Actually, in a lot of ways I'd rather live in Mississippi than California, although Mississippi isn't my pick of the best places in the southeast to live... I've actually contemplated moving to central Florida. Georgia and the Carolinas don't seem that bad either.
Idaho? That is a northwestern state, not midwestern. If its got anything resembling mountains, it isn't in the midwest.
Unless you are figuring Katz is one of the coasters who gets Idaho confused with Iowa (which is in the midwest) and Ohio (which is a northeastern industrial state, not midwestern either).
Are those 50-90 and 90-120 times in Km/h or miles/h? Many of the cars this guy was talking about probably can't do 90 mph, let alone 120 mph. In the US, few cars see the high side of 90 mph on any sort of regular basis, as most states have maximum speed limits of between 60 and 75 mph, which limits practical top driving speed, assuming a certain amount of cheating on speed limits to no more than 85 or so on any kind of regular basis.
Whatever a common rail diesel is, they must not sell them over here, because I've never seen a diesel I'd consider very quick, even Mercedes.
You are correct, you have to replace the tranny as well, as the TH200R4 that came behind most 2.8L automatic cars won't last behind a 350 V8 for very long. However, a TH700R4 or a TH350 which usually comes behind such a V8 will bolt right in as well. Most of the time if you are buying a used engine you can get a transmission as well. About the only other things you need to make things work you can get from either an over the counter kit (which usually includes headers for the application and new front struts/springs to handle the extra weight) or from junkyard parts.
You don't buy your parts at a very good store, or you don't do the work yourself (in which case, why were you contemplating an engine swap?).
You could buy that whole car used in 1992 around here for less than you supposedly spent in repairs.
FWIW, I've owned several GM cars in the past 15 years, and I'd much rather deal with them than Ford, Chrysler or an import. Your milage may vary, but I've had pretty good luck.
BTW, swapping a 350 for a 2.8L V6 in either a Camaro or an S10 is practically a bolt in swap. I know several people who've done it.
0-60 in 11 seconds is most certainly not in the last 1% of car performance, unless we're talking KPH or US cars are _hugely_ faster than european.
We have a winner! Yes, US cars are on average hugely faster than those sold in europe. The slowest cars sold in the US are (in approximate order) the Geo/Chevy Metro with a tiny little 1.2 liter engine (used to be a 1.0 liter 3-cyl engine). They are actually build by Suzuki and I believe are sold under the Vauxhall label in the U.K. The Ford Aspire (actually built in Korea by KIA). One of the Honda Civic models with the 1.2 liter engine and automatic transmission. None of these models are very big sellers because few american buyers want them. Most people would prefer a 2-3 year old decent used car to one of these new.
Let's see. Audi A4 Avant 1.9 TDI. o-60 in 13.9 secs.
Woof, that is pretty pathetic. Do they even sell that model in the US? I've seen Audi A4's on the road, but I can't imagine that they are that slow. The similarly sized Volkswagens sold here aren't even that bad. Chrysler Voyager 2.5 TD SE 14.0 secs, 2.0 SE 13.8 secs.
A minivan? Yes, they are horribly underpowered, but not a fair comparison to a tiny little microcar that weighs less than 1/2 as much. BTW, almost all the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager/Chrysler minivans sold over here are V6 powered, and while still tepid, can do better than 11 seconds 0-60. Citroen Saxo 1.0i First. 0-60 16.6 secs. Or, Xsara 1.4i X, 13.0 secs.> I don't think Citroen has even tried to sell cars in the US in a long time. I haven't even seen a new Renault since their deal with the old American Motors/Chrysler died.
I drive a gas guzzler (26 mpg) that is a lot of fun to drive. I have a 1994 Camaro SS and I love the beast.
26? Gas guzzler? Sheesh. My Chevelle only gets 8 to 10 mpg. Heck, my mostly stock S10 pickup only gets about 20.
Why are gas prices going up? We're using gas like crazy. Period.
Actually, its because oil companies are greedy bastards. World crude oil prices haven't gone up nearly enough to account for the prices they are charging. In europe they have it far worse than we do because their oil companies are even more greedy and corrupt than those over here in the US, plus their taxes are even more obscene than ours are.
I'd never own one of these underpowered, undersized tincan deathtraps. Anything that can't get up to at least 60 by the end of one of the short onramps on my local freeway shouldn't be allowed on the road. Having a semi doing 65 run you down when you are trying to merge at 40 is not a good thing.
If gas gets too expensive (like it is in europe) I will build my own still and start making alcohol. I can quite easily modify (re-jetting and adjusting carburators) at least two of my vehicles to run on pure alcohol. If gas gets much over $3 a gallon then pure alcohol is cheaper than petroleum, and its even more emissions friendly (not that I care that much).
I use StarOffice. I could afford Windows and MS-Office. I don't like Windows, I don't like MS-Office, I don't want Windows, I don't want MS-Office.
I do like Word Perfect a little better than the word processor in StarOffice, but StarOffice is more than usable.
At any rate, how many people actually use more than 10% of the features in their office suite? The argument that you have to pick the absolutely most feature bloated office suite just doesn't make much sense when you consider that most people won't ever need half of it.
Most people could get everything done they need to using something as spartan as Applixware... Maybe faster, since they wouldn't be tempted to twiddle with as many frills or have to wade through so much extraneous junk.
