there is still an operating system where you actually have to use a CLI to install a device driver
Yes because, believe it or not, there are some administration tasks where you should really know what you are doing before you try to do something. That and the fact that some administration tasks are not well suited for a graphical interface. Sure, the little cryptic settings|computer|...dig through a bunch of !*@#&$ dialogs... in Windows is nice when it works. But there are countless times I have used it and it doesn't work. And I've had much better luck diagnosing and fixing problems with a Linux command line than with a Windows paperclip.
Of course, I'm one of those people that think "modprobe driver" is the easiest interface you can come up with. Also, it should be noted, the 2.6 kernel rocks! I have switched all of my systems over to the new kernel, and all device driver handling is done automagically.
This is the part I disagree with. Sure, config tools are great and support packages are great. If they had some nice tools, I would be willing to pay a few hundred for them. But what is a client license? Samba, Apache, ProFTPD, Bind,... (all free software packages) don't have client license limits. Apple is artificially imposing a limit on the software to make more money. I don't mind paying for support, but milking your customers is total crap, and I don't like it whether it be Microsoft or Apple.
Also, btw, RedHat sells great support packages and tools with their Advanced Server distribution (with great deals for educational institutions, which is what Apple's distribution seems to be aimed at), and they don't cripple the software.
Except that Apple is bundling (mostly) free software. They aren't writing any of this software themselves. They are just grabbing Samba, writing a basic configuration tool/migration tool, and charging $500 for it. Samba is great software and certainly worth $500. But if you can download it for free and Apple isn't really adding any value to it, why pay for it?
But of course religion can't do any such thing. It only says it can, which is a different matter. Anyone can say that. Anyone can say anything at all.
Well, I consider religion to be a philosophy. You're right, it can't answer the why's absolutely, but it can speculate. Such speculation, in its purest form, would be intellectual discourse. Of course we all know that is almost never the case, but the point is you either accept the premise of a religion or you don't. You either agree with the idea of God or you don't. There is no way to prove you are right or wrong. It is just a way of life. However, that doesn't prevent it from having influences on things like morals and ethics because there are some things people will generally agree on.
But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?
If you consider the chaplain a philosopher that is familiar with theology and has spent his life pondering such subjects, I would say he is a good person to turn to. He won't necessarily be anymore right than Socrates was, but he can discuss the subject and help you come to your own understanding.
The only thing that makes religion different from other types of philosophy is that it is very old, highly specialized, and people tend to believe in it more fervently than other matters. As with any other philosophy, discussion, debate, and differing opinions are good.
Religion is actually an interesting subject to study from a sociological point of view because it is a structured belief system that has existed in every culture for as long as we have records for. Its effect on human behavior and tendencies is a fairly good testament to how people react when their belief structures are threatened or forcibly changed, religious in nature or not.
I don't know. Last time I did a RedHat install (did both Fedora 1 and Enterprise Workstation) it enabled portmapper, nfs server, autofs, and sendmail by default (I think there were some others too I don't remember). Servers should never be enabled by default, especially RPC services that have "exploit me" written all over them.
Yes, very good. You have just stated that the Gimp is not an OSX app. If you run gtk apps side by side with cocoa apps, you will notice inconsistencies because they are completely different toolkits that rely on different underlying windowing subsystems. That doesn't mean X11/gtk apps are inherently bad and the OSX approach is the only way. It means you have preference, which is fine, and that some apps (if you run a heterogeneous environment) won't conform to that preference. If that bothers you, don't use the "offending" app.
You are missing my point. I'm not saying it requires a specific desktop to run. I'm saying compare apples to apples. The Gimp is not a cocoa app. It will not behave like a cocoa app, it will not integreate into OSX like a cocoa app, and it will not use the same (ex: font rendering) technologies as a cocoa app. On my linux desktop, Gimp runs and looks great. However, I can understand the complaints of a person not used to the linux desktop. It doesn't function like an OSX application because it isn't one, so don't expect it to.
and all indications are from the review that the issues I was discussing have not been solved in the Gimp2 for mac
And, as I was saying, the mac platform is not the native platform for the Gimp. Most of his points are simply a comparison of Gimp nuances to other cocoa apps, and you can't really make a fair comparison there. Try Gimp on your new gentoo box...I think you will like it if you can get past your prejudices and give it a fair shot.
