Re:I'll get hammered, but Internet Explorer 6 is o
on
KOffice 1.1 Rolls Out
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· Score: 1
Hello? He said IE 6 is free and he was right. Free as in beer.
Why do you think MS spent millions developing IE and doesn't charge you for downloading it? Are they a charity?
Re:I'll get hammered, but Internet Explorer 6 is o
on
KOffice 1.1 Rolls Out
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Screw my karma, if this was a news for nerds website they would have told the nerds that Internet Explorer 6.0 is out. http://www.microsoft.com/ie. It is fast, lean and can i say fast again?
The typical Slashdotter doesn't hate IE because it is technically inferior. While MS, like Netscape, has a tradition of breaking existing standards with proprietary extensions (ActiveX, special CSS features, VBScript etc.), their browser functions fairly well. There are several reasons not to use it:
You give Microsoft a lot of control over the content. Unlike many open-source projects, MS is for-profit, and the only reason they give a product of the size of IE away for free is that they plan to make money with the services they will gradually add. Smart Tags is the beginning of that. Every new user supports their position. Every IE user will eventually be a.NET/Passport user.
Digital Rights Management is of increasing relevance and requires broad support in many applications, especially in the webbrowser (detect copyright flags = don't download file). By giving Microsoft control, you effectively sign away your rights since it is a closed-source project and they may introduce such an extension any day.
Censorship standards such as PICS can only effectively be adopted in closed-source browsers such as IE which make it effectively impossible to remove them without violating the law (cf. CyberPatrol).
In a closed source development model, external security review of the browser, an essential component of any modern system, becomes impossible or hard. As the software grows more complex, you have to depend on Microsoft to fix all problems in time -- as compared to depending on a huge community of security specialists who can submit patches.
As you give more and more control to Microsoft, their proprietary extensions to the web will become a "de facto standard". Eventually they can say "80% of users support technology X" and market technology X that way. This makes it ever harder for competitors to give their users access to a majority of websites. In other words, using IE is the most obvious way to support a browser and OS monoculture. It not only ties you to the browser, it ties you to Windows as well.
IE is not free. Eventually you pay with your freedom of choice and your privacy. That's why we care about the browsers -- not because we hate IE itself (if you throw that much cash at a problem, you are almost bound to come up with a solution). Using IE means signing away your rights for convenience. If that is your choice, fine, but you're on a shaky moral ground if you want the rest of the community to think the same way ("report IE releases!").
Will KOffice support OpenOffice's XML-based file format for saving and loading documents? Besides supporting DOC, it seems like establishing an OS-wide open standard for formatted documents would go a long way to make Linux-based office tools more popular. As more and more apps use it, eventually, Word would have to provide an import filter, too.
Re:For every action, there is an equal and opposit
on
Quicktime In Linux
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· Score: 2
Whether you can handle command lines or not is not a simple question of what you "grow up with", although this does indeed play a major role. It is also a question of how your brain works. (Of course, if you really grow up with a certain GUI, this directly influences how your brain works.) Many, if not most people are very visual thinkers who need pictures and symbols and are easily confused by complex words and grammar. This is not a character flaw -- it is simply the result of a different learning environment. So GUIs make sense for many people. Linux has fairly decent GUIs by now, and it offers people a shell with a complex and logical "grammar". So it gives the user more choices, not less.
What has to happen is that the different layers of user experience have to be separated more clearly. Any user should still be able to configure procmail, compile his own kernel or set up a firewall or router, if he so desires, but if he doesn't, he must be able to use Linux day-to-day without ever having to deal with the "uglier" parts of the OS. This is gradually happening, but it is a process which is not yet complete (mostly because of Microsoft's monopoly stretches out to so many areas).
It's not a bug, it's intentional, to prevent users from posting very long strings that would make your browser show a horizontal scrollbar and mess up the page. If you want to use long URLs, put them in a link instead and they won't be touched (IIRC).
