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I guess you could say that everything has a good and a bad side to it. Having one dominant OS is definitely easier for both developers and consumers if that OS is stable and runs the software they want. Imagine if every computer buyer had to pick between 4 or 5 OSs to install on their machines. First they'd have to figure out if the software they want to run is available for those OSs. Then they'd have to know about the different features, such as hardware requirements, multi-tasking capabilities, plug and play, support for hardware devices, etc... These days, thanks to Microsoft's dominance, few people care. They buy a computer and know that it will run whatever software they want and talk to whatever peripherals they plug into it. Is this a good thing? I say yes; it frees people to do what they bought the computer in the first place for: to run their software.
I have more to say but I'll stop here since I gotta get back to work.
Regards,
Alvaro
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Possibly a more appropriate analogy would be the road systems that cars run on. Even the most die hard capitalist (such as myself) would not argue that every car company should be responsible for designing the roads that their cars will be compatible with. If you buy a Ford, you can only drive it on roads also designed by Ford! While I do not advocate government creating and maintaining the OS as they do roads, having some type of standard controlled by some kind of limited authority is better than no standard at all. Still,I voted for the multiple OS option. The best of all possible worlds would be to have a number of competing OS providers all working from a mutually agreed upon set of basic standards. I know that's utopian, and there is too much animosity among all the big players and too much arrogance and greed on the part of the biggest player to ever acheive that. Short of that, however, I believe that a Microsoft standard is better than no standard.
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I agree with your first sentence, My first thought was "I can't believe there are 134 idiots here"... but then I realize that there are probably alot of people around that never went to the computer store in the early 80s and had to pilfer through 100s of games only to find that only 6 of them actually supported any one hardware platform. Frustrating... Even more frustrating is trying to find a large enough audience to develop for when there are tons of systems out there. The current videogame industry is a small peek into what it's like without domination, except most people can afford to buy a playstation2 AND a x-box, not many can afford to buy a PC and an Amiga, and a Mac and a Beos Box, etc etc...
I remember development and software purchase in the pre-MS days, and I'm damn glad there's someone to lead and dominate now, I dont care if its Microsoft or someone else, but I can tell you that MS puts a hell of alot more back into the software / computer world than IBM did when it was king, and look what apple did during thier brief reign, closed up the box and said "No peeking inside or we'll void your warranty"... IBM came out with the Microchannel bus and patented it 100 ways so they could assume total domination and control and capital. (Good thing for us that both IBMs and Apples plans backfired and sealed their own dooms) No I'm not crying any tears for either of them, and I'm sure that MS is not the worst leader we could possibly have.
Dan K
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Open standards are a MYTH!!!
They just don't exist in the real world. (An over statement, but the world of open standards are not as happy and care free as so many people think.)
The problem is that every company is looking to add value. (Remember JavaScript and all the other things Netscape did to the HTML standard?)
Well, once there is a clear leader, developers start taking advantage of those proprietary enhancements to add value to their own software. ("This site best viewed with Netscape!", EMBED).
Then the open standard gets taken over by a one or a few large companies that drive the standard to best meet their needs.
Of course, if this company has political favor, then it is said that the standard is advancing. If this company has fallen out of political favor, then it is said that they are trying to control or even take over the standard process.
Same events, different outlooks purely based on how a company is viewed politically.
(Don't even get me started on 'open standards' that try to be everything to everybody. How many of you remember when Digital Equipment Corp submitted their VMS operating system for POSIX compliance. The funny this is that the POSIX standard was so poor, they could actually meet the requirements.)
Tim Smith
Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
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I think the selections should have been:
Windows
OS/2
Mac OS/X
Linux/FreeBSD/Unix/Posix
PC/MS/DR-DOS
BeOS
Other
Equal Share
Don't Care
I don't want any single company to dominate, but I would prefer to pay less for a stable OS.
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I was purposely concentrating on companies, not technologies (I only mentioned DR-DOS to prompt those who wondered what Digital Research did).
