Over the last 13 months or so, I've had the dubious honour of working with IBM's WebSphere 5.0. We ran into bug after bug after bug after bug.
Starting with 5.0's being unable to use more than one Oracle data source in the same transaction, which cost the whole team about 2 weeks of scrambling to figure out why it suddenly doesn't work, _plus_ 42 days of waiting for IBM to fix it.
Continuing through such issues like a _massive_ performance problem under serious load, but only when using JAAS, resulting in timeouts on the productive system! With IBM's support asking us for trace logs again and again and again, even after being sent an.ear file which clearly reproduced the problem.
Now also add the problem, not yet fixed, that IBM's code swallows exceptions and throws some completely unrelated exception instead. E.g., a ClassNotFoundException when _de_serializing comes as NotSerializableException. It also comes without a stacktrace. It makes debugging a nightmare.
Combine that with the most piss-poor admin GUI ever. It takes about 4 _hours_ to export the whole application off the Solaris test server. Deploying even the most basic servlet (2-3 classes total kind of basic) takes minutes.
It's also the only single-user server product I've ever seen. It literally can't cope with two people deploying stuff at the same time.
In another team here the inside joke is: "You can tell who's using WebSphere. You hear loud cursing from his office."
The whole thing has cost us several man-years in bugs alone.
You know what? Now I understand why IBM makes far more money from consultancy than from selling the actual hardware and software. No, seriously. It's got to be the most blatant scam of all times: sell crap software cheap, and expensive consultants to make it work.
That's just one example.
So, yes, I think that this whole industry has got to the point where the scum rises to the top. If there is someone who still cares for the customer, it must be either lost in the noise, or it must have happened in the 80s.
Sadly, they're just doing what everyone else in the computer industry is doing. It's become not only acceptable, but _expected_ to lie your ass off.
"Normal" people also wouldn't, for example, think "hey, I'm trying to sell stuff to these people, so let's first make sure I've annoyed the living crap out of them. Surely they'll express their hatred by buying lots of stuff."
Yet all the pop-up and pop-under ad retards do just that. Not only that, but now they want to take over the browser and force you to watch half a megabyte of full screen movie before you can even get to see what the site offers. Yeah, that's gotta fly well with both the potential buyers _and_ the site owners. Not.
Or see the RealNetworks retards. Yeah, buddy. Spamming the living hell out of me with popups, even when not using RealOne, surely will make me reach for the credit card and buy the premium player. Not.
Speaking of which: "Normal" people would never think, "I'm trying sell people stuff over the 'Net, so let's install spyware on their computers until it crawls, hog their bandwidth, spam them with popups, etc. And generally make it hard to use the very medium over which I'm selling stuff."
Gator, anyone? And a thousand others.
"Normal" people would never think "I'm trying to build a loyal fan base, so let's sell them a clearly non-tested non-functional product."
Yet, at least one game I've bought (Victoria from Paradox Entertainment, German version) threw up a script syntax error right on startup. FFS, not a crash, not a sound lockup, nothing even remotely blamable on my drivers or hardware. A script syntax error. Noone even started that game before selling it. Sad.
Basically IMHO the spammers are just a symptom of the complete lack of accountability or responsibility in this industry. The whole "if you can make a buck with snake oil, lies and deceit, go for it" mentality. Spammers are just the brute force/low IQ version of what everyone else is doing.
Until we stand up and say "no more!" to the whole snake oil deal, it will only get worse.
The biggest actual performance difference will not be because of 64 bit integers, and definitely not because of having 8 GB of RAM.
The big difference is that in 64 bit mode you have twice the registers, and a bunch of new instructions. So basically switching to 64 bit mode doesn't just give it long-onna-register, it almost gives you a completely new RISC-like CPU.
Kjella, those 1's and 0's are only as good or bad as they're used for. E.g., posting pics of child rape is also just 1's and 0's, but somehow that doesn't make it as harmless as hosting a human rights site.
E.g., if you're into splitting things into bits and then debating those bits, a landmine is just nitrogen, oxygen, iron, carbon, and some other equally harmless elements. Nothing you wouldn't find in soil naturally, you know. So, by that kind of warped logic, surely noone should be punished for placing a few of them on a playground. Right?
E.g., a bullet is only lead and a copper jacket. You probably get the analogy with "it's only 1's and 0's" by now.
Basically what I'm saying is: it's safe to get off that high horse now;)
It's not the 1's and 0's we're debating, it's the way they're used.
Aamcf already said it, but here goes again: don't decide for me what I should do to my eyes.
I run in 1600x1200, yes, but I also have the fonts set to large fonts. Also because, unlike so many people dead set on ruining their eyes, I like to keep a good 3 ft between my eyes and the monitor, instead of having to squint from half a foot away to read tiny text.
Sometimes it's not about "screen estate", it's about comfort. About being able to read that site without getting an eye sore.
Unlike paper or farm land, "screen estate" is _not_ some limited resource that gets consumed or "wasted", or which you pay for by square foot used. Unlike paper, where each square inch costs and once printed it's "wasted", here we're talking a resource which is reused 85 times per second. Plus on the same screen I can stack 200 windows on top of each other, if I so choose, effectively multiplying that screen estate by 200.
So, no offense, but you can get out of the mentality that "ooh, must not waste pixels. There are hungry children in Elbonia who'd die for those tasty pixels."
Either way, _I_ will use all that screen estate to make my life more comfortable. "Maximize my web experience", if you want the buzzword version of it.
Also unlike paper, here you actually have no control over the size of the fonts on _my_ screen. When you print a book or brochure in 10 point Garamond, everyone sees the exact same 10/72 inch letters. On a screen it's not the case. What you see is _not_ what the user gets.
Here's some simple maths: if you're running 800x600 on a 17" CRT (about 15" visible), and I'm running 1600x1200 on a 21" CRT (about 19" visible), those 7 pixel fonts will be 1/2 * 19/15 = only 63% as big on my screen as they are on yours.
I.e., all those retards who insist on fixed pixel sizes for their tiny fonts (which usually goes hand in hand with limitting the column width), actually inflict discomfort upon me. Far from being a "better web experience", it's an experience which I'd rather avoid if I have a choice.
So here's an idea: let _me_ decide how big I want my fonts to be. Let _me_ decide how wide a column I want that text in. As was said, there's a reason why browser windows are resizable, _and_ why Internet Explorer has the CTRL-Scrollwheel functionality. Let me use them to fit _my_ taste and needs.
Or to put it otherwise: it's my screen estate, not yours. If you want to save your pixels for the starving kids in Elbonia, go ahead. But let me take care of mine, as _I_ see fit.
What seems to go unnoticed is that everyone does have little programs that they actually need very speciffically.
E.g., my mother plays Microsoft's silly little ActiveX games (like backgammon) on their site. Much as I'd like to see her get rid of IE, it's not gonna happen as long as no other browser can run ActiveX. (And if any did, they'd be just just as inherently insecure as IE, anyway, so still no point changing.)
It's already a very specific program and very specific requirements. It does that, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, that's that.
E.g., speaking of which, a lot of people play games. Maybe they're not the kind of hardcore gamer that _I_ am, but they'll still play some freeware pacman clone or some internet web-based game that relies heavily on client-side VBScript.
Getting Windows games or even normal apps to run under Linux is still more pain than it's worth. I wouldn't recommend that any computer-illiterate person starts recompiling WineX and/or system libraries and/or X to get the latest game to run. Maybe.
It's not really a fault of Linux, of course. In all fairness, Windows doesn't natively run Linux games either.
But nevertheless, see my comparison between the car and the airplane. Neither of them is really at fault for not being the other. But still, you can't recommend a car to someone who needs a plane, nor viceversa.
I.e., before insisting "switch to linux" for their own good, I'd first make sure that it is indeed for their own good. E.g., that I have a very good idea of what programs they use, and how close an equivalent do they have available in Linux.
You've never had to talk with the customer's PHB about some program spec yet, have you?
The tech stuff is easy. They just want the program to do everything _and_ the kitchen sink.
But what really causes weeks or months of meetings is
- "should the logo in the corner be exactly 120 pixels or 121 pixels?... no, wait, 119 pixels is just right."
- Then the fonts which _must_ be 7 pixel Sevenet (or some other non-standard font which is guaranteed not to even be installed on someone's computer, when they point their browser at the site. Bonus points if it's a pain to read.)
- And it all _must_ comply with some nighmarish corporate scheme that wasn't designed for the net to start with. Actual examples from actual projects I've worked on, include cyan on blue, and light orange on orange-ish yellow. Literally. I'm not making it up.
- And all the text _must_ always be limited into a 491 pixel wide area, to look the same on everyone's screen as it does on the PHB's laptop, with whatever default non-maximized position his IE remained set as. (God forbid that someone who uses 1600x1200 be actually able to use all that area to read the text.)
And so on and so forth. It's the stuff managers' dreams are made of. I'm guessing that if you stopped them from spending weeks debating the exact font size and exact logo size and hue, you'd suck all the fun out of management.
So, well, given that the government's job _is_ to manage... now why am I not surprised?;)
Actually, my comment had nothing to do with KDE as such, nor with the progress made by it. My main issue is mainly with the extrapolation "now KDE is better, therefore more people should switch to Linux."
KDE is no doubt a mighty fine OSS effort, and making good progress. It's never been my desktop manager of choice, but, nevertheless, it's a mighty fine piece of software. Kudos to the people working on it.
What I'm pointing out is that it's only _one_ piece of the larger equation. Regardless of how good KDE is, IMHO one can't say that the desktop alone is all that's needed to justify a move from Windows. It's an important step, yes, but it's far from being the only factor.
Re:Trollish comment in the article
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KDE 3.2.0 Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Maybe your purpose in using a computer is running Windows apps, most people want to get their work done.
Indeed. Windows does _one_ thing very well: running Windows software. It's damn good at it. And there's one helluva lot of Windows software out there.
And all I'm saying is: before taking a running leap to conclusions like "now more people should switch to Linux", please also base it on whether they'll still be able to run their old software. Or a reasonable clone thereof. Not just on how the KDE desktop looks.
That kind of leaping to conclusions is really the only thing I have a problem with there.
The value of an OS is letting you do what you want to do. That may or may not involve running specific software
Unless what you want to do is heating the room, or such, it does involve running software. Even if all you do with your computer is compiling the kernel and running a proxy for your home network, you're already depending on some very specific software: gcc, make, squid, etc.
Switching to a system which doesn't have those, nor something which is _very_ close to a clone, would mean a lot of inconvenience. Even if just for the learning curve. Even if the desktop was an exact clone of your KDE desktop, these programs would still be pain enough.
In the Free Software/Open Source world - such tests come for free. People use the software with all sorts of configurations and report problems. Not to mention Qt (And other modern toolkits), unlike Windows, uses pure logical layouts and handles font sizes/etc very well.
I'll admit that Qt does handle font sizes very well. Other toolkits and programs don't. And much as I'll want to believe that every possible configuration was already tested and debugged by millions of volunteers, in practice for most programs... well, they must have been tested and debugged by people who love 5 pixel tall fonts;)
However, you're really supposed to be able to get along with just one of the toolkits - not having to worry about such inter-toolkit consistency.
That is a good and noble ideal, but I just can't see it happening any time soon. Most often than not, whatever program I really wanted to use, chances were that it used a whole different toolkit. Sometimes its very own.
E.g., the Gimp was still based on GTK last time I've tried it. If there's a KDE clone or port, it must be newer than that. E.g., sometimes the easiest to use for what I needed (e.g., just making a dumb dungeon map on a square grid) was xpaint, and AFAIK it's neither Qt nor Gnome.
E.g., while both KDE and Gnome come with their own terminal apps, the one that worked the best (or was the easiest for me to get working) with some apps was xterm.
E.g., Netscape 4 always was a Motif application. (Yes, I know, I should have used Mozilla. Never worked that well for me, though. And it also used its own widgets, it wasn't Qt.)
I.e., it's not that your KDE scrollbar changed between KDE apps. It's that at the same time I'd have apps on the screen with: KDE scrollbars, GTK scrollbars, Motif scrollbars, plain old xterm scrollbars, and some 2-3 custom scrollbars. Each acting differently.
I.e., again, this is not against KDE or Linux as such. I'm just saying that it would be nice if enough people could sit together (even if virtually on a mailing list) and work out a common set of guidelines.
Just, you know, a wish.
Re:Trollish comment in the article
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KDE 3.2.0 Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Bingo. Unless it actually runs on Windows, or it has some emulation in it that actually runs _all_ Windows programs without hassles, I can't see the point in switching from Windows to KDE.
Let's face it, the only value of an OS or computer is running the software _I_ want to run. And the desktop is little more than a very superficial interface to the OS.
The whole thing is like saying "now, see, we can give you a dashboard for your car that looks exactly like an airplane dashboard." Uh. And the point is? It's still a car, and it still can't do what an airplane does. Nor viceversa.
A car is for people who need a car. An airplane is for people who need an airplane. They're not (yet) completely interchangeable. Think about it a bit.
The same applies to Linux vs Windows. Repeat after me: putting a Windows desktop manager on Linux, doesn't make it a Windows substitute. And viceversa, putting CDE (or a clone thereof) on Windows, doesn't make it a Unix workstation.
But even if we're discussing desktop makeups: does Linux now have CUA guidelines? Did people start actually sticking to the same behaviour for their widgets? Did people actually start testing their interfaces with 100 dpi fonts? Etc.
Because changing the desktop means very little, when Joe Average's day still involves dealing with 10 different programs, using 6 fundamentally different widget sets, 8 fundamentally different keyboard shortcut sets, and 4 different ways of even persisting his preferences.
A lot of Windows's or a Mac's appeal doesn't come just from the way the desktop looks, nor from their particular flavour of widgets. It comes from the fact that everything running on it has the same standardized interface.
The way a Windows scroll bar or file open dialog works isn't perfect. (I actually prefer the Motif scroll bars.) But you can learn to use it _once_ and then apply that knowledge instinctively in all programs, from now until kingdom come.
Basically what I'm saying is: KDE is good and fine, and optimizing it doesn't hurt, but... IMHO what would really do Linux a world of good is enforcing a consistent interface across _all_ widget sets. Drag the good Qt, KDE, Gnome, Motif/Lesstif, GTK, etc people into a room, and don't let them out until they can aggree on a common interface standard;) That'll do Linux a world of good.
As was said already, postage doesn't stop snail mail, but it sure limits it.
How often do you get AOL CDs? I bet they're not sending you one per day. I'll also bet that you're not seeing 50 ads a day in your snail mail box.
Well, that's the fundamental difference that postage does.
The fact still remains, though, that I have _far_ better stuff to do with my time than mess with spam filters and whatnot. It's a real problem. The whole thing is costing the hundreds of millions of end-users both time and money.
So basically:
A) If a small postage fee / whitelist scheme is what it takes to get my time and usable e-mail back... I, for one, welcome our new Microsoft and Yahoo overlords.
Every proposal I've seen so far is basically based on the idea "either pay up _or_ get the end-user to whitelist you". Basically the postage fee is just an incentive to get people to cooperate in setting up the whitelists.
How's that a problem? I'd have my family, co-workers and friends whitelisted, so they don't have to pay a cent. And for the rest of the world, sorry, if what's in that e-mail isn't worth the proverbial 2 cents for you, then it's not worth my time to read it either.
The same goes for mailing lists. If your readers want to read the list, have them whitelist you. There you go.
B) If it does make people get off e-mail and start using some centralized IM service, that's good for me too. I'm still getting the same information, only over a different medium.
Only it's a medium that, unlike SMTP, never was supposed to be an anonymous unregulated network, where everyone can run his/her own open spam relay. When everything goes through a central server (farm), as is the case with IM, it's very easy to notice when someone is spamming.
It also opens a whole new can of possibilities of centrally regulating or filtering it all. E.g., changes like making a whitelist available, can be pushed onto those centralized IM servers without 5 years of debating if we really need to change SMTP.
E.g., you can make mailing lists a centralized service. Now you can tell if 30,000 people actually subscribed to Bob's "H3RB@L V1@gr@" mailing list, or Bob is just trying to spam 30,000 users. And you can probably stop the flood after the first 10 messages sent, if it doesn't go through the centralized mailing list service, instead of letting it pump millions of messages a day. You just made "opt in" mandatory and enforced.
Does that all sound like a disadvantage to me? Nope.
Not only I have a 3200+, but also the MSI mobo that Tom's Hardware hyped as being able to throttle the CPU to keep it "Cool 'n Quiet" (TM).
I thought, "hey, cool. I can finally have some silence when just browsing the web."
Guess what? It doesn't.
All that MSI's "Cool 'n Quiet" does, is throttle the fan when the CPU is cool (i.e., never), and spin it up harder when the CPU is hot (i.e., always.) It _never_ drops the CPU speed, even if I leave it idle the whole day.
Could have got an otherwise better ASUS mobo for 10 euro less, but no, I just had to go to Tom's Hardware for advice. Geesh. You'd think by now I'd have learned that the only thing Tom's is good at, is making verbal love to themselves in public. ("6 months ago we were the first to do !" all over the articles, for example.)
Ahem... well, either way, the technology _is_ there in the CPU, but if you actually expect that your mobo also uses it... well, you might be in for a surprise;)
Actually I do have a Thermaltake Xaser case which seems to have been designed to work without any screws. They have some weird plastic lock mechanism for holding the PCI/AGP cards, and cute little plastic rails for the drives.
The problems are many.
Let's take the drive rails. They're good at fine, except they don't fit my ATA Zip Drive. So I have a perfectly good drive, which could be screwed into any other case without problem. But I can't use it in the Xaser because the holes aren't in the same place as on a floppy. And I'm not about to drill new holes into a drive myself. (If nothing else, for fear of going into the PCB or internal mechanisms.)
So I ended up buying an external Firewire Zip Drive instead.
Then the PCI/AGP card holders. They'd be good and fine, except when the PCB is a millimeter taller than what the case designer had in mind. Then the only way to secure the card involves applying brute force to take the plastic thing apart, and then reassemble it (by brute force again) after you put the card in without it. And massive swearing, of course.
Both graphics cards and both sound cards I had so far are too tall. And that's all the cards I ever wanted to put in that computer.
Is it stupid, or is it stupid?
No, thanks. For my next case I'll explicitly ask for one with screws.
I wasn't talking about _this_ particular case, because as I've said, we don't know any exact figure yet.
I'm talking about the fact that Europe _did_ so far fine some of its biggest exporting corporations. Whereas the USA got that shameful Microsoft settlement.
So excuse me I find it surrealistic to read stupidities like "the EU wouldn't fine Microsoft if it was an European company". If we're talking justice, "euro-trash" have a far better track record so far.
But seein' as you _still_ want to talk that phantasy 100 million number: whatever monetary fine will be imposed, is only part of the issue. The other issues include an actual court sentence to stop doing the offending stuff. Unbundle the offending software, _and_ open up all the API's to everyone. That is the real remedy, not the money.
