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Comment: Re:Lots of good reasons. (Score 1) 684

by RobbieThe1st (#43572621) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Are There <em>Any</em> Good Reasons For DRM?

You mean, until X company decides it's no longer profitable and shuts down their DRM servers, leaving your media unplayable? It's happened several times already, with several companies.

Or what about those DVDs/Blu-rays with "DigitalCopy"... which the fine print says will only work until a certain date, usually a year or two out?

DRM might not have been designed to make things expire, but it does through unneeded obsolecence - I mean, a MP3, OGG or XVID/DIVX file will still work *many* years down the road, just as long as someone has ported the decoder to whatever new platform there is. If it's got DRM, though... not without breaking it.


Comment: Re:Interesting observation because MS != Apple (Score 1) 391

by RobbieThe1st (#43385177) Attached to: Apple Devices To Outsell Windows For First Time Ever In 2013

No, you misunderstand. Lets say we have 300 computers in a building. If we upgrade them every 3-5 years like would have happened in pre-p4 days, that's 300 licences every 3 years.
Now, if we decide "eh, only 50 of those machines are CAD stations, so we'll upgrade those, and leave the rest for another 3 years", MS gets only 50 licenses. 3 years after that, upgrade the CAD stations again, and use the old ones to replace 50 of the others. MS gets only 50 licences, again.
Repeat this process about 3 times, and you'll see where we're at - a few new machines, mostly handmedowns, including old P4's, most of which aren't getting upgrades to W7, let alone 8, and aren't giving MS any license fees.

Note that by Kiosk, I mean "time and attendance" app-driven kiosk, not just "basic maching for random googling etc" - machines we *do* need in the building and would require a PC and MS license... But instead of buying a new machine with win8 to fulfil that, they're using a spare P4 with XP.

Multiply this scenario many many times, and you can see why MS isn't getting the license fees they did in the XP/P4 days.

Comment: Re:Why Bother (Score 2) 135

by RobbieThe1st (#43380529) Attached to: Dell Offers Ubuntu Option With Alienware Gaming Desktop

And yet, I have things that "just work" on linux which don't work at all on Windows.. Removable drives with more than one partition, for one. I can take any flash drive, partition it with two partitions(say one for work and one for play, one for LiveCDs and one for files). Any Linux will see and use all partitions. Windows 7 will only see one. It's frigging annoying.
Or, say, booting off USB. With USB3, you could easily use an external USB3 drive to boot, and haul it between three computers so you have all your files and settings. Linux? Trivial. Windows 7? Impossible.
Or how about printer support? I've run into a number of printers which wouldn't work on 7 due to lack of drivers(MFGR didn't care beyond XP)... Ubuntu? autodetect, Just Works.

Meh. With either system there's problems. At least on Linux, the solution isn't "reinstall from scratch" like it often is on Windows.


by RobbieThe1st (#43376079) Attached to: Apple Devices To Outsell Windows For First Time Ever In 2013

No, the problem is that Windows saturates the market already, and 8 year old desktops are still fine. I know people still running P4s with XP!
Even my company still has some P4s around, as kiosks and such, and anything with an I3 or better processor is rare...

Apple might sell more devices, but the problem is that MS has lots of old devices around which still work.
