I knew about Servo, that was the project that Samsung was paying for. Trying to get an Android browser that was far better than Safari especially since Android processors can go with a much larger number of cores.
The non-standard standard library is interesting. Thanks for the info!
While they are in the minority, there exist plenty of rural residents in the US at least without a satisfactory answer to Internet connectivity and thus remain offline.
According to the FCC internet usage among households that have a home computer is about 100% now. We aren't talking many people. And even those people have access to bookstores, cafes... with wireless. Or Microsoft could issue license keys my phone for a few exception cases. They just mail a CD that installs a custom key for the few thousand odd ball cases.
: icons, logos, background images, that kind of thing However, there are several applications available right now on OS X that are not only much cheaper than Creative Cloud but also get much more positive comments from professionals who are doing that kind of work.
I agree with you. Those applications are pleasant. By professionals I meant graphics professionals not non-graphics professionals that do some graphics work.
Basically, we've all been trying to force Adobe's 800lb gorillas to do the job for years, but the reality is that we were just waiting for someone to come along with a tool aimed at exactly what we need to do, with a feature set and user interface tailor made for that kind of work. Now several different businesses have, and if the people in the industry I know are at all representative, those newcomers are already attracting a significant share of the professional market. Not only are they cheaper by far than Photoshop, they are also significantly better in that particular niche.
Agreed. That's the norm for most products they keep moving up market and dropping the lower end of their user base as they evolve. Oracle was once the low end solution for people who couldn't afford a mainframe or mini.
It's not LibreOffice that Microsoft should fear, it's tools like Scrivener stealing all the professional authors
Well there is 2 things:
a) niche apps b) disruption from below
Scrivener is pretty cool. Possibly a better fit for authors. Authors are a tiny niche. Microsoft has always had to contend with niche apps for niche players. That's not a real threat. Scrivener being the application of choice for reports though because of integrated research with school kids would be a much bigger threat. That isn't niche.
some modern replacement for TeX stealing all the technical people,
. If you're writing the foundation that all of these other applications are going to run on, then stability and longevity are vital attributes.
Possibly. I'd say backwards compatibility is vital for a large application stack. But that's easy enough to achieve via. virtualization and containerization. Microsoft has already hired Docker Inc to create a containerization scheme for Windows. So it wouldn't shock me if in 2 years or so you can have applications running in multiple Microsoft OSes even if they don't port from version to version while the underlying OS changes rapidly.
The other possibility is Microsoft moves back to a policy where application stacks need to be updated. Very much like what exists on OSX. Everyone is expected to be upgrading their applications regularly. It is part of the cost of the platform.
. But seriously, there's sure to be fine print when you buy the computer authorizing them to charge your credit card.
You can't have an agreement for a never ending non-cancelable subscription, that's also illegal. You can have a payment plan of course but then the subscript has to be indicated in with the purchase price.
Your bank sides with M$.
Your bank is not going to side with Microsoft. The bank asks one question, "was the charge authorized". Microsoft can stand on one leg and say "well no but it should have been because ABC..." and they will still lose their write to issue charges. This BTW applies to anything in life. You use the words "I am not authorizing the charge" and merchants will back down PDQ.
My point is to illustrate the potential for companies to use a subscription model hide the true price of their goods and how they probably can and will legally bilk us out of lots of our hard earns dollars.
You aren't the first one to think of that and its been illegal since long before their were credit cards.
And as for "the OS stops working", the risk of paying users mistakenly having their computer bricked makes that very tricky to implement. And what about those who don't have regular internet access to allow it to phone home.
It doesn't need regular access. It can phone home once a year or they give you an annual key over the phone. In all fairness the FCC tracks this internet usage among people with a home PC is basically 100% in the USA at this point.
I suspect if you are talking cheap computers they will do what they did in the mid 1990s and just include them with the subscription. 3 years of windows and you get a $499 computer for free and that gets replaced at the end of 3 years.
Users who won't spend more than $30 every 2 years on the OS are probably worth losing as customers. They don't bring value to the ecosystem. Microsoft for a while was focused on being a monopoly. But at this point the high end is gone to OSX and the low end is gone to Android and iOS. So they can focus on the middle range and enterprise.
I don't think so. Microsoft's slogan is, "cloud first, mobile first". Right now they have quite a bit of user pushback on both those issues. A huge percentage of their Office users are still using Office the way it worked in the 1990s not using the SharePoint extensions. It is not going to be stable.
