i haven't seen too many birds open up an ammo box lately.
Yes, the Audubon society has been mourning the dearth of the Rare Al-Qaeda Birds. They have not been sighted in quite awhile, but seem to live in caves. When humans encroach on their habitat, they fly into buildings and die. Unfortunately even those that live in remote areas are prone to suffer from the contents of US Army ammo boxes, which they seem to open and then eat the contents thereof.
You have a good point here, and that is something to think about. Some people don't know about the dumpster issue, but it sure irks the cops, and whoever gets to pay the extra bill for overfilling the dumpster. Clearly you were damaged, so it makes sense.
Of course in the light of this it begs the question of whether the dumpster diver isn't doing you a service (so long as they don't throw trash all over, which will get you extra charges as well). After all, they are removing garbage and so reducing your costs (which rise in proportion of the amount of garbage you throw out) and also doing the garbageperson's work for them (well, potentially). Of course the trespass and property issues your tale brings up make it an interesting question, indeed.
And you are absolutely correct. In your case, you were not being a pirate (in less enlightened times, I was in a similar position). However there are people who will sell OEM discs sans hardware, and people who use it as an upgrade or for a different computer, and Microsoft has said many times this is verbotten. In fact, they have gone so far as to say you cannot resell the OEM disc nor even install the OEM software on a different computer than the one it "came with" even if that computer now runs something else instead.
There are people who do not follow the license and then claim the OEM price is a normal price for Windows (or that free is the normal price for Windows, since they just copied it). My point was that there are special circumstances under which these copies are legitemate, and under others they are not, in which case the $300 price (or whatever it is) applies.
2. College requirements. (College Intranet fails to work with non-IE browsers, they claim it's me. Otherwise I use Mozilla.)
Are you sure it's not? Did you ask what settings should be set in the browser for it to work? Did you faithfully copy all the settings down from an IE that works and replicate those settings in your Mozilla setup? Did you check the code on their site to see if they are just punking you because of your agent tag (which can be changed easily)?
3. Hardware support. (Linux appears to hate my onboard soundcard with a passion. Also, I don't have a clue how to make my digital camera work under Linux or wether or not it even CAN work (Kodak DX3500))
You may just need the right set of drivers for your onboard sound card. I found mine worked with alsa drivers but not oss (or is it the other way round?) and it had a lot to do with the chipset on the motherboard. Digging about gave me the answer. In the end, though, you may as well nab a soundblaster live, as it is better than anything onboard and supported in linux (and now that everyone wants the audigy, very cheap and easy to get).
Your camera is supported under gphoto, which is essentially what you use to make digicams work. I am looking into buying a digital camera soon myself.
4. Architecture bound. (afaik, Mac OS X doesn't work on x86. And even if it did, issue 1 still remains.)
Now your just not being fair. Switching OS arguments on us. I mean we were looking for an alternative that runs on your computer right? Anyhow, yes, Darwin, which is the core (kernel, etc) and unix userland of OSX, runs on x86. Apple decided not to keep going on their commercial x86 version, which died in beta, for various reasons of marketing and development cost. True, you don't get aqua, and you can't install OSX apps necessarily, but you can get X11 now, and run other things. Essentially it is a BSD. I find Linux far more usable though.
That's why. And sure, I'm a thief. Then again, it's just Microsoft.
Don't be a thief, man. Have pride in yourself! With just a little effort, you can break free of the Microsoft curse, and feel better about yourself knowing you no longer have to compromise your principles just to use your computer (which is essentially what any MS user with any principles is doing).
Gee, how would you like to have to go all over the place and pick up someone elses crap they leave behind?
Apparently, this is what geocachers do, and yes they like to do it (as when they go on these geocaching expeditions they clean up real litter).
Honestly, no one is stopping you from going on a crusade to hunt down every cache in the world and throw it in the garbage. Or a bonfire, hey.
I think some things you are missing about this hobby are:
1) It promotes parks and excercise therein by making a game out of the experience
2) Yes, one hello kitty lunchbox (or something) gets left in the park, but many pounds of garbage are collected by the cachers who visit the park and taken out as a simple goodwill gesture
3) This is not something that directly affects you. I mean really, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, anyway? I'm sorry some moderator doesn't know what a troll is and made you out to be one, but does this really bother you so much? Why?
