Microsoft licenses open? WTF... yeah maybe an open can of worms (embrace, extend and extinguish).
Apple? Never heard of it. Must be some kind of fruit company you're mixed up with.
...and proud of it:D
there's a couple of other ssids in my neighbourhood that use boring names like "edupass43256" and "bigpond". these people obviously have no life:P
Facebook has lax default privacy settings. You can lock them down (if you don't use the apps) but most Facebook users are morons who wouldn't know what privacy was if it kicked them in the privates.
Re: "Gnome isn't worth saving it from itself"... I agree (personally). I still use Gnome 2.x but I've installed Xfce and I may switch to that. Re: "it is too late for gnome to do anything in the tablet or hand held space"... seems reasonable, but why should that stop them from trying (per windows phone 7, meego, RIM or webOS)? People who buy smartphones will buy anything as long as they think it will impress their friends, so if Gnome wants to have a go at coming up with "the next big thing" for smartphones then good on them for trying. It might result in a moronic UI, but that doesn't mean it can't make money. Gnome is probably in a slightly more desperate situation compared to Apache because all web servers need Apache (Microsoft zealots go home), whereas the market for a window manager is a bit more loosely defined and more difficult to target, and considering the geeky end of town (excluding corporate customers) doesn't buy RH support and is less likely to rely on any one window manager anyway, targeting average joe morons buying smartphones doesn't really seem like that bad an idea.
before people get on their lunchboxes and tell me that gnome isn't a product, it is contributed in large part by commercial interests (redhat, canonical, etc), so it does form a significant visible part of the products offered by these companies. i'm stating the obvious, but there are a lot of slashdot users that are just that stupid.
Re: "Why does an open-source project have a deadline??"...because paying customers expect things in a timely manner (its actually required by law - you can't just accept payment based on an open-ended promise to deliver).
Gnome is a product. Your open source project most likely isn't in the same league as Gnome.
Re: "rather then hack something up that "works now", but needs to be re-written later".
You haven't developed software in a commercial environment have you? Customer requirements ALWAYS change, so you ALWAYS have to re-write stuff. That's why the concept of "extreme programming" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming or http://www.extremeprogramming.org/) came about, which I use in my own work. You can spend all your budget planning the perfect product before you realise there is no such thing. Paying customers want results, and are quite happy to pay money for something that isn't perfect but does the job, and they will keep paying money to improve it gradually. If you ask for top dollar to build the perfect software, not only are you setting yourself up for failure, but when you can't deliver after spending your client's investment, you will deliver a half-baked perfect product which is likely to be riddled with bugs and will have to be rewritten anyway because it meets very few of the proposed "perfect software" objectives.
Gnome is an evolving product, and given the huge demand for (and already existing user base of) smartphones running Android, it makes sense to me that they would put more effort into targeting that market. Who really cares what a bunch of slashdot whingers want? After all. those who want a better Gnome3 are welcome to fork it themselves.
Technically and traditionally KDE isn't an operating system, but the traditional "operating system" was termed during a time when window managers weren't even thought of. No individual part of a Linux distro (such as kernel, x server, window manager) is really an operating system on its own any more because of the open and modular nature of the unix philosophy (different for Windows because of the MS all-or-none policy). Tthe Linux kernel may operate computer hardware, but its just the lowest level that controls the cpu and allows other programs and drivers to run. I think the new operating system as far as the rest of the world outside slashdot is concerned is becoming what the user operates, not what operates the hardware.
