Wow, guess what? I consider myself a "Joe Sixpack" who happens to know how to code Perl. Funny, eh? Before you snap out with clever knee-jerk reactions, you might want to consider alternate meanings.
I apologize if your intent came across wrong, however I find that so many people in slashdot truly buy into the "we're a technological elite who knows better than everyone else" idea, and it certaintly seemed that that was what you were talking about. When you talk about "Joe Sixpack" in the third person, it automatically seems derisive, and that you are separating yourselves from "them". If this is not your intent, again, I apologize.
I would say Computer Scientist and computer programmer aren't the same thing. I'm getting my C.S. degree now, with a good bit of programming experience before taking any classes--just so you know where I'm coming from. As for Dmitri himself as a scientist or whatnot, I don't know--did he publish papers? I honestly don't know--I hadn't heard the issue of him as a research scientist come up.
I don't know how people with sight disabilities are supposed to access an Adobe E-book? Maybe they should have bought a largeprint version instead, or complained to adobe or the bookmaker about this. this is a VALID complaint. Unfortuantely, I think both you and I know that 99% of the uses of a programs such as the one Dmitri wrote would not be for such valid reasons. SHOULD e-books be available for ppl with such disabilities as you cite? Yes. Should a GENERAL purprose warez type cracking tool be marketed for just this reason? I personally don't think so.
Actually, how is reading reasons a valid concern? Can't you use E-books on a computer?? THey don't have to be on one of the specialized e-book readers, right?
Let me see if I understand you correctly... you are in favor of allowig the government to eavesdrop on your private communications *without* a warrant or true just cause? In case you weren't aware, given the recent expansion of police powers in the U.S., "just cause" now has a very loose definition.
No, I'm in favor of being able to get wiretap permission for a person, and then be able to tap cellphone, fax, phone, etc without having to go through more redtape.
To answer your second point, I've NEVER seen a CNN anchor reading letters about how much they suck. On the other hand, I see O'Reilly doing that EVERY DAY. MAybe that's why O'Reilly is the most popular news person in America now, overtaking the boring Larry King. And once again, SUCH intellectual elitism sickens me..."Joe Sixpack". I'm glad you're so much better than everyone else "Slashdot Geek Nerd Dork". I don't like giving labels like that to people, simply because I feel that somehow I'm better than they are.
Well, we'll see about scientist being locked up--I'm not buying the hysteria. Dmitri IMO was DEFINITELY not a "scientist" he made a commercial program specifically designed to circumvent copyprotection laws. In other words, he was making money off of selling pirated goods, indirectly.
Example of US scientist being locked up for publishing their research?
I guess places like slashdot don't count as manipulating peoples opinions and thoughts (open source first post!!!).
And while I am against most increases in anything government related, I am for many of the new "police powers" (such as wire-tapping--they are outdated laws).
Which is more harmful? Forbidding one person to speak, or allowing one person to say things someone else might object to? Either way passive violence is being done to someone.
however as the old adage says "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me", speech never hurt anyone. If any actions beyond speech come into play, ie actual violence, that should be punished to the UTMOST. I just can't take your view which basically seems to me "people are stupid, easily fooled by others, and as such should be brainwashed by the government into believing what I want them to believe." I just don't buy that.
Education is good. Learning is good. Discourse is good. And Education, learning, and discourse involves looking at issues and problems from all angles.
And you don't think that's a problem? That the guy with control of the media gets to decide what can be published? You don't think there should be a law that guarantees that you can use the web space you paid for to say what you want?
No, I have no problem with it. I Don't *like* censorship, but I don't believe that the constitution gives us all an innate right to an uncensored websight. Freedom of the press refers to freedom from government censorship, not a company deciding what to print what not to print. The deal with a website is much the same.
IF you host your own website on your own hardware, then that's a bit different.
For example, it is illegal in the US to publicly say bad things about other people (particularly if those things are not true). This is called libel law, and it's a clear limitation of free speech. In most countries, it's also illegal to call for murder, or to threaten someone, or to scream "fire" in a theater.
Um, I don't think it's illegal to say bad things about people. I can say "I think Senator X is a terrible person and stupid and just all around the wrost person ever"....No one's going to stop me. Now if I say "Senator X got a 740 on his SAT's, and raped 3 girls in highschool" and that's a lie, yes I can get in trouble there. BIG difference between slander, libel, and saying bad things about people.