I.e., unlike the USA settlement, it doesn't say "oh, we'll let you keep doing whatever you want. Oh, and we sentence you to guard the cookie jar yourself." As was said again and again, it says "stop, or we'll hit you with bigger fines, again and again and again, until you do stop."
Not only can it be escalated to 2.5 billion euro, it can be done so repeatedly, if needed. Plus if MS _really_ wants to defy the EU as a whole, I do believe that there are even more interesting possibilities that countries have. Such as import taxes, for example.
I don't doubt that if the pissing contest does continue, the law can and will be changed until it has enough teeth.
The anti-trust settlement is shameful, and I'll be the first to say that. Still, even there they didn't get sentenced to give away vouchers, unless I missed something. The vouchers thing was a completely different lawsuit, AFAIK.
Dude, no offense, but we're talking an anti-trust case, not a civil class action suit, and not a consumer rights suit. Do you know the difference?
Well, in case you don't: let's just say that here we're talking about breaking the law, _not_ about compensating people who bought Windows '95.
I don't think anyone's ever paid in vouchers for breaking the law. Far as I know, not even in the USA.
It's like when a taxi gets stopped for speeding: they'll just give him/her the fine, not make him/her give away taxi vouchers.
Also, we're talking about a punishment, _not_ about a settlement. Just like in the case of the taxi stopped for speeding, it's _not_ a "pay once, and get official permission to continue for ever" deal. It's quite literally a "pay now, and _stop_. Or we'll hit you with a bigger punishment next time."
If Microsoft wants to defy the EU as a whole, there _is_ plenty of room to escalate the sanctions until Microsoft complies, or gets out of the EU market completely. We're talking about the second biggest software market, so I strongly suspect that Microsoft _will_ comply.
If you'll read even the summary that Slashdot has posted, the 100 million figure is just speculation. It is not official, and it is not confirmed in any way by officials.
So, hey, how about taking your own advice: save the holier-than-thou stuff for when we actually know know the actual number.
But if you really want to debate a number pulled out of some journalist's ass, bear in mind that Europe already _did_ do stuff against Microsoft, among which overturning their OEM EULA. Here there's no automatic "Microsoft Tax" on hardware sales.
What's left in this "plastic sabre rattling" hinges mostly on stuff like the inclusion of the Windows Media Player in Windows, and how much it's hurt RealNetworks. (Although Real isn't an European company.)
I.e., whatever fines will be imposed, will have to do with the size of the damage in this case, not with some "let's bankrupt Microsoft because they're obviously evil" crusade.
The other face of the coin that courts of law should strictly uphold the law, is that they're not supposed to win a popularity contest either. The moment you start handing sentences like "pay 100 billion euro" or "burn the witch at the stake" just because it's what makes the spectators cheer, is just as wrong.
And honestly, if you want to know what I think about RealOne, see yesterday's thread. RealNetworks went above and beyond the call of duty to alienate their own users. Much as I'm otherwise no Microsoft fan, in this case _I_ would pat them on the back instead of any fine.
But again, that's all just ranting and speculation. Until we hear an official number, this is all just a useless typing exercise.
Sadly, we're probably wasting our breath, though. I doubt that some of these people even know where Europe is on a map.
Not saying _everyone_ is like that. Some people actually read stuff, and all... but you'd be surprised how many Americans' idea of European legal precedents is based on Hollywood action movies. And given Hollywood's tradition of treating other countries and cultures like a baby treats a diaper... you can guess what those ideas are like.
E.g., that around here we're all tribesmen, oppressed by some carricature of a corrupt government, and get mob/neo-nazi/whatever wars at every street corner. All while, of course, waiting for a True American Hero (TM) to come in, guns blazing, and restore justice.
Actually, they would, and quite a few times _did_ happen.
You see, some of us still live in "backwards" parts of the world (e.g., Europe), which still cling to old beliefs.
Like: that courts of law are actually there to uphold the law, not to just bend over and grab their ankles if it's a big corporation. The sad mockery of justice that the US did with Microsoft would have not happened in any European country. Again, repeat after me: the role of a court of law is to uphold the law, not to promote the financial interests of big business.
Or like: that the law itself is supposed to serve the people, and not just be a way for politicians to reward their corporate friends.
Now I'm not saying that it's perfect. But it does tend to work. And so far it's never produced such ridiculous clown shows as the Microsoft settlement in the USA.
So rest assured that if your government is there officially just to brown-nose the rich people for campaign donations, other governments and politicians tend to be a lot more subtle about taking bribes.
If you compare the price of an IPod to a 200 GB hard drive, it seems to me that for storing video footage it's the most stupid solution ever. An exteral USB or Firewire case and a couple of 200 GB drives would have been:
- cheaper
- faster (I don't think the IPod comes even close to a 7200 RPM drive)
- able to store a lot more data
Or here's another random thought: if they're sending data all the way across the globe, exactly what's the unprecedented advantage of sending an iPod instead of a DVD-R? No, seriously.
Of course, seein' the usual "even a fart smells sweet if it's got the Apple logo" crowd on Slashdot, maybe it's worthy of Slashdot after all.
I can definitely see your point, and yes, you make a very good point there. But IMHO surely the barrage of popups, and the general annoyance of having RealOne even installed (i.e., before, after, in the middle of, _and_ in between hearing/seeing what you are offering) must have generated even more complaints, dissatisfaction and lost users?
I know I didn't yet stop visiting a site because of a hard to find link, but RealNetworks's endless annoyance did do a great job of convincing me to avoid any site which has RealMedia files. Heck, even if it was a word from God himself, or the secret of eternal youth, if it's only viewable through RealOne... no thanks.
Well, either way, that's just debating details. I think it's safe to say that we aggree than RealNetworks are scumbags, and that their retarded approach does cause the broadcaster a ton of grief.
I don't know, I don't think that _everyone_ in the Computer Multimedia business is like that.
For starters, take QuickTime. And I'm no Mac fan. But QuickTime even under Windows just does its job, with the absolute minimum of hassle.
Showing a tame registration reminder upon startup -- and even that not on every startup -- doesn't even start to compare with the annoyance hell that Real unleashed upon me. _And_ you can tell QuickTime not to preload itself. _And_ the Apple web site never tried to trick you into getting the premium version, when you're getting pointed there by a site where the files are in QuickTime format.
So, honestly, filing Apple under the same scumbag category as Real is just unfair.
Slashdot Mirror
Want more examples? Well, here's a random one:
.ear file which clearly reproduced the problem.
