My rant on Vista (long post)

Poststructural Pub
1

like a circle in a spiral
like a wheel within a wheel
never ending or beginning
on an ever spinning reel

These words from the song “Windmills of Your Mind” were written to describe a failing love affair–but if they had been written years later, they could have described the computing industry with its disposable-razor-cycle-of-planned-obsolescence.

Microsoft, who barely has Vista out of its doors as the “latest and greatest,” is already hard at work on an operating system which will supposedly make both XP and Vista so worthless by comparison that you’ll feel the burning need to upgrade yet again (and, of course, if you have to buy new hardware in the bargain, that’s good for the industry, too.).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070209/tc_infoworld/85937

One problem I have with all of this is, with each sucessive version of Windows, Microsoft introduces more restrictive technologies which, rather than increasing your freedom in how you use your computer and what you use it for, are designed to place restrictions and limits both on how you can legally use your computer, and even on what you can use it for.

XP offered some good technologies over 98, although they came with the price of drastically reduced backwards compatibility, which, up until that time, had been a major selling point of Windows. They also came with product activation, and technology that checks when you install Windows to see if you’re really putting it back on the first box that you installed it on. Before XP, you could buy a copy of Windows, install it on a computer, and then if you upgraded the computer, you could reinstall Windows on the new computer and move your license to that system. Under XP, you can’t do that: you don’t buy Windows anymore, you license it, and you only have rights to use your licensed copy on one computer. Also if you upgrade more than a certain amount of components in your computer, your copy of Windows will “deactivate,” and you’ll have to contact Microsoft to get them to give you a code to turn it back on.

When it comes to these restrictive technologies, Vista is like XP on steroids.

The level of DRM Vista includes is sobering. There are “tilt bits” which are designed to make your computer lock up if it thinks you are trying to copy a secure digital data stream. They have mandated that video and audio drivers must include technology which, on demand by the OS, can degrade their output quality.

As a common real-world example of what this means: under XP and the later versions of Windows Media Player, if you had purchased DRM-protected MP3’s, you could at least back up your licenses so that if you had a computer crash, you could restore the license files from backup and could still play the MP3’s you had purchased.

Under Vista (and even under XP if you’re using Media Player 11), you are no longer allowed to even back up your license files. In other words, if you have a computer crash or have to reinstall Windows, pretty much every MP3 file you’ve ever purchased will simply quit working forever. If you want to hear those songs again, you’ll have to buy them again.

Notice I used the word “allowed.” That’s the heart of what I don’t like about Vista: this is an operating system that, rather than being designed to enable you do to things, is designed to have the ability to decide what it will allow you to do–and it has been designed with mechanisms in place that enable the computer (not the user) to enforce the computer’s (not the owner’s) decisions.

Like the tilt bits. Don’t even think about trying to record a new copy of that MP3 while it’s playing. If Windows thinks you’re doing a no-no, it’ll simply shut down on you.

I will use Vista; I’m in the industry. I have no choice but stay current.

But it doesn’t mean I can’t lament the direction the industry is continuing to move toward: operating systems designed to restrict your abilities instead of increase them.

In the meantime, when I have time, I play with Linux, a “home grown” version of UNIX which was once considered a “toy” operating system, having been built by a bunch of geeks like me because…well, because they could.

Linux won’t let you play all the coolest, latest games–at least, not without significant effort on your part, as well as a steep learning curve.

You can’t go to your local Walmart and find thousands of titles you can take home and run on Linux–although you can download far more than that–again, if you get past the learning curve.

What you can do with Linux is feel very free and clean, knowing that everything in your computer was put there to add to the list of what you could do. There are no technologies in Linux designed to remove your ability to do anything. There may be a learning curve, and some people will find it steep, but at the end of the day you are richly rewarded for your efforts.

Linux is built to help you be able to do more with your computer.

I think more and more people are going to find that one trait to be one of the most valuable of all.

Maybe a little revolution, now and again, can be a good thing.

–James

2

James - I feel your pain…

I’m not the IDS/IT side of an application, I’m the business side. That means I get to train the users, and field the calls from them when stuff goes wrong, and try to act as the interface between the company that writes our application, the IDS group and the users.
It’s a web application, runs on an Oracle server that “lives” somewhere in the world, etc.

