Your implying they can't use the car which also implies that if they wouldn't use it anyways, it's ok.
I'm implying nothing. It's a _fact_ that physical property cannot be in different places simultaneously.
Suppose the rental company closes at 3pm on Friday and won't open again until 8 am on Monday and the use of the rental car was completely within that time? Whether or not they could use it is now irrelevant because we know they wouldn't be in a position to make use of it.
There are still the issues of wear and tear, and risk of damage/loss, to deal with. Again, issues inherent to physical property.
It took another thread for me to realize this but you seem to be focusing on the actual copyrighted material itself instead of a legal right granted to the creator/owner.
The two are inseparable. Without the law, copyright is meaningless because it is a wholly artificial and arbitrary construct.
If the law states that I am the only person who can do something, and I do that for a fee, then when you do it or whoever does it without my consent has taken a profit away from me.
No, they have not.
That fact that you now have and use the copyrighted material and obtained that material in a way I didn't consent to means that I lost a profit on you getting that material.
No, it does not.
Your costs are not different with us there or not. But you can't deny the fact that your out $25 dollars by our trespassing and entering illegally.
Certainly I can, because "had we not sneaked in, we never would have went to the movies". You weren't going to pay me. Whether or not you see the movie does not change this fact.
Your use of their rights is no different then you taking someone's care for a joy ride or living in their rental house without their permission while they are trying to lease it to someone.
It is, in fact, fundamentally different because physical property and copyrighted information are completely different things.
There's a rather important aspect of this that's not discussed - how does this code get onto the computer in the first place to be executed during boot ?
First, I didn't support that claim or seriously imply you did, it was what you essentially said though.
No, it was not. What I said was
The rental company cannot rent out the car if you've "borrowed" it for the weekend.
The point being if you have the car, then it is quite literally impossible for anyone else to use it. This does not apply in the case of copyright infringement, where the status of the original (and therefore the ability to "use" it) remains unchanged.
however in the real world, we take wear and tear off of value and the amount of wear and tear for the usage I described wouldn't have an effect on the value or the life of the car. It's still insignificant.
It's still more than "none". Further, the consequences of an accident are potentially quite high (eg: if the car is written off). Again, this is infinitely more than any such risk involved in copyright infringement.
The point you seem to be missing, which is why comparing used of physical property to copyright infringement is fundamentally invalid, is that a piece of physical property has genuine and inherent scarcity. It cannot be used in multiple places at the same time and its utility can be trivially reduced and/or eliminated (accident, theft, breakdown, etc). No matter how many times you try to compare "borrowing" or "stealing" any form of physical property to copyright infringement, this fundamental flaw with the comparison will not change.
You use means that they lost a profit when someone deprived the owner of the ability to profit from their exclusive rights.
No, it does not. You are, again, begging the question.
Hint: just because someone has taken a copy of something "for free", doesn't imply they would have paid for it otherwise. Further, copyright in no way grants a right to profit.
I think that's a pipe dream which doesn't take human nature ("why pay when I can take it for free?") into account.
Everyone values their time. Some do more than others, but everyone does it to some degree.
Hence, even stuff that is "free" is not, because you have to spend time finding and downloading it. So long as your "cost of convenience" is lower than the "cost of free", you'll be able to sell stuff.
Bill Gates took a common good, walled it off and called it his property. He wasn't a shrewd businessman. He was a thief who destroyed massive amounts of value, created chaos, misunderstanding and distrust among technical workers and set both ethics and technology back decades. There are few if any individuals in the history of mankind who have caused more damage to our species than Bill Gates did. He ought to be shot in the face and forced to apologize to the person who shot him.
The irony that when Gates was in control, Microsoft was more aggressive on the business side, and since Ballmer took over, they've been working a lot harder on the technology side?
No. Perhaps you can offer some examples that compare and contrast so we can understand what you mean by "business" and "technology" ?
Yes, it is. The Government has no right to be sticking it's nose into the home.
You have already agreed that it does:
Parents should be able to raise their kids as they see fit, provided they aren't abusing them.
The only discussion here is about the semantics. You already agree with the principle.
If the kids (or parent for that matter) actually harm somebody then that's another matter entirely but you don't have the right to bring the thought police into my house to make sure I'm only passing on politically acceptable ideas to my children.
This is a straw man. No-one is suggesting the "thought police" will "come into your house" to ensure you are "only passing on politically acceptable ideas to my children".
