ohh ... PR-wise ...
what about then :
YouTube - Ballmer's developers...

Total bull. Even if the Free Software movement is dead, we still have the GPL to cover the whole planet.

I want whatever he was smoking.
Linux Mythology!!?? Sounds like a religion to me, how about you?

Microsoft lost all real credibility when they released the operating system known as Windows Mistake Edition - ME in short. The last good OS was 98SE.

One of the best NT OSes was Win2000 SP4.
After that, the NT line got bloated and fat and slow like its' DOS and 9x cousins before it.

I can't stand propaganda. When's the part where Hitler shoots himself?

SigmaX

My theory is that Windows was just constructed at the right time in the right places, and just publicised all too well. It's seen as a standard in a world whereas with linux being the standard could've changed the WORLD all in itself. Could you imagine a world with as many people using and knowing as much as they do with windows being that way on *nix and contributing that through open source? Wow.

Long live tux.

If open source is dead, maybe ol' Bill Gates was right when he said we wouldn't need more than 640k of RAM?

I'll just copy-and-paste this response I posted at Ubuntuforums.org:

"Remember the Iraqi minister of information appearing on tv and telling the public "we are winning the war, everything is going well. We have defeated the americans!" while you could see american tanks rolling in at the background? That's Microsoft right now."

hehe...someone should paste a picture of Bill Gates (or the guy who said it) saying "Linux and the free software movement is stonedead"

lakersforce, great minds clearly think alike. Because for the past half hour i have been making this:



I wish Microsoft devs would stand in front of single-colour green or blue backgrounds when making speeches

hihi, excellent

What a joke from M$ lol

I have one question that's bugging me; If they think we're not good enough to threaten them, did Linux suddenly wake up today with copyright infringements?

Extreme Coder

Microsoft as ever are playing the Borg strategy - assimilation. Over the last year they've collaborated with various open source folks such as Firefox and they've toyed with opening bits of the source, but their real aim is compatibility at a price.

A subscription stream for software locked into their OS is what they've been heading towards for a while. Doing deals with Linux distributors is only designed to get the open source community paying for MS licences.

I recently ditched Vista (and freed 20GB in the process) in favour of Ubuntu. I honestly couldn't see anything in Vista I needed that wasn't available for free through Ubuntu. The only shame was that that the hardware manufacturers only sell you a machine with the stuff on it. Since the move, it's much faster and is totally stable - absolutely no regrets.

The stanglehold on the hardware (drivers having to be reverse engineered for instance) is what limits the expansion of OSs such as Ubuntu but that will change.

Personally I just got fed up with paying for MS to slow down my machine and fill my hard drive

First of all, Vista will be stable for 99.9% of all users if you install it on a system that is said to be "Vista Ready" by a manufacturer. Yes, Vista does slow things down a bit. Yea, you can probably do everything in Ubuntu too. What you are really paying for in Vista is the ease-of-use and support that most people have come to depend on.

If you care about that, and can acheive the same results in Linux, you obviously will dump it.

Those stupid "vista ready" logos mean nothing - Microsoft started sending them out ages ago and manufacturers began putting them on all their machines without even thinking about it. Some of them even start losing the plot and putting them on printers and keyboards and the like... totally idiotic.

I agree that the majority market share and the sheer number of developers and users makes Windows one of the best choice... But it's just about the only thing that Windows has that Linux or Mac does not. There's no reason that games couldn't be developed for Linux (in fact, OPENGL is usually faster than DIRECTX) other than the fact that most people use windows and publishers want to sell to the most number of people. iD software is a notable exception.

Seen Bug#1 in Launchpad?
Bug description

Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.

Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.
What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PCs for sale have non-free software pre-installed.
3. Observe very few PCs with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.
What should happen:
1. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

And if there were "Ubuntu Ready" or "Linux Ready" stickers that manufacturers put on their computers that had linux supporting hardware, I bet you that a lot of problems that the users would immediately disappear. If you go to ubuntuforums.org (or any linux forum) you will see that the most problems the users face are with installing hardware x correctly, or hardware y isn't functioning correclty.

Extreme Coder

This is the manufacturer's fault, not Microsoft's (unless they didn't say what they were for, which I highly doubt). Just because the Vista Ready stickers were slapped on the wrong things doesn't mean it was a bad idea.

That I must disagree with, but we are OT, so we should think about wrapping this up soon.

In fact, could a moderator please move these posts so we may continue our discussion?

Yes, I did see that. And yes, Microsoft does have a majority market share. But what's the harm in that? The real harm is how Microsoft is retaining control over the music and software and a few other things I forgot. It's all part of a business's self-feeding nature. Google will learn from Microsoft's mistakes (I hope) and be more open, but Google and Microsoft are both making the most money the best way they can. Microsoft only chose a wrong strategy.

You understand my point completely. Glad I'm not alone here.

You are definitely not alone here. I agree, too.