In taking a queue from a great movie (Modified for context):
Q: Is there a problem with our laws? A: Our laws are perfect. Q: Then why do people disobey them? A: Because our laws will only lead to one possible outcome. Q: What outcome? A: Revolution.
And that leaves us with today: It's a revolution, starting slowly, one country at a time.
People wont adhere to the laws that confine us. When people view what they do as perfectly natural, perfectly legal, it becomes harder and harder to keep them from doing it. Information *wants* to be free. And all the laws, all the digital locks, all the copyrights in the world will not stop it.
I got news for you... DRM has already failed naturally.
After all of the failed schemes:
DVD, Sony Rootkit, Most other CD Copy Pretection Schemes, Version after version of Apples DRM, HD-DVD and BluRay...
Why would they even entertain the idea of standardizing something that is defective by design.
DRM always was, always is, and always will be a failed attempt of companies to lock customers into 1 media, 1 product. Information inherently *wants* to be free. Why not put the effort into something much more valuable to society... like laws that *prevent* companies from implementing DRM Schemes.
*That* would be news I could sink my teeth into.:)
Sure, I can accept what you say, because it *is* your opinion. Everyone tends to favor a different type or style of software or interface, and thats fine.
My problem with the original post was that he doesn't claim its his opinion. He states it as fact, and as a fact, its wrong.
For every person like you, theres a person thats the opposite. I have to use MS office for work, and every time I have to edit a report or a plan in MS Word, its like pulling teeth. Its clunky, difficult and extremely frusterating for me to work with MS Word. In comparison, when I want to do something in OpenOffice, it works with ease.
Perhaps its the feature-set that we're working with, I dunno. I tend to prefer the Open Source alternatives because I find them easier to use.
As far as other apps go, learning Gimp was tough, but I'm not a graphics guy, and I find PS just as difficult to use. I get my wife to do all my Graphics work for me.:)
I also use the open source DVDAuthor package, which I find works *far* better than anything thats been put out for windows. I find it offers a certain level of control you just can't get from a gui. On the other hand, I *have* used some decent commercial DVD authoring packages (DVD-Lab), and the editing app that I use is commercial as well, and is second to none (VideoRedo). VideoRedo works under wine too.:)
All told, my opinion is that, I will try a FOSS package before a commercial package any day. But I have my standards, and if the FOSS package doesn't meet my standards, then I wont hesitate to spend some money.
Since the author of TFA has apparently closed off comments for now, I'll state it here:
Bravo. It's nice to see a main-stream media outlet offering this kind of coverage of FOSS.
I've experimented with FOSS for a long time, and have wanted to switch for many years. Last spring, I did, once and for all. I now use Ubuntu 7.10 on my home system, even for gaming. (I was surprised to find that many companies are offering a Linux version as well as Windows.)
In my opinion, meny FOSS projects are ready for the main-stream. They simply need some good publicity, and a following.
No matter what people who wish it were otherwise say, OpenOffice is a piece of junk. It's huge. It's buggy. It has difficulties using other formats. It explodes frequently. It requires massive Java-ware installed on the machines of otherwise happily non-bloated users. It's worse than anything Microsoft has shipped. I'm having trouble with this comment... for a number of reasons:
1. You *almost* sound like you were paid to write that.
2. Your statement is inaccurate on many levels.
3. You provide no basis for your opinion. Care to back up your statement with some evidence?
Every experience that I've had with OpenOffice has been a good one. Its fast, provides all the features that I'm looking for without being too bloated, and sometimes handles the Microsoft formats better than even MS Office does. I hazard to suggest that if OpenOffice was as bad as you suggest, that Cannonical would not have picked it as Productivity app of choice for Ubuntu. And I believe a fair number of other distro's provide it as well.
Before posting a bash like that against an open source project on an open source oriented web site, you should probably have something to back up your statements. Otherwise, your just blowing hot air out your arse.
People are doing studies on these sorts of things?
Who the hell drew the short straw on this one? And why bother? Is it really that important in todays society to know which mobile phone's keyboard will result in the most typos? Couldn't we put these resources to other uses? More important research?
I can't help but wonder if we put as much time and effort and resources into studying diseases as we put into these sorts of frivolous studies, would the world be better off?
This article just leaves me wondering... "What the hell?"
This type of agreement is unenforceable. A friend of mine has a sister thats a lawyer specializing in labour and termination disputes. I asked this kind of question of her when I started employment at a new company and had some concerns about some of the terms of the NDA and non-compete. She told me that any terms of the agreement that extend beyond the term of employment are unenforceable.
