Just a quick rebuttal. The plain fact is that IE intrinsically is, and always will be more of a security problem than Firefox. As you might know, IE is part of the operating system, and can therefore cause greater damage than a stand-alone application. Yes, they put out patches all the time (like last week, they put out a patch for several critical IE exploits), but the exploits keep coming. So IE is still a security risk, and it will likely stay that way for a long time. Judging IE7 is hard, but from MS' track record concerning security, I see no reason why it should be much better. Especially if they keep it integrated with the system, they are already far behind. But I do agree with you that if you protect yourself enough (firewall, patches, antispyware and antivirus), you can probably get by using IE.
The speed issue I find a little puzzling. IE is quicker to start up, because it is preloaded on windows, but all tests I have seen show that FF is quicker at rendering pages than IE, and that Opera is quicker than FF.
Personally I use FF all the time, and are really happy with it. Most (~80%) of the people I show it to also stick with it. It does have some problems (memory leak, crashes), but I find it way better than IE. Hopefully the first point release after the big 1.0 will iron out most problems.
As firefox is closing in on 10% now, this is good news. These companies are shutting out 10% of their customer base. In any competitive environment, this is gonna be too big a disadvantage to compete successfully, and the companies will die. It is amazing how the free market economy and Darwin's theory of evolution correlate.
Seriously, I think you should look at 98% of the software out there and think a bit. Most software does not allow you to take it and use it in any way whatsoever. You think you can take some microsoft code and use it in your software with less restrictions than the GPL? You cannot even think about using the code.
The GPL only gives you extra rights, and puts one restriction on the extra right; if you redistribute, you must abide by the license.
Its always your choice, and it is way less limiting than most software out there.
And just to make it clear, you always retain the "ownership" (copyright), even after you distribute under GPL.
I mostly agree, but I still think it is right to say that open source is the ultimate (best) of both capitalism and communism.
The point is that software (and all IP) is not bound by the most basic prerequisite for capitalism; scarcity of resources. The whole free market economy is based on the allocation of scarce resources (material goods). This is what leads to supply and demand. What open source retains from capitalism is the most important part, the competition. Like in darwinistic evolution, the best (most fit) solution prevails, and is evolved further.
On the other hand, open source also eliminates the "utopia" problem with communism. Communism is utopian because it requires that people are willing to share scarce resources - meaning giving away something so they dont have it anymore. With open source (IP), you share it, but still retain your own. So it is the ultimate communist model; you retain what you had, you get what other people share, and contribute at the same time.
So open source (and all information sharing to a degree) retains the most important parts of two economic models - the competition from capitalism, and the sharing from communism.
Sorry to be an ass, but I want to correct you a bit.
First, copying an stealing is NOT the same. However much people compare them it is not the case. There are two different word for the two actions because they are different. An example: I make a cool shirt, and you copy it. This incident is WAY different than the case where I make a shirt and you steal it. I hope you can see the difference. I know that you talk about stealing the "business concept", but it is not stealing.
I would also like to comment on your last paragraph. I agree that the real heroes are the OS coders that dont mirror existing functionality. But the ones that do are just as much heroes. The people that make OpenOffice are doing just as much good, if not more, than the people that make innovative apps. They give us something we need. There are several reasons to "copy" functionality. First it is a shortcut towards making something that does a job well. Second, it makes it easier to switch/use the apps. These are both good reasons to copy, and it gives us (society) benefits.
Like you say, there are OS coders that do not just mirror other apps, and I think its is pathetic to parrot the claim the OS does not innovate. There are more than enough examples of open source innovation to totally obliterate the claim that OS dont innovate. I would claim that OS innovates more than proprietary sw, because people add the features they want / think is good, and are not constrained by the business side of it. Then the best functionality survives. Its evolution and it works.
The important thing here is not what Nokia says about their patents. The big issue is what they say about open source software. We dont want their patents. We want no patents on software, period.
(the arguments against sw patents are pretty obvious, I'm sure most people know about them - software is pure mathematics and language, and it should be obvious why we do not want to have patents on language or math).
Nokia say that open source software fosters innovation and progress, and these are important factors in whether open source should be blocked by patent laws. The fact that they acknowledges this is good, because a big corporation say there are good things that come from open source. This is important ammunition in the fight against software patents.
Good post. Though I do think you are underestimating the importance that piracy has on purchases, and more importantly on market position.
