Fedora would (hell, HAS) hold a release if it had 'high impact issues' and they pitch themselves as more of an early adopter testbed. Vista is going to be forcefed on millions of unsuspecting computer buyers whether they want it or not. I understand the idea here, but it's entirely impractical. Microsoft would have to set up barricades and board up their windows (no pun intended) if they had delayed Vista again. It would've been a marketing catastrophe. Also, I'd suggest looking at the seemingly premature development of SP1 in a more positive light. Would you rather MS sit on their hands knowing about issues with Vista, or moving quickly to get SP1 out as soon as possible to fix those issues? It's a hell of a lot better than the situation with XP SP3...
One thing's for sure: Microsoft screwed up Longhorn/Vista's development schedule, and they'd better damn well make sure it doesn't happen again.
Most people don't like Microsoft because of their past experiences with their products. Microsoft also rose to power through some aggressive business practices that screwed over a lot of companies. To that extent, I agree completely. I consider Windows 2000 the first truly decent OS Microsoft released, and Office 2000's autocorrection features and "magic" formatting made me rewrite more documents than I care to remember. But I think the majority of criticism against Microsoft comes in the form of grudges, and I've seen time and again that the emotions that come along with those grudges often ignore the reality that Microsoft and its products are improving. I think Office 2007 is fantastic. I think Windows Vista is a great product that makes big strides in improving the computing experience for end users. Microsoft's the big shot, and they got there by being a bully, so of course people hold grudges. However, I don't think it's fair to look at the changes in the company and their products and say that they're only interested in putting more money in the bank for themselves.
Cringely's mascot is outdated. It should be this instead.
By the way, has anyone here checked out Tom's Hardware's article on Pentium M performance? If you haven't, read it now. You will see the real reason why Apple wants Intel chips.
I disagree with the proposition that next-generation consoles will "kill" PC gaming. I think the playing field between the two platforms is leveling out now that Microsoft has really introduced console gamers to online play (and now that online console gaming will be standard in the next generation), but to say that consoles will swallow the PC gaming market, simply because the consoles will offer better graphics than PC games, is naive, and it lacks an understanding of the nuances and subtle differences between the PC and console gaming markets. I don't think games like The Sims, or RTSs, or other management-based games have done very well on consoles. That's just one example.
I believe the PC platform is too flexible to say that no one will want to develop for it because there will be more powerful hardware out there. Microsoft is even putting work into Longhorn that lets it mimic the playing style of a console (no game "installations," for example -- they want to eliminate the need for PC games to be installed like regular applications).
Is anyone aware that the best of the original three Star Wars films, Empire Strikes Back, was not directed by Lucas? It was directed by Irvin Kershner, and Return of the Jedi was not directed by Lucas either (Richard Marquand directed). Lucas was on the sets to supervise the production, but they did the actual directing. I've seen too many people credit him with making ALL six movies, when the only good ones he's directed are A New Hope and arguably (or perhaps increasingly not so) Revenge of the Sith.
I don't think Yamauchi necessarily drove Nintendo into the ground, but his rigid business politics did severely hurt Nintendo's market-share when Sony entered the console gaming arena. I think he underestimated Sony, and I wouldn't attribute Nintendo's gaming success to his management. That honor belongs to Miyamoto. Yamauchi was just smart enough to recognize someone with talent.
I think you should consider that Firefox and Thunderbird are 1.0 products, and in turn they're going to have shortcomings. Sunbird is at a quaint 0.2, and Nvu (the mozilla composer-based HTML editor) is at 1.0beta. So although these products are based on a mature codebase, they are still fairly immature.
The great thing these products are doing, however, is actually bringing Mozilla's technology to the end-user by making it more marketable, which also makes it more accessible to Joe Schmoe. Instead of trying to push a whole plethora of apps to Joe, you're giving him a web browser. And the web browser actually has a name. Likewise for the other apps.
I believe that as Firefox, Thunderbird, and the other products mature, you simply won't need Seamonkey anymore. I think the new product-driven approach also improves the development model by concentrating work into the polish of a product instead of each change (possibly) affecting an entire suite. As for how MoFo will deal with a lack of real developers remains to be seen.
