• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

The Gates legacy

ddt said:
Microsoft has never been a technology leader. IE, Word, Excel, even MS-DOS itself were all products that had been developed at other companies and bought by Microsoft.
Click to expand...
Not true with Excel and Word. (I'm not sure about IE.)
 
Last edited:
richardm said:
You could argue that the Linux solution is superior, because if Windows didn't have a driver available for the printer I'd be screwed, ... but it's missing the point, which is that most users aren't that technical and regard it as a severe limitation because they don't want to become that technical.
Click to expand...

Speed, Security and Stability are all concerns of technical people. The ability to maniuplate drivers is, exactly as you said, something that people don't want to do. My wife, one of the smartest people I've ever met, has simply declared that she doesn't want to learn how to do certain tasks on the computer. When she means the computer should 'work,' she means she wants it to do the task she wants, correctly, right now.

For Linux to get where MS has, the user experience would have to be:

Go to a local Best Buy, Future Shop, etc. Buy a 'multimedia' PC. Get it home, and plug it in (a huge chore for many owners). Pop in favourite game and play! Pop in your internet install disk (provided by your ISP), and surf! Open up your office suite and write that novel! Not have to relearn an interface (and this isn't MS's monopoly. If there were several smaller OSs, users would scream!!)

Nobody, but nobody, would care if it were Windows, Mac or Linux if the above criteria were met universally.
 
GreyICE said:
Just an fyi, pdf is an open format.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, you're right and I'm an idiot. The last link was an XLS file though, which I believe would fit in the same category as the whole DOC thing ddt was talking about.

Still, aren't all the Office file formats open as of February of 2008?

ddt, do you still object to the government using those Office files now that they're covered under MS's irrevocable non-enforcement agreement that included the release of the format specifications? Would you still wish to "outlaw" the use of the format given that it is now, in fact, an open format?
 
ddt said:
Personally, I don't think there is much we have Bill Gates, or Microsoft in general, to be grateful for. Altair BASICWP maybe, but from there on it went downhill :).

*much deleted*
Click to expand...

Thank you, ddt, for that well-written account of how much we don't owe Mr. Gates.
 
ddt said:
Ever heard about OpenGLWP? It existed and was well-established at the time that MS designed Direct3D. Video card manufacturers supported it. Reading Comparison of Direct3D and OpenGLWP leaves one with the same conclusion as with the various web issues and with .NET: MS couldn't control the OpenGL standard so they invented their own, and by heavily promoting it, they ensured lock-in on their (already dominant) platform. A game developer who develops for OpenGL can easily port his games to Linux or MacOS or other platforms; one who develops for Direct3D is locked in to MS platforms.

Sorry, you lose.
Click to expand...

I really, really wish CCP had made EVE in OpenGL. Now they're bumping along with emulation environments to generate their Linux and Mac versions. :(
 
GreyICE said:
MS has done a lot of positive things. They created a user-accessible operating system (Unix was never user friendly. Sorry, I can use it, but it's not friendly. It's certainly not casual user-friendly in the least). They had an open platform for software and were always friendly to software developers in terms of providing tools. They largely drove the PC revolution, which is why they came out on top.

Unix never even attempted to go for the PC market, and Apple's xenophobic operating systems never had a hope.
Click to expand...

Xeroc Parc invented the user friendly OS, Apple capitalised on it, MS finally came along and realised they were about to be overrun. Fortunately for MS, Apple's insane pricing policy and policy of controlling the hardware as well killed it for them. MS just had to sit back and collect it's rent for each PC manufactured, easy money.
 
Currently using MSN search on my Zune to find out how cool Vista is. Oh it sucks, bring back ME!
 
a_unique_person said:
Xeroc Parc invented the user friendly OS, Apple capitalised on it, MS finally came along and realised they were about to be overrun. Fortunately for MS, Apple's insane pricing policy and policy of controlling the hardware as well killed it for them. MS just had to sit back and collect it's rent for each PC manufactured, easy money.
Click to expand...

Apple's control of the hardware is why I stuck with them. No driver conflict problems. A friend of mine had a three-way driver conflict between his network driver, sound driver, and motherboard driver. THAT's hard to hunt down.

A computer that just works is worth extra money to me. People who bought PCs that gave them trouble just assumed that compters were difficult machines to work with.
 
Jimbo07 said:
Speed, Security and Stability are all concerns of technical people. The ability to maniuplate drivers is, exactly as you said, something that people don't want to do. My wife, one of the smartest people I've ever met, has simply declared that she doesn't want to learn how to do certain tasks on the computer. When she means the computer should 'work,' she means she wants it to do the task she wants, correctly, right now.

For Linux to get where MS has, the user experience would have to be:

Go to a local Best Buy, Future Shop, etc. Buy a 'multimedia' PC. Get it home, and plug it in (a huge chore for many owners). Pop in favourite game and play! Pop in your internet install disk (provided by your ISP), and surf! Open up your office suite and write that novel! Not have to relearn an interface (and this isn't MS's monopoly. If there were several smaller OSs, users would scream!!)

Nobody, but nobody, would care if it were Windows, Mac or Linux if the above criteria were met universally.
Click to expand...



This is pretty much the guts of it. Computer savvy techno-junkies could lecture until the end of times about the superiority of this OS or that system or whatever, and Mr and Mrs Smith's eyes will just glaze over. They don't care.

And Mr and Mrs Smith have more free income to burn than every computer geek on the planet combined.

Heck, by the standards of most of the Smith family I'd be considered a computer geek, and even I don't care about any of that crap. Give me a system that works and does the task I want, and make it affordable. End of story.
 
varwoche said:
Not true with Excel and Word. (I'm not sure about IE.)
Click to expand...
What's now known as Word was developed at Microsoft for the Mac, while the Mac was still in development.

Word was not Bravo. You can look up screenshots of Bravo. It looked like XEmacs more than anything else.

IE was based on technology licensed from Spyglass, who bought it from UIUC, who owned it because Marc Andreesen had created it in their research labs. From IE 1 to IE 6 the Spyglass licensing was clearly stated in the "About" window. It isn't anymore because Microsoft bought full rights, but Microsoft never tried to hide it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom