Recently I was looking at purchasing DVDs of a long-running TV series. I realized that the DVDs with all of their cases would take up a HUGE amount of space! I always watch DVDs via my computer, I don't even own a regular DVD player. Then I realized I actually DON'T WANT physical DVDs! I have enough storage space I could put this huge pile of DVDs on a single hard drive - without even compressing them further.
* All I want is a file I can double click on, sit back, and watch. *
Where can I pay for a licensed download of this kind of stuff? Oh, pretty much nowhere? And, no to work for me it can't be DRMed and must be in a relatively standard codec.
Now, if I could buy a plain DVD with such a file that I could drag-and-drop to my hard drive, and then dispose of the DVD or toss the plain DVD on to a spool somewhere that would be fine too. That might save me from tying up my internet connection for a while. I don't want to have to search through a pile of DVDs to find the one I want.
Technically it is possible to copy DVDs to a hard drive but as everyone here knows that is forbidden by a truckload of laws!!! W... T... F...?!!!!! Not to mention most DVDs are encrypted and many DVDs are damaged in creative ways to try to prevent people from copying them.
If they are so freaking afraid of piracy, they should drop the price enough and make it so it was actually more convenient and desirable to purchase a DVD, then the MPAA could just sit back and watch the torrents dry up!
Oh, and should I mention how painful dealing with most regular DVDs are? Put in the DVD and be forced to watch a dozen commercials for crap? Every time I buy a DVD I feel like I am begin fucked up the ass by Micky Mouse!
So why do I even want a physical MPAA-pressed DVD again? Just sell me what I want dammit!
Isn't this the merit of OSS, in that someone who needs Firefox to run on older Windows clients can maintain a branch that implements 1.9.1? I'd need to know "why" Gecko 1.9.2 doesn't run on older versions of Windows to make a value judgment as to weather or not this is a bad idea.
Back when Mozilla dropped MacOS 9 after Mozilla 1.2.1, some other folks rolled their own 1.3.x versions. And there is even a version of Firefox 3 for OS/2! I was even kind of hoping someone would have hacked together a version of FF 3 for Windows 9x even if it was minus some features, but I guess nobody was up to that challenge. It certainly could happen with 2000/XP if Mozilla.org drops it and there is still enough demand. Perhaps this is really just a call to let the world know that the Firefox project needs some community help!
It used to be that one of the big selling points of Mozilla/Firefox was that it could run on almost any OS! Mac, Windows (95 and NT 3.51 and up), Linux, BeOS, OS/2, Solaris, and more!
To me this meant I could go to just about any computer, use Firefox, and have every web page render the same regardless of the OS. And I didn't have to worry about purchasing or learning a new OS just to browse a web site.
What happened to all of that?
I would almost think that with the economy as it is, Mozilla would want to keep Firefox as popular as possible by keeping it running on all these older computers out there that will NOT be replaced any time in the near future.
And personally, I'm still disappointed there is no Windows 9x version any more. Thank goodness for SeaMonkey 1.1.x and Opera!
Not to mention the British guy from the future that shows up sporting a dressing gown and holding a towel complaining how some "ultimate program" is now all cocked up by them being there.
Over all I thought it was probably the best ending they could have given it. The "making of" special they had really clarified it as being more "about the character" than anything else. I had been following BSG just because it was one of the few things on TV any more that was even vaguely interesting although I was disgusted how the entire conflict evolved in to some religious BS. (fiction is the appropriate place for religion since religion is all made up, but I cringe at how many people actually take that nonsense literally)
Anyway, I had actually expected something bigger, or more grand from the "Final five" plot line. But they way that ended really did "fit" this BSG - across life, death, and thousands of years, and it all ends in one big clusterfrak.
The entire thing about giving up their technology seemed kind of WTF-ish but it was obviously the only way they could make it "fit" in to the time line. I could sort of imagine the people not wanting to do the same thing of creating a city again after the mess on New Caprica, and most of those ships were probably pretty ripe and unlivable after all that time, but not salving tech from them would be crazy.
