Well, capitalism. "Big corporations." Didn't you know it makes you enlightened and educated on Slashdot to rant against consumerism and capitalism? Your college professor will love you for it.
Obviously, the parent poster was referring to someone who had already decided they were going to buy an iPod, no matter the model. I don't see why your comment is marked "Insightful."
It's not a big deal. It doesn't matter if the hardware was running in a Gamecube case elsewhere or was in one of the Wii cases on stage if the hardware is the same. It's basically a sales presentation, and Nintendo wanted to show the size of the Wii and what it would look like in your room as you played games with it and interacted iwth it. So they have a Wii case sitting out.
The one where they gave WebKit a public repository and even offered the whole engine to Konquerer's devs to use?
The debacle had nothing to do with Apple. It was Konquerer devs complaining about users who were wondering why WebKit's improvements weren't showing up in KHTML.
I like my Freedom. I like being able to dick around with my system (at any level) when I'm bored if I feel like it. I like the feeling of doing clever things with source code. I like having centralized repositories of software. I like using a system that's been designed for ease of development.
All of that, with the exception of dicking around with WindowServer, is applicable to the Mac.
I was under the impression the last time this came up that Apple was just late posting the source. Also, some believe they may be doing a lot of work on the kernel for OS X Leopard and so haven't bothered releasing the Intel Darwin kernel since it's going to be replaced anyway.
Betamax eventually upgraded its tape length, but by then it was too late. It still couldn't match the 8 hours of VHS. Betamax being a superior format is an Internet myth.
How many "big corporations" are really successful? You can't name one big corporation that isn't either playing "voodoo accounting" to pretend they're successful, or has a shitload of oppressed employees they're taking advantage of.
In other words, "ALL CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL !!11." Guess what, there is discontent in any business, big or small.
"Oppressed employees?" ROFL! Nobody's forced to work anywhere. Get real.
99.9% of the "big successful corporations" are a half-inch away from completely imploding upon themselves.
99.9%, huh? Name one, and explain it.
Have you had your head under a rock for the last decade or what? Read the news lately bro?
Yeah, I keep up with the news. You're 100% making up anti-corporate crap with nothing to back it up. I won't hold my breath for any evidence or examples.
Nobody cared, because you couldn't hold a full-length movie, and the visual difference was small. And VHS had superior sound quality. BetaMax was limited by its initial short tape length. VHS was the superior format--up to 8 hours with small visual quality loss.
Please do not mod up twitter. He is a known anti-Microsoft troll who still thinks saying "M$" is a valid intellectual point. Examine his user history for examples. Absolutely anything Microsoft is automatically evil to him, even though his beloved OSS apps are busily cloning Microsoft interfaces.
Betamax didn't die because of licensing. It's a myth that it was a superior technology to VHS. VHS was able to hold a full-length movie when Betamax could not.
Yeah, that's a good way to make yourself sound reasonable.
You called me an idiot; I call you a Microsoft fanboi.
How would a Microsoft anti-virus program put other anti-virus programs out of business? Explain that.
It's completely obvious (except to you, apparently) that a bundled first-party app integrated into the dominant operating system has an advantage over a third-party app. For one, it's automatically distributed to every user of that OS, and second, it has access to system internals not disclosed to third-parties.
What about firewalls? XP comes with a firewall program, last I checked there are still third-party firewall programs. That's contrary to your comment.
No, it's not. Third-party firewalls are still at a disadvantage.
That's how the free-market works. If your product is better than what the consumer has, and he wants it, he'll get it.
No, it's not how the free market works. Monopolies are the antithesis of a free market. If your product is better, but there's a convicted monopolist bundling apps to kill your company, that's the complete opposite of a free market and totally against the consumer's best interests (Microsoft is only concerned about Microsoft's interests--furthering the Windows monopoly platform as far as it can go).
It's actually a sad state of affairs that FireFox (which is better than IE in every respect) has only 10% of the market - and it's free.
Yes, the bundling of IE has done a lot of damage to the adoption of much superior products. You're proving my point for me.
Again, "how"? How would that put other companies out of business?
Most users would never switch the search engine, only using whatever ships with the OS by default, and it can be made difficult to change engines so that most people don't go through the process to do so. It's Microsoft's lame attempt to prop up their dwindling, third-place search engine that nobody uses. They can't compete against Google, so they have to cheat and bundle their search engine into Vista to get anybody to use the thing.
You mean most people don't give a shit what they use to search?
No, but most people don't or won't learn how to change because they're not computer literate enough.
Most consumers DON'T CARE.