Some Americans suffered from that too, many still do, but they represent 10% of the population (to which you probably do not belong).
As you illustrated in your previous paragraph, no one people have a monopology on hatred. Freedom of speech protects the Black Panthers etc as much as anyone else.
If you think freedom of speech exists in the US and not in Europe, then explainto to us why we don't see naked bodies anywhere on American network TV (unlike in Europe). Explain to me why the government can't stop me from calling for the murder of people of one particular color, but Microsoft can stop me from publishing benchmarks of their SQL server, and my ISP can regulate what I can put on my web page
Well, many groups lobbied for deceny on public TV. I think the majority of american's are probably fine with the way it is now. I don't however understand your Microsoft allusion--when did one person put up SQL benchmarks on their webpage and have MS come after them?
Your ISP can regulate what you put up because you are using THEM as a platform. Freedom of speech is what you can say. You're not guaranteed a free website, radio statio and tv channel to broadcast what you say. That's like criticizing a Christian TV station for not giving equal-time to Wicca. They have no obligation to you.
Freedom of speech in the US (as well as privacy) is an illusion: money and corporate greed have almost total control over what can be said and done. The government can't stop me from speaking, but the corporate world controls our lives.
The US government does NOTHING to help me protect my freedom of speech or my privacy. European governments actually protect the privacy and the freedom of speech of their citizens to a much larger extent (and I have lived on both sides of the pond).
An interesting and somewhat hysterical conclusion, but seeing as you really have given no proof other than some mismatched hearsay and warped interpretations of law, you give nothing to back this up.
Just as an aside, you think it's american CORPORATE GREED which keeps pr0n off tv?? Man, pr0n is one of the biggest sellers there is, CORPORATE GREED is all over that.
Think of someone like NASA whose scientific monitors (from satellites and what not) are pouring data back ALL the time. That's a lot of data to keep. Given tapes are probably best for archival purposes.
Thanks for your informative reply. How do we know for sure the CFC's caused the ozone "hole" ? Is it possible that historically there have been weakpoints in the ozone, and that humans maybe only exacerbated this, or maybe even have had no impact at all?
This is true--however some thoeries don't pan out. It was a theory that men lived on mars, that diseases were caused by spirits or curses, and that fire was one of the four elements.
My point is that given what we know, the theory of global warming and our direct effect one things like the ozone should not be taken as canonical--take it cum grano salis.
The problem with environmental theories is that they are just that...theories.
Much like chemistry of 50 or 100 years ago in many ways would seem laughable to what we know now (and will again in 50 years probably), the science of the environment is a young and new science. Unlike chemistry or physics, it's much harder to do experiments, and the timescales involved are immense.
The truth is we simply know too little about the Earth to make longterm models and whatnot that are dead on. We can make GUESSES, and maybe even good guesses, but there is still so much that we don't know at this point.
As a side note-it is my understanding that CO2 levels during the time of the dinosaurs were much higher than they are today. The Earth can handle huge changes with relatively little environmental impact. It's been around (what? 5 billion years?) a long time, I don't think humanity can destroy it in a little over two century.
What do you mean can it be valid? You didn't HAVE to install the software, nobody made you. Indeed, you had to agree to said license before you could download or install it. Sure, it may not be cool, but if it's in the license agreement and doesn't break any laws, i don't see how it can NOT be valid.
All your points are very good points--and ideally you would be right. But IMHO, open web standards haven't kept up. How many fully compliant CSS level 2 browsers are there? There are discrepancies even in all of the alternative browsers in how a "standard" page is dislayed. In addition, Microsoft features cover many things that other webstandards don't. IDEALLY, every browser would render every page identically, however that is impossible.
AS for Hotmail--there would be definite room to complain if you paid for hotmail, but seeing as most people use it for free, something given for free you can't really complain about.
>It's interesting that you said office with a
>capital "O". In this day and age, Office with a
>capital "O" means Microsoft Office, but I'll
>give you the benefit of the doubt and guess you
>meant StarOffice or OpenOffice.org.
Actually the capital O was a typo. I meant any office suite at all. Personally at our office we use Corel Wordperfect for most things--the ability to "show codes" is really important to us.
>Also, MS has built quirks into IE so that pages
>that look great on Internet Explorer render
>horribbly or lose critical functionality on
>Netscape/Mozilla/Opera and others. Since IE has
>a vast majority of the browser market, cash and
>time strapped developers must choose who to
>alienate: IE users who represent a huge
>majority or all others who are the vast
>minoruty.
Could you give an example of this, where the intent was clearly to alienate other users? What do you want Microsoft to do, make sure that every browser works the same?
>So even though you "can" use other browsers,
>the experience is diminished, and if you want
>these features, you're required to fire up IE.
I used Konq in FreeBSD for a while, and very, very rarely came across pages that didn't display right. I never could get Flash to work, which actually was the biggest detriment to me, but actual pages rendering wrong, I rarely noticed. One thing though--IE offers a lot of "features" that other browsers don't have. Proprietary features. So they make the browsing experience better for IE users--like you said the vast majority. Should the vast majority suffer a lesser experience for the sake of the few?
Ok, you make statements like "Netscape was well on there [sic] way to selling there [sic] browser"... but I really don't know if this is true--is there anything to back this up? Al l Ihave is anecdotal that I don't know a single person, EVER, who actually bought Netscape browser. I would prefer stats or something, that would prove this but ok ~shrug~
I don't know what "Microsoft _Illegally_ bundled IE with there Monopoly browser" means either?
My commentary on KDE. No, KDE (along with QT) is not an OS. Notably it lacks a kernel, and relies on X for drawing. But it's a GUI, a suite of applications, and a "look and feel". That's what an OS is to 99.9% of people. Also I'm not sure that you're right that KDE runs on OSX and Windows--I know it runs on FreeBSD and Linux, as I dualboot FreeBSD and XP.
Once again I say, I object to Microsoft licensing. If you're going to attack my arguments, attack my arguments...don't attack that which I agree with you on and pretend that it is my point of view.
A question for you--should Microsoft have not been allowed to bundle any browser at all with Windows? Would it have been ok if they have bundled Netscape with windowS? I mean, they would be using their monopoly power to leverage netsacpe in that case. And if they didn't include a browser, how would people get on the Internet--would it be ok if they bundled just a really basic browser, like notepad? I just don't see where you draw the line. If you could explain it to me, maybe I would change my mind. ~shrug~
I'm not trying to fool ANYONE. This is my honest opinion.
>Fact: Before IE there was Netscape. A >standalone program which was hugely successful. >It was not bundled with any OS and the creators >of Netscape were well on there way to a >profitable business by selling the program.
Is this actually true? Did *anyone* actually buy the Netscape browser? From what I've read Netscape's business model attempted to make money off their server software?
Also, it wasn't MS alone giving away Netsacpe that killed Internet Explorer, it was that IE quickly became one of the best browsers around, while netscape became bloatware and languished at in the version 4.0's for forever. If they had continued to improve, I doubt IE market-share would be as high today.
Citing your phrase "disentangle the browser from the OS"--I'll just note that I think it's interesting that other systems, notably KDE are doing the exact same thing--integrating the browser and OS. Konqueror is more than just a internet browser, it's a file browser, and so on. Should KDE be forced to disentanle their browser from KDE? heh, or should Mozilla be forced to disentangle the OS from the browser?;)
Having said all this, I don't *like* that Microsoft can leverage it's weight this way, and if personally given total situational control, I would *probably* opt for splitting MS into Apps and OS. But even then I would have to say--if the OS wanted to include a browser...that's their choice. Don't force other people to not include others though. (getting back to my earlier statement about licensing)
>That is incorrect and part of the reason they >are in this mess. They would not allow some >OEM's to ship there computers with Netscape pre->installed. So the home user could not chose >Netscape. Similarly, if they proclude OEM's >from bundling AOL Instant Messenger this _is_ >taking away choice from the OEM and indirectly >taking away choice from there customers.
MS's licensing needs to change--I will not argue that--their most predatory tactics exist in their licensing imho. But OEM choice and customer choice != the same.
And I will tell you they could just download the program. I'm using XP right now. I am running Instant Messenger and ICQ right now. I don't run netscape anymore cause it's a heap of junk, but I could if I wanted to. Not having it installed by DEFAULT doesn't keep me from doing anything.
I will grant this validity in almost all cases, however I don't see this argument holding up against Microsoft. If they bundle Internet Explorer...you can still use Netscape. If they bundle Microsoft Chat...you can still use Aol Instant Messenger. If they bundle Wordpad...you can still use your own Office editor. They are not taking away your choices, or forcing you to use anything. Your choice is still there, 100%.
>They _have_ been found guilty in a federal
>court of law for bundling features into there
>operating system. That is a fact Jack!
Ok, what does bundling features mean? Does that mean that they can't put in a disk defragmenter? No calculator? No notepad? No dos command prompt in windows? Because those are all features, and they are all bundled. *I* wouldn't expect M$ to produce an OS without them (Linux sure as hell comes with those equivalents), so where do you draw the line in what a feature is?
For your second point, again, where do you draw the line between "illegal feature" and "ok feature". I mean, is the new window-style of XP illegal?? It is a new feature...
No, Microsoft should be stopped from anti-competitive practices. Their licensing for one. Their buying out every competitor for another. They should not be disallowed from selling a product, and what with XP (IMHO) is a very good product.
And finally, I'm not apologizing for Microsoft for anything. They are a superior business that has dominated the market. What's there to apologize for? It's what everyone else aims for...
I really meant Dual booting w/linux, but the OSX/OS9 example is a good one.
I don't really see XP not selling--I see it being a big hit. I personally know a number of people that have actually BOUGHT the upgrade already, because it is so good. I don't think many people buying computers from dell/hp/gateway etc are going to say "Oh XP, I really wanted 98SE", or ME, orwhatever. They will say "Oh XP! I saw that on TV! Oh look, it's blue!! Pretty!"
Who wants IE source code? Well, IE and Windows are everyday becoming closer and closer. And IE is about the best browser in existence (maybe one for Mac takes the cake?)--maybe some of the Open source browsers attempts could use it.
No computer maker in their right mind would ship dual-booting computers. They already have to provide technical support for windows (as well as greatly customized software solutions).
Can you see Dell et al. getting calls from Grandma and Grandpa asking where their windows was and what this penguin was??
There are no laws against bundling features. You seem to want to make it illegal for Microsoft to improve their operating system. This hurts everyone. Why do you want to hurt everyone just so you can feel better about using your alternative os? (assuming you're not yet another microsoft basher who uses microsoft products all the time...)
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm..I may have to amend my opinion in that case.
I don't know. I would say some courts need to come up with some interpretations of this.
Scott
Wow, guess what? I consider myself a "Joe Sixpack" who happens to know how to code Perl. Funny, eh? Before you snap out with clever knee-jerk reactions, you might want to consider alternate meanings.
I apologize if your intent came across wrong, however I find that so many people in slashdot truly buy into the "we're a technological elite who knows better than everyone else" idea, and it certaintly seemed that that was what you were talking about. When you talk about "Joe Sixpack" in the third person, it automatically seems derisive, and that you are separating yourselves from "them". If this is not your intent, again, I apologize.
I would say Computer Scientist and computer programmer aren't the same thing. I'm getting my C.S. degree now, with a good bit of programming experience before taking any classes--just so you know where I'm coming from. As for Dmitri himself as a scientist or whatnot, I don't know--did he publish papers? I honestly don't know--I hadn't heard the issue of him as a research scientist come up.
I don't know how people with sight disabilities are supposed to access an Adobe E-book? Maybe they should have bought a largeprint version instead, or complained to adobe or the bookmaker about this. this is a VALID complaint. Unfortuantely, I think both you and I know that 99% of the uses of a programs such as the one Dmitri wrote would not be for such valid reasons. SHOULD e-books be available for ppl with such disabilities as you cite? Yes. Should a GENERAL purprose warez type cracking tool be marketed for just this reason? I personally don't think so.
Actually, how is reading reasons a valid concern? Can't you use E-books on a computer?? THey don't have to be on one of the specialized e-book readers, right?
Scott
Let me see if I understand you correctly... you are in favor of allowig the government to eavesdrop on your private communications *without* a warrant or true just cause? In case you weren't aware, given the recent expansion of police powers in the U.S., "just cause" now has a very loose definition.
No, I'm in favor of being able to get wiretap permission for a person, and then be able to tap cellphone, fax, phone, etc without having to go through more redtape.
To answer your second point, I've NEVER seen a CNN anchor reading letters about how much they suck. On the other hand, I see O'Reilly doing that EVERY DAY. MAybe that's why O'Reilly is the most popular news person in America now, overtaking the boring Larry King. And once again, SUCH intellectual elitism sickens me..."Joe Sixpack". I'm glad you're so much better than everyone else "Slashdot Geek Nerd Dork". I don't like giving labels like that to people, simply because I feel that somehow I'm better than they are.
Well, we'll see about scientist being locked up--I'm not buying the hysteria. Dmitri IMO was DEFINITELY not a "scientist" he made a commercial program specifically designed to circumvent copyprotection laws. In other words, he was making money off of selling pirated goods, indirectly.
Scott
Example of US scientist being locked up for publishing their research?
I guess places like slashdot don't count as manipulating peoples opinions and thoughts (open source first post!!!).
And while I am against most increases in anything government related, I am for many of the new "police powers" (such as wire-tapping--they are outdated laws).
Scott
Who is suffering from, and what is corporate oppression? I'm really curious, having never encountered anything I'd put in these terms.
Scott
Which is more harmful? Forbidding one person to speak, or allowing one person to say things someone else might object to? Either way passive violence is being done to someone.
however as the old adage says "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me", speech never hurt anyone. If any actions beyond speech come into play, ie actual violence, that should be punished to the UTMOST. I just can't take your view which basically seems to me "people are stupid, easily fooled by others, and as such should be brainwashed by the government into believing what I want them to believe." I just don't buy that.
Education is good. Learning is good. Discourse is good. And Education, learning, and discourse involves looking at issues and problems from all angles.
Scott
And you don't think that's a problem? That the guy with control of the media gets to decide what can be published? You don't think there should be a law that guarantees that you can use the web space you paid for to say what you want?
No, I have no problem with it. I Don't *like* censorship, but I don't believe that the constitution gives us all an innate right to an uncensored websight. Freedom of the press refers to freedom from government censorship, not a company deciding what to print what not to print. The deal with a website is much the same.
IF you host your own website on your own hardware, then that's a bit different.
Scott
For example, it is illegal in the US to publicly say bad things about other people (particularly if those things are not true). This is called libel law, and it's a clear limitation of free speech. In most countries, it's also illegal to call for murder, or to threaten someone, or to scream "fire" in a theater.
Um, I don't think it's illegal to say bad things about people. I can say "I think Senator X is a terrible person and stupid and just all around the wrost person ever"....No one's going to stop me. Now if I say "Senator X got a 740 on his SAT's, and raped 3 girls in highschool" and that's a lie, yes I can get in trouble there. BIG difference between slander, libel, and saying bad things about people.
Some Americans suffered from that too, many still do, but they represent 10% of the population (to which you probably do not belong).
As you illustrated in your previous paragraph, no one people have a monopology on hatred. Freedom of speech protects the Black Panthers etc as much as anyone else.
If you think freedom of speech exists in the US and not in Europe, then explainto to us why we don't see naked bodies anywhere on American network TV (unlike in Europe). Explain to me why the government can't stop me from calling for the murder of people of one particular color, but Microsoft can stop me from publishing benchmarks of their SQL server, and my ISP can regulate what I can put on my web page
Well, many groups lobbied for deceny on public TV. I think the majority of american's are probably fine with the way it is now. I don't however understand your Microsoft allusion--when did one person put up SQL benchmarks on their webpage and have MS come after them?
Your ISP can regulate what you put up because you are using THEM as a platform. Freedom of speech is what you can say. You're not guaranteed a free website, radio statio and tv channel to broadcast what you say. That's like criticizing a Christian TV station for not giving equal-time to Wicca. They have no obligation to you.
Freedom of speech in the US (as well as privacy) is an illusion: money and corporate greed have almost total control over what can be said and done. The government can't stop me from speaking, but the corporate world controls our lives. The US government does NOTHING to help me protect my freedom of speech or my privacy. European governments actually protect the privacy and the freedom of speech of their citizens to a much larger extent (and I have lived on both sides of the pond).
An interesting and somewhat hysterical conclusion, but seeing as you really have given no proof other than some mismatched hearsay and warped interpretations of law, you give nothing to back this up.
Just as an aside, you think it's american CORPORATE GREED which keeps pr0n off tv?? Man, pr0n is one of the biggest sellers there is, CORPORATE GREED is all over that.
Scott
Why not?
Scott
Think of someone like NASA whose scientific monitors (from satellites and what not) are pouring data back ALL the time. That's a lot of data to keep. Given tapes are probably best for archival purposes.
Scott
Thanks for your informative reply. How do we know for sure the CFC's caused the ozone "hole" ? Is it possible that historically there have been weakpoints in the ozone, and that humans maybe only exacerbated this, or maybe even have had no impact at all?
Scott
This is true--however some thoeries don't pan out. It was a theory that men lived on mars, that diseases were caused by spirits or curses, and that fire was one of the four elements.
My point is that given what we know, the theory of global warming and our direct effect one things like the ozone should not be taken as canonical--take it cum grano salis.
Scott
The problem with environmental theories is that they are just that...theories.
Much like chemistry of 50 or 100 years ago in many ways would seem laughable to what we know now (and will again in 50 years probably), the science of the environment is a young and new science. Unlike chemistry or physics, it's much harder to do experiments, and the timescales involved are immense.
The truth is we simply know too little about the Earth to make longterm models and whatnot that are dead on. We can make GUESSES, and maybe even good guesses, but there is still so much that we don't know at this point.
As a side note-it is my understanding that CO2 levels during the time of the dinosaurs were much higher than they are today. The Earth can handle huge changes with relatively little environmental impact. It's been around (what? 5 billion years?) a long time, I don't think humanity can destroy it in a little over two century.
Scott
What do you mean can it be valid? You didn't HAVE to install the software, nobody made you. Indeed, you had to agree to said license before you could download or install it. Sure, it may not be cool, but if it's in the license agreement and doesn't break any laws, i don't see how it can NOT be valid.
Scott
All your points are very good points--and ideally you would be right. But IMHO, open web standards haven't kept up. How many fully compliant CSS level 2 browsers are there? There are discrepancies even in all of the alternative browsers in how a "standard" page is dislayed. In addition, Microsoft features cover many things that other webstandards don't. IDEALLY, every browser would render every page identically, however that is impossible.
AS for Hotmail--there would be definite room to complain if you paid for hotmail, but seeing as most people use it for free, something given for free you can't really complain about.
Scott
>It's interesting that you said office with a
>capital "O". In this day and age, Office with a
>capital "O" means Microsoft Office, but I'll
>give you the benefit of the doubt and guess you
>meant StarOffice or OpenOffice.org.
Actually the capital O was a typo. I meant any office suite at all. Personally at our office we use Corel Wordperfect for most things--the ability to "show codes" is really important to us.
>Also, MS has built quirks into IE so that pages
>that look great on Internet Explorer render
>horribbly or lose critical functionality on
>Netscape/Mozilla/Opera and others. Since IE has
>a vast majority of the browser market, cash and
>time strapped developers must choose who to
>alienate: IE users who represent a huge
>majority or all others who are the vast
>minoruty.
Could you give an example of this, where the intent was clearly to alienate other users? What do you want Microsoft to do, make sure that every browser works the same?
>So even though you "can" use other browsers,
>the experience is diminished, and if you want
>these features, you're required to fire up IE.
I used Konq in FreeBSD for a while, and very, very rarely came across pages that didn't display right. I never could get Flash to work, which actually was the biggest detriment to me, but actual pages rendering wrong, I rarely noticed. One thing though--IE offers a lot of "features" that other browsers don't have. Proprietary features. So they make the browsing experience better for IE users--like you said the vast majority. Should the vast majority suffer a lesser experience for the sake of the few?
Scott
Ok, you make statements like "Netscape was well on there [sic] way to selling there [sic] browser" ... but I really don't know if this is true--is there anything to back this up? Al l Ihave is anecdotal that I don't know a single person, EVER, who actually bought Netscape browser. I would prefer stats or something, that would prove this but ok ~shrug~
I don't know what "Microsoft _Illegally_ bundled IE with there Monopoly browser" means either?
My commentary on KDE. No, KDE (along with QT) is not an OS. Notably it lacks a kernel, and relies on X for drawing. But it's a GUI, a suite of applications, and a "look and feel". That's what an OS is to 99.9% of people. Also I'm not sure that you're right that KDE runs on OSX and Windows--I know it runs on FreeBSD and Linux, as I dualboot FreeBSD and XP.
Once again I say, I object to Microsoft licensing. If you're going to attack my arguments, attack my arguments...don't attack that which I agree with you on and pretend that it is my point of view.
A question for you--should Microsoft have not been allowed to bundle any browser at all with Windows? Would it have been ok if they have bundled Netscape with windowS? I mean, they would be using their monopoly power to leverage netsacpe in that case. And if they didn't include a browser, how would people get on the Internet--would it be ok if they bundled just a really basic browser, like notepad? I just don't see where you draw the line. If you could explain it to me, maybe I would change my mind. ~shrug~
I'm not trying to fool ANYONE. This is my honest opinion.
Scott
>Fact: Before IE there was Netscape. A >standalone program which was hugely successful. >It was not bundled with any OS and the creators >of Netscape were well on there way to a >profitable business by selling the program.
;)
Is this actually true? Did *anyone* actually buy the Netscape browser? From what I've read Netscape's business model attempted to make money off their server software?
Also, it wasn't MS alone giving away Netsacpe that killed Internet Explorer, it was that IE quickly became one of the best browsers around, while netscape became bloatware and languished at in the version 4.0's for forever. If they had continued to improve, I doubt IE market-share would be as high today.
Citing your phrase "disentangle the browser from the OS"--I'll just note that I think it's interesting that other systems, notably KDE are doing the exact same thing--integrating the browser and OS. Konqueror is more than just a internet browser, it's a file browser, and so on. Should KDE be forced to disentanle their browser from KDE? heh, or should Mozilla be forced to disentangle the OS from the browser?
Having said all this, I don't *like* that Microsoft can leverage it's weight this way, and if personally given total situational control, I would *probably* opt for splitting MS into Apps and OS. But even then I would have to say--if the OS wanted to include a browser...that's their choice. Don't force other people to not include others though. (getting back to my earlier statement about licensing)
Scott
>That is incorrect and part of the reason they >are in this mess. They would not allow some >OEM's to ship there computers with Netscape pre->installed. So the home user could not chose >Netscape. Similarly, if they proclude OEM's >from bundling AOL Instant Messenger this _is_ >taking away choice from the OEM and indirectly >taking away choice from there customers.
MS's licensing needs to change--I will not argue that--their most predatory tactics exist in their licensing imho. But OEM choice and customer choice != the same.
And I will tell you they could just download the program. I'm using XP right now. I am running Instant Messenger and ICQ right now. I don't run netscape anymore cause it's a heap of junk, but I could if I wanted to. Not having it installed by DEFAULT doesn't keep me from doing anything.
Scott
About bundling being bad for the consumer.
I will grant this validity in almost all cases, however I don't see this argument holding up against Microsoft. If they bundle Internet Explorer...you can still use Netscape. If they bundle Microsoft Chat...you can still use Aol Instant Messenger. If they bundle Wordpad...you can still use your own Office editor. They are not taking away your choices, or forcing you to use anything. Your choice is still there, 100%.
Scott
>They _have_ been found guilty in a federal
>court of law for bundling features into there
>operating system. That is a fact Jack!
Ok, what does bundling features mean? Does that mean that they can't put in a disk defragmenter? No calculator? No notepad? No dos command prompt in windows? Because those are all features, and they are all bundled. *I* wouldn't expect M$ to produce an OS without them (Linux sure as hell comes with those equivalents), so where do you draw the line in what a feature is?
For your second point, again, where do you draw the line between "illegal feature" and "ok feature". I mean, is the new window-style of XP illegal?? It is a new feature...
No, Microsoft should be stopped from anti-competitive practices. Their licensing for one. Their buying out every competitor for another. They should not be disallowed from selling a product, and what with XP (IMHO) is a very good product.
And finally, I'm not apologizing for Microsoft for anything. They are a superior business that has dominated the market. What's there to apologize for? It's what everyone else aims for...
Scott
I really meant Dual booting w/linux, but the OSX/OS9 example is a good one.
I don't really see XP not selling--I see it being a big hit. I personally know a number of people that have actually BOUGHT the upgrade already, because it is so good. I don't think many people buying computers from dell/hp/gateway etc are going to say "Oh XP, I really wanted 98SE", or ME, orwhatever. They will say "Oh XP! I saw that on TV! Oh look, it's blue!! Pretty!"
Scott
Who wants IE source code? Well, IE and Windows are everyday becoming closer and closer. And IE is about the best browser in existence (maybe one for Mac takes the cake?)--maybe some of the Open source browsers attempts could use it.
Scott
No computer maker in their right mind would ship dual-booting computers. They already have to provide technical support for windows (as well as greatly customized software solutions).
Can you see Dell et al. getting calls from Grandma and Grandpa asking where their windows was and what this penguin was??
Scott
There are no laws against bundling features. You seem to want to make it illegal for Microsoft to improve their operating system. This hurts everyone. Why do you want to hurt everyone just so you can feel better about using your alternative os? (assuming you're not yet another microsoft basher who uses microsoft products all the time...)
Scott