I was always fond of LAME encodings in a high quality VBR mode. It was always my favorite method of storing my music on my hard drive, since the quality was quite good. Over time, I decided that I would really start comparing it to some other formats for long-term archiving. I wanted to settle with one format, once and for all. I had originally been a BladeEnc user, but LAME seemed far superior to me.
When I first enconded some of my music in the Vorbis format, I was a bit underwhelmed when comparing it to LAME. It didn't really sound the same. Then, I compared the Vorbis files to the raw WAV rips. Surprisingly, the Vorbis files sounded more true to the original WAV rips. I was very surprised. All this time, my ears had tuned to the LAME acoustic model, which wasn't as accurate as I had once thought. After comparing a large portion of my CD collection in both LAME and Vorbis encodings, I made a decision...
I decided to start using FLAC. That way, I could listen to al of my music without any concern for quality. Sure, each CD takes up about 300 MB of space (50%-60% average compression), but it sounds so sweet.
If quality is a concern, maybe LAME MP3/AAC/Ogg Vorbis aren't the the right choices. Hard drive limitations aren't so much of an issue anymore. I guess that I cna see a point in having lower quality files for easy web transmission and low storage capacity, but the quality difference is just too noticable for me to ignore, when comparing any of these formats to a lossless format like FLAC. That's also one of the reasons that I like Magnatune so much, since I can buy music online that is already compressed in lossless FLAC format.
Yeah. I think that there will always be some sort of player that supports the most common lossless format out there. If FLAC gets overthrown by some other format (which is unlikely), it's just a matter of running a script to convert the files to another lossless format.
Meanwhile, I'm probably going to buy a RIO Karma to play my FLAC library on the road.
Oh, what the hell ever. When has Windows EVER been tolerant of another OS on another partition? NTLDR and other Windows MBR loaders almost always rip the hell out of everything else in the MBR.
At least with Fedora, it's an accident. It's hard to tell why this happened. It's very unlikely that it was intentional, and there is little reaon to make comparisons to typical MS behavior.
I played LORD with rip graphics. I don't think that TELIX ever did support rip though, since it was a DOS application and didn't use a VESA framebuffer (to my knowledge). I think that my only rip graphics experience was with RipTerm as well.
It was neat (and kinda sad) to see online connectivity change as much as it did in the mid-late 90s. I can recall watching the local BBS list in the monthly (free) computer mag slowly disappear.
With all due respect to Andy for Minix, reading his writings is almost as bad as reading Fred Langa spout on and on to try to defend his (poorly supported) option. Mr. T calls that "jibber-jabber". It's annoying if you jibber-jabber and don't really get to the point, fool! Yes, we know you don't hate Linus. You don't need to keep defending your stance on microkernels because we've gotten your point for something like 14 years! Obviously, if you feel compelled to write about it after 14 yours, you must feel *some* sort of ill-feelings towards the whole Linux vs. Minix issue.
Please don't write anymore if you are only going to jibber-jabber, fool.
"Trumpet Winsock" - Now that's a set of words I haven't heard for years.
It reminds me of the discussion that I had with some guy in #linux on irc.freenode.net that went by the name of ZMobyTurbo. I can remember getting the fastest speeds of anyone on the BBS systems with my Zoom 28.8 modem at the tail-end of the BBS era, as Wildcat 5 started introducing graphical browsing and web capabilities. My favorite terminal program of those days was "TELIX". There is a great Unix clone of TELIX called "Minicom", which is fun to use if you're into reminiscing about the "old days".
My 486DX2 66 had 24 MB of RAM. It was bleeding edge! It was nice to not have to hack on the autoexec.bat and config.sys to free up more memory to get DOOM to run.;)
I personally prefer nanokernels. A nanokernel is a (kernel * 10^-9). It works out as being much smaller and faster, since a microkernel is only (kernel * 10^-6). Yeah, yeah? Let's see if Andy Tanenbaum can explain that one! Soon, Linux hackers will be jumping ship because they will be 1337 enough to write a PICOKERNEL!
This is true, except for the fact that it eventually negates the need for traditional telephone switching services.