Will the pigeon hole software only run on Windows like the failed etax program? Does that mean that any Australian who uses Linux or Mac will lose their citizenship?
gosh they wouldn't want to even consider putting that money into something like health or education would they?
the idea would warrant merit if it could actually save the government money, but look at the past record of government in managing contracts. they suck balls. there will always be snail mail from government whether they do this pigeon hole thing or not; it will merely create two systems that must be maintained (and paid for with taxes).
get the national broadband thing going on time and on budget, at very least to prove that government agencies are capable of managing a project. regardless of which party is in power the real work wont change hands anyway.
if they really want to reduce the amount of taxpayer money wasted on paper, try eliminating election advertising.
creativity, ingenuity and energy are the domain of the young. responsibility is the domain of the experienced.
but... the more skills you have the more valuable you are. even weasly execs that have been butt fucked up the chain of command can be in the firing line at a moments notice. the old "its not what you know its who you know" is mostly true, but in this economic climate, "money talks and bullshit walks" is much more valid. you can bullshit your way to the top, but chances are everyone knows thats how you got there, including your boss. many people also get pushed up the chain of command to keep them from getting in the way of real work (the Dilbert principle). if you find your job easy, you're in the wrong job. if you're not fucking up occasionally or getting stressed, you're in the wrong job. if you're a programmer, learn a new language (if you're not familiar with web languages like php then that would be an excellent place to start - mysql & php for dummies originally got me going). the more you can offer your employer, the more expensive it becomes for them to replace you. also, don't be a pain in the arse but don't be one of those quiet ones that it takes a week to notice that you've had a heart attack and died at your desk; be a little assertive and make the odd suggestion that you can back up. some companies make it hard and some bosses are just morons so in that case i feel sorry for you and you should keep flicking out resumes if you hate your job. at the end of the day as an old fart, while you may think you're worth more, your best bargaining chip (if you can afford it) is that you can always accept less than what you're worth, and if the alternative is a pension then you might want to consider lowering your expectations to compete in a dog eat dog world. everyone wants to make more money, but if you're in an industry where your abilities are shared by 20-something year olds, then you're kinda limited to competing with them (even in management you face the same prospect). a career path where experience does count for a lot is engineering (and i'm talking about real nuts and bolts engineering as opposed to "software engineers"); graduate engineers will never match their experienced counterparts because engineering is about judgement and that ability can only be gained through experience (ability to look at a bridge design and know if its strong enough). but there are also other careers where experience is worth a lot, such as airline pilots; basically any job where fuckups can kill a lot of people. while there are plenty of programming jobs where fuckups can kill (such as programming avionics gear), there wouldn't be too many run of the mill web app or windows programmers in that position. judgement is made in programming; for example experienced programmers can probably come up with something more effective, but managers know that if you throw enough cheap young energy at a programming problem you'll eventually get there by brute force, and companies aren't interested in good quality software; they just want something they can sell for a profit (and if there is prospect for support and customers having to pay for upgrades and bug fixes thats even better).
its good to see all the pro-gmail slashdotters here that seem to be capable of writing books about why gmail is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
it would be priceless to see the flood of reactions from the same people if google suddenly jacked the price up from $0.00/month to say $10.00/month for gmail & related services.
at the end of the day everything is good as long as its free. that's the consumer mentality.
i can boot my 6 year old toshiba tecra notebook (1.5ghz, ide, 512mb ram) running debian squeeze/wheezy and then just about get to a functional windows xp desktop under virtualbox before my windows 7 workstation (i7, sata, 16gb ram) gets to the point where i can do things, and this test was carried out by pressing the power button on the workstation slightly before the notebook. the vbox xp runs avg as well.
does microsoft get together will all its oem buddies every year and hash out a plan to increase the bloat in windows and discontinue support for older software in exhange for preinstalling windows in new hardware that consumers must buy to run the new increasingly bloated software? other software companies like autodesk and mcafee might also be invited attendees (their software seems to always get more bloated). maybe microsoft if only partially to blame, as why would people buy new computers if their old one continued to work ok. in the not-to-distant future we may well see a merger of microsoft and dell to become "the umbrella corporation".
as an aside, i installed ms-dos and windows for workgroups on virtualbox on an fairly new amd system (also running squeeze) just for shits and giggles and i couldn't help but laugh with an awesome 3 second or so boot time.
if you want to get really technical, gps is just a signal from a satellite constellation, which on its own it doesn't tell you shit, but you are right that gps isn't limited to mapping and routing. i've worked with rs232 gps receivers and developed software that interprets the realtime data differently to conventional gps units; to figure out the takeoff and landing speeds of aircraft.
