I am confused by the plethora of articles and posts I see decrying that Linux is doomed on the desktop. This just doesn't make sense to me. Linux, configured appropriately, is just as easy to use on the desktop as Windows, and much more stable. The only trick is getting it on the desktop in the first place. Coincidentally, just this morning, I posted to following to PLUG, the Portland (OR) Linux-Unix Group:
Over the past year, I have set up two friends with Linux workstations for
home use. What went into their decision-making process? It's really very
simple:
Friend: Sean, I need a computer, what should I get?
Me: What do you wantto use it for?
F: Internet, email, writing. Maybe some games, like solitaire or
Mah-jongg.
M: OK. I recommend Linux. Take a look at what I have on my system at home.
Anything missing that you would want?
F: I need to be able to write. Do you have Word?
M: No, I have StarOffice, which can read and create files across a variety
of platforms and formats. It'll do Word and just about anything else you'd
want.
F: OK. Cool. Linux is free, isn't it?
M: It's free as in speech, not beer. You can download the software from
the Internet, or pay about $30 - $40 for a box set. I recommend the box
set. Then I'll install and configure it for you. That's where the free
beer comes in.
Then we went on to talk about hardware, and prices, etc. One friend went
out and bought about $400 worth of hardware at Frye's. I put it together
and gave him his system. My other friend didn't have any money, so I put
together a decent-enough system out of spare parts I had lying around, and
gave it to her. Both are happy and contented with their PC's. I'm
currently working on one for my brother-in-law.
Do you get it? Don't tell people what they want. That's the Microsoft way.
Ask them what they want, and recommend the best way to go, as any friend
would. Give them a chance to play around on your own system so they get a
feel for it. If Linux can fulfill their needs, tell them so. They'll save
money and contribute to the Linux community.
I believe in looking at successful models, and emulating them. When I look
at Microsoft's success, I see it as being the result of getting their OS
onto desktops everywhere. I see their corporate greed as being their
eventual downfall. So I try to keep this in mind when advocating for
Linux: get the desktops out there in the consumers' hands, and Linux
succeeds. As Linux succeeds, so do Linux admins, consultants, and
programmers. We're not even at the point of major corporate greed yet, but
when that time comes, we will have to be careful *not* to follow the M$
model.
I'll be less inclined to buy a CD that I can't rip to mp3. I buy CDs all the time, but rarely listen to them directly. I rip 'em to an mp3 server so that I can listen to the music wherever I am, and create mixes that I like. If I can't do this, I'm sure my new CD purchases will go down.
Dumbass. The poli-sci term is "democratic-republic", which means that individuals vote for representatives. Jesus, you're stupid. Is this what our education system is turning out in the World these days?
You state that we (U.S.) killed innocents without warning at the end of World War II. This is not true. Prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, we sent a message to the Japanese telling them to watch a particular island in the Pacific at a specific time. We then tested an atomic bomb on that island. This demonstration was a warning and a threat. The demonstration was followed by a threat to hit a Japanese city with the same type of bomb if they did not surrender. Several days later, we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. The Japanese government did not capitulate. Three days after that, we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.
The Japanese had plenty of warning, and plenty of opportunity to end the war without those cities and lives being lost. They cared more about their cause than their citizenry.
I, as an American, am not exactly proud of our actions that ended World War II, but I did not live during that time (and I'm guessing you didn't either), so I refrain from holding judgement over those who had to make the tough decisions of the times. Yes, we killed many thousands, but how many more thousands would have died had the war continued to carry on as it had for the previous four years?
If you're going to try to learn from History, make sure that you start by LEARNING HISTORY.
From my perspective, there are really two factors to consider here.
First, when I am asked about loyalty to the company, I readily answer, "I will give my employer every single ounce of loyalty that I feel I am getting from it." So I believe that there is definitely a relationship between what you owe the company and what the company as a whole owes you.
Second, and I think in this case more imortant, is this a situation where the company is in a rolling death-spiral? Every passenger gripping their seat cushions, braced for impact? A situation where anyone who doesn't bail out is going to find him/herself smashed to bits on the ground below? If that is the case, then you must grab for the parachute and bail out. Your coworkers will understand, and they will recover, and they are probably searching frantically for their own parachutes too. If this company is truly doomed, then by staying you are only postponing the inevitable.
On another note, consider the precariousness of any company whose continued existence relies on the presence of one person. If you get hit by a bus tomorrow (god forbid), does that mean that the company would go under? Again, if this is the case, the ship is not stable enough to stay airborn. You and all the other passengers must rush for the emergency exits now!
