Meanwhile...
Questions I've asked continue to be ignored every time I mention to you that directly answering such questions and examples might be more productive...as we spam on and on with comments that don't seem connected to the point but by its volume will eventually redefine or end the discussion.
DemoCoder said:
You keep harping on BeOS, so I'll address your point (do you have one?). Let us suppose that BeOS is a "quality" implementation. The question is: What benefits does using BeOS deliver above and beyond Windows, MacOS, and Linux such that I, as an end user, would clearly want to choose it over the rivals? How will it make me more productive?More entertained? More secure?
Are you retracting your comments about elegance? In any case, the layout of the OS and operation was much cleaner than Windows. Since you insist on illustrations of why, I'll point out such things as a modular filesystem (well, modular everything really), true SMP before it was anything but a joke on Windows NT (I presume XP is more extensively multi-threaded nowadays?), inter-process scripting tools as an OS standard (see my Amiga example), similar functionality as the Amiga datatype system (see my other Amiga example below). My point has and continues to be that it did not fail because "elegance" didn't matter, but because Microsoft controlled and does control the marketplace. This control is extending, and you are saying this does not matter and we are not missing features as a result. I think this is silly. I still do. I also think your comments completely and utterly fail to address this and try to talk about other things in its stead.
Here is an of what I took for granted when my main OS for my uses at the time offered me more functionality than Windows still does.
ARexx: On the Amiga, there was an inter-process scripting language, ARexx (based on the IBM main frame language of similar name). Things that resulted from this functionality were similar to things such as you can use Visual Basic for in Office applications, except of course
any application could use it extremely easily...and it didn't require much memory (it was small, and this includes GUI functionality for ARexx scripts). Digging through my memory, the functionality this allowed included my text editor doing things such as compile code (simply by implementing ARexx support), spellcheck, or anything another ARexx enabled program could do or could be done by ARexx (which would include any CLI functionality as well). This also allowed such a thing as my directory manager literally being able to add any functionality, including FTP and batch processing of files (and I mean about any type of processing). More importantly, it allowed me to add such functionality or download it myself to my existing programs. Other things included allowing multiple imedia related programs such as 3D renderer and an image processor to automate rendering and processing in any combination of compatible formats.
This worked on a 68000 processor, and required enough memory to have the applicable programs running.
Datatypes: on the Amiga, viewing functionality was redundant. A datatype could be written and any program that wanted to view that image type would use it. Functionality that could be exposed included loading, saving, and editing (and playing and viewing, etc). There were many different datatypes available, and what you got as a result were datatypes progressing in speed and features over time. This took the place of some plugins as we have for web browsers, except it happened in every program that used datatypes (libraries were re-entrant and typically multi-threaded). There were datatypes such as html and other hypertext formats (including the late "Amigaguide" format, may it R.I.P.), all audio, image, and video formats I knew of at the time (therefore all audio and vidoe programs that supported datatypes supported all formats you had datatypes for).
On Windows, I need to find programs with the functionality I want, and inter-operability to this degree is not an open OS feature because Microsoft gains more from making inter-operability a feature of their applications and making it difficult for other applications to have the same functionality.
Your question is kind of like asking "Be Inc. just shipped a new hamburger. How come most people are still eating McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's?" My question would be, does this Hamburger taste significantly better to the audience it is intended for?
No, my question isn't like asking that at all. If you could choose OSes as readily as you could choose burgers, Microsoft would not be a monopoly. For example, from the outset of your example, McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's all compete with one another, and this does not parallel Windows at all. Is there a reason you made an analogy so weakly linked to the discussion?
So can you tell me why I should choose BeOS over others?
I see, so when you said BeOS's elegance didn't matter you didn't mean it was more elegant and other factors caused it to fail, but that elegance itself does not matter? I did say earlier if you don't think quality matters, we shouldn't bother to have this discussion.
Let me quote another post you made as I think it might be illustrative of how your perspective on the history of computing is skewed:
One more comment: Frequently people make the claim that today's software requires way more resources but does the same thing thing. It is best phrased as "How could word processors could run on 386s, but now they require 1Ghz and 256mb of RAM?"
