So they target larger markets first for their app thingy - big deal. If they were "dropping" support or something that would be a different issue but it's just what releases they are focusing on initially. I say let them - there will surely be a few bugs they'll be able to work out before an official Linux release. And besides, as others have mentioned if you're so interested getting it right now on Linux then grab the code and start at it.
*I'm a dedicated Linux and Firefox user and I don't feel particularly "betrayed" at this point.
I'm pretty much the same, but I don't carry a tablet.
First off the only thing that's valuable is your data. I have an insurance plan on my phone and the only important information on it is either in the cloud to begin with or is photos and videos - which are automatically synced (Ubuntu one, dropbox, etc.). My notebook I use the cheapest ultrabook out there... which is also a surprisngly nice machine. It's the smaller Asus Zenbook - an i7 with 4GB of RAM in a ~11 inch thin, nice case. I sync my data to a home serever which then in turn is backed up off-site. Home folders and backups are all encrypted. You could take my phone and notebook and break them right now and I'd be out like $500 and two days waiting for replacements.
You know, and f*ing fix the certificate system. Make it so certificates are generated off some sort of DNS record information or something and add that info to the info registrars have. Or something. Buying certificates is almost like blackmail, and even if you do buy one it's not like your cert auth isn't vulnerable to attack or users won't just hit the "add exception" button when they get spoofed.
Oh and as was mentioned above, making a.secure domain is like putting a target on yourself. Good luck with that one.
Actually you can install it in the software center with just a few clicks. You don't even need to use the terminal. Besides the point here is at least users will be running an install target to begin with - if they find out about Gnome 3 and want to try it they can.
It's the activists that claim we don't need nuclear power, but the majority of them don't realize that as the reactors are being refused activation licenses there has been a massive increase in the reliance coal and natural gas - which has increased power generation costs, has large carbon footprint, and is neither sustainable nore feasable for long-term power needs. We absolutely need nuclear power, and even now there's no reason not to restart the Chubu Denryoku and Touhoku Denryoku reactors.
Of course the more rigerous tests and highered standards have exposed potentialy dangerous reactors and broght into quetsion the location and "benefit" packages of certain reactors - so hopefully this will usher in a newer, safer age of nuclear energy. But the reactors that have already passed all the safety tests need to be restarted as soon as possible lest there be a significant and needless economic impact.
I tottally forgot about that, and that does make a lot of sense. Still, Java as a language I dislike. Of course there are other JVM langauges like Scala, which I do like, which you can already "kinda" use to write Android apps.
Also take my anger with a grain of salt - I'm in a two week Android/Java dev crunch time and the long winded code style and over-simplicty which makes you break everyting down into little adapter objects is getting to me.
Well, for me: *tooling: I use vim, and eclim is around so it's not an issue. Code processors I'll give you, that is well done. I don't like ant or maven (simply a preference). *I have found the Java community to be absolutely awful - information is scattered and when you go for help you'll run into people with the same eletist traits as Gossling. Of course this is all probably because I'm involved in the Ruby community, so my standards are a little biased. The Android dev community isn't so bad but it's also not "great". *standardized APIs are neat if you have to work in enterprise frameworks and the like, but I like choice. Best comparison here would be C++ - there is a rich standard library set but there are also a lot of options, and the Boost libraries are "standard enough" if you need "standardized". *portability: I see your point on the Windows/Linux gap, but honestly I can't think of anything other than LO and Minecraft that I use that's Java based. Actually LO and Minecraft are two spectacular peices of Java software. Any other suggestions?
I completely agree with you on the Nice GUI point - first time I wrote Java was right when Swing came in and it was a nightmare of digusting and awkward with layers of inexplicable font awfulness. It doesn't seem like that situation has improved dramatically, but at least LO looks OK, and eclipse is bearable... but nowhere near what I would consider nice. I wasn't aware desktop app deployment had any issues but it's not something I've dealt with so I'll take your word on it.
