The point I think you are missing is that Open Source programmers write software for themselves and for the Open Source community at large, not to encourage Windows users to migrate into the Open Source community.
There appears to be this unwritten remit somewhere that everyone outside of the Open Source community expects Linux to rescue them from "the great scourge of Microsoft" and that these people are sat there waiting for Linux to be "ready for the desktop" so that they can finally ditch Windows and join in the Linux revolution.
The fact of the matter is that Open Source is about "free" software that anyone can pick up and use if they so wish, provided that they possibly expend some effort in getting it to work the way they like and provide feedback into the community about what is wrong with the software and how it should improve.
With Microsoft and commercial software, general users have become very lazy. They expect products that simply deliver the functionality they require without, by and large, having any say about what that functionality should be. This is because commercial software companies have a lot of money to spend on marketing and asking questions of their user base.
This is no defence of the Open Source movement but a statement of fact. As an Open Source user, you have an obligation to let the programmers know what they have done wrong, especially because they are not writing software to be commercially successful, merely useful to themselves and their peers.
A Windows user cannot simply sit back and expect Linux (and Open Source) to "come to him". Open Source assumes a person who is prepared to do some work him or herself and to become an active member of a community - as such there is also a mentality change on behalf of the user who plans to migrate to any Open Source software.
I think Bill needs to go take a look around him a little, especially on eBay, where hardware costs "next to nothing" now!
You can pick up a Pentium II PC for a few dollars/pounds/euros. Put in 256MB of memory and it'll run Windows 9x or 2000 with an office package perfectly happily... I've got several friends and relatives who have benefitted from a lot of my old hardware, have PCs now with 300-500 Mhz CPUs that they're perfectly happy with and I've done my bit for the environment also by recycling old hardware.
I believe Mr Gates is under the illusion that because he locks his user base into his software now, that in 10 years time people will still be willing to part with hard earned cash for software which, let's face it, is hardly innovative anymore because all of the features anyone can think of implementing have just about been implemented.
If anything software innovation is becoming stale (though who cares because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it") and it's in the realms of hardware, particularly miniaturisation that the innovation is taking place currently.
I hate to dampen Bill Gates' fireworks but if Linux makes as much an advance over the next 10 years as it has done over the last 10 years, then I think he'll have a few other things on his mind in a decade than just pondering the price of hardware...
I have no doubt in my mind that PC game development is slowing as games companies move more and more over to consoles. There's several reasons for this:
1. Sheer number of titles / emulation: it's probably a safe assumption to make that the kids & young adults generally go for the consoles while the parents & older ones use PCs for gaming. Therefore, it's probably safe to assume that the older lot (myself included) enjoy the emulation scene and reloading up old games - in turn, we have less free time for new games and buy less of them. Therefore there's less and less profit for the games companies in PC Games.
2. Game modding: great for the general public to extend the life of favourite games by downloading free mods for Half-Life, Quake, etc. but ultimately a tactical mistake by the games companies. After all, I'm still playing various Half-Life mods several years after its original release meaning, again, I've bought and played very few new games.
3. Game quality: console releases seem to be much better thought out than PC game releases. Console games tend to be more formulaic - beat-em-ups, sports & racing games, etc - but also seem to be of a consistently better quality. In my experience, maybe 10% of all the PC game releases are of a reasonable standard while only a handful each year are classifiable as "classics". The games companies have only themselves to blame for this - magazine and Internet review sites mean the general public can be a lot more selective with their purchases.
4. Network gaming: modding aside, it's possible to buy a first-person shooter on the PC and finish it in about a day's worth of play to be ready for the next game. Network gaming, although great for us players, extends the usable life of titles to be much longer meaning that, again, we buy less new games. This is why the gaming companies are obviously moving to a model of server subscriptions to keep the money coming in. But ultimately it'll result in less, longer-life titles being released.
From a personal perspective, I'm getting older and getting slightly bored with the modern games scene anyway - I'm now really only looking forward to Doom3 and Half-Life.
And while I'm pretty comfortable on the "disposable income" front, I'm simply tired of with the endless cycle of hardware upgrades that seem to be a requirement every 6 months or so in the PC gaming scene.
I really miss the 8-bit and 16-bit days when games developers were forced to push the hardware further and further to create better and better games rather than simply expecting us to upgrade all of the time.
