Ballmer Calls Vista 'A Work In Progress'

shanen tips us to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer story about comments from Steve Ballmer at a conference earlier this week during which he referred to Vista as "a work in progress." He also admitted that the 5-year release cycle wasn't a good idea. Despite the approaching deadline for the end of XP sales, Ballmer's remarks about the older operating system were more ambiguous: "Vista is bigger than XP. It's going to stay bigger than XP. We have to make sure it doesn't get bigger still, and that the performance and that the battery life and that the compatibility, we're driving on the things that we need to drive hard to improve. I know we're going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available. We've got some opinions on that, we've expressed our views. ... I'm always interested in hearing from you on these and other issues."

The most expensive...

[Anonymous Coward]

...beta software I've ever heard of.

Re:The most expensive...

[rsmoody]

Beta? More like EARLY alpha software! What I don't get is how in the hell they can get away with charging customers over $300 in some cases to alpha test this shit for them. Wonder if this comment will come around to bite him in his big sweaty monkey ass. Wonder if he will yell and scream and jump around then or just throw another chair.

that was my reaction

[Presto Vivace]

Also, maybe you shouldn't release a work in progress.

Re:that was my reaction

[blowdart]

Why not?

Software is never perfect; releases tend to be when it's "good enough". If you wait for perfection it never gets released. Linux is still a work in progress, if it wasn't there would be no more kernel updates. As long as there are patches then a system isn't finished. MS even released a feature pack [istartedsomething.com] for Vista this week for bluetooth and networking. SP1 improved sleep and startup times. Visual Studio is getting regular feature additions these days, the asp.net ajax stuff is a good example.

When *isn't* something that is still "alive" and used a work in progress? Heck if you shouldn't release work in progress goggle wouldn't have any apps; and putting daily builds/feature based check ins on sourceforge wouldn't happen either.

Disclaimer: I was in the audience; the conference in question was the MVP summit.

Re:that was my reaction

[MightyMartian]

You're right that software is never done, but considering the revelations of what was happening in the final months before Vista's release, even die-hard Microsoft apologists have to admit that it was a victory of marketing over engineering that got an operating system like Vista through the starting gate. It wouldn't be so bad if it was labeled that way. I've installed bleeding-edge Linux kernels in the past out of pure curiousity, but never in my wildest dreams would I dare throw one on a production server or on to someone's PC.

That's exactly what happened with Vista. It simply wasn't ready, and worse, it appears that the backroom way which Microsoft works with major hardware companies even knocked it back a few notches. It's not surprising to me, as I had heard some rumblings long before the revelations a few months ago. The marketers wanted an operating system ASAP, the teams didn't think it was ready, but the marketers won, and now Microsoft's credibility has fallen through the floor. Even worse, for most people, there's no point to the upgrade. As awful as it sounds to the marketers in Redmond, and maybe even to a lot of FOSS fanatics, Windows XP is a stable, mature product that works properly on today's hardware.

But Microsoft doesn't survive on stable, mature products. It survives on its unholy hardware alliances and marketing department, which push for unrealistic (and pointless) upgrade cycles. The problem here is that Vista is a resource hog. They say 1gb of RAM should be enough, but I can tell you that Aero runs, but does not run all that well, on 1gb of RAM. Only now are we seeing what I would consider legitimately sufficient hardware being released that runs the Vista "experience".

But it doesn't end there. Rather than admitting that Vista was a disaster, Microsoft still appears determined to kill XP, despite the fact that most business and many consumers don't want Vista. The only reason the operating system can even be considered a success is because of Microsoft's long-standing darling, the OEMs.

Here's a tip to Microsoft. Keep XP on the shelves. You're stuck with supporting Vista, but maybe Windows 7 will be an improvement, but only if a) you refuse to take hardware vendor's calls when they demand support for their low-end shit and b) fire 9/10s of marketing department, they're the incompetent evil morons that have created this disaster, and they should be shown the door. As well, as a sort of sub-point to that, the developments should always win automatically against marketing demands. Vista may have been released six months late, but you wouldn't have the black eye you have now.

Re:that was my reaction

[ShieldW0lf]

The power of trusted computing:

Worried about the illegal acts your company has been engaged in being leaked to the public? Trusted computing can make it impossible.

Hospital behind on their software payments after those budget cutbacks and the legal system won't help you enforce? Shut them off at the push of a button.

Someone at a news agency release information that compromises the governments position? Revoke the signature key, now it will not play even if someone does try to redistribute. Censorship after the fact.

They put the hardware on everyones desktops quite some time ago, just needs the right software support. That is what Vista is. It'll also be embedded in every set-top box after transitioning everyone away from analog television.

Now, imagine you were a powerful government or among the richest companies on earth, and someone approached you and offered to bring this scheme to reality. How much would that be worth to you? Billions? A place in the regime? All of the above?

Connect the dots.

The general population will not believe this is happening until the pieces are all in place. They can't. It's too big, and it means discarding everything you thought you knew about the way the world works. But it's still happening nevertheless.

The end user? Show them something flashy and keep dropping the price. Get it out there into the market at all costs. Do it while you've still got the influence to pull it off.

Re:that was my reaction

[morgan_greywolf]

The end user? Show them something flashy and keep dropping the price. Get it out there into the market at all costs. Do it while you've still got the influence to pull it off.

Perhaps. I've had similar thoughts as well. In the end, though, if this were really the case, they'd still have the do one final thing: they'd need to eliminate FOSS. From what I've seen, although I've seen some push out of Microsoft against FOSS, I've also seen some government embracing of FOSS, and even Microsoft showing some willingness to work with FOSS (though, take that with a grain of salt -- all those itsatrap tags aren't entirely off the mark)

take that with a grain of salt ?

[unity100]

... and even Microsoft showing some willingness to work with FOSS (though, take that with a grain of salt

you'd need to set up an entire salt importing business to be able to take that.

Re:that was my reaction

[call-me-kenneth]

Microsoft is the result of a diabolical conspiracy to take over the world. Honestly, what world do you come from? It must be nice there....

It's... ok, I guess... blue sky, green grass, you know, the usual. So... you're not just talking about selling lots of software through evil an amoral business practices. You're advancing the notion that Gates and Ballmer want to enslave the whole of humanity beneath the iron heel of Clippy domination. Son... you need to get out of your basement more often, not to mention seek professional help. And this is card-carrying FSF member speaking, so you KNOW you got problems...

Re:

[ShieldW0lf]

Ok, you don't like the word conspiracy. You're too propagandized, and it makes you think of crackpots. How about this.

