The problem is that OSS will always be catching up. I have yet to see popular OSS software show real innovation. They are just alternatives to existing applications. While that itself isn't bad, the innovators that pioneer original applications will continue working and breaking new ground and making money until free competitors catch up to them.
The thing is, what is innovation? I can't think of a single innovative product in the 20 years I've been observing the IT industry. I do see many incremental improvements, culminating in fancy products that garner lots of attention. However I don't think product evolution is innovation.
OpenOffice is nice and all, but it's just as bloated as Microsoft Office, and it's got the same nightmarish, crappy user interface.
Really? I personally like the OO.org interface. I use the Writer component on a 1GHz machine and it's fast. Very fast. Takes less than 3 seconds from clicking the icon in Nautilus to the document being in front of me. Typing and scrolling documents is smooth. The predictive spellchecker is easy to use. Creating tables is not painful like in Word. Dialogs look good and open up instantaneously. The toolbar layout is excellent. The menus are intelligent (with some minor exceptions for the menus related to table editing). The Stylist is intelligently designed. Fields are easy to use. Numbered outlines are trivially enabled. Equations are easy to write. I adore the templating system. Everything I need from a word processor is in OO.org Writer. I'm really happy with it. I use OO.org Writer in preference to Microsoft Word, and I paid for Word!
And don't get me started on the Gimp. Again, great idea, but the user interface is a travesty.
When was the last time you used GIMP? The most common grievance with GIMP was the right-click menu. That's deprecated. The menu is now at the top of the window, just like other applications. The interface is now quite sensible. In fact, I'd have to the say the GIMP has the least travesty points for FLOSS applications that I use.
After iPod, Apple has about a 3% market share. iPod however has about 70% of the mobile digital audio market.
No, it really doesn't.
The iPod has a high percentage of the hard-disk based MP3 player market.
It has a much smaller percentage when you take into consideration all the flash-based MP3 players.
It has a vanishingly small percentage when you take into account the much wider scope of "mobile digital audio" players because that includes discmans and minidiscs. But I'll take it you only meant MP3/AAC style digital audio.
It's fashionable,
The danger with fashion is that it changes from season to season. Let's hope for Apple's sake that the iPod isn't fashionable.
it's crash proof
That is simply incorrect. I crashed my father's iPod within 30 seconds of picking it up. The entire interface locked up and it needed a hard reset. I didn't plug it into a computer; just mucking about with the wheel and buttons. I admit I have a special talent for causing crashes in embedded devices.
It's interesting to note how the perceptions of the X-Box have changed since it was launched. Originally, it was mocked, reviled and no serious gamer would touch one.
That's because it had no serious games. The Xbox game lineup at launch included a half dozen snowboarding games, a crappy racer ported from the Dreamcast, and a single worthy game called Halo. However IMHO even Halo is at best 7/10; it is repetitive, too short, and has a lame story. I never thought it deserved the hype it received.
The last console to have such a crappy lineup at launch was the Saturn. Remember that one? No, you probably don't, because it bombed badly. Thus proving the First Law of Consoles; the games are far more important than the hardware.
Microsoft resolved their problem with games licenses though I think about 2 years too late. So the Xbox is no longer a joke. I bought one last year because there are finally a few titles worth playing. But it was too little, too late to stop the Xbox from getting second place (or third place, depending on whose figures you believe).
What if I'm using dial-up, and need to use the phone? 1 '.iso' is going to take hours to download, let alone for instance the 7 Debian discs I'm still downloading (and this at ~300kbps in, as opposed to ~4kbps for 56k dial-up). And this presumes that I have an OS already available with which to do the downloading. Kinda hard to get connected without network support. Also, some people have to pay for bandwidth. Not everyone has the luxury of unlimited broadband.
Yeah, a year ago I didn't have broadband either. I used to get my Linux discs shipped overnight for $2 each.
Well, if they're willing to use Linux, then the OS price is the cost of the CDs you burn the image(s) onto, and therefore negligible.
Wrong. How long does it take to download? Time is money, don't think it ain't. That's not to say that the cost isn't far less; just don't pretend that because the software itself is free, that everything else about it is as well.
He didn't say "free". He said "negligible". It takes 30 seconds of my time and costs me a few cents to download an ISO. That is most certainly negligible.
Why on earth would you want to put Mandrake on it when you've already got a beautiful unix based OS with it. And why on earth would you want a PowerPC box to put linux on? Bob
Why should he not?
Linux rocks. Mac Mini rocks. The two together obviously rock twice as hard.
