open source and proprietary closed source are
fundamentally irreconcilable....
I would doubt that [free software] developers
would suddenly leap onto a MS toolkit ported to Linux if it were proprietary
Who said anything about free software?
MSFT is more open than, say, Nintendo or Sony, but it doesn't see free software adding much value to the platform.
MSFT may be weakened by the anti-trust trial but the X-Box's developer support demonstrates that it can still build a platform. (Customer acceptance, of course, remains to be seen.)
If MSFT couldn't pull off a proprietary Linux toolkit, it wouldn't be for lack of apps.
any versions of Office/IE/whatever that they make for linux will be dependent on their toolkit
Hal's MS Linux scenario is absurd, so I won't spend time punching the straw man.
Office, on the other hand, is an interesting scenario.
With OLE/COM and VBA, Office integration has become a coveted logo for business apps.
Red Hat's dominance, as demonstrated by proprietary applications supporting only Red Hat Linux, raises fears of one official Linux distribution.
Likewise, KDE's adoption of the pseudo-free Qt raised fears that TrollTech would establish a toll booth on the Linux desktop (no flames please, I'm speaking in the past tense).
Far more imposing would be a blitz by Office and supporting apps. like Visio to a proprietary Windows-on-Linux layer.
Such a layer could quickly become popular by emphasizing performance at the expense of X's flexibility.
The longer MSFT stalls, the less likely the scenario becomes.
Reading about Bonobo and lightweight CORBA is just like reading about OLE five to ten years ago.
Eventually, Linux will have a solid component architecture.
In the meantime, MSFT has an opportunity to hedge its bets.
Go to Loki's homepage and order some games.
Even the bad ones.
Don't buy bad games; they'll just make more: Frogger 2, Deer Hunter, Panty Raider, etc.
Buying something to "support the company" is like voting for Nader, only less effective.
Fans of Falcon, Grand Prix Legends, and Looking Glass Studios (System Shock 2, Thief, Flight Unlimited) have been through this.
I'm not going to buy CompUSA's remaining inventory of Falcon in the desperate hope that InfoGrames--which bought Hasbro Interactive, which canned the Falcon team after buying Microprose, which bought Spectrum Holobyte (I think)--will notice.
a retail version of a game for LINUX... should be for one major distribution only...
No!
Targeting one distribution annoys all the other users more than it pleases the Red Hat users.
Quake 3's problems had more to do with video drivers and X configuration than anything else.
It would make more sense to sell the game only for one video card, but that era has come and gone, thankfully.
... it should be mail order only
Retail is a rat race, but you can't live without it.
People like to fondle pretty boxes in the store.
How we do love retail, let me count the ways:
mind share (quick, when did you last visit idsoftware.com, except to get a patch for a game you already own?)
impulse buys (after working thirty days straight, I have a weekend; hey, look at the pretty box)
return policy (at MicroCenter and some of the mall stores)
sales (I've never found a game online cheaper than a Best Buy sale price)
no shipping
did I mention the pretty boxes?
One problem with retail Linux products is customer confusion.
I bought Heroes III for Linux from the return bin at MicroCenter.
When I checked out, the cashier said he had returned that very copy because he didn't realize it was for Linux.
An employee!
That's an easy problem to solve: put the Windows version in there, too.
While you're at it, put in the Mac and Be version too.
id wants to market games to Linux users.
They just want a more profitable experience doing it
Let's review:
id releases Windows version, which you can get at Best Buy for $30 or so, depending on the retail rat race
Loki, with its relatively minuscule distributor clout, releases the Linux tin a month later, which you (still) can't find for less than $50
Linux executables hit the web at about the same time
Tell me again why Todd is surprised the Linux version didn't sell well?
If Loki's profit was supposed to come from sales of the Linux tin, they got screwed.
At least with UT, they got cash up front.
That's why none of Loki's subsequent titles allow you to swap executables with the Windows version.
The problem with Loki is that they target a very price-sensitive market, but charge full retail for a port of an old game.
Let's say the game is good, so it's worth, like $40.
I submit that Loki's porting effort adds about $10 to the retail value.
That is, a box with the Windows and Linux version should retail for $50.
