They've realized their future in the Operating System market is pale at best. Remember the EU court's decision about Microsoft being a monopoly? Well this was on Sep 2007. Is it a coincidence that less than 5 months later Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo!? I think not.
Sooner or later Microsoft would have to lift the veil on the APIs for their most popular products, and *anyone* (including GPL software developers) can read them. Microsoft knew this day would come, and their desktop market dominance will be destroyed sooner or later. How to prevent the competition from making better products, if you can't hinder them from being compatible? You can't.
So Microsoft was cornered into getting hold of an existing successful market: Internet services - that's the only way they can survive in the long term. But if they offered to buy Yahoo! after they released their APIs, the public would realize Microsoft's disadvantage. So they first offer to buy Yahoo, and THEN they release their APIs.
The fact that Steve Ballmer wrote that open letter only shows Microsoft's struggle against extinction.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. This is the beginning of the end for Microsoft. Congratulations.
But what will happen when Greenland gets so warm so it won't be able to produce barley anymore? If global warming doesn't stop, that WILL certainly happen - and when it does, beer price will be the least of our problems.
I'm trying to stretch my mind here, about how piracy in any way benefits anyone except the hacker who made sure you have a version of windows you'll never update, and thus will be totally exposed to hackers who know what they're doing...
The problem here isn't the pirates who sell you cracked (and hacked) versions of windows which we'll never update, but Microsoft for selling us a DEFECTIVE operating system which NEEDS updates to be safe from hackers and viruses.
Software viruses are an epidemic - it's no longer a matter of "you caught it, you suffer". It's a public "health" issue.
Piracy of Microsoft Windows has not stopped the slightest by "Genuine advantage" and all that antipiracy crap. What Microsoft's antipiracy measures have done is precisely making a worse internet for everyone of us. This is just like the embargo on Cuba: The US blames Castro for pushing his people into poverty, but it's not Castro who's maintaining the embargo, it's the US.
Not all pirates are evil - there are some who use piracy to benefit themselves at the cost of others - but that's what Microsoft's been doing all along. Windows Vista for 400 dollars? Give me a break.
How does software piracy promote innovation? better p2p clients?
No. Better products. Piracy - in all fields - promotes innovation by using abandoned niches, which in turn become business opportunities. There's apple and iTunes which takes the niche kazaa was taking for itself - cheap online music.
Onto software piracy: If a company starts making *CHEAP* alternatives to say, Photoshop CS3 (by pirating their user interface design (Microsoft Windows, anyone?) and sells them for $30 bucks, now there's a business opportunity. Adobe will be forced to lower their prices and everybody's happy.
The problem with piracy is that companies right now do too much to enforce the law, and give too little opportunity to competitors by using monopolistic techniques.
Software piracy is NOT the problem. The problem is software monopolies and price fixing. And they use the media and FUD to brainwash the public into getting it all wrong.
Re:Programming patterns = very good "cookbooks"
on
Wicked Cool PHP
·
· Score: 1
Thanks for the tip. Joomla may be a worst example, but the idea of having form objects isn't:) In any case, mind enlightening us about why Joomla sucks? It's not a challenge, it's a sincere question - one never stops learning.
Programming patterns = very good "cookbooks"
on
Wicked Cool PHP
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
What has helped me the most to work with PHP is reading articles about programming patterns (i.e. MVC) and reading reviews and technical documentation on frameworks (i.e. joomla). Plunging into the code of these architectural mammoths has really changed my way of thinking, and more than once. For example, after reading a bit of joomla i decided to make a class for form output to organize my form templates (which receive also css parameters), instead of hardcoding the values between control structures like foreach loops for every option in a select. Now my embedded HTML is much cleaner. Compare:
BEFORE Template file:
(html stuff) <label for="select_company" class="classname">Choose a company:</label> (more html stuff) <select name="company" id="select_company" onchange="(awfully long javascript stuff here)" class="classname" style="(awfully long additional css stuff here)"> <?php foreach($companies as $companyid => $companyname) {
echo "<option value=\"",htmlspecialchars($companyid),"\"";
if($companyid == $currentcompanyid) {
echo " selected=\"SELECTED\"";
}
echo ">{$companyname}</option>\n"; } echo "</select>\n"; // and that was just the first field! ?> (more html stuff)
// Since we don't have embedded PHP here, we can use heredoc syntax!:) echo <<< EOD (non-form html stuff) {$formdata['form1']['company']['label']} (more non-form html stuff) {$formdata['form1']['company']['input']} (more non-form html stuff) EOD;
This code is way easier to customize (and looks much clearer in a syntax highlighting editor), besides eliminating the possibility of making a mistake while coding the HTML (the code for making an html select from an associative array is pretty standard, why bother reinventing the wheel with each template?). This alone has saved me not hours,but days of coding (clone the combo 5 times, and change the parameters in only 20 seconds; fiddle around with the inputs - move this up here, exchange these two fields including their calendar popups, etc.) and debugging (try debugging the first example when you're inside massively nested tables!).