While ignoring all of my examples. I could make the argument that raising your kids to be communists or scientologists could result in harm to others but you glossed over those examples because you know it's not as PC to attack political ideals as it is to attack racism.
No, I *ignored* them because they were straw men about "taking children away" mixed up with disingenuous invocations of boogeymen like "thought police" and "political correctness".
Since you seem to have lost sight of it, the original point was "kids should have access to certain types of information no matter how their parents feel about it". The only person suggesting anything else, is you.
And one of those rights is the right to pass my morals and ideals onto my offspring.
Society believes that this is only true up to a point, after which those offspring need to be "protected", lending force of law to certain moral issues. It happens both ways, as well (exhibit A: laws against gay marriage), so don't even bother trying to make any ridiculous assertions about "political correctness" or "liberals".
Your problem is that you are trying to make a black and white argument about an issue that, like most, is shades of grey.
I'd advocating a system that keeps the Government out of the business of regulating the thoughts, morals and ideals that you pass onto your children.
When said "thoughts, morals and ideals" could quite easily result in harm to others, this is not a bad thing.
Child abuse isn't just about lack of food and regular beatings.
Nice strawman. What do any of the examples I mentioned have to do with serial killers?
It's not a straw man, it's an example. You are arguing society has no reason to be concerned what parents are teaching their children - whatever that might be - and depriving them alternative viewpoints. I am offering an example of where that may not be true.
You might like to think every man is an island, but it simply isn't true. You live in a group of people and that entails responsibilities as well as rights.
And parents have a right to have a say in that educational process. At the end of the day the education system exists to teach us about math, science, culture, history, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't exist to tell us how we should feel about our fellow human beings or to teach us morality.
So which aspects of, say, homosexuality being natural, black people not being inherently inferior and birth control options don't fall under the auspices of "math, science, culture, history, blah, blah, blah" ?
No, I don't think that and why would you assume that I do?
Because you are advocating a system that actively facilitates it.
What I think is that people have the right to raise their offspring with a minimal amount of interference from the state. The state has the right to interfere if if the offspring are being physically abused, malnourished, neglected, etc. It shouldn't have the right to interfere because it doesn't agree with the morals or lack thereof that I'm passing onto my children.
Ah. So if parents are raising their children to be psychopathic serial killers, you don't feel society has any justification for action ?
Just think about it for a minute. Where do you draw the line? If you can take children away from a racist because of what he or she believes can you also take them away from a scientologist? What about someone that holds an extremely unpopular political viewpoint, like a committed communist? What about the pastor that believes homosexuality is a sin? Can the state interfere in the upbringing of those children as well or do we reserve the thought police for the 'R' word?
Who said anything about "taking children away" ? This is a discussion about what information children should be exposed to as part of their education.
With Open Source, I can try to tackle the problem myself, or let someone else tackle it. Or, if I'm not that savvy at all, there are forums I can go to for help that don't require me to register or have bought a product or some other crap.
How is this meaningfully different to [most] closed source ?
Wait a minute, I hear you saying, why is the training cost negative? Because I learnt the system myself, saving myself the $2200 it would have cost me to get Sun training (web course, which is the cheapest option).
Where is the line item for charging the time it took you to gain this knowledge and experience ?
Really ? You seriously think a society is better off if some of its members are raised to think they are inherently superior to others, simply because of the colour of their skin, or some other equally superficial and irrelevant attribute ?
Sorry, again I disagree. The State has no right telling David Duke that he needs to teach his kids an enlightened view of African-Americans.
However, society as whole - whom the State is the representative of - does.
And how the hell did you read my comment of "shield my kids from a lifestyle that I don't approve of" and make the leap to "violently racist" anyway?
Because a great deal of intolerance and bigotry is frequently dressed up as "something I disagree with". *You* may not do that. Others will, and use your argument to justify it.
I disagree. Parents should be able to raise their kids as they see fit, provided they aren't abusing them. Why is it any business of the state if I want to shield my kids from a lifestyle that I may not approve of?
One reason is because if you raise your children as violently racist, homophobic neo-nazis, they become a threat to civil society, something that most certainly *is* the government's business.
Actually. I think it might well go the other way. That Oracle decided to fork/clone Red Hat shows one thing - Oracle WANTS to have an OS.
There is a vast gulf of difference between taking another OS and changing the paintwork, and actually having to do all the work yourself.
