General rule of thumb (and I do this with any distribution of Linux, and even with other OS's like Windows), never jump at the first new version of anything. Wait to see what others have to say, and wait to see what kind of bugs need to be ironed out.
With Redhat, they have a tradition of having insecure x.0 releases -- and though the x.1 releases are better, typically they come around by x.2. I can't remember the article, but there was an article on Slashdot not too long ago which showed data about the security issues behind each release of given linux distribution. I didn't create this information out of nowhere...I had help. =)
Anyhow, i'm more interested in how this will impact Mandrake. I say that only because of the close relation between Mandrake and Redhat. Will the two start to spread apart now, Mandrake forming its own identity? Or will Mandrake make efforts to remain as close to Redhat as they already are?
As you have already seen with Napster, they can (and in many ways they have) turned off the central servers, as you expected. But, if you use Napigator, or other such napster navigation tools, you'll see that many other servers have arisen to fill the holes.
Those who are against the net as a facilitator of information and entertainment will eventually die, and it will be a non-issue. The future of money will be in the advertising.
To put it bluntly, your information is a bit out of date.
In the latest (few) version, the MP3 decoder works fine. It doesn't skip samples anymore. I don't know anything about audible low frequency glitches -- I have never experienced sugh problems.
But the real reason you want to use Sonique is not just for MP3, but for all the modular support it holds. It uses the MikIT core -- which means it handles MOD, S3M, XM and IT (among other things), and it does that flawlessly. WinAMP doesn't do that as well. I can't speak for XMMS, because I don't have a sound card on my linux box. But for the average tracker, this is what you want.
Nice to see our institutions of higher learning sticking up for online piracy...
Our institutions are not sticking up for online piracy, and i'm sure you don't truly believe that.
In fact, the institutions aren't sticking of for anything other than a constitutional right to privacy. That's PRIVACY not PIRACY.
I'm not saying that I am in disagreement, on the contrary. I believe that the release of free music cuts out the middle man. David Bowie knows it, Smashing Pumpkins know it. According to Wired Magazine, CD sales have risen about 12% in the past three years. MP3s started catching on then -- napster is just the fall guy, of sorts.
What the RIAA doesn't want you to know is that it is not the intellectual property that they are worried about. It is the middle man. Who are the middle men in this industry? The Recording and distribution companies -- the members of RIAA. Guess what? It's their cash flow their worried about. Musicians (contrary to popular belief) don't make that much useing these guys as a middle man. BUT, if they can eliminate the middle man and make just as much money (if not more), then they will be a happier bunch of musicians.
Metallica is the exception -- they are a rare case that the artists DO make a lot of money from the agencies. But there are always exceptions.
3) the minidisc format never really caught on here in the US. it will die in 5 yrs or less, I predict.
You predict? Well, that's nice. Do you have any evidence, or are you just a seer?
There is plenty of evidence. Few people think about such things, but media changes take forever to catch on. CD (unknown to most people) were introduced in the early 80s...look how long that took to become mainstream, and that's only because several companies embraced CDs.
Mini Disc won't necessarily die in 5 years, but if it DOESN'T catch on quickly, it will. MD has been around for a long time. Sony tried to push it many years ago, and failed. Then they came back with it, and this time they brought in a few companies (doesn't Philips support it now too?). But, it's still taking a while, and it hasn't caught on. More importantly, it hasn't been supported by the record industry.
MP3 has similar issues -- like the fact that the record industry wouldn't support it if someone was hanging by their balls (unless we get a next-gen CEO in charge of one of the companies). But there is one thing that you might be overlooking: CD-R of MP3s. Panasonic, Philips/Magnavox and Alpine (not out yet, but coming) are all offering CD/MP3 players that play both CDs and MP3s from CDs. The huge plus side on that is the simple fact that there is no required media change.
I've said it already, but a complete media change is not likely to get accepted quickly...if at all. If it a solid percentage of the market doesn't start useing the product within a certain amount of time, it probably won't get accepted at all. Need I remind you that Sony has failed at this before -- remember BETA video? A crystal clear format for video tapes, but it didn't catch on, because it required a special player (those tapes were small, besides). It never caught on, and the main video media is still VHS (sorry DVD people, DVD still only carrys a small percentage of the market -- but it's getting there).
Just my economical background crashing with my technological interests and general observation.
Okay, folks, I don't like Microsoft any more than the next/. reader. But the truth is, this isn't anything major to worry about. Many of you have already pointed out the obvious -- MS wants to track these links for whatever reason.