I am a firm believer in the "leave only footprints" ethos myself, but I consider these caches an acceptable compromise just as we accept paved trails and mile markers and posts and chains and crap (I mean, really, we could do without them, but they serve a purpose so we live with the compromise). If you do not, and you see one, then dispose of it properly and feel proud you did something for the park. And like I said, the cachers have gone to the trouble of telling you *exactly where to find them!*
So if you really really want to, you can go get every damned one of them, throw them away, pile them on Microsoft/AOL/Disney's doorstep, mail them to RMS (or the cachers themselves) in protest, whatever you like! What are they gonna do to you? Post on slashdot?!
I'm so sick of people complaining that Microsoft's OS software is so expensive. I spent $150 for the OEM copy of Windows XP Pro that I own. How so, you say? Well, you can buy it here. If you're interested in XP Home, you can get it here for $90.
Yes and by buying those copies you are a pirate. OEM software is only to be sold with a new computer, and only for installation on that computer, so saith Microsoft. Yes, people buy the OEM version anyway, but technically you are breaking the license by using that version (unless you bought a whole new computer from the company who sold you the OEM versions). Anyone who sells the OEM versions to you without selling you a computer at the same time (unless it is Microsoft, who only sell them in quantity to licensed vendors) is breaking the license they have with Microsoft to distribute the software.
Granted, I and most other people could care less (though for my own personal needs I currently comply with all licenses for software), but that is just it. Unless you pirate Windows or break the agreements in some way, all the benefits go right out. This is why most people are technically in violation of something in terms of these bloody agreements. Microsoft knows this (they know their software is unusable and unmanagable unless you break their agreements) but they use this situation as a tool to threaten businesses into giving them even more money.
Follow the licenses to the letter and you find free linux cds with no strings, versus expensive microsoft software that owns you, your data, and holds your business hostage. That is the difference.
Or perhaps a jab at how most posters here on slashdot talk big, but in the end, do little more than extend an angry ASCII middle finger.
Ah but the poster did do something else. The poster wiped his/her computer and installed Linux on it. Many of us have done the same and refuse to buy Microsoft products. We also promote Free Software at work and in our communities and go to Linux Users' group meetings. And some of the people who post her actually write code for Open Source.
Thene again, you were probably talking about the slashdotters who install a pirated copy of XP (only for games they swear!) and post here with IE (Well games and slashdot! But that is all!) and then extend the middle finger saying Microsoft Sucks. Personally, I think the only cure for Microsoft is to dogfood Linux so it can get better. That is what I do.
The original point was that Microsoft has to release patches for everything it distributes. Red Hat isn't in quite the same situation. Although they release patches, they don't have to develop or test them. If a patch for Sendmail goes wrong, Red Hat doesn't get the blame.
Hold on there, bucko. RedHat certainly does get the blame when patches they release on their site go wrong, because they are specific to RedHat. Every patch they release is released with the understanding it is going into a RedHat system, and you better believe it has been tested.
As a side note, I have to wonder what Microsoft is doing with all that money and all those man-hours? Clearly the Open Source projects are doing much more with far less. If Microsoft learned something from these processes, couldn't they make cheaper products?
But MS's behavior was ONLY illegal because they were found to be a monopoly. RedHat, Apple, or even IBM could do exactly the same thing, and because none of them are monopolies, they'd get off scott free.
No they wouldn't, at leats in teh case of IBM, because it would violate the agreements with Microsoft that previous out of court agreements with the FTC were supposed to have invalidated but which the current court ruling said were perfectly fine.
The people who are trying to defend microsoft are missing the point. Microsoft was not bundling anyone else's software but their own, and they were not allowing any competition. If IBM wanted to put Netscape on their computers running windows before they were sold they could not, because Microsoft said so. That is the real problem.
If Microsoft wanted to pay AOL to distribute the Netscape web server with their computers or else include Apache with their computers there would not have been a problem, because they woudl be encouraging competition, not discouraging it as they did by offering products that directly competed with everyone else's, made by them, sold at a loss on purpose so that they could kill that market, said loss being subsidized by their illegal deals and monopoly Windows business.
Restrictive software licenses have no impact upon the distribution of patches, and Microsoft Update is designed to distribute third party patches as well as Microsoft's own.
