since it is not clear from the announcements, i wouldn't assume they don't completely "open up".
it would be absolutely fantastic when any computer-literate citizen could check out whether the voting system determines the outcome of the elctions in a correct way. therefore, i hope that what you (rightfully) deduce using the common sense approach, does not reflect the real situation.
does any (german)/. have any information on the dgree of "openness" in the "election-application"?
yeah, and a spreadsheet is very good at combining tables and inline text:^)
anyways, people are misusing excel for database purposes as well. thus, the typical office applications have too much functional overlap, and that's why you can use word to do excel-like things, and excel to do access-like things. in act you're saying the office interface as we know it know stinks (hehe), and i agree wholehartedly.
i still can't see what that has to do with abiword though, since it's not part of an integrated office suite (yet) IIRC.
it *is* possible to access the dvd from the mplayer gui, unlike the article states. use the right mouse button in the "screen" part of the player. it is a bit counter-intuitive though...
hey! they dumped enlightenment! i know they don't use it in gnome anymore, but to throw it out completely is not so nice IMHO. hoep it's not because they hold a little grudge towards rasterman...
i'm not sure about that. i personally am convinced that future moneymaking opportunities in IT are not largely covered by selling operating systems (no i'm not talking about the next 5 years, but after that).
i think sun has great opportunities in the webservices department, and are probably the only one who can offer an alternative for the.net threat posed by microsoft.
i hope i'm wrong, but this might be a signal that they don't think linux offers a viable/competent enough alternative to their own operating system. wich is silly of course since it will cost them considerable amounts of money to maintain solaris, while adapting linux to their needs is to a large extend done by the "open source community" or whatever you like to call it. which costs them nothing. free as in beer as well, see;)
when sun aquired staroffice, they were committing to open source.
the only criticism i read on/. at that time was along the lines "don't trust sun, they wanna be just like microsoft". i tend to share that opinion, but a lot of people commented we should give them a chance and don't distrust them just because they're a big corporation.
in itself, that's an argument which already made my point. i think it's dangerous to trust any corporation in these matters since their prime objective is making money and not supporting politics/freedom/whatever. well, it is, as long as they can make money by supporting open source;-]
i hope i'm wrong, but first charging for staroffice, and now the departure of the guy in charge of linux strategy... it doesn't sound very promising.
ah you're referring to george orwell, and the book 1984:-) if you had read it, you wouldn't misspell his name. interesting how many products of his imagination are becoming reality at a frightening rate nowadays. expecially when you realise the book was published shortly after WW2. nostradamus eat your heart out, hehe.
looking at the plans of (media) corporations, the television will become a telescreen soon. scary stuff.
btw we all knew that corporations rule the world didn't we?;-)
cloning is unnatural. there, i said it. i think we should use it to some extent, growing organs for transplantation would be just wonderful (no immune rejection ever again), but cloning complete humans...
evolution has taught us that power lies in diversity. in a world where cloning would be commonplace, the genetic material would become to homogeneous, wich is a very dangerous thing. imagine what a virus could do if we all reacted the same way to it...
please don't even think about it. and this carzy italian doctor should be put away for a long time, just like the one that made it possible to let elderly women become pregnant (we're talking grannies here). i wonder if it's the same guy...
...is that actually, the link between costumers aof a certain shop, and spending behaviour doesn't change a bit. so they still can use it as a marketing tool.
what they also used to do (here in the netherlands) was to give "bonuspoints" (comparable to airmiles) which were tied to the card. no-one gives away money, and "bonuspoints" could be used to buy things at a discount. fortunately, they got rid of those "bonuspoints" eventually.
there's several cleuless people over here. this is waht you get with moderation, the democratic system gives clueless people a chance to do stupid things.
i too am tempted to react sometimes, but then who cares. and since you seem to have collected sufficient karma, your voice will be heard louder in the discussion anyway. let the little guy have his little revenge and mod you overrated;^)
maybe a discussion box should be attached to a moderation. in this way, the moderated could anonymously discuss with the moderator about the contents of the post, and whether on not it;s insightful. think of the extra traffic it woudl generate... hehe
oh yes, i'm aware of that. and so does msoffice (or does it?). don't get me wrong, staroffice is a good thing, but i think we should look ahead instead of duplicating functionality.
and still, the file formats are closely tied to the applications, and it's the applications that are not very effective IMHO. i would like a "universal document format", and a gui shell that would basically edit document structure (layout), and several plugin-like apps that take care of calculations, database connectivity, etc. the gui shell should be as easily replacible as anything, the document format should *not* be tied to the application. all these things network transparent.