Practical examples are a good study, but programming patterns theory and practice is certainly worth the time invested.
The fact that meterorite showers brought life to our planet is no mystery to me. See, I lived in Smallville for a while and I've seen things you wouldn't believe.
Aside from the ideas about a revamped configuration, the rest would make Windows into a Linux clone.
That's the whole point. Coexist or die. By getting rid of the "I want to rule the world" mentality (and subsequent problems with security and proprietary stuff), big businesses wouldn't feel threatened by Windows' proprietary model anymore. It would change from a competitor to a collaborator.
This won't save Windows from extinction (it's doomed to happen sooner or later), but it will certainly extend its life.
The only reason people don't live without Windows is Microsoft's proprietary technologies and applications - i.e. Office,.NET, IIS, MSN Messenger, etc. The Operating System has *NOTHING* to do with Microsoft's success.
#1. Be born with a silver spoon on your mouth #2. Live a passionate sex life and do whatever you please with your life, and at the same time risk being disowned by Granpa. #3. Profit!?
She's learned to play with the media, it's IMO the ONLY thing she's learned. She has to make a living out of it. Now where does intelligence fit in there?
Granted, she might not be as dumb as Britney, but Tom Cruise is much smarter IMO - he's the current leader of a multimillionary cult. Now *THAT* is being smart at playing with the media, regardless of the ethic problems involved.
Arguably, you could say there are also issues with the overall scope of what MS was trying to accomplish with Vista.
Heh, I'm still waiting for the database-based filesystem they bragged so much about when they talked about... Longhorn.
Microsoft is desperate. They can't innovate, they're running out of ideas, and they can't find something so attractive to make users switch.
But here are a few ideas of mine that would make Windows a guaranteed success:
* Revamp the configuration. Slice the configuration for applications into different registries, but add a layer of compatibility. No more corrupted registry blues.
* Virtualize the registry so bad programs can modify hkeylocalmachine but it'll only affect them.
* In fact, virtualize the entire filesystem so a bad program can't screw up your install.
* Instead of babysitting the user with endless "Cancel Allow" dialogs, allow some programs (administrator-defined) to run as administrator (i.e. root) by adding a popup dialog to ask the password. Add the possibility of remembering the password FOR THIS SESSION ONLY.
With the above two measures, users can effectively install any software without worrying about viruses and all that.
* Speaking of filesystems, add native compatibility for ext2,ext3,ext4 (is it out yet?), reiserfs, jfs, xfs, etc. We live in an open world. Add compatibility or die.
* Make Windows non-primary-partition tolerant. Allow it to run in other partitions so it doesn't try to get hold of my entire hard disk.
* Make (or adopt) a decent partitioner that can resize partitions without requiring to buy third party products.
* Give up on the directx "intellectual property" stuff and release the code under a GPL-compatible license.
* Modify the kernel so it can run in Xen without CPU-virtualization extensions.
* Release the specs for developers to be able to make and use their own window managers (i.e.KDE, GNOME, etc) work with Windows.
* Separate the shell from terminals, so users can add their own scripting languages for shells. You know, like bash.
* Add the possibility of having virtual terminals so advanced users can just log in in text-mode.
* The same with hardware drivers.
* Get rid of all that Digital Rights Management crap and allow users to save videos and music in hi-res formats for backups. Windows media player shouldn't allow any copy-protection crap to execute and spy on them.