Ah but they do. They have a very large effect. Since the patches are owned by the closed-source software companies, they can do what they want with them. Ever look for the update to IE4? Microsoft hath decreed that you cannot get it and made everyone who had it delete it off their website. Of course with IE2.0 that comes with NT4 you cannot get IE5 via windowsupdate.com. Better buy Windows 2000!
Actually, I did get around that problem using netscape and finding a direct dowload link for IE5. But then you find out that unless you had installed IE4 certain features are forever denied you (like the quicklaunch bar). Oh but it comes with Windows 2000... I wonder why Microsoft did not want people having IE4?
Of course you will say "but that's a browser.. a whole product, surely you cannot expect it for free?" And you would be right, though Microsoft said it is an essential part of the OS (yes even NT4 because IE4+ hook themselves into the OS and take over things, but I digress). And even though there are essential patches to the OS only distributed through IE. But let's try another.
I worked in an office where they had an HP printer. Now they had bought this printer fair and square, and had the Windows 9x drivers on CD. But when windows 2000 came out, these drivers would not work (understandably). No problem, just go to HP's site and download drivers, right? WRONG! The patches are HP Property(TM)! They are valuable software, not to be copied and exported, not to be used on more than one computer, precious! And they were only available if you paid HP something (IIRC it was $19.95 + $9.95 s&h or something) to send you a CD.
There are any number of others, but essentially if you try and distribute patches without authorization you will get spanked. There are licenses involved with every patch you install from pretty much any vendor which specifically prohibit you from doing practically anything with the patch (sometimes including what the support article tells you to do with the patch). Now the reality is most people could give a rat's ass for eulas, and do not read them, but they are there, and they do prevent unauthorized distribution, and vendors do enforce them.
I have seen plenty of vendors where just to get documentation or look at patches or a support site you have to have a currently valid support contract. I think that is wrong, but I suppose it's the way they do business and technically legal. There is even a technical merit to it (not giving bandwith to "pirates" or "deadbeats" but then maybe the product you are looking up is not supported anymore. Does that mean people can distriobute patches for it? NO! Not if the Mean Nasty Lawyers get hold of them they won't.
Too little too late IMHO. Besides, who wants to pay thousands of dollars just to give a monopoly another chance?
Further, their latest initiatives (trying to make windows-only pcs, DRM, infinite activation requirements which lock you down hardware and software wise, retroactive licensing changes, terroristic threats if you buy some software from them but not enough to suit them, etc, etc...) only lead me to believe that they are getting worse, not better.
After all these years they *still* don't test patches. I mean it's understandable if a patch breaks one out of the 5million windows programs under oddball configurations, but when it breaks one of ten major programs that are guaranteed to be installed on someone's computer, or when it breaks windows itself, as this latest one did, it's unforgivable. Not only did it happen once or twice, but it happened with regularity! One of the worst was the apparently difficult-to-install patch for SQL Slammer that broke many things and was not fixed until right before it hit months later.
They still have not shown that they are willing to change the basic design philosophies/flaws that led to most of this trouble in the first place. Bad code is bad code. It happens to everyone. But when your design is fundamentally flawed and you refuse to acknowlege it all the patches in the world will never save you.
I hate RPM too, but the rpm database si nothing to the registry, specifically because it does not follow the all-eggs-in-one-basket approach you did not follow. I will explain. On Windows the registry stores everything. EVERYTHING! It's not just what apps are installed, it stores hardware information, what drivers to load, configuration for applications, EVERYTHING.
Unlike the rpm database, if your registry gets corrupted, you cannot boot windows. If the rpm database is corrupted the worst thing that can happen is you can't install/uninstall with rpm anymore. But then, since you can boot your computer and execute commands, you could always fix the database or restore from a backup. WHAT A CONCEPT!
Yes, I am aware that there were ways in windows 98 to fix registry corruption (there were not in win95) but in Winnt the problem of not being able to boot to a console window made things nasty. Win2k and XP have a recovery console (and XP has some better registry backup tools) but they don't seem to really work. Of course no matter what the point is moot if you have corrupt video drivers, since even the console is in a window. (Yes, I know about safe mode. But if you corrupt your normal VGA driver, which often happens if you never install another video driver so *it* can be corrupted *instead* the point is moot.)
Linux has a lot of failures, but these are all developmental so far (need for better gui and docs, better hardware support, etc). In other words, the problems with Linux will get better over time. However the problems with Windows are fundamental design flaws, which means they will only get worse over time unless Microsoft changes their design philosophies. (They say they are changing some of them now, and we will see if that is true, but ultimately the paradigm they go by "the computer is smarter than the human" will continue to cause pain, suffering, and harm.)
