If I create a company tomorrow and say that I will shine your shoes for $800, that is outrageous, it is bad for consumers, but the market will kick my ass because there are alternate ways to get your shoes shined, and shoe shining isn't even a necessity to begin with.
You are absolutely, 100% correct. The distinction is that you DON'T have a monopoly in the shoe shine business, which is why you'd get your ass kicked in the market - competition would quickly put you out of business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, IS a monopoly. The price they charge for their products can go up and down with little effect on their sales.
This is one of the reasons we have government - to act as the voice, the agent of the people when things need to change. The government is not always correct (DeCSS, for example), but in the end, the power does reside with the people. If you yell loudly enough as a group, you will be heard.
It is not a crime for Microsoft to be a monopoly! It is however, illegal to behave in certain ways when you ARE a monopoly, which is what MS has done.
You talk about how action against MS is bad for the industry, bad for the economy. Well what if Microsoft was shut down tomorrow? All the dollars that had been wasted on OS licenses, Office, and CALs for NT server could have instead been invested in new companies, creating new jobs, and filling new needs - needs that haven't even been thought of yet! That's innovation, and that's what Microsoft is stifling with their actions.
Look, Mac users (myself included, from time to time) are a finicky bunch. A program with a bad GUI can slide by on Windows, and maybe even do okay on Linux if it's stable and does what it's supposed to.
I think Linux users, and to a lesser extent, Windows users, are more tolerant of bad user interface as long as the program is powerful.
Mac users are not like that. They expect programs to work in similar fashion and expect them to follow the user interface guidelines for the OS. (Yes, even Apple - they got SKEWERED in the Mac press for the interface of Quicktime 4).
So suggesting that everyone help port OpenOffice to MacOSX is great! I agree. But you've got to find a few graphic designers, user interface people, and documentation/help technical writers to come along to the porting party.
If you want it to succeed you have to play to the users, and on Mac, they expect a lot.
I love the concept of open source. I think that those who code open source software, particularly under BSD style licenses, are saints.
But I also feel that open source has some serious issues that need to be addressed.
1. It seems that quite a bit of open-source software works "just well enough", that is, the nerds can understand and figure it out, but the usability is not there for a technophobe. An example would be the Apache webserver, which a leader in it's class, even when compared to commercial software. However, it's not easy to setup - configuration is through text files, etc.
2. Documentation and Help: It's pretty well known that programmers like to code, not write documentation or a help system. Thus, many open source programs are poorly / not at all documented and have no online help if the user gets stuck.
3. It's hard for open source to compete against pirated commercial software. If everyone had to pay $200 for Windows and $500 for Office, Linux, StarOffice, etc. is an easy choice. However when Windows and Office can be obtained for nothing (and is, by most people), it's harder for open source to compete. If Windows is 'free' and Linux is 'free', most end users will choose Windows.
4. Ease of use and user interface. Open source programmers are not icon designers, color theorists, photographers, or graphic designers, for the most part, and it shows. Open source needs to figure out how to pay people in those fields to improve the GUIs of open source operating systems and applications.
Well, that was kind of long. Hopefully there will be (more) progress in these areas. I know about Mandrake - what is needed is Mandrake times 100.
. In my experience, people buy MS Office because that's what they have at work.
No one actually buys Office. It comes "free" with your computer, if not most people copy it from a friend. I've never actually seen someone go to the store and buy it.
Please keep this to yourselves. MacOS does not need any programs with inconsistent interfaces that don't obey the user interface guidelines.
Seriously, if you're not going to do it right, don't bother. It needs to have documentation, good icons, help files, and work like a MacOS program. If it's just a cheap port of the Linux version with MacOSX windows and buttons, you might as well not bother. Mac users won't put up with that crap the way *nix people will.
No - even if you post 'anonymous coward', Slashdot still logs your IP address and other information. If your post was determined to be slanderous, defamatory, whatever, Slashdot COULD be served with a warrant and be forced to turn over your identity.
Sorry to reply twice to the same post, but I had another thought: Since Slashdot has the capability to ban IP addresses from posting (regardless of the login name), they most certainly ARE logging IP addresses.
In other words, they can ban you even if you post AC, right? Therefore, they are logging your IP address even when you post AC.
If they're logging your IP address, and it's associated with each post you make, that means Slashdot COULD be forced to identify anonymous cowards! Something to keep in mind next time you want to post about Rob visiting goatse.cx or make some slanderous remark about the president of a large company.
See my more extensive post on this topic, up in the thread. I suspect that on Slashdot, they actually DO know who the AC's are, it's just that it shows "AC" instead of "yourname".
Now, the question is whether Slashdot keeps logs that could identify AC's by their IP addresses. Then, the ISP would also have to have logs showing who had what IP address at what time. (in order to identify an AC)
Something I've offered wondered is: unmasking an online "John Doe" will always require the cooperation of two internet providers, right? In this case, Yahoo sees that the visitor came from an IP address assigned to XYZ ISP on some day, some time. The XYZ ISP then looks at their logs and figures out who had that IP address at that time, and turns over their billing address and phone number.
