Yes, I completely agree. Windows NT4 is definitely as stable as Windows 2000, if not more. I have personally had more BSODs on my home Windows 2000 system compared to my NT4 box at work.
I have been using NT for about two years at work and I am yet to see a BSOD. In those two years, I had one forced reboot and that was when my uptime reached 130 days and the memory leaks caught up with me:( So I really have nothing to complain about regarding Windows NT either, I believe that it is Microsoft's best OS for business.
Windows 2000, however, tends to generate many more BSOD than NT ever did. My home box has died at least three times in the six months it has been up. Even if the cause is buggy drivers, Microsoft is still at fault since they are signing these driver releases now. Hardware manufactures have also had plenty of time to get the bugs worked out of the driver releases, so there is no excuse for a crasher this late in the release.
I have also been trying to make my NT box more unixlike (good information here):
cygwin + vim + netscape + perl + $HOME = a useful windows box!
I'm currently running Windows 2000 Server as my webserver in the corner of my room; it runs Apache, an FTPdaemon, and ActivePerl, and has had an uptime of almost 3 months, completely error free.
Wow, I really hope that you did not buy Windows 2000 server for the sole purpose of running just apache, ftpd, and activeperl. My P166 box running linux can do that (and more) with 48MB of ram.
Oh, the software costs = $0. Also, no need to purchase RAM or a bigger HDD.
actually, systemax runs those kinds of ads on television and they are doing the other angle. They basically push the Athlon over the intel processors because of its performace and reliability. So these kinds of arguments will go both ways, but it's certainly unethical to lie about a product and call it 'unreliable'.
Probably, I just tried it on a windows 95 computer and I couldn't get windows to show the file extension in explorer.exe through the conventional means. It's weird, even if you go into View | Options | File types, then select shs and check the:
I would agree that most network games are better with realtime combat systems, but turn-based games definitely have their places on consoles and PCs for single player games. The fact that they are slower is great for when you just want to relax and veg out in front of the TV w/ your playstation and copy of FF7.
I really like both types, but I find that turn based games tend to be more fun. The entire final fantasy series has traditionally used turn-based combat and final fantasy games are some of the most sucessful RPG games for consoles. Towards the end, they started to use some kind of hybrid combat system that was between real-time and turn-based. There are real-time combat RPG games for consoles such as zelda (which I haven't played much of), but I have always prefered the relaxed, turn-based nature of the FF series.
On the PC, I loved both Fallout I and Fallout II. Both games are very well done and have excellent artwork. But now I'm playing DiabloII which is equally as good, but of course it has real-time combat.
Baldur's gate is a weird game in that it uses real-time combat, but to stand any kind of chance in the game you have to pause all of the time since you control so many guys. I really didn't like that system as well, but it's an interesting way of handling real-time combat when you have several people under your control. Most other RPGs would have turned their control over to AI.
yeah - just a few minor things like load balancing, memory support up to 64GB - you know the small stuff.
ahh, but besides a few registry entries and a couple of programs, win2k pro could do the same thing as advanced server. The EULA and the registry and the cost really ARE the biggest differences. Of course, Redhat has two different installs you can do depending on what the primary use of the machine will be (server or workstation), but the kernel and basic features (like memory support and load balancing) remain the same. In addition to that, linux distros do not intentionally cripple their installs just to force the user into paying them huge sums of money for an "advanced server".
I remember when a M$ rep came to talk to our usergroup. He told us that the service packs for win2k would be under 5MB! It's not that I actually believed this guy though, so I guess I wasn't too surprised when the service pack came in at 85MB (or 17 times the promised size).
You're carrying four pounds worth of LCD, keyboard, and battery so that you can use your PC anywhere and at any time. While it's an interesting idea to actually carry around a very small desktop PC with you, I think that most people are just better off to get a real desktop computer at both locations (home and work). This way, the user doesn't have to unplug their computer every time they want to switch locations. Of course you'll have some synchronization problems, but you will gain flexibility that only two unique PCs can deliver. One ultraportable computer is going to be expensive to upgrade and offer less features than a desktop computer can.
virus n. [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become Trojan horses. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'. This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a worm, a virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their friends (see SEX). The virus may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses include nice display hacks). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly perversely minded crackers, do irreversible damage, like nuking all the user's files.