Think of it this way. In 10 years, when everyone has a router with some sort of cable or hi-speed connection in their home, will it not just be likely that you dial an IP address instead of a telephone number? The handset that is hooked to your router would monitor any requests to a specific port, and it would open up for the calls.
Vonage takes VoIP and gives it capability to interact with the aging legacy telephone system that is on its way out the door. Phone companies fear that this will eventually make them useless entities. Cable companies love it because it makes them the most likely backbone for information distribution. Governments, losing the ability to tax a traditional phone communications infrastructure, move taxes onto broadband providers. We already pay taxes on the cable TV pipeline.
The nice thing about VoIP is that it will eventually break the need for a single telephone provider. The sad fact is that it doesn't change a whole lot, since the cable company is just moving in and taking over. Companies like Ameritech really lost out, since they were too slow to upgrade and improve the traditional phone system. The need for the thin, two-strands of copper is begining to fade away. Fortunately, we may have more wireless options in the future as well. I suppose that it is possible that with wi-fi access points everywhere, the traditional cellular phone services may be undermined some day as well.
Fragmentation problems are mostly something that has carried over from the MSDOS and Win9x days. FAT32 was problematic when it wrote data to the first available spot on the drive, and things got scattered about in a strange manner. NTFS and UNIX filesystems don't exhibit the same behaviors.
It's pretty much a non-issue these days, as long as you can break away from the Windows9x mindset.
NTFS isn't technically "as old" as you might think. Each version of NT over the past few years has added several upgrades to NTFS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS
NTFS has its strong points. It is reliable and has several extensions that make it quite flexible. On the other hand, it's not hard to "outdo NTFS" in some respects. There are many things that HFS+ and ReiserFS do better than NTFS. There are many things that NTFS does better.
I think that NTFS is pretty good when it comes to cataloging changes to the drive. NTFS' speed leaves something to be disired though, and the nature of its fragmentation (though better than FAT32) still presents even more performance problems.
The soundcard was EMULATED by Virtual PC. He didn't mention THAT in the follow-up, because it made him look like a fool in the original.
Let me spell this out for you. Virtual PC fakes all of the hardware. Linuc will run on Virtual PC, but it's obvious that ALSA has a problem with Virtual PC's fake SB PRO devices. It's no wonder either, since it is a Microsoft product, it's designed to work with a Microsoft OS.
Any way you try to back it up, Langa fails to acknowledge this important fact. It wasn't a real soundcard. It was a CPU emulated device.
I don't really get anything of value out of this follow-up article from Langa. Essentially, it's a compilation of the responses that we saw in the forums. Langa, in the forums, did nothing more than *insult* other posters and attempt (but failed) to do an adequate job of backing up his claims.
It has been mentioned that Langa's sound problems were related to the fact that he was *emulating* a sound device through Virtual PC. I suspect that it was the primary reason for his problems. He did indicate that sound worked at one point in time, through some means, but eventually failed again. It's hard to tell the exact reasons. I could argue all day that there are a number of peices of hardware that work very nicely on Linux but work like shit on WindowsXP (e.g. Aureal Vortex chips, which are still showing up in new soundcards to this very day). I could argue that my UMAX scanner works perfectly on Linux, but requires a paid driver update from UMAX to get it to function on Windows XP. These are points that totally negate his reasoning for feeling that "Linux is not ready".
Fred seems to be surprised that Linux users get defensive over some types of criticism. Is it really all that surprising? We see all sorts of criticisim from "unbiased" sources almost daily, through "reasearch" that is funded by groups like the recent Alexis de Tocqueville Institution articles. Much of it is without warrant. It's another attempt to steer people away from Linux, so it's hard to tell who is right and who is just cashing in. Regardless, people work hard to make Linux an excellent OS, often without compensation. Criticism isn't a bad thing, but is it not only fair that a critic has his facts in order before hand?
