"I know people are scared and I felt scared a lot. But, I just feel we have to be worth it and IBM will have no problems hiring Americans since they're worth every penny they pay. "
But most people are just average, and trouble is the average worker's salary in USA is far more than the average worker's salary in China.
Maybe the average "american" in the USA is better than the average Chinese. But is he or she that much better that it's worth it?
What's the solution? I don't know.
Print more US dollars and use it to buy oil from Saudi Arabia, then convert that oil into real wealth rather than wasting it? Take advantage of the free ride while you can - it won't last forever.
You could say China is evil for keeping their currency low, but they are buying a lot of US debt, so they're in it almost as deep as you are. I mean what can they really do if the USA just says "We're never going to pay it back"? You think they don't suspect it? So what do they get from doing that?
Seems like the people in charge at both sides just kept/keep trying to postpone the inevitable - they hope the shit only hits the fan years later when someone else is in charge.
And you know what? I wouldn't want to be in the relevant chinese official's shoes when it happens - might get executed... In the USA seems like you still get big bonuses when you screw up, just not as big as before:).
Yes, we don't live in a Star Trek world, so we have to work withing the current system and try to improve it.
I have given some thought on the length of copyrights.
If the pace of progress is supposedly increasing, and marketing, distribution is also supposedly more efficient (internet etc), then copyright terms should be decreasing rather than increasing (which is happening instead).
As to how long? I believe the original copyright terms in the USA were 14 or 28 years. So shouldn't the terms be shorter now?
If copyright terms today were 7 years then companies like Microsoft would have had a lot more incentive to produce a version of windows in 2007 that is significantly better than Windows 2000. Maybe Vista would be a lot better today if the terms were 7 years;).
Also seems Microsoft has already made as much money as they can from Windows 2000 - it's no longer available for general sale (whereas Windows XP is still available).
As for music, books, and art I think 7 years is OK too. If you require a 90-120 year monopoly to make enough money from one work, perhaps you really should do something else as your day job.
But longer terms are fine if someone can clearly show it would make things better overall for society. So far it seems like they benefit companies that can buy up and accumulate rights more than they benefit the actual creators (especially for stuff like music).
BTW even when copyright terms run out, if you make it convenient enough, many people will still buy stuff from you. People still buy books of works that can be obtained for free - instead of downloading them from Project Gutenberg/Baen Free Library.
Lastly, in my opinion, retroactive extension of copyright terms is closer to stealing than copyright infringement. It deprives the public of something they used to have free legal access to.
Sure but there are probably very few "Bruce Lee" class people, and also little overlap between the "Bruce Lee" class people and the people willing to hijack planes.
If you think the reason why the 9/11 hijackers were successful is because the 100 plus passengers were not armed you are badly mistaken.
On average 20-30 people armed with stuff readily available on a plane should be able to take down 4 average guys with box cutters. Box cutters don't even penetrate inflight magazines well. You can kill people with pens. Heck if people started throwing their shoes and coins at the hijackers it would hurt them badly.
Why they didn't try was the passengers didn't realize what the hijackers were _really_ up to.
Back then the "general understanding" was the passengers and crew cooperate with hijackers, the plane lands somewhere and the hijackers either a) eventually get something they can accept and nobody gets hurt, b) or the Special Forces storms the plane and some people die.
In fact it seems that after passengers in one of the 9/11 planes found out what happened to the other planes, they stopped the hijackers from achieving their objectives. Sure that plane still crashed (just not at the target), but perhaps if they knew earlier things would have been different.
I'd actually argue that if you can really prevent "teeth and claws" getting on board, it's harder for 4 wolves to overpower 100 sheep in a fight to the death. Whereas if you allowed everyone to carry deadly weapons, it just makes things worse. Most "sheep" won't bring swords on board. And a skilled person with a sword can defeat very many unarmed people (a decent sharp sword has pretty good "stopping" power). In contrast a skilled unarmed martial artist will find it harder to fight off many unarmed people at once (some poor bastard may have to be the shield, but too bad).
