I'm absolutely sick of hearing that argument. Read the blasted case, would you? The lady suffered third degree burns because the coffee was approaching 200 degrees Fahrenheit. She also first attempted to settle with McDonald's if they would just cover her medical costs (which included skin grafts), but McDonald's offered a paltry $800, at which point she took them to court to recoup the medical costs.
They already know which websites I hit (Ads), what I look for (search), what I buy (froogle), whom I mail (gmail) and now they want in on the Desktop too.
Tripe. They have clearly-stated privacy policies. Why aren't you complaining about Microsoft? They have email, chat, and search services too! Heavens! Why aren't you up-in-arms that they control your desktop?
Google provides useful services. Your snide remarks about whether the sidebar has any innovation are unwarranted -- it indexes my Thunderbird mail (nice fact-checking, by the way) and provides a todo list among other things. I find it useful, even though it's been done before.
If you want to whine and moan about something, at least know what you're talking about. You'll sound more competent.
I seem to be able to see from the viewpoint of the average user
It appears that you're not looking at things from the viewpoint of the average user, you're looking at things from the viewpoint of a Windows user.
Average users want things to work the way they think the software should work. Windows users have learned how Windows says things should work, and so their thoughts are formed to match the way Windows does things. The "Windows" group is a subset of the "Average" group.
Since you, as a Windows user, probably wouldn't notice "defects" that would be apparent to a Mac or Linux user, I'd like to point out my own frustrations with Windows. Remember that I'm just looking at things as an average user!
First of all, my Linux desktop is entirely GTK2. If Linux can have a consistent GUI, why do Windows programs all look different?! Real Player, Office 2003, iTunes, Picasa, Eudora, Windows Media Player...every single of one of them have different styles and themes. WINDOWS HAS NO TOOLKIT CONSISTENCY!
Second, why can I not play my Ogg Vorbis files in Windows Media Player? I have gigs and gigs of ripped albums, and I can play them just fine in Linux, but WMP won't even go look for an appropriate codec! WINDOWS WON'T PLAY MY MUSIC FILES!
You are definitely part of the "Average" group (you exhibit this with I expect to put the DVD in and click "Play DVD", as well as I want to play my mp3s.). However, be careful to avoid thinking what you're used to is a gold standard to be matched.
I would prefer that Google had legitimate competition, not the type that Microsoft provides. Microsoft never steps into a market and works hard to do better than anyone else -- they step into the market with fistfuls of cash from their existing monopoly and use their brandname and monopoly cash to "compete" until they've destroyed everything in sight, at which point they shutdown all operations and move on to another existing market with clear non-Microsoft innovation.
Why do you think that Internet Explorer has had the same outstanding deficiencies since 1998?
Competition can be a powerful drive to improvement
I don't believe Google is above having competition, but keep in mind that they've been producing the best search products for years -- they're light-years ahead of everyone else in just about everything they've touched. Google does their work without any real competition to hound them into being better.
Microsoft isn't welcome competition, ever. Maybe if they produced results, but they've been an ineffective-products/effective-marketing company for too long to believe they'll start actually producing anything new in search technologies. And I say "new" because I find it hard to believe they can even do that, let alone "better".
this is an interesting example of the problems with monoculture
Yes, but when left to their own devices, many developers never seem bother implementing the full spec completely or properly. For instance, Xanga doesn't output correct RSS feeds, Microsoft doesn't support the CSS specs completely (nor correctly for those parts that are supported), and many Jabber servers offer incomplete pieces of the full protocol.
There are drawbacks to monocultures, yes, but I think that in some cases it is useful to have strong communities built around a single core. For instance, the Gaim library is used by Gaim (Linux and Win32), GaimQPE (QTopia), and AdiumX (OSX). I'm sure there are others, but the point is that, since not all features in the protocols are implemented, it is far better to standardize on a single core and receive the benefits as that core improves.
I think the benefits of ever-increasing protocol/spec support far outweigh the drawbacks of security flaws. Maybe not in all cases, maybe not in the zlib case, but in some cases.
While I understand your point, I'd like to point out that Trillian isn't open source.
On a side note, K-Meleon and Trillian aren't cross-platform. I consistently put my friends and family on Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim, so that when they eventually move to Linux (an inevitability, I think, barring an Apple-based purchase), they'll be well-acquainted with the applications they'll use most.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm absolutely sick of hearing that argument. Read the blasted case, would you? The lady suffered third degree burns because the coffee was approaching 200 degrees Fahrenheit. She also first attempted to settle with McDonald's if they would just cover her medical costs (which included skin grafts), but McDonald's offered a paltry $800, at which point she took them to court to recoup the medical costs.