I have lots of licenses for expensive programs, because I use them in my business. I would not have half of them if I did not learn them on pirated versions. You acknowledge as much, but claim we overestimate the effect. I disagree, I think the effect of this is huge, and more than offset the losses from piracy. Of course this it hard to quantitize, so I cant prove it, just state my opinion.
But much more important is the effect of piracy on market position. I can guarantee you that if the respective companies managed to totally block piracy (which they dont want to), MS office and Photoshop would be lower in marketshare than OOo and Gimp in less than two years. Yes, some claim the free sw doesnt stack up on features/quality, but for most consumers they just need something that works, they are not gonna pay $3-500 for this sw. I have lots of friends that dont care about computers, they buy a cheap computer to get on the internet and pirate PS and MS office. They use the market leaders because they are free.
The cost for MS / Adobe for losing the market leader position would cost them the ability to charge monopoly-style pricing. It would lead to at least these two companies earning way less. Of course it would also lead to cheaper sw overall, and it would be good for society.
I'm with you through the second sentence... Education is not all related to money. There are other concerns, the most important ones are: -how well does it facilitate people learning? -does it provide an environment that is open to advancements and does not lock you in?
Of course there are basic requirements like being able to perform the required tasks, and cost related issues, but aside from these issues, open source beats MS on all fronts.
After the Sklyarow case I have not bought one Adobe program. I would suggest other people do the same. I do not intend to forget such immoral behaviour (of course it will be hard now that theyve bough Macromedia, but ill try)...
Palmsource has decided that the
next version of Palm will be based on Linux. So soon the major OSes for PDAs will be Windows and Linux (plus symbian). Personally, I have the Zaurus c760, and think it is great. Having the ability to use the huge library of linux software for the device is great (i run pdaXrom, so X-ware can mostly be made to work). I just wish Sharp or others would get their fingers out and offer more selections and market it better.
-TN
I cannot comment on the real estate situation, since I do not know the specifics of the law regarding this, but I would assume that you also get ownership to the land when you buy something.
The thing I do know is that nobody has ownership of "intellectual property". There is nowhere in patent or copyright law anything about ownership. The basic rule is that ideas and thoughts cannot be owned.
And the reason lies in the fact that (again) you cannot take ideas or thoughts away from somebody. You can only copy them. "Intellectual property" is not a scarce resource.
The interesting word here is take/appropriate. When you copy something, you COPY something. We have a separate word for copying, because it simply isnt the same as taking. However much people try to argue about it, the important distinction is in the action you perform, and copying IS NOT the same as taking.
Also, "intellectual property" is not property, even though "property" is in the name. Nobody owns "IP", you only get privileges to copy or make/sell things.
And you cannot take away their ability to control distribution any more than they already have by selling the stuff. The legal right will always stay with the patent/copyright holder, and you cannot steal that right. Everything can be copied as long as there is access to it. It is illegal to copy copyrighted material in most cases, but as long as the material is sold to one person, the holder loses the ability to control (illegal) distribution.
Nobody owns information. Neither copyright nor patents give any person or entity ownership of anything. What you get is a monopolistic privilege to produce or make copies of something.
I am sorry, but that is the most ignorant answer I have seen in a long time. And rated "insightful"...
The big question is - who would you entrust with the responsibility to judge what is important, what is not "good" for the public? I consider myself an extremely honest person, yet I would not entrust myself with the discrimanatory power to decide what should and what shouldn't be open to the public.
"power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
You will learn (hopefully) the truth of this saying with age.
The whole point here is exactly this: Openness. It is the only thing that works. It does impede some progress in certain cases, but it is the only thing that ensures us against corruption, which WILL come if we dont have checks in place...
Is this a joke, did I misunderstand, or do you mean to say there is something of a connection between Ballmer/MS and "innovation"? I thought it was an established fact that there is no innovation at MS and that Apple is MS's research department. And yes, this is a serious question. I do believe that MS has hardly ever done anythig "innovative". I guess what im asking is the classic "name me five Microsoft innovations, or even one revolutionary innovation".
Sun has over time shown that they are not trustworthy... Like someone else commented, Ive heard rumours and press-releases about Sun open sourcing solaris for several years in different forms. They keep claiming these things and don't follow thru. And then they try to fudge the meaning of the terms "open source" and "free software". These terms have specific meanings, and they know it.
