I'm sorry, but if you think it's acceptable for a company seeking YOUR business to "treat you like a criminal", then you have a big problem. Why do we suddenly have to be responsible for their profitability? If they can't protect their own bottom end by providing a service that I want to buy, it's THEIR PROBLEM. If they have to call the government to help protect their goods and services, it's THEIR PROBLEM. If they're on the brink of bankruptcy due to piracy, maybe it's the invisible hand at work correcting unneeded services and removing a cancer.
DRM, watermark, etc are undeniable proof that they are treating me like a criminal. To even THINK of such a scheme, Thomson can kiss my ass and my business goodbye after this announcement. It's MY MONEY and I'm the one choosing where it gets spent. I have no obligation to choose between DRM and watermark, and neither are you. I reject both.
Nah, never happen. What will happen, though, is the copyright cartel made it ILLEGAL to download anything that is remotely connected with copyright while applying for tax exemption due to "piracy". All the while continuing to sue "guilty" parties.
They don't care if they look like the bad guys. They don't even care that they ARE the bad guys. Trust me, if even a hint of tax exemption is whispered about, the media companies will be jumping all over it with their usual "piracy" excuse.
Perhaps it's fitting that we call copyright and patent cartels are the US's own home-grown terrorist. They terror people.
If the FCC is supposed to encourage competition, then they've failed horribly. What I've noticed is that the choice in communications in the US is very limited compared to the rest of the world. Very frequently I heard that in an area, there's only two cell provider, one DSL, one cable, anything not more than two. I think so is in Canada, with Rogers the only provider in some area.
Here in Australia, for cell we can choose between Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, Boost, or any number of small providers, AFAIK in the whole country. And I think a phone locked into one provider is quite illegal here, since when I got my phone free from Vodafone, they pretty much told me that the phone can be unlocked immediately to be used with a different provider. Same goes for DSL, we have the usual suspects (Telstra & Optus) plus many providers available everywhere (TPG, iinet, etc etc). For you non-Aussies, Telstra & Optus are like the Bells here. I noted that the cell phone models available all over the world are much more advanced than what's available in the US.
As for the "US is more spread out" issue, don't the telcos have tax breaks given by the govt to supply broadband? Aren't they supposed to prove that this money actually goes into broadband and not into some executive's golden handshake or something?
I'm quite confused with the state of communications in the US, so please enlighten me.
I'm confused. Do we want or don't want competition? I'm maybe misunderstanding this, but it sounds like FCC is encouraging monopoly practices. Besides, I don't think anything advertised to the customer can count as a trade secret.
Would you risk a false positive knowing what the US govt did with their prisoners?
Right now the US mindset is shoot first and ask questions later. I'm too lazy to look for references, but there's been cases where they had a false positive, but that didn't stop them from torturing the guy.
About 70% of PhD students in my lab already refuse to go to anything that is hosted in the US. My supervisor specifically asked me to stay away from the US due to this sort of crap. Since the US economy is so big, the effects are not felt now or even 5-10 years ahead, but there will be an effect when scholars start to refuse to go to the US.
History repeats itself, I say. The US starts to sound like the Romans did when they consider their citizens "humans" and non-citizens "barbarians".
I always thought those anti piracy ads were moronic. You bought the disc, which surely means that you haven't pirated it. The pirates would definitely strip those shit out of the pirated version, which also means that the real pirates won't be seeing those ads. There must be a higher meaning to their logic, but I guess I'm just too limited in my reasoning to understand.
However I do feel warm and fuzzy inside that people with mental disabilities can actually find a job in the entertainment industry.
I'm guessing you know how hard it is to train people to use a computer let alone windows, osx, or linux. Many, many case (as much as 90%, in my experience) of tech support calls consist of unplugged mouse, unplugged power, minimized program, etc etc. Hopefully it's better today, but the amount of clueless users out there is mind boggling. Not to mention the politics of assigning blame that seems to take hold the bigger a company is so a company tend to stick to what's known to work. The situation we end up right now is the fallout from the IBM days, when no one was fired for choosing IBM. Thus we're stuck with them.
The thing is, not all jobs require computer to do. Stuff like accounting only use minimal amount of computing skill, marketing people who are good at spending $5000+ on a projector (but arguably is the money bringer in a company), and corporate lawyers. These people have scarce need for computing but most of them are experienced with office in some form.
