Did IBM DOS command.com have script editing? I doubt in it's heyday there was any clamoring from customers for this.
Comic Sans-Serif. God that font sucks.
Getting pretty desperate when you are adding fonts to a list of "bad projects". That's a novel interpretation of (software) "project". What's next? The awful readme text files?
DiectX sucked untill it got to 8.0
One could argue that the User Interface for Linux was poor until roughly 7.0 (and still has some rough edges today). So what's your point?
MS C++ untill about a year ago.
IMO, this is a little subjective. 6.0 was not that bad at all. It had some warts and was not top notch in every way, but not bad.
MS has made plenty of crap to spread around.
I don't disagree. MS has put out some bad stuff. Very few organizations haven't. The other thing is that "bad" is somewhat subjective. There may be a lot of stuff out there that most will agree is "bad", and there is a lot of stuff that some people think is bad and others think is great. For instance, the horrible "PhotoSuite" and "Greeting Card" software you get with things like printers, scanners, digital cameras, etc. They are some of the worst software I've ever seen. Almost totally useless to me. However, I could imagine some newbie user thinking it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And he would probably be right, for him. You have to take into consideration the target users and intended use and the era for the application. For instance Paint was never intended to be a competitor to PhotoShop. So rating it bad when it doesn't fit well being round rammed into that square hole you're jamming them in, doesn't mean they are bad in what purpose they were intended to serve.
When some outfit that is loosely connected to Microsoft puts out some report indicating, for instance that the TCO for Windows is less than Linux, you guys jump all over it as blatantly biased. But when some German company whose emphasis is Linux puts out something that says Linux is as easy to use as Windows, it somehow magically is not biased? Spare me.
I want Linux to become a serious desktop competitor to MS about as much as anyone here. However, saying it is as user friendly as Windows when it is not, is not doing anyone any favors. Linux has come a long way in the past couple years but there is still some work to do.
I don't thing we are saying anything much different here. Basically you re-iterated what I was saying. Yes, there are many lower level people than the CEO, but this does not mean that the CEO does more work on a comparison as an individual than every lower level worker. I'm not overly critical of CEO's duties. They (CEOs) are more important overall to the company than the vast majority if not all other positions in the company. It does not mean, however, that they do "more" work than the others.
What I would be critical of is a CEO getting a big fat bonus largely on the basis of cost reduction by repositioning jobs to other countries so that the salaries are lower or from large scale cutbacks. If reduction of operating costs to the company are critical to reduce, the place to start is with his own salary and bonuses which a modest reduction or even a lack of increase could save quite a bit from square one. I have no problem about getting rid of dead wood or cutting back when really needed.
Yeah, I was kind of picking nits. I guess I'm trying to clarify what you meant by "more". For instance, I would agree that most CEO's probably put in a lot of long, hard hours. But so do a lot of their underlings. Granted there will be a lot that just put in their X hours to get paid, but there will be a lot that are just as smart as the CEO and put in as much work. In fact it is common for some of the underlings to be expected to put in as many or more hours without comp just to keep their position or compete for that 3% raise (while the CEO is making millions many times over). My argument is that the reason they get the big bucks is not that they inherently do more, but they match the skill set I described earlier.
Whereas programming is a means to an end. The people at the top want something does XYZ, and whether it is an American, and Indian, or a smart robot on the moon, the end result is going to be something that does XYZ.
Logic, Math, manpower, etc - all basic skills can be outsourced - but the executives at the top do more than that and are much harder to outsource
They don't do more than IT professionals. They certainly typically don't have basic programming skills. You're also mostly describing unskilled labor. The supposed reason they make more is that they have business smarts, leadership skills, and are willing to accept huge responsibility (although many are dodging that nowadays). These skills demand higher compensation. Having a CEO position does not mean they can do everything everyone under them can and "more".
Slashdot Mirror
And don't forget the $130 OS upgrades they want you to make every 6 months.
I think it's a bit naive to swallow that Apple did this on it's own and not even consider that it was done to stop the backlash.
Did IBM DOS command.com have script editing? I doubt in it's heyday there was any clamoring from customers for this.
Comic Sans-Serif. God that font sucks.
Getting pretty desperate when you are adding fonts to a list of "bad projects". That's a novel interpretation of (software) "project". What's next? The awful readme text files?
DiectX sucked untill it got to 8.0
One could argue that the User Interface for Linux was poor until roughly 7.0 (and still has some rough edges today). So what's your point?
MS C++ untill about a year ago.
IMO, this is a little subjective. 6.0 was not that bad at all. It had some warts and was not top notch in every way, but not bad.
MS has made plenty of crap to spread around.
I don't disagree. MS has put out some bad stuff. Very few organizations haven't. The other thing is that "bad" is somewhat subjective. There may be a lot of stuff out there that most will agree is "bad", and there is a lot of stuff that some people think is bad and others think is great. For instance, the horrible "PhotoSuite" and "Greeting Card" software you get with things like printers, scanners, digital cameras, etc. They are some of the worst software I've ever seen. Almost totally useless to me. However, I could imagine some newbie user thinking it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. And he would probably be right, for him. You have to take into consideration the target users and intended use and the era for the application. For instance Paint was never intended to be a competitor to PhotoShop. So rating it bad when it doesn't fit well being round rammed into that square hole you're jamming them in, doesn't mean they are bad in what purpose they were intended to serve.
When some outfit that is loosely connected to Microsoft puts out some report indicating, for instance that the TCO for Windows is less than Linux, you guys jump all over it as blatantly biased. But when some German company whose emphasis is Linux puts out something that says Linux is as easy to use as Windows, it somehow magically is not biased? Spare me. I want Linux to become a serious desktop competitor to MS about as much as anyone here. However, saying it is as user friendly as Windows when it is not, is not doing anyone any favors. Linux has come a long way in the past couple years but there is still some work to do.
I'm not sure that would help. It's hard to make a fool proof system. The Dade county voters have proven themselves worthy opponents in that area.
And this is somehow a special problem for Open Source and not commercial software?
I don't thing we are saying anything much different here. Basically you re-iterated what I was saying. Yes, there are many lower level people than the CEO, but this does not mean that the CEO does more work on a comparison as an individual than every lower level worker. I'm not overly critical of CEO's duties. They (CEOs) are more important overall to the company than the vast majority if not all other positions in the company. It does not mean, however, that they do "more" work than the others. What I would be critical of is a CEO getting a big fat bonus largely on the basis of cost reduction by repositioning jobs to other countries so that the salaries are lower or from large scale cutbacks. If reduction of operating costs to the company are critical to reduce, the place to start is with his own salary and bonuses which a modest reduction or even a lack of increase could save quite a bit from square one. I have no problem about getting rid of dead wood or cutting back when really needed.
Yeah, I was kind of picking nits. I guess I'm trying to clarify what you meant by "more". For instance, I would agree that most CEO's probably put in a lot of long, hard hours. But so do a lot of their underlings. Granted there will be a lot that just put in their X hours to get paid, but there will be a lot that are just as smart as the CEO and put in as much work. In fact it is common for some of the underlings to be expected to put in as many or more hours without comp just to keep their position or compete for that 3% raise (while the CEO is making millions many times over). My argument is that the reason they get the big bucks is not that they inherently do more, but they match the skill set I described earlier.