Actually, Jesse Berst actually said all those things at various times in his editorials... They may be taken a little out of context, but in general accurate...
Actually I just checked SCO's pages, and it looks like Compaq is actually part of Monterey. The following is cut and pasted directly from a press release on SCO's site:
"Project Monterey, a UNIX operating system (OS) initiative led by IBM, along with SCO, Intel, Compaq and other industry leaders."
What about HP, Compaq(Digital) and SGI? Sun are big in the UNIX market, but they aren't the only ones that IBM has to think about.
Re:Was Linux the competitor?
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Endgame For SCO
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I suspect I'm not in that unusual a company.
I must work for an unusual company, because there are a lot more new Linux installs than anything else. BTW, did your company formerly use SCO?
But go ahead and have a hype fest. At least you'll have your fantasies to keep your life fulfilling.
A Microsoft apologist talks about hype... Who is it that has paid millions of dollars on advertising, media events and grassroots... err astroturf campaigns? It is Microsoft that is all about hype and glitz.
What SCO has is the copyright on the original AT&T System V code base. That is the main thing that IBM would want. If Monterrey is based on any of that code, as it almost surely would be, then it would give whoever owned it a leg up over their other partners as far as being able to market it (they wouldn't have to pay royalties, for one).
Re:Was Linux the competitor?
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While Linux-based systems are infiltrating the server world, I question whether they are replacing current commercial unix systems or creating a new niche.
Both. Linux is also replacing current NT and NetWare systems, not just commercial UNIX.
While SCO's apparent demise (and possible upcoming resurrection?) may be due to a surge of Linux use, I would doubt it.
I wouldn't doubt it is a factor. I would share some of your skepticism that it is the only factor. It is also likely that such things as free Solaris x86 and the increasingly price competitive proprietary commercial UNIX hardware played a role. Both of those things are at least partialy because of Linux though.
More than likely, their business was merely not as profitable anymore in a developing industry.
That is probably partly it, at least to the point that their business was not as profitable anymore because their products have been comoditized.
I'd like to see statistics, to know whether people were replacing SCO systems with other commercial unix systems or Linux/*BSD.
That would definitely be interesting. I suspect that the answer would be that people are doing both, but given what I've seen, Linux is getting chosen fairly frequently by people migrating away from SCO's products as its price tag is attractive, and it runs on the same type of hardware.
It may be a bit pretensious to assume it was Linux pushing SCO out of the market.
Slightly, in that it is highly likely that there were other factors involved that shouldn't be completely discounted.
I would have to agree with you pretty much. If Microsoft didn't exist, or at least hadn't crushed everyone in their path with their ruthless tactics, the computer industry would be a lot further along than it is now.
Although I rather appreciate your fairly even handed tone to your post, I think this point is getting over blown. It's a point that I feel needs to be addressed with a bit more reality, oddly enough for the sake of Linux and open source in general.
I think the important thing is to think about what we are going to do about the problem more than worrying about the problem itself.
Microsoft has done one thing that no other computer company or organization has even approached accomplishing. They developed an OS that can support an extremely wide range of hardware, and brought computing to what you would refer to as the average user.
What is innovative about that? They didn't invent MS-DOS, let alone the fact that MS-DOS was a somewhat cheezy CP/M clone. If anyone deserves the credit for developing an OS that could support an extremely wide range of hardware, it is the late Gary Killdal of Digital Research. As for nuturing a 3rd party hardware market, the IBM PC was nothing new, as it borrowed its slot expandability ideas from S100 machines (originally Altair and MITS) and the Apple II. As for bringing computing to the average user, Microsoft wasn't very innovative there either, what they did was copy Apple's copy of Xerox's work. If anyone deserves credit for bringing the GUI to the computing world, it is Steve Jobs of Apple.
Sun, IBM and Apple all rolled together haven't accomplished half of what MS has in this regard.
I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I think Microsoft likes to take credit for a lot of other people's work.
This keeps getting referred to as something trivial, when it's anything but.
Being nontrivial and being innovative are not the same thing.
Linux is still going through the pains of trying to get all these various hardware drivers to play nice together, and to work in OEM support for them. Things are finally starting to get easier, with more vendors willing to release specs, reference code and sometimes even let their own people work on drivers. Part of the reason vendors are willing to do this is because Linux has not only started to achieve a certain level of stature in the world, but also because vendors are less worried about retaliation from Microsoft because Microsoft is now under scrutiny by both the computing community and the feds.
Linux has a lot harder work to create device drivers, because most of them are still being written by users. Microsoft has all of the OEMs doing the work for them. It is pretty amazing to me how wide Linux's hardware support is given the obstacles it has faced in getting there, especially with hardware vendors who won't release specs.
There's obviously still quite a bit of work yet to be done to bring Linux to the desktop as well.
Depends on what you mean by quite a bit. I personally don't think that KDE is that far off from Windows 9x, and in some ways I think it is better. I keep hearing how far Linux is behind in this area, but I seldom get very many details as to what people think is lacking in KDE, for example or any positive suggestions as to what to do about it.
Point is, MS has a lot of good and bad about them.
Hmmm... a little good and a lot bad would be the most I could see. In my opinion the bad painfully outweighs the good.
They're a big company that does a lot of stuff, or course there's going to be a lot of aspects to them. To constantly only focusing in on just the bad limits you to only learning half the lessons that a company like MS can provide.