Are you seriously suggesting that nobody could possibly prefer Linux once they've used MacOS X? Think again, buddy.
Here's a newsflash for you: all software is eventually redundant. You think Open Office is still going to be around 20, 30, or 40 years from now?
20? 30? 40? I'm talking 2, 3, or 4 years. But I'm glad you're bringing us newsflashes. Where would I be without your wisdom.
And personally, I'm not concerned about running a proprietary application in this case, as there is every indication that Pages' native file format will be XML based, with a publically available XSLT, making it very easy to transform into other XML formats.
I've been burnt before by proprietary applications even when the "format" was open. I'm talking about UNIX. I have no desire to tread that path again. One day you'll be burnt as well, if you haven't been already.
Sorry, but your attempt at FUD doesn't fly here.
Rolls eyes. Whatever. You're a terrorist. And probably a communist too.
I disagree with the hypothesis that "No-one likes Office". I can agree that most people here on/. (myself included) don't like Office, but we're in a minority situation.
I disagree with your claim that "most people here on/. don't like Office". I don't think you have evidence either way. I think you're just stating your dislikes as if you're representative of the entire group.
I like OO.org. I only use a word processor and OOWriter is significantly better than either Kword or Abiword. The latest versions (1.1.3) even look good under GNOME due to decent theme support. The display fonts are anti-aliased and it finds all the fonts on my system. The export to PDF feature is perfect. The interface responds quickly on my 1GHz laptop w/ 384MB RAM. I really couldn't expect it to be much better.
I don't think I'm alone in liking OO.org. I won't make the mistake of claiming that "most people here on/. do like OO.org" but I will make the claim that you're making shit up.
My copy of iWork is already on order. I've been wanting to get Keynote for some time now, and getting it bundled with what looks to be a high-quality word processing/page layout solution for less money equals me pre-ordering a copy from Apple's website the same day it was announced:).
You're buying proprietary applications to run on a proprietary operating system. That's fine. Your decision to make. But you're the Wordperfect running on PC-DOS user of the future. I hope the immediate gratification of shiny buttons and translucent windows makes up for the inevitable redundancy.
While I agree that full disclosure in a reasonable period of time (say 90 days) is best, immediate disclosure can leave thousands of systems vulnerable with no patches and no reasonable way to get them patched immediately even if a fix is available.
They were vulnerable anyway. The reality is that most security holes are known to the black hats well before the white hats hear about it. I would rather know there's a problem so I can make a judgement call as to whether I'm willing to risk leaving the service running.
Things like expose and translucent windows can come in amazlingly handy in OS X (I've never found anything quite as useful as transparent terminal windows in OS X allowing me to have code open in one window, and documentation in the window behind it, and look through the code window to read documentation, especially when working with an API your not familiar with).
I just wish this would make it into X, but alas I suspect that it's the sort of thing that might take a while to get properly implemented and supported.
I've been using translucent windows and compositing on my Linux desktop for months. It's part of Xorg. Yes, it is hardware accelerated. Yes, it is faster. Yes, it looks cool. Yes, it works today.
It's easy for iceland to claim 70% "green" because geothermal heating is a real option for them. The air is cold, the earth is hot. It doesn't work for most of the rest of the world. There's nothing for me to dig into but cold muck and the chesapeake watershed.
It can work for the entire world. It's just more difficult for some. Google for Hot Rock Energy. First hit is a doozie.
Absolute Zero: 0 Kelvin
Freezing point of Hydrogen: 13.97 Kelvin
Boiling point of Hydrogen: 20.41 Kelvin
Mean surface temp of Pluto: 53 Kelvin
Freezing point of Water: 273.16 Kelvin
Boiling point of Water: 373.16 Kelvin
How much energy do you think it would take to keep Hydrogen in that six and a half degree window so that it is liquified for transport but doesn't freeze and break the tanker in half?
Not much energy at all. You're not considering the pressure. High pressure, high temperature, still a liquid.
Also I should note that Macs can run Linux; Debian has a PPC port, YellowDog makes a Fedora-based version and Fedora is now working on their own PPC version.
I'm well aware of LinuxPPC. I'm running Debian on a PowerBook and have done so for over a year. Previously I ran LinuxPPC on an iBook and a 7220. Linux rarely works on newly released Mac hardware. It always takes a while before somebody (usually Ben H.) gets hold of the new hardware and writes a bunch of drivers. I'll bet dollars to donuts that LinuxPPC won't work right away on the MacMini.
Actually, there is an IR remote available for it (look on the accessories page).
Which is one of those USB attachments I said could be used to correct some of the problems.