But the company IDS group constantly pushes “upgrades” to employee computers. Our system uses pop-ups, and Java, and all the other stuff I honestly have no idea what it all is. All I know is every time the company IDS pushes some type of upgrade out, all the user computer’s security settings get “reset” and I start getting complaints that our system isn’t working. I’ve got a word document of screen captures (I’m talking users over a broad span of engineers, chemists, perfumists, to contractors mixing up raw materials) that show what security settings must be checked or unchecked to make it work.
And, of course, since I’m not IDS - I can’t get beforehand information as to when these “pushes” may come through, I just find out when I start getting complaints (or when my own computer doesn’t work).

Of course, we are always SO far behind, I won’t have to worry about Vista for at least 5 years!!! We’re still running Lotus Notes!!! (which I hate).

3

Sorry, but I think Windows is just responding to industry trends. Big businesses demand more control over their employees’ workstations, copyright owners and lawmakers demand more control over theft, and Microsoft responds to meet their needs. If Linux ever became big enough to be significant the pressure would be put on the various Linux distributors would come under the same intense scrutiny and pressure.

I work in Unix every day and much prefer it over Windows, but I can’t claim any kind of guru understanding of it. It is as limited as Linux is to the tiny group of geeks who spend every waking moment trying to stay on top of the beast, and because they choose to act as keepers of the knowledge rather than distributors of the knowledge, they guarantee that it will never be widely accepted or expanded in its use.

djm

4

Meet whose needs? I buy the computer, I buy the OS, I’m the freakin’ customer. MicroSoft should be responding to meet my needs.

But this isn’t about theft anyway. Every time I’ve had to circument some DRM, it was for perfectly legal purposes. I’d wager 99.99% of the time DRM gets in someone’s way, that person wasn’t about to break a law. When your DVD player won’t let you fast-forward past an FBI warning, what theft is being prevented?

DRM is really about enforcing arbitrary usage rules (e.g., you must sit through an FBI warning, or you can only play your music on specific approved devices, versus an LP record that can be played on any record player.) The only reason people put up with it is that record companies can argue that “we’re just trying to stop theft.” Were it not for that moral excuse, it would be seen as a vast intrusion into our private lives.

Caj

5

In every way, shape and type of pursuit, corporate thinking attempts to steer and corral the consumer to do what they want. The problem with a computer OS is that it can be done so effectively and affect you so thoroughly. A retailer can spend a fortune in ads, rebates, incentives, etc to get me to shop there. Microsoft has you by the cojones already in so many ways that they can just squeeze and squeeze, and none of their corporate partners-in-crime, like other software sellers, ISPs, are going to complain at your distress. Just think Geek Squad and you see the shape of things to come.

Computers were supposed to get easier to use and maintain, not harder, went the promise, but I could swear MS is heading the wrong way. By the same token, we expect the boxes to do so much more.

I feel your pain. I am not going to make the usual “Mac is better” speech, but I have to say that, now that a few years have passed, the comparison of OS 9 to OSX has borne out LESS complete system re-installations, not more, in the case of failures. The fixes seem to be more complex when needed, but I have yet to have had to completely reinstall an OSX since it came out, whereas I did several clean installs of 9 and earlier.

MS users seems to be stuck in a vortex of complete re-installs after virus attacks etc., if I understand it correctly. James’ posts makes it sound like its only getting worse; MS is a cyber-cop, making sure everyone is onboard to prevent any unsanctioned possible program or file duping. They are just so damn good at it, that the consumer is the lowest priority in the prevention chain. It’s a little easier to understand why hackers target them so often when I ponder all of this.

Wow. It’s really hard for me to accept the claim of cost savings to justify the contortions MS users go through with this crap over choosing Apple. And I am pretty cynical at times about Jobs and Apple too…

6

So what happens when “The Master Program” makes belief in the Users illegal?

7

The majority of adult home computer users could use Ubuntu linux and feel little pain. It’s pretty easy, and quite useful. I’m sure other distributions are as good or better, in their own way.

