The difference is that more often than not, the positive comments about certain other OS's are buzz-word ridden press releases and ass-kissing magazine articles reflexively regurgitated that make it _sound_ good, without any actual evidence to back it up. This, on the other hand, is concrete anecdotal evidence from people who actually have used both software products and didn't take someone else'd word for it, which is much more the norm with Linux "hype".
It worries me that some people who are supposed to be teaching others how to use computes are no better than this (not all obviously). At least it reminds me to make certain that anyone who asks me for advice doesn't walk away from me misunderstanding something i told them, and then repeating their mixed up interpretation to others.
Fixing a buggy network driver might not be sexy and profitable, but that kind of attitude doesn't get the one network card at your disposal working, does it? Suck seems to assume that everyone is going to start writing software that's going to please Joe Shmo Investor instead of providing software purely out of generosity. Well-meaning contributions are not the only driving force behind Open source, however; its making software that the person who writes it actually wants (or needs) to use, and then sharing it so more people will use it and improve on the part's they couldn't finish themselves. "What, you don't like [crappy software]? Think you can do better?" Open source developers believe they can. The thing that sets open source software apart from commercial software is that there is a much shorter route for feedback between the user and the developer; more often than not the user/is/ the developer, and has more of an interest in getting it to work right than actually getting paid for it. Of course, having the luxury to write better software without having to worry about stuff like a job and affording food and 'net access doesn't hurt.
We might start to see some developers start to creep in who expect to cash in because of all this new money, but if their work isn't up to what the open source community expects, it will either be ignored or improved upon 'til it does work well, whether contributors are being paid or not.
Long story short: open source is about making software that *works*. Whether someone gets paid for it or gets credit for it doesn't matter, but those of course nice extras.
Because they're Microsoft, and that's all the reason they need. They simply cannot concieve of a world where some really ultra-useful software that someone uses all the time isn't controlled by them. It's all or nothing for them.
In a perfect world, Microsoft's approach to competition should be "bring it on!", but instead they continue to think of competition as a win-lose situation; someone can only succeed at others' expense. As long they respond to competitive threats with better code, then they might not disappear off the face of the earth once thier market share slips. I guess anything less than everything can only look like a loss when you've been ahead for so long.
What really gets to me about this isn't just the deciet of it all, but that they are also offering a "professional" service which is uncrippled for more money. The 128k cap seems just low enough to make this service actually attractive and neccesary for anything like videoconferencing, which was one of my primary resons for getting the service. They call the upstream bandwidth we're getting now "free". so what am I paying $40 a month for? Let's hope that when the government forces cable isp's to open their networks, those new providers will actually provide some real service instead of this arbitrary abuse.
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The difference is that more often than not, the positive comments about certain other OS's are buzz-word ridden press releases and ass-kissing magazine articles reflexively regurgitated that make it _sound_ good, without any actual evidence to back it up. This, on the other hand, is concrete anecdotal evidence from people who actually have used both software products and didn't take someone else'd word for it, which is much more the norm with Linux "hype".
With that kind of attitude, it'd probably feel the same way about you...
l
http://www.whatisthematrix.com/cmp/newFrame.htm
Some of these are just too painful to read.
It worries me that some people who are supposed to be teaching others how to use computes are no better than this (not all obviously). At least it reminds me to make certain that anyone who asks me for advice doesn't walk away from me misunderstanding something i told them, and then repeating their mixed up interpretation to others.
Could we make an mp3 "broadcaster" out of this? :) That would make an interesting output plugin for Winamp or Xmms.
Fixing a buggy network driver might not be sexy and profitable, but that kind of attitude doesn't get the one network card at your disposal working, does it? Suck seems to assume that everyone is going to start writing software that's going to please Joe Shmo Investor instead of providing software purely out of generosity. Well-meaning contributions are not the only driving force behind Open source, however; its making software that the person who writes it actually wants (or needs) to use, and then sharing it so more people will use it and improve on the part's they couldn't finish themselves. "What, you don't like [crappy software]? Think you can do better?" Open source developers believe they can. The thing that sets open source software apart from commercial software is that there is a much shorter route for feedback between the user and the developer; more often than not the user /is/ the developer, and has more of an interest in getting it to work right than actually getting paid for it. Of course, having the luxury to write better software without having to worry about stuff like a job and affording food and 'net access doesn't hurt.
We might start to see some developers start to creep in who expect to cash in because of all this new money, but if their work isn't up to what the open source community expects, it will either be ignored or improved upon 'til it does work well, whether contributors are being paid or not.
Long story short: open source is about making software that *works*. Whether someone gets paid for it or gets credit for it doesn't matter, but those of course nice extras.
Because they're Microsoft, and that's all the reason they need. They simply cannot concieve of a world where some really ultra-useful software that someone uses all the time isn't controlled by them. It's all or nothing for them.
In a perfect world, Microsoft's approach to competition should be "bring it on!", but instead they continue to think of competition as a win-lose situation; someone can only succeed at others' expense. As long they respond to competitive threats with better code, then they might not disappear off the face of the earth once thier market share slips. I guess anything less than everything can only look like a loss when you've been ahead for so long.
What really gets to me about this isn't just the deciet of it all, but that they are also offering a "professional" service which is uncrippled for more money. The 128k cap seems just low enough to make this service actually attractive and neccesary for anything like videoconferencing, which was one of my primary resons for getting the service. They call the upstream bandwidth we're getting now "free". so what am I paying $40 a month for? Let's hope that when the government forces cable isp's to open their networks, those new providers will actually provide some real service instead of this arbitrary abuse.