The day MS fixes even ONE bug in VS.NET without making me pay for an upgrade, I'll take it all back. Bottom line: fix the bugs, or STFU.
I don't have anything to do with it, so the rudeness you directed toward me is not only completely out of line, but pretty juvenile as well. Just because the Microsoft brand is stamped on a product, that doesn't mean that all of Microsoft is personally to blame when you encounter a problem. Visual Studio is made by the Visual Studio team, which is just one small part of the entire company. They define their own update policy.
If you have a gripe about a Microsoft product, please contact the company and let them know! Customer feedback really does get read and considered (even submissions/e-mails from the Microsoft web site). Grousing about it on Slashdot (as an AC, no less) won't fix anything, but making the company aware of the problems just might.
DISCLAIMER: I work at Microsoft as a developer. Nothing I say here is official company stance. This is just my personal opinion based on my time both before and after joining Microsoft.
Microsoft's main problem is a refusal to take quick action by trusting in common sense and instinct.
For example, it took upper management over a decade to finally see that users didn't trust Microsoft products. The rest of the world knew it all along, but management had to wait for mountains of hard data to come pouring in before taking any action. The Trustworthy Computing effort is genuine, sincere, and effective, but it's also about fifteen years overdue.
Do you think Bill Gates wrote BASIC for the Altair, or pulled off his buy-an-OS-and-name-it-MS-DOS move, based on mountains of official market research and hard data telling him that it's what people wanted? I'm betting he didn't. I'm betting he did it because he was smart and trusted his own instincts -- just like a professional chess player who doesn't realistically have the time to scientifically evaluate every possible move at every turn.
Microsoft isn't a bad company. People here really do care about satisfying customers and making the best stuff in the world. I really hate the false accusations so many people make about this company. But I also have to say that this company has grown timid and too slow to act, and that is our real challenge.
So you're advocating a model where we'd have to pay EXTRA to enjoy the fair use provisions of copyright that we have NOW?
First of all, you don't have those fair use provisions NOW. You had them up until the DMCA was passed. You don't have them now, and haven't had them for several years. I know it sucks, and I know it's a shock, and I know it's unethical, but it's the truth.
Secondly, I'm not advocating that model. But I'm acknowledging that it is the only realistic path to compromise on this issue, given the fact that our government is owned and run by industry and big corporations. You know as well as I do that there is no way in hell they will ever repeal the DMCA and give us back our traditional consumer rights, because that's not what the industry wants. So the only hope for restoring any of our traditional rights is through market forces... and unfortunately, that means you'll probably have to pay to acquire those rights.
a "no strings attached" license for the content for a buck or two more?? but that's what it's supposed to be in the first place. unless purchased specifically for non-personal, for-profit use, isn't the purchase supposed to give you that sort of permission as the end-user?
I agree with what you are saying, but you must realize that consumers have already lost this battle. The content industries are already legally selling digitally-crippled content, and they have already outlawed traditional fair use rights via the DMCA. Nothing short of a civil war will be enough to redefine the system, because big money (not the democratic voice of the citizenry) is what runs the government. And I doubt most people will go to war over something this frivilous... although crazier things have happened before (think Boston Tea Party).
So the only breakthrough that might realistically occur is in the marketplace, through market forces. If the music industry realizes they can't get enough people to buy digitally-crippled content, then maybe they will at least offer no-strings-attached content as a slightly more expensive option. Then you will at least have a legal choice again to use the content as you see fit.
I've always said that instead of selling tangible product, the music industry needs to shift to a content/service model. All they need to do is put up kiosks where you can insert a CD blank and your credit card, pick from an on-screen catalog, and have the kiosk burn you a copy (and maybe print you the liner notes, and spit out a jewel case, for a couple bucks more).
Of course, I imagine that the music industry would want your copy of the content to be encrypted or otherwise digitally crippled so that you couldn't do what you wanted with it. The real advancement in intellectual property law and consumer rights will come when they offer to let you buy a "no strings attached" license for the content for a buck or two more, which permits you to copy/transform the content as many times/ways as you want, as long as it's for your own non-profit personal use.
