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>> Err no, the intent of *any* business is to make money.
>
> Sure. But *respectable* business do this by legal means.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a large company that has not done
something illegal at some point. Sure, if a company secretly uses child
labour or uses some toxic chemical to save money then they lose my respect,
but if they decide, completely openly, that having a fine instead of sharing
code with competitors is going to be more profitable, that just seems like a
business decision to me.
>> Making a superior product is just one way to do that, there are lots of
>> opportunities to make money without having the superior product.
>
> Such as...?
Making an inferior product that you can sell for a lower price.
Building up a brand image so that you can charge more for the same quality
products.
Placing your selling points in better locations than your competitors.
Advertising more than your competitors.
Buying your competitors.
Providing better customer support than your competitors.
> No, but if you make a cheap car that's inferior to all the other cheap
> cars, you're not going to make much money I suspect...
So long as you can sell it a bit cheaper than the others you would be
surprised...
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>>> Making a superior product is just one way to do that, there are lots
>>> of opportunities to make money without having the superior product.
>>
>> Such as...?
>
> Making an inferior product that you can sell for a lower price.
> Building up a brand image so that you can charge more for the same
> quality products.
> Placing your selling points in better locations than your competitors.
> Advertising more than your competitors.
> Buying your competitors.
> Providing better customer support than your competitors.
All of those still constitute doing *something* "better". (Except buying
your competitors...) It may not be the product itself which is superior,
but there has to be something better.
Unless you illegally prevent other companies from competing, that is...
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> All of those still constitute doing *something* "better". (Except buying
> your competitors...) It may not be the product itself which is superior,
> but there has to be something better.
Sure, I was just pointing out that your *product* doesn't necessarily have
to be superior for you to appear a "better" option to your customers.
> Unless you illegally prevent other companies from competing, that is...
What exactly has MS done that is illegal? It seems to me their "crimes" (in
the eyes of the EU) are not sharing enough source code with competitors,
including their browser software with their OS, and including a media player
with their OS. If that's the worst they've done, then sorry but they don't
lose my respect for that.
I assume that also if Google (or any other company) manages to get the
majority of the desktop OS market then they will also be deemed to be acting
illegally by including a browser, media player, minesweeper or whatever?
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> Unless you illegally prevent other companies from competing, that is...
I assume that if it's on top of some form of linux that there isn't really
any lock-in, other than MS stuff not being linux friendly.
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scott wrote:
> What exactly has MS done that is illegal? It seems to me their "crimes"
> (in the eyes of the EU) are not sharing enough source code with
> competitors, including their browser software with their OS, and
> including a media player with their OS. If that's the worst they've
> done, then sorry but they don't lose my respect for that.
1. Stealing other people's code and passing it off as their own.
2. Deliberately subverting open standards to force vendor lock-in.
3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
4. Lobbying for a ban on selling PC hardware without an OS.
5. Releasing software for free just to put people out of business.
6. Announcing vapourware just to put people out of business.
7. Threatening highly dubious legal action just to put people out of
business.
I'm not sure how many of these are actually *illegal*, but they don't
command respect.
In summary, Microsoft's dominant market position exists because they
carefully and systematically prevent consumers from having any choice.
...but mostly I hate them because they charge extortionate prices for a
product which isn't actually very good. :-P
> I assume that also if Google (or any other company) manages to get the
> majority of the desktop OS market then they will also be deemed to be
> acting illegally by including a browser, media player, minesweeper or
> whatever?
No idea.
Last time I checked, Google doesn't have a desktop OS...
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> I'm not sure how many of these are actually *illegal*, but they don't
> command respect.
AFAIK only #1 is illegal in most cases. The rest are all normal business
practices, but for some reason, probably because it's in the news a lot and
MS must be evil, people think it's wrong. Do you also think Coca-Cola is
wrong for banning pubs and restaurants from selling Pepsi? Or Ford for
banning its dealers from selling other cars? Or Walls for banning other
makes of ice-cream in its freezer units?
> In summary, Microsoft's dominant market position exists because they
> carefully and systematically prevent consumers from having any choice.
That doesn't make sense at all, to get to their dominant market position it
must have been because of something they did in the past, when people were
all going out to buy DOS or Windows 3.1 or whatever. I suspect it was just
because at the time they had the "best" product, Linux was probably too
complicated and Amigas and Macs were probably too expensive and inflexible
(hardware-wise). Don't blame MS that nobody could provide any decent
competition back then.
> ...but mostly I hate them because they charge extortionate prices for a
> product which isn't actually very good. :-P
TBH, when you compare the complexity of Windows with other software, the
price seems perfectly acceptable to me, in fact it seems quite a bargain.
>> I assume that also if Google (or any other company) manages to get the
>> majority of the desktop OS market then they will also be deemed to be
>> acting illegally by including a browser, media player, minesweeper or
>> whatever?
>
> No idea.
I would hope so. And also I would hope that if the Windows market share
dropped, it would then be legal again for them to include a browser and
media player, and to cease having to share their secrets with competitors.
> Last time I checked, Google doesn't have a desktop OS...
But they seem one of the most likely candidates at the moment to have any
significant impact on Windows sales...
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Invisible wrote:
>
> 1. Stealing other people's code and passing it off as their own.
>
> 2. Deliberately subverting open standards to force vendor lock-in.
>
> 3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
>
> 4. Lobbying for a ban on selling PC hardware without an OS.
>
> 5. Releasing software for free just to put people out of business.
>
> 6. Announcing vapourware just to put people out of business.
>
> 7. Threatening highly dubious legal action just to put people out of
> business.
>
Yes, but apart from that what has M$ ever done that has caused your lack
of respect for them. :-D ;-)
John
--
"Eppur si muove" - Galileo Galilei
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
>
> The article states "Google is going for Microsoft's financial jugular
> with this move". Erm, no, not really, no. This is aimed at netbooks; why
> would M$ care about that? It's not where they make their money. Perhaps
> it's where they might *like* to make money some day, but currently every
> single netbook I've seen is running Linux anyway. (Unsurprising, given
> that the whole point of a netbook is to be as cheap and nasty as
> possible, and Linux is free...)
>
Perhaps six months ago, I stumbled across one Linux netbook in a Best Buy, and
the sales clerk was telling folks not to get it. Recently, I've scoured all
the electronics stores in two different cities. I have not even seen a single
netbook with Linux.
