Actually, if you can't figure out how to get a discount for not having Windows installed, you're talking to the wrong vendors. (But maybe I'm spoiled by living on the edge of Silicon Valley.) But I agree with the basic point: the copies of Windows that I have ended up with are completely unused. I wouldn't use Windows even if it were free-of-charge AND ad-free. Why on earth would adding ads make me any more likely to use it? We're crossing the line from "I wouldn't use it unless you paid me" to "I wouldn't use it even IF you paid me" here!:)
No, I take that back. If they paid me $100 / month, I would gladly set up a Windows box somewhere in the house, and let it run ads. You don't insist that I turn on (or even attach) a monitor, do you?;)
And it has nothing to do with the "casual web culture of the '90s." I'm in my forties, my STEPFATHER was in IT back in the 1960s (although they called it DP or something back then), and he wore jeans and t-shirts to work!
Now that I'm in my forties, I find I'm more tolerant of "business casual" than I was, say, in my twenties, but that's still about as "dressed up" as I'm willing to get.:)
It was the lack of copyright that got us into this mess in the first place! Up until the mid seventies or early eighties, software was not copyrightable! And so companies "protected" their software with trade-secret law and contract law. Which was even worse! If software had been copyrightable from the start, AT&T would have never offered the ambiguous license terms that SCO is attempting to misinterpret in their suit against IBM. This is also the reason behind the still-widespread theory that you're not buying a copy of the software, you're buying a license to use a single copy of the software under greatly restricted terms, which forms the basis for so many horrid EULAs even today.
(On the other hand, if software had been copyrightable from the start, AT&T would not have been able to accidentally lose their ability to copyright so much of UNIX -- but it's tricky to rely on companies making as big a mistake as AT&T did when they overly freely distributed UNIX tapes to universities.)
> I guess you're arguing that by purchasing a Windows CD you have free reign to do whatever you like with the bits on the CD?
Yes, in fact you do (or would if not for the EULA), except that you cannot do anything that would violate copyright. Which basically means, no copying. Aside from that, you bought it, you own it. It's not the "finer points of copyright law". It's the CORE of copyright law -- COPYright law is about COPYING and ONLY about copying! Not about use! If you buy a book, you can chop it up and glue it back together (MS tries to forbid this), write and publish a review (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), study the composition (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), draw faces on the pages, sell it back to a used bookstore once you're done (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), etc. You can USE it however you want as long as you use the copy you got, and don't make more copies.
The rights that MS claims to grant you are rights you already had! (Awfully generous of them, isn't it?):) Actually, what they try to claim is that you didn't buy a copy, you don't own your copy, and so you have no default rights to do ANYTHING with the software that you supposedly paid good money for! Contrast this to the GPL which assumes that if you got a copy of the software, you own that copy of the software, just like you would own a copy of a book, and you can use it any way you want, AND in addition, grants you some limited rights to make copies, which you do NOT have with that book.
> You know you just posted a question to the Internet about not being able to connect to the Internet, right?
Um, you know he posted a question to the Internet about not being able to connect to the Internet with his Windows box, right? I know it may be hard for some people to believe or understand, but not every machine that connects to the Internet is running Windows! In fact, much of the core technology that makes the Internet run predates Windows!
Heck, I'm posting to the Internet, and I don't even HAVE a Windows box!:)
Well...technically speaking, it doesn't measure the person's gait; it measures its own motions, which we assume/hope are an accurate reflection of the owner's gait. But technically, it's not the gait that's being measured, so quotes are not entirely innapropriate here.
Note: I'm not in the habit of defending the slashdot "editors", but on the other hand, it's pretty rare that I can think of any justification for defending them, which is why I put quotes around "editor".:)
> If linux ever hopes to gain a fat chunk of the market share
Linux doesn't hope anything. Linux is kernel; a bundle of software. It lacks hopes, dreams, fears. Moreover, Linux is not developed by a single company with a (supposedly) single purpose. It is developed by a community of independent developers, eash with their own goals, hopes, dreams and fears. "Gaining a fat chunk of market share" is way down on the list of interests of many (probably most) Linux developers. Making a good, reliable, flexible system that does what it's supposed to and is free to be used for any purpose is the main priority. If people want to use it--great. If not--their loss.