I'm telling you that there is an open collaboration among the people who exercise monopoly control over the tech industry, with the goal of giving them total information control and selling that total information control to governments and corporations. The technology is not a secret, and it is embedded in modern computers, and in set top boxes, and in playback devices. It is functional,

Re:that was my reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a dev at Microsoft, although I've never worked in the Windows org. Still, I know plenty of development people over there and have heard plenty through the grapevine about what happened with Vista.

It wasn't a victory of marketing over engineering in so much as it was a total failure of engineering and management.

Too many interdependencies, poor project management and Windows' notorious 'cowboy culture' ultimately lead to delays and the cutting of big features like WinFS. What would become Windows Vista was supposed to originally ship in 2003. By 2006, everybody knew that Vista had to be completed so that the nightmare could end and work could begin on the next (hopefully better handled) version. There's a saying at Microsoft that "shipping is a feature". Management cut other features so that Vista could just be done with and ship after 5 years of dragging ass.

Once Vista was pushed out the door, marketing came in and did what they always do--advertise and sell the completed product. Marketing doesn't drive engineering at Microsoft like it might do at other companies. These failures were not about engineers failing to fend off demands from marketing, but rather about engineering from bottom to top scaling back an out of control project enough that it could actually be completed.

Re:that was my reaction

[ruiner13]

Too many interdependencies, poor project management and Windows' notorious 'cowboy culture' ultimately lead to delays and the cutting of big features like WinFS

But I thought THEIR ECOSYSTEM ROCKS!!! [youtube.com]

Re:that was my reaction

[jollyreaper]

Too many interdependencies, poor project management and Windows' notorious 'cowboy culture' ultimately lead to delays and the cutting of big features like WinFS. What would become Windows Vista was supposed to originally ship in 2003. By 2006, everybody knew that Vista had to be completed so that the nightmare could end and work could begin on the next (hopefully better handled) version. There's a saying at Microsoft that "shipping is a feature". Management cut other features so that Vista could just be done with and ship after 5 years of dragging ass.

I take it no steps are being taken to correct the management culture before Windows 7 scarfs the cock as well?

Winfs

[EmbeddedJanitor]

has always been the promised killer feature for the next gen Windows. It has been that way since 1995 or so and will probably stay that way forever.

Your last paragraph is the critical one. A 5 year timescale is impossible to manage without having milestones. With a 5 year window, people only start feeling the need to integrate and consolidate after 4 years. No wonder Winfs is always killed: too much effort for not enough feature.

Re:that was my reaction

[sjames]

I can well understand wanting to just make it go away, but if development made the decision to ship a product that simply wasn't ready just to get rid of it, it's WORSE than caving in to pressure from marketing.

So let's recap. "Longhorn", the killer new OS that was going to crush Unix under the weight of it's power and features went into the shredder after several years of hard work because they just couldn't make it fly. Then, the new killer OS lost feature after feature in a desperate attempt to get it out the door. Finally they gave up and just released the thing ready or not (mostly not).

So in that sense, Vista is the culmination of two failed projects in a row. Seven years of work and thay can't even replicate the quality level of their last success. Unless they make some major changes internally and get them just right, Windows 7 isn't looking so good...

Of course, really, Longhorn was the "lowered expectations" of "Blackcomb". It may not be fair to call that the 1st of 3 serial failures in that line since they at least had the sense to scrap that one before it got too far.

Re:that was my reaction

[jollyreaper]

You're right that software is never done, but considering the revelations of what was happening in the final months before Vista's release, even die-hard Microsoft apologists have to admit that it was a victory of marketing over engineering that got an operating system like Vista through the starting gate. It wouldn't be so bad if it was labeled that way. I've installed bleeding-edge Linux kernels in the past out of pure curiousity, but never in my wildest dreams would I dare throw one on a production server or on to someone's PC.

My rule of thumb for keeping customers happy.

#1 Never take away functionality in the new version. You will only piss off people who have come to depend on the features.

#2 If you have a tiered product model, i.e. same software with more features turned on for basic, regular, pro, etc, NEVER bump a feature from a lower tier to a higher one, thus making the upgrade more expensive. This will only antagonize.

#3 In general, the new version should AT LEAST work as well as the previous one. But it SHOULD work better and have a compelling reason for someone to upgrade. Playing the "year as version number" ploy and making people think they have to upgrade when nothing new is offered is LAME. Intuit does this with Quicken now and I think it's even more shameful than Microsoft. At least they wait a few years between Office releases, it's not like we have to buy Office '07, '08, '09, etc.

Vista compares poorly with XP, let alone presenting any "omfg I gotta get it!" coolness for the customer. Epic fail.

Re:that was my reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

...even die-hard Microsoft apologists have to admit that it was a victory of marketing over engineering...

Close. But wrong.

That's exactly what happened with Vista. It simply wasn't ready, and worse, it appears that the backroom way which Microsoft works with major hardware companies even knocked it back a few notches. It's not surprising to me, as I had heard some rumblings long before the revelations a few months ago. The marketers wanted an operating system ASAP, the teams didn't think it was ready, but the marketers won, and now Microsoft's credibility has fallen through the floor.

What really happened is a complete failure of engineering, not a victory for marketing. With the immense armies of developers swarming like locusts across the vast Microsoft campus for years and years and years, they couldn't build jack shit. Even after top management did an about face by removing every innovative promise from the product in order to reduce the OS to something you could spoonfeed a baby, the engineering group still could not build jack shit.

All those people in all those buildings for all those years earning all that money. For nothing. It's a crime. A business crime. Especially as your gnat-size competitor has an amazingly superior product for years which they find a way to grow by leveraging the popularity of a portable music player. And, in the far off distance, Linux desktop begins to be something other than vaporware.

Your fly is unzipped and you've got nothing to show.

It wasn't a marketing victory. It was top management desperation to output anything -- anything at all -- to give the appearance of relevance, stave off stock price drops, and otherwise throw glitter in the eyes of those who might point out the emperor had no clothes.

I'd fire the entire line of engineering staff. Baby and bathwater. Wholesale. Cut the cancer out.

Re:that was my reaction

[MightyMartian]

I heard about this sort of thing a decade ago when a Java chip was supposed to be coming down the line. Operating systems would be written in Java. At the end of the day, these environments simply put too much in the way, even if it all natively compiles. Either your performance is going to be the shits, or you're going to end up having to write performance-dependent parts in C, C++ or assembly anyways, and then it raises the question as to why bother writing any of the OS in anything else?

Quite frankly I've never seen the point. C is a powerful tool that has proven its worth for decades now. There's a lesson in all of this, never buy into your own PR.

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

When Alchin was fired the new release manager mentioned we have to release it within 120 days or cancel it and stick with XP forever.