They will probably have a "human" mode that with variable settings for drunkenness, road rage, distraction and rule ignorance. There might also be switches for doing makeup, eating, yelling at kids and getting a blowjob while driving.
It might take some tricky programming, but it may be possible to make a robot driver as stupid as your average human driver.
I know I would feel so much safer on the road if there were no humans driving, except if the robots were powered by Windows Vista; then I would be scared shitless because I can't even imagine how crazy the conficker virus would drive.
I agree, and those peddling this "goal" are pressuring developers to bloat their software for "desktop" use. In my humble opinion Linux should be in a league of its own and should not try to mimic other operating systems. I don't use Linux because it has flashy desktop themes, Firefox and something that makes IE look bad; I use it because its free, but also because I'm a bit geeky and I don't mind solving problems without whinging to the friend/colleague who "knows everything about computers" as long as they have Windows. I've only been using Linux since Debian Lenny so I'm not a seasoned expert by any means, but I'm gradually researching how to thin my Linux boxes down so that I can do what I need to without a window manager at all. I don't mind the command line (its kind of retro and makes me feel a bit like a hacker, even if I'm only trying to figure out why my wireless stopped working) but unfortunately it seems like most new software is designed for windows (pardon the pun).
The answer to how "the desktop" become synonymous with "windows" is obvious, but why should "the linux desktop" also be synonymous with windows? To me it seems like a backward step. Lets go back to the roots of Linux (no pun intended this time) and make a totally awesome operating system with all modern software that doesn't require a mouse or an i7 processor, but requires the user to be slightly less moronic than those that use window-based operating systems. I'm only a hobby programmer, but I would never design software to be used by morons; if anything the best security measure is to make software more difficult to use. Also, if I have modern software that I can run with decent performance on an old 486, then I wouldn't care if hardware vendors didn't get onboard because of insufficient market share because I wouldn't need modern hardware or drivers to suit.
As an aside (for the zealots), when the global economy collapses in the probably not too distant future, more people may find they have to consider installing linux on their existing computer because they can't afford to upgrade to the latest and greatest forced into new machines by Microsoft and Apple.
There's no intrinsic value in software patents so the lawsuits wouldn't stop. You can still be sued (for anything) and you would still have to fork out megabucks to defend yourself against these trolls.
It's all about fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), and if it weren't for patents something else would be found to drive it (probably copyright would be riding shotgun instead of taking a back seat behind patents).
It's tragic of course, but it works because people keep buying products that pay the salaries of the lawyers acting on behalf of these companies. It will continue till its no longer profitable, and right now its more profitable than any marketing campaign; the legal departments of these companies are likely much better funded than their marketing departments.
most employers put these clauses in expecting their employees to put up and shut up, but if you take an issue to court you may well find that some clauses are unenforceable (in some cases the employer already knows which clauses are enforceable and merely gamble that the employees will be none the wiser). i was subjected to a contract after a takeover that had a clause for limiting my employment in a competing company for a period of time within a certain distance. there were three conditions of varied time/distance depending on enforceability; first of all they stated a long time and a long distance, and then it said if that wasn't enforceable then the time/distance was reduced. contracts can be a legal nightmare, and the enforceability of boilerplate contracts that you sign for a mobile phone or even the click wrap eulas of microsoft et al may be full of holes.
"legalese" is the language of the FUD industry, and its the biggest growth industry that has its fingers in every pie. it sucks but its never going to change.
...drbd & overhead ethernet from house to shed with headless backup server.
oh and backup server should have at least one built-in spider's nest, and the total cost of the installation should be... the cost of a reel of cat5 (from 15 years ago).
