK operating system, but its limits of 64K for data and 64K for executable meant that there was no software except stripped basic commands. GNU tools optimized for speed while BSD optimized for memory use back then.
Its big problem of course was that it was a commercial OS, sold together with Andrew Tanenbaum's book on Operating Systems.

There were patches to 1.5 available, but that was so much trouble it tooks days just to compile part of it. I got an account on mugnet.nl (or .org), a minux user group, and found out all the executables were chmodded 111 to prevent people from downloading them.

By the way, I don't think it was on CD in 1990, I remember having it on 3-4 360K floppys.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[luisdom]

And here go my mod points and karma
I doubt that Linux would be where it is today without the domination of Microsoft.
You can't be more right, and this is something that everybody here tends to forget. The amazingly fast development of linux happened because microsoft was so closed: the monopoly created a pressure that wanted to come out to somewhere; the lack of alternatives and the opressive environment made the openess of linux irresistibly attractive for a lot of people.
Do people here really think that if the market had been 40% MS, 40% IBM & 30% Apple during the 90's, linux would have been the programmer's (or university's, or fanboy's) choice? I doubt it.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[mattrumpus]

Minix didn't have the same explosive growth because Andrew Tanenbaum wouldn't let others contribute to the codebase. He wanted to keep it clean and clear for educational purposes and therefore refused to add new features.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Dogtanian]

I totally agree that Microsoft *and Intel* have retarded the state of the art by at least 15 years. There have been so many other worthwhile, efficient CPU architectures (MIPS, Alpha, 680x0) that have gone by the wayside, while the bloated hulk of x86 keeps rolling on.

Absolutely; but do Intel have a real choice? Even if you accept the argument that Itanium was obselete on release and has design-by-committee-itis, would its being better have allowed it to see off AMD's x86-64 CPUs?

All I can say is that Intel must have some incredible engineers working for them, to keep cranking out improved performance from the x86 architecture whilst still maintaining compatibility with the old stuff.

That having been said, why don't they just include the deprecated x86 instructions for compatibility, but not worry about the performance? In other words, "If your compiler is stupid enough to use these instructions, your program will work, but the performance will suck."

Ten, fifteen, twenty year-old code will run way faster than it was originally intended (or required) to, and modern code shouldn't be using it anyway.

Having thought about this, I guess one major problem with the x86 is the unwieldy instruction formats themselves; the problem having spread through the architecture, the new instructions would have to have an entirely new format, and code would not be able to use the old instructions for fear of messing up the pipelining. But this would effectively entail replacing all the existing x86 instructions. And including support for the new instructions, no matter how good, would probably require sacrificing some performance on existing code using the old instructions. The 'new' chip would appear to suck in benchmarks, and get trounced by an x86-with-ten-more-variable-length instructions when running existing code; which is to say *all* x86 code currently out there.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[hak1du]

As far as competition with MicroSoft goes, the GNU system just doesn't have what it takes. Windows has all these graphical configuration tools and wizards that can make even a complete agnostic feel in control.

"Feel" being the operative word--in real life, that's actually an illusion. The vast majority of PC problems aren't fixed by using those "graphical configuration tools and wizards", they are fixed by rebooting, returning the machine, or having a 12 year old whiz kid fix it.

(And do look up the meaning of "agnostic" some time.)

These are just not there for Linux,

Sure, they are: distributions like SuSE need not fear any comparison with Windows when it comes to that sort of thing.

so you'll need people with actual knowledge of the system as sysadmins.

Sorry to break it to you, but Wizards and GUI tools don't obviate the need for knowledge. If anything, Windows requires more experience to manage well, and it keeps changing. Seems like you have fallen prey to Microsoft marketing claims.

As for the home desktop, don't even think about it. People want their gadgets supported and they want their games to run. They don't want to break their system, so they'll stick with what it ships with and not experiment.

Contrary to popular opinion, gadgets are not well supported on Windows. Sure, lots of hardware ships with Windows drivers and installers, but a lot of the time, they don't work, and with some regularity, they mess up the entire Windows installation.

Less hardware pretends to work with Linux, but the stuff that works usually really does work and works really well; unlike hardware under Windows, hardware under Linux will also keep working through system upgrade after system upgrade.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has all these graphical configuration tools and wizards that can make even a complete agnostic feel in control. These are just not there for Linux

Can somebody mod this down as -1 Doesn't Know What He Is Talking About? Seriously, download a newbie-oriented distro that was put out sometime in the last few years.

most PC users think MicroSoft is GOOD.

That's funny, I always hear people moaning about how shitty Windows is, especially when they use it themselves.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Anonymous Coward]

Retarded by at least 15 years, you have got to be joking. Lets see that takes you back to the world in 1989. Windows 3.0 has not even hit the shelf from MS. The first ever Windows has only been alive for 4 years. Linux 0.1 is still 2 years away from appearing(1991) and Linux 1.0 is still 5 years from release(1994).

I sometimes really wonder how zealatory translates to Score 5 - Interesting, guess I have yet to be assimilated.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Sime208]

> Much as I hate to say it, I don't think that the
> computer industry would be as far along as it is
> today without games.

By computer industry, do you mean PC's, or everything including the games consoles etc? If the latter, then don't bother reading on...

> Games have driven the market and the platform
> of choice has been the PC. Why? Because it was
> there.

I'm not sure I agree with that. The sale of PC's is driven by business, not gamers. The majority of people I know play games on their PlayStations or Nintendo's, without a PC in sight. The majority of home users I know don't have paid for copies of Windows, so I don't think it's been the home user playing his games that's driven the market.

I'd think it's making more money that's driven the market. Businesses buy systems to increase productivity, turnaround and sales.

Or that's my view of the world anyway, perhaps it's just the people I know :-)

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[mrm677]

I totally agree that Microsoft *and Intel* have retarded the state of the art by at least 15 years. There have been so many other worthwhile, efficient CPU architectures (MIPS, Alpha, 680x0) that have gone by the wayside, while the bloated hulk of x86 keeps rolling on.

With respect to Intel, this is utter BS. Intel burns so little of their transistor budget on cracking the IA-32 instruction set to RISC-like instructions that the ISA is really meaningless. You don't need lots of registers...L1 cache accesses are a single cycle. I've read armchair architects on slashdot say "but with so few registers, the processor will always execute all those extra instructions to spill/fill". I have 2 counter arguments:

1) Studies have shown that 80% of functions, in SPEC benchmarks, use less than 8 registers

2) Nowadays, with memory systems being all that matters, the spill/fill to the stack (which nearly always hits in the cache) is peanuts. Amdahl's law baby. With a 300-cycle access penalty to DRAM, and the possibility of retiring 3 instructions per cycle on Athlon and P4 chips, a single L2 miss can result in 1000 wasted opportunities to retire an instruction.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[ruhk]

"Keep in mind that GNU/Linux has mainly been taking market share from commercial unices. This is to be expected, as it has much in common with those and their technical strengths and weaknesses are very similar."

I think you're missing the point. It seems, from where I sit, that a good 50% of the driving force behind Linux innovation is the "Beat Microsoft!" mentality. That is, if you can really call most of what we refer to as 'linux' innovative. Its a lot of stuff copied--and, admittedly, improved upon--from other companies.

Without Microsoft, Linux quite likely would still just be Linus Torvald's pet project, and most of us would have seen his original newsgroup post and thought, "Oh look, another toy Unix..." and gone on with our day on whichever flavor of real Unix we were using.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[tbannist]

I think you may be right. Imagine the horrors of a world where the programmers (univeristy's and fanboy's) choice was... BSD.

The horror! Oh the horror!

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[IntlHarvester]

Keep in mind that GNU/Linux has mainly been taking market share from commercial unices.

In a World Without Microsoft, Commercial UNIX would likely be a lot more advanced -- especially in terms of GUI and small server administration. This would make the bar much higher for Linux/BSD as a replacement.

When MS shipped Windows NT, UNIX responded by killing CDE/Motif development and scaling back X11 dev to almost nothing. Imagine if Sun had continued to take the workstation market seriousl for the last 10 years.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[silicon not in the v]

I feel like I'm being baited by a troll, but you got modded insightful, so it's worth replying.

As far as competition with MicroSoft goes, the GNU system just doesn't have what it takes. Windows has all these graphical configuration tools and wizards that can make even a complete agnostic feel in control.

"Feel" being the operative word--in real life, that's actually an illusion. The vast majority of PC problems aren't fixed by using those "graphical configuration tools and wizards", they are fixed by rebooting, returning the machine, or having a 12 year old whiz kid fix it.

I call "straw man". You missed the boat here. Did he say "problems"? He didn't mention any problems that need to be fixed. He mentioned configuration tools. If people want to adjust the screen size, they want to bring up a properties box, select the size they want and click OK. They don't want to bring up a terminal, run a config utility or edit config files and then have to restart X windows and reload their desktop environment. (hmm, here's one where Windows doesn't need a reboot to change the setting)
Yes, I just discovered SuSE that has an easy configuration utility after frustration with a few other distros. (3 cheers for Novell for deciding to open source YaST!)

Sorry to break it to you, but Wizards and GUI tools don't obviate the need for knowledge. If anything, Windows requires more experience to manage well, and it keeps changing.

I think you're in a different world than the parent poster. We're not talking about a Windows Server. He's talking about just being able to use the computer and make a few adjustments. You are thinking of being able to control and tinker with everything, set up a custom firewall, NAT addressing, proxy servers, user authentication, and I don't know what else. My analogy is that there is a 1-foot step of learning for people to be able to effectively use their Windows system and get it to do what they normally want. The advanced configuration stuff is then an 8-foot step for them to climb. With Linux, it's a 6-foot step from the beginning to get the system to do what you want, but then once you have gotten up there, you can do anything you want with it.

Contrary to popular opinion, gadgets are not well supported on Windows. Sure, lots of hardware ships with Windows drivers and installers, but [HOGWASH]a lot of the time, they don't work, and with some regularity, they mess up the entire Windows installation.[/HOGWASH]

Less hardware pretends to work with Linux, but the stuff that works usually really does work and works really well; unlike hardware under Windows, hardware under Linux will also keep working through system upgrade after system upgrade.

You forgot an HTML tag in there, so I put it in for you :). Driver discs for devices in Windows just about always work, and they sure won't corrupt your Windows installation. (I'm probably going to get responses from Linux people saying, "I tried to install something in Windows and then went into regedit and messed with some stuff in the registry, and then Windows was all corrupted! Those Windows drivers must have messed it up!") It is a little disappointing that some hardware didn't have good support going from the Win95/98/ME type of platform to the WinNT/2K/XP type of platform, but that is a major shift in the type of OS, so it's a little understandable. Linux has been the same type of design from the beginning, so there has generally just been added hardware support, rather than dropped support.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[RealAlaskan]

>> ... that can make even a complete agnostic feel in control.

> ... in real life, that's actually an illusion.

>(And do look up the meaning of "agnostic" some time.) Just a quibble: an agnostic is someone who claims no knowledge. Bertrand Russel tells us:

What Is an agnostic?

An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.

So, by a natural extension from the theological usage, even someone who believes that computers are impossible to understand can have the illusion of control when using MS. As you point out, that control is only an illusion.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[king-manic]

I think your living int he 98SE days of windows. In XP things are a fair bit harder to break. One faulty driver isnt' goign to do it. It's also obvious you haven't a clue about how many devices Windows supports that Linus does not. Linux only has a small subset of the devices Windows supports. And GUI is important. Windows is gettign better, Linux is too. Someday it'll all be like Mac OSX without the 5000 price tag.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow this has to be the single most clueless post I have ever read.

Apple uses second rate hardware? They are known for using the best that is why they are expensive. The PPC(now G4/5) hardware is excellent hardware for the I/O intensive needs of home computing. ARM, Alpha etc are way to much overkill.

Where are amiga and atari today? They had excellent marketing, they just decided to play fair and MS didnt.

Minix is and never was meant to be used for anything other than a tool to help teach operating system theory.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Ogerman]

but keep in mind that most PC users think MicroSoft is GOOD.

Is that why half the people I fix computers for have asked me at one point, "When is this Linux thing going to be easy enough for me to use? I hate this buggy Microsoft stuff that gets all these viruses and spyware and constantly needs fixing." At which point I usually tell them, "wait about another year and check back with me." I've been saying that for about 3 years now. But it's getting pretty darn close to the point where I can start making recommendations for some people to consider switching to one of the user-friendly Linux distributions. (People who have practical needs and don't care about the latest games and gadgets. They just want a computer that works without error.)

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Endive4Ever]

In the first edition of Tanenbaum's book it was floppy diskettes and the 'out of box' standard version ran on an 8088 system. In the second edition of the book there was a cover CD and the 8088 version is considered 'old.'

It's all now freely downloadable from several websites. I had it running, with ethernet and all, on an older Pentium box here a few months ago.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[anactofgod]

Mentioning how the entrenchment of Wintel has retarded hardware design and only mentioning mainstream RISC and CISC architectures like MIPS, Alpha, and 680x0 doesn't even begin to do justice to the argument.

Google "Very Long Instruction Word" (VLIW) and "Transport Triggered Architecture" (TTA) and do some reading about what might have been had there been a more competitive environment then the one we have been living in for the last 15+ years. Granted, Crusoe has a VLIW core, but it's running an x86 Code Morphing emulation engine, not a native software stack directly, so it's like towing a Peterbilt with your Viper.

I remember reading about some very innovative, non-RISC/CISC architectures when I was studying EE 20 years ago that literally had my mouth drooling. Some of that tech made it into embedded systems and specialized processor designs, but not into mainstream desktop boxes (alas).

---anactofgod---

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Demonspawn]

----------
so you'll need people with actual knowledge of the system as sysadmins.

Sorry to break it to you, but Wizards and GUI tools don't obviate the need for knowledge. If anything, Windows requires more experience to manage well, and it keeps changing. Seems like you have fallen prey to Microsoft marketing claims.
-----------

No no no no. This is where you are wrong. Any dumb butt 'administrator' can handle a Windows server due to the wizards and GUI's. The same 'administrators' would be dead in the water on a Linux/Unix box. Can they administer them well? Not at all, but they can make the appearance of doing something with the system. Serious, throw a $30k/yr 19 year old 'admin' at a windows machine and you have a _mostly_ working network. Yes you will have problems when virii or hacks come out. Throw that same admin at a Linux/Unix system and you have nothing. That is why some companies still use the inferior server OS.

As far as Linux on the desktop... Well to be honest I think it would work wonderfully, under certain conditions. Those conditions are mostly corporate wageslaves; the type of people who only do a few set things with their computers and can be expected to do very little outside of it would work wonderfully, and with less downtime, on a Linux desktop. First level helpdesk support does what? Enters tickets into a system, e-mail, connects a corporate website to read the ever-hated script. They do very little outside of this. Why do they need a crash-prone windows machine to fulfill those computing needs?

People who are less apt to be able to use a Linux desktops are those not so tightly controlled yet not technically apt, or those who's skills lie in proprietary software not supported on a Linux system (i.e. those Photoshop ppl). Also, people who MUST have the nifty new toys NOW (CEO's :P ) would be better off with a Windows machine, as currently very few hardware suppliers ship Linux drivers in the box.

--Demonspawn

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[hyc]

That's interesting. I contributed to the codebase on a regular basis, throughout 1.0 to 1.6. Of course, I also maintained the Atari ST port.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedagogical? Why would a non-Microsoft OS want to sleep with children?

(Shut up, it's funny!)

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[hyc]

There's probably not much point in responding to ACs but you're an idiot. GEM was already a mature windowing environment by 1989.

I have on my desk (even now) an Atari TT built in 1989 that ran rings around any MS/Intel box of the same vintage. 32 MHz 68030 with a 64-bit memory bus and speed to burn. What year did PCs start using 64-bit memory buses?

The simple fact that your feeble mind is only capable of comparing things in terms of Microsoft products completely proves my point.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[hak1du]

He didn't mention any problems that need to be fixed. He mentioned configuration tools. If people want to adjust the screen size, they want to bring up a properties box, select the size they want and click OK. They don't want to bring up a terminal, run a config utility or edit config files and then have to restart X windows and reload their desktop environment.

And they don't have to under Linux either.

Driver discs for devices in Windows just about always work, and they sure won't corrupt your Windows installation. (I'm probably going to get responses from Linux people saying, "I tried to install something in Windows and then went into regedit and messed with some stuff in the registry, and then Windows was all corrupted! Those Windows drivers must have messed it up!")

Drivers and third party software installations manage to mess up Windows without any human intervention, regularly, even in XP. Oh, XP doesn't come down crashing anymore like Windows 95 used to, but things stop working. Maybe it's just that that expensive piece of software or hardware you just tried to install just won't work until you do a complete reinstall. Maybe it's that there are gigabytes of accumulated crud filling up the disk that won't go away until on deinstall. But installing software and hardware on Windows is a big gamble.

Furthermore, a lot of hardware that is nominally supported under Windows has such poor driver software that it might as well not be.

In real life, it simply turns out to be the case that "Windows driver support" is much overrated: the kind of hardware that actually works well on Windows usually also works well on Linux, because it uses standard protocols and interfaces.

He's talking about just being able to use the computer and make a few adjustments. You are thinking of being able to control and tinker with everything, set up a custom firewall, NAT addressing, proxy servers, user authentication, and I don't know what else. My analogy is that there is a 1-foot step of learning for people to be able to effectively use their Windows system and get it to do what they normally want. The advanced configuration stuff is then an 8-foot step for them to climb. With Linux, it's a 6-foot step from the beginning to get the system to do what you want, but then once you have gotten up there, you can do anything you want with it.

Have a look at some modern Linux distributions: they have GUI-based configuration tools that are second to none, for every level of system management.

And if you think that "custom firewalls" and "NAT addressing" are particularly obscure features, you really don't know what's going on in the real world. My mother, a rather non-technical person, has a "custom firewall" and "NAT addressing" at home that she installed herself (in her case, it came as part of an Apple AirPort). You see, all that supposedly "server management stuff" is stuff many people actually need--to get web cams to work, to protect their computers, and to share their broadband connections.

Basically, you just keep mindlessly repeating the same Microsoft marketing drivel that we keep hearing again and again. But repeating a lie often enough doesn't make it true. Linux system management is certainly not perfect, but it is at least on par with both Windows and Macintosh as far as GUI tools go, and it is far superior as far as remote management and support go. And Linux driver support is, in practical terms, comparable to Windows: while Windows nominally supports more hardware, Linux supports the stuff people actually use and it supports it better than Windows; the stuff that's Windows-only is usually junk anyway.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[drsmithy]

Games have driven the market and the platform of choice has been the PC.

Uh, only if discount most of the PC's history.

Businesses drove the PC world. Once hardware got "fast enough" to run the standard lineup of business apps without trouble, gaming took over. That only happened in the late 90s (about the time 3D cards started getting really popular).

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[silicon not in the v]

They don't want to bring up a terminal, run a config utility or edit config files and then have to restart X windows and reload their desktop environment.

And they don't have to under Linux either.

What the hell?? I finally found that SuSE has a utility to change the X screen size from within KDE, but Mandrake, Debian, and Knoppix sure didn't. Fiction is not a good counter argument.

For your next section, I suppose neither one of us can prove anyting either way. Sometimes Windows drivers work well, and sometimes they don't. I haven't had many problems with Windows drivers for stuff, so it doesn't seem to be much of an issue from my perspective. I don't know if you had those problems you mentioned personally or if they came from stories you heard. The only driver issue I've come across was our Apollo P-1200 printer, which worked fine under Win98 (with an Apollo-provided driver), but the WinXP driver(provided by Microsoft) doesn't work at all. That is pretty lame from Apollo to not test the driver that Microsoft was proposing to include. What I do know is that almost every peripheral you can buy comes with a Windows driver. Only some percentage of them are supported under Linux--if your distro doesn't have a driver in it, you have to search to see if support exists.

Have a look at some modern Linux distributions: they have GUI-based configuration tools that are second to none, for every level of system management.

I've looked at several, thanks. That is what I meant when I said that once you've overcome the initial difficulty of getting it installed and getting it to work with your hardware, then the software config utilities make it not too hard from that point--the 6-foot step analogy I mentioned.

And if you think that "custom firewalls" and "NAT addressing" are particularly obscure features, you really don't know what's going on in the real world.

If you think most Windows users even know what those are, you are not living in the real world.

[...]"NAT addressing" at home that she installed herself (in her case, it came as part of an Apple AirPort)

Hmm, Apple..."Would you like to set up NAT addressing?(recommended)" [OK] "Would you like to use default settings for this?(recommended)" [OK]

Basically, you just keep mindlessly repeating the same Microsoft marketing drivel that we keep hearing again and again. But repeating a lie often enough doesn't make it true.

My opinions I think differ from the Microsoft marketing line, which is that Windows is the best choice of every PC and server. I'm repeating real life--mine and everyone else I know, which doesn't lie. If everyone you know uses Linux, then that shapes your view of what you think the rest of the world is like.

while Windows nominally supports more hardware, Linux supports the stuff people actually use and it supports it better than Windows; the stuff that's Windows-only is usually junk anyway.

stuff people actually use??? What, people buy it and throw it away instead of using it? The last part is just mud slinging; if it works for years with no problems, what qualifies it as junk?

No microsoft=lots of substandard games

[zedpol]

I will be the first to tell you that i like open source software, but linux, apple, and everything else out there (but windows) just don't have good games. Some people mentioned standards is one thing microsoft has done for us, and the game world really reflects this..looks at direct x. Now i know lots of you will point out opengl as an alternative but with so many people trying to contribute to it (matrox, 3d labs, nvidia?, ati?, etc etc etc) nothing ever gets implemented. peace

Re:No microsoft=lots of substandard games

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Microsoft is the reason we DON'T get many good games. Because of their monopoly, most game companies don't write for any other platform.

Before Microsoft, every system had good games.

Like it or lump it

[tomstdenis]

MSFT made computers "accessible" and "useful" to the masses in the early 80s/90s. They really are losing their place in the world with the availability of a bazillion distros of bsd/linux though...

So really a world with MSFT is not a world I'd want to live in.... unless it rained donuts like in that simpsons episode...

Oh and ...um.... baba booey baba booey baba booey howard stern rocks!

the world wouldnt be so good

[eadint]

I remember the CPM days and the software nightmare.
nothing talked to anything else, everything was wyse terminals and 64k was allot of ram.
although i cant stand MS they did do one thing that was crucial and the reason that PC's ar not a hobbyists toy, MS standardised the industry. they forced every one to talk to each other and they made it possible for new software to be easilly adoptible, when my fathers CPM bassed engineering firm died because of DOS and we swiched over to 8086 machines i hated MS, but after awhile i was verry happy that i could find an editor or a spred sheet that would work with more than one proprietary format. the word before MS was proprietary and fortressed off into a million little guys trying to shove the other out, that changed. i still dont use MS i prefere unix or os X but MS made the computer revolution possible.

id prefer a world with them

[Anonymous Coward]

A world without Microsoft?
let me see, a world where a home pc would have never gone to the average user. A world where the internet would have never really picked up. Does anyone remember how much fun it was loading trumpet winsock?

We all have OS2 warp, Linux, unixl and apple etc. But in the end, they are all available now, why are they not dominating.........hmmmm

I think this whole slashdot community should really think of that question. The fact is MS windows is a easy to use PC, like it or hate it people cannot be bothered making kernels, apples crappy interface(yes it is crap, ive used it since i was 7 and i hate it, still to today).
Why do you think MS got picked up so quickly?

Its like the PS2, ppl got it illegally from everywhere and gave it to their friends. It grew like wildfire, its as if MS knew ppl would do it and it got adopted by everyone.

I dont like a world without MS, linux to me is an alternative, but NOT a stand alone PC. Why on earth would i want to use something like that

My only problem with MS is the security flaws, i bet if u have 100,000 programmers looking at apple's OS im sure they could find exploits.

And to answer the bug problems , you should try is installing MS on a proprietary machine from IBM. Most problems are caused by different hardware clashing irq etc. I think you would notice it was alot better than standard systems.

I could go on and on about it, but its so sad to see users dont appreciate the good they have done. All tall poppy syndrome. If you think you can do better, go make software as easy to use as MS, market it and sell it, and then get a million programmers to exploit your software.

ViewMax(forgotten windows)? isn't that DossHell?

[EMR]

Isn't that DossHell in Dos 6.x? (maybe 5.x too)
It sure looks very similar..

missed the GUI?

[1000101]

If Microsoft missed the GUI, why does almost every Linux desktop try to emulate it?