Say everyone has one of those Star Trek replicators.
Someone goes to the grocery store, and buys an item.
Said someone then puts that in his replicator and then uploads the "recipe" for that item.
Everyone else who wants to, downloads the recipe and creates a copy of that item (from their own raw materials).
I do not see how this is clearly unethical or wrong.
In a Star Trek world, I guess everyone would be able to obtain the raw materials for making whatever meals they want. So there is no food scarcity barring exceptional events.
Of course it'll be harder to be rich from selling food.
But if everyone could eat the best foods in the entire world anytime they wanted, aren't they all now richer than the wealthiest kings 1000 years ago?
A computer in this respect is just a replicator that only works with information.
In the future we might have "real" replicators.
One might argue then that it is immoral and unethical to create an artificial scarcity when there does not have to be one. Preventing people from making copies of all sorts of items, just so that you could make yourself "rich".
Plagiarism would still be wrong - since it involves lying. It'll still be wrong to make a copy and claim it's an original you came up with.
The doctor could say, "Hey don't tell anyone I said this, but there's this place in Switzerland where you can go get yourself euthanized before it gets really bad".
Or imagine a diagnosis where the doctor runs away from you screaming, "Stay away from me!".
Take it as an example of how most people think, and why such research shouldn't be allowed.
To me, until people are much clearer on how to define "human" or people are willing to give animals the same rights as humans, you shouldn't allow human-animal hybrids.
Otherwise allowing it is just asking for lots of problems down the line. You have to consider the bad/worst case scenarios.
You may think a total ban is silly, wasteful and arbitrary, but I think not banning it at this stage is worse.
After all, imagine creating intelligent+sentient+conscious robots/cyborgs/creatures in a world where people would just enslave and mistreat them (or "farm" bits of their bodies).
Researchers may say the current creatures won't have a brain. Yes but then you'll still have to draw a line somewhere. Where are you going to draw that line? Keep in mind there's a fair bit of "brain" near where your stomach is (Enteric Nervous System see: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=980CE0DF1F39F930A15752C0A960958260 ). Maybe it's the one that decides you want to eat fried chicken instead of brocolli for lunch.
The masses already have problems with abortion.
So just ban it for now and work on something else - there's plenty of other work to be done, that can be done without such problems. The last I checked we had limited resources. Sure we might waste the experience of some people in transgenic research, but so what - preserve their current work for the future. If they're really smart they might find other ways of curing diseases in the meantime.
Even if you're an atheist, it's probably easier to get the masses to swallow a simplified belief system.
I mean we're talking about people who don't read manuals ok? Heck half of them are so oblivious that they might not even notice there's a manual in the first place. And there's a big bunch who are practically illiterate.
To me, it's a good idea to "draw a line" somewhere for these things. It may be silly and arbitrary, but it's still better than not drawing a line somewhere.
Until people are much clearer on how to define "human"or people are willing to give animals the same rights, you shouldn't allow human-animal hybrids.
Allowing it is just asking for lots of problems down the line.
Well I'm on of those exceptions. I think most animals are conscious. It's just a matter of degree.
Heck if you want to take it to extremes - most humans aren't very conscious anyway. They are so oblivious to most stuff (some humans might see the rest of us as a bunch of ignorant retards to be exploited).
I'll still eat animals though and many animals won't think twice about eating me.
This is like sending in your Microsoft car for servicing at Microsoft and having the Microsoft mechanic install an extension to your "Firefox" add-on car radio - which you installed yourself, because you wanted an alternative to the embedded Microsoft Car Radio (which cannot be removed without disabling a large part of the car).
An extension that allows you to listen to the New & Wonderful Microsoft Radio Stations, and all installed without asking your permission first.
