The problem is that you didn't purchase the software. Dell (or whatever OEM) did and included it in THEIR product to sell to you. The software has no line item value on your invoice.
If you want to return the software, you have to return the item you bought, ie the computer.
Suppose you bought a digital camera, and it came with a memory card. You go to return the memory card to best buy (where you bought the camera), but they won't accept it because they didn't sell you a memory card. They sold you a camera.
The vendor mass images hard drives and keeps them in stock. They don't image the drive at the time the computer is built. Even if they did, they'd still have to image the drive to burn-in test it, then have to wipe it afterwards.
You do understand that you can give users permissions without making them administrators, right? One of the biggest reasons many apps won't run as a normal user is that a normal user doesn't have the right to load device drivers on demand. You can give them this right without giving them full admin privs.
I've never met an app (other than an app that checks your permissions and refuses to run unless your an admin) that you can't get to work simply by giving a user the correct permissions.
Yeah, it's more work, but not as much work as fixing those systems when they become infected.
What he's saying is that AMD enthusiests will often put up with poor stability in exchange for better performance. I think he's referring to the general overclockers that put up with minor glitches to get those extra few frames per second.
Actually, I think it's the other way around. MS has been running XP-64 in the release candidate stage for well over 6 months. It's been waiting for device drivers to be available from major vendors.
I think Apple released Tiger at the same time to jump on the bandwagon. Ever notice that OS releases usually come around April or August/Sept?
I always find it humorous how some people will spend days tweaking their desktop themes, but not spend a few minutes researching ways to fix things that they like to complain about.
It can't bother you that much, or you would have at least looked into how to fix it.
They haven't eliminated Avalong or Indigo or anything other than WinFS from Longhorn. They've just agreed to release an XP version of those subsystems as well. They will be in Longhorn, and WinFS will come shortly after (probably 6 months).
So what you're saying then is that a Linux user must evaluate every bit of software they need, now and in the future prior to distro selection and should use software availability as the primary factor when choosing a distro?
I mean, if you can only get your software from the distro vendor, then you'll have to switch vendors if they don't offer the software you might need in 6 months.
(For the context impaired, I know you can always install software from tarball or third party package, but the person i'm responding to is implying that this is a bad thing and should be prevented).
You seem to have a mistaken view of what Moz/FF extensions are. As an example, the Flash viewer for FF is an extension. If a page is coded as a flash page, you're not going to see it if you disable the FF extension.
It's the same EXACT thing, they both even use a signing method. The only difference is that ActiveX uses COM while FF extensions use XPCOM.
They're talking about both. When they say IE is a part of the OS, they are talking about the API's IE exposes. When they talk about IE having an unfair advantage, they are talking about the API's IE uses.
Whether or not they pay themselves is irrelevant as the money never leaves the company, so it doesn't cos "the company" any real money. It's just an accounting technicality. The companies bottom line is not effected by it.
If you think ActiveX sucks, then you think Mozilla/FF extensions suck too. Same technology. The only difference is that FF by default only allows them to be installed from specific "trusted sites". Hardened versions of IE (such as in Windows 2003) Do the same thing with ActiveX.
The only thing preventing Firefox from being used for Windows Update is the Mozilla foundations refusal to support ActiveX, which is patently stupid because Mozilla extensions are exactly the same thing.
Microsoft could, if they wanted to, write a Firefox/Mozilla extension for Windows Update, but there's nothing compelling them to do so right now.
Actually, yeah. MS Media player is basically a set of codecs and a front end shell that runs atop DirectShow, all of which are part of the WMP product.
Real depends on DirectShow to function as well, and is a set of codec's and a shell (albeit one with a lot more crap in it).
When Real asked for WMP to be removed, they didn't count on DirectShow being removed as well.
There's nothing inherantly insecure with ActiveX. It's really no different from Mozilla or Firefox extensions. What is insecure is the way it was implemented.
Uhh.. No. The MSDN program started in 1993. In particular, the IE API's have been available on MSDN since IE3, which was before MS had "integrated" it in the OS.
The term Operating System has grown to include "all the stuff". This is not just Microsoft either, even RMS and the FSF say it:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#osvske rn el
"An operating system, as we use the term, means a collection of programs that are sufficient to use the computer to do a wide variety of jobs. A general purpose operating system, to be complete, ought to handle all the jobs that many users may want to do. "
Some applications use a "Web style UI", such as Quicken. This uses HTML rendering in the application, but it's not an actual web page. This simplifies their UI development model a great deal and allows the UI to be created declaritively.
This can't be replaced by simply launching an extern web browser, as you don't get the UI events back into your application.
You're missing the point. Things like drivers are usually specific to an implementation. Thus, replacing XFree86 with another product (Xorg is a bad example because it's a fork of XFree86) would likely use an altogether different driver architecture, and would not allow the simple replacement.
The same is true of Media players and HTML renderers. They have a different ABI and would likely require a grat deal of shimming to attempt to make functional, and will probably never provide full replacement (Gecko, for instance, doesn't support ActiveX, so it could not totally replace IE as the rendering engine in the shell, nor does it support the compressed HTML that MS uses for things like CHM).
My point was simply that Real asked the court for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater (I've never found a more appropriate use of that phrase) and now is trying to blame MS for their missing baby.
Consider WMP and Real to be Video card drivers. Now, suppose ATI (Real) decides it doesn't like the XFree86 open source ATI driver and gets a court to have XFree86 removed just so it can get the driver removed. Suddenly they complain that you can no longer do any windowing because the system was sabotaged.
The old addage of "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it" applies here. Real wanted WMP player removed when in reality all they wanted was the WMP shell and codec's removed, leaving the rest of the WMP video architecture in place that they rely on to function.
They got what they asked for, not what they really wanted.
Are you kidding me? That report doesn't even TRY to be nice to MS. That report claims that Postfix is a replacement for Exchange (totally ignoring group calendaring and other features). It claims that the Gimp is a replacement for Photoshop, something no graphic artist would ever agree to, and most of all, the prices they are quoting are *RETAIL* prices, not the prices you get as a corporate licensor. For example, they list the price of Windows as $299, but my company gets the entire desktop bundle for $139 per user per year. That includes CAL's, Desktop OS, Office, etc.... Significantly less than their claiming.
Hell, it also conveniently ignores that much of the "line of business" software will have to be rewritten.
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The problem is that you didn't purchase the software. Dell (or whatever OEM) did and included it in THEIR product to sell to you. The software has no line item value on your invoice.
If you want to return the software, you have to return the item you bought, ie the computer.
Suppose you bought a digital camera, and it came with a memory card. You go to return the memory card to best buy (where you bought the camera), but they won't accept it because they didn't sell you a memory card. They sold you a camera.
The vendor mass images hard drives and keeps them in stock. They don't image the drive at the time the computer is built. Even if they did, they'd still have to image the drive to burn-in test it, then have to wipe it afterwards.
You do understand that you can give users permissions without making them administrators, right? One of the biggest reasons many apps won't run as a normal user is that a normal user doesn't have the right to load device drivers on demand. You can give them this right without giving them full admin privs.
I've never met an app (other than an app that checks your permissions and refuses to run unless your an admin) that you can't get to work simply by giving a user the correct permissions.
Yeah, it's more work, but not as much work as fixing those systems when they become infected.
What he's saying is that AMD enthusiests will often put up with poor stability in exchange for better performance. I think he's referring to the general overclockers that put up with minor glitches to get those extra few frames per second.
Actually, I think it's the other way around. MS has been running XP-64 in the release candidate stage for well over 6 months. It's been waiting for device drivers to be available from major vendors.
I think Apple released Tiger at the same time to jump on the bandwagon. Ever notice that OS releases usually come around April or August/Sept?
I always find it humorous how some people will spend days tweaking their desktop themes, but not spend a few minutes researching ways to fix things that they like to complain about.
It can't bother you that much, or you would have at least looked into how to fix it.
They haven't eliminated Avalong or Indigo or anything other than WinFS from Longhorn. They've just agreed to release an XP version of those subsystems as well. They will be in Longhorn, and WinFS will come shortly after (probably 6 months).
So what you're saying then is that a Linux user must evaluate every bit of software they need, now and in the future prior to distro selection and should use software availability as the primary factor when choosing a distro?
I mean, if you can only get your software from the distro vendor, then you'll have to switch vendors if they don't offer the software you might need in 6 months.
(For the context impaired, I know you can always install software from tarball or third party package, but the person i'm responding to is implying that this is a bad thing and should be prevented).
Why get a different distro, of course.
While I am joking, I know there are a lot of people that do this, and a lot of people that recommend it.
You seem to have a mistaken view of what Moz/FF extensions are. As an example, the Flash viewer for FF is an extension. If a page is coded as a flash page, you're not going to see it if you disable the FF extension.