It will be the opposite like the Microsoft deals from the mid 1990s. Agree to a 3 year subscription and you get a $499 computer, far better than the $299 computer your friend bought for free with the subscription.
They likely will do that except for the "cancel anytime and keep" part. What will happen is "cancel and you have 30 days after which time the system will only allow you to reactivate".
Apple (OSX) only includes there with the hardware and aims considerably higher in the market. Around mid year: Average Windows laptop: $484 Average Mac laptop: $1,419
The people willing to buy Apple aren't going to freak about paying what Microsoft is likely to charge for the OS.
Now on the low end: Android, Linux and iOS that's a different issue. Microsoft could lose their bottom 1/3rd of their customer base. But that bottom 1/3rd is the least profitable and the hardest to move to the new touchscreen type systems because they care so much about the cost of the hinge and the screen. So I'd say it is a net benefit.
They will likely offer a embedded Windows for machines that never connect to a network. For desktops though, who isn't networked at all? Microsoft offers servers that can manage licenses and those can check in with Microsoft. Heck they offer an entire Azure you can run on your own private cloud.
Or they go the opposite like they did in the mid 1990s. For low end computers they throw the computer in free with the OS subscription providing you keep the service for 3 years or more. For higher end systems you just pay a fee for the OS.
It is illegal to charge a credit card without permission. That's theft. It will be a subscription not indentured servitude. There are reasonable things to worry about, one of the largest companies on the planet turning to outright theft is not one of them. The subscription model BTW already exists, you can stop at any time you just don't have a license. So likely it will be something like an annual fee with your computer stopping 30 days after the expiration date. You stop paying the OS stops working.
just go straight to the price-gouging. This is Microsoft after all.
Microsoft has a 35 year track record not not gouging. Charging yes. Gouging, no. They aren't Oracle or IBM. They like being a reasonably priced alternative to higher end products.
Their subscription model now includes upgrades so no reason that should change. As for increasing the revenue. Yes they would do that. Right now they are pricing OEMs so low because they were worried about losing the low end to Linux. At this point they have lost the low end to Android / iOS. So they can charge more and/or make it a percentage of the hardware cost.
Your system would likely have an offline mode and only need to checkin with Microsoft infrequently. As far as subscribing to Windows 7... Microsoft is still going to have the ability to upgrade. They force OS changes through by just making it mandatory and / or more expensive to stay on the old version after a period of time.
Generation 1 iPhone didn't support applications at all. You need to upgrade the phone to iOS 2.0 to use the app store. I don't know if the 2.0 app store still exists or not but at the very least when he bought the phone it didn't have application capacity, nor at the time was it every hinted at so arguing that its a terrible situation for him not to have it now is a bit odd.
Apple OS upgrades have been free for years. And dropping in price before that. Apple loses money on operating systems. That's not a viable model for Microsoft.
Why not? Everyone who has a PC (mostly) has the internet. So you get warnings your subscription is about to expire and then it does. BTW doesn't have to 1 year, could easily be 30 days after you get your new system i.e. first boot to get you registered.
I don't think there is going to be alternatives that easily. The reason Adobe has had some very tough times maintaining quality is that the demands have been growing. Take for example InCopy which allows the editing and design phase to happen in parallel. As someone who has been dealing with those issues for 2 decades I have to tell you that's a huge huge step forward. I don't see an early commercial version offering something like this.
What might exist though, are simpler applications for the amateur market where Adobe moves purely to the professional market.
I'm not so sure. When they first pushed subscriptions with XP they got a lot of people choosing the non subscription option. And they still a decade and a half later have people on XP. I'd say offering that option was a disaster for Microsoft.
Given the degree of lockin, why not just make it a subscription?
That's pretty strict. I can imagine a situation where a company needs a skill set... That's why I just like the tax and be done with it. No need for complex balancing.
Developers see mangling fiasco as soon as there try to mix libraries from different compilers or languages and you seem to agree on that.
I do take your point though that C++ didn't offer any solution to this uou shouldn't have to recompile potentially hundreds of programs to replace one library with an updated version. I'm going to think a bit more about this. Lots of languages I know have the same mangling approach as C++. So I'm still not willing to call it a "fiasco" rather than an approach.
Where I was differing from you is that linking IMHO is fundamentally a platform issue. IMHO the OS not the language should be responsible for linking. I don't think language designers should be responsible for the issues related to linking. C++'s original design simply doesn't support independence of libraries. That's a big problem on Linux (where packages are updated constantly) a medium sized problem on Windows (where the OS has an excellent linker) and not a problem at all on OSX (where each application is supposed to maintain its own libraries).
