Google works just fine, it's Google Apps. Gmail works with a user-agent. Calender and Docs don't work at all, last I checked.
And yes, a lot of websites do use user-agent browser detection. I consider it to be a bad practice. Detect capability, not specific browsers, or you risk doing exactly what Google did, and excluding a browser which is perfectly capable, but does not happen to be named "Safari" or "Firefox". That, and it means your site is written for specific browsers at a specific time, and not for any particular standard.
Google takes it a step further, and uses it when "compiling" the apps. (As I understand it, they are mostly Java, with the frontend being Java source code compiled to JavaScript.) They compile one version for each browser. Thus, if you're running a supported browser, it's great -- no time is wasted detecting you, you don't download any code that's not needed for your browser, and it can handle pervasive hacks -- if, say, there was a browser that didn't support line breaks in Javascript, and another that required them, this approach would talk to both of them.
But I still consider it harmful, and not just because I'm the one using Konqueror.
To someone who believes that the Chuck Norris Facts are real: "Really? Do you honestly have any reason to believe that?"
This is actually part of a completely separate discussion, which is: What defines "religion"?
If we can't satisfactorily define "religion", we shouldn't have any laws about it one way or the other. Not that I want every courthouse to have a cross in it -- I'm actually grateful that's not allowed -- but it's a very tricky problem to create unambiguous laws for what's a religion and thus deserves both special treatment and to be separated from the state.
It might be nice if we could simply separate mythology from state...
The other possible result is, of course, that "religion" is defined loosely enough that I can just make stuff up and get tax deductions.
So, that's the kind of ambiguity I was trying to raise, but you completely sidestepped it by being reasonable.
The AC post seems to be intended solely to criticize the beliefs of Mr. Norris in a context where it is extremely improbable that Mr. Norris will have opportunity to respond and, even it were not so unlikely, the general tone is one of "I'm right, you're wrong and you're stupid. Neiner, neiner, neiner!"
You're right.
As I read back through my posts in this story, I'm starting to suspect that I was looking for a fight, as much as the ACs, but trying to hand-pick contexts where I could say something that was not automatically a troll (though perhaps flamebait).
Your post here was calm, insightful, and refreshing. It reminds me of how I want to be.
As to the "we all believe in the same god" type statements, I'm in agreement with you. The people who spew such drivel are either idiots or assume their audience are idiots.
Although I do sometimes want to scream "YOU all believe in the same god" at some of the Middle-East stuff.
I should also say that your earlier reply was actually not as aggressive in tone as mine... I'm trying to find a diplomatic way of saying "I'm an ass."
Just know that I almost never attack people on Slashdot, only arguments, and not always bad ones.
Second, Microsoft has no control over alternative OS's.
No, they just control the market into which an alternative OS might be sold. No one wants to run an alternative OS, because everything is exclusively for Windows -- in some cases due to MS deliberately being incompatible (like, oh, Internet Explorer).
Or, for those who want to run an alternative OS, they often cannot, due to being dependent on Windows software.
Ask any anti-MS dweeb what OS they run - it ain't an MS OS.
Hmm.
At home, I run Linux pretty exclusively, but mostly because I haven't gotten my XP dual boot back. This is because I want to play games like Portal, the best game ever made, and I'd be lucky if it runs on Linux at all. If it does, it will most certainly run better on XP.
Now, I didn't have to pay for this XP, but that's because I got it for free from my college. I fail to see how anyone other than MS can pull off a deal like that -- the college pays a yearly subscription to have access, for all their students, to most MS software. Of course, that comes out of my tuition, which means MS is not only bundled with hardware manufacturers, they're bundled with higher education.
At work, I run Windows pretty exclusively. I try my damndest to at least be able to boot Linux most of the time, but I'm pretty much stuck with Windows, due to relying on Windows-only software which depends on.NET, Windows Media Player, and requires WGA to download, meaning it will be a cold day in Hell before it runs on Wine. But this same laptop came with Vista, and had to be downgraded to XP -- on the company dime. So, there's a useless Vista license lying around.
US Steel and Standard Oil had a stranglehold on Supply. MS, factually, absolutely has no stranglehold which would control what OS a consumer runs on his x86 based (using a narrow market) computer.
Supply is not the only way to control this, but let's pretend it is, for a moment.
Now, where can I buy an x86-based computer without Windows? Can I actually do this without paying for Windows?
The situation is better now, but remember, it was not very long ago that Dell selling computers with Ubuntu preloaded made the front page of Slashdot. That's how thoroughly Microsoft is entrenched.
"but, poor Joe Schmoe doesn't know any better and the computers come with Windows!". I would call this a ridiculous argument generally not even worthy of a rebuttal.
How is "the computers come with Windows" not worthy of a rebuttal?
Apple isn't trying to foist the iPod onto their customers, but are merely attracting them with a quality product
Replace "Apple" with "Microsoft", and "iPod" with "Zune" in the above statement.
Microsoft, on the other hand, seems incapable of entering a market without the goal of becoming a monopoly in that market; they have so far succeeded with operating systems and core business productivity (word processors, spreadsheets, etc).
The only difference I see here is that Apple has not yet succeeded as entirely.
