Microsoft is running scared

Just look at the first screen shots TR had of Vista.

Can anyone say...KDE look-alike?

I noticed too that MS modified their "X" button to look different. Wonder why?

Gotta love intellectual theft.

They stole Novell's network directory and management system too, well they tried to come close anyway.

This isn't running scared though, if someone has something that gains market share and then you have it too, that's not running scared that's outdoing your competition, now teh competition has ot come up with somethign better again, which MS will again take.

The whole basis of Windows from day one was to steak good code and brand it as your own.

However they have succeeded very well at doing so. With the hysteria and excitement over Win7, I think it will be back to the drawing board for potential competitors.

Until I see a copy of Linux any version sitting on the shelves at Best Buy, I won't be worrying much. Linux is great but as soon as you attach a price tag to it and offer 24/7 support the community bashes it. And what would that price be???

I?m a guy who spends tons of time trying to save money for companies and I would never recommend a Linux box even know it can be Free. The software is free but the time spend on it over the years cost far too much money than a HQL MS server or PC.

I think Linux people put themselves in a position of power because there the only one who understands what they have built even another Linux guys would take a long time trying to figure out what the hell that last guy did. Why a company/Business would put themselves in that position is beyond me everyone is expendable. Everyone will quit sooner than later and at the point if you don?t have good Documents your business is at jeopardy. Everyone laughs at MS because it?s all the same and any old IT guy could work on it. I love that fact that there is a website called TechNet.com and Event codes that are very easy to look up. I have always said between TechRepublic and TechNet are all any MS IT guys ever need to solve any MS problems.

I have base my entire career on MS I will never say they are perfect by any means and they have pissed me off with Licensing fees over the years but they have a good standard that meets everyone needs today, and as Linux grows MS grows twice as much.

I would never say I wish Linux would just disappear, I believe that fact that MS has progressed is because of Linux and other competition. Competition is healthy but I really don?t believe Linux will be Mainstream any time soon. And if they become mainstream server and Desktops it would be a sell out because I guarantee you there will large fees just for the support alone! I base most of my decisions on Support, if a problem rises I don?t want to re-invite the solution, it should already be on TECHNET.

Nothing like being proudly 10 years behind.

in one way that open source has no defacto standard, it is in many ways a blessing.

All that feuding brings more points to the table, which means things get hashed over more and what not.

At MS, the business decision is a consideration in deployment decision making and an end toward driving corporate financial goals as well as meeting technological goals.

I don't know if I could fault the open source community for feuding. It drives innovation.

Besides, who should be setting standards?

Microsoft?

or

W3C,IEEE, IETF, etc?

I don't know about you, but I'd be more comfortable with the latter.

Pamletto,

I challenge your claim that it runs on less than 5% of the world's desktops. Every machine I've tried to run Linux on has been faultless - heck, it will even happily run on an Apple - and it did long before Boot Camp came along - and that says a lot for a proprietary system.

In regards to Linux having no overall leadership, I think you miss the point. Linux itself is not an operating system - it is a collaboration of operating systems, each with the same core, but each with its own goals in mind: RHEL and SUSE aim for the enterprise market, Debian wants to run on as many things as possible, Ubuntu brings Linux to ordinary computer users, CentOS brings enterprise stability to the lower-end market and Gentoo puts the power of what you get in your system in your hands. BSD is exactly the same - each strand comes from the same history, though admittedly the core of each has evolved separately depending on their goals - OpenBSD to out-of-the-box security, FreeBSD for power with ease of use, NetBSD for running on everything from your desktop to the kitchen sink and DragonflyBSD for bringing BSD to the desktop.

Yes, they still have a long way to go, but it can't be denied that Microsoft's game has picked up dramatically. Every good businessman knows that it doesn't matter how streamlined your processes are, nor does it matter how much money you make, if you're churning out crap and there's something better out there, people will use that instead of your products. Even an involute knows that.

Is 2012 when I can go all postal?

Yippie!!! ]:)

I would actually speak on this comment but as we can all see from a MS user who can not get the spelled right through this doc and also running? Wow thank you for showing the idiots that make up Microsoft as a whole. Of course all you can talk about is shares that does not say much about the streangth of them but how about a company that has released 2 very unstable OS's to the world and had to go back to fix it. Oh wait and on top of it all people would go and purchase another version that was supposed to be stable. You must drive a ford to because of the stability of the Pinto they released right? Wow makes me laugh thank you for that.

