You are right, to a point. A software manufacturer shouldn't HAVE to be responsible for the products they produce. They simple should have to be upfront about it, and shrink-wrap contracts aren't it; especially when there was another contract prior to the shrink-wrapped one involved. If I, as a consumer, in the initial contract agree not to hold a software vendor responsible for bugs, so be it. If I don't, and it's snuck in in a shrink-wrapped contract, that shouldn't be legal.
IMHO, the liability of the software manufacturer should be limited (or be able to be limited) to the purchase price of the software in question. The message here is a simple one: You make crappy software, you make no money. You make good software, you reap the benefits.
That's just insane. Why should the rules so far as liabilty be any different than in any other industry? Admittedly, not all brick-and-morter laws apply to the Internet and the software industry, but in this case, they should. If a contractor builds a building that collapses and, although it kills no one, destroys $1 Million in equipment, they should be liable for it. If a software company makes a product that can't do math, they should be liable for the results of the missed math.
We do need to rethink the laws that we mindlessly apply to industries in which it has no place, but this isn't one of those applications.
After laboriously reading through the actual text of both the ruling and the dissenting remarks, I've got a few comments to make.
First, the ruling judge seems to have a few valid points, but he seemed to make them based on some odd correlations with other contracts that just don't apply.
Judge Johnson ruled based on the notion that the initial contract and the shrink-wrapped contract were part of one big contract, rather than the reality of the situation: the shrink wrapped contract would be an addition or alteration on the existing, agreed upon contract.
It seems to me that this is a rather unfortunate ruling. How many of you have had a software vendor install software for you? Have you forced them to stop while you read the shrink-wrapped agreement? If not, you could be subject to much the same issue.
To some extent, software manufacturers need to be held as accountable for their product as a construction worker or car manufacturer would be held for theirs. Someone earlier remarked "would you hold MS responsible for a death if you used WinNT on a heart monitor and it BSODed?". No, but I'd hold the software manufacturer of the software that was written for that purpose. That is the situation that we have here, and the result was not good.
McAffe (macaffe?) had/has a product called Oil Change since around 94/95 I'm guessing. This product checked a central database of version numbers for popular software packages and would allow you to download and install updates when they became available. I believe the software checked version numbers as they appeared in the registry.
This confuses me..because it sounds like MS is now patenting the exact same process. -Jer
I would very much like to see this type of thing becoming a weekly feature. Just a brief followup on stories that have been posted. This is one place where Slashdot can leap ahead of many of it's more mainstream counterparts. Updates on other news sites tend to be few and far between.
Additionally, it'd be nice if it had it's own icon/group so that I could browse the updates when I'm pressed for time. -Jer
It sounds like they threw this whole mission together rather "seat of pants" style; with quotes like While crews normally train together for a year or more before launch, this crew was only finalized in mid-February.
The question: What happens if this thing fails? How long do we have until the hunk-o-metal crashes down into my living room? Do they have a backup plan? Am I psychotic for wondering these things? -Jer
More TLDs would make sense if we took that opportunity to fix the mess that it's become. Make it so that you can only purchase a domain name in the TLD that is applicable, and make it so that trademarks, etc, only apply to the TLD to which you are ABLE to apply.
I mean, sure, holidayinn.com is fine, but they shouldn't have holidayinn.net,.org,.sex,.bank,.anyotherretardedshit -Jer
Your apparent hatred for "undegreed kids" and profound love for "proper credentials" is pretty much unfounded. I'm 24 and manage the IT department at a smallish company. I have no degree.
While many of the people who work for me were busily attending keggers at the frat house and taking basket-weaving for the cheap credit, I was completely immersed in an IT environment. Years of practical experience and both hands-on and classroom training with the Army have given me an understanding of the flow of an IT department that you'd be hard pressed to find in a course.
Many, many college grads actually have their heads on straight; but to indicate that a diploma is a pre-requisite for any level of intelligence, professionalism, or ability to perform on the job is sheer foolishness. I think somebody overpaid for the college education and is feeling bad about their lot in life now.
So, is this illegal, or just un-ethical? It seems pretty obvious. They got the bandwidth for free to use for purpose A. They are now opting to use it for purpose B; possibly opting to use it for purpose A in the future.