Langa makes an interesting point regarding the cost of Linux software from commercial vendors. I feel that he is missing some important things though. First, desktop Linux software often *does not* cost anything near the cost of Microsoft Windows. He touted Xandros during his initial review, indicating that he had paid for a copy. Xandros standard edition costs a mere $39, and that includes installation tech support. How much more should they lower the prices?
Why is it that guys like Langa associate less value with Linux and the included programs, thus indicating that the price should be lower? Is Linux considered less of a value to him, simply because his software emulated sound device will not work through Virtual PC? I fail to see what Langa is trying to indicate.
Companies like RedHat and Novell are pricing their corporate Linux products because they offer 24x5 technical support for them, at no additional cost, for their Advanced Server and desktop products. High priority 24x7 support is available at an additional cost. They have relatively good response times, and they are covered for a full year over the web (and a shorter time over the phone). This is what you pay for when you buy a Linux distribution. There is a limitation of two incidents with Windows XP home edition before you are subject to the $35 fee for technical support. Windows 2003 Server support is available for a minimum of $99, over email, and phone support is $245.
See a connection here? If you want support, then you have to pay for it. Otherwise, there are plenty of no-cost Linux solutions for home and corporate users alike. I personally can see more value in giving a donation to Pat Volkerding (of Slackware) than to pay for the latest Microsoft OS. With most commercial Linux distributions, you get a stable and powerful OS, updates for the life of the current version (this even includes updates for most of the included applications), and you don't have to dump tons of money into extra software like antivirus/firewall/adware/spyware tools and the support to implement and operate them. How can one NOT see this as a value in its own right?
I see Windows as a value that is geared mostly to the following people; musicians and artists, PC game enthusiasts, and office dorks that need
Not only that, but Harp and Guinness are brewed in Canada now as well. That's so they can slap big "IMPORTED" labels on them, and our American yuppies will buy them and think that they are beer connoisseurs.
You know who I'm talking about... Those are the people that actually pretend that they enjoy drinking Corona.
Oh, yeah right. Because Sierra Nevada, Stone Brewing, Dog Fish Head, Anchor, Victory, don't have *anything* on your Molson Ice.
I know you're just being silly, of course (e.g. the igloo remark), but I figured I'd share some opinions about American beer.
Canada admitedly has Unibroue and a handful of other breweries that make great microbrews. However, America is making some of the finest beers in the world, from small breweries. Any of the "normal" Canadian beer tastes exectly like the cream-corn flavored American-Standard macrobrew crap that Canadians seem to love to insult. Don't feel bad though. I hate Budweiser as much as I hate Labatt Blue. I equally discriminate against shitty beers.
Fortunately, I am lucky to have a few specialty stores in the area that have some of the finest beers in the world. I've personally reviewed nearly 200 beers, and I've probably tried nearly 300 different beers from around the world.
If you haven't had a *good* American beer, it's probably because you are buying the mas-produced stuff that American beer fans avoid like the plague. Try an Arrogant Bastard Ale or Dog Fish Head 90 minute IPA, and then all other beers will taste like water to you.;)
For a number of reasons, I would put American strong ales (or even Canadian Unibroue's ales) up there with the Trappist ales of Beligum (which are among my favorites). Even though they differ in style, they are all good in their own respects.
I think that it's just that many people fail to understand the value in free software in relation to the work that is involved in distributing it.
Patrick Volkerding doesn't require that you buy Slackware to use it. Nevetheless, I send him a $40 "donation" every year or two because I value his work in putting it together, and I hope that it coaxes him to continue the effort into the future. He mentions that his work on Slackware has always been a profitable endeavor since day one, even if it is on a small scale compared to other software products out there.
There are reasons for paying for something that's free. It's called "My ass is too lazy to download, compile, and configure an entire OS and its programs". Some people can't understand this concept because they've never understood anything other than traditional business models.
You have a point, but maybe this really shows us how our software industry has become? Could it be that the amount of money and effort that went into producing an non-physical thing (software) and protecting a non-physical invention (patenting intellectual property) really was moot? Maybe it shows that there never was really any *true* value in having proprietary solutions from companies like Microsoft in the first place, other than the fact that there was little alternative before grassroots development of free software became more common with the growth of the Internet. Software develpment is growing and changing. If that involves the adoption of more "free" software instead of proprietary software, then it's just the nature of its evolution.