Slashdot Mirror
i'm a biological system and i operate things like computers, so that must make me an "operating system"
Microsoft licenses open? WTF... yeah maybe an open can of worms (embrace, extend and extinguish). Apple? Never heard of it. Must be some kind of fruit company you're mixed up with.
if it takes you months to "finalize" anything you eat you need to go see a quack... and you're full of shit (as it were)
...and proud of it :D
there's a couple of other ssids in my neighbourhood that use boring names like "edupass43256" and "bigpond". these people obviously have no life :P
Facebook has lax default privacy settings. You can lock them down (if you don't use the apps) but most Facebook users are morons who wouldn't know what privacy was if it kicked them in the privates.
Re: "Gnome isn't worth saving it from itself"... I agree (personally). I still use Gnome 2.x but I've installed Xfce and I may switch to that. Re: "it is too late for gnome to do anything in the tablet or hand held space"... seems reasonable, but why should that stop them from trying (per windows phone 7, meego, RIM or webOS)? People who buy smartphones will buy anything as long as they think it will impress their friends, so if Gnome wants to have a go at coming up with "the next big thing" for smartphones then good on them for trying. It might result in a moronic UI, but that doesn't mean it can't make money. Gnome is probably in a slightly more desperate situation compared to Apache because all web servers need Apache (Microsoft zealots go home), whereas the market for a window manager is a bit more loosely defined and more difficult to target, and considering the geeky end of town (excluding corporate customers) doesn't buy RH support and is less likely to rely on any one window manager anyway, targeting average joe morons buying smartphones doesn't really seem like that bad an idea.
before people get on their lunchboxes and tell me that gnome isn't a product, it is contributed in large part by commercial interests (redhat, canonical, etc), so it does form a significant visible part of the products offered by these companies. i'm stating the obvious, but there are a lot of slashdot users that are just that stupid.
Re: "Why does an open-source project have a deadline??" ...because paying customers expect things in a timely manner (its actually required by law - you can't just accept payment based on an open-ended promise to deliver).
Gnome is a product. Your open source project most likely isn't in the same league as Gnome.
Re: "rather then hack something up that "works now", but needs to be re-written later".
You haven't developed software in a commercial environment have you? Customer requirements ALWAYS change, so you ALWAYS have to re-write stuff. That's why the concept of "extreme programming" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming or http://www.extremeprogramming.org/) came about, which I use in my own work. You can spend all your budget planning the perfect product before you realise there is no such thing. Paying customers want results, and are quite happy to pay money for something that isn't perfect but does the job, and they will keep paying money to improve it gradually. If you ask for top dollar to build the perfect software, not only are you setting yourself up for failure, but when you can't deliver after spending your client's investment, you will deliver a half-baked perfect product which is likely to be riddled with bugs and will have to be rewritten anyway because it meets very few of the proposed "perfect software" objectives.
Gnome is an evolving product, and given the huge demand for (and already existing user base of) smartphones running Android, it makes sense to me that they would put more effort into targeting that market. Who really cares what a bunch of slashdot whingers want? After all. those who want a better Gnome3 are welcome to fork it themselves.
Occasionally I get to configure my wife's kernel but I have to be a bit careful it doesn't accidentally spawn a child process.
Technically and traditionally KDE isn't an operating system, but the traditional "operating system" was termed during a time when window managers weren't even thought of. No individual part of a Linux distro (such as kernel, x server, window manager) is really an operating system on its own any more because of the open and modular nature of the unix philosophy (different for Windows because of the MS all-or-none policy). Tthe Linux kernel may operate computer hardware, but its just the lowest level that controls the cpu and allows other programs and drivers to run. I think the new operating system as far as the rest of the world outside slashdot is concerned is becoming what the user operates, not what operates the hardware.
spacex will eventually subcontract the russians when they figure out how much they (don't) make from their dragon
starcraft & broodwar kick arse!!!!
