"If users accept the domination of centrally-controlled data, free software faces two dangers, each worse than the other: [our emphasis] that users will reject GNU/Linux because it doesn't support the central control over access to these data, or that they will reject free versions of GNU/Linux for versions "enhanced" with proprietary software that support it. Either outcome will be a grave loss for our freedom."

13. Bill Gates earns $250 every second, $20m a day and $7.8BN a year.
15. If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country in the world.
18. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, scored a perfect 1600.

Were I still a windows user I would definitely not be migrating to vista. The security model is still flawed, DRM protection is so built in that it can completely cripple your computer (and potentially delete your files) with a single command from Microsoft, and it uses a rediculous amount of power to do nothing. Even idling with no installed applications windows uses more CPU time and more memory then my entire linux install running normally.

Well everyone said XP will fail because it still has too many security holes, its requirements are really high and it is very expensive. Yet it still became the dominant OS. So i doubt vista will fail.

Oh and is it just me or is linux MUCH faster then windows? My friend has a linux and his computer is a lot older than mine, yet his computer runs much faster. the ofice program he used seemed more advanced too.

Vista will succeed. It'll succeed hugely.

Considering the monopoly Microsoft has, and the deals with OEMs which prevent other operating systems from gaining traction, it can't possibly fail.

The shiny new GUI is awesome,

actually, likely more. My friend said 1 gig wasn't enough for the latest release candidate. Two gigs will probably run the premium very well

Windows is bloated and eats up memory, HDD space and time, so you have to buy the latest Processor, memory and largest Harddrive just to see something of a benefit from the software.

Linux (generally speaking) is small and efficient because it is not intended to strain hardware, its meant to work WITH your hardware and get the most out of it, most closely resembling a perfect world scenario.

Then why isn't Linux the dominant OS, other than the fact taht Microsoft has billions of dollars, puts a great chunk of that into advertising, and XP comes with nearly EVERY PC that comes off the market? There has to be something worthwile about XP, and possibly Vista, that keeps it above everythign else.

*sign* i was going to shell out to buy a copy of vista, but i guess I'll wait a few years now and stick to my (legit) XP

Then why isn't Linux the dominant OS, other than the fact taht Microsoft has billions of dollars, puts a great chunk of that into advertising, and XP comes with nearly EVERY PC that comes off the market? There has to be something worthwile about XP, and possibly Vista, that keeps it above everythign else.

You can't judge a book by it's cover

I'd drape myself in velvet and do my word processing in HTML if it were socially acceptable.

my personal opinion,

my friends mom was one of the tester for Vista so i got to play with it, it has some awesome multi interface features. and some killer layout designs. you can now actually hide and lock your desktop items with passwords. so if anyone tries to sneak on your computer hehehe their in trouble.

and now with this Vista Capable and Vista Ready they system will run smoothly due to the fact when you upgrade it your actually getting more for your money. in the sense that they actually give you more then what is required to run it.

i believe it will be a success as windows always is but the whole Vista capable and Vista ready stuff is stupid. millions of windows users will have to dump complete systems to get Vista because it is cheaper to do so.

Why not LaTeX? You can do word processing in it and I guess drape yourself in it... if you really wanted.

I guess that does make sense. I should definitely look into LaTeX, but I do like that everyone has a browser. Would a LaTeX document need to be exported to PDF or something?

Nah, they can be convert into PDF documents, but they are converted into DVI documents first.

But microsoft obviously invented them. Afterall they are supreme inovators

we noticed that word has been constantly crashing...blablabla.

What surprising is that, usually when I do such diagnostics, they NEVER WORK (for me at least). But this time, although it took almost forever, it actually FIXED the problem which - yeah sort of amazed me