Seriously, why? It's not like the addition of Linux on the hard drive is going to garner any more sales of the product.
Why not just let those people who really want to download Linux and run it on their PS3 (all, what, a couple of thousand maybe, if that?) to do that and spend your corporate time and effort into something else?
Hell, I'm all for adoption of other operating systems, but I really can't work out what advantages this is going to give anyone - save for about 10 minutes of downloading and transferring over to the PS3 for the small legion of hardcore individuals who want to give this a go.
What you're saying is that just because Microsoft created a DRM system, doesn't make them evil.
I never said that. Don't put words into my mouth.
I am pointing out that when people complain about the restrictions placed on music, they conveniantly forget that there is someone in-between Microsoft and the punter that makes the actual decision on how restrictive they will be.
Just because someone gives you something that can, doesn't mean that you do.
Do you vent your anger at gun companies because they make something that could kill people? Or would it be more appropriate to direct it at the people that actually made the choice to take someones life?
Finally, I have no problem with you claiming that Microsoft are guilty of corporate greed for making something which can be licenced to other. So does the rest of the worlds corporations in one way or another and if you're going to hate them too, well that might make you a little too bitter and twisted for anyones good.
I am a apologist for no-one. However I do understand that how people chose to use technology is often dictated by the people that purchase and manage it and not by the people who wrote and sold it.
Why can't these companies use a normal format like.mp3?
Having worked with downloadable music content I can tell you that getting the music industry labels to agree to non-DRM'ed content in any format is practically impossible. They are so paranoid about their music being "stolen" that they won't accept anything else.
(which, to be fair, the volumes traded on Kazaa do give their paranoia some justification - even if DRM has been proven time and time again not to actually work or prevent it)
The music industry attitude that I've come across is simple... if you aren't prepared to sell our content with DRM, then you don't get our content.
Granted, the big labels aren't the be all and end all and there are labels which have a more enlightened view - however 80% of a services revenue will be chart related and, as such, they have to have the big labels on board to be able to provide that coverage.
Finally, I do understand that there are some legitimate sites out there that do sell MP3's with no DRM. I've never been to them, but if they are selling big label content like this legally then I have no idea how they managed to agree such a deal.
Before we get the inevitable whine of people claiming that Microsoft's DRM is evil, please be aware that (up until this announcement) they merely provide the functionality for someone else to make a DRM'ed item of content as "nice" or as "evil" as they'd like.
In other words, you can't blame them if Napster set the DRM of certain music to the most fascist restrictions possible. That wrath should be directed at the people who made that decision, not those that made that functionality possible.
Personally, I'm interested to see what buying power they will have with the labels who will, naturally, try and enforce heavily DRM'ed content which will only serve to put customers off.
In addition, how the EU (America might make noises, but as shown in the past, won't do anything much about it) will view the integration of their music service with the "buy music" link in XP.
In the struggle to retain an element of control over their suppliers, H-P, Dell and others play contract manufacturers against each other to keep prices falling and ensure no supplier gains too much leverage
... and how this is different from every other industry?
As a consumer, if you want your products nice and cheap, then these sorts of negotiations are par for the course. If they didn't do it, you'd take your money elsewhere.
Doesn't matter -- the Treo 650 is killing the Blackberry anyway.
Over here in the UK, only one operator sells the Treo (Orange) and the others aren't remotely interested in them. As such, Blackberry's heavily outnumber Treo's.
Once I found I could manage my servers with PalmVNC on the Treo, that was it for me.
To be fair, I don't think that really is a killer reason for the majority of people.
Don't forget that Microsoft are also hot on the heels with their SP2 for Exchange 2003 (linky) so this isn't a good time for RIM.
t is called "Universal Media disc", because calling it "restrictive media disc" wouldn't look as good to your customers...you can likely thank the marketing department for making up that name.
I have no doubt that at some point in the future it will become a universal media format.
Univeral to Sony's products and only Sony's products mind you - just like the Memory Stick Duo/Pro/Whatever.