Note, the above is based on experience using Gimp 1 on the OS X X11 some time ago.
So you're basing your opinion on software that is 3 years old running on a platform it was ported to, but not initially designed for. Now that's a useful evaluation. Try the latest version on a Linux desktop.
GIMP badly needs, at the very least, an option to make it behave like normal design software.
Yes, and then you get people saying "Open source is just copying proprietary software. Can't they develop something innovative?" The only thing that makes PSP and PS "normal design software" is that they came first. The GIMP came later and did something new with the interface (mostly because it is well suited to a Linux desktop even if it isn't for an OSX desktop). So now you have people saying they should have just copied the PS interface.
Look, the GIMP is free software. It doesn't cost >$700, and it isn't targetted specifically at professional graphic designers. The GIMP isn't trying to capture a market. It simply aims to be a photo touching program that will, hopefully, eventually have the same feature set as PS. But that takes a lot of time, and the GIMP developers aren't going to just cludge something together. They will take the time to do it right. So if you want to learn the GIMPs interface (which is actually very nice when you get used to it) then by all means, download a copy. Otherwise there is no point in complaining that the GIMP isn't PS because you're right, it isn't.
Ummm...why? If you want to use a closed system, why don't you use Windows? The open source nature of linux has made it what it is. It wouldn't exist if it wasn't open source. So why should the linux community just accept the fact that *hardware* companies aren't willing to release open source *software*.
Companies aren't doing the linux community a favor by releasing drivers (a common and very shocking misconception). Companies are money-making entities. They don't do things altruisticaly. If they are releasing drivers, it is because they perceive a market and they want to capture it. They want linux users to buy their hardware, so why do linux users have a problem with making demands?
BUT... the linux kernel developers need to get over their fanaticism about open-source drivers.
Why? Companies and independent developers have contributed their time and resources to develop a free and open operating system kernel. Why should they "get over" the fact that other companies are seeking to come in and use their work without playing the same game? I have no problem with for-profit companies writing for and contributing to an open source project, but they need to play by open source rules.
The value of the hardware is not in the software (unless you call optimizing for benchmarks value). That is just what the companies want you to think. NVidia can't release open source drivers (so they say) because of a proprietary OpenGL implementation. There is no trade secret there, it is just intellectual property they don't own and therefore can't license arbitrarily. If they really wanted to release open source drivers, they could use a free implementation of OpenGL.
Wireless card manufacturers, if they designed their cards right and fixed the transmitter gain instead of allowing their driver to set it, could also release open source drivers. The FCC isn't preventing it, the manufacturers are just using it as an excuse.
There is a lot to be gained by linux users if hardware drivers are open sourced (compatibility, convenience, security, better integration). The only things keeping them closed are stubborn companies and complacent users.
And in that case the firmware is in the hardware, not a driver that you have to load into your operating system. So the firmware is basically a part of the hardware even though it is technically software.
Here's a prescription: scientific education helps treat and prevent anxiety, gullibility and irrational prejudice.
I understand your point, but I have to disagree with this statement. Training in science doesn't automatically make you a logical and rational person. It gives you those skills, but using them requires a conscious and concerted effort. I've met plenty of scientists that are plenty bright in their fields, but are just as moronic as the next guy when it comes the swallowing news media hype or possessing irrational prejudices.
I would further argue that a science education is not the only way to practice analytical skills and critical thinking. A good liberal arts education can, and usually does, do the same thing. The problem is, you actually have to do some reading and write some papers to go to school; you can't just sit back and watch movies.
It is real easy to see that Apple is doing most of the stuff that MS is doing,
I think there are two major differences, aside from the monopoly issue that others have already posted about. 1) Quicktime is bundled with the OS, but it isn't integrated (it can be removed if the user doesn't want it). 2) Apple doesn't force retailers to bundle Quicktime. If they choose to offer a customized solution (w/o Quicktime) they don't suffer the price penalties or license revocations.
Now that I think of it, there is also a third. If you have a version of the OS w/o Quicktime, you aren't forced to install Quicktime to get security updates or do a service pack upgrade (think Windows 2000 and I believe it was SP2 that required WMP).
