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Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's partnership today
Don't know whether to laugh or cry
John
--
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.
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Doctor John wrote:
> Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's partnership today
> Don't know whether to laugh or cry
Think of it this way - without Microsoft, we probably wouldn't have
enough similarity between hardware platforms that something like Linux
ever got off the ground. :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New wrote:
> Doctor John wrote:
>> Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's partnership today
>> Don't know whether to laugh or cry
>
> Think of it this way - without Microsoft, we probably wouldn't have
> enough similarity between hardware platforms that something like Linux
> ever got off the ground. :-)
>
True dammit :-(
--
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.
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In article <47f7781b@news.povray.org>, doc### [at] gmail com says...
> Darren New wrote:
> > Doctor John wrote:
> >> Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's partnership today
> >> Don't know whether to laugh or cry
> >
> > Think of it this way - without Microsoft, we probably wouldn't have
> > enough similarity between hardware platforms that something like Linux
> > ever got off the ground. :-)
> >
> True dammit :-(
>
Well, maybe true. We also might have ended up with a mil-spec system
that is stable, required to operate in a wide range of conditions, and
clearly documented interfaces. What we have is unstable, often doesn't
operate even in the conditions it supposedly was designed for, and even
the clearly documented interfaces, like modem commands, get screwed up
by nonstandard interfaces/drivers/control mechanisms, which where
designed to work only with specific OSes.
In other words, we started with 100 species of machines, none of them
alike, and ended up with something that... has almost as many hacks,
bugs, design short cuts, and stupid compromises as human DNA (and not
because those things "worked" better than the other paths tried). If the
military built aircraft the way Microsoft, to a large degree, and
others, to different degrees, pushed us to produce computers, we would
be losing billion dollar airplanes once a week, half of them in the
first moments of flight, when some obscure set of conditions caused the
wings to fall off.
Its a logical fallacy to presume that Microsoft was "necessary", any
more than just about any other absurd thing that led to the modern world
"had to" happen to get here. Even if true, the real question is, "Was
the price paid to do so *worth* it, given other paths that may have led
to the same thing?"
PCs imho where inevitable. Had Microsoft not shown up, someone else
would have. Eventually, some standard would have appeared. Likely, given
the wide us of Unix, it would have been a *nix standard. And,
interestingly enough, Microsoft is the **only** brand name, other than
in the embedded market, where standardizations isn't necessary as much,
which isn't going that way "anyway". So, did we really need them to muck
things up?
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Well, maybe true. We also might have ended up with a mil-spec system
> that is stable, required to operate in a wide range of conditions, and
> clearly documented interfaces.
We might have, but I doubt it. That would be over-engineering to a
tremendous degree.
Where such things are necessary, they're built without too much trouble
beyond tremendous time and cost.
> What we have is unstable, often doesn't
> operate even in the conditions it supposedly was designed for, and even
> the clearly documented interfaces, like modem commands, get screwed up
> by nonstandard interfaces/drivers/control mechanisms, which where
> designed to work only with specific OSes.
This is pretty much true of every piece of long-lived general-purpose
software. It's impossible to foresee every eventuality. If your OS
doesn't support removable media or streaming 3D holograms, you're going
to have unstable programs that don't work right when you remove the
media out from under them or stream 3D holograms into their input files.
> In other words, we started with 100 species of machines, none of them
> alike, and ended up with something that... has almost as many hacks,
> bugs, design short cuts, and stupid compromises as human DNA (and not
> because those things "worked" better than the other paths tried).
But we have that mainly because of age and backward compatibility. It's
not like "autoconf" is a gem either, and for exactly the same reason.
> If the
> military built aircraft the way Microsoft, to a large degree, and
> others, to different degrees, pushed us to produce computers,
> we would be losing billion dollar airplanes once a week,
They wouldn't cost a billion dollars. They'd cost $1000, and they'd run
pretty well until you put a trailer hitch on them and tried to tow your
RV behind. :-)
> Its a logical fallacy to presume that Microsoft was "necessary", any
> more than just about any other absurd thing that led to the modern world
> "had to" happen to get here.
Of course. What do you see as a motivating factor for hardware to get
standardized beyond someone selling a fairly cutting-edge software
package not tied to a particular piece of hardware?
> Even if true, the real question is, "Was
> the price paid to do so *worth* it, given other paths that may have led
> to the same thing?"
Except they didn't. The world had the chance for 10 or 15 years, and
there were just as many competing incompatible brands when PC-DOS came
out as there were ten years earlier.
> PCs imho where inevitable. Had Microsoft not shown up, someone else
> would have. Eventually, some standard would have appeared. Likely, given
> the wide us of Unix, it would have been a *nix standard.
I disagree. UNIX puts too many requirements on the hardware for it to
work at the time. What we *did* get that was vaguely standard was CP/M,
which is what PC-DOS was based on.
And, OK, which UNIX? Why do you think it would have been a standard, and
which one, and would it really have led to there being fewer flavors of
UNIX to program against? Even now, there's a dozen or more flavors of
UNIX in current use. We already *have* a "unix standard". You *still*
need autoconf, and it's broad enough Microsoft managed to implement it
in Windows (for some meaning of the word "implement").
Blame BSD for that, perhaps?
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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In article <47f9149f@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > Even if true, the real question is, "Was
> > the price paid to do so *worth* it, given other paths that may have led
> > to the same thing?"
>
> Except they didn't. The world had the chance for 10 or 15 years, and
> there were just as many competing incompatible brands when PC-DOS came
> out as there were ten years earlier.
>
Neither did cars, until Ford, and frankly, Ford did it right, while
MS... didn't care about doing it right, so much as doing it profitable.
That is the difference between visionaries getting involved with an
industry, vs. those who just see a clear way to make a more cash.
> > PCs imho where inevitable. Had Microsoft not shown up, someone else
> > would have. Eventually, some standard would have appeared. Likely, give
n
> > the wide us of Unix, it would have been a *nix standard.
>
> I disagree. UNIX puts too many requirements on the hardware for it to
> work at the time. What we *did* get that was vaguely standard was CP/M,
> which is what PC-DOS was based on.
>
Point was, it didn't have to be PC-DOS. Windows wasn't able to run on
those either.
> And, OK, which UNIX? Why do you think it would have been a standard, and
> which one, and would it really have led to there being fewer flavors of
> UNIX to program against? Even now, there's a dozen or more flavors of
> UNIX in current use. We already *have* a "unix standard". You *still*
> need autoconf, and it's broad enough Microsoft managed to implement it
> in Windows (for some meaning of the word "implement").
>
Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
standardization to internals, and commands. Windows new shell even
borrows the later, in a form of Bash like shell, since their own sucked
so badly. lol Look at cars. While there isn't much of a standard, and
not *every* part is interchangeable any more between makers, you can
still manage to weld together bits from different cars and have
something that still functions, and you can take parts from dozens, and
use them to build a car that "none" of the manufacturers would produce
themselves, and odds are, despite some specific differences, and a few
adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right
because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
Chevy frame.
Yes, fragmentations is bound to happen ones the "foundation" is there.
The problem is, how you get to that foundation. MS kind of forced the
industry to build from the top floor down, and as a result often the
stuff on the lowest level doesn't always work reliably, while the OS
itself *is* standard, so it "looks" like the building is intact, even
though its shifting on the loose rubble on the bottom level, like a
drunken sailor on marbles. *nix went the other way. The foundation is
very close to the same, to a degree that it take relatively little to
adjust core processes between them, the hardware, when there is
documentation, and some sort of common interface, just works, without
having to have 234 device drivers (including different versions, and
multifunction devices, which may have 4-5 drivers), for 100 devices.
But, my point is. You can't reliably project from "because it happened
this way.", to, "It needed to happen that way." We have hindsight here,
and we still can't get out of the hole already dug, to try to fix the
problems that arose due to how it did happen.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Neither did cars, until Ford, and frankly, Ford did it right, while
> MS... didn't care about doing it right, so much as doing it profitable.
And what makes you say this?
> Point was, it didn't have to be PC-DOS.
Sure. But it was. It had to be someone without a vested interest in one
particular brand of hardware, tho. You didn't see Sun porting Solaris
to other peoples' chips until they realized they couldn't compete with
Intel as long as Windows was the problem. (Same reason they wrote Star
Office, same reason they've been battling Microsoft all along.)
> Windows wasn't able to run on those either.
Windows ran on lots of machines where a fuller UNIX wouldn't. I'm not
sure what "those" means, unless you mean 8080-class chips, at which I'll
agree but wonder why you bring it up.
Windows could do a lot more with a lot less hardware. And it was PC-DOS
compatible.
And PC-DOS was very compatible with CP/M, conceptually. Indeed, the
original design was that you should be able to reassemble/recompile your
CP/M programs for 8086 and have them run under PC-DOS.
> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
> standardization to internals, and commands.
As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
> adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right
> because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
> Chevy frame.
I see. That's why Apache and MySql and VI don't work at all under
Windows, yes? I was wondering why that was.
> But, my point is. You can't reliably project from "because it happened
> this way.", to, "It needed to happen that way."
I didn't mean to imply it did. *Someone* had to come along and make some
version of hardware a reasonable target for something like Linux before
Linux could get popular enough to snowball. Lots of people wrote
operating systems for 8080-class machines, and none of them took off
(except CP/M) because they were all written to specific machinery by the
manufacturers of the machinery. Once you had someone realize "Gee, we
can write the software *without* building the machinery", that's when
you start seeing "clones."
> drunken sailor on marbles.
And while I admire your ability to turn a phrase, the hyperbole really
doesn't manage to communicate anything of interest other than your
distaste for Microsoft's products. You speak as if every day there are
thousands of people dying from Microsoft products, or that every
business that uses Windows goes broke trying to keep it running for more
than a few hours.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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> Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
> standardization to internals, and commands. Windows new shell even
> borrows the later, in a form of Bash like shell, since their own sucked
> so badly. lol Look at cars. While there isn't much of a standard, and
> not *every* part is interchangeable any more between makers, you can
> still manage to weld together bits from different cars and have
> something that still functions, and you can take parts from dozens, and
> use them to build a car that "none" of the manufacturers would produce
> themselves, and odds are, despite some specific differences, and a few
> adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right
> because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
> Chevy frame.
