You obviously intended your remarks as somethng other than reflecting only your personal experience since you included n specific disclaimer to that effecct.
Your criticism is considerably less valid because you were attempting to favorably contrast Linux with Windows by enumerating several applications that a typical Linux distribution installs by default but that Windows users must install later. Your premise assumes that Windows users actually want those programs. If they do not, then you criticism is invalid. The majority of Linux distributions install hundreds of applications that any given Linux user will not use.
I'm sure you feel better for not having bought a Microsoft product, but that doesn't seem to have affected their success.
Yes, I'm suggesting a great may Windows users don't use tose programs.
A great many home users have no need to burn CDs or read PDF files, use the browser that ships with Windows (statistics still bear that out), don't need (or know about) updated audio or video drivers because Windows was installed on the box they bought and both sound and video work OK (they wouldn't have bought it otherwise), and really should have virus and spyware protection but probably don't.
Office users may or may not have one or more of tose programs installed if their employer deems them necessary for the job.
>> fter installing Windows, I need to install an archiver, CD burning app, SSH client, PDF reader, a good web browser, updated drivers for sound and video, virus scanner, spyware protection, etc, etc.
You're doing things that most Windows users won't do. In fact, most Windows users have no reason to have even heard of most of the things you've listed.
MS has..what, 50-60 billion in the bank and you guys are saying they've done something wrong?
>>... if you're serious about using Linux on the desktop, why would you use an impopular/non-desktop distribution anyway?
Your right about Fedora, It deserves credit for paying attention to real people.
However, I bought a Mac a few weeks back. After close to a decade with Linux -- Slackware, then Fedora after Patrick dropped Gnome -- I was rather weary of all the annoying noise that surrounds Linux: the seemingly not-quite-finished status of a lot of Linux software, perpetual dependency issues, the increasing shrillness and nastiness of some parts of the "community", the arrogance of many developers who treat users like starving dogs raiding the litter of the elite...You get my point. Linux is increasingly held hostage to ideology and I'd rather not be.
>>...it's more of an annoyance than a dealbreaker. I just hacked together an init script... It's irritating, but it's not that big a deal.
It's a dealbreaker if you aren't enough of a geek to diagnose what's wrong and then know how to fix it. Nothing happens to tell the user that "the way your machine makes sound is with this thing called an "ALSA driver", and, oh yeah, we set it up to make no sound by default, so if you think your sound card is broken, don't worry. We're just being blockheaded."
While the rest of the world is busy shaping expectations by shipping computers that "just work", Linux is busy being obtuse.
We should be able to plug a mouse into a port on a Linux machine and expect it to work. We shouldn't need to troll the net looking for guidance on how to configure the damn thing. If it needs a driver and it needs to be configured, we deserve a GUI that handles the congifuring. A mouse is a tool that's used to manipulate a GUI; it's lame and lazy to build a driver and then slump off the configuration into an X ASCII config file.
Ditto sound. Linux doesn't do it right. And, what's with that stupid business of distributions shipping muted ALSA drivers? That makes no sense at all. Can anyone even imgaine Microsoft or Apple doing something so gratuitously user hostile as shipping boxes with the sound turned off by default?
Theft is the act of taking something owned by another person without permission, regardless of how many Indonesians might say it isn't. They would, in fact, be wrong, just as wrong as if they decided 2 plus 2 equals 5.
It's ludicrous for an Indonesian government minister to justify theft on the grounds that the government can't afford to buy Windows. How did they pay for the hardware the stuff runs on? Or, did they steal that, too?
>> What we and the others are doing is making them suffer.
How so? For example, it seems to me people in Zimbabwe are suffering thanks to Mugabe. Now, if you assume, as I do, that most thugs like Mugabe cannot be removed internally, then isn't it our unwillingess to intervene and remove Mugabe that sustains and prolongs their suffering?
Remember, I believe modern oppressive states are not amenable to overthrow by internal revolt. Only outside intervention will remove them.
>> Simply leaving them alone might suffice.> A suggestion to re-evaluate if a certain set of circumstances exist is hardly an attack...
Since I have not said anything about my voting record, and since you accused me of voting for people who made things worse, it seems to me you don't know what you're talking about. In other words, how is it possible that you know anything about my voting record?
>> The 1% that voted for neither...
Don't you mean the 1% who voted for loons and poseurs? Voting for people who have no chancce of winning is a ludicrous act.