But to make it worse, the Windows version is already in the bargain bin by the time the Linux version hits the shelves (Q3A excepted).
it completely destroys the idea of a PDA when try to cram everything from something larger inside of it
Seeing the Konqueror/Embedded screenshots makes me think of Microsoft's Pocket PC ads.
A 20-something model holds a PDA at arm's length (which is telling, because whenever I see someone with a Palm, he's engrossed in actually using it), boasting that he can read MS Office attachments.
Then again, the company president routinely sends email with a one-line memo as a Word attachment, so maybe there is a market for this kind of feature.
As to developing web pages for these microbrowsers, I have two comments.
You shouldn't develop your pages with any resolution in mind.
On the other hand, the PDA user should pass on images.
I recently posted a classified ad with a picture that the site scales to 200 x 150. It looks like a postage stamp on a normal monitor, but it would pretty much fill a PDA screen.
And having Linux in cash registers benefits Linux because...?
Software, free or proprietary, needs users in order to thrive.
90,000 cash registers nationwide in a high-availability situation is a lot of users.
I gather from the TechWeb article that Home Depot contracted with Red Hat for some or all of the work on these cash registers.
It's not clear whether HD and/or RHAT have made the changes for the "stripped-down version" of Linux available.
Other businesses may be able to benefit from their work.
As long as the deployment isn't
a total distaster it'll be a real good thing both for linux (running on *big* systems),
*and* for IBM
I vaguely recall reading Linux Possibly Ported to IBM Mainframes, which raised the possiblity of running more than one instance of Linux.
The eWeek article quotes an IBM exec. as saying, "Telia will initially host more than 1,500 customers through individual Linux images, with
near-instantaneous scalability up to 30,000 images."
This sounds like a colossal maintenance burden.
I mean, I guess it's easier to maintain 30,000 installations of Linux on one machine than 30,000 machines, but it has to be harder than maintaining 30,000 accounts on [less than 30,000] installations of Linux.
Does each user get his own root password?
What happens when the next version of SuSE comes out?
Opera's move is equivalent to treason in the browser world.
You don't charge for something that other companies provide for free....
After seeing this story, I hope that Opera [goes under].
Um, treason against whom?
You don't have to buy Opera.
Windows users, on the other hand, do have to buy IE.
I don't see the value of Opera, but I don't wish the company ill will.
If you're a 'Linux is great because it's "open source"' type of guy (and most of you are) and you don't have a problem with using a closed, proprietary browser like opera - then you don't really value your "open source" ideals.
The GNU project was originally about providing a free operating system, the basic software needed to use a computer.
RMS wrote in the GNU Manifesto:
GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition.
You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you.
You and they will compete in other areas, while benefiting mutually in this one.
Linux is still competing with Windows for the desktop and the 31 flavors of proprietary Unix for the server.
The availability of certain proprietary apps. (Microsoft Office, FrameMaker, Diablo II) on Windows represents a competitive advantage.
We can nullify that advantage by convincing the manufacturer to port it or by providing a similar app. (free or proprietary).
In the long run, free software will compete at an equal level with Office and FrameMaker, although I'm not convinced about Diablo II.
That said, I think free software is on its way to having the browser covered, so the availability of Opera on Linux doesn't add much to the platform.
[Bruce] is... an eloquent statesman of the first caliber.
Actually, I'd rather Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens didn't presume to speak for the open source or free software movement.
Remember when Bruce posted a crass email from Eric Raymond and
called the police?
the [XML DTDs] that achieve mass acceptance will surely be corrupted by formatting markup in just the same way as HTML and Latex
Years from now a student may still amuse himself by typing 1134 into a calculator and turning it upside down.
It is not to him that the calculator designer answers.
Netscape started HTML down the path: <blink>, forms, frames, JavaScript.
The cross-platform platform that inspired Sun and scared Microsoft.
Meanwhile, you can continue to write the simple documents for which HTML was designed.
Don't let a million web page designers persuade you to use an invisible pixel or consult a browser compatibility chart.
As DTDs like DocBook mature, use them in the same spirit.
CSS and XSL will catch up and your documents will be waiting, if they are worth anything.
That's probably true, and it is significant.
The main reason XML exists is because we've done such a poor job implementing SGML, in part because parsing it is a non-trivial task.
More important is the complexity of the system.
Displaying HTML in a web browser is simpler than rendering a LaTeX document.