Banning IE is the first step to do it right, but while firefox might be simple for people like you and me, for some people it's beyond arcane. Don't overestimate people's ability to use technology.
Believe me I tried. PHP was running on IIS. The problem was, we were developing something based on XML, and in XML you're not allowed to have ampersand (&). Thing is, the database have that character. PHP solves it simply by regexp all ampersand and replacing it with something else. ASP have no such thing. Since my boss insist on ASP, their solution was changing the database.
Wow I guess years of frustration suddenly got the better of me.
I guess I was burned way too much trying to do the "right thing" I simply give up, if that's what you're getting at. The current situation of every business I've involved in is that they're so fixated on MS's stuff they simply won't try anything else. I saw how MS was being used as a scapegoat if something goes wrong, and the higher ups solve the problem by throwing more money, even when the mail server (Exchange) was breaking down repeatedly. I can't really blame them, after all, the business does run well, even with all the screwups in the IT department. I'm certain I'll get the axe if I insist on using something else and it breaks down.
I'm aware of all your points, but don't forget the cost of retraining people to use Linux or Macs. I'm fully aware of the discounts for volume buying, but that still won't break MS's stranglehold. I have a hard time trying to get the accountants to use a new software (from in-house to a "proper" accounting software), let alone trying to get them to use something not windows. Of course, you can always look for people with skills in Mac or Linux, but since there's relatively few of them, you're limiting your own choices.
I tried but mostly was not as successful as you have, obviously. My office swears by ASP, but I absolutely loathe Basic as a language so I was promoting PHP instead. You wouldn't believe the hoops they're willing to go through to make ASP work while I showed them how PHP can solve their problem in one line. Most people will say that Linux is interesting and powerful but stopped short of actually trying it.
I guess I came from college full of high ideals and quickly realize that such ideals are too good to be true. People are afraid of change, and they're clinging to their old ways as much as they can, even when an obviously better alternative presents itself.
In a way, we are a flip side of them. We are trying to convert them to the "Unix way", much as they're trying to convert us to their "windows way" (although subconsciously). The only practical solution is a compromise, and as long as the work is done, anyone can use the tool of their choice.
I guess I've tried enough times that I just wake up one day and realize that all this "windows vs linux vs mac" argument is useless, and the only people that care is us. After that, I'm beginning to appreciate why my boss loves windows so much and why the designer in the corner loves his mac so much. The answer? People have different priorities. You might not understand why your mechanic friend made such a big deal out of your engines or petrol choices, but that's exactly how the world sees us.
Your kid's future won't mean shit if you don't spend time with them teaching them the necessary skill to live their own future lives. I can go on trying to break MS's world dominance for the betterment of everybody, but my priority is spending time with them, not go on some crusade. Obviously your priorities are different.
To each his own, I guess. My parents used to say that you don't understand it unless you have kids of your own. Guess what, they're absolutely right.
The thing is, the Linux part isn't supported. Sure you can buy a support package for Linux, but the majority of people have some capability to troubleshoot windows.
I'd love to see Linux or any UNIX on corporations, but the stranglehold MS has on people's skill is difficult to shrug. Retraining people to be sufficiently able to operate Linux is no small investment, so businesses simply follows the obviously cheaper solution. While the cost of licensing windows is expensive, arguably the TCO (at least today) is lower due to the lack of need to train people to use windows. Also Linux's compatibility difficulties across versions is not helping a bit.
I'm old fashioned and still think a centralized server, the UNIX way, is a better solution and easier to manage. Managing active directory and windows domain controller is a nightmare (for me). However the cost of me doing all that hocus pocus on windows server on overtime is still cheaper than the cost of training the whole office.
I can rant endlessly on why windows is not a perfect solution (or even a good solution), but I can't argue that it does work although it takes a lot of black magic. And that is precisely what businesses are looking for.
See the price tag for a Mac. Then multiply by 1000 for a good-sized office.
Fact is, not many corporation buy Macs unless it's absolutely necessary (for design purposes, for example). The above example is why.
Although I kind of suspect the "flashiness" of Macs & OSX is another reason why. Business wants boring-looking stuff, not something that looks fancy.
I can easily reverse the argument here. Imagine you're running a business. Would you equip your 1000 employees with Toyotas or BMWs? We know for a fact that BMWs is a much better car, but Toyotas work fine nonetheless.
Nokia has the 6280 which is a slider, so it got good big buttons and a big screen. The killer is, they put an old OS in a new hardware, so the interface is lightning quick. Got a 2 MP camera too. You might want to take a look at it.
I don't think MS is that dumb to let media companies rule their decision making in Vista. After all, it's their future that's at stake.
Also, in the real world the problem is not as simple as "windows vs linux vs mac". Zealotry toward an OS only exists in slashdot. What if your employer wants you to hand over reports in Word? You have three options: write it up in Wine, or in windows itself on a computer assigned to you in the office, or quit. No sane person would choose #3 (except RMS, maybe). That leaves #1 as the only option. It's fine as long as you have all the time in the world, but once you've worked 9 to 5, have a family and children, you REALLY DON'T CARE. MS can take over the world for all I care, I just want to get this goddamn report done and go home. To hell with the DRMed-to-death Vista. Give me anything with Office in it and I'm happy.
This line of thought might sound weird and impossible when you're still in college. But trust me, once you've worked in a proper corporate office for about 10 or so years, you'll understand perfectly why Linux and Macs won't EVER win over MS.
Well, the version is the one before the current one. So even if this one works, there's no telling the current one will be the same. "Generally the same" doesn't mean it is. All it takes is one line of code to cheat an election, but the source will still be 99.9% similar.
All in all, I say it's a waste of time AND a possible trap. Now blackbox can argue "it's been examined by the community". However, they can still cheat on the actual voting machine itself since what's available is only the tabulator.
I'm probably overly paranoid, but paper voting is the only means to an election. Simple, no hiding anything, can be counted physically and cheating takes a lot of effort. The only drawback is time.
Not to mention dangerous. You can't really prove that the source code is used to generate the executable, but they can argue that the source is perfectly fine and lie about the executable. More vote mangling can happen that's cannot be proven. It'll be disastrous.
I'm not saying that everyone is delusional, but there are enough people out there that spit garbage at every MS's stuff, praise apple and say "OSS would be better" in one sentence. Enough so that I, for one, am actually getting sick at it.
Well MS IS a monopoly. However, being the devil's advocate, they actually have no need to improve their products at all (being a monopoly). I don't like their tactics, the worst of which is cheating money out of mosaic for IE, but they do improve their product. When there's no competition, they're forced to plug holes due to their carelessness.
However OSS is also not perfect. Take XWin, for example. Do we actually need a multiuser windowing system these days when the terminals are powerful enough? I bet some people here would defend XWin just because. In a way, MS's GUI actually makes more sense now. I'm eager to get off MS's trap, but OSS is, IMO, not mature enough. Apple's stuff are too expensive. I'm left with no alternative.
It frustrates me when some people, including slashdot moderators, would defend OSS vigorously, including insulting me, when all I want is to point out some things that can be improved in OSS, incidentally some of them are taken from MS's work. BUT if someone suggests Apple's work, it immediately receive general praise. Well I can hardly find any post in slashdot that actually criticize Apple. This makes no sense whatsoever.
Let me repeat. My intention is not for OSS to make shitloads of money like MS. I just want it to IMPROVE. However, defending MS for what they did right in here seems to go against the will of the masses. Recall my original post. I was simply saying that MS did right when they decide to be careful and takes their time when designing Vista's sounds, then I went on complaining (fumingly), why OSS defender immediately strike what MS's did down as "useless", etc. I was saying that it's not wise to do so.
After that I say that MS DO make a lot of money. Certainly they can't do that if they do EVERYTHING wrong, like some people here suggests. I say, they do have a lot of smart people there that wants to do right. So why not learn what they did and use it to improve OSS?
The REAL question is, for the zealots here, if you're offered a position at MS, would you accept it?
Hating your enemy is never wise. Just ask Don Corleone. So don't do that.
Perhaps I worded it wrongly, but you got the point exactly right. It's the sharing part and acknowledging if MS somehow does some things right, and Apple too. Too many zealots simply ignore MS's achievements and put Apple on a pedestal, even though Apple's track record is no different than MS.
Pardon me if I seem to overreact, but let's see. Apart from IE6, MS had done the right thing with XP. When's the last time you saw XP crashed? Sure, nothing works if you're not admin, but I believe MS is taking steps to remedy this.
What about Apple? They charged a full price for what is essentially updates to their own OS. Five times. And I read somewhere that they covered up a security hole and not fixing it (I'm too lazy to look it up).
My point is, OSS would be left way behind in the dust when MS simply makes Windows better and we're too proud to admit that they've done some things right.
Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, I love OSS. What I was complaining about is how some people in the OSS world simply refuse to look upon themselves and see where OSS is lacking, but instead creating some excuse of why OSS don't need such and such feature when MS implements it. What we need is the ability to objectively see what MS did right, and try to do it better instead of slamming it as "useless" and "waste of resources".
Why, instead of calling Vista's sound as "useless" or "not a polish", show me why it's not needed. I think MS does have a good point when they say that the sound would be heard countless times so it better be good.
I guess I saw one too many attitudes like these lately I simply snapped.
The problems only come when you have too few people, the wrong mix of skills, or too little time/money. None of these are problems for Vista.
or if you're in denial and believe in your own superiority over everyone, like how some open source people have become. Note the replies that came after your post.
Let me quote:
There is a big difference between polish and flashiness, the former applies to functionality as much as anything else while the later does not.
and
Your post underscores a lot of what is wrong with this M$/propietary software movement, that is, you keep stating the obvious, changing aesthetics and pretending its some new 'kewl' hip new thing, and over all, trying to be elitest bastards.
And many more to come.
I'm almost certainly will be modded as troll, but I don't really care. This is exactly the reason why open source will never rule the world, the mentality of "we are superior" and "strike down those that say otherwise". Or even "silence those that criticize the obvious flaw in our thinking". Oh, and the lemmings mentality that praise everything Apple.
Instead of discussing WHY MS put so much effort in this area, it is instantly scoffed at and judged without the slightest clue. Scoff all you want, people. These guys are making millions of dollars each year, while most of you DO NOT. There must be something they're doing right, so if you want OSS to succeed, steal some of it instead of dismissing it like 5 year olds. Nevermind their monopoly tactics, their product DOES have some merit of its own, which are left as exercise for the readers.
The response of slashdot to criticism is very predictable. Watch how my comment is modded down to oblivion.
This is true. With a guitar, you can get away with some off-beat off-key crap once in a while and it'll sound like improvisation. With a bass, hit the wrong note at the wrong time and everyone will know it's wrong.
I played both bass and guitar, and believe me, playing bass is harder and requires more concentration. With a guitar, sometimes it depends on your skill to act as if the wrong guess note you've just hit is meant to be there. My solution? Hit the wrong note again three or four times and finish the phrase with the correct note:)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but if you think it's acceptable for a company seeking YOUR business to "treat you like a criminal", then you have a big problem. Why do we suddenly have to be responsible for their profitability? If they can't protect their own bottom end by providing a service that I want to buy, it's THEIR PROBLEM. If they have to call the government to help protect their goods and services, it's THEIR PROBLEM. If they're on the brink of bankruptcy due to piracy, maybe it's the invisible hand at work correcting unneeded services and removing a cancer.
DRM, watermark, etc are undeniable proof that they are treating me like a criminal. To even THINK of such a scheme, Thomson can kiss my ass and my business goodbye after this announcement. It's MY MONEY and I'm the one choosing where it gets spent. I have no obligation to choose between DRM and watermark, and neither are you. I reject both.
Nah, never happen. What will happen, though, is the copyright cartel made it ILLEGAL to download anything that is remotely connected with copyright while applying for tax exemption due to "piracy". All the while continuing to sue "guilty" parties.
They don't care if they look like the bad guys. They don't even care that they ARE the bad guys. Trust me, if even a hint of tax exemption is whispered about, the media companies will be jumping all over it with their usual "piracy" excuse.
Perhaps it's fitting that we call copyright and patent cartels are the US's own home-grown terrorist. They terror people.
And the so-called public servants are using the lag time to deal even more damage by justifying the damage done with some law re-writing.
If the FCC is supposed to encourage competition, then they've failed horribly. What I've noticed is that the choice in communications in the US is very limited compared to the rest of the world. Very frequently I heard that in an area, there's only two cell provider, one DSL, one cable, anything not more than two. I think so is in Canada, with Rogers the only provider in some area.
Here in Australia, for cell we can choose between Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Virgin, Boost, or any number of small providers, AFAIK in the whole country. And I think a phone locked into one provider is quite illegal here, since when I got my phone free from Vodafone, they pretty much told me that the phone can be unlocked immediately to be used with a different provider. Same goes for DSL, we have the usual suspects (Telstra & Optus) plus many providers available everywhere (TPG, iinet, etc etc). For you non-Aussies, Telstra & Optus are like the Bells here. I noted that the cell phone models available all over the world are much more advanced than what's available in the US.