In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially among Wintel and Macintosh users; the lack of security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the operating system (Unix machines, by contrast, are immune to such attacks). The production of special anti-virus software has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many lusers tend to blame _everything_ that doesn't work as they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of `virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a worm or even a Trojan horse). See phage; compare back door; see also Unix conspiracy.
The system has been stable for the most part and I haven't changed its configuration for about 6 months or so. I can live with one BSOD every 6 months. In all honesty, it's probably the sblive (emu10k1) driver that caused it, but there is nothing I can do about it short of replacing the soundcard. Creative has been so slow in updating drivers for windows 2000, even though newsgroups are full of complaints regarding the stability of the drivers.
Unfortunatelly, even if you know from the.dmp file that the creative driver caused it, you're at Creative's mercy as far as getting a fix. Maybe if they would release the source to their drivers, some programmer not affiliated with creative would fix the problem.
well, not exactly "solid as a rock". And yes, this is with win2k SP1. The only thing I was doing with my computer was launching DiabloII and I got this wonderful BSOD.
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000d1 (0x7f00654d, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x7f00654d). Microsoft Windows 2000 [v15.2195]. A dump was saved in: C:\WINNT\Minidump\Mini012901-01.dmp.
Re:can Windows be beaten on the desktop?
on
Linux Is Going Down
·
· Score: 2
I agree. I would say that M$ does have the desktop market under control and will have it under control for many years to come. The big question is in the server market... Why would anybody really want to use a Windows server anyway? Servers don't need GUIs, wizards, pretty icons, the bsod, etc. What servers do need is simplicity, standards, and remote admin tools. That said, Windows on a server doesn't make that much sense with the kind of money that M$ is charging.
Most of the statistics that I have seen also point to the fact that Apache is more widely used than IIS, and you know that Apache isn't being run on Windows systems; proof that the server market is slipping from M$.
Re:No, really, it sucks
on
Freshmeat II
·
· Score: 1
I would have to agree. Is there any way of getting rid of that big, blue bar on the left side of the screen? It's starting to bug me.
no, the web interface isn't nice. I have no idea what kind of exchange server my school is running, but I really hate the web interface. Here at work we use IMP which is much better IMHO.
The outlook interface is very confusing to me. Example; since I don't check my school account regularly, I empty it out and sort mail about once a day. I wanted a nice, easy way to archive multiple emails to a separate folder on the server at the same time. But can you do that with the outlook web program? After messing around with it for about 5 minutes, I gave up. If it's even possible to do, it isn't intuitive like it should be.
Also, I would say that telnet would be more flexible when it comes to multiple platforms compared to a web browser. Before the school that I go to 'upgraded' their systems from Solaris to NT, they moved the email system over to exchange. I really miss mutt, I could go to any machine with an Internet connection and telnet into the machine to check my mail, regardless of OS.
but consider the cost of the bandwidth and the hardware that people are essentially donating now to napster without compensation. Those dsl or cable connections that are on napster aren't that cheap either and it only takes a few leeches to saturate one of those 128kbps upstream links (which people are paying $40-60/month for). I mean, it works both ways, but the people donating the hardware and bandwidth to napster shouldn't be charged at all. People share their mp3s on napster because they believe in giving back to the service and community. When napster begins to charge THEM money, you can bet that they will take their connections and hard drives and go elsewhere. If it wasn't for them, napster wouldn't exist.
Is that the US or canadian dollar? If you're referring to the USD, I really doubt that any song is worth $2-3. It would be much more reasonable if they were about $.75-$1.00. You might as well buy the physical media, liner notes, jewel case, etc for ~$13. At least that will have about 12 songs and you get the physical media and some kind of license, permitting you to make your own digital copies.
Yes, you have to wait until the CD is actually shipped to your house(max 3 days), then you would have to create your own mp3s from that CD, but at least then they would be up to your standards. Trying to download high quality songs from napster can prove to be very difficult. I guess I don't understand why CDs are such a hassle. I also don't understand why people tell me that it's easier to download an album off of napster that they already own compared to just creating the mp3s themselves. Can somebody please enlighten me?
