If is this the case, then why does the IE7 beta include so many features from Firefox/Opera like tabbed browsing and support for RSS feeds?
Because maybe Gates doesn't use any of the features Firefox has over IE ?
Added to that, maybe he recognises that some people _would_ use those features that Firefox has, even if he doesn't ?
Every single person that I've shown Firefox to, no matter what their background, has switched over and not gone back.
Funny you should say that, because just about every person I've shown Firefox to has wondered what the difference is - and that's after I've had to give Firefox the IE icon to actually get them actually using it in the first place.
It's not the copying of features, its the obvious dishonesty and sudden turnaround (for what appear to be completely profit driven, rather than user experience driven reasons) that piss people off.
I find it amazing you can say that right after this:
"A year or two on, and these features are now in a new release of IE that's been hustled out the door."
Without disappearing in a little puff of hypocrisy and contradiction.
How is adding features to IE present in other browsers - currently taking marketshare from IE - not a textbook example of adding features because the *users* want them ?
Come to think of it, how can there even be a difference between a "turnaround" that is "user-driven" or "profit-driven" in a company that sells software ?
But point (which you have so clearly missed) is that the only way microsoft knows how to innovate is to copy, clone, or outright steal other people's innovations
Whatever IE writes in the title, when it get's long enough, you can't tell one window from the other. It's happened to me so often that I gave up and switched to FireFox.
The scenario with tabs is identical - open enough of them and you can't tell them apart.
And who is gonna handle it? The most violent nation in the world. This is not a dig on the american gung-ho way that seems the norm these days, i'm just putting in the perspective of a foreigner.
I'm far from a rollicking fan of the US, but there's not exactly a long list of coutries I'd choose to be in control of this sort of thing in preference to America.
They had a built-in 2-port USB hub and the extra Back/Forward/Home, etc keys (useful for custom key mappings) but _didn't_ have the fucked-up reorganisation of the Home/End/Insert/Etc and arrow keys that plague today's models.
Before I gave up on Windows as a waste of time, XP had a SCREAMING HISSY over loading a hardware-maker's driver, 'cos it wasn't MS-signed. (Yes, it worked just fine, thank you.)
This is the quintessential example of how Microsoft can't win, no matter what they do.
Most Windows crashes are caused by buggy third-party drivers, so Microsoft institute a method of verifying drivers and allowing the end user to see that they are verified. On the other, end users complain because they have to answer a couple of dialogs when installing unverified drivers.
Ask a liberal why the government should stay out of my life socially, but not out of my life financially. Watch them twist in the wind as they try to rectify that one.
Oh, come one, that's _easy_. You pay taxes to spread the cost of otherwise prohibitively-expensive goods and services across all of society. It's fundamentally just a variation on the insurance principle.
The government should stay out of people's lives socially because their purpose is to keep the trains running and the water flowing, not to stop people voluntarily enjoying each other's bodies or singing songs.
Both the right and the left are hypocrites, just in different ways.
Or should we just call pro-choice "pro-baby-killing?"
We would if the "pro choice" movement were saying "all pregnant women should have an abortion", rather than "women should be able to have an abortion if they want to".
A large group of people (myself included) believe that software should be freely available to everyone for any purpose. This is much in line with the view that mathematics should be freely available, and that scientific discoveries should be published and peer reviewed.
I'm not entirely sure how you justify equating these two scenarios. Mathematics and scientific discoveries are neither products, nor services - they simply exist. Software, OTOH, does not meet this definition - it must be created by someone.
One could certainly argue that "mathematics and scientific discoveries" belong to no-one, therefore there is no way anybody can rightfully claim ownership, and with it, the moral right to restrict access.
However, the same argument could not be given for software. Or music. Or fiction. Or any of a number of other forms of "information" that copyright is meant to govern. These things must all be created (even though creating them is often no great achievement).
Very generally copyfighters want some kind of reform to make the laws serve their purpose.
Fundamentally, copyright is an artificial restriction imposed to facilitate scarcity in a product or service that does not naturally suffer from it - because scarcity is the only way we can ascertain value (and profit from it). It is, at best, a necessary evil.
The sooner everyone admits this (and stops wanking around with terms like "protecting artists' rights" and "progressing the sciences and arts") the sooner we might be able to have some form of reasonable copyright reform.