Just because you chose to add that extension on your built-in Microsoft Car Radio, does not give them the right to install it on your non-Microsoft Car Radios, WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION.
After all many of us have the Firefox Car Radio just so that we can avoid listening to the Microsoft Radio Stations by accident or mistake or "Just Because Microsoft thinks it's time for you to". When we want to listen to those stations we use the Microsoft Car Radio.
So far I have managed to install the Java crap on various computers without having the google tool bar installed without my permission - they made it optional and I usually deselect all such options.
MS deserves a bashing for this. They are trespassing and are arguably doing an "unauthorised modification" to your computer system, which is a Computer Crimes offense in many countries.
They'd probably get away by giving the various usual excuses. After all, the Sony bunch got away without being jailed even though they did something worse.
Unauthorized modification of one to a few hundred computers and it's "hacking/vandalism", and if caught you can go to jail.
Unauthorized modification of millions of computers and it's called "useful and allowing firefox adoption".
Lots of people run firefox because they do not want "that microsoft stuff" to run when they visit some webpage.
If they want "that microsoft stuff" to run, they start up IE instead, which happens to be conveniently embedded in most Microsoft Windows installations.
So this sneaky "update" is BAD.
If you want a car analogy, this is like sending in your Microsoft car for servicing at Microsoft and having the Microsoft mechanic install an extension to your "Firefox" add-on car radio (which you installed yourself).
An extension that allows you to listen to the New Microsoft Radio Stations, all without asking your permission first.
Even though you already have that extension on your built-in Microsoft Car Radio - which Microsoft has conveniently embedded into your car and made unremovable, they still should not be installing it on your non-Microsoft Car Radios.
It's different if they ask your permission first. But AFAIK they didn't and that makes it wrong and rude.
Many people may consider it tantamount to trespass and disregard for private property.
It's higher, since a) Someone could drop/store a bunch of tool rocks together. b) If the "tool like" rocks are being formed "naturally", it may involve a process that increases the chances of other rocks in the area becoming "tool like" as well.
"Especially as it's their job to learn a new system if/when it is introduced."
But for most, that's _far_ from their main job. They may be good at sales/marketing/purchasing/managing people or projects/etc but not as good at learning new software. So change is disruptive and costly.
If the change is perceived as being useless or pointless it is no surprise when end users protest.
Another thing - there are valid reasons to use windows.
For one, 5 years ago Desktop Linux was crap. Alternatives to Microsoft Office were abysmal. Things have improved a bit but still the OSS alternatives are behind in many ways (even OSX is doing better than Desktop Linux).
Thus Microsoft Software may have been the best choice back then. And if there is no need to change, why change? So no surprise if 5 years later companies are still using the same stuff.
Thing is, now Microsoft is forcing the issue with huge changes like Microsoft Office 2007, Vista, Windows 7 and so on - all these involve extra training and cost.
So there is a big window of opportunity for OSS stuff - since either way the corporation has to retrain staff and spend $$$. Whereas previously sticking with Microsoft was a known, acceptable cost.
If there was a painless and cheaper way to migrate off Microsoft products, many companies would go for it.
The citrix approach sounds silly to me, at least for most corporate scenarios. It seems wasteful to not use all that power, and such a centralized approach is unlikely to ever scale well for modern applications (I've seen firefox use hundreds of MB).
I'd think a good approach would be using something like Windows SteadyState[1] (which can freeze a system to a particular state - so all user changes are temporary), and having the user's data stored on network drives (where they can be backed up). Swap and temporary storage (e.g. photoshop scratch disks) can be on local drives.
If there's any problems, just reboot and everything is reverted to a clean state (all work saved on network drives is retained- if you are paranoid and have resources to sapre you might even allow some versioning on network drives).
This way most of a local PC's power can be used; while important data (and user profiles/preferences) can be saved, backed up and restored; and control over the system image can be maintained.
