And most large software IS backed by companies. Care to mention some big GUI proyect not-backed by some company OTHER than firefox? Because I can't even think of one. KDE uses qt.
Perhaps not "industry standard", but it IS used by several proyects that dominate in their area, and several quite large (lage as in "with a large userbase") projects:
I agree on this point, but, what about Qt? Qt is superior to gtk in almost every way, cross platform, and not "bound" to anything. Plus, the license is pretty liberal.
Out of curiosity, how has upgrading worked for you? It seems that Mint's dev prefer a clean-reinstall upgrade. Have you done that or in-place upgrades?
The only thing that makes me hessitate about Mint is upgrades. It seems that it's oriented towards full-reinstall upgrades, and I wouldn't want my parents having to do that (and they wouldn't do it either). Having used XP for about 6years without reinstalling, I really want to offer something that can offer a similar experience. Then again, Ubuntu has been know to break everything between releases. So I'm not sure what to use!
And pray she doesn't want to stay with Windows. My mother learned to use Windows 8 out of spite enough so she doesn't need Linux, but not enough so she can keep her own computer clean (by the way, I need to go back there check how is the new antivirus working, does anybody have good recomendations?).
Personally, I don't bother giving any support to windows users - even family members. First of all, I don't want to waste time learning windows-related stuff, secondly, they know my stance on the matter, and know I won't support non-free software. Finally, they have more motivation to migrate to *nix if they know you'll support them once they do.
Actually, the fact that it runs firefox is interesting: it'll help keep the browser market heteregenous, which is what's best for both devs and users in the long run. We don't need another browser dominating the market just like IE did: it gives them too much power.
People gave lots of money to a total stranger for that stranger to take care of it, and got robbed. Does that prove that Bitcoin is a bad idea, or that people are too stupid?
Nope. I just used the windows version on wine, and now, I'm getting rid of that. Surely, not the only person. Plus, this means Portal 2 is now available for SteamOS.
With the issues with patent trolls that dominate the US, it's a very dangerous territory for them to leap into, so I don't think it's one of their priorities.
Honestly, there should be a viable, easy-to-use alternative to Facebook which respects your privacy and doesn't have shady dealings with a government and isn't run by a functionally retarded man-child. But if there is one, well I don't know about it. And if I don't know about it, then 95% of people don't know about it.
I concurs, but sadly, most people don't, and that's why we don't have such an alternative.:(
It's Jabber, but without the hassle of account creation. Username is automatically set up as your phone number, and password is your IMEI or something.
Jabber with the most important part stripped off: de-centralization. And no voice/video support either.
I read the web site, and I still don't understand what this web site is all about. Is it really just yet another messaging platform designed to get around SMS messaging charges? Am I missing something obvious?
1. There are tons and tons of ways to send messages to people last I checked. Why is this one worth "$16B"?
They pay for the userbase.
2. Who still pays for SMS messages? I've had unlimited texting plans for the better part of a decade, and they're cheaper than most people's cable TV bills. Are text messages significantly expensive outside of the US?
Yes, outside the US prices vary a lot. I pay, what you'd percieve as 20-50cents per message. I know other countries do have free SMS. Some plans here have free SMS, but they're the extremely expesive ones.
XMPP, as always, continues to cover everything. Open standard, lots of open source implementations, de-centralized, IM, voice, and video. But people will still use whatever has the best marketing.
Books required an investment to be physically printed, distributed and sold, which would tend to be out-of-reach for authors. But printing companies could do it and profit a lot from that. The problem with that scenario is that the author would make no profit, hence, nobody would write anything (not unless they were rich and had plenty of spare time, anyway). Hence, copyright made a lot of sense, and served a good purpose.
Nowadays, most of that does not stand true. A book can be digitally distributed, a physical version can be crowdfunded easily. Plus, people have the MEANS to send back additional money to the auther if they wish (try sending 1USD to an author on the other side of the ocean 150 years ago).
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vlc isn't backed by any company.
And most large software IS backed by companies. Care to mention some big GUI proyect not-backed by some company OTHER than firefox? Because I can't even think of one. KDE uses qt.
Perhaps not "industry standard", but it IS used by several proyects that dominate in their area, and several quite large (lage as in "with a large userbase") projects:
Skype, Vlc, Teamspeak, Origin, and lots more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I agree on this point, but, what about Qt? Qt is superior to gtk in almost every way, cross platform, and not "bound" to anything. Plus, the license is pretty liberal.