I think KDE4, which ruins user's experience expectations, may have been designed
for ultra-low processor power netbooks, but will probably do more to scare
people away from Linux outright.
Google to the rescue...
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gregjohn wrote:
> Perhaps six months ago, I stumbled across one Linux netbook in a Best Buy, and
> the sales clerk was telling folks not to get it. Recently, I've scoured all
> the electronics stores in two different cities. I have not even seen a single
> netbook with Linux.
Really? Interesting... I have yet to see a single netbook that doesn't
come with Linux.
> I think KDE4, which ruins user's experience expectations, may have been designed
> for ultra-low processor power netbooks, but will probably do more to scare
> people away from Linux outright.
>
> Google to the rescue...
Heh, well, we'll see... ;-)
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scott wrote:
> Do you also
> think Coca-Cola is wrong for banning pubs and restaurants from selling
> Pepsi?
Yes. (It's news to me that they can legally do this...)
> Or Ford for banning its dealers from selling other cars?
That's not quite the same thing.
Windows is slightly unusual in that it's a product that goes with
another product (but the other product is useless without it - or some
other manufacturer's equivilent). The only analogy I can come up with is
Goodyear ordering Ford not to sell cars that have tires that aren't
Goodyear, and then trying to ban the sale of cars without tires.
[Admittedly, a rather lame analogy.]
>> In summary, Microsoft's dominant market position exists because they
>> carefully and systematically prevent consumers from having any choice.
>
> That doesn't make sense at all, to get to their dominant market position
> it must have been because of something they did in the past, when people
> were all going out to buy DOS or Windows 3.1 or whatever.
According to the history books, the story goes that IBM wanted an OS,
Gate's mum knew somebody at IBM, so Gates stole an OS off one of his
mates and made it work on the IBM PC. IBM PCs became popular for some
reason, and the rest is history.
> I suspect it
> was just because at the time they had the "best" product, Linux was
> probably too complicated and Amigas and Macs were probably too expensive
> and inflexible (hardware-wise). Don't blame MS that nobody could
> provide any decent competition back then.
I doubt that was the reason.
>> ...but mostly I hate them because they charge extortionate prices for
>> a product which isn't actually very good. :-P
>
> TBH, when you compare the complexity of Windows with other software, the
> price seems perfectly acceptable to me, in fact it seems quite a bargain.
I wasn't referring only to Windows; M$ make other products as well.
(Most notably Office, but also things like VisualStudio, IIS, Exchange,
SQL Server, etc.) Other people manage to make similar products which
work significantly better, and for a fraction of the money that M$ has
available for investment. It's just that for M$, it's cheaper to cheat
the system than to design a better product.
> I would hope so. And also I would hope that if the Windows market share
> dropped, it would then be legal again for them to include a browser and
> media player, and to cease having to share their secrets with competitors.
It's news to me that Microsoft does have to share their secrets.
>> Last time I checked, Google doesn't have a desktop OS...
>
> But they seem one of the most likely candidates at the moment to have
> any significant impact on Windows sales...
Sure. The only other possibility I see is Apple, and they won't.
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On 07/09/09 07:08, Invisible wrote:
>> Do you also think Coca-Cola is wrong for banning pubs and restaurants
>> from selling Pepsi?
>
> Yes. (It's news to me that they can legally do this...)
Both Pepsi and Coca Cola do this in the US. They offer a nice rate if
the business signs an exclusive contract. It really, really sucks.
--
Hangover: The wrath of grapes.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news:
4a55db29$1@news.povray.org...
> Really? Interesting... I have yet to see a single netbook that doesn't
> come with Linux.
Look harder then...
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-308158.html
The Linux netbook for the masses seems mostly DOA. Of course MS could
completely bork the release of Windows 7 "netbook edition" but even then...
G.
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>>> Do you also think Coca-Cola is wrong for banning pubs and restaurants
>>> from selling Pepsi?
>>
>> Yes. (It's news to me that they can legally do this...)
>
> Both Pepsi and Coca Cola do this in the US. They offer a nice rate
> if the business signs an exclusive contract. It really, really sucks.
They offer a nice rate if the business signs an exclusive contract? Or
they won't sell to the business at all if they don't sign an exclusive
contract?
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>> Really? Interesting... I have yet to see a single netbook that doesn't
>> come with Linux.
>
> Look harder then...
> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-308158.html
> The Linux netbook for the masses seems mostly DOA. Of course MS could
> completely bork the release of Windows 7 "netbook edition" but even then...
Well, bareing in mind that I'm not really interested in netbooks myself,
I haven't been paying too much attention. However, every shop I go into
that actually sells them, has only Linux on offer.
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> Windows is slightly unusual in that it's a product that goes with another
> product (but the other product is useless without it - or some other
> manufacturer's equivilent). The only analogy I can come up with is
> Goodyear ordering Ford not to sell cars that have tires that aren't
> Goodyear,
No, the analogy would be that Goodyear says to Ford that it will charge
double for tyres if it sells any cars without Goodyear tyres. Yes that
already happens in other business areas (ok not usually double the price).
> According to the history books, the story goes that IBM wanted an OS,
> Gate's mum knew somebody at IBM, so Gates stole an OS off one of his mates
Hehe, I think you'll find he *bought* it, from someone who would end up
working at MS anyway (developing the OS, one would assume):
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm
> It's news to me that Microsoft does have to share their secrets.
The latest EU ruling said they had to share source code and protocol
specifications for their server networking stuff. The massive fines they
were getting on a daily basis were because they had failed to do this
(originally they just provided the source code to competitors, but
apparently this was not enough).
> Sure. The only other possibility I see is Apple, and they won't.
Of course, because if Apple sold their OS to work on generic hardware nobody
would buy Apple hardware :-)
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scott wrote:
> Can you imagine if MS said Windows 7 would only run MS software?
Can you imagine if MS said XBox would only run MS-approved software?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Insanity is a small city on the western
border of the State of Mind.
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Invisible wrote:
> Not really. Microsoft gains customers by illegally preventing choice.
You are once again being confused about who Microsoft's customers are.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Insanity is a small city on the western
border of the State of Mind.
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Invisible wrote:
> Sure. But *respectable* business do this by legal means.
If you're talking about the anti-trust things, one thing to remember is that
in the US, you can lose an anti-trust lawsuit even if you're *not* doing
anything anti-competitive. If you just happen to have such a good product
that nobody buys the competitor's, you can get sued and lose.
The rules on what you are and are not allowed to do are very vague and very
easy to get caught up in.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Insanity is a small city on the western
border of the State of Mind.
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scott wrote:
>> I'm not sure how many of these are actually *illegal*, but they don't
>> command respect.
>
> AFAIK only #1 is illegal in most cases.
It's also not what they did. They simply offered a better price on the OS if
the company included the OS with every machine they sold. If the company
didn't want to do that, they could buy the OS on a per-unit basis, which
many small companies indeed did.
It's like accusing them of illegal actions because they offer site licenses.
Obviously a little more complex, but hard to say actually immoral. It's not
like there was a lot of choice at the time, even.
> was just because at the time they had the "best" product,
Name an OS that ran on the original IBM-PC that wasn't PC-DOS. Can you name
one that wasn't just an attempted clone of PC-DOS?
Name an OS that ran on a x86 competitive with Windows 3.x? OS/2? Sure. Name
another. Was OS/2 better than Win3 in any way that a business user would care?
> Linux was probably too complicated
Windows wasn't out before MS had a monopoly on desktop OSes. The fact that
MS actually had a monopoly is what made hardware ubiquitous enough to let
Linux grow into something useful. You'd never have written a free popular OS
in the days when you had Apple ][, Atari ST, Amiga, Atari 800, TRS-80 I, II,
and III, etc etc etc out the wazoo. Only after MS already was popular enough
that people were building hardware to run Windows rather than vice versa was
there enough of a hardware base that something like Linux 0.01 could get any
traction.
>> ...but mostly I hate them because they charge extortionate prices for
>> a product which isn't actually very good. :-P
>
> TBH, when you compare the complexity of Windows with other software, the
> price seems perfectly acceptable to me, in fact it seems quite a bargain.
I think if you were to actually go head-to-head between what Linux offers
and what Windows offers, you'd find Windows offers a lot more. The
difference is, to get the system where you just put the install CD in the
administrator's drive and it goes and installs it on everyone's laptop next
time they dial in without disturbing them, you need to pay a lot of money
and learn how to use it. But the functionality is there.
>> Last time I checked, Google doesn't have a desktop OS...
>
> But they seem one of the most likely candidates at the moment to have
> any significant impact on Windows sales...
They're still not going to have a desktop OS or a netbook OS. It's Linux,
running Chrome.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Invisible wrote:
> According to the history books, the story goes that IBM wanted an OS,
> Gate's mum knew somebody at IBM, so Gates stole an OS off one of his
> mates and made it work on the IBM PC. IBM PCs became popular for some
> reason, and the rest is history.
I think you have a rather twisted telling of that story there. :-)
>> nobody could provide any decent competition back then.
>
> I doubt that was the reason.
Name two competitors. Were you even in the market at the time it was hashing
out?
> I wasn't referring only to Windows; M$ make other products as well.
> (Most notably Office, but also things like VisualStudio, IIS, Exchange,
> SQL Server, etc.) Other people manage to make similar products which
> work significantly better,
Do they? What works better than Exchange?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Invisible wrote:
> They offer a nice rate if the business signs an exclusive contract? Or
> they won't sell to the business at all if they don't sign an exclusive
> contract?
Nothing stops the business from going somewhere else, buying the stuff, and
reselling it. There are lots of small shops that would build you a computer
to spec and then buy a copy of Windows and install it for you.
MS just gave better rates to those who would do the install themselves. Part
of it was you could look at how many computers were sold and just bill for
OSes based on that. MS didn't have to take the word of the OEM about how
many machines were sold with Windows and how many machines were sold without.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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On 07/09/09 08:02, Invisible wrote:
>>>> Do you also think Coca-Cola is wrong for banning pubs and restaurants
>>>> from selling Pepsi?
>>>
>>> Yes. (It's news to me that they can legally do this...)
>>
>> Both Pepsi and Coca Cola do this in the US. They offer a nice rate if
>> the business signs an exclusive contract. It really, really sucks.
>
> They offer a nice rate if the business signs an exclusive contract? Or
> they won't sell to the business at all if they don't sign an exclusive
> contract?
Well, they can always do the latter in a roundabout way: By charging 50
times more if they don't sign an exclusive contract. I really don't know
if they do that, though.
This is common in university campuses here:
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/03/audit-questions-rod-blagojevichs-no-coke-pepsi-contract.html
http://www.vpaf.uni.edu/obo/pepsifaqs.shtml
--
Hangover: The wrath of grapes.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> But they should call it Linux if they really base it on Linux
I don't think using the linux kernel requires for the OS to have the
word "linux" in its name.
MacOS X has a BSD variant named Darwin as kernel, but the OS is still
not named "Darwin".
In the modern world it would be just plain silly to try to write a
completely new OS from scratch, at least not for desktop computers. If
you make it incompatible with all existing software, nobody would use it.
Thus you just have to make it compatible. The only software you can
rationally make a new OS compatible with is Unix software (because of
all the existing open source resources to do that, something you just
don't have for the two biggest proprietary operating systems). Thus the
only rational choice is to make the OS Unix-based. But why go through
the trouble of creating one from scratch when there are tons of existing,
open source ones, which have decades of development experience poured
into them?
There would be basically only three possible choices for the kernel:
Linux, NetBSD (or maybe one of the others) or Solaris. Since Linux is
by far the most popular one, and it has good hardware support, it seems
like the rational choice.
--
- Warp
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scott wrote:
> Hmm, so company A includes its browser in its OS and gets fined and told
> to remove it. Company B includes its browser AND actively prevents any
> other browser running - hmmm.
>
> Can you imagine if MS said Windows 7 would only run MS software?
I think Google can get away with it for two reasons:
1) Nobody is claiming that Google has a monopoly position, or that they
are abusing that position in order to stifle competition.
2) Nobody is claiming that Chrome OS will be suitable for the masses,
but instead it is targeted at a very specific market segment, viz,
netbooks. Netbooks themselves are ideal for running Web applications
and little else, so it actually makes sense there.
--
Chambers
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Invisible wrote:
> 1. Stealing other people's code and passing it off as their own.
