OT ... PC upgrade

[Rick Hughes]

grey-beards, pony tails, open toed sandals, knit your own yoghurt brigade.

[Rick Hughes]

Interesting issue on Macs ... my first computer was an AppleIIe Then an SE30, ClassicII, Quadra, 7200 and a Mac powerbook ........ The company I was with then could no longer support paying over the odds for Macs, or wait for software that was typically at least 18 months late arriving on Mac. The PC's had now become so much cheaper for any given unit .... company could buy 2 faster PC's for 1 mac.

They ended up throwing them all away .... I had a whole bundle of Mac PowerPC's, monitors & printers and gave them to local school.

If Steve Jobs had not been so adamant that only Apple could sell anything running MacOS .... and had instead licensed the MacOS system, Windows would never have got off the ground. Funny that people see him almost God like.

[John Rumm]

Indeed. That was my point really, you can't accuse MS (or any other company) of a "rip off" in the conventional sense, since you are not in effect buying a physical thing with a tangible cost of sales (the value of the CD, packaging etc is negligible). They set pricing so as to generate a return on their investment.

[Weatherlawyer]

RedHat. One click and I am connected to "3" in as much time as it takes to open Firefox.

Trying to get connected on a Microsoft machine was exactly that, trying!

I am aware that Linux has limitations. For me it's good enough. I was using it long enough to forget I needed antivirus and antiviral scan schedules when I got the laptop with Vista on. Then I remembered that more than 2 hours a week was dedicated to nurturing my XP like an hot-house plant.

It's swings and roundabouts is it not?

[Weatherlawyer]

Did you use to be IMM?

Anyone remember that idiot that told me there was no such thing as rising damp? Ah the good old days.

[Weatherlawyer]

Fairy Nuff. Some people lose sight of the fact that freedom cost many lives. It's the only reason I hate the philosophy of Microsoft. I don't dislike the product.

[Weatherlawyer]

I heard a rumour that Windows 8 is going to lock out all alternative operating systems. The idea is to protect the box from people like Sony.

I can't see the superior coders of successive Linux OS' even pre Win8 OSs being stymied though. By the time it finally crawls out the swamp I imagine most real distros will be waiting to give it a thorough seeing to.

(Should be fun.) Anyone remember Longhorn?

[dennis]

That is the correct answer, the question wasn't about putting any particular content on the disk. For instance the cost for a linux distro is an additional 0p.

>

[dennis]

What i said is true! You aren't even allowed to sell stuff under most of the free software licenses. there is nothing to stop you using some of the free software in a product and selling that. the money is not the free software it is in something else. everyone would be a millionaire if you could make money from free software.

[dennis]

You misunderstand, the advocates claim there are no support costs so its cheaper than windows. Obviously if people pay for support it isn't true.

[Tim Streater]

What are "support costs"?

[Huge]

You do realise that Apple is now bigger than Microsoft, don't you?

[D.M.Chapman]

that depends how you class "bigger"...

in some ways, yes. In others, not close

Darren

[The Other Mike]

Why, does it now say shutdown?

:)

[Clive George]

Dennis, do you have the slightest clue about what a licence such as GPL actually means?

[John Rumm]

Jobs was focused on the wrong enemy... he perceived IBM as the threat, not MS. Daft thing is, it now easier to run Mac OS on generic hardware than at any time in the past.

[Tim Streater]

He doesn't even know how to *spell* licence.

[Bob Eager]

Clearly not. But he'll wriggle and claim that GPL isn't significant as it isn't very common! .-)

[dennis]

Nor does the spell chucker. What's more I don't care.

[dennis]

I like the GPL. Especially the bit that says I can redistribute any software free, even if the original provider charges a fee. It sort of limits what you can charge to, well nothing.