The state also endows corporate entities with their very existence or "personhood". A US state can threaten and carry-out termination of a commercial corporation just as effectively as the UK could threaten a public corporation like the BBC. That does not mean any of them are government run; in fact as "persons" with human rights it is just the opposite.
Specifically, it is the commercial corporation that has astro-turfed the broadcast spectrum.
You can say the BBC is government-run only if you insist that the smallest amount of influence makes it so, and it does not; the UK is not I would not claim that American broadcasters are government-run despite their close relationship with the military.
If you want to know why a news monoculture doesn't work just look at the news media's performance in the US, or in the former Soviet Union for that matter.
1. Access to RHEL patents (i.e. on their enterprise-level products and ideas). This could block other distros from implementing similar and crucial functionality.
2. Access to the internal records of the ultimate "Linux insider" and use that info to go after other Linux-centric businesses. They could make up false allegations and the market would do far more than think twice: They would drop Linux. Think of this as "SCO Botched It, We'll Do The Job Right Ourselves".
3. Getting intimate details on one of the most prestigious Linux customer-bases... an advantage for pushing Windows.
4. Pushing a DRM legislative agenda along with a Linux distro that has the only "DRM Done Right" implementation (which also happens to be propreitary code.
5. Acquiring one of the best "software rental" business examples in the industry (OK, RedHat is more about service contracts, but the congruence with renting cannot be overlooked).
6. "Open-washing" themselves the way Exxon green-washes.
10 years of guaranteed funding is much better than commercial news sources have.
Yes this is much better. It results in them having a detectable attention span.
It is possible to have the diversity you wish for without the compulsory payments by all of the potential users.
You can say a fundamental difference exists all you want, that doesn't make the charters of these commercial corporations go away. In that respect they are all the same in the US and do not represent anything more than superficial "diversity". Anyway, CNN and Yahoo aren't broadcasting on public spectrum (just as DVD vendors aren't) so I wouldn't necessarily support license fees to support their medium.
British voters are, evidently, different from Americans. We here prefer to change the pictures shown on our screens with our remotes. The "gratification" is instant compared to waiting for the government to decide (once in a decade), what another government organization ought to show.
If you really intend to redefine public television as equivalent to government-run, then you must have a low opinion of western media in general (except in the US, of course, where "public" television actually is government-run). The existence of a strong UK public broadcaster in your mind collapses their entire viewing experience to that single provider. Why not go to England yourself to shout at them through a megaphone "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL"? Just make sure you get it on tape and share with us...
The BBC has a charter that is up for renewal every 10 years and is nowhere near a guarantee. While this is a political process, it means that periodic reviews are much larger in scope and the influence of petty, myopic disagreements with the government is minimized. OTOH PBS is punished by politicians the year following a perceived offense, and threats from government almost never stop: it is meek and short-sighted as a result.
No wonder the BBC breaks news stories like massive voter-roll fraud in PBS's own back yard, but PBS cannot bring itself to mention them in a timely manner. And the BBC has been even more abmitious when it comes to its native turf: Poor Tony.. that attempt to slap Auntie on the wrist has led to management saying in effect "yes alllll those things you said about our silly focus on distraction and entertainment these past 10 years were so true! we are reorganizing and effecting a major shift towards greater and more intense NEWS coverage."
Poor Tony.
I think the level of public (not government) trust the BBC has earned around the world speaks volumes about the nature of its supposedly PBS-like "government jobs". The difference between a government/charity organization and one that is paid for directly with license fees is pretty apparent right here on Slashdot if one looks at the number of BBC articles submitted.
It was, of course, for the wealthy shareholders' benefit, so you can not accept it.
Of course I can accept it. I do not accept an entire news culture essentially having only one organizing principle.
I just don't think that every KDE user who gets this laptop (esp. if its assigned to them by an IT dept.) will be a CLI-jockey or will want to navigate an alien GUI in order to make the switch. If the vendor doesn't offer KDE as a customization, then maybe they are putting more emphasis on hardware interfaces than human ones.