You haven't surveyed "most consumers," so I doubt you have any position from which to speak from.
Which brings me back to the 'basis of the free market': if you make a product to compete with a product that everyone is happy with, you will go out of business. End of story.
People aren't "happy" with what Microsoft bundles. They don't know about superior alternatives, and the process to switch is made difficult.
Bundling products into a monopoly platform to kill superior third-party solutions is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of a free market. You're unable to admit this.
Of course you don't: you're an idiot. TFA talked about the court's decision to investigate IE7's search box and how it used Microsoft's own search as it's default. I likened that to the 'file search' found in every other Windows. The similarities there should be evident.
There is zero similarity. One is a web search engine, and the other is a filesystem metadata indexer. They are completely different products. Please, gain basic comprehension before attempting to argue with me, or you will keep getting shut down.
Again, you call me an idiot, which I'll let slide for a second time but again point out that it proves you have no meaningful argument.
So, you're only concerned with Microsoft's products when they're useful? What the fuck is that? So when Microsoft puts out a terrible program (like the XP firewall) it's okay, but if they actually made, good, useful programs for the consumer you want it stripped from Windows.
What the hell are you talking about? You completely made up a conclusion that my statements didn't even imply. I'm conc
Okay, so you're one of those drooling Windows fanbois who thinks Microsoft is a victim. Let's do this.
That's the law, yes. They aren't allowed to. It's completely and irrefutably wrong to force people to buy their software and force them to use only their software. But there's nothing stopping you, let me repeat that, NOTHING STOPPING YOU from installing other software.
Yes, there is, there ABSOLUTELY IS. Windows dominance means Microsoft can ship antivirus software and put third-party antivirus software out of business. They can tie their browser to their search engine, putting other search engines out of business. They can leverage their monopoly platform to kill competing technologies like OpenGL by crippling its performance, as they're doing in Vista. They can withhold key APIs that only they know, which has gotten them in trouble with the EU because developers can't compete with the Microsoft software that better integrates with the dominant Microsoft platform. And you're ignoring the coercion deals of the 90s where OEMs absolutely were prevented from installing other software.
So Windows shouldn't have anything integrated into it?
Cite where I said that. Next.
Where do you draw the line there? They aren't allowed to tie in MSN search with IE - what about the generic 'Search' function? It's ties into the OS itself, you're not up in arms about that. Oh, that's right - you're an idiot.
Clearly, you haven't even read up on the issue. Google wanted Microsoft to offer a dialog on startup giving the user a choice of search engines to use, because IE7 currently makes it a process that most people won't go through.
I don't know what your filesystem search quip has to do with anything other than for you to baselessly call me an idiot because your arguments obviously don't hold up as well as my own. I'm not worry about filesystem search because Windows is so incredibly behind everything else that Google, Apple, and others have already beaten them to desktop search.
Their 'Media Player' shouldn't use their own 'media technologies'? Like iTunes and iPods? Again, no one's upset about that.
Windows Media Player wants to tie everyone to WMA, so that you're forever stuck using Microsoft technologies and players.
iTunes uses the following open formats: WAV AU AAC (MPEG-4) AU MP3 M4V
Basically, your argument has no basis at all. And iTunes is the only one that's cross-platform, unlike that crappy Windows Media Player app that nobody uses.
Forcing Microsoft to share their APIs does indeed help create more products. Of course, Microsoft, because of all the litigation, has had little time to actually do anything themselves (there hasn't been a new Windows in 4 years) - so in that respect it has stifled creativity and improvement of THE ACTUAL PRODUCT.
Oh, my. This takes the cake for the best spin-job from a Microsoft fanboi that I've ever seen. You're apparently arguing that it's the litigation that is magically preventing Microsoft's software developers from finish Vista, as opposed to:
1.) A bogged-down process populated by too many managers and spec sheets, as documented by current Microsoft employees like Mini-MSFT
2.) Very poor management by Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates
3.) Completely starting over in 2003 because the creaky Windows codebase couldn't handle all the proposed features.
4.) The massive bloat and size of a company like Microsoft which stifles its nimbleness against smaller competitors who manage to outdo them (Apple and OS X).
No, instead, it's the evil EU for demanding Microsoft release documentation for its secret APIs that's delaying Vista. Hilarious. Sorry, Vista has taken six years because Microsoft can't cut it anymore when it comes to OS development. Vista will barely match feature parity with OS X Tiger from April of 2005. That's sad. OS X Leopard will already be out by then.
I think only Slashdotters are obsessed with KDE, while everyone else recognizes KDE as a huge, bloated mess, infrastructure-wise and interface-wise. The devs never met a sidebar they didn't like.
