I do agree that companies aren't always supposed to do what people want, but there's a point where you can screw it up too badly. People do tend to complain a lot about new things, but then get over it.

But look at Vista. It took them 6 years to make, and it's been out for a year, yet people are still complaining in droves.

Now thats the thing, isnt it, you would "Pay" for an update every year that you get some "new features", I on the otherhand would rarter stick to what I know works.

On the rip off side, isnt that what happnes with Apple as its pretty much the same as Linux, which is free....

OS X you say... isn't that Apple's propietary distrubution of BSD with large chunks from GNU and other free/open source projects? :)

As for updates, I get mine every six months for free, not including the cost of the DVD and the effort it takes to get that iso file into it of course. Looking forward to version 9 in April, hopefully KDE 4.0 would have worked out most of the bugs!

Many thanks to the Fedora Project! :beer:

Really I will go over this again and again. Having been a Project Technical Leader and Level 3 Support Specialist in MS apps and OS systems for about 11 yrs, i think ppl miss the point.

Microsoft have a vision, and that vision wont change because home users do not like there OS, Microsoft don't care what the home user thinks of the OS, and really dont care that much about businesses either, but they do tend to prick up and ear to the larger corporations who spend millions a year in MS licences. and they know ppl will not dorp Windows for other OS's like Linux that are free due to the huge business implications involved with an Open Source OS or software, theres too much risk. The only care what some businesses think as they are the ones who pay through the nose to have 75,000+ Laptops, Desktops, Workstations and Servers all running their OS.

Also u cant just pick on 1 company for having something "in the making" for a prolonged period of time. Everything takes time and money, and that moves me nicely onto another factor.

MS developed Vista in 6 years and from what your typing I'd say u think thats either too long or long enough to fix every little bug and issue they had during development. MS will have spent millions on the development of Vista and they need to claw that back, so they release and all the companies pick it up and start shipping it on new hardware, impatient ppl go buy it and then there are those who "download it". MS are forced into "earlier than they would like" release dates due to money and finacial constraints that require actioned otherwise they will suffer in certain areas or departments.

The same situation exists in the Games Development Market (this situation primarily only counts for the PC market) and the application/software development market, where a developer gets funds from the publisher and makes the game with their own and the publishers money. The deal is struck and after 5 -10 years the game is realeased, but shock horror there are bugs. OK the bugs were never fixed at development as there was no time and the publisher is loosing vast amounts of money as the realease has slipped a few months (or years if ur talkin about Duke Nukem 4 :p). So they fix the issues with patches or in the case of software Service Packs.

I hope this clarifies this and we can start moaning about why Apple suc and the MAC OS X is just a glorified version of Linux :p

Ah, those Microsoft visions... seriously, check your gas appliances. Either they are leaking gas or are not working properly, thus releasing vast amounts of potentially deadly carbon monoxide! :eek:

Duke Nukem I hear? Duke Nukem 4EVER! :attn:

OK, now we can go on about why OS X is just another BSD distro... like NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BSoD, etc... :)

Haha, you got me there. ;) I have looked at Linux before and I have to say that it looks more like Windows than OS X.

In the end, everyone is going to copy each other, but who does it best is the one that matters.

Looks like Windows? :eek:

I have to say, I see no shades of bad-horror-movie green anywhere and my windows do not have silly translucent borders. :)

As for the copying game, I think Microsoft does it best. How much originality do you see in their products? :)

To be honest, the same as I see with many, many other large companies, in fact I would have to look hard at anything a large company has done that they have done themselves, only smaller companies come up with new Ideas as there the ones that can take the risk (or researchers in uni's which contribute the most to new ideas and directions). The larger comapnies take the Ideas that have promise and then develop them into a package.

One of the problems is that the larger the companys market share and competition pretty much less R+D into stuff outside the core business, more of it goes on sorting out problems and developing exisitng products.

Not really... take IBM for example. Its a big company, yet their Cell processor was pretty unique. And Sun's T1 and T2 processors were pretty original as well, though Sun is a much smaller company. Its the likes of Microsoft that don't really have much innovation.

As for large companies spending more effort to solve existing problems, thats a valid point, but Microsoft seems to have more problems with software than any other company - and they don't always tell you that there is a problem.

The cell processor wasnt just IBM, it was IBM, Sony and Toshiba, which doenst make it a single development done by one company.

Where's it goign to be used, by IBM to put in Servers which is one of there core businesses so it's in their interest of gaining more business, as with the PS3, again a core business for Sony, as I said.