Yes, Linux has to be installed and tested. This should not be a big problem for large manufacturers with standardized PC series, though.
documentation and support cost
These are not necessary, e.g. "Compaq machines come with Linux as a dual-boot option. A lot of documentation is included in the/usr/doc directories. However, we only give support for the Windows configuration of your machine. If you desire Linux support, we suggest you call Redhat and ask for the special-priced Compaq support package.."
installer and boot-time software development
This is part of the installation costs. These are short-term costs that reduce long-term installation costs.
inclusion of CD-ROMs, and a few gigabytes off the hard disk.
Irrelevant.
If there's not customer demand
There is no demand if there is no information. Marketing creates demands by spreading information, some false, some true. An OEM could theoretically market Linux as an additional feature, with the "no support" provision. But Microsoft's licensing coerces them into not doing it. These are practices of a monopoly that must be stopped.
I dont feel like getting into a MS monopoly argument, so I am not going to say that MS isnt a monopoly, even though I believe they are not (and that the courts will eventually agree with me).
What a nice way to make a statement without having the facts or arguments to support it. "I don't feel like saying the Earth is flat, so I am not going to say it is, even though I believe it is, and most serious scientists will eventually agree with me."
What I will say is that MS, even *if* they are a monopoly and we assume so
What is a monopoly by your definition? Are 90% of the marketshare enough? 95%?
has done nothing to prevent you, the user
*beep* Wrong line of argument. Monopolies are not about direct coercion. Monopolies, while they do have immense market power, are not governments, otherwise they would be called governments. Monopolies, through accumulation of capital and mindshare, may be able to create a market in which it is impossible or very hard for competitors to thrive, even though this may be in the best interest of the consumers. Microsoft is such a monopoly.
"Freedom of choice" arguments sound nice and are exactly the kind of rhetoric you would expect a Microsoft-propagandist to employ -- however, they are fundamentally flawed in that they omit an essential factor that determines our decisions: information. By being a monopoly, Microsoft has the advantage (and, rarely, the disadvantage) of being the focus of all media attention. And they have loads of money to spend on propaganda, too. Your decision to use or not to use a Microsoft OS may be free of direct coercion, but it is certainly not free of manipulation. And because of the nature of an operating system, being the basis for all other software run on a computer, any program that is written exclusively for a Microsoft OS strengthens Microsoft's monopoly. Thus, any switchover can obviously only be gradual, with many people using two or more operating systems at the same time (which, incidentally, has been confirmed in a recent survey of 10000 Linux users, where only 38% used no other OS besides Linux -- even many professionals boot Windows NT or 2K together with Linux).
Linux is now in a position where it can actually compete with Windows in most fields, even in spite of Microsoft's market domination (a fact which lends tremendous support to arguments for open, patent-free software development). But consumers know little about Linux because of Microsoft's media domination, and they can't give it a try easily because of Microsoft's coercive OEM licensing. These are clearly practices of a monopoly by any reasonable definition, and they make it hard for the little competition to gain market share. Whether such practices are illegal under US antitrust law, I cannot say -- I care more about morals than about law. On the basis of morals, I can see no reasonable argument why the kind of coercive OEM licensing Microsoft uses should be allowed.
Before we get upset and assume that there is some sort of corporate conspiracy keeping multi-OS systems off the shelfs
Nice try. The OEM licenses are a well-established fact and not a conspiracy, but business-as-usual for Microsoft. Whether or not consumers want multiple OS is besides the point. The point is that Microsoft is clearly abusing its monopoly to gain a strong competitive advantage over other operating systems. This abuse must stop ASAP.