I heard he sent an email saying;

"Release Vista in 120 days?" [Cancel] [Allow]

Re:

[MightyMartian]

My old Compaq laptop with 1gb could easily handle switching between three users and using things like OpenOffice and MediaPlayer. Do that with Vista and within an hour you're going to get a out of resources error. As I mentioned in another post, my experiments with getting MySQL and Apache working ultimately were foiled by the constant disk swapping that went on which meant if I fired up a browser and Word and worked for a few minutes in those, and then went to open my test site up, the drive would go cra

gruel

[patiodragon]

Please sir, may I have some more.

If you, kinda like, wouldn't mind, just putting a *little* more work into the product I purchased, I would ever so much appreciate it --not that I'm not grateful for the opportunity to use it, I mean, just if you don't mind a little work on the whole "make it work" thing. Thanks ever so much good sir!

Very simple...

[Joce640k]

Microsoft told us time and time again that Vista would be released "when it was 100% finished, not before". The the reason it was so late was that they wanted it to be perfect, etc., etc.

It was pretty obvious that in the end they rushed it out for Xmas when it really needed another six months/year.

Re:

[sjames]

So they couldn't even get "rush it out the door" done on time!

Re:that was my reaction

[Dhalka226]

You're right in the point that you make. There's absolutely nothing wrong with works in progress. I enjoy when my favorite software gets some cool new features, or companies like Google release neat new products. I expect continual improvements from things like the Linux kernel to enhance support for new hardware.

The problem is that this isn't a "work in progress" in common usage, but rather in PR terms. This is a "work in progress" that leads people to question if it is even ready for its intended purpose yet. As other posters pointed out, this is beta-quality software at best; the bugs are getting in the way of your everyday use of the product, rather than it being ready to roll and new things and enhancements being dropped in later.

Worse, it's a "work in progress" that the company is going to force upon you, with no guarantee that it will be ready even then. The fact that people and business see so little value and/or quality in this product that a monopoly is having trouble getting it out is strong evidence that this was not "good enough" for release. Add to that the fact that they removed all of the features that would have made it interesting and still couldn't hit their release dates and there's an even stronger indication that this product was rushed to market before it was ready.

I don't like Microsoft as a company because of the things they do and the manner in which they do them, but I have no problems with XP; I use it on my laptop and linux on my desktop, so I'm not just a Microsoft hater. But this is silly, and calling Vista's shortcomings a "work in progress" is disingenuous at best.

Re:that was my reaction

[ConceptJunkie]

Of course, I suppose this is a bad time to mention that Linux and Google don't charge end users for their "works in progress"...

No. Neither is it a good idea to mention that Linux and Google won't kill off the version everyone prefers to the newest bleeding-edge train wreck just to force upgrades. It's kind of wrapped up in that whole "not charging" thing.

Microsoft's biggest liability in the past decade has been that they are forced to focus primarily on maintaining their monopoly since they are unwilling, in any way, to compete fairly... probably because they will usually lose. Since maintaining an unfair advantage is completely independent of producing good or desirable product, and Microsoft's worst possible scenario is satisfied customers who don't need to, or want to, upgrade, plus the fact that their _real_ customers are media companies and governments who want unprecedented control of the average user's computers, I don't see any way Vista _could_ have turned out good.

The problem is that they screwed up with XP... its customers are generally satisfied and have no desire, nor need, to upgrade.

Re:that was my reaction

[ShieldW0lf]

Maybe Ballmer can re-invent himself as a caber tosser after his company collapses. I understand he's good at throwing heavy things, and he's definitely a tosser...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Ballmer can re-invent himself as a caber tosser

He's already half way there, all he needs is the caber ;)

Re:The most expensive...

[MightyMartian]

No, I'd say after using Vista for a few months that it's probably a reasonable first or second beta release. Most things work, but it's the annoying bugs (like the constant disk use which kills laptop battery life).

At the end of the day, other than a few neat things in the UI, I still don't see the point of it. It offers little or nothing that's all that compelling. It's not like it really runs any of my software any better, and simple things like trying to install Apache and MySQL turn into major headaches.

Re:The most expensive...

[Tony Hoyle]

I hear Win2008 Server is actually quite good.. although I haven't had chance to install it yet (will try that in a bit). It's vista without the crap, basically, and they let you optionally turn the crap back on if you really want to.

Vista pre SP1 is definately an early beta. Vista post SP1 isn't that bad - I'd put it down as a reasonable release with a few glitches that still need fixing.. of course it took them a year to get there.

Re:

[syousef]

Most things work, but it's the annoying bugs (like the constant disk use which kills laptop battery life).

From personal experience: Don't even think about using Vista restore unless you're prepared to have your partitions wiped and nothing restored. Details: Dell Laptop, Vista and XP partitions dual boot.

Re:The most expensive...

[leamanc]

Beta? More like EARLY alpha software!

You've got a point. A point that Microsoft should really be considering. If you can't get past Alpha quality in six years (people like to talk about Visata's five-year cycle, but six years later, we're at SP1 and it's still not ready), then you need to consider some options:

• 1. The project you are working on (Vista, in this case) is hopeless and should be abandoned
• 2. You should seriously revamp your software development team and associated processes
• 3. Maybe you should get out of software development altogether

Like a lot of us here, I'm the "techie guy" who helps everyone with their computer problems. Most of these people are clueless and just nod their heads with blank stares when I try and explain what the problem was and how I fixed it. But now, even these Average Folks are talking about how bad Vista sucks, how they feel burned by buying a PC with it pre-installed, and wanting to know how can they get "real Windows" back.

Fortunately, I've made more Linux converts over the past year than I had in the previous five combined.

Re:

[Chas]

You forget the Microsoft Method of software classification.

Regular software model: Microsoft software model.
First Raw Ugly Code: Alpha
First Revision: Beta
Second Revision: RC1
Cleaned Revision: Shipping
Pre Alpha: Immediate Bugfix
Alpha: SP1
Beta: SP2
RC1: SP3
Shipping: Security Rollup

Re:The most expensive...

[The MAZZTer]

I have used Vista. I have given it multiple chances. I even gave SP1 another chance. I can't even get audio to play back correctly without sounding corrupted, although in fairness I blame nVidia for lack of Vista support for my motherboard (nForce 2 chipset with integrated audio). Note that I can hate Vista without it being Microsoft's problem, although I hate Microsoft for unrelated Vista problems as well. Don't get me started about gaming performance.

Vista continually underperforms XP every time I try it, and I have never gotten a virus or trojan on XP so Vista's security features are meaningless for me. There's really no contest here. XP wins out for me easily.

I have uncovered various glitches in Explorer and the OS in general which are usually prevalent in ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE which, given MS' track record, are unlikely to be fixed until Windows 7 or at least SP2. Hell there are still glitches in XP's explorer which have gone unfixed.

I should also mention I have wrestled with that same audio corruption problem on and off in XP, and it was gone for a bit until I was forced to install new sound drivers to play GTA San Andreas (otherwise I would get BSoDs at the same point in-game) and the problem returned. However, I have NEVER, not ONCE, had an audio corruption problem in Linux. Drivers were picked and installed automatically and I have never had to give a care about them.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

HEAD/source code = Work in progress
Tagged release/distro = Finished release

There is a difference between always working on a project and releasing crap.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[Idiot with a gun]

There's a difference between "Work in progress" and "Oh bugger, that's broken."

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[Concerned Onlooker]

There's also a difference between something that is given away for free being called a work in progress and something that is a pricey commercial product being called a work in progress. Of course, you're right about feedback and improvement. This seems more about a poor choice of words by Ballmer.

Re:

[timonvo]

The kernel is under constant development, but the releases are always quite stable. And nobody forces you to run the latest kernel.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[Runefox]

I wouldn't be so sure. Linux is something that's more ambiguous than Windows is - Windows is a packaged, supposedly complete product that costs real money (a lot of it), is extremely widespread, and most importantly to your point, used by almost everyone in North America at some point in their lives - Which, in essence, means that Ma, Pa and Uncle Tusky are alpha/beta testers. And they're paying for it.

Linux is at its core a community effort, rather than a commercial product (though many have been made from it). As such, it is constantly changing and evolving, and is quite difficult to "keep up" with for most who aren't enthusiasts (Windows version upgrades gives most people a hard time to begin with). There exist shiny, polished distros like Ubuntu and Fedora that are meant to be a "whole product", being almost literally a snapshot of stable, tested software bundled with a stable version of the kernel, but these OSes are generally non-profit or free (as in both these cases).

The core difference between them at first glance is that Windows costs money. Coupled with what Ballmer went on record with in TA, that basically means that Microsoft doesn't consider Vista a "complete" product as yet, but has no problem charging inordinate amounts of money for the privilege of running it. That said, my experiences with Ubuntu in the past have always been a lot more polished than my experiences in Windows, and I would consider Windows to be an inferior product on most days. I still use Windows XP (my X-Fi doesn't yet have a driver for Ubuntu and Wine still isn't perfect), but I doubt I'll be making a jump to Vista "Just Because". There don't seem to be any compelling reasons to make the change (aside from having Aero and DX10 support, the latter of which won't run on my system and the former of which is a memory hog for a decrease in desktop CPU usage), and a lot of people feel the same way - Even Joe and Jane Average.

Another difference between Windows and Linux is that while the Linux kernel itself may be in perpetual development (as is the general mindset of Linux), this is because it falls under a different development model than the Microsoft mindset. Linux' greatest trait is that it IS in perpetual development - Because this is desired and necessary. For Microsoft, it's supposed to be one spit-shined, heavily-tested operating system every few years. A different model; Not necessarily better or worse, but different, more similar to Mac OS and most traditional software development cycles. In this model, however, being in a state of perpetual development is something that is absolutely catastrophic, because as with the XP->Vista jump, more development time is spent fixing holes and bugs in the previous generation of software to bring it up to spec than is spent working on the next big release. This is what we're looking at with Vista, which Ballmer confirmed.

The very fact that most of the more impressive features of Windows Vista (hi, WinFS!) were ripped from it later on in its development stunted its ability to really compete against even its own predecessor, and for me, cast doubt upon its legitimacy as a valid entry in the product line.

Correction

[unity100]

Commercially bundled distros of linux are commercial products.

Re:

[zenkonami]

Linux -- at its core is a commercial product. Some of the biggest contributors are commercial entities like IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc. Check out who makes contributions to the kernel sometime. It just happens to be a non-proprietary commercial product.

Humbug. Major commercial entities may all have a stake in Linux, but it is still a community effort...it's just that a large block of that community are corporate interests. In many cases companies that actually care about real innovation and end user satisfaction as much as profits. This does not detract from the fact that there is community involvement, and that there are still many non-corporate contributors to the construction, maintenance and promotion / distribution of the OS.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[mysticgoat]

Face it, if linus stated this everyone would triumph it as showing that linux moved with the times, and was better than monolithic old vista.

If Linus made this statement about Linux, it would be within the context of operating systems whose kernels and other low level components have an established history of successful upgrades with minimal negative impacts on userland. However I doubt that Linus would ever make this statement since he rarely casts glittering generalities before the public.

But the statement was made by Ballmer, and needs to be evaluated within the context of Microsoft's history of software releases. Within that context, the statement is clearly a piece of spin doctor legerdemain to cover the damage that Vista does to the userland experiences of those unfortunates who have had Vista inflicted upon them.

I suggest that author of PP sell off his MSFT stock and invest in something with a better future, like maybe a recycling and disposal company. It should be obvious to everyone with a brain that when a stockholder has to take up fanboi behaviors to protect his investment, there is something wrong with that stock.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[ozmanjusri]

This is a poor, half assed attempt to bash microsoft by the fanboys.

I don't know if I'd call Ballmer a fanboy. He is the CEO after all, and he would certainly know how bad Vista is. If anyone has the right to bash MS, it's him.

I don't think you can complain when he takes an opportunity that's handed to him on a platter.

Re:

[zenkonami]

I don't know if I'd call Ballmer a fanboy. He is the CEO after all, and he would certainly know how bad Vista is. If anyone has the right to throw a chair at MS, it's him.

There. Fixed that for ya. I sure couldn't do that to a MS product.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[AndGodSed]

is linux not a work in progress?

Yes and no.

YES:
The Linux souce code/kernel is release on release improving, so it could be called a work in progress if you look at the bigger picture - You might draw a comparison by calling "Windows" a work in progress as in progress from 98 to 98se to ME to XP to Vista. Every Windows release has (supposedly - I am not an expert on that subject) a new kernel, architecture updates. Similarly the progress can be shown by comparing the progress from Edgy to Feisty to Gustry to Hardy.

NO:
Every release of the Kernel, and every full public release of a distribution is supposed to be a finished product (excluding testing, alpha and beta releases.) Hence Feisty was a finished product, and Gutsy was a finished product and Hardy upon release should be a finished product. Similarly Win98/98se should have been finished products, Me -> XP -> Vista should have been too.

GREY AREA:
Now, as to your comment quoted below;

isn't ALL software these days not a work in progress?

There is a gray area in the use of the term "work in progress" that lends some weight to your statement. It is difficult to determine how it is used in each scenario - by Mr Balmer and by you - language by nature can be very fluid, it is actually a beautiful thing but I digress...

