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Counterpoint: Does OS X Really Shine Brighter Than Vista?
InformationWeek ^ | 01/19/2007 | By David DeJean

Posted on 01/20/2007 1:24:47 AM PST by Swordmaker

It's wrong to make the differences between Mac OS X and Windows Vista into a horserace -- each OS is most challenged by its own history, limitations, and possibilities.

Does Apple's OS X operating system really shine in comparison with Microsoft's Vista?

That was the headline on a recent InformationWeek.com article. OS X Shines In Comparison to Vista [FreeRepublic Post Link] compares the Vista GUI to OS X and concludes that ". . . as much of an improvement as Vista is over XP, its main competitor, Mac OS X, still stacks up really well — and even tops Vista in several important areas."

It is part of a flood of articles and reviews that has grown as Vista finally approaches its January 29th ship-to-consumers date. It shares with many of them a blind-men-and-the-elephant quality: Seize upon one aspect of Vista or another, and draw conclusions about the whole based on the part they can see and understand.

The piece compares and contrasts the two OSes in several areas, including their development histories, the consistency of their UIs (which seems to mean both the UI changes that create a learning curve for each new version, and the ease of use and intuitiveness of the OS), and their relative security.

There is a lot the piece doesn't cover. To begin with, operating systems are hardware-specific, so they must support the hardware well or performance will suffer. Second, clean code is important: OS kernel bugs can make application developers' lives miserable, there's a definite upside to being the least buggy OS. Vista is certainly vulnerable to criticism of its tortured development history, and other reviewers have faulted the finished product for lacking features that were dropped along the way, like the WinFS file architecture. And you can't not comment on the prelaunch marketing hype, which may be a better, more successful product than the operating system it's selling.

Reviewing The UI

You'd think Apple, with its complete control of both its hardware and its user interface, would be able to create a far more coherent user environment than Microsoft's OS, which at least in theory has to run a widely divergent variety of hardware. But that just does not seem to be the case.

Granted, the Windows UI is far from perfect — no OS that forces you to click on a button labeled "Start" to stop your computer can claim the moral high ground here. But OS X is not without its flaws and foibles.


Is an unlabeled icon shaped like an apple really any more
intuitive than a button labeled "Start"?


We're about to find out -- Vista finally does away with the "Start" button.

What's up with that single mouse button, for instance? Multiple buttons and local menus are a demonstrable ease-of-use improvement. The Mac's Finder UI that separates program controls from the window that the program is running in is has always seemed awkward. And is an unlabeled icon shaped like an apple really any more intuitive than a button labeled "Start"?

(Actually, we're about to learn the answer to that last question. Vista finally does away with the "Start" button and replaces it with an unlabeled icon of the Vista window/flag.)

Learning The OS Language

The point is this: a UI is something you learn, just like a language — and just like a language, some of it is structured, clear, and consistent, and some of it is simply learned by rote repetition. The "OS X Shines" piece makes much of a supposed lack of clarity and consistency in Vista, for example, and offers as example a comparison of the number of mouse clicks it takes to discover the network address being used by your computer — three for the Mac, six for the PC. Actually, a fluent speaker of Windows can do it in three steps, too:

  1. Click on the Vista icon
  2. Type "cmd" in the search box and click on the entry for "cmd.exe" that's highlighted in the results list, or just hit Return
  3. At the command line, type "ipconfig" and hit Return.

But surely that doesn't indicate any weakness or superiority in either OS beyond a primitiveness common to both of them. Why should we ever need to know or care what IP address our computer is using? The fact that OS X users can discover it in three clicks may simply be the sad result of needing to know it more often than Windows users.

There are other examples. The "OS X Shines" piece makes a case that it is more difficult to identify the active window in Vista than in OS X., citing as evidence the "back" button in the upper left corner of the Internet Explorer screen that looks active even when it isn't the front window. That might be a problem for Mac users who have learned to look at the upper left corner of a window to see whether it is active, but for Windows users the indicators are different. Up through Windows XP, the title bar is brighter for the active window. In Vista, the title bar is semi-transparent and doesn't change color, so the visual indicator becomes the Close box: it is red in the active window, gray in non-active windows. The difference is far easier to comprehend visually than it is to explain, and in any case it's hardly a failing of either operating system.


Vista's indication of which window is active may be more of a
problem for Mac users than for PC users.