If google pulled out of india, people would just use something else, and google would permanently loose that market, it's as simple as that.
Out of curiosity, how has upgrading worked for you? It seems that Mint's dev prefer a clean-reinstall upgrade. Have you done that or in-place upgrades?
The only thing that makes me hessitate about Mint is upgrades. It seems that it's oriented towards full-reinstall upgrades, and I wouldn't want my parents having to do that (and they wouldn't do it either). Having used XP for about 6years without reinstalling, I really want to offer something that can offer a similar experience.
Then again, Ubuntu has been know to break everything between releases. So I'm not sure what to use!
And pray she doesn't want to stay with Windows. My mother learned to use Windows 8 out of spite enough so she doesn't need Linux, but not enough so she can keep her own computer clean (by the way, I need to go back there check how is the new antivirus working, does anybody have good recomendations?).
Personally, I don't bother giving any support to windows users - even family members. First of all, I don't want to waste time learning windows-related stuff, secondly, they know my stance on the matter, and know I won't support non-free software. Finally, they have more motivation to migrate to *nix if they know you'll support them once they do.
Actually, the fact that it runs firefox is interesting: it'll help keep the browser market heteregenous, which is what's best for both devs and users in the long run. We don't need another browser dominating the market just like IE did: it gives them too much power.
Plenty of XP software that fails on win7/8 works fine on wine.
Let me remind you that the Silk Road mantainer was tracked by an inpected postal package, not through tor.
People gave lots of money to a total stranger for that stranger to take care of it, and got robbed.
Does that prove that Bitcoin is a bad idea, or that people are too stupid?
Plus, OpenBSD 4.5 is about ... 5 years old, or something like that!
Nope. I just used the windows version on wine, and now, I'm getting rid of that. Surely, not the only person.
Plus, this means Portal 2 is now available for SteamOS.
Exactly, there's plenty of 2012/2013 reasons to hate microsoft, and people hate them because of that.
I belive this applies to windows only. I don't other OS's allow any program to scan the memory of other programs.
Also, even in windows, can't you just run steam as a different user than the cheat itself?
With the issues with patent trolls that dominate the US, it's a very dangerous territory for them to leap into, so I don't think it's one of their priorities.
Honestly, there should be a viable, easy-to-use alternative to Facebook which respects your privacy and doesn't have shady dealings with a government and isn't run by a functionally retarded man-child. But if there is one, well I don't know about it. And if I don't know about it, then 95% of people don't know about it.
I concurs, but sadly, most people don't, and that's why we don't have such an alternative. :(
Spending 19B on something in panicing? I wish I had the means to panic!
It's Jabber, but without the hassle of account creation. Username is automatically set up as your phone number, and password is your IMEI or something.
Jabber with the most important part stripped off: de-centralization. And no voice/video support either.
I read the web site, and I still don't understand what this web site is all about. Is it really just yet another messaging platform designed to get around SMS messaging charges? Am I missing something obvious?
1. There are tons and tons of ways to send messages to people last I checked. Why is this one worth "$16B"?
They pay for the userbase.
2. Who still pays for SMS messages? I've had unlimited texting plans for the better part of a decade, and they're cheaper than most people's cable TV bills. Are text messages significantly expensive outside of the US?
Yes, outside the US prices vary a lot. I pay, what you'd percieve as 20-50cents per message. I know other countries do have free SMS. Some plans here have free SMS, but they're the extremely expesive ones.
XMPP, as always, continues to cover everything. Open standard, lots of open source implementations, de-centralized, IM, voice, and video.
But people will still use whatever has the best marketing.
The hipocrisy on an ONG that want to impose closed protocols with closed source clients is incredible. And people just fall right into it!
We can vacuum ourselves, but don't want to. I can also grow my own vegetables, but I opt not to do so either.
I fail to see how it's an issue. You run a program that uploads data, and your issue is that it eats up your bandwidth? Seems like a non-issue to me!
This is because cultures were different.
Books required an investment to be physically printed, distributed and sold, which would tend to be out-of-reach for authors. But printing companies could do it and profit a lot from that. The problem with that scenario is that the author would make no profit, hence, nobody would write anything (not unless they were rich and had plenty of spare time, anyway). Hence, copyright made a lot of sense, and served a good purpose.
Nowadays, most of that does not stand true. A book can be digitally distributed, a physical version can be crowdfunded easily. Plus, people have the MEANS to send back additional money to the auther if they wish (try sending 1USD to an author on the other side of the ocean 150 years ago).