Will the pigeon hole software only run on Windows like the failed etax program? Does that mean that any Australian who uses Linux or Mac will lose their citizenship?
gosh they wouldn't want to even consider putting that money into something like health or education would they? the idea would warrant merit if it could actually save the government money, but look at the past record of government in managing contracts. they suck balls. there will always be snail mail from government whether they do this pigeon hole thing or not; it will merely create two systems that must be maintained (and paid for with taxes). get the national broadband thing going on time and on budget, at very least to prove that government agencies are capable of managing a project. regardless of which party is in power the real work wont change hands anyway. if they really want to reduce the amount of taxpayer money wasted on paper, try eliminating election advertising.
creativity, ingenuity and energy are the domain of the young. responsibility is the domain of the experienced. but... the more skills you have the more valuable you are. even weasly execs that have been butt fucked up the chain of command can be in the firing line at a moments notice. the old "its not what you know its who you know" is mostly true, but in this economic climate, "money talks and bullshit walks" is much more valid. you can bullshit your way to the top, but chances are everyone knows thats how you got there, including your boss. many people also get pushed up the chain of command to keep them from getting in the way of real work (the Dilbert principle). if you find your job easy, you're in the wrong job. if you're not fucking up occasionally or getting stressed, you're in the wrong job. if you're a programmer, learn a new language (if you're not familiar with web languages like php then that would be an excellent place to start - mysql & php for dummies originally got me going). the more you can offer your employer, the more expensive it becomes for them to replace you. also, don't be a pain in the arse but don't be one of those quiet ones that it takes a week to notice that you've had a heart attack and died at your desk; be a little assertive and make the odd suggestion that you can back up. some companies make it hard and some bosses are just morons so in that case i feel sorry for you and you should keep flicking out resumes if you hate your job. at the end of the day as an old fart, while you may think you're worth more, your best bargaining chip (if you can afford it) is that you can always accept less than what you're worth, and if the alternative is a pension then you might want to consider lowering your expectations to compete in a dog eat dog world. everyone wants to make more money, but if you're in an industry where your abilities are shared by 20-something year olds, then you're kinda limited to competing with them (even in management you face the same prospect). a career path where experience does count for a lot is engineering (and i'm talking about real nuts and bolts engineering as opposed to "software engineers"); graduate engineers will never match their experienced counterparts because engineering is about judgement and that ability can only be gained through experience (ability to look at a bridge design and know if its strong enough). but there are also other careers where experience is worth a lot, such as airline pilots; basically any job where fuckups can kill a lot of people. while there are plenty of programming jobs where fuckups can kill (such as programming avionics gear), there wouldn't be too many run of the mill web app or windows programmers in that position. judgement is made in programming; for example experienced programmers can probably come up with something more effective, but managers know that if you throw enough cheap young energy at a programming problem you'll eventually get there by brute force, and companies aren't interested in good quality software; they just want something they can sell for a profit (and if there is prospect for support and customers having to pay for upgrades and bug fixes thats even better).
loved your sig. except that its perspective that causes the sun to look smaller than a bonfire in the first place.
its good to see all the pro-gmail slashdotters here that seem to be capable of writing books about why gmail is the greatest thing since sliced bread. it would be priceless to see the flood of reactions from the same people if google suddenly jacked the price up from $0.00/month to say $10.00/month for gmail & related services. at the end of the day everything is good as long as its free. that's the consumer mentality.
cutting his neighbour's grass would be more fun. unless his neighbour (or even worse his wife) found out. then he would be in big doo doo.
i can boot my 6 year old toshiba tecra notebook (1.5ghz, ide, 512mb ram) running debian squeeze/wheezy and then just about get to a functional windows xp desktop under virtualbox before my windows 7 workstation (i7, sata, 16gb ram) gets to the point where i can do things, and this test was carried out by pressing the power button on the workstation slightly before the notebook. the vbox xp runs avg as well. does microsoft get together will all its oem buddies every year and hash out a plan to increase the bloat in windows and discontinue support for older software in exhange for preinstalling windows in new hardware that consumers must buy to run the new increasingly bloated software? other software companies like autodesk and mcafee might also be invited attendees (their software seems to always get more bloated). maybe microsoft if only partially to blame, as why would people buy new computers if their old one continued to work ok. in the not-to-distant future we may well see a merger of microsoft and dell to become "the umbrella corporation". as an aside, i installed ms-dos and windows for workgroups on virtualbox on an fairly new amd system (also running squeeze) just for shits and giggles and i couldn't help but laugh with an awesome 3 second or so boot time.
if you want to get really technical, gps is just a signal from a satellite constellation, which on its own it doesn't tell you shit, but you are right that gps isn't limited to mapping and routing. i've worked with rs232 gps receivers and developed software that interprets the realtime data differently to conventional gps units; to figure out the takeoff and landing speeds of aircraft.
