Why pay for something I can't even use at all? I just love throwing money away. I'd really rather just boot to windows than wait around to get one game working. Sorry, the subscription model doesn't work until I see product that works for me.
It's not just 2d, it's 3d as well. If I could run Unreal perfectly (not UT, just Unreal) then I'd subscribe, but since all of the games I tried (about half a dozen, both 2 and 3d) had this problem I didn't pay up, as much as I really want to.
After the last transgaming story, I decided to head on over and see what it was about. It would really be nice to have one less thing to boot to windows for, so I was pretty hopeful. I looked at the titles that worked, downloaded a build, browsed the message boards, and decided to try it myself. After I got it compiled and installed, I tried running things.
The real test for me was Baldur's Gate, something that didn't work with just plain Wine. WineX got farther than Wine, it managed to play the movies and actually start the game. However, just like Wine, the games stutter like mad and never achieve anything close to respectable speeds. I think it's a problem with my sound card, but I'm too lazy to set up the ALSA drivers, which may solve my problem. And I'd be really upset if I went to the trouble just to have it not work due to something else.
Anyhow, I'm planning on trying it again if I replace my sound card, or if I get time to try out ALSA, but I'm not holding my breath. No one else that I've seen has had this kind of problem (everyone either doesn't work or does, no one seems to have stuttering in all games) so I don't think it'll get fixed anytime soon. I really wanted this to work, and I'd still like to subscribe if I could get this working. But this is the classic problem with Linux and I'm not ready to fork over money if I don't believe it's going to work for me.
I think the only problem w/ Linux is that here arent enough programs, because Linux geeks expect everything for free. If we start to show that you can sell things for linux, then more stuff will be developed, and BAM!, there you go.
I hate this one. I really do. Linux geeks don't expect everything to be for free. How many of us buy our CD's from Cheapbytes or somewhere similar? Or official Redhat or Mandrake boxes even? How about the insane amount of money we've all spent on books despite its availability online? I've spent plenty of money on my Linux habit (yes, it's an addiction) and I'm not about to stop because I love it. I may not be buying copies of Intel's spiffy Linux compiler, but I don't need it. I'm a student and I don't have tons to spend, and I know that I'm not alone there.
And what about those Windows users? Windows games are pirated left and right (do a "keygen" search if you don't believe me). No one buys new copies of Windows, they just use someone else's CD or stick with the one that came "free" with their computer. And for every legal copy of Office I've seen (outside a company), there have been 10 illegal ones that some family "borrowed" from a friend because Works is what came with their computer. And don't forget that the most popular programs right now are the media sharing ones. Can you guess how much Windows users pay for the stuff they download there? You can't say that it's just Linux geeks who like free stuff, Windows users are no different.
Which is the reason why I wouldn't vote for him. All other issues aside, he likely doesn't know how the project actually functions well enough to manage it at present. GNOME is huge, and he probably doesn't really understand it technically or socially yet. This alone should disqualify him from being truly capable of running the project right now. Especially with all the other responsibilities he has on his shoulders right now. Once he's followed the project a bit he'd be ready, but not right now.
To explain why I think IE is inferior: One example is that it fails to provide the user with basic functionality. IE appears to be created to allow the web page author to control where the user goes (much in Microsoft's tradition), while Mozilla and Opera both allow the user to control more of their surfing.
I'm curious about this. How do you mean? The only example I can really give for this is in Mozilla (I've never used Opera) that you can disable popups. Other than that, I don't really see IE preventing the browser user from controlling their own destiny. The prefs aren't any harder to get to, and it does have security zones and whatnot. It's also got great fantastic plugin support (runtime install kicks ass) and a convenient sidebar.
Granted, I like Mozilla better for a variety of reasons, but I don't really understand yours. Could you clarify them a bit?
Yeah, the turbo feature doesn't work so well since pretty much the update right after it first came out (9.3?, 4?) so it still loads slower than IE. It's nowhere near unacceptable though (I'm running a PII-400 with 128MB RAM, so I'm sure I'm getting speeds similar to yours).
The thing that matters to me is that I get much much better page rendering performance out of Mozilla than I do out of IE. The Gecko engine is really shining these days, and I get much faster rendering times on just about any page with Moz. This is much more important to me than load times, and definitely makes that extra load time worth the wait.
