Everyone seems to be acting as if this is important. I, however, cannot seem to fathom why it matters who is at the helm of one of the world's worst ISPs. Will AOL abandon all the crap that made them so successful? Will Time Warner renounce the RIAA and MPAA and say it's all about the consumer? Will anything really change?
On a simpler note, maybe someone can answer this question: is this good or bad for the geek community here at Slashdot?
Re:Linux, BSD, and everything need one thing....
on
Ark Linux
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· Score: 2
You would need not only a dedicated team, but a dedicated supercomputer to compile enough software such that everything is available. A lot of Windows programs take several minutes to install, so as long as there is something that takes up a lot of the screen and has pretty colors on it, people will understand that it is doing something important (installing). They wouldn't have to be informed that it is compiling, because they probably wouldn't know what that means, just that it is installing. Everybody knows what that means.
OpenOffice doesn't really take that long to download with a broadband connection, and I wouldn't recommend downloading anything larger than a few megs with a dialup connection. Just have your friend with cable burn you a CD-RW with what you want downloaded. It takes less time than downloading it at 2-5KB/s, and it's an excuse to get away from the computer and hang out with your friends for a while. And that is what a lot of people that this is aimed at would be interested in, much moreso than many geeks.
Having recently picked up an iPod, I think it's great. However, I do have a few qualms with it. The wonderful device can only be "linked" to one computer at a time, and if you ever accidentally hit "Yes" when you've plugged it into the wrong computer you lose all your songs and have to set them all back up again on your main iPod computer. I have several computers on my home network, and they all have MP3s on them. I wanted to be able to use my iPod to transfer files between each of them, but you cannot take files off the iPod. The Firewire connection is blazingly fast, and I love that, but in my mind its inability to transfer files between computers is a crippling issue. If it had this capability, it would be number one on the RIAA's hitlist, which could become one of its biggest selling points. After all, the MP3 Winners' List said it itself: in this post-Napster world, the number one indicator of the quality of a product is the fervor with which the RIAA wants to kill it.
And by the way, connecting the iPod to that little FM transmitter they sell at the Apple Store is incredible. You sit down in your car and all the music you want is playing on the radio, without commercials. It's like satellite radio but you choose ALL the music, not just the station. I love my iPod, and I think it should have been placed higher than Kazaa on the list. It is better for the music lover than Kazaa, because Kazaa can pretty much only be used for stealing shoddy versions of the music. The iPod can be used with MP3s ripped from CD, so you can control the quality of your music. I hate downloaded music, because so much of it sucks (qualitywise).
What I want to know is: why would they choose Kazaa as the number one winner?? That makes absolutely no sense. They talk about how great it is that they are profitable, and then in the same breath explain how they got that profitability: "by stuffing the app with adware, spyware, and most notoriously Brilliant Digital's Altnet, a distributed computing program covertly placed on users machines when KaZaa was downloaded." What is the author trying to do, promote such underhanded moneymaking techniques? When other developers and companies read this, they will undoubtedly make a connection. "How can we be more profitable? Well, Kazaa did it with adware, spyware, and lying to its customers." All those things should of course be mentioned, but in the Losers list, not the Winners. The adware, spyware, and covertly placed programs were the reason I never downloaded Kazaa, and never will. If Kazaa is going to be number one, they should be there because of the FastTrack network, which I think is wonderful. My vote would have gone to Kazaa Lite, which should definitely be up there on the list. It connects you to the FastTrack network without spying on you or lying to you.
Kazaa Lite is the real winner, not Kazaa.
Re:Linux, BSD, and everything need one thing....
on
Ark Linux
·
· Score: 2
I fear that the only way to make something that easy to download and install (binary-only) is to make sure that the system for it does not change very much. Also, it would be necessary to ensure that the creators of the projects would make a pre-compiled binary for that system so that it could be used. The user-Linux would have to be unchangeably standardized and impossibly popular from the very start. What I mean is that in order for such a thing to gain users, it would need developer support, and in order to get developer support it would need a large userbase. Typical spiral. On the other hand, a system that compiles all of its software needs only the code (not specific developer support). Some possible workarounds for these issues is a binary archive at the distribution's website that takes projects from across the web and compiles them so that they can be downloaded and used on the new system, or a installation system that does not use a binary, but rather compiles and installs the software with one click. I know I would look forward to that kind of functionality. If everything could be specifically compiled just by right-clicking and selecting "Install," it would remain invisible to the user and it wouldn't be necessary to distribute everything as platform specific binaries.
