MS software IS properly modularized. People's usual conception of the archetecture is hopelessly invalid.... IE CAN be removed. The Rendering engine can't because it is used BY the OS for many things.
IE can be removed without removing the "rendering engine"? If that were true, people would do it and same themselves many exploits. I've programed to the win95 API, so I know a little about their pathetic little GUI. That they refuse to seperate it from the browser is pure anti-competitive.
I'll take WMP 9 over QT and Real any day because of its quality.
Now that is a total Astroturf. You pour scorn on any competitor, mostly based on the flaws of Microsoft's WMP, and praise that junk to the sky. WMP is the most advert laden junk I've seen since point cast, it requires you to beg M$ for "codecs" you used to own, it does not work well for any format including DVD, and you are full of shit. Media on Microsoft never worked well and is getting worse.
Calling this thing MATRIX *DOES* show a particular level of incompetence behind it.
No, for some reason people think beter of audatious evil than they do of cringing evil. You never know though, the officer who came up with the name might have wanted to send a warning.
Surely, you can't uninstall the media player or browser easily, but what is the problem with that?
Actually, if your code is properly modularized there's not problem removing a browser a media player a GUI or any other component. The problem is that M$ has spagetti codeded their dinky browser so their computers won't even boot without one. I'd say that limits the usefulness of the OS. People who would like to use it as a server platform with they could turn off most of these "features" aka services in the free world.
I can use mozilla as my (default) browser if I want to, or play mpgs per default with quicktime.
That's very hard to do and Microsoft takes every chance to undo your preference. I know, I tried with Windows 2000. I wanted to look at a CD with Portable Net Graphics and AVI movies on it. IE flunked both, Mozilla worked flawlessly. IE did not make Quicktime it's prefered viewer and WMP would not display PNG of AVI. That's pathetic because AVI is M$ format closely related to WMP formats and PNG is an openly published format. Mozilla was not the default browser and keeping it up to date is like hell on an M$ box. Just getting Mozilla requires a broadband connection, and knowledge you are unlikely to have in the Windoze world.
If red hat had a monopoly-like market share, then shipping a free media player (the KmovieKplayer 9) would be monopoly abuse because it would limit sales of 3rd party media players?
No, Red Hat does not have a dominant market position and Red Hat can not prevent others from using Kmovieplayer or any other free software anyway they would like. Microsoft has both of these.
if microsoft would have media player on a separate download/cd people would buy Real's player?
Real used to have a dominant makret position.
Did that sound pro m$?
No, just ignorant. A typical Astroturf troll at worst.
Just let the market work itself out, the end product will be better, and you won't be giving the already oversized government a chance to increase its power.
The exercise of pre existing power does not represent an expansion of government power.
The law is wrong. It should be changed.
No, anti-competitive practices are wrong. They put people out of business - that's means people lose jobs and have their lives fucked around. Anti-competitive practices are also designed to bring more than fair market value for goods and services. In the end, everyone pays for them. If a free market is good, then what Microsfoft does is very bad. Preventing this kind of racketeering is as good a government exercise as the prevention of murder or stock fraud. Yes, economic upheaval can be fatal.
Like you, I have my doubts about the way government regualtion plays out. In the case of phone and electric service, we are moving toward unregulated but protected monopolies, the very worst case. In automobiles, we have government protection and even cash bailouts. In steel, there's essentially a monopoly poorly protected against forgein makers. In software, we have the spectical of government violating all purchasing sense and sole sourcing six years worth of purchasing to some of the worst software available.
The intent, especially in the Microsoft case, is correct. Don't confuse intent with the way Anti-trust laws are not followed through perverted.
Doing nothing does just that and that might be fatal for the US computer industry. The glass making industry never gained significant competion in the US, did it? It took the invention of a whole new light material, plastic, and a shipping revolution to bring competition to bottle making. If Microsoft is uninhibited, they might be might be able to pull off Paladium, which would end all software and hardware competition on just about all platforms. It is by no means certian that chip makers will be able to resist Paladium in the commodity market. The alternatives are expensive custom hardware from makers like Sun, worth it to companies but not individuals. The xbox is a peek into Microsfoft's dream world. The implications for all software and hardware makers are obvious.
... a "must-carry" provision, whereby Microsoft would be obliged to offer competing media players with Windows. Both solutions seek to ensure that consumers have a fair choice as regards media players.