In addition, sun has shown a double face in all dealings with open source and linux.
-they support SCO and their litigation -they jumped on the "indemnification" idea, slamming Linux -they equate Red Hat with Linux and slams both
At the same time they are pretty successful selling their own Linux distribution, and I really like them for their job on openoffice.
All in all I think Sun does a lot of bad things, some good, but the most important issue is that you cannot trust them on anything, especially the "we gonna open source..." line.
I'm tired of this whole acceptance of "Linux isn't free" bullshit. It is a straight lie, and we need to point out that it is.
Firstly (but not most importantly), Linux - the product - is free of costs. Of course Linux is just the kernel, but often you get full distributions free. Debian will always be free. You can get it without paying for it. Yes, you may have costs involved in maintaining it and running it, but that does not mean it is not free. Those costs are "support costs", not "Linux-costs". If someone give you a car for free, you are not right in claiming the car isn't free to you just because you have to buy gasoline to go places.
Secondly, Linux is free as in freedom. You are free look at, change, and do mostly whatever you want with Linux, as long as you distribute it under the same fredoms.
I understand that some people agree to the fallacy as a way of acknowledging that there are costs associated with running Linux, but the fact is it is wrong, Linux satisfies the requirement for both meanings of the word "free".
(sorry, didn't mean to rant on parent, I have just seen too many people not contesting Microsofts spin here)
Sorry, but I would like to state my opinion: what the f**k? this is news? When I installed Mandrake 9.2 and later 10.0 on my 1 year old toshiba satellite, everything worked ok (3d graphics, firewire, but not the SD cardreader...) I dont really see the news in this article. But thats OK, but what really pisses me off is that anyone still uses the memory stick thingy. I dont ever want to have that proprietary shit be part of what I buy again. I have a Zaurus with SD card reader and CF card reader. Two nice standards, universally accepted. Then I have a Sony Clie with only a Memory stick reader. What the **** is that? what am I supposed to use the slot for? This is one of the most important issues I have against Sony, and one of the reasons I am switching to the new Zaurus 6000.
I think the Idea of a nice Linux notebook is cool, but could people please help me boycot the Memory stick thing. I want general standards, and the world has settled on SD and CF...
I bought a Zaurus sl-c760 about a year ago from Dynamism. I was pretty happy with it for a while, but one day it stopped working(stopped charging). Since I live in Norway it was too much bother doing the warranty thing, and I was suspecting the problem was the 110V adapter. At about the same time, the Clie UX-50 came out. I bought it because of the integrated WIFI and Bluetooth (and but that wasn't important). Have been using it for awhile now and been decently happy with it. Now I am visiting the US, and I brought the Zaurus to see if it would charge. Sure enough, it works. I have been shocked at how much better the screen is, and how much more comfortable it is to use. As a conclusion, I think the Clie is good, but it is a really focused PDA, while the Zaurus is a much more open-ended palmtop computer. I like having linux on the Zaurus, and I will hopefully settle on the 6000 (because of WIFI and BT) or whatever its called when I can get my hands on it.
I am sad about this whoole case. Yes, there is now doubt Lindows went after the name with a goal of duplicating the windows name. But the whole point is that they did this with the specific goal of pointing out that Windows is a non-trademarkeable name. There is NO DOUBT Windows was a genereic name before MS chose the name, and it should not be given to any one corporation. Its like somebody calling their product "car" and pursuing anybody using that name in a product name there after. The point is, MS broke the rules with the name "Windows", and should not be allowed to keep doing that.
I dont think what you say here is right at all. I have a pretty fancy Toshiba laptop, and I bought a Belkin wireless card for it. Installed the driver, and no go. I consider myself quite technically competent, but I have given up this card on Windows (XP). Had to restore the system to get my computer on the network at all.
Compare this to the Mandrake Linux 9.2 (at the time, now 10.0) powerpack I installed as dual-boot; Install from 3 CDs. After 15 minutes, it boots up with the Nvidia 3d drivers installed and everything working. I pop in the wireless card, and I'm on the net. No installation, no questions. I was impressed.
