MS' IE is part of their file-system browser. And whether or not it comes with Win2k, you ARE being charged for it in the cost of any MS OS you buy, or any OEM PC you buy which has an MS OS on it. Moron.
Just because you use an OPEN FORMAT to create your documents in doesn't mean that anyone can view them. There's this thing called encryption. There's even this free software program called GPG which will encrypt things for you, though I'm sure the government has better encryption. OPEN vs. proprietary data formats is completely irrelevant to how secure you can make your data.
Internet Explorer is, quite frankly, crap. It adds new MSesque stanards that have made web-designers deviate from coding stanards-compliant web-pages.
As for "free", Internet Explorer is not free, you dolt. You pay for it when you buy your copy of MS Windows or a comp from an OEM. It's included in the price of MS' OS -- especially since it's also the file-navigator.
These products are "free" like cocaine is "free". Free for the first buy. Free for the second buy. Free as long as it takes for you to be completely addicted and dependent -- then it's a leg and an arm.
MS will not continue giving it's products away for zero cost to anyone. They will do so long enough to ensure dependency, then charge full price. If they kept on giving it away at zero cost, they'd go out of business, despite everyone using their products. That's obviously not what they want. Their plan is obviously to make governments and citizens dependent on MS software using mechanisms like the Word incompatability fiasco.
At the very least, all government agencies should require that the formats in which they store information are completely OPEN and FREELY AVAILABLE for anyone to implement.
Whether it be advertisers or political groups, free speach does NOT MEAN the right to impose the costs of YOUR speach on ME. No-one has the inherit right to impose their cost of speech on me. Thus, unless these religious fucks and these advertising fucks send me a check compensating for my LOST TIME, LOST COMPUTER RESOURCES, and (in the case of faxes) LOST INK and PAPER, they are STEALING FROM ME.
None of this is protected speech. Since when does free speech mean you get to impose a multi-million dollar cost on ISPs (thus, their customers) so that you can say what you want to say?
You want to send me ads -- fine, so long as I OPT IN. OPT IN has to be the mandatory, because all OPT OUT options are FRAUDS. OPT OUT means the spammers get to verify that they have a valid e-mail address, and they'll continue spamming you.
You want to speak out about your political or religious beliefs? FINE -- post it on a newsgroup or website. Don't e-mail me with your crap.
C++ is a bunch of obsolete slow crap. Very confusing. The entire point of it is to confer the benefits of object-orientedness. Well, Obj-C gives you that with only a few additional stuff, and isn't confusing.
The lawsuite filed by these spammers is so much bullshit that you don't even need lawyers to defend it off. Any judge who this is brought to will know it's bullshit, and all the defendants have to do is say, "nope, completely voluntary service", "nope, spammers have no business relationship with their victims", "nope, never sold a product". No judge in the US is going to award a judgement in favor of spammers; if anything, they'r exposing themselves for prosecution under anti-spam laws.
Yea, it's real easy to make false and unsubstantiatable allegations first, then apologize if someone their false when someone provides proof. That's alot easier and cheaper than actually verifying the validity of the accusation first. The RIAA doesn't give a flying fuck that this costs individuals and universities thousands of dollars. Not their concern -- after all, in the US, you're free to make false and ludicrous accusations against anyone without any proof.
Is it really worth paying an extra 200% for an improvement in performance (over say a GF2 or 3) that will amount to maybe 50%?
The smart thing to do is to find reliable benchmarks on the graphics cards for a taxing game (e.g., Quake 3 Arena at 1600x1200 with all the goodies). Then divide the price of the card by the average benchmark score. The one with the best price/performance ratio is the best card to buy: all the others, you're getting fucked over on.
Of course, my statement was oversimplistic. If we survie another 1 billion years, then the furthest object we'd be able to resolve would be 14.5-15 billion light years away.
Anyways, the article on parallel universes is very interesting. Somewhere out there, there's a universe where I'm dictator of the world!;-)
Will be about 20 billion light years, since we think the universe is about 20 billion years old.
For an interesting article, see:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=1&article ID =000F1EDD-B48A-1E90-8EA5809EC5880000
On parallel universes. Very interesting reading. If you're at a university, you will be able to browse the site's archives and access the nice PDF version of the article (which has the pictures supersized to full-page size).
Of course a justification for not using FOSS would have to be provided. Any time you choose a more expensive solution over a cheaper one, you should have to justify that choice. Duh. Your governor has to get from point A to point B. If he chooses to rent a McLaren F1 using OUR tax dollars, as opposed to using a Volkswagon, naturally he should have to justify that decision.
No, you dolt, they do whatever they can to make proprietary formats (like doc) so that other's can't use those formats (see DMCA), and so that any conversions from MS formats to non-MS formats are going to be lossy.
This is not affirmative action. This is simply a bill which requires government officials to consider using FOSS and justify their reasons for not using it. It does not handicap proprietary software relative to FOSS. It simply requires these guys to consider FOSS.
It is in no way analagous to affirmative action. It is analagous to requiring that colleges look at all of the applications sent to them, and not throw applications in the trash if "African American" is checked off next to race.
This isn't affirmative action for FOSS. This is requiring them to consider FOSS and provide justification if they don't use it. It does not require them to give any additional preference to FOSS over proprietary software.
I was really lucky in that regards. I'm graduating with a BS in Molecular Biology and no debt from the Univ. of Rochester, a pretty well-renowned university for biology. Still doesn't make it great to swallow the 18k yearly bill (tuition is actually 30k, all things considered, but I get some aid that knocks it down to 18k).
Anyways, grad school is a good thing, in the long-run. Gives you the potential to get higher-paying jobs, and will mean that you'll be over-qualified for almost everything. In grad-schools, they actually pay you. Why? Because you're working for them and brining reputation to the school. As an undergrad, you're more of a burden to the university than an asset; as a grad, you're definately an asset.
The key is to get into a good grad school: the best one you can. It would probably be best in the long-run if, after graduating with a BS, you get a job in your field and rack up a year or two's worth of good experience (this is also a good time diversify yourself by taking some evening courses...e.g., I as a bio-BS, might take a few courses on computer-programming). Waiting the extra year or two to go to grad school will mean that it'll take you an extra year or two to get your pHD, but it will be worth it if you get yoru pHD from a better school.
Why waste time and effort? I can already type 70-100wpm depending on my flow. And why should I bother to learn some odd keyboard configuration which is just going to fuck me up, because the rest of the world uses QWERTY? I learn that, then I suddenly have doubt as to where the Q key is, because it's in different places depending on what keyboard I'm using.
People have been trained in QWERTY. It is going to be a pain in the ass to switch. Not to mention, you'll be all fucked up when you go to a normal keyboard.
It's like me in Descent 2. I learned to play Descent 2 with a keyboard. I was pretty damn good. People told me that if i got a joystick, I could be better. So I got one. I became very frustrated and never spent the time to learn how to use it in Descent 2.
Yes, but if you do that, then people can just modify Click-N-Run so that it doesn't ask for said password to connect to the server. Or, even if Lindows requires a password to connect to the server, they could still grab the software, modify it to use different servers (e.g., Debians) and then Lindows would not be getting $99 a year.
Please, Windows is a joke for a trademark. Look at all the things that are already called "Window". X-Windows. Windows in applications. Windows is a very generic term in the computer field. MS' trademark on it is pure bullshit, because it describes exactly what everyone calls those GUI boxes -- windows. People were calling them windows long before MS ever got their bogus trademark.
Yes, he's using a name similar to Windows. Good for him. The courts ruled it's ok, so you're full of shit and so is MS. Things that sound "like" trademarked words shouldn't matter -- especially if the trademark was bullshit in the first place.
This is not a distro targetted at advanced users. As a pretty advanced user, I'm not going to be using Lindows (I installed Gentoo a while ago...that'll put hair on your nuts). Let me check...yep, just making sure, there is no law mandating that any of us 133t's have to use it. Phew. Freedom of choice still exists. But this company is doing a good thing. Incidentally, it's refreshing to see a CEO out there who doesn't use newspeak and cares about something other than $$$$.
