Let me know how well those flash videos work and the good weekend setting up a new rig when Joe Six pack just plugs his new shiny Windows box from bestbuy and it boots up and works.
I am glad I do not use Linux anymore with the shitty Unity UI and keep it around in a VM. Windows 7 is supperior as I do things desktop oriented when not working and do not have time to have the system crash because an update screwed it up with no ABI like every other OS has.
My ATI card can easily go black at any time if there is an update. Not worth the effort and is laughable if you think an average Joe should put up with that.
I just got into a flamwar with a mac user last night on Livejournal over this.
He said he did not need anti virus software with a smile and that Flashback was a myth. He said I was full of it because he has not had a virus in 18 years. I asked how did he know?
Avast! is free with a mac version in beta. It is stupid to use it without it and I mentioned his view of security was based off of IE 6 and XP which is the last version he used at work. It did not fair well.
I do agree with you and it pisses me off Apple leaves Leapord users in the cold. Seriously, they should get sued as users bank accounts will be compromised and its not like it is ancient like XP which still gets updates. Linux is the least secure of all of them.
PCs are garbage at the store in my opinion and it is subjective as retailers hate quality products because low cost junk sells in higher volume and if it breaks you are more than likely to go back and repurchase. Good workstations are only available online and same is true with decent screens.
MacOSX does have less malware and Windows 7 is much better I still stand by my point.
It is not the fact that you have the piece of paper.
It shows intelligence and proof of an analytical mindset. More than that it shows dedication and someone who is ambitious and cares about their self image. It is a character trait they want to see in their engineers. You can learn on your own but to them it shows you decided to go the easy route and not care about making a lot of money that a degreed person can obtain.
HR has no clue if you are good or not. So they agree with the requirement as well to weed on those who can spell it on a resume and proof that you can write a B-tree algorithm must know something at least for the manager to then decide if this person fits our view.
Or your girlfriend (if you were not around) could just buy a WindowsPC at BestBuy plug it in and work.
Your girlfriend or any Joe Six Pack does not care about WMs, GNU, php, editors, and a cool shit load of hacking tools that you and me drool over. They want: 1. MP3 Support 2. Browse videos on youtube and college humor 3. Play farmville or flash games 4. Do work on the weekends from emailed files 5. Watch movies and create them and record to DVD etc
Linux has no mp3 support by default, no blueray codecs by default, flash no longer supported and sucks goatballs anyway, no h.264 hardware acceleration unless you have a very specific card and no proper driver by default, and many other issues. Sure you got it to work and I bet you it took a good weekend to setup, research the hardware, know where to find the right repositories, etc.
But my question is why? There is no benefit to Linux at all for a consumer.
If you gripe about Windows sucking then get a Mac. You referred to XP and its 10 years old. Have you run Windows recently? Windows 7 is secure and a decent OS for consumers. It has ASLR, DEP, Sand Boxing, process and privileged seperation, and other enhancements over XP.
I gave up on Linux a year ago when I saw Gnome shell and Unity. It just is weird and I could not justify spending all my time on it with my exwife who says her Vista works and she never spends time on it. If Linux is so good why do I keep have to fix issues after an Ubuntu update etc?
I use the cool linux tools in a VM now under Windows 7.
I tried the latest consumer preview of Windows 8 on my desktop (6 core 2.6 ghz phenomII with 8 gigs of ram) and it was very fast and sleek. If it were not for Metro I would still be using it. I got used to it after a few days and it is workable on the desktop mode (still like Windows 7 search much better than goign to Metro every task).
Windows 7 will be the new obsolete dinosaur we all will love and or hate and battle on slashdot like we do with XP today on which is better. Businesses will switch to Windows 7 as it supports EFI and can run IE 10 and up to date browsers with full security (not have gimped like XP) with full hardware acceleration. Windows 8 will be a hit with tablets in the workplace.
My guess is a new hybrid environment will replace it. Linux is just not capable on the desktop and certainly not at work. Only really old and poor consumers still use XP. It is old and like old IE is reserved for the fortune 500.
You can order them online with Linux.... at least you could the last time I looked.
The reason they only come with Windows is because consumers bought them and wondered why their Norton Anti Virus that Geek Squad told them they needed to get (upselling) didn't work and where did Word go?
Consumers do not understand and they returned them. Asus and BestBuy forced Windows on them. Consumers were happier. Remember BestBuy makes money selling software and they viewed Linux as a threat to their business model.
I have been tempted to write a post on how MS is just copying rather than innovating in Windows 8. We had the crappy, cell phone oriented, single tasking gui first:-)
Too me I think the desktop itself is turning into the mainframe and is dying. Businesses still use them today and likewise they will be the last to leave the desktop. Linux has a chance in Andriod and in cloud platforms. Jobs himself admitted that the Mac is a dying platform and Microsoft won (before he came back to Apple:-) ). He said if he were CEO he would milk the Mac for all its worth and turn his attentions elsewhere. He did just that with the Ipod and then his IPhone and beat MS this time around.
