Copyright was established for the purpose of protecting the creators from the bigger interests, such as publishers. If this were still the case, the DMCA would not be such a big issue on Slashdot.
In recent years, we have seen a complete reversal of this intent. Copyright is now wielded by corporations to in fact protect them from the original creators, and also from the general public. Artists and authors often only see a fraction of the of the revenues generated by their work.
The U.S. constitution was established for the purpose of protecting the people from tyranny. For example, there is a clause that guarantees the right to bear arms. Why is that in there? Well, in the event that the government should resort to tyranny, the people would then have a means of armed rebellion to restore popular rule. This was the mindset of colonial America. Obviously, that particular example is a little bit obsolete, but it illustrates an important point.
I think everyone will agree that authors and artists and the like should enjoy the benefits of their work. Thus, it could be argued that there is a place for Copyright. However, Copyright is a power that may be wielded tyranically. It is possible today for a company to restrict how, when and where a book is read, for instance. What would stop them from abusing this power?
The public needs a way to take back the power when it is evident that it has been abused, much like the colonials needed their right to bear arms lest their hard-earned freedom be wrenched from them again.
Until 1998, when the DMCA was legislated, the public had this power over Copyright. I believe that Copyright should still be enforced. Outlawing the means to thwart Copyright, however, is utterly unconstitutional. We are moving from a system in which we are punished for our acts to one in which we are punished for establishing our ability to commit the act. The next step in this progression is to criminalize thinking about our actions.
Certainly there were many ideas during the formation of the U.S. government.
What happens if you have 13 colonies and they each have their own political views and agendas?
Supposing each one has its own candidate - popular democracy suggests that the candidate with the most votes prevails. When a vote is split between more than two entities, there is a greater possibility that the majority submits to the minority. Even though one entity received the most votes, chances are the number of votes in that category still represents a substantial minority of the whole.
Hence the electoral college. The intent is to force the issues to the center, appealing to the largest number of people possible. When you only have two choices, there is no chance that a minority will get in power. The Constitution guarantees this "republican" form of government. Thus, it is not a true democracy.
Now, the original poster had pointed out that public perception of the issues is tainted by corporate agendas. This could be a reason why the smaller parties have not replaced the dominant Republicans and Democrats.
For example, I am personally incensed at the terrible DMCA legislation. The DMCA is an issue to me because of my background. The general public couldn't care less, so it isn't important to them if their candidate supports it or opposes it. Why doesn't the public care?
Well, I can go berating the system because I am enlightened about certain issues that the public is blind to, or I can realize that I represent a minority and that my government isn't optimized to satisfy my ideals.
The solution to good legislation isn't only to inform your elected officials, but to also inform your neighbors and friends. Their voices count more than yours alone.
The only major hole in your argument is the assertion that the 3rd parties are forced out due to media capitalization on a 2 party system.
This simply isn't the case. The U.S. government was designed to be a 2 party system intentionally. The only way for a 3rd party to succeed, is for it to take the place of the dominant 2nd party. The reasoning behind this makes sense.
That said, it is true that media and corporate propaganda shape the minds of the constituency. You can hardly blame the media, though. It is the American people who have lost their vigilance, and are willing to swallow what they are fed.
Forget the space savings. If programmers can use this technology to automate voice acting in their games, then the barier-to-entry for game creation will be reduced significantly.
Most effort in today's best-selling games goes into creating images and recording the voices and sounds. This costs a lot of money and resources. Few hobbyists can afford to make a game this complex.
With cheap tools that can do a reasonable job replacing the artists who provide the sound and graphics, high-school kids can start dreaming about competing with the big boys again.
FYI: The Linux Kernel does not include any Minix code. It has been completely re-written. Although it was based on Minix, and is similar to Unix (which has been around for many years), the Linux code itself does not borrow verbatim from these systems.
After all, the ideas of a "computer" and "operating system" are quite old themselves. Linux is also based on both of those ideas.
There is a difference between code from the '80s and ideas from the '80s.
i thought that the immortality device was a great idea, and why didn't someone think of this before now? so i made my own immortality device out of some magnets and glue, and i am happy to say that i am still alive today to talk about it.
you guys will be thanking people like me and mr. chiu for the very valuable discoveries, long after we are dead and gone.
In my post, I was referring to the.doc file format, which is what everyone wants to be able to pass around. I agree that there are other formats which are supposedly "implementation independent," but that isn't what my post was about. Also, most people don't choose to save their Word documents in anything but Word format.
My intent was to show that if you want to support a certain feature called for in a file, then your program has to have that feature. It doesn't matter how proper your file format is; if the format calls for a table, then your program better have that feature available or it won't render as the author intended. There are basic assumptions about the capabilities of the program regardless of the file format. For example, I wouldn't attempt to load my resume into a MIDI sequencer.
You said "describe the document rather than the program that made it." And I agree, which is exactly the premise on which TeX is based. The problem is how you describe the document. If you describe it in some proprietary terms, it is useless. Besides, TeX describes a document semantically, and other formats describe a document visually. Those are two completely different and incompatible paradigms. Who cares if you are storing the files in XML or SGML or TeX.
XML and SGML are all very good, and I agree that they should be used. But we were originally talking about Word documents, which isn't the same thing at all. If someone describes a document in terms of Word, then you have to interpret the the document in terms of Word. Your result is a program functionally equivalent to Word. If you want to translate it into XML, then fine. It still needs to retain the information that made it work.
I still hold by my original proposition. If your main goal is to support the Word file format with your word processing program, then the most important thing you can do is make sure you program all of the features that the.doc files need. So if you are working on a word processor that seeks to change the face word processing by focusing on semantics rather than mechanics, you'd better be ok with the fact that no converter on the planet is going to make a Word document render properly in your program.
I worked on the Corel team during the development of WordPerfect Suite 8. Mostly I worked on the Dec Alpha port.
Have you ever used LyX? It's a word processor built on an entirely different premise than Word.
If a Word document relies heavily upon certain macro features, and other formatting features, with liberal use of OLE, how are you going to convert that into LyX or TeX format unless LyX supports equivalent features?
You can strip it all out and keep only what LyX supports. But then it just doesn't look like it's supposed to, and people complain that the converter sucks.
That is simply what I meant when I posted. As for knowing what I am talking about, I might mention that I worked on the WordPerfect team. One of our challenges was that WordPerfect did not support or implement the same features as Word, so those elements of the Word file had to be transformed or eliminated. The converse is also true.
The MS file format is specific to features in Word. If the Linux word processor doesn't support those features, then it is pointless to try and be compatible.
Essentially, if you want to be compatible, then you have to treat the document the same way that Word does. Which, one way or another, means putting Word on Linux (by reverse engineering, porting, or parallel development of equivalent code).
To develop a word processor that reads Word documents, your main goal has to be compatibility, not functionality or innovation. You can't say "I think it would be great if my word processor had feature A and changed the concept of feature B". Then when you try to push Word documents into it, you find out that your paradigm doesn't fit Microsofts', and you have to change it all.
Currently, import filters have to eliminate or ignore the parts of the format it doesn't support, and transform the other peices to fit the paradigm. Hence the poor filters.
So when people say, "Linux needs better import filters for Word documents," what they are really saying (but don't know it) is, "Linux needs Word."
The real issue is: why don't they stick to standard file types? Well, maybe there isn't a standard for presentations, spreadsheets, etc.
You can't use a Microsoft standard without your program having Microsoft's features in it. The two are inseparably tied together.
The de facto standard doesn't solve the problem, it just limits the options. A true standard will give a base upon which may be built custom extensions. That way an application may explore the possibilities, yet return to the basics when interoperability is called for.
What are these objects of reality? Can they all be quantified and measured? How can there be proof that a single system or method will provide the best "approximate" perception of reality if we admit that it is an open system?
Is reality not objective unless it can be observed by everyone? Unless it has been documented by a scientist?
It goes back to the question: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to see it...
The thing about reality is that it still has to be believed in. The problem with beliefs is that people have a hard time changing them.
When any belief or perception about reality changes in a person, it indicates that the previously held belief was based on some sort of flawed proof. In essence, this person never truly "knew" the thing to be true, but had supposed their perception coincided with the objective reality.
Some people call this belief in something truly unknown "delusion". Other people call it "faith". Whatever the case is, the tendency for the perception to differ from reality exists just as much in the scientific world as it does in the religious world.