What exactly can be done? The government isn't going to want to piss off the media to this great an extent, it'll hurt re-elections. By the same token, they can't just let this go, can they? -Jer
Just my less-than-humble opinion, but my IBM Thinkpad is small, light-weight, and makes a great book. There are quite a few options, and they're improving as time progresses. I don't think we should limit ourselves based solely on the idea that right now we don't have a comfortable way of reading the material. There's still definate pros, not the least of which being ease of searching and small footprint of the books themselves. My bookshelves are rather full. It'd be very nice to be able to contain those books on one small hard disk. -Jer
So this begs the question: are we going to slowly phase out public libraries and phase in public computer labs to allow free access to all?
I was under the impression we were already doing so... we're adding computers in libraries nationwide, and rapidly these are being used for research more and more. I think, especially for research purposes, electronic storage just makes more sense in the long run...
The most common formula I see managers using for the valuation of the site is (kinda) as follows: Note: I'm not a financial guy, I'm just pulling this crap out of my memory They take the average number of banner click-throughs and multiply it by the average cost of the stuff the banner advertises. They add this to the sum of the cost-savings of using electronic forms over using the staffing, manpower, and materials of achieving the same objective via paper. Finally, they add to this the cost of developing and maintaining the site per year. I don't know if this will be any help, but, hopefully someone has something that makes more sense than this. -Jer
Well, I don't know about you, but I like my porno movies the old fashioned way...grainy and low-res. These new-fangled damn DVD players have too much quality. Did you know that porno chicks are actually uglier than sin? Until DVD, who knew? I was content watching barely viewable porno and eating cheese puffs...and thanks to the PS2, DVD won't ruin my porn sessions any more!!! -Jer
ISDN was a late '70s, early '80s technology. It wasn't aggressavly marketed, well, ever (by the telcos that is). It wasn't lighlty marketed until late in the '90s. It was very hard to buy in the early '90s (like it was hard for ISPs to buy it, and they were use to talking to telcos then).
That is true for a number of reasons though. Many ISPs didn't have trouble getting ISDN, the problem was the lack of standards. Unlike Europe and Canada, the US has no single ISDN standard, which makes uniformity and support more difficult than it needs to be.
Much like with digital wireless connectivity, our capitalism, although making for great advances in technology, screws the consumer a little bit, by creating a lack of standard.
Now this is amusing. After seeing a constant barrage of "M$ Should Open Source...", they take a step in the direction of open sourcing CE, and now we have a barrage of whining too.
Is this a case of "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it" or is it simply a case of complaining about M$'s evil empire no matter what they do? Lets all try not to be quite so hypocritical when we ruthlessly slam MS while elevating our dear Linux.
I would prefer a larger monitor over a flatter monitor. I have a beast of a 36" monitor. Now, if they made one that was 42" and had the wider aspect ratio, that would be PERFECT for DVD viewing. As it is, I have to watch my movies in the "optimized for TV" mode. -Jer -Jer
Saying that simply because it's only $2.50, these companies don't want/need the money is rather silly. For a company valued at many, many billions of dollars, Microsoft sure does seem rather picky about whether or not I've pirated a $50 game, eh?
Occam's Razor...looks good on paper, doesn't seem to work out all that often in practical application. Life is amazing that way...all too often, the most simple answer is BLATANTLY wrong. Oh well...
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but does anyone else think that perhaps Softlock purposely made sure that they couldn't support the amount of traffic they expected, so that less people would get the free book, and more would buy it?
I mean, can you think of better marketing? Offer something free of charge for 1 day only, restrict the ability to access the free item so that maybe only 20% of those interested can get it, and allow them to sign up to buy the book when the site "frees up". Not that I begrudge them their $3, just thought it was rather brilliant if that's what they did.
-Jer "If Windows is the answer, it must have been a stupid question." -Jer
The company I just recently left had a serious issue with spam mailings. To summarize, about 1/2 of the employees were laser repair technicians, and spent a good deal of time on the internet researching Windows issues both on many public forums, to include USENET. The result was an average of 60K mail messages per month to my site alone that I would term "spam". This is obscene. We had a system in which we were forced to distribute mail services across two servers per site, when in reality, only one should have been needed.
Why? The added traffic from spam was crushing. Ultimately, we were able to get spam filtering enabled pre-mail server at the firewall. Guess what, it didn't knock off nearly enough of the "spam". Why is that? Misleading headers and initial subject lines. I'm in favor of making these laws stick, because there is a legitimate amount of measurable money lost to these spamming imbeciles.