Every new PC is now Palladium or DRM based. This now means that everything you run on that PC is now verified to be "licensed" or "unlicensed", "secure" or "insecure" by some piece of hardware in on the motherboard.
You also run Windows Longhorn. Longhorn works in conjunction with the DRM hardware to verify what you're running on that PC and either allows or denies an application to run - together with that data that the application runs.
You install your iTunes software. That will only run if it has been pre-verified as a valid application on your platform. This means that Apple had to buy a Microsoft license to run the iTunes software on Windows. The cost of that license was passed on to you, the purchaser.
You want to use an MP3 codec to make some MP3s from a CD you own. WMP in Longhorn doesn't include an MP3 codec because WMA is now the "accepted" standard that also happens to be DRM.
You find a free MP3 codec on the Internet. However, it's deemed "insecure" by Palladium and Longhorn. You cannot run it.
You also find that documents you received 6 months ago have been deleted, that email you archived has disappeared and the cool film trailer you wanted to show a buddy has "expired" - again, because DRM has been given the power to decide what you can and cannot run on your PC.
How does all that sound???
All the above is technology that is being pushed by MS and certain hardware vendors now. It's being pushed because it makes them more money and they don't give a damn about your freedoms.
And it all started with a pretty looking Media Player that got bundled with Windows and that most people started using "because it came with it"...
If Samba gets a few new features in the next few years, what's to stop Microsoft accusing them from looking at the stuff that needs royalties, or looking at the leaked source code?
What stops them is that MS has full access to the SAMBA source code under the Open Source license just like the rest of us. If there was any hint of the MS leaked code in SAMBA, nothing would give MS greater pleasure than to come down hard on the SAMBA team.
Give Jeremy Allinson a little more intelligence than that, please!
Will you still be saying this when you can no longer make MP3s from the CDs you own, can no longer make legitimate backup copies of the software you paid money for and cannot run the applications you want to run because Microsoft considers it to be "unlicensed" or a "security threat"?
Don't like RealPlayer? Fine don't use it, but then go find an Open Source or commercial media player that does not dictate what you can and cannot run on your PC - because that's precisely what WMP is starting to do now and will do more and more in the future.
In that way, you'll preserve your freedoms a while longer... and while you're at it, ditch IE and get Mozilla.
Why does everyone mention Linux alongside Microsoft in just about every post about the EU decision?
Firstly, the ruling is about MS being a monopolist and locking out competitor products from Windows by virtue of the very deep integration of WMP within Windows. This affects commercial products like RealPlayer and some OSS players that exist for or have been ported to Windows - nothing to do with Linux.
Secondly, this decision slows down MS's plans of dominating the market with licensed DRM software, for which WMP is the "Trojan Horse" transport. This aspect of the EU decision is what really hurts MS, especially if they are forced to license the APIs for those DRM formats.
However, DRM will affect Windows users first because it will be the codecs inside Windows that get altered or replaced, over a period of time, to stop the playing of "unlicensed" media. Linux users might end up not being able to play DRM media but they'll still be able to play the standard non-DRM formats like MP3, MPEG, etc.
It would be really nice to hear from a Windows user exactly how he or she feels about having his/her rights to fair use curtailed by Microsoft, the RIAA, etc. because I have never seen a Windows user ever respond to that question.
Windows users need to remember that a major reason a lot of people use Linux is because they intend to maintain their rights to have full and complete control over the software their machines run - this has always been a core philosophy of Unix that has been carried across into Linux by the Open Source movement.
Whether MS is fined or not, whether MS exists or not, is of no importance to the majority of the Linux community.
Unfortunately, it's the poor thinking by the Windows community that will allow DRM to get pushed through that will affect everyone's rights to fair use.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - if the EU decision holds back DRM in any way, then it's a good decision. End of story.
Yeah, never mind that Windows gave computers some much needed unity.
Sorry, why do you need unity?
When home computing first took off in the early-to-mid 1980s, businesses were already using the first IBM PCs but very few people had them in the home - the reason being was that they were incredibly expensive machines then and most home users wanted a small, cheap home machine to play games on and to maybe do a little programming, type a few letters simply, etc.
So what started out as Sinclair Spectrums, BBC Micros & Commodore 64s as 8-bit machines became Commodore Amigas and Atari STs as 16-bit machines in the late 1980s & early 1990s.
