Are people really that stupid?... That they have to google how to kill themselves?
Given the rates of failed suicide attempts (>50%), maybe it is that most people are not smart enough to do research before trying to kill themselves. Of course intelligence is not the only factor as the psychology of suicide is very peculiar and one characteristic is people often choose methods that are foreign to them.
the most common results supported or encouraged suicide.
From the article, the search terms:
suicide, suicide methods, suicide sure methods, most effective methods of suicide, methods of suicide, ways to commit suicide, how to commit suicide, how to kill yourself, easy suicide methods, best suicide methods, pain-free suicide, and quick suicide.
To me that seems to indicate that search engines are working, not that there is more pro-suicide info online than anti-suicide. For some strange reason I doubt most anti-suicide sites will include useful information on "best suicide methods" or "pain-free suicide." The same applies to the majority of the terms used. In fact, 11 of those 12 terms are specific to people looking for ways to commit suicide. Maybe the study should have looked for terms/phrases geared towards whether or not people should commit suicide. I don't know about you but if I am looking to research painless ways to commit suicide (for whatever reason) and I search for "pain-free suicide" and the majority of the results returned are not about that topic but about trying to discourage people from doing it, well the search engine was ineffective and I would be annoyed. I don't have any problem at all with search engines not being easily hijacked by people with a specific agenda of providing me some information I don't want (be it advertising or anti-suicide counseling) instead of the information I clearly do want based upon my search criteria. Maybe if suicide prevention groups don't like this they can do the same as commercial companies and buy some ad space.
We are talking about 99% of the users never need to touch the command line, not 1% of what they do. This is no different from Windows.
You make that claim, but I refute it. I have to use the CLI. The original poster had to use the CLI, and not for something crazy and unusual. We're talking about connecting to wifi, or installing mainstream software from Adobe or checking out the latest version of browser. I don't think most users have to use the CLI often, but I do think most users eventually either have to use the CLI or have to give up on accomplishing a task because it requires the CLI.
That's a laugh. Right-click on your home directory and pick archive. ALL of your data is place in a zip or tar or tar.gz, whichever you want.
Yeah, but don't forget to copy over all your software too and their preferences, you know the stuff accessible to multiple users. Oh, and don't forget to back up your configuration. Oh, and don't forget you need network access on both machines up and running in order to transfer the data and I hope it all works when it is on the new system. Even then you can spend weeks fixing minor configuration problems or reregistering software or re-downloading some software.
You can't even backup all your data on Windows because you can't find it. Some of it is hidden in the registry where you will never find it. I am a software engineer with over 25 years of experience - I MIGHT be able to do it - a typical user never will.
Yeah this sucks on Windows too, but there most users just shell out for software to do it for them. Even that is not perfect.
The reason I mentioned that particular task is not because Windows is better, but because it is something users want to do, almost all of them eventually and you do end up using the CLI. I also mention it, because Linux is behind in this regard, not behind Windows but behind OS X. On OS X it is reboot the old computer and hold down the T key. plug a firewire cable between the two computers. When you install the new system, select the "upgrade from old computer" option and go get some coffee. It is so much less of a pain it is hard to describe. All data and programs and encryption keys and certs and user accounts and settings. It is the number one reason my laptop uses OS X as the base OS and runs Windows and Linux in VMs. As opposed to Linux as the base OS.
Upgrading? There is an icon at the top of the screen that gives you a message when updates are available - click it and press a button - you're done. (just like windows)
Yeah I know. I did it in Ubuntu last night on my laptop while posting. Unfortunately it ended up failing and the partial install left the system unbootable. If I had not had it backed up, it would have been a real pain in the butt. Also, there is the issue of keeping commercial software up to date, you know stuff that is not in a repository. In many cases this means manually checking for updates on a Web site every month or so.
Setting up a guest account difficult??? BS! It's not substantially different from the UI Windows provides to do it. What's more, when sister Sarah leaves, she can take a complete backup of her stuff without losing anything. I just explained why she can't do that on Windows.
And I explained why she can on Windows, but it is a pain on either system. As for a guest account, I was referring to an account that wipes itself with each logout and resets, so there are no issues with Web caches, cookies, saved passwords, etc. It is possible to create a guest account on Linux that does this, but I don't know an easy way. There are some tutorials I've seen. I used to create one called "guest" with the password "abc123", and then go through and remake it every now and again (automatically doing so was too much of a pain). Nowadays I let them have access to an OS X machine which comes with such an account preconfigured, has no password, is automatically
The activities you mentioned in your post that don't need the command line are what 99% of users do.
I disagree again. They are what the majority of the users do 99% of the time. The problem is when people try to do anything else and they're already outside their comfort zone. This includes things like upgrades, moving to new hardware without losing their old data, setting up a guest account for their sister while she visits for a few weeks, Installing a game, etc. Most people eventually want to do a task that they need to use the CLI for, and the learning curve is simply too steep to expect normal users to acclimate to a completely new interface (one with poor learnability) at the same time as researching how to do some task.
I can list things I have done on Windows that can only be done from the command line. That doesn't mean anything.
Of course you can. The difference is users are accustomed to what Windows can't do (which are different tasks then Linux's weak points). Also, some tasks that still end up requiring a CLI on Linux are tasks most people eventually want to do. Often that is not the case on Windows.
Talk to the developers there about why they are only packaging for Windows & Mac. It's not a Linux problem. That's a WebKit process problem.
You're burying your head in the sand. It is a Linux problem because Linux sucks at handling software from anywhere other than the pre-configured repository. Why don't developers package things better for Linux? Because it is not easy to do.
I could have pointed out many packages available for Linux that you can't get built for the Mac.
Sure you can, but generally they are Linux projects that happen to be able to be built for the Mac, rather than software designed to be cross platform from the start, like Webkit is.
Another point: At least you are given the tools to build (compile) WebKit.
Sigh. Yeah that's great for me. It is completely useless to the vast majority of people though. That's the point I'm making. Because things are possible on Linux, does not mean they are good enough or convenient enough to be practically counted as possible for most users.
You missed the point of many of the posts here. The majority of apps available on Linux can just be installed by going to the menu and selecting "Add Programs". Most of the apps are offered to you. This isn't possible on Windows.
Yes I know. I made that point myself. Linux is ahead of Windows and OS X for installing and upgrading free as in beer OSS software. That doesn't mean it isn't way behind at installing payware and non-OSS software. Package managers suck at handling software that comes on a DVD and needs to be registered and licensed. That is why all such software ignores repositories and uses a stand alone installer or even gives up and does not release a Linux version.
The reason I am defensive is because posts like yours misrepresent Linux as not being user friendly.
Bullshit. The point I made was not that Linux is not "user friendly" The point I made is that it does fail and is hard to use in certain ways and could be improved to correct that. Package managers are a huge usability win for discovery, installation, and updating software... most of the time. The problem I have is when users point out those use cases where it fails or is very weak (like commercial software) people get defensive and try to drown out the complaints. If a user complains that they couldn't even install some commercial software because it was distributed via a Web page, the constructive response it not to tell them they are wrong or stupid or point out the ways package managers are easier. That is worse than just ignoring them from their perspective. The constructive response is too listen and then try to figure out how to solve that problem or file a feature request on their behalf
Did you forget about how quickly Apple shifted from PPC to x86? Or, more recently, how Apple shafted Adobe by dropping 64-bit Carbon at the last minute? That does affect purchases of desktops/laptops.
Sigh. Switching platforms did not affect us at all since, we obviously waited a year or so after the switch for things to stabilize. They had announced it in advance so we had plenty of notice and our reseller had no problem supplying PPC systems to us. As for 64-bit Carbon support, why would that affect us at all? It just mean Adobe used a work around for people that needed huge amounts of RAM in Photoshop. Sure some of us used photoshop, but it was no problem at all. It was not any more of a bother than IBM selling out to Lenovo... which is to say none at all.
...I work on a Windows machine because the UI is cleaner and the applications I want run better on it (and yes, Visual Studio is far better than XCode), which, along with the horrible interface of OS X...
So I actually have done significant UI design, including going back to school for it a bit and going to numerous conferences and training session over the last 5 years or so. Your opinion about OS X's UI is well, let's just say somewhat different than that of the professional UI design community, especially compared to Windows.
...the fact that I enjoy playing PC games, ensure I use a Windows desktop...