Thank you for taking the time to completely miss the point and misunderstand even the most simple statements.
I do not refer to the developers when I speak thus, I refer to the individuals who feel that adding a GUI configuration tool, graphical installer, and other user-friendly items is "dumbing down" Linux and making it become a Microsoft product.
Next time, it would behoove you to read the *WHOLE* post, not just slap up a soundbyte then hastily reply to it.
I assume your comments were intended to fall into the catagory of Signal, right? Because a self-righteous person such as yourself would never stoop so low as to post "Mindless babble" such as might come from a "limp-dick amateur flamethrower", right?
Judging from the obscenity laden nature of your post, I'm guessing you're not significantly more intelligent than the individuals to whom you'd like to present the "clue bat". While bitching about the S/N ratio, you've added to the noise. Great plan. That'll help.
Hands the "clue bat" back to the person that needs it. Oh, and fuck you too. -Jer
Well, there's a big difference between doing something and doing something right. Personally, my financial advisor does my taxes each year because the tax laws change annually and I frankly don't see the need to learn them. It's not about math, addition and subtraction I can generally handle, it's the laws behind the taxes that I can't and won't deal with. So I guess what I'm saying is..you're brilliant, you're special, if I had your address I'd send you a medal, and a clue, since you missed the point of that statement completely in your brilliance. Lay off patting yourself on the back for a bit, and spend more time reading the posts.
Remarkably similar to my situation, except, I didn't exactly leave my last job. You see, after doing about 2 years of 60 to 80 hours per week, I finally had enough, and decided that 40 to 50 should be sufficient. My employers felt otherwise, and gave me a really nice seperation package if I'd move on so they could overwork some new sucker. I gladly took it.
How about now? In theory I'm a 40 hours per week drone with 0 overtime 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, one hour lunch. In practice? I get to work somewhere between 6 and 7 AM so I can ensure everything is ready to run for the day, meetings are scheduled, and all of the administrative tasks that I never have time for during the work day are done. I generally do my best to leave before 6 PM, and generally only take care of a few varied tasks on the way home and once I get home.
I try not to work more than one weekend per month, and am usually fairly successful. This, unfortunately, is the price of doing monthly network maintenance that takes the network offline for our 5/24 operation.
During all of this, I have to deal with our dial-up users scattered all over the US and our technicians world-wide that call my cell phone at perfectly reasonable hours in their time zone, and perfectly unreasonable hours in mine.
No, I'm sad to say I don't work less than 40 hours per week, but I'm confident if my employers were asked...their response would be that I work somewhere near that 40 hour week. Sad, isn't it?
On the plus side, it seems I'm not alone. I've never met a tech that does a 40 hour week, so I don't feel quite so bad. Additionally, I get to do a job I love, and enjoy waking up bright and way-to-goddamned early every morning to do it. I just wish I could see my kids a bit more often.
The format that the user friendliness takes is not so important (at this point) as verifying it's necessity.
That having been said, the most important thing from an end user standpoint seems to be the following:
Gradual learning curve
Intuitive commands/menus/engine
Quick and easy support for software and hardware
The ability to be customized (which Linux does better than anything I've used)
There's no need to completely lose the CLI, or to take away from all of the things that makes Linux as good as it is. There's simply a need to make that stuff transparent to the end user, and unnecessary to your basic user performing basic maintenance and administrative tasks.
Adding and removing hardware and software, security setups, and other things that might need at least some minor tweaking by a semi-computer illiterate need either a very simple CLI or (better yet) an easy to use GUI. The GUI 'windows' environment should be made slightly easier to implement and manipulate, but damn little needs to be done to many of them from a useability standpoint. We're not talking a complete revamp here, we're talking some additions to make this an acceptable alternative to Macs or Windows for a wider variety of people.
Oh, and in answer to the question "Why don't you just do it?", because I am a wonderful combination of a poor coder, asthetically challenged, *VERY* poor at making life easier for end-users, and lazy as the day is long. Sorry, I'll happily support the project in any way that I can, and do so as often as I can, but I'm just not the one...
