There's nothing wrong with proprietary software as long as it is declared a such and we understand free software is better.
Although I've been running Kubuntu for over 10 years now and Linux (RH) since the late nineties I've never had a reason to visit this Ubuntu store, Muon (acces to the repositories) has most I want.
Quote from TFA:
After clicking on "More info" for some of the ones I don't know, I see "License: Unknown" and "Updates: Unknown". Basically, I am given the option to install software for which I have no idea what the license is.
Now that is wrong by any Linux and FS standard.
Another quote from TFA:
When clicking on "Books and magazines", there is a long list that is confused by the fact that 1) Some of the titles are not in English
Duuuhhhh, only a minority of people speak English, yes it is since the end of WWII the De Facto Lingua Franca of this world but why the hell would we translate everything in English?
Yes there are reasons to promote Free Software and this shop is clearly not doing it's part as seen from the Free Software movement.
But hey, it's run by a commercial entity, what else do you expect?
B.t.w, I'm more upset about the way Ubuntu (Shuttleworth) has recently been treating Jonathan Ridell and by proxy Kubuntu and KDE. http://jriddell.org/2015/05/26...
An interesting question, it's not likely by the number of kilometres of cable but possibly more by the number of switches.
A recent observation, Skype calls over 10 time zones and via a VPN to home were (a lot) better than without the VPN.
And yet that VPN connection must have been going over similar cables and interchanges.
As a European at hart and born I am sorry to say you are wrong.
But there is some truth, European law is usually more in favour of the individual than what we see in the USofA and the UK.
Very few governments would be able to get away with spying programs like it is happening in the Anglo-American circus.
One difference is their legal system was not affected by the French revolution.
And both the the Brits and Americans believe that because they live behind a moat they are somewhat special and this needs additional protection.
Yes this is medieval thinking.
For most continental Europeans this notion of neutrality was destroyed first by Napoleon and later by the likes of Stalin and Hitler.
They should make the source available via an ftp server, much cheaper than this fancy Brussels center and then you get the 'many eyes' advantage too.
B.t.w, in part of Brussels it's likely called a 'centre'.
It's the simple conversions between length, area, volume and weight that makes the Metric system so nice.
Take a 10 by 2.5 meter tank that's 1m80 deep and it's trivial to calculate what the weight of the water content is.
45 ton.
Once you start using it metric (and SI) are so easy.
1 x 1 x 1 meter is a cubic meter, fill it with water and it weighs 1000 Kg. or 1 ton.
The SG of oil is about 0.8 so a cubic meter of oil weighs 800 Kg.
A 250 ml bottle (quarter liter) contains 250 grams or a quarter Kilo water.
A 10 meter column of water gives a pressure of 1 Kg/cm2, at 1 Km. depth water will give you 100 Kg/cm2
Etc, etc, etc.
Compare this to a bushel of wheat that's in weight incomparable to a bushel of corn or soy beans...
Hmm, over here in The Netherlands a lot of the lumber used (and still does) came from North America, most of our constructions (like kitchens) are based on multiples of 60 cm.
Sheet stuff is sold in multiples of 30 cm, same for lengths.
A 2x4" is sold as 44x94 mm. because that is the actual size.
Heh, what I really l hope for in the long run is that us Europeans start talking about a sovereign European nation.
We should all keep our regional differences and be proud of them but start to feel like what we are, members of the great European nation.
Be proud of what we share, cherish what makes us unique.
I look across that ocean and like what I see.
At least, I hope we aren't going with brain dead American schemes like 'Companies are Persons':).
With nations as with companies, larger scale is often synonymous with greater efficiency and thus savings.
Yes there are policies that are best tackled on a local or regional level but things like fiscal and safety legislation are together with defence best done on a EU-wide scale.
It's that old 'Level Playing Field' that will enable greater prosperity for all without hurting the few.
Personally I've always supported the idea of a 'Europe of Regions'.
Regions are typically based on simple common interests while nations share a more broader interests.
I am fully in favour of cooperation on a supra-national scale but also see that certain regions have more in common than the nations they belong to.
I don't think it takes much imagination to see Scottish culture has more in common with the Danes, Norwegians and some Dutch than with London and Southern England.
Such cooperation is easily achieved with open borders and similar administration and taxation.
The present Tory government is against such, partially under the influence of UKIP.
Similar is happening in The Netherlands, because the press is largely lethargic on EU matters and like the infamous British tabloids more and more run on ridiculous headlines, we now have a significant anti-EU party that pulls on the non-left wing voters.
Cameron sees this and has announced to next week visit (among others) The Hague, no doubt in search of support of his efforts to dismantle social and consumer based EU legislation.
I think we agree.
There is good reason for a sovereign state to run it's own bank, not to farm it out to some commercial enterprise.
My original post was badly worded, I am against too much privatisation of essential services to the nation and population.
Exactly.
A Greece without Euro will have to pay for imports in Euro or Dollar and their exports need to be cheap enough to find a market.
