So all Windows users should suffer with an operating system that can't by default playback common media files?
Depends what you mean by 'by default'. When you install Windows, or any other OS, it's pretty useless without some software to go with it, because an OS is merely a container for software. All I'm suggesting is that as well as installing for example Nero, the user should install a media player, or at least have WMP come on a seperate CD, and be fully uninstallable.
I'm sure you think Windows shouldn't have a web browser either.
No, it shouldn't. It's an OS. The supplier could give you a web browser to go with it, and the same with a media player, and both should be uninstallable. Firefox and Opera's success are merely a testament to how superior they are over IE.
The problem here is that Microsoft is forcing their software upon 90-95% of computers, and making it unremovable.
Apparently, it is. Windows is supposed to be extremely modular, or so I read from the anti-trust case a while back. It would probably be quite trivial to replace IE with a regular file manager. In fact, I think LiteStep does it (can anyone confirm or deny that?).
MS has a monopoly on desktop operating systems. That means that they are not allowed to use their monopoly to their advantage to get into other markets. By including WMP with XP, they are using their monopoly to push the Windows Media format, and their Media Player (with whatever THEY decide to support) onto the majority of computers, giving them a massively unfair advantage against Real and anybody else.
You'd probably be quite surprised at the number of legal copies of Windows that are in use. Most people get it whether they like it or not with their new computer. People running 98/ME usually find that their computer is under-spec to run 2K/XP and simply buy a new one. It's mainly people who build their own computer (and thus should know what they are doing) who pirate Windows.
You still raise a very interesting question there though. I would say that they should allow anyone to update, mainly because many updates to Windows are security fixes and zombie machines adversely affect other users, not just the owner.
I assume you are referring to UK law about defending your property on the second paragraph. It has actually been clarified - if someone is in your house and threatens you, you can do pretty much what the fuck you want to them until they start to run away. If they run away, you can chase them down and subdue them, but at that point you can't use unnecessary force, such as stabbing them repeatedly with a knife.
The court case with the farmer who shot the burglars was because he basically shot them with a shotgun as they were running away.
OK, so let me get this straight. You're saying that software patents will stop/discourage companies from ripping people off and producing crap?
Firstly, the companies that 'rip people off' (ie charge high prices for commercial software) are the ones who will benefit most from software patents. How, exactly are people going to not get 'ripped off' if software patents become law?
Secondly, please explain to us how software patents will lead to better software, ie not 'produce crap'? Software patents will make it harder for smaller companies to compete due to more legal complications. Less competition will lead to less quality.
Another solution would be to force ISPs to stop their internet access for a reasonable length of time after a 24 hour warning that their machine is infected. It would stop the problem, and discourage them. Making it a criminal act could cause quite a few problems.
Yes, the less vulnerable systems there are, the harder it is to create a botnet, and the less effective the DoS attacks.
Personally, I'm in favour of some sort of simple built-in software DRM that by default only lets 'certified' executables run, and obviously can be turned off by people who know what they're doing.
Most 'normal' users really don't seem to give a damn if their computeris being hijacked, as long as they don't notice it. And the same users won't undertand that their 56k line is one of many, which adds up to an enormous amount of bandwidth.
The main problem is that all operating systems look and feel sufficiently different to make that damned difficult. It has been attempted with Swing and SWT for Java with some success.
However, different widget sizes, different fonts and different standards for making a UI make it really, really difficult to make a library that will work properly on anything while looking like a native application.
Same with any cooling system. If it fails, the thing it cools is fucked. Unless you have redundant fans, in which case you'll get a load of people complaining that it's too noisy.
However, if you RTFA, you would have seen that they have gone to the trouble of getting the fan from CoolerMaster, so it's probably quite high quality.
Before OpenSolaris was released, there was a load of complaining about CDDL and GPL incompatibility, and some people were even trying to push the insane idea that Sun would pull a SCO. Everyone seemed to eventually come to the sensible conclusion that people who contribute to the Linux kernel should stay away from the Solaris kernel.
On the first day of release, people who contribute to the Linux kernel start looking through the Solaris kernel. What the FUCK are they thinking?
That is exactly the same argument that is used by MS sympathisers when the issue of Netscape is brought up. It is completely and utterly flawed.
We've been through this before. This is not anything to do with the quality of the product, it is that MS has a monopoly on operating systems, and they are using that monopoly to not just include, but heavily integrate other pieces of software to get into other markets. Realplayer is bloated probably because they've been desperately trying to find a way of competing with a product that is pre-installed into well over 90% of home computers.
