Why waste hundreds of dollars on clothes that are essentially made out of the same material, look the same, as other clothes, the only difference being they have an abercrombie logo on them? It's like those fucking morons in the 70's and 80's who'd pay 40 dollars for those stupid fucking alligator shirts.
Same thing goes for Nike, Reebok, Addidas, and lots of other "brand name" products, that sell for hundreds more than other products, but aren't any better. Only a fucking moron would buy them. Even in the business world, there are morons spending 10 times more for a 1000 dollar suit, when that suit is only maybe 10% better than a 100 dollar suit.
I'm not a parent, but if I was, I certainly wouldn't waste money getting my kids fucking crap like Nike or Abercrombie because "it's in". It is not cool to be a fucking moron and waste money on crap.
So, because these jack-offs chose to put the word "craft" in their game -- a common every-day word, to describe something -- they get to sue everyone who uses the word "craft" as part of their game title?
I skimmed through his response, and I can guess that the NYT wrote a story talking about how pathetic he was, or something along those lines.
My question is, who the fuck cares? Is this guy a celebrity? No. So why the fuck does anyone give a flying fuck about his personal life? This is crap I'd expect to see in the Inquirer, but not the NY Times. Obviously, the NY Times is no longer a worthy newspaper.
What this guy does in his personal life, including this profession and relaxation hobbies, is no-one's business but his own.
Like, say, putting a maximum limit on the number and size of e-mails that can be sent out a day.
Gather studies on how many people send 1 to n e-mails a day, and how many people send out e-mails of 1 byte to n bytes in size.
My guess is, it's a pretty distorted curve, with maybe a few thousand people -- of all those online -- sending out millions of e-mails a day. The maximum most "normal" people will send a day is probably 100 (and that's a large over-estimate).
The GPL applies to distribution to a third party. Which need not equate to public distribution. If you (where "you" can be an individual, corporation or anything else consiered a legal "person") distribute the software only to one other entity only that person/corporation/etc can come back to you asking for the source.
As I said elsewhere, national security takes precedent over any software licenses, be them the GPL or MS' EULAs.
Though a government may not be a separate legal entity, organizations within it (like the US Navy) are.
Companies can benefit from GPL'ed software sponsored by the government just like any other citizen. Btw, your argument on them paying more taxes is distorted. There are two separate tax systems in this country -- one for business', one for individuals. The tax-system for business' is much kinder. Many tax-specialists even recommend that individuals incorpoate themselves for the tax-benefits.
It is possible that they may pay more in net amount of taxes, but the percentage of their income which they surrender to taxes is inconsequential compared to that which individuals surrender. In fact, corporations surrender nothing. They pass their tax-costs down to their consumer.
And there is more corporate welfare than any other kind. Many corporations -- like MS -- do not even pay any taxes at all. I wrote about this in my Kuro5hin journal.
Furthermore, military orders (and national security) take precedence over licenses. No license -- be it the GPL or the most draconian EULA -- is going to be upheld by a court when upholding it is contrary to national security.
Maybe for specialty software you have a point. But your entire case is just a situation of the user model.
By changing your program to a different UI, and eliminating useful key-combinations, you ignored your target audience's user-model, and this pissed them off. Naturally.
There is no reason why the vast majority of programs cannot be both easy to learn immediately, and very easy and fast to use for more advanced users.
The user interface was deliberately designed to resemble the Windows desktop, because that's what the users were supposedly used to. Too many controls on the keyboard was too confusing, they said, so the elminated most keys and replaced them with onscreen icons and a playstation-style control pad.
As I said above, they ignored the user-model for their target audience. This invariably leads to disaster.
There is no reason why you cannot have both onscreen icons/buttons so the program is easier to use for those just learning it, or casual users, and key-combinations so that people who do ultrasounds several times a day can blast through it quickly.
For doctors just learning to use your program, if they have to read the manual, then it will simply annoy and frustrate them. Quite frankly, they have enough to memorize already, enough stress.
A good thing to do would probably be to have a logical menu bleeding into the top of the screen, and perhaps a toolbar bleeding into one of the other edges, with the key-combination for each function to the left of it (if it's a menu item) or underneath it (if it's a button). This way, new users are automatically trained to be advanced users, simply by doing things the intuitive but slower way.
Your company, despite it's success, probably created a significant user-model problem. Because of it's 60% market share, you created a user model for a ultrasound. That user-model, however, was probably different than the user-model for Windows.
Thus, people using your program and switching between it and windows probably experienced the problems that come with switching between two user models. After using your ultrasound program and goign to windows, they may still be in "ultrasound mode". Key-combo Y pastes in Ultrasound, but that same key-combo does something else in windows. This is a frustrating annoyance for people who use programs with different key-bindings.
But to alleviate that problem, you have to go against the user-model you created, another problem. (of course, the real problem was dropping key-binding support all-together).
There may in some cases be a conflict between the Government's desire to maintain confidentiality and the requirement to disclose the software laid down by a restrictive licence, to the extent that the source code itself discloses attributes about the Government body that are regarded as confidential
Absolutely incorrect.
The GPL does not in any way cover internal distribution. This is not the same as public distribution. Making modifications and keeping them within your company, but not releasing the source, is completely uncovered by the GPL.
In regards to software that the government funds, the government should NEVER fund proprietary software development (except for things which are meant to always be secret, like the US govt's program to predict how radar bounces off of curved surfaces). Public money should not be used to create private information, or proprietary programs, which the public then has to pay for again.
In regards to what software is acceptable for the government, this organization's concerns about the GPL are bogus, and anything they say should be ignored. Irrelevant of the truth, they are going to advocate the use of proprietary software. It benefits them.
The proper course of action is for the government to give strong consideration to FOSS, and if it decides against using FOSS, it should have to publish and explanation of it's decision to the public. In fact, any decisions on what software the government uses should be justified to the public, and the government should be required to consider FOSS, for the very frequent cost advantages of using it. The government has an obligation to tax-payers to consider what is likely to in most cases be a less costly solution.
90% of all desktop users are using MS. If they attempt to migrate to GNU/Linux and no key-combinations work as expected, they will not think the software is good.
It doesn't matter whether it's hard for them to use because of lack familiarity or just absolutely poor design. The point of your software is that users should be able to get used to it quickly.
It's called the user model. The user model is always right, period. If you are going to switch from the user model to something else, your something else better be at least 100% better. Otherwise, it's not worth the initial cost. Users will never take a second look at it.
The whole point of a GUI is that things should be intuitive. How would you expect to draw something free-form? Probably a pencil for a thin line, and a paintbrush for thicker "painting" strokes.
See Joel on Software, and User Interface Design for Programmers (this is a particularly good read, which *nix developers are direly in need of):
In short, your program is easy to use (and learn) if it behaves exactly like the user thought it would. The simple fact is, users are not very patient (most of them). And they sure as hell don't read the fucking manual. Why should they? It's a waste of time. When you buy a car, do you read the entire manual before using the car? Do you even read the manual at all, unless you absolutely have to? If they can't figure out how to use your program just by sitting in front of it, then they probably aren't going to bother ever using it again.
Face it. First impressions matter, right or wrong. Maybe Netscape's CTRL+[ really is a better way to go back when browsing the web, as opposed to Internet Explorer's ALT+= (left arrow), once users have associated that key-combo with back. But the problem is that 90% of all users think that ALT+= means back. By changing that, you are pissing them off. This makes them frustrated, and the 15 other "little improvements" of your program will piss them off even more. Which means they won't user your product -- "this fucking sucks", is surely what they will say. And, if you analyze it, ALT+[ isn't necessarily better anyways. Though that key-combo may be eassier to ready, the keys are closer to other keys, so it's easier to make mistakes; furthermore, it is not intuitive. An arrow is intutive for "go in that direction". Brackets are in no way intuitive for that.
When doing user-testing, you do not correct for various factors. You do not say, "oh, well, he's a life-time PC user, or a life-time Mac user, so I should give him or her time to "get used to" my program, then see how well he or she does". In real life, users don't want to "become familiar with your new way". Think about how arrogant it is of you to ask that of them. The user does not want to get used to "your better way" of doing things. Worse yet, they really don't want to get used to your "just as good way" of doing things. What if a car-company made a car with a wheel that operated like the joystock on an airplane...turning it left really turns your car right, and turning it right really turns your car left? Or what if they put the brake pedal to the right of the accelerator? I hope you get the point. Users aren't going to stick with your program if it's hard for them to learn. They will dump it, and use something that's easier for them to learn, irrelevant of the trivial improvements your program may have once they get "familiar with it".
The thing to do is always match the user model. That probably means doing what MS for many things, unless your new way of doing things offers at least a 100% improvement (e.g., having a universal menu-bar at the very top of the screen like Mac would be good, as would bleeding other stuff into the four corners, and screen edges).
This is really more like celebrity gossip than an actual case based around facts.
There has not been one thing that I've seen that suggests this case has a chance.
If there was any validity to SCO's case, IBM would have either bought them (their $8million book value means that buying them is cheap for IBM) or settled.
If there was any validity to this case, SCO would have publicized the information that proves that IBM misappropriated their code.
The OSI's position paper completely obliterates SCO's claims.
When this is all over, SCO will be facing some serious problems of its own. Like the fact that it defamed millions of FOSS developers, Linux Torvalds in particular, and IBM.
Agreed, key-combinations are a good thing. If someone uses a program enough -- has to go to Edit > Paste enough -- eventually they'll want to know a shortcut.
What I mean by "bizarre key combinations" are ones that are not standard. By standard, I basically mean what MS uses, which -- let's face it -- have become a standard. There are no real standards within *nix for key-combos, and Apple's standards (though just as good as MS') aren't as widely known, and they don't have nearly as many key-combos.
SO, if you're going to use non-standard key-bindings, give users a way to change them to standard key-bindings. In so-far as possible, we need to work on standardizing things. The programmer should not be deciding what the "paste" button looks like. On one install, all paste buttons (no matter what program they're in) should look the same. Point them all to some global user directory, where the user specifies the paste button (the distro would, of course, specify a default).
If you mean "knowledgeable with those type of programs", then no.
If you mean "knowledgeable in doing that type of task (e.g., picture-editing is part of his profession), then yes. People who are knowledgeable of the subject of your program should be able to intuitively figure out the main uses.
Vim is good for power-users. It is, not, however, for the vast majority of users.
At the very least, there should be a menu that should be accessible by Alt-F, etc. People have better things to memorize than bizarre key-combinations. Vim and Emacs are particular culprits since they ignore pretty wide-spread standards now (like CTRL+V for paste, CTRL+C for copy, and SHIFT+ARROW for select)...if you're going to do your own little key-combo thing, at least provide users with the option to do things the normal way.
Vim's two "modes" (data entry and editing) is one of the most annoying things I've ever had to put up with in a text-editor, because I often accidentally go from one to the other. Just use function-key combos for text-editing.
When asking for comments on your program, ask the most obnoxious, rude, blunt, asshole you can find, preferrably one who hates you. They will more than likely be very blunt and brutal about anything they think is wrong with your program.
Do not ask friends, family, or anyone who is very polite and shy for constructive criticism. They are likely to go easy on you.
Regarding all your arguable points, one can still argue, they've managed to produce something which is arguably as good or better...without billions and billions of dollars, or the benefits of an illegal monopoly.
Regarding total talent pool, it is very relevant for FOSS, due to natural selection. So much stuff is produced, and the best of it gets support, interest, and additional developers, becoming better. Talented programmers do not have to waste their time on suboptimal software, as is often the case within proprietary organziations.
The worst thing about the proprietary development model is that it forces one to constantly re-invent the wheel.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not pretend that the people playing FreeCraft think it was produced by Blizzard.
Trademark laws are there for the CONSUMERS, not Blizzard.
Obviously, the consumers want FreeCraft to be named FreeCraft, so blizzard can fuck off and go to hell.
Why waste hundreds of dollars on clothes that are essentially made out of the same material, look the same, as other clothes, the only difference being they have an abercrombie logo on them? It's like those fucking morons in the 70's and 80's who'd pay 40 dollars for those stupid fucking alligator shirts.
Same thing goes for Nike, Reebok, Addidas, and lots of other "brand name" products, that sell for hundreds more than other products, but aren't any better. Only a fucking moron would buy them. Even in the business world, there are morons spending 10 times more for a 1000 dollar suit, when that suit is only maybe 10% better than a 100 dollar suit.
