[TriLUG] Open Source Empowerment

[al johnson]

On Tuesday 04 November 2003 02:59 pm, you wrote:
> Tanner Lovelace wrote:
> > Jim Ray wrote:
> >> MS doesn't do the fixing.  never deal with a fixer that doesn't care
> >> about
> >> the customer.  you aren't locked into one fixer no matter what OS you
> >> use.
> >
> > You aren't?  So, just out of curiosity, then, do you know of a company
> > other than Microsoft that can fix bugs in IE?  No? I didn't think so.
> > That's *not* the case with programs like Mozilla or Konqueror.  Get your
> > facts straight, please.
>
> What bugs are you referring to?  I would rather have the reliability and
> stability of IE anyday over Mozilla and Konqueror.  As it is now I have
> Mozilla and Konqueror crash at least once a day, and I have never had IE
> crash.  And while talking about browsers, why cant these companies
> understand what a plug-in is?  You almost have to be a programmer to
> install the plug ins for Mozilla.
===============================================

"the reliability and stability of IE ??" 
 
    Now you're making me fall on the floor laughing out loud.  If I had a 
dollar for every complaint about how sorry IE is, I'd be a very rich man 
today.  I still have a hard drive with 98 on it.  Whenever I attempt to use 
it the one program which I can count on to crash after about a half-hour of 
use in the entire system is IE. 

Others report similar experiences. Did you know that when you write a website 
you have to be very careful to make that site "compatible with IE" ???  This 
is because when Microsoft created IE they wanted to differentiate their 
browser from the early browsers, they did this solely because they wanted to 
"steal" the standards and make them their own.  As a result these "IE only 
sites' cause people not using IE a lot of problems (This is definitely 
intentional on Microsoft's part.) There are some websites which you cannot 
connect to unless you're using IE (Microsoft would love it if the entire web 
was like this!!).  So today we have Linux browsers which just tell these 
sites "I'm IE" .  
    I don't believe that Microsoft has the ability to create any O.S. as 
reliable and stable as Linux.  The first Windows was the worst O.S. ever sold 
and it was a very sorry copy of  the Macintosh O.S.  Win 3.11 wasn't too bad 
and had several nice features which were later missing in 95 and 98.  But 95 
and 98 both crash often, and even the vaunted NT series of desktops have the 
legendary "Blue Screen of Death" so cursedly familiar to NT users.  And 2000 
and above.  Well,  I tried 2000 and if anything it was much worse than 95 and 
98.  After using 2000 for about 30 minutes it literally disintegrated. When 
they finally came out with XP,  I left Microsoft for good and I'll never go 
back again.  When I hear about how much trouble XP owners are having I really 
feel sorry for them.  They try to fix XP  with the "patches" MS puts out, but 
some of these patches are so poorly written that several of them have been 
known to destroy XP systems instead of repairing them. I actually get 
heartburn whenever I use any software written by Microsoft, because I know 
that sooner or later it is going to crash, and unlike Linux it doesn't just 
crash the application it takes the whole system down with it.  Even Bill 
Gates has been unable to get his software repaired to "harden it against 
internet attacks".  As a recent memo indicates.  Small wonder since they 
don't  know how to repair anything. because Microsoft never actually repairs 
things they just keep creating and selling new software which is never 
repaired!  All Microsoft knows how to do is to create yet another new crappy 
version with even more problems than the last one.
They never repair their mistakes, they just create new systems with even more 
errors than the last one.  But I've got to say that the worst program in the 
bunch is IE.  

   But the thing I really love about Linux is that with open source 
everything is constantly being monitored, reported on a daily basis  and 
repaired, many times on a monthly basis.  If you're having problems with a 
piece of software, go download a new version which will probably have the 
problem identified and fixed.  This is because if you send an error report to 
Microsoft it goes into the trash, but if you send an error report to Red Hat 
or any of the other distributions, someone will actually read it and report 
it and someone will usually fix it.  In the case of applications, oftentimes 
the guy who created the program will even fix it for you at no cost!! The 
only people who ever get their MS systems repaired are those who pay MS a 
hefty monthly fee to receive patches and fixes that are not shared with the 
public, and unlike the nomial fees we pay to receive help from the 
distributors, the MS fees are very expensive. 

------------  Al Johnson