Your explaination of the response header is correct, but it's not always X-Bender. It's X-[Character], where [Character] is the person who originated the quote. For instance, here's the response header from a recent page view:
X-Fry: I haven't had time off since I was twenty-one through twenty-four.
I have found, though, that most are quotes from Bender.
NPR had a quickie about this this morning on the radio.
They led in with something like "Microsoft may lead stock drops this morning with the news they will be delaying the latest version of their Windows operating system". In their piece, they also mentioned there would be a management shake-up in the Windows development team, which got my attention more then the delay.
I can't find it mentioned anywhere else, and NPR's own site only has a small text blurb. I can't get the audio stream to work. byt maybe someone else can and check behind me.
I thought it was pretty universally accepted that Microsoft originally created the XMLHttpRequest object for apps like OWA, and it wasn't until much later that the greater web community popularized it, eventually leading to the AJAX concept.
It may be a point that Microsoft never released any sort of available API for use outside their corporation, but they seem to have been taken off-guard by the whole popularity off it. It's not suprising that it's been until now for them to release any sort of toolkit. It's also not suprising that it's tied with ASP.NET. But that's been their signature all along, to tightly integrate all their technologies together to trap you in their system. So that bit isn't shocking at all.
Also, this is so far your second post in this thread and both have mentioned echo2 from NextApp. Your first post claims you descovered echo2 "..as recently as a few months ago.." and now this post touts it because it's been around "for quite some time now". While both cases can certainly be true, your authority over your own opinion is now somewhat dead. Mental bullet points include:
All posts in thread mention the product. You could be an employee or otherwise related to NextApp. You're interested more in the product then the technology.
Independant developer. Freshly discoverd NextApp recently though they've been around for a bit. It's a little quick to drink the koolaid and provide them so much attention and props.
Troll, albeit a subtle one. Every knows Java servlets suck and you may just be looking to hook responses.
You could be a small tea biscuit, in which case it's fantastic that you're communicating at all.
I switched from Comcast cable modem service to FIOS this past December.
1) Comcast was ~$45/month for 6.6/512k. With FIOS, I splurged and I'm paying $54/month for 30/5. You can, however, stay at $45/month with FIOS and get 15/3. Not to be biased, Comcast is rumored to be increasing their speeds to 16/?? without a price raise, at least around here. But, as a previous reply mentioned, torrents on a 30/5 line are rather sweet.
2) I'm a pure Linux shop at home. The installers had no problem with that. They were more concerned with my Linksys router which I was told has issues with PPPoE at or above 15Mb/sec. They welcomed me to plug it back in, so it wasn't a sales pitch. I eventually found many FIOS forum posts from people experiencing exactly what they described.
3) Their TV service isn't actually available here yet (Comcast stronghold, currently in legislation), but I know from other areas that it isn't IPTV. Their initial test area was somewhere in Texas I believe, and it's interesting to read their reactions to the service, which is extremely good.
Looks like you're wrong on all points. That must suck. A lot.
How exactly is this a profitable business venture when their optimisitc goal is to spend over $1,600 per household for installation of a service that they sell for $40/month, with relatively little commitment to stay with the service?
Because it's a long term investment. I had the 30/5 FIOS package installed at our place just before Christmas last year. I'm not a CFOI, but I could hold my own in conversation with the installers, being especially interested to learn the cost of the ONT and other equipment they were having to setup. I'm now not suprised that, after accounting for equipment and labor, cost per household can get pretty elevated.
For the 30/5 line I'm paying $54/month. If you take the high value of $1,400 per household, I'll hit that mark with my monthly payments in approx. 26 months. But that's measured installation cost and doesn't account for bandwidth usage or any potential service needed. Bandwidth costs on their end are low, and customers usually aren't the one who create costs associated with service calls (customer has no service through no fault of customer), so we'll extend that to 30 months. So in less then 3 years, my residential installation is paid for. In the scheme of things, 3 years is nothing.
Now, it's possible I'm the only FIOS customer in my neighborhood, which means all those other installations aren't being supported by customers yet. But the idea is that, even if it takes some time, eventually they're going to have a considerable ammount of their installation costs covered, AND be the only company in the US with such a widely distributed residential fiber network. That second part is worth spending millions of dollars alone.