* Open-source network-based apps and provide official support a-la sourceforge for users to submit bugs and security vulnerabilities.
* Don't sell 7 different versions of the OS. Make the management and administration parts available on the darn CD / DVD.
* Here's an idea: Make (or use) a "/home" partition so users can put their configuration and files in a directory of their own, so advanced users can either boot Windows or Linux and still have their important documents unmodified.
* And please, for the love of everything good in the world, GET RID OF THAT ANTIPIRACY CRAP!!!
Registration, Genuine Advantage, it's driving everyone crazy. It's ironic, I bought a legitimate copy of Windows because I was afraid of Genuine Advantage. But it was the limit on the number of non-phone based activations that pushed me to the limit and made me switch to GNU/Linux. So yes, it's real, you ARE losing users because of the antipiracy measures! (Now that I think about it, can I get a refund on XP? It sucks).
Yes, many of the features I'm asking for are already present in Linux. So is that signing Microsoft's doom? No. Linux is free, so Microsoft doesn't lose anything by letting Linux and Windows coexist on the same machine. The key here is attracting users to KEEP Windows, not forcing them from using any other OS besides Windows.
See the difference?
Start innovating (or at least following the trends) and users will actually WANT to use Windows. Right now users see Windows as a necessary evil: They don't like it but they have to stick with it. Start offering them something MORE.
If Microsoft adopted the above ideas, I'm sure. I would LIKE to buy a copy. "Windows X. Compatible with everything".
The main idea behind the birth of the project, was to redefine the application set included in PCLinuxOS to some extent and to introduce the idea of having more than one major desktop environment on a single LiveCD. The latter idea was implemented in the second version release of Granular, version 0.25.
Now that's an idea worth considering. Many distributions are married to their desktop environment: We have ubuntu with Gnome, and Kubuntu with KDE. PCLinuxOS comes with KDE, and there's a Gnome remaster of it.
Granular takes a different approach: Make the distro desktop-environment-agnostic, and let the user decide - right from the CD. No package downloading required.
I suspect we'll be seeing a flood of special-interest Linux distros very shortly.
Sometimes I've fantasized about making my own mini-distro based on anonymity, hacking and privacy tools . Maybe I'll load it with I2P, Freenet and all that.
This tool to remaster your distribution is a very nice thing to have. It's like having a RAD but for distros.
Also, having read Stallman's book, I consider this tool to be effectively supporting the spirit of software freedom. It's no use if you're *allowed* to make changes to a software and distribute it to others, if the technological barriers are impossible to cross.
So you didn't like the review, or the distro? Because thanks to the review you found out that the distro is not for you. Well, that's what reviews are for, DOH! Besides, the review was clear into saying that it's a preview install. Like beta. The title didn't say "install it, it's the best!". It says it's "worth a look".
If the distro's makers ignore the bug reports, well, then it will die. But all distros start with a fork and a small community (and a small repository). Only time will tell if it improves or dies. And if Granular doesn't die, this could help Windows users migrate - just like I did: It was a Linux.com review of PCLinuxOS that made me take "a look" at it. Because of that, I decided to leave Windows.
PCLinuxOS (and therefore Granular) hardware support isn't certainly the best, taking into account that they ship with the 2.6.22.15 version of the kernel. But it's still the distro I use, and I'm fond of it because it succeeded at what Ubuntu failed: Convince me to switch.
Finally, I agree with whoever modded you troll. The mod was not to defend the distro, but the review. Unless you prefer censorship than freedom of information.
Is this how Linux evolution is supposed to work? I don't know, but as long as forks keep improving the OS quality instead of degrading it, I'm all for it.
It's worse that than. Those damn oval buttons keep giving me flashbacks of OpenLook. Hey Slashdot, the 1980s called, they want their GUI back. I agree in the button roundedness. Smaller buttons would be fine. But i definitely love actually having buttons and a text box for preview. Hey, look at this! Quote Parent!:D *clicks*
It quoted you above my post! yay! And in the preview there's a "Continue editing" button. I love this.
Now, most people YOU know would probably know how to get warez for free. Most people I know know how to get warez for free, but most PEOPLE don't.