I might agree about XMMS, but Evolution is certainly not a ripoff of Outlook. It is the same type of app (Groupware) sure, but that doesn't make it a ripoff anymore than it is a ripoff of Lotus Notes. The Evolution UI and codebase is also being completely overhauled for version 2.0.
The same can be said of KDE (WIMP paradigm, but not a Windows ripoff by any means). I've never used KDevelop, so I can't comment there.
There exists subset C of A such that every member of C has property P.
Therefore every every member of A has property P.
Actually, there is this thing called statistics which basically states:
1) If C is a simple random sample of the members of A, and
2) C is sufficiently large to be representative of A, then
3) Conclusions drawn from sample C are reflective of A
And in such a situation, the statement according to the laws of logic, if your argument is valid, it is likewise valid for any values of A,E,C,P, provided the set containment relationships hold is not true because there are restrictions on C.
Psychology, and science in general, uses statistics to analyze data because it is not possible to measure property P of every member of A. Restricting your focus to C does not make the science any less valid provided the statistics are done right (which includes confidence intervals). Unfortunately, the statistics are often done wrong or the evidence is spurious, which is why it is important to stay on your toes and critically analyze an experimental setup before accepting the conclusions of a new study.
Integration of the file browser and internet browser, shamelessly stolen from Windows 98--you know, the OS everyone still bitches about around here six years later
Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons, often in the same exact places
Mono project
Text shadows under icon labels (poorly done, I might add)
A trashcan, which not only rips off Windows but also Mac. Before you bother (and I know someone will), note that it doesn't matter if Windows also ripped it off--you asked what Linux was ripping off and not innovating.
Well, to start, four of those things you listed (start menu, taskbar, windows, trashcan) are all part of the same paradigm, so I would treat it as one instance of "copying", not four. Furthermore, you can call it "copying" or you can call it common sense. The WIMP paradigm works. There are ways it can be improved (and is being improved), but why scrap it entirely if it does what it is supposed to do?
And when you do set out to "innovate" there are limits to what you can do. You suggest getting rid of the trashcan. What would you replace it with? How about a big black hole that makes whooshing sounds when you drag something into it? Sounds like the same concept to me, so it isn't really innovation.
There are some major desktop innovations taking place in linux (see ROX for example), but most of the innovation happens in small ways. Gnome-keyring/Gnome-vfs for seamless access to nfs,samba,sftp network volumes (maybe Windows already has this, but I haven't seen it), GConf for easy profile management across multiple desktops (the functionality exists in other OS's, but I think the GConf method is better), GStreamer for limitless audio/video possibilities.
You can argue that these aren't really innovations, but who really does true innovation. Apple with the floofy animations that just consume system resources, or Microsoft with the gawdy colors and annoying-as-hell auto-rearranging menus? That's not innovation, either. That is improvement (in some cases more than others) of a common paradigm.
Anyway, my point is that the linux desktop is constantly getting better and easier to use. You can argue semantics over whether the changes are innovating or improving, but that is pretty pointless. Nothing has been copied rote from Windows and MacOS. The paradigm has been copied, but it has been implemented differently.
And you should take some time to look at other desktops besides KDE. The standard GNOME desktop doesn't have a start menu and spatial nautilus removes the blurred line between file manager and web browser. As somebody else mentioned, Windowmaker, Fluxbox, and GNUStep don't look anything like current Windows and MacOS offerings.
There's also no quick way to alter the sorting order, rip or burn CDs, or switch or create playlists in Muine.
There is a good discussion of Griffeth's article on Footnotes. One of the comments I particularly agree with is that many related tasks don't necessarily have to be combined into one monolithic app. A simple way to support rip/burn in Muine without explicitly adding it would be to implement drag-n-drop between Muine and a ripping/burning app.
Also, keep in mind that Muine is not finished yet. There are many parts of Gnome that are not finished yet. But the polish is getting better day by day.
Yes, multimedia is certainly something we'd like the desktop to do well. However, it's not realistic to expect comprehensive multimedia support from a Linux desktop today with open source software. It's a very difficult and costly problem to solve comprehensively. There are some positive signs, such as helix community, but you don't really have a single piece of software that does it all as well as the Windows variants.