Even at this point, with PCs getting cheaper, STs and Amigas were still in widespread home use because they had much better capabilities, at the time, than IBM PCs had for graphics and sounds.
It was this point that Commodore made a big blunder, by not considering development of bigger and better Amigas that could compete with the 386 PCs that were now starting to get upgradeable graphics and sound cards. This was long before Windows, now at "Windows For Workgroups" stage, became a viable gaming platform - I for one cannot remember a game that was written specifically for WFW 3.11.
The fact is that it was the modular nature of the IBM PC that meant it had an advantage cost-wise for upgradability - if you wanted to upgrade an Amiga, you had to buy a new one or buy a very expensive third-party addon. This was nothing to do with Windows, at least at this point in history.
Never mind that computer ownership skyrocketed after Windows 95 came out.
PC ownership was already increasing by the time Windows 95 came out. Windows 95 was a very clever marketing decision by Microsoft because it forever tied PC games to a Microsoft operating system by virtue of DirectX and forcing hardware manufacturers into writing Windows drivers.
However, it crashed a helluva lot more times than MSDOS, OS2 or AmigaDOS and the Workbench ever did because Microsoft had no reason to make a stable OS anyway - it sold purely because of it had a stranglehold on the home computing market from the word go, not because it advanced computing in any way.
Remember, when Windows 95 came out, it sold initially to home users - businesses took a long time to move from WFW and NT 3.51.
Also, unless you ever used comparable OSes of the time, like OS2, AmigaDOS or a UNIX, you would not appreciate what proper multitasking actually meant. Windows 95 was *just* a GUI for MSDOS and still, technologically, far behind the other OSes - although it may have looked prettier!
Anybody remember the Commodore days?
Yes, a Commodore screwed up big time with bad marketing decisions - this happened despite Microsoft although MS would probably have killed them anyway had they laster longer - but again, this would have been through clever marketing and industrial sabotage.
Having a computer was like driving a moped.
In what respect? Again, if you'd have used the Amiga Workbench, the 14MHz 68000 CPU inside an Amiga gave Workbench a much slicker feel and speed than anything MS ever did on an Intel 486 running at anything up to 100 MHz - because the hardware multitasked properly and the OS was much slicker due to the tighter memory constraints on an Amiga.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Amiga zealot in any respect but it wasn't until Pentium-class CPUs came out that I found any reason to change to an IBM PC. Even then, Windows was a step backward from Workbench and I'm pleased that I can now get similar reliability and usability on an IBM PC with Linux.
The only good thing about Windows is that Microsoft have always been excellent at marketing it, not because it ever has been a technological leader.
when it comes to their personal business like having "sex" with an intern
Great comment!
What's even funnier is that when the likes of Clinton go do this, you actually start to feel a little respect for them because at least you realise that they're subject to the same human weaknesses that the rest of us are.
continent - one of the six or seven great divisions of land on the globe
Our particular division of land contains some of the countries of Europe and some of the countries in Asia. i.e. you could travel entirely by land from France (in Europe) to India (in Asia).
Webster's definition here is therefore incorrect - so how can I accept the definitions you have been throwing at me?
Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) and (Southern) Ireland are all in the EU. They all have (some degree) of self-government (e.g. taxation) with some centralised policies from the EU.
Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, Texas, etc. are all in the USA.They all have (some degree) of self-government (e.g. taxation) with some centralised policies from Washington.
I agree that the EU is not all of Europe and that the unification in the EU is not as tight as in the USA but it is still a union of which The British Isles are all a part of.
1. Linux is just the kernel. An operating system sits round the kernel provides a user shell and tools to interface to and manage the hardware. A distribution provides additional tools that manage & change data-file types like MP3s, docs, etc. Windows is therefore a distribution that contains operating systems tools.
2. Linux distributions are designed by organisations who create what they deem to be the most suitable suite of tools for their users - no different to what MS does with Windows.
3. Linux distributions are varied - Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc. provide a complete environment of tools, including media players, in their distributions - this is why lots of people buy those. However, the installation programs for all these distros allow any package to be removed at installation time provided that you choose to "Install indvidual packages".
4. Other distributions like Linux From Scratch & Gentoo allow you to choose exactly what software to install from the beginning - you do not need to even have a GUI environment if you don't need one.
In summary, when installing a Linux-based machine, you not only have a varied choice in what distribution you use but also what packages you choose. As such, you could choose Gnome or KDE media players, XMMS on any X-Windows environment or even a command-line media player. However, all of these players will share some common libraries and codecs in order to handle the media types that they do.
