You probably will be able to replace or reburn the boot ROM, but opening the case and actually doing so is going to violate your EULA, and telling people how is going to get you sued. I wouldn't be surprised if you were surprised by some sort of dongle-type security, too, such that the hardware mysteriously doesn't work unless the Win2000 ROM is present to provide some important encryption key. Add whatever else Microsoft marketing comes up with.
So sure, it might eventually be made to run Linux, but I doubt that Microsoft plans to make it week-project easy. Of course, this is all fnord speculation...
Also, does Linux need this as a platform, aside from the technical challenge and the perverse glee generated by running a renegade Linux on a pure-Microsoft platform? There are many ways to make a cheap Linux box that don't involve giving Microsoft $n00 and signing a contract that says you won't make a cheap Linux box.
It's not that they're dumb. Users can already customize the spam text. They can write their own and spam all their friends themselves by selecting all their contacts. But that wouldn't be auto-notify. There are quite a few brain cells at Microsoft, they just aren't the ethical kind. It's really beautiful that they are suggesting altering the ad to fix the problem. Still, though, tons of free ISPs do things like this too.
It would be interesting to see how it handles issues with high variance of response. Asking it about politics or religion could get really entertaining after a while.
Also, what on earth is going to generate all the questions, and make sure they are a useful sample? The initial question set could strongly affect the direction the system goes in.
Any input device that wants to move the pointer around in response to moving the hand around is going to hurt your arm to some extent. The more your arm has to move in order to do it, the more it is likely to hurt. Mice probably hurt less than touchscreens or pens (touchscreens because you have to reach up and touch the screen, pens because you have to hold the pen like a pen (you can just flop your hand down on a mouse)), while being more controllable than trackballs (arguably) or those little middle-of-the-keyboard laptop joysticks or the little tiny laptop touchpads. They're perhaps not the best, but they are a decent compromise. Try using a touchscreen for more than a little while, and I bet it makes your arm hurt.
As for handwriting-input-only devices, they make a lot of sense for PDA's. For notebooks, they make much less sense for me, unless they can be made to understand shorthand (and I don't want to learn shorthand). But for people who want to use the computer more like an electronic notebook (like a big PDA), this could be exactly what is wanted, if the handwriting recognition is up to par.
I don't mean to sound hostile to the end user. Droolproofing is highly pejorative, maybe sneezeguard is more appropriate and accurate. Hey, anyone can sneeze, and there's no need to get ticked about it. When it comes down to it, I do get annoyed with low-end end users. But my attitude isn't going to matter at all as long as it doesn't come through in the end product. And what is stupid about having thoughtfully layered complexity in an interface? I don't suggest forcing people to learn how to program in order to make configuration changes. I don't want to have to modify the code in order to get blue buttons. Most people won't, and that will limit the market until better interfaces are available. All I meant to say. I'm rather sorry I didn't word this differently, maybe if I had you would have actually read it.
I am trying to illustrate that this attitude exists, not saying it's a good thing. Very few users want total flexibility. However, those who do may refer to any limitation of freedom as droolproofing. And, the people creating Open Source and Unix software probably tend more towards providing the user with flexibility than with a simple interface. If this does not change, and if interfaces are not designed to expose a configurable amount of functionality or, failing that, if simple interfaces are not available, home users will not use it. That said, I'm sorry I used the term. There should be simple interfaces. There should also be complex interfaces. I don't object to a simple interface that limits choice, as long as there are as few barriers as possible to using a more flexible interface. Ideally, more flexibility can be exposed in the same interface.
I've been thinking about this for a while, actually. Windows and Macintosh are both pretty well accepted by the mass-market home user. A key reason for this acceptance is their way of hiding all the scary details. Until there is a flavor of Linux that has the droolproofing and sneezeguard that the more popular OS's come with, it will not begin to push Microsoft out of the home market. A lot of people don't want flexibility, as strange as that sounds. They want to be able to git on the Internet. Either Unix developers don't know this, or they decide that they don't care and they only want competent people using their systems. This leads to very flexible, powerful interfaces that scare hell out of the home user (Linux). At the other extreme, you have the drool-proof, detail-hiding interface that nobody with a half a clue wants to use (Win/Mac). To get both user populations, the user interface needs to be able to scale from simple and inflexible to complex and useful without too much trouble, so that lusers can be protected from themselves until they decide that they want more freedom. Sort of a sneezeguard that can be removed in sections. If Linux had this, more people would be able to (at least sort of) use it. I know, I know; it's depressing and it's wrong to gimp up a nice thing. But it will be necessary.
Assuming that these tranformations are available for UI components below the window level, there are definitely uses for this (rotating widgets, magnified detail areas come to mind, I'm not a UI designer, but I'm sure that they could think of more). Whole window transparency is hard to swallow, but more subtle uses of the alpha channel (anti-aliasing) can really make things nicer to look at.