On the other hand, if this company has true potential, and will probably succeed in the long run, reaping great rewards for those who lumbered through the hard times, then you should stay and keep it on course.
Well, Richard, I think I'll be seeing you at the opening. I have not started working with FreeGeek yet, as you may have guessed, since I got one of the basic facts wrong in my post, but I've been approached by at least two different people familiar with the project to volunteer. I also have some connections that may be able to make some equipment donations. See you on PLUG.
In Portland, Oregon, I believe we have something better going. A local charity, called FreeGeek will take any old technology off your hands free of charge.
If said technology is still usable, they will give it, along with training, to a needy individual, in the hopes that this person will be able to use this training to start a career, and get a better life for him/herself.
If the technology you donate has outlived its usefulness, FreeGeek will pick it apart and recycle the basic components or elements. All of this is free of charge, but if you are giving them recyclables, they will ask for a small cash donation (not required).
But of course, Oregon is a pretty green state. Gore barely defeated Ralph Nader for the presidency here, 46% to 6%.
I'm assuming there are other programs like this around the country, but I don't know. What's your city doing?
It does appear that you are legally obligated to sign over the patent. However, how much of it is actually yours? If the patent application is too broad, then I don't think you would have to sign it as-is. Talk to an Intellectual Property attorney. I think you'll be able to say, "This is not what I invented," and give them a more accurate description of the invention, with your signature on it.
If I were to create a new sneaker tread design that would be patentable, this would not allow my employer to patent the entire sneaker and say that I invented it.
Does this mean that if I want to go out and snatch up "whitehouse.gov", I can? I mean, no one owns it, no one has any property rights to it, so why not just go out to the nearest DNS root server and reprogram every domain you can think of to go directly to your own little IP address?
Well, Vanatu may be able to register harrisonford.vu (or whatever their top-level is), but they cannot register harrisonford.com. That is a United States top-level domain suffix, as decided by ICANN.
If domain names are not any sort of property, specifically Intellectual Property (like trademarks and copyrights), then companies should not be able to sue domain holders as they have for taking their name. Etoys v. Etoy comes immediately to mind.
I strongly agree with the previous posts that Congress should get on the ball, learn something about the technologies they are legislating, and at least be consistent in their law-making. Even if the laws suck, they should at least suck consistently.
For the most part, the US is dragging everyone else along. This condition exists for two reasons. One, the Internet started and has its roots in the United States. Two, the United States (collectively) is the wealthiest consumer on the planet. If another country were unable to do business with the US, it would be unable to do business with nearly one-quarter of the World's consumer cash. That alone is enough to carry the monetary club that forces the hands of other nations to cooperate with the way that our nation says things should be.
It seems to me that the most direct comparison between a domain name and something pre-internet would be a company's name or logo. The name or logo is not a solid object, but is identified with a particular entity which created it. It seems to me that domain names should be considered intellectual property, and be covered by the same laws that govern trademarks and copyrights.
I take exception to the notion that Microsoft has led innovation in the area of systems research. Mr. Pike points to the MS-led innovations of 1990 through 2000.
Okay, fine. I'll accept that MS's technology grew by leaps and bounds from 1990 to 1996, but in the words of Janet Jackson, "What have you done for me lately?".
Windows98 certainly was no great improvement over Windows95, and Windows 2000 (thus far) appears to have only succeeded in compounding the rat's nest nature of NT security and network administration.
On a side note, Microsoft keeps screaming "freedom to innovate", but they haven't had any real innovation since 1996.
If I worked the way Microsoft works, my career would have peaked at age 23 (ready to retire anyway), and would have spent the following years just "riding the wave" to a watery grave.
Or is it just me that can't stand to see people, particularly high-profile people, taken in by M$'s propaganda?
/Security and convenience are mutually exclusive./
I started out with BASIC too -- on a TRS-80. But my oldest, now in 5th grade, got her first sampling of the geek life with HTML, when she decided to do a school project two years ago as a webpage instead of the standard grade-school BS. I know it's not really programming, but it was enough to get her interested. Now she wants to learn how to do the interesting stuff on the back-end like cgi, perl, etc. She has found motivation!
Just a point of clarification: In the great state of Oregon, where I find myself (usually), jury rolls are pulled from DMV registrations, not from voter registrations. They've been doing it this way for two years to increase the jury pool.