The Mail/News will get better, but last time I checked it was still under par. That seems to be the focus of the next few releases though, so don't count the module out. Remember, you won't have to configure it specially to be secure like you do for Outlook, which will be a real bonus (and time saver too, since we're on that subject).
And as for crashes, I get about equal crashes in both browsers, depending on which computer I'm at. At the office, Mozilla is less stable. At home, IE is less stable. Mileage varies.
In terms of future improvements, it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft will be able to take the lead on improvements again, or if Mozilla will continue to blaze the trail, as it's been doing lately. I wouldn't be surprised if tabbed browsing appeared in IE, but who knows what'll come out of Mozilla. And the 3rd party stuff! Once the API settles (which is why v1.0 is such a big deal) there should be some cool mini apps built for Mozilla. I already use the PubMed one all the time, it's my favorite browser feature yet, and makes Mozilla my browser of choice at the office. Because of the nature of the whole free software community, and the relative triviality of these kinds of apps, you'll see a ton of great ones come out once the API is ready for it. Then we'll see the browser wars really kick up.
Are you sure it's journaling? For something so simple as saved games and prefs, it may not need it. Does anyone know any real facts about the file system?
Most games come with sound controls, so you can turn off the music or sound effects as you choose. Turn off their music, play yours on the stereo. Save space and cash.
As for downloadable games, sure... but how often do we even do that now with the PC? I don't know anyone who downloads software off a site and pays for it rather than going down to the store or ordering the boxed version. The only thing you really download are patches and expansion maps/packs. I sure as hell don't want to be patching my console games, and I doubt anyone else does either. Expansions could be nice though.
Were the demos cool, or just a load of crap? I only saw the preview articles in the magazines, which gushed about them of course. I was incredibly disappointed about Copland simply dropping off the face of the planet. The whole Be/NeXT fiasco was a bitter pill too. I know a lot of people jumped ship because Apple couldn't pull anything impressive out, and only now are they really starting to recover. Sad. I'm never going back though.
I'm pretty sure everyone already realizes that "Apple couldn't build their own OS" was a troll.
Well, to be fair, there was Copland. Remember that one? The huge leap in OS's that was supposed to be out about three years ago? They simply couldn't build the thing. Granted, they probably could have thrown a lot of money at the problem and rolled their own, but they decided to just buy one instead. This was probably a good move, but the fact that it took them so fucking long to release a real OS just shows you how much trouble they had with building something as big as a modern system. Not that I think many companies could have done a better job, but the fact remains, Apple couldn't build their own OS.
Wow, that's pretty amazing. You couldn't have just hit the mute button on the TV and played them on your stereo instead? And you could have saved money overall by buying a couple of fat memory cards rather than paying for the hard drive.
Well, at least we know why the XBox shouldn't be moved without a forklift - the damn hard drive is taking up more than a quarter of the space. Since no other console has it, I think it's fair to say that without the hard drive the XBox would be more on par in terms of size. The controllers though, are still bigger than Australia.
Makes you wonder how badly they wanted the hard drive though. It certainly would have cut down on cost and size had they not included it, but they obviously didn't care too much about size or else they would have fixed the controllers. I personally think the hard drive is a dumb idea, but then, I think console games and PC games should remain forever separate (case in point: my friend tonight asked me if he should buy a USB mouse, keyboard, and $50 PS2 copy of Deus Ex, or just buy the $20 PC version of the game). I dunno, does anyone feel that the hard drive will really be a help to the console? I'd assume it goes along with their whole vision of it being MyDigitalEntertainmentX-Hub(tm). And we all know how people are wetting themselves for one of those!
Come back with a better form factor, a good price point, and some cool titles and I'll buy one. Right now though, I'm thinking Game Cube.
Ah, but isn't that the problem though? Voting alone doesn't do it. If you and you alone are the one dissenting voice in the ballot box, there's no way any congressman is going to respect you. You've got to command a bloc of votes, like the religious right. They may not command the majority, but they are a substantial presence in this country and as such they wield a lot of power.
