BSD protects my investment. If I invest tyme in programming and use a BSD license I can close my source code preventing others from taking it and giving it away. I can not prevent that with the GPL.
Really? you couldn't make money using the BSD license on your own code but you could using the GPL? How so? I want to start a photography business, which may not be a good idea in this economy, and because I can't afford to buy all the software I'd need to run the business I want to use open source software and modify it so it's better for me. Now I figure that if I am going to tyme a considerable amount of tyme programming then maybe I could try to sell the software to other photographers as well. If I use the GPL I can not prevent them from sharing the software with others whereas with a BSD style license I can close the source and at least try to stop sharing. Now others have suggested that instead of selling the software I could sell services, but that would turn me into a software/services company not a photographer. I just want to write my own software because I can't afford the thousands of dollars commercial software for photographers cost and I may be able to make a little more money if after I spend tyme programming I sell the software.
Of course there is a negative to using a BSD license, unless the source code is open I wouldn't be able to add or bug fixes or incorporate modifications others add to it.
I love open source, but companies? Companies are going to have to pay from now on. That's how economics works. If it's good enough for you to use, why then it's good enough for you to pay for it.
I had a number of problems with this but I'll just use this one. A person wants to use the GPL because they want to get paid? Where does the GPL say the programmer has to be paid. I may be wrong but I don't recall anything like that in the license.
You're kidding me. You honestly couldn't manage to go to cinepaint's web page and figure out "click the download button, and double click the file that downloads"?
I did that. And when I launched CinePaint after installation all I got was a CinePaint titlebar, nothing else. I tried to open a photo with it, by ctrl clicking the photo and choosing CinePaint in the Open With dialogue. But it did not open.
Of note btw, while cinepaint is shiny (and easy to install), there's actually better software to do that kind of thing on Macs -- pixelmator for example.
Does pixelmator work with at least 16 bit colour channels, depths? I googled it, and oh surprise a license cost $60. Looking at a comparison between it and Photoshop Elements it looks like PE does more, and I got PE with the scanner I bought. However that comparison doesn't say what it's colour depth is, let's look more. Oh, here we go: "It should be noted that 16 bit raw files when saved out are reduced to 8 bits of color depth so using Pixelmator for JPGs would be fine but if you want to shoot raw I suggest using either the pro-level tools or the software that came with the camera." It only saves 8 bit colour channels? Not that good, at least CinePaint saves at least 16 bit depths. Now let me go over to photo.net and see what people there say about it... Not much, out of thousands of posts it's mentioned only 3 tymes though none of them say how well it works. One does say though that "the screenshots for Pixelmator are apparently created in PhotoShop" and provides a link. CinePaint works well enough to use on a number of movies including "Last Samurai", "Harry Potter", and "Lord of the Rings". And you think pixelmator is better?
I would expect it to be a raging success, as no other company has as rabid a fan-base that will buy anything Apple throws at them without complaining and will even infect others who should know better to buy them as well.
That sounds just like some Linux and Windows fans. Apple has no lock on rabid fans. "Remember when Kurt Cobain died? Copy-cat suicides the whole works...will this happen with MJ fans too we shall see."
I think Apple would be stupid not to be working on a larger variant of the iPod Touch / iPhone as it's been on the request list of so many people for so long.
The same could be said of a cheap expandable Mac tower. I don't know how many tymes others have said they'd buy a Mac if one was offered.
Like which software? 99% of Linux software runs happily on OS X.
I tried to install and use CinePaint and Fink. I was unable to use either one. Sure some get them to work but I'm no genus or hacker. With Ubuntu Studio CinePaint comes with it and I don't need Fink. Or DarwinPorts or MacPorts to install apt-get,.deb, or.rpm packages. I also have Eclipse installed but I get errors when I run it in my user account, then when I try to quit it it won't. Even Force Quit will not stop Eclipse, the only I can kill it is by shutting down though logging out may work, I haven't tried it. Yet I installed the Mac version of it, and it works fine in an admin account but not a user account.
The frequency of defects is pretty astounding in my opinion having personally had to bring macbook pros to the local apple store for system board replacement multiple times.
I am typing this on my first new Mac and next month I'll have had it 2 years. In those two years I have taken my MacBook Pro into the Genus bar at an Apple store once for problems with hardware, back in January. I owned it more than a year before having any hardware problems. Now I said new Mac, I also bought 2 used Macs. One was a Mac SE30 I bought in 1992. The one and only problem I had with it was when it died in 2000. The next Mac was a Powermac 7300/200 from I believe 1997 I bought a few months later. The first problem I had with it was when it refused to bootup in 2006.
On the other hand I've bought 4 new PCs and I had to replace both the harddisk drive and motherboard of 3 of them in the first year. And it's not the OEM's problem, they were all made by different OEMs. From experience PCs are prone to more defects than Macs are.
(sigh) I love talking tech as much as anyone, but can we at least try to stay grounded in reality?
In a way I agree, but I also like to fantasize. In the case of a Mac tablet though there is no fantasy. The ModBook is a MacBook that's been modified into a Mac tablet. It has been available for years. A question I've had all these years is why Apple hasn't bought the company that makes the ModBook or released one itself.
What you fail to see is that at some point, this thing (if it exists) will no longer be supported by Apple. But once Linux and other free unix-like OSes get ported it will be supported practically forever.
Oh really? I have an old DEC Alpha PC, can I get a modern Linux distro installed on it? It would be great if I could, I could still use it as a computer instead of a door stop.
MacOS is a pig and it's performance kind of sucks.
Where's your evidence? I'll make it easy and ask for evidence not proof.
Driver support is inferior.
Again, do you have evidence? I have a number of USB and Firewire devices attached to my Mac and I have not had a problem with any of them. However there are known issues with installing and using Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro. I know because I've been researching how to install it on my Mac.
Support for random data formats is inferior.
What?
A special app with exclusionary encryption is really more trouble than it's worth.
That depends but it can happen on any computer running any OS. It is not exclusive to Macs running OS X. Heck there are proprietary formats that will not play legally on Linux. Jon Lech Johansen raised a stink when he released DeCSS so Linux PCs could play movie DVDs.
If iTunes is such a great application, how come it isn't a choice?
iTunes is a choice. It does not come preinstalled on any Windows PCs so if Windows users wants to use they have to download and install it, and millions have exercised that choice. It's a choice on Macs too. Yes it is preinstalled on Macs however when I upgraded from Tiger and installed Leopard I didn't have to install iTunes. I did on the primary drive in my Mac but I also created a bootable USB Flash drive, in case of emergencies, without it. And if I want to play my music CDs on my Mac I do not have to use iTunes either. Audacity is an open source audio editing software that runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows.
So can you explain where the lock-in occurs? Or are you spreading FUD?
Free and open should naturally be the fundamental ground which any software stands on, even if it's proprietary or not.
If Photoshop were free and open source how would Adobe make enough money to pay the programmers? Sure there's GIMP, but they've been promising 16 bit colour channels for 10 years but it still only works with 8 bits per colour channel. And it needs a plug-in for CMYK support, which print artists need. Photoshop has CMYK built in and supports 32 bits, even 36 bits, per colour channel. I'd love it if GIMP had the capabilities of Photoshop but while it does fine for amateur and web artists it doesn't work so well for print photographers.
to you iTunes and iPod together makes perfect sense. To me it's a horrible lock down that serves only the interest of Apple, not the consumer.
Where is the lock-in for iTunes and the iPod? I don't own an iPod, or any other mpg3 player, the last portable player I bought was a Sony Walkman CD player I bought about 10 years ago. And though my Mac came with iTunes installed, I can use it or another player. If I want I can rip all of my music CDs with iTunes or another ripper and play the songs on an iPod or any other mpg3 player. Quite simply there is no lock-in for either iPods or iTunes.
If Apple tries to sell it with "loss" just to collect the rest of the revenue through iTunes store then the iPod is in a way on lease.
Apple does not require iPod owners to buy from the iTunes store. Actually the iTunes software makes it easy to rip CDs, CDa Apple does not sell, and then play the songs on Macs or Windows PC. Or the songs can be transfered to any mpg3 player. Again there is not lock-in.
If I buy an iPod bundled with iTunes and Apple actively support third party developers to create new or improved ways to use my device then I consider it a fair deal. The sad truth is however that Apple does everything to prevent this.
Are you for real? Or just spreading FUD? Fact is is Apple has a community and encourages iTunes developers. Though I am not now I have been a member of the Apple Developer Connection previously. Apple doesn't prevent or try to stop users from downloading media files from Amazon either.
Sure there is a lot of Linux only stuff - but typically only because the project is still in alpha and hasn't taken off yet.
I heard about MacPorts 5 years ago. If it's not out of alpha it's never be out of beta.
Given that, the drivers for the hardware on the device are not likley to be supported by Linux for some time after it's release...
