Attention : Windows Genuine Advantage = Spyware

I'm suprised that you're making this statement about any open source Unix-based system. Darwin, the kernel running under and powering OS X's prettyness is regularly worked on by hundreds, if not thousands of developers around the world. Linux, as the most popular of these opensource operating systems (in terms of diverse developer commitment) refutes your statement to an even greater degree.

Allofmp3 DOES pay the royalties:
The site AllOfMP3.com does regularly transfer substantial amounts of royalties to the Russian organizations for collective management of rights such as ROMS and FAIR, which have granted the site licenses to legally deliver music through the Internet

Wrong:
http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20060601.html

Yet ROMS has no rights from the record companies whatsoever to licence these pieces of music. ROMS and allofmp3.com are well aware that record companies have not granted authorisation for this service.

Yet ROMS has no rights from the record companies to license these piece of music, according to Russian law, it doesn't need any licenses, and it thus LEGAL.

The legal status of Allofmp3

Russian copyright legislation allows phonograms to be performed publicly without the authorization of the copyright owner for broadcasting and cable transmission. (Article 39) The Internet could be deemed to fall under this exemption. The copyrights involved have to be paid to a collecting society. This is the 'loophole' that is referred to in several articles on Allofmp3.

New legislation will come in to effect as of September 1st 2006. We are not sure if this new law will close the loophole. A translated copy of the amended copyright laws can be found at Roms.ru.

Allofmp3 has signed agreements with the collecting society, Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems (ROMS). According to license № ЛС-ЗМ-02-36 the Internet-project www.allofmp3.com, has the right to use musical compositions by providing downloads. Under the license agreement Allofmp3 pays out fees to ROMS for downloaded materials that are subject to the Russian Federation Copyright And Related Rights Law.

ROMS manages intellectual rights in the Russian Federation. All third party distributors licensed by ROMS are required to pay a portion of the revenue to the ROMS. ROMS in turn, is obligated to pay most of that money (aside from small portion it needs for operating expenses) to artists who have registered, both Russian and foreign.

We have received this confirmation from ROMS:

I can confirm the legality of allofmp3.com You can legally buy/download mp3-songs from this site if it does not breaks the law the national legislation of the country in which you will be during that moment. Sorry for my english.
Yours faithfully, the assistant to the lawyer of the Russian society on multimedia and to digital networks (ROMS) www.roms.ru.

Bahanets Roman Igorevich

According to Russian law, they do NOT need rights from the record companies. So these sentences are logically true, yes, but they paint Allofmp3.com in bad light.

So they deliberatly exploit a loophole in Russian law (even by that artical you post, the loophole is rather shaky), ignore the wishes of the legal copyright holder by hiding behind questionable loopholes... And it's someone elses fault they are painted in a bad light?

AND, from that artical - You can legally buy/download mp3-songs from this site if it does not breaks the law the national legislation of the country in which you will be during that moment.. That would not be America, and I don't think most of the EU nations either, given the fact that Italy shut them down in their country and is persuing legal action.

That's your fault. I keep my desktop running for a week+ before I even think of restarting, and normally when I do its to configure some app that needs it. The days of windows crashing by looking at it funny are in the past if your reasonably competent with windows.

Competence has nothing to do with it. Between poorly written apps, spyware, viruses, bloatware, etc the list goes on - ms doesnt stand much of a chance. Not entirely their fault, given, but the apple folks still have em beat on stability.

While morally questionable, they're legally fine. IFPI is trying to spread the word that Allofmp3 is illegal, which is A LIE.

It's not illegal to buy/download music from local or foreign sites in my country (EU), so I'm legally OK.

And I repeat: show me a similarly priced -- can be a bit higher, though a full quality lossles album is around is around 10-14 USD on allofmp3 --, and equally usable (!!!) service, and I'll be glad to pay!

So, your ethics are for sale to the lowest bidder?

Italy and Germany would seem to disagree with you.

A Court in Munich has now prohibited allofmp3 to make copyrighted data publicly available within Germany.

Nobody is making you download those MP3s - you could buy the CDs and rip them, or download them from iTunes and unDRM them (This is questionably legal, ranted, but once its on your computer, my feelings change on the subject).

So what we've established, is that windows doesnt suck. Ok, fine. But apple still beats em, imho.

Security, for one. No matter how fast you download the fix, there's a time lag between the time an exploit is published, to the time a fix even exists. Most exploits target basic windows sofware.. I.E, outlook, etc. Theres the JPG file GDI exploit that was out a few months ago. All the precautions in the world aren't gonna keep you from seeing a "harmless" picture and possibly giving your system to a hacker.

Lesee.. MS also has a reputation for getting bogged down after a few months/years with its registry getting full, slow, etc, and needing a good total reinstall every now and then. Trust me, mk? I run a pc shop, i'm also MS certified, and most windows machines i see have the exact same set of problems.

Customer: Computer's running slow, crashing a lot, etc.
Me: Do you use Internet Explorer on the internet?
Customer: Yes, it came with the computer.
Me: (oh shit) - Please tell me your running something like Spybot S&D or AdAware
Customer: Uhh... running what?
Me: And you're seeing advertisements on your machine, even when you're not online?
Customer: Why yes!
Me: *Reinstall OEM verison of windows onto machine, slightly modified to include antivirus and antispyware apps. Oh, and running firefox.*
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The simple reason apple has MS beat on this, is that SUCH NONSENSE DOES NOT HAPPEN ON APPLE MACHINES. OR NIX MACHINES.

And let's not even go through the obscurity argument.. how the hell is apple and OSX, let alone NIX "obscure"?

And let's not even go through the obscurity argument.. how the hell is apple and OSX, let alone NIX "obscure"?

Windows is best for people that have no clue and just want things to work.

Would this be a bad time to point out to all of the OSX-bashers in this thread that OSX is nothing more than a customized version of linux, built on custom hardware? Same engine is under the hood, folks.

Now look at windows. The core has changed, yes, but the last major change in windows was the jump from 3.1 to 95.

Actually, it doesn't refute my statement. Linux is the "most popular" next to, well... things nobody has ever heard of, by and large, but as far as being a consumer level OS, it's not even on the radar.

But thats the thing.... MS expects the user to be educated and aware.

Windows is best for people that have no clue and just want things to work.

But the main reason Apple machines are pretty safe for now- If you're a "Haxxor" why would you bother with a small market with fewer users?? You'd go for the "BIG Evil Corporation" with the large market/world share.

I guess this is why MS is having a kicking and screaming tantrum about it, worse than any 2yr old I've ever seen? Reality check, they're scared stiff.

Oh, and the security through obscurity thing.. well, I don't think that means what you think it means. It certainly has *nothing* to do with the size of the target, but more that the vulnerabilities are not published when they are found out. That has MS written all over it.

Not scared, annoyed. *nix is a competitor in the server market - never disputed that. We weren't talking servers, last I checked, but desktop OSes.

Considering the phrase was my own (regardless of if anyone else uses it or not), I know exactly what it means.

Unless you are one of the ones who coined it waaayy back in the day when it referenced the overly paranoid Multics systems, which I'm guessing you aren't, since you don't seem to be aware of it's proper usage, I find it hard to imagine that it's your own. Otherwise, you will be using it contrary to how it has been for many, MANY years, and are likely to confuse people.

You might want to google that one, feel free to enlighten yourself .

You might want to remove your blinders on that one. No offense, but it's pretty obvious.

Just you My usage is my own, thanks.

Competence absolutely does have something to do with it.

I don't get viruses - I download from trusted sources, dont open email attachments, scan every file I download before I run it, etc.

I don't get spware - I avoid ActiveX, unmodified Internet Explorer, ad-supported "freeware", etc.

I don't instally crappy software - The most unstable program I have is SL.

I don't let my caches and temp directories fill up boundlessly.

I don't let programs connect to the internet without asking me.

I don't let windows try to take over for the jobs I should be doing myself, such as updating drivers.

I keep my hard drive defragmented.

And you know what? I don't have problems with windows. I just dont.