Even eyecandy isn't entirely useless; for real consumer market penetration, it comes in handy. Many people like shiny things, and this has the potential to be very shiny indeed.
Even if "nothing is totally meritless", that is no argument against ripping on it horribly. This is not a matter of telling people what they should think. This is a matter of telling people what you think, hopefully in a humorous fashion. Opinions are personal, but that is no argument against expressing them.
Also, if you take the position that "merit" is personal and subjective to its conclusion, the phrase "nothing is without merit" becomes meaningless as a general statement.
I have not seen "Battlefield Earth". However, I find it without merit. Or, maybe it has some sort of meaningless "token merit" to keep its self-esteem up. Whatever.
Actually, it seems that any program which could pass the information would have to pass the same information no matter what level of abstraction it uses to do it and would, in theory, still be illegal. But there's a question of detection and enforcement... It seems doable in principle: A process monitoring some chosen shared resource acts as listener, another process acts to perturb shared resources and send information, and with the signal path established run whatever protocol you like over it.
Slashdot Mirror
So sure, it might eventually be made to run Linux, but I doubt that Microsoft plans to make it week-project easy. Of course, this is all fnord speculation...
Also, does Linux need this as a platform, aside from the technical challenge and the perverse glee generated by running a renegade Linux on a pure-Microsoft platform? There are many ways to make a cheap Linux box that don't involve giving Microsoft $n00 and signing a contract that says you won't make a cheap Linux box.
It's not that they're dumb. Users can already customize the spam text. They can write their own and spam all their friends themselves by selecting all their contacts. But that wouldn't be auto-notify. There are quite a few brain cells at Microsoft, they just aren't the ethical kind. It's really beautiful that they are suggesting altering the ad to fix the problem. Still, though, tons of free ISPs do things like this too.
Also, what on earth is going to generate all the questions, and make sure they are a useful sample? The initial question set could strongly affect the direction the system goes in.
As for handwriting-input-only devices, they make a lot of sense for PDA's. For notebooks, they make much less sense for me, unless they can be made to understand shorthand (and I don't want to learn shorthand). But for people who want to use the computer more like an electronic notebook (like a big PDA), this could be exactly what is wanted, if the handwriting recognition is up to par.
I don't mean to sound hostile to the end user. Droolproofing is highly pejorative, maybe sneezeguard is more appropriate and accurate. Hey, anyone can sneeze, and there's no need to get ticked about it. When it comes down to it, I do get annoyed with low-end end users. But my attitude isn't going to matter at all as long as it doesn't come through in the end product. And what is stupid about having thoughtfully layered complexity in an interface? I don't suggest forcing people to learn how to program in order to make configuration changes. I don't want to have to modify the code in order to get blue buttons. Most people won't, and that will limit the market until better interfaces are available. All I meant to say. I'm rather sorry I didn't word this differently, maybe if I had you would have actually read it.
I am trying to illustrate that this attitude exists, not saying it's a good thing. Very few users want total flexibility. However, those who do may refer to any limitation of freedom as droolproofing. And, the people creating Open Source and Unix software probably tend more towards providing the user with flexibility than with a simple interface. If this does not change, and if interfaces are not designed to expose a configurable amount of functionality or, failing that, if simple interfaces are not available, home users will not use it. That said, I'm sorry I used the term. There should be simple interfaces. There should also be complex interfaces. I don't object to a simple interface that limits choice, as long as there are as few barriers as possible to using a more flexible interface. Ideally, more flexibility can be exposed in the same interface.
I've been thinking about this for a while, actually. Windows and Macintosh are both pretty well accepted by the mass-market home user. A key reason for this acceptance is their way of hiding all the scary details. Until there is a flavor of Linux that has the droolproofing and sneezeguard that the more popular OS's come with, it will not begin to push Microsoft out of the home market. A lot of people don't want flexibility, as strange as that sounds. They want to be able to git on the Internet. Either Unix developers don't know this, or they decide that they don't care and they only want competent people using their systems. This leads to very flexible, powerful interfaces that scare hell out of the home user (Linux). At the other extreme, you have the drool-proof, detail-hiding interface that nobody with a half a clue wants to use (Win/Mac). To get both user populations, the user interface needs to be able to scale from simple and inflexible to complex and useful without too much trouble, so that lusers can be protected from themselves until they decide that they want more freedom. Sort of a sneezeguard that can be removed in sections. If Linux had this, more people would be able to (at least sort of) use it. I know, I know; it's depressing and it's wrong to gimp up a nice thing. But it will be necessary.
Even eyecandy isn't entirely useless; for real consumer market penetration, it comes in handy. Many people like shiny things, and this has the potential to be very shiny indeed.
Also, if you take the position that "merit" is personal and subjective to its conclusion, the phrase "nothing is without merit" becomes meaningless as a general statement.
I have not seen "Battlefield Earth". However, I find it without merit. Or, maybe it has some sort of meaningless "token merit" to keep its self-esteem up. Whatever.
-- Ben