While I understand that the media conglomerates are opposed to people stealing their content (which costs millions of dollars to create), most people who purchase $2.99 "ShakyCam" copies of new release films off the street probably wouldn't have the money to actually *go* to the movies and spend $8.50 on a ticket, $6.50 for popcorn, and $5.00 for a soda.
This is similar to how the 12-year old kid who obtains a pirated copy of Photoshop to fool around with isn't really causing a net loss for Adobe because he wouldn't be able to shell-out the $650.00 (or whatever it is these days) for Adobe Photoshop 7.0.
The aforementioned article mentions that the KDE League folks totally forgot to file any financial tax forms at all in the state of Delaware. They probably assumed that since Delaware has no state sales tax that it also didn't keep track of corporate/personal incomes.
This just goes to show that most "contributors" to Open Source and Free Software have little knowledge of important real-world skills beyond a grasp of how to write a binary search routine in C/C++.
Further along these lines, why is it that people expect "Open" projects to feature intuitive and aesthetically-pleasing user interfaces? After all, when a long-bearded steel worker who wears the same dirty jeans and flannel shirt every day is responsible for how your "Enterprise" Open Source program looks and feels, it's easy to see why you're screwed.
So, to the KDE folks: I enjoy your products (they're certainly better than anything Ximian or GNOME have to offer), but a half-dozen lazy Europeans who know C++ are in charge of running a corporation, there are bound to be a ton of financial-/tax-related issues that go unchecked.
They make interesting reading, and add a lot of info to the story previously
reported Of particular insterest is an apparent clarification of the tax status of the league, which, if anything, serves to complicate a little further the true role of the league, as the editorial goes on to explain.
Someone didn't utilize KDE Office's grammar check utility before they submitted news to Slashdot!
I have to laugh... Windoze today has more viruses, exploits, and holes in it than ever before, and is surely NOT as stable as say, windows 3.11 for workgroups.
You sound like an idiot. Back up your unsubstantiated claims with some facts, please; that's how research is done, and how reputations are solidified. You're not doing too well for yourself so far.
I remember seeing a machine running WFW3.11 that was on for 4 YEARS. YEARS......
See? Windows isn't the anti-Christ that you all make it out to be.
Not even win2k has that kind of uptime.
Again, you're wrong, and again, no facts or studies to back your claim up. I think 90% of Slashdotters use Windows 2000 (per recent polls); that that's saying something.
As far as ease of use, that's debatable. The GUI in Windows XP is horrid, and full of many inconsistancies, not to mention just outright garrish in color use.
Hehe. At least Microsoft has a team of experts design their GUI rather than some unemployed bearded guy in a flannel shirt. And, for what it's worth, Windows XP is quite smooth and responsive and intuitive, just like all Microsoft products usually are.
I would also like to point out that linux overall is getting better with each release/distro as time goes by, and still has a sizable chunk of the server market, where it's strengths really do lie.
My point exactly -- Linux will never be anything on the desktop for 99% of computer users.
The desktop market is in for a rude awakening though, in 1-2 years when openBeOS becomes more mainstream. Mark my words. The summer of 2004 will be a VERY good time for all interested in Audio and Video development.
I wish you the best of luck, but I would wager that the same thing was said for Linux back in 1997 or so.
"People may hate Windows but they run it despite that because, quite frankly, they don't care about computers." -- Linus Torvalds, speaking to the BBC
Exactly. Computers aren't the all-consuming hobbies/professions/religions that they are for most Slashdot members.
The reason that I feel Linus' desktop market share will continue to erode is because it's not the best product out there right now, whether you'd like to believe that or not. The everyday person doesn't even know that software has licenses, so they just use what's on their computer and learn to live with it.
And, unfortunately for some of you, the Windows family of operating systems are growing increasingly easy to live with now that they're actually stable, well-written, often-updated and improved, pieces of software.
So you heard it from the horse's mouth: don't push your religion on others, use Linux if you want to.
Those of you who claim to be so enamored with your machines should take a look in the mirror and figure out where all that anger's coming from. Chances are the root of it stems from trying to turn Linux and the second-rate programs written for it into a desktop OS. Doing such a thing is like when your teenage son puts a fart can and RS stickers on his 1988 Honda Civic -- he may have good intentions, but everyone knows what's under the hood.
Linux isn't ready for the desktop and may never be. Mac OS X is ready for the desktop, and the amazing software programs and hardware devices that it supports is truly amazing.
Goal 3 Make Blender a better product, and promote free access to 3D technology in general
So, not to totally discourage you, but perhaps you could simply learn how the code works for this project (which is very mature and powerful) and then contribute to it.
Good luck regardless of whether you start your own project or learn about Blender and help those folks out. Most importantly, have fun!
Summary: Our Internet Service Provider has informed us that they are having serious performance problems with their connection to the Internet. The internal campus network and off campus dial-up access should not be affected.
Details: Our Internet Service Provider, PenTeleData, maintains connections to several Internet backbone providers, including AT&T, Sprint, and Worldcom. Worldcom is currently having serious network problems, due in part to the recent BugBear virus outbreak. Our Internet Service Provider is currently attempting to route network traffic around Worldcom.
Thank you for your patience during this outage and we regret any inconvenience it has caused.
As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, you led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.
As most engineers know, we have to make some sacrifices with every project and get rid of certain features that we had hoped would be there but cannot due to monetary constraints, etc.
Could you explain some of the more difficult decisions you had to make as the head of this particular project? Moreover, was there ever a point in the project where no one thought the final product was viable?
I've said this before, but I'll say it again [a little extra karma never hurt anyone] -- we need a Cringely topic icon.
Why, you ask?
Basically, some of the best discussions come from the Slashdot community after we collectively read a piece from Cringely. His ideas are often fairly original and interesting, which makes for a nice "vacation" from the usual OS Wars, Text Editor Wars, and Software Licensing Wars.
I'd even be happy to make the icon for the Cringely topic.
So, editors, care to give a little feedback on this? There are several other topic areas that we could certainly do without, but I feel that a Cringely area of the site would be well worth it.
Here are some good things to know in case you didn't read all of the Tutorial/FAQ at the Enigmail web site:
Is Enigmail working?
If installation was successful,
you will need to restart the browser. (On Windows 9x/ME systems, you may sometimes need to reboot before restarting.) After restarting the browser, launch the Mail/News window, which should have an Enigmail menu on the menubar. Choose the About Enigmail option, which should display the version number and the PGP/GPG executable details. Enigmail has only been tested with milestone releases of Mozilla. If you use a daily build (or your own build) of Mozilla, Enigmail may not work and may even crash your build!
Plenty of other schools [Bucknell, Penn State, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, U of Florida,...] have had this stuff for a long time now.
Yes, the article's interesting if you're into networking and/or wireless data transmission, but their explicit focus on Dartmouth makes it seem as though they're unique and trendsetting. It's quite the contrary, however, as Dartmouth was in no way one of the first handful of schools to deploy 802.11b.
Kudos to Wired! for running a contemporary article that talks a lot about the current state of wireless/laptop/learning at top colleges, but I feel that could have at least given credit to other schools that were at least equally as deserving.
An article like this is kinda sketchy as a feature on a site like Slashdot, which is composed largely by members who attend various colleges and universities across the world, all of which surely have Appropriate Usage Policies that clearly state that this type of network sniffing is not legal on their network.
So, kids, be smart about what "network analysis tools" you use. I know our head network administrator personally, and he sees EVERYTHING (no, really -- EVERY BIT) of traffic that he wants.
Use something like this at my school, and you'll be using a lab computer to check email by the end of the day since they'd disable your port immediately;-D
Time for a Cringely topic icon?
on
Open Source TV
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I've said this before, but I'll say it again [a little extra karma never hurt anyone] -- we need a Cringely topic icon.
Why, you ask?
Basically, some of the best discussions come from the Slashdot community after we collectively read a piece from Cringely. His ideas are often fairly original and interesting, which makes for a nice "vacation" from the usual OS Wars, Text Editor Wars, and Software Licensing Wars.
I'd even be happy to make the icon for the Cringely topic.
So, editors, care to give a little feedback on this? There are several other topic areas that we could certainly do without, but I feel that a Cringely area of the site would be well worth it.
Thanks for listening.
Frequently Asked User Interface Questions
on
Inside Ximian
·
· Score: 3, Informative
1) Does it have to be aesthetically-pleasing to the eye?
Yes.
2) Does it have to be just like MS Windows?
No. Working with any computer's interface is a learned behavior. People learned about the _ [ ] X buttons at the top right of their programs because every computer they sat down at was running Windows. They soon realized that the X closed a window, the _ made it temporarily dissappear.
Many studies say that modern day UI must "look like a Microsoft product". Sorry to break it to you, Sun et al., but this simply isn't true.
Slackware was the greatest for the ultra power user until Gentoo came along.
Currently in version 1.1a, it's the coolest Linux to come along in a decade and includes an amazing Portage system that is the best (apt-get / BSD ports)-like package management system ever created.
Come on over to [irc.openprojects.net channel #gentoo] and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
A businessperson, yes. A good businessperson? Of course; he's evil enough and it's hard to argue that his company is not monetarily successful.
But calling Mr. Gates a computer revolutionary? Oh dear God no. The only significant contribution that he personally made was decades ago while working in his dorm room, and even then Paul Allen probably did most of the tech work (this is a fact, not an inciteful comment).
I'd also wager that the VSB error was one resulting from poor transcription of his speech rather than him being an uninformed idiot when it comes to open source and free software, althought I'd certainly get a kick out of him confusing Lunix and STD or something;-)
They optimized for user experience rather than raw performance.
Let's see...considering the fact that the average user's experience on a computer involves little more than email, Instant Messenger, and browsing the Web, I think they made a grave mistake.
Slashdot Mirror
Forget about this skinny little "underwater glider".
What every geek really wants is their own luxury submarine!
While I understand that the media conglomerates are opposed to people stealing their content (which costs millions of dollars to create), most people who purchase $2.99 "ShakyCam" copies of new release films off the street probably wouldn't have the money to actually *go* to the movies and spend $8.50 on a ticket, $6.50 for popcorn, and $5.00 for a soda.
This is similar to how the 12-year old kid who obtains a pirated copy of Photoshop to fool around with isn't really causing a net loss for Adobe because he wouldn't be able to shell-out the $650.00 (or whatever it is these days) for Adobe Photoshop 7.0.
The aforementioned article mentions that the KDE League folks totally forgot to file any financial tax forms at all in the state of Delaware. They probably assumed that since Delaware has no state sales tax that it also didn't keep track of corporate/personal incomes.
This just goes to show that most "contributors" to Open Source and Free Software have little knowledge of important real-world skills beyond a grasp of how to write a binary search routine in C/C++.
Further along these lines, why is it that people expect "Open" projects to feature intuitive and aesthetically-pleasing user interfaces? After all, when a long-bearded steel worker who wears the same dirty jeans and flannel shirt every day is responsible for how your "Enterprise" Open Source program looks and feels, it's easy to see why you're screwed.
So, to the KDE folks: I enjoy your products (they're certainly better than anything Ximian or GNOME have to offer), but a half-dozen lazy Europeans who know C++ are in charge of running a corporation, there are bound to be a ton of financial-/tax-related issues that go unchecked.
Get your act together!
* This post in honor of tps12, 1978-2002
I have to laugh... Windoze today has more viruses, exploits, and holes in it than ever before, and is surely NOT as stable as say, windows 3.11 for workgroups.
You sound like an idiot. Back up your unsubstantiated claims with some facts, please; that's how research is done, and how reputations are solidified. You're not doing too well for yourself so far.
I remember seeing a machine running WFW3.11 that was on for 4 YEARS. YEARS......
See? Windows isn't the anti-Christ that you all make it out to be.
Not even win2k has that kind of uptime.
Again, you're wrong, and again, no facts or studies to back your claim up. I think 90% of Slashdotters use Windows 2000 (per recent polls); that that's saying something.
As far as ease of use, that's debatable. The GUI in Windows XP is horrid, and full of many inconsistancies, not to mention just outright garrish in color use.
Hehe. At least Microsoft has a team of experts design their GUI rather than some unemployed bearded guy in a flannel shirt. And, for what it's worth, Windows XP is quite smooth and responsive and intuitive, just like all Microsoft products usually are.
I would also like to point out that linux overall is getting better with each release/distro as time goes by, and still has a sizable chunk of the server market, where it's strengths really do lie.
My point exactly -- Linux will never be anything on the desktop for 99% of computer users.
The desktop market is in for a rude awakening though, in 1-2 years when openBeOS becomes more mainstream. Mark my words. The summer of 2004 will be a VERY good time for all interested in Audio and Video development.
I wish you the best of luck, but I would wager that the same thing was said for Linux back in 1997 or so.
The reason that I feel Linus' desktop market share will continue to erode is because it's not the best product out there right now, whether you'd like to believe that or not. The everyday person doesn't even know that software has licenses, so they just use what's on their computer and learn to live with it.
And, unfortunately for some of you, the Windows family of operating systems are growing increasingly easy to live with now that they're actually stable, well-written, often-updated and improved, pieces of software.
So you heard it from the horse's mouth: don't push your religion on others, use Linux if you want to.
Those of you who claim to be so enamored with your machines should take a look in the mirror and figure out where all that anger's coming from. Chances are the root of it stems from trying to turn Linux and the second-rate programs written for it into a desktop OS. Doing such a thing is like when your teenage son puts a fart can and RS stickers on his 1988 Honda Civic -- he may have good intentions, but everyone knows what's under the hood.
Linux isn't ready for the desktop and may never be. Mac OS X is ready for the desktop, and the amazing software programs and hardware devices that it supports is truly amazing.
You can read more about it at http://www.blender3d.com/. Here's a brief synopsis of their goals:
Goal 1
Make the sources free
Goal 2
Establish artist/coder services
Goal 3
Make Blender a better product, and promote free access to 3D technology in general
So, not to totally discourage you, but perhaps you could simply learn how the code works for this project (which is very mature and powerful) and then contribute to it.
Good luck regardless of whether you start your own project or learn about Blender and help those folks out. Most importantly, have fun!
Campus community:
Summary: Our Internet Service Provider has informed us that they are
having serious performance problems with their connection to the
Internet. The internal campus network and off campus dial-up access
should not be affected.
Details: Our Internet Service Provider, PenTeleData, maintains
connections to several Internet backbone providers, including AT&T,
Sprint, and Worldcom. Worldcom is currently having serious network
problems, due in part to the recent BugBear virus outbreak. Our
Internet Service Provider is currently attempting to route network
traffic around Worldcom.
Thank you for your patience during this outage and we regret any inconvenience it has caused.
ISR Tech Desk
x77777
techdesk@bucknell.edu
As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, you led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.
As most engineers know, we have to make some sacrifices with every project and get rid of certain features that we had hoped would be there but cannot due to monetary constraints, etc.
Could you explain some of the more difficult decisions you had to make as the head of this particular project? Moreover, was there ever a point in the project where no one thought the final product was viable?
Thanks.
Do you use AOL Instant Messenger?
I've said this before, but I'll say it again [a little extra karma never hurt anyone] -- we need a Cringely topic icon.
Why, you ask?
Basically, some of the best discussions come from the Slashdot community after we collectively read a piece from Cringely. His ideas are often fairly original and interesting, which makes for a nice "vacation" from the usual OS Wars, Text Editor Wars, and Software Licensing Wars.