Certainly it does - you just need moderation, as you do with anything else (like, say, capitalism) to utilise the workable aspects and discard the unworkable ones.
Abortion may well be morally abhorent, it is however none of anyone's business except the mother.
I disagree. It is usually at least something of the father's business. It takes two to tango, after all.
While I fully support abortion-on-demand, even for reasons of simple birth control, but I do _not_ subscribe to the argument that the decision is only ever "the mother's business and no-one else's".
Ah, the typical Slashbot is nothing if not predictable.
It is thus perhaps fair to say that desktop-oriented Linux distributions that were available at the time of Windows XP's initial release were in some (perhaps many) cases not as secure as they perhaps could be; server-oriented distributions (i.e. your Windows 2003 equivalent) were never like this though.
I think you'll find several of the "server-oriented distributions" (eg: RHEL) shipped with some services on.
Not that default configuration is something that matters a great deal, in that market.
Incidentally, I don't prefer Windows 2003 because it is a "server" or any differently configured out of the box, I prefer it because it's faster and more responsive.
I personally was competent enough not to need one, but the fact remains that for most users, such software is a prerequisite on that platform, partly because of its prevalance and partly because of poor design (ActiveX, Windows Scripting, Microsoft Office macros, etc.).
Firstly, we're not discussing "most users", we're discussing *my* usage of Windows.
Secondly, there's very little - if anything - design-related that makes Windows more susceptible to viruses. A handful of default configuration settings, certainly, but nothing in the _design_.
It is of course correct that a user-level account will stop most malware, etc. in its tracks, but given that Windows makes user level accounts so difficult to work with (no generic OS X or, lately, Linux-style sudo prompting), this is not a particularly practical solution.
Actually this facility does exist, and has for years - the problem, as always, is getting developers to use it.
As I said, I've been using Windows from a regular user account for years. I've not bumped into any hassles that have a significant effect on day to day usage.
It appears you misunderstand my comment about firewalls.
Not at all. The difference between simply not listening on an interface and having a firewall block any traffic to an interface is largely semantics.
From a security point of view, Internet Explorer was perhaps Microsoft's biggest mistake.
So "everyone" (KDE, GNOME, OS X) having since gone down exactly the same design path must cause you a lot of grief, I assume ?
If we're going to get into a pissing contest about knowing the competition [...]
Only if you want to. Since you seem intent on ad-hominem style attacks on my knowledge of the targets of my comments, I find it necessary to point out your error.
I know Windows, which is why I feel more than qualified to make the statements above and below.
Strangely enough, so do I.
The point about dragging and dropping across Alt-Tabbing is retracted, although if memory serves, this is a recent addition (Windows 2000 or XP).
So was Expose. So is the whole OS X platform, by that measure, but you seem quite happy to talk about it like it's been around showing Windows up since the mid 90s.
Exposé, however, does not require the use of a mouse.
It certainly does to make it useful (doubly so in the context of a discussion about "drag & drop).
The CLI is one of the things that makes UN*X great - if you use it a little, you will come to understand this.
I spend most of my day interacting with the unix commandline in the process of adminning dozens of servers. I can't say I've ever felt the need for it with my _desktop_ tasks.
Mac OS X would be useless eye candy were it not for the UNIX base and the CLI that that provides.
On the contrary, OS X would still retain 99% of its usefulness and value for 99% of its userbase if the CLI weren't available. OS X may have a growing userbase from unix backgrounds, but the vast bulk of them are the Mac faithful who have been poo-pooing CLIs for over twenty years.
If your first comment is intented as humour, it fails to amuse. Having experienced the joy of a freshly infected Windows XP box firsthand, I find it hard to acquiesce to your terse dismissal, especially given that my statement is essentially irrefutable. Connect a "stock" Windows XP box to the Internet (and we can argue about the semantics of "stock" as much as you desire, but I am, for these purposes - given that it forms the majority of machines that we are considering - specifically Windows XP 5.1 sans SP1 and SP2), and it will get infected with a speed that is quite disarming. I must say when I first witnessed it myself, I was more than a little surprised. Could Windows really be this shit, I thought? The swiftly-delivered answer was, as the savvy will realise, "Yes, of course it can."