Try to understand -- he's not making an OS for advanced computer users. He's not taking away the option to create user accounts. You want an account -- you can ADD one. By the way, all you jerk-offs should NOTE that when you finish installing Gentoo -- a pretty technically orientated distro -- there IS NO USER. ONLY ROOT. That's following the protocol of the install-guide. Look at the Gentoo Install Guide. Nowhere along are you forced to create a user-account, and the install guide doesn't even cover creating a user account, though it does suggest doing so, and references you to their FAQ (I've recommended that they cover how to create a user account at the end of the install guide). So, if you're going to bash Lindows for not having a user/root separation by default, you can only do so consistently if you also bash Gentoo. If you choose to bash Lindows but not Gentoo for this, then you are a hypocrite and are just doing this because you want to bash Lindows because it's easy.
Now, maybe Lindows install process should at some point prompt the user, "Do you want to create a user account?" with no default (I say no default, because if there's a default hard-liner jerk-offs on either side are going to bitch). There would be a Yes and a No option, each explaining the merits of both approaches. Simply put, the word "Easier" should be placed next to "No", and "More Secure" next to "Yes". Because average user's are incapable of reading long paragraphs (see Joel on Software), just leave it at that simplified explanation. Alternatively, Lindows could go the Gentoo route and simply advise users to create a user account after the OS is installed, maybe bring up a step-by-step wizard for how to do it after initial install.
Now, I feel that Robertson has done some good things with Click-'n-Run. I naturally think it would be better if it's GPL'ed, but these guys are a business and have to have some model for making money. Click-'n-Run is their model. They will make money because people will pay for the Click-'n-Run service, and also through their contracts with Walmart (in addition to selling Lindows). If you can think of a way for them to GPL Click-'n-Run and still get $99 a year from people who use it, then please SUGGEST that. Since Robertson wants to have good community-relations, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. He has blatantly said that his business model relies largely on Click-'n-Run succeeding, and that means $99 from it per year for customers using it. The only thing I can think of would be adding a portion of code to Click-'n-Run that only allows it to be run if the user has paid the $99 for that year (by checking some database, whatever) and distributing it under a modified version of the GPL with an additional clause specifying "may not be redistributed/modified with that check disabled".
In regards to other areas, I think he's pretty-much on the 8-ball. Very good analysis of patents -- btw, what moron asked him the question about patenting Click-'n-Run? There was never anything to suggest Lindows wanted a patent on that. And what group of crackpot moderators moderated that one up? There could have been a more useful question posted.
Quite frankly, I think Robertson has a good plan to bring a GNU/Linux distribution to more home users. This means more exposure for GNU/Linux, which means more users will know how to use it, which means more software support and more hardware support, and probably more FS and OSS. Because of the commonalities shared by all GNU/Linux distributions, it will be beneficial for all distributions.
All that said, I think that Lindows would be better off using WindowMaker as their WM.
Well, as long as we're talking about usability, might as well go the full way. Having experience with OS9, OSX, Win9x/2k/XP, and WindowMaker, I can talk about the flaws and virtues of each.
[btw, while we're talking about useability, please put quotes in separate paragraphs with "quotaion" marks around them, or italicize them in separate paragraphs]
X is a good metaphor for close. X, as in EXIT...Only in certain languages
Well, X is also what you put through something you want to discard. Written something you don't want to pay attentio nto anymore? put an X through it. Same thing with figures. It would also be useful to color-code it red.
Now, the up/down triangles (as opposed to left/right ones that only make sense in cultures with RTL scripts) are a good idea
An interesting point. However, how many significant cultures read text right to left? Most read things left to right. But, up and down triangles probably is a better metaphor./\ for maximize, \/ for minimize.
Now, some other usability points.
The 5 most easily clickable regions on the screen: the four corners and where the mouse is. Win9x makes no use of them what-so-ever, putting the start-menu literally pixels away from the corner of the screen. I think XP does the same stupid thing. Talk about snatching defeat from the hands of victory.