The natural assumption would be that this exists to make money. I wouldn't be surprised if CNN pays MS to have cnn.com listed among the default links during an install. I personally don't like it, but this is the business world (the net can mean business too), and they have a right to make money that way. I would expect Netscape and Mozilla (when it comes of age) to do the very same. It's only logical. The next step is obvious -- MS needs to make sure that their clients (cnn, yahoo, whatever) have reason to continue paying MS to have their links listed. Obviously, the clients wouldn't find it necessary to pay for such a link if only a very small percentage of the market actually uses it. This is called marketing.
Not that i'm defending MS, but it is respectful to be fair. Look at some of the stuff that can be downloaded with netscape, or added useing Smart Update. Do you really think Netscape offers those out of the kindness of their hearts? In a perfect world, yes. In the business world, there's no reason to do such a thing if money weren't involved. Besides, that's man-hours (more money going into overhead) that get eaten by Netscape just to be kind.
My point is that this is not necessarily a big, evil MS tactic again. This is a standard business tactic that has gone back many years before MS existed -- endorsement. Michael Jordan gets paid to endorse Nike. He doesn't do it for free.
I guess this technique will be useful for a few more years, but then become too easy to fake.
To a point I agree. It is a relatively simple thing to counterfeit, given today's technology -- expensive, but fake. But if such a black market were to exist, it would definately do enough counterfeiting to make it worth their while.
All that aside though, this is DNA we're talking about. If it were living DNA, it could quite litereally be set up to modify itself based on a certain signal. I am sure there is some way to manipulate it so that counterfeiting could be prevented.
From what I understand from the article, it can be very useful for the small college/university that wants to compete with the big schools. I would hope that the big schools don't buy into this, though I don't know if that will hold true.
I speak for Temple University, because that is what I am familiar with. Some of the big schools, like Temple, already offer such a system on their own. Mind you, they don't skim off the profits like this service. But that's good, keeps prices down. I know Temple isn't the top of this technology also. I know that many schools, without help, offer such services, and they are beneficial to many students. I still have my e-mail address at school, and probably always will. I was able to get class information online, and I was able to do sports tickets, etc without any nags. I got free internet access through the school (high-band T3 in the dorms, PPP from home) and I thought everything was smooth.
So, I hope this doesn't become a tradition at every school. I hope the big schools continue their own paths...but the little guy might like this.
The owner says: "I was bored this morning so I though I'd put FuckedCompany.com up for sale on ebay."
Rumors says: "He was drunk this morning and accidently put the company for sale."
If you read the description on Ebay, you'll see that it is a bit more legit than a drunken little trip to ebay. According to Ebay (or the description on ebay), the site is a side project of Pud (creator of the site), and he's getting tired of maintaining it. Apparently it's taking more time than he would like it to. But the site seems to be pretty popular, and I can see why he wouldn't want it to simply fade out.
On a side note, he apparently has agreed to remain onboard for a certain amount of time to help with the transition (to be agreed upon with the buyer).
So as you see, the "I was bored..." statement on his site is obviously a low-energy statement as a result of his loss of interest in his site. It was a good maketing move too...as it'll raise him a lot more money than he had hoped for, i'm sure.
Very good point. I must admit, I didn't think of the "too much to carry" element of the argument. But what does this clip-on thing do to the handspring? It would seem to me that having a device like this attached to your handpring might negate the ability to have this sucker in a case -- and that alone would bother me. I refuse to carry my Palm Pilot without its case.
On a slightly different note...your argument is a good one for those PDA/Cell Phone cross-breeds. I think there are some with MP3 players built in (or at least I've seen previews for such a product).
The latest issue of Wired Magazine has one of their famous little charts that gives you information about specific phones and the microwaves they give off at different connection types (two kinds of digital and analog). To me, it seems like such small numbers that it wouldn't make a difference anyhow.
In my honest opinion, I'm not really bothered by such a thing. It's like smoking -- smoking HAS been proven to cause cancer, but many people still smoke (and start) every day. As the famous saying goes: "You gotta die of something."
Going from Point A to Point B on a road map is rather difficult if the road map only shows the sections of the roads that you will be travelling on. Yes, the map is simple, but it doesn't tell you enough.
One of my peeves is that one can't do as much as they think they can with the easy interface. One good example of this is most of the scanner software out there. I often see scanning software that has simple selections: Scan for web, scan at photo quality, scan for blah...and so on. This isn't always the best. A great majority of the users out there use scanning software for a very specific task -- and most of those people know enough (or far more) to do optimal image settings. Say I want to do a 1280x1024 scan of an image at 32bit and so on -- which option do I choose? scan for web, scan for whatever?