It'll be good to be able to start the boot over the network first - which then can either boot a Windows SteadyState image locally, or boot something that will update the local image (and then reboot again).
But maybe if enough large corps got together and sponsored more work and resources on something like ReactOS, Microsoft might suddenly say "OKOK, you can downgrade to XP, just don't even think about that!".
The problem for Microsoft is, if too many people stuck with XP, then eventually XP could become a defacto standard that even Microsoft themselves have difficulty changing.
Then more people will start making XP compatible OSes.
See what happened to IBM and the IBM PC BIOS?
Or Intel and the x86? Intel tried to get everyone on the Itanic, but pesky AMD came along and provided a 64 bit x86 path.
Naturally Microsoft will do all it can to not be "Yet Another BIOS vendor". Hence they must release Windows 7 and it must be slightly incompatible, but compatible enough.
The trouble with Vista was it was too crap as well. So they lost a lot of ground there.
But I believe OSS world has a long way to go when it comes to providing a "drop in" Windows XP replacement (most aren't interested in doing that).
Slashdot Mirror
"I know people are scared and I felt scared a lot. But, I just feel we have to be worth it and IBM will have no problems hiring Americans since they're worth every penny they pay. "
:).
But most people are just average, and trouble is the average worker's salary in USA is far more than the average worker's salary in China.
Maybe the average "american" in the USA is better than the average Chinese. But is he or she that much better that it's worth it?
What's the solution? I don't know.
Print more US dollars and use it to buy oil from Saudi Arabia, then convert that oil into real wealth rather than wasting it? Take advantage of the free ride while you can - it won't last forever.
You could say China is evil for keeping their currency low, but they are buying a lot of US debt, so they're in it almost as deep as you are. I mean what can they really do if the USA just says "We're never going to pay it back"? You think they don't suspect it? So what do they get from doing that?
Seems like the people in charge at both sides just kept/keep trying to postpone the inevitable - they hope the shit only hits the fan years later when someone else is in charge.
And you know what? I wouldn't want to be in the relevant chinese official's shoes when it happens - might get executed... In the USA seems like you still get big bonuses when you screw up, just not as big as before
The basics are useful so that you can quickly realize that you made a big typo somewhere ;).
It's useful to know that something is off by a magnitude or more.
Maybe it's your touchpad/trackpad? Say while typing you accidentally brush the touchpad and thus move the cursor?
Is it possible to turn it off and use a mouse instead, and then see if the problem still happens?
Yes, we don't live in a Star Trek world, so we have to work withing the current system and try to improve it.
;).
I have given some thought on the length of copyrights.
If the pace of progress is supposedly increasing, and marketing, distribution is also supposedly more efficient (internet etc), then copyright terms should be decreasing rather than increasing (which is happening instead).
As to how long? I believe the original copyright terms in the USA were 14 or 28 years. So shouldn't the terms be shorter now?
If copyright terms today were 7 years then companies like Microsoft would have had a lot more incentive to produce a version of windows in 2007 that is significantly better than Windows 2000. Maybe Vista would be a lot better today if the terms were 7 years
Also seems Microsoft has already made as much money as they can from Windows 2000 - it's no longer available for general sale (whereas Windows XP is still available).
As for music, books, and art I think 7 years is OK too. If you require a 90-120 year monopoly to make enough money from one work, perhaps you really should do something else as your day job.
But longer terms are fine if someone can clearly show it would make things better overall for society. So far it seems like they benefit companies that can buy up and accumulate rights more than they benefit the actual creators (especially for stuff like music).
BTW even when copyright terms run out, if you make it convenient enough, many people will still buy stuff from you. People still buy books of works that can be obtained for free - instead of downloading them from Project Gutenberg/Baen Free Library.
Lastly, in my opinion, retroactive extension of copyright terms is closer to stealing than copyright infringement. It deprives the public of something they used to have free legal access to.
Sure but there are probably very few "Bruce Lee" class people, and also little overlap between the "Bruce Lee" class people and the people willing to hijack planes.