I still can't see how people insist that there will be less demand for IT jobs. There may be less of a demand for designing and writing the software, if community efforts overtake proprietary efforts, but you'll still need to have people around to maintain and support the software and the end-users. It will be the same as it is today. My campus IT staff doesn't write their software. They use (mostly proprietary) solutions from several companies. The majority of their pay goes into configuring and maintaing these machines. At any rate, the demand for technical support staff increases all of the time as the needs for more computer-operated tasks increase.
Unless computers and robots do all of the programming and engineering in the future, I can't see how anyone can insist that there will be less IT related jobs. But then again - if robots and computers could program, why would we need to work in the first place? We could all sit on our asses and become philosophers.
Yes: I'm not being serious; I'm being facetious.
By the way. The level of contradiction in these Microsoft-funded reports never cease to amaze me. First, they insist that software like Linux costs more to support than Windows due to a need to higher more, and higher paid, IT staff. Then, they insist that Linux eliminates the need for IT jobs. When will it all end?
Yeah? Runs great on my test PC with a P3 450, Voodoo 3 (16MB), and 256 MB SDRAM. Hardly high-end by any means. Only about 150 MB of RAM is cached at any given time on the machine... That's cached, not "used". Most people don't understand how Gnome and Linux use memory, therefore they assume that it "uses too much".
This is all possible, but what is stopping anyone from adding groupware and Exchange features (from this GPL Connector code) into something like KMail.
The way that I see it is this: We'll probably eventually have a million programs that will have compatibility with Exchange Server, all thanks to this GPL code. The only difference is that they won't be prone to Outlook viruses.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I was always fond of LAME encodings in a high quality VBR mode. It was always my favorite method of storing my music on my hard drive, since the quality was quite good. Over time, I decided that I would really start comparing it to some other formats for long-term archiving. I wanted to settle with one format, once and for all. I had originally been a BladeEnc user, but LAME seemed far superior to me.
When I first enconded some of my music in the Vorbis format, I was a bit underwhelmed when comparing it to LAME. It didn't really sound the same. Then, I compared the Vorbis files to the raw WAV rips. Surprisingly, the Vorbis files sounded more true to the original WAV rips. I was very surprised. All this time, my ears had tuned to the LAME acoustic model, which wasn't as accurate as I had once thought. After comparing a large portion of my CD collection in both LAME and Vorbis encodings, I made a decision...
I decided to start using FLAC. That way, I could listen to al of my music without any concern for quality. Sure, each CD takes up about 300 MB of space (50%-60% average compression), but it sounds so sweet.
If quality is a concern, maybe LAME MP3/AAC/Ogg Vorbis aren't the the right choices. Hard drive limitations aren't so much of an issue anymore. I guess that I cna see a point in having lower quality files for easy web transmission and low storage capacity, but the quality difference is just too noticable for me to ignore, when comparing any of these formats to a lossless format like FLAC. That's also one of the reasons that I like Magnatune so much, since I can buy music online that is already compressed in lossless FLAC format.
Yeah. I think that there will always be some sort of player that supports the most common lossless format out there. If FLAC gets overthrown by some other format (which is unlikely), it's just a matter of running a script to convert the files to another lossless format.
Meanwhile, I'm probably going to buy a RIO Karma to play my FLAC library on the road.
Oh, what the hell ever. When has Windows EVER been tolerant of another OS on another partition? NTLDR and other Windows MBR loaders almost always rip the hell out of everything else in the MBR.
At least with Fedora, it's an accident. It's hard to tell why this happened. It's very unlikely that it was intentional, and there is little reaon to make comparisons to typical MS behavior.
I played LORD with rip graphics. I don't think that TELIX ever did support rip though, since it was a DOS application and didn't use a VESA framebuffer (to my knowledge). I think that my only rip graphics experience was with RipTerm as well.
It was neat (and kinda sad) to see online connectivity change as much as it did in the mid-late 90s. I can recall watching the local BBS list in the monthly (free) computer mag slowly disappear.