Just because I complain loudly about the bad 90% of Microsoft doesn't mean I haven't paid attention to what they are doing. Its just that of the good 10%, probably 90% is borrowed from someone else, and I'd prefer to look to the original.
As I've said before, if Microsoft can clean up their act as much as IBM has over the past few years, I will be willing to tone down my criticism of them. I don't hate them for the sake of hating them, I hate what they do.
Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a pro-MS post. There is a bigger picture here than "MS Sucks" and I just find it unfortunate that so many folks around here can't see that.
While the picture may be bigger than that, it is mostly obscured by that. I think the thing is that you have to be ready to justify conclusions based on concrete criteria rather than just saying "_____ sucks".
Sorry for picking on you SoftwareJanitor, there are certainly folks far worse than yourself in what I'm talking about here.
I'm a big boy, I can take criticism. I pretty much completely disagree with you, but you are entitled to your opinion, and entitled to express it.
You can't go into most retail outlets and buy a computer without a hard drive. Only the smaller stores will sell you one that way. CompUSA, Best Buy and the department stores will not. Things might be different in other parts of the country or world, but around here, it isn't that easy.
Do you really think that if newbies out there don't even understand what Windows is, that they're gonna want to use something "open" and "free" like Linux?
I don't think that being "open" will be something those people will understand one way or the other. Free as in "free beer" is something that many of them will understand. Free as in free speech takes a little more explanation.
I wish some of the posters on Slashdot would get their heads out of their asses long enough to realize that LINUX ISN'T A DESKTOP OS!!
Linux is a desktop OS. It may not be a desktop OS for everyone yet, but then again, I don't think Windows fits that either. There are some things in Windows that are still much worse than MacOS for the truly computer illiterate. With KDE, I don't really see how Linux is very far beyond the Windows 9x interface. I never get too many details on just what people think is so great about Windows 9x compared to KDE, maybe you can say?
Another thing is that Linux has emerged as one of the only alternatives to Windows on the x86 architecture because Microsoft's tactics have squashed virtually every other competitor, regardless of technical merits. OS/2 could have been a contender, for example, had Microsoft not stabbed IBM in the back. BeOS could be a contender, but they have an uphill battle trying to build a market against Microsoft.
Hell, I've been seriously interested in computers for more than 2 years,
Oh my, two whole years. I've been seriously interested in computers for something like 20 years. Linux is a good desktop for serious users, and is making strides towards being friendly for those not quite at that level yet.
and I still have fits trying to configure some stupid things in Linux.
Actually, if you weren't used to Windows, it would probably be easier in some ways to learn Linux. I learned UNIX before I had used MS-DOS much. There was no such thing as Windows back then -- the only widespread GUI was MacOS, and PC users swore up and down that the GUI was a fad, and that the command line was superior to any GUI.
That is pure BS. When I purchase new computers, I have never had to pay for Windows at all.
Are you sure? You think Microsoft is giving it to you for free? It is included in the price of the computer whether you like it or not. Until recently, the only way you could buy an assembled computer at retail without Windows was to buy one from a very small computer store that was small enough to get away with building one without Windows without getting noticed by Microsoft.
As a matter of fact, I've never seen Maxtor or any other HD manufacturer sell drives with Windows pre-installed. If you are talking about newbies who are buying whole PC's from Dell or Compaq, they know that Windows come with those systems, that why they buy them.
Oh please, many of those newbies don't really even understand what Windows is, or why they should have a choice as to something else. Microsoft has made it virtually impossible for people to have any choice.
Think before you post moron.
I think about my posts and stand behind what I said. As to who is a moron, I will let the court of Slashdot opinion decide.
No one put a gun to my head when I bought my computer.
Try to buy a computer without Windows. Most places, that just isn't available. In fact, it seems that the crux of your argument is based in jealousy.
What about my argument looks like jealousy? I am not jealous of Microsoft at all. I don't want to see Linux as the only choice when people go to buy a computer. They should be able to pick between different OSes pre-loaded, or none at all. Don't mistake the fact that I think that other companies besides Microsoft should have a fair opportunity to do business with my being jealous of Microsoft.
Linux isn't available on most Personal Computers because of people like Ingo.
Eh? That isn't a fair statement at all.
You spend your time working on the kernel making it more powerful, while every professional OS company works on what the common person really wants: a nice and easy GUI.
Bzzt. Wrong again. Look at such 'professional OS companies' as Compaq (OpenVMS), Sun (Solaris), HP (HP/UX) and SCO (Open Desktop, Unixware). They all use X, and have GUI's which are arguably less nice and easy than KDE.
While a CLI has it's place, the average user enjoys the simplicity of a GUI.
And personally, I think that KDE, at least is better in many ways than the Windows GUI. I think Gnome is only lagging slightly behind KDE, and has some things about it that are nice as well.
Microsoft, while receiving great praise from the Slashdot community for it's innovations,
Er, either you mistyped that or you are being sarcastic. Microsoft has never had any real innovations, let alone received any great praise from the Slashdot community.
has done something that Linux hasn't: it made an OK product and made people think it was Great. Microsoft can not be faulted for good advertising. Actually, Microsoft's advertising isn't always that good, it is just smotheringly pervasive. Linux doesn't have the kind of money to spend on advertising that Microsoft does. Microsoft's commercial success can't be completely explained by advertising, it is also all of the other things they do.
To assume that a business must play fair, just because it deals with software, is asinine.
