In chemistry, this is the "activation energy." I.e. you have chemicals at an energy E0, but to get to the (lower, reacted) energy level E1, you have to pass through a bump of some height. You have to give it some kick to get the reaction over the activation energy bump, and then you find yourself at the new energy level (and, as a Linux user, I can say that it's a very nice energy level;)
The crux of the problem is that people are at a local minimum of energy (which will be the case in any situation due to inherent forces (e.g. familiarity), but because we've been entrenched in a Microsoft monopoly for so long, it can be quite high for some!), and are hesitant to go the little bit further to gain the full benefits of having competition. On the microeconomic scale, it's very reasonable, but on the macroeconomic scale, it leads to Microsoft staying entrenched, unless people either kick themselves over the activation energy bump, someone else does it (e.g. business requirements), or the bump is lowered (and, notably, this can happen through increased adoption of Linux/Apple, up to another monopoly situation; kind of like the energy from a reaction can help other reactions over the activation energy, but not quite the same).
It's a simple model, but I think it explains things pretty nicely.
If blind people (for example) can use MS Word successfully, then we know that one way or another, MS has gotten all three of those factors to align.
But that's not what the article said. More accurate would be:
If blind people (for example) can use MS Word successfully, then we know that one way or another, all three of those factors have aligned for MS Word.
A major thrust of TFA was this support happened despite Microsoft's [lack of] help, not because of it, and that OSX, Gnome/Unix and Java provide much superior frameworks (and quite functional in the end, if not superior in end functionality) to Windows+SupportedApp+3rd-partyAccessibilityApp, with the exception of cognitive impairments, where there's no OSS support (though the framework for it is there).
I am pointing out that open source has a lot of potential to grow and just because the accessiblity of open source software isn't as good as Windows at the moment doesn't mean they should be ruled out.
Actually, TFA said that Gnome/UNIX (or Java) accessibility isn't as feature-rich as a Windows+SupportedApp+3rd-partyAccessibilitySoftwar e stack. This isn't anywhere near the same as saying "open source software isn't as good as Windows"!
The issue is that Windows support for the disabled sucks ass and the hooks, API's, and display features needed for the disabled are not available at all. The result is third party companies write hacks like JAWS that are really a way to make MS Office support certain usability features (even though most of the rest of the programs on Windows can't take advantage of the same features). Some have generic elements that try to work for all applications and succeed partially for some. Since Word is the dominant program developers of these hacks focus their efforts there.
Mod parent +2 Read The Friendly Article!
Mr. Korn most definitely did not say what most people on here are seeming to think, i.e. "OSS software accesibility sucks," and it's great to see someone who apparently actually read the (quite informative) article!
When you sum these amounts (MDP, per computer kickbacks and Microsoft Office pricing), it's obvious that a significant amount of Dell's profitability is tied to Microsoft's largess. It's impossible to know precisely how much, but if you do the math and assume that it's $30 per computer from those various sources, that would yield $200 million or more than 25% of Dell's profitability. It could be more or less than this number, but any way that you look at it, Dell is dependent on Microsoft for a massive chunk of their profits.
Assuming his data he gathered from the SEC filings is correct (I've not verified it), Dell makes USD800M on 7M PCs shipped (dunno if this deals with server side stuff). So Dell gets about USD114.29 per "PC" shipped of profit. Removing your $20 profit per pc would potentially kill over 17% of Dell's profit!
Now there's a lot of uncertainty in these figures, but it at least provides a glimpse of tendencies.
Who's going to persuade Canon that we need print drivers for Linux, oh and RAW mage support for their Cameras.
This is currently working TMK, through the hard work of many, many people.
BTW, you should be asking your camera vendor why your photos are encrypted by your purchased hardware such that it effectively removes a good deal of your control of your photos! (this is the RAW encryption crap that so many vendors pull!)
BTW, I regularly use digital cameras with Linux, albeit not high-end cameras. It's really quite easy. [Point-n-click, even!]
Whilst we're at it, this reliable Linux vendor should have a chat to Adobe about getting Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash working on Linux as well.
From what I understand, they're dipping their toes into it. If you really can't live without these apps, wine/codeweavers may work for you. Or you can work around the problem.
Then I'd like them to sort out a decent desktop, none of this lookey-likey gnome or kde, but something new and original and easy to use. Oh plsu they've got to make it close to standard so it's easy to support.
Take your pick of non-KDE and GNOME WMs. Some you may find intuitive, some you may not. On Linux, they're all first-class citizens, unlike on MacOS/Windows, wehre you have to kludge it in.
Standardization is Linux's achilles heel, but it's quite managable. Things are standardizing (e.g. the Linux Standards Base and Freedesktop.org), but things aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. If you have concrete plans to help combat it, while still giving users the freedom that they lack on other platforms, by all means please tell us so we can hopefully make things work better for you.
After that I'd like to see some support for bluetooth keyboards and mice, and an app to sync to my next 3 or 4 phones, or at least one that supports most phones.