Is there a secret Slashdot school that teaches how to change the subject and attack statements other posters did not make?
First, you attacked my voting record. I challenged that because you have no way of knowing how I vote. You respond with hyperbolic and meaningless rhetoric about taxes. And, what "1%" are you talking about?
Second, did i say we should "wait until things get that bad before any action is taken"? No, I did not.
Third, your argument that governments, like, the U.S. are causing grievous harm in other countries implies that no givernments are grievously damaging their own people. That is, that all the world's ills can be blamed on powerful countries screwing around with little countries. However, it seems to me that there are an abundance of countries, big and small, that can inflict damage on their people all by themselves. If, as is usually the case, those people either cannot or will not remove the government that harms them, what would you suggest the rest of us do? Let them suffer?
Of course, I do. People naturally want to support their leaders. If not, no one could lead. What annoyed me about what I saw in the Middle East and Africa was the feeling that they were obligated to support the leader, even when they recognized that leeader's corruption and incompetence. E.g., Palestinians would call 'Arafat a corrupt bumbling crook, but would not entertain the notion of replacing him.
However, until we abandon the Constitution, criminalize political parties, outlaw the free market, nationalize everything, invade and annex several of out neighbors, and start appointing state governors and legislators, we've got a ways to go before we're "as bad as" the Soviets.
Meanehile, I'm a little unsure about that damage you think I'm causing outside my borders, and how you have a clue about my voting habits, since I've not discussed them.
You're arguing hypothetical scenarios based on your personal opinion. i don't believe in silly things like "a karma sort of way". and for all your protests that something " doesn't at all seem fair", standards of fairness do, in fact, differ. That's what laws are for, among other things.
I've lived in the Arab Middle East and in one of the poorest African states. Per capita income in each was about $1500 and $800, respectively. In both countries, there was the sham of a paliamentary system. But, there was no opportunity for ordinary citizens to have a voice or a role in their government. Their needs and their grievances would not be addressed unless they acted violently, and the response would almost certainly be prison.
I agree that the abjectly poor value food, clothing and shelter before freedom. But, once you have food and a roof over your head, you have both a right and an obligation to take control of your own lives. (Although I was perplexed and dismayed because so many people in both of those countries told me that they owed their leaders loyalty, even though they knew they were corrupt and incompetent. Leades should be loyal to the people, not the other way around.)
>>...you are responsible for any benefits you gained from the actions of your ancestors.
No, you are not.
In the hypothetical farm example you cite, if your father acted illegally to acquire the property, then he also acted illegally in passing it to you, and you acted illegally in accepting it. You should be subject to whatever law applies.
In the more general case, however, we have no obligation to redeem what we, or others, consider the wrongdoing of our ancesters. First, who is to determine what ancestral behavior was wrong and what was correct? Second, how far back in time shall we go? Are the residents of Tunis entitled to restitution from the Italians because the Romans destroyed Carthage? Are the residents of Mexico entitled to payment from Spain because the Conquistadors conquered their ancestors? If so, what about people whose ancestors suffered at the hands of the people later conquered by the Spaniards? Are there people in West Africa who merit compensation from other West Africans because they captured their ancestors and sold them as slaves to Europeans and other Africans? The British and other Europeans commonly enslaved and bought and sold prisoners captured in war. Do they all owe each other compensation?
You're off base, I said the Nazis would have been victorious if not for American intervention. I stand by that. It does not contradict a similar statement about the role of the Soviets.
I suggest you may have allowed your own biases and assumptions to color your interpretation of my statement.
Why is it that people on/. so much love to respond to things people didn't say?
I've argued that the Nazis would not have been defeated without the participation of the U.S. Nor, without the Soviets, for that matter.
The U.S. did not enter the war until the Nazis had conquered all of Europe except the very weakned UK. Without U.S. entry into the war, the Nazis would have most likely blockaded the UK before invading it, and occupied the Middle East to ensure their oil supply. They would then have been able to concentrate on the USSR without fearing an invasion in the West.
In 1945, a number of Americans and Europeans argued that the wartime alliance with the USSR was no longer necessary and that the Allied troops should have continued east from Berlin to Moscow. In retrospect, one can only imagine how pleasantly different are world would be if that turn of events had actually taken place.
>> Learn that this may include trying to understand the other side's view of reality, too.
Many people seem to believe that understanding our enemies will lead to peace and freedom. I don't believe that. How will understanding a killer stop him from trying to kill people? Understanding people who do not want peace and freedom will not free us or bring peace.
The object is to change the behavior of those people. If understanding them shows us how to do that, fine. if it doesn't, we must take other paths.
We're not responsible for the behavior of our contemporaries, either. Only ourselves.
As for those Americans who "freed" you, you know full well that they are using a figure of speech to reference their country's actions in the past. I've lived in Europe and came across quite a few rather embarrassing Americans. Remember, though, that our view of European history is one of thousands of years of conflilct, oppression, poverty and ignorant faith covered by a thin veneer of art and culture produced for the exploitive wealthy; and that the imperialism of the 18th and 19th centuries and the wars and ideologies of the 20th century were the products of that society. Europe, after commiting suicide in the 1940's, appears to be on the right track at last, but when Americans survey the problems we all face in the world today, we tend to see a sorry mess left behind by the Europe of the past. The U.S. has not ben inactive on the world scene, obviously, following WWI, but it was Europe that spawned totalitarianism, Communism, fascism, the worship of the state, dictatorial monarchies, religious oppression, the slave trade, the colonizing of the Americas, Africa and Asia and many of today's ethnic wars after ignorant and racist colonial borders were established.
No Europeans today are responsible for any of that. But you should know that it is the filter through which Americans view your continent.
Our lack of responsibility for our ancestors' behavior derives from the impossiblity of our changing that behavior. Yet we do have a responsibility to examine their behavior before we ddetermine our own course of action.
Slashdot Mirror
You obviously intended your remarks as somethng other than reflecting only your personal experience since you included n specific disclaimer to that effecct.
Your criticism is considerably less valid because you were attempting to favorably contrast Linux with Windows by enumerating several applications that a typical Linux distribution installs by default but that Windows users must install later. Your premise assumes that Windows users actually want those programs. If they do not, then you criticism is invalid. The majority of Linux distributions install hundreds of applications that any given Linux user will not use.
I'm sure you feel better for not having bought a Microsoft product, but that doesn't seem to have affected their success.
Yes, I'm suggesting a great may Windows users don't use tose programs.
A great many home users have no need to burn CDs or read PDF files, use the browser that ships with Windows (statistics still bear that out), don't need (or know about) updated audio or video drivers because Windows was installed on the box they bought and both sound and video work OK (they wouldn't have bought it otherwise), and really should have virus and spyware protection but probably don't.
Office users may or may not have one or more of tose programs installed if their employer deems them necessary for the job.
>> fter installing Windows, I need to install an archiver, CD burning app, SSH client, PDF reader, a good web browser, updated drivers for sound and video, virus scanner, spyware protection, etc, etc.
You're doing things that most Windows users won't do. In fact, most Windows users have no reason to have even heard of most of the things you've listed.
MS has..what, 50-60 billion in the bank and you guys are saying they've done something wrong?
>> ... if you're serious about using Linux on the desktop, why would you use an impopular/non-desktop distribution anyway?
Your right about Fedora, It deserves credit for paying attention to real people.
However, I bought a Mac a few weeks back. After close to a decade with Linux -- Slackware, then Fedora after Patrick dropped Gnome -- I was rather weary of all the annoying noise that surrounds Linux: the seemingly not-quite-finished status of a lot of Linux software, perpetual dependency issues, the increasing shrillness and nastiness of some parts of the "community", the arrogance of many developers who treat users like starving dogs raiding the litter of the elite...You get my point. Linux is increasingly held hostage to ideology and I'd rather not be.
>> ...it's more of an annoyance than a dealbreaker. I just hacked together an init script ... It's irritating, but it's not that big a deal.
It's a dealbreaker if you aren't enough of a geek to diagnose what's wrong and then know how to fix it. Nothing happens to tell the user that "the way your machine makes sound is with this thing called an "ALSA driver", and, oh yeah, we set it up to make no sound by default, so if you think your sound card is broken, don't worry. We're just being blockheaded."
While the rest of the world is busy shaping expectations by shipping computers that "just work", Linux is busy being obtuse.
He's right.