This brings up an issue that rears its head every once in a while, particularly with high-profile cases.
If a jury selection is based on finding people who know absolutely nothing about a case, don't watch TV News, listen to radio news, read the newspaper or even surf the 'Net, who does that leave to make decisions regarding the life (or even death in some places) of someone accused of a crime?
Simply, perhaps over-simply, this selection process only leaves the ignorant, the isolated and the uninformed to make these major, onerous decisions.
The HTML code created by bozo #1 was generated by DreamWeaver, right? So this is not a creative work. There is nothing unique about it; nothing to copyright.
This reminds me of the story about the guy who sued his mother for slander after she told him he was overly-litigious.
11:25 AM 4/21/00 Yesterday, in the midst of media frenzy over this bleak "anniversary", I sent out a message to some of my friends with a link to John Katz' essay "The Price of Being Different" in order take advantage of the opportunity I saw to raise some awareness. Then I read the news about this new book and smiled. My story: When I was in junior high, my step-mother freaked out because I was quiet, withdrawn (her perception), always reading tech manuals or tinkering with electronics, dressing in black jeans, black T-shirts, black boots, had a piercing, and listened to punk music. Her "solution" was to ban punk rock, and to buy me clothes that I didn't want to wear. School was even worse. I was easily identified as different from a hundred yards away. I endured verbal and even physical attacks on a regular basis from people whose names I did not know. I learned to fight in self-defense, and got to be very good at it. As I went through junior high and high school, I saw a number of my geeky friends get beaten into submission and conformity. By the time we were 18, they were unrecognizable and indistinguishable from all the others that I graduated with. Now most of them have ordinary, average, dull lives. I stuck it out. I knew who I wanted to be, and I've worked hard to become that person. My junior high story dates back to 1980, when I was 14. The tech manuals were for a TRS-80, the electronics were cb radios that I was trying to fix, the piercing was in my ear (daring back then), and the punk came from Devo, Sex Pistols, Blondie and the like (Yes, Blondie was considered "punk" in 1980). My step-mom was concerned that I was suicidal because of recent media reports about suicidal teens and their prediliction for punk music. In typical media fashion, they were obviously confusing cause and effect, and in typical "mom" fashion, she over-reacted. I made it through my adolescence, and thank the powers-that-be that I will never have to go back to it. But now I have two daughters, age 8 and 10, who are also intelligent, technical, questioning, and feeling social pressures. I worry about them -- that they will lose their individuality. I've already seen my daughter's second-grade teacher raise "concerns" to me that "K" is withdrawn at times, or that she is making friends with boys rather than girls, or whatever. I tell my kids that they are wonderful and perfect the way that they are, and I hope that they have the guts to make it through to adulthood while staying true to themselves. But I still worry. As for myself, when I finally see this book in stores, I plan to buy a copy for every public school and library in my town. Just like the email message I sent out to my friends yesterday, this tome could be used as an opportunity to make some small difference. Our culture's perceptions and fears of geeks go back centuries to stories of wizards, alchemists, and mad scientists. Things haven't changed much. As a group, I think that we should work together for social acceptance, or at least tolerance, so that my kids (and their kids) will not have to go through the same day-to-day trauma that I and thousands of others have endured, or are still trudging through (for you younger folk). I believe in this book! I hope that those of you whose posts contributed directly to it will be able to see the value in it, and get over your personal feelings of "offense" or "betrayal" for what I see as the greater good. Sean Lewis seant@geek.com Portland, Oregon
Slashdot Mirror
Over the past year, I have set up two friends with Linux workstations for home use. What went into their decision-making process? It's really very simple:
Friend: Sean, I need a computer, what should I get?
Me: What do you wantto use it for?
F: Internet, email, writing. Maybe some games, like solitaire or Mah-jongg.
M: OK. I recommend Linux. Take a look at what I have on my system at home. Anything missing that you would want?
F: I need to be able to write. Do you have Word?
M: No, I have StarOffice, which can read and create files across a variety of platforms and formats. It'll do Word and just about anything else you'd want.
F: OK. Cool. Linux is free, isn't it?
M: It's free as in speech, not beer. You can download the software from the Internet, or pay about $30 - $40 for a box set. I recommend the box set. Then I'll install and configure it for you. That's where the free beer comes in.
Then we went on to talk about hardware, and prices, etc. One friend went out and bought about $400 worth of hardware at Frye's. I put it together and gave him his system. My other friend didn't have any money, so I put together a decent-enough system out of spare parts I had lying around, and gave it to her. Both are happy and contented with their PC's. I'm currently working on one for my brother-in-law.
Do you get it? Don't tell people what they want. That's the Microsoft way. Ask them what they want, and recommend the best way to go, as any friend would. Give them a chance to play around on your own system so they get a feel for it. If Linux can fulfill their needs, tell them so. They'll save money and contribute to the Linux community.
I believe in looking at successful models, and emulating them. When I look at Microsoft's success, I see it as being the result of getting their OS onto desktops everywhere. I see their corporate greed as being their eventual downfall. So I try to keep this in mind when advocating for Linux: get the desktops out there in the consumers' hands, and Linux succeeds. As Linux succeeds, so do Linux admins, consultants, and programmers. We're not even at the point of major corporate greed yet, but when that time comes, we will have to be careful *not* to follow the M$ model.
Meatloaf
Simple.
Dumbass. The poli-sci term is "democratic-republic", which means that individuals vote for representatives. Jesus, you're stupid. Is this what our education system is turning out in the World these days?
The Japanese had plenty of warning, and plenty of opportunity to end the war without those cities and lives being lost. They cared more about their cause than their citizenry.
I, as an American, am not exactly proud of our actions that ended World War II, but I did not live during that time (and I'm guessing you didn't either), so I refrain from holding judgement over those who had to make the tough decisions of the times. Yes, we killed many thousands, but how many more thousands would have died had the war continued to carry on as it had for the previous four years?
If you're going to try to learn from History, make sure that you start by LEARNING HISTORY.
First, when I am asked about loyalty to the company, I readily answer, "I will give my employer every single ounce of loyalty that I feel I am getting from it." So I believe that there is definitely a relationship between what you owe the company and what the company as a whole owes you.
Second, and I think in this case more imortant, is this a situation where the company is in a rolling death-spiral? Every passenger gripping their seat cushions, braced for impact? A situation where anyone who doesn't bail out is going to find him/herself smashed to bits on the ground below? If that is the case, then you must grab for the parachute and bail out. Your coworkers will understand, and they will recover, and they are probably searching frantically for their own parachutes too. If this company is truly doomed, then by staying you are only postponing the inevitable.
On another note, consider the precariousness of any company whose continued existence relies on the presence of one person. If you get hit by a bus tomorrow (god forbid), does that mean that the company would go under? Again, if this is the case, the ship is not stable enough to stay airborn. You and all the other passengers must rush for the emergency exits now!
On the other hand, if this company has true potential, and will probably succeed in the long run, reaping great rewards for those who lumbered through the hard times, then you should stay and keep it on course.
As always, just my two-cents.
TTFN!
Sean
If said technology is still usable, they will give it, along with training, to a needy individual, in the hopes that this person will be able to use this training to start a career, and get a better life for him/herself.
If the technology you donate has outlived its usefulness, FreeGeek will pick it apart and recycle the basic components or elements. All of this is free of charge, but if you are giving them recyclables, they will ask for a small cash donation (not required).
But of course, Oregon is a pretty green state. Gore barely defeated Ralph Nader for the presidency here, 46% to 6%.
I'm assuming there are other programs like this around the country, but I don't know. What's your city doing?
seven, not six
If I were to create a new sneaker tread design that would be patentable, this would not allow my employer to patent the entire sneaker and say that I invented it.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think you need one.
Can this federal judge really be this stupid?
Well, Vanatu may be able to register harrisonford.vu (or whatever their top-level is), but they cannot register harrisonford.com. That is a United States top-level domain suffix, as decided by ICANN.
I strongly agree with the previous posts that Congress should get on the ball, learn something about the technologies they are legislating, and at least be consistent in their law-making. Even if the laws suck, they should at least suck consistently.
Right or wrong, that's just the way it is.
It seems to me that the most direct comparison between a domain name and something pre-internet would be a company's name or logo. The name or logo is not a solid object, but is identified with a particular entity which created it. It seems to me that domain names should be considered intellectual property, and be covered by the same laws that govern trademarks and copyrights.
Be careful ... you don't want to get sued for copyright infringement!
I take exception to the notion that Microsoft has led innovation in the area of systems research. Mr. Pike points to the MS-led innovations of 1990 through 2000.
Okay, fine. I'll accept that MS's technology grew by leaps and bounds from 1990 to 1996, but in the words of Janet Jackson, "What have you done for me lately?".