As for the "US is more spread out" issue, don't the telcos have tax breaks given by the govt to supply broadband? Aren't they supposed to prove that this money actually goes into broadband and not into some executive's golden handshake or something?
I'm quite confused with the state of communications in the US, so please enlighten me.
I'm confused. Do we want or don't want competition? I'm maybe misunderstanding this, but it sounds like FCC is encouraging monopoly practices. Besides, I don't think anything advertised to the customer can count as a trade secret.
The question to ask is:
Would you risk a false positive knowing what the US govt did with their prisoners?
Right now the US mindset is shoot first and ask questions later. I'm too lazy to look for references, but there's been cases where they had a false positive, but that didn't stop them from torturing the guy.
About 70% of PhD students in my lab already refuse to go to anything that is hosted in the US. My supervisor specifically asked me to stay away from the US due to this sort of crap. Since the US economy is so big, the effects are not felt now or even 5-10 years ahead, but there will be an effect when scholars start to refuse to go to the US.
History repeats itself, I say. The US starts to sound like the Romans did when they consider their citizens "humans" and non-citizens "barbarians".
I always thought those anti piracy ads were moronic. You bought the disc, which surely means that you haven't pirated it. The pirates would definitely strip those shit out of the pirated version, which also means that the real pirates won't be seeing those ads. There must be a higher meaning to their logic, but I guess I'm just too limited in my reasoning to understand.
However I do feel warm and fuzzy inside that people with mental disabilities can actually find a job in the entertainment industry.
I'm guessing you know how hard it is to train people to use a computer let alone windows, osx, or linux. Many, many case (as much as 90%, in my experience) of tech support calls consist of unplugged mouse, unplugged power, minimized program, etc etc. Hopefully it's better today, but the amount of clueless users out there is mind boggling. Not to mention the politics of assigning blame that seems to take hold the bigger a company is so a company tend to stick to what's known to work. The situation we end up right now is the fallout from the IBM days, when no one was fired for choosing IBM. Thus we're stuck with them.
The thing is, not all jobs require computer to do. Stuff like accounting only use minimal amount of computing skill, marketing people who are good at spending $5000+ on a projector (but arguably is the money bringer in a company), and corporate lawyers. These people have scarce need for computing but most of them are experienced with office in some form.
Banning IE is the first step to do it right, but while firefox might be simple for people like you and me, for some people it's beyond arcane. Don't overestimate people's ability to use technology.
Believe me I tried. PHP was running on IIS. The problem was, we were developing something based on XML, and in XML you're not allowed to have ampersand (&). Thing is, the database have that character. PHP solves it simply by regexp all ampersand and replacing it with something else. ASP have no such thing. Since my boss insist on ASP, their solution was changing the database.
Wow I guess years of frustration suddenly got the better of me.
I guess I was burned way too much trying to do the "right thing" I simply give up, if that's what you're getting at. The current situation of every business I've involved in is that they're so fixated on MS's stuff they simply won't try anything else. I saw how MS was being used as a scapegoat if something goes wrong, and the higher ups solve the problem by throwing more money, even when the mail server (Exchange) was breaking down repeatedly. I can't really blame them, after all, the business does run well, even with all the screwups in the IT department. I'm certain I'll get the axe if I insist on using something else and it breaks down.
I'm aware of all your points, but don't forget the cost of retraining people to use Linux or Macs. I'm fully aware of the discounts for volume buying, but that still won't break MS's stranglehold. I have a hard time trying to get the accountants to use a new software (from in-house to a "proper" accounting software), let alone trying to get them to use something not windows. Of course, you can always look for people with skills in Mac or Linux, but since there's relatively few of them, you're limiting your own choices.
I tried but mostly was not as successful as you have, obviously. My office swears by ASP, but I absolutely loathe Basic as a language so I was promoting PHP instead. You wouldn't believe the hoops they're willing to go through to make ASP work while I showed them how PHP can solve their problem in one line. Most people will say that Linux is interesting and powerful but stopped short of actually trying it.
I guess I came from college full of high ideals and quickly realize that such ideals are too good to be true. People are afraid of change, and they're clinging to their old ways as much as they can, even when an obviously better alternative presents itself.