Ummm...I'm not sure how to respond to this. How about mplayer? That has to be the best movie player I have ever used. And didn't it receive some sort of award recently? Or how about Xine?
Let's see...what else? The GStreamer framework is coming along nicely and will probably mature before the end of the year. There areseveralaudioplayers available, some more usable than others, though. There are also more specialized programs like the Bedevilled Audio System. So I would hardly say linux is deficient in multimedia software.
It is not the govenment's place to force people to buy services collectively.
Huh? And how else would you facilitate buying collective services? If a majority of the people (the government, in principle) decide it is to their benefit to have everybody contribute to healthcare, then a levy is instituted. That is democracy at work. If you don't like it, you need to convince a majority of the people to agree with you to have it changed.
Just about every hospital has people on staff that will work with people to get them the care they need, at a price they can afford.
Since you seem to have researched this very well, maybe you can enlighten me. What are some of these "many organizations" that will provide (significantly) discounted prescription drugs, x-rays, cat scans, mris, and surgery? As far as I know, hospitals will generally help you work out a payment plan if necessary, but if you can't afford to have your appendix removed, tough luck.
Under universal healthcare, I would be not only providing that coverage for myself, but I would be forced to provide for other people as well, as would every other American.
Except that you would be paying less because everybody would be contributing. You know that whole share the burden share the benefit thing. I don't want to have to write a $200,000 check to the fire department before they will come and put out my house fire. I would much rather pay a small amount in taxes to fund the fire department for everybody should they ever need those services.
Also, please note that health coverage and health care two different things. Lacking health coverage does not mean that you will lack health care.
It does in a time and age when health care is extremely expensive. Without health coverage, it is unlikely you can afford health care.
I'm sorry, but nobody will ever convince that Microsoft makes better products than anybody else and that is why they are successful. Microsoft learned a long time ago, as did other monoliths like WalMart, that they don't need to sell good products. They need to sell good enough products, and then convince people to buy them.
Windows was not better, from a technical standpoint, than OS/2. Hell, it wasn't even better than MacOS. And MSDOS certainly wasn't better than the BSDs. So why did people buy Windows? Well, Apple had been pissing people off for a while and was, at that time, starting to go down the toilet, so many people were just turned off of MacOS. BSD and MSDOS were about equally cryptic to use, but nobody knew about BSD, and DOS compatible software was what was appearing on the consumer market. OS/2 suffered the same problem. People were using Windows at work, so they started using Windows at home.
Microsoft was in the right place at the right time, and they were successfully able to capture a lot of mindshare. That is what marketing is about, capturing and keeping mindshare. Nevermind what was a technically superior product, people went with the product that was better marketed. That is why marketing is such an important tool for business, and Microsoft proved better at it than IBM and Novell.
So yes, Microsoft succeeded in a real marketplace atmosphere, but they didn't do it with superior software. They did it with superior marketing. And then when they had a critical level of mindshare, it suddenly became very hard for any sort of competing software to get it back. Breaking any sort of monopoly is difficult. It takes a lot more than just having a superior competing product.
I will concede that Microsoft won the browser battle with IE partly because it did certain things better, but bundling the browser with Windows definitely had something to do with it, as did having Netscape-incompatible JavaScript and CSS implementations. Now that there definitely is a superior browser alternative (Mozilla by every account I have ever heard), why aren't people madly switching from IE? If simply having a superior browser is all it takes, why are there still IE-only websites? Web designers should have shrugged off IE a long time ago, but they haven't. And that is because Microsoft no longer has a superior browser, but they do still have the mindshare.
Can someone please explain to me why they felt Nemesis was such a flop? I actually thought it was one of the better TNG movies. It had more of the elements of TNG that made the series so great.
Admittedly, parts of it were a bit lame, like the "temportal RNA processing". But Star Trek always did tend to make up strange scientific elements, like tachyon radiation.
The ending was a bit surprising. I always felt Data was an important plot device in the story. Jonathan Frakes also didn't seem to be in very good health, anybody else notice that?
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there is still an operating system where you actually have to use a CLI to install a device driver
Yes because, believe it or not, there are some administration tasks where you should really know what you are doing before you try to do something. That and the fact that some administration tasks are not well suited for a graphical interface. Sure, the little cryptic settings|computer|...dig through a bunch of !*@#&$ dialogs... in Windows is nice when it works. But there are countless times I have used it and it doesn't work. And I've had much better luck diagnosing and fixing problems with a Linux command line than with a Windows paperclip.
Of course, I'm one of those people that think "modprobe driver" is the easiest interface you can come up with. Also, it should be noted, the 2.6 kernel rocks! I have switched all of my systems over to the new kernel, and all device driver handling is done automagically.
as well as support AND 5 client licenses
... (all free software packages) don't have client license limits. Apple is artificially imposing a limit on the software to make more money. I don't mind paying for support, but milking your customers is total crap, and I don't like it whether it be Microsoft or Apple.
This is the part I disagree with. Sure, config tools are great and support packages are great. If they had some nice tools, I would be willing to pay a few hundred for them. But what is a client license? Samba, Apache, ProFTPD, Bind,
Also, btw, RedHat sells great support packages and tools with their Advanced Server distribution (with great deals for educational institutions, which is what Apple's distribution seems to be aimed at), and they don't cripple the software.
Except that Apple is bundling (mostly) free software. They aren't writing any of this software themselves. They are just grabbing Samba, writing a basic configuration tool/migration tool, and charging $500 for it. Samba is great software and certainly worth $500. But if you can download it for free and Apple isn't really adding any value to it, why pay for it?
But of course religion can't do any such thing. It only says it can, which is
a different matter. Anyone can say that. Anyone can say anything at all.
Well, I consider religion to be a philosophy. You're right, it can't answer the why's absolutely, but it can speculate. Such speculation, in its purest form, would be intellectual discourse. Of course we all know that is almost never the case, but the point is you either accept the premise of a religion or you don't. You either agree with the idea of God or you don't. There is no way to prove you are right or wrong. It is just a way of life. However, that doesn't prevent it from having influences on things like morals and ethics because there are some things people will generally agree on.
But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef?
If you consider the chaplain a philosopher that is familiar with theology and has spent his life pondering such subjects, I would say he is a good person to turn to. He won't necessarily be anymore right than Socrates was, but he can discuss the subject and help you come to your own understanding.
The only thing that makes religion different from other types of philosophy is that it is very old, highly specialized, and people tend to believe in it more fervently than other matters. As with any other philosophy, discussion, debate, and differing opinions are good.
Religion is actually an interesting subject to study from a sociological point of view because it is a structured belief system that has existed in every culture for as long as we have records for. Its effect on human behavior and tendencies is a fairly good testament to how people react when their belief structures are threatened or forcibly changed, religious in nature or not.
I don't know. Last time I did a RedHat install (did both Fedora 1 and Enterprise Workstation) it enabled portmapper, nfs server, autofs, and sendmail by default (I think there were some others too I don't remember). Servers should never be enabled by default, especially RPC services that have "exploit me" written all over them.
If it is above port 1024...yes. You can start an Apache process and bind it to port 8080 without being root.
Yes, very good. You have just stated that the Gimp is not an OSX app. If you run gtk apps side by side with cocoa apps, you will notice inconsistencies because they are completely different toolkits that rely on different underlying windowing subsystems. That doesn't mean X11/gtk apps are inherently bad and the OSX approach is the only way. It means you have preference, which is fine, and that some apps (if you run a heterogeneous environment) won't conform to that preference. If that bothers you, don't use the "offending" app.
You are missing my point. I'm not saying it requires a specific desktop to run. I'm saying compare apples to apples. The Gimp is not a cocoa app. It will not behave like a cocoa app, it will not integreate into OSX like a cocoa app, and it will not use the same (ex: font rendering) technologies as a cocoa app. On my linux desktop, Gimp runs and looks great. However, I can understand the complaints of a person not used to the linux desktop. It doesn't function like an OSX application because it isn't one, so don't expect it to.
and all indications are from the review that the issues I was discussing have not been solved in the Gimp2 for mac
And, as I was saying, the mac platform is not the native platform for the Gimp. Most of his points are simply a comparison of Gimp nuances to other cocoa apps, and you can't really make a fair comparison there. Try Gimp on your new gentoo box...I think you will like it if you can get past your prejudices and give it a fair shot.