...but if napster goes to a subscription model, it won't have near the userbase that it does now. People will not continue to donate their bandwidth and storage capabilities to napster, who then turns around and charges its users (including the person hosting the files). See, there something wrong here.
1. user pays napster, lets say $10 per month, so that he or she can use the napster service.
2. user downloads copyrighted material as usual.
3. napster makes money and pays artists a small amount for indexing their material.
4. person donating bandwidth and storage gets screwed because they are also paying the $10 and are making corporations like napster and the record companies rich.
It would be different if napster was hosting the files on their servers, but I don't understand why people would actually pay napster so that this corporation can make money off of content stored on the user's computer. Napster should be paying other people to host the files, not the other way around!
it doesn't matter whether or not 95% of the population knows about opennap / napigator now or not. when napster begins charging for a service that has traditionally been free, people will consider and find out about the alternatives. Imagine if google started charging you a monthly fee to use their search engine. Would you still continue to use it?
In order for the central server model to work, it needs people to volunteer resources (bandwidth, storage, time, etc). This is what makes and breaks napster, when the people with the bandwidth and 80GB hard drives leave the service, the service will fail. I know that if I had broadband access at home, I would share my files in a heartbeat with a free service. However, who is going to pay a monthy fee when they are donating bandwidth and storage to a commercial service?
you probably don't even own the CD you bought the game on...as it is just a license.
I don't agree with this. It seems to me that you do own the CD, just as much as you own the box, the manual, and the jewel case that the game probably came in. There is no physical license with most software, however some companies give you paperwork when you purchase x number of licenses. The CD is just that, a CD. The license is separate.
According to this article, you're correct. There are a few reasons stated in here of why Sony put this restriction in place. It makes sense to me.
EverLore got a hold of the Sony PR monkey who gave three brief reasons for the request for eBay discontinue the auctions: "Potential for our players to be defrauded, it poses an unfair advantage to a select few and finally, it breaks the End User License Agreement."
Doesn't matter, the virtual items don't belong to you. In this case, Sony owns them and they can put as many restrictions on them as they want. If you try to sell something you found in EQ (in real life), Sony has every right to pull your account since it's clearly stated in the EULA. Whether this is right or not is another issue, but there are other games such as DiabloII where items and character accounts are being sold on eBay. So far I haven't heard blizzard complaining. Maybe Sony should back off a bit...
However, from what I remember, Sony had some good reasons for putting in this restriction. For one thing, players with far too much real money to spend could gain an unfair advantage in the game. Secondly, there is also the possibility of a player getting screwed on a bad deal since it's hard to prove ownership and distribute such a thing.
Yeah right. You and I both know that the Windows 2000 "mount" feature is a joke. I actually just found out about it a few weeks ago. It turns out that there is even a >5 step wizard that guides you through the whole mount process, heh. I still haven't been able to figure out how it works yet as it isn't very intuitive.
And on top of that, Windows doesn't have any support for symlinks. Huge limitation IMHO, I guess we'll have to wait for whistler for another "new feature" that is nothing more than a crude hack. Oh well, I'm getting used to them now. Windows 2000 now has a telnet service so that you can "telnet to your win2k box". Wow, what will M$ think of next?
I'm hoping this is just a troll and you really don't believe in anything you just posted. While this idea at a glance looks correct, when you really start to think about it, you realize that people have different needs and uses for a computer. Just looking at the big picture of computing, there are many different types of computers and operating systems available for those computers. This might help you understand why different systems are needed.
Lets say you are in charge of a printed publication in a school. From what I've heard, PowerPCs running some kind of MacOS are a good choice for people in need of desktop publishing. A librarian who works at a public school, working on a yearbook, may choose to run down to the store and pick up one of those colorful iMac computers as it may be the best tool for the job.
Now on the other hand, you have a programmer working on the desktop publishing software that the libarian uses. Personally I have found that UNIX-like systems are the best systems for me to write code on. I may be writing a program for Windows, but the actual code gets written in a telnet window and thus on a totally different system (probably running gnu/linux).
How does this relate to software? Take the GNU system for example... There are many different combinations of applications (and soon kernels) that can make up your OS and this turns out to be very flexible. Flexibility is a good thing, even if it means the thinning of available programmers.
