No, it was not. There was an agreement between Apple and Microsoft that Windows would be tiled rather than overlapped due to Apple's threats to sue for copyright violation (which they did years later). When OS2 was being developed IBM made it a requirement that it be allowed to have overlapping windows. Microsoft complied. At the time Microsoft was developing OS2 they were also developing Windows and one of the next iterations came with overlapping windows. Years later Apple sued Microsoft for copyright violation claiming that Microsoft was doing things that violated their agreement (such as overlapping windows). Apple lost and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of the US. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. That was that.
Basically the rulings were that Microsoft had a license to the interface in perpetuity, and you can't copyright the interface any more than you could say copyright the interface that is the dashboard of your vehicle or the look and feel of a carpet.
I played with it a bit in 1985 on a system with 1 single sided 5.25" floppy drive. Just to get something to happen took extremely long, say you wanted to launch the calculator. You were instructed to swap floppies over and over. Then when you exited you swapped floppies over and over again. The graphics were poor. The performance was poor. Applications were non-existent. There was no development for it whatsoever. Hell, most people hadn't even learned DOS back then.
When Win386 came out then it became viable. It was a competitor to QOS' products. Their product back then was spectacular for the day. They were headed toward an X window competitor to Windows. That fell through. Sure wish it hadn't.
Windows 3.0 supported extended memory rather than expanded memory, and that gave it the biggest boost, because you could use more ram in your computer than 640K, which we were constantly trying to optimize for any given program to run properly.
Let's just say that until WFWG 3.11 Windows was weak, so remembering 25 years back is sort of moot. There really wasn't much happening around it, and certainly there was no PR for selling.
And you are spending your time here on slashdot. How's that any different. At least they are spending their time in their relationships which they have learned to provide time for due to knowing that life is short. How many people, even in their 30s say that if they knew back in their 20s what they know now they'd... Most, and that's because age brings wisdom, whether we exercise it or not.
And, let's look at your example for the perspective of job positions. That example is quite rare. In fact, probably few if any jobs exists in your country or in the US that require those skills. Get real.
Certainly President Obama wasn't talking about those jobs, as they don't contribute to creating more jobs here nor there, except in a minuscule form. Again, get real. He's talking about jobs that allow Americans to pay their taxes.
That's total bullshit. Certainly there are people in any technologically advanced country that would know that, especially the US. We aren't imbeciles that lucked into what we have. We learned and earned and we worked HARD to get there.
Why is this unclear? If a job that's created there creates jobs here then the same would happen if that job was created here, only we'd have a net benefit of 2+ jobs here. If a standard of living increase happens it would happen if the job was created here.
Claiming any job creation anywhere has a benefit here due to more jobs and a better standard of living there is just a cop out. Keep the jobs here, let them build their standard of living through their own means and measures instead of costing millions of American's their livelihoods.
If we had all those jobs here we'd have fewer unemployed Americans. It's that simple. They'd be spending money here and that'd mean more jobs. Clearly something is messed up with their math.
And, jobs created there will reduce the cost of the product for the manufacturer, but it hasn't really translated into cheaper products here. The main reason is that the savings goes into the pockets of the rich without trickling down to the consumer. They don't hire more people here because it's cheaper, instead they hire more there. Hence the rich get richer. Even Reaganomics doesn't work anymore. If you create jobs here we buy good and services here. That means that more people are needed to support that causing trickle-down.
What they are saying is that any job creation that is tied to a relationship with the US means that we benefit due to products that are reduced in cost and goods that are more readily available, that the jobs created there mean more money and better standards of living because they can now afford to buy our products.
In reality those aren't our products anymore and they aren't paying our price (the same price we pay in the US) to own the same goods.
In India there's a large chasm between the affluent and the destitute (in fact, in India it is pretty massive). And, as the jobs have increased affluence for some prices have gone up, and hence the jobs have been moved from India to even cheaper places (countries). The costs of land in India have skyrocketed to the point where the people can't afford to buy it. This will happen in every country, so rather than create more affluence overall they create only small islands and then create rifts between the people.
Yes, some benefit (especially the already wealthy) and that wealth stays in the pockets of the rich rather than translating to good well paying jobs here. Keep the jobs at home!