I have been investigating installing Ubuntu on my Mac for months. Because CinePaint was dropped from Ubuntu I've been thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio, which does include CinePaint, and I have not found one deal breaker. Ubuntu Forums has a number of posts on how to install Ubuntu on Macs such as this one, "Macbook Pro- Santa Rosa", which is what my Mac's version.
Nothing but ego apparently.
Ego has nothing to do with it. I'd rather try the free CinePaint to edit my photographs than spend several hundred dollars I don't have to buy Photoshop.
I've got X11 installed and tried to install CinePaint and Fink but couldn't get either one to run. I could try MacPorts but it doesn't have CinePaint. So I've been thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio.
this thing (assuming it existed) would most likely run OS X...
Because it will do more. I am typing this on a MacBook Pro I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu Studio on. If I do I will be able to run software on it I haven't been able to run on it yet.
computers that run windows are a lot cheaper than those running os-x!).
2009 calling, Mac prices have been comparable with Windows PC prices for years. Why does this mime continue? Perhaps because people fell for Microsoft's FUD.
They still own the office space by:
1) producing the best office suite
MS Office isn't the best office suite. Few people even realize there are alternatives, and think they need MS Office when the only reason any of them does need it is because of MS's proprietary file formats creates vendor lock-in. Though my Mac came with MS Office I use NeoOffice and I have not had a problem opening a Word document in years.
OS X does not compete in the desktop OS market at all as it is only sold bundled with computers.
No, OS X is sold individually. Anyone, with the money, can go and buy a DVD with Leopard on it. Of course it can legally only be installed on a Mac. When Snow Leopard is released people will be able to buy it on DVD and install it on their Mac. Not that I will, I waited more than a year before upgrading from Tiger to Leopard. And that despite having it on DVD all that tyme, I just didn't see the need to upgrade right away.
..But they also have contracts with all the OEMs that make it so they can't bundle non-MS things with their machines or advertise non-MS systems otherwise MS increases the price of Windows to them that it becomes unprofitable to run a business.
Didn't the Microsoft settlement bar them from doing that? Dell and well as other OEMs bundle or sell computers with Linux.
I wonder whether MS could get away with adding adblocking to Windows that would eliminate all Google Ad revenue from MS-based products.
MS doesn't need to block ads, they are already easy to block. All anybody have to do to block ad, or any other server, is to use the Host file. It is a plain text file telling the OS where to look for certain domains. To block certain servers such as ad.doubleclick.com is to set it's address to 127.0.0.1 in the file. That is the local host and of course ad.doubleclick.com isn't there. So while I have their banner ads blocked I allow Google's simple text ads.
It would not take much for the Windows OS to somehow make using Google products so much harder and inconvenient, and people will switch back to using 90% all MSFT software and think there is actually fair competition.
Except some people think for themselves. After using Windows almost exclusively for more than 10 years, when it came tyme for me to get a new computer I evaluated my needs, er wants, and saw that Linux and OS X could do everything I wanted. So I got a Linux PC I can use as a server and a MacBook Pro for a portable computer.
Some years ago my credit card issuer stopped using them because the usefulness didn't justify the expense. Now if I want, such as to order something online, my issuer will issue a one tyme use credit card number.
Who is your issuer? Mine stopped doing that years ago, and I'd like to find someone who still does.
Well, I don't know if the company does it anymore. Late last year or early this year Chase Manhattan took over my credit card issuer.
One of the big drivers of the dot-com crash was Greenspan kicking up interest rates six times in early 2000 to get the economy ready for Bush's election
And a partial cause of the current recession was easy credit.
You don't need windows. I don't need it for anything other than testing sites under IE. That freedom plus and awareness of alternatives make us fortunate, but also a small percentage of the computer-using population.
Name two things a lot of users need that is only available for Windows, tasks that need to be done not specific software. I have only found one specific software some need, so they say, that is available only for Windows, Autocad. There are however other CADD programs for OS X. There is even a community of CAD users on Macs, Architoch.
As for IE, you've just pointed out the danger of vendor lock-in and not using industry standards. That and many others use Macs and Linux for web development, though not professionally I use both.
Slashdot Mirror
BSD protects my investment. If I invest tyme in programming and use a BSD license I can close my source code preventing others from taking it and giving it away. I can not prevent that with the GPL.
Falcon
because it was licensed under the BSD license.