I've only read of two instances where this was actually proven. In the
first case, it wasn't actually illegal due to poor wording in the
license that MS signed with Apple, in the second case it was open code
to begin with (the network stack from FreeBSD, I believe).
> 2. Deliberately subverting open standards to force vendor lock-in.
That's not illegal, and the vendors were never forced to use the MS
extensions.
> 3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
They didn't force anybody. They signed agreements with manufacturers,
and the manufacturers agreed to those contracts.
> 4. Lobbying for a ban on selling PC hardware without an OS.
Name me a big business that doesn't lobby the Government for stuff that
will benefit them. Not only is lobbying legal, but even encouraged by
our system.
> 5. Releasing software for free just to put people out of business.
Wait, do you criticize Linus Torvalds for trying to put MS out of
business by giving Linux away for free? And what's the difference
between MS selling a better product (and so putting other companies out
of business) and MS selling a product for less (or even free) (and so
putting other companies out of business)?
> 6. Announcing vapourware just to put people out of business.
Sure, they announced it, but you can be assured that if they thought
they could make money by selling a particular piece of software they
would have made it. The fact that it ended up being cancelled means
they didn't think it would be profitable.
Or would you rather force business to stick with out-of-date plans that
they know will lose them money, just so they can claim "We stuck with a
losing plan for 10 years straight?"
> 7. Threatening highly dubious legal action just to put people out of
> business.
Again, MS is far from alone in doing this.
It sounds like your problem isn't with MS in particular, but with big
business in general.
> ...but mostly I hate them because they charge extortionate prices for a
> product which isn't actually very good. :-P
Nobody's forcing you to use it. Why don't you use Linux instead?
--
Chambers
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Invisible wrote:
>> It's actually even more limited than their Android OS
>
> ...which I also haven't heard of...
It an OS for cell-phones (and also Linux based). Currently, it's only
used on the G1, though another one is supposed to come out soon.
Some companies have discussed using it on Netbooks.
As I understand it, however, Chrome OS will not support Java (only JS),
while Android does support Java.
--
Chambers
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Chambers wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> 1. Stealing other people's code and passing it off as their own.
>
> I've only read of two instances where this was actually proven. In the
> first case, it wasn't actually illegal due to poor wording in the
> license that MS signed with Apple, in the second case it was open code
> to begin with (the network stack from FreeBSD, I believe).
That second one wouldn't be illegal anyway. So it isn't stealing, any more
than installing Linux is stealing.
They did violate a patent or two, and got appropriately slapped, but that
happens all the time in business.
>> 2. Deliberately subverting open standards to force vendor lock-in.
>
> That's not illegal, and the vendors were never forced to use the MS
> extensions.
The only one of these I heard of ever being a problem was the Kerberos
and/or DHCP standards (I forget which), wherein MS put some important stuff
into the area reserved for vendor extensions, which is kind of hard to argue
against unless you're fanatical to begin with. What other standards have
they done this with.
>> 3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
>
> They didn't force anybody. They signed agreements with manufacturers,
> and the manufacturers agreed to those contracts.
They gave a price break if the vendor would do the duplication and install
themselves, basically.
>> 5. Releasing software for free just to put people out of business.
>
> Wait, do you criticize Linus Torvalds for trying to put MS out of
> business by giving Linux away for free? And what's the difference
> between MS selling a better product (and so putting other companies out
> of business) and MS selling a product for less (or even free) (and so
> putting other companies out of business)?
What I haven't figured out is the huge number of people screaming at
Microsoft for bundling programs with Windows that competes with programs
they give away for free. Say what?
>> 6. Announcing vapourware just to put people out of business.
>
> Sure, they announced it, but you can be assured that if they thought
> they could make money by selling a particular piece of software they
> would have made it. The fact that it ended up being cancelled means
> they didn't think it would be profitable.
Or that they thought it would, but then found out they were wrong.
> Or would you rather force business to stick with out-of-date plans that
> they know will lose them money, just so they can claim "We stuck with a
> losing plan for 10 years straight?"
Duke Nukem Forever!
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/748-Duke-Nukem-Forever
>> ...but mostly I hate them because they charge extortionate prices for
>> a product which isn't actually very good. :-P
>
> Nobody's forcing you to use it. Why don't you use Linux instead?
Oh, please tell me a computer product that *doesn't* suck moose? I could
really use hearing of something that's actually good. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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On 07/09/09 20:41, Chambers wrote:
> I think Google can get away with it for two reasons:
> 1) Nobody is claiming that Google has a monopoly position, or that they
> are abusing that position in order to stifle competition.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUS422108559020090706
http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS104837430520090624
A number of groups have raised a fuss about their book deal. Not sure
if they explicitly used the word "monopoly", but it's fairly questionable.
--
Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you
wish you weren't.
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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On 07/09/09 21:19, Darren New wrote:
> Oh, please tell me a computer product that *doesn't* suck moose? I could
> really use hearing of something that's actually good. :-)
Fractint on DOS. Can't think of a single criticism. Awesome program.
Midnight Commander on Linux. I _can_ complain about a few things it
does poorly compared to Norton Commander, but on the whole, it's still
good enough to be Awesome.
People keep going on and on about grep. Should learn it properly one day...
But I'm sure that's not what you really wanted when you asked.<G>
--
Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you
wish you weren't.
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>> According to the history books, the story goes that IBM wanted an OS,
>> Gate's mum knew somebody at IBM, so Gates stole an OS off one of his
>> mates and made it work on the IBM PC. IBM PCs became popular for some
>> reason, and the rest is history.
>
> I think you have a rather twisted telling of that story there. :-)
Microsoft's entire history seems to revolve around stealing other
people's stuff and watching them go bankrupt faster than they can sue.
>>> nobody could provide any decent competition back then.
>>
>> I doubt that was the reason.
>
> Name two competitors. Were you even in the market at the time it was
> hashing out?
When the hell was the IBM PC invented anyway?
>> I wasn't referring only to Windows; M$ make other products as well.
>> (Most notably Office, but also things like VisualStudio, IIS,
>> Exchange, SQL Server, etc.) Other people manage to make similar
>> products which work significantly better,
>
> Do they? What works better than Exchange?
Actually... I'm not aware of anything else that does what Exchange does.
Which is a little bit odd, really.