So while DMCA may be hated on Slashdot, I believe McCalls has a right to protect their copyrighted materials, which they want to have removed from the marketplace.
I disagree with that idea entirely. If McCalls wants their idea removed form the marketplace, I say they are junking their idea, and therefore anyone willing to salvage it can have the copyright (or it should be public domain). Throwing ideas, inventions, and technology out of circulation is a bad thing for society as a whole, and retards progress.
If she knew she could get patterns on that interweb thingy, you bet your boots she would be all over that mother. (assuming she likes to sew, that is...):)
Suddenly, some lawyer realizes it might be grounds for a quick courtroom profit and announces they're suing under (of all things) the DCMA. As if throwing boxes in the trash could possibly constitute encryption....
Who said, "The reasonable man adapts to his environment. The unreasonable man tries to adapt the environment to himself. Thus, all progress has been made by unreasonable men"?
Google says it was George Bernard Shaw, who was rather the reaosnable man, or so I gather.;)
Slashdot Mirror
i haven't seen too many birds open up an ammo box lately.
Yes, the Audubon society has been mourning the dearth of the Rare Al-Qaeda Birds. They have not been sighted in quite awhile, but seem to live in caves. When humans encroach on their habitat, they fly into buildings and die. Unfortunately even those that live in remote areas are prone to suffer from the contents of US Army ammo boxes, which they seem to open and then eat the contents thereof.
About time, lord knows the Conservatives have been branded by the Liberals as anything but human.
This is sad but true. Perhaps they should liberate the hell out of each other and get it over with! :)
You have a good point here, and that is something to think about. Some people don't know about the dumpster issue, but it sure irks the cops, and whoever gets to pay the extra bill for overfilling the dumpster. Clearly you were damaged, so it makes sense.
Of course in the light of this it begs the question of whether the dumpster diver isn't doing you a service (so long as they don't throw trash all over, which will get you extra charges as well). After all, they are removing garbage and so reducing your costs (which rise in proportion of the amount of garbage you throw out) and also doing the garbageperson's work for them (well, potentially). Of course the trespass and property issues your tale brings up make it an interesting question, indeed.
And you are absolutely correct. In your case, you were not being a pirate (in less enlightened times, I was in a similar position). However there are people who will sell OEM discs sans hardware, and people who use it as an upgrade or for a different computer, and Microsoft has said many times this is verbotten. In fact, they have gone so far as to say you cannot resell the OEM disc nor even install the OEM software on a different computer than the one it "came with" even if that computer now runs something else instead.
There are people who do not follow the license and then claim the OEM price is a normal price for Windows (or that free is the normal price for Windows, since they just copied it). My point was that there are special circumstances under which these copies are legitemate, and under others they are not, in which case the $300 price (or whatever it is) applies.
Erg. got bitten by the "take a night off cowboy!" message. It is a bad sign when /. tells you you are doing too much /.
1. Games. (Does GTA3* run on an alternative OS? How about Battlefield 1942* or Baldur's Gate*?
As a matter of fact, yes they do. Quite well, as it happens, if the reports are accurate.
And no, emulation is NOT an option)
And no, Winex is NOT an emulator.
2. College requirements. (College Intranet fails to work with non-IE browsers, they claim it's me. Otherwise I use Mozilla.)
Are you sure it's not? Did you ask what settings should be set in the browser for it to work? Did you faithfully copy all the settings down from an IE that works and replicate those settings in your Mozilla setup? Did you check the code on their site to see if they are just punking you because of your agent tag (which can be changed easily)?
3. Hardware support. (Linux appears to hate my onboard soundcard with a passion. Also, I don't have a clue how to make my digital camera work under Linux or wether or not it even CAN work (Kodak DX3500))
You may just need the right set of drivers for your onboard sound card. I found mine worked with alsa drivers but not oss (or is it the other way round?) and it had a lot to do with the chipset on the motherboard. Digging about gave me the answer. In the end, though, you may as well nab a soundblaster live, as it is better than anything onboard and supported in linux (and now that everyone wants the audigy, very cheap and easy to get).
Your camera is supported under gphoto, which is essentially what you use to make digicams work. I am looking into buying a digital camera soon myself.