Computing (esp software and interface) falls into a de facto standard so its not so much to do with inovation its to do with what works and gets used in practice, Apple will probably take the credit for multitouch and gesture with the Iphone and MAC Air, but they were far form the first people to do it.

Even with MS's problems with their softwares its still the de facto, and unless they do somethinig stupid like start to make there own "hardware" to limit problems with drivers and softwares, and only package their OS with there own hardware, they will be for the forceable future.

Sony and Toshiba are not known as big bad chip designers... not like Fujitsu! But anyways, IBM did much of the work. Yes, the other two helped, but it was mostly IBM.

Anyways, as for standards, most of them suck! They are only "standard" to make things cheap and miserable. Look at the hidiousness of x86 or them silly W3C HTML version "whatever they feel like now". They don't work well most of the time. Its just usually cobbled together so that it "just works". Hardly any elegance or anything...

But I'm ranting. Standards are good, but not when all the members in them committees are self serving... businesses! :)

The thing is, good standards loose. Bad ones win. Who knows why? Maybe its a conspiracy!

I had to keep track of BS and IEC standards to ensure that products met them, if its commities then there out of date all the time hence W3C, too many people arguing over what to include, these generally get used as a basic set to build, if the defacto standards that constantly roll with developments then there not to bad, as there up to date, which happens all the time in software, interface etc.

Haha, good standards loosing and bad ones winning, it's just whatever gets picked up and used quicker.

Thats what commities do, argue over entirely pointless things. Updating the HTML standard to allow more 'Web 2.0' is pointless I reckon. Not only are them 'social' websites (advertising reaserch traps) which supposdly require them extensions utterly pointless, I doubt they will need 300+ plus extensions just to create badly coded myspace pages full of viruses and other forms of malware.

And as for keeping with the times, thats utterly pointless as well... What exactly defines modern? I only notice things getting dodgier over time. Yes, a pretty interface is more modern that a CLI, but the OS that runs it gets owned by ten year old exploits...

:angery: Evil! Evil! *grabs pitchfork*

OK I'll pipe up again...

Sony, Toshiba do not design chips they get someone else to do that AMD and Intel usualy or some cheapo company in Korea. Companies like Sony etc.. Design hardware and create concepts or ideas for technology. They are not reallyinvolved in the design or manafacturer of chips or processors.

The IBM Chip is a waste IMHO as it is not a standard any of the developers are finding easy to switch to or code for, hence why now Microsoft and Sony are looking to switch to Intel (its in the begining stages but I think Intel will get the deal) for the XBox 360 and PS3. This means all hardware for both PC and Consoles can have the same low spec architecture code written in and makig porting of games/software far easier.

As for "MS have issues with Software", WRONG!!!! If you install XP/ 2000/ NT4 or now Vista and ony install MS products I guarentee the system will fail 99% less that it does iif you install 3rd party software, so not all the blaim can be dumped on MS. Look at how many Hobbiest's, Companies, Indies and Software Houses write software for Windows... There are 100,000's of them. So you just like to blaim MS as it's their OS, but no step back and think, "...should I have installed Dodgy Buggers - Light User Explorer Photo Package 7...", ".. did this cause issues with windows...".

Ok there is blaim to be had a Microsofts part and it is all to do with the SDK's the realease. They release these at to high a level so that it makes coding easier, but can cause issues when a developer attempts to do certain things that need low level access to Windows and it denies it. Monopolies have already told MS to release lower versions of the SDK's (which they are doing), but why didnt they do that before u ask?

To protect their business.

I do believe Sony and Toshiba have chip architects. The design centre IBM had set up had quite a few Sony and Toshiba staff I believe. Sony or Toshiba even came up with EIB for the Cell, or contributed greately to it. Of course they don't fab it themselve, fabbing modern chips is way to expensive for them.

I didn't say that the Cell was good, I merely said it was original. Its not that good in my opinion. The ever befuddled media were saying that it was a supercomputer in a chip and that, and of course Sony exploited that. Reading the IBM report shows that the Cell isn't that good for double precision floating point, and the SCOP3 report downplayed all the hype as well.

As for Microsoft OS + Microsoft software, that wouldn't make the computer very useful would it? ;)

Does Paint do what Photoshop does? Is Internet Explororer good? I've used Explorer for years before I switched to Opera on Linux. Explorer crashes every day - brings down the kernel too. Have to say, I have never ever seen Linux have a kernel panic, and I'm using Fedora - the evil "in a permanent beta" distro!

While doing a VB .NET course last year, the IDE would go crazy, the kernel will panic and it was a horrid buggy experience. It corrupted itself many times too while saving and opening.