re a: You may get that impression on/., but I often hear people wishing for MS Word for Linux. In fact, I'd love to see it, because one of our xterm labs is being replaced with the support nightmare that is a lab of NT Workstations, simply because "Students have to be able to run Word".
So what's your point? MS Office is at the point where it is popular because it is popular. If a Linux version is released, it will make an impact on the Linux applications market.
Actually, a breakup of this type is likely to have a huge impact on Linux. If the company isn't tied to the OS, it'll make sense for them to start making Linux versions of their apps -- and for good or for ill, MS Office for Linux is going to change our landscape.
In fact, ask yourself how many ("non-techy") people you know who can name an office suite other than MS Office.
Or how many times you've gotten MS Word docs sent to you, and when you politely as for a non-proprietary format, you get "What do you mean? It's a word document."
Yes, they were, but so were a lot of other companies such as IBM, but Microsoft were the only one who had sufficient market-savvy to realise what the customer wanted and would want a year down the line. None of the other companies seemed to have had a clue - they all made appalingly bad business decisions.
That sounds like a nice description of "right place, right time" to me. Despite the benefits of hindsight, it's hard to second-guess history, but I think it's safe to say that if Microsoft weren't there, someone else would have caught on.
What cost really? After all, you could still use Netscape, Opera or any other browser...
Or any other word processor, as long as it's compatible with Microsoft's flavor-of-the-month doc format. The Microsoft monopoly has unquestionably damaged innovation in the computing industry:
And what reasons do you have against Microsoft apart from the GUI one? I'm interested.
As I said, read the findings of fact. Here, I'll make it easier: Findings of Fact.
This may be true in the short run, and that is unfortunate, but in the long (and even medium) term it'll do a world of good. Competition is a good thing.
Microsoft exerts a strong negative influence over the computing industry. As Doonesbury so nicely put it, the American Dream for tech companies has turned into hoping to be bought-out by Microsoft.
Despite their claims, Microsoft is a company of borrowing and integrating, not of innovation. There's a place for that, but that place isn't a company that is large enough to swallow everything else whole. Once Microsoft has total control, who is going to do the actual innovating?
Are you sure Microsoft wasn't just in the right place at the right time? That seems like a much more accurate (and, excuse me for saying so, less "spun") version of history.
As for "higher integeration = greater ease of use": that may be true, but look at the cost. If you haven't read Judge Jackson's findings of fact, I suggest you do so. There's a lot of reasons there to have something against Microsoft that have nothing to do with their moving to a GUI. (I don't think anyone is saying that MS's CLI was any good, anyway!)
This would be far far less of a problem if they implemented a moderated submission queue. It's working pretty well for kuro5hin, although that site is too new to tell exactly how it's going to go.
This isn't the same as the question answered in the FAQ -- a moderated queue would address all of the problems mentioned there.
Yes, good call. Furthermore, (social) conservatives are far more likely to support filtering, and therefore more likely to even think about submitting their sites.
Yes, I'm sure Terry Gillaim only wants people to think about his movie in the Official Prescribed Way. If you prefer, you could read the review from Blockbuster.
This is a real hacker, even the archetype of the hacker. I'm not sure how it happened -- the writer/director, Terry Gilliam, wasn't in tune with the computer underground that I know of -- but the character, in a few short minutes onscreen, captures the universal essence of hacking.
They don't say that it is primarily about the hacker ethic or even that it was meant to be -- just that it is.
I agree. I got this camera last summer, and I'm still extremely happy with it. The Best Shot Selection feature is great for taking pictures in low light without a flash or a tripod.
Sure, but that's obvious to any viewer of the film, and saying it again is uninteresting. The hacker angle is any interesting way to think about it, even if it isn't necessarily the most typical reading.
The review doesn't say that Gilliam set out to make a movie about hackers (in fact, it says that he didn't). It just remarks on the interesting relation between the -- yes -- Orwellian and Kafkaesque aspects of the film and the hacker ethos. You may disagree; if so, say why. Don't be so quick to dismiss the whole thing.
Point 1 is also incorrect. The LGPL was actually invented to address the issue in point 3 -- it allows you to make a library that non-GPL'd programs can link with. This is obviously less desirable from the "viral" standpoint, but is a nice compromise for many cases.
I don't think they were suggesting that it was. The article was all about "ooh, wireless is cool, we must have wireless". Some models may have short range sync solutions and others long-range wireless networking. Hopefully, some will have both.
The popularity of the hack centers around one figure: the low price. Sure, it'd still be a cool hack even if the thing cost $500 -- but it would have only attracted passing geek interest, if that. The exciting thing was, with a little bit of knowledge and skill, you could get something for obviously a lot less than its worth.
It's very cool that Netpliance wants to work with us, and if I had extra money, I might buy a $600 device just to affirm that. But realistically, how many of you would really buy one of these at a price allowing them to make a profit?
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re b: You'll be surprised.
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Or how many times you've gotten MS Word docs sent to you, and when you politely as for a non-proprietary format, you get "What do you mean? It's a word document."
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That sounds like a nice description of "right place, right time" to me. Despite the benefits of hindsight, it's hard to second-guess history, but I think it's safe to say that if Microsoft weren't there, someone else would have caught on.
What cost really? After all, you could still use Netscape, Opera or any other browser...
Or any other word processor, as long as it's compatible with Microsoft's flavor-of-the-month doc format. The Microsoft monopoly has unquestionably damaged innovation in the computing industry:
And what reasons do you have against Microsoft apart from the GUI one? I'm interested.
As I said, read the findings of fact. Here, I'll make it easier: Findings of Fact.
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Microsoft exerts a strong negative influence over the computing industry. As Doonesbury so nicely put it, the American Dream for tech companies has turned into hoping to be bought-out by Microsoft.
Despite their claims, Microsoft is a company of borrowing and integrating, not of innovation. There's a place for that, but that place isn't a company that is large enough to swallow everything else whole. Once Microsoft has total control, who is going to do the actual innovating?
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As for "higher integeration = greater ease of use": that may be true, but look at the cost. If you haven't read Judge Jackson's findings of fact, I suggest you do so. There's a lot of reasons there to have something against Microsoft that have nothing to do with their moving to a GUI. (I don't think anyone is saying that MS's CLI was any good, anyway!)
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This isn't the same as the question answered in the FAQ -- a moderated queue would address all of the problems mentioned there.
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Yes really.
They don't say that it is primarily about the hacker ethic or even that it was meant to be -- just that it is.
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The review doesn't say that Gilliam set out to make a movie about hackers (in fact, it says that he didn't). It just remarks on the interesting relation between the -- yes -- Orwellian and Kafkaesque aspects of the film and the hacker ethos. You may disagree; if so, say why. Don't be so quick to dismiss the whole thing.
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short range sync solutions and others long-range wireless networking. Hopefully, some will have both.
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For $700, you can already get a nice PC with a decent monitor. Sure, it won't look quite as slick, but it'll be a lot more powerful.
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It's very cool that Netpliance wants to work with us, and if I had extra money, I might buy a $600 device just to affirm that. But realistically, how many of you would really buy one of these at a price allowing them to make a profit?
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<http://www.deja.com/[S T_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=607967341&fmt=text>.
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