I'm replying to several messages, all by Richard Erlacher, here in one
message:
> I'm often puzzled by the complaints about "crashes" under Win9x and NT.
> My notebook, running Win95, hasn't crashed, although it's been in almost
> constant use since early '97 when I bought it. Now, the machines into
> which I routinely stick cards that may or may not work, along with
> products that may or may not work, both hardware and software, . . . well,
> they have had other histories, but it's seldom Microsoft software that's
> to blame for that.
And I've run Win95 for a year with no problems. It wasn't until Microsoft
Office was installed on the machine did it lock up and I wasted two days
trying to reinstall Win95, from scratch, before giving up and going to Linux
so I could continue my job.
Hardware didn't change. Just the addition of Microsoft Office.
> I've never bought a license for a DEC OS, but I doubt it cost under $100.
> There are Linux versions one can buy in ready-to-install form for under
> $100, but those will cost $1M, at least, at 50-cents-an-hour before
> they're working properly and that's only if you're a real *nix expert.
> What's more, NO *nix version offers the features that make the Win9x
> desirable for home computer use. There are lots of books out there for
> *nix users, but I've yet to see a "{insert vendor name here} Office for
> Dummies" book for LINUX, though I hear there is a "LINUX for Dummies" book
> out there.
So I assume that the *only* use a home computer is used for is for office
suite software. Okay.
Now, how much damage did the ILOVEYOU virus do? How much will it cost to
fix the damage that ILOVEYOU virus did?
More to the point (not really using any office suite program) the major
attraction of an office suite is that the different applications can embed
files from each other into a single document, right? That you can take a
spreadsheet (or portion thereof) and embed it into a word processor
document. Am I correct in that? There's nothing inherent in the design of
Windows that precludes such from being done in other systems, other than a
lack of economic insentive and the fear of bring the wrath of Microsoft down
upon you and being crushed out of existance (aside: Cisco has as much, if
not more, control in the router industry as Microsoft in software yet aren't
nearly as hated as they make very good products and when they buy out a
company, they tend to actually use the technology they bought out.
Microsoft has a hit-or-miss reputation with software reliability and even
when they buy out a company they are equally likely to sink the technolgy as
they are to market it).
> Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am not
> among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only
> organization capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate
> application software that pretty much functions as it should within the
> framework of this extremely complex OS.
I doubt that. The free BSDs or Linux is a good counter example. And if
you wish to discount the operating system, there is Apache. And if you wish
to discount servers, the GIMP. While it isn't up to the functionality of
Photoshop it certainly does anything a home user would want it to do.
Nature abhoors a vaccum and if Microsoft is gone, it will be filled in
rather quickly. Ding dong the witch is dead and all that.
> Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
> anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if the
> same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS'
> practices monopolistic or anticompetitive.
I don't follow your logic here. Which tests are you referring to?
Outside of marketing, there is no technical reason why a Windows-like (or
Mac-like) graphical user interface can't be built upon X Windows (the
primary graphic sub-system used on Unix workstations) and applications built
to that interface. Embedding documents into other documents isn't dependant
upon the underlying operating system---OLE, COM and DCOM are interface and
data exchange/understanding issues, not operating system dependant issues.
> If the complete source code
> for Windows is to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone
> who wishes to write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding
> that the code be released only to companies who, including all their
> employees as individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from
> participating in the production of any operating system which might be
> used as a competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers,
> utilities, or ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
Why? Such draconian measures would be such that you might not get very
many companies (or programmers) willing to even consider such a deal.
> If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have to
> legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
> development of any major software product be permitted to communicate with
> anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
> except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than
> five years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt
> that will happen.
Again, why do you think this?
> Well, we may get to see whether the courts come up with a prudent and
> reasonable solution. The obvious solution to break up MS won't help, but
> it will serve to octuple the cost of both software and hardware. It will
> set back the industry a decade as it tries to find a substitute for MS in
> a market where really only one OS and Office automation suite is going to
> be effective. If you don't see that through your haze of rage at
> Microsoft for doing something you weren't smart enough or diligent enough
> to do yourself, then perhaps you can come up with a potential successor OS
> to WIndows. Remember, though, that if MS simply closed its doors tomorrow,
> it wouldn't harm MS as much as it would harm the end user.
Personally, I feel that the two worst things to happen to our industry
have been Unix and Microsoft. I won't go into why I think Unix is bad, but
Microsoft has definitely kept the industry back technically, if only with
entrenching the poor design of the IBM PC as a standard for nearly 20 years.
Hell, if this sets the industry back 20 years that'll be the best thing to
happen! Imagine, decent hardware! Software that actually works! Less
slavish reliance on computers! That's bad?
Another bad aspect of Microsoft is the proliferation of file formats.
Microsoft Word 6 format is imcompatible with Microsoft Word 95 format is
imcompatible with Microsoft Word 98 format is imcompatible with Microsoft
Word 2000 format. Sure Microsoft MAY make a utility available for upgrading
the document but they don't make it easy and heaven forbid you find a cache
of documents seven years old in the backups that is in Word 6 format.
It's not hard to create a file format that is extensible, nor forward and
backward compible. To bring this back to topic, I have extensive
documentation on IFF, initially designed and documented in 1986 for the
creation of files that can be extensible and forward/backward compatible,
such that a document created with a program now can be opened with a program
written 10 years ago and have it not crash (or at least be able to do
something with the file and not loose the extra information).
And it certainly doesn't take one megabyte to store a single page of
information. That is just plain insane.
> jpero_at_pop.cgocable.net
>
> > What I was thinking of is a untoucheable and invisible OS and for
> > managing data is data users created only. Applications and any little
> > utils, drivers and hardware all are seen as "modules". Drivers and
> > hardware go hand in hand and is therefore as hardware module set. For
> > applications and small utils, they would be software modules.
>
> That would be a WONDERFUL idea ... an OS distributed on ROM. I trust
> you'll start on that immediately.
Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty of operating
systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9 and the original MacOS were
all contained in ROM, were/are ROMmable and extensible. And all are older
than 10 years old. Even MS-DOS came in ROM format for some computers
(although I'm not sure if it ran out of ROM, or was copied to RAM before
running).
-spc (Have you actually USED anything other than Microsoft products?)
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 23:27:26 BST
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