Regardless, Windows is not the POS it once was and many who have not used it in years or still use XP and IE 6 at work do not see what has happened. Windows 7 and MacOSX are certainly supperior for consumers.
They do not care about PHP, sharkwire, free c/c++ tools, customizable guis, and all the good stuff I drooled at 11 years ago when I tried Linux out. A consumer wants a. Browse the internet and watch videos on youtube b. Use his Excel Macros from work on the weekends for projects c. Make movies and post them on deviant art or facebook d. Watch movies and create mp3 collections for their devices.
Linux does not even ship with mp3 or bluray support by default! Flash sucks goatballs, and LibreOffice has mixed compability and does not have the ribbons Joe six pack is used too at his work PC, and web browsers update every 6 weeks and distros wont let you upgrade that often.
In short Linux is a terrible desktop OS. As flash dies and gets replaced by h.264 and phones take over with full codec support the situation will change for the linux kernel. The GNU stuff only we care about.
If you hate Windows the Mac is a great platform for rich consumers that do what I described above with minimal fuss.
Windows 7 does not have malware issues if you have the latest service packs and updated mixed with up to flash and a good anti virus suite.
When Linux users and Mac users complain about Windows they remember the last time they ran XP SP 1 with IE 6 with all the good malware. Or there employer is behind the times because the cost accountants love their IE 7 only apps and refuse to upgrade their infrastructure.
Windows 7 for consumers is simple, easy to use, and fairly secure unless they do stupid things like install OMG Titties apps, and bizaare trojan Facebook games. Not perfect but I ran to Linux 10 years ago because Windows 98 was a POS. Windows XP was much better I may add but it had too many things run on ring 0 and IE 6 was terribly insecure with too many services and attack vectors.
The appeal for Linux for me was free C/C++, php, editors, and I can make the gui look whatever I wanted. Ethereal was awesome (now called wireshark), and it was frankly fun. Joe six pack doesn't need these.
MacOSX is even better. It has less malware, a great gui, less quirky, and graphically ahead of most cheap wintel garbage on the shelves of best buy with the terrible dark screens. It is unix for consumers.
I see no reason for Joe six pack to use anything but MacOSX or Windows. He watches movies, types things for work, browses the internet, and maybe makes a home movie or a nice mp3 collection for his player if he is an advanced user and that is it. Linux does these things worse as in more effort. MP3 support is not enabled by default, his advanced excel macros from work may not work with OpenOffice, Firefox and Chrome update often when the distro has no updates available, and flash sucks goatballs in Linux.
Linux has its strengths for nerds. Consumers have different priorities. If you hate Windows the Mac is a nice alternative abiet a pricy one.
My employer wont hire you unless you have a CS degree. It doesn't matter how much experience you have. If you do not have that piece of paper you answer phones all day as the HR people think you can't program a hello world program without one.
The value of the stock has gone up so much that the government made more money than what it gave out already.
That is an investment if anything. It saved millions of jobs from other tax payers and was well worth it to use the government as a line of credit in such a situation. Now if the CEO of GM took the money and sold the assets it would be theft.
It is not confiscation if its shares are purchased. Its called capitalism. They asked if they needed a bailout and said yes. Obama said fine and purchased the stocks and then became the new owner. As the largest shareholder he fired the CEO for being incompetent. Now they paid nearly all of it back and the new board is fairly independent.
So basically MS does not pay taxes and neither do 80% of employers in Seattle. I go to school for a CS degree. I have to pay for the degree with debt because MS wanted a higher margin. That means part of my labor is free because I paid for the right to work for Microsoft in essense.
Rates keep going up and are so high now that college grads can't get car loans, save for homes, and owe more than 1 trillion in credit card debt. Why? Corporations no longer pay taxes and universities need funds to keep running.
So yes the costs are externalized to their workforce and other tax payers.
Dunno, I certainly don't work for one. Any company that has a "No GNU" policy either has lazy lawyers or PHBs that bought into FUD like is being spammed all over this thread.
you can't use an include to a GPL library unless the whole program is free.
Obviously. Do you have a less FUD-filled point to make?
So you just admitted my point that you can't link to a GPL api in your program. You can't use a GPL library for private use if you wish to retain ownership.
Copyleft and BSD like licenses are your only bet then. That was my point and why software companies shake their heads listening to free GNU zealots on how they can easily use an include statement without issue. You simply can't.
I wonder how much tax revenue Washington State will get if Microsoft just up and leaves the state if Washington State 'punishes' Microsoft.
