Windows Vista Delayed Again

Trenty writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft has delayed Windows Vista yet again. Jim Allchin told analysts that the OS would not ship in January of 2007, which is a 1-2 month delay. Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year."

Comments

Pre Sale

[ackthpt]

Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year.

Not really all that odd. I believe it's called a pre-sale. People do this on eBay all the time, selling items they don't yet have, but will send along when they get them.

In the software world, we've had a vendor offer us a new product, which we may actually like, at a 75% discount if we sign up by September. The product isn't entirely finished yet and it would likely be two years before migration, but the pricebreak is clearly meant to ensure they have some income. I have no idea what their books look like, but suspect this move is the result of a dire need of revenue, so it makes us go "hmmmm..."

Where do you suppose Microsoft would like to enter the income for these early sales? Revenue recorded early is revenue you can't record later. I rather doubt they are turning over a Special Bug-ridden Business User Version early. They'd be flayed in the Information Trade press. (Then again, it's probably happened a few times already, which could explain how little attention CIO's pay to these magazines, they just scatter them on their desks to look Connected and Managerial.)

Re:Pre Sale

[drsmithy]

Not really all that odd. I believe it's called a pre-sale. People do this on eBay all the time, selling items they don't yet have, but will send along when they get them.

The reason it's not odd is because the "security tweaks" are almost certainly going to be changes in the default configurations of things like user permissions, firewalling, workarounds for specific pieces of software, etc. Businesses are (or should be, at any rate) going to change these default settings to suit their own policies and environments.

Re:Pre Sale

[Teddeh]

"Don't expect that much innovation from a company which gives its OS a name for each minor point release."

When did Apple come into this? :p

Gee, go figure

[ericdano]

Like anyone didn't expect this. Are they too busy with Organimi or whatever? Xbox 360? Their URGE music store?

Has Microsoft EVER released anything that was ON TIME?

Re:Gee, go figure

[chadamir]

Maybe they should release it now with even more bugs and security problems so you will have more stories to troll.

Re:Gee, go figure

[ackthpt]

Like anyone didn't expect this. Are they too busy with Organimi or whatever? Xbox 360? Their URGE music store?

Well, these are typically different divisions and Microsoft is rather a large corporation.

Has Microsoft EVER released anything that was ON TIME?

Probably, but usually to everyone's mutual regret. I think the right time is when it's ready and not a moment sooner.

Did you hear about the Wembley Stadium roof collapse yesterday? Would they rather have that thing completed on time, filled with 100,000 people and then have the roof drop 1 metre?

Massive failure on Microsoft's part is taking a toll and they really have a lot at stake this time, after promising XP would be bug free and the best security ever, just before 1.04e7 bugs and security holes were revealed and exploited. Make Wembley look like a tempest in a teapot.

Re:Gee, go figure

[ischorr]

I find it interesting that within the past few years, any time release delays occur, it's typically blamed on "increased security". This is a great strategy, as no one wants a product to be released with reduced security. It isn't the software vendor's horrible development process or management to blame for the slippage - the vendor is instead sacrificing their bottom line to release a product that is less likely to leak your credit card details! What valor!

I call hijinks. They probably need more time for the focus groups to review whether window borders should be more translucent or transparent. Security's just a hard reason for anyone to argue with.

Less and less relevant?

[RunFatBoy.net]

Is it me, or is Vista just becoming less and less relevant?

And the thing is, I use to be an MS fanboy but with the rapidly changing environment of security issues and such, who can wait _years_ before considering other alternatives?

-- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/

Re:Less and less relevant?

[Scoria]

Is it me, or is Vista just becoming less and less relevant?

Look at it this way. Although some may not consider Vista relevant now, they will several years after it has launched. Like Windows XP and Windows 2000 before it, Vista will be preinstalled on all new computers, and vendors will slowly deprecate their support for older Microsoft operating systems.

As long as the executives at Microsoft are capable of maintaining their OEM agreements with the popular brand name manufacturers, Windows will always be relevant.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[bloggins02]

I think Microsoft is making a fundamental mistake here: they are sticking to the same release strategies and timelines they used when software was released on stacks of floppy disks ("please insert disk 37", ahhh, the memories).

Meanwhile, we have the "release early, release often" philosophy of the Free Software Movement as well as the "release often enough to keep things interesting" tactic from Apple. These two tactics make more sense in this new era of software construction, testing, and distribution.

Users have grown accustomed to more frequent releases by software groups and companies they respect. These releases also satisfy an obvious, common human desire: instant gratification. As more and more users grow used to and satisfied with these accelerated release timetables, these multi-year release schedules used by Microsoft (and Adobe, while we're at it) look more and more comical.

Recently, Gates admitted the faux pas of allowing Internet Explorer to stagnate. I believe they have similarly misstepped with Windows. By the time Vista not only comes to market, but comes to be used by the majority of PC users (and don't kid yourself, you know that will happen), it will be very difficult to catch up to the psychological success of the multiple releases of Linux and Mac OS X.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[Slack3r78]

They don't have to release yearly for it to be more effective. But going *over* 5 years between major releases of a desktop operating system takes it to the opposite extreme. As it stands, Windows XP was released 4.5 years ago. In comparison, people constantly complained about Debian Woody being ancient, but the lapse between Woody and Sarge was almost exactly 3 years.

Microsoft's biggest problem is that they're coming to realize that their operating system just plain was not designed with some of today's realities in mind. As a result, they end up undertaking massive reengineering projects instead of solid incremental updates.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[aaronl]

Perhaps you just haven't been around long enough to have seen MS in action, but we've heard that before. Actually, before MS released the first version of NT. It was called "Cairo" and MS has had fifteen years to finish it, and they've failed. They borrowed things and hacked things together, but in fifteen years, they still haven't managed to do what others had done.

Copy and paste from Wikipedia:
        * DCE RPC
        * An object-oriented User Interface
        * X.500 Directory
        * X.400 Messaging
        * Content Indexing
        * Object-based file system (see WinFS)

Those are what Cairo was supposed to be, as announed in 1991. It was even demoed in 1993, but not in an even slightly usable form. They managed to accomplish the directory by taking LDAP and writing a custom schema and tools. Messaging was accomplished by their email system (Exchange), which used previously established standards. They do half-assed indexing. There has been over 10 years of security problems with their RPC implementation, and it's still not fixed. They have nothing resembling the object FS, and cancelled the attempt, as we all know.

NT3.x brought the DCE RPC, NT4 brough the UI and messaging. Win2000 brought the directory, and eventually the indexing. XP/2003 brought nothing more than revisions to those existing components, and Vista is no different. The things that *mattered* have been cut from the platform.

Do you really believe that Vista, something that realistically amounts to security fixes, a new and more annoying UI, and a few toolkits that exist elsewhere, is a bigger release than W2K? I hope not, because that's asinine. I can confidently say that AD was far more important than *ANYTHING* new in Vista. XAML/WPF is another MS copy of existing technology, and one that doesn't even really exist yet. Even if it doesn't suck, it would certainly be many years before it mattered. People like being able to use their computers without requiring internet access, and the entire concept would not allow that.

Anyway, you need to think through things more, and look at past performance. You can't trust anything that MS says until you see it yourself. Every "revolutionary" technology that was so heavily pushed by MS propoganda has been dropped eventually. The current ones are DirectX and .NET. Just in their wakes are large version incompatibilities, and lack of support. When you get into something like .NET or MFC, etc, you see that MS barely uses it, and eventually drops it for their newest shiny toy that will sell more copies of new version of all their products.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[MickDownUnder]

Microsoft is currently developing Microsoft Office on .NET. Vista's whole UI runs off Direct-X....

Vista is real.... there are beta's of it. Since the release of .NET I think everything you could once say about Microsoft technically had to be thrown out the window. Microsoft has delivered on .NET, they have dilivered on SQL Server, Microsoft Expression, development tools specifically for XAML and Vista have already been released. I think you're in denial here.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[drsmithy]

Do you really believe that Vista, something that realistically amounts to security fixes, a new and more annoying UI, and a few toolkits that exist elsewhere, [...]