Because of the totally proprietary nature of WMP, 3rd party tools do not have access to many of the Windows codecs and libraries that WMP uses. Therefore, the media player choice on Windows is much more restrictive.
There is therefore no comparison between media players in Linux and in Windows.
You still haven't explained why the British Isles, separated from mainland Europe by 20 miles of sea but connected via a tunnel, isn't part of Europe yet Hawaii, separated from mainland US by several hundred miles of sea and Alaska, separated from mainland US by several thousand miles of Canada, are parts of the US.
Your opinion please, this time without the encyclopedia...
We'll just use the empty roads as runways for all the jet aircraft we'll now have.
Don't forget not to use the internet.
...except, of course, the World Wide Web as invented by Tim Berners-Lee - that means all the eCommerce is ours also.
No solar energy
Erm, there's only a small part of Europe that actually gets much sun! You can have that one back, although we're keeping Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix hostage for all your bare-faced cheek!
please provide your GPS coordinates and we'll be happy to comply with your request
Ah, now you have us at a loss... GPS was an American invention which you guys invented and which you have now taken back from us. We no longer *know* GPS co-ordinates...
Oh well, I guess we'll have to back to using maps as perfected by the Romans, Greeks and Marco Polo.
...and while we're at it, we'll have those back also!
In the OS I installed, Lived a player, By Microsoft, And it told us what to do, With our music and DVDs, So we took it to the EC, And we told them what we found, And they gave Bill a big fine, And they told him to take it out,
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM, We are European, We are European, Bill can stick his codecs in the bin, We are European, We are European.
And our friend is little Tux, Cos he let's us do what we please, Bill can go and boil his head, While we drink beer from Ballmer's skull
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM, We are European, We are European, Bill can stick his codecs in the bin, We are European, We are European.
Now we live a life of ease, Everyone of us, Is European, We can play the tunes we like We can watch the films we need We don't pay no MS tax We are free from DRM
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM, We are European, We are European, Bill can stick his codecs in the bin, We are European, We are European.
There's a geek-boy who's sure all that glitters ain't gold And he's buying his music from Bill Gates And when he surfs there he knows if the stores are closed With a click he can get what he came for
Woe oh oh oh oh oh And he's buying his music from Bill Gates
There's a sign on the page but he wants to be sure Because Microsoft's words have two meanings There's a license that says all tracks are DRM'ed And you cannot play them without Windows.
Woe oh oh oh oh oh And he's buying some songs he can't copy
There's a feeling he gets when he reads down the page And his credit card's shaking in worry On his PC hard disk, Media Player's not there Coz he doesn't use Microsoft Windows
Woe oh oh oh oh oh He runs Linux because he likes freedom
And it's whispered that soon, if we all buy the tunes That Microsoft will own all our PCs And a new day will dawn for those who sold their souls And in Redmond they'll echo with laughter
And it makes me wonder
If there's a backdoor in your Windows Don't be alarmed now It'll be the MS police in there
Yes there are two paths you can go by but in the long run There's still time to change the road you're on
Your head is humming and it won't go because you don't know The penguin's calling you to join him Dear geek-boy can't you ditch the Windows and did you know Open Source lies on the whispering wind
And as we format our hard drives Our Windows CDs in the bins There walks a penguin we all know Who shines white light and wants to show How your hard-disk turns to gold And if you listen very hard Old Tux will speak to you at last When all are one and one is all To be a geek and have a soul
Woe oh oh oh oh oh He's got Gentoo and Red Hat and Mandrake
There's a geek-boy who's got Linux on his hard-disk And he's not buying music from MS And when he needs stuff to hear if the stores are closed With a click he can get it from Kazaa
And he's giving the finger to Bill Gates, uh uh uh.
Slashdot Mirror
There appears to be this unwritten remit somewhere that everyone outside of the Open Source community expects Linux to rescue them from "the great scourge of Microsoft" and that these people are sat there waiting for Linux to be "ready for the desktop" so that they can finally ditch Windows and join in the Linux revolution.
The fact of the matter is that Open Source is about "free" software that anyone can pick up and use if they so wish, provided that they possibly expend some effort in getting it to work the way they like and provide feedback into the community about what is wrong with the software and how it should improve.