What's 100% of zero again? I'm not good at math but I think it's zero...
A lot more. MS uses programs like the CS from Washington University to hire its graduates. The state pays for the demand and its workers through large debt and MS gets a free ride and hands the bill to the tax payer.
If MS left it would put less strain on the state since they do not pay taxes anyway. Washington State would be more balanced.
Vegas was a boom town when I lived there a decade ago. Reason why was because of high taxation in nearbye California. Great attorneys who specialized in California law were in Nevada oddly.
Many companies closed down their warehouses in California and just shipped them to Nevada to avoid the taxes. Las Vegas was a great place to open a company before the housing bust.
California is not recovering yet like the rest of the nation. Jobs are scarcely listed even though it is so populous. It is simply more economical to open an office in ND, TX, or NV.
Low tax rate states do have booms and businesses take not and not just buy PO Boxes. North Dakota has a 4% unemployment rate and Texas is fairly good too. Employees are cheaper to hire there with less regulation.
Because MS uses the infrastructure and expects the rest of us including its workers to pay for the right to work. Where I come from that is slavery when you work for free. True the student should pay for some of it, but MS is the benefactor in recruiting CS students from U of Washington. Infact, U of Washington is cutting its computer science program from lack of funding.
Who gets hurt now? Not the students but Microsoft. It is also not fair for Microsoft to soley pay either as its a public good that benefits other employers in the area and a level tax keeps it fair that everyone pays and benefits.
Businesses use roads to ship products, uses the military to keep the world safe to do business, businesses benefit the most from IP laws, and free trade. I would even say they benefit a lot more than you nor I. IP laws and free trade hurt us more than anything. It is there to benefit employers who do not pay for it but expect it others to pay for it then go in a right wing circle jerk about the evils of welfare moms when they are the worst ones.
MS did the right thing by avoiding taxes as an individual corporation. However, the loopholes need to be closed. Austerity will come to the US soon and you and I will end up paying for things your employer uses through forced higher taxes.
In your ideal world you are right. In the real world liability risks are considered in any major decision and the proof is of the article listed that GPL licensing in decline. Corporations do not care about freedom and you can't use an include to a GPL library unless the whole program is free. It is a fact. Go read the GPL? RMS specifically included that on purpose
I hope you do not sell your embedded linux with the changes to customers without giving out the source code? That would count for redistribution unless you only use it internally.
Your lawyers and HR will not appreciate giving out million or hundreds of thousands of labor they made to competitors and various exploit writers.
Just explaining the thought processes in HR and legal departments in many workplaces. No you can't use a call to a library that is GPL and many of the programmers are not aware of the problem.
It is a risk and any risk is not necessary to take and why give away software at all? That gives teh users too much power and not enough leverage for the producer. If you do not want to give away your secrets and IP in your modified version of Linux then you have a problem. A BSD kernel is a better pick in such a scenario.
It is not fud and it doesnt matter if you agree with it.
This is the opinion of lawyers if you work in any organization. The viral mouthpiece is considered a problem if you talked to non biased lawyers. Most owners who use GPL do it for free and not for software that makes them money.
Businesses do not care about ideals or cool stuff. They only care about profit. Minimizing liability even if it is imagined and maximizing returns is the game and explains why business has slowed to GPL adoption. SCO/MS did lots of damage. Its just not even considered.
2 people leach in any business transaction. The price is the point of compromise for both or a contract in a niche case such as this. The GPL is great for the users, and worst for the owners. A proprietary license is the best for the owner and worse for the user. Windows is a prime example. BSD, MIT, Apache and others are in between.
A developer has a right to their own code they paid for or developed himself. You are right they should pay, but it is well within the companys right to use a BSD solution that is more friendly to a compromise or make their own and refuse to even use your product. Profit is very very nice if you are the one receiving it and providing something a user wants so much they are willing to pay for.
The issue I have and I agree with SAAS is much of the api's and frameworks out there are GPL instead of copyleft. Free not to use you say? What if I make my own expensive proprietary code and some intern downloads a GPL api that compromises just 5% of the code in my product?
Whoops the rest of the 95% just went GPL as well. GPL is better meant for products rather than libraries and this is what SAAS and others are bitching about. Copyleft is prefectly more appropriete as many would love to give credit to others but still retain ownership of the 95% of the code. Companies are going anti GPL for these reasons.
Here is a hairy situation that is quoted by those who do not like the GPL at work.
What if you use GPL v 3 software and make it as your own internally. The owner wants to sell the company. What then? Sorry the GPL v3 counts that as a redistribution. They would have to release their crown jewels to competitors. What if it is a private organization and wants to go public. Oops can't disolve and reform as a public company because that also counts as redistribution under Sarbines Oxley. A few people wont give a shit in a small private company, but sarbines Oxley is a must for any public company in the US. Auditors would have a field day.
