Netscape had a significant hand in killing themselves. I used Netscape from version 1. At the time, it was awful, but more or less the only option. By version 2, it was a decent program and version 3 was even better. Microsoft had come out with IE in the meantime and it wasn't any great shakes. But when that Vista-like trainwreck that was Netscape 4 came out, I promptly switched to IE. When IE 4 came out shortly after that, it was clear Microsoft's browser had won by being better.
Yes, Microsoft has a monopoly, which has never been adequately addressed in the courts, but they abused their monopoly position for many years before IE came around. Bundling IE was a blip on the radar compared to the way they competed unfairly through undocumented features going all the way back to before Windows 3. Nevertheless, Netscape lost the browser war because of their own doing and not just because MS could give their competing product away for free, and bundle it with new versions of Windows.
Fortunately, Mozilla and Google have won the war back, and for the same reason: better products. Even Microsoft's monopoly which is still extremely powerful and very capable of competing unfairly, couldn't beat superior products by nimble competitors while it took them years to lumber back into motion to produce improved versions of IE that were too little, too late.
If Netscape had remained significantly better than IE, I think history might have gone a little differently. I'm not trying to absolve Microsoft, but occasionally they actually have been able to compete by having better products.
Are you saying IE supports Theora?...not that I care what IE supports since the only thing I use it for is download Firefox and using the web interface for Microsoft Project at work (which is quite possibly the most poorly-designed web app I've ever used).
You are greatly underestimating the willingness of the majority of people to part with their beloved media. Piracy isn't quite that easy for everyone... yet.
As for me, as long as they keep publishing MST3K DVDs, I'll be happy.
I just switched to Mint a couple months ago after using Kubuntu for years. Although losing KDE to LXDE was something I didn't want, other things just worked better and I like the fact that LXDE is lightweight and simple. It doesn't stop me from doing what I want, even if it's not quite the way I would prefer it.
I think Ron Paul's answer would be a little dull.;-)
The thing is you can ask this but I can predict what the answer will entail.
Basically, it will all boil down to the fact that we "need" government to do these things because otherwise terrible (but generally vague) things will happen. The government is responsible for providing for the general welfare and all these things it does directly benefit the general welfare, QED.
Do you want your schools to fall behind in the technology arms race, or to turn out graduates who lack sufficient self-esteem? Do you want people living out in the street and starving while Senators feast on suckling pigs and roast immigrants? Do you want evil corporations using their mind-control rays or poisoning your pets with nuclear waste and crooked accounting? Do you want terrorists sneaking in your house and stealing your healthcare? Do you want Iran nuking your right to bear arms and freedom of speech? Or evil Wall Streeters selling your children to drug lords to pay for their SUVs that run on stem-cells?
Of course, it doesn't matter that in each case the government is either addressing the wrong problem, or addressing the right problem but completely failing to do anything to make it better. The important thing is that We Do Something (TM)! If the problem isn't getting better than we need to do something faster, harder and with more money.
This is old news. Microsoft Office was probably the largest vector for computer virus infections in the mid 90s. VBA means that opening your document can pretty much do anything since it can hook into Win32 and 99% of users ran as administrators.
Nowadays, Windows users aren't admins by default, and there are some protections to prevent macros from being run without your permission, but all that stuff is still in there. Office has always been a de facto part of the OS because the only way Microsoft could ever compete was to build secret doors into Windows that would allow their apps to do things their competitors couldn't.
Although MS has gotten better about these sorts of criminally incompetent things, they were all built in from the ground floor, so they'll never be completely eliminated until we get Windows "NTNT".
Even DOS provided a lot of high level file, screen and keyboard I/O functionality....which nobody used because it was too slow. Most programs did their own, bypassing DOS, and sometimes even the BIOS.
Of course the memory-mapped text display was really easy to use directly... just write bytes to the right offset from $B800 ($B000 if using a monochrome adapter). You could even do that in BASIC.
Ha ha ha! UPX?! On a floppy-based system with maybe as little as 64K of RAM?
Turbo Pascal was an IDE... no it didn't have integrated debugging, at least when I used it (through version 3), but it had error messages. However, back in those days, most of the information was in the book.
You probably just described one of the big reasons USDA has 21 e-mail systems: In a big organization, it's often cheaper and easier to run a parallel system to the "official" system that is broken or useless (as "official" systems tend to be) than to actually use it. Eventually, some of these ad hoc systems might become more "official" because everyone uses them and eliminating them would cause great harm.
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Netscape had a significant hand in killing themselves. I used Netscape from version 1. At the time, it was awful, but more or less the only option. By version 2, it was a decent program and version 3 was even better. Microsoft had come out with IE in the meantime and it wasn't any great shakes. But when that Vista-like trainwreck that was Netscape 4 came out, I promptly switched to IE. When IE 4 came out shortly after that, it was clear Microsoft's browser had won by being better.
Yes, Microsoft has a monopoly, which has never been adequately addressed in the courts, but they abused their monopoly position for many years before IE came around. Bundling IE was a blip on the radar compared to the way they competed unfairly through undocumented features going all the way back to before Windows 3. Nevertheless, Netscape lost the browser war because of their own doing and not just because MS could give their competing product away for free, and bundle it with new versions of Windows.