Besides it's more convenient to just insert CD in the computer than having to leave the computer turned on for two nights, to THEN burning the CD. This is why a lot of people where I live, prefer to buy my anime fansubs at the local flea market than to download them via bittorrent (if they didn't, there wouldn't be any demand for fansubs-in-dvd).
Now, about what Mr. Mukasey said, it's overgeneralizing to say that ALL piracy gains are invested in terrorism. While *SOME* criminal groups (i.e. druglords) use piracy to fund themselves (I've seen a few cases on the news here in Mexico), it's plain ridiculous to say that all pirates are linked to the cartels.
I have the hunch that perhaps your app could run better in ReactOS than Wine. ReactOS is a full implementation of the Windows API, while WINE only adds a compatibility layer. Also, maybe the programmers need more info about your particular problem. Rare cases are the hardest to debug, specially with very few people doing the debugging.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, wasn't Novell (and not Red Hat) who got shunned by the community?
They've realized their future in the Operating System market is pale at best.
Remember the EU court's decision about Microsoft being a monopoly? Well this was on Sep 2007. Is it a coincidence that less than 5 months later Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo!? I think not.
Sooner or later Microsoft would have to lift the veil on the APIs for their most popular products, and *anyone* (including GPL software developers) can read them. Microsoft knew this day would come, and their desktop market dominance will be destroyed sooner or later. How to prevent the competition from making better products, if you can't hinder them from being compatible? You can't.
So Microsoft was cornered into getting hold of an existing successful market: Internet services - that's the only way they can survive in the long term. But if they offered to buy Yahoo! after they released their APIs, the public would realize Microsoft's disadvantage. So they first offer to buy Yahoo, and THEN they release their APIs.
The fact that Steve Ballmer wrote that open letter only shows Microsoft's struggle against extinction.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. This is the beginning of the end for Microsoft. Congratulations.
But what will happen when Greenland gets so warm so it won't be able to produce barley anymore? If global warming doesn't stop, that WILL certainly happen - and when it does, beer price will be the least of our problems.
the real killer is the white background. Stay away from it.
it's funny because it's true!
You're absolutely right. Part of the value in Yahoo! resides in that they're a Microsoft competitor (in Yahoo! mail, for example).
If that transaction ever takes place, I'll immediately wipe my Microshoo! mail account.
The problem here isn't the pirates who sell you cracked (and hacked) versions of windows which we'll never update, but Microsoft for selling us a DEFECTIVE operating system which NEEDS updates to be safe from hackers and viruses.
Software viruses are an epidemic - it's no longer a matter of "you caught it, you suffer". It's a public "health" issue.
Piracy of Microsoft Windows has not stopped the slightest by "Genuine advantage" and all that antipiracy crap. What Microsoft's antipiracy measures have done is precisely making a worse internet for everyone of us. This is just like the embargo on Cuba: The US blames Castro for pushing his people into poverty, but it's not Castro who's maintaining the embargo, it's the US.
Not all pirates are evil - there are some who use piracy to benefit themselves at the cost of others - but that's what Microsoft's been doing all along. Windows Vista for 400 dollars? Give me a break.
How does software piracy promote innovation? better p2p clients?
No. Better products. Piracy - in all fields - promotes innovation by using abandoned niches, which in turn become business opportunities. There's apple and iTunes which takes the niche kazaa was taking for itself - cheap online music.
Onto software piracy: If a company starts making *CHEAP* alternatives to say, Photoshop CS3 (by pirating their user interface design (Microsoft Windows, anyone?) and sells them for $30 bucks, now there's a business opportunity. Adobe will be forced to lower their prices and everybody's happy.
The problem with piracy is that companies right now do too much to enforce the law, and give too little opportunity to competitors by using monopolistic techniques.
Software piracy is NOT the problem. The problem is software monopolies and price fixing. And they use the media and FUD to brainwash the public into getting it all wrong.
Thanks for the tip. Joomla may be a worst example, but the idea of having form objects isn't :) In any case, mind enlightening us about why Joomla sucks? It's not a challenge, it's a sincere question - one never stops learning.