Wait are we talking about work or home use here? I stick with one laptop for both mostly. I could boot it into Windows to play a game or run the game in Windows in a VM. I don't bother. I, like most gamers are what you call a casual gamer. I buy a couple of games a year and play when I'm not busy with something else. I don't buy special hardware for gaming or devote a lot of time or money to it. I certainly don't buy a dedicated gaming box. So usually, I just buy Mac versions of games. Of the top selling 10 PC titles of 2007, 9 have a native OS X version. I've never had a problem finding a few games to buy.
Trying to pigeonhole me into being some kind of Microsoft fanboy is kind of funny, and a little sad. About the only bias I have is that I don't like Apple.
Admitting a bias doesn't make it rational. Besides I said you enthusiasm for Microsoft was nuts, especially in areas where they are terrible, like UI design.
I can't run Active Directory or effectively support Windows clients via Linux servers.
Ahh, yes, I believe MS lost an antitrust lawsuit about that just recently, huh? Linux is inferior in areas where MS has committed crimes to keep it so. Still, practicality and all if you need Active Directory you do... and I'd argue you're probably already screwed.
In a "small business", I strongly doubt you need 100 people connected to a server at the same time (because CALs can be used by multiple users, just not concurrently).
Umm, small business is generally 10-500 employees in my book. You could easily need 100 connections to the server.
And in fact there's Small Business Server on the Windows side, though 2008 hasn't been released yet;
Not much of an option then is it?
If you think you need 100 CALs, you probably need to rethink your business model. If you really do need 100 CALs for Windows Server, it'll run you about $9000.
Umm, in my business a growing head count is a good thing and generally a sign of success. Anyway, the $16,000 was an estimate from Microsoft's Web site. Go take a look yourself.
But with OS X Server, you simply get less functionality, especially if you aren't using OS X desktops.
Actually, I find that OS X is more functional in general in mixed environments. That is to say, If you have clients that are Linux and OS X and Windows and possibly other platforms, it works much better t
As a Linux user I have the opposite frustrations when I come to use Windows. "Why do I have to search the web to find a piece of software to download? Why can't I just go to 'Add/Remove Programs', type in the name (or a keyword) and click install?"
You are absolutely correct. Windows sucks at installing and updating OSS software and system software because it lacks a real package manager (by default). OS X sucks at the same things for the same reason.
Different strokes for different folks.
So here's the problem. Most users want to install closed source software that is not going to be in a repository for licensing reasons and because current package managers are terrible for handling commercial software. On Windows it is easier to install stuff from CD or from a Web page. On OS X it is easier to install things from another computer or a network drive or use software installed on removable media.
One of the reasons people are complaining is not just that Linux s different. It is that Linux is inferior in a way they are used to working. In truth, there is absolutely no reason an OS can't handle all these use cases aside from developers being pig headed and ignoring the comments of people who complain. I'd love an OS that had a package manager that allowed me to install and update software not just from a couple of repositories, but also from the Web or from disk. I'd love it if it handled software registration and licensing too. I'd love it if by default it used OS X or OpenStep style packages so they were portable and could install via drag and drop. The problem is no one will build this because no one cares about making things ideal for all use cases instead of just emotively defending their favorite OS. I've actually talked to Linux developers who argued that they specifically don't want to add those features because it is "bloat" and no one should be using software that is not free as in beer and open source. Until that attitude changes, a lot of people will avoid Linux (which may not bother you at all).
Who says you need to use the command line to use Linux?
You don't need to if you're just using it for e-mail and Web browsing, or some of the default apps. If you want to actually use it for all the same tasks a technical person uses their OS for, yeah you need the command line. Want to try the latest Webkit version on OS X with Safari, just go to the Web page, download it, and double click. Want to run the latest Webkit version on Ubuntu with Konquerer? You need to know how to use a command line and you had bloody well better know what you're doing because it took me a good 15 minutes and included some serious google-fu and compiling it myself.
Perhaps you haven't run Linux in 15 years.
When people are overly defensive and dismissive of users trying to tell them what problems they have with Linux, who does it help? Does it make you feel better because you've managed to defend your OS of choice and so don't feel threatened by being nonconformist since you can dismiss others as lying or being idiots?
Linux is not easy to use if you want to run developer previews or if you want to run closed source software that comes on a CD or DVD or from a Web page. It is worse at this than Windows or OS X right now. Since normal users tend to do this a lot, maybe it is reasonable to consider it as an area in need of improvement. Your attitude is understandable, but sadly I've had to deal with too many linux on the desktop developers that react just like you. That's probably one of the reasons I doubt this problem will be solved anytime soon.
Because Apple is even more expensive and just as proprietary as Windows, won't let me build my own system, and is poorly supported by software developers.
The price depends a lot upon your needs. Apple does not sell low end hardware so if you try to use really low end stuff Apple is not for you. For what they do have, the prices are actually pretty reasonable, about the same as other vendors with similar reliability. They certainly do not have as many options as all other hardware makers combined though, so if you don't want exactly what they have, you might end up paying more for a few things you don't really want.
As for software support, it is actually not bad and there are some OS X only programs I have a hard time doing without these days (e.g. Omnigraffle).
If Apple dominated the market, there is every reason to believe they would be just as heavy-handed as MS, if not much worse.
That could be, but I don't think it is something we have to worry about anytime soon. If they ever get 25% in the worldwide market, I'll start to consider it as a danger:)
Because doing anything in Linux ends up with me banging my head against my computer screen. Even Ubuntu, the most user-friendly distro so far, is an endless series of frustrations. "Why can't I just download a piece of software and double-click on it to install?!?!"
I hear you. Package managers are great so long as you want the latest stable OSS software. If you want anything closed source or commercial, distributed on CD, DVD, or via a browser download, Linux in general is very weak. Some distros are trying to fight that by setting up their own repositories of closed source stuff, but none are really there yet.
"What is the difference between KDE and Gnome and why should it matter?!?!"
As a user, I don't have any problem with Gnome versus KDE. I just switched to Ubuntu from Kubuntu for my main Linux desktop and I run all the same programs and just grab them from the package manager. It doesn't really matter to me which they use and sometimes I don't even notice.
"Why do I have to go to the command line interface to do even basic stuff?"
I occasionally have this problem, but not very often, usually when I have to build software from source, which is not nearly easy enough in Linux as yet.
Hell, until the latest release, Ubuntu wouldn't even let me attach a projector without a complicated edit to the Xorg config file.
I haven't had this problem either. Using the projectors at work has been plug in and go for the most part. The main problem I've had with that is with one of the projectors itself, which crashes all the time regardless of what you plug into it. Yeah, Dave I know it was cheap, but maybe that was for a reason. A projector based on Windows CE has cost us more man hours in meetings than its cost ten times over.
Windows may die one day, but it's going to take a *lot* more work before anyone else is going to slay that dragon.
Windows has plenty of its own problems, but for the most part I agree. Mostly, I think unless Linux wins in the really low end space or unless the antitrust laws are actually enforced adequately, we'll all be dealing with Windows and MS for a long time.
Uh, dude, 1998 called and they want their argument back.
Your flippant remark aside, he has a valid point. I'm a Linux fan, but just this evening I completely failed to install and run the latest Webkit+Konquerer. The other day I gave up trying to install some Adobe software. Then, when I attempted to install the latest updates (as prompted by Ubuntu) the install failed catastrophically and left me with an unbootable machine. (Luckily I have a really nice backup system.) For the most part install and upgrade of OSS stuff in a repository has been very good in Ubuntu, but it still has problems and trying to use closed source commercial stuff or developer previews can be a real nightmare.
Actually, that's a minefield everywhere. I haven't yet seen any dual-screen configuration besides simple mirroring that didn't suffer from some kind of problem
Actually, OS X has this pretty well down. In 10.4 I still had occasional issues where every now and again after waking up it would forget about the built in screen on the laptop, but since 10.5 it has been flawless. I can close the lid, unplug the monitor at work and stuff the laptop in my bag. When I get home I can plug it into a completely different monitor or no monitor at all and wake it up and it has a perfect track record so far. This even works when one monitor is a VM in fullscreen running WinXP, Linux, or NetBSD.
I'll buy into multi-screen setups when there is an OS/driver combination that actually supports them without random issues.
