Actually it is the point, the OS devs know exactly what hardware their software has to run on, that obviously makes the job of compatibility easier. Small number of known configurations as opposed to large number of unknown configurations.
The basic hardware support works very well in Linux. It is the layer between Software and the Kernel that is shit. All the special Audio drivers above the kernel, below the actual GUI, etc, etc.
What 'audio drivers' are above the kernel? Or are you complaining about the userland components of audio subsystems like ALSA, PulseAudio, etc...? What's wrong with those?
How inept are your reading skills, that you can't even see the word dual-boot in my query?
Who cares that they aren't sold as dual boot, why does that matter in any way whatsoever? Are you asserting that they aren't capable of dual booting?
Yes, PCs exist that ship with Linux on them - but none of those have Windows on them... which was part of my original point.
So? What's that got to do with UEFI Secureboot? It's not that they can't have Windows on them, they just aren't shipped with it, just as Windows machines aren't shipped dual booting Linux and Macs aren't shipped dual booting Linux or Windows with OSX.
Part of the reason the Linux-equipped machines haven't sold well is that they have been crippled, hardware-wise, compared to the "equivalent" Windows system. "Half the ram" and "smaller processors" have been the norm, probably because Microsoft is afraid to compete on an even field - or perhaps it is due to over-estimating the efficiency of Linux in a desktop environment.
Do you have evidence for that or are you just making that up?
At least do enough research to tell us what security holes Windows Phone 7 suffers from, or tell us from which tank of thin air you pulled the statistic "2 people in north america" from.
I find it interesting that some people use marketshare as a quality measure, when marketshare is largely irrelevant in terms of the quality of the product offering. For example look at the large marketshare of Windows and the iPhone in their respective markets compared with OSX and WP7 in those markets. I doubt there are that many people who would put Windows and the iPhone in one quality-bucket and OSX and WP7 in another.
It's not about having a prototype, are you really that dense?! The program is to build the prototype, seriously how about reading the about topic rather than looking like the complete fool you are now. It's not written in any obscure language, it's quite clear what the project is about but it seems you're so fanatical about it being a bad thing that you're not even capable of understanding what it is anymore.
Go farther back in this thread, where I posted links showing some times when Microsoft has strong-armed PC manufacturers into not shipping competing operating systems, and/or threatened/coerced them into not shipping dual-boot systems.
Or maybe you could address the point right here, which is that while they could have locked down the BIOS to ONLY run Windows, which is effectively what your conspiracy theory is suggesting they will do with UEFI Secureboot, you would note that they have not ever done that even though they could have.
As a matter of fact, point me at a single dual-boot (Windows and some non-Microsoft OS) PC produced by any major manufacturer... make that any manufacturer, period.
How inept are you that you can't even use google, even if you can't remember 4 years ago when Dell started shipping PCs pre-loaded with Linux, but they didn't sell.
Show me a single major PC manufacturer who ships a machine that dual-boots Windows and any non-Microsoft OS.
No, really. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Read what i wrote, i didn't say 'dual-boots', I said 'Linux-based PCs', I also said that they canned the project as in it is no longer running, it's not that hard to read and it's not at all obfuscated so you shouldn't have that much trouble with it. The Dell Ubuntu PCs could dual boot but weren't sold in that configuration, they were sold with just Linux until Dell realized that relatively no-one wanted to buy a PC with Ubuntu pre-installed.
Dell did ship PCs with Ubuntu but dropped it due to it's poor sales performance but they are reportedly bringing it back in the chinese market.
Wow - again - YOU were the one who brought up "VC", and then for some reason changed the question...
It's all a part of venture capital, whether that's the seed funding, first round, etc... but since this clearly isn't first round funding your comparison to $10M first round funding made no sense.
Sure glad we didn't value the entire company at about $330k from the beginning, wouldn't have made out very well on that.
Read what this program is about, at this stage it's just an idea, no prototype no nothing, if they offered $330k to the best 10 ideas you think people wouldn't submit their ideas because they would be saying it's a bad deal?!
I don't think there'd be many people that wouldn't give up their whole 'idea' (since that's all this is, no prototype or anything like that) for that price, that works out to ~$330k for nothing more than the idea.
Seriously... $20k ISN'T seed funding, it's petty cash. Joining a startup often means taking a pay cut in return for equity, but if you are working for nothing and giving away significant equity you aren't doing it right.
You were comparing it to first round VC just a minute ago! And now that i've posed you a question - that you don't seem to have been able to answer - you're off on a tangent about how this is too little an amount for even seed funding. Well the fact is if you've got an idea and want to develop it into a prototype to market to VCs then 20k to sustain yourself (even a small team of 2 or 3) for 3 months while you do it is plenty especially when everything, even the investors, are provided to you. How much exactly do you think you would need for this? What's the amount you would require for such a project and how much would you give up to get it?
Clearly this is all rhetorical for you. I have worked at 3 startups, one that failed two that were acquired. Just trying to give some useful input on the thread, and not really interested in armchair commentary...
No, not rhetorical at all and if you actually believed it was 'armchair commentary' you wouldn't be participating so don't give me that rubbish, particularly when you compare this program to first round investment and then even go on to extrapolate it and now can't even answer what you would expect to give up for seed funding, that doesn't give much validation to your claim.
There's also office space, equipment and mentoring. I'll bet you plenty of people take up the offer and in the end 6% of nothing is still nothing so if it doesn't get off the ground they've just wasted all that time, space and money.
You still don't give up 6% of your company for $20k if you ever hope to have anything left for yourself after a first round of VC funding. $20k won't cover 2 months of salary for one person in a decent engineering job.
So what exactly do you expect to give up for your seed funding then? This is pretty much the identical system as used by YCombinator.
And your question was "what do you think you give up in return for VC normally", not "what would you give up for a really small angel investment".
Last startup I was at, it was 25% for $10M initially. Do the math - 100/6 * 20k = $330k. If you think that's the potential total value of your idea, it's really not worth pursuing.
If you've given up 25% then that $10M is not seed funding like the 20k + office + mentoring that this program is offering, that's first round investment which is the end goal of the program.
Do you really believe that given a choice between 100 groups that have a prototype, and 1000 that don't they won't pick all 10 from the 100? Doesn't it show which teams are more likely to succeed, and which ones are just blue sky with no ability to execute?
No, it doesn't show that at all, having a prototype for an idea is not necessarily better than just having a good business case, if you can't show a proper business application for your prototype then what good is it. Not to mention this program explicitly states that the goal of the program is to develop the prototype and that if you have a prototype already then this program is probably of little use to you. It's common sense and basic reading comprehension, why are you having so much difficulty with it?
$20k is not even semi-serious money for a start-up - especially considering that, with the competition, you're going to be at least at the working prototype stage, in which case you should be looking for first-round investors, not seed money.
This program is seed money (as well as equipment, office space and mentoring) to develop a prototype to present to investors, and if you'd bothered to actually read the page detailing the program you would know this and wouldn't be posting rubbish like this, it's really not that hard to find out.
Why would I rent a separate office? Because the space they are going to be offering is also going to be used by 9 other sets of strangers, all looking for an edge, all looking for other great ideas to "borrow" if they strike out after the original 3-month period.
So use a little discretion, it's really not that difficult.
And with dozens of new faces in one space (even if it's separate offices), that's a great way for equipment to develop feet. After all, it's not like they're going to be keeping "office hours".
Oh yeah, like there's no security, and you certainly wouldn't want to be taking your laptop or hard-drives home with you or anything like that, that's too hard.
1. Since they're going to be flooded with applications, you'd better have a working prototype already running.
No, you clearly don't need that at all, you're just speculating now that you have no facts to support that. Your company does not necessarily need experience developing with Kinect, but the business concept does need to leverage Kinect capabilities as part of the final offering. Your team must also be willing to develop the technical skills required to bring your solution to a functioning prototype. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/kinectaccelerator/
2. If you have a working prototype already running, why would you be looking for initial seed funding instead of going to a first round of investors? More $$$, less equity given up.