I know that I'm in the minority here, but it would be nice that, instead of rolling out newer and cooler projects to America only, Google remembered that they have an equally large (if not larger?) user base in Europe who also made a significant contribution to their success.
Yes, we did (eventually) get Froogle here in the UK, but I don't believe any of the other countries have. Google maps also arrived, but again, I don't believe it covers anywhere else.
Now you have satellite imagery and 3D maps and again the UK hope for it and the rest of Europe seems to be out on a limb.
I have no doubt that the UK will eventually see this stuff (as with the others) and for that I am thankful - however our friends elsewhere in Euroland I fear will never see the light of day of some of this rather cool products.
It is quite simple really, let Firefox/Opera do all the R&D and find out what the "must-haves" are and what is fluff, then tag along.
... and Firefox didn't do this with Opera in what way? Tabbed browsing and gestures are two to get you started.
Oh and don't forget that Firefox borrowed some stuff from IE too.
Sure, they have done some pretty neat original functionality - but don't assume that Microsoft do nothing and Firefox does all the R&D work as Opera might have something to say about that.
So with IE7, what's the draw? What features will it have that will encourage me to jump ship again? The feature list doesn't impress me as much as the jump from Netscape 3 to IE 4 did.
I don't believe that Microsoft are intending IE 7 to draw people from Firefox, but rather encourage users not to consider switching. Remember, they still have 90%+ of the market share so getting back those 10% isn't going to be a priority. However keeping the 90% is.
And security is not an issue with Firefox, so that's not a good enough reason.
Funny, I've been seeing rather a lot of security related alerts regarding Firefox recently. Granted it's not as wideopen as IE - but saying that security isn't an issue is a tad off the mark.
The browser will also improve Web page printing capabilities like the automatic "fit-to-page" feature, Mangione disclosed.
Hopefully this will be copied (a la the yellow information strip) into Firefox pretty soon. I'm fed up of printing a page only to find that the rightmost 20% is missing.
I have no problems with a company telling me that I cannot use work email or web for personal communication or surfing.
However, if they do, then they must also appreciate that outside of standard working hours I will do nothing for them.
If they aren't willing to accept a small amount of encroachment of personal stuff into work time - then they have absolutely no right to expect any encroachment of work stuff into my personal time.
They can't have it one way without it working the other.
I come to slashdot not for late breaking, fresh news, but for the discussion that follows. Who really cares if a submission is a dupe? You are not forced to read it, just skip it and go on to the next one.
(emphasis mine)
Some people say that about junk email too (replace "submission" with "email" and "dupe" with "spam") but there is rather a large industry working to combat such a thing because it's not seen as acceptable to "just skip it and go on to the next one".
If this was a free site with the editors doing it in their free time, then we wouldn't be able to complain. But it isn't, there is a subscription service and the editors are paid to manage the site.
As such, the level of expectations that visitors have of what they receive tend to be higher than that of a not-for-profit part-time hobbiest website.
I'm still looking forward to the day when you can ctrl-click a link and have the tab open immediately to the right of the currently active one and not at the far end of a line of tabs.
So far, the only way I've found of solving this is to download the miniT extension and then modify a text file. This is 2005, not 1995.
Maybe i'm in the minority here on Slashdot, but I'm tired of a hulking great ATX tower blowing hot air everywhere and making a hell of a noise to inform me that is it on.
Something like this would be great for sticking in a flat where space is at a premium and/or you want something that looks good and doesn't make a lot of noise.
It would be nice if companies now concentrated on size and quietness rather than mhz. If my next PC was smaller than a shoebox (and just as expandable) then I'd be there in a shot.
Of course I could just get a Mac Mini, but having lots of money invested in PC software, I'm not yet prepared to make the switch.
I am a big open source fan, but I can't disagree with this. Most open source applications are built as replacements for commercial applications.
So what exactly was it that products like sendmail, bind, apache, etc where copying from the closed source world?
He said "most" not "all". Freshmeat has a large list of applications written to replace commercial ones. In a lot of cases the user interface is very very similar.
It also seems that Internet Explorer starts to rip off features, which where introduced with open source browsers.
