I believe Carly has recently promised to do just this - offer the same scale of support on large Linux servers and mainframes that they do on thier HP-UX products. Our company gets about everything from HP, and their service is quite good.
Heh - don't be so quick to assume ANY store has 100% avaiability. I live out in the middle of nowhere in Illinois - not a Starbucks for probably 100 miles.
Nonsense. I have personally installed both Windows and Linux in the past 90 days - mandrake 8.0 and win2000. I had more problems out of 2000! A current linux install has a graphical interface and easy to understand instructions. In almost all cases, accepting defaults worked fine. Also, remember that your typical J6P can't install windows either.
What exactly makes windows easier to use? Baby sitting and hand holding users does not increase productivity. I know, because generating spreadsheets to do just that is part of my job. You end up with users that know absolutely nothing about thier systems and can't adjust at all if anything goes wrong. This is not a good thing. I don't understand what is so hard about Linux. You really don't have to go down to the command line for the tasks that you use win for - though if you get brave you often find it is much more efficient than using a GUI at some tasks.
Count your blessings - I'm in the sticks and its a rare day that I can connect at faster than 28.8. I'd gladly pay $45 a month to be able to get 32 kbps downloads. Of course for me the real killer app is running a small server - I'd pay $50 a month for 128 with a static IP and no ports blocked, if only someone would sell it to me.
I think you have an excellent point about the product being intergal to the story. While I don't want products involved just for the hell of it, I'd think it was kind of cool if Solid Snake lit up a Marlboro to find the laser sensors (boy wouldn't that piss people off) or if there was a Smith & Wesson poster up in the middle of an Unreal Map - showing some futuristic gun of course.
What I don't want is searching a level for all the Lucky Charms marshmallows so I can get into the Tampax Caverns of Doom.
Sky marshals would presumably use the same type of low velocity rounds that the Israelis use for thier sky marshals. Enough to stop a terrorist (not like they're going to sneak body armor onto the plane) but not enough to pierce the hull of the plane.
IIRC, he threw a hissyfit over GMONE referring to Staroffice instead of a free alternative. I'd imagine he'd be ready to have Miguel lynched over this - getting into bed with the worst of the colsed source companies.
Doesn't he have some serious pull with the GNOME people?
Here's the content of the article, in case it gets slashdotted.
In a case that may test limits on Internet free speech in the wake of Sept. 11, armed federal agents last week raided the home of a Los Angeles teenager suspected of hacking into several Web sites to post anarchist messages and using his own site, Raisethefist.com, to publish bomb-making information.
Sherman Martin Austin, 18, is believed to have violated federal computer fraud and abuse laws, as well as statutes prohibiting the distribution of bomb-making information, according to an FBI affidavit.
FBI agents conducted the raid on the afternoon of Jan. 24 at the Sherman Oaks residence owned by Austin's mother after receiving a federal warrant. The agents seized several computers and documents, according to an FBI spokesperson.
In an interview Wednesday, Austin told Newsbytes he was interrogated for more than six hours but has not yet been charged with any crimes.
According to Austin, all of the site's files, which were dedicated to "the anti-corporate globalization movement," were lost as a result of the raid. The site had received approximately 700 unique visitors each day, he said.
"I think they are a bunch of cheap shots, surrounding and raiding my house with machine guns, shotguns, bullet-proof vests. They had more artillery than they use with wanted gang felons or raids on drug operations," said Austin.
Matthew McLaughlin, a representative of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, confirmed that agents who conducted the search were heavily armed.
"This is Los Angeles after all. We always go in to protect ourselves. We don't go in with slingshots," said McLaughlin.
A message at the Raisethefist.com site today described the raid and said the incident was proof that "anyone actively disagreeing with policies of the U.S is now automatically rendered a 'terrorist' in the eyes of national security."
Following the Sept.11 attacks on America, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, which expand the ability of law enforcement to hunt for terrorists.
"People can rant and rave on the Internet all they want, but when they cross the line of calling people to action to violently overthrow the Constitution of the United States, they have a problem," said McLaughlin.
According to the FBI, Austin allegedly defaced at least five commercial Web sites since 1999 using the nickname "Ucaun." On three of the sites, Austin left behind a hacking program named troop.cgi that was designed to attempt to log in to a computer operated by the U.S. Army, the FBI affidavit stated.