Well the only "great" thing about Java is the JVM - which in and of itself isn't that great. Google easily could have implemented a full NDK and provided template makefiles to produce ARM and x86 binaries and just made a system to sort them out and choose the right one for download/install.
As for higher level languages some do have big benefits. Ruby and Python can do some amazing things in very little code and with very little coding time - and the reality is most machines perform well enough now that you don't need to worry about performance of most apps. If you do you can always write someting in a mid or low-level language and link it up.
Also, the whole Java motto of "write once run anywhere" is total BS. Every single device and implementation out there is totally different to the point you can't even write non-GUI apps and expect them to run on non-target platforms -- don't even get me started on GUI stuff. Add to that the fact the Java langauge is dated, featureless and ugly. I mean come on, when you can't even implement vectors, er..."ArrayLists" without array style accessors there's something wrong. Don't even get me started on anything involving nested data tables or the fact you can't override initializers or... GHAAA I HATE JAVA!
But it wasn't reverse engineered, it was re-implemented. The issue is weather or not you can copyright a language and an API and what terms the Java language and standard API were licensed under - things that were never really defined in a non-ambiguous way.
I also think you read the parents post differently than I did. I consider "re-implementing and deploying" to be synonimous with "using" and in that case Oracle has totally alienated anyone who would try to implement and deploy their own native Java on their own platform. In a way this is the absolute opposite of the paradigims that govern languages like Ruby and Python. With Ruby and Python re-implementation and modification is encouraged. Both projects have evolved by taking ideas from alternative implementations and incorporating them. Some VMs for these languages are actually commerical - so I cold write my own Ruby VM and sell it and nobody would complain.
Also, as someone who is coding Java on Android right now I'd like to say this: WTF is wrong with you Google!? JAVA IS AN AWFUL LANGAUGE! Why the hell didn't you just use C++? As much as I dislike Apple I must say they made a damn fine choice with Objective C. God damn.
Uh, yes it is. Many many companies use it, including my own and all of our partners. I've closed large deals entirely over Skype as well. Just because it's not an important tool in your own corporate ecosystem doesn't mean it's not in others.
Now if by "not for meetings" you mean where a bunch of people in suits sit around tables with a funny looking over-priced teleconferencing unit so a bunch of people in suits sitting around a table in another location with a compatible funny looking over-priced teleconferencing unit can speak to eachother then yeah, I've never seen Skype used in a situation like that.
When did you last use Skype in Linux? About a year ago I had the issue you mention but now it runs fine for me (Ubuntu 11.10 x64). I'm using the version that's in the repositories - perhaps the Ubuntu team tweaked it? I've never had the ball beaten mickey mouse issues you mention below though.
That would be entirely dependent on the quality of the USB device vs the quality of the internal sound card. But I have no idea why IT at your workplace recomends Plantronics - as you already know they make crap devices.
Hold on there, you're making a big mistake in judgement - it's Sony America that's causing all the problems and suing people, NOT Sony Japan. As a Japanese in Japan doing worldwide business I'm telling you the stunts Sony America is pulling would never fly in Japan; they'd be torn apart. Here in Japan companies live and die by customer service, and companies that disrespect their customers don't last so long.
Of course if you are referring to the removal of the Other OS feature on the PS3 I can understand if you were actually using it for it's inended purpose - but the reality is most people used it to play pirated games so from a corporate standpoint I understand Sony removing it. It is unfortunate though, and it's removal gives me one less reason to care about the PS3.
Of course I say this but I must admit I rarely purchase Sony products. In fact other than a first generation PS2 I can't think of anything Sony made in my possesion. It is a shame they don't embrace the hacker/maker communities like say Sharp or Casio... which is probably why I own a bunch of Sharp and Casio gear.
This is the first time I think I've ever made the claim but I did so because they presented the article like they'd JUST NOW discovered it and this was something revolutionary and that bothered me. The title/description is also completely misleading: [negative] ions are concentrations of electrons but they are not "electricity". On top of that the actual study they did found absolutely no new information and yet they are basically claiming they did. Well, actually the article claims they did - the scientists don't actually seem to be making that claim it just seems to be inferred by the author of the article. So: old information from a research study lazy graduate students have probably rehashed ad-nauseum, misleading article, straight up awful and inaccurate article description = not news.