It does in fact have a TV out (either DVI to an HDTV or with an adapter to an S-Video or Composite set).
Yes, that is good. Thanks for the correction.
Actually, the lack of video in or PCI isn't that big of an issue.
It is a huge issue.
Power on is not an issue
It is an issue.
Know what else has FireWire? Every HD cable box, by law.
I was thinking about getting a little Small-form factor box to run something like MythTv, something along the lines of a AMD64. But checking out the Mac mini just makes me wonder about how I could get that going.
Immediately obvious problems; no IR remote, no IR power-on, no TV out, no DVB in, no PCI slot to add DVB, no Linux (MythTV on Mac is almost but not quite usable).
Some (not all) of those problems can be fixed with USB attachments but I'm thinking, the Mac Mini is not a good MythTV box (yet).
Balancing between competing goals or resources forces you to choose. And choice is what allows for artisic creativity.
Choice allows for many things, not just artistic creativity. Balancing between competing goals and resources is not art; it happens in too many fields to be anything special.
First of all: Do not run cat-5 between buildings. Unless you have the ability to figure out and prevent ground loops, you are asking for trouble.
What the hell are you talking about? You can't get a ground loop with Ethernet over cat-5. There's no ground wire! The pairs are differential and isolated.
If Ethernet over cat-5 caused ground loops then 1000s of office buildings throughout the world would be having problems. Any sizable office will have multiple independent power circuits.
I still don't get it. Who's going to pay the programmers?
Who pays for the programmers who write Linux?
If it's the art (the story, the characters, the level designs, etc.) that brings in the money, why should Valve have to pay for the programmers while Company #2 only needs to hire writers and artists?
Why should RedHat have to pay for programmers while Company #2 only needs to hire salesmen?
I do see how Linux works, and how it has come such a long way *because* it's Free, but I can't see how it can be economically feasible to apply this to all types of software development.
I don't think free software works for all types of software development either, but I don't think you are making any decent arguments as to why free software couldn't work for games.
If people knew basic economy, they would also know that they cannot constantly spend more than they earn. Furthermore, they would realize that it makes more sense to use cash than credit cards and debt, since you have to pay interest for debt.
It doesn't always make more sense to use cash. A credit card...
Will be interest free if you pay back within a certain time period.
Provides some protection against loss, theft, mugging and pickpocketing.
Gives you an itemized record of everything you've bought. Good for tax purposes.
Is sensible from the "debt can be used to create profit" point of view.
That last one is difficult to grasp and does require some knowledge of economics. Basically it makes sense sometimes to go into debt because in the long run you will make more money. An example of this is getting a mortgage on a house rather than renting.
Schools have to teach people something to justify their existence.
I have a more cynical belief that schools exist to keep children occupied during the day so both parents can work.
This is like saying GM should open-source the blueprints for all their car engines. It's ridiculous. Valve put untold millions into HL2 development, and there's absolutely no incentive for them to just open the source, and there's a strong disincentive: if they were to open it, everyone could just build a highly competitive game on top of it without paying a cent. And what's gonna pay for the programmers? The original game's sales? Will they be high enough given the man-hours that went into the engine, especially since the new competing games would likely cannibalize the sales of the original game?
This is like saying Linus should open-source the source code for Linux. It's ridiculous. Linus and his merry band of programmers put untold millions of hours into Linux development, and there's absolutely no incentive for them to just open the source, and there's a strong disincentive: if they were to open it, everyone could just build a highly competitive operating system on top of it without paying a cent. And what's gonna pay for the programmers? The original CD sales? Will they be high enough given the man-hours that went into the kernel, especially since the new competing kernels would likely cannibalize the sales of the original kernel?
To ignore the economic constraints of development is breathtakingly naive.
most game software is a balancing act between competing resources and is therefore an art.
Writing software that balances several competing resources is engineering.
I think that some software can be artistic in the sense that it is written creatively but that has nothing to do with it being a "balancing act between competing resources".
So don't delude yourself that desktop linux is ready for the masses...
I don't think it is either. You are attributing me with beliefs that I do not have. I honestly couldn't care less if Linux never goes "mainstream" on the desktop.
That said, you tried RedHat 6 (1999) and RedHat 7 (2000). You might like to try something more recent like Fedora Core 3. The hardware detection and driver support has dramatically improved.
Bs.. bs... bs... I have tried to install Linux 3 times. Twice redhat, once Mandrake on win desktops (twice win2k, once winxp) and hardware that MSWin recognized out of the box failed to be recognized on them.