But certainly if a language could avoid mangling by offering inheritance without polymorphism or mangling in a predictable way...
Well first off name mangling is a complier feature not a language issue. Developers don't see mangling. Also mangling comes from polymorphism not inheritance mainly though. It is a mess with respect to libraries, but once you start building in the ability to handle chains of libraries separately compiled you ain't talking about C with a few extra features anymore that's a huge step up in complexity. But you really aren't answering the question of how C++ with just ignoring lots of stuff doesn't do what you want.
I've seen objects in C. Certainly GTK is a classic example and yeah. I think once you want objects it should just be C++.
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I knew about Servo, that was the project that Samsung was paying for. Trying to get an Android browser that was far better than Safari especially since Android processors can go with a much larger number of cores.
The non-standard standard library is interesting. Thanks for the info!
Well then if they go that route you are likely not using Windows anymore.
According to the FCC internet usage among households that have a home computer is about 100% now. We aren't talking many people. And even those people have access to bookstores, cafes... with wireless. Or Microsoft could issue license keys my phone for a few exception cases. They just mail a CD that installs a custom key for the few thousand odd ball cases.
I agree with you. Those applications are pleasant. By professionals I meant graphics professionals not non-graphics professionals that do some graphics work.
Agreed. That's the norm for most products they keep moving up market and dropping the lower end of their user base as they evolve. Oracle was once the low end solution for people who couldn't afford a mainframe or mini.
Well there is 2 things:
a) niche apps
b) disruption from below
Scrivener is pretty cool. Possibly a better fit for authors. Authors are a tiny niche. Microsoft has always had to contend with niche apps for niche players. That's not a real threat. Scrivener being the application of choice for reports though because of integrated research with school kids would be a much bigger threat. That isn't niche.
Well that's existed for about 2 decades now and speaking of Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/products/...
Possibly. I'd say backwards compatibility is vital for a large application stack. But that's easy enough to achieve via. virtualization and containerization. Microsoft has already hired Docker Inc to create a containerization scheme for Windows. So it wouldn't shock me if in 2 years or so you can have applications running in multiple Microsoft OSes even if they don't port from version to version while the underlying OS changes rapidly.
The other possibility is Microsoft moves back to a policy where application stacks need to be updated. Very much like what exists on OSX. Everyone is expected to be upgrading their applications regularly. It is part of the cost of the platform.
You are right. But its been since 10.5 in 2007 that I paid $129. I was thinking "free" when in reality it was just cheap. Point taken.
How did you do that?
You can't have an agreement for a never ending non-cancelable subscription, that's also illegal. You can have a payment plan of course but then the subscript has to be indicated in with the purchase price.
Your bank is not going to side with Microsoft. The bank asks one question, "was the charge authorized". Microsoft can stand on one leg and say "well no but it should have been because ABC..." and they will still lose their write to issue charges. This BTW applies to anything in life. You use the words "I am not authorizing the charge" and merchants will back down PDQ.
You aren't the first one to think of that and its been illegal since long before their were credit cards.
It doesn't need regular access. It can phone home once a year or they give you an annual key over the phone. In all fairness the FCC tracks this internet usage among people with a home PC is basically 100% in the USA at this point.
I suspect if you are talking cheap computers they will do what they did in the mid 1990s and just include them with the subscription. 3 years of windows and you get a $499 computer for free and that gets replaced at the end of 3 years.
Users who won't spend more than $30 every 2 years on the OS are probably worth losing as customers. They don't bring value to the ecosystem. Microsoft for a while was focused on being a monopoly. But at this point the high end is gone to OSX and the low end is gone to Android and iOS. So they can focus on the middle range and enterprise.
I don't think so. Microsoft's slogan is, "cloud first, mobile first". Right now they have quite a bit of user pushback on both those issues. A huge percentage of their Office users are still using Office the way it worked in the 1990s not using the SharePoint extensions. It is not going to be stable.
It will be the opposite like the Microsoft deals from the mid 1990s. Agree to a 3 year subscription and you get a $499 computer, far better than the $299 computer your friend bought for free with the subscription.
They likely will do that except for the "cancel anytime and keep" part. What will happen is "cancel and you have 30 days after which time the system will only allow you to reactivate".
Apple (OSX) only includes there with the hardware and aims considerably higher in the market. Around mid year:
Average Windows laptop: $484
Average Mac laptop: $1,419
The people willing to buy Apple aren't going to freak about paying what Microsoft is likely to charge for the OS.