Re:missed the GUI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple had the GUI before MS. In fact, Apple shipped Macs to MS back in 1983 YEARS before MS had anything resembling a GUI. (Remember Windows 1.0? It was next to useless.)

Re:missed the GUI?

[1000101]

I know this. But look at Mandrake, Red Hat, Suse, hell just about every distro and they all "look" like Microsoft Windows. Not Mac OS. So if Microsoft missed the GUI, why isn't Linux emulating OS X (or the original Mac OS based on that logic). That was my point, nothing more.

Re:missed the GUI?

[Llywelyn]

Simple. That is what people are used to and it is emulating what they have seen before.

It isn't because it is "better" on any level, it is because that is what people use.

Re:missed the GUI?

[Nutria]

if Microsoft missed the GUI, why isn't Linux emulating OS X

Simple: Because even though they missed the GUI, it wasn't a fatal mistake, and they had enough time to paddle fast enough to catch the wave.

Re:missed the GUI?

[Max_Abernethy]

They're emulating the old Macintosh GUI by proxy. The point was not to say that Microsoft GUI is bad today, but rather that they were never innovators - they didn't invent the modern GUI, they just dominated it.

Re:missed the GUI?

[nathanh]

If Microsoft missed the GUI, why does almost every Linux desktop try to emulate it?

Because Microsoft and Linux are both copying ideas from the experts.

Re:missed the GUI?

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm...I think you have it backwards...why did M$ emuluate X, steal Xerox ideas, etc.?

Re:missed the GUI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to tell you, but RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake.. they don't look like Windows, maybe DOS at the most... and DOS looks like Unix.

Gnome or KDE on the otherhand... have designed desktop managers similar to the GUI now used by (but not created by) MS.

Re:missed the GUI?

[ThaReetLad]

I don't get it. On one hand you moan about microsoft being a monopoly and abusing it's IP, and on the other you defend Apple for trying to prevent a small company from making a GUI that is similar to an existing one. Had Apple won their look and feel lawsuit there would be no KDE or Gnome today. Hell there would probably be no linux at all. Apple, lest we forget, is a company that refuses to allow anyone to make comodity hardware that will run its OS's.

Personally I believe that if there had been no microsoft then the development of the PC as an essential part of modern living might never have happened. OK they might be somewhat over zealous and use dubious business methods, but what company doesn't. Let us also not forget that they could, if they so wished, use their position for rather more unpleasant things that just squashing the competition. Imagine what would happen if microsoft was owned by Rupert Murdoch for example *shiver*

Re:missed the GUI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Microsoft Windows is the interface most Linux GUI programmers grew up with. They're pretty much trapped in this way of thinking. Heaven forbid they should think of going with the NeXTstep standard instead of this unusable Gnome/KDE/mono/dotgnu garbage.

Re:missed the GUI?

[Dirtside]

Are you joking? You think the only reason they copy it is because it's good? They emulate it because it's what the overwhelming majority of people use -- so when the Linux desktops want people to switch, they want it to be as easy as possible for those people. Whether or not this is a valid point of view is arguable (some people say that they should try to improve on Microsoft's desktop style, rather than simply copying it), but that's the justification behind it.

And the overwhelming majority of people use Windows not because it's good, but because MS managed to get themselves a monopoly via illegal, anticompetitive business practices.

ms

[timmarhy]

all you morons claiming ms is the reason pc's are so cheap need to take a step back and just think about that statement. mass production and high demand are what have driven pc's prices, not windows. sure our specs are higher then would other wise be needed, but thats all relative. and anyone claiming you could run a business without computers, doesn't work or doesn't have a clue. I think we would have ended up in much the same situation as we find ourselfs in today. with one big player trying to crush everyone around them.

All depends on Apple...

[goMac2500]

It depends on what Apple would have become. The Apple of yesterday was locked into their own standards. They weren't willing to comply with the industry, or work with others. Apple learned their lesson after Microsoft. Steve Jobs returned and instead of creating new closed standards he embraced open ones. The closed Apple would not have survived. The open Apple would have flourished and created a rich community.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as eas

[Anonymous Coward]

To the masses...

Open,

Open hasn't done much to bring the computer to the masses. Look at the desktop install base of linux... look at OS X... nuff said

modular,

modular hardware? existed long before Windows 95. Modular software? Windows 95 needed to be rebooted daily and was loaded on top of DOS.

easily upgradeable,

The computing masses don't upgrade their computer, they buy new ones.

hardware design

Apple IIs are still being used in schools

and a GUI and operating system tied to no one manufacturer

ummm... Windows?

Sorry if I misunderstood your post, but it didn't make any sense.

MSoft:Good and Bad

[Gehenna]

As far as the early days of the Internet, MS was a good thing since it brought many people and $$ to the net. Now they are a scourge upon the net that set new "standards" that only benefit themselves. I am sure the future will only yield more "standards" that attempt to destroy open standards.

What p4 hyperthreaded processor

[sumdumass]

I guess the real question is "without microsoft and the flood of development on the x86 platform would there be as much development that the x86 platform has seen and would it be anything near competitive to todays equiptment?"

My point being that the x86 platform didn't become inexpensive untill it was popular. Without windows making it so, intell or amd would have never sunk so much r&d into it. We would still be looking at specialty 266mhz pentiums or simular and probally the common inexpensive market would be the better designed risc processors or somthing simular.

There probally wouln't be as much developed either. Competing standards for the same thing wouldn't have been squashed by corperate strong arming, The inovation would have continuously change leaving mostly new uunndeveloped technoligy that isn't completly mature.

apple wouldn't even be were it is today with it's g4 or g5 processors because it would have the majority of the control and the whole industry may still be trying to gain acceptance for a computer in the home.

Is a single roll of paper tape to blame?

[talexb]

You know what roll of paper tape I'm talking about .. that was the one containing the version of GW-Basic (yep, stood for Gee-Whiz) that Bill Gates and Paul Allen had hacked together. They were showing it in their hotel room in the late 70's or early 80's to a couple of (Comdex?) visitors and were talking about selling it when someone saw a copy of the tape and scarfed it.

They made a copy, and passed it on with the admonitiion to 'be fruitful, and multiply' -- make a copy and pass it on. Bill Gates wrote a scathing letter to the community (and no doubt, swore to wreak his own revenge).

So, it's 25 years later, and he's still battling the same people that stole his reel of paper tape from that hotel room. So consider this .. what if he'd had good security and no one had been able to lift that reel of tape? Bill Gates and Richard Stallman might have peacefully co-existed.

Re:Is a single roll of paper tape to blame?

[Anonymous Coward]

>that was the one containing the version of
> GW-Basic (yep, stood for Gee-Whiz) that Bill
> Gates and Paul Allen had hacked together

You do realize, of course, that it's rumored
that Billy stole his basic from his
intern days at Digital? You do know that, right?

Re:Is a single roll of paper tape to blame?

[scharkalvin]

Bill Gates never worked at Digital. I know, I DID.
That roll of paper tape was stolen in '75 or '76.

Macromedia's looking for a slice.

[howlatthemoon]

Maybe not on the OS side, but Macromedia is trying to drive everything through flash. I just was sent a document that was an swf. called "flashpaper". They are running interactive web sites, video, and web conferencing through it. And they are creating their own "standards" like RTMP (real time messaging protocol). They might be more focused, but they are expanding into new markets all the time.

Obviously...

[mog007]

What would the world be like without Microsoft?

More stable.

This question is so idiotic...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

This question is so idiotic that I'm surprised that it even made the front page. I'm not sure what basis the author is using to ask this question. Is it supposed to be philosophical? If not, why not ask what the world would be without IBM? IBM has had bigger impact on the world (including several immoral actions, such as funding Nazi Germany.) Or how about a world without Intel?

I fail to see the point of asking this question, unless the author is truly being philosophical, which I doubt.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Without IBM?

[xtermin8]

I think the first statement contradicts quite a bit of your vision of business computing. IBM was in the position Microsoft is now, as the famous Apple 1984 ad dramatised. Businesses would be using more mainframe and "minicomputer" technology, although your speculations about about home computers is insightful. Perhaps hardware terminals would provide the functions of what we now think of as internet browsers and other networking software.

It would suck.

[SphericalCrusher]

I was actually thinking about this a lot last week.

To make a long answer short: The world would suck without Microsoft. We see all of these Linux fans (me, included) bash Microsoft and its products all of the time, but it's rare to see one of us actually want Microsoft taken away. Without Microsoft, we wouldn't have had motivation for more than half of the stuff we have here today. Also, our gaming would be nowhere near as good as it is -- Take at Direct X for example.

Through the good times and the bad times, Microsoft has given us all something that we like, at least. Whether it be Microsoft Windows, Office, Direct X, Dungeon Siege, The Xbox, Halo, or whatever, the world would not be the same without Microsoft.

Oh, and you think Mac OS and Linux would be as good as it today without competition from Microsoft Windows? Hell no.

I'm not a Microsoft fan at all. I just know how to pay my dues and respects well.

Re:It would suck.

[NecoX]

How much crack are you smoking really? Halo was made by Bungie, then MS bought them out and used it as the launchtitle for the Xbox, which is just a pc with a fancy GPU (not anymore). It sure as FUCK wouldn't suck to be able to play Halo Co-op and over the net against people, both on Macs and on PC's.

Re:It would suck.

[TrancePhreak]

Co-op was taken out because it worked poorly over the internet. It was in the early builds, but was very very laggy.

Re:It would suck.

[Soul-Burn666]

Not only that but Halo was first intended for the PC and not the XBox. It took some work from M$ to convince them to make it an XBox title.

Re:It would suck.

[anothy]

You have a good point that, without competition, other systems, such as MacOS or OS X, would not be as good as they are today. but how much better would they be if they had real competition. microsoft stifles competition - there's simply no question on this (even the US courts have agreed - they just haven't decided what to do about it yet). what if microsoft hadn't pushed out all the other competition? microsoft competes primarily with market share and legal weight - not innovation or technology. i'd love to see apple have to contend with, say, a Be that wasn't trashed by anti-competative business practices, or an OS/2 that wasn't stolen from and sank so MS could go do WinNT. Apple would be better if MS either didn't exist or wasn't big enough to kill any real innovation from outside sources. hell, Windows would be better if it had to contend with more competition for longer.

i know how to pay my dues and respects well, too. Kernighan, Ritchie, and Thompson, for example, have my eternal gratitude. so do the folks at PARC who's names i don't remember. Gates and MicroSoft have stifled competition and slowed the pace of innovation, and for that they have my contempt and disgust.

Re:It would suck.

[mangu]

our gaming would be nowhere near as good as it is -- Take at Direct X for example.

Huh? DirectX is one of the best examples of how the Microsoft monopoly contributes to lower the value of software. Have you ever tried to write software in DirectX? Have you tried OpenGL? Compare both before praising MS...

Re:It would suck.

[SphericalCrusher]

None. If Microsoft went down, do you think Bungie would still be around...?

Re:It would suck.

[The One and Only]

Halo was developed by Bungie, which was bought out by Microsoft to justify the Xbox's existence. Were it not for Microsoft, we'd have Halo on the Mac and it would be 4 years old.

Re:It would suck.

[jafac]

Whiskey Tango FUCK?!

Halo existed before Microsoft bought Bungie. In fact, it was demoed on the first Power Mac G4. A full 2 years before MS-Bungie released it for XBox.

I think the world would have been JUST FINE without Microsoft. I think there would be a lot more vigorous competition among the various vendors. Hardware would be a bunch more expensive, but standards would have been adopted to mitigate that somewhat.

This isn't just Microsoft-bashing. But a LOT of people here are giving Microsoft WAY too much credit.

Re:It would suck.

[SphericalCrusher]

No, I am giving Microsoft just as much credit that they deserve. It's not that their shit is any good, it's the fact that the world likes it and it makes other companies work hard to beat that.

Answer: The WORLD WOULD BE THE SAME!

[argoff]

I hate to say this, but without Microsoft, the world would pretty much be the same. This is because, the problem isn't Microsoft.

Microsoft is simply our beliefs, and societies beliefs in copyrights taken to it's logical conclusion. When you believe that people have some kind of inherent moral right to restrict what other people copy - then problems like Microsoft are ineviatable and were practically predestined to happen.

In addition, if we change our beliefs, and societies poor beliefs in things like copyrights then the Microsoft problem will take care of itself and self distruct. Hopefully with the success of Linux and the GPL, it's already on its way.

I agree, and would add:

[Zathras26]

Microsoft is a greedy monopolist, convicted of illegal behavior to maintain its monopoly. If Apple had had any business sense starting in the mid to late Eighties or so, though, they would be the monopoly today, and frankly, we'd be even worse off under them than we are with the Microsoft monopoly now; Apple is a far, far greedier company even than Microsoft is. Remember how they priced Macs from 1984 to about 1994 or thereabouts? The price discrepancy today is annoying, but back then, it was absolutely appalling. If Apple had managed to dominate, competition would probably never have forced them to start striving for more competitive pricing, and many of us today probably wouldn't even have computers.

Disclosure, for anyone who is wondering or cares: I'm one of the many longtime Macintosh enthusiasts who loves the computer but hates the company that makes it.

CAD Revolution

[pipingguy]

What would it be like without MS?

I'd still be drafting manually (as God intended) on a 36"x60" drawing table and throwing those eraser shaving-filled eraser bags at the junior draftsmen's heads when I get bored.

Now it's the other way around, I have to duck buzzwords flung at me by some punk-ass, 25 year-old CAD jockey. Effing Microsoft.

Re:CAD Revolution

[KnightStalker]

Huh? CAD is one of the few market segments Microsoft doesn't compete in. I'm pretty sure Autocad, Cadkey, etc. would still be around, maybe running on some sort of unix or CP/M-2000, but it'd be there. YOU get the eraser shaving bag in the back of the head!

Re:CAD Revolution

[pipingguy]

I'm pretty sure Autocad, Cadkey, etc. would still be around, maybe running on some sort of unix or CP/M-2000

Of course it would be, but MS Windows enabled virtually anyone to run a cracked copy of ACAD and call themselves a designer.

Well, I'd Like To See It

[The Patient]

Just for curiousity's sake. Not out of any ill-will towards any particular company, since I'm sure that a lot of other companies are getting away with a lot more shit than the shit for which Microsoft got nailed.

I was ruminating the other day on how cool it would be if the oceans suddenly disappeared and we could all walk around on what was formerly the Bottom Of The Ocean. Yes, it would be cool, but it would severely fuck up a lot of other things.

Re:Well, I'd Like To See It

[soulhuntre]

"Just for curiousity's sake. Not out of any ill-will towards any particular company, since I'm sure that a lot of other companies are getting away with a lot more shit than the shit for which Microsoft got nailed."

Of course they do - the other companies also get away with using the legal system and the government as their attack dogs.

* Screwed up your bid at a product? Sue MS.

* CEO have a hard on cause Gates has a bigger helicopter? Sue MS.

* Bitter 'cause women don't think Mozilla makes you sexy? Cheer others on to sue MS.

* A failure in life? Sue MS.

It's currently the american way for those who screwed up to blame their problems ont hose who didn't. The MS situation is simply the regular jealously class war taken to the nerd arena.

C'mon!!! This is easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon. This is easy. Another company would've pushed their product and taken Microsofts place. Maybe it would've been an open source solution, maybe another proprietary solution.

That's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd all be living in an Islamic utopia and loving it. Because the choice was never between one of a host of lesser evils and a hand full of greater ones, it was a choice between this one lessor evil, and a return to the fabled Garden of Eden.

There would be another big company in its place

[idiot900]

...simple as that. Just like every other multibillion dollar industry, it would have been dominated by a few major players.

A better question perhaps is: what if Windows wasn't such crap for so long?

Subquestions:
What if Win16 had died when the 286 did, and we didn't end up in a state where Windows and its apps were 16 bit but required a fast 32 bit machine to run at a usable speed, negating the benefit of backward compatibility? What if the Win32 API wasn't so bletcherous? What if there weren't so many security exploits?

So what I'm getting at is:
What would have happened to the OSS movement if Windows hadn't created the need for a non-crap and Free software system?

Alternate Reality

[stateofmind]

Apple and Motorola would be the dominate force and be referred to as A$ or Approla.

Microsoft/Intel would be the chic system, and would have zealots just like Mac does today.

And Linux would probably be close to the same as it is today. The underdog, coming out of leftfield to dominate it all.

Josh

Re:Alternate Reality

[LC Gundo]

I wonder if the Apple][ would have been the huge success it was if Microsoft's floating point AppleBasic had never existed and we had to rely on the Apple]['s built-in Integer Basic.

Would the PC have taken off if Bill Gates hadn't ripped off what came to be MSDOS and peddled it to IBM?

If the Apple ][ and the PC hadn't been successful, I wouldn't have my Mac today, and my friends wouldn't have their linux boxen.

IBM vs M$

[xtermin8]

I think IBM would do much the same as what Microsoft has done. Computing might be more hardware oriented, and the internet might have been more centralized. I've read about plans (around the 70's) for "APL terminals", which were to be a lot like what ended up as Java and Javascript running in internet browsers. Perhaps M$ has been useful in emphasizing software. Imagine the challenge Linus would have had if the OS was hardcoded into BIOS. The first PCs had BASIC interpreters, might that have become the basis for all software technology?

It's Office that matters

[Animats]

Microsoft's real business is Office. Everything else either loses money (development tools, Xbox), or exists to lock people into Office (Windows). Look at their financials.

If it hadn't been for Microsoft, the leading applications companies would still have the leading applications. Remember Lotus? Ashton-Tate? VisiCorp? MicroPro? The industry would probably be more standards-based, because having incompatible spreadsheets and word processors would be too annoying.

Re:It's Office that matters

[Bull999999]

I believe that IBM "repented" because of Microsoft and without them, IBM could have easily gained the title of the "Evil Corporation". Remember when IBM tried to monopolise the PC industry by coming out with MCA to go against the industry standard ISA?

Standards are a Beach and then you Die

[victorvodka]

Microsoft standards are a strange and fleeting breed, a sort of sandy beach for the building of temporary castles and easily-outsourced IT careers. One moment it's all about VBScript ASP, then the next it's C# and .NET. And how many times has the .DOC format changed, just to keep people upgrading? Working within these shifting frameworks is a demoralizing experience. People like to feel that progress is happening in the world around them, that the things they are using stand on the shoulders of giants. With Microsoft standards, one gets the feeling that these giants are cut down every so often just to keep people locked in to an arbitrary and capricious upgrade strategy.

Re:Standards are a Beach and then you Die

[Endive4Ever]

Well, you could always work in a nice, stable field like FORTRAN code. Ranting about how Microsoft 'drives' tech trends is fairly ridiculous. There are any number of other factors driving those trends. Microsoft follows trends much more than they lead them.

Re:Standards are a Beach and then you Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up and get back to your COBOL.

Has anyone else decided...

[athlon02]

to stop worrying about this? I know this may sound inflammatory, but I'm really curious... Has anyone decided to stop caring about which is best: Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX, xyz OS, etc? In the past I cared more, but time has shown me that they all are beneficial in certain areas and that they add to the collective good, so why drown so much energy in this? Why not use the energy for something more productive and less stressful?

Re:Has anyone else decided...

[The Patient]

Yes. I've thought for a long time that if all the negative energy was channeled into positive, productive exploits, we'd have been in Utopia long ago.

Sadly, it's never going to happen.

Inflammatory here, perhaps, but not everywhere.

The thing about capitalism is...

[DingoBueno]

Microsoft did a lot of good in its time. In fact, it still does lot of good. They're one of the only companies out there strong enough to fund research in fundamental areas of science. The Fortune 1000 was published recently, and Microsoft's still pulling generating about $37B or something. That's a lot of moving money to be taxed. Bet Redmond residents don't pay a whole lot of property tax (disclaimer: I don't even know if wash has property tax, but it's an okay bet).

They have some decent products. Windows doesn't have a lot going for it, but SQL Server is pretty solid (viruses aside). And despite the effort to make it incompatible with the competition, Office really is the best suite out there (Outlook aside :) ).

It got too big. Just like anything else that gets too big, they wen't to far and things got out of hand. You're not going to find companies the size of Microsoft that are much better. They're all blood-thirsty, money-hungry monopoly wanna-be's because that's the nature of our economy.

I know everyone here is still going to bash them. I don't like the way they operate now, and you won't find me running windows, but I think we'd be much further behind without microsoft.

OT

[PsiPsiStar]

In the same way fucking that crazy girl down the street reminds you its not good to fuck crazy girls... I suppose

And God how I need that reminder now and again. ... Just got a letter from an ex-girlfriend...

Re:OT

[Cooke]

Just got a letter from an ex-girlfriend...

just hope it didnt have the words pregent in it!

Re:OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so Generation Whine still has a few souls that know how to write. Interesting.

If Redmond disappeared into a black hole tomorrow

[Rogs]

...after the obligatory period of shock, somebody would eventually find a set of backup sources somewhere, but they'd probably prove useless.

The ideal operating system is componentized, not monolythic: a microkernel, surrounded by a few standardized core API's implemented by replaceable OS components, surrounded by a larger set of services API's also implemented by replaceable OS components. That way there is no natural monopoly. What it takes are well-defined semantics for the APIs. It also takes a committee to administer upgrade discipline (anything that requires API changes requires a newly versioned module to coexist with the old module.)

The problem is that it's been impossible to move the market towards a standardized, componentized solution, since every OS has always been faced with Windows' existence. Sure enough Windows was never going to be componentized, so every other OS has been captive to the "David vs. Goliath" syndrome, or the need to build a "full solution" in order to be able to compete. But if Microsoft were to disappear, the Goliath would lay slain, and it'd take about as long for another Goliath (Apple? Linux?) to grow large enough as it would to introduce a componentized, "cooperative yet competitive" solution, the latter being much more attractive to consumers, and to producers with no realistic chance of becoming the new Goliath.

But the greatest effect of Microsoft's disappearance would be the resurrection of the software industry. There is no software industry today, no matter what Oracle, Adobe and EA tell you. It's a fraction of what it was in %-GDP terms in the 80's, and a microfraction of what it would be without MS. Simplistically put, software has been grossly underinvested in because MS deprives business plans of most of their upside. As a new software venture, you can be grossly unsuccessful, mildly unsuccessful, mildly successful, but you can never be greatly successful - if it looked like you were going to be, MS would step in and turn you into the next Netscape, by either acquiring you for pennies, or by copying your technology and leveraging their OS business to overcome any time-to-market or superior-technology advantage you might have had. That depresses the expected return of any new venture so much, that most of them go unstarted or unfunded.

This last effect alone is probably worth 100 to 1000 times what MS's continued existence is worth. In other words, if the DOJ commended the dissolution of Microsoft (probably about as likely as the black hole option, at least in this administration) it'd do economic wonders.

Re:Software Standards

[xtermin8]

IBM set the standards for PC hardware, and would have done the same for software if M$ had failed. I think the more valuable benefit has been that an established company like IBM can be beaten at their own game. Would there have even been a Linux or open source movement without a monopoly like M$ to fight against?

---8( OFF TOPIC 8( ---

[Derf the]

Thankyou JebusIsLord
Being a failure as a geek, when I converted to OO on Xandros from CorelWP on Win98 I lost my sissors from the WingDing font 88. 1 & 1/2 years later you have helped hide my shame.

Thank you.

While at Microsoft today...

[descil]

I had a rather interesting experience at Microsoft today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

I talked to a Microsoft engineer, and out of curiousity I asked him whether or not he uses Linux, and what he uses it for. This guy works for Microsoft Research - which publishes more white papers regarding algorithms and technology than anybody else. Essentially they're more open source with their ideas than any other community out there. Now this is a specific niche of Microsoft, and I'm not saying that MS in general is like that at all; obviously they're not.

A lot of microsoft's reputation, however, is out of date. In fact, it's downright obsolete these days. MS shares their code with quite a few people. They approach things from a monied perspective, but hell, if they didn't, a lot of us would be out of a job (and of course, not just those at MS.)

The point is, this guy who works at MS research is aware of the advantages of Linux, the advantages of Windows, and uses them accordingly. There's this huge battle being waged in the mind of geeks everywhere; for some reason a lot of us feel that Microsoft needs to -die-.

MS doesn't need to die; why anyone would want that, from a cognitive standpoint, is beyond me. MS does not hinder open source production. Open Source has its niche and it's not going away any more than MS is. Microsoft employees recognize the value of linux. Why don't open source advocates recognize the value of MS products? There's value in both Linux and Windows - understand the values of each, and you'll be far ahead of everybody else. Try to destroy either one, and you'll find it's impossible no matter how far you dedicate yourself.

Re:While at Microsoft today...