Apple produces quality products
Well, there's that, too. That's another difference -- Microsoft produces very little of notable quality.
and has no desire to mar the image of their software products by allowing them to work on cheep hardware
Yes, I get this argument.
But understand, you are trying to tell me that Apple has limited my choice, as a consumer, to preserve their image. I happen to agree with you, I just find it absolutely disgusting.
But they don't do business with the objective of hurting the customer, who, in their eyes, is the actual consumer.
It may not be their objective, but it is the result, in a few important ways.
Microsoft on the other hand, produces poor products and has an intense desire to improve their image while putting forth the minimal effort to do so; the most expensive Microsoft products (with the possible exception of Excel, some of their games, like Freelancer, and some of their hardware, like their mice) are mid-range at best in terms of quality.
Oh, and Visual Studio. And the Xbox 360. And...
I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but they are capable, at least in small ways, of putting forth a very solid product. I suspect that they don't unless they have to, but you have to also consider that Microsoft does not function as a unit. Compare Halo with... well... any other Microsoft product. You can criticize the game all you want -- I happen to like it -- but the engine is absolutely rock solid.
Comparing the way Apple bundles their software with the way Microsoft bundles their software ignores the real point
The real point, for me, is that as a consumer, a world ruled by Apple is better for me only in that Apple makes quality products. As such, a world ruled by Microsoft is almost more appealing, because there would be more choice.
The acts of hobbling IE in terms of compliance with legitimate standards and bundling it with Windows has been made as a deliberate move to force the market to use IE and accept its deficiencies as a standard. Apple's inclusion of Safari, which is compliant with legitimate standards, in Mac OS X doesn't even begin to compare, since that has been made as a move to give their customers a means of easily accessing the internet, and nothing more; they don't want to control the market with Safari.
Now you are addressing motivation and business models, and we can really only guess at that. As I said in the conclusion of my other post, I understand that there is a difference -- I just don't think it's one you can define legally, except for the bit where Microsoft has actually succeeded at becoming a monopoly.
Most desktop failures are immediately obvious, whereas server things like mail flow have to be checked on
I'd argue that both desktops and servers contain things that, while I admit I'm not monitoring as diligently, do have to be maintained. (Though not, as you said, on vacation.) For instance, you probably want to do some sort of SMART monitoring on both, and both could benefit from a UPS, so you'd want to monitor that. (At least, I'd much rather have something other than extremely high-pitched beeping when it goes off.)
you might have no new messages because nobody's emailed you, or because your mail server isn't delivering messages properly.
I rarely have no new messages, given there's almost always some notice from Slashdot. Oh, and spam. It doesn't show up in my inbox, but if my spam folder was completely empty, I'd know something's up.
But you do make a good point.
Just about. Email, web, scheduling are all online, and I actually wind up accessing these on my phone more than my desktop.
Ah, I see. (Just so you know, that wasn't meant to be sarcastic -- I realize people can go completely online, it just doesn't seem common.)
I don't change my own oil any more (even though I'm perfectly capable), and I don't spend time every week checking on my UPS, backups, and disk status. Let someone else do it.
Do you hire someone to come to your house and check on the status of your desktop machine? How do you back it up?
Or have you actually migrated everything you do online?
Sudo would let me be God, temporarily./proc/kcore would force me to reverse-engineer quite a bit before even attempting to make a modification, and I'd be as likely to gain godlike powers as I'd be to crash the entire Universe.
Or should I use another computer to download a browser, burn a CD and then install it from there?
I didn't say "should". But, if you look at the history, there was actually a time when a browser was considered separate than the OS -- when you might actually go out and buy a browser when you got Internet access.
Of course, people are too stupid to do that, so now everything's bundled. Windows is bundled with the machine. Nero is bundled with every CD burner, and WinDVD or PowerDVD with every DVD drive. And I actually like it better that way.
Lots of people use Firefox, because it's better than IE, and the Firefox user base is growing. So, obviously what you claim, is a lie.
Except for the part where I claimed something? What did I claim?
Well, except you use the word "sell". Anyone trying to "sell" a browser today is an idiot (except perhaps for special embedded devices).
Largely because MS gives away IE, yes. Well, and because of Firefox, which might not have existed, had MS not given away IE.
Utter lie and complete bullshit and idiocy. "One can not legally run IE without owning a copy of Windows". So? Some don't even want to run IE at all, ever thought of that?
I did, actually. What the fuck does that have to do with the current discussion?
If any random idiot somewhere makes a web site which is IE-compliant, is that reason enough to sue Microsoft?
The trouble is, it's not one "random idiot", it's quite a lot of them. And they don't realize they're doing it until they bother to test on another browser, at which point, they often shrug their shoulders and say "Meh, it works for most people."
And that is pretty directly damaging to the Web. That and the fact that those of us who would like to write a cross-platform website will have to spend twice as much time getting it to work in IE as it takes to get it to work in any other browser.
If someone writes a program which only runs on Windows, is that reason enough to sue Microsoft?
Except that you never claimed it would run anywhere but Windows. "Website" implies being able to access it anywhere.
And worse yet, you claim that the fact that IE ships with Windows "helps perpetuate their Windows monopoly". You are so full of shit. What helps them perpetuate the Windows monopoly is that businesses around the world uses Word, nothing else, at all.