Doesn't that come under the "there's this place in Switzerland where you can go get yourself euthanized" category? :)
That's a pretty bad laptop keyboard you have there :).
Uh the world was a different place then.
If you think the reason why the 9/11 hijackers were successful is because the 100 plus passengers were not armed you are badly mistaken.
On average 20-30 people armed with stuff readily available on a plane should be able to take down 4 average guys with box cutters. Box cutters don't even penetrate inflight magazines well. You can kill people with pens. Heck if people started throwing their shoes and coins at the hijackers it would hurt them badly.
Why they didn't try was the passengers didn't realize what the hijackers were _really_ up to.
Back then the "general understanding" was the passengers and crew cooperate with hijackers, the plane lands somewhere and the hijackers either a) eventually get something they can accept and nobody gets hurt, b) or the Special Forces storms the plane and some people die.
In fact it seems that after passengers in one of the 9/11 planes found out what happened to the other planes, they stopped the hijackers from achieving their objectives. Sure that plane still crashed (just not at the target), but perhaps if they knew earlier things would have been different.
I'd actually argue that if you can really prevent "teeth and claws" getting on board, it's harder for 4 wolves to overpower 100 sheep in a fight to the death. Whereas if you allowed everyone to carry deadly weapons, it just makes things worse. Most "sheep" won't bring swords on board. And a skilled person with a sword can defeat very many unarmed people (a decent sharp sword has pretty good "stopping" power). In contrast a skilled unarmed martial artist will find it harder to fight off many unarmed people at once (some poor bastard may have to be the shield, but too bad).
I wonder what the "thinking power parity" list looks like ;).
Are you sure they weren't stolen goods?
The profit margins on computer hardware can be quite low.
He's using a dial up connection without a firewall?
The original Windows XP is remotely exploitable.
The analogy is more like this:
Say everyone has one of those Star Trek replicators.
Someone goes to the grocery store, and buys an item.
Said someone then puts that in his replicator and then uploads the "recipe" for that item.
Everyone else who wants to, downloads the recipe and creates a copy of that item (from their own raw materials).
I do not see how this is clearly unethical or wrong.
In a Star Trek world, I guess everyone would be able to obtain the raw materials for making whatever meals they want. So there is no food scarcity barring exceptional events.
Of course it'll be harder to be rich from selling food.
But if everyone could eat the best foods in the entire world anytime they wanted, aren't they all now richer than the wealthiest kings 1000 years ago?
A computer in this respect is just a replicator that only works with information.
In the future we might have "real" replicators.
One might argue then that it is immoral and unethical to create an artificial scarcity when there does not have to be one. Preventing people from making copies of all sorts of items, just so that you could make yourself "rich".
Plagiarism would still be wrong - since it involves lying. It'll still be wrong to make a copy and claim it's an original you came up with.
"Who here that has a penis ISN'T interested in inserting it everywhere?"
Those who aren't trying for Darwin Awards?
No. You're not trying hard enough.
The doctor could say, "Hey don't tell anyone I said this, but there's this place in Switzerland where you can go get yourself euthanized before it gets really bad".
Or imagine a diagnosis where the doctor runs away from you screaming, "Stay away from me!".
And that's just a start.
Looking at all the people here who can't spell, giving them the ability to directly edit their genes will certainly result in death sentences.
:)
Heck they might not even get past the first word.
Take it as an example of how most people think, and why such research shouldn't be allowed.
To me, until people are much clearer on how to define "human" or people are willing to give animals the same rights as humans, you shouldn't allow human-animal hybrids.
Otherwise allowing it is just asking for lots of problems down the line. You have to consider the bad/worst case scenarios.
You may think a total ban is silly, wasteful and arbitrary, but I think not banning it at this stage is worse.
