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Yes, several of the AMD CEO's comments are down-right stupid, and meant to promote FUD. I never realized that AMD would want to promote MS's practices. But I guess when you are the #2 chip maker for processor that simply is not the best on the market, then I guess you get nervous easy.
I dunno, the Athlons are bloody good.Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
Yes, several of the AMD CEO's comments are down-right stupid, and meant to promote FUD. I never realized that AMD would want to promote MS's practices. But I guess when you are the #2 chip maker for processor that simply is not the best on the market, then I guess you get nervous easy.
um huh, I knew it!
conspiracy
Athlons are some of the best chips out there at low prices. Of course Intel has more marketing, and more OEM deals. So Intel gets most of the OEM-market business. You call them #2 because their product is "inferior" when it isn't.Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
But I guess when you are the #2 chip maker for processor that simply is not the best on the market
I really can't say anything bad about Windows, or at least Windows 2000 (ME and XP are another story). Again, I don't run a server, so I'm not speaking for IIS, or whatever else, am I??
As a matter of fact I do run a small web server, and I'm using Apache to do so, so hmph ;)
Don't really give a **** about MS's ethics...it's their problem, not mine. I'll just keep using their software.
As for the article...just like many distributors of Linux distros, it only makes sense to bundle apps with the OS. Mandrake/SuSE/RH do it, and MS can't? All of these companies are doing users a favor by including software not only for a lower price but readily available...do you know how long it takes to DL stuff on a 56K which a lot of people still have, and getting disconnected every two hours?
Heh, KFC could make better CPUs than Intel ;)Quote:
Originally posted by BG
conspiracy
I have a couple xtra crispy fried intels in my boneyard that will beg to differ. :D
OK, maybe KFC is developing the Itanic...:pQuote:
Originally posted by BG
I have a couple xtra crispy fried intels in my boneyard that will beg to differ. :D
AMD is #2 in the market. Personally, I like AMDs better than Intel. They have been trying to innovate and their processors perform better. They fail in some places, but they are trying, and they are cheaper than Intel, so whenever possible, I would choose AMD over Intel.Quote:
Originally posted by jpbtennisman
Athlons are some of the best chips out there at low prices. Of course Intel has more marketing, and more OEM deals. So Intel gets most of the OEM-market business. You call them #2 because their product is "inferior" when it isn't.
But they are still #2 in the market, so if x86 CISC processors took a hit, AMD would suffer.
x86 CISC processors have never performed as well as Motorola's RISC processors. A fact that Intel has admitted, but never had to worry about. Intel gets its business from the Windows market.
I have no problem with MS bundling software. I have a problem with MS bundling software to the exclusion of the competition and making it so their discreet peices of software can not be seperated once joined. In other words, MS is wrong to force OEMs to not ship a unit with Netscape pre-installed. MS is wrong to force users to keep IE (it can not be uninstalled from W2K).Quote:
As for the article...just like many distributors of Linux distros, it only makes sense to bundle apps with the OS. Mandrake/SuSE/RH do it, and MS can't? All of these companies are doing users a favor by including software not only for a lower price but readily available...do you know how long it takes to DL stuff on a 56K which a lot of people still have, and getting disconnected every two hours?
It is all about fair use. If I buy an OS from you, it is mine and I can do with it as I like. If I buy an OEM version to install on my machine and sell it, then I should be allowed to configure it in a reasonable manner to allow me to sell my unit. If that means that my market wants a barebones machine with no options because they want to make a server, then so be it. If they want ever web browser known to man installed so they can use it in a QA lab to test their website, so be it.
As to the article itself, there were several quotes made by this guy that were just stupid and silly. But to they uneducated, they sounded like breaking the MS Trust was a bad thing. Hence, FUD rules the day.
But aren't both AMD and Intel chips running on an internal RISC core now?