A similar argument can be made about consistency. Is Vista any less consistent than OS X because it changes the nomenclature of some of its elements? The "Start" button is one example. Another is the desktop icon that has been labeled "My Computer" since Windows 95, and becomes just "Computer" in Vista.

As "OS X Shines" correctly points out, the Apple OS makes fewer UI changes from version to version because it is on a smoother development path. OS X was first released in 2001, and represented the first complete rewrite of the Macintosh OS. In the years since, it has been updated from 10.0 to 10.4.8 — four more-or-less major updates, with a fifth, code-named Leopard, on the way, along with basketful of smaller point fixes.

Windows XP was released the same year, and embodied changes as major as those in OS X. It incorporated the 32-bit NT kernel, and radically reworked the Windows UI. Vista reworks the UI again.

But saying that merely makes a distinction without a difference. It is just as doubtful to say that the obvious UI changes in Vista would convince Windows users to switch to another OS as it is to say that OS X's static look and feel would cause users to abandon it.

In any case, the changes in Vista's UI are relatively minor: Vista resembles its predecessor XP far more than XP resembled Windows 2000, despite all the hype surrounding Vista's new Aero interface. Aero's sleek semi-transparent window borders, redesigned window controls, and widgets like the new Sidebar give Vista a different look, but not a different feel. The controls still work the same. The language the operating system speaks has not changed. It's added some new words, which users will have to pick up in conversation with it, but it is still clearly understandable.

(Aero itself isn't a cause of differences in Vista, but the result of major changes that will manifest themselves over time. The new interface and the tricks it can do, like the spin-the-Rolodex view of open windows, are product result of the way Vista deals with screen graphics through DirectX and the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) which replaced the 15-year-old Graphics Device Interface technology.)

When you look beyond the UI, by the way, Windows is undoubtedly the more consistent, compatible OS. Over its history, the Macintosh OS has introduced new versions that were incompatible with old applications — so incompatible that if you wanted to run the old app you had to keep multiple operating systems installed on your Mac. That has never happened with Windows, and Vista continues Microsoft's tradition of excellent software compatibility.

Look Under The Hood

Throughout the development process that led to Vista, Microsoft has been its own worst enemy. It has over-promised and over-publicized, with the result that there has been far too clear a view of the sausage being made. The process of creating an operating system clearly spiraled out of control in the increasingly rigid Microsoft corporate environment. Apple, in comparison, has done a better job of managing its development process — and the expectations of its customers. OS X has been a well-managed evolutionary process; Vista has been a poorly managed attempt at a revolutionary product.

Paradoxically, Vista is actually an evolutionary success as well. It's not the revolutionary OS Microsoft promised, but it has turned out to be a logical extension of Windows in the light of current technologies. While the spectacular failures — like WinFS, which was intended to replace Windows' hierarchical file system with a relational data structure — have dominated the news, many of the core components of Microsoft's OS technology have been quietly and very effectively redesigned. Vista networking, for example, finally implements IPv6, a necessary expansion of the address space that allows for the next generation of networked devices and applications. (OS X has had this for a while — one results of its smoother development process.) WDDM and DirectX graphics technology won't have much relevance until hardware and applications are widely available that actually take advantage of them, but that will happen with time.

And perhaps not too much time, at that: Vista brings far greater changes for developers than for end-users. The Windows programming APIs are being replaced by .NET Framework 3.0, which wraps up four "foundations," or code bases that combine in the creation of applications for Vista:

Is It Safe?

More problematic are Microsoft's efforts to make Windows Vista a more secure operating system. Security has never been something Microsoft did well. It has always subordinated practical measures for protecting users of its products against malware to, say, an ideological dedication to the cross-application scripting of Active X controls.

With Vista, the company seems not so much to be building in security for users as deniability for itself by explicitly making the user responsible for security wherever it can — and applying a definition of "security" that seems to confuse the safety of its customers' computing environments with its own interests in digital rights management (DRM).

Vista extends the discomfort of Microsoft's existing Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy intrusionware with its Software Protection Platform, which requires even more validation of the software's legality. At the same time, Vista doesn't seem to do much more to protect users' PCs and data from malware attacks than XP. The "OS X Shines" article may be overly strident about whether the new User Account Control (UAC) represents "authentication" or "approval," but it is correct about the result: UAC is certainly annoying.

