At 02:37 AM 7/22/01 +0530, jtd wrote:
On Sunday 22 July 2001 01:27, you wrote:
Folks, I think Philip .......blah
blan................blah..........blah....... find no better alternative.
Not the whole story. Very many have to use it because of non disclosure of formats and API's. Eg. 1) One of my friends purchased a Saudi gov. export directory on CD. The files were in WMF format and could not be read by Office 97 on win95. My friend had spent a small fortune purchasing the three and was forced to purchase w98 and office2000. Eg. 2) (refer Krishnans mail.) I was the recepient of CIH in 98. The fat was destroyed. I had very very important data and had to recover that. The disk used fat32 FS. I searched M$ for the fat32 documentation and found none. I managed to get the info from a polish univ. site. M$ published the info in August 98- 3yrs after releasing the fat32 fs with Win-95. It is a typical bait and switch tactic used by M$
When you knew the nature of M$ policy and quality of their products then why did you entrust (your) important data on M$ products? GNU/Linux was available. Anyway this problem could arise even if you use any other Software. Sometimes it could be information withheld sometimes it could be information not yet known. I think most software carry a list of warnings saying that they are not responsible for any data loss in any way due to the direct or indirect use of this software. I am sure we all agree that M$ policy sucks and M$ products could be much better. But is it reason enough to put them in the _Wrong_? Why do most graphics professionals use Photoshop and not PaintShopPro? Simply because it is a better alternative (inspite of the cost). The reason such software is used is because the risks and the costs are adequately compensated. There were some comments that students find it difficult to use the M$ platform to do any development work as the products are expensive enough to kill. Well again, when you have such a wonderful platform for development as GNU/Linux why do you want M$?? Maybe they want to make money? I have seen my friends make small customised software using VB and making oodles of money. Sometimes people get jobs in companies because of their expertise with M$ products and make good money. These same companies make a lot of money themselves. So why should M$ not charge for its products?
Microsoft are within their rights to charge anything they want for any part of their products (someone mentioned that you get the OS but not the API). If you do not like that but still buy them, then it is you who is the sucker, not them unethical.
Not at all. The vast majority of users do not understand computing systems and the clever seperation of the product from the operational details particularly in the case of software. In eg2 abv. I needed the info to recover my data, encapsulated by M$ thru a product I had paid for.
Again, when you knew their policy of non-disclosure, you should have used your money better then for buying their products. (when better Aazad & open alternatives were available)
Microsoft is a company like any other. It is a commercialventure who has to look after the prosperity of its shareholders. They also have to protect themselves from the competition by devising schemes and strategies to beat them.
Beat the competition by beating the customer some strategy that. Only first they drug you sensless.
Many-a-times the customer is glad for and wants the drug. ;) Hey common, the whole scene is different for computer enthusiasts. People in typical non-software-company offices want their work to be done. There is hardly any alternative to M$ in terms of cost (as against Mac) and usability. I have used GNU/Linux from 96 and have seen it evolve. But still the M$ win98 GUI is better, faster (than X). I have frozen X many more times then Win98 in the past year since I installed Win98. (BTW win95 Truly sucked but at that time X was no better & no apps). But with the win98 SE I have got the blue screen only 2-3 times only. I hear KDE 2.0 is a giant step forward? But unfortunately I have not been able to lay hands on any .deb's for it.... (Waiting desperately for Woody ;). If you are talking about servers, then the GNU/linux box beats the NT box hands down. Also for shellcrazy geeks and computer enthusiasts and developers the GNU/Linux box is heaven. <grin>Micro$oft may be the evil empire and may have Windows with them but they still dont control all of the galaxy. We got the bison and the penguin to fight back with. And the Doors are with us all the way!</grin>
In this they are no different from any other company (take the example of the Cola wars). In this business environment, the stronger, smarter one survives. Very much like nature.
Takiing care of the environment that's what FSF is all about. M$ and others are not very relevant to the larger scheme of things and are indeed free to go their way except when they encroach on your rights both as a user and as hack.
I dont think they encroach at all. Some of my friends use only Aazad & open software. Even I have given up MS Office products looooong time back. When I require formatting I use HTML ;) (I cannot give up Eudora somehow, dammit).
Does a restaurant, who has a popular special dish, disclose itssecret recipe?
They dont. Nor do they prevent you from cooking the same either. Would be fun to sign a EULA and NDA before eating and indemnify the restaurant in advance for a probable tummy upset.
This point taken. (I, probably, should have used a better example)
quasi