Note, the above is based on experience using Gimp 1 on the OS X X11 some time ago.
So you're basing your opinion on software that is 3 years old running on a platform it was ported to, but not initially designed for. Now that's a useful evaluation. Try the latest version on a Linux desktop.
GIMP badly needs, at the very least, an option to make it behave like normal design software.
Yes, and then you get people saying "Open source is just copying proprietary software. Can't they develop something innovative?" The only thing that makes PSP and PS "normal design software" is that they came first. The GIMP came later and did something new with the interface (mostly because it is well suited to a Linux desktop even if it isn't for an OSX desktop). So now you have people saying they should have just copied the PS interface.
Look, the GIMP is free software. It doesn't cost >$700, and it isn't targetted specifically at professional graphic designers. The GIMP isn't trying to capture a market. It simply aims to be a photo touching program that will, hopefully, eventually have the same feature set as PS. But that takes a lot of time, and the GIMP developers aren't going to just cludge something together. They will take the time to do it right. So if you want to learn the GIMPs interface (which is actually very nice when you get used to it) then by all means, download a copy. Otherwise there is no point in complaining that the GIMP isn't PS because you're right, it isn't.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
Ummm...why? If you want to use a closed system, why don't you use Windows? The open source nature of linux has made it what it is. It wouldn't exist if it wasn't open source. So why should the linux community just accept the fact that *hardware* companies aren't willing to release open source *software*.
Companies aren't doing the linux community a favor by releasing drivers (a common and very shocking misconception). Companies are money-making entities. They don't do things altruisticaly. If they are releasing drivers, it is because they perceive a market and they want to capture it. They want linux users to buy their hardware, so why do linux users have a problem with making demands?
BUT... the linux kernel developers need to get over their fanaticism about open-source drivers.
Why? Companies and independent developers have contributed their time and resources to develop a free and open operating system kernel. Why should they "get over" the fact that other companies are seeking to come in and use their work without playing the same game? I have no problem with for-profit companies writing for and contributing to an open source project, but they need to play by open source rules.
The value of the hardware is not in the software (unless you call optimizing for benchmarks value). That is just what the companies want you to think. NVidia can't release open source drivers (so they say) because of a proprietary OpenGL implementation. There is no trade secret there, it is just intellectual property they don't own and therefore can't license arbitrarily. If they really wanted to release open source drivers, they could use a free implementation of OpenGL.
Wireless card manufacturers, if they designed their cards right and fixed the transmitter gain instead of allowing their driver to set it, could also release open source drivers. The FCC isn't preventing it, the manufacturers are just using it as an excuse.
There is a lot to be gained by linux users if hardware drivers are open sourced (compatibility, convenience, security, better integration). The only things keeping them closed are stubborn companies and complacent users.
And in that case the firmware is in the hardware, not a driver that you have to load into your operating system. So the firmware is basically a part of the hardware even though it is technically software.
Here's a prescription: scientific education helps treat and prevent anxiety, gullibility and irrational prejudice.
I understand your point, but I have to disagree with this statement. Training in science doesn't automatically make you a logical and rational person. It gives you those skills, but using them requires a conscious and concerted effort. I've met plenty of scientists that are plenty bright in their fields, but are just as moronic as the next guy when it comes the swallowing news media hype or possessing irrational prejudices.
I would further argue that a science education is not the only way to practice analytical skills and critical thinking. A good liberal arts education can, and usually does, do the same thing. The problem is, you actually have to do some reading and write some papers to go to school; you can't just sit back and watch movies.
It is real easy to see that Apple is doing most of the stuff that MS is doing,
I think there are two major differences, aside from the monopoly issue that others have already posted about. 1) Quicktime is bundled with the OS, but it isn't integrated (it can be removed if the user doesn't want it). 2) Apple doesn't force retailers to bundle Quicktime. If they choose to offer a customized solution (w/o Quicktime) they don't suffer the price penalties or license revocations.