[bfree]

When Microsoft stops using it's monopoly position to protect and extend it's monopoly and instead focuses on simply producing a better product, then I will stop "bashing" Microsoft. As of right now, Microsoft have been convicted both at home and abroad of being an anti-competitive monopoly (that means that MS does hinder open source production, ask the samba team, or OpenOffice.org) so while their products may have advantages for certain niches, I for one am very wary of funding their war chest. I don't want MS destroyed, I just want them to not act illegally, preferably because they are no longer a monopoly (most of what they have done would be ok if they weren't a monopoly but they are)!

Re:While at Microsoft today...

[mangu]

Why don't open source advocates recognize the value of MS products?

I don't know about the others, but in my case it's because I can't find any recognizeable value in MS products. At least not when one knows the alternatives.

Well, except for broken standards, of course. Can you say MS Internet Explorer, for instance, has a "value" when broken websites don't work in other browsers because they were made specifically for IE? So, in the end, we use MS products because there is stuff, like DirectX for another example, which is clearly inferior in terms of stability and performance, but has become a de facto industry standard.

Re:While at Microsoft today...

[descil]

Contributions by MS:

http://research.microsoft.com/research/projects/

Very OT

[PsiPsiStar]

But that would make the elven rings open source. And if the elven rings were open source... then Sauroman would have been able to make one....

Don't ya just love obscure examples drawn from the Simaril which are less likely to be understood to than the thing you're trying to describe...

Anyway

Novell Servers

[Punchinello]

To be honoest, if MS never existed I suspect most of us would still be running Novell servers. When the Windows NT 4 server came on the scene most of my cliets quickly migrated from Novell to the NT platform. Since this migration predated most mainstream awareness of Linux or the maturity of the Linux server, I can't imagine any of us would have considered it. Linux proponents would have been calling Novell the big bad server monopoly and trashing them on slashdot every time a new Linux distribtion/version/build was released. On the desktop I imagine OS2 would have matured and been the accepted platform. Perhaps Linux would just now be making the scene as a desktop solution in fierce competion with OS2. Maybe Apple would have made a push for acceptence as the perferred desktop in Novell server environments, but who knows. I'm not sure their focus would ever have been for the corporate desktop.

Re: Open Group w/o M$

[xtermin8]

Check out (Google) The Open Group DCE OPEN MOTIF X, CDE, MOTIF & CTL Interesting history, especially how M$ hijacked DCE

Off topic reply to sig

[PsiPsiStar]

I can see the "Post Anonymously" option, but where do I find the "Post Humously" option?

I could tell you. But then I'd have to kill you.

Slashdot would have 23.8% fewer stories

[ajp]

21 stories on the front page now, 5 about Microsoft. If Microsoft didn't exist, Slashdot wouldn't have a reason to continue.

Re: Exactly Right!

[xtermin8]

RMS railed against Symbolics, which died pretty spectacularly. Linus came along at just the right time, partly because M$ gave up on Xenix, their version of unix, which was given (or sold)to SCO, I beleive.

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[Garabito]

You must be trolling.

..there's no denying that Bill Gates made PCs mainstream and accessible-with Windows 95..

PC's were mainstream and accessible before that, in the Win 3.X era. All the hype that sorrounded the Win95 launch IMO was (besides all the marketing from MSFT) that it would be the next major upgrade to Windows since it became popular.

anyone could use a PC-no need to muck about with a terminal, or config.sys, or compile your own kernel.

I don't remember having to do so in my old C-64. Neither Apple users. So, what is the merit on Mr. Gates?

Yes, Win95 users didn't really need to know how does the OS work to use it, but it was pretty much like that in the Win 3.1x age. Of course, when things got broken, a geek was needed to fix them, but it didn't change too much in Win95 and even today.

..I think many geeks hate him for demystifying computer use-suddenly..

Yeah, right. He did it all that by himself. And he invented PCs and The Internet too!

..their skills were obsolete in the face of Plug and Play.

Yes, Plug and Pray, as it was known at that time. And it has been a myth, until recently. And it didn't make computer geeks become obsolete, it let them with more time to do things more interesting than making the damned sound card work in Windows.

At Least 10 years behind.

[Irie Brother]

Microsoft has kept computing back at least 10 years. The world would not have to put up with computers that need rebooting or reinstalling. Non ms users would not have to deal with perpetual virus/worm storms. I remember when the activity light on my cable modem used to be caused only by me and maybe Real. This could have been a world where users could change their OS or app for $50, pretty much like they change cell phone accessories now. I would love to be using a WPS based OS today. Anyway, a world without ms would be a place where technology from "non-ms innovation" could have a chance to flourish. The Start button? Registry? Broken standards? High prices and PRODUCT ACTIVATION! Please. They have kept computing back at least 10 years in an attempt to assimilate every aspect of it into the paid m$ borg. It would be a world of choice and hopefully technological merit.

After all...

[Anonymous Coward]

What would the world be like without Captain Hook?

link mirror

[rat_axe]

The link in this article got slashdotted. The Google cache of the page is here.

YOU GUYS WOULD LOSE YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE

[Anonymous Coward]

and the rest of us would be using half-baked software that don't work with each other

A Different and More Interesting Place to Work

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider this from somebody old enough to have worked in IT during the rise of the Redmond monoply over the years.

What can never be lost in these sorts of discussions is the FACT that the market NEVER actually selected Microsoft for survival. Legitimate choice was pre-empted early and nothing was done to return it.

Plus, as poorly as the competition responded to Microsoft way back when, (IBM not preinstalling OS/2 and Novell with the whole WordPerfect debacle immediately leap to mind) Microsoft was never some sort of innocent party, just doing the smart thing while sitting idly by as the competition did itself in.

Had the original government action concerning Microsoft's strong-arming of OEM's, anti-competitive behavior, etc. resulted in splitting up Microsoft into Operating Systems, Languages, and Applications the IT world would be a different place today.

There were multiple, profitable competitors in each of these three areas at that time, and absent the insider advantage, Languages and Applications would have had to survive on merits.

Plus, the only means for Operating Systems to attract, "developers, developers, developers," would have been increased openness, not closing ranks to kill off competitors.

Imagine the remnants of this three-way split having to COMPETE during years of true choice among operating systems, development tools, and applications instead being able to grow fat during of years monopolistic, monocultural growth.

Guess what?

This describes TRUE market conditions.

FUD fails in a true market, and embrace and extend campaigns against market standards would not be sustainable.

Now imagine Free and Open Source development in such an environment.

Pretty big difference, huh?

Re:Novell, Intel, and DIGITAL Oh MY!

[xtermin8]

I'm not sure how Novell would have done in competition with IBM and Sun- Perhaps most of us Slashdot readers would be running Novell servers, but I think Novell would never be the monopoly M$ has become. Maybe Java would have replaced all that VB code, and Intel would have more competition with Sparc and PowerPC and Alpha chips. There's a lot of dominoes that fall when you knock out M$.

Off topic

[tmortn]

A Mazer Rachkam quote for a sig. I like that.

The world would be different...

[John Newman]

All the replies so far, at those that got modded up, are along the lines of either "the world would still be just like it was before Microsoft came along" or "the world would be just about the same as it is today, maybe with different names here and there". Are Slashdotters just that unimaginative, or is there something of a Stockholm syndrome going on here, with even the most flamingly anti-MS folks feeling required to grudgingly admit that MS is, really, the driver of innovation that it's always said it was?

I think that without MS, the world would be different. Not just like pre-MS 1984, not just like with-MS 2004. Different. Very different. Take a step back for a minute. Look at computing in 1964. Compare to 1984. Is it even recognizable? Compare 1984 to 2004. Is it really all that different? The same paradigms rule, everything has gotten faster and cheaper and better, but it's all still fundamentally the same (yeah, the internet existed in 1984). The PC of today would be instantly recognizable to a person in 1984; show a Lisa to someone in the early 60s and it would seem like magic.

Why is that? I think it's because the world of 1984 was created by (people like) Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They were kids in the 70s and early 80s, they started in garages and built empires, and they really did change the world. Problem is, we still live in Steve Jobs' and BIll Gates' world. WindowsXP is, well, Windows1.0 done right, and OSX is NeXT done right, with Amiga-done-right media apps thrown in. Everything is better, but nothing is really new. We still live in their future, when we should be living in the next hotshot kid's garage-built, world-changing future. But that next kid never arrived. The world never changed. And I think we have MS to thank for that.

Without MS, I think the world (of technology, anyway) would be a lot looser, and a lot more open, still, to real innovation and change. I have no idea what it would look like, but it would certainly look different.

Re:The world would be different...

[NotInTheBox]

Very valid point.

MacOSX is really kind of like Jobs vision of how NeXT 1.0 should have been like and a backward-looking, if-we-had-this-then, re-edited Star Wars kind of way.

I however don't know anybody which has a dream anymore... I like to think that if Lisp/scheme had been on every computer in stead of basic we now would have beter programmers. It could still happen.

If MS would close shop now, the world would just go on...

XP wil be used for 10-15 years and slowly system would be replaced. Some Apple, some Gnu/Linux, some Gnu/BSD, some Gnu/hurd -- GNUStep would get a boost.

Upgrade cycles would slow down, people would not over hype feature creep anymore. We would become more realistic about computers and use them where they make sense and not where it would be pointless.

For the blind there would be specially designed computers for when MS is gone Windows will no longer be the default OS for everyone... When your blind a GUI is kind of a pain in the ass.

More variation and standardization on (abstract) protocols, which would together mean the end of worm's and viruses which grow out of control exponentially and disrupt 80-90% of the internet.... (He... isn't that how much MS is used?)

EMail (MS = hotmail) would become a niche and Jabber will grow, taking over much of the email communication. Running your own server (http or bittorrent) would become common
place.

People would be forced to RTFM, realise that computers a difficult hi-tech devices which are sometimes hard to use, and that you should not expect it to be easy -- just as that no-body would expect a 747 to be easy. More respect for the programmer... maybe that some children will say, when they are 8, that they too want to become a programmer when they grow up. (Just kidding)

Open Source would have no Windows to copy and they would be forced to think for them selfs... to think of new way's to do things. To be really innovative. This would force Open Source to change some of it's structure, maybe even loose some of its openness: invitation only commit-access to the SVN server?

The new culture of 'copy-paste-edit' would bloom...

Mmm... maybe we'll get there despite MS still hanging around? How relevant is MS really and how much is hype?

What if the geeks (like the people here) would choose to ignore MS for 10 years -- don't look at it, don't use it, don't work at it, don't copy it, don't helping that friend who's XP has failed him, not even saying a word about it anymore -- Believe that Windows is irrelevant, not something anyone how is serious would use. Consider it a toy and behave as such... Gee... We could change the world!

Domino Effect

[xtermin8]

Intel is the other giant corporation that has benefitted greatly from the M$ monopoly. Intel X86 would have more competition with Sparc and PowerPC and Alpha chips. There's a lot of dominoes that fall when you knock out M$. We might be running Open Genera on Lisp Machines!

Re:Novell, Intel, and DIGITAL Oh MY!

[Punchinello]

Another thought... God forbid we would all still be using dumb VAX terminals with a mainframe backend in the corporate environment. Yikes.

Microsoft destroyed tech support

[humankind]

You could list for days the software companies that went out of business as a result of Microsoft's dominance of the industry, but nothing is more substantive than the fact IMO that Microsoft single-handedly destroyed the entire computer product support industry.

Back in the 80s and early 90s, software companies offered toll-free tech support and were easily contacted to resolve problems. When Windows came along, there were so many incompatibility issues that most of us software publishers found the majority of our tech support resources were going towards fixing Microsoft problems that were inadvertently blamed on our own products. The unstable and chaotic Windows environment, where one il-behaved app or library could screw everything else up, made it a nightmare trying to support even the most simple applications.

Microsoft, single-handedly eradicated the entire product support market by forcing developers to hide or else become pawns in helping microsoft debug its own OS.

I abandoned the desktop market when Windows became dominant. It wasn't worth it trying to develop a useful product for consumers when every new release of an operating system would make your application malfunction and cause all your users to blame you for something that was outside your control.

Thanks Microsoft.

Would be Better ?

[lanevorockz]

I think microsoft has incresed a lot the increased rate of tecnology. If it wasn't for microsoft I would be another company. Microsoft may created some bugged software, lots of the headache .. lol .. but afterall I think that the PC are only possible because of microsoft .. of course now that the computers are popular, but back there .. thats another history ..

Without Microsoft...

[Rylfaeth]

I doubt Open Source would be as big as it is now. Microsoft gave all the open source programmers something to emulate (for free) as well as something to fight. Open source wouldn't be as counterculture as it is without as "evil empire" to wage war against.
-Rylfaeth

Anti MS-masturbation

[Borg_5x8]

Ok, it's bad enough that we have to have to wade through pages of unbalanced MS-bashing every time an Open Source or new technologies article gets posted, but now we have to make up topics just to get the frenzy going? Sheesh.

It would suck

[sunilrkarkera]

Stolen Unix code would have been running on all our desktops and the Internet might have been accessible only to five thousand people.

Re:No, but one word did pop into my head:

[Paladin144]

...


Nice.

No MS?

[IkeTo]

If the world starts with no MS from the beginning, there will be somebody who take the field. Software is something that work best when many, many, indeed the majority of people are using exactly the same piece of it. In other words, a monopoly is the normal trend. On the other hand, that company may or may not tried to use nearly as many MS tactics. If not, then free software probably won't be nearly as popular as it is today: really not many people care about a few dozens of bucks or the inavailability of source code, but everybody can see now what world that closed world can lead us to.

On the other hand, what will happen if MS dies tomorrow for whatever reason, with all its assets destroyed? That would be extremely funny. Everybody who had been depending on MS software will suddenly find that their computers are facing a increasing tide of exploits, with nobody who can do anything about fixing them. Probably no sane person will look at any closed source software again. Unluckily (or luckily, depending on who you are), that is not going to happen.

I hate to be the one to say it but.....

[abolith]

who the fuck cares? MS IS here, and we live in a world that INCLUDES MS, so unless someone out there has both a time machine and wants to go back in time and stop MS than this entore article is a moot point.

the forgotten windows...

[griffitts]

...is a "user exceeded bandwidth" message? Odd.

Prince of Persia!!

[Azureflare]

The first game I played that I really enjoyed... and it was on a mac too. GREAT game. Tons better than the PC version. (the graphics were much much higher quality). That's what started me on Prince of Persia, and it's still one of my favorite games. I kind of wish other games released these days would emulate it. (The 2D aspect that is; PoP: Sands of Time is ok, but I have an affection for the 2d PoP).

The "mirror" image guy from PoP is still one of the freakiest things I've ever seen (Soooo coool)...

Microsoft, Hardware and Open Computing

[MikShapi]

Microsoft may seem like the opposite pole to open computing concepts (like open source, open standards, etc.) to some, and to an extent that's true.

What most people overlook is that Bill Gates is the Linus Trovalds of PC hardware.

Before MS, HARDWARE WAS PROPRIETARY. UNIX Machines had proprietary hardware. Macs had proprietary hardware. Mac wouldn't make IBM-compatible hardware, and IBM wouldn't make HP-compatible hardware, and specifications for some hardware for the purpose of driver-writing was not available.

Windows revolutionized this. (or rather made it possible for corps like Intel to start lobbying for standards and for concortiums to start emerging - think ISA, PCI, USB, etc).

If it weren't for Microsoft, EVERYTHING may not have been running on one unified platform. There may not have been such a boom of 3rd party hardware vendors. There wouldn't be an ATI and NVIDIA. Your IBM computer would still be using an IBM graphics chip. The PC may not have evolved as the universal platform we know it today. And Linus may not have written anything.

It's all assumptions and whatifs, but there is a good chance Linux owes its existance to Bill Gates winning the fight over Open Hardware with Apple (who still wants to sell us computers with welded hoods), IBM and whoever else competed with him in that neandarthal PC market of the 80s and early 90s.

Re:Microsoft, Hardware and Open Computing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure that recent hardware innovations (like USB, or AGP, ...) would have not appeared without Microsoft.

Hardware innovation is not only driven by PCs (think about digital cameras, etc....)

IIRC, most of the chips manufactured today don't go inside PCs.

And mobile phones are not (yet) Microsoft dominated.

Life without windows

[drfindley]

I don't wish that Microsoft had never been born, but rather that they didn't try to be "Everything to everyone", but just dominate one market. But they don't want better product, they just want want our $$$$! Microsoft = love of money = root of all evil!

you ask that question here?

[Stevyn]

That question is like asking these people what would the world be like if there were 3 hot lady linux programmers in your bed now?

gamming

[gd2shoe]

Are you kidding, if (or more likely when) the personal computer industry got back on it's feet games would pick up very quickly. It might not be the same companies, but there will still be heavy competition. Besides, if MS went down it would likely be over a period of time (not instantly) with obvious contenders. People would see who was takeing MS out and eventualy bite the bullet and learn to use it.

Who is this 'everyone'?

[Anonymous Coward]

So many posts regarding about 'everyone' using Windows... Who is this 'everyone'? Last time I checked /.'ers were a fanatic group of anti-Microsofties chosing alternatives such as Linux and Mac.

Re:Who is this 'everyone'?

[igloo-x]

Check again. or, link to something on a webserver you can see the logs to, and note that 80% of the user agent strings that hit that link are from one version of Windows or another. Slashdot is actually only marginally 'better' than the rest of the web as far as open source readers go.

Linus - Linux - Sinclair QL - Minix - Free/Open

[laejoh]

Don't forget, Linus once had a Sinclair QL (68008 microprocessor).

As far as I rememeber that age (around 87s) not many students could afford a PC. (Hey, I had a Spectrum and later an Atari ST) It was only a couple of years later when the IBM clones started to appear in huge numbers that PC's got cheaper.

If the PC/Microsoft thing didn't happen it would have been another platform (68000-based probably) on which free/open software would have gotten developped.

Minix, which Linus knew, and which gave way to some hilarious emails between Linus and Tanenbaum, could run on Atari's and Amiga's.

Free/Open would have happened. If it weren't on an IBM PC or a clone it would have on something else. Because of the fun of it :)

A lot better.

[miffo.swe]

Compare Windows to BeOS, Amiga OS, Geos, MacOS and imagine where those would have been with a couple och billions in research money. Windows is a hack and has always been a hack. There is nothing novel stemming from Microsoft, every last bit and piece is traceable to some other company except maybe the TCPA. I would rather ask myself how would our computing be without Xerox, IBM, 3dfx, Compaq, Norton and the free internet (compared to MSN 1.0)?

I think computing would have been all ok without Microsoft because they arent sitting on any knowledge that is absent elsewhere.

If MS closed shop...

[pythian]

Truly amusing in a bs /. sort of way that when the article says "If Microsoft closed shop" all the posts are about if MS never existed.

Really, entirely off topic. Yet, no one cares.

This community cracks me up in their vision (not to imply the /. community HAS vision, just that this thread has a vision, as silly as it is).

If MS was to close up shop tomorrow, say, what would the face of our x86 experience be? Or that of the personal computer in general?

Honestly? I think the *nix (really any unix derivative OS that ran on x86) devs would crank up the pace and finally release some sort of standard desktop system that hid the gory details from most users otherwise the x86 platform would perish and Apple would pretty much take over.

Probably, though, most people would continue to run their Windows XP machines without phase, maybe upgrade to OO.org when MS Office stopped suiting their needs, and that's about it.

Most people simply could give two shits.

Yin and Yang

[CherniyVolk]

Microsoft has it's purpose. I think we are mostly concerned with their practices, but generally I think Microsoft makes an OK product for non professionals.

We (or I) want diversity. I want documents, regardless of their format to not pose a problem regardless of platform. People will ALWAYS purchase commercial software, if anything, to pay for the convience of NOT having to build it on their own. Or, as odd as it may seem, some will pay to generate a feeling of value in their merchandise; this can be seen in the clothing industry from all angles, otherwise known publicly as 'buying the name' such as Nike versus shoes from the 99cent rack.

I think, a world without Microsoft (assuming a Microsoft that is NOT unruly), is a world contrary to what we really want or imply we want.

The day all of my computers, can be 100% compatible with Windows (documents, file sharing, database access etc.) is the day I'll purchase and use a version of Windows. Till then, Windows will continue to be the odd ball on my network, relatively handicapped and limited.

Come Again?

[EventHorizon]

Dude, this is slashdot... You have to be more specific.

What's a girl?

Re:Come Again?

[Carrion Creeper]

What's a girl?

If there was ever an area where Slashdotters were in need of some improved standards...

I don't think you can blame this one on Microsoft. Bill Gates himself maybe, but Microsoft no.

Re:Come Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Come Again?

If ever there was a more ironic title to a Slashdot post, ...

Yes. Oh, it's not a very good name, is it?

[Theranthrope]

Oh, but we are nice and we will attend to your every, every need!

Anarchy

[jkirby]

One word would sum up that situation: Anarchy.

You get what you pay for. There is not one Linux/Unix based GUI or Kernel that can hold a candle to Windows. You all know it; you just will not admit it.

Exception: BSD/Darwin is a very nice *nix. God man, if we are going to settle on a *nix OS for the future, how could anyone in their right mind chose any other than BSD? Everytime I plow through the Linux source code, I gasp!

Re:Anarchy

[soulhuntre]

"Everytime I plow through the Linux source code, I gasp!"

Tell me about it. Just reading the Kernal Traffic list lets you know how crazy things are in there.

I am always amused when a client asks me if they should move to Linux because they are worried that there are too many bugs in commercial software. The answer is...

"well, if you think betting your enterprise on hundreds of thousands of lines of code written by thousands of amateurs with almsot no oversite and no quality control is a good idea... you go right ahead".

Re:Anarchy

[Perl-Pusher]

Yeah! The DOE has has been using them to simulate Nuclear reactions before building the reactors. And nasa uses them to do simulations before creating spaceships. And most weather forcasting and climate simulations are being done on Linux. Not to mention movie special effects, none of these were critical to the companies involved. Yep! You must be right since you read Kernel Traffic and post to slashdot! I could do all those things with my windows machine. If only I weren't wasting CPU time removing viruses, reporting my compuster usage through all the damn data mining crap that magically appears. And those damn popup ads that appear on my desktop even though the browser hasn't been started by me once since I booted the machine.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned...

[mwooldri]

other non-US computer companies.

The then-venerable Acorn Computer... their big leap into the 32 bit world was the Archimedes. Using a RISC processor, it was truly ahead of its game at its time.

If Microsoft hadn't come around, surely Acorn might have had more success with its system. It might have even spread over Stateside and then to the rest of the world. So instead of learning DOS it'd be ADFS... instead of waiting minutes for a machine to boot it'd be seconds. The GUI would most likely look the same as it does today. We'd all be fluent in BBC Basic, and not be wailing about any blue screens of death since RISC-OS isn't as crash prone as Windows is today (heck, a GUI that was originally written in BBC Basic has got to be good, no?)

So tonight in my non-MS world I'm going to *cat the contents of my hard disk looking for the work I misplaced somewhere, and play Chuckie-Egg XII, whilst firing up Webster to read the latest of Acorn vs Apple lawsuit over Acorns' inclusion of BSD code into their OS, since Apple bought out BSD, and are now trying to commoditize it. Mark.

we'd all still be using

[Anonymous Coward]

a super shitty browser.

MSFT's effect is not just on the computer industry

[Anonymous Coward]

No Microsoft = no meaningful industry to prop up the Washington state economy other than Boeing and a bit of logging and shipping. Boeing pulls up roots and leaves. The lights go out in Seattle and they stay out. The Northwest is green... but kinda empty. As a mirror of the Northeast, the Seattle area looks more like Vermont than Massachusetts.

Ok, maybe that's not such a bad thing. But more to my real point. No MSFT = no influx in the 80s and 90s of literally hundreds of thousands of people. In any given year, averaged out over the late 80s through today, there were 30K - 50K fulltime employees on the main campus at any one time, plus likely another 20K - 30K contractors, development and testing vendors, and dozens of assorted small businesses that service MSFT (catering, cleaning, etc.). Plus all the smaller software companies living in MSFT's shadow. (Here's an argument starter: without MSFT, there's likely no Sierra game company, and likely no RealNetworks.) Thousands and thousands of lives.

When you do this thought exercise, take 2 minutes to think outside of computing. What does a lack of Microsoft do to the Northwest economy? Where is Starbucks without hundreds of thousands of sleepy engineers? What does Seattle look like, economically and culturally, without all those out-of-town people moving in and settling down and contributing to a huge housing boom?

