that's exactly what I've found myself doing. I've got a reseller just a couple blocks from my house and can put together used systems, with monitor, for about $250. I'm looking into the Walmart computers because I think I can now do better with *new* equipment, or with the newest generation of integrated motherboards build from scratch at the same price with higher quality.
I then install a "personal" Linux distro ( right now a heavily modified Mandrake/KDE, but I'm working on a "from scratch" version) that I've found includes just what the average 'Joe/Mary' is expecting from their system. . . and nothing else, which is *also* what I've found they expect. ("Why the hell do I have seven console programs, and why do I need a commercial grade web server to play Tetris?) If at a future time they feel their needs have changed I just pop in whatever it is they want.
Simple, bullet proof and so far not one *single* complaint about Linux being too 'hard' or 'geeky.'
Not even a single complaint about not being able to run Quicken. I don't know about your friends and family, but *my* friends and family already know how to balance their checkbooks and don't appreciate being treated like morons by inanimate objects.
Back about 1985 I started saying that I hoped the software 'industry' understood their market had a very limited lifespan. Once Word Processors actually work, well, that's the end of the WP software industry.
What's more, people won't have to even buy one. Once the concepts are public literally anyone who wishes to take the time can right them and distribute them for free.
In fact, I went on, the single biggest problem Micro Soft (remember those guys?) faces is the fact that by the turn of the century even operating systems will have an effective market value of $0.
It was entirely predictable and, give or take a few years here or there, I pretty much nailed it.
Of course what I didn't count on was the sheer marketing power the big guys have been able to bring to bear. The average Joe is completely unaware that software has zero effective 'value' these days and continues to pay through the nose for it.
But they *are* at least begining to realize that what they already have works to their satisfaction. The upgrade cycle depends on customer *dissatisfaction.*
Well hey, if the car still runs make the customer dissatisfied with the size of its tailfins. Hence transparent widgets being hailed as a major breakthrough in 'technology.'
Well, I hate to tell the computer 'industry' this, but while this may work with a the younger crowd for a while your grandma already knows how to suck eggs better than you do. She remembers the invention of planned obselesence. She bought into it before you were born, and learned the folly of it, again, before you were born.
When your market consists entirely of people waiting with 'bated breath for the next release of the latest and greatest gee gaw you're ok, but when your market moves to Walmart and the nations grannies it's a whole new ball game. Granny just wants to buy it, take it home, and have it work, and if it does. . . well, that's pretty much it for her, she's done.
Have you *seen* the sort of books they have in libraries? Some of them have every single *one* of the words you can't say on television in them.
Not to mention all the un-Christian/Islamic/Jewish/Buddhist/Zoroastrian texts packing the shelves. Some of them, I know you're going to find this hard to believe, are even *un-American!* Why, I myself found a copy of the Communist Manifesto *right out in the open.*
Don't even get me going on the photography or "art" departments. ( The very existence of which vilolates the precepts of major religous groups)
A public library is the primary weapon in the arsenal of freedom. Is it any wonder that most people and all governments are, at least in some respects, agin 'em?
already obey my every whim when I interact with them. They are my virtual comunications slaves.
Why, I can literally * push their buttons* and they respond as I will, when I will them too.
Frankly I find the idea of having to make "eye contact" with an inanimate object kind of creepy.
I can just see it now, I've made "eye contact" with a sweet young thing, she turns out to be compliant, we handshake, interface and we're just about to get to the good parts involving "sockets" when she "makes eye contact" ( today's catch phrase for "look at") with me and says:
"Not in front of the phone. I can't do it with someone watching."
needing to get out of the lab more. They tend to get myopic. They can't see past the walls and they take their study subjects and culture as universal truths.
Sometimes this leads to problems down the road when any schlub on the street could have told them the problem right off the bat.
I'd say these lab boys need to go out and make some eye contact with people.
Mr. Kruschev did not take off his shoe and bang it angrily on the table.
Oh, he banged a shoe angrily on the table all right, but *he didn't take it off.*
If you examine film footage of the event very carefully you'll notice one very interesting fact, Senor Kruschev is *wearing both his shoes.*
Messr. Kruschev was not just some angry ape given to bizarre fits of pique. One did not survive under the Stalinist purges to rise to party leadership by not being a very clever, perceptive and *manipulative* man.
The Honorable Kruschev actually *brought a shoe to the meeting hall with him* with the express intent of banging it on the table! The whole thing was cleverly staged.
Notice that the words 'beautiful people' were enclosed in these things ''. That's because the words are not to be interpreted literally.
"Beautiful People" are not necessarily "attractive people."
BS is, in fact, a prime example of that. She is the nearly the perfect example of what a 'beautiful person' is, even though she has a face a horse couldn't love, even if it were her mother.
The term 'beautiful people' is what is know as an *idiom.* An idiom is a word or phrase who's meaning is not literal. Idiom's make translation from one language to another a hellish undertaking at times and explains some of the more bizarre behaviours of the fish.
As it happens fame is one of the things that might make one 'beautiful' . . . no matter one's looks. Financial status, jetsetting, aquaintences, where you summer and a number of other factors go into making one 'beautiful.'
Oh, and clothes of course. 'Beautiful people' wholeheartedly believe the maxim "Clothes make the man." If your clothes are beautiful *you* are beautiful.
At the opposite extreme, and relying on a fictional charecter ( but real person )Kelly Bundy was hot, sexy and otherwise extremely attractive. Kelly Bundy was not a 'beautiful person.' Kelly Bundy was a tramp. Kelly Bundy would not be allowed to serve a beautiful person tea. . . unless maybe she were wearing Gucci.
Believe it or not there are actually hard core, fully dedicated gamers who's lives revolve around. ..an older game or two.
For me it's RB3D and especially Grand Prix Legends, a game now over four years old.
The mini ITX looks just the LAN party ticket for these games, in fact, I'm intending to use one of these boards built into a custom pedal set to make a "PCless" PC. Everything will just plug in to the pedal set base.
