On Monday 13 February 2006 08:22, Erik Funkenbusch stood up and spoke
the following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.advocacy...:/
> On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 06:09:26 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Most people never accept or even read the EULA. Windows is
>> pre-installed.
>
> God, Roy, are you EVER right?
>
> "Pre installed" versions of Windows boot to a EULA on the first boot
> up and require you to accept it. Now, this doesn't guarantee that
> they read it, but to claim that just because Windows is pre-installed
> means they can't read the EULA is completly bogus.
He may have been a tad overzealous when writing "never accept" but even
I - with my communicative impairment - know what he means. The bottom
line is that nobody ever reads the EULA, even if only because of the
lawyer-speak of it.
>> Look at some of the recent projects: a clone of Google Maps and
>> Earth, book scanning, and so forth. All are highly controversial, but
>> it was usually Google that got told off by authorities and the
>> public. Microsoft are treading behind doing exactly the same things.
>> So does Gates do as he once preached?
>
> Actually, Microsoft was doing the whole satellite imagery thing 10
> years ago with their Terraserver. Google copied MS on this, though
> they certainly enhanced it a great deal.
>
> This happens a lot, actually. Many of MS's "inventions" are copied
> and made popular by others. Things like AJAX, disk indexing tied to
> search, desktop "widgets" (ala Konfabulator or Dashboard), etc...
Except for that Microsoft's "inventions" in themselves are just
Microsoft's own versions of someone else's ideas...
> People laugh when Microsoft talks of innovation, but in reality, it
> happens a lot at Microsoft. They're often just slow to capitalize on
> it.
Now that's a nice Microsoft-apologism. Unfortunately it's far from the
truth. ;-)
>> It already is dead on arrival, prior to its ever-delayed arrival. It
>> is Windows XP with some eye candy while security issues have not been
>> addressed at the core. It will be the same mess all over again and
>> Microsoft will run out of excuses. They already have, in some
>> people's minds.
>
> This shows you know absolutely *NOTHING* about Vista. Apart from the
> various new subsystems (Windows Communication Foundation, Presentation
> Foundation, Workflow Foundation, etc..)
It would seem like someone at Microsoft's headquarters got inspired by
Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy. Flashy words, yes - like anything
Microsoft comes up with - but not exactly so "userfriendly".
Oops, there goes another argument for Windows... ;-)
> it has entirely new driver architecture, 3D compositing,
Has existed in UNIX for years...
> Quick Search,
Commandline users of GNU/Linux have already been familiar with
/(s)locate/ for quite some time. /Kat/ - although a bore since it hogs
the CPU('s) and slows things down - offers a more extensive KDE version
of that.
> sidebar and gadgets,
UNIX has had those for years...
> radically redesigned UI,
An unaesthetic rip-off of Apple's brushed metal look in Tiger. Brushed
metal has existed as a texture for both KDE and Gnome for years.
One possible /redesign/ could be that Vista will have more usefriendly
menu entries now, but knowing Microsoft, I wouldn't bet my money on
that.
> 3D navigation,
Has already existed in UNIX for years.
> comprehensive backup,
Wow, an operating system that offers back-up capabilities. Yes, that is
so innovative...
> Compound TCP/IP stack, Windows Slideshow, Speech recognition, parental
> controls, Windows Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery, Improved versions
> of Windows Media Player and Movie Maker, Windows Media Center, Windows
> Shared View (Document collaboration), Network Projector (use a
> projector over a network), Windows Fax and Scan, Peernet (P2P), IIS7,
> etc.. etc.. etc...
I see nothing really new there, except maybe that it's new that Windows
comes with that "extended functionality" now without the need for
third-party software - and probably aimed at annihilating such
third-party marketshares.
> And that's just the non-security features.
>
> On the security front, you've got Low rights IE (runs IE as a chrooted
> user), Massive changes to the way services are configured and
> defaulted (Windows Service Hardening), user mode drivers, Next Gen
> Cryptography, Rights Management Services (not DRM), Egress filtering
> firewall, Standard user tweaking (allows you to easily make even
> determined apps run fine as a standard user), User Account Protection,
> etc.. etc..
And this is /innovation?/
> Anyone that thinks Vista is XP SP3 doesn't have the slightest clue
> what's going on with Vista or what will ship with it. From a new code
> perspective, Vista will triple the lines of code in XP today.
I sincerely hope /DFS/ is reading this, since he has contested in the
past what I said about the hardware requirements for Vista.
Yet strangely enough, Microsoft needs to bloat its code whenever it adds
a feature, while all of what you've described is already highly
functional on any not-too-slow Pentium III or Athlon Thunderbird with
256 to 384 MB of RAM, running under GNU/Linux...
> But hey, that's ok, you're used to commenting about things you don't
> have even the slightest clue about.
So are you at times, Erik. You just happen to be better at cloaking
that... ;-)
--
With kind regards,
*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
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