With all due respect to Andy for Minix, reading his writings is almost as bad as reading Fred Langa spout on and on to try to defend his (poorly supported) option. Mr. T calls that "jibber-jabber". It's annoying if you jibber-jabber and don't really get to the point, fool! Yes, we know you don't hate Linus. You don't need to keep defending your stance on microkernels because we've gotten your point for something like 14 years! Obviously, if you feel compelled to write about it after 14 yours, you must feel *some* sort of ill-feelings towards the whole Linux vs. Minix issue.
j ib ber-jabber
Please don't write anymore if you are only going to jibber-jabber, fool.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=
"Trumpet Winsock" - Now that's a set of words I haven't heard for years.
;)
It reminds me of the discussion that I had with some guy in #linux on irc.freenode.net that went by the name of ZMobyTurbo. I can remember getting the fastest speeds of anyone on the BBS systems with my Zoom 28.8 modem at the tail-end of the BBS era, as Wildcat 5 started introducing graphical browsing and web capabilities. My favorite terminal program of those days was "TELIX". There is a great Unix clone of TELIX called "Minicom", which is fun to use if you're into reminiscing about the "old days".
My 486DX2 66 had 24 MB of RAM. It was bleeding edge! It was nice to not have to hack on the autoexec.bat and config.sys to free up more memory to get DOOM to run.
I personally prefer nanokernels. A nanokernel is a (kernel * 10^-9). It works out as being much smaller and faster, since a microkernel is only (kernel * 10^-6). Yeah, yeah? Let's see if Andy Tanenbaum can explain that one! Soon, Linux hackers will be jumping ship because they will be 1337 enough to write a PICOKERNEL!
This is true, except for the fact that it eventually negates the need for traditional telephone switching services.
Think of it this way. In 10 years, when everyone has a router with some sort of cable or hi-speed connection in their home, will it not just be likely that you dial an IP address instead of a telephone number? The handset that is hooked to your router would monitor any requests to a specific port, and it would open up for the calls.
Vonage takes VoIP and gives it capability to interact with the aging legacy telephone system that is on its way out the door. Phone companies fear that this will eventually make them useless entities. Cable companies love it because it makes them the most likely backbone for information distribution. Governments, losing the ability to tax a traditional phone communications infrastructure, move taxes onto broadband providers. We already pay taxes on the cable TV pipeline.
The nice thing about VoIP is that it will eventually break the need for a single telephone provider. The sad fact is that it doesn't change a whole lot, since the cable company is just moving in and taking over. Companies like Ameritech really lost out, since they were too slow to upgrade and improve the traditional phone system. The need for the thin, two-strands of copper is begining to fade away. Fortunately, we may have more wireless options in the future as well. I suppose that it is possible that with wi-fi access points everywhere, the traditional cellular phone services may be undermined some day as well.
Do you bathe in Evian every morning?
That would be very expensive. You might want to consider the switch to Aquafina.
Fragmentation problems are mostly something that has carried over from the MSDOS and Win9x days. FAT32 was problematic when it wrote data to the first available spot on the drive, and things got scattered about in a strange manner. NTFS and UNIX filesystems don't exhibit the same behaviors.
It's pretty much a non-issue these days, as long as you can break away from the Windows9x mindset.
NTFS isn't technically "as old" as you might think. Each version of NT over the past few years has added several upgrades to NTFS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS
NTFS has its strong points. It is reliable and has several extensions that make it quite flexible. On the other hand, it's not hard to "outdo NTFS" in some respects. There are many things that HFS+ and ReiserFS do better than NTFS. There are many things that NTFS does better.
I think that NTFS is pretty good when it comes to cataloging changes to the drive. NTFS' speed leaves something to be disired though, and the nature of its fragmentation (though better than FAT32) still presents even more performance problems.
You're right. I misinterpreted what you said when you mentioned that the soundcard "wasn't there". My bad.
Because it's truly upgradable. In 10 years, you'll be able to use the software at full G3 speed!
Wait a second.
