Warp wrote:
>   It's one thing that a program collects some data about how it's being used
> and phones home with it (is that even legal?),

They ask you if you want to participate, so yeah, I'd guess so.

> and a completely different
> thing when single person makes one post in a forum, causing a significant
> improvement to be made to the distro. I can see the latter happening quite
> often in the Linux world.

It's definitely easier to make a difference as an individual contributor.

It's also the case that even a small company can make a difference in 
Microsoft's stuff. Like the company that did the first defrag program for NT 
designed the APIs for that and told MS how to write it.

And I would guess security vulnerabilities found by an individual can get 
them fixed.

But yah, definitely not as *rewarding* as doing it in Linux. You'll 
certainly not get the sort of recognition for improving MS software, if 
nothing else.

>   I think some features of Vista are a sign that Microsoft is not always
> so good at implementing what people want. (Yes, people wanted more security,
> but not of the type that MS implemented in Vista.)

Well, as I said, people want it for free, too. :-) Overall, they did a 
pretty good job with UAC, but it needed tuning. And people aren't that used 
to having to deal with it in Windows.  *Some* of what they do users don't 
want (like signed drivers) but MS does for their own good.

I was thinking more the DRM stuff, myself.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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