It's small enough and some "super" joysticks are now big enough that you could do something very similar with a joystick base. 7"x7" Joystick base, very stable, lets you rest your hands on it for extra stability AND. . . contains the entire PC!
the *consumer* need to "work together." One of the ways this can be accomplished is through a free market. It's not the best imaginable system. It's adversariale to an extent and definately a bit on the tempestuous side now and again. . . like now.
But. ..there's no such thing as a free lunch. I'll accept that statement for the sake of argument. It cuts *both ways* Georgie boy. You have to earn your lunch. Your costomer buys it for you, in exchange for goods and services.
The "consumer's" money belongs to the consumer. It isn't yours. You don't "deserve" it. You have to earn it under true contractual terms wherein both sides of the contract receive fair and equitable exchange for freely voluntary participation in the deal.
This means that to get the consumer's money you have to offer them what they want, when they want it, how they want it and at a *price* they are fully, freely and happily willing to pay.
If it is not done this way then in the multi-hundred year history of contract the deal *isn't legitimately valid.*
The "cooperation of media and tech" is nothing more and nothing less than a cabal formed against the ultimate source of "lunch" and business power. . . your customers ( do you remember that word? Have you looked it up in a dictionary lately? It's a very important word Georgie boy).
As a "consumer" all I can say to this is " Stick it up your Star Wars whoring butt George."
I play musical instruments, as do many of my friends. I can write my own songs. I can download Dumas ( where you ripped off all your "ideas" anyway. Can you say "Three Musketeers in Space"? I KNEW you could Georgie boy, in fact, you already did, didn't you?) from Project Guttenburg and get hundreds of hours of superior entertainment for free in a format you can't control. ..words.
The "media industry" isn't the only source of "content" in the world.
Watch yourselves carefully or you just might end up at the soup kitchen begging for a "free lunch."
"Michael's a salesman, pure and simple. He speaks with passion and he makes you love him and his company "
And salesman who can't, or don't, deliver soon become reviled by the same "converts" they made with their silver tounges and monkey dances.
The "pitch" only makes the first sale. The product still makes the customer. Give a good pitch and deliver as promised you now have a customer. Give a good pitch and deliver a product that doesn't deliver and the "customer" feels like a rube who's been taken by the silver tounged devil. If that "devil" is the company president you now not only don't have a customer, but someone who will make it a personal mission to badmouth the company to anyone and everyone who will listen. . . and they'll be taken seriously.
What's more, these people can *never* be recovered, no matter what the company does in the future.
American corporations seem to believe that marketing makes the company these days. It just ain't so, never had been, never will.
Proctor & Gamble are the marketing masters of this or any age. Because of this they sell a *lot* of soap. ..but the soap *works!* If it didn't they would have ceased to exist long, long ago.
Sooner or later it still comes down to the steak, no matter what kind of "sizzle" you sell it with.
Hey, I'm the "black sheep" scientist in a family of stuff hanging in museums type artists. I do have an ex-wife ( hey, some of us geeks not only get married, we do it more than once:) ) who could write assembler in her head though, and *enjoyed* it. Hell of a looker too, of the jaw dropping triple take kind. Couple of more geek stereotypes shot to hell. We can get the hottest women, or we can *be* the hottest women.
I actually made my living for a number of years as a singer/songwriter/composer, so I've got my own kind of artistic streak going too I guess, and I've always "gone" for the artistic types . ..with sharp, sharp minds.
Anyways sonny, don't give yourself airs. Why in *my* day as a Nuclear Physicist(theoretical) we didn't *have* degress in "software engineering" (and would have considered it an oxymoron anyway:) ), it was just something we did on the side in a spare part of our brain during our "spare" time. . . with a soldering iron.
Ok, I exagerated that last part a bit, but only a bit. I actually do vaguely remember making a "small" ( that is to say not very many bits, it was quite large geographically speaking ) digital computer by hand wiring *vacuum tubes* into bistable multivibrators. It was a kick to turn that puppy on and watch the lab lights dim while the tubes glowed. Plus you could keep your lunch warm in it.
I also vaguely remember using an abacus too. Doesn't mean I *had* to do either. I was the very last generation to go to university with a slide rule though. God bless Texas Instruments.
Anyway, I do actually wish more programers were actually smarter, all around, or at least learn their bloody maths so we wouldn't have to keep dealing with new programing languages designed to " take the math out of programing" . . . as if *that* were possible. I miss APL. I like standard mathmatical notation protocols. It's how I think.
On the whole though most creative writers I know are smarter people than most programers I know . . . ummmmmm, not including *anyone* here at Slashdot of course. As a matter of fact Linus has always impressed me as a pretty sharp guy not for the code he's written but for the words he's written . ..in a tounge that isn't even his native one.
Australia kinda jumps right out at you, being kinda big and all alone in the ocean and stuff. ..and China, well, that was a bit harder, but not much, the atlas people seem to have made a special point of highlighting it, they seem to think it's kinda important or something, but for the life of me. . . where the hell is Snowboard?
Is that a yes or a no? It's hard to tell. I'd have to guess by your qualification of "the majority of cases" that it's a *yes.*
Nor were we contextually discussing the majority of cases so I'm left to assume you took this as an opportunity to make your point irrespective of the topic, per se.
I can tell you for sure that if I were a Chinese government agency the idea of running propriatary American code would spook the living bejeezus out of me. I'd also put forth as a hypothesis that * the government of China* has a peck of programer power at its beck and call. Just as an educated guess mind you.
There are crack programers beyond the American shores. Linus is a Finn. Alan Cox is English. The two most obvious cases that come to mind.
The Chinese developed the A-bomb, H-bomb and ICBM's all without American aid at all. I'd hazard they've got a person or two who can manage to find their way around in postgres and Abiword. I'd wager even their lowliest "steno pool girls" could manage to whack out a memo in vi. Just because it's become culturally "de riguer" in Santa Monica to pass "meet me for lunch" notes as PowerPoint presentations doesn't mean the whole world works to those standards.
Governments are one of the *prime* "customers" for which having source is more often a valuable feature than otherwise.
