the sheer number of options in the open source world actually makes this difficult to accomplish
That's precisely why open standards and open protocols exist. Unlike the microsoft world, wherein a protocol/standard is tied to a single vendor, you wont be locking your customers whatever you choose. So stop bothering about the number of options available to your customers.
I'm not sure if I understand your post correctly. Just to clarify my original post, I should add that you should configure squid to listen only on loopback interfaces. Otherwise, anyone on your network can make you the bill-payer for their browsing.
You could use a browser that does proper caching. Konqueror is good. If that isn't enough, you could install a caching proxy (like squid) locally and do all your browsing through it.
It seems really crazy that more people are fighting for "hardware whose internal design is known" than for "hardware whose programming documentation is known".
An Android user has the Android Market, while an iPhone user has the App Store. But if an owner of an Android phone decides not to use the Market, this user need only visit another site with Android applications to install any mobile app outside of Google's purview. To put it bluntly, Android has a multitude of possible channels for the distribution of apps. The iPhone does not. This functionality is built right into Android and isn't the weekend project of some particularly clever hacker. Furthermore, keep in mind that this kill switch will only affect apps distributed through the Market, not those installed from the Web.
The kill switch on Android only affects the apps downloaded from Google's Android Market. The Android user can still download and use apps from other web sites without worrying about the kill switch. OTOH, the iPhone can only use apps from Apple's app store but not from any other source. So there IS a difference. Of course, there's the possibility that Android doesn't really have the facility to connect to third party app stores and TFA is just spreading lies.
I don't know which phone you have. If you are not restricted by what you have now, then it's just fine. The original topic of discussion was about iPhone and Android. In both of those, the only mechanism to make changes to the software stack is to download applications from their web-stores into the phones. So if the companies decide to deny the customer the ability to install new applications, they can do it very simply. OTOH, OpenMoko is as flexible as a PC and you can install applications on it without connecting to a commercial site. With iPhone and Android, it's very easy for Apple or Google to force you to buy newer models of the phone for new functionality. With OpenMoko, you can add new features simply by installing new applications. There are no locks or limits on functionality. The benefit is that you won't be forced to buy newer versions of the phone at the whim of the vendor. You might say that both Android and iPhone have the capability to add new applications too. But you need Google's or Apple's approval because the only way to get new applications is to connect it to their online App-Stores.
Actually it's no dumber than buying locked (unprogrammable) phones. Atleast for people who love freedom, OpenMoko is the thing to buy. In fact, you need not wait hoping for somebody else to add features. Get the phone and replace all the shipped userland with Qtopia. Now you have something that's ahead of iPhone and Android in both freedom and features. They just don't ship Qtopia along with the phone.
That's an oxymoron. If it doesn't have the features I want, then by definition, it is NOT the way to go.
Not if you consider that there are absolutely no restrictions on what you can do to the software stack. The phrase "it doesn't have" has a wholly different meaning in case of OpenMoko. While the software that comes shipped might not be having the features, nothing prohibits you (or developers) to add the features.
There are no limitations in the OpenMoko's hardware. All the "doesn't work" parts in latest OpenMoko phones are only in the Software Stack. Unlike Apple and Google, OpenMoko doesn't prohibit you from booting your own custom kernel + custom userspace. So as developers make better software, you can get latest builds and boot them. OpenMoko may not be having all the features that you want but it's definitely the way to go.
How does it matter? Neither RedHat nor Fedora introduce Lock-Ins like OOXML or IEHTML(lacking a better word). That was the only point I was making. And regarding your RedHat vs Fedora thing: IMHO, shipping RH would be better than shipping Fedora because we don't want users to feel like the entire Linux world is as alpha-quality as Fedora.
Hey, there's nothing in the definition of 'OSS' that would imply "difficult to use software". People who have used M$ software for a decade but Linux for only a couple of years will probably find Windows easier to use than *buntu. But I don't think children, whose minds have lesser prejudices than grown-ups, will find *buntu harder than Windows.
I have gone through all those links and I couldn't find any statements from Adobe. All I can see is that a person named Dave Heiner, the deputy general counsel at ms, is shouting "Adobe wants to sue us". There are atleast 3 issues with this:
1. Can you believe an ms spokesperson to be honest?
2. Does Adobe have the financial strength required to go on a legal battle with ms?
3. Can Adobe sue a heavy weight like ms for implementing an ISO standard?
They didn't actually sue, because Microsoft settled first (by relegating the PDF support to a optional install.)
Can you honestly believe that making PDF support optional can remove the supposed "legal problem"? Moving open standards into optional parts and locked "standards" into default setups has always been ms's strategy whenever they're forced to provide support for the open standards. Look at how they worked around the demand for a standards-compliant IE by providing a standards-compliant mode in IE8 but not making it default. And the present case is no different.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
I think you have swallowed a lot of FUD pills given by ms's media partners.
I don't see how Adobe is related to the topic. PDF is not an "Adobe's format" anymore. PDF can be implemented by anyone without requiring any deals or license from Adobe. There are hundreds of feature-rich open-source implementations. PDF has nothing to do with Adobe.
Yeah, but that aside, it's super poor-form for Adobe to crow about how open and standardized PDF is, then sue a competitor for implementing it.
Whom did they sue? Can you give us some references?
If you didn't want PDF in Word, you shouldn't have opened up the format idiots.
What Adobe wants is irrelevant. Nobody needs Adobe's permission to implement PDF support. Anyways, can you give us some reference to Adobe's behaviour?
Adobe's trying to have it both ways,
Again. Evidence please.
and shame on Microsoft for backing-down.
ms didn't "back-down". It truly hates the idea of providing proper pdf support.
Actually there's a good reason why ms wouldn't want proper PDF support in ms office. One of the chief driving forces behind the adoption of ms office is network effect. People who use ms office force their peers to use ms office because of the notoriously unimplementable nature of the file formats. PDF, on the other hand, is an open ISO standard. If there was proper PDF in ms office, then the network effect will be severely hindered. And that's very unacceptable to ms.
As for the rest of us, developer tools, language design, is one of the areas where Microsoft unquestionable excels.
Language design?? Wait. I don't seem to be able to recall when was the last time ms DEFINED a language PROPERLY so that someone could write a compiler for it. Perhaps you could enlighten me.
It might me possible that there's not much demand for static IPs in UK. When most customers don't have problems with DHCP, IPv4 address space will be sufficient because not all customers would be using their connections 24 hours.
I think you should ask the WINE developers why they're unable to implement WIndows API no matter how hard they work. You should also ask the GCC/Win people why their compiler generates "crappy code" on Windows while being the best compiler on non-Windows platforms. I'm sure the explanation offered by these people will match mine. Regarding my own reading of M$'s source code, I'm afraid to do so. MS-RPL is more viral than GPL.
I neither know nor want to know what "twitter" or "sockpuppet" means. I don't depend on the information provided by all those crazy sections among the anti-M$ people. What I feel about M$ is based on my own independent thoughts. You name ONE area where M$ doesn't encourage people to be non-portable and standards-incompliant. Look at MSXML vs XML. MSRPC vs RPC. OOXML vs ISO/IEC 26300:2006 aka ODF. "Windows API" vs IEEE 1003 aka POSIX. "DirectX" vs openGL. MSDFS vs NFS. "IE HTML"(for want of a better name) vs W3C HTML. Try running a W3C HTML validator on M$'s homepage, your screen will overflow with validation errors. Nobody deserves the dollar sign better than M$ for their consistent efforts in bringing the world to such a state where people don't even understand what is meant by "open standards".
Slashdot Mirror
Are Brits more open-minded than the rest of the world when it comes to choosing an OS?
Microsoft's Lock-In strategies have stopped working in Europe, thanks to European Commission's efforts to make Microsoft play by fair rules.
the sheer number of options in the open source world actually makes this difficult to accomplish
That's precisely why open standards and open protocols exist. Unlike the microsoft world, wherein a protocol/standard is tied to a single vendor, you wont be locking your customers whatever you choose. So stop bothering about the number of options available to your customers.
I'm not sure if I understand your post correctly. Just to clarify my original post, I should add that you should configure squid to listen only on loopback interfaces. Otherwise, anyone on your network can make you the bill-payer for their browsing.
You could use a browser that does proper caching. Konqueror is good. If that isn't enough, you could install a caching proxy (like squid) locally and do all your browsing through it.
It seems really crazy that more people are fighting for "hardware whose internal design is known" than for "hardware whose programming documentation is known".
I would have resigned if I were you.
An Android user has the Android Market, while an iPhone user has the App Store. But if an owner of an Android phone decides not to use the Market, this user need only visit another site with Android applications to install any mobile app outside of Google's purview. To put it bluntly, Android has a multitude of possible channels for the distribution of apps. The iPhone does not. This functionality is built right into Android and isn't the weekend project of some particularly clever hacker. Furthermore, keep in mind that this kill switch will only affect apps distributed through the Market, not those installed from the Web.
The kill switch on Android only affects the apps downloaded from Google's Android Market. The Android user can still download and use apps from other web sites without worrying about the kill switch. OTOH, the iPhone can only use apps from Apple's app store but not from any other source. So there IS a difference. Of course, there's the possibility that Android doesn't really have the facility to connect to third party app stores and TFA is just spreading lies.
I don't know which phone you have. If you are not restricted by what you have now, then it's just fine. The original topic of discussion was about iPhone and Android. In both of those, the only mechanism to make changes to the software stack is to download applications from their web-stores into the phones. So if the companies decide to deny the customer the ability to install new applications, they can do it very simply. OTOH, OpenMoko is as flexible as a PC and you can install applications on it without connecting to a commercial site. With iPhone and Android, it's very easy for Apple or Google to force you to buy newer models of the phone for new functionality. With OpenMoko, you can add new features simply by installing new applications. There are no locks or limits on functionality. The benefit is that you won't be forced to buy newer versions of the phone at the whim of the vendor. You might say that both Android and iPhone have the capability to add new applications too. But you need Google's or Apple's approval because the only way to get new applications is to connect it to their online App-Stores.
Actually it's no dumber than buying locked (unprogrammable) phones. Atleast for people who love freedom, OpenMoko is the thing to buy. In fact, you need not wait hoping for somebody else to add features. Get the phone and replace all the shipped userland with Qtopia. Now you have something that's ahead of iPhone and Android in both freedom and features. They just don't ship Qtopia along with the phone.
That's an oxymoron. If it doesn't have the features I want, then by definition, it is NOT the way to go.
Not if you consider that there are absolutely no restrictions on what you can do to the software stack. The phrase "it doesn't have" has a wholly different meaning in case of OpenMoko. While the software that comes shipped might not be having the features, nothing prohibits you (or developers) to add the features.
The very purpose of standards is to make "Working" a property of a website. It is a shame that the world let M$ kill standards.
There are no limitations in the OpenMoko's hardware. All the "doesn't work" parts in latest OpenMoko phones are only in the Software Stack. Unlike Apple and Google, OpenMoko doesn't prohibit you from booting your own custom kernel + custom userspace. So as developers make better software, you can get latest builds and boot them. OpenMoko may not be having all the features that you want but it's definitely the way to go.
How does it matter? Neither RedHat nor Fedora introduce Lock-Ins like OOXML or IEHTML(lacking a better word). That was the only point I was making. And regarding your RedHat vs Fedora thing: IMHO, shipping RH would be better than shipping Fedora because we don't want users to feel like the entire Linux world is as alpha-quality as Fedora.