You probably value the audience you get through their presentation at the end as well as the skills for refining your prototype. But as above, that's not the stage they are looking for.
3. They want 6% of your business - not just that one project. So, if you come up with a second great idea, you're not free to develop that one on your own and reap all the bennies.
Of course you are, do you know nothing about business? Your ideas aren't tied to your business.
I've worked at VC-funded startups (including one that had $25 million to play with) - at each stage, the initial founders have to give up more and more, until in the end they own pretty much nothing.
Of course, if you go in with no understanding of the process that is likely to happen to you, if you know what you're doing that is pretty easy to avoid. So im not sure what you're suggesting here. And although you say you've worked for a VC-funded startups it's strange that you still seem incapable of answering the initial question.
They'll be losing money b the time they pay for air fare there and back, meals, rooms, car rental
Ok you're obviously on some tirade where you've typed before thinking since they give you 20k to cover such things.
cost or moving all your equipment (computers, screens, big-screen TVs, consoles) both ways, rental of a secure site, work tables, chairs, (what - you were going to just let them "offer" you a convenient place to work out of that they have the keys to? Are you retarded????) etc.
Why the hell would you be renting an office when the program clearly provides one? And if your paranoid delusions had you not wanting to utilize the provided spaces (which is clearly a method of funding the startup) then you wouldn't even apply for the program would you dumbass?
But i suppose it's obvious you lack any knowledge of startups and VC in general since instead of answering my question you launched into an ignorant tirade instead.
they are on a hunt for patentable material based on Kinect
If you're after venture capital like this you generally patent your inventions before presenting them to a VC firm, you don't present your idea and then hope they just give you money and don't run off with your idea.
Depending on the Mac you have, you could end up with any one of the 3 major GPU vendors.
But they don't have to support every GPU from all 3 of the major GPU vendors, and they don't have to deal with configurations of all different processors from both major manufacturers, same with motherboards, RAM, etc...that's the point.
Yeah, because Microsoft hasn't been caught threatening OEMs over selling non-Windows equipped PCs... oh, wait.
Except that since then we've seen the largest computer manufacturers in the world ship Linux-based PCs, Dell did it (and then canned it for lackluster sales), Best Buy tried it as well and even HP have recently announced that all of their desktop PCs will have the ability to run a webOS variant. So nice try, but that's the past, not the present.
Better terms (or perhaps any terms) for OEMs who wish to sell PCs pre-installed with Windows.
So what about all of the motherboard manufacturers, you know the ones who actually control the secureboot feature, you think MS are going to pay off every motherboard manufacturer?
Yes, Microsoft can, has, and will either pay manufacturers, or threaten and coerce them, to forbid any viable competition in the PC desktop OS market. They've done it before. It has been shown to work. The paltry fines they incur when they get caught indicate that it will continue to work, and the legal aspects simply become a financial aspect to "doing business as usual".
That has happened with some major OEMs, but do you actually think they could do such a thing to the entire PC market and then the entire motherboard market?
Re:I propose we Occupy "Occupy"
on
Occupy Flash?
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· Score: 1
So Flash is open sourced and doesn't have DRM?
I think you're missing the point, he's saying that advocating change when the thing you're changing to is not much better - in some ways significantly worse and in some ways pretty much the same - as the current solution is pointless. If you're going to go to the effort of changing then change to something that is actually better.
I personally think HTML5 has the potential to be that thing, to be better than Flash, but it certainly isn't there yet so killing Flash now is a bit premature.
Slashdot Mirror
Thats not the point.
Actually it is the point, the OS devs know exactly what hardware their software has to run on, that obviously makes the job of compatibility easier. Small number of known configurations as opposed to large number of unknown configurations.
The basic hardware support works very well in Linux. It is the layer between Software and the Kernel that is shit. All the special Audio drivers above the kernel, below the actual GUI, etc, etc.