Opera essentially does this, but I'm not so sure people want to work this way. When you check your mail, you open a mail app. When you surf the web, you open your web browser. Having the ability to check your mail in one tab and browse the web in another tab seems cool, but it somewhat interrupts the "roles" different applications play on your computer.
The MoFo is merely experiencing some growing pains that come along with supporting a newfound success. The more popular something becomes, the more people want to change it and ride the wave. I think Mozilla should stick to their current development policy, but they've got to get rid of Seamonkey at some point. Firefox and Thunderbird (and soon, Sunbird) are going to do for Mozilla what Seamonkey should have done: getting the technology into users' hands.
...thanks to you, ALL users, even those who don't know about or have never heard of Firefox, will benefit from the impact it has made on web browsing. That includes Opera. Have you seen Opera 8? They significantly trimmed down the UI, probably thanks in no small part to a small project started a few years ago over at Mozilla.
I'm highly interested to see what Microsoft does with IE7. Right some standards-compliant wrongs? An improved interface, including preferences and tabbed browsing? We'll see this summer.
I'm of the opinion that the Mac will become a profitable game platform in the next couple of years. Apple's collaboration with IBM is going to be their saving grace in the computer arena, and seeing as we've only seen the first fruits of their partnership (G5), I think you're going to see Apple become increasingly interested in the game market. The work they're putting into Tiger looks to really improve the underlying frameworks that would support nice graphics, and their hardware is now (finally) easily on par with the best PC hardware. I do believe that in retrospect, this time in history for Apple will be noted as their "gearing up" period, the time before things really took off.
As for an "iGame": not anytime soon. Even Sony had a computer entertainment division before they could even think about getting into the game industry, and Apple doesn't have that. But sometime in the future? It's possible.
Great, so the Linux KERNEL is in great shape. That really is good news. However, take one look at Secunia's security bulletins for actual Linux software and you'll see just how secure the Linux platform really is. "Oh, but most open-source stuff is patched!" you'll cry. Well, so are the majority of the most severe security-related commercial software bugs. The whole "Carnegie Mellon predicts this bullshit" is bullshit. No explanation needed because if you can't figure out why this is bullshit, your skull must be filled with bullshit.
Congratulations researchers! Yet more bullshit for the sake of rhetoric!
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Most people don't like Microsoft because of their past experiences with their products. Microsoft also rose to power through some aggressive business practices that screwed over a lot of companies. To that extent, I agree completely. I consider Windows 2000 the first truly decent OS Microsoft released, and Office 2000's autocorrection features and "magic" formatting made me rewrite more documents than I care to remember. But I think the majority of criticism against Microsoft comes in the form of grudges, and I've seen time and again that the emotions that come along with those grudges often ignore the reality that Microsoft and its products are improving. I think Office 2007 is fantastic. I think Windows Vista is a great product that makes big strides in improving the computing experience for end users. Microsoft's the big shot, and they got there by being a bully, so of course people hold grudges. However, I don't think it's fair to look at the changes in the company and their products and say that they're only interested in putting more money in the bank for themselves.
Cringely's mascot is outdated. It should be this instead. By the way, has anyone here checked out Tom's Hardware's article on Pentium M performance? If you haven't, read it now. You will see the real reason why Apple wants Intel chips.
...where's my two-button scroll mouse, Apple?
I disagree with the proposition that next-generation consoles will "kill" PC gaming. I think the playing field between the two platforms is leveling out now that Microsoft has really introduced console gamers to online play (and now that online console gaming will be standard in the next generation), but to say that consoles will swallow the PC gaming market, simply because the consoles will offer better graphics than PC games, is naive, and it lacks an understanding of the nuances and subtle differences between the PC and console gaming markets. I don't think games like The Sims, or RTSs, or other management-based games have done very well on consoles. That's just one example.