LaTeX output looks... better than HTML output
In terms of flexibility and output quality, it's more fair to compare LaTeX to XML transformed with XSL and rendered with CSS or FO to an output format like PDF.
The latter is probably more complex in the end, but it is more flexible.
The main advantage of *ML may be that it revolves around the wildly popular notion of linking.
The good news for all involved is that there's nothing stopping someone from incorporating TeX into the back end of a CSS or FO processor.
It's just a Small Matter of Programming.
While I don't agree with all the details of your post, it's a good start.
TeX is a presentational markup language.
SGML and XML define logical markup languages like DocBook.
LaTeX tries to do the same thing, but its TeX roots show.
I have a fondness for TeX: its hyphenation and justification are still top notch.
I'd like to see its algorithms incorporated into the back end of a CSS or FO processor.
Here's how I'd relate some of the current markup languages:
Obviously, the lines blur.
For example, the above diagram was written in Slashdot's subset of HTML, so it contains lots of and <br>--very presentational.
Also, the diagram doesn't explicitly mention screen-based or interactive output media, which are very important.
MS should employ a virtual machine to run attachments, that way it could sandbox
the application.
Correct use of permissions would solve half the problem.
On DOS derivatives, every program basically has root privileges.
You can delete (or modify) system components and piss all over the Registry.
On Unix, you can run the program as nobody, who doesn't (or shouldn't) have permission to do much damage.
On NT derivatives, you can probably run the attachment with reduced privileges, but I don't know how to do that.
Does NT have some kind of su interface that lets you strip security tokens?
Could the city have simply asked Microsoft to go away?
According to the article, "Microsoft sent a brief letter to the purchasing agent in the city's technology department demanding that the
Beach produce a list of the company software it uses along with proof of purchase."
Because MS isn't the police, it didn't have to say, "You have to right to be silent."
If VA Beach was smart, it would have (and may have, for all we know) sandbagged. Maybe it actually uses 10,000 copies of MS software, but only 'fessed up to 6,500, and didn't have time to find even that many licenses.
I would really have liked to tell MS to go away.
On the other hand, VA Beach is a city.
Microsoft is a country.
I can't say I blame them for rolling over.
you'd think they'd keep
track of [the licenses] a little better.
The councilwoman is posing.
System administration is hard.
You have to prioritize your tasks.
Let's see: shall I put out the fire in the computer room or file some more license certificates?
The Microsoft gestapo could audit us... nah.
Keep in mind that most of the software we're talking about here is client software: 6,000+ products over almost 4,000 computers.
A department should be able to buy software from Microcenter or direct from foo.com.
Now, "city employees are... required to get permission from the information technology division before making software purchases."
Obviously, VA Beach can and will keep better records, although having the appearance of doing so ensures they'll never be audited again.
Yes, but [burning 6,000 Linux CDs] would be a waste of another $129k... $129k does *not* buy you many administrators
Proprietary software vendors attack free software by invoking "total cost of ownership."
An expensive operating system will pay for itself because of zero-administration features, because it's more stable, because it's the standard.
Have you ever talked to a salesman who said, "And how will you account for all your licenses?"
Microsoft's raid on VA Beach vividly demonstrates an addition to the TCO of proprietary software.
here is the rant: I HATE CROSS PLATFORM APPS!!!!!!!!! AGH!!!
Okay, here's my rant: I HATE PLATFORM-DEPENDENT APPS!!!!!!!!! AGH!!!
The first thing the GNOME and KDE clowns do is start developing an office suite from scratch.
The Mozilla clowns, realizing they have to be cross platform, essentially develop a new platform, in the form of XUL.
Sure, develop an ICQ client for one platform.
(Of course, it won't be complete until it reads email.)
If you're developing anything worth a damn, don't depend on any one platform.
Don't know how to write a (Win|Mac|CDE|KDE) app.?
Fine, but please separate the user interface from the rest of the app. so that someone who knows and cares can.
The point is, an app. (proprietary or free) is nothing without users.
Targeting one platform alienates the users of all the other platforms.
Foo 3.2 for the Amiga looks pretty quaint right now.
In five years, Bar 2.1 for GNOME will probably look just as quaint.
People have criticized Donald Knuth for using an imaginary assembly language to illustrate the algorithms in The Art of Computer Programming.
Why not FORTRAN, Pascal, C, C++, or Java?
The question almost answers itself:
"New algebraic languages go in and out of fashion every five years or so, while I am trying to emphasize concepts that are timeless."
I was stunned when Dell started preloading Red Hat on Dimensions. At first I was surprised when it charged the same for Red Hat as for Windows. I shouldn't have been.
Two things make this a story.
The ZDNet link says Dell is now loading on "business PCs"; i.e., OptiPlex, Dimension, and possibly Latitude notebooks.
Second, the eWeek article says that Dell "has taken a significant stake in Linux
software developer Eazel."
Gateway introduced the AMD-based Select line in response to Intel supply problems, then dropped it, then reintroduced it as the Athlon surpassed the Pentium III in clock speed.
Now, even as everyone else has introduced Athlon systems, Dell has stuck with Intel.
Likewise, it has been a big Microsoft partner in bundling Windows and Office.
Dell is a PC powerhouse because its deals with Intel and Microsoft cut expenses.
Now, in the wake of the anti-trust trial, Dell preloads Linux.
The investment in Eazel is a vote of confidence on the potential of Linux on the desktop.
Imagine if the first windowing
display system for computers had been patented....
this would have forced others to think more laterally.
Patents strip us of a basic freedom.
They do not reward innovation, they reward a large legal department.
The legal minefield they create is as big an obstacle to innovation as I can imagine.
I'm sorry, but your suggestion that patents encourage lateral thinking is absurd.
The scientists in Apollo 13 put a square peg into a round hole because they had to, not because someone patented round pegs.
gzip and bzip2 compress better than compress.
PNG is superior to GIF.
But they'd be better if they had been developed without regard to patents.
bzip was created to do better compression.
bzip2 was created because bzip infringed on a patent on arithmetic encoding.
It's not secure at all - you could easily trace illegal emails
Anonymity is only one aspect of security.
Yahoo is advertising encrypted email, not anonymous email.
It should do two things: hide the content of the message and preserve the integrity of the message.
The web interface kind of kills the first goal and endangers the second goal.
I agree that it's not much more secure than regular email, but it has little to do with anonymity.
there may be decent, hard-working, talented
people at Applixware losing their jobs... you probably think that would be
great if it happened in the name of the all-important GNU cause
It's neither here nor there.
For-profit companies are not charities (although Amazon must be, considering all the money it's lost).
If ApplixWare has trouble paying people to develop a second-tier proprietary office suite, then maybe it shouldn't.
I assure you, those hard-working, talented people will be just fine.
Free software isn't necessarily about doing battle with proprietary software companies, although the flip side is often true.
ApplixWare would sue my pants off if I:
pirated its software
borrowed some code for my own project
diluted its trademark
published its trade secrets
infringed its patents (if they have any)
I'm not saying it's a bad company.
In fact, I rather like the story that it gave reams of scrap paper to a fifth grader.
But it doesn't deserve your pity.
If someone is offering a quality Linux office suite... don't screw them over by releasing a free alternative.
Pardon me while I shed crocodile tears.
Maybe we should hold a bake sale for the poor, beleaguered proprietary software company.
ApplixWare doesn't have a God-given right to my $99, $49, or $1.
The GNU project and the Linux community are "screwing" the proprietary Unix vendors.
GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition.... If your business is selling an operating system, you will not like GNU, but that's tough on you.
Slashdot Mirror
Who said anything about free software? MSFT is more open than, say, Nintendo or Sony, but it doesn't see free software adding much value to the platform. MSFT may be weakened by the anti-trust trial but the X-Box's developer support demonstrates that it can still build a platform. (Customer acceptance, of course, remains to be seen.)
If MSFT couldn't pull off a proprietary Linux toolkit, it wouldn't be for lack of apps.
Hal's MS Linux scenario is absurd, so I won't spend time punching the straw man. Office, on the other hand, is an interesting scenario. With OLE/COM and VBA, Office integration has become a coveted logo for business apps. Red Hat's dominance, as demonstrated by proprietary applications supporting only Red Hat Linux, raises fears of one official Linux distribution. Likewise, KDE's adoption of the pseudo-free Qt raised fears that TrollTech would establish a toll booth on the Linux desktop (no flames please, I'm speaking in the past tense). Far more imposing would be a blitz by Office and supporting apps. like Visio to a proprietary Windows-on-Linux layer. Such a layer could quickly become popular by emphasizing performance at the expense of X's flexibility.
