knew this thread would fall into the trap of recursive "reasoning". Repeat after me, "a company cannot exploit its monopoly to become a monopoly".
Yes it can. MS got handed a monopoly on IBM machines, it exploited that monopoly to get into other monopolies (such as Office on the Mac), and once it got the monopolies on the office suite it moved on to a monopoly on the web. So yes, it exploited a monopoly to gain a monopoly (look at the ISPs and cable companies...)
But there are a lot more then games in Linux that needs good 3-D drivers, compiz-fusion to name one. Granted it might be nearly useless when it comes to productivity, but it is one major thing to convince people to use Linux rather then Windows and if you can demonstrate it easier with a Ubuntu live-CD rather then an install, more people will use Linux.
This is perfect! Next time a teacher or other person in authority says I can't use Wikipedia because it is unreliable I just get the content from this site and I can say that it wasn't Wikipedia!
Well Stallman started telling us about proprietary software and the evils it had back in the '80s and everyone just kinda laughed at him, he spoke about this erosion of our rights but we just told him to put on his tin-foil hat. He was right. Now I don't think he ever posted a "I TOLD YOU SO" comment, but about 20 years ago he foretold with remarkable accuracy what today would be like if people started turning to proprietary software.
No but there were a whole lot of rights you did have that the digital version doesn't have. For example, first sale, I can sell my collection of CDs at a garage sale, but I can't sell my DRM-laden media because it won't work. I also had the right to time-shift content, for example, I should have the right to record a TV show and then play it back on an iPod, Linux computer, Windows computer, game console, on a Mac, cell phone or anything else that can decode a show. With DRM time shifting is prevented because I can't play it on my iPod because it doesn't have the right DRM authorization, won't play back on a Linux computer without having to resort to some possibly illegal ways of taking out the DRM of my legally obtained media (another reason why piracy is the better choice), it may play on a Windows computer after installing tons of third-party software but will not play back in any media player of choice, it might not play back on a game console again, due to DRM, the makers of the DRM may have not decided to add in support for Mac, so they are left with installing hacks of questionable legality to strip out the DRM to play the legally obtained media, and a cell phone might not be able to play it (well, technical reasons aside) because of the DRM.
This is like taking a door and saying you can't make a copy of the key to enter it in legally because duplicating your legally got key is illegal because the door maker can sell replacement keys for half the price of the door.
You are aware that we're heading towards (or already arrived at) a de facto monopoly for ISPs, yes? And there is heavy lobbying to keep it that way.
When have we NOT had a monopoly in ISPs? In how long I have kept up with computers there has only been 1 or 2 ISPs per small town (there are probably more options in larger cities). Now some of those ISPs used to be small and not like AT&T or Comcast, but for those living in the town they were still a monopoly. Now we have the same: 1 or 2 ISPs per small town, but the 1 or 2 happen to be absolutely huge companies that look at customers as if they were meaningless.
Yep, however none of the browsers are in Ubuntu's repos yet, and I assume that Konqueror would use WebKit as it is the natural continuation of KHTML and using the same renderer as Safari would get them recognized as a real browser (rather then the file manager that just happens to have a built-in browser)
But to a hacker, your home directory is utterly worthless. Unless they plan on stalking you, your pictures mean nothing to them, and hopefully you don't have your credit card numbers in a file creditcards.txt. As for a keylogger, that would be bad, but I doubt that it would run at a level not to be noticeable.
A non-trivial portion of the commercial and research Linux user base has to stick with EL4 or a source rebuild from CentOS, Scientific Linux or whatever because of third party tool support requirements. And not everybody wants to upgrade their OS just because a new browser is out.