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, to a point. A software manufacturer shouldn't HAVE to be responsible for the products they produce. They simple should have to be upfront about it, and shrink-wrap contracts aren't it; especially when there was another contract prior to the shrink-wrapped one involved. If I, as a consumer, in the initial contract agree not to hold a software vendor responsible for bugs, so be it. If I don't, and it's snuck in in a shrink-wrapped contract, that shouldn't be legal.
-Jer
IMHO, the liability of the software manufacturer should be limited (or be able to be limited) to the purchase price of the software in question. The message here is a simple one: You make crappy software, you make no money. You make good software, you reap the benefits.
That's just insane. Why should the rules so far as liabilty be any different than in any other industry? Admittedly, not all brick-and-morter laws apply to the Internet and the software industry, but in this case, they should. If a contractor builds a building that collapses and, although it kills no one, destroys $1 Million in equipment, they should be liable for it. If a software company makes a product that can't do math, they should be liable for the results of the missed math.
We do need to rethink the laws that we mindlessly apply to industries in which it has no place, but this isn't one of those applications.
-Jer
After laboriously reading through the actual text of both the ruling and the dissenting remarks, I've got a few comments to make.
First, the ruling judge seems to have a few valid points, but he seemed to make them based on some odd correlations with other contracts that just don't apply.
Judge Johnson ruled based on the notion that the initial contract and the shrink-wrapped contract were part of one big contract, rather than the reality of the situation: the shrink wrapped contract would be an addition or alteration on the existing, agreed upon contract.
It seems to me that this is a rather unfortunate ruling. How many of you have had a software vendor install software for you? Have you forced them to stop while you read the shrink-wrapped agreement? If not, you could be subject to much the same issue.
To some extent, software manufacturers need to be held as accountable for their product as a construction worker or car manufacturer would be held for theirs. Someone earlier remarked "would you hold MS responsible for a death if you used WinNT on a heart monitor and it BSODed?". No, but I'd hold the software manufacturer of the software that was written for that purpose. That is the situation that we have here, and the result was not good.
Just my thoughts.-Jer
McAffe (macaffe?) had/has a product called Oil Change since around 94/95 I'm guessing. This product checked a central database of version numbers for popular software packages and would allow you to download and install updates when they became available. I believe the software checked version numbers as they appeared in the registry.
This confuses me..because it sounds like MS is now patenting the exact same process.
-Jer
I would very much like to see this type of thing becoming a weekly feature. Just a brief followup on stories that have been posted. This is one place where Slashdot can leap ahead of many of it's more mainstream counterparts. Updates on other news sites tend to be few and far between.
Additionally, it'd be nice if it had it's own icon/group so that I could browse the updates when I'm pressed for time.
-Jer
It sounds like they threw this whole mission together rather "seat of pants" style; with quotes like While crews normally train together for a year or more before launch, this crew was only finalized in mid-February.
The question: What happens if this thing fails? How long do we have until the hunk-o-metal crashes down into my living room? Do they have a backup plan? Am I psychotic for wondering these things?
-Jer
More TLDs would make sense if we took that opportunity to fix the mess that it's become. Make it so that you can only purchase a domain name in the TLD that is applicable, and make it so that trademarks, etc, only apply to the TLD to which you are ABLE to apply.
.org, .sex, .bank, .anyotherretardedshit
I mean, sure, holidayinn.com is fine, but they shouldn't have holidayinn.net,
-Jer
Your apparent hatred for "undegreed kids" and profound love for "proper credentials" is pretty much unfounded. I'm 24 and manage the IT department at a smallish company. I have no degree.
While many of the people who work for me were busily attending keggers at the frat house and taking basket-weaving for the cheap credit, I was completely immersed in an IT environment. Years of practical experience and both hands-on and classroom training with the Army have given me an understanding of the flow of an IT department that you'd be hard pressed to find in a course.
Many, many college grads actually have their heads on straight; but to indicate that a diploma is a pre-requisite for any level of intelligence, professionalism, or ability to perform on the job is sheer foolishness. I think somebody overpaid for the college education and is feeling bad about their lot in life now.
-Jer
So, is this illegal, or just un-ethical? It seems pretty obvious. They got the bandwidth for free to use for purpose A. They are now opting to use it for purpose B; possibly opting to use it for purpose A in the future.
What exactly can be done? The government isn't going to want to piss off the media to this great an extent, it'll hurt re-elections. By the same token, they can't just let this go, can they?
-Jer
Just my less-than-humble opinion, but my IBM Thinkpad is small, light-weight, and makes a great book. There are quite a few options, and they're improving as time progresses. I don't think we should limit ourselves based solely on the idea that right now we don't have a comfortable way of reading the material. There's still definate pros, not the least of which being ease of searching and small footprint of the books themselves. My bookshelves are rather full. It'd be very nice to be able to contain those books on one small hard disk.
-Jer
So this begs the question: are we going to slowly phase out public libraries and phase in public computer labs to allow free access to all?
I was under the impression we were already doing so... we're adding computers in libraries nationwide, and rapidly these are being used for research more and more. I think, especially for research purposes, electronic storage just makes more sense in the long run...
-Jer
The most common formula I see managers using for the valuation of the site is (kinda) as follows:
Note: I'm not a financial guy, I'm just pulling this crap out of my memory
They take the average number of banner click-throughs and multiply it by the average cost of the stuff the banner advertises. They add this to the sum of the cost-savings of using electronic forms over using the staffing, manpower, and materials of achieving the same objective via paper. Finally, they add to this the cost of developing and maintaining the site per year.
I don't know if this will be any help, but, hopefully someone has something that makes more sense than this.
-Jer
Well, I don't know about you, but I like my porno movies the old fashioned way...grainy and low-res. These new-fangled damn DVD players have too much quality. Did you know that porno chicks are actually uglier than sin? Until DVD, who knew? I was content watching barely viewable porno and eating cheese puffs...and thanks to the PS2, DVD won't ruin my porn sessions any more!!!
-Jer
ISDN was a late '70s, early '80s technology. It wasn't aggressavly marketed, well, ever (by the telcos that is). It wasn't lighlty marketed until late in the '90s. It was very hard to buy in the early '90s (like it was hard for ISPs to buy it, and they were use to talking to telcos then).
That is true for a number of reasons though. Many ISPs didn't have trouble getting ISDN, the problem was the lack of standards. Unlike Europe and Canada, the US has no single ISDN standard, which makes uniformity and support more difficult than it needs to be.
Much like with digital wireless connectivity, our capitalism, although making for great advances in technology, screws the consumer a little bit, by creating a lack of standard.
-Jer
-Jer
Now this is amusing. After seeing a constant barrage of "M$ Should Open Source...", they take a step in the direction of open sourcing CE, and now we have a barrage of whining too.
Is this a case of "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it" or is it simply a case of complaining about M$'s evil empire no matter what they do? Lets all try not to be quite so hypocritical when we ruthlessly slam MS while elevating our dear Linux.
-Jer-Jer
I would prefer a larger monitor over a flatter monitor. I have a beast of a 36" monitor. Now, if they made one that was 42" and had the wider aspect ratio, that would be PERFECT for DVD viewing. As it is, I have to watch my movies in the "optimized for TV" mode.
-Jer
-Jer
Paranoid is a nice shade of periwinkle.
Saying that simply because it's only $2.50, these companies don't want/need the money is rather silly. For a company valued at many, many billions of dollars, Microsoft sure does seem rather picky about whether or not I've pirated a $50 game, eh?
Occam's Razor...looks good on paper, doesn't seem to work out all that often in practical application. Life is amazing that way...all too often, the most simple answer is BLATANTLY wrong. Oh well...
-Jer-Jer
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but does anyone else think that perhaps Softlock purposely made sure that they couldn't support the amount of traffic they expected, so that less people would get the free book, and more would buy it?
I mean, can you think of better marketing? Offer something free of charge for 1 day only, restrict the ability to access the free item so that maybe only 20% of those interested can get it, and allow them to sign up to buy the book when the site "frees up". Not that I begrudge them their $3, just thought it was rather brilliant if that's what they did.
-Jer
"If Windows is the answer, it must have been a stupid question."
-Jer
I beg to differ.
The company I just recently left had a serious issue with spam mailings. To summarize, about 1/2 of the employees were laser repair technicians, and spent a good deal of time on the internet researching Windows issues both on many public forums, to include USENET. The result was an average of 60K mail messages per month to my site alone that I would term "spam". This is obscene. We had a system in which we were forced to distribute mail services across two servers per site, when in reality, only one should have been needed.