Then let me recommend OS X 10.5. It certainly works for me.
It's trivial to simply reset/home/user to a default state with every login. Like most changes on Linux, this does not require a reboot.
It is? In OS X I do this by clicking the "enable guest account login" check box and it resets with every log out (and comes pre-configured for guest users with limited rights, no password and remote access disabled etc.). I recently switched to Ubuntu as my main Linux desktop, but don't see a pre-configured guest account or group. How trivial is it?
That is not how it works in Windows. Yes, you can enforce user levels in XP but some apps will not work, and it is pretty easy to bypass anyway.
This is true.
Maybe Vista is better, but I certainly don't expect to see Vista on a public terminal anytime soon.
Vista has been better so far, although it is still pretty rare. I'd put it in the same category as most Linux distros... fairly decent against script kiddies, but not going to last against anyone with real talent and a log in, unless it has been seriously hardened.
And this is why they suck for anyone who uses their stuff for one of those "job" things: no roadmaps.
This is probably true for the server market, but not so much for the desktop/laptop market. At my last job Lenovo and Apple were our two pre-approved vendors for laptops and desktops. It's not like we wait to purchase a new laptop until we know a system with some given specs is coming out. We just bought whatever they had on the market at the time we needed a new machine. Hire a new employee... put in an order for a machine for them. Your system reaches a certain age... you get an upgrade to whatever they have out at that time. I mean who pre-plans desktop and laptop purchases based upon roadmaps that may or may not be accurate? The only time this matters if there is a major architecture change, and in such a case businesses usually wait for the software and third party hardware industry to stabilize on the new platform for a year or two.
Also, an amusing addendum, going to Apple.com right now will show you a giant graphic with a huge font that reads "iPhone Software Roadmap".
Apple makes it look "easy" by restricting their problem set. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury.
I disagree. Apple works to support a subset of hardware they will sell and then tries to convince third party hardware makers to write drivers and support OS X. Microsoft, on the other hand, can release whatever the hell they want and OEMs and hardware manufacturers will do whatever it takes, including changing hardware design, to make it work with Windows. What choice do they have? They will make it work no matter how hard it is or they won't sell anything because it doesn't work with the only OS people use.
As for not being good at their "CORE job", there's nothing wrong with Vista, it's just not some gigantic leap forward. Post-SP1 it works fine.
There is plenty wrong with Vista, but I agree that those problems are sometimes overblown by users and the media. Vista has problems, but so does everything else. In another year it will be as stable as XP for normal uses.
And Apple still can't really compete with Office (iWork is terrible)
These aren't even aimed at the same market, and as someone who uses both, Keynote blows away Powerpoint, Pages wins for users looking to do some home publishing (not just word processing) especially on price, and Numbers is fine for home spreadsheet uses. None of them are ideal for corporate use, which is MS Office's primary target market.
Visual Studio (XCode is terrible)
Wow, I'm not even going near that turd.
...or, really a server infrastructure (because say what you will about Vista, Server 2008 is awesome).
Apple is behind in the server space, although your enthusiasm for all things Microsoft is, well nuts. Linux still crushes Windows as a server, especially if you remove all the antitrust abuses that artificially broken compatibility with Windows desktops. As for some small business use, OS X server is nearly free in comparison to Windows server, if you're trying to support 100 people or so. OS X runs you $1000 while Windows Server 2008 costs $16,000. The OS X version has unlimited users while you'll still have to pay MS another $3000 for each additional 20 users. So at 1/16th the price for a small business, I'm willing to forgive a lot in OS X server. Is Windows server 16 times as awesome as OS X server?
Apple also has complete control over the hardware specs their software is supposed to run on, which must considerably narrow the complexity of their hardware interfaces.
I think this argument is incorrect. MS doesn't spend a lot of time making their OS work on every hardware combination, rather because of their monopoly position they can just release whatever they have knowing that hardware makers will write their own drivers and do whatever else is needed to make it work with Windows, since otherwise they aren't going to make any sales. Heck, Vista has removed hardware support for some motherboards and even things like TCP/IP over Firewire. MS isn't the one doing the work to make Vista work on all hardware and hardware makers will even change their hardware designs in order to make them work with Windows.
Apple, on the other hand, targets a subset of hardware themselves and works with the hardware vendors to make it work, and deals with extremely large problems getting drivers for and third-party add on hardware like video card upgrades, web cams, external drives, etc. A lot more of that work does require Apple to intervene and make things really easy for hardware makers, because they usually can afford to walk away from providing mac support if it is problematic.
That's why Apple makes whole computers (or devices) and doesn't separate their hardware from their software.
Apple makes whole computers and won't license their OS to OEMs (who do most of the work making hardware run with an OS) because the market is destroyed at this point. They even tried going that route back in the 90s and had to cancel it not because of hardware support problems, but because they were damaging their brand because a lot of the OEMs were using really cheap and crappy hardware that often failed and at the same time had the same bullet points as Apple's hardware but at a lower price. Basically, when the desktop OS market is monopolized, try to compete therr is a doomed venture and Apple and several other vendors discovered.
Apple ties their hardware and OS because it allows them to sell systems based upon the features of the OS, while at the same time competing in the computer system market which is still relatively healthy (against Dell, Sony, etc.) instead of trying to compete against MS in the desktop OS market, which has been completely undermined by MS's monopoly.
...investors are starting to see Microsoft isn't really that good at their CORE job.
I disagree. MS's core job is abusing their monopoly position. Investors, on the other hand, are seeing a general slowdown in the economy and the EU looking hard at MS's illegal practices and the potential of the Bush administration going away and the possibility the the US might enforce their laws for a change. Those are all very good reasons to consider investing elsewhere for a while.
Any software developer knows that 'radical changes' to working (however imperfectly) code is a bad idea.
I've worked in software development for many, many years and I don't know that. Rather, it usually seems to be a balance between sticking with old, working code that has more and more hacks and workarounds versus actually rewriting some chunk of code cleanly with a new design that accounts for all the new use cases and then exhaustively testing it. The former takes less dev time up front, but the latter ends up saving time and money in the long term and improves performance.
The only thing really wrong with Vista (other than the necessity of all those graphics in the first place, which boils down to a matter of opinion) is the video drivers, which can be blamed on Nvidia and ATI, not Microsoft.
I disagree. Vista falls down in a lot of areas compared to XP, including performance, software compatibility, Firewire and other hardware support, local filesystem performance and reliability, and OpenGL support. It also has more anti-features included to benefit MS or their partners instead of end users such as DRM and ties many new markets to MS's existing monopolies, violating antitrust laws.
...but you probably shouldn't be running a 3d graphics on a machine with uptime requirements in the first place.
I've been running 3D graphics on desktop systems for years and strangely I don't like it if my desktop crashes. This isn't an issue on other OS's so lets not try to excuse it in Vista or Linux.
Mr. Silver and Mr. MacDonald are either...
Yeah, yeah, whatever. They make some valid points. The desktop OS market has been stagnating for years with glacially slow rates of innovation. I disagree that Windows is going to fail as a result because I appreciate the power of a monopoly to bypass competitive forces that would normally cause such. Still, they have a point and globalization may well put some serious hurt on MS if they are not careful.
As a replacement for windows, Unbuntu or Kunbuntu is an incredible operating system.
They both certainly have their benefits over Windows XP or Vista. I just recently switched from the latter to the former for my daily Linux desktop. That said, they have their drawbacks as well as anyone who tries to use it every day will tell you.
Even doing updates on it is so incredibly simple.
Keeping free software up to date, as well as the OS itself is way better using a good Linux package manager than it is in Windows (I'm updating right now). On the other hand installing and keeping commercial software that is not in a repository up to date can be frustrating in the extreme. For real use cases, I find it is about a draw for me, maybe even a three way draw given OS X's lack of a good, default, package manager but the benefits of their OpenStep-like packages.
For my money, none of the three get it completely right and if any one of them would build a system that provided the advantages of all three, it would blow away all the existing options.
The only time I would use MAC[sic], or windows. Is when you need the potential from exclusive software located on those operating systems.
I actually use all three daily. Each is best at some workflows and tasks while behind in others. For example, when it comes time to migrate my system to newer hardware, OS X absolutely destroys both Linux and Windows for ease of use and convenience. For granularly controlling the sound options for my applications, Vista is a clear winner. When I want to use older software, I often find the best selection of programs runs fastest and most reliably on WinXP. When I want to run free, open source applications like Gimp Inkscape, or LaTeX or when I have older hardware I'm trying to keep useful, Linux is king.