I've been running Linux for 12 years as my desktop. In that time I've gone through a half dozen motherboards, four laptops, and countless CPU upgrades. I've also run Linux on secondary computers that I use for personal servers; more than a dozen in total. I've also installed Linux on over 100+ computers for work-related purposes. I've never come across a hardware combo onto which I couldn't install Linux.
I'm not doubting your story - I'm sure there are hardware combos that Linux installers have trouble with - but your experiences are not the norm.
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The thing is, what is innovation? I can't think of a single innovative product in the 20 years I've been observing the IT industry. I do see many incremental improvements, culminating in fancy products that garner lots of attention. However I don't think product evolution is innovation.
Name something that you think is innovative.
Really? I personally like the OO.org interface. I use the Writer component on a 1GHz machine and it's fast. Very fast. Takes less than 3 seconds from clicking the icon in Nautilus to the document being in front of me. Typing and scrolling documents is smooth. The predictive spellchecker is easy to use. Creating tables is not painful like in Word. Dialogs look good and open up instantaneously. The toolbar layout is excellent. The menus are intelligent (with some minor exceptions for the menus related to table editing). The Stylist is intelligently designed. Fields are easy to use. Numbered outlines are trivially enabled. Equations are easy to write. I adore the templating system. Everything I need from a word processor is in OO.org Writer. I'm really happy with it. I use OO.org Writer in preference to Microsoft Word, and I paid for Word!
When was the last time you used GIMP? The most common grievance with GIMP was the right-click menu. That's deprecated. The menu is now at the top of the window, just like other applications. The interface is now quite sensible. In fact, I'd have to the say the GIMP has the least travesty points for FLOSS applications that I use.
No, it really doesn't.
The iPod has a high percentage of the hard-disk based MP3 player market.
It has a much smaller percentage when you take into consideration all the flash-based MP3 players.
It has a vanishingly small percentage when you take into account the much wider scope of "mobile digital audio" players because that includes discmans and minidiscs. But I'll take it you only meant MP3/AAC style digital audio.
The danger with fashion is that it changes from season to season. Let's hope for Apple's sake that the iPod isn't fashionable.
That is simply incorrect. I crashed my father's iPod within 30 seconds of picking it up. The entire interface locked up and it needed a hard reset. I didn't plug it into a computer; just mucking about with the wheel and buttons. I admit I have a special talent for causing crashes in embedded devices.
That's because it had no serious games. The Xbox game lineup at launch included a half dozen snowboarding games, a crappy racer ported from the Dreamcast, and a single worthy game called Halo. However IMHO even Halo is at best 7/10; it is repetitive, too short, and has a lame story. I never thought it deserved the hype it received.
The last console to have such a crappy lineup at launch was the Saturn. Remember that one? No, you probably don't, because it bombed badly. Thus proving the First Law of Consoles; the games are far more important than the hardware.
Microsoft resolved their problem with games licenses though I think about 2 years too late. So the Xbox is no longer a joke. I bought one last year because there are finally a few titles worth playing. But it was too little, too late to stop the Xbox from getting second place (or third place, depending on whose figures you believe).
Yeah, a year ago I didn't have broadband either. I used to get my Linux discs shipped overnight for $2 each.
He didn't say "free". He said "negligible". It takes 30 seconds of my time and costs me a few cents to download an ISO. That is most certainly negligible.
Why should he not?
Linux rocks. Mac Mini rocks. The two together obviously rock twice as hard.
Are you seriously suggesting that nobody could possibly prefer Linux once they've used MacOS X? Think again, buddy.
20? 30? 40? I'm talking 2, 3, or 4 years. But I'm glad you're bringing us newsflashes. Where would I be without your wisdom.
I've been burnt before by proprietary applications even when the "format" was open. I'm talking about UNIX. I have no desire to tread that path again. One day you'll be burnt as well, if you haven't been already.
Rolls eyes. Whatever. You're a terrorist. And probably a communist too.
Motif is a widget set, not a GUI. You're probably thinking of CDE.
CDE was from IBM, Digital, Microsoft and HP, not Sun.
Sun's proprietary GUI was OpenWindows. It was a heck of a lot better than CDE.
Sun stopped building on CDE about 4 years ago and has been a GNOME supporter ever since.
I disagree with your claim that "most people here on /. don't like Office". I don't think you have evidence either way. I think you're just stating your dislikes as if you're representative of the entire group.