Oracle clearly wants the former, for branding and money extraction purposes. It's rather questionable if they want to deal with the substantial expense of the latter.
Yes it did. At release, you simply could not buy hardware that could run OS X 10.0 well. Indeed, this quite arguably remained true all the way through to 10.2.
For all the complaints about Vista's performance, you could still buy a PC more than beefy enough to run it quickly for under a grand US$ even on the day it was released. It took Apple a couple of *years* to a) release hardware fast enough, and b) optimise OS X sufficiently, that it could be considered "fast".
Hence, we have a new Windows in the pipeline already.
What do you mean "already" ? By the time Windows 7 is released, Vista will have been out for 3+ years, which is about the average time between Windows releases.
There seems to be this ongoing myth that Windows 7 is being "rushed", when it's taking pretty much as long as it should - around 3 years.
Microsoft made it impossible for me to copy files around between USB keys, dvds and hard disks with anything like the speed of XP for reasons they've never explained.
The speed is the same, it's just the progress bar in Vista is more honest.
Right. It's not like Microsoft would ever do anything like change the way certain files are handled by the OS or hardware based upon whether the contents of those files could possibly have been copyrighted.
Correct. So... Your point is ?
<RHETORICAL>
Or is this another gross misunderstanding of how Vista's DRM works ?
</RHETORICAL>
Unless by launch point I mean - renamed a rev of OS/2 to WinNT.
The OS that was released and marketed as OS/2, is in no way similar, derivative, a "launch point", or anything else with regards to Windows NT. They are completely different OSes and code bases, who share nothing except a deprecated API and - for an early alpha of Windows NT - a product name.
I remember the history quite well. In the early-mid '90s I was a (younger and more foolish) fervent OS/2 user.
As for OS/2 Warp not being a complete re-write, your objection to my language use may be correct - the re-write was complete and features such as true preemptive multi-tasking appeared in Warp.
So long as you're using arbitrary phrases like "true preemptive multi-tasking", the argument is meaningless (note that, depending on your perspective, Windows 2.0/386 was "pre-emptively multitasking"). The fact is that OS/2 3.x (Warp) is a clear derivative, and ongoing development of OS/2 2.x, which was a similarly clear and obvious development from OS/2 1.x. They're all just major releases of the same codebase.
Windows NT, however, is not. It is a completely different design and codebase. No-one with even a basic understanding of OS design would look at the two and consider them related when they are so fundamentally different.
So, my comment stands - the hallmark of the completed re-write corresponded to the name change.
"Warp" was a marketing name (and one developed relatively lated in the product development, at that), not a "name change". Internally it was known as OS/2 3.0, just like Vista is internally known as Windows NT 6.x (and Windows 95 was Windows 4.0, etc, etc). It was no more a "re-write" of OS/2 than Linux 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 or 2.6 were a "re-write" of Linux 1.3. It was just another revision (albeit a fairly major one) of the same codebase.
BTW, the multi-tasking improvement in Win95, released LATER, didn't measure up. If you found Warp and 95 to be a toss-up, then YMMV. If you're comparing pre-Warp to Win95, you're unfair.
Windows 95 traded correctness for legacy support (and if correctness was more important to you, Microsoft had Windows NT as well).
See, it's not just about multitasking, it's the whole package. Further, Warp has its own problems - like the infamous Single Input Queue. Windows 95's multitasking and stability - particularly for systems that didn't have any "legacy drivers" - was only marginally worse than OS/2's, which when combined with the substantially better compatibility, resulted in an overall better package. Windows 95 was the first and best example of how the market will choose an OS that does what it wants, rather than one that has the computer scientist stamp of approval (not that OS/2 was anything particularly outstanding in that regard, either - at least not by the mid '90s).
Win3 did not appear until 1990. I would contend that that was an OS in its own right. OS/2 was already out by then.
Strange that typically the argument is that even Windows 95 was just a "DOS shell"...
At the time (mid-late '80s), Windows was marketed as the "consumer OS" and OS/2 was the "professional OS". The roadmap was then for OS/2 2.x to replace Windows 2.x and 3.x to become the "consumer OS" and NT OS/2 (a completely new ground-up design) was going to be OS/2 3.x, the "professional OS".