I believe X was re-written between that announcement and now. Not long ago they completely redid X.
The thing is that Canonical isn't the impetus to this. The product was developed, and has been used in Meego. Meego's interface is a precursor to Unity. And, I doubt anyone believed that you'd be running too many gnome or KDE apps on Meego.
I don't think many vendors are using Meego now as most have shifted to light-weight Linux installations or to Android.
Dear Mr. Shuttleworth, the PC is not a tablet in disguise. We want powerful desktops. Weak menu emulators are not powerful desktop managers.
In the past there hasn't been that many changes that had no value. I'm sure Canonical has a timeline set up for what changes they will implement (small and large alike). Though I do believe they have made some changes that were done for change's sake, I don't believe that's their overall plan as there are many changes are actually pretty nice.
One most notable thing about those that claim to have tried Linux is that they have not used Linux seriously for an extended period of time. Linux itself is a great OS and once you understand it you will understand where so many of us are coming from, but if you give it a half hearted effort for a few months and then claim it is too different without putting the effort into it to learn it you'll never be satisfied and you'll always end up giving it bad press, even to some who would seriously benefit from using it over Windows.
A new install of Ubuntu is pretty nice, though I wish they'd pull all the notebooks from their designers and force them to use various desktop and odd displays for extended periods of time. That'd give their designers some perspective on the way a good percentage of people see their product. Wide screens make Ubuntu look very nice. They should put some effort into those older non-wide screen displays. And those purple colors have to go. I think it is universally considered ugly. Is the person that developed that color-blind?
I use Ubuntu and have for the past few years. Before that I tried various other distributions of Linux. I have no good will toward the RPM based installs. That said, I know that Fedora has about 24 million desktop installs in use on a day to day basis, whereas Ubuntu only has about 12 million. Ubuntu does seem to get the most press because it is very easy to install and there are a number of nice things about it that make working with it and maintaining it a pleasure. There's lots of support and Canonical contributes (though indirectly) to the projects and provides services that help development.
Someone's operating with a heavy hand at Canonical because I doubt that educated minds would conclude that these changes are good (especially since they are both new technologies that are extremely immature and in some ways many steps backwards).
If you want to draw a lot of negative attention to this, keep going in that direction. Most people I know using it will either not upgrade or they will change distributions.
Personally I think it is a bad move. It attempts to make a change when some other serious issues still are outstanding in Ubuntu. This past release of Ubuntu showed more of the same "making changes for change's sake" It didn't help my opinion of it in that it wound up wiping one of my very important installs.
The news of Unity replacing Gnome was not opportunistic. They are making the change even though there's no reason to make the change. The point here is that there is no real reason to make the shift from Gnome to some other rather immature desktop manager (that Unity is). Then, to remove X for another extremely new and very much untried technology to replace one of the most significant parts of Ubuntu just doesn't cut the mustard. This is a pretty sad tale of one announcement being used to obfuscate the other more significant change. On top of that, too many changes at once is never a good thing.
So, we have a new display manager requiring changes to drivers, on a technology that was developed a short time ago and hasn't been tried in any systems other than Meego (which itself has hardly been used in any hardware), to replace something that may have baggage but has survived the test of time. Add to that a desktop manager which is primitively immature and is essentially a dumb interface that is actually confusing to users because it doesn't hold to the desktop paradigm instead it is more like a DOS menuing system implemented in a GUI environment.
Google isn't just bitching about the fact that Google Doc's isn't considered. They are bitching about the fact that the government ONLY considers Microsoft products.
The reports claiming Microsoft is widening it's lead has been debunked many times over.
Microsoft (and whomever) were counting paid server licenses rather than the overwhelming number of free server installs that don't need nor require a license.
They were misleading the market with their slight of tongue.
Most people have no idea of what it is, nor have the vast majority of the American public even heard about it let alone taken the time to become educated about it.
The XBOX360 has been a loss leader for Microsoft for a long time. However they finagle their accounting to make it look less than a loss is another matter. A loss leader means they take a loss on the product to gain share. There's no way they've brought themselves out of the red after a multi-billion loss on that product, even with write-offs. My impression is that they are showing themselves in the black due more to creative accounting to fend off the shareholder's dissatisfaction than anything else.
I have to agree with the premise of the thread. Microsoft is loosing the battle. Everyone knows that they can't sustain a Windows/Office cash cow forever.
They make a product and spend decades enhancing it. Do they realize that their competition will also be enhancing their product? Sooner or later won't they all have the same features/functionality (and performance)? The answer is that they will. Realizing this, can't you see that they'll do what they can to fend this off; first by distorting international standards and then by proxy (using other companies to sue for them) and then by suing others themselves for patent infringement?
The point that I think people are making is that it is inevitable and that they'll use their creative abilities to find other ways to stay on top besides competition.
If we look at Linux vs. Windows of say 5 years ago, Linux was way behind and being driven by hackers. Today, Linux abounds in every kind of device. Linux is the major player in servers. Linux has a solid well performing easy to use desktop manager(s). It's catching up. Businesses are using it in their products rather than going to Microsoft to have them develop for their device (which was Microsoft's business model for 2 decades). The last decade they've been coasting on their Windows/Office success. The reality is that now we have desktops, servers, and devices all using products and services that Microsoft doesn't control. So, yeah, they are dying even if they are still making oodles of cash. Their control is diminishing, and rather than fight by competing they are suing and being sued.
The ONLY advantage that the XBOX360 has right now is developers, developers, developers, developers. Hell, with a major cock-up that cost billions to Microsoft (with a 60% failure rate on those consoles) people only stayed with the XBOX360 because of their prior investment in the game purchases. Hell, if you had thousands invested in games wouldn't you go get another couple hundred dollar XBOX360 so you could continue to play them? Basically, games on a console are DRM, based solely on vendor lock in via the development process. In the past it was hardware vendor lock in (like mainframes and minis of 3 decades ago) and used to be contractual (when developers had to commit to developing only for a single platform).
When those same games become available on other platforms, specifically the PS3 (which is far superior hardware and technology across the board) you'll have new buyers deciding which platform based on the tech instead of their past investment in a console.
Any other company undergoing a 60% failure rate of their main hardware product would not have survived, but because Microsoft has all the games development happening and the costs of games are so high that it's hard to overcome that as a consumer once your momentum is a certain way.
This is precisely why also that Microsoft doesn't want mods or hacks to the 360, because if you can then you can pirate games and hence the incentive to buy is lost and that leads to fewer developers.
Microsoft knows one thing and one thing only. That is "keep the developers happy).
What precisely are they protecting the American people from? Some guy jailbreaks his xbox360 and The American people need protection from that?
As long as you can jailbreak your phone making this a crime is ridiculous. I think the Library of Congress should be called on this because frankly I'm sure their exemption is worded to narrowly and I'm sure they meant that devices such as this for personal use (not just phones) should be exempt.
Yes, I'm saying that Intel chipsets are odd chipsets. I wasn't referring to the most recent, though I don't expect it to be much different. Intel based drivers for chipsets including those other than video have always been somewhat difficult to get working properly whereas the drivers for the nVidia chipset have been sufficiently well supported. AMD motherboard chipsets are much better now even though their video still needs work.
Yes, when both need work it's Intel that doesn't seem to be the best implemented.
I have periodic issues with the wlan. Once Ubuntu is up and running I never have issues with X starting unless I need to reinstall the drivers.
Generally nothing kills my computers. They just keep running. It's all quite impressive. The types of issues I deal with all day long with Windows frankly don't exist with Linux. Even the Win7 diagnostics I do are as convoluted as when they first began the 2k/XP versions, just carried a bit more to the extreme in Vista and Win7.
I haven't considered Linux to be a geek tool since Ubuntu first came out. Looking back at that time-frame Linux was pretty impressive and remains so to this day (of course, with it's share of glitches during the upgrade cycle every 6 months).
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Apple's Mac OS was proof of concept. Xerox's product was proof of concept. Windows was a copy of everyone else.
No, it was not. There was an agreement between Apple and Microsoft that Windows would be tiled rather than overlapped due to Apple's threats to sue for copyright violation (which they did years later). When OS2 was being developed IBM made it a requirement that it be allowed to have overlapping windows. Microsoft complied. At the time Microsoft was developing OS2 they were also developing Windows and one of the next iterations came with overlapping windows. Years later Apple sued Microsoft for copyright violation claiming that Microsoft was doing things that violated their agreement (such as overlapping windows). Apple lost and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of the US. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. That was that.
Basically the rulings were that Microsoft had a license to the interface in perpetuity, and you can't copyright the interface any more than you could say copyright the interface that is the dashboard of your vehicle or the look and feel of a carpet.
I played with it a bit in 1985 on a system with 1 single sided 5.25" floppy drive. Just to get something to happen took extremely long, say you wanted to launch the calculator. You were instructed to swap floppies over and over. Then when you exited you swapped floppies over and over again. The graphics were poor. The performance was poor. Applications were non-existent. There was no development for it whatsoever. Hell, most people hadn't even learned DOS back then.
When Win386 came out then it became viable. It was a competitor to QOS' products. Their product back then was spectacular for the day. They were headed toward an X window competitor to Windows. That fell through. Sure wish it hadn't.
Windows 3.0 supported extended memory rather than expanded memory, and that gave it the biggest boost, because you could use more ram in your computer than 640K, which we were constantly trying to optimize for any given program to run properly.
Let's just say that until WFWG 3.11 Windows was weak, so remembering 25 years back is sort of moot. There really wasn't much happening around it, and certainly there was no PR for selling.
So, we are what we are and have what we have and have been the dominant country in the world for how many centuries, and we just lucked into it?
And you are spending your time here on slashdot. How's that any different. At least they are spending their time in their relationships which they have learned to provide time for due to knowing that life is short. How many people, even in their 30s say that if they knew back in their 20s what they know now they'd... Most, and that's because age brings wisdom, whether we exercise it or not.
And, let's look at your example for the perspective of job positions. That example is quite rare. In fact, probably few if any jobs exists in your country or in the US that require those skills. Get real.
Certainly President Obama wasn't talking about those jobs, as they don't contribute to creating more jobs here nor there, except in a minuscule form. Again, get real. He's talking about jobs that allow Americans to pay their taxes.
Troll. Those are cultural-- to which you attribute to age and education.
That's total bullshit. Certainly there are people in any technologically advanced country that would know that, especially the US. We aren't imbeciles that lucked into what we have. We learned and earned and we worked HARD to get there.
Why is this unclear? If a job that's created there creates jobs here then the same would happen if that job was created here, only we'd have a net benefit of 2+ jobs here. If a standard of living increase happens it would happen if the job was created here.
Claiming any job creation anywhere has a benefit here due to more jobs and a better standard of living there is just a cop out. Keep the jobs here, let them build their standard of living through their own means and measures instead of costing millions of American's their livelihoods.
If we had all those jobs here we'd have fewer unemployed Americans. It's that simple. They'd be spending money here and that'd mean more jobs. Clearly something is messed up with their math.
And, jobs created there will reduce the cost of the product for the manufacturer, but it hasn't really translated into cheaper products here. The main reason is that the savings goes into the pockets of the rich without trickling down to the consumer. They don't hire more people here because it's cheaper, instead they hire more there. Hence the rich get richer. Even Reaganomics doesn't work anymore. If you create jobs here we buy good and services here. That means that more people are needed to support that causing trickle-down.
What they are saying is that any job creation that is tied to a relationship with the US means that we benefit due to products that are reduced in cost and goods that are more readily available, that the jobs created there mean more money and better standards of living because they can now afford to buy our products.
In reality those aren't our products anymore and they aren't paying our price (the same price we pay in the US) to own the same goods.
In India there's a large chasm between the affluent and the destitute (in fact, in India it is pretty massive). And, as the jobs have increased affluence for some prices have gone up, and hence the jobs have been moved from India to even cheaper places (countries). The costs of land in India have skyrocketed to the point where the people can't afford to buy it. This will happen in every country, so rather than create more affluence overall they create only small islands and then create rifts between the people.
Yes, some benefit (especially the already wealthy) and that wealth stays in the pockets of the rich rather than translating to good well paying jobs here. Keep the jobs at home!
I believe X was re-written between that announcement and now. Not long ago they completely redid X.
The thing is that Canonical isn't the impetus to this. The product was developed, and has been used in Meego. Meego's interface is a precursor to Unity. And, I doubt anyone believed that you'd be running too many gnome or KDE apps on Meego.
I don't think many vendors are using Meego now as most have shifted to light-weight Linux installations or to Android.
Dear Mr. Shuttleworth, the PC is not a tablet in disguise. We want powerful desktops. Weak menu emulators are not powerful desktop managers.
In the past there hasn't been that many changes that had no value. I'm sure Canonical has a timeline set up for what changes they will implement (small and large alike). Though I do believe they have made some changes that were done for change's sake, I don't believe that's their overall plan as there are many changes are actually pretty nice.
One most notable thing about those that claim to have tried Linux is that they have not used Linux seriously for an extended period of time. Linux itself is a great OS and once you understand it you will understand where so many of us are coming from, but if you give it a half hearted effort for a few months and then claim it is too different without putting the effort into it to learn it you'll never be satisfied and you'll always end up giving it bad press, even to some who would seriously benefit from using it over Windows.
A new install of Ubuntu is pretty nice, though I wish they'd pull all the notebooks from their designers and force them to use various desktop and odd displays for extended periods of time. That'd give their designers some perspective on the way a good percentage of people see their product. Wide screens make Ubuntu look very nice. They should put some effort into those older non-wide screen displays. And those purple colors have to go. I think it is universally considered ugly. Is the person that developed that color-blind?
I use Ubuntu and have for the past few years. Before that I tried various other distributions of Linux. I have no good will toward the RPM based installs. That said, I know that Fedora has about 24 million desktop installs in use on a day to day basis, whereas Ubuntu only has about 12 million. Ubuntu does seem to get the most press because it is very easy to install and there are a number of nice things about it that make working with it and maintaining it a pleasure. There's lots of support and Canonical contributes (though indirectly) to the projects and provides services that help development.
Someone's operating with a heavy hand at Canonical because I doubt that educated minds would conclude that these changes are good (especially since they are both new technologies that are extremely immature and in some ways many steps backwards).
If you want to draw a lot of negative attention to this, keep going in that direction. Most people I know using it will either not upgrade or they will change distributions.
Personally I think it is a bad move. It attempts to make a change when some other serious issues still are outstanding in Ubuntu. This past release of Ubuntu showed more of the same "making changes for change's sake" It didn't help my opinion of it in that it wound up wiping one of my very important installs.
The news of Unity replacing Gnome was not opportunistic. They are making the change even though there's no reason to make the change. The point here is that there is no real reason to make the shift from Gnome to some other rather immature desktop manager (that Unity is). Then, to remove X for another extremely new and very much untried technology to replace one of the most significant parts of Ubuntu just doesn't cut the mustard. This is a pretty sad tale of one announcement being used to obfuscate the other more significant change. On top of that, too many changes at once is never a good thing.
So, we have a new display manager requiring changes to drivers, on a technology that was developed a short time ago and hasn't been tried in any systems other than Meego (which itself has hardly been used in any hardware), to replace something that may have baggage but has survived the test of time. Add to that a desktop manager which is primitively immature and is essentially a dumb interface that is actually confusing to users because it doesn't hold to the desktop paradigm instead it is more like a DOS menuing system implemented in a GUI environment.
Google isn't just bitching about the fact that Google Doc's isn't considered. They are bitching about the fact that the government ONLY considers Microsoft products.
What I read are typical excuses given when someone's trying to cover up their practices after having been caught.
The reports claiming Microsoft is widening it's lead has been debunked many times over.
Microsoft (and whomever) were counting paid server licenses rather than the overwhelming number of free server installs that don't need nor require a license.
They were misleading the market with their slight of tongue.
Specifically I was saying that it is, by his methodology.
Most people have no idea of what it is, nor have the vast majority of the American public even heard about it let alone taken the time to become educated about it.
I agree. There's no reason they can't all be considered a success--but we can question if they merit that moniker based on how they got there.
And, 44 million units? Linux has over 100 million desktop installs. Can't it also be considered a success by your logic?
