I've never liked Javascript ever since it became too popular. Personally my Netscape has Javascript disabled, simply because too many sites pop up lame consoles without my permission and it annoys me to no end.
I view websites as repositories of information, not entertainment theatres. If you want "interactive" entertainment, you can always download Quake:-) or go to the arcade. But when I search for useful information on the Web, the absolute last thing I want to see is a site that takes forever to load, pops up endless consoles with irrelevent ads/notices/whatnot, cluttered with useless animations and "interactive" crap. Give me a break, just deliver your goods! (If you have anything other than those useless crap, that is.) When I'm looking for something, sites with Javascript, ActiveX and what-not just don't fit the bill.
I realize that many people browse the web just for fun, so these things serve more like curiosities than annoyances. But to me, there are cleaner ways to do this than with JavaScript, or ActiveX (with all its security flaws). But technicalities aside, I still think it's utterly rude for an unsolicited, irrelevent console to pop up every time I load something from a particular site.
Also, the article seems to be making the claim that HTML forms will not work if they ban Javascript?!?!?! Come on, people, CGI is NOT "mobile code", which is the question at hand! Banning Javascript is a good thing. Your CGI scripts can still work (or use Java servlets instead, if you're paranoid about security. Not that that is much more secure, though). Just cut that useless Javascript crap from your pages, the net (IMNSHO) will fare better without it.
Haha, I love the parody on the site... one particular thing I liked about the board was the one that said GNU Hurd would have a stampede soon. Cool, I always thought Hurd would be the next big thing after Linux. (Now where is Linux on that board??? I probably missed it... looks like it's suffering from the Slashdot effect, so I'm not going to add to it.:-))
(Offtopic) IMNSHO a microkernel approach to an OS (ie. Hurd) is better than a monolithic approach, like the traditional Unix kernel. Of course, with dynamically loadable modules in Linux, the distinction is somewhat blurry... From a technical standpoint, I like Hurd's microkernel design better. (This is not intended to be flamebait!) That's why I think Hurd would be the next big thing after Linux. "The stampede shall come!"
On the contrary, I think a pen would be awesome for drawing things on the computer!!! Actually, I agree that a pen would be really awkward to use for general things that the mouse is currently serving (ie. point-and-click operations). However, I've never been able to draw properly while holding a mouse... what would be really nice is to be able to switch between mouse and pen -- then you can still use the mouse for "courser" activities like point-and-click, and switch to a pen when in the GIMP or something, to get extra precision for sketching.
What kind of features will the Konqueror browser have? Do you expect it to be something on the level of Mozilla or better, or will it be less feature-loaded initially?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what the article describes about bridges, it's basically allowing Windows apps to display their stuff on a Linux desktop via some kind of connection (modem, network, etc.). Doesn't this mean that the Windows app will still need to run on a Windows box somewhere? I don't know if that many users can afford to have two boxes just for the sake of running Windows apps on Corel Linux.
OTOH WINE lets you run Windows apps from the same box... a much more preferable solution for the typical PC user, I'd think.
I just set my threshold to 1. Almost all of the childish first-posters are AC's, so this has been very effective for me. Although, it's the reply to "first posts" that annoy me, because they generally come from annoyed Slashdotters and have score 1. (No offense intended, just pointing out the facts.):-)
Now if only something like this had happened back in my country in my teenage years... I'd have died to get software that comes with source code, for free! I remember wishing for the source code to so many programs so that I can learn from them and add features that I thought would make them better. But the only thing I could do back then was merely to disassemble easier parts of simple programs and try mucking around a little... now if I had open-source software back then, it would have been like heaven!
100% agreed. I switched to Linux two years ago for the same reason: more value (in my case, more programming flexibility, less system crashes/screwups) for less money. There's no fun in beating M$ and feeling victorious about it. After all, I'm sure many M$ people feel the same way when they finally managed to embrace-extend-exterminate a threatening competitor. But when what you produce gives you more value at lower costs, wOw! Now, that's worth struggling for.:-)
The reason a large percentage of software today is so bloated is because the companies behind them are basically there for the $$$ rather than technical excellence. Yes, some might have technical excellence as a secondary goal, but basically, the bottom-line is $$$. I've always believed that:
In order to do something well, you've got to be
interested in doing it well. If you're doing it for the sake of something else, you probably won't do it well.