BEFORE
Template file: AFTER
Data file: Template file: This code is way easier to customize (and looks much clearer in a syntax highlighting editor), besides eliminating the possibility of making a mistake while coding the HTML (the code for making an html select from an associative array is pretty standard, why bother reinventing the wheel with each template?). This alone has saved me not hours,but days of coding (clone the combo 5 times, and change the parameters in only 20 seconds; fiddle around with the inputs - move this up here, exchange these two fields including their calendar popups, etc.) and debugging (try debugging the first example when you're inside massively nested tables!).
Practical examples are a good study, but programming patterns theory and practice is certainly worth the time invested.
The fact that meterorite showers brought life to our planet is no mystery to me. See, I lived in Smallville for a while and I've seen things you wouldn't believe.
- Chloe Sullivan
and their blatant sales pitch about Loom.
:)
It was funny
That's the whole point. Coexist or die. By getting rid of the "I want to rule the world" mentality (and subsequent problems with security and proprietary stuff), big businesses wouldn't feel threatened by Windows' proprietary model anymore. It would change from a competitor to a collaborator.
This won't save Windows from extinction (it's doomed to happen sooner or later), but it will certainly extend its life.
The only reason people don't live without Windows is Microsoft's proprietary technologies and applications - i.e. Office,
#1. Be born with a silver spoon on your mouth
#2. Live a passionate sex life and do whatever you please with your life, and at the same time risk being disowned by Granpa.
#3. Profit!?
She's learned to play with the media, it's IMO the ONLY thing she's learned. She has to make a living out of it. Now where does intelligence fit in there?
Granted, she might not be as dumb as Britney, but Tom Cruise is much smarter IMO - he's the current leader of a multimillionary cult. Now *THAT* is being smart at playing with the media, regardless of the ethic problems involved.
Heh, I'm still waiting for the database-based filesystem they bragged so much about when they talked about... Longhorn.
Microsoft is desperate. They can't innovate, they're running out of ideas, and they can't find something so attractive to make users switch.
But here are a few ideas of mine that would make Windows a guaranteed success:
* Revamp the configuration. Slice the configuration for applications into different registries, but add a layer of compatibility. No more corrupted registry blues.
* Virtualize the registry so bad programs can modify hkeylocalmachine but it'll only affect them.
* In fact, virtualize the entire filesystem so a bad program can't screw up your install.
* Instead of babysitting the user with endless "Cancel Allow" dialogs, allow some programs (administrator-defined) to run as administrator (i.e. root) by adding a popup dialog to ask the password. Add the possibility of remembering the password FOR THIS SESSION ONLY.
With the above two measures, users can effectively install any software without worrying about viruses and all that.
* Speaking of filesystems, add native compatibility for ext2,ext3,ext4 (is it out yet?), reiserfs, jfs, xfs, etc. We live in an open world. Add compatibility or die.
* Make Windows non-primary-partition tolerant. Allow it to run in other partitions so it doesn't try to get hold of my entire hard disk.
* Make (or adopt) a decent partitioner that can resize partitions without requiring to buy third party products.
* Give up on the directx "intellectual property" stuff and release the code under a GPL-compatible license.
* Modify the kernel so it can run in Xen without CPU-virtualization extensions.
* Release the specs for developers to be able to make and use their own window managers (i.e.KDE, GNOME, etc) work with Windows.
* Separate the shell from terminals, so users can add their own scripting languages for shells. You know, like bash.
* Add the possibility of having virtual terminals so advanced users can just log in in text-mode.
* The same with hardware drivers.
* Get rid of all that Digital Rights Management crap and allow users to save videos and music in hi-res formats for backups. Windows media player shouldn't allow any copy-protection crap to execute and spy on them.
* Open-source network-based apps and provide official support a-la sourceforge for users to submit bugs and security vulnerabilities.
* Don't sell 7 different versions of the OS. Make the management and administration parts available on the darn CD / DVD.
* Here's an idea: Make (or use) a "/home" partition so users can put their configuration and files in a directory of their own, so advanced users can either boot Windows or Linux and still have their important documents unmodified.
* And please, for the love of everything good in the world, GET RID OF THAT ANTIPIRACY CRAP!!!