Software very seldomly stays anymore. If you work in China you need to redistribute your code to Chinese authories. Sometimes supplies and vendors need access to it so they can become partners. Maybe the owners might want to sell their technology and have others use it like Amazon does with its cloud?
BSD is much nicer. Remember GNU is friendly to its users but not to its owners. It is really nice to have something that is yours and you no longer own it if its licensed under any freeware license.
Many banks and other companies that received threatening letters from SCO and MS salesmen have anti gnu or freeware policies in their organization. A famous Canadian bank even licenses for an obsolete version of SSH because BSD *might* be gnu. Funny, that the corporation just downloads the BSD one and repackages to the customer as its own for $$$.
Lawyers are afraid of it in big companies after several court cases with companies like Netgear being accused of copyright infringement for including Linux without the source in some of their embedded products.
I could turn this into a BSD vs GPL flameware but wont. There are many such as myself who feel comfortable using free software at work but would feel better modifying and shipping BSD versions which are more business friendly to customers and suppliers. Remember you are asking the company to ship its crown jewels away if they license it with GPL. It is true it may protect you agaisn't getting ripped off, but you have no way to know for sure.
Businesses do not like risk or to give away free things. They own them if they paid for the labor so why the risk?
Many people live in the past and do not like change. Such people remember Windows ME and IE 6 and have not used Windows since. To them it is the abusive husband and can't see past this and look at things from a 2012 point of view.
For proof look at that story yesterday about conflicker and how MS said "Gee keep Windows patched at work and use strong passwords". Everyone and their brother bashed Windows saying that if only people used Linux you can have a 123 password and it will never be compromised and other laughable BS.
My own history of Windows Vs Linux I created this name with this account because I was one of those fanbois 11 years ago and swore on Linux and FreeBSD where the awesomeness and end all and how MS was evil out to destroy the world etc.
I grew up. More importantly Windows grew up while Linux regressed. 11 years ago it was more like Dos/WIndows 3.11. I remember typing random characters and discovering LS and then using Netscape to yahoo (Google wasn't around)X and startx similiar to typing Win.bat in Dos. Linux had true SMP support, was stable, was what NT was aiming to become, and had the coolest set of development tools known to man. Its power management was better, its performance was unrivaled, and computer science programs taught it and had students write software for it. That was in 1999.
Today, Windows caught up. It no longer runs things in ring0 under DOS secretly stashed away, development tools vastly improved, and the free tools were ported to Windows. Windows XP had the superior IE 6 browser (in 2001 it was the only one that had true CSS) and the web changed to support just that browser. Worse, flash came out and know help wanted ads required flash and Photoshop experience. Now web development was a Windows/Mac only game. Firefox saved us from those dark days thank god but the XP kernel had SMP support, stability, reliability, and was just as fast as Linux.
Windows moved on with full Visual Studio. NET to replace Java and became more secure (contrary to those on here who have not used Windows in 10 years will argue with you otherwise) and Java fonts looked better on Windows. Windows now has PHP, better C++ tools, and so on.
Fastforward to 2011 I gave up on Linux. It rocks if you are Google and need a HOOP no-sql database cluster due to the still cool hacking abilities of the os stack, but its distros have unstable apps and I hate the UI. No XFCE is not a full replacement of Gnome 2.x. Firefox 3.6 was also regressing to at the time and I went back to Windows 7 full time. I was pleasantly surprised when I touched IE for the first time in years and Windows 7 just worked with no weird issues.
My wife kind of forced me to do so as I spent all my free time tinkering with my computer rather than applying for jobs, using Office where I do not have to worry about my resume looking funny because I used LibraOffice, and IE 9 was so much faster and smoother than FF 3.6. Visual Studio 2010 is better, and its nice to use Photoshop instead of the Gimp. Windows 7 is secure with ASLR, DEP, sand boxing, signed drivers, with any good anti virus product. The news you hear like Conflicker are old XP and IE 7 unpatched installations on the enterprise. My exwife was right and it was funny to keep using some obscure thing when the software that comes with the desktop never has to be re-installed unless you do something stupid. Linux was a 4 month reinstall marathon.
The world has moved on. I moved on with it and acknowledge Linux for what it is as a great server OS if you have the right hardware.
She can share his passion but unless he is rich I can fully see his first wife leaving him. $150,000 is no chump change and its a much better goal to invest that or pay off debt regardless if its a cool project. An airtraffic controller should not be blowing $150,000 on his project.
May God help him if he has kids too. With them its not just money but time being a dad is always more important than yourself.
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Let me know how well those flash videos work and the good weekend setting up a new rig when Joe Six pack just plugs his new shiny Windows box from bestbuy and it boots up and works.