Oversimplification is fine for the average user. But it would be nice if (in many cases) the power user could tweak things so that we can do what we want. Sawfish (formerly SawMill), a windows manager for XFree86 does a good job with this by allowing you to select configuration levels. Why can't everyone do this?
I agree. But I have to add to that.
<p>
Whenever I see something that gets <i>combined</i> with another product/device, I raise a few warning flags. I question it's abilites far more than that which is specialzed for such a use. The Nomad, Rio and all their competitors (I would assume, not based on fact) may have a better sound quality, and more features. And it's not like they're that much more expensive.
<p>
Why on earth would one find advantages to useing their Handspring instead of a Rio or some other player?
<p>
My father always speaks of the technological advances in his time. Granted, I don't feel that I can possibly top what he has seen in his time (he's in his 50's now). But take the last 20 years. If you really want to see how technology has advanced (rather, if you wanted to SHOW someone how it has advanced), you need only to look at the game industry -- specifically the consoles.
<p>
First there was Pong -- two long rectangles and a circle. Couldn't get any simpler than that. Now you have this? This is a handheld device! For God's sake....this is a mark of technology right here.
(And I must agree with a few of the comments abou the longevity of the Game Boy)
ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is a common name for a psycological disorder -- in english, mind you. It only seems natural that it might be called something different in Europe. The clinical terms used in the US might differ from that of the rest of the world.
I wouldn't call it "bad science" necessarily to diagnose someone with ADD. In certain situations, ADD is definately a serious problem. In a certain amount of those cases, things like Ritilin might be necessary. But the truth is, most diagnoses are incorrect -- and most properly diagnosed cases do not need drug such as Ritilin to solve the problem. Severe cases might, but other cases can be solved with somewhat more physical / natural means.
This might not even be that big an issue...or one that has been resolved many times over -- but I don't know the answer, so I'm curious.
How does an air-tight (weather tight) machine deal with being opened? I know with many watch casings, the water-tight seal is rendered useless if the seal is broken once. The watch will still work if the case is closed...but water can then get in. IS this an issue with some of these cases? Hardware will go bad...so it must be replaced. But then again, if the hardware needs to be replaced, it'd probably be a good time to replace the case as well...am I wrong?
Wouldn't that be like dropping a bomb from the inside? that could be good.
But wouldn't you feel guilty about working for the evil empire in the meantime? Seriously though, it seems as though gates has intentions to have that person do nothing more than provide information in order to beat linux. I think that whoever does this position will eventually become the hatred of the Linux Scene
In my honest opinion, without any biased and as applied to almost anything, I would like to say that there is no such thing as a waste of time. If you're improving something (be it the wheel) in the long run, what's the point in complaining. If it is of interest to those of us in the Linux community, does it really matter?
The point I'm trying to make is that a person entirely dedicated to the Linux movement is of no use to a Microsoft system. Change the OS, the goal changes, the need changes and of course, the interest changes. Perhaps the efficiency of Linux advancement has increased because of this fact.
Supply and demand. Windows is in supply, thus profit is low as is interest. Linux is in demand, supply of programmers is high, price is low -- it's the ultimate economic threat to the MS lovers. It's not purely taste, is it?
It'll be a long battle, but if the media continues to tell the TRUTH (true truth, not gates truth) about linux, then It'll get the attention it needs from the non-geek community.
That's pretty 'leet. I must admit, I've never heard of any of the optical mouse pads before. In theory, if I printed out a grid that was smaller than normal, would I be able to mess with the speed of the mouse that way? I'm sure there's an easier way to do it with software...but this is a curiousity question.
Linux _was_ a threat...now it's a reality. The thing is, Gates needs to sound like he's comfortable. Otherwise he won't have any followers.
The reality is, Linux isn't ready to be a true threat yet...however, gates doesn't look to the future. Someday very soon, Linux will have the pull of an internal-code system such as Windows. I don't know about you guys...but my university (Temple U.) has several Linux labs, Two Unix Labs, a shit load of licenses for Star-Office...and all these labs are POPULAR. The thing is, "minor" applications are exactly what the majority of microsoft buyers use. Word Processing...your gonna tell me that this is a monor application?
Now...what about the major applications...would CAD or GIMP be considered major? What about the things such as that? How much does photoshop go for? a couple of hundred dollars (at least). Now gimp is free. I for one would definately spend the time to download an OS (which I have) if it'll allow me to have things like that for free.