In the interview, Austin acknowledged that he vandalized the Web sites and that he knew it was illegal to do so. But he defended the act by saying it was necessary to get his message out.
Copies of several of the defaced pages are accessible using the cache stored by the Google search engine. The defacements contain white and red text on a black background, with the title "Hacked by the UCA - Underground Confidential Association" and a verbose screed about overthrowing the government and building a "New World Order."
According to the FBI, Austin operated Raisethefist.com as well as a site for his fledgling Web development business, 2CP.com, from computers in his home connected to the Internet by DSL.
Copies of the site's pages cached by Google include instructions on how to make explosives from pipes, fertilizer, and match heads.
In the interview, Austin said he did not write the bomb instructions but instead copied the pages from another site.
Another page, entitled "Hacking," notes that the Department of Defense and other government agencies are dependent upon information technology and are therefore vulnerable to computer attacks.
"But how many of us are really willing to engage in such an intense form of warfare through bauds and wires? Who's got the balls? Who's willing to sacrifice everything?" said the page.
The domain registration record for Raisethefist.com lists Austin as the administrative, technical, and billing contact for the site. Austin said he "made up" the name listed as the site's registrant, Joseph Parker, "for security reasons" and noted that he has received threats because of the site's anti-government message.
According to Austin, he has been targeted by the government simply because he advocates social justice.
"If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think," he said.
Raise The Fist is at http://www.raisethefist.com .
No - not the same thing at all. Most people do NOT play the lottery for entertainment value. They play because they want to be rich, and 'somebody has to win' What they don't realize is that the chance of winning is so small that buying a ticket does not signifigantly increase your odds of winning:).
The truth is that you are better off sticking that dollar into a slot machine, as terrible as those odds are. Hell, I'm about as likely to find buried pirate treasure in my back yard as I am to win the lottery, even if I play every week.
I used to play a lot, especially the scratch off kind. Until I took a class in statistics. Properly educated, they were no longer enticing, as there was no real hope of making money.
So yes, they are a tax on people who are bad at math.
Personally, I think there's one thing you're leaving out - price and platform.
Switching to Linux requires a distro (free-$80) and some time. Switching to Mac requires buying a whole new computer. Of course you can always run Linux on the Mac, but if you switch from MS you're left with an x86 machine that does you no good.
Of course most Linux fans aren't monopolists, there's nothing wrong with more than one platform so long as we have an even playing field. From what I've seen Linux servers and developer workstations with Mac OSX for end user computers should make a pretty good network.
Well, I despise MIcrosoft and would love to see thier company sundered into a thousand pieces, with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer cooking rats over a fire in a trash barrel. But I'm not a socialist by any means.
I believe in Capitalism. It works and works well, and has brought the United States to the highest level of living in the history of the world. But that innovation can only come when there is competition. Therefore companies who attain a monopoly may not unfairly use that power to crush competitors. Microsoft is a monopoly and has abused those monopoly powers according to the laws and courts of the land. Being a monopoly means they no longer get to play by the same rules as everyone else. Illegally abusing that power means they must be punished in a way that will prevent furthur abuse!
Open source isn't about socialism - its about looking at software differently. The closed source supporteds look at software as property, a tangible thing that the creator has every right to charge money to every person that uses it, and prevent others from building on your work.
Open source sees it more like architecture. Certainly, an architect has copyright on his designs. Much like Red Hat would be upset if you used thier likeness without permission. But other architects may build on the ideas of a new building, and styles and techniques evolve. Same with Open Source. An architect would certainly never try to charge a license fee to anyone that walked into his building, as Microsoft seems to think they can.
Wanting Microsoft punished isn't always mindless bashing, sometimes its a desire to see a predatory criminal punished.
The register was/.ed already. And here I thought I'd get to make some early comments about the article.
Well, without reading it, I'm going to guess that Microsoft is offering a ton of new features into its next OS, half of which will be vaporware and the other half will open security holes the size of Kansas.
Oh, and I'll bet that "this will be the most secure and stable version of Windows ever."
I've got a passport account - becuase I had a hotmail account before MS bought them. One day I logged into my webmail, and got a lovely Microsoft Passport. Seems they've only just now started to do something with it. I held onto the account for awhile, just because I've had it so long. It now just catches spammers.
Wrong - RHN is free for one client. To compare keeping a PC with one client current with the latest version of Windows vs Red Hat, its $0 vs $90 for two years. With two clients, $120 vs $180. Five clients would be $300 vs $450. Red Hat is still cheaper.
Not to mention applications. The Red Hat clients would have all the needed applications to get business done, while the WIndows client would have Wordpad and Calculator unless more money is dished out.
Its already been mentioned, but Ximian Red Carpet solves the dependency problems. Quick and easy - select the packages you want to install, the program figures out what you need and tells you how much you'll need to download altogether. Then downloads and installs it. Not a problem.
Plus its got a GUI that would make an AOLer envious.
Agreed. There has been no fundamental "paradigm shift" in the way we live or conduct our business. The internet has broken down time and distance but no more. Don't get me wrong the internet has been a huge enabler and me and my music collection could not live with out it. However, remember Sept 11th and the rush for news. The internet could not handle the volumes and people turned to the traditional mediums of TV and radio instead. Until the internet is able to cope with demand at all times and moves from a 'pull' mechanism to a 'push' mechanism I cannot see this changing.
I take it you weren't bright enough to look somewhere besides news sites. Sure, CNN and teh like were swamped, but if you were part of an online community those who could get through kept the rest of us informed. I remember/. had some stories, but the best in my circle of sites was the enboards at d20reviews.com. By reading the posts there I had a better handle on things than my coworkers who were still trying to use traditional media.
The web is a big place. Don't assume that because the sites that you go to failed that all of them did.
It was actually reminiscent of one of the preditions of the web, that traditional news would die out and everyday people would post happenings around them. Hasn't turned out that way but in that paticular crisis the everyday man often stepped in to pick up after the news sites crashed.
Oh, and I've never seen a 'push' mechanism that really did anything apart from pushing spam. No thanks.
But by their own account P2P saves the Recording Industry money. They haven't admitted this out loud, but read this from their website: [speaking on why the price on a CD isn't 30 cents]
Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today. They include increasingly expensive video clips, public relations, tour support, marketing campaigns, and promotion to get the songs played on the radio. For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn't just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.
Its not about money, its never been about the money. Think the stars are being starved because of P2P? Watch MTV Cribs sometime, they don't seem to be doing too bad.
Its about control. It isn't that you might hear something new you like off the net and buy the CD, that's irrelevent. You might hear something other than what they want you to hear. They control every aspect of music - when it is played, how often, what songs are singles, and who gets the next shot at stardom. Most telling IMO is that the record studios time the release of new singles and albums based on when the artists last song drops off of the "TRL" program on MTV. If people can simply go out willy-nilly listening to whatever they want, the perpetual butt-raping of artists might have to end.
See, if everyone keeps listening to the same great artists instead of picking up the next diva or boyband that comes down the pipe the record company isn't dealing with wide eyed new stars that they can lock into a contract and squeeze for an insane amounnt of money. They are dealing with artists who've been around the block and won't sign anything just to avoid the risk of being turned away.
As far as I know (and I'm no kernel expert) the normal kernel works on whatever process it is doing until its finished. This can cause delay when you are doing several processor intensive tasks at once.
A preemptive kernel allows a new process to interrupt the kernel, even if its been doing something important. Increase responsiveness.
Linux isn't intended for a certain person, its a conglomeration of problems that others have solved and been good enough to share the solution.
The reason that some would object to such a tool would be the pride that comes with being a 'true linux hacker'. They take pride in knowing that they just don't load up KDE and surf the web, they are in there tweaking the nuts and bolts of the OS.
Well, this pride is a flaw. Do the best you can and try to help others who aren't as far along as you. If you are tweaking the kernel and downloading every patch and upgrade just so you can puff out your chest over what a linux god you are, you're only fooling yourself. Want to really be a guru? Help someone else. Show a newbie how to patch his kernel, or maybe even write a program to make the process easier. Wait..someone already did that. Well at least you can tell them about it.
Slashdot Mirror
No they don't pay taxes - they simply increase the price of thier goods so that the PUBLIC ends up paying them anyway.
So many problems would go away if we just got rid of the concept of a corporation as a person.
I believe Carly has recently promised to do just this - offer the same scale of support on large Linux servers and mainframes that they do on thier HP-UX products. Our company gets about everything from HP, and their service is quite good.
Do a google search for 'seduction' and you'll find a whole cottage industry has sprung up, some of which is completely free.
Heh - don't be so quick to assume ANY store has 100% avaiability. I live out in the middle of nowhere in Illinois - not a Starbucks for probably 100 miles.
McDonalds, you might have a point.
There could be a problem if MS shifts the spec or extends the spec
.net spec?
What do you mean "if"?
Is there really any doubt that embrace and extend is next on MS's to-do list with the
Nonsense. I have personally installed both Windows and Linux in the past 90 days - mandrake 8.0 and win2000. I had more problems out of 2000! A current linux install has a graphical interface and easy to understand instructions. In almost all cases, accepting defaults worked fine. Also, remember that your typical J6P can't install windows either.
What exactly makes windows easier to use? Baby sitting and hand holding users does not increase productivity. I know, because generating spreadsheets to do just that is part of my job. You end up with users that know absolutely nothing about thier systems and can't adjust at all if anything goes wrong. This is not a good thing. I don't understand what is so hard about Linux. You really don't have to go down to the command line for the tasks that you use win for - though if you get brave you often find it is much more efficient than using a GUI at some tasks.
Count your blessings - I'm in the sticks and its a rare day that I can connect at faster than 28.8. I'd gladly pay $45 a month to be able to get 32 kbps downloads. Of course for me the real killer app is running a small server - I'd pay $50 a month for 128 with a static IP and no ports blocked, if only someone would sell it to me.
I think you have an excellent point about the product being intergal to the story. While I don't want products involved just for the hell of it, I'd think it was kind of cool if Solid Snake lit up a Marlboro to find the laser sensors (boy wouldn't that piss people off) or if there was a Smith & Wesson poster up in the middle of an Unreal Map - showing some futuristic gun of course.
What I don't want is searching a level for all the Lucky Charms marshmallows so I can get into the Tampax Caverns of Doom.
Sky marshals would presumably use the same type of low velocity rounds that the Israelis use for thier sky marshals. Enough to stop a terrorist (not like they're going to sneak body armor onto the plane) but not enough to pierce the hull of the plane.
IIRC, he threw a hissyfit over GMONE referring to Staroffice instead of a free alternative. I'd imagine he'd be ready to have Miguel lynched over this - getting into bed with the worst of the colsed source companies.
Doesn't he have some serious pull with the GNOME people?
Here's the content of the article, in case it gets slashdotted.
In a case that may test limits on Internet free speech in the wake of Sept. 11, armed federal agents last week raided the home of a Los Angeles teenager suspected of hacking into several Web sites to post anarchist messages and using his own site, Raisethefist.com, to publish bomb-making information.
Sherman Martin Austin, 18, is believed to have violated federal computer fraud and abuse laws, as well as statutes prohibiting the distribution of bomb-making information, according to an FBI affidavit.
FBI agents conducted the raid on the afternoon of Jan. 24 at the Sherman Oaks residence owned by Austin's mother after receiving a federal warrant. The agents seized several computers and documents, according to an FBI spokesperson.
In an interview Wednesday, Austin told Newsbytes he was interrogated for more than six hours but has not yet been charged with any crimes.
According to Austin, all of the site's files, which were dedicated to "the anti-corporate globalization movement," were lost as a result of the raid. The site had received approximately 700 unique visitors each day, he said.
"I think they are a bunch of cheap shots, surrounding and raiding my house with machine guns, shotguns, bullet-proof vests. They had more artillery than they use with wanted gang felons or raids on drug operations," said Austin.
Matthew McLaughlin, a representative of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, confirmed that agents who conducted the search were heavily armed.
"This is Los Angeles after all. We always go in to protect ourselves. We don't go in with slingshots," said McLaughlin.
A message at the Raisethefist.com site today described the raid and said the incident was proof that "anyone actively disagreeing with policies of the U.S is now automatically rendered a 'terrorist' in the eyes of national security."
Following the Sept.11 attacks on America, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, which expand the ability of law enforcement to hunt for terrorists.
"People can rant and rave on the Internet all they want, but when they cross the line of calling people to action to violently overthrow the Constitution of the United States, they have a problem," said McLaughlin.
According to the FBI, Austin allegedly defaced at least five commercial Web sites since 1999 using the nickname "Ucaun." On three of the sites, Austin left behind a hacking program named troop.cgi that was designed to attempt to log in to a computer operated by the U.S. Army, the FBI affidavit stated.
In the interview, Austin acknowledged that he vandalized the Web sites and that he knew it was illegal to do so. But he defended the act by saying it was necessary to get his message out.
Copies of several of the defaced pages are accessible using the cache stored by the Google search engine. The defacements contain white and red text on a black background, with the title "Hacked by the UCA - Underground Confidential Association" and a verbose screed about overthrowing the government and building a "New World Order."
According to the FBI, Austin operated Raisethefist.com as well as a site for his fledgling Web development business, 2CP.com, from computers in his home connected to the Internet by DSL.
Copies of the site's pages cached by Google include instructions on how to make explosives from pipes, fertilizer, and match heads.
In the interview, Austin said he did not write the bomb instructions but instead copied the pages from another site.
Another page, entitled "Hacking," notes that the Department of Defense and other government agencies are dependent upon information technology and are therefore vulnerable to computer attacks.
"But how many of us are really willing to engage in such an intense form of warfare through bauds and wires? Who's got the balls? Who's willing to sacrifice everything?" said the page.
The domain registration record for Raisethefist.com lists Austin as the administrative, technical, and billing contact for the site. Austin said he "made up" the name listed as the site's registrant, Joseph Parker, "for security reasons" and noted that he has received threats because of the site's anti-government message.
According to Austin, he has been targeted by the government simply because he advocates social justice.
"If I go to jail, then I will go to jail not based on my actions, but based on what I think," he said.
Raise The Fist is at http://www.raisethefist.com .
Reported by Newsbytes, http://www.newsbytes.com .
(20020130/WIRES TOP, ONLINE, LEGAL/FBI/PHOTO)
No - not the same thing at all. Most people do NOT play the lottery for entertainment value. They play because they want to be rich, and 'somebody has to win' What they don't realize is that the chance of winning is so small that buying a ticket does not signifigantly increase your odds of winning :).
The truth is that you are better off sticking that dollar into a slot machine, as terrible as those odds are. Hell, I'm about as likely to find buried pirate treasure in my back yard as I am to win the lottery, even if I play every week.
I used to play a lot, especially the scratch off kind. Until I took a class in statistics. Properly educated, they were no longer enticing, as there was no real hope of making money.
So yes, they are a tax on people who are bad at math.
Personally, I think there's one thing you're leaving out - price and platform.
Switching to Linux requires a distro (free-$80) and some time. Switching to Mac requires buying a whole new computer. Of course you can always run Linux on the Mac, but if you switch from MS you're left with an x86 machine that does you no good.
Of course most Linux fans aren't monopolists, there's nothing wrong with more than one platform so long as we have an even playing field. From what I've seen Linux servers and developer workstations with Mac OSX for end user computers should make a pretty good network.
Well, I despise MIcrosoft and would love to see thier company sundered into a thousand pieces, with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer cooking rats over a fire in a trash barrel. But I'm not a socialist by any means.
I believe in Capitalism. It works and works well, and has brought the United States to the highest level of living in the history of the world. But that innovation can only come when there is competition. Therefore companies who attain a monopoly may not unfairly use that power to crush competitors. Microsoft is a monopoly and has abused those monopoly powers according to the laws and courts of the land. Being a monopoly means they no longer get to play by the same rules as everyone else. Illegally abusing that power means they must be punished in a way that will prevent furthur abuse!
Open source isn't about socialism - its about looking at software differently. The closed source supporteds look at software as property, a tangible thing that the creator has every right to charge money to every person that uses it, and prevent others from building on your work.
Open source sees it more like architecture. Certainly, an architect has copyright on his designs. Much like Red Hat would be upset if you used thier likeness without permission. But other architects may build on the ideas of a new building, and styles and techniques evolve. Same with Open Source. An architect would certainly never try to charge a license fee to anyone that walked into his building, as Microsoft seems to think they can.
Wanting Microsoft punished isn't always mindless bashing, sometimes its a desire to see a predatory criminal punished.
Hey! Attacking Microsoft is Karma Whoring not flamebait!
Methinks the mods need to look at developing a sense of humor. It was a joke - next time must remember smilies.
:)
The register was /.ed already. And here I thought I'd get to make some early comments about the article.
Well, without reading it, I'm going to guess that Microsoft is offering a ton of new features into its next OS, half of which will be vaporware and the other half will open security holes the size of Kansas.
Oh, and I'll bet that "this will be the most secure and stable version of Windows ever."
