Like everywhere, there are bussinesses with windows95, and windows98 first eddition, some of them are encouraged to get new machines because of this. I will probably run my old win98SE license on vmware when I need to declare my taxes (next year we will have a new taxes system that requires that). The issue is that developers choose to use.NET, and release a runtime, instead of at least providing a web app that doesn't force anyone to buy any software. What I intended to show is that decisions to use proprietary software do in fact change other things in society, such as software upgrade cycles, which software is used for upgrades. If bussinesses didn't need windows for compatibility with government, some, or a lot of them wouldn't need to spend that money.
In fact, lots of people here use unauthorized copies of Windows, specially at home, but they make an ecosystem that forces bussinesses to actually buy ms licenses for compatibility, and not functionality.
I'm a big fan of FOSS in general but concerns about free code, open standards and the like are first world luxuries that really aren't important compared to getting these people better lives. If I could take a whole african country out of poverty in return for shutting down the copyleft lliscenses all together I would do it despite how much it would suck for me.
You don't sound very bright with that reasoning. Copyright issues do harm actual people. I live in Uruguay, and while now the economy is improving, we had a big recession, so we can't afford to waste money.
Our government agencies use Microsoft software almost exclusively for their desktops, and a lot for development. They have great lock-in, and it's very difficult to even propose a change. The DGI (our version of the IRS) requires the use of a.NET app for bussiness taxes declaration. That means that bussinesses need to buy at least one windows license.
Proprietary software has consequences down the line, it's not just a thing of abstract freedom. The freedom we could have with free software
That is an added tax on the people themselves, and that's millions of dollars that leave the country, instead of being invested here. We are a third world country, although probably near the top of that heap. Proprietary software is one of the many anchors that keeps us down. If we could make all the software free, we could be spending licenses money in our own capable software people, and the rest, in social programs, that are still very lacking here.
BSD is the base that was copied to form much of the software that the FSF has. GNU stands for "Gnu's not Unix!" which is recursive, and an "inside joke."
Basically the way it was described to me best was that Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) emulates and copies Unix, and BSD.
Think about it this way - car manufacturers often copy other models and features. Some are better, some are worse. When you say Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) , you obviously mean "GNU". Just wanted to clarify that, you missed it by so little that I wanted to make it clear for casual readers that don't understand the difference between GNU and Linux . The whole idea of GNU was really to copy Unix, and make it free, you are correct.
BSD has other (different, not better, not worse) freedoms than the GPL (which is associated most with Linux). There is the freedom to go proprietary, which many exercise. There is the freedom to interface much proprietary software with it. The way I see it, BSD is about giving the most reasonable freedom possible to the developer. A developer is free to do mostly whatever he wants, with BSD.
With the GPL, the freedom they are taking care of is that of the users.
The BSD lets the developer decide which freedoms he wants to transfer. The GPL doesn't, it takes that freedom away from developers, and "gives it" to the users.
Microsoft damned if it does and damned if it doesn't on/.?Unpossible. Again, they are. The issue is that they are monopolists. It's very difficult to act as a monopoly and not be wrong. It's sort of designed that way.
Strictly speaking, no it has not. While the end result may be similar, TFA concerns the use of a piezo-acoustic system to detect a "keypress"; the URL you provided describes a product which relies upon an optical system.Stricly speaking, the guy was answering a post about typing on a full-size keyboard on Starbucks tables. That could be done with the laser keyboard, more than 5 yearss ago at the prototype level, and some time later as a commercial product.
It was originally used for people who published other guys books, effectively taking credit away from the authors (credit can be taken away from you, so someone can steal it). That is a very loose comparison, but at least it was about robbing someone.
From a long time, they are using it to talk about people who copy cpyrighted stuff unauthorizedly. Copies don't even take something away fromt he creator, so it's an even more flawed comparison.
Anyhow, in the 21th century, or the 18th century, it's a marketing issue, the copier is compared to an uncomparably worse group, so it gets stained by their characteristics, and the distributor is seen as a victim, like a pirate victim.
Remember that these are the people who compare you to a pirate (a guy who attacks ships, robs, kills, rapes) when you share your CDs. Yet most people are not surprised, and even use the term. That's because their (I mean content distributors) marketing worked, and has cought on.
Why shouldn't people say lies about them, in exchange? maybe they will catch on, and people will start calling them "terrorists".