You can use all bluetooth HIDs. I do every day. Phone sync I can't verify because Sprint has castrated my phone's bluetooth stack so that it doesn't do OBEX. However, I use it regularly to connect to Sprint's vision service.
When they've done that, I'd also like a suite of apps, that can sync with that mobile phone sync app, you know like ical, adress book, that kind of thing.
Already done, TMK.
"Throw in something like Salling Clicker for Mac or Windows, and you've nearly got a deal.
I don't know that such a thing exists, though if there's enough demand for it, it wouldn't be hard to do, given current infrastructure.
All I want then in the package to come in something as thin, stylish and quiet as the Imac.
Like I said, I'd welcome such a reliable hardware vendor, Tangent Person (my original post was about hardware).
Jobs a good un.
He's alright. However, if you step off One Infinite Loop, you'll find it about as hard as stepping off of One Microsoft Way. I used to have high hopes for Apple, but, while they're not bad, they lock you in as badly as Microsoft does. They just don't have the power to push it through on a larger scale like Microsoft. Or do you have 100% compatibility with their hardware and software without Apple?
There is a huge difference between the two: a hard link is filesystem-level (simply a second entry in a directory to a file); a symlink is OS-level. One cannot cross filesystem boundaries (being filesystem-level), the other can.
My assertions to date were firstly, that the penetration of the Ogg codec is rather limited.
I wholeheartedly agree with this assertion.
Secondly, that your post did not answer the question as asked.
I would also agree with this assertion. I did not weigh in on the relative merits and problems with QuickTime streaming server versus Windows Media streaming server.
Now, I understand your burning need to turn a relatively simple question into a roundtable discussion
Again with the mischaracterizations of my position! And the words "burning need" which, especially coupled with the Great Contrast ("relatively simple question" and "roundtable discussion") again flavour toward the slam!
your post did not answer the question as asked.
No, it most certainly did not make him or her any more wise about the merits and problems with QuickTime streming server versus Windows Media Streaming Server. I do, however, hope that the submitter (and those who are also looking at this article wondering about streaming servers) found the information I provided useful, if not in the imeediate, then in the long-term.. If not, no problems; it took me (aside from defending my right to post such information) little to no time, and probably took them even less.
Actually I did that, and no, actually, it doesn't return more information. Running through the first fifty hits does not reveal anything to indicate how well it might run on OS X, nor anything to indicate that it runs on OS X at all.
Hmm. You're wrong that the search does not reveal "anything to indicate that it runs on OS X at all"; the Freshmeat site clearly does. However, you're quite right in that the search (and the fluendo page itself) isn't terribly helpful about it. It notably doesn't really explicitly mention support for any platform; it just doesn't mention platforms at all. From the looks of things (I downloaded a copy real quick), it looks like it will build on any system that can meet its dependencies. Unfortunately, I don't see binaries, so that may well remove the free option for many people. A deficiency in the product as currently offered, most assuredly. I hope this will be rectified in the future, as it would greatly enhance their software's immediate impact.
am also ignoring the "fact" that the submitter may have a magic wishing fairy who can instantly implement the preferred solution with a bit of pixie dust and a wave of the magic wand, for the very simple reason that I do not know either of those two propositions to be anything remotely like a "fact", and neither, I suspect, do you.
And again, in lieu of a rational discussion, you again grasping the superlative and shaking it with all your might! No, I admit that I've not considered the possibility of magic wishing fairies, though I find the probability of having a box to install Linux or BSD on (or that Flumotion works on just about any relatively common Unix-like system) to be much, much, much more probable, and not at all improbable, and on the order of the probability that they have a Windows or MacOS box (about 1). It's really not that uncommon, especially amongst technically-coordinated folks.
Anything else is purely a product of wishful thinking on your part.
Not necessarily. You seem to completely disregard the possibility of Flumotion-compatible boxes being around, or at least the knowledge to make such boxes. I believe this is incorrect, and I've given them the information, and again, if they don't have such resources, then they need not act on the information provided.
Instead, I am informing you that you are not answering the question as asked.
So what you're saying is that I'm not answering the question as asked. Yes, I readily admit to not answering the question as as
You seem to have this idea that it's all about "slamming" someone or something - really, it's about answering the question that's been asked.
Your assertions to date are that:
Flumotion is useless (first post)
My post is useless (second post)
Both were stated as what I'd categorize as "slams": the first a sarcastic comment masquerading as a quasi-joke that the submitter wants for people to actually use the streams (incorrectly implying that nobody uses the formats that Flumotion provides); the second an incorrect assertion that I uselessly brought up a candidate that was vastly inferior to the other candidates (the "unicycle" in a comparison of two cars).
To make them less of a slam, I'd recommend, respectively, that you state that few are willing to install the codecs required (or use the Java applet) to use the free flumotion server, and that the price makes it the same as the other two candidates (both are fair assertions), and secondly (going with your analogy, that it's like I was bringing up a Buick when discussing whether one should buy a Honda or a Toyota, and that it's not what the poster wanted (again a fair asssertion).
