The US has the size, the geographical isolation, and the natural resources to be very powerful. It is able to defend its freedoms, where many smaller countries (eg Denmark next door to Germany in 1939) could not. It has even (thankfully) aided some of those other countries to recover their freedom, after neighboring bullies opppressed them (see WWI and WWII). It was not unique in assisting the liberation of the world at those times, but its sheer size and economic power made its help very advantageous.
However, that does not mean that US political culture is the most open and morally and politically free in the world. Nor was it the first country to embrace many of the freedoms it does possess (consider the abolition of slavery and female suffrage - both done elsewhere earlier). Nor does it mean that the US has always promoted those freedoms in other countries - it has on a number of occasions promoted tyranny *as a replacement to* democracy - and has happily kept its hemisphere secure at the cost of democracy in other nations.
Overall, the US's freedom has been a very good thing, but we should not make the mistake of thinking that it is the most free, the source of freedom, or the embodiment of freedom. It is simply the most powerful of the relatively free nations.
[real example] My friend downloads a Red Hat iso image from any of the zillions of Red Hat mirror sites and burns it onto a blank CD. I get him to burn me a copy as well ("save bandwidth, share it with a friend" - more efficient for the Internet than me downloading my own copy of the iso image).
This is not backup or space shifting, as far as I can see. It is dissemination, distribution.
Red Hat has no problem with this, as long as I don't expect support (I've never needed it). It is great PR for them, increases their visibility, creates a stock of experienced users, etc etc.
Your problem is?
PS: and even if Red Hat *did* object, Debian wouldn't. Read their licence.
I can only guess that you meant "rooter". But all the techies I know in Australia pronounce router as "rowter", not as "rooter". Although they do pronounce route as "root", not "rowt". (No one said the English language had to be consistent).
Or did I miss some other pun?
Physicists stop light....
on
Stopping Light
·
· Score: 1
Now I really can say that I work at the speed of light!
These ads aren't for geeks - they are for clueless bosses who believe that Bill Gates is some kind of technological guru who invented computing and the internet (yes, lots of people still think that).
The ads are all about perception - the kind of perception that really derives from experiences that are 5 to 15 years out of date (Unix before Linux), and that is easily dazzled by appearances (eg slick GUIs and marketing presentations that gloss over real-world complications).
Microsoft are masters of the big lie - otherwise known as propaganda or Marketing(tm). They will try very hard to pursuade the clueless bosses that they are being technically clued-in when they choose a Microsoft solution. This appeals to the boss's vanity, and they have no expertise to see through the hype they are swallowing.
It is no use ranting about how wrong or how hypocritical MS is, the point is that bosses don't know this, and won't believe it if you tell them (they believe that Gates is a super-guru, and they have never heard of Linus - and in any case Gates is a highly successful businessman, while Linus is somebody else's employee). Consequently, they will be vulnerable to the ads.
One other point: MS has its own marketing vulnerabilities: instability, email viruses, BSA audits, costly upgrade cycles, licensing changes,... and outside the US it is an import, with all the balance of trade and security issues that entails.
How come Anakin grows up so fast, and the Queen still looks like a teen?
Time slows down when you travel near the speed of light - so maybe Amidala has been aging more slowly due to frequent business trips around the galaxies.
I haven't got a clue what "the Bloomberg service" is, so that cannot be too "critical".
As for an Office, I am in one, and it has a Linux desktop in it...
As for users needing MS Office... well I know one user who thinks the only way to download pictures from a digital camera is to paste the photo into an empty Word document and save it. Of course, it plays havoc with his firm's web-based database system when he tries to upload the.DOC file as a picture....
Moral: Many users need Office, because they haven't a clue what they need.
Without limited liability, your "corporation" is just a partnership, and every individual in it (ie every partner) is liable for the actions of the contractual association.
Hmmm. Not a good idea, I think.
A corporation is *more* than just a bunch of people exercising their individual freedoms in concert.
I think that children should be free to play with whomever and at whatever games they want in the school playground. But there is a limitation - they must not commit criminal acts or bully other students.
A free market is not an unregulated market, any more than a free playground is an unregulated playground. The teacher doesn't has to tell children what games to play (save that for the PE lesson), but they do have to intervene if one child bullies another.
Microsoft has been found guilty of bullying in the IT playground. They need restraining. The alternative is not a free market, it is lawlessness.
Is it right to damage a companies profits and endanger jobs for people ? people with families to feed ?