More importantly because of this, what they did was end their civilization! What is the point of biological survival if history, technology, forms of government, and other cultural things are not maintained or at least remembered?
"Repeat to yourself It's just a show, I should really just relax...":)
Seriously? That's absolute crap. Me installing firefox does NOT mean I want IE disabled. The EU needs to get its head out of its a**. If I want IE disabled, I'll disable it.
WTF? Where did it say it was going to disable IE if you installed Firefox?
Some people like myself want - no, demand - the option to remove IE. (Even if no other browser is present!). The EU is simply doing what it can against Microsoft, who until now have seemed completely unwilling to bend.
Aw, come on, this only removes the IEXPLORE.EXE loader stub.
Still, this is start. And about damn time.
I'd like to see them fully drop all dependencies on IE from the desktop shell next. The help system would be the biggest problem though, but perhaps they can slowly move towards a version of windows that is not entirely dependent on IE again... but perhaps I am just still dreaming.
Happily posted from my Windows 95 machine with SeaMonkey 1.1.14... and NO STILL IE AT ALL!
Heck, with the way they have been suing everybody I'm surprised anyone still even wants music any more. Why even possess music when it is apparently such a dangerous thing?:P
And until IE is removable, I am being denied *MY* choice: I would like an operating system with NO web browser. There are many reasons I may, and do, want specific machines without a web browser application installed. Or I may wish to install a web browser separately on my own (I have a dozen different ways of doing that. I'm sure some retard will ask how I am going to download it without IE)
And as far as applications that "embed" IE: #^@* them, they don't respect my choice of browser (or lack thereof), they offend me, and I don't want them either.
Preserving games is nice and all, but it seems to me to be only part of what should be preserved. I feel it is just as important to be able to look back at old word processors, spreadsheets, desktop shells, disk utilities, programming environments, obscure OSes, and more. They may not be as glamorous as preserving games, but they are just as worthy of preservation.
But... but... we have to do it the high tech way! It has to be on the web! And use lots of XML for everything! And integrate with Microsoft Sharepoint and Project Server! And we'll have data dictionaries, and Java classes, and object-oriented OLAP cubes, and we will use some of that AJAX stuff too!
Hmph, next thing you know they will be saying we need to go back to stone-age paper and pencil!
Come on everybody: LET'S PUT IT ON THE WEB!!!! (drool, drool, drool)
You think that is funny, but back in the Windows 3.x days there was actually a thriving market for alternate Windows desktops. Norton desktop and Central Point desktop come to mind as several popular ones. OEMs regularly bundled alternate startup shells with tutorials and such, because they felt people might want this and in the end could make the OEM more money.
Then when Windows 95 came along Microsoft completely forbade OEMs from bundling alternative interfaces, or anything that displaced their "desktop".
Sure, the Win95 interface was vastly improved over Win3.1 so there was less need to, but OEMs still wanted to do it. For a time there were even some clever hacks that tried to display extra stuff under the task bar, outside of the "desktop" as Microsoft defined it.
Microsoft very well may still be forbidding or discouraging OEMs from bundling alternative desktops, in which case the EU should force MS to let OEMs bundle other desktops IF they want.
Ok, I hate Internet Explorer probably more than anyone else in the universe, and would love to see it exorcised from windows... but this is going overboard.
It should be OEMs that choose to install Firefox or another browser. Forcing them to install all other browsers is just as bad as MS forcing them to always install IE with windows.
Besides, perhaps I want a computer with *NO* web browser! (there are plenty of cases where a computer would be used for a specific purpose that doesn't involve web access)
Now, in all fairness, there is a good likelihood that OEMs are still quietly being pressured by MS to not install other browsers or even other non-MS software. If that is the case then this core issue needs to be addressed first.
At most, perhaps OEMs should get some incentive to install Firefox/Opera, but should not be required.
