I see. So your argument is "It might have been OK because we don't know everything about the story"? That is called argument from ignorance and is a fallacy.
As has been stated here on Slashdot many times by slashdotters, GIMP sucks and Libre/Open Office has crappy performance.
There are numerous comments by professional image makers complaining about GIMP. These are the people who actually work with image manipulation software for hours on end and they say GIMP sucks ass.
There are articles and numerous comments complaining about the performance of Libre/Open Office. From start up and shut down speed, to spreadsheet calculation, performance has been their biggest weakness. To use the ever-present car analogy, you are suggesting one use a new Fiat to replace a one year old BMW M5. Are you don't making a fool of yourself yet?
Unfortunately, the vast majority of FLOSS programs are not reviewed either on-line or in magazines. FLOSS is rarely used in business, which is irrelevant because we are mostly talking about home desktop users. And, again, you are suggesting that people spend hours, days, even weeks researching something for Linux that can be found out in minutes for Windows.
False. The second act is not an intentional act of the group. In this case, the union's intent was to degrade the email services of the company. In the case of slashdotting, a large group of people from a website see something of interest and all attempt to visit the site. The intent is not to degrade the service, but rather to utilize the service.
You should try reading the article and the opinion. This was not a "public call to action". This was a union instructing it's members to repeatedly call and email employees of a company in an attempt to "fight back". The union also used an auto-dialer.
Basically, the union email bombed the company and email bombing is an illegal act under the CFAA.
The accusation, the statute, and the opinion do not say hacking. That is the article's author trying to spin the facts. The opinion states that the court believes the union engaged in what is essentially email bombing and caused damage as defined under the CFAA
You have the freedom to communicate with a company if they will not address your issue. But, your right to do so stops when you start sending thousands and thousands of emails to the company in an attempt to overwhelm the company's email server.
Thousands of consumers sending emails demanding a fix does not fall under the CFAA. Someone telling consumers to send thousands of emails for the purpose of swamping the email servers does. In this case, it is not the act of sending thousands of emails, but rather the intent.
Sorry, but no. The soundness of the computer system is irrelevant if the system is sound for normal operation. Another way to look at it is this: breaking into a house that has a simple and easily defeated lock is still breaking and entering. That the lock was weak does not change the fact it was breaking and entering. Even if the door is not locked and all one does is open the door, it is still considered breaking and entering.
It can also be argued that the employees passed on information about the limitations of the equipment in question to the union.
Why, yes, yes I have. I work with it a lot at work on servers and occasionally l load it on a computer at home to see the state of Linux. I am never really impressed with it, especially when I compare it to Windows and Mac OS X. Oh sure, it has come a long way, but it is always a step or three behind both Windows and OS X because both GUIs take there cues for both of those and the lagging hardware support. It has been for a while and, from what I can tell, will be this way for the foreseeable future. When it comes to Linux, innovation doesn't happen in the desktop/laptop GUI or the user space. Almost all the innovation comes in embedded mobile device and server spaces.
That simply isn't true. They became a monopoly despite competition that was as good or better. OS2, MacOS, and Amiga all were IMHO better than Windows 3.1. Windows 95 was a big jump, but it wasn't significantly better than MacOS and many would argue that it didn't surpass Amiga or OS2.
That was then, this is now. OS2 was similar to Windows, but wasn't 100% compatible and was an outlay to purchase. MacOS was, and still is, tied to Apple's expensive hardware. Amiga may have been a better OS than Win 3.1 but didn't have a foothold in the business market. I addressed why MS even has a near monopoly in my previous post, something you did not address.
The world seems to be handling the transition between XP and 7, which are pretty darned different. If you can go from XP to 7, you can handle XP to Gnome.
Oh, sure. But, Windows doesn't have a long history of arbitrary and capricious changes the way FLOSS products do. And, the XP/7 changes are not as major as XP/GNOME.