If you really think that, then you need to do some more research. *Real* research, as well, not reading press releases. Vista has had a *lot* of work done under the hood.

Anyway, you need to think through things more, and look at past performance. You can't trust anything that MS says until you see it yourself. Every "revolutionary" technology that was so heavily pushed by MS propoganda has been dropped eventually.

Uh, is there any vendor this *doesn't* apply to ?

Re:Less and less relevant?

[drsmithy]

Well, patch Solitaire in Windows, you have to reboot (okay, slight exaggeration), leading to downtime ranging from minutes to hours (in the case of extremely large databases)

If rebooting a machine causes you problematic service downtime, your environment has fundamental problems that need to be addressed.

Patch anything but the kernel(and modules) in Linux? Just keep chugging along, perhaps restarting a single process or two, and a fairly transparent experience from the user perspective.

The difference between restarting some network service that everyone uses, and restarting an entire machine, is usually a matter of semantics.

Also note: downtime due to patches, maintenance, etc., is not counted as "downtime" as defined by Microsoft - just the rest of the world. So when you read downtime/uptime comparisons from Microsoft, ignore them. They redefine the terms.

The Real World is interested in *service* uptimes, not *server* uptimes. Scheduled maintenance, patching, etc of servers - assuming your environment is properly designed - should not have any impact on *service* availability.

Comparing individual server uptimes is the geek equivalent of comparing business card designs.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[aaronl]

Yes, MS has parts of Office on .NET, and one version of their new UI uses DirectX. That's one product, and a UI that is under heavy criticism. Hell, even the new version of Office has a whole lot of people very upset, although not for their .NET use. They certainly didn't port the whole of Office to the .NET CLR, if that is what you're implying.

Obviously, Vista is real; I've seen betas of it, too. SQL Server is *finally* getting to a point where it is at least comparable to things like DB2. I suppose you could say that's delivering on it. You can't say that they delivered on .NET, either. It's being picked up by random devs, and some places are using it for larger apps. It's still MS specific, and has a lot of problems. Expression hasn't gone anywhere, yet, and the dev tools don't matter without the platform. MS has done these things before, and then dismanteled them. What's your point -- that maybe they won't screw up again, this time?

How can you honestly make this statements as if they were truth without anything to show for it? Expression is meaningless right now, and is practically of toy status. XAML lacks a platform for deployment, Vista isn't on the market. Server-side things are steadily moving off of Windows. Hell, one of the biggest reasons that new Windows servers come into existence is because someone decided to play with all the MS toys, and only has a MS centered solution.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[dsci]

The problem with your comparison is that Windows is a mature product, whereas OS X is not.

That's got to be about the stupidest thing I've seen on /. in a long time, and I REALLY try to refrain from saying stuff like that.

By what standard is Windows a mature product compared to any other OS? They release updates and fixes every MONTH and there are like 15-umpty "versions" of Windows in the wild right now. The MSKB is FULL of "bug reports" and stupid workarounds for things that SHOULD have been fixed long ago.

By any rational measure, OS X is every bit as 'mature' as Windows; just ask the millions of people who use it everyday in demanding production environments (I'm not one of them).

Comparing commercial release schedules to OSS is largely nonsensical, because the latter has none of the pressures and/or responsibilities of the former.

Since when is OS X an OSS project? And even if you can somehow claim it is, Apple is a fairly large commercial enterprise with all those pressures and responsibilities you mention.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[drsmithy]

I didn't say that Vista hasn't had a lot of internal changes, just that they don't matter in that way. They don't enable new applications or technologies; they fix shortcoming in the previous implementation.

So... Just like very other update to a mature platform, then ?

I'm not as much talking about vendors as technologies. MS comes up with their own versions of things, pushes everyone to use them, and then they drop it from something shinier.

So... They're just like everyone else ?

The non-MS part of the world has been using things called "standards", and they have been doing so far longer than Windows has existed, let alone been used.

Really ? What's the standard API for a "unix" GUI application ? How about using audio devices ? Which API should I use to make sure my hardware driver compiles on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and OS X without modifications or special cases ?

We have POSIX as an API standard, and that's been around for a long time.

And is basically useless (not to mention largely ignored) for anything except trivial command line applications.