Your entire rant is, of course, completely irrelevant, as all products connected to a hostile network with a known vulnerability are equally as likely to be exploited - the only issue is the matter of how long. Naturally, the product with 95% market share will be (on average) exploited long before the product with less than 1% market share. Similarly aged versions of Linux and Solaris will also be - inevitably - exploited in time.
Interesting that so few people refer to Linux and Solaris - in general - as "shit" because if you take a 5-year-out-of-date version of both and connect them unprotected to a hostile network they will inevitably be exploited. Merely another outlet for your hypocrisy, I see.
Similarly, any OS X exploits will work quite well on versions of OS X that are unpatched against them. I'm curious as to why this doesn't mean OS X is "shit", however.
However, the financial and temporal costs of purchasing, installing and configuring a virus checker remain, and it is important not to forget that definitions subscriptions are kept up-to-date.
I have never purchased a virus scanner. Occasionally - maybe once a year (can't remember the last time I did it) - I will run one of the free on-line scanners over my machines out of sheer curiosity, but they are yet to detect any viruses on any of my Windows PCs.
Fortunately most viruses, worms, trojans and other forms of malware are stopped dead by a non-Admin account.
Far better, surely, to built a bucket without holes than to ask the user to do a job of patching it up.
When someone does that, you might have a point. While software continues to be written by people, however, you do not.
It is worth nothing that the default browsers that both Linux and Mac OS X include are not subject to the same "feature enhancements" that is Internet Explorer.
I am interested in your idea that any piece of browser software is bug free. Please tell me more.
As to patches, I will say only that Windows XP has had far more and that they are in some cases of a ridiculous size (consider SP2, for example).
Ever looked at the size of the patches for a fresh Red Hat 9 install ? Or a Solaris MU ? Giving Apple their annual $129 is a handy way to avoid those large downloads, but perhaps not the best in terms of economics.
Your point about non-admin accounts betrays a disturbing lack of knowledge about actual Windows usage. If you have ever tried to actually use non-Microsoft software on a non-admin account, you will perhaps understand the pain.
I have been using Windows NT daily from a regular user account since early 1996.
Your point about memory usage/caching is simply invalid - Windows's inability to properly use memory as cache is well-known - 1GB RAM is generally a shameful waste on Windows XP. No further comment required.
Funny how the most often levied complaint against Windows' VM is its *generosity* in dedicating memory to caching and propensity for swapping out running code to do so.
Your response to my point about functionality betrays another area in which you might do well to reacquaint yourself with the...er...compet
Wouldn't it be MORE likely that the record companies would invest MORE money and effort into better and stronger DRM and other non-copying technology, since they can would no longer be able to rely on the courts to help them make a buck?
Indeed they would - and this is _precisely_ how a free market would (and should) work without the distorting effects of copyright.
Why does everyone automatically think the the RIAA and others would just throw in the towel if copyright went away?
They wouldn't - but music would certainly become more prolific and easier to obtain.
Regardless of whether the quote is true, I'd still like to see the company that makes the OS and the company that makes software that runs on the OS be separate entities.
Please define "OS" and "software that runs on the OS".
In any case, I can only presume you are delusional.
Ah, I should have figured you'd just be as much of a hypocrite as the average/. drone, even after a comment like "I realise that to ask this is to break something of a taboo amongst the Linux faithful here, but why must operating system choice be dependent on politics rather than actual user need?".
Such as situating it behind a router so that it is not directly connected to the Internet, because, heaven forbid, if you don't, the machine will reboot within about 5 minutes and keep doing so for all eternity until fixed by someone who understands such things, [...]
False.
[...] installing a virus checker (at extra cost, both financially and to system resources) [...]
I've never used an active virus scanner on any of my Windows systems.
and ensuring that it is kept up-to-date, configuring a firewall (no longer necessary by default on SP2 installs, but you said "stock"), [...]
This is neither "hacking", nor "tweaking", it's common sense tasks that must be done on every platform.
installing and configuring a spyware checker, [...]
Never needed on of those either.
[...] downloading patches beyond number, [...]
Just like you do on every other OS, with an automated process ?
updating all your previously purchased software because it doesn't work with SP2 (this is somewhat superfluous, but I'm putting it in anyway, because SP2 borked a lot of stuff)...