As for point of sale systems that, oddly enough, is a field I've actually worked in. Point of Sales systems are almost *invariably* developed in house, either as a propriatary product for resale to vendors, or by the vendors themselves. One of the reasons MS has begun it's "shared code" program is directly due to the demand from such developers for code access. Point of Sale systems have been one of the fields that open source OS's have made the greatest inroads into specifically because of the availability of code down to the lowest level. Developers of Point of Sales systems aren't "abandoned" of support. It's *their* code. What worries them most is being dicked around by *their OS supplier.* What's more, those vendors that buy their Point of Sale systems from a developer almost invariably * demand source* as part of the sales contract to protect themselves in case the supplier goes under.
Point of Sales was perhaps the worst example you could have chosen.
Now the fact of the matter is that I don't give a hoot about actually having the source code to vim personally. I guess this is "the majority of cases" you're talking about.
On the other hand, because vim *is* open source and uses open formats for its output * it doesn't matter a hoot to me* if the developers "abandon" it. Transfering my data to a new "vendors" product takes. ..well, no time at all actually. Not to mention the fact that if it's "abandoned" * it still works.*
You see, most of the time people suffer when a code maintainer has abandoned them is *because* the code and it's file formats are propriatary!
Ironically in my own businesses I've more often suffered *because* the code maintainer of a propriatary bit of software kit continued to "develop" it.
Trust me on this one. I know. If you're running your *own* small business and the cost of your software being "maintained" by a propriatary vendor is coming out of your *own* pocket instead of going to food on your table you become really, really aware of the "feature" that Open Source software offers.
emacs doesn't break. emacs writes perfectly good internal memos and business letters. I've never had an ascii text file rejected because someone couldn't open it under their OS. ascii doesn't change its "file format" every three years to force me to buy a new text processor. If I need a "feature" in emacs I can either add it myself or have one of my people do it ( I hire smart people). If I need something fancier than plain text emacs produces nifty HTML and XHTML.
Just one download and I had all my text processing needs taken care of, essentially, forever!
I rather fancy the government of China has considered *these very issues.*
What is the number one "feature" most people claim for MS Office. Why, that it shares files with . . . MS Office.
Well, if you are a government, and you have the power of fiat to declare yourself MS free. ..that "feature" kinda goes "Poof," don't it?
All of a sudden Kword looks mighty tasty. ..and it works! Hell, if they stopped "maintaining" it it could even be a boon because now you'ld have a working and *long term stable* product.
But then, as you have the grace to admit in your closing, you weren't talking about facts anyway. Now were you?
the hypothesis that being Open Source (tm) is one of the things that can be legitimately considered as one of the parameters to decide whether it's "the right tool for the job"?
Indeed that being Open Source (tm) is a possible *feature* that might be valued?
the majority of Linux users have never even *heard* of The Linux Counter. Look at how small the total numbers are compared to the number of actual Linux users. In fact I'll walk farther out on the limb and postit that for the "average" Linux user today if it ain't in the Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE manual it don't exist. They buy the box at the store, they install it, they run it... and that sums up their involvement with Linux. If they need support they get it from their vendor, not usenet or even Linuxnewbie. If a package isn't available from their vendor. ..it don't exist. They sure as shootin' don't do LFS. Probably havn't heard of Kuro5in or even Slashdot if it comes to that.
Linux is quietly more mainstream than I think even most Linux users are prepared to admit.
I'd wager that the average Slack, Debian, "Others" user ( I favor Others myself) is the sort far more inclined to "participate" as well. Redhat/Mandrake ( and I think it's still fair to use that catagory in the context of this discussion) still wins going away.
your friends. Or my friends either. *Our* friends are among the most likely to use Slack, Debian or BSD. It's a biased sample.
This may come as a shock to you but most Linux users haven't even *heard* of any of the three. Hell, I've even had to introduce a couple of friends who were Linux *sysadmins* to them.
Why do you think so many people have to say so many times " Linux != Redhat"?
I'm "old school" enough to have learned my way about UNIX decades before Linux existed, back when Kernigan & Ritchie was *the* manual. Slack is great, Slack is good. So is Debian.
But the fact remains that most people who use Slack or Debian don't even know they're doing it. They got it wrapped in a new "package" by some other vendor. . . and none of *those* vendors are "major" either. Why do you think "United Linux" was formed?
The people who try to estimate the Linux market who take as their sample *all* Linux users say Redhat and Redhat derived distros account for over 90% of all Linux users. I don't use Redhat. I have no religious axe to grind on that score. I'm prepared to take their estimates seriously.
Yes, yes. I know. Those estimates have all sorts of holes in them. I'm aware of the holes and how they got there. I still think, even with the holes and resulting overestimates, that Redhat absolutely dominates the "user market."
When us "old school" Linux users first used Slack it was cutting edge and dominated the market. The majority of people using Slack, not *all* mind you, just the majority, are us "old schoolers" and perhaps their "pupils."
Times change. Us "old schoolers" number only in the thousands. Tens of millions of people now use Linux.
On the whole they don't use Slack. ..OR Debian, OR BSD.
I've thought about the Linux "market." I've been thinking about it for years. This is what I've concluded.
Perhaps you conclude differently. That's ok. Die Gedanken sind frei!
As in speach. ..AND beer. You get what you pay for, even in Linux.:)
The first one was an article a friend of mine wrote. It was a good article. It was an article apropos to certain Slashdot stories, the sort you might legitimately link to in a post, but I didn't think it was a Slashdot story in itself. It was just an op-ed piece, commentary on News for Nerds, but in itself news worthy.
He e-mailed me and asked me if I'd submit it. Ok, he's a friend, I submited it. Lo and behold. ..it was rejected. Go figure.
The second story was one I ran across and thought was absolutely nerdfully *cool!* I submited it. Lo and behold. . . it got accepted!
The third story, ok, less nerdfully cool than the other, but ultimately more important really. I submited it. Lo and behold. ..it got accepted, BUT. . . not under my byline.
So how am I doing, submission percentage wise?
Here's where it all goes apropos on us. A got a story accepted under my byline. A story I thought ought to be on Slashdot ended up on Slashdot and. ..a story I didn't think belonged on Slashdot didn't get on Slashdot.
