Perhaps not start a war, but I think it would be an interesting exercise in seeing how the USA responds to real issues concerning its country as opposed to the pretendy 'we'll help you out if you will just sign this document giving us cheaper oil' issues they jump on.
Would the USA do anything if the country with the worlds largest standing army which just happens to also be one of the worlds fastest growing economies, not to mention a truly large population, decided to arrest a US athlete for saying that country sucks?
I have a feeling the USs response would be to 'enter talks with the leaders of that country' then appear to be attempting to do something. In the meantime, the athlete involved could well end up staked out bottom up in a military prison somewhere in backwoods china.
Eventually the USA would broker a deal to get the athlete released, which would basically mean that the USA had been made to bend over and accept whatever china asked for, whether it be aid, technology or some sort of trade agreement. Why? Because the US political leaders would have to be seen to be doing something for their errant citizen.
That said though, there are already signs that the various countries are attempting to prevent embarrassing outbursts by their athletes. I have a feeling there will be a few more of those stories come to light and if they don't, it is because they have been hidden effectively.
In China, chinese laws prevail. The athlete who decides to make too much of a statement over there could very easily find himself in extremely hot water.
Yes and no. When the athlete is within chinese borders, he or she is subject to chinese laws. I don't know this for sure, but I believe china has laws which prohibit certain political statements from being published. Stands to reason then that if an athlete breaks these laws, china is well within its rights to arrest said athlete and apply the weight of chinese law against him/her.
Of course if china did that, there would be something of an outcry. However, given the whole 'free tibet' protest around the world, does it look as if china really gives a shit about PR?
Thats not a spelling error, it is simply the way the english language is spelt in northern/western europe. In fact, it would be more correct to say that Americans are misspelling it by spelling it from a phonetic perspective rather than the way it is supposed to be.
Woops, I let my inner pedant out for a run and would you look at what its gone and done?
And before anyone talks about the "ease-of-use" of apt-get, think hard about how many years YOU have run Linux to be that familiar with apt-get. First Linux installation: Ubuntu 6.10 (in January 2007).
Distros tried: All the usual suspects, both RPM and.deb based.
Total time running linux: around ten months.
Am I comfortable with apt-get? Absolutely. I can't remember the last time I used the Add/Remove Programs menu entry.
Admittedly though, I am fairly full on with my software - I tend to install something just to get an idea of how it 'fits' then I either leave it installed because it might be handy someday or I give it up as a bad joke and apt-get remove it.
That said though, most people won't need to get familiar with any of these tools, because the default set of applications is easily more than enough for their needs of writing an email and typing up a letter to the bastard electricity company who have upped the direct debit again for the third time in a year. (I'm not bitter, really)
The fact that Linux fulfills most users needs straight from installation is a massive plus and is nothing like having a funky hologram on a winders CD. The linux install is functional straight out of the box, whereas in Windows you get a calculator and crippled notepad.
You want Firefox 2? update/upgrade, they come automatically. How much faster than every six months do you want your browsers to come?
This probably is FUD, but I'm not sure its the kind you are thinking of.
There is a natural human tendency to fear what you don't understand and while ZDNet should understand the basics of open source software by now, doesn't mean they do.
What it looks like to me is that large organisations are starting to hear more about open source and from the depths of limited understanding, come up with arguments which have been brought up and defeated before by open source advocates. "It can't be secure, just anyone could look through the source code and find problems" and "Closed source is such a hassle to reverse engineer, no one will bother" are two of the biggies IIRC.
It is just displaying the lack of understanding of people when they use these arguments, since most people (not just hackers) when they see something, they will at least unconsciously try to figure out how to break the damn thing. That said, most people aren't out there to screw other people and if they find a problem in software and know how to fix it, they will do so.
It may well be FUD, but not as we know it keptain.
Unless you are talking collectively about different breeds of sheep, in which case sheeps is correct.
Mind you, you would then have to ask yourself why you were talking about different breeds of sheep and possibly also think about whether somewhere in the back of your mind you were also thinking about gum boots and the notorious 'cliff push back' reflex.
Ask someone from New Zealand or Australia, they will explain it better.
And while we're at it, whose needs, specifically? Are they helping the Nigerian government, or industry, or is it just the needs of Microsoft that are being met here?
Well they say very clearly that they are partnering with the government and industry and will continue to help meet their needs. Nothing was mentioned about the people at all.
Call me an idiot for clicking on it, but Iceweasel told me as it danced across the screen that it prevented 1312 popups from appearing after I hit that link.
Nice try, whoever wrote that script, but no cigar this time. Entertaining though.
Problem is, the more small players who sign up to this sort of thing, the harder it is to refute claims made in court. If you add up all the users of these 'small'distro's' what sort of percentage are we looking at of total linux users?
Even more pertinent perhaps, is that if lots of these tiddlers signed up and a Microsoft sock puppet decided to go to the courts citing '359 distributions have signed our agreement but these five or six recalcitrant organisations think they are too big to worry about the law', what happens then?
The courts they are going to aren't necessarily tech savvy. The sock puppet will try very hard to obfuscate the number of users in the non-signing distros and will instead try to highlight the number of organisations who do sign. At that point, it doesn't come down to users, but to distributors and when that happens, the sock puppet wins on numbers.
This is more dangerous than it looks. Microsoft wouldn't be going after the tiddlers if they didn't have a strategy like this.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps not start a war, but I think it would be an interesting exercise in seeing how the USA responds to real issues concerning its country as opposed to the pretendy 'we'll help you out if you will just sign this document giving us cheaper oil' issues they jump on.
Would the USA do anything if the country with the worlds largest standing army which just happens to also be one of the worlds fastest growing economies, not to mention a truly large population, decided to arrest a US athlete for saying that country sucks?
I have a feeling the USs response would be to 'enter talks with the leaders of that country' then appear to be attempting to do something. In the meantime, the athlete involved could well end up staked out bottom up in a military prison somewhere in backwoods china.
Eventually the USA would broker a deal to get the athlete released, which would basically mean that the USA had been made to bend over and accept whatever china asked for, whether it be aid, technology or some sort of trade agreement. Why? Because the US political leaders would have to be seen to be doing something for their errant citizen.
That said though, there are already signs that the various countries are attempting to prevent embarrassing outbursts by their athletes. I have a feeling there will be a few more of those stories come to light and if they don't, it is because they have been hidden effectively.
In China, chinese laws prevail. The athlete who decides to make too much of a statement over there could very easily find himself in extremely hot water.
Yes and no. When the athlete is within chinese borders, he or she is subject to chinese laws. I don't know this for sure, but I believe china has laws which prohibit certain political statements from being published. Stands to reason then that if an athlete breaks these laws, china is well within its rights to arrest said athlete and apply the weight of chinese law against him/her.
Of course if china did that, there would be something of an outcry. However, given the whole 'free tibet' protest around the world, does it look as if china really gives a shit about PR?
Be very careful grasshopper
Thats not a spelling error, it is simply the way the english language is spelt in northern/western europe. In fact, it would be more correct to say that Americans are misspelling it by spelling it from a phonetic perspective rather than the way it is supposed to be.
Woops, I let my inner pedant out for a run and would you look at what its gone and done?
No, don't hold back, tell us what you really think.
Microsoft give you money if you open a fan club?
There is a natural human tendency to fear what you don't understand and while ZDNet should understand the basics of open source software by now, doesn't mean they do.
What it looks like to me is that large organisations are starting to hear more about open source and from the depths of limited understanding, come up with arguments which have been brought up and defeated before by open source advocates. "It can't be secure, just anyone could look through the source code and find problems" and "Closed source is such a hassle to reverse engineer, no one will bother" are two of the biggies IIRC.
It is just displaying the lack of understanding of people when they use these arguments, since most people (not just hackers) when they see something, they will at least unconsciously try to figure out how to break the damn thing. That said, most people aren't out there to screw other people and if they find a problem in software and know how to fix it, they will do so.
It may well be FUD, but not as we know it keptain.Unless you are talking collectively about different breeds of sheep, in which case sheeps is correct. Mind you, you would then have to ask yourself why you were talking about different breeds of sheep and possibly also think about whether somewhere in the back of your mind you were also thinking about gum boots and the notorious 'cliff push back' reflex. Ask someone from New Zealand or Australia, they will explain it better.
tomato skins.
Well yes, as a matter of fact they did. Now that is the truly rapacious face of MSFT showing.
Well they say very clearly that they are partnering with the government and industry and will continue to help meet their needs. Nothing was mentioned about the people at all.
Call me an idiot for clicking on it, but Iceweasel told me as it danced across the screen that it prevented 1312 popups from appearing after I hit that link. Nice try, whoever wrote that script, but no cigar this time. Entertaining though.
I'm sure you could do something with this and a willing partner...
Problem is, the more small players who sign up to this sort of thing, the harder it is to refute claims made in court. If you add up all the users of these 'small'distro's' what sort of percentage are we looking at of total linux users? Even more pertinent perhaps, is that if lots of these tiddlers signed up and a Microsoft sock puppet decided to go to the courts citing '359 distributions have signed our agreement but these five or six recalcitrant organisations think they are too big to worry about the law', what happens then? The courts they are going to aren't necessarily tech savvy. The sock puppet will try very hard to obfuscate the number of users in the non-signing distros and will instead try to highlight the number of organisations who do sign. At that point, it doesn't come down to users, but to distributors and when that happens, the sock puppet wins on numbers. This is more dangerous than it looks. Microsoft wouldn't be going after the tiddlers if they didn't have a strategy like this.
Isn't that what baseball is all about anyway?
Well whats wrong with getting this guy to give some of his old linux computers to the gorillas? They're clever enough for edubuntu aren't they?