The long road to Yukon

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ZDNet, fix your forums! This is to Ax, above.

"True, and it caused nightmares for lots and lots of users. CD? Disk Drive? Missing component? HUH??? No I am not kidding, you should work a help desk for a couple of weeks and you would quickly see what I am talking about."

Dude, I've been working in technical support for the last seven years. I have seen the lowest of the low. But you know what? What you describe hasn't changed. If anything, it's gotten worse. As I said earlier, Windows still has that functionality. You're describing a user training problem, NOT a software dependancies problem. Furthermore, in corporate environments, I should darn well hope that the person allowed to install software knows where the dang Windows CD is.

"So I send you a DVD, are you saying Linux plays it right out of the box? I don't think so..."

True, Linux won't immediately play encrypted DVDs out of the box, but only because the Linux vendors respect the fact that the laws concerning the css code required to play them haven't been sorted out yet. *GASP* Companies that respect the law, even when it's not convenient for them! Do you honestly think it'll take more than a few microseconds to get DVD support into all those distros the moment deCSS or an equivalent is declared legal?

"Look, there is no way you can say that Linix is as easy to use out of the box as Windows, regardless of any claims to the contrary by the minority. You won't find a single honest expert that agrees with it, not a one."

Other than DVD playback, I'll happily disagree with you. First of all, "claims to the contrary by the minority" are, by definition, coming from people who find Linux as easy to use as Windows. Simply because they are a minority of users right now doesn't indicate that their opinions on usability are somehow wrong. That's the nice thing about opinions. Everyone is entitled to them.

Secondly, you're failing to take into account what users, either corporate or home, want to do with their computers. Yes, there are home users that want to watch DVDs. If that's all they want to do, then maybe Windows is best for them (although if that's their only criteria, what the heck are they doing bothering with a computer at all?) But for the corporate user, the ability to watch a DVD right out of the box is kind of pointless. Same thing for a home user who uses a computer to write a novel, or research their term paper, or whatever. One individual characteristic does not make an OS usable or unusable out of the box.

"But, I digress. The issue here is that MS is taking the time needed to build a new and improved system and all the open source crowd (that swears they never touch it anyhow) whine to high heaven over the amount of time it takes. Do you not see the foolishness in it?"

Fair enough, that is the issue. And I'd still say ten days sounds like a really short time for extensive code review.

Posted by: Damon K   Posted on: 12/23/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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