Re:By your silly definition, Mr. Editor, - OT
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Freedom or Power?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
For example I had to buy XP because of my job. I already activated it twice and I am afriad to install anything. If it screws up my system then I have to activate my pc for the last time before forking another 300 BUCKS! I know most of you are laughing at me right now but as a user this is not funny and it is, well kind of my computer so why can't I install more then 3 times?
No wonder you're paranoid. You don't understand anything about XP activation. First off, installing software will not affect your activation status. Only installing/replacing hardware can do that (and you have to replace something like six different pieces before you need to reactivate). Also, you can reinstall as many times as you like. You can reactivate up to 10 times, at which point you'll need to call Microsoft on the 11th reactivation. You do not need to buy a new license, nor do anything but tell them you're reactivating, and it's done. Finally, if you bought XP for business use, why didn't your business by a license pack? Buying XP licenses in bulk (5+ licenses, I believe) allows you to not have to bother with activating the system. Perhaps you should research these things a bit more before you start in with the paranoia, eh?
This argument by RMS is essentially about power -- HIS power. Bill Gates wants to force you to give him money in exchange for software. RMS wants to force you to give him the source code with any software you write.
The difference being, of course, that BillG only cares about the software he bankrolls, while RMS wants everybody to give up their right to choose their own license. RMS is much worse in this case. BillG is about business. RMS is about religion.
The right to choose the license under which you will release the work you do is probably the most fundamental freedom of all. Being forced to give away source code, whether you like it or not, is essentially forced bondage.
You're sure it wasn't just death animations? As far back as Quake 1 (well, with the TFC mod, anyway, which had a sniper), death animations existed for decapitations. I specifically didn't mention hit-locations, since I'm sure Kingpin wasn't the first to do such things as one-hit head shots. Kingpin's whole claim to fame was the ability to blow the limbs off of enemies without them dying (well, decapitation would obviously involve dying, but you could shoot off a guy's arm or hand or leg and they could still live). I don't know what game you're referring to from your description, but I'd really bet what you were seeing was a death animation.
Rebellion's Aliens vs. Predator also had "detachable limbs" (for lack of a more concise description), but I believe it was released after Kingpin. Soldier of Fortune took it to extremes. Where Kingpin had something like 12 hot spots, Soldier of Fortune had over 20. Of course, imho, neither Kingpin nor SoF were good games, but then that's just my opinion.
I never (purposefully) team kill. You misunderstood me, perhaps because I didn't capitalize "Allies": I, the Axis sniper, run behind our enemies, the "Allies", to snipe them from an unexpected position. I do not snipe my fellow Axis "allies".
No, I understood your intent. The point I was making is that you're the kind of bastard player that does stuff like camp respawns (what else would you call it when you get behind the other team's spawn points and cap them as they run up the beach?). That class of asshole players also tends towards teamkilling. Perhaps you're not a team killer, but I've seen enough assholes in too many games that do the things you spoke of doing and also are anti-social (well, more anti-social than the typical gamer, as we all tend to be anti-social to some extent:) assholes.
And "pain-skins" also was a "first", not counting the "Wolf/DooM dude's face", but the actual characters in game.
Actually, Quake 2 had painskins first (obviously before Kingpin, as Kingpin used the Q2 engine). Now, Kingpin was the first to implement "deformable" bodies (in that you could blow off feet, hands, arms, legs, head, lower torso, and maybe one or two other parts, based on where you were shooting. Q2 and earlier games did have decaptations and such, but those were simply death animations). SOF did it better, but Kingpin did it first.
They disabled Q3's bunny hopping (aka strafe jumping), however, you can still increase your speed if you jump onto a surface slanted downwards towards the direction you're headed, and then jump just as you hit it. You'll fly forward through the air a little faster than normal, and if you keep jumping, you can keep up the speed.
Great, just what we need. Tips for cheaters. I'm sorry, but the Q3 bunny hop was a physics bug. They didn't "disable" it in RTCW, they "fixed" it. Apparently they didn't catch every case, as your post points out. Exploiting a bug is cheating just as much as running an aimbot. It detracts from the game, and makes it less fun for everybody else.
I won't even comment on your so-called "tactics" for the beach landing map. People like you make online gaming annoying. You probably teamkilled on purpose as well, didn't you?
If you let them include the software, credit it for it's actual value (7 cents per CD).
You seriously can't believe that the "actual value" of a piece of software is the price of pressing the CD, can you? Now, if all you're actually doing is pressing a CD (say, Cheapbytes, when they distribute the free versions of various distros on CD), then sure you can call the pressing costs the "actual value". When you're talking about software that you paid people to research, design, develop, test, and deploy, your "actual costs" are much higher than the negligible cost of pressing a CD and packaging it in a box. Please take an economics class, or something.
Not to mention my local lug likes to make fun of me.
My LUG at college used to make fun of me for interning with/accepting a job from Microsoft. Then two ex chairs of the LUG also accepted jobs from Microsoft. And many of the other guys from the LUG are now out of work, or still avoiding the real world by doing grad school. Point? Just because your LUG laughs at you doesn't mean you're wrong, or your choice was bad.
59.94 == 60 for sufficiently large values of 59.94. Close enough for government work. And "half-frames" and "fields" are just different words for the same thing -- only half of a frame (even or odd lines) gets refreshed each time. One frame consists of two fields or half-frames, which may be slightly out-of-sync in time. Two frames back-to-back are comprised of a total of three fields (sharing the "middle" field). Thus, jagged/fuzzy objects when moving horizontally, and flattened or elongated objects when moving vertically (you have to pay very close attention to notice these effects, and the horizontal effect is more noticeable than the vertical, but they're there).
BTW, who knows if C# is native,bytecode, or both? I'm still confused on that point.
Both, depending. This holds true for all languages targetting the.NET CLR. The different cases are:
Application is distributed as native machine code. This is how binary-only applications are currently distributed. Upsides: Fast out of the box, installation only consists of copying files and registering components (in general). Downsides: not portable a la "Write once, run anywhere".
Application is distributed as bytecode, installer compiles to native machine code. This is likely what will end up being the most popular. It's more akin to NeXT's "Write once, compile anywhere" idea, but with the compilation portion automated via an installer. Upsides: native speeds post-installation, portability. Downsides: Longer install times, potentially larger distribution files.
Application is distributed as bytecode, run through a runtime using JIT compilation. This is essentially java. Upsides: portability, JIT compilation can do some optimizations at runtime that aren't possible at compile time (see Sun's HotSpot JIT). Downsides: Average case runtime is slow. Startup times and running times of important but less-frequently used code paths are slower.
Item number 2 is likely the way things will go, because ISVs will be able to sell a single box of software and it will work on any platform with a compliant.NET CLR (assuming the code itself doesn't use any platform-specific extensions, but this caveat holds true for java as well). Plus, you'll get native performance, because the installer will actually compile the bytecode to machine code for you.
For all supported languages, intermediate bytecode will always be generated (called IL, appropriately enough, for Intermediate Language). Whether you then compile that down to native immediately, do it at installation, or do it at runtime is up to the developer.
It's commonly known that game hardware loses money for the first 2-3 years, but in M$'s case it's much worse than the usual models.
How's it worse in Microsoft's case? They're losing roughly $100 per Box. That's also around the same that the PS2 lost. The Gamecube will likely lose less, but then it's less hardware (or, perhaps they're losing the same amount, which lets them underprice Microsoft and Sony by $100. Or, maybe they're losing twice as much).
Heck they're spending >$5,000,000 just to advertise it - for that much money they could just give away 1.5million units as a promotion!
You missed a couple zeros. That's $500million, not $5million ($5million will barely buy you a couple super bowl TV spots, these days, and that money has to last Microsoft through two Super Bowls). Of course, that's $500million over 18 months, but nobody ever pays attention to that "18 months" part (works out to "only" $300million per year, give or take a couple ten millions).
Why would M$ do this? Because this box is their attempt to get into livingrooms - and heck MSN has lost over 2Billion and will probably NEVER turn a profit - so why worry about another billion?
XBox is not Microsoft's push to get a PC in your living room. It's their push to be the gaming console you have in your living room. That's why you'll not see an official keyboard or mouse, nor web browser or e-mail software, or anything of the like. Conspiracy theorists may howl all they want, but Microsoft seems sincere about being only about the games with the XBox.
TV is 60 frames interlaced (60 half-frames per second), unless you're using PAL instead of NTSC, then it's 50 frames interlaced. movies are 24 frames per second, but are generally double-shuttered or triple-shuttered, so that you're actually seeing 48 or 72 "frames" per second. Movies have choppiness during long pans, or have you not noticed?
Everyone else I know who likes games already has a PS2 and has spent all their money lately on Tony Hawk 3 and Grand Theft Auto 3. Then there's still Metal Gear Solid 2, SSX Tricky and Devil May Cry (which everyone sorta passed over awaiting GTA3).
Tony Hawk 3 and GTA3 will be making their way to the XBox soon enough, so while XBox owners (like me) may not be able to enjoy them yet, there's no point in picking up a PS2. MGS X (an XBox-exclusive MGS title) should be available Q1 2002 or so. SSX Tricky is an XBox launch title, and I heard Devil May Cry got bad 2/3rds into the game (bad enough that it seemed like a whole different game than what you paid $50 for). Anyway, my point? The XBox is competing more directly with the PS2, like you said. As such, many development houses are targetting both platforms. Given a couple months to ramp up, don't be surprised when the "hot new" PS2 games are released simultaneously on XBox (or even exclusively on XBox, as it's easier to program, and thus cheaper). Many dev houses have been burnt by the PS2 (lackluster title::box ratio at launch, arcane hardware, lack of a high-level SDK to get their first game or two out, thus forcing them to spend millions on in-house development even before they can get their first game out to make some money, etc). The next six months should be interesting indeed.
The local EB repalced it with Halo a few weeks ago (probably against the rules, but oh well).
Nope, that was the rule. A week or two prior to the XBox launch, several stores were given the go-ahead to run certain games. Something like Gamestop/Software, Etc. got to run NFL Fever 2002, EB got to run Halo, and Target got to run DOA3. (not sure if the store->game matchup is quite right, but that's the gist of it anyway.) Other stores seemed to have their own choice, as the local CompUSA was running first the demo disk (which even had at least one person at it at all times), then DOA3, and is now running Halo (every time I've been in there, I've never seen the demo empty). It's right next to a PS2 display, PS1 display, and N64 display (no Gamecube display yet, though I haven't been in there since last night).
I don't want consoles with operating systems, dvd players, harddisks, web browsers. That's what PC's are for. When I fire up my PS1 or N64, I expect them to load the games quickly, without crashes.
First and foremost, I've not had my XBox crash yet. Also, I don't expect it to crash any time soon, either. But believe what you will.
Consoles have had on-board "operating systems" for a while, now. Especially any console that uses CDs (though the old Sega Master System had a built-in game that would fire up if you turned it on without a cart). These on-board OSes are typically used for playing music CDs and managing memory cards. As far as DVD players go, what do you want instead? More low-capacity CD-ROM's? Some proprietary CD-ROM hack (like Dreamcast)? Or the coming standard of DVD? With the latter, at least you get high capacity (4.5GB per XBox game, for instance) and cheap production (because you can leverage existing DVD presses). Actually playing DVD movies is only optional, as with the XBox (it costs money to get a license, for CSS decoding for instance, and there's no point including that in the box itself unless you're aiming to be a DVD player. so make an addon, let anyone who wants to play DVDs buy that.) A hard disk is a good addition, imho, if only because it lets me save money on memory cards (I don't carry my memory cards to other people's consoles, so I don't care if the storage is local to my machine). Plus, it opens up the door for programming tricks like caching level data on disk rather than streaming it from DVD (no console has enough RAM to cache in RAM), thus decreasing load times and allowing for much larger levels. And finally, web browsers. Well, I'll agree with you there. But then again, if you're going to provide online capabilities for your console (Dreamcasts's built-in modem or XBox's built-in ethernet -- add-on's for PS2 and GC don't count, as no peripheral has ever been bought by more than 10% of a console's owners), you may as well give the users something to do with it until games exist that take advantage.
Where launch times are concerned, I've noticed that my XBox launches games much faster than my Dreamcast or PS1 (mainly because I don't have to sit through the Sony bios splash or the Sega bios splash). All I do is hit the eject button (thus turning on the system and instantly bringing up the menu, after an XBox splash), put in the DVD (in the process of getting the DVD out of the box and putting it in the tray, the XBox splash is done and it's waiting patiently at the menu), and close the drive. The game spins up in a second or two, and then it starts. Some games, like NFL Fever 2002 take the first boot to write some files to the hard disk, but this only takes a minute or so, and is well worth it afterwards -- NFL Fever 2002 only takes a scant few seconds to get to the "Press Start" screen after the first time running it. (and no, you don't have to reboot your XBox after NFL Fever installs files to the disk.) Anyway, comparing to N64 is a red herring, because you're talking about a cartridge system versus CD or DVD-based systems (Dreamcast, PS2, XBox, Gamecube). There's going to be lag time
Re:why so negative towards xbox?
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XBox Released
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· Score: 2
But obviously your world seems to be split into two neatly distinct categories: those who do and those who don't buy an Xbox. And you found it relevant to point out that you clearly belong to the former category. I pity you.
You're right. Everything is either about buying/owning an XBox or not, to me. I reckon time as "BX" and "AX" -- Before XBox and After XBox. I decide what to wear in the morning, what to eat of an evening, and even where to buy gas for my car by an XBox unit of measurement. But seriously, it's a fairly easy distinction to make -- those who did/will buy an XBox, those who are unsure, and those who won't (typically zealots like yourself). As for pitying me, you might want to try out some of the games before you do so. I'd feel bad if you were pitying me for having fun.
What I meant, and an average english speaking person understands, is that you did not convince me in your argument's validity.
Convenient. You refused to back-up your fear-mongering in your original post, and yet you have the audacity to question the validity of mine? I'm sorry, please tell me what portions you don't agree are valid (specifics please, not just "all of it"). If you're referring to your conspiracy theory about Microsoft not charging developers the licensing fees to develop for the XBox, I can only say bullshit. Keep dreaming. The proof of such a claim is on you, as you're the one suggesting they're working against the status quo (where that would be charging development licensing fees to make money on video game hardware). As far as pricing goes, you don't have a leg to stand on. The XBox is priced competitively, enough said. It doesn't matter if or how much money Microsoft is losing on it, because (and I've said it before) THAT'S EXPECTED. You lose money on video game consoles. That's the way the market works. Don't believe me? Go talk to Nintendo, Sega, or Sony. They'll tell you.
And since now you gave just more of the same, I stay unconvinced.
And obviously this is going to be "more of the same" to you as well. Either you have a comprehension problem, or you're one of the hard-headed zealots that don't want to believe there are valid reasons behind the things that Microsoft does, and can be explained without FUD, fear-mongering, or knee-jerk conspiracy theories. Believe what you will, as I obviously can't make a dent.