Sure, it gives you bragging rights and it looks cool, but I wouldn't want to use it. I bet most other people wouldn't, either.
Computers may be able to multitask well, but most people (even smart computer-literate types) generally cannot. I for one can still only visually pay attention to one program at a time.
The Windows GUI (running nearly all applications maximized) tends to be the most popular approach, and for good reason: the program you're paying attention to is visually pervasive, and all the others are out of sight (and out of mind) on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. It caters to the natural abilities of human attention and visual perception.
Some of you will claim that a 3D desktop, with the ability to deposit numerous windows in specific locations and go pick them up later from the same spot, more closely matches the way we deal with real-world objects. You're right, and that's exactly my point -- in the real world, when you set a bunch of things down in different places, what you get is a cluttered mess. Why do we think that recreating the ability to make messes (and reintroducing the obligation to keep things organized and arranged) is somehow a good thing?
The Windows GUI is actually pretty damn usable, except for some minor problems:
The visual layout of the taskbar changes as you open more windows, which is bad; I'd suggest getting rid of the "shifting-resizing-taskbar-bubble-for-each-program " approach and instead add another fly-out menu (opposite corner from "Start" menu) listing running programs (just like the pre-OS X Macintosh had).
Some kinds of dialogs or windows don't appear as entries on the taskbar, so you have to minimize all your other programs one-by-one to get at them, or you don't even realize that they are running behind other programs in the Z-order. How obnoxious. Every dialog/window should show up on the taskbar if it is not owned by a dialog/window already on the taskbar.
All programs of the non-accessory type should always launch as maximized by default, without me having to go tweak some stupid shortcut setting on my Start menu for each program. Or it should at least be a global setting in my "Appearance" settings for the desktop ("Start all maximizable programs maximized by default", or something).
Just another example of how the open-source community has its priorities all wrong. Getting the OS to install smoothly should be a top priority. This issue should have been resolved years ago.
"I don't really think someone is going to get the same feeling of attraction in seeing a full frontal digital game character as they would from seeing that in an actor or actress."
Just pile human bodies over top of all the physical lines. They attract lightning and absorb all the damage. Besides, if Indians are willing to work under inhumane conditions in call centers for pennies an hour, they'd probably be willing to do this for a few cents more, right?
On the other hand, when software manufacturers try to give our computers some 'personality', we tend to vehemently react against it--witness Microsoft's attempts with the much-loathed Bob and Clippy.
Maybe if the personalities had been modeled after likeable people instead of yippy little poodles, we would have liked the idea better.
Rambus believes that RDRAM was not the success it should have been because chip makers did not want to pay their royalties.
I believe that too, along with numerous other reasons (such as the fact that the price/perf/quality ratios were really pathetic). It still doesn't mean anyone did anything illegal.
The business plan for many modern companies apparently goes something like this:
1. Make shit nobody wants.
2. Whine, bitch, and sue because people aren't buying it.
3. Profit!
Sounds like the Rambus execs should have all failed basic economics.
Every time QT for Windows tries to paint the annoying "register now or later" splash-screen/pop-up, it immediately crashes. This is on Windows 2003 server with a Matrox G450 Dual-Head video card running the latest Matrox video drivers. This has been happening for me with the entire 6.x series of QuickTime for Windows.
Is anyone seeing this? Apple must not bother to ask Microsoft for the Windows Error Reporting data on QuickTime, because I've only submitted error reports on this crash about a bazillion times now.
They want it to WORK. They don't want to be told it runs Linux constantly. They don't want to know the source is available. They could care less they could copy the bianary for the Gimp off their PC and give it to a friend because it's F/OSS.
You're only partially right. Non-technical people do care about freedom, but "source code", "Linux", and "GPL" don't mean anything to non-programmers. If you tell your average person that the software is free (as in beer) and that they can legally copy it as many times as they like, and that it is free of all corporate/governmental restrictions or control, then they will understand and see some real advantages.
Now, I can understand having the computer tell the user it's Linux. Maybe once (at install, or the first time a user uses their account) is fine... But please, DON'T BEAT THEM OVER THE HEAD WITH IT.