Their internal market is not directly affected by the currency in place but as there will be less (foreign) currency all together wages need to drop significantly and yet imported goods need to be paid.
We all know who is willing to loan to bad debtors and how they do it, Greece will be at the mercy of loan sharks and extreme interest rates.
I feel really sorry for many Greek, the ones I don't feel sorry for have off-shored their money years ago.
But hey, the sun will still shine and my holidays there will be cheaper and Tsipouro/Tsikoudia a bargain...
Look here, every single Euro country has to play by the same rules, the Greek are no exception.
There is no excuse what so ever to claim the Greek are suffering this value on expensive exports more than they are benefiting from it through cheap imports, plus currency has no effect on the Greek internal market.
What Germany did different is after their exceptionally expensive reunification they kept their salaries low and thus made export competitive.
Get your income and spending aligned and you're good, it's got nothing to do with the currency.
Indeed, the Greeks should have made ends meet instead of continuing to increase the deficit.
Please realise they were paying a very low interest on this Euro depth, had it been in Drachmen it would have been much more expensive.
They took this low interest as an excuse to borrow more than their economy could support.
Devaluating a country out of depth is a trick Souther European countries used a lot but it never brought them the prosperity NW European countries gained by taking the pain of a depression and saving up for the future.
The renewed claim for German war reparations is stale, the Germans (and Americans for them) repaid long ago, the Greek economic woes are much more recent and to a good extend due to their own mismanagement.
Indeed TTIP is a horrible idea and on the EU side the UK is one significant force that tries to push it through.
Civil servants have no business in politics, that's the same for government ministers, the mandate of the voter is with their representatives in parliament and they control both the government and the civil servants they employ.
The fact the UK forms it's government from members of parliament is not the rule everywhere, typically the more suitable technocrats are found outside politics.
You are to an extend correct.
At the same time that bank is not involved in the daily business of our government, that's since a few years in the hands of RBS.
So what?
Any developed company or nation sets standards.
By the sound of it you had a hard time meeting a particular standard, that's most certainly not a reason to go without standards!
Slashdot Mirror
Is not guaranteed from private organizations.
In the Free World but not in the USofA.
Around my ways we even have Freedom of Information!
Although I've been running Kubuntu for over 10 years now and Linux (RH) since the late nineties I've never had a reason to visit this Ubuntu store, Muon (acces to the repositories) has most I want.
Quote from TFA:
After clicking on "More info" for some of the ones I don't know, I see "License: Unknown" and "Updates: Unknown". Basically, I am given the option to install software for which I have no idea what the license is.
Now that is wrong by any Linux and FS standard.
Another quote from TFA:
When clicking on "Books and magazines", there is a long list that is confused by the fact that 1) Some of the titles are not in English
Duuuhhhh, only a minority of people speak English, yes it is since the end of WWII the De Facto Lingua Franca of this world but why the hell would we translate everything in English?
Yes there are reasons to promote Free Software and this shop is clearly not doing it's part as seen from the Free Software movement.
But hey, it's run by a commercial entity, what else do you expect?
B.t.w, I'm more upset about the way Ubuntu (Shuttleworth) has recently been treating Jonathan Ridell and by proxy Kubuntu and KDE.
http://jriddell.org/2015/05/26...
An interesting question, it's not likely by the number of kilometres of cable but possibly more by the number of switches.
A recent observation, Skype calls over 10 time zones and via a VPN to home were (a lot) better than without the VPN.
And yet that VPN connection must have been going over similar cables and interchanges.
As a European at hart and born I am sorry to say you are wrong.
But there is some truth, European law is usually more in favour of the individual than what we see in the USofA and the UK.
Very few governments would be able to get away with spying programs like it is happening in the Anglo-American circus.
One difference is their legal system was not affected by the French revolution.
And both the the Brits and Americans believe that because they live behind a moat they are somewhat special and this needs additional protection.
Yes this is medieval thinking.
For most continental Europeans this notion of neutrality was destroyed first by Napoleon and later by the likes of Stalin and Hitler.
OH SHUT UP, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
The UK is part of Europe
Sure, and some of them hate it.
and internet is CENSORED over there. Everything you do online is logged.
That's in their genes, there's a reason 1984 and Bletchley Park are placed in England and James Bond is British.
In France ENCRYPTION IS ILLEGAL, to the point that there is a special version of Windows there that disables encryption.
Oh really? :)
Hint, you are delusional.
Why do Europeans have a tendency of making fools of themselves trying to look superior to the USA? (And no, i'm neither north american nor european)
It looks like you don't need to be either to be a fool...
Because it is fine for casual talk.
Just don't use it for sensitive political, business and lawyer subjects.
Sure, but then Linux with all it's variations is all but a monopoly.
They should make the source available via an ftp server, much cheaper than this fancy Brussels center and then you get the 'many eyes' advantage too.
B.t.w, in part of Brussels it's likely called a 'centre'.
Because it is in the non-metric systems so illogic.
In a metric culture all, even the girls, know this 1 Kg per liter or 1 ton per m3 thing.