When a man of science, or man of religion, can forget his arrogance and allow his beliefs to change, then he will see the true power of his faith. Then he will understand that it is the faith that helped him to see the possibilities.
Your assertion that objective reality can only be quantified by the scientific method is foolish. Religion does not quantify the same elements that science does. Where they overlap, there you may argue. It may be that religion quantifies something very real, but you wouldn't percieve that unless you had experienced religious faith firsthand. Otherwise, you are not qualified to make a statement about it.
Mount Everest is not free-standing. It is part of a range of mountains. Also, it is not a structure in the dictionary sense of "something arranged in a definite pattern of organization." And it is definitely not a building.
That being said, you're right that it is very tall. Of course, some tall buildings gain a lot of height when measured from sea-level too.
When IBM was in trouble with the government for violation of anti-trust law, one of the remedies that was put in place was that no marketing could be done for products that did not exist.
A common anti-competitive practice is to strangle a market by hyping up a "future" product. It's easy to make it look like a killer-product when it's still vapor. Unfortunately, when the time comes to release, it is delayed or shipped with fewer features than promised.
In the meantime, everyone has stopped buying the real products in anticipation of the promise of things to come. And when they fail to deliver, nobody is forced to buy it, but the damage has already been done.
There's a difference between promoting a product that is a month or two from hitting the market,and promoting one that has a year or more left before anyone can get their hands on it. I think it's fine for Microsoft to allow rumors and speculation about their Xbox, and even advertise on their own turf. But they shouldn't be seeking disciples on Nintendo's turf until they have something to follow.
The fact of the matter is that people vote for Hatch because "they are supposed to". One state representative went so far as to say that you "can't be a mormon and vote for a democrat at the same time," (exact words). Whether you are a mormon or not, Hatch is seen as "church endorsed" and the mormon church carries enough influence to affect any election they want to.
This is a gross misrepresentation from someone who has their own agenda. People don't always base their decisions for a candidate on what you may consider an important issue.
The fact is that most people don't give a damn about some of these technology issues. They are small things that don't directly affect the quality of living to any significant degree.
There is little factual information in your post; and many of your facts are out of context. Your propaganda is very slanted, and colored by the evident biases that you have against the people and culture that are prevelant in Utah.
AP CompSci was taught on Apple IIes with UCSD Pascal (1991).
There was no OO concepts involved, but the algorithms and data structures taught still apply today.
Java is a good choice because it is fairly cross-platform, and you don't have to worry much about the quirks of the hardware. You can still do all of the traditional data structures and algorithms, plus the added bonus of learning about objects.
It would be nice to have a dose of traditional structured programming, though.
Corel bought Ventura publishing, which is where they got their graphics expertise from. They did actually produce Draw (which was only supposed to sell a few hundred copies).
That is one area where I will admit that they have excelled. But they dropped the ball with WordPerfect in a big way. It was huge opportunity and they blew it.
Most of their problem is summed up nicely on their own web site: Corel Corporation has developed products known for excellence and value that target emerging trends in the software industry
There's something about "emerging trends" that have dot-commers kicking themselves right now. Corel would do well to pay attention to this. Rather than following, they should be making some trends of their own.
Corel 1995: We don't know jack about office productivity software. Hey! We could buy the staff and rights to the ex-most-expensive office suite on the planet! You can make a lot of money with trendy office software.
Corel 1996: We don't know jack about Java, but someone said it's the next big thing. Hey! A Java office suite!
Corel 1997: Hmmm, Java isn't much good for more than silly little applets. This Office suite isn't working out. Where did all of our money go?
Corel 1998: We better lay off all of those expensive WordPefect employees because we can't afford them. Back to not knowing anything about office apps.
Corel 1999: We don't know anything about Linux, but someone said it was going to Take Over the World. Hey, let's make a Linux distro!
Corel 2000: We don't know anything about compilers. Let's buy Borland! Wait, we don't have any money. We spent the Linux money last week when we bought Bryce3d. Not that we know anything about graphics, either. All of our graphics software was acquired from other companies in the first place.
Corel 2001: MS gave us some money. We'd better get rid of our Linux shop so we can focus on.Net. It's going to be trendy.
Corel 2002: Maybe we could make WordPerfect for.Net, except we don't know how it works because all the developers are laid off. Hmm, maybe we could get into the Lawn Mower business. We could call it... Mitel. Or something.
Let's face it, Corel is nothing but a fancy dot-com that only survives off the carcases of other products that they manage to "acquire." If they knew how to "innovate" maybe things would be different.
DOS was a consumer OS, just like Windows ME is a consumer OS. How did MS gain so much momentum? On the back of DOS. There was a huge application base already there. That's why MS has bent over backwards to provide compatibility with old DOS programs. I can run programs that required 128K of RAM and DOS 2.0 without any problems on Windows 98.
Why did DOS have such a hoard of apps? It wasn't the "geeks" that drove this kind of growth.
Linux was a geek toy in 1998. Today you can install and run a distro without ever seeing a CLI. You can configure your system without opening a text editor. Today you can install a vanilla Linux and never have to "massage" it.
Sure, there are occasional problems with hardware. Linux doesn't have as good hardware support as Windows does. X can be a little ambiguous, but there are already plenty of folks who are bent on making it more "usable." In general, there aren't nearly so many issues like there were when I first installed RH 4.2.
The lack of "Linux on the Desktop" isn't necessarily a problem with the OS. It's a problem with the apps. Which Linux apps will give it the leverage to compete with Windows? Yeah, it has good apps for many things. Are they compatible with Windows? What about games?
See, Linux, as an OS, is fine for the consumers. Red Hat, Gnome, KDE and others are seeing to it. But what are the consumers going to do with it?
Meanwhile, many "geeks" are finding Linux to be too dumbed down, commercialized and mainstream. They are looking for obscure distros, or moving to some BSD or other.
Slashdot Mirror
Try Aspen Systems or Einux Network Solutions
Not sure how "out of the box" the Einux ones are, but you can get a 10 node dual-Athlon setup for around $25k.
Copyright was established for the purpose of protecting the creators from the bigger interests, such as publishers. If this were still the case, the DMCA would not be such a big issue on Slashdot.
In recent years, we have seen a complete reversal of this intent. Copyright is now wielded by corporations to in fact protect them from the original creators, and also from the general public. Artists and authors often only see a fraction of the of the revenues generated by their work.
The U.S. constitution was established for the purpose of protecting the people from tyranny. For example, there is a clause that guarantees the right to bear arms. Why is that in there? Well, in the event that the government should resort to tyranny, the people would then have a means of armed rebellion to restore popular rule. This was the mindset of colonial America. Obviously, that particular example is a little bit obsolete, but it illustrates an important point.
I think everyone will agree that authors and artists and the like should enjoy the benefits of their work. Thus, it could be argued that there is a place for Copyright. However, Copyright is a power that may be wielded tyranically. It is possible today for a company to restrict how, when and where a book is read, for instance. What would stop them from abusing this power?
The public needs a way to take back the power when it is evident that it has been abused, much like the colonials needed their right to bear arms lest their hard-earned freedom be wrenched from them again.
Until 1998, when the DMCA was legislated, the public had this power over Copyright. I believe that Copyright should still be enforced. Outlawing the means to thwart Copyright, however, is utterly unconstitutional. We are moving from a system in which we are punished for our acts to one in which we are punished for establishing our ability to commit the act. The next step in this progression is to criminalize thinking about our actions.
Plus, I find it easier to rally behind the bad rendering of a cartoonish gecko than to rally behind a hat. (I mean, if we're talking kewl logos....)
I agree that it would be a pretty bad rendering of a gecko. Luckily, it is a chameleon, not a gecko.
Certainly there were many ideas during the formation of the U.S. government.
What happens if you have 13 colonies and they each have their own political views and agendas?
Supposing each one has its own candidate - popular democracy suggests that the candidate with the most votes prevails. When a vote is split between more than two entities, there is a greater possibility that the majority submits to the minority. Even though one entity received the most votes, chances are the number of votes in that category still represents a substantial minority of the whole.
Hence the electoral college. The intent is to force the issues to the center, appealing to the largest number of people possible. When you only have two choices, there is no chance that a minority will get in power. The Constitution guarantees this "republican" form of government. Thus, it is not a true democracy.