Hey I think we found something we agree on...:DQuote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
AMD is #2 in the market. Personally, I like AMDs better than Intel. They have been trying to innovate and their processors perform better. They fail in some places, but they are trying, and they are cheaper than Intel, so whenever possible, I would choose AMD over Intel.
But they are still #2 in the market, so if x86 CISC processors took a hit, AMD would suffer.
x86 CISC processors have never performed as well as Motorola's RISC processors. A fact that Intel has admitted, but never had to worry about. Intel gets its business from the Windows market.
I don't think they should force OEMs to not install competitor's software (as much as I hate Nutscrape, I don't buy prebuilts :p), but I think it's their OS, and they can bundle whatever they'd like with it...just my opinion.Quote:
I have no problem with MS bundling software. I have a problem with MS bundling software to the exclusion of the competition and making it so their discreet peices of software can not be seperated once joined. In other words, MS is wrong to force OEMs to not ship a unit with Netscape pre-installed. MS is wrong to force users to keep IE (it can not be uninstalled from W2K).[/B]
I'm really not awfully concerned with what MS does with Dell/Compaq because I custom build all my systems. If I've got to buy a laptop, I'll end up formatting the drive and putting my own OS on there and configuring it how I want it.
Later...:)
A. Let Nutscrape design their own operating system then. I'll bet it blows too.Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
MS is wrong to force OEMs to not ship a unit with Netscape pre-installed. MS is wrong to force users to keep IE (it can not be uninstalled from W2K).
B. I like the fact that Internet explorer and windows explorer share much of the same code which is why you can't completley uninstall IE. It is nice as hell to have the two integrated that closely. Who is a court judge to say that a web browser is not part of an operating system. IE is dug in deep into windows and that adds functionality/convenience. Does this mean I can sue Ford motors for not letting dealers sell BMW manufactured steering wheels whith their pickup trucks? If someone wants do download another browser and make web developers lives hell then that is their business. Dont bash a company for being successfull and shooting the world economy through the roof. The government should be giving Bill Gates a Blowjob instead of suing his company.
I would tend to agree with that. I mean you don't hear Parker Games suing MS because they include a few card games do you now, or Norton suing because XP has a firewall.Quote:
Originally posted by BG
I like the fact that Internet explorer and windows explorer share much of the same code which is why you can't completley uninstall IE. It is nice as hell to have the two integrated that closely. Who is a court judge to say that a web browser is not part of an operating system. IE is dug in deep into windows and that adds functionality/convenience. Does this mean I can sue Ford motors for not letting dealers sell BMW manufactured steering wheels whith their pickup trucks? If someone wants do download another browser and make web developers lives hell then that is their business. Dont bash a company for being successfull and shooting the world economy through the roof. The government should be giving Bill Gates a Blowjob instead of suing his company.
Live with it Netscape. Make your product better than the bundled browser then people will have a reason to get it. Crying like babies to the courts over sour grapes is just pathetic. A lot of companies make a living off providing a better alternative to bundled software...the firewalls for example, Disk management apps, schedulers, email clients, web servers. All in Windows but there are better alternatives out there. None of those companies are complaining. Without Windows, AOL would have hardly any subscribers so they should STFU.
Parksie, Yes. Funny isn't it.
BG, I'm guessing you give in to the FUD. You don't seem to understand that IE is what is giving web developers headaches, and that IE can be disassociated from Windows.
First, there are industry standards which Netscape helps to create and which Netscape supports better than IE. Get it? Supports. IE actually underminds these standards.
Okay... let me paint this picture in a very verbose and hopefully simple way.
There is an emerging industry that has the potential for many conflicting standards. A standards board is formed and founders of this industry who sit on this board begin to make a product to sell in this industry. They are the cornerstone of this industry. They are the name everyone recognizes. How do you compete? Well, you could work and work and work to make a better product, but you have to overcome the intertia of the market. The market is a lead weight. When they have a product in hand, they are not likely to switch, even if it is to a better product.
So what can you do instead? You can try to break what is in hand, forcing the market to consider changing, and then they will see that you have created a good product.