Power companies charge a per-pole fee if you want to run cable using their poles. I've heard it's usually something like $1 per pole per month. Verizon could offer to lease their lines out to other providers and just sit back and make bank. It's not nearly that much of a money losing proposition.
Re:Poor choice of title?
on
Black Review
·
· Score: 1
...a little stupid walking into a store and asking "Do you have Black in stock?"...I'd expect to be directed to the paint isle.
Come on, now. Paint at a paint store, games at a games store. Maybe you're going to someplace like Walmart to get your games, who also sells paint. But you're the idiot if you're asking for games help anywhere besides the electronics dept. .
It must be realy embarasing when you go to the Cristian book store to get your scat videos.
Look, on paper you're correct. And I can do the math fine without you capitalizing or using terms like "cost parity". You should be careful with that stuff by the way, or people will start to think you're more managerial and lacking in any true experience.
I've got three sites to manage that aren't busting at the seems with equipment, but they've got enough to keep me busy. If I've ever got a network problem, the last thing I expect to have to check is the sudden failure of my Cisco equipment. I may have a firewall that's improperly blocking communications, but I'll usually bet my savings that it's a bad config and not a fault of the PIX itself. Not that I haven't had to replace hardware, it's just that I've learned to expect a certain level of dependability from Cisco hardware.
Now, if something new comes along that foremostly attempts to sell itself on cost saving, I'm still not going to perk up that much. But, we're sticking with your argument that it's so cheap I can have a hot spare, save tons of money, and have a quicker turn around time to boot. I'm sorry, but the biggest downer is that I enjoy currently not even having to think in those terms. I know I pay more for Cisco equipment. Something new might save me some money, but to me it's worth the expense to save me from having to even worry about my hardware health, having to do any potential extra travel to do hardware swapping, having to inventory and maintain extra standby equipment, having to integrate something new into change management... you get the idea.
"...have a faster replacement (minutes probably) than Cisco service."
And seriously, if you're in a position to need replacement hardware in minutes, I doubt you'll be a customer shopping for bargain equipment. Also, you'll be hardpressed to find any large crowd of people that are extremely upset with Cisco service. They're not perfect, but they certainly know what they're doing.
If it's 1/5th of the cost of Cisco as the summary states, then you have two or three spares which you preload with your configuration. If one dies, just plug in the spare.
So on your terms, the cost benefit is mostly crap.
Isn't that Microsoft's own attitude you're borrowing there?
They're the ones that drone on and on (and on) about innovation, and we're the ones that don't use their stuff supposedly because it's crap or we just generaly don't like it.
So by your own reference you invalidate your arguement to the very crowd you're trying to appeal to.
"Microsoft pointed out that the current version of Windows, XP, is available in six different versions though most of these are tuned for the different types of hardware, such as a Tablet PC, people are using."
And your comment..
"Further, Tablet and 3rd world aren't applicable to consumers."
..is nonsense. If they aren't applicable to consumers, then who are they applicable to? I'm a consumer, my T4020 is running XP Tablet, and don't feel like I've been misdirected or cheated anyone out of anything.
If you haven't already check out Bleep, the online music store for several cool labels who's artists include Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Venetian snares, among hundreds of others.
You can preview any part of any song, choose your download format, and everything is nicely tagged for you. Oh, and no DRM.
And I don't work for Bleep, I've just given them a shitload of money.
1) I've got a feeling that by saying "what you want with them", it wasn't meant to be taken literally. Maybe more as a summary of "yes, you can download them to several machines, several devices, burn them if you like, we don't care. Whatever you want within your personal use."
2) Why would I buy music from you for ultra-cheap if I can get it myself for ultra-cheap? Yeah, it's only a dollar, but the full deal would be nicer @ $4/month. It'd be like..
That's right! Three CDs for only $3! BUT WAIT! Call now and order a fourth CD for a grand total of $4 and get everything else in the world at no extra cost!!!
Not least there's the cost of re/training staff to use new software.
Toy with Office 12 Beta for a while. The updates to the interface are not minor. All the shortcuts you're used to are still there (CTRL-C, CTRL-V, etc...), but those exist in any major non-Microsoft office product as well. Moving from Office 2003 to Office 12 (Vista, whatevs) will not be a small step.