If you really don't like free software, then don't use it. There is an operating system for people who think like you do, it's called Windows. While you're at it, use Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsft VC++ (or whatever it's called), and Microsoft Internet explorer. Join the drones and have fun!
On the other hand, if you like making your own choices in life and not having someone named Bill make them for you, I would suggest a free OS such as GNU/Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
I have been using NT for about two years at work and I am yet to see a BSOD. In those two years, I had one forced reboot and that was when my uptime reached 130 days and the memory leaks caught up with me :( So I really have nothing to complain about regarding Windows NT either, I believe that it is Microsoft's best OS for business.
Windows 2000, however, tends to generate many more BSOD than NT ever did. My home box has died at least three times in the six months it has been up. Even if the cause is buggy drivers, Microsoft is still at fault since they are signing these driver releases now. Hardware manufactures have also had plenty of time to get the bugs worked out of the driver releases, so there is no excuse for a crasher this late in the release.
I have also been trying to make my NT box more unixlike (good information here):
cygwin + vim + netscape + perl + $HOME = a useful windows box!
Wow, I really hope that you did not buy Windows 2000 server for the sole purpose of running just apache, ftpd, and activeperl. My P166 box running linux can do that (and more) with 48MB of ram.
Oh, the software costs = $0. Also, no need to purchase RAM or a bigger HDD.
actually, systemax runs those kinds of ads on television and they are doing the other angle. They basically push the Athlon over the intel processors because of its performace and reliability. So these kinds of arguments will go both ways, but it's certainly unethical to lie about a product and call it 'unreliable'.
Probably, I just tried it on a windows 95 computer and I couldn't get windows to show the file extension in explorer.exe through the conventional means. It's weird, even if you go into View | Options | File types, then select shs and check the:
[x] always show extension
it is still hidden...
I would agree that most network games are better with realtime combat systems, but turn-based games definitely have their places on consoles and PCs for single player games. The fact that they are slower is great for when you just want to relax and veg out in front of the TV w/ your playstation and copy of FF7.
I really like both types, but I find that turn based games tend to be more fun. The entire final fantasy series has traditionally used turn-based combat and final fantasy games are some of the most sucessful RPG games for consoles. Towards the end, they started to use some kind of hybrid combat system that was between real-time and turn-based. There are real-time combat RPG games for consoles such as zelda (which I haven't played much of), but I have always prefered the relaxed, turn-based nature of the FF series.
On the PC, I loved both Fallout I and Fallout II. Both games are very well done and have excellent artwork. But now I'm playing DiabloII which is equally as good, but of course it has real-time combat.
Baldur's gate is a weird game in that it uses real-time combat, but to stand any kind of chance in the game you have to pause all of the time since you control so many guys. I really didn't like that system as well, but it's an interesting way of handling real-time combat when you have several people under your control. Most other RPGs would have turned their control over to AI.
ahh, but besides a few registry entries and a couple of programs, win2k pro could do the same thing as advanced server. The EULA and the registry and the cost really ARE the biggest differences. Of course, Redhat has two different installs you can do depending on what the primary use of the machine will be (server or workstation), but the kernel and basic features (like memory support and load balancing) remain the same. In addition to that, linux distros do not intentionally cripple their installs just to force the user into paying them huge sums of money for an "advanced server".
I remember when a M$ rep came to talk to our usergroup. He told us that the service packs for win2k would be under 5MB! It's not that I actually believed this guy though, so I guess I wasn't too surprised when the service pack came in at 85MB (or 17 times the promised size).
You're carrying four pounds worth of LCD, keyboard, and battery so that you can use your PC anywhere and at any time. While it's an interesting idea to actually carry around a very small desktop PC with you, I think that most people are just better off to get a real desktop computer at both locations (home and work). This way, the user doesn't have to unplug their computer every time they want to switch locations. Of course you'll have some synchronization problems, but you will gain flexibility that only two unique PCs can deliver. One ultraportable computer is going to be expensive to upgrade and offer less features than a desktop computer can.
I like this one better...
jargonfile definition:
virus
virus n. [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become Trojan horses. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'. This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a worm, a virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their friends (see SEX). The virus may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses include nice display hacks). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly perversely minded crackers, do irreversible damage, like nuking all the user's files.
