To my understanding they have a working linux port, but don't want to expand their market...
As buggy as windows may be, it's pretty easy for a game company to provide tech support for a game running on windows. Any high school kid can sit at the helpdesk with one page of instructions and answer the phone.
For linux though, giving support to end user applications is much harder. Which distribution is involved? Sounds trivial to the average/advanced linux user, but for a helpdesk it introduces a ton of options. You and I know where to look for config files on slack/debian/rh/suse boxes, but the average windows oriented high school kid doesn't. It takes more advanced knowledge to tinker with linux boxes, which means it's more expensive for them.
Not only the distribution plays a role... think about different hardware, X(free) versions, package managers, libraries, and so on and so on.
Remember the hassle about a certain company releasing their software as RedHat rpm's?
I wouldn't worry about lawyers yet, maybe they're just making empty threats at this point. You can have *them* do the hard work by waiting. They'll consult a lawyer and ask 'em if they even have a case. If their lawyer doesn't think so, it saves you the work and money.
There's no reason to worry until they sue you anyways. Once they sue you, you can start worrying about it and look for a good lawyer.
In the meanwhile, I'd reply to them that you don't agree with them, don't think your website is infringing their trademark, that it's a free service for their students, they only benefit from your website etcetc. Just to stay polite:)
Imho they're kinda stupid for shooting at someone who offers their customers free service.
Your suggestion was made by more people, I've sent it to debian-devel with the idea of installable ISO beta snapshots of the current unstable tree. These snapshots would be made like every 2 or 3 months and should not have any dependency conflicts.
Hang in there, I think somebody's picking up this job.
Installable snapshots of the beta tree available on CD isn't a bad idea. How are these distributed? Did you suggest this to the right people? (i.e. debian-devel)
don't force them to install an old distribution and then replace all those packages over a 56K modem.
You don't need to install full slink and then upgrade all those packages to potato, all you need is the base system and then install potato rightaway. The base system is like 8 megabyte.
Hello. I'd like to inform you of the current partially beta system of Debian. It's called potato and is available on every debian ftp mirror.
Seriously though. I've ran potato since its name appeared on the debian servers. I've had *no* problems with it and my box has been running all the time.
The problem is that most people use apt-get update && apt-get upgrade to upgrade their potato system. While apt-get is a great program and has very useful features, it gives very little control. I *always* use dselect for updates. In dselect, you can see which packages are updated, and it'll tell you about dependency conflicts before it starts to change anything.
I've never seen a dependency conflict that lasted longer than a week. Most are solved within a day. In case I encounter a dependency problem, I just wait with upgrading until it's fixed. Most of the time it's not necessary to upgrade to the latest minor version of whatever package.
Microsoft talks about their wonderful innovation a whole lot, while in fact, I can't think of one thing they really invented (besides NetBeui... and we know how wonderful THAT is)
Instead, it has swallowed, destroyed or bought influence in companies that were innovative. Read this list to search for your favorite Microsoft product and see who really invented it!
Also, Microsoft really likes throwing with unrelated figures to prove their point. Like: The software world is very competitive, 1 million people are working in this wonderful business, how can we have a monopoly.
They forget to mention that those 1 million people are forced to compete eachother on Microsoft platforms.
Grandma's not likely to be using the Internet comfortably, for a while yet at least. Nor are many Aboriginals, the unemployed, and other disadvantaged groups.
This is a non-argument; Many grandmas aren't likely to go down to the booth either, because they're too old to go there. Many people can't read so can't vote. The "disadvantaged groups" can go down to the booth anyways (if they already could).
Software is inherently unreliable - despite people's best efforts. What would happen if a glitch caused votes to be lost or wrongly attributed?
Nonsense, can check, doublecheck and triplecheck. Votes can't get lost if you store 'em on multiple servers. Can't be wrongly attributed if you write the right routine. That's not a very hard thing to do, would take a good programmer less than an hour;). Could even come up with a system where the voter gets confirmation from a different server then he/she voted on.
