What's behind Microsoft's fall from dominance?

[commodorejohn]

Stop backtracking. Your justification was that it was all that time ago, you weren't taking into account that it was recent. Although being along time ago is still relevant.

"Your justification is irrelevant except for its actually being relevant!"

Whatever. Got any actual evidence yet?

[commodorejohn]

No, not whatever. You lied.
 
Maybe you should feel more wrong now.
 
"That one time" means "there weren't any other times".

Eh. Even if I had lied instead of simply having forgotten, that would, as they say, just make two of us. I mean, at least I just forgot and didn't invent a conspiracy out of whole cloth with no supporting evidence whatsoever to explain something that's far more easily explained as a simple cost-cutting measure.

[commodorejohn]

I provided a lot of reasons why I believe Microsoft received pressure to drop DVD support. You might think it's a conspiracy theory, but to me it would seem unlikely that WinDVD or Cyberlink wouldn't try getting Microsoft to remove it when other companies have been so successful when they did it. I never disputed that it was also a cost cutting measure.

Whether it seems likely to you or not, you still made the claim that it happened without having any evidence that it did, in fact, happen. Not that "I would bet that maybe" or "I kind of suspect that," you claimed that that actually happened, even though you admit that you have no evidence at all to support that.

Tell me again, which of us is lying?
 

Are you saying you made an incorrect statement by accident or were you aware that what you said wasn't true?

I quite clearly said that I made an incorrect statement by accident (on account of having forgotten.)

[commodorejohn]

All I got to do now is stop commodorejohn from doing the same and this place will be good again.

Kindly point me to a place where I've trolled or insulted you, sir.

Closest thing I can think of is where I suggested that perhaps your perception of me as the Microsoft-hating Linux advocate you'd like me to be had to do with your living in a parallel universe...

[commodorejohn]

Your aggressive argumentative style of holding a conversation is both trolling and insulting.

If that's true, I could say the same of you.

[commodorejohn]

You think anyone who disagrees with you is worthy of an attack, I tend to wait until I'm attacked.

Insist all you like; that won't make it true, any more than your portrayal of me as some kind of Linux-loving Windows-hater was true.

[commodorejohn]

I don't need to insist, by keeping arguments going like this you prove it yourself.

Takes two to tango, buddy.

[commodorejohn]

Because people talk as if software patents are the only bad ones out there, just because you can find a bad software patent doesn't mean that they are all bad.

The thing about software patents (or algorithm patents in general) is that it comes down to letting someone lay full legal claim to a way of doing things. Not a specific design for a machine or a circuit, but an abstract, general sequence of steps for solving a problem. That's just all kinds of bizarre and wrong. I mean, should we be able to patent mathematical formulae?

[commodorejohn]

I won't argue that hardware patents can't be bafflingly vague. Still, when you allow this kind of thing, what's to stop someone from patenting, say, the twelve-bar blues? (Other than prior art, that is.) It gets plainly absurd real fast.

[commodorejohn]

Problem is that there is not enough incentive for an examiner to be very strict, agreeing with a patent proposal is easier than back-and-forth bickering.

Worse yet, in the US the Patent Office is funded by patents, so there's monetary incentive to just grant it and then let the question of whether that was at all appropriate get sorted out in the courts...