In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially among Wintel and Macintosh users; the lack of security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the operating system (Unix machines, by contrast, are immune to such attacks). The production of special anti-virus software has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many lusers tend to blame _everything_ that doesn't work as they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of `virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a worm or even a Trojan horse). See phage; compare back door; see also Unix conspiracy.
this?
The system has been stable for the most part and I haven't changed its configuration for about 6 months or so. I can live with one BSOD every 6 months. In all honesty, it's probably the sblive (emu10k1) driver that caused it, but there is nothing I can do about it short of replacing the soundcard. Creative has been so slow in updating drivers for windows 2000, even though newsgroups are full of complaints regarding the stability of the drivers.
.dmp file that the creative driver caused it, you're at Creative's mercy as far as getting a fix. Maybe if they would release the source to their drivers, some programmer not affiliated with creative would fix the problem.
Unfortunatelly, even if you know from the
well, not exactly "solid as a rock". And yes, this is with win2k SP1. The only thing I was doing with my computer was launching DiabloII and I got this wonderful BSOD.
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000d1 (0x7f00654d, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x7f00654d). Microsoft Windows 2000 [v15.2195]. A dump was saved in: C:\WINNT\Minidump\Mini012901-01.dmp.
I agree. I would say that M$ does have the desktop market under control and will have it under control for many years to come. The big question is in the server market... Why would anybody really want to use a Windows server anyway? Servers don't need GUIs, wizards, pretty icons, the bsod, etc. What servers do need is simplicity, standards, and remote admin tools. That said, Windows on a server doesn't make that much sense with the kind of money that M$ is charging.
Most of the statistics that I have seen also point to the fact that Apache is more widely used than IIS, and you know that Apache isn't being run on Windows systems; proof that the server market is slipping from M$.
I would have to agree. Is there any way of getting rid of that big, blue bar on the left side of the screen? It's starting to bug me.
/me goes back to nntp
no, the web interface isn't nice. I have no idea what kind of exchange server my school is running, but I really hate the web interface. Here at work we use IMP which is much better IMHO.
The outlook interface is very confusing to me. Example; since I don't check my school account regularly, I empty it out and sort mail about once a day. I wanted a nice, easy way to archive multiple emails to a separate folder on the server at the same time. But can you do that with the outlook web program? After messing around with it for about 5 minutes, I gave up. If it's even possible to do, it isn't intuitive like it should be.
Also, I would say that telnet would be more flexible when it comes to multiple platforms compared to a web browser. Before the school that I go to 'upgraded' their systems from Solaris to NT, they moved the email system over to exchange. I really miss mutt, I could go to any machine with an Internet connection and telnet into the machine to check my mail, regardless of OS.
but consider the cost of the bandwidth and the hardware that people are essentially donating now to napster without compensation. Those dsl or cable connections that are on napster aren't that cheap either and it only takes a few leeches to saturate one of those 128kbps upstream links (which people are paying $40-60/month for). I mean, it works both ways, but the people donating the hardware and bandwidth to napster shouldn't be charged at all. People share their mp3s on napster because they believe in giving back to the service and community. When napster begins to charge THEM money, you can bet that they will take their connections and hard drives and go elsewhere. If it wasn't for them, napster wouldn't exist.
Is that the US or canadian dollar? If you're referring to the USD, I really doubt that any song is worth $2-3. It would be much more reasonable if they were about $.75-$1.00. You might as well buy the physical media, liner notes, jewel case, etc for ~$13. At least that will have about 12 songs and you get the physical media and some kind of license, permitting you to make your own digital copies.
Yes, you have to wait until the CD is actually shipped to your house(max 3 days), then you would have to create your own mp3s from that CD, but at least then they would be up to your standards. Trying to download high quality songs from napster can prove to be very difficult. I guess I don't understand why CDs are such a hassle. I also don't understand why people tell me that it's easier to download an album off of napster that they already own compared to just creating the mp3s themselves. Can somebody please enlighten me?
...but if napster goes to a subscription model, it won't have near the userbase that it does now. People will not continue to donate their bandwidth and storage capabilities to napster, who then turns around and charges its users (including the person hosting the files). See, there something wrong here.