You won the price :)
It's the simple conversions between length, area, volume and weight that makes the Metric system so nice.
Take a 10 by 2.5 meter tank that's 1m80 deep and it's trivial to calculate what the weight of the water content is.
45 ton.
Once you start using it metric (and SI) are so easy.
1 x 1 x 1 meter is a cubic meter, fill it with water and it weighs 1000 Kg. or 1 ton.
The SG of oil is about 0.8 so a cubic meter of oil weighs 800 Kg.
A 250 ml bottle (quarter liter) contains 250 grams or a quarter Kilo water.
A 10 meter column of water gives a pressure of 1 Kg/cm2, at 1 Km. depth water will give you 100 Kg/cm2
Etc, etc, etc.
Compare this to a bushel of wheat that's in weight incomparable to a bushel of corn or soy beans...
Sheet stuff is sold in multiples of 30 cm, same for lengths.
A 2x4" is sold as 44x94 mm. because that is the actual size.
I've never seen this conversion as problematic.
This is not a EU problem.
Our contract law makes it very clear that contracts can only be changed when both parties agree.
See, that's why we call them contracts
Heh, what I really l hope for in the long run is that us Europeans start talking about a sovereign European nation.
We should all keep our regional differences and be proud of them but start to feel like what we are, members of the great European nation.
Be proud of what we share, cherish what makes us unique.
I look across that ocean and like what I see. :).
At least, I hope we aren't going with brain dead American schemes like 'Companies are Persons'
With nations as with companies, larger scale is often synonymous with greater efficiency and thus savings.
Yes there are policies that are best tackled on a local or regional level but things like fiscal and safety legislation are together with defence best done on a EU-wide scale.
It's that old 'Level Playing Field' that will enable greater prosperity for all without hurting the few.
Personally I've always supported the idea of a 'Europe of Regions'.
Regions are typically based on simple common interests while nations share a more broader interests.
I am fully in favour of cooperation on a supra-national scale but also see that certain regions have more in common than the nations they belong to.
I don't think it takes much imagination to see Scottish culture has more in common with the Danes, Norwegians and some Dutch than with London and Southern England.
Such cooperation is easily achieved with open borders and similar administration and taxation. The present Tory government is against such, partially under the influence of UKIP.
Similar is happening in The Netherlands, because the press is largely lethargic on EU matters and like the infamous British tabloids more and more run on ridiculous headlines, we now have a significant anti-EU party that pulls on the non-left wing voters.
Cameron sees this and has announced to next week visit (among others) The Hague, no doubt in search of support of his efforts to dismantle social and consumer based EU legislation.
I think he'd better go to Hungary.
I think we agree.
There is good reason for a sovereign state to run it's own bank, not to farm it out to some commercial enterprise.
My original post was badly worded, I am against too much privatisation of essential services to the nation and population.
Exactly.
A Greece without Euro will have to pay for imports in Euro or Dollar and their exports need to be cheap enough to find a market.
Their internal market is not directly affected by the currency in place but as there will be less (foreign) currency all together wages need to drop significantly and yet imported goods need to be paid.
We all know who is willing to loan to bad debtors and how they do it, Greece will be at the mercy of loan sharks and extreme interest rates.
I feel really sorry for many Greek, the ones I don't feel sorry for have off-shored their money years ago.
But hey, the sun will still shine and my holidays there will be cheaper and Tsipouro/Tsikoudia a bargain...
Look here, every single Euro country has to play by the same rules, the Greek are no exception.
There is no excuse what so ever to claim the Greek are suffering this value on expensive exports more than they are benefiting from it through cheap imports, plus currency has no effect on the Greek internal market.
What Germany did different is after their exceptionally expensive reunification they kept their salaries low and thus made export competitive.
Get your income and spending aligned and you're good, it's got nothing to do with the currency.
Very well put.
A weak currency is only a temporary relief, not a solution.
Indeed, the Greeks should have made ends meet instead of continuing to increase the deficit.
Please realise they were paying a very low interest on this Euro depth, had it been in Drachmen it would have been much more expensive.
They took this low interest as an excuse to borrow more than their economy could support.
Devaluating a country out of depth is a trick Souther European countries used a lot but it never brought them the prosperity NW European countries gained by taking the pain of a depression and saving up for the future.
The renewed claim for German war reparations is stale, the Germans (and Americans for them) repaid long ago, the Greek economic woes are much more recent and to a good extend due to their own mismanagement.
Indeed TTIP is a horrible idea and on the EU side the UK is one significant force that tries to push it through.
Civil servants have no business in politics, that's the same for government ministers, the mandate of the voter is with their representatives in parliament and they control both the government and the civil servants they employ.
The fact the UK forms it's government from members of parliament is not the rule everywhere, typically the more suitable technocrats are found outside politics.
You are to an extend correct.
At the same time that bank is not involved in the daily business of our government, that's since a few years in the hands of RBS.
So what?
Any developed company or nation sets standards.
By the sound of it you had a hard time meeting a particular standard, that's most certainly not a reason to go without standards!