You have an amazing ability to latch onto the most trivial of details, making issues out of what is essentially a non-issue, while ignoring the more important facts and questions that I've brought up. Back up your claim that Microsoft is waiving license fees. Prove that Microsoft's advertising budget is magnitudes larger than Sony's or Nintendo's by providing concrete numbers for those two. Find hard numbers on how much Microsoft is losing per XBox vs how much Sony is losing now (and lost at time of release). Furthermore, justify how charging $299 for the XBox, the same price as the PS2, is somehow an artificially low price, and thus is uncompetitive (assumption made from your statements), even though it's competitve with PS2, and even more expensive than GameCube. But go ahead, latch onto some trivial sentence in this reply, too, and ignore everything else.
Re:why so negative towards xbox?
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XBox Released
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· Score: 1
Considering the fact that the way to make money in the video game console business is to take a cut on each game sold, this doesn't make sense.
It does when you have enough money and want to push your competitors out of business.
First off, that's hardly proving your statement with facts (part of my reply which you conveniently cut and ignored...). Second, Microsoft has these silly people called "share holders", to whom they're financially responsible, and taking billions of dollars in losses won't keep those "share holders" happy very long (the only reason they're happy with the XBox in the first place is the promise of licensing revenue, which you're suggesting they're waiving). Silly fear-mongering, nothing more.
And Sony doesn't have an advertising budget? Or Nintendo? Or Sega, back when they were a contender? So maybe they never spent quite as much, but I'd expect Sony spent close with the PS2.
The difference is in the amount, and it's considerable.
I'd be interested in seeing Sony's advertising budget. Mind sharing? Regardless, the $500mil Microsoft is spending is spread over 18 months. A year and a half. When 30-second Super Bowl ad spots go for half a million or more (just for the spot, not even counting the amount of money that goes into making those commercials), $500mil over a year and a half (two Super Bowls) isn't all that much. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Nintendo is spending near that amount as well, though they gave per-year numbers so it looked smaller. Can't remember the link, though. Maybe you can?
The specs of the Xbox are much higher than the PS/2. MS is losing much more money per unit than does Sony. And that might make all the difference.
The normally-quoted numbers are that Microsoft is losing between $100 and $150 per console. That's roughly the same amount Sony was losing per PS2 at launch time (where the PS2 launched $100 more expensive than the XBox). The XBox's specs may be higher, but the PS2 has more custom parts, which are pretty expensive as well (plus, it uses Rambus RAM...). Regardless, that wasn't at all the point of what I was saying, nor was it the point of what I was replying to. Microsoft is pricing their console competitively. They're not undercutting Sony (if so, I would've paid $200, not $300 for my XBox this morning), and while they're taking a loss, that's expected and encouraged (seriously, who's going to buy a $500 console? Remember the 3DO? The Neo Geo?... the economics of the console video game market do not work that way.).
Incidently, all your contraarguments didn't convince me one bit. But have a nice day nevertheless.
Didn't convince you to what? To buy an XBox? That wasn't the point of my reply. Apparently I was unable to convince you to stop fear-mongering and knee-jerking, either, and sadly I did fail there -- my reply was designed to debunk your points, one by one. I feel I did a fairly good job of it. If you don't want to believe the market realities of the real world, that's your choice. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying DOA3 on my new XBox.
Re:why so negative towards xbox?
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XBox Released
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· Score: 2, Insightful
a) pay developers to make games (direct or inidrect payment, like waiving the license costs)
Give proof, please. Considering the fact that the way to make money in the video game console business is to take a cut on each game sold, this doesn't make sense. Also, I've never seen anything but wild rumor-mongering and speculation that this is happening, anyway (well, sure, unless you count Microsoft purchasing Bungie and Oddworld Inhabitants, but two developers out of 150+ is not a trend).
b) putting US$ 500.000.000 into advertising
And Sony doesn't have an advertising budget? Or Nintendo? Or Sega, back when they were a contender? So maybe they never spent quite as much, but I'd expect Sony spent close with the PS2.
c) keeping the price of the Xbox artificially low
Hello? Anybody in there? This is HOW THE MARKET WORKS for video game consoles. Nintendo does this. Sony does this. Sega even did this, up to the point where they bailed out on the Dreamcast. Hell, even Indrema was going to have to do this if they wanted to be competitive. Now, I could see this argument if Microsoft were selling the XBox for $100 or $150 right out of the gate, but when it's being priced at a competitive $299 (same as PS2, $100 more than GameCube), I don't see where this is relevant.
MS can do this, it can afford to lose 3 to 4 billions in the first year. 3 to 4 billions will KILL Sony. MS makes it in one quarter.
Microsoft losing 3-4 billion does not mean Sony will also lose 3-4 billion. And even if Sony were to lose that much in the video game market (which they won't), Sony is a very large company with their fingers in lots of different pies. Their video game division might be in for some rough times, but how is that new? Since the old NES (and probably before, though I wasn't into gaming then), there has never been a company that has successfully turned its lead in the market in one generation over to a lead in the market in the next. NES, Genesis, and Playstation. Nintendo hung in there, and Sega did for a while (still at it with the great games). The "winner" of this next generation is obviously not clear yet, but the XBox is a contender at the very least. If Sony can pull off a repeat of the success of the Playstation, more power too them. But just because they had something good with the PSX doesn't mean they automatically have something good with the PS2 (it's decent, but with its difficulty to program, don't be surprised when more and more developers flock to the GCN and XBox, which are both much easier to program).
Now, the fact that forked.net wasn't providing source code along with their binaries, is a different story all together. The GPL does not guarantee that the original author will get credit, instead it guarantees that the end user gets source code.
Not providing source with a binary distribution of a GPL'ed software is not a problem. Refusing to give out the source when asked (and you can limit this to customers who have paid for a valid license, though you can't restrict them from modifying and redistributing your work for free) is "wrong" according to the GPL.
Ok, here's a big problem we face at my job site with hundreds of student accounts that must be reset every two months (when the next batch come in).
Reset a range of user accounts (xxx100-xxx600) to a specified default password WITH the flag marked to force a password change on initial login. Do that from the command line so it could be batched. I've STFTN. I've STFKB. If you can figure out how to do it, I'll grovel at your feet.
It's really fun doing this one-by-one in the GUI.
Just as you would script this in Unix, you can script this in Windows. Obviously, the scripts you write will be different. NT != UNIX and UNIX != NT, so that should be expected. Have a look at this link for more information (you'll probably need to use IE to get to that link, but since we're talking about Windows here, that shouldn't be an issue). That link discusses the IADsUser scriptable interface for ADSI in Windows. Based on the connect string you use, you can change a local user account, an NT4 domain user account, or an Active Directory user account. Figuring out what properties you need to change for your problem and what glue you need to write to loop through all indicated users is left as an excercise for you.
True enough...and this is the point. Windows IS generally used as a GUI environment in a home consumer market, the orignal post in this thread was talking about the GUI interface being shotty, the reply I flamebaited was trying to make the point that the interface XP has isn't all that important...the underlying OS kernel is much much better and that is the important thing to MS....and I disagree. Let me also say that I didn't think clearly though the last post...I was trying to avoid the server agruments hence why I said ignore NT...though my comments about a useful shell environment was totally wrong headed...because commandline tools really are server argument and that just garbled my main thrust...which is XP for the consumer desktop solution is all about the interface....and that's what MS has put the time and effort into developing in XP...the things geared toward the consumer desktop market (including the product activation) my point about the commandline and shell interfaces was that in the consumer desktop market these are not important factors...
I must've misunderstood your point, whether through miscommunication on your part or an inability to read on mine. I apologize, but that doesn't make my points any less relevant. Windows is always getting knocked around for supposedly not being as configurable via the command line as unices, but that is simply untrue. I was trying to make that point, whether it was in rebuttal to a point of yours or not.