Do you think they'll ship "built-for-windows" kind of hardware with Linux? I don't think so.
Hey, there's nothing in the definition of 'OSS' that would imply "difficult to use software". People who have used M$ software for a decade but Linux for only a couple of years will probably find Windows easier to use than *buntu. But I don't think children, whose minds have lesser prejudices than grown-ups, will find *buntu harder than Windows.
Regardless of whether it works, it is much better to ship *buntu than to introduce future-citizens to the locked-up M$ world.
1. Can you believe an ms spokesperson to be honest?
2. Does Adobe have the financial strength required to go on a legal battle with ms?
3. Can Adobe sue a heavy weight like ms for implementing an ISO standard?
They didn't actually sue, because Microsoft settled first (by relegating the PDF support to a optional install.)
Can you honestly believe that making PDF support optional can remove the supposed "legal problem"? Moving open standards into optional parts and locked "standards" into default setups has always been ms's strategy whenever they're forced to provide support for the open standards. Look at how they worked around the demand for a standards-compliant IE by providing a standards-compliant mode in IE8 but not making it default. And the present case is no different.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
I think you have swallowed a lot of FUD pills given by ms's media partners.
Yeah, but that aside, it's super poor-form for Adobe to crow about how open and standardized PDF is, then sue a competitor for implementing it.
Whom did they sue? Can you give us some references?
If you didn't want PDF in Word, you shouldn't have opened up the format idiots.
What Adobe wants is irrelevant. Nobody needs Adobe's permission to implement PDF support. Anyways, can you give us some reference to Adobe's behaviour?
Adobe's trying to have it both ways,
Again. Evidence please.
and shame on Microsoft for backing-down.
ms didn't "back-down". It truly hates the idea of providing proper pdf support.
Actually there's a good reason why ms wouldn't want proper PDF support in ms office. One of the chief driving forces behind the adoption of ms office is network effect. People who use ms office force their peers to use ms office because of the notoriously unimplementable nature of the file formats. PDF, on the other hand, is an open ISO standard. If there was proper PDF in ms office, then the network effect will be severely hindered. And that's very unacceptable to ms.
You might want to try out KOffice2 which is going to be released in a few months.
As for the rest of us, developer tools, language design, is one of the areas where Microsoft unquestionable excels.
Language design?? Wait. I don't seem to be able to recall when was the last time ms DEFINED a language PROPERLY so that someone could write a compiler for it. Perhaps you could enlighten me.
The .NET Framework is the easiest way of developing things for Windows. (Read: The .NET Framework is the most lucrative trap)
It might me possible that there's not much demand for static IPs in UK. When most customers don't have problems with DHCP, IPv4 address space will be sufficient because not all customers would be using their connections 24 hours.
I think you should ask the WINE developers why they're unable to implement WIndows API no matter how hard they work. You should also ask the GCC/Win people why their compiler generates "crappy code" on Windows while being the best compiler on non-Windows platforms. I'm sure the explanation offered by these people will match mine. Regarding my own reading of M$'s source code, I'm afraid to do so. MS-RPL is more viral than GPL.
I neither know nor want to know what "twitter" or "sockpuppet" means. I don't depend on the information provided by all those crazy sections among the anti-M$ people. What I feel about M$ is based on my own independent thoughts. You name ONE area where M$ doesn't encourage people to be non-portable and standards-incompliant. Look at MSXML vs XML. MSRPC vs RPC. OOXML vs ISO/IEC 26300:2006 aka ODF. "Windows API" vs IEEE 1003 aka POSIX. "DirectX" vs openGL. MSDFS vs NFS. "IE HTML"(for want of a better name) vs W3C HTML. Try running a W3C HTML validator on M$'s homepage, your screen will overflow with validation errors. Nobody deserves the dollar sign better than M$ for their consistent efforts in bringing the world to such a state where people don't even understand what is meant by "open standards".