I'm not a parent, but if I was, I certainly wouldn't waste money getting my kids fucking crap like Nike or Abercrombie because "it's in". It is not cool to be a fucking moron and waste money on crap.
If you're old enough to go to war and die for your country, then you're old enough to get a fucking beer.
In European nations and many other nations, the legal age for drinking is 18, and the age of sexual consent is 16. No, the sky isn't falling.
Fucking XXX-tian zealots need to get with the modern times.
Why is it that firewalling port 25 would be a nasty trick?
So, because these jack-offs chose to put the word "craft" in their game -- a common every-day word, to describe something -- they get to sue everyone who uses the word "craft" as part of their game title?
This is fucking bullshit.
If it comes to that, why spend $$$ on some stupid box, when it all comes down the grounding in the first place?
No, I haven't bothered much to RTFA.
I skimmed through his response, and I can guess that the NYT wrote a story talking about how pathetic he was, or something along those lines.
My question is, who the fuck cares? Is this guy a celebrity? No. So why the fuck does anyone give a flying fuck about his personal life? This is crap I'd expect to see in the Inquirer, but not the NY Times. Obviously, the NY Times is no longer a worthy newspaper.
What this guy does in his personal life, including this profession and relaxation hobbies, is no-one's business but his own.
the sender level.
Like, say, putting a maximum limit on the number and size of e-mails that can be sent out a day.
Gather studies on how many people send 1 to n e-mails a day, and how many people send out e-mails of 1 byte to n bytes in size.
My guess is, it's a pretty distorted curve, with maybe a few thousand people -- of all those online -- sending out millions of e-mails a day. The maximum most "normal" people will send a day is probably 100 (and that's a large over-estimate).
If they can get around it by looking at the source, then something was wrong with it, waiting to be exploited. Might as well fix it.
The GPL applies to distribution to a third party. Which need not equate to public distribution. If you (where "you" can be an individual, corporation or anything else consiered a legal "person") distribute the software only to one other entity only that person/corporation/etc can come back to you asking for the source.
As I said elsewhere, national security takes precedent over any software licenses, be them the GPL or MS' EULAs.
Though a government may not be a separate legal entity, organizations within it (like the US Navy) are.
Companies can benefit from GPL'ed software sponsored by the government just like any other citizen. Btw, your argument on them paying more taxes is distorted. There are two separate tax systems in this country -- one for business', one for individuals. The tax-system for business' is much kinder. Many tax-specialists even recommend that individuals incorpoate themselves for the tax-benefits.
It is possible that they may pay more in net amount of taxes, but the percentage of their income which they surrender to taxes is inconsequential compared to that which individuals surrender. In fact, corporations surrender nothing. They pass their tax-costs down to their consumer.
And there is more corporate welfare than any other kind. Many corporations -- like MS -- do not even pay any taxes at all. I wrote about this in my Kuro5hin journal.
And copyright only covers public distribution.
Furthermore, military orders (and national security) take precedence over licenses. No license -- be it the GPL or the most draconian EULA -- is going to be upheld by a court when upholding it is contrary to national security.
... if you don't like it ... don't use it ...
There are GREAT ALTERNATIVES
The entire threat started from the phrase "GREAT ALTERNATIVES"...I pointed out that there are no alternatives.
So, either Hillary Rosen has no principles, or she has the principles of a nazi.
Neither is particularly flatterous towards her.
because she disagreed with the RIAA's nazi-positions on music, right?
Fact is, if Rosen didn't agree with those positions, she wouldn't have been doing that job.
Maybe for specialty software you have a point. But your entire case is just a situation of the user model.
By changing your program to a different UI, and eliminating useful key-combinations, you ignored your target audience's user-model, and this pissed them off. Naturally.
There is no reason why the vast majority of programs cannot be both easy to learn immediately, and very easy and fast to use for more advanced users.
The user interface was deliberately designed to resemble the Windows desktop, because that's what the users were supposedly used to. Too many controls on the keyboard was too confusing, they said, so the elminated most keys and replaced them with onscreen icons and a playstation-style control pad.
As I said above, they ignored the user-model for their target audience. This invariably leads to disaster.
There is no reason why you cannot have both onscreen icons/buttons so the program is easier to use for those just learning it, or casual users, and key-combinations so that people who do ultrasounds several times a day can blast through it quickly.
