Rate? If you have say 20 users, it's easy to get to 40 users and report 100% growth. Microsoft can never report any significant growth, because they own 90% of the market.
While it's true that smaller sample sizes are prone to more error, a growth of 90% to 91% is the same number of people as 1% to 2%. I also still don't see a correlation between growth rate which is what I was talking about, and Windows currently (that's a snapshot of Jan 2k8) having 90% and Linux having.6% once again - 2k8. That especially in light of the data in the article you gave (linked below)
It's the classic false reasoning of expecting trends to continue forever.
When was it that I said the trend would continue forever? I know I said "things look even more bleak for MS now unless they can get things together with Vista or at least Windows 7" - which means the trend will continue until Microsoft does something valuable with one of its upcoming products, not that it will continue forever.
To both of you (or as I somewhat suspect you twice Golias) This trend isn't a one month thing. In fact here is the raw data linked to by the article you, yourself chose out. As you can see the trend is not limited to a single month. Windows has shrunk to a 90.46% share today from a 94.16% share November 2k6. The shrink has been quite consistent. Linux has grown from a paltry 0.37% share to 0.71% today and Mac has gone from 5.39% to 8.21%. Every one of these changes may jump around a bit month-to-month but the overall trend is very apparent. Unless MS gets its act together there's little reason that won't continue.
Wow. You mean MS might have to continue to limp along with a mere 91.8 percent market share!?
Balmer must be totally losing bowel control over the whopping 0.63% of users who roll with some flavor of Linux.
(Going by web-use stats, Linux is currently in 4th place behind "other", but don't let the numbers get in the way of a good story. Curl up with your ragged copy of In the Beginning There Was the Command Line and you'll feel better about the inevitable Free Software revolution.)
I'm not quite sure if you're trolling or just completely misrepresenting what this conversation is about. We're talking about the adaptation of Windows Vista, not MS on the whole. Within that 91.8% of the market share you quoted, there are a very large number of people who aren't willing to switch to Vista from XP and because of the poor support and large system requirements there is a lot of attrition to other operating systems.
Even the article you quoted says:
Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows still dominates, with a 91.8% share as measured by the Web metrics company. But it lost ground in December, as it has for seven of the past 11 months.
The Mac OS share, by contrast, grew 7.4% in the past month, nearly double November's rate.[...]
The Linux operating system also showed strong growth (up better than 10% to hit a.63% share)
This is also what we're talking about... the change rate, not the market share.
Sure MS may have been worried about OS X in 2005, but the problem runs much deeper now. Let's take a look back:
In 2005, Mac OS X was available and rating "better" as a desktop environment in many places, but in order to "upgrade" to OS X, it required purchase of all new hardware.
by 2008, Mac had adopted Intel x86-based processors and expanded support into the realm formerly controlled only by PC. While technically you still need to upgrade to Mac hardware according to the Mac OS X EULA, the validity of that claim is currently being questioned. Additionally Ubuntu and other Linux distros that make setup easy and are very user-friendly have started spawning and are also beginning to take a significant chunk out of MS's market share.
There may have been signs of things to come in 2005, but thinks look even more bleak for MS now unless they can get things together with Vista or at least Windows 7.
Uh, yes? The more specific the documentation, the more work has to be done to verify it. I'm not sure how many million LOCs are in the Linux kernel but if I had to go through EAL6+ semi-formal proofs for all of them I'd charge a bundle too. Are you really trying to imply that NSA issue this sham certification because they're short on funding?
I never made the assertion that the NSA is wrong to charge money for their services or that this is in any way a "sham certificate." I was responding to the parent and grandparent - specifically with the grandparent saying he didn't trust a certification where Windows is on equal grounds as Linux.
Stop trying to pretend that all the "experimental support" that goes into Linux could or should pass certification, because it damn well shouldn't. Certainly not on based on a casual "it's probably capable" that's quite frankly pulled out of your nethers with no documentation to back it up.
Once again I didn't make the assertion that Linux should pass certification for higher levels, simply that it probably could pass with few or no updates - "few" being relative to what Windows may require for the same certification and depending heavily on what hardware the underlying system is running, the actual kernel being used, the GUI placed overtop, the additional software installed, ad infinium.) I don't doubt there are problems with the OS, I agree we shouldn't forgo testing on blind faith and just give it the next level, and I think by no means do I think Linux should be given preferential treatment as far as pricing goes.
In fact, the only point I wanted to make to the grandparent of my original post is that EAL is basically a testing procedure with a related certification and there are reasons Linux "performs" identically to Windows on this particular scale.