Really? you couldn't make money using the BSD license on your own code but you could using the GPL? How so? I want to start a photography business, which may not be a good idea in this economy, and because I can't afford to buy all the software I'd need to run the business I want to use open source software and modify it so it's better for me. Now I figure that if I am going to tyme a considerable amount of tyme programming then maybe I could try to sell the software to other photographers as well. If I use the GPL I can not prevent them from sharing the software with others whereas with a BSD style license I can close the source and at least try to stop sharing. Now others have suggested that instead of selling the software I could sell services, but that would turn me into a software/services company not a photographer. I just want to write my own software because I can't afford the thousands of dollars commercial software for photographers cost and I may be able to make a little more money if after I spend tyme programming I sell the software.
Of course there is a negative to using a BSD license, unless the source code is open I wouldn't be able to add or bug fixes or incorporate modifications others add to it.
Falcon
I love open source, but companies? Companies are going to have to pay from now on. That's how economics works. If it's good enough for you to use, why then it's good enough for you to pay for it.
I had a number of problems with this but I'll just use this one. A person wants to use the GPL because they want to get paid? Where does the GPL say the programmer has to be paid. I may be wrong but I don't recall anything like that in the license.
Falcon
For free unix-like systems, Debian and NetBSD come to mind.
And can I install a modern version of either one on my Alpha though? Or would I have to search high and low for an older version?
Falcon
You're kidding me. You honestly couldn't manage to go to cinepaint's web page and figure out "click the download button, and double click the file that downloads"?
I did that. And when I launched CinePaint after installation all I got was a CinePaint titlebar, nothing else. I tried to open a photo with it, by ctrl clicking the photo and choosing CinePaint in the Open With dialogue. But it did not open.
Of note btw, while cinepaint is shiny (and easy to install), there's actually better software to do that kind of thing on Macs -- pixelmator for example.
Does pixelmator work with at least 16 bit colour channels, depths? I googled it, and oh surprise a license cost $60. Looking at a comparison between it and Photoshop Elements it looks like PE does more, and I got PE with the scanner I bought. However that comparison doesn't say what it's colour depth is, let's look more. Oh, here we go: "It should be noted that 16 bit raw files when saved out are reduced to 8 bits of color depth so using Pixelmator for JPGs would be fine but if you want to shoot raw I suggest using either the pro-level tools or the software that came with the camera." It only saves 8 bit colour channels? Not that good, at least CinePaint saves at least 16 bit depths. Now let me go over to photo.net and see what people there say about it... Not much, out of thousands of posts it's mentioned only 3 tymes though none of them say how well it works. One does say though that "the screenshots for Pixelmator are apparently created in PhotoShop" and provides a link. CinePaint works well enough to use on a number of movies including "Last Samurai", "Harry Potter", and "Lord of the Rings". And you think pixelmator is better?
Falcon
I would expect it to be a raging success, as no other company has as rabid a fan-base that will buy anything Apple throws at them without complaining and will even infect others who should know better to buy them as well.
That sounds just like some Linux and Windows fans. Apple has no lock on rabid fans. "Remember when Kurt Cobain died? Copy-cat suicides the whole works...will this happen with MJ fans too we shall see."
Falcon
I think Apple would be stupid not to be working on a larger variant of the iPod Touch / iPhone as it's been on the request list of so many people for so long.
The same could be said of a cheap expandable Mac tower. I don't know how many tymes others have said they'd buy a Mac if one was offered.
Falcon
Like which software? 99% of Linux software runs happily on OS X.
I tried to install and use CinePaint and Fink. I was unable to use either one. Sure some get them to work but I'm no genus or hacker. With Ubuntu Studio CinePaint comes with it and I don't need Fink. Or DarwinPorts or MacPorts to install apt-get, .deb, or .rpm packages. I also have Eclipse installed but I get errors when I run it in my user account, then when I try to quit it it won't. Even Force Quit will not stop Eclipse, the only I can kill it is by shutting down though logging out may work, I haven't tried it. Yet I installed the Mac version of it, and it works fine in an admin account but not a user account.
Falcon
The frequency of defects is pretty astounding in my opinion having personally had to bring macbook pros to the local apple store for system board replacement multiple times.
I am typing this on my first new Mac and next month I'll have had it 2 years. In those two years I have taken my MacBook Pro into the Genus bar at an Apple store once for problems with hardware, back in January. I owned it more than a year before having any hardware problems. Now I said new Mac, I also bought 2 used Macs. One was a Mac SE30 I bought in 1992. The one and only problem I had with it was when it died in 2000. The next Mac was a Powermac 7300/200 from I believe 1997 I bought a few months later. The first problem I had with it was when it refused to bootup in 2006.