It's not about being right or wrong, it's about having the best marketing campaign.
The guy proposed that for 1/20th the MS amount, 1 million dollars a month, they would be able to hire capable people. Do you honestly think that with that kind of money, you couldn't get continued support for the 2.0 kernel? There are kernel hackers that would accept that kind of job for 300 000 dollars a year. For 3 people, that's enough to support the 2.0 kernel for yourself. Still 1/20th the MS offer.
And why should nation states and courts get involved in making other products work with Microsoft's?
Microsoft's not a monopoly: you're perfectly free to create your own standard (as the OO crowd is trying to do). Surely you'll admit that it's not Microsoft's fault that such standards aren't catching on?
_I_ won't admit that!! That is the whole issue. Microsoft uses their OS dominance to sell OO. They persuade computer makers to distribute _only_ their products through volume deals.
Even if you somehow think they are not a monopoly in lots of areas, you can't fail to accept that they use their marketshare to force others out of their turf.
That, combined witht he fact that they don't help with interoperability, is the main cause that other products don't use their standards, and free standards aren't "catching on".
Personally I don't use OO because I can't swap files with people with whom I co-author scientific articles. MS Office and Open Office equations STILL don't work right (and before you LaTeX fanatics step in, neither of us speak that language).
Since I get my MS Office for free, why should I even consider OO?
If you actually do any serious work, of course you should consider LaTeX, or at least lex. You pay the cost of learning LaTeX in the first paper you write.
About the OO equation editor... I don't know how _you_ use it, but no effort interoperability is not the only issue. OpenOffice is free for everyone, not just for you, but the most important part is that it's much easier!!
When getting my degree, I could convert everybody in my math groups to using OpenOffice, because I showed them the speed improvement they could get at typing formulas.
In the MS equation editor, I found myself trying to draw the formulas, while the oo math editor lets you do that, but also shows you how to type them, in a very easy editor that uses very familiar abbreviations. Its no LaTeX, but it's way better than the MS editor for beginers that need to type more than a couple equations.
Aside from that, if you are doing any serious collaboration, CVS with OpenOffice is very easy, for an XML file. With MSOffice you need to use more cumbersome and nonstandard tools, even installing additional software.
What I say is about the winwords I have used, I couldn't try the equation editor from WinWord 2002, the version I have in this machine, because it didn't appear in the menus, and afer reading the help, it told me something about getting the installation CD and all, and it was too much for me, but from what I had tried before, the math editor from OpenOffice is way better for actual use than the MS one.
Not exactly. I understand why HBO is bundled. I don't even mind that they do, I don't buy it if I don't like it, and that's it. I just don't like that being called free market. It only works because of copyright, that is an artificial regulation on distribution.
You can't call something a free market when the distribution of stuff is restricted.
Music, no matter who produces it, is not the same thing as oranges. The owner of copyrighted stuff is usually public domain, and what the original producers get is a monopoly on distribution.
If you want to watch a Star Wars film, there is no way you can get it from a provider that hasn't licensed it from Lucas. In a free market, you would be able to get your Star Wars films, from different providers. At least, it would not be forbidden to me, to make another Star Wars film, exactly the same as the original.
With physical stuff, that doesn't happen. If you sell oranges, and I don't like your face, I can buy them from the guy next door, who isn't regulated against producing oranges which taste exactly the same. Of course it could be difficult, but there's no regulation against it. Patents might be a problem, but they last less years, and you don't necesarily need to infringe on patents to get a functionally equal product. (Aside from that, patents have other practical problems, but not too aparent on physical stuff)
With copyright, this is not possible, so free market rules do not apply. When you deal with comeone who sells content, you are dealing with a monopolist, so it's their way or the highway.
Again, I agree that it's not much of a practical problem right now. But the main issue, it that it's not a free market.
The only problem for me is that laws get changed, to keep a fundamentally flawed system, and that actually has consequences on people other than entertainment. Remember than books also get lumped in with entertainment. People have gone to jail because of new and improved stupid "IP" laws. I think it's more serious than it seems.
"And you can't say that nobody is forcing you. Of course, I can choose not to pay for Cinemax, but then I wouldn't be able to use HBO, that I want. If this was a free market, I wouldn't be forced to make that choice."
Bull fucking shit.
You think that entertainment is being FORCED on you???