When your primary goal is $$$, chances are that you wouldn't mind compromising a little quality to get the product out the door fast, to beat your competitors. A little bloat here, a little unnecessary feature there, that won't hurt, we'll just ship a bigger (and therefore "better") product, with a few extra features that our marketing folks can boast of to our customers (but which they really don't need). Hence, bloatware. OTOH, the beauty of Open Source is that the people who contribute do so because they are interested in making it better, not because they have to get it done so that they can feed their families. Hence, they will not compromise with bloat and unnecessary features.
Wow. Seems like, regardless whether there was any truth behind the Mindcraft "vindication" (and IMNSHO it is valid, much as I personally wish it wasn't), Linux still wins in more typical situations than Mindcraft used in their tests.
I remember a prof from my undergraduate years who took a serious amount of salt to any "benchmark" result or any single form of CPU performance measurement. His argument is simple: benchmarks, CPU measurements (like MIPS, MHz, etc.) are basically sticking a single number to complex system/device. There are so many parameters involved that sticking a number to something in this way is like collapsing a high-dimensional object into 1D and using that as a measuring stick.
This is the case with the Mindcraft benchmark (and any other benchmark for that matter) -- their results simply show that in a certain environment, under a certain configuration, Linux loses to NT. OT1H this simply means Linux has room for improvement, OTOH it says (close to) nothing about how Linux performs in other environments. And then you've got to take into account all sorts of other factors, like the cost of maintenance, the minimal required hardware, etc., that benchmark results hardly begin to take into consideration.
Well, my point is, while we're working on improving Linux so that it won't lose to NT in environments like Mindcraft's benchmark, we can rest assured that in general, Linux is better than NT, in terms of performance under typical environments, cost of ownership/maintenance, and giving desired performance on minimal hardware, etc.. This case simply proves this point. We've had many reports of this sort in the past, and I'm sure we'll be getting a lot more as people begin to realize the advantages of Linux.
As for FUD... slowly, as more and more people step out of the M$ realm and discovers that the "outside world" is not exactly like M$ would like to have them believe, I think FUD will eventually just become CCA (confidence, certainty, assurance).
Hmm, this raises an interesting thought... would it be possible that a universal IM protocol will be achieved ultimately by having clients like Everybuddy -- ie., a client that supports as many (if not all) IM protocols out there as possible? Then, when users realize this client would be compatible with whatever IM service they're already using, and also provides interoperability with other services, they would switch over. (Especially if it's an opensource client that can be obtained at minimal cost). Eventually, when most people are using this client, it could start to have its own protocol that encompasses all the functionality of the other protocols.
(Of course, this is a little like M$'s strategy of embrace - extend - exterminate, but if the client were opensource, it might be embrace - extend - celebrate (because everyone will be happy to finally have a single, universal IM protocol).:-> )
I have mixed feelings about the antitrust case... OT1H it's good that clueless people (excuse the label) out there now understands that MS is not the ultimate when it comes to computers. OTOH what does the whole antitrust suit accomplish?!?! Breaking MS doesn't really do much, imposing fines doesn't reform their behaviour/practices. Besides, the MS age is over. With cases like this, where MS concedes defeat, and with the rise of Linux, the advent of Open Source, etc., all these seem to me like signs that the MS age is over (or at least, going to be over soon). Perhaps we'd all be better off if we'd just let MS be defeated "naturally" (ie. by competitors) rather than spend all that money on the anti-trust lawsuit, which probably won't accomplish that much anyway.
Hmm, is it even possible for a "universal" IM service to exist?? Given that it's not only a matter of what protocol you use, but also whether the *servers* allow you to connect, it seems that the most we can do is to achieve something similar to the current situation of IRC: same protocol, but different server networks.
But perhaps this isn't such a bad thing? Say, AOL's servers communicates with MS's servers, and both also communicate with ICQ servers, etc.. That way, although you're running off different servers, your messages can be transported across services. As long as the service providers can work out a common protocol amongst themselves, we don't even need a universal IM protocol for the clients -- the servers would be handling the inter-service communication.
I suppose there are technical difficulties in transporting messages across different IM protocols, but it seems to me at a first glance that this is no different from the Internet itself -- different network protocols for LANs, but each connected via WANs, routers, etc.. Wouldn't something analogous be possible for the existing IM services? eg. messages from one IM protocol gets translated to another IM protocol at a "bridge" (analogous to network bridges translating packets from one protocol to another). The analogy is rather compelling, don't you think?:-)
Strange that they claim (implicitly) that Newton's inverse square law was correctly deduced because gravitional interactions with branes make a difference only at the sub-millimeter level. But then they go on to say that gravitional interaction with branes can be shown by "unusual" behaviour of objects -- and they gave the example of the rotation of galaxies. Now I'm sure that's not on the sub-millimeter scale! What's going on here?? I must be missing something... why is it that branes don't make enough difference outside the sub-millimeter scale that Newton could still deduce an inverse square law consistent with observations, yet at the same time branes are supposed to account for the way large objects like galaxies behave??
I'm amused by how many posts here actually took this article seriously, seeing that it came from the "It's funny. Laugh." department. I suppose the phrase "It's funny. Laugh." should be taken in the imperative?:-)
The argument in the article is 100% right on mark. However, I was just thinking... all this only works if the GPL is actually enforced. A large company could easily come along, take GPL code, add stuff to it, and make a proprietary product out of it (ignoring the GPL). If nobody takes legal action against this, it would just result in the "bad" forking scenario among the Unices. Does FSF enforce the GPL this way (not just for their own software)? Would we have enough funding (and manpower?) to enforce the GPL should the need arise?
(Note: I'm not being critical of FSF or GPL or whatever, this is just my consideration.)
(Sorry this is a bit offtopic) I keep hearing all these virus outbreaks on Windows... Are there any viruses that affect Linux? The only one I know of that affects *nix systems was the Internet Worm, but that's a long time ago. There are occasional security problems like root exploits, DoS, etc., but it seems that most of these have to be carried out by a *person*. Are there any "automated" exploiters around (ala IWorm) that affect Linux? Just curious...
Linus's most admirable attribute, which is also IMHO the reason he's so successful with Linux, is that when beat by his competitors, it doesn't cause him to hate them, but rather it causes him to work harder and make a better product.
IMNSHO many Linux zealots has a lot to learn from Linus... Linux is not about "we hate MS", but it's about "how we can make something better than MS, or anyone else for that matter, can". If Linux was merely about hating MS and trying to "take over" MS's market, it'd be no different from MS abusing its monopoly to squish out competitors. It was quite sad for me to read the posts about the Mindcraft benchmark results -- most of those posts show that the attitude of some people here seems to be the "I hate MS" attitude. If we hate MS more just because Linux lost to NT in the benchmarks, and we accuse Mindcraft of having staged the whole thing, etc., are we not the same as MS spreading FUD against its competitors? Rather, we should take the negative result as an indication that Linux has room for improvement, and we should use our energy to improve it, not waste our time by shouting "not fair".
I'd still like to see Linux as a desktop alternative. Simply so that I have a choice of what I want to run on my machine. That said, I don't really mind if Linux will never make it as the desktop OS of choice for non-techs. However, if Linux will only fill a small niche in this market, the problem will be that developers will not focus their efforts on running their products on Linux, and as a result, I will get poorer applications support just because I chose not to run Windows (or whatever else the desktop OS of choice may be). I mean, I will always be able to run Linux on my machine if I wanted to; but the problem is, I would be somewhat excluded from other desktop PC users because there will be limited support for applications on my Linux box and limited portability of files between my box and other machines, etc..
I guess, in my mind, the "ideal" picture would be to have Windows, Linux, and whatever else out there, to each have roughly the same share of the market. Then we won't have the MS monopoly problem, there will be healthy competition that ensures quality amongst the systems, and I will have the freedom of choice which OS I want to run, and, because each OS will be roughly equally important, applications will be equally supported for all platforms, and I won't feel like I'm using a "niche" OS as opposed to a "mainstream" OS.
Hmm, this raises an interesting issue. Will it be true that every (or almost every) commercial Linux offering will somewhat be rushed out the door due to economic pressures? If so, this would really be sad, as this simply follows in M$'s footsteps of "release it now, fix it later".
Thinking along these lines, I wonder if the whole concept of a "release" should somewhat be altered, so that not only the kernel has the stable/unstable revision branches (the odd/even version numbering thing), but also an entire distro. This way, we can have "unstable" releases that quickly gets it out the door, have people pound on it, get the bugs fixed, until it stabilizes, that release that as the "stable release". This certainly worked (and still works) with the Linux kernel -- I'm just wondering if this is actually possible in a commercial setting like Corel Linux.
