The specs were created by people who have no intention of implementing them themselves, and it really shows. You're talking about OOXML right? Oh, wait.
I don't know how representative it is, or if it might improve over time, but I looked myself up.
I found mentions in 5 projects - _except_ they're all just versions of 2.6 kernel source with the same contribution for an obscure TV card cx88 variant I did. In practice, I'm sure I'm hardly alone in having contributions (mostly in small ways, but sometimes very considerably) to over 100 projects over the years. I guess I have to go through and add some of those projects.
Naw, CBA. At least I can make sure my resume is accurate.
There's a hidden hilarity here which won't be obvious to most readers.
I worked for a little known search engine company called Convera - formerly known as Excalibur and under other guises. It has been around for over 20 years and has been constantly on the verge of the next best thing. Its most successful product, RetrievalWare (RW) was very popular in government circles during the late 90s and early 2000s.
Last year, making its only real profit in all that time (it has burned through about $1Bn in financing), Convera sold its legacy RW product to, guess who: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convera_Corporation
Yes, Fast, for the bargain sum of $23 Million. And then Fast turns around and sells itself to MS for 50 times that amount. If we assume that the value added by RW is 1/5th of Fast's value, then that's an inflation of 10 times.
Yeah, I run greylistd (Debian, apt-get, no config needed for exim4). and works a treat. Cut about 90% of my spam. I'm running SpamAssassin too course, and Thunderbird filtering. I was getting over 300/day. Of course, my email is all over usenet, so that's somewhat expected.
At the risk of saying something completely obvious (this is Slashdot after all), er, use Free Software (and Linux). Yeah, I know. Even if you paid the MS tax to run Windows, there's still loads of OSS stuff you can legally run without having to pay anything extra. I'm certainly not paying hundreds of dollars just for the questionable benefit of being able to view Word documents using MS Office.
Gotcha. New Zealanders were responsible for splitting the atom, first up Everest (probably), first powered flight (very dubious), pissing off the US with their anti-Nuclear stance _and_ faking the moon landings.
The OpenMoko people are at pains to point out that OpenMoko != Neo 1973. Just very closely related.
> But then I read some things in the mailing-list archives that make it sound a lot further than I'd hoped from being "ready for prime-time".
Yeah, I'm following it too. And I expect even when the next hardware is ready in December, there will still be months before all the driver bugs are sorted out. I'm not bothered; there's likely to be a huge amount of interest at that point, _and_ they're working closely with the chipset manufacturers, which is quite in contrast to Linux on so many other devices.
> but the ability to reliably make and receive phone calls, and send and receive SMS, isn't really negotiable
Oddly enough, that's the one thing I can wait for. Having a PDA/MP3 player/WiFi device is what I really want, all in one package (and the phone too of course, when that's ready - I don't have one now).
Also, if you look back through the list and see how much progress they've made in the last few months, I'm pretty confident. Anyway, my background is embedded devices very much like this, so I can always hack it myself.
Perhaps (time, not reading the article), but there's another important player here that should be blatantly obvious, but no one has mentioned. That is of course Mozilla Foundation's best friend, Google. In particular, their emphasis on mobile platforms and Gphone. Guess what browser the gphone will have. In any case, there'll be a good deal of leverage and motivation from Google to make this happen sometime soon.
Someone tell them that it's not 2008 for another 12 weeks. Is this going to be like cars, where the "2008" models were actually made in early 2007 - and when you sell it, it looks a year newer than it actually is?
I'm jealous. I have, just once (WalMart), and I had to make a real effort since there isn't one nearby. I didn't buy anything, and I swore never to go back, since the atmosphere was so unpleasant.
Of course, in true hypocritical style, I own many things bought at Target, and I used to go to Asda (UK grocery chain owned by WalMart), but at least that was mostly reasonably local food products.
About the only thing I have that I could name off the top of my head that was actually made in the US would be my car. Oh, and my in laws.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know how representative it is, or if it might improve over time, but I looked myself up.
I found mentions in 5 projects - _except_ they're all just versions of 2.6 kernel source with the same contribution for an obscure TV card cx88 variant I did. In practice, I'm sure I'm hardly alone in having contributions (mostly in small ways, but sometimes very considerably) to over 100 projects over the years. I guess I have to go through and add some of those projects.
Naw, CBA. At least I can make sure my resume is accurate.
Don't worry, SCO is on the case.
> So, in other words, if you're willing to spend more time
Considerably less time, as you say below:
> and expense than it takes to put something in your Netflix DVD queue and wait for it,
No expense.
> you can illegally acquire
Where is the illegality? Against TOS, perhaps.
> a highly inferior version. Fantastic!
I already pointed out that that wasn't the case. Just today I showed a movie to someone and he was surprised at how high the quality is.
Fantastic set of non-facts! Next time, try checking. Oh wait, this is slashdot.
> DRM: Check
Strip with Mirakagi, et al, Uncheck.
> Low-def only: Check
> Low bitrate: Check
No, varies. About 2GB per movie. Not DVD, but plenty watchable.
> Watch only on computer: Check
See above, uncheck.