No. I said that the choice of buy-what-I-want-or-get-nothing was forced on me. In a free market, there would be a possibility for more suppliers of the stuff I wanted. As it is, copyrights don't allow for a free market. They are exactly the opposite. Copyright is not an inherent right of the author. The whole idea is to give them something to motivate them to do something for everybody else. It's an arrangement between governments and authors, but the arrangement seems to be getting out of proportion, and the public is getting screwed. I think the whole arrangement could use a reevaluation, especially taking into account that the public is supposed to be the one to decide what is best for them.
I don't love free markets themselves, but I resent when people say there is a free market, and there is not.
That's no free market. Copyright is a "temporary" monopoly. Free market rules do not apply. They are not forcing you to play, but they have as a common rule, the custom of forcing you to pay for content you do not desire to use, when you want some particular content for which they are the sole suppliers.
Were there a free market, you would be able to buy just the stuff you want, and nothing else, even if it was expensive.
I'm thinking pop albums where you get 10 filler songs and pay for 12 to listen to 2, cable subscriptions where you pay for 80 channels to watch HBO, stuff like that.
Free market doesn't apply. And you can't say that nobody is forcing you. Of course, I can choose not to pay for Cinemax, but then I wouldn't be able to use HBO, that I want. If this was a free market, I wouldn't be forced to make that choice.
Of course, I have heard that, I understand why imperial measures exist, because some of the most basic math is easier with those measures.
The issue is that metric is much easier for more-than-basic math when it involves changing magnitudes and stuff. And right now, most people are not carpenters, so the advantages of easy divide-by-3 are lost. For wood, we use milimeters for thickness and meters or cm for length and width (inches are used in some places as a measure of wood thickness, and for some foreign machines nuts and bolts, that has to do with foreign influence). The good thing is that we don't have trouble using meters, cm or mm, because it's dumb easy to convert among them.
My problem with imperial measures is that it's difficult to scale up stuff, because there's algebra involved in converting from inches to feet, to yards. Metric might be tougher on carpenters, but it's easier on engineers.
Base 10 is much easier than base 12. I would understand a base 2 system. We have one measure for distance. The meter. km, cm, mm, micrometers are just a way to not use the zeroes. The unit is the same. You have lots of different ways to measure stuff. I don't know how you can tell right away which is longer, two and a half feet, or 27 inches. 29 ounces or two pounds. Celsius and Farenheit is not that much of a problem, aside fromt he fact that it makes more sense to use water than CO2 as the base of an imperfect system, but it makes more sense to have a scale that is based on ten, and has some coherence.
You have to ship back enough materials to create a sizable increase in the Earth's diameter. (Basically, buring the current surface and building on top.) That's not only impractical, it's pointless.
As he said, personal computers are very important for the world as a whole. The policies of MS, and their way of doing bussiness has an effect everywhere. Although MS is not the cause of all the bad stuff that is happiening around, they have some responsibilities, here and there, including developing countries. They use some techniques I don't approve to convince my government to give them money, and I think that money has better places to be spent. The same thing is happening in Africa, for example.
The guy gives back some money, that is right, and he even gives in a sensible way. But the net gain for everybody, because of the existence of MS is not that clear.
Plus, charity is not that great, and it just doesn't work very well. Charity alone is not something to praise a guy for. Good ethics, and an overall good effect on the community, that would earn my respect. Giving something back is sometimes not enough.
And joke theory - for example, "If it takes 3 minutes to cook 1 3-minute egg, how many minutes does it take to cook 3 3-minute eggs?" If you can't see the direct relationship between this question and scheduling several activities that involve waiting on a device or service in parallel, you're in the wrong field.
I have heard that this joke works when you are studing for obstetrician, too. And for eugenetics, too.
I think you are making the argument for a fictional user who knows nothing about computers, but is able to successfully install windows software, and administer his windows machine, but somehow can't administer a GNU/Linux machine, and that user just doesn't exist.
I was pointing out that the OP was talking about a user who knew nothing about computers, BUT was proficient administering Windows. That was becuase he was talking about the kind of user to describe, and then complained about Ubuntu administration being hard. That would only matter to someone who actually did administer their machine, not a regular user.
No one sells that kind of machine. Computers at the moment are hard to administer, and not that reliable. What she wants doesn't exist.
Assuming she wouldn't know how to administer her machine...