Re:Linux, BSD, and everything need one thing....
on
Ark Linux
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I agree with you in principle, but why must such a division be made in Linux? The divide you are trying to create between the user-distro and the hacker-distro is gaping. Couldn't it be possible to make it easy for the new user but leave in real functionality in case they want to learn? After all, if you can only convince someone to move to Linux because everything difficult has been removed, then they won't want to move to real Linux where the useful things are still there. If it becomes prevalent, there would be a massive base of binary-only systems that can't even compile programs that they download. If something like this is implemented and takes off to the extent that would be considered a success, there would be the same amount of division and condescension between old Linux and new Linux as there is now between current Linux and current Windows.
That would not be beneficial to anyone but the Windows-haters. Linux-lovers should not jump at something like this.
Re:counterproductive
on
Ark Linux
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· Score: 3, Informative
You would rather see one good linux package than ten substandard ones. Well, first of all, they can't all be substandard. Whatever is their quality is the de facto standard. But I digress. What I am trying to say here is that it would not be in the interest of the Linux community to combine all of the distributions into one "good" one. Each distribution has its own advantages and disadvantages, many of which are mutually exclusive. Combining Debian, Slackware, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc would not yield one system with the advantages of all and disadvantages of none. It simply wouldn't work.
One of the biggest draws of Linux and the Open Source movement in general is that there is so much choice. Not only the freedom to choose a specific distribution, but to create a new one if you feel there is an unfilled niche. Combining distros cannot work, so these people felt that they could fill a niche by creating their own distribution.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but it really isn't our fault that due to a mixup at our warehouse you got fat and pregnant... by the way, I notice that you are smoking. Would you like to quit? There's a patch for that, too. Just guess which of these three it is..."
Yup, that would make a lot of sense. Apple sues someone for making a "compatible" file format to their new XML-based format that is created by the program that reads and saves to Microsoft's proprietary file format. They did it, and if they have any sense of justice, they will let us do it too...
I'm not saying that we are guaranteed to be able to, just that Apple probably won't make much of a stink, considering that one of the major draws of their program is that they were able to do that to another format.
So that's why last night when I was about to log off of my OS X box I felt like I had just won... it's really a video game! Good to know, good to know.
But the apparent improvements in speed are not happening as rapidly as hardware improvements. Run Windows XP on the old Pentium 2 that you ran Windows 98SE on. Yes, it's slower. Run Windows 98SE on that 2GHz P4 that you put your stolen copy of XP on. It runs faster than hell and rarely crashes. Windows depends heavily on improving hardware, and the newest version of Windows always brings its contemporary hardware to a crawl.
20 seconds is pretty short. The only thing I can hope is that the extreme rating this thing would get in Roller Coaster Tycoon would keep the crowds away so that the lines never get too long. I could spend an hour going up and down that thing! Unfortunately, if they change the name to something such that "extreme" contains a capital "X" in the form of "eXtreme" or "Xtreme," everyone and their mom will want to ride it. After all, it's Xtreme!!!
Better? Better than what? Some hypothetical situation in which you pre-assume the government will screw something up? Putting aside your unfortunate bias for the moment, you probably shouldn't use the comparative when there is only one possible example to compare. There are not two, so there can be no "better."
Good point, and Apple might be trying to bring back the whole easy-as-plugging-it-in networking thing they had back with Appletalk and System 7.x. I always liked those old Appletalk networks, and with FW2 interconnects they could make another such move.
But I don't know if I'd count on an FW2 switch being cheap at all.
If native-born Americans are unwilling to take up science (which I don't think is really true, but anyway),
Really? Have you met any Americans recently? They're almost all idiots! Speaking as a native-born American myself, I can't decide whether I am more glad that the others are unwilling to take up science or surprised that they were even able to consider it an option.