What 'audio drivers' are above the kernel? Or are you complaining about the userland components of audio subsystems like ALSA, PulseAudio, etc...? What's wrong with those?
How inept are your reading skills, that you can't even see the word dual-boot in my query?
Who cares that they aren't sold as dual boot, why does that matter in any way whatsoever? Are you asserting that they aren't capable of dual booting?
Yes, PCs exist that ship with Linux on them - but none of those have Windows on them... which was part of my original point.
So? What's that got to do with UEFI Secureboot? It's not that they can't have Windows on them, they just aren't shipped with it, just as Windows machines aren't shipped dual booting Linux and Macs aren't shipped dual booting Linux or Windows with OSX.
Part of the reason the Linux-equipped machines haven't sold well is that they have been crippled, hardware-wise, compared to the "equivalent" Windows system. "Half the ram" and "smaller processors" have been the norm, probably because Microsoft is afraid to compete on an even field - or perhaps it is due to over-estimating the efficiency of Linux in a desktop environment.
Do you have evidence for that or are you just making that up?
At least do enough research to tell us what security holes Windows Phone 7 suffers from, or tell us from which tank of thin air you pulled the statistic "2 people in north america" from.
I find it interesting that some people use marketshare as a quality measure, when marketshare is largely irrelevant in terms of the quality of the product offering. For example look at the large marketshare of Windows and the iPhone in their respective markets compared with OSX and WP7 in those markets. I doubt there are that many people who would put Windows and the iPhone in one quality-bucket and OSX and WP7 in another.
It's not about having a prototype, are you really that dense?! The program is to build the prototype, seriously how about reading the about topic rather than looking like the complete fool you are now. It's not written in any obscure language, it's quite clear what the project is about but it seems you're so fanatical about it being a bad thing that you're not even capable of understanding what it is anymore.
Go farther back in this thread, where I posted links showing some times when Microsoft has strong-armed PC manufacturers into not shipping competing operating systems, and/or threatened/coerced them into not shipping dual-boot systems.
Or maybe you could address the point right here, which is that while they could have locked down the BIOS to ONLY run Windows, which is effectively what your conspiracy theory is suggesting they will do with UEFI Secureboot, you would note that they have not ever done that even though they could have.
As a matter of fact, point me at a single dual-boot (Windows and some non-Microsoft OS) PC produced by any major manufacturer... make that any manufacturer, period.
How inept are you that you can't even use google, even if you can't remember 4 years ago when Dell started shipping PCs pre-loaded with Linux, but they didn't sell.
Show me a single major PC manufacturer who ships a machine that dual-boots Windows and any non-Microsoft OS.
No, really. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Read what i wrote, i didn't say 'dual-boots', I said 'Linux-based PCs', I also said that they canned the project as in it is no longer running, it's not that hard to read and it's not at all obfuscated so you shouldn't have that much trouble with it. The Dell Ubuntu PCs could dual boot but weren't sold in that configuration, they were sold with just Linux until Dell realized that relatively no-one wanted to buy a PC with Ubuntu pre-installed.
Dell did ship PCs with Ubuntu but dropped it due to it's poor sales performance but they are reportedly bringing it back in the chinese market.
Asus are shipping PCs with Ubuntu Linux as well.
And although they aren't yet, HP have announced plans to include webOS as a boot option on their PCs.
Wow - again - YOU were the one who brought up "VC", and then for some reason changed the question...
It's all a part of venture capital, whether that's the seed funding, first round, etc... but since this clearly isn't first round funding your comparison to $10M first round funding made no sense.
Sure glad we didn't value the entire company at about $330k from the beginning, wouldn't have made out very well on that.
Read what this program is about, at this stage it's just an idea, no prototype no nothing, if they offered $330k to the best 10 ideas you think people wouldn't submit their ideas because they would be saying it's a bad deal?!
I don't think there'd be many people that wouldn't give up their whole 'idea' (since that's all this is, no prototype or anything like that) for that price, that works out to ~$330k for nothing more than the idea.
