Actually, the whole reason they're doing this is because they're pissed off with Redhat for buying JBoss when Oracle wanted it.
I kid you not. Search Google for comments from Larry just after Redhat made the purchase and you'll see why.
This is just continuing that. Oracle at the time said they were considering their own Linux distro in an attempt to compete with Redhat. To paraphrase Ellison...
If Redhat are going to step on our toes, we'll stomp on theirs
This isn't going to make any real difference to Redhat in the long term. Oracle would be smart to position their distro as the best possible platform for their own primary products (such as the databases, ERP software and so on.) However, the chances of that are pretty slim.
Given Oracle just recently release a mammoth patch for their 9i and 11i products that, while containing more than 100 bug fixes, didn't manage to fix all known bugs, I seriously doubt they're in any way prepared to take on the responsibility of a full fledged Enterprise ready Operating System. This is going to kick them hard.
Sorry, but all search providers have a Privacy Policy, a Terms of Use and so on. The moment you use their search engine, you are explicitly agreeing to those contracts. Make no mistake, they are contractual.
If you do not agree to them, then do not use those services. Develop your own or get on the Tor project and block all cookies.
The metrics collected by search providers ARE important to improving the service. They're true metrics that cannot be ignored in anyway. You're being overly simplistic in a very complicated world here.
The simple reality is, they have a published privacy policy and what you're advocating can only be applied if they breach the terms of that contract. Otherwise, your use of their server is purely contractual and clearly defined by the policies of that organisation or company.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US THAT HAVE TO USE CAPSLOCK TO ENTER DATA INTO A BUSINESS SYSTEM? WHERE WILL YOU LEAVE US???????
Ooops. Sorry, caps.:-P
Seriously though, I know lots of people who's business requires them to enter data into their company's systems using caps. I don't know about you, but my little pinky would get extremely disfigured having to swap to and hold the shift button all the time. You'd slow typists down immeasurably.
The land I have put commercial projects or shops or whatever on is breaking even and paying for itself. Thats all good. My "home" I still pay for myself, but I have no problem with that.
Where things fall apart is that I still end up spending like US$200-300 a month on toys and other things I see and want;-) Well, admittedly thats coming down now as I start to build up a collection of things and struggle to find new stuff I want. But with so many newbies coming into SL, theres almost always going to be something new to catch my eye.
I feed the economy more than take from it;-) Shop keepers paradise I am;-)
The point is moot however, given that the Linux kernel will never be anything but GPLv2. Torvalds, Morton and crew just wouldn't accept new GPLv3 code unless it was dual licensed at the very least.
Secondly, any code that is a derivative of existing could would have to remain GPLv2 anyway simply because of the terms of the current license. It specifically rules out future versions of the GPL. Therefore only new code that is not derived from existing kernel code would be able to go this path.
Even discounting all of this, the fact still remains that Torvalds opinion of the GPLv3 is purely negative and he has offered nothing constructive yet. Sure, point out the problems, but also offer solutions that might resolve those problems. As someone who is lead of one of the largest and most popular Open Source coding projects out there, you'd figure he'd know this already. He expects it of people commenting on, or contributing to, the Linux kernel.
I still maintain that I don't care what Linus Torvalds thinks of the GPLv3 given his main project, the only project of his anyone outside of Linux kernel development gives a stuff about, will never ever be GPLv3 simply because the existing license does not allow it. The legal logistics, even above the technical abilities of SVN, are simply too difficult for it to be possible until such time as the copyright has expired on a lot of code. So about another 65-75 years or so under current US law.
There is no cost to access the game. The only time cost becomes an issue is if you want to own your own land. But theres nothing stopping you accessing events in the game, or creating your own items, or buying anything you might possibly want.
Actually, they have an entire sim (64sq km of land on a dedicated server) which costs them US$199/mnth in land use fees. Just to buy the sim itself costs US$1500.
Also, I only pay US$6/mnth for Second Life. When you pay Quarterly or Anually the price drops significantly. US$9.95 is the most you'd pay for a premium account, not including any land use fees.
Having said that though, I am currently paying US$70/mnth just in land use fees on top of my US$72/yr subscription. This is all in land use fees for the various in-game properties I have.
Maybe I'm being ignorant here, but if anyone actually reads the version of the GPL that is used by and distributed with the Linux kernel, it does not allow you to use a later version. The Linux kernel is, and always will be, GPLv2. That was a conscious decision by Linus and the other developers.
Because of that, who really cares what Linus has to say about the GPLv3? He's made it pretty clear he doesn't like it, but the only work that he's producing that anyone cares about is Linux. And the Linux kernel will never be anything other than GPLv2. Even if they/WANTED/ to change it, too many people that have contributed in the past under the GPLv2 license are either dead or simply not accessible to get their permission to change to the newer license. The logistics of keeping track of which part is GPLv2 and which might become GPLv3 just makes it simply "too hard."
Personally, I don't give a damn if Linus likes GPLv3 or not. Its not about Linus, its about everyone in the Free software community as a whole. Individuals can go shoot their feet off instead of their mouth. Its about whats best for the majority, not just Linux or just Gnome or just GCC or just whatever... [/rant]
Nono... Its the other way around. The Linux community can now make the GNU/Linux kernel, with Xen technology, Hypervisor aware. This allows Windows to host Linux based platforms much easier.
Think of it in terms of getting the Xen folks to make sure that the next Linux kernel works 100% inside "VirtualPC 2007" by allowing them direct access to the Hypervisor subsystem of a Windows Longhorn machine.
The intention being that Windows Longhorn will host a Linux based server better than VMWare. This forces VMWares hand significantly. Its one thing to give away a product for free. This is a whole 'nother level.
Given Bill Gates is a poker lover, you could almost call this is a raise and a call.
A while ago Adobe started a survey asking whether people wanted a Linux port of their mainstream applications (Photoshop/Flash/Illustrator and so on.)
I suggest you get in touch with Adobe and see if they have released or actioned on any of the results of that survey. There might even still be the opportunity to participate in it.
I think Adobe's (and most other dev houses) biggest issue right now is that they don't think there are enough people to justify porting their applications. If enough existing users started discussing it seriously with Adobe, I'm sure they'd be very willing to listen. They actively asked for info in the past.
I understand your issue. The applications you need don't exist on Linux yet. Thats not a fault of the various Linux platforms however. More a case of companies needing to be made aware that there are people who would buy their software if a Linux version existed.
Library hell can be avoided by static linking at compile time. Is kind of like including MFC DLLs with your applications, but a lot cleaner.;-)
These will definitely not be permitted to share the same webpage as any Adsense ads. Google explicitly disallow any other contextual ads from being on the same page as part of the AdSense agreement.
That doesn't mean they can't be on the same site, just not on the same page.
Oh, and ad rotaters aren't allowed to share the contextual ads either. Google basically state that their ads must be statically on the pages, not in a rotater that might put other ads in that same web space at any point. In otherwords, your AdSense code essentially needs to be part of the template.
Not exactly a difficulty. Most of the non-contextual ad companies do this already. Adbrite being one, but also many of the others like text-link-ads and so on.
All this is going to allow for is putting eBay listings on your own website. Essentially doing with marketplace listings what Google has done with web advertising.
Nothing spectacular, nothing new. Just more mess to filter through on the web.
Someone with that kind of issue is probably not going to care too much about whether their bookmarks are encrypted or not. They're probably not concerned if someone has access to their bookmarks or not in general.
They're not likely to even consider the OPs option and will use something like Google Browser sync because it just works and they don't have to do anything significant to use it.
Any solution that involves something like FTP or even WebDav is not going to be what the average Joe Q Public will want or use. They don't want to have to go out and pay for access to an FTP server accessible to where ever they're likely to want to be. They gotta learn what those mean in the first place in many cases. google.com servers are available to them anywhere (within reason, China is out) and thus far more likely to be an attractive offer. All they have to do is install the "plugin," follow a few prompts the first time and then just use their browsers.
Same could be said of del.icio.us, but thats even more public again.
Actually, it is encrypted from Google. The PIN used is only used on my machines. The data is encrypted by my computer before being sent to Googles servers, and I have the option of selecting what information is and is not encrypted.
By default, all cookies and saved passwords are encrypted. All Google sees is the resulting hash, which from what I can tell is a standard SHA1 hash. For those even more paranoid, the communication between my browser and the Google servers is secured using SSL.
Its as secure as you want it to be. Probably even more so than most people seem to suspect. Most people trust the technology they use to do their banking online, yet that information is (for the most part) only encrypted with SSL. This is encrypted in such a way that not even Google could read your information if you chose to encrypt it all.
Too late. Google already spent several billion dollars to ensure that wouldn't happen. No online partnership available to MS there.
Given Google only bought a small fraction of AOL, MS might still be able to buy a larger fraction to get the deal, but I doubt TimeWarner shareholders would like to see even more of their AOL ownership diluted. Especially after the fuss that was kicked up last time.
How long till Boinc and dnetc are ported to run on the Grid and does anyone know where I can get some cheap credit card numbers to pay for the CPU time?;-)
More seriously... With 5000 Opteron processors in this thing, why not use it for something like cracking the current RC5 competition code, or speeding up the climate change/SETI/whatever processing in Boinc?
With that much horse power, I'd almost be tempted to run Boinc on it till my credit card was maxed out. The climate change stuff my computer is currently sifting through with Boinc is supposed to need almost 2500 CPU hrs to finish. That leaves room on most credit cards to run dnetc to crack the RC5 competition while I'm at it;-)
The issue here is not linux, but the fact that the manufacturer didn't supply drivers for your card.
Why should the open source community have to create drivers or wrappers for every possible piece of hardware out there someone wants to use?
Checking the HAL is not unusual, even for Windows. I've been doing that since before WinNT3.51 and still find myself having to do it today.
Your problem is not that Linux doesn't support the hardware you bought, but that the hardware you bought doesn't support Linux by providing drivers. This is something you need to address with the hardware manufacturer. Not bitch about Linux not supporting the hardware.
The issue is not that they don't work, but that you still have to install drivers for them. The point being that in Linux you still have to install drivers for many hardware packages that are out there.
I have in Nvidia motherboard. I can install WinXP on the machine, but I can't use the onboard network interface until I've installed the drivers. It has USB2, but I can only get USB1.1 speeds until I install the drivers. It has onboard sound, but I need to install the appropriate drivers.
All these things have just worked in Linux for me for a long time. I haven't had to install the drivers to get them to work for me because most common hardware is supported directly. Including my Lexmark printer, my Canon flatbed scanner, my Logitech webcam, my Winfast TV Tuner card and so on.
Your point is misleading. Just because every piece of hardware off the shelf works with windows, it still requires that the drivers be installed. Linux has exactly the same requirement. You need to install the appropriate driver (kernel module) for it to work in Linux if one doesn't already exist. However, Linux comes with more drivers built in to the platform itself by default than Windows does. Its not uncommon to have to install drivers off a disc for Windows, but very common for most devices to just plug in and work in Linux now.
I had a similar situation with one of my sites. A group of users were pissed off with some members of the site and decided that the easiest way to get back at them was to get the site booted off the AdSense program. Unfortunately this was also my personal AdSense account as well.
They added our site to several Traffic Exchange programs. This generated significant increases in traffic. Google has a clause in their ToS that they don't like this kind of traffic (clicks on the ads or not) and my AdSense account was terminated with no opportunity for me to explain the situation.
Turns out its not an uncommon way for people to seriously hurt the income of online communities (or even just normal sites) that rely on this kind of advertising (PPC) and donations for much of their survival.
We've had to change how our entire site funding is achieved now. We cannot use Yahoo, MSN or many of the other advertising programs because our target audiences are not American based and our traffic is often under the minimum requirement of many of them. So we had to actively go and get advertising from alternate sources. Part of that has been affiliate based marketing but the biggest share has been direct advertising and sponsorship from related business in the local region.
A lot more work to keep something alive, but a lot harder for someone to now deal us a blow as was done with Google AdSense. Also made for a much more interesting learning curve in that now I have a much better understanding of the various marketing programs available to people outside the US, beyond just Google.
Another advantage has been that now a lot of the sponsoring businesses actively participate in the community. This has started to generate a positive feedback situation for us in that many of them now recommend our site as a good source of information and people also come to our site so they can have informed discussions with the people actually involved in the industry. Of course, this has lead to more companies wanting to take part and the cycle is repeating itself.
Before that, pretty much my entire AdSense income was going towards keeping the site alive. That included the income derived from my other sites. Now the site is making profit which gets used for things like events.
Hardest situation I have yet to overcome is the ad management software we use. Its currently phpAdsNew, but thats very slow and doesn't provide us with all the features we want (such as Adwords style text ads and PayPal payment features, not to mention the ability for advertisers to manage their own ad campaigns.)
Maybe so, but I personally still prefer to use products from a company such as Canonical or Mozilla if their product fits my criteria because they at least make an effort to have a moral or ethical spine.
This is why, aside from my games machine, Ubuntu runs on all my personal PCs. I could use offerings from Redhat or SuSE or any of the many others out there, but I like the Ubuntu product (a lot) and I like the stand taken by Canonical.
This is also partly why I use Firefox instead of Opera or IE or Safari. This is why I choose Apache products over Sun's or Microsoft's offerings. All the competative products can provide the services I need. But in those situations where the feature sets all met my criteria, I will use a product from an organisation I am more likely to agree with the ethics of.
And yes, I do donate to all the opensource projects I use on a daily basis. Yes, I do buy boxed copies (or a licensed version) of software I use on a daily basis. That applies to Ubuntu, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL, Gnome, the FSF (for its GNU platform) and so on. I may not donate enough to keep a programmer employed full time, but I donate the value the software has for me.
In one case, that was quite a lot more than a license for the same type of product from a commercial/proprietary vendor would have cost me. Mostly because my dealings with the project members was so far above the others I wanted to thank them for it. They were happy to help me and they made an effort to provide me with what I was looking for without pushing me for it. The vendors were only interested in the sale of a product, not ensuring that the end result was what I wanted, just that their product was on my machines.
While ethics and morals may not make a company rich, it should be supported and it should be endorsed. Use the right software for the criteria, but when the feature sets (including support) become a non-issue, other things should be considered. Ethics is one of those things I consider.
Just for facts sake, IE4 was included as seperate CD with Windows 95C. Prior to that, IE3 was the version that came with Windows 95 and it wasn't installed by default. You had to select it during the installation process (or going back further, install it from the Plus pack.)
Then in August 1998, all things went pear shaped and IE was supposedly built in as a core part of the Windows platform. Although, I'd dispute this saying that the Windows 98lite project managed to remove it completely by my recollection.
IE wasn't a core part of the OS properly (in the way that we know it today) until the Windows NT5/2000 betas and the Windows ME release. Up until that point, it was possible to completely remove IE without any sort of adverse affect on the system.
Mind you, I guess that depends on your definition of adverse;-)
Slashdot Mirror
The Dude abides.
:-)
Thanks for the flashback
Actually, the whole reason they're doing this is because they're pissed off with Redhat for buying JBoss when Oracle wanted it.
I kid you not. Search Google for comments from Larry just after Redhat made the purchase and you'll see why.
This is just continuing that. Oracle at the time said they were considering their own Linux distro in an attempt to compete with Redhat. To paraphrase Ellison...
This isn't going to make any real difference to Redhat in the long term. Oracle would be smart to position their distro as the best possible platform for their own primary products (such as the databases, ERP software and so on.) However, the chances of that are pretty slim.
Given Oracle just recently release a mammoth patch for their 9i and 11i products that, while containing more than 100 bug fixes, didn't manage to fix all known bugs, I seriously doubt they're in any way prepared to take on the responsibility of a full fledged Enterprise ready Operating System. This is going to kick them hard.
Sorry, but all search providers have a Privacy Policy, a Terms of Use and so on. The moment you use their search engine, you are explicitly agreeing to those contracts. Make no mistake, they are contractual.
If you do not agree to them, then do not use those services. Develop your own or get on the Tor project and block all cookies.
The metrics collected by search providers ARE important to improving the service. They're true metrics that cannot be ignored in anyway. You're being overly simplistic in a very complicated world here.
The simple reality is, they have a published privacy policy and what you're advocating can only be applied if they breach the terms of that contract. Otherwise, your use of their server is purely contractual and clearly defined by the policies of that organisation or company.
Dont like it? Don't use it. That simple.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US THAT HAVE TO USE CAPSLOCK TO ENTER DATA INTO A BUSINESS SYSTEM? WHERE WILL YOU LEAVE US???????
:-P
Ooops. Sorry, caps.
Seriously though, I know lots of people who's business requires them to enter data into their company's systems using caps. I don't know about you, but my little pinky would get extremely disfigured having to swap to and hold the shift button all the time. You'd slow typists down immeasurably.
Yes and no. ;-)
;-) Well, admittedly thats coming down now as I start to build up a collection of things and struggle to find new stuff I want. But with so many newbies coming into SL, theres almost always going to be something new to catch my eye.
;-) Shop keepers paradise I am ;-)
The land I have put commercial projects or shops or whatever on is breaking even and paying for itself. Thats all good. My "home" I still pay for myself, but I have no problem with that.
Where things fall apart is that I still end up spending like US$200-300 a month on toys and other things I see and want
I feed the economy more than take from it
The point is moot however, given that the Linux kernel will never be anything but GPLv2. Torvalds, Morton and crew just wouldn't accept new GPLv3 code unless it was dual licensed at the very least.
Secondly, any code that is a derivative of existing could would have to remain GPLv2 anyway simply because of the terms of the current license. It specifically rules out future versions of the GPL. Therefore only new code that is not derived from existing kernel code would be able to go this path.
Even discounting all of this, the fact still remains that Torvalds opinion of the GPLv3 is purely negative and he has offered nothing constructive yet. Sure, point out the problems, but also offer solutions that might resolve those problems. As someone who is lead of one of the largest and most popular Open Source coding projects out there, you'd figure he'd know this already. He expects it of people commenting on, or contributing to, the Linux kernel.
I still maintain that I don't care what Linus Torvalds thinks of the GPLv3 given his main project, the only project of his anyone outside of Linux kernel development gives a stuff about, will never ever be GPLv3 simply because the existing license does not allow it. The legal logistics, even above the technical abilities of SVN, are simply too difficult for it to be possible until such time as the copyright has expired on a lot of code. So about another 65-75 years or so under current US law.
Errrr fixed link
No, you could attend the concert entirely for free just by http://secondlife.com/ss/?u=0e0a47b321633ec4bf7e7b 1232505838">signing up for a basic account to Second Life.
There is no cost to access the game. The only time cost becomes an issue is if you want to own your own land. But theres nothing stopping you accessing events in the game, or creating your own items, or buying anything you might possibly want.
Actually, they have an entire sim (64sq km of land on a dedicated server) which costs them US$199/mnth in land use fees. Just to buy the sim itself costs US$1500.
