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Microsoft Word has many more (and more mature) features than OO.org

Microsoft Word has many more (and more mature) features than OO.org

That's a lot like finding some of these things now.

Find a Divx disc with a movie on it? You're out of luck even if you have a player.

There's also MovieCD, good luck getting those to work.

Certain MMORPG's were shut down - imagine if they'd let their server source loose? Might be room for some interesting single-player implementations or even local-player setups.

Then there's Blizzard, who actively fucked over people making local-type servers for games like Warcraft and Starcraft.

DRM alone doesn't cause this either - a lot of earlier (Directx 4-5-6ish) games have a TON of problems getting set up on modern systems, or glitch horribly when you try to run them. There are also a few titles you can't even install because they try to access the hard drive directly and don't understand the FAT32 and NTFS formats.

And consider the following ironic thought: what are the chances that, 10 years from now on your (10th? 15th? 25th?) anniversary, you'll be able to find a working VHS player to watch your wedding video?

Pleas read The iPhone SDK and free software: not a match

Considering how defensive you were, despite your ignorance, I would definitely consider you to be an Apple fanboy.

I read this morning on Linux.com about how a dad install Edubuntu on his computer(s) at home and his kids love it. You might want to take a look at Edubuntu.

If the numbers in TFA are true (36 million students, growing to 52 million by the end of 2009), then this is absolutely huge in terms of Linux install base. In fact, I think this project would approximately double the install base.

I know that "counting" the number of Linux installs is essentially impossible, but here are some random numbers I've accumulated that point to the approximate size of the Linux user base:
1. The Linux Counter estimated 29 million installs in 2005. This estimate involved numerous assumptions, such as extrapolating from 8 million installs reported by Red Hat in 1998.
2. According to an IDC study, the Linux marketshare for PCs was ~3% in 2003.
3. There are about 1 billion Internet users. Browser logs indicate that Linux accounts for ~0.8% to ~3.9% of web traffic. This gives us an estimate of 8 million to 39 million Linux users. (The upper estimate is undoubtedly an over-estimate since the value comes from W3Schools, which probably has a greater fraction of 'technical' users.)
4. According to Canonical's server logs from OS updates, there are approximately 6 million active users of Ubuntu (see here and here). Assuming that Ubuntu represents 30% of Linux usage (based on this), you can come up with an estimate of 20 million Linux users.
5. According to Fedora's logs for OS updates, there are approximately 2.8 million installations of Fedora Core 6, and 1.6 million of Fedora 7. Assuming Fedora represents 9% of Linux installs (again, based on this), you can estimate 48 million Linux users.

Obviously all of these methods have their own problems. I'm not claiming that any of these estimates are robust. However they do at least suggest a range for the number of Linux users (~20 million) and the marketshare of Linux (~1% to 2%).

So, this single project, it would seem, is drastically increasing (doubling?) Linux usage. This is huge, in my opinion, because a generation of students who have learned Linux will be far more likely to use and improve upon FLOSS when they enter the job market.

Look, if anyone just does a basic analysis, you'll see that there's this circular process where the heavier operating system requires new hardware, forcing people to buy both to keep up with the times, which both them and the manufacturer want.

According to this basic analysis(pdf), debian Etch is an order of magnitude larger and more complex than Vista. And yet it doesn't require this "new hardware" you're speaking of.

In fact in addition to the x86-32 and x86-64 targets Vista aims for it also runs on alpha, sparc, arm, powerpc, hppa, ia64, mips and s390. From the toys to spacecraft, from webservers to 85.2% of the world's top 500 supercomputers it'll run on almost anything. That's engineering.

This will not end until they have a solid competitor, period, and that means the linux geeks have got to get off their high horse and make an easy, packaged, "buy your box from dell with it pre-loaded" version of it your grandma can use.

You have been able to buy PCs preloaded with linux from Walmart, Dell, IBM, HP and many others for several years.