Seriously... $20k ISN'T seed funding, it's petty cash. Joining a startup often means taking a pay cut in return for equity, but if you are working for nothing and giving away significant equity you aren't doing it right.
You were comparing it to first round VC just a minute ago! And now that i've posed you a question - that you don't seem to have been able to answer - you're off on a tangent about how this is too little an amount for even seed funding. Well the fact is if you've got an idea and want to develop it into a prototype to market to VCs then 20k to sustain yourself (even a small team of 2 or 3) for 3 months while you do it is plenty especially when everything, even the investors, are provided to you. How much exactly do you think you would need for this? What's the amount you would require for such a project and how much would you give up to get it?
Clearly this is all rhetorical for you. I have worked at 3 startups, one that failed two that were acquired. Just trying to give some useful input on the thread, and not really interested in armchair commentary...
No, not rhetorical at all and if you actually believed it was 'armchair commentary' you wouldn't be participating so don't give me that rubbish, particularly when you compare this program to first round investment and then even go on to extrapolate it and now can't even answer what you would expect to give up for seed funding, that doesn't give much validation to your claim.
There's also office space, equipment and mentoring. I'll bet you plenty of people take up the offer and in the end 6% of nothing is still nothing so if it doesn't get off the ground they've just wasted all that time, space and money.
Did you actually read what the program is about? It's not 20k for 6%, there's a lot more to it than that.
You still don't give up 6% of your company for $20k if you ever hope to have anything left for yourself after a first round of VC funding. $20k won't cover 2 months of salary for one person in a decent engineering job.
So what exactly do you expect to give up for your seed funding then? This is pretty much the identical system as used by YCombinator.
And your question was "what do you think you give up in return for VC normally", not "what would you give up for a really small angel investment".
Seed funding is a component of VC.
Last startup I was at, it was 25% for $10M initially. Do the math - 100/6 * 20k = $330k. If you think that's the potential total value of your idea, it's really not worth pursuing.
If you've given up 25% then that $10M is not seed funding like the 20k + office + mentoring that this program is offering, that's first round investment which is the end goal of the program.
Do you really believe that given a choice between 100 groups that have a prototype, and 1000 that don't they won't pick all 10 from the 100? Doesn't it show which teams are more likely to succeed, and which ones are just blue sky with no ability to execute?
No, it doesn't show that at all, having a prototype for an idea is not necessarily better than just having a good business case, if you can't show a proper business application for your prototype then what good is it. Not to mention this program explicitly states that the goal of the program is to develop the prototype and that if you have a prototype already then this program is probably of little use to you. It's common sense and basic reading comprehension, why are you having so much difficulty with it?
$20k is not even semi-serious money for a start-up - especially considering that, with the competition, you're going to be at least at the working prototype stage, in which case you should be looking for first-round investors, not seed money.
This program is seed money (as well as equipment, office space and mentoring) to develop a prototype to present to investors, and if you'd bothered to actually read the page detailing the program you would know this and wouldn't be posting rubbish like this, it's really not that hard to find out.
Why would I rent a separate office? Because the space they are going to be offering is also going to be used by 9 other sets of strangers, all looking for an edge, all looking for other great ideas to "borrow" if they strike out after the original 3-month period.
So use a little discretion, it's really not that difficult.
And with dozens of new faces in one space (even if it's separate offices), that's a great way for equipment to develop feet. After all, it's not like they're going to be keeping "office hours".
Oh yeah, like there's no security, and you certainly wouldn't want to be taking your laptop or hard-drives home with you or anything like that, that's too hard.
1. Since they're going to be flooded with applications, you'd better have a working prototype already running.
No, you clearly don't need that at all, you're just speculating now that you have no facts to support that.
Your company does not necessarily need experience developing with Kinect, but the business concept does need to leverage Kinect capabilities as part of the final offering. Your team must also be willing to develop the technical skills required to bring your solution to a functioning prototype.
http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/kinectaccelerator/
2. If you have a working prototype already running, why would you be looking for initial seed funding instead of going to a first round of investors? More $$$, less equity given up.