It's actually a key time to consider a different office suite. If you're conserned about re/training on a different product, consider the effort involved in just sticking with Office. You'd probably spend just as much energy updating your staff on the new Office interface as you would introducing them to a different suite all together.
Microsoft, meanwhile is making about $200 per each of the other 95%.
I'm not argueing your total point, but that statement is very incorrect. I just walked someone in our building through buying a new machine from Dell for their home: Deminsion 3000 P4 2.8 with an 80G SATA drive, CD/DVD burner, 19" DVI LCD, and a few other goodies. Total price shipped was ~$700.
Now, the LCD was a $150 upgrade from the bundled 17" analog LCD, which I'm guessing cost at least $100 itself (Dell's probable internal price). We had to manually add a floppy for $35 (wtf is that price about?) and there were some other add-ons I can't recall that probably totaled about $100. That takes the machine down to ~$415.
Inside that $415 you have to account for hardware costs, Dell's margin, and, as you mentioned, Microsoft's cut. There was no bundled Office, so we're looking at just the Windows tax. Dell is huge and can buy cheaply in volume, so it's not fair to compare their hardware costs with retail hardware costs. Lets say they're able to build that machine for $300, leaving $115, already below your figure of $200. Oh, shipping was in there. Let's say $25 to ship. Dell has to make something in the deal (they have a shitload of people to pay) so we'll give them $25 for their effort. That leaves $65 dollars to pay off Bill and for whatever else.
Wait a second. If I was Dell and realised that for that machine Microsoft just made more money then I did on the sale I might be slightly upset. But anyway.. we'll let those numbers stand.
I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, but I think they're a fair estimate. You can see where I'm headed. If Bill gets all $65 left over from the sale that cuts your figure from $190 million to $61.75 million. Granted, their margin will be larger on machines bundled with Office, so let's take that new number up to something like $100 million. That would roughly halve your figures and Microsoft's cut would be about $95/machine. Apple then goes out, per your post, and grabs %20 of the market. 200,000 X $95 = $19 million, which is actually $6 million lower then your original estimate of $25 million. Apple loses money.
Of course all those numbers are quickly madeup bullshit.
Also, I agree and believe that in the long run Apple will switch completely to x86 hardware delivered by large outfits like Dell, etc. .
So if I read this right, this amazingly easy installation procedure (which is pitched as a strength of FOSS) does not have any dependency on the Free/Open Source development model because the installation packages are binary.
Wow. 1st prize for being pretty much as wrong as possible. The path that FOSS software takes from application developer to user can often involve several people: the developer(s), possible hosters (sourceforge, etc.), package maintainer(s), QA (not always), repository hosters (fex, OSU), and potentially others. All these resources come together to create the software distribution channel that I believe the original author was referencing. And why are you suggesting that the FOSS model is out the window simple because the packages are binary? You could argue that the very fact the user has access to a binary package proves the FOSS model is working since it would most likely mean that every stage in the delivery chains has successfully played it's part. In any case, who says the binary and source packages have to be offered by the same individual? If I install a precompiled build of Apache provided by Mandriva, but I can always get the source directly from the Apache homepage, what exactly is wrong and who am I supposed to blame?
Further, while it is true that the user is relieved from having to figure out which packages work with his/her system, there is a significant burden on the application developers and/or packagers to support every Tom-Dick-and-Harry distribution. Just the testing alone (which I would bet does not get done on the lesser-known distros) is a massive undertaking.
You're showing clear signs that you think you know what's going on, but you've never actually been involved in the process. In general, there's no significant burden on anyone. In large part because of those people I mentioned earlier. The FOSS model has produced segments that specialize in one aspect of the process. Freshmeat excels at software catagorization, an overall software "library". Sourceforge provides the tools for projects to develop and coordinate. Anyone familiar with these things is already thinking of the others I could mention. Developers themselves are realy free to decide who, if anyone, they want to directly build packages for. In most cases the packagers for each project will take over and handle that aspect. And as far as testing, look at Debian. It takes them ages to get things into stable! Yes, there are distros that don't have that level of involvement, but that's a direct result of the FOSS model. They wouldn't even exist otherwise.