With Microsoft and commercial software, general users have become very lazy. They expect products that simply deliver the functionality they require without, by and large, having any say about what that functionality should be. This is because commercial software companies have a lot of money to spend on marketing and asking questions of their user base.
This is no defence of the Open Source movement but a statement of fact. As an Open Source user, you have an obligation to let the programmers know what they have done wrong, especially because they are not writing software to be commercially successful, merely useful to themselves and their peers.
A Windows user cannot simply sit back and expect Linux (and Open Source) to "come to him". Open Source assumes a person who is prepared to do some work him or herself and to become an active member of a community - as such there is also a mentality change on behalf of the user who plans to migrate to any Open Source software.
You can pick up a Pentium II PC for a few dollars/pounds/euros. Put in 256MB of memory and it'll run Windows 9x or 2000 with an office package perfectly happily... I've got several friends and relatives who have benefitted from a lot of my old hardware, have PCs now with 300-500 Mhz CPUs that they're perfectly happy with and I've done my bit for the environment also by recycling old hardware.
I believe Mr Gates is under the illusion that because he locks his user base into his software now, that in 10 years time people will still be willing to part with hard earned cash for software which, let's face it, is hardly innovative anymore because all of the features anyone can think of implementing have just about been implemented.
If anything software innovation is becoming stale (though who cares because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it") and it's in the realms of hardware, particularly miniaturisation that the innovation is taking place currently.
I hate to dampen Bill Gates' fireworks but if Linux makes as much an advance over the next 10 years as it has done over the last 10 years, then I think he'll have a few other things on his mind in a decade than just pondering the price of hardware...
1. Sheer number of titles / emulation: it's probably a safe assumption to make that the kids & young adults generally go for the consoles while the parents & older ones use PCs for gaming. Therefore, it's probably safe to assume that the older lot (myself included) enjoy the emulation scene and reloading up old games - in turn, we have less free time for new games and buy less of them. Therefore there's less and less profit for the games companies in PC Games.
2. Game modding: great for the general public to extend the life of favourite games by downloading free mods for Half-Life, Quake, etc. but ultimately a tactical mistake by the games companies. After all, I'm still playing various Half-Life mods several years after its original release meaning, again, I've bought and played very few new games.
3. Game quality: console releases seem to be much better thought out than PC game releases. Console games tend to be more formulaic - beat-em-ups, sports & racing games, etc - but also seem to be of a consistently better quality. In my experience, maybe 10% of all the PC game releases are of a reasonable standard while only a handful each year are classifiable as "classics". The games companies have only themselves to blame for this - magazine and Internet review sites mean the general public can be a lot more selective with their purchases.
4. Network gaming: modding aside, it's possible to buy a first-person shooter on the PC and finish it in about a day's worth of play to be ready for the next game. Network gaming, although great for us players, extends the usable life of titles to be much longer meaning that, again, we buy less new games. This is why the gaming companies are obviously moving to a model of server subscriptions to keep the money coming in. But ultimately it'll result in less, longer-life titles being released.
From a personal perspective, I'm getting older and getting slightly bored with the modern games scene anyway - I'm now really only looking forward to Doom3 and Half-Life.
And while I'm pretty comfortable on the "disposable income" front, I'm simply tired of with the endless cycle of hardware upgrades that seem to be a requirement every 6 months or so in the PC gaming scene.
I really miss the 8-bit and 16-bit days when games developers were forced to push the hardware further and further to create better and better games rather than simply expecting us to upgrade all of the time.
The classic days of gaming are long dead...
Just a piece of propaganda by somebody in the TCPA...
Every new PC is now Palladium or DRM based. This now means that everything you run on that PC is now verified to be "licensed" or "unlicensed", "secure" or "insecure" by some piece of hardware in on the motherboard.
You also run Windows Longhorn. Longhorn works in conjunction with the DRM hardware to verify what you're running on that PC and either allows or denies an application to run - together with that data that the application runs.
You install your iTunes software. That will only run if it has been pre-verified as a valid application on your platform. This means that Apple had to buy a Microsoft license to run the iTunes software on Windows. The cost of that license was passed on to you, the purchaser.
You want to use an MP3 codec to make some MP3s from a CD you own. WMP in Longhorn doesn't include an MP3 codec because WMA is now the "accepted" standard that also happens to be DRM.