Because, personally, i'm getting a little sick of getting these operating systems from Microsoft which I swear to God have code running several extra loops just to bog it down so that only the most bleeding edge (aka money I don't want to spend) boxes can handle it reasonably.

So switch. It's time. Ballmer says Vista is a work in progress. Gates says its replacement is a year out. Let's take their word for it. This is a great window of opportunity to justify looking at alternatives.

Depending who you ask, the open source concept has been working in practice for 20, 30, 40, or even 52 years: IBM SHARE was founded in 1955.

By anyone's definition it's at least as old as the Free Software Foundation, which makes this article's premise ridiculous.

Holy fact checking Batman.

Wow, several out of several hundred million users? BTW, even Linux.com says Wifi is basically busted and not likely to be sorted any time soon.

Our last census had the option of filling out the census forms online. I didn't find out how many actually did it, but they were originally estimating 20% usage. Instead of getting the full booklet to fill out, you got an access code.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/04/27/online-census060427.html

While searching for a reference article, i found that there were some issues with Linux users, although they attempted to correct it.

http://www.linux.com/articles/54366

Uh. Because we actually do have a product like this?

OpenOffice.org has support for pulling data from a database.
It also has support for a forms-like interface.
It also has it's own vb-alike language. (Still in development perhaps, by the looks of it)

There are also plenty of other tools. RealBasic, etc.

On the off-chance someone was going to RTFA, here is the FA, since it doesn't seem to have made it into the story.

The following line probably tells most people what they want to know:

Also missing are features that those familiar with Flash Professional or Adobe Captivate might expect, such as drawing tools, a scripting language, and support for sound and video.

So what does it do? Well, slideshows. Handy, but not hugely exciting.

Gah.
A notch more digging reveals that this is not something specific to OxygenOffice. It is the result of a joint Novell & Sun incubator project (http://vba.openoffice.org/)

See also
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/VBA
http://www.linux.com/feature/58348

With Microsoft having been chosen as the exclusive Homeland Security contractor, what is the point of this pretense over antitrust? Even before this absurd contract, it was cogently pointed out (by Ralph Nader and Jamie Love; see: http://www.linux.com/feature/23279) that the government shouldn't be putting its eggs and our tax dollars in the Microsoft basket. Now, of course, Washington is in bed with the devil. And it's pretty hard to tell the devil he's not a good lay.

Funny that you mention SCO, as Microsoft was responsible for $50 million infusion to keep them alive. Choose your analogies carefully...

LS

OpenStreetMap is building a, well, open street map. My town in eastern Pennsylvania seems pretty up-to-date as far as I can tell. And they're working on aerials too.

Take a look at some contribution statistics for open source projects; the vast majority are one or two person shows, with maybe a handful of patches over vast stretches of time. That picture improves a bit for bigger projects, but ReiserFS doesn't really count as a big project. You'll of course appreciate this interview comment:

"I do not think that just being arrested will affect anything so long as Hans is not actually convicted," says Oleg Drokin, the former release manager at Namesys. "If he is convicted, that might cause problems for Namesys [because] it is operated solely by Hans."
The main concern, according to Drokin, is whether Namesys employees, many of whom live in Russia, will continue to receive their salaries. If the money stops flowing, "some people will stop working, of course."
However, Drokin thinks that situation is unlikely. "Hans suspected that he would be suspected from the very beginning," he adds. "I would think he took necessary steps for Namesys employees to continue to work even in his absence and even Namesys itself is safe for at least some time." -- http://www.linux.com/feature/57759, bold emphasis mine.

And sure enough, http://www.namesys.com is gone, and here's the article marking their demise: http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9851703-39.html. So yes, the code is still out there... just waiting for some developer to take a look at it, shrug, and demand that the whole thing be rewritten from scratch, because no one ever wants to take on an existing project and finish it off.

It's dead, Jim. The source code is out there, but without anyone to work on it, it might as well be a collection of ads for whalebone corsets. Of course, that's just my opinion, and if I'm wrong, so much the better for Linux.

I'm on Ubuntu Gutsy as well.

