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[PrejudiceSucks]

Skittles, do NOT get involved in this. Taking sides this early will only lead to bad blood between you and a lot of other people. Seriously, it happened before with a little chap called Indi (his real name was longger but I can't be arsed to spell it).

omg, they did actually get fined a large amount by the EU not so long ago, so they're not above the law.

And I don't personally see what's wrong with their working practices. Fine, they own basically all of the western market, but that's because Windows is stable, fast and gets a lot of support for it.

You don't see them complaining about the East's more common use of Linux, do you?

Also if you use the old-school start menu you actually save something ridiculously high, like 30% or something of your CPU's energy.

Plus it's huge and its functions are pretty rubbish.

[Lonely Vazdru]

Just to add my two cents worth to this billion dollars fight : if i was forced to take sides i'd side with omg on that issue. I think things went way too bad between him and Pigggy, but i really think Microsoft (and other too huge companies) is the enemy. And i think the reason omg was furious, was not so much because Pigggy or others, side with microsoft, but because they don't feel threatened by it and don't think it's dangerous. I might be wrong, but i really think the reason this fight started was because omg was pissed at seeing young guys thinking : microsoft does things both illegal and immoral, but hey ! It's just business.
Time for ugly comparisons : it's the same kind of "i know they're bad but i don't care as long as they don't come here and burn my house down" attitude that let many an ugly regime (as the one by guys whose name started with na and ended with zis) come to power. Not because it was widely supported by zillions of active fanatics, but because it surfed on the moral laziness of zillions of regular guys.
That said, i hope things cool down between the two of you. If not, feel free to flame me i'm 100% fireproof !

[PrejudiceSucks]

I believe that omg has left. That's a shame really.

Oh and the Nazis got into power for a variety of reasons, saying that the German populace at the time was lazy is amazingly naive.

Also, what Microsoft do isn't really immoral, you can try to get your software out (Linux, for example, is on pretty much every computer in China) and they're not going to stop you, but if it's not as good as theirs then people won't use it.

Most people simply can't be arsed to type in a lot of code to get, for example, Linux working as well as Windows. It might well be just as good, but as long as the general public simply want things to be easy for them to use the Microsoft are going to lead the way and indeed the market.

[Lonely Vazdru]

Originally posted by PrejudiceSucks@Oct 25 2005, 11:05 AM
Also, what Microsoft do isn't really immoral, you can try to get your software out (Linux, for example, is on pretty much every computer in China) and they're not going to stop you

Not yet.

And for the germans, it was just to pick a recent exemple, no bad blood here. And i said morally lazy, as in bad things happen, i know it, but i don't act. If you believe they were all blood thristy nazis, you're even more naive than me. Many bad guys lead entire countries not because they are full of evil people but because the people look at the good side of things and turn a blind eye on the nasty part. Just like most of us (and yes i honestly include myself in the lazy ones) let Africa die and don't think twice about it as long as we get some cool games to play and a good little life. Just as we let big companies become more and more powerful because after all it's just business. I decided to not have children a long time ago because all this "it's not my problem, and i try as hard as i can to convince myself that it's not even a problem" attitude makes me think the world of tomorrow will suck big time. I may be wrong, and i hope i am.

[PrejudiceSucks]

Urmm.. all the german people wanted at the time was a secure government, Weimar had done very little good for quite a while, nothing was getting past. In a way, Hitler actually helped the country by shaking it up a lot.

Also they didn't get told about most of the really bad that happened Kristalnacht, for example, was obvious, but the extermination of the Jews wasn't told to the public, who only found out in 1944 when the German army was starting to fall apart and a lot of secrets were found out.

Anyway, all I was saying is that they're not going to stop you starting your own company up. You can say 'Not yet' and close your eyes and ears to what's really happening, but if you want to use Linux or Netscape or Firefox then you can, they aren't going to stop you doing that. You'll be losing out though, apart from with Firefox. That's great. Windows is still an excellent OS and nearly every program is made with Windows in mind.

Also, deaths in Africa aren't caused so much by us not caring, they're caused by people actively stopping anything getting done (thanks a lot, Catholic church). You can vote for whoever you want, but as long as the general public cares more about themselves then nothing is going to get done.

The vast, vast majority of people think that they're OK, but they're not. With the problems that're looming over the horizon such as what the USA will do with Iran (if they invade it then they're screwed. They'll just nuke the USA) and indeed Korea (the same, plus it'll be another Vietnam war on their hands) then the public is in for a bit of a shock. Plus whatever Tony Blair'll do (probably go along with Bush) then the populace of the UK is in for a surpise.

But anyway what the world needs is a leadership change. I'm not really in favour of people like Tony Blair who basically exploit the population's fear of change and xenophobia to win their campaigns. At least he doesn't make the pretence that God guides his actions.

Ruling a country based on a selection of fictional tales, written by a selection of people over thousands of years with literally zero current cultural value? Nice one.

That's like me ruling a country with its morals based on Harry Potter. Ugh...

[omg]

the problem is there is nothing the little man can do except refuse to buy microsoft, but hey how many of us here can honestly say they paid for windows :whistle:
the problem is they will always make huge money through corperate networks. but they are slowly losing out cuz with a linux distro u jus buy it once.
as for my strength of reaction to the kid saying microsoft is just buisness, if he had actually read what borodin had taken the time to write and understood it he wouldent have made such a smug little remark.
@vazdru but yeah you are right man. that is exactly what annoyed me like you are saying its almost like looking at hitler and saying "oh well its just politics"
(i could not post when i have had a drink but then i would rarely post, i like a couple of beers in the evening's but occasionly when i have had more than a couple it can lead to posts that i regret, but i dont edit them out from existance becuse a: it feels like cheating b: it reminds me not to get to drunk )
i actually like you analogy of comparing the rise of nazis to microsoft, LOL. zieg hiel mein bill gates, the thing is all we can do about it is to not buy microsoft, but then if you buy a game developed for windows dont they pay microsoft to develop for microsoft p.cs?
back in the days you bought a computer and it worked. this is i think a part of the reosen for nostalgia, my zx speccy worked, i turned it on and that was it. i could copy code out from books and not need a compiler to get it to work, i didnt have to wait for the o.s to load. and sir clive didnt go around trying to stop competition using fromt companys and dirty tricks. it was a simpler time. of course my speccy could not play movies, and to connect it to the net would have taken a hell of a lot of hassell, but there you go, times change, but as pc.s get faster and faster and yet another version of windows is announced i start getting nostalgic for the days when i could just turn the dam thing on and it worked instantly.

[Nikson]

I can honestly say I've paid for both Windows 98SE and Windows XP Home Edition

[PrejudiceSucks]

My dad paid for mine, but then he's an honest chap like that. He's into abandonware though.

[Lonely Vazdru]

I didn't pay for mine. But it's not because i lead the holy fight against Microsoft, but because i lack the money. As a matter of fact, my entire computer is made of bits, scraps and leftovers from my (richer) friends computers. They keep me connected so i can come and bother you guys with endless bickering ! :Brain:

[Taskmaster]

Well at nearly $100 for the UPGRADE of Windows XP, it a bit much for even me and I have a good paying job. I understand it is an important product, but they ensure it only last for two or three years, and I mean $100 bucks... that's 2 or 3 games!!

Of course, I am just cheap, but that's beside the point. On the other hand DirectX allows for some awesome games! No more DOS extenders, no more EMM386 configuration, spending hours trying to rearrange upper memory blocks so you could load the mouse driver high.

We could all still be playing Atari 2600 and asking each other "Is that blue square my guy or yours?"

(It was cheaper for me to buiy a new PC, with XP, than to go buy XP at the store)