MS is putting the big dollar developing into the spit and polish of XP...you as a home desktop PC owner are not paying for the promise of stability...you are paying for the features...and MS knows this. The people who paid for the stability were the companies that shelled out big bucks for NT support in the good old days and MS is finally giving the home consumer a taste of a stable system in w2k and now xp.
You're right, MS has put a lot of effort into fit and finish for XP. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The new task-oriented design makes doing common end-user tasks much easier by providing quick links to those tasks in context. It's more than just some flashy new window borders and a fancy start menu (all of which can be turned off and reverted back to win2k style), but efforts to make tasks like getting pictures off of a digital camera (as an example) much easier for the end user. Also, great steps were taken to make XP more backwards-compatible, faster, and even more stable than win2k, on which it was based. XP was 2+ years in the making (work on it started before 2k was even shipped), and only in the last months before release was the new Luna look designed and implemented. To say that Luna was the only thing MS focused on with XP is to do a great dissrvice. And just to make things clear, Win2K was never marketed as a consumer OS. It was originally planned that way, but problems cropped up and so we got WinME, based on Win9x, instead.
Are you honestly telling me that I can get enough windows updates for my win98 systems to bring the stability up to the point to match xp? I'm not talking about new feature rich explorer updates or messenger updates...I'm talking about basic stability issues, which I think are as critically important to keeping data intact as updates to prevent viri and internet exploits. I don't expect any release of any software to be perfect...but I don't think it unreasonable to expect the purchase of a product gives me access to continued updates that help prevent system crashes or system lockups.
I never said you could get the stability of XP just by applying patches to 98 from Windows Update. What I said was that the major core updates that were in 95->98, 98->98se, 98->ME were made available through Windows Update where possible (there's only so much you can do with a patch, but major problems like security issues and stability issues like the 49-day bug, were addressed for older OSes). You need to remember that Win95, bowing to market pressure, included bugs and 16-bit code from win3.x to ensure backwards compatibility (historically, ISVs were unwilling to port to Win95 immediately, and pressured Microsoft to re-introduce bugs from win3.x that were originally fixed in Win95 so that older applications would still run. By doing so, it severely stunted the stability of the 95 kernel, and we've been living with that decision all the way up through ME. By then, it was too late.). NT was designed from the ground up, without a legacy from DOS or win3.x, and so never inherited those problems. For the longest time, Microsoft has wanted to transition consumer users over to an OS based on the NT core, but couldn't do it because of compatibility issues (with older apps, with newer hardware, with mindshare, etc). XP is the realization of that. You obviously can't expect a Win9x-based OS to have the same stability as an NT-based OS.
MS wants to release XP chock full of new kernel and new extra features and abilities, fine that's great...but to drop support for the older Oses which still have glaring stability problems and force people to buy into a new Os yet again...with new hardware yet again...seems a tad disrespectful.
It's not personal. It's just business. (name that quote) Seriously, it's business. You're suggesting what amounts to Microsoft giving away XP because Win9x had problems. That might work in the OSS world, but it doesn't work in business. Because that's what it is -- business. It costs money to support older operating systems. Do you believe that Microsoft should still support Windows 1.0? 2.0? 3.x? DOS? I think not. Windows 95 and NT4 are obsolete (businesses may still be able to get NT4 support, but I don't know anything about that). Windows 98, 98se, and Millenium are going that way, but they're still too "new" to call unsupported, so they get support. And as for buying new hardware, if you have a P2-level processor and at least 64MB of RAM (RAM is cheap these days. Drop the $20 needed to get to 256MB), you can run XP. You might need to turn off some of the fancy graphical stuff, but it'll still work just fine.
Good think the EULA washes MS clean of any responsbility to make a best effort to ensure the product actually works as claimed before you even open the software box. I'm not asking for a path from 95 to XP...I dont want XP's features I want a computer i bought 4 years ago that met the specs of win98 to be reach a decent level of stability...I don't think I should have to buy a whole new Os with a whole new hardware spec to finally get to the point where the Os can claim to be stable and can last a week without rebooting...hence why I run BSD and linux on the older boxes now...I can be confident that updates affecting stability will be made available for the older architecture. I have no problem paying for productivity updates, (new features, new tools) but I have a big problem being told I have to buy a stability update, when the product I bought should have been stable to begin with.
You don't think any other company washes their hands with EULAs? Have you read any EULAs? If you think EULAs are bad, that's fine. But apply it evenly. Don't single out one company (Microsoft) and attack them for it. As for "before you even open the box", try again my friend. You may not be able to return that box to the store from which you bought it because the seal is broken, but you can certainly return it to Microsoft for a full refund (check the limited warranty on the software, which should be in the box). The EULA does not go into effect until you agree to it during the installation process.
1. XP has a different (though open and standardised) bootloader removing the task from BIOS. Dualbooting is more difficult under XP.
Bullshit. XP uses the exact same bootloader as NT4, 2K, and even WinME (well, sure, with some minor cosmetic changes and performance enhancements, but for all intents and purposes it's the same loader written way back in 93/94-ish for NT4). As well, it's never been hard to dual-boot with the NT-Loader. There are two mini-howtos on LinuxDoc that outline two different ways of dual-booting Linux with NT (using LILO):
Using Lilo, either start linux, or start NT/ME/2K/XP, thus bringing you to the NT-Loader screen (in 2K, ME, and XP (and possibly NT4, though it's been a long time since I've played with that), if NT-Loader only has one entry, you won't get a menu and it'll just directly load that one entry)
Using NT-Loader, either start NT/ME/2K/XP, or start linux, thus bringing up the LILO prompt
Both methods work, and I have used both in the past. Interestingly enough, NT-Loader is flexible enough that it can work with pretty much any OS. I've personally used it to dual-boot BeOS 4.5 and Windows 2000, in the past, and never had any problems.
2. The usual obscuring of office formats. While RTF is usable the new version bloats to about ten times the size when containing images - nice one, M$.
First off, what does this have to do with Windows XP? You've obviously confused Windows XP with Office XP. Second, this is not new, and it's unlikely it'll change (although with Microsoft moving more and more towards XML, don't be surprised if you start seeing XML-based Word documents that can thus be easily parsed by anything that understands XML).
Given all the above, I still don't see how these are anti-open source. Hell, even WPA isn't "anti-open source". It's anti-piracy, sure, but I don't see how it has anything to do with open source at all.
As far as interface!=windows xp. Show me a major windows application that can fully function from the commandline. Show me a useful scriptable terminal shell environment that comes with windows xp. The interface IS MS windows.
How about this -- install vim (yes, there's a native win32 port, not just via cygwin) and Visual C++. Now, in only cmd.exe, you can code your entire application and build it. The VC compiler doesn't require the gui. Oh, sure, you get the gui when you install it, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. You can build by hand or write a makefile, just like with gcc. Alternatively, you can configure nearly everything either through commandline tools (try "net help" from cmd.exe, "ipconfig/?", "route/?", and so on) or via the Windows Scripting Host (wscript.exe if you want gui stuff from your script, cscript.exe if you don't). Hell, you can even install software solely from the commandline (lookup "msiexec" in the Help and Support Center), given that the software is provided as an msi (Microsoft Installer package, which most new applications are using, and is required to get certified for the XP Logo program). As far as "major windows applications" running from the command line, I'm going to ignore this as flamebait. Windows is generally used as a GUI environment (and when it's not, it's because it's being used as a server, where you shouldn't be firing up stuff like Word anyway), and so major applications (Word, Excel, IE, Photoshop, whatever) are obviously gui-oriented. If you need to use those remotely, Terminal Services (now called Remote Desktop in XP) is very nice, and is even better in XP -- 32bpp color depth, tweakable options to help performance, optional audio over the network, full backwards compatibility in both the client and the server so you can connect to win2k or nt4 terminal servers, or connect to XP from NT4 or 2K, and more. You can use TS for remote administration as well, or you can setup the included telnet server, or you can install a third-party ssh server. The first option gives you the most control over the system as you have both console and gui to work with, but the latter two give you nearly as much flexibility even just through the commandline.