4. Architecture bound. (afaik, Mac OS X doesn't work on x86. And even if it did, issue 1 still remains.)
Now your just not being fair. Switching OS arguments on us. I mean we were looking for an alternative that runs on your computer right? Anyhow, yes, Darwin, which is the core (kernel, etc) and unix userland of OSX, runs on x86. Apple decided not to keep going on their commercial x86 version, which died in beta, for various reasons of marketing and development cost. True, you don't get aqua, and you can't install OSX apps necessarily, but you can get X11 now, and run other things. Essentially it is a BSD. I find Linux far more usable though.
That's why. And sure, I'm a thief. Then again, it's just Microsoft.
Don't be a thief, man. Have pride in yourself! With just a little effort, you can break free of the Microsoft curse, and feel better about yourself knowing you no longer have to compromise your principles just to use your computer (which is essentially what any MS user with any principles is doing).
Gee, how would you like to have to go all over the place and pick up someone elses crap they leave behind?
Apparently, this is what geocachers do, and yes they like to do it (as when they go on these geocaching expeditions they clean up real litter).
Honestly, no one is stopping you from going on a crusade to hunt down every cache in the world and throw it in the garbage. Or a bonfire, hey.
I think some things you are missing about this hobby are:
1) It promotes parks and excercise therein by making a game out of the experience
2) Yes, one hello kitty lunchbox (or something) gets left in the park, but many pounds of garbage are collected by the cachers who visit the park and taken out as a simple goodwill gesture
3) This is not something that directly affects you. I mean really, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, anyway? I'm sorry some moderator doesn't know what a troll is and made you out to be one, but does this really bother you so much? Why?
I am a firm believer in the "leave only footprints" ethos myself, but I consider these caches an acceptable compromise just as we accept paved trails and mile markers and posts and chains and crap (I mean, really, we could do without them, but they serve a purpose so we live with the compromise). If you do not, and you see one, then dispose of it properly and feel proud you did something for the park. And like I said, the cachers have gone to the trouble of telling you *exactly where to find them!*
So if you really really want to, you can go get every damned one of them, throw them away, pile them on Microsoft/AOL/Disney's doorstep, mail them to RMS (or the cachers themselves) in protest, whatever you like! What are they gonna do to you? Post on slashdot?!
As opposed to Linux, which does control the hardware?
Sure, by not running on "bad" hardware ;)
I'm so sick of people complaining that Microsoft's OS software is so expensive. I spent $150 for the OEM copy of Windows XP Pro that I own. How so, you say? Well, you can buy it here. If you're interested in XP Home, you can get it here for $90.
Yes and by buying those copies you are a pirate. OEM software is only to be sold with a new computer, and only for installation on that computer, so saith Microsoft. Yes, people buy the OEM version anyway, but technically you are breaking the license by using that version (unless you bought a whole new computer from the company who sold you the OEM versions). Anyone who sells the OEM versions to you without selling you a computer at the same time (unless it is Microsoft, who only sell them in quantity to licensed vendors) is breaking the license they have with Microsoft to distribute the software.
Granted, I and most other people could care less (though for my own personal needs I currently comply with all licenses for software), but that is just it. Unless you pirate Windows or break the agreements in some way, all the benefits go right out. This is why most people are technically in violation of something in terms of these bloody agreements. Microsoft knows this (they know their software is unusable and unmanagable unless you break their agreements) but they use this situation as a tool to threaten businesses into giving them even more money.
Follow the licenses to the letter and you find free linux cds with no strings, versus expensive microsoft software that owns you, your data, and holds your business hostage. That is the difference.
Sorry, now I have an image of Long John Silver sitting at a computer downloading Office XP stuck in my head. Please mod me down now.
BUt would Jim Hawkins run to tell Dr. Livesy that Mister Silver is up to his old tricks again?
Or perhaps a jab at how most posters here on slashdot talk big, but in the end, do little more than extend an angry ASCII middle finger.
Ah but the poster did do something else. The poster wiped his/her computer and installed Linux on it. Many of us have done the same and refuse to buy Microsoft products. We also promote Free Software at work and in our communities and go to Linux Users' group meetings. And some of the people who post her actually write code for Open Source.