Some of you keep saying that the article is either old...or that you liked the article but it's nothing new. I for one liked the article...and it's all new information for me.
Linux, and other participating projects in the free code movement are all new to me. This is a very interesting article to found out what my new experimental operating system is all about. It's nice to know a projects roots. Whereas with something like MS-Win95's history isn't taken. Probably that has to do with the fact that it was bought, but you never know.
It's about time an electronic based company listens to the public. If you think about it, the whole industry is getting scary. I'm glad Intel sees it our way.
Slashdot Mirror
With Redhat, they have a tradition of having insecure x.0 releases -- and though the x.1 releases are better, typically they come around by x.2. I can't remember the article, but there was an article on Slashdot not too long ago which showed data about the security issues behind each release of given linux distribution. I didn't create this information out of nowhere...I had help. =)
Anyhow, i'm more interested in how this will impact Mandrake. I say that only because of the close relation between Mandrake and Redhat. Will the two start to spread apart now, Mandrake forming its own identity? Or will Mandrake make efforts to remain as close to Redhat as they already are?
Those who are against the net as a facilitator of information and entertainment will eventually die, and it will be a non-issue. The future of money will be in the advertising.
In the latest (few) version, the MP3 decoder works fine. It doesn't skip samples anymore. I don't know anything about audible low frequency glitches -- I have never experienced sugh problems.
But the real reason you want to use Sonique is not just for MP3, but for all the modular support it holds. It uses the MikIT core -- which means it handles MOD, S3M, XM and IT (among other things), and it does that flawlessly. WinAMP doesn't do that as well. I can't speak for XMMS, because I don't have a sound card on my linux box. But for the average tracker, this is what you want.
Our institutions are not sticking up for online piracy, and i'm sure you don't truly believe that. In fact, the institutions aren't sticking of for anything other than a constitutional right to privacy. That's PRIVACY not PIRACY.
I'm not saying that I am in disagreement, on the contrary. I believe that the release of free music cuts out the middle man. David Bowie knows it, Smashing Pumpkins know it. According to Wired Magazine, CD sales have risen about 12% in the past three years. MP3s started catching on then -- napster is just the fall guy, of sorts.
What the RIAA doesn't want you to know is that it is not the intellectual property that they are worried about. It is the middle man. Who are the middle men in this industry? The Recording and distribution companies -- the members of RIAA. Guess what? It's their cash flow their worried about. Musicians (contrary to popular belief) don't make that much useing these guys as a middle man. BUT, if they can eliminate the middle man and make just as much money (if not more), then they will be a happier bunch of musicians.
Metallica is the exception -- they are a rare case that the artists DO make a lot of money from the agencies. But there are always exceptions.
You predict? Well, that's nice. Do you have any evidence, or are you just a seer?
There is plenty of evidence. Few people think about such things, but media changes take forever to catch on. CD (unknown to most people) were introduced in the early 80s...look how long that took to become mainstream, and that's only because several companies embraced CDs.
Mini Disc won't necessarily die in 5 years, but if it DOESN'T catch on quickly, it will. MD has been around for a long time. Sony tried to push it many years ago, and failed. Then they came back with it, and this time they brought in a few companies (doesn't Philips support it now too?). But, it's still taking a while, and it hasn't caught on. More importantly, it hasn't been supported by the record industry.
MP3 has similar issues -- like the fact that the record industry wouldn't support it if someone was hanging by their balls (unless we get a next-gen CEO in charge of one of the companies). But there is one thing that you might be overlooking: CD-R of MP3s. Panasonic, Philips/Magnavox and Alpine (not out yet, but coming) are all offering CD/MP3 players that play both CDs and MP3s from CDs. The huge plus side on that is the simple fact that there is no required media change.
I've said it already, but a complete media change is not likely to get accepted quickly...if at all. If it a solid percentage of the market doesn't start useing the product within a certain amount of time, it probably won't get accepted at all. Need I remind you that Sony has failed at this before -- remember BETA video? A crystal clear format for video tapes, but it didn't catch on, because it required a special player (those tapes were small, besides). It never caught on, and the main video media is still VHS (sorry DVD people, DVD still only carrys a small percentage of the market -- but it's getting there).
Just my economical background crashing with my technological interests and general observation.