This all went sour with the famous "divorce". Since "OS/2 NT" was Microsoft's work, they took it and left, renaming it Windows NT, and released it as their "professional OS", keeping Windows 3.x (and later Windows 9x) as the "consumer OS". IBM, OTOH, were left with an older, less capable codebase in OS/2 2.x, that needed serious work just to become OS/2 3.x (inferior to Windows NT in basically every way except UI), then much more improved as 4.x ("Warp"). Interestingly, IBM were still paying Microsoft royalties for their work on OS/2 (primarily HPFS) even for OS/2 4.0 (the msot obvious reason why "Warp" wasn't a "re
They might have even discovered that Microsoft burned them with an excruciating POS.
OS/2 was as much IBM's work as Microsoft's.
They might have watched in horror while Microsoft used OS2 as a launch point for an OS that had none of OS2's bugs. And they have gone berserk when Microsoft called their new product Windows.
In no way was OS/2 a "launch point" for Windows (either DOS-based or NT).
And they might have decided to completely re-write the operating system on their own. And they might have succeeded. And they might have called it OS2 Warp.
OS/2 Warp was in no way a "complete re-write".
And they might have gotten lots of press FUD while their OS completely blew Windows 95 out of the water.
Except it didn't. I used OS/2 for several years, it had more than enough bugs and quirks (to say nothing of compatibility problems) for it and Windows 95 to be a toss-up.
By tying IE to Windows, making it free, and threatening OEMs and partners not to do allow Netscape, MS did engage in some illegal behavior.
MacOS and OS/2 were already being distributed with web browsers before Microsoft started doing it with Windows. Why should including functionality provided by competitors, and in growing demand by end users, be illegal ?
Slashdot Mirror
Your implying they can't use the car which also implies that if they wouldn't use it anyways, it's ok.
I'm implying nothing. It's a _fact_ that physical property cannot be in different places simultaneously.
Suppose the rental company closes at 3pm on Friday and won't open again until 8 am on Monday and the use of the rental car was completely within that time? Whether or not they could use it is now irrelevant because we know they wouldn't be in a position to make use of it.
There are still the issues of wear and tear, and risk of damage/loss, to deal with. Again, issues inherent to physical property.
It took another thread for me to realize this but you seem to be focusing on the actual copyrighted material itself instead of a legal right granted to the creator/owner.
The two are inseparable. Without the law, copyright is meaningless because it is a wholly artificial and arbitrary construct.
If the law states that I am the only person who can do something, and I do that for a fee, then when you do it or whoever does it without my consent has taken a profit away from me.
No, they have not.
That fact that you now have and use the copyrighted material and obtained that material in a way I didn't consent to means that I lost a profit on you getting that material.
No, it does not.
Your costs are not different with us there or not. But you can't deny the fact that your out $25 dollars by our trespassing and entering illegally.
Certainly I can, because "had we not sneaked in, we never would have went to the movies". You weren't going to pay me. Whether or not you see the movie does not change this fact.
Your use of their rights is no different then you taking someone's care for a joy ride or living in their rental house without their permission while they are trying to lease it to someone.
It is, in fact, fundamentally different because physical property and copyrighted information are completely different things.
There's a rather important aspect of this that's not discussed - how does this code get onto the computer in the first place to be executed during boot ?
First, I didn't support that claim or seriously imply you did, it was what you essentially said though.
No, it was not. What I said was
The rental company cannot rent out the car if you've "borrowed" it for the weekend.
The point being if you have the car, then it is quite literally impossible for anyone else to use it. This does not apply in the case of copyright infringement, where the status of the original (and therefore the ability to "use" it) remains unchanged.
however in the real world, we take wear and tear off of value and the amount of wear and tear for the usage I described wouldn't have an effect on the value or the life of the car. It's still insignificant.
It's still more than "none". Further, the consequences of an accident are potentially quite high (eg: if the car is written off). Again, this is infinitely more than any such risk involved in copyright infringement.
The point you seem to be missing, which is why comparing used of physical property to copyright infringement is fundamentally invalid, is that a piece of physical property has genuine and inherent scarcity. It cannot be used in multiple places at the same time and its utility can be trivially reduced and/or eliminated (accident, theft, breakdown, etc). No matter how many times you try to compare "borrowing" or "stealing" any form of physical property to copyright infringement, this fundamental flaw with the comparison will not change.
You use means that they lost a profit when someone deprived the owner of the ability to profit from their exclusive rights.
No, it does not. You are, again, begging the question.
Hint: just because someone has taken a copy of something "for free", doesn't imply they would have paid for it otherwise. Further, copyright in no way grants a right to profit.