If you were paying for the effort MS put into stability from Os release to release, each version of windows would have a fair price of about $2...and the upgrade to xp would be free patch, like the virus patches are. I've never really understood that, poor stability leads to data loss just like virus do...but MS doesn't hand out free stability upgrades, they sell them as new Os releases. I shouldn't have to keep paying for promised stability. Paying for new features is one thing...pay for basic features I should have had when I bought the Os is extortion...but that's okay pretty soon we will all be paying a monthly fee to get access to or windows system thanks to.net....so we will never have to "buy" a MS Os again, ever.
You've obviously never looked at Windows Update. Microsoft does a pretty good job of offering critical updates, not-so-critical updates, minor Windows updates, new versions for things like Messenger, and even some drivers. As far as "paying for patches", maybe so. But historically, all the important features from win98 that could be patched back into 95 without significant changes were made available. Same for 98 -> 98SE, and even 98SE->ME. Granted, there's no way you can just patch 98SE and end up with ME, but any critical updates and such were always offered for the older systems (well, maybe not 95, since it was declared obsolete as of 98se, and 98 and 98se were declared obsolete as of ME, but mainly that just means you won't be able to buy them in the store any more -- they will still be supported with critical updates). As far as the path from WinME to WinXP, there's no way you can make a patch to upgrade between the two. That's like saying you can just get a patch to upgrade from DOS to Linux. Not going to happen. WinME was still Win9x. WinXP is based on 2K, which in turn was based on NT. Completely different kernel, completely different driver architecture, no more legacy 16-bit code, etc.
And just as a note on the whole.NET thing you brought up -- it's very likely that at least initially (and probably for the next 5+ years after), both subscription and stand-alone packages will be offered. In otherwords, you can pay $99 for your XP->2004 (or whatever) upgrade and be done, or you can pay $30/year to get 2004, and then 2005, and then 2006, and... Maybe not a great idea for businesses that need to standardize on a platform, but do you really believe Microsoft hasn't thought of this? Just as with XP's anti-piracy activation measures, where site licenses for larger companies (I believe, any package of 5+ licenses) does not require activation, standalone licesnses would be offered on any software that also has a subscription license (Office.NET, Windows.NET, whatever).
For Samba to be a competitor it would have to be a company, which it isn't.
Courtesy of Dictionary.com, the definition of competitor:
competitor
n.
One that competes with another, as in sports or business; a rival.
I don't see anything in there about the rival being a company. If that were the case, then Linux would not be a competitor to Microsoft Windows, Apache wouldn't be a competitor to IIS or the iPlanet/Netscape servers, and so forth. Point: competition in business does not necessarily always take place between two or more companies.
Samba is a tool created by consumers, for consumers, for the purposes of sharing files and printers in a heterogeneous network using Microsoft's communication protocols and standards (namely SMB and CIFS), which currently have to be reverse-engineered by contributors to the Samba project.
Interestingly enough, the fact that the Samba team has a separate implementation of SMB and CIFS than the Microsoft implementation, and that it is intended to be used in the same places where Microsoft file sharing would be done, makes Samba a competitor. Doesn't matter if it was created "by consumers, for consumers", by entering that "market" (I'm using that loosely to mean the set of situations and scenarios in which Samba and NT Server provide the same functionality) Samba became a competitor.
Samba is entirely free, free as in speech, free as in beer. Samba protects the consumer by promoting interoperability in heterogeneous networks.
Linux is entirely free, free as in speech, free as in beer. One could argue it also protects consumers by promoting interoperability in heterogeneous networks. Is it also not a competitor of Microsoft? Or did you just throw in the above phrase to satisfy your zealotry, as it has no bearing on what does and does not constitute competition.
The Samba team has grounds to object because they are consumers who would like to be able to keep their important files on a single powerful and RELIABLE *nix server rather than clusters of redundant and UNRELIABLE NT servers.
Let's leave religious issues out of this, if you please. NT unreliability in the area of interest (CIFS/SMB file sharing) is largely hearsay. If you believe otherwise, please cite (independant, unbiased) studies that prove one way or the other. Otherwise, I'll simply ignore this part offhand as a slashdot-ism, and continue on.
Had you bothered to find out what Samba was before declaring judgement upon them, you would already have known all that.
Not that it's any of your business, but I've been using Samba for the past five or so years on my home networks. I think I have a bit of understanding about what Samba is and is not. However, I'll not retaliate, as then I'll drop to the level of a troll.
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No wonder you're paranoid. You don't understand anything about XP activation. First off, installing software will not affect your activation status. Only installing/replacing hardware can do that (and you have to replace something like six different pieces before you need to reactivate). Also, you can reinstall as many times as you like. You can reactivate up to 10 times, at which point you'll need to call Microsoft on the 11th reactivation. You do not need to buy a new license, nor do anything but tell them you're reactivating, and it's done. Finally, if you bought XP for business use, why didn't your business by a license pack? Buying XP licenses in bulk (5+ licenses, I believe) allows you to not have to bother with activating the system. Perhaps you should research these things a bit more before you start in with the paranoia, eh?
The difference being, of course, that BillG only cares about the software he bankrolls, while RMS wants everybody to give up their right to choose their own license. RMS is much worse in this case. BillG is about business. RMS is about religion.
Exactly!
You're sure it wasn't just death animations? As far back as Quake 1 (well, with the TFC mod, anyway, which had a sniper), death animations existed for decapitations. I specifically didn't mention hit-locations, since I'm sure Kingpin wasn't the first to do such things as one-hit head shots. Kingpin's whole claim to fame was the ability to blow the limbs off of enemies without them dying (well, decapitation would obviously involve dying, but you could shoot off a guy's arm or hand or leg and they could still live). I don't know what game you're referring to from your description, but I'd really bet what you were seeing was a death animation.
Rebellion's Aliens vs. Predator also had "detachable limbs" (for lack of a more concise description), but I believe it was released after Kingpin. Soldier of Fortune took it to extremes. Where Kingpin had something like 12 hot spots, Soldier of Fortune had over 20. Of course, imho, neither Kingpin nor SoF were good games, but then that's just my opinion.
No, I understood your intent. The point I was making is that you're the kind of bastard player that does stuff like camp respawns (what else would you call it when you get behind the other team's spawn points and cap them as they run up the beach?). That class of asshole players also tends towards teamkilling. Perhaps you're not a team killer, but I've seen enough assholes in too many games that do the things you spoke of doing and also are anti-social (well, more anti-social than the typical gamer, as we all tend to be anti-social to some extent :) assholes.
Actually, Quake 2 had painskins first (obviously before Kingpin, as Kingpin used the Q2 engine). Now, Kingpin was the first to implement "deformable" bodies (in that you could blow off feet, hands, arms, legs, head, lower torso, and maybe one or two other parts, based on where you were shooting. Q2 and earlier games did have decaptations and such, but those were simply death animations). SOF did it better, but Kingpin did it first.
Great, just what we need. Tips for cheaters. I'm sorry, but the Q3 bunny hop was a physics bug. They didn't "disable" it in RTCW, they "fixed" it. Apparently they didn't catch every case, as your post points out. Exploiting a bug is cheating just as much as running an aimbot. It detracts from the game, and makes it less fun for everybody else.