Now that I think of it, there is also a third. If you have a version of the OS w/o Quicktime, you aren't forced to install Quicktime to get security updates or do a service pack upgrade (think Windows 2000 and I believe it was SP2 that required WMP).
I might agree about XMMS, but Evolution is certainly not a ripoff of Outlook. It is the same type of app (Groupware) sure, but that doesn't make it a ripoff anymore than it is a ripoff of Lotus Notes. The Evolution UI and codebase is also being completely overhauled for version 2.0.
The same can be said of KDE (WIMP paradigm, but not a Windows ripoff by any means). I've never used KDevelop, so I can't comment there.
There exists subset C of A such that every member of C has property P.
Therefore every every member of A has property P.
Actually, there is this thing called statistics which basically states:
1) If C is a simple random sample of the members of A, and
2) C is sufficiently large to be representative of A, then
3) Conclusions drawn from sample C are reflective of A
And in such a situation, the statement according to the laws of logic, if your argument is valid, it is likewise valid for any values of A,E,C,P, provided the set containment relationships hold is not true because there are restrictions on C.
Psychology, and science in general, uses statistics to analyze data because it is not possible to measure property P of every member of A. Restricting your focus to C does not make the science any less valid provided the statistics are done right (which includes confidence intervals). Unfortunately, the statistics are often done wrong or the evidence is spurious, which is why it is important to stay on your toes and critically analyze an experimental setup before accepting the conclusions of a new study.
Taskbar
Start menu (I'm sorry, "big giant K" menu)
Integration of the file browser and internet browser, shamelessly stolen from Windows 98--you know, the OS everyone still bitches about around here six years later
Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons, often in the same exact places
Mono project
Text shadows under icon labels (poorly done, I might add)
A trashcan, which not only rips off Windows but also Mac. Before you bother (and I know someone will), note that it doesn't matter if Windows also ripped it off--you asked what Linux was ripping off and not innovating.
Well, to start, four of those things you listed (start menu, taskbar, windows, trashcan) are all part of the same paradigm, so I would treat it as one instance of "copying", not four. Furthermore, you can call it "copying" or you can call it common sense. The WIMP paradigm works. There are ways it can be improved (and is being improved), but why scrap it entirely if it does what it is supposed to do?
And when you do set out to "innovate" there are limits to what you can do. You suggest getting rid of the trashcan. What would you replace it with? How about a big black hole that makes whooshing sounds when you drag something into it? Sounds like the same concept to me, so it isn't really innovation.
There are some major desktop innovations taking place in linux (see ROX for example), but most of the innovation happens in small ways. Gnome-keyring/Gnome-vfs for seamless access to nfs,samba,sftp network volumes (maybe Windows already has this, but I haven't seen it), GConf for easy profile management across multiple desktops (the functionality exists in other OS's, but I think the GConf method is better), GStreamer for limitless audio/video possibilities.
You can argue that these aren't really innovations, but who really does true innovation. Apple with the floofy animations that just consume system resources, or Microsoft with the gawdy colors and annoying-as-hell auto-rearranging menus? That's not innovation, either. That is improvement (in some cases more than others) of a common paradigm.
Anyway, my point is that the linux desktop is constantly getting better and easier to use. You can argue semantics over whether the changes are innovating or improving, but that is pretty pointless. Nothing has been copied rote from Windows and MacOS. The paradigm has been copied, but it has been implemented differently.
And you should take some time to look at other desktops besides KDE. The standard GNOME desktop doesn't have a start menu and spatial nautilus removes the blurred line between file manager and web browser. As somebody else mentioned, Windowmaker, Fluxbox, and GNUStep don't look anything like current Windows and MacOS offerings.
There's also no quick way to alter the sorting order, rip or burn CDs, or switch or create playlists in Muine.
There is a good discussion of Griffeth's article on Footnotes. One of the comments I particularly agree with is that many related tasks don't necessarily have to be combined into one monolithic app. A simple way to support rip/burn in Muine without explicitly adding it would be to implement drag-n-drop between Muine and a ripping/burning app.
Also, keep in mind that Muine is not finished yet. There are many parts of Gnome that are not finished yet. But the polish is getting better day by day.
Yes, multimedia is certainly something we'd like the desktop to do well. However, it's not realistic to expect comprehensive multimedia support from a Linux desktop today with open source software. It's a very difficult and costly problem to solve comprehensively. There are some positive signs, such as helix community, but you don't really have a single piece of software that does it all as well as the Windows variants.
Ummm...I'm not sure how to respond to this. How about mplayer? That has to be the best movie player I have ever used. And didn't it receive some sort of award recently? Or how about Xine?
Let's see...what else? The GStreamer framework is coming along nicely and will probably mature before the end of the year. There are several audio players available, some more usable than others, though. There are also more specialized programs like the Bedevilled Audio System. So I would hardly say linux is deficient in multimedia software.
It is not the govenment's place to force people to buy services collectively.
Huh? And how else would you facilitate buying collective services? If a majority of the people (the government, in principle) decide it is to their benefit to have everybody contribute to healthcare, then a levy is instituted. That is democracy at work. If you don't like it, you need to convince a majority of the people to agree with you to have it changed.
Just about every hospital has people on staff that will work with people to get them the care they need, at a price they can afford.
Since you seem to have researched this very well, maybe you can enlighten me. What are some of these "many organizations" that will provide (significantly) discounted prescription drugs, x-rays, cat scans, mris, and surgery? As far as I know, hospitals will generally help you work out a payment plan if necessary, but if you can't afford to have your appendix removed, tough luck.
Under universal healthcare, I would be not only providing that coverage for myself, but I would be forced to provide for other people as well, as would every other American.
Except that you would be paying less because everybody would be contributing. You know that whole share the burden share the benefit thing. I don't want to have to write a $200,000 check to the fire department before they will come and put out my house fire. I would much rather pay a small amount in taxes to fund the fire department for everybody should they ever need those services.
Also, please note that health coverage and health care two different things. Lacking health coverage does not mean that you will lack health care.
It does in a time and age when health care is extremely expensive. Without health coverage, it is unlikely you can afford health care.
I'm sorry, but nobody will ever convince that Microsoft makes better products than anybody else and that is why they are successful. Microsoft learned a long time ago, as did other monoliths like WalMart, that they don't need to sell good products. They need to sell good enough products, and then convince people to buy them.
Windows was not better, from a technical standpoint, than OS/2. Hell, it wasn't even better than MacOS. And MSDOS certainly wasn't better than the BSDs. So why did people buy Windows? Well, Apple had been pissing people off for a while and was, at that time, starting to go down the toilet, so many people were just turned off of MacOS. BSD and MSDOS were about equally cryptic to use, but nobody knew about BSD, and DOS compatible software was what was appearing on the consumer market. OS/2 suffered the same problem. People were using Windows at work, so they started using Windows at home.
Microsoft was in the right place at the right time, and they were successfully able to capture a lot of mindshare. That is what marketing is about, capturing and keeping mindshare. Nevermind what was a technically superior product, people went with the product that was better marketed. That is why marketing is such an important tool for business, and Microsoft proved better at it than IBM and Novell.
So yes, Microsoft succeeded in a real marketplace atmosphere, but they didn't do it with superior software. They did it with superior marketing. And then when they had a critical level of mindshare, it suddenly became very hard for any sort of competing software to get it back. Breaking any sort of monopoly is difficult. It takes a lot more than just having a superior competing product.
I will concede that Microsoft won the browser battle with IE partly because it did certain things better, but bundling the browser with Windows definitely had something to do with it, as did having Netscape-incompatible JavaScript and CSS implementations. Now that there definitely is a superior browser alternative (Mozilla by every account I have ever heard), why aren't people madly switching from IE? If simply having a superior browser is all it takes, why are there still IE-only websites? Web designers should have shrugged off IE a long time ago, but they haven't. And that is because Microsoft no longer has a superior browser, but they do still have the mindshare.
Can someone please explain to me why they felt Nemesis was such a flop? I actually thought it was one of the better TNG movies. It had more of the elements of TNG that made the series so great.
Admittedly, parts of it were a bit lame, like the "temportal RNA processing". But Star Trek always did tend to make up strange scientific elements, like tachyon radiation.
The ending was a bit surprising. I always felt Data was an important plot device in the story. Jonathan Frakes also didn't seem to be in very good health, anybody else notice that?