One way to break your competitors product is to change the rules of the industry. Well, you could get on the board and help govern the rules, but they change slow enough there so everyone can keep up. So instead you try to flood the market with bells and whistles and plugins and addons and features that simply do not work with the de facto product, your competitors.
The populous doesn't understand that these new bells and whistles are parts of closed standards that are not governed by the industry boards. The populous does not understand nor care that the industry has been fighting this sort of thing for decades. Why?
Everyone is sick of the, "this system doesn't work with this system, and I can't upgrade my antiquated system because all of the old standards have been abandoned". The industry is trying to keep that from happening with an open, just, and fair approach.
But you know that if you cheat you can win. Why do cheaters always win? Because the fair people don't cheat. If they did, then you would loose, because chances are, they are better than you at cheating, too.
Well, now you have broken the populouses faith in your competitors product. They now think that maintain it (and the industry standard) is too much of a hassle. And they never realized what you did because they are cow.
So your product now sells like hotcakes (which is even more ironic since your competitor was giving away his for free).
Doing this wouldn't be so bad, if you actually replaced the industry standards with your own and shutdown your competition. But you didn't. So you have created a huge mess that the industry was trying to avoid, disperate systems.
Your competition has recovered and builds a better product than you do, and still maintains a high compatibility with industry standards. But the market inertia is in your favor.
They are in the position you were in, but they are trying to win with a better browser, not by underminding the industry. They won't win, and neither would've you.
Aren't you glad you cheated? Arent' you glad no one else does?
If this sounds like a good idea to you, perhaps you should give Bill a blowjob.
While I'm on this rant...
You want to know why Unix, BSD, GNU, and Linux are better than Windows. Not because they may have truer mutlitasking, better memory switching, thread control, robust kernels, or run on several different hardware platforms. They are better because they are all open (even the ones you have to pay for, such as Unix, is completely open). This means that you can write a program for one of these operating systems, and then port it over to the other with little to know problem. The reason the OSes are better is because they don't try to exclude the compitetion.
Maybe BSD is better. Maybe Linux is better. It doesn't matter. I can write an application and have little problem selling to either customer.
MS seems to hate that mindset, and I can't figure out why. Bill wanted to start with Unix, and was supposed to have made OS/2. If either of those OSes had the ease-of-use that Windows has, with the robust power that Unix and OS/2 had... well, if you can't rule the market with that, then we should all burn our computers.
But ofcourse, that would've taken work, cheating was easier, and now... market inertia is in favor of Windows, so it doesn't matter that OS/2 Warp, BeOS, Lindows, FreeBSD, or Linux get easy to use. They have to fight the lead weight of ignorance and apathy.
Anyway, the point of this long story is, to anyone who thinks that Netscape should make a better product: Netscape is a better product. Mozilla, Konqueur, Opera, these are all better browsers. But being better isn't good enough.
Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
Netscape is a better product.
Yeah!.. better product , very open too..
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=162374
Nutscrapes doesnt help out devs
something like
<html>
<head>
<p>hello</p>
<title>my site!</title>
</head>
...
would probably break nutscrapes. its pretty buggy too.
it seems like nutscrapes has been doing that, with the calander, integration with AIM etc...and theyve done it pretty badly.Quote:
One way to break your competitors product is to change the rules of the industry. Well, you could get on the board and help govern the rules, but they change slow enough there so everyone can keep up. So instead you try to flood the market with bells and whistles and plugins and addons and features that simply do not work with the de facto product, your competitors.
the biggest "add-on" for IE is the media bar, which is just there for me, but it actually works..
Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
You want to know why Unix, BSD, GNU, and Linux are better than Windows. Not because they may have truer mutlitasking, better memory switching, thread control, robust kernels, or run on several different hardware platforms. They are better because they are all open (even the ones you have to pay for, such as Unix, is completely open). This means that you can write a program for one of these operating systems, and then port it over to the other with little to know problem. The reason the OSes are better is because they don't try to exclude the compitetion.
ok, but who really cares? I mean, who here would take the time to mod their OS to do one thing.
and the normal end user, they dont give a flying truck whether its open source or not...they just want it to work, and it to be easy to use.
i would rather use something thats easy to use, and installs cleanly, will work with all of my hardware with little to no problem. i wouldnt use something just because it is "open source"...oohhhh big deal :rolleyes:
If Netscape is so great and IE sucks so bad, tell me why this block of code works in both IE and Opera, but not in Netscape.Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
<snip>
IE is a far better browser than Nutscrape can dream of. Netscape makes MY life harder, as both a designer AND an end-user.Code:<a href="#" onmouseover="Layer1.style.visibility = 'visible';"><img
src="http://www.domain.com/image.jpg"></a>
<div id=Layer1 style="position: absolute; width: 150px; height: 150px; background: black; color:
white; visibility: hidden;">blah blah</div>
Ooh, wow. IE has some proprietary technology, dear God. If it's proprietary then don't use it, duh. It supports the standards, that's what matters.
:rolleyes:
<ciberthug mode>Quote:
Originally posted by nabeels786
Nutscrapes doesnt help out devs
something like
<html>
<head>
<p>hello</p>
<title>my site!</title>
</head>
...
<p></p> tags are not allowed inside <head></head>
</ciberthug mode>
i know. but some HTML n00b might do that, and break nutscrapes
Aww, poor pissy poo for them! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally posted by nabeels786
i know. but some HTML n00b might do that, and break nutscrapes
ANY web designer will tell you how Netscape blows. I'm one of them.
Opera, I can tolerate, still wouldn't use it.
CiberThug: you define a "better product" as one that is open source and has companies with better ethics behind it (even though AOL has no ethics)...thats not how I think, sorry.
opera is still decent. i use it from time to time, for testing.
Opera is the best!!!
You people are too numerous (and short-sighted) to address. I'll try and hit a couple of highlights that I can recall. If I don't respond to you, it isn't personal, but I suggest finding a book.
Being open source doesn't inherently make a product better. Being open does. In other words, releasing your entire API.
Yeah, that thing with the Netscape sniffing sucks. I personally don't like Netscape. It has too much flare. It is Mozilla in a cheap suit. Go with Mozilla.
Mind you, Netscape is still better than IE simply because it doesn't seek to undermind the standards.
As to p tags in the head. Yes, that is wrong. No browser on this planet has any reason to attempt to support that page. I wouldn't hold it against any browser for shutting down, even IE.
Infact, I think less of a browser if it actually shows you the text in the p tags in the head.
Okay, let's start with a cursory look at this code. I'm not going to check the standards to load it into a browser. This is what I see to begin with.Quote:
Originally posted by jpbtennisman
Code:<a href="#" onmouseover="Layer1.style.visibility = 'visible';"><img
src="http://www.domain.com/image.jpg"></a>
<div id=Layer1 style="position: absolute; width: 150px; height: 150px; background: black; color:
white; visibility: hidden;">blah blah</div>
In the a tag, the onmouseover attribute: "Layer1" is not defined anywhere in the document. Perhaps you should use document.getElementByID("Layer1") instead. But you knew that already, n'est-ce pas?
In the div tag, the id attribute: You should be consistent within the document. This value should be in double quotes.
Be warned that div is a block-level tag and not an inline tag, so the text within the div tag may not format as you desire.
I can't say as I care if this document actually does anything. It is poorly written, and is supported by any browser out of a level of charity that I don't posess.
If Netscape actually makes your job harder, then I'm beginning to believe you are a very poor developer. Of late, all I've done is ASP/HTML work, and I have no problem with cross browser compatibilty (IE 5.50+, Netscape 6+, Opera 6). Funny that.
I poorly wrote that code on purpose, to show you an example that not every web developer crosses their T's and dots their I's.Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
Okay, let's start with a cursory look at this code. I'm not going to check the standards to load it into a browser. This is what I see to begin with.