They will probably have a "human" mode that with variable settings for drunkenness, road rage, distraction and rule ignorance. There might also be switches for doing makeup, eating, yelling at kids and getting a blowjob while driving. It might take some tricky programming, but it may be possible to make a robot driver as stupid as your average human driver. I know I would feel so much safer on the road if there were no humans driving, except if the robots were powered by Windows Vista; then I would be scared shitless because I can't even imagine how crazy the conficker virus would drive.
I agree, and those peddling this "goal" are pressuring developers to bloat their software for "desktop" use. In my humble opinion Linux should be in a league of its own and should not try to mimic other operating systems. I don't use Linux because it has flashy desktop themes, Firefox and something that makes IE look bad; I use it because its free, but also because I'm a bit geeky and I don't mind solving problems without whinging to the friend/colleague who "knows everything about computers" as long as they have Windows. I've only been using Linux since Debian Lenny so I'm not a seasoned expert by any means, but I'm gradually researching how to thin my Linux boxes down so that I can do what I need to without a window manager at all. I don't mind the command line (its kind of retro and makes me feel a bit like a hacker, even if I'm only trying to figure out why my wireless stopped working) but unfortunately it seems like most new software is designed for windows (pardon the pun). The answer to how "the desktop" become synonymous with "windows" is obvious, but why should "the linux desktop" also be synonymous with windows? To me it seems like a backward step. Lets go back to the roots of Linux (no pun intended this time) and make a totally awesome operating system with all modern software that doesn't require a mouse or an i7 processor, but requires the user to be slightly less moronic than those that use window-based operating systems. I'm only a hobby programmer, but I would never design software to be used by morons; if anything the best security measure is to make software more difficult to use. Also, if I have modern software that I can run with decent performance on an old 486, then I wouldn't care if hardware vendors didn't get onboard because of insufficient market share because I wouldn't need modern hardware or drivers to suit. As an aside (for the zealots), when the global economy collapses in the probably not too distant future, more people may find they have to consider installing linux on their existing computer because they can't afford to upgrade to the latest and greatest forced into new machines by Microsoft and Apple.
There's no intrinsic value in software patents so the lawsuits wouldn't stop. You can still be sued (for anything) and you would still have to fork out megabucks to defend yourself against these trolls. It's all about fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), and if it weren't for patents something else would be found to drive it (probably copyright would be riding shotgun instead of taking a back seat behind patents). It's tragic of course, but it works because people keep buying products that pay the salaries of the lawyers acting on behalf of these companies. It will continue till its no longer profitable, and right now its more profitable than any marketing campaign; the legal departments of these companies are likely much better funded than their marketing departments.
most employers put these clauses in expecting their employees to put up and shut up, but if you take an issue to court you may well find that some clauses are unenforceable (in some cases the employer already knows which clauses are enforceable and merely gamble that the employees will be none the wiser). i was subjected to a contract after a takeover that had a clause for limiting my employment in a competing company for a period of time within a certain distance. there were three conditions of varied time/distance depending on enforceability; first of all they stated a long time and a long distance, and then it said if that wasn't enforceable then the time/distance was reduced. contracts can be a legal nightmare, and the enforceability of boilerplate contracts that you sign for a mobile phone or even the click wrap eulas of microsoft et al may be full of holes. "legalese" is the language of the FUD industry, and its the biggest growth industry that has its fingers in every pie. it sucks but its never going to change.
...drbd & overhead ethernet from house to shed with headless backup server. oh and backup server should have at least one built-in spider's nest, and the total cost of the installation should be... the cost of a reel of cat5 (from 15 years ago).