I am glad I do not use Linux anymore with the shitty Unity UI and keep it around in a VM. Windows 7 is supperior as I do things desktop oriented when not working and do not have time to have the system crash because an update screwed it up with no ABI like every other OS has.
My ATI card can easily go black at any time if there is an update. Not worth the effort and is laughable if you think an average Joe should put up with that.
I just got into a flamwar with a mac user last night on Livejournal over this.
He said he did not need anti virus software with a smile and that Flashback was a myth. He said I was full of it because he has not had a virus in 18 years. I asked how did he know?
Avast! is free with a mac version in beta. It is stupid to use it without it and I mentioned his view of security was based off of IE 6 and XP which is the last version he used at work. It did not fair well.
I do agree with you and it pisses me off Apple leaves Leapord users in the cold. Seriously, they should get sued as users bank accounts will be compromised and its not like it is ancient like XP which still gets updates. Linux is the least secure of all of them.
PCs are garbage at the store in my opinion and it is subjective as retailers hate quality products because low cost junk sells in higher volume and if it breaks you are more than likely to go back and repurchase. Good workstations are only available online and same is true with decent screens.
MacOSX does have less malware and Windows 7 is much better I still stand by my point.
It is not the fact that you have the piece of paper.
It shows intelligence and proof of an analytical mindset. More than that it shows dedication and someone who is ambitious and cares about their self image. It is a character trait they want to see in their engineers. You can learn on your own but to them it shows you decided to go the easy route and not care about making a lot of money that a degreed person can obtain.
HR has no clue if you are good or not. So they agree with the requirement as well to weed on those who can spell it on a resume and proof that you can write a B-tree algorithm must know something at least for the manager to then decide if this person fits our view.
Or your girlfriend (if you were not around) could just buy a WindowsPC at BestBuy plug it in and work.
Your girlfriend or any Joe Six Pack does not care about WMs, GNU, php, editors, and a cool shit load of hacking tools that you and me drool over. They want:
1. MP3 Support
2. Browse videos on youtube and college humor
3. Play farmville or flash games
4. Do work on the weekends from emailed files
5. Watch movies and create them and record to DVD etc
Linux has no mp3 support by default, no blueray codecs by default, flash no longer supported and sucks goatballs anyway, no h.264 hardware acceleration unless you have a very specific card and no proper driver by default, and many other issues. Sure you got it to work and I bet you it took a good weekend to setup, research the hardware, know where to find the right repositories, etc.
But my question is why? There is no benefit to Linux at all for a consumer.
If you gripe about Windows sucking then get a Mac. You referred to XP and its 10 years old. Have you run Windows recently? Windows 7 is secure and a decent OS for consumers. It has ASLR, DEP, Sand Boxing, process and privileged seperation, and other enhancements over XP.
I gave up on Linux a year ago when I saw Gnome shell and Unity. It just is weird and I could not justify spending all my time on it with my exwife who says her Vista works and she never spends time on it. If Linux is so good why do I keep have to fix issues after an Ubuntu update etc?
I use the cool linux tools in a VM now under Windows 7.
There is Windows 7.
I tried the latest consumer preview of Windows 8 on my desktop (6 core 2.6 ghz phenomII with 8 gigs of ram) and it was very fast and sleek. If it were not for Metro I would still be using it. I got used to it after a few days and it is workable on the desktop mode (still like Windows 7 search much better than goign to Metro every task).
Windows 7 will be the new obsolete dinosaur we all will love and or hate and battle on slashdot like we do with XP today on which is better. Businesses will switch to Windows 7 as it supports EFI and can run IE 10 and up to date browsers with full security (not have gimped like XP) with full hardware acceleration. Windows 8 will be a hit with tablets in the workplace.
My guess is a new hybrid environment will replace it. Linux is just not capable on the desktop and certainly not at work. Only really old and poor consumers still use XP. It is old and like old IE is reserved for the fortune 500.
You can order them online with Linux. ... at least you could the last time I looked.
The reason they only come with Windows is because consumers bought them and wondered why their Norton Anti Virus that Geek Squad told them they needed to get (upselling) didn't work and where did Word go?
Consumers do not understand and they returned them. Asus and BestBuy forced Windows on them. Consumers were happier. Remember BestBuy makes money selling software and they viewed Linux as a threat to their business model.
Shit have you seen Unity or Gnome 3?
I have been tempted to write a post on how MS is just copying rather than innovating in Windows 8. We had the crappy, cell phone oriented, single tasking gui first :-)
Too me I think the desktop itself is turning into the mainframe and is dying. Businesses still use them today and likewise they will be the last to leave the desktop. Linux has a chance in Andriod and in cloud platforms. Jobs himself admitted that the Mac is a dying platform and Microsoft won (before he came back to Apple :-) ). He said if he were CEO he would milk the Mac for all its worth and turn his attentions elsewhere. He did just that with the Ipod and then his IPhone and beat MS this time around.