Thene again, you were probably talking about the slashdotters who install a pirated copy of XP (only for games they swear!) and post here with IE (Well games and slashdot! But that is all!) and then extend the middle finger saying Microsoft Sucks. Personally, I think the only cure for Microsoft is to dogfood Linux so it can get better. That is what I do.
The original point was that Microsoft has to release patches for everything it distributes. Red Hat isn't in quite the same situation. Although they release patches, they don't have to develop or test them. If a patch for Sendmail goes wrong, Red Hat doesn't get the blame.
Hold on there, bucko. RedHat certainly does get the blame when patches they release on their site go wrong, because they are specific to RedHat. Every patch they release is released with the understanding it is going into a RedHat system, and you better believe it has been tested.
As a side note, I have to wonder what Microsoft is doing with all that money and all those man-hours? Clearly the Open Source projects are doing much more with far less. If Microsoft learned something from these processes, couldn't they make cheaper products?
But MS's behavior was ONLY illegal because they were found to be a monopoly. RedHat, Apple, or even IBM could do exactly the same thing, and because none of them are monopolies, they'd get off scott free.
No they wouldn't, at leats in teh case of IBM, because it would violate the agreements with Microsoft that previous out of court agreements with the FTC were supposed to have invalidated but which the current court ruling said were perfectly fine.
The people who are trying to defend microsoft are missing the point. Microsoft was not bundling anyone else's software but their own, and they were not allowing any competition. If IBM wanted to put Netscape on their computers running windows before they were sold they could not, because Microsoft said so. That is the real problem.
If Microsoft wanted to pay AOL to distribute the Netscape web server with their computers or else include Apache with their computers there would not have been a problem, because they woudl be encouraging competition, not discouraging it as they did by offering products that directly competed with everyone else's, made by them, sold at a loss on purpose so that they could kill that market, said loss being subsidized by their illegal deals and monopoly Windows business.
Restrictive software licenses have no impact upon the distribution of patches, and Microsoft Update is designed to distribute third party patches as well as Microsoft's own.
Ah but they do. They have a very large effect. Since the patches are owned by the closed-source software companies, they can do what they want with them. Ever look for the update to IE4? Microsoft hath decreed that you cannot get it and made everyone who had it delete it off their website. Of course with IE2.0 that comes with NT4 you cannot get IE5 via windowsupdate.com. Better buy Windows 2000!
Actually, I did get around that problem using netscape and finding a direct dowload link for IE5. But then you find out that unless you had installed IE4 certain features are forever denied you (like the quicklaunch bar). Oh but it comes with Windows 2000... I wonder why Microsoft did not want people having IE4?
Of course you will say "but that's a browser.. a whole product, surely you cannot expect it for free?" And you would be right, though Microsoft said it is an essential part of the OS (yes even NT4 because IE4+ hook themselves into the OS and take over things, but I digress). And even though there are essential patches to the OS only distributed through IE. But let's try another.
I worked in an office where they had an HP printer. Now they had bought this printer fair and square, and had the Windows 9x drivers on CD. But when windows 2000 came out, these drivers would not work (understandably). No problem, just go to HP's site and download drivers, right? WRONG! The patches are HP Property(TM)! They are valuable software, not to be copied and exported, not to be used on more than one computer, precious! And they were only available if you paid HP something (IIRC it was $19.95 + $9.95 s&h or something) to send you a CD.
There are any number of others, but essentially if you try and distribute patches without authorization you will get spanked. There are licenses involved with every patch you install from pretty much any vendor which specifically prohibit you from doing practically anything with the patch (sometimes including what the support article tells you to do with the patch). Now the reality is most people could give a rat's ass for eulas, and do not read them, but they are there, and they do prevent unauthorized distribution, and vendors do enforce them.
I have seen plenty of vendors where just to get documentation or look at patches or a support site you have to have a currently valid support contract. I think that is wrong, but I suppose it's the way they do business and technically legal. There is even a technical merit to it (not giving bandwith to "pirates" or "deadbeats" but then maybe the product you are looking up is not supported anymore. Does that mean people can distriobute patches for it? NO! Not if the Mean Nasty Lawyers get hold of them they won't.
Too little too late IMHO. Besides, who wants to pay thousands of dollars just to give a monopoly another chance?
Further, their latest initiatives (trying to make windows-only pcs, DRM, infinite activation requirements which lock you down hardware and software wise, retroactive licensing changes, terroristic threats if you buy some software from them but not enough to suit them, etc, etc...) only lead me to believe that they are getting worse, not better.