In a way, we are a flip side of them. We are trying to convert them to the "Unix way", much as they're trying to convert us to their "windows way" (although subconsciously). The only practical solution is a compromise, and as long as the work is done, anyone can use the tool of their choice.
I guess I've tried enough times that I just wake up one day and realize that all this "windows vs linux vs mac" argument is useless, and the only people that care is us. After that, I'm beginning to appreciate why my boss loves windows so much and why the designer in the corner loves his mac so much. The answer? People have different priorities. You might not understand why your mechanic friend made such a big deal out of your engines or petrol choices, but that's exactly how the world sees us.
Your kid's future won't mean shit if you don't spend time with them teaching them the necessary skill to live their own future lives. I can go on trying to break MS's world dominance for the betterment of everybody, but my priority is spending time with them, not go on some crusade. Obviously your priorities are different.
To each his own, I guess. My parents used to say that you don't understand it unless you have kids of your own. Guess what, they're absolutely right.
The thing is, the Linux part isn't supported. Sure you can buy a support package for Linux, but the majority of people have some capability to troubleshoot windows.
I'd love to see Linux or any UNIX on corporations, but the stranglehold MS has on people's skill is difficult to shrug. Retraining people to be sufficiently able to operate Linux is no small investment, so businesses simply follows the obviously cheaper solution. While the cost of licensing windows is expensive, arguably the TCO (at least today) is lower due to the lack of need to train people to use windows. Also Linux's compatibility difficulties across versions is not helping a bit.
I'm old fashioned and still think a centralized server, the UNIX way, is a better solution and easier to manage. Managing active directory and windows domain controller is a nightmare (for me). However the cost of me doing all that hocus pocus on windows server on overtime is still cheaper than the cost of training the whole office.
I can rant endlessly on why windows is not a perfect solution (or even a good solution), but I can't argue that it does work although it takes a lot of black magic. And that is precisely what businesses are looking for.
See the price tag for a Mac. Then multiply by 1000 for a good-sized office.
Fact is, not many corporation buy Macs unless it's absolutely necessary (for design purposes, for example). The above example is why.
Although I kind of suspect the "flashiness" of Macs & OSX is another reason why. Business wants boring-looking stuff, not something that looks fancy.
I can easily reverse the argument here. Imagine you're running a business. Would you equip your 1000 employees with Toyotas or BMWs? We know for a fact that BMWs is a much better car, but Toyotas work fine nonetheless.
Nokia has the 6280 which is a slider, so it got good big buttons and a big screen. The killer is, they put an old OS in a new hardware, so the interface is lightning quick. Got a 2 MP camera too. You might want to take a look at it.
I don't think MS is that dumb to let media companies rule their decision making in Vista. After all, it's their future that's at stake.
Also, in the real world the problem is not as simple as "windows vs linux vs mac". Zealotry toward an OS only exists in slashdot. What if your employer wants you to hand over reports in Word? You have three options: write it up in Wine, or in windows itself on a computer assigned to you in the office, or quit. No sane person would choose #3 (except RMS, maybe). That leaves #1 as the only option. It's fine as long as you have all the time in the world, but once you've worked 9 to 5, have a family and children, you REALLY DON'T CARE. MS can take over the world for all I care, I just want to get this goddamn report done and go home. To hell with the DRMed-to-death Vista. Give me anything with Office in it and I'm happy.
This line of thought might sound weird and impossible when you're still in college. But trust me, once you've worked in a proper corporate office for about 10 or so years, you'll understand perfectly why Linux and Macs won't EVER win over MS.
Well, the version is the one before the current one. So even if this one works, there's no telling the current one will be the same. "Generally the same" doesn't mean it is. All it takes is one line of code to cheat an election, but the source will still be 99.9% similar.
All in all, I say it's a waste of time AND a possible trap. Now blackbox can argue "it's been examined by the community". However, they can still cheat on the actual voting machine itself since what's available is only the tabulator.
I'm probably overly paranoid, but paper voting is the only means to an election. Simple, no hiding anything, can be counted physically and cheating takes a lot of effort. The only drawback is time.
Not to mention dangerous. You can't really prove that the source code is used to generate the executable, but they can argue that the source is perfectly fine and lie about the executable. More vote mangling can happen that's cannot be proven. It'll be disastrous.
I'm not saying that everyone is delusional, but there are enough people out there that spit garbage at every MS's stuff, praise apple and say "OSS would be better" in one sentence. Enough so that I, for one, am actually getting sick at it.
