So you are admitting that Linux had a strong showing in servers? This would be precisely the area that is supposed to be driven by being able to call a company like Microsoft. That's a bit of a contradiction.
You are also giving Microsoft far too much credit as a server support vendor when the real competition is the likes of Oracle, or Sun, or IBM. Microsoft is a lightweight by comparison.
By your own admission Linux thrived despite of this mentality where everyone assumes "you can't get fired for buying Microsoft"
"Desktop" software is pretty lightweight by comparison.
What Google has is marketing. Guerilla marketing just doesn's work with n00b consumers. It's not like professional tools where all you have to do is "build and they will come". You need to dress it up and run TV ads and all manner of flim flam.
The suit was in Illinois and the guy was in Virginia. So you could quite literally be sued anywhere and have to haul your butt across 5 state lines and hire an out of state lawyer with proper standing in whatever jurisdiction you happen to get served for.
That's even assuming that you properly get served to begin with.
I don't think anyone ever established this guy was properly served. He might have found about this the same way that the rest of us did. He might not even know about it still.
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Sounds a lot like stuff transported over public roads.
You moved it in your car from your house a the local U-Haul storage locker. You used an Interstate Highway. Therefore it's not really your property. Now the government can come and take it at will. Great logic there.
All an absurd fine does is encourage disrespect for the law as it appears obviously unjust to most observers and is something that can never be recovered. The fine can never be paid because of it's cruel and unusual nature when applied to an individual. It's simply too large to be paid and even too large to be understood. Most people (including the judge) can't even relate to that number. So it has no real value.
It comes off like a strange fiction rather than a real punishment.
It probably helps that these guys have been doing this eye candy stuff since long before it occurred to anyone else to do it. A lot of their stuff probably just predates any of the accelerated OpenGL stuff on Linux.
Even with the monopoly, supporting the "latest" is not really a requirement. If anything, it's corporate IT that's pulling Microsoft back and forcing it to support older "legacy" software.
In companies, change is managed and occasionally resisted. The resistance aspect is especially true if there's extra money involved.
The "but this is a beta" approach with Maps wouldn't have been good enough. Siri was something that was portrayed as new and innovative. It wasn't something where they were trying to create a higher level of vertical integration by replacing an already well established feature.
There are important distinctions some times. Apple fans sometimes miss those.
> Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually *value* a walled garden? Like nearly everyone who isn't a tech geek? Which is like 99% of the people buying these devices?
Such people aren't smart enough to realize they are being taken advantage of. They aren't geeky enough to be aware of the "value".
> All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
American property law acknowledges precedents that stretch back into the middle ages. This isn't France where they declare a new Constitution every 3 years.
Americans at large buy too much into the notion fed to us by our public schools that American history doesn't extend back much further than 1776. This isn't the case at all.
It takes a long time for democracy to germinate as it did in our own case. That's why attempts at "nation building" are less satisfying than we hope. We go into with a bogus set of assumptions and a gross misunderstanding of even our own history.
Nonsense. If this were cameras we were talking about, the upgradeable storage would not even be an issue. It would be considered a bare necessity standard feature for anything short of some Disney themed toy marketed for small children.
People put up with Microsoft because of the perception that it is a monopoly player. Once you remove that, there is no longer any reason to put up with Microsoft or it's APIs that can radically change from one release to the next.
All the fancy cup holders in the world won't attract developers to a platform if they think they can't sell stuff.
You talk like we've not been down this road before. We have, and those other non-x86 variants of Windows are a distant memory.
Once you get into serious business applications, the alleged cheapness of Microsoft quickly dissipates. It is more myth now than reality. In truth, Balmer wants to ream you just as badly as Ellison does. He will too if you give him an opportunity.
Mainly you just get really incompetent people calling themselves a sysadmin or db admin or app admin.This is driven by the whole mythology of cheapness and the related mythology that you don't have to understand what you're doing to use Windows.
You sell the idea that you can use trained monkeys and that's what you end up with.
Apple can "stick it out" by doing what they did before: survive as a marginalized niche platform who's end users constantly kid themselves about their overpriced gadget being a replacement for some expensive car they will never be able to afford.
Slashdot Mirror
So you are admitting that Linux had a strong showing in servers? This would be precisely the area that is supposed to be driven by being able to call a company like Microsoft. That's a bit of a contradiction.
You are also giving Microsoft far too much credit as a server support vendor when the real competition is the likes of Oracle, or Sun, or IBM. Microsoft is a lightweight by comparison.
By your own admission Linux thrived despite of this mentality where everyone assumes "you can't get fired for buying Microsoft"
"Desktop" software is pretty lightweight by comparison.
What Google has is marketing. Guerilla marketing just doesn's work with n00b consumers. It's not like professional tools where all you have to do is "build and they will come". You need to dress it up and run TV ads and all manner of flim flam.
It can certainly work in principle. Unixware might be just too darn old but I've used the dd approach on XP with VirtualBox on Linux.
The suit was in Illinois and the guy was in Virginia. So you could quite literally be sued anywhere and have to haul your butt across 5 state lines and hire an out of state lawyer with proper standing in whatever jurisdiction you happen to get served for.