Regardless, Windows is not the POS it once was and many who have not used it in years or still use XP and IE 6 at work do not see what has happened. Windows 7 and MacOSX are certainly supperior for consumers.
They do not care about PHP, sharkwire, free c/c++ tools, customizable guis, and all the good stuff I drooled at 11 years ago when I tried Linux out. A consumer wants
a. Browse the internet and watch videos on youtube
b. Use his Excel Macros from work on the weekends for projects
c. Make movies and post them on deviant art or facebook
d. Watch movies and create mp3 collections for their devices.
Linux does not even ship with mp3 or bluray support by default! Flash sucks goatballs, and LibreOffice has mixed compability and does not have the ribbons Joe six pack is used too at his work PC, and web browsers update every 6 weeks and distros wont let you upgrade that often.
In short Linux is a terrible desktop OS. As flash dies and gets replaced by h.264 and phones take over with full codec support the situation will change for the linux kernel. The GNU stuff only we care about.
If you hate Windows the Mac is a great platform for rich consumers that do what I described above with minimal fuss.
Windows 7 does not have malware issues if you have the latest service packs and updated mixed with up to flash and a good anti virus suite.
When Linux users and Mac users complain about Windows they remember the last time they ran XP SP 1 with IE 6 with all the good malware. Or there employer is behind the times because the cost accountants love their IE 7 only apps and refuse to upgrade their infrastructure.
Windows 7 for consumers is simple, easy to use, and fairly secure unless they do stupid things like install OMG Titties apps, and bizaare trojan Facebook games. Not perfect but I ran to Linux 10 years ago because Windows 98 was a POS. Windows XP was much better I may add but it had too many things run on ring 0 and IE 6 was terribly insecure with too many services and attack vectors.
The appeal for Linux for me was free C/C++, php, editors, and I can make the gui look whatever I wanted. Ethereal was awesome (now called wireshark), and it was frankly fun. Joe six pack doesn't need these.
MacOSX is even better. It has less malware, a great gui, less quirky, and graphically ahead of most cheap wintel garbage on the shelves of best buy with the terrible dark screens. It is unix for consumers.
I see no reason for Joe six pack to use anything but MacOSX or Windows. He watches movies, types things for work, browses the internet, and maybe makes a home movie or a nice mp3 collection for his player if he is an advanced user and that is it. Linux does these things worse as in more effort. MP3 support is not enabled by default, his advanced excel macros from work may not work with OpenOffice, Firefox and Chrome update often when the distro has no updates available, and flash sucks goatballs in Linux.
Linux has its strengths for nerds. Consumers have different priorities. If you hate Windows the Mac is a nice alternative abiet a pricy one.
I hope job interviewing skills is one of them.
My employer wont hire you unless you have a CS degree. It doesn't matter how much experience you have. If you do not have that piece of paper you answer phones all day as the HR people think you can't program a hello world program without one.
The value of the stock has gone up so much that the government made more money than what it gave out already.
That is an investment if anything. It saved millions of jobs from other tax payers and was well worth it to use the government as a line of credit in such a situation. Now if the CEO of GM took the money and sold the assets it would be theft.
Didn't Gm pay almost all of it back.
It is not confiscation if its shares are purchased. Its called capitalism. They asked if they needed a bailout and said yes. Obama said fine and purchased the stocks and then became the new owner. As the largest shareholder he fired the CEO for being incompetent. Now they paid nearly all of it back and the new board is fairly independent.
So basically MS does not pay taxes and neither do 80% of employers in Seattle. I go to school for a CS degree. I have to pay for the degree with debt because MS wanted a higher margin. That means part of my labor is free because I paid for the right to work for Microsoft in essense.
Rates keep going up and are so high now that college grads can't get car loans, save for homes, and owe more than 1 trillion in credit card debt. Why? Corporations no longer pay taxes and universities need funds to keep running.
So yes the costs are externalized to their workforce and other tax payers.
Dunno, I certainly don't work for one. Any company that has a "No GNU" policy either has lazy lawyers or PHBs that bought into FUD like is being spammed all over this thread.
Obviously. Do you have a less FUD-filled point to make?
So you just admitted my point that you can't link to a GPL api in your program. You can't use a GPL library for private use if you wish to retain ownership.
Copyleft and BSD like licenses are your only bet then. That was my point and why software companies shake their heads listening to free GNU zealots on how they can easily use an include statement without issue. You simply can't.
I wonder how much tax revenue Washington State will get if Microsoft just up and leaves the state if Washington State 'punishes' Microsoft.