The purpose of Linux is to fill a need, not to be a need! Anyone can make a distribution if they have the time, talent, and the need to fill a need. Linux is a tool, not a product. Moreover, it's a general purpose tool that can be adapted for many needs. If flexibility and freedom scare some people away, well, guess what? They're not the intended market! If some people feel the need to challenge MS dominance, well, fine, but that's a need, not the need, and they're just going to have to figure out how to do it while others continue to work on their own needs which are often better filled by creating specialized distibutions. Trying to create "one-size-fits-all" distributions is just as bad, because then you have 10 million choices inside the distribution. Unless you can persuade everyone in the world to need exactly the same thing (or to put up with tools that are a bad fit for their needs), you're either going to have to have many distributions, or many confusing choices within a distribution, or both. There is no way to "dumb it down" and keep the power and flexibility that is currently available.
Szulik seems to get this, and more power to him! Trying to challenge MS head-on is a mug's game. Ignoring MS and concentrating on making good systems that fill people's needs is the only way Linux will ever get anywhere. And guess what? That's pretty much what's happening.
Yup. In the last month, I've provided initial seeding for three or four swarms, and participated in several others, and you know how much effect HBO's action has had (and is likely to have in the future)? That's right, absolutely none. Because all those swarms were 100% legal!
HBO charges money for their shows. I don't want to pay that money, so, y'know what? I don't watch the damn shows! That probably doesn't make HBO particularly happy, but at least we have an honest relationship, HBO and I.:)
This is a fair response, but I think the important thing to keep in mind is that free/open source is absolutely no threat to the in-house software market -- in fact, it's a great benefit to it, since even the most narrowly-licensed open source software (i.e. GPL'd software) can be used and modified for in-house applications without releasing the source.
The central point remains: free/libre/open-source software is no threat, and has potentially great benefit, to nearly all programmers.
> I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?
From available evidence, the outstanding majority. In fact, a majority (approx. 90% by some counts) of all programmers already do earn a living working directly for companies that use the software, rather than for those companies which sell software for others to use. Beyond that, of course, I'm sure companies existing and new will learn to adapt as the market changes. Once, all computer companies sold their own, incompatible, proprietary machines; now most sell open, compatible, semi-generic systems. And yet, the industry is hardly any poorer for that.
> "7-8 years ago my parents had a line dedicated for modem use only. AT&T would call that line three or four times a week"
If it was for modem use only, why was there a telephone attached? I generally didn't notice people calling my modem-only line, unless I happened to spot the ring-detect light flashing, in which case, I would often send "ATA" to the modem, just for fun.
I really have no idea who called that line, how often, what time of day, or anything else. It was a modem-use-only line!
> > I can't think of any circumstance that would induce me to run a kernel I didn't build myself.
> How about the circumstance in which all kernels except the one approved by your ISP will fail to get an IP address?
First of all, my IP is static, and second (and much more importantly), it's assigned to my router, not my computer(s). And my ISP uses Linux extensively, AND they want me to sell access to my router to my neighbors, and will give me a share of the proceeds. And this is not some little dinky neighborhood ISP, this is a major national. I don't see much point in worrying about insanely implausible scenarios.
> > And like a lot of security-oriented systems, it's not that secure if you have physical acccess to the machine.
> Try telling that to anybody who has tried to crack the most recent DirecTV access cards.
Try reading what I wrote again, with special emphasis on the part I highlighted. Like I say, I've read the TCPA spec (well, read the white-papers, and skimmed the spec to confirm the important details). Have you?
Whoops, obviously I misread who was saying what in your post, and we're actually in perfect agreement. Sorry about that. I still like my "blue eyes" analogy, though.:)
> but like all programs that are not Microsoft Word, Writer will never convert every single [Word] document perfectly.
Pardon me for playing grammar nazi, but you have a subordinate clause there (highlighted) which adds no information to the sentence, and, in fact, can actually confuse and mislead people. It's like saying, "Carol, like all people that don't have blue eyes, needed oxygen to breathe." This can leave people with the mistaken impression that people with blue eyes don't need oxygen to breathe, or, in your case, with the even more laughable notion that programs which are Microsoft Word will convert every single document perfectly.
> Citing the vitimins and nutrients of a poison apple does not make it good or even neutral if they forbid you to have a non-poison apple.
Oh yeah, gotta watch out for "them"! "They" are lurking behind every corner, waiting to pounce and install electrodes in your brain. Soon, "they" will control all your thoughts, and "they" will force you to sit on the couch watching reruns of Friends(tm) and drinking Diet Pepsi(tm).