I used to work Cancellations and Tech Support for MSN Internet access. It was quite possibly the most interesting and yet horrible 6 months of my life.
Boy when people get mad at Microsoft, they vent in whatever direction the nearest "Microsoft Employee" happens to be... even though I was only technically working for the call center.
We used to get people who didn't know they signed up, people who didn't have computers but were conned into an account by a dept store employee for a discount on their purchase, people who signed up legitimately, and then threaten legal action because they faced penalties for canceling a contract... and I once spent over 30 minutes trying to explain to an 80-year old southern grand mother what an underscore was so that she could type in her user name.
True religion, true beliefs are not governed by what the status quo believes.
True religion, true beliefs are personal. They run to the very core of your being. It doesn't matter if the "Label" is recent, 100, 1000 or 10000 years old. Like any belief system, there are fundamentals, and whether the Modern view of that belief system has existed for a long time or not doesn't really matter. The fundamentals are the same. People have always loved, respected and worshiped nature, and gods, and inanimate objects that they feel hold some mystic power. Does it matter what label they put on it?
My beliefs are my beliefs. I call myself Wiccan because its the easiest way to convey to somebody the basics of what I believe. The same as somebody who calls themselves Catholic, but doesn't go to church every Sunday. Not everybody in a certain religion believes in every ideal or testament of a religion. Thats called individuality.
Too many people make assumptions about what other people believe. Too many people are far too stubborn to admit that each person can be different. And *far* too many people are unwilling to even try to understand.
Perhaps Wiccans aren't any better. I've never said that we are.
*BUT* the Wiccan faith does not represent fantasy and escape. Nor fear or paranoia of science.
Nobody told me to be Wiccan. I respect nature and every living thing.
I'm also a programmer at a well respected world-wide company.
Perhaps your an Athiest? Agnostic? Scientologist? Christian? Catholic? Hindu? Buddhist? Does it matter? The fact that you speak so poorly of religion in general speaks loads about your own mental maturity.
What do you love? Your family? Friends? Do you think that because I have faith in something, that I believe in something and can put it into words that that makes me love my family and friends any less? Those who believe in nothing can't possibly understand what its like to truly have faith. It's not about loving an infallible mother/father figure and prancing about in a forest. It's about having peace and understanding of the world around you, and being able to put into words a feeling that nobody but you feels.
It amazes me how you can make statements like that based on absolutely *NO* facts. You don't know me, you don't know what I believe in, you don't know anything about my life, and yet you appear to have a very deep, yet totally unfounded, opinion of me.
Do me a favor, and make sure you don't have your head up your ass the next time you type a comment... perhaps then you'll realize that just because *you* think a religion or belief system is wrong, doesn't mean it *is* wrong.
People are entitled to their opinions, and I respect that. But to bluntly make statements and tell people that what they think or feel or believe is wrong? Thats how wars start.
I do not tell you that you're wrong. I simply state that I disagree.
Speaking from personal accounts, those who take on the $ciclos must be greatly prepared. My good friend Keith Henson is still serving his sentence for "Interfering with a religion" in Riverside, CA. He's a good example of what the $ciclos can and *will* do to keep those who would oppose them in check.
I personally disagree with the fundamentals of scientology, I'm Wiccan.
The simple answer to all of this madness is to completely eliminate software patents. It seems to me that the arguements against software patents FAR outweigh the arguements for them.
My hope out of all this is that the judge's in these cases start to use the new obvious patent analysis introduced with the KSR case recently. Then prior art wouldn't be required if the patent were to be found obvious, and thus, invalid.
Patents are designed to A: protect intellectual property and B: bolster innovation. I can't for the life of me see how this patent troll is using patents for anything but making money, which should in and of itself be an invalid use of a patent. Perhaps a change to the patent system... say... you can't bring a suit against another company for infringing on your patent unless you derive more than 50% of your gross revenue from non-patent sources... you know... true innovation, actual products, sales, services.
That would stop patent trolls in their tracks, as it would make it impossible to develop a stockpile of software patents, and then just hand out dozens of lawsuits to make money.
Bring back true innovation, when a company could come up with truly unique ideas and build that into a foundation.
Or are we, as a human race, simply out of truly unique ideas?
I've seen the reports as of late, and I can't help but wonder if this is the very beginning of the end of M$'s reign. This is how it starts, how history repeats. One by one the OEM's open up, let Linux in, and soon every OEM offers it. People buy it, thinking it might be a breath of fresh air from Microsoft. "I've heard about this Linux thing, I wonder what its like?..." And word of mouth is a powerful thing. The strongest, greatest advertising campaign can be brought down by a few simple words... "That product sucks!"