Wait, I'm full of shit because I suggest that there might be more than one reason, hence the word helps? Which is more believable, that there is one reason, or that there are many?
If it was only Word, don't you think more businesses would be using OpenOffice on a Mac by now?
And the lies and bullshit continues. Netscape died because it wasn't open source?
I never said that.
Netscape SUCKS, SUCKED, and HAS ALWAYS SUCKED.
Wow, you're a moron.
Out of curiosity, you say you use Debian. What's your browser? Let me guess: Iceweasel?
You are using a Netscape derivative, my friend.
Now, here's a fucking clue, and you probably need to read this three times or so: I did not say Netscape died because it wasn't open source. I said it did not die because it became open source, which is why you have your Iceweasel.
No, the point is that FOSSies can't win over consumers... and shockingly, consumers don't give two shits about "web standards". They just want a browser that works
Consumers are getting Safari on iPhones, Opera on Wiis, and occasionally are testing out OS X and Linux on the desktop. They do indeed just want a browser that works, but part of a working browser is one which displays websites properly. The only working definition of "properly", and even MS agrees with me here, is "according to the standard".
So now, since you guys still don't realize the "Browser Wars" are over, and Microsoft won, you are seeking to get your arbitrary standards written into law.
Standards which Microsoft helped create, and now doesn't follow.
Give up your blind hatred of Microsoft. Try getting a real IT job, and start realizing how happy businesses are with Windows, and how it does things no other operating system is doing.
Give up your own blind hatred. I have a real IT job. I am forced to use Windows and Linux every day, and occasionally help the boss out with OS X.
But I don't suppose I'm going to get through to you. I've been trolled pretty hard, haven't I?
As for pgp signing, you might want to check out the firegpg plugin for firefox if that happens to be your browser of choice.
It doesn't, which is another reason not to like GMail. They are using browser detection, thus GMail will actually refuse to run normally in Konqueror unless I do user-agent spoofing. And when I do, almost everything works -- in GMail. Not absolutely everything, and certain other things (Calendars, Docs) don't really work at all.
But, I do actually use it for my work email, and I agree, it's a damned good system. I just haven't found a compelling reason to use it at home, when I already have my own mailserver.
Just checked my normal Gmail account, it's up to 6.
Still, my point stands. Why is it that our work accounts have 25 gigs, while my personal account has 6? Are we paying extra, or does Google simply give more space to people who've bothered to register a domain?
It's possible you saw me apparently replying to a different comment, because the one I actually did reply to is buried now. (I do actually see an XKCD link as a sibling post to that troll.)
IE was also available for other operating systems (Solaris, Mac) but that slowly died over the years. They died as IE development was halted for all platforms, including Windows, not out of some sincester plot.
I find it odd, both that IE development was halted then (with IE in such a sorry state wrt. standards compliance), and that when IE development was resumed, the Solaris/Mac versions did not also resume.
We have other browsers, like Konquer and Opera, that were just as capable of competing with IE without Netscape going open source.
It might've happened, but... KDE is finally being ported to Windows, but it's in a version that may or may not ever be released. (KDE4 is now being mentioned in the same breath as Duke Nukem Forever.)
And it does say something that Opera doesn't seem to be coming close to Firefox.
That is what a monopoly is and I find it honestly impossible to say that MS controls, all software.
Monopolies do not need to be 100% to be considered monopolies.
What about the priciple of capitalism. You know,letting the market decide?
You must've failed Econ 101.
Monopolies are one prominent example of a failure of capitalism. This should be explained in detail in any decent textbook.
And just because I'm an ass, you must've also failed Spelling.
What if your local government official came in tomorrow and started telling you, how to do business..and they were taking their guidance from a competitor.
Part of MS' problem is seeing the standards bodies as "competitors".
But more to the point, remember that no matter who you are, so long as you're not a 100% monopoly, you are a competitor to someone, just as they are a competitor to you. Doesn't it make more sense for the government, local or otherwise, to look to all parties for guidance?
With Google Apps (and similar offerings from Yahoo, etc) there is no @gmail.com address, just accounts at your custom domains.
Yes, I know, we use that at work. And I admit, it is nice to not have to have even a part-time admin -- between that, a NAS, and Amazon's services (EC2, S3, etc), we basically have no IT costs -- occasionally a programmer might need to spend an hour on admin-related stuff.
But I don't remember that being free. I wasn't the one who signed us up for it, but I imagine we must be paying something to have 25 gigs of storage per mailbox when everyone else has less than 5.
the convenience of someone else worrying about power, disks, backups, spam filtering, etc
Power is not really an issue -- the difference between one desktop and a desktop + server is not really significant.
Disks only become an issue when one fails.
Backups are an issue, and I actually don't have particularly good ones right now. I do have a plan for that, though.
Spam filtering is completely a non-issue. I wrote a script, on the clock, for a company which was doing its own email. They never ended up using it, so I brought it home. It's really just a front-end for systems like Dspam and BogoFilter.
And once you set up a good statistical filter, you don't really have to think about spam again. It always amazes me when I continue to see the old "Your idea will not work" form on Slashdot -- amusing as that is, it's also irrelevant now. Spam is a solved problem for me.