This is an incredibly smart and important point, so I hope everyone else is listening. Microsoft puts their company name all over the place in unobtrusive ways: in the start menu icons, in the program title bar, in the Help-About box, on the product packaging, on the splash screen. But there is no explicit or forced explanation for any of it. Microsoft has done a good job of creating awareness of their brand name; excessively so, since many average people think that "Microsoft" makes their entire computer, or all software, or that their sofdtware is all just called "Microsoft". But Microsoft hasn't leveraged that awareness in a way that makes people think particularly positively when they see something made by Microsoft. If FOSS software were to promote itself in the same prevelant yet unobtrusive ways, but also had every reference to "GPL" or "Linux" be a link to an HTML document explaining how the software could be freely copied, free-of-charge, then even average people would start thinking, "Hey, this GPL or Linux thing is awesome, I want to find more software like that".
..and the focus of discussion has gradually shifted from hardware designs to regulation, liability and legislation which remain the roadblocks to be cleared on path to outer space.
But the plans have been on display for months in the public affairs office, in the basement with no lights, in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door that says "Beware of the Leopard"!
Bureaucracy will be the end of the human race. Some impending catastrophe will show up with little warning, like an asteroid headed toward Earth, and we will be too busy recounting votes and figuring out OSHA regulations to react before it hits us.
Natural selection at work. I guess the good news is that it means surviving life in the universe won't be plagued by burearcracy...
As far as I know, it's that obnoxious whiny little red animal from Thundercats.
I hate it when they post a story with little clue as
to what it's even about.
Security does not have to suffer if you have real usability.
Usability doesn't mean dumbing things down in insecure ways. Providing root access to all users, for example, is a hack job approach to usability. It takes a fundamental design mistake of the system -- the inability to install programs or administer common things without root access -- and completely bypasses it, rather than redesigning things in a sound way to facilitate security AND usability.
Usability doesn't even mean that someone with absolutely zero clue will be able to properly administer or run a computer.
Usability just means that any normal person can learn to use it quickly, and can use it from then on without unnecessary hassle or complexity. Usability means simplicity, organization, consistency, predictability, and responsiveness.
Proper usability benefits both newcomers and experts equally, because it eliminates hassle and minimizes time investment for everyone.
Don't make a user redo 40-step process from scratch just to change their mind on one item. When a user clicks something, give them instant, consistent, clear response, not 30 seconds of hard drive chatter or an unhelpful hourglass. Don't make a user spend an hour learning some new thing every time they want to accomplish a simple task such as installing a device driver or a program. Make all programs behave and appear in standard ways.
Or, to summarize: don't make users keep jumping through painful learning hurdles at every turn. Let them learn how to do something once, and make it easy to learn with as few steps as possible. Make it consistent, standardized behavior across all programs and the entire OS so that the user's new knowledge actually empowers them to do everything painlessly from then on.
The fundamental thing preventing Linux adoption is this one key point. With Linux, you have to keep learning and doing everything all over again. Slapping a pretty GUI interface over top of that mess doesn't make it any more usable. It's still a giant hassle due to the chaos that lies underneath. You invest a ton of time to finally figure one thing out, and that doesn't enable you to do other things any more quickly. Nothing works the same across the system. Nothing is standardized. There are 400 different ways of doing the same thing, when there should in fact just be one way. Configuration of programs often means carefully supplying options to a poorly-crafted configuration script, which then forces the user to start over at the beginning of the process if they fouled up just one option. Other times it means learning an entirely new pseudo-language just to configure the program.
Different Linux GUIs try to work around the chaos underneath, but the problem is that it's already too complex and poorly architected. That's why GUI configurators for hardware or device drivers only get you 50-70% of the way there, but you still have to go hack around on a command line and recompile the kernal to deal with the other 30% of cases. There are too many special-cases and different ways of doing things under the hood for any GUI to be able to present it in a consistent, clear way.
A GUI isn't even necessary for Linux usability. All the focus on the GUI is misplaced effort. The underlying system needs to be made usable first.