They all have significant wins and losses and I think it is disingenuous to try to claim otherwise. My biggest problem with this topic, here on Slashdot, is 90% of the people that try to argue the advantages of one OS over another, do not really use both OS's regularly enough to have an educated opinion so I end up spending most of the conversation enlightening them about their misconceptions and explaining to them what the features and hiccups of one of the OS's they are trying to compare actually are. One of these days I'm going to consolidate my comparison into a nice and clean Web page and submit it as an article. Maybe getting all the education out of the way first would help (if anyone RTFA).
That would be nice is it was designed to run on todays computers. It was not, it was designed to run on computers 4 years ago.
I agree, Vista is a hog and a bit pokey. None of us can be sure of the design goals, but the average users has a two year old system, that was middle of the road at that time. I don't want to run Vista on that. As for new systems that come with it pre-installed, performance will probably be acceptable to most people.
That aside, what exactly does Vista bring to the table? Nothing.
That is not exactly true. Vista does bring some real new features; credit where credit is due. These include: better default shell environment, usable indexed searching, a widget framework and UI, default application improvements and new additions, better backup capabilities, better parental controls, speech recognition (kind of), possibly the best audio features on the market including usable application specific settings, some IPv6 improvements, built in encryption for end users, a better firewall, something like mandatory access controls (okay it is pretty unusable in most cases), address space randomization, NFS support, and a better language framework.
Mind you, they also removes a number of useful features that had been in XP and introduced new anti-features that exist to help MS and their partners and used against end users as well as numerous new antitrust abuses. Still, it is unfair to claim there is nothing new that Vista brings to the table. For my particular uses, Vista is still not there, but lets not ignore that it does bring real features, some of which are actually ahead of Linux and OS X. (Yeah, yeah blasphemy here, but I call em like I see em and do the same in pointing out advantages of the other OS's over Windows and there are plenty of them.)
Rather than a "ban", the EU could resurrect some old laws that are almost certainly still on the books: Declare the corporation of Microsoft an outlaw, confiscate all its properties and put those properties in the commons.
I disagree in this case. It is clear MS is breaking the law and does not seem to be planning on stopping any time soon. Still, think confiscating their intellectual property would be less than ideal. Really it should be the US handling this issue if they were not so corrupt.
Personally I think the ideal solution is to break up MS into at least two companies that have all the rights to the IP in Windows and half the manpower. Additionally, at least two companies should have the rights to IE and to MS Office. Ban them from nonpublic communications and exclusive licensing deals and let the market sort it out. Really, the market is efficient when monopolies are not involved and having two competing vendors of Windows etc. would mean no monopoly to abuse. This would also be perceived as less "anti-capitalism" by all those people who don't understand antitrust at all. Finally, it would allow all those people who are fans of Windows or only know how to use Windows with a nice and easy way to go one with their business with nothing changing except increased innovation and lower prices. It might not force Linux into the dominant market position, but as big of a Linux fan as I am, I don't think that should be the goal of antitrust action.
It would have no serious repercussions on businesses that install or support Microsoft products (except that with the absence of licensing overheads...
I don't see this last item as a positive. It undermines real market costs that went into the development of that code and competing code and is not fair to competing companies who invested a lot in code and still have to recoup those costs. Rather I'd like to see ongoing Windows users still have to pay licensing costs for Windows, but to have those prices decline as they have multiple vendors from whom they can license, as well as the option to move to other solutions entirely.
This is something to think about.
True enough, and it would be better than what we have now.
Honestly it is a mystery to me why so many people are so quick to defend Microsoft and portray them as a helpless victim; they can defend themselves quite well and are anything but helpless.
Maybe I can help provide some reasons. I don't think most people understand how monopolies break the market or what constitutes antitrust abuse and what does not. As a result, people tend to think laws are being applied unfairly because they can't see the difference between actions that are legal and actions that are illegal. Also, any government action against the private sector is looked at suspiciously by people because governments often are corrupt. There is also an unhealthy dose of nationalism going on where people in the US think of the EU as being second rate when it comes to capitalism because they have heard talk of how Europe is socialist and the US is not; and although they don't really understand what socialism is in comparison to capitalism, they have some vague idea that it is some sort of bad government action that hurts companies and results in some unknown bad thing. On top of this you place the US antitrust suit, where at the last minute after the conviction the US prosecutors were replaced and basically decided to not punish MS at all. Finally at a dash of European anti-american sentiment that has been building largely over the middle east, and Americans reacting to this emotionally and defensively and the resulting feelings of inferiority and xenophobia.
When you add up all these vague, partially understood bits it is easy to see were someone would feel that those snobby socialist Europeans are just attacking Microsoft because they are making money and are American. They don't really know the facts or understand the issues, but they sure don't like feeling that the US in general and their own person in particular are wrong and uneducated... so they form opinions that the EU is in the wrong and then try to find arguments and facts to justify that belief.
It may also be that MS has managed to encourage this via their press releases and via other PR mechanisms they employ (astroturfing?).
P.S. I like your sig. I read everything from Emerson I could find, when I was in high school and always felt he was under appreciated when compared to Thoreau.
I'm sure you can point out where Microsoft was convicted of a criminal offense, then? Not a civil offense or regulatory agreement, but an actual criminal conviction?
Your misunderstanding is very understandable. Antitrust actions are confusing in that they often start out as civil suits from a private company and then are "taken over" and become prosecution of criminal offenses by the executive branch. It is easy to assume that because AOL filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, that when the Department of Justice takes them to court for the same issue it is still a civil suit. It is, however, incorrect. The DoJ did not sue MS, they charged them with criminal violation of the Clayton act. The same situation applies in the EU. Antitrust abuse is a criminal offense in both jurisdictions.
But I believe that more core point - however clumsily made - holds true. Bureaucrats provide valuable services. But managing the way markets work is not one of them. Setting up arbitrary rules to prevent any company from doing business is not going to work in the long run.
I disagree with your point. Almost every economy in the world is to some degree a regulated capitalist market. That is to say, it is capitalist, but there are laws to keep it a free capitalist market instead of collapsing into feudalism.
Capitalism works, but with a few caveats. It requires purchasers be able to make informed decisions and it requires that monopolies (however acquired) cannot be leveraged into new monopolies. To this end we pass laws. To deal with the first case, we pass laws restricting commercial free speech such that companies cannot intentionally deceive consumers in communications about their products (false advertising). To deal with the second, we pass antitrust laws to prevent one monopoly from growing in to two, then four then eight, etc. until we no longer have a free market.
These are not arbitrary rules. They prevent the free market from imploding as it does in most economic models when unregulated and as it has done in the past. We don't have a regulated capitalist market for no reason. Extreme socialism is more efficient, but provides less motivation for innovation than capitalism. Leveraging monopolies within an otherwise capitalist market has the exact same problem. It is easier to gain market share and money by leveraging an existing monopoly than it is by making a better product or innovating. As a result, when monopolies are left unchecked, innovation slows to a crawl. In the case of Microsoft I've given examples of this in other posts. Six years after tabbed browsers were invented passed before most users gained access to them because MS was not losing significant market share with their browser regardless how bad it was. It has easily been eight years since newer version of Web standards were finalized and largely implemented by other browsers, but IE still does not implement them, and so those standards go unused. Eighteen years ago the first OS that had spell checking available in all applications was marketed, yet today that feature still is unavailable to almost everyone. That is not innovation it is stagnation.
The rules the EU has in place make a lot of sense. Criminal organizations benefit from their criminal acts. In many cases they have succeeded largely because of their criminal acts. A temporary ban on the EU purchasing makes sense as a way to help restore balance to the market, but it also makes sense from a purely mercenary point of view. Doing business with criminals is risky, especially when they are repeat offenders and their crimes have been against their own customers in the past. I'd argue most sensible businesses should have a rule restricting making large purchases from criminals as a way to protect themselves. More importantly, the EU laws with regard to antitrust abuse specifically make lot of sense. They apply to everyone equally and are not micromanagement by a bureaucracy. Rather they are necessary to keep a healthy marketplace that continues to provide the low prices and rapid innovation most people take for granted.