Coming from the right mouth, those words destroy entire companies. So Linux creeps in, takes over households one by one... how long before we start seeing reports like we see about Firefox? "Firefox steps up as leading competitor to IE", "Firefox market share grows!", "Firefox pounding away at IE Market share".
There's no doubt now that Microsoft is feeling the burn. Every move they make now suggests desperation in their effort to control open source. To keep it from being free, open.
Time after time throughout history, humans have proven that when we want freedom, we will have freedom. Free and Open Source software is freedom, and people want it. I don't remember who said it, but the line still rings true in my mind... "Somehow, I can *just* start to smell the first whiffs of decay from the old software giant."
Proprietary software is dead. It just doesn't know it yet.
And the headline and summary of the slashdot article do not do it justice. The editors should be spanked for that one, cuz even Con himself said it was a bad headline for his own interview. I think what he was getting at most was not that *Linux* had failed on the desktop market, but that the desktop market itself has failed its users.
A very well founded and informative look into Linux kernel development, and a sorry loss for the Linux community.
I didn't read TFA... but heres my opinions based on the title and the summary of the article:
1. You can't declare that Linux has *failed* on the desktop because Linux is still a growing phenominon, and since the advent of Ubuntu, it was my understanding that Linux desktop share has only increased. Perhaps not as remarkably as some people would like, but Linux is slowly chipping away at the desktop market, and its my opinion that the dam could burst any day now.
2. Ubuntu runs better on my machine than any Windows version ever has. So to say that it performs poorly on desktop PC's is inaccurate. Perhaps it should read: Linux performs poorly on desktop PC's that have been designed specifically for Windows. I think that would more accurately fit the bill... and even then, its a stretch.
3. One of the biggest hinderences to Linux right now is the complete lack of OEM support for it. If one wants Linux, one must already have a pre-existing system in order to download or order a copy. And then they have to "switch" from windows to linux. Most basic users simply don't want it that much. Even with Dell selling ubuntu PC's, they don't exactly go out of their way to advertise it. They offer them... and if your willing to look hard enough, you can actually buy one.
The long and the short of it is: Most basic users (the largest portion of the desktop market share) don't even realize theres another option, nor do they care. They want to buy a system, take it home, and use it. It should just work. They don't want to hunt for a specific linux system... and in most cases, its been my experience that most basic users, simply pick the cheepest pc that is being offered.
Its funny that you would mention them nickel and diming you. I used to work at a company that made page counters for printers and fax machine... the purpose of these devices was to count the pages printed or faxed at each device, and then do a bunch of accounting functions on it so that billing could be divided up in appropriate ways.
The primary client for these page counting devices was... Lawyers.:)
I guess I should be a little ashamed to say that I have indirectly contributed to the nickel and diming of lawyers clients everywhere. But hey... the company paid me good money to do Q/A on their products.:)
As mentioned in a subsequent reply, Extra Virgin Olive Oil refers to the very first Oil taken from the first pressing of olives, and traditionally has nothing to do with the oil's acidity.
In the states (and I presume canada) oils go through processing to remove impurities, kill bacteria, etc... and so whats labelled on a store shelf as extra virgin olive oil, really isn't, in the traditional sense. This is also why most north american olive oils are shipped in clear plastic containers, instead of opaque glass bottles. Traditional EVOO is light sensitive, and should be stored in opaque glass or metal cans to preserve the best flavour.
But yes, frying in EVOO is ridiculous. I use Peanut oil to fry in, and to season my Cast Iron pans (the best non-stick pan you'll ever know).:)
Hmm, Your score 0 for that comment is unwarranted. I agree with you in pretty much every aspect. I'm reasonably new to linux as well. (I've actually used it on and off for almost 10 years, but never with any consistancy)
I do video editing, and thus I had to find video editing and DVD authoring suites for Linux. I never did find a viable MPEG2 editor, and so had to get my editor of choice working in Wine (which wasn't too hard to do). I actually find the DVD authoring tools for Linux to be much easier to use and much more well rounded than the windows tools I formerly used.
Games are another big thing to me, because I'm a gamer. But I did find that one of the most popular games in my gaming group has a native Linux version, so I was thrilled with that. It would be nice to see more game companies do native linux versions. I would actually pay for that, and support them if they chose to do Linux as well as Windows versions.
Linux is coming into its own. It may have been around for 10-15 years, but its only *just* begun its life as a mainstream OS. Here's hoping that the same force that brought it to where it is, continues to take it to new levels. As long as Linux continues to improve, I am now, and always be a Linux supporter.
A Canadian version of the DMCA, simply put, will do absolutely NOTHING.
If people are copying software, music and movies now, what makes anybody think that increasing fines, or putting stiffer punishments is going to deter people from doing it in the future?
The plain and simple fact of the matter is just this: Most people who download music, or copy DVD's don't realize that its illegal, or if they do know that its illegal, they simply don't care.
Creating a duplicate law in Canada to mirror the already proven ineffective DMCA in the US is just one step closer to having a more American nation. There are ways to deal with the copying of DVD's or the downloading of music. This is not a good way to deal with it.
Also, for those who didn't RTFA, this "demand" is based on data collected from a study done almost 10 years ago, and even the conductors of the study claimed that the numbers were at best, sketchy. It seems to me that its just more pressure from American corporations to get their laws pushed onto Canadians as well.
Lets see a real study into this... with real numbers. I bet we'll find that:
A: The movie industry is doing just fine! (Spiderman 3 set all time records... I think that says it all.)
B: The piracy problem isn't as bad as they make it out to be. (While they calculate lost profits based on a per file transfer basis, they fail to remove those people that likely wouldn't have bought the movie anyways.)
Ahh, but thats a catch-22. That rule was pushed into the DMCA BY big corporations FOR big corporations. And so far, I've seen it used extensively by big corporations as a defense (see Viacom vs. YouTube).
To say that rules like this don't apply to big corporations is simply not accurate. And while it sometimes seems like big corporations are terribly evil and can get away with anything... the laws often *DO* prevail. They can't pick and choose which laws apply to them no matter how many senators they have in their pockets. This debate is *very* public, so its not like it can slip through the cracks. AT&T will have to duke this one out on their own I suspect.
I got the chance to experiment with Vista at work. I played around with it for 5 minutes... and made a decision...
I switched. I switched my home computer from Windows 2000 (which I've happily used faithfully for... 7 years) and Windows XP (which I've hated since its inception) to Ubuntu Linux 7.04.
We have another happy customer. I've been running Ubuntu for neigh on... a month now. No serious problem to speak of... I've rebooted it twice for updates... and a couple times to get extra things working. Aside from that, I've been thrilled, and wont ever switch back.
The problem with Vista as I've seen it (in my grand 5 minutes of experience with it) is that its not designed for usability. Its designed to market itself. "Oh look, its so pretty! I want that one!" And then people buy it... and hate it because it lacks some fundamental usability bits that I felt it could have used.
Ubuntu is:
A: Pretty! Right out of the box (so to speak) the default styling leaves me thinking that its been designed with a user in mind. Sleek, with pleasing colors, and an interface most people could pick up in a few minutes.
B: Cost effective! It's a free download, and the default installer will install the OS on most common PC's in the market with no upgrade required. Not to mention that the text based installer will install it on many low-end or aging PC's as well.
C: Functional! I had very little trouble getting all of my hardware to work. Most of it required NO work at all. Even in windows I have to install driver updates to get things to work 100%. Ubuntu worked pretty much out of the box and required only 1 additional tweak to get my video card working 100%, and 1 tweak to get my mouse working (All 5 buttons, the way I *WANT* them to work).
And so yeah, when you say Microsoft has done Linux a favor... Your right! I think if people give Linux a try at this point, they'll be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, like I was. Linux could pick up some of that lost desktop market share.
EMI will be the trend setter. Other labels will watch and wait to see what happens to EMI's profits and sales figures. If EMI is doing something right, we should see increases in the numbers. It seems like EMI is just testing the water... try something that the masses have been saying all along woudl increase sales, and see if it increases sales. If in fact the recent moves by EMI *does* increase sales figures, then the other labels will follow suit.
*BUT* if EMI goes to the extent of releasing DRM free music, and releasing its videos to youtube, and reaps no significant reward for their actions, its a sure bet that not only will the industry tighten up, but EMI will likely go back to the good ol days.
Businesses are all about numbers. If they change the way they do things, and they see no increase in the numbers, they aren't going to be encouraged to make more changes, and will likely go back to the old way because the numbers were better. As much as we would like to think it, what the slashdot community thinks is best for the industry, is not always so. Your talking a few hundred thousand people vs. a whole world of sales. For every 1 person that undestands whats going on in the industry right now, there's 10-20 that have no idea, and just keep going on with their lives like they always have.
Slashdot Mirror
In taking a queue from a great movie (Modified for context):
Q: Is there a problem with our laws?