The UAC feature requires the Vista user to explicitly approve every interaction involving the installation or execution of external code. And it is not smart about it. It makes no distinction between installations that are explicitly initiated by the user from the keyboard and those that might be initiated by a malicious Web site. It simply makes it all the user's responsibility by popping up endless dialog boxes.

This problem is, in a way, an artifact of Windows' history: Windows was created to run on stand-alone PCs long before the Internet was even thought of. As a result, it has always lacked the kind of user account controls that are basic in the Unix world, which has dealt with networks and the threats they represent — and that includes Unix offspring like Linux and OS X. Microsoft had an opportunity with Vista to fix this shortcoming, but it chose not to. Unfortunately, that makes Vista an operating system that shifts the blame rather than actually tackles the problem.

Overall, Vista's efforts at enhancing PC security seem weak and tentative, still bogged down in Microsoft ideology and "not invented here" hubris rather than implementing what's proven to work for users. But this is the first version of Windows that's really paid any attention to security, and Microsoft is famous for getting things right the second time. Vista security will doubtless get better eventually.

Reviewing The Hype

Vista has been a long time coming, and Microsoft has had no choice but to keep stoking the marketing fires through the long winter of its dysfunctional development. As a result, Vista is perhaps the most over-anticipated Windows release ever.

In the corporate marketplace, Microsoft has done what it can to push companies into Vista by pushing its other, older products over the cliff. Windows 2000, still widely used on corporate desktops, is now unsupported by its maker, and new versions of Microsoft's most popular applications, Internet Explorer and the Office suite, won't run on it. Windows XP faces a similar planned obsolescence in a very few years.

In the consumer marketplace, Microsoft has sold the applications bundled into Vista — the photo album, the parental controls, the media center and streaming video — rather than the OS itself, as if the eye candy of the Aero interface would help us take better photographs and raise safer children.

Microsoft doesn't just want the world to want Vista: it needs the world to want Vista, to generate the sales and revenues that have made the company so phenomenally successful. In a marketplace where PC sales are flattening out and alternatives to Windows are growing more capable, Microsoft needs a hit and it's selling the eye candy hard to get one.


Vista has a lot of eye candy, but its real power is under the hood.

Ironically, Vista's long-term success is assured by exactly the things Microsoft isn't selling. The reworked internals of the operating system — the graphics, services, and programming APIs — will give Vista a leg up on the competition. Linux, OS X, and every application software developer large and small will have to play catch-up because 90 percent or more of computer hardware will continue to be built to Microsoft specifications. Unless Linux and OS X make major inroads, 90 percent of all corporate desktops will eventually be forced off Windows 2000 and XP and onto Vista. And 90 percent of all consumers will eventually upgrade to Vista when they buy their next PC.

On the other hand, Vista's short-term success is anything but assured, and Microsoft may still be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If it continues to cling to its vision of DRM and User Account Control, if it continues to behave as if it had a divine right to 90 percent market share, Microsoft will create a situation that makes inroads by other OSes inevitable.

To Each Its Own

It is business decisions like these, not technology, that shape the OS marketplace. OS X and Vista are both capable operating systems with effective user interfaces. But it is Microsoft's business practices, legal and illegal, that have historically driven its dominance of the market. And it is Apple's continuing decision to sell OS X only with its own hardware, not any shortcoming of OS X, which relegates it to a tiny fraction of the OS market. In fact, it is Apple's stunning expertise at hardware design that continues to drive its success, not any superiority in the OS, and certainly not in its UI.

By the same token, Microsoft's dysfunctional development process doesn't make Vista any less successful a product. On a technical level, Vista arguably puts Microsoft in the lead: DirectX, the .Net "foundations," and other new technology make Vista an OS that takes full advantage of the most advanced hardware technologies, and the basis for a new generation of Windows applications.

The competition between the two OSes is far more complex than a simple horserace that's won or lost by minutiae like which operating system makes it easier to distinguish the active window. Even when limited to the context of the UI, the statement that OS X "tops Vista in several important areas" is dubious, and to expand that conclusion to the OS as a whole is faulty logic. Despite Vista's dysfunctional development history and outrageous hype, it is a worthy update to Windows, and on January 29 it will be the world's best-selling operating system for good reasons.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
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To: Golden Eagle
Distributing hacks of OSX can be criminal

Actually, you said it was criminal. Profit was admitted by the one criminal prosecution (BTW, "not guilty" on all charges), and nowhere indicated in the case of the OS X hackers.