We should be able to plug a mouse into a port on a Linux machine and expect it to work. We shouldn't need to troll the net looking for guidance on how to configure the damn thing. If it needs a driver and it needs to be configured, we deserve a GUI that handles the congifuring. A mouse is a tool that's used to manipulate a GUI; it's lame and lazy to build a driver and then slump off the configuration into an X ASCII config file.
Ditto sound. Linux doesn't do it right. And, what's with that stupid business of distributions shipping muted ALSA drivers? That makes no sense at all. Can anyone even imgaine Microsoft or Apple doing something so gratuitously user hostile as shipping boxes with the sound turned off by default?
Theft is the act of taking something owned by another person without permission, regardless of how many Indonesians might say it isn't. They would, in fact, be wrong, just as wrong as if they decided 2 plus 2 equals 5.
>> If 51% of the Indonesians say it's not theft, is it still theft?
Of course.
Nonsense.
Thieves in Indonesia remain theives.
It's ludicrous for an Indonesian government minister to justify theft on the grounds that the government can't afford to buy Windows. How did they pay for the hardware the stuff runs on? Or, did they steal that, too?
Smacks of a con to me.
>> Do people actually think there is such a thing as 'fractions'?
Of course, fractions are numbers represented as the division of two numbers. Kids need to know how to manipulate them, not just write them.
>> Come on people, we're supposed to be intelligent on this site...
Keep loooking.
No, because I want to hire a kid who really knows how to convert decimals into fractions, not a kid who only knows how to use a calculator.
I'd rather hire someone who knows how to convert decimals to fractions and how to use a calculator than a kid who depends on the calculator.
If tests allow calculators, all they test is the financial ability of students to buy calculators.
>> What we and the others are doing is making them suffer.
How so? For example, it seems to me people in Zimbabwe are suffering thanks to Mugabe. Now, if you assume, as I do, that most thugs like Mugabe cannot be removed internally, then isn't it our unwillingess to intervene and remove Mugabe that sustains and prolongs their suffering?
Remember, I believe modern oppressive states are not amenable to overthrow by internal revolt. Only outside intervention will remove them.
>> Simply leaving them alone might suffice.> A suggestion to re-evaluate if a certain set of circumstances exist is hardly an attack...
Since I have not said anything about my voting record, and since you accused me of voting for people who made things worse, it seems to me you don't know what you're talking about. In other words, how is it possible that you know anything about my voting record?
>> The 1% that voted for neither...
Don't you mean the 1% who voted for loons and poseurs? Voting for people who have no chancce of winning is a ludicrous act.
Is there a secret Slashdot school that teaches how to change the subject and attack statements other posters did not make?
First, you attacked my voting record. I challenged that because you have no way of knowing how I vote. You respond with hyperbolic and meaningless rhetoric about taxes. And, what "1%" are you talking about?
Second, did i say we should "wait until things get that bad before any action is taken"? No, I did not.
Third, your argument that governments, like, the U.S. are causing grievous harm in other countries implies that no givernments are grievously damaging their own people. That is, that all the world's ills can be blamed on powerful countries screwing around with little countries. However, it seems to me that there are an abundance of countries, big and small, that can inflict damage on their people all by themselves. If, as is usually the case, those people either cannot or will not remove the government that harms them, what would you suggest the rest of us do? Let them suffer?
Of course, I do. People naturally want to support their leaders. If not, no one could lead. What annoyed me about what I saw in the Middle East and Africa was the feeling that they were obligated to support the leader, even when they recognized that leeader's corruption and incompetence. E.g., Palestinians would call 'Arafat a corrupt bumbling crook, but would not entertain the notion of replacing him.
However, until we abandon the Constitution, criminalize political parties, outlaw the free market, nationalize everything, invade and annex several of out neighbors, and start appointing state governors and legislators, we've got a ways to go before we're "as bad as" the Soviets.
Meanehile, I'm a little unsure about that damage you think I'm causing outside my borders, and how you have a clue about my voting habits, since I've not discussed them.
You're arguing hypothetical scenarios based on your personal opinion. i don't believe in silly things like "a karma sort of way".
and for all your protests that something " doesn't at all seem fair", standards of fairness do, in fact, differ. That's what laws are for, among other things.
Freedom is an absolute.
I've lived in the Arab Middle East and in one of the poorest African states. Per capita income in each was about $1500 and $800, respectively. In both countries, there was the sham of a paliamentary system. But, there was no opportunity for ordinary citizens to have a voice or a role in their government. Their needs and their grievances would not be addressed unless they acted violently, and the response would almost certainly be prison.