The main difference is Microsoft relieves the application developers from the burden of having to build installers for umpteen platforms - typically they only have to build 1. And the average Windows user doesn't have to worry about picking the wrong distro.
There are a lot more similarities than you think. Windows seems singular, but remember the current support system includes things like 98, ME, 2000 Pro/Server, XP Home/Pro/MCE/64, 2003 Std,Adv/64, CE and Mobile. Yes, it's fair to include those last two because you have to make a comparison on all available correlating platforms. You're correct that there probably isn't a whole lot to do to ensure your program works on most of those platforms, but how much effort do you think Linux app developers are putting in by comparision? Usually a lot less then you think. Remember those package maintainers? Again, they're usually the ones that take over and certify it all works correctly.
Now, I'm not saying that Linux or the FOSS model are perfect, just that all your post has are a few bold and caped letters but not much else.
It's the media/customers that are kinda stupid for falling for these schemes...
You can't blame the customer in situations like this. All they are are consumers who want a product. One metric of a good product is how well it initially sells, and all that's happening here is Microsoft falsifying that metric. It's just your every day corprate dishonesty. You could blame the media for not reporting on anything but the sellout, but it wouldn't suprise me if they just didn't bother digging any deeper to find that side of the story.
Agreed. I just picked up a T4020 about a month ago and I don't think I'll ever be able to use a "normal" laptop again. It's a tad heavier than the X41 but it has an on-board CDRW in a modular bay that I can shove a secondary battery in when I know I'll be out for a while. The screen is slightly hard to read on a bright day outside, but a dream otherwise. The fingerprint reader was fun for a few weeks but the novelty ran off pretty quick.
As far as a solution looking for a problem, I agreed up until I got mine. Now there are just too many things that are much more convenient. FEX, I can draft up and manipulate Visio projects *incredibly* easily while on the go. Visio is a headache when you're limited to just a touch pad or clit stick, and a mouse is only handy if you're stationary and have space to put it somewhere. General research and reading are much more enjoyable.
Slashdot Mirror
You're slightly incorrect.
Your explaination of the response header is correct, but it's not always X-Bender. It's X-[Character], where [Character] is the person who originated the quote. For instance, here's the response header from a recent page view:
X-Fry: I haven't had time off since I was twenty-one through twenty-four.
I have found, though, that most are quotes from Bender.
NPR had a quickie about this this morning on the radio.
They led in with something like "Microsoft may lead stock drops this morning with the news they will be delaying the latest version of their Windows operating system". In their piece, they also mentioned there would be a management shake-up in the Windows development team, which got my attention more then the delay.
I can't find it mentioned anywhere else, and NPR's own site only has a small text blurb. I can't get the audio stream to work. byt maybe someone else can and check behind me.
It may be a point that Microsoft never released any sort of available API for use outside their corporation, but they seem to have been taken off-guard by the whole popularity off it. It's not suprising that it's been until now for them to release any sort of toolkit. It's also not suprising that it's tied with ASP.NET. But that's been their signature all along, to tightly integrate all their technologies together to trap you in their system. So that bit isn't shocking at all.
Also, this is so far your second post in this thread and both have mentioned echo2 from NextApp. Your first post claims you descovered echo2 "..as recently as a few months ago.." and now this post touts it because it's been around "for quite some time now". While both cases can certainly be true, your authority over your own opinion is now somewhat dead. Mental bullet points include:
That's the kind of hype I could actually get behind!!!
And he was like.. and she was like...
She's all.. he's all.. we're all....
I can't get behind any of that!
(-1, Uninformed)
I switched from Comcast cable modem service to FIOS this past December.
1) Comcast was ~$45/month for 6.6/512k. With FIOS, I splurged and I'm paying $54/month for 30/5. You can, however, stay at $45/month with FIOS and get 15/3. Not to be biased, Comcast is rumored to be increasing their speeds to 16/?? without a price raise, at least around here. But, as a previous reply mentioned, torrents on a 30/5 line are rather sweet.
