Are you saying that Star Wars doesn't have a loyal fan base? That's quite possibly the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. "Jedi" is an organized religion in many countries. Serenity can't touch that.
Let's be realistic. Star Wars is popular to the point of becoming a cultural phenomenon, and there are more Star Wars fans that are completely obsessed with the franchise than there are people who even saw Serenity. Heck, more people dressed up as Wookies last Halloween than saw Serenity.
What's even more hilarious is that Serenity even made the top ten. Ten years from now people will still be talking about Star Wars, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, and pretty much everything else on the list. Serenity won't even be a foot note.
Systems administrators like data access layers, and DBAs like forcing everyone to use whatever database they like best. I personally hate data access layers. What's the point of having a "real" database like Oracle, PostgreSQL, or MSSQL if you are going to pretend that it is no more capable than MySQL 3.23.
Like I said before, I don't like MySQL, but it certainly is easy to care for. For applications like Zenoss where all you need is some basic storage there is very little reason not to simply bundle MySQL with the install. Developers are starting to use MySQL for some of the same tasks that they used to use dbm for not too long ago. Many users probably won't even bother to back the database up on a regular basis. Like I said before, whether or not a certain machine responded to a ping is hardly the sort of data I need to retain for the long term. MySQL is certainly an acceptable tool for the job.
Of course, that being the case a data access layer that only supports MySQL's features is hardly a difficult thing to write, and sometimes having the data in your database of choice is worth a little extra configuration.
If I was purchasing voting machines for another state I would add: "doesn't sue potential customers when it loses a bid" to my list of qualifications. That would clearly put Diebold out of the running.
Every once in a while you read about executives from a company that are so ridiculously inept that it is funny. Diebold certainly fits that description.
I am as big a PostgreSQL bigot as you are likely to find, but I don't see the problem with using MySQL for storing monitoring data. I mean seriously, why should I care if the application stores the fact that my servers still respond to pings in a transaction safe manner? Nagios, which I currently use, stores this information in flat text files.
No, that is not going to happen. Game studios and publishers make money on game sales not console sales. Console companies get most of their money on game sales too. Slashdot continues to be fascinated by hardware sales numbers, but these are misleading. If you look at game sales, then for February the PS2 was the leader, followed by 360 in second and Wii in third. The 360 is still the clear winner for next-gen consoles in game sales and console sales.
If you look at the bigger picture the Wii is just not much more appealing than the 360 or PS3. What are the games for the Wii that are expected to sell >1 million copies? Zelda, Wario Ware, Super Smash Brothers, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, Super Paper Mario, and Mario Party 8. What do all of those games have in common? They are all published by Nintendo, and most are developed by Nintendo too. Half of the top 10 selling games on Wii or from Nintedo right now(this will go up when more of the games I mentioned come out); 8 on gamecube were from Nintendo. Compare with Sony having 0 in the top 10 for PS2, 2 on PS3, and MS having 1 in the top 10 on the 360, and 3 in the top 10 an xbox. Game studios and publishers are well aware this trend.
Whether or not Wii titles that are not from Nintendo will sell well compared to other consoles is still an open question. Current numbers don't look promising. Call of duty 3 has sold 1 million on 360, 600 thousand on PS2, 250 thousand on Wii, and 200 thousand on PS3. Madden 07 has sold 3.2 million on PS2, 1.2 million on 360, 350 thousand on PS3, and 300 thousand on Wii. There are twice as many Wiis as PS3s but that doesn't mean your game is going to sell twice as well on the Wii than it would on PS3. So I wouldn't worry too much about game publishers and studios ignoring all other consoles and focusing solely on Wii. They would be foolish if they did.
That post was the best Anonymous Coward post I have ever seen on Slashdot. I quoted the whole thing so that people would have a better chance of seeing it.
That being the case, I think that it is still pretty early to tell whether or not the Wii will sell third party software. People that currently have Wiis are purchasing them to play Nintendo's games, no one would argue with that. Heck, where I live the only way to even purchase a Wii is to buy it bundled with several games. It is possible that Wii owners will buy game titles like Madden 07 and Call of Duty 3 when they work through the games that came with the system.