That one is good punishment. Because they abused their low end desktop monopoly, force them to buy their competitor's media players and include them all without charge. Ogg Vorbis could set a reasonable price for prcompiled binarys, I'm sure. Everyone but Microsoft would win.
More than that, I like their reesoning about leveraging. It was as simple to prove as asking people buying low end servers for their low end desktops if "interoperability" and secret interfaces made a difference in their purchasing. Bingo, nothing meritorius there, just a bunch of crap they won't share and a dominant market position.
The proposed solution, to force M$ to open up their interfaces is great stuff. Less time would have to be dedicated to deciphering their crap. I wonder if they can force NTFS open too, after all the inability to write to the file system is a hinderence.
M$ may try to wriggle out of this by making EU only software that plays nice, but they won't get far. They can not escape the black eye solid reasoning is giving them. Solid reasoning from impartial parties and published with all the resources of a large govenment.
It's just more reason to ditch M$ all together. Who needs a low end desktop anyway? That would be the best thing of all.
And thanks for buying into Beta, while the rest of the world went with VHS. Clearly because something is better it will win.
Beter and cheaper, fool. Beta cost more in part because it was encumberd by licensing fees, much like M$ junk.
Like Beta, Microsoft is losing. First they lost developers, and this alone is fatal. Then they lost servers. Now they are losing desktops. As they lose desktops, they lose the ability to bully hardware makers, then they die. There is nothing Microsoft does that free software does not do beter.
Of course Microsoft will produce white papers that show Microsoft winning! Why would they possibly do otherwise? They're a *company*, not a *charity*
and that's why no one will believe them and the whole thing is just another stupid waste of money. If Microsoft wanted to study and learn, that would be great, but they don't. They have already admitted that their goal is to prove TCO, security and feature "advantages". Good software, such as Apache, sells itself. Junk like IIS has to be pimped. Why is it that you think this is a good idea again?
Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'
When you know what you want to find you are no longer researching, you are writing marketing paper. Research is when you compare things and try to understand them. This tool will be trying to prove things that everyone knows are bullshit. Microsoft security is not an advantage, it's an oxymoron. TCO and sanity are clearly in free software's favor. Just ask Largo, Florida.
This lab is more like Steve Barkto but announced. What comes out will feed many trolls untill Microsft finally runs out of money to pay them or wins and does not have to. They are not going to win.
I mean, I don't necesarilly trust OSS-sympathetc studies
Why not? What do you think people have to gain by lying about free software? If you don't like the Red Hat thing, go get a Debian version. Hell, you could even download the source and make your own. That's how free software works, why it's so good and why you don't have to lie about it. It's all right there, where anyone can see it and get the same exact results.
Microsoft spending money on bogus Mac switchers and Linux "studdies" is a total wast of investor money. They already know the TCO issues for Microsoft Server platforms vrs free software from running Hotmail. Why don't they just publish the numbers? Because they are every bit as embarassing as the whole failed switch, then the switch that worked and showed them just how much better free software was. Where are the folks who wrote that report? Fired, I'm sure.
What this really means is that Microsoft is smart, and has hired someone who will now find much better reasons to poo-poo open source and Linux.
Yeah, that's about the size of it.
Maybe not good reasons or reasons anyone here would agreee with, but reasons that will make sense to the IT departments and executives that make up Microsofts customers.
Oh, like the wierd philosopy that all must pay the Microsoft tax or be branded unAmerican? People here want facts, numbers and real performance. Microsoft is not going to get any of that for their stuff from this lab, all it's going to get is fodder for lies. It will help some executives continue to cover their gross mistake of sticking with Windoze. It won't help their bottom line and their companies will continue to spend good money after bad.
Either rebut, or fix, whatever issues this new lab comes up with. Easy, and good for open source too.
You can't fix what is not broken.
This is all perception management. They need to have more of a clue, but the goals remain the same. They will force the results they want and try to make it look reputable. The insults will continue, it's in their blood. Microsft has not learned and never will. The same things that make their software insecure and buggy today will make it insecure and buggy tomorrow.
They keep saying the same old stuff, Microsoft is secure, Microsoft has a lower cost of ownership, Microsoft is more stable now, Best Windows Ever. All they have done is hire someone to help them lie better. No repeatable test will ever show what Microsoft says is true, because none of it ever is. A linux lab is not going to change anything, but the quality of the lie. They will produce literature filled with half truths and nonsense. As it is today, all they have is nonsense and it shows.
Don't think for an instant the name calling will stop, either. It's just going to be pushed onto "independent" PR firms and study groups. Tools like SCO will rage on under M$ funding. Microsoft understands they screwed up by directly insulting their customers and people who were giving superior software away as free. It won't be long before officials there start spewing about "hippies", "cancers" and all that again. They will continue to say such things off record. These are the same folks who think they have a right to read your files and control what software is on your compter, they might believe they have a right to your money and that saying otherwise is unAmerican. The Astroturf will only get worse. It's a trick M$ has know since Yes, the company that screwed DRDOS with bogus error messages is capable of it. Barkto was not an aboration, it was the norm and it's always worse than you think.
Those are the two changes I predict. More and nastier lies.
God, I LOVE competition.
I don't think you or Microsoft know what competition is.
Then it was not. Later Rio's claimed that the drag and drop features would not work and that you had to use their silly client. So, USBFS can be gimped by M$, now or in the future through some kind of WMP "update". Did you try using it before you loaded those inocent looking voice file converter and icon editor software packages? If not, I would not say this thing is DRM free.
Any USB device is suspect, as far as I'm concerned. At a honking 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), they might as well have used removable media. USB junk is tricky, even on M$. My camera software for Windoze 2000 got all flaky, required you to manually unmount it by pushing an icon and eventually failed to work right at all. My experience with USB under Linux has not been worse. I've never been able to make cameras and printers work right on USB and I don't have any patience for it anymore. CF + pcmcia works easier and faster.
Untill I see something as good as Zaurus + CF, I'll just keep on using that as my music solution. Overkill, sure, but I'll replace it when I see ogg playing removable media players for $40.
With stated dimensions of 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), either you have a different idea of a lump in your pocket or you have bigger pockets than me.
I'd tell them the same if all they were asking for was a penny or a signature. SCO has never done anything for me, they never will, I don't owe them a cent and I never will.
A 4 gig card means that the 1 gig card just lost it's bleeding edge price and everything less just dropped in price accrordingly. Regardless of your use of CF for photos, music or embeded hard disk, the world just got a little better for you.
I think that by the time CF gets to be reasonably priced, other devices of similar size and much higher capacity will be available. I don't have a good feeling about the lifespan of CF.
CF is the most reasonably priced, least encumbered format out there. It's in use by like a billion digital cameras and will be produced for them untill the last of them seem obsolete. I plan on using my little 2Mpixel Cannon Powershot for years and I'm not likely to switch storage format when I change over. Getting stuff on and off it through pcmcia is just way to fast and easy, and I'll have too much invested in the format to be easily moved.
The results were that there was no significant difference between moving to XP or moving to KDE, despite years of brainwashing Microsoft use. It ends the "Your users will require expensive training" FUD.
The fact of the matter is that an experienced free software user can run circles around an experienced Windoze user. Being both, I can say that. Users can do much more than Microsft gives them credit or tools for.
Your concerns of "companies improving learnabilty at the expense of useability" are unfounded in the free software world. Free software works because it's written by people who have a job to do, not by slaves toiling under a marketing department. Tools made for free software simply add on to those existing. You can put a different face on it, or make a new one. It's all still there in the end. For example, you can use the GIMP, Image Magic, or the individual graphic manipulation tools. Your old script that used the individual tools will still work, but your newer one with Image magic might be easier to write and the GIMP is the easiest of all to learn and use, though you might take a while to become a script fu master. Of course, on a larger level, you are free to use an interface that is not KDE if you don't like it. All of the applications seem to work just fine under GNOME and Window Maker.
Can you say any of that about Windoze? No, you can't. Without free software, windoze scripting is poor, you are stuck with a single GUI, and God help you if you decide to use a "thrid party" email or web browser. Microsft has a well earned reputation for breaking other people's toys.
Great name, Runs up anonymous cowards. You might as well have labled yourself "troll_king" or something equally obvious. Now let's deal with the silly concerns you try to project from the Windoze world.
Linux starts to fall down when you try to install 3rd party applications (what if you can't get RPMs? what if you're running an older GLIBC?) or hardware.