Also think about the world economy. What does the world look like without thousands of Microsoft millionaires and billionaires? What companies don't get started? What geek toys never get bought? And more seriously, what foundations don't get created, charities don't get funded, etc.? Bill Gates alone has poured billions into private trust funds for things like researching AIDS cures and combatting poverty.

Before you say it: yes, MSFT has its problems. Yes, the world could get by without a Starbucks on every corner. Boohoo, the flannel-wearing Northwest freaks would be a bit poorer. And yay! No Experience Music Project! ;) But think of the hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't have ever met, started companies, friendships, relationships, marriages, etc.

I'm not saying this is "It's a Wonderful Life" multiplied by 100,000. I'm sure there were some pretty crappy people who got a better audience, job or life than they deserved because of all this too. Who knows.

But do stop to consider that a company as large as MSFT really does feed the local economy, and the ripple effect of so many well-off employees and former employees is pretty mind-boggling to calculate.

Windows XP

[Anonymous Coward]

I am betting that nearly everyone that says "Windows sucks" has never touched Windows 2000/XP.

Windows 95/98/ME had many, many, many constant problems and it was very difficult to debug issues. However, it was a first step.

Windows 2000, and especially XP, work extremely well. I have multiple computers running that have been running XP for nearly 3 years, my machines don't crash like everyone makes it out to be. The only time I've seen Windows XP with a blue screen is because of nvidia/ati video drivers, and I attribute that to faulty drivers for the most part. One of my machines I never play games on, and I have the OS running for months without a reboot and alas, it runs fine.

Sure Windows XP has it's little quirks, but damn the ones bashing it must never use it. Windows 2000/XP have been out a LONG time, it's time to stop with the (serious) comments about blue screens etc, because Windows HAS advanced beyond that.

Well lets see

[KalvinB]

the company that would have dominated would have been the next most user/developer friendly OS.

Considering it's 2004 and Linux is just starting to be "ready for the desktop" while Windows was ready for the desktop from 3.0 on (except for ME which was always destined for its own recycle bin) it wouldn't have been any open source offerings.

Open Source isn't structured nearly well enough for rapid development and deployment like commercial offerings. Especially when it comes to large scale projects like operating systems. You need dedicated professionals working full time to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time.

Gimp has been around for who knows how long and it's just finally beginning to be noticed as a potential competitor to Photoshop which has been an industry standard for years.

Photoshop was built by dedicated professionals for dedicated professionals. Gimp was built by hobbyists for hobbyists.

The most successful (as in most advanced) offerings of Linux are all offered by corporations with dedicated paid professionals working on it. And those companies are quickly realizing that free doesn't pay the bills. It costs real money to make a real product. Or lots and lots of time. And meanwhile, the world has work to do.

And once the free product catches up, now you've got to convince people they should throw away a very expensive piece of software that's served them for years and use yours instead.

Ben

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as eas

[MoneyT]

Just a nitpick Mac 84 != Xerox 81. It may have been similar, but the Apple guys added a lot of their own work to it and it really was different and improved from the Xerox version, even the Xerox guys said so (and they should know, as a bunch moved to Apple)

I think...

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

That if Microsoft didnt excist, Apple would rule the desktop world... But ask yourself.. At 95% of the worlds computers, would Apple be any better?

Ooooops sorry for the short notice

[bozojoe]

ahh the /. effect on good old personal pages

The answer depends on perspective

[OC_Wanderer]

Not revealing my age, I was around for the progression of computers to the desktop. I have worked with various flavor of Unix, DOS and Windows.

For me, Microsoft helped to usher in the generation that went from the CLI to the GUI. Although I'm very confortable with the CLI, I prefer the GUI. Visual representation makes it easier for everyone to compute, not just the geeks and nerds.

Where would we be without Microsoft? IMHO, we'd be stuck using expensive computers with a CLI or more expensive computers with the Mac, Amiga, or some other GUI with proprietary hardware.

Of course, I could be all wrong... It's a matter of perspective.

Nahhh... microcomputers didn't depend on MS.

[Stormbringer]

If Dartmouth BASIC had been GPL'd, there probably never would have been a Microsoft, because the code wouldn't have stayed stolen.

In which case somebody would have done more or less what they did, that is, write a BASIC that'd run on an Altair, because the Altair-8800 come out before there was a Micro-Soft. Maybe Gordon Eubanks would have written CBASIC earlier. Or maybe Mountain View FORTH would've replaced it.

Instead of MSDOS and Microsoft, we'd have CP/M and Digital Research (Gary Kildall contracted for Intel, not for MS, before starting DRI), and they would have been pricier and more hardnosed (MS knew how to look friendlier back then). Would that have stopped Stallman and BSD? Not a chance... so there would have been a Unix-style OS when Intel CPUs, and hard drive densities, and DRAM densities, matured enough to support them, and sooner or later there would be a free-as-in-country Unix-style OS for commodity PCs, just-because-there's-a-Richard-and-his-ilk.

Maybe GEM would've matured enough to provide the just-enough-windowing-environment category that the 386s needed, or maybe Desqview would've gone graphic, because neither PARC nor Apple depended on the impact of MS for their existence, so the WIMP interface was inevitable.

From a 50-year retrospective, it all would have looked substantially the same if Microsoft never happened, except we'd probably all be bitching about Gary Kildall instead.

Now, Intel, on the other hand... No matter what their business ethics might be, those guys were pivotal. TI was the other first-microprocessor contender, and they didn't get it right for quite a while. Making Intel go bankrupt, say, by making them buy back all those pattern-sensitive 1101 DRAM chips, would have seriously delayed the computer technology we're so fond of.

That's my take on it, anyway.

Forked Beyond Belief

[wwahammy]

That's what computers would be today. While I hate lots of thing Microsoft has done I have to admit they have moved computers forward with a lot of advancements: Windows 95, Office, DirectX (sorta), and even though it has been bad in a lot of ways, free internet browsers for the public. Most important though is a standard platform. The problem of code forking is becoming more noticable with Linux Vendors and its only going to get worse. No one can make money if their product is substantially the same as their competitors. So to differentiate, the companies add a little customization there and then a little here. Soon you'll have a problem where you will only be able to use certain basic features of programs because you can't make a program different for every distribution. Plus you'd in all likelihood still have numberous different hardware capabilities as well, just as we do now. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux (as a server mainly because that's where my experience is) but this is one place where Windows has helped society in general to embrace computing.

Microsoft has been a good thing.

[Kiyooka]

Microsoft has been using unfair business practises, but you have to remember that in the 90's they pretty much singlehandedly made computers mainstream. Bill's vision of "a computer in every home" resulted in tons of money pouring into the computer industry, without the likes of which I think things may have developed slower (less income so less R&D money).

MS has also used its monopoly to suppress innovation, but I think overall it's been a benefit: now there's lots of money and innovation, it just can't get to market because of MS. Once MS is out of the way, the suppressed technology will come bursting out; but we have to remember that without MS to develop the computing industry in the first place, computers might not have come so far, so quickly.

Umm... Better? The Same?

[TheCeltic]

Let's see.. what has MS given us?

Office? No.. stolen from Word Perfect
Windows? No.. stolen from Mac
Internet? No.. Not ONE of the root servers runs MS anything!
Web Browser? No.. stolen from Netscape
Streaming Audio? No.. Stolen from Real Networks
Innovation? No.. Just imitation

64 Bit Hardware? Yes.. Oops.. I mean NO
Bloated Code? Yes
Nimbda? Yes
NetBUI/Bios? Yes
CodeRed? Yes
Closed source insecure/virus prone OS? Yes
Monopoly? Why yes!

Sorry Bill, but I can't think of a single MS innovation. Perhaps the world without Microsoft would be one where the servers are all stable and secure UNIX (or variants like Linux/BSD) and the workstations would all be stable and easy to use (like MAC). As far as cutting edge hardware, plenty of companies would create new hardware for those platforms. If anything, Microsoft has slowed technology. Did MS come up with DirectX before OpenGL? Nope.. The BEST games are OpenGL (Unreal/Wolf3d/Doom). Did MS develop a single internet protocol? I can't think of any. (they did corrupt a couple.. Kerberos for example).

The world would have moved forward without Microsoft. Probably much further forward.

Re:Umm... Better? The Same?

[Anonymous Coward]

What have you given us, smartass? A whole lot of bitching without much else?

Yes, mod down. Troll.

[incom]

As troll preferably.
Denouncing meritless MS bashing is one thing. Pretending to be a voice of reason while spreading SCO fud is another(they aren't even claiming kernel coders stole thier code, just hinting at it in the media for fud/stock purposes, they are claiming that IBM contributed and written code is somehow theirs). And that tired old "I'll probably get modded down by these unjust mods" diatribe is really starting to annoy me. If you want to know why people are bias, you need only look at the succesful upmod you received. When something so blatantly a troll as this is gets modded up just because it's a semi-respectable sounding pro-MS post, the OSS fans(and apple etc.) feel justified in modding in an equally partisan manner. Every viewpoint here, not just the "linux zealots", are blatantly partisan at times, and you can't expect them not to be really when the other sides are as well.

Re:Yes, mod down. Troll.

[thirdofnine]

I am not spreading SCO fud.

I really hope that they loose the case, but what if, just what if, their claims actually have merit? Which is a small possibility, but think of the re-percussions if they are right.

As I said, I do run Linux, and hate the way SCO is conduction themselves, but have you every contributed code to Linux? If not, then how do you know that SCO's claims are FUD, they more than likely are, but no-one here (except those that worked on the code in question) can claim to know if they have valid claims or not.

You my friend, are a the troll.

Third of Nine.

Other side of coin

[Anonymous Coward]

Right.. lets get rid of the regulators. Lord knows that banks have the public in their best interests and wouldn't dream of ever trying to abuse their position as an essential public service. We should just leave it up to international banking consortiums to decide what is best for American consumers.

Sorry, it was the "Most of the regulations.." part of your statement that got me going.

As much as I'd hate to admit it....

[nekoes]

Microsoft may be the devil reincarnate, but if it weren't for Microsoft and their OS then I'd probably not be into computing today. Perhaps I wouldn't want to be either. Let me explain.

Back when I started using computers, pre 1997 perhaps, I was quite the youngin' (still am) and was teaching myself how to use computers and the still growing internet. It was windows 95 that allowed me to do this, and it had the games that kept me interested in computers. I can't tell you how much having warcraft 2 on the platform helped. But games were just the gateway drug to the technology addiction that was to follow. Now Mac OS also had a port of War2, but Macs back then (and today still) are rather expensive, and I'm sure my family would not have been so keen on using one. Linux, on the other hand, is cheap (it's free!) but there's no way ten year old me would of been able to use it. Windows is the beast that allows the blend between ease-of-use and configurability, and that's what I enjoy in an operating system.

Now today, things have changed, and Operating Systems have changed too, but Linux still is a bitch to set up and use and MacOS still makes me feel dumb using it. It's Microsoft that allows me to get things done when I need it, because more often than not I can just install a program without having to do much more work than a few clicks, and have it work. That's important because I feel my time is better spent working on what I want to do, instead of updating dependancies and wondering why the fuck this make is throwing up errors. When I decide I need to tweak my computer and get it running better or faster, that's easy to do too, and I know just how to do it. I don't have to deal with Apple's shit or hard to use third party programs. It's just Windows, and as much as I'd hate to say it, sometimes it just works. Now it does come at a price, and I'd love to lose all these explorer crashes and odd little (or big) problems that using Windows presents, but until Linux moves to carry the games and starts being easy enough for me to set up, it will still remain that beast that I need to tackle. And it shouldn't be that way. When I'm using a desktop computer it shouldn't be an arduous exhausting task.

Had Microsoft not been around, most likely something would have moved to fill it's place. However I don't think that the world we're living in is too bad. I just wish that more game developers would support OpenGL and make the linux ports. That way maybe someday I'd have something to look forward to in a switch to linux.

Computers have stagnated for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been so little innovation, that it makes want to cry. Look what technologies are pushing the edge today:

* Linux, that is a decent implementation of a 30 year old unix idea?

* Mac OS X- a decent implementation/extension of 20 years old NeXT ideas?

* Windows- idea of GUI stolen from Apple (or Xerox) 15-some years ago still pushed with minor changes.

There are so few INNOVATIVE things things that have been developed recently... If there was no Microsoft, all of those innovative startup companies that have been doomed from the start in Microsoft dominated market (or companies that never were created because of that) would have a chance to succeed, to push their ideas and create some new, something DIFFERENT. All we get now is MORE OF THE SAME.

--Coder

user experience

[Anonymous Coward]

without microsoft, hardware would be generations behind, as mentioned, but GUIs and the entirety of the user experience would be far ahead.
Innovation would happen on the software side, with computers running on the equivelent of console hardware, slighhttp://ask.slashdot.org/users.pltly suped up. I think if microsoft didn't exist, I would have gotten an e-mail from my grandmother typed on a computer running a 68030 and 8mb of ram, sometime in 1995. As is, I just got the first one 3 months ago.

PnP was invented by Intel

[Gary Destruction]

Microsoft was simply the main promoter...

Sorry, but no. You're wrong.

[Stormbringer]

"Before MS, HARDWARE WAS PROPRIETARY."

CP/M was the icebreaker there. It ran on any 8080, 8085 or Z80 based microcomputer that had floppy disk drives (which IBM pioneered; look up "Shugart" history). It was arcane -- to adapt it to a new computer, somebody had to write a new BIOS -- but the BIOS was a set of system calls and you just had to understand how your floppy controller chip worked and what your disk geometry was. The BIOS was in 8080 assembly (CP/M came with an assembler), and small enough to fit in the outer one or two tracks of a 128k 8" SSSD floppy.

When IBM came out with the IBM PC, it was hurting from prior and present antitrust restraints, so IBM wanted an outside source to provide the operating system. Digital Research almost got that default-OS slot for CP/M-86, but MS priced for volume, using a codebase stolen from DRI (MSDOS was based on somebody's cribbing of CP/M-2.2, right down to the easter-egg).

There were already a LOT of CP/M-capable computers on the market by then; S-100 (old IEEE-696) boards were rapidly achieving commodity status, enough so that you could integrate together a computer much as you do a beige-box PC today... so that particular horse was already well away from the barn. MS gets no points here.

In fact, if you're being grateful for commodity PCs, you should be thanking Compaq and Phoenix Technologies Limited, who, using Chinese-wall clean-room methodology, replicated the IBM PC BIOS, making PC clones possible. And then you can thank the members of the ISA consortium, who, when IBM released the Microchanneled PS/1 to try to drive the industry back under their proprietary wing, banded together to promote their own open standards such as VESA (IIRC), extensions to the PC-AT design which advanced the PC platform with more powerful commodity boards as the technology improved, making Microchannel irrelevant.

MS didn't start pushing their own standards until they had a decent lock on the OS /apps market, enough so that people would listen to them at WINHEC and the like. They didn't initiate the setting of industry standards, they only commandeered the process for their own aims. They're opportunists in search of a monopoly and always have been, and, thanks to the power of money to buy lawyers in court and in public roles, they got one.

Re: you forget OS/2

[davegust]

Chances are really good that DOS-based machines would have simply succumbed to the Mac paradigm, and Amiga might even still be alive today.

Don't you think IBM might have succeeded with OS/2 in Microsoft's place. Maybe Apple would have had a shot, but there was no OS vacancy on x86. OS/2 was an upcoming GUI OS, and the real threat to Microsoft at the time. x86 would still have ruled, with a possible switch to PowerPC since IBM would have been in control of the game.

Of course IBM was in control with the ISA bus until the Microchannel blunder allowed VESA, and then PCI to take over. So the PowerPC switch probably would have failed as well thanks to Intel, Compaq, and the rest of the clone market.

...with slower computers and lighter wallets

[answerer]

Without MS, there are two likely scenarios:

1)Apple ends up with the monopoly. Computers remain the playthings of the rich and corporate. The poor become more disadvantaged since they can't afford them. The Internet exists only in the US because people in other countries can't afford Macs.

2)3-4 major computer/OS manufacturer ventures come out with competing platforms that are completely incompatible. An ugly battle is fought between them with corporations caught in the middle. We inevitably end up with the manufacturer who sold at a loss and overpromised, setting computer technology development 15 years behind what we have today.

Minix.

[Stormbringer]

Read the book "Just For Fun". (The title's pun says worlds about LT's attitude IMO)

Windowless world: Open Unix on Apple Clone

[Tatarize]

Although, I agree Linux as it stands would never arise as a protest OS as such. The talent would still be there, the ideas would still be there, the people would still be there.

Apple wouldn't have crashed and burned as soon. They would have retained more of their market share for a while longer. IBM would have more than likely had DOS written for their machine, though it wouldn't have succeeded. The alternate machine for the apple could have been anything from the DEC to NEC to perhaps still the x86, or most likely a mac clone. The only sure thing would be it would be as cheap to produce as the PC clones, were in the early days. Without an obvious alternative much more pressure would have been placed on breaking Mac's stranglehold on the hardware, this would have lead to cloning of the Mac as it had lead to cloning the PC.

Without direct competition Apple prices would be higher than they were causing more pressure to create a cheap counterpart for the OS. Without windows ripping off the interface early on, a few other mac clone OS's would come around, though they would only serve to contribute code to the later clones.

The real shift would be when AT&T built Unix. Although they would have developed an extensive GUI'd OS to rival Apple, so much of the code was contributed and tossed around that surely a either a quick scratch project or a release would dump this into Open Source Which wasn't so much reactionary to Microsoft as it was idealogical after Emacs was written/stole. After the start of a free Open Unix for Mac/Mac Clone, it would continue to grow from earlier than linux started to grow. And would have overtaken Apple in the early 90's. As all the game hardware and games would be supported, and much more easily integrated with the hardware than what Apple deam Mac. Hardware manufacturers would be some of the greater contributers to Open Unix as they would prefer their technology be used. Apple would have effectivly be cloned out of existance. As the hardware clones would kill their hardware market, and Open Unix would take over the OS. Rather than see the revival of Mac we have seen in the past 5 years or so, they would have died out quickly after losing market share, only having the same functionality for much more money.

Conclusion: Most likely we would be using an Open Source Unix clone, on Apple clone hardware. Apple as a hardware/software company would be completely dead.

Life without MS?

[Vskye]

Humm, this one is kinda tuff. I have positively hated MS since day one. 8-) I personally started out on a Commodore 64 using the "Compute" magazine to code from, since back then there was either tape or floppy for storage. God forbid if the power went out! Then I upgraded to a Apple IIc and added 2 external 3.5" floppys, running a bbs.. people would call to have me swap disks. GEOS was also "the" GUI at that time. Then I upgraded to a IBM clone XT, stuffed in two 20MB hard drives with (name not remembered) RLL controller which expanded the drives capacity... set me back around $2000 US. I ran DESQview, and networked another system via LANTastic. I ran DOS, went to ESIX Unix and toyed with Xenix, discovered Linux at like 0.90 or so version and have been here since.
I hated Windows when it came out, but my clients started asking about it and I had to support it. If nothing else (as others have mentioned) it has progressed the market in terms of faster CPU's, ram, video cards, etc. Personally I still think there is alot of programming "overhead" nowdays.. but then again, I still enjoy playing empire and sopwith. ;-)

If there wasn't a MS, then there would be either Apple, or IBM and who knows if OS/2 would have even popped into view. (along with Linux for that matter) Speaking of Apple, I'd love a new G5 but damn it! .. drop the prices! I guess I could go on for quite awhile, but I'll end it here.

IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[botik32]

Funny we just discussed yesterday the unfortunate effect Microsoft has on software.

Maybe Microsoft did a lot of good. I am sure a lot of posts will show that.

Here I would like to stress what a mess Microsoft has made of web applications by meddling with Java and killing off it support in Windows.

I am a web programmer and I know the hurdles encountered when delivering a web application.

My experience says 80% of the development and maintenance efforts go to the presentation layer. Why? Because it is done through the ass. Excuse me, but HTML+JavaScript was not designed as a user interface layer. Implementing thin-clients in Javascript is suicide, a slow and painful one. Re-sending the form to the browser every time an action is made is assinine.

It is ludicruous, the things companies do right now to implement a web user interface. When 20 programmers and 15 designers spend all day explaining to each other what bits in the entangled mess of a page the designer should change to change the interface , it is not programming, it is extremely distorted masochistic masturbation.

Enter client-side java. Thin clients? Easy. Security+sandbox? Yep. Custom widgets? Yep. Direct graphics rendering? You bet. And it can be done in a few weeks by a programmer + UI designer. As a result, half the burden is off the server, the interface is natural and easy to use, maintenance costs are minimal.

Face it, Browser-embedded Java is the answer to all these freaking mammoth problems web development has drowned itself into. This technology is how many? 10 years old?? Why has not it been accepted???

Enter Microsoft.

Had Microsoft not interfered, client-side Java would be as ubiquitous on the desktop as are GNU tools on unix'es, due to its superior design and concept. But no, M$ had to distort it and obstruct it so it never made it to the users' desktops. Instead it promises .NET shit that is even slower and more complex than current implementations.

And this is just one example. Killing off good ideas is M$'s job. Not innovation, not better products, not open standards, not fair play. Microsoft has just killed everyone in the IT and scared the shit out of everyone else. It stands alone on a pile of skulls two stories high.

Re:IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[uebermts]

of course MS tried to kill java, because a alternate gui, networkable, etc. would be a direct thread to them.
Who needs windows, if you can run most of you apps on any OS

Re:IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[blue_adept]

er... wtf are you talking about? you seriously think writing java applets would be easier than writing html for the presentation layer? not for 99% of the stuff out there. maybe that's why it "hasn't been accepted".

Re:IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[Anonymous Coward]

At last some objectivity instead of all this apologising for such a criminal enemy of progress. This monopoly has us 15 years behind where we would have been if its crimes had been proportionately punished and deterred. A healthier software industry would have lead to a healthier hardware industry too. It takes a lack of imagination to swallow the MS innovation(TM) myth and accept that most people were always going to hate computers.

.doc is NOT a standard. Standards are open, published, agreed. I can't write a programme that opens or saves .doc files. .doc email attachments pressure me to buy Word ($200) so I can read text.

.doc file sizes are massively wasteful, enable malicious payloads by bad design, and silently convey deleted data.

The monopoly has not increased innovation by competitors, but has denied them revenue with which to innovate.

Interoperability would have been a major selling point as the network grew.

Java is the kind of standard we would have had - where one binary could run well enough on any computer.

ASCII/HTML/XML are the kinds of document formats we would have standardised upon, so that documents were not chained to a programme/vendor.

Real standards are struggling because MS deliberately attacks them. Your data should not be locked up under someone else's copyright.

MS must and will shrink to a size befitting the relative quality of its product.

Re:IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[Whatchamacallit]

Yeah but I remember what Java applets were like before MS decided to start mucking it up. In fact, we have some Applets still in production use and frankly they suck!

The big problem is performance, early Java was slow. It takes forever to download the applet and execute it.

Having the interface in HTML forms with some client side JavaScript to help with data validation and GUI polish and it's many times more efficient then an Applet.

Sure you have to redraw the client all the time. But it still quicker then Java Applets were.

Now, newer Java is much faster, the hardware is much faster, but bandwidth is the same. The real solution is backend services in Java running on a Application server. The client should be a full blown application that is downloaded once rather then each time with an Applet. Write some code to check for the latest version but stop downloading the Applet every time the user goes to the site.

Re:IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[Mr. Piddle]

Why? Because it is done through the ass.

Not only that, it feels like passing a watermelon that is backed by two cans of beans.

I seriously burned out of web development after only a couple of years of doing it. There were dozens (hundreds?) of crappy me-too toolkits, methods, paradigms, languages, and "standards." Add to this working with dozens of me-too "developers" who think Toolkit X is the best because they saw it on the cover of a magazine, and being a web developer really is the job from hell.

Java is 10,000% cleaner and easier than (X|HT|XHT)ML, JavaScript, DOM, CSS, etc.etc.etc. Yes, we should all be very angry about the Microsoft vs. Sun debacle, and it really was a disaster for the WWW. I agree 100%.

Re:IF not for M$, web apps would be much simpler

[botik32]

right... writing a clean client with RMI and mobile objects is waaaay more difficult than piling up a layer of xml->html transformation rules + bulky layout frameworks + incompatible javascript, combined with forced page reload and session management overhead.

Look. Business logic is the simplest, leanest and nicest part of a web application because it can be done in OOP, a mature technology. Building intefaces from widgets is also a mature technology. Emulating a UI via HTML tags is a new, cumbersome, unnatural, error-prone and very difficult to maintain technology.

I don't know why people do not develop for client-side java. Perhaps M$ has scared them all off.

