Gee whiz, "capitalism and socialism are only two examples" - and that is insightful????
Whatever happened to the *variety* of conceptions of socialism? What about worker-managed co-operatives as an alternative to state-managed top-down controlled businesses? What about producer-consumer communes like the kibbutzim? What about Robert Owen's Rochdale?
Even capitalism has more than one way of being organised (e.g. state ownership of large firms, and private ownership of small firms; or total private ownership, even of prisons, armies, police, etc - through outsourcing all services).
The only thing that "capitalism and socialism are only two examples" of is a lack of imagination.
Glad to see they are stamping out "socialism in one town" before it spreads and swamps the nation.
But doesn't this *limit* the democratic choices of the citizens of those places ***who might want*** such a service from their local government?
i.e. this might be an ideological law to enforce *one* particular view of the relationship between services and (local) government. One size may not necesssarily fit all circumstances well.
But what do I care, I hold shares in a government owned Telco.
MS leverage their monopoly in one market (Office Suites) to uphold their monopoly in another market (Operating Systems). If it wasn't for MS Office, many companies would have switched to Linux (or other OSs) already. And they use their monopoly in the OS market to gather more and more monopolies in other software markets (firewalls may be next).
Monopolies are BAD for consumers. The lack of competition gives no incentive to lower prices or to innovate. MS are big, fat and lazy now. They innovate when THEY feel like it (any tabs yet in Internet Explorer?)
Break up is the best solution. One company for their internet services (MSN, Internet Explorer, etc); one company for Office software, including their databases; and one company for core Operating Systems.
THIS breaks their leveraging of one monopoly with another.
Then all protocols and file formats with more than (say) 80% of the market must be publicly documented. Adobe can document the PDF format, allowing alternative readers (xpdf) and writers (OpenOffice, PHP, etc) - so MS can document their formats and protocols.
MS do not, and can never, own the world. It is time they learned their lesson!
Even the die-hard Windows fanatics should be grateful that Linux is around to give Microsoft a big kick and wake it up out of its non-competitive slumber.
They will benefit, and we won't even charge them - Microsoft will!
Maybe SWT is the answer - it is fast, Java, and uses either Gtk or Motif on Linux, while also running on Win32 without a recompile. Swing sucks for speed, and AWT just plain sucks.
Gee, isn't it nice that the world falls neatly into two packages called "capitalism" and "communism"? It would be terribly confusing if the world were more complex than that.
Imagine if communism were only one of many varieties of socialisms - and there were others like anarchism, syndicalism, worker-cooperatives, etc. Perhaps the open source movement is more like Anarchism (*not* anarchy) - each little project governs itself, and there IS NO central government over all - just voluntary associations and casual interactions via conferences etc. Apache does its thing; the kernel does its thing; XFree does (or doesn't) do its thing - and so on. Not communism at all - but a very different kind of socialism (shared, co-operative activity). It isn't even 'democratic' - it is de-centralised, and has no overall government whether democratic or autocratic. So: The communists of the 20thC advocated totalitarian state control. One opposing form of socialism therefore advocates democratic, constitutionally-limited state control (democratic socialism), and another advocates no state at all, but a voluntary association of local projects (Anarchism). A simple communism/capitalism dichotomy isn't going to work.
I'm really getting bored with people bringing up the former iraqi minister of communications every time SCO says something evasive. Look, the Iraqi guy had his 5 seconds of fame (or infamy) a *year* ago.
Find a new joke. One a year shouldn't be too hard.
And go look up the word 'stale' in a dictionary. Especially the adjective.
Perhaps the little guy is just a surrogate for someone REALLY big - who doesn't want the publicity just now.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe someone who is still under the attention of the courts for abusing their monopoly position in a software market. And who wouldn't want to be caught just now abusing that position even more.
Umm, isn't legislating against 'murder' a breach of rights (to free use of handguns for instance)? Gun-owners shold be able to do what they want, how the hell do you think the US got to have the highest murder rate in the OECD world? It wasn't just because of a war that happened fifty years ago.
Murderers have become the new scapegoats for our failures to live a long and fear-free life.
Gee whiz. Wyhen will you right-whingers EVER learn the difference between liberty and lawlessness?
I have found the Internet to be very helpful for traditional languages. The peer-to-peer nature of the Internet allows minority language speakers to communicate more easily with each other (e.g. Plattdeutsch speakers in America and North Germany have arranged reciprocal visits, etc). And I have been able to purchase obscure foreign language books from other countries via the web that would never be sold in my own country. Technology is not always the enemy of traditional languages.
I actually *have* taught myself a "dying" language for the sheer joy of it - Plattdeutsch - and read a number of books in it. I would recommend such a hobby to anyone interested in other languages and cultures. I think the obscurity of the language is part of the attraction - a bit like collecting rare stamps.
Some other possibilities are Faeroese (not dying, but obscure), Frisian (closely related to English), Occitan (south of France), Cornish (dead, but revived), Rumansch (Switzerland), Romnimos ("Gypsy"), Wendish/Sorbian, and the extinct Prussian language. Americans might also consider Hawaiian.
Although these languages are obscure, it is possible to find documentation on most of them, often on the web - and in major university libraries. Quite a few of these languages are also represented by small colonies of immigrants in the US.
It might be a little easier if you send an RPM file in email, but then the user opens the file and is asked "Are you sure you want to install package 'such-and-such'?" by the friendly rpm gui manager.
My browser keeps trying to open rpm's with realplayer.
Re:Try this in the US. 'specially in the south...
on
Kazaa Offices Raided
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· Score: 1
The United States of America have a long tradition of people's rights, human rights, democracy and personal freedom.
Provided you aren't black, or a native American,...
Typical American. Never stops to think that seasons are NOT universal. It is currently mid-to-late summer. What! Not where you are? Welcome to the world, mate!
Slashdot Mirror
Gee whiz, "capitalism and socialism are only two examples" - and that is insightful????
Whatever happened to the *variety* of conceptions of socialism? What about worker-managed co-operatives as an alternative to state-managed top-down controlled businesses? What about producer-consumer communes like the kibbutzim? What about Robert Owen's Rochdale?
Even capitalism has more than one way of being organised (e.g. state ownership of large firms, and private ownership of small firms; or total private ownership, even of prisons, armies, police, etc - through outsourcing all services).
The only thing that "capitalism and socialism are only two examples" of is a lack of imagination.
How much Australian music do you listen to?
Glad to see they are stamping out "socialism in one town" before it spreads and swamps the nation.
But doesn't this *limit* the democratic choices of the citizens of those places ***who might want*** such a service from their local government?
i.e. this might be an ideological law to enforce *one* particular view of the relationship between services and (local) government. One size may not necesssarily fit all circumstances well.
But what do I care, I hold shares in a government owned Telco.
The fun question is: do MS themselves know what the interfaces are, or are some of them such leaky awful hacks that MS are ashamed to publish them?
And what about the quality of the documentation? Vague stuff, no explanation of why oddly-named functions exist, and "unintentional" omissions?
Policing this could be fun. It is not like MS have only one or two APIs.
They would never dream of foot-dragging or defying a government order that they disagreed with.
If time didn't exist, we would have no use for our serial ports.
Let's say in 5 years, everybody will switch to Mac and start getting Mac viruses. Wouldn't you like 5 years without viruses??
Why only 5 years? Switch the opposite way to everybody else, and you will remain virus free.
So email viruses are Nature's way of eliminating the Microsoft monoculture?
Yes , indeed!
MS leverage their monopoly in one market (Office Suites) to uphold their monopoly in another market (Operating Systems). If it wasn't for MS Office, many companies would have switched to Linux (or other OSs) already. And they use their monopoly in the OS market to gather more and more monopolies in other software markets (firewalls may be next).
Monopolies are BAD for consumers. The lack of competition gives no incentive to lower prices or to innovate. MS are big, fat and lazy now. They innovate when THEY feel like it (any tabs yet in Internet Explorer?)
Break up is the best solution. One company for their internet services (MSN, Internet Explorer, etc); one company for Office software, including their databases; and one company for core Operating Systems.
THIS breaks their leveraging of one monopoly with another.
Then all protocols and file formats with more than (say) 80% of the market must be publicly documented. Adobe can document the PDF format, allowing alternative readers (xpdf) and writers (OpenOffice, PHP, etc) - so MS can document their formats and protocols.
MS do not, and can never, own the world. It is time they learned their lesson!
Even the die-hard Windows fanatics should be grateful that Linux is around to give Microsoft a big kick and wake it up out of its non-competitive slumber.
They will benefit, and we won't even charge them - Microsoft will!
VMWare is a good example of a product that geeks will pay money to buy.
It is a power user's tool, and it is cool programming.
Ummm IBM, SGI and lots of other profit-oriented companies have contributed code to Linux. Do they actually believe in "freedom"?
Freedom from Microsoft. Yup! They sure do.
Maybe SWT is the answer - it is fast, Java, and uses either Gtk or Motif on Linux, while also running on Win32 without a recompile. Swing sucks for speed, and AWT just plain sucks.
And remember - Mono is short for "Monopolistic"
I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.
Gee, isn't it nice that the world falls neatly into two packages called "capitalism" and "communism"? It would be terribly confusing if the world were more complex than that.
Imagine if communism were only one of many varieties of socialisms - and there were others like anarchism, syndicalism, worker-cooperatives, etc. Perhaps the open source movement is more like Anarchism (*not* anarchy) - each little project governs itself, and there IS NO central government over all - just voluntary associations and casual interactions via conferences etc. Apache does its thing; the kernel does its thing; XFree does (or doesn't) do its thing - and so on. Not communism at all - but a very different kind of socialism (shared, co-operative activity). It isn't even 'democratic' - it is de-centralised, and has no overall government whether democratic or autocratic.
So: The communists of the 20thC advocated totalitarian state control. One opposing form of socialism therefore advocates democratic, constitutionally-limited state control (democratic socialism), and another advocates no state at all, but a voluntary association of local projects (Anarchism). A simple communism/capitalism dichotomy isn't going to work.
I'm really getting bored with people bringing up the former iraqi minister of communications every time SCO says something evasive. Look, the Iraqi guy had his 5 seconds of fame (or infamy) a *year* ago.
Find a new joke. One a year shouldn't be too hard.
And go look up the word 'stale' in a dictionary. Especially the adjective.
Perhaps the little guy is just a surrogate for someone REALLY big - who doesn't want the publicity just now.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe someone who is still under the attention of the courts for abusing their monopoly position in a software market. And who wouldn't want to be caught just now abusing that position even more.
IMDb lists the language of RotK as English/Sindarin.
So maybe it should have been nominated as best foreign language film.
What about the Princess Bride?
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"
Ah, what you are saying is ... not Microsoft, but Mafiasoft!
Umm, isn't legislating against 'murder' a breach of rights (to free use of handguns for instance)? Gun-owners shold be able to do what they want, how the hell do you think the US got to have the highest murder rate in the OECD world? It wasn't just because of a war that happened fifty years ago.
Murderers have become the new scapegoats for our failures to live a long and fear-free life.
Gee whiz. Wyhen will you right-whingers EVER learn the difference between liberty and lawlessness?
I have found the Internet to be very helpful for traditional languages. The peer-to-peer nature of the Internet allows minority language speakers to communicate more easily with each other (e.g. Plattdeutsch speakers in America and North Germany have arranged reciprocal visits, etc). And I have been able to purchase obscure foreign language books from other countries via the web that would never be sold in my own country. Technology is not always the enemy of traditional languages.
I actually *have* taught myself a "dying" language for the sheer joy of it - Plattdeutsch - and read a number of books in it. I would recommend such a hobby to anyone interested in other languages and cultures. I think the obscurity of the language is part of the attraction - a bit like collecting rare stamps.
Some other possibilities are Faeroese (not dying, but obscure), Frisian (closely related to English), Occitan (south of France), Cornish (dead, but revived), Rumansch (Switzerland), Romnimos ("Gypsy"), Wendish/Sorbian, and the extinct Prussian language. Americans might also consider Hawaiian.
Although these languages are obscure, it is possible to find documentation on most of them, often on the web - and in major university libraries. Quite a few of these languages are also represented by small colonies of immigrants in the US.
It might be a little easier if you send an RPM file in email, but then the user opens the file and is asked "Are you sure you want to install package 'such-and-such'?" by the friendly rpm gui manager.
My browser keeps trying to open rpm's with realplayer.
The United States of America have a long tradition of people's rights, human rights, democracy and personal freedom.
Provided you aren't black, or a native American, ...
"this fall"
Typical American. Never stops to think that seasons are NOT universal. It is currently mid-to-late summer. What! Not where you are? Welcome to the world, mate!
So will Amazon patent a method of influencing a politican by means of a single mouse-click?