[tlug] Re: Why Vista Sucks (was: linux: it's becoming ubiquitous)

["Gernot Hassenpflug" <aikishugyo@example.com>]

>Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:13:36 +0900
>From: scott <scott@example.com>
>Message-ID: <1206443616.28271.15.camel@example.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain

>On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 16:02 +0900, Josh Glover wrote:
>
>> For an interesting opinion on why Vista be the way it be,
>> enter Joel Spolsky:
>>
>> http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html
>> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
>>

>I read an interesting report on vista a while back (can't find the URL
>right now), mostly about how horrid the performance was due to the
>internal encryption between all hardware devices in order to protect
>intellectual property of bluray or HD DVD disks from would be crackers
>and reverse-engineers (IIRC). The thinking was that, sure, it's a huge
>performance hit but we'll just pass that on to the end user and force
>them to pay for more RAM. /../

My friends who run businesses answer this with 'because there are so
many criminals it absolutely has to be done to protect the creators,
else no-one would create anything for commercial purposes'. This tells
me that creating something for commercial purposes is a lot more
expensive in total than simply creating something that is useful.
Commercial products always give a "service" (for pay) while
simultaneously "refusing to give a/several service/s" in the sense
that you have a take-it-or-leave-it option only, not a choice about
the best for yourself.

> /.../ I contacted Toshiba about
>drivers for XP as most of the users in the office were complaining about
>vista, and believe it or not Toshiba Japan said they would not even
>support XP on this new model- kind of forcing us to choke on vista.
>Luckily I found the drivers on the Toshiba Australia website /../

Again, the answer my business friends give here is that the companies
adapt to the market, and that the business entities in different
geographical locations are independent with regard to support
policies. I have had exactly the same experience with Konica-Minolta
and Canon, obtaining all manner of detailed product information from
Germany, as an example, while the Japanese unit would only give me
meta-information (since some time, marketing labels as information
things which are not informative) or refused to give out under pretext
of that being a company secret.

My conclusion from observing how bundled products are, from housing
and associated services, to computers and OSes, is to write off anyone
that says "consumers have a choice" or "you can choose to not buy it"
as uninformed or part of the problem, or both. Such people in my
experience do not value open software or what it can do, and are
completely insensitive to moves that are beneficial to people other
than their own limited business interests, while at the same time
admitting to using pirated software because "they can", labelling the
companies that cannot protect against this as "stupid" or "deserving".
I kid you not. I don't want this to be taken too generally, but I
think breaking out of limited self-interest is a lot harder for most
people than I have gotten used to thinking coming from an academic AND
western scientific environment (academic AND humanities, for example,
does not seem to cut it).

/../

Regards, Gernot