I won't even comment on your so-called "tactics" for the beach landing map. People like you make online gaming annoying. You probably teamkilled on purpose as well, didn't you?
You seriously can't believe that the "actual value" of a piece of software is the price of pressing the CD, can you? Now, if all you're actually doing is pressing a CD (say, Cheapbytes, when they distribute the free versions of various distros on CD), then sure you can call the pressing costs the "actual value". When you're talking about software that you paid people to research, design, develop, test, and deploy, your "actual costs" are much higher than the negligible cost of pressing a CD and packaging it in a box. Please take an economics class, or something.
My LUG at college used to make fun of me for interning with/accepting a job from Microsoft. Then two ex chairs of the LUG also accepted jobs from Microsoft. And many of the other guys from the LUG are now out of work, or still avoiding the real world by doing grad school. Point? Just because your LUG laughs at you doesn't mean you're wrong, or your choice was bad.
59.94 == 60 for sufficiently large values of 59.94. Close enough for government work. And "half-frames" and "fields" are just different words for the same thing -- only half of a frame (even or odd lines) gets refreshed each time. One frame consists of two fields or half-frames, which may be slightly out-of-sync in time. Two frames back-to-back are comprised of a total of three fields (sharing the "middle" field). Thus, jagged/fuzzy objects when moving horizontally, and flattened or elongated objects when moving vertically (you have to pay very close attention to notice these effects, and the horizontal effect is more noticeable than the vertical, but they're there).
Both, depending. This holds true for all languages targetting the .NET CLR. The different cases are:
Item number 2 is likely the way things will go, because ISVs will be able to sell a single box of software and it will work on any platform with a compliant
For all supported languages, intermediate bytecode will always be generated (called IL, appropriately enough, for Intermediate Language). Whether you then compile that down to native immediately, do it at installation, or do it at runtime is up to the developer.
How's it worse in Microsoft's case? They're losing roughly $100 per Box. That's also around the same that the PS2 lost. The Gamecube will likely lose less, but then it's less hardware (or, perhaps they're losing the same amount, which lets them underprice Microsoft and Sony by $100. Or, maybe they're losing twice as much).
You missed a couple zeros. That's $500million, not $5million ($5million will barely buy you a couple super bowl TV spots, these days, and that money has to last Microsoft through two Super Bowls). Of course, that's $500million over 18 months, but nobody ever pays attention to that "18 months" part (works out to "only" $300million per year, give or take a couple ten millions).
XBox is not Microsoft's push to get a PC in your living room. It's their push to be the gaming console you have in your living room. That's why you'll not see an official keyboard or mouse, nor web browser or e-mail software, or anything of the like. Conspiracy theorists may howl all they want, but Microsoft seems sincere about being only about the games with the XBox.
TV is 60 frames interlaced (60 half-frames per second), unless you're using PAL instead of NTSC, then it's 50 frames interlaced. movies are 24 frames per second, but are generally double-shuttered or triple-shuttered, so that you're actually seeing 48 or 72 "frames" per second. Movies have choppiness during long pans, or have you not noticed?
The Genesis was 16-bit.
Tony Hawk 3 and GTA3 will be making their way to the XBox soon enough, so while XBox owners (like me) may not be able to enjoy them yet, there's no point in picking up a PS2. MGS X (an XBox-exclusive MGS title) should be available Q1 2002 or so. SSX Tricky is an XBox launch title, and I heard Devil May Cry got bad 2/3rds into the game (bad enough that it seemed like a whole different game than what you paid $50 for). Anyway, my point? The XBox is competing more directly with the PS2, like you said. As such, many development houses are targetting both platforms. Given a couple months to ramp up, don't be surprised when the "hot new" PS2 games are released simultaneously on XBox (or even exclusively on XBox, as it's easier to program, and thus cheaper). Many dev houses have been burnt by the PS2 (lackluster title::box ratio at launch, arcane hardware, lack of a high-level SDK to get their first game or two out, thus forcing them to spend millions on in-house development even before they can get their first game out to make some money, etc). The next six months should be interesting indeed.
Nope, that was the rule. A week or two prior to the XBox launch, several stores were given the go-ahead to run certain games. Something like Gamestop/Software, Etc. got to run NFL Fever 2002, EB got to run Halo, and Target got to run DOA3. (not sure if the store->game matchup is quite right, but that's the gist of it anyway.) Other stores seemed to have their own choice, as the local CompUSA was running first the demo disk (which even had at least one person at it at all times), then DOA3, and is now running Halo (every time I've been in there, I've never seen the demo empty). It's right next to a PS2 display, PS1 display, and N64 display (no Gamecube display yet, though I haven't been in there since last night).
First and foremost, I've not had my XBox crash yet. Also, I don't expect it to crash any time soon, either. But believe what you will.
Consoles have had on-board "operating systems" for a while, now. Especially any console that uses CDs (though the old Sega Master System had a built-in game that would fire up if you turned it on without a cart). These on-board OSes are typically used for playing music CDs and managing memory cards. As far as DVD players go, what do you want instead? More low-capacity CD-ROM's? Some proprietary CD-ROM hack (like Dreamcast)? Or the coming standard of DVD? With the latter, at least you get high capacity (4.5GB per XBox game, for instance) and cheap production (because you can leverage existing DVD presses). Actually playing DVD movies is only optional, as with the XBox (it costs money to get a license, for CSS decoding for instance, and there's no point including that in the box itself unless you're aiming to be a DVD player. so make an addon, let anyone who wants to play DVDs buy that.) A hard disk is a good addition, imho, if only because it lets me save money on memory cards (I don't carry my memory cards to other people's consoles, so I don't care if the storage is local to my machine). Plus, it opens up the door for programming tricks like caching level data on disk rather than streaming it from DVD (no console has enough RAM to cache in RAM), thus decreasing load times and allowing for much larger levels. And finally, web browsers. Well, I'll agree with you there. But then again, if you're going to provide online capabilities for your console (Dreamcasts's built-in modem or XBox's built-in ethernet -- add-on's for PS2 and GC don't count, as no peripheral has ever been bought by more than 10% of a console's owners), you may as well give the users something to do with it until games exist that take advantage.
Where launch times are concerned, I've noticed that my XBox launches games much faster than my Dreamcast or PS1 (mainly because I don't have to sit through the Sony bios splash or the Sega bios splash). All I do is hit the eject button (thus turning on the system and instantly bringing up the menu, after an XBox splash), put in the DVD (in the process of getting the DVD out of the box and putting it in the tray, the XBox splash is done and it's waiting patiently at the menu), and close the drive. The game spins up in a second or two, and then it starts. Some games, like NFL Fever 2002 take the first boot to write some files to the hard disk, but this only takes a minute or so, and is well worth it afterwards -- NFL Fever 2002 only takes a scant few seconds to get to the "Press Start" screen after the first time running it. (and no, you don't have to reboot your XBox after NFL Fever installs files to the disk.) Anyway, comparing to N64 is a red herring, because you're talking about a cartridge system versus CD or DVD-based systems (Dreamcast, PS2, XBox, Gamecube). There's going to be lag time
You're right. Everything is either about buying/owning an XBox or not, to me. I reckon time as "BX" and "AX" -- Before XBox and After XBox. I decide what to wear in the morning, what to eat of an evening, and even where to buy gas for my car by an XBox unit of measurement. But seriously, it's a fairly easy distinction to make -- those who did/will buy an XBox, those who are unsure, and those who won't (typically zealots like yourself). As for pitying me, you might want to try out some of the games before you do so. I'd feel bad if you were pitying me for having fun.