As far as I'm concerned I'm batting a thousand. The story I didn't simply get credit for but thought was deserving the editors thought was deserving as well. My "taste" at least was true. * And the same goes for the story that was rejected.* I knew it should be rejected. My *taste* was true.
"Rejection" isn't always *rejection.* If more people would learn the difference between the two the world would run a lot smoother.
Someone's patch was rejected. They didn't care to listen to *why* it was rejected. The end result is that *they* ended up being rejected as well, for their *behaviour,* although they seem to have a hard time grasping this simple concept.
They have been told explicitly how to regain acceptence of both their patch and themselves.
It's up to them to prove wise enough. Linus ain't going to do it for them, nor should he have to.
Linus handed out free balls to everyone. As many as they wanted. *Then* he made sure they had *free* tools for duplicating or modifying their balls at will, ad infinitum, plus the right to distribute these balls in "competition" with the ones he was giving away for free and start their own games.
Now some people seem to be complaining that they aren't happy with the ball he gave them, they want *his* ball. They don't want to make the rules for their own game, they want him to play with *his* ball and *his* friends to *their* rules.
I've known people like that.
They're generally refered to as *assholes* by the general populace.
Linus was responding in a mature and adult way to *adults* who were behaving as children who always want what someone *else* has.
Did he mention it was *his* nine times? Why would he do something like that? Perhaps because. . . are you ready for it? Because it's his?
*They already have their own.* Linus gave it to them.
If you give me a car, any car I want, and all the tools, parts and materials to modify it as I will are you suggesting that *you* would be childish for refusing to comply with my *demand* that you paint yours plaid and glue an elephant to its roof?
Hell, this opens up whole new vistas of possibilities. I think tomorrow I'll get old Bill on the blower and demand that the next version of Windows be Linux based, and if he refuses to comply. . . why, of course he's just being childish.
it would be hard to catagorize Slack as a "major" vendor these days.
Now look, don't shoot me yet. It's simply true. It's a very small outfit and their product is used by a comparitively few. That's just he way it is.
They pefer to stay small, away from the commercial mainstream as such and all that entails. They cater to a particular hardcore, loyal and *sophisticated* "market segment" that wants what Slack provides. Patrick has stated this explicitly.
Now, again before you shoot me, this is " A good thing" (tm). I'm not knocking them. I'm praising them. Markets need these small outfits catering to the "oddballs," as it were. Bigger is not always best, small *is* beautiful. Not being a Fortune 500 company does NOT mean you're a "failure."
If you shoot at a target and hit the bullseye you've succeded, no matter what anyone says.
"Just imagine what happens when a "regular Joe" thinks he is the smartest guy on Earth..."
As Mr. Vonnegut once wrote, the problem with really stupid people is that they're too stupid to realize there's such a thing as smart.
Now, I'd further suggest that it actually doesn't take the greatest brain in the world to write code. It does take some modicum of training and experience, yes, but not real smarts. I've personally known some people I would consider rather less than mediocre in the brains department who make a living writing code. Not great code true, not code as *art*, but at least decent code.
(Don't get all huffy on me yet, I know that *we* certainly don't fit into that catagory, dear Reader)
I'd further suggest that many of these people *believe* they are smart simply because they write code. Why by golly they're bonafide *programers,* which we all know is the elite of the elite of the elite of the smart. Them Nuke-you-leer fizzycists have nothin' on 'em.
Enter Mr. Vonnegut.
Enter people who whine to Linus that they somehow have the right to demand their projects being interjected into *his* code.
At least that's my theory at the moment. Come back later. I'll have several more if you don't like that one.
over other *nix's though is that there are no such "defaults." Everybody rolls their own. Ain't it cool? I've used a number of small distros, for various advantages they held, that did *not* include gcc as a default and by not doing so performed certain design parameters of the distro all the better for it.
gcc is *typically* installed by default by the major distros. There is something of a "protocol" to do so ( and even then a couple of distros aimed at the desktop newbie have also failed to include it at all, even as an install option).
No matter what though, even if it isn't included with your distro as an *option* at install you can always just go download it.
Now *THAT* is what is the coolest about Free/Open/Artistic/Whatever software.
of the Tacoma Narrows bridge falling. The *fault* was with the design, and hence, the designers.
An extended bolt puncturing the gas tank during a rear end collision was the *cause* of Ford Pintos exploding. The *fault* was with the design, and hence, the designers.
Both of these items could have been claimed to be perfectly free of design flaws while being used as "intended."
This argument did not help the designers in not being found liable for their design flaws.
The divide by zero error was the *cause* of the operating system's failure. The *fault* was with the operating system. The *operating system* crashed. An operating system failure is *always* the fault of the operating system, and hence, its designers.
Read any textbook on the design of operating systems and in the first page or two you find some sort of statement along the line of, " A faulty app should never cause the operating system to fail." This is correct design.
Let me repeat. If an app fails, it is the fault of the app. If the operating system fails, no matter what an app has done, it is the fault of the operating system. An operating system must *assume* apps badly written by complete incompetents.
It doesn't matter what operating system. Windows, Linux, Mac or just the beads on your abacus.
* It is the responsibiltiy of the operating system not to fail.*
The fact that such failures can be explained away as the fault of the app by people who should know better makes me grieve for the state of engineering these days. It can only result in products being produced with greater and greater "craposity" factors eventually resulting in a culture of complete "crapitude."
Slashdot Mirror
"Base 8 is just like base 10 really. . .if you're missing 2 fingers."
KFG
that's exactly what I've found myself doing. I've got a reseller just a couple blocks from my house and can put together used systems, with monitor, for about $250. I'm looking into the Walmart computers because I think I can now do better with *new* equipment, or with the newest generation of integrated motherboards build from scratch at the same price with higher quality.
I then install a "personal" Linux distro ( right now a heavily modified Mandrake/KDE, but I'm working on a "from scratch" version) that I've found includes just what the average 'Joe/Mary' is expecting from their system. . . and nothing else, which is *also* what I've found they expect. ("Why the hell do I have seven console programs, and why do I need a commercial grade web server to play Tetris?) If at a future time they feel their needs have changed I just pop in whatever it is they want.