i would guess microsoft is heading in the same direction (sort of) with their.NET strategies. i say beat them at their own game.
at times like these i wish i had taken programming courses. here's an itch i'd surely scratch.
i think the functionality office provides us with is very cool, but the way we are forced to approach it via the gui stinks. hold your horses, and read further to hear my favorite view of the future:
i a not-so-distant future, the desktop will probably not be ruled by "office suites that need to be able to do anything including coffeemaking".
while i enjoy the efforts the open source community is putting into creating ms-office work-a-likes, that market will be history. everything is going to be webservices-based, and perhaps we will even reach the state where documents do not need to be tied to an application, but there will just be a unified (xml) document format, which can contain calculation-functionality (a-la excel) but also good layout functions to make it look nice. the whole idea of presentation software, wordprocessors, and drawing programs as separate entities is ridiculous anyhow in my perception. just choose the output device (printer, posterprinter, screen, beamer, webpage) and build the document.
as it is now, several (often small) companies exist merely because of the need to adapt the swiss-army-knife that office is into a specific tool that suits the client situation. there's money to be made there even if there is no officesuite, since there is always going to be a need for specific solutions.
so if you ask me: get rid of all those office suites, build something that can do all the things i mentioned before, and build gui layers on top of it that can handle the specific objects within the documents, like editing text, database connection, performing calculations, making drawings/graphs, etc...
we have all the tools. we have well worked out markup languages, style sheets, etc. we have good databases, good toolkits to build guis. things could become *really* platform independent, and we wouldn't have to worry about how to fit our grand scheme into the current situation, created by software giants as our favorite one from redmond.
money can be made by providing services to companies that need specific functionality, and not by making software that still needs to be adapted to do the job. whether the solution i propose is done using open software or closed software doesn't make a difference. (to me it does, but let's not go into the open = better than closed subject;-) but: as long as the document-standards are open, since anyone can then build any gui layer on it they like!
well maybe it's overinterpretation on my side then, but the argument that ogg is *in development* still stands. there is no 1.0 release yet, and for a reason. because it's not finished.
now if we would start complaining everytime an opensource project doesn't live up to the specifications before leaving beta stage, we have a lot of complaining to do (think mozilla for example).
this whole issue couldn't even exist without open source, and the xiph website tells us that stuff is still in development. as i said in my 1st post; if you can code, help out build the reference implementation and it's specs. and don't bitch about them not delivering fast enough.
what strikes me most in the article is the sheer arrogance with wich the author tries to discredit the xiph.org people. the author immediately assumes the worst from them (the xiph.org people). especially the argument where he states that (i quote)"In effect, Xiph.Org presently has a monopoly on the only viable implementations of Vorbis."
come one, it's open source, and it's in development. the author of the k5 story is clearly a coder, so start to work on it. help them write the specs, help build a version of the libvorbis that doesn't require a platform that should natively support floating-point calculations, etc etc.
the vorbis people would welcome the guy, but instead of coding, he complains. now that's what i call constructive feedback... not!
it was very neccesary to do Y2K updates in a lot of cases. maybe the world wouldn't have crawled to a halt but there would've been a *lot* of people complaining because they weren't born, didn't need to receive a paycheck, etc "because the computer says so". those problems needed fixes, be it before or after 1-1-2000.
the fact that the IT industry earned plenty money because of the Y2K problem might be a ground to distrust some of the stories on Y2K but it *was* neccesary to fix Y2K!
because, ac, linux unfortunately has crappy support for my voodoo5-5500, which is prolly why i got such a good deal on it (that and the demise of 3dfx). besides that, i don't have money to buy one of these ubercards. that's why.
Slashdot Mirror
since it is not clear from the announcements, i wouldn't assume they don't completely "open up".
/. have any information on the dgree of "openness" in the "election-application"?
it would be absolutely fantastic when any computer-literate citizen could check out whether the voting system determines the outcome of the elctions in a correct way. therefore, i hope that what you (rightfully) deduce using the common sense approach, does not reflect the real situation.
does any (german)
nope. it'd be something like using a swiss army knife to repair your bike: it'll work, but it's not the most ideal tool.
yeah, and a spreadsheet is very good at combining tables and inline text :^)
anyways, people are misusing excel for database purposes as well. thus, the typical office applications have too much functional overlap, and that's why you can use word to do excel-like things, and excel to do access-like things. in act you're saying the office interface as we know it know stinks (hehe), and i agree wholehartedly.
i still can't see what that has to do with abiword though, since it's not part of an integrated office suite (yet) IIRC.
crap. go check out cvs, and follow the e-devel mailing list.
it *is* possible to access the dvd from the mplayer gui, unlike the article states. use the right mouse button in the "screen" part of the player. it is a bit counter-intuitive though...
hey! they dumped enlightenment! i know they don't use it in gnome anymore, but to throw it out completely is not so nice IMHO. hoep it's not because they hold a little grudge towards rasterman...
i posted as thrid and was moderated redundant :-) samrt guy this moderator. me, i'm not so smart, since i'll prolly lose another point on this ot post
hehe
so what did you expect from them. they are not even allowed to run anything else than ms on their desktops, it's prolly in their contract ;)
i would rephrase my arguments if i were you. nuff said.
i'm not sure about that. i personally am convinced that future moneymaking opportunities in IT are not largely covered by selling operating systems (no i'm not talking about the next 5 years, but after that).
.net threat posed by microsoft.
;)
i think sun has great opportunities in the webservices department, and are probably the only one who can offer an alternative for the
i hope i'm wrong, but this might be a signal that they don't think linux offers a viable/competent enough alternative to their own operating system. wich is silly of course since it will cost them considerable amounts of money to maintain solaris, while adapting linux to their needs is to a large extend done by the "open source community" or whatever you like to call it. which costs them nothing. free as in beer as well, see
i wonder what their long term strategy is...
when sun aquired staroffice, they were committing to open source.
/. at that time was along the lines "don't trust sun, they wanna be just like microsoft". i tend to share that opinion, but a lot of people commented we should give them a chance and don't distrust them just because they're a big corporation.
;-]
the only criticism i read on
in itself, that's an argument which already made my point. i think it's dangerous to trust any corporation in these matters since their prime objective is making money and not supporting politics/freedom/whatever. well, it is, as long as they can make money by supporting open source
i hope i'm wrong, but first charging for staroffice, and now the departure of the guy in charge of linux strategy... it doesn't sound very promising.
who's orwille?
:-) if you had read it, you wouldn't misspell his name. interesting how many products of his imagination are becoming reality at a frightening rate nowadays. expecially when you realise the book was published shortly after WW2. nostradamus eat your heart out, hehe.
;-)
ah you're referring to george orwell, and the book 1984
looking at the plans of (media) corporations, the television will become a telescreen soon. scary stuff.
btw we all knew that corporations rule the world didn't we?
...of a very smart moderator. when one puts [OT] in the subject line, it automatically pushes the offtopic button :-]
very funny indeed (burn karma burn...)
cloning is unnatural. there, i said it. i think we should use it to some extent, growing organs for transplantation would be just wonderful (no immune rejection ever again), but cloning complete humans...
evolution has taught us that power lies in diversity. in a world where cloning would be commonplace, the genetic material would become to homogeneous, wich is a very dangerous thing. imagine what a virus could do if we all reacted the same way to it...
please don't even think about it. and this carzy italian doctor should be put away for a long time, just like the one that made it possible to let elderly women become pregnant (we're talking grannies here). i wonder if it's the same guy...
...is that actually, the link between costumers aof a certain shop, and spending behaviour doesn't change a bit. so they still can use it as a marketing tool.
what they also used to do (here in the netherlands) was to give "bonuspoints" (comparable to airmiles) which were tied to the card. no-one gives away money, and "bonuspoints" could be used to buy things at a discount. fortunately, they got rid of those "bonuspoints" eventually.
Microsoft basically created the SMB protocol, so why would they need a 3rd party to extend it for them?
erm, it's a specification by the open group (http://www.opengroup.org). so no way microsoft basically created SMB. they've embraced-and-extended it.
there's several cleuless people over here. this is waht you get with moderation, the democratic system gives clueless people a chance to do stupid things.
;^)
i too am tempted to react sometimes, but then who cares. and since you seem to have collected sufficient karma, your voice will be heard louder in the discussion anyway. let the little guy have his little revenge and mod you overrated
maybe a discussion box should be attached to a moderation. in this way, the moderated could anonymously discuss with the moderator about the contents of the post, and whether on not it;s insightful. think of the extra traffic it woudl generate... hehe
enough of that
oh yes, i'm aware of that. and so does msoffice (or does it?). don't get me wrong, staroffice is a good thing, but i think we should look ahead instead of duplicating functionality.