Defining the term "work in progress" might go as follows:

To say a Linux release is a work in progress could be defined as I used above - but a detractor might say that the constant refining and bug fixes that takes place after release in the OS, and in any OS (a good example are Microsoft service packs), could point to a "work in progress" scenario. Did Steve Balmer use it this way? If he did, then he is essentially saying the following: Linux is essentially just as good and "desktop ready" as Windows Vista is.

However, the detractors of Linux desktop operating systems are continually saying "Linux is not desktop ready" hence it is still an unfinished work, and thus can be said to be a work in progress. Because this statement is used in a comparative sense with Windows operating systems it infers "Windows is desktop ready" and thus should be a finished work upon release. If it were the case that the term was used thusly it would be a bad thing for Mr Balmer to say that about his own product.

software design can respond to user experience and feedback, and move with the times.

Yes. That is quite correct - that is how it should be. However I contend that the five-year release cycle of Windows hinders this a bit. The service packs might smooth this over a bit, but as I see it response to user complaints - with the possible exception of security alerts - is almost non existent. Bear in mind that as a Linux user my view may be skewed - a lot. Would you think that if enough customers/Vista users complained that DRM is not wanted in Vista that Microsoft would issue a patch to completely remove it? I would think no. In fact when DRM is disabled by a third party "hack" Microsoft is quick to release a patch that disables said "hack", pointing out to me that the wishes of the customer does not come first.

Is Vista a work in progress? Okay - then define exactly where the "progress" is needed.
Was it desktop ready when released?
Was it user ready when released?
Was Microsoft satisfied that it was ready for release when it was released?

I contend that it was not completely desktop ready when released - this might in part be due to the slow reaction of third-party vendors to release drivers so let's set that aside.

I contend that it was not user ready when it was released - partly this is because users needed to "learn the software" before being able to use it properly. This is in part due to newer features, not a bad thing, and (arguably) questionable interface design decisions - lets strike that one because it is really a question open to debate in the end.

Did Microsoft think it was re

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[value_added]

You might draw a comparison by calling "Windows" a work in progress as in progress from 98 to 98se to ME to XP to Vista.

Geez. I do wish people would get a clue, or at least refrain from trotting this out. What you're describing is the upgrade path marketing campaign sold to retail consumers which has little to do with the actual progression, or what businesses or knowledgable individuals (regrettably not all of the Slashdot crowd) adopted.

There were 2 (two, count 'em) lines of development, simplifed as the following:

DOS -> Win3 -> Win95 -> Win98 -> WinME

NT4 -> NT5.0 (Win200)-> NT5.1 (WinXP) -> NT6 (Vista)

From those two lines, the upgrade path most commonly adopted for desktops was:

DOS -> Win95 -> Win98 > NT5.0 -> NT5.1

Obviously, you can conclude the first line of development died ungracefully. The second line is, well, you decide if if it's dead or dying or just resting. There's a Wiki article [wikipedia.org] on the subject if you're interested in further reading.

Re:And if they said this about linux?

[colinrichardday]

Except that Ma Bell wrote a better OS.

Remember ME?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we were just going to ignore Vista until Windows 7 came out...

It's Windows ME all over again.

Re:Remember ME?

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. This appears to be the strategy now. "Don't worry about Vista, because Windows 7 will knock your socks off". I must tell you that in the organization I work in, and in a number of others that I am familiar with, this is precisely the attitude. Windows 7 will likely fit in with the hardware upgrade cycle. Vista appears to be the great forgettable OS, though IT departments will still have to deal with it for years to come on various machines that, through OEM or upgrade, managed to become infected with it.

God forbid...

[jpellino]

They work all those problematic details out before release.

interesting

[apodyopsis]

So.. basically by implication he admits they released an unfinished project that they knew was bloatware?

Well we knew it, buts its nice of him to admit it. (Bet MS PR just loves him)

:-)

So...

[i kan reed]

This means Vista is still in development development development development?

Re:

[Z00L00K]

And we are all betatesters as usual.

As usual - and nothing surprising. The worst thing is that we are more or less forced into Vista unless we go to Linux, FreeBSD or AROS.

Re:

[udippel]

Because linux would never make you run not fully tested code? Lol

Astroturf? LOL!
I even doubt for twitter that he'd pay USD300 (and neither USD50) for testing some alpha-Linux.

Re:So...

[wellingj]

Regardless of its stage in development, if I were a paying $300 for an OS I would expect something as stable as Linux, not something as stable as Vista. I run Debian testing on my laptop. It's been more stable than my friends Vista install and I update everyday.

Software "architects?" Ha!

[jollyreaper]

If builders built buildings the way Microsoft writes code... well, we'd have the US embassy in Iraq.

Re:Software "architects?" Ha!

[Idiomatick]

Read the article you linked...

"The current embassy, which opened July 1, 2004 in the "Green Zone", is being replaced with what has been described as the largest and most expensive embassy in the world. The new embassy has been mired in construction delays, but is expected to be completed in 2008."

Re:

[jollyreaper]

Read the article you linked...

"The current embassy, which opened July 1, 2004 in the "Green Zone", is being replaced with what has been described as the largest and most expensive embassy in the world. The new embassy has been mired in construction delays, but is expected to be completed in 2008."

Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make. I like how my OP was downmodded. Saying Vista ain't a successful product isn't trolling, it's the truth! Saying the embassy is an overbuilt fiasco is not spinning with an agenda, it's fact! Downmodding isn't supposed to mean "You have scored a good point against me an I am too inarticulate to compose a persuasive rebuttal so here's a -1 troll for you."

That's great Steve.

[nurhussein]

Now please explain the hefty price tag for your unfinished product.

Re:That's great Steve.

[Flavio]

That's easy.

Price is dictated by the market. As long as there are people willing to buy Vista, Microsoft has no incentive to either lower its price or improve its quality.

Re:That's great Steve.

[imbaczek]

it's one of those ???-Profit! cases.

Translation, please?

[Gazzonyx]

OK, I've read that quote (from the summary) over a few times and I have not a single clue what Ballmer is trying to say. Would someone please translate that in to something resembling a sentence for me?

Re:Translation, please?

[jeiler]

Marketing translation: "Like any other release, there are occasional issues, but we're working to resolve those issues."

Real-world translation: "It's buggy bloatware, but it's our buggy bloatware, and if I catch you even thinking about another operating system I'll start throwing furniture again."

Hope that helps.

Re:Translation, please?

[UnknowingFool]

That might make a funny commercial. If only someone would make it. [youtube.com]

Re:Still Not My Native Tongue

[jeiler]

Oh, in software developer, it's "Oh, shit--Marketing says release it now. We're toast!"

In Other Words

[fluch]

It is a failure. Why not just name the child by its real name?

XP SP2!

[headkase]

We didn't know it at the time but XP pre-SP2 sucked. When Vista reaches SP2 it'll probably be decent (from an average persons point of view - for me it already works absolutely fine). By then Windows 7 will be out and I'll be one of the people sticking with Vista for SP3 and go to 7 when it's SP1 comes out.
Linux and Windows both suffer from the same issue: theres so much variety of hardware out there that you just can't write it perfect for everything right off-the-bat so you need to release and incrementally improve. Mac's suffer less from this situation as Apple rules their hardware configuration with an iron fist - which is the source of their mythical "it just works®".

Re:XP SP2!

[ColdWetDog]

Linux and Windows both suffer from the same issue: theres so much variety of hardware out there that you just can't write it perfect for everything right off-the-bat so you need to release and incrementally improve. Mac's suffer less from this situation as Apple rules their hardware configuration with an iron fist - which is the source of their mythical "it just works®".

The problem being your description of the phrase "it just works" as "mythical" is correct. Even with a limited number of hardware targets to run OS X on (and a relatively small software universe), Apple still can't get upgrades not to screw up on a regular basis.

The real problem, to correct a poster a few P's above is:

"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy all of civilization"(Weinburg's second law).

Despite all of the truly gifted programmers, the wonderful development tools and several decades of experience, computers still aren't toasters (except Pentium IV's of course).

Re:

[AhtirTano]

I've been using OSX since oct 2000; I have yet to experience a screwup due to an OS software upgrade. I'm sure many other people feel the same way...

4 years, never had an upgrade screw up either, though one of my co-workers has.

However, I have had hardware compatibility issues that demonstrated to me that it doesn't "just work". The free printer they give out (HP Photosmart Express) couldn't even be installed without downloading stuff from HP's website. HP bears much fault in this, but Apple shouldn't be featuring peripherals that have problems like that, or should at least have some helpful information on their website to fix the problem. I know I'm

Re:XP SP2!

[ColdWetDog]

I've been using OSX since oct 2000; I have yet to experience a screwup due to an OS software upgrade. I'm sure many other people feel the same way...

May I present to you my second favorite web site, Mac Fix It [macfixit.com]. Seriously, not everyone has problems with OS X, or XP or Palm or whatever. But as a recent switcher (and I still like Macs and OS X despite the glitches), it's much less stable and problem free than I expected. This is on bolt stock, 99% Apple Certified parts (I added my own HDs to my Mac Pro - they've been fine). Four Mac Books and a Mac Pro (along with a Linux server). The 7.4 Quicktime upgrade hosed Premiere Pro on two machines. I had to back out of the last security fix to get SSH to work again. Now, just as when I was responsible for an XP network, I don't touch an "update" until it's out for a couple of weeks.

YMMV.

Re:

[cshbell]

The 7.4 Quicktime upgrade hosed Premiere Pro on two machines. I had to back out of the last security fix to get SSH to work again.

To summarize, your Premiere installation was broken by QuickTime because " Adobe products don't write the headers until it renders the movies [macworld.com]" and your SSH was broken because you installed a hack that the developer admits had a bug that caused the issue [rogueamoeba.com].

Your problem isn't the operating system or that you're living on the bleeding edge of updates. Your problem is that you use

Re:XP SP2!

[benbean]

There was a night and day architectural difference between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X though, and it was worth suffering through the transition to get to the end-point of an infinitely better designed core OS. The underpinnings of XP and Vista are still essentially the same and still fundamentally flawed.

If Microsoft is going to make its users go through that sort of transition, it would have been far better to make a completely fresh start on a better foundation with a compatibility layer for older software, just as Apple did.

Re:XP SP2!

[mxs]

Linux and Windows both suffer from the same issue: theres so much variety of hardware out there that you just can't write it perfect for everything right off-the-bat so you need to release and incrementally improve.

Well, you could do a hell of a lot better if the hardware vendors support your platform with manpower, documentation, and support. The two systems don't really suffer from the same issue at all -- some of their drivers might.

I also doubt that Steve meant hardware support when he made that statement. There are more fundamental changes needed.

Re:XP SP2!

[theurge14]

Again with the excuses about 'multiiple hardware configurations that Apple doesn't have to worry about'.

Microsoft does operate a Winlogo program. You know, the 'Certified for Windows Vista' stickers you see on every box at Best Buy and Newegg? If Microsoft isn't operating that with the same 'iron fist' that Apple is, would you say that the Winlogo program is nothing but a marketing scheme to spread the Windows logo on every box in the store?

And enough with the 'wait until SP2' or 'this happened with XP too' excuses. XP came 2 years after Windows 2000. Vista has been in development more than twice that amount of time.

that must make it a beta

[thetoadwarrior]

People should get it for free since they're clearly helping them ready vista for completion.

Mind you even for free I wouldn't taint my system with that crap. Ballmer is a tit.

Like a Turd

[Anonymous Coward]

Like turd only halfway out is a work in progress.

5-year release cycle

[michaelmalak]

He also admitted that the 5-year release cycle wasn't a good idea

Windows was complete when NT 4.0 came out in 1996 -- 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking with a normal user interface (i.e. no Program Manager). With the possible exception of Active Directory, everything else could have been a service pack or patch: USB, WiFi, CD-R. When the calendar drives a release schedule rather than needed features, Microsoft is not only acting just to fill its coffers, but it costs companies massive admin overhead.

Ballmer is right -- it shouldn't be a five-year release cycle. It should be 10 years. 64-bit is a good reason to have a new release after NT 4.0.

Re:

[dHagger]

I partially disagree. In my opinion, it is better to make small iterative releases a few times a year - while still not pushing features that might break things as patches. Smaller upgrades would make it easier to keep the system updated - instead of having to make a risky major upgrade after many years. How many of you have managed to upgrade windows from one version to another without any problems at all?

And a calendar driven release schedule - why not? Features that are ready to be deployed will be inc

640k or ram is all anyone will ever need...

[3seas]

... There was a time when hardware resources were limited and expensive and programmers programmed accordingly and software was faster and easier to use in ways it is no longer easy.

Granted applications have become more integrated thru the operating system improvements but as technology and its use changes from the mainframe to the cell phone, the cycle of programming should be moving from the packrat (use all the memory and resources you can in your application) back to compactness of providing the right functionality only.

Where does this put Ballmers statement?

He is in essence saying MS will remain stupidly behind the times while claiming to be the forefront.

As the user base becomes more and more adapted to computing in a second nature manner, the more and more the user base will perceive the obvious babel of MS and as such move to alternatives for which third party commercial development will not be able to ignore and stay in business.

