posted
Man, what in the world are you talking about??!!
If you agree that MS never "EXERTS" the right to forbids any users from using other programs on Window, then...
WHO THE HELL ARE YOU BITCHIN' AT!
MICROSOFT NEVER STATED IN PUBLIC THAT THEY WILL MAKE WINDOW INCOMPATIBALE WITH NETSCAPE AND OTHER WEB BROWERS.
AND IN PRACTICE, THEY'VE NEVER DONE SO EITHER.
SO WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL BITCHIN' ABOUT MICROSOFT NOT ALLOWING THEM TO USE OTHER WEB BROWERS!!!!!
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
posted
I ASKED WHY MS HAS THE RIGHT TO DENY CUSTOMERS THE OPTION OF RUNNING PROGRAM X!
Well, considering no one ever said that they did, I'm forced to ask what in the name of Charles Babbage is your problem?
Under any circumstances, you don't HAVE a right to run a particular program, if running that program requires voluntary action on the part of a third party. That's like saying that because I was in an accident and can't speak without reconstructive surgery, I can force the doctor to perform that surgery because otherwise, I can't excersize my right to free speech. Totally stupid. But that's totally irrelevant, because we've established that it has nothing at all to do with the subject at hand. So... why bring it up at all?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
posted
"I ASKED WHY MS HAS THE RIGHT TO DENY CUSTOMERS THE OPTION OF RUNNING PROGRAM X!"
Now, as has been established, you don't actually own Windows, you just own a license to use it. So I suppose it would be possible for Microsoft to forbid you from running certain third-party programs if you want to.
This is irrelevent though, because they don't.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Simon: Well, yes. The original issue was whether or not Microsoft should be broken up. But since several people here have the wrong idea about WHY they were originally told to break up, Wes' is slightly relevent.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: "We've had, what, five great virus epidemics the past three years, haven't we?"
No. We've had five situations where we were told there was going to be a great big virus outbreak that would cripple the worlds computers. And nothing happened.
Well certainly the world's computers didn't come screeching to a halt as the melodramatic media had feared(hoped?), but that's not to say that nothing happened. I personally had to fix three of my friends PCs after the 'I Love You' virus came via some other friend's MS Outlook. Vulnerability. Those people lost a lot of the information on their hard disks.
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: On the other hand, if I write something in word, and want to use it on another computer, I can be almost completely sure that the other computer will be able to display the file.
Say, didn't there used to be a program called Word Perfect? I seem to remember a time when that was the standard. Then there were some compatibility problems with Windows 3.1; nasty luck, that. I guess it's good that MS Word was there to take up the slack... No, but I hear you and I do use PDFs every day. It's the same idea, and it's a good thing to be able to share documents among your peers. To their credit, Microsoft even produced a free PowerPoint Viewer app. I just wish there could be a universal format we could all share that wasn't so proprietary and wasn't so quirky (cough, cough OpenDoc cough, cough).
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Diversity is good. Standardisation is good. Do you remember the nightmare of trying to play games under DOS? Programs having to cope with a million different sound cards? Trying to get the game to accept your crap sound card?
Vividly. In fact, I would say it greatly contributed to my choice of OS. Direct X has made the gaming consumer's life much easier, but at what cost? For those of you who don't use Macs, you should know that of the very few titles released for Mac, simultaneous cross-platform release is virtually unheard of and a 6-12 month wait is generally the norm. It is the reality in the industry, and I do understand it. It isn't profitable to develop for Mac. In fact, I was a level designer at a video game company a few years back. Microsoft had us eating out of their hand to get the latest Direct X Dev kits, etc. Pretty much the idea was that if we developed using their controllers (game controllers, joysticks, etc.) and when the Virgin interactive VC people came around we used those controllers for demos we'd get the stuff we needed. It wasn't blackmail perse, but it was pathetic. We needed to make a profitable game, and that was the only way to do it. They were the only game in town. I was pretty green back then, but my co-workers made it pretty clear this was standard operating procedure. This was small time though, we were a group of maybe sixty artists, programers, producers and designers at a company of maybe a hundred people. Imagine the kind of leverage they could bring to bear on a larger company with an established product with even more at stake. I believe they wouldn't hesitate for a heartbeat to abuse that power.
For those truly interested in the commie-mac-user perspective on the Redland tyranny, please visit: http://netaction.org/msoft/world/
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42