1. user pays napster, lets say $10 per month, so that he or she can use the napster service.
2. user downloads copyrighted material as usual.
3. napster makes money and pays artists a small amount for indexing their material.
4. person donating bandwidth and storage gets screwed because they are also paying the $10 and are making corporations like napster and the record companies rich.
It would be different if napster was hosting the files on their servers, but I don't understand why people would actually pay napster so that this corporation can make money off of content stored on the user's computer. Napster should be paying other people to host the files, not the other way around!
it doesn't matter whether or not 95% of the population knows about opennap / napigator now or not. when napster begins charging for a service that has traditionally been free, people will consider and find out about the alternatives. Imagine if google started charging you a monthly fee to use their search engine. Would you still continue to use it?
In order for the central server model to work, it needs people to volunteer resources (bandwidth, storage, time, etc). This is what makes and breaks napster, when the people with the bandwidth and 80GB hard drives leave the service, the service will fail. I know that if I had broadband access at home, I would share my files in a heartbeat with a free service. However, who is going to pay a monthy fee when they are donating bandwidth and storage to a commercial service?
I don't agree with this. It seems to me that you do own the CD, just as much as you own the box, the manual, and the jewel case that the game probably came in. There is no physical license with most software, however some companies give you paperwork when you purchase x number of licenses. The CD is just that, a CD. The license is separate.
EverLore got a hold of the Sony PR monkey who gave three brief reasons for the request for eBay discontinue the auctions: "Potential for our players to be defrauded, it poses an unfair advantage to a select few and finally, it breaks the End User License Agreement."
Doesn't matter, the virtual items don't belong to you. In this case, Sony owns them and they can put as many restrictions on them as they want. If you try to sell something you found in EQ (in real life), Sony has every right to pull your account since it's clearly stated in the EULA. Whether this is right or not is another issue, but there are other games such as DiabloII where items and character accounts are being sold on eBay. So far I haven't heard blizzard complaining. Maybe Sony should back off a bit...
However, from what I remember, Sony had some good reasons for putting in this restriction. For one thing, players with far too much real money to spend could gain an unfair advantage in the game. Secondly, there is also the possibility of a player getting screwed on a bad deal since it's hard to prove ownership and distribute such a thing.
Yeah right. You and I both know that the Windows 2000 "mount" feature is a joke. I actually just found out about it a few weeks ago. It turns out that there is even a >5 step wizard that guides you through the whole mount process, heh. I still haven't been able to figure out how it works yet as it isn't very intuitive.
And on top of that, Windows doesn't have any support for symlinks. Huge limitation IMHO, I guess we'll have to wait for whistler for another "new feature" that is nothing more than a crude hack. Oh well, I'm getting used to them now. Windows 2000 now has a telnet service so that you can "telnet to your win2k box". Wow, what will M$ think of next?
I'm hoping this is just a troll and you really don't believe in anything you just posted. While this idea at a glance looks correct, when you really start to think about it, you realize that people have different needs and uses for a computer. Just looking at the big picture of computing, there are many different types of computers and operating systems available for those computers. This might help you understand why different systems are needed.
Lets say you are in charge of a printed publication in a school. From what I've heard, PowerPCs running some kind of MacOS are a good choice for people in need of desktop publishing. A librarian who works at a public school, working on a yearbook, may choose to run down to the store and pick up one of those colorful iMac computers as it may be the best tool for the job.
Now on the other hand, you have a programmer working on the desktop publishing software that the libarian uses. Personally I have found that UNIX-like systems are the best systems for me to write code on. I may be writing a program for Windows, but the actual code gets written in a telnet window and thus on a totally different system (probably running gnu/linux).
How does this relate to software? Take the GNU system for example... There are many different combinations of applications (and soon kernels) that can make up your OS and this turns out to be very flexible. Flexibility is a good thing, even if it means the thinning of available programmers.
If you really don't like free software, then don't use it. There is an operating system for people who think like you do, it's called Windows. While you're at it, use Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsft VC++ (or whatever it's called), and Microsoft Internet explorer. Join the drones and have fun!
On the other hand, if you like making your own choices in life and not having someone named Bill make them for you, I would suggest a free OS such as GNU/Linux.