What needs to happen, as the parent talked about (great post there BTW) is that we need to form some kind of consolidated power bloc. The EFF isn't enough, we need a movement. The state and businesses aren't on our side because they don't see us as being anything other than marginal. We, as people concerned with our rights in the digital age, do need to do more than what we've been doing. Unfortunately, I'm at a complete loss as to what that is.
My brother, who's big in to political activism, just attended a seminar by a congressional staffer on the subject of grassroots influence. The staffer said you have two options: either assemble a lot of people together to influence public opinion or work on a campaign, get they guy elected and then get your voice heard from within. I think we need more of the former. We need to get people out there, talking about what's going on from our point of view, and we have to get them to see that it affects everyone, not just the geeks. I don't know how to mobilize this sort of thing though, and that's the problem. Like the parent said, what now?
On Sept. 28, she told the parties in the Microsoft case that 'the recent tragic events affecting our nation' demanded a prompt end to litigation that had already roiled the stock market and generated economic uncertainty.
That exhortation hit home. After Sept. 11, 'the world had changed, with war abroad, threats at home and a deteriorating economy, creating a powerful dynamic to settle,' says Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general and one of the more-aggressive state officials involved in the case.
While I see the reasoning behind this, shouldn't the Sept. 11 attacks make us more appreciative of our freedoms than of our money? All the politicians are running around talking about freedom being the American ideal, shouldn't they be more focused on maintaining freedom than money in this case also?
From what I understand, Halo does have links to Marathon. Marathon's story is the thing that most of the game's detractors tend to disregard, and it was far and away it's greatest strength (not that it didn't have others, it was a damn fun game).
Back in Halo's "blam" days, they were throwing out Durandal references, working the community in to a frenzy. I haven't followed new developments on the issue, but checking out halo.bungie.org is always the best place to start for such things.
Anyhow, if there is anything that will make me buy this game (only PC port though), it's the story and the potential continuation of the Marathon universe. You can talk all you want about the gameplay not being a huge leap forward, but so long as it's fun who really cares? If it provides and enjoyable way of exploring a detailed and unique world, then I think it'll be a success.
Does anybody expect slashdot to be taken seriously at all with a writeup like that?
Why are you here Mr. AC? To get the respect that you feel you truly deserve? You think that because/. has gotten big that it has to be taken "seriously"? The editors do this not because it's a cash cow (we all know VA's not doing so hot right now) but because they love doing it. Who the hell are you or anyone else to say that they're wrong to do what they want? You're probably also one of those people who thinks that linux just exists for no other reason than to take down windows.
The only possible reason I can see for anyone really wanting/. to have much higher editorial standards is to make themselves feel good about the site they're on. They want their comments to be modded up on a site with Integrity, so they can feel really good about how smart they are, and how they are considered a gem on a Respectable site. If you really want to post comments to a "serious" site, go over to ZDNet where they don't actually care about what their readers have to say and quit wasting time here. And if you really want the respect and pride of a more "serious"/., take slash and make one yourself. Just go somewhere else and quit whining.
I think you're right, that there's no reason for MS not to include a JVM in their system. It wouldn't be that hard to retrofit their old VM, and remove the offending parts, or just not call it a JVM and simply include it as is. The fact is,.net is their attack on the whole Java platform, and by not including a JVM at all they're heavily leaning their favor towards.net. Not that I blame them necessarily, but in all reality a JVM is a critical part of the modern web browser (which they claim is a critical part of the modern OS) and as such, it should be included.
Fact is, Microsoft continues its market dominance and the vast majority of OSS projects are stillborn or far behind their original schedules (take a look at how active most SourceForge projects are).
True, most projects don't make it out of the gate, but they don't all have to. Just because most projects fail doesn't mean that others don't succeed. The fact is that there are projects to fulfill just about every desire you could have on a computer. Web browser, instant messaging, servers, office suites, some games, programming tools, etc. etc. Sure, lots of projects fail and die, but enough succeed to make the system viable. If you don't believe me, try running a linux system for a little while.
While Linux users are crowing about how new and improved their latest kernel version is (which was released within 2 weeks of their previous version), Microsoft is loudly proclaiming XP as the messiah of operating systems. OSS users are patting each other on the back for the latest version of Mozilla, but Microsoft is telling the world about the newest changes to MSN. Linux is taking marketshare in the server market, but so is Windows, and they are taking it from the traditional big Unix companies Sun and IBM.
Straw men. What does this have to do with the previous argument, where you said OSS projects are all stillborn? Here you point out two that are actively in development and consistently improving, contradicting your earlier statement. Both Windows and Linux are moving targets, and just because both projects like to tout improvements with varying degrees of rhetoric doesn't mean that one is less viable than the other. Where's the argument here that says OSS is bad?
Microsoft has found that they don't have to compete with OSS because OSS poses no credible threat at this time. They have effectively neutralized the movement by waiting until the remaining members were shown to be drooling zealots who could talk a good game but failed to deliver on the OSS promise.
As far as I can tell, no such thing has been shown. Granted, OSS may not have lived up to all the Windows-killing hype, but that doesn't make it any less competitive. The availability of free tools that you have near total control of is a very powerful incentive for a lot of people, and will continue to be so in the future. The OSS promise isn't really "World Domination" as so many like to talk about, it's actually the opposite. It's about freedom from world domination by any one entity, and it's about personal empowerment. Linux, *BSD, et al. are still going strong, and in this sense they have completely delivered on the OSS promise.
OSS has been shown for what it is: a non-commercial hobby. Because of the restrictions placed on it by the GPL, none of the software can become a commercial success.
I've really never understood this argument. True, OSS is a non-commerical hobby for many, but for many others they have been hired to work on OSS as their job. Companies use what they create as "tools" to make money, not as money makers themselves. How many software companies make money off of MS Word sales? One. How many companies make money by using MS Word as a productivity tool? Countless. Paying someone to develop GPL software is like purchasing a bunch of MS Word licenses. You're paying for your software (which you get complete control over BTW) and you make your money actually using the thing rather than selling it. That's where the profit motive actually lies. And even then, how does this relate back to the overall premise of your post that OSS is bad? Just because someone makes something as a non-commercial hobby doesn't mean it's a bad piece of work, nor does something have to be a commercial success to be a good product.
Overall, your post is a load of shit troll-boy. There are plenty of disadvantages to OSS, but you sure didn't hit on any of them.
I think part of the incentive is not just to bring people over from wintel, but to keep those who are alredy in the Mac arena there more permanently. One of the things Mac people get trashed for is lack of software, which isn't really true unless you're talking about games (how many major pieces of software do you know that don't run on mac or don't have a suitable mac alternative.)
This gives Mac people something to feel good about, something else to point to and say "Look, isn't this cool? Don't you wish you had one?" Me, I'm glad I left Mac for Intel and Linux, but the iPod does make me pretty jealous. It's something to make those who stayed feel like whatever sacrifices they've made are worthwhile.
I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe I'm really just "missing" the whole point, like you say, but I fail to see the computing world as a choice between AOL and Microsoft in a winner-take-all grudge match. AOL simply does not have the stranglehold on media that MS has on operating systems. If you don't like Time Magazine, you can easily go and buy U.S. News and World Report and get just as much good content with no additional difficulty.
And, more to the point, how many people use AOL as an ISP? How many people run Windows as their primary OS? See the ratio difference?
That's the crux of the matter. AOL, while big and threatening, isn't crushing things in nearly the same way as MS. Your dialectical view on this is a little shortsighted.
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Pretty smart of them in my opinion. It would have been a bad idea if Nintendo had started shipping more X-Boxes than gamecubes
Why pay for something I can't even use at all? I just love throwing money away. I'd really rather just boot to windows than wait around to get one game working. Sorry, the subscription model doesn't work until I see product that works for me.
It's not just 2d, it's 3d as well. If I could run Unreal perfectly (not UT, just Unreal) then I'd subscribe, but since all of the games I tried (about half a dozen, both 2 and 3d) had this problem I didn't pay up, as much as I really want to.
After the last transgaming story, I decided to head on over and see what it was about. It would really be nice to have one less thing to boot to windows for, so I was pretty hopeful. I looked at the titles that worked, downloaded a build, browsed the message boards, and decided to try it myself. After I got it compiled and installed, I tried running things.
The real test for me was Baldur's Gate, something that didn't work with just plain Wine. WineX got farther than Wine, it managed to play the movies and actually start the game. However, just like Wine, the games stutter like mad and never achieve anything close to respectable speeds. I think it's a problem with my sound card, but I'm too lazy to set up the ALSA drivers, which may solve my problem. And I'd be really upset if I went to the trouble just to have it not work due to something else.
Anyhow, I'm planning on trying it again if I replace my sound card, or if I get time to try out ALSA, but I'm not holding my breath. No one else that I've seen has had this kind of problem (everyone either doesn't work or does, no one seems to have stuttering in all games) so I don't think it'll get fixed anytime soon. I really wanted this to work, and I'd still like to subscribe if I could get this working. But this is the classic problem with Linux and I'm not ready to fork over money if I don't believe it's going to work for me.
I hate this one. I really do. Linux geeks don't expect everything to be for free. How many of us buy our CD's from Cheapbytes or somewhere similar? Or official Redhat or Mandrake boxes even? How about the insane amount of money we've all spent on books despite its availability online? I've spent plenty of money on my Linux habit (yes, it's an addiction) and I'm not about to stop because I love it. I may not be buying copies of Intel's spiffy Linux compiler, but I don't need it. I'm a student and I don't have tons to spend, and I know that I'm not alone there.
And what about those Windows users? Windows games are pirated left and right (do a "keygen" search if you don't believe me). No one buys new copies of Windows, they just use someone else's CD or stick with the one that came "free" with their computer. And for every legal copy of Office I've seen (outside a company), there have been 10 illegal ones that some family "borrowed" from a friend because Works is what came with their computer. And don't forget that the most popular programs right now are the media sharing ones. Can you guess how much Windows users pay for the stuff they download there? You can't say that it's just Linux geeks who like free stuff, Windows users are no different.
Which is the reason why I wouldn't vote for him. All other issues aside, he likely doesn't know how the project actually functions well enough to manage it at present. GNOME is huge, and he probably doesn't really understand it technically or socially yet. This alone should disqualify him from being truly capable of running the project right now. Especially with all the other responsibilities he has on his shoulders right now. Once he's followed the project a bit he'd be ready, but not right now.
I'm curious about this. How do you mean? The only example I can really give for this is in Mozilla (I've never used Opera) that you can disable popups. Other than that, I don't really see IE preventing the browser user from controlling their own destiny. The prefs aren't any harder to get to, and it does have security zones and whatnot. It's also got great fantastic plugin support (runtime install kicks ass) and a convenient sidebar.
Granted, I like Mozilla better for a variety of reasons, but I don't really understand yours. Could you clarify them a bit?
Yeah, the turbo feature doesn't work so well since pretty much the update right after it first came out (9.3?, 4?) so it still loads slower than IE. It's nowhere near unacceptable though (I'm running a PII-400 with 128MB RAM, so I'm sure I'm getting speeds similar to yours).
The thing that matters to me is that I get much much better page rendering performance out of Mozilla than I do out of IE. The Gecko engine is really shining these days, and I get much faster rendering times on just about any page with Moz. This is much more important to me than load times, and definitely makes that extra load time worth the wait.
The Mail/News will get better, but last time I checked it was still under par. That seems to be the focus of the next few releases though, so don't count the module out. Remember, you won't have to configure it specially to be secure like you do for Outlook, which will be a real bonus (and time saver too, since we're on that subject).
And as for crashes, I get about equal crashes in both browsers, depending on which computer I'm at. At the office, Mozilla is less stable. At home, IE is less stable. Mileage varies.
In terms of future improvements, it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft will be able to take the lead on improvements again, or if Mozilla will continue to blaze the trail, as it's been doing lately. I wouldn't be surprised if tabbed browsing appeared in IE, but who knows what'll come out of Mozilla. And the 3rd party stuff! Once the API settles (which is why v1.0 is such a big deal) there should be some cool mini apps built for Mozilla. I already use the PubMed one all the time, it's my favorite browser feature yet, and makes Mozilla my browser of choice at the office. Because of the nature of the whole free software community, and the relative triviality of these kinds of apps, you'll see a ton of great ones come out once the API is ready for it. Then we'll see the browser wars really kick up.
Are you sure it's journaling? For something so simple as saved games and prefs, it may not need it. Does anyone know any real facts about the file system?
Most games come with sound controls, so you can turn off the music or sound effects as you choose. Turn off their music, play yours on the stereo. Save space and cash.
As for downloadable games, sure... but how often do we even do that now with the PC? I don't know anyone who downloads software off a site and pays for it rather than going down to the store or ordering the boxed version. The only thing you really download are patches and expansion maps/packs. I sure as hell don't want to be patching my console games, and I doubt anyone else does either. Expansions could be nice though.
Were the demos cool, or just a load of crap? I only saw the preview articles in the magazines, which gushed about them of course. I was incredibly disappointed about Copland simply dropping off the face of the planet. The whole Be/NeXT fiasco was a bitter pill too. I know a lot of people jumped ship because Apple couldn't pull anything impressive out, and only now are they really starting to recover. Sad. I'm never going back though.
Well, to be fair, there was Copland. Remember that one? The huge leap in OS's that was supposed to be out about three years ago? They simply couldn't build the thing. Granted, they probably could have thrown a lot of money at the problem and rolled their own, but they decided to just buy one instead. This was probably a good move, but the fact that it took them so fucking long to release a real OS just shows you how much trouble they had with building something as big as a modern system. Not that I think many companies could have done a better job, but the fact remains, Apple couldn't build their own OS.
Wow, that's pretty amazing. You couldn't have just hit the mute button on the TV and played them on your stereo instead? And you could have saved money overall by buying a couple of fat memory cards rather than paying for the hard drive.
Well, at least we know why the XBox shouldn't be moved without a forklift - the damn hard drive is taking up more than a quarter of the space. Since no other console has it, I think it's fair to say that without the hard drive the XBox would be more on par in terms of size. The controllers though, are still bigger than Australia.
Makes you wonder how badly they wanted the hard drive though. It certainly would have cut down on cost and size had they not included it, but they obviously didn't care too much about size or else they would have fixed the controllers. I personally think the hard drive is a dumb idea, but then, I think console games and PC games should remain forever separate (case in point: my friend tonight asked me if he should buy a USB mouse, keyboard, and $50 PS2 copy of Deus Ex, or just buy the $20 PC version of the game). I dunno, does anyone feel that the hard drive will really be a help to the console? I'd assume it goes along with their whole vision of it being MyDigitalEntertainmentX-Hub(tm). And we all know how people are wetting themselves for one of those!
Come back with a better form factor, a good price point, and some cool titles and I'll buy one. Right now though, I'm thinking Game Cube.
Ah, but isn't that the problem though? Voting alone doesn't do it. If you and you alone are the one dissenting voice in the ballot box, there's no way any congressman is going to respect you. You've got to command a bloc of votes, like the religious right. They may not command the majority, but they are a substantial presence in this country and as such they wield a lot of power.
What needs to happen, as the parent talked about (great post there BTW) is that we need to form some kind of consolidated power bloc. The EFF isn't enough, we need a movement. The state and businesses aren't on our side because they don't see us as being anything other than marginal. We, as people concerned with our rights in the digital age, do need to do more than what we've been doing. Unfortunately, I'm at a complete loss as to what that is.
My brother, who's big in to political activism, just attended a seminar by a congressional staffer on the subject of grassroots influence. The staffer said you have two options: either assemble a lot of people together to influence public opinion or work on a campaign, get they guy elected and then get your voice heard from within. I think we need more of the former. We need to get people out there, talking about what's going on from our point of view, and we have to get them to see that it affects everyone, not just the geeks. I don't know how to mobilize this sort of thing though, and that's the problem. Like the parent said, what now?
I'm personally waiting for the Short Bus.
While I see the reasoning behind this, shouldn't the Sept. 11 attacks make us more appreciative of our freedoms than of our money? All the politicians are running around talking about freedom being the American ideal, shouldn't they be more focused on maintaining freedom than money in this case also?
From what I understand, Halo does have links to Marathon. Marathon's story is the thing that most of the game's detractors tend to disregard, and it was far and away it's greatest strength (not that it didn't have others, it was a damn fun game).
Back in Halo's "blam" days, they were throwing out Durandal references, working the community in to a frenzy. I haven't followed new developments on the issue, but checking out halo.bungie.org is always the best place to start for such things.