The soundcard was EMULATED by Virtual PC. He didn't mention THAT in the follow-up, because it made him look like a fool in the original.
Let me spell this out for you. Virtual PC fakes all of the hardware. Linuc will run on Virtual PC, but it's obvious that ALSA has a problem with Virtual PC's fake SB PRO devices. It's no wonder either, since it is a Microsoft product, it's designed to work with a Microsoft OS.
Any way you try to back it up, Langa fails to acknowledge this important fact. It wasn't a real soundcard. It was a CPU emulated device.
Mmmm. Tettnang hops!
My guess is that the FC2 devs are beer geeks too.
I don't really get anything of value out of this follow-up article from Langa. Essentially, it's a compilation of the responses that we saw in the forums. Langa, in the forums, did nothing more than *insult* other posters and attempt (but failed) to do an adequate job of backing up his claims.
It has been mentioned that Langa's sound problems were related to the fact that he was *emulating* a sound device through Virtual PC. I suspect that it was the primary reason for his problems. He did indicate that sound worked at one point in time, through some means, but eventually failed again. It's hard to tell the exact reasons. I could argue all day that there are a number of peices of hardware that work very nicely on Linux but work like shit on WindowsXP (e.g. Aureal Vortex chips, which are still showing up in new soundcards to this very day). I could argue that my UMAX scanner works perfectly on Linux, but requires a paid driver update from UMAX to get it to function on Windows XP. These are points that totally negate his reasoning for feeling that "Linux is not ready".
Fred seems to be surprised that Linux users get defensive over some types of criticism. Is it really all that surprising? We see all sorts of criticisim from "unbiased" sources almost daily, through "reasearch" that is funded by groups like the recent Alexis de Tocqueville Institution articles. Much of it is without warrant. It's another attempt to steer people away from Linux, so it's hard to tell who is right and who is just cashing in. Regardless, people work hard to make Linux an excellent OS, often without compensation. Criticism isn't a bad thing, but is it not only fair that a critic has his facts in order before hand?
Langa makes an interesting point regarding the cost of Linux software from commercial vendors. I feel that he is missing some important things though. First, desktop Linux software often *does not* cost anything near the cost of Microsoft Windows. He touted Xandros during his initial review, indicating that he had paid for a copy. Xandros standard edition costs a mere $39, and that includes installation tech support. How much more should they lower the prices?
Why is it that guys like Langa associate less value with Linux and the included programs, thus indicating that the price should be lower? Is Linux considered less of a value to him, simply because his software emulated sound device will not work through Virtual PC? I fail to see what Langa is trying to indicate.
Companies like RedHat and Novell are pricing their corporate Linux products because they offer 24x5 technical support for them, at no additional cost, for their Advanced Server and desktop products. High priority 24x7 support is available at an additional cost. They have relatively good response times, and they are covered for a full year over the web (and a shorter time over the phone). This is what you pay for when you buy a Linux distribution. There is a limitation of two incidents with Windows XP home edition before you are subject to the $35 fee for technical support. Windows 2003 Server support is available for a minimum of $99, over email, and phone support is $245.
See a connection here? If you want support, then you have to pay for it. Otherwise, there are plenty of no-cost Linux solutions for home and corporate users alike. I personally can see more value in giving a donation to Pat Volkerding (of Slackware) than to pay for the latest Microsoft OS. With most commercial Linux distributions, you get a stable and powerful OS, updates for the life of the current version (this even includes updates for most of the included applications), and you don't have to dump tons of money into extra software like antivirus/firewall/adware/spyware tools and the support to implement and operate them. How can one NOT see this as a value in its own right?
I see Windows as a value that is geared mostly to the following people; musicians and artists, PC game enthusiasts, and office dorks that need
Wow! Now that's just creepy!
Looks like someone's falling from the summit.
This is why I personally use bBlog, which can even use Movable Type stylesheets.
http://www.bblog.com/
Not only that, but Harp and Guinness are brewed in Canada now as well. That's so they can slap big "IMPORTED" labels on them, and our American yuppies will buy them and think that they are beer connoisseurs.