It appears to me that the submitter may already have the resources in place to use QT, but wants to know if there is some advantage to WMV. Or maybe not - perhaps no resources are in place, but the submitter would like to weigh the pros and cons of each solution.
Precisely. We don't know exactly what's going on; not enough information has been provided. I was bringing up a rather unknown third option that the submitter probably didn't know about and he/she can take or leave at his or her discretion. The offer is no better or worse than the other candidates; each have their plusses and minuses. But if I didn't say anything, the submitter probably doesn't have the information; this may well be the worst or best solution for him/her. We simply don't know, and now at least the submitter has a little bit more information than when he/she started out. Or exactly the same information, if he/she was already aware of Flumotion. But reading the post and information only takes a few minutes of their time and I'm hurting nobody by presenting additoinal choices.
Does Flumotion even run on OS X? Doesn't look like it to me.
According to Freshmeat, it does. Googling for "flumotion osx" will give you even more information. Unfortunately, the project page doesn't say.
Or did you intend for the submitter to go out, buy a box, install Linux, and then run Flumotion?
You ignore the fact that they may well have a Linux (or maybe BSD box too) laying around, or that they could install it on an existing box. Notably, it appears that they have to install Win2k3 Server for the Windows Media option anyway, so this isn't a huge deal. Yeesh.
And that would be "free" how?
Because they don't necessarily have to pay for either a box, nor the OS, nor the server. Time is potentially the same in similar scenarios (e.g. already-installed-os, got to install a server with the OS, etc.), so it's potentially a wash, depending on the unknown factors that only the submitter knows. I gave him/her the information; he/she can decide with a few minutes of research what he/she wants to do (or not) with Flumotion.
Does anyone in their office even have experience with Linux, or is it your intent to have them learn a whole new OS in addition to a whole new streaming media server?
Quite possibly. Or they could install it with common MacOS X utilities. We don't know; I gave him/her the information and they can decide.
As to my intent, it is merely to give the poster what is probably to him or her new inform
It depends on a lot of things, of which budget is one.
The reason I said this was because budget is a constraint, and the Fluendo software lets you choose--free or not free. It has flexibility that the others do. I'm well aware of the fact that there are other considerations, as you can tell by the rest of my posts.
I think we can assume that the submitter is better aware of his own needs than either you or I, and he's narrowed it down to these two readily available solutions.
Problem is that it's the Big Two, so it's quite possible that the poster is entirely unaware of some other solutions out there [Flumotion, in this case]. None of us is omniscient, and the little guys (some of whom have kickass product, but lack a big enough marketing budget) don't get nearly the mindshare of larger companies, and I was trying to make the poster aware of Flumotion's offering in this space, with the potential to work better with his budget than the others.
However, there's always a few in the crowd who, when asked whether the Toyota is better than the Honda or what, can't resist the urge to chime in "Buy a unicycle!" He asked about QT and WMV - presumably, if he was interested in a survey of everyone's pet faves, the question would have been a bit more open-ended.
Nice slam on me personally, but I'm not recommending he buy a unicycle. More along the lines of "Look at the MG; it has offerings on par of the other two, but has better fuel economy, but on the other hand costs more since it's a much smaller vendor and must be imported." [NOTE: I don't know if any of these are true of the MG.] Your claim that I'm effectivly recommending a "unicycle" would be true if I told him to use, say, cat to get the image to the website, and use server push to get it to the clients. I'm only recommending a product that may well do the same or better job than the products about which the poster spoke, and do so potentially at a lower price and reach a larger audience!
If recommending to someone a product which may well turn out to be the superior offering than what they're cosidering is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Thank the Lord that it's not wrong. It takes the poster maybe a minute to read my post and maybe another couple of minutes to look at Fluendo. At that point he/she may choose to look at it closer or decide I'm a quack and drop it. But at least I've (helpfully/helpfully) pointed out a product that could do a better job than the two products of which he/she is already aware, and it cost him/her little to no effort to evaluate the new information of which he/she is probably unaware, and make a decision as to go investigate further or move on. Not out of line at all.
..I assume he's putting on the show because he wants people to, you know, actually watch it.;)
Nice slam on Ogg/Vorbis+Ogg/Theora, but them's the facts. It depends on the budget. You can do it for free, if you have little/no budget, or you can pay them for it and use something that people have installed already [which, notably, you have to do for the other solutions already]. Quicktime, you will remember, requires a [free] download for Windows users (no love for anybody else) and Windows Media only works on Windows (though, depending on how you do it, you can make it less annoying for other users). With MPEG or Ogg/Theora, you reach all users (and it's potentially free!)
Additionally, you can just use the free free Java applet and the end-users need not download anything [it does Vorbis+Theora already!]. (well, honestly, I don't know if they need to download Sun's Java; if it works with MS-Java (i.e. JRE 1.1), then nobody on the mainstream platforms needs to download anything.)