She can buy an XP machine, and pay someone to administer and secure it. Ocassional "doesn't work" incidents. Not a bad learning curve for a complete newbie. Easy for an experienced Windows user.
She could get a machine with Ubuntu, from very few providers, and pay someone to administer. Less "doesn't work" incidents. A good learning curve for a complete newbie. Not bad for an experienced Windows user.
My original point was different. Given a high-value proprietary software package from 1985 with the publishing company long gone and not providing support and a open-source package with the same circumstances, where do you think backward compatibility matters more? One can be tweaked/rewritten to run on newer platforms without completely reinventing the wheel. The other one cannot.
That's a political problem, for me because I care aboute free software. Free OSs could be able to support that kind of stuff. I don't think they should, though. If you have a software package from 1985, and are now having trouble with support, maybe your TCO study at the time was not that bright. The solution for that kind of problem is: if you can, virtualize the hardware, or get a beter solution, or pay through the nose to the 5 guys who are willing to support you. Then, learn your lesson, and buy/use free software, free software can't die that death.
Have you tried Ubuntu? What software does your mom need to install?
My girlfriend uses Dapper and is happy with it. My parents use XP, with firefox and thunderbird. They use msword to create their own content. They had openoffice, and didn't realize the difference (their tech support guy installed his msoffice copy sometime without their asking for it, and I don't mess with their machine, other than firefox and thunderbird). If I wanted to migrate them, they probably wouldn't notice.
I believe most home users wouldn't have a problem using ubuntu. Most of them have someone to install and configure their XP machines, they need someone to do the same for Ubuntu.
I don't understand the people that say that installing and configuring linux is difficult for home users, when those are not task for home users. The home user uses what is available. What is available with Ubuntu + Automatix is good enough for the home user, they don't need anything else.
When people come to my house, they see my gnome desktop, and don't perceive any difference with their XP computer, they can use it with no problems at all. Opening a.DOC, exploring with nautilus, importing pictures from the digital cam, synchronizing the cellphone contacts, web browsing, all are tasks that don't need any expertise in Ubuntu. Most non tech-savvy people who use my machine don't even notice it's a non familiar system.
I think you are making the argument for a fictional user who knows nothing about computers, but is able to successfully install windows software, and administer his windows machine, but somehow can't administer a GNU/Linux machine, and that user just doesn't exist.
Somethimes I do, what's the problem? There is a difference between programs and data. E-mail is data, and data can't harm my system, unless I let it explicitly. Webpages are data, so clicking on an http:/// link will not do any strange thing.
I trust my email client not to do anything funny with spam, other than sending it to the spam can when it recognizes it. And I trust my webbrowser to sandbox any dynamic content. Am I wrong on my expectations?
Slashdot Mirror
Like everywhere, there are bussinesses with windows95, and windows98 first eddition, some of them are encouraged to get new machines because of this. .NET, and release a runtime, instead of at least providing a web app that doesn't force anyone to buy any software.
I will probably run my old win98SE license on vmware when I need to declare my taxes (next year we will have a new taxes system that requires that).
The issue is that developers choose to use
What I intended to show is that decisions to use proprietary software do in fact change other things in society, such as software upgrade cycles, which software is used for upgrades. If bussinesses didn't need windows for compatibility with government, some, or a lot of them wouldn't need to spend that money.
In fact, lots of people here use unauthorized copies of Windows, specially at home, but they make an ecosystem that forces bussinesses to actually buy ms licenses for compatibility, and not functionality.
I'm a big fan of FOSS in general but concerns about free code, open standards and the like are first world luxuries that really aren't important compared to getting these people better lives. If I could take a whole african country out of poverty in return for shutting down the copyleft lliscenses all together I would do it despite how much it would suck for me.
You don't sound very bright with that reasoning.
Copyright issues do harm actual people.
I live in Uruguay, and while now the economy is improving, we had a big recession, so we can't afford to waste money.
Our government agencies use Microsoft software almost exclusively for their desktops, and a lot for development. They have great lock-in, and it's very difficult to even propose a change.
The DGI (our version of the IRS) requires the use of a
Proprietary software has consequences down the line, it's not just a thing of abstract freedom. The freedom we could have with free software
That is an added tax on the people themselves, and that's millions of dollars that leave the country, instead of being invested here.
We are a third world country, although probably near the top of that heap. Proprietary software is one of the many anchors that keeps us down. If we could make all the software free, we could be spending licenses money in our own capable software people, and the rest, in social programs, that are still very lacking here.
OMG bunny rabbits!!! SOOOOO CUUTE
Basically the way it was described to me best was that Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) emulates and copies Unix, and BSD.
Think about it this way - car manufacturers often copy other models and features. Some are better, some are worse. When you say Linux (not the kernel but the userspace more than anything) , you obviously mean "GNU". Just wanted to clarify that, you missed it by so little that I wanted to make it clear for casual readers that don't understand the difference between GNU and Linux .
The whole idea of GNU was really to copy Unix, and make it free, you are correct. BSD has other (different, not better, not worse) freedoms than the GPL (which is associated most with Linux). There is the freedom to go proprietary, which many exercise. There is the freedom to interface much proprietary software with it. The way I see it, BSD is about giving the most reasonable freedom possible to the developer.
A developer is free to do mostly whatever he wants, with BSD.
With the GPL, the freedom they are taking care of is that of the users.
The BSD lets the developer decide which freedoms he wants to transfer.
The GPL doesn't, it takes that freedom away from developers, and "gives it" to the users.
Strictly speaking, no it has not. While the end result may be similar, TFA concerns the use of a piezo-acoustic system to detect a "keypress"; the URL you provided describes a product which relies upon an optical system.Stricly speaking, the guy was answering a post about typing on a full-size keyboard on Starbucks tables.
That could be done with the laser keyboard, more than 5 yearss ago at the prototype level, and some time later as a commercial product.
It was originally used for people who published other guys books, effectively taking credit away from the authors (credit can be taken away from you, so someone can steal it). That is a very loose comparison, but at least it was about robbing someone.
From a long time, they are using it to talk about people who copy cpyrighted stuff unauthorizedly. Copies don't even take something away fromt he creator, so it's an even more flawed comparison.
Anyhow, in the 21th century, or the 18th century, it's a marketing issue, the copier is compared to an uncomparably worse group, so it gets stained by their characteristics, and the distributor is seen as a victim, like a pirate victim.
Remember that these are the people who compare you to a pirate (a guy who attacks ships, robs, kills, rapes) when you share your CDs.
Yet most people are not surprised, and even use the term. That's because their (I mean content distributors) marketing worked, and has cought on.
Why shouldn't people say lies about them, in exchange? maybe they will catch on, and people will start calling them "terrorists".
It's not about being right or wrong, it's about having the best marketing campaign.
The guy proposed that for 1/20th the MS amount, 1 million dollars a month, they would be able to hire capable people.
Do you honestly think that with that kind of money, you couldn't get continued support for the 2.0 kernel?
There are kernel hackers that would accept that kind of job for 300 000 dollars a year. For 3 people, that's enough to support the 2.0 kernel for yourself. Still 1/20th the MS offer.
_I_ won't admit that!!Microsoft's not a monopoly: you're perfectly free to create your own standard (as the OO crowd is trying to do). Surely you'll admit that it's not Microsoft's fault that such standards aren't catching on?
That is the whole issue.
Microsoft uses their OS dominance to sell OO.
They persuade computer makers to distribute _only_ their products through volume deals.
Even if you somehow think they are not a monopoly in lots of areas, you can't fail to accept that they use their marketshare to force others out of their turf.
That, combined witht he fact that they don't help with interoperability, is the main cause that other products don't use their standards, and free standards aren't "catching on".
Personally I don't use OO because I can't swap files with people with whom I co-author scientific articles. MS Office and Open Office equations STILL don't work right (and before you LaTeX fanatics step in, neither of us speak that language).
Since I get my MS Office for free, why should I even consider OO?
If you actually do any serious work, of course you should consider LaTeX, or at least lex.You pay the cost of learning LaTeX in the first paper you write.
About the OO equation editor... I don't know how _you_ use it, but no effort interoperability is not the only issue.
OpenOffice is free for everyone, not just for you, but the most important part is that it's much easier!!
When getting my degree, I could convert everybody in my math groups to using OpenOffice, because I showed them the speed improvement they could get at typing formulas.
In the MS equation editor, I found myself trying to draw the formulas, while the oo math editor lets you do that, but also shows you how to type them, in a very easy editor that uses very familiar abbreviations.
Its no LaTeX, but it's way better than the MS editor for beginers that need to type more than a couple equations.