I've got a passport account - becuase I had a hotmail account before MS bought them. One day I logged into my webmail, and got a lovely Microsoft Passport. Seems they've only just now started to do something with it. I held onto the account for awhile, just because I've had it so long. It now just catches spammers.
;P
Think I'll go delete it though
Try this patch to get rid of that annoying XP nag message. Works every time :)
Wrong - RHN is free for one client. To compare keeping a PC with one client current with the latest version of Windows vs Red Hat, its $0 vs $90 for two years. With two clients, $120 vs $180. Five clients would be $300 vs $450. Red Hat is still cheaper.
Not to mention applications. The Red Hat clients would have all the needed applications to get business done, while the WIndows client would have Wordpad and Calculator unless more money is dished out.
Its already been mentioned, but Ximian Red Carpet solves the dependency problems. Quick and easy - select the packages you want to install, the program figures out what you need and tells you how much you'll need to download altogether. Then downloads and installs it. Not a problem.
Plus its got a GUI that would make an AOLer envious.
Agreed. There has been no fundamental "paradigm shift" in the way we live or conduct our business. The internet has broken down time and distance but no more. Don't get me wrong the internet has been a huge enabler and me and my music collection could not live with out it. However, remember Sept 11th and the rush for news. The internet could not handle the volumes and people turned to the traditional mediums of TV and radio instead. Until the internet is able to cope with demand at all times and moves from a 'pull' mechanism to a 'push' mechanism I cannot see this changing.
/. had some stories, but the best in my circle of sites was the enboards at d20reviews.com. By reading the posts there I had a better handle on things than my coworkers who were still trying to use traditional media.
I take it you weren't bright enough to look somewhere besides news sites. Sure, CNN and teh like were swamped, but if you were part of an online community those who could get through kept the rest of us informed. I remember
The web is a big place. Don't assume that because the sites that you go to failed that all of them did.
It was actually reminiscent of one of the preditions of the web, that traditional news would die out and everyday people would post happenings around them. Hasn't turned out that way but in that paticular crisis the everyday man often stepped in to pick up after the news sites crashed.
Oh, and I've never seen a 'push' mechanism that really did anything apart from pushing spam. No thanks.
But by their own account P2P saves the Recording Industry money. They haven't admitted this out loud, but read this from their website: [speaking on why the price on a CD isn't 30 cents]
Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today. They include increasingly expensive video clips, public relations, tour support, marketing campaigns, and promotion to get the songs played on the radio. For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn't just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.
Its not about money, its never been about the money. Think the stars are being starved because of P2P? Watch MTV Cribs sometime, they don't seem to be doing too bad.
Its about control. It isn't that you might hear something new you like off the net and buy the CD, that's irrelevent. You might hear something other than what they want you to hear. They control every aspect of music - when it is played, how often, what songs are singles, and who gets the next shot at stardom. Most telling IMO is that the record studios time the release of new singles and albums based on when the artists last song drops off of the "TRL" program on MTV. If people can simply go out willy-nilly listening to whatever they want, the perpetual butt-raping of artists might have to end.
See, if everyone keeps listening to the same great artists instead of picking up the next diva or boyband that comes down the pipe the record company isn't dealing with wide eyed new stars that they can lock into a contract and squeeze for an insane amounnt of money. They are dealing with artists who've been around the block and won't sign anything just to avoid the risk of being turned away.
If nothing else, allowing groups like the KKK to assemble is an easy way to find out who all the loons are :)
As far as I know (and I'm no kernel expert) the normal kernel works on whatever process it is doing until its finished. This can cause delay when you are doing several processor intensive tasks at once.
A preemptive kernel allows a new process to interrupt the kernel, even if its been doing something important. Increase responsiveness.
Linux isn't intended for a certain person, its a conglomeration of problems that others have solved and been good enough to share the solution.
The reason that some would object to such a tool would be the pride that comes with being a 'true linux hacker'. They take pride in knowing that they just don't load up KDE and surf the web, they are in there tweaking the nuts and bolts of the OS.
Well, this pride is a flaw. Do the best you can and try to help others who aren't as far along as you. If you are tweaking the kernel and downloading every patch and upgrade just so you can puff out your chest over what a linux god you are, you're only fooling yourself. Want to really be a guru? Help someone else. Show a newbie how to patch his kernel, or maybe even write a program to make the process easier. Wait..someone already did that. Well at least you can tell them about it.