Heck, it's not at all uncommon to find trivial open source "unix" applications that only work on x86 Linux machines with particular versions of glibc.

Most "cross platform" unix source code doesn't compile on a wide range of platforms because of "standards", it does so because of the amount of work done by things like autoconf and make.

Jeez. One of the biggest hurdles to wider commercial adoption of Linux is the sheer volume of different APIs (many of which all do essentially the same thing), and you're here trying to say there's no such problem at all ?

MS has had no less than six APIs that I can think of, just off the top of my head.

And "unix" has dozens (if not hundreds). Your point ?

They tried to have their own networking protocols, their own email formats, APIs, and on and on.

So... Just like every other commercial vendor ?

They have all been problematic, and largely dropped for the standards that were already there. In that regard, yes, I can think of "vendors" that it doesn't apply to.

Such as ? Certainly not Apple, Novell or IBM. Maybe Sun, but the intersection of markets between Solaris and Windows is vanishingly small.

You act like Microsoft come up with something, then run away from it the first chance they get just to screw everyone over. Yet things like Win32, MFC and DirectX have been around for over a decade, and will *still* be in legacy support 5 years down the track, if not longer. Heck, Vista will still support Win16 on 32-bit x86, an API that's around twenty years old.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[Godji]

So... Just like very other update to a mature platform, then ?

You probably meant "broken", not "mature". The proportion of problems that get fixed to the problems that don't is still too small to call it a "reliable" pplatform anyway. You won't believe how amny times some of my less computer-knowledgable friends or clients are afraid to apply a Windows Update patch because they (rightfully) fear that it will break more things than it might fix. (You could believe, if you stopped blindly ignoring every argument against your favorite defective OS.) To such worries I answer by teliing them it's better to upgrade anyway, and rather often, they prove me wrong.

Really ? What's the standard API for a "unix" GUI application ? How about using audio devices ? Which API should I use to make sure my hardware driver compiles on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and OS X without modifications or special cases ?

You can choose any of QT, GTK+, WXWidgets, Motif, and more. All of them will work, so pick whichever one you like best for whatever reason. For audio, you could use either ALSA or OpenAL for precise control, or Xine or GStreamer if you need multimedia features. Again, all will work. For drivers, I do not have enough knowledge to tell you (not that you want to hear me), but there's a good chance the situation is similar there too.

And is basically useless (not to mention largely ignored) for anything except trivial command line applications. Heck, it's not at all uncommon to find trivial open source "unix" applications that only work on x86 Linux machines with particular versions of glibc. Most "cross platform" unix source code doesn't compile on a wide range of platforms because of "standards", it does so because of the amount of work done by things like autoconf and make.

It's better to have a low-leve API that does little but does it so well that it won't need to be obsoleted by a fix 2 years from now. That way, one can (and has, more than once) build a reliable API on top of it for more complex operations. That's why the above-mentioned GUI and audio APIs are so stable as well. Autoconf and make are an automated system to adjust a generic package to the specifics of a system that is potentially different from the one next to it. These differences are not an inherent flaw. They stem from something called "choice", which I'm afraid you may not be able to grasp.

Jeez. One of the biggest hurdles to wider commercial adoption of Linux is the sheer volume of different APIs (many of which all do essentially the same thing), and you're here trying to say there's no such problem at all ?

This is not because having alternative APIs, which all work together, is bad. It's because most IT businesses think in Windows-terms - vendor lock-in and no choice whatsoever. "Unix" systems, as you call them, are not a replacement for Widnows, but an alternative, and consequently do certain things differently. Try this page for a better explanation.

Windows APIs replace and eventually obsolete each other. Linux (and Unix) APIs coexist. You can keep using the old one despite the others that coexist on that system. The guy next door might like the other one better, and use that despite the one you use is right there. You know, choice.

So... Just like every other commercial vendor ?

Microsoft has a long history of perturbing open standardts into proprietary ones to achoeve vednor lock-in. Some other vednors doing the same practise does not excuse Microsoft.

Heck, Vista will still support Win16 on 32-bit x86, an API that's around twenty years old.

Have you ever considered that this could be a problem? Sometimes in order to evolve, something has to change and drop support for obsolete technology. (There goes one more argument for having alternative APIs: if one does evolve and break some very old version of itself, it won't break too much.

Re:Less and less relevant?

[drsmithy]

You won't believe how amny times some of my less computer-knowledgable friends or clients are afraid to apply a Windows Update patch because they (rightfully) fear that it will break more things than it might fix.

With you "advising" them, I certainly could believe. The fact is, however, Windows patches break things quite rarely. Much less frequently, in my experience, than updates to the average Linux distribution.

(You could believe, if you stopped blindly ignoring every argument against your favorite defective OS.)

I have no "favourite OS". And if you want me to stop poking holes in your arguments, come up with some better ones that involve more facts and less FUD.

You can choose any of QT, GTK+, WXWidgets, Motif, and more. All of them will work, so pick whichever one you like best for whatever reason. For audio, you could use either ALSA or OpenAL for precise control, or Xine or GStreamer if you need multimedia features. Again, all will work. For drivers, I do not have enough knowledge to tell you (not that you want to hear me), but there's a good chance the situation is similar there too.

Thank you for demonstrating why your previous relative criticism about the quantity of APIs for Windows is groundless.

It's better to have a low-leve API that does little but does it so well that it won't need to be obsoleted by a fix 2 years from now.

Which Windows APIs are you thinking of that have been unexpectedly obseleted 2 years after introduction ?

That's why the above-mentioned GUI and audio APIs are so stable as well.

Stable, you say ? How old of a version of QT will support the current release of KDE ? What's the oldest version of KDE you can run with today's QT ?

The Windows APIs are extremely stable. Windows apps written to them 10+ years ago work in todays Windows 2003 systems.

Autoconf and make are an automated system to adjust a generic package to the specifics of a system that is potentially different from the one next to it.

Note that with a "standard" and "stable" "unix API", this should not be necessary.

These differences are not an inherent flaw. They stem from something called "choice", which I'm afraid you may not be able to grasp.

Funny how last post you were criticising Windows for the choice is was offering in "no less than six APIs that I can think of, just off the top of my head".

This is not because having alternative APIs, which all work together, is bad.

No, it's because having dozens of APIs that all do basically the same thing is bad (well, wasteful at the very least).

It's because most IT businesses think in Windows-terms - vendor lock-in and no choice whatsoever.

Most IT business think in terms of economics. And having to support multiple implementations of the same functionality (be it from the developer or end user perspective) costs a lot of money with few reciprical benefits.

You (along with a large proportion of the Linux community, so don't feel too badly about it) seem to be missing one of the main reasons why so little commercial software is produced for Linux - it's because there aren't any standards (or because there are too many, depending on your perspective) and because the APIs tend to be relatively unstable (as they are developed under the assumption that software using them will be open source and thus can just be recompiled when things change).

Lets say Adobe wanted to port Photoshop to Linux. Which package management scheme should they use ? Which distro should they target ? Which GUI should they write for ? Which version ?

With Windows, these questions are easy to answer. Hell, most of them are barely even worth asking, because there's only one answer/

"Unix" systems, as you call them, are not a replacement for Widnows, but an alternative, and consequently do certain things differently. Try this page for a better explanation.

Better

[CriminalNerd]

An OS with less holes is better than an OS with more holes. Let us wait patiently...

There's nothing odd about this....

[MickDownUnder]

Oddly, even though they are citing the need for more time to tweak security, business editions will available to volume licensing customers before the close of the year

When a product is ready to be shipped Microsoft releases it immediately through MSDN subscriptions. It's products are always available for download to registered customers a month or more before it ends up on the shelves. Round that time of year I doubt they would be wanting to go to the expense of pushing it to the stores round Christmas.... I mean it's not like anyone out there is going to buy a copy of Vista to fill a christmas stocking.

This doesn't surprise me at all. A staged release of a system like Vista is only sensible. I'd want to know about every little possible glitch or issue on installation of the system before, mum, dad, grandma and grandpa start installing the thing.