I seem to recall that when I had problems with the nVidia proprietary driver and I switched back to the open source one, gnash ceased to work properly, if at all.

And indeed, as said in the comments on this Linux.com article gnash can use OpenGL to render flash animations, and thus require hardware acceleration to work. And the description of the package on the Ubuntu repos says that it is built to use OpenGL.

Perhaps this is the reason why you can't use gnash to use youtube, you may not have drivers that give you hardware acceleration support for your VGA.

Read Bill Weinberg's post on Linux.com about why we shouldn't use open source as a verb. It is a fantastically well written piece and I recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in FOSS, and or anyone who has a basic grasp of the English language. OPEN SOURCE IS NOT A VERB thanyouverymuch.

However, they are now rewriting gimp based on gegl which does have cmyk, etc. There is an article about it Here, plus I'm sure there is tons more info on wikipedia etc about it.

So, I believe it was hard (or else I'm sure it would have been done completely by someone (I believe they had cmyk approximation for a little while), but now they are restarting from the ground up to enable it to do more.

I'm pretty sure the gimp is getting closer to where photoshop is, and this change will make it much more flexible.

BTW, Google did have gimp in the 2006 summer of code. I believe they worked on adding the healing brush during that time, which is another tool many photoshop users were clamoring for.

The Linux kernel already has support for adding new executable formats, see e.g. Linux.com: How to launch Windows binaries on Linux directly.

> replacing IE, Outlook, MS Office, and MSN messenger [on Windows] does some differences

Actually, you're right, it makes a lot of difference, by cutting off attack paths for viruses and ad/spyware. Good point!

> things I miss and/or have not found good free/opensouce solutions for:

> antivirus (never liked AVG)

It wouldn't surprise me if the Open Source antivirus products are weak. It's a question of motivation -- most developers would choose to be improving good software, to make it more virus-proof, rather than creating band-aids for Microsoft's mess.

> book-keeping(small company, products,prices,inventory,payroll normal stuff)...

There is a growing number of small business accounting solutions for Linux:

See: Linux - Accounting Software

The list includes some known names, such as Accpac, and Appgen.

I've also heard good things about the Open Source project SQL-Ledger. Because it stores its data in an SQL database (such as PostgreSQL), you can create your own reports, using, for example, the OpenOffice Database tool. Or, because it's Open Source, you can get even more adventurous, and customize it for your business.

> software for doing labels and stickers (haven't really looked)

There is support in this area. See Printing Avery labels with Linux.

It wasn't Linux that killed Loki.
Read the story about loki's downfall here: http://www.linux.com/feature/22324

If you want to HEAR Roy Schestowitz in action and get to judge for yourself how little he knows about the topics he discusses, just give a listen here: http://www.linux.com/feature/122470 D/L the mp3...That's Roy droning on and on until the moderator explains to Roy that he wanted to hear from someone else to start the conversation off. Bring a few cans of Jolt though because you will have a difficult time staying awake.

It looks like they are giving free software and support

What's very funny is Microsoft had a 10 question quiz in an ad here on slashdot. The quiz was to "test your knowledge of software licensing". For grins, I took the test. It will not let you go got the next question (training maze) until you got the current question correct. If they just scored it, I would have done poorly as I chose what a consumer friendly answer should be. Taking the quiz fully convinced me that with GNU style licenses out there, the MS license will lose.

For example, you have a computer with an OEM Windows install. It dies. Can you reinstall the software on another computer? The answer is no. The license is only for the dead computer and is not transferable. Just how does that stack up against my other software which includes the permission to install it on any and all computers I own. Getting me to buy their software is going to be tough. With Open Office, everyone has the same version. With MS Office, I have a machine with Office 97. The daughter has the Office 2003, and the wife's new Vista laptop has the new copy provided for the cost of the media through my employer. It expires when I lose my job or retire. Compare licenses again. One copy on one machine or a site license for all the machines in my house.. Easy choice.. We all have a copy of the up to date Open Office. It supports ODF out of the box, not as a plug-in.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2075/word_2007_open_save_odf_documents

Schools who have to deal with donated machines and per seat licenses have the BSA to fear. Schools who use OSS software do not have this legal liability. MS will either have to blanket change their license or continue to find their market erode.

http://www.linux.com/feed/37845 (Oregon school faces BSA Audit)

Business also has to deal with the sticky terms of the MS license

http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html (Ernie Ball's BSA audit, cost $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees)

Those badly hurt and afraid will need a lot more than just a sweet deal to switch back.