Actually, this was setup when my time was worth nothing.
In any case, I do enjoy spending the time, it keeps my admin skills sharp. And it actually isn't that much -- finding/buying/assembling hardware takes time, but "configuring a kernel for the new motherboard" is something I stopped doing the day I gave up Gentoo.
I'd also have to spend this time anyway if anything were to happen to my desktop, which also runs Linux. And I'd also have this server anyway, whether or not I needed it for email.
Anyway, my point was not that I wanted to do absolutely everything myself, but that Webmail, in particular, isn't incredibly useful to me. I have been considering getting a virtual host somewhere, so I don't have to worry about backups and such, but I still have almost as much control.
No, I say it because there IS no rational basis for what you said.
Meh. It's difficult to argue with a straight faulty assertion.
No, it's not. That is what the holiday has become to many people, but it is not the reason why the holiday exists for those people in the first place. You are confusing the reason -- the cause -- for the holiday, and how it is practiced.
Actually, I'm suggesting that were it not for how it is practiced, it might not still exist at all, and certainly would not be recognizable. For many individuals, I imagine the holiday would not be celebrated at all, were it not for the display of capitalism it has become.
Look up "straw man." That wasn't one.
Straw man: Misrepresenting your opponent's position.
So you're right. Just a faulty assumption, almost an ad-hominim, but you were most definitely misrepresenting me, and not my position. I don't see how that helps you any, though.
How many other non-religious (e.g., Christmas), non-historical (e.g., D-Day) holidays are celebrated by billions of people?
Yule isn't religious?
That is, of course, a non sequitur. When you look up "straw man" feel free to look up that one, too.
And that's a demonstration of how little you're actually willing to get into this debate.
How is it a non-sequitur? That would imply that the conclusion does not follow from the premises, but there are any number of ways that could be in a given argument.
I actually live a pretty good life. I laugh, I play, I love, I appreciate the beauty in the world -- no less beautiful if I believe it to be accidental than if I believe it to be the design of a Creator.
And I do enjoy a debate, although you may have caught me at a bad time.
Unless you are a 911 dispatcher or some other emergency service needed; than you should take the day off work.
Actually, I enjoy what I do, and we have something to present at CES which isn't done yet, so taking today off means I probably lose a weekend. What eventually convinced me to take the day off was a Stephen Hawking book I started reading, an Erlang book that I'm maybe halfway through, and that I can't seem to get this fire started in my wood stove.
You are just over analyzing this completely too much and seem very bitter/jealous towards other people in life.
I do tend to overanalyze, although, as I said, I enjoy it. But bitter and jealous? Actually, I was mostly playing Devil's Advocate. In reality, people mentioning Jesus does annoy me, but I enjoy the rest of the season -- people dressing up as elves and hugging each other for no reason, lights all over the place, complete waste of power but often beautiful...
It's completely insane that they are seeking to force a modern operating system to ship without a browser.
I seem to remember that they'd allow you to ship a modern OS with an alternative browser.
And besides, the only reason that sounds insane is that we've been doing things that way for awhile. How insane is it that MS still ships an OS without antivirus? Especially when their Control Center will nag you to install some third-party antivirus?
And even more insane is that they are going to have one set of laws which apply to Microsoft, and one set of laws which apply to everyone else...
No, that's exactly what anti-trust laws are for. Read that again until you get it, because I cannot make it any simpler. Anti-trust laws were created to restrict monopolies. Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is not. Therefore, Microsoft gets restricted, and Apple does not. If Apple had 90% of the market and Microsoft had 10%, we might be seeing the same thing in reverse...
Oh, one more thing: I strongly suspect that at least half this argument has nothing to do with unbundling IE, and is really about forcing IE to comply with the web standards they've been shitting on all these years. And this provides a neat counterpoint to above -- if Apple had 90% and MS had 10%, Apple still wouldn't be under as much fire, because Webkit actually follows standards. Wasn't it the first to pass ACID2?
The difference is that if you don't like Safari in Mac OS X, you drag it to the trash. If you don't like Internet Explorer in Windows... well, tough.
I'm curious... Does removing Safari also remove Webkit? And if so, does it break other OS X apps?
If removing Safari does not remove Webkit, then they're really not much better than MS in that respect. If you don't like IE on Windows, you can, in fact, prevent it from being used for just about anything except as an HTML engine for other things -- and even that can be replaced with Gecko, though people generally only bother to do it under Wine.
The issue here isn't that Microsoft has a monopoly, it's that they abuse that monopoly by strong-arming hardware manufacturers into bundling Windows (and IE) on every PC sold.
I realize it's different because MS is a monopoly, but Apple does exactly the same thing -- only worse. They control both the hardware and software, and God help you if you should try selling a Mac clone that can run OS X. And that was on PowerPC.
If you buy a PC, you're FORCED to purchase Windows and IE.
No longer the case. For instance, you could buy a Mac -- yes, they ARE PCs now, amusing ads notwithstanding. Or you can buy a computer with Linux preloaded -- off the top of my head, Dell and Asus are doing this.
The only way this is true is if you define a PC as an x86-compatible machine running Windows, which makes your point moot -- if you buy a Windows machine, of course you're forced to run Windows, because, guess what, you're buying a Windows machine!
