[plug] Nero launches a version for Linux.

[Craig Ringer]

On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 12:48 +0800, Evert van Dijk wrote:

> <rant>I think companies like Nero and Winzip are being realy hard done atm
> they have been making CD Burning and compression software for years and 
> years and then BANG, Bill goes and includes it in his OS. How is anyone 
> supposed to compete against that kind of business practice? You create a 
> new product and either Bills comes and buys you out or he goes and makes 
> it part of his OS by taking publicly available source code.</rant>

Actually, I'd argue that "bill" has gone to significant lengths not to
tread on their software vendors in these areas while still providing the
user with the minimal functionality they need. Windows not shipping with
some unzip tool has been a sad joke since at least win98, for example.
Similarly, it'd be pretty sad for *any* OS not to include some built-in
support for hardware as common as a CD burner.

Or should I still be buying 3rd party mouse drivers?

There's still plenty of room for 3rd party vendors to add better and
more flexible interfaces, more capabilities than the minimal stuff built
in to the OS, etc. They just can't rely on users *having* to buy their
software for something that's close to a necessity of computer use
anymore.

It's the same deal with a browser in the OS, really. Have you ever tried
to *use* an OS that ships without a browser and some decompression tool?
IIRC MacOS 7.1 qualifies ... oh man is that a pain if you don't have a
local LAN with a Mac file server on it. You have to install 3rd party
PPP support from a floppy disk!

Of course, it's one thing to ship basic functionality that is important
for common computer uses, and another to actively make it impossible to
replace or disable (MSIE comes to mind).

> I say good one! Nero for thinking outside the box. I have always been 
> happy with the way the product works.

My favourite CD burning program remains `cdrecord' ;-)

I do use K3B for mastering images, and Nero on Windows.

--
Craig Ringer