Simple, bullet proof and so far not one *single* complaint about Linux being too 'hard' or 'geeky.'
Not even a single complaint about not being able to run Quicken. I don't know about your friends and family, but *my* friends and family already know how to balance their checkbooks and don't appreciate being treated like morons by inanimate objects.
KFG
Back about 1985 I started saying that I hoped the software 'industry' understood their market had a very limited lifespan. Once Word Processors actually work, well, that's the end of the WP software industry.
What's more, people won't have to even buy one. Once the concepts are public literally anyone who wishes to take the time can right them and distribute them for free.
In fact, I went on, the single biggest problem Micro Soft (remember those guys?) faces is the fact that by the turn of the century even operating systems will have an effective market value of $0.
It was entirely predictable and, give or take a few years here or there, I pretty much nailed it.
Of course what I didn't count on was the sheer marketing power the big guys have been able to bring to bear. The average Joe is completely unaware that software has zero effective 'value' these days and continues to pay through the nose for it.
But they *are* at least begining to realize that what they already have works to their satisfaction. The upgrade cycle depends on customer *dissatisfaction.*
Well hey, if the car still runs make the customer dissatisfied with the size of its tailfins. Hence transparent widgets being hailed as a major breakthrough in 'technology.'
Well, I hate to tell the computer 'industry' this, but while this may work with a the younger crowd for a while your grandma already knows how to suck eggs better than you do. She remembers the invention of planned obselesence. She bought into it before you were born, and learned the folly of it, again, before you were born.
When your market consists entirely of people waiting with 'bated breath for the next release of the latest and greatest gee gaw you're ok, but when your market moves to Walmart and the nations grannies it's a whole new ball game. Granny just wants to buy it, take it home, and have it work, and if it does. . . well, that's pretty much it for her, she's done.
And so are you computer 'industry.'
KFG
Have you *seen* the sort of books they have in libraries? Some of them have every single *one* of the words you can't say on television in them.
Not to mention all the un-Christian/Islamic/Jewish/Buddhist/Zoroastrian texts packing the shelves. Some of them, I know you're going to find this hard to believe, are even *un-American!* Why, I myself found a copy of the Communist Manifesto *right out in the open.*
Don't even get me going on the photography or "art" departments. ( The very existence of which vilolates the precepts of major religous groups)
A public library is the primary weapon in the arsenal of freedom. Is it any wonder that most people and all governments are, at least in some respects, agin 'em?
KFG
already obey my every whim when I interact with them. They are my virtual comunications slaves.
Why, I can literally * push their buttons* and they respond as I will, when I will them too.
Frankly I find the idea of having to make "eye contact" with an inanimate object kind of creepy.
I can just see it now, I've made "eye contact" with a sweet young thing, she turns out to be compliant, we handshake, interface and we're just about to get to the good parts involving "sockets" when she "makes eye contact" ( today's catch phrase for "look at") with me and says:
"Not in front of the phone. I can't do it with someone watching."
KFG
needing to get out of the lab more. They tend to get myopic. They can't see past the walls and they take their study subjects and culture as universal truths.
Sometimes this leads to problems down the road when any schlub on the street could have told them the problem right off the bat.
I'd say these lab boys need to go out and make some eye contact with people.
KFG
Mr. Kruschev did not take off his shoe and bang it angrily on the table.
Oh, he banged a shoe angrily on the table all right, but *he didn't take it off.*
If you examine film footage of the event very carefully you'll notice one very interesting fact, Senor Kruschev is *wearing both his shoes.*
Messr. Kruschev was not just some angry ape given to bizarre fits of pique. One did not survive under the Stalinist purges to rise to party leadership by not being a very clever, perceptive and *manipulative* man.
The Honorable Kruschev actually *brought a shoe to the meeting hall with him* with the express intent of banging it on the table! The whole thing was cleverly staged.
KFG
Notice that the words 'beautiful people' were enclosed in these things ''. That's because the words are not to be interpreted literally.
"Beautiful People" are not necessarily "attractive people."
BS is, in fact, a prime example of that. She is the nearly the perfect example of what a 'beautiful person' is, even though she has a face a horse couldn't love, even if it were her mother.
The term 'beautiful people' is what is know as an *idiom.* An idiom is a word or phrase who's meaning is not literal. Idiom's make translation from one language to another a hellish undertaking at times and explains some of the more bizarre behaviours of the fish.
As it happens fame is one of the things that might make one 'beautiful' . . . no matter one's looks. Financial status, jetsetting, aquaintences, where you summer and a number of other factors go into making one 'beautiful.'
Oh, and clothes of course. 'Beautiful people' wholeheartedly believe the maxim "Clothes make the man." If your clothes are beautiful *you* are beautiful.
At the opposite extreme, and relying on a fictional charecter ( but real person )Kelly Bundy was hot, sexy and otherwise extremely attractive. Kelly Bundy was not a 'beautiful person.' Kelly Bundy was a tramp. Kelly Bundy would not be allowed to serve a beautiful person tea. . . unless maybe she were wearing Gucci.
KFG
are clearly, and historically, test beds to gauge the possibility of universal application.
You can bet your favorite pair of Wellies that if the public swallows this without a hiccup the technique will spread throughout the Sony line.
I mean, you don't really think that an entire copy protection scheme was developed and implimented *just* to protect a Charlie Pride disc, do you?
Of course that disc didn't do so well. My guess is that much to Sony's chagrin the public, even in Japan, are going to gag and puke on this one.
KFG
Believe it or not there are actually hard core, fully dedicated gamers who's lives revolve around. . .an older game or two.
For me it's RB3D and especially Grand Prix Legends, a game now over four years old.
The mini ITX looks just the LAN party ticket for these games, in fact, I'm intending to use one of these boards built into a custom pedal set to make a "PCless" PC. Everything will just plug in to the pedal set base.
It's small enough and some "super" joysticks are now big enough that you could do something very similar with a joystick base. 7"x7" Joystick base, very stable, lets you rest your hands on it for extra stability AND. . . contains the entire PC!
