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----- Original Message ----- From: "DaveNull" <davenull@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <list@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2004 3:36 PM Subject: Re: [LUG] today's meets and some observations etc.
Windows registry serves one purpose and one purpose only, DRM or digital rights management, it makes commerical software possible. On the old acorn (Simon will know this from Nova / Xara / Computer Concepts days) you could take an excellnt application and simply copy the installed folder off a hard disk to another acorn and it worked, no registry, commerical software developers are NOT going to invest big in something as easily copied as that.
I must disagree there. Although largely true, I know of at least three commercial programs on Windows which CAN be copied from one HD to another, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 for one. (I know this because I have my programs on a separate HD and when Windows died (as it does sooooo often) I did NOT have to reinstall it. There are others, but I thought it nice to quote this one as it is an MS product (OK MS badged anyway). In actual fact it is not the Registry alone that stops software piracy being so easy, it's the programmers not putting all the relevant files within the program folder. How many times has anyone tried to install a program and had the installer refuse because "you do not have Internet Explorer X.X installed"? In order to copy a program successfully every related file would have to be copied, its' original location noted, and then mirrored on the new HD, otherwise the user would get swamped with complaints about a miriad DLLs being missing. Try moving the same program on a Mac and I suspect there would be no problem as it is all self-contained within the same folder.
Microsoft became a huge success BECAUSE it got into bed with software companies to help them protect their investments, DRM.
Microsoft became a big success because the competitors weren't quick enough to spot the gap in the market that Gates exploited. If IBM had not sold DOS to Bill then we would probably be talking today about IBM Windows (or whatever they chose to call it). If others had come up with a competitor product to DOS when MS were still in their infancy then we would have a more even market today. Sadly it didn't happen. If the same had been true for Henry Ford then we would all be driving Fords today. Happily there were enough designers making different cars that the diversity survived and nobody got to be top dog.
This is spreading to EVERYTHING digital, which means it is spreading to EVERYTHING. If I edit my home movies ripped from cine via vhs to digital in windows movie maker I face serious issues getting those movies to play on my brothers computer, just so time warner sony etc can have DRM for Rocky 27 (The irony being that "hollywood" only moved the movie industry there away from new york to escape patent licencing issues, edison etc)
I'd recommend Pinnacle Studio or TMPEG DVD Author anyway, but I digress ;)
you won't, ever, until you decide to speak their language, african missionaries who only speak high latin ended up in the pot innit
The problem is there are three classes of user: 1. The "button pusher". Wants a GUI that is nice and simple so he/she doesn't have to know how things work. The same person pays the garage £30 to change the oil in the car because there is no interest in how it works, just that it does. These will be happy with an OS that is preinstalled, looks pretty and lets them do what they want with pictures and mouse clicks. They would probably be the easiest converts to Linux, assuming they don't already have Windows. 2. The ex-Windows power user. I am in this class. I've been using Windows for the better part of 10 years. More to the point than the OS to me is the "applications" I run in Windows and their purpose. For example video editing. I mentioned above the two programs I use most for that. I also use Paintshop Pro and have done for years. For me productivity is badly affected when I have to sit down in front of TheGIMP and work out "Now how do I do that in this program?". There is an added hardware dimension then. For those of us who use non-standard hardware, such as my DC10+ capture card, Linux is a non-starter. Ironically I bought the DC10+ because I read reports online that it works with Linux and that the WinTV PVR did not. Now I learn the reverse is true.. Trust me on this, I've been in correspondence with the developer of the modules for Linux and the new DC10s have a new chip (Bendino) and Pinnacle won't tell anyone enough to create a module for it! This group will be the most difficult to convert because we don't want to waste productivity time when Windows will give a solution that works out of the box. As far as Linux being free is concerned, yes it is. However if you factor in the fact that I have already spent £100 on a capture card that now is useless in Linux, Linux is actually about half the cost of Windows XP! Extend that to the possibility of me buying another card which I am reliably informed WILL work in Linux (one of you nice people told me that.... Robin I think? Apologies if I got your name wrong, but thank you for the advice). If I buy the second card Linux will have cost me the same as Windows XP. For this group Linux MUST be accepted by both hardware and software developers or we're all likely to stick with what we know works. Personally I want to persevere with Linux, but if I can't do everything I want in Linux, but I can in Windows, there may come a day when I tire of tying up 3Gb of diskspace for an OS that doesn't do what I need. 3. The technical user. I suspect that may be most of you :) So I won't say much about that group, save to say that for networking/stability/reliability in business Linux can't be beaten, so for those purposes it is an obvious choice. As an aside it actualy renders my video about 50% faster than Windows 2000 on the same box, but I can't *capture* it so the saved time is wasted swapping about there. I haven't bothered to mention Gamers, although perhaps I should. I saw an article in a PC magazine once about MP motherboards. I wrote in to the magazine pointing out that if the manufacturers want to sell more MP mobos there is a simple route. Get the games software houses to write games that take advantage of MP boards. The same logic is true of Linux. Gamers are well known for throwing large amounts of money around in order to get a PC to play the latest games. Imagine saying to a gamer "Hah! You only got 24 frames per second on that game! *I* got 36 fps, same game, same hardware... OS.. Linux!" The distros would be swamped with people downloading ISOs or buying Mandrake/RH/Suse etc online. Imagine telling someone who spends £300 on a graphics card that the OS you beat them on was free! :)
when they come BACK a few weeks later you can give them a english to high latin dictionary and sit down and show them the shell and kernel hacking.
I have a problem with the language thing. I have worked in front line ISP
tech support for 7 years. The majority of customers don't know what a colon
is ("oh you mean the double dot.. don't use your jargon on me!"), or a
hyphen ("you mean the dash") or heaven forbid the ampersand ("the wot?").
They don't understand basic English terminology much less Linux. It is
totally unrealistic to expect swarms of converts to Linux unless everything
is in plain English. I mean I have trouble sometimes with Linux
terminology, especially in the early days following "simple" instructions
like "just recompile the kernel". "Do what to the which?" Now I know what
it means. Now put that comment to someone who recognises a mouse 2/3 times.
They'll leave skidmarks on their way to Windows.
Linux needs to be idiot proof, or at least bullet proof to the extent that
weapons grade stupidity is required to break it.
Kind regards,
Julian
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