On the other hand, if the Wii continues to dramatically outsell the other consoles then eventually the third party developers will come to the conclusion that Nintendo really has found a way to tap into a much bigger market than the "traditional gamer." If Nintendo ends up with the biggest share of the game console market then third party developers will have little choice but to learn how to sell to that market. If that means that they have to adapt to a new strategy that doesn't involve slapping a new number on the end of the same tired game, then that's what they'll have to do.
It gets worse. If the Wii continues to be this successful then every game development company on the planet will make the Wii their primary development target. Third party titles will likely cut back on graphics development to fit the Wii's hardware, and they will likely marry certain parts of their interface to Nintendo's Wiimote.
I am sorry that my response was so abrupt. This whole discussion is depressing in that it is filled with people who are either racist and believe that only Americans should have jobs, or completely ignorant of economics (or both). I should have guessed that with a handle like Marxist Hacker 42 that you would be something else entirely. I don't share your views, but I can understand how you might have come by them. I do find it interesting that on the one hand you are concerned about people that lost their livelihood with the Internet Bubble crash and yet somehow you aren't concerned about the much larger economic fallout that would almost certainly follow the erection of trade barriers with the rest of the world.
The real problem in most third world countries is corruption. People can't get ahead because corrupt officials guarantee that any profit that gets made on a business ends up in their pockets. Consequently investors aren't willing to put the kind of capital into the system that is needed to really create good jobs and lasting wealth. In countries where this is addressed (like Chile) the economy can grow at a tremendous pace. Trade barriers would do nothing to fix the problem with corruption in the third world, and worse it would cripple the economies of countries that are currently on the right track. The best way to raise the standard of living of countries around the world is to make these countries safe for investment. People (including foreigners) invest in the U.S. (and the rest of the first world) because it is much safer than their local markets. If that wasn't the case then the imbalance between the first and third worlds would disappear rather quickly.
When you covered the Great Depression in the third grade they probably told you that the Great Depression was caused by a stock market correction. Well, that was certainly a trigger, but the real reason that the economy took so long to rebound was that countries around the world drastically increased their import tariffs.
Now, you might think that is a great idea, but I have lived in a country with ridiculously high import tariffs (Peru) and paying more for shoddy products simply because I don't have a choice of manufacturers is not how I would choose to live.
As for the technology "depression" I think that you need to get out more. The technology market got so ridiculously overpriced that the Dutch and their tulip bulbs are finally going to stop being the prime example for a market gone completely batshit crazy. Even so, outside of California it is hard to consider the fallout more than a minor recession, and the reality now is that technology jobs are ridiculously plentiful.
If you are still looking for a job then I would seriously consider spending some of your downtime with an economy textbook or two (try and find one with some historical references). You'd be surprised how an understanding of basic economics helps when trying to find a job. Here's how you'll know that you are indeed grokking the concepts. If you can get through a economics textbook and you still believe that "banning exporting and importing" would be beneficial to our standard of living then you need to read it again.
I agree with you that RPGs should be less like a book, but that's hardly the case. When you talk to your friends about whatever RPG you happen to be playing they invariably will ask things like, "ave you made it past foo, yet?" or "have you killed bar?" Why is that? The answer is patently simple just like a book every RPG is ridiculously linear. At best in some RPGs you can skip over subplots, but you can do that in a book too.
Sure you can. After all, unless you are playing Nethack eventually you will kill the monster and go home to live happily ever after. With any RPG I have ever played it was never a question of whether or not I would win, but how long it would take, and how many twists and turns would I encounter on the way. Seriously, how is that different from a book?
Nethack is only different because you are essentially guaranteed to lose.
Exactly. I am an American that grew up outside the U.S. (South America) and so I have seen how the moderately wealthy live in third world countries. And you are exactly right. If you can get a "good" job in a third world country you are far better off to stay there than to come to the United States. Quite frankly, that's unfortunate for the United States.
Part of the reason that the United States is as powerful as it has become is that we have skimmed the best and brightest from every nation for generations. People are people the world over, and most foreigners have the added advantage of being truly driven. They know that if they don't make the grade, don't get into the right school, and don't get that nice job that they are well and truly screwed and they and their children are likely to spend forever cleaning other people's houses. Most Americans don't have that kind of drive. America "needs" these people.
Besides, I can compete with Appu and his brother if they live down the street and have a mortgage. Competing with Appu's cousins Bangalore is an entirely different prospect.