What's 100% of zero again? I'm not good at math but I think it's zero...
A lot more. MS uses programs like the CS from Washington University to hire its graduates. The state pays for the demand and its workers through large debt and MS gets a free ride and hands the bill to the tax payer.
If MS left it would put less strain on the state since they do not pay taxes anyway. Washington State would be more balanced.
Vegas was a boom town when I lived there a decade ago. Reason why was because of high taxation in nearbye California. Great attorneys who specialized in California law were in Nevada oddly.
Many companies closed down their warehouses in California and just shipped them to Nevada to avoid the taxes. Las Vegas was a great place to open a company before the housing bust.
California is not recovering yet like the rest of the nation. Jobs are scarcely listed even though it is so populous. It is simply more economical to open an office in ND, TX, or NV.
Low tax rate states do have booms and businesses take not and not just buy PO Boxes. North Dakota has a 4% unemployment rate and Texas is fairly good too. Employees are cheaper to hire there with less regulation.
What do you think Microsoft owes you, and why?
-jcr
Because MS uses the infrastructure and expects the rest of us including its workers to pay for the right to work. Where I come from that is slavery when you work for free. True the student should pay for some of it, but MS is the benefactor in recruiting CS students from U of Washington. Infact, U of Washington is cutting its computer science program from lack of funding.
Who gets hurt now? Not the students but Microsoft. It is also not fair for Microsoft to soley pay either as its a public good that benefits other employers in the area and a level tax keeps it fair that everyone pays and benefits.
Businesses use roads to ship products, uses the military to keep the world safe to do business, businesses benefit the most from IP laws, and free trade. I would even say they benefit a lot more than you nor I. IP laws and free trade hurt us more than anything. It is there to benefit employers who do not pay for it but expect it others to pay for it then go in a right wing circle jerk about the evils of welfare moms when they are the worst ones.
MS did the right thing by avoiding taxes as an individual corporation. However, the loopholes need to be closed. Austerity will come to the US soon and you and I will end up paying for things your employer uses through forced higher taxes.
No go ask any company who has a "No GNU" policy?
In your ideal world you are right. In the real world liability risks are considered in any major decision and the proof is of the article listed that GPL licensing in decline. Corporations do not care about freedom and you can't use an include to a GPL library unless the whole program is free. It is a fact. Go read the GPL? RMS specifically included that on purpose
I hope you do not sell your embedded linux with the changes to customers without giving out the source code? That would count for redistribution unless you only use it internally.
Your lawyers and HR will not appreciate giving out million or hundreds of thousands of labor they made to competitors and various exploit writers.
Not an astroturfer at all.
Just explaining the thought processes in HR and legal departments in many workplaces. No you can't use a call to a library that is GPL and many of the programmers are not aware of the problem.
It is a risk and any risk is not necessary to take and why give away software at all? That gives teh users too much power and not enough leverage for the producer. If you do not want to give away your secrets and IP in your modified version of Linux then you have a problem. A BSD kernel is a better pick in such a scenario.
It is not fud and it doesnt matter if you agree with it.
This is the opinion of lawyers if you work in any organization. The viral mouthpiece is considered a problem if you talked to non biased lawyers. Most owners who use GPL do it for free and not for software that makes them money.
Businesses do not care about ideals or cool stuff. They only care about profit. Minimizing liability even if it is imagined and maximizing returns is the game and explains why business has slowed to GPL adoption. SCO/MS did lots of damage. Its just not even considered.
2 people leach in any business transaction. The price is the point of compromise for both or a contract in a niche case such as this. The GPL is great for the users, and worst for the owners. A proprietary license is the best for the owner and worse for the user. Windows is a prime example. BSD, MIT, Apache and others are in between.
A developer has a right to their own code they paid for or developed himself. You are right they should pay, but it is well within the companys right to use a BSD solution that is more friendly to a compromise or make their own and refuse to even use your product. Profit is very very nice if you are the one receiving it and providing something a user wants so much they are willing to pay for.
The issue I have and I agree with SAAS is much of the api's and frameworks out there are GPL instead of copyleft. Free not to use you say? What if I make my own expensive proprietary code and some intern downloads a GPL api that compromises just 5% of the code in my product?
Whoops the rest of the 95% just went GPL as well. GPL is better meant for products rather than libraries and this is what SAAS and others are bitching about. Copyleft is prefectly more appropriete as many would love to give credit to others but still retain ownership of the 95% of the code. Companies are going anti GPL for these reasons.
Here is a hairy situation that is quoted by those who do not like the GPL at work.
What if you use GPL v 3 software and make it as your own internally. The owner wants to sell the company. What then? Sorry the GPL v3 counts that as a redistribution. They would have to release their crown jewels to competitors. What if it is a private organization and wants to go public. Oops can't disolve and reform as a public company because that also counts as redistribution under Sarbines Oxley. A few people wont give a shit in a small private company, but sarbines Oxley is a must for any public company in the US. Auditors would have a field day.