A few searches will give you quite a few hits for detailed analysis but I'll give you a quick rundown of how I understand it:
What are the implications?
Higher concentrations of negative ions in the air basically leads to "cleaner" air. The basic idea is that the negative ions are attracted to positively charged particulates which they latch on to and break down. Negative ions can also break down bacteria. More details in this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ioniser
Do the levels of various ions in the air impact human health in any way?
Yes but I'm not personally aware of how much and I'm not sure how much scientific study could have a corporate bias behind it (to sell air purifiction technologies). Reguardless, it's pretty much been scientifically proven that particular levels of negative ions (not too much, but above a certain level) have human health benefits. Some studies I've seen claim negative ion rich environments make the environment more physicall comfortable (more refreshed and energized) to the body which leads to higher energy and lower stress - and personally that's why I purchased higher quality air conditioners and filtration units which I do *feel* make my living and working spaces more comfortable.
How do they differ in cities vs suburbs vs the countryside?
I'm assuming it is -generally- true that cities would likely have lower concentrations than the suburbs which would in turn have lower concentrations than the countryside.
This has been known for a very long time and it's very much common knowledge. Ambient negative ion levels can even be obtained through weather services in my country. My Daikin air conditioner even claims to keep ambient ion levels at "lush forest" levels and it's not near new. Just do a google search for "forest negative ion" and you'll find tons of products and articles on the subject. Why is this at all news?
Does Apple forbid their employees to purchase Windows PCs, Tablets, Phones, etc. with company money?... would they even need to?
I mean MS has every right to forbid this, and anything short of research into the competition shouldn't warrant use of company funds to purchase these things anyway. The fact MS employees would have the gaull and disloyalty to bring those things into the office alone is disrespectful. Trying to get the company to pay for them is flat out insulting. If your employees don't believe in your own products enough to use them themselves you should probably question weather or not you want to keep them - if they actually try and use money to buy your competitors products you should probably fire them. I mean I hate MS (and Apple), but if I was an empoyee and they were paying my bills I'd at least try and believe in the company vision enough to not bring competitors products into the office or use them for work.
If the conditions are right. Hospitals running electronic karte software for example are quite receptive to using Linux workstations - there's even vendors that specialize in low profile Linux workstations for hospitals for exactly this reason. Schools can be quite receptive too. You just need to know your customer and find a way that Linux will fit their needs. Also, consider selling Linux as a service - offering a yearly support contract alone will instill enough confidence to make sales and in many cases it ends up being cheaper than hiring a dedicated administrator to deal with constantly breaking MS setups.
I would suspect the courts would frown on his intentions and likely sweep aside the corporate protections.
Of course they will, which is why he's setting it up as a different corporation. In contries like America corporations are entities - he's making a new corporation specifically so it can be ragdolled (have the crap beaten out of it) and then just thrown away.
I've never seen a court back a director who deliberately set up a company in order to break the law or defraud other individuals/companies.
Is this your first time reading Slashdot? There's a few stories a month about situations just like that. Hell there's cases of -governments- backing and giving special protections to companies that defraud individuals/companies. Even in my country it happens, though thankfully not nearly to the degree it happens in the US.
Of course this particular situation is a bit different. He's setting up a corporation specifically to insight action from Microsoft which he believes performs unfair business practices and this new company will test that. As someone who's been bullied by MS myself (they claimed I had unlicensed machines... which were running only Linux!) I find that intensely ammusing. It will be nice to see MS get their knickers in a twist about the whole thing and taste some backlash over their own corporate bullying.
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So they target larger markets first for their app thingy - big deal. If they were "dropping" support or something that would be a different issue but it's just what releases they are focusing on initially. I say let them - there will surely be a few bugs they'll be able to work out before an official Linux release. And besides, as others have mentioned if you're so interested getting it right now on Linux then grab the code and start at it.