What REALLY needs to happen - IE needs to become a fully 100% add/removable application just like any other normal Windows accessory. Check? It is installed. Unchecked? It is removed. This would be in the standard Windows distribution (not some rare unwanted version like Windows N). CAB installer files would be on the CD or hard drive. OEMs could choose to install IE, if not they would likely install some other browser. That is choice. That is what it should have been like from day 1. (Apps that embed IE need to die off in the long run, but you could go to add/remove programs check the IE box and then they would run)
Even if OEMs choose to include any other browser(s), they currently must alway have IE regardless if they want it or not.
And there is a strong tenancy to not have multiple applications that do the same thing. So which browser winds up getting installed? Right, IE. Because there is no choice.
"How am I supposed to download Firefox then?!!? FTP? c'mon!"
Ok, ha ha. But there are a variety of easy ways you could get Firefox.
* First, OEMs would pre-install their choice of web browser(s) for you.
* Get a CD-ROM with the software from your vendor (Firefox and IE are available on CD)
* Windows could get with this century and add a friendly non-browser based package manager.
* A simple auto-downloader (double-click an icon and it grabs the file).
* Other, optional, file sharing applications - could be P2P or even just a friendly GUI FTP program.
* Start with IE installed, download another browser, then uninstall IE (if IE were truly optional you could do this).
* Or my favorite: FLOPPY DISKS!
It's not stupid. It's something that needs to be done.
As for "Windows N", the way Microsoft went about doing that was technically wrong. They were basically being asses about the whole thing. As a result, no one wanted it.
What they SHOULD have done was change regular Windows so this was an add/removable feature. Then OEMs could choose if they wanted it installed by default. Additionally, some of the lower level "os-ish" DLLs in this case could have been left for applications to use. Any apps that stupidly required the high-level Media Player application to be installed could ask if the user wants to install it. (And then one could decide that they don't want either)
And what they SHOULD do with IE is also exactly what I described above. Actually that is what they should have done from day one.
I'm surprised they haven't tried this trick with MS-office, making some kind of "core spreadsheet services" DLLs that are part of the "OS" and that other apps can make use of, and wind up making up 99% of Excel.
Ok, so I buy a TV and the remote it came with smells up the house or something... I get a different remote of my choice and throw the old one the heck away.
I buy a Windows computer and IE smells up my hard drive or something... I get a different browser of my choice and.... Ok, how do I get rid of IE?
And would a TV manufacturer really forbid or technically prevent a dealer from offering a different remote (presumably with more abilities to increase sales) in complete substitution of their remote? I would hope not.
Your comparison is seriously flawed, and what they are doing is something that needs to be done. The only part of your post I agree with is that they could stand to do more advertising.
"If Windows doesn't come with a web browser, how do you get one?"
This is asked and answered in several places, but there are a variety of easy ways this can or could be done.
* First, OEMs would pre-install their choice of web browser(s) for you. * Get a CD-ROM with the software from your vendor (Firefox and IE are available on CD * Windows could get with this century and add a friendly non-browser based package manager. * A simple auto-downloader (double-click an icon and it grabs the file). * Other, optional, file sharing applications - could be P2P or even just a friendly GUI FTP program. * Start with IE installed, download another browser, then uninstall IE (if IE were truly optional you could do this).
But even more importantly: The OEM's *CHOICE* of browser will be bundled with virtually all preinstalled systems by the OEM.
Right now they don't have a real choice. IE has to be installed, so they can have just IE, or IE+Firefox or IE+Opera, or IE+Firefox+Opera or so on. Given there is a tendency to avoid having multiple application that do about the same thing installed, everyone currently usually just winds up with IE.
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I think there should be a "drop cable - switch to OTA" campaign.
- Same or better crisp clear picture!
- Same amount of quality programming! *
- Unbeatable price of $0.00!
(* None)
Araaag, drugs drugs drugs drugs. How about addressing the core problem of making life not SUCK so much?!
Recently I was looking at purchasing DVDs of a long-running TV series. I realized that the DVDs with all of their cases would take up a HUGE amount of space! I always watch DVDs via my computer, I don't even own a regular DVD player. Then I realized I actually DON'T WANT physical DVDs! I have enough storage space I could put this huge pile of DVDs on a single hard drive - without even compressing them further.