The longer MSFT stalls, the less likely the scenario becomes. Reading about Bonobo and lightweight CORBA is just like reading about OLE five to ten years ago. Eventually, Linux will have a solid component architecture. In the meantime, MSFT has an opportunity to hedge its bets.
Don't buy bad games; they'll just make more: Frogger 2, Deer Hunter, Panty Raider, etc. Buying something to "support the company" is like voting for Nader, only less effective. Fans of Falcon, Grand Prix Legends, and Looking Glass Studios (System Shock 2, Thief, Flight Unlimited) have been through this. I'm not going to buy CompUSA's remaining inventory of Falcon in the desperate hope that InfoGrames--which bought Hasbro Interactive, which canned the Falcon team after buying Microprose, which bought Spectrum Holobyte (I think)--will notice.
No! Targeting one distribution annoys all the other users more than it pleases the Red Hat users. Quake 3's problems had more to do with video drivers and X configuration than anything else. It would make more sense to sell the game only for one video card, but that era has come and gone, thankfully.
Retail is a rat race, but you can't live without it. People like to fondle pretty boxes in the store. How we do love retail, let me count the ways:
- mind share (quick, when did you last visit idsoftware.com, except to get a patch for a game you already own?)
- impulse buys (after working thirty days straight, I have a weekend; hey, look at the pretty box)
- return policy (at MicroCenter and some of the mall stores)
- sales (I've never found a game online cheaper than a Best Buy sale price)
- no shipping
- did I mention the pretty boxes?
One problem with retail Linux products is customer confusion. I bought Heroes III for Linux from the return bin at MicroCenter. When I checked out, the cashier said he had returned that very copy because he didn't realize it was for Linux. An employee! That's an easy problem to solve: put the Windows version in there, too. While you're at it, put in the Mac and Be version too.Let's review:
- id releases Windows version, which you can get at Best Buy for $30 or so, depending on the retail rat race
- Loki, with its relatively minuscule distributor clout, releases the Linux tin a month later, which you (still) can't find for less than $50
- Linux executables hit the web at about the same time
Tell me again why Todd is surprised the Linux version didn't sell well?If Loki's profit was supposed to come from sales of the Linux tin, they got screwed. At least with UT, they got cash up front. That's why none of Loki's subsequent titles allow you to swap executables with the Windows version.
The problem with Loki is that they target a very price-sensitive market, but charge full retail for a port of an old game. Let's say the game is good, so it's worth, like $40. I submit that Loki's porting effort adds about $10 to the retail value. That is, a box with the Windows and Linux version should retail for $50. But to make it worse, the Windows version is already in the bargain bin by the time the Linux version hits the shelves (Q3A excepted).
Seeing the Konqueror/Embedded screenshots makes me think of Microsoft's Pocket PC ads. A 20-something model holds a PDA at arm's length (which is telling, because whenever I see someone with a Palm, he's engrossed in actually using it), boasting that he can read MS Office attachments. Then again, the company president routinely sends email with a one-line memo as a Word attachment, so maybe there is a market for this kind of feature.
As to developing web pages for these microbrowsers, I have two comments. You shouldn't develop your pages with any resolution in mind. On the other hand, the PDA user should pass on images. I recently posted a classified ad with a picture that the site scales to 200 x 150. It looks like a postage stamp on a normal monitor, but it would pretty much fill a PDA screen.
Software, free or proprietary, needs users in order to thrive. 90,000 cash registers nationwide in a high-availability situation is a lot of users.
I gather from the TechWeb article that Home Depot contracted with Red Hat for some or all of the work on these cash registers. It's not clear whether HD and/or RHAT have made the changes for the "stripped-down version" of Linux available. Other businesses may be able to benefit from their work.
I vaguely recall reading Linux Possibly Ported to IBM Mainframes, which raised the possiblity of running more than one instance of Linux. The eWeek article quotes an IBM exec. as saying, "Telia will initially host more than 1,500 customers through individual Linux images, with near-instantaneous scalability up to 30,000 images."
This sounds like a colossal maintenance burden. I mean, I guess it's easier to maintain 30,000 installations of Linux on one machine than 30,000 machines, but it has to be harder than maintaining 30,000 accounts on [less than 30,000] installations of Linux. Does each user get his own root password? What happens when the next version of SuSE comes out?
Um, treason against whom? You don't have to buy Opera. Windows users, on the other hand, do have to buy IE.
I don't see the value of Opera, but I don't wish the company ill will.
The GNU project was originally about providing a free operating system, the basic software needed to use a computer. RMS wrote in the GNU Manifesto:
Linux is still competing with Windows for the desktop and the 31 flavors of proprietary Unix for the server. The availability of certain proprietary apps. (Microsoft Office, FrameMaker, Diablo II) on Windows represents a competitive advantage. We can nullify that advantage by convincing the manufacturer to port it or by providing a similar app. (free or proprietary). In the long run, free software will compete at an equal level with Office and FrameMaker, although I'm not convinced about Diablo II.That said, I think free software is on its way to having the browser covered, so the availability of Opera on Linux doesn't add much to the platform.
Actually, I'd rather Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens didn't presume to speak for the open source or free software movement. Remember when Bruce posted a crass email from Eric Raymond and called the police?
I should really have drawn the diagram with SGML and XML up one level:
Yes, I'm being anal, but it's like the six-fingered man says, "Remember, this is for posterity."Years from now a student may still amuse himself by typing 1134 into a calculator and turning it upside down. It is not to him that the calculator designer answers.
Netscape started HTML down the path: <blink>, forms, frames, JavaScript. The cross-platform platform that inspired Sun and scared Microsoft. Meanwhile, you can continue to write the simple documents for which HTML was designed. Don't let a million web page designers persuade you to use an invisible pixel or consult a browser compatibility chart.
As DTDs like DocBook mature, use them in the same spirit. CSS and XSL will catch up and your documents will be waiting, if they are worth anything.
That's probably true, and it is significant. The main reason XML exists is because we've done such a poor job implementing SGML, in part because parsing it is a non-trivial task. More important is the complexity of the system. Displaying HTML in a web browser is simpler than rendering a LaTeX document.
LaTeX output looks ... better than HTML output
In terms of flexibility and output quality, it's more fair to compare LaTeX to XML transformed with XSL and rendered with CSS or FO to an output format like PDF. The latter is probably more complex in the end, but it is more flexible. The main advantage of *ML may be that it revolves around the wildly popular notion of linking.
The good news for all involved is that there's nothing stopping someone from incorporating TeX into the back end of a CSS or FO processor. It's just a Small Matter of Programming.
I have a fondness for TeX: its hyphenation and justification are still top notch. I'd like to see its algorithms incorporated into the back end of a CSS or FO processor. Here's how I'd relate some of the current markup languages:
Obviously, the lines blur. For example, the above diagram was written in Slashdot's subset of HTML, so it contains lots of and <br>--very presentational. Also, the diagram doesn't explicitly mention screen-based or interactive output media, which are very important.Correct use of permissions would solve half the problem. On DOS derivatives, every program basically has root privileges. You can delete (or modify) system components and piss all over the Registry. On Unix, you can run the program as nobody, who doesn't (or shouldn't) have permission to do much damage. On NT derivatives, you can probably run the attachment with reduced privileges, but I don't know how to do that. Does NT have some kind of su interface that lets you strip security tokens?
According to the article, "Microsoft sent a brief letter to the purchasing agent in the city's technology department demanding that the Beach produce a list of the company software it uses along with proof of purchase." Because MS isn't the police, it didn't have to say, "You have to right to be silent."
If VA Beach was smart, it would have (and may have, for all we know) sandbagged. Maybe it actually uses 10,000 copies of MS software, but only 'fessed up to 6,500, and didn't have time to find even that many licenses.
I would really have liked to tell MS to go away. On the other hand, VA Beach is a city. Microsoft is a country. I can't say I blame them for rolling over.
The councilwoman is posing. System administration is hard. You have to prioritize your tasks. Let's see: shall I put out the fire in the computer room or file some more license certificates? The Microsoft gestapo could audit us ... nah.
Keep in mind that most of the software we're talking about here is client software: 6,000+ products over almost 4,000 computers. A department should be able to buy software from Microcenter or direct from foo.com. Now, "city employees are ... required to get permission from the information technology division before making software purchases."
Obviously, VA Beach can and will keep better records, although having the appearance of doing so ensures they'll never be audited again.
Proprietary software vendors attack free software by invoking "total cost of ownership." An expensive operating system will pay for itself because of zero-administration features, because it's more stable, because it's the standard.
Have you ever talked to a salesman who said, "And how will you account for all your licenses?" Microsoft's raid on VA Beach vividly demonstrates an addition to the TCO of proprietary software.
Okay, here's my rant: I HATE PLATFORM-DEPENDENT APPS!!!!!!!!! AGH!!!
The first thing the GNOME and KDE clowns do is start developing an office suite from scratch. The Mozilla clowns, realizing they have to be cross platform, essentially develop a new platform, in the form of XUL.
Sure, develop an ICQ client for one platform. (Of course, it won't be complete until it reads email.) If you're developing anything worth a damn, don't depend on any one platform. Don't know how to write a (Win|Mac|CDE|KDE) app.? Fine, but please separate the user interface from the rest of the app. so that someone who knows and cares can.
The point is, an app. (proprietary or free) is nothing without users. Targeting one platform alienates the users of all the other platforms. Foo 3.2 for the Amiga looks pretty quaint right now. In five years, Bar 2.1 for GNOME will probably look just as quaint. People have criticized Donald Knuth for using an imaginary assembly language to illustrate the algorithms in The Art of Computer Programming . Why not FORTRAN, Pascal, C, C++, or Java? The question almost answers itself: "New algebraic languages go in and out of fashion every five years or so, while I am trying to emphasize concepts that are timeless."
I was stunned when Dell started preloading Red Hat on Dimensions. At first I was surprised when it charged the same for Red Hat as for Windows. I shouldn't have been.
Two things make this a story. The ZDNet link says Dell is now loading on "business PCs"; i.e., OptiPlex, Dimension, and possibly Latitude notebooks. Second, the eWeek article says that Dell "has taken a significant stake in Linux software developer Eazel."
Gateway introduced the AMD-based Select line in response to Intel supply problems, then dropped it, then reintroduced it as the Athlon surpassed the Pentium III in clock speed. Now, even as everyone else has introduced Athlon systems, Dell has stuck with Intel. Likewise, it has been a big Microsoft partner in bundling Windows and Office. Dell is a PC powerhouse because its deals with Intel and Microsoft cut expenses. Now, in the wake of the anti-trust trial, Dell preloads Linux. The investment in Eazel is a vote of confidence on the potential of Linux on the desktop.
Patents strip us of a basic freedom. They do not reward innovation, they reward a large legal department. The legal minefield they create is as big an obstacle to innovation as I can imagine.
I'm sorry, but your suggestion that patents encourage lateral thinking is absurd. The scientists in Apollo 13 put a square peg into a round hole because they had to, not because someone patented round pegs. gzip and bzip2 compress better than compress. PNG is superior to GIF. But they'd be better if they had been developed without regard to patents. bzip was created to do better compression. bzip2 was created because bzip infringed on a patent on arithmetic encoding.
Anonymity is only one aspect of security. Yahoo is advertising encrypted email, not anonymous email. It should do two things: hide the content of the message and preserve the integrity of the message. The web interface kind of kills the first goal and endangers the second goal.
I agree that it's not much more secure than regular email, but it has little to do with anonymity.
It's neither here nor there. For-profit companies are not charities (although Amazon must be, considering all the money it's lost). If ApplixWare has trouble paying people to develop a second-tier proprietary office suite, then maybe it shouldn't. I assure you, those hard-working, talented people will be just fine.
Free software isn't necessarily about doing battle with proprietary software companies, although the flip side is often true. ApplixWare would sue my pants off if I:
- pirated its software
- borrowed some code for my own project
- diluted its trademark
- published its trade secrets
- infringed its patents (if they have any)
I'm not saying it's a bad company. In fact, I rather like the story that it gave reams of scrap paper to a fifth grader. But it doesn't deserve your pity.Pardon me while I shed crocodile tears. Maybe we should hold a bake sale for the poor, beleaguered proprietary software company. ApplixWare doesn't have a God-given right to my $99, $49, or $1.
The GNU project and the Linux community are "screwing" the proprietary Unix vendors.
Free software trickles up. As it moves to the desktop, office software is a logical next step. That's just tough on ApplixWare.