Anyhow, if there is anything that will make me buy this game (only PC port though), it's the story and the potential continuation of the Marathon universe. You can talk all you want about the gameplay not being a huge leap forward, but so long as it's fun who really cares? If it provides and enjoyable way of exploring a detailed and unique world, then I think it'll be a success.
Why are you here Mr. AC? To get the respect that you feel you truly deserve? You think that because
The only possible reason I can see for anyone really wanting
They may not have a billion dollars, but they have a billion stuffed monkeys! Their cuteness will eradicate all!
Touch the monkey...
I think you're right, that there's no reason for MS not to include a JVM in their system. It wouldn't be that hard to retrofit their old VM, and remove the offending parts, or just not call it a JVM and simply include it as is. The fact is, .net is their attack on the whole Java platform, and by not including a JVM at all they're heavily leaning their favor towards .net. Not that I blame them necessarily, but in all reality a JVM is a critical part of the modern web browser (which they claim is a critical part of the modern OS) and as such, it should be included.
True, most projects don't make it out of the gate, but they don't all have to. Just because most projects fail doesn't mean that others don't succeed. The fact is that there are projects to fulfill just about every desire you could have on a computer. Web browser, instant messaging, servers, office suites, some games, programming tools, etc. etc. Sure, lots of projects fail and die, but enough succeed to make the system viable. If you don't believe me, try running a linux system for a little while.
Straw men. What does this have to do with the previous argument, where you said OSS projects are all stillborn? Here you point out two that are actively in development and consistently improving, contradicting your earlier statement. Both Windows and Linux are moving targets, and just because both projects like to tout improvements with varying degrees of rhetoric doesn't mean that one is less viable than the other. Where's the argument here that says OSS is bad?
As far as I can tell, no such thing has been shown. Granted, OSS may not have lived up to all the Windows-killing hype, but that doesn't make it any less competitive. The availability of free tools that you have near total control of is a very powerful incentive for a lot of people, and will continue to be so in the future. The OSS promise isn't really "World Domination" as so many like to talk about, it's actually the opposite. It's about freedom from world domination by any one entity, and it's about personal empowerment. Linux, *BSD, et al. are still going strong, and in this sense they have completely delivered on the OSS promise.
I've really never understood this argument. True, OSS is a non-commerical hobby for many, but for many others they have been hired to work on OSS as their job. Companies use what they create as "tools" to make money, not as money makers themselves. How many software companies make money off of MS Word sales? One. How many companies make money by using MS Word as a productivity tool? Countless. Paying someone to develop GPL software is like purchasing a bunch of MS Word licenses. You're paying for your software (which you get complete control over BTW) and you make your money actually using the thing rather than selling it. That's where the profit motive actually lies. And even then, how does this relate back to the overall premise of your post that OSS is bad? Just because someone makes something as a non-commercial hobby doesn't mean it's a bad piece of work, nor does something have to be a commercial success to be a good product.
Overall, your post is a load of shit troll-boy. There are plenty of disadvantages to OSS, but you sure didn't hit on any of them.
I think part of the incentive is not just to bring people over from wintel, but to keep those who are alredy in the Mac arena there more permanently. One of the things Mac people get trashed for is lack of software, which isn't really true unless you're talking about games (how many major pieces of software do you know that don't run on mac or don't have a suitable mac alternative.)
This gives Mac people something to feel good about, something else to point to and say "Look, isn't this cool? Don't you wish you had one?" Me, I'm glad I left Mac for Intel and Linux, but the iPod does make me pretty jealous. It's something to make those who stayed feel like whatever sacrifices they've made are worthwhile.
I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe I'm really just "missing" the whole point, like you say, but I fail to see the computing world as a choice between AOL and Microsoft in a winner-take-all grudge match. AOL simply does not have the stranglehold on media that MS has on operating systems. If you don't like Time Magazine, you can easily go and buy U.S. News and World Report and get just as much good content with no additional difficulty.
And, more to the point, how many people use AOL as an ISP? How many people run Windows as their primary OS? See the ratio difference?
That's the crux of the matter. AOL, while big and threatening, isn't crushing things in nearly the same way as MS. Your dialectical view on this is a little shortsighted.