The standard philosophy of button bars is that they are not supposed to be explanatory, but merely shortcuts. The menu hierarchy is supposed to be the thing that points newbies to new tools. I'm not advocating that philosophy, but it's the thinking when Microsoft invented the "toolbar" however many years ago. (that was a joke.:)) -Erik
While James Billington suggest the internet is not a "community thing," imagine if LoC built The Right Website, with slasdot style commenting along with books... moderating good discussions. I might actually find out what my peers are thinking, especially if comments were integrated in the text.
When I go to the library, I find my books, check them out, go home, write my paper, and then wait until the books are overdue and return them... libraries are social places only for people whose only friends are books (I imagine Billington fits the bill.)
It seems obvious MS has broken the law with it's abuse of monopoly power... even if you disagree, as a citizen you need to accept what the courts decide. A lot of people around here just want to serve their own purposes, though... "open source this so I can do that," or "it'd be neat if they made them port software X to operating system Y." When we look back at what happened with the oil monopoly, it was a lot simpler back then--crude oil is crude oil, it's not like different oil is selectively compatible with refineries like software is selectively compatible with OS's. The way to break up a monopoly is to cut it into smaller parts and let other companies compete with the parts... but even if you siphon off MSN and MS Office from windows, linux still can't compete with windows until it can run Photoshop and Quicken and Barbie Fashion Designer... Is there a way that Jackson could make a change that would make this possible? Turn over all the defacto standards (DirectX, etc...) to something like the W3C and give MS and RedHat and Sun and Apple equal influence over them? Would that help?
Slashdot Mirror
The standard philosophy of button bars is that they are not supposed to be explanatory, but merely shortcuts. The menu hierarchy is supposed to be the thing that points newbies to new tools. I'm not advocating that philosophy, but it's the thinking when Microsoft invented the "toolbar" however many years ago. (that was a joke. :)) -Erik
If that article isn't on the main page, where was it?
> WIPTBIOW WTHITSTM? SOTAGOOH. -Erik P.S. (what the hell is this supposed to mean? Some of these acronyms get out of hand.)
While James Billington suggest the internet is not a "community thing," imagine if LoC built The Right Website, with slasdot style commenting along with books... moderating good discussions. I might actually find out what my peers are thinking, especially if comments were integrated in the text.
When I go to the library, I find my books, check them out, go home, write my paper, and then wait until the books are overdue and return them... libraries are social places only for people whose only friends are books (I imagine Billington fits the bill.)
-Erik
It seems obvious MS has broken the law with it's abuse of monopoly power... even if you disagree, as a citizen you need to accept what the courts decide. A lot of people around here just want to serve their own purposes, though... "open source this so I can do that," or "it'd be neat if they made them port software X to operating system Y." When we look back at what happened with the oil monopoly, it was a lot simpler back then--crude oil is crude oil, it's not like different oil is selectively compatible with refineries like software is selectively compatible with OS's. The way to break up a monopoly is to cut it into smaller parts and let other companies compete with the parts... but even if you siphon off MSN and MS Office from windows, linux still can't compete with windows until it can run Photoshop and Quicken and Barbie Fashion Designer... Is there a way that Jackson could make a change that would make this possible? Turn over all the defacto standards (DirectX, etc...) to something like the W3C and give MS and RedHat and Sun and Apple equal influence over them? Would that help?