Making personal backups is not criminal, and you have shown no case history that it can be

But you have said that cracking DRM is illegal. Plus, you've said that distributing hacks of DRM is criminal. You must crack the DVD DRM in order to make a quality backup. You can provide proof of "private financial gain" (necessary for criminality) if a backup ever saved you from having to buy a replacement DVD.

Your previous logic on this issue has only one conclusion: that backing up DVDs is illegal, if not criminal.

If it isn't, then why?

81 posted on 01/22/2007 7:52:04 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
But you have said that cracking DRM is illegal. Plus, you've said that distributing hacks of DRM is criminal.

Yes, because as you already know despite your obvious little charade here, being "illegal" and being "criminal" is not the same. You clearly used the word "criminal" in post 45, but like most of your lies refuse to admit it. Maybe we'll get lucky though, and you'll finally admit this one months later like you finally admitted to making up lies about the US DoD, as part of your endless defense of the Russians that distributed hacks of OSX to the world at large which allowed it to run on a Dell. Trying to equate that act to making personal backups isn't going to fly though, obviously, despite your desperate attempts to put words in my mouth, and your own admission you've downloaded material from the internet instead of making personal backups yourself. You're welcome to keep demonstrating your full intent to deceive though, for those who may just now be catching on to how you operate.

82 posted on 01/22/2007 8:29:14 AM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
Yes, because as you already know despite your obvious little charade here, being "illegal" and being "criminal" is not the same.

I should know, as I apparently taught you that. But why do you think backing up a DVD is neither illegal nor criminal?

You clearly used the word "criminal" in post 45, but like most of your lies refuse to admit it.

True, but not a lie. I said you *might* start calling one criminal. Given your previous statements I've linked to concerning the cracking of DRM, that you'd arrive at the conclusion that it's criminal is likely -- if you are consistent.

Trying to equate that act to making personal backups isn't going to fly though

Why not? It's the same law being broken. And unlike the the Russians circumventing AACS, people who distributed the tools to crack CSS (the DVD DRM) have already lost in court.

83 posted on 01/22/2007 8:42:28 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat

Still attempting to talk in circles and out of both sides of your mouth. Again, show a case where personal backups of currently owned media have been criminally prosecuted, since I have shown a case where distributing hacks of software likw OSX were criminally prosecuted, as well as Apple's own letter threatening criminal prosecution. Until then, your use of the word "criminal" in post 45 remains BS you knew was BS when you posted it.


84 posted on 01/22/2007 9:08:39 AM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
since I have shown a case where distributing hacks of software likw OSX were criminally prosecuted

Backing up a DVD is a hack of software! What I'm wondering is why you apply one set of logic to hacks of OS X, HD-DVD and PDF, and another to hacks of DVDs.

Until then, your use of the word "criminal" in post 45 remains BS you knew was BS when you posted it.

Now it's not a lie and only BS? Would you care to retract your previous false claim of lie?

I was only following your logic from previous posts to reach that obvious conclusion. If I misunderstood something, please explain.

85 posted on 01/22/2007 9:20:33 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
What I'm wondering is why you apply one set of logic to hacks of OS X, HD-DVD and PDF, and another to hacks of DVDs.

You're not wondering anything, you're obviously talking in circles on purpose when a monkey could see the difference in that nothing was distributed to others when a personal backup is made of one's own media. So play games all you want, meanwhile not even chimps are fooled, while those slightly smarter realize it's more of your desperate attempts to deceive.

I was only following your logic from previous posts to reach that obvious conclusion.

No quite obviously you've been trying to put words in my mouth, all along in this thread starting with post 45, clearly in desperation of your failing defense of the foreign hackers you support who distributed a crack of Apple's OSX to the world at large. now here you are trying to lower the bar for them and claim making personal backups of one's own media is equivalent, something you knew wasn't true when you posted it.

86 posted on 01/22/2007 9:44:07 AM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: FreedomGuru
One of the main Mac-slappies talking points bashing Vista is the need to upgrade hardware (to get Aero). I guess its ok for Mac users to pay for upgrades if they want better performance. And the Mac-slappies keep posting misinformation, such as """what Windows Vista sets out to do, and requires at least 2 GB of RAM and massive processor power to accomplish""" That as already posted is WRONG, but mac fans just go on believing what they want. And you try to compare a beta version of Vista, with OSX. Lets list all the bugs currently in Leopard.

Referring to Mac users "Mac-slappies" and spouting mis-information will get you no respect. Have I insulted you?

Many of the updates to Universal Binaries have been free upgrades. Others, when upgraded, have added functionality and are worth the upgrade fees. Most upgrade fees are quite reasonable. In addition, the vast improvement from having dual processors for most Mac upgraders has resulted in their apps that still run under Rosetta actually running either as fast or faster on the Intel Dual core processors as they did on the single G5s. Those that have noticed a degradation in performance have been those that moved from high-end dual and quad G5s.

You say that it is "Mac-slappies" talking points that say that to get Vista with Aero you have to upgrade hardware... but it is not "Mac-slappies" who have been saying that but rather the majority of PC punditry... columnists in PC magazines and websites.

Microsoft lists "minimum" RAM and processor requirements ... but those who have attempted to run Vista with those minimum standards find that the performance is unacceptable. Apparently paging memory to virtual memory on the HD is frequent with those "minimum" RAM standards... and that slows Vista down. As for comparing the current release of Vista (not a Beta but a Release Candidate), the comparison is to OS X Tiger, not Leopard which is not yet released so we cannot list the bugs "currently" in Leopard.

It seems to me that it is YOU who are spouting "talking points" rather than the Mac users.

87 posted on 01/22/2007 11:17:30 AM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Golden Eagle
when a monkey could see the difference in that nothing was distributed to others when a personal backup is made of one's own media

How do you think the person who makes a backup got the tool with which to do it? Somebody broke Sec. 1201 of the DMCA by distributing a circumvention tool. The person making the backup then violates the same section of the law by using it.

clearly in desperation of your failing defense of the foreign hackers you support who distributed a crack of Apple's OSX to the world at large

Kind of like the hackers who distributed the tools to crack the DVD DRM and got sued by the content owners for doing it?

You just haven't explained why a backup of a DVD is legal, and breaking HD-DVD, PDF and OS X are illegal.

88 posted on 01/22/2007 1:02:52 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat

As I have already said several times, find a case history of someone being criminally charged for making backups of their own media, else the record will continue to show you once again knowingly and willfully lied by referring to such actions as criminal in post 45, and all the deceitful tripe you've posted in this thread ever since.


89 posted on 01/22/2007 1:09:18 PM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: FreedomGuru
All my software works on W98,2000,XP, and will work on Vista,and run better on each step up.

Unfortunately, the same old worms, viruses and spyware will work on Vista too -

ITPro - Malware more compatible with Vista than anti-malware products - 38 per cent of malware is already Vista-compatible.

I expect Vista's security problems will continue to get worse after the official release in a few days.

90 posted on 01/22/2007 1:55:42 PM PST by HAL9000 (Get a Mac - The Ultimate FReeping Machine)
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To: Golden Eagle
As I have already said several times, find a case history of someone being criminally charged for making backups of their own media

Now you're going off on a tangent. What makes those other cases illegal, but backing up a DVD not illegal? All of these actions violate the same law.

91 posted on 01/22/2007 5:38:46 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
Now you're going off on a tangent. What makes those other cases illegal

LMAO, no quite obviously you're the one STILL trying to go off on a tangent in pathetic attempt to seperate yourself from the word "criminal" which you yourself brought up in post 45, but still can't find one shred of actual evidence to show it was proper. Of course as we saw you've even admitted you knew the difference between illegal and criminal all along, making your now undeniable acts of deceit all the more evil.

92 posted on 01/22/2007 5:59:17 PM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
but still can't find one shred of actual evidence to show it was proper

I already have. Knowingly backing up circumvents a copy control, against the DMCA. Private financial gain can be found in a person relying on a backup when the original is destroyed, since he avoided paying for another DVD. Those are the two ingredients for criminality under 1201 & 1204 of the DMCA.

93 posted on 01/23/2007 5:35:02 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
Simply more proof of your lies and undeniable deceit, for which there is obviously no end. You're clearly on the record for months defending the Russian hackers who distributed a crack to Apple's OSX operating system, insisting their actions couldn't be criminal, even laughably attempting to invoke the "180 day rule for criminal prosecution", insisting for months "it could only become a crime had they copied OS X itself and widely sold it", even calling Apple's letter threatening criminal prosecution quote "BS"!