Now, the original poster had pointed out that public perception of the issues is tainted by corporate agendas. This could be a reason why the smaller parties have not replaced the dominant Republicans and Democrats.
For example, I am personally incensed at the terrible DMCA legislation. The DMCA is an issue to me because of my background. The general public couldn't care less, so it isn't important to them if their candidate supports it or opposes it. Why doesn't the public care?
Well, I can go berating the system because I am enlightened about certain issues that the public is blind to, or I can realize that I represent a minority and that my government isn't optimized to satisfy my ideals.
The solution to good legislation isn't only to inform your elected officials, but to also inform your neighbors and friends. Their voices count more than yours alone.
The only major hole in your argument is the assertion that the 3rd parties are forced out due to media capitalization on a 2 party system.
This simply isn't the case. The U.S. government was designed to be a 2 party system intentionally. The only way for a 3rd party to succeed, is for it to take the place of the dominant 2nd party. The reasoning behind this makes sense.
That said, it is true that media and corporate propaganda shape the minds of the constituency. You can hardly blame the media, though. It is the American people who have lost their vigilance, and are willing to swallow what they are fed.
Forget the space savings. If programmers can use this technology to automate voice acting in their games, then the barier-to-entry for game creation will be reduced significantly.
Most effort in today's best-selling games goes into creating images and recording the voices and sounds. This costs a lot of money and resources. Few hobbyists can afford to make a game this complex.
With cheap tools that can do a reasonable job replacing the artists who provide the sound and graphics, high-school kids can start dreaming about competing with the big boys again.
You could improve this post further by taking out all the periods.
FYI: The Linux Kernel does not include any Minix code. It has been completely re-written. Although it was based on Minix, and is similar to Unix (which has been around for many years), the Linux code itself does not borrow verbatim from these systems.
After all, the ideas of a "computer" and "operating system" are quite old themselves. Linux is also based on both of those ideas.
There is a difference between code from the '80s and ideas from the '80s.
i thought that the immortality device was a great idea, and why didn't someone think of this before now? so i made my own immortality device out of some magnets and glue, and i am happy to say that i am still alive today to talk about it.
you guys will be thanking people like me and mr. chiu for the very valuable discoveries, long after we are dead and gone.
While smart people don't feed trolls, the general public does.
In my post, I was referring to the .doc file format, which is what everyone wants to be able to pass around. I agree that there are other formats which are supposedly "implementation independent," but that isn't what my post was about. Also, most people don't choose to save their Word documents in anything but Word format.
.doc files need. So if you are working on a word processor that seeks to change the face word processing by focusing on semantics rather than mechanics, you'd better be ok with the fact that no converter on the planet is going to make a Word document render properly in your program.
My intent was to show that if you want to support a certain feature called for in a file, then your program has to have that feature. It doesn't matter how proper your file format is; if the format calls for a table, then your program better have that feature available or it won't render as the author intended. There are basic assumptions about the capabilities of the program regardless of the file format. For example, I wouldn't attempt to load my resume into a MIDI sequencer.
You said "describe the document rather than the program that made it." And I agree, which is exactly the premise on which TeX is based. The problem is how you describe the document. If you describe it in some proprietary terms, it is useless. Besides, TeX describes a document semantically, and other formats describe a document visually. Those are two completely different and incompatible paradigms. Who cares if you are storing the files in XML or SGML or TeX.
XML and SGML are all very good, and I agree that they should be used. But we were originally talking about Word documents, which isn't the same thing at all. If someone describes a document in terms of Word, then you have to interpret the the document in terms of Word. Your result is a program functionally equivalent to Word. If you want to translate it into XML, then fine. It still needs to retain the information that made it work.
I still hold by my original proposition. If your main goal is to support the Word file format with your word processing program, then the most important thing you can do is make sure you program all of the features that the
I worked on the Corel team during the development of WordPerfect Suite 8. Mostly I worked on the Dec Alpha port.
Have you ever used LyX? It's a word processor built on an entirely different premise than Word.
If a Word document relies heavily upon certain macro features, and other formatting features, with liberal use of OLE, how are you going to convert that into LyX or TeX format unless LyX supports equivalent features?
You can strip it all out and keep only what LyX supports. But then it just doesn't look like it's supposed to, and people complain that the converter sucks.