The natural assumption would be that this exists to make money. I wouldn't be surprised if CNN pays MS to have cnn.com listed among the default links during an install. I personally don't like it, but this is the business world (the net can mean business too), and they have a right to make money that way. I would expect Netscape and Mozilla (when it comes of age) to do the very same. It's only logical. The next step is obvious -- MS needs to make sure that their clients (cnn, yahoo, whatever) have reason to continue paying MS to have their links listed. Obviously, the clients wouldn't find it necessary to pay for such a link if only a very small percentage of the market actually uses it. This is called marketing.
Not that i'm defending MS, but it is respectful to be fair. Look at some of the stuff that can be downloaded with netscape, or added useing Smart Update. Do you really think Netscape offers those out of the kindness of their hearts? In a perfect world, yes. In the business world, there's no reason to do such a thing if money weren't involved. Besides, that's man-hours (more money going into overhead) that get eaten by Netscape just to be kind.
My point is that this is not necessarily a big, evil MS tactic again. This is a standard business tactic that has gone back many years before MS existed -- endorsement. Michael Jordan gets paid to endorse Nike. He doesn't do it for free.
To a point I agree. It is a relatively simple thing to counterfeit, given today's technology -- expensive, but fake. But if such a black market were to exist, it would definately do enough counterfeiting to make it worth their while.
All that aside though, this is DNA we're talking about. If it were living DNA, it could quite litereally be set up to modify itself based on a certain signal. I am sure there is some way to manipulate it so that counterfeiting could be prevented.
There will be a new technology soon.
I speak for Temple University, because that is what I am familiar with. Some of the big schools, like Temple, already offer such a system on their own. Mind you, they don't skim off the profits like this service. But that's good, keeps prices down. I know Temple isn't the top of this technology also. I know that many schools, without help, offer such services, and they are beneficial to many students. I still have my e-mail address at school, and probably always will. I was able to get class information online, and I was able to do sports tickets, etc without any nags. I got free internet access through the school (high-band T3 in the dorms, PPP from home) and I thought everything was smooth.
So, I hope this doesn't become a tradition at every school. I hope the big schools continue their own paths...but the little guy might like this.
Rumors says: "He was drunk this morning and accidently put the company for sale."
If you read the description on Ebay, you'll see that it is a bit more legit than a drunken little trip to ebay. According to Ebay (or the description on ebay), the site is a side project of Pud (creator of the site), and he's getting tired of maintaining it. Apparently it's taking more time than he would like it to. But the site seems to be pretty popular, and I can see why he wouldn't want it to simply fade out.
On a side note, he apparently has agreed to remain onboard for a certain amount of time to help with the transition (to be agreed upon with the buyer).
So as you see, the "I was bored..." statement on his site is obviously a low-energy statement as a result of his loss of interest in his site. It was a good maketing move too...as it'll raise him a lot more money than he had hoped for, i'm sure.
Very good point. I must admit, I didn't think of the "too much to carry" element of the argument. But what does this clip-on thing do to the handspring? It would seem to me that having a device like this attached to your handpring might negate the ability to have this sucker in a case -- and that alone would bother me. I refuse to carry my Palm Pilot without its case.
On a slightly different note...your argument is a good one for those PDA/Cell Phone cross-breeds. I think there are some with MP3 players built in (or at least I've seen previews for such a product).
In my honest opinion, I'm not really bothered by such a thing. It's like smoking -- smoking HAS been proven to cause cancer, but many people still smoke (and start) every day. As the famous saying goes: "You gotta die of something."
Going from Point A to Point B on a road map is rather difficult if the road map only shows the sections of the roads that you will be travelling on. Yes, the map is simple, but it doesn't tell you enough.
One of my peeves is that one can't do as much as they think they can with the easy interface. One good example of this is most of the scanner software out there. I often see scanning software that has simple selections: Scan for web, scan at photo quality, scan for blah...and so on. This isn't always the best. A great majority of the users out there use scanning software for a very specific task -- and most of those people know enough (or far more) to do optimal image settings. Say I want to do a 1280x1024 scan of an image at 32bit and so on -- which option do I choose? scan for web, scan for whatever?
Oversimplification is fine for the average user. But it would be nice if (in many cases) the power user could tweak things so that we can do what we want. Sawfish (formerly SawMill), a windows manager for XFree86 does a good job with this by allowing you to select configuration levels. Why can't everyone do this?
I agree. But I have to add to that.
<p>
Whenever I see something that gets <i>combined</i> with another product/device, I raise a few warning flags. I question it's abilites far more than that which is specialzed for such a use. The Nomad, Rio and all their competitors (I would assume, not based on fact) may have a better sound quality, and more features. And it's not like they're that much more expensive.