Over the last 13 months or so, I've had the dubious honour of working with IBM's WebSphere 5.0. We ran into bug after bug after bug after bug.
Starting with 5.0's being unable to use more than one Oracle data source in the same transaction, which cost the whole team about 2 weeks of scrambling to figure out why it suddenly doesn't work, _plus_ 42 days of waiting for IBM to fix it.
Continuing through such issues like a _massive_ performance problem under serious load, but only when using JAAS, resulting in timeouts on the productive system! With IBM's support asking us for trace logs again and again and again, even after being sent an
Now also add the problem, not yet fixed, that IBM's code swallows exceptions and throws some completely unrelated exception instead. E.g., a ClassNotFoundException when _de_serializing comes as NotSerializableException. It also comes without a stacktrace. It makes debugging a nightmare.
Combine that with the most piss-poor admin GUI ever. It takes about 4 _hours_ to export the whole application off the Solaris test server. Deploying even the most basic servlet (2-3 classes total kind of basic) takes minutes.
It's also the only single-user server product I've ever seen. It literally can't cope with two people deploying stuff at the same time.
In another team here the inside joke is: "You can tell who's using WebSphere. You hear loud cursing from his office."
The whole thing has cost us several man-years in bugs alone.
You know what? Now I understand why IBM makes far more money from consultancy than from selling the actual hardware and software. No, seriously. It's got to be the most blatant scam of all times: sell crap software cheap, and expensive consultants to make it work.
That's just one example.
So, yes, I think that this whole industry has got to the point where the scum rises to the top. If there is someone who still cares for the customer, it must be either lost in the noise, or it must have happened in the 80s.
Sadly, they're just doing what everyone else in the computer industry is doing. It's become not only acceptable, but _expected_ to lie your ass off.
"Normal" people also wouldn't, for example, think "hey, I'm trying to sell stuff to these people, so let's first make sure I've annoyed the living crap out of them. Surely they'll express their hatred by buying lots of stuff."
Yet all the pop-up and pop-under ad retards do just that. Not only that, but now they want to take over the browser and force you to watch half a megabyte of full screen movie before you can even get to see what the site offers. Yeah, that's gotta fly well with both the potential buyers _and_ the site owners. Not.
Or see the RealNetworks retards. Yeah, buddy. Spamming the living hell out of me with popups, even when not using RealOne, surely will make me reach for the credit card and buy the premium player. Not.
Speaking of which: "Normal" people would never think, "I'm trying sell people stuff over the 'Net, so let's install spyware on their computers until it crawls, hog their bandwidth, spam them with popups, etc. And generally make it hard to use the very medium over which I'm selling stuff."
Gator, anyone? And a thousand others.
"Normal" people would never think "I'm trying to build a loyal fan base, so let's sell them a clearly non-tested non-functional product."
Yet, at least one game I've bought (Victoria from Paradox Entertainment, German version) threw up a script syntax error right on startup. FFS, not a crash, not a sound lockup, nothing even remotely blamable on my drivers or hardware. A script syntax error. Noone even started that game before selling it. Sad.
Basically IMHO the spammers are just a symptom of the complete lack of accountability or responsibility in this industry. The whole "if you can make a buck with snake oil, lies and deceit, go for it" mentality. Spammers are just the brute force/low IQ version of what everyone else is doing.
Until we stand up and say "no more!" to the whole snake oil deal, it will only get worse.
Yesss, young padawan. Give in to your hatred ;)
Let's look on store.apple.com, shall we? The iPod prices are:
- 15 GB: 299$
- 20 GB: 399$
- 40 GB: 499$
Let's assume that the hard drive cost is only half of that price.
So we're talking putting a 200$ hard drive (the 20 GB version), in a console which will sell for less than that hard drive alone. How stupid is that?
The biggest actual performance difference will not be because of 64 bit integers, and definitely not because of having 8 GB of RAM.
The big difference is that in 64 bit mode you have twice the registers, and a bunch of new instructions. So basically switching to 64 bit mode doesn't just give it long-onna-register, it almost gives you a completely new RISC-like CPU.
Kjella, those 1's and 0's are only as good or bad as they're used for. E.g., posting pics of child rape is also just 1's and 0's, but somehow that doesn't make it as harmless as hosting a human rights site.
;)
E.g., if you're into splitting things into bits and then debating those bits, a landmine is just nitrogen, oxygen, iron, carbon, and some other equally harmless elements. Nothing you wouldn't find in soil naturally, you know. So, by that kind of warped logic, surely noone should be punished for placing a few of them on a playground. Right?
E.g., a bullet is only lead and a copper jacket. You probably get the analogy with "it's only 1's and 0's" by now.
Basically what I'm saying is: it's safe to get off that high horse now
It's not the 1's and 0's we're debating, it's the way they're used.
Aamcf already said it, but here goes again: don't decide for me what I should do to my eyes.
I run in 1600x1200, yes, but I also have the fonts set to large fonts. Also because, unlike so many people dead set on ruining their eyes, I like to keep a good 3 ft between my eyes and the monitor, instead of having to squint from half a foot away to read tiny text.
Sometimes it's not about "screen estate", it's about comfort. About being able to read that site without getting an eye sore.
Unlike paper or farm land, "screen estate" is _not_ some limited resource that gets consumed or "wasted", or which you pay for by square foot used. Unlike paper, where each square inch costs and once printed it's "wasted", here we're talking a resource which is reused 85 times per second. Plus on the same screen I can stack 200 windows on top of each other, if I so choose, effectively multiplying that screen estate by 200.
So, no offense, but you can get out of the mentality that "ooh, must not waste pixels. There are hungry children in Elbonia who'd die for those tasty pixels."
Either way, _I_ will use all that screen estate to make my life more comfortable. "Maximize my web experience", if you want the buzzword version of it.
Also unlike paper, here you actually have no control over the size of the fonts on _my_ screen. When you print a book or brochure in 10 point Garamond, everyone sees the exact same 10/72 inch letters. On a screen it's not the case. What you see is _not_ what the user gets.
Here's some simple maths: if you're running 800x600 on a 17" CRT (about 15" visible), and I'm running 1600x1200 on a 21" CRT (about 19" visible), those 7 pixel fonts will be 1/2 * 19/15 = only 63% as big on my screen as they are on yours.
I.e., all those retards who insist on fixed pixel sizes for their tiny fonts (which usually goes hand in hand with limitting the column width), actually inflict discomfort upon me. Far from being a "better web experience", it's an experience which I'd rather avoid if I have a choice.