That's even assuming that you properly get served to begin with.
I don't think anyone ever established this guy was properly served. He might have found about this the same way that the rest of us did. He might not even know about it still.
I don't get where supposed rational technical people on Slashdot of all places, think that any data they transmit over public networks NEVERMIND then storing said data on hard drives owned and physically controlled by someone else, was ever YOURS.
Sounds a lot like stuff transported over public roads.
You moved it in your car from your house a the local U-Haul storage locker. You used an Interstate Highway. Therefore it's not really your property. Now the government can come and take it at will. Great logic there.
That would be Romney... good luck there.
He's from the same faction that started this nonsense.
It's like leaving a guy that doesn't worship you enough for one that beats you black and blue every night.
All an absurd fine does is encourage disrespect for the law as it appears obviously unjust to most observers and is something that can never be recovered. The fine can never be paid because of it's cruel and unusual nature when applied to an individual. It's simply too large to be paid and even too large to be understood. Most people (including the judge) can't even relate to that number. So it has no real value.
It comes off like a strange fiction rather than a real punishment.
No. He's just moved on from the 2001 notion of multimedia that you seem to be clinging to.
> I didn't spend very long looking either
That is why you fail.
It's hard to find a working solution when you aren't really trying and you are only out to make a troll point.
> Do you do anything other than watch movies or play games?
Yes. I have multiple applications and Windows open.
I have been doing this for as long as the tech allowed.
It's annoying when you are an aging dinosaur posing as something oher than a hopeless luddite.
This should be a case of form following function with any end users with half a brain able to figure out what to do with the "empty corners" and such.
Screen real estate is valuable, far too valuable to listen to stupid hipsters.
It probably helps that these guys have been doing this eye candy stuff since long before it occurred to anyone else to do it. A lot of their stuff probably just predates any of the accelerated OpenGL stuff on Linux.
Even with the monopoly, supporting the "latest" is not really a requirement. If anything, it's corporate IT that's pulling Microsoft back and forcing it to support older "legacy" software.
In companies, change is managed and occasionally resisted. The resistance aspect is especially true if there's extra money involved.
The "but this is a beta" approach with Maps wouldn't have been good enough. Siri was something that was portrayed as new and innovative. It wasn't something where they were trying to create a higher level of vertical integration by replacing an already well established feature.
There are important distinctions some times. Apple fans sometimes miss those.
> Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually *value* a walled garden? Like nearly everyone who isn't a tech geek? Which is like 99% of the people buying these devices?
Such people aren't smart enough to realize they are being taken advantage of. They aren't geeky enough to be aware of the "value".
Ignorance is bliss they say...
You mean like precisely the things that were mentioned in the summary?
Living in a Foxconn dormitory isn't "middle class".
Even in the Soviet Union they had higher expectations than that.
> All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
American property law acknowledges precedents that stretch back into the middle ages. This isn't France where they declare a new Constitution every 3 years.
Americans at large buy too much into the notion fed to us by our public schools that American history doesn't extend back much further than 1776. This isn't the case at all.
It takes a long time for democracy to germinate as it did in our own case. That's why attempts at "nation building" are less satisfying than we hope. We go into with a bogus set of assumptions and a gross misunderstanding of even our own history.
Nonsense. If this were cameras we were talking about, the upgradeable storage would not even be an issue. It would be considered a bare necessity standard feature for anything short of some Disney themed toy marketed for small children.
> why would you want ethernet over USB?
It's much faster.
Wireless sucks. Poor performance is just one of the many reasons.
Yes. I too thought that this was a rather retarded sort of criticism.
It makes it sound like Microsoft is selling something out of a James Bond movie.
None of that matters to real people.
People put up with Microsoft because of the perception that it is a monopoly player. Once you remove that, there is no longer any reason to put up with Microsoft or it's APIs that can radically change from one release to the next.
All the fancy cup holders in the world won't attract developers to a platform if they think they can't sell stuff.
You talk like we've not been down this road before. We have, and those other non-x86 variants of Windows are a distant memory.
Once you get into serious business applications, the alleged cheapness of Microsoft quickly dissipates. It is more myth now than reality. In truth, Balmer wants to ream you just as badly as Ellison does. He will too if you give him an opportunity.
Mainly you just get really incompetent people calling themselves a sysadmin or db admin or app admin.This is driven by the whole mythology of cheapness and the related mythology that you don't have to understand what you're doing to use Windows.
You sell the idea that you can use trained monkeys and that's what you end up with.
Apple can "stick it out" by doing what they did before: survive as a marginalized niche platform who's end users constantly kid themselves about their overpriced gadget being a replacement for some expensive car they will never be able to afford.
You think your personal preferences should be enforced on the rest of us. You are the perfect match for Steve Jobs.
I'll tell you what.
If the FBI ever cares enough about this trivial crap to arrest ANYONE, then you can have my entire media stockpile.
Cops have better things to do. They want to get promoted. They can't be bothered with nonsense like this.