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Windependence Day
An unknown reader points us to the Windependence Day contest sponsored by DesktopLinux. Cute idea, and I'm sure some people have exciting stories of battling the talking paperclip...
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And on July 14th, join us as we storm the Redmond stronghold and cut the head of the evil king of the Microsoft Kingdom. The storming of Redmond will symbolize, for all citizens of Linuxdom, liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression!
What about a Sundependence Day? Or a Vaxdependence Day? Or a Aixdependence Day?
More systems are leaving traditional Unix for Linux than are leaving Windows for Linux.
I have been pwned because my
Focusing all this energy on creating replacements for the apps that keep us tied to Windows?
For me to run Linux on my main PC at work, I need specific things: A Groupwise client, a Novell client, a pcAnywhere type thing to check on remote systems which cannot be replaced by Linux because of the apps that must run on them... ? These things would go a lot further than a doorprize, though free stuff is always good.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
If Indenpendence Day is ID4....
Does that make Windependence Day WD-40?
If Lindows was an infringement upon the Windows name, then Lycoris has to be basically identical to WinXP (based on the screenshots). Look:
here
here
and here
Perhaps MS can sue them for 'theft of look and feel.'
Windependance day - The day hoards of slashdotters and Linux fans alike gathered to battle that EVIL paper clip. And what did they do? Well, heh, Ill tell you what they did, but it wasnt pretty. When they got ahold of the paper clip, they grabbed ahold of him at each and...and they....they....STRAIGHTENED HIM!!!
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
Spoken like a true free thinker, who will no doubt insist on US assistance when his country runs into a crisis.
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
Dude, I agree with your sentiments whole-heartedly, however, as snopes2 can tell you, that page is rather a hoax. Some of the founding fathers did make extreme sacrifices, but not as bad as you think.
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/declare.htm
However, I whole-heartedly agree with your basic premise, in that this is distasteful of them, and Atlas Shrugged is a good read. Not likely to happen, ever, but an interesting perspective.
Sent from your iPad.
LMAO.
'It was a dark and stormy night. My nervous grip on my trusty Xconfigurator tightened as I heard the 'BOOIIING!' from the distance. Only one thing in this world made that sound. And that thing was Bob...'
Paperclip vs. Penguin
Efren Belizario
headspeak.com
(Apologies to Martina McBride.)
Microsoft is quartering their troops in peoples' homes and taxing without representation? Wait, how'd I miss that?
So Microsoft's Corporate licencing isn't a tax without representation?
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
I recently switched. Just my laptop, for now...
My company volunteered for a BSA audit some months ago.
We were short some licenses; we rectified the situation before sending our report back to the BSA, indicating while we had been short some licenses, we were currently in compliance...
This overage involved approximately 10% of our client machines...
We relaxed, thinking we'd done good ethically and morally, by owing up to our discretion and paying for it...
Then we were sued...
Not for the the 10% of our clients that were out of license...
For a sum equal to the entire -retail- value of all BSA represented software at our organization...
Paid for yesterday, or three years ago, or five, or more...
Essentially, they want us to pay for every piece of BSA software (we currently use) twice...
My Windependence day happened a month ago...
Just my laptop...
25 machines on our network use mission critical MS-only systems...
That's less that 3%...
Last month MS lost 1 customer...
Just my laptop...
The other 900+ systems on our network...
Well...
They're good for now...
You have got to check this picture out. Battling the paperclip! I want to write without interference!
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
The pharmaceutical industry would like fewer regulations so it could lower its costs, but the regulations set quality requirements for your safety. You can walk into any drug store and the generic drugs are just as high quality as the name brands. Without the regulations, you'd be betting your health on the abilities of a corporation's marketing team.
The airline industry would like fewer regulations so it could lower the cost of maintaining and flying planes, but the regulations require certain maintenance procedures for your safety. The pilots and mechanics of the airline may not want to cut corners, but executives are forever pushing for that extra dollar of profit. Without the regulations, planes would be falling out of the sky because some exec who knows nothing about aviation pushed too far.
Peter Pan may get away without regulations in Never Land, but in the real world regulations serve a purpose.
Bottom line: If you're going to criticize regulations that serve specific interests (as opposed to the whole of society), fine, but don't trivialize regulations.
Actually, speaking of battling the paperclip bastard....
About a year ago, doing a freelance job, I had to work a lot with Frontpage2000. Not too bad, since I was able to use Dreamweaver at home, but I also had to use Word a lot when I was in the office. It was mostly for conversions of data to be put into HTML. Since I was working on a machine that someone else used, and they were the primary user, I opted not to really change anything around. Anyway, one day when working with Word, the paperprick bastard kept popping up. I got so mad (mostly from being hungover) I took the box of paperclips at the desk and proceeded and to simply bend probably around 20-25 until they broke. Man, that was great. Not only did I kill the minions of the paperclip army, I killed enough time to the point that I chilled out and got back to work. Anyone else have a similiar pathetic story?
(yeah, yeah, I eventually turned the helper off, but whatever.)
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I think it's a shame that most of the prizes are partly or completely non-free software.
It brings to mind what I believe is a translated polish proverb:
A change of leaders is the joy of fools.
To exchange one set of proprietary terms & conditions for another, even if the new ones are a lot less aggravating, when one could instead have grasped Freedom in perpetuity, is a wasted opportunity in my opinion.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
What gets me with Windows is that when you have something that you know works but that you have to keep reinstalling the software or to keep thing simple save your stuff on another system and reinstall. You do not know what is being installed and you have to take great care to insure that the system is running well. If you ever had a test system where you constantly install...test...deinstall you would have a hard time keeping this system running properly without problems for a year.
Now on linux you have the dependencies. It may require a couple of minutes more to install but in the end you never have to reinstall the OS to keep the stability. This also applies to FreeBSD and such.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
To help celebrate wIndependence Day (or, perhaps more accurately, WinDependence Day), do we have just not be Windows users, or do we have to use Linux? If it's just about not using Linux, then somebody [apple.com] has already started promoting a similar idea.
First, you need to rephrase your question.
As stated, no, you don't have to use GNU/Linux, but you do have to use a Free Operating System (Free as in Freedom). This rules out Apple, Sun, etc. Replacing one set of masters with another set of masters doesn't by you an ounce of freedom or independence, which is what "Windependence" is all about.
So, if you had phrased your question "...do we have just not be Windows users, or do we have to use Free Software" then the answere would be, if you wish to be free and independent, then yes, you have to use free software. If you do not care that a corporate vendor has veto power over your ability to use your PC, then Apple, Microsoft, or any number of other proprietary vendors will likely serve your purposes just fine.
Ok, maybe not Microsoft based on their track record for the last 10 years vis-a-vis reliability, security, and forced obsolescence...but don't kid yourself: Sun and Apple are just failed Microsoft wannabe's, and if you switch to their product you may find, while you are breathing a sigh of relief to be free of Microsoft's stranglehold, that you have in fact only replaced one set of masters with another and are now firmly entrenched in Apple, or Sun's, stranglehold. It only becomes a question of time then, before you are looking for escape once more.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy