Who out there is legitimately scared of being shut down by Microsoft? Linus? His project is not in danger- he doesn't sell linux. I think the only company that could potentially get affected is Canonical.
I think Ballmer was just being a douchebag. But he's a CEO- all CEO's are douchebags (almost). Everyone at Microsoft thinks he's a douchebag, too.
She's not progressive. The point is nothing could be less progressive than re-electing a dynasty. She isn't progressive because she's so practiced and poll oriented (she didn't do anything she said she would for new york). She's also a corporate candidate, with more corporate pharmaceutical money in her pocket than any republican- and her 35 years of experience? She spent it as a corporate lawyer, much of which with Walmart. I never said she was a republican, she's a neo-liberal.
Progressive != Liberal Non-Progressive != Republican
I would rather have a real liberal like Obama. When I say Hillary is like Bush, I am saying that she is a neo-* politician.
So how about this for you: stop pushing this "Hillary is like Obama" bullshit. I am ready for the Nixon era to end.
The statement on the company being affected rather than the consumer is correct. The reason people buy supported versions of linux is so that any major liability with the software is taken care of technically and legally by a corporation that supports the product.
Once more, linux users and open source are safe from patents- companies like Canonical have some degree of danger, but the idea of them getting sued is almost laughable. It would be terrible PR and not gain much profit or market position.
Perhaps that was Ballmer's intention. Now-a-days, they advertise interoperability on Windows Server's site. It's just not a market for "individualist" systems. So, I feel like the Novell partnership brought the dealings a bit more above the belt.
Warm and fuzzy community feelings aside, they patch up and sell work that is the product of free labor primarily by those who feel religiously compelled to write it. They do this to cut the costs of something in short supply, time and talent. They share a tiny shred of competency that keeps open source products moving, all profiting more than they are contributing.
Linux co's make money when what they make is different than that which is open and free- so rather than contributing, they profit by separating and stabilizing branches of free software. It's very non-Gnu. The marketing basically states that they are giving you something different for your money.
I believe Xenix was the first real "friendly" unix. It took some magic to get something like unix running on ultra low-end x86/pc hardware, so they are owed some credit. I don't think these patents are any danger to linux, as a whole- but I think Microsoft may have some random patents it could theoretically pull out of a hat and cause brief legal controversy. It's bad PR, though.
How would Linus even know if some random contributor submitted Xenix code? Linus doesn't deal with any legal issues- the major linux co's do. What linus does does not garner law suits. He writes a kernel.
I won't go to some random open source zealot site for my information on the patents. I am fairly certain SCO does have some grounds for having created random things like virtual terminals, a friendly install process, and laying much of the groundwork for Unix on the 386 architecture. I just don't think these patents will do any damage to the horde.
The patents are too obvious. Apple lost its lawsuit against Microsoft "stealing" the idea of the GUI for this very reason.
Linus writes kernels- actually, a single kernel. He does not write text books, news articles, or legal documents. His guess is as good as yours or mine as to what Microsoft's intentions are.
Wait, scratch that. Mine is better- I am not an engineer.
The patents involve Xenix. Look it up sometime, it may seem oddly familiar.
However, I believe he's right in saying linux is not in any danger. It isn't- the only companies that might get pricked by these patents are commercial enterprises who are profiteering off of peoples' open source work. (see: the companies that Microsoft has signed patent treaties with)
I half-way agree. I am pro-Obama, but I think I have every reason to hate Hillary. The fact of the matter is that we've got a republican in the democrat field looking to cock-block progress by using a well-known "democrat" name.
If Hillary wins the nomination, it will be impossible to have a real progressive democrat president for four years. If she wins the presidency, then it will be impossible to have a real progressive for eight years.
Imagine another eight years of Bush politics. Remember, Hillary is pro-censorship, security, war, executive power, and secrecy. I think she's more like Bush than McCain.
That's just paranoid. When something is standardized, it's standardized. I don't see too many lawsuits over OpenOffice (Sun) supporting Word 97/2000/XP formats.
Apple certainly didn't have too much trouble implementing OOXML for TextEdit, either. Neither has Novell or Corel. Almost every innovation in the tech industry starts out at one company or another- even Unix is from Bell Labs.
The only reason Microsoft has had law suits against the open source world at all is because of how many desktop unix technologies were blatantly gouged from Xenix- and that's over. It didn't work out and now they seem to be working towards interoperability, which is simply business. Do you think companies like Novell and Sun do not have legal departments? Do you honestly think they're unknowingly walking into the dark and evil plans of some moderate sized tech company in Seattle?
There is a world outside of the desktop computing world. Microsoft is a medium sized fish and it is staying relevant by pushing standards that they believe they can outpace their competitors with. There's a major game in innovation. Was Sun the only Java provider? No, but they were certainly the most notable.
Reality: Microsoft is a fairly large and well grounded technology firm in Seattle. Their major product is a VMS-based operating system which uses a hybrid microkernel with an integrated windowing system. They are currently on top of the desktop computing market because their technologies proved to be easy to use (and ran on SUPER CHEAP hardware), flexible, and offered decent support and compatibility for enterprises and home users. Linux has been picking up recently as a viable alternative for home computing and business. It's now on its second year of being competitive with commercial offerings (thanks to Ubuntu). New corporate interest has brought expertise and organization to the once unruly mass of hobby developers, giving linux unprecedented interoperability with mainstream technologies.
If linux is ever to take the lead, it first needs to be a proper replacement for its competition. Most users want compatibility and ease of transition moreso than whining and doomsaying. If they ever reach a point where (the now failing) Microsoft tries to use IP to hold back their ever-growing competition- if their competition is larger, they'll just get a check written for them and business will continue. They might get slight royalties at best.
What does it matter if any of these technologies originated at Microsoft. No one owns C# or Mono- C# is a specification and mono is OPEN SOURCE. Most of the technologies in linux were born of proprietary works (like all of unix-land). What does it matter if gnome supports these open specifications? It just improves interoperability!!
So you will be able to open and edit OOXML as well as ODF... why is this a bad thing? Linux is REAL. So is microsoft windows. If you want to see this corporate funding, adoption, and interest continue then don't turn your backs on supporting more technologies.
Everyone argues that Microsoft doesn't give consumers a choice by using their own standards. How is it any different if you force people into ODF/java/python without giving them the option to use Mono/C#/MS-OOXML?
The only way to replace windows is to SUPPORT EVERYTHING IT DOES and then do more, not offer awkward alternatives and claim moral superiority.
Re:I prefer the iPod Touch over the eeePC
on
Hacking Asus EEE
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· Score: 1
Yes, but- I am replying to this post on an eeepc... I do lots of schoolwork with it that require office applications. It's actually much more useful than an ipod touch for that reason. It is definitely a step up from an internet device.
They're already pretty close to supporting OOXML in openoffice, aren't they? I mean, so what if it doesn't belong to Sun, it belongs to another West Coast US company...
I think the problem is that OOXML is too hard for part time open source developers. I am sure some professionals at Sun will implement it for you, no worries. I doubt Corel is going to have any trouble with it, either.
This slashdot post is so alarmist it's borderline hilarious. Will my data vanish into hell if I use OOXML? Or will I have to open it in *gasp* a filter?
I see where you are coming from- I don't really like either in all cases. My primary concern is that gnome is better from a design and usability standpoint- more researched, more well thought out and planned- but KDE is superior technically. It's faster, smoother, uses less ram. It's just generally a more logical way to build a desktop environment. I want so badly for KDE to be a *beautiful* system, but too often I am disappointed by its default options and don't have the energy to swim upstream and change everything to the point where it's almost-gnome.
I can't get into AfterStep because I grew up on Microsoft systems- I've never used NeXT, but I've used Mac OS X. NeXT feels dead to me- and fluxbox and enlightenment are too minimal. I like a lush environment where all functionality is immediately apparent and somewhat easy.
That aside, I really like QT.
The only solution is for me to become a KDE dev, I guess. If I like what KDE does but I don't like how it does it- it's truly the only way.
As someone who has once been a member of a PS3 game development team, I can tell you that any benefit to gamers would have to be hardcoded into either the system or directX- if this usage of the cell isn't widespread, you won't see much for it. I doubt there are enough cpu-mages in the open source world to integrate it seamlessly into a linux desktop environment, either. Supporting it would be too hard for non-hardware savvy devs.
I just don't think customizability is chief to usability. Unifying concepts and designs and out-of-the-box functionality are much more important- if the customizability is wide open enough that a clueless user can accidentally customize away something useful, then the design fails.
I wish I could go more into what exactly bothers me about KDE, but it's difficult. I just feel uncomfortable when I use it- something about the over-use of organizing devices (like lists pointers, font color cases, connecting lines, separating bars...) bubbliness of letters and buttons, and overall drab in the design scheme. It feels like I am seeing too many small icons at any given time, or too many options and not enough clear usage paths across my desktop. What I am NOT doing is not hidden well enough-- i.e., the functionality is not smooth enough for my usage to be visually isolated from the rest of the desktop.
I think gnome's exacting HIG is probably tantamount to its functionality.
How? Every time I've tried gnome, I've been amazed at how restrictive and unpolished compared to my Mac. Can I hotplug monitors and dynamically rearrange my screen layout yet, or am I still going to have to hack the xorg.conf and restart every time? How much work is it going to take to set up my 10-button Bluetooth mouse and map its buttons to various actions? Is there even a GUI for that yet? I am talking about squares here and you are talking about cubes. I can't think of an X environment that actually competes with Windows or OS X. I'm presenting this as a comparison to KDE. As long as these environments are running in X11, they will always lag behind modern operating systems.
I downloaded a KDE4 livecd and found a slightly shinier, glossier kde3- i really wanted to be wowed. This is nothing like a gnome upgrade.:p Hell, it even felt klunky like kde usually does. The main problems with kde's seemingly accidental interface still exist: awkward menus and button placement and unnatural organization.
I am glad they got all these great new features, but it will be news when they catch up with gnome. You can make any computer (with 512 mb of ram or more) feel like a mac with gnome.
It's not THE MEDIA it's not THE GOVERNMENT it's the people...
It's because Ron Paul is insane. His political philosophies represent 19th century America. He talks about eliminating immigration laws and public education, health care while pushing for moving the dollar to the GOLD STANDARD. No one would collapse the world market faster.
He also talks about completely eliminating basically all taxes and funding the military with the re-1913 uniform tax.
It's the 21st century. Ron Paul is 150 years too late for his platform to work. People are not voting for him because he lives in the wild west, economically. Ron Paul fans, just move to Mexico- it perfectly embodies his governing style.
Of course, there is no viable "truly" open alternative for these sorts of technologies. This is a flash competitor. Besides, I don't think there's much chance of Microsoft quashing any home user for watching online content- this is more dangerous to commercial linux vendors than anyone else.
Actually, Microsoft shared information with Novell to develop Moonlight, which is an up and coming fully open source version of silverlight- so instead of supporting linux in a binary fashion, they have an opensource solution.
Plus, as far as I know- they intend to release the binary linux codecs for free (for media play).
What's there to lose? It's more open than flash... and it's so young yet. Let them finish developing it before you go on a tirade against it. Go to channel 9 and watch silverlight videos- compare those to flash. I think it'd make youtube ventures a lot nicer.
I believe they dumped that model due to horrible battlefield performance, etc. I am fairly certain they're switching to more high performance proprietary embedded. I won't explain why I know this.
The NSA wrote security patches, but are not accountable for terrible architectural decisions that represent base security problems. Minix (Or linus's implementation, linux) was far better as an example OS- it does not belong in businesses and definitely does not belong in the military.
The NSA did not write Unix, it was tossed together by a group of AT&T engineers- and they certainly did not kludge linux together.
A ramshackle hut is not superior to a brick house, even if they had professionals around to hand-patch the holes- it's still a mound of mud and sticks.
Very clever! Bottom level hardware that with software written by college undergrads. That's sure to move them up the security totem.
If they were clever, they'd be running their workstations with a solid defense-level OS, such as GHS INTEGRITY or one of Boeing's internal systems, while running Linux or Windows through a hypervisor for UI and usability.
The MS systems might be cheaper, since they'd save on the unix admin budget.
Slashdot Mirror
Who out there is legitimately scared of being shut down by Microsoft? Linus? His project is not in danger- he doesn't sell linux. I think the only company that could potentially get affected is Canonical.
I think Ballmer was just being a douchebag. But he's a CEO- all CEO's are douchebags (almost). Everyone at Microsoft thinks he's a douchebag, too.
She's not progressive. The point is nothing could be less progressive than re-electing a dynasty. She isn't progressive because she's so practiced and poll oriented (she didn't do anything she said she would for new york). She's also a corporate candidate, with more corporate pharmaceutical money in her pocket than any republican- and her 35 years of experience? She spent it as a corporate lawyer, much of which with Walmart. I never said she was a republican, she's a neo-liberal.
Progressive != Liberal
Non-Progressive != Republican
I would rather have a real liberal like Obama. When I say Hillary is like Bush, I am saying that she is a neo-* politician.
So how about this for you: stop pushing this "Hillary is like Obama" bullshit. I am ready for the Nixon era to end.
The statement on the company being affected rather than the consumer is correct. The reason people buy supported versions of linux is so that any major liability with the software is taken care of technically and legally by a corporation that supports the product.
Once more, linux users and open source are safe from patents- companies like Canonical have some degree of danger, but the idea of them getting sued is almost laughable. It would be terrible PR and not gain much profit or market position.
Perhaps that was Ballmer's intention. Now-a-days, they advertise interoperability on Windows Server's site. It's just not a market for "individualist" systems. So, I feel like the Novell partnership brought the dealings a bit more above the belt.
Warm and fuzzy community feelings aside, they patch up and sell work that is the product of free labor primarily by those who feel religiously compelled to write it. They do this to cut the costs of something in short supply, time and talent. They share a tiny shred of competency that keeps open source products moving, all profiting more than they are contributing.
Linux co's make money when what they make is different than that which is open and free- so rather than contributing, they profit by separating and stabilizing branches of free software. It's very non-Gnu. The marketing basically states that they are giving you something different for your money.
I believe Xenix was the first real "friendly" unix. It took some magic to get something like unix running on ultra low-end x86/pc hardware, so they are owed some credit. I don't think these patents are any danger to linux, as a whole- but I think Microsoft may have some random patents it could theoretically pull out of a hat and cause brief legal controversy. It's bad PR, though.
How would Linus even know if some random contributor submitted Xenix code? Linus doesn't deal with any legal issues- the major linux co's do. What linus does does not garner law suits. He writes a kernel.
I won't go to some random open source zealot site for my information on the patents. I am fairly certain SCO does have some grounds for having created random things like virtual terminals, a friendly install process, and laying much of the groundwork for Unix on the 386 architecture. I just don't think these patents will do any damage to the horde.
The patents are too obvious. Apple lost its lawsuit against Microsoft "stealing" the idea of the GUI for this very reason.
Linus writes kernels- actually, a single kernel. He does not write text books, news articles, or legal documents. His guess is as good as yours or mine as to what Microsoft's intentions are.
Wait, scratch that. Mine is better- I am not an engineer.
The patents involve Xenix. Look it up sometime, it may seem oddly familiar.
However, I believe he's right in saying linux is not in any danger. It isn't- the only companies that might get pricked by these patents are commercial enterprises who are profiteering off of peoples' open source work. (see: the companies that Microsoft has signed patent treaties with)
I half-way agree. I am pro-Obama, but I think I have every reason to hate Hillary. The fact of the matter is that we've got a republican in the democrat field looking to cock-block progress by using a well-known "democrat" name.
If Hillary wins the nomination, it will be impossible to have a real progressive democrat president for four years. If she wins the presidency, then it will be impossible to have a real progressive for eight years.
Imagine another eight years of Bush politics. Remember, Hillary is pro-censorship, security, war, executive power, and secrecy. I think she's more like Bush than McCain.
That's just paranoid. When something is standardized, it's standardized. I don't see too many lawsuits over OpenOffice (Sun) supporting Word 97/2000/XP formats.
Apple certainly didn't have too much trouble implementing OOXML for TextEdit, either. Neither has Novell or Corel. Almost every innovation in the tech industry starts out at one company or another- even Unix is from Bell Labs.
The only reason Microsoft has had law suits against the open source world at all is because of how many desktop unix technologies were blatantly gouged from Xenix- and that's over. It didn't work out and now they seem to be working towards interoperability, which is simply business. Do you think companies like Novell and Sun do not have legal departments? Do you honestly think they're unknowingly walking into the dark and evil plans of some moderate sized tech company in Seattle?
There is a world outside of the desktop computing world. Microsoft is a medium sized fish and it is staying relevant by pushing standards that they believe they can outpace their competitors with. There's a major game in innovation. Was Sun the only Java provider? No, but they were certainly the most notable.
Reality: Microsoft is a fairly large and well grounded technology firm in Seattle. Their major product is a VMS-based operating system which uses a hybrid microkernel with an integrated windowing system. They are currently on top of the desktop computing market because their technologies proved to be easy to use (and ran on SUPER CHEAP hardware), flexible, and offered decent support and compatibility for enterprises and home users. Linux has been picking up recently as a viable alternative for home computing and business. It's now on its second year of being competitive with commercial offerings (thanks to Ubuntu). New corporate interest has brought expertise and organization to the once unruly mass of hobby developers, giving linux unprecedented interoperability with mainstream technologies.
If linux is ever to take the lead, it first needs to be a proper replacement for its competition. Most users want compatibility and ease of transition moreso than whining and doomsaying. If they ever reach a point where (the now failing) Microsoft tries to use IP to hold back their ever-growing competition- if their competition is larger, they'll just get a check written for them and business will continue. They might get slight royalties at best.
Ooooo SINISTER.
What does it matter if any of these technologies originated at Microsoft. No one owns C# or Mono- C# is a specification and mono is OPEN SOURCE. Most of the technologies in linux were born of proprietary works (like all of unix-land). What does it matter if gnome supports these open specifications? It just improves interoperability!!
So you will be able to open and edit OOXML as well as ODF... why is this a bad thing? Linux is REAL. So is microsoft windows. If you want to see this corporate funding, adoption, and interest continue then don't turn your backs on supporting more technologies.
Everyone argues that Microsoft doesn't give consumers a choice by using their own standards. How is it any different if you force people into ODF/java/python without giving them the option to use Mono/C#/MS-OOXML?
The only way to replace windows is to SUPPORT EVERYTHING IT DOES and then do more, not offer awkward alternatives and claim moral superiority.
Yes, but- I am replying to this post on an eeepc... I do lots of schoolwork with it that require office applications. It's actually much more useful than an ipod touch for that reason. It is definitely a step up from an internet device.
They're already pretty close to supporting OOXML in openoffice, aren't they? I mean, so what if it doesn't belong to Sun, it belongs to another West Coast US company...
I think the problem is that OOXML is too hard for part time open source developers. I am sure some professionals at Sun will implement it for you, no worries. I doubt Corel is going to have any trouble with it, either.
This slashdot post is so alarmist it's borderline hilarious. Will my data vanish into hell if I use OOXML? Or will I have to open it in *gasp* a filter?
I see where you are coming from- I don't really like either in all cases. My primary concern is that gnome is better from a design and usability standpoint- more researched, more well thought out and planned- but KDE is superior technically. It's faster, smoother, uses less ram. It's just generally a more logical way to build a desktop environment. I want so badly for KDE to be a *beautiful* system, but too often I am disappointed by its default options and don't have the energy to swim upstream and change everything to the point where it's almost-gnome.
I can't get into AfterStep because I grew up on Microsoft systems- I've never used NeXT, but I've used Mac OS X. NeXT feels dead to me- and fluxbox and enlightenment are too minimal. I like a lush environment where all functionality is immediately apparent and somewhat easy.
That aside, I really like QT.
The only solution is for me to become a KDE dev, I guess. If I like what KDE does but I don't like how it does it- it's truly the only way.
As someone who has once been a member of a PS3 game development team, I can tell you that any benefit to gamers would have to be hardcoded into either the system or directX- if this usage of the cell isn't widespread, you won't see much for it. I doubt there are enough cpu-mages in the open source world to integrate it seamlessly into a linux desktop environment, either. Supporting it would be too hard for non-hardware savvy devs.
I just don't think customizability is chief to usability. Unifying concepts and designs and out-of-the-box functionality are much more important- if the customizability is wide open enough that a clueless user can accidentally customize away something useful, then the design fails.
I wish I could go more into what exactly bothers me about KDE, but it's difficult. I just feel uncomfortable when I use it- something about the over-use of organizing devices (like lists pointers, font color cases, connecting lines, separating bars...) bubbliness of letters and buttons, and overall drab in the design scheme. It feels like I am seeing too many small icons at any given time, or too many options and not enough clear usage paths across my desktop. What I am NOT doing is not hidden well enough-- i.e., the functionality is not smooth enough for my usage to be visually isolated from the rest of the desktop.
I think gnome's exacting HIG is probably tantamount to its functionality.
I downloaded a KDE4 livecd and found a slightly shinier, glossier kde3- i really wanted to be wowed. This is nothing like a gnome upgrade. :p Hell, it even felt klunky like kde usually does. The main problems with kde's seemingly accidental interface still exist: awkward menus and button placement and unnatural organization.
I am glad they got all these great new features, but it will be news when they catch up with gnome. You can make any computer (with 512 mb of ram or more) feel like a mac with gnome.
I think every libertarian needs to watch the theoretical political think-piece "Mad Max" before they start discounting the importance of government.
It's not THE MEDIA it's not THE GOVERNMENT it's the people...
It's because Ron Paul is insane. His political philosophies represent 19th century America. He talks about eliminating immigration laws and public education, health care while pushing for moving the dollar to the GOLD STANDARD. No one would collapse the world market faster.
He also talks about completely eliminating basically all taxes and funding the military with the re-1913 uniform tax.
It's the 21st century. Ron Paul is 150 years too late for his platform to work. People are not voting for him because he lives in the wild west, economically. Ron Paul fans, just move to Mexico- it perfectly embodies his governing style.
Of course, there is no viable "truly" open alternative for these sorts of technologies. This is a flash competitor. Besides, I don't think there's much chance of Microsoft quashing any home user for watching online content- this is more dangerous to commercial linux vendors than anyone else.
Actually, Microsoft shared information with Novell to develop Moonlight, which is an up and coming fully open source version of silverlight- so instead of supporting linux in a binary fashion, they have an opensource solution.
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
Plus, as far as I know- they intend to release the binary linux codecs for free (for media play).
What's there to lose? It's more open than flash... and it's so young yet. Let them finish developing it before you go on a tirade against it. Go to channel 9 and watch silverlight videos- compare those to flash. I think it'd make youtube ventures a lot nicer.
I believe they dumped that model due to horrible battlefield performance, etc. I am fairly certain they're switching to more high performance proprietary embedded. I won't explain why I know this.
The NSA wrote security patches, but are not accountable for terrible architectural decisions that represent base security problems. Minix (Or linus's implementation, linux) was far better as an example OS- it does not belong in businesses and definitely does not belong in the military.
The NSA did not write Unix, it was tossed together by a group of AT&T engineers- and they certainly did not kludge linux together.
A ramshackle hut is not superior to a brick house, even if they had professionals around to hand-patch the holes- it's still a mound of mud and sticks.
Very clever! Bottom level hardware that with software written by college undergrads. That's sure to move them up the security totem.
If they were clever, they'd be running their workstations with a solid defense-level OS, such as GHS INTEGRITY or one of Boeing's internal systems, while running Linux or Windows through a hypervisor for UI and usability.
The MS systems might be cheaper, since they'd save on the unix admin budget.