On the other hand I've bought 4 new PCs and I had to replace both the harddisk drive and motherboard of 3 of them in the first year. And it's not the OEM's problem, they were all made by different OEMs. From experience PCs are prone to more defects than Macs are.
Falcon
(sigh) I love talking tech as much as anyone, but can we at least try to stay grounded in reality?
In a way I agree, but I also like to fantasize. In the case of a Mac tablet though there is no fantasy. The ModBook is a MacBook that's been modified into a Mac tablet. It has been available for years. A question I've had all these years is why Apple hasn't bought the company that makes the ModBook or released one itself.
Falcon
What you fail to see is that at some point, this thing (if it exists) will no longer be supported by Apple. But once Linux and other free unix-like OSes get ported it will be supported practically forever.
Oh really? I have an old DEC Alpha PC, can I get a modern Linux distro installed on it? It would be great if I could, I could still use it as a computer instead of a door stop.
Falcon
MacOS is a pig and it's performance kind of sucks.
Where's your evidence? I'll make it easy and ask for evidence not proof.
Driver support is inferior.
Again, do you have evidence? I have a number of USB and Firewire devices attached to my Mac and I have not had a problem with any of them. However there are known issues with installing and using Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro. I know because I've been researching how to install it on my Mac.
Support for random data formats is inferior.
What?
A special app with exclusionary encryption is really more trouble than it's worth.
That depends but it can happen on any computer running any OS. It is not exclusive to Macs running OS X. Heck there are proprietary formats that will not play legally on Linux. Jon Lech Johansen raised a stink when he released DeCSS so Linux PCs could play movie DVDs.
Almost every thing you said was FUD.
Falcon
If iTunes is such a great application, how come it isn't a choice?
iTunes is a choice. It does not come preinstalled on any Windows PCs so if Windows users wants to use they have to download and install it, and millions have exercised that choice. It's a choice on Macs too. Yes it is preinstalled on Macs however when I upgraded from Tiger and installed Leopard I didn't have to install iTunes. I did on the primary drive in my Mac but I also created a bootable USB Flash drive, in case of emergencies, without it. And if I want to play my music CDs on my Mac I do not have to use iTunes either. Audacity is an open source audio editing software that runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows.
So can you explain where the lock-in occurs? Or are you spreading FUD?
Falcon
Free and open should naturally be the fundamental ground which any software stands on, even if it's proprietary or not.
If Photoshop were free and open source how would Adobe make enough money to pay the programmers? Sure there's GIMP, but they've been promising 16 bit colour channels for 10 years but it still only works with 8 bits per colour channel. And it needs a plug-in for CMYK support, which print artists need. Photoshop has CMYK built in and supports 32 bits, even 36 bits, per colour channel. I'd love it if GIMP had the capabilities of Photoshop but while it does fine for amateur and web artists it doesn't work so well for print photographers.
to you iTunes and iPod together makes perfect sense. To me it's a horrible lock down that serves only the interest of Apple, not the consumer.
Where is the lock-in for iTunes and the iPod? I don't own an iPod, or any other mpg3 player, the last portable player I bought was a Sony Walkman CD player I bought about 10 years ago. And though my Mac came with iTunes installed, I can use it or another player. If I want I can rip all of my music CDs with iTunes or another ripper and play the songs on an iPod or any other mpg3 player. Quite simply there is no lock-in for either iPods or iTunes.
If Apple tries to sell it with "loss" just to collect the rest of the revenue through iTunes store then the iPod is in a way on lease.
Apple does not require iPod owners to buy from the iTunes store. Actually the iTunes software makes it easy to rip CDs, CDa Apple does not sell, and then play the songs on Macs or Windows PC. Or the songs can be transfered to any mpg3 player. Again there is not lock-in.
If I buy an iPod bundled with iTunes and Apple actively support third party developers to create new or improved ways to use my device then I consider it a fair deal. The sad truth is however that Apple does everything to prevent this.
Are you for real? Or just spreading FUD? Fact is is Apple has a community and encourages iTunes developers. Though I am not now I have been a member of the Apple Developer Connection previously. Apple doesn't prevent or try to stop users from downloading media files from Amazon either.
Falcon
Oh, I like both Macs and open source
I think his point is that MacPorts covers 99% of the Linux/Unix workalike software out there.
MacPorts does not support CinePaint.
Sure there is a lot of Linux only stuff - but typically only because the project is still in alpha and hasn't taken off yet.
I heard about MacPorts 5 years ago. If it's not out of alpha it's never be out of beta.
