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Slashback: Newton, Wal-Mart, Eats
Honestly, where would they have unloaded that anyway? yorgasor writes "Yahoo reports that the stolen copies of Newton's Principia have been successfully recovered. The thieves are also suspected of other thefts from several Moscow and St Petersburg libraries."
They have everything. An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Lycoris joins Lindows and Mandrake in being preloaded for walmart.com: 'The new $199 Desktop/LX Certified MicroTel PCs include the Desktop/ LX operating system. Desktop/LX also includes the following incredible software features without any additional downloading:'"
Who needs a war? Krieger writes "I found this link to the definitive browser wars at HardOCP, where you get to play checkers to prove your browsers superiority. Taking the browser wars to a new high/low?"
Here's the hook, can you pass that sinker please ... JoeWalsh writes "According to this article, earlier this month RMS visited India and tried to convince them to use Free (as in freedom) Software. Then along comes Bill Gates this month, handing out free (as in beer) software, and suddenly India isn't interested in RMS's message. A choice quote: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own." Did RMS tell them they couldn't use GNU/Linux, or is this more Microsoft propaganda at work?"
I think India's rationale for going with Bill Gates offering over Richard Stallman's offering is fairly simple to explain: Bill's offering a finished product, no polish necessary, at no cost. RMS is saying you can have the greatest software in the world if you put your mind to it and pointing to a bunch of half-written software.
Which would you rather have? Just take a look at the statistics in the places where people can choose to pay for Windows or get Linux free to get an idea of why the opportunity is so tasty to India.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Oh, please. It's a CHEAP computer in every sense. It's mean to be sold to clueless masses with no cash and no skills, not somebody looking to replace their PIII with custom everything.
It's gonna use the lowest cost stuff they can find and you know what? That's entirely appropriate. Get over it.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
The PR says it compares to an 800MHz Celeron. Whether it DOES or not, I dunno.
It's not a super-powerful computer, of course, but for $199, it's certainly not a rip-off. I'd have no trouble recommending that to some people.
In a quote from the article, Bill says:
"We can save money in terms of speed of development or by being able to run on less expensive hardware."
So I guess that's why WinCE handhelds are less expensive than Palm pilots. Oh, wait, they aren't less expensive. Oh but then there is desktops. Oh wait, what about the $199 walmart PC running linux being less expensive than the Windows counterpart... Considering that Linux runs on just about anything, the "less expensive hardware" just is totally untrue. Let's see Windows XP run on a 386 with 8M ram. Nice FUD Bill.
Walmart is the beginning of the end of American Middle Class. They kill a lot of small individually owned mom and pop stores when they move into a town. In the future we will all get to work for them at minimum wage and buy cheap crap from Asia. It is ironic that everyone is up in arms about M$'s behavior but is very passive about what is happening to small businesses. In my view both M$ and Walmart are predatory.
I grew up in the Fulda Gap, where did you?
Hiring (or promising) to hire a whole bunch of Indian programmers. Heck i would adopt windows on a couple of boxen if M$ decides to invest heavily in TI market..after all those people are not going to spend their whole lives working for MS...sooner or later they will move on, and presto! Inda has educated progammers with world class experience!
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
I don't understand how Walmart expects to sell this stuff. The price tag that is on this kind of computer will appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator customer. One that doesn't have money or the internet. So how are they supposed to buy it without internet access? And if they do buy one and when they can't run the lastest games(re:windows based games on it) they will return them. (Or pirate old copies of Windows 98 to run on them.)
Most people "in the know" would avoid them would they not? Most Linux geeks that I know would want high end equipment not cheap junk. I've got an old celeron that has trouble running X. How the heck is this going to run Lindows, lycoris or Mandrake 9?
So I can't figure out who this is marketed at? College students? First time "trailer home" computer buyers?
Some one there made a bad business move IMHO.If you have stock in Walmart I'd sell.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
A diplomat [or insert any M$ name here] is a person who can tell you to go to hell [or buy their products...all the same] in such a way that you are actually looking forward to the trip!
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
Whenever someone says something like that I hear: "We are a very poor country. We are all dunces. We can't raise our standard of living. Therefore we will eat at the crumbs and wallow in our own pity.
It's a shame people don't respect themselves more. And it's not like php requires that much more development ability then ASP does.
-BrentGuess RMS didn't do his homework. MS actually got in trouble in India years ago for hiring so many Indian programmersand shipping them off to the states. India told MS their programmers are a natural resource and MS can't drain any more. So MS has built a large development facility in India. So RMS is asking India's developers to work for free, Gates is giving them paychecks.