Also, I only pay US$6/mnth for Second Life. When you pay Quarterly or Anually the price drops significantly. US$9.95 is the most you'd pay for a premium account, not including any land use fees.
Having said that though, I am currently paying US$70/mnth just in land use fees on top of my US$72/yr subscription. This is all in land use fees for the various in-game properties I have.
Maybe I'm being ignorant here, but if anyone actually reads the version of the GPL that is used by and distributed with the Linux kernel, it does not allow you to use a later version. The Linux kernel is, and always will be, GPLv2. That was a conscious decision by Linus and the other developers.
/WANTED/ to change it, too many people that have contributed in the past under the GPLv2 license are either dead or simply not accessible to get their permission to change to the newer license. The logistics of keeping track of which part is GPLv2 and which might become GPLv3 just makes it simply "too hard."
Because of that, who really cares what Linus has to say about the GPLv3? He's made it pretty clear he doesn't like it, but the only work that he's producing that anyone cares about is Linux. And the Linux kernel will never be anything other than GPLv2. Even if they
Personally, I don't give a damn if Linus likes GPLv3 or not. Its not about Linus, its about everyone in the Free software community as a whole. Individuals can go shoot their feet off instead of their mouth. Its about whats best for the majority, not just Linux or just Gnome or just GCC or just whatever...
[/rant]
Double negative, so the answer must be Yes! :-)
Nono... Its the other way around. The Linux community can now make the GNU/Linux kernel, with Xen technology, Hypervisor aware. This allows Windows to host Linux based platforms much easier.
Think of it in terms of getting the Xen folks to make sure that the next Linux kernel works 100% inside "VirtualPC 2007" by allowing them direct access to the Hypervisor subsystem of a Windows Longhorn machine.
The intention being that Windows Longhorn will host a Linux based server better than VMWare. This forces VMWares hand significantly. Its one thing to give away a product for free. This is a whole 'nother level.
Given Bill Gates is a poker lover, you could almost call this is a raise and a call.
A while ago Adobe started a survey asking whether people wanted a Linux port of their mainstream applications (Photoshop/Flash/Illustrator and so on.)
;-)
I suggest you get in touch with Adobe and see if they have released or actioned on any of the results of that survey. There might even still be the opportunity to participate in it.
I think Adobe's (and most other dev houses) biggest issue right now is that they don't think there are enough people to justify porting their applications. If enough existing users started discussing it seriously with Adobe, I'm sure they'd be very willing to listen. They actively asked for info in the past.
I understand your issue. The applications you need don't exist on Linux yet. Thats not a fault of the various Linux platforms however. More a case of companies needing to be made aware that there are people who would buy their software if a Linux version existed.
Library hell can be avoided by static linking at compile time. Is kind of like including MFC DLLs with your applications, but a lot cleaner.
These will definitely not be permitted to share the same webpage as any Adsense ads. Google explicitly disallow any other contextual ads from being on the same page as part of the AdSense agreement.
That doesn't mean they can't be on the same site, just not on the same page.
Oh, and ad rotaters aren't allowed to share the contextual ads either. Google basically state that their ads must be statically on the pages, not in a rotater that might put other ads in that same web space at any point. In otherwords, your AdSense code essentially needs to be part of the template.
Not exactly a difficulty. Most of the non-contextual ad companies do this already. Adbrite being one, but also many of the others like text-link-ads and so on.
All this is going to allow for is putting eBay listings on your own website. Essentially doing with marketplace listings what Google has done with web advertising.
Nothing spectacular, nothing new. Just more mess to filter through on the web.
Someone with that kind of issue is probably not going to care too much about whether their bookmarks are encrypted or not. They're probably not concerned if someone has access to their bookmarks or not in general.
They're not likely to even consider the OPs option and will use something like Google Browser sync because it just works and they don't have to do anything significant to use it.