To assume that a business shouldn't have to play fair, just because it deals with software is what is truly assinine.
I applaud this development, and I enjoy the approach that Ingo took. But to say that bundling a server with the kernel is different than what MS has done, is to invite a swift beating.
It is different, if only from the fact that you have to choose to run Linux to begin with, and you can easily de-bundle the kernel based server if you like. How is that the same?
Not everyone is a genius programmer,
Oh, please, you don't have to be a genius programmer to choose to or not to load a module, for example. I've known people who aren't programmers who've figured out how to rebuild a kernel for goodness sake.
and thus the same limitations are in place as in Windows. I wouldn't worry about the FTC going after a commercial producer of this, though, because the kernel has been specifically improved for content serving. The server is the OS, and the OS is the server. Pity to the moron who would buy it for gaming.
Actually, Unreal Tournament runs pretty well on my main Linux box at home... But I didn't buy that box for gaming.
I hate Microsoft,
I don't hate Microsoft, I hate what they do. If the would clean up their act, as for example, IBM has for the most part the past few years, I would be willing to tone down my criticism of them.
don't get me wrong, but they haven't committed the great sins we accuse them of.
What do you think they haven't done? One of the things that irks me most about Microsoft's behaviour is that they seem to think they have to play dirty and nasty all the time, even when they have already essentially won in a market. Other companies play dirty too, on occasion, but nobody is as ruthlessly cutthroat as Microsoft is. Its often like a pro sports team playing a bunch of kids on a sand lot, and thinking they have to cheat because they are afraid they might lose, or even let the kids score once.
I just wish they would release software that was less buggy and more efficient.
I am not so concerned about the quality of Microsoft's products. In a competitive market, eventually a company that produces bad products with no redeeming values would get pushed down. Only when monopolistic powers are in play can a company consistantly get away with forcing people to buy shoddy products.
Otherwise, as soon as a Linux distributor gets some marketing intelligence Apple and Microsoft will be screwed.
Its not that simple. Once a company has a monopolistic position in a market, they can often crush smaller competitors no matter how much marketing savvy they might have.
Ah! The Windows approach to software integration. If you can't beat them, join them!
Microsoft started a war, and they can't expect that others won't give Microsoft back what they dish out.
Anyway, I wonder what security holes will appear in this kernel level software!
Could be a problem if it isn't done right. Luckily with Linux you've got alternatives if you want to run a different server, so you can take out anything you don't like.
People moaned about incorporating the web browser into the OS, but this is incorporating the web server - surely Microsoft have a cause to moan about this??!?!?
Microsoft has no cause to complain. Nobody forces you to buy Linux when you buy a new computer like most people are forced to buy Windows when they buy a new computer. Also, since you get source code for Linux, it is easy to remove the web server if you don't like it. Microsoft claims (and they did make it really difficult) that it is impossible to remove Internet Exploder from Windows.
I'm convinced the whole OSS movement will inevitably fail.
I am not convinced of that. And anyway, what is failure and what is success? I don't think that OSS will have 'failed' unless nobody develops OSS or free software. Other people might say that it has failed if it doesn't eliminate closed source and commercial software entirely.
It has its own demise built right into it..As more and more people begin to realize the somewhat disturbing truth about things (ie. people are making money off what you've done, and advancing their careers off YOUR hard work, while you get nothing) the whole system will slowly grind to a halt and fail.
That may put off some people, but other people won't care. And not every OSS/free software developer will get 'nothing'. Getting nothing isn't an inherent part of the OSS/free software model, nor is getting something an inherent part of the closed source/commercial model. Lots of commercial developers see other people (their employers and coworkers or former employers or coworkers) make money off what they've done and advancing their careers off their hard work. Many commercial software development projects are just plain failures where nobody makes any money at all anyway.
By the time that happens, fortunes will have already been made, and the ones who corrupted the process by introducing greed into the equation will have already moved on to something else.
That isn't necessarily going to kill OSS/free software unless a large percentage of the community is dragged down by that. I don't think that is a guaranteed thing either way.
OSS only works when the primary motivation of its participants is fun. When that motivation goes from fun to *greed*, the whole process begins a slow and irreversible decay as more and more people refuse to play along.
I think that is an overly simplified view of things. There are a lot of other motivations for writing OSS/free software than just fun. Some people do it for ideologic reasons (the Stallman camp), others do it to solve a problem they need solved, and release the code because they don't need to make money from it, or because they don't want to bother with things like marketing, etc. There is a pay off for them in that other people may improve the software and they can take advantage of that, or just the ego boost from knowing that other people use it. Then there is 'abandonware', which is formerly commercial software that is given away by companies that no longer are interested in developing or supporting it.
Thats my $0.02..If I didnt believe it, I wouldnt have typed it.
You are entitled to your opinion. While I can see your points to a certain extent, and this issue is definitely something the OSS/free software community needs to be aware of and work to prevent, I am more optomistic than you are.
I think that OSS/free software still has a long path ahead of it, one that is sure to be full of ups and downs and twists and turns, and perhaps even a few dead ends. But there should be enough people following the path so that at least a certain number of people will take the correct forks along the way.
If I didn't believe there was a future in OSS/free software, I wouldn't be here.
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Actually, in a lot of ways I'd rather live in Mississippi than California, although Mississippi isn't my pick of the best places in the southeast to live... I've actually contemplated moving to central Florida. Georgia and the Carolinas don't seem that bad either.