You can read about it on Wikipedia.
Tripe. They have clearly-stated privacy policies. Why aren't you complaining about Microsoft? They have email, chat, and search services too! Heavens! Why aren't you up-in-arms that they control your desktop?
Google provides useful services. Your snide remarks about whether the sidebar has any innovation are unwarranted -- it indexes my Thunderbird mail (nice fact-checking, by the way) and provides a todo list among other things. I find it useful, even though it's been done before.
If you want to whine and moan about something, at least know what you're talking about. You'll sound more competent.
It appears that you're not looking at things from the viewpoint of the average user, you're looking at things from the viewpoint of a Windows user.
Average users want things to work the way they think the software should work. Windows users have learned how Windows says things should work, and so their thoughts are formed to match the way Windows does things. The "Windows" group is a subset of the "Average" group.
Since you, as a Windows user, probably wouldn't notice "defects" that would be apparent to a Mac or Linux user, I'd like to point out my own frustrations with Windows. Remember that I'm just looking at things as an average user!
First of all, my Linux desktop is entirely GTK2. If Linux can have a consistent GUI, why do Windows programs all look different?! Real Player, Office 2003, iTunes, Picasa, Eudora, Windows Media Player...every single of one of them have different styles and themes. WINDOWS HAS NO TOOLKIT CONSISTENCY!
Second, why can I not play my Ogg Vorbis files in Windows Media Player? I have gigs and gigs of ripped albums, and I can play them just fine in Linux, but WMP won't even go look for an appropriate codec! WINDOWS WON'T PLAY MY MUSIC FILES!
You are definitely part of the "Average" group (you exhibit this with I expect to put the DVD in and click "Play DVD", as well as I want to play my mp3s.). However, be careful to avoid thinking what you're used to is a gold standard to be matched.
Or maybe he's using an old Redhat or perhaps a Fedora Core release. They don't come with MP3 by default because of patent issues.
They probably just stumbled on the steps Microsoft took to create Windows Starter Edition.
I would prefer that Google had legitimate competition, not the type that Microsoft provides. Microsoft never steps into a market and works hard to do better than anyone else -- they step into the market with fistfuls of cash from their existing monopoly and use their brandname and monopoly cash to "compete" until they've destroyed everything in sight, at which point they shutdown all operations and move on to another existing market with clear non-Microsoft innovation.
Why do you think that Internet Explorer has had the same outstanding deficiencies since 1998?
Competition can be a powerful drive to improvement
I don't believe Google is above having competition, but keep in mind that they've been producing the best search products for years -- they're light-years ahead of everyone else in just about everything they've touched. Google does their work without any real competition to hound them into being better.
Microsoft isn't welcome competition, ever. Maybe if they produced results, but they've been an ineffective-products/effective-marketing company for too long to believe they'll start actually producing anything new in search technologies. And I say "new" because I find it hard to believe they can even do that, let alone "better".
this is an interesting example of the problems with monoculture
Yes, but when left to their own devices, many developers never seem bother implementing the full spec completely or properly. For instance, Xanga doesn't output correct RSS feeds, Microsoft doesn't support the CSS specs completely (nor correctly for those parts that are supported), and many Jabber servers offer incomplete pieces of the full protocol.
There are drawbacks to monocultures, yes, but I think that in some cases it is useful to have strong communities built around a single core. For instance, the Gaim library is used by Gaim (Linux and Win32), GaimQPE (QTopia), and AdiumX (OSX). I'm sure there are others, but the point is that, since not all features in the protocols are implemented, it is far better to standardize on a single core and receive the benefits as that core improves.
I think the benefits of ever-increasing protocol/spec support far outweigh the drawbacks of security flaws. Maybe not in all cases, maybe not in the zlib case, but in some cases.
[Microsoft] didn't become a near monopoly solely out of luck
You misspelled "convicted".
Did anyone else read that "Resurrection THEOlogy"?
While I understand your point, I'd like to point out that Trillian isn't open source.
On a side note, K-Meleon and Trillian aren't cross-platform. I consistently put my friends and family on Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim, so that when they eventually move to Linux (an inevitability, I think, barring an Apple-based purchase), they'll be well-acquainted with the applications they'll use most.