After all, imagine creating intelligent+sentient+conscious robots/cyborgs/creatures in a world where people would just enslave and mistreat them (or "farm" bits of their bodies).
Researchers may say the current creatures won't have a brain. Yes but then you'll still have to draw a line somewhere. Where are you going to draw that line? Keep in mind there's a fair bit of "brain" near where your stomach is (Enteric Nervous System see: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=980CE0DF1F39F930A15752C0A960958260 ). Maybe it's the one that decides you want to eat fried chicken instead of brocolli for lunch.
The masses already have problems with abortion.
So just ban it for now and work on something else - there's plenty of other work to be done, that can be done without such problems. The last I checked we had limited resources. Sure we might waste the experience of some people in transgenic research, but so what - preserve their current work for the future. If they're really smart they might find other ways of curing diseases in the meantime.
Even if you're an atheist, it's probably easier to get the masses to swallow a simplified belief system.
I mean we're talking about people who don't read manuals ok? Heck half of them are so oblivious that they might not even notice there's a manual in the first place. And there's a big bunch who are practically illiterate.
To me, it's a good idea to "draw a line" somewhere for these things. It may be silly and arbitrary, but it's still better than not drawing a line somewhere.
Until people are much clearer on how to define "human"or people are willing to give animals the same rights, you shouldn't allow human-animal hybrids.
Allowing it is just asking for lots of problems down the line.
Well I'm on of those exceptions. I think most animals are conscious. It's just a matter of degree.
Heck if you want to take it to extremes - most humans aren't very conscious anyway. They are so oblivious to most stuff (some humans might see the rest of us as a bunch of ignorant retards to be exploited).
I'll still eat animals though and many animals won't think twice about eating me.
"You look like you need a car analogy"
This is like sending in your Microsoft car for servicing at Microsoft and having the Microsoft mechanic install an extension to your "Firefox" add-on car radio - which you installed yourself, because you wanted an alternative to the embedded Microsoft Car Radio (which cannot be removed without disabling a large part of the car).
An extension that allows you to listen to the New & Wonderful Microsoft Radio Stations, and all installed without asking your permission first.
Just because you chose to add that extension on your built-in Microsoft Car Radio, does not give them the right to install it on your non-Microsoft Car Radios, WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION.
After all many of us have the Firefox Car Radio just so that we can avoid listening to the Microsoft Radio Stations by accident or mistake or "Just Because Microsoft thinks it's time for you to". When we want to listen to those stations we use the Microsoft Car Radio.
So far I have managed to install the Java crap on various computers without having the google tool bar installed without my permission - they made it optional and I usually deselect all such options.
MS deserves a bashing for this. They are trespassing and are arguably doing an "unauthorised modification" to your computer system, which is a Computer Crimes offense in many countries.
They'd probably get away by giving the various usual excuses. After all, the Sony bunch got away without being jailed even though they did something worse.
Unauthorized modification of one to a few hundred computers and it's "hacking/vandalism", and if caught you can go to jail.
Unauthorized modification of millions of computers and it's called "useful and allowing firefox adoption".
Lots of people run firefox because they do not want "that microsoft stuff" to run when they visit some webpage.
If they want "that microsoft stuff" to run, they start up IE instead, which happens to be conveniently embedded in most Microsoft Windows installations.
So this sneaky "update" is BAD.
If you want a car analogy, this is like sending in your Microsoft car for servicing at Microsoft and having the Microsoft mechanic install an extension to your "Firefox" add-on car radio (which you installed yourself).
An extension that allows you to listen to the New Microsoft Radio Stations, all without asking your permission first.
Even though you already have that extension on your built-in Microsoft Car Radio - which Microsoft has conveniently embedded into your car and made unremovable, they still should not be installing it on your non-Microsoft Car Radios.
It's different if they ask your permission first. But AFAIK they didn't and that makes it wrong and rude.
Many people may consider it tantamount to trespass and disregard for private property.