Fortunately, Mozilla and Google have won the war back, and for the same reason: better products. Even Microsoft's monopoly which is still extremely powerful and very capable of competing unfairly, couldn't beat superior products by nimble competitors while it took them years to lumber back into motion to produce improved versions of IE that were too little, too late.
If Netscape had remained significantly better than IE, I think history might have gone a little differently. I'm not trying to absolve Microsoft, but occasionally they actually have been able to compete by having better products.
Are you saying IE supports Theora? ...not that I care what IE supports since the only thing I use it for is download Firefox and using the web interface for Microsoft Project at work (which is quite possibly the most poorly-designed web app I've ever used).
You are greatly underestimating the willingness of the majority of people to part with their beloved media. Piracy isn't quite that easy for everyone... yet.
As for me, as long as they keep publishing MST3K DVDs, I'll be happy.
Actually, I would bet that they, like Microsoft, have tons of competent programmers, but no competent management.
You'd be amazed at how much damage management can do.
You know that. I know that. Try telling Washington.
Well, to be fair, there have been a few instances since they renamed it that we weren't at war. Oh, wait, maybe there weren't.
Makes sense given what comes out it, but the same could be said for Washington D.C..
I just switched to Mint a couple months ago after using Kubuntu for years. Although losing KDE to LXDE was something I didn't want, other things just worked better and I like the fact that LXDE is lightweight and simple. It doesn't stop me from doing what I want, even if it's not quite the way I would prefer it.
I like KDE, but Debian takes precedence.
Why Alt-~, which requires a key that is in a different place on a lot of keyboards.
Ctrl-tab served this purpose since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary (i.e., the 1980s), why change it?
Or am I missing something?
I think Ron Paul's answer would be a little dull. ;-)
The thing is you can ask this but I can predict what the answer will entail.
Basically, it will all boil down to the fact that we "need" government to do these things because otherwise terrible (but generally vague) things will happen. The government is responsible for providing for the general welfare and all these things it does directly benefit the general welfare, QED.
Do you want your schools to fall behind in the technology arms race, or to turn out graduates who lack sufficient self-esteem? Do you want people living out in the street and starving while Senators feast on suckling pigs and roast immigrants? Do you want evil corporations using their mind-control rays or poisoning your pets with nuclear waste and crooked accounting? Do you want terrorists sneaking in your house and stealing your healthcare? Do you want Iran nuking your right to bear arms and freedom of speech? Or evil Wall Streeters selling your children to drug lords to pay for their SUVs that run on stem-cells?
Of course, it doesn't matter that in each case the government is either addressing the wrong problem, or addressing the right problem but completely failing to do anything to make it better. The important thing is that We Do Something (TM)! If the problem isn't getting better than we need to do something faster, harder and with more money.
This is old news. Microsoft Office was probably the largest vector for computer virus infections in the mid 90s. VBA means that opening your document can pretty much do anything since it can hook into Win32 and 99% of users ran as administrators.
Nowadays, Windows users aren't admins by default, and there are some protections to prevent macros from being run without your permission, but all that stuff is still in there. Office has always been a de facto part of the OS because the only way Microsoft could ever compete was to build secret doors into Windows that would allow their apps to do things their competitors couldn't.
Although MS has gotten better about these sorts of criminally incompetent things, they were all built in from the ground floor, so they'll never be completely eliminated until we get Windows "NTNT".
I've been coding on PCs since the days of DOS 2, so I do know what it was like.
I'm not sure what your point is.
Even DOS provided a lot of high level file, screen and keyboard I/O functionality. ...which nobody used because it was too slow. Most programs did their own, bypassing DOS, and sometimes even the BIOS.
Of course the memory-mapped text display was really easy to use directly... just write bytes to the right offset from $B800 ($B000 if using a monochrome adapter). You could even do that in BASIC.
Ha ha ha! UPX?! On a floppy-based system with maybe as little as 64K of RAM?
Turbo Pascal was an IDE... no it didn't have integrated debugging, at least when I used it (through version 3), but it had error messages. However, back in those days, most of the information was in the book.
"G"? Oh, that's right, that's what we used before we had "T". Yeah, you can't do much with only "G" these days.
need to optimize. I can't believe we're actually bitching about living in times where computing resources are bountiful.
Yes, and that's why Microsoft Word takes 30 seconds to load, just like it did 20 years ago.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant.
Yeah, but Linus did that 20 years ago, and he did a great job of it. Microsoft is still not finished.
Well, you have to admit that it's better than large, bureaucratic groups, a 13-figure budget and almost certain to fail.
You probably just described one of the big reasons USDA has 21 e-mail systems: In a big organization, it's often cheaper and easier to run a parallel system to the "official" system that is broken or useless (as "official" systems tend to be) than to actually use it. Eventually, some of these ad hoc systems might become more "official" because everyone uses them and eliminating them would cause great harm.
You've got a good point except that the thing people in this situation end up getting is usually something that is neither simple nor good.
So you're suggesting that if this guy's plan is successful the U.S. is likely to end up as a wholly-owned subsidiary of China.
Indeed. Someone got $850 million in 10 years. Sounds like a good definition of success to me.
I think an argument could be made that this has already happened.
I booted NT 3.51 with 12MB of RAM. That seems unbelievable today.
Of course, it didn't work well, but it did work.