It is Microsoft that is acting as the detached over-sized buraeucracy, not the schools.
If Australian school districts started moving to FOSS in significant numbers, what are the chances that Microsoft would use the new "Free Trade" agreement to bully them?
The BBC is funded by license-payers not from taxes. Everyone with a TV pays the same license fee. Because of this they are as close to a public-interest or populist entity as I can imagine. That is not to say that all media should have a populist focus, but having a major slice of the market funded this way helps keep the news culture from sinking into a delusional state benefitting wealthy shareholders.
Contrast with PBS in the United States, which is paid for (and therefore largely controlled by) a combination of government spending, commercial sponsors, and well-off individuals. This represents somewhat of a conflict of interest when it comes to public service and may explain why PBS and NPR almost never break major news stories of their own.
Are UK licence-holders benefitting from this? You'll have to ask them, but their confidence in the BBC's push into the digital world is rather high.
MS is getting hit with some very big patent lawsuits. Enough to have Gates mewling about "the need for change" in patent system.
Maybe this invitation is about more than their file formats problem in the EU. They may ask these FOSS fellas to advocate a patent-reform initiative that MS has dreamed up.
They exist. IMO Excel and Access are both excellent and the latter is a truly a key to Microsoft's success: You get a IDE where people don't even realize they're in an IDE. I don't think MS would have half their server market share without tech-savvy managers and and other staff whipping up ad-hoc applications in Access/VBA that spread across their organization until the need arises for a unified, server-based solution.
Open source has been neglecting the tech "middle class" here... the power users. No authoring platform has emerged for them on Linux.
For those who eventually want more than Access/VBA, there is the excellent Visual Studio.
RedHat has been notorious for breaking stuff in their upgrades. Granted it was usually intended as a way to improve the feature being broken.
Last year I tried to set up a RedHat 9 system to run VMWare 3.2, Rational Rose 2003 and one other app I can't recall now. None of them would work, even with extensive tweaking. Trying RedHat 8 and FC1 didn't help either.
I had Debian-based Xandros at home and knew the software ran fine from all the way back in the Corel days, so I installed Debian Sarge at work and bingo... my apps all worked.
I'll never go back to a RedHat/Fedora type distro for the desktop.
Linux is consistent across distributions. It's just not perfectly consistent. Hopefully stndards bodies like LSB will increase that consistency.
Self-contained means there is a clear dividing line between what is considered the OS (the features everyone has) and the add-ons. Linux doesn't have a line, only a statistical bell-curve of more-or-less frequently included components.
IMHO, the GNU/Linux community puts the middle-man (the admins) first because they most closely resemble the developers. The end-users in the computing environments get left out in the cold because taking the next step to being a power user means committing yourself to learning software that will move or not even exist on another installation.
People don't remember that Windows 3.1 had these problems because most people wanted functionality that wasn't built-in, so systems were loaded to the gills with incompatible audio, CDROM and other extensions. MS solved the problem by coming out with the Multimedia PC (MMPC) spec. which was a minimum hardware feature set that was required to support new Windows multimedia functionality.
The Linux community needs to publish an MMPC (or Desktop Linux) spec and come up with a minimum software configuration required to run the minimum hardware config. If a distro wants to embellish on that, fine. If a distro wants to DEPART from that, fine, but they cannot use the 'MMPC' or 'DesktopLinux' sticker on their product.
Puhleez... after repeating a NON-ARREST incident twice, one would think you'd tell us how you corrected your daughter about the US (she can't say anything she wants here either).
Please spare us the redundant trips down guilt lane.
As for the bumper sticker... hah. Try one that directly accuses the US of terrorism and see how free you feel then.
Slashdot Mirror
But then you have people talking to each other at least. Could make a world of difference.
You've made it clear to me.. technology can help with social problems.
And it can create them, too.
How old are you, twelve?
Do you really expect people to keep returning for coffee and relaxation with a contentious atmosphere like that?
There's a two-way street involved: If you don't want "squatters" then stop using public spectrum to lure them.
...as users discover they could be zombitized because they are running Windows.
I predict Mac and Linux penetration will jump because of this. I hope these vendors do take advantage of the opportunity.
I carried one around for years and the keyboard is tops for any handheld. It is still the closest to "whip it out and touchtype" you can get.
The state also endows corporate entities with their very existence or "personhood". A US state can threaten and carry-out termination of a commercial corporation just as effectively as the UK could threaten a public corporation like the BBC. That does not mean any of them are government run; in fact as "persons" with human rights it is just the opposite.
Specifically, it is the commercial corporation that has astro-turfed the broadcast spectrum.
You can say the BBC is government-run only if you insist that the smallest amount of influence makes it so, and it does not; the UK is not I would not claim that American broadcasters are government-run despite their close relationship with the military.
If you want to know why a news monoculture doesn't work just look at the news media's performance in the US, or in the former Soviet Union for that matter.
1. Access to RHEL patents (i.e. on their enterprise-level products and ideas). This could block other distros from implementing similar and crucial functionality.
2. Access to the internal records of the ultimate "Linux insider" and use that info to go after other Linux-centric businesses. They could make up false allegations and the market would do far more than think twice: They would drop Linux. Think of this as "SCO Botched It, We'll Do The Job Right Ourselves".
3. Getting intimate details on one of the most prestigious Linux customer-bases... an advantage for pushing Windows.
4. Pushing a DRM legislative agenda along with a Linux distro that has the only "DRM Done Right" implementation (which also happens to be propreitary code.
5. Acquiring one of the best "software rental" business examples in the industry (OK, RedHat is more about service contracts, but the congruence with renting cannot be overlooked).
6. "Open-washing" themselves the way Exxon green-washes.
Software for a Tyding Buddist
You can say a fundamental difference exists all you want, that doesn't make the charters of these commercial corporations go away. In that respect they are all the same in the US and do not represent anything more than superficial "diversity". Anyway, CNN and Yahoo aren't broadcasting on public spectrum (just as DVD vendors aren't) so I wouldn't necessarily support license fees to support their medium.
If you really intend to redefine public television as equivalent to government-run, then you must have a low opinion of western media in general (except in the US, of course, where "public" television actually is government-run). The existence of a strong UK public broadcaster in your mind collapses their entire viewing experience to that single provider. Why not go to England yourself to shout at them through a megaphone "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL"? Just make sure you get it on tape and share with us...
(Hint: If you watch ST:TNG you can get all the show in 30 minutes if you skip any scene involving Deanna Troi talking about people's feelings).
You insensitive clod.
Would you want someone running for top office who was unprepared to act as Secretary of State?
It's a two-way street: Parties and their voters vet their candidates at least somewhat according to the offices being contested.
No wonder the BBC breaks news stories like massive voter-roll fraud in PBS's own back yard, but PBS cannot bring itself to mention them in a timely manner. And the BBC has been even more abmitious when it comes to its native turf: Poor Tony.. that attempt to slap Auntie on the wrist has led to management saying in effect "yes alllll those things you said about our silly focus on distraction and entertainment these past 10 years were so true! we are reorganizing and effecting a major shift towards greater and more intense NEWS coverage."
Poor Tony.
I think the level of public (not government) trust the BBC has earned around the world speaks volumes about the nature of its supposedly PBS-like "government jobs". The difference between a government/charity organization and one that is paid for directly with license fees is pretty apparent right here on Slashdot if one looks at the number of BBC articles submitted.
Of course I can accept it. I do not accept an entire news culture essentially having only one organizing principle.
Thanks but I already realized the install bit.
I just don't think that every KDE user who gets this laptop (esp. if its assigned to them by an IT dept.) will be a CLI-jockey or will want to navigate an alien GUI in order to make the switch. If the vendor doesn't offer KDE as a customization, then maybe they are putting more emphasis on hardware interfaces than human ones.
Switch the desktop to KDE please.
It is Microsoft that is acting as the detached over-sized buraeucracy, not the schools.