KDE has too many buttons, sidebars, and other broken interfaces that simply don't belong. Best to stick with Gnome where they have more chance of mainstream appeal.
Take Apple, for example, they bundle a lot more into their OS than Microsoft does but they aren't even glanced at. Including the 'search' feature that is talked about in TFA pales in comparison to Spotlight in OSX - but no one has a problem with Apple.
Apple's not a monopoly.
Others will raise the fact that "it's different for Microsoft because they have a monopoly". Which is true - but they have a monopoly because their Operating System is designed to work on the most popular systems available. Almost anyone can install Windows on almost any computer.
What does that have to do with them being a monopoly? They're still a monopoly and can't leverage their monopoly position to prevent market competition. If Microsoft designs an OS for everybody's computers, and it becomes popular, that doesn't magically give them the right to tie their browser to their search engine and their music to their media player using their media technologies, etc. etc. etc.
My biggest problem with the continued litigation and dragging down of Microsoft with superfluous rules is that it doesn't help the consumer. These regulations are supposed to help the consumer - but they don't.
Of course it does! It helps the consumer because it helps competing, superior products when entering the market. They don't have a gigantic convicted monopolist tying things into the dominant platform to make it so nobody else can compete with anything.
Or do you think it's okay for Microsoft to have threatened OEMs in the 90s with increased Windows licensing fees (and even outright revocation) if they included software from other companies that competed with Microsoft products? That would kill any OEM, because Windows is the dominant monopoly platform--a classic case of coercion through leveraging the monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
Who is "they"?
Well, capitalism. "Big corporations." Didn't you know it makes you enlightened and educated on Slashdot to rant against consumerism and capitalism? Your college professor will love you for it.
Obviously, the parent poster was referring to someone who had already decided they were going to buy an iPod, no matter the model. I don't see why your comment is marked "Insightful."
It's not a big deal. It doesn't matter if the hardware was running in a Gamecube case elsewhere or was in one of the Wii cases on stage if the hardware is the same. It's basically a sales presentation, and Nintendo wanted to show the size of the Wii and what it would look like in your room as you played games with it and interacted iwth it. So they have a Wii case sitting out.
(The Konqueror/Safari debacle, for instance.)
The one where they gave WebKit a public repository and even offered the whole engine to Konquerer's devs to use?
The debacle had nothing to do with Apple. It was Konquerer devs complaining about users who were wondering why WebKit's improvements weren't showing up in KHTML.
After all, protecting creator rights is evil and wrong.
Except when the GPL is violated, of course. Then it's time to sue!
Ah, Slashdot.
I like my Freedom. I like being able to dick around with my system (at any level) when I'm bored if I feel like it. I like the feeling of doing clever things with source code. I like having centralized repositories of software. I like using a system that's been designed for ease of development.
All of that, with the exception of dicking around with WindowServer, is applicable to the Mac.
I've never found the attraction of Apple. Maybe for grandma or something
Better tell all the L.A. studios recording all the music you hear on Macs, or the film shops using Macs to edit feature films. Etc.
I was under the impression the last time this came up that Apple was just late posting the source. Also, some believe they may be doing a lot of work on the kernel for OS X Leopard and so haven't bothered releasing the Intel Darwin kernel since it's going to be replaced anyway.
The natural human response to ideas and entertainment is to share them. This is the phenomenon of story-telling.
This has got to be one of the lamest justifications of piracy I've ever read.
I'm afraid I just can't take your post as a valid point, because you didn't use "M$" enough.
The patent wasn't for the idea of stencil shadows, so that link isn't relevant.
Betamax eventually upgraded its tape length, but by then it was too late. It still couldn't match the 8 hours of VHS. Betamax being a superior format is an Internet myth.
How many "big corporations" are really successful? You can't name one big corporation that isn't either playing "voodoo accounting" to pretend they're successful, or has a shitload of oppressed employees they're taking advantage of.
In other words, "ALL CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL !!11." Guess what, there is discontent in any business, big or small.
"Oppressed employees?" ROFL! Nobody's forced to work anywhere. Get real.
99.9% of the "big successful corporations" are a half-inch away from completely imploding upon themselves.
99.9%, huh? Name one, and explain it.
Have you had your head under a rock for the last decade or what? Read the news lately bro?
Yeah, I keep up with the news. You're 100% making up anti-corporate crap with nothing to back it up. I won't hold my breath for any evidence or examples.