Has anyone noticed that the EU seems to go after Microsoft, but ignores Apple when they do things just as bad?
No. No one noticed that because the EU has been investigating Apple for possible antitrust abuse. They also looked into Apple's role in differential pricing of music (not antitrust directly, but related in that it was the result of a combination of the music industry's cartel and Apple's large music download market share).
As pointed out elsewhere, a sovereign like the EU and its member states could simply nullify the property rights of an outlaw corporation.
I'd like to further elaborate. Technically, all Berne signatories would have to honor that confiscation of property rights as a legal transfer. They agreed to uphold such legal IP transfers and in the past copyrights and patents have been transferred in legal cases (often in bankruptcy suits). I don't know of any cases of trademarks, but I suspect they would be just the same. Technically, the EU could confiscate the copyrights and patents of MS, both in the EU and the rest of the world. Who knows what would really happen given US politics these days, but it is important to note the possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, it got me curious. If you go to google and enter pain-free suicide into the product search it provides five sponsired links and they are:
Given the rates of failed suicide attempts (>50%), maybe it is that most people are not smart enough to do research before trying to kill themselves. Of course intelligence is not the only factor as the psychology of suicide is very peculiar and one characteristic is people often choose methods that are foreign to them.
Okay, everyone knows what a .38 special is. I've even heard of a .44 special. What's a .45 special, or are you just referring to using a .45?
From the summary:
the most common results supported or encouraged suicide.From the article, the search terms:
suicide, suicide methods, suicide sure methods, most effective methods of suicide, methods of suicide, ways to commit suicide, how to commit suicide, how to kill yourself, easy suicide methods, best suicide methods, pain-free suicide, and quick suicide.To me that seems to indicate that search engines are working, not that there is more pro-suicide info online than anti-suicide. For some strange reason I doubt most anti-suicide sites will include useful information on "best suicide methods" or "pain-free suicide." The same applies to the majority of the terms used. In fact, 11 of those 12 terms are specific to people looking for ways to commit suicide. Maybe the study should have looked for terms/phrases geared towards whether or not people should commit suicide. I don't know about you but if I am looking to research painless ways to commit suicide (for whatever reason) and I search for "pain-free suicide" and the majority of the results returned are not about that topic but about trying to discourage people from doing it, well the search engine was ineffective and I would be annoyed. I don't have any problem at all with search engines not being easily hijacked by people with a specific agenda of providing me some information I don't want (be it advertising or anti-suicide counseling) instead of the information I clearly do want based upon my search criteria. Maybe if suicide prevention groups don't like this they can do the same as commercial companies and buy some ad space.
We are talking about 99% of the users never need to touch the command line, not 1% of what they do. This is no different from Windows.
You make that claim, but I refute it. I have to use the CLI. The original poster had to use the CLI, and not for something crazy and unusual. We're talking about connecting to wifi, or installing mainstream software from Adobe or checking out the latest version of browser. I don't think most users have to use the CLI often, but I do think most users eventually either have to use the CLI or have to give up on accomplishing a task because it requires the CLI.
That's a laugh. Right-click on your home directory and pick archive. ALL of your data is place in a zip or tar or tar.gz, whichever you want.
Yeah, but don't forget to copy over all your software too and their preferences, you know the stuff accessible to multiple users. Oh, and don't forget to back up your configuration. Oh, and don't forget you need network access on both machines up and running in order to transfer the data and I hope it all works when it is on the new system. Even then you can spend weeks fixing minor configuration problems or reregistering software or re-downloading some software.
You can't even backup all your data on Windows because you can't find it. Some of it is hidden in the registry where you will never find it. I am a software engineer with over 25 years of experience - I MIGHT be able to do it - a typical user never will.
Yeah this sucks on Windows too, but there most users just shell out for software to do it for them. Even that is not perfect.
The reason I mentioned that particular task is not because Windows is better, but because it is something users want to do, almost all of them eventually and you do end up using the CLI. I also mention it, because Linux is behind in this regard, not behind Windows but behind OS X. On OS X it is reboot the old computer and hold down the T key. plug a firewire cable between the two computers. When you install the new system, select the "upgrade from old computer" option and go get some coffee. It is so much less of a pain it is hard to describe. All data and programs and encryption keys and certs and user accounts and settings. It is the number one reason my laptop uses OS X as the base OS and runs Windows and Linux in VMs. As opposed to Linux as the base OS.
Upgrading? There is an icon at the top of the screen that gives you a message when updates are available - click it and press a button - you're done. (just like windows)
Yeah I know. I did it in Ubuntu last night on my laptop while posting. Unfortunately it ended up failing and the partial install left the system unbootable. If I had not had it backed up, it would have been a real pain in the butt. Also, there is the issue of keeping commercial software up to date, you know stuff that is not in a repository. In many cases this means manually checking for updates on a Web site every month or so.
Setting up a guest account difficult??? BS! It's not substantially different from the UI Windows provides to do it. What's more, when sister Sarah leaves, she can take a complete backup of her stuff without losing anything. I just explained why she can't do that on Windows.
And I explained why she can on Windows, but it is a pain on either system. As for a guest account, I was referring to an account that wipes itself with each logout and resets, so there are no issues with Web caches, cookies, saved passwords, etc. It is possible to create a guest account on Linux that does this, but I don't know an easy way. There are some tutorials I've seen. I used to create one called "guest" with the password "abc123", and then go through and remake it every now and again (automatically doing so was too much of a pain). Nowadays I let them have access to an OS X machine which comes with such an account preconfigured, has no password, is automatically
The activities you mentioned in your post that don't need the command line are what 99% of users do.
I disagree again. They are what the majority of the users do 99% of the time. The problem is when people try to do anything else and they're already outside their comfort zone. This includes things like upgrades, moving to new hardware without losing their old data, setting up a guest account for their sister while she visits for a few weeks, Installing a game, etc. Most people eventually want to do a task that they need to use the CLI for, and the learning curve is simply too steep to expect normal users to acclimate to a completely new interface (one with poor learnability) at the same time as researching how to do some task.
I can list things I have done on Windows that can only be done from the command line. That doesn't mean anything.
Of course you can. The difference is users are accustomed to what Windows can't do (which are different tasks then Linux's weak points). Also, some tasks that still end up requiring a CLI on Linux are tasks most people eventually want to do. Often that is not the case on Windows.
Talk to the developers there about why they are only packaging for Windows & Mac. It's not a Linux problem. That's a WebKit process problem.
You're burying your head in the sand. It is a Linux problem because Linux sucks at handling software from anywhere other than the pre-configured repository. Why don't developers package things better for Linux? Because it is not easy to do.
I could have pointed out many packages available for Linux that you can't get built for the Mac.
Sure you can, but generally they are Linux projects that happen to be able to be built for the Mac, rather than software designed to be cross platform from the start, like Webkit is.
Another point: At least you are given the tools to build (compile) WebKit.
Sigh. Yeah that's great for me. It is completely useless to the vast majority of people though. That's the point I'm making. Because things are possible on Linux, does not mean they are good enough or convenient enough to be practically counted as possible for most users.
You missed the point of many of the posts here. The majority of apps available on Linux can just be installed by going to the menu and selecting "Add Programs". Most of the apps are offered to you. This isn't possible on Windows.
Yes I know. I made that point myself. Linux is ahead of Windows and OS X for installing and upgrading free as in beer OSS software. That doesn't mean it isn't way behind at installing payware and non-OSS software. Package managers suck at handling software that comes on a DVD and needs to be registered and licensed. That is why all such software ignores repositories and uses a stand alone installer or even gives up and does not release a Linux version.
The reason I am defensive is because posts like yours misrepresent Linux as not being user friendly.
Bullshit. The point I made was not that Linux is not "user friendly" The point I made is that it does fail and is hard to use in certain ways and could be improved to correct that. Package managers are a huge usability win for discovery, installation, and updating software... most of the time. The problem I have is when users point out those use cases where it fails or is very weak (like commercial software) people get defensive and try to drown out the complaints. If a user complains that they couldn't even install some commercial software because it was distributed via a Web page, the constructive response it not to tell them they are wrong or stupid or point out the ways package managers are easier. That is worse than just ignoring them from their perspective. The constructive response is too listen and then try to figure out how to solve that problem or file a feature request on their behalf
Did you forget about how quickly Apple shifted from PPC to x86? Or, more recently, how Apple shafted Adobe by dropping 64-bit Carbon at the last minute? That does affect purchases of desktops/laptops.
