Darren New wrote:

> Name two other for-profit software companies that encourage you to use 
> the competitors' software when you try out theirs for free?

Here's a better one: Name two other software companies [that anybody has 
heard of]. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> yeah, and besides it would work against M$ policy of pushing their own 
>> standards
>> (DirectX) rather than work together with the rest of the industry
> 
> Yep. Welcome to for-profit software companies.
> 
> Name two other for-profit software companies that encourage you to use 
> the competitors' software when you try out theirs for free?

The MS Platform SDK does include the OpenGL headers, however. MS are 
obviously not too worried about promoting competing products.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > yeah, and besides it would work against M$ policy of pushing their own standards
> > (DirectX) rather than work together with the rest of the industry
>
> Yep. Welcome to for-profit software companies.
>
> Name two other for-profit software companies that encourage you to use
> the competitors' software when you try out theirs for free?

It's not the "competitors' software", it's an industry-strength API.  They could
provider their own implementation, but regardless of MS participating of
standards bodies like the W3C, they just choose to turn it down in favour of
their proprietary incompatible "standards".

Supporting industry-strength standards should only be a good thing.  It's
something major players in the industry agreed are a good thing.  It's
something consumers would agree to be a good thing if only the most used
platform more actively supported it, because it would allow competing platforms
running similar software based on the same standards to interoperate.  And
competition means better quality products on the market and fair prices.  Of
course, that's not on MS' agenda...

Other major industry-standards well supported by all major players are things
like XML, TCP/IP, HTTP etc.  As you see, most are network related, not platform
specific.  Since Windows don't rule on the server, it'd better comply or else MS
customers wouldn't find much happiness on the internet...

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47b16fb5$1@news.povray.org...
> Darren New wrote:
>
> > Name two other for-profit software companies that encourage you to use
> > the competitors' software when you try out theirs for free?
>
> Here's a better one: Name two other software companies [that anybody has
> heard of]. ;-)

Oracle
Sun

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Gail Shaw wrote:

>> Here's a better one: Name two other software companies [that anybody has
>> heard of]. ;-)
> 
> Oracle
> Sun

I thought Sun only made hardware?

[Oh, mind you, they did do that little Java fad...]

OK, 10 points to Gail.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> Gail Shaw wrote:
> 
>>> Here's a better one: Name two other software companies [that anybody has
>>> heard of]. ;-)
>>
>> Oracle
>> Sun
> 
> I thought Sun only made hardware?
> 
> [Oh, mind you, they did do that little Java fad...]
> 
> OK, 10 points to Gail.

Adobe
Apple

can I have 10 points too? :D

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47b1c391@news.povray.org...
> Gail Shaw wrote:
>
> > Oracle
> > Sun
>
> I thought Sun only made hardware?
>
> [Oh, mind you, they did do that little Java fad...]

And MySQL. Don't forget SunOS. They may have done Solaris too, but I'm not
sure.

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> Gail Shaw wrote:
> 
>>> Here's a better one: Name two other software companies [that anybody has
>>> heard of]. ;-)
>>
>> Oracle
>> Sun
> 
> I thought Sun only made hardware?
> 
> [Oh, mind you, they did do that little Java fad...]
> 

How about Solaris? (Sun's Unix)

Also, did you hear Sun bought MySQL recently? :)

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Also, did you hear Sun bought MySQL recently? :)

Heh. How do you guys know all this stuff?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:47b1c4a8@news.povray.org...
> Invisible wrote:
> > Gail Shaw wrote:
> >
> >>> Here's a better one: Name two other software companies [that anybody
has
> >>> heard of]. ;-)
> >>
> >> Oracle
> >> Sun
> >
> > I thought Sun only made hardware?
> >
> > [Oh, mind you, they did do that little Java fad...]
> >
> > OK, 10 points to Gail.
>
> Adobe
> Apple
>
> can I have 10 points too? :D

Borland
Blizzard

Wanna keep on going?

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