Re: [OT] British vs. American English (was Re: Wow, Evolution left me with eggs in my face)
On Sun, 2 Oct 2011 09:09:28 -0400 (EDT)
Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@wowway.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:47:56 -0400 (EDT), Richard Bown wrote:
> > On Sun, 2011-10-02 at 08:43 -0400, Stephen Powell wrote:
> >> M$ means Microsoft. Microsoft is often abbreviated as MS, such as
> >> in the term "MS-DOS". You can probably guess why the $ is
> >> sometimes substituted for the S.
> >
> > does that mean its a shaky distro ?
>
> Good one! :-)
>
> The substitution of the $ for the S is commentary on their
> money-grubbing ways. But I think it is fair to say that most people
> on this list would consider Windows a "shaky distro". That's
> probably one of the reasons they use Linux.
>
Not really, nowadays. I walk both the Dark and Light Paths, and since
XP arrived I haven't seen a BSOD, though I know people who have. Today,
if Windows crashes, there is as little doubt that it's because of dodgy
hardware or applications as with at least Testing.
As far as I can see, most Windows problems arise because of MS's
commercial nature rather than poor programming. I help out in an MS
forum, where at least half the problems are due to licensing and
market segmentation, and not technical issues.
But you can't really blame a commercial organisation for taking
advantage of markets, especially if it somehow seems to have a lot
more market share than perhaps any other company would be allowed by
various monopoly laws. I can't imagine what benefit there is to the US
government, or any other, from permitting a company that high a market
share in such a sensitive market... not that I'd ever expose a Windows
machine directly to the Internet.
--
Joe
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