Silly me!
And there I was, thinking that competition was the backbone of capitalism - the mutual attempt of businesses to outdo each other and thereby endanger each other's profits and employment!
Of course, propping up useless businesses is much more "right". I can see that now.
"Not to sound elitist, but the vast majority of posters on slashdot aren't qualified to have an opinion on "... anything.
However, the only way to know this is to let everyone express their opinion. That is why we have free speech. And scores. And moderators. And meta-moderators. And foreigners that complain. And... well, and the whole Slashdot thing, trolls and all.
Elitist? Moi?
Re:From an embarrassed Windows user
on
Wired Talks Wine
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I (and probably other Windows users) will switch when Linux outperforms Windows where it counts
Linux already outperforms Windows where it counts for me: performance, stability, freedom, licensing, price, availability of databases and programming tools (C, C++, Perl, fortran, Objective-C, awk, bash, DB, postgresql or mysql, and more - are all *just a normal part* of most Linux installs, but with Windows you are lucky to get QBasic or VBScript, which are jokes by comparison), cool interfaces (after Windowmaker, Windows is, well, a little pedestrian - I keep wanting to roll up windows, switch to other desktops, etc - and I hate task bars along the bottom or top of the screen - give me a few icons down the side, and a menu that *doesn't* have a misleading label like "Start".. and it is SO easy to create your own themes in WindowMaker)
And being dependent upon a single, monopolistic supplier, with proven predatory (anti-capitalistic) practices towards competition, security, and user independence - these count as things to avoid my books.
It is already time to switch. Windows is its own killer app.
Since so many things are manufactured in China and exported to the USA, who's to say that the Chinese haven't been doing this for years?
Gee, with millions of useless little plastic toys made in China, each bearing a high-tech listening device... it is no wonder China is so backward economically!
...MS to declare that the major security threat lies in other vendor's software and other OS's? After all, they used Win95 to kill off DR-DOS ("it isn't really compatible with the special code we added to Windows")
Then they will argue that they have to close up everything to bring about security: "Only MS products are really safe with MS Windows. Only MS protocols are secure."
This is not an anti-American rave. I am just puzzled. As far as I know, southern hemisphere countries are MORE likely to regard Christmas as THE holidays, because it is also summer here. So this is the most likely time for the "long break". Whereas you Americans have your long break in the middle of the year.
That aside, many fine people are working today, because it is bushfire season here - with a vengeance. We have half a dozen firetrucks - all crewed by volunteers - parked across the road, waiting for the fire front to come this way.
Now there is an un-insightful comment if ever I saw one.
Compare a person with typhoid fever, and a person with the common cold - and say after me:"There are health problems in BOTH persons". Yeah, right. There's no difference at all. Sure.
MS have gone all out on newby useability and speed; they have cut corners on security and efficiency (no, efficiency is NOT the same thing as speed). They have gone all out on internet gadgetry (pity the poor user with a standalone PC and all that mandatory networking cruft), but left out sensible safeguards which have existed in Unix for decades (eg don't give every process total control over the system, as is the case in all the Win9x OSs).
Sorry, but Microsoft products are "unsafe at any speed" - their security is appalling. In any other industry, they would be banned for negligent product design (think Ralph Nader and the auto industry). Public and private organisations (and users like you) are too hooked to see that after 20 years in business, MS is producing worse quality stuff than they did in the 1980s.
It is all because of that monopoly thing, and lack of competition - the driving force of innovation (not "we know best", which is MS's current approach to security and competition).
On security, Microsoft DESERVE to have the finger pointed at them.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, mod this one up, or the parent down. This is more informative than the whinger who tries the wrong program, and then complains.
I want a quiet office, not a playpen
Well, I think of playpens as being more for the Macintosh types...
[ducks]
The US has the size, the geographical isolation, and the natural resources to be very powerful. It is able to defend its freedoms, where many smaller countries (eg Denmark next door to Germany in 1939) could not. It has even (thankfully) aided some of those other countries to recover their freedom, after neighboring bullies opppressed them (see WWI and WWII). It was not unique in assisting the liberation of the world at those times, but its sheer size and economic power made its help very advantageous.
However, that does not mean that US political culture is the most open and morally and politically free in the world. Nor was it the first country to embrace many of the freedoms it does possess (consider the abolition of slavery and female suffrage - both done elsewhere earlier).