Looking through Google, it appears you are correct (thanks for that, didn't know about that one). However, the grandparent states:
Intel is reluctant to release their ISA documentation
In present tense, suggesting that Intel currently does not release any of their ISA documention, which is clearly wrong and quite misleading. So you can see where the confusion comes from.
The ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) is the specification that is needed before writing an OS, compiler or any other low-level software for a given CPU. It's no secret, especially for a very widely used architecture like x86.
Look on job sites. Almost every decent vacancy requires a degree, some with a minimum of a 2:1.
A lot of people on here seem to think they are 'above' getting a degree, that they're too smart for that and after school they can just stroll into a job because of their enormous intelligence. That only works for a very, very small number of people.
A degree shows that you at least have a basic understanding of the subject, and have spent a lot of money, time and effort in the subject area of your choice. Who in their right mind would employ some kid into a reponsible job who had just finished school, had no proof that he knew shit, and had the arrogance to think he didn't need a degree?
Good point, but in order to make an x86 chip which would be sufficiently different to make generic x86 chips not work with OS X would be an awful lot more work than simply having a custom cache size.
However, maybe it could be economical to do it if Apple could sell enough systems.
There's a presentation done by the guy who hacked the XBox. If you look at the lengths he went to, and how obviously smart he was, you'll see that Apple has zero chance of stopping OS X running on a normal x86 machine. I'll be very surprised if Intel fabricate a specialised x86 CPU just for them.
While I agree with you that many will still buy Apple machines because it's 'easy', and of course they'll still get tech support, It'll be well under a year after release before the first pre-cracked OS X/x86 torrent is available download, which will mean they could lose quite a bit of business from the geek population.
Surely Apple won't be designing a new chipset themselves to go with the x86 Mac? It would be one hell of a lot cheaper to go with a regular Intel chipset which would cost less and already be known to work properly.
If they want to use hardware incompatibility to stop people running OS X on a regular PC (yeah right!), there are quite a few other cheaper and easier ways to go about it.
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So all Windows users should suffer with an operating system that can't by default playback common media files?
Depends what you mean by 'by default'. When you install Windows, or any other OS, it's pretty useless without some software to go with it, because an OS is merely a container for software. All I'm suggesting is that as well as installing for example Nero, the user should install a media player, or at least have WMP come on a seperate CD, and be fully uninstallable.
I'm sure you think Windows shouldn't have a web browser either.
No, it shouldn't. It's an OS. The supplier could give you a web browser to go with it, and the same with a media player, and both should be uninstallable. Firefox and Opera's success are merely a testament to how superior they are over IE.
The problem here is that Microsoft is forcing their software upon 90-95% of computers, and making it unremovable.
Apparently, it is. Windows is supposed to be extremely modular, or so I read from the anti-trust case a while back. It would probably be quite trivial to replace IE with a regular file manager. In fact, I think LiteStep does it (can anyone confirm or deny that?).
There's also this.
Let me explain it again:
MS has a monopoly on desktop operating systems. That means that they are not allowed to use their monopoly to their advantage to get into other markets. By including WMP with XP, they are using their monopoly to push the Windows Media format, and their Media Player (with whatever THEY decide to support) onto the majority of computers, giving them a massively unfair advantage against Real and anybody else.
It's quite obvious why this has happened.
(Mods, that's not a troll, it's a decent point)
You'd probably be quite surprised at the number of legal copies of Windows that are in use. Most people get it whether they like it or not with their new computer. People running 98/ME usually find that their computer is under-spec to run 2K/XP and simply buy a new one. It's mainly people who build their own computer (and thus should know what they are doing) who pirate Windows.
You still raise a very interesting question there though. I would say that they should allow anyone to update, mainly because many updates to Windows are security fixes and zombie machines adversely affect other users, not just the owner.
I assume you are referring to UK law about defending your property on the second paragraph. It has actually been clarified - if someone is in your house and threatens you, you can do pretty much what the fuck you want to them until they start to run away. If they run away, you can chase them down and subdue them, but at that point you can't use unnecessary force, such as stabbing them repeatedly with a knife.
The court case with the farmer who shot the burglars was because he basically shot them with a shotgun as they were running away.
An excellent point. For that price, you could seriously upgrade the CPU instead.
OK, so let me get this straight. You're saying that software patents will stop/discourage companies from ripping people off and producing crap?
Firstly, the companies that 'rip people off' (ie charge high prices for commercial software) are the ones who will benefit most from software patents. How, exactly are people going to not get 'ripped off' if software patents become law?
Secondly, please explain to us how software patents will lead to better software, ie not 'produce crap'? Software patents will make it harder for smaller companies to compete due to more legal complications. Less competition will lead to less quality.
