If it seems unreasonable to you, don't use Windows, idiot!
As much as I can, I don't. Since Microsoft is a monopolist, however, unfortunately, I can't quite avoid it.
Those of use who don't mind/care will continue to use Windows.
Well, I hope more people will realize what a poor deal they are getting with Microsoft software if one talks about it. I mean, that's the least one can do to oppose Microsoft's billion dollar marketing machinery.
And also, yes, it was FUD; just look at the summary.
I don't see the FUD. Microsoft's license does prohibit the use of VNC. Maybe people like you who happily keep buying MS stuff just have trouble reading?
A lot of shareware charges $15-$50 for what amounts to pretty minimal functionality and non-existent suppport and documentation. Real software publishers put out full, professional software packages at those prices. It's not surprising that users don't feel compelled to pay for a lot of shareware--the software is only worth a few dollars at best.
As for me, I don't use such shareware at all; I just write my own. It's more fun than dealing with some crappy piece of VB, and a little Perl script will often do what a $30 piece of shareware does. If it looks like it's useful to others, I put it up on my web site.
Why wouldn't it hold up in court? Microsoft did, indeed, in the past try to restrict what kind of web service you can offer from their platforms. The fools are the people who buy the software under those conditions.
Seven years ago, Sun promised to keep Java open and free. What do we have today? A bloated set of APIs implemented by only a single vendor and a process that takes years to add even the simplest improvements to the Java language and libraries. And Sun has failed to take any actions that would guarantee to Java users that Java remains freely available--Sun could start charging for it any day, and you couldn't even download binaries anymore.
I think Sun Java and the JCP is beyond hope. Open source developers should either define their own core "Java" implementation and libraries that discards most of the overly complex and Sun proprietary stuff, or just join up with the Mono project (Microsoft is no better than Sun, but Mono is producing a fully open source implementation of C#, and that's what counts).
Read the agreement. [...] No one cares if you remote control it for administrative purposes.
I suggest you read the license agreement before accusing people of "FUD". VNC is ruled out by it.
What Microsoft doesn't want you to do is to use VNC to create a terminal services like server where you install an app once and share it with your network.
Yes, Microsoft doesn't want that, and that seems unreasonable to me. After all, there are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft without such restrictions. If its technical shortcomings and Microsoft's illegal practices weren't enough, this is yet another reason to dump Windows.
That's comparing apples and oranges. IBM couldn't have pulled money from, say, mainframes to support OS/2 even if they had wanted to--their customers would have crucified them. Effectively, Microsoft could dedicate their $3.8bn revenue to Windows, while IBM's resources in that area were almost zero in comparison.
However, IBM could perhaps have given away OS/2 to gain marketshare, but there may have been legal obstacles to that.
That doesn't really seem very persuasive to me. As far as proprietary systems on low-end hardware go, Amiga seemed like a much better system than OS/2. And if X11 really was too much (I had no problem with it on a 386 at 20MHz), IBM could have used a UNIX kernel and developed a simple GL on top of it.
What it comes down to is that OS/2 really was the best only if you look at operating systems that run on the PC platform and that are similar to Windows. And in that category, it really only had one competitor, which OS/2 admittedly handily beat: Windows. But I have used OS/2 and I'm not sad to see it gone: in the grand scheme of things it didn't innovate and it was proprietary.
It was better than anything around, yet it failed.
Not even close. There were plenty of other operating systems and GUIs around at the time: NeXTStep, UNIX workstations and GUIs, Smalltalk-based systems, to name just a few.
NeXTStep alone beat OS/2 technologically in just about every area. The only major OS that OS/2 was clearly better than was DOS/Windows, but that was not exactly hard to do.
OS/2 was an attempt by IBM and Microsoft to corner the market with a proprietary operating system and proprietary APIs. It is poetic justice that the effort went down in flames as far as IBM was concerned. It is unfortunate that the effort succeeded as far as Microsoft is concerned, which apparently moved bits and pieces of OS/2 into NT.
The lesson to be learned from this? Either be the monopolist, or go with open source and open APIs. That's why IBM is pushing Linux now and Microsoft is pushing Windows.
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As much as I can, I don't. Since Microsoft is a monopolist, however, unfortunately, I can't quite avoid it.
Those of use who don't mind/care will continue to use Windows.
Well, I hope more people will realize what a poor deal they are getting with Microsoft software if one talks about it. I mean, that's the least one can do to oppose Microsoft's billion dollar marketing machinery.
And also, yes, it was FUD; just look at the summary.
I don't see the FUD. Microsoft's license does prohibit the use of VNC. Maybe people like you who happily keep buying MS stuff just have trouble reading?
As for me, I don't use such shareware at all; I just write my own. It's more fun than dealing with some crappy piece of VB, and a little Perl script will often do what a $30 piece of shareware does. If it looks like it's useful to others, I put it up on my web site.
Why wouldn't it hold up in court? Microsoft did, indeed, in the past try to restrict what kind of web service you can offer from their platforms. The fools are the people who buy the software under those conditions.
I think Sun Java and the JCP is beyond hope. Open source developers should either define their own core "Java" implementation and libraries that discards most of the overly complex and Sun proprietary stuff, or just join up with the Mono project (Microsoft is no better than Sun, but Mono is producing a fully open source implementation of C#, and that's what counts).
I suggest you read the license agreement before accusing people of "FUD". VNC is ruled out by it.
What Microsoft doesn't want you to do is to use VNC to create a terminal services like server where you install an app once and share it with your network.
Yes, Microsoft doesn't want that, and that seems unreasonable to me. After all, there are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft without such restrictions. If its technical shortcomings and Microsoft's illegal practices weren't enough, this is yet another reason to dump Windows.
However, IBM could perhaps have given away OS/2 to gain marketshare, but there may have been legal obstacles to that.
What it comes down to is that OS/2 really was the best only if you look at operating systems that run on the PC platform and that are similar to Windows. And in that category, it really only had one competitor, which OS/2 admittedly handily beat: Windows. But I have used OS/2 and I'm not sad to see it gone: in the grand scheme of things it didn't innovate and it was proprietary.
Not even close. There were plenty of other operating systems and GUIs around at the time: NeXTStep, UNIX workstations and GUIs, Smalltalk-based systems, to name just a few.
NeXTStep alone beat OS/2 technologically in just about every area. The only major OS that OS/2 was clearly better than was DOS/Windows, but that was not exactly hard to do.
OS/2 was an attempt by IBM and Microsoft to corner the market with a proprietary operating system and proprietary APIs. It is poetic justice that the effort went down in flames as far as IBM was concerned. It is unfortunate that the effort succeeded as far as Microsoft is concerned, which apparently moved bits and pieces of OS/2 into NT.
The lesson to be learned from this? Either be the monopolist, or go with open source and open APIs. That's why IBM is pushing Linux now and Microsoft is pushing Windows.