Not really. Proportionally no worse than your average new version of OS X or Linux.
SP2 didn't break anything on any of my Windows systems. 10.4, OTOH, required a few things to be updated, as have numerous Linux updates.
You know how bad Windows XP is, and it goes without saying that Windows 2003 is not a solution for most users.
Actually I could quite happily use XP. There's little functional difference between the two and, if anything, 2003 requires _more_ tweaking than XP to get it into a usable state for a desktop machine.
Anyway, as should be readily discernible, the above list does not constitute "a handful of very minor tweaks".
Here's the _tweaks_ I do to an XP install to make it usable:
* Create a non-Admin user account.
* Revert to the Windows Classic theme.
* Use TweakUI to make similar Taskbar buttons group together, but not collapse into a single button.
* Change some Start Menu settings - number of applications in the recently used list, display My Documents as a menu, etc.
Applying updates, enabling a firewall (still not on in OS X by default, IIRC), etc are generic actions you have to perform on every platform.
Stability has got much better in Windows 2000/XP, granted. But performance-wise, it is still very poor, especially as regards caching, where Windows severely lags behind Linux or Mac OS X, or most any other OS you are to mention. It chugs. Badly.
Maybe you should try using it on a system with decent hardware that isn't memory-starved.
I've tried using OS X with a similar workload to my Windows PCs - on significantly more powerful Macs - and it simply can't do it. The whole thing just becomes to unresponsive to use without frustration. Linux+GNOME or KDE has fewer performance problems, but then I have to put up with the niggling inconsistencies of using them.
Things that I have come to rely on - like Spotlight and PDF output from any application on Mac OS X or a decent CLI (obviously a feature of any UN*X) - are totally absent from Windows.
Funny, things I have come to rely on like good performance, a decent file manager, keyboard shortcuts for task-switching that don't suck and quick, simple access to network resources are totally absent from OS X.
And the Start Menu blows.
It's _leagues_ ahead of that UI train wreck called the Dock.
If it does, an army of extremely volatile users will, with any luck, unleash a fiery hell.
I'm not sure what gives you that idea. If nothing else, the core of the remaining MacOS userbase has demonstrated they're prepared to stick with Apple through pretty much anything.
(For more, see here, where I conclude that one of the best things about the Mac (for Slashdot geeks, anyway), is that you get time back for hacking that you want to do, rather than hacking to make the goddamn thing work.)
I don't get it. What is all this "hacking" I'm supposed to have to do to get Windows to "work" ? I take a stock Windows XP (or, preferably, Windows 2003) installation, make a handful of very minor tweaks and I get a system whose combination of performance, stability and functionality I find unmatched amongst any of the alternatives (with a fairly heavy workload for a desktop machine).
I've used a lot of platforms and interfaces _extensively_. I don't have any trouble with Windows not "working". Quite to the contrary, after years of experimentation across many different systems I've found it to be the best environment to work in.
But you really have to accept it in some form - and accept the fact that of the two platforms (i.e. Windows and Mac), Apple offers you the far more palatable option, Microsoft's stance on DRM (through WMA, etc.) having been made depressingly plain years ago.
I'm not quite sure I see an appreciable difference. Both provide the necessary vehicle for content providers to be as generous or restrictive as they want. If you want to blame someone for difficulty accessing "intellectual property", put that blame where it belongs and not on the software developers. Shooting the messenger will not help fix the root problem.
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. [...]
I'm referring to Microsoft's invasive phone-home strategy (which causes all kinds of grief to legitimate users) [...]
Except for the vast bulk of legitimate users it doesn't, because so few of them upgrade their computers at all, let alone enough to trigger any reactivation sequence.
[...] and invasive scans just to install updates (I license software, I don't want snooping in my machine, you got my money and that's the only business that is yours; all your updater needs to know is version numbers of the OS and installed updates).
Invasive scans ?
See, for the vast majority of legitimate customers, Microsoft's "invasive" methods of checking whether or not you actually paid for their product aren't really invasive, nor are they inconvenient. They're simple, easily justifiable and quick.
Microsoft, unfortunately, don't have the same luxury that Apple does - where every legitimate customer needs to have a big hardware dongle to run their software.