Don't forget that the Firefox developers copied the yellow alert strip directly from IE.
It's hardly going to be a threat to iTunes. The DRM WMA files won't play on ipods, which have over 80% of the hard disk player market and 58% of the flash player market.
iTunes and iPod's may be #1 at the moment but it can't and won't stay that way forever.
Sure, it may take time but at some point others will catch up - even if it is by simply copying what Apple does.
For an illustration of this check out Zen's ADSL service. 8 static IPs for no extra charge, up to 2mbps at 20:1 contention, no caps... not bad eh.
Not bad, however for 17.99 BT gives you 1 mbs, but Zen charges you 15.31 for only get a quarter of that speed. To match your speed on Zen with BT you'd have to part with just under 30 quid a month.
Also, you only get the 20:1 contention at 38 quid a month. The lower packages are 50:1 (I don't know what BT's contention is).
Thats not to say that BT's is good (or Zen's is bad), after all, the no cap is nice but it's offset by the slower speeds.
Connecting fails 9 times out of 10 with errors messages such as "no response from the server"
If I phone them on the landline, the connection invariably drops.
Even if I don't phone them, the connection will, without warning and randomly, drop.
I don't have broadband myself, I'm trying to troubleshoot over the phone with no real idea what is going on and getting very little help ("an error has occurred" is all very fine and well but getting specific details out of someone who is barely computer literate such as what the specific error message and code is trying to say the least).
Phoning BT technical support has been a disaster, so far I gave up after sitting for 25 minutes in a queue and being told for the 100th time that my call is "important to them".
Whatever happened to just plugging it in, installing the software and it just working(tm)?
Re:Innovate, not copy
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
If Microsoft would innovate, instead of copy, then Gates would not have to be envious of Google's success and coolness.
Personally, I don't really have a problem with Microsoft (or any other company) copying as long as they do it well and add a few new features or a bit of additional polish to the mix.
There seems to be this Slashdot-think that companies should always come up with radical innovations. Even Google hasn't, after all, plenty of companies were doing searching, web-mail and news browsing way before them. They just took an idea, added a few new features and a bit of polish.
As for Microsoft, without sounding like zealot either way, everything they've tried outside of Windows has been a humbling experience but they are persistant. Last time I looked their PDA/Smartphone line is looking strong and their media centre isn't bad at all. The problems they've had with the XBox come down to the radically different style of market - you can't just throw out incremental OS releases on a month by month basis.
As I wrote previously, having suffered the painful experience that is the Sony Ericsson P910, I am actually looking forward to going back to the HTC Magician. Thats not to say that WinCE is heaven, far from it, but it has come on in leaps and bounds.
This is not so much a problem where i live but in the USA as i understand it many people are loosing their jobs in the tech industry thanks to companys trying to save a fair bit by outsourcing to cheaper areas
Essentially, the business model (of having development in the US or similar countries) is a failing one and, as such, if companies do not wish to find themselves disappearing - they need to adopt to the changing market or die.
Sound familiar? It's the key point made by people on here about the RIAA and MPAA's business models. If it doesn't work any more, it's time to change it.
Unfortunately it's really easy to rationalise it when you have nothing to do with that market (a la music and the RIAA) but when it starts to directly affect you (outsourcing) then the arguments become more emotional.
Last time I checked people have a definitive list of what they want a PDA to do. As far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter if it's written in Cobol and runs on the same chip as the ZX81 as long as it does what they want. Often this is:
Syncs nicely with Outlook
Calendar, contacts, notes and tasks
Alarms, reminders
Logical UI
Ability to see what they have to do soon/today on one screen
Small, light, good looking, nice screen, long battery life
Plenty of applications - preferably free (as in at no-cost)
Having Linux on a PDA isn't a big seller to many. We have Linux on phones and people still say "so what?". The magical cost savings that Linux supposidly gives aren't passed onto the customer - at the end of the day, its what runs on top of the OS and what features and functionality it has, not what the OS is.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just let those people who really want to download Linux and run it on their PS3 (all, what, a couple of thousand maybe, if that?) to do that and spend your corporