Yes. The always amusing thing is that when it comes down to a subpoena and these types of internal documents come to light (for example, this) then they're conveniently ignored. We don't want years and years of FUD leveled against Microsoft to be invalidated by reality, now do we.
Of course these articles are always tagged with the "haha" in-joke, but in this case that's more than apropos. I really hope the FSF goes ahead with this, because that will be the end of whatever credibility it has left. "Free as in freedom", indeed.
twitter, you are just amazing. You've taken a karma hit in the past few days and now you're down to replying to yourself using your sockpuppet so you can make it look like someone agrees with your dribble. That's just too funny.
You spent all that time writing your "rebuttal" down and yet you can't get any further than "the politburo in Redmond" and "shit-poor quality" while you whine about "name calling".
Not to mention your use of yet another tired FUD meme - the Wikipedia thing couldn't have been more in the open than it was, and for all the right reasons.
Do yourself (and all your "M$ is teh suxx" friends) and grow up before you come in here and tell me "how it is".
The cheap/free content management system killed him. And replaced him with the blogger, who now generates the vast majority of content on teh interwebs (for better or worse).
It means that part of your income is derived from selling people on the Windoze monopoly.
The "Windoze monopoly", that's classic.
I'm not sure what kind of income you get
You hilarious flocktard, I was using that as an example. I really don't the time to explain to you how much money I made last year on the "Windoze monopoly", but that's just as well. You'd probably have a seizure anyway.
software resembles your comments
twitter, if you resemble your comments ever so slightly then I pity any person that has any sort of social contact with you.
If ActiveXs could only be used by the web site that installed them, what you say would be more true
mkay, but that's just another aspect of the issue of trust transition. And I'm having trouble imagining how useful the Shockwave or Acrobat plugins would be if I could only use them on the website that installed them.
The people who are clinging to the same old/new buggy crap from Microsoft are the luddites
You are certainly entitled to not install "crap from Redmond". Thankfully you have options, like Linux and OS X.
Having said that, you and the other N hundred thousand people who suffer from that "I hate Microsoft" syndrome will never make a significant dent on the sales of Windows. That's just how it is. This techno-religious disdain for Microsoft does not usually percolate up to normal consumers.
And computers are getting faster, Java is already "fast enough" (see Azureus), and it's likely fine for a browser app/plugin.
That is a good point, yes. Back in the day though, Java just didn't cut it. But nowadays it's probably good enough. I certainly think some Java applets in Firefox specifically are a lot faster than the ones that came from an ActiveX background, like Flash.
Yes, assuming they want to pay for it. Which brings us to:
That's great if your company has the cash, but for many companies, upgrading computers that already work is seen as an unnecessary expense.
So they won't be upgrading. Your original post claimed for some reason that *everyone* was avoiding Vista, which I can assure you is clearly not the case. Nowhere did I claim that *everyone* would be upgrading in the next three weeks, either.
Heh. Yeah. Aside from totally different operating systems, you realize that there are people running
Yes, I do. And your point here is? If your cousin Joe Bob is running Windows for Workgroups 3.11, he can continue to do so as long as he wants, I guess. When he buys a new box, chances are it will come with Vista. If he never buys another box then Microsoft is probably not interested in him anyway.
I think your problem is that you seem to be insulted by the idea that *anyone* would consider Vista, and then get defensive when someone points out there are lots of people out there already doing that.
but are they using system's installed codecs or something to render the video?
No, that's the point. You can use RealMedia, WM, OGG, MPG, AVI, DivX or whatever and it all ends up being streamed in a Flash window. All you need is Flash.
If that is the case I can see your point, otherwise why couldn't the exact same player be implemented as a Java applet?
Yes, that is the case. And yes, that is my point. And no, I'm guessing it would be a hell of a lot slower in Java than it is in Flash/ActiveX.
Hands up everyone who thinks many Microsoft users know what they are doing.
You seem a bit indignant here, but you're merely reinforcing what I said. "Safe" in quotes means exactly that, and yes, there are millions of Windows users who will happily click on a dialog just to get that REALLY COOL web page to load so they can look at some pr0n or a joke. So I must be missing your point.
I'm surprised to find a windows consultant claiming that a new version of windows will be successful.
I am not a "windows consultant", whatever that might mean. And even asuming that your ("your" as in people like you) prophecies of doom and gloom about this "kludgy piece of crap" become true, simple and sheer inertia will make sure that Vista is installed eventually everywhere.
There's nothing wrong with ActiveX, other than the fact that it transfers the burden of trust entirely to the user, and leaves no middle ground there because it is a native executable that runs under your own credentials.