I agree that the abjectly poor value food, clothing and shelter before freedom. But, once you have food and a roof over your head, you have both a right and an obligation to take control of your own lives. (Although I was perplexed and dismayed because so many people in both of those countries told me that they owed their leaders loyalty, even though they knew they were corrupt and incompetent. Leades should be loyal to the people, not the other way around.)
>> ...you are responsible for any benefits you gained from the actions of your ancestors.
No, you are not.
In the hypothetical farm example you cite, if your father acted illegally to acquire the property, then he also acted illegally in passing it to you, and you acted illegally in accepting it. You should be subject to whatever law applies.
In the more general case, however, we have no obligation to redeem what we, or others, consider the wrongdoing of our ancesters. First, who is to determine what ancestral behavior was wrong and what was correct? Second, how far back in time shall we go? Are the residents of Tunis entitled to restitution from the Italians because the Romans destroyed Carthage? Are the residents of Mexico entitled to payment from Spain because the Conquistadors conquered their ancestors? If so, what about people whose ancestors suffered at the hands of the people later conquered by the Spaniards? Are there people in West Africa who merit compensation from other West Africans because they captured their ancestors and sold them as slaves to Europeans and other Africans? The British and other Europeans commonly enslaved and bought and sold prisoners captured in war. Do they all owe each other compensation?
My rather obvious point is that life with material possession and no freedom is far worse than life with few possessions and freedom.
You're off base, I said the Nazis would have been victorious if not for American intervention. I stand by that. It does not contradict a similar statement about the role of the Soviets.
I suggest you may have allowed your own biases and assumptions to color your interpretation of my statement.
Yes, it means the Nazis would have won without U.S. involvement in the war.
It does not mean the U.S. singlehandedly won the war, which appears to be what you imagine I said.
Whatever way you choose to read something, it is usually best if you avoid reading something that isn't there.
Show me where i said "WWII was won" by the U.S.
/. so much love to respond to things people didn't say?
Why is it that people on
I've argued that the Nazis would not have been defeated without the participation of the U.S. Nor, without the Soviets, for that matter.
The U.S. did not enter the war until the Nazis had conquered all of Europe except the very weakned UK. Without U.S. entry into the war, the Nazis would have most likely blockaded the UK before invading it, and occupied the Middle East to ensure their oil supply. They would then have been able to concentrate on the USSR without fearing an invasion in the West.
In 1945, a number of Americans and Europeans argued that the wartime alliance with the USSR was no longer necessary and that the Allied troops should have continued east from Berlin to Moscow. In retrospect, one can only imagine how pleasantly different are world would be if that turn of events had actually taken place.
>> Learn that this may include trying to understand the other side's view of reality, too.
Many people seem to believe that understanding our enemies will lead to peace and freedom. I don't believe that. How will understanding a killer stop him from trying to kill people? Understanding people who do not want peace and freedom will not free us or bring peace.
The object is to change the behavior of those people. If understanding them shows us how to do that, fine. if it doesn't, we must take other paths.
We're not responsible for the behavior of our contemporaries, either. Only ourselves.
As for those Americans who "freed" you, you know full well that they are using a figure of speech to reference their country's actions in the past. I've lived in Europe and came across quite a few rather embarrassing Americans. Remember, though, that our view of European history is one of thousands of years of conflilct, oppression, poverty and ignorant faith covered by a thin veneer of art and culture produced for the exploitive wealthy; and that the imperialism of the 18th and 19th centuries and the wars and ideologies of the 20th century were the products of that society. Europe, after commiting suicide in the 1940's, appears to be on the right track at last, but when Americans survey the problems we all face in the world today, we tend to see a sorry mess left behind by the Europe of the past. The U.S. has not ben inactive on the world scene, obviously, following WWI, but it was Europe that spawned totalitarianism, Communism, fascism, the worship of the state, dictatorial monarchies, religious oppression, the slave trade, the colonizing of the Americas, Africa and Asia and many of today's ethnic wars after ignorant and racist colonial borders were established.
No Europeans today are responsible for any of that. But you should know that it is the filter through which Americans view your continent.
Our lack of responsibility for our ancestors' behavior derives from the impossiblity of our changing that behavior. Yet we do have a responsibility to examine their behavior before we ddetermine our own course of action.