So you have several different ways you can do it for free and reach everybody (possibly with a free download, like QuickTime), and several different ways you can do it for not-free with no downloads necessary, reaching all users both ways. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The basic server product is free software, distributed under the GPL. If you want to stream content to your customers using unemcumbered royalty-free media formats (for example, Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/Theora), you can easily do so without having to take out any license or support contract with us.
On the other hand, if you do license the Advanced Streaming Server, you get the additional features of our commercial server version. This includes professional GUI administration tools, access to proprietary formats for streaming such as MPEG, and access to our support engineers.
So you can stream in Ogg/Theora for free (free plugins for the end users, too), or you can pay them money and stream in MPEG and friends [no plugin needed].
I've heard of trying to equip and teach dolphins and other animals to do the Navy's work, but now they've equipped and trained whales to blast sonar for them! Incredible!
/me waits for the ba-dump-bump-*ching*, but hears only crickets....
I can't remember the last time I installed something on Windows that wasn't as easy as clicking "next" a few times.
Installing 3rd-party software can be exactly like this on Linux too. Unreal Tournamet 2004 was a very nice install-run the setup program, click, click, click, done. If your Linux 3rd-party Software Vendor doesn't provide you the experienc you want, don't blame Linux; it's not Linux's fault. Tell Software Vendor that their installer sucks.
I'm just saying that it shouldn't be an issue to run a modern operating system on modern comodity hardware
In an ideal world, no, it shouln't be a problem at all. However, we don't live in an ideal world; vendors implement open interfaces, but many implement their own interfaces and give nobody else the information, or implement the standard in a non-standard (i.e. broken) fashion.
I suspect that you intend to say standardized hardware, and that's generally zero problem under Linux. You can buy USB Mass Storage devices and use them under Linux without fear--heck, KDE and GNOME will also auto-mount the drive on insertion and pop up a little icon on your desktop for you to click on (and optionally start browsing it). The problem is non-standard hardware. Things like the encrypted USB thumbdrives, the various almost-compatible-but-not-quite cameras and things like that. These require the vendor to support your OS, and without copious trial-and-error and potentially even reverse-engineering all of the individual devices, your OS generally can't support it. Outside of a cross-platform device development kit being developed (which requires a fair market which we don't currently have; nobody needs to develop it, since nobody wants it, and since nobody has developed it, it's hard to create a driver for multi platforms, so Windows keeps its dominance, so nobody needs to develop it, and so on), this won't change. Vendors will develop for whoever has the market, and this is Windows. It's worth noting, however, that this is mostly not an innate problem with Linux--it's almost purely the product of an extremly imbalanced market.
researching "computer stuff" is something that your average pc user is not going to do, and in many cases isn't really capable of doing especially since most people only use their computers for email and the web.
I believe Linux is ready for much more buisness use, but until my mother can deal with it easily, it won't be ready for mainstream home desktop use.
While I totally understand why people bring up Linux hardware and software compatibility, it's important to realize that, again, this is nothing Linux itself can fix, modulo a few things (e.g. ndiswrapper), and it aggrivates me that this is so. Yes, hardware and software support is an issue for Linux (and, notably, Mac!), it's important that people realize that this is an entirely artificial problem. No, it won't help them magically get supported, but it will help them wake up to the realities of the situation we live in. Informed consumers are the best consumers, and they're the cornerstone of capitalism (well, OK; this is an overgeneralization; capitalism works just fine with a simple buy-the-cheapest mindset, but such then requires the intervention of government for the general good, as consumers disregard things like their own long-term safety in exchange for cheaper prices and security; informed consumers acting on their principles and information make such government intervention at best superfluous; there may be an interesting feedback effect.)
Additionally, for Mac and hopefully for Linux in the future, the "research" of which you speak consists of looking at the box in the store (or the System Requirements on the website) before buying.
Finally, I disagree with your assertion that Linux isn't ready for your mother. Well, taking "your mother" to be the general Mother At Home. As you state, "most people only use their computers for email and the web." For such users, Linux is ideal, since it's a (currently) virus-poor environment. The major caveats are website support (which isn't generally a problem anymore, though there are a few sites out there), but I suspect that most of these users also don't use the huge Windows/IE-Only sites very much, as they pretty much just read th
Try walking a friend or relative through updating a video or sound driver over the phone.
I can tell you exactly how that goes:
Look up hardware info for friend; optionally tell them where the HOWTO is
Go to [here], click [here] to install the driver; it's called [driver]
[if video] click [here] to tell X about the new video driver, and log out to start using it (distro may actually do that for you); [if sound] click [here] to set up your volume levels; may need to re-log in to start using
Enjoy new hardware
With Linux they'll probably have to recompile the kernel.
And windows is so unstable (several years ago)! I'll trade my well-worn anachronisms for yours.