A: Our laws are perfect.
Q: Then why do people disobey them?
A: Because our laws will only lead to one possible outcome.
Q: What outcome?
A: Revolution.
And that leaves us with today: It's a revolution, starting slowly, one country at a time.
People wont adhere to the laws that confine us. When people view what they do as perfectly natural, perfectly legal, it becomes harder and harder to keep them from doing it. Information *wants* to be free. And all the laws, all the digital locks, all the copyrights in the world will not stop it.
So why not let it be free?
Revolution my friends, mark my words.
I got news for you... DRM has already failed naturally.
:)
After all of the failed schemes:
DVD,
Sony Rootkit,
Most other CD Copy Pretection Schemes,
Version after version of Apples DRM,
HD-DVD and BluRay...
Why would they even entertain the idea of standardizing something that is defective by design.
DRM always was, always is, and always will be a failed attempt of companies to lock customers into 1 media, 1 product. Information inherently *wants* to be free. Why not put the effort into something much more valuable to society... like laws that *prevent* companies from implementing DRM Schemes.
*That* would be news I could sink my teeth into.
Sure, I can accept what you say, because it *is* your opinion. Everyone tends to favor a different type or style of software or interface, and thats fine.
:)
:)
My problem with the original post was that he doesn't claim its his opinion. He states it as fact, and as a fact, its wrong.
For every person like you, theres a person thats the opposite. I have to use MS office for work, and every time I have to edit a report or a plan in MS Word, its like pulling teeth. Its clunky, difficult and extremely frusterating for me to work with MS Word. In comparison, when I want to do something in OpenOffice, it works with ease.
Perhaps its the feature-set that we're working with, I dunno. I tend to prefer the Open Source alternatives because I find them easier to use.
As far as other apps go, learning Gimp was tough, but I'm not a graphics guy, and I find PS just as difficult to use. I get my wife to do all my Graphics work for me.
I also use the open source DVDAuthor package, which I find works *far* better than anything thats been put out for windows. I find it offers a certain level of control you just can't get from a gui. On the other hand, I *have* used some decent commercial DVD authoring packages (DVD-Lab), and the editing app that I use is commercial as well, and is second to none (VideoRedo). VideoRedo works under wine too.
All told, my opinion is that, I will try a FOSS package before a commercial package any day. But I have my standards, and if the FOSS package doesn't meet my standards, then I wont hesitate to spend some money.
Since the author of TFA has apparently closed off comments for now, I'll state it here:
Bravo. It's nice to see a main-stream media outlet offering this kind of coverage of FOSS.
I've experimented with FOSS for a long time, and have wanted to switch for many years. Last spring, I did, once and for all. I now use Ubuntu 7.10 on my home system, even for gaming. (I was surprised to find that many companies are offering a Linux version as well as Windows.)
In my opinion, meny FOSS projects are ready for the main-stream. They simply need some good publicity, and a following.
1. You *almost* sound like you were paid to write that.
2. Your statement is inaccurate on many levels.
3. You provide no basis for your opinion. Care to back up your statement with some evidence?
Every experience that I've had with OpenOffice has been a good one. Its fast, provides all the features that I'm looking for without being too bloated, and sometimes handles the Microsoft formats better than even MS Office does. I hazard to suggest that if OpenOffice was as bad as you suggest, that Cannonical would not have picked it as Productivity app of choice for Ubuntu. And I believe a fair number of other distro's provide it as well.
Before posting a bash like that against an open source project on an open source oriented web site, you should probably have something to back up your statements. Otherwise, your just blowing hot air out your arse.
People are doing studies on these sorts of things?
Who the hell drew the short straw on this one? And why bother? Is it really that important in todays society to know which mobile phone's keyboard will result in the most typos? Couldn't we put these resources to other uses? More important research?
I can't help but wonder if we put as much time and effort and resources into studying diseases as we put into these sorts of frivolous studies, would the world be better off?
This article just leaves me wondering... "What the hell?"
This type of agreement is unenforceable. A friend of mine has a sister thats a lawyer specializing in labour and termination disputes. I asked this kind of question of her when I started employment at a new company and had some concerns about some of the terms of the NDA and non-compete. She told me that any terms of the agreement that extend beyond the term of employment are unenforceable.
I used to work Cancellations and Tech Support for MSN Internet access. It was quite possibly the most interesting and yet horrible 6 months of my life.
:)
Boy when people get mad at Microsoft, they vent in whatever direction the nearest "Microsoft Employee" happens to be... even though I was only technically working for the call center.