As far as total installation goes, a good distribution is way ahead of Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a quick rebuttal. The plain fact is that IE intrinsically is, and always will be more of a security problem than Firefox. As you might know, IE is part of the operating system, and can therefore cause greater damage than a stand-alone application. Yes, they put out patches all the time (like last week, they put out a patch for several critical IE exploits), but the exploits keep coming. So IE is still a security risk, and it will likely stay that way for a long time. Judging IE7 is hard, but from MS' track record concerning security, I see no reason why it should be much better. Especially if they keep it integrated with the system, they are already far behind. But I do agree with you that if you protect yourself enough (firewall, patches, antispyware and antivirus), you can probably get by using IE.
The speed issue I find a little puzzling. IE is quicker to start up, because it is preloaded on windows, but all tests I have seen show that FF is quicker at rendering pages than IE, and that Opera is quicker than FF.
Personally I use FF all the time, and are really happy with it. Most (~80%) of the people I show it to also stick with it. It does have some problems (memory leak, crashes), but I find it way better than IE. Hopefully the first point release after the big 1.0 will iron out most problems.
-TN
As firefox is closing in on 10% now, this is good news. These companies are shutting out 10% of their customer base. In any competitive environment, this is gonna be too big a disadvantage to compete successfully, and the companies will die. It is amazing how the free market economy and Darwin's theory of evolution correlate.
Seriously, I think you should look at 98% of the software out there and think a bit. Most software does not allow you to take it and use it in any way whatsoever. You think you can take some microsoft code and use it in your software with less restrictions than the GPL? You cannot even think about using the code. The GPL only gives you extra rights, and puts one restriction on the extra right; if you redistribute, you must abide by the license. Its always your choice, and it is way less limiting than most software out there. And just to make it clear, you always retain the "ownership" (copyright), even after you distribute under GPL.
I mostly agree, but I still think it is right to say that open source is the ultimate (best) of both capitalism and communism.
The point is that software (and all IP) is not bound by the most basic prerequisite for capitalism; scarcity of resources. The whole free market economy is based on the allocation of scarce resources (material goods). This is what leads to supply and demand. What open source retains from capitalism is the most important part, the competition. Like in darwinistic evolution, the best (most fit) solution prevails, and is evolved further.
On the other hand, open source also eliminates the "utopia" problem with communism. Communism is utopian because it requires that people are willing to share scarce resources - meaning giving away something so they dont have it anymore. With open source (IP), you share it, but still retain your own. So it is the ultimate communist model; you retain what you had, you get what other people share, and contribute at the same time.
So open source (and all information sharing to a degree) retains the most important parts of two economic models - the competition from capitalism, and the sharing from communism.
Sorry to be an ass, but I want to correct you a bit.
First, copying an stealing is NOT the same. However much people compare them it is not the case. There are two different word for the two actions because they are different. An example: I make a cool shirt, and you copy it. This incident is WAY different than the case where I make a shirt and you steal it. I hope you can see the difference. I know that you talk about stealing the "business concept", but it is not stealing.
I would also like to comment on your last paragraph. I agree that the real heroes are the OS coders that dont mirror existing functionality. But the ones that do are just as much heroes. The people that make OpenOffice are doing just as much good, if not more, than the people that make innovative apps. They give us something we need. There are several reasons to "copy" functionality. First it is a shortcut towards making something that does a job well. Second, it makes it easier to switch/use the apps. These are both good reasons to copy, and it gives us (society) benefits.
Like you say, there are OS coders that do not just mirror other apps, and I think its is pathetic to parrot the claim the OS does not innovate. There are more than enough examples of open source innovation to totally obliterate the claim that OS dont innovate. I would claim that OS innovates more than proprietary sw, because people add the features they want / think is good, and are not constrained by the business side of it. Then the best functionality survives. Its evolution and it works.
The important thing here is not what Nokia says about their patents. The big issue is what they say about open source software. We dont want their patents. We want no patents on software, period.
(the arguments against sw patents are pretty obvious, I'm sure most people know about them - software is pure mathematics and language, and it should be obvious why we do not want to have patents on language or math).
Nokia say that open source software fosters innovation and progress, and these are important factors in whether open source should be blocked by patent laws. The fact that they acknowledges this is good, because a big corporation say there are good things that come from open source. This is important ammunition in the fight against software patents.
Good post. Though I do think you are underestimating the importance that piracy has on purchases, and more importantly on market position.
I have lots of licenses for expensive programs, because I use them in my business. I would not have half of them if I did not learn them on pirated versions. You acknowledge as much, but claim we overestimate the effect. I disagree, I think the effect of this is huge, and more than offset the losses from piracy. Of course this it hard to quantitize, so I cant prove it, just state my opinion.
But much more important is the effect of piracy on market position. I can guarantee you that if the respective companies managed to totally block piracy (which they dont want to), MS office and Photoshop would be lower in marketshare than OOo and Gimp in less than two years. Yes, some claim the free sw doesnt stack up on features/quality, but for most consumers they just need something that works, they are not gonna pay $3-500 for this sw. I have lots of friends that dont care about computers, they buy a cheap computer to get on the internet and pirate PS and MS office. They use the market leaders because they are free.
The cost for MS / Adobe for losing the market leader position would cost them the ability to charge monopoly-style pricing. It would lead to at least these two companies earning way less. Of course it would also lead to cheaper sw overall, and it would be good for society.
I'm with you through the second sentence... Education is not all related to money. There are other concerns, the most important ones are:
-how well does it facilitate people learning?
-does it provide an environment that is open to advancements and does not lock you in?
Of course there are basic requirements like being able to perform the required tasks, and cost related issues, but aside from these issues, open source beats MS on all fronts.
I hope they finally gives us a new name...
After the Sklyarow case I have not bought one Adobe program. I would suggest other people do the same. I do not intend to forget such immoral behaviour (of course it will be hard now that theyve bough Macromedia, but ill try)...
The shockwave installer asks the user if they want to installe yahoo toolbar. Yes, it is checked by default, but it is not installed as spyware.
Palmsource has decided that the next version of Palm will be based on Linux. So soon the major OSes for PDAs will be Windows and Linux (plus symbian). Personally, I have the Zaurus c760, and think it is great. Having the ability to use the huge library of linux software for the device is great (i run pdaXrom, so X-ware can mostly be made to work). I just wish Sharp or others would get their fingers out and offer more selections and market it better. -TN
I cannot comment on the real estate situation, since I do not know the specifics of the law regarding this, but I would assume that you also get ownership to the land when you buy something.
The thing I do know is that nobody has ownership of "intellectual property". There is nowhere in patent or copyright law anything about ownership. The basic rule is that ideas and thoughts cannot be owned.
And the reason lies in the fact that (again) you cannot take ideas or thoughts away from somebody. You can only copy them. "Intellectual property" is not a scarce resource.
The interesting word here is take/appropriate. When you copy something, you COPY something. We have a separate word for copying, because it simply isnt the same as taking. However much people try to argue about it, the important distinction is in the action you perform, and copying IS NOT the same as taking.
Also, "intellectual property" is not property, even though "property" is in the name. Nobody owns "IP", you only get privileges to copy or make/sell things.
And you cannot take away their ability to control distribution any more than they already have by selling the stuff. The legal right will always stay with the patent/copyright holder, and you cannot steal that right. Everything can be copied as long as there is access to it. It is illegal to copy copyrighted material in most cases, but as long as the material is sold to one person, the holder loses the ability to control (illegal) distribution.
Nobody owns information. Neither copyright nor patents give any person or entity ownership of anything. What you get is a monopolistic privilege to produce or make copies of something.
I use kmail, and it handles meeting invitations great. I think evolution does the same.
-TN
I am sorry, but that is the most ignorant answer I have seen in a long time. And rated "insightful"...
The big question is - who would you entrust with the responsibility to judge what is important, what is not "good" for the public? I consider myself an extremely honest person, yet I would not entrust myself with the discrimanatory power to decide what should and what shouldn't be open to the public.
"power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
You will learn (hopefully) the truth of this saying with age.
The whole point here is exactly this: Openness. It is the only thing that works. It does impede some progress in certain cases, but it is the only thing that ensures us against corruption, which WILL come if we dont have checks in place...
-TN
Sorry, I am kinda confused...
Is this a joke, did I misunderstand, or do you mean to say there is something of a connection between Ballmer/MS and "innovation"? I thought it was an established fact that there is no innovation at MS and that Apple is MS's research department. And yes, this is a serious question. I do believe that MS has hardly ever done anythig "innovative". I guess what im asking is the classic "name me five Microsoft innovations, or even one revolutionary innovation".
Sun has over time shown that they are not trustworthy... Like someone else commented, Ive heard rumours and press-releases about Sun open sourcing solaris for several years in different forms. They keep claiming these things and don't follow thru. And then they try to fudge the meaning of the terms "open source" and "free software". These terms have specific meanings, and they know it.