YMMV however : ) writing a two-page "web application" may indeed be easier with .NET : ))

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2, running on a 6800x

[intertwingled]

Actually, IBM ALMOST chose the 68000 chip for the original IBM PC. ALMOST. Think about that. I think the world would be a lot different today if they had, including Microsoft.

It would be a little like 1994

[Anonymous Coward]

The real large-scale crimes of MS kicked in in the mid-90's. Although their Stacker and DR-DOS antics showed their true colors, they weren't powerful enough to truly strangle the industry. At that time, they were arguably a positive unifying force (albeit one that sold truly crappy, obsolete software).

In 1988, you could buy Windows (2.0 anyway). But MacOS, Amiga and Atari-ST/TOS were all good (if somewhat mutually incompatible) alternatives. Competition was forcing prices down and quality up. All was well.

In 1994, The PC architecture had basically won (except for PowerMacs and very stubborn Amiga users), but you could still buy OS/2 instead of Windows. The most popular Word Processor was still WordPerfect 5.1--and it had competition from Amiword, MS-Word and others. The most popular spreadsheet was Lotus 123--but it had competition from Quattro, Excel and others. Netscape was the main browser (and web server)--IE wasn't even available yet.

In 1995, MS introduced Windows 95 and used the new APIs and OEM agreements to lock out all its competitors. In less than two years, there were no serious competatiors in any market. New startups like BE or Go died on the vine from MS interference.

What MS did between 1993-1998 was a crime, pure and simple. They took a healthy, competative market that was good for users and crushed it with OEM agreements, giveaways and secret API's. This is a proven fact from the US trial statement of facts.

So I think that like without MS--at least life without MS Windows--would have been (and would still be!) a big improvement.

The King is dead! Long live the King!

[Angry Pixie]

If there were no Microsoft, there would be no savvy competitor to rival Apple. IBM and HP couldn't do it. They lacked the entrepreneurial creativity and energy Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Ballmer possessed. Jobs was only going to be defeated by someone with that new generation forethought.

Apple would have dominated, and Steve Jobs' meglomania would have only escalated. Eventually Apple would hold majority share and small developers would find themselves getting squeazed. So essentially, a world without Microsoft would be still be the same as a world with Microsoft.

I won't even entertain ideas about greater unchecked innovation. There are a lot of great technologies that have been killed off by kinder gentler cooperations that MS.

Re:The King is dead! Long live the King!

[zo2004]

All Mom-and-Pop Shops would be running Oracle...Contractor's heaven, 300$ an hour would not look so expensive now...

Re:The King is dead! Long live the King!

[AlienRelics]

Why do so many miss the point? There were more OS's and computer makers than IBM, Microsoft, and Mac.

Jean Lou Gasse (sp?) was Vice Pres of Sales for Apple when the Amiga 1000 came out. He later went on to start Be, Inc. In an interview in Amazing Computing, he said that when the Amiga came out, Apple was stunned and expected to be out of business within a year. The policy instituted was that no one at Apple was -ever- to allow the word "Amiga" to pass through their lips, that they were to avoid any comparisons from being drawn as they knew they could not win.

He went on to say that after a few years, they relaxed as Commodore had turned out to be marketing buffoons. It didn't help when Irving Gould pushed Jack Tramiel out and Irving Gould and Medhi Ali proceeded to gut the company to line their own pockets. If it happened now, it'd be in the news as Enron and Tyco are.

Re:The King is dead! Long live the King!

[Angry Pixie]

Why do so many miss the point? There were more OS's and computer makers than IBM, Microsoft, and Mac.
... because that is not the point. Yes, we had a lot more choice back then. I can't remember how many platforms I played Civilization on, but we're talking about personalities here. I won't knock Amiga. It is a great machine, but hindsight being 20/20, Commodore wasn't going to dominate the market at the level that Apple or Microsoft did.

I only consider how aggressive those companies were and how well those companies extended their reach. IBM and HP had the extensive supply chains and the addressbooks to dominate personal computing, and yet neither did. Part of the reason was Apple and Microsoft, but absent those two companies, IBM and HP still lacked creativity.

Commodore and Be Inc. had the creativity, but neither company was aggressive enough to seek control anything. Commodore didn't mind having a pluralist computing environment. Be Inc, knew they had a great product but they didn't try to be more than a cult favorite. Again, BeOS users are very pluralistic people even though Microsoft fucked us while Palm took pictures.

Re:The King is dead! Long live the King!

[Angry Pixie]

That's interesting. Maybe small businesses would be running high end systems like Oracle... or were you saying that Oracle wouldn't be high end, but more like FileMaker Pro?

If there were no people like Gates and Jobs, could computing reach the state that it's in today? Granted, we've had some serious what-the-fuck moments over the years, but maybe enterprise level computing would be years away if we all continued to use disparate systems. I bet it would be a pain for software developers to have to port their apps to among fifteen different platforms in order to earn enough paydirt to make programming worthwhile.

You should be thanking IBM, then, not MS.

[Stormbringer]

The IBM PC was pivotal because it was a relatively cheap microcomputer sold by IBM. The clout of that name was enormous, plus the PC actually ran 16-bit code in an address space ten times larger than the 8080's 64K address space and wasn't hampered by the S-100 bus's 8080-derived timing contraints, and that was what killed off the S-100 machines.

The Boca Raton engineering team who developed that machine are the ones who standardized the monitor, the first few generations of screen graphics (CGA, EGA, VGA -- Hercules was a popular early mono entry there, and the only non-IBM standard-by-public-acclaim), the keyboard, the serial and parallel ports, and actually changed the market dominance for floppy-disk-drive controllers from Western Digital chips to Intel chips just by using them. The AT-IDE hard drives we use today are a result of pushing the original PC-AT's Western Digital hard-drive-controller design (one board controlling two MFM drives -- in case you wondered about the master/slave/single jumpering on your HD) down into the HD, duplicating it per-drive, to get the S/N up.

CP/M had none of these standardized peripherals because the computers it was developed on and for didn't have them. CP/M had two named serial ports and one named printer port, and one of those serial ports, CON:, was the system console. What you hooked up to that port was a matter of what was available and what you could afford; early CP/M users used KSR33 Teletypes. My console was a Wyse-50, but I came late to the party.

MS-DOS used as standards only what was already on the IBM PC. Thank IBM.

Happy Happy Joy Joy! :):):):)

[Anonymous Coward]

A world without Microsoft is like a big giant new shiny day with sunshine! Happy happy joy, joy! Spam free inbox, people who bitch less about their stupid computers. (I'm not living in a dream world you know). Honesty and integrity in the computing world for the first time in about 25 years (maybe longer).

Remember Linus Torvald's quote

[LS]

"Thank God for Microsoft"

Re:Remember Linus Torvald's quote

[jswalter9]

I wonder if that's because only God could be so cruel...

PARENT CALLS FOR MODERATION ABUSE !

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderation is to rate the quality of the content and to suppress comments which don't agree with your narrow short-sighted world-view.
It's stupid fucks like YOU who have broken the moderation system making it into a group think enforcing circle jerk.

Duh...

[Jack Schitt]

Without Microsoft, we'd be here on /. asking what life would be like without Apple...

Re:Duh...

[Flashbck]

You really hadn't figured this out? :-)

No Things were quite figured out. I use Linux for a reason...I can put my patches on myself and when I wish to, to stick to my analogy. I was speaking in more of a hypothetical sense than in reality. I of course realize that M$ would never do any such thing as this.

We'd be more productive without Microsoft

[SgtChaireBourne]

Before Microsoft, it was posible to install a system an it would run more or less indefinitely without need for the "three fingered salute". If Microsoft were to disappear, businesses and later home users would migrate to more stable platforms and spend less time trying to maintain or diagnose their machines and more time using them as tools to get their work done.

Aside from the psychological shock to the MBAs who worship Chairman Bill, a marketing behemoth like Microsoft could disappear and the economy would pick up. How much time is and money is wasted on MSTDs like Bagle, which are the result of design flaws? How much time is wasted on incompatibility issues between different versions of MS-Office? How much time is wasted with end users being shoe-horned into being amateur sysadmins and security specialists? How much time is wasted reinstalling a system after a supposed patch or upgrade or general cruft takes it down? How much time is wasted getting back to where you left off after such an interruption? How much time and money is wasted on "upgrading" hardware and software every 12 - 18 months?

All that comes out of your company's or organization's result.

Identity theft would be harder ( or involve more social engineering). Industrial espionage would be much harder since other OSs are more secure, designed for a networked multi-user environment.

Communication would be easier, sendmail/exim/postfix/qmail just don't lose mail like MS-Exchange which has 5% to 15% just vanish without trace or, perhaps worse, generate a "user does not exist" error.

In all, I see the disappearance of Microsoft as a positive and, really, a necessary step not just for the advancement of technology but also for the re-growth of the world's economy.

Obligatory Simpson's Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

"Imagine a world without lawyers"

I think you get the picture...

CP/M

[turgid]

Back in the day, CP/M (86) was supposed to be the OS for the IBM PC, but Gary Kildall had had an argument with his wife when the IBM guys came to do the deal, so she told them he was out flying his plane...

The rest, as they say, is history.

CP/M was interesting because it was portable. It was written mostly in PL/M (vs. 8086 assembler for MS-DOS). It started out on the 8080 and went to the Z80 (and enhanced 8080 clone from Zilog). There were also ports to 8086 (and enhanced but incompatible 8080 derivative from intel) and the Motorola 68000.

If IBM hadn't chosen MS-DOS inadvertantly, there would have been a more diverse early market of CP/M machines with various different binary architectures. Since the Z80 was so popular, there may have been more of a 3-way battle between Z80, 68k and 8086. The 8086 might not have been so successful (IBM wanted to use the 68k but it wasn't ready in time) and there may have been a significant market in Z80-derived enhanced processors i.e. 16-bit extensions and even 32-bit ones! If only IBM had chosen the 68k though, and Gary hadn't had a row with his wife, the abominations that were the 8086 architecture (and the Pentium) and MS-DOS (non-portable, proprietary, half-baked, buggy, etc.) would not have happened. Bill would not be the richest man in geekdom. IBM, it's all your fault.

Re:CP/M

[Kardamon]

Maybe, Z8000(0) would have happened! I was very disappointed in 1981 when IBM choose (fake 16-bits) 8086 over 68000 or Z8(0)000 for their PC.

Re:CP/M

[turgid]

:-) The Z80,000 was an awesome design: way ahead of the intel 80386. I didn't realise that they never actually sold any :-(

Re:CP/M

[Kardamon]

8088, not 8086.
I should replace that Bubble Memory inside my skull...

Re:CP/M

[turgid]

From a software point of view, the 8088 and 8086 are the same. The 8088 has a multiplexed 8-bit databus instead of a 16-bit one, making memory access slower, in the same way that the 80386sx had a 16-bit databus, but the 80386dx had a full 32 bits. Incidentally, the 68000 was internally 32-bit but had an externally 16-bit data bus. The 68008, as used in the Sinclair QL, had an 8-bit data bus, but was still 32-bit internally. It was all done to make motherboards cheaper by reducing the number of tracks, and being able to use the previous generation of peripheral chips.

So, yes the first IBM PC had the 8088, but it was just a crippled 8086.

Re:CP/M

[pommiekiwifruit]

Z8000 is used in Pole Position.

Re:CP/M

[Kardamon]

Right, Atari was quite an innovator at the time. (Namco licenced the Pole Position from Atari.) I remember seeing an Atari 16-bit parallel computer (the ATW800) built around transputers in the late 80s. It was the first time I saw real-time zooming into a Mandelbrot fractal!

Re:CP/M

[ChrisMaple]

This is the first time I've heard of the "argument with his wife" claim. Digital Research seems to have been a very lax organization; it took them years to update CP/M-80 and there never was a variety optimized for the Z80.

Zilog bears a large part of the blame for the success of the 8086 family. In 1983 the Z80 was the king of the hill for hobbyist computers, but it was years before they provided any improvement other than pitiful speed upgrades. They never produced a Z80 machine-code compatible 16 or 32 bit machine. If they had, you'd be reading "Zilog inside" today.

Re:CP/M

[turgid]

They never produced a Z80 machine-code compatible 16 or 32 bit machine.

I think they did, but way too late (Z180?). By that time the world had moved on and the 68000 and 80386 were well established.

A news headline from the business section

[Jack Schitt]

Apple Corporation (Nasdaq: AAPL) was found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by a federal grand jury, today.

Though most of the allegations made by the plaintiffs against Apple were found to be false, the allegations of monopolizing the consumer software and hardware markets and the allegations of fraud were not false.

"The next phase [the penalty phase] of this lawsuit should be a bit fun," said Mike Rotch, representing the more than a thousand plaintiffs in this case. "This is where they will be made to take responsibility for their actions."

"My client is simply providing what its customers want," said Johnnie Cochrane, representing Apple Corporation. "Why is that a crime?"

-----

This is from a fictional newspaper in a fictional reality. This is not to be construed as libel.

Imagine the horror!

[Anonymous Coward]

"You said you wished to live in a world without Microsoft, Jimmy. Now your car has no battery."

Without Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

The world would be very similar, but with another company in Microsoft's place.

Without Hitler, Godwin and Usenet, Godwin's Law would be the same, but it would have been called Reynold's Law and it would have been about speaking of Lumberger in a bbs thread.

We have seen abusive monopolies before. It happens. There is nothing special about Microsoft compared to Standard Oil, IBM or AT&T. It's just another company applying the same old practices in a different time.

Icebreaker

[munter]

If you stand back and look at the industry which is less than a century old, you end up viewing Microsoft and their Windows as an icebreaker.

Microsoft is the ship that was used to plow through the ice, and make way for the fleet. And they've done a pretty good job of this. Progress has been made. You've got to give that to them.

But what you need to remember is that icebreaking is just part of the journey. I do believe that penguins live at the destination ;-)

We'd all be screwed

[dedazo]

We'd be paying $4000 instead of $400 for them shiny "boxen" running Linux or BSD.

Whatever else, Microsoft Windows commoditized the PC market to the point where it was feasible for Intel to invest $4 billion instead of $4 million into R&D because they were selling 50 million CPUs instead of 5 million. AMD probably wouldn't exist, nor would all the mobo makers. There would probably be one or two graphics chip makers.

And of course, the tech boom of the 90s probably wouldn't have happened.

Really

[ImBella]

Get realistic, people. If there would be no Microsoft there would be another company doing the same things. Imagine Apple as they behave today / company policy until recently. They also closed access to their OSes and hardware...
So this discussion is actually going nowhere. Get a life, or better yet, get back to programming the OpenSource I'm going to use, muahahaha!

You're forgetting 2 things

[Anonymous Coward]

1) The open architecture standard of the IBM PC
2) Gary Kildall. MS-DOS was originally QDOS and QDOS (it has been shown) was a rip-off of CP/M.
Don't forget that Digital Research got the 1st go with the IBM suits and their NDA.
Had BillG not been there to scoop up the crumbs, the boys from Boca would have likely come back to Pacific Grove with their hats in their hands.

gewg_

What do you want the world to be like without ms?

[minkwe]

Is what the real question should be.

Nobody can answer the question that says what will the world be like if X did not exist? Or what will the future be like if X stops existing?

The point is our decisions today will determine what the future will look like to us. We haven't made all those decisions yet so the question is:

What will you want the (computer) world to be like in the future, and what decisions should we make toward that.

WED STILL BE USING TERMINALS AND SERIAL CONNECTION

[Anonymous Coward]

And the biggest innovation in software would have been the release of VI 2.0

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[nathanh]

Hate him if you want, but there's no denying that Bill Gates made PCs mainstream

Apple and Commodore made PCs mainstream.

nd accessible-with Windows 95 onwards, anyone could use a PC-no need to muck about with a terminal, or config.sys

Ahhh, you're talking about IBM PCs. Well, young person of little experience, Microsoft made all those problems like "config.sys" in the first place. They hardly deserve praise for fixing them almost 15 years after introducing them.

If Windows were to diappear-Locked in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Without Gates there would be no Windows.

Lends new meaning to the word lockin.

Except that QDOS *was* CP/M.

[Anonymous Coward]

>CP/M wasn't an option for IBM
link

gewg_

Re:Except that QDOS *was* CP/M.

[_Sprocket_]

Except that QDOS *was* CP/M.

Well, no... it wasn't. As I noted, it was a clone. Your link calles it a "ripoff". The implication is that code was stolen; I haven't read anything that supports this. I would find it unlikely since it looks like Digital Research was having a hard time producing a version of CP/M for the 8086 (and thus the reason for QDOS). One side note - I did see one source that casually claim CP/M-86 had more in common with QDOS than CP/M.

Digital Research certainly took offense to QDOS. Or, more accurately, MS-DOS and IBM's use of it. This was kept out of court with IBM agreeing to make CP/M-86 an option for their IBM PC platform. But that option came at a premium cost that relatively few paid.

Without Microsoft?

[kimihia]

Better.

The world would be a better place...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amiga would rule the world!

Standardisation on .doc

[stor]

A world w/o MS, eh?

Perhaps I wouldn't be receiving 200 "Here is the document (.pif)" emails each day. My MTAs and webservers are getting hammered by WinDOS malware.

Sounds great, where do I sign up for this magical place?

Cheers
Stor

p.s. To all MS-Apologists: fuck off.

Wrong question.

[carldot67]

The question should really be "What the the world be like without Microsoft in it's current form, where the new form would be multiple mini-MS with responsibilities for the OS, Desktop Apps, Server Apps, Embedded/Realtime, MSN, Services and so on.

This would force more transparent accounting practices, would give more choice to consumers (Office on Linux, anyone?*) and would rein in some of the more "exotic" competitive practises.

However, stood alone, most of the their products (eg WindowsOS, IIS, SQLServer, Exchange, CE etc etc) are IMHO technically inferior to other offerings. Its therefore hard to see how any of the baby-MS' would thrive. They would have to improve (price / quality / portability) or die.

I can't see a downside to that for anyone.

If a mistake has been made it is for Microsoft to be allowed to become so big. Here we have a company that is sytematically cocking a snook at the world's two major trading blocs - 500 MILLION people. Remedies of $600M dollars sound great but at Redmond the conversation will be simple:
Gates: "How much to settle?"
Ballmer: "600M"
Gates: "How much to hire 10 top lawyers for 5 years?"
Ballmer: "50M"

Where most companies would shiver at the thought of rotting away in a courtroom for 5 years, for these guys its an economic no-brainer. That's the scale of the issue and the nub of my argument. Microsoft are now LITERALLY untouchable in their current form.

Anyone who contends that Microsoft should be permitted to continue should consider what would happen if there were only one oil company in the world. $20 a gallon? $30? $50? I rest my case.

*I use OpenOffice.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as eas

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers weren't easy to use until Windows 95? Hello? HELLO???!!

Hmm... That's really weird. When I first saw Windows 3.1. I thought that it made the PC incredibly easy to use. One of the things that really impressed me about the 386 and Windows 3.1 at the time was the high screen resolutions such as 800x600 and 1024x768.

Previously, all I had seen was GEM on the Atari ST. And though it may pain me to say it now, I was impressed by Windows 3.1 at the time, even if all the games on the PC sucked back then. Windows 95 was a big improvement, but really the revolution, IMO, that others are making it out to be.

Ask the other way around

[Qbertino]

What would the world be like today if Daimler Benz had a de-facto monopoly on cars just like MS has a de-facto monopoly on Software?
Right.
A world free of MS: Think various flavors of DOS and various flavors of GUIs, something like a Geos 2004 (that would probably be better even that todays Aqua) and competitors and Apple would be smaller yet due to the lack of contrast it could provide in a truly free market. And we'd all have fun and a feeling of meaning to what we're doing: tinkering with computer stuff.
Right now I only have that feeling when I'm working with Linux and am not forced to emulate a sick proprietary application or 'standard'.

Some people here think that MS forced innovation, but that's absolutely wrong in ever which way. They only managed the near impossible: Lock in a actually open plattform: the PC. And that did nothing but seriously stall inovation.
SW Developement would be ten years ahead today. Think somethink like BeOS V.9.0 with a GUI burned onto a BiosChip that boots into GUI in 5 seconds flat.
MS managed to lurr all vendors into the now-yet-more-crappyness upgrade mill promising everybody who joined big bucks. They made the biggest bucks. Curiously, I recall it started to become evident with the Windows Keyboard stunt. The Keyboard vendors kissed MS feet for having them sell new KBs.

No, look at it from the distance and it's absolutely evident: We have to programm every single bit of our stuff ourselves in order to reclaim a minimum of control that we had in the Amiga days. And Amiga was a proprietary Plattform!

In fact, if DRM/TCPA would get foothhold in a way that MS would like it, I'd aktually drop out of computing entirely - even though I've been with it since nearly 20 years and Sharp PC 1402 assembler. But hopefully that will never happen, since VIA and Transmeta would rejoice over a DRMing/TCPAing Intel and AMD. Thank God MS doesn't have control over the x86 hardware. Not yet at least.

It would be like...

[lnxpilot]

...nirvana?

Sorry, but that's utter high-end bullshit.

[Qbertino]

Without Microsoft, we wouldn't have had motivation for more than half of the stuff we have here today. Also, our gaming would be nowhere near as good as it is -- Take at Direct X for example.

OpenGL was way ahead of DX. Everybody and his brother in the gaming industry protested when MS said they did'nt give a damn and started to roll their own. Which came on par with OpenGL something around DX 4 or 5.
In fact DX is a prime example for MS'es embrace and extend - even if it is at the _cost_ of inovation. OpenGL is heading for V.2 and it's behind DX only since the DX 7 days. V2 will catch up almost entirely again. Even though the OpenGL consortium has nearly zilch power in the gaming field nowadays. If MS had used and joined OpenGL, computer GFX optimization would be way further today.
But I guess marketing-buzz weighs heavier than true innovation. You're statement actually proves the shareholders of MS right, in a way.

comps might have been easier but at higher cost

[goon]

for all the problems that MS do bring to the market I can still remember the cost of Macs (in AUS) as always being well above comodity PC's with MS software. MS has always traditionally had low entry costs (hah eat my own words) pre say 1998.

Consider Macs, easier yes. but they still cost a lot. What about Xerox. Parc was not geared up to selling. It was at that time a thinktank for very smart engineers. Alto, easy to use but never destined to be commercialised. Consider it. The mouse (Englebart), smalltalk (Alan Kay), ethernet (metcalfe, boggs[see networking] ) all within Parc but never commercialised within Parc.

For all it's faults, Microsoft kick started the personal PC revolution to the masses. Say what you like about the quality of the software, usability, the price we pay for it and the tatics the company employs.

They excelled in bringing together the mouse, languages, hardware (forget networking ... took ages) - the bits needed to use a computer in the form of operating system(s) a lot like say Ford did with the T-Ford: exploiting all those developers who built the components ecessary to build cars.

Re:comps might have been easier but at higher cost

[cbiltcliffe]

For all it's faults, Microsoft kick started the personal PC revolution to the masses.

I don't agree. When IBM came out with the first IBM PC, they had designed an open hardware architecture, and an IBM computer came with a thick hardware reference manual that listed all the technical specs, references, and everything else you could need.
All anyone needed to start building IBM-compatible PC's was to buy a single IBM PC.
The fact that it was a Microsoft operating system on them was totally irrelevant at the time. The hardware was the expensive part, but IBM, with their "Industry Standard Architecture" (it was called that for a reason, you know...) invited - intentionally or otherwise - competition into the hardware marketplace.
Since IBM used Microsoft to provide the operating system, clone vendors also needed to use Microsoft, if they were going to claim complete IBM compatibility. They could manufacture compatible hardware, but the operating system was proprietary.

Really, it was open standards that allowed Microsoft to get where they are today.

Not a mirror but a copy

[Lproven]

There's a Google cache of the text of the page here:

http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:Pq0ZnZAS5qAJ :m embers.aol.com/nickjc67/gem.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF- 8

For more info on GEM, try...

FreeGEM home:
http://www.deltasoft.com/

For other sites, see its Links page:
http://www.deltasoft.com/links.htm

FreeGEM development mailing list:
http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev
( Anyone interested in GEM should certainly join this.)

Shane Coughlan's OpenGEM distro
http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/

Jon Elliot, AES developer:
http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html

Ben Jemmett, desktop developer:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/

My own GEM revision history:
http://members.aol.com/liamproven/reference/tos_hi st.htm
(Contains links to active GEM developments on the Atari)

Aranym ("Atari Running on ANY Machine"):
http://aranym.sourceforge.net/
(The most sophisticated free ST emulator around. Comes with free GEM-
compatible OS Afros (Aranym FRee OS) and instructions on how to install
the free multitasking GEM extension MINT).