You find a free MP3 codec on the Internet. However, it's deemed "insecure" by Palladium and Longhorn. You cannot run it.
You also find that documents you received 6 months ago have been deleted, that email you archived has disappeared and the cool film trailer you wanted to show a buddy has "expired" - again, because DRM has been given the power to decide what you can and cannot run on your PC.
How does all that sound???
All the above is technology that is being pushed by MS and certain hardware vendors now. It's being pushed because it makes them more money and they don't give a damn about your freedoms.
And it all started with a pretty looking Media Player that got bundled with Windows and that most people started using "because it came with it"...
What stops them is that MS has full access to the SAMBA source code under the Open Source license just like the rest of us. If there was any hint of the MS leaked code in SAMBA, nothing would give MS greater pleasure than to come down hard on the SAMBA team.
Give Jeremy Allinson a little more intelligence than that, please!
Don't like RealPlayer? Fine don't use it, but then go find an Open Source or commercial media player that does not dictate what you can and cannot run on your PC - because that's precisely what WMP is starting to do now and will do more and more in the future.
In that way, you'll preserve your freedoms a while longer... and while you're at it, ditch IE and get Mozilla.
Firstly, the ruling is about MS being a monopolist and locking out competitor products from Windows by virtue of the very deep integration of WMP within Windows. This affects commercial products like RealPlayer and some OSS players that exist for or have been ported to Windows - nothing to do with Linux.
Secondly, this decision slows down MS's plans of dominating the market with licensed DRM software, for which WMP is the "Trojan Horse" transport. This aspect of the EU decision is what really hurts MS, especially if they are forced to license the APIs for those DRM formats.
However, DRM will affect Windows users first because it will be the codecs inside Windows that get altered or replaced, over a period of time, to stop the playing of "unlicensed" media. Linux users might end up not being able to play DRM media but they'll still be able to play the standard non-DRM formats like MP3, MPEG, etc.
It would be really nice to hear from a Windows user exactly how he or she feels about having his/her rights to fair use curtailed by Microsoft, the RIAA, etc. because I have never seen a Windows user ever respond to that question.
Windows users need to remember that a major reason a lot of people use Linux is because they intend to maintain their rights to have full and complete control over the software their machines run - this has always been a core philosophy of Unix that has been carried across into Linux by the Open Source movement.
Whether MS is fined or not, whether MS exists or not, is of no importance to the majority of the Linux community.
Unfortunately, it's the poor thinking by the Windows community that will allow DRM to get pushed through that will affect everyone's rights to fair use.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - if the EU decision holds back DRM in any way, then it's a good decision. End of story.
However, did it really need WFW? I do remember networking Duke Nukem 3D entirely in DOS using DOS network card drivers and IPX/SPX.
WFW certainly brought in an MS TCP/IP stack but doesn't Doom network with IPX/SPX? I really must check on that next time I fire it up.
I suppose WFW meant you could play Doom over the Internet with TCP/IP though.
Sorry, why do you need unity?
When home computing first took off in the early-to-mid 1980s, businesses were already using the first IBM PCs but very few people had them in the home - the reason being was that they were incredibly expensive machines then and most home users wanted a small, cheap home machine to play games on and to maybe do a little programming, type a few letters simply, etc.
So what started out as Sinclair Spectrums, BBC Micros & Commodore 64s as 8-bit machines became Commodore Amigas and Atari STs as 16-bit machines in the late 1980s & early 1990s.
Even at this point, with PCs getting cheaper, STs and Amigas were still in widespread home use because they had much better capabilities, at the time, than IBM PCs had for graphics and sounds.
It was this point that Commodore made a big blunder, by not considering development of bigger and better Amigas that could compete with the 386 PCs that were now starting to get upgradeable graphics and sound cards. This was long before Windows, now at "Windows For Workgroups" stage, became a viable gaming platform - I for one cannot remember a game that was written specifically for WFW 3.11.
The fact is that it was the modular nature of the IBM PC that meant it had an advantage cost-wise for upgradability - if you wanted to upgrade an Amiga, you had to buy a new one or buy a very expensive third-party addon. This was nothing to do with Windows, at least at this point in history.
Never mind that computer ownership skyrocketed after Windows 95 came out.