Software very seldomly stays anymore. If you work in China you need to redistribute your code to Chinese authories. Sometimes supplies and vendors need access to it so they can become partners. Maybe the owners might want to sell their technology and have others use it like Amazon does with its cloud?
BSD is much nicer. Remember GNU is friendly to its users but not to its owners. It is really nice to have something that is yours and you no longer own it if its licensed under any freeware license.
Many banks and other companies that received threatening letters from SCO and MS salesmen have anti gnu or freeware policies in their organization. A famous Canadian bank even licenses for an obsolete version of SSH because BSD *might* be gnu. Funny, that the corporation just downloads the BSD one and repackages to the customer as its own for $$$.
Lawyers are afraid of it in big companies after several court cases with companies like Netgear being accused of copyright infringement for including Linux without the source in some of their embedded products.
I could turn this into a BSD vs GPL flameware but wont. There are many such as myself who feel comfortable using free software at work but would feel better modifying and shipping BSD versions which are more business friendly to customers and suppliers. Remember you are asking the company to ship its crown jewels away if they license it with GPL. It is true it may protect you agaisn't getting ripped off, but you have no way to know for sure.
Businesses do not like risk or to give away free things. They own them if they paid for the labor so why the risk?
You are not alone
Many people live in the past and do not like change. Such people remember Windows ME and IE 6 and have not used Windows since. To them it is the abusive husband and can't see past this and look at things from a 2012 point of view.
For proof look at that story yesterday about conflicker and how MS said "Gee keep Windows patched at work and use strong passwords". Everyone and their brother bashed Windows saying that if only people used Linux you can have a 123 password and it will never be compromised and other laughable BS.
My own history of Windows Vs Linux
I created this name with this account because I was one of those fanbois 11 years ago and swore on Linux and FreeBSD where the awesomeness and end all and how MS was evil out to destroy the world etc.
I grew up. More importantly Windows grew up while Linux regressed. 11 years ago it was more like Dos/WIndows 3.11. I remember typing random characters and discovering LS and then using Netscape to yahoo (Google wasn't around)X and startx similiar to typing Win.bat in Dos. Linux had true SMP support, was stable, was what NT was aiming to become, and had the coolest set of development tools known to man. Its power management was better, its performance was unrivaled, and computer science programs taught it and had students write software for it. That was in 1999.
Today, Windows caught up. It no longer runs things in ring0 under DOS secretly stashed away, development tools vastly improved, and the free tools were ported to Windows. Windows XP had the superior IE 6 browser (in 2001 it was the only one that had true CSS) and the web changed to support just that browser. Worse, flash came out and know help wanted ads required flash and Photoshop experience. Now web development was a Windows/Mac only game. Firefox saved us from those dark days thank god but the XP kernel had SMP support, stability, reliability, and was just as fast as Linux.
Windows moved on with full Visual Studio. NET to replace Java and became more secure (contrary to those on here who have not used Windows in 10 years will argue with you otherwise) and Java fonts looked better on Windows. Windows now has PHP, better C++ tools, and so on.
Fastforward to 2011
I gave up on Linux. It rocks if you are Google and need a HOOP no-sql database cluster due to the still cool hacking abilities of the os stack, but its distros have unstable apps and I hate the UI. No XFCE is not a full replacement of Gnome 2.x. Firefox 3.6 was also regressing to at the time and I went back to Windows 7 full time. I was pleasantly surprised when I touched IE for the first time in years and Windows 7 just worked with no weird issues.
My wife kind of forced me to do so as I spent all my free time tinkering with my computer rather than applying for jobs, using Office where I do not have to worry about my resume looking funny because I used LibraOffice, and IE 9 was so much faster and smoother than FF 3.6. Visual Studio 2010 is better, and its nice to use Photoshop instead of the Gimp. Windows 7 is secure with ASLR, DEP, sand boxing, signed drivers, with any good anti virus product. The news you hear like Conflicker are old XP and IE 7 unpatched installations on the enterprise. My exwife was right and it was funny to keep using some obscure thing when the software that comes with the desktop never has to be re-installed unless you do something stupid. Linux was a 4 month reinstall marathon.
The world has moved on. I moved on with it and acknowledge Linux for what it is as a great server OS if you have the right hardware.
Lets hope she has money.
She can share his passion but unless he is rich I can fully see his first wife leaving him. $150,000 is no chump change and its a much better goal to invest that or pay off debt regardless if its a cool project. An airtraffic controller should not be blowing $150,000 on his project.
May God help him if he has kids too. With them its not just money but time being a dad is always more important than yourself.