I'm disappointed by the number of posts here that show a stubborn insistence of "Linux is better, NT sucks, we don't care what those Mindcraft people say." Let's just face the facts, people. Linux did not perform so well in this test. But instead of wasting our time and energy to criticize NT/MS/Mindcraft, why not we do something to improve Linux?? I don't know about you, but for me, the fact that Linux is being criticized is a good sign. Why? Because it shows there is room for improvement, and that we can still make Linux better. Instead of moaning and whining over it and spinning conspiracy theories against Mindcraft/MS, let's just take advantage of this criticism and improve Linux to be a better piece of software.
Remember, "if it can't kill you, it'll make you stronger."
This is just a prime example of how traditional concepts in industry are clashing with Internet culture/concepts. It seems to me that with more and more things coming online, people have brought with them their traditional concepts about country boundaries, transporting of goods, etc., and they are experiencing a "culture shock" in a sense.
For example, they try to draw an analogy between "exporting" or "importing" of "goods". First of all, there is no physical object being moved from one place to another, it's merely an electronic transmission of some data. As long as the source machine agrees to send it to the destination, this transfer can take place without needing to physically carry the data across the country. The analogy between "goods" and a data stream is fuzzy -- would downloading a README file constitute an "import of goods" or do you need to download the entire package before it's considered a unit of "goods"?
Then, on the Internet, the boundaries are not physical -- the only boundaries are connectivity and accessibility of the data on the remote host. Sounds like a lot of these concepts -- import, export, the definitions of "goods" must be rethought to fit in with the Internet medium.
Another example (probably offtopic:-) is how traditional concepts of proprietary software are so ingrained that people just don't "get" the Open Source idea.
And yes indeed, hopefully this is a first step, not only for people to realize the Internet cannot be regulated, but even more so, for people to realize that the Internet is a completely different medium with rules that are quite different from traditional rules. New rules need to be developed that fit in the Internet's context, not merely old rules shoe-horned (imposed) on top of the Internet as though the net were the same as the physical world.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never liked Javascript ever since it became too popular. Personally my Netscape has Javascript disabled, simply because too many sites pop up lame consoles without my permission and it annoys me to no end.
I view websites as repositories of information, not entertainment theatres. If you want "interactive" entertainment, you can always download Quake :-) or go to the arcade. But when I search for useful information on the Web, the absolute last thing I want to see is a site that takes forever to load, pops up endless consoles with irrelevent ads/notices/whatnot, cluttered with useless animations and "interactive" crap. Give me a break, just deliver your goods! (If you have anything other than those useless crap, that is.) When I'm looking for something, sites with Javascript, ActiveX and what-not just don't fit the bill.
I realize that many people browse the web just for fun, so these things serve more like curiosities than annoyances. But to me, there are cleaner ways to do this than with JavaScript, or ActiveX (with all its security flaws). But technicalities aside, I still think it's utterly rude for an unsolicited, irrelevent console to pop up every time I load something from a particular site.
Also, the article seems to be making the claim that HTML forms will not work if they ban Javascript?!?!?! Come on, people, CGI is NOT "mobile code", which is the question at hand! Banning Javascript is a good thing. Your CGI scripts can still work (or use Java servlets instead, if you're paranoid about security. Not that that is much more secure, though). Just cut that useless Javascript crap from your pages, the net (IMNSHO) will fare better without it.
Haha, I love the parody on the site... one particular thing I liked about the board was the one that said GNU Hurd would have a stampede soon. Cool, I always thought Hurd would be the next big thing after Linux. (Now where is Linux on that board??? I probably missed it... looks like it's suffering from the Slashdot effect, so I'm not going to add to it. :-))
(Offtopic) IMNSHO a microkernel approach to an OS (ie. Hurd) is better than a monolithic approach, like the traditional Unix kernel. Of course, with dynamically loadable modules in Linux, the distinction is somewhat blurry... From a technical standpoint, I like Hurd's microkernel design better. (This is not intended to be flamebait!) That's why I think Hurd would be the next big thing after Linux. "The stampede shall come!"
On the contrary, I think a pen would be awesome for drawing things on the computer!!! Actually, I agree that a pen would be really awkward to use for general things that the mouse is currently serving (ie. point-and-click operations). However, I've never been able to draw properly while holding a mouse... what would be really nice is to be able to switch between mouse and pen -- then you can still use the mouse for "courser" activities like point-and-click, and switch to a pen when in the GIMP or something, to get extra precision for sketching.
What kind of features will the Konqueror browser have? Do you expect it to be something on the level of Mozilla or better, or will it be less feature-loaded initially?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what the article describes about bridges, it's basically allowing Windows apps to display their stuff on a Linux desktop via some kind of connection (modem, network, etc.). Doesn't this mean that the Windows app will still need to run on a Windows box somewhere? I don't know if that many users can afford to have two boxes just for the sake of running Windows apps on Corel Linux.
OTOH WINE lets you run Windows apps from the same box... a much more preferable solution for the typical PC user, I'd think.
I just set my threshold to 1. Almost all of the childish first-posters are AC's, so this has been very effective for me. Although, it's the reply to "first posts" that annoy me, because they generally come from annoyed Slashdotters and have score 1. (No offense intended, just pointing out the facts.) :-)
My email signature: Don't modify spaghetti code unless you can eat the consequences!. :->
Now if only something like this had happened back in my country in my teenage years... I'd have died to get software that comes with source code, for free! I remember wishing for the source code to so many programs so that I can learn from them and add features that I thought would make them better. But the only thing I could do back then was merely to disassemble easier parts of simple programs and try mucking around a little... now if I had open-source software back then, it would have been like heaven!
100% agreed. I switched to Linux two years ago for the same reason: more value (in my case, more programming flexibility, less system crashes/screwups) for less money. There's no fun in beating M$ and feeling victorious about it. After all, I'm sure many M$ people feel the same way when they finally managed to embrace-extend-exterminate a threatening competitor. But when what you produce gives you more value at lower costs, wOw! Now, that's worth struggling for. :-)
The reason a large percentage of software today is so bloated is because the companies behind them are basically there for the $$$ rather than technical excellence. Yes, some might have technical excellence as a secondary goal, but basically, the bottom-line is $$$. I've always believed that:
When your primary goal is $$$, chances are that you wouldn't mind compromising a little quality to get the product out the door fast, to beat your competitors. A little bloat here, a little unnecessary feature there, that won't hurt, we'll just ship a bigger (and therefore "better") product, with a few extra features that our marketing folks can boast of to our customers (but which they really don't need). Hence, bloatware. OTOH, the beauty of Open Source is that the people who contribute do so because they are interested in making it better, not because they have to get it done so that they can feed their families. Hence, they will not compromise with bloat and unnecessary features.
Wow. Seems like, regardless whether there was any truth behind the Mindcraft "vindication" (and IMNSHO it is valid, much as I personally wish it wasn't), Linux still wins in more typical situations than Mindcraft used in their tests.
I remember a prof from my undergraduate years who took a serious amount of salt to any "benchmark" result or any single form of CPU performance measurement. His argument is simple: benchmarks, CPU measurements (like MIPS, MHz, etc.) are basically sticking a single number to complex system/device. There are so many parameters involved that sticking a number to something in this way is like collapsing a high-dimensional object into 1D and using that as a measuring stick.
This is the case with the Mindcraft benchmark (and any other benchmark for that matter) -- their results simply show that in a certain environment, under a certain configuration, Linux loses to NT. OT1H this simply means Linux has room for improvement, OTOH it says (close to) nothing about how Linux performs in other environments. And then you've got to take into account all sorts of other factors, like the cost of maintenance, the minimal required hardware, etc., that benchmark results hardly begin to take into consideration.
Well, my point is, while we're working on improving Linux so that it won't lose to NT in environments like Mindcraft's benchmark, we can rest assured that in general, Linux is better than NT, in terms of performance under typical environments, cost of ownership/maintenance, and giving desired performance on minimal hardware, etc.. This case simply proves this point. We've had many reports of this sort in the past, and I'm sure we'll be getting a lot more as people begin to realize the advantages of Linux.
As for FUD... slowly, as more and more people step out of the M$ realm and discovers that the "outside world" is not exactly like M$ would like to have them believe, I think FUD will eventually just become CCA (confidence, certainty, assurance).
Hmm, this raises an interesting thought... would it be possible that a universal IM protocol will be achieved ultimately by having clients like Everybuddy -- ie., a client that supports as many (if not all) IM protocols out there as possible? Then, when users realize this client would be compatible with whatever IM service they're already using, and also provides interoperability with other services, they would switch over. (Especially if it's an opensource client that can be obtained at minimal cost). Eventually, when most people are using this client, it could start to have its own protocol that encompasses all the functionality of the other protocols.
(Of course, this is a little like M$'s strategy of embrace - extend - exterminate, but if the client were opensource, it might be embrace - extend - celebrate (because everyone will be happy to finally have a single, universal IM protocol). :-> )
I have mixed feelings about the antitrust case... OT1H it's good that clueless people (excuse the label) out there now understands that MS is not the ultimate when it comes to computers. OTOH what does the whole antitrust suit accomplish?!?! Breaking MS doesn't really do much, imposing fines doesn't reform their behaviour/practices. Besides, the MS age is over. With cases like this, where MS concedes defeat, and with the rise of Linux, the advent of Open Source, etc., all these seem to me like signs that the MS age is over (or at least, going to be over soon). Perhaps we'd all be better off if we'd just let MS be defeated "naturally" (ie. by competitors) rather than spend all that money on the anti-trust lawsuit, which probably won't accomplish that much anyway.
Hmm, is it even possible for a "universal" IM service to exist?? Given that it's not only a matter of what protocol you use, but also whether the *servers* allow you to connect, it seems that the most we can do is to achieve something similar to the current situation of IRC: same protocol, but different server networks.
But perhaps this isn't such a bad thing? Say, AOL's servers communicates with MS's servers, and both also communicate with ICQ servers, etc.. That way, although you're running off different servers, your messages can be transported across services. As long as the service providers can work out a common protocol amongst themselves, we don't even need a universal IM protocol for the clients -- the servers would be handling the inter-service communication.
I suppose there are technical difficulties in transporting messages across different IM protocols, but it seems to me at a first glance that this is no different from the Internet itself -- different network protocols for LANs, but each connected via WANs, routers, etc.. Wouldn't something analogous be possible for the existing IM services? eg. messages from one IM protocol gets translated to another IM protocol at a "bridge" (analogous to network bridges translating packets from one protocol to another). The analogy is rather compelling, don't you think? :-)
Strange that they claim (implicitly) that Newton's inverse square law was correctly deduced because gravitional interactions with branes make a difference only at the sub-millimeter level. But then they go on to say that gravitional interaction with branes can be shown by "unusual" behaviour of objects -- and they gave the example of the rotation of galaxies. Now I'm sure that's not on the sub-millimeter scale! What's going on here?? I must be missing something... why is it that branes don't make enough difference outside the sub-millimeter scale that Newton could still deduce an inverse square law consistent with observations, yet at the same time branes are supposed to account for the way large objects like galaxies behave??
I'm amused by how many posts here actually took this article seriously, seeing that it came from the "It's funny. Laugh." department. I suppose the phrase "It's funny. Laugh." should be taken in the imperative? :-)
The argument in the article is 100% right on mark. However, I was just thinking... all this only works if the GPL is actually enforced. A large company could easily come along, take GPL code, add stuff to it, and make a proprietary product out of it (ignoring the GPL). If nobody takes legal action against this, it would just result in the "bad" forking scenario among the Unices. Does FSF enforce the GPL this way (not just for their own software)? Would we have enough funding (and manpower?) to enforce the GPL should the need arise?
(Note: I'm not being critical of FSF or GPL or whatever, this is just my consideration.)
(Sorry this is a bit offtopic) I keep hearing all these virus outbreaks on Windows... Are there any viruses that affect Linux? The only one I know of that affects *nix systems was the Internet Worm, but that's a long time ago. There are occasional security problems like root exploits, DoS, etc., but it seems that most of these have to be carried out by a *person*. Are there any "automated" exploiters around (ala IWorm) that affect Linux? Just curious...
Linus's most admirable attribute, which is also IMHO the reason he's so successful with Linux, is that when beat by his competitors, it doesn't cause him to hate them, but rather it causes him to work harder and make a better product.
IMNSHO many Linux zealots has a lot to learn from Linus... Linux is not about "we hate MS", but it's about "how we can make something better than MS, or anyone else for that matter, can". If Linux was merely about hating MS and trying to "take over" MS's market, it'd be no different from MS abusing its monopoly to squish out competitors. It was quite sad for me to read the posts about the Mindcraft benchmark results -- most of those posts show that the attitude of some people here seems to be the "I hate MS" attitude. If we hate MS more just because Linux lost to NT in the benchmarks, and we accuse Mindcraft of having staged the whole thing, etc., are we not the same as MS spreading FUD against its competitors? Rather, we should take the negative result as an indication that Linux has room for improvement, and we should use our energy to improve it, not waste our time by shouting "not fair".
