Here's my question -- Microsoft has a ton of employees and a bottomless expense account, but why can't they make an OS that's as nice as OSX or Linux? It seems to me like it should be the other way around. The guys in high places should easily be able to produce easy-to-use and top-quality software.
Windows Vista
- Thread starter Caleb
- Start date
vibrokatana
New Member
because they have no real goal other then to be "innovative" (aka steal other peoples ideas and try to half way market it then delay it 20 years because their team can't produce working code).
Linux is doing so well because it has literally thousands apon thousands of people working on it. The path of development is incredibly fast as ideas can be tested, merged and modified as needed because everything is open. With microsoft you really don't get much access to the underlying code so you are stuck literally in a box of what windows can do.
When compiz first came out it was so new that the graphics drivers didn't even fully support it. They ended up writing interfaces that enabled the extensions they needed to do what they did . later on Nvidia added in the extensions into the drivers and you have what it is today.
OSX is built on top of FreeBSD. Apple actually has a port of the FreeBSD kernel called darwin that supports the added stuff they needed. Apple uses many open source tools and as such doesn't need to make stuff like compilers and uses many open source libraries to get added functionality. Apple simply took a good OS and decided to commercialize it (and they did a very good job).
Microsoft prides themselves on their "backwards compatibility" as such they try to keep every bit of code, even from the 1980s. Have some fun sometime and browse around your windows folder and look at the copyright dates. You can even find blatant copies of BSD code (like the ftp program for example). For the most part the competition "depreciates" stuff as it is no longer used (or has been updated) and it is moved into the legacy category. You can see this in OSX as some programs will require 10.3.4, etc.
For the most part windows programs (and often OSX .app files) include their own libraries (which leads to a much larger memory footprint). In linux almost everything is shared libraries. Instead of making your own XML parser you would use an easily available one for your language. By using shared libraries linux usually comes down with one of the smallest memory footprints (OSX does use shared libraries but it lakes a packaging system like linux so developers will include it within the program package).
Microsoft is simply stuck several years behind, they are crippling the market with their lack of innovation and as such software has come to the point where it is blah. Microsoft simply relies of FUD campaigns, the blatant stupidity of the consumer and paying people off to maintain control.
<offtopic>
Two and a half pages of posts on Vista in a single day, but I can't get people to participate in our IRC channel without using a cattle prod.
/sigh
</offtopic>
I'm still using Windows XP Pro SP2 and plan to for as long as I can possibly hold out.
Two and a half pages of posts on Vista in a single day, but I can't get people to participate in our IRC channel without using a cattle prod.
/sigh
</offtopic>
I'm still using Windows XP Pro SP2 and plan to for as long as I can possibly hold out.
vibrokatana
New Member
That is because the forums are convenient, people don't have to use a client to access it, there is no time limitation, and better yet people can drop in on the discussion at any time and read everything.
I know.
I just wish I wasn't the only idling in our IRC channel.
if IRC was like 30x prettier like the new website, maybe someone would drop it occasionaly 
Hescominsoon
CGA\TOJ Hosting Manager
honestly? IRC isn't used by most folks. It's now limited to hackers, crackers and a small minority of inet users.
If you know all this, why doesn't Microsoft? And why don't they change? Can't they see that they are quickly losing market? Can't they hear all the groans and complaining about their sucky products? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
vibrokatana
New Member
Hescominsoon
CGA\TOJ Hosting Manager
vista is MS pandering to holywood..not to it's customers.
vibrokatana
New Member
Most of the commercials are just vista "switching windows" with the so called 3d thingy, false marketing if you ask me. In microsoft's case it is better for the consumer to be as stupid as possible. Stupid people will throw money at an issue rather then try to solve it. For the most part people will purchase software from the companies they have used already. Since people only know Microsoft they stick with inferior knock offs instead of trying to improve their lives.
Take for example the average person who purchases an OEM machine. For the most part a large percentage will continue to use the bundled anti virus even if it incurs monthly fees after the free period. If they add in a "demo" version of microsoft office, chances are people will get sucked into buying a several hundred dollar piece of software.
Even though people may acknowledge that there are better alternatives, Microsoft has such poisoned the economy to the point where people (and companies) think that Microsoft is the only way to go. They spend millions of dollars annually on FUD campaigns that attempts to cast their competitors (mainly linux now) in negative light by attempting to show how people "denied" linux and chose microsoft.
Microsoft is simply cowering CEOs into sticking with their overpriced software while trying to wow the consumer with shiny objects.
Internet Relay Chat. Click here for more information.
I believe it's still used widely by first-person shooter clans. Since activity in Tribe of Judah's FPS chapters dropped off, I haven't seen many ToJ members use IRC.
I've all but surrendered hope that the #cga and #toj channels will remain sparsely populated (or completely empty); at this point, I'd prefer to see more activity in the CGA TeamSpeak Server (which seems to have been picking up in recent weeks).
I don't think #toj will see much activity until Tribe of Judah brings its game servers back online.
I don't think #cga was ever very active.
Truth in comic form--though it's not isolated to Microsoft. Many large corporations take a similar approach--because, sadly enough, it usually works.