MS Bashing-An apology a day keeps the zelots away.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I do not have any affiliation with MS, and have both Linux and MS machines at home."

The "I'm one of you" defense.

"I know someone will probably mod me down for this, but why does it appear that Slashdot has a tendency to continually bash MS."

And what other company can you name that has 90+ monopoly marketshare, and affects you even when you deliberately try to avoid them?

"I mean at the end of the day, if Windows was really as crap as some people make it out to be, no-one would use it, simple as that. I have used many OSes over the years, W95, WNT, W2K, WXP, W2K3, OS2, Linux, UNIX. I know that they all have their problems, but really, name an OS that doesn't have a problem in it."

Have you ever heard the phrase "It's the apps, stupid"? Have you ever tried to free up your data from MS formats? Are you really this dense? What "alternative" OS exactly are people going to run their apps on? What non-MS apps are they going to run that can "break the lock" on your data?

And as far as "other OS having problems". Name one that has 90+ monopoly marketshare, AND has "problems" When Apple farts, people go whew. When MS farts shockwaves rumble across the computing lanscape.

"I am not claiming that MS does no bad, but really there is not many large companies out there that have not done something bad at some stage. And there is not one company out there that would not defend themselves the same way that MS has, if they were under attack, be that a legitimate attack or not."

You really are naive. The "everyone's doing it" excuse is the stuff children use. Adults realize that their actions have consequences, and take responsability for them. They don't point their finger at the next person over and say "he made me do it". The behaviour of others isn't the issue. The issue is Microsoft's behaviour, and that's how it will be judged.

"Now, I understand the concerns of the Open Source community, and Linux has come a hell of a long way in recent years (which is why it is starting to be used in the real world now), but do not think for a second that the tables would not be turned if Linux was in MS's position. I do not like SCO's tactics, but if they do prove that Linux has their source code, then you might as well put Linux in the same box as MS, as it would prove that not even the open source community is always the GOOD IT community member it claims to be."

Thanks for proving your naitivity. Linux is both a movement, and a process. It however is NOT a company. Linux can't lock you into anything that it offers. Linux can't pay off public officals and have legal action dropped.

SCO HAS NOT in any shape or form, proven a damn thing. In fact one of the programmers use to be a Caldera employee, who released contributions under the GPL. So your whole "might" is mightless.

"So mod me down if you wish, but really, the MS bashing is starting to get boring."

And people who not only apologize for MS, but do it in the worst possible way is getting boring.

"But to answer you question, someone else would be in their position, with a different name, with it's own bugs, exploits and vulnerabilities (just as every program and OS does), and would probable cop the same bashing that MS does."

And why shouldn't we? Or are you really OK with companies doing anything they damn well please without the public have a say? Like I said you're naive, and not the good kind.

wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

How a big media like slashdot can be so stupid that you make a link to page where is strick limit of bandwith usage?

Linux would come from Atari Multitos

[Anonymous Coward]

Without Microsoft IBM would be in full control of the x86 architecture. It would grow slower and as people see more graphics on screen they would become more ready to switch over to the Macintosh, which would keep its 40% market share forever as it remains a business solution. IBM would simply replace the x86 with something slightly better as they always intended. The commodore Amiga would remain the consumer choice as Commodore takes every processor the market leader Macintosh uses and gives it some extra spiff needed for gaming.

Atari TOS would still fail in the USA and be successful in Europe as it was. As Atari would take another shot at the console market (Jaguar 64), they would licence their T OS to german manufacturers who need more speed. History would repeat itself and Mint (Mint Is Not TOS) would spin off as a freeware alternative to TOS which fails to take all from the German speed monsters. As the business market is dominated, although not monopolized, by Apple someone by the name of Linus gets frustrated and ports and speeds up Mint for the Macintosh and Amiga. With Mint we would have our unix based killer app again but it would have a point and click interface by default besides the obscure command line.

There would be no frustrated users as all free software starts out with the same user interface toolbox. Slashdotters would shift freely from German boxen to Macintosh or IBM using Mint, depending on who has the fastest hardware. Amiga users would be like todays Mac users saying their platform has better integration right out of the box.

Apple and IBM would see a threat in Mint which is as good as the standard Mac OS 7 and IBM DOS/12 and decide to divide the business market between them, one focussing on desktops and the other on the server side. They start a project called Pink which will be a document centered OS. Because they still rule there is no hurry to develop (just like Apple had time to spare with Lisa and then Macintosh) and it will be done right. A couple of years later the free software picks up similar idea's and by the mid nineties books are banned from school and everybody uses a greyscale digital workbook which can be hooked up to a TV or high res monitor for color, and which uses the same IBM/Apple Opendoc OS as on the desktop.

The average home would have some digital pads and a game console or Amiga, and no desktops. High resolution video gaming will come with the introduction of TFT screens into pads. 3D gaming is dominated by Amiga and consoles follow when chips cool down. A high resolution 3D game becomes only a reality as more slashdotters mod and hook up their, now highres color, schoolpad to their Amiga to play 3D games in high resolution.

Today would seem to the user the same except for one big difference: they would have seen a pen based document OS become successful and become the default.
People would load slashdot and usenet at hotspots (in school) and read it whenever they have time left. There would be no iPod as you always have a pad with you and you can plug your ear-buds into that. OK, it would be totally different, even more social perhaps as people hook up their pads for games after school, there would be less drive for highspeed home based internet.

Re:Linux would come from Atari Multitos

[gilesjuk]

Trouble with this story is you've left out Compaq who were the ones responsible for cloning the IBM PC (was nothing to do with Microsoft); You've also left out Sony, Nintendo, Sega etc.., Nintendo and Sega were doing consoles back in the 8-bit days.

Also you seem to think Commodore was brought down by Microsoft when it could be argued they self destructed thanks to the poor vision of people like Medhi Ali (remember the A600) who were happy to just reuse the same Amiga chipset (albeit with minor tweaks) for decades to come.

You also don't think Linux would have been born? Microsoft were largely still unknown in the home computer market in the early 1990s and so Linux would probably still have been created. Of course it might not have had the same levels of success, but Linux was created simply because it wasn't that easy to get a Unix style OS for Intel hardware.

Re:Linux would come from Atari Multitos

[Anonymous Coward]

> Trouble with this story is you've left out Compaq who were the ones
> responsible for cloning the IBM PC (was nothing to do with Microsoft);
> You've also left out Sony, Nintendo, Sega etc.., Nintendo and Sega were
> doing consoles back in the 8-bit days.

Because without Microsoft demanding a licence structure for DOS its IBM who has full control over both hardware and software. Once cloned IBM would play the same game as Apple did with wannabe Mac hardware and software. Quickly evolve away from it and leave a fresh trail of patent, copyright and licence boobytraps so that cleanroom folk can't keep up. It was because of Microsoft the IBM compatible market wasn't shaken off, Microsoft liked multiple hardware partners.

> Also you seem to think Commodore was brought down by Microsoft when it
> could be argued they self destructed thanks to the poor vision of people
> like Medhi Ali (remember the A600) who were happy to just reuse the same
> Amiga chipset (albeit with minor tweaks) for decades to come.

True, I'm not claiming Amiga would be smarter without Microsoft but without x86 exploding into the speed demon it became they may have hooked up to whatever Apple was doing without falling way behind (as they in fact did; they followed Apple to the PowerPC but it was too late, the overclocked x86 even played games faster then RISC by then).

> You also don't think Linux would have been born? Microsoft were largely
> still unknown in the home computer market in the early 1990s and so Linux
> would probably still have been created. Of course it might not have had
> the same levels of success, but Linux was created simply because it wasn't
> that easy to get a Unix style OS for Intel hardware.

Atari MultiTos had UNIX underpinnings and a freeware movement around it, just like Mac OS X today. If the hardware was not so far behind X86 back then it would have been noticed and perhaps attracted someone like Linus. BTW the Atari stuff went like described it just wasn't noticed because it lagged in hardware power and market share.

Re:Linux would come from Atari Multitos

[gilesjuk]

Well I don't know what would have happened without Microsoft, each of these branches can be explored. I like to think that ARM and the Acorn would have taken off a bit more too, not to mention PSION and others.

1980s

[pommiekiwifruit]

Back in the 80s I remember that both the record-shop and the dentist in my village used Commodore 64s for accounting and inventory.

Duh...

[BerntB]

Why can't M$ just supply a win9x emulator like the OS9 emulator for osX?

Because keeping the protocols ugly and convoluted makes them harder to copy. It is standard monopolist tactics.

(Same reason they don't follow their own published document formats for office programs.)

You really hadn't figured this out? :-)

Whats that link ?

[Digital Warfare]

The link to the forgotten os ? what is it ? as they have exceeded their bandwidth as expected.

Re:Windows keys

[Spirilis]

I think Super_L and Super_R (left and right windows keys) are modifiers.

The "menu" key throws a "Menu" keypress:

KeyPress event, serial 25, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
root 0x48, subw 0x2000002, time 43446434, (48,44), root:(55,108),
state 0x0, keycode 117 (keysym 0xff67, Menu), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes: ""

Microsoft's future

[jswalter9]

Microsoft has a very long future developing games. For linux. :)

Seriously, what other software could be sold when so many people are developing free alternatives? Games are the last proprietary software the world will ever see (since the primary component is in the design and not the actual code). It's more like art than software in that respect.

So welcome, Microsoft, to your niche. You'll find that the next generation of X-server that supports sound and openGL a joy to work with.

It'll be different...

[Cytlid]

...that's for sure. I implore you to name a company that's been around for 1000 years. 2000? 5000? Get my drift? Everything dies out eventually.

Microsoft will probably give up in the future and just become open source. (j/k)

I've always said that millions of years in the future when we're all dead and gone and the likes of mankind have eradicated themselves out of exsistence, the cockroaches of the world will be using CockRoach Linux 3.7. (And the damn thing will be based on Debian).

Or, I could be wrong...

Don't forget...

[halivar]

Don't forget all those GS II Oregon Trail, Where in the USA/World/Time is Carmen Sandiego, Sim Earth (ah, my fav, although it never ran on GS II).

Re:Windows keys

[nickos]

That sounds very sensible. The problem is that on my Vector Linux box (and so Slackware as well probably), running "xmodmap -pk" shows that:

keycode 115 = Super_L
keycode 116 = Multi_key
keycode 117 = Menu

and I'm sure other distros have different definitions, or maybe no definitions at all for these keys. *sigh*

Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy to use

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep waiting for this retro-worship to blow over but it shows no sign of abating.

The reason why it won't blow over is because the CLI is much more efficient at file management than the GUI. Massive renaming, moving, and deleting files are faster with the command line. With tab completion, CLIs are also faster than GUIs at single-file management tasks. As long as operating systems use hierarchical filesystems, the CLI will live on.

OEMs decide what the public buys

[SgtChaireBourne]

Seems that anything short of singing hymns in praise of Chairman Bill and his perfection of software gets called Microsoft Bashing (R). Whatever happed to discussion of technical issues or, gasp, software reviews? Or has M$ become such a religion that this is not allowed?

The core of the issue is not that the public chooses or does not choose M$ Windows, they have no choice, yet. They buy what is on the shelf and what is pre-installed. OEMs decide what is preinstalled, thus all the ruckus in the courts about what can be pre-installed and by whom. As of 5 years ago the U.S. courts found that around 65% of users left the bundled apps pretty much the way they were, thus the war for the desktop icon. I'd bet that that number is even smaller nowadays.

Not only that, a computer is very much like a car, if it is not looked after, it will eventually die, be it Linux, Windows, UNIX or MAC OS.

There is a big difference between a Trabant (Win95/98), Lada (Win NT 3/4/5/6) and Saab ( BSD) or Saturn (Linux)

Microsoft has shown that it cannot compete on merits, so it seems it are trying to make it technically and legally imposible for others to do anything.

Re:OEMs decide what the public buys

[thirdofnine]

SgtChaireBourne,

You seam to think that the average computer user knows how to install OS's, compile programs etc.

The average user just wants it to work, when they plug in a device, they just want it to work. They just want to install a program, not compile it.

There is only 2 OS's that that works reasonly well on at present Windows and MAC OS, but one is far more expensie than the other.

Linus is getting better, but it still needs more work to get onto the average computer users PC.

Third of Nine

Microsoft - always bad?

[cute-boy]

Maybe Microsoft did a lot of good. I am sure a lot of posts will show that.

Maybe. A long time ago I used Microsoft Quick C to do some cool stuff with my first PC, a 386SX, that replaced a Z80 system I had... When every other manual was I had was printed in a font like you'd find on a type-writer, Microsoft's manual were in readable Times. Dos 3.3 was OK, too I seem to remember. Back then Microsoft did seem like a good force... they brought affordable software to us.

We were able to move all our old Fortran 66 and 77 programs accross from IBM mainframes where we had to book time and even load cards sometimes, (and I am only 39) into a world where things ran fast and you didn't need to wait a day to get your print-out.

In short their software heralded a new age.

The we all moved on, and Microsoft got caught by it's own success, at last. Getting smaller is not easy or painless, but it's probably the journey they are about to embark upon.

I look forward to the day when they need to compete again (and that day is near). They may suprise us yet, and really innovate.

Happy weekend all who read this...

RG

the business world, and so forth

[kardar]

strange, but I was just thinking about this a couple of days ago. IBM mainframes or mainframe-type computers with dumb terminals for employees, that's kind of where it was at, if you could afford one, for business, originally, and I think that in the business world, that's kind of where it would have stayed, and the cookie-cutter concept would have perhaps been applied to smaller, server-type machines, with each employee just having a keyboard and a monitor.

I was thinking about this because I was realizing how silly it is that everyone at work has a "personal" computer, when in fact, unlike a calculator, a computer is used for communication, and plugging into the data and information that is used by the organization as a whole.

Imagine if instead of plugging into the PBX, every employee was given their own cellphone to use in their cubicle, and then the cellphone providers would have made "drastic improvements" in walkie-talkie mode. Silly.

That's kind of how the "personal computer" has been warped into something that is actually counter-productive and unnecessary, both in a technical, practical, and marketing sense, in the business world. Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, these are all things that pretty much stay local, they stay in what could be called "intra-net", and they don't do that particularly well, for instance in situations where someone has opened up an Excel spreadsheet, but has forgotten to save and close it, and then you go to open it and it's read only. And then you are working on that spreadsheet or that Word document, and your computer crashes, and you lose work. It's an exercise in "how often can you hit save" sometimes. Big fun. Very reliable indeed. It's actually a huge waste of time.

We would see more Oracle-type, industrial strength, bulletproof database software, and less personal, small-business type Access-type software. Industrial strength - boring, plain-jane, complicated, requiring specialists trained in those types of things. Perhaps we would not have any of those "_____ for dummies" books, either.

At home, we would have not lost the audiophile movement, the high-end stereo businesses would probably be a lot better off, and young folks would drool over Macintoshes (the amps) and Carvers, NADs and Nakamichis. The RIAA would not be a four-letter word. Or the MPAA. On the other hand, the internet - the internet would not be where it is today, probably. Is that good or bad? Hmmmm... Ebay, who knows what would be going on there. We might have game consoles, stock ticker appliances, etc.

With Microsoft, the concept of a "computer" - neither at home, nor at work, is there the somewhat boring, unexciting nature of something like a calculator or a slide rule. It's all "cool", or new, or innovative, exciting, and for the most part, almost entirely unnecessary - well, maybe not entirely unnecessary, but somewhat unnecessary. Why use a PC when a CD player or some other specialized appliance will do? Not only do we have all these anti-trust trials going on, but the PC is trying to be everything to everyone, while the concept of the computer is sort of losing its roots. In a name association game, the way things stand today, computers are not that particularly likely to trigger "binary" or "algorithm", but more likely to trigger other keywords. In a world without Microsoft, this might be different, computers might perhaps be associated with geniuses and whizes, just like physics and math and rocket science are today. It would not be OK to be stupid.

Without Microsoft, businesses would probably be using terminals and keyboards, connected into a mainframe, or mini-mainframe, all wired and networked together, and command-line, text-based messaging between employees using company-specific local apps would be very popular

Computers would be no different than calculators, except the focus would be information - databases, company-wide scheduling, information management and flow, things like that. The scientific end, of course, with the number cr

the real question

[Anonymous Coward]

the question should not be how the world would be without microsoft, but how the world would be without america.. and the answer is VERY PEACEFUL.

Re:the real question

[Anonymous Coward]

but how the world would be without america.. and the answer is VERY PEACEFUL.

Yeah, who would those poor 14 year old terrorists have to blow up ? He was given $23 dollars. Is your sons life worth $23 ?

Re:the real question

[Hitchcock_Blonde]

Your concept of history seems to only stretch back to the day they you born. I think you need to go do some studying before you come here and make asinine remarks.

Re:the real question

[Krojack]

Might be peaceful but you would more likely be speaking German, that is if your parents survived long enough to give birth to you OR you were born without any mental problems and physical defects.

Fewer Home Computers

[smchris]

As someone who dual-booted Coherent (UNIX clone) and Windows 3.1 in the early '90s, then OS/2 from '95 to '00 and then linux, my first urge is to say something snotty like "people would have been running stable 32-bit apps from the start and would appreciate good computing".

But to give the Gates his due, Windows has always been the games machine and that is partially because Windows 95 had a throwback DOS base. The performance on crummy '90s equipment was superior if one was willing to accept the occasional crash. That had to greatly increase the home penetration of PCs. How many home users were playing Castle Wolfenstein before getting onto the internet?

Before '90? Well anybody else could have bought CPM for the IBM PC.

Once again the Simpsons provides

[Cackmobile]

It'd be like where Lionel Huts thinks what a world without lawyers would be like. Everyone holding hands and singing.

you sleep 1./3 of your life but....

[Anonymous Coward]

My world without microsoft would be about 1/5 longer then it would of been without them due to installs, virus scans, basically constant maintance and reboots.

Get over it and buy a playstation or 'cube

[SgtChaireBourne]

Last I heard, businesses are interested in using computers for work, not playing games. Lack of games might be considered an asset at most sites.

Regardless of game playing on general purpose microcomputers, games were thiving on Atari and other platforms long before Chairman Bill got money from IBM

Now days I hear that there are still dedicate game console that handle animation and sound quite well. Whether the M$ pyramid scheme continues to slowly deflate, or if it happens suddenly Enron-style pop, does not matter more game makers will put their money on the Playstation or Gamecube.

Re:Get over it and buy a playstation or 'cube

[zedpol]

I understand where you are coming from but historically (and this is changing) the PC has been fairly unique in the type of games that are developed for it. The FPSes are a great example of this, a mouse and keyboard is vastly superiour to a gamepad. MMORPGs are another good example..have you ever seen the PS2 version of EQ? It is extremely tedious to try and communicate with anyone. All that is kind of besides the point though. Just because you don't want games on your PC doesn't mean other people don't also. My original point is that games would suffer if microsoft went down the tube, i still think it would although i think you make a valid point that their are alternatives out there peace

Re:Standards [IE aint]

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have standards now (.doc, Internet Explorer, etc)"

A standard is exactly what Internet Explorer is not and at risk of offending the moderators, I can't see how a post that says that gets rated 5 'insightful'.

What did M$ do? They made IE capable of rendering a load of non-standard html and Javascript, and provided the tools to author the same broken source.

Hence all the standards compliant browsers don't render the non standard stuff and everyone says "Browser X? broken". Clever, Microsoft.

Minix license

[Anonymous Coward]

Minix growth was stunted by its restrictive license which wasn't changed to a BSD license until 2000, well after GPLed Linux had become fashionable.

Not an honest argument

[BerntB]

You aren't arguing honestly.

Neither I nor anyone else have argued Apple invented the mouse -- Xerox didn't do that either.

You quoted icons -- but didn't mention that they weren't used at all in the same way. There was no desktop at all, no copy/paste, they had to give numerical X,Y-arguments to move a window(!), etc, etc.

The GUI was a very, very different thing after Apple -- Microsoft didn't steal anything directly from Xerox but from Apple -- who did buy a license from Xerox. (And that without even mentioning APIs, etc.)

I wrote "Apple more or less invented most of what you think of as the GUI". The Anon argued:

Your claim that Apple "invented" the GUI and it is their "property" is ludicrous.

Talk about intellectually dishonest straw arguments!

You give Anonymous Cowards a bad name! :-)

Re:Not an honest argument

[Endive4Ever]

The fact of the matter remains that your side (Apple) didn't prevail in court. The myriad group of other entites, including Microsoft, who now produce GUI OSes, did NOT 'steal' it from Apple. This definition holds and remains valid, similar in many repects to the fact that the same legal system has defined Microsoft as a monopoly.

I bet you like that particular legal identifiction of an entity by the legal system.

If Apple had prevailed, they would have set the precedent that 'selfish companies can hire mean motherfucker lawyers and 0wn the world.'

The Apple GUI lawsuit was widely perceived by the hacker community at that time as being very similar to what SCO is trying to pull now. Interesting which side you're backing, even ten+ years after the fact.

Re:Not an honest argument

[BerntB]

The Apple GUI lawsuit was widely perceived by the hacker community at that time as being very similar to what SCO is trying to pull now.

Yes. The facts differ a bit.

Today, with same kind of material, Xerox and Apple would have covered their work in patents like mountain snow. And it would have been upheld.

So, easily arguably, a new environment -- both GUI and the APIs that were copied -- would have been kept proprietary.

SCO is a scam that seems to be financed by Microsoft. Different.

Lotus role

[RetiredMidn]

The ironic thing is that without two things that IBM would view as absolute disasters - the non-exclusive deal Bill Gates and Microsoft cut with IBM to supply DOS, and the arrival of the "clone" market, the IBM PC line might well have been a commercial failure. But once all the clone makers were pushing "IBM compatible" everywhere you turned, computer manufacturers who kept their designs proprietary simply couldn't get and keep the shelf space/mind share they needed to keep their platforms viable.

When the IBM PC was released it had the benefit of a killer app: Lotus 1-2-3. When all the IBM clone and near-clone vendors emerged, one of the key questions asked by buyers was whether a new computer would run 1-2-3. Lotus was besieged by hardware manufacturers seeking ports of 1-2-3 to their machines, and even started a "1-2-3 compatible" certification program.

This was not limited to 1-2-3, of course. dBase was an important business app, of course (but had fewer compatibility issues); Flight Simulator was another big compatibility benchmark.

Application compatibility had a significant impact on the monitor and graphics card vendors as well.

Without Microsoft Slashdot would be forced to....

[gatkinso]

..flame Apple day in and day out. Because they would be top dog.

maybe Amiga

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe Amiga too

GrimRC

Microsoft, a neccessary evil I have to thank.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know without Microsoft, I wouldn't have learned DOS 6.22 on the old 486 my dad gave me 10 years ago.

Without learning that first CLI, I wouldn't have discovered Telix in a folder.

Without Telix, I wouldn't have learned about modems.

Without a modem, I wouldn't have learned about Prodigy.

Without Prodigy, I wouldn't have learned about BBS'es.

Without BBS's I wouldn't have learned about Fidonet.

Without Fidonet, I wouldn't have learned about Compuserve.

Without learning about Compuserve's PSN, I would have never discovered the WELL.

Without the WELL, I would have never had my first shell account. Without that shell account, I wouldn't have learned about BSD UNIX.

Without UNIX (and Linux) I wouldn't be who I am, doing what I do for a living today.

All because of an old 486 running DOS 6.22

what would the world be like..

[shakuni]

if MS went the OSS way ? to be or not to be that is the question? intelligenter than thou.

Without Microsoft...

[emtboy9]

who knows. While I dont really like them, or at least dont really like their software at all, I do freely admit that without them we would probably not be as far as we are now.

For good or ill, Microsoft is what made PCs household items. Well, MS and falling hardware prices, but still, MS made it easy for Joe Average to use computers in the home, and the falling hardware prices made purchasing one or more for the home attractive.

Also, Linux, as it is today would probably not exist without MS. Without the feverent hatred of all things MS that the OSS zealots have, AND most linux geeks at least have some disdain for MS, development would not have proceeded as quickly, IMO, simply because there would have been no real common enemy.

Because of MS, the common enemy, developers, especially developers who dont particularly care for MS, worked harder than they otherwise may have on the kernel and other projects.

Flame if you wish, but its honest. No good thing arrises without struggle and strife and an opponent. Thanks to MS being the way that it is, we all have a common enemy, and have focus. I dare say that without that, we would not have that focus, and Linux would still be a hobbyist project OS, instead of the incredibly stable, world class enterprise OS that it is today.

What would it be like without MS?

[Whispers_in_the_dark]

I don't know, but I'd sure like to find out...

WHOSE standards?

[TomatoMan]

The market dominance however, has shown us the benefit of having "standard" file types such as .doc that just about everybody in certain industries uses exclusively.

Whose standards are we talking about? Closed-source, proprietary document formats don't help anybody except the seller of the only program that can access them. They're one of the biggest sources of data loss in computing.

A "standard" file type like .rtf is a lot more useful than .doc because it's an open format and anybody can read it. Your .rtf documents will be perfectly readable in 20 years. Your .doc documents almost certainly won't.

Re:WHOSE standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed the point of my post. I am not advocating closed standards at all. Rather, I was simply stating that many folks did not see "standards" as important before Microsoft. Believe me, I am not a fan of MS's closed "standards".

-BWJones

There were better GUIs

[dpilot]

Kinda torques me off, too.

I wish someone would do a decent job of porting the OS/2 WPS to Linux. It was the only gui that was able to keep me away from a command line for any significant amount of time. Most of the time, to do 'real work' I just open an xterm. (or dos prompt, under Windows) Under OS/2, I found I could actually function well under the WPS, though I still had to drop to a command prompt at times.

The WPS took the 'objects' on the screen and truly made them into objects, in the programming sense, rather than make them behave roughly like objects with file and drag/drop associations and the like.

But naaaah, let's chase Windows.

Re:There were better GUIs

[runderwo]

We could live without having to rebuild the desktop after an unclean shutdown, though. That was really never any fun. Alt-F1, makeini, bla bla bla. Sigh.

Re:There were better GUIs

[dpilot]

Not to mention the SIQ...
It wasn't perfect, but it was still the GUI that least forced me to use a command prompt.

Re:There were better GUIs

[Valdrax]

I maintain that Clasic Mac OS is the target that OSS should be chasing -- an operating system that HAD to have a useable GUI because it didn't have a CLI. The spatially aware Finder in the Classic Mas OS was child's play to use, with batch renaming of files and piping of application input and output being the only two things I can think of that it suffered from a lack of.

Mac OS X tossed all that out the window with a shoddy Finder implementation and a constantly changing, inconvenient desktop environment. I tell you, if I could count my icons staying in the same place, my windows staying the same size, and my menu items staying in the same place, and if I could reduce clutter, use the four corners of the screen properly, and easily access my files like I could in Mac OS 9, I wouldn't spend all my time in a Terminal on Mac OS X.

At this rate, I'm seriously considering a permanent switch to Linux since all the UI advantages of the Mac have been pissed away by Apple. It's why I put up with my horrid Performa 5200 for all those years. Now, I'm just not seeing much of an advantage anymore since the golden age of GUI usability is over.

8088

[Kardamon]

Correct. IBM had previously built the System 23 Datamaster, which had an 8 bit Intel 8085 processor. Officially, IBM chose the 8088 CPU because they could re-use the Datamaster 8-bit ISA bus. Rumour has that IBM chose the inferior 8088 because they did not want their PC to compete with their mini computers - IBM did also not put 80386 processors in their PCs until Compaq came along with a 80386 PC.

What if M$ were gone NOW...not "never existed"

[jav1231]

No one seems to be addressing this. (Then again, I didn't read every post). I think Linux would step up and share the market with Apple. More importantly, you'd likely see other OS players come along. I think in general, it'd be a good thing. I see other devices with similar OS's making bigger strides too. I'm not a teeny PC fan per se' but with M$ out of the picture, the world would open to innovation. Without the threat of M$ calling Intel to tell them not to cut you a discount on your P4 or ARM CPU's, you'd get much more equal footing to build that new gadget/PC. Right now, they wield way too much influence over companies, though we're starting to see that whittle away some. So my answer is, in the short run Linux and Apple would become the big players. Apple would likely port to Intel processors to compete more fully.

Re:What if M$ were gone NOW...not "never existed"

[Anonymous Coward]

>>I think Linux would step up and share the market with Apple

Oh! You don't fucking say?

Your post was about as uninsightful as it's possible to get. What the fuck do you think people would run if there were no Windows? MVS?

Re:What if M$ were gone NOW...not "never existed"

[jav1231]

Hey the parent asked. I never said it was fscking genius. Dork.

Re:Without IBM?

[16K Ram Pack]

I used to work on ICL mainframes, and we always viewed IBM as the big bad guys and that they produced inferior products (a bit like Linux users with M$).

I actually remember at one time there was a documentary about Gates being a bad boy and hidden API calls, and I still backed Microsoft because "at least they are better than IBM".

(Ask anyone who worked on both ICL mainframes and IBMs which were better, and they always backed ICL).

Not quite

[ThousandStars]

Unfortunately, your analysis of torts is wrong. Most (all?) states require builders to have insurance, and large builders -- like these guys -- aren't some tiny operation that's going to collapse under a lawsuit. In addition, these days building torts come from more subtle problems than buildings falling down: for example, water leakages that result from using ineffective building material. Then one sues not only the builder, but also their insurance company. If you type "construction defect litigation" into Google, you'll find a million law firms specializing in it, and they're very good at what they do. If they couldn't win money for themselves and their clients, they wouldn't be in business.

Still, there's one part of your comment that's dead right and worth reiterating: "Seriously, you'd be hard pressed to find a more unscrupulous group than building developers."

Innovation

[Choc Ice]

Microsoft have never been innovators, they've simply started with mediocre software, added in features that competing software has got, and marketed it like crazy.

Microsoft started with BASIC. They didn't invent BASIC, it had been around for years.

Microsoft then moved on to MSDOS. They didn't invent DOS, it had been around for years. They didn't even write MSDOS from scratch, they bought it off another company (QDOS).

They then moved onto Windows. They didn't invent GUIs, they'd been around for years.

They then started copying other stuff:
MSWord: A WYSIWYG word processor. Already been done (WordStar).
Excel: A WYSIWYG spreadsheet. (Lotus 1-2-3 anyone?)
Internet Explorer: A graphical web browser - done before by Mosaic.

Microsoft have never invented anything new, they've just attempted to produce something better than the competition. Even if it's not better, that's nothing a good bit of marketing can't fix.

What about technologies invented by Microsoft? I can't think of any. Multitasking was in UNIX long before Windows. Long Filenames? UNIX again, and countless other OSes. What about OLE and later ActiveX? Nope - Microsoft stole bits of this patented technology from Wang Labs (settled out of court, so um - they didn't really "steal" it. Honest guv).

There's loads of things MS has patents for, but nothing they've done has been innovative. Without Microsoft, what do we have though? All of these things listed above existed, but in different places. Microsoft packaged them up, made them easy to use, then marketed them to death.

Would do we have now that we wouldn't have if Microsoft hadn't existed?

Re:Innovation

[LC Gundo]

Microsoft have never invented anything new...

Aren't you forgetting the product Bill and Paul created for controlling traffic signals?

You must remember. It's the one they came out with right before they went into business together.

The same

[RodeoBoy]

Just different cats in the big house. The existance of Microsoft has more to do with the economic system than any evil streak bill may have. The computer industry is still like the auto industry in the 40's and 50's. A lot of variety with a number of big players and some significant small players. In time it will just be a few big players. As for inovation that has never been recognized by the market and never will, only grand marketing seems to move the masses. A same old same old.

No microsoft?

[knigitz]

What?! And give up Solitaire? You're crazy!

No moon landing without Soviet.

[patrixx]

And Linux without without Windows.

Yin and yang you know :-)

UNIX/Linux would be winner

[peter303]

In the colleges, UNIX pretty much took over by 1980. PC CPUs were too weak for UNIX until x386 in the early 1990s. Thats when Linus' emulation could work. UNIX already had a useful graphical desktop in XWindows seven years (1986) before Windows (1993 3.1).

Re:UNIX/Linux would be winner

[Anonymous Coward]

>>PC CPUs were too weak for UNIX until x386 in the early 1990s

Bullshit!

How come UNIX was originally developed on a processor architecture that was somewhat inferior to a 286 then?

Erm, what now about HDTV?

[Ayanami Rei]

There is only one "format" for HDTV, which is ATSC. Namely, MPEG-2 video + Dolby Digital audio. The only differences between the 18 "formats" are dimensions, interlace modes, and frame rates.

I really see no problem with that, you just specify the maximum format a TV will support, and you can assume it can handle all lower-bandwidth formats as well. The decoding chips don't care about the resolution or field rate, it's all the same to them as long as they're fast enough.

So HDTV is not a good example.

Government standards aren't

[snarkasaurus]

The problem with letting government do things is that after a while they start to get lax. Then a while later the "standard" becomes remarkably flexible for those who have friends in high places. Note that I'm not talking about the Americans, this is a general organizing principle. Private standards are as good as the word of those who agree to them. You take a look at the CD-ROM standard or the casette tape standard, their word is good. You can still play 20 year old tapes on brand new machines.

Without Microsoft

[Ilan Volow]

We'd have thought the idea of a talking paperclip was completely ridiculous.

Re:Standards - food for thought

[Aumaden]

As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards".

How many of the standards would be there if it wasn't for MicroSoft's presence?

Not as an innovator, but as a bad example or possibly antagonist. How much of HTML came about by pure W3 innovation vs how much was from prior work by M$, NCSA, Netscape, an others all trying to out do each other? Would W3 have been as productive if M$ wasn't there trying to take over the standard?

How many OSS developers would have given their all without the popular foe to rail against?

If freedom (both as in beer and speech) is the carrot...
Is Microsoft perhaps the stick?

Take a different approach

[Anonymous Coward]

If linux didn't exist, we'd have a robust OS (hurd). It would easily compete with windows, and be accepted as a real OS, rather than an hobbiest OS.

Apple hardware

[Creepy]

Not to flame you, but I wouldn't go that far - Apple hardware was great when Woz was designing, ESPECIALLY when compared to the drek Commodore was putting out (PET, and Vic 20, later C64, but not so much with the 64), much less Atari (I had little experience with Atari PCs, but remember being extremely underimpressed by the ST and spent most of my time with the neighboring 386 running DR-DOS and GEM [gads that was ages ago!]).

I especially hated the crappy Commodore disk controller (and slower tape drive), which was slower than dirt and didn't improve until the Amiga era (and then, I believe, only on the Amiga). Disk ][ was an incredible invention, and cheap in comparison to other disk controllers at the time. I loved the C64 MIDI (but not much else), and almost bought an Amiga before they died.

After Woz left, Apple HW went downhill - Jobs wanted an appliance, and didn't even want to stick in all the stuff you'd need (like decent sound). That's why the only macs I ever bought were pro models that could be expanded to add better sound cards (and multitrack recording cards). It wouldn't hurt Apple to add somewhat decent sound already (surround? like my $40 PC mobo comes with, built in... maybe the new ones come with it, but my G3 didn't, and I bought that around the time of my last PC mobo that did come with it). Apple has done great things for software, but tends to be far too insular with hardware nowadays. Firewire's nice, but that's about the only innovation they've done that has gone mainstream.

GCC non-standard? puh-leeeez...

[Shaddup]

There are worse offenders in the compiler market than gcc. MS's Visual C++ is far more permissive than gcc when it comes to "standards". For example, vc uses the ancient c++ scoping rules (circa 1995-ish) and will gleefully compile the following:

void somefunc(void) {
for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++ ) {
}
i = 23;
}

What's worse is that you *have* to follow their archaic scoping rules... the following *will not* compile with vc:

void somefunc(void) {
for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++ ) {
}
for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++ ) {
}
}

VC claims that the variable 'i' is declared twice.

There are many more examples. Here's another code snippet that vc will compile, but is not standard:

enum MyEnum {
FOO,
BAR
};

void somefunc(void) {
whatever = MyEnum::FOO;
}

The problem is that the c++ standard states that enums place their contents in the scope level immediately above their own, *not* in a separate scope (this is a holdover from c). You can't reference the contents of an enum like you would any other name space, ie 'MyEnum::FOO' should be simply 'FOO'.

I'm sure there are many many more examples, but who cares? No one will ever read this comment anyway.

Forgotten Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

-What was that all about?

Re:AOL site

[CanadianMikey]

Keep up the anonymous posting. I was that douchebag.
Who is the Douchebag motherfucker who is scared to post there user name with that comment??

And I might be slow,but I'm not stupid...wait a second...I meant, the link is not that important STUPID!.

Enjoy your day!

Building vs. Coding

[kosamae]

Okay, so you missed one key point- Software development is absolutely nothing like building construction.

For one, once you start work on a building, its pretty hard to change anything about it without spending lots of money; if you need to change something in a software package you created, just change a few lines of code and release a patch.

Besides that buildings necessarilly cost lots of money and take up lots of space, and as such, you can only build so many of them. Most programs and documents take a very small amount of space (almost none physically), and cost just about nothing to create.

So would I trust my life to an open source building? Probably not.
Do I trust my important files to open source standards? Absolutely.

Less computers

[Zerbey]

There'd be far less home computers and most of them would either be running MacOS or OS/2. Microsoft may be a monstrosity who write crap software, but they have got excellent marketing skills and are largely responsible (but by no means exclusively) for the number of home PC's being sold today.

Re:Less computers

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Microsoft may be a monstrosity who write crap software

God! I hate this mindless knee-jerk thinking!

Actually, MS has written some pretty damn good software. Yes, that have written more than their fair share of crap too, but on the whole MS software is pretty damn good and useful.

A lot of rewriting of history going on

[Open Council]

Maybe the thread should have been called "rewriting history to make MS look good/bad/innovative"

Business PCs existed before the IBM PC came along. Although VisiCalc (running on the Apple II) must be given the credit for breaking into the corporate conciousness, there were a lot of micros in offices running Wordstar (and later SuperCalc). These micros ran CPM on Z80's and 8080's because thats all there was around. In this 8-bit world not only was most of the hardware incompatable with other manufactures stuff but each manufacturer's version of CP/M used a different disk format.

The first successful attempt at standardisation of hardware, driving down costs, was the S100 Bus.

Digital Research did underestimate the potential of the 8088's pseudo-16bit architecture but many of its customers didn't. A number of small manufacturers did basic ports of CP/M to the 8088. I did one of them before working on CP/M-86 and Concurrent CP/M.

When the 8086, with its real 16 bit architecture, appeared and IBM started looking at producing their own micro (as a way of stopping its mainframe customers from buying outside IBM) they learnt the lessons of the S100 Bus and decided to open up their hardware so that other add-on builders would be attracted. Their generosity probably didn't extend to believing that their BIOS chip would be re-engineered so quickly.

Then Digital Research shot themselves in the foot by refusing to talk to IBM (who'd been pointed at DR by Bill Gates) and Microsoft bought up one of the 16 bit clones of CP/M and sold it to IBM as PCDOS/MSDOS.

As for GUI's, no one seems to remember that the WIMP gui originated at Xerox's PARK. Xerox management insisted that the developers at PARK show the visitors from Apple the internals of their WIMP. Off went the Apple people, very impressed, to produce their own WIMP.

The important legal battle wasn't Xerox-v-Apple or Apple-v-MS, it was Apple-v-DR. This was because DR had developed GEM a fairly good GUI (considering the monochrome monitors around) and some good applications. The original Windows 2.0 was a carthorse compare to GEM.

Despite the Mackintosh and GEM having the look-and-feel of Xerox Star, the court decided that GEM was a copy of Apple's Copy of Star and told DR to remove a number of features. The major restriction was that windows on the screen couldn't overlap. (strangely the verdict didn't apply to the Atari GEM). The Subsequent Windows 3.1 sounded the death knell for GEM on the Intel platform.

DR weren't totally out of the market because they had DR-Dos, an alternative to MSDOS, but, as we now know, MS took steps to make users thing that DR-Dos was incompatable by adding fake errors and warnings into Win 3.1 and Win 95.

Since gaining dominance most of MS's "innovations" have been by buying the company the developed the "innovation" or just by developing their own version. Most of the true innovations have been features designed to lock people into MS products or to lock competitors out.

DRASTICALLY Different

[Compulawyer]

Following is a short list of differences:

• The sun would shine every day;
• The birds would sing sweetly every morning;
• The world would be at peace;
• No one would go hungry;
• We would all smile at each other when we passed on the street;
• There would be no more pollution; and
• No one would have to use Windows at work.

Of course, it could also be:

• Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

What do you want from me? I'm trying my best here...

Lincoln and secession

[ChrisMaple]

South Carolina seceded: Dec. 20, 1860.

Abraham Lincoln inaugurated: March 4, 1861.

Lincoln's administration was trying to do what WHEN South Caroline seceded?

Without Microsoft

[inteller]

There would be no DOS or OS/2. The precursor of DOS would still be some hobby toy in a guy's garage. We'd probably be booting our computers with some equivilent of a bernoulli disk (if even that).

Before microsoft... (long, old fart reminiscing)

[argent]

To get an idea what the world would be like without Microsoft, you need to start with another question.

What was the world like before Microsoft?

Not before Microsoft formed, but before Microsoft Windows started really hammering down the competition. Back when Microsoft's OS, DOS, was simple enough it could be emulated and when platforms running on top of operating systems from simple common libraries through virtual machines... what we call middleware, now... were the standard way of writing portable software.

You had a few common families of operating systems. DEC had RSX-11, TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, VMS, RT-11, and RSTS, though they were settling on VMS as the way forward. You had IBM's mainframe systems running native and under VM. You had MUMPS both native and hosted. You had EXEC/1100, PR1MOS, burroughs A-series. You had CP/M and its descendents (CDOS, MS-DOS, etc). You had UNIX and UNIX clones like Regulus and Idris and Cromix. You had Mac OS and AmigaOS and GEM. You had Atari-DOS and TRS-DOS and their enhanced clones like LDOS.

On top of these you had GEM and DesqView and Mumps and the UCSD P-System (Daddy's playing Pascal, that's where you try and see how many dots you can get before you start swearing). You had databases and interfaces and transaction protocols and network protocols in a huge fight between OSI and TCP/IP that ended up with TCP easily winning the bottom level because none of the OSI people could agree on a low level protocol so nobody could talk to each other without expensive gateways... but there's still plenty of OSI living on above that.

You had Pascal and Modula and ADA and C and REXX and the Lisp languages and a billion Basics blooming in everyone's garden.

And so, we get to the next question.

Where was it going?

Well, standards were ever more important. We had a network running OSI and TCP at the low level, UNIX/Xenix, VMS, EXEC/1100, RTE-IV, DOS, Netware, NFS, RFS, DECnet, OpenNet, ... and I was able to largely flatten the whole thing because every platform interoperated with three or four different standards. You could always find something that would talk. And things were getting simpler, as newer and better standard interfaces supplanted or complemented older ones. Increasingly, there were a handful of languages with good standard implementations that were widely (almost universally) available: SQL, REXX, C, and newcomers like Tcl and Perl.

Microsoft never bothered to fit into this world, except through a valve. You could check in to the Windows hotel but you could never check out. Even companies like IBM had a culture of interoperation: they had multiple platforms specialised for different things and they worked well together... and with other systems.

But all these systems had one thing in common... they were first multi-user and secondarily end-user.

Advanced end-user systems had always been islands, with very few exceptions. Your IBM or Xerox word processing systems, your Macintoshes and Wangs, these never had to depend on networks, they had one user, and that user was in control, and the interface to other systems was through the user... where networks existed, they were often (usually) job-oriented, with Word Processing on one and Drafting on another. So interoperability was secondary to everything else.

The open source community has developed from the shared systems that were dominant though to the end of the '80s. Communication was paramount, secrets were death: if your software didn't play well with other software people ended up avoiding it.

What would have happened without Windows? Apple would have continued to spread their only slightly less extreme end-user system, at a premium price. VMS and other decent minicomputer systems would have fought it out, alongside a variety of UNIX systems all running common applications and sharing files. Amiga's UNIX and Apple's UNIX and Microsoft's Xenix would have bridged the gap between end-user systems and minis. OS/2

Microsoft - a democracy?

[naily]

Microsoft never made 'standards' as such. They just do stuff, or borrow stuff that becomes standard because they have 95% of the market!

The whole idea of a market economy is that standards are mostly agreed by participants in an industry, and only by government as a last resort. That's fine if the industry is mature, with a handful of evenly matched competitors - like the car industry, or oil, or pharmaceuticals.

This is not the case in software, though, because it is dominated by a single 800lb gorilla. Depending on your viewpoint, it may be a benign gorilla or an evil gorilla, but it's still a fucking gorilla...!

You'd see a lot of switchers

[JeffTL]

Because frankly, about the only thing keeping a lot of people from going to OS X is their Windows software, and if people quit making software for Windows most people would probably think something to the effect of "Oh well, I guess I'll try that Macintosh thingy my cousin Mort uses." People switch to Mac, less crashes, only new problem I see apart from yet more Windows software lost to the sands of time save for those who hoard old computers is that people attached to external towers would have to buy a fullblown Powermac G5, but an Apple at >40% marketshare (which would seem a year or two or three after a sudden Microsoft collapse) would probably bring back the Cube to reach these people.

Alternate PC History

[TheOldBear]

Before the IBM PC existied, microsoft [they did not capitalize their name back then] sold programming interpeters and compilers for CP/M-80 systems [S-100 buss, Apple 's with a Z80 'softcard' and oddball systems like my Osborne/1]

They were a minor vendor, offering no unique products. [Then and now, development tools are a small market].

Assuming that Bill Gate's mom did not make the critical IBM connection [or the author of QDos did not sell all right to microsoft]:

IBM would still have introduced their 5160 'PC', with the same hardware configurations as originally shipped.

IBM would have still provided a choice of at least two operating systems [CP/M-86 and the pSystem]

The microcomputer software vendors would still have had difficulty with the transition to 16 bit software [QDos was actually an easier target than CP/M-86, when starting from CP/M-80 ver 2.2]

Z80 add on cards [Baby Blue, Blue Lightning] would have remained popular for a while longer [until 1985 or so]. Developers would have continued improving common code for CP/M-80 v3.x and 'tiny' model 16 bit executables.

Terminal based systems would have survived longer in the mass market [MP/M-86]

The word processing market leaders [Electric Pencil, WordStar, Valdocs] would still be upset by the entry of WordPerfect.

Lotus would still have introduced it's VisiCalc clone. VisiCorp would still have squandered an early lead [anyone remember VisiOn office?].

[BTW, Lotus 123 was available for CP/M-86, and non-PC based MS-DOS systems [Zenith Z100, DEC Rainbow] in our timeline. Platform portability combined with speed is possible]

Compaq would still clone the PC BIOS [the rest of the hardware was fully specified, as a result of prior anti-trust rulings against IBM]

Without the clones, the world would look very different - more non PC machines surviving [Epson, Osbourne, TRS, Amiga, Atari - even NeXT]. A lot of the read IBM PC's would be running 3270 terminal emulators & APPC client/server applications [both of which are quite similar to today's browser based applications]

About the time of the introduction of the PC/AT, MP/M-286 would already have been available. The Apple ///, Lisa and Macintosh systems would still have been introduced.

Power users on the PC/AT [and its clones] would use MP/M-286 as a series of virtual consoles, with tasks continuing to execute in the background. A BBS system might be one of the backgroud tasks. [OS/2 1.0 equivilant - but in 1984]

Software vendors, envying Lotus's display speed, would start directly accessing the video buffer. MP/M would use protected mode memory access to share the hardware's video buffer - DRI's GEM.

Altair, Heath/Zenith and other S-100 manufacturers would still drop out of sight. Server class machines [SASI/SCSI disks, heavy duty power supplies] would adopt the PC/AT buss. [The EISA and MicroChannel designs would still be introduced about 1987]

Fast forwarding to today.....

Linux would still have been developed, following much the same path.

Computer networking would still be as common.

WIMP interfaces would be common.

Client/Server and other distributed processing architectures would still be in use.

I would hope that vendor lock-in could have been avoided [unless DRI started favoring/distributing 'office' software] - interface and file format standards might be more stable [many more vendors in all software categories].

Since DRI's multitasking grew [like UNIX] from a multiuser orientation, it would likely be more secure than systems descended from extended memory managers.

microsoft might still be around - but likely still a development tool vendor - and complaining about gcc, cvs, emacs [and Java?] competing with their products.

Hardware

[TVC15]

perhaps there would be no proliferation of incredibly cheap hardware that makes Linux extremely affordable for the bulk of people?

If there were no Micro$oft...

[jeff13]

... we would be 20 years ahead technologically.

Micro$oft is a marketing company... mostly.

Truth in advertising

[Mr. Piddle]

What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?

Without Microsoft, Microsoft advertisements would actually be true!

pre-radio Metallica

[Anonymous Coward]

One can only hope that as we push thru the 21st century, marketing will less frequently win out over superior technology.