First, what the hell is a "third party application"? Because most free programs are developed and maintained by different people, the whole "third party" thing makes no sense. EVERYTHING is "third party", it all works together because free software developers follow interface specifications in a way that everything works together. All of the major packaging systems tell you about the rare instance of program incompatibility or conflict. This is why you can have as many windowing systems, desktop managers and applications as you can fit on your computer in the free software world. Quit trying to project the DLL hell of the Windoze world, where installation programs actually replace chunks of your operating system without telling you and without knowledge that the printer DLL will wreck the scanner DLL. That's the kind of thing that only happens in the non-free world.
Sure, things do change over time. Today, I can easily install Star Office on just about any Linux Distro, including Debian. That CD might not last forever. My 4 year old Word Perfect CD does not install on anything but Red Hat 6, as far as I know. Binaries are dead, that can happen, but so what? My Microsft budies would be giving me trouble if I were still running the Office 97 I might have bought instead. Non-free software is a pain in the ass that way. Don't blame free software for the problems inflicted on you by people who refuse to share their code.
When Microsft dies, my equipment problems will also die. As is, I get by.
Like you, I'm suspicious of the 20 users to try the XP. 60 users give much better statistics than 20. I don't know why they did not just dig up 200 people who have never used KDE or XP. As that's the way most people are, they should be easy to find. It's almost as if they wanted to be able to bail out if they got results that could be in KDE's favor, or they culled the Windoze test results to get results favorable to XP.
The results, really are in KDE;s favor and the people at ComputerWorld have spun it as pro Windoze as the could. There was no real difference in any of the meaures, besides the "apearance" survey. If one more person in the Windoze group had said it would taken more than a week to "master" the interface, the two groups would have been equal. The time difference was less than 10%, a difference that could easily be made up by one or two slow winoze users. To me, those kinds or results are identical. That's astounding when you consider that most of the users have been brainwashed by years of M$ use. As a test of migration, this says KDE is just as easy to move to as XP is, depite years of M$ "training", which has plauged users in the past. Only people begging for M$ advert money would describe the results as KDE not as easy to use as XP, which is what the spin implies.
That's a great result to get out of 45 minutes of computer use. Free software has made great improvements for total newbies to be able to jump right into a free desktop and do as well as users of the new Windoze GUI. I've thought things were this way since KDE 2, but it's nice to see a study of head to head competition with potential migrators.
The funniest point is that there is no goal to the game at all, you keep going until you lose. So you do your best to protect the city from pirated software and software pirates, but eventually, you will lose and the pirates take over.
Perfect propaganda! It instills the idea that the world is unfair for the BSA and other hard working weasels. Later, they can call on this mindless memory to say something like, "the game is unfair and must be changed." You expect them to make a game where the "good guys" win?
The story of big publishers is never over, because there is always more they can screw everyone. Perpetual copyright, pay per play, and strict control on all potntial press is what they desire. This would maximise their power. It's as unamerican as the end of free press, but that's what they worked broadcast into and what they want to work the net into. They have grown used to their broadcast monopoly and all their other earnings rely on it.
You're a self-made 'nigger' you know. 'The Man' is keeping you down with proprietary formats that "dey don' speak hyah in da getto."
Get over it.
No, it's more like Microsoft could care less about their users. Microsoft's spares no effort to keep their users locked in and paying out. A byproduct of that effort is that Microsoft users are unable to share information with the rest of the world, even with other Microsoft users with older software. It has always been this way, but Microsoft has continued to make the situation worse by removing more and more user control.
How much do you get paid to post crap like that? Only an astroturfer would act that way.
So I question - what can Microsoft do to usenet? I suspect, nothing nice. Probably their efforts result in even more MIME/HTML postings, with binaries attached in non-binary groups (probably something like "My Signature.exe"). And certainly a lot of proprietarily encapsulated text, such as.DOC rich text attached to an otherwise empty posting.
Do I detect ^M in you text?;)
Yes, Microsoft provide few other alternatives for this rude kind of behavior. I see it in the "easy" groups like Yahooo groups I'm a member of. Microsoft users consitantly post crap in.DOC format instead of splitting out text and images, the same way they do email. It would be forgivable, but they make no effort even when told that others, including other Microsoft users with almost the same software, can not read the files they are trying to share. All of the Micrsoft defaults are to RUDE, word as an "editor" of email, email in "html" format or "rich text", it's really a challenge for the user to not be rude and once things are set they are very dificult to undo. Typical M$.
Microsoft, by encouraging their users to venture into the "difficult" world of usenet, will force all of these things along.