But so far most of the "mainstream" distros have done a great job in providing Firefox 3 (Ubuntu even has it included in 8.04). I wouldn't necessarily blame Mozilla for this, but rather the distro makers for failing to include a package. However, I think you are looking at this all wrong, it is more or less as huge as a leap forward as KDE 4 was for the desktop, as such some of the more "stable" distros such as CentOS are reluctant to include it as it is so new just as KDE 4 is still unavailable for some distros, but KDE 3 still is and much like Firefox 2 it still will receive updates for a while. But honestly, most of the people who use Linux use Ubuntu or a derivative (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, etc) or a more "unstable" distro then CentOS (Fedora, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, etc). So I think it is just CentOS being CentOS, being stable, don't like that? Change to Ubuntu.
Re:Foolish idea: Millions of downloads on the 1st
on
A Few Firefox 3 Followups
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Every software has bugs, be it written by Microsoft, Mozilla, the Hacker living in his mom's basement, or even by RMS or Linus Torvalds. It is a fact of computers. Now the good thing is, a fix will be released quickly, and if you really feel like it you can patch it yourself, compare that to IE, Opera, or Safari*. Basically, no development method is perfect, but open source comes close to eliminating all the bugs and if you are complaining then write up a patch.
*Yes, yes I know the core of Safari is WebKit which was forked from KHTML and you can get the source to that
Oh, 8 million all set to exploit? What was the marketshare for Windows again? 91.13% according to Wikipedia. Now figuring that there are around 1.2 billion Internet users which figures to at least that many computer users. I would have to say that the odds are higher of exploiting one of the many flaws in IE which is slower to patch and who's users are computer newbies. With Firefox whenever a toolbar somehow pops up most people know something bad has happened, with IE it is seen as "just something a computer does". Oh and don't forget OS versions, I bet that a lot of the people downloading it were Linux/Mac users and they are harder to exploit to run malicious code on (yes you can destroy the home directory and perhaps add in a keylogger but that is about it).
Well, other then RPGs and FPS games.... There aren't much games left for you to play. Well there are the crappy mini-game collections that 8 year old kids beg parents to buy.... But platformers are mostly dead, fighters are almost dead, and adventure games surely have more then 15 lines of dialog, take away that and what is left? Not much that is any good anyways.
Honstly, if you really want to play games, go with a console. The $600 PS3 will play a lot more newer games then a $600 desktop. The PS3 will be able to play Blu-Ray movies, and has better graphics then your PC will have. If you want to really go with "fun not graphics" get a Wii, computers are fun, but in the long run, it is a whole lot cheaper and easier to just buy yourself some game consoles.
China has Linux though. Linux makes it easy for China to number 1 A) stop the US/UK/etc. from putting pressure on them for not enforcing copyright B) Export the software (via the Internet) and C) get economically ahead by using a more secure and newer OS then the rest of the world using MS. So basically, I think China is not saying "don't pirate Windows" but rather saying "move on to Linux".
Plus they do not allow any of their other eight or so "political parties" to have any power and those 8 are only permitted to have any function whatsoever under the authority of the Communist Party.
Wouldn't that mean that they aren't communist and are a dictatorship ? Because in a communist government, there are no classes. So lets see we have A) Classes, B) Unequal distribution of wealth C) some people are really poor, others are filthy rich, and D) one party/person has total control. Seems like a dictatorship to me. And communism != dictatorship. They may be called "communists" but only in the way that the USA is called "free", in name alone.
Ummmm... It is rather hard to have an RPG in 15 lines or less.... Really impossible if you want it to sell, and is just about impossible to make it past "quality inspection" and release it on any home console platform. If you don't want plots, go back to playing your Atari 2600.
Oh no! The BBC is going to be sued by the RIAA! But wait... if the BBC is funded by all UK citizens... Wouldn't it mean that all UK citizens are supporting the piracy of this song... So in the RIAA's mind wouldn't it give them reason to sue the entire UK?!?!