Thank you for your very... um... sophisticated response.

You miss the point entirely. Most of MS's market share comes from the corporate sector. Those customers demand stability and compatibility with the rest of the world, and so far, Microsoft has been able to fit the bill (mostly because they don't have the time or resources to check out other alternatives). Home users are getting fed up with the instability and want change. Linux (and its derivatives) provide a stable yet ever improving platform for that change.

TL;DR version: Linux is becoming a viable alternative for those who wish to seek it.

And yes, I do believe the world will end "as we know it" - not stop cold, but something will come along that will change the world so profoundly that the world will never be the same. Maybe alien contact. Who knows?

Oh and one last thing... please learn how to spell. I agree with the person who said this - your post was quite painful to read. At least you split your argument into paragraphs, thank you for that.

Software isn't knowledge. Software is a tool used to manage certain kinds of knowledge storage. Tools aren't necessarily free, and I'm not building tools without compensation.

[i]Knowledge(software) should be free [/i]

Defend your position.

Why should any new idea that I invent be delivered at no cost to anyone and everyone else?

Do you suggest this rule should apply to all fields of endeavour? What, if any, are the boundaries?

edit shpellnk

Ya, it's easier to google foo site:technet.com...However, it seems like for at least the past couple years nothing is being updated and it's just not maintained....

I am not sure honestly, but the retail market may be nearly as large as the corporate computer environment.

Hi,

You make some sound points there, and while the lack of a friendly IDE does make life difficult, there's good reason to develop for Open Source operating systems.

First, the toolchain is pretty much installed by default in some operating systems, and if not, it's a download and install away. Distributions like those based on Debian have a "build-essential" package that installs a complete toolchain into your system, free of charge (not including any charges your ISP might hit you with for exceeding your download quota). There's a number of IDEs available, but as you say there's probably a way to go to make them as friendly as VS.

Second, since the toolchain is readily available, it's easy to prepare your software for ever changing platforms. If errors arise from running your older versions on newer systems, update your toolchain and system libraries and rebuild it. Errors? No worries, the code's right there for you to fix them, and in most cases, compiler output is usually intuitive enough to tell you what's going on.

On the other hand, easy-to-use tools can be a double-edged sword. How do you know that the templates provided by VS are the best way to do it? How do you know that those provided by your chosen IDE aren't hiding any nasties that will make your application slow, make it crash, add any security problems, or a mix of the above? Do you have the time to make sure that the template you're using is on the level? If you're using a tool that provides ease of use, my guess is no.

There's value in handling the code yourself from go to whoa - you know exactly what's going into it, you can audit every little bit of it for problems and security issues, and there's less of a chance of nasty surprises unless you suck at coding.

Of course, if you know for sure that the templates are on the level, then all the power to you. Going from go to whoa isn't for everyone, hence the existence of such tools.

I hope you don't think I'm preaching, because I know that not everyone marches to the beat of the same drummer.

An OS is indeed as good as the tools it provides. That's the beauty of Open Source - the "killer app" (ugh) you write today could end up in a distro later on, with your name on it. No Microsoft system will provide that, and if they do, you certainly won't get any credit for it.

[b]simplersolution[/b] holds more back than he puts forth.

Unless, of course, he is already banging away on all cylinders and is near his end.

> I'm comfortable that your definition is not what the person intended in their post.

No, I don't think it is either. I was simply offering a different viewpoint.

This is one of the biggest conflicts between open and closed source software - when people think "free" they think money instead of freedom. As such when people say "free software" they expect that it is indeed free of charge. People also associate "free of charge" with "crap" - another impediment.

All of these issues would, at least, be lessened if not eliminated, if people would realise that it really means that you're free to do with it what you please, without encumberment, even sell it.

Until that happens, there'll be a lot of resistance towards open source software. More people are realising this, however, and the tides are turning - but there's a long way to go.

on the day the Mayan calendar expires, we will get up and find a massive fusion explosion burning over our heads, pouring tremendous heat and light over the entire planet, and that it will burn for billions of years.