Aside from that, if you are doing any serious collaboration, CVS with OpenOffice is very easy, for an XML file. With MSOffice you need to use more cumbersome and nonstandard tools, even installing additional software.
What I say is about the winwords I have used, I couldn't try the equation editor from WinWord 2002, the version I have in this machine, because it didn't appear in the menus, and afer reading the help, it told me something about getting the installation CD and all, and it was too much for me, but from what I had tried before, the math editor from OpenOffice is way better for actual use than the MS one.
Not exactly.
I understand why HBO is bundled. I don't even mind that they do, I don't buy it if I don't like it, and that's it. I just don't like that being called free market.
It only works because of copyright, that is an artificial regulation on distribution.
You can't call something a free market when the distribution of stuff is restricted.
Music, no matter who produces it, is not the same thing as oranges.
The owner of copyrighted stuff is usually public domain, and what the original producers get is a monopoly on distribution.
If you want to watch a Star Wars film, there is no way you can get it from a provider that hasn't licensed it from Lucas.
In a free market, you would be able to get your Star Wars films, from different providers.
At least, it would not be forbidden to me, to make another Star Wars film, exactly the same as the original.
With physical stuff, that doesn't happen. If you sell oranges, and I don't like your face, I can buy them from the guy next door, who isn't regulated against producing oranges which taste exactly the same. Of course it could be difficult, but there's no regulation against it. Patents might be a problem, but they last less years, and you don't necesarily need to infringe on patents to get a functionally equal product. (Aside from that, patents have other practical problems, but not too aparent on physical stuff)
With copyright, this is not possible, so free market rules do not apply. When you deal with comeone who sells content, you are dealing with a monopolist, so it's their way or the highway.
Again, I agree that it's not much of a practical problem right now.
But the main issue, it that it's not a free market.
The only problem for me is that laws get changed, to keep a fundamentally flawed system, and that actually has consequences on people other than entertainment. Remember than books also get lumped in with entertainment.
People have gone to jail because of new and improved stupid "IP" laws. I think it's more serious than it seems.
"And you can't say that nobody is forcing you. Of course, I can choose not to pay for Cinemax, but then I wouldn't be able to use HBO, that I want. If this was a free market, I wouldn't be forced to make that choice."
Bull fucking shit.
You think that entertainment is being FORCED on you???
No.
I said that the choice of buy-what-I-want-or-get-nothing was forced on me.
In a free market, there would be a possibility for more suppliers of the stuff I wanted.
As it is, copyrights don't allow for a free market. They are exactly the opposite.
Copyright is not an inherent right of the author. The whole idea is to give them something to motivate them to do something for everybody else. It's an arrangement between governments and authors, but the arrangement seems to be getting out of proportion, and the public is getting screwed. I think the whole arrangement could use a reevaluation, especially taking into account that the public is supposed to be the one to decide what is best for them.
I don't love free markets themselves, but I resent when people say there is a free market, and there is not.
That's no free market.
Copyright is a "temporary" monopoly. Free market rules do not apply.
They are not forcing you to play, but they have as a common rule, the custom of forcing you to pay for content you do not desire to use, when you want some particular content for which they are the sole suppliers.
Were there a free market, you would be able to buy just the stuff you want, and nothing else, even if it was expensive.
I'm thinking pop albums where you get 10 filler songs and pay for 12 to listen to 2, cable subscriptions where you pay for 80 channels to watch HBO, stuff like that.
Free market doesn't apply.
And you can't say that nobody is forcing you. Of course, I can choose not to pay for Cinemax, but then I wouldn't be able to use HBO, that I want. If this was a free market, I wouldn't be forced to make that choice.
Of course, I have heard that, I understand why imperial measures exist, because some of the most basic math is easier with those measures.
The issue is that metric is much easier for more-than-basic math when it involves changing magnitudes and stuff.
And right now, most people are not carpenters, so the advantages of easy divide-by-3 are lost.
For wood, we use milimeters for thickness and meters or cm for length and width (inches are used in some places as a measure of wood thickness, and for some foreign machines nuts and bolts, that has to do with foreign influence).
The good thing is that we don't have trouble using meters, cm or mm, because it's dumb easy to convert among them.
My problem with imperial measures is that it's difficult to scale up stuff, because there's algebra involved in converting from inches to feet, to yards. Metric might be tougher on carpenters, but it's easier on engineers.