I'd even be happy to make the icon for the Cringely topic.
So, editors, care to give a little feedback on this? There are several other topic areas that we could certainly do without, but I feel that a Cringely area of the site would be well worth it.
Thanks for listening.
Sure about that?.
This is Slashdot. Don't you mean:
cd ogg; ls *
;-)
My friend uses Mozilla's mail client because he needs to converse with others in Japanese, and Eudora's Japanese support is a pay-only feature.
Is Enigmail working?
Plenty of other schools [Bucknell, Penn State, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, U of Florida, ...] have had this stuff for a long time now.
Yes, the article's interesting if you're into networking and/or wireless data transmission, but their explicit focus on Dartmouth makes it seem as though they're unique and trendsetting. It's quite the contrary, however, as Dartmouth was in no way one of the first handful of schools to deploy 802.11b.
Kudos to Wired! for running a contemporary article that talks a lot about the current state of wireless/laptop/learning at top colleges, but I feel that could have at least given credit to other schools that were at least equally as deserving.
Thanks for listening.
An article like this is kinda sketchy as a feature on a site like Slashdot, which is composed largely by members who attend various colleges and universities across the world, all of which surely have Appropriate Usage Policies that clearly state that this type of network sniffing is not legal on their network.
;-D
So, kids, be smart about what "network analysis tools" you use. I know our head network administrator personally, and he sees EVERYTHING (no, really -- EVERY BIT) of traffic that he wants.
Use something like this at my school, and you'll be using a lab computer to check email by the end of the day since they'd disable your port immediately
I've said this before, but I'll say it again [a little extra karma never hurt anyone] -- we need a Cringely topic icon.
Why, you ask?
Basically, some of the best discussions come from the Slashdot community after we collectively read a piece from Cringely. His ideas are often fairly original and interesting, which makes for a nice "vacation" from the usual OS Wars, Text Editor Wars, and Software Licensing Wars.
I'd even be happy to make the icon for the Cringely topic.
So, editors, care to give a little feedback on this? There are several other topic areas that we could certainly do without, but I feel that a Cringely area of the site would be well worth it.
Thanks for listening.
1) Does it have to be aesthetically-pleasing to the eye?
Yes.
2) Does it have to be just like MS Windows?
No. Working with any computer's interface is a learned behavior. People learned about the _ [ ] X buttons at the top right of their programs because every computer they sat down at was running Windows. They soon realized that the X closed a window, the _ made it temporarily dissappear.
Many studies say that modern day UI must "look like a Microsoft product". Sorry to break it to you, Sun et al., but this simply isn't true.
Slackware was the greatest for the ultra power user until Gentoo came along.
Currently in version 1.1a, it's the coolest Linux to come along in a decade and includes an amazing Portage system that is the best (apt-get / BSD ports)-like package management system ever created.
Come on over to [irc.openprojects.net channel #gentoo] and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
Spyware, reason #84 to use free/open source software.
- Eric
Founder, monolinux
Personally, I think this one is much sexier ;-D
- Eric
Founder, monolinux
Mr. Gates is hardly a revolutionary.
;-)
A businessperson, yes. A good businessperson? Of course; he's evil enough and it's hard to argue that his company is not monetarily successful.
But calling Mr. Gates a computer revolutionary? Oh dear God no. The only significant contribution that he personally made was decades ago while working in his dorm room, and even then Paul Allen probably did most of the tech work (this is a fact, not an inciteful comment).
I'd also wager that the VSB error was one resulting from poor transcription of his speech rather than him being an uninformed idiot when it comes to open source and free software, althought I'd certainly get a kick out of him confusing Lunix and STD or something
- Eric
Founder, monolinux.com
They optimized for user experience rather than raw performance.
Let's see...considering the fact that the average user's experience on a computer involves little more than email, Instant Messenger, and browsing the Web, I think they made a grave mistake.
- Eric
Founder, monolinux