I know of a few office suites that manage to not constantly crash like
MS Office does. Apache is notable for doing the same thing as IIS while
being actually secure and less of a resource hog. (I will admit it's a
PITA to configure though...) There are lots of database engines out
there; I doubt many of them are worse than SQL Server.
I've yet to see an IDE that isn't horribly slow, bloated and inflexible.
I guess in that respect VS is no worse than any other IDE.
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Warp wrote:
> Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
>> But they should call it Linux if they really base it on Linux
>
> I don't think using the linux kernel requires for the OS to have the
> word "linux" in its name.
As far as I can tell, if you want to be technical about it, "Linux" is
the tiny bit of code that runs tasks, handles interrupts, manages memory
and has a few device drivers. When you install "Linux", 90% of the stuff
you're installing isn't actually "Linux" at all; it's mostly the GNU
toolchain, GNOME or KDE, Firefox and half a million other 3rd party items.
Apparently some people insist on calling it "GNU/Linux". Like *that's*
going to happen...
Whatever happened to HURD?
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> I've yet to see an IDE that isn't horribly slow, bloated and inflexible. I
> guess in that respect VS is no worse than any other IDE.
Maybe it's your computer then? :-)
VS works perfectly fast enough here thank you... exactly how can an IDE be
horribly slow? You mean when compiling or starting up or what?
I have Visual C++ 2008 Express here and a moderately complex program (about
1MB of code in 50 source files using lots of DirectX headers and libraries
and the Newton Game Dynamics physics library).
Time to open VC++: ~1s
Time to open project: ~1.5s
Time to compile from scratch: ~10s
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>> I've yet to see an IDE that isn't horribly slow, bloated and
>> inflexible. I guess in that respect VS is no worse than any other IDE.
>
> Maybe it's your computer then? :-)
>
> VS works perfectly fast enough here thank you... exactly how can an IDE
> be horribly slow? You mean when compiling or starting up or what?
At uni, we used both Borland JBuilder and VisualStudio J++. Both of them
were ludicrously slow. Stuff like
- Start the program: 45 seconds.
- Wait for autocomplete to appear: 20 seconds.
- Compile something: 30 seconds.
Both also had a nasty habit of the metadata not matching the source
code. Like, open a file, add a new method, and VS seems not to "know
about it" until you close and reopen VS. (You'd hope that just saving
the file would be enough. No. Maybe just compiling it then? No.)
If you decide you want to rename a class... forget it. This confuses VS
beyond belief. Trying to add source files that weren't created using VS
is near impossible. Then VS insists on trying to incorrectly format your
code (e.g., put the open bracket on the same line as the method
declaration, rather than the line below it).
Trying to tell it which file is the runnable program is unecessarily
difficult. You had to jump through hoops to make it create an empty
project rather than a project already stuffed with boilerplate code you
don't need or want.
Basically, every single aspect of it was annoying, inflexible and
overcomplicated.
I will say one thing though: It did manage to compile recursive classes,
which Sun's JDK could only do with special trickery.
I imagine on today's computers it's probably not quite so slow, but I
doubt it's become any less inflexible.
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>>> 2. Deliberately subverting open standards to force vendor lock-in.
>>
>> That's not illegal, and the vendors were never forced to use the MS
>> extensions.
>
> The only one of these I heard of ever being a problem was the Kerberos
> and/or DHCP standards (I forget which), wherein MS put some important
> stuff into the area reserved for vendor extensions, which is kind of
> hard to argue against unless you're fanatical to begin with.
I'm pretty sure that one was Kerberos. And the point was they made it so
their Kerberos implementation wouldn't work with anybody else's. The
idea is "if this doesn't work with other compliant Kerberos
implementations, you can't really call it Kerberos". A bit like if you
made an SMTP server and an SMTP client that work with each other but not
any other product on the market; can you really call that SMTP?
If they'd put extra information in but their implementation had still
worked with other people's, it wouldn't be such a big deal. (It still
leaves the issue of these fields being reversed for future use, and when
the next standard decides to use them, it'll break the M$ implementation...)
> What other standards have they done this with.
*cough* The web?
> What I haven't figured out is the huge number of people screaming at
> Microsoft for bundling programs with Windows that competes with programs
> they give away for free. Say what?
Before Internet Explorer, web browsers used to cost money. After IE, it
was basically impossible to sell them for money. Why would anyone pay
money for something that they can get for free anyway?
So yeah, the products they give away for free compete with other
products which are free *now*... because you can't sell them for money
any more.
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>> 1. Stealing other people's code and passing it off as their own.
>
> I've only read of two instances where this was actually proven. In the
> first case, it wasn't actually illegal due to poor wording in the
> license that MS signed with Apple, in the second case it was open code
> to begin with (the network stack from FreeBSD, I believe).
From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called
Spyglass.
Spyglass were selling a web browser, M$ licenced the code from them,
developed IE, and then gave it away for free (in violation of the terms
of the licence with Spyglass). Spyglass promptly went bankrupt before
they could sue M$.
A similar story happened at the beginning of the Microsoft story, but
since I don't recall the precise facts right now I'll leave that one.
>> 2. Deliberately subverting open standards to force vendor lock-in.
>
> That's not illegal, and the vendors were never forced to use the MS
> extensions.
Sure, nobody forces web developers to use IE-specific extensions. Yet
90% of all websites work properly only if you use IE. (And the others
only work properly in other browsers because the makers have spent years
reverse-engineering IE's incorrect behaviour rather than implementing
the approved standards.)
>> 3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
>
> They didn't force anybody. They signed agreements with manufacturers,
> and the manufacturers agreed to those contracts.
The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or
you can't have our product".
>> 4. Lobbying for a ban on selling PC hardware without an OS.
>
> Name me a big business that doesn't lobby the Government for stuff that
> will benefit them. Not only is lobbying legal, but even encouraged by
> our system.
Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people
aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get
government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no". When Microsoft
lobbies for something, people seem to think they have a point.
>> 5. Releasing software for free just to put people out of business.
>
> Wait, do you criticize Linus Torvalds for trying to put MS out of
> business by giving Linux away for free? And what's the difference
> between MS selling a better product (and so putting other companies out
> of business) and MS selling a product for less (or even free) (and so
> putting other companies out of business)?
Microsoft made their money from Windows. They can afford to give
products away with it for free. People who's entire business is selling
those other products can't do this. It's using sales from one product to
pay for another product; last time I checked, that's not legal.
