MS drops subscription software

That's almost what the distros for Linux cost. That's awesome.
I didn't realize msft was a non-profit organization...

I've always considered 'field research' more useful than theoretical research, not necessarily more important. The majority of the sucessful hackers are still in some type of schooling (sucessful is the key word there). Linux appeals to those that 'know', and are doing field research. And the good thing is the installers are getting a little more refined with every cycle. Mandrake 8.0 install is pretty nice.

Closed source is becoming obsolete. Could you imagine having to pay a research physician for his data on cancer patients or genome mapping so you could find a cure? Science is all about 'peer-judgement' and publishing your results; Linux is a science.

It'll take some time for Linux to get to the 80+ year-old-grandmothers, but in the meantime, I'm hoping XP has all the subscription/toned down mp3/monitoring that msft wants it to have. It's like taking out all the natural predators for a population of penguins.....

There was a discussion on the radio a couple days ago in the new light of this GPL-MS war of words. Basically right now; there are 2 major fights going on that involves computers:
1. Piracy (Of all kinds)
2. Money

The only real cash cow of the internet that keeps on getting money is porn sites. Everything else has a rise and then a sudden plummit. I mean look at the .com's this year. Should the internet be free? Should you be able to search research databases for information for free? Should students be able to use the internet for free for their school work? Or should research and information sites start charging money like some are starting to do? Would you pay $1 to look up a word in the dictionary or a $1 to find a phone number in the virtual Yellow Pages?

Geeze, I think I could debate a million points brought up here for hours on end. Instead I'll just choose a select few since I don't have several eternities.

1. Closed-source code is not going away. I'm sorry, but it just isn't likely to EVER happen. It's human nature to be greedy. Sure, a select few can step above that, and then you get things like Linux. However, there will ALWAYS be companies selling closed-source products. And that's how it SHOULD be. After all, it's the competition to be better than something else that drives improvement. If everyone's code was open-source, the competition would vanish and no new major improvements would ever be made.

Plus, a lot of programmers put in some darn long hours to write their software. They deserve pay for that work. Open-source software hardly ever pays programmers for their work. If everything was open-source, then there would be very few programmers who could make a living as programmers. Soon the only 'programmers' would be hobbyists who don't write software for a living and aren't amazingly skilled. Would anyone want code written entirely by hobbyists?

As much as I personally like the concept of open-source, as a software engineer, I just can't see EVERY program going that route.

2. People like to rant and rave about how useless Microsoft is and how buggy and hackable their OSs and products are. Yet they fail to really think about what they say. I've used Linux. I'm about to set up a dual-boot at work to design software that can run in both Linux and Windows. Linux is nice, but it's no Windows.

Linux is entirely based around good solid code, and so far a minimum Graphical User Interface to support that code. As a result, the GUI in Linux is still rather pathetic. It's entire feel is that of a thin wrapper around Console applications.

Windows on the other hand has a good solid user interface to it that is just as expansive as the code base of Windows itself.

Windows is very commonly used. Linux users are still a vast minority. As such, it's no wonder that there are more bugs found in Windows than there are in Linux. Also because Window's has so much more GUI code, that gives it just that many more possible bugs.

If the code for Linux was as expansive as the code for Windows, and if Linux was used as often as Windows is, you'd be darn sure to see a LOT more Linux bugs found.

Also, since the majority of PC users use Windows, the majority of hackers are going to devote their time to hacking Windows. If Linux were used more than Windows, you would see a LOT more Linux hackers who can successfully hack Linux. From what I've seen, it's just as hackable. The only difference is that people don't put as much effort into hacking Linux as they do Windows.

3. MS Office (Word, Excel, etc.) rocks. One thing Microsoft knows is a good solid GUI, and it REALLY shows in their MS Office products. I've used Star Office. (I run it at home.) Functionally, it's almost as good as MS Office. It has pretty much the same capabilities. But the user interface for Star Office is a LOT less intuitive and can sometimes be a real pain to use. I'd prefer MS Office any day of the week simply because I can get things written faster when the GUI is that much more intuitive.

That said, I can respect most of what Microsoft does. They provide a very strong user-interface operating system and software. They obviously put a lot of effort into making their software robust and easy to use. It shows to anyone who has used other similar softwares.

Microsoft programmers DESERVE to be paid. The easiest way to do that is by keeping the software closed-source and charging to purchase the software. I have no problems with this whatsoever.

My only problems with MS are that they've too often charged people for bug fixes by calling it an 'upgrade', and that they're pushing modern software in very bad directions and just really doing some questionable/stupid things very recently.