It's the same EXACT thing, they both even use a signing method. The only difference is that ActiveX uses COM while FF extensions use XPCOM.
They're talking about both. When they say IE is a part of the OS, they are talking about the API's IE exposes. When they talk about IE having an unfair advantage, they are talking about the API's IE uses.
While that's true, at the time there was nothing in the OS itself that was dependent upon IE, so removing it didn't break anything in the OS
Whether or not they pay themselves is irrelevant as the money never leaves the company, so it doesn't cos "the company" any real money. It's just an accounting technicality. The companies bottom line is not effected by it.
If you think ActiveX sucks, then you think Mozilla/FF extensions suck too. Same technology. The only difference is that FF by default only allows them to be installed from specific "trusted sites". Hardened versions of IE (such as in Windows 2003) Do the same thing with ActiveX.
The only thing preventing Firefox from being used for Windows Update is the Mozilla foundations refusal to support ActiveX, which is patently stupid because Mozilla extensions are exactly the same thing.
Microsoft could, if they wanted to, write a Firefox/Mozilla extension for Windows Update, but there's nothing compelling them to do so right now.
Actually, yeah. MS Media player is basically a set of codecs and a front end shell that runs atop DirectShow, all of which are part of the WMP product.
Real depends on DirectShow to function as well, and is a set of codec's and a shell (albeit one with a lot more crap in it).
When Real asked for WMP to be removed, they didn't count on DirectShow being removed as well.
There's nothing inherantly insecure with ActiveX. It's really no different from Mozilla or Firefox extensions. What is insecure is the way it was implemented.
Uhh.. No. The MSDN program started in 1993. In particular, the IE API's have been available on MSDN since IE3, which was before MS had "integrated" it in the OS.
The term Operating System has grown to include "all the stuff". This is not just Microsoft either, even RMS and the FSF say it:
e rn el
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#osvsk
"An operating system, as we use the term, means a collection of programs that are sufficient to use the computer to do a wide variety of jobs. A general purpose operating system, to be complete, ought to handle all the jobs that many users may want to do. "
Some applications use a "Web style UI", such as Quicken. This uses HTML rendering in the application, but it's not an actual web page. This simplifies their UI development model a great deal and allows the UI to be created declaritively.
This can't be replaced by simply launching an extern web browser, as you don't get the UI events back into your application.
You do realize your point is moot. He didn't claim it wasn't part of the OS. In fact, he said specifically that it was.
So who exactly is playing dumb here?
You're missing the point. Things like drivers are usually specific to an implementation. Thus, replacing XFree86 with another product (Xorg is a bad example because it's a fork of XFree86) would likely use an altogether different driver architecture, and would not allow the simple replacement.
The same is true of Media players and HTML renderers. They have a different ABI and would likely require a grat deal of shimming to attempt to make functional, and will probably never provide full replacement (Gecko, for instance, doesn't support ActiveX, so it could not totally replace IE as the rendering engine in the shell, nor does it support the compressed HTML that MS uses for things like CHM).
My point was simply that Real asked the court for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater (I've never found a more appropriate use of that phrase) and now is trying to blame MS for their missing baby.
Yes, it does refer to the programmer. They are doubtful, not doubted.
Actually, it's more like this:
Consider WMP and Real to be Video card drivers. Now, suppose ATI (Real) decides it doesn't like the XFree86 open source ATI driver and gets a court to have XFree86 removed just so it can get the driver removed. Suddenly they complain that you can no longer do any windowing because the system was sabotaged.
The old addage of "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it" applies here. Real wanted WMP player removed when in reality all they wanted was the WMP shell and codec's removed, leaving the rest of the WMP video architecture in place that they rely on to function.
They got what they asked for, not what they really wanted.
Are you kidding me? That report doesn't even TRY to be nice to MS. That report claims that Postfix is a replacement for Exchange (totally ignoring group calendaring and other features). It claims that the Gimp is a replacement for Photoshop, something no graphic artist would ever agree to, and most of all, the prices they are quoting are *RETAIL* prices, not the prices you get as a corporate licensor. For example, they list the price of Windows as $299, but my company gets the entire desktop bundle for $139 per user per year. That includes CAL's, Desktop OS, Office, etc.... Significantly less than their claiming.
Hell, it also conveniently ignores that much of the "line of business" software will have to be rewritten.