> And the new software Trusted Installation / Trusted Activation will be impossible to install or run at all.
You really think Linus will accept that patch? I'm pretty dubious! On the other hand, he has accepted patches to allow me to control the TCPA chip on my computer, if I were to have one. Which, I admit, strongly piques my curiousity, and is the main reason I want to get one and check it out.
I admit, if you're running an MS system, then TCPA may look like somewhat of a threat. But then, if you're running an MS system, you have already abdicated ownership and control of "your" system, and I've got no freakin' sympathy for ya.
> The new Trusted files wil be impossible to read. You will be locked out of all of the new Trusted websites.
Then, frankly, I'm screwed in any case, since I can't think of any circumstance that would induce me to run a kernel I didn't build myself. But, again frankly, I think you're being just a wee bit paranoid. Not that there's anything wrong with paranoia--some of my best friends, and all that--but I think it looks more and more these days like the balance of power is tipping away from Microsoft.
In any case, what you're talking about is not TC, though it may be based on TC. I've read the specs, and I stand by my statement that TC is a neutral technology. And like a lot of security-oriented systems, it's not that secure if you have physical acccess to the machine. I kinda hope "they" do try to control all the computers of the world with TC; it'd be kinda fun to see "them" fall flat on their faces. Again.:)
Remember, you're talking about the same consortium here that tried to prevent us from copying CDs by putting an autorun.bat file on them. They're not that freakin' smart!:)
I'm still waiting for a "V-Chip" that will allow me to block anything with Pat Robertson. That is the kind of deviant obscenity I want to protect my children from!
Subject basically says it all. The so-called "Trusted Computing Platform" involves nothing more than having public-key encryption implemented in hardware, under the control of the BIOS. It can (in theory) be used for DRM, but can also be used merely to enhance the security of your system. The so-called "vendor key" may not have any practical, non-evil uses, but nobody is forcing you to use it. Personally, I'd like to have a system with TC hardware. (As long as any "remote control" functionality can be disabled, which, I suspect, would be hard NOT to arrange.)
DRM, on the other hand, is pretty much an unmitigated evil. However, that said, I think the approach taken by the GFDL is the wrong one. I'd prefer to see distribution on DRM-controlled platforms allowed as long as unrestricted versions are available to anyone who gets a DRM'd copy. In other words, I'd like to see DRM treated by documentation licenses more-or-less the way binaries are treated by the GPL.
I would have thought it would be TCPA, but whatever...in any case, TCPA or TPM is not the same as DRM. There have been proposals to create DRM based on TCPA, but TCPA itself is really just public-key encryption on a chip. You are right that there is TCPA/TPM support in Linux (and has been for a while), but it has absolutely nothing to do with DRM. Software-based DRM schemes are based on public-key encryption too, but nobody is suggesting that GnuPG is a DRM system, are they? (Even though it could be used to build one.)
That's fine, it's not the poor schmuck stuck in a dead-end job dialing the phone all day we want to hurt. It's the bastards who hire them to annoy and harrass us who we want to screw over. Your sister got credited for keeping a customer on the phone for 20 minutes? Great, even more reason to do this!
Frankly, it makes perfect sense to me to use Windows for gaming. It's not reliable enough for any serious use. If MS wants to turn it into a purely gaming platform, I, for one, would applaud that move.
What's that you say? They still want to see it used in business and industry as well? God, what @*#&$ idiots!:)
Did I mention that the programmers in question were, respectively, the president of the company and the domain expert hired for this particular job? Yeah, it was unprofessional as hell, but it was also funny as hell. And, while I don't want to name names, if you were in the industry in the very early eighties, there's a good chance you used the product in question.:)
I once worked with a pair of programmers who had a major spat. They were nice enough to rearrange their schedules so that they didn't have to be in the office at the same time, but they were still working on the same body of code, so they started adding comments to the code containing angry, foul-mouthed, bitter insults about each other. It was pretty funny to see what they had to say when I checked out the latest code changes each day.
Unfortunately, those particular comments got stripped before we delivered the product to our Fortune-100 customer. I often wish I'd kept a copy complete with comments, though.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you can't figure out how to get a discount for not having Windows installed, you're talking to the wrong vendors. (But maybe I'm spoiled by living on the edge of Silicon Valley.) But I agree with the basic point: the copies of Windows that I have ended up with are completely unused. I wouldn't use Windows even if it were free-of-charge AND ad-free. Why on earth would adding ads make me any more likely to use it? We're crossing the line from "I wouldn't use it unless you paid me" to "I wouldn't use it even IF you paid me" here! :)
;)
No, I take that back. If they paid me $100 / month, I would gladly set up a Windows box somewhere in the house, and let it run ads. You don't insist that I turn on (or even attach) a monitor, do you?
And it has nothing to do with the "casual web culture of the '90s." I'm in my forties, my STEPFATHER was in IT back in the 1960s (although they called it DP or something back then), and he wore jeans and t-shirts to work!
:)
Now that I'm in my forties, I find I'm more tolerant of "business casual" than I was, say, in my twenties, but that's still about as "dressed up" as I'm willing to get.
> I would very much like to see copyright go
It was the lack of copyright that got us into this mess in the first place! Up until the mid seventies or early eighties, software was not copyrightable! And so companies "protected" their software with trade-secret law and contract law. Which was even worse! If software had been copyrightable from the start, AT&T would have never offered the ambiguous license terms that SCO is attempting to misinterpret in their suit against IBM. This is also the reason behind the still-widespread theory that you're not buying a copy of the software, you're buying a license to use a single copy of the software under greatly restricted terms, which forms the basis for so many horrid EULAs even today.
(On the other hand, if software had been copyrightable from the start, AT&T would not have been able to accidentally lose their ability to copyright so much of UNIX -- but it's tricky to rely on companies making as big a mistake as AT&T did when they overly freely distributed UNIX tapes to universities.)
> I guess you're arguing that by purchasing a Windows CD you have free reign to do whatever you like with the bits on the CD?
:) Actually, what they try to claim is that you didn't buy a copy, you don't own your copy, and so you have no default rights to do ANYTHING with the software that you supposedly paid good money for! Contrast this to the GPL which assumes that if you got a copy of the software, you own that copy of the software, just like you would own a copy of a book, and you can use it any way you want, AND in addition, grants you some limited rights to make copies, which you do NOT have with that book.
Yes, in fact you do (or would if not for the EULA), except that you cannot do anything that would violate copyright. Which basically means, no copying. Aside from that, you bought it, you own it. It's not the "finer points of copyright law". It's the CORE of copyright law -- COPYright law is about COPYING and ONLY about copying! Not about use! If you buy a book, you can chop it up and glue it back together (MS tries to forbid this), write and publish a review (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), study the composition (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), draw faces on the pages, sell it back to a used bookstore once you're done (MS explicitly tries to forbid this), etc. You can USE it however you want as long as you use the copy you got, and don't make more copies.
The rights that MS claims to grant you are rights you already had! (Awfully generous of them, isn't it?)
> You know you just posted a question to the Internet about not being able to connect to the Internet, right?
:)
Um, you know he posted a question to the Internet about not being able to connect to the Internet with his Windows box, right? I know it may be hard for some people to believe or understand, but not every machine that connects to the Internet is running Windows! In fact, much of the core technology that makes the Internet run predates Windows!
Heck, I'm posting to the Internet, and I don't even HAVE a Windows box!
> There's no GoatseFS in there.
:)
But if there were, I bet it would be an open system. A very open system!
(Sorry...)
Well...technically speaking, it doesn't measure the person's gait; it measures its own motions, which we assume/hope are an accurate reflection of the owner's gait. But technically, it's not the gait that's being measured, so quotes are not entirely innapropriate here.
:)
Note: I'm not in the habit of defending the slashdot "editors", but on the other hand, it's pretty rare that I can think of any justification for defending them, which is why I put quotes around "editor".
> If linux ever hopes to gain a fat chunk of the market share
Linux doesn't hope anything. Linux is kernel; a bundle of software. It lacks hopes, dreams, fears. Moreover, Linux is not developed by a single company with a (supposedly) single purpose. It is developed by a community of independent developers, eash with their own goals, hopes, dreams and fears. "Gaining a fat chunk of market share" is way down on the list of interests of many (probably most) Linux developers. Making a good, reliable, flexible system that does what it's supposed to and is free to be used for any purpose is the main priority. If people want to use it--great. If not--their loss.