The answer it fix the user. Provide detailed instructions on how to undo M$'s rude defaults in a place where they can be pointed to. The M$ abusers will find themselves shunned and locked in a little M$ ghetto devoid of cluefull and polite people.
Going to a LUG is certainly too much trouble for me
What, subscribing to an email list is too much trouble for you? That's where I get most of my help. We don't have a large enough group for IRC to be practical.
The rest of your trolly reply is an insult. You combine the admitedly over used bullshit grandmother example with an implication that I'd charge my relatives for advice. That's ugly, but not nearly as nasty as someone who'd con their relatives out of the cost of Windows. The fee I charge strangers for free software is less than CompuUSA charges just to look at a box and an order of magnitude less than the cost of comprable Windows software.
Someone set up with free software is much beter off than any poor schuck on Windoze, which is both confusing and breaks. Also, I can give anyone all the free software they want without worry. This software, once installed is usually easy to keep up and alows others to offer remote help securely. The only assumption I've made is that people are better off with free software than they are with Microsoft.
Realestate might be cheap, but try getting a decent net connection. Check out the video he set up and you get a "this site has exceeded it's daily bandwith" message. So even when you've got $5,500 making a ride for yourself, it's hard to share with your friends and the world. I suppose that there's a trade off to everything, unless the phone and cable companies suck everywhere so that you can't use the wires that run into your house. Oh wait, they do.
Slashdot Mirror
IE can be removed without removing the "rendering engine"? If that were true, people would do it and same themselves many exploits. I've programed to the win95 API, so I know a little about their pathetic little GUI. That they refuse to seperate it from the browser is pure anti-competitive. I'll take WMP 9 over QT and Real any day because of its quality.
Now that is a total Astroturf. You pour scorn on any competitor, mostly based on the flaws of Microsoft's WMP, and praise that junk to the sky. WMP is the most advert laden junk I've seen since point cast, it requires you to beg M$ for "codecs" you used to own, it does not work well for any format including DVD, and you are full of shit. Media on Microsoft never worked well and is getting worse.
No, for some reason people think beter of audatious evil than they do of cringing evil. You never know though, the officer who came up with the name might have wanted to send a warning.
try:
"Aye Matey, we'll have our passage through the backdoor, then share the spoils. Florida has shown us the Bunghole. Make ready, arrrrrgh!"
Actually, if your code is properly modularized there's not problem removing a browser a media player a GUI or any other component. The problem is that M$ has spagetti codeded their dinky browser so their computers won't even boot without one. I'd say that limits the usefulness of the OS. People who would like to use it as a server platform with they could turn off most of these "features" aka services in the free world.
I can use mozilla as my (default) browser if I want to, or play mpgs per default with quicktime.
That's very hard to do and Microsoft takes every chance to undo your preference. I know, I tried with Windows 2000. I wanted to look at a CD with Portable Net Graphics and AVI movies on it. IE flunked both, Mozilla worked flawlessly. IE did not make Quicktime it's prefered viewer and WMP would not display PNG of AVI. That's pathetic because AVI is M$ format closely related to WMP formats and PNG is an openly published format. Mozilla was not the default browser and keeping it up to date is like hell on an M$ box. Just getting Mozilla requires a broadband connection, and knowledge you are unlikely to have in the Windoze world.
If red hat had a monopoly-like market share, then shipping a free media player (the KmovieKplayer 9) would be monopoly abuse because it would limit sales of 3rd party media players?
No, Red Hat does not have a dominant market position and Red Hat can not prevent others from using Kmovieplayer or any other free software anyway they would like. Microsoft has both of these.
if microsoft would have media player on a separate download/cd people would buy Real's player?
Real used to have a dominant makret position.
Did that sound pro m$?
No, just ignorant. A typical Astroturf troll at worst.
I better put the flameproof suit on.
Don't bother.
The exercise of pre existing power does not represent an expansion of government power.
The law is wrong. It should be changed.
No, anti-competitive practices are wrong. They put people out of business - that's means people lose jobs and have their lives fucked around. Anti-competitive practices are also designed to bring more than fair market value for goods and services. In the end, everyone pays for them. If a free market is good, then what Microsfoft does is very bad. Preventing this kind of racketeering is as good a government exercise as the prevention of murder or stock fraud. Yes, economic upheaval can be fatal.