Certainly, you can recompile the kernel if you want to. Linux has supported loadable modules and userspace drivers for a very long time, and modern distros generally ships with modules to drive just about any Linux-supported device under the sun. The main problem is if Linux doesn't support the hardware (because most vendors don't support Linux), but that's where you look up the hardware for them when they ask you what they should buy.
And it allows him to do something that he wont be able to do with current OSS technology because nor him or the people at Mexico have the time and patience to learn to use the 5 programs you have to use in Linux to get the same result (video+text+audio) you get with messenger.
You are wrong, as I very quickly sketched out in the last paragraph of my post, but that's ok; you don't care enough about being right and are content to wallow in ignorance. Things will eventually come back to bite you firmly in the hindquarters some day, and that probably (hopefully) won't affect me.
s an example my flatmate he is making his PhD and has some buisness going in Mexico. He use to get into MSN Messenger every other night and video conference with some people back there to discuss work.
Does he have a special agreement to conduct business via MSN Messenger? Because it's against the Terms of Service if he doesn't. (section 1, first paragraph).
Additionally, he should track what Microsoft does and doesn't do with is "personal information," as outlined in Section 5: quoth the 'Soft:
If you are using MSN-branded software with the Service, please see the MSN Privacy Statement http://privacy.msn.com/ for notices about how we collect and use your information. If you are using any other software with the Service, please see the.NET Messenger Service Privacy Statement at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/messenger/privacy policy.asp for notices about how we collect and use your information.
We consider your use of the Service, including the content of your communications, to be private. We do not routinely monitor your communications or disclose information about your communications to anyone. However, we may monitor your communications and disclose information about you, including the content of your communications, if we consider it necessary to: (1) comply with the law or to respond to legal process; (2) ensure your compliance with this contract; or (3) protect the rights, property, or interests of Microsoft, its employees, its customers, or the public.
In particular, "(3)pretect[ing] the rights, property, or interest of Microsoft" leaves a lot of wiggle room for listening to fresh ideas coming across their pipes (unlike AOL, who specifically state that whatever you type is theirs!).
Finally, he should continually check the Terms of Service; they "may change this contract at any time. You must review this contract on a regular basis." (Section 2). So what they say now isn't necessarily what they'll be saying later. Remember also that, like any business, it's nothing personal, just business. Their goal isn't to make you happy; it's to make money. If people get happy, it tends to give them money, but so long as most people are happy, a few people can get screwed, particularly if they can wriggle out of it in the courts and the courts of public opinion.
And finally, one-click videoconvferencing systems exist for Linux. For example, skype runs on Linux (again, check the ToS!), and also Gnome Meeting, amongst others.
And you're right about the Start Button. Totally lame idea. So why the hell can't OSS figure out something better than to copy such a lame idea?
Well, I suspect the idea is that people are trained on Windows, and need at least a little similarity to get started.
It is to be noted that there are as many different ways to do things as there are days in the year. For instance, once you're familiar with GNOME, you can remove the menu from the panel and access programs via launchers on the panels or the desktop. Or you can remove the panel altogether and go with some program you wrote or launchers on the desktop. Or a combination of all of these. Or other things I've not mentioned. And that's just under GNOME; GNOME and KDE are not the only environments out there!
Why do we get clones of commercial products?
Because if we create The Best UI Ever, people coming from Windows (by far the majority) will not be at all familiar with it and call it The Crappiest UI Ever because they don't know how to get started.
Really, we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Catch-22. Lose users because our UI sucks or lose users because our UI will be perceived to suck.
Why don't we have completely new blank-slate ideas coming out of OSS like shells which pipe XML instead of text?
Shells are generally format-agnostic. They don't care what format is in the pipe; that's the job of the programs at the end of the pipe. And some programs deal with XML, HTML, PS, JPEG, or whatever.
We could have The Most Innovative Stuff Ever and nobody would care unless it runs on Windows and is familiar to them. Reality bites if you're not in the position to boss people around. I suspect that we have a lot of innovative things that just don't get headlines (for example, WindowMaker and the varioux *box WMs and xfce, for the GNOME/KDE example. Just because you don't know of them doesn't mean they're not out there.
I find it quite remarkable how the "if" is always missing from these statements... couldn't this guide also be used as an indication whether it's even profitable for companies to switch to Linux ?
And rightly so!
Maybe if you read it, it'll give you insight into whether you should switch some/all of your computers to Linux. However, the question of if you should migrate some/any software to Linux (or any other OS) is terribly situation-dependent and being argued constantly by pundits, armchair pundits, zealots, and paid shills every day. Indeed, reading such an article might well give you more information on whether you should switch than all of the TCO/ROI/WTF else studies together!
That is outside the scope of what these papers address. You're right that this doesn't (directly) address if one should or should not migrate to Linux. That's not what it's intended to address, as that question's already been settled for them.
IMHO, there is already too much arguing (mostly in generalities that make you feel good but don't actually inform, some downright misleading) by the above list of suspects about if and not how, so I think this comes exactly right--a paper on How We're Migrating to Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
The crux of the problem is that people are at a local minimum of energy (which will be the case in any situation due to inherent forces (e.g. familiarity), but because we've been entrenched in a Microsoft monopoly for so long, it can be quite high for some!), and are hesitant to go the little bit further to gain the full benefits of having competition. On the microeconomic scale, it's very reasonable, but on the macroeconomic scale, it leads to Microsoft staying entrenched, unless people either kick themselves over the activation energy bump, someone else does it (e.g. business requirements), or the bump is lowered (and, notably, this can happen through increased adoption of Linux/Apple, up to another monopoly situation; kind of like the energy from a reaction can help other reactions over the activation energy, but not quite the same).
It's a simple model, but I think it explains things pretty nicely.
Mr. Korn most definitely did not say what most people on here are seeming to think, i.e. "OSS software accesibility sucks," and it's great to see someone who apparently actually read the (quite informative) article!
Now there's a lot of uncertainty in these figures, but it at least provides a glimpse of tendencies.
BTW, you should be asking your camera vendor why your photos are encrypted by your purchased hardware such that it effectively removes a good deal of your control of your photos! (this is the RAW encryption crap that so many vendors pull!)
BTW, I regularly use digital cameras with Linux, albeit not high-end cameras. It's really quite easy. [Point-n-click, even!]
From what I understand, they're dipping their toes into it. If you really can't live without these apps, wine/codeweavers may work for you. Or you can work around the problem. Take your pick of non-KDE and GNOME WMs. Some you may find intuitive, some you may not. On Linux, they're all first-class citizens, unlike on MacOS/Windows, wehre you have to kludge it in.Standardization is Linux's achilles heel, but it's quite managable. Things are standardizing (e.g. the Linux Standards Base and Freedesktop.org), but things aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. If you have concrete plans to help combat it, while still giving users the freedom that they lack on other platforms, by all means please tell us so we can hopefully make things work better for you.
You can use all bluetooth HIDs. I do every day. Phone sync I can't verify because Sprint has castrated my phone's bluetooth stack so that it doesn't do OBEX. However, I use it regularly to connect to Sprint's vision service. Already done, TMK. I don't know that such a thing exists, though if there's enough demand for it, it wouldn't be hard to do, given current infrastructure. Like I said, I'd welcome such a reliable hardware vendor, Tangent Person (my original post was about hardware).He's alright. However, if you step off One Infinite Loop, you'll find it about as hard as stepping off of One Microsoft Way. I used to have high hopes for Apple, but, while they're not bad, they lock you in as badly as Microsoft does. They just don't have the power to push it through on a larger scale like Microsoft. Or do you have 100% compatibility with their hardware and software without Apple?
Mark me one dissatisfied former Apple-fan guy.
I agree totally.
Now, if only they'd release the specs for NTFS so that the Linux devs could get us 100% NTFS-compatible, the dual-booters would be so happy!
There is a huge difference between the two: a hard link is filesystem-level (simply a second entry in a directory to a file); a symlink is OS-level. One cannot cross filesystem boundaries (being filesystem-level), the other can.
Synopsis of the stuff you seem to have "missed" (though you posted a couple of days late!):
I won't waste any more time on your sarcastic troll; I've already had a lengthy talk with someone else on this and other subjects.
EOT
EOT
I wholeheartedly agree with this assertion.
I would also agree with this assertion. I did not weigh in on the relative merits and problems with QuickTime streaming server versus Windows Media streaming server.
Again with the mischaracterizations of my position! And the words "burning need" which, especially coupled with the Great Contrast ("relatively simple question" and "roundtable discussion") again flavour toward the slam!
No, it most certainly did not make him or her any more wise about the merits and problems with QuickTime streming server versus Windows Media Streaming Server. I do, however, hope that the submitter (and those who are also looking at this article wondering about streaming servers) found the information I provided useful, if not in the imeediate, then in the long-term.. If not, no problems; it took me (aside from defending my right to post such information) little to no time, and probably took them even less.
Hmm. You're wrong that the search does not reveal "anything to indicate that it runs on OS X at all"; the Freshmeat site clearly does. However, you're quite right in that the search (and the fluendo page itself) isn't terribly helpful about it. It notably doesn't really explicitly mention support for any platform; it just doesn't mention platforms at all. From the looks of things (I downloaded a copy real quick), it looks like it will build on any system that can meet its dependencies. Unfortunately, I don't see binaries, so that may well remove the free option for many people. A deficiency in the product as currently offered, most assuredly. I hope this will be rectified in the future, as it would greatly enhance their software's immediate impact.
And again, in lieu of a rational discussion, you again grasping the superlative and shaking it with all your might! No, I admit that I've not considered the possibility of magic wishing fairies, though I find the probability of having a box to install Linux or BSD on (or that Flumotion works on just about any relatively common Unix-like system) to be much, much, much more probable, and not at all improbable, and on the order of the probability that they have a Windows or MacOS box (about 1). It's really not that uncommon, especially amongst technically-coordinated folks.