Slashdot Mirror
The day MS fixes even ONE bug in VS.NET without making me pay for an upgrade, I'll take it all back. Bottom line: fix the bugs, or STFU.
I don't have anything to do with it, so the rudeness you directed toward me is not only completely out of line, but pretty juvenile as well. Just because the Microsoft brand is stamped on a product, that doesn't mean that all of Microsoft is personally to blame when you encounter a problem. Visual Studio is made by the Visual Studio team, which is just one small part of the entire company. They define their own update policy.
If you have a gripe about a Microsoft product, please contact the company and let them know! Customer feedback really does get read and considered (even submissions/e-mails from the Microsoft web site). Grousing about it on Slashdot (as an AC, no less) won't fix anything, but making the company aware of the problems just might.
...FreeBSD's installer STILL hasn't been fixed to properly detect or accept correct disk geometries for IDE hard drives.
Oh well. It's not like getting the OS to actually install or cooperate with the BIOS is important or anything.
DISCLAIMER: I work at Microsoft as a developer. Nothing I say here is official company stance. This is just my personal opinion based on my time both before and after joining Microsoft.
Microsoft's main problem is a refusal to take quick action by trusting in common sense and instinct.
For example, it took upper management over a decade to finally see that users didn't trust Microsoft products. The rest of the world knew it all along, but management had to wait for mountains of hard data to come pouring in before taking any action. The Trustworthy Computing effort is genuine, sincere, and effective, but it's also about fifteen years overdue.
Do you think Bill Gates wrote BASIC for the Altair, or pulled off his buy-an-OS-and-name-it-MS-DOS move, based on mountains of official market research and hard data telling him that it's what people wanted? I'm betting he didn't. I'm betting he did it because he was smart and trusted his own instincts -- just like a professional chess player who doesn't realistically have the time to scientifically evaluate every possible move at every turn.
Microsoft isn't a bad company. People here really do care about satisfying customers and making the best stuff in the world. I really hate the false accusations so many people make about this company. But I also have to say that this company has grown timid and too slow to act, and that is our real challenge.
So you're advocating a model where we'd have to pay EXTRA to enjoy the fair use provisions of copyright that we have NOW?
First of all, you don't have those fair use provisions NOW. You had them up until the DMCA was passed. You don't have them now, and haven't had them for several years. I know it sucks, and I know it's a shock, and I know it's unethical, but it's the truth.
Secondly, I'm not advocating that model. But I'm acknowledging that it is the only realistic path to compromise on this issue, given the fact that our government is owned and run by industry and big corporations. You know as well as I do that there is no way in hell they will ever repeal the DMCA and give us back our traditional consumer rights, because that's not what the industry wants. So the only hope for restoring any of our traditional rights is through market forces... and unfortunately, that means you'll probably have to pay to acquire those rights.
a "no strings attached" license for the content for a buck or two more?? but that's what it's supposed to be in the first place. unless purchased specifically for non-personal, for-profit use, isn't the purchase supposed to give you that sort of permission as the end-user?
I agree with what you are saying, but you must realize that consumers have already lost this battle. The content industries are already legally selling digitally-crippled content, and they have already outlawed traditional fair use rights via the DMCA. Nothing short of a civil war will be enough to redefine the system, because big money (not the democratic voice of the citizenry) is what runs the government. And I doubt most people will go to war over something this frivilous... although crazier things have happened before (think Boston Tea Party).
So the only breakthrough that might realistically occur is in the marketplace, through market forces. If the music industry realizes they can't get enough people to buy digitally-crippled content, then maybe they will at least offer no-strings-attached content as a slightly more expensive option. Then you will at least have a legal choice again to use the content as you see fit.
I've always said that instead of selling tangible product, the music industry needs to shift to a content/service model. All they need to do is put up kiosks where you can insert a CD blank and your credit card, pick from an on-screen catalog, and have the kiosk burn you a copy (and maybe print you the liner notes, and spit out a jewel case, for a couple bucks more).
Of course, I imagine that the music industry would want your copy of the content to be encrypted or otherwise digitally crippled so that you couldn't do what you wanted with it. The real advancement in intellectual property law and consumer rights will come when they offer to let you buy a "no strings attached" license for the content for a buck or two more, which permits you to copy/transform the content as many times/ways as you want, as long as it's for your own non-profit personal use.