I had contact with both the dealer, http://bluelink.nl/, and IBM/Lenovo themselves. I wanted to make sure I would get the refund before I bought anything. The way it was arranged in the end was probably the simplest solution. The windows flavour involved was XP.

IBM/Lenovo were actually very easy to convince. I called them because I had heard of the plans discussed in this article. They even offered to talk to unhelpful dealers for me. Bluelink needed a little more convincing, but I just kept politely and clearly invalidating any arguments they came up with against giving me a refund. This article by Serge Wroclawski http://www.linux.com/articles/59381 was very useful. The counters to all the arguments they came up with are there. I remained friendly and polite the whole time, but the people at Bluelink probably still thought I was some kind of crazy zealot making a fuss.

After my initial phone call to Bluelink asking for a written offer, all communication with them went via email. That way I had more time to think about what I said and compose a convincing message (I can be a bit clumsy on the phone), and there was a written record as well. I also took IBM/Lenovo up on the offer to talk to Bluelink for me. I have no idea what the IBM/Lenovo guy said to Bluelink to make it work, though, because I never saw that communication.

There must be other manufacturers and vendors where this could work as well. My previous laptop was an ASUS, which I bought without any OS on it about 5 years ago. Back then manufacturers were a lot less helpful. I remember talking to several manufacturers before buying the ASUS and being completely stonewalled. Because of my good experience with ASUS, I contacted them this time around too, and they seemed quite willing to help. But I didn't manage to get the store where I bought my previous laptop to cave quickly enough, so I didn't pursue it when I could get an acceptable configuration from http://zepto.com/, where you can buy empty notebooks. I still preferred the specs of the thinkpad. I had almost given up on it when I got an offer with a preemptive windows refund from Bluelink.

Hope this helps!

Syonax

I think more correctly you could say, "The FSF does care about freedom to see and use the source, but they also care about these other things."

The problem is the "other things" were not codified in GPLv2. In the FSF's eyes, that means they're improving upon GPLv2 with GPLv3 by codifying those other things.

That's the rub, though. Lots of other people who agreed totally with the GPLv2 don't see it the same way. They think the GPLv2 restricts enough freedoms and allows much. They think GPLv3 restricts freedoms that don't need to be restricted and that it takes away ones they actually want.

This article at Forbes is an interview with Linus, in which he says he does think what Tivo does is stupid, and that he cares. He just doesn't care enough to worry about it. Linus also says that the place to fight locked-down hardware is in hardware licenses and that the place to fight DRM is in the license for the content you produce. He also says he's worried about the freedom of the software because that's what he wrote. He thinks the freedom of hardware is up to the hardware makers and the freedom of content is up to content makers. Software licenses trying to control what you can do with hardware and content step over their bounds, so to speak.

So no, Linus is not against the goals of the FSF. He just thinks that software, hardware, and content should each take care of their own licenses.

The writer of a software program gets to license that software, but should they be able to dictate the license of content that's used with it, or that it can only be used with content of a particular license? That's what the disagreement really boils down to. The FSF is trying to promote the freedom of GNU software authors at the expense of the freedom of hardware and content developers instead of spreading out and promoting freedom from within the hardware and content realms. Their intentions are good, but many of us think the GPLv3 is bad execution of those intentions.

In the 21st century, you do have to worry about cyberattacks. The DHS uses some of these tools, and it is a Good Thing (tm) they are making them more secure. They help propriatary software vendors too, the difference is that with OSS everyone benefits.

Yes, consumers have a choice. There was an article about this a while ago about someone who got his Windows Tax refunded. http://www.linux.com/articles/59381 Here it is. Basicly, when you're asked to accept the Windows EULA, hit the "Do not accept" button and call the store to return your license. Most stores won't give you the money back without a fight, of course, but it says they have to right there in the EULA.

Microsoft is huge, bigger in revenue than IBM, and enormously rich.

Not according to financial data. MSFT have a 54 billion income, vs. 96 billion for IBM.

Microsoft is facing a saturated market. Every desktop PC on the planet that could run an MS app is already doing so. The rest is running non-MS OSes and that percentage is growing. In the server world, Linux is a very strong competitor. Same in the consumer electronics world. Mobile phones? Against Symbian and Linux, Microsoft CE is losing market shares. Set-top boxes? After what MS did to AT&T's IPTV project (delayed because of Windows CE problems), carriers will think twice. Airplane in-flight entertainment systems? Linux again.

MSFT is trying to make inroads on new markets, but it has so far failed to achieve domination in anything but the desktop.

So I wouldn't sell them short, but I wouldn't expect them to skyrocket either.

In Germany: http://www.linux.com/articles/57353
In the US: http://www.fsf.org/news/wallace-vs-fsf
And probably in other countries as well...

The discussion came about as a result of GNOME's support for the efforts of Jody Goldberg, the lead developer of the Gnumeric spreadsheet, to use the ECMA process to force Microsoft to reveal more about OOXML and, by extension, its previous binary formats.

According to Waugh, GNOME's involvement is limited entirely to support for Goldberg, "to ensure that Microsoft provide as much documentation as possible to make it easy for him to implement OOXML in Gnumeric specifically. And if he did not continue his participation, he would not be able to hold [Microsoft's] feet to the fire and make sure they came through on the various bits and pieces of documentation" needed for the OOXML standard. The advantage of supporting Goldberg's efforts, Waugh said, is that it helps free software support not only OOXML, but Microsoft's previous binary formats as well.

So why does no one ever mention that ODF can contain binary data within the XML ?

In the past the Office 2003 XML formats did indeed contains embedded binary date within the file. This of course due to the fact that this format consisted of a single XML file.

You're free to implement a "better" solution. Unlike with a Windows PC, you can mix-n-match to your hearts' content.

As for the printer thing, its easier to set up printers under linux nowadays. Plug it into the usb port, and most distros will auto-config - no driver disk necessary (like my samsung). Same with uploading music to my cell phone (motorola v635) - just plug it in, and up pops a file browser showing me its contents. Drag-n-drop wallpapers, music, 3gp videos, etc. Added a firewire card last week - configured automatically on boot, no drivers necessary. And my cable internet? Worked out of the box, no configuration necessary. Plugged in a logitech usb cam ... again, no drivers needed.

So there's not really much of a need to "offer printers (or other hardware) that they know will work".

We both know the "lose points for the winmodem" argument is bogus. I don't know anyone who still uses dial-up, not when broadband starts at $9.95/month and doesn't tie up your phone line. It would be like taking off points because it has no zip or floppy drive.

Look, its good value for the price, and you're free to install any distro you want on it. If you're that concerned about playing music and dvds, throw a copy of OpenSUSE on it, enable the european repositories, and you'll have all the codecs you need. Or just use smart updater and add packman.de to the list of channels.

Of course, the question is "could you do that and still sell the box for $199.00"? Probably not.

You probably do like I do - build your own box, install your distro, then, as time goes on, add/upgrade components, migrate to a new box, rinse, lather, repeat. But for someone who just wants a box that "works on the net", this is a great buy. the next iteration will probably keep the same price point, fix some of the software config problems with the video, and offer more ram or disk space.

Its not an OLPC, but its not bad. I'd recommend it, and I'm trying to avoid shopping at WallyWorld too often on general principles.