Couldn't both the content provider and the ISP better protect themselves by only keeping the log files for a few days, or 24 hours? Then if asked, threatened, or served with a warrant, they could honestly say they didn't know which user did what. Is there a LAW that requires ISPs to keep logs and know who their users are?
There is a LegoLand park near San Diego, CA. I don't know if it's the same deal as the Euro ones... but I thought it was really neat. You can play with the Mindstorms and other stuff, and the models they have there are really incredible.
It's kind of targetted toward kids, but I found it enjoyable. Great family outing.
You could draw a parallel with Windows/Linux. Linux comes in lots of little pieces (in a big box of course), and to get your OS to work the way you want it to, you have to make sure all those pieces are compatable
With regards to the Linux portion of your statement, it might be accurate to compare it to a box of legos, with some pieces missing, and the directions are all wrong!:)
Why won't people pay for content? Because the value isn't there.
"Yay! Sony music is finally going to offer downloadable MP3. What? $3 a track... let's see, that's $30 for an album worth of tunes, or I can buy a cd for $15... hmm, tough choice."
Blockbuster is planning a similar deal with streaming movies - guess what, they will cost the same as it costs to get a rental from Blockbuster's retail store! WTF?
Online 'media' companies have no rent, no dumb retail employees, and no physical inventory, and yet the pricing is the SAME, or even MORE in the online arena?
FYI the Yahoo messenger software comes with a little webcam widget now... you can easily run a webcam off any video source and some text shows up next to the names of your "buddies" if they have a camera on. If you don't see this stuff, go download the latest version.
The Yahoo messenger client is great. Very rarely is there any downtime. It's full featured - messaging, phone calls, webcams, stock prices, news, etc. Not open source, but I believe they even provide Unix/Linux clients. And still free to obtain and use.
Hemos, you dummy did you even read the article? Motorola is suing the company distributing the spam because they mention Motorola, not because they are actually spamming pagers with the message.
No wonder my articles never get posted, you don't even read the submissions!
so are the actual costs of bandwidth inflated, or what? Is it one of those industries where people just charge what they can?
With Napster, et al, it seems like ISPs, Universities, etc. were complaining about all their bandwidth being used up - is it just because everyone had a fast pipe on their desk instead of a modem?
Yes, Palm branded devices don't just have better designed software - they also have (much) better industrial design that really makes them easy and friendly to use.
Sometimes it's hard to explain why they are better than WinCE to people if they haven't used one yet. But once you do, you understand.
Lefties, such as myself are more likely to die and be injured in accidents than righties. It's believed that this is because of doing ackward things, like reaching for doorknobs, spigots, valves, etc. on the wrong side.
Current primary obstacle is that there is no good micropayment infrastructure. Even PayPal is too hard to understand for technophobes.
Anyway, who really cares? Free content will continue to go away, until the only content left on the web is provided by: 1) people who love what they are doing and are willing to provide the content for free, and 2) people who create content that is good enough to get people to pay for it.
Both seem like good end results to me - the internet may end up less commercialized, and we'll return a bit to the days when people created useful content, such as research, because they wanted to, not to make money.
Yeah, but you can afford to use it because it's cost is $0, not because it's open source. It could be closed source, and freeware, shareware, $20, postcardware, and you could afford it too.
If you happen to keep reading this thread, what does that work out to? Say you have 3Mbit line that is constantly maxed out. What does that work out to, in terms of # of users, each downloading at 50 k/b sec or whatever. I'm not much for math... let's says you were supporting 56k dialup users, each maxing their connection, how many users could you support?
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely, 100% correct. The distinction is that you DON'T have a monopoly in the shoe shine business, which is why you'd get your ass kicked in the market - competition would quickly put you out of business.
Microsoft, on the other hand, IS a monopoly. The price they charge for their products can go up and down with little effect on their sales.
This is one of the reasons we have government - to act as the voice, the agent of the people when things need to change. The government is not always correct (DeCSS, for example), but in the end, the power does reside with the people. If you yell loudly enough as a group, you will be heard.
It is not a crime for Microsoft to be a monopoly! It is however, illegal to behave in certain ways when you ARE a monopoly, which is what MS has done.
You talk about how action against MS is bad for the industry, bad for the economy. Well what if Microsoft was shut down tomorrow? All the dollars that had been wasted on OS licenses, Office, and CALs for NT server could have instead been invested in new companies, creating new jobs, and filling new needs - needs that haven't even been thought of yet! That's innovation, and that's what Microsoft is stifling with their actions.
I think Linux users, and to a lesser extent, Windows users, are more tolerant of bad user interface as long as the program is powerful.
Mac users are not like that. They expect programs to work in similar fashion and expect them to follow the user interface guidelines for the OS. (Yes, even Apple - they got SKEWERED in the Mac press for the interface of Quicktime 4).
So suggesting that everyone help port OpenOffice to MacOSX is great! I agree. But you've got to find a few graphic designers, user interface people, and documentation/help technical writers to come along to the porting party.
If you want it to succeed you have to play to the users, and on Mac, they expect a lot.
Instead, I had that, hey, "they posted my article" moment!