Now on the low end: Android, Linux and iOS that's a different issue. Microsoft could lose their bottom 1/3rd of their customer base. But that bottom 1/3rd is the least profitable and the hardest to move to the new touchscreen type systems because they care so much about the cost of the hinge and the screen. So I'd say it is a net benefit.
They will likely offer a embedded Windows for machines that never connect to a network. For desktops though, who isn't networked at all? Microsoft offers servers that can manage licenses and those can check in with Microsoft. Heck they offer an entire Azure you can run on your own private cloud.
Or they go the opposite like they did in the mid 1990s. For low end computers they throw the computer in free with the OS subscription providing you keep the service for 3 years or more. For higher end systems you just pay a fee for the OS.
It is illegal to charge a credit card without permission. That's theft. It will be a subscription not indentured servitude. There are reasonable things to worry about, one of the largest companies on the planet turning to outright theft is not one of them. The subscription model BTW already exists, you can stop at any time you just don't have a license. So likely it will be something like an annual fee with your computer stopping 30 days after the expiration date. You stop paying the OS stops working.
Microsoft has a 35 year track record not not gouging. Charging yes. Gouging, no. They aren't Oracle or IBM. They like being a reasonably priced alternative to higher end products.
Their subscription model now includes upgrades so no reason that should change. As for increasing the revenue. Yes they would do that. Right now they are pricing OEMs so low because they were worried about losing the low end to Linux. At this point they have lost the low end to Android / iOS. So they can charge more and/or make it a percentage of the hardware cost.
Your system would likely have an offline mode and only need to checkin with Microsoft infrequently. As far as subscribing to Windows 7... Microsoft is still going to have the ability to upgrade. They force OS changes through by just making it mandatory and / or more expensive to stay on the old version after a period of time.
Generation 1 iPhone didn't support applications at all. You need to upgrade the phone to iOS 2.0 to use the app store. I don't know if the 2.0 app store still exists or not but at the very least when he bought the phone it didn't have application capacity, nor at the time was it every hinted at so arguing that its a terrible situation for him not to have it now is a bit odd.
Apple OS upgrades have been free for years. And dropping in price before that. Apple loses money on operating systems. That's not a viable model for Microsoft.
Why not? Everyone who has a PC (mostly) has the internet. So you get warnings your subscription is about to expire and then it does. BTW doesn't have to 1 year, could easily be 30 days after you get your new system i.e. first boot to get you registered.
I don't think there is going to be alternatives that easily. The reason Adobe has had some very tough times maintaining quality is that the demands have been growing. Take for example InCopy which allows the editing and design phase to happen in parallel. As someone who has been dealing with those issues for 2 decades I have to tell you that's a huge huge step forward. I don't see an early commercial version offering something like this.
What might exist though, are simpler applications for the amateur market where Adobe moves purely to the professional market.
I'm not so sure. When they first pushed subscriptions with XP they got a lot of people choosing the non subscription option. And they still a decade and a half later have people on XP. I'd say offering that option was a disaster for Microsoft.
Given the degree of lockin, why not just make it a subscription?
That's pretty strict. I can imagine a situation where a company needs a skill set... That's why I just like the tax and be done with it. No need for complex balancing.
I do take your point though that C++ didn't offer any solution to this uou shouldn't have to recompile potentially hundreds of programs to replace one library with an updated version. I'm going to think a bit more about this. Lots of languages I know have the same mangling approach as C++. So I'm still not willing to call it a "fiasco" rather than an approach.
Where I was differing from you is that linking IMHO is fundamentally a platform issue. IMHO the OS not the language should be responsible for linking. I don't think language designers should be responsible for the issues related to linking. C++'s original design simply doesn't support independence of libraries. That's a big problem on Linux (where packages are updated constantly) a medium sized problem on Windows (where the OS has an excellent linker) and not a problem at all on OSX (where each application is supposed to maintain its own libraries).
But certainly if a language could avoid mangling by offering inheritance without polymorphism or mangling in a predictable way...
Well first off name mangling is a complier feature not a language issue. Developers don't see mangling. Also mangling comes from polymorphism not inheritance mainly though. It is a mess with respect to libraries, but once you start building in the ability to handle chains of libraries separately compiled you ain't talking about C with a few extra features anymore that's a huge step up in complexity. But you really aren't answering the question of how C++ with just ignoring lots of stuff doesn't do what you want.
I've seen objects in C. Certainly GTK is a classic example and yeah. I think once you want objects it should just be C++.