So here's an idea: let _me_ decide how big I want my fonts to be. Let _me_ decide how wide a column I want that text in. As was said, there's a reason why browser windows are resizable, _and_ why Internet Explorer has the CTRL-Scrollwheel functionality. Let me use them to fit _my_ taste and needs.
Or to put it otherwise: it's my screen estate, not yours. If you want to save your pixels for the starving kids in Elbonia, go ahead. But let me take care of mine, as _I_ see fit.
What seems to go unnoticed is that everyone does have little programs that they actually need very speciffically.
E.g., my mother plays Microsoft's silly little ActiveX games (like backgammon) on their site. Much as I'd like to see her get rid of IE, it's not gonna happen as long as no other browser can run ActiveX. (And if any did, they'd be just just as inherently insecure as IE, anyway, so still no point changing.)
It's already a very specific program and very specific requirements. It does that, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, that's that.
E.g., speaking of which, a lot of people play games. Maybe they're not the kind of hardcore gamer that _I_ am, but they'll still play some freeware pacman clone or some internet web-based game that relies heavily on client-side VBScript.
Getting Windows games or even normal apps to run under Linux is still more pain than it's worth. I wouldn't recommend that any computer-illiterate person starts recompiling WineX and/or system libraries and/or X to get the latest game to run. Maybe.
It's not really a fault of Linux, of course. In all fairness, Windows doesn't natively run Linux games either.
But nevertheless, see my comparison between the car and the airplane. Neither of them is really at fault for not being the other. But still, you can't recommend a car to someone who needs a plane, nor viceversa.
I.e., before insisting "switch to linux" for their own good, I'd first make sure that it is indeed for their own good. E.g., that I have a very good idea of what programs they use, and how close an equivalent do they have available in Linux.
You've never had to talk with the customer's PHB about some program spec yet, have you?
;)
The tech stuff is easy. They just want the program to do everything _and_ the kitchen sink.
But what really causes weeks or months of meetings is
- "should the logo in the corner be exactly 120 pixels or 121 pixels?... no, wait, 119 pixels is just right."
- Then the fonts which _must_ be 7 pixel Sevenet (or some other non-standard font which is guaranteed not to even be installed on someone's computer, when they point their browser at the site. Bonus points if it's a pain to read.)
- And it all _must_ comply with some nighmarish corporate scheme that wasn't designed for the net to start with. Actual examples from actual projects I've worked on, include cyan on blue, and light orange on orange-ish yellow. Literally. I'm not making it up.
- And all the text _must_ always be limited into a 491 pixel wide area, to look the same on everyone's screen as it does on the PHB's laptop, with whatever default non-maximized position his IE remained set as. (God forbid that someone who uses 1600x1200 be actually able to use all that area to read the text.)
And so on and so forth. It's the stuff managers' dreams are made of. I'm guessing that if you stopped them from spending weeks debating the exact font size and exact logo size and hue, you'd suck all the fun out of management.
So, well, given that the government's job _is_ to manage... now why am I not surprised?
Actually, my comment had nothing to do with KDE as such, nor with the progress made by it. My main issue is mainly with the extrapolation "now KDE is better, therefore more people should switch to Linux."
KDE is no doubt a mighty fine OSS effort, and making good progress. It's never been my desktop manager of choice, but, nevertheless, it's a mighty fine piece of software. Kudos to the people working on it.
What I'm pointing out is that it's only _one_ piece of the larger equation. Regardless of how good KDE is, IMHO one can't say that the desktop alone is all that's needed to justify a move from Windows. It's an important step, yes, but it's far from being the only factor.
Maybe your purpose in using a computer is running Windows apps, most people want to get their work done.
Indeed. Windows does _one_ thing very well: running Windows software. It's damn good at it. And there's one helluva lot of Windows software out there.
And all I'm saying is: before taking a running leap to conclusions like "now more people should switch to Linux", please also base it on whether they'll still be able to run their old software. Or a reasonable clone thereof. Not just on how the KDE desktop looks.
That kind of leaping to conclusions is really the only thing I have a problem with there.
The value of an OS is letting you do what you want to do. That may or may not involve running specific software
Unless what you want to do is heating the room, or such, it does involve running software. Even if all you do with your computer is compiling the kernel and running a proxy for your home network, you're already depending on some very specific software: gcc, make, squid, etc.
Switching to a system which doesn't have those, nor something which is _very_ close to a clone, would mean a lot of inconvenience. Even if just for the learning curve. Even if the desktop was an exact clone of your KDE desktop, these programs would still be pain enough.
In the Free Software/Open Source world - such tests come for free. People use the software with all sorts of configurations and report problems.
Not to mention Qt (And other modern toolkits), unlike Windows, uses pure logical layouts and handles font sizes/etc very well.
I'll admit that Qt does handle font sizes very well. Other toolkits and programs don't. And much as I'll want to believe that every possible configuration was already tested and debugged by millions of volunteers, in practice for most programs... well, they must have been tested and debugged by people who love 5 pixel tall fonts ;)
However, you're really supposed to be able to get along with just one of the toolkits - not having to worry about such inter-toolkit consistency.
That is a good and noble ideal, but I just can't see it happening any time soon. Most often than not, whatever program I really wanted to use, chances were that it used a whole different toolkit. Sometimes its very own.
E.g., the Gimp was still based on GTK last time I've tried it. If there's a KDE clone or port, it must be newer than that. E.g., sometimes the easiest to use for what I needed (e.g., just making a dumb dungeon map on a square grid) was xpaint, and AFAIK it's neither Qt nor Gnome.
E.g., while both KDE and Gnome come with their own terminal apps, the one that worked the best (or was the easiest for me to get working) with some apps was xterm.
E.g., Netscape 4 always was a Motif application. (Yes, I know, I should have used Mozilla. Never worked that well for me, though. And it also used its own widgets, it wasn't Qt.)
I.e., it's not that your KDE scrollbar changed between KDE apps. It's that at the same time I'd have apps on the screen with: KDE scrollbars, GTK scrollbars, Motif scrollbars, plain old xterm scrollbars, and some 2-3 custom scrollbars. Each acting differently.
I.e., again, this is not against KDE or Linux as such. I'm just saying that it would be nice if enough people could sit together (even if virtually on a mailing list) and work out a common set of guidelines.
Just, you know, a wish.
Bingo. Unless it actually runs on Windows, or it has some emulation in it that actually runs _all_ Windows programs without hassles, I can't see the point in switching from Windows to KDE.
;) That'll do Linux a world of good.