And we all know from experience that this is not going to happen over night but more at the rate of evolution via human generations, where each generation will put up with the babel less and less.

Leadership...

[Woodmeister]

You know, Vista may be a work in progress, but Balmer's leadership of the company has most definitely stalled. Microsoft's reputation in the PC marketplace is anything but positive (i.e. neutral at best). They (and their software) are only big and popular (read: ubiquitous) due to inertia and lock-in. It's time for the tech community to just move on - completely ignore MS, deal with their s/w as needed, and replace it with "futureware" when it makes sense. Really. The "deadhorse" tag most certainly applies to this OS. Stop paying attention to anything Balmer blurts out of (any of) his orifices. He's prolly some of the most dead weight at that company anyways.

Re:

[sheldon]

You know, I keep hearing these claims about how Microsoft's reputation is dying.

But this month, Microsoft had a rollout even for Visual Studio 2008, and for the first time I can remember, it sold out and I couldn't get in. Now I probably could have contacted some friends at the local Microsoft office if i had really wanted to go, but I still found this rather surprising.

I've been going to rollouts since Windows NT 3.5.

Dear Steve

[cmacb]

"I'm always interested in hearing from you on these and other issues."

Your products suck. They threaten people's hardware, waste their time, cost them too much both in dollars and in lost productivity. They have created a far too large an infrastructure of people who could be made more productive elsewhere (MCSE and the like = Amway pyramid schemes). Furthermore they pollute useful infrastructure used by non-Microsoft solutions by serving as a growth medium for malware and by causing millions of Windows users who can't rid themselves of your products to run helplessly to those who have for help. Ultimately as with any widespread systemic defect, your products cost lives.

Please go to hell. And take Windows with you.

Thanks for listening.

Vista changed a lot

[Toreo asesino]

There are reasons the earlier versions of Vista sucked, and like Balmer said, are still work in progress. To summarise the three main points I see:

-Actual security (UAC); breaking a shed-load of applications that would write to C:\Windows and think nothing of it

-64 bit. It's the first serious consumer Windows that's 64 bit. XP 64 bit is rare at best; Win2003 isn't for consumers.

-New driver architecture. Video, audio, and network driver stack has been re-written from the ground up after nearly 10 years to being more or less the same. New changes are worthwhile too; a bad video driver should (in theory) never be able to bring a system crashing down like in XP, for instance.

All these things had to be done; all these things broke stuff. They are massive and necessary changes, and in the long run will pay off, but in the short run have been a bit of a system-shock.

Things are changing though; but Vista has been as much a change from XP under the hood as 98 -> 2000 migration was in my opinion.

Re:Vista changed a lot

[v1]

This seems to be a popular route for PR to take though. Make a product, do not make it evolve for ages because "it would break things", as if they are not breaking things, for the good of the consumer. Then when we've finally had enough of this good treatment, change everything and break a bund of stuff in the process, but amazingly again it's for the good of the consumer.

Can't have it both ways. You have to admit fault at some point in the process. You can't blame the future on the past AND the past on the future, at the same time.

I see so many examples of this today where people made a mess in the past, and the fact that the fix is going to be unpleasant is not their fault because it's now an entrenched problem, like this was not their doing to begin with. They usually rationalize by saying "well we made a mess but we cleaned it up so it's nobody's fault". Wrong. You've wronged us twice, once by creating the problem and refusing to fix it for so long, and then a second time when you finally fixed it through an unpleasant means "because there were no other options left". (yet it was ye who got us to the "no other options" predicament)

Fixing your own mess is an apology, not a pardon. If you deliberately direct the problem into a corner from which there is no pleasant escape, you cannot claim innocence in the hardship it produces getting free of the problem, claiming helplessness that now "there's no other choice". There was choice, you had choice, you made the decisions that brought us here, you are responsible for the results, inevitable though they may be.

You should not be considered a savior as you try to dig the world out of the mess you created.

Re:

[Toreo asesino]

"You should not be considered a savior as you try to dig the world out of the mess you created."

It's not that simple. 10 years ago, would you have designed a driver model bearing in mind that now you'd want to want 3d graphic viewports to seamlessly interact and overlap together; for 2d plains to be treated the same as 3d? That's what Vista does now, and not even Linux does that; it's a completely different way of programming, and required a different model of driver therefore.

Windows users have no choice, Vista is your future

[Locutus]

Microsoft will drive Vista through you skull just like they did with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It may take 3 years to get it through your thick skulls that Vista is your future but you will eventually get it.

What could possibly give them reason to not force Vista on its customers being in the position they are in?

This stuff about Vista uptake/etc is getting old and it appears that even 8 yours is too long for people to remember how it was the last couple of times. Surprise, you're stuck with what they give you.

LoB

Yeah long development cycles suck

[Unnngh!]

I can sympathize with the drawn out development cycle. Whenever this has happened at places that I've worked, it gets impossible to keep up with the changes. Scope creeps, because what you developed last year is no longer relevant. Plus, there's something that simply *has* to go into this upcoming release because everyone knows its going to take a while and you have told a customer they can have it. If you don't know when the current release is going out, slating anything for the next one is pretty much saying it'll never get done. These kinds of things just don't stop coming up.

The landscape changed a lot between when MS started Vista and when they released it. They were behind the times, trying to play catch-up, and they botched it. I had high hopes for Vista when they were planning it...new file system, powershell, lots of unfulfilled promises. They ended up delivering something that is passing fare IMO but is behind the times, and I don't see them changing the tune with their next release. They are wed to this beast now.

Other works in progress...

[bman08]

The Roman Empire, The Dreamcast and Soviet Communism.

the reason vista failing is

[unity100]

I dont want to have an "experience" with my os. i just want it to run the programs i want to have 'experience' with. so i dont care about what 'experience' vista is offering, since its not able to run what i need properly.

I actually found a company that got Vista to work

[cheros]

They're a hardware seller, and all their sales desktops run Vista.

Because all they use is a browser to a web back end (which clients also use) which Netcraft reports as running Windows 2003. Nothing else at all.

In those conditions (i.e. avoiding any OS functions), Vista appears to work.

Now here's an evil idea: if we all started to run Linux web servers reporting as Windows, MS could no longer claim the figures because they would be seriously polluted. Maybe switch Web ID every month or so, that way the figure bounces like a maniac..

Just musing, of course. I would never do this. No, I'm just starting an editor, nothing special, tadum tadum tum tum..

Work in Progress - Vista Edition (Parody)

[D Ninja]

Work in Progress - Vista Edition
To: Alan Jackson - Work in Progress

Okay, look, I'm a pile of trash
But I give the boys at Slashdot something to bash.
My older sibling was good; He was born in 2003
Alright I admit, my development was cursory
And I can easily understand why you all curse me.
I'm such a big thing; you might as well use XP

You get tired and disgusted with me
When I can't be just what you want me to be.
I know I'm not held in high regard
I leave all my users bumbling and scarred
I even asked the coders to try and help me
But they quickly responded, "Just use Linux, it's free."
Just by patient, I'm a work in progress.