Nor does it mean that the US has always promoted those freedoms in other countries - it has on a number of occasions promoted tyranny *as a replacement to* democracy - and has happily kept its hemisphere secure at the cost of democracy in other nations.
Overall, the US's freedom has been a very good thing, but we should not make the mistake of thinking that it is the most free, the source of freedom, or the embodiment of freedom. It is simply the most powerful of the relatively free nations.
[real example] My friend downloads a Red Hat iso image from any of the zillions of Red Hat mirror sites and burns it onto a blank CD. I get him to burn me a copy as well ("save bandwidth, share it with a friend" - more efficient for the Internet than me downloading my own copy of the iso image).
This is not backup or space shifting, as far as I can see. It is dissemination, distribution.
Red Hat has no problem with this, as long as I don't expect support (I've never needed it). It is great PR for them, increases their visibility, creates a stock of experienced users, etc etc.
Your problem is?
PS: and even if Red Hat *did* object, Debian wouldn't. Read their licence.
You have to be Australian to fully get this pun.
I can only guess that you meant "rooter". But all the techies I know in Australia pronounce router as "rowter", not as "rooter". Although they do pronounce route as "root", not "rowt". (No one said the English language had to be consistent).
Or did I miss some other pun?
Now I really can say that I work at the speed of light!
These ads aren't for geeks - they are for clueless bosses who believe that Bill Gates is some kind of technological guru who invented computing and the internet (yes, lots of people still think that).
... and outside the US it is an import, with all the balance of trade and security issues that entails.
The ads are all about perception - the kind of perception that really derives from experiences that are 5 to 15 years out of date (Unix before Linux), and that is easily dazzled by appearances (eg slick GUIs and marketing presentations that gloss over real-world complications).
Microsoft are masters of the big lie - otherwise known as propaganda or Marketing(tm). They will try very hard to pursuade the clueless bosses that they are being technically clued-in when they choose a Microsoft solution. This appeals to the boss's vanity, and they have no expertise to see through the hype they are swallowing.
It is no use ranting about how wrong or how hypocritical MS is, the point is that bosses don't know this, and won't believe it if you tell them (they believe that Gates is a super-guru, and they have never heard of Linus - and in any case Gates is a highly successful businessman, while Linus is somebody else's employee). Consequently, they will be vulnerable to the ads.
One other point: MS has its own marketing vulnerabilities: instability, email viruses, BSA audits, costly upgrade cycles, licensing changes,
It's something else entirely, something new and hostile to ideals we've held for over 225 years.
The term "business fascism" leapt to my mind when I read your post.
we have no idea where to start.
"The "
How come Anakin grows up so fast, and the Queen still looks like a teen?
Time slows down when you travel near the speed of light - so maybe Amidala has been aging more slowly due to frequent business trips around the galaxies.
I haven't got a clue what "the Bloomberg service" is, so that cannot be too "critical".
As for an Office, I am in one, and it has a Linux desktop in it...
As for users needing MS Office ... well I know one user who thinks the only way to download pictures from a digital camera is to paste the photo into an empty Word document and save it. Of course, it plays havoc with his firm's web-based database system when he tries to upload the .DOC file as a picture....
Moral: Many users need Office, because they haven't a clue what they need.
Limited liability - I think you missed that out.
Rather important omission, actually.
Without limited liability, your "corporation" is just a partnership, and every individual in it (ie every partner) is liable for the actions of the contractual association.
Hmmm. Not a good idea, I think.
A corporation is *more* than just a bunch of people exercising their individual freedoms in concert.
I think that children should be free to play with whomever and at whatever games they want in the school playground. But there is a limitation - they must not commit criminal acts or bully other students.
A free market is not an unregulated market, any more than a free playground is an unregulated playground. The teacher doesn't has to tell children what games to play (save that for the PE lesson), but they do have to intervene if one child bullies another.
Microsoft has been found guilty of bullying in the IT playground. They need restraining. The alternative is not a free market, it is lawlessness.
Is it right to damage a companies profits and endanger jobs for people ? people with families to feed ?
Silly me!
And there I was, thinking that competition was the backbone of capitalism - the mutual attempt of businesses to outdo each other and thereby endanger each other's profits and employment!
Of course, propping up useless businesses is much more "right". I can see that now.
"Not to sound elitist, but the vast majority of posters on slashdot aren't qualified to have an opinion on " ... anything.