Apple doesn't really need to increase salaries especially at the software division as because OS X is UNIX based there are a lot of high-quality open-source applications for Apple to take code from (KHTML for Safari for example) thus, Apple doesn't have to do a whole lot to improve software other then add a few features and clean up the code. In addition, unlike at Microsoft, Apple engineers don't have to reinvent the OS every time they need to ship a new OS, they just speed up the code, add in a few features, burn it to a DVD and release it, compare that to Windows where most of the code has to be rewritten and then extensively tested for backwards compatibility. Basically, by using a combination of open-source and UNIX, Apple doesn't have to do much with software and therefore can use lower-paying people because they don't have to work as much.
But it is mostly the "you can't copy this because we told you not to" part of them and so the makers can't sue when you do copy it, rather then the person suing for the "you can't copy this because we told you not to" basically, it is mostly that they aren't enforceable when it prohibits something, but what are you going to sue for DRM when in the EULA it specifically mentions the DRM. About the only way that you would be able to sue on an EULA is if it didn't say anything about the DRM, but it does.
Ummm... No. If there was a class action lawsuit for this then there has to be class action lawsuits for just about everything else DRM-ed. WGA, iTunes DRM, MSN Music DRM, etc. It is a pain but it won't turn into (at least a winning) lawsuit because it is in the EULA.
Which support nightmares are that? Vista accidentally came on about 30 laptops I ordered. I converted 10 of them to XP but left the rest and no one has complained at all.
It isn't the users complaining it is just the absolute waste of resources Vista is. For example, set up a dual-boot of Vista and XP on the same machine. XP will almost always be faster then Vista. Now to the average Joe Sixpack user, it doesn't matter. But if you are "upgrading" a machine from XP to Vista you will certainly notice the speed difference. For example, if I wanted to get a desktop and only use the stock OS (so no changing to Linux or changing Windows versions), I would have to buy a $600 Vista computer rather then a $400 XP to get the same speed. And really, Vista doesn't offer anything more then XP, perhaps UAC but that thing is more of a pain then it is worth. Basically, if installed by the OEM Vista won't get anyone complaining until they see the untapped resources of the machine.
I shudder to thing about obscure drivers that we don't know about yet. Sort of like breaking things that were not broken. Vista is a pain in the ass just like HD is, it's a painful death of freedom. (my opinion)
Ummm... You weren't ever free when you used XP, ME, 98, 95, 3.1, etc. It is just that your cell has gotten smaller with each new release. Just switch to Linux and be 100% free, or if you really want freedom torrent it. Basically, it is just that the few rights you had are being taken away.
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Yes it can. MS got handed a monopoly on IBM machines, it exploited that monopoly to get into other monopolies (such as Office on the Mac), and once it got the monopolies on the office suite it moved on to a monopoly on the web. So yes, it exploited a monopoly to gain a monopoly (look at the ISPs and cable companies...)
But there are a lot more then games in Linux that needs good 3-D drivers, compiz-fusion to name one. Granted it might be nearly useless when it comes to productivity, but it is one major thing to convince people to use Linux rather then Windows and if you can demonstrate it easier with a Ubuntu live-CD rather then an install, more people will use Linux.
This is perfect! Next time a teacher or other person in authority says I can't use Wikipedia because it is unreliable I just get the content from this site and I can say that it wasn't Wikipedia!
Well, yah. But between either a 5 year old huge notebook or an EEE PC for the same price, I would take the EEE.
Or you know, buy one of those EEE PCs for $350...
Well Stallman started telling us about proprietary software and the evils it had back in the '80s and everyone just kinda laughed at him, he spoke about this erosion of our rights but we just told him to put on his tin-foil hat. He was right. Now I don't think he ever posted a "I TOLD YOU SO" comment, but about 20 years ago he foretold with remarkable accuracy what today would be like if people started turning to proprietary software.