There is a dedicated Ogg Vorbis advocacy mailing list if you would like to help getting this patent-free format into mainstream usage. What can "normal" OGG users do? To quote myself, we can do lots of stuff:
spread the word about Ogg to our friends and family --
this is something that can obviously only be done on a
very individual level.
spread OGG files!:-) How about copyright-free speeches and
other archive material?
write tutorials and FAQs for newbies (check existing ones
first).
ask creators of cd burning software, cd-rippers, encoders etc.
to support/include OGG
ask creators of video codecs to include OGG for audio encoding
ask creators of video games to use OGG for their soundtracks
ask streaming media services to use OGG instead of MP3 or other
formats
ask radio stations to release archival material in OGG
ask the media to include OGG on bundled CD-ROMs instead of MP3s
encourage artists to spread their work in OGG / help them spread
their work if they use OGG
ask universities to release speeches and audiostreams in OGG
etc. etc. etc.
If you want to help, why not join the discussion and make some suggestions on how to actively promote OGG? You could be part of an important grass-roots movement here.
I agree entirely. Slashdot editors might argue that they see their site as a news outlet and not as a way to organize the community. But Slashdot hardly reports any news of its own anyway, and their editorial style is highly opinionated. Millions of people go to Slashdot with that knowledge, expecting to be informed about upcoming events of importance to people with a certain common mindset. Hemos' judgment was definitely extremely bad in this case, it's not very much of a stretch to say that he (involuntarily) sabotaged the protests. The protests were last mentioned on Friday - waaay to motivate folks to attend a rally on Monday.
A crisis such as this one is an important test case for Slashdot as an organizing medium for the tech community. In this instance, Slashdot has completely failed. Even just reporting about the protests would not have been enough, you need to motivate people to take part in such a protest shortly before it. Show images, link to videos, post a permanent story on the front page -- that singals importance. You have to reach people's emotions to get them off their asses (and for that, you have to get off your own ass, Hemos). Do you think CmdrTaco and Hemos will understand that? Or will anyone who points out their failure simply be moderated down? Slashdot is a site with great political potential -- but in spite of years in the making, it has failed to realize its potential so far.
Visitors only have a limited viewtime per day. Do you really want to give that all to Slashdot, if it degenerates into a fake community site primarily giving you a highly filtered digest of CNN, ZDNet, Wired News and press releases? If this is not a test case -- an unjust arrest, an unconstitutional law, rallies all over the nation --, then what is?
You may want to check out some alternatives:
Kuro5hin is a user-moderated community with a wide scope of topics (specific issue-related stories are usually voted up by the users if well-presented, stories are not typically one-liners like on Slashdot. I've never seen a really good story voted down on K5)
Advogato is a very open community with trust-based moderation that has often discussed issues related to information freedom
Indymedia is a leftist general community news outlet that sometimes has tech stories as well
Radio Userland allows you to automatically compile a personal digest from many web news-sources using RSS (Windows and MacOS) -- if Slashdot is only mainstream news, you might as well use a tool like this one
Wrong. The job of the astroturfer is to set up a fake grass-roots campaign by spreading his employer's propaganda wherever he goes. If it's done right, the meme replicates itself at a certain point. Cf. "global warming=myth", "smokers' rights", "freedom to innovate" and soon "GPL=contagious". That doesn't mean it's no longer astroturf -- it's just very efficient astroturf.
Idiot. Sort the posts by score and then check which ones are moderated highest. Pro-Microsoft astroturf. The worst part is that most of it is probably not even paid.
I don't think the instrumentation on these probes really is advanced enough
Voyager is more advanced than anything that NASA has produced lately. Pathfinder was a joke, not to talk about the failures that followed. It is doubtful whether with "faster, better, cheaper" Goldin in power, NASA would manage to build another Voyager, let alone a more advanced probe. I'm happy that they keep listening to it at all.
But if we get something decent built in the next decades, we might as well send a probe to 550 AU and use the sun as a gravitational lens for SETI. Talk about alien TV stations..
(Typical cell phone melody, see here for more.) People who think that such information should be copyrightable are a danger to society. This is one of the many, many cases that outlines the idiocy of the concept of "intellectual property", the idea of monopolizing the information space.
