That makes a lot of sense though as Linux appeals to people with older hardware that can't afford to keep up with the ever-hungry Windows upgrade cycle. IBM have little to lose here (Winmodem competition is pretty fierce already) and a great deal to gain.
Their IP is hardware, A GPL'd driver will allow them to sell more hardware, as the various OS geniuses will port this driver to every possible platform. The other ~10% of the market may seem trivial to Microsofties but it's a huge market and as such it makes sense to try and sell to 100% of the market. After all, it's not as if IBM will have to pay someone to do the porting work, whereas they did have to for Windows and Linux. Having said that, this is yet another great move from IBM, more power to you.
But IBM had to make a $7 BILLION loss before the other shoe dropped. They survived because they got rid of the egomaniacs that brought them to that position. Having been in IT when IBM were the all-powerful monster I can see Microsoft making the same mistakes: the shoddy products (Windows 2000 excepted, but it took over 4 years to arrive and the upgrade path is a great deal more than just 'log on to WindowsUpdate and reboot when it's done'), the arrogance, the disinterest in customer complaints unless the customer was a major corp.
Even then, IBM was still a great deal better than Microsoft is now. I think this guy is a bit premature in his assessment, but I can see Microsoft taking a very nasty fall because
they don't realise that keeping the customer happy takes a lot more than just lying about the alternatives, and just like IBM did they've made some bad enemies, like, ironically, IBM.
But that's Microsoftie logic. Communism is having lots of choice in a marketplace (several Linux distros, AtheOS, *BSD etc) and the right to do whatever you want with it (with trivial limitations under the GPL), and capitalism is only having one choice and only being allowed to use it in the way the producer says you can use it.
Corporations are focused purely on making the most money for their shareholders and keeping the share price up. The customers come a poor second to this with employees a very distant third.
It's not the German government, it's the German record industry proposing this. Please read the article before getting on your high horses about neo-nazism.
Where they also have a state-funded TV station. This means that we are not submerged in shitty gameshows and the like because the BBC is required to cater for 100% of it's audience, not just the lowest common denominator. I'm happy to pay 100 pounds a year to keep that good idea going. As for blocks on the internet keeping the citizenry down - what a joke. How many Germans use the internet as their primary source of information? Precious few I would have thought, given the high price of internet access there. I lived in Frankfurt for a while and although the city is ugly, the quality of life is far superior to Birmingham, UK where I live now.
I think Mr Pot should remember the comments of the head of Sony America who promised to 'block [piracy] at the routers' before denouncing a bunch of German corporate fascists. It's got nothing to do with the German government at this stage, it's just a bad idea from a bunch of seriously undemocratic organisations.
In the words of Eminem, 'Where were the parents at'? The clerk may be to blame, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the parents. At the age of 12 my parents didn't watch me 24 hours a day but weren't stupid. After all you just have to look at the packaging on Quake to see that it isn't really suitable for young children. Mine would have been straight back to the shop shouting the odds about selling products clearly marked as not for children to me. But then my parents aren't irresponsible and bone-idle, expecting everyone else do the parenting for them.
Of course not, because Billy-Bob would have to shift his 350 pound carcass from the pro-wrestling to see what his son is up to on the computer. Protect the kids, no film harder than Mary Poppins is allowed.
Are you a parent? If so then you shouldn't be allowing them to play violent games in much the same way as you shouldn't allow them to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ever hear of parental responsibility? Why should I as a 30 year old be deprived of something I consider fun because parents are too bone-idle to do their jobs?
Because vegetarians are all trying to undermine society by putting the meat trade out of business, therefore having an anti-corporate agenda. Remember that the left-wing are all communists and you know that communists censor everything, not like that nice Mr Hitler. The rabid anti-left sentiment of some people amazes me, as if believing in human rights over profits was something to be ashamed of.
I'm a big fan of cats and I think it's hilarious. Are any cats harmed? No. So it's just a bunch of students behaving like, well a bunch of students.
In related news the US Government outlaws humour as being 'inappropriate to the dignity of the last superpower'.
Yawn, yes it's a weak business model selling services. Just ask Andersen Consulting, sorry Accenture (yuk) and EDS and the many others like them (like the one that I work for). As usual ZicoKnows nothing about the IT market.
But tech stocks everywhere have collapsed including the Evil Empire(tm) so this whole computing business must just be snake-oil. BTW if you can't make money from services how come there are so many companies doing it (like the highly successful and profitable one I work for)
But then it took Microsoft 20 years to produce whereas it took Linux folk 10 years. As for innovation, why has Windows NT only just started supporting more than 4 processor SMP when every other server OS (apart from Linux) has had it for ages. Linux has been around for 10 years, MSDOS and it's spinoffs have been around for about 22. MacOS had an excellent interface when MS were still selling a very poor Unix ripoff.
Now lessee. Windows was conceived first as OS/2 in 1985. The first Microsoft OS to have anti-aliased fonts was Windows95. A speedy ten years to provide something. However Linux folks have taken a mere four years to provide the same from scratch. Remember that MS has had 25 years and has only recently produced an OS that doesn't crash at least once a week. That's because Linux was allowed to become a good platform before the pretty pictures were added, not the other way around.
My point was that the users won't be fscked because they won't pay for something they can't use. They'll just use the old versions and not be too bothered about being at the forefront of technology.
Slashdot Mirror
That makes a lot of sense though as Linux appeals to people with older hardware that can't afford to keep up with the ever-hungry Windows upgrade cycle. IBM have little to lose here (Winmodem competition is pretty fierce already) and a great deal to gain.