Windows is simply the platform of people who don't know any better. It's the AOL of operating systems.
No, it's worse. It's the platform of people who can't use better.
I have to use Windows at work. Specifically, I have to use Windows XP Professional, since one of the programs I rely on will only run on Windows XP -- not 2K, not Vista. (Oh, and it needs Windows Media Player 10. Not 9, not 11.)
I could install Linux, and I have, but I can't use it during work. I can't get virtualization working properly at the moment, so I can't run Windows in a virtual machine. And this software does NOT work on Wine.
I suppose I could buy a Mac, but what would be the point? The only difference between Apple and Microsoft is Apple products look shinier and work out of the box more often.
I don't wanna hear the tired argument that Apple should be forced to remove Mac OS X from their Macintosh computers. If Microsoft manufactured computers, I would expect them to be have Windows preinstalled.
Except that if Microsoft manufactured PCs, you almost certainly could still install Windows on other PCs. That is the very thing that made Windows a disruptive technology -- the deal that they got from IBM which allowed Windows to run on IBM clones.
Apple does not allow OS X to run on anything but a Mac, and does not allow Macs to come without OS X. So, it is absolutely one huge package, and it is exactly the kind of thing that would get you worked into a froth if Microsoft did something half as bad. The only difference is, Apple is a minority, and people actually want to use Apple products, whereas people are most often forced to use MS products -- but that is not a legal difference.
*sigh* I don't know why I'm bothering replying to someone who can't spell "lawsuit" and doesn't know the difference between "an" and "and", but here goes...
Having a monopoly on anything doesn't make you illegal, but it does prevent you from using your monopoly in one market to discourage competition in another market. That's exactly what antitrust laws are designed to prevent.
Which is exactly what Microsoft did here -- and does. IE7 comes with Vista. IE6 comes with XP. IE has come with every OS they've put out since at least Win98, if not Win95 (too lazy to double-check that). It's not "free", because it's tied to an OS -- but it is bundled with that OS. That basically killed any chance Netscape had of selling a browser, because Microsoft uses their OS monopoly to effectively make IE "free", even though it isn't.
And that, in turn, helps perpetuate their Windows monopoly, as no one can legally run IE without owning a copy of Windows, and it certainly was never designed to run outside of Windows. Thus, if someone makes a website which is not standards-compliant, but which is dependent on IE (even without ActiveX), that website will only work on Windows.
In the old business world, the end of that story would have been: Netscape goes out of business, IE is suddenly no longer free, but there's no alternative. (Think like the story of Office before OpenOffice.org.)
The only reason we avoided this is, Netscape released their browser as open source, thus making it both truly free (in both senses of the word) and actively developed, and IE is none of these things -- thus, Netscape/Mozilla/Pheonix/Firebird/Firefox can actually compete with IE, whereas the original Netscape couldn't. (I know IE7 is better, but it is a direct response to Firefox.)
Slashdot Mirror
Google works just fine, it's Google Apps. Gmail works with a user-agent. Calender and Docs don't work at all, last I checked.
And yes, a lot of websites do use user-agent browser detection. I consider it to be a bad practice. Detect capability, not specific browsers, or you risk doing exactly what Google did, and excluding a browser which is perfectly capable, but does not happen to be named "Safari" or "Firefox". That, and it means your site is written for specific browsers at a specific time, and not for any particular standard.
Google takes it a step further, and uses it when "compiling" the apps. (As I understand it, they are mostly Java, with the frontend being Java source code compiled to JavaScript.) They compile one version for each browser. Thus, if you're running a supported browser, it's great -- no time is wasted detecting you, you don't download any code that's not needed for your browser, and it can handle pervasive hacks -- if, say, there was a browser that didn't support line breaks in Javascript, and another that required them, this approach would talk to both of them.
But I still consider it harmful, and not just because I'm the one using Konqueror.
This is actually part of a completely separate discussion, which is: What defines "religion"?
If we can't satisfactorily define "religion", we shouldn't have any laws about it one way or the other. Not that I want every courthouse to have a cross in it -- I'm actually grateful that's not allowed -- but it's a very tricky problem to create unambiguous laws for what's a religion and thus deserves both special treatment and to be separated from the state.
It might be nice if we could simply separate mythology from state...
The other possible result is, of course, that "religion" is defined loosely enough that I can just make stuff up and get tax deductions.
So, that's the kind of ambiguity I was trying to raise, but you completely sidestepped it by being reasonable.
You're right.
As I read back through my posts in this story, I'm starting to suspect that I was looking for a fight, as much as the ACs, but trying to hand-pick contexts where I could say something that was not automatically a troll (though perhaps flamebait).
Your post here was calm, insightful, and refreshing. It reminds me of how I want to be.
Although I do sometimes want to scream "YOU all believe in the same god" at some of the Middle-East stuff.
Thanks.
I should also say that your earlier reply was actually not as aggressive in tone as mine... I'm trying to find a diplomatic way of saying "I'm an ass."
Just know that I almost never attack people on Slashdot, only arguments, and not always bad ones.
No, they just control the market into which an alternative OS might be sold. No one wants to run an alternative OS, because everything is exclusively for Windows -- in some cases due to MS deliberately being incompatible (like, oh, Internet Explorer).
