The thing is, is that Linux is still more complicated than what some people are willing to deal with. Part of that "problem" (and I use that term loosely) is that many Linux developers don't want Linux (and FreeBSD, etc.) to become as "easy" as Windows, and many of the attempts at getting an easy-for-Windows-users environment have met rather subdued enthusiasm or outright criticism.
Perhaps the developer(s) of ReactOS saw this and decided to do his/their own thing. There are also some people who just don't like Linux or how it works, and prefer a Windows environment.
Remember, at one point, Linux was some folk's neat hobby, and nothing more.
I'm pretty sure linux users are not ReactOS's main target. Their target are Windows users who want to stop using Microsoft, but find Linux/BSD too intimidating.
Of course there are more/better Linux options. For one, Linux is vastly more mature, and has a much greater user/developer base. Second, ReactOS is still in ALPHA stage. It has a ways to go before a full release worthy OS, and they (the ReactOS developers) would be the first to tell you.
So now your complaining about my doing an AIDS-MS comparison when YOU brought it into the discussion? How come when you're arguing against my opinions, it's "giving me perspective" but when I argue your points I'm being stubborn?
How many times have YOU written your Senator/Member of Parliament? I've done it several times on a variety of issues including supporting Canadian troops abroad, working with other nations to send support to Darfur, and arguing for gay rights. I've told various politicians that I wasn't going to vote for them if they voted certain ways on various topics. I haven't always received a response (and even the ones I did get weren't always what I was looking for), but I always acted on what I wrote.
Yes, I know they've been convicted of Anticompetitave tactics in several countries, I've said that exact same point several times on several topics over the last few days here. The thing is, is that it doesn't seem to have bloody done _anything_. Microsoft still essentially does whatever the hell they want.
There are a lot more important things than MS? No shit. This, however, is a Computer Geek site, where most of the topics are of the scientific and technological theme. If you wish to discuss the greater importance of Darfur and the AIDS Pandemic(Epidemic? I can never remember which is more appropriate), find a website/messageboard that deals with those topics. I also like guitars, woodworking and martial arts, but you don't see me talking about them, here, do you?
I save my discussions about those for sites more appropriate for that topic, where I can discuss my opinions, ideas and experiences with others who share my passion for that particular topic.
As far as my bold tags, they were simply for highlighting purposes so it would be simple to distinguish what I was quoting you on and what were my responses.
You know, it'd be real nice if some of the anti-MS "break free of the stanglehold", "free the children", "fight the oppressors" enthusiasm around here was dedicated to something that really mattered. Like AIDS vaccines or potable water.
Ah, yes, because fighting for fair technological access, and freedom to choose who you give your money to are completely unimportant. There are plenty of people fighting for AIDS vaccines, hell, on my way to work each morning I pass several billboards with various celebrities pimping AIDS awareness, and that's not to mention the ones IN the mall, or the advertisments I see on TV.
Do any of you seriously think MS is still going to be dominating the software world in a few decades?
Do you really think AIDS is still going to be rampant all over the world in a few decades?
Nothing will change unless people are willing to change it.
The people that see some kind of moral struggle here are just very strange to me. If the biggest evil you see in the world is MS trying to maintain market share by giving away a product (OF COURSE THERE ARE STRINGS ATTACHED!!! MS is a business!) then I have to wonder what kind of a warped world you live in.
No, MS isn't the biggest evil in the world, just in computers. The "moral struggle" is strange? The company has been convicted of Anti-Competitave tactics multiple times in several countries. Why shouldn't this be a little alarming? They're effectively forcing students to learn NOTHING except Microsoft products, blocking out all alternatives, so that they keep their market share.
I mean - get pissed about net neutrality, get pissed about DRM, get pissed about poverty, or crime, or education - but hating MS? I mean, come on.
I am pissed about all those things, too. Why "come on"? Why has Microsoft been given a free pass? What have they done to deserve not getting pissed at?
I'm not defending MS here, I'm just asking for a little sense of perspective.
I've got no problem with getting a little perspective, I just feel that Microsoft should not be allowed to do these things, given their history as a company.
You really don't get it, do you? Get them hooked on the OSS software when they're young, so that is what they know best. You believe that the stranglehold that MS has on the market sucks, so how to YOU propose we fight it? By giving in and saying "Well, it's what they're going to need to know in the 'Real World?'*" No, by getting kids to learn the alternatives, like Open Office. Kids will learn it much faster than a seasoned MS Office "Pro", and they'll have more time to work with it. Once they get into the workplace,yeah, for the time being they'll likely need to use MS Office, but they'll know Open Office and they'll feel more comfortable with it (and use it at home, since it's double-free). Then, once they're in more of a position to help make decisions regarding software use, they can pimp out all the cool features of Open Office, including the rather non-restrictive licences and low cost, and help the "Real World*" break free of the stranglehold.
*Real World is a trademark of MS Global Domination, Resistance Is Futile.
So you're comparing one of the richest companies in the world with a minimum wage earner. I think that might be where you're hiding the orders of magnitude difference.
Could you define this "Orders Of Magnatude Difference" because I'm obviously not getting your meaning. I'm making a comparison, to try to get you to see how little it effects Microsoft.
Yes, a $2 million daily fine for non-compliance is a hefty fine. However, don't you think their accountants and lawyers have already figured out that plaing fair and by the rules would hurt their business/profits more? They would have to pretty much redesign Vista from scratch to enable a user to not install or easily and completely remove IE/WMP/etc., not to mention opening up the Office file formats so people don't have to use/pay for Office to be able to work their files.
Part of the reason why MS is still at the top is because most people think that they MUST use Windows/MSOffice, and for a lot of people, they have to. It's also why IE still has a 90% browser market share. Most users are thinking, "It's already in Windows, and so many things "require" it, so why install anything else?"
I'm actually not really that off. Assume 3 coffee's a day (and with some of my coworkers, that's a light day), at about $2 a piece (large), and that they spend about this much whether they work or not (bunch of caffene addicts).
That works out to about $2200 a year. And for a person making less than $10 000 a year, that's pretty significant.
Say MS' profit is exactly $4 billion. MS' daily fine works out to about 16% of that. The coffee cost of my coworkers is about 22% (assuming $10 000 annual).
With that one-time fine it's up to 32%. Alright, add in tuition for one of my co-workers (roughly $2000, depending on school/program). That's another 20%, bringing it up to 42%. That's 10% of their annual income more than what MS pays.
Don't you think that MS' shareholders would be furious to the point of lynching Gates and Co. for wasting that much money just in stall tactics if it wasn't going to pay off in the long run? Aren't publicly traded companies required by law, to do what's in the best interest of their stockholders *a.k.a. make them money)?
$2 million a day? What's that the equivalent of to us, a cup of coffee? Fuck, half the people I work with go for at least 2 or 3 coffee's while at work (not counting those they have at home), and most of us are barely making above minimum wage (and most are part time at that).
Yeah, they technically "lose", but the sentences are so pitiful (a slap on the wrist would be considered harsh compared to what MS has been getting), that they don't care.
It's probably more profitable to break the law and pay the fines than it would to do things "legally".
Bloat is things like hundreds of mb of source code in a distribution intended for normal users.
??? In my experience, a Linux distribution (say, Debian Etch, for example) can, on average, install a base system with GUI in maybe up to one gig, and it's ready to go, all drivers installed and loaded. The last time I installed XP, it was 1.5, and that didn't even get me half my hardware working.
In that 1.5 gig limit, I can get my web browsing tools, my music and video players and rippers, games (better than Windows' default games), various remote administration tools, and a couple of my CD's ripped.
Who's bloated now?
Bloat is installing 8 different text editors and 4 different web browsers just to give you a choice (instead of giving you ONE, which you can then use to download the one you really want).