It's higher, since
a) Someone could drop/store a bunch of tool rocks together.
b) If the "tool like" rocks are being formed "naturally", it may involve a process that increases the chances of other rocks in the area becoming "tool like" as well.
"Especially as it's their job to learn a new system if/when it is introduced."
But for most, that's _far_ from their main job. They may be good at sales/marketing/purchasing/managing people or projects/etc but not as good at learning new software. So change is disruptive and costly.
If the change is perceived as being useless or pointless it is no surprise when end users protest.
Another thing - there are valid reasons to use windows.
For one, 5 years ago Desktop Linux was crap. Alternatives to Microsoft Office were abysmal. Things have improved a bit but still the OSS alternatives are behind in many ways (even OSX is doing better than Desktop Linux).
Thus Microsoft Software may have been the best choice back then. And if there is no need to change, why change? So no surprise if 5 years later companies are still using the same stuff.
Thing is, now Microsoft is forcing the issue with huge changes like Microsoft Office 2007, Vista, Windows 7 and so on - all these involve extra training and cost.
So there is a big window of opportunity for OSS stuff - since either way the corporation has to retrain staff and spend $$$. Whereas previously sticking with Microsoft was a known, acceptable cost.
If there was a painless and cheaper way to migrate off Microsoft products, many companies would go for it.
The citrix approach sounds silly to me, at least for most corporate scenarios. It seems wasteful to not use all that power, and such a centralized approach is unlikely to ever scale well for modern applications (I've seen firefox use hundreds of MB).
I'd think a good approach would be using something like Windows SteadyState[1] (which can freeze a system to a particular state - so all user changes are temporary), and having the user's data stored on network drives (where they can be backed up). Swap and temporary storage (e.g. photoshop scratch disks) can be on local drives.
If there's any problems, just reboot and everything is reverted to a clean state (all work saved on network drives is retained- if you are paranoid and have resources to sapre you might even allow some versioning on network drives).
This way most of a local PC's power can be used; while important data (and user profiles/preferences) can be saved, backed up and restored; and control over the system image can be maintained.
It'll be good to be able to start the boot over the network first - which then can either boot a Windows SteadyState image locally, or boot something that will update the local image (and then reboot again).
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D077A52D-93E9-4B02-BD95-9D770CCDB431&displaylang=en
There are other similar products - many commonly used in cybercafes.
Microsoft _must_ keep moving the goal posts.
If they don't force people to move from XP, that would give others enough time to make "Windows XP Compatible" operating systems that are good enough.
Then Windows XP will become a defacto standard that even Microsoft cannot escape from.
And "Microsoft Windows XP" in the "Windows XP Compatible" world would be just like IBM PC BIOS in the PC BIOS world.
That is unlikely to be good for Microsoft in $$$ terms.
So every Windows release must be slightly incompatible with the previous release, and old releases must eventually be phased out.
The problem is Vista was too crappy and not just incompatible, and the _actual_ benefits aren't good enough.
After that? Wine on Linux?
I don't think ReactOS is ready.
But maybe if enough large corps got together and sponsored more work and resources on something like ReactOS, Microsoft might suddenly say "OKOK, you can downgrade to XP, just don't even think about that!".
The problem for Microsoft is, if too many people stuck with XP, then eventually XP could become a defacto standard that even Microsoft themselves have difficulty changing.
Then more people will start making XP compatible OSes.
See what happened to IBM and the IBM PC BIOS?
Or Intel and the x86? Intel tried to get everyone on the Itanic, but pesky AMD came along and provided a 64 bit x86 path.
Naturally Microsoft will do all it can to not be "Yet Another BIOS vendor". Hence they must release Windows 7 and it must be slightly incompatible, but compatible enough.
The trouble with Vista was it was too crap as well. So they lost a lot of ground there.
But I believe OSS world has a long way to go when it comes to providing a "drop in" Windows XP replacement (most aren't interested in doing that).