You probably value the audience you get through their presentation at the end as well as the skills for refining your prototype. But as above, that's not the stage they are looking for.
3. They want 6% of your business - not just that one project. So, if you come up with a second great idea, you're not free to develop that one on your own and reap all the bennies.
Of course you are, do you know nothing about business? Your ideas aren't tied to your business.
I've worked at VC-funded startups (including one that had $25 million to play with) - at each stage, the initial founders have to give up more and more, until in the end they own pretty much nothing.
Of course, if you go in with no understanding of the process that is likely to happen to you, if you know what you're doing that is pretty easy to avoid. So im not sure what you're suggesting here. And although you say you've worked for a VC-funded startups it's strange that you still seem incapable of answering the initial question.
If you can afford to patent them, you're unlikely to be willing to hand over 6% of your company for a measly $20k.
If you actually read what's involved it's not selling 6% of your company for $20k.
Besides, Microsoft probably already has patents they can use to force you to cross-license yours.
And that couldn't happen if you weren't involved in this program?
They'll be losing money b the time they pay for air fare there and back, meals, rooms, car rental
Ok you're obviously on some tirade where you've typed before thinking since they give you 20k to cover such things.
cost or moving all your equipment (computers, screens, big-screen TVs, consoles) both ways, rental of a secure site, work tables, chairs, (what - you were going to just let them "offer" you a convenient place to work out of that they have the keys to? Are you retarded????) etc.
Why the hell would you be renting an office when the program clearly provides one? And if your paranoid delusions had you not wanting to utilize the provided spaces (which is clearly a method of funding the startup) then you wouldn't even apply for the program would you dumbass?
But i suppose it's obvious you lack any knowledge of startups and VC in general since instead of answering my question you launched into an ignorant tirade instead.
anti-trust? by what stretch of the imagination could something like this be considered to have anything to do with anti-trust?
they are on a hunt for patentable material based on Kinect
If you're after venture capital like this you generally patent your inventions before presenting them to a VC firm, you don't present your idea and then hope they just give you money and don't run off with your idea.
You get $20,000, but you have to relocate your team to Seattle for 3 months, AND give up 6% of your business.
Exactly what do you think you give up in return for VC normally?
No not really.
Depending on the Mac you have, you could end up with any one of the 3 major GPU vendors.
But they don't have to support every GPU from all 3 of the major GPU vendors, and they don't have to deal with configurations of all different processors from both major manufacturers, same with motherboards, RAM, etc...that's the point.
... this time.
Or ever in the past, when they quite clearly could have but didn't. Your conspiracy theory fails again.
Yeah, because Microsoft hasn't been caught threatening OEMs over selling non-Windows equipped PCs... oh, wait.
Except that since then we've seen the largest computer manufacturers in the world ship Linux-based PCs, Dell did it (and then canned it for lackluster sales), Best Buy tried it as well and even HP have recently announced that all of their desktop PCs will have the ability to run a webOS variant. So nice try, but that's the past, not the present.
Better terms (or perhaps any terms) for OEMs who wish to sell PCs pre-installed with Windows.
So what about all of the motherboard manufacturers, you know the ones who actually control the secureboot feature, you think MS are going to pay off every motherboard manufacturer?
Yes, Microsoft can, has, and will either pay manufacturers, or threaten and coerce them, to forbid any viable competition in the PC desktop OS market. They've done it before. It has been shown to work. The paltry fines they incur when they get caught indicate that it will continue to work, and the legal aspects simply become a financial aspect to "doing business as usual".
That has happened with some major OEMs, but do you actually think they could do such a thing to the entire PC market and then the entire motherboard market?
So Flash is open sourced and doesn't have DRM?
I think you're missing the point, he's saying that advocating change when the thing you're changing to is not much better - in some ways significantly worse and in some ways pretty much the same - as the current solution is pointless. If you're going to go to the effort of changing then change to something that is actually better.
I personally think HTML5 has the potential to be that thing, to be better than Flash, but it certainly isn't there yet so killing Flash now is a bit premature.