But now LOL, despite your almost year long attempts to deny the Russian hackers were criminal, including lies you've already outright admitted to knowingly making up on your own regarding the US DoD on the hackers behalf, you're now trying to insist that someone making limited backups for personal use of their own media IS actually criminal, but not the Russian hackers that distributed a crack to the entire world? With not even one piece of case history to back it up?

LMAO, that has to be one of the most incredible attempts at BS I've ever seen on here, even from you LOL. According to you, basically everyone BUT the actual criminal Russian hackers is criminal LMAO. Face it, the facts are to-wit, not only are you an obvious liberal phony, and Russian/Chicomm/Commie sympathizer, you also don't even care if it's proven, over and over and over. Great, because I want just as many people to know about the depth of your evil as possible. The fact you're proud of it is even more reason for honest folks to be aware.

94 posted on 01/24/2007 5:31:30 PM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: Spktyr; antiRepublicrat
OS X 10.4 runs acceptably well on my old G4/*400*mHz tower with 640mb of RAM. Some of the translucency stuff in Aqua doesn't work, but that's because the video card doesn't support it. Everything else works fine. I've since upgraded to a 1.5Ghz Mac mini, because it was stupidly cheap and had a much better video processor.

I've got OS X 10.4 running on a G3/233 first-generation Bondi Blue iMac, with a whopping 96MB of RAM. Except for the translucency thing (same issue as above), it runs fine. Is it a speed demon? No, of course not. But I'm just using it as a home server. And I could install Photoshop on it tomorrow, if I didn't mind some actions being really slow.

(For those of you playing at home, first-generation iMacs came out in 1998. This is a nine-year-old computer, released at about the same time as Win98, that can still run the latest and greatest OS today.)

95 posted on 01/24/2007 6:01:54 PM PST by Dont Mention the War (Giuliani '08: Why not p. o. BOTH sides?)
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To: Golden Eagle
you're now trying to insist that someone making limited backups for personal use of their own media IS actually criminal, but not the Russian hackers that distributed a crack to the entire world

No, I'm trying to show you how by your own warped logic and the warped DMCA that they are illegal, possibly criminal.

We again return to my question: Why don't you think backing up a DVD is illegal, while hacking OS X is, when they violate the exact same law? This is a personal opinion question, no wrong answers.

96 posted on 01/24/2007 7:53:13 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat

Once again I have shown criminal case history for Russians distributing software cracks to the world at large, which you have endlessly defended with lies you have even admitted to, meanwhile you have shown no criminal case history for someone making personal backups, despite your pitiful attempt to draw legal or moral equivalence between the two. You'll obviously just continue to lie on behalf of foreign criminals endlessly, but that's ok it's just more of an undeniable record of your deceit.


97 posted on 01/24/2007 10:05:31 PM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
Once again I have shown criminal case history for Russians distributing software cracks to the world at large

Yes you have. A legitimate company was selling cracking software all over the world, including to our government. Adobe complained, the FBI jumped on it, and lost. The main factor you always miss is that Elcomsoft admitted profit, necessary for a criminal case.

meanwhile you have shown no criminal case history for someone making personal backups

I don't have to. I'm going off the law, which is the same one broken by the Russians. In any case, it's not even my view, but the view that must result from the logic you've previously used.

Again, why, in your opinion, are DVD backups legal despite all of the court cases to the contrary concerning the tools necessary to make backups?

98 posted on 01/25/2007 6:08:15 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: antiRepublicrat
I don't have to.

Obviously you do, being an admitted liar who is now trying to draw legal and moral equivalence between the two, in another failed attempt to make excuses your foreign hacker heroes who created tools to hack US intellectual property protections. The fact you admit to making up lies about the US Department of Defense on their behalf is perfect proof of your evil intent, whether you continue to talk in circles now or not.

99 posted on 01/25/2007 6:27:27 AM PST by Golden Eagle
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To: Golden Eagle
Obviously you do, being an admitted liar who is now trying to draw legal and moral equivalence between the two

The legal equivalence is there for anyone who can read the law. Any moral difference is I guess why you give copying DVDs a pass. Is that it?

make excuses your foreign hacker heroes who created tools to hack US intellectual property protections

In case you've forgotten, that is exactly how people backup DVDs.

100 posted on 01/25/2007 6:54:03 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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