In addition, sun has shown a double face in all dealings with open source and linux.
-they support SCO and their litigation
-they jumped on the "indemnification" idea, slamming Linux
-they equate Red Hat with Linux and slams both
At the same time they are pretty successful selling their own Linux distribution, and I really like them for their job on openoffice.
All in all I think Sun does a lot of bad things, some good, but the most important issue is that you cannot trust them on anything, especially the "we gonna open source..." line.
-TN
I'm tired of this whole acceptance of "Linux isn't free" bullshit. It is a straight lie, and we need to point out that it is.
Firstly (but not most importantly), Linux - the product - is free of costs. Of course Linux is just the kernel, but often you get full distributions free. Debian will always be free. You can get it without paying for it. Yes, you may have costs involved in maintaining it and running it, but that does not mean it is not free. Those costs are "support costs", not "Linux-costs". If someone give you a car for free, you are not right in claiming the car isn't free to you just because you have to buy gasoline to go places.
Secondly, Linux is free as in freedom. You are free look at, change, and do mostly whatever you want with Linux, as long as you distribute it under the same fredoms.
I understand that some people agree to the fallacy as a way of acknowledging that there are costs associated with running Linux, but the fact is it is wrong, Linux satisfies the requirement for both meanings of the word "free".
(sorry, didn't mean to rant on parent, I have just seen too many people not contesting Microsofts spin here)
Sorry, but I would like to state my opinion: what the f**k? this is news? When I installed Mandrake 9.2 and later 10.0 on my 1 year old toshiba satellite, everything worked ok (3d graphics, firewire, but not the SD cardreader...) I dont really see the news in this article. But thats OK, but what really pisses me off is that anyone still uses the memory stick thingy. I dont ever want to have that proprietary shit be part of what I buy again. I have a Zaurus with SD card reader and CF card reader. Two nice standards, universally accepted. Then I have a Sony Clie with only a Memory stick reader. What the **** is that? what am I supposed to use the slot for? This is one of the most important issues I have against Sony, and one of the reasons I am switching to the new Zaurus 6000.
I think the Idea of a nice Linux notebook is cool, but could people please help me boycot the Memory stick thing. I want general standards, and the world has settled on SD and CF...
I bought a Zaurus sl-c760 about a year ago from Dynamism. I was pretty happy with it for a while, but one day it stopped working(stopped charging). Since I live in Norway it was too much bother doing the warranty thing, and I was suspecting the problem was the 110V adapter. At about the same time, the Clie UX-50 came out. I bought it because of the integrated WIFI and Bluetooth (and but that wasn't important). Have been using it for awhile now and been decently happy with it. Now I am visiting the US, and I brought the Zaurus to see if it would charge. Sure enough, it works. I have been shocked at how much better the screen is, and how much more comfortable it is to use. As a conclusion, I think the Clie is good, but it is a really focused PDA, while the Zaurus is a much more open-ended palmtop computer. I like having linux on the Zaurus, and I will hopefully settle on the 6000 (because of WIFI and BT) or whatever its called when I can get my hands on it.
-TN
I am sad about this whoole case. Yes, there is now doubt Lindows went after the name with a goal of duplicating the windows name. But the whole point is that they did this with the specific goal of pointing out that Windows is a non-trademarkeable name. There is NO DOUBT Windows was a genereic name before MS chose the name, and it should not be given to any one corporation. Its like somebody calling their product "car" and pursuing anybody using that name in a product name there after. The point is, MS broke the rules with the name "Windows", and should not be allowed to keep doing that.
I run Mandrake 10pp and it comes with java and flash installed, but I noticed there is a Java extension on out there.
-TN
I dont think what you say here is right at all. I have a pretty fancy Toshiba laptop, and I bought a Belkin wireless card for it. Installed the driver, and no go. I consider myself quite technically competent, but I have given up this card on Windows (XP). Had to restore the system to get my computer on the network at all.
Compare this to the Mandrake Linux 9.2 (at the time, now 10.0) powerpack I installed as dual-boot; Install from 3 CDs. After 15 minutes, it boots up with the Nvidia 3d drivers installed and everything working. I pop in the wireless card, and I'm on the net. No installation, no questions. I was impressed.
As far as total installation goes, a good distribution is way ahead of Windows.
-TN