It's a brand new world out there folks.
KFG
the *consumer* need to "work together." One of the ways this can be accomplished is through a free market. It's not the best imaginable system. It's adversariale to an extent and definately a bit on the tempestuous side now and again. . . like now.
.there's no such thing as a free lunch. I'll accept that statement for the sake of argument. It cuts *both ways* Georgie boy. You have to earn your lunch. Your costomer buys it for you, in exchange for goods and services.
.words.
But. .
The "consumer's" money belongs to the consumer. It isn't yours. You don't "deserve" it. You have to earn it under true contractual terms wherein both sides of the contract receive fair and equitable exchange for freely voluntary participation in the deal.
This means that to get the consumer's money you have to offer them what they want, when they want it, how they want it and at a *price* they are fully, freely and happily willing to pay.
If it is not done this way then in the multi-hundred year history of contract the deal *isn't legitimately valid.*
The "cooperation of media and tech" is nothing more and nothing less than a cabal formed against the ultimate source of "lunch" and business power. . . your customers ( do you remember that word? Have you looked it up in a dictionary lately? It's a very important word Georgie boy).
As a "consumer" all I can say to this is " Stick it up your Star Wars whoring butt George."
I play musical instruments, as do many of my friends. I can write my own songs. I can download Dumas ( where you ripped off all your "ideas" anyway. Can you say "Three Musketeers in Space"? I KNEW you could Georgie boy, in fact, you already did, didn't you?) from Project Guttenburg and get hundreds of hours of superior entertainment for free in a format you can't control. .
The "media industry" isn't the only source of "content" in the world.
Watch yourselves carefully or you just might end up at the soup kitchen begging for a "free lunch."
KFG
"Michael's a salesman, pure and simple. He speaks with passion and he makes you love him and his company "
.but the soap *works!* If it didn't they would have ceased to exist long, long ago.
And salesman who can't, or don't, deliver soon become reviled by the same "converts" they made with their silver tounges and monkey dances.
The "pitch" only makes the first sale. The product still makes the customer. Give a good pitch and deliver as promised you now have a customer. Give a good pitch and deliver a product that doesn't deliver and the "customer" feels like a rube who's been taken by the silver tounged devil. If that "devil" is the company president you now not only don't have a customer, but someone who will make it a personal mission to badmouth the company to anyone and everyone who will listen. . . and they'll be taken seriously.
What's more, these people can *never* be recovered, no matter what the company does in the future.
American corporations seem to believe that marketing makes the company these days. It just ain't so, never had been, never will.
Proctor & Gamble are the marketing masters of this or any age. Because of this they sell a *lot* of soap. .
Sooner or later it still comes down to the steak, no matter what kind of "sizzle" you sell it with.
KFG
Hey, I'm the "black sheep" scientist in a family of stuff hanging in museums type artists. I do have an ex-wife ( hey, some of us geeks not only get married, we do it more than once :) ) who could write assembler in her head though, and *enjoyed* it. Hell of a looker too, of the jaw dropping triple take kind. Couple of more geek stereotypes shot to hell. We can get the hottest women, or we can *be* the hottest women.
.with sharp, sharp minds.
:) ), it was just something we did on the side in a spare part of our brain during our "spare" time. . . with a soldering iron.
.in a tounge that isn't even his native one.
I actually made my living for a number of years as a singer/songwriter/composer, so I've got my own kind of artistic streak going too I guess, and I've always "gone" for the artistic types . .
Anyways sonny, don't give yourself airs. Why in *my* day as a Nuclear Physicist(theoretical) we didn't *have* degress in "software engineering" (and would have considered it an oxymoron anyway
Ok, I exagerated that last part a bit, but only a bit. I actually do vaguely remember making a "small" ( that is to say not very many bits, it was quite large geographically speaking ) digital computer by hand wiring *vacuum tubes* into bistable multivibrators. It was a kick to turn that puppy on and watch the lab lights dim while the tubes glowed. Plus you could keep your lunch warm in it.
I also vaguely remember using an abacus too. Doesn't mean I *had* to do either. I was the very last generation to go to university with a slide rule though. God bless Texas Instruments.
Anyway, I do actually wish more programers were actually smarter, all around, or at least learn their bloody maths so we wouldn't have to keep dealing with new programing languages designed to " take the math out of programing" . . . as if *that* were possible. I miss APL. I like standard mathmatical notation protocols. It's how I think.
On the whole though most creative writers I know are smarter people than most programers I know . . . ummmmmm, not including *anyone* here at Slashdot of course. As a matter of fact Linus has always impressed me as a pretty sharp guy not for the code he's written but for the words he's written . .
KFG
Australia kinda jumps right out at you, being kinda big and all alone in the ocean and stuff. . .and China, well, that was a bit harder, but not much, the atlas people seem to have made a special point of highlighting it, they seem to think it's kinda important or something, but for the life of me. . . where the hell is Snowboard?
KFG
Is that a yes or a no? It's hard to tell. I'd have to guess by your qualification of "the majority of cases" that it's a *yes.*
.well, no time at all actually. Not to mention the fact that if it's "abandoned" * it still works.*
.that "feature" kinda goes "Poof," don't it?
.and it works! Hell, if they stopped "maintaining" it it could even be a boon because now you'ld have a working and *long term stable* product.
Nor were we contextually discussing the majority of cases so I'm left to assume you took this as an opportunity to make your point irrespective of the topic, per se.
I can tell you for sure that if I were a Chinese government agency the idea of running propriatary American code would spook the living bejeezus out of me. I'd also put forth as a hypothesis that * the government of China* has a peck of programer power at its beck and call. Just as an educated guess mind you.
There are crack programers beyond the American shores. Linus is a Finn. Alan Cox is English. The two most obvious cases that come to mind.
The Chinese developed the A-bomb, H-bomb and ICBM's all without American aid at all. I'd hazard they've got a person or two who can manage to find their way around in postgres and Abiword. I'd wager even their lowliest "steno pool girls" could manage to whack out a memo in vi. Just because it's become culturally "de riguer" in Santa Monica to pass "meet me for lunch" notes as PowerPoint presentations doesn't mean the whole world works to those standards.