That would be nice, but that ONE is Internet Explorer (for Windows), you can't uninstall it (well you can, techinically, but as you're talking about the general end user, they can't) and going online to download the alternatives and other necessary apps leaves you open to easy compromisation. Linux gives you many (if you go with a distro aimed for end-users, and ease of use), because those who designed those browsers know that different users like different things, and rather than say "Here's the one we choose. Don't like it? Find your own.", they say "Hey, we know what we like, you might like something different, here are a few of the more popular ones, and here's how to remove the ones you don't want."
Bloat is including a whole lot of crap that nobody will use.
Much like above, what's installed in Linux is dependant on what distribution you choose and how you install it. Do you go for the "newbie" distro like Ubuntu or Mandriva, or do you go for the bare-bones, build-it-yourself distro like Debian or Gentoo (or LFS if you're masochistic)? Do you do the expert install that allows you to select which packages you want installed, or do you go for the simple, mainly automated install and (like the Ronco guy would say) "Just set it and forget it".
When I install, there are very few things I would never use (and most of those are installed because they're used by programs I do use).
And yes, I do admit, a base installation of Windows XP will boot up faster than Linux. It should, you'll have to reboot more often.
+1 for Foxmarks. I just started using it a month ago and I don't know how ever I managed without. It's so nice not to have to remember to back up my bookmarks any time I want to install a new OS, it's done every time I use Firefox.
Re:probably on Microsoft's list of next important
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Apache down, IIS up
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Those "better" mousetraps suck. My house had a mouse problem a couple years ago, and we tried everything, poison, those traps, traditional traps, non-lethal traps (which any mouse that was caught in one was immediately flushed, thereby negating the non-lethal aspect). The things that worked? A bunch of poison in the attic (bromine pellets, I believe), and the old-style traps.
Those new ones don't have near the snapping/crushing power of the old-style. They killed less than half of what the old style did (and since I had to "empty" each one, I know how many we had).
It has not been released.
The beta has, and the beta is apparently (I can't get it to install as it doesn't like my NForce board's SCSI/RAID, Firewire or "game controller" chips) bloatware.
Besides that, this thread was addressing the issue of Windows being labeled bloatware. It has been labeled bloatware long before Longhorn/Vista existed.
And back when XP was new, it was bloatware, and back when 98 was, it was bloatware. The thing is, is that as computers get more powerful, the bloat becomes less noticable (would you consider 98 to be bloatware now?). I wonder what a computer geek from the 80's or early 90's, were operating systems came on a couple 1.44 meg floppies would think of an operating system requiring a 3.2 GIG DVD, with few included applications?
Re:probably on Microsoft's list of next important
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Apache down, IIS up
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Yeah, and more schools are teaching MS products and offering MS Certifications than Apache/Linux.
The sysadmins have to learn somewhere, and it just so happens that many who get hired are because they happen to have those programs under their belt, regardless of how good of a sysadmin they really are.
Most, if you don't go with all the cutsey KDE3/Gnome full eye candy. Pick something a little more conservative, resource wise (XFCE4, for example), and it'll be fine for the most part. Yeah, a new system will always run faster, however, for most end-users (a.k.a. non geeks and non gamers), a p2-400 with 128 megs of ram will be fine (256 megs would be better, and it wouldn't be that much to upgrade).
Torrent? Ha. I'm waiting to see when they're going to put out their torrent alternative. At least these download sites are reasonably fast (I'm getting a 500+KB/s average).
What do grandma's generally do? Email their kids/grandkids, search the web for recepies and play games. Two of those are ready out of the box, the third takes about 10 minutes, only if they have specific "Windows-only" games.
There are very few things that people like that NEED windows for.
Slashdot Mirror
I tried that once, but it never worked. It kept requiring me to install it any time I tried to update.