2) I'm a pure Linux shop at home. The installers had no problem with that. They were more concerned with my Linksys router which I was told has issues with PPPoE at or above 15Mb/sec. They welcomed me to plug it back in, so it wasn't a sales pitch. I eventually found many FIOS forum posts from people experiencing exactly what they described.
3) Their TV service isn't actually available here yet (Comcast stronghold, currently in legislation), but I know from other areas that it isn't IPTV. Their initial test area was somewhere in Texas I believe, and it's interesting to read their reactions to the service, which is extremely good.
Looks like you're wrong on all points. That must suck. A lot.
How exactly is this a profitable business venture when their optimisitc goal is to spend over $1,600 per household for installation of a service that they sell for $40/month, with relatively little commitment to stay with the service?
Because it's a long term investment. I had the 30/5 FIOS package installed at our place just before Christmas last year. I'm not a CFOI, but I could hold my own in conversation with the installers, being especially interested to learn the cost of the ONT and other equipment they were having to setup. I'm now not suprised that, after accounting for equipment and labor, cost per household can get pretty elevated.
For the 30/5 line I'm paying $54/month. If you take the high value of $1,400 per household, I'll hit that mark with my monthly payments in approx. 26 months. But that's measured installation cost and doesn't account for bandwidth usage or any potential service needed. Bandwidth costs on their end are low, and customers usually aren't the one who create costs associated with service calls (customer has no service through no fault of customer), so we'll extend that to 30 months. So in less then 3 years, my residential installation is paid for. In the scheme of things, 3 years is nothing.
Now, it's possible I'm the only FIOS customer in my neighborhood, which means all those other installations aren't being supported by customers yet. But the idea is that, even if it takes some time, eventually they're going to have a considerable ammount of their installation costs covered, AND be the only company in the US with such a widely distributed residential fiber network. That second part is worth spending millions of dollars alone.
Power companies charge a per-pole fee if you want to run cable using their poles. I've heard it's usually something like $1 per pole per month. Verizon could offer to lease their lines out to other providers and just sit back and make bank. It's not nearly that much of a money losing proposition.
...a little stupid walking into a store and asking "Do you have Black in stock?"...I'd expect to be directed to the paint isle.
Come on, now. Paint at a paint store, games at a games store. Maybe you're going to someplace like Walmart to get your games, who also sells paint. But you're the idiot if you're asking for games help anywhere besides the electronics dept. .
It must be realy embarasing when you go to the Cristian book store to get your scat videos.
Look, on paper you're correct. And I can do the math fine without you capitalizing or using terms like "cost parity". You should be careful with that stuff by the way, or people will start to think you're more managerial and lacking in any true experience.
I've got three sites to manage that aren't busting at the seems with equipment, but they've got enough to keep me busy. If I've ever got a network problem, the last thing I expect to have to check is the sudden failure of my Cisco equipment. I may have a firewall that's improperly blocking communications, but I'll usually bet my savings that it's a bad config and not a fault of the PIX itself. Not that I haven't had to replace hardware, it's just that I've learned to expect a certain level of dependability from Cisco hardware.
Now, if something new comes along that foremostly attempts to sell itself on cost saving, I'm still not going to perk up that much. But, we're sticking with your argument that it's so cheap I can have a hot spare, save tons of money, and have a quicker turn around time to boot. I'm sorry, but the biggest downer is that I enjoy currently not even having to think in those terms. I know I pay more for Cisco equipment. Something new might save me some money, but to me it's worth the expense to save me from having to even worry about my hardware health, having to do any potential extra travel to do hardware swapping, having to inventory and maintain extra standby equipment, having to integrate something new into change management... you get the idea.
"...have a faster replacement (minutes probably) than Cisco service."
And seriously, if you're in a position to need replacement hardware in minutes, I doubt you'll be a customer shopping for bargain equipment. Also, you'll be hardpressed to find any large crowd of people that are extremely upset with Cisco service. They're not perfect, but they certainly know what they're doing.
If it's 1/5th of the cost of Cisco as the summary states, then you have two or three spares which you preload with your configuration. If one dies, just plug in the spare.
So on your terms, the cost benefit is mostly crap.
Sony: Playstation!
Nintendo: N64!
Sony: Playstation 2!
Nintendo: Game Cube!
That's a joke, right?
Isn't that Microsoft's own attitude you're borrowing there?
They're the ones that drone on and on (and on) about innovation, and we're the ones that don't use their stuff supposedly because it's crap or we just generaly don't like it.
So by your own reference you invalidate your arguement to the very crowd you're trying to appeal to.
From TFA:
..is nonsense. If they aren't applicable to consumers, then who are they applicable to? I'm a consumer, my T4020 is running XP Tablet, and don't feel like I've been misdirected or cheated anyone out of anything.
"Microsoft pointed out that the current version of Windows, XP, is available in six different versions though most of these are tuned for the different types of hardware, such as a Tablet PC, people are using."
And your comment..
"Further, Tablet and 3rd world aren't applicable to consumers."
If you haven't already check out Bleep, the online music store for several cool labels who's artists include Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Venetian snares, among hundreds of others.
You can preview any part of any song, choose your download format, and everything is nicely tagged for you. Oh, and no DRM.
And I don't work for Bleep, I've just given them a shitload of money.
A couple problems with this:
1) I've got a feeling that by saying "what you want with them", it wasn't meant to be taken literally. Maybe more as a summary of "yes, you can download them to several machines, several devices, burn them if you like, we don't care. Whatever you want within your personal use."
2) Why would I buy music from you for ultra-cheap if I can get it myself for ultra-cheap? Yeah, it's only a dollar, but the full deal would be nicer @ $4/month. It'd be like..
That's right! Three CDs for only $3! BUT WAIT! Call now and order a fourth CD for a grand total of $4 and get everything else in the world at no extra cost!!!
Which weighs more? A ton of feathers, or a ton of bricks?
Not least there's the cost of re/training staff to use new software.
Toy with Office 12 Beta for a while. The updates to the interface are not minor. All the shortcuts you're used to are still there (CTRL-C, CTRL-V, etc...), but those exist in any major non-Microsoft office product as well. Moving from Office 2003 to Office 12 (Vista, whatevs) will not be a small step.
It's actually a key time to consider a different office suite. If you're conserned about re/training on a different product, consider the effort involved in just sticking with Office. You'd probably spend just as much energy updating your staff on the new Office interface as you would introducing them to a different suite all together.
Links would be nice.
Microsoft, meanwhile is making about $200 per each of the other 95%.
I'm not argueing your total point, but that statement is very incorrect. I just walked someone in our building through buying a new machine from Dell for their home: Deminsion 3000 P4 2.8 with an 80G SATA drive, CD/DVD burner, 19" DVI LCD, and a few other goodies. Total price shipped was ~$700.
Now, the LCD was a $150 upgrade from the bundled 17" analog LCD, which I'm guessing cost at least $100 itself (Dell's probable internal price). We had to manually add a floppy for $35 (wtf is that price about?) and there were some other add-ons I can't recall that probably totaled about $100. That takes the machine down to ~$415.
Inside that $415 you have to account for hardware costs, Dell's margin, and, as you mentioned, Microsoft's cut. There was no bundled Office, so we're looking at just the Windows tax. Dell is huge and can buy cheaply in volume, so it's not fair to compare their hardware costs with retail hardware costs. Lets say they're able to build that machine for $300, leaving $115, already below your figure of $200. Oh, shipping was in there. Let's say $25 to ship. Dell has to make something in the deal (they have a shitload of people to pay) so we'll give them $25 for their effort. That leaves $65 dollars to pay off Bill and for whatever else.
Wait a second. If I was Dell and realised that for that machine Microsoft just made more money then I did on the sale I might be slightly upset. But anyway.. we'll let those numbers stand.
I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass, but I think they're a fair estimate. You can see where I'm headed. If Bill gets all $65 left over from the sale that cuts your figure from $190 million to $61.75 million. Granted, their margin will be larger on machines bundled with Office, so let's take that new number up to something like $100 million. That would roughly halve your figures and Microsoft's cut would be about $95/machine. Apple then goes out, per your post, and grabs %20 of the market. 200,000 X $95 = $19 million, which is actually $6 million lower then your original estimate of $25 million. Apple loses money.
Of course all those numbers are quickly madeup bullshit.
Also, I agree and believe that in the long run Apple will switch completely to x86 hardware delivered by large outfits like Dell, etc. .