Another solution would be to force ISPs to stop their internet access for a reasonable length of time after a 24 hour warning that their machine is infected. It would stop the problem, and discourage them. Making it a criminal act could cause quite a few problems.
Yes, the less vulnerable systems there are, the harder it is to create a botnet, and the less effective the DoS attacks.
Personally, I'm in favour of some sort of simple built-in software DRM that by default only lets 'certified' executables run, and obviously can be turned off by people who know what they're doing.
This isn't flamebait, he's making a point.
Most 'normal' users really don't seem to give a damn if their computeris being hijacked, as long as they don't notice it. And the same users won't undertand that their 56k line is one of many, which adds up to an enormous amount of bandwidth.
The main problem is that all operating systems look and feel sufficiently different to make that damned difficult. It has been attempted with Swing and SWT for Java with some success.
However, different widget sizes, different fonts and different standards for making a UI make it really, really difficult to make a library that will work properly on anything while looking like a native application.
Same with any cooling system. If it fails, the thing it cools is fucked. Unless you have redundant fans, in which case you'll get a load of people complaining that it's too noisy.
However, if you RTFA, you would have seen that they have gone to the trouble of getting the fan from CoolerMaster, so it's probably quite high quality.
Before OpenSolaris was released, there was a load of complaining about CDDL and GPL incompatibility, and some people were even trying to push the insane idea that Sun would pull a SCO. Everyone seemed to eventually come to the sensible conclusion that people who contribute to the Linux kernel should stay away from the Solaris kernel.
On the first day of release, people who contribute to the Linux kernel start looking through the Solaris kernel. What the FUCK are they thinking?
To make Debian/SunOS, you probably wouldn't need to mix CDDL and GPL code. There's nothing to stop CDDL and GPL binaries co-existing together.
Just out of interest, has anyone started working on this? I've got a bit of free time and would like to look into it.
You can run it on Linux with Cedega. There's a bit of a nasty performance hit though.
As long as it isn't a DoS attack, it's probably fair game given that the attacker is rather unlikely to be able to report you.
However, you have to remember that most attacks are performed via compromised systems.
Nobody's begging for those companies to be broken up
That's because none of those companies are monopolies.
That is exactly the same argument that is used by MS sympathisers when the issue of Netscape is brought up. It is completely and utterly flawed.
We've been through this before. This is not anything to do with the quality of the product, it is that MS has a monopoly on operating systems, and they are using that monopoly to not just include, but heavily integrate other pieces of software to get into other markets. Realplayer is bloated probably because they've been desperately trying to find a way of competing with a product that is pre-installed into well over 90% of home computers.
Looking through Google, it appears you are correct (thanks for that, didn't know about that one). However, the grandparent states:
Intel is reluctant to release their ISA documentation
In present tense, suggesting that Intel currently does not release any of their ISA documention, which is clearly wrong and quite misleading. So you can see where the confusion comes from.
The ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) is the specification that is needed before writing an OS, compiler or any other low-level software for a given CPU. It's no secret, especially for a very widely used architecture like x86.
In fact, there's this.
Look on job sites. Almost every decent vacancy requires a degree, some with a minimum of a 2:1.
A lot of people on here seem to think they are 'above' getting a degree, that they're too smart for that and after school they can just stroll into a job because of their enormous intelligence. That only works for a very, very small number of people.
A degree shows that you at least have a basic understanding of the subject, and have spent a lot of money, time and effort in the subject area of your choice. Who in their right mind would employ some kid into a reponsible job who had just finished school, had no proof that he knew shit, and had the arrogance to think he didn't need a degree?
DirectX 9.
Good point, but in order to make an x86 chip which would be sufficiently different to make generic x86 chips not work with OS X would be an awful lot more work than simply having a custom cache size.
However, maybe it could be economical to do it if Apple could sell enough systems.
There's a presentation done by the guy who hacked the XBox. If you look at the lengths he went to, and how obviously smart he was, you'll see that Apple has zero chance of stopping OS X running on a normal x86 machine. I'll be very surprised if Intel fabricate a specialised x86 CPU just for them.
While I agree with you that many will still buy Apple machines because it's 'easy', and of course they'll still get tech support, It'll be well under a year after release before the first pre-cracked OS X/x86 torrent is available download, which will mean they could lose quite a bit of business from the geek population.
Surely Apple won't be designing a new chipset themselves to go with the x86 Mac? It would be one hell of a lot cheaper to go with a regular Intel chipset which would cost less and already be known to work properly.
If they want to use hardware incompatibility to stop people running OS X on a regular PC (yeah right!), there are quite a few other cheaper and easier ways to go about it.