The same thing happens with Windows questions. Seriously. Look up the error I'm currently dealing with: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)".
OK, what device?
Now, don't get me wrong, the MS website has a big pile of useful information - and it is better than Ubuntu's community-oriented support.
Thank you admitting I am right. You can stop there because:
Presumably, if there were a competitive market, another company who sells something with Linux as their base kernel would have decent documentation.
Redhat is another company that sells Linux as their kernel and there is still crappy documentation.
If Apple can tame FreeBSD, then someone can certainly tame Linux. Not too many Android functions force you to drop to the command line.
If it can be done, why hasn't it been done? Answer: "Linux is geared towards geeks" not users.
Again, I don't think people find jargon to be an issue when using their Linux-based phones. I'm quite certain that it can be made desktop-friendly as well.
If it can be done, then why haven't the done it? See above.
Few people install an OS. And frankly, if you had tried in the past few years you would find that installing Ubuntu is a cakewalk compared to installing Windows 7.
I have installed WinXP, Vista, Win7, Ubuntu, and RedHat in the last few years. I know what I am talking about. Win7 installed easily. Ubuntu was three times as difficult and required me to do a lot of CLI work after saying it had installed successfully.
I don't think those reasons are things that people consider when they buy a computer. Most of the time it is: "can I run this program that we have at work/school". Almost 100% of the time the computer at work is Windows and the computer at school is either Windows or a Mac.
And, if you had read my post instead of cherry-picking points, you would understand that I was addressing why it is almost 100% Windows. The reason is that Linux is not geared towards the average user. Instead, it is geared towards geeks who treat not being able to solve problems with Linux as a sign of incompetence, refusing to help or answer questions 90% of the time. In order for "Linux (or some open unix-like system)" to be popular, it has to be geared to the average user, not be tied to over-priced hardware, easy to use, have a stable UI, be a platform that is easy to program for, and a platform where the users will actually pay for software. Linux fails most of these. OSX fails at least the over-priced hardware.
The GNU/Linux community does not actually want "Linux on the Desktop", regardless of what anyone says. Apple has shown it is doable, but the community doesn't want to do the work and take the steps necessary. The community wants using Linux as one's primary OS to remain a badge of honor and a test "geekness", which directly conflicts having a popular OS. Also, a large part of the community doesn't want to pay for software which perforce limits sales and thus interest in bringing commercial software to Linux.
Your desktop is irrelevant and you are being disingenuous which makes you look like a fool. The phrase "Linux on the Desktop" means, and has meant for many years, ubiquitous Linux based desktop computers used by mainstream users. You know, those people you said you "I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK AT A ROLLING DONUT ABOUT THEM".
The small group of people who use Linux as their primary desktop operating system don't even register when compared to those that use Windows and Mac OS X. You and your ilk don't even qualify as an anomaly in the data. As a group, you don't even make it out of the margin of error for the count.
I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK AT A ROLLING DONUT ABOUT THEM.
And, that attitude is the reason Linux will never be a mainstream desktop or laptop operating system. You and your ilk do not care about the majority of actual computer users. Remember that the next time you want to complain about Windows and people who use Windows, and then STFU.
Your red herring is pretty stupid. People want choices, but they don't want to choose between 8+ choices they have never heard of and have no way to compare. They certainly don't want to have install many or all possible choices and then test and compare them all. Nor do they want to pick one and hope it does all of what they need and want. Most people want a few, easily evaluated choices. That is what they get on MS Windows and on Macs.
I have recently gone to the web sites of some FLOSS apps and discovered that the home page was nothing but a change and bugfix log, some screen shots, and a forum. There was no description of the application or it's purpose, no list of features, and no documentation (apparently, that is what the forum was for). In short, there was nothing on the websites to allow me to evaluate the offerings without downloading, installing, and testing them. I work for a living and I don't have time to do that.
because of the MS monopoly you can't get any good commercial software for anything except Windows, and sometimes Mac.