So then it would be ok if the rental company didn't have anyone wanting to rent the car?
People can wander up and rent a car at any time. How can they know until after the fact whether or not the car will or won't be needed ?
The wear and tear is minimal and the possibility of something doesn't mean it's there.
"Minimal" and "maybe" are still infinitely higher values than "none" and "never".
Anyways, if your using the property, even though it's intangible, your still benefiting from it without compensating the owner.
So ?
When the owner demands compensation, and you fail to provide it, your use means a lot profit.
No, it does not (particularly in the context of copyright infringement). You are begging the question.
I think that's a pipe dream which doesn't take human nature ("why pay when I can take it for free?") into account.
Everyone values their time. Some do more than others, but everyone does it to some degree.
Hence, even stuff that is "free" is not, because you have to spend time finding and downloading it. So long as your "cost of convenience" is lower than the "cost of free", you'll be able to sell stuff.
It's still a lost profit if you steal a rental car for the weekend but never would have paid the rent on it.
*sigh*
Why do people still come up with fundamentally broken comparisons to physical property ? Has the difference not already been explained enough times ?
1. The rental company cannot rent out the car if you've "borrowed" it for the weekend.
2. Wear and tear on the vehicle.
3. Possibility of accident.
None of the above are applicable to copyright infringement.
Bill Gates took a common good, walled it off and called it his property. He wasn't a shrewd businessman. He was a thief who destroyed massive amounts of value, created chaos, misunderstanding and distrust among technical workers and set both ethics and technology back decades. There are few if any individuals in the history of mankind who have caused more damage to our species than Bill Gates did. He ought to be shot in the face and forced to apologize to the person who shot him.
You're an idiot.
The irony that when Gates was in control, Microsoft was more aggressive on the business side, and since Ballmer took over, they've been working a lot harder on the technology side?
No. Perhaps you can offer some examples that compare and contrast so we can understand what you mean by "business" and "technology" ?
Yes, it is. The Government has no right to be sticking it's nose into the home.
You have already agreed that it does:
Parents should be able to raise their kids as they see fit, provided they aren't abusing them.
The only discussion here is about the semantics. You already agree with the principle.
If the kids (or parent for that matter) actually harm somebody then that's another matter entirely but you don't have the right to bring the thought police into my house to make sure I'm only passing on politically acceptable ideas to my children.
This is a straw man. No-one is suggesting the "thought police" will "come into your house" to ensure you are "only passing on politically acceptable ideas to my children".
While ignoring all of my examples. I could make the argument that raising your kids to be communists or scientologists could result in harm to others but you glossed over those examples because you know it's not as PC to attack political ideals as it is to attack racism.
No, I *ignored* them because they were straw men about "taking children away" mixed up with disingenuous invocations of boogeymen like "thought police" and "political correctness".
Since you seem to have lost sight of it, the original point was "kids should have access to certain types of information no matter how their parents feel about it". The only person suggesting anything else, is you.
And one of those rights is the right to pass my morals and ideals onto my offspring.
Society believes that this is only true up to a point, after which those offspring need to be "protected", lending force of law to certain moral issues. It happens both ways, as well (exhibit A: laws against gay marriage), so don't even bother trying to make any ridiculous assertions about "political correctness" or "liberals".
Your problem is that you are trying to make a black and white argument about an issue that, like most, is shades of grey.
I'd advocating a system that keeps the Government out of the business of regulating the thoughts, morals and ideals that you pass onto your children.
When said "thoughts, morals and ideals" could quite easily result in harm to others, this is not a bad thing.
Child abuse isn't just about lack of food and regular beatings.
Nice strawman. What do any of the examples I mentioned have to do with serial killers?
It's not a straw man, it's an example. You are arguing society has no reason to be concerned what parents are teaching their children - whatever that might be - and depriving them alternative viewpoints. I am offering an example of where that may not be true.
You might like to think every man is an island, but it simply isn't true. You live in a group of people and that entails responsibilities as well as rights.
And parents have a right to have a say in that educational process. At the end of the day the education system exists to teach us about math, science, culture, history, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't exist to tell us how we should feel about our fellow human beings or to teach us morality.
So which aspects of, say, homosexuality being natural, black people not being inherently inferior and birth control options don't fall under the auspices of "math, science, culture, history, blah, blah, blah" ?