Forget interchange of parts. With cars, if you learn to drive, you can
drive any car of any manufacturer. Doesn't seem to be the case with
operating systems, or with applications.
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In article <47f9b2be$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Sure. But it was. It had to be someone without a vested interest in one
> particular brand of hardware, tho. You didn't see Sun porting Solaris
> to other peoples' chips until they realized they couldn't compete with
> Intel as long as Windows was the problem. (Same reason they wrote Star
> Office, same reason they've been battling Microsoft all along.)
>
True.
> > Windows wasn't able to run on those either.
>
> Windows ran on lots of machines where a fuller UNIX wouldn't. I'm not
> sure what "those" means, unless you mean 8080-class chips, at which I'll
> agree but wonder why you bring it up.
>
> Windows could do a lot more with a lot less hardware. And it was PC-DOS
> compatible.
>
> And PC-DOS was very compatible with CP/M, conceptually. Indeed, the
> original design was that you should be able to reassemble/recompile your
> CP/M programs for 8086 and have them run under PC-DOS.
>
Yeah, so what went wrong? lol Lets see. Code bloat, people actually
wanting to be able to transfer documents between unlike systems (with
filenames intact), oh, and an endless list of cases where people
"tried" to make something run on alternatives, but MS changed theirs in
some way that either broke the alternate, or broke their code "on" the
alternate. But sure. If they hadn't tried to rule the world, just live
in it, some of us might not be so annoyed by them.
> > Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
> > standardization to internals, and commands.
>
> As with various versions of Windows. Yes?
>
Umm. Not really.. Half the stuff that doesn't work between 3.1 and XP is
a result of hacks needed to make it work right at all on 3.1, but which
where bugs, hole or unintended interfaces. The other half are cases
where MS changed the underlying implementations, so you just *can't* do
it any more. They are still doing that, releasing .NET, then basically
making it very very hard to code anything with MFC. Sure, it will still
*run*, usually, but its fairly clear that, if they could, they would rip
out all those old libraries and bury them, never mind what inconvenience
it might cause anyone.
> > adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right
> > because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
> > Chevy frame.
>
> I see. That's why Apache and MySql and VI don't work at all under
> Windows, yes? I was wondering why that was.
>
Sorry? Are you saying all of those just had some bits of code lopped
off, some new code tacked on, then recompiled, because... I get the
impression its a *tad* more complicated than that most of the time. lol
Besides, your talking what is basically command line systems, which just
"happen" to have GUIs built to access them. Or, to put it another way.
Mind you, you get some of the same with Linux, depending on if its X, or
some other GUI you are running, but I get the sense that the gaps you
have to leap are "slightly" less cavernous. Besides, now you are talking
about odometers, gas gages, or steering wheels, which is a bit higher
level than the "core" systems.
> And while I admire your ability to turn a phrase, the hyperbole really
> doesn't manage to communicate anything of interest other than your
> distaste for Microsoft's products. You speak as if every day there are
> thousands of people dying from Microsoft products, or that every
> business that uses Windows goes broke trying to keep it running for more
> than a few hours.
>
Which version? lol Seriously though, forgive me if I would prefer to
avoid MS in my critical life saving devices. ;)
Ok, its not that bad, "anymore". It was, not that far back. I might
argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability
for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we
can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave?
Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet
shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. Or an
admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of
security. Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot
of control I *used to have* over my system. XP, is kind of getting on my
nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed
up at this point.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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In article <47fa4acd$1@news.povray.org>,
nic### [at] gmailisthebestcom says...
> > Even with the need to make some adjustments, there is still a basic
> > standardization to internals, and commands. Windows new shell even
> > borrows the later, in a form of Bash like shell, since their own sucked
> > so badly. lol Look at cars. While there isn't much of a standard, and
> > not *every* part is interchangeable any more between makers, you can
> > still manage to weld together bits from different cars and have
> > something that still functions, and you can take parts from dozens, and
> > use them to build a car that "none" of the manufacturers would produce
> > themselves, and odds are, despite some specific differences, and a few
> > adaptions, most of its isn't going to flat out refuse to work right
> > because you plugged a Ford transmission into a Mitsubishi motor, in a
> > Chevy frame.
>
> Forget interchange of parts. With cars, if you learn to drive, you can
> drive any car of any manufacturer. Doesn't seem to be the case with
> operating systems, or with applications.
>
True too. But just ask my father about that, he might disagree. His
favorite gripe is, "Why the #@$# can't they standardize where basic
controls like windshield wipers, emergency lights, etc. are located?" I
kind of have the same gripe, due to where I work, with how they can't
seem to decide where to put fracking door handles, or how they open the
door. Interestingly, this is one common factor in Windows upgrades too.
They can't decide where to put things, so keep changing them, and every
version you have to rediscover where they put the blasted speed control
from the wipers. Trivial, until you find yourself **needing** to change
it, but trivial enough, its probably "not" going to be the first thing
you try to figure out the new location for.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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