What's behind Microsoft's fall from dominance?

[psxphill]

This pretty much throws the whole argument out the window... not only is Windows 8 less capable, it costs more, too. Way to go, Microsoft! *facepalm*

It's not less capable, you can buy a copy of Windows that includes DVD playback. It appears that Microsoft increased the price of Windows 8 in February, you should have bought it sooner.

[psxphill]

That's why the *facepalm*. Ah, nevermind. I give up.

I'd take your point more seriously without the pantomime.
If you can't make you point without LOLing, facepalming etc then don't bother.

[psxphill]

I won't dispute that it can get exhausting dealing with you and your "everything Microsoft does is perfection and wonder!!! Anyone who doesn't like it is just a hater!" nonsense. However:
 
This is what you said in a post that you made which I have now linked to twice. Its meaning is not changed by its context. Did you or did you not mean what this sentence says? If you did, can you provide a source?

I never said that everything Microsoft did was 100% perfection. I only ever mention Windows here at all because you repeatedly say that everything that Microsoft does is 100% pure evil.
 
It's obvious that cyberlink and windvd would be unhappy about windows 7 supporting dvd playback. But no I don't have any recordings of phone calls or copies of confidential emails that can prove that to you. However there is plenty of evidence that shows that when Microsoft bundle anything that the software industry already supplies then they get sued. It could be that they removed DVD playback purely to annoy you, because it's funny watching you get wound up. They said it was the license cost, but I think they are lying.
 
The irony is that a lot of the user base doesn't care about the cost of windows 8 or whether it includes dvd playback, because if you pirate windows 8 then you may as well also pirate powerdvd.

[psxphill]

other than comparing it to that one time twelve years ago that they got in trouble for bundling IE because Netscape went crying to the government about it

Microsoft were sued in 2009 and 2013 because of IE. They were sued in 2003 for windows media player. There are plenty other examples I can pull out if you want to feel more wrong.
 

along with an assload of other software, and had how many other such instances, exactly?

Do you mean like messenger & movie maker that they stopped bundling and moved into windows live essentials?

[psxphill]

But I'd "feel more wrong" if I'd actually said there weren't any other times instead of asking whether you were referring to any other instances.

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.
 

I'll take your silence as agreement psxphill.

You can take my silence as having a life outside here.
 
They claim that Fluendo is licensed, I don't know how many they sold.
 
 

Patents and codec licenses Neither French law nor European conventions recognize software as patentable (see French section below).

Well that isn't entirely true http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention
 
Whether they are breaking the law is irrelevant, it's likely that nobody will sue them (after the decss situation and they probably don't have much money). However it's likely that Microsoft would get sued if they tried the same thing.
 
Even if it's true, I believe VideoLAN have a responsibility to make sure that their software isn't exported into a country where the patents are valid.
 
 
 

I, as with probably a lot of other open source proponents, find it an abomination of the patent system that if you own a legal DVD drive and a legally bought DVD it is still illegal to program an open source DVD player.
Important difference.

That is because the DVD drive manufacturers don't pay for a license to play DVD video. Are you saying that all DVD drives should have to have a license?
 
What you're suggesting is that no patents should be valid because if you buy the parts to make something legally then anything you make shouldn't be able to violate a patent.
 
So I don't see your important difference.
 
 

It isn't the DVD player, it is the copyright on the program that Micro Soft got the computing world to accept and use.

Microsoft aren't involved, it's not a copyright issue. I believe there is a trademark issue with saying that your software plays DVD Video, a patent issue and they tried to claim a DMCA issue but lost (they haven't tried in the EU where the EUCD which is way worse than the DMCA is in effect).
 
 
FWIW without these people investing a lot of money in developing DVD's, you wouldn't actually be able to buy them and play them. They did it on the understanding that they would get a return from the licensing fees & trademark/copyright/patent law is supposed to be there to protect them.
 
 

since you don't really seem to contribute anything to the subjects that actually interest me in this forum.

Does that mean you don't have an interest in this topic? Because as far as I can tell I am contributing to the discussion. If you only see brown nosing sycophants as a contributing then your attitude starts to make sense.

[psxphill]

Sure.
 
More like you talked a load of bollox as usual, don't let silly little things like facts get in the way though.

You don't believe I have been out all day and have just returned? You have serious mental health issues.
 
 

Whatever

No, not whatever. You lied.
 
 

So no, you don't have any evidence at all that what you claimed happened actually happened, other than comparing it to that one time twelve years ago that they got in trouble for bundling IE because Netscape went crying to the government about it - and they've kept bundling IE ever since, along with an assload of other software, and had how many other such instances, exactly?

 

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the EU and their lawsuit-happy ways. But I'd "feel more wrong" if I'd actually said there weren't any other times instead of asking whether you were referring to any other instances.

Maybe you should feel more wrong now.
 
"That one time" means "there weren't any other times".

[psxphill]

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.

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

[psxphill]

I believe that you are an arrogant prick who is unable to respond to his lies being corrected by facts without restoring to ad-hominem attacks to deflect from his own obvious failings.
 
Please don't speak to me again.

Good, hopefully that means you won't start trolling or insulting me again.
 
All I got to do now is stop commodorejohn from doing the same and this place will be good again.
 

No, what I am saying is that the right to play back a DVD should be included when buy the DVD and playback should not be restrictred by software patents. Software patents are an abomination of the patent system.

Well that would be new, because VCR's, tape players etc were all covered in patents that manufacturers had to license. Software feels different because once you've made it once the cost to reproduce it are lower. But someone fitting algorithms together and designing structures has a right to patent their work, whether that is created in software or hardware.

[psxphill]

I don't know what industry you are in but MS is *far* from being dominant in the server space it's not even close.
 
UNIX-oids are by far the most used overall except for niche markets that are by definition tied to Windows like .NET etc.

You probably don't want to hear this from me.
 
While *nix has a monopoly in web servers, that is the niche market. There are far more email/file servers sitting in offices around the world than web servers. It's cheaper to use Windows as you can get people with limited computer experience to be the sysadmins.

[psxphill]

Software is different and that's why you have copyright for it. Software patents are an abomination of the patent system.

The issue there is that you can have a patented piece of hardware that you can then duplicate using software without having to pay a patent license fee.
 
There are plenty of examples of stupid software patents, but then there are lots of stupid patents.
 
The irony is that without the patents then it wouldn't have been so easy for people to write a player anyway. Without a patent to protect them they'll just protect their algorithms better, you still don't get a licenced player for Linux but you won't get an un-licenced one either.

[psxphill]

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...

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

[psxphill]

In the world of large RDBMS and cluster farms UNIX (And I include Linux and the BSD's in that too) is and always has been king. MS made inroads certainly but it is not even close to being dominant as you claim.

Linux/BSD is a relative new comer to RDBMS and competes in the mid range with SQL Server.
 
But then I guess it depends on what you class as large.

[psxphill]

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

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

[psxphill]

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.

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

[psxphill]

Could you give an example of such a hardware patent that could be replaced fully with pure software ?

Will this do?
 
http://www.google.com/patents/US5093831
 
This is part hardware and part software
 
https://www.google.com/patents/US5926786
 
Here is a bad circuit patent.
 
http://www.faqs.org/patents/imgfull/20110025518_01

[psxphill]

Takes two to tango, buddy.

Sigh.