IE: 66%
In April 2009. Sure firefox grabbed market share. Is it enough? No. Is it beating IE? No. Is it beating the world's worst browser, IE6? By 3%.
There was a time when IE was the best browser because it was the only browser and every site out there was coded for IE, not for the web, not per W3C standard nor common sense.
Firefox has not proven that innovation works, firefox has proven that the only thing that was keeping back innovation was IE.
Please re-read.
Let me help you:
The argument is not that no other company bundles browers with their operating systems
Perhaps. Not really an argument tho, it hasn't happened.
If you think the prevalence of IE is not a good enough example of stiffling innovation well then where have you been the past 5 years? We're talking about a line of browsers for which sites have to specifically code for. A line of browsers where 'standards compliancy' is a swear word. A line of browers were, even now in 2009, most corporate intranet sites will *only* work with them and no other browser.
The difference is Apple does not have a monopoly and, critically, does not abuse its position of monopoly *and* by doing so stiffling competition and innovation.
If you still do not understand what I'm saying please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce). They are *both* prohibited by law.
You may think it's "unfair" that Microsoft is having to pay for its success - the point is competitors in a different field should not have to suffer because of Microsoft's monopoly in another field.
The argument is not that no other company bundles browers with their operating systems.
The argument is that a company which maintains a *monopoly* in as far as what operating system people are more likely to use is abusing this position of monopoly to push their own browser which is in turn stiffling innovation and advancement in browsers.
Evidence is everywhere of this. Do you really thing IE6 deserves its market share? Whenever a company abuses its position to push a competing product at the expense of other companies trying to compete with it then yes, that is due cause for the law to step in.
I think you're missing the point. I'm not extolling OSS virtues and I have no delusions that somehow oss software is a panacea to the world's problems. I fully understand how important consistency is and I have actually done customer support.
Obviously you haven't thought this through otherwise you would notice that having a consistent interface and a standard set of packages with expected functionality is exactly what Asus have done (for example).
If you are suggesting that just because it is not the same interface as what people may have used in the past then that is somehow wrong, or prone to problems or hard to learn is self defeating. You will never get anywhere with an attitude like that.
As a company having your own interface and complete control over what runs, how the interface looks, behaves and how the user interacts with it is a huge boon, not a disadvantage.
I'm very sorry you think of anything different as scary but obviously the rest of the world does not agree with you and Asus has the sales to prove it.
If people are intimidated by it and it is so hard to learn then how on earth did it get rave reviews and millions of sales?
It's quite easy, as I'm sure you are well aware, to spread fear of "bad scary monsters" but the actual _evidence_ suggests otherwise.
And just in case you are too lazy to go google the thing for yourself, here you go:
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/18560/asus-boss-reveals-eee-sales.phtml
Next time how bout doing some research hmm? Also note the some million units sold in the first quarter were mostly Linux based versions..
Yes, again, Jo Consumer does not buy windows. He buys a device, a laptop, a netbook whatever. He will use what comes with it and that is it. If said device comes with an interface, even if it is not one they are used to from other devices, they will either use it or not buy the device in the first place.
There's no point arguing 'yes but they're used to windows'. It doesn't matter. They will use what comes with the device.
Anyone needing easy portable access to a browser, email reader, word processor, calendar or such (like say students, teachers, and a range of business people) then they should be able to pick up a netbook running whatever OS is available and use it without any inconvenience.
Exactly what I'm trying to say.
You are probably right. I do understand what you're saying, most people get completely confused with even the slightest change but the point is, you're not buying an OS, you are buying a device.
The same people that get extremely confused by icon choices couldn't care less what OS their netbook is running, they will use what ever it came with. Vista is proof enough of that.
My point is it is not unthinkable for a vendor like Asus to create an environment that is simple enough for people with no prior experience with it to learn how to use. Obviously they might look at it and go 'wtf' cause it's not what they're used to but a show and tell and simple clear instructions should be enough right? Remember we are only talking about email, web, messenger. That is it. That's all most people use. As long as flash works, as long as you can click 'gmail' and up pops up your gmail account and so on then I can not see how it is simpler to instead use windows.
The lack of car analogies is much appreciated
Again, that does not make sense.
Asus eee screenshots: http://www.featuredsystems.com/asus-eee-pc-screenshots/
Please explain how anyone can not know how to use it. And no more car analogies please.
This whole 'used to windows' thing really bugs me. What difference does it make what OS your browser is running on? You telling me people don't know how to use firefox on mac os x/eee's linux distro but do know how to use it on windows? That's absolutely ridiculous.
Asus themselves proved this with the first release of the Eee which didn't run windows, people were still buying it and I never heard anyone one of them complain that it wasn't windows so they didn't know how to use it. It just has 4 huge buttons named 'browser', 'email' and etc. Please explain how anyone can not know how to use that.
Yeah. Cause no-one has ever thought of doing that
Attendance is no measure of academic ability.
If the university is treating students as children it's probably because, on average, they are.
Their problem, not the university's. If they are being treated as children, then they will act like children.
If someone does not attend and does not bother to even gauge the complexity of the course they will get what they deserve, nothing more nothing less
They can dual license it if the code author allows them to. It is common practice in these dual license scenarios to ask for the code author to do this. Whether they allow it or not is another matter entirely.
Also note that most countries have a minimum size (not well defined obviously) that a work must be in order to be considered copyright-worthy. A one byte patch for example would not be covered by copyright.
"The downside is that they can't just merge the open code back into the commercial database, and that is a significant downside."
Says who? As far as I know Oracle has no plans to change MySQL's license.
Since both MySQL and its forks are open source there's nothing stopping them from merging the two. In fact that is what Maria DB is doing, merging changes to MySQL into it.
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein
