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Why not?, if we can swallow all the fake promises and the hype from KDE4 then I have no problems doing the same with MS.

sure, keep repeating the same if it makes you feel batter.

and same to you.
any particular feature you're thinking of that was supposed to be in kde4 but isn't? its pretty much all there now, though not yet finished.

anyway, what I got from the article is that the next windows will be "Windows 7". yay. ok so this has been common knowledge for a while but I dont follow windows much these days...

That could be the most childish thing I've seen in ages.

What fake promises and hype?

Documentation please.

In case you just arrived here from Mars: on Earth it's common knowledge that this kind of tactic has been used by Microsoft constantly since it's earliest days. It's a very effective method of stamping out competition. Whenever something comes up that even remotely challenges your position, all you have to do is release some FUD about the great things that will be in your next product, which is of course right around the corner.

Since Microsoft has a very solid position, most of the challenges it receives are risk plays from their makers. They go out on a limb and have to either make it or go down in a relatively short period of time. Unfortunately, they are very vulnerable like this. Customers will compare the offer from this new relatively unknown entity with promises from Microsoft, an established giant. It doesn't matter that the small player has something it can actually deliver right now and Microsoft only has words. Many clients will decide to wait until next year, just in case Microsoft is true to its word. But that is enough to destroy the delicate business plan of the challenger and make it go bust. And when the next year comes, Microsoft makes some excuse about not showing anything, or ups the ante with even more promises. And the competition is gone.

Simple and effective.

I wasn't asking you for evidence of Microsoft using FUD or delivering fake promises.

I was asking Hiev for evidence of KDE-devs giving fake promises.

A transparent development process is actually something they learned from open source (as we saw in the famously leaked halloween memo http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html)

Rather than promising detailed features and failing to deliver them, Microsoft should do like Apple and just announce vague "super secret features" that never materialize. People seem to go ga-ga for that sort of thing. :p

> Hasn't MS learned anything from their past mistakes (esp WinFS)? These guys need to STFU about features until this thing hits at least the beta stage.

They learned that spreading FUD works. People think that it has alot of new stuff and improvements. Even technical people close to me. And i can't persuade them otherwise. Even the latest benchmarks of XP sp3 vs. Vista sp1 where Office is twice as fast on xp has no effect on these people.. They just want to upgrade (and they don't want to know their money has gone down the drain) so why should they listen to reason, they already cashed out..

How is claiming the next version of Windows will have feature X "FUD"? Do you even know what FUD means?

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. Microsoft is good at that. They learned it from their previous Master (IBM). IBM was arguably better at it than MS, just like Sauron was better at being evil than Morgoth.

Every self respecting nerd knows that Sauron was the disciple of Morgoth, not the other way around (I hope that was a typo )

I think you have that backwards. Morgoth was Sauron's master and Suaron learned everything from him. I think Morgoth was much more of a bad guy than Sauron who for the most part was less of a physical baddie and more of a sweet talker, he could talk a good game but he got his ass handed to him several times. Morgoth was a god, Sauron is his lackey.

I'm such a geek. I think I'll go shoot myself.

Just messing.

Sure they are good. When they do it. This is not a case of FUD.

Actually, you're right. Claiming you have stuff that doesn't actually exist, or that you will have it without actually delivering, is called vaporware. Much better than FUD.

Everything announced in advance is vaporware until its officially released.

It's not FUD, it may or may not end up being vaporware, it's just stupid.

In addition to that, some people are also quite annoyed when they have a "news article", which links to another "news article", which links to a "news article", which links to another one, in which one can finally find the link to get into the source of the many "news articles".

Giving credit to the source of the news is good, making your website visitor click through many sites is definitely not.

Agreed - I like the tradition on many blogs, where articles are accompanied with 2 links:

1 reference to 'more information' (directly to the 'source' of the matter), and 1 reference giving credit to the other blogger/newssite/whatever that lead the author to this topic.

Multi-Unary-Fingerless-Function Interface spec allowing for the tactile screen interaction equivalent in today's iPhone.

There will be several patents on the Pinch functionality alone and require a lot of control.

/endOfBeingAPig.

"Who cares about Windows anymore?"

95% of the people who use PC's?

Actually a lot less than that.
Most people only care about the applications and "Ooh shiny!". They don't care whether it runs on Windows, *nix, Apples or pears, they just want to do their mail, surfing, games, typing, etc.
If they have trouble with the OS that they can't fix with a magic repair button, they turn to others to fix their pc anyway.

Thats a good point.

I care about Windows too, since I use it in addition to Linux. You have to know Windows to get into most IT-related fields.

However, that doesn't mean you have to miss out on anything by running *nix. I can access any Windows apps I want from my terminal server, even those that otherwise fail under Wine or VMs. .NET/WPF apps are no problem either--as you can see from the new Yahoo Messenger for Vista.

Heres my example:

http://www.fedoraforum.org/gallery/fullview.php?i=3885&original...

Of course a terminal server fall flat at 3D gaming but Wine/Cedega usually work satisfactory after some tweaking. In the future we can hopefully look forward to DirectX/OpenGL hardware accelerated VM solutions!

I doubt they actually care about Windows per se. They just use whatever came on their PC and whatever does what they need to do. If it's called Windows, Apple or Linux is irrelevant for them.

>>"Who cares about Windows anymore?"

>95% of the people who use PC's?

No, they might have heard they are running Windows, but if you ask them which version they are running.. they might aswell say 97 or linux.. and they don't give a shit.. and they should'nt.. this is only religion to a few of us.. the ones that know the pathetic nature of Windows.. we have an fanatic interest in seeing Microsoft loose.. I used to think the Amiga would conquer the Pc.. then i thought BeOS would prevail.. know i have to rely on linux for that.. and i think linux has actually reached a stage where it is better than windows on the desktop.. the only problem is.. noone (the usual family computer nerd you call) is familiar with linux, so if you need help.. you're screwed!

Don't think it's 95% anymore.

80 - 85%

More like ~80% these days when looking apart from users on myfavouritedogfoodandseebritneyspearsandlindseylohannudeinthebathtubwi thparishilton.getfreshviruseshereforthe.net

Remember, there's a world outside where windows is a generic word for something transparent you can see through.

To everyone who has said something like "more like 80%"...you're forgetting about the business world, where Windows adoption rate on the desktop is 98%, if not even higher. I'm well aware of the world outside. I spend a lot of time there. Facts are facts.

*LOL*

The business world is a helluvalot better at adopting Linux than Average Joe. It is in the business sector you see the largest adoption of linux (and *nix in general). I'm not even sure Windows has the majority there.

Fujitsu used to make touchscreen laptops, the old Lifebook B series im sure .. Didn't really go anywhere it seems, probably would have benefited with some good tech behind it rather than a stylus doing the same as the mouse pointer ..

The problem I have with them is this; I'm petrified that I'm going to break them; if they do come out with a reasonably priced tablet, it needs to be cheap, light and very ruggered. I want to be able to drop the sucker from a height of 2 metres and know that the machine is still going to keep working without a hitch. If something is spilled over it, I want to know that I can wipe if off with a cloth and keep on using it.

Like I said, I'd be happy to use it but given the price is expensive and the fragile nature of these devices, I'd sooner stick to good old pencil and paper; and use a notebook when stationary.

Yeah... it's pretty funny the way that works. There's a lot more hatred than understanding when it comes to Microsoft and Windows. Of course they'll claim that they hate BECAUSE they understand...

Hey, at least nobody has said they're copying Apple yet.

Yeah, but KDE4 (of all things) was brought up near the top.

I'm sorry, but this is not about Windows. It's about MS not stopping to talk bullshit all the time.

Look at this "news", at the _source_! It only consists of:
"I will say that if you are impressed by the "touch features" in the iPhone, you'll be blown away by what's coming in Windows 7. Now if only we could convince more OEMs that Windows Touch Technology is going to drive their sales."

You see? It's just "hey, we will blow you away!!!111 I'm not kidding, now buy our stuff!!!11111"

I'M IN UR WINDUZ BLOWIN' YA AWAY!


Just skip it and there will be no flame war.

Ok, that was funny

Except you can't even buy it, because it doesn't exist yet. And if past claims for previous versions of Windows have shown us anything, we may very well wait 5 years only to finally be told "sorry, that shiny thing we mentioned didn't make it".

Look at Vista. It first made an appearance around 2001, in the form of codenames Longhorn and Blackcomb. Over the years, the two merged features (on paper), only to then begin dropping them like crazy. Vista finally arrived in 2006, with a lot of features dropped, most notably WinFS.

So why should anybody believe anything Microsoft says? If we have learned anything from the past it's that Windows 7 will probably arive in 2012 and will NOT include touch features.

Yup. Write anything that isn't a complete bow to Microsoft and you get modded down. Write something which isn't a complete bow to FLOSS and you get modded down as well. Write something about Mac which isn't a complete bow to Steve Jobs and you get modded down.

Write something trollish and you get modded up.

Go figure...

That's a really good question. Thom... whose side are you on today? :-) I think OSNews kills kittens!

(Okay... this is certainly off-topic)

Oh well, since the whole WindowsUpdateIsEvilBecauseitUpdatesItselfWithoutAskingFirst-thingy got accepted as 'news' I believe people have been searching for a new and even lower standard

Do you want to know where that filesystem went? One part became this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET_Entity_Framework

There were other parts to it, of course, and those pieces are being applied where appropriate.

"There were other parts to it, of course, and those pieces are being applied where appropriate."

Of course, one might argue that "where appropriate" would be in a place which "forever changes the way we work with computers". That was one of the selling points of vista, in its early days.

I think "appropriate" sometimes is fulfilling the expectations people have on you. At least when the expectations comes from what you told them would happen.