The thing is, is that Linux is still more complicated than what some people are willing to deal with. Part of that "problem" (and I use that term loosely) is that many Linux developers don't want Linux (and FreeBSD, etc.) to become as "easy" as Windows, and many of the attempts at getting an easy-for-Windows-users environment have met rather subdued enthusiasm or outright criticism.
Perhaps the developer(s) of ReactOS saw this and decided to do his/their own thing. There are also some people who just don't like Linux or how it works, and prefer a Windows environment.
Remember, at one point, Linux was some folk's neat hobby, and nothing more.
I'm pretty sure linux users are not ReactOS's main target. Their target are Windows users who want to stop using Microsoft, but find Linux/BSD too intimidating.
Of course there are more/better Linux options. For one, Linux is vastly more mature, and has a much greater user/developer base. Second, ReactOS is still in ALPHA stage. It has a ways to go before a full release worthy OS, and they (the ReactOS developers) would be the first to tell you.
Only 2 fingers.
They'll have better luck completely stopping all non-legal music downloads.
No, there are still every other reason why people choose OO.o versus MS Office. Cost, open source, and it's not MS being among the most common.
They're going to kill off free porn?
Heheheh, the anti-script word-type thing for me was "crooked"...
So now your complaining about my doing an AIDS-MS comparison when YOU brought it into the discussion? How come when you're arguing against my opinions, it's "giving me perspective" but when I argue your points I'm being stubborn?
How many times have YOU written your Senator/Member of Parliament? I've done it several times on a variety of issues including supporting Canadian troops abroad, working with other nations to send support to Darfur, and arguing for gay rights. I've told various politicians that I wasn't going to vote for them if they voted certain ways on various topics. I haven't always received a response (and even the ones I did get weren't always what I was looking for), but I always acted on what I wrote.
Yes, I know they've been convicted of Anticompetitave tactics in several countries, I've said that exact same point several times on several topics over the last few days here. The thing is, is that it doesn't seem to have bloody done _anything_. Microsoft still essentially does whatever the hell they want.
There are a lot more important things than MS? No shit. This, however, is a Computer Geek site, where most of the topics are of the scientific and technological theme. If you wish to discuss the greater importance of Darfur and the AIDS Pandemic(Epidemic? I can never remember which is more appropriate), find a website/messageboard that deals with those topics. I also like guitars, woodworking and martial arts, but you don't see me talking about them, here, do you?
I save my discussions about those for sites more appropriate for that topic, where I can discuss my opinions, ideas and experiences with others who share my passion for that particular topic.
As far as my bold tags, they were simply for highlighting purposes so it would be simple to distinguish what I was quoting you on and what were my responses.
Jennifer Ellison and Emmy Rossum in HiDef. Hmmmmmm...............
You know, it'd be real nice if some of the anti-MS "break free of the stanglehold", "free the children", "fight the oppressors" enthusiasm around here was dedicated to something that really mattered. Like AIDS vaccines or potable water.
Ah, yes, because fighting for fair technological access, and freedom to choose who you give your money to are completely unimportant. There are plenty of people fighting for AIDS vaccines, hell, on my way to work each morning I pass several billboards with various celebrities pimping AIDS awareness, and that's not to mention the ones IN the mall, or the advertisments I see on TV.
Do any of you seriously think MS is still going to be dominating the software world in a few decades?
Do you really think AIDS is still going to be rampant all over the world in a few decades?
Nothing will change unless people are willing to change it.
The people that see some kind of moral struggle here are just very strange to me. If the biggest evil you see in the world is MS trying to maintain market share by giving away a product (OF COURSE THERE ARE STRINGS ATTACHED!!! MS is a business!) then I have to wonder what kind of a warped world you live in.
No, MS isn't the biggest evil in the world, just in computers. The "moral struggle" is strange? The company has been convicted of Anti-Competitave tactics multiple times in several countries. Why shouldn't this be a little alarming? They're effectively forcing students to learn NOTHING except Microsoft products, blocking out all alternatives, so that they keep their market share.