Two schools I work at have gone 100% open-source. The kids like it. When a new app comes out, we get it, run it, crash it (rarely), and send mucho feedback to the authors. It feels good. It feels as good as getting LodeRunner for Apple II. It feels as good as making your first spiral in LOGO.

Some software I need is only available for Macrosnot, and I’m too lazy to figure out how to run it in Ubuntu. Maybe I’ll learn. It might be time to become a geek again. Hell, I’m married now, it can’t hurt.

8

That’s one thing about how Linux has “grown up”–really unless you are going to go under the hood, there is not much of a learning curve anymore.

Anyone used to Windows could sit down at a Fedora Core 6 workstation and within minutes would feel right at home.

Only the guts and the command line are different.

There are powerful tools availabe that you don’t even start to approximate in Windows, but you don’t have to use them till you are ready for them–or at all.

–James

9

So my question is: what commercial software can you run on linux and how much hassle is it to make it work? I mean, can you buy or load, if you already own, applications designed for XP or whatever?
Tony

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No need; it’s a given… :smiley:

11

Shaddapp Tron! :stuck_out_tongue:

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You can in some cases but this isn’t the best way, particularly for a new Linux user.

Use Linux programs on Linux, just like you use Mac programs on a Mac or Windows programs on Windows. That’s the best way, especially when you’re still new to the system.

–James

Edited to fix a Freudian-slip-type typo.

It really is pretty easy to run most Windows stuff on Linux.

Now writing and typing accurately—that’s a real challenge. :laughing:

13

Big Corp. is Satan, silly. Fall down and worship, like a good boy.

14

Microsoft has multiple business practices that cheese me off, and this is only one more in a long line. I decided quite some time ago that the next computer I buy will be a Mac, though when you get down to it they’re only marginally better, but at least they haven’t gotten to deep into the game of telling you how to use your computer and at least when they release a product it’s finished instead of some buggy beta crap that they expect the consumer to troubleshoot for them and download endless patches and “updates” for.

My brother has an older computer that he installed Ubuntu linux on to play with and I’ve used it a bit myself, I agree it’s quite simple and intuitive. I think to someone whose never used a computer much before, it wouldn’t be any harder to use than old Windblows, probably easier. Now while it might not be sufficient for certain business applications, for your average home office or student, it comes with its own open-license applications that cover pretty much all your bases - photo editor (the GIMP - one of my all-time favorite programs), word processor, spreadsheet program (like excel, but less evil), and dozens of other programs that can all be downloaded for free and directly through the operating system (so long as there is an internet connection)

15

Eh?

http://www.preoccupations.org/2004/07/why_are_macs_be.html
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows
http://www.preoccupations.org/2004/07/why_are_windows.html
http://lowendmac.com/meta/2k0525.html
http://www.stickybuffalo.com/comment.php?postid=1018

16

So Linux has A/D sampler input boards and sound software to rival Cool Edit? Linux has DVD burners and video edit software that will allow me to work at the frame level? And all for free? I don’t think so. I haven’t even found an ABC package that doesn’t require running multiple apps to achieve everything that’s on one Winders app, and even that much requires cmd level work.

These free office apps that are mentioned, are they fully compatable with their Winders counterparts so that I can share files freely with Winders users? Linux can’t avoid the fact that Winders is the defacto desktop standard out in the real world, so it has to allow the user to interact with peers.

I’m not against Linux per se, but I would need a lot more convincing that it is yet anywhere near to being a viable alternative to the evil empire.

djm

17

Most of these things are already possible if you choose to save your documents in an open format rather than a .DOC format or whatever else. Open Office can read and write .doc .xls and other Microsoft formats, and also in HTML, XML, and other open formats . It is not 100%, but then neither is different versions of Microsoft’s own software. Within Microsoft, macros break, formating changes, and you cannot even find Access for OS X so if you write a database, you need all PC or a duel boot.

18

a duel boot…hey is that where they get together and fight? :wink: :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

19

Propaganda!

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Come to the dark side, Chris! You know you want to!
Vader uses a mac…you know you want one…efficiency, UI and security aside, you want one for it’s dashing good looks!