I like OO.org. I only use a word processor and OOWriter is significantly better than either Kword or Abiword. The latest versions (1.1.3) even look good under GNOME due to decent theme support. The display fonts are anti-aliased and it finds all the fonts on my system. The export to PDF feature is perfect. The interface responds quickly on my 1GHz laptop w/ 384MB RAM. I really couldn't expect it to be much better.
I don't think I'm alone in liking OO.org. I won't make the mistake of claiming that "most people here on /. do like OO.org" but I will make the claim that you're making shit up.
You're buying proprietary applications to run on a proprietary operating system. That's fine. Your decision to make. But you're the Wordperfect running on PC-DOS user of the future. I hope the immediate gratification of shiny buttons and translucent windows makes up for the inevitable redundancy.
They were vulnerable anyway. The reality is that most security holes are known to the black hats well before the white hats hear about it. I would rather know there's a problem so I can make a judgement call as to whether I'm willing to risk leaving the service running.
I've been using translucent windows and compositing on my Linux desktop for months. It's part of Xorg. Yes, it is hardware accelerated. Yes, it is faster. Yes, it looks cool. Yes, it works today.
It can work for the entire world. It's just more difficult for some. Google for Hot Rock Energy. First hit is a doozie.
Not much energy at all. You're not considering the pressure. High pressure, high temperature, still a liquid.
Yes, but it's not the only source.
Also vegetable oils.
Because you can use any energy source to make hydrogen.
I'm well aware of LinuxPPC. I'm running Debian on a PowerBook and have done so for over a year. Previously I ran LinuxPPC on an iBook and a 7220. Linux rarely works on newly released Mac hardware. It always takes a while before somebody (usually Ben H.) gets hold of the new hardware and writes a bunch of drivers. I'll bet dollars to donuts that LinuxPPC won't work right away on the MacMini.
Which is one of those USB attachments I said could be used to correct some of the problems.
Yes, that is good. Thanks for the correction.
It is a huge issue.
It is an issue.
No cable in my region. Only DVB-T.
Immediately obvious problems; no IR remote, no IR power-on, no TV out, no DVB in, no PCI slot to add DVB, no Linux (MythTV on Mac is almost but not quite usable).
Some (not all) of those problems can be fixed with USB attachments but I'm thinking, the Mac Mini is not a good MythTV box (yet).
Choice allows for many things, not just artistic creativity. Balancing between competing goals and resources is not art; it happens in too many fields to be anything special.
What the hell are you talking about? You can't get a ground loop with Ethernet over cat-5. There's no ground wire! The pairs are differential and isolated.
If Ethernet over cat-5 caused ground loops then 1000s of office buildings throughout the world would be having problems. Any sizable office will have multiple independent power circuits.
Who pays for the programmers who write Linux?
Why should RedHat have to pay for programmers while Company #2 only needs to hire salesmen?
I don't think free software works for all types of software development either, but I don't think you are making any decent arguments as to why free software couldn't work for games.
It doesn't always make more sense to use cash. A credit card...
That last one is difficult to grasp and does require some knowledge of economics. Basically it makes sense sometimes to go into debt because in the long run you will make more money. An example of this is getting a mortgage on a house rather than renting.
I have a more cynical belief that schools exist to keep children occupied during the day so both parents can work.
This is like saying Linus should open-source the source code for Linux. It's ridiculous. Linus and his merry band of programmers put untold millions of hours into Linux development, and there's absolutely no incentive for them to just open the source, and there's a strong disincentive: if they were to open it, everyone could just build a highly competitive operating system on top of it without paying a cent. And what's gonna pay for the programmers? The original CD sales? Will they be high enough given the man-hours that went into the kernel, especially since the new competing kernels would likely cannibalize the sales of the original kernel?
To ignore the economic constraints of development is breathtakingly naive.
Writing software that balances several competing resources is engineering.
I think that some software can be artistic in the sense that it is written creatively but that has nothing to do with it being a "balancing act between competing resources".
I don't think it is either. You are attributing me with beliefs that I do not have. I honestly couldn't care less if Linux never goes "mainstream" on the desktop.
That said, you tried RedHat 6 (1999) and RedHat 7 (2000). You might like to try something more recent like Fedora Core 3. The hardware detection and driver support has dramatically improved.
I've been running Linux for 12 years as my desktop. In that time I've gone through a half dozen motherboards, four laptops, and countless CPU upgrades. I've also run Linux on secondary computers that I use for personal servers; more than a dozen in total. I've also installed Linux on over 100+ computers for work-related purposes. I've never come across a hardware combo onto which I couldn't install Linux.
I'm not doubting your story - I'm sure there are hardware combos that Linux installers have trouble with - but your experiences are not the norm.