I mean - get pissed about net neutrality, get pissed about DRM, get pissed about poverty, or crime, or education - but hating MS? I mean, come on.
I am pissed about all those things, too. Why "come on"? Why has Microsoft been given a free pass? What have they done to deserve not getting pissed at?
I'm not defending MS here, I'm just asking for a little sense of perspective.
I've got no problem with getting a little perspective, I just feel that Microsoft should not be allowed to do these things, given their history as a company.
Didn't George Romero already make a movie about this?
You really don't get it, do you? Get them hooked on the OSS software when they're young, so that is what they know best. You believe that the stranglehold that MS has on the market sucks, so how to YOU propose we fight it? By giving in and saying "Well, it's what they're going to need to know in the 'Real World?'*" No, by getting kids to learn the alternatives, like Open Office. Kids will learn it much faster than a seasoned MS Office "Pro", and they'll have more time to work with it. Once they get into the workplace,yeah, for the time being they'll likely need to use MS Office, but they'll know Open Office and they'll feel more comfortable with it (and use it at home, since it's double-free). Then, once they're in more of a position to help make decisions regarding software use, they can pimp out all the cool features of Open Office, including the rather non-restrictive licences and low cost, and help the "Real World*" break free of the stranglehold.
*Real World is a trademark of MS Global Domination, Resistance Is Futile.
So you're comparing one of the richest companies in the world with a minimum wage earner. I think that might be where you're hiding the orders of magnitude difference.
Could you define this "Orders Of Magnatude Difference" because I'm obviously not getting your meaning. I'm making a comparison, to try to get you to see how little it effects Microsoft.
Yes, a $2 million daily fine for non-compliance is a hefty fine. However, don't you think their accountants and lawyers have already figured out that plaing fair and by the rules would hurt their business/profits more? They would have to pretty much redesign Vista from scratch to enable a user to not install or easily and completely remove IE/WMP/etc., not to mention opening up the Office file formats so people don't have to use/pay for Office to be able to work their files.
Part of the reason why MS is still at the top is because most people think that they MUST use Windows/MSOffice, and for a lot of people, they have to. It's also why IE still has a 90% browser market share. Most users are thinking, "It's already in Windows, and so many things "require" it, so why install anything else?"
THAT is MY point.
I'm actually not really that off. Assume 3 coffee's a day (and with some of my coworkers, that's a light day), at about $2 a piece (large), and that they spend about this much whether they work or not (bunch of caffene addicts).
That works out to about $2200 a year. And for a person making less than $10 000 a year, that's pretty significant.
Say MS' profit is exactly $4 billion. MS' daily fine works out to about 16% of that. The coffee cost of my coworkers is about 22% (assuming $10 000 annual).
With that one-time fine it's up to 32%. Alright, add in tuition for one of my co-workers (roughly $2000, depending on school/program). That's another 20%, bringing it up to 42%. That's 10% of their annual income more than what MS pays.
Don't you think that MS' shareholders would be furious to the point of lynching Gates and Co. for wasting that much money just in stall tactics if it wasn't going to pay off in the long run? Aren't publicly traded companies required by law, to do what's in the best interest of their stockholders *a.k.a. make them money)?
$2 million a day? What's that the equivalent of to us, a cup of coffee? Fuck, half the people I work with go for at least 2 or 3 coffee's while at work (not counting those they have at home), and most of us are barely making above minimum wage (and most are part time at that).
Yeah, they technically "lose", but the sentences are so pitiful (a slap on the wrist would be considered harsh compared to what MS has been getting), that they don't care.
It's probably more profitable to break the law and pay the fines than it would to do things "legally".
Well, shit. Anything they do decide to use, if they were to switch now, would look dated by the time it's released.
Jeeves http://www.ask.com/ ?