In the a tag, the onmouseover attribute: "Layer1" is not defined anywhere in the document. Perhaps you should use document.getElementByID("Layer1") instead. But you knew that already, n'est-ce pas?
In the div tag, the id attribute: You should be consistent within the document. This value should be in double quotes.
Be warned that div is a block-level tag and not an inline tag, so the text within the div tag may not format as you desire.
I can't say as I care if this document actually does anything. It is poorly written, and is supported by any browser out of a level of charity that I don't posess.
What makes you think less of a browser if it does more? The fact remains-- most of the time IE will render the page the way developers/users want to..
CiberThug, see that code I posted above? Rewrite that and prove to me so Netscape will use it.
I just want to see what you think is perfect code and how we should all develop.
ewww div tags *shatters*
the fact IE undermines the standards (by adding a few of it's own) doesn't make it the poorer browser.Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
Mind you, Netscape is still better than IE simply because it doesn't seek to undermind the standards.
It has a nice interface, it is faster, it renders stuff better and it's user base is 99% of the online community. That is what makes it the better browser. Not because the people behind Netscape happen to be slightly less morally corrupt.
Quote:
Originally posted by CiberTHuG
Parksie, Yes. Funny isn't it.
BG, I'm guessing you give in to the FUD. You don't seem to understand that IE is what is giving web developers headaches, and that IE can be disassociated from Windows.
First, there are industry standards which Netscape helps to create and which Netscape supports better than IE. Get it? Supports. IE actually underminds these standards.
Okay... let me paint this picture in a very verbose and hopefully simple way.
There is an emerging industry that has the potential for many conflicting standards. A standards board is formed and founders of this industry who sit on this board begin to make a product to sell in this industry. They are the cornerstone of this industry. They are the name everyone recognizes. How do you compete? Well, you could work and work and work to make a better product, but you have to overcome the intertia of the market. The market is a lead weight. When they have a product in hand, they are not likely to switch, even if it is to a better product.
So what can you do instead? You can try to break what is in hand, forcing the market to consider changing, and then they will see that you have created a good product.
One way to break your competitors product is to change the rules of the industry. Well, you could get on the board and help govern the rules, but they change slow enough there so everyone can keep up. So instead you try to flood the market with bells and whistles and plugins and addons and features that simply do not work with the de facto product, your competitors.
The populous doesn't understand that these new bells and whistles are parts of closed standards that are not governed by the industry boards. The populous does not understand nor care that the industry has been fighting this sort of thing for decades. Why?
Everyone is sick of the, "this system doesn't work with this system, and I can't upgrade my antiquated system because all of the old standards have been abandoned". The industry is trying to keep that from happening with an open, just, and fair approach.
But you know that if you cheat you can win. Why do cheaters always win? Because the fair people don't cheat. If they did, then you would loose, because chances are, they are better than you at cheating, too.
Well, now you have broken the populouses faith in your competitors product. They now think that maintain it (and the industry standard) is too much of a hassle. And they never realized what you did because they are cow.
So your product now sells like hotcakes (which is even more ironic since your competitor was giving away his for free).
Doing this wouldn't be so bad, if you actually replaced the industry standards with your own and shutdown your competition. But you didn't. So you have created a huge mess that the industry was trying to avoid, disperate systems.
Your competition has recovered and builds a better product than you do, and still maintains a high compatibility with industry standards. But the market inertia is in your favor.
They are in the position you were in, but they are trying to win with a better browser, not by underminding the industry. They won't win, and neither would've you.
Aren't you glad you cheated? Arent' you glad no one else does?
If this sounds like a good idea to you, perhaps you should give Bill a blowjob.
While I'm on this rant...
You want to know why Unix, BSD, GNU, and Linux are better than Windows. Not because they may have truer mutlitasking, better memory switching, thread control, robust kernels, or run on several different hardware platforms. They are better because they are all open (even the ones you have to pay for, such as Unix, is completely open). This means that you can write a program for one of these operating systems, and then port it over to the other with little to know problem. The reason the OSes are better is because they don't try to exclude the compitetion.
Maybe BSD is better. Maybe Linux is better. It doesn't matter. I can write an application and have little problem selling to either customer.
MS seems to hate that mindset, and I can't figure out why. Bill wanted to start with Unix, and was supposed to have made OS/2. If either of those OSes had the ease-of-use that Windows has, with the robust power that Unix and OS/2 had... well, if you can't rule the market with that, then we should all burn our computers.
But ofcourse, that would've taken work, cheating was easier, and now... market inertia is in favor of Windows, so it doesn't matter that OS/2 Warp, BeOS, Lindows, FreeBSD, or Linux get easy to use. They have to fight the lead weight of ignorance and apathy.
Anyway, the point of this long story is, to anyone who thinks that Netscape should make a better product: Netscape is a better product. Mozilla, Konqueur, Opera, these are all better browsers. But being better isn't good enough.
BullShit! I better fetch my boots!
If you think for one second that there is something worng with Microsoft adding functionality to IE that netscape dosn't have you have missed the boat somewhere. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF FREAKING TECHNOLOGY!!!! We are supposed to build the bigger better mousetrap. And frankly Netscape and opera's mousetrap sucks in comparison. Standards, Who sets the standards. Who gives the people who set the standards the right to. If their standards are holding back technology then we should duct tape them to a road and use them as a speedbump. If standards say I as a developer can't make the best product out there and sell it then what the hell is the point of developing programs. All this is, is a "Who Has The Biggest Pecker Contest" and some people are humiliated and crying to mommy because Microsoft Has the big one. WEEEAHHH I CANT SELL MY PRODUCT, WEAAHH THEY DO A BETTER JOB AT MARKETING THAN ME WEAAAH MOMMY MY COUCHIE HURTS!
Justin's dreem teem be da chipundayles, aiiiiiiii ;)
Then surely that's their problem?Quote:
Originally posted by jpbtennisman
I poorly wrote that code on purpose, to show you an example that not every web developer crosses their T's and dots their I's.
When XHTML comes out anyone that isn't careful will be totally flucked because it will NOT let you get away with anything like that.
I thought It was out already?
Out, as in being widely used.
Parksie, the problem is that no, most web developers do NOT do a perfect job, they do what looks decent and get their paycheck, and forget it. Also the problem is that most large websites are designed/managed by page manager software such as Dreamweaver 4, etc...if you think Karl maintains this entire website purely by editing raw code then you must be on crack.Quote:
Originally posted by parksie
Then surely that's their problem?
When XHTML comes out anyone that isn't careful will be totally flucked because it will NOT let you get away with anything like that.
I for one will be the first to admit that each and every one of my sites are designed in Dreamweaver 4-- I'll dig into the code if need be but it's just the most efficient, quickest, and neatest way to do things.
And no page creation software, whether it be Notepad or Dreamweaver UltraDev, is perfect. If browsers have no leeway to let users or software get away with certain mistakes, that's the ticket to doom...
CT: I honestly don't give a f**k what Microsoft does with its competitors because I don't deal with Comcrap, Hell or GayWay. Not my problem-- call me selfish but that's how I think.
Those who know go AMD, those who don't have Intel inside.
Well said.Quote:
Originally posted by mikeycorn
Those who know go AMD, those who don't have Intel inside.
Those who know go DEC Alpha. 'Course, AIX is another debate entirely.
Justin, you are basing your entire approach to this on the grounds that you can't be lazy. I'm sorry, if you can't do your job right, then step down. I can do it right, and I don't find any restrictions in the standards. And no, can't say as I've ever used Dreamweaver.
If you were a programmer, then you find that make web pages is easy. HTML is very easy, Javascript is a snap. Making a web based app with ASP or PHP, not a problem. All of this stuff is as simple as writing shell scirpts. Once you are a programmer, you will understand.