<p>
Why on earth would one find advantages to useing their Handspring instead of a Rio or some other player?
<p>
My father always speaks of the technological advances in his time. Granted, I don't feel that I can possibly top what he has seen in his time (he's in his 50's now). But take the last 20 years. If you really want to see how technology has advanced (rather, if you wanted to SHOW someone how it has advanced), you need only to look at the game industry -- specifically the consoles.
<p>
First there was Pong -- two long rectangles and a circle. Couldn't get any simpler than that. Now you have this? This is a handheld device! For God's sake....this is a mark of technology right here.
(And I must agree with a few of the comments abou the longevity of the Game Boy)
I wouldn't call it "bad science" necessarily to diagnose someone with ADD. In certain situations, ADD is definately a serious problem. In a certain amount of those cases, things like Ritilin might be necessary. But the truth is, most diagnoses are incorrect -- and most properly diagnosed cases do not need drug such as Ritilin to solve the problem. Severe cases might, but other cases can be solved with somewhat more physical / natural means.
This might not even be that big an issue...or one that has been resolved many times over -- but I don't know the answer, so I'm curious.
How does an air-tight (weather tight) machine deal with being opened? I know with many watch casings, the water-tight seal is rendered useless if the seal is broken once. The watch will still work if the case is closed...but water can then get in. IS this an issue with some of these cases? Hardware will go bad...so it must be replaced. But then again, if the hardware needs to be replaced, it'd probably be a good time to replace the case as well...am I wrong?
Wouldn't that be like dropping a bomb from the inside? that could be good.
But wouldn't you feel guilty about working for the evil empire in the meantime? Seriously though, it seems as though gates has intentions to have that person do nothing more than provide information in order to beat linux. I think that whoever does this position will eventually become the hatred of the Linux Scene
In my honest opinion, without any biased and as applied to almost anything, I would like to say that there is no such thing as a waste of time. If you're improving something (be it the wheel) in the long run, what's the point in complaining. If it is of interest to those of us in the Linux community, does it really matter?
The point I'm trying to make is that a person entirely dedicated to the Linux movement is of no use to a Microsoft system. Change the OS, the goal changes, the need changes and of course, the interest changes. Perhaps the efficiency of Linux advancement has increased because of this fact.
Supply and demand. Windows is in supply, thus profit is low as is interest. Linux is in demand, supply of programmers is high, price is low -- it's the ultimate economic threat to the MS lovers. It's not purely taste, is it?
It'll be a long battle, but if the media continues to tell the TRUTH (true truth, not gates truth) about linux, then It'll get the attention it needs from the non-geek community.
Cheers,
That's pretty 'leet. I must admit, I've never heard of any of the optical mouse pads before. In theory, if I printed out a grid that was smaller than normal, would I be able to mess with the speed of the mouse that way? I'm sure there's an easier way to do it with software...but this is a curiousity question.
Linux _was_ a threat...now it's a reality. The thing is, Gates needs to sound like he's comfortable. Otherwise he won't have any followers.
The reality is, Linux isn't ready to be a true threat yet...however, gates doesn't look to the future. Someday very soon, Linux will have the pull of an internal-code system such as Windows. I don't know about you guys...but my university (Temple U.) has several Linux labs, Two Unix Labs, a shit load of licenses for Star-Office...and all these labs are POPULAR. The thing is, "minor" applications are exactly what the majority of microsoft buyers use. Word Processing...your gonna tell me that this is a monor application?
Now...what about the major applications...would CAD or GIMP be considered major? What about the things such as that? How much does photoshop go for? a couple of hundred dollars (at least). Now gimp is free. I for one would definately spend the time to download an OS (which I have) if it'll allow me to have things like that for free.
Gates...he's gotta wake up.
You have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
Some of you keep saying that the article is either old...or that you liked the article but it's nothing new. I for one liked the article...and it's all new information for me.
Linux, and other participating projects in the free code movement are all new to me. This is a very interesting article to found out what my new experimental operating system is all about. It's nice to know a projects roots. Whereas with something like MS-Win95's history isn't taken. Probably that has to do with the fact that it was bought, but you never know.
Great article...thanks for the heads up.
I hereby claim the patent rights to scratch my ass in the privacy of my dorm room.
This is almost as absurd...don't you think?
It's about time an electronic based company listens to the public. If you think about it, the whole industry is getting scary. I'm glad Intel sees it our way.