Explanation: Testing Is Exponentially Complex

[Anonymous Coward]

The better explanation for the delay is that the amount of time required for testing either a new integrated circuit or a new computer program is exponentially proportional to the number of bits in the circuit or the computer program. So, for example, if a circuit had 8 bits, then testing it requires time that is O(exp(8)).

More to the point, if a computer program is B bits in length, then testing it requires time that is O(exp(B)). If the new version of the computer program doubles the length of the original version, then the required testing time is O(exp(2 B)). In other words, the testing time for the new version is exp(B) times the testing time for the original version.

Microsoft management probably put a gun to the heads of the grunts doing the programming and the testing. The management then realized that even if they theatened to kill the grunts, the grunts cannot defy the laws of finite mathematics, automata theory, and testability to finish the product by July 2006. Hence, the product has been delayed until 2007.

In 1990 (?), Intel management actually pulled the trigger on that gun. The consequence was the infamous floating-point-division defect in the Pentium.

By the way, I speak from experience -- as a grunt.

When is XP not good enough?

[poopie]

The only way I can see Microsoft being able to have Vista succeed faster than just by licenses bundled with new hardware is to cut off patches and support and upgrades from Windows XP.

After working *so* hard to get corporations to upgrade from Windows 95,98, and Windows NT to Windows XP... It's going to be a hard sell to explain that Windows XP is no longer good enough and that corporations need to not only upgrade their OS, but also need to upgrade their *HARDWARE* to take advantage of Windows Vista.

Regardless of how you define "thin client", a desktop running Windows XP fits that bill quite nicely. IE6 is good, Firefox is available, everything is going browser based. Even *if* Microsoft tried to withhold a future version of Internet Explorer from Windows XP users, there will be Firefox and Opera. If microsoft tries to require non-portable components on the client side of their web components, they're going to cut off mobile users, OSX users, Linux, etc.

How exactly can Microsoft make Vista a compelling upgrade other than releasing new game titles that will not run on Windows XP?

Certainly, they cannot cut off security updates on Windows XP at least for the next decade or so.

Surprise... Surprise... Surprise...

[__aaclcg7560]

What's being pulled out that won't be shipping? If they pull out the kitchen sink, all they got is an overworked copy of Windows XP.

Re:It's the DRM

[paugq]

No DRM in the business edition? Then everybody and his brother will install Windows Vista Corporate with a Volume License Key which requires no activation, just like people did with Windows XP.

Not so odd

[steveha]

The business volume customers aren't going to roll out Vista company-wide the same day they get it. They will start installing it on their test computers, evaluating it, seeing how it runs their in-house applications, etc. Plus, they should already have a good system in place for getting patches from Microsoft; it won't bother them much if there are lots of patches for a while.

The corporate guys will serve as an extension to the beta testing. If corporate test installs find anything, Microsoft can fix it and roll the fix into Vista before the final release.

Even if Microsoft had not slipped the final date, the corporate customers would still spend several months before rolling it out. They will probably be happy to get Vista earlier rather than later, so they can start the evaluation process.

The last customers who should get the OS are the home users, who want something that will Just Work right out of the box.

steveha

Re:Comparisons are looking worse...

[ZachPruckowski]

Leopard will come out "right around the time Vista does". We may see a preview of it at WWDC in August, but it may well not launch until anytime between November and January. But you're right. There are a lot of MS competitors who are upgrading in 2006. Firefox 2.0 will be out long before IE7 at this rate, and KDE, and Ubuntu will also get bumps. Exicting year in computing, for everyone but Windows fans.

Re:Comparisons are looking worse...

[drinkypoo]

In the meantime Apple has been managing a much faster release cycle and doesn't seem to be having any problems staying ahead of MS.

Pretty much every player worth noticing has been ahead of MS all along. I mean hell, GEOS did everything Windows 3.1 did and more, including scalable fonts before anyone even came up with a way to do that on windows period, and yet GEOS got clobbered - because they couldn't sell it. The problem with keeping ahead of Microsoft has never been one of technology, but mindshare, and thus market share.

Re:It's the DRM

[JFitzsimmons]

I thought there wasn't going to be volume licencing for Vista. That's just something I heard on Slashdot, so it is probably untrue.