Well MS IS a monopoly. However, being the devil's advocate, they actually have no need to improve their products at all (being a monopoly). I don't like their tactics, the worst of which is cheating money out of mosaic for IE, but they do improve their product. When there's no competition, they're forced to plug holes due to their carelessness.
However OSS is also not perfect. Take XWin, for example. Do we actually need a multiuser windowing system these days when the terminals are powerful enough? I bet some people here would defend XWin just because. In a way, MS's GUI actually makes more sense now. I'm eager to get off MS's trap, but OSS is, IMO, not mature enough. Apple's stuff are too expensive. I'm left with no alternative.
It frustrates me when some people, including slashdot moderators, would defend OSS vigorously, including insulting me, when all I want is to point out some things that can be improved in OSS, incidentally some of them are taken from MS's work. BUT if someone suggests Apple's work, it immediately receive general praise. Well I can hardly find any post in slashdot that actually criticize Apple. This makes no sense whatsoever.
Let me repeat. My intention is not for OSS to make shitloads of money like MS. I just want it to IMPROVE. However, defending MS for what they did right in here seems to go against the will of the masses. Recall my original post. I was simply saying that MS did right when they decide to be careful and takes their time when designing Vista's sounds, then I went on complaining (fumingly), why OSS defender immediately strike what MS's did down as "useless", etc. I was saying that it's not wise to do so.
After that I say that MS DO make a lot of money. Certainly they can't do that if they do EVERYTHING wrong, like some people here suggests. I say, they do have a lot of smart people there that wants to do right. So why not learn what they did and use it to improve OSS?
The REAL question is, for the zealots here, if you're offered a position at MS, would you accept it?
Hating your enemy is never wise. Just ask Don Corleone. So don't do that.
In this case, I'm glad to be wrong.
Perhaps I worded it wrongly, but you got the point exactly right. It's the sharing part and acknowledging if MS somehow does some things right, and Apple too. Too many zealots simply ignore MS's achievements and put Apple on a pedestal, even though Apple's track record is no different than MS.
Pardon me if I seem to overreact, but let's see. Apart from IE6, MS had done the right thing with XP. When's the last time you saw XP crashed? Sure, nothing works if you're not admin, but I believe MS is taking steps to remedy this.
What about Apple? They charged a full price for what is essentially updates to their own OS. Five times. And I read somewhere that they covered up a security hole and not fixing it (I'm too lazy to look it up).
My point is, OSS would be left way behind in the dust when MS simply makes Windows better and we're too proud to admit that they've done some things right.
Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, I love OSS. What I was complaining about is how some people in the OSS world simply refuse to look upon themselves and see where OSS is lacking, but instead creating some excuse of why OSS don't need such and such feature when MS implements it. What we need is the ability to objectively see what MS did right, and try to do it better instead of slamming it as "useless" and "waste of resources".
Why, instead of calling Vista's sound as "useless" or "not a polish", show me why it's not needed. I think MS does have a good point when they say that the sound would be heard countless times so it better be good.
I guess I saw one too many attitudes like these lately I simply snapped.
or if you're in denial and believe in your own superiority over everyone, like how some open source people have become. Note the replies that came after your post.
Let me quote:
and
And many more to come.
I'm almost certainly will be modded as troll, but I don't really care. This is exactly the reason why open source will never rule the world, the mentality of "we are superior" and "strike down those that say otherwise". Or even "silence those that criticize the obvious flaw in our thinking". Oh, and the lemmings mentality that praise everything Apple.
Instead of discussing WHY MS put so much effort in this area, it is instantly scoffed at and judged without the slightest clue. Scoff all you want, people. These guys are making millions of dollars each year, while most of you DO NOT. There must be something they're doing right, so if you want OSS to succeed, steal some of it instead of dismissing it like 5 year olds. Nevermind their monopoly tactics, their product DOES have some merit of its own, which are left as exercise for the readers.
The response of slashdot to criticism is very predictable. Watch how my comment is modded down to oblivion.
This is true. With a guitar, you can get away with some off-beat off-key crap once in a while and it'll sound like improvisation. With a bass, hit the wrong note at the wrong time and everyone will know it's wrong.
:)
I played both bass and guitar, and believe me, playing bass is harder and requires more concentration. With a guitar, sometimes it depends on your skill to act as if the wrong guess note you've just hit is meant to be there. My solution? Hit the wrong note again three or four times and finish the phrase with the correct note