Sigh. Switching platforms did not affect us at all since, we obviously waited a year or so after the switch for things to stabilize. They had announced it in advance so we had plenty of notice and our reseller had no problem supplying PPC systems to us. As for 64-bit Carbon support, why would that affect us at all? It just mean Adobe used a work around for people that needed huge amounts of RAM in Photoshop. Sure some of us used photoshop, but it was no problem at all. It was not any more of a bother than IBM selling out to Lenovo... which is to say none at all.
...I work on a Windows machine because the UI is cleaner and the applications I want run better on it (and yes, Visual Studio is far better than XCode), which, along with the horrible interface of OS X...
So I actually have done significant UI design, including going back to school for it a bit and going to numerous conferences and training session over the last 5 years or so. Your opinion about OS X's UI is well, let's just say somewhat different than that of the professional UI design community, especially compared to Windows.
...the fact that I enjoy playing PC games, ensure I use a Windows desktop...
Wait are we talking about work or home use here? I stick with one laptop for both mostly. I could boot it into Windows to play a game or run the game in Windows in a VM. I don't bother. I, like most gamers are what you call a casual gamer. I buy a couple of games a year and play when I'm not busy with something else. I don't buy special hardware for gaming or devote a lot of time or money to it. I certainly don't buy a dedicated gaming box. So usually, I just buy Mac versions of games. Of the top selling 10 PC titles of 2007, 9 have a native OS X version. I've never had a problem finding a few games to buy.
Trying to pigeonhole me into being some kind of Microsoft fanboy is kind of funny, and a little sad. About the only bias I have is that I don't like Apple.
Admitting a bias doesn't make it rational. Besides I said you enthusiasm for Microsoft was nuts, especially in areas where they are terrible, like UI design.
I can't run Active Directory or effectively support Windows clients via Linux servers.
Ahh, yes, I believe MS lost an antitrust lawsuit about that just recently, huh? Linux is inferior in areas where MS has committed crimes to keep it so. Still, practicality and all if you need Active Directory you do... and I'd argue you're probably already screwed.
In a "small business", I strongly doubt you need 100 people connected to a server at the same time (because CALs can be used by multiple users, just not concurrently).
Umm, small business is generally 10-500 employees in my book. You could easily need 100 connections to the server.
And in fact there's Small Business Server on the Windows side, though 2008 hasn't been released yet;
Not much of an option then is it?
If you think you need 100 CALs, you probably need to rethink your business model. If you really do need 100 CALs for Windows Server, it'll run you about $9000.
Umm, in my business a growing head count is a good thing and generally a sign of success. Anyway, the $16,000 was an estimate from Microsoft's Web site. Go take a look yourself.
But with OS X Server, you simply get less functionality, especially if you aren't using OS X desktops.
Actually, I find that OS X is more functional in general in mixed environments. That is to say, If you have clients that are Linux and OS X and Windows and possibly other platforms, it works much better t
You are absolutely correct. Windows sucks at installing and updating OSS software and system software because it lacks a real package manager (by default). OS X sucks at the same things for the same reason.
Different strokes for different folks.So here's the problem. Most users want to install closed source software that is not going to be in a repository for licensing reasons and because current package managers are terrible for handling commercial software. On Windows it is easier to install stuff from CD or from a Web page. On OS X it is easier to install things from another computer or a network drive or use software installed on removable media.
One of the reasons people are complaining is not just that Linux s different. It is that Linux is inferior in a way they are used to working. In truth, there is absolutely no reason an OS can't handle all these use cases aside from developers being pig headed and ignoring the comments of people who complain. I'd love an OS that had a package manager that allowed me to install and update software not just from a couple of repositories, but also from the Web or from disk. I'd love it if it handled software registration and licensing too. I'd love it if by default it used OS X or OpenStep style packages so they were portable and could install via drag and drop. The problem is no one will build this because no one cares about making things ideal for all use cases instead of just emotively defending their favorite OS. I've actually talked to Linux developers who argued that they specifically don't want to add those features because it is "bloat" and no one should be using software that is not free as in beer and open source. Until that attitude changes, a lot of people will avoid Linux (which may not bother you at all).
You don't need to if you're just using it for e-mail and Web browsing, or some of the default apps. If you want to actually use it for all the same tasks a technical person uses their OS for, yeah you need the command line. Want to try the latest Webkit version on OS X with Safari, just go to the Web page, download it, and double click. Want to run the latest Webkit version on Ubuntu with Konquerer? You need to know how to use a command line and you had bloody well better know what you're doing because it took me a good 15 minutes and included some serious google-fu and compiling it myself.
Perhaps you haven't run Linux in 15 years.When people are overly defensive and dismissive of users trying to tell them what problems they have with Linux, who does it help? Does it make you feel better because you've managed to defend your OS of choice and so don't feel threatened by being nonconformist since you can dismiss others as lying or being idiots?
Linux is not easy to use if you want to run developer previews or if you want to run closed source software that comes on a CD or DVD or from a Web page. It is worse at this than Windows or OS X right now. Since normal users tend to do this a lot, maybe it is reasonable to consider it as an area in need of improvement. Your attitude is understandable, but sadly I've had to deal with too many linux on the desktop developers that react just like you. That's probably one of the reasons I doubt this problem will be solved anytime soon.
The price depends a lot upon your needs. Apple does not sell low end hardware so if you try to use really low end stuff Apple is not for you. For what they do have, the prices are actually pretty reasonable, about the same as other vendors with similar reliability. They certainly do not have as many options as all other hardware makers combined though, so if you don't want exactly what they have, you might end up paying more for a few things you don't really want.
As for software support, it is actually not bad and there are some OS X only programs I have a hard time doing without these days (e.g. Omnigraffle).
If Apple dominated the market, there is every reason to believe they would be just as heavy-handed as MS, if not much worse.That could be, but I don't think it is something we have to worry about anytime soon. If they ever get 25% in the worldwide market, I'll start to consider it as a danger :)
Because doing anything in Linux ends up with me banging my head against my computer screen. Even Ubuntu, the most user-friendly distro so far, is an endless series of frustrations. "Why can't I just download a piece of software and double-click on it to install?!?!"I hear you. Package managers are great so long as you want the latest stable OSS software. If you want anything closed source or commercial, distributed on CD, DVD, or via a browser download, Linux in general is very weak. Some distros are trying to fight that by setting up their own repositories of closed source stuff, but none are really there yet.
"What is the difference between KDE and Gnome and why should it matter?!?!"As a user, I don't have any problem with Gnome versus KDE. I just switched to Ubuntu from Kubuntu for my main Linux desktop and I run all the same programs and just grab them from the package manager. It doesn't really matter to me which they use and sometimes I don't even notice.
"Why do I have to go to the command line interface to do even basic stuff?"I occasionally have this problem, but not very often, usually when I have to build software from source, which is not nearly easy enough in Linux as yet.
Hell, until the latest release, Ubuntu wouldn't even let me attach a projector without a complicated edit to the Xorg config file.I haven't had this problem either. Using the projectors at work has been plug in and go for the most part. The main problem I've had with that is with one of the projectors itself, which crashes all the time regardless of what you plug into it. Yeah, Dave I know it was cheap, but maybe that was for a reason. A projector based on Windows CE has cost us more man hours in meetings than its cost ten times over.
Windows may die one day, but it's going to take a *lot* more work before anyone else is going to slay that dragon.Windows has plenty of its own problems, but for the most part I agree. Mostly, I think unless Linux wins in the really low end space or unless the antitrust laws are actually enforced adequately, we'll all be dealing with Windows and MS for a long time.
Your flippant remark aside, he has a valid point. I'm a Linux fan, but just this evening I completely failed to install and run the latest Webkit+Konquerer. The other day I gave up trying to install some Adobe software. Then, when I attempted to install the latest updates (as prompted by Ubuntu) the install failed catastrophically and left me with an unbootable machine. (Luckily I have a really nice backup system.) For the most part install and upgrade of OSS stuff in a repository has been very good in Ubuntu, but it still has problems and trying to use closed source commercial stuff or developer previews can be a real nightmare.