MacOS9/X puts the universal menu at the top of the screen, which is a good thing. Make it easier to get to. However, right now, I'm on an OS9 desktop. The Apple menu is placed just a little bit off the far left corner, so going to the far left corner and clicking doesn't bring it up. Again, snatching defeat from the hands of victory.
In WindowMaker, however, the situation is different. For one thing, every important menu -- the application menu, the root menu, the window-list menu, and the workspace menu -- can be brought up right at the mouse's current position by a key/mouse combination. However, this doesn't help the new user. Another nice feature is that you can stick these menus at the bottom of the screen, so they "fly up" when the mouse goes to the far corner of the screen. I have my root menu at the far left bottom corner. The only disadvantage is that it takes up a little bit of screen-space. Unfortunately, this isn't the way things come by default.
Now, back to close/minimize/maximize buttons. MS has done a stupid thing by placing the close button right next to the maximize and minimize buttons. In windows, it is very easy to accidentally close a window when you meant to minimize or maxmize it.. Apple originally had it right in placing close on one side of a window and shade/resize on the other. However, it appears that they reverted to retardation in OSX by placing them all right next to eachother again. WindowMaker, however, still has it right -- with the close icon by itself on the right side of the screen, not next to the minimize button (thus, no accidents happen). Unfortuantely, there is no maximize button in WindowMaker (you have to right click on the title bar and click Maximize). Why they refused to have this option is beyond me.
Now, on to something that Apple actually has right, kind of. Lets look at the scroll-bar thing on windows.
By default, in MacOS9/X and WindowMaker, both up and down icons are togther on the bottom of the scrollbar. This has it's advantages -- they're next to eachother, and you can alternate between one and the other quickly. However, it does not make spatial sense -- shouldn't up be on the top?
In Windows, up and down are separated, up at the top, down at the bottom. This makes spatial sense, but also slows down the user -- if you want to alt between up and down, you have to move the mouse all that way.
OSX, however, has a solution. Unfortunately, it isn't the default. Group them together both at the top and bottom of the scrollbar. Makes much more sense.
OSX has done some other stupid things, as well. The metaphorical grips on
Ok, let me just sum up all of the anti-RMS sentiments: annoying, egotistical, egomaniac, self-centered, paranoid, delusional, unreal, deluded, out-of-touch, rude, crude, moody, childish etc etc etc
Yes, RMS has certain characteristics that many people find annoying. No, he's not perfect. So what? The last perfect person on this Earth had nails driven through his hands (well, according to those brainwashed religious people anyways). Someone else pretty close to perfect was condemned to death by 500 of his fellow citizens, and died from Hemlock. I guess it's just RMS' punishment for actually having principles that many on/. will scorn him.
I find it amusing that people here are deriding him for not using KDE. So what? I have *never* used KDE, or GNOME, or Sawfish. I use WindowMaker, pwm, and ratpoison. Really, what *need* does an advanced user have for something like KDE? I myself can do fine just using ratpoison, and I'd imagine many others can as well too. If RMS doesn't use XFree that often, so what? Obviously, doesn't have much need for it. So what if they had to show him this thing step-by-step? You'd have to do that for me with KDE too. Big fucking deal.
In regards to GNU/Linux, I don't pronounce it "geenuh-Linux". Sorry, RMS, bug "geenuh" sounds, well, goofy. I pronoune it G.N.U. Linux, spelling out the letters. When I'm talking about the distributions in general, I say GNU/Linux distributions. When talking about FOSS OS', I say FOSS OS'. When talking about one distribution in particular, I'll often shorten it to "distribution".
I do not think he's at all unreasonable in asking us to call it G.N.U./Linux (just so long as he doesn't mind if some of us spell out the GNU for aesetheitic purposes). A very small part of any distribution is actually Linux. It's an important part, true. But an equally important part is GNU software (e.g., gcc, glibc, and a slew of other GNU things which are used by many applications).
Slashdot Mirror
MS' IE is part of their file-system browser. And whether or not it comes with Win2k, you ARE being charged for it in the cost of any MS OS you buy, or any OEM PC you buy which has an MS OS on it. Moron.
Just because you use an OPEN FORMAT to create your documents in doesn't mean that anyone can view them. There's this thing called encryption. There's even this free software program called GPG which will encrypt things for you, though I'm sure the government has better encryption. OPEN vs. proprietary data formats is completely irrelevant to how secure you can make your data.
"Best browser available"?
Internet Explorer is, quite frankly, crap. It adds new MSesque stanards that have made web-designers deviate from coding stanards-compliant web-pages.
As for "free", Internet Explorer is not free, you dolt. You pay for it when you buy your copy of MS Windows or a comp from an OEM. It's included in the price of MS' OS -- especially since it's also the file-navigator.
These products are "free" like cocaine is "free". Free for the first buy. Free for the second buy. Free as long as it takes for you to be completely addicted and dependent -- then it's a leg and an arm.
MS will not continue giving it's products away for zero cost to anyone. They will do so long enough to ensure dependency, then charge full price. If they kept on giving it away at zero cost, they'd go out of business, despite everyone using their products. That's obviously not what they want. Their plan is obviously to make governments and citizens dependent on MS software using mechanisms like the Word incompatability fiasco.
At the very least, all government agencies should require that the formats in which they store information are completely OPEN and FREELY AVAILABLE for anyone to implement.
Whether it be advertisers or political groups, free speach does NOT MEAN the right to impose the costs of YOUR speach on ME. No-one has the inherit right to impose their cost of speech on me. Thus, unless these religious fucks and these advertising fucks send me a check compensating for my LOST TIME, LOST COMPUTER RESOURCES, and (in the case of faxes) LOST INK and PAPER, they are STEALING FROM ME.
None of this is protected speech. Since when does free speech mean you get to impose a multi-million dollar cost on ISPs (thus, their customers) so that you can say what you want to say?
You want to send me ads -- fine, so long as I OPT IN. OPT IN has to be the mandatory, because all OPT OUT options are FRAUDS. OPT OUT means the spammers get to verify that they have a valid e-mail address, and they'll continue spamming you.
You want to speak out about your political or religious beliefs? FINE -- post it on a newsgroup or website. Don't e-mail me with your crap.
C++ is a bunch of obsolete slow crap. Very confusing. The entire point of it is to confer the benefits of object-orientedness. Well, Obj-C gives you that with only a few additional stuff, and isn't confusing.
The lawsuite filed by these spammers is so much bullshit that you don't even need lawyers to defend it off. Any judge who this is brought to will know it's bullshit, and all the defendants have to do is say, "nope, completely voluntary service", "nope, spammers have no business relationship with their victims", "nope, never sold a product". No judge in the US is going to award a judgement in favor of spammers; if anything, they'r exposing themselves for prosecution under anti-spam laws.
Yea, it's real easy to make false and unsubstantiatable allegations first, then apologize if someone their false when someone provides proof. That's alot easier and cheaper than actually verifying the validity of the accusation first. The RIAA doesn't give a flying fuck that this costs individuals and universities thousands of dollars. Not their concern -- after all, in the US, you're free to make false and ludicrous accusations against anyone without any proof.
Is it really worth paying an extra 200% for an improvement in performance (over say a GF2 or 3) that will amount to maybe 50%?
The smart thing to do is to find reliable benchmarks on the graphics cards for a taxing game (e.g., Quake 3 Arena at 1600x1200 with all the goodies). Then divide the price of the card by the average benchmark score. The one with the best price/performance ratio is the best card to buy: all the others, you're getting fucked over on.
Does that baby look like it's strangling the virgin madonna? And boy, what an ugly baby!
I hadn't bothered to look for the latest figures.
;-)
Of course, my statement was oversimplistic. If we survie another 1 billion years, then the furthest object we'd be able to resolve would be 14.5-15 billion light years away.
Anyways, the article on parallel universes is very interesting. Somewhere out there, there's a universe where I'm dictator of the world!