I hope you misspoke when you said Apple would merge or disappear. Apple isn't going anywhere, as can be seen by their repeated strong showings at their release party conferences and on Wall Street. Apple is a strong company that is in no danger of being purchased. The only thing I can foresee that resembles what you are talking about is if Apple were to buy out Motorola or Micron and so be able to manufacture their own processors and/or memory units. But the next revision of the PowerPC processor went to IBM, not Motorola, and IBM and Apple will not consolidate into one company. Perhaps if Apple bought Motorola (almost impossible), they would start making computers with and integrated G4 that perhaps isn't upgradeable, but runs cooler in less space than a socket processor. A good step for their iMacs and Powerbooks, if they don't do it already. They can't really do the same for memory, as people will always want to upgrade their RAM. They just can't do away with DIMM slots.
In short, your vision of consolidation might not be wrong, but I think you have chosen the wrong companies. AMD and Apple have business alliances with IBM, a very strong company with little to no interest in consolidation with either company. Motorola is into too many things to be bought, but isn't doing well enough to buy anyone. Of all the options, they are the most likely to go under, but I wouldn't count on it. And Micron can continue to sell RAM as long as people continue making software that needs it. They probably aren't in that great a danger, especially in the next few months
Neither Microsoft nor Apple has done anything new in the last six years? Are you kidding? How old is Mac OS X? Less than two years, that's what I thought. OS X, while you may not like it because it is shiny, or you are bigoted against the Macintosh platform for reasons beyond -- well -- reason, is the best operating system currently on the market. And it was made recently. I agree that Linux should be trying to make something better, but so should everyone. The difference is that Apple succeeded. Before saying something, maybe you should take your head out of your ass long enough to look around.
But the problem in the article is that they are required to use Microsoft products. I, too, like 00o, but NASA apparently could not make that switch. that said, MS Office is still a little more professional. Until Open Office shapes up a little, I would not recommend it to everyone. MS is still better at this point. However, I would say that it isn't worth paying hundred, of dollars for.
I was hoping to yet that award, but I don't think I'm nearly as villainous as the RIAA... I was hoping everyone would forget about them and notice those movies on Kazaa that say they are Harry Potter but are really porno or all those files that say they are GTA3 or MS office but are really Mechwarrior 4. I think you all know how villainous I am, but even I don't compare to the blasted RIAA.
Yeah, anyway so back to what I was talking about, is such a contract even reasonable? If the court is going to make a ruling, why not rule that such a contract isn't fair?
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone seems to be acting as if this is important. I, however, cannot seem to fathom why it matters who is at the helm of one of the world's worst ISPs. Will AOL abandon all the crap that made them so successful? Will Time Warner renounce the RIAA and MPAA and say it's all about the consumer? Will anything really change?
On a simpler note, maybe someone can answer this question: is this good or bad for the geek community here at Slashdot?
You would need not only a dedicated team, but a dedicated supercomputer to compile enough software such that everything is available. A lot of Windows programs take several minutes to install, so as long as there is something that takes up a lot of the screen and has pretty colors on it, people will understand that it is doing something important (installing). They wouldn't have to be informed that it is compiling, because they probably wouldn't know what that means, just that it is installing. Everybody knows what that means.
OpenOffice doesn't really take that long to download with a broadband connection, and I wouldn't recommend downloading anything larger than a few megs with a dialup connection. Just have your friend with cable burn you a CD-RW with what you want downloaded. It takes less time than downloading it at 2-5KB/s, and it's an excuse to get away from the computer and hang out with your friends for a while. And that is what a lot of people that this is aimed at would be interested in, much moreso than many geeks.
Having recently picked up an iPod, I think it's great. However, I do have a few qualms with it. The wonderful device can only be "linked" to one computer at a time, and if you ever accidentally hit "Yes" when you've plugged it into the wrong computer you lose all your songs and have to set them all back up again on your main iPod computer. I have several computers on my home network, and they all have MP3s on them. I wanted to be able to use my iPod to transfer files between each of them, but you cannot take files off the iPod. The Firewire connection is blazingly fast, and I love that, but in my mind its inability to transfer files between computers is a crippling issue. If it had this capability, it would be number one on the RIAA's hitlist, which could become one of its biggest selling points. After all, the MP3 Winners' List said it itself: in this post-Napster world, the number one indicator of the quality of a product is the fervor with which the RIAA wants to kill it.
And by the way, connecting the iPod to that little FM transmitter they sell at the Apple Store is incredible. You sit down in your car and all the music you want is playing on the radio, without commercials. It's like satellite radio but you choose ALL the music, not just the station. I love my iPod, and I think it should have been placed higher than Kazaa on the list. It is better for the music lover than Kazaa, because Kazaa can pretty much only be used for stealing shoddy versions of the music. The iPod can be used with MP3s ripped from CD, so you can control the quality of your music. I hate downloaded music, because so much of it sucks (qualitywise).