<pre>1 <font color=blue>Print</font color=blue> "You too can be annoying, if you try."
2 <font color=blue>Goto</font color=blue> 1</pre><p>

I don't think that Windows should be open-sourced. I do however think that Microsoft should be required to write up full detailed documentation on every last API component in Windows. Because without software engineers being able to know about all of these components, they can't write software that is as powerful as Microsoft can write. So in effect, they're limiting how competetive third-party engineers are because they know secrets about Windows that we don't.

I also think that Microsoft should be forced to fix more of their bugs and provide these fixes free of charge.

Win95b was 99.9% bug fixes of Win95.

Win98SE was 99.9% bug fixes of Win98.

And WinME was just pointless. As I understand it, it was mostly just 32-bit compilings of all of the 16-bit code from Win98SE, with a few bells and whisltes added that were either free already, or things that no one wanted. And yet the original 16-bit code is still there as well for backwards compatability. It's just that WinME won't inherantly use it unless forced to. So WinME is a random mutation that in theory should be better, but in actual use is often not because if one of those old 16bit components in there for backwards compatability does get used, WinME doesn't always/often handle it well.

So Microsoft has repeatedly fixed their bugs by using the original releases as unofficial beta releases so that we can find all of the bugs, and then they can fix them and release the fixes as an entirely new product. I find much to fault with that method of treating/screwing customers. (Of course, the easy solution for a customer is just never buy the first release of any MS OS, as a B/SE version is always right around the corner.)

And I'm not making excuses for MS's buggy software. They SHOULD fix those bugs. Each release of a full version shouldn't even have those bugs to begin with.

HOWEVER, that aside, I bet if as many people used Linux as do Windows, and if Linux had as much code devoted purely to GUI as Windows does, we'd see Linux being just as buggy as Windows.

What <b>I</b> think Microsoft should do, is release a Windows Lite that's a freeware stripped-down version of Windows. It's crap for networks (as in possibly doesn't even support them), it's crap for system administration, it doesn't support anything other than single processor-single-threaded applications and it doesn't have any GUI APIs that aren't absolutely needed. But it'd be a solid OS for home PC users, and it'd be free. And it could run most applications.

Then MS could offer Windows 2k for business/professional use. It'd have all of the networking ability and other misc. features that we don't often need at home, but do in other cases.

Microsoft should drop XP and their .NET initiatives entirely. Hardly anyone wants what those have to offer. Hardly anyone wants to have their internet browser and their Word programs so thorougly meshed. And as a programmer, .NET just plain scares me. The whole document/view architecture was bad enough. I don't even want to consider how useless and wasteful .NET will be to me, or to the majority of software engineers.

MS needs to go back to their roots if they want users to continue using their products. This would mean that their OS wouldn't be updated as often. And that they'd have to shift to earning most of their revinue from things like Office.

But unless some strange miracle (for them) happens, Microsoft is driving the industry in such a bad direction, that they're going to annoy every last customer. And since Linux is finally unifying, that makes it a bad time for MS to do anything stupid.

<pre>1 <font color=blue>Print</font color=blue> "You too can be annoying, if you try."
2 <font color=blue>Goto</font color=blue> 1</pre><p>

I think we have to look towards the future a bit. If microsoft is allowed to keep doing what they do, then when their dream comes home of integrated computer systems into the house, Microsoft will be the operating system of not only your computer, but your house. I don't like the way this is going. I'm all for the capitalism, and Bill Gates can make all the money he wants, but there has to come a point when we just say enough is enough. It's bad enough that MS is basically the only PC OS, but MS also is involved in handheld pc's, gaming consols, office, server software, etc etc. When will we stop one company from dominating the markets? How do you suggest we create competition? Split them up?

<font color=red>Did you ever wonder WHY aliens only abduct idiots?</font color=red>

I'm not replying to anyone in particular, but this is what I think.

Eventually Microsoft, like all other empires throughout history, will collapse under it's own weight.

It will most likely be caused by many different forces. Many of which I think are already evident. Like the fact that their prices are so high and their quality control is suffering so badly because of their greed and the market driving them to release code before it's ready -will make people clamor for someone else to come to the rescue.

They have also taken on so many different areas, from TV to satelites, to games, to... furniture, that they have spread themselves too wide and thin. They will probably continue to make more and more unwise and disjointed business decisions, with too much monetary, and (over)management momentum to be able to stop the madness. They are an unwieldy colossus just waiting to be knocked down by someone who can do it better. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a vacuum is what we now have. Sooner or later the people will buy something else, and that is something that even the deep-pocketed Mega$$$ M$ can't deal with forever. They are dead. They just don't know it yet...

Someone will fill the void. The time is ripe.

What kind of scares me is that America kind of fits that description too in some ways... Hope that doesn't happen...


<b><font color=green> Have a day </font color=green></b>