You are right and you are wrong. The reason there is n MS monopoly is that there are effectively no good alternative for the desktop.
Apple is a strictly regimented culture where one has to buy Apple's over-priced hardware to run their operating system and Apple's insistence on keeping this status quo has resulted in them having a minuscule market share.
Linux is geared towards geeks and that causes a huge number of problems.
Poor UI. This is not just because X is a bolt-on and it is not because of the "GNOME vs KDE vs All Others". UI defaults, dialog/wizard locations, etc will change with no warning, rhyme, or reason.
Poor documentation resulting in one person posting the same question in 20+ different forums. Many will go unanswered, some will be answered with "RTFM n00b!" and/or "Google it", and an actual answer if one is lucky. Googling the question often results in the 20+ unanswered posts.
Reliance on the CLI. It is great to be able to use a CLI, but it sucks for Joe Luser to be required to use it when he hasn't ever had to use one.
Excessive use of jargon. Most people are not computer experts and don't know the jargon. Many don't even know the difference between RAM and ROM, or between memory and storage.
Installs where it either installs easily or one spends hours, days, even weeks trying to get it to work.
Because of these things, Linux has not and will not get a reasonable share of the desktop market.
Because Windows has a 90+% market share of the desktop business, application developers target their applications to Windows. Some will port to Apple, especially educational and artistic software. A few might port to Linux, but most won't because most people who use Linux are free (as in beer and as in speech) software fanatics. The developers don't see a market for selling their products in the Linux environment. Most will look at the cost of porting to either of these platforms and decide the cost outweighs the benefits.
And, you are making it sound like almost everyone who is arrested is innocent, which is false. Very few people who are arrested are innocent, and many of those who are not charged are actually guilty but the state decides not to prosecute, generally because the person was being criminally stupid, like lying about someone's whereabouts, instead of just criminal.
No. The logic is "Peter Parker == Spiderman" and killing off Peter Parker for the sole purpose of bringing in a mixed-race, minority, and/or gay character is insulting to the fans of Spiderman/Peter Parker. You know, the people who made the franchise a success. This is a crutch and is being used to try to drum up interest in the series. It is an attempt to pander to black, latino, mixed, and possibly gay potential comic book buyers. Rather than taking a risk and making the effort to creating a compelling new character, the publisher has decided to subvert an existing franchise to generate controversy and try to convert some of the existing fan base to the new character.
Where you are really off base is assuming that it is racism that has the fans up in arms. We saw the exact same outrage when Lucas reworked "Star Wars: Ep VI". It is not about race or sexual orientation. They are fucking with something the fans love as is and they are doing it because they are lazy and cheap. It is insulting to the fans in multiple ways.
And, if you want an example of this, just look at the latest Marvel movie. Nick Fury is WHITE in the comic books and is being played by Samuel Jackson. No one cares because Fury is being played by a badass actor. There may be some old Fury fans that are pissed that he is not white like he is the comic books, but most Avenger fans don't care because Fury is not a many character.
Ever wonder why there are so few minority superheros? It is because the publishers don't want to take a chance that the character won't be a success. And, when it is not a success it is not because of fan racism, but rather the publisher trying to pander to a particular race and failing to keep up with the times. Don't be mad at the fans for not wanting their hero killed off and replaced. Be mad at the publishers for what is either their refusal or inability to create engaging, compelling minority lead heroes.
Killing off a white character solely for the purpose of bringing in a mixed-raced, minority, and possibly gay, character in the name of diversity is politically correct behavior. If you don't see that, then you are blind.
The article you site is not about current conservative views. It is an article published 15 years ago about opinions in the Southern United States and uses a new, and probably unproven, measurement system. It also appears to be written by biased individuals, at least their bodies of work indicate a pre-existing bias. I have little doubt that they made sure they found what they were looking for.
Oh, no, that is not paranoia. I figure it will start up again real soon because at least one person has posted simply to insult me. If it is anything like last time, posts that are days or weeks old will start being modded down. The rest of your post is nothing but flamebait.