No but there were a whole lot of rights you did have that the digital version doesn't have. For example, first sale, I can sell my collection of CDs at a garage sale, but I can't sell my DRM-laden media because it won't work. I also had the right to time-shift content, for example, I should have the right to record a TV show and then play it back on an iPod, Linux computer, Windows computer, game console, on a Mac, cell phone or anything else that can decode a show. With DRM time shifting is prevented because I can't play it on my iPod because it doesn't have the right DRM authorization, won't play back on a Linux computer without having to resort to some possibly illegal ways of taking out the DRM of my legally obtained media (another reason why piracy is the better choice), it may play on a Windows computer after installing tons of third-party software but will not play back in any media player of choice, it might not play back on a game console again, due to DRM, the makers of the DRM may have not decided to add in support for Mac, so they are left with installing hacks of questionable legality to strip out the DRM to play the legally obtained media, and a cell phone might not be able to play it (well, technical reasons aside) because of the DRM.
This is like taking a door and saying you can't make a copy of the key to enter it in legally because duplicating your legally got key is illegal because the door maker can sell replacement keys for half the price of the door.
When have we NOT had a monopoly in ISPs? In how long I have kept up with computers there has only been 1 or 2 ISPs per small town (there are probably more options in larger cities). Now some of those ISPs used to be small and not like AT&T or Comcast, but for those living in the town they were still a monopoly. Now we have the same: 1 or 2 ISPs per small town, but the 1 or 2 happen to be absolutely huge companies that look at customers as if they were meaningless.
Yep, however none of the browsers are in Ubuntu's repos yet, and I assume that Konqueror would use WebKit as it is the natural continuation of KHTML and using the same renderer as Safari would get them recognized as a real browser (rather then the file manager that just happens to have a built-in browser)
But to a hacker, your home directory is utterly worthless. Unless they plan on stalking you, your pictures mean nothing to them, and hopefully you don't have your credit card numbers in a file creditcards.txt. As for a keylogger, that would be bad, but I doubt that it would run at a level not to be noticeable.
But so far most of the "mainstream" distros have done a great job in providing Firefox 3 (Ubuntu even has it included in 8.04). I wouldn't necessarily blame Mozilla for this, but rather the distro makers for failing to include a package. However, I think you are looking at this all wrong, it is more or less as huge as a leap forward as KDE 4 was for the desktop, as such some of the more "stable" distros such as CentOS are reluctant to include it as it is so new just as KDE 4 is still unavailable for some distros, but KDE 3 still is and much like Firefox 2 it still will receive updates for a while. But honestly, most of the people who use Linux use Ubuntu or a derivative (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, etc) or a more "unstable" distro then CentOS (Fedora, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, etc). So I think it is just CentOS being CentOS, being stable, don't like that? Change to Ubuntu.
Every software has bugs, be it written by Microsoft, Mozilla, the Hacker living in his mom's basement, or even by RMS or Linus Torvalds. It is a fact of computers. Now the good thing is, a fix will be released quickly, and if you really feel like it you can patch it yourself, compare that to IE, Opera, or Safari*. Basically, no development method is perfect, but open source comes close to eliminating all the bugs and if you are complaining then write up a patch.
*Yes, yes I know the core of Safari is WebKit which was forked from KHTML and you can get the source to that
Oh, 8 million all set to exploit? What was the marketshare for Windows again? 91.13% according to Wikipedia. Now figuring that there are around 1.2 billion Internet users which figures to at least that many computer users. I would have to say that the odds are higher of exploiting one of the many flaws in IE which is slower to patch and who's users are computer newbies. With Firefox whenever a toolbar somehow pops up most people know something bad has happened, with IE it is seen as "just something a computer does". Oh and don't forget OS versions, I bet that a lot of the people downloading it were Linux/Mac users and they are harder to exploit to run malicious code on (yes you can destroy the home directory and perhaps add in a keylogger but that is about it).
Well, other then RPGs and FPS games.... There aren't much games left for you to play. Well there are the crappy mini-game collections that 8 year old kids beg parents to buy.... But platformers are mostly dead, fighters are almost dead, and adventure games surely have more then 15 lines of dialog, take away that and what is left? Not much that is any good anyways.
