Causality does require to be proven when the question is, "are pump-and-dump SPAM schemes successful?" The question is not "are pump-and-dump spammers successful?"
Monopolies are not created by "market desire". They are created by ignorance and laziness. If you're ignorant of competitors, you stick with what you know. If you're lazy, even if you know the competitor, you stick with what you've got because it takes no effort. Monopoly marketing is about keeping you in ignorance and making it difficult to change. Examples, I am sure, abound.
Fighting monopolies is not about looking for "underdogs" (which means "less competitive", is that what you meant?), but about being an educated and dynamic market consumer. Even disregarding monopolies, this is what's required to get the market to produce better and cheaper products.
Anyway, I use Firefox, because it's the best, and in any case it comes by default with all my operating systems of choice, but I also use google, because it's the best. I went through Altavista, Excite and Lycos in the past, if something better comes along I'll go there too. No point choosing something that's not the best out of some misguided sense of philanthropy.
You're wrong. Normal people wouldn't be reading the article for a start. People with a technical background would legitimately wonder if this is support for a number of Linux distributions or one particular distro, and which.
Your Windows analogy doesn't hold water because there are dozens of current Linux distrubutions, whereas there are only a handful of current Windows versions.
The phrasing definitely can indicate something other than Oracle supporting a specific distribution of Linux. It can indicate multiple distributions.
In a non-technical context it's OK sometimes just to say Linux and mean the operating system generally, but when you're talking about vendor support, you have to be specific.
I bet RedHat love this, as it just reinforces the idea widespread amongst the ignorant that RedHat=Linux.
It's not a "naming convention", it's calling a spade a spade. The only bad argument that's regularly trotted out is the "credit where credit is due" one, because it seems petty, yet it's understandable.
I thought, and now I hope, that he meant that Germans, for example, would want the German locale over all other locales, not that they would want the American English locale over the British English locale. However, he does have his numbers wrong, as British English is a "correct" choice for at least three countries: England, Scotland and Wales.
Maybe there could be different flavours of Linux distributions - media, or development - that are more suited to each task.
There are media-tailored Linux distributions - StudioToGo and 64Studio. Also there are things like PlanetCCRMA, AudioSlack and the Gentoo Pro-Audio overlay that can tailor a vanilla distribution to the needs of an audio workstation.
Abolishing copyright doesn't get the source into the hands of the people, though, only the binaries, and what use are they, as they can't be easily modified.
Your opinion might have more credence if you didn't couch it in abusive language. For most people, a WYSIWYG word processor is exactly what they need for writing letters, reports and such like. You may have specialist (special?) needs but that doesn't make a toy of the tool most people use.
I don't understand your point about Roxio. Actually I have never used Roxio products nor have I seen their Minimum System Requirements. But I know it's fairly standard to have those requirements.
Actually I don't understand much of what you say in your post because it's mostly a rant.
I have supported desktop software for Windows, Mac and "Linux", and none of it is impossible, but it's all as difficult as you and your users make it. The key is having support infrastructure in place, and not making promises that are difficult to keep. If you have dug yourself into a support hole that you can't get yourself out of it's your own fault. Don't blame "Linux" for "not being ready", the problem is that you are not ready. And don't give me your shit about the real world and being clueless, I've been doing IT of various kinds for 15 years and I know what I'm talking about.
The problems "Linux" has in the consumer space are: - unfamiliarity to the public - lack of marketing - the fact that most software is written for Windows - vested interests of IT people
But these are not really problems, just things that mean "Linux" will be niche for a while longer. It will take corporate desktop adoption before the general public become interested.
Your stupid straw man that you can't tell if it's Gnome or KDE is just that, a stupid straw man.
But the OP was complaining that Linux wasn't ready for the desktop because some users don't know what operating system they are running; this is a non-sequitor, and you've nicely pointed out that some users don't even know a Mac from a PC. Bridging the techy/non-techy gap is always going to be the main problem for workers who have to support them over the phone. The hardware and software problems, whilst they can be involving, are at least logical if you know the system.
I have built up a number of small businesses and individuals who rely on me for remote support, although it's not my day job, and your experiences with them are the same as mine. I sometimes find the confusion between monitor, computer and hard drive to be a source of frustration... but always amusement!
If I am supporting application software on a GNU/Linux system, presumably because I am under contract to do so, I will specify the supported system(s). "We support RedHat AS 3.0 and above" for example. Also, I don't believe users install an operating system without knowing which one it is. If they do, all bets are off. And if I am supporting application software and the user can't tell me what the operating system is, I am well within my rights to say "I can't help you unless you tell me exactly what operating system you're running".
For "support Linux", read "support Linux, with no further qualification, as a target platform for application software", not "support Linux the kernel or distros which use it".
Yes, as I was writing my post I thought of that as a possibility, but it would be a step forward in terms of ease-of-use if some ssh daemon just did it automatically. I have to use Windows terminal services at work, and you disconnect and reconnect to existing sessions like a GUI GNU Screen. You don't have to think "how can I make this work", it's built-in. For most people, they just want stuff to work. I don't care, because I can type screen or edit my bash_profile, but many people don't even know Screen exists.
Seconded, GNU Screen rocks and only takes five minutes to grok it. It really is worth those five minutes.
What would be really nice is if someone would integrate screen into an ssh daemon, so it just worked without having to start screen before doing something long-winded.
Sorry, but this is stupid. It's stupid to support "Linux", because it's a kernel. It's stupid not to ask a user what distro they're using, because distros have default UIs, ususally Gnome, and users will know what distro they're using, because it usually tells them that when it starts up, or they chose it when they bought or downloaded it.
If a user doesn't know what distro they're using, then they wouldn't know what version of Windows they were using either.
Sending two people with bombs doesn't increase your chance of success, it increases your chance of being caught. What do you think the security reaction is to finding one person with a bomb? It's not to remove that person and carry on as normal, it's to remove that person and tighten up security much more, cancel flights, etc. If you send through two people, you've doubled your chance of one person being caught.
We should start by looking at our banking system, and figuring out why it is that money in a bank is real, but money in, say, Dope Wars, is not real, and never will be.
We don't all play Dope Wars, but we do all deal with real banks...
I think what you're missing is that the value in real things comes from the real needs that they meet, not the fact they can be converted to money. Food has value because we are animals that have to eat food to live. Medical care has value because we are animals that can sustain life-threatening injury, which can be treated. All the value stuff has comes down to our basic needs and instincts.
Toy money in games has value because a small number of people like to play games with toy money. But it only has value to them, and maybe to speculators who have noticed this. But in general, it doesn't have value because in general no-one is interested in it...
Money is just the universally agreed representation of the value humans, as a whole, place on real things. It's a symbol of value, not actual value.
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So, if I die while parked in front of this computer, I want you all on my behalf to sue Bill Gates...
We all know you're running Linux, but we'll sue Gates anyway.
Linux has already pulled out of several repressive regimes including China, North Korea and Singapore. MSFT are playing catch-up, as usual.
Causality does require to be proven when the question is, "are pump-and-dump SPAM schemes successful?" The question is not "are pump-and-dump spammers successful?"
Monopolies are not created by "market desire". They are created by ignorance and laziness. If you're ignorant of competitors, you stick with what you know. If you're lazy, even if you know the competitor, you stick with what you've got because it takes no effort. Monopoly marketing is about keeping you in ignorance and making it difficult to change. Examples, I am sure, abound.
Fighting monopolies is not about looking for "underdogs" (which means "less competitive", is that what you meant?), but about being an educated and dynamic market consumer. Even disregarding monopolies, this is what's required to get the market to produce better and cheaper products.
Anyway, I use Firefox, because it's the best, and in any case it comes by default with all my operating systems of choice, but I also use google, because it's the best. I went through Altavista, Excite and Lycos in the past, if something better comes along I'll go there too. No point choosing something that's not the best out of some misguided sense of philanthropy.
You're wrong. Normal people wouldn't be reading the article for a start. People with a technical background would legitimately wonder if this is support for a number of Linux distributions or one particular distro, and which.
Your Windows analogy doesn't hold water because there are dozens of current Linux distrubutions, whereas there are only a handful of current Windows versions.
The phrasing definitely can indicate something other than Oracle supporting a specific distribution of Linux. It can indicate multiple distributions.
In a non-technical context it's OK sometimes just to say Linux and mean the operating system generally, but when you're talking about vendor support, you have to be specific.
I bet RedHat love this, as it just reinforces the idea widespread amongst the ignorant that RedHat=Linux.
It's not a "naming convention", it's calling a spade a spade. The only bad argument that's regularly trotted out is the "credit where credit is due" one, because it seems petty, yet it's understandable.
I thought, and now I hope, that he meant that Germans, for example, would want the German locale over all other locales, not that they would want the American English locale over the British English locale. However, he does have his numbers wrong, as British English is a "correct" choice for at least three countries: England, Scotland and Wales.
Maybe there could be different flavours of Linux distributions - media, or development - that are more suited to each task.
There are media-tailored Linux distributions - StudioToGo and 64Studio. Also there are things like PlanetCCRMA, AudioSlack and the Gentoo Pro-Audio overlay that can tailor a vanilla distribution to the needs of an audio workstation.