PC ownership was already increasing by the time Windows 95 came out. Windows 95 was a very clever marketing decision by Microsoft because it forever tied PC games to a Microsoft operating system by virtue of DirectX and forcing hardware manufacturers into writing Windows drivers. However, it crashed a helluva lot more times than MSDOS, OS2 or AmigaDOS and the Workbench ever did because Microsoft had no reason to make a stable OS anyway - it sold purely because of it had a stranglehold on the home computing market from the word go, not because it advanced computing in any way.
Remember, when Windows 95 came out, it sold initially to home users - businesses took a long time to move from WFW and NT 3.51.
Also, unless you ever used comparable OSes of the time, like OS2, AmigaDOS or a UNIX, you would not appreciate what proper multitasking actually meant. Windows 95 was *just* a GUI for MSDOS and still, technologically, far behind the other OSes - although it may have looked prettier!
Anybody remember the Commodore days?
Yes, a Commodore screwed up big time with bad marketing decisions - this happened despite Microsoft although MS would probably have killed them anyway had they laster longer - but again, this would have been through clever marketing and industrial sabotage.
Having a computer was like driving a moped.
In what respect? Again, if you'd have used the Amiga Workbench, the 14MHz 68000 CPU inside an Amiga gave Workbench a much slicker feel and speed than anything MS ever did on an Intel 486 running at anything up to 100 MHz - because the hardware multitasked properly and the OS was much slicker due to the tighter memory constraints on an Amiga.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Amiga zealot in any respect but it wasn't until Pentium-class CPUs came out that I found any reason to change to an IBM PC. Even then, Windows was a step backward from Workbench and I'm pleased that I can now get similar reliability and usability on an IBM PC with Linux.
The only good thing about Windows is that Microsoft have always been excellent at marketing it, not because it ever has been a technological leader.
Great comment!
What's even funnier is that when the likes of Clinton go do this, you actually start to feel a little respect for them because at least you realise that they're subject to the same human weaknesses that the rest of us are.
continent - one of the six or seven great divisions of land on the globe
Our particular division of land contains some of the countries of Europe and some of the countries in Asia. i.e. you could travel entirely by land from France (in Europe) to India (in Asia).
Webster's definition here is therefore incorrect - so how can I accept the definitions you have been throwing at me?
EU = European Union
Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) and (Southern) Ireland are all in the EU. They all have (some degree) of self-government (e.g. taxation) with some centralised policies from the EU.
Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, Texas, etc. are all in the USA.They all have (some degree) of self-government (e.g. taxation) with some centralised policies from Washington.
I agree that the EU is not all of Europe and that the unification in the EU is not as tight as in the USA but it is still a union of which The British Isles are all a part of.
1. Linux is just the kernel. An operating system sits round the kernel provides a user shell and tools to interface to and manage the hardware. A distribution provides additional tools that manage & change data-file types like MP3s, docs, etc. Windows is therefore a distribution that contains operating systems tools.
2. Linux distributions are designed by organisations who create what they deem to be the most suitable suite of tools for their users - no different to what MS does with Windows.
3. Linux distributions are varied - Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc. provide a complete environment of tools, including media players, in their distributions - this is why lots of people buy those. However, the installation programs for all these distros allow any package to be removed at installation time provided that you choose to "Install indvidual packages".
4. Other distributions like Linux From Scratch & Gentoo allow you to choose exactly what software to install from the beginning - you do not need to even have a GUI environment if you don't need one.
In summary, when installing a Linux-based machine, you not only have a varied choice in what distribution you use but also what packages you choose. As such, you could choose Gnome or KDE media players, XMMS on any X-Windows environment or even a command-line media player. However, all of these players will share some common libraries and codecs in order to handle the media types that they do.
Because of the totally proprietary nature of WMP, 3rd party tools do not have access to many of the Windows codecs and libraries that WMP uses. Therefore, the media player choice on Windows is much more restrictive.
There is therefore no comparison between media players in Linux and in Windows.
pants = boxer shorts / Y-fronts not trousers
football = played with a spherical ball
fag = slang for cigarette not homosexual
Nothing else from Microsoft "Encarta", thanks!
You still haven't explained why the British Isles, separated from mainland Europe by 20 miles of sea but connected via a tunnel, isn't part of Europe yet Hawaii, separated from mainland US by several hundred miles of sea and Alaska, separated from mainland US by several thousand miles of Canada, are parts of the US.
Your opinion please, this time without the encyclopedia...
We'll just use the empty roads as runways for all the jet aircraft we'll now have.