Indeed, I was looking at that too and some interesting points from the wiki article:
To achieve a particular EAL, the computer system must meet specific assurance requirements. Most of these requirements involve design documentation, design analysis, functional testing, or penetration testing. The higher EALs involve more detailed documentation, analysis, and testing than the lower ones. Achieving a higher EAL certification generally costs more money and takes more time than achieving a lower one. The EAL number assigned to a certified system indicates that the system completed all requirements for that level. [...]
Technically speaking, a higher EAL means nothing more, or less, than that the evaluation completed a more stringent set of quality assurance requirements. It is often assumed that a system that achieves a higher EAL will provide its security features more reliably (and the required third-party analysis and testing performed by security experts is reasonable evidence in this direction), but there is little or no published evidence to support that assumption.
So basically it costs money to get EAL verified, and the farther up the scale you go, the more money it costs to run the testing. So even if a Linux distro wanted to be verified at a higher level - who's going to fork over the dough?
Additionally this seems to be a hired method of testing and bug report/fixing. Just because they fix the bugs found at one "level" of testing does not mean there aren't missed holes. Additionally it doesn't mean that a well written piece of software isn't capable of a higher rating with little or no fixes (like the Linux kernel probably is.)
It is impressive that Integrity-178B achieved the EAL-6+ rating because it has definitely been put through its paces... and due to the way it was designed it probably has very few holes in it, but EAL should definitely not be the end-all be-all judge of OS quality.
SETI@home gets 495 teraFLOPS, according to this site: http://boincstats.com/stats/project_graph.php?pr=sah
Sure, it's not one supercomputer, but it still does more calculations for one purpose than any other single supercomputer can.
While I can't see the actual article, if the summary is correct than most of the top 6 computers run faster than that. While it's an impressive feat for SETI, there are faster computers in a single unit now.
You know, while this project is truly a great idea and a very noble cause, they're really bogging themselves down with the way it's being marketed.
On one hand it's good that each sale for the OLPC project sells two laptops, but at the same time they're not in any way shape or form selling to the lower-class and even a lot of the middle class demographics that may need it in more developed countries it's being marketed to. Of course you're going to get sales from wealthy individuals, but think about everyone living paycheck to paycheck that probably doesn't have $200 to just blow on some random "toy" for their kid. Even in the middle-class where they may have the money to spend, but not a huge amount extra... are they really going to spend $400 bucks on an OLPC, or are they going to look at an Eee PC at almost half the cost for some models, or the MSI Wind at just a smidgen more?
Plus there is now a plethora of ultra low-power, low-cost, ultra mobile computers on the market. Again, I love the nobility of the project, but I think it's time to open it up to $200 per computer with optional monetary donation towards another computer. I bet with the extra sales made it will get about the same number of donated PC's abroad while keeping the production numbers up and the project alive. After all, there's no help at all without this project so why not do the best to keep it afloat.
Of course Obama was given better treatment in the media... he had far more money to spend ON the media.
This election cycle saw more money going to the candidates than any other and Obama had about a 2:1 lead in fundraising, so is it really a surprise he had better page real estate or more positive coverage in general?
Re:The Story of the Semantic Web--Slashdot Style!
on
Untangling Web Information
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I don't think it has changed anything yet . However in order to get a fully functional semantic organizer you have to teach a computer English first, then tell it to search. English is my own native tongue so I personally don't remember learning it, however I do have several friends that learned later in life and it was a bear teaching them grammatical exceptions and expressions that do not have consistent meaning (and there are a ton of them.)
Computers are getting closer and can "understand" some basic phrases and grammar, but on the whole remain mostly useless because of everything they miss. I think semantic internet implementations are possible, but the reason it hasn't changed anyone's life is that it's still a long ways off.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just waiting for ABC's next upgrade to SEXY, ACTION NEWS
It's panda bear fun time!!!
That gives me an idea...
I wonder if the lolspiderz domain is taken.
Was it a genetically modified spider?
Was Peter Parker on assignment?
Rate? If you have say 20 users, it's easy to get to 40 users and report 100% growth. Microsoft can never report any significant growth, because they own 90% of the market.
While it's true that smaller sample sizes are prone to more error, a growth of 90% to 91% is the same number of people as 1% to 2%. I also still don't see a correlation between growth rate which is what I was talking about, and Windows currently (that's a snapshot of Jan 2k8) having 90% and Linux having .6% once again - 2k8. That especially in light of the data in the article you gave (linked below)
It's the classic false reasoning of expecting trends to continue forever.
When was it that I said the trend would continue forever? I know I said "things look even more bleak for MS now unless they can get things together with Vista or at least Windows 7" - which means the trend will continue until Microsoft does something valuable with one of its upcoming products, not that it will continue forever.