Any solution that involves something like FTP or even WebDav is not going to be what the average Joe Q Public will want or use. They don't want to have to go out and pay for access to an FTP server accessible to where ever they're likely to want to be. They gotta learn what those mean in the first place in many cases. google.com servers are available to them anywhere (within reason, China is out) and thus far more likely to be an attractive offer. All they have to do is install the "plugin," follow a few prompts the first time and then just use their browsers.
Same could be said of del.icio.us, but thats even more public again.
Actually, it is encrypted from Google. The PIN used is only used on my machines. The data is encrypted by my computer before being sent to Googles servers, and I have the option of selecting what information is and is not encrypted.
By default, all cookies and saved passwords are encrypted. All Google sees is the resulting hash, which from what I can tell is a standard SHA1 hash. For those even more paranoid, the communication between my browser and the Google servers is secured using SSL.
Its as secure as you want it to be. Probably even more so than most people seem to suspect. Most people trust the technology they use to do their banking online, yet that information is (for the most part) only encrypted with SSL. This is encrypted in such a way that not even Google could read your information if you chose to encrypt it all.
Or just install Cygwin and get both OpenSSH and wget without a hassle. Easily updated too via a GUI program.
Or just get the Windows native ports of both apps. Its not exactly hard.
Just because Windows doesn't come with them bundled already, doesn't mean they're not available to Windows users that might want them.
Too late. Google already spent several billion dollars to ensure that wouldn't happen. No online partnership available to MS there.
Given Google only bought a small fraction of AOL, MS might still be able to buy a larger fraction to get the deal, but I doubt TimeWarner shareholders would like to see even more of their AOL ownership diluted. Especially after the fuss that was kicked up last time.
How long till Boinc and dnetc are ported to run on the Grid and does anyone know where I can get some cheap credit card numbers to pay for the CPU time? ;-)
;-)
More seriously... With 5000 Opteron processors in this thing, why not use it for something like cracking the current RC5 competition code, or speeding up the climate change/SETI/whatever processing in Boinc?
With that much horse power, I'd almost be tempted to run Boinc on it till my credit card was maxed out. The climate change stuff my computer is currently sifting through with Boinc is supposed to need almost 2500 CPU hrs to finish. That leaves room on most credit cards to run dnetc to crack the RC5 competition while I'm at it
The issue here is not linux, but the fact that the manufacturer didn't supply drivers for your card.
Why should the open source community have to create drivers or wrappers for every possible piece of hardware out there someone wants to use?
Checking the HAL is not unusual, even for Windows. I've been doing that since before WinNT3.51 and still find myself having to do it today.
Your problem is not that Linux doesn't support the hardware you bought, but that the hardware you bought doesn't support Linux by providing drivers. This is something you need to address with the hardware manufacturer. Not bitch about Linux not supporting the hardware.
The issue is not that they don't work, but that you still have to install drivers for them. The point being that in Linux you still have to install drivers for many hardware packages that are out there.
I have in Nvidia motherboard. I can install WinXP on the machine, but I can't use the onboard network interface until I've installed the drivers. It has USB2, but I can only get USB1.1 speeds until I install the drivers. It has onboard sound, but I need to install the appropriate drivers.
All these things have just worked in Linux for me for a long time. I haven't had to install the drivers to get them to work for me because most common hardware is supported directly. Including my Lexmark printer, my Canon flatbed scanner, my Logitech webcam, my Winfast TV Tuner card and so on.
Your point is misleading. Just because every piece of hardware off the shelf works with windows, it still requires that the drivers be installed. Linux has exactly the same requirement. You need to install the appropriate driver (kernel module) for it to work in Linux if one doesn't already exist. However, Linux comes with more drivers built in to the platform itself by default than Windows does. Its not uncommon to have to install drivers off a disc for Windows, but very common for most devices to just plug in and work in Linux now.
I had a similar situation with one of my sites. A group of users were pissed off with some members of the site and decided that the easiest way to get back at them was to get the site booted off the AdSense program. Unfortunately this was also my personal AdSense account as well.