We used to get people who didn't know they signed up, people who didn't have computers but were conned into an account by a dept store employee for a discount on their purchase, people who signed up legitimately, and then threaten legal action because they faced penalties for canceling a contract... and I once spent over 30 minutes trying to explain to an 80-year old southern grand mother what an underscore was so that she could type in her user name.
I do *NOT* miss those days.
"(Score:0, Insightful)"...
Only on Slashdot...
See? You really don't understand.
True religion, true beliefs are not governed by what the status quo believes.
True religion, true beliefs are personal. They run to the very core of your being. It doesn't matter if the "Label" is recent, 100, 1000 or 10000 years old. Like any belief system, there are fundamentals, and whether the Modern view of that belief system has existed for a long time or not doesn't really matter. The fundamentals are the same. People have always loved, respected and worshiped nature, and gods, and inanimate objects that they feel hold some mystic power. Does it matter what label they put on it?
My beliefs are my beliefs. I call myself Wiccan because its the easiest way to convey to somebody the basics of what I believe. The same as somebody who calls themselves Catholic, but doesn't go to church every Sunday. Not everybody in a certain religion believes in every ideal or testament of a religion. Thats called individuality.
Too many people make assumptions about what other people believe. Too many people are far too stubborn to admit that each person can be different. And *far* too many people are unwilling to even try to understand.
Perhaps Wiccans aren't any better. I've never said that we are.
*BUT* the Wiccan faith does not represent fantasy and escape. Nor fear or paranoia of science.
Nobody told me to be Wiccan. I respect nature and every living thing.
I'm also a programmer at a well respected world-wide company.
Perhaps your an Athiest? Agnostic? Scientologist? Christian? Catholic? Hindu? Buddhist? Does it matter? The fact that you speak so poorly of religion in general speaks loads about your own mental maturity.
What do you love? Your family? Friends? Do you think that because I have faith in something, that I believe in something and can put it into words that that makes me love my family and friends any less? Those who believe in nothing can't possibly understand what its like to truly have faith. It's not about loving an infallible mother/father figure and prancing about in a forest. It's about having peace and understanding of the world around you, and being able to put into words a feeling that nobody but you feels.
But you wouldn't understand.
It amazes me how you can make statements like that based on absolutely *NO* facts. You don't know me, you don't know what I believe in, you don't know anything about my life, and yet you appear to have a very deep, yet totally unfounded, opinion of me.
Do me a favor, and make sure you don't have your head up your ass the next time you type a comment... perhaps then you'll realize that just because *you* think a religion or belief system is wrong, doesn't mean it *is* wrong.
People are entitled to their opinions, and I respect that. But to bluntly make statements and tell people that what they think or feel or believe is wrong? Thats how wars start.
I do not tell you that you're wrong. I simply state that I disagree.
Speaking from personal accounts, those who take on the $ciclos must be greatly prepared. My good friend Keith Henson is still serving his sentence for "Interfering with a religion" in Riverside, CA. He's a good example of what the $ciclos can and *will* do to keep those who would oppose them in check.
I personally disagree with the fundamentals of scientology, I'm Wiccan.
The simple answer to all of this madness is to completely eliminate software patents. It seems to me that the arguements against software patents FAR outweigh the arguements for them.
My hope out of all this is that the judge's in these cases start to use the new obvious patent analysis introduced with the KSR case recently. Then prior art wouldn't be required if the patent were to be found obvious, and thus, invalid.
Patents are designed to A: protect intellectual property and B: bolster innovation. I can't for the life of me see how this patent troll is using patents for anything but making money, which should in and of itself be an invalid use of a patent. Perhaps a change to the patent system... say... you can't bring a suit against another company for infringing on your patent unless you derive more than 50% of your gross revenue from non-patent sources... you know... true innovation, actual products, sales, services.
That would stop patent trolls in their tracks, as it would make it impossible to develop a stockpile of software patents, and then just hand out dozens of lawsuits to make money.
Bring back true innovation, when a company could come up with truly unique ideas and build that into a foundation.
Or are we, as a human race, simply out of truly unique ideas?
I've seen the reports as of late, and I can't help but wonder if this is the very beginning of the end of M$'s reign. This is how it starts, how history repeats. One by one the OEM's open up, let Linux in, and soon every OEM offers it. People buy it, thinking it might be a breath of fresh air from Microsoft. "I've heard about this Linux thing, I wonder what its like?..." And word of mouth is a powerful thing. The strongest, greatest advertising campaign can be brought down by a few simple words... "That product sucks!"
Coming from the right mouth, those words destroy entire companies. So Linux creeps in, takes over households one by one... how long before we start seeing reports like we see about Firefox? "Firefox steps up as leading competitor to IE", "Firefox market share grows!", "Firefox pounding away at IE Market share".
There's no doubt now that Microsoft is feeling the burn. Every move they make now suggests desperation in their effort to control open source. To keep it from being free, open.
Time after time throughout history, humans have proven that when we want freedom, we will have freedom. Free and Open Source software is freedom, and people want it. I don't remember who said it, but the line still rings true in my mind... "Somehow, I can *just* start to smell the first whiffs of decay from the old software giant."
Proprietary software is dead. It just doesn't know it yet.
Ok Ok I read TFA. :)
And the headline and summary of the slashdot article do not do it justice. The editors should be spanked for that one, cuz even Con himself said it was a bad headline for his own interview. I think what he was getting at most was not that *Linux* had failed on the desktop market, but that the desktop market itself has failed its users.
A very well founded and informative look into Linux kernel development, and a sorry loss for the Linux community.
I didn't read TFA... but heres my opinions based on the title and the summary of the article:
1. You can't declare that Linux has *failed* on the desktop because Linux is still a growing phenominon, and since the advent of Ubuntu, it was my understanding that Linux desktop share has only increased. Perhaps not as remarkably as some people would like, but Linux is slowly chipping away at the desktop market, and its my opinion that the dam could burst any day now.
2. Ubuntu runs better on my machine than any Windows version ever has. So to say that it performs poorly on desktop PC's is inaccurate. Perhaps it should read: Linux performs poorly on desktop PC's that have been designed specifically for Windows. I think that would more accurately fit the bill... and even then, its a stretch.
3. One of the biggest hinderences to Linux right now is the complete lack of OEM support for it. If one wants Linux, one must already have a pre-existing system in order to download or order a copy. And then they have to "switch" from windows to linux. Most basic users simply don't want it that much. Even with Dell selling ubuntu PC's, they don't exactly go out of their way to advertise it. They offer them... and if your willing to look hard enough, you can actually buy one.
The long and the short of it is: Most basic users (the largest portion of the desktop market share) don't even realize theres another option, nor do they care. They want to buy a system, take it home, and use it. It should just work. They don't want to hunt for a specific linux system... and in most cases, its been my experience that most basic users, simply pick the cheepest pc that is being offered.
Just my 2 cents...
Its funny that you would mention them nickel and diming you. I used to work at a company that made page counters for printers and fax machine... the purpose of these devices was to count the pages printed or faxed at each device, and then do a bunch of accounting functions on it so that billing could be divided up in appropriate ways.
:)
:)
The primary client for these page counting devices was... Lawyers.
I guess I should be a little ashamed to say that I have indirectly contributed to the nickel and diming of lawyers clients everywhere. But hey... the company paid me good money to do Q/A on their products.
Yet another great example of a Product with DRM being Defective by Design! Join the movement: Defective By Design
As mentioned in a subsequent reply, Extra Virgin Olive Oil refers to the very first Oil taken from the first pressing of olives, and traditionally has nothing to do with the oil's acidity.
:)
In the states (and I presume canada) oils go through processing to remove impurities, kill bacteria, etc... and so whats labelled on a store shelf as extra virgin olive oil, really isn't, in the traditional sense. This is also why most north american olive oils are shipped in clear plastic containers, instead of opaque glass bottles. Traditional EVOO is light sensitive, and should be stored in opaque glass or metal cans to preserve the best flavour.
But yes, frying in EVOO is ridiculous. I use Peanut oil to fry in, and to season my Cast Iron pans (the best non-stick pan you'll ever know).
Hmm, Your score 0 for that comment is unwarranted. I agree with you in pretty much every aspect. I'm reasonably new to linux as well. (I've actually used it on and off for almost 10 years, but never with any consistancy)
I do video editing, and thus I had to find video editing and DVD authoring suites for Linux. I never did find a viable MPEG2 editor, and so had to get my editor of choice working in Wine (which wasn't too hard to do). I actually find the DVD authoring tools for Linux to be much easier to use and much more well rounded than the windows tools I formerly used.
Games are another big thing to me, because I'm a gamer. But I did find that one of the most popular games in my gaming group has a native Linux version, so I was thrilled with that. It would be nice to see more game companies do native linux versions. I would actually pay for that, and support them if they chose to do Linux as well as Windows versions.
Linux is coming into its own. It may have been around for 10-15 years, but its only *just* begun its life as a mainstream OS. Here's hoping that the same force that brought it to where it is, continues to take it to new levels. As long as Linux continues to improve, I am now, and always be a Linux supporter.
Long live the free (as in freedom) software!
As a Canadian voter myself, I second that!
A Canadian version of the DMCA, simply put, will do absolutely NOTHING.
If people are copying software, music and movies now, what makes anybody think that increasing fines, or putting stiffer punishments is going to deter people from doing it in the future?
The plain and simple fact of the matter is just this: Most people who download music, or copy DVD's don't realize that its illegal, or if they do know that its illegal, they simply don't care.
Creating a duplicate law in Canada to mirror the already proven ineffective DMCA in the US is just one step closer to having a more American nation. There are ways to deal with the copying of DVD's or the downloading of music. This is not a good way to deal with it.
Also, for those who didn't RTFA, this "demand" is based on data collected from a study done almost 10 years ago, and even the conductors of the study claimed that the numbers were at best, sketchy. It seems to me that its just more pressure from American corporations to get their laws pushed onto Canadians as well.
Lets see a real study into this... with real numbers. I bet we'll find that:
A: The movie industry is doing just fine! (Spiderman 3 set all time records... I think that says it all.)
B: The piracy problem isn't as bad as they make it out to be. (While they calculate lost profits based on a per file transfer basis, they fail to remove those people that likely wouldn't have bought the movie anyways.)
Ahh, but thats a catch-22. That rule was pushed into the DMCA BY big corporations FOR big corporations. And so far, I've seen it used extensively by big corporations as a defense (see Viacom vs. YouTube).
To say that rules like this don't apply to big corporations is simply not accurate. And while it sometimes seems like big corporations are terribly evil and can get away with anything... the laws often *DO* prevail. They can't pick and choose which laws apply to them no matter how many senators they have in their pockets. This debate is *very* public, so its not like it can slip through the cracks. AT&T will have to duke this one out on their own I suspect.
Well, actually...
I got the chance to experiment with Vista at work. I played around with it for 5 minutes... and made a decision...
I switched. I switched my home computer from Windows 2000 (which I've happily used faithfully for... 7 years) and Windows XP (which I've hated since its inception) to Ubuntu Linux 7.04.
We have another happy customer. I've been running Ubuntu for neigh on... a month now. No serious problem to speak of... I've rebooted it twice for updates... and a couple times to get extra things working. Aside from that, I've been thrilled, and wont ever switch back.
The problem with Vista as I've seen it (in my grand 5 minutes of experience with it) is that its not designed for usability. Its designed to market itself. "Oh look, its so pretty! I want that one!" And then people buy it... and hate it because it lacks some fundamental usability bits that I felt it could have used.
Ubuntu is:
A: Pretty! Right out of the box (so to speak) the default styling leaves me thinking that its been designed with a user in mind. Sleek, with pleasing colors, and an interface most people could pick up in a few minutes.
B: Cost effective! It's a free download, and the default installer will install the OS on most common PC's in the market with no upgrade required. Not to mention that the text based installer will install it on many low-end or aging PC's as well.
C: Functional! I had very little trouble getting all of my hardware to work. Most of it required NO work at all. Even in windows I have to install driver updates to get things to work 100%. Ubuntu worked pretty much out of the box and required only 1 additional tweak to get my video card working 100%, and 1 tweak to get my mouse working (All 5 buttons, the way I *WANT* them to work).
And so yeah, when you say Microsoft has done Linux a favor... Your right! I think if people give Linux a try at this point, they'll be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, like I was. Linux could pick up some of that lost desktop market share.
EMI will be the trend setter. Other labels will watch and wait to see what happens to EMI's profits and sales figures. If EMI is doing something right, we should see increases in the numbers. It seems like EMI is just testing the water... try something that the masses have been saying all along woudl increase sales, and see if it increases sales. If in fact the recent moves by EMI *does* increase sales figures, then the other labels will follow suit.
*BUT* if EMI goes to the extent of releasing DRM free music, and releasing its videos to youtube, and reaps no significant reward for their actions, its a sure bet that not only will the industry tighten up, but EMI will likely go back to the good ol days.
Businesses are all about numbers. If they change the way they do things, and they see no increase in the numbers, they aren't going to be encouraged to make more changes, and will likely go back to the old way because the numbers were better. As much as we would like to think it, what the slashdot community thinks is best for the industry, is not always so. Your talking a few hundred thousand people vs. a whole world of sales. For every 1 person that undestands whats going on in the industry right now, there's 10-20 that have no idea, and just keep going on with their lives like they always have.