Slashdot Mirror
I see. So your argument is "It might have been OK because we don't know everything about the story"? That is called argument from ignorance and is a fallacy.
As has been stated here on Slashdot many times by slashdotters, GIMP sucks and Libre/Open Office has crappy performance.
There are numerous comments by professional image makers complaining about GIMP. These are the people who actually work with image manipulation software for hours on end and they say GIMP sucks ass.
There are articles and numerous comments complaining about the performance of Libre/Open Office. From start up and shut down speed, to spreadsheet calculation, performance has been their biggest weakness.
To use the ever-present car analogy, you are suggesting one use a new Fiat to replace a one year old BMW M5. Are you don't making a fool of yourself yet?
Unfortunately, the vast majority of FLOSS programs are not reviewed either on-line or in magazines. FLOSS is rarely used in business, which is irrelevant because we are mostly talking about home desktop users. And, again, you are suggesting that people spend hours, days, even weeks researching something for Linux that can be found out in minutes for Windows.
Because, there is no better way to get your message across to someone than to trick them and waste their time.
Yes. You are missing the linked article's author trying to spin things.
A) This is not about hacking but about email bombing.
B) What you describe would only be a problem if the intent of the email campaign were to disrupt the email service.
False. The second act is not an intentional act of the group. In this case, the union's intent was to degrade the email services of the company. In the case of slashdotting, a large group of people from a website see something of interest and all attempt to visit the site. The intent is not to degrade the service, but rather to utilize the service.
You should try reading the article and the opinion. This was not a "public call to action". This was a union instructing it's members to repeatedly call and email employees of a company in an attempt to "fight back". The union also used an auto-dialer.
Basically, the union email bombed the company and email bombing is an illegal act under the CFAA.
The accusation, the statute, and the opinion do not say hacking. That is the article's author trying to spin the facts. The opinion states that the court believes the union engaged in what is essentially email bombing and caused damage as defined under the CFAA
You have the freedom to communicate with a company if they will not address your issue. But, your right to do so stops when you start sending thousands and thousands of emails to the company in an attempt to overwhelm the company's email server.
Thousands of consumers sending emails demanding a fix does not fall under the CFAA. Someone telling consumers to send thousands of emails for the purpose of swamping the email servers does. In this case, it is not the act of sending thousands of emails, but rather the intent.
Sorry, but no. The soundness of the computer system is irrelevant if the system is sound for normal operation. Another way to look at it is this: breaking into a house that has a simple and easily defeated lock is still breaking and entering. That the lock was weak does not change the fact it was breaking and entering. Even if the door is not locked and all one does is open the door, it is still considered breaking and entering.
It can also be argued that the employees passed on information about the limitations of the equipment in question to the union.
No one is being charged with "being one of a thousand emails". Rather, the union is being charged with what amounts to email bombing.
Why, yes, yes I have. I work with it a lot at work on servers and occasionally l load it on a computer at home to see the state of Linux. I am never really impressed with it, especially when I compare it to Windows and Mac OS X. Oh sure, it has come a long way, but it is always a step or three behind both Windows and OS X because both GUIs take there cues for both of those and the lagging hardware support. It has been for a while and, from what I can tell, will be this way for the foreseeable future. When it comes to Linux, innovation doesn't happen in the desktop/laptop GUI or the user space. Almost all the innovation comes in embedded mobile device and server spaces.
That simply isn't true. They became a monopoly despite competition that was as good or better. OS2, MacOS, and Amiga all were IMHO better than Windows 3.1. Windows 95 was a big jump, but it wasn't significantly better than MacOS and many would argue that it didn't surpass Amiga or OS2.
That was then, this is now. OS2 was similar to Windows, but wasn't 100% compatible and was an outlay to purchase. MacOS was, and still is, tied to Apple's expensive hardware. Amiga may have been a better OS than Win 3.1 but didn't have a foothold in the business market. I addressed why MS even has a near monopoly in my previous post, something you did not address.