Windows98 certainly was no great improvement over Windows95, and Windows 2000 (thus far) appears to have only succeeded in compounding the rat's nest nature of NT security and network administration.
On a side note, Microsoft keeps screaming "freedom to innovate", but they haven't had any real innovation since 1996.
If I worked the way Microsoft works, my career would have peaked at age 23 (ready to retire anyway), and would have spent the following years just "riding the wave" to a watery grave.
Or is it just me that can't stand to see people, particularly high-profile people, taken in by M$'s propaganda?
/Security and convenience are mutually exclusive./
I started out with BASIC too -- on a TRS-80. But my oldest, now in 5th grade, got her first sampling of the geek life with HTML, when she decided to do a school project two years ago as a webpage instead of the standard grade-school BS. I know it's not really programming, but it was enough to get her interested. Now she wants to learn how to do the interesting stuff on the back-end like cgi, perl, etc. She has found motivation!
Just a point of clarification: In the great state of Oregon, where I find myself (usually), jury rolls are pulled from DMV registrations, not from voter registrations. They've been doing it this way for two years to increase the jury pool.
If a jury selection is based on finding people who know absolutely nothing about a case, don't watch TV News, listen to radio news, read the newspaper or even surf the 'Net, who does that leave to make decisions regarding the life (or even death in some places) of someone accused of a crime?
Simply, perhaps over-simply, this selection process only leaves the ignorant, the isolated and the uninformed to make these major, onerous decisions.
What kind of justice is that?
This reminds me of the story about the guy who sued his mother for slander after she told him he was overly-litigious.
It's just that frivolous.
11:25 AM 4/21/00 Yesterday, in the midst of media frenzy over this bleak "anniversary", I sent out a message to some of my friends with a link to John Katz' essay "The Price of Being Different" in order take advantage of the opportunity I saw to raise some awareness. Then I read the news about this new book and smiled. My story: When I was in junior high, my step-mother freaked out because I was quiet, withdrawn (her perception), always reading tech manuals or tinkering with electronics, dressing in black jeans, black T-shirts, black boots, had a piercing, and listened to punk music. Her "solution" was to ban punk rock, and to buy me clothes that I didn't want to wear. School was even worse. I was easily identified as different from a hundred yards away. I endured verbal and even physical attacks on a regular basis from people whose names I did not know. I learned to fight in self-defense, and got to be very good at it. As I went through junior high and high school, I saw a number of my geeky friends get beaten into submission and conformity. By the time we were 18, they were unrecognizable and indistinguishable from all the others that I graduated with. Now most of them have ordinary, average, dull lives. I stuck it out. I knew who I wanted to be, and I've worked hard to become that person. My junior high story dates back to 1980, when I was 14. The tech manuals were for a TRS-80, the electronics were cb radios that I was trying to fix, the piercing was in my ear (daring back then), and the punk came from Devo, Sex Pistols, Blondie and the like (Yes, Blondie was considered "punk" in 1980). My step-mom was concerned that I was suicidal because of recent media reports about suicidal teens and their prediliction for punk music. In typical media fashion, they were obviously confusing cause and effect, and in typical "mom" fashion, she over-reacted. I made it through my adolescence, and thank the powers-that-be that I will never have to go back to it. But now I have two daughters, age 8 and 10, who are also intelligent, technical, questioning, and feeling social pressures. I worry about them -- that they will lose their individuality. I've already seen my daughter's second-grade teacher raise "concerns" to me that "K" is withdrawn at times, or that she is making friends with boys rather than girls, or whatever. I tell my kids that they are wonderful and perfect the way that they are, and I hope that they have the guts to make it through to adulthood while staying true to themselves. But I still worry. As for myself, when I finally see this book in stores, I plan to buy a copy for every public school and library in my town. Just like the email message I sent out to my friends yesterday, this tome could be used as an opportunity to make some small difference. Our culture's perceptions and fears of geeks go back centuries to stories of wizards, alchemists, and mad scientists. Things haven't changed much. As a group, I think that we should work together for social acceptance, or at least tolerance, so that my kids (and their kids) will not have to go through the same day-to-day trauma that I and thousands of others have endured, or are still trudging through (for you younger folk). I believe in this book! I hope that those of you whose posts contributed directly to it will be able to see the value in it, and get over your personal feelings of "offense" or "betrayal" for what I see as the greater good. Sean Lewis seant@geek.com Portland, Oregon