If Australian school districts started moving to FOSS in significant numbers, what are the chances that Microsoft would use the new "Free Trade" agreement to bully them?
The BBC is funded by license-payers not from taxes. Everyone with a TV pays the same license fee. Because of this they are as close to a public-interest or populist entity as I can imagine. That is not to say that all media should have a populist focus, but having a major slice of the market funded this way helps keep the news culture from sinking into a delusional state benefitting wealthy shareholders.
Contrast with PBS in the United States, which is paid for (and therefore largely controlled by) a combination of government spending, commercial sponsors, and well-off individuals. This represents somewhat of a conflict of interest when it comes to public service and may explain why PBS and NPR almost never break major news stories of their own.
Are UK licence-holders benefitting from this? You'll have to ask them, but their confidence in the BBC's push into the digital world is rather high.
Perhaps they want a stereoscopic view from any orientation, not just along the satelite's path.
'Caldera Opens NDA Database!'
OK, heart rate is lowering now...
MS is getting hit with some very big patent lawsuits. Enough to have Gates mewling about "the need for change" in patent system.
Maybe this invitation is about more than their file formats problem in the EU. They may ask these FOSS fellas to advocate a patent-reform initiative that MS has dreamed up.
Now THAT would get our FOSS pals salivating...
Then why doesn't Microsoft go to them instead?
Which ones?
They exist. IMO Excel and Access are both excellent and the latter is a truly a key to Microsoft's success: You get a IDE where people don't even realize they're in an IDE. I don't think MS would have half their server market share without tech-savvy managers and and other staff whipping up ad-hoc applications in Access/VBA that spread across their organization until the need arises for a unified, server-based solution.
Open source has been neglecting the tech "middle class" here... the power users. No authoring platform has emerged for them on Linux.
For those who eventually want more than Access/VBA, there is the excellent Visual Studio.
With that said, MS Windows and Word are awful.
At any given time, the default UI for current version of Windows is 90% the same between machines.
If "Desktop Linux" can achieve 75% with the UI between distros (and 100% with a set of defined core APIs and components) then it will be a winner.
RedHat has been notorious for breaking stuff in their upgrades. Granted it was usually intended as a way to improve the feature being broken.
Last year I tried to set up a RedHat 9 system to run VMWare 3.2, Rational Rose 2003 and one other app I can't recall now. None of them would work, even with extensive tweaking. Trying RedHat 8 and FC1 didn't help either.
I had Debian-based Xandros at home and knew the software ran fine from all the way back in the Corel days, so I installed Debian Sarge at work and bingo... my apps all worked.
I'll never go back to a RedHat/Fedora type distro for the desktop.
Linux is consistent across distributions. It's just not perfectly consistent. Hopefully stndards bodies like LSB will increase that consistency.
Self-contained means there is a clear dividing line between what is considered the OS (the features everyone has) and the add-ons. Linux doesn't have a line, only a statistical bell-curve of more-or-less frequently included components.
IMHO, the GNU/Linux community puts the middle-man (the admins) first because they most closely resemble the developers. The end-users in the computing environments get left out in the cold because taking the next step to being a power user means committing yourself to learning software that will move or not even exist on another installation.
People don't remember that Windows 3.1 had these problems because most people wanted functionality that wasn't built-in, so systems were loaded to the gills with incompatible audio, CDROM and other extensions. MS solved the problem by coming out with the Multimedia PC (MMPC) spec. which was a minimum hardware feature set that was required to support new Windows multimedia functionality.
The Linux community needs to publish an MMPC (or Desktop Linux) spec and come up with a minimum software configuration required to run the minimum hardware config. If a distro wants to embellish on that, fine. If a distro wants to DEPART from that, fine, but they cannot use the 'MMPC' or 'DesktopLinux' sticker on their product.
Puhleez... after repeating a NON-ARREST incident twice, one would think you'd tell us how you corrected your daughter about the US (she can't say anything she wants here either).
Please spare us the redundant trips down guilt lane.
As for the bumper sticker... hah. Try one that directly accuses the US of terrorism and see how free you feel then.