However, the only way to know this is to let everyone express their opinion. That is why we have free speech. And scores. And moderators. And meta-moderators. And foreigners that complain. And ... well, and the whole Slashdot thing, trolls and all.
Elitist? Moi?
I (and probably other Windows users) will switch when Linux outperforms Windows where it counts
Linux already outperforms Windows where it counts for me: performance, stability, freedom, licensing, price, availability of databases and programming tools (C, C++, Perl, fortran, Objective-C, awk, bash, DB, postgresql or mysql, and more - are all *just a normal part* of most Linux installs, but with Windows you are lucky to get QBasic or VBScript, which are jokes by comparison), cool interfaces (after Windowmaker, Windows is, well, a little pedestrian - I keep wanting to roll up windows, switch to other desktops, etc - and I hate task bars along the bottom or top of the screen - give me a few icons down the side, and a menu that *doesn't* have a misleading label like "Start" .. and it is SO easy to create your own themes in WindowMaker)
And being dependent upon a single, monopolistic supplier, with proven predatory (anti-capitalistic) practices towards competition, security, and user independence - these count as things to avoid my books.
It is already time to switch. Windows is its own killer app.
The $2 million conclusion? Khruschev needed more fibre in his diet.
Yeah, well, he was eating all that American food, like hamburgers, hot dogs, ....
Since so many things are manufactured in China and exported to the USA, who's to say that the Chinese haven't been doing this for years?
Gee, with millions of useless little plastic toys made in China, each bearing a high-tech listening device ... it is no wonder China is so backward economically!
...MS to declare that the major security threat lies in other vendor's software and other OS's? After all, they used Win95 to kill off DR-DOS ("it isn't really compatible with the special code we added to Windows")
Then they will argue that they have to close up everything to bring about security: "Only MS products are really safe with MS Windows. Only MS protocols are secure."
Then the Big Lie: "you are only safe with us"
"Win98 AND Win2000" - single vendor
"all flavors of Unix" - many competing vendors
There is a difference.
And "cross-platform" != "universal"
Does slickedit run on CP/M? AmigaDOS?
they favor English ... And they're not even Americans!
There are 800 million English speaking people in the world (or something in that ballpark).
There are less than 300 million Americans.
Therefore, the majority of English-speaking people are not .... go on, try hard, you can work it out, it begins with an 'A'!
It sure sounds like a big come-down after all the heavy adult stuff in the first series, like ... ewoks.
I remember watching 'A New Hope' in the 1970s as a university student - the average age in the cinema crowd must have been 13. I felt so old.
PS: does anyone else think of the next episode as Attack of the Clowns?
Why "especially in America"?
This is not an anti-American rave. I am just puzzled. As far as I know, southern hemisphere countries are MORE likely to regard Christmas as THE holidays, because it is also summer here. So this is the most likely time for the "long break". Whereas you Americans have your long break in the middle of the year.
That aside, many fine people are working today, because it is bushfire season here - with a vengeance. We have half a dozen firetrucks - all crewed by volunteers - parked across the road, waiting for the fire front to come this way.
There are security problems in EVERY OS
Now there is an un-insightful comment if ever I saw one.
Compare a person with typhoid fever, and a person with the common cold - and say after me:"There are health problems in BOTH persons". Yeah, right. There's no difference at all. Sure.
MS have gone all out on newby useability and speed; they have cut corners on security and efficiency (no, efficiency is NOT the same thing as speed). They have gone all out on internet gadgetry (pity the poor user with a standalone PC and all that mandatory networking cruft), but left out sensible safeguards which have existed in Unix for decades (eg don't give every process total control over the system, as is the case in all the Win9x OSs).
Sorry, but Microsoft products are "unsafe at any speed" - their security is appalling. In any other industry, they would be banned for negligent product design (think Ralph Nader and the auto industry). Public and private organisations (and users like you) are too hooked to see that after 20 years in business, MS is producing worse quality stuff than they did in the 1980s.
It is all because of that monopoly thing, and lack of competition - the driving force of innovation (not "we know best", which is MS's current approach to security and competition).
On security, Microsoft DESERVE to have the finger pointed at them.
Traditionally there's only 2 charges that can be enforced extra-territorily, but only on ones own citizens - Piracy on the high seas & treason.
I thought polygamy overseas was illegal as well. You can't just go overseas, marry 4 wives and claim it is legal in the country you went to.
Of course IANAL - why would lawyers be reading Slashdot?