Convenient. You refused to back-up your fear-mongering in your original post, and yet you have the audacity to question the validity of mine? I'm sorry, please tell me what portions you don't agree are valid (specifics please, not just "all of it"). If you're referring to your conspiracy theory about Microsoft not charging developers the licensing fees to develop for the XBox, I can only say bullshit. Keep dreaming. The proof of such a claim is on you, as you're the one suggesting they're working against the status quo (where that would be charging development licensing fees to make money on video game hardware). As far as pricing goes, you don't have a leg to stand on. The XBox is priced competitively, enough said. It doesn't matter if or how much money Microsoft is losing on it, because (and I've said it before) THAT'S EXPECTED. You lose money on video game consoles. That's the way the market works. Don't believe me? Go talk to Nintendo, Sega, or Sony. They'll tell you.
And obviously this is going to be "more of the same" to you as well. Either you have a comprehension problem, or you're one of the hard-headed zealots that don't want to believe there are valid reasons behind the things that Microsoft does, and can be explained without FUD, fear-mongering, or knee-jerk conspiracy theories. Believe what you will, as I obviously can't make a dent.
You have an amazing ability to latch onto the most trivial of details, making issues out of what is essentially a non-issue, while ignoring the more important facts and questions that I've brought up. Back up your claim that Microsoft is waiving license fees. Prove that Microsoft's advertising budget is magnitudes larger than Sony's or Nintendo's by providing concrete numbers for those two. Find hard numbers on how much Microsoft is losing per XBox vs how much Sony is losing now (and lost at time of release). Furthermore, justify how charging $299 for the XBox, the same price as the PS2, is somehow an artificially low price, and thus is uncompetitive (assumption made from your statements), even though it's competitve with PS2, and even more expensive than GameCube. But go ahead, latch onto some trivial sentence in this reply, too, and ignore everything else.
First off, that's hardly proving your statement with facts (part of my reply which you conveniently cut and ignored ...). Second, Microsoft has these silly people called "share holders", to whom they're financially responsible, and taking billions of dollars in losses won't keep those "share holders" happy very long (the only reason they're happy with the XBox in the first place is the promise of licensing revenue, which you're suggesting they're waiving). Silly fear-mongering, nothing more.
I'd be interested in seeing Sony's advertising budget. Mind sharing? Regardless, the $500mil Microsoft is spending is spread over 18 months. A year and a half. When 30-second Super Bowl ad spots go for half a million or more (just for the spot, not even counting the amount of money that goes into making those commercials), $500mil over a year and a half (two Super Bowls) isn't all that much. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Nintendo is spending near that amount as well, though they gave per-year numbers so it looked smaller. Can't remember the link, though. Maybe you can?
The normally-quoted numbers are that Microsoft is losing between $100 and $150 per console. That's roughly the same amount Sony was losing per PS2 at launch time (where the PS2 launched $100 more expensive than the XBox). The XBox's specs may be higher, but the PS2 has more custom parts, which are pretty expensive as well (plus, it uses Rambus RAM ...). Regardless, that wasn't at all the point of what I was saying, nor was it the point of what I was replying to. Microsoft is pricing their console competitively. They're not undercutting Sony (if so, I would've paid $200, not $300 for my XBox this morning), and while they're taking a loss, that's expected and encouraged (seriously, who's going to buy a $500 console? Remember the 3DO? The Neo Geo? ... the economics of the console video game market do not work that way.).
Didn't convince you to what? To buy an XBox? That wasn't the point of my reply. Apparently I was unable to convince you to stop fear-mongering and knee-jerking, either, and sadly I did fail there -- my reply was designed to debunk your points, one by one. I feel I did a fairly good job of it. If you don't want to believe the market realities of the real world, that's your choice. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying DOA3 on my new XBox.
Give proof, please. Considering the fact that the way to make money in the video game console business is to take a cut on each game sold, this doesn't make sense. Also, I've never seen anything but wild rumor-mongering and speculation that this is happening, anyway (well, sure, unless you count Microsoft purchasing Bungie and Oddworld Inhabitants, but two developers out of 150+ is not a trend).
And Sony doesn't have an advertising budget? Or Nintendo? Or Sega, back when they were a contender? So maybe they never spent quite as much, but I'd expect Sony spent close with the PS2.
Hello? Anybody in there? This is HOW THE MARKET WORKS for video game consoles. Nintendo does this. Sony does this. Sega even did this, up to the point where they bailed out on the Dreamcast. Hell, even Indrema was going to have to do this if they wanted to be competitive. Now, I could see this argument if Microsoft were selling the XBox for $100 or $150 right out of the gate, but when it's being priced at a competitive $299 (same as PS2, $100 more than GameCube), I don't see where this is relevant.
Microsoft losing 3-4 billion does not mean Sony will also lose 3-4 billion. And even if Sony were to lose that much in the video game market (which they won't), Sony is a very large company with their fingers in lots of different pies. Their video game division might be in for some rough times, but how is that new? Since the old NES (and probably before, though I wasn't into gaming then), there has never been a company that has successfully turned its lead in the market in one generation over to a lead in the market in the next. NES, Genesis, and Playstation. Nintendo hung in there, and Sega did for a while (still at it with the great games). The "winner" of this next generation is obviously not clear yet, but the XBox is a contender at the very least. If Sony can pull off a repeat of the success of the Playstation, more power too them. But just because they had something good with the PSX doesn't mean they automatically have something good with the PS2 (it's decent, but with its difficulty to program, don't be surprised when more and more developers flock to the GCN and XBox, which are both much easier to program).
Not providing source with a binary distribution of a GPL'ed software is not a problem. Refusing to give out the source when asked (and you can limit this to customers who have paid for a valid license, though you can't restrict them from modifying and redistributing your work for free) is "wrong" according to the GPL.
Just as you would script this in Unix, you can script this in Windows. Obviously, the scripts you write will be different. NT != UNIX and UNIX != NT, so that should be expected. Have a look at this link for more information (you'll probably need to use IE to get to that link, but since we're talking about Windows here, that shouldn't be an issue). That link discusses the IADsUser scriptable interface for ADSI in Windows. Based on the connect string you use, you can change a local user account, an NT4 domain user account, or an Active Directory user account. Figuring out what properties you need to change for your problem and what glue you need to write to loop through all indicated users is left as an excercise for you.
I must've misunderstood your point, whether through miscommunication on your part or an inability to read on mine. I apologize, but that doesn't make my points any less relevant. Windows is always getting knocked around for supposedly not being as configurable via the command line as unices, but that is simply untrue. I was trying to make that point, whether it was in rebuttal to a point of yours or not.
You're right, MS has put a lot of effort into fit and finish for XP. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The new task-oriented design makes doing common end-user tasks much easier by providing quick links to those tasks in context. It's more than just some flashy new window borders and a fancy start menu (all of which can be turned off and reverted back to win2k style), but efforts to make tasks like getting pictures off of a digital camera (as an example) much easier for the end user. Also, great steps were taken to make XP more backwards-compatible, faster, and even more stable than win2k, on which it was based. XP was 2+ years in the making (work on it started before 2k was even shipped), and only in the last months before release was the new Luna look designed and implemented. To say that Luna was the only thing MS focused on with XP is to do a great dissrvice. And just to make things clear, Win2K was never marketed as a consumer OS. It was originally planned that way, but problems cropped up and so we got WinME, based on Win9x, instead.
I never said you could get the stability of XP just by applying patches to 98 from Windows Update. What I said was that the major core updates that were in 95->98, 98->98se, 98->ME were made available through Windows Update where possible (there's only so much you can do with a patch, but major problems like security issues and stability issues like the 49-day bug, were addressed for older OSes). You need to remember that Win95, bowing to market pressure, included bugs and 16-bit code from win3.x to ensure backwards compatibility (historically, ISVs were unwilling to port to Win95 immediately, and pressured Microsoft to re-introduce bugs from win3.x that were originally fixed in Win95 so that older applications would still run. By doing so, it severely stunted the stability of the 95 kernel, and we've been living with that decision all the way up through ME. By then, it was too late.). NT was designed from the ground up, without a legacy from DOS or win3.x, and so never inherited those problems. For the longest time, Microsoft has wanted to transition consumer users over to an OS based on the NT core, but couldn't do it because of compatibility issues (with older apps, with newer hardware, with mindshare, etc). XP is the realization of that. You obviously can't expect a Win9x-based OS to have the same stability as an NT-based OS.
It's not personal. It's just business. (name that quote) Seriously, it's business. You're suggesting what amounts to Microsoft giving away XP because Win9x had problems. That might work in the OSS world, but it doesn't work in business. Because that's what it is -- business. It costs money to support older operating systems. Do you believe that Microsoft should still support Windows 1.0? 2.0? 3.x? DOS? I think not. Windows 95 and NT4 are obsolete (businesses may still be able to get NT4 support, but I don't know anything about that). Windows 98, 98se, and Millenium are going that way, but they're still too "new" to call unsupported, so they get support. And as for buying new hardware, if you have a P2-level processor and at least 64MB of RAM (RAM is cheap these days. Drop the $20 needed to get to 256MB), you can run XP. You might need to turn off some of the fancy graphical stuff, but it'll still work just fine.
You don't think any other company washes their hands with EULAs? Have you read any EULAs? If you think EULAs are bad, that's fine. But apply it evenly. Don't single out one company (Microsoft) and attack them for it. As for "before you even open the box", try again my friend. You may not be able to return that box to the store from which you bought it because the seal is broken, but you can certainly return it to Microsoft for a full refund (check the limited warranty on the software, which should be in the box). The EULA does not go into effect until you agree to it during the installation process.
Bullshit. XP uses the exact same bootloader as NT4, 2K, and even WinME (well, sure, with some minor cosmetic changes and performance enhancements, but for all intents and purposes it's the same loader written way back in 93/94-ish for NT4). As well, it's never been hard to dual-boot with the NT-Loader. There are two mini-howtos on LinuxDoc that outline two different ways of dual-booting Linux with NT (using LILO):
Both methods work, and I have used both in the past. Interestingly enough, NT-Loader is flexible enough that it can work with pretty much any OS. I've personally used it to dual-boot BeOS 4.5 and Windows 2000, in the past, and never had any problems.
First off, what does this have to do with Windows XP? You've obviously confused Windows XP with Office XP. Second, this is not new, and it's unlikely it'll change (although with Microsoft moving more and more towards XML, don't be surprised if you start seeing XML-based Word documents that can thus be easily parsed by anything that understands XML).
Given all the above, I still don't see how these are anti-open source. Hell, even WPA isn't "anti-open source". It's anti-piracy, sure, but I don't see how it has anything to do with open source at all.
How about this -- install vim (yes, there's a native win32 port, not just via cygwin) and Visual C++. Now, in only cmd.exe, you can code your entire application and build it. The VC compiler doesn't require the gui. Oh, sure, you get the gui when you install it, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. You can build by hand or write a makefile, just like with gcc. Alternatively, you can configure nearly everything either through commandline tools (try "net help" from cmd.exe, "ipconfig /?", "route /?", and so on) or via the Windows Scripting Host (wscript.exe if you want gui stuff from your script, cscript.exe if you don't). Hell, you can even install software solely from the commandline (lookup "msiexec" in the Help and Support Center), given that the software is provided as an msi (Microsoft Installer package, which most new applications are using, and is required to get certified for the XP Logo program). As far as "major windows applications" running from the command line, I'm going to ignore this as flamebait. Windows is generally used as a GUI environment (and when it's not, it's because it's being used as a server, where you shouldn't be firing up stuff like Word anyway), and so major applications (Word, Excel, IE, Photoshop, whatever) are obviously gui-oriented. If you need to use those remotely, Terminal Services (now called Remote Desktop in XP) is very nice, and is even better in XP -- 32bpp color depth, tweakable options to help performance, optional audio over the network, full backwards compatibility in both the client and the server so you can connect to win2k or nt4 terminal servers, or connect to XP from NT4 or 2K, and more. You can use TS for remote administration as well, or you can setup the included telnet server, or you can install a third-party ssh server. The first option gives you the most control over the system as you have both console and gui to work with, but the latter two give you nearly as much flexibility even just through the commandline.
You've obviously never looked at Windows Update. Microsoft does a pretty good job of offering critical updates, not-so-critical updates, minor Windows updates, new versions for things like Messenger, and even some drivers. As far as "paying for patches", maybe so. But historically, all the important features from win98 that could be patched back into 95 without significant changes were made available. Same for 98 -> 98SE, and even 98SE->ME. Granted, there's no way you can just patch 98SE and end up with ME, but any critical updates and such were always offered for the older systems (well, maybe not 95, since it was declared obsolete as of 98se, and 98 and 98se were declared obsolete as of ME, but mainly that just means you won't be able to buy them in the store any more -- they will still be supported with critical updates). As far as the path from WinME to WinXP, there's no way you can make a patch to upgrade between the two. That's like saying you can just get a patch to upgrade from DOS to Linux. Not going to happen. WinME was still Win9x. WinXP is based on 2K, which in turn was based on NT. Completely different kernel, completely different driver architecture, no more legacy 16-bit code, etc.
And just as a note on the whole .NET thing you brought up -- it's very likely that at least initially (and probably for the next 5+ years after), both subscription and stand-alone packages will be offered. In otherwords, you can pay $99 for your XP->2004 (or whatever) upgrade and be done, or you can pay $30/year to get 2004, and then 2005, and then 2006, and ... Maybe not a great idea for businesses that need to standardize on a platform, but do you really believe Microsoft hasn't thought of this? Just as with XP's anti-piracy activation measures, where site licenses for larger companies (I believe, any package of 5+ licenses) does not require activation, standalone licesnses would be offered on any software that also has a subscription license (Office.NET, Windows.NET, whatever).
Courtesy of Dictionary.com, the definition of competitor:
I don't see anything in there about the rival being a company. If that were the case, then Linux would not be a competitor to Microsoft Windows, Apache wouldn't be a competitor to IIS or the iPlanet/Netscape servers, and so forth. Point: competition in business does not necessarily always take place between two or more companies.
Interestingly enough, the fact that the Samba team has a separate implementation of SMB and CIFS than the Microsoft implementation, and that it is intended to be used in the same places where Microsoft file sharing would be done, makes Samba a competitor. Doesn't matter if it was created "by consumers, for consumers", by entering that "market" (I'm using that loosely to mean the set of situations and scenarios in which Samba and NT Server provide the same functionality) Samba became a competitor.
Linux is entirely free, free as in speech, free as in beer. One could argue it also protects consumers by promoting interoperability in heterogeneous networks. Is it also not a competitor of Microsoft? Or did you just throw in the above phrase to satisfy your zealotry, as it has no bearing on what does and does not constitute competition.
Let's leave religious issues out of this, if you please. NT unreliability in the area of interest (CIFS/SMB file sharing) is largely hearsay. If you believe otherwise, please cite (independant, unbiased) studies that prove one way or the other. Otherwise, I'll simply ignore this part offhand as a slashdot-ism, and continue on.
Not that it's any of your business, but I've been using Samba for the past five or so years on my home networks. I think I have a bit of understanding about what Samba is and is not. However, I'll not retaliate, as then I'll drop to the level of a troll.