The oldest medical database systems are based on MUMPS, now called M by some, which is still used by the VA. They have
updated it to "VistA", which predated Microsoft Vista (wonder if Microsoft chose that name for a medical reason?).

VistA® / CPRS Demo Site:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/
The code:
http://www1.va.gov/CPRSdemo/page.cfm?pg=1

http://www.innovations.va.gov/innovations/docs/InnovationsVistAFAQPublic.pdf
http://www.va.gov/VISTA_MONOGRAPH/index.asp
http://www.va.gov/vdl/ is the library.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/section.asp?secid=3 covers your Financial question.
http://www.va.gov/vdl/application.asp?appid=144
VistA Data Extraction Framework (VDEF).

http://openvista.sourceforge.net/
"OpenVista is the open-source version of VistA, which is an enterprise grade health care information system developed by the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and deployed at nearly 1,500 facilities worldwide."

1,500 is not all that many considering the market.

Intersystem's Cache' http://www.intersystems.com/cache/ is the contemporary equivlent to MUMPS, a database that claims it can
run rings around things like MySQL in the number of transactions per second.

There are a number of Open Source Medical Databases,they are summarized here:

http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Medicine-HOWTO/record.html

My very first job was writing medical software, this is when few people even knew what computers were in 1977. Still have my DEC
MUMPS badge that I got at the very first MUMPS conference in DC. Have always felt I should get back into that field. To bad
Dr. Armor and I didn't patent what we were doing then. The pharmacists called up the office in disbelieve asking if these
computer printed prescriptions were real, because *THEY COULD READ THEM*.

The other side:

"VA DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS:
1. FY07 Year-End Med SAS and DSS CNDE Files Available
The fiscal year 2007 (FY07) year-end Medical SAS (Med SAS)
Inpatient and Outpatient files are now available."
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/References/DataIssuesBrief/2007/DIB-0712er.pdf

Requesting Access to VA Data:
http://www.virec.research.va.gov/Support/Training-NewUsersToolkit/ACRSrequest.htm

"Click this button for information, guidance, and FAQs relating to the VA Research Data Security and Privacy initiative."
http://www.research.va.gov/resources/data-security

Who cares if the military uses open source software? With projects actually forbidding military use, it seems clear that socially responsible Free Software advocates are locking out the military.

I know that I wouldn't want my work to be used by the US military. The only good argument for allowing the US military access to open source is that they might spend money on it, but that hasn't been my experience. They're more than willing to use it since it's free, but unwilling to pay anyone except some US contractor to support it.

So let the US military keep their blood money. Real Free Software can survive without it.

The other thing is: How is the NYSE handling integration of Linux into a windows network? I am sure there are a few windows boxes at the exchange. There is this guy at www.linux.com who is claiming or alleging that Ubuntu is hard to integrate in a Windows network. Here is the link http://www.linux.com/feature/122681

On a personal note, I'd rather have Linux have better configuration tools OR the same or similar format in its configuration text files. One particularly hard configuration file to modify is the Dovecot/Postfix LDA. This is what I mean, have a look:

dovecot unix - n n - - pipe
        flags=DRhu user=vmail:vmail argv=/usr/lib/dovecot/deliver -d ${recipient}

Yes, you have to deal with this stuff, and only God knows what those "-" mean. For those that might not know, the user's line above one MUST look alike for the server to work. This is a far cry from Samba's configuration files that are much simpler.

Last but not least, can the folks at the NYSE confirm or deny that all server tasks are now handled by Linux? I hope they are, but would not be surprised if they come out and say they cannot confirm or deny that very fact.

I don't think it really matter if you modify it or not. If you distribute the binary, you must also offer to give out the source and you cannot just point people to a 3rd party site to get the source. See this article for more related info: http://www.linux.com/articles/55285

From a short-term practical standpoint, i don't see a problem with teaching e.g. GIMP instead of an old Photoshop version - as long as you don't require features the free alternative doesn't have (GIMP has no HDR) you should be fine. Additionally, kids can also use the software at home and when they have completed the course, which is a big benefit - I am required to learn Maple [1] and didn't pay up for the draconian license which would require me to wipe it off disk as soon as i am no longer an university student. Also, old Photoshop knowledge most certainly won't help them in the job.