Governments are one of the *prime* "customers" for which having source is more often a valuable feature than otherwise.
As for point of sale systems that, oddly enough, is a field I've actually worked in. Point of Sales systems are almost *invariably* developed in house, either as a propriatary product for resale to vendors, or by the vendors themselves. One of the reasons MS has begun it's "shared code" program is directly due to the demand from such developers for code access. Point of Sale systems have been one of the fields that open source OS's have made the greatest inroads into specifically because of the availability of code down to the lowest level. Developers of Point of Sales systems aren't "abandoned" of support. It's *their* code. What worries them most is being dicked around by *their OS supplier.* What's more, those vendors that buy their Point of Sale systems from a developer almost invariably * demand source* as part of the sales contract to protect themselves in case the supplier goes under.
Point of Sales was perhaps the worst example you could have chosen.
Now the fact of the matter is that I don't give a hoot about actually having the source code to vim personally. I guess this is "the majority of cases" you're talking about.
On the other hand, because vim *is* open source and uses open formats for its output * it doesn't matter a hoot to me* if the developers "abandon" it. Transfering my data to a new "vendors" product takes. .
You see, most of the time people suffer when a code maintainer has abandoned them is *because* the code and it's file formats are propriatary!
Ironically in my own businesses I've more often suffered *because* the code maintainer of a propriatary bit of software kit continued to "develop" it.
Trust me on this one. I know. If you're running your *own* small business and the cost of your software being "maintained" by a propriatary vendor is coming out of your *own* pocket instead of going to food on your table you become really, really aware of the "feature" that Open Source software offers.
emacs doesn't break. emacs writes perfectly good internal memos and business letters. I've never had an ascii text file rejected because someone couldn't open it under their OS. ascii doesn't change its "file format" every three years to force me to buy a new text processor. If I need a "feature" in emacs I can either add it myself or have one of my people do it ( I hire smart people). If I need something fancier than plain text emacs produces nifty HTML and XHTML.
Just one download and I had all my text processing needs taken care of, essentially, forever!
I rather fancy the government of China has considered *these very issues.*
What is the number one "feature" most people claim for MS Office. Why, that it shares files with . . . MS Office.
Well, if you are a government, and you have the power of fiat to declare yourself MS free. .
All of a sudden Kword looks mighty tasty. .
But then, as you have the grace to admit in your closing, you weren't talking about facts anyway. Now were you?
KFG
the hypothesis that being Open Source (tm) is one of the things that can be legitimately considered as one of the parameters to decide whether it's "the right tool for the job"?
Indeed that being Open Source (tm) is a possible *feature* that might be valued?
KFG
the majority of Linux users have never even *heard* of The Linux Counter. Look at how small the total numbers are compared to the number of actual Linux users. In fact I'll walk farther out on the limb and postit that for the "average" Linux user today if it ain't in the Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE manual it don't exist. They buy the box at the store, they install it, they run it... and that sums up their involvement with Linux. If they need support they get it from their vendor, not usenet or even Linuxnewbie. If a package isn't available from their vendor. . .it don't exist. They sure as shootin' don't do LFS. Probably havn't heard of Kuro5in or even Slashdot if it comes to that.
Linux is quietly more mainstream than I think even most Linux users are prepared to admit.
I'd wager that the average Slack, Debian, "Others" user ( I favor Others myself) is the sort far more inclined to "participate" as well. Redhat/Mandrake ( and I think it's still fair to use that catagory in the context of this discussion) still wins going away.
KFG
your friends. Or my friends either. *Our* friends are among the most likely to use Slack, Debian or BSD. It's a biased sample.
.OR Debian, OR BSD.
.AND beer. You get what you pay for, even in Linux. :)
This may come as a shock to you but most Linux users haven't even *heard* of any of the three. Hell, I've even had to introduce a couple of friends who were Linux *sysadmins* to them.
Why do you think so many people have to say so many times " Linux != Redhat"?
I'm "old school" enough to have learned my way about UNIX decades before Linux existed, back when Kernigan & Ritchie was *the* manual. Slack is great, Slack is good. So is Debian.
But the fact remains that most people who use Slack or Debian don't even know they're doing it. They got it wrapped in a new "package" by some other vendor. . . and none of *those* vendors are "major" either. Why do you think "United Linux" was formed?
The people who try to estimate the Linux market who take as their sample *all* Linux users say Redhat and Redhat derived distros account for over 90% of all Linux users. I don't use Redhat. I have no religious axe to grind on that score. I'm prepared to take their estimates seriously.
Yes, yes. I know. Those estimates have all sorts of holes in them. I'm aware of the holes and how they got there. I still think, even with the holes and resulting overestimates, that Redhat absolutely dominates the "user market."
When us "old school" Linux users first used Slack it was cutting edge and dominated the market. The majority of people using Slack, not *all* mind you, just the majority, are us "old schoolers" and perhaps their "pupils."
Times change. Us "old schoolers" number only in the thousands. Tens of millions of people now use Linux.
On the whole they don't use Slack. .
I've thought about the Linux "market." I've been thinking about it for years. This is what I've concluded.
Perhaps you conclude differently. That's ok. Die Gedanken sind frei!
As in speach. .
KFG
but from a different ventrical. .
.it was rejected. Go figure.
.it got accepted, BUT. . . not under my byline.
.a story I didn't think belonged on Slashdot didn't get on Slashdot.
I've submited exactly three stories to Slashdot.
The first one was an article a friend of mine wrote. It was a good article. It was an article apropos to certain Slashdot stories, the sort you might legitimately link to in a post, but I didn't think it was a Slashdot story in itself. It was just an op-ed piece, commentary on News for Nerds, but in itself news worthy.
He e-mailed me and asked me if I'd submit it. Ok, he's a friend, I submited it. Lo and behold. .
The second story was one I ran across and thought was absolutely nerdfully *cool!* I submited it. Lo and behold. . . it got accepted!