Computers may be able to multitask well, but most people (even smart computer-literate types) generally cannot. I for one can still only visually pay attention to one program at a time.
The Windows GUI (running nearly all applications maximized) tends to be the most popular approach, and for good reason: the program you're paying attention to is visually pervasive, and all the others are out of sight (and out of mind) on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. It caters to the natural abilities of human attention and visual perception.
Some of you will claim that a 3D desktop, with the ability to deposit numerous windows in specific locations and go pick them up later from the same spot, more closely matches the way we deal with real-world objects. You're right, and that's exactly my point -- in the real world, when you set a bunch of things down in different places, what you get is a cluttered mess. Why do we think that recreating the ability to make messes (and reintroducing the obligation to keep things organized and arranged) is somehow a good thing?
The Windows GUI is actually pretty damn usable, except for some minor problems:
Clearly this is due to a shortage of tentacle-rape games.
The male will barter for sex by giving the female and her offspring the highly concentrated protein and fat in the meat that the male hunts.
Finally, a sensible explanation for why modern-day women won't put out! Why should they when they can buy meat themselves at the grocery?
Support getting laid! Ban women from buying meat!
But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?
Yeah, but only if they are super-hot chicks looking for sex!
Meanwhile, it looks like they still haven't fixed the IDE disk geometry problems that have created problems for FreeBSD users worldwide for years:
FreeBSD bug search results
Just another example of how the open-source community has its priorities all wrong. Getting the OS to install smoothly should be a top priority. This issue should have been resolved years ago.
"I don't really think someone is going to get the same feeling of attraction in seeing a full frontal digital game character as they would from seeing that in an actor or actress."
Wow... sounds like someone is pretty naive.
Just pile human bodies over top of all the physical lines. They attract lightning and absorb all the damage. Besides, if Indians are willing to work under inhumane conditions in call centers for pennies an hour, they'd probably be willing to do this for a few cents more, right?
A Perfect Circle makes computing products? I thought they just played shows.
On the other hand, when software manufacturers try to give our computers some 'personality', we tend to vehemently react against it--witness Microsoft's attempts with the much-loathed Bob and Clippy.
Maybe if the personalities had been modeled after likeable people instead of yippy little poodles, we would have liked the idea better.
Rambus believes that RDRAM was not the success it should have been because chip makers did not want to pay their royalties.
I believe that too, along with numerous other reasons (such as the fact that the price/perf/quality ratios were really pathetic). It still doesn't mean anyone did anything illegal.
The business plan for many modern companies apparently goes something like this:
2. Whine, bitch, and sue because people aren't buying it.
3. Profit!
Sounds like the Rambus execs should have all failed basic economics.
I do development work and our target platform is Windows 2003 Server. So that's what I have to run as my development desktop.
Are you stupid, or just an ass hole?
Every time QT for Windows tries to paint the annoying "register now or later" splash-screen/pop-up, it immediately crashes. This is on Windows 2003 server with a Matrox G450 Dual-Head video card running the latest Matrox video drivers. This has been happening for me with the entire 6.x series of QuickTime for Windows.
Is anyone seeing this? Apple must not bother to ask Microsoft for the Windows Error Reporting data on QuickTime, because I've only submitted error reports on this crash about a bazillion times now.
In their diagram explaining relative debugging, the "reference application" PC is the one with the blue screen!
And wouldn't it be ironic if his rapist cellmate was extra-well-endowed thanks to all the mail-order Viagra he purchsed through Richter's spam?
A Slashdotted server is always quiet :-)
They want it to WORK. They don't want to be told it runs Linux constantly. They don't want to know the source is available. They could care less they could copy the bianary for the Gimp off their PC and give it to a friend because it's F/OSS.
You're only partially right. Non-technical people do care about freedom, but "source code", "Linux", and "GPL" don't mean anything to non-programmers. If you tell your average person that the software is free (as in beer) and that they can legally copy it as many times as they like, and that it is free of all corporate/governmental restrictions or control, then they will understand and see some real advantages.