With little air-play (radio marketing), Metallica was getting crowds at concerts similar in size to pop station favorites. This was very unique.

The fact that it was unique means that it was the caveat to the rule: to be successful, a band must have significant radio air-time.

I'm not trying to say that their music (prior to radio acceptance) was superior or not. I AM saying that significant amounts of people thought it was superior - enough to actively seek out their work/performance.

When people are surprised by anything, it means that it was rare or unexpected. Metallica's rise was surprising to many BECAUSE they weren't marketed. For this issue, I doubt that we'll see a difference between the 20th and 21st centuries.

Bomb Redmond.

[phyruxus]

>> And here go my mod points and karma-I doubt that Linux would be where it is today without the domination of Microsoft.

You're right - if there was no domineering, unethical, incompetent and generally narcissistic 800-lb Gorilla pushing a shoddy OS and other semi-cruddy products on the world, Linus' project might never have attracted so much interest, effort, dedication and mad 'leet proponents.

But who knows, maybe the Open Source model/method would have fostered Linux's growth even without them.

Microsoft $ucks but what else is new?

[malicom]

Microsoft does drain our wallet. This software behemeth tries to dominate the industry, and cause us free thinkers to hate them. Microsoft has however benefitted us all by providing such a large market to intel, and amd, and when these companies prosper, linux gets a faster processor.

Homeowner associations.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the one in Texas that confiscated an elderly womans house (which was fully paid off) and sold it at auction because she was something like 500 dollars behind on homeowners association fees?

And In other News:

[Jediman1138]

Today the multi-billion dollar corporation Microsoft closed up shop. Few know why, but we had a chance to ask Bill Gates why.

When asked why he would do such a thing Mr. Gates said simply "Fuck It, I've got all the money I need."

________________________________________________

Re:And In other News:

[crusher-1]

In some yet unrelated news. Bill Gates private Lear jet is down yet again for repairs. Rumor has that his new MSVoice command software is not functioning properly. Anonymous sources tell us that everytime the pilot would give the voice command for the automated take off mode the plane would dump all it's fuel, shut down the engines and the pilots digital HUD would crash causing the planes system to reboot into XP and start Windows Media Player with renditions of Richard Simmon's Rockin' to the oldies.

Mr Gates was unavailable for comment.

A world before PC DOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Without Microsoft...

1. Digital Research would have made the OS, and it would be CP/M-86
2. GEM and DV/X would be battling it out for GUI supremacy
3. Lotus would rule the office suite market
4. WordPerfect would be top word processor
5. Lotus 1-2-3 would be top spreadsheet
6. Ashton-Tate's dBase would be top database for regular people
7. NetWare would be the NOS layer atop CP/M

8. Xenix might be significant; if so SCO would be SCO , and not Caldera.

9. Mouse Systems and Logitech would be fighting it out for mouse supremacy
10. Borland Pascal and not Microsoft BASIC would be the simple language of choice
11. Watcom would still make great compilers
12. OpenLook and not Motif would have triumphed

Re:South had different guage of train tracks than

[Cokebottle308]

Its interesting that you would pick that example from history .. because there is more to it than just a standards difference. There was a whole industry devoted to the moving of goods from one guage cars to another .. and the creation of a standard guage track set caused riots and political upheaval because this class of men was put out of work by the standard track guage. This is not unlike the current situation inwhich many IT jobs are going overseas (for whatever reason) leaving many persons here in US screaming about their jobs. The reasons for such job loss may differ, but the end result .. the constant change inherent in human society resulting in chaos and turmoil .. is not. Standards suck, but they are needed, look at the multiplicity of formats in the imaging sector, and then think about all the programmers who have made a living writing translators.

Excuse

[bonch]

Sorry, that's no excuse.

If people use crap, that doesn't mean you emulate the crap; you make something better so they'll prefer yours to theirs.

Re:Excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

... and then people piss and moan that KDE / GNOME are not MS-like enough. "The menus are different", "The icons are different", "Where's the printer wizard". Apple makes a far superior GUI to anything MS has, most people would prefer theirs, but I've yet to see Apple steal MS marketshare. KDE / GNOME can and are made to look Windows-like because most clueless Windows fucks expect a shitty looking MS GUI and freak out when they're not presented with one. People who dislike MS Windows configure their KDE / GNOME desktops in ways that look nothing like MS Windows.

Good lord

[bonch]

You are wrong on so many levels, I can't even begin to describe it.

No...the very, very last thing we need is to "go back to that world when unix and wang computers dominated the scene."

If no microsoft, then no windows.. then.......

[srinivas_rc]

obviously, we would have Lindows ;)

The reason Windows became popular is simple

[bonch]

The reason is simple. Everyone knew Macs were the better systems, but x86 was cheap and therefore available everywhere in massive cloned quantities.

Cheap, easy to mass-produce--all you needed was a Mac-ripoff OS to make it graphical.

Would a competitive market emerge?

[Snorklefish]

Monopolies abuse power because they can. As a capitalist pig, I know the only thing that keeps OTHER capitalist pigs in check is competition. Without genuine alternatives, monopolistic abuses will be picked up by the next corporation. 'Dissappearing' Microsoft does nothing to ensure that a competitive market will emerge.

What I'd like to see is 3 or more desktop alternatives with 25 percent market share but no company having more than 50 percent market share.

In short, I use OSX, but still want the option of Windows. I use KDE on Linux, but still want the option of GNOME.

much the same, really

[CommanderCool]

Without Microsoft, some other company would have eventually stood up and brought personal computers to the masses. That company probably would not have been Apple, their business model (hardware and software together, or nothing at all) wouldn't have worked on a large scale, and continues not to work on a large scale. And I like Mac OS. Fact is, Microsoft has had an overall positive influence on computing. Bash the big guy if you must, but you cannot measure the amount of technology, innovation, and software that has come out of having a ubiquitous operating system and hardware platform.

Microsoft's Contribution

[einhverfr]

I totally agree that Microsoft *and Intel* have retarded the state of the art by at least 15 years. There have been so many other worthwhile, efficient CPU architectures (MIPS, Alpha, 680x0) that have gone by the wayside, while the bloated hulk of x86 keeps rolling on.

Well, the major contribition that Microsoft made was the commoditization of the PC, which has resulted in the exact things you describe. However, it has also resulted in the ubiquity of computers that we rely on for open source development. I.e. vertically integrated companies cannot leverage the same scale as the Intel-Microsoft-OEM environment. THis has resulted in inexpensive computers (less than, say, $3000 ;-)) though I do agree about their engineering...

Now where would Linux be without commoditized PC's? I don't know, but I don't think it would have grown up so fast if computers were to cost too much...

I think that Linux is a product of the Microsoft environment in that commotidized PC's make it possible. However, I also think that Linux commoditizes things in a way that Microsoft can only dream of doing, and soon, those efficient processors may be on the upswing.

Re:Microsoft's Contribution

[hyc]

I'm not sure what to think of that. PCs have always been cheap, compared to the alternatives (Sun/DEC/Apollo workstations). Unix on PCs was already a reality (BSDi, NetBSD) long before Linux existed. The fact that a free BSD distro never took over the hacking world the way Linux has tells me there's another factor...

M$FT impact minimal in the long run

[anomalous cohort]

I'm surprised that I didn't see another post along these lines. Moderators, feel free to mark this as redundant if I missed it.

I was a coder before M$FT gained its power. Back then, IBM was the 800 pound gorilla. I hated IBM because their tools were so primitive and expensive. I prayed for some upstart company to transform the market. Be careful what you ask for.

Unix was very expensive too. I paid over $1K for a port of Sys V to the PC of that day.

My take on the market at that time was that the other vendors were very greedy and elitist. They wanted software development to be so difficult that only the smartest and the best could ever do it. They charged as if they thought that only a very few people would ever write software. Certainly not the millions that write code today.

M$FT changed all that. Their take was to make software development easier so that more people could do it. They could sell more licenses and make it up on volumn. Also, they would leverage all that development since it locked the employers into their technology. Did it cause a lot of lame code to be written? Yes, but from a business perspective, it made a lot more sense than the other, elitist, approach.

Of course, open source would have eventually changed all that anyway. M$FT got there first but, in the end, software would become commoditized with or without Bill.

M$FT also was very aggressive on their competition to the point where there really is no place in the horizontal tool space for new vendors without deep pockets or backing from an already established player.

Would this have happened anyway? Probably so. M$FT did it in a way that was very high profile but other companies stifle this kind of innovation that comes from competition too.

Microsoft made Intel boxes cheap

[metoc]

Microsoft has made PC hardware a commodity, and thus cheap for Open Source Software. IBM (360's, etc), Apple, HP (PA RISC), Sun have always had relativitly expensive proprietary hardware. Sure it would have happen eventally, but with copyrights & patents, IBM would probably might still be selling PC-DOS. Or doesn't anyone remember all the legal challenges over BIOS that someone had to fight.

Of course now that we have cheap hardware and open source we don't need Microsoft. For that matter we don't need Edison (mostly for popularising light bulbs, phonographs, etc.), Ford (didn't invest mass production, but popularized it) or Sony (didn't invent the transistor, but made handheld AM/FM radios and the Walkman) either.

Re:Microsoft made Intel boxes cheap

[argent]

Microsoft has made PC hardware a commodity...

That so?

Let's see. Set the wayback machine to 1981 before the IBM PC, and let's see what kind of hardware you could get.

* More commodity S-100 and similar CP/M systems than you could shake a stick at.

And the proprietary hardware targeting the home market was generally no expensive than the commodity hardware, and the IBM-PC was near the top of the range.

* Apple ][+, and the first Apple clones (anyone remember the Soviet Apple built from discrete components?)

* TRS-80, CoCo, various models

* Vic-20

* TI 99/4a

* Heathkit CP/M and PDP-11 based boxes

* Compucolor II

That's ignoring "high end" systems like multiprocessor multiuser CP/M boxes, the Osborne-1 and the Xerox Star Office System (the spiritual precursor to the Macintosh).

In 1982 I went to the National Computer Conference, and the number of Z8000, 68000, and 16000 based boxes not a whole lot more expensive a similarly equipped IBM PC was incredible, and most of them ran commodity operating systems like CP/M using commodity busses. Faster, more open, and they were all working on UNIX ports. One of the cheapest models that came out that year was the TRS-80 model 16 which by the mid-80s had more people running UNIX (Xenix) than all other platforms put together.

Yes, initially the IBM-PC was proprietary. Would that it had remained so, but no... IBM made the PC a commodity by their laissez-faire attitude towards clones in the early years, and that was a significant factor in its success: commodity hardware was the order of the day. Proprietary systems had to be cheaper to sell, and most of them were still very open.

For example, the Apple /// came out a little before the IBM-PC and was priced competitively with the contemporary office systems, and it flopped. Nobody wanted it... with only one source for the hardware and nothing particularly compelling about its capabilities there wasn't any market.

When Apple followed it up by releasing the LISA and Macintosh as a closed system it was a surprise for many of us when they managed to turn things around. Enough of their early ads pushed the line "Don't worry about all the technical stuff, this is like a toaster, it just works, it does everything you need..." that it sold well despite the fact that you needed a special tool to open it and once you had you couldn't do anything with it anyway.

The whole Microsoft made the commodity market myth has been told so often that it's accepted as the truth.

But it's still a myth.

Re:GCC non-standard? puh-leeeez...

[man_of_mr_e]

MS's Visual C++ is far more permissive than gcc when it comes to "standards". For example, vc uses the ancient c++ scoping rules (circa 1995-ish)

Uh, no. MS's compiler for the last two versions has had a switch to turn off that behavior. Yes, it's on by default because there's a lot of legacy code, but you can turn it off.

What's worse is that you *have* to follow their archaic scoping rules

Again, no. Just use the switch: /Zc:forScope

The problem is that the c++ standard states that enums place their contents in the scope level immediately above their own, *not* in a separate scope

This one is controlled by the /Za switch that turns off MS extensions. There is a difference between supporting an extension (which many compilers, including GCC do) and non-compliant behavior.

Re:Standards - you idiot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Buildings fall down in countries like Egypt almost every day, leading to the death of hundreds.

Buildings not built "to code" in this country catch fire every day, causing the death of thousands.

The Civil War (which my grandma always called the War between the States) started because South Carolina attacked Fort Sumpter. Nothing (NOTHING) had been done to the South at that point but the generation of a lot of hot air! But because Lincoln was elected, and folks down south had heard and believed a ton of lies about Lincoln, they thought they had no recourse but to attack. Oh, and because they were totally immoral slave keepers, who worried that they might be held to account!

Speaking of lies, you will hear a lot of them this election season. Any Republican who isn't already rich is a sucker who has already fallen for the big lie! The Rs are making better use of the big lie than anyone since Goebbels. So watch out what conclusions you jump to.

Off topic, but I hate it when I see people falling for well tuned fabrications!

One More Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who has done more good for the world: Bill Gates or Mother Teresa?

I'm not a huge Microsoft fan, but the answer to me is obvious...and it's not Mother Teresa.

Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

easy to use until Windows 95

1. PNP was not working in the age of win95; it took years and the PCI standard to achieve that promise. I've always preferred a jumpered card to plug-n-pray ISA thingy.
   
2. Making a game run under DOS might have been tricky (EMS, XMS, base-memory; see Origin Ultima series; configure soundcard; maybe some trouble with dos4gw extenders) but modern computing isn't better: booting safe-mode or another OS to e.g. remove a number of mp3 codec files (from one of your mediaplayer codec packs; breaking sound in your latest game) or checking "RunServices" and such for that autostarting dialer your easy-to-use box caught.
   
3. finally win98 and USB support: the f*cking setup commercial claimed this would be working (like a charm). Beats me, why I need(ed) to install additional drivers to access any kind of USB drive.

Re:AOL site

[Anonymous Coward]

It was rhetorical. I already knew the answer.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as eas

[DR SoB]

Dude, I can't believe your promoting a BBS? That's so 1992...

A world without Windows would be very dark...

Re:Before microsoft... (long, old fart reminiscing

[Mistah Blue]

I have to disagree with this particular fragment: cheap Xenix boxes from Radio Shack... so you wouldn't have to scramble for a real operating system

I cut my teeth (for Unix) on SCO Xenix 86 and later 286. They were real multi-user OS's. This was back in 1986. Any shortcomings were more processor related than Xenix. I agree with the rest of the article though.

Re:Standards - food for thought

[AlienRelics]

> Is Microsoft perhaps the stick?

Sounds like an apologist. Would you advise someone beaten by a parent that they were a better person for it, so it was OK?

"I am the wellspring from which you flow, for without me who would you be? When I am gone, it will be as if you had never been."

Isn't it time for Conan to chop off Microsoft's head?

What's karma?

Re:Before microsoft... (long, old fart reminiscing

[argent]

You know something, I don't think you're disagreeing with me.

If Microsoft had stuck to their original plans of having Xenix at the high end and an increasingly Xenix-influenced MS-DOS at the low end, then by the early '90s we'd be able to buy cheap Xenix boxes from Radio Shack... so [we] wouldn't have to scramble for a real operating system. that is to say, instead of having to go and use Minix and later Linus' kernel to bootstrap a real operating system, the people who wanted home UNIX systems would have been able to afford cheap boxes from Radio Shack running a real operating system called Xenix.

Re:Before microsoft... (long, old fart reminiscing

[Mistah Blue]

Ahhh... then we are definite agreement, not disagreement. It is a shame that didn't play out.

good point about hardware but

[goon]

Since IBM used Microsoft to provide the operating system, clone vendors also needed to use Microsoft, if they were going to claim complete IBM compatibility. They could manufacture compatible hardware, but the operating system was proprietary.

so the hardware became commodity (thank heavens) but the software (the important bit) didn't. allowing MS to capture that market. but at successive points MS has *retained* it's market share and improved it. IBM had the chance to dictate to the market (remember that IBM was the bully in those days, MS wasn't on the radar) but lost out (because PC's where seen as toys in the KLOC world of IBM. IBM might have allowed an open hardware architecture to copied but thats all it did. It lost the plot with OS2 (has to run on mainframes and PC's) and has been relegated to history status, wrt the PC.

it was open standards that allowed Microsoft to get where they are today.

Yes and no. What happened to the MS software competitors along the way? MS through accident, bullying and perserverence killed of it's competitors. Gone from the commercial PC's are DrDOS, GEM, OS2, AmigaOS, insert your irrelevent software operating system (for mainstream business. a certain percentage of users will always use obscure OS's).

But MS is in trouble. There's a new creature in town. Stable, able to be used from embedded markets to mainframes. It doesn't eat much and make users happy. Long live Linux, *BSD and the open operating systems that follow.

Re:Standards - food for thought

[Aumaden]

Hardly, but if M$ wasn't there as the "arch villian" would Linux be exactly where it is today?

Look at the petty squabbles that break out in the development community. BSD vs Linux. XFree86.org vs X.org. Gnome vs KDE. We either put aside or quietly tolerate a lot of this nonsense to work together against Microsoft. A sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as it were.

I do not condone Microsoft's strong arm tactics, but neither can I say that we would be in the same or better place if Microsoft never was. I'd really like to believe we would, but experience tells me otherwise.

Look at LRP. It was an excellent idea. But there are so many "acceptable" alternatives there was no demand for it and no real support. Now, if M$ (or Cisco) had completely dominated the router market (no Linksys, NetGear, DLink, Belkin, etc) this project would have probably flourished simply because it was a better alternative. With no "arch villian" in the router market, it was just another alternative. Not a better one, just a different one.

Maybe Linux flourishes, in part, just because it's "not Microsoft". Would it get that attention if there wasn't a M$ to hate?

Re:Standards - food for thought

[AlienRelics]

I feel you are missing the point. If MS had not driven so many companies out of existence by predatory practices and market placement, perhaps something else would have risen by technical merit.

Commodore were marketing idiots, but the Amiga OS was a brilliant piece of work, good enough that Amiga from A1000 to A4000 were used by JPL for years when launching rockets. An Amiga 1000 was tested with the killer business app of the time, a spreadsheet, and compared against the then-current IBM PC with MSDOS and blew it out of the water. The Amiga 3000 was listed as Best Buy of the year it came out by Consumer Reports (in spite of the existence of MS Windows). OS/2 (where does that / go?) was a brilliant piece of work, better than MS W3.1 and argueably better than MS W95. PC DOS and DR DOS were argueably better than MS DOS.

When MS Windows 95 came out, it was obvious to me that it was spurred by the Amiga OS. You can't tell me that MS didn't know about the Amiga, as they wrote Amiga Basic (and screwed it up), Microsoft Press published a gusher of a book about the Amiga 1000, Microsoft used Amiga Video Toasters to produce in-house videos, and when Commodore went bankrupt, most of the Amiga developers I knew were quickly recruited by Microsoft to become Windows developers.

You can't just compare MS Windows with what is left on the market now. The subject is "What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft", not "What Will The World Be Like Without Microsoft".

There is a good chance that IBM clones would have never happened, as it was uncharacteristic of IBM to allow that loophole that allowed Microsoft to sell MS DOS to anyone else. And those Beemer Clones was what allowed the explosion of Wintel clones later. While Linux may or may not exist, development of Macs and Amigas were -not- caused by the existence of Microsoft. I hardly see how Microsoft could be the stick when even by their own words they do not innovate.

Have you read "A Harvest of Stars"?

[vrmlguy]

It's a sci-fi novel by Poul Anderson, an extrapolation of Robert Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon". When I read it, I couldn't help making the following correspondences:
Anson Guthrie == Bill Gates
Fireball == Microsoft
BTW, Heinlein's middle name was Anson.

Compaq?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was Phonenix Technologies?

Tripple sourcing

[mabhatter654]

A better requirement would be to require any software modules that generate data to have at least 3 independant sources capable of reading that data type properly. That's how very many other govt contracts are meeted out...even if the govt has to pay patent license so the second company can make the parts. Much DOD research work is specifically seperated into design and manufacture steps for just that purpose to prevent the govt being "held hostage" to increasing prices. MS Software and a few other lucrative markets are the only ones that don't play by "normal" government procurment rules.

Doom ushered in the drive for performance

[Sean Clifford]

Contraire. Doom ushered in the FPS and its descendants really pushed the video card market. The 3D market arose from the demands of gaming; aside from that you really don't need more than 8MB of video for office apps to get 24 bit colour at 1600x1200.

But you're right - until the mid-90's business pushed the PC market, then gaming took over. True, business bought the most machines, but gaming defined the parameters of performance.

Re:Doom ushered in the drive for performance

[drsmithy]

Contraire. Doom ushered in the FPS and its descendants really pushed the video card market.

Not really. Doom didn't use video acceleration. Its first descendant to do so was Quake 2 - released, IIRC, in late '97. Before then video card performance wasn't especially critical (relatively speaking). A fast(er) CPU will give you vastly more benefit in Doom, Doom 2, Quake and other games of that era than a fast(er) video card will.

OEMs decide what the public buys

[SgtChaireBourne]

The average user just wants it to work, when they plug in a device, they just want it to work. They just want to install a program, not compile it. Yes, that's related to my main point which I will re-iterate.

The system which is pre-installed at time of purchase determines what system will be used for the life of the hardware in most cases. Thus you have a situations where OEMs, by preloading an OS, decide what the public buy and use.

Talk of compiling applications makes it sound like it's been more than 5 years since you've installed or even used any of the major Linux distros (except Gentoo) or have been run them on a very unusual or uncommon architecture. Both Gnome and KDE are as easy to use or easier (definitely more flexible) than the various MS-Windows incarnations, even when measured using MS-Windows users. Yes, OS X has them all beat.

Furthermore, installing Linux based software is very easy for the major distros, especially if you run using most common architecture, Intel. There are graphic interfaces to manage any dependencies, it's just click and run. Look for that to improve further this year as good parts from Yast, RPM and APT are extended. But that's for mainstream packages, you're always going to be able to pull some weird package off the net which will give you a hard time regardless of your OS.

If OEMs like Compaq/HP, Dell, IBM, Apple, and others provided pre-installed Linux, there would be even more software. Most people want a computer + OS + applications to work off the shelf, thus you need OEMs to install and configure things. Most users don't want to worry about maintenance, security or viruses, thus the need for Linux, BSD, or OS X.

Screaming and kicking

[SgtChaireBourne]

But the dent in the gaming market may not be so big, there will be time to port applications to more profitable plaftorms. Or, as may be the case of EQ on the PS2, improve the existing port to the point where it becomes attractive. It also sounds like third party hardware like keyboards and joysticks could be an advantage.

For the home user, perhaps there is a point to having a general purpose computer with games, but I can't see lack of games being an issue at work. Likewise, I can see that specialized game units (like the Game Cube or Playstation) might be easier to develop for.

A big marketing behemoth like Microsoft won't (isn't) going down quietly, it's going to scream and kick and produce copious amounts of FUD and legal shenanigans. The more its bottom line hurts the more noise it will make. So there will be plenty of warning so developers have time to prepare exit strategies from the Wintel duopoly.

OT: Open Source Real Estate

[benjamindees]

Realtors don't *set* the market rate, but they can influence it. One way they influence it is by requiring 'covenants' and effecting zoning restrictions. They can put a clause in your contract that effectively restricts all future owners and raises the price of your land forever. The types of restrictions can get really absurd, down to the color of your house and how many bedrooms it has to have. Of course, their buddies in the construction business don't mind a bit :)

On a macro scale, the net result is that land prices are kept artificially high and there is a constant demand for forced construction to keep up with these restrictions.

I wonder whether an open source license type could be used instead, effectively "freeing" the land from future restrictions such as these? It works for intellectual property; can it work for *real* property?

two part question

[frovingslosh]

What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?

Construct an experimant to prove you theory.

What if Gary Kildall was Bill Gates?

[1iar_parad0x]

The computer would have eventually sold itself. Someone would have come around and improved|invented|mass produced the GUI [yes, I know about PARC). Some other "Henry Ford" in his garage would have streamlined the computer industry.

A better question is what would the world look like if Gary Kildall was Bill Gates? Would we be any better off? Is money an all-encompassing evil (a LOTR reference?)? Would billions of dollars taint anybody?

Computer proliferation

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think that computers would be twice as fast, 5 times as big and so expensive that only the 10 wealthiest kings of Europe could afford them.

Really kemosabee?

[jotaeleemeese]

Honestly, the logic sense of some people is non existent.

Of course it can happen, but ut is less likely to happen, which is the frigging point of having a code in the first frigging place.

Frigging. What a nice word.

rerun!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate him if you want, but there's no denying that Bill Gates made PCs mainstream and accessible...

hmm...

...even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.