The purpose of Linux is to fill a need, not to be a need! Anyone can make a distribution if they have the time, talent, and the need to fill a need. Linux is a tool, not a product. Moreover, it's a general purpose tool that can be adapted for many needs. If flexibility and freedom scare some people away, well, guess what? They're not the intended market! If some people feel the need to challenge MS dominance, well, fine, but that's a need, not the need, and they're just going to have to figure out how to do it while others continue to work on their own needs which are often better filled by creating specialized distibutions. Trying to create "one-size-fits-all" distributions is just as bad, because then you have 10 million choices inside the distribution. Unless you can persuade everyone in the world to need exactly the same thing (or to put up with tools that are a bad fit for their needs), you're either going to have to have many distributions, or many confusing choices within a distribution, or both. There is no way to "dumb it down" and keep the power and flexibility that is currently available.
Szulik seems to get this, and more power to him! Trying to challenge MS head-on is a mug's game. Ignoring MS and concentrating on making good systems that fill people's needs is the only way Linux will ever get anywhere. And guess what? That's pretty much what's happening.
Yup. In the last month, I've provided initial seeding for three or four swarms, and participated in several others, and you know how much effect HBO's action has had (and is likely to have in the future)? That's right, absolutely none. Because all those swarms were 100% legal!
:)
HBO charges money for their shows. I don't want to pay that money, so, y'know what? I don't watch the damn shows! That probably doesn't make HBO particularly happy, but at least we have an honest relationship, HBO and I.
I've run most of them on Solaris and BSD and HPUX and...so whatcherpoint?
This is a fair response, but I think the important thing to keep in mind is that free/open source is absolutely no threat to the in-house software market -- in fact, it's a great benefit to it, since even the most narrowly-licensed open source software (i.e. GPL'd software) can be used and modified for in-house applications without releasing the source.
The central point remains: free/libre/open-source software is no threat, and has potentially great benefit, to nearly all programmers.
> I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?
From available evidence, the outstanding majority. In fact, a majority (approx. 90% by some counts) of all programmers already do earn a living working directly for companies that use the software, rather than for those companies which sell software for others to use. Beyond that, of course, I'm sure companies existing and new will learn to adapt as the market changes. Once, all computer companies sold their own, incompatible, proprietary machines; now most sell open, compatible, semi-generic systems. And yet, the industry is hardly any poorer for that.
> "7-8 years ago my parents had a line dedicated for modem use only. AT&T would call that line three or four times a week"
If it was for modem use only, why was there a telephone attached? I generally didn't notice people calling my modem-only line, unless I happened to spot the ring-detect light flashing, in which case, I would often send "ATA" to the modem, just for fun.
I really have no idea who called that line, how often, what time of day, or anything else. It was a modem-use-only line!
> > I can't think of any circumstance that would induce me to run a kernel I didn't build myself.
> How about the circumstance in which all kernels except the one approved by your ISP will fail to get an IP address?
First of all, my IP is static, and second (and much more importantly), it's assigned to my router, not my computer(s). And my ISP uses Linux extensively, AND they want me to sell access to my router to my neighbors, and will give me a share of the proceeds. And this is not some little dinky neighborhood ISP, this is a major national. I don't see much point in worrying about insanely implausible scenarios.
> > And like a lot of security-oriented systems, it's not that secure if you have physical acccess to the machine.
> Try telling that to anybody who has tried to crack the most recent DirecTV access cards.
Try reading what I wrote again, with special emphasis on the part I highlighted. Like I say, I've read the TCPA spec (well, read the white-papers, and skimmed the spec to confirm the important details). Have you?
Whoops, obviously I misread who was saying what in your post, and we're actually in perfect agreement. Sorry about that. I still like my "blue eyes" analogy, though. :)
> but like all programs that are not Microsoft Word, Writer will never convert every single [Word] document perfectly.
Pardon me for playing grammar nazi, but you have a subordinate clause there (highlighted) which adds no information to the sentence, and, in fact, can actually confuse and mislead people. It's like saying, "Carol, like all people that don't have blue eyes, needed oxygen to breathe." This can leave people with the mistaken impression that people with blue eyes don't need oxygen to breathe, or, in your case, with the even more laughable notion that programs which are Microsoft Word will convert every single document perfectly.
> Citing the vitimins and nutrients of a poison apple does not make it good or even neutral if they forbid you to have a non-poison apple.
:)
:)
Oh yeah, gotta watch out for "them"! "They" are lurking behind every corner, waiting to pounce and install electrodes in your brain. Soon, "they" will control all your thoughts, and "they" will force you to sit on the couch watching reruns of Friends(tm) and drinking Diet Pepsi(tm).
> And the new software Trusted Installation / Trusted Activation will be impossible to install or run at all.
You really think Linus will accept that patch? I'm pretty dubious! On the other hand, he has accepted patches to allow me to control the TCPA chip on my computer, if I were to have one. Which, I admit, strongly piques my curiousity, and is the main reason I want to get one and check it out.
I admit, if you're running an MS system, then TCPA may look like somewhat of a threat. But then, if you're running an MS system, you have already abdicated ownership and control of "your" system, and I've got no freakin' sympathy for ya.
> The new Trusted files wil be impossible to read. You will be locked out of all of the new Trusted websites.
Then, frankly, I'm screwed in any case, since I can't think of any circumstance that would induce me to run a kernel I didn't build myself. But, again frankly, I think you're being just a wee bit paranoid. Not that there's anything wrong with paranoia--some of my best friends, and all that--but I think it looks more and more these days like the balance of power is tipping away from Microsoft.
In any case, what you're talking about is not TC, though it may be based on TC. I've read the specs, and I stand by my statement that TC is a neutral technology. And like a lot of security-oriented systems, it's not that secure if you have physical acccess to the machine. I kinda hope "they" do try to control all the computers of the world with TC; it'd be kinda fun to see "them" fall flat on their faces. Again.
Remember, you're talking about the same consortium here that tried to prevent us from copying CDs by putting an autorun.bat file on them. They're not that freakin' smart!
I'm still waiting for a "V-Chip" that will allow me to block anything with Pat Robertson. That is the kind of deviant obscenity I want to protect my children from!
(No smiley, 'cause I ain't jokin'!)
Subject basically says it all. The so-called "Trusted Computing Platform" involves nothing more than having public-key encryption implemented in hardware, under the control of the BIOS. It can (in theory) be used for DRM, but can also be used merely to enhance the security of your system. The so-called "vendor key" may not have any practical, non-evil uses, but nobody is forcing you to use it. Personally, I'd like to have a system with TC hardware. (As long as any "remote control" functionality can be disabled, which, I suspect, would be hard NOT to arrange.)
DRM, on the other hand, is pretty much an unmitigated evil. However, that said, I think the approach taken by the GFDL is the wrong one. I'd prefer to see distribution on DRM-controlled platforms allowed as long as unrestricted versions are available to anyone who gets a DRM'd copy. In other words, I'd like to see DRM treated by documentation licenses more-or-less the way binaries are treated by the GPL.
I would have thought it would be TCPA, but whatever...in any case, TCPA or TPM is not the same as DRM. There have been proposals to create DRM based on TCPA, but TCPA itself is really just public-key encryption on a chip. You are right that there is TCPA/TPM support in Linux (and has been for a while), but it has absolutely nothing to do with DRM. Software-based DRM schemes are based on public-key encryption too, but nobody is suggesting that GnuPG is a DRM system, are they? (Even though it could be used to build one.)
That's fine, it's not the poor schmuck stuck in a dead-end job dialing the phone all day we want to hurt. It's the bastards who hire them to annoy and harrass us who we want to screw over. Your sister got credited for keeping a customer on the phone for 20 minutes? Great, even more reason to do this!
> Does no one even try to edit these things?
:)
:)
There's a common saying around here...what is it? Oh yes: "You must be new here!" Or was that a rhetorical question?
> You do realize that these mistakes distract readers' attention
And if you've ever had your site slashdotted, you're probably grateful for anything that distracts some percentage of the readers.
Frankly, it makes perfect sense to me to use Windows for gaming. It's not reliable enough for any serious use. If MS wants to turn it into a purely gaming platform, I, for one, would applaud that move.
:)
What's that you say? They still want to see it used in business and industry as well? God, what @*#&$ idiots!
Did I mention that the programmers in question were, respectively, the president of the company and the domain expert hired for this particular job? Yeah, it was unprofessional as hell, but it was also funny as hell. And, while I don't want to name names, if you were in the industry in the very early eighties, there's a good chance you used the product in question. :)
I once worked with a pair of programmers who had a major spat. They were nice enough to rearrange their schedules so that they didn't have to be in the office at the same time, but they were still working on the same body of code, so they started adding comments to the code containing angry, foul-mouthed, bitter insults about each other. It was pretty funny to see what they had to say when I checked out the latest code changes each day.
:)
Unfortunately, those particular comments got stripped before we delivered the product to our Fortune-100 customer. I often wish I'd kept a copy complete with comments, though.