Like, if Tesco decided to start giving away a free bestselling book with
every purchase, they'd have a problem because they'd be using grocery
sales to put book sellers out of business.
>> 6. Announcing vapourware just to put people out of business.
>
> Sure, they announced it, but you can be assured that if they thought
> they could make money by selling a particular piece of software they
> would have made it. The fact that it ended up being cancelled means
> they didn't think it would be profitable.
Well, that's fair enough. But when a business announces something they
have no intention of making just for the financial effect it will have
on a potential competetor... that's not really fair.
> It sounds like your problem isn't with MS in particular, but with big
> business in general.
I just dislike the way M$ wins by cheating all the time.
Oracle is a big corporation too, but I have nothing against them. Their
product is extremely expensive, but it's also high-quality and resonably
well documented. Oracle didn't get to be where they are now by stealing
other people's stuff, lying to the government or trying to trick their
users. They did it by producing a good product.
> Nobody's forcing you to use it.
I'm sure this one has been argued to death. While *technically* this is
true, the reality is that M$ has carefully engineered a situation where
little viable alternative actually exists. (Let's face it, if somebody
else was producing decent software, M$ would go under fairly quickly.)
> Why don't you use Linux instead?
Sure. Except that the vast majority of the software I want to use won't
work with Linux.
Besides, much as I'd *like* Linux to be the answer... it isn't. It's
still too old and crufty and messy for my liking. But hey, who's going
to produce anything better?
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> At uni, we used both Borland JBuilder and VisualStudio J++. Both of them
> were ludicrously slow. Stuff like
>
> - Start the program: 45 seconds.
> - Wait for autocomplete to appear: 20 seconds.
So the computer was to blame then? I used Borland C++ Builder (I got it free
on a magazine cover disk) extensively at colleg and Uni on my moderate home
PC and it ran fine, nothing like you mention above.
> If you decide you want to rename a class... forget it. This confuses VS
> beyond belief.
Did you try to do it manually, or use the Rename command? If you tried to
do it manually then I can understand things going wrong.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6kxxabwd.aspx
> Trying to add source files that weren't created using VS is near
> impossible.
Ermm, Project -> Add Existing Item works perfectly every time for me. What
went wrong?
> Then VS insists on trying to incorrectly format your code (e.g., put the
> open bracket on the same line as the method declaration, rather than the
> line below it).
You can do either, and you can choose whether it will indent the brackets or
not if you put them on their own line.
> Trying to tell it which file is the runnable program is unecessarily
> difficult.
I've never made any multi-file projects, but I would be very surprised if
you couldn't set what is run. And even if you couldn't you just add a
post-build event to run the executable you want.
> You had to jump through hoops to make it create an empty project rather
> than a project already stuffed with boilerplate code you don't need or
> want.
Sounds to me like someone just didn't know how to do it the correct way.
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>> At uni, we used both Borland JBuilder and VisualStudio J++. Both of
>> them were ludicrously slow. Stuff like
>>
>> - Start the program: 45 seconds.
>> - Wait for autocomplete to appear: 20 seconds.
>
> So the computer was to blame then? I used Borland C++ Builder (I got it
> free on a magazine cover disk) extensively at colleg and Uni on my
> moderate home PC and it ran fine, nothing like you mention above.
Well, all the other programs seemed to run just fine. (E.g., starting up
Word didn't take very long.) I will admit Netscape Navigator always
seemed to take a long time to start - but it would *run* just fine, it
just took a while to start.
>> If you decide you want to rename a class... forget it. This confuses
>> VS beyond belief.
>
> Did you try to do it manually, or use the Rename command? If you tried
> to do it manually then I can understand things going wrong.
IIRC, I used the rename option in VS.
>> Trying to add source files that weren't created using VS is near
>> impossible.
>
> Ermm, Project -> Add Existing Item works perfectly every time for me.
> What went wrong?
Well, first of all, you have to find the project folder on the harddrive
and dig twenty-five million subfolders down into it to find where the
actual source code is stored. Then you copy the files there. Then you
spend half an hour trying to figure out how to make VS realise the files
exist. And, if you're lucky, it works.
(Recall that Java isn't like C; the source files have to have particular
names, and have to be located in particular folders, and so on.)
>> Then VS insists on trying to incorrectly format your code (e.g., put
>> the open bracket on the same line as the method declaration, rather
>> than the line below it).
>
> You can do either, and you can choose whether it will indent the
> brackets or not if you put them on their own line.
I seem to recall spending a long time tweaking the "style" settings of
the code editor, and I never did get it to work correctly. In the end I
had to spend lots of time undoing all the autoformatting the editor put
in just because I couldn't figure out which exact combination of
settings makes it lay out the code correctly to start with.
>> Trying to tell it which file is the runnable program is unecessarily
>> difficult.
>
> I've never made any multi-file projects, but I would be very surprised
> if you couldn't set what is run. And even if you couldn't you just add
> a post-build event to run the executable you want.
Oh, you could set it, it was just unecessarily difficult to do.
(As I stated above, Java *requires* all nontrivial programs to be in
multiple source files.)
>> You had to jump through hoops to make it create an empty project
>> rather than a project already stuffed with boilerplate code you don't
>> need or want.
>
> Sounds to me like someone just didn't know how to do it the correct way.
Well, it's not like anybody showed us how to use the software...
As far as I could tell, the only thing that VS gives you that Notepad
doesn't have is the ability to press a button and have it compile
everything. Sure, it also had that autocomplete thing, but honestly, it
seemed to get in the way more than actually help. (Aside from being very
slow and constantly out of date anyway.) You either had to take your
hand off the keyboard to use the mouse to click the item you wanted, or
you could select the item with the keyboard and hit return - but then it
inserted a return into the source. >_<
It did also have a little tree view showing you what files are in your
project, and one below it showing you the properties of the current
class - methods, fields, etc. But that seemed to be permanently out of
date. A nice little feature, but not especially useful.
In summary, I did most of my work with Notepad. It's so much easier to
get the job done.
Who knows? Perhaps in the 7 years since then, VS has become actually
useful in some way. But I doubt it...
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> Before Internet Explorer, web browsers used to cost money. After IE, it
> was basically impossible to sell them for money. Why would anyone pay
> money for something that they can get for free anyway?