Ethically speaking, as a good teacher you should absolutely abstain from proprietary concepts: Your obligation is to teach them something useful for society, not to teach them something useful for Adobe. Proprietary software essentially says that research into the functions and cooperation between people is forbidden, while free software actually encourages sharing knowledge and cooperation for a mutual goal. Read Stallman's essay on the topic [2] and decide what would be the ethically correct alternative.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_(software)
[2] http://www.linux.com/articles/32587

This is clever: filtering spam by exploiting properties of spam pumps in general, vs. straight content analysis. The competition of ever-more-sophisticated content scanning techniques on one side, and spammers' escalating workarounds and huge botnets on the other side, is an arms race that shows no sign of abating.

Of course, this approach does still depend on something—probably content analysis—to determine which messages are spam and which are not, so that receivers' spam statistics can be computed.

The smartest (and reportedly most effective) anti-spam technique I know is spamd, which completely sidesteps content analysis. In a nutshell, it's an SMTP proxy that issues a temporary error code to unknown senders; legitimate MTAs retry delivery (at which point spamd lets the message through), while spam pumps don't bother. Voilà—spam gets stopped before it's ever received. A friend of mine reports that spam volume has dropped to zero since he set up spamd for his department.

If I understand the "receiver reputation" approach correctly, it could use spamd (rather than content analysis) to identify spam; similarly, content analysis can supplement spamd. The two are potentially complementary.

I'm a GNOME user, so I didn't know much about KDE4. Here are some interesting links I just found while researching what KDE4 is going to include:

KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop

KDE 4.0: Well worth the wait!

KDE 4 is almost ready to go

KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 features new shell

KDE 4: some reasons for design decisions

I don't think I'll switch from GNOME, but KDE4 sounds like it will have some cool features.

I'm pretty sure Linux.com was the first to report on Microsoft's 'Men in Black' lobbyists killing open source in Florida earlier this year. http://www.linux.com/feature/61481/

Because it's not very hard? Because it's explained in the pamphlet that comes with the PC?

If you're planning on reviewing a product, you need to put in enough effort to be sure you've got the basics right. This guy didn't.

Use the Start button or right click anywhere on the desktop and select "My GoS", then "Shutdown" from the popup menu.

There's a much better review of the OS here anyway.

The guy that was busted for trolling Java sites? That's about all I have to contribute to this 'debate'; says it all really!

Am I the only one who jumped on this bandwagon 5 years ago? http://www.linux.com/articles/23807
Back then $200 would get you an "AMD Duron 850 MHz system, with 10 GB Maxtor hard drive, 128 MB of memory, and 52x Samsung CDROM drive."
With "LindowsOS" (pre-lawsuit).
It doesn't seem like this new machine is that much more advanced.

Keep in mind that the quote about favoring Google applications and services is from the LiMo foundation, which is trying to produce their own Linux-based cellphone platform. The Open Handset Alliance claims the exact opposite: "Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services. With devices built on the Android Platform, users will be able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favorite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos."

RedHat does *not* hate CentOS... the issue has come up on the mailing lists over the years, and some see CentOS as the "gateway drug" that eventually brings more users to RHEL. Others feel that having CentOS around increases the RHEL{,-derived} userbase and therefore indirectly helps increase the quality of RHEL itself.

In fact, CentOS and Fedora shared a developer booth at FOSDEM this year.
http://wiki.centos.org/Events/Fosdem2007
http://spevack.livejournal.com/2007/02/25/

Additionally, it would have taken the author of TFA about 10 minutes of reasearch to turn up the FOSDEM tidbit and these little bits that make TFA completely irrelevant:
http://www.linux.com/?module=comments&func=display&cid=1161341
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=511
(scroll down to the RH Q&A) on the second link.