The world seems to be handling the transition between XP and 7, which are pretty darned different. If you can go from XP to 7, you can handle XP to Gnome.
Oh, sure. But, Windows doesn't have a long history of arbitrary and capricious changes the way FLOSS products do. And, the XP/7 changes are not as major as XP/GNOME.
The same thing happens with Windows questions. Seriously. Look up the error I'm currently dealing with: "This device cannot start. (Code 10)".
OK, what device?
Now, don't get me wrong, the MS website has a big pile of useful information - and it is better than Ubuntu's community-oriented support.
Thank you admitting I am right. You can stop there because:
Presumably, if there were a competitive market, another company who sells something with Linux as their base kernel would have decent documentation.
Redhat is another company that sells Linux as their kernel and there is still crappy documentation.
If Apple can tame FreeBSD, then someone can certainly tame Linux. Not too many Android functions force you to drop to the command line.
If it can be done, why hasn't it been done? Answer: "Linux is geared towards geeks" not users.
Again, I don't think people find jargon to be an issue when using their Linux-based phones. I'm quite certain that it can be made desktop-friendly as well.
If it can be done, then why haven't the done it? See above.
Few people install an OS. And frankly, if you had tried in the past few years you would find that installing Ubuntu is a cakewalk compared to installing Windows 7.
I have installed WinXP, Vista, Win7, Ubuntu, and RedHat in the last few years. I know what I am talking about. Win7 installed easily. Ubuntu was three times as difficult and required me to do a lot of CLI work after saying it had installed successfully.
I don't think those reasons are things that people consider when they buy a computer. Most of the time it is: "can I run this program that we have at work/school". Almost 100% of the time the computer at work is Windows and the computer at school is either Windows or a Mac.
And, if you had read my post instead of cherry-picking points, you would understand that I was addressing why it is almost 100% Windows. The reason is that Linux is not geared towards the average user. Instead, it is geared towards geeks who treat not being able to solve problems with Linux as a sign of incompetence, refusing to help or answer questions 90% of the time. In order for "Linux (or some open unix-like system)" to be popular, it has to be geared to the average user, not be tied to over-priced hardware, easy to use, have a stable UI, be a platform that is easy to program for, and a platform where the users will actually pay for software. Linux fails most of these. OSX fails at least the over-priced hardware.
The GNU/Linux community does not actually want "Linux on the Desktop", regardless of what anyone says. Apple has shown it is doable, but the community doesn't want to do the work and take the steps necessary. The community wants using Linux as one's primary OS to remain a badge of honor and a test "geekness", which directly conflicts having a popular OS. Also, a large part of the community doesn't want to pay for software which perforce limits sales and thus interest in bringing commercial software to Linux.
Your desktop is irrelevant and you are being disingenuous which makes you look like a fool. The phrase "Linux on the Desktop" means, and has meant for many years, ubiquitous Linux based desktop computers used by mainstream users. You know, those people you said you "I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK AT A ROLLING DONUT ABOUT THEM".
The small group of people who use Linux as their primary desktop operating system don't even register when compared to those that use Windows and Mac OS X. You and your ilk don't even qualify as an anomaly in the data. As a group, you don't even make it out of the margin of error for the count.
I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK AT A ROLLING DONUT ABOUT THEM.
And, that attitude is the reason Linux will never be a mainstream desktop or laptop operating system. You and your ilk do not care about the majority of actual computer users. Remember that the next time you want to complain about Windows and people who use Windows, and then STFU.
Your red herring is pretty stupid. People want choices, but they don't want to choose between 8+ choices they have never heard of and have no way to compare. They certainly don't want to have install many or all possible choices and then test and compare them all. Nor do they want to pick one and hope it does all of what they need and want. Most people want a few, easily evaluated choices. That is what they get on MS Windows and on Macs.
