Microsoft really annoying me now

[Axls Locomotive]

i dont think the market would have been much diffferent at all...just look at linux, all open source and thats the best they can do?

btw open standards are open source, they are intrinsically linked

im not missing the point dude, i know what youre irked about...but im not irked about it...

the .doc standard? thats based on the rtf format ..the rtf format can be opened by almost any Word Processing program...and Microsoft provide a free program to open up any Word document...it wouldnt be difficult to reverse engineer a .doc as it's just a markup language, it's not as if you encrypt it!!!... and there are plenty of formats that arent open in the public domain

and yes it is stealing...it's pendantic to think otherwise

[Genesis]

Nice. A Microsoft slugging thread. What else is new? 

i dont think the market would have been much diffferent at all...just look at linux, all open source and thats the best they can do?

Best they can do? From being just a kernel at version .99 in '91, Linux (now at 2.6.17) has 27% of the server market and is fast making inroads into the desktop market. Don't knock Linux man, u may not like it, but u can't ignore it. Heck, even Microsoft has admitted that Linux is a threat. Ever heard of Redmond's Linux Research lab?

Obviously the Linux community can't develop at the same pace as a group of paid developers, but we're getting there...

Microsoft built DirectX, a closed standard, to compete with OpenGL, an open standard. Among other things it makes it a lot harder to build cross platform games.

I don't think there's anything wrong in that. DirectX is entirely a Microsoft product. You can't tell them how to market their own software. If game developers want portability, they use OpenGL. If not, they use the more advanced features of DirectX. As simple as that.

About the copyright thing, it's not stealing if you look up what stealing means. It's just not.

Don't kid urself, estranged. Using software without a license is stealing, no matter how u want to look at. Nobody needs to lookup what stealing means, it's just that. If u don't use a licence, the developer is not getting paid for that particular copy of the software and that is stealing.

[estranged.1098]

Open standards and open source walk hand in hand by the very nature of open source, because open source software doesn't try to control the user of the software. But you can completely ignore open source when talking about open standards and the importance of them. The internet exists because of open standards; without them it would simply not exist. Please stop saying open standards depend on open source, because they don't. Open standards are also important in other areas not related to software.

The .doc format is not a markup language and it's not based on the RTF format. And it's pretty damn hard to write a program that can understand .doc files. There are other office suites out there where the most important missing feature that prevents their adoption is compatibility with MS files.

[Axls Locomotive]

Best they can do? From being just a kernel at version .99 in '91, Linux (now at 2.6.17) has 27% of the server market and is fast making inroads into the desktop market. Don't knock Linux man, u may not like it, but u can't ignore it. Heck, even Microsoft has admitted that Linux is a threat. Ever heard of Redmond's Linux Research lab?

Obviously the Linux community can't develop at the same pace as a group of paid developers, but we're getting there...

"we" ...are you involved?

yes thats what i meant, obviously linux has been for many years the best operating system for servers along with the wonderful apache server but has never been a player in the market for desktop systems until recently, 2-3 years ago maybe...as we were talking about how things would have been since 94 or whatever then since linux wasnt for the average person, Microsoft was the only option (unless youre a masochist Mac user and they werent exactly popular)...estranged says it could have been different, ummm who else would have challenged Microsoft? the answer is no-one because there was no-one...if it wasnt for Microsoft then the average person wouldnt be browsing the internet just now...because Microsoft made it easy to start using PC's for people who had never thought of using one,

Open standards and open source walk hand in hand by the very nature of open source, because open source software doesn't try to control the user of the software. But you can completely ignore open source when talking about open standards and the importance of them. The internet exists because of open standards; without them it would simply not exist. Please stop saying open standards depend on open source, because they don't. Open standards are also important in other areas not related to software.

The .doc format is not a markup language and it's not based on the RTF format. And it's pretty damn hard to write a program that can understand .doc files. There are other office suites out there where the most important missing feature that prevents their adoption is compatibility with MS files.

i am well aware of open standards and open source, you have no need to explain them to me...

did i say open standards depend on open source? ummm no...something lost in the translation there

yea you're right some doc files contain the proprietary format , but you're wrong because some docs contain rtf code

if only people were smart enough to use .rtf instead of .doc...it's their own format, they have every right to use it, you can save it as other formats that other packages can recognise for portability...it's not as if you are presented with only one option..then it would irk me...but really...it doesnt

[Sin Cut]

didnt you guys hear of file sharing?

and you think stealing someone else's work is a good thing?...

I think the proper word is testing

you don't buy a car without testdrive

[mrlee]

would you complain that you cant play PS3 games on the PS2?

what about dvd players, not so long ago, they could only play some formats and not them all...

funny how people blame Microsoft for everything yet it's not their fault in this case

you want to play the latest games at ?40 but frown paying for upgrades to your system to cope with the better quality games...why do you think they are better quality then? ill tell you, because you have a better system to play those games on

and maybe you should blame the makers of the games and not Microsoft, Microsoft only make the operating system, they dont make the PC, the hardware or most of the games

cest la vie

but at least with a pc you get the opportunity to upgrade

the difference there is, so yuo spend all the money to upgrade the system...then your asked to pay ?500!!! for a first edition of the new windows OS!!!

man its a moot point, Q covered it rather well with the simple statement would you expect to play PS3 games on a PS2 or a PS1 for that matter? Vista is not dropping for for awhile yet... less then a year i think now... and you will have at least one full game generation before they take full advantage of the hardware and software now out for these games. if the cost of better games is buying a new os on top of the upgrades then so beit. If you buy your upgrades properly then you should only have one huge upgrade every 3 years, that being MB CPU and memory, video can fall in the mid times but if you spread out your upgrades right every 3-4 years you should have a new system except for HD's and moniter.

as for vista..... there are.......howmany different versions of it?....5 yes 5 differnet versions and the 500 bones your talking ... i thnk that may be a bit high..... even for international ultimate edition.... though i may be not that far off.... XP pro released for $299USD and was selling for about $340 international. you can buy the basic version and quite bitching about the price... im sure that it will post for around $200USD

well hell if you want to get vista... starting now put 1 dollar away per day till it releases and u should be able to pick it up with out any problem.......

im not an american, you get things much cheaper. this is the UK, i have every right to complain about the price. my country totally ripps us off