Of course, the alternative to those "invasive" scans is some sort of DRM - going down the same "hardware dongle" path Apple has always been on - but I'm guessing you wouldn't be particularly happy with that idea either...
And yes, you're right about the clones, but the thing I'm saying is that the kernel changes are being done so that you can't build your own clone because then they wouldn't get any money from the sale of the hardware the OS is run on.
Legally, you can't do that _now_. The difference between the current situation and a future one using DRM is _zero_ from the perspective of legal usage.
Apple already doesn't treat customers like scum the way Microsoft does (which I appreciate; I'm honest, but I don't like the assumption that I am not).
And you would be referring to...?
I think this is just Apple's already-known plans to prevent the OS from not running on anything they haven't sold as a Mac. In other words, you have to buy a computer from Apple to run their OS.
Legally, you've had to buy a computer from Apple (or one of their licensed dealers) to run MacOS since the end of the cloning era.
Slashdot Mirror
Because maybe Gates doesn't use any of the features Firefox has over IE ?
Added to that, maybe he recognises that some people _would_ use those features that Firefox has, even if he doesn't ?
Every single person that I've shown Firefox to, no matter what their background, has switched over and not gone back.
Funny you should say that, because just about every person I've shown Firefox to has wondered what the difference is - and that's after I've had to give Firefox the IE icon to actually get them actually using it in the first place.
I find it amazing you can say that right after this:
"A year or two on, and these features are now in a new release of IE that's been hustled out the door."
Without disappearing in a little puff of hypocrisy and contradiction.
How is adding features to IE present in other browsers - currently taking marketshare from IE - not a textbook example of adding features because the *users* want them ?
Come to think of it, how can there even be a difference between a "turnaround" that is "user-driven" or "profit-driven" in a company that sells software ?
Who are you thinking of that doesn't do this ?
The scenario with tabs is identical - open enough of them and you can't tell them apart.
I'm far from a rollicking fan of the US, but there's not exactly a long list of coutries I'd choose to be in control of this sort of thing in preference to America.
They had a built-in 2-port USB hub and the extra Back/Forward/Home, etc keys (useful for custom key mappings) but _didn't_ have the fucked-up reorganisation of the Home/End/Insert/Etc and arrow keys that plague today's models.
This is the quintessential example of how Microsoft can't win, no matter what they do.
Most Windows crashes are caused by buggy third-party drivers, so Microsoft institute a method of verifying drivers and allowing the end user to see that they are verified. On the other, end users complain because they have to answer a couple of dialogs when installing unverified drivers.
Oh, come one, that's _easy_. You pay taxes to spread the cost of otherwise prohibitively-expensive goods and services across all of society. It's fundamentally just a variation on the insurance principle.
The government should stay out of people's lives socially because their purpose is to keep the trains running and the water flowing, not to stop people voluntarily enjoying each other's bodies or singing songs.
Both the right and the left are hypocrites, just in different ways.
Can't argue with that.
We would if the "pro choice" movement were saying "all pregnant women should have an abortion", rather than "women should be able to have an abortion if they want to".
I'm not entirely sure how you justify equating these two scenarios. Mathematics and scientific discoveries are neither products, nor services - they simply exist. Software, OTOH, does not meet this definition - it must be created by someone.
One could certainly argue that "mathematics and scientific discoveries" belong to no-one, therefore there is no way anybody can rightfully claim ownership, and with it, the moral right to restrict access.
However, the same argument could not be given for software. Or music. Or fiction. Or any of a number of other forms of "information" that copyright is meant to govern. These things must all be created (even though creating them is often no great achievement).
Very generally copyfighters want some kind of reform to make the laws serve their purpose.
Fundamentally, copyright is an artificial restriction imposed to facilitate scarcity in a product or service that does not naturally suffer from it - because scarcity is the only way we can ascertain value (and profit from it). It is, at best, a necessary evil.
The sooner everyone admits this (and stops wanking around with terms like "protecting artists' rights" and "progressing the sciences and arts") the sooner we might be able to have some form of reasonable copyright reform.
Certainly it does - you just need moderation, as you do with anything else (like, say, capitalism) to utilise the workable aspects and discard the unworkable ones.
Abortion may well be morally abhorent, it is however none of anyone's business except the mother.
I disagree. It is usually at least something of the father's business. It takes two to tango, after all.
While I fully support abortion-on-demand, even for reasons of simple birth control, but I do _not_ subscribe to the argument that the decision is only ever "the mother's business and no-one else's".
Ah, the typical Slashbot is nothing if not predictable.
It is thus perhaps fair to say that desktop-oriented Linux distributions that were available at the time of Windows XP's initial release were in some (perhaps many) cases not as secure as they perhaps could be; server-oriented distributions (i.e. your Windows 2003 equivalent) were never like this though.
I think you'll find several of the "server-oriented distributions" (eg: RHEL) shipped with some services on.
Not that default configuration is something that matters a great deal, in that market.
Incidentally, I don't prefer Windows 2003 because it is a "server" or any differently configured out of the box, I prefer it because it's faster and more responsive.
I personally was competent enough not to need one, but the fact remains that for most users, such software is a prerequisite on that platform, partly because of its prevalance and partly because of poor design (ActiveX, Windows Scripting, Microsoft Office macros, etc.).
Firstly, we're not discussing "most users", we're discussing *my* usage of Windows.
Secondly, there's very little - if anything - design-related that makes Windows more susceptible to viruses. A handful of default configuration settings, certainly, but nothing in the _design_.
It is of course correct that a user-level account will stop most malware, etc. in its tracks, but given that Windows makes user level accounts so difficult to work with (no generic OS X or, lately, Linux-style sudo prompting), this is not a particularly practical solution.
Actually this facility does exist, and has for years - the problem, as always, is getting developers to use it.
As I said, I've been using Windows from a regular user account for years. I've not bumped into any hassles that have a significant effect on day to day usage.
It appears you misunderstand my comment about firewalls.
Not at all. The difference between simply not listening on an interface and having a firewall block any traffic to an interface is largely semantics.
From a security point of view, Internet Explorer was perhaps Microsoft's biggest mistake.
So "everyone" (KDE, GNOME, OS X) having since gone down exactly the same design path must cause you a lot of grief, I assume ?
If we're going to get into a pissing contest about knowing the competition [...]
Only if you want to. Since you seem intent on ad-hominem style attacks on my knowledge of the targets of my comments, I find it necessary to point out your error.
I know Windows, which is why I feel more than qualified to make the statements above and below.
Strangely enough, so do I.
The point about dragging and dropping across Alt-Tabbing is retracted, although if memory serves, this is a recent addition (Windows 2000 or XP).
So was Expose. So is the whole OS X platform, by that measure, but you seem quite happy to talk about it like it's been around showing Windows up since the mid 90s.
Exposé, however, does not require the use of a mouse.
It certainly does to make it useful (doubly so in the context of a discussion about "drag & drop).
The CLI is one of the things that makes UN*X great - if you use it a little, you will come to understand this.
I spend most of my day interacting with the unix commandline in the process of adminning dozens of servers. I can't say I've ever felt the need for it with my _desktop_ tasks.
Mac OS X would be useless eye candy were it not for the UNIX base and the CLI that that provides.
On the contrary, OS X would still retain 99% of its usefulness and value for 99% of its userbase if the CLI weren't available. OS X may have a growing userbase from unix backgrounds, but the vast bulk of them are the Mac faithful who have been poo-pooing CLIs for over twenty years.
Windows lacks this, and as
There are no "new concepts" here, merely a different implementation of (long-) existing concepts.
Your entire rant is, of course, completely irrelevant, as all products connected to a hostile network with a known vulnerability are equally as likely to be exploited - the only issue is the matter of how long. Naturally, the product with 95% market share will be (on average) exploited long before the product with less than 1% market share. Similarly aged versions of Linux and Solaris will also be - inevitably - exploited in time.
Interesting that so few people refer to Linux and Solaris - in general - as "shit" because if you take a 5-year-out-of-date version of both and connect them unprotected to a hostile network they will inevitably be exploited. Merely another outlet for your hypocrisy, I see.
Similarly, any OS X exploits will work quite well on versions of OS X that are unpatched against them. I'm curious as to why this doesn't mean OS X is "shit", however.
However, the financial and temporal costs of purchasing, installing and configuring a virus checker remain, and it is important not to forget that definitions subscriptions are kept up-to-date.
I have never purchased a virus scanner. Occasionally - maybe once a year (can't remember the last time I did it) - I will run one of the free on-line scanners over my machines out of sheer curiosity, but they are yet to detect any viruses on any of my Windows PCs.
Fortunately most viruses, worms, trojans and other forms of malware are stopped dead by a non-Admin account.
Far better, surely, to built a bucket without holes than to ask the user to do a job of patching it up.
When someone does that, you might have a point. While software continues to be written by people, however, you do not.
It is worth nothing that the default browsers that both Linux and Mac OS X include are not subject to the same "feature enhancements" that is Internet Explorer.
I am interested in your idea that any piece of browser software is bug free. Please tell me more.
As to patches, I will say only that Windows XP has had far more and that they are in some cases of a ridiculous size (consider SP2, for example).
Ever looked at the size of the patches for a fresh Red Hat 9 install ? Or a Solaris MU ? Giving Apple their annual $129 is a handy way to avoid those large downloads, but perhaps not the best in terms of economics.
Your point about non-admin accounts betrays a disturbing lack of knowledge about actual Windows usage. If you have ever tried to actually use non-Microsoft software on a non-admin account, you will perhaps understand the pain.
I have been using Windows NT daily from a regular user account since early 1996.
Your point about memory usage/caching is simply invalid - Windows's inability to properly use memory as cache is well-known - 1GB RAM is generally a shameful waste on Windows XP. No further comment required.
Funny how the most often levied complaint against Windows' VM is its *generosity* in dedicating memory to caching and propensity for swapping out running code to do so.
Your response to my point about functionality betrays another area in which you might do well to reacquaint yourself with the...er...compet
Actually it's about the same - which is why I use it as an example - both are extensively used shared components on their respective platforms.
Indeed they would - and this is _precisely_ how a free market would (and should) work without the distorting effects of copyright.
Why does everyone automatically think the the RIAA and others would just throw in the towel if copyright went away?
They wouldn't - but music would certainly become more prolific and easier to obtain.
Please define "OS" and "software that runs on the OS".
Ah, I should have figured you'd just be as much of a hypocrite as the average /. drone, even after a comment like "I realise that to ask this is to break something of a taboo amongst the Linux faithful here, but why must operating system choice be dependent on politics rather than actual user need?".
Such as situating it behind a router so that it is not directly connected to the Internet, because, heaven forbid, if you don't, the machine will reboot within about 5 minutes and keep doing so for all eternity until fixed by someone who understands such things, [...]
False.
[...] installing a virus checker (at extra cost, both financially and to system resources) [...]
I've never used an active virus scanner on any of my Windows systems.
and ensuring that it is kept up-to-date, configuring a firewall (no longer necessary by default on SP2 installs, but you said "stock"), [...]
This is neither "hacking", nor "tweaking", it's common sense tasks that must be done on every platform.
installing and configuring a spyware checker, [...]
Never needed on of those either.
[...] downloading patches beyond number, [...]
Just like you do on every other OS, with an automated process ?
updating all your previously purchased software because it doesn't work with SP2 (this is somewhat superfluous, but I'm putting it in anyway, because SP2 borked a lot of stuff)...
Not really. Proportionally no worse than your average new version of OS X or Linux.
SP2 didn't break anything on any of my Windows systems. 10.4, OTOH, required a few things to be updated, as have numerous Linux updates.
You know how bad Windows XP is, and it goes without saying that Windows 2003 is not a solution for most users.
Actually I could quite happily use XP. There's little functional difference between the two and, if anything, 2003 requires _more_ tweaking than XP to get it into a usable state for a desktop machine.
Anyway, as should be readily discernible, the above list does not constitute "a handful of very minor tweaks".
Here's the _tweaks_ I do to an XP install to make it usable:
* Create a non-Admin user account.
* Revert to the Windows Classic theme.
* Use TweakUI to make similar Taskbar buttons group together, but not collapse into a single button.
* Change some Start Menu settings - number of applications in the recently used list, display My Documents as a menu, etc.
Applying updates, enabling a firewall (still not on in OS X by default, IIRC), etc are generic actions you have to perform on every platform.