Let's face it, the only value of an OS or computer is running the software _I_ want to run. And the desktop is little more than a very superficial interface to the OS.
The whole thing is like saying "now, see, we can give you a dashboard for your car that looks exactly like an airplane dashboard." Uh. And the point is? It's still a car, and it still can't do what an airplane does. Nor viceversa.
A car is for people who need a car. An airplane is for people who need an airplane. They're not (yet) completely interchangeable. Think about it a bit.
The same applies to Linux vs Windows. Repeat after me: putting a Windows desktop manager on Linux, doesn't make it a Windows substitute. And viceversa, putting CDE (or a clone thereof) on Windows, doesn't make it a Unix workstation.
But even if we're discussing desktop makeups: does Linux now have CUA guidelines? Did people start actually sticking to the same behaviour for their widgets? Did people actually start testing their interfaces with 100 dpi fonts? Etc.
Because changing the desktop means very little, when Joe Average's day still involves dealing with 10 different programs, using 6 fundamentally different widget sets, 8 fundamentally different keyboard shortcut sets, and 4 different ways of even persisting his preferences.
A lot of Windows's or a Mac's appeal doesn't come just from the way the desktop looks, nor from their particular flavour of widgets. It comes from the fact that everything running on it has the same standardized interface.
The way a Windows scroll bar or file open dialog works isn't perfect. (I actually prefer the Motif scroll bars.) But you can learn to use it _once_ and then apply that knowledge instinctively in all programs, from now until kingdom come.
Basically what I'm saying is: KDE is good and fine, and optimizing it doesn't hurt, but... IMHO what would really do Linux a world of good is enforcing a consistent interface across _all_ widget sets. Drag the good Qt, KDE, Gnome, Motif/Lesstif, GTK, etc people into a room, and don't let them out until they can aggree on a common interface standard
As was said already, postage doesn't stop snail mail, but it sure limits it. How often do you get AOL CDs? I bet they're not sending you one per day. I'll also bet that you're not seeing 50 ads a day in your snail mail box. Well, that's the fundamental difference that postage does.
The fact still remains, though, that I have _far_ better stuff to do with my time than mess with spam filters and whatnot. It's a real problem. The whole thing is costing the hundreds of millions of end-users both time and money.
So basically:
A) If a small postage fee / whitelist scheme is what it takes to get my time and usable e-mail back... I, for one, welcome our new Microsoft and Yahoo overlords.
Every proposal I've seen so far is basically based on the idea "either pay up _or_ get the end-user to whitelist you". Basically the postage fee is just an incentive to get people to cooperate in setting up the whitelists.
How's that a problem? I'd have my family, co-workers and friends whitelisted, so they don't have to pay a cent. And for the rest of the world, sorry, if what's in that e-mail isn't worth the proverbial 2 cents for you, then it's not worth my time to read it either.
The same goes for mailing lists. If your readers want to read the list, have them whitelist you. There you go.
B) If it does make people get off e-mail and start using some centralized IM service, that's good for me too. I'm still getting the same information, only over a different medium.
Only it's a medium that, unlike SMTP, never was supposed to be an anonymous unregulated network, where everyone can run his/her own open spam relay. When everything goes through a central server (farm), as is the case with IM, it's very easy to notice when someone is spamming.
It also opens a whole new can of possibilities of centrally regulating or filtering it all. E.g., changes like making a whitelist available, can be pushed onto those centralized IM servers without 5 years of debating if we really need to change SMTP.
E.g., you can make mailing lists a centralized service. Now you can tell if 30,000 people actually subscribed to Bob's "H3RB@L V1@gr@" mailing list, or Bob is just trying to spam 30,000 users. And you can probably stop the flood after the first 10 messages sent, if it doesn't go through the centralized mailing list service, instead of letting it pump millions of messages a day. You just made "opt in" mandatory and enforced.
Does that all sound like a disadvantage to me? Nope.
Not only I have a 3200+, but also the MSI mobo that Tom's Hardware hyped as being able to throttle the CPU to keep it "Cool 'n Quiet" (TM).
;)
I thought, "hey, cool. I can finally have some silence when just browsing the web."
Guess what? It doesn't.
All that MSI's "Cool 'n Quiet" does, is throttle the fan when the CPU is cool (i.e., never), and spin it up harder when the CPU is hot (i.e., always.) It _never_ drops the CPU speed, even if I leave it idle the whole day.
Could have got an otherwise better ASUS mobo for 10 euro less, but no, I just had to go to Tom's Hardware for advice. Geesh. You'd think by now I'd have learned that the only thing Tom's is good at, is making verbal love to themselves in public. ("6 months ago we were the first to do !" all over the articles, for example.)
Ahem... well, either way, the technology _is_ there in the CPU, but if you actually expect that your mobo also uses it... well, you might be in for a surprise
Actually I do have a Thermaltake Xaser case which seems to have been designed to work without any screws. They have some weird plastic lock mechanism for holding the PCI/AGP cards, and cute little plastic rails for the drives.
The problems are many.
Let's take the drive rails. They're good at fine, except they don't fit my ATA Zip Drive. So I have a perfectly good drive, which could be screwed into any other case without problem. But I can't use it in the Xaser because the holes aren't in the same place as on a floppy. And I'm not about to drill new holes into a drive myself. (If nothing else, for fear of going into the PCB or internal mechanisms.)
So I ended up buying an external Firewire Zip Drive instead.
Then the PCI/AGP card holders. They'd be good and fine, except when the PCB is a millimeter taller than what the case designer had in mind. Then the only way to secure the card involves applying brute force to take the plastic thing apart, and then reassemble it (by brute force again) after you put the card in without it. And massive swearing, of course.
Both graphics cards and both sound cards I had so far are too tall. And that's all the cards I ever wanted to put in that computer.
Is it stupid, or is it stupid?
No, thanks. For my next case I'll explicitly ask for one with screws.
I wasn't talking about _this_ particular case, because as I've said, we don't know any exact figure yet.
I'm talking about the fact that Europe _did_ so far fine some of its biggest exporting corporations. Whereas the USA got that shameful Microsoft settlement.
So excuse me I find it surrealistic to read stupidities like "the EU wouldn't fine Microsoft if it was an European company". If we're talking justice, "euro-trash" have a far better track record so far.
But seein' as you _still_ want to talk that phantasy 100 million number: whatever monetary fine will be imposed, is only part of the issue. The other issues include an actual court sentence to stop doing the offending stuff. Unbundle the offending software, _and_ open up all the API's to everyone. That is the real remedy, not the money.
I.e., unlike the USA settlement, it doesn't say "oh, we'll let you keep doing whatever you want. Oh, and we sentence you to guard the cookie jar yourself." As was said again and again, it says "stop, or we'll hit you with bigger fines, again and again and again, until you do stop."
Not only can it be escalated to 2.5 billion euro, it can be done so repeatedly, if needed. Plus if MS _really_ wants to defy the EU as a whole, I do believe that there are even more interesting possibilities that countries have. Such as import taxes, for example.
I don't doubt that if the pissing contest does continue, the law can and will be changed until it has enough teeth.
The anti-trust settlement is shameful, and I'll be the first to say that. Still, even there they didn't get sentenced to give away vouchers, unless I missed something. The vouchers thing was a completely different lawsuit, AFAIK.
Dude, no offense, but we're talking an anti-trust case, not a civil class action suit, and not a consumer rights suit. Do you know the difference?
Well, in case you don't: let's just say that here we're talking about breaking the law, _not_ about compensating people who bought Windows '95.
I don't think anyone's ever paid in vouchers for breaking the law. Far as I know, not even in the USA.
It's like when a taxi gets stopped for speeding: they'll just give him/her the fine, not make him/her give away taxi vouchers.
Also, we're talking about a punishment, _not_ about a settlement. Just like in the case of the taxi stopped for speeding, it's _not_ a "pay once, and get official permission to continue for ever" deal. It's quite literally a "pay now, and _stop_. Or we'll hit you with a bigger punishment next time."
If Microsoft wants to defy the EU as a whole, there _is_ plenty of room to escalate the sanctions until Microsoft complies, or gets out of the EU market completely. We're talking about the second biggest software market, so I strongly suspect that Microsoft _will_ comply.
If you'll read even the summary that Slashdot has posted, the 100 million figure is just speculation. It is not official, and it is not confirmed in any way by officials.
So, hey, how about taking your own advice: save the holier-than-thou stuff for when we actually know know the actual number.
But if you really want to debate a number pulled out of some journalist's ass, bear in mind that Europe already _did_ do stuff against Microsoft, among which overturning their OEM EULA. Here there's no automatic "Microsoft Tax" on hardware sales.
What's left in this "plastic sabre rattling" hinges mostly on stuff like the inclusion of the Windows Media Player in Windows, and how much it's hurt RealNetworks. (Although Real isn't an European company.)
I.e., whatever fines will be imposed, will have to do with the size of the damage in this case, not with some "let's bankrupt Microsoft because they're obviously evil" crusade.
The other face of the coin that courts of law should strictly uphold the law, is that they're not supposed to win a popularity contest either. The moment you start handing sentences like "pay 100 billion euro" or "burn the witch at the stake" just because it's what makes the spectators cheer, is just as wrong.
And honestly, if you want to know what I think about RealOne, see yesterday's thread. RealNetworks went above and beyond the call of duty to alienate their own users. Much as I'm otherwise no Microsoft fan, in this case _I_ would pat them on the back instead of any fine.
But again, that's all just ranting and speculation. Until we hear an official number, this is all just a useless typing exercise.
Sadly, we're probably wasting our breath, though. I doubt that some of these people even know where Europe is on a map.
Not saying _everyone_ is like that. Some people actually read stuff, and all... but you'd be surprised how many Americans' idea of European legal precedents is based on Hollywood action movies. And given Hollywood's tradition of treating other countries and cultures like a baby treats a diaper... you can guess what those ideas are like.
E.g., that around here we're all tribesmen, oppressed by some carricature of a corrupt government, and get mob/neo-nazi/whatever wars at every street corner. All while, of course, waiting for a True American Hero (TM) to come in, guns blazing, and restore justice.
Just sad...
Actually, they would, and quite a few times _did_ happen.
You see, some of us still live in "backwards" parts of the world (e.g., Europe), which still cling to old beliefs.
Like: that courts of law are actually there to uphold the law, not to just bend over and grab their ankles if it's a big corporation. The sad mockery of justice that the US did with Microsoft would have not happened in any European country. Again, repeat after me: the role of a court of law is to uphold the law, not to promote the financial interests of big business.
Or like: that the law itself is supposed to serve the people, and not just be a way for politicians to reward their corporate friends.
Now I'm not saying that it's perfect. But it does tend to work. And so far it's never produced such ridiculous clown shows as the Microsoft settlement in the USA.
So rest assured that if your government is there officially just to brown-nose the rich people for campaign donations, other governments and politicians tend to be a lot more subtle about taking bribes.
If you compare the price of an IPod to a 200 GB hard drive, it seems to me that for storing video footage it's the most stupid solution ever. An exteral USB or Firewire case and a couple of 200 GB drives would have been:
- cheaper
- faster (I don't think the IPod comes even close to a 7200 RPM drive)
- able to store a lot more data
Or here's another random thought: if they're sending data all the way across the globe, exactly what's the unprecedented advantage of sending an iPod instead of a DVD-R? No, seriously.
Of course, seein' the usual "even a fart smells sweet if it's got the Apple logo" crowd on Slashdot, maybe it's worthy of Slashdot after all.
I can definitely see your point, and yes, you make a very good point there. But IMHO surely the barrage of popups, and the general annoyance of having RealOne even installed (i.e., before, after, in the middle of, _and_ in between hearing/seeing what you are offering) must have generated even more complaints, dissatisfaction and lost users?
I know I didn't yet stop visiting a site because of a hard to find link, but RealNetworks's endless annoyance did do a great job of convincing me to avoid any site which has RealMedia files. Heck, even if it was a word from God himself, or the secret of eternal youth, if it's only viewable through RealOne... no thanks.
Well, either way, that's just debating details. I think it's safe to say that we aggree than RealNetworks are scumbags, and that their retarded approach does cause the broadcaster a ton of grief.
I don't know, I don't think that _everyone_ in the Computer Multimedia business is like that.
For starters, take QuickTime. And I'm no Mac fan. But QuickTime even under Windows just does its job, with the absolute minimum of hassle.
Showing a tame registration reminder upon startup -- and even that not on every startup -- doesn't even start to compare with the annoyance hell that Real unleashed upon me. _And_ you can tell QuickTime not to preload itself. _And_ the Apple web site never tried to trick you into getting the premium version, when you're getting pointed there by a site where the files are in QuickTime format.
So, honestly, filing Apple under the same scumbag category as Real is just unfair.