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Re:What's next, royalties when I whistle alone?
on
Ring-Tone Royalties
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· Score: 4
The problem is that in many countries "software" and "hardware" are not split into different categories (sometimes even mixed together). A famous German lawyer goes after everyone who links to a program called "FTP-Explorer" because his client has another program called "Explorer". He has even made a license agreement with Microsoft, but he usually goes after Joe Schmoe's private homepage ("my favorite FTP clients: links" = infringement). People have to stop linking to the "infringing" site and pay $1000 in fees, it's really quite a lucrative business. There have also been cases in Germany where people have been successfully sued for including certain names / words in meta-tags. More information here (German).
You can read more about the Betamax decision here. The Home Recording Rights Coalition still works to protect fair use against corporations, but the EFF seems to be better equipped for the "Digital Millennium" (yuck).
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Don't let robots take our place
on
Robo Sapiens
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· Score: 1
Defend humanity! Join the Anti Robot Milita today! It's your choice: humanity or slavery! Don't let robots make monkeys out of us!
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you think MS spent millions developing IE and doesn't charge you for downloading it? Are they a charity?
The typical Slashdotter doesn't hate IE because it is technically inferior. While MS, like Netscape, has a tradition of breaking existing standards with proprietary extensions (ActiveX, special CSS features, VBScript etc.), their browser functions fairly well. There are several reasons not to use it:
IE is not free. Eventually you pay with your freedom of choice and your privacy. That's why we care about the browsers -- not because we hate IE itself (if you throw that much cash at a problem, you are almost bound to come up with a solution). Using IE means signing away your rights for convenience. If that is your choice, fine, but you're on a shaky moral ground if you want the rest of the community to think the same way ("report IE releases!").
Will KOffice support OpenOffice's XML-based file format for saving and loading documents? Besides supporting DOC, it seems like establishing an OS-wide open standard for formatted documents would go a long way to make Linux-based office tools more popular. As more and more apps use it, eventually, Word would have to provide an import filter, too.
What has to happen is that the different layers of user experience have to be separated more clearly. Any user should still be able to configure procmail, compile his own kernel or set up a firewall or router, if he so desires, but if he doesn't, he must be able to use Linux day-to-day without ever having to deal with the "uglier" parts of the OS. This is gradually happening, but it is a process which is not yet complete (mostly because of Microsoft's monopoly stretches out to so many areas).
It's not a bug, it's intentional, to prevent users from posting very long strings that would make your browser show a horizontal scrollbar and mess up the page. If you want to use long URLs, put them in a link instead and they won't be touched (IIRC).
Do you or do you not agree that the coercive OEM licensing is a major competitive factor?
Yes, Linux has to be installed and tested. This should not be a big problem for large manufacturers with standardized PC series, though.
documentation and support cost
These are not necessary, e.g. "Compaq machines come with Linux as a dual-boot option. A lot of documentation is included in the /usr/doc directories. However, we only give support for the Windows configuration of your machine. If you desire Linux support, we suggest you call Redhat and ask for the special-priced Compaq support package .."
installer and boot-time software development
This is part of the installation costs. These are short-term costs that reduce long-term installation costs.
inclusion of CD-ROMs, and a few gigabytes off the hard disk.
Irrelevant.
If there's not customer demand
There is no demand if there is no information. Marketing creates demands by spreading information, some false, some true. An OEM could theoretically market Linux as an additional feature, with the "no support" provision. But Microsoft's licensing coerces them into not doing it. These are practices of a monopoly that must be stopped.
What a nice way to make a statement without having the facts or arguments to support it. "I don't feel like saying the Earth is flat, so I am not going to say it is, even though I believe it is, and most serious scientists will eventually agree with me."
What I will say is that MS, even *if* they are a monopoly and we assume so
What is a monopoly by your definition? Are 90% of the marketshare enough? 95%?
has done nothing to prevent you, the user
*beep* Wrong line of argument. Monopolies are not about direct coercion. Monopolies, while they do have immense market power, are not governments, otherwise they would be called governments. Monopolies, through accumulation of capital and mindshare, may be able to create a market in which it is impossible or very hard for competitors to thrive, even though this may be in the best interest of the consumers. Microsoft is such a monopoly.