What I want to know is: why would they choose Kazaa as the number one winner?? That makes absolutely no sense. They talk about how great it is that they are profitable, and then in the same breath explain how they got that profitability: "by stuffing the app with adware, spyware, and most notoriously Brilliant Digital's Altnet, a distributed computing program covertly placed on users machines when KaZaa was downloaded." What is the author trying to do, promote such underhanded moneymaking techniques? When other developers and companies read this, they will undoubtedly make a connection. "How can we be more profitable? Well, Kazaa did it with adware, spyware, and lying to its customers." All those things should of course be mentioned, but in the Losers list, not the Winners. The adware, spyware, and covertly placed programs were the reason I never downloaded Kazaa, and never will. If Kazaa is going to be number one, they should be there because of the FastTrack network, which I think is wonderful. My vote would have gone to Kazaa Lite, which should definitely be up there on the list. It connects you to the FastTrack network without spying on you or lying to you.
Kazaa Lite is the real winner, not Kazaa.
I fear that the only way to make something that easy to download and install (binary-only) is to make sure that the system for it does not change very much. Also, it would be necessary to ensure that the creators of the projects would make a pre-compiled binary for that system so that it could be used. The user-Linux would have to be unchangeably standardized and impossibly popular from the very start. What I mean is that in order for such a thing to gain users, it would need developer support, and in order to get developer support it would need a large userbase. Typical spiral. On the other hand, a system that compiles all of its software needs only the code (not specific developer support). Some possible workarounds for these issues is a binary archive at the distribution's website that takes projects from across the web and compiles them so that they can be downloaded and used on the new system, or a installation system that does not use a binary, but rather compiles and installs the software with one click. I know I would look forward to that kind of functionality. If everything could be specifically compiled just by right-clicking and selecting "Install," it would remain invisible to the user and it wouldn't be necessary to distribute everything as platform specific binaries.
I agree with you in principle, but why must such a division be made in Linux? The divide you are trying to create between the user-distro and the hacker-distro is gaping. Couldn't it be possible to make it easy for the new user but leave in real functionality in case they want to learn? After all, if you can only convince someone to move to Linux because everything difficult has been removed, then they won't want to move to real Linux where the useful things are still there. If it becomes prevalent, there would be a massive base of binary-only systems that can't even compile programs that they download. If something like this is implemented and takes off to the extent that would be considered a success, there would be the same amount of division and condescension between old Linux and new Linux as there is now between current Linux and current Windows.
That would not be beneficial to anyone but the Windows-haters. Linux-lovers should not jump at something like this.
You would rather see one good linux package than ten substandard ones. Well, first of all, they can't all be substandard. Whatever is their quality is the de facto standard. But I digress. What I am trying to say here is that it would not be in the interest of the Linux community to combine all of the distributions into one "good" one. Each distribution has its own advantages and disadvantages, many of which are mutually exclusive. Combining Debian, Slackware, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc would not yield one system with the advantages of all and disadvantages of none. It simply wouldn't work.
One of the biggest draws of Linux and the Open Source movement in general is that there is so much choice. Not only the freedom to choose a specific distribution, but to create a new one if you feel there is an unfilled niche. Combining distros cannot work, so these people felt that they could fill a niche by creating their own distribution.
Does it really make a difference?
"I'm sorry ma'am, but it really isn't our fault that due to a mixup at our warehouse you got fat and pregnant... by the way, I notice that you are smoking. Would you like to quit? There's a patch for that, too. Just guess which of these three it is..."
Yup, that would make a lot of sense. Apple sues someone for making a "compatible" file format to their new XML-based format that is created by the program that reads and saves to Microsoft's proprietary file format. They did it, and if they have any sense of justice, they will let us do it too...
I'm not saying that we are guaranteed to be able to, just that Apple probably won't make much of a stink, considering that one of the major draws of their program is that they were able to do that to another format.
It may be a lot of money, but they've got money out the wazoo.
Well, that is where it comes out, but...
Yeah, as opposed to a proprietary and unique inch and a half wide disc...
So that's why last night when I was about to log off of my OS X box I felt like I had just won... it's really a video game! Good to know, good to know.