We can either allow people to emigrate to the United States, or we can watch while all of the major development houses shift development work offshore because the people that these folks want to hire can't get into the United States.
One of the huge advantages that the United States has had since World War II was that it was "the" country where all of the smart people wanted to go. Foreign born scientists and engineers are a huge part of the reason that the U.S. holds the technological edge over the rest of the world. Besides, you can compete with the Indians and the Chinese if they move down the street from you and have to pay U.S. prices for food, housing, entertainment, and travel. The problem is that in an increasingly interconnected world living in the United States is less of an issue. If moving to the U.S. becomes a hassle, then these folks will simply stay home and development will continue to shift offshore, and technical folk in the U.S. will be the ones that suffer.
The fact of the matter is that U.S. students have plenty of opportunity. There just aren't enough of them that are interested in going into technology.
Apparently someone thinks that a large contingent of wealthy customers exists that are just dying to spend hundreds of dollars so that they can decorate an imaginary apartment and watch fully motion video ads.
He should switch schools because he goes to the University of Idaho. The fact that the school uses Windows Live Mail is just one of the many reasons he should jump ship.
Actually the new version of Office, with its new default file formats, is probably the most problematic bit. An organization the size of the DOT almost certainly has nearly a decade of investment in the old MS Office binary formats. Office 2007 is going to cause real pain to a lot of organizations.
I would happily pay extra for a system that I knew would work with Free Software drivers. Looking around for compatible hardware and jiggering the system so that it works with binary-only drivers takes my time, and my time is worth something.
Microsoft says it has patents that it is trying to get folks to license, but it hasn't taken anyone to court. In fact, there are plenty of people that are using Microsoft's FAT patents still without paying any money. I'm pretty sure that my Linux box would happily mount FAT drives, for example, and I am pretty sure that no one is paying Microsoft for that privilege.
That's the difference between Microsoft and IBM. IBM will happily go to court to force people to pay. Microsoft, on the other hand, has been a much softer touch. Now, that might not be true forever, but for now Microsoft is all bark and no bite.
The problem is, of course, is that Microsoft has *never* used patents offensively. If Microsoft did start using patents offensively it would almost certainly end up suing one of its own customers and technology folk the world over would start getting very nervous about their investment in Microsoft software.
Ballmer and crew are more than happy to talk about "intellectual property" issues with the press, but they know better than to actually start suing people. The question then becomes is it worth over a billion dollars a year for Microsoft to be able to threaten Free Software developers despite the fact that Microsoft knows that it isn't likely to ever take its complaints to court? The whole patent issue is little more than an elaborate bluff, and yet it costs Microsoft real money on an ongoing basis.
Yes, when writing python tabs are officially evil. However, if you are using a text editor that can't be taught to replace tabs with the correct number of spaces, then I would suggest that you look into using something other than notepad.exe to code in. Seriously, I can't think of a single software project of any size (in any language) that doesn't have coding standards designed to regulate the use of whitespace. With Python the language itself takes care of the biggest issue when it comes to code formatting. In return you simply have to give up the use of tabs. Fortunately, any modern Python editing environment can be taught to "do the right thing."
I recently inherited a project (written in Perl) where the person that wrote the original code didn't believe in indenting (I only wish I was kidding). As far as I am concerned white space is definitely significant.
That is absolutely right. I might not agree with the person behind me in line at the polls, but at least I know that they had the political savvy to A) know what day the polls were open, B) find the polls, and C) actually vote. If actually getting to the polls poses a problem then in most areas you can vote from the comfort of your own home with just a bit of planning and foresight. If this is too much of an obstacle then I honestly don't think that your vote should count as much as mine does. I am totally against any sort of law that would set any sort of requirements for voting, but I don't think that making the process easier is necessarily a good idea either. The way I see it the present system does a fairly good job of weeding out those individuals who are so politically inept that they can't even see the importance of voting. If you can't see that our political process is controlled by those individuals that actually get involved in the process then I don't believe that society would be better off hearing your opinion.
I went to high school in Peru and saw what sort of folks that get elected when everyone is required to vote. Thanks, but no thanks.
Heck, I don't care what distribution comes pre-installed. I only want to know that the hardware is well supported by Linux drivers. I would gladly pay extra for hardware that supported Linux.