Not necessarily. You seem to completely disregard the possibility of Flumotion-compatible boxes being around, or at least the knowledge to make such boxes. I believe this is incorrect, and I've given them the information, and again, if they don't have such resources, then they need not act on the information provided.
So what you're saying is that I'm not answering the question as asked. Yes, I readily admit to not answering the question as as
Your assertions to date are that:
Both were stated as what I'd categorize as "slams": the first a sarcastic comment masquerading as a quasi-joke that the submitter wants for people to actually use the streams (incorrectly implying that nobody uses the formats that Flumotion provides); the second an incorrect assertion that I uselessly brought up a candidate that was vastly inferior to the other candidates (the "unicycle" in a comparison of two cars).
To make them less of a slam, I'd recommend, respectively, that you state that few are willing to install the codecs required (or use the Java applet) to use the free flumotion server, and that the price makes it the same as the other two candidates (both are fair assertions), and secondly (going with your analogy, that it's like I was bringing up a Buick when discussing whether one should buy a Honda or a Toyota, and that it's not what the poster wanted (again a fair asssertion).
Precisely. We don't know exactly what's going on; not enough information has been provided. I was bringing up a rather unknown third option that the submitter probably didn't know about and he/she can take or leave at his or her discretion. The offer is no better or worse than the other candidates; each have their plusses and minuses. But if I didn't say anything, the submitter probably doesn't have the information; this may well be the worst or best solution for him/her. We simply don't know, and now at least the submitter has a little bit more information than when he/she started out. Or exactly the same information, if he/she was already aware of Flumotion. But reading the post and information only takes a few minutes of their time and I'm hurting nobody by presenting additoinal choices.
According to Freshmeat, it does. Googling for "flumotion osx" will give you even more information. Unfortunately, the project page doesn't say.
You ignore the fact that they may well have a Linux (or maybe BSD box too) laying around, or that they could install it on an existing box. Notably, it appears that they have to install Win2k3 Server for the Windows Media option anyway, so this isn't a huge deal. Yeesh.
Because they don't necessarily have to pay for either a box, nor the OS, nor the server. Time is potentially the same in similar scenarios (e.g. already-installed-os, got to install a server with the OS, etc.), so it's potentially a wash, depending on the unknown factors that only the submitter knows. I gave him/her the information; he/she can decide with a few minutes of research what he/she wants to do (or not) with Flumotion.
Quite possibly. Or they could install it with common MacOS X utilities. We don't know; I gave him/her the information and they can decide.
As to my intent , it is merely to give the poster what is probably to him or her new inform
If recommending to someone a product which may well turn out to be the superior offering than what they're cosidering is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Thank the Lord that it's not wrong. It takes the poster maybe a minute to read my post and maybe another couple of minutes to look at Fluendo. At that point he/she may choose to look at it closer or decide I'm a quack and drop it. But at least I've (helpfully/helpfully) pointed out a product that could do a better job than the two products of which he/she is already aware, and it cost him/her little to no effort to evaluate the new information of which he/she is probably unaware, and make a decision as to go investigate further or move on. Not out of line at all.
Additionally, you can just use the free free Java applet and the end-users need not download anything [it does Vorbis+Theora already!]. (well, honestly, I don't know if they need to download Sun's Java; if it works with MS-Java (i.e. JRE 1.1), then nobody on the mainstream platforms needs to download anything.)
So you have several different ways you can do it for free and reach everybody (possibly with a free download, like QuickTime), and several different ways you can do it for not-free with no downloads necessary, reaching all users both ways. Sounds like a good deal to me.
/me waits for the ba-dump-bump-*ching*, but hears only crickets....
In an ideal world, no, it shouln't be a problem at all. However, we don't live in an ideal world; vendors implement open interfaces, but many implement their own interfaces and give nobody else the information, or implement the standard in a non-standard (i.e. broken) fashion.
I suspect that you intend to say standardized hardware, and that's generally zero problem under Linux. You can buy USB Mass Storage devices and use them under Linux without fear--heck, KDE and GNOME will also auto-mount the drive on insertion and pop up a little icon on your desktop for you to click on (and optionally start browsing it). The problem is non-standard hardware. Things like the encrypted USB thumbdrives, the various almost-compatible-but-not-quite cameras and things like that. These require the vendor to support your OS, and without copious trial-and-error and potentially even reverse-engineering all of the individual devices, your OS generally can't support it. Outside of a cross-platform device development kit being developed (which requires a fair market which we don't currently have; nobody needs to develop it, since nobody wants it, and since nobody has developed it, it's hard to create a driver for multi platforms, so Windows keeps its dominance, so nobody needs to develop it, and so on), this won't change. Vendors will develop for whoever has the market, and this is Windows. It's worth noting, however, that this is mostly not an innate problem with Linux--it's almost purely the product of an extremly imbalanced market.