Nobody cared, because you couldn't hold a full-length movie, and the visual difference was small. And VHS had superior sound quality. BetaMax was limited by its initial short tape length. VHS was the superior format--up to 8 hours with small visual quality loss.
Please do not mod up twitter. He is a known anti-Microsoft troll who still thinks saying "M$" is a valid intellectual point. Examine his user history for examples. Absolutely anything Microsoft is automatically evil to him, even though his beloved OSS apps are busily cloning Microsoft interfaces.
Betamax didn't die because of licensing. It's a myth that it was a superior technology to VHS. VHS was able to hold a full-length movie when Betamax could not.
Rails code I looked at looked very much like JSP/ASP/PHP gone bad. All sorts of code in HTML land.
How is that the fault of Ruby on Rails? You're supposed to move code out into helpers for MVC reasons, readability reasons, and re-usability reasons.
This is Slashdot, where piracy is 100% okay in all situations. Except if the GPL is involved, then it'd bad and the EFF should sue.
It's the whole left-wing "big successful corporations are bad and that makes me feel enlightened" mindset.
Yeah, that's a good way to make yourself sound reasonable.
You called me an idiot; I call you a Microsoft fanboi.
How would a Microsoft anti-virus program put other anti-virus programs out of business? Explain that.
It's completely obvious (except to you, apparently) that a bundled first-party app integrated into the dominant operating system has an advantage over a third-party app. For one, it's automatically distributed to every user of that OS, and second, it has access to system internals not disclosed to third-parties.
What about firewalls? XP comes with a firewall program, last I checked there are still third-party firewall programs. That's contrary to your comment.
No, it's not. Third-party firewalls are still at a disadvantage.
That's how the free-market works. If your product is better than what the consumer has, and he wants it, he'll get it.
No, it's not how the free market works. Monopolies are the antithesis of a free market. If your product is better, but there's a convicted monopolist bundling apps to kill your company, that's the complete opposite of a free market and totally against the consumer's best interests (Microsoft is only concerned about Microsoft's interests--furthering the Windows monopoly platform as far as it can go).
It's actually a sad state of affairs that FireFox (which is better than IE in every respect) has only 10% of the market - and it's free.
Yes, the bundling of IE has done a lot of damage to the adoption of much superior products. You're proving my point for me.
Again, "how"? How would that put other companies out of business?
Most users would never switch the search engine, only using whatever ships with the OS by default, and it can be made difficult to change engines so that most people don't go through the process to do so. It's Microsoft's lame attempt to prop up their dwindling, third-place search engine that nobody uses. They can't compete against Google, so they have to cheat and bundle their search engine into Vista to get anybody to use the thing.
You mean most people don't give a shit what they use to search?
No, but most people don't or won't learn how to change because they're not computer literate enough.
Most consumers DON'T CARE.
You haven't surveyed "most consumers," so I doubt you have any position from which to speak from.
Which brings me back to the 'basis of the free market': if you make a product to compete with a product that everyone is happy with, you will go out of business. End of story.
People aren't "happy" with what Microsoft bundles. They don't know about superior alternatives, and the process to switch is made difficult.
Bundling products into a monopoly platform to kill superior third-party solutions is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of a free market. You're unable to admit this.
Of course you don't: you're an idiot. TFA talked about the court's decision to investigate IE7's search box and how it used Microsoft's own search as it's default. I likened that to the 'file search' found in every other Windows. The similarities there should be evident.
There is zero similarity. One is a web search engine, and the other is a filesystem metadata indexer. They are completely different products. Please, gain basic comprehension before attempting to argue with me, or you will keep getting shut down.
Again, you call me an idiot, which I'll let slide for a second time but again point out that it proves you have no meaningful argument.
So, you're only concerned with Microsoft's products when they're useful? What the fuck is that? So when Microsoft puts out a terrible program (like the XP firewall) it's okay, but if they actually made, good, useful programs for the consumer you want it stripped from Windows.
What the hell are you talking about? You completely made up a conclusion that my statements didn't even imply. I'm conc
Thanks to ALSA Linux can be used in recording studios nowadays.
Name a studio using Linux in any meaningful way for audio recording.
Okay, so you're one of those drooling Windows fanbois who thinks Microsoft is a victim. Let's do this.
That's the law, yes. They aren't allowed to. It's completely and irrefutably wrong to force people to buy their software and force them to use only their software. But there's nothing stopping you, let me repeat that, NOTHING STOPPING YOU from installing other software.