Honstly, if you really want to play games, go with a console. The $600 PS3 will play a lot more newer games then a $600 desktop. The PS3 will be able to play Blu-Ray movies, and has better graphics then your PC will have. If you want to really go with "fun not graphics" get a Wii, computers are fun, but in the long run, it is a whole lot cheaper and easier to just buy yourself some game consoles.
China has Linux though. Linux makes it easy for China to number 1 A) stop the US/UK/etc. from putting pressure on them for not enforcing copyright B) Export the software (via the Internet) and C) get economically ahead by using a more secure and newer OS then the rest of the world using MS. So basically, I think China is not saying "don't pirate Windows" but rather saying "move on to Linux".
Wouldn't that mean that they aren't communist and are a dictatorship ? Because in a communist government, there are no classes. So lets see we have A) Classes, B) Unequal distribution of wealth C) some people are really poor, others are filthy rich, and D) one party/person has total control. Seems like a dictatorship to me. And communism != dictatorship. They may be called "communists" but only in the way that the USA is called "free", in name alone.
Ummmm... It is rather hard to have an RPG in 15 lines or less.... Really impossible if you want it to sell, and is just about impossible to make it past "quality inspection" and release it on any home console platform. If you don't want plots, go back to playing your Atari 2600.
Oh no! The BBC is going to be sued by the RIAA! But wait... if the BBC is funded by all UK citizens... Wouldn't it mean that all UK citizens are supporting the piracy of this song... So in the RIAA's mind wouldn't it give them reason to sue the entire UK?!?!
Apple doesn't really need to increase salaries especially at the software division as because OS X is UNIX based there are a lot of high-quality open-source applications for Apple to take code from (KHTML for Safari for example) thus, Apple doesn't have to do a whole lot to improve software other then add a few features and clean up the code. In addition, unlike at Microsoft, Apple engineers don't have to reinvent the OS every time they need to ship a new OS, they just speed up the code, add in a few features, burn it to a DVD and release it, compare that to Windows where most of the code has to be rewritten and then extensively tested for backwards compatibility. Basically, by using a combination of open-source and UNIX, Apple doesn't have to do much with software and therefore can use lower-paying people because they don't have to work as much.
But it is mostly the "you can't copy this because we told you not to" part of them and so the makers can't sue when you do copy it, rather then the person suing for the "you can't copy this because we told you not to" basically, it is mostly that they aren't enforceable when it prohibits something, but what are you going to sue for DRM when in the EULA it specifically mentions the DRM. About the only way that you would be able to sue on an EULA is if it didn't say anything about the DRM, but it does.
Ummm... No. If there was a class action lawsuit for this then there has to be class action lawsuits for just about everything else DRM-ed. WGA, iTunes DRM, MSN Music DRM, etc. It is a pain but it won't turn into (at least a winning) lawsuit because it is in the EULA.
It isn't the users complaining it is just the absolute waste of resources Vista is. For example, set up a dual-boot of Vista and XP on the same machine. XP will almost always be faster then Vista. Now to the average Joe Sixpack user, it doesn't matter. But if you are "upgrading" a machine from XP to Vista you will certainly notice the speed difference. For example, if I wanted to get a desktop and only use the stock OS (so no changing to Linux or changing Windows versions), I would have to buy a $600 Vista computer rather then a $400 XP to get the same speed. And really, Vista doesn't offer anything more then XP, perhaps UAC but that thing is more of a pain then it is worth. Basically, if installed by the OEM Vista won't get anyone complaining until they see the untapped resources of the machine.
Ummm... You weren't ever free when you used XP, ME, 98, 95, 3.1, etc. It is just that your cell has gotten smaller with each new release. Just switch to Linux and be 100% free, or if you really want freedom torrent it. Basically, it is just that the few rights you had are being taken away.
However, I bet a lot more will wait about a month and torrent it, they might even have an excuse that they can't get it in stores....