Idaho? That is a northwestern state, not midwestern. If its got anything resembling mountains, it isn't in the midwest.
Unless you are figuring Katz is one of the coasters who gets Idaho confused with Iowa (which is in the midwest) and Ohio (which is a northeastern industrial state, not midwestern either).
Are those 50-90 and 90-120 times in Km/h or miles/h? Many of the cars this guy was talking about probably can't do 90 mph, let alone 120 mph. In the US, few cars see the high side of 90 mph on any sort of regular basis, as most states have maximum speed limits of between 60 and 75 mph, which limits practical top driving speed, assuming a certain amount of cheating on speed limits to no more than 85 or so on any kind of regular basis.
Whatever a common rail diesel is, they must not sell them over here, because I've never seen a diesel I'd consider very quick, even Mercedes.
You are correct, you have to replace the tranny as well, as the TH200R4 that came behind most 2.8L automatic cars won't last behind a 350 V8 for very long. However, a TH700R4 or a TH350 which usually comes behind such a V8 will bolt right in as well. Most of the time if you are buying a used engine you can get a transmission as well. About the only other things you need to make things work you can get from either an over the counter kit (which usually includes headers for the application and new front struts/springs to handle the extra weight) or from junkyard parts.
Corel should move to the Valley. Otherwise they just don't stand a chance.
Or even better, a less highly taxed and less socialist state than California, like somewhere in the midwest or southeast...
You don't buy your parts at a very good store, or you don't do the work yourself (in which case, why were you contemplating an engine swap?).
You could buy that whole car used in 1992 around here for less than you supposedly spent in repairs.
FWIW, I've owned several GM cars in the past 15 years, and I'd much rather deal with them than Ford, Chrysler or an import. Your milage may vary, but I've had pretty good luck.
BTW, swapping a 350 for a 2.8L V6 in either a Camaro or an S10 is practically a bolt in swap. I know several people who've done it.
0-60 in 11 seconds is most certainly not in the last 1% of car performance, unless we're talking KPH or US cars are _hugely_ faster than european.
We have a winner! Yes, US cars are on average hugely faster than those sold in europe. The slowest cars sold in the US are (in approximate order) the Geo/Chevy Metro with a tiny little 1.2 liter engine (used to be a 1.0 liter 3-cyl engine). They are actually build by Suzuki and I believe are sold under the Vauxhall label in the U.K. The Ford Aspire (actually built in Korea by KIA). One of the Honda Civic models with the 1.2 liter engine and automatic transmission. None of these models are very big sellers because few american buyers want them. Most people would prefer a 2-3 year old decent used car to one of these new.
Let's see. Audi A4 Avant 1.9 TDI. o-60 in 13.9 secs.
Woof, that is pretty pathetic. Do they even sell that model in the US? I've seen Audi A4's on the road, but I can't imagine that they are that slow. The similarly sized Volkswagens sold here aren't even that bad.
Chrysler Voyager 2.5 TD SE 14.0 secs, 2.0 SE 13.8 secs.
A minivan? Yes, they are horribly underpowered, but not a fair comparison to a tiny little microcar that weighs less than 1/2 as much. BTW, almost all the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager/Chrysler minivans sold over here are V6 powered, and while still tepid, can do better than 11 seconds 0-60.
Citroen Saxo 1.0i First. 0-60 16.6 secs. Or, Xsara 1.4i X, 13.0 secs.>
I don't think Citroen has even tried to sell cars in the US in a long time. I haven't even seen a new Renault since their deal with the old American Motors/Chrysler died.
I drive a gas guzzler (26 mpg) that is a lot of fun to drive. I have a 1994 Camaro SS and I love the beast.
26? Gas guzzler? Sheesh. My Chevelle only gets 8 to 10 mpg. Heck, my mostly stock S10 pickup only gets about 20.
Why are gas prices going up? We're using gas like crazy. Period.
Actually, its because oil companies are greedy bastards. World crude oil prices haven't gone up nearly enough to account for the prices they are charging. In europe they have it far worse than we do because their oil companies are even more greedy and corrupt than those over here in the US, plus their taxes are even more obscene than ours are.
I'd never own one of these underpowered, undersized tincan deathtraps. Anything that can't get up to at least 60 by the end of one of the short onramps on my local freeway shouldn't be allowed on the road. Having a semi doing 65 run you down when you are trying to merge at 40 is not a good thing.
If gas gets too expensive (like it is in europe) I will build my own still and start making alcohol. I can quite easily modify (re-jetting and adjusting carburators) at least two of my vehicles to run on pure alcohol. If gas gets much over $3 a gallon then pure alcohol is cheaper than petroleum, and its even more emissions friendly (not that I care that much).
I use StarOffice. I could afford Windows and MS-Office. I don't like Windows, I don't like MS-Office, I don't want Windows, I don't want MS-Office.
I do like Word Perfect a little better than the word processor in StarOffice, but StarOffice is more than usable.
At any rate, how many people actually use more than 10% of the features in their office suite? The argument that you have to pick the absolutely most feature bloated office suite just doesn't make much sense when you consider that most people won't ever need half of it.
Most people could get everything done they need to using something as spartan as Applixware... Maybe faster, since they wouldn't be tempted to twiddle with as many frills or have to wade through so much extraneous junk.