Actually, OS X has this pretty well down. In 10.4 I still had occasional issues where every now and again after waking up it would forget about the built in screen on the laptop, but since 10.5 it has been flawless. I can close the lid, unplug the monitor at work and stuff the laptop in my bag. When I get home I can plug it into a completely different monitor or no monitor at all and wake it up and it has a perfect track record so far. This even works when one monitor is a VM in fullscreen running WinXP, Linux, or NetBSD.
I'll buy into multi-screen setups when there is an OS/driver combination that actually supports them without random issues.Then let me recommend OS X 10.5. It certainly works for me.
It is? In OS X I do this by clicking the "enable guest account login" check box and it resets with every log out (and comes pre-configured for guest users with limited rights, no password and remote access disabled etc.). I recently switched to Ubuntu as my main Linux desktop, but don't see a pre-configured guest account or group. How trivial is it?
That is not how it works in Windows. Yes, you can enforce user levels in XP but some apps will not work, and it is pretty easy to bypass anyway.This is true.
Maybe Vista is better, but I certainly don't expect to see Vista on a public terminal anytime soon.Vista has been better so far, although it is still pretty rare. I'd put it in the same category as most Linux distros... fairly decent against script kiddies, but not going to last against anyone with real talent and a log in, unless it has been seriously hardened.
This is probably true for the server market, but not so much for the desktop/laptop market. At my last job Lenovo and Apple were our two pre-approved vendors for laptops and desktops. It's not like we wait to purchase a new laptop until we know a system with some given specs is coming out. We just bought whatever they had on the market at the time we needed a new machine. Hire a new employee... put in an order for a machine for them. Your system reaches a certain age... you get an upgrade to whatever they have out at that time. I mean who pre-plans desktop and laptop purchases based upon roadmaps that may or may not be accurate? The only time this matters if there is a major architecture change, and in such a case businesses usually wait for the software and third party hardware industry to stabilize on the new platform for a year or two.
Also, an amusing addendum, going to Apple.com right now will show you a giant graphic with a huge font that reads "iPhone Software Roadmap".
Apple makes it look "easy" by restricting their problem set. Microsoft doesn't have that luxury.I disagree. Apple works to support a subset of hardware they will sell and then tries to convince third party hardware makers to write drivers and support OS X. Microsoft, on the other hand, can release whatever the hell they want and OEMs and hardware manufacturers will do whatever it takes, including changing hardware design, to make it work with Windows. What choice do they have? They will make it work no matter how hard it is or they won't sell anything because it doesn't work with the only OS people use.
As for not being good at their "CORE job", there's nothing wrong with Vista, it's just not some gigantic leap forward. Post-SP1 it works fine.There is plenty wrong with Vista, but I agree that those problems are sometimes overblown by users and the media. Vista has problems, but so does everything else. In another year it will be as stable as XP for normal uses.
And Apple still can't really compete with Office (iWork is terrible)These aren't even aimed at the same market, and as someone who uses both, Keynote blows away Powerpoint, Pages wins for users looking to do some home publishing (not just word processing) especially on price, and Numbers is fine for home spreadsheet uses. None of them are ideal for corporate use, which is MS Office's primary target market.
Visual Studio (XCode is terrible)Wow, I'm not even going near that turd.
...or, really a server infrastructure (because say what you will about Vista, Server 2008 is awesome).Apple is behind in the server space, although your enthusiasm for all things Microsoft is, well nuts. Linux still crushes Windows as a server, especially if you remove all the antitrust abuses that artificially broken compatibility with Windows desktops. As for some small business use, OS X server is nearly free in comparison to Windows server, if you're trying to support 100 people or so. OS X runs you $1000 while Windows Server 2008 costs $16,000. The OS X version has unlimited users while you'll still have to pay MS another $3000 for each additional 20 users. So at 1/16th the price for a small business, I'm willing to forgive a lot in OS X server. Is Windows server 16 times as awesome as OS X server?
I think this argument is incorrect. MS doesn't spend a lot of time making their OS work on every hardware combination, rather because of their monopoly position they can just release whatever they have knowing that hardware makers will write their own drivers and do whatever else is needed to make it work with Windows, since otherwise they aren't going to make any sales. Heck, Vista has removed hardware support for some motherboards and even things like TCP/IP over Firewire. MS isn't the one doing the work to make Vista work on all hardware and hardware makers will even change their hardware designs in order to make them work with Windows.
Apple, on the other hand, targets a subset of hardware themselves and works with the hardware vendors to make it work, and deals with extremely large problems getting drivers for and third-party add on hardware like video card upgrades, web cams, external drives, etc. A lot more of that work does require Apple to intervene and make things really easy for hardware makers, because they usually can afford to walk away from providing mac support if it is problematic.
That's why Apple makes whole computers (or devices) and doesn't separate their hardware from their software.Apple makes whole computers and won't license their OS to OEMs (who do most of the work making hardware run with an OS) because the market is destroyed at this point. They even tried going that route back in the 90s and had to cancel it not because of hardware support problems, but because they were damaging their brand because a lot of the OEMs were using really cheap and crappy hardware that often failed and at the same time had the same bullet points as Apple's hardware but at a lower price. Basically, when the desktop OS market is monopolized, try to compete therr is a doomed venture and Apple and several other vendors discovered.
Apple ties their hardware and OS because it allows them to sell systems based upon the features of the OS, while at the same time competing in the computer system market which is still relatively healthy (against Dell, Sony, etc.) instead of trying to compete against MS in the desktop OS market, which has been completely undermined by MS's monopoly.
...investors are starting to see Microsoft isn't really that good at their CORE job.I disagree. MS's core job is abusing their monopoly position. Investors, on the other hand, are seeing a general slowdown in the economy and the EU looking hard at MS's illegal practices and the potential of the Bush administration going away and the possibility the the US might enforce their laws for a change. Those are all very good reasons to consider investing elsewhere for a while.
I've worked in software development for many, many years and I don't know that. Rather, it usually seems to be a balance between sticking with old, working code that has more and more hacks and workarounds versus actually rewriting some chunk of code cleanly with a new design that accounts for all the new use cases and then exhaustively testing it. The former takes less dev time up front, but the latter ends up saving time and money in the long term and improves performance.
The only thing really wrong with Vista (other than the necessity of all those graphics in the first place, which boils down to a matter of opinion) is the video drivers, which can be blamed on Nvidia and ATI, not Microsoft.I disagree. Vista falls down in a lot of areas compared to XP, including performance, software compatibility, Firewire and other hardware support, local filesystem performance and reliability, and OpenGL support. It also has more anti-features included to benefit MS or their partners instead of end users such as DRM and ties many new markets to MS's existing monopolies, violating antitrust laws.
...but you probably shouldn't be running a 3d graphics on a machine with uptime requirements in the first place.I've been running 3D graphics on desktop systems for years and strangely I don't like it if my desktop crashes. This isn't an issue on other OS's so lets not try to excuse it in Vista or Linux.
Mr. Silver and Mr. MacDonald are either...Yeah, yeah, whatever. They make some valid points. The desktop OS market has been stagnating for years with glacially slow rates of innovation. I disagree that Windows is going to fail as a result because I appreciate the power of a monopoly to bypass competitive forces that would normally cause such. Still, they have a point and globalization may well put some serious hurt on MS if they are not careful.
They both certainly have their benefits over Windows XP or Vista. I just recently switched from the latter to the former for my daily Linux desktop. That said, they have their drawbacks as well as anyone who tries to use it every day will tell you.
Even doing updates on it is so incredibly simple.Keeping free software up to date, as well as the OS itself is way better using a good Linux package manager than it is in Windows (I'm updating right now). On the other hand installing and keeping commercial software that is not in a repository up to date can be frustrating in the extreme. For real use cases, I find it is about a draw for me, maybe even a three way draw given OS X's lack of a good, default, package manager but the benefits of their OpenStep-like packages.
For my money, none of the three get it completely right and if any one of them would build a system that provided the advantages of all three, it would blow away all the existing options.
The only time I would use MAC[sic], or windows. Is when you need the potential from exclusive software located on those operating systems.I actually use all three daily. Each is best at some workflows and tasks while behind in others. For example, when it comes time to migrate my system to newer hardware, OS X absolutely destroys both Linux and Windows for ease of use and convenience. For granularly controlling the sound options for my applications, Vista is a clear winner. When I want to use older software, I often find the best selection of programs runs fastest and most reliably on WinXP. When I want to run free, open source applications like Gimp Inkscape, or LaTeX or when I have older hardware I'm trying to keep useful, Linux is king.
They all have significant wins and losses and I think it is disingenuous to try to claim otherwise. My biggest problem with this topic, here on Slashdot, is 90% of the people that try to argue the advantages of one OS over another, do not really use both OS's regularly enough to have an educated opinion so I end up spending most of the conversation enlightening them about their misconceptions and explaining to them what the features and hiccups of one of the OS's they are trying to compare actually are. One of these days I'm going to consolidate my comparison into a nice and clean Web page and submit it as an article. Maybe getting all the education out of the way first would help (if anyone RTFA).
I agree, Vista is a hog and a bit pokey. None of us can be sure of the design goals, but the average users has a two year old system, that was middle of the road at that time. I don't want to run Vista on that. As for new systems that come with it pre-installed, performance will probably be acceptable to most people.
That aside, what exactly does Vista bring to the table? Nothing.That is not exactly true. Vista does bring some real new features; credit where credit is due. These include: better default shell environment, usable indexed searching, a widget framework and UI, default application improvements and new additions, better backup capabilities, better parental controls, speech recognition (kind of), possibly the best audio features on the market including usable application specific settings, some IPv6 improvements, built in encryption for end users, a better firewall, something like mandatory access controls (okay it is pretty unusable in most cases), address space randomization, NFS support, and a better language framework.
Mind you, they also removes a number of useful features that had been in XP and introduced new anti-features that exist to help MS and their partners and used against end users as well as numerous new antitrust abuses. Still, it is unfair to claim there is nothing new that Vista brings to the table. For my particular uses, Vista is still not there, but lets not ignore that it does bring real features, some of which are actually ahead of Linux and OS X. (Yeah, yeah blasphemy here, but I call em like I see em and do the same in pointing out advantages of the other OS's over Windows and there are plenty of them.)
I disagree in this case. It is clear MS is breaking the law and does not seem to be planning on stopping any time soon. Still, think confiscating their intellectual property would be less than ideal. Really it should be the US handling this issue if they were not so corrupt.
Personally I think the ideal solution is to break up MS into at least two companies that have all the rights to the IP in Windows and half the manpower. Additionally, at least two companies should have the rights to IE and to MS Office. Ban them from nonpublic communications and exclusive licensing deals and let the market sort it out. Really, the market is efficient when monopolies are not involved and having two competing vendors of Windows etc. would mean no monopoly to abuse. This would also be perceived as less "anti-capitalism" by all those people who don't understand antitrust at all. Finally, it would allow all those people who are fans of Windows or only know how to use Windows with a nice and easy way to go one with their business with nothing changing except increased innovation and lower prices. It might not force Linux into the dominant market position, but as big of a Linux fan as I am, I don't think that should be the goal of antitrust action.
It would have no serious repercussions on businesses that install or support Microsoft products (except that with the absence of licensing overheads...I don't see this last item as a positive. It undermines real market costs that went into the development of that code and competing code and is not fair to competing companies who invested a lot in code and still have to recoup those costs. Rather I'd like to see ongoing Windows users still have to pay licensing costs for Windows, but to have those prices decline as they have multiple vendors from whom they can license, as well as the option to move to other solutions entirely.
This is something to think about.True enough, and it would be better than what we have now.
Maybe I can help provide some reasons. I don't think most people understand how monopolies break the market or what constitutes antitrust abuse and what does not. As a result, people tend to think laws are being applied unfairly because they can't see the difference between actions that are legal and actions that are illegal. Also, any government action against the private sector is looked at suspiciously by people because governments often are corrupt. There is also an unhealthy dose of nationalism going on where people in the US think of the EU as being second rate when it comes to capitalism because they have heard talk of how Europe is socialist and the US is not; and although they don't really understand what socialism is in comparison to capitalism, they have some vague idea that it is some sort of bad government action that hurts companies and results in some unknown bad thing. On top of this you place the US antitrust suit, where at the last minute after the conviction the US prosecutors were replaced and basically decided to not punish MS at all. Finally at a dash of European anti-american sentiment that has been building largely over the middle east, and Americans reacting to this emotionally and defensively and the resulting feelings of inferiority and xenophobia.
When you add up all these vague, partially understood bits it is easy to see were someone would feel that those snobby socialist Europeans are just attacking Microsoft because they are making money and are American. They don't really know the facts or understand the issues, but they sure don't like feeling that the US in general and their own person in particular are wrong and uneducated... so they form opinions that the EU is in the wrong and then try to find arguments and facts to justify that belief.
It may also be that MS has managed to encourage this via their press releases and via other PR mechanisms they employ (astroturfing?).
P.S. I like your sig. I read everything from Emerson I could find, when I was in high school and always felt he was under appreciated when compared to Thoreau.
Your misunderstanding is very understandable. Antitrust actions are confusing in that they often start out as civil suits from a private company and then are "taken over" and become prosecution of criminal offenses by the executive branch. It is easy to assume that because AOL filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, that when the Department of Justice takes them to court for the same issue it is still a civil suit. It is, however, incorrect. The DoJ did not sue MS, they charged them with criminal violation of the Clayton act. The same situation applies in the EU. Antitrust abuse is a criminal offense in both jurisdictions.
I disagree with your point. Almost every economy in the world is to some degree a regulated capitalist market. That is to say, it is capitalist, but there are laws to keep it a free capitalist market instead of collapsing into feudalism.
Capitalism works, but with a few caveats. It requires purchasers be able to make informed decisions and it requires that monopolies (however acquired) cannot be leveraged into new monopolies. To this end we pass laws. To deal with the first case, we pass laws restricting commercial free speech such that companies cannot intentionally deceive consumers in communications about their products (false advertising). To deal with the second, we pass antitrust laws to prevent one monopoly from growing in to two, then four then eight, etc. until we no longer have a free market.
These are not arbitrary rules. They prevent the free market from imploding as it does in most economic models when unregulated and as it has done in the past. We don't have a regulated capitalist market for no reason. Extreme socialism is more efficient, but provides less motivation for innovation than capitalism. Leveraging monopolies within an otherwise capitalist market has the exact same problem. It is easier to gain market share and money by leveraging an existing monopoly than it is by making a better product or innovating. As a result, when monopolies are left unchecked, innovation slows to a crawl. In the case of Microsoft I've given examples of this in other posts. Six years after tabbed browsers were invented passed before most users gained access to them because MS was not losing significant market share with their browser regardless how bad it was. It has easily been eight years since newer version of Web standards were finalized and largely implemented by other browsers, but IE still does not implement them, and so those standards go unused. Eighteen years ago the first OS that had spell checking available in all applications was marketed, yet today that feature still is unavailable to almost everyone. That is not innovation it is stagnation.
The rules the EU has in place make a lot of sense. Criminal organizations benefit from their criminal acts. In many cases they have succeeded largely because of their criminal acts. A temporary ban on the EU purchasing makes sense as a way to help restore balance to the market, but it also makes sense from a purely mercenary point of view. Doing business with criminals is risky, especially when they are repeat offenders and their crimes have been against their own customers in the past. I'd argue most sensible businesses should have a rule restricting making large purchases from criminals as a way to protect themselves. More importantly, the EU laws with regard to antitrust abuse specifically make lot of sense. They apply to everyone equally and are not micromanagement by a bureaucracy. Rather they are necessary to keep a healthy marketplace that continues to provide the low prices and rapid innovation most people take for granted.
No. No one noticed that because the EU has been investigating Apple for possible antitrust abuse. They also looked into Apple's role in differential pricing of music (not antitrust directly, but related in that it was the result of a combination of the music industry's cartel and Apple's large music download market share).
I'd like to further elaborate. Technically, all Berne signatories would have to honor that confiscation of property rights as a legal transfer. They agreed to uphold such legal IP transfers and in the past copyrights and patents have been transferred in legal cases (often in bankruptcy suits). I don't know of any cases of trademarks, but I suspect they would be just the same. Technically, the EU could confiscate the copyrights and patents of MS, both in the EU and the rest of the world. Who knows what would really happen given US politics these days, but it is important to note the possibility.