Their IP is hardware, A GPL'd driver will allow them to sell more hardware, as the various OS geniuses will port this driver to every possible platform. The other ~10% of the market may seem trivial to Microsofties but it's a huge market and as such it makes sense to try and sell to 100% of the market. After all, it's not as if IBM will have to pay someone to do the porting work, whereas they did have to for Windows and Linux. Having said that, this is yet another great move from IBM, more power to you.
But IBM had to make a $7 BILLION loss before the other shoe dropped. They survived because they got rid of the egomaniacs that brought them to that position. Having been in IT when IBM were the all-powerful monster I can see Microsoft making the same mistakes: the shoddy products (Windows 2000 excepted, but it took over 4 years to arrive and the upgrade path is a great deal more than just 'log on to WindowsUpdate and reboot when it's done'), the arrogance, the disinterest in customer complaints unless the customer was a major corp.
Even then, IBM was still a great deal better than Microsoft is now. I think this guy is a bit premature in his assessment, but I can see Microsoft taking a very nasty fall because
they don't realise that keeping the customer happy takes a lot more than just lying about the alternatives, and just like IBM did they've made some bad enemies, like, ironically, IBM.
But that's Microsoftie logic. Communism is having lots of choice in a marketplace (several Linux distros, AtheOS, *BSD etc) and the right to do whatever you want with it (with trivial limitations under the GPL), and capitalism is only having one choice and only being allowed to use it in the way the producer says you can use it.
Corporations are focused purely on making the most money for their shareholders and keeping the share price up. The customers come a poor second to this with employees a very distant third.
So what's missing then? The kernel config panel has a number of config options for APM/ACPI.
It's a joke, not a troll.
It's not the German government, it's the German record industry proposing this. Please read the article before getting on your high horses about neo-nazism.
Especially from a country where a large percentage of the population considers non-whites to be second-class citizens.
Where they also have a state-funded TV station. This means that we are not submerged in shitty gameshows and the like because the BBC is required to cater for 100% of it's audience, not just the lowest common denominator. I'm happy to pay 100 pounds a year to keep that good idea going. As for blocks on the internet keeping the citizenry down - what a joke. How many Germans use the internet as their primary source of information? Precious few I would have thought, given the high price of internet access there. I lived in Frankfurt for a while and although the city is ugly, the quality of life is far superior to Birmingham, UK where I live now.
I think Mr Pot should remember the comments of the head of Sony America who promised to 'block [piracy] at the routers' before denouncing a bunch of German corporate fascists. It's got nothing to do with the German government at this stage, it's just a bad idea from a bunch of seriously undemocratic organisations.
It's the job of the parents to enforce what their children do, not the job of Walmart or JOhn Carmack.
In the words of Eminem, 'Where were the parents at'? The clerk may be to blame, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the parents. At the age of 12 my parents didn't watch me 24 hours a day but weren't stupid. After all you just have to look at the packaging on Quake to see that it isn't really suitable for young children. Mine would have been straight back to the shop shouting the odds about selling products clearly marked as not for children to me. But then my parents aren't irresponsible and bone-idle, expecting everyone else do the parenting for them.
Of course not, because Billy-Bob would have to shift his 350 pound carcass from the pro-wrestling to see what his son is up to on the computer. Protect the kids, no film harder than Mary Poppins is allowed.
Are you a parent? If so then you shouldn't be allowing them to play violent games in much the same way as you shouldn't allow them to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ever hear of parental responsibility? Why should I as a 30 year old be deprived of something I consider fun because parents are too bone-idle to do their jobs?
Because vegetarians are all trying to undermine society by putting the meat trade out of business, therefore having an anti-corporate agenda. Remember that the left-wing are all communists and you know that communists censor everything, not like that nice Mr Hitler. The rabid anti-left sentiment of some people amazes me, as if believing in human rights over profits was something to be ashamed of.
I'm a big fan of cats and I think it's hilarious. Are any cats harmed? No. So it's just a bunch of students behaving like, well a bunch of students.
In related news the US Government outlaws humour as being 'inappropriate to the dignity of the last superpower'.
I suggest you go here and look up MSFT, CSCO, ORCL and SUNW. 50% drops in the last year. Looks like this computing thing was just a fad after all.
With Evil Empire shares trading at about 50% less than their 52 week high is this the end of the world as we know it?
Yawn, yes it's a weak business model selling services. Just ask Andersen Consulting, sorry Accenture (yuk) and EDS and the many others like them (like the one that I work for). As usual ZicoKnows nothing about the IT market.
But tech stocks everywhere have collapsed including the Evil Empire(tm) so this whole computing business must just be snake-oil. BTW if you can't make money from services how come there are so many companies doing it (like the highly successful and profitable one I work for)
Although this is quite funny, after Doug Miller's recent comments would the pot please refrain from insulting the kettle.
But then it took Microsoft 20 years to produce whereas it took Linux folk 10 years. As for innovation, why has Windows NT only just started supporting more than 4 processor SMP when every other server OS (apart from Linux) has had it for ages. Linux has been around for 10 years, MSDOS and it's spinoffs have been around for about 22. MacOS had an excellent interface when MS were still selling a very poor Unix ripoff.
Now lessee. Windows was conceived first as OS/2 in 1985. The first Microsoft OS to have anti-aliased fonts was Windows95. A speedy ten years to provide something. However Linux folks have taken a mere four years to provide the same from scratch. Remember that MS has had 25 years and has only recently produced an OS that doesn't crash at least once a week. That's because Linux was allowed to become a good platform before the pretty pictures were added, not the other way around.
My point was that the users won't be fscked because they won't pay for something they can't use. They'll just use the old versions and not be too bothered about being at the forefront of technology.