Yeah, have you ever tried to ask a slightly drunk woman her weight? If the Barmonkey had a face, it would get slapped rather often. Trust me...
But the apparent improvements in speed are not happening as rapidly as hardware improvements. Run Windows XP on the old Pentium 2 that you ran Windows 98SE on. Yes, it's slower. Run Windows 98SE on that 2GHz P4 that you put your stolen copy of XP on. It runs faster than hell and rarely crashes. Windows depends heavily on improving hardware, and the newest version of Windows always brings its contemporary hardware to a crawl.
20 seconds is pretty short. The only thing I can hope is that the extreme rating this thing would get in Roller Coaster Tycoon would keep the crowds away so that the lines never get too long. I could spend an hour going up and down that thing! Unfortunately, if they change the name to something such that "extreme" contains a capital "X" in the form of "eXtreme" or "Xtreme," everyone and their mom will want to ride it. After all, it's Xtreme!!!
Better? Better than what? Some hypothetical situation in which you pre-assume the government will screw something up? Putting aside your unfortunate bias for the moment, you probably shouldn't use the comparative when there is only one possible example to compare. There are not two, so there can be no "better."
Good point, and Apple might be trying to bring back the whole easy-as-plugging-it-in networking thing they had back with Appletalk and System 7.x. I always liked those old Appletalk networks, and with FW2 interconnects they could make another such move.
But I don't know if I'd count on an FW2 switch being cheap at all.
If native-born Americans are unwilling to take up science (which I don't think is really true, but anyway),
Really? Have you met any Americans recently? They're almost all idiots! Speaking as a native-born American myself, I can't decide whether I am more glad that the others are unwilling to take up science or surprised that they were even able to consider it an option.
I hope you misspoke when you said Apple would merge or disappear. Apple isn't going anywhere, as can be seen by their repeated strong showings at their release party conferences and on Wall Street. Apple is a strong company that is in no danger of being purchased. The only thing I can foresee that resembles what you are talking about is if Apple were to buy out Motorola or Micron and so be able to manufacture their own processors and/or memory units. But the next revision of the PowerPC processor went to IBM, not Motorola, and IBM and Apple will not consolidate into one company. Perhaps if Apple bought Motorola (almost impossible), they would start making computers with and integrated G4 that perhaps isn't upgradeable, but runs cooler in less space than a socket processor. A good step for their iMacs and Powerbooks, if they don't do it already. They can't really do the same for memory, as people will always want to upgrade their RAM. They just can't do away with DIMM slots.
In short, your vision of consolidation might not be wrong, but I think you have chosen the wrong companies. AMD and Apple have business alliances with IBM, a very strong company with little to no interest in consolidation with either company. Motorola is into too many things to be bought, but isn't doing well enough to buy anyone. Of all the options, they are the most likely to go under, but I wouldn't count on it. And Micron can continue to sell RAM as long as people continue making software that needs it. They probably aren't in that great a danger, especially in the next few months
According to the article, they discontinued the 15" iMac in October, not June. June is when they are going to discontinue the 17" iMac.
Neither Microsoft nor Apple has done anything new in the last six years? Are you kidding? How old is Mac OS X? Less than two years, that's what I thought. OS X, while you may not like it because it is shiny, or you are bigoted against the Macintosh platform for reasons beyond -- well -- reason, is the best operating system currently on the market. And it was made recently. I agree that Linux should be trying to make something better, but so should everyone. The difference is that Apple succeeded. Before saying something, maybe you should take your head out of your ass long enough to look around.
But the problem in the article is that they are required to use Microsoft products. I, too, like 00o, but NASA apparently could not make that switch. that said, MS Office is still a little more professional. Until Open Office shapes up a little, I would not recommend it to everyone. MS is still better at this point. However, I would say that it isn't worth paying hundred, of dollars for.
I was hoping to yet that award, but I don't think I'm nearly as villainous as the RIAA... I was hoping everyone would forget about them and notice those movies on Kazaa that say they are Harry Potter but are really porno or all those files that say they are GTA3 or MS office but are really Mechwarrior 4. I think you all know how villainous I am, but even I don't compare to the blasted RIAA.
--average internet script kiddie
Yeah, anyway so back to what I was talking about, is such a contract even reasonable? If the court is going to make a ruling, why not rule that such a contract isn't fair?