For doctors just learning to use your program, if they have to read the manual, then it will simply annoy and frustrate them. Quite frankly, they have enough to memorize already, enough stress.
A good thing to do would probably be to have a logical menu bleeding into the top of the screen, and perhaps a toolbar bleeding into one of the other edges, with the key-combination for each function to the left of it (if it's a menu item) or underneath it (if it's a button). This way, new users are automatically trained to be advanced users, simply by doing things the intuitive but slower way.
Your company, despite it's success, probably created a significant user-model problem. Because of it's 60% market share, you created a user model for a ultrasound. That user-model, however, was probably different than the user-model for Windows.
Thus, people using your program and switching between it and windows probably experienced the problems that come with switching between two user models. After using your ultrasound program and goign to windows, they may still be in "ultrasound mode". Key-combo Y pastes in Ultrasound, but that same key-combo does something else in windows. This is a frustrating annoyance for people who use programs with different key-bindings.
But to alleviate that problem, you have to go against the user-model you created, another problem. (of course, the real problem was dropping key-binding support all-together).
There may in some cases be a conflict between the Government's desire to maintain confidentiality and the requirement to disclose the software laid down by a restrictive licence, to the extent that the source code itself discloses attributes about the Government body that are regarded as confidential
Absolutely incorrect.
The GPL does not in any way cover internal distribution. This is not the same as public distribution. Making modifications and keeping them within your company, but not releasing the source, is completely uncovered by the GPL.
In regards to software that the government funds, the government should NEVER fund proprietary software development (except for things which are meant to always be secret, like the US govt's program to predict how radar bounces off of curved surfaces). Public money should not be used to create private information, or proprietary programs, which the public then has to pay for again.
In regards to what software is acceptable for the government, this organization's concerns about the GPL are bogus, and anything they say should be ignored. Irrelevant of the truth, they are going to advocate the use of proprietary software. It benefits them.
The proper course of action is for the government to give strong consideration to FOSS, and if it decides against using FOSS, it should have to publish and explanation of it's decision to the public. In fact, any decisions on what software the government uses should be justified to the public, and the government should be required to consider FOSS, for the very frequent cost advantages of using it. The government has an obligation to tax-payers to consider what is likely to in most cases be a less costly solution.
90% of all desktop users are using MS. If they attempt to migrate to GNU/Linux and no key-combinations work as expected, they will not think the software is good.
It doesn't matter whether it's hard for them to use because of lack familiarity or just absolutely poor design. The point of your software is that users should be able to get used to it quickly.
It's called the user model. The user model is always right, period. If you are going to switch from the user model to something else, your something else better be at least 100% better. Otherwise, it's not worth the initial cost. Users will never take a second look at it.
The whole point of a GUI is that things should be intuitive. How would you expect to draw something free-form? Probably a pencil for a thin line, and a paintbrush for thicker "painting" strokes.
See Joel on Software, and User Interface Design for Programmers (this is a particularly good read, which *nix developers are direly in need of):
Chapster 1: Controlling Your Environment Makes You Happy
Chapster 2: Figuring Out What They Expected
In short, your program is easy to use (and learn) if it behaves exactly like the user thought it would. The simple fact is, users are not very patient (most of them). And they sure as hell don't read the fucking manual. Why should they? It's a waste of time. When you buy a car, do you read the entire manual before using the car? Do you even read the manual at all, unless you absolutely have to? If they can't figure out how to use your program just by sitting in front of it, then they probably aren't going to bother ever using it again.
Face it. First impressions matter, right or wrong. Maybe Netscape's CTRL+[ really is a better way to go back when browsing the web, as opposed to Internet Explorer's ALT+= (left arrow), once users have associated that key-combo with back. But the problem is that 90% of all users think that ALT+= means back. By changing that, you are pissing them off. This makes them frustrated, and the 15 other "little improvements" of your program will piss them off even more. Which means they won't user your product -- "this fucking sucks", is surely what they will say. And, if you analyze it, ALT+[ isn't necessarily better anyways. Though that key-combo may be eassier to ready, the keys are closer to other keys, so it's easier to make mistakes; furthermore, it is not intuitive. An arrow is intutive for "go in that direction". Brackets are in no way intuitive for that.