* All I want is a file I can double click on, sit back, and watch. *
Where can I pay for a licensed download of this kind of stuff? Oh, pretty much nowhere? And, no to work for me it can't be DRMed and must be in a relatively standard codec.
Now, if I could buy a plain DVD with such a file that I could drag-and-drop to my hard drive, and then dispose of the DVD or toss the plain DVD on to a spool somewhere that would be fine too. That might save me from tying up my internet connection for a while. I don't want to have to search through a pile of DVDs to find the one I want.
Technically it is possible to copy DVDs to a hard drive but as everyone here knows that is forbidden by a truckload of laws!!! W... T... F...?!!!!! Not to mention most DVDs are encrypted and many DVDs are damaged in creative ways to try to prevent people from copying them.
If they are so freaking afraid of piracy, they should drop the price enough and make it so it was actually more convenient and desirable to purchase a DVD, then the MPAA could just sit back and watch the torrents dry up!
Oh, and should I mention how painful dealing with most regular DVDs are? Put in the DVD and be forced to watch a dozen commercials for crap? Every time I buy a DVD I feel like I am begin fucked up the ass by Micky Mouse!
So why do I even want a physical MPAA-pressed DVD again? Just sell me what I want dammit!
Remove all of the legacy crap that's been holding Windows back? So finally they can remove Internet Explorer!
"FF 3 does not run on those..."
Firefox 1.5 did. (And with a slight tweak Firefox 2 also ran under 95). Here are some screen shots:
http://toastytech.com/guis/ff15t.html
Isn't this the merit of OSS, in that someone who needs Firefox to run on older Windows clients can maintain a branch that implements 1.9.1? I'd need to know "why" Gecko 1.9.2 doesn't run on older versions of Windows to make a value judgment as to weather or not this is a bad idea.
Back when Mozilla dropped MacOS 9 after Mozilla 1.2.1, some other folks rolled their own 1.3.x versions. And there is even a version of Firefox 3 for OS/2! I was even kind of hoping someone would have hacked together a version of FF 3 for Windows 9x even if it was minus some features, but I guess nobody was up to that challenge. It certainly could happen with 2000/XP if Mozilla.org drops it and there is still enough demand. Perhaps this is really just a call to let the world know that the Firefox project needs some community help!
It used to be that one of the big selling points of Mozilla/Firefox was that it could run on almost any OS! Mac, Windows (95 and NT 3.51 and up), Linux, BeOS, OS/2, Solaris, and more!
To me this meant I could go to just about any computer, use Firefox, and have every web page render the same regardless of the OS. And I didn't have to worry about purchasing or learning a new OS just to browse a web site.
What happened to all of that?
I would almost think that with the economy as it is, Mozilla would want to keep Firefox as popular as possible by keeping it running on all these older computers out there that will NOT be replaced any time in the near future.
And personally, I'm still disappointed there is no Windows 9x version any more. Thank goodness for SeaMonkey 1.1.x and Opera!
Not to mention the British guy from the future that shows up sporting a dressing gown and holding a towel complaining how some "ultimate program" is now all cocked up by them being there.
Over all I thought it was probably the best ending they could have given it. The "making of" special they had really clarified it as being more "about the character" than anything else. I had been following BSG just because it was one of the few things on TV any more that was even vaguely interesting although I was disgusted how the entire conflict evolved in to some religious BS. (fiction is the appropriate place for religion since religion is all made up, but I cringe at how many people actually take that nonsense literally)
Anyway, I had actually expected something bigger, or more grand from the "Final five" plot line. But they way that ended really did "fit" this BSG - across life, death, and thousands of years, and it all ends in one big clusterfrak.
The entire thing about giving up their technology seemed kind of WTF-ish but it was obviously the only way they could make it "fit" in to the time line. I could sort of imagine the people not wanting to do the same thing of creating a city again after the mess on New Caprica, and most of those ships were probably pretty ripe and unlivable after all that time, but not salving tech from them would be crazy.
More importantly because of this, what they did was end their civilization! What is the point of biological survival if history, technology, forms of government, and other cultural things are not maintained or at least remembered?
"Repeat to yourself It's just a show, I should really just relax..." :)
Seriously? That's absolute crap. Me installing firefox does NOT mean I want IE disabled. The EU needs to get its head out of its a**. If I want IE disabled, I'll disable it.
WTF? Where did it say it was going to disable IE if you installed Firefox?
Some people like myself want - no, demand - the option to remove IE. (Even if no other browser is present!). The EU is simply doing what it can against Microsoft, who until now have seemed completely unwilling to bend.
Aw, come on, this only removes the IEXPLORE.EXE loader stub.
Still, this is start. And about damn time.
I'd like to see them fully drop all dependencies on IE from the desktop shell next. The help system would be the biggest problem though, but perhaps they can slowly move towards a version of windows that is not entirely dependent on IE again... but perhaps I am just still dreaming.
Happily posted from my Windows 95 machine with SeaMonkey 1.1.14... and NO STILL IE AT ALL!
Heck, with the way they have been suing everybody I'm surprised anyone still even wants music any more. Why even possess music when it is apparently such a dangerous thing? :P
And until IE is removable, I am being denied *MY* choice: I would like an operating system with NO web browser. There are many reasons I may, and do, want specific machines without a web browser application installed. Or I may wish to install a web browser separately on my own (I have a dozen different ways of doing that. I'm sure some retard will ask how I am going to download it without IE)
And as far as applications that "embed" IE: #^@* them, they don't respect my choice of browser (or lack thereof), they offend me, and I don't want them either.
Preserving games is nice and all, but it seems to me to be only part of what should be preserved. I feel it is just as important to be able to look back at old word processors, spreadsheets, desktop shells, disk utilities, programming environments, obscure OSes, and more. They may not be as glamorous as preserving games, but they are just as worthy of preservation.
"from their beloved, aging operating system "
Software does not age. People's requirements change. And that is just the problem (for MS), XP still meets the majority of needs for people.
But... but... we have to do it the high tech way! It has to be on the web! And use lots of XML for everything! And integrate with Microsoft Sharepoint and Project Server! And we'll have data dictionaries, and Java classes, and object-oriented OLAP cubes, and we will use some of that AJAX stuff too!
Hmph, next thing you know they will be saying we need to go back to stone-age paper and pencil!
Come on everybody: LET'S PUT IT ON THE WEB!!!! (drool, drool, drool)
You think that is funny, but back in the Windows 3.x days there was actually a thriving market for alternate Windows desktops. Norton desktop and Central Point desktop come to mind as several popular ones. OEMs regularly bundled alternate startup shells with tutorials and such, because they felt people might want this and in the end could make the OEM more money.
Then when Windows 95 came along Microsoft completely forbade OEMs from bundling alternative interfaces, or anything that displaced their "desktop".
Sure, the Win95 interface was vastly improved over Win3.1 so there was less need to, but OEMs still wanted to do it. For a time there were even some clever hacks that tried to display extra stuff under the task bar, outside of the "desktop" as Microsoft defined it.
Microsoft very well may still be forbidding or discouraging OEMs from bundling alternative desktops, in which case the EU should force MS to let OEMs bundle other desktops IF they want.
Ok, I hate Internet Explorer probably more than anyone else in the universe, and would love to see it exorcised from windows... but this is going overboard.
It should be OEMs that choose to install Firefox or another browser. Forcing them to install all other browsers is just as bad as MS forcing them to always install IE with windows.
Besides, perhaps I want a computer with *NO* web browser! (there are plenty of cases where a computer would be used for a specific purpose that doesn't involve web access)
Now, in all fairness, there is a good likelihood that OEMs are still quietly being pressured by MS to not install other browsers or even other non-MS software. If that is the case then this core issue needs to be addressed first.