Will be about 20 billion light years, since we think the universe is about 20 billion years old.
e ID =000F1EDD-B48A-1E90-8EA5809EC5880000
For an interesting article, see:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=1&articl
On parallel universes. Very interesting reading. If you're at a university, you will be able to browse the site's archives and access the nice PDF version of the article (which has the pictures supersized to full-page size).
Of course a justification for not using FOSS would have to be provided. Any time you choose a more expensive solution over a cheaper one, you should have to justify that choice. Duh. Your governor has to get from point A to point B. If he chooses to rent a McLaren F1 using OUR tax dollars, as opposed to using a Volkswagon, naturally he should have to justify that decision.
No, you dolt, they do whatever they can to make proprietary formats (like doc) so that other's can't use those formats (see DMCA), and so that any conversions from MS formats to non-MS formats are going to be lossy.
This is not affirmative action. This is simply a bill which requires government officials to consider using FOSS and justify their reasons for not using it. It does not handicap proprietary software relative to FOSS. It simply requires these guys to consider FOSS.
It is in no way analagous to affirmative action. It is analagous to requiring that colleges look at all of the applications sent to them, and not throw applications in the trash if "African American" is checked off next to race.
This isn't affirmative action for FOSS. This is requiring them to consider FOSS and provide justification if they don't use it. It does not require them to give any additional preference to FOSS over proprietary software.
In graduate school programs where you actually do work or research for the graduate schools, because you're bringing them reputation.
I was really lucky in that regards. I'm graduating with a BS in Molecular Biology and no debt from the Univ. of Rochester, a pretty well-renowned university for biology. Still doesn't make it great to swallow the 18k yearly bill (tuition is actually 30k, all things considered, but I get some aid that knocks it down to 18k).
Anyways, grad school is a good thing, in the long-run. Gives you the potential to get higher-paying jobs, and will mean that you'll be over-qualified for almost everything. In grad-schools, they actually pay you. Why? Because you're working for them and brining reputation to the school. As an undergrad, you're more of a burden to the university than an asset; as a grad, you're definately an asset.
The key is to get into a good grad school: the best one you can. It would probably be best in the long-run if, after graduating with a BS, you get a job in your field and rack up a year or two's worth of good experience (this is also a good time diversify yourself by taking some evening courses...e.g., I as a bio-BS, might take a few courses on computer-programming). Waiting the extra year or two to go to grad school will mean that it'll take you an extra year or two to get your pHD, but it will be worth it if you get yoru pHD from a better school.
Why waste time and effort? I can already type 70-100wpm depending on my flow. And why should I bother to learn some odd keyboard configuration which is just going to fuck me up, because the rest of the world uses QWERTY? I learn that, then I suddenly have doubt as to where the Q key is, because it's in different places depending on what keyboard I'm using.
People have been trained in QWERTY. It is going to be a pain in the ass to switch. Not to mention, you'll be all fucked up when you go to a normal keyboard.
It's like me in Descent 2. I learned to play Descent 2 with a keyboard. I was pretty damn good. People told me that if i got a joystick, I could be better. So I got one. I became very frustrated and never spent the time to learn how to use it in Descent 2.
Yes, but if you do that, then people can just modify Click-N-Run so that it doesn't ask for said password to connect to the server. Or, even if Lindows requires a password to connect to the server, they could still grab the software, modify it to use different servers (e.g., Debians) and then Lindows would not be getting $99 a year.
Please, Windows is a joke for a trademark. Look at all the things that are already called "Window". X-Windows. Windows in applications. Windows is a very generic term in the computer field. MS' trademark on it is pure bullshit, because it describes exactly what everyone calls those GUI boxes -- windows. People were calling them windows long before MS ever got their bogus trademark.
Yes, he's using a name similar to Windows. Good for him. The courts ruled it's ok, so you're full of shit and so is MS. Things that sound "like" trademarked words shouldn't matter -- especially if the trademark was bullshit in the first place.