When doing user-testing, you do not correct for various factors. You do not say, "oh, well, he's a life-time PC user, or a life-time Mac user, so I should give him or her time to "get used to" my program, then see how well he or she does". In real life, users don't want to "become familiar with your new way". Think about how arrogant it is of you to ask that of them. The user does not want to get used to "your better way" of doing things. Worse yet, they really don't want to get used to your "just as good way" of doing things. What if a car-company made a car with a wheel that operated like the joystock on an airplane...turning it left really turns your car right, and turning it right really turns your car left? Or what if they put the brake pedal to the right of the accelerator? I hope you get the point. Users aren't going to stick with your program if it's hard for them to learn. They will dump it, and use something that's easier for them to learn, irrelevant of the trivial improvements your program may have once they get "familiar with it".
The thing to do is always match the user model. That probably means doing what MS for many things, unless your new way of doing things offers at least a 100% improvement (e.g., having a universal menu-bar at the very top of the screen like Mac would be good, as would bleeding other stuff into the four corners, and screen edges).
Unless they:
(a) are as fast as google (yea, right)
(b) are as clean as google -- no graphic ads, only small text ads (again, yea right)
(c) Take the same strong anti-censorship stands that Google has taken (big yea right here)
This is really more like celebrity gossip than an actual case based around facts.
There has not been one thing that I've seen that suggests this case has a chance.
If there was any validity to SCO's case, IBM would have either bought them (their $8million book value means that buying them is cheap for IBM) or settled.
If there was any validity to this case, SCO would have publicized the information that proves that IBM misappropriated their code.
The OSI's position paper completely obliterates SCO's claims.
When this is all over, SCO will be facing some serious problems of its own. Like the fact that it defamed millions of FOSS developers, Linux Torvalds in particular, and IBM.
Agreed, key-combinations are a good thing. If someone uses a program enough -- has to go to Edit > Paste enough -- eventually they'll want to know a shortcut.
What I mean by "bizarre key combinations" are ones that are not standard. By standard, I basically mean what MS uses, which -- let's face it -- have become a standard. There are no real standards within *nix for key-combos, and Apple's standards (though just as good as MS') aren't as widely known, and they don't have nearly as many key-combos.
SO, if you're going to use non-standard key-bindings, give users a way to change them to standard key-bindings. In so-far as possible, we need to work on standardizing things. The programmer should not be deciding what the "paste" button looks like. On one install, all paste buttons (no matter what program they're in) should look the same. Point them all to some global user directory, where the user specifies the paste button (the distro would, of course, specify a default).
Depends on what you mean...
If you mean "knowledgeable with those type of programs", then no.
If you mean "knowledgeable in doing that type of task (e.g., picture-editing is part of his profession), then yes. People who are knowledgeable of the subject of your program should be able to intuitively figure out the main uses.
Vim is good for power-users. It is, not, however, for the vast majority of users.
At the very least, there should be a menu that should be accessible by Alt-F, etc. People have better things to memorize than bizarre key-combinations. Vim and Emacs are particular culprits since they ignore pretty wide-spread standards now (like CTRL+V for paste, CTRL+C for copy, and SHIFT+ARROW for select)...if you're going to do your own little key-combo thing, at least provide users with the option to do things the normal way.
Vim's two "modes" (data entry and editing) is one of the most annoying things I've ever had to put up with in a text-editor, because I often accidentally go from one to the other. Just use function-key combos for text-editing.
When asking for comments on your program, ask the most obnoxious, rude, blunt, asshole you can find, preferrably one who hates you. They will more than likely be very blunt and brutal about anything they think is wrong with your program.
Do not ask friends, family, or anyone who is very polite and shy for constructive criticism. They are likely to go easy on you.
Regarding all your arguable points, one can still argue, they've managed to produce something which is arguably as good or better...without billions and billions of dollars, or the benefits of an illegal monopoly.
Regarding total talent pool, it is very relevant for FOSS, due to natural selection. So much stuff is produced, and the best of it gets support, interest, and additional developers, becoming better. Talented programmers do not have to waste their time on suboptimal software, as is often the case within proprietary organziations.
The worst thing about the proprietary development model is that it forces one to constantly re-invent the wheel.