That is simply what I meant when I posted. As for knowing what I am talking about, I might mention that I worked on the WordPerfect team. One of our challenges was that WordPerfect did not support or implement the same features as Word, so those elements of the Word file had to be transformed or eliminated. The converse is also true.
The MS file format is specific to features in Word. If the Linux word processor doesn't support those features, then it is pointless to try and be compatible.
Essentially, if you want to be compatible, then you have to treat the document the same way that Word does. Which, one way or another, means putting Word on Linux (by reverse engineering, porting, or parallel development of equivalent code).
To develop a word processor that reads Word documents, your main goal has to be compatibility, not functionality or innovation. You can't say "I think it would be great if my word processor had feature A and changed the concept of feature B". Then when you try to push Word documents into it, you find out that your paradigm doesn't fit Microsofts', and you have to change it all.
Currently, import filters have to eliminate or ignore the parts of the format it doesn't support, and transform the other peices to fit the paradigm. Hence the poor filters.
So when people say, "Linux needs better import filters for Word documents," what they are really saying (but don't know it) is, "Linux needs Word."
The real issue is: why don't they stick to standard file types? Well, maybe there isn't a standard for presentations, spreadsheets, etc.
You can't use a Microsoft standard without your program having Microsoft's features in it. The two are inseparably tied together.
The de facto standard doesn't solve the problem, it just limits the options. A true standard will give a base upon which may be built custom extensions. That way an application may explore the possibilities, yet return to the basics when interoperability is called for.
Assume reality is objective.
What are these objects of reality? Can they all be quantified and measured? How can there be proof that a single system or method will provide the best "approximate" perception of reality if we admit that it is an open system?
Is reality not objective unless it can be observed by everyone? Unless it has been documented by a scientist?
It goes back to the question: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to see it...
The thing about reality is that it still has to be believed in. The problem with beliefs is that people have a hard time changing them.
When any belief or perception about reality changes in a person, it indicates that the previously held belief was based on some sort of flawed proof. In essence, this person never truly "knew" the thing to be true, but had supposed their perception coincided with the objective reality.
Some people call this belief in something truly unknown "delusion". Other people call it "faith". Whatever the case is, the tendency for the perception to differ from reality exists just as much in the scientific world as it does in the religious world.
When a man of science, or man of religion, can forget his arrogance and allow his beliefs to change, then he will see the true power of his faith. Then he will understand that it is the faith that helped him to see the possibilities.
Your assertion that objective reality can only be quantified by the scientific method is foolish. Religion does not quantify the same elements that science does. Where they overlap, there you may argue. It may be that religion quantifies something very real, but you wouldn't percieve that unless you had experienced religious faith firsthand. Otherwise, you are not qualified to make a statement about it.
Mount Everest is not free-standing. It is part of a range of mountains. Also, it is not a structure in the dictionary sense of "something arranged in a definite pattern of organization." And it is definitely not a building.
That being said, you're right that it is very tall. Of course, some tall buildings gain a lot of height when measured from sea-level too.
As most of you clueless ./ weenies wouldn't have a clue how to make two Xservers work side by side (Ctrl-Alt-F7 / F8 for example)
Out of curiosity, how do you do this?
A company called Airswitch did this in several cities in Utah county over the last three years. They are practically out of business now.
When IBM was in trouble with the government for violation of anti-trust law, one of the remedies that was put in place was that no marketing could be done for products that did not exist.
,and promoting one that has a year or more left before anyone can get their hands on it. I think it's fine for Microsoft to allow rumors and speculation about their Xbox, and even advertise on their own turf. But they shouldn't be seeking disciples on Nintendo's turf until they have something to follow.
A common anti-competitive practice is to strangle a market by hyping up a "future" product. It's easy to make it look like a killer-product when it's still vapor. Unfortunately, when the time comes to release, it is delayed or shipped with fewer features than promised.
In the meantime, everyone has stopped buying the real products in anticipation of the promise of things to come. And when they fail to deliver, nobody is forced to buy it, but the damage has already been done.
There's a difference between promoting a product that is a month or two from hitting the market
It escapes.