This is not a distro targetted at advanced users. As a pretty advanced user, I'm not going to be using Lindows (I installed Gentoo a while ago...that'll put hair on your nuts). Let me check...yep, just making sure, there is no law mandating that any of us 133t's have to use it. Phew. Freedom of choice still exists. But this company is doing a good thing. Incidentally, it's refreshing to see a CEO out there who doesn't use newspeak and cares about something other than $$$$.
Try to understand -- he's not making an OS for advanced computer users. He's not taking away the option to create user accounts. You want an account -- you can ADD one. By the way, all you jerk-offs should NOTE that when you finish installing Gentoo -- a pretty technically orientated distro -- there IS NO USER. ONLY ROOT. That's following the protocol of the install-guide. Look at the Gentoo Install Guide. Nowhere along are you forced to create a user-account, and the install guide doesn't even cover creating a user account, though it does suggest doing so, and references you to their FAQ (I've recommended that they cover how to create a user account at the end of the install guide). So, if you're going to bash Lindows for not having a user/root separation by default, you can only do so consistently if you also bash Gentoo. If you choose to bash Lindows but not Gentoo for this, then you are a hypocrite and are just doing this because you want to bash Lindows because it's easy.
Now, maybe Lindows install process should at some point prompt the user, "Do you want to create a user account?" with no default (I say no default, because if there's a default hard-liner jerk-offs on either side are going to bitch). There would be a Yes and a No option, each explaining the merits of both approaches. Simply put, the word "Easier" should be placed next to "No", and "More Secure" next to "Yes". Because average user's are incapable of reading long paragraphs (see Joel on Software), just leave it at that simplified explanation. Alternatively, Lindows could go the Gentoo route and simply advise users to create a user account after the OS is installed, maybe bring up a step-by-step wizard for how to do it after initial install.
Now, I feel that Robertson has done some good things with Click-'n-Run. I naturally think it would be better if it's GPL'ed, but these guys are a business and have to have some model for making money. Click-'n-Run is their model. They will make money because people will pay for the Click-'n-Run service, and also through their contracts with Walmart (in addition to selling Lindows). If you can think of a way for them to GPL Click-'n-Run and still get $99 a year from people who use it, then please SUGGEST that. Since Robertson wants to have good community-relations, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. He has blatantly said that his business model relies largely on Click-'n-Run succeeding, and that means $99 from it per year for customers using it. The only thing I can think of would be adding a portion of code to Click-'n-Run that only allows it to be run if the user has paid the $99 for that year (by checking some database, whatever) and distributing it under a modified version of the GPL with an additional clause specifying "may not be redistributed/modified with that check disabled".
In regards to other areas, I think he's pretty-much on the 8-ball. Very good analysis of patents -- btw, what moron asked him the question about patenting Click-'n-Run? There was never anything to suggest Lindows wanted a patent on that. And what group of crackpot moderators moderated that one up? There could have been a more useful question posted.
Quite frankly, I think Robertson has a good plan to bring a GNU/Linux distribution to more home users. This means more exposure for GNU/Linux, which means more users will know how to use it, which means more software support and more hardware support, and probably more FS and OSS. Because of the commonalities shared by all GNU/Linux distributions, it will be beneficial for all distributions.
All that said, I think that Lindows would be better off using WindowMaker as their WM.
Well, as long as we're talking about usability, might as well go the full way. Having experience with OS9, OSX, Win9x/2k/XP, and WindowMaker, I can talk about the flaws and virtues of each.
/\ for maximize, \/ for minimize.
[btw, while we're talking about useability, please put quotes in separate paragraphs with "quotaion" marks around them, or italicize them in separate paragraphs]
X is a good metaphor for close. X, as in EXIT...Only in certain languages
Well, X is also what you put through something you want to discard. Written something you don't want to pay attentio nto anymore? put an X through it. Same thing with figures. It would also be useful to color-code it red.
Now, the up/down triangles (as opposed to left/right ones that only make sense in cultures with RTL scripts) are a good idea
An interesting point. However, how many significant cultures read text right to left? Most read things left to right. But, up and down triangles probably is a better metaphor.
Now, some other usability points.