No, I don't think that and why would you assume that I do?
Because you are advocating a system that actively facilitates it.
What I think is that people have the right to raise their offspring with a minimal amount of interference from the state. The state has the right to interfere if if the offspring are being physically abused, malnourished, neglected, etc. It shouldn't have the right to interfere because it doesn't agree with the morals or lack thereof that I'm passing onto my children.
Ah. So if parents are raising their children to be psychopathic serial killers, you don't feel society has any justification for action ?
Just think about it for a minute. Where do you draw the line? If you can take children away from a racist because of what he or she believes can you also take them away from a scientologist? What about someone that holds an extremely unpopular political viewpoint, like a committed communist? What about the pastor that believes homosexuality is a sin? Can the state interfere in the upbringing of those children as well or do we reserve the thought police for the 'R' word?
Who said anything about "taking children away" ? This is a discussion about what information children should be exposed to as part of their education.
With Open Source, I can try to tackle the problem myself, or let someone else tackle it. Or, if I'm not that savvy at all, there are forums I can go to for help that don't require me to register or have bought a product or some other crap.
How is this meaningfully different to [most] closed source ?
Wait a minute, I hear you saying, why is the training cost negative? Because I learnt the system myself, saving myself the $2200 it would have cost me to get Sun training (web course, which is the cheapest option).
Where is the line item for charging the time it took you to gain this knowledge and experience ?
No, I'm sorry, it doesn't.
Really ? You seriously think a society is better off if some of its members are raised to think they are inherently superior to others, simply because of the colour of their skin, or some other equally superficial and irrelevant attribute ?
Sorry, again I disagree. The State has no right telling David Duke that he needs to teach his kids an enlightened view of African-Americans.
However, society as whole - whom the State is the representative of - does.
And how the hell did you read my comment of "shield my kids from a lifestyle that I don't approve of" and make the leap to "violently racist" anyway?
Because a great deal of intolerance and bigotry is frequently dressed up as "something I disagree with". *You* may not do that. Others will, and use your argument to justify it.
I disagree. Parents should be able to raise their kids as they see fit, provided they aren't abusing them. Why is it any business of the state if I want to shield my kids from a lifestyle that I may not approve of?
One reason is because if you raise your children as violently racist, homophobic neo-nazis, they become a threat to civil society, something that most certainly *is* the government's business.
Actually. I think it might well go the other way. That Oracle decided to fork/clone Red Hat shows one thing - Oracle WANTS to have an OS.
There is a vast gulf of difference between taking another OS and changing the paintwork, and actually having to do all the work yourself.
Oracle clearly wants the former, for branding and money extraction purposes. It's rather questionable if they want to deal with the substantial expense of the latter.
As a user of both, I assure you: no it didn't.
Yes it did. At release, you simply could not buy hardware that could run OS X 10.0 well. Indeed, this quite arguably remained true all the way through to 10.2.
For all the complaints about Vista's performance, you could still buy a PC more than beefy enough to run it quickly for under a grand US$ even on the day it was released. It took Apple a couple of *years* to a) release hardware fast enough, and b) optimise OS X sufficiently, that it could be considered "fast".
Hence, we have a new Windows in the pipeline already.
What do you mean "already" ? By the time Windows 7 is released, Vista will have been out for 3+ years, which is about the average time between Windows releases.
There seems to be this ongoing myth that Windows 7 is being "rushed", when it's taking pretty much as long as it should - around 3 years.
Microsoft made it impossible for me to copy files around between USB keys, dvds and hard disks with anything like the speed of XP for reasons they've never explained.
The speed is the same, it's just the progress bar in Vista is more honest.
Right. It's not like Microsoft would ever do anything like change the way certain files are handled by the OS or hardware based upon whether the contents of those files could possibly have been copyrighted.
Correct. So... Your point is ?
<RHETORICAL>
Or is this another gross misunderstanding of how Vista's DRM works ?
</RHETORICAL>
Unless by launch point I mean - renamed a rev of OS/2 to WinNT.
The OS that was released and marketed as OS/2, is in no way similar, derivative, a "launch point", or anything else with regards to Windows NT. They are completely different OSes and code bases, who share nothing except a deprecated API and - for an early alpha of Windows NT - a product name.
I remember the history quite well. In the early-mid '90s I was a (younger and more foolish) fervent OS/2 user.
As for OS/2 Warp not being a complete re-write, your objection to my language use may be correct - the re-write was complete and features such as true preemptive multi-tasking appeared in Warp.
So long as you're using arbitrary phrases like "true preemptive multi-tasking", the argument is meaningless (note that, depending on your perspective, Windows 2.0/386 was "pre-emptively multitasking"). The fact is that OS/2 3.x (Warp) is a clear derivative, and ongoing development of OS/2 2.x, which was a similarly clear and obvious development from OS/2 1.x. They're all just major releases of the same codebase.
Windows NT, however, is not. It is a completely different design and codebase. No-one with even a basic understanding of OS design would look at the two and consider them related when they are so fundamentally different.
So, my comment stands - the hallmark of the completed re-write corresponded to the name change.
"Warp" was a marketing name (and one developed relatively lated in the product development, at that), not a "name change". Internally it was known as OS/2 3.0, just like Vista is internally known as Windows NT 6.x (and Windows 95 was Windows 4.0, etc, etc). It was no more a "re-write" of OS/2 than Linux 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 or 2.6 were a "re-write" of Linux 1.3. It was just another revision (albeit a fairly major one) of the same codebase.
BTW, the multi-tasking improvement in Win95, released LATER, didn't measure up. If you found Warp and 95 to be a toss-up, then YMMV. If you're comparing pre-Warp to Win95, you're unfair.
Windows 95 traded correctness for legacy support (and if correctness was more important to you, Microsoft had Windows NT as well).
See, it's not just about multitasking, it's the whole package. Further, Warp has its own problems - like the infamous Single Input Queue. Windows 95's multitasking and stability - particularly for systems that didn't have any "legacy drivers" - was only marginally worse than OS/2's, which when combined with the substantially better compatibility, resulted in an overall better package. Windows 95 was the first and best example of how the market will choose an OS that does what it wants, rather than one that has the computer scientist stamp of approval (not that OS/2 was anything particularly outstanding in that regard, either - at least not by the mid '90s).
Win3 did not appear until 1990. I would contend that that was an OS in its own right. OS/2 was already out by then.
Strange that typically the argument is that even Windows 95 was just a "DOS shell"...
At the time (mid-late '80s), Windows was marketed as the "consumer OS" and OS/2 was the "professional OS". The roadmap was then for OS/2 2.x to replace Windows 2.x and 3.x to become the "consumer OS" and NT OS/2 (a completely new ground-up design) was going to be OS/2 3.x, the "professional OS".
This all went sour with the famous "divorce". Since "OS/2 NT" was Microsoft's work, they took it and left, renaming it Windows NT, and released it as their "professional OS", keeping Windows 3.x (and later Windows 9x) as the "consumer OS". IBM, OTOH, were left with an older, less capable codebase in OS/2 2.x, that needed serious work just to become OS/2 3.x (inferior to Windows NT in basically every way except UI), then much more improved as 4.x ("Warp"). Interestingly, IBM were still paying Microsoft royalties for their work on OS/2 (primarily HPFS) even for OS/2 4.0 (the msot obvious reason why "Warp" wasn't a "re
Stupid Slashcode AC'ed me.
They might have even discovered that Microsoft burned them with an excruciating POS.
OS/2 was as much IBM's work as Microsoft's.
They might have watched in horror while Microsoft used OS2 as a launch point for an OS that had none of OS2's bugs. And they have gone berserk when Microsoft called their new product Windows.
In no way was OS/2 a "launch point" for Windows (either DOS-based or NT).
And they might have decided to completely re-write the operating system on their own. And they might have succeeded. And they might have called it OS2 Warp.
OS/2 Warp was in no way a "complete re-write".
And they might have gotten lots of press FUD while their OS completely blew Windows 95 out of the water.
Except it didn't. I used OS/2 for several years, it had more than enough bugs and quirks (to say nothing of compatibility problems) for it and Windows 95 to be a toss-up.
I guess that your "usable" IE wasn't versions 1-3.x. IE4 was only barely there.
Navigator 3.x vs IE 3.x was a toss-up (Navigator generally won by virtue of inertia). IE 4.x was vastly superior in pretty much every measurable way.
By tying IE to Windows, making it free, and threatening OEMs and partners not to do allow Netscape, MS did engage in some illegal behavior.
MacOS and OS/2 were already being distributed with web browsers before Microsoft started doing it with Windows. Why should including functionality provided by competitors, and in growing demand by end users, be illegal ?