Sometimes it's not about the amount of effort, but about how clear and easy to use each step is to perform and understand.
It's not a race.
So if I read this right, this amazingly easy installation procedure (which is pitched as a strength of FOSS) does not have any dependency on the Free/Open Source development model because the installation packages are binary.
Wow. 1st prize for being pretty much as wrong as possible. The path that FOSS software takes from application developer to user can often involve several people: the developer(s), possible hosters (sourceforge, etc.), package maintainer(s), QA (not always), repository hosters (fex, OSU), and potentially others. All these resources come together to create the software distribution channel that I believe the original author was referencing. And why are you suggesting that the FOSS model is out the window simple because the packages are binary? You could argue that the very fact the user has access to a binary package proves the FOSS model is working since it would most likely mean that every stage in the delivery chains has successfully played it's part. In any case, who says the binary and source packages have to be offered by the same individual? If I install a precompiled build of Apache provided by Mandriva, but I can always get the source directly from the Apache homepage, what exactly is wrong and who am I supposed to blame?
Further, while it is true that the user is relieved from having to figure out which packages work with his/her system, there is a significant burden on the application developers and/or packagers to support every Tom-Dick-and-Harry distribution. Just the testing alone (which I would bet does not get done on the lesser-known distros) is a massive undertaking.
You're showing clear signs that you think you know what's going on, but you've never actually been involved in the process. In general, there's no significant burden on anyone. In large part because of those people I mentioned earlier. The FOSS model has produced segments that specialize in one aspect of the process. Freshmeat excels at software catagorization, an overall software "library". Sourceforge provides the tools for projects to develop and coordinate. Anyone familiar with these things is already thinking of the others I could mention. Developers themselves are realy free to decide who, if anyone, they want to directly build packages for. In most cases the packagers for each project will take over and handle that aspect. And as far as testing, look at Debian. It takes them ages to get things into stable! Yes, there are distros that don't have that level of involvement, but that's a direct result of the FOSS model. They wouldn't even exist otherwise.
The main difference is Microsoft relieves the application developers from the burden of having to build installers for umpteen platforms - typically they only have to build 1. And the average Windows user doesn't have to worry about picking the wrong distro.
There are a lot more similarities than you think. Windows seems singular, but remember the current support system includes things like 98, ME, 2000 Pro/Server, XP Home/Pro/MCE/64, 2003 Std,Adv/64, CE and Mobile. Yes, it's fair to include those last two because you have to make a comparison on all available correlating platforms. You're correct that there probably isn't a whole lot to do to ensure your program works on most of those platforms, but how much effort do you think Linux app developers are putting in by comparision? Usually a lot less then you think. Remember those package maintainers? Again, they're usually the ones that take over and certify it all works correctly.
Now, I'm not saying that Linux or the FOSS model are perfect, just that all your post has are a few bold and caped letters but not much else.
mod parent +1 cubit
It's the media/customers that are kinda stupid for falling for these schemes...
You can't blame the customer in situations like this. All they are are consumers who want a product. One metric of a good product is how well it initially sells, and all that's happening here is Microsoft falsifying that metric. It's just your every day corprate dishonesty. You could blame the media for not reporting on anything but the sellout, but it wouldn't suprise me if they just didn't bother digging any deeper to find that side of the story.
Agreed. I just picked up a T4020 about a month ago and I don't think I'll ever be able to use a "normal" laptop again. It's a tad heavier than the X41 but it has an on-board CDRW in a modular bay that I can shove a secondary battery in when I know I'll be out for a while. The screen is slightly hard to read on a bright day outside, but a dream otherwise. The fingerprint reader was fun for a few weeks but the novelty ran off pretty quick.
As far as a solution looking for a problem, I agreed up until I got mine. Now there are just too many things that are much more convenient. FEX, I can draft up and manipulate Visio projects *incredibly* easily while on the go. Visio is a headache when you're limited to just a touch pad or clit stick, and a mouse is only handy if you're stationary and have space to put it somewhere. General research and reading are much more enjoyable.
You're right. It does say that. For a completely fucking different piece of hardware then the story is talking about.
Wow, you are so full of shit.