Or, for those who want to run an alternative OS, they often cannot, due to being dependent on Windows software.
Hmm.
At home, I run Linux pretty exclusively, but mostly because I haven't gotten my XP dual boot back. This is because I want to play games like Portal, the best game ever made, and I'd be lucky if it runs on Linux at all. If it does, it will most certainly run better on XP.
Now, I didn't have to pay for this XP, but that's because I got it for free from my college. I fail to see how anyone other than MS can pull off a deal like that -- the college pays a yearly subscription to have access, for all their students, to most MS software. Of course, that comes out of my tuition, which means MS is not only bundled with hardware manufacturers, they're bundled with higher education.
At work, I run Windows pretty exclusively. I try my damndest to at least be able to boot Linux most of the time, but I'm pretty much stuck with Windows, due to relying on Windows-only software which depends on .NET, Windows Media Player, and requires WGA to download, meaning it will be a cold day in Hell before it runs on Wine. But this same laptop came with Vista, and had to be downgraded to XP -- on the company dime. So, there's a useless Vista license lying around.
Supply is not the only way to control this, but let's pretend it is, for a moment.
Now, where can I buy an x86-based computer without Windows? Can I actually do this without paying for Windows?
The situation is better now, but remember, it was not very long ago that Dell selling computers with Ubuntu preloaded made the front page of Slashdot. That's how thoroughly Microsoft is entrenched.
How is "the computers come with Windows" not worthy of a rebuttal?
Replace "Apple" with "Microsoft", and "iPod" with "Zune" in the above statement.
The only difference I see here is that Apple has not yet succeeded as entirely.
Well, there's that, too. That's another difference -- Microsoft produces very little of notable quality.
Yes, I get this argument.
But understand, you are trying to tell me that Apple has limited my choice, as a consumer, to preserve their image. I happen to agree with you, I just find it absolutely disgusting.
It may not be their objective, but it is the result, in a few important ways.
Oh, and Visual Studio. And the Xbox 360. And...
I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but they are capable, at least in small ways, of putting forth a very solid product. I suspect that they don't unless they have to, but you have to also consider that Microsoft does not function as a unit. Compare Halo with... well... any other Microsoft product. You can criticize the game all you want -- I happen to like it -- but the engine is absolutely rock solid.
The real point, for me, is that as a consumer, a world ruled by Apple is better for me only in that Apple makes quality products. As such, a world ruled by Microsoft is almost more appealing, because there would be more choice.
Now you are addressing motivation and business models, and we can really only guess at that. As I said in the conclusion of my other post, I understand that there is a difference -- I just don't think it's one you can define legally, except for the bit where Microsoft has actually succeeded at becoming a monopoly.
I'd argue that both desktops and servers contain things that, while I admit I'm not monitoring as diligently, do have to be maintained. (Though not, as you said, on vacation.) For instance, you probably want to do some sort of SMART monitoring on both, and both could benefit from a UPS, so you'd want to monitor that. (At least, I'd much rather have something other than extremely high-pitched beeping when it goes off.)
I rarely have no new messages, given there's almost always some notice from Slashdot. Oh, and spam. It doesn't show up in my inbox, but if my spam folder was completely empty, I'd know something's up.
But you do make a good point.
Ah, I see. (Just so you know, that wasn't meant to be sarcastic -- I realize people can go completely online, it just doesn't seem common.)
Dominant browsers, then. It does not work well with Konqueror, and Google is, in fact, using User-Agent-based browser detection.
Actually, forget the monuments. And the card game.
Do you hire someone to come to your house and check on the status of your desktop machine? How do you back it up?
Or have you actually migrated everything you do online?
Sudo would let me be God, temporarily. /proc/kcore would force me to reverse-engineer quite a bit before even attempting to make a modification, and I'd be as likely to gain godlike powers as I'd be to crash the entire Universe.
I didn't say "should". But, if you look at the history, there was actually a time when a browser was considered separate than the OS -- when you might actually go out and buy a browser when you got Internet access.
Of course, people are too stupid to do that, so now everything's bundled. Windows is bundled with the machine. Nero is bundled with every CD burner, and WinDVD or PowerDVD with every DVD drive. And I actually like it better that way.
Except for the part where I claimed something? What did I claim?
Largely because MS gives away IE, yes. Well, and because of Firefox, which might not have existed, had MS not given away IE.
I did, actually. What the fuck does that have to do with the current discussion?
The trouble is, it's not one "random idiot", it's quite a lot of them. And they don't realize they're doing it until they bother to test on another browser, at which point, they often shrug their shoulders and say "Meh, it works for most people."
And that is pretty directly damaging to the Web. That and the fact that those of us who would like to write a cross-platform website will have to spend twice as much time getting it to work in IE as it takes to get it to work in any other browser.
Except that you never claimed it would run anywhere but Windows. "Website" implies being able to access it anywhere.
Wait, I'm full of shit because I suggest that there might be more than one reason, hence the word helps? Which is more believable, that there is one reason, or that there are many?
If it was only Word, don't you think more businesses would be using OpenOffice on a Mac by now?
I never said that.
Wow, you're a moron.
Out of curiosity, you say you use Debian. What's your browser? Let me guess: Iceweasel?
You are using a Netscape derivative, my friend.
Now, here's a fucking clue, and you probably need to read this three times or so: I did not say Netscape died because it wasn't open source. I said it did not die because it became open source, which is why you have your Iceweasel.
Consumers are getting Safari on iPhones, Opera on Wiis, and occasionally are testing out OS X and Linux on the desktop. They do indeed just want a browser that works, but part of a working browser is one which displays websites properly. The only working definition of "properly", and even MS agrees with me here, is "according to the standard".
Standards which Microsoft helped create, and now doesn't follow.
Give up your own blind hatred. I have a real IT job. I am forced to use Windows and Linux every day, and occasionally help the boss out with OS X.
But I don't suppose I'm going to get through to you. I've been trolled pretty hard, haven't I?
It doesn't, which is another reason not to like GMail. They are using browser detection, thus GMail will actually refuse to run normally in Konqueror unless I do user-agent spoofing. And when I do, almost everything works -- in GMail. Not absolutely everything, and certain other things (Calendars, Docs) don't really work at all.
But, I do actually use it for my work email, and I agree, it's a damned good system. I just haven't found a compelling reason to use it at home, when I already have my own mailserver.
Just checked my normal Gmail account, it's up to 6.
Still, my point stands. Why is it that our work accounts have 25 gigs, while my personal account has 6? Are we paying extra, or does Google simply give more space to people who've bothered to register a domain?
It's possible you saw me apparently replying to a different comment, because the one I actually did reply to is buried now. (I do actually see an XKCD link as a sibling post to that troll.)
This is the comment I was replying to.
And you can usually make sure by checking the "parent" link. I always do.
Thanks for replying, I think I learned something.
But one thing to consider:
I find it odd, both that IE development was halted then (with IE in such a sorry state wrt. standards compliance), and that when IE development was resumed, the Solaris/Mac versions did not also resume.
It might've happened, but... KDE is finally being ported to Windows, but it's in a version that may or may not ever be released. (KDE4 is now being mentioned in the same breath as Duke Nukem Forever.)
And it does say something that Opera doesn't seem to be coming close to Firefox.
Monopolies do not need to be 100% to be considered monopolies.
You must've failed Econ 101.
Monopolies are one prominent example of a failure of capitalism. This should be explained in detail in any decent textbook.
And just because I'm an ass, you must've also failed Spelling.
Part of MS' problem is seeing the standards bodies as "competitors".
But more to the point, remember that no matter who you are, so long as you're not a 100% monopoly, you are a competitor to someone, just as they are a competitor to you. Doesn't it make more sense for the government, local or otherwise, to look to all parties for guidance?
Yes, I know, we use that at work. And I admit, it is nice to not have to have even a part-time admin -- between that, a NAS, and Amazon's services (EC2, S3, etc), we basically have no IT costs -- occasionally a programmer might need to spend an hour on admin-related stuff.
But I don't remember that being free. I wasn't the one who signed us up for it, but I imagine we must be paying something to have 25 gigs of storage per mailbox when everyone else has less than 5.
Power is not really an issue -- the difference between one desktop and a desktop + server is not really significant.
Disks only become an issue when one fails.
Backups are an issue, and I actually don't have particularly good ones right now. I do have a plan for that, though.
Spam filtering is completely a non-issue. I wrote a script, on the clock, for a company which was doing its own email. They never ended up using it, so I brought it home. It's really just a front-end for systems like Dspam and BogoFilter.
And once you set up a good statistical filter, you don't really have to think about spam again. It always amazes me when I continue to see the old "Your idea will not work" form on Slashdot -- amusing as that is, it's also irrelevant now. Spam is a solved problem for me.
Actually, this was setup when my time was worth nothing.
In any case, I do enjoy spending the time, it keeps my admin skills sharp. And it actually isn't that much -- finding/buying/assembling hardware takes time, but "configuring a kernel for the new motherboard" is something I stopped doing the day I gave up Gentoo.
I'd also have to spend this time anyway if anything were to happen to my desktop, which also runs Linux. And I'd also have this server anyway, whether or not I needed it for email.
Anyway, my point was not that I wanted to do absolutely everything myself, but that Webmail, in particular, isn't incredibly useful to me. I have been considering getting a virtual host somewhere, so I don't have to worry about backups and such, but I still have almost as much control.
Meh. It's difficult to argue with a straight faulty assertion.
Actually, I'm suggesting that were it not for how it is practiced, it might not still exist at all, and certainly would not be recognizable. For many individuals, I imagine the holiday would not be celebrated at all, were it not for the display of capitalism it has become.
Straw man: Misrepresenting your opponent's position.
So you're right. Just a faulty assumption, almost an ad-hominim, but you were most definitely misrepresenting me, and not my position. I don't see how that helps you any, though.
Yule isn't religious?
And that's a demonstration of how little you're actually willing to get into this debate.
How is it a non-sequitur? That would imply that the conclusion does not follow from the premises, but there are any number of ways that could be in a given argument.
That's a bit of an assumption.
I actually live a pretty good life. I laugh, I play, I love, I appreciate the beauty in the world -- no less beautiful if I believe it to be accidental than if I believe it to be the design of a Creator.