To both of you (or as I somewhat suspect you twice Golias) This trend isn't a one month thing. In fact here is the raw data linked to by the article you, yourself chose out. As you can see the trend is not limited to a single month. Windows has shrunk to a 90.46% share today from a 94.16% share November 2k6. The shrink has been quite consistent. Linux has grown from a paltry 0.37% share to 0.71% today and Mac has gone from 5.39% to 8.21%. Every one of these changes may jump around a bit month-to-month but the overall trend is very apparent. Unless MS gets its act together there's little reason that won't continue.
Wow. You mean MS might have to continue to limp along with a mere 91.8 percent market share!?
Balmer must be totally losing bowel control over the whopping 0.63% of users who roll with some flavor of Linux.
(Going by web-use stats, Linux is currently in 4th place behind "other", but don't let the numbers get in the way of a good story. Curl up with your ragged copy of In the Beginning There Was the Command Line and you'll feel better about the inevitable Free Software revolution.)
I'm not quite sure if you're trolling or just completely misrepresenting what this conversation is about. We're talking about the adaptation of Windows Vista, not MS on the whole. Within that 91.8% of the market share you quoted, there are a very large number of people who aren't willing to switch to Vista from XP and because of the poor support and large system requirements there is a lot of attrition to other operating systems.
Even the article you quoted says:
Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows still dominates, with a 91.8% share as measured by the Web metrics company. But it lost ground in December, as it has for seven of the past 11 months.
.63% share)
The Mac OS share, by contrast, grew 7.4% in the past month, nearly double November's rate.[...]
The Linux operating system also showed strong growth (up better than 10% to hit a
This is also what we're talking about... the change rate, not the market share.
Sure MS may have been worried about OS X in 2005, but the problem runs much deeper now. Let's take a look back:
In 2005, Mac OS X was available and rating "better" as a desktop environment in many places, but in order to "upgrade" to OS X, it required purchase of all new hardware.
by 2008, Mac had adopted Intel x86-based processors and expanded support into the realm formerly controlled only by PC. While technically you still need to upgrade to Mac hardware according to the Mac OS X EULA, the validity of that claim is currently being questioned. Additionally Ubuntu and other Linux distros that make setup easy and are very user-friendly have started spawning and are also beginning to take a significant chunk out of MS's market share.
There may have been signs of things to come in 2005, but thinks look even more bleak for MS now unless they can get things together with Vista or at least Windows 7.
Uh, yes? The more specific the documentation, the more work has to be done to verify it. I'm not sure how many million LOCs are in the Linux kernel but if I had to go through EAL6+ semi-formal proofs for all of them I'd charge a bundle too. Are you really trying to imply that NSA issue this sham certification because they're short on funding?
I never made the assertion that the NSA is wrong to charge money for their services or that this is in any way a "sham certificate." I was responding to the parent and grandparent - specifically with the grandparent saying he didn't trust a certification where Windows is on equal grounds as Linux.
Stop trying to pretend that all the "experimental support" that goes into Linux could or should pass certification, because it damn well shouldn't. Certainly not on based on a casual "it's probably capable" that's quite frankly pulled out of your nethers with no documentation to back it up.
Once again I didn't make the assertion that Linux should pass certification for higher levels, simply that it probably could pass with few or no updates - "few" being relative to what Windows may require for the same certification and depending heavily on what hardware the underlying system is running, the actual kernel being used, the GUI placed overtop, the additional software installed, ad infinium.) I don't doubt there are problems with the OS, I agree we shouldn't forgo testing on blind faith and just give it the next level, and I think by no means do I think Linux should be given preferential treatment as far as pricing goes.
In fact, the only point I wanted to make to the grandparent of my original post is that EAL is basically a testing procedure with a related certification and there are reasons Linux "performs" identically to Windows on this particular scale.
How we can we know this article is truthful? Can we really trust the author? He's a con man, after all.
You're right, nothing said above is valid...
Say... did you drop your wallet?
To achieve a particular EAL, the computer system must meet specific assurance requirements. Most of these requirements involve design documentation, design analysis, functional testing, or penetration testing. The higher EALs involve more detailed documentation, analysis, and testing than the lower ones. Achieving a higher EAL certification generally costs more money and takes more time than achieving a lower one. The EAL number assigned to a certified system indicates that the system completed all requirements for that level.
[...]
Technically speaking, a higher EAL means nothing more, or less, than that the evaluation completed a more stringent set of quality assurance requirements. It is often assumed that a system that achieves a higher EAL will provide its security features more reliably (and the required third-party analysis and testing performed by security experts is reasonable evidence in this direction), but there is little or no published evidence to support that assumption.
So basically it costs money to get EAL verified, and the farther up the scale you go, the more money it costs to run the testing. So even if a Linux distro wanted to be verified at a higher level - who's going to fork over the dough?
Additionally this seems to be a hired method of testing and bug report/fixing. Just because they fix the bugs found at one "level" of testing does not mean there aren't missed holes. Additionally it doesn't mean that a well written piece of software isn't capable of a higher rating with little or no fixes (like the Linux kernel probably is.) It is impressive that Integrity-178B achieved the EAL-6+ rating because it has definitely been put through its paces... and due to the way it was designed it probably has very few holes in it, but EAL should definitely not be the end-all be-all judge of OS quality.
Here's a related article with covers more details about the list
Hmm, no, the summary does not say that at all. Maybe you misread the '500'? ;)
Come again? FTS:
The top two both break the Petaflops barrier
AKA 1000 TeraFlops.
The top six all run in excess of 400 Teraflops.
(I don't know how many are over the 500Tflop barrier but those are the computers between the 1PetaFlop and 400Tflop mark. ;-)
Only the top 23 run Vista well.
And Crysis is still to find acceptable hardware.
SETI@home gets 495 teraFLOPS, according to this site: http://boincstats.com/stats/project_graph.php?pr=sah
Sure, it's not one supercomputer, but it still does more calculations for one purpose than any other single supercomputer can.
While I can't see the actual article, if the summary is correct than most of the top 6 computers run faster than that. While it's an impressive feat for SETI, there are faster computers in a single unit now.
has the Top 500 Supercomputer List been slashdotted already?
Indeed... sure they hosted the list on a Cray supercomputer, but due to budget cuts they hooked it up to a 56k modem.
You know, while this project is truly a great idea and a very noble cause, they're really bogging themselves down with the way it's being marketed.
On one hand it's good that each sale for the OLPC project sells two laptops, but at the same time they're not in any way shape or form selling to the lower-class and even a lot of the middle class demographics that may need it in more developed countries it's being marketed to. Of course you're going to get sales from wealthy individuals, but think about everyone living paycheck to paycheck that probably doesn't have $200 to just blow on some random "toy" for their kid. Even in the middle-class where they may have the money to spend, but not a huge amount extra... are they really going to spend $400 bucks on an OLPC, or are they going to look at an Eee PC at almost half the cost for some models, or the MSI Wind at just a smidgen more?
Plus there is now a plethora of ultra low-power, low-cost, ultra mobile computers on the market. Again, I love the nobility of the project, but I think it's time to open it up to $200 per computer with optional monetary donation towards another computer. I bet with the extra sales made it will get about the same number of donated PC's abroad while keeping the production numbers up and the project alive. After all, there's no help at all without this project so why not do the best to keep it afloat.
OHMYGODWHAT HAVE WE LET THEM CREATE?!?
Begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism!
oh yeah well:
Der ver three peanuts, valking down dah strassel, and von vas... assaulted...
peanut.
Take that!
Hey, I loved my Voodoo 5 6000 until the day it was never shipped to me.
Of course Obama was given better treatment in the media... he had far more money to spend ON the media.
This election cycle saw more money going to the candidates than any other and Obama had about a 2:1 lead in fundraising, so is it really a surprise he had better page real estate or more positive coverage in general?
Money talks.
Can it run Crysis?
run crysis?
With how hot that thing gets it is crysis!!
In fairness it looks like they're on the way to developing a solar panel that can power this laptop
The [Qosmio] X305-Q706 costs $1,999 US (£1,257) in the US, although we haven't seen any UK pricing on the laptops yet.
I think I saw UK pricing on that somewhere... oh yeah:
The [Qosmio] X305-Q706 costs $1,999 US (£1,257) in the US, although we haven't seen any UK pricing on the laptops yet.
Man thered... you need to get with the times...
That was already invented by shampoo.
Sounds like someone needs to get laid.
Just don't stretch first.
I don't think it has changed anything yet . However in order to get a fully functional semantic organizer you have to teach a computer English first, then tell it to search. English is my own native tongue so I personally don't remember learning it, however I do have several friends that learned later in life and it was a bear teaching them grammatical exceptions and expressions that do not have consistent meaning (and there are a ton of them.)
Computers are getting closer and can "understand" some basic phrases and grammar, but on the whole remain mostly useless because of everything they miss. I think semantic internet implementations are possible, but the reason it hasn't changed anyone's life is that it's still a long ways off.