>
> So yeah, the products they give away for free compete with other products
> which are free *now*... because you can't sell them for money any more.
Of course you can if your product is more attractive for customers to want
to pay for it. Linux is free, people still buy Windows. OpenOffice is
free, people still buy MS Office. Blender and Wings are free, people still
buy 3D Studio. The GIMP is free, people still buy Paintshop. I'm sure you
can think of many more examples.
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scott wrote:
> Of course you can if your product is more attractive for customers to
> want to pay for it.
It's difficult to see how you could make a web browser more attractive
to the casual user than IE already is - at least, enough to make them
reach into their pockets anyway...
> Linux is free, people still buy Windows.
Some people even buy Linux, oddly enough...
> OpenOffice is free, people still buy MS Office.
A better comparison might be "people still be StarOffice". Except that
I've never heard of anybody doing that.
> Blender and Wings are
> free, people still buy 3D Studio. The GIMP is free, people still buy
> Paintshop. I'm sure you can think of many more examples.
If I wanted to be cynical, I could point out that I've never met anybody
who owns a copy of 3D Studio or Paintshop *legally*. ;-)
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> From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called
> Spyglass.
>
> Spyglass were selling a web browser, M$ licenced the code from them,
> developed IE, and then gave it away for free (in violation of the terms of
> the licence with Spyglass). Spyglass promptly went bankrupt before they
> could sue M$.
Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
> A similar story happened at the beginning of the Microsoft story, but
> since I don't recall the precise facts right now I'll leave that one.
Yeh, if you are even admitting to not recalling the precise facts this time
then perhaps best not to :-)
> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or you
> can't have our product".
That's impossible, because as pointed out you can just go to a normal shop
and buy it if you can't get it directly from MS. The worst MS could do was
"you will agree to these terms or you will have to buy it at the normal
price the public pays for it".
> Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people
> aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get
> government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no".
Or offer 2000 GBP for your old cars if you buy a new one :-)
> Like, if Tesco decided to start giving away a free bestselling book with
> every purchase, they'd have a problem because they'd be using grocery
> sales to put book sellers out of business.
That's not illegal. In fact it's common practise for supermarkets to use
"loss leaders" like petrol and milk/sugar that actually lose them money, to
encourage people to come in and spend on the more profitable items. What
*is* illegal is if the manufacturer tries to tell Tesco what price they
should sell at.
> Well, that's fair enough. But when a business announces something they
> have no intention of making just for the financial effect it will have on
> a potential competetor... that's not really fair.
Charities are for being fair, businesses are for making money and crushing
the competition.
> Oracle is a big corporation too, but I have nothing against them. Their
> product is extremely expensive, but it's also high-quality and resonably
> well documented. Oracle didn't get to be where they are now by stealing
> other people's stuff,
Oh really:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle
and you should read this:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39048963,00.htm
As I said, pretty much any large company is going to have done some "unfair"
things, otherwise they wouldn't have grown to be a large company.
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> (Recall that Java isn't like C; the source files have to have particular
> names, and have to be located in particular folders, and so on.)
As so the IDE is not really to blame then if you haven't followed the Java
rules exactly.
> Well, it's not like anybody showed us how to use the software...
LOL. Reminds me of when you said that 3D Studio was rubbish, but it turns
out you were just guessing how to use it and got stuck (surprise surprise!).
> Who knows? Perhaps in the 7 years since then, VS has become actually
> useful in some way. But I doubt it...
Yeh I doubt it too, I guess all those companies than spend tens of thousands
of dollars on VS licenses are just doing it for fun. I guess all their
employees are secretly using notepad...
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> It's difficult to see how you could make a web browser more attractive
> to the casual user than IE already is
BINGO!
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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >>> Do you also think Coca-Cola is wrong for banning pubs and restaurants
> >>> from selling Pepsi?
> >>
> >> Yes. (It's news to me that they can legally do this...)
> >
> > Both Pepsi and Coca Cola do this in the US. They offer a nice rate
> > if the business signs an exclusive contract. It really, really sucks.
>
> They offer a nice rate if the business signs an exclusive contract? Or
> they won't sell to the business at all if they don't sign an exclusive
> contract?
I can answer that question about Coca-Cola in Europe as I’m working for
Coca-Cola Enterprises ATM. If a customer wants a Coca-Cola cooler (fridge) for
Coca-Cola products then they get it free of charge. If they want it for other
products they get charged a rental fee. If they want a vendor (can/bottle
dispensing machine), either it belongs to CCE and it is stocked by CCE then the
customer gets a percentage of the profit or they can rent it from CCE and stock
it themselves. The fountains (those terrible machines that you see in pubs and
MacDoughnuts etc.) are owned by CCE and rented to the customers, they buy the
syrup themselves.
Stephen
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>> (Recall that Java isn't like C; the source files have to have
>> particular names, and have to be located in particular folders, and so
>> on.)
>
> As so the IDE is not really to blame then if you haven't followed the
> Java rules exactly.
I did follow Java's rules. Apparently not VS's rules though...
>> Well, it's not like anybody showed us how to use the software...
>
> LOL. Reminds me of when you said that 3D Studio was rubbish, but it
> turns out you were just guessing how to use it and got stuck (surprise
> surprise!).
It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?
>> Who knows? Perhaps in the 7 years since then, VS has become actually
>> useful in some way. But I doubt it...
>
> Yeh I doubt it too, I guess all those companies than spend tens of
> thousands of dollars on VS licenses are just doing it for fun. I guess
> all their employees are secretly using notepad...
Well, I'm sure if they've spent money on licences for something, people
are going to use it, no matter how lame it is. (Where I work, people use
Word...)
I'm just saying. Word hasn't changed noticably since 1995 or so. I see
no particular reason to except VS to have changed drastically. (It
probably supports quite a few languages that it didn't back then, mind
you...)
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scott wrote:
>> From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called
>> Spyglass.
>>
>> Spyglass were selling a web browser, M$ licenced the code from them,
>> developed IE, and then gave it away for free (in violation of the
>> terms of the licence with Spyglass). Spyglass promptly went bankrupt
>> before they could sue M$.
>
> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
...this page does not exist?
>> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or
>> you can't have our product".