Re:Missing digital media/entertainment features

[StikyPad]

Maybe, but I think you're underestimating the ingenuity of crackers. Just because those features are "left out" of the VLK edition doesn't mean they can't be added via other means. It might even be as easy as a simple slipstream, but even if its not, it may be easier to add the missing components to a VLK edition than remove the protections from the home/ultimate editions.

Not that it really matters either way. I predict a 99% chance that illegitimate copies will be widespread before February 2007, a 90% chance within a week from release, 75% chance within 24 hours, and 50% chance before the actual release.

Re:OSX Comes along again

[JackAxe]

First of all, upgrading is a choice, not a requirement. Apple provides incremental updates for free, which are basically the same as service packs, meaning that 10.3.1 - 10.3.9 were free for Panther owners as an example. The difference between 10.4 and 10.3 as noted by others, is basically difference between XP and Win2k. You can't compare a Service Pack to a completely new version of an OS, that's like comparing a security update to a SP.

Apple on average upgrades their OS every 2 years and at just over $100, they are a way better deal than MS's limited offerings. XP Pro cost me more than my Tiger and Panther upgrades combined. When it comes to features, stabibilty and security, just to name a few, XP pro was a complete rip-off when compared to any version of OS X.

<]=)

Re:It's the DRM

[AlterTick]

If they install the business edition, they won't be able to play high-definition video in MS's proprietary DRM format. Unlike with XP, the home version isn't just the business version with some newtorking functions taken out. It has some extra (DRM-crippled) multimedia stuff that businesses don't get.

Err...so what version do people in the high-definition video business buy?

I ws just reading this today...

[sedyn]

To back up what you were saying http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/history.html:

"It would be an understatement to say that OS X is derived from NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. In many respects, it's not just similar, it's the same. One can think of it as OpenStep 5 or 6, say. This is not a bad thing at all - rather than create an operating system from scratch, Apple tried to do the smart thing, and used what they already had to a great extent. However, the similarities should not mislead you: Mac OS X is evolved enough that what you can do with it is far above and beyond NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP."

Just like you can think of XP being NTv5.1 (I think it is 1 or 01...)

Re:Explanation: Testing Is Exponentially Complex

[cswiger2005]

If you need exponential time to test your code as it increases in size, you're probably going about the business in a less than ideally efficient way. Unit-testing can help. So will proper design.

I'm being too polite, what you've described sounds a lot like the testing equivalent of the bogosort algorithm, ie, sorting a deck of cards by shuffling them randomly and then checking to see whether you happened to shuffle them into sorted order. A bogosort takes exponential time, whereas an ideal sort is O(n * log(n)) worst-case.

If you were writing a program which needed to convert between N different image formats, would you write something that converted between each combination (ie, N*N conversion routines), or would you be more clever and do what Jeff Pozanker did with PBM (ie, write a common intermediate format and only N * 2 conversion routines)...?

Re:It's the DRM

[Lumpy]

DRM and the HD HDMI restrictions are part of the HD media formats,

really??

why is there none in mpeg4? I have lots of full resolution and HD quality content in mpeg4 format, as well as Divx flavor and Xid Flavor.

They have no DRM in them and work perfectly for a HD media format. Hell I even have a set top box that plays them well to my HD TV.

Oh you must mean the NEW Hd formats they are going to shove at people to hide the fact that non DRM restricted formats already exist.

Kind of like the losing attempt to unseat Mp3 with WMA.

Mp3 is old but still outnumbers all other audio formats 300 to 1 simply because there is no DRM or DRm capable.

If MS didn't support it, there was no DRM!

[LinuxDon]

Where people are calling Vista crippled, it is actually the opposite, as it supports the new formats. PERIOD.

The only reason that DRM in HD formats is going to succeed, is because the largest software maker in the world supports it.

If MS would say 'no' to DRM, they wouldn't have succeeded in pushing it through.
Somehow, you believe it is a good thing that Vista "supports" the "new formats".
But Vista is only facilitating something that is going to be a very bad thing for consumers in general.

So I hope everyone is going to be very happy with their crippled OS while I'm sticking with Linux.