Registration, Genuine Advantage, it's driving everyone crazy. It's ironic, I bought a legitimate copy of Windows because I was afraid of Genuine Advantage. But it was the limit on the number of non-phone based activations that pushed me to the limit and made me switch to GNU/Linux. So yes, it's real, you ARE losing users because of the antipiracy measures! (Now that I think about it, can I get a refund on XP? It sucks).
Yes, many of the features I'm asking for are already present in Linux. So is that signing Microsoft's doom? No. Linux is free, so Microsoft doesn't lose anything by letting Linux and Windows coexist on the same machine. The key here is attracting users to KEEP Windows, not forcing them from using any other OS besides Windows.
See the difference?
Start innovating (or at least following the trends) and users will actually WANT to use Windows. Right now users see Windows as a necessary evil: They don't like it but they have to stick with it. Start offering them something MORE.
If Microsoft adopted the above ideas, I'm sure. I would LIKE to buy a copy. "Windows X. Compatible with everything".
Now that's an idea worth considering. Many distributions are married to their desktop environment: We have ubuntu with Gnome, and Kubuntu with KDE. PCLinuxOS comes with KDE, and there's a Gnome remaster of it.
Granular takes a different approach: Make the distro desktop-environment-agnostic, and let the user decide - right from the CD. No package downloading required.
I don't see how this is a bad thing.
Perhaps it does ONE thing that PCLinuxOS doesn't. Let Charles Darwin decide :)
Sometimes I've fantasized about making my own mini-distro based on anonymity, hacking and privacy tools . Maybe I'll load it with I2P, Freenet and all that.
This tool to remaster your distribution is a very nice thing to have. It's like having a RAD but for distros.
Also, having read Stallman's book, I consider this tool to be effectively supporting the spirit of software freedom. It's no use if you're *allowed* to make changes to a software and distribute it to others, if the technological barriers are impossible to cross.
So you didn't like the review, or the distro? Because thanks to the review you found out that the distro is not for you. Well, that's what reviews are for, DOH! Besides, the review was clear into saying that it's a preview install. Like beta. The title didn't say "install it, it's the best!". It says it's "worth a look".
If the distro's makers ignore the bug reports, well, then it will die. But all distros start with a fork and a small community (and a small repository). Only time will tell if it improves or dies. And if Granular doesn't die, this could help Windows users migrate - just like I did: It was a Linux.com review of PCLinuxOS that made me take "a look" at it. Because of that, I decided to leave Windows.
PCLinuxOS (and therefore Granular) hardware support isn't certainly the best, taking into account that they ship with the 2.6.22.15 version of the kernel. But it's still the distro I use, and I'm fond of it because it succeeded at what Ubuntu failed: Convince me to switch.
Finally, I agree with whoever modded you troll. The mod was not to defend the distro, but the review. Unless you prefer censorship than freedom of information.
Let's see...
RedHat -> Mandrake (Mandriva) -> PCLinuxOS -> Granular
Is this how Linux evolution is supposed to work? I don't know, but as long as forks keep improving the OS quality instead of degrading it, I'm all for it.
Hey Slashdot, the 1980s called, they want their GUI back. I agree in the button roundedness. Smaller buttons would be fine. But i definitely love actually having buttons and a text box for preview. Hey, look at this! Quote Parent!
It quoted you above my post! yay! And in the preview there's a "Continue editing" button. I love this.
Heck, let's make a new word for that. Let's call it "Sunami" :D
Besides it's more convenient to just insert CD in the computer than having to leave the computer turned on for two nights, to THEN burning the CD. This is why a lot of people where I live, prefer to buy my anime fansubs at the local flea market than to download them via bittorrent (if they didn't, there wouldn't be any demand for fansubs-in-dvd).
Now, about what Mr. Mukasey said, it's overgeneralizing to say that ALL piracy gains are invested in terrorism. While *SOME* criminal groups (i.e. druglords) use piracy to fund themselves (I've seen a few cases on the news here in Mexico), it's plain ridiculous to say that all pirates are linked to the cartels.
It's business that has given Windows its monopoly
My mistake. I meant to say "applications".
I have the hunch that perhaps your app could run better in ReactOS than Wine. ReactOS is a full implementation of the Windows API, while WINE only adds a compatibility layer. Also, maybe the programmers need more info about your particular problem. Rare cases are the hardest to debug, specially with very few people doing the debugging.