Yes, there is, there ABSOLUTELY IS. Windows dominance means Microsoft can ship antivirus software and put third-party antivirus software out of business. They can tie their browser to their search engine, putting other search engines out of business. They can leverage their monopoly platform to kill competing technologies like OpenGL by crippling its performance, as they're doing in Vista. They can withhold key APIs that only they know, which has gotten them in trouble with the EU because developers can't compete with the Microsoft software that better integrates with the dominant Microsoft platform. And you're ignoring the coercion deals of the 90s where OEMs absolutely were prevented from installing other software.
So Windows shouldn't have anything integrated into it?
Cite where I said that. Next.
Where do you draw the line there? They aren't allowed to tie in MSN search with IE - what about the generic 'Search' function? It's ties into the OS itself, you're not up in arms about that. Oh, that's right - you're an idiot.
Clearly, you haven't even read up on the issue. Google wanted Microsoft to offer a dialog on startup giving the user a choice of search engines to use, because IE7 currently makes it a process that most people won't go through.
I don't know what your filesystem search quip has to do with anything other than for you to baselessly call me an idiot because your arguments obviously don't hold up as well as my own. I'm not worry about filesystem search because Windows is so incredibly behind everything else that Google, Apple, and others have already beaten them to desktop search.
Their 'Media Player' shouldn't use their own 'media technologies'? Like iTunes and iPods? Again, no one's upset about that.
Windows Media Player wants to tie everyone to WMA, so that you're forever stuck using Microsoft technologies and players.
iTunes uses the following open formats:
WAV
AU
AAC (MPEG-4)
AU
MP3
M4V
Basically, your argument has no basis at all. And iTunes is the only one that's cross-platform, unlike that crappy Windows Media Player app that nobody uses.
Forcing Microsoft to share their APIs does indeed help create more products. Of course, Microsoft, because of all the litigation, has had little time to actually do anything themselves (there hasn't been a new Windows in 4 years) - so in that respect it has stifled creativity and improvement of THE ACTUAL PRODUCT.
Oh, my. This takes the cake for the best spin-job from a Microsoft fanboi that I've ever seen. You're apparently arguing that it's the litigation that is magically preventing Microsoft's software developers from finish Vista, as opposed to:
1.) A bogged-down process populated by too many managers and spec sheets, as documented by current Microsoft employees like Mini-MSFT
2.) Very poor management by Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates
3.) Completely starting over in 2003 because the creaky Windows codebase couldn't handle all the proposed features.
4.) The massive bloat and size of a company like Microsoft which stifles its nimbleness against smaller competitors who manage to outdo them (Apple and OS X).
No, instead, it's the evil EU for demanding Microsoft release documentation for its secret APIs that's delaying Vista. Hilarious. Sorry, Vista has taken six years because Microsoft can't cut it anymore when it comes to OS development. Vista will barely match feature parity with OS X Tiger from April of 2005. That's sad. OS X Leopard will already be out by then.
For Christ's sake: being
Most people? Care to cite this claim?
I think only Slashdotters are obsessed with KDE, while everyone else recognizes KDE as a huge, bloated mess, infrastructure-wise and interface-wise. The devs never met a sidebar they didn't like.
KDE has too many buttons, sidebars, and other broken interfaces that simply don't belong. Best to stick with Gnome where they have more chance of mainstream appeal.
Take Apple, for example, they bundle a lot more into their OS than Microsoft does but they aren't even glanced at. Including the 'search' feature that is talked about in TFA pales in comparison to Spotlight in OSX - but no one has a problem with Apple.
Apple's not a monopoly.
Others will raise the fact that "it's different for Microsoft because they have a monopoly". Which is true - but they have a monopoly because their Operating System is designed to work on the most popular systems available. Almost anyone can install Windows on almost any computer.
What does that have to do with them being a monopoly? They're still a monopoly and can't leverage their monopoly position to prevent market competition. If Microsoft designs an OS for everybody's computers, and it becomes popular, that doesn't magically give them the right to tie their browser to their search engine and their music to their media player using their media technologies, etc. etc. etc.
My biggest problem with the continued litigation and dragging down of Microsoft with superfluous rules is that it doesn't help the consumer. These regulations are supposed to help the consumer - but they don't.
Of course it does! It helps the consumer because it helps competing, superior products when entering the market. They don't have a gigantic convicted monopolist tying things into the dominant platform to make it so nobody else can compete with anything.
Or do you think it's okay for Microsoft to have threatened OEMs in the 90s with increased Windows licensing fees (and even outright revocation) if they included software from other companies that competed with Microsoft products? That would kill any OEM, because Windows is the dominant monopoly platform--a classic case of coercion through leveraging the monopoly.