And I do enjoy a debate, although you may have caught me at a bad time.
Actually, I enjoy what I do, and we have something to present at CES which isn't done yet, so taking today off means I probably lose a weekend. What eventually convinced me to take the day off was a Stephen Hawking book I started reading, an Erlang book that I'm maybe halfway through, and that I can't seem to get this fire started in my wood stove.
I do tend to overanalyze, although, as I said, I enjoy it. But bitter and jealous? Actually, I was mostly playing Devil's Advocate. In reality, people mentioning Jesus does annoy me, but I enjoy the rest of the season -- people dressing up as elves and hugging each other for no reason, lights all over the place, complete waste of power but often beautiful...
I think I'm going to stop bothering to tell people and actually block that domain.
I seem to remember that they'd allow you to ship a modern OS with an alternative browser.
And besides, the only reason that sounds insane is that we've been doing things that way for awhile. How insane is it that MS still ships an OS without antivirus? Especially when their Control Center will nag you to install some third-party antivirus?
No, that's exactly what anti-trust laws are for. Read that again until you get it, because I cannot make it any simpler. Anti-trust laws were created to restrict monopolies. Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is not. Therefore, Microsoft gets restricted, and Apple does not. If Apple had 90% of the market and Microsoft had 10%, we might be seeing the same thing in reverse...
Oh, one more thing: I strongly suspect that at least half this argument has nothing to do with unbundling IE, and is really about forcing IE to comply with the web standards they've been shitting on all these years. And this provides a neat counterpoint to above -- if Apple had 90% and MS had 10%, Apple still wouldn't be under as much fire, because Webkit actually follows standards. Wasn't it the first to pass ACID2?
I'm curious... Does removing Safari also remove Webkit? And if so, does it break other OS X apps?
If removing Safari does not remove Webkit, then they're really not much better than MS in that respect. If you don't like IE on Windows, you can, in fact, prevent it from being used for just about anything except as an HTML engine for other things -- and even that can be replaced with Gecko, though people generally only bother to do it under Wine.
I realize it's different because MS is a monopoly, but Apple does exactly the same thing -- only worse. They control both the hardware and software, and God help you if you should try selling a Mac clone that can run OS X. And that was on PowerPC.
No longer the case. For instance, you could buy a Mac -- yes, they ARE PCs now, amusing ads notwithstanding. Or you can buy a computer with Linux preloaded -- off the top of my head, Dell and Asus are doing this.
The only way this is true is if you define a PC as an x86-compatible machine running Windows, which makes your point moot -- if you buy a Windows machine, of course you're forced to run Windows, because, guess what, you're buying a Windows machine!
No, it's worse. It's the platform of people who can't use better.
I have to use Windows at work. Specifically, I have to use Windows XP Professional, since one of the programs I rely on will only run on Windows XP -- not 2K, not Vista. (Oh, and it needs Windows Media Player 10. Not 9, not 11.)
I could install Linux, and I have, but I can't use it during work. I can't get virtualization working properly at the moment, so I can't run Windows in a virtual machine. And this software does NOT work on Wine.
I suppose I could buy a Mac, but what would be the point? The only difference between Apple and Microsoft is Apple products look shinier and work out of the box more often.
Except that if Microsoft manufactured PCs, you almost certainly could still install Windows on other PCs. That is the very thing that made Windows a disruptive technology -- the deal that they got from IBM which allowed Windows to run on IBM clones.
Apple does not allow OS X to run on anything but a Mac, and does not allow Macs to come without OS X. So, it is absolutely one huge package, and it is exactly the kind of thing that would get you worked into a froth if Microsoft did something half as bad. The only difference is, Apple is a minority, and people actually want to use Apple products, whereas people are most often forced to use MS products -- but that is not a legal difference.
*sigh* I don't know why I'm bothering replying to someone who can't spell "lawsuit" and doesn't know the difference between "an" and "and", but here goes...
Having a monopoly on anything doesn't make you illegal, but it does prevent you from using your monopoly in one market to discourage competition in another market. That's exactly what antitrust laws are designed to prevent.
Which is exactly what Microsoft did here -- and does. IE7 comes with Vista. IE6 comes with XP. IE has come with every OS they've put out since at least Win98, if not Win95 (too lazy to double-check that). It's not "free", because it's tied to an OS -- but it is bundled with that OS. That basically killed any chance Netscape had of selling a browser, because Microsoft uses their OS monopoly to effectively make IE "free", even though it isn't.
And that, in turn, helps perpetuate their Windows monopoly, as no one can legally run IE without owning a copy of Windows, and it certainly was never designed to run outside of Windows. Thus, if someone makes a website which is not standards-compliant, but which is dependent on IE (even without ActiveX), that website will only work on Windows.
In the old business world, the end of that story would have been: Netscape goes out of business, IE is suddenly no longer free, but there's no alternative. (Think like the story of Office before OpenOffice.org.)
The only reason we avoided this is, Netscape released their browser as open source, thus making it both truly free (in both senses of the word) and actively developed, and IE is none of these things -- thus, Netscape/Mozilla/Pheonix/Firebird/Firefox can actually compete with IE, whereas the original Netscape couldn't. (I know IE7 is better, but it is a direct response to Firefox.)