I think that you would be surprised by how much the various GNU utilities change. Even if they didn't change much at all Novell would suddenly be on its own when it came to security patches, and it would definitely have to track any changes to the GNU utilities so that its packages didn't become incompatible. That would like add up to a whole lot of extra work that would not help SuSE Linux compete with Red Hat. Novell is already at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with Red Hat because it has to pay for development of its declining Netware software. The last thing that Novell needs is another codebase that it has to maintain, especially a codebase that doesn't have a lick of strategic value.
Now, Novell could try and get tricky about how it installed the GNU utilities, but that's precisely the sort of step that is likely to alienate customers. No one wants to purchase expensive Linux support contracts from a distributor that doesn't even have the legal ability to distribute newest versions of major parts of its software package. Besides, what would Novell do if the GNU admins decided to block their separate download tool or sabotage its efforts in some other way.
Quite frankly, that's no way to run a business.
Besides, while I agree that the DRM issues of the GPLv3 are high handed, the patent issues are spot on. The last thing the Free Software world needs is to see patents replace copyright as the de-facto way to control use and distribution of software. Free Software that I have to purchase patent rights to be able to use is not Free. I actually see the DRM stuff as a bit of a red herring. It really only would effect the kernel, and Linux isn't moving to the GPLv3 any time soon.
There's really no way to sugar coat the FSF. They are zealots. No one but a zealot would go through all of the trouble to write UNIX from scratch. To a certain extent the FSF is even a zealot with a thermonuclear device. Everyone wants to be able to distribute their GNU software, and so to a certain extent folks have to listen to what the FSF says. However, as zealots go the FSF is pretty darn benign. They just want to make sure that the ability of end users to hack software remains forever. What's more the FSF has been pretty prescient about the issues that are likely to come up in the future. Heck, the Novell/Microsoft deal shows that RMS was right to worry about patent covenants that only cover certain "blessed" parties, and it is hard to argue that RMS' The Right to Read essay wasn't prophetic.
Sure, sometimes I wish that RMS and co. would borrow some tact, but it is hard to argue with the FSF's results. Thanks to them we all have a lot of Free Software to play with.
The Samba folks are already previewing Samba 4 which allows you to replace Windows AD Domain controllers with a Samba box. Whatever Microsoft might give Novell it isn't likely to be nearly as cool as that. Besides which, it isn't coincidence that Novell, which basically started life as a company devoted to filesharing uses Samba instead of creating its own SMB fileserver. Creating an SMB server as compatible as Samba is very difficult. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Samba's amassed SMB documentation is better than anything that Microsoft has on the protocol. Not only is Samba solid, but it consistently outperforms Microsoft's SMB server in real world tests. On the flip side anything Microsoft writes to replace Samba on Linux is likely to be more like its horrible frontpage extensions for UNIX.
As for the GNU userspace there are a lot of GNU tools that are basically essential to the working of the operating system. Take bash, for example, I imagine that lots of SuSE customers have shell scripts that haven't ever been tested in anything but bash. Replacing bash with another version of sh would almost certainly cause some pain. SuSE customers also almost certainly use gcc and the rest of the GNU toolchain, and chances are good that switching from a GNU userspace to a BSD userspace would break all sorts of things.
And that's just the obvious stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if SuSE's installer uses GNU parted under the covers, and it basically goes without saying that SuSE uses GNU ghostscript. A lot of documentation uses GNU info formats and tools. Tons of utilities link against readline (which is GPLed), or use aspell. I know of at least one systems administrator that uses nano instead of vi, etc. Don't even get me started about a Linux distribution that didn't include Emacs.
This is a huge problem for Novell. It will be very interesting to see what happens when the GPLv3 is complete and starts being applied to software packages.
Sure, Novell could simply fork every project that decides to switch to the GPLv3. Of course that isn't likely to help Novell in its effort to compete with Red Hat. At the very least the GNU projects are going to switch, and Samba is likely to switch as well. In fact, it might be easier for Novell to simply go back to peddling Netware.
The fact of the matter is that Novell needs the code that the FSF controls, and the folks at the FSF are going to cut Novell off from being able to use future versions unless Novell changes its deal with Microsoft. Novell also needs the money that Microsoft paid for its Linux deal. Without that money Novell's investors are going to be screaming for blood.
Once again we are reminded how signing a deal with Microsoft is rarely an intelligent move.
To be fair to the FSF I think that it has done a pretty good job of listening to GPLv3 critics. However, the Novell/Microsoft deal is opening a lot of eyes as to why a new version of the license is needed.
One thing is certain, Novell is very dependent on the Free Software Foundation for the software that it distributes as part of SuSE Linux. It's not likely that Stallman will have his mind changed by RMS jokes, but if I was a Novell executive I wouldn't allow my employees to make RMS jokes, just in case.
Stallman has a long history of sticky like glue to his principles no matter what criticism was leveled at him, and it is hard to argue with the results. Many of RMS' long time opponents have come around to his way of thinking. If the Free Software Foundation is rumbling about breaking up Novell's deal with Microsoft then Novell should be very very concerned.
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Are you saying that Star Wars doesn't have a loyal fan base? That's quite possibly the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. "Jedi" is an organized religion in many countries. Serenity can't touch that.
Let's be realistic. Star Wars is popular to the point of becoming a cultural phenomenon, and there are more Star Wars fans that are completely obsessed with the franchise than there are people who even saw Serenity. Heck, more people dressed up as Wookies last Halloween than saw Serenity.
What's even more hilarious is that Serenity even made the top ten. Ten years from now people will still be talking about Star Wars, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, and pretty much everything else on the list. Serenity won't even be a foot note.
Systems administrators like data access layers, and DBAs like forcing everyone to use whatever database they like best. I personally hate data access layers. What's the point of having a "real" database like Oracle, PostgreSQL, or MSSQL if you are going to pretend that it is no more capable than MySQL 3.23.
Like I said before, I don't like MySQL, but it certainly is easy to care for. For applications like Zenoss where all you need is some basic storage there is very little reason not to simply bundle MySQL with the install. Developers are starting to use MySQL for some of the same tasks that they used to use dbm for not too long ago. Many users probably won't even bother to back the database up on a regular basis. Like I said before, whether or not a certain machine responded to a ping is hardly the sort of data I need to retain for the long term. MySQL is certainly an acceptable tool for the job.
Of course, that being the case a data access layer that only supports MySQL's features is hardly a difficult thing to write, and sometimes having the data in your database of choice is worth a little extra configuration.
If I was purchasing voting machines for another state I would add: "doesn't sue potential customers when it loses a bid" to my list of qualifications. That would clearly put Diebold out of the running.
Every once in a while you read about executives from a company that are so ridiculously inept that it is funny. Diebold certainly fits that description.
I am as big a PostgreSQL bigot as you are likely to find, but I don't see the problem with using MySQL for storing monitoring data. I mean seriously, why should I care if the application stores the fact that my servers still respond to pings in a transaction safe manner? Nagios, which I currently use, stores this information in flat text files.
That post was the best Anonymous Coward post I have ever seen on Slashdot. I quoted the whole thing so that people would have a better chance of seeing it.
That being the case, I think that it is still pretty early to tell whether or not the Wii will sell third party software. People that currently have Wiis are purchasing them to play Nintendo's games, no one would argue with that. Heck, where I live the only way to even purchase a Wii is to buy it bundled with several games. It is possible that Wii owners will buy game titles like Madden 07 and Call of Duty 3 when they work through the games that came with the system.
On the other hand, if the Wii continues to dramatically outsell the other consoles then eventually the third party developers will come to the conclusion that Nintendo really has found a way to tap into a much bigger market than the "traditional gamer." If Nintendo ends up with the biggest share of the game console market then third party developers will have little choice but to learn how to sell to that market. If that means that they have to adapt to a new strategy that doesn't involve slapping a new number on the end of the same tired game, then that's what they'll have to do.
It gets worse. If the Wii continues to be this successful then every game development company on the planet will make the Wii their primary development target. Third party titles will likely cut back on graphics development to fit the Wii's hardware, and they will likely marry certain parts of their interface to Nintendo's Wiimote.
I am sorry that my response was so abrupt. This whole discussion is depressing in that it is filled with people who are either racist and believe that only Americans should have jobs, or completely ignorant of economics (or both). I should have guessed that with a handle like Marxist Hacker 42 that you would be something else entirely. I don't share your views, but I can understand how you might have come by them. I do find it interesting that on the one hand you are concerned about people that lost their livelihood with the Internet Bubble crash and yet somehow you aren't concerned about the much larger economic fallout that would almost certainly follow the erection of trade barriers with the rest of the world.
The real problem in most third world countries is corruption. People can't get ahead because corrupt officials guarantee that any profit that gets made on a business ends up in their pockets. Consequently investors aren't willing to put the kind of capital into the system that is needed to really create good jobs and lasting wealth. In countries where this is addressed (like Chile) the economy can grow at a tremendous pace. Trade barriers would do nothing to fix the problem with corruption in the third world, and worse it would cripple the economies of countries that are currently on the right track. The best way to raise the standard of living of countries around the world is to make these countries safe for investment. People (including foreigners) invest in the U.S. (and the rest of the first world) because it is much safer than their local markets. If that wasn't the case then the imbalance between the first and third worlds would disappear rather quickly.
When you covered the Great Depression in the third grade they probably told you that the Great Depression was caused by a stock market correction. Well, that was certainly a trigger, but the real reason that the economy took so long to rebound was that countries around the world drastically increased their import tariffs.
Now, you might think that is a great idea, but I have lived in a country with ridiculously high import tariffs (Peru) and paying more for shoddy products simply because I don't have a choice of manufacturers is not how I would choose to live.
As for the technology "depression" I think that you need to get out more. The technology market got so ridiculously overpriced that the Dutch and their tulip bulbs are finally going to stop being the prime example for a market gone completely batshit crazy. Even so, outside of California it is hard to consider the fallout more than a minor recession, and the reality now is that technology jobs are ridiculously plentiful.
If you are still looking for a job then I would seriously consider spending some of your downtime with an economy textbook or two (try and find one with some historical references). You'd be surprised how an understanding of basic economics helps when trying to find a job. Here's how you'll know that you are indeed grokking the concepts. If you can get through a economics textbook and you still believe that "banning exporting and importing" would be beneficial to our standard of living then you need to read it again.
I agree with you that RPGs should be less like a book, but that's hardly the case. When you talk to your friends about whatever RPG you happen to be playing they invariably will ask things like, "ave you made it past foo, yet?" or "have you killed bar?" Why is that? The answer is patently simple just like a book every RPG is ridiculously linear. At best in some RPGs you can skip over subplots, but you can do that in a book too.
Sure you can. After all, unless you are playing Nethack eventually you will kill the monster and go home to live happily ever after. With any RPG I have ever played it was never a question of whether or not I would win, but how long it would take, and how many twists and turns would I encounter on the way. Seriously, how is that different from a book?
Nethack is only different because you are essentially guaranteed to lose.
Exactly. I am an American that grew up outside the U.S. (South America) and so I have seen how the moderately wealthy live in third world countries. And you are exactly right. If you can get a "good" job in a third world country you are far better off to stay there than to come to the United States. Quite frankly, that's unfortunate for the United States.
Part of the reason that the United States is as powerful as it has become is that we have skimmed the best and brightest from every nation for generations. People are people the world over, and most foreigners have the added advantage of being truly driven. They know that if they don't make the grade, don't get into the right school, and don't get that nice job that they are well and truly screwed and they and their children are likely to spend forever cleaning other people's houses. Most Americans don't have that kind of drive. America "needs" these people.
Besides, I can compete with Appu and his brother if they live down the street and have a mortgage. Competing with Appu's cousins Bangalore is an entirely different prospect.
We can either allow people to emigrate to the United States, or we can watch while all of the major development houses shift development work offshore because the people that these folks want to hire can't get into the United States.
One of the huge advantages that the United States has had since World War II was that it was "the" country where all of the smart people wanted to go. Foreign born scientists and engineers are a huge part of the reason that the U.S. holds the technological edge over the rest of the world. Besides, you can compete with the Indians and the Chinese if they move down the street from you and have to pay U.S. prices for food, housing, entertainment, and travel. The problem is that in an increasingly interconnected world living in the United States is less of an issue. If moving to the U.S. becomes a hassle, then these folks will simply stay home and development will continue to shift offshore, and technical folk in the U.S. will be the ones that suffer.
The fact of the matter is that U.S. students have plenty of opportunity. There just aren't enough of them that are interested in going into technology.