Like you, I have my doubts about the way government regualtion plays out. In the case of phone and electric service, we are moving toward unregulated but protected monopolies, the very worst case. In automobiles, we have government protection and even cash bailouts. In steel, there's essentially a monopoly poorly protected against forgein makers. In software, we have the spectical of government violating all purchasing sense and sole sourcing six years worth of purchasing to some of the worst software available.
The intent, especially in the Microsoft case, is correct. Don't confuse intent with the way Anti-trust laws are not followed through perverted.
Doing nothing does just that and that might be fatal for the US computer industry. The glass making industry never gained significant competion in the US, did it? It took the invention of a whole new light material, plastic, and a shipping revolution to bring competition to bottle making. If Microsoft is uninhibited, they might be might be able to pull off Paladium, which would end all software and hardware competition on just about all platforms. It is by no means certian that chip makers will be able to resist Paladium in the commodity market. The alternatives are expensive custom hardware from makers like Sun, worth it to companies but not individuals. The xbox is a peek into Microsfoft's dream world. The implications for all software and hardware makers are obvious.
That one is good punishment. Because they abused their low end desktop monopoly, force them to buy their competitor's media players and include them all without charge. Ogg Vorbis could set a reasonable price for prcompiled binarys, I'm sure. Everyone but Microsoft would win.
More than that, I like their reesoning about leveraging. It was as simple to prove as asking people buying low end servers for their low end desktops if "interoperability" and secret interfaces made a difference in their purchasing. Bingo, nothing meritorius there, just a bunch of crap they won't share and a dominant market position.
The proposed solution, to force M$ to open up their interfaces is great stuff. Less time would have to be dedicated to deciphering their crap. I wonder if they can force NTFS open too, after all the inability to write to the file system is a hinderence.
M$ may try to wriggle out of this by making EU only software that plays nice, but they won't get far. They can not escape the black eye solid reasoning is giving them. Solid reasoning from impartial parties and published with all the resources of a large govenment.
It's just more reason to ditch M$ all together. Who needs a low end desktop anyway? That would be the best thing of all.
In Corporate America, patents improve you!
OK, I promise not to do that ever again.
And thanks for buying into Beta, while the rest of the world went with VHS. Clearly because something is better it will win.
Beter and cheaper, fool. Beta cost more in part because it was encumberd by licensing fees, much like M$ junk.
Like Beta, Microsoft is losing. First they lost developers, and this alone is fatal. Then they lost servers. Now they are losing desktops. As they lose desktops, they lose the ability to bully hardware makers, then they die. There is nothing Microsoft does that free software does not do beter.
and that's why no one will believe them and the whole thing is just another stupid waste of money. If Microsoft wanted to study and learn, that would be great, but they don't. They have already admitted that their goal is to prove TCO, security and feature "advantages". Good software, such as Apache, sells itself. Junk like IIS has to be pimped. Why is it that you think this is a good idea again?
Who needs AI when all you want is put out is the same old garbage you put in? Microsoft never developed anything.
Martin is more like Rick Segal all over again.
When you know what you want to find you are no longer researching, you are writing marketing paper. Research is when you compare things and try to understand them. This tool will be trying to prove things that everyone knows are bullshit. Microsoft security is not an advantage, it's an oxymoron. TCO and sanity are clearly in free software's favor. Just ask Largo, Florida.
This lab is more like Steve Barkto but announced. What comes out will feed many trolls untill Microsft finally runs out of money to pay them or wins and does not have to. They are not going to win.
I mean, I don't necesarilly trust OSS-sympathetc studies
Why not? What do you think people have to gain by lying about free software? If you don't like the Red Hat thing, go get a Debian version. Hell, you could even download the source and make your own. That's how free software works, why it's so good and why you don't have to lie about it. It's all right there, where anyone can see it and get the same exact results.
Microsoft spending money on bogus Mac switchers and Linux "studdies" is a total wast of investor money. They already know the TCO issues for Microsoft Server platforms vrs free software from running Hotmail. Why don't they just publish the numbers? Because they are every bit as embarassing as the whole failed switch, then the switch that worked and showed them just how much better free software was. Where are the folks who wrote that report? Fired, I'm sure.
Yeah, that's about the size of it.
Maybe not good reasons or reasons anyone here would agreee with, but reasons that will make sense to the IT departments and executives that make up Microsofts customers.
Oh, like the wierd philosopy that all must pay the Microsoft tax or be branded unAmerican? People here want facts, numbers and real performance. Microsoft is not going to get any of that for their stuff from this lab, all it's going to get is fodder for lies. It will help some executives continue to cover their gross mistake of sticking with Windoze. It won't help their bottom line and their companies will continue to spend good money after bad.
Either rebut, or fix, whatever issues this new lab comes up with. Easy, and good for open source too.
You can't fix what is not broken.
This is all perception management. They need to have more of a clue, but the goals remain the same. They will force the results they want and try to make it look reputable. The insults will continue, it's in their blood. Microsft has not learned and never will. The same things that make their software insecure and buggy today will make it insecure and buggy tomorrow.
They keep saying the same old stuff, Microsoft is secure, Microsoft has a lower cost of ownership, Microsoft is more stable now, Best Windows Ever. All they have done is hire someone to help them lie better. No repeatable test will ever show what Microsoft says is true, because none of it ever is. A linux lab is not going to change anything, but the quality of the lie. They will produce literature filled with half truths and nonsense. As it is today, all they have is nonsense and it shows.
Don't think for an instant the name calling will stop, either. It's just going to be pushed onto "independent" PR firms and study groups. Tools like SCO will rage on under M$ funding. Microsoft understands they screwed up by directly insulting their customers and people who were giving superior software away as free. It won't be long before officials there start spewing about "hippies", "cancers" and all that again. They will continue to say such things off record. These are the same folks who think they have a right to read your files and control what software is on your compter, they might believe they have a right to your money and that saying otherwise is unAmerican. The Astroturf will only get worse. It's a trick M$ has know since Yes, the company that screwed DRDOS with bogus error messages is capable of it. Barkto was not an aboration, it was the norm and it's always worse than you think.
Those are the two changes I predict. More and nastier lies.
God, I LOVE competition.
I don't think you or Microsoft know what competition is.
Any USB device is suspect, as far as I'm concerned. At a honking 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), they might as well have used removable media. USB junk is tricky, even on M$. My camera software for Windoze 2000 got all flaky, required you to manually unmount it by pushing an icon and eventually failed to work right at all. My experience with USB under Linux has not been worse. I've never been able to make cameras and printers work right on USB and I don't have any patience for it anymore. CF + pcmcia works easier and faster.
Untill I see something as good as Zaurus + CF, I'll just keep on using that as my music solution. Overkill, sure, but I'll replace it when I see ogg playing removable media players for $40.
With stated dimensions of 3.3 x 0.5 x 1.4 inches (w x d x h), either you have a different idea of a lump in your pocket or you have bigger pockets than me.
SCO, fuck off.
I think that by the time CF gets to be reasonably priced, other devices of similar size and much higher capacity will be available. I don't have a good feeling about the lifespan of CF.
CF is the most reasonably priced, least encumbered format out there. It's in use by like a billion digital cameras and will be produced for them untill the last of them seem obsolete. I plan on using my little 2Mpixel Cannon Powershot for years and I'm not likely to switch storage format when I change over. Getting stuff on and off it through pcmcia is just way to fast and easy, and I'll have too much invested in the format to be easily moved.
The fact of the matter is that an experienced free software user can run circles around an experienced Windoze user. Being both, I can say that. Users can do much more than Microsft gives them credit or tools for.
Your concerns of "companies improving learnabilty at the expense of useability" are unfounded in the free software world. Free software works because it's written by people who have a job to do, not by slaves toiling under a marketing department. Tools made for free software simply add on to those existing. You can put a different face on it, or make a new one. It's all still there in the end. For example, you can use the GIMP, Image Magic, or the individual graphic manipulation tools. Your old script that used the individual tools will still work, but your newer one with Image magic might be easier to write and the GIMP is the easiest of all to learn and use, though you might take a while to become a script fu master. Of course, on a larger level, you are free to use an interface that is not KDE if you don't like it. All of the applications seem to work just fine under GNOME and Window Maker.
Can you say any of that about Windoze? No, you can't. Without free software, windoze scripting is poor, you are stuck with a single GUI, and God help you if you decide to use a "thrid party" email or web browser. Microsft has a well earned reputation for breaking other people's toys.
Linux starts to fall down when you try to install 3rd party applications (what if you can't get RPMs? what if you're running an older GLIBC?) or hardware.