*I'm a dedicated Linux and Firefox user and I don't feel particularly "betrayed" at this point.
I'm pretty much the same, but I don't carry a tablet.
First off the only thing that's valuable is your data. I have an insurance plan on my phone and the only important information on it is either in the cloud to begin with or is photos and videos - which are automatically synced (Ubuntu one, dropbox, etc.). My notebook I use the cheapest ultrabook out there... which is also a surprisngly nice machine. It's the smaller Asus Zenbook - an i7 with 4GB of RAM in a ~11 inch thin, nice case. I sync my data to a home serever which then in turn is backed up off-site. Home folders and backups are all encrypted. You could take my phone and notebook and break them right now and I'd be out like $500 and two days waiting for replacements.
You know, and f*ing fix the certificate system. Make it so certificates are generated off some sort of DNS record information or something and add that info to the info registrars have. Or something. Buying certificates is almost like blackmail, and even if you do buy one it's not like your cert auth isn't vulnerable to attack or users won't just hit the "add exception" button when they get spoofed.
Oh and as was mentioned above, making a .secure domain is like putting a target on yourself. Good luck with that one.
Actually you can install it in the software center with just a few clicks. You don't even need to use the terminal. Besides the point here is at least users will be running an install target to begin with - if they find out about Gnome 3 and want to try it they can.
Oh wow that sounds like a pain in the ass.
It's the activists that claim we don't need nuclear power, but the majority of them don't realize that as the reactors are being refused activation licenses there has been a massive increase in the reliance coal and natural gas - which has increased power generation costs, has large carbon footprint, and is neither sustainable nore feasable for long-term power needs. We absolutely need nuclear power, and even now there's no reason not to restart the Chubu Denryoku and Touhoku Denryoku reactors.
Of course the more rigerous tests and highered standards have exposed potentialy dangerous reactors and broght into quetsion the location and "benefit" packages of certain reactors - so hopefully this will usher in a newer, safer age of nuclear energy. But the reactors that have already passed all the safety tests need to be restarted as soon as possible lest there be a significant and needless economic impact.
I tottally forgot about that, and that does make a lot of sense. Still, Java as a language I dislike. Of course there are other JVM langauges like Scala, which I do like, which you can already "kinda" use to write Android apps.
Also take my anger with a grain of salt - I'm in a two week Android/Java dev crunch time and the long winded code style and over-simplicty which makes you break everyting down into little adapter objects is getting to me.
Well, for me:
*tooling: I use vim, and eclim is around so it's not an issue. Code processors I'll give you, that is well done. I don't like ant or maven (simply a preference).
*I have found the Java community to be absolutely awful - information is scattered and when you go for help you'll run into people with the same eletist traits as Gossling. Of course this is all probably because I'm involved in the Ruby community, so my standards are a little biased. The Android dev community isn't so bad but it's also not "great".
*standardized APIs are neat if you have to work in enterprise frameworks and the like, but I like choice. Best comparison here would be C++ - there is a rich standard library set but there are also a lot of options, and the Boost libraries are "standard enough" if you need "standardized".
*portability: I see your point on the Windows/Linux gap, but honestly I can't think of anything other than LO and Minecraft that I use that's Java based. Actually LO and Minecraft are two spectacular peices of Java software. Any other suggestions?
I completely agree with you on the Nice GUI point - first time I wrote Java was right when Swing came in and it was a nightmare of digusting and awkward with layers of inexplicable font awfulness. It doesn't seem like that situation has improved dramatically, but at least LO looks OK, and eclipse is bearable... but nowhere near what I would consider nice. I wasn't aware desktop app deployment had any issues but it's not something I've dealt with so I'll take your word on it.
Well the only "great" thing about Java is the JVM - which in and of itself isn't that great. Google easily could have implemented a full NDK and provided template makefiles to produce ARM and x86 binaries and just made a system to sort them out and choose the right one for download/install.
As for higher level languages some do have big benefits. Ruby and Python can do some amazing things in very little code and with very little coding time - and the reality is most machines perform well enough now that you don't need to worry about performance of most apps. If you do you can always write someting in a mid or low-level language and link it up.
Also, the whole Java motto of "write once run anywhere" is total BS. Every single device and implementation out there is totally different to the point you can't even write non-GUI apps and expect them to run on non-target platforms -- don't even get me started on GUI stuff. Add to that the fact the Java langauge is dated, featureless and ugly. I mean come on, when you can't even implement vectors, er..."ArrayLists" without array style accessors there's something wrong. Don't even get me started on anything involving nested data tables or the fact you can't override initializers or... GHAAA I HATE JAVA!
But it wasn't reverse engineered, it was re-implemented. The issue is weather or not you can copyright a language and an API and what terms the Java language and standard API were licensed under - things that were never really defined in a non-ambiguous way.
I also think you read the parents post differently than I did. I consider "re-implementing and deploying" to be synonimous with "using" and in that case Oracle has totally alienated anyone who would try to implement and deploy their own native Java on their own platform. In a way this is the absolute opposite of the paradigims that govern languages like Ruby and Python. With Ruby and Python re-implementation and modification is encouraged. Both projects have evolved by taking ideas from alternative implementations and incorporating them. Some VMs for these languages are actually commerical - so I cold write my own Ruby VM and sell it and nobody would complain.
Also, as someone who is coding Java on Android right now I'd like to say this: WTF is wrong with you Google!? JAVA IS AN AWFUL LANGAUGE! Why the hell didn't you just use C++? As much as I dislike Apple I must say they made a damn fine choice with Objective C. God damn.
Uh, yes it is. Many many companies use it, including my own and all of our partners. I've closed large deals entirely over Skype as well. Just because it's not an important tool in your own corporate ecosystem doesn't mean it's not in others.
Now if by "not for meetings" you mean where a bunch of people in suits sit around tables with a funny looking over-priced teleconferencing unit so a bunch of people in suits sitting around a table in another location with a compatible funny looking over-priced teleconferencing unit can speak to eachother then yeah, I've never seen Skype used in a situation like that.
Skype runs fine under Linux, no need for a Mac.
When did you last use Skype in Linux? About a year ago I had the issue you mention but now it runs fine for me (Ubuntu 11.10 x64). I'm using the version that's in the repositories - perhaps the Ubuntu team tweaked it? I've never had the ball beaten mickey mouse issues you mention below though.
Ok, wait, so they spend money on crappy hardware so they don't have to write a few extra lines in a manual? That's awful.
That would be entirely dependent on the quality of the USB device vs the quality of the internal sound card. But I have no idea why IT at your workplace recomends Plantronics - as you already know they make crap devices.
Hold on there, you're making a big mistake in judgement - it's Sony America that's causing all the problems and suing people, NOT Sony Japan. As a Japanese in Japan doing worldwide business I'm telling you the stunts Sony America is pulling would never fly in Japan; they'd be torn apart. Here in Japan companies live and die by customer service, and companies that disrespect their customers don't last so long.
Of course if you are referring to the removal of the Other OS feature on the PS3 I can understand if you were actually using it for it's inended purpose - but the reality is most people used it to play pirated games so from a corporate standpoint I understand Sony removing it. It is unfortunate though, and it's removal gives me one less reason to care about the PS3.
Of course I say this but I must admit I rarely purchase Sony products. In fact other than a first generation PS2 I can't think of anything Sony made in my possesion. It is a shame they don't embrace the hacker/maker communities like say Sharp or Casio... which is probably why I own a bunch of Sharp and Casio gear.
I'm reminded of Condor, the motorcycle with fold out helicopter blades, from the MASK series.
No, it's been cold there for a long time.
HAHAHAHA I completely deserve to be modded down for this one.
This is the first time I think I've ever made the claim but I did so because they presented the article like they'd JUST NOW discovered it and this was something revolutionary and that bothered me. The title/description is also completely misleading: [negative] ions are concentrations of electrons but they are not "electricity". On top of that the actual study they did found absolutely no new information and yet they are basically claiming they did. Well, actually the article claims they did - the scientists don't actually seem to be making that claim it just seems to be inferred by the author of the article. So: old information from a research study lazy graduate students have probably rehashed ad-nauseum, misleading article, straight up awful and inaccurate article description = not news.
A few searches will give you quite a few hits for detailed analysis but I'll give you a quick rundown of how I understand it:
What are the implications?
Higher concentrations of negative ions in the air basically leads to "cleaner" air. The basic idea is that the negative ions are attracted to positively charged particulates which they latch on to and break down. Negative ions can also break down bacteria. More details in this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ioniser
Do the levels of various ions in the air impact human health in any way?
Yes but I'm not personally aware of how much and I'm not sure how much scientific study could have a corporate bias behind it (to sell air purifiction technologies). Reguardless, it's pretty much been scientifically proven that particular levels of negative ions (not too much, but above a certain level) have human health benefits. Some studies I've seen claim negative ion rich environments make the environment more physicall comfortable (more refreshed and energized) to the body which leads to higher energy and lower stress - and personally that's why I purchased higher quality air conditioners and filtration units which I do *feel* make my living and working spaces more comfortable.
How do they differ in cities vs suburbs vs the countryside?
I'm assuming it is -generally- true that cities would likely have lower concentrations than the suburbs which would in turn have lower concentrations than the countryside.
This has been known for a very long time and it's very much common knowledge. Ambient negative ion levels can even be obtained through weather services in my country. My Daikin air conditioner even claims to keep ambient ion levels at "lush forest" levels and it's not near new. Just do a google search for "forest negative ion" and you'll find tons of products and articles on the subject. Why is this at all news?
Does Apple forbid their employees to purchase Windows PCs, Tablets, Phones, etc. with company money? ... would they even need to?
I mean MS has every right to forbid this, and anything short of research into the competition shouldn't warrant use of company funds to purchase these things anyway. The fact MS employees would have the gaull and disloyalty to bring those things into the office alone is disrespectful. Trying to get the company to pay for them is flat out insulting. If your employees don't believe in your own products enough to use them themselves you should probably question weather or not you want to keep them - if they actually try and use money to buy your competitors products you should probably fire them. I mean I hate MS (and Apple), but if I was an empoyee and they were paying my bills I'd at least try and believe in the company vision enough to not bring competitors products into the office or use them for work.
If the conditions are right. Hospitals running electronic karte software for example are quite receptive to using Linux workstations - there's even vendors that specialize in low profile Linux workstations for hospitals for exactly this reason. Schools can be quite receptive too. You just need to know your customer and find a way that Linux will fit their needs. Also, consider selling Linux as a service - offering a yearly support contract alone will instill enough confidence to make sales and in many cases it ends up being cheaper than hiring a dedicated administrator to deal with constantly breaking MS setups.
I would suspect the courts would frown on his intentions and likely sweep aside the corporate protections.
Of course they will, which is why he's setting it up as a different corporation. In contries like America corporations are entities - he's making a new corporation specifically so it can be ragdolled (have the crap beaten out of it) and then just thrown away.
I've never seen a court back a director who deliberately set up a company in order to break the law or defraud other individuals/companies.
Is this your first time reading Slashdot? There's a few stories a month about situations just like that. Hell there's cases of -governments- backing and giving special protections to companies that defraud individuals/companies. Even in my country it happens, though thankfully not nearly to the degree it happens in the US.
Of course this particular situation is a bit different. He's setting up a corporation specifically to insight action from Microsoft which he believes performs unfair business practices and this new company will test that. As someone who's been bullied by MS myself (they claimed I had unlicensed machines... which were running only Linux!) I find that intensely ammusing. It will be nice to see MS get their knickers in a twist about the whole thing and taste some backlash over their own corporate bullying.
If I do I talk to them at their place of business. It's never been a problem - what with the fact I'm in a company that specializes in OSS and all...