They added our site to several Traffic Exchange programs. This generated significant increases in traffic. Google has a clause in their ToS that they don't like this kind of traffic (clicks on the ads or not) and my AdSense account was terminated with no opportunity for me to explain the situation.
Turns out its not an uncommon way for people to seriously hurt the income of online communities (or even just normal sites) that rely on this kind of advertising (PPC) and donations for much of their survival.
We've had to change how our entire site funding is achieved now. We cannot use Yahoo, MSN or many of the other advertising programs because our target audiences are not American based and our traffic is often under the minimum requirement of many of them. So we had to actively go and get advertising from alternate sources. Part of that has been affiliate based marketing but the biggest share has been direct advertising and sponsorship from related business in the local region.
A lot more work to keep something alive, but a lot harder for someone to now deal us a blow as was done with Google AdSense. Also made for a much more interesting learning curve in that now I have a much better understanding of the various marketing programs available to people outside the US, beyond just Google.
Another advantage has been that now a lot of the sponsoring businesses actively participate in the community. This has started to generate a positive feedback situation for us in that many of them now recommend our site as a good source of information and people also come to our site so they can have informed discussions with the people actually involved in the industry. Of course, this has lead to more companies wanting to take part and the cycle is repeating itself.
Before that, pretty much my entire AdSense income was going towards keeping the site alive. That included the income derived from my other sites. Now the site is making profit which gets used for things like events.
Hardest situation I have yet to overcome is the ad management software we use. Its currently phpAdsNew, but thats very slow and doesn't provide us with all the features we want (such as Adwords style text ads and PayPal payment features, not to mention the ability for advertisers to manage their own ad campaigns.)
Maybe so, but I personally still prefer to use products from a company such as Canonical or Mozilla if their product fits my criteria because they at least make an effort to have a moral or ethical spine.
This is why, aside from my games machine, Ubuntu runs on all my personal PCs. I could use offerings from Redhat or SuSE or any of the many others out there, but I like the Ubuntu product (a lot) and I like the stand taken by Canonical.
This is also partly why I use Firefox instead of Opera or IE or Safari. This is why I choose Apache products over Sun's or Microsoft's offerings. All the competative products can provide the services I need. But in those situations where the feature sets all met my criteria, I will use a product from an organisation I am more likely to agree with the ethics of.
And yes, I do donate to all the opensource projects I use on a daily basis. Yes, I do buy boxed copies (or a licensed version) of software I use on a daily basis. That applies to Ubuntu, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL, Gnome, the FSF (for its GNU platform) and so on. I may not donate enough to keep a programmer employed full time, but I donate the value the software has for me.
In one case, that was quite a lot more than a license for the same type of product from a commercial/proprietary vendor would have cost me. Mostly because my dealings with the project members was so far above the others I wanted to thank them for it. They were happy to help me and they made an effort to provide me with what I was looking for without pushing me for it. The vendors were only interested in the sale of a product, not ensuring that the end result was what I wanted, just that their product was on my machines.
While ethics and morals may not make a company rich, it should be supported and it should be endorsed. Use the right software for the criteria, but when the feature sets (including support) become a non-issue, other things should be considered. Ethics is one of those things I consider.
Just for facts sake, IE4 was included as seperate CD with Windows 95C. Prior to that, IE3 was the version that came with Windows 95 and it wasn't installed by default. You had to select it during the installation process (or going back further, install it from the Plus pack.)
;-)
Then in August 1998, all things went pear shaped and IE was supposedly built in as a core part of the Windows platform. Although, I'd dispute this saying that the Windows 98lite project managed to remove it completely by my recollection.
IE wasn't a core part of the OS properly (in the way that we know it today) until the Windows NT5/2000 betas and the Windows ME release. Up until that point, it was possible to completely remove IE without any sort of adverse affect on the system.
Mind you, I guess that depends on your definition of adverse