I wish I had mod points to fix your 'troll' label. Your comment was correct and whoever labeled you such is a an idiot.
The truth is that if you do ANYTHING other than focus 100% on your driving, you will be at a greater risk of being in or causing an accident. Either just say we will hold people responsible for at-fault accidents and leave the nanny state crap out of it, or really get down to brass tacks and treat driving a car like piloting a plane and make it illegal to do ANYTHING else other than drive. This includes banning radios in cars, banning conversations not related to driving in the car, and so on.
I see a lot of excuses about why we are falling behind or being caught up to. I see arguments about our large land mass and low population density for example. All that is very true, but it doesn't change the reality that over time other countries will enjoy the benefit of a highly networked citizenry. It is also harder for us to lay roads, power lines, rails, and so forth for the same reasons, but we did it. If you are lacking critical infrastructure then you will become less capable and competitive.
In other words, just because our large land mass and low population density gives us a valid reason for other countries beginning to catch up to us or passing us in per-capita broadband usage, it won't save us from the effects of not being highly connected. America cannot afford to become a telecommunications backwater.
People don't stay uninformed forever. When Dell or someone else is offering Ubuntu machines for $100 and the same machine with Windows for $400, people will notice.
If Microsoft was going to open source anything, it should be Windows, not Office. Vista was probably the last time they can force-migrate people and get paid for it. The era of a gravy train of money from operating system sales is coming to a close, and if something radical isn't done with Windows soon, then time will pass it by and it will fall into the dust bin of history. Paying lots of money for an OS just cannot be justified in an era when the computer hardware is becoming such a cheap commodity and free alternatives that actually work are becoming available. No one wants to spend $100 or even less for a computer and $299 for the operating system. In addition it looks like appliance devices are going to be very popular in the future, and unless you open your OS so that it can be customized then you cannot compete in that market very well.
If they open sourced Windows then they would lose a lot of control and revenue. But that is going to happen anyway. At least this way Windows would probably remain the dominant OS for many years to come, and as the main backers of it MS would still be able to make a lot of money from it. In addition thanks to their terrible track record on viruses and security and the NSAKEY scandal their OS will never be treated as secure again so they will eventually lose ALL market share in the governmental and high security markets. As an open solution at least companies could vet the thing themselves and make sure there were no back doors, allowing Windows a fighting chance in these markets. In short MS has already made their strategic mistakes. Damage control is the best they can do now, and opening Windows might save it from obsolescence.
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Ditto, though I'm a more recent stock holder.
The truth is that if you do ANYTHING other than focus 100% on your driving, you will be at a greater risk of being in or causing an accident. Either just say we will hold people responsible for at-fault accidents and leave the nanny state crap out of it, or really get down to brass tacks and treat driving a car like piloting a plane and make it illegal to do ANYTHING else other than drive. This includes banning radios in cars, banning conversations not related to driving in the car, and so on.
In other words, just because our large land mass and low population density gives us a valid reason for other countries beginning to catch up to us or passing us in per-capita broadband usage, it won't save us from the effects of not being highly connected. America cannot afford to become a telecommunications backwater.
People don't stay uninformed forever. When Dell or someone else is offering Ubuntu machines for $100 and the same machine with Windows for $400, people will notice.
If they open sourced Windows then they would lose a lot of control and revenue. But that is going to happen anyway. At least this way Windows would probably remain the dominant OS for many years to come, and as the main backers of it MS would still be able to make a lot of money from it. In addition thanks to their terrible track record on viruses and security and the NSAKEY scandal their OS will never be treated as secure again so they will eventually lose ALL market share in the governmental and high security markets. As an open solution at least companies could vet the thing themselves and make sure there were no back doors, allowing Windows a fighting chance in these markets. In short MS has already made their strategic mistakes. Damage control is the best they can do now, and opening Windows might save it from obsolescence.