On Jan 29, 12:56 am, "DFS" <nospam@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Sinister Midget wrote:
> > On 2009-01-27, Terry Porter <linu...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> claimed:
> >> One of the benefits of GNU/Linux compared to Windows is that it does
> >> not exist on the rise and fall of the sharemarket, because GNU/Linux
> >> doesnt have shares, it's a community thing, powered by Freedom.
> >> Linux will always be around, but I'm not so sure Microsoft will.
>
> > That's right. What do you do if Windows disappears and your favorite
> > apps no longer work?
>
> Almost impossible.
>
> > Abandonware happens a lot in the Windows world as it is.
>
> > I can't say I've ever seen a single application get dropped under
> > Windows that someone else came along later and picked up to continue
> > development. Not once.
>
> So you can name 5 abandoned Windows commercial apps.
NetScape
Borland JBuilder
Spyglass Mosaic
ButtonWare
Most share-ware
DBASE IV
Lotus Notes Windows-only version (New version is Eclipse/Java based).
Lotus SmartSuite
Corel Draw
There are also lots of $9 disks that are republications of software
written by companies that are now defunct or have been demoted from
Nasdaq to OTC.
Brief (Text editor for MS-DOS and Windows - killed by notepad)
Softronics SofTerm
PC-NFS
DanCAD
Draw
WordPerfect
Paradox
In most cases, the companies that do still exist, have skeleton
support.
Many are almost on life support. Others were gobbled up in Mergers.
Some have turned into consulting companies - to support legacy
products.
Corel
Borland
Norton
Lotus
WordPerfect
QuarterDeck
Slackware
NetScape
About the only Genres Microsoft HASN'T killed are:
Video Games (the Xbox tried, but ...)
Antivirus (Microsoft's seems to not be working that well, and/or
people are still downgrading Vista to XP?)
> > So what's the great "advantage" to using
> > Windows-based apps?
>
> They don't suck balls like crappy OSS suckware: Kivio, Dia, Planner, X-Moto,
> OpenOffice Base, kcron, knoda, etc.
>
> > You can't even continue using the old ones under
> > new Windows versions for the most part
>
> Gidget joins the list of lying cola idiots.
>
> > because the Windows vendor
> > plays tricks with the "OS" to deliberately make old things stop
> > working.
> There are many thousands of Windows software vendors.
More accurately there have been many thousands of vendors.
Most of these companies go bankrupt or become take-over targets
in 2-3 years. The few that survive become targets for Microsoft's
Shovel-ware.
> Who has played such tricks? How do you know?
Microsoft has been routinely accused by Independent
Software Vendors (ISVs), of unfairly adding or changing
lower level APIs which give Microsoft unfair advantages.
Microsoft's libraries (dlls) and resident libraries contain
about 95% of the code needed to run IE, Office, Project,
and most of Microsoft's other "high end" applications,
but are not documented in such a way that 3rd party
developers can use them.
The result is that 3rd party applications have to create
their own versions of these libraries and interface with
lower level APIs. The result is that 3rd party software
run much slower.
Microsoft provides a "common framework" but only
Microsoft can use it effectively.
> > Or get any of dozens of others that may suit your liking at
> >http://distrowatch.com
> But stay away from GoBuntu: even the freetards have their limits as to how
> broken an OS they will accept.
Good point. With so much competition between distributions, even a
bad release creates news that travels VERY QUICKLY across the whole
community. When Red Hat version 5.0 came out in 1997, Red Hat
deliberately left in a bug that required users to call Red Hat to get
around to get it to install correctly. The result was that Red Hat
license registrations dropped significantly, and SUSE and Mandrake
(now Mandriva) distributions surged, doubling every month for several
months).
That's what's great about competition. You can't mess with Customers
because they can always go "down the street".
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