The XBOX360 has been a loss leader for Microsoft for a long time. However they finagle their accounting to make it look less than a loss is another matter. A loss leader means they take a loss on the product to gain share. There's no way they've brought themselves out of the red after a multi-billion loss on that product, even with write-offs. My impression is that they are showing themselves in the black due more to creative accounting to fend off the shareholder's dissatisfaction than anything else.
I have to agree with the premise of the thread. Microsoft is loosing the battle. Everyone knows that they can't sustain a Windows/Office cash cow forever.
They make a product and spend decades enhancing it. Do they realize that their competition will also be enhancing their product? Sooner or later won't they all have the same features/functionality (and performance)? The answer is that they will. Realizing this, can't you see that they'll do what they can to fend this off; first by distorting international standards and then by proxy (using other companies to sue for them) and then by suing others themselves for patent infringement?
The point that I think people are making is that it is inevitable and that they'll use their creative abilities to find other ways to stay on top besides competition.
If we look at Linux vs. Windows of say 5 years ago, Linux was way behind and being driven by hackers. Today, Linux abounds in every kind of device. Linux is the major player in servers. Linux has a solid well performing easy to use desktop manager(s). It's catching up. Businesses are using it in their products rather than going to Microsoft to have them develop for their device (which was Microsoft's business model for 2 decades). The last decade they've been coasting on their Windows/Office success. The reality is that now we have desktops, servers, and devices all using products and services that Microsoft doesn't control. So, yeah, they are dying even if they are still making oodles of cash. Their control is diminishing, and rather than fight by competing they are suing and being sued.
The ONLY advantage that the XBOX360 has right now is developers, developers, developers, developers. Hell, with a major cock-up that cost billions to Microsoft (with a 60% failure rate on those consoles) people only stayed with the XBOX360 because of their prior investment in the game purchases. Hell, if you had thousands invested in games wouldn't you go get another couple hundred dollar XBOX360 so you could continue to play them? Basically, games on a console are DRM, based solely on vendor lock in via the development process. In the past it was hardware vendor lock in (like mainframes and minis of 3 decades ago) and used to be contractual (when developers had to commit to developing only for a single platform).
When those same games become available on other platforms, specifically the PS3 (which is far superior hardware and technology across the board) you'll have new buyers deciding which platform based on the tech instead of their past investment in a console.
Any other company undergoing a 60% failure rate of their main hardware product would not have survived, but because Microsoft has all the games development happening and the costs of games are so high that it's hard to overcome that as a consumer once your momentum is a certain way.
This is precisely why also that Microsoft doesn't want mods or hacks to the 360, because if you can then you can pirate games and hence the incentive to buy is lost and that leads to fewer developers.
Microsoft knows one thing and one thing only. That is "keep the developers happy).
A jail-broken phone can run pirated software.
What precisely are they protecting the American people from? Some guy jailbreaks his xbox360 and The American people need protection from that?
As long as you can jailbreak your phone making this a crime is ridiculous. I think the Library of Congress should be called on this because frankly I'm sure their exemption is worded to narrowly and I'm sure they meant that devices such as this for personal use (not just phones) should be exempt.
Yes, I'm saying that Intel chipsets are odd chipsets. I wasn't referring to the most recent, though I don't expect it to be much different. Intel based drivers for chipsets including those other than video have always been somewhat difficult to get working properly whereas the drivers for the nVidia chipset have been sufficiently well supported. AMD motherboard chipsets are much better now even though their video still needs work.
Yes, when both need work it's Intel that doesn't seem to be the best implemented.
I have periodic issues with the wlan. Once Ubuntu is up and running I never have issues with X starting unless I need to reinstall the drivers.
Generally nothing kills my computers. They just keep running. It's all quite impressive. The types of issues I deal with all day long with Windows frankly don't exist with Linux. Even the Win7 diagnostics I do are as convoluted as when they first began the 2k/XP versions, just carried a bit more to the extreme in Vista and Win7.
I haven't considered Linux to be a geek tool since Ubuntu first came out. Looking back at that time-frame Linux was pretty impressive and remains so to this day (of course, with it's share of glitches during the upgrade cycle every 6 months).