Why? The added traffic from spam was crushing. Ultimately, we were able to get spam filtering enabled pre-mail server at the firewall. Guess what, it didn't knock off nearly enough of the "spam". Why is that? Misleading headers and initial subject lines. I'm in favor of making these laws stick, because there is a legitimate amount of measurable money lost to these spamming imbeciles.
-Jer
Anyone who's downed enormous amounts of liquor simply for the obvious, out-cold result knows that your consciousness is highly overrated!
-Jer
-Jer
Thank you for taking the time to completely miss the point and misunderstand even the most simple statements.
I do not refer to the developers when I speak thus, I refer to the individuals who feel that adding a GUI configuration tool, graphical installer, and other user-friendly items is "dumbing down" Linux and making it become a Microsoft product.
Next time, it would behoove you to read the *WHOLE* post, not just slap up a soundbyte then hastily reply to it.
-Jer
I assume your comments were intended to fall into the catagory of Signal, right? Because a self-righteous person such as yourself would never stoop so low as to post "Mindless babble" such as might come from a "limp-dick amateur flamethrower", right?
Judging from the obscenity laden nature of your post, I'm guessing you're not significantly more intelligent than the individuals to whom you'd like to present the "clue bat". While bitching about the S/N ratio, you've added to the noise. Great plan. That'll help.
Hands the "clue bat" back to the person that needs it. Oh, and fuck you too.-Jer
-Jer
Well, there's a big difference between doing something and doing something right. Personally, my financial advisor does my taxes each year because the tax laws change annually and I frankly don't see the need to learn them. It's not about math, addition and subtraction I can generally handle, it's the laws behind the taxes that I can't and won't deal with. So I guess what I'm saying is..you're brilliant, you're special, if I had your address I'd send you a medal, and a clue, since you missed the point of that statement completely in your brilliance.
Lay off patting yourself on the back for a bit, and spend more time reading the posts.
-Jer
Remarkably similar to my situation, except, I didn't exactly leave my last job. You see, after doing about 2 years of 60 to 80 hours per week, I finally had enough, and decided that 40 to 50 should be sufficient. My employers felt otherwise, and gave me a really nice seperation package if I'd move on so they could overwork some new sucker. I gladly took it.
How about now? In theory I'm a 40 hours per week drone with 0 overtime 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, one hour lunch. In practice? I get to work somewhere between 6 and 7 AM so I can ensure everything is ready to run for the day, meetings are scheduled, and all of the administrative tasks that I never have time for during the work day are done. I generally do my best to leave before 6 PM, and generally only take care of a few varied tasks on the way home and once I get home.
I try not to work more than one weekend per month, and am usually fairly successful. This, unfortunately, is the price of doing monthly network maintenance that takes the network offline for our 5/24 operation.
During all of this, I have to deal with our dial-up users scattered all over the US and our technicians world-wide that call my cell phone at perfectly reasonable hours in their time zone, and perfectly unreasonable hours in mine.
No, I'm sad to say I don't work less than 40 hours per week, but I'm confident if my employers were asked...their response would be that I work somewhere near that 40 hour week. Sad, isn't it?
On the plus side, it seems I'm not alone. I've never met a tech that does a 40 hour week, so I don't feel quite so bad. Additionally, I get to do a job I love, and enjoy waking up bright and way-to-goddamned early every morning to do it. I just wish I could see my kids a bit more often.
-Jer
The format that the user friendliness takes is not so important (at this point) as verifying it's necessity.
That having been said, the most important thing from an end user standpoint seems to be the following:
There's no need to completely lose the CLI, or to take away from all of the things that makes Linux as good as it is. There's simply a need to make that stuff transparent to the end user, and unnecessary to your basic user performing basic maintenance and administrative tasks.
Adding and removing hardware and software, security setups, and other things that might need at least some minor tweaking by a semi-computer illiterate need either a very simple CLI or (better yet) an easy to use GUI. The GUI 'windows' environment should be made slightly easier to implement and manipulate, but damn little needs to be done to many of them from a useability standpoint. We're not talking a complete revamp here, we're talking some additions to make this an acceptable alternative to Macs or Windows for a wider variety of people.
Oh, and in answer to the question "Why don't you just do it?", because I am a wonderful combination of a poor coder, asthetically challenged, *VERY* poor at making life easier for end-users, and lazy as the day is long. Sorry, I'll happily support the project in any way that I can, and do so as often as I can, but I'm just not the one...
-Jer