> Poor selection: Check
Limited yes, but I'm still finding stuff. And it's being added to regularly.
> No non-streaming option: Check
> No Linux support: Check
> No MacOS support: Check
See above about unDRMing. True, you need to do this in Windows (PITA), but this is one off.
hth.
...yes, what was your point, exactly? The ages of Convera and Fast are incidental.
There's a hidden hilarity here which won't be obvious to most readers.
I worked for a little known search engine company called Convera - formerly known as Excalibur and under other guises. It has been around for over 20 years and has been constantly on the verge of the next best thing. Its most successful product, RetrievalWare (RW) was very popular in government circles during the late 90s and early 2000s.
Last year, making its only real profit in all that time (it has burned through about $1Bn in financing), Convera sold its legacy RW product to, guess who:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convera_Corporation
Yes, Fast, for the bargain sum of $23 Million. And then Fast turns around and sells itself to MS for 50 times that amount. If we assume that the value added by RW is 1/5th of Fast's value, then that's an inflation of 10 times.
The comedy.
Unfortunately, the story really doesn't say anything of value. Just lots of filler, and an excuse to throw ads at you. Next, please.
Reminds of the tiny helicopter/insect in the first Lexx episode, which interfered with the virtual courtroom.
It's a city in the South of England. Geez, don't you know _anything_?
Dammit. My last two mod points expired just about 5 mins ago.
Yeah, I run greylistd (Debian, apt-get, no config needed for exim4). and works a treat. Cut about 90% of my spam. I'm running SpamAssassin too course, and Thunderbird filtering. I was getting over 300/day. Of course, my email is all over usenet, so that's somewhat expected.
At the risk of saying something completely obvious (this is Slashdot after all), er, use Free Software (and Linux). Yeah, I know. Even if you paid the MS tax to run Windows, there's still loads of OSS stuff you can legally run without having to pay anything extra. I'm certainly not paying hundreds of dollars just for the questionable benefit of being able to view Word documents using MS Office.
Feel free to point out obvious flaws here.
Gotcha. New Zealanders were responsible for splitting the atom, first up Everest (probably), first powered flight (very dubious), pissing off the US with their anti-Nuclear stance _and_ faking the moon landings.
(NZer in US)
memeization?
Almost as dumb as "stealizations". Is that a friend of colorization?
The OpenMoko people are at pains to point out that OpenMoko != Neo 1973. Just very closely related.
> But then I read some things in the mailing-list archives that make it sound a lot further than I'd hoped from being "ready for prime-time".
Yeah, I'm following it too. And I expect even when the next hardware is ready in December, there will still be months before all the driver bugs are sorted out. I'm not bothered; there's likely to be a huge amount of interest at that point, _and_ they're working closely with the chipset manufacturers, which is quite in contrast to Linux on so many other devices.
> but the ability to reliably make and receive phone calls, and send and receive SMS, isn't really negotiable
Oddly enough, that's the one thing I can wait for. Having a PDA/MP3 player/WiFi device is what I really want, all in one package (and the phone too of course, when that's ready - I don't have one now).
Also, if you look back through the list and see how much progress they've made in the last few months, I'm pretty confident. Anyway, my background is embedded devices very much like this, so I can always hack it myself.
> I assume the N800 will drop to the $250ish...
...that the N770 did, though.
Already has: http://www.buy.com/prod/nokia-n800-internet-tablet/q/loc/101/204055141.html
>
I think you missed a trick; try $150 or so:
http://www.google.com/products?q=nokia+770&btnG=Search+Products&hl=en
I've seen it as low as $120.
True enough, but I'm still waiting for the second version of the OpenMoko Neo 1973 - 480x640 with wireless.
> And I like that it's not a phone, it means you're not locked into anything.
For the Neo I like that it's _also_ a phone _and_ I'm not locked into anything.
Perhaps (time, not reading the article), but there's another important player here that should be blatantly obvious, but no one has mentioned. That is of course Mozilla Foundation's best friend, Google. In particular, their emphasis on mobile platforms and Gphone. Guess what browser the gphone will have. In any case, there'll be a good deal of leverage and motivation from Google to make this happen sometime soon.
Someone tell them that it's not 2008 for another 12 weeks. Is this going to be like cars, where the "2008" models were actually made in early 2007 - and when you sell it, it looks a year newer than it actually is?
Sorry, car analogy.
> At least Microsoft doesn't attack itself.
I guess you don't read Slashdot then:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/01/235237
Someone (not me, I'm "mrslacker") organize a San Diego, or better yet, a North County, get together, and I'll be there.
> I've never been inside a WalMart or Sams Club!
I'm jealous. I have, just once (WalMart), and I had to make a real effort since there isn't one nearby. I didn't buy anything, and I swore never to go back, since the atmosphere was so unpleasant.
Of course, in true hypocritical style, I own many things bought at Target, and I used to go to Asda (UK grocery chain owned by WalMart), but at least that was mostly reasonably local food products.
About the only thing I have that I could name off the top of my head that was actually made in the US would be my car. Oh, and my in laws.
Only 120 days, but:
http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/CAD/graph120.html