Stability has got much better in Windows 2000/XP, granted. But performance-wise, it is still very poor, especially as regards caching, where Windows severely lags behind Linux or Mac OS X, or most any other OS you are to mention. It chugs. Badly.
Maybe you should try using it on a system with decent hardware that isn't memory-starved.
I've tried using OS X with a similar workload to my Windows PCs - on significantly more powerful Macs - and it simply can't do it. The whole thing just becomes to unresponsive to use without frustration. Linux+GNOME or KDE has fewer performance problems, but then I have to put up with the niggling inconsistencies of using them.
Things that I have come to rely on - like Spotlight and PDF output from any application on Mac OS X or a decent CLI (obviously a feature of any UN*X) - are totally absent from Windows.
Funny, things I have come to rely on like good performance, a decent file manager, keyboard shortcuts for task-switching that don't suck and quick, simple access to network resources are totally absent from OS X.
And the Start Menu blows.
It's _leagues_ ahead of that UI train wreck called the Dock.
Microsoft WMA-based offerings seem bound to
I'm not sure what gives you that idea. If nothing else, the core of the remaining MacOS userbase has demonstrated they're prepared to stick with Apple through pretty much anything.
(For more, see here, where I conclude that one of the best things about the Mac (for Slashdot geeks, anyway), is that you get time back for hacking that you want to do, rather than hacking to make the goddamn thing work.)
I don't get it. What is all this "hacking" I'm supposed to have to do to get Windows to "work" ? I take a stock Windows XP (or, preferably, Windows 2003) installation, make a handful of very minor tweaks and I get a system whose combination of performance, stability and functionality I find unmatched amongst any of the alternatives (with a fairly heavy workload for a desktop machine).
I've used a lot of platforms and interfaces _extensively_. I don't have any trouble with Windows not "working". Quite to the contrary, after years of experimentation across many different systems I've found it to be the best environment to work in.
But you really have to accept it in some form - and accept the fact that of the two platforms (i.e. Windows and Mac), Apple offers you the far more palatable option, Microsoft's stance on DRM (through WMA, etc.) having been made depressingly plain years ago.
I'm not quite sure I see an appreciable difference. Both provide the necessary vehicle for content providers to be as generous or restrictive as they want. If you want to blame someone for difficulty accessing "intellectual property", put that blame where it belongs and not on the software developers. Shooting the messenger will not help fix the root problem.
It would make Microsoft a lot of money.
From the OS X EULA:
Except for the vast bulk of legitimate users it doesn't, because so few of them upgrade their computers at all, let alone enough to trigger any reactivation sequence.
[...] and invasive scans just to install updates (I license software, I don't want snooping in my machine, you got my money and that's the only business that is yours; all your updater needs to know is version numbers of the OS and installed updates).
Invasive scans ?
See, for the vast majority of legitimate customers, Microsoft's "invasive" methods of checking whether or not you actually paid for their product aren't really invasive, nor are they inconvenient. They're simple, easily justifiable and quick.
Microsoft, unfortunately, don't have the same luxury that Apple does - where every legitimate customer needs to have a big hardware dongle to run their software.
Of course, the alternative to those "invasive" scans is some sort of DRM - going down the same "hardware dongle" path Apple has always been on - but I'm guessing you wouldn't be particularly happy with that idea either...
And yes, you're right about the clones, but the thing I'm saying is that the kernel changes are being done so that you can't build your own clone because then they wouldn't get any money from the sale of the hardware the OS is run on.
Legally, you can't do that _now_. The difference between the current situation and a future one using DRM is _zero_ from the perspective of legal usage.
Total additional cost "securing" my Windows machines: $0.
And I don't see Apple hacking its OS so thirdparty stuff won't run [...]
I don't see Microsoft doing it either.
You can also uninstall anything you want to remove [...]
Try removing every trace of Quicktime from OS X and see how well everything works. I suggest you back up first.
And you would be referring to...?
I think this is just Apple's already-known plans to prevent the OS from not running on anything they haven't sold as a Mac. In other words, you have to buy a computer from Apple to run their OS.
Legally, you've had to buy a computer from Apple (or one of their licensed dealers) to run MacOS since the end of the cloning era.
I think his point was it's something httpd should do itself, automatically.