Now, if I can just get them to accept one of my articles on how the usability of Linux can be improved... :)
Shoot, I'm no Apple fan, but the iMac is what finally gave USB the jumpstart it needed to get going.
But I also feel that open source has some serious issues that need to be addressed.
1. It seems that quite a bit of open-source software works "just well enough", that is, the nerds can understand and figure it out, but the usability is not there for a technophobe. An example would be the Apache webserver, which a leader in it's class, even when compared to commercial software. However, it's not easy to setup - configuration is through text files, etc.
2. Documentation and Help: It's pretty well known that programmers like to code, not write documentation or a help system. Thus, many open source programs are poorly / not at all documented and have no online help if the user gets stuck.
3. It's hard for open source to compete against pirated commercial software. If everyone had to pay $200 for Windows and $500 for Office, Linux, StarOffice, etc. is an easy choice. However when Windows and Office can be obtained for nothing (and is, by most people), it's harder for open source to compete. If Windows is 'free' and Linux is 'free', most end users will choose Windows.
4. Ease of use and user interface. Open source programmers are not icon designers, color theorists, photographers, or graphic designers, for the most part, and it shows. Open source needs to figure out how to pay people in those fields to improve the GUIs of open source operating systems and applications.
Well, that was kind of long. Hopefully there will be (more) progress in these areas. I know about Mandrake - what is needed is Mandrake times 100.
Um, no. The Macintosh came out in 1984. At the time it was released, DOS was king. Windows 1.0 didn't ship until almost 1986!
No one actually buys Office. It comes "free" with your computer, if not most people copy it from a friend. I've never actually seen someone go to the store and buy it.
Seriously, if you're not going to do it right, don't bother. It needs to have documentation, good icons, help files, and work like a MacOS program. If it's just a cheap port of the Linux version with MacOSX windows and buttons, you might as well not bother. Mac users won't put up with that crap the way *nix people will.
No - even if you post 'anonymous coward', Slashdot still logs your IP address and other information. If your post was determined to be slanderous, defamatory, whatever, Slashdot COULD be served with a warrant and be forced to turn over your identity.
In other words, they can ban you even if you post AC, right? Therefore, they are logging your IP address even when you post AC.
If they're logging your IP address, and it's associated with each post you make, that means Slashdot COULD be forced to identify anonymous cowards! Something to keep in mind next time you want to post about Rob visiting goatse.cx or make some slanderous remark about the president of a large company.
Now, the question is whether Slashdot keeps logs that could identify AC's by their IP addresses. Then, the ISP would also have to have logs showing who had what IP address at what time. (in order to identify an AC)
Couldn't both the content provider and the ISP better protect themselves by only keeping the log files for a few days, or 24 hours? Then if asked, threatened, or served with a warrant, they could honestly say they didn't know which user did what. Is there a LAW that requires ISPs to keep logs and know who their users are?
It's actually measurable to the point that lefties even have a shorter life expectancy :(
It's kind of targetted toward kids, but I found it enjoyable. Great family outing.
With regards to the Linux portion of your statement, it might be accurate to compare it to a box of legos, with some pieces missing, and the directions are all wrong! :)
"Yay! Sony music is finally going to offer downloadable MP3. What? $3 a track... let's see, that's $30 for an album worth of tunes, or I can buy a cd for $15... hmm, tough choice."
Blockbuster is planning a similar deal with streaming movies - guess what, they will cost the same as it costs to get a rental from Blockbuster's retail store! WTF?
Online 'media' companies have no rent, no dumb retail employees, and no physical inventory, and yet the pricing is the SAME, or even MORE in the online arena?
No wonder no one will pay for content!
FYI the Yahoo messenger software comes with a little webcam widget now... you can easily run a webcam off any video source and some text shows up next to the names of your "buddies" if they have a camera on. If you don't see this stuff, go download the latest version.
The Yahoo messenger client is great. Very rarely is there any downtime. It's full featured - messaging, phone calls, webcams, stock prices, news, etc. Not open source, but I believe they even provide Unix/Linux clients. And still free to obtain and use.
No wonder my articles never get posted, you don't even read the submissions!
With Napster, et al, it seems like ISPs, Universities, etc. were complaining about all their bandwidth being used up - is it just because everyone had a fast pipe on their desk instead of a modem?
Sometimes it's hard to explain why they are better than WinCE to people if they haven't used one yet. But once you do, you understand.
Is that why I've dropped my Palm so frequently?
Anyway, who really cares? Free content will continue to go away, until the only content left on the web is provided by: 1) people who love what they are doing and are willing to provide the content for free, and 2) people who create content that is good enough to get people to pay for it.
Both seem like good end results to me - the internet may end up less commercialized, and we'll return a bit to the days when people created useful content, such as research, because they wanted to, not to make money.
Yeah, but you can afford to use it because it's cost is $0, not because it's open source. It could be closed source, and freeware, shareware, $20, postcardware, and you could afford it too.
If you happen to keep reading this thread, what does that work out to? Say you have 3Mbit line that is constantly maxed out. What does that work out to, in terms of # of users, each downloading at 50 k/b sec or whatever. I'm not much for math... let's says you were supporting 56k dialup users, each maxing their connection, how many users could you support?