While I totally understand why people bring up Linux hardware and software compatibility, it's important to realize that, again, this is nothing Linux itself can fix, modulo a few things (e.g. ndiswrapper), and it aggrivates me that this is so. Yes, hardware and software support is an issue for Linux (and, notably, Mac!), it's important that people realize that this is an entirely artificial problem. No, it won't help them magically get supported, but it will help them wake up to the realities of the situation we live in. Informed consumers are the best consumers, and they're the cornerstone of capitalism (well, OK; this is an overgeneralization; capitalism works just fine with a simple buy-the-cheapest mindset, but such then requires the intervention of government for the general good, as consumers disregard things like their own long-term safety in exchange for cheaper prices and security; informed consumers acting on their principles and information make such government intervention at best superfluous; there may be an interesting feedback effect.)
Additionally, for Mac and hopefully for Linux in the future, the "research" of which you speak consists of looking at the box in the store (or the System Requirements on the website) before buying.
Finally, I disagree with your assertion that Linux isn't ready for your mother. Well, taking "your mother" to be the general Mother At Home. As you state, "most people only use their computers for email and the web." For such users, Linux is ideal, since it's a (currently) virus-poor environment. The major caveats are website support (which isn't generally a problem anymore, though there are a few sites out there), but I suspect that most of these users also don't use the huge Windows/IE-Only sites very much, as they pretty much just read th
- Look up hardware info for friend; optionally tell them where the HOWTO is
- Go to [here], click [here] to install the driver; it's called [driver]
- [if video] click [here] to tell X about the new video driver, and log out to start using it (distro may actually do that for you); [if sound] click [here] to set up your volume levels; may need to re-log in to start using
- Enjoy new hardware
And windows is so unstable (several years ago)! I'll trade my well-worn anachronisms for yours.Certainly, you can recompile the kernel if you want to. Linux has supported loadable modules and userspace drivers for a very long time, and modern distros generally ships with modules to drive just about any Linux-supported device under the sun. The main problem is if Linux doesn't support the hardware (because most vendors don't support Linux), but that's where you look up the hardware for them when they ask you what they should buy.
Additionally, he should track what Microsoft does and doesn't do with is "personal information," as outlined in Section 5: quoth the 'Soft:
In particular, "(3)pretect[ing] the rights, property, or interest of Microsoft" leaves a lot of wiggle room for listening to fresh ideas coming across their pipes (unlike AOL, who specifically state that whatever you type is theirs!).
Finally, he should continually check the Terms of Service; they "may change this contract at any time. You must review this contract on a regular basis." (Section 2). So what they say now isn't necessarily what they'll be saying later. Remember also that, like any business, it's nothing personal, just business. Their goal isn't to make you happy; it's to make money. If people get happy, it tends to give them money, but so long as most people are happy, a few people can get screwed, particularly if they can wriggle out of it in the courts and the courts of public opinion.
And finally, one-click videoconvferencing systems exist for Linux. For example, skype runs on Linux (again, check the ToS!), and also Gnome Meeting, amongst others.
It is to be noted that there are as many different ways to do things as there are days in the year. For instance, once you're familiar with GNOME, you can remove the menu from the panel and access programs via launchers on the panels or the desktop. Or you can remove the panel altogether and go with some program you wrote or launchers on the desktop. Or a combination of all of these. Or other things I've not mentioned. And that's just under GNOME; GNOME and KDE are not the only environments out there!
Because if we create The Best UI Ever, people coming from Windows (by far the majority) will not be at all familiar with it and call it The Crappiest UI Ever because they don't know how to get started.Really, we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Catch-22. Lose users because our UI sucks or lose users because our UI will be perceived to suck.
Shells are generally format-agnostic. They don't care what format is in the pipe; that's the job of the programs at the end of the pipe. And some programs deal with XML, HTML, PS, JPEG, or whatever.We could have The Most Innovative Stuff Ever and nobody would care unless it runs on Windows and is familiar to them. Reality bites if you're not in the position to boss people around. I suspect that we have a lot of innovative things that just don't get headlines (for example, WindowMaker and the varioux *box WMs and xfce, for the GNOME/KDE example. Just because you don't know of them doesn't mean they're not out there.
And rightly so!
Maybe if you read it, it'll give you insight into whether you should switch some/all of your computers to Linux. However, the question of if you should migrate some/any software to Linux (or any other OS) is terribly situation-dependent and being argued constantly by pundits, armchair pundits, zealots, and paid shills every day. Indeed, reading such an article might well give you more information on whether you should switch than all of the TCO/ROI/WTF else studies together!
That is outside the scope of what these papers address. You're right that this doesn't (directly) address if one should or should not migrate to Linux. That's not what it's intended to address, as that question's already been settled for them.
IMHO, there is already too much arguing (mostly in generalities that make you feel good but don't actually inform, some downright misleading) by the above list of suspects about if and not how, so I think this comes exactly right--a paper on How We're Migrating to Linux.