Awesome Yaro

Well, I just found a bunch of sites toting the features of Windows 7, even saw some screenshots and only one thought can really come to me. Two, actually.

1. This is, like Vista, just another glorified version of the previous windows. Like how Vista was just a shinier, more bloated XP, well, Windows 7 is a slightly shinier, superficially less-bloated Vista.

2. Whereas Vista's looks and features were an almost obvious rip-off of Mac OS X, Windows 7 appears to be ripping off Linux this time around.

Has Microsoft no shame? Do they not really learn from their history?

No, of course not. It's a little too much to expect Microsoft to suddenly innovate and make some technology of their own instead of stealing it from the competition, rebranding it with a couple buzzwords, and passing it off as their own.

Now, I would normally find it amusing if not for sheeple. These clueless, misinformed, but not always ill-intentioned people tend to be a bit blind to what Microsoft does.

Sheeple will call Windows 7 something revolutionary, Linux users will call it a cheap knockoff.

I'll start with the most visible part: The GUI.

Source: Flickr

Eerie isn't it? Okay, without looking in the corner, tell me something: Which is the Windows 7 interface, and which is KDE 4?

Yes, you in the back. No, not you, YOU. Yes, that's right.... The one on top is the Windows 7 GUI and the one on the bottom is KDE 4. see how close they are to the point of being almost IDENTICAL?

Microsoft has, quite simply, ripped off KDE. And they didn't even bother to make it look very different. Their arrogance astounds even me, But unfortunately the sheeple will think that Microsoft has done something innovative.

So, instead of delivering features they've promised for Windows 7, they outright steal the KDE interface?

BitLocker - Windows finally gets drive encryption, something Linux has had since Programmer knows how long?Of course, now Linux has encryption for specific DIRECTORIES, something Microsoft will probably take another 7 years to steal.

Device Information Retrieval - This isn't a Linux knockoff, but it's still pathetic. Linux just retrieves the identity of devices... and this must blow Microsoft engineers minds on how to do this... FROM THE DEVICE ITSELF! Linux, unlike Windows, never has "Unknown Device" in any hardware listing you can generate.

Driver Protection - Also not stolen from Linux, but if it's anything like the system file protection introduced in Windows XP, this win't accomplish anything but pop up a little message box telling the user the driver has been changed. Whoop-de-do.

Dynamic Update - Most modern Linux distributions do this from the repositories during the install. Been done for about 6 years. Of course, with Windows 7 you know your ethernet/wireless chipset isn't even likely to have drivers out of the box, just like any other version of Windows to date, making this one failed feature.

Gadgets - I think this was actually introduced in Vista. It's actually a ripoff of Mac OS X, though KDE had built-in support for widgets as well. Normally I wouldn't fault Microsoft for this, except they do what they usually do and don't even acknowledge they took it from another source.

Games Folder - This I *know* was introduced in Vista, and is one of the gratuitously unnecessary if they just worked on their main menu a bit more. Not taken from Linux, but probably one of the reasons Vista was so bloated.

HomeGroup - Same as workgroup support in a normal windows network. Not even anything new. Probably just glorified SMB support. Not taken from Linux, either, but still.

Note that things Microsoft actually PROMISED are not there... such as Linux-style modularity, the new file system, and less bloat. Yes, I know Windows 7 has a slightly smaller kernel, but it is still ridiculously bloated compared to all the other mainstream operating systems. So they didn't truly deliver.