The 5 most easily clickable regions on the screen: the four corners and where the mouse is. Win9x makes no use of them what-so-ever, putting the start-menu literally pixels away from the corner of the screen. I think XP does the same stupid thing. Talk about snatching defeat from the hands of victory.
MacOS9/X puts the universal menu at the top of the screen, which is a good thing. Make it easier to get to. However, right now, I'm on an OS9 desktop. The Apple menu is placed just a little bit off the far left corner, so going to the far left corner and clicking doesn't bring it up. Again, snatching defeat from the hands of victory.
In WindowMaker, however, the situation is different. For one thing, every important menu -- the application menu, the root menu, the window-list menu, and the workspace menu -- can be brought up right at the mouse's current position by a key/mouse combination. However, this doesn't help the new user. Another nice feature is that you can stick these menus at the bottom of the screen, so they "fly up" when the mouse goes to the far corner of the screen. I have my root menu at the far left bottom corner. The only disadvantage is that it takes up a little bit of screen-space. Unfortunately, this isn't the way things come by default.
Now, back to close/minimize/maximize buttons. MS has done a stupid thing by placing the close button right next to the maximize and minimize buttons. In windows, it is very easy to accidentally close a window when you meant to minimize or maxmize it.. Apple originally had it right in placing close on one side of a window and shade/resize on the other. However, it appears that they reverted to retardation in OSX by placing them all right next to eachother again. WindowMaker, however, still has it right -- with the close icon by itself on the right side of the screen, not next to the minimize button (thus, no accidents happen). Unfortuantely, there is no maximize button in WindowMaker (you have to right click on the title bar and click Maximize). Why they refused to have this option is beyond me.
Now, on to something that Apple actually has right, kind of. Lets look at the scroll-bar thing on windows.
By default, in MacOS9/X and WindowMaker, both up and down icons are togther on the bottom of the scrollbar. This has it's advantages -- they're next to eachother, and you can alternate between one and the other quickly. However, it does not make spatial sense -- shouldn't up be on the top?
In Windows, up and down are separated, up at the top, down at the bottom. This makes spatial sense, but also slows down the user -- if you want to alt between up and down, you have to move the mouse all that way.
OSX, however, has a solution. Unfortunately, it isn't the default. Group them together both at the top and bottom of the scrollbar. Makes much more sense.
OSX has done some other stupid things, as well. The metaphorical grips on
Ok, let me just sum up all of the anti-RMS sentiments: annoying, egotistical, egomaniac, self-centered, paranoid, delusional, unreal, deluded, out-of-touch, rude, crude, moody, childish etc etc etc
/. will scorn him.
Yes, RMS has certain characteristics that many people find annoying. No, he's not perfect. So what? The last perfect person on this Earth had nails driven through his hands (well, according to those brainwashed religious people anyways). Someone else pretty close to perfect was condemned to death by 500 of his fellow citizens, and died from Hemlock. I guess it's just RMS' punishment for actually having principles that many on
I find it amusing that people here are deriding him for not using KDE. So what? I have *never* used KDE, or GNOME, or Sawfish. I use WindowMaker, pwm, and ratpoison. Really, what *need* does an advanced user have for something like KDE? I myself can do fine just using ratpoison, and I'd imagine many others can as well too. If RMS doesn't use XFree that often, so what? Obviously, doesn't have much need for it. So what if they had to show him this thing step-by-step? You'd have to do that for me with KDE too. Big fucking deal.
In regards to GNU/Linux, I don't pronounce it "geenuh-Linux". Sorry, RMS, bug "geenuh" sounds, well, goofy. I pronoune it G.N.U. Linux, spelling out the letters. When I'm talking about the distributions in general, I say GNU/Linux distributions. When talking about FOSS OS', I say FOSS OS'. When talking about one distribution in particular, I'll often shorten it to "distribution".
I do not think he's at all unreasonable in asking us to call it G.N.U./Linux (just so long as he doesn't mind if some of us spell out the GNU for aesetheitic purposes). A very small part of any distribution is actually Linux. It's an important part, true. But an equally important part is GNU software (e.g., gcc, glibc, and a slew of other GNU things which are used by many applications).