You did, however, miss one argument against online voting, you can't touch it, can't prove it, it's not on paper anywhere. Like emails can hardly be evidence in a lawsuit (can easily produce them), it'd be quite hard to see an electronic vote and say, "Yeah, this one is really mine, look, it's my signature".
We (In the Netherlands) have by computer for years now (not online, but at the booth) so you can't touch it either. The biggest advantage is that the votes are processed way faster, we know the result an hour after the last booth closes.
Computers by the booth? Man, we've had that for years!
On a more serious note, I think that (if it'd be secure) internet voting would be a great thing, more and more people tend not to vote because they're busy, don't have time, weren't in the neighbourhood, whatever excuses.
With internet voting, you can vote whenever you want, and wherever you want, as long as there's an internet connection.
Like all there is is Compaq hardware. If you had said something like decent hardware, i would've believed the story about the clustered Domino server as well.
There's one big difference though. Anyone with an old 486 and the required knowledge can write Open Source Software and become a hacker. With Open Source, everyone benefits. The original author gets a better product due to bug fixes and patches done by others, the users also get a better product and for free.
I don't see a billion of people worldwide do their genetic manipulation experiments on the kitchen table though. (I mean with seeds, mind ya! Duh! *CROP* seeds! Leave the women out of it for once;) *snicker*)
So in this case, what would be the advantage for the corporation if the farmer could distribute the seeds for free?
As I read it, anyone with access to my computer (or maybe even just my identifier!?) could easily order whatever they want from amazon.com.
I don't think there'll ever be a really safe internet payment system, unless it involves physical identifiers like (chip)cards, fingerprints or voice recognition.
Most people will be hit by their Big Brother nerve though.
Doncha think other countries would've developped something of their own just like they did? Man, the internet would've existed w/o the usa too, it's a logical evolution of computing technologies.
Slashdot Mirror
As buggy as windows may be, it's pretty easy for a game company to provide tech support for a game running on windows. Any high school kid can sit at the helpdesk with one page of instructions and answer the phone.
For linux though, giving support to end user applications is much harder. Which distribution is involved? Sounds trivial to the average/advanced linux user, but for a helpdesk it introduces a ton of options. You and I know where to look for config files on slack/debian/rh/suse boxes, but the average windows oriented high school kid doesn't. It takes more advanced knowledge to tinker with linux boxes, which means it's more expensive for them.
Not only the distribution plays a role... think about different hardware, X(free) versions, package managers, libraries, and so on and so on.
Remember the hassle about a certain company releasing their software as RedHat rpm's?
I wouldn't worry about lawyers yet, maybe they're just making empty threats at this point. You can have *them* do the hard work by waiting. They'll consult a lawyer and ask 'em if they even have a case. If their lawyer doesn't think so, it saves you the work and money.
:)
There's no reason to worry until they sue you anyways. Once they sue you, you can start worrying about it and look for a good lawyer.
In the meanwhile, I'd reply to them that you don't agree with them, don't think your website is infringing their trademark, that it's a free service for their students, they only benefit from your website etcetc. Just to stay polite
Imho they're kinda stupid for shooting at someone who offers their customers free service.
Your suggestion was made by more people, I've sent it to debian-devel with the idea of installable ISO beta snapshots of the current unstable tree. These snapshots would be made like every 2 or 3 months and should not have any dependency conflicts.
Hang in there, I think somebody's picking up this job.
Installable snapshots of the beta tree available on CD isn't a bad idea. How are these distributed? Did you suggest this to the right people? (i.e. debian-devel)
You don't need to install full slink and then upgrade all those packages to potato, all you need is the base system and then install potato rightaway. The base system is like 8 megabyte.
Hello. I'd like to inform you of the current partially beta system of Debian. It's called potato and is available on every debian ftp mirror.
Seriously though. I've ran potato since its name appeared on the debian servers. I've had *no* problems with it and my box has been running all the time.
