From what I've been hearing from my sources,
there is plenty of _idea theft_, but no code
theft. And the ideas that are being stolen
are from neither KDE nor GNOME, but BeOS.
How many times do people have to bang their
heads against the fact you can't really sell
Linux not just because it's under the GPL, but
because OS's have no intrinsic value to the end
user? OS's enable applications, applications get
a task done, and what you really want to sell
is a black box for doing something (or several
things).
Microsoft is acutely aware of this. You might
even notice this from several facts, like that
Microsoft generally charges users only for OS
upgrades, and that OEM's of prepackaged systems
are the ones generally paying "The Microsoft tax"
and adding it into the prices of systems. The
second part of this is that for all the talk of
operating systems going on, the only real thing
people are noticing is the middleware, if even
on that low of a level. I have yet to see anyone
here mention one whit of actual kernel
functionality in their "OS discussions". Instead
it's all GUI toolkits and perhaps even specific
applications.
If you want to challenge Microsoft (and I'd be
more than happy to see this happen), doing so
on the kernel level is the wrong way to go. In
fact, GNOME and KDE seem to have more to do with
that than Linux itself. Create the applications.
Make them look sexy. Make them run well. And
that isn't even the hard part. For example, what
would you have to do to get a Quicken or an
equivalent on Linux? There is still more to
consider here than writing good code.
1) The Mondale campaign commercial saying "no
weapons in space") in MPEG/whatever video
format
2) Scans of the photos in "The Sex Life of the
DSKRAT"
3) Either online text of or a seller that will
sell me Helen Zahavi's "The Weekend"
4) Documentation describing bus interface units
and the precise operation of peripherals used
in various definitely obsolete, but not truly
ancient architectures (e.g. R2K)
I don't mean to be unreasonably critical, as some others apparently are, but it seems unclear to me how this gibes with the overall theme of the site. While I am versed in computing and perhaps some mathematics, ethics and genetics are outside the province of my specialties as well as my interests, and probably those of the general readership here as well. I don't mean to be narrow-minded, and I do have interests outside of computing, yet ethics and genetics are not among them. Of course, this site is not targeted toward me specifically, but there seems to be a general outcry against the atopical articles. As I understood it this site was primarily about computing. Broadening its scope to every technology under the sun is probably spreading itself thin, as well as diluting the core content directed toward the common interests of the readership. While I can't unequivocally recommend a better course of action, I can say I'm not particularly happy with this turn of events.
You guys must be living sheltered lives. With $5K I'd actually buy the books for my classes, stop skipping meals to save money, and maybe get basics for my apartment like a table, a chair, and a chest of drawers. I might even get my car repaired. I don't even own my own computer, and I've got enough other things to worry about paying for I won't even be thinking about buying one anytime soon. Cheers, Bill
Slashdot Mirror
Glad to be of service.
Cheers,
Bill
From what I've been hearing from my sources,
there is plenty of _idea theft_, but no code
theft. And the ideas that are being stolen
are from neither KDE nor GNOME, but BeOS.
How many times do people have to bang their
heads against the fact you can't really sell
Linux not just because it's under the GPL, but
because OS's have no intrinsic value to the end
user? OS's enable applications, applications get
a task done, and what you really want to sell
is a black box for doing something (or several
things).
Microsoft is acutely aware of this. You might
even notice this from several facts, like that
Microsoft generally charges users only for OS
upgrades, and that OEM's of prepackaged systems
are the ones generally paying "The Microsoft tax"
and adding it into the prices of systems. The
second part of this is that for all the talk of
operating systems going on, the only real thing
people are noticing is the middleware, if even
on that low of a level. I have yet to see anyone
here mention one whit of actual kernel
functionality in their "OS discussions". Instead
it's all GUI toolkits and perhaps even specific
applications.
If you want to challenge Microsoft (and I'd be
more than happy to see this happen), doing so
on the kernel level is the wrong way to go. In
fact, GNOME and KDE seem to have more to do with
that than Linux itself. Create the applications.
Make them look sexy. Make them run well. And
that isn't even the hard part. For example, what
would you have to do to get a Quicken or an
equivalent on Linux? There is still more to
consider here than writing good code.
Cheers,
Bill
1) The Mondale campaign commercial saying "no
weapons in space") in MPEG/whatever video
format
2) Scans of the photos in "The Sex Life of the
DSKRAT"
3) Either online text of or a seller that will
sell me Helen Zahavi's "The Weekend"
4) Documentation describing bus interface units
and the precise operation of peripherals used
in various definitely obsolete, but not truly
ancient architectures (e.g. R2K)
Well, that's my wishlist for now.
Bill
I don't mean to be unreasonably critical, as some others apparently are, but it seems unclear to me how this gibes with the overall theme of the site. While I am versed in computing and perhaps some mathematics, ethics and genetics are outside the province of my specialties as well as my interests, and probably those of the general readership here as well. I don't mean to be narrow-minded, and I do have interests outside of computing, yet ethics and genetics are not among them.
Of course, this site is not targeted toward me specifically, but there seems to be a general outcry against the atopical articles. As I understood it this site was primarily about computing. Broadening its scope to every technology under the sun is probably spreading itself thin, as well as diluting the core content directed toward the common interests of the readership.
While I can't unequivocally recommend a better course of action, I can say I'm not particularly happy with this turn of events.
Bill
You guys must be living sheltered lives. With $5K I'd actually buy the books for my classes, stop skipping meals to save money, and maybe get basics for my apartment like a table, a chair, and a chest of drawers. I might even get my car repaired. I don't even own my own computer, and I've got enough other things to worry about paying for I won't even be thinking about buying one anytime soon.
Cheers, Bill