The fact of the matter is that people vote for Hatch because "they are supposed to". One state representative went so far as to say that you "can't be a mormon and vote for a democrat at the same time," (exact words). Whether you are a mormon or not, Hatch is seen as "church endorsed" and the mormon church carries enough influence to affect any election they want to.
This is a gross misrepresentation from someone who has their own agenda. People don't always base their decisions for a candidate on what you may consider an important issue.
The fact is that most people don't give a damn about some of these technology issues. They are small things that don't directly affect the quality of living to any significant degree.
There is little factual information in your post; and many of your facts are out of context. Your propaganda is very slanted, and colored by the evident biases that you have against the people and culture that are prevelant in Utah.
AP CompSci was taught on Apple IIes with UCSD Pascal (1991).
There was no OO concepts involved, but the algorithms and data structures taught still apply today.
Java is a good choice because it is fairly cross-platform, and you don't have to worry much about the quirks of the hardware. You can still do all of the traditional data structures and algorithms, plus the added bonus of learning about objects.
It would be nice to have a dose of traditional structured programming, though.
Corel bought Ventura publishing, which is where they got their graphics expertise from. They did actually produce Draw (which was only supposed to sell a few hundred copies).
That is one area where I will admit that they have excelled. But they dropped the ball with WordPerfect in a big way. It was huge opportunity and they blew it.
Most of their problem is summed up nicely on their own web site: Corel Corporation has developed products known for excellence and value that target emerging trends in the software industry
There's something about "emerging trends" that have dot-commers kicking themselves right now. Corel would do well to pay attention to this. Rather than following, they should be making some trends of their own.
Corel 1995: We don't know jack about office productivity software. Hey! We could buy the staff and rights to the ex-most-expensive office suite on the planet! You can make a lot of money with trendy office software.
.Net. It's going to be trendy.
.Net, except we don't know how it works because all the developers are laid off. Hmm, maybe we could get into the Lawn Mower business. We could call it... Mitel. Or something.
Corel 1996: We don't know jack about Java, but someone said it's the next big thing. Hey! A Java office suite!
Corel 1997: Hmmm, Java isn't much good for more than silly little applets. This Office suite isn't working out. Where did all of our money go?
Corel 1998: We better lay off all of those expensive WordPefect employees because we can't afford them. Back to not knowing anything about office apps.
Corel 1999: We don't know anything about Linux, but someone said it was going to Take Over the World. Hey, let's make a Linux distro!
Corel 2000: We don't know anything about compilers. Let's buy Borland! Wait, we don't have any money. We spent the Linux money last week when we bought Bryce3d. Not that we know anything about graphics, either. All of our graphics software was acquired from other companies in the first place.
Corel 2001: MS gave us some money. We'd better get rid of our Linux shop so we can focus on
Corel 2002: Maybe we could make WordPerfect for
Let's face it, Corel is nothing but a fancy dot-com that only survives off the carcases of other products that they manage to "acquire." If they knew how to "innovate" maybe things would be different.
DOS was a consumer OS, just like Windows ME is a consumer OS. How did MS gain so much momentum? On the back of DOS. There was a huge application base already there. That's why MS has bent over backwards to provide compatibility with old DOS programs. I can run programs that required 128K of RAM and DOS 2.0 without any problems on Windows 98.
Why did DOS have such a hoard of apps? It wasn't the "geeks" that drove this kind of growth.
Linux was a geek toy in 1998. Today you can install and run a distro without ever seeing a CLI. You can configure your system without opening a text editor. Today you can install a vanilla Linux and never have to "massage" it.
Sure, there are occasional problems with hardware. Linux doesn't have as good hardware support as Windows does. X can be a little ambiguous, but there are already plenty of folks who are bent on making it more "usable." In general, there aren't nearly so many issues like there were when I first installed RH 4.2.
The lack of "Linux on the Desktop" isn't necessarily a problem with the OS. It's a problem with the apps. Which Linux apps will give it the leverage to compete with Windows? Yeah, it has good apps for many things. Are they compatible with Windows? What about games?
See, Linux, as an OS, is fine for the consumers. Red Hat, Gnome, KDE and others are seeing to it. But what are the consumers going to do with it?
Meanwhile, many "geeks" are finding Linux to be too dumbed down, commercialized and mainstream. They are looking for obscure distros, or moving to some BSD or other.