Bloat is things like hundreds of mb of source code in a distribution intended for normal users. ??? In my experience, a Linux distribution (say, Debian Etch, for example) can, on average, install a base system with GUI in maybe up to one gig, and it's ready to go, all drivers installed and loaded. The last time I installed XP, it was 1.5, and that didn't even get me half my hardware working. In that 1.5 gig limit, I can get my web browsing tools, my music and video players and rippers, games (better than Windows' default games), various remote administration tools, and a couple of my CD's ripped. Who's bloated now? Bloat is installing 8 different text editors and 4 different web browsers just to give you a choice (instead of giving you ONE, which you can then use to download the one you really want). That would be nice, but that ONE is Internet Explorer (for Windows), you can't uninstall it (well you can, techinically, but as you're talking about the general end user, they can't) and going online to download the alternatives and other necessary apps leaves you open to easy compromisation. Linux gives you many (if you go with a distro aimed for end-users, and ease of use), because those who designed those browsers know that different users like different things, and rather than say "Here's the one we choose. Don't like it? Find your own.", they say "Hey, we know what we like, you might like something different, here are a few of the more popular ones, and here's how to remove the ones you don't want." Bloat is including a whole lot of crap that nobody will use. Much like above, what's installed in Linux is dependant on what distribution you choose and how you install it. Do you go for the "newbie" distro like Ubuntu or Mandriva, or do you go for the bare-bones, build-it-yourself distro like Debian or Gentoo (or LFS if you're masochistic)? Do you do the expert install that allows you to select which packages you want installed, or do you go for the simple, mainly automated install and (like the Ronco guy would say) "Just set it and forget it". When I install, there are very few things I would never use (and most of those are installed because they're used by programs I do use). And yes, I do admit, a base installation of Windows XP will boot up faster than Linux. It should, you'll have to reboot more often.
+1 for Foxmarks. I just started using it a month ago and I don't know how ever I managed without. It's so nice not to have to remember to back up my bookmarks any time I want to install a new OS, it's done every time I use Firefox.
Those "better" mousetraps suck. My house had a mouse problem a couple years ago, and we tried everything, poison, those traps, traditional traps, non-lethal traps (which any mouse that was caught in one was immediately flushed, thereby negating the non-lethal aspect). The things that worked? A bunch of poison in the attic (bromine pellets, I believe), and the old-style traps.
Those new ones don't have near the snapping/crushing power of the old-style. They killed less than half of what the old style did (and since I had to "empty" each one, I know how many we had).
It has not been released. The beta has, and the beta is apparently (I can't get it to install as it doesn't like my NForce board's SCSI/RAID, Firewire or "game controller" chips) bloatware. Besides that, this thread was addressing the issue of Windows being labeled bloatware. It has been labeled bloatware long before Longhorn/Vista existed. And back when XP was new, it was bloatware, and back when 98 was, it was bloatware. The thing is, is that as computers get more powerful, the bloat becomes less noticable (would you consider 98 to be bloatware now?). I wonder what a computer geek from the 80's or early 90's, were operating systems came on a couple 1.44 meg floppies would think of an operating system requiring a 3.2 GIG DVD, with few included applications?
Yeah, and more schools are teaching MS products and offering MS Certifications than Apache/Linux.
The sysadmins have to learn somewhere, and it just so happens that many who get hired are because they happen to have those programs under their belt, regardless of how good of a sysadmin they really are.
Most, if you don't go with all the cutsey KDE3/Gnome full eye candy. Pick something a little more conservative, resource wise (XFCE4, for example), and it'll be fine for the most part. Yeah, a new system will always run faster, however, for most end-users (a.k.a. non geeks and non gamers), a p2-400 with 128 megs of ram will be fine (256 megs would be better, and it wouldn't be that much to upgrade).
Torrent? Ha. I'm waiting to see when they're going to put out their torrent alternative. At least these download sites are reasonably fast (I'm getting a 500+KB/s average).
What do grandma's generally do? Email their kids/grandkids, search the web for recepies and play games. Two of those are ready out of the box, the third takes about 10 minutes, only if they have specific "Windows-only" games.
There are very few things that people like that NEED windows for.