I have recently gone to the web sites of some FLOSS apps and discovered that the home page was nothing but a change and bugfix log, some screen shots, and a forum. There was no description of the application or it's purpose, no list of features, and no documentation (apparently, that is what the forum was for). In short, there was nothing on the websites to allow me to evaluate the offerings without downloading, installing, and testing them. I work for a living and I don't have time to do that.
because of the MS monopoly you can't get any good commercial software for anything except Windows, and sometimes Mac.
You are right and you are wrong. The reason there is n MS monopoly is that there are effectively no good alternative for the desktop.
Apple is a strictly regimented culture where one has to buy Apple's over-priced hardware to run their operating system and Apple's insistence on keeping this status quo has resulted in them having a minuscule market share.
Linux is geared towards geeks and that causes a huge number of problems.
Because of these things, Linux has not and will not get a reasonable share of the desktop market.
Because Windows has a 90+% market share of the desktop business, application developers target their applications to Windows. Some will port to Apple, especially educational and artistic software. A few might port to Linux, but most won't because most people who use Linux are free (as in beer and as in speech) software fanatics. The developers don't see a market for selling their products in the Linux environment. Most will look at the cost of porting to either of these platforms and decide the cost outweighs the benefits.
And, you are making it sound like almost everyone who is arrested is innocent, which is false. Very few people who are arrested are innocent, and many of those who are not charged are actually guilty but the state decides not to prosecute, generally because the person was being criminally stupid, like lying about someone's whereabouts, instead of just criminal.
Your argument is still a red herring as your study has nothing to do with conservatives. You still lose.
And, no one would have believed them if there were no records of the arrest.
No. The logic is "Peter Parker == Spiderman" and killing off Peter Parker for the sole purpose of bringing in a mixed-race, minority, and/or gay character is insulting to the fans of Spiderman/Peter Parker. You know, the people who made the franchise a success. This is a crutch and is being used to try to drum up interest in the series. It is an attempt to pander to black, latino, mixed, and possibly gay potential comic book buyers. Rather than taking a risk and making the effort to creating a compelling new character, the publisher has decided to subvert an existing franchise to generate controversy and try to convert some of the existing fan base to the new character.
Where you are really off base is assuming that it is racism that has the fans up in arms. We saw the exact same outrage when Lucas reworked "Star Wars: Ep VI". It is not about race or sexual orientation. They are fucking with something the fans love as is and they are doing it because they are lazy and cheap. It is insulting to the fans in multiple ways.
And, if you want an example of this, just look at the latest Marvel movie. Nick Fury is WHITE in the comic books and is being played by Samuel Jackson. No one cares because Fury is being played by a badass actor. There may be some old Fury fans that are pissed that he is not white like he is the comic books, but most Avenger fans don't care because Fury is not a many character.
Ever wonder why there are so few minority superheros? It is because the publishers don't want to take a chance that the character won't be a success. And, when it is not a success it is not because of fan racism, but rather the publisher trying to pander to a particular race and failing to keep up with the times. Don't be mad at the fans for not wanting their hero killed off and replaced. Be mad at the publishers for what is either their refusal or inability to create engaging, compelling minority lead heroes.
Killing off a white character solely for the purpose of bringing in a mixed-raced, minority, and possibly gay, character in the name of diversity is politically correct behavior. If you don't see that, then you are blind.
The article you site is not about current conservative views. It is an article published 15 years ago about opinions in the Southern United States and uses a new, and probably unproven, measurement system. It also appears to be written by biased individuals, at least their bodies of work indicate a pre-existing bias. I have little doubt that they made sure they found what they were looking for.
If they had been arrested secretly, would anyone ever have known?
Oh, no, that is not paranoia. I figure it will start up again real soon because at least one person has posted simply to insult me. If it is anything like last time, posts that are days or weeks old will start being modded down. The rest of your post is nothing but flamebait.