First, what the hell is a "third party application"? Because most free programs are developed and maintained by different people, the whole "third party" thing makes no sense. EVERYTHING is "third party", it all works together because free software developers follow interface specifications in a way that everything works together. All of the major packaging systems tell you about the rare instance of program incompatibility or conflict. This is why you can have as many windowing systems, desktop managers and applications as you can fit on your computer in the free software world. Quit trying to project the DLL hell of the Windoze world, where installation programs actually replace chunks of your operating system without telling you and without knowledge that the printer DLL will wreck the scanner DLL. That's the kind of thing that only happens in the non-free world.
Sure, things do change over time. Today, I can easily install Star Office on just about any Linux Distro, including Debian. That CD might not last forever. My 4 year old Word Perfect CD does not install on anything but Red Hat 6, as far as I know. Binaries are dead, that can happen, but so what? My Microsft budies would be giving me trouble if I were still running the Office 97 I might have bought instead. Non-free software is a pain in the ass that way. Don't blame free software for the problems inflicted on you by people who refuse to share their code.
When Microsft dies, my equipment problems will also die. As is, I get by.
The results, really are in KDE;s favor and the people at ComputerWorld have spun it as pro Windoze as the could. There was no real difference in any of the meaures, besides the "apearance" survey. If one more person in the Windoze group had said it would taken more than a week to "master" the interface, the two groups would have been equal. The time difference was less than 10%, a difference that could easily be made up by one or two slow winoze users. To me, those kinds or results are identical. That's astounding when you consider that most of the users have been brainwashed by years of M$ use. As a test of migration, this says KDE is just as easy to move to as XP is, depite years of M$ "training", which has plauged users in the past. Only people begging for M$ advert money would describe the results as KDE not as easy to use as XP, which is what the spin implies.
That's a great result to get out of 45 minutes of computer use. Free software has made great improvements for total newbies to be able to jump right into a free desktop and do as well as users of the new Windoze GUI. I've thought things were this way since KDE 2, but it's nice to see a study of head to head competition with potential migrators.
Perfect propaganda! It instills the idea that the world is unfair for the BSA and other hard working weasels. Later, they can call on this mindless memory to say something like, "the game is unfair and must be changed." You expect them to make a game where the "good guys" win?
The story of big publishers is never over, because there is always more they can screw everyone. Perpetual copyright, pay per play, and strict control on all potntial press is what they desire. This would maximise their power. It's as unamerican as the end of free press, but that's what they worked broadcast into and what they want to work the net into. They have grown used to their broadcast monopoly and all their other earnings rely on it.
Get over it.
No, it's more like Microsoft could care less about their users. Microsoft's spares no effort to keep their users locked in and paying out. A byproduct of that effort is that Microsoft users are unable to share information with the rest of the world, even with other Microsoft users with older software. It has always been this way, but Microsoft has continued to make the situation worse by removing more and more user control.
How much do you get paid to post crap like that? Only an astroturfer would act that way.
Do I detect ^M in you text? ;)
Yes, Microsoft provide few other alternatives for this rude kind of behavior. I see it in the "easy" groups like Yahooo groups I'm a member of. Microsoft users consitantly post crap in .DOC format instead of splitting out text and images, the same way they do email. It would be forgivable, but they make no effort even when told that others, including other Microsoft users with almost the same software, can not read the files they are trying to share. All of the Micrsoft defaults are to RUDE, word as an "editor" of email, email in "html" format or "rich text", it's really a challenge for the user to not be rude and once things are set they are very dificult to undo. Typical M$.
Microsoft, by encouraging their users to venture into the "difficult" world of usenet, will force all of these things along.
The answer it fix the user. Provide detailed instructions on how to undo M$'s rude defaults in a place where they can be pointed to. The M$ abusers will find themselves shunned and locked in a little M$ ghetto devoid of cluefull and polite people.
What, subscribing to an email list is too much trouble for you? That's where I get most of my help. We don't have a large enough group for IRC to be practical.
The rest of your trolly reply is an insult. You combine the admitedly over used bullshit grandmother example with an implication that I'd charge my relatives for advice. That's ugly, but not nearly as nasty as someone who'd con their relatives out of the cost of Windows. The fee I charge strangers for free software is less than CompuUSA charges just to look at a box and an order of magnitude less than the cost of comprable Windows software.
Someone set up with free software is much beter off than any poor schuck on Windoze, which is both confusing and breaks. Also, I can give anyone all the free software they want without worry. This software, once installed is usually easy to keep up and alows others to offer remote help securely. The only assumption I've made is that people are better off with free software than they are with Microsoft.
Ask Zeplin about crazy rides.