The third story, ok, less nerdfully cool than the other, but ultimately more important really. I submited it. Lo and behold. .
So how am I doing, submission percentage wise?
Here's where it all goes apropos on us. A got a story accepted under my byline. A story I thought ought to be on Slashdot ended up on Slashdot and. .
As far as I'm concerned I'm batting a thousand. The story I didn't simply get credit for but thought was deserving the editors thought was deserving as well. My "taste" at least was true. * And the same goes for the story that was rejected.* I knew it should be rejected. My *taste* was true.
"Rejection" isn't always *rejection.* If more people would learn the difference between the two the world would run a lot smoother.
Someone's patch was rejected. They didn't care to listen to *why* it was rejected. The end result is that *they* ended up being rejected as well, for their *behaviour,* although they seem to have a hard time grasping this simple concept.
They have been told explicitly how to regain acceptence of both their patch and themselves.
It's up to them to prove wise enough. Linus ain't going to do it for them, nor should he have to.
KFG
Linus handed out free balls to everyone. As many as they wanted. *Then* he made sure they had *free* tools for duplicating or modifying their balls at will, ad infinitum, plus the right to distribute these balls in "competition" with the ones he was giving away for free and start their own games.
Now some people seem to be complaining that they aren't happy with the ball he gave them, they want *his* ball. They don't want to make the rules for their own game, they want him to play with *his* ball and *his* friends to *their* rules.
I've known people like that.
They're generally refered to as *assholes* by the general populace.
Linus was responding in a mature and adult way to *adults* who were behaving as children who always want what someone *else* has.
Did he mention it was *his* nine times? Why would he do something like that? Perhaps because. . . are you ready for it? Because it's his?
*They already have their own.* Linus gave it to them.
If you give me a car, any car I want, and all the tools, parts and materials to modify it as I will are you suggesting that *you* would be childish for refusing to comply with my *demand* that you paint yours plaid and glue an elephant to its roof?
Hell, this opens up whole new vistas of possibilities. I think tomorrow I'll get old Bill on the blower and demand that the next version of Windows be Linux based, and if he refuses to comply. . . why, of course he's just being childish.
KFG
it would be hard to catagorize Slack as a "major" vendor these days.
Now look, don't shoot me yet. It's simply true. It's a very small outfit and their product is used by a comparitively few. That's just he way it is.
They pefer to stay small, away from the commercial mainstream as such and all that entails. They cater to a particular hardcore, loyal and *sophisticated* "market segment" that wants what Slack provides. Patrick has stated this explicitly.
Now, again before you shoot me, this is " A good thing" (tm). I'm not knocking them. I'm praising them. Markets need these small outfits catering to the "oddballs," as it were. Bigger is not always best, small *is* beautiful. Not being a Fortune 500 company does NOT mean you're a "failure."
If you shoot at a target and hit the bullseye you've succeded, no matter what anyone says.
Perhaps they're just too blind to see the goal.
KFG
"Just imagine what happens when a "regular Joe" thinks he is the smartest guy on Earth..."
As Mr. Vonnegut once wrote, the problem with really stupid people is that they're too stupid to realize there's such a thing as smart.
Now, I'd further suggest that it actually doesn't take the greatest brain in the world to write code. It does take some modicum of training and experience, yes, but not real smarts. I've personally known some people I would consider rather less than mediocre in the brains department who make a living writing code. Not great code true, not code as *art*, but at least decent code.
(Don't get all huffy on me yet, I know that *we* certainly don't fit into that catagory, dear Reader)
I'd further suggest that many of these people *believe* they are smart simply because they write code. Why by golly they're bonafide *programers,* which we all know is the elite of the elite of the elite of the smart. Them Nuke-you-leer fizzycists have nothin' on 'em.
Enter Mr. Vonnegut.
Enter people who whine to Linus that they somehow have the right to demand their projects being interjected into *his* code.
At least that's my theory at the moment. Come back later. I'll have several more if you don't like that one.
KFG
the dollar with her face on it was withdrawn and replaced with the gold one, * which doesn't have her face on it.*
Sheesh. Pay attention. Don't you even watch late night cable?
Can you say: Sack-ah-jew-ee-ah?
I knew you could.
They're very useful too, considering that a dollar is what a quarter was . . . several months ago.
KFG
KFG
over other *nix's though is that there are no such "defaults." Everybody rolls their own. Ain't it cool? I've used a number of small distros, for various advantages they held, that did *not* include gcc as a default and by not doing so performed certain design parameters of the distro all the better for it.
gcc is *typically* installed by default by the major distros. There is something of a "protocol" to do so ( and even then a couple of distros aimed at the desktop newbie have also failed to include it at all, even as an install option).
No matter what though, even if it isn't included with your distro as an *option* at install you can always just go download it.
Now *THAT* is what is the coolest about Free/Open/Artistic/Whatever software.
KFG
of the Tacoma Narrows bridge falling. The *fault* was with the design, and hence, the designers.
An extended bolt puncturing the gas tank during a rear end collision was the *cause* of Ford Pintos exploding. The *fault* was with the design, and hence, the designers.
Both of these items could have been claimed to be perfectly free of design flaws while being used as "intended."
This argument did not help the designers in not being found liable for their design flaws.
The divide by zero error was the *cause* of the operating system's failure. The *fault* was with the operating system. The *operating system* crashed. An operating system failure is *always* the fault of the operating system, and hence, its designers.
Read any textbook on the design of operating systems and in the first page or two you find some sort of statement along the line of, " A faulty app should never cause the operating system to fail." This is correct design.
Let me repeat. If an app fails, it is the fault of the app. If the operating system fails, no matter what an app has done, it is the fault of the operating system. An operating system must *assume* apps badly written by complete incompetents.
It doesn't matter what operating system. Windows, Linux, Mac or just the beads on your abacus.
* It is the responsibiltiy of the operating system not to fail.*
The fact that such failures can be explained away as the fault of the app by people who should know better makes me grieve for the state of engineering these days. It can only result in products being produced with greater and greater "craposity" factors eventually resulting in a culture of complete "crapitude."
KFG