Base 10 is much easier than base 12.
I would understand a base 2 system.
We have one measure for distance.
The meter. km, cm, mm, micrometers are just a way to not use the zeroes. The unit is the same.
You have lots of different ways to measure stuff. I don't know how you can tell right away which is longer, two and a half feet, or 27 inches. 29 ounces or two pounds.
Celsius and Farenheit is not that much of a problem, aside fromt he fact that it makes more sense to use water than CO2 as the base of an imperfect system, but it makes more sense to have a scale that is based on ten, and has some coherence.
You must have very small feet.
Then, Trantor is the original Earth!!
As he said, personal computers are very important for the world as a whole.
The policies of MS, and their way of doing bussiness has an effect everywhere.
Although MS is not the cause of all the bad stuff that is happiening around, they have some responsibilities, here and there, including developing countries.
They use some techniques I don't approve to convince my government to give them money, and I think that money has better places to be spent. The same thing is happening in Africa, for example.
The guy gives back some money, that is right, and he even gives in a sensible way. But the net gain for everybody, because of the existence of MS is not that clear.
Plus, charity is not that great, and it just doesn't work very well.
Charity alone is not something to praise a guy for. Good ethics, and an overall good effect on the community, that would earn my respect. Giving something back is sometimes not enough.
I have heard that this joke works when you are studing for obstetrician, too.
And for eugenetics, too.
I was pointing out that the OP was talking about a user who knew nothing about computers, BUT was proficient administering Windows. That was becuase he was talking about the kind of user to describe, and then complained about Ubuntu administration being hard. That would only matter to someone who actually did administer their machine, not a regular user.
No one sells that kind of machine.
Computers at the moment are hard to administer, and not that reliable.
What she wants doesn't exist.
Assuming she wouldn't know how to administer her machine...
She can buy an XP machine, and pay someone to administer and secure it. Ocassional "doesn't work" incidents. Not a bad learning curve for a complete newbie. Easy for an experienced Windows user.
She could get a machine with Ubuntu, from very few providers, and pay someone to administer. Less "doesn't work" incidents. A good learning curve for a complete newbie. Not bad for an experienced Windows user.
That's a political problem, for me because I care aboute free software.
Free OSs could be able to support that kind of stuff.
I don't think they should, though.
If you have a software package from 1985, and are now having trouble with support, maybe your TCO study at the time was not that bright.
The solution for that kind of problem is: if you can, virtualize the hardware, or get a beter solution, or pay through the nose to the 5 guys who are willing to support you. Then, learn your lesson, and buy/use free software, free software can't die that death.
Have you tried Ubuntu?
.DOC, exploring with nautilus, importing pictures from the digital cam, synchronizing the cellphone contacts, web browsing, all are tasks that don't need any expertise in Ubuntu. Most non tech-savvy people who use my machine don't even notice it's a non familiar system.
What software does your mom need to install?
My girlfriend uses Dapper and is happy with it.
My parents use XP, with firefox and thunderbird.
They use msword to create their own content. They had openoffice, and didn't realize the difference (their tech support guy installed his msoffice copy sometime without their asking for it, and I don't mess with their machine, other than firefox and thunderbird).
If I wanted to migrate them, they probably wouldn't notice.
I believe most home users wouldn't have a problem using ubuntu. Most of them have someone to install and configure their XP machines, they need someone to do the same for Ubuntu.
I don't understand the people that say that installing and configuring linux is difficult for home users, when those are not task for home users. The home user uses what is available. What is available with Ubuntu + Automatix is good enough for the home user, they don't need anything else.
When people come to my house, they see my gnome desktop, and don't perceive any difference with their XP computer, they can use it with no problems at all.
Opening a
I think you are making the argument for a fictional user who knows nothing about computers, but is able to successfully install windows software, and administer his windows machine, but somehow can't administer a GNU/Linux machine, and that user just doesn't exist.
Somethimes I do, what's the problem?
There is a difference between programs and data.
E-mail is data, and data can't harm my system, unless I let it explicitly.
Webpages are data, so clicking on an http:/// link will not do any strange thing.
I trust my email client not to do anything funny with spam, other than sending it to the spam can when it recognizes it. And I trust my webbrowser to sandbox any dynamic content. Am I wrong on my expectations?
In Korea, only old dying people use BSD.
Netcraft confirms it.