Now, I can understand having the computer tell the user it's Linux. Maybe once (at install, or the first time a user uses their account) is fine... But please, DON'T BEAT THEM OVER THE HEAD WITH IT.
This is an incredibly smart and important point, so I hope everyone else is listening. Microsoft puts their company name all over the place in unobtrusive ways: in the start menu icons, in the program title bar, in the Help-About box, on the product packaging, on the splash screen. But there is no explicit or forced explanation for any of it. Microsoft has done a good job of creating awareness of their brand name; excessively so, since many average people think that "Microsoft" makes their entire computer, or all software, or that their sofdtware is all just called "Microsoft". But Microsoft hasn't leveraged that awareness in a way that makes people think particularly positively when they see something made by Microsoft. If FOSS software were to promote itself in the same prevelant yet unobtrusive ways, but also had every reference to "GPL" or "Linux" be a link to an HTML document explaining how the software could be freely copied, free-of-charge, then even average people would start thinking, "Hey, this GPL or Linux thing is awesome, I want to find more software like that".
But the plans have been on display for months in the public affairs office, in the basement with no lights, in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door that says "Beware of the Leopard"!
Bureaucracy will be the end of the human race. Some impending catastrophe will show up with little warning, like an asteroid headed toward Earth, and we will be too busy recounting votes and figuring out OSHA regulations to react before it hits us.
Natural selection at work. I guess the good news is that it means surviving life in the universe won't be plagued by burearcracy...
As far as I know, it's that obnoxious whiny little red animal from Thundercats. I hate it when they post a story with little clue as to what it's even about.
Security does not have to suffer if you have real usability.
Usability doesn't mean dumbing things down in insecure ways. Providing root access to all users, for example, is a hack job approach to usability. It takes a fundamental design mistake of the system -- the inability to install programs or administer common things without root access -- and completely bypasses it, rather than redesigning things in a sound way to facilitate security AND usability.
Usability doesn't even mean that someone with absolutely zero clue will be able to properly administer or run a computer.
Usability just means that any normal person can learn to use it quickly, and can use it from then on without unnecessary hassle or complexity. Usability means simplicity, organization, consistency, predictability, and responsiveness.
Proper usability benefits both newcomers and experts equally, because it eliminates hassle and minimizes time investment for everyone.
Don't make a user redo 40-step process from scratch just to change their mind on one item. When a user clicks something, give them instant, consistent, clear response, not 30 seconds of hard drive chatter or an unhelpful hourglass. Don't make a user spend an hour learning some new thing every time they want to accomplish a simple task such as installing a device driver or a program. Make all programs behave and appear in standard ways.
Or, to summarize: don't make users keep jumping through painful learning hurdles at every turn. Let them learn how to do something once, and make it easy to learn with as few steps as possible. Make it consistent, standardized behavior across all programs and the entire OS so that the user's new knowledge actually empowers them to do everything painlessly from then on.
The fundamental thing preventing Linux adoption is this one key point. With Linux, you have to keep learning and doing everything all over again. Slapping a pretty GUI interface over top of that mess doesn't make it any more usable. It's still a giant hassle due to the chaos that lies underneath. You invest a ton of time to finally figure one thing out, and that doesn't enable you to do other things any more quickly. Nothing works the same across the system. Nothing is standardized. There are 400 different ways of doing the same thing, when there should in fact just be one way. Configuration of programs often means carefully supplying options to a poorly-crafted configuration script, which then forces the user to start over at the beginning of the process if they fouled up just one option. Other times it means learning an entirely new pseudo-language just to configure the program.
Different Linux GUIs try to work around the chaos underneath, but the problem is that it's already too complex and poorly architected. That's why GUI configurators for hardware or device drivers only get you 50-70% of the way there, but you still have to go hack around on a command line and recompile the kernal to deal with the other 30% of cases. There are too many special-cases and different ways of doing things under the hood for any GUI to be able to present it in a consistent, clear way.
A GUI isn't even necessary for Linux usability. All the focus on the GUI is misplaced effort. The underlying system needs to be made usable first.