At most, perhaps OEMs should get some incentive to install Firefox/Opera, but should not be required.
What REALLY needs to happen - IE needs to become a fully 100% add/removable application just like any other normal Windows accessory. Check? It is installed. Unchecked? It is removed. This would be in the standard Windows distribution (not some rare unwanted version like Windows N). CAB installer files would be on the CD or hard drive. OEMs could choose to install IE, if not they would likely install some other browser. That is choice. That is what it should have been like from day 1. (Apps that embed IE need to die off in the long run, but you could go to add/remove programs check the IE box and then they would run)
It's more than that. IE can not be uninstalled.
Even if OEMs choose to include any other browser(s), they currently must alway have IE regardless if they want it or not.
And there is a strong tenancy to not have multiple applications that do the same thing. So which browser winds up getting installed? Right, IE. Because there is no choice.
"How am I supposed to download Firefox then?!!? FTP? c'mon!"
Ok, ha ha. But there are a variety of easy ways you could get Firefox.
* First, OEMs would pre-install their choice of web browser(s) for you.
* Get a CD-ROM with the software from your vendor (Firefox and IE are available on CD)
* Windows could get with this century and add a friendly non-browser based package manager.
* A simple auto-downloader (double-click an icon and it grabs the file).
* Other, optional, file sharing applications - could be P2P or even just a friendly GUI FTP program.
* Start with IE installed, download another browser, then uninstall IE (if IE were truly optional you could do this).
* Or my favorite: FLOPPY DISKS!
It's not stupid. It's something that needs to be done.
As for "Windows N", the way Microsoft went about doing that was technically wrong. They were basically being asses about the whole thing. As a result, no one wanted it.
What they SHOULD have done was change regular Windows so this was an add/removable feature. Then OEMs could choose if they wanted it installed by default. Additionally, some of the lower level "os-ish" DLLs in this case could have been left for applications to use. Any apps that stupidly required the high-level Media Player application to be installed could ask if the user wants to install it. (And then one could decide that they don't want either)
And what they SHOULD do with IE is also exactly what I described above. Actually that is what they should have done from day one.
I'm surprised they haven't tried this trick with MS-office, making some kind of "core spreadsheet services" DLLs that are part of the "OS" and that other apps can make use of, and wind up making up 99% of Excel.
Ok, so I buy a TV and the remote it came with smells up the house or something... I get a different remote of my choice and throw the old one the heck away.
I buy a Windows computer and IE smells up my hard drive or something... I get a different browser of my choice and.... Ok, how do I get rid of IE?
And would a TV manufacturer really forbid or technically prevent a dealer from offering a different remote (presumably with more abilities to increase sales) in complete substitution of their remote? I would hope not.
Your comparison is seriously flawed, and what they are doing is something that needs to be done. The only part of your post I agree with is that they could stand to do more advertising.
"How is the average computer illiterate going to download a browser if Microsoft is not allowed to bundle one? Buy a disc?"
:)
Sure! Do you want 3.5", 5.25" or 8"?
"If Windows doesn't come with a web browser, how do you get one?"
This is asked and answered in several places, but there are a variety of easy ways this can or could be done.
* First, OEMs would pre-install their choice of web browser(s) for you.
* Get a CD-ROM with the software from your vendor (Firefox and IE are available on CD
* Windows could get with this century and add a friendly non-browser based package manager.
* A simple auto-downloader (double-click an icon and it grabs the file).
* Other, optional, file sharing applications - could be P2P or even just a friendly GUI FTP program.
* Start with IE installed, download another browser, then uninstall IE (if IE were truly optional you could do this).
But even more importantly: The OEM's *CHOICE* of browser will be bundled with virtually all preinstalled systems by the OEM.
Right now they don't have a real choice. IE has to be installed, so they can have just IE, or IE+Firefox or IE+Opera, or IE+Firefox+Opera or so on. Given there is a tendency to avoid having multiple application that do about the same thing installed, everyone currently usually just winds up with IE.