I'm just trying to imagine Justin learning C++. "What do you mean that variable isn't in scope? This compiler should've known which instance of foo I wanted to use."
BG, grow up, or excuse yourself. There is no need for that kind of behavior. The standards are not about keeping you from building a better mousetrap. Feel free, and anyone who builds a mousetrap is welcome to sit on the board that defines the standards. Microsoft sits on that board. But they intentionally go around the board. That is why Microsoft was kicked off the Java project.
If you knew the history of computing, hell if you knew any history, I think you would see what any standards board is trying to avoid. If you knew of the days of GenieNet and FIDONet, or Ethernet and Token Ring, ASCII and EBCDIC, or VHS and BetaMax. Yes, there was a day inwhich every video store had two different versions of the same movie. So not all video cassettes could be used in all players.
'Course, VHS has survived. Were you under the impression that VHS was the better technology? Are you fine with the fact that it wasn't? In this case, no one minds that the inferior technology is in everyone's home. Sony didn't want to release control of BetaMax to the degree that Phillips(?) released VHS. And now Sony's technology is used in video equipment for news camera crews, and Sony doesn't mind at all.
Chill out. I was just flipping you shiet about the blowjob comment.
Yes I remember betamax, I still have mine and it still works, last time I checked. Not Sure If I agree if Betamax was better. At first, yes, I definatley agree but IMO VHS became equal after improving their tracking and head technology. Like you said It was Sony's fault betamax died any way. Second, Don't knock My knowledge of computer history, I wrote my first application on an apple IIC Using an ancient version of Pascal, I have been around a while and have not been set in stone on platforms ever. Mabe It's the end of the industry that gives me this opinion. I write applications for complete computer morons. Windows is easy to use and microsoft blew the competition out of the water when the GUI was introduced as a home product. People were already used to microsoft os's. It makes hiring/training people eaiser. Employees who already have home experience on a PC will be able to perform limited tasks on an office PC with little or no training. That is why Microsoft is everywhere. It Snowballed, Simple as that. Now the big question should Microsoft be penalized for incorporating new technology into their operating system. Why not? Internet explorer will read all of the standard html. the kicker Is that it also adds windows functionality into its browser that the other browsers do not. Big Deal, It's their OS they can do what they want. I for one will not complain about getting a better product especially when it is free. I have this to say to the companies pissed about this. It's too late, you missed your chance 15 years ago. I cant go out and make 15 million dollars over night with a .com because It's too late so can I sue everyone that did because I don't think it is fair? If I tried you would look at me like I'm crazy. Technology has no limits, go think of something that no one has thought of yet or rip off something that no one has heard of yet and carve your own niche in the industry. Ok, I'll shut up now
But, BG, it isn't about extending their browser. They can do that all they want. I want you to understand that they are not extending it to make it better. They are extending it to undermind the standard.
The big problem that started this, and the reason for the lawsuits is...
MS demanded that OEMs remove any competitive software from a Windows machine, or Windows would not be provided to that OEM.
Now, if you are not a monopoly, then this practice is fine. The OEM has choices, but you are a monopoly in the home desktop for dummies. So you can't do what you used to do. That is the price you pay for being the only one.
MS could say "if you install Netscape, you can't ship IE with it." That would be fair. That gives the OEM a choice. They can sell you a Windows machine with Netscape, or a Windows machine with IE. To me, that is fair.
The second big stink is, MS claims that IE can not be removed. Look, it is a seperate program. IE can be uninstalled. Since MS is a monopoly, they can't do what they could do if they weren't a monopoly. As a result, they need to make it so IE can be uninstalled.
Now if MS wants to extend IE, that is fine. Real programmers don't care. They've been through this before. They will stick to the standards. They will work to add more open APIs to the standards, but they aren't going down that road of disperate technologies.
Next thing you know, MS will redefine HTTP and we will have two WWWs.