Abolishing copyright doesn't get the source into the hands of the people, though, only the binaries, and what use are they, as they can't be easily modified.
I said people, not users. Difference.
Your opinion might have more credence if you didn't couch it in abusive language. For most people, a WYSIWYG word processor is exactly what they need for writing letters, reports and such like. You may have specialist (special?) needs but that doesn't make a toy of the tool most people use.
I believe superglue in the keyhole is more discreet and just as, maybe more, effective.
That's "irretrievably".
Well, that'll take a while, but leave it with me.
I don't understand your point about Roxio. Actually I have never used Roxio products nor have I seen their Minimum System Requirements. But I know it's fairly standard to have those requirements.
Actually I don't understand much of what you say in your post because it's mostly a rant.
I have supported desktop software for Windows, Mac and "Linux", and none of it is impossible, but it's all as difficult as you and your users make it. The key is having support infrastructure in place, and not making promises that are difficult to keep. If you have dug yourself into a support hole that you can't get yourself out of it's your own fault. Don't blame "Linux" for "not being ready", the problem is that you are not ready. And don't give me your shit about the real world and being clueless, I've been doing IT of various kinds for 15 years and I know what I'm talking about.
The problems "Linux" has in the consumer space are:
- unfamiliarity to the public
- lack of marketing
- the fact that most software is written for Windows
- vested interests of IT people
But these are not really problems, just things that mean "Linux" will be niche for a while longer. It will take corporate desktop adoption before the general public become interested.
Your stupid straw man that you can't tell if it's Gnome or KDE is just that, a stupid straw man.
But the OP was complaining that Linux wasn't ready for the desktop because some users don't know what operating system they are running; this is a non-sequitor, and you've nicely pointed out that some users don't even know a Mac from a PC. Bridging the techy/non-techy gap is always going to be the main problem for workers who have to support them over the phone. The hardware and software problems, whilst they can be involving, are at least logical if you know the system.
I have built up a number of small businesses and individuals who rely on me for remote support, although it's not my day job, and your experiences with them are the same as mine. I sometimes find the confusion between monitor, computer and hard drive to be a source of frustration... but always amusement!
If I am supporting application software on a GNU/Linux system, presumably because I am under contract to do so, I will specify the supported system(s). "We support RedHat AS 3.0 and above" for example. Also, I don't believe users install an operating system without knowing which one it is. If they do, all bets are off. And if I am supporting application software and the user can't tell me what the operating system is, I am well within my rights to say "I can't help you unless you tell me exactly what operating system you're running".
For "support Linux", read "support Linux, with no further qualification, as a target platform for application software", not "support Linux the kernel or distros which use it".
Yes, as I was writing my post I thought of that as a possibility, but it would be a step forward in terms of ease-of-use if some ssh daemon just did it automatically. I have to use Windows terminal services at work, and you disconnect and reconnect to existing sessions like a GUI GNU Screen. You don't have to think "how can I make this work", it's built-in. For most people, they just want stuff to work. I don't care, because I can type screen or edit my bash_profile, but many people don't even know Screen exists.
Seconded, GNU Screen rocks and only takes five minutes to grok it. It really is worth those five minutes.
What would be really nice is if someone would integrate screen into an ssh daemon, so it just worked without having to start screen before doing something long-winded.
Sorry, but this is stupid. It's stupid to support "Linux", because it's a kernel. It's stupid not to ask a user what distro they're using, because distros have default UIs, ususally Gnome, and users will know what distro they're using, because it usually tells them that when it starts up, or they chose it when they bought or downloaded it.
If a user doesn't know what distro they're using, then they wouldn't know what version of Windows they were using either.
Let that be a lesson to me to read the whole damn post for going off on one!
Sending two people with bombs doesn't increase your chance of success, it increases your chance of being caught. What do you think the security reaction is to finding one person with a bomb? It's not to remove that person and carry on as normal, it's to remove that person and tighten up security much more, cancel flights, etc. If you send through two people, you've doubled your chance of one person being caught.
We should start by looking at our banking system, and figuring out why it is that money in a bank is real, but money in, say, Dope Wars, is not real, and never will be.
We don't all play Dope Wars, but we do all deal with real banks...
I think what you're missing is that the value in real things comes from the real needs that they meet, not the fact they can be converted to money. Food has value because we are animals that have to eat food to live. Medical care has value because we are animals that can sustain life-threatening injury, which can be treated. All the value stuff has comes down to our basic needs and instincts.
Toy money in games has value because a small number of people like to play games with toy money. But it only has value to them, and maybe to speculators who have noticed this. But in general, it doesn't have value because in general no-one is interested in it...
Money is just the universally agreed representation of the value humans, as a whole, place on real things. It's a symbol of value, not actual value.