Robert Wittig wrote:
> While I have already invested some time and effort in VBasic,
> I am beginning to wonder whether that is a solid course for the future,
> since I have personally decided to abandon future MS upgrades, due to the
> politics inherent in XP's monitoring of hard drive configurations, and also
> the near certain future revival of 'Smart Tags'. My present guess is that
> MS's actions have really thrown the doors open for people working in OS's
> other than Windows, from XP forward, and I don't want to invest a lot of
> time and effort learning a non-portable language for an OS that seems to be
> headed the way of OS2.
seems prudent. Six months ago, I had a PROTEVA to upgrade with a
new 750mhz mthbd. It did not go well. WIN 98 immediately recognized
it had a new board, but this version of win 98 was from PROTEVA,
and they apparently were not interested in anyone else using the
license they bought from Microsoft to run on their CD ROM.
While the customer thought they had bought a computer, and the win
98
that came with it, what they actually had, was just a license to
use that proprietary version of the os on that particular hardware.
I tried to contact PROTEVA about this, but they went out of
business.
Microsoft was no help either. They wanted the customer to buy a
whole new copy of win 98.
In both cases, what we see are attempts to prevent piracy, but which
cripple the functionality for the legitamate users. The users will
eventually figure this out, and when they do, Microsoft will be...
as you suggest with OS2, history.
I grant that Linux/BSD have serious problems, but I dont see any
reason that the install software will not get better, nor why it
would ever develop this kind of anti-competitive practice. There are
some signs that what Microsoft is trying to do, is force users to
identify themselves and their associated registration number that
comes with each copy of their operating system. Again, in the
interest of deterring piracy. If there is any doubt which anyone
has that MS is acting like Big Brother, when this gets out to be
common knowledge, all doubt will disappear.
If JAVA is as cross platform and OS as advertised, then it will get
increasing market share. AFAIK, it was software, from the server,
which is downloaded and run on your machine, somewhat like a dumb
terminal, controlling the video, but the content being calculated
by the remote server. But since it has the power to write to your
hard drive, the damage risk from sabotage software is horrendous.
If JAVA can be used from the standalone system, that is the code
which is on it's own hard drive, then apps can be built on that,
and it becomes a defacto operating system.
But, I would not throw away the old small dos hard drive. if it
can compile JAVA, then it could be used as the 'rescue' disk to
extract your data from a trashed JAVA drive.
But with regard to windoz, 'Those who the Goddess will destroy,
She first makes proud.' The Native European concept of the Deity
always had a sense of humor and irony.
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