I'm sorry you get mad, 'cause I'm slow as f*ck
I think that my code has run all amok
You didn't need to get work done, you have all night.
I really hope that there are no hard feelings between us
I just wiped out your files, there's no need to cuss
But I'm starting to see now, what you been saying is right.

You get tired and disgusted with me
When I can't be just what you want me to be.
I know I'm not held in high regard
I leave all my users bumbling and scarred
I even asked the coders to try and help me
But they quickly responded, "Just use Linux, it's free."
Just by patient, I'm a work in progress.

I know they meant well with my security
But there's something damn annoying about UAC
I'm getting in touch with, my old Unix roots.
I should probably do the health thing that you want me to do
Slim down around the center; lose a "feature" or two
Now you're probably right, sir
But it's all good, so what should I exclude?

You get tired and disgusted with me
When I can't be just what you want me to be.
I know I'm not held in high regard
I leave all my users bumbling and scarred
I even asked the coders to try and help me
But they quickly responded, "Just use Linux, it's free."
Just by patient, I'm a work in progress.

Oh Steve B, just be patient now,
I'm a work in progress.

Oh, I need a major tune up.
Maybe Windows 7 will do it.

Re:bashers....

[Runefox]

I believe the sales figures would be due to systems with Vista pre-loaded (which is practically everything now). In my experience, very few stores will offer to do an XP downgrade (we do), and if they do, they need to be sure that drivers exist for all hardware beforehand or end up with a half functional computer. Before you ask, yes, there are Vista-only pieces of hardware out there, and yes, they are common and mostly OEM, especially on Dells and HPs. Sony are starting to get pretty bad, too, though they actually have a pretty good track record AFAIK. I'm fairly certain there's a good reason for this, in spite of XP still being officially supported by Microsoft.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Basic analysis

[symbolset]

Look, if anyone just does a basic analysis, you'll see that there's this circular process where the heavier operating system requires new hardware, forcing people to buy both to keep up with the times, which both them and the manufacturer want.

According to this basic analysis [debconf.org](pdf), debian Etch is an order of magnitude larger and more complex than Vista. And yet it doesn't require this "new hardware" you're speaking of.

In fact in addition to the x86-32 and x86-64 targets Vista aims for it also runs on alpha, sparc, arm, powerpc, hppa, ia64, mips and s390. From the toys [google.com] to spacecraft [linux.com], from webservers [netcraft.com] to 85.2% of the world's top 500 supercomputers [top500.org] it'll run on almost anything. That's engineering.

This will not end until they have a solid competitor, period, and that means the linux geeks have got to get off their high horse and make an easy, packaged, "buy your box from dell with it pre-loaded" version of it your grandma can use.

You have been able to buy PCs preloaded with linux from Walmart [walmart.com], Dell [dell.com], IBM [ibm.com], HP [hp.com] and many others for several years.

Because, personally, i'm getting a little sick of getting these operating systems from Microsoft which I swear to God have code running several extra loops just to bog it down so that only the most bleeding edge (aka money I don't want to spend) boxes can handle it reasonably.

So switch. It's time. Ballmer [slashdot.org] says Vista is a work in progress. Gates [slashdot.org] says its replacement is a year out. Let's take their word for it. This is a great window of opportunity to justify looking at alternatives.

Re:

[call-me-kenneth]

As it happens, I still have this article [paulgraham.com] bookmarked from when it was posted to Slashdot [slashdot.org] - oh hey look, it was just over a year ago. At the time I thought: oh sure, I remember hearing this six months before Windows 2000 came out, too. Now... now I'm starting to dream the impossible dream. Could 2008 really be the year of Linux on the desktop? Ten years after I started using Linux regularly as a lowly web developer peon, I'm now high enough up my employer's org that I can make a serious case for looking at Li

Re:Lies, Lies and More Lies...

[MightyMartian]

And Ubuntu is still a pain in the ass to get working on a good many laptops. Now, that's not entirely the fault of the open source community, as a lot of hardware vendors won't or can't deal with Linux, and force developers to either do hacks like ndiswrapper or reverse engineer Windows drivers. But the fact remains that laptops remain a huge problem for Ubuntu, and for all Linux distros.

Those of us who know stuff...

[symbolset]

We don't buy hardware that doesn't have open specifications. It's a winning strategy. You should try it.

If you think wireless is a pain to get working on a Ubuntu laptop you should try getting Vista to install on an eee 2G [mwave.com]. Fun times.

A valid complaint

[symbolset]

There exists hardware where the manufacturer refuses to disclose how it operates. The only purpose for this is to prevent it from working with open systems. The cure is simple. Don't buy it. Do not reward vendors for limiting your choices. In time they'll learn to stop including toxic stuff in their box.

Read the label. In this case, read the specifications for the stuff you buy. If the ingredients aren't on your preferred list of safe ingredients [linux-drivers.org] then just don't buy it. These days there are plenty o

Amazing what LSD can do to your brain

[slashbart]

Impressive isn't it.

Re:

[colinrichardday]

There is a difference between software's being a work in progress and a software product's being a work in progress. When Fedora Core 9 is released next month, it will no longer be a work in progress (at least not to the extent of Vista), although much of the included software will still be works in progress.

Vista isn't the emperor's new clothes...

[argent]

Windows NT completely replaced the infrastructure of Windows, and gave Microsoft a golden opportunity to draw a line under years of hacks based on a bad design. They even came up with a mechanism, subsystems, to make the business of replacing the Windows API with a better one while retaining full compatibility with the existing API... much as Apple did a few years later.

THAT was when they were building a new house from the ground up, and that's when they decided to build the same house pn the new foundations, leaky roof and swinging open front door and all.

Vista is not a new foundation, it's the same basic foundation as NT3, NT4, and NT5 (Windows 2000 and XP). The majority of changes in Vista are just there to stop the end user from running cable from their neighbor's CATV box to their own TV set (or at least figuring out you did it and scrambling the signal). It's not the Emperor's New Clothes, it's the Telescreen from 1984, with the indows logo instead of Big Brother.

And it's got the same basic Win32 house built on that foundation.

And the roof still leaks, it just tells you "Your roof is leaking... do you want to stay sitting under the drips or move to another chair?".

Windows 7 is rumored to be a new house, with a big old storage shed in the back yard with all the bits of the old house packed away in it so you can unpack the leaky roof only when you need it.

We'll see.