I believe the PC platform is too flexible to say that no one will want to develop for it because there will be more powerful hardware out there. Microsoft is even putting work into Longhorn that lets it mimic the playing style of a console (no game "installations," for example -- they want to eliminate the need for PC games to be installed like regular applications).
Is anyone aware that the best of the original three Star Wars films, Empire Strikes Back, was not directed by Lucas? It was directed by Irvin Kershner, and Return of the Jedi was not directed by Lucas either (Richard Marquand directed). Lucas was on the sets to supervise the production, but they did the actual directing. I've seen too many people credit him with making ALL six movies, when the only good ones he's directed are A New Hope and arguably (or perhaps increasingly not so) Revenge of the Sith.
I don't think Yamauchi necessarily drove Nintendo into the ground, but his rigid business politics did severely hurt Nintendo's market-share when Sony entered the console gaming arena. I think he underestimated Sony, and I wouldn't attribute Nintendo's gaming success to his management. That honor belongs to Miyamoto. Yamauchi was just smart enough to recognize someone with talent.
I think you should consider that Firefox and Thunderbird are 1.0 products, and in turn they're going to have shortcomings. Sunbird is at a quaint 0.2, and Nvu (the mozilla composer-based HTML editor) is at 1.0beta. So although these products are based on a mature codebase, they are still fairly immature.
The great thing these products are doing, however, is actually bringing Mozilla's technology to the end-user by making it more marketable, which also makes it more accessible to Joe Schmoe. Instead of trying to push a whole plethora of apps to Joe, you're giving him a web browser. And the web browser actually has a name. Likewise for the other apps.
I believe that as Firefox, Thunderbird, and the other products mature, you simply won't need Seamonkey anymore. I think the new product-driven approach also improves the development model by concentrating work into the polish of a product instead of each change (possibly) affecting an entire suite. As for how MoFo will deal with a lack of real developers remains to be seen.
Opera essentially does this, but I'm not so sure people want to work this way. When you check your mail, you open a mail app. When you surf the web, you open your web browser. Having the ability to check your mail in one tab and browse the web in another tab seems cool, but it somewhat interrupts the "roles" different applications play on your computer.
The MoFo is merely experiencing some growing pains that come along with supporting a newfound success. The more popular something becomes, the more people want to change it and ride the wave. I think Mozilla should stick to their current development policy, but they've got to get rid of Seamonkey at some point. Firefox and Thunderbird (and soon, Sunbird) are going to do for Mozilla what Seamonkey should have done: getting the technology into users' hands.
...thanks to you, ALL users, even those who don't know about or have never heard of Firefox, will benefit from the impact it has made on web browsing. That includes Opera. Have you seen Opera 8? They significantly trimmed down the UI, probably thanks in no small part to a small project started a few years ago over at Mozilla. I'm highly interested to see what Microsoft does with IE7. Right some standards-compliant wrongs? An improved interface, including preferences and tabbed browsing? We'll see this summer.
I'm of the opinion that the Mac will become a profitable game platform in the next couple of years. Apple's collaboration with IBM is going to be their saving grace in the computer arena, and seeing as we've only seen the first fruits of their partnership (G5), I think you're going to see Apple become increasingly interested in the game market. The work they're putting into Tiger looks to really improve the underlying frameworks that would support nice graphics, and their hardware is now (finally) easily on par with the best PC hardware. I do believe that in retrospect, this time in history for Apple will be noted as their "gearing up" period, the time before things really took off. As for an "iGame": not anytime soon. Even Sony had a computer entertainment division before they could even think about getting into the game industry, and Apple doesn't have that. But sometime in the future? It's possible.
Great, so the Linux KERNEL is in great shape. That really is good news. However, take one look at Secunia's security bulletins for actual Linux software and you'll see just how secure the Linux platform really is. "Oh, but most open-source stuff is patched!" you'll cry. Well, so are the majority of the most severe security-related commercial software bugs. The whole "Carnegie Mellon predicts this bullshit" is bullshit. No explanation needed because if you can't figure out why this is bullshit, your skull must be filled with bullshit. Congratulations researchers! Yet more bullshit for the sake of rhetoric!