.NET strategies. i say beat them at their own game.
and still, the file formats are closely tied to the applications, and it's the applications that are not very effective IMHO. i would like a "universal document format", and a gui shell that would basically edit document structure (layout), and several plugin-like apps that take care of calculations, database connectivity, etc. the gui shell should be as easily replacible as anything, the document format should *not* be tied to the application. all these things network transparent.
i would guess microsoft is heading in the same direction (sort of) with their
at times like these i wish i had taken programming courses. here's an itch i'd surely scratch.
software sales are forecast to grow from $50 billion in 2000 to about $90 billion by 2005
sounds like a typical case of doublespeak to me
i think the functionality office provides us with is very cool, but the way we are forced to approach it via the gui stinks. hold your horses, and read further to hear my favorite view of the future:
;-) but: as long as the document-standards are open, since anyone can then build any gui layer on it they like!
i a not-so-distant future, the desktop will probably not be ruled by "office suites that need to be able to do anything including coffeemaking".
while i enjoy the efforts the open source community is putting into creating ms-office work-a-likes, that market will be history. everything is going to be webservices-based, and perhaps we will even reach the state where documents do not need to be tied to an application, but there will just be a unified (xml) document format, which can contain calculation-functionality (a-la excel) but also good layout functions to make it look nice. the whole idea of presentation software, wordprocessors, and drawing programs as separate entities is ridiculous anyhow in my perception. just choose the output device (printer, posterprinter, screen, beamer, webpage) and build the document.
as it is now, several (often small) companies exist merely because of the need to adapt the swiss-army-knife that office is into a specific tool that suits the client situation. there's money to be made there even if there is no officesuite, since there is always going to be a need for specific solutions.
so if you ask me: get rid of all those office suites, build something that can do all the things i mentioned before, and build gui layers on top of it that can handle the specific objects within the documents, like editing text, database connection, performing calculations, making drawings/graphs, etc...
we have all the tools. we have well worked out markup languages, style sheets, etc. we have good databases, good toolkits to build guis. things could become *really* platform independent, and we wouldn't have to worry about how to fit our grand scheme into the current situation, created by software giants as our favorite one from redmond.
money can be made by providing services to companies that need specific functionality, and not by making software that still needs to be adapted to do the job. whether the solution i propose is done using open software or closed software doesn't make a difference. (to me it does, but let's not go into the open = better than closed subject
"I also fear hypocrites who worry about MS being "big brother" while happily using Frontpage to create their home page."
/. :-)
...)
nice to see some realism overhere @
(ps. he *really* uses frontpage to create his webpage, amazing
well maybe it's overinterpretation on my side then, but the argument that ogg is *in development* still stands. there is no 1.0 release yet, and for a reason. because it's not finished.
now if we would start complaining everytime an opensource project doesn't live up to the specifications before leaving beta stage, we have a lot of complaining to do (think mozilla for example).
this whole issue couldn't even exist without open source, and the xiph website tells us that stuff is still in development. as i said in my 1st post; if you can code, help out build the reference implementation and it's specs. and don't bitch about them not delivering fast enough.
what strikes me most in the article is the sheer arrogance with wich the author tries to discredit the xiph.org people. the author immediately assumes the worst from them (the xiph.org people). especially the argument where he states that (i quote)"In effect, Xiph.Org presently has a monopoly on the only viable implementations of Vorbis."
come one, it's open source, and it's in development. the author of the k5 story is clearly a coder, so start to work on it. help them write the specs, help build a version of the libvorbis that doesn't require a platform that should natively support floating-point calculations, etc etc.
the vorbis people would welcome the guy, but instead of coding, he complains. now that's what i call constructive feedback... not!
hey,
it was very neccesary to do Y2K updates in a lot of cases. maybe the world wouldn't have crawled to a halt but there would've been a *lot* of people complaining because they weren't born, didn't need to receive a paycheck, etc "because the computer says so". those problems needed fixes, be it before or after 1-1-2000.
the fact that the IT industry earned plenty money because of the Y2K problem might be a ground to distrust some of the stories on Y2K but it *was* neccesary to fix Y2K!
because, ac, linux unfortunately has crappy support for my voodoo5-5500, which is prolly why i got such a good deal on it (that and the demise of 3dfx). besides that, i don't have money to buy one of these ubercards. that's why.