Apparently someone thinks that a large contingent of wealthy customers exists that are just dying to spend hundreds of dollars so that they can decorate an imaginary apartment and watch fully motion video ads.
He should switch schools because he goes to the University of Idaho. The fact that the school uses Windows Live Mail is just one of the many reasons he should jump ship.
Actually the new version of Office, with its new default file formats, is probably the most problematic bit. An organization the size of the DOT almost certainly has nearly a decade of investment in the old MS Office binary formats. Office 2007 is going to cause real pain to a lot of organizations.
I would happily pay extra for a system that I knew would work with Free Software drivers. Looking around for compatible hardware and jiggering the system so that it works with binary-only drivers takes my time, and my time is worth something.
Microsoft says it has patents that it is trying to get folks to license, but it hasn't taken anyone to court. In fact, there are plenty of people that are using Microsoft's FAT patents still without paying any money. I'm pretty sure that my Linux box would happily mount FAT drives, for example, and I am pretty sure that no one is paying Microsoft for that privilege.
That's the difference between Microsoft and IBM. IBM will happily go to court to force people to pay. Microsoft, on the other hand, has been a much softer touch. Now, that might not be true forever, but for now Microsoft is all bark and no bite.
The problem is, of course, is that Microsoft has *never* used patents offensively. If Microsoft did start using patents offensively it would almost certainly end up suing one of its own customers and technology folk the world over would start getting very nervous about their investment in Microsoft software.
Ballmer and crew are more than happy to talk about "intellectual property" issues with the press, but they know better than to actually start suing people. The question then becomes is it worth over a billion dollars a year for Microsoft to be able to threaten Free Software developers despite the fact that Microsoft knows that it isn't likely to ever take its complaints to court? The whole patent issue is little more than an elaborate bluff, and yet it costs Microsoft real money on an ongoing basis.
Yes, when writing python tabs are officially evil. However, if you are using a text editor that can't be taught to replace tabs with the correct number of spaces, then I would suggest that you look into using something other than notepad.exe to code in. Seriously, I can't think of a single software project of any size (in any language) that doesn't have coding standards designed to regulate the use of whitespace. With Python the language itself takes care of the biggest issue when it comes to code formatting. In return you simply have to give up the use of tabs. Fortunately, any modern Python editing environment can be taught to "do the right thing."
I recently inherited a project (written in Perl) where the person that wrote the original code didn't believe in indenting (I only wish I was kidding). As far as I am concerned white space is definitely significant.
That is absolutely right. I might not agree with the person behind me in line at the polls, but at least I know that they had the political savvy to A) know what day the polls were open, B) find the polls, and C) actually vote. If actually getting to the polls poses a problem then in most areas you can vote from the comfort of your own home with just a bit of planning and foresight. If this is too much of an obstacle then I honestly don't think that your vote should count as much as mine does. I am totally against any sort of law that would set any sort of requirements for voting, but I don't think that making the process easier is necessarily a good idea either. The way I see it the present system does a fairly good job of weeding out those individuals who are so politically inept that they can't even see the importance of voting. If you can't see that our political process is controlled by those individuals that actually get involved in the process then I don't believe that society would be better off hearing your opinion.
I went to high school in Peru and saw what sort of folks that get elected when everyone is required to vote. Thanks, but no thanks.
Heck, I don't care what distribution comes pre-installed. I only want to know that the hardware is well supported by Linux drivers. I would gladly pay extra for hardware that supported Linux.
I think that you would be surprised by how much the various GNU utilities change. Even if they didn't change much at all Novell would suddenly be on its own when it came to security patches, and it would definitely have to track any changes to the GNU utilities so that its packages didn't become incompatible. That would like add up to a whole lot of extra work that would not help SuSE Linux compete with Red Hat. Novell is already at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with Red Hat because it has to pay for development of its declining Netware software. The last thing that Novell needs is another codebase that it has to maintain, especially a codebase that doesn't have a lick of strategic value.
Now, Novell could try and get tricky about how it installed the GNU utilities, but that's precisely the sort of step that is likely to alienate customers. No one wants to purchase expensive Linux support contracts from a distributor that doesn't even have the legal ability to distribute newest versions of major parts of its software package. Besides, what would Novell do if the GNU admins decided to block their separate download tool or sabotage its efforts in some other way.