Well, the statement is not true. Back when you were running on a 386, your word processor couldn't render antialiased TrueType fonts on the screen and at 600DPI on the printer. It didn't have support for international languages (e.g. BIDI text, Unicode, Chinese input method), not did it do spell checking and grammar checking in all these languages, if it did any of them at all. You could not use the WYSIWYG word processor generate a presentation or publish electronically. It didn't support anywhere near the number of layout options available nowadays. Could it merge in data from database? Could it forward the document in email? Did it have revision control? Did it have a scripting language? Collaboration and workflow tracking? Document sharing? The list goes on.
Actually, let me mention what I could do on my 68020 AmigaOS machine with about 4 MB of memory (I had more, which allowed me to multi-task some bigger apps, but we'll use 4 MB as the base requirement).
I had Wysiwig word processing, including TrueType and unicode support. I do admit I'm not sure if it rendered anti-aliased, I suppose I'd have to check the font library specifications and see if it offered that.
I had international language support (the keyboard handler was modular and the locale library system allowed applications to offload handling of different languages, so you'd write the application once, and provide locale files to allow it to support another language. You'd simply add localization files to add languages.
There were foreign language spell checkers (I'm puzzled as to why you perceive this as a hurdle), though I don't have a complete list of which languages they existed for.
What layout options to do your refer to? It compared favorably to the last time I used Microsoft Word, and I'm not sure what layout additions you think require a modern computer. I will point out I had a WYSIWIG DTP program on this computer as well (Pagestream), and I'm pretty sure that would have whatever you had in mind covered (the blasted thing required like 3-8 megs of memory though).
Your merging data from a database, forwarding documents in email, and revision control examples are laughable...see my ARexx mention for how much further than this I could go on my Amiga.
Scripting language, see what I mentioned already.
Collaboration and workflow tracking and document sharing, there you have a point. It wasn't emphasized then, you'd have had to cobble something together with ARexx and the already existing revision control mechanisms. Actually, there were public domain Revision systems that supported ARexx that should have made this easy, but I never used it outside of coding. This was a big feature for Pagestream atleast, but I don't recall for certain a word processor supporting such. I have a vague recollection but it has been years.
Your list is really rather puzzling. You think these things are new or require lots of computing power? For "proof" use "Amiga" and some of these keywords and do some searches and you should find substantion for most of this.
The concept that one company being able to dictate the evolution of so many paths of software development to suite its own profitability is less desirable for consumers seems pretty clear cut. I really would prefer to be playing games and typing this under BeOS, but you'd rather dismiss the impact Microsoft's monopoly had on the ability of that OS to exist in the marketplace. To me, this makes me suspect that our discussion is not going to anywhere. Perhaps you could answer that first post I made in reply to you and we could maybe progress there?
First, consumers don't care about software development, they care about the end application. For most of the short history of consumer electronics, consumers have interacted with closed systems: VCRs, Microwaves, Consoles, DVDs, TVs, etc. They never had to think about what kind of OS was running inside. They just want to their microwave oven to work for them. It is only the PC that has introduced the notion of some general purpose (and brittle/buggy) device that is reconfigurable for a given task by software installed by the enduser.
It's strange...
who has the VCR, Microwave, DVD, TV monopolies? I could have sworn people could buy any damned brand they please based on whichever was best. This parallels Microsoft's monopoly how? Oh, wait, you also mentioned consoles. For the Microsoft situation to parallel this we'd have to have a throw out prior OSes and have a new set coming out every few years to compete. But, we don't. What was the point of this comment?
So, I'd like to know why you'd rather be playing a given game under BeOS? In the past, most games booted the operating system right out of the way and went straight to the hardware.
Today, games do not boot the operating system right out of the way. Why did you make that comment?
Usually when I am playing a game, I am not really concerned about the GUI or kernel underlying it, so I'd really be interested in why you are so keen on playing games on BeOS. Just what benefit do you think you'd derive?
Hmm...well, let's see. If I could play games and utilize BeOS for all tasks, I'd be using it right now. Since I can't, I don't, as I'd have to reboot in between applications. Microsoft has gained this position not because their OS is the highest quality, but because they have enough control to prevent another OS platform from successfully competing for applications. Witness the substantiated commentary from the Antitrust case. Maybe we could find a web site with an itemized list of what was substantiated in the case and save some time?
You really think MS killed BeOS in the market place, and not the fact that #1 Apple killed it,
Hmm...well, I always appreciate how your statements are facts and not opinions, especially with all the justification you provide.
and #2 consumers didn't even know about it (Be's business plan based on selling to Apple or selling multi-CPU "hacker boxes" to elite developers!)