Everyone seems to be down on MS, but then when you push someone about whether they would prefer to have Sun running the show then they are like 'um...er...' so I figured I'd do a simple popularity test.
I can do the OS popularity poll later 
cheers,
Chris Maunder (CodeProject)
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The results so far seem to be backing that up. Everybody hates Microsoft, but only half of them are willing to let another company get more ground.
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The loss of popularity has more to do with what they want to do in the near future than with this poll. The previous polls expressed the interest in the new toys like Managed C++ or C# and new "Activation" scheme - people don't quite like it. So, if M$ will continue to push crap on the people, the patience may end one day and we will all be using Linux or something like that.
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Well said George.
M$ is very evil.
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Come again? How is Microsoft different from any other company?
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Says who? Got a (trustable) link where I can read that?
--
Alex Marbus
www.marbus.net
But then again, I could be wrong.
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That is because you are wrong. M$ is f**king evil, all they care about is money and screwing their customers with crappy software. Even I could do better than them! M$ should change their business practices to those of Sun. No need for links - everybody with a brain knows this.
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M$ should change their business practices to those of Sun.
Now I'm curious: which particular ones are you suggesting?
cheers,
Chris Maunder (CodeProject)
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Sun don't make you pay $$$ for some their software which is free. All software should be free or very small priced or not everybody will have it.
Also Sun don't have lots of bugs in there software like M$ do. M$ is the worst software by a long distance. Sun has softwares that run on non-M$ operating systems so they can't crash!!
Need I mention more?
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I tell you what, you persuade Sun to give away its hardware (which is its primary business) and I'll get Bill to give away his software (which is his primary business).
Sounds fair to me
Good luck
Michael
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Hardware is too much as well. All these companies that make such inferior products should make them very cheaper or not everybody will have them! What's the point in spending $$$ making something if you only see it to 5 people? If it is free of very cheap then it is better for the consumer (who is always right) which then gives benefit back to the company as they will have more of customers.
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Forgive me for obviously missing the point, but what is this benefit you talk of that occurs when a company has more customers, yet these cusomers do nothing for the company?
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All software should be free or very small priced or not everybody will have it.
you've opened my eyes !!!
from now on we'll stop to charge our customers if they want to use our software...
so every company that needs it, could use it for free and greatly reduce their expenses !
and don't forget my profit by doing this: i will live longer and more healthy because i'll have to sell my car (i wouldn't be able to afford it anymore) and thus i'd have to walk to the place i'm working (so i have some more fitness training in the morning).
in addition i would have to get a new job to pay the rent of my apartment or to buy me food. maybe i could find some outdoor work... then i could go outside, after 10h sitting in front of my computer, and do some physical activities like collecting garbage or cutting lawn in a park... yep, this would be really good for my lame spine...
cheers, case
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It's worth to mention here that according to the GNU GPL the "free software" is "about the freedom, not the price". You still get the money and you can keep your car.
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True, but this guy's views dictate that he beleives all software (and now hardware) should be free. I think that is what Mike was refering to.
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Even I could do better than them!
I love it when people get so cornered they need to throw out that line in defence. If you can do better, DO SO. People will move to your product if it is truely better. Of course, you wouldn't make any money off it because you believe all software should be free? (from your reply below).
And what do you do for a living? It obviously can't be any aspect of software development if you have that view.
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OS/2 is dead and BeOS too... 
and DOS was outdated since its first release...
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True, but should OS/2 have died? BeOS was doomed from the start because it came along WAY too late to compete with Microsoft, and nobody wrote any drivers for it.
Anyway, the operating system is not the subject of this poll, so maybe we should just ignore this entire thread until Chris gives us a reason to argue about OS's.
It's my fault for starting this thread, because I mis-read the poll. My apologies for leading everyone astray. However, the fact that so many have responded merely illustrates my abilities as a born leader.
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I voted DR Dos , just so that I could write a comment. I don't care who has the upper hand on the desk top as long as our best interests as users/developers are served .I have no way of knowing who will be best at that in a few years time .
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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