Quite frankly, that's no way to run a business.
Besides, while I agree that the DRM issues of the GPLv3 are high handed, the patent issues are spot on. The last thing the Free Software world needs is to see patents replace copyright as the de-facto way to control use and distribution of software. Free Software that I have to purchase patent rights to be able to use is not Free. I actually see the DRM stuff as a bit of a red herring. It really only would effect the kernel, and Linux isn't moving to the GPLv3 any time soon.
There's really no way to sugar coat the FSF. They are zealots. No one but a zealot would go through all of the trouble to write UNIX from scratch. To a certain extent the FSF is even a zealot with a thermonuclear device. Everyone wants to be able to distribute their GNU software, and so to a certain extent folks have to listen to what the FSF says. However, as zealots go the FSF is pretty darn benign. They just want to make sure that the ability of end users to hack software remains forever. What's more the FSF has been pretty prescient about the issues that are likely to come up in the future. Heck, the Novell/Microsoft deal shows that RMS was right to worry about patent covenants that only cover certain "blessed" parties, and it is hard to argue that RMS' The Right to Read essay wasn't prophetic.
Sure, sometimes I wish that RMS and co. would borrow some tact, but it is hard to argue with the FSF's results. Thanks to them we all have a lot of Free Software to play with.
The Samba folks are already previewing Samba 4 which allows you to replace Windows AD Domain controllers with a Samba box. Whatever Microsoft might give Novell it isn't likely to be nearly as cool as that. Besides which, it isn't coincidence that Novell, which basically started life as a company devoted to filesharing uses Samba instead of creating its own SMB fileserver. Creating an SMB server as compatible as Samba is very difficult. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Samba's amassed SMB documentation is better than anything that Microsoft has on the protocol. Not only is Samba solid, but it consistently outperforms Microsoft's SMB server in real world tests. On the flip side anything Microsoft writes to replace Samba on Linux is likely to be more like its horrible frontpage extensions for UNIX.
As for the GNU userspace there are a lot of GNU tools that are basically essential to the working of the operating system. Take bash, for example, I imagine that lots of SuSE customers have shell scripts that haven't ever been tested in anything but bash. Replacing bash with another version of sh would almost certainly cause some pain. SuSE customers also almost certainly use gcc and the rest of the GNU toolchain, and chances are good that switching from a GNU userspace to a BSD userspace would break all sorts of things.
And that's just the obvious stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if SuSE's installer uses GNU parted under the covers, and it basically goes without saying that SuSE uses GNU ghostscript. A lot of documentation uses GNU info formats and tools. Tons of utilities link against readline (which is GPLed), or use aspell. I know of at least one systems administrator that uses nano instead of vi, etc. Don't even get me started about a Linux distribution that didn't include Emacs.
This is a huge problem for Novell. It will be very interesting to see what happens when the GPLv3 is complete and starts being applied to software packages.
Sure, Novell could simply fork every project that decides to switch to the GPLv3. Of course that isn't likely to help Novell in its effort to compete with Red Hat. At the very least the GNU projects are going to switch, and Samba is likely to switch as well. In fact, it might be easier for Novell to simply go back to peddling Netware.
The fact of the matter is that Novell needs the code that the FSF controls, and the folks at the FSF are going to cut Novell off from being able to use future versions unless Novell changes its deal with Microsoft. Novell also needs the money that Microsoft paid for its Linux deal. Without that money Novell's investors are going to be screaming for blood.
Once again we are reminded how signing a deal with Microsoft is rarely an intelligent move.
To be fair to the FSF I think that it has done a pretty good job of listening to GPLv3 critics. However, the Novell/Microsoft deal is opening a lot of eyes as to why a new version of the license is needed.
One thing is certain, Novell is very dependent on the Free Software Foundation for the software that it distributes as part of SuSE Linux. It's not likely that Stallman will have his mind changed by RMS jokes, but if I was a Novell executive I wouldn't allow my employees to make RMS jokes, just in case.
Stallman has a long history of sticky like glue to his principles no matter what criticism was leveled at him, and it is hard to argue with the results. Many of RMS' long time opponents have come around to his way of thinking. If the Free Software Foundation is rumbling about breaking up Novell's deal with Microsoft then Novell should be very very concerned.