Well, it has always been possible to use different OSes on a standard PC- with the Acorns for one thing you couldn’t as the OS was hard-coded in ROM! I meant to add you could always use other software applications too- like with IE and Netscape (now Firefox, Chrome etc.), or perhaps Wordperfect, Lotus, StarOffice etc. (now OpenOffice/LibreOffice) instead of MS Office…
Not really true as many websites were IE-only and many still are! See how Gates tries to force you to use his shit. These stupid fuck web companies and web designers make their site to work in IE only and make it so it fails in everything non-IE. Just lazy coding. It is very simple to use web standards to make sites that work in all browsers.
M$ made this all much worse by coming up with M$ only computer languages, M$-only fake JavaScript, M$ only JavaScript coding that fails in everything else, M$ only HTML (MSHTML) with HTML codes that break in all non-IE browsers. Furthermore, IE deliberately violates all web standards all the time, so if you try to design to standards, IE will often deliberately break it, forcing you to incorporate separate IE only code on your page. Since IE forces you to make IE only code anyway, a lot of designers say screw it and just make the page IE only and forget about standards.
IE has always been by far the worst about implementing web standards. They either don’t care due to huge market share, or they are out to deliberately break and destroy all standards.
Wordperfect was always better than Word and may still be. Bill Gates personally destroyed the best word processor.
Can you name any other industry where the inferior product always beats the superior product? This is what happens in software due to its monopoly nature. Gates leveraged his monopoly to destroy all the competition. The result was that his inferior programs always beat all of the superior competing programs. This can only happen in a monopoly and computer software is a natural monopoly, and this is why so many application areas get overrun by one monopoly vendor.
The whole idea of an inferior product overrunning and forcing superior products out of business by monopoly means is insanity and goes against everything capitalism is supposed to stand for – vigorous competition and a product range varying from superior to inferior with choice up to the consumer. There is almost no other industry where inferior products always run superior products out of business and end up with monopolies. Most industries are sane. Computer software is insane.
We have always tried to make standards for all applications. We tried to have a word processor standard so all word processors could save in that file format and any WP could read anything produced in any other WP. M$ deliberately broke it. M$ deliberately made their crappy Word program so that it would not open or read files in other formats. Also Word files could not be read by competing products because M$ refused to release the Word protocol so competitors could fix their product to read Word files. Reading Word files has always been guesswork as the protocols are proprietary.
M$ did the same for .odf which they are trying to make into a standard word processor file format that can be ready by anyone anywhere. M$ has made their own competing M$ .odf which is not the same and breaks .odf. All the while M$ is singing about how much they love standards.
We also tried to make standards for database files and for spreadsheet files. As it is, you need to read .xls files for work, so you let Bill Gates fuck your ass while he forces you to buy overpriced Excel.
Databases written in M$ file formats cannot be read by other databases. Result: You are forced to buy Bill Gates’ Access program to read work files.
You see how Bill Gates forces you to buy his product? You see how computer software is a natural monopoly?
