Mod parent up!!

If Microsoft had communicated more clearly, this discussion wouldn't be necessary. Microsoft is extremely badly managed.

Which distro are you using that isn't already infected by systemd? I'm SO glad Gentoo still allows me to use OpenRC...

Me too! I use both funtoo and gentoo, at work and at home, but here's a pretty good sized list of options for those who like debian, arch, and other distributions:

http://without-systemd.org/wik...

If you're stuck with Red Hat, your choices have been pretty much taken from you, and you should probably be looking to change to something else, but otherwise you probably have the choice of using OpenRC or upstart, and someone has probably already figured out how for you.

Building the kernel now.

Very cook feature list, with arguably the best feature being that they managed to keep kdbus and more systemd nonsense from infecting the kernel code. I'm especially looking forward to trying out ext4 encryption on my laptop.

One reason why polling companies can't get usable info is that end users tend to be constantly barraged by robocalls,

I suspect that another reason, particularly when you're talking mobile, is that people who answer phones are far less likely to be sitting in a nice, comfortable chair in their living room ready to play 20 questions with whoever calls. If my parents call while I'm out walking the dog or something, I'll chat for a few minutes. If a pollster calls, they're out-of-luck.

The business model of polling is dependent on the willingness of strangers to let pollsters suck away a few minutes of their time for free, and people... just have too much other stuff happening.

Plus, if I'm talking with some Luddite on the phone, how can I check Facebook?

Other views of the same issues:

1) Backwards compatibility on Xbox One. That is better described as a "business practice" that reverses the extremely destructive previous intentions. Anything else would have killed the Xbox.

2) A change to the subscription business model. Microsoft and Adobe and other companies are testing how much customers can be abused. Now, instead of selling a product, they are trying to take additional control by only renting it. Eventually that abusive business model will collapse. Yes, until then it may be profitable.

3) To the cloud! The "cloud" is based on cloudy thinking. Many managers who don't have sufficient technical knowledge believe using another company's computers will save money. Instead, over several years they will create vendor lock-in. Using another company's computers may be a good way to provide a backup in case of widespread failure at a primary site. It is not a good sole method. Also, anyone wanting to use another's company's computers would contract with Amazon or Google. Microsoft has a long history of wacky management. (See my earlier comment.)

See the InfoWorld article: In a cloud outage, no one can hear you scream.

4) .NET goes open source. It is impossible to know whether that will increase Microsoft's income. It may just lower the rate of decrease of income.

One effect of "upgrading" to Windows 10: Windows Media Center will be deleted.

Another loss in Windows 10: Windows Updates will be forced, in some versions. What other sneaky methods will Microsoft use? Will there be other lost features? Will Microsoft extend its control over Windows in other hidden or complicated ways? At present, the best way to update Windows 7 is to use Autopatcher, because Microsoft's anti-customer "updates" are avoided.

Firefox: Embraced, "Extended", soon to be Extinguished? Mozilla Foundation now gets most of its money from Microsoft. How? Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually Microsoft Bing search) the default search engine in Firefox. Most people don't have the technical knowledge to know how they've been manipulated, or how to restore the default search engine to Google search.

Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs: Damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that what Microsoft is trying to accomplish?

Microsoft is amazingly badly managed. The company apparently survives only because of having an unregulated virtual monopoly that allows it to charge full price for each new version, and to alternate good and bad versions, so customers pay twice for new versions. (Windows XP, good. Windows Vista, bad. Windows 7, good. Windows 8, so bad the next version, Windows 10 is "free".)

"Monkey Boy" The cover of the January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (now replaced) with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called Ballmer Monkey Boy -- on its cover.

Worst CEO: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

Wish I had mod points.

I would point out though that Apple were one of the original investors in ARM. They even helped with the early (though not the initial) silicon design.

The article is also wrong on other points. I've had two companies in the UK, the first failed (and I didn't really feel any "stigma". It just didn't work out); the second (which contained mainly the same people as the first) was bought up, which is why I'm over in Sunny CA now rather than back in London...

The social net is actually a lot stronger in the UK I feel (as someone who's lived in the US for the last decade), so having a company fail on you isn't the enormous burden that it is in the USA. There's a lot of ways/government help to get back on your feet in the UK that still don't really exist in the USA; and, of course, there's things like government-sponsored healthcare so you don't *need* to be employed just to cover your arse on essential things like that.

Just my $0.02/£0.01 (rounding up)

Simon.

I agree here. One easy example is computing an average: add up the numbers and divide by N. What if you have no numbers to average and N == 0? That doesn't mean the average is zero, it means you don't have an average. You always have to check for /0 errors, not because you want to keep the program from crashing but because you need to handle all the special cases. It's usually (not always) better to crash to alert you to an un-handled condition than to pretend nothing is wrong.

Should all null pointer exceptions or segfaults be handled quietly in some arbitrary way, in order to make software more "robust?"

"... actual incompetence plays a large factor..."

You are not the only one who thinks that.

The cover of the January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called him Monkey Boy -- on its cover.

Worst CEO: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)