>
> That's impossible, because as pointed out you can just go to a normal
> shop and buy it if you can't get it directly from MS. The worst MS
> could do was "you will agree to these terms or you will have to buy it
> at the normal price the public pays for it".
I was under the impression that they could put terms into their licence
to prevent companies doing this. But IANAL...
>> Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people
>> aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get
>> government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no".
>
> Or offer 2000 GBP for your old cars if you buy a new one :-)
I have no idea who came up with that one, but it seems like a pretty
dumb idea to me...
>> Like, if Tesco decided to start giving away a free bestselling book
>> with every purchase, they'd have a problem because they'd be using
>> grocery sales to put book sellers out of business.
>
> That's not illegal. In fact it's common practise for supermarkets to
> use "loss leaders" like petrol and milk/sugar that actually lose them
> money, to encourage people to come in and spend on the more profitable
> items. What *is* illegal is if the manufacturer tries to tell Tesco
> what price they should sell at.
Tesco might sell petrol at a loss, but they don't give it away *for
free* to get you through the door, do they?
> Charities are for being fair, businesses are for making money and
> crushing the competition.
Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody would
bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find ways to
screw customers out of their money without providing anything in return.
>> Oracle didn't get to be where they are now
>> by stealing other people's stuff,
>
> Oh really:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle
Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.
> As I said, pretty much any large company is going to have done some
> "unfair" things, otherwise they wouldn't have grown to be a large company.
So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in business
is to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with cheap
defective goods at extortionate prices?
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> It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?
LOL. Editing the text files is a fairly minor part of an IDE, and as you
say shouldn't be that hard. The complicated parts come when you start
configuring the build tools, using the debugger, and of course the form
designer. If you don't know how to use them properly it's going to be hard
work and very frustrating.
By the way, I don't know how you could ever write a program without using
the debugger, but hey maybe I just make lots of mistakes...
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scott wrote:
>> It's an IDE. It edits text files. How hard should that be?
>
> LOL. Editing the text files is a fairly minor part of an IDE, and as
> you say shouldn't be that hard. The complicated parts come when you
> start configuring the build tools, using the debugger, and of course the
> form designer. If you don't know how to use them properly it's going to
> be hard work and very frustrating.
Mercifully, VS seemed to already know how to compile stuff, so that
wasn't too hard. (Persuading it to build a JAR file was another matter...)
> By the way, I don't know how you could ever write a program without
> using the debugger, but hey maybe I just make lots of mistakes...
The debugger, at least, was relatively intuivite to use. IIRC, the only
tricky thing was figuring out how the hell to invoke it in the first
place. (Oh, and the fact that the bug is almost never where you think it
was, so you invariably put the breakpoints in the wrong place...)
Can you see why I like statically-typed programming languages? ;-)
On an unrelated note, the debugger that comes with GHC is... unhelpful,
to put it generously.
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>> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
>
> ...this page does not exist?
Make sure you include the final full stop.
> Tesco might sell petrol at a loss, but they don't give it away *for free*
> to get you through the door, do they?
No, but there's no law stopping them if they wanted to. Like when petrol
stations give away glasses or model cars or oil for free when you buy
petrol. WHSmith gave me a free newspaper last time I went to get some food
in there, I guess if there was a newspaper shop next door they might be out
of business by now?
> Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody would
> bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find ways to
> screw customers out of their money without providing anything in return.
Generally you go bankrupt pretty quickly if you try to do that.
> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.
Oh I see, so when you're talking about MS, "stole" means "bought", but when
you're talking about Oracle "stole" really does mean "stole" as in acquired
illegally without paying for it. Hmmm ok whatever.
> So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in business is
> to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with cheap defective
> goods at extortionate prices?
You can't be general like that, most of those things generally lose you
customers and profit, but you can use your judgment in certain situations.
(eg if MS had told the people they were buying DOS from that they were
planning to license it to IBM, they likely wouldn't have been able to buy it
or been charged 100x more, and then MS probably wouldn't have existed
today).
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> Mercifully, VS seemed to already know how to compile stuff, so that wasn't
> too hard. (Persuading it to build a JAR file was another matter...)
Yes it has pretty good defaults that work straight out of the box (debug and
release). But there is a huge amount you can configure, especially if you
start adding custom build events and more complicated projects with
installers, dlls, database servers etc.
> The debugger, at least, was relatively intuivite to use. IIRC, the only
> tricky thing was figuring out how the hell to invoke it in the first
> place. (Oh, and the fact that the bug is almost never where you think it
> was, so you invariably put the breakpoints in the wrong place...)
The DirectX debugger is pretty cool too, it can actually record every single
call to the GPU each frame and store it in a file while your program is
running. Then you can go back into the debugger and step through each frame
or call and see what is rendered on each call, check the textures and vertex
buffers etc. I found out I was drawing the terrain in my game 4 times each
frame this way :-)
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>>> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
OK, well here we have a question of facts. One Internet source asserts
that Microsoft licenced a browser from Spyglass and then released it for
free in violation of the licence terms, and it put Spyglass out of
business before they could sue. Another Internet source asserts that
this was not in fact a violation of the licence terms, and that it
didn't kill Spyglass. At this point, I'm not sure who to believe.
>> Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody
>> would bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find
>> ways to screw customers out of their money without providing anything
>> in return.
>
> Generally you go bankrupt pretty quickly if you try to do that.
Unless you're Microsoft, at least...
>> Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.
>
> Oh I see, so when you're talking about MS, "stole" means "bought", but
> when you're talking about Oracle "stole" really does mean "stole" as in
> acquired illegally without paying for it. Hmmm ok whatever.
If you pay to use some code in a certain way, and you use it in that
way, that would be "buying" it. If you pay to use some code in a very
limited way, and then go on to use it in a completely different way
while denying that you're doing so, that would be "stealing". Much like
all those DVD players which secretly use GPL code for their video
decoding in violation of the licence terms...
>> So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in
>> business is to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with
>> cheap defective goods at extortionate prices?
>
> You can't be general like that, most of those things generally lose you
> customers and profit, but you can use your judgment in certain
> situations. (eg if MS had told the people they were buying DOS from that
> they were planning to license it to IBM, they likely wouldn't have been
> able to buy it or been charged 100x more, and then MS probably wouldn't
> have existed today).
Well, all I'm saying is that lots of other large companies seem to get
by without having to resort to cheating to stay in business...
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