You know who I'm talking about... Those are the people that actually pretend that they enjoy drinking Corona.
Oh, yeah right. Because Sierra Nevada, Stone Brewing, Dog Fish Head, Anchor, Victory, don't have *anything* on your Molson Ice.
;)
I know you're just being silly, of course (e.g. the igloo remark), but I figured I'd share some opinions about American beer.
Canada admitedly has Unibroue and a handful of other breweries that make great microbrews. However, America is making some of the finest beers in the world, from small breweries. Any of the "normal" Canadian beer tastes exectly like the cream-corn flavored American-Standard macrobrew crap that Canadians seem to love to insult. Don't feel bad though. I hate Budweiser as much as I hate Labatt Blue. I equally discriminate against shitty beers.
Fortunately, I am lucky to have a few specialty stores in the area that have some of the finest beers in the world. I've personally reviewed nearly 200 beers, and I've probably tried nearly 300 different beers from around the world.
If you haven't had a *good* American beer, it's probably because you are buying the mas-produced stuff that American beer fans avoid like the plague. Try an Arrogant Bastard Ale or Dog Fish Head 90 minute IPA, and then all other beers will taste like water to you.
For a number of reasons, I would put American strong ales (or even Canadian Unibroue's ales) up there with the Trappist ales of Beligum (which are among my favorites). Even though they differ in style, they are all good in their own respects.
I think that it's just that many people fail to understand the value in free software in relation to the work that is involved in distributing it.
Patrick Volkerding doesn't require that you buy Slackware to use it. Nevetheless, I send him a $40 "donation" every year or two because I value his work in putting it together, and I hope that it coaxes him to continue the effort into the future. He mentions that his work on Slackware has always been a profitable endeavor since day one, even if it is on a small scale compared to other software products out there.
There are reasons for paying for something that's free. It's called "My ass is too lazy to download, compile, and configure an entire OS and its programs". Some people can't understand this concept because they've never understood anything other than traditional business models.
You have a point, but maybe this really shows us how our software industry has become? Could it be that the amount of money and effort that went into producing an non-physical thing (software) and protecting a non-physical invention (patenting intellectual property) really was moot? Maybe it shows that there never was really any *true* value in having proprietary solutions from companies like Microsoft in the first place, other than the fact that there was little alternative before grassroots development of free software became more common with the growth of the Internet. Software develpment is growing and changing. If that involves the adoption of more "free" software instead of proprietary software, then it's just the nature of its evolution.
I still can't see how people insist that there will be less demand for IT jobs. There may be less of a demand for designing and writing the software, if community efforts overtake proprietary efforts, but you'll still need to have people around to maintain and support the software and the end-users. It will be the same as it is today. My campus IT staff doesn't write their software. They use (mostly proprietary) solutions from several companies. The majority of their pay goes into configuring and maintaing these machines. At any rate, the demand for technical support staff increases all of the time as the needs for more computer-operated tasks increase.
Unless computers and robots do all of the programming and engineering in the future, I can't see how anyone can insist that there will be less IT related jobs. But then again - if robots and computers could program, why would we need to work in the first place? We could all sit on our asses and become philosophers.
Yes: I'm not being serious; I'm being facetious.
By the way. The level of contradiction in these Microsoft-funded reports never cease to amaze me. First, they insist that software like Linux costs more to support than Windows due to a need to higher more, and higher paid, IT staff. Then, they insist that Linux eliminates the need for IT jobs. When will it all end?
Yeah? Runs great on my test PC with a P3 450, Voodoo 3 (16MB), and 256 MB SDRAM. Hardly high-end by any means. Only about 150 MB of RAM is cached at any given time on the machine... That's cached, not "used". Most people don't understand how Gnome and Linux use memory, therefore they assume that it "uses too much".
This is all possible, but what is stopping anyone from adding groupware and Exchange features (from this GPL Connector code) into something like KMail.
;)
The way that I see it is this: We'll probably eventually have a million programs that will have compatibility with Exchange Server, all thanks to this GPL code. The only difference is that they won't be prone to Outlook viruses.