On the other hand, it's a lot better than a Java applet. The internet "video revolution" that we're supposed to be in right now (for better or worse) is made possible by Flash, which would have been impossible to achieve with something like Java.
If you know what you're doing, ActiveX is perfectly "safe". People who suffer nervous breakdowns when they hear the term usually are ignorant of how the technology works, or went through one of those nightmare scenarios where their kid/mom/wife clicked "Yes" when asked of they wanted to install that REALLY COOL SEARCH ASSISTANT or whatever.
In retrospect of course the security problems have probably outweighed the benefits. The technology was a great idea - the implementation sucked.
Maybe you shouldn't use Slashdot as your source of news? Just a thought.
A company in the midwest I do some consulting for just did a 1,200 desktop test rollout to one of their divisions. They didn't have any legacy problems and were upgrading to Office 2007 anyway, plus they had fairly new machines.
Like XP vs W2K before, Vista uptake will necessarily be slow, but eventually it will be installed everywhere. In fact, I'm guessing it will be even a bit more successful than XP because all those Windows 2000 holdouts are probably overdue for a machine upgrade as well.
The $600 price is about $200 more than I paid on the last computer I bought and built myself.
Aren't you quite the system builder. So why bitch and moan about Dell then? What is it to you? And what do you hope to achieve by posting this "wow, I wouldn't buy from Dell M$ Windoze tax DELL IS TERMINAL" crap? You really cannot possibly believe that you would influence someone to not buy a Dell computer. Here? Please tell me you have some other motive. Please.
But hey, a guy like the Bungi can afford to pay more for less.
I mean american + consumer - I have been observing for a few years now, that american consumers (of electronics) expect too little from the manufacturers they shop at (be it Dell, HP, or even BestBuy).
I don't know, I've been buying electronics for two decades and I've really rarely required any type of support beyond warranty service, if at all. In this particular case it's really moot since who the hell cares whether or not Dell supports FreeDOS or Linux? As long as they support their hardware. They don't support Windows particularly well anyway. And the people likely to buy these boxes are the least likely to require some guy in Bangalore to tell them how to use wget or sudo.
It's entirely possible you may have a point, but you're trying to make it in the wrong article.
As of 2006 Dell employs more than 63,700 people worldwide and manufactures more computers than any other organization in the world. According to the Fortune 500 2006 list, Dell ranks as the 25th-largest company in the United States by revenue. In 2006, Fortune magazine ranked Dell as No. 8 on its annual list of the most-admired companies in the United States. One publication has identified Dell as one of 38 high-performance companies in the S&P 500 which consistently out-performed the market over the previous 15 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. The always amusing thing is that when it comes down to a subpoena and these types of internal documents come to light (for example, this) then they're conveniently ignored. We don't want years and years of FUD leveled against Microsoft to be invalidated by reality, now do we.
Of course these articles are always tagged with the "haha" in-joke, but in this case that's more than apropos. I really hope the FSF goes ahead with this, because that will be the end of whatever credibility it has left. "Free as in freedom", indeed.
twitter, you are just amazing. You've taken a karma hit in the past few days and now you're down to replying to yourself using your sockpuppet so you can make it look like someone agrees with your dribble. That's just too funny.
Slip of the keyboard there?
Fair and balanced, like your name calling, mmm? ROFL!
Not to mention your use of yet another tired FUD meme - the Wikipedia thing couldn't have been more in the open than it was, and for all the right reasons.
Do yourself (and all your "M$ is teh suxx" friends) and grow up before you come in here and tell me "how it is".
Or maybe running under a non-admin account?
Or maybe locking down IE so that only "approved" plugins can run?
Or... something?
And when they all switch to Linux or OS X and they get a dialog, they'll always click "No". Correct?
I'm sure there's a joke here somewhere but just I can't find it.
Next question.
The "Windoze monopoly", that's classic.
I'm not sure what kind of income you get
You hilarious flocktard, I was using that as an example. I really don't the time to explain to you how much money I made last year on the "Windoze monopoly", but that's just as well. You'd probably have a seizure anyway.
software resembles your comments
twitter, if you resemble your comments ever so slightly then I pity any person that has any sort of social contact with you.
mkay, but that's just another aspect of the issue of trust transition. And I'm having trouble imagining how useful the Shockwave or Acrobat plugins would be if I could only use them on the website that installed them.
You are certainly entitled to not install "crap from Redmond". Thankfully you have options, like Linux and OS X.
Having said that, you and the other N hundred thousand people who suffer from that "I hate Microsoft" syndrome will never make a significant dent on the sales of Windows. That's just how it is. This techno-religious disdain for Microsoft does not usually percolate up to normal consumers.
But again, you're certainly entitled to it.
That is a good point, yes. Back in the day though, Java just didn't cut it. But nowadays it's probably good enough. I certainly think some Java applets in Firefox specifically are a lot faster than the ones that came from an ActiveX background, like Flash.
Yes, assuming they want to pay for it. Which brings us to:
That's great if your company has the cash, but for many companies, upgrading computers that already work is seen as an unnecessary expense.
So they won't be upgrading. Your original post claimed for some reason that *everyone* was avoiding Vista, which I can assure you is clearly not the case. Nowhere did I claim that *everyone* would be upgrading in the next three weeks, either.
Heh. Yeah. Aside from totally different operating systems, you realize that there are people running
Yes, I do. And your point here is? If your cousin Joe Bob is running Windows for Workgroups 3.11, he can continue to do so as long as he wants, I guess. When he buys a new box, chances are it will come with Vista. If he never buys another box then Microsoft is probably not interested in him anyway.
I think your problem is that you seem to be insulted by the idea that *anyone* would consider Vista, and then get defensive when someone points out there are lots of people out there already doing that.
but are they using system's installed codecs or something to render the video?
No, that's the point. You can use RealMedia, WM, OGG, MPG, AVI, DivX or whatever and it all ends up being streamed in a Flash window. All you need is Flash.
If that is the case I can see your point, otherwise why couldn't the exact same player be implemented as a Java applet?
Yes, that is the case. And yes, that is my point. And no, I'm guessing it would be a hell of a lot slower in Java than it is in Flash/ActiveX.
You seem a bit indignant here, but you're merely reinforcing what I said. "Safe" in quotes means exactly that, and yes, there are millions of Windows users who will happily click on a dialog just to get that REALLY COOL web page to load so they can look at some pr0n or a joke. So I must be missing your point.
Corporations don't buy used computers. And Joe Windows doesn't normally hop on eBay to buy used computers.
The term "native executable" comes to mind.
Either way, this doesn't help your case for ActiveX at all
I'm sorry you thought I was making a case for ActiveX, because I wasn't.
I am not a "windows consultant", whatever that might mean. And even asuming that your ("your" as in people like you) prophecies of doom and gloom about this "kludgy piece of crap" become true, simple and sheer inertia will make sure that Vista is installed eventually everywhere.
On the other hand, it's a lot better than a Java applet. The internet "video revolution" that we're supposed to be in right now (for better or worse) is made possible by Flash, which would have been impossible to achieve with something like Java.
If you know what you're doing, ActiveX is perfectly "safe". People who suffer nervous breakdowns when they hear the term usually are ignorant of how the technology works, or went through one of those nightmare scenarios where their kid/mom/wife clicked "Yes" when asked of they wanted to install that REALLY COOL SEARCH ASSISTANT or whatever.
In retrospect of course the security problems have probably outweighed the benefits. The technology was a great idea - the implementation sucked.
Maybe you shouldn't use Slashdot as your source of news? Just a thought.
A company in the midwest I do some consulting for just did a 1,200 desktop test rollout to one of their divisions. They didn't have any legacy problems and were upgrading to Office 2007 anyway, plus they had fairly new machines.
Like XP vs W2K before, Vista uptake will necessarily be slow, but eventually it will be installed everywhere. In fact, I'm guessing it will be even a bit more successful than XP because all those Windows 2000 holdouts are probably overdue for a machine upgrade as well.
So, we've determined that software has a higher margin than hardware. Very good.
Aren't you quite the system builder. So why bitch and moan about Dell then? What is it to you? And what do you hope to achieve by posting this "wow, I wouldn't buy from Dell M$ Windoze tax DELL IS TERMINAL" crap? You really cannot possibly believe that you would influence someone to not buy a Dell computer. Here? Please tell me you have some other motive. Please.
But hey, a guy like the Bungi can afford to pay more for less.
Yowzers, you've got me all figured out.
I don't know, I've been buying electronics for two decades and I've really rarely required any type of support beyond warranty service, if at all. In this particular case it's really moot since who the hell cares whether or not Dell supports FreeDOS or Linux? As long as they support their hardware. They don't support Windows particularly well anyway. And the people likely to buy these boxes are the least likely to require some guy in Bangalore to tell them how to use wget or sudo.
It's entirely possible you may have a point, but you're trying to make it in the wrong article.
Revenue: $55.908 Billion USD (2006)
Net income: $3.572 Billion USD (2006) (6.39% profit margin)
Source
If you require any more facts, don't hesitate to ask.
BTW, that "Windoze" thing you seem to have going gets funnier every time I see it.