I'd still like to see Linux as a desktop alternative. Simply so that I have a choice of what I want to run on my machine. That said, I don't really mind if Linux will never make it as the desktop OS of choice for non-techs. However, if Linux will only fill a small niche in this market, the problem will be that developers will not focus their efforts on running their products on Linux, and as a result, I will get poorer applications support just because I chose not to run Windows (or whatever else the desktop OS of choice may be). I mean, I will always be able to run Linux on my machine if I wanted to; but the problem is, I would be somewhat excluded from other desktop PC users because there will be limited support for applications on my Linux box and limited portability of files between my box and other machines, etc..
I guess, in my mind, the "ideal" picture would be to have Windows, Linux, and whatever else out there, to each have roughly the same share of the market. Then we won't have the MS monopoly problem, there will be healthy competition that ensures quality amongst the systems, and I will have the freedom of choice which OS I want to run, and, because each OS will be roughly equally important, applications will be equally supported for all platforms, and I won't feel like I'm using a "niche" OS as opposed to a "mainstream" OS.
WoW! Finally! A real world example of Russell's Paradox!! So those eccentric math profs were actually talking about something real!! :->
Hmm, this raises an interesting issue. Will it be true that every (or almost every) commercial Linux offering will somewhat be rushed out the door due to economic pressures? If so, this would really be sad, as this simply follows in M$'s footsteps of "release it now, fix it later".
Thinking along these lines, I wonder if the whole concept of a "release" should somewhat be altered, so that not only the kernel has the stable/unstable revision branches (the odd/even version numbering thing), but also an entire distro. This way, we can have "unstable" releases that quickly gets it out the door, have people pound on it, get the bugs fixed, until it stabilizes, that release that as the "stable release". This certainly worked (and still works) with the Linux kernel -- I'm just wondering if this is actually possible in a commercial setting like Corel Linux.
Just curious, who will take over the BIND project? Or will it just be a group of people as opposed to one person overseeing the whole thing?
As a sideline, I wonder who will take over the Linux kernel when (if) Linus steps down? Just a random thought... :-)
I'm disappointed by the number of posts here that show a stubborn insistence of "Linux is better, NT sucks, we don't care what those Mindcraft people say." Let's just face the facts, people. Linux did not perform so well in this test. But instead of wasting our time and energy to criticize NT/MS/Mindcraft, why not we do something to improve Linux?? I don't know about you, but for me, the fact that Linux is being criticized is a good sign. Why? Because it shows there is room for improvement, and that we can still make Linux better. Instead of moaning and whining over it and spinning conspiracy theories against Mindcraft/MS, let's just take advantage of this criticism and improve Linux to be a better piece of software.
Remember, "if it can't kill you, it'll make you stronger."
This is just a prime example of how traditional concepts in industry are clashing with Internet culture/concepts. It seems to me that with more and more things coming online, people have brought with them their traditional concepts about country boundaries, transporting of goods, etc., and they are experiencing a "culture shock" in a sense.
For example, they try to draw an analogy between "exporting" or "importing" of "goods". First of all, there is no physical object being moved from one place to another, it's merely an electronic transmission of some data. As long as the source machine agrees to send it to the destination, this transfer can take place without needing to physically carry the data across the country. The analogy between "goods" and a data stream is fuzzy -- would downloading a README file constitute an "import of goods" or do you need to download the entire package before it's considered a unit of "goods"?
Then, on the Internet, the boundaries are not physical -- the only boundaries are connectivity and accessibility of the data on the remote host. Sounds like a lot of these concepts -- import, export, the definitions of "goods" must be rethought to fit in with the Internet medium.
Another example (probably offtopic :-) is how traditional concepts of proprietary software are so ingrained that people just don't "get" the Open Source idea.
And yes indeed, hopefully this is a first step, not only for people to realize the Internet cannot be regulated, but even more so, for people to realize that the Internet is a completely different medium with rules that are quite different from traditional rules. New rules need to be developed that fit in the Internet's context, not merely old rules shoe-horned (imposed) on top of the Internet as though the net were the same as the physical world.