After all these years they *still* don't test patches. I mean it's understandable if a patch breaks one out of the 5million windows programs under oddball configurations, but when it breaks one of ten major programs that are guaranteed to be installed on someone's computer, or when it breaks windows itself, as this latest one did, it's unforgivable. Not only did it happen once or twice, but it happened with regularity! One of the worst was the apparently difficult-to-install patch for SQL Slammer that broke many things and was not fixed until right before it hit months later.
They still have not shown that they are willing to change the basic design philosophies/flaws that led to most of this trouble in the first place. Bad code is bad code. It happens to everyone. But when your design is fundamentally flawed and you refuse to acknowlege it all the patches in the world will never save you.
Apologies for badly pasted quotation in a lame attempt to get through the lame lameness filter. Lame. :P
Hmm, sorta like a Slashdot comment/moderation kinda thing?
That would be *interesting*, but the issue is, if you don't trust the company issuing the patch, would you trust the comments on that patch system?
I go to Ars Technica to read coments on patches and updates before I update,
Oh please! Not like that!
Have you installed Woody Widget Patch 7?
[ ]Yes
[ ]No
[ ]Maybe
[*]CowboyNeal!
[ ]???
[ ]Profit!
-1 Troll :)
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 3.5).
I am lead to believe many versions of Lotus Notes.
Which got broken by SP6, though they fixed that in SP6a ;)
Not really since the poster's point was to be modded up (therefore the "I know I will be modded down for this....")
I'll probably be modded down for repeating this joke, though! :)
I hate RPM too, but the rpm database si nothing to the registry, specifically because it does not follow the all-eggs-in-one-basket approach you did not follow. I will explain. On Windows the registry stores everything. EVERYTHING! It's not just what apps are installed, it stores hardware information, what drivers to load, configuration for applications, EVERYTHING.
Unlike the rpm database, if your registry gets corrupted, you cannot boot windows. If the rpm database is corrupted the worst thing that can happen is you can't install/uninstall with rpm anymore. But then, since you can boot your computer and execute commands, you could always fix the database or restore from a backup. WHAT A CONCEPT!
Yes, I am aware that there were ways in windows 98 to fix registry corruption (there were not in win95) but in Winnt the problem of not being able to boot to a console window made things nasty. Win2k and XP have a recovery console (and XP has some better registry backup tools) but they don't seem to really work. Of course no matter what the point is moot if you have corrupt video drivers, since even the console is in a window. (Yes, I know about safe mode. But if you corrupt your normal VGA driver, which often happens if you never install another video driver so *it* can be corrupted *instead* the point is moot.)
Linux has a lot of failures, but these are all developmental so far (need for better gui and docs, better hardware support, etc). In other words, the problems with Linux will get better over time. However the problems with Windows are fundamental design flaws, which means they will only get worse over time unless Microsoft changes their design philosophies. (They say they are changing some of them now, and we will see if that is true, but ultimately the paradigm they go by "the computer is smarter than the human" will continue to cause pain, suffering, and harm.)
So while DMCA may be hated on Slashdot, I believe McCalls has a right to protect their copyrighted materials, which they want to have removed from the marketplace.
I disagree with that idea entirely. If McCalls wants their idea removed form the marketplace, I say they are junking their idea, and therefore anyone willing to salvage it can have the copyright (or it should be public domain). Throwing ideas, inventions, and technology out of circulation is a bad thing for society as a whole, and retards progress.
If she knew she could get patterns on that interweb thingy, you bet your boots she would be all over that mother. (assuming she likes to sew, that is...) :)
Suddenly, some lawyer realizes it might be grounds for a quick courtroom profit and announces they're suing under (of all things) the DCMA. As if throwing boxes in the trash could possibly constitute encryption....
Maybe it is a form of steganography?
Just email her the article. It is blissfully free of agist comments. Besides, do you really what your mom to read slashdot? It rots your brain!
Ah, there you are. Yes I was thinking of that very conversation. In fact I recall there was someone posting about pattern swapping too.
Who said, "The reasonable man adapts to his environment. The unreasonable man tries to adapt the environment to himself. Thus, all progress has been made by unreasonable men"?
Google says it was George Bernard Shaw, who was rather the reaosnable man, or so I gather. ;)
and 13 is young.. whippersnapper! :P