"Freedom of choice" arguments sound nice and are exactly the kind of rhetoric you would expect a Microsoft-propagandist to employ -- however, they are fundamentally flawed in that they omit an essential factor that determines our decisions: information. By being a monopoly, Microsoft has the advantage (and, rarely, the disadvantage) of being the focus of all media attention. And they have loads of money to spend on propaganda, too. Your decision to use or not to use a Microsoft OS may be free of direct coercion, but it is certainly not free of manipulation. And because of the nature of an operating system, being the basis for all other software run on a computer, any program that is written exclusively for a Microsoft OS strengthens Microsoft's monopoly. Thus, any switchover can obviously only be gradual, with many people using two or more operating systems at the same time (which, incidentally, has been confirmed in a recent survey of 10000 Linux users, where only 38% used no other OS besides Linux -- even many professionals boot Windows NT or 2K together with Linux).
Linux is now in a position where it can actually compete with Windows in most fields, even in spite of Microsoft's market domination (a fact which lends tremendous support to arguments for open, patent-free software development). But consumers know little about Linux because of Microsoft's media domination, and they can't give it a try easily because of Microsoft's coercive OEM licensing. These are clearly practices of a monopoly by any reasonable definition, and they make it hard for the little competition to gain market share. Whether such practices are illegal under US antitrust law, I cannot say -- I care more about morals than about law. On the basis of morals, I can see no reasonable argument why the kind of coercive OEM licensing Microsoft uses should be allowed.
Nice try. The OEM licenses are a well-established fact and not a conspiracy, but business-as-usual for Microsoft. Whether or not consumers want multiple OS is besides the point. The point is that Microsoft is clearly abusing its monopoly to gain a strong competitive advantage over other operating systems. This abuse must stop ASAP.
No problems on Opera (5.11) here, using Win NT 4.0.
If you want to help, why not join the discussion and make some suggestions on how to actively promote OGG? You could be part of an important grass-roots movement here.
A crisis such as this one is an important test case for Slashdot as an organizing medium for the tech community. In this instance, Slashdot has completely failed. Even just reporting about the protests would not have been enough, you need to motivate people to take part in such a protest shortly before it. Show images, link to videos, post a permanent story on the front page -- that singals importance. You have to reach people's emotions to get them off their asses (and for that, you have to get off your own ass, Hemos). Do you think CmdrTaco and Hemos will understand that? Or will anyone who points out their failure simply be moderated down? Slashdot is a site with great political potential -- but in spite of years in the making, it has failed to realize its potential so far.
Visitors only have a limited viewtime per day. Do you really want to give that all to Slashdot, if it degenerates into a fake community site primarily giving you a highly filtered digest of CNN, ZDNet, Wired News and press releases? If this is not a test case -- an unjust arrest, an unconstitutional law, rallies all over the nation --, then what is?
You may want to check out some alternatives:
Others?
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It's been 42 seconds since your last lawsuit.
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Voyager is more advanced than anything that NASA has produced lately. Pathfinder was a joke, not to talk about the failures that followed. It is doubtful whether with "faster, better, cheaper" Goldin in power, NASA would manage to build another Voyager, let alone a more advanced probe. I'm happy that they keep listening to it at all.
But if we get something decent built in the next decades, we might as well send a probe to 550 AU and use the sun as a gravitational lens for SETI. Talk about alien TV stations ..
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"8#g2 8e2 8#g2 8#c3 4a2 4- 8#f2 8#d2 8#f2 8b2 4#g2 8#f2 8e2 4- 8e2 8#c2 4#f2 4#c2 4- 8#f2 8e2 4#g2 4#f2"
(Typical cell phone melody, see here for more.) People who think that such information should be copyrightable are a danger to society. This is one of the many, many cases that outlines the idiocy of the concept of "intellectual property", the idea of monopolizing the information space.
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The article doesn't say who Felton is. Who is it?
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Not if challenging the patent is more expensive than licensing it.
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