Don't forget not to use the internet.
No solar energy
Erm, there's only a small part of Europe that actually gets much sun! You can have that one back, although we're keeping Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix hostage for all your bare-faced cheek!
So please explain "Alaska" and "Hawaii" to me in similar terms, if you please.
Ah! Would this be those same rocket powered missiles as invented by Werner Von Braun of Prussian birth?
Sorry...
Ah, now you have us at a loss... GPS was an American invention which you guys invented and which you have now taken back from us. We no longer *know* GPS co-ordinates...
Oh well, I guess we'll have to back to using maps as perfected by the Romans, Greeks and Marco Polo.
In the OS I installed,
Lived a player,
By Microsoft,
And it told us what to do,
With our music and DVDs,
So we took it to the EC,
And we told them what we found,
And they gave Bill a big fine,
And they told him to take it out,
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM,
We are European,
We are European,
Bill can stick his codecs in the bin,
We are European,
We are European.
And our friend is little Tux,
Cos he let's us do what we please,
Bill can go and boil his head,
While we drink beer from Ballmer's skull
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM,
We are European,
We are European,
Bill can stick his codecs in the bin,
We are European,
We are European.
Now we live a life of ease,
Everyone of us,
Is European,
We can play the tunes we like
We can watch the films we need
We don't pay no MS tax
We are free from DRM
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM,
We are European,
We are European,
Bill can stick his codecs in the bin,
We are European,
We are European.
- All your BMW and Mercedes cars
- The jet engines from your aircraft (invented by Sir Frank Whittle in Britain in 1945)
- All your nuclear weapons and X-Ray machines (since radioactivity was discovered by the French Marie Curie in the 19th century)
- The ideas that the Wright Brothers stole from Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian)
By return of post, we will send back:
- Macdonalds
- All our Hoover vacuum cleaners (since we now have the much superior British Dyson vacuum cleaners)
- "Charmed", "Smallville" & "Dawson's Creek" (however, we'd like to keep a copy of "The Simpsons" just to remember you guys by!)
Ciao, toodle pip and au revoir.
Thanks for your kind comments! I'm in a "creative" phase currently so watch this space!
(Sung to the tune of "Stairway To Heaven")
There's a geek-boy who's sure all that glitters ain't gold
And he's buying his music from Bill Gates
And when he surfs there he knows if the stores are closed
With a click he can get what he came for
Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And he's buying his music from Bill Gates
There's a sign on the page but he wants to be sure
Because Microsoft's words have two meanings
There's a license that says all tracks are DRM'ed
And you cannot play them without Windows.
Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And he's buying some songs he can't copy
There's a feeling he gets when he reads down the page
And his credit card's shaking in worry
On his PC hard disk, Media Player's not there
Coz he doesn't use Microsoft Windows
Woe oh oh oh oh oh
He runs Linux because he likes freedom
And it's whispered that soon, if we all buy the tunes
That Microsoft will own all our PCs
And a new day will dawn for those who sold their souls
And in Redmond they'll echo with laughter
And it makes me wonder
If there's a backdoor in your Windows
Don't be alarmed now
It'll be the MS police in there
Yes there are two paths you can go by
but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
Your head is humming and it won't go because you don't know
The penguin's calling you to join him
Dear geek-boy can't you ditch the Windows and did you know
Open Source lies on the whispering wind
And as we format our hard drives
Our Windows CDs in the bins
There walks a penguin we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How your hard-disk turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
Old Tux will speak to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a geek and have a soul
Woe oh oh oh oh oh
He's got Gentoo and Red Hat and Mandrake
There's a geek-boy who's got Linux on his hard-disk
And he's not buying music from MS
And when he needs stuff to hear if the stores are closed
With a click he can get it from Kazaa
And he's giving the finger to Bill Gates, uh uh uh.
Why's getting out money so hard?
Windows, Windows, every where,
It's eaten up my card.
The spirit deep within: O Gates!
That ever this should be!
Yea, buggy things did crawl with legs
Within Windows XP.
About, about, it must reboot
My card's still held within!
No beer to quench my thirst tonight,
Blue screen, and wallet thin.
And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued me so:
The demon Gates had followed me
From Redmond's deepest flows.
And my poor tongue, through beerish drought,
Was withered at the root;
I could not speak, no more unless
This teller would reboot.
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, this penguin fine
About my neck was hung.