Given that, the drivers for the hardware on the device are not likley to be supported by Linux for some time after it's release...
I have been investigating installing Ubuntu on my Mac for months. Because CinePaint was dropped from Ubuntu I've been thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio, which does include CinePaint, and I have not found one deal breaker. Ubuntu Forums has a number of posts on how to install Ubuntu on Macs such as this one, "Macbook Pro- Santa Rosa", which is what my Mac's version.
Nothing but ego apparently.
Ego has nothing to do with it. I'd rather try the free CinePaint to edit my photographs than spend several hundred dollars I don't have to buy Photoshop.
Falcon
of OS X:
X11
kde
e17
For everything else there's fink and darwin ports.
I've got X11 installed and tried to install CinePaint and Fink but couldn't get either one to run. I could try MacPorts but it doesn't have CinePaint. So I've been thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio.
Falcon
this thing (assuming it existed) would most likely run OS X...
Because it will do more. I am typing this on a MacBook Pro I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu Studio on. If I do I will be able to run software on it I haven't been able to run on it yet.
Falcon
computers that run windows are a lot cheaper than those running os-x!).
2009 calling, Mac prices have been comparable with Windows PC prices for years. Why does this mime continue? Perhaps because people fell for Microsoft's FUD.
They still own the office space by:
1) producing the best office suite
MS Office isn't the best office suite. Few people even realize there are alternatives, and think they need MS Office when the only reason any of them does need it is because of MS's proprietary file formats creates vendor lock-in. Though my Mac came with MS Office I use NeoOffice and I have not had a problem opening a Word document in years.
Falcon
OS X does not compete in the desktop OS market at all as it is only sold bundled with computers.
No, OS X is sold individually. Anyone, with the money, can go and buy a DVD with Leopard on it. Of course it can legally only be installed on a Mac. When Snow Leopard is released people will be able to buy it on DVD and install it on their Mac. Not that I will, I waited more than a year before upgrading from Tiger to Leopard. And that despite having it on DVD all that tyme, I just didn't see the need to upgrade right away.
Falcon
..But they also have contracts with all the OEMs that make it so they can't bundle non-MS things with their machines or advertise non-MS systems otherwise MS increases the price of Windows to them that it becomes unprofitable to run a business.
Didn't the Microsoft settlement bar them from doing that? Dell and well as other OEMs bundle or sell computers with Linux.
Falcon
I wonder whether MS could get away with adding adblocking to Windows that would eliminate all Google Ad revenue from MS-based products.
MS doesn't need to block ads, they are already easy to block. All anybody have to do to block ad, or any other server, is to use the Host file. It is a plain text file telling the OS where to look for certain domains. To block certain servers such as ad.doubleclick.com is to set it's address to 127.0.0.1 in the file. That is the local host and of course ad.doubleclick.com isn't there. So while I have their banner ads blocked I allow Google's simple text ads.
Falcon
It would not take much for the Windows OS to somehow make using Google products so much harder and inconvenient, and people will switch back to using 90% all MSFT software and think there is actually fair competition.
Except some people think for themselves. After using Windows almost exclusively for more than 10 years, when it came tyme for me to get a new computer I evaluated my needs, er wants, and saw that Linux and OS X could do everything I wanted. So I got a Linux PC I can use as a server and a MacBook Pro for a portable computer.
Falcon
Some years ago my credit card issuer stopped using them because the usefulness didn't justify the expense. Now if I want, such as to order something online, my issuer will issue a one tyme use credit card number.
Who is your issuer? Mine stopped doing that years ago, and I'd like to find someone who still does.
Well, I don't know if the company does it anymore. Late last year or early this year Chase Manhattan took over my credit card issuer.
Falcon
One of the big drivers of the dot-com crash was Greenspan kicking up interest rates six times in early 2000 to get the economy ready for Bush's election
And a partial cause of the current recession was easy credit.
Falcon
Did I need Windows? For anything? No
You don't need windows. I don't need it for anything other than testing sites under IE. That freedom plus and awareness of alternatives make us fortunate, but also a small percentage of the computer-using population.
Name two things a lot of users need that is only available for Windows, tasks that need to be done not specific software. I have only found one specific software some need, so they say, that is available only for Windows, Autocad. There are however other CADD programs for OS X. There is even a community of CAD users on Macs, Architoch.
As for IE, you've just pointed out the danger of vendor lock-in and not using industry standards. That and many others use Macs and Linux for web development, though not professionally I use both.
Falcon