I never used a Power PC BeOS version, I only used an x86 version. You know there was an x86 version of BeOS, right? Why are you discussing Apple then?
and #3 consumer's weren't the audience?
Consumer's weren't the audience? Hmm...oh wait, you said this is a fact so it must be true..
I mean, do you parents really covet a dual-CPU box? Do they care that BeOS markets features like "multi-processing", "multithreading", and "memory protection", features that every OS I know of now has?
So on the one hand, having those features means it wasn't targeted at consumers, and on the other every OS now has it. Does that mean XP isn't targetted at consumers? You understand why I think you sound a bit wacky? It sounds like you are saying it only counts as good and useful when Windows does it, which is the type of reasoning that will validate any lack Windows has no matter what could be proposed could be done if the functionality was there (don't take my word for it, that's what you just did).
There are about 2 dozen FREE webservers out there and many of them compare favorably with Apache (also free). So why do you suppose that most of them aren't used? Cause Microsoft killed them with a free IIS? or is it because they are not sufficiently different from Apache to warrant using them!
Wouldn't this be a situation were there still exists competition? Why do you bring it up? Or are you really trying to say "here, look Microsoft has to compete here still so you saying they don't have to compete in some other arena is not true". Do I have to point out why this doesn't make sense?
Face the facts: BeOS is not sufficiently better or different (and in many ways, much inferior) to the present big three: Windows, MacOS, and *Nix to warrant anyone to use such a new and unproven platform to do anything. It is not revolutionary, and most of the features it markets itself as having are old hat and not new at all.
Well, I did say "Or, we could redefine the discussion and look at what Windows offers us right now and ignore what other OSes have offered us and when and on what systems they achieved it.", so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Obviously Windows offers everything I could ever need and all the functionality of Amiga OS and BeOS that I miss from 10 years ago.
Microsoft can only control path dependence if the path they are taking is mostly correct. They can't go against the inertia of their own userbase and they can't impose arbitrarily high costs on the consumer. They have been thwarted in the past and not every Microsoft project is instantly successful in leading the market.
They've failed in some efforts to establish a monopoly and profitability, so therefore the areas in which they have succeeded do not matter?
At one point in time, Microsoft was building MSN out to beat the internet, complete with proprietary non-IP based protocols, its own non-HTML language, etc (a big AOL). At another point in time, Microsoft was trying to corrupt the XML specs with their own extensions, but recanted in the end. Microsoft fought hard against the virtual machine concept, but in the end, adopted a Java-like language (C#) and VM (CLR), which turns out to be an improvement on Java.
An improvement is it? I thought Java was modular, what features do these have that can't be done in Java? I suppose the side effect that it prevents people using something that could then be used on an alternative to Windows is an innocent side-effect?
On the Web Services side, Microsoft is now very open and cooperative compared to some of their rivals.
Pardon me if I don't take your description of "very open and cooperative" seriously given the discussion I've had with you so far. Could you elaborate and provide some info on how this "very open and cooperative" attitude reflects something that won't directly result in more market share for Microsoft based on a proprietary standard of some sort?
And Microsoft's critics aren't always correct. Remember when Microsoft decided to drop support for MCD OpenGL drivers? Carmack got all enraged and wrote a bunch of missives against MS, letter writing/petition, the whole shebang? Well it turns out in the end, that dropping MCD's was the right decision all along and Microsoft's decision wasn't neccessarily a carefully calculated decision to kill OpenGL, but was more a technical decision not to support something that the IHV's weren't asking for.
No I don't remember. Is that something sort of like "glide" was for Voodoo cards, a partial set of OpenGL functionality? Why was Carmack insistent on this instead of the full ICD?
I suppose this is similar to not having OpenGL drivers shipping with XP?
Look, I don't like everything Microsoft puts out. I still don't like the DirectX C++ apis and still prefer OpenGL. (However with Direct9 Managed Extensions, the API is much nicer). And in fact, many areas of windows still needs improvement.
No kidding? Hey, which areas? Let's compare them to other OSes and see how long ago an improvement was offered elsewhere. Then lets ponder whether having had to compete on quality with other OSes might have resulted in Windows having the improvement already.
Or we could go through another batch of text talking around that simple concept.
But Microsoft has systematically been delivering vast improvements in their entire software line, and I am sick of people claiming MS is holding progress back. There is no one stopping any developing from writing the ultimate web browser or spreadsheet. Absolutely nothing.
Did you just say this about a "web browser" with a straight face?
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