Actually, Jesse Berst actually said all those things at various times in his editorials... They may be taken a little out of context, but in general accurate...
Actually I just checked SCO's pages, and it looks like Compaq is actually part of Monterey. The following is cut and pasted directly from a press release on SCO's site:
"Project Monterey, a UNIX operating system (OS) initiative led by IBM, along with SCO, Intel, Compaq and other industry leaders."
The post I was replying to was asking about Sun, who is definitely not a Monterrey partner. The scope of the conversation has shifted.
What about HP, Compaq(Digital) and SGI? Sun are big in the UNIX market, but they aren't the only ones that IBM has to think about.
I suspect I'm not in that unusual a company.
I must work for an unusual company, because there are a lot more new Linux installs than anything else. BTW, did your company formerly use SCO?
But go ahead and have a hype fest. At least you'll have your fantasies to keep your life fulfilling.
A Microsoft apologist talks about hype... Who is it that has paid millions of dollars on advertising, media events and grassroots... err astroturf campaigns? It is Microsoft that is all about hype and glitz.
What SCO has is the copyright on the original AT&T System V code base. That is the main thing that IBM would want. If Monterrey is based on any of that code, as it almost surely would be, then it would give whoever owned it a leg up over their other partners as far as being able to market it (they wouldn't have to pay royalties, for one).
While Linux-based systems are infiltrating the server world, I question whether they are replacing current commercial unix systems or creating a new niche.
Both. Linux is also replacing current NT and NetWare systems, not just commercial UNIX.
While SCO's apparent demise (and possible upcoming resurrection?) may be due to a surge of Linux use, I would doubt it.
I wouldn't doubt it is a factor. I would share some of your skepticism that it is the only factor. It is also likely that such things as free Solaris x86 and the increasingly price competitive proprietary commercial UNIX hardware played a role. Both of those things are at least partialy because of Linux though.
More than likely, their business was merely not as profitable anymore in a developing industry.
That is probably partly it, at least to the point that their business was not as profitable anymore because their products have been comoditized.
I'd like to see statistics, to know whether people were replacing SCO systems with other commercial unix systems or Linux/*BSD.
That would definitely be interesting. I suspect that the answer would be that people are doing both, but given what I've seen, Linux is getting chosen fairly frequently by people migrating away from SCO's products as its price tag is attractive, and it runs on the same type of hardware.
It may be a bit pretensious to assume it was Linux pushing SCO out of the market.
Slightly, in that it is highly likely that there were other factors involved that shouldn't be completely discounted.
I would have to agree with you pretty much. If Microsoft didn't exist, or at least hadn't crushed everyone in their path with their ruthless tactics, the computer industry would be a lot further along than it is now.
Although I rather appreciate your fairly even handed tone to your post, I think this point is getting over blown. It's a point that I feel needs to be addressed with a bit more reality, oddly enough for the sake of Linux and open source in general.
I think the important thing is to think about what we are going to do about the problem more than worrying about the problem itself.
Microsoft has done one thing that no other computer company or organization has even approached accomplishing. They developed an OS that can support an extremely wide range of hardware, and brought computing to what you would refer to as the average user.
What is innovative about that? They didn't invent MS-DOS, let alone the fact that MS-DOS was a somewhat cheezy CP/M clone. If anyone deserves the credit for developing an OS that could support an extremely wide range of hardware, it is the late Gary Killdal of Digital Research. As for nuturing a 3rd party hardware market, the IBM PC was nothing new, as it borrowed its slot expandability ideas from S100 machines (originally Altair and MITS) and the Apple II. As for bringing computing to the average user, Microsoft wasn't very innovative there either, what they did was copy Apple's copy of Xerox's work. If anyone deserves credit for bringing the GUI to the computing world, it is Steve Jobs of Apple.
Sun, IBM and Apple all rolled together haven't accomplished half of what MS has in this regard.
I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I think Microsoft likes to take credit for a lot of other people's work.
This keeps getting referred to as something trivial, when it's anything but.
Being nontrivial and being innovative are not the same thing.
Linux is still going through the pains of trying to get all these various hardware drivers to play nice together, and to work in OEM support for them. Things are finally starting to get easier, with more vendors willing to release specs, reference code and sometimes even let their own people work on drivers. Part of the reason vendors are willing to do this is because Linux has not only started to achieve a certain level of stature in the world, but also because vendors are less worried about retaliation from Microsoft because Microsoft is now under scrutiny by both the computing community and the feds.
Linux has a lot harder work to create device drivers, because most of them are still being written by users. Microsoft has all of the OEMs doing the work for them. It is pretty amazing to me how wide Linux's hardware support is given the obstacles it has faced in getting there, especially with hardware vendors who won't release specs.
There's obviously still quite a bit of work yet to be done to bring Linux to the desktop as well.
Depends on what you mean by quite a bit. I personally don't think that KDE is that far off from Windows 9x, and in some ways I think it is better. I keep hearing how far Linux is behind in this area, but I seldom get very many details as to what people think is lacking in KDE, for example or any positive suggestions as to what to do about it.
Point is, MS has a lot of good and bad about them.
Hmmm... a little good and a lot bad would be the most I could see. In my opinion the bad painfully outweighs the good.
They're a big company that does a lot of stuff, or course there's going to be a lot of aspects to them. To constantly only focusing in on just the bad limits you to only learning half the lessons that a company like MS can provide.
Just because I complain loudly about the bad 90% of Microsoft doesn't mean I haven't paid attention to what they are doing. Its just that of the good 10%, probably 90% is borrowed from someone else, and I'd prefer to look to the original.
As I've said before, if Microsoft can clean up their act as much as IBM has over the past few years, I will be willing to tone down my criticism of them. I don't hate them for the sake of hating them, I hate what they do.
Disclaimer:
This is not meant to be a pro-MS post. There is a bigger picture here than "MS Sucks" and I just find it unfortunate that so many folks around here can't see that.
While the picture may be bigger than that, it is mostly obscured by that. I think the thing is that you have to be ready to justify conclusions based on concrete criteria rather than just saying "_____ sucks".
Sorry for picking on you SoftwareJanitor, there are certainly folks far worse than yourself in what I'm talking about here.
I'm a big boy, I can take criticism. I pretty much completely disagree with you, but you are entitled to your opinion, and entitled to express it.
You can't go into most retail outlets and buy a computer without a hard drive. Only the smaller stores will sell you one that way. CompUSA, Best Buy and the department stores will not. Things might be different in other parts of the country or world, but around here, it isn't that easy.
Do you really think that if newbies out there don't even understand what Windows is, that they're gonna want to use something "open" and "free" like Linux?
I don't think that being "open" will be something those people will understand one way or the other. Free as in "free beer" is something that many of them will understand. Free as in free speech takes a little more explanation.
I wish some of the posters on Slashdot would get their heads out of their asses long enough to realize that LINUX ISN'T A DESKTOP OS!!
Linux is a desktop OS. It may not be a desktop OS for everyone yet, but then again, I don't think Windows fits that either. There are some things in Windows that are still much worse than MacOS for the truly computer illiterate. With KDE, I don't really see how Linux is very far beyond the Windows 9x interface. I never get too many details on just what people think is so great about Windows 9x compared to KDE, maybe you can say?
Another thing is that Linux has emerged as one of the only alternatives to Windows on the x86 architecture because Microsoft's tactics have squashed virtually every other competitor, regardless of technical merits. OS/2 could have been a contender, for example, had Microsoft not stabbed IBM in the back. BeOS could be a contender, but they have an uphill battle trying to build a market against Microsoft.
Hell, I've been seriously interested in computers for more than 2 years,
Oh my, two whole years. I've been seriously interested in computers for something like 20 years. Linux is a good desktop for serious users, and is making strides towards being friendly for those not quite at that level yet.
and I still have fits trying to configure some stupid things in Linux.
Actually, if you weren't used to Windows, it would probably be easier in some ways to learn Linux. I learned UNIX before I had used MS-DOS much. There was no such thing as Windows back then -- the only widespread GUI was MacOS, and PC users swore up and down that the GUI was a fad, and that the command line was superior to any GUI.
That is pure BS. When I purchase new computers, I have never had to pay for Windows at all.
Are you sure? You think Microsoft is giving it to you for free? It is included in the price of the computer whether you like it or not. Until recently, the only way you could buy an assembled computer at retail without Windows was to buy one from a very small computer store that was small enough to get away with building one without Windows without getting noticed by Microsoft.
As a matter of fact, I've never seen Maxtor or any other HD manufacturer sell drives with Windows pre-installed. If you are talking about newbies who are buying whole PC's from Dell or Compaq, they know that Windows come with those systems, that why they buy them.
Oh please, many of those newbies don't really even understand what Windows is, or why they should have a choice as to something else. Microsoft has made it virtually impossible for people to have any choice.
Think before you post moron.
I think about my posts and stand behind what I said. As to who is a moron, I will let the court of Slashdot opinion decide.
No one put a gun to my head when I bought my computer.
Try to buy a computer without Windows. Most places, that just isn't available.
In fact, it seems that the crux of your argument is based in jealousy.
What about my argument looks like jealousy? I am not jealous of Microsoft at all. I don't want to see Linux as the only choice when people go to buy a computer. They should be able to pick between different OSes pre-loaded, or none at all. Don't mistake the fact that I think that other companies besides Microsoft should have a fair opportunity to do business with my being jealous of Microsoft.
Linux isn't available on most Personal Computers because of people like Ingo.
Eh? That isn't a fair statement at all.
You spend your time working on the kernel making it more powerful, while every professional OS company works on what the common person really wants: a nice and easy GUI.
Bzzt. Wrong again. Look at such 'professional OS companies' as Compaq (OpenVMS), Sun (Solaris), HP (HP/UX) and SCO (Open Desktop, Unixware). They all use X, and have GUI's which are arguably less nice and easy than KDE.
While a CLI has it's place, the average user enjoys the simplicity of a GUI.
And personally, I think that KDE, at least is better in many ways than the Windows GUI. I think Gnome is only lagging slightly behind KDE, and has some things about it that are nice as well.
Microsoft, while receiving great praise from the Slashdot community for it's innovations,
Er, either you mistyped that or you are being sarcastic. Microsoft has never had any real innovations, let alone received any great praise from the Slashdot community.
has done something that Linux hasn't: it made an OK product and made people think it was Great. Microsoft can not be faulted for good advertising.
Actually, Microsoft's advertising isn't always that good, it is just smotheringly pervasive. Linux doesn't have the kind of money to spend on advertising that Microsoft does. Microsoft's commercial success can't be completely explained by advertising, it is also all of the other things they do.
To assume that a business must play fair, just because it deals with software, is asinine.
To assume that a business shouldn't have to play fair, just because it deals with software is what is truly assinine.
I applaud this development, and I enjoy the approach that Ingo took. But to say that bundling a server with the kernel is different than what MS has done, is to invite a swift beating.
It is different, if only from the fact that you have to choose to run Linux to begin with, and you can easily de-bundle the kernel based server if you like. How is that the same?
Not everyone is a genius programmer,
Oh, please, you don't have to be a genius programmer to choose to or not to load a module, for example. I've known people who aren't programmers who've figured out how to rebuild a kernel for goodness sake.
and thus the same limitations are in place as in Windows. I wouldn't worry about the FTC going after a commercial producer of this, though, because the kernel has been specifically improved for content serving. The server is the OS, and the OS is the server. Pity to the moron who would buy it for gaming.
Actually, Unreal Tournament runs pretty well on my main Linux box at home... But I didn't buy that box for gaming.
I hate Microsoft,
I don't hate Microsoft, I hate what they do. If the would clean up their act, as for example, IBM has for the most part the past few years, I would be willing to tone down my criticism of them.
don't get me wrong, but they haven't committed the great sins we accuse them of.
What do you think they haven't done? One of the things that irks me most about Microsoft's behaviour is that they seem to think they have to play dirty and nasty all the time, even when they have already essentially won in a market. Other companies play dirty too, on occasion, but nobody is as ruthlessly cutthroat as Microsoft is. Its often like a pro sports team playing a bunch of kids on a sand lot, and thinking they have to cheat because they are afraid they might lose, or even let the kids score once.
I just wish they would release software that was less buggy and more efficient.
I am not so concerned about the quality of Microsoft's products. In a competitive market, eventually a company that produces bad products with no redeeming values would get pushed down. Only when monopolistic powers are in play can a company consistantly get away with forcing people to buy shoddy products.
Otherwise, as soon as a Linux distributor gets some marketing intelligence Apple and Microsoft will be screwed.
Its not that simple. Once a company has a monopolistic position in a market, they can often crush smaller competitors no matter how much marketing savvy they might have.
Just save a spot for Be, ok?
I've got nothing against Be.
Ah! The Windows approach to software integration. If you can't beat them, join them!
Microsoft started a war, and they can't expect that others won't give Microsoft back what they dish out.
Anyway, I wonder what security holes will appear in this kernel level software!
Could be a problem if it isn't done right. Luckily with Linux you've got alternatives if you want to run a different server, so you can take out anything you don't like.
People moaned about incorporating the web browser into the OS, but this is incorporating the web server - surely Microsoft have a cause to moan about this??!?!?
Microsoft has no cause to complain. Nobody forces you to buy Linux when you buy a new computer like most people are forced to buy Windows when they buy a new computer. Also, since you get source code for Linux, it is easy to remove the web server if you don't like it. Microsoft claims (and they did make it really difficult) that it is impossible to remove Internet Exploder from Windows.
I'm convinced the whole OSS movement will inevitably fail.
I am not convinced of that. And anyway, what is failure and what is success? I don't think that OSS will have 'failed' unless nobody develops OSS or free software. Other people might say that it has failed if it doesn't eliminate closed source and commercial software entirely.
It has its own demise built right into it..As more and more people begin to realize the somewhat disturbing truth about things (ie. people are making money off what you've done, and advancing their careers off YOUR hard work, while you get nothing) the whole system will slowly grind to a halt and fail.
That may put off some people, but other people won't care. And not every OSS/free software developer will get 'nothing'. Getting nothing isn't an inherent part of the OSS/free software model, nor is getting something an inherent part of the closed source/commercial model. Lots of commercial developers see other people (their employers and coworkers or former employers or coworkers) make money off what they've done and advancing their careers off their hard work. Many commercial software development projects are just plain failures where nobody makes any money at all anyway.
By the time that happens, fortunes will have already been made, and the ones who corrupted the process by introducing greed into the equation will have already moved on to something else.
That isn't necessarily going to kill OSS/free software unless a large percentage of the community is dragged down by that. I don't think that is a guaranteed thing either way.
OSS only works when the primary motivation of its participants is fun. When that motivation goes from fun to *greed*, the whole process begins a slow and irreversible decay as more and more people refuse to play along.
I think that is an overly simplified view of things. There are a lot of other motivations for writing OSS/free software than just fun. Some people do it for ideologic reasons (the Stallman camp), others do it to solve a problem they need solved, and release the code because they don't need to make money from it, or because they don't want to bother with things like marketing, etc. There is a pay off for them in that other people may improve the software and they can take advantage of that, or just the ego boost from knowing that other people use it. Then there is 'abandonware', which is formerly commercial software that is given away by companies that no longer are interested in developing or supporting it.
Thats my $0.02..If I didnt believe it, I wouldnt have typed it.
You are entitled to your opinion. While I can see your points to a certain extent, and this issue is definitely something the OSS/free software community needs to be aware of and work to prevent, I am more optomistic than you are.
I think that OSS/free software still has a long path ahead of it, one that is sure to be full of ups and downs and twists and turns, and perhaps even a few dead ends. But there should be enough people following the path so that at least a certain number of people will take the correct forks along the way.
If I didn't believe there was a future in OSS/free software, I wouldn't be here.