The problem is that most people use apt-get update && apt-get upgrade to upgrade their potato system. While apt-get is a great program and has very useful features, it gives very little control. I *always* use dselect for updates. In dselect, you can see which packages are updated, and it'll tell you about dependency conflicts before it starts to change anything.
I've never seen a dependency conflict that lasted longer than a week. Most are solved within a day. In case I encounter a dependency problem, I just wait with upgrading until it's fixed. Most of the time it's not necessary to upgrade to the latest minor version of whatever package.
Microsoft talks about their wonderful innovation a whole lot, while in fact, I can't think of one thing they really invented (besides NetBeui... and we know how wonderful THAT is)
Instead, it has swallowed, destroyed or bought influence in companies that were innovative. Read
this list to search for your favorite Microsoft product and see who really invented it!
Also, Microsoft really likes throwing with unrelated figures to prove their point. Like: The software world is very competitive, 1 million people are working in this wonderful business, how can we have a monopoly.
They forget to mention that those 1 million people are forced to compete eachother on Microsoft platforms.
This is a non-argument; Many grandmas aren't likely to go down to the booth either, because they're too old to go there. Many people can't read so can't vote. The "disadvantaged groups" can go down to the booth anyways (if they already could).
glitch caused votes to be lost or wrongly attributed?
Nonsense, can check, doublecheck and triplecheck. Votes can't get lost if you store 'em on multiple servers. Can't be wrongly attributed if you write the right routine. That's not a very hard thing to do, would take a good programmer less than an hour
You did, however, miss one argument against online voting, you can't touch it, can't prove it, it's not on paper anywhere. Like emails can hardly be evidence in a lawsuit (can easily produce them), it'd be quite hard to see an electronic vote and say, "Yeah, this one is really mine, look, it's my signature".
We (In the Netherlands) have by computer for years now (not online, but at the booth) so you can't touch it either. The biggest advantage is that the votes are processed way faster, we know the result an hour after the last booth closes.
Computers by the booth? Man, we've had that for years!
On a more serious note, I think that (if it'd be secure) internet voting would be a great thing, more and more people tend not to vote because they're busy, don't have time, weren't in the neighbourhood, whatever excuses.
With internet voting, you can vote whenever you want, and wherever you want, as long as there's an internet connection.
A sorta workable solution for this particular problem would be to disallow any packages going to DoubleClick.net on the firewall level.
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.207.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.208.0/24 -j REJECT
That way you won't get the banners and you won't send information to DoubleClick.net.
(Shamelessly stolen from Rusty Russel's ipchains-HOWTO)
Like all there is is Compaq hardware. If you had said something like decent hardware, i would've believed the story about the clustered Domino server as well.
There's one big difference though. Anyone with an old 486 and the required knowledge can write Open Source Software and become a hacker. With Open Source, everyone benefits. The original author gets a better product due to bug fixes and patches done by others, the users also get a better product and for free.
;) *snicker*)
I don't see a billion of people worldwide do their genetic manipulation experiments on the kitchen table though. (I mean with seeds, mind ya! Duh! *CROP* seeds! Leave the women out of it for once
So in this case, what would be the advantage for the corporation if the farmer could distribute the seeds for free?
I'm glad the market had the power in this case
As I read it, anyone with access to my computer (or maybe even just my identifier!?) could easily order whatever they want from amazon.com.
I don't think there'll ever be a really safe internet payment system, unless it involves physical identifiers like (chip)cards, fingerprints or voice recognition.
Most people will be hit by their Big Brother nerve though.
Think you gotta try VERY HARD to get 100-200 MB of upgrades. Count right next time.
Man get a clue... I ermm hmm laughed my pants off about that :P Or is that offensive too??
Where do you live anyways? Don't people have sex there? Heh.
Doncha think other countries would've developped something of their own just like they did?
Man, the internet would've existed w/o the usa too, it's a logical evolution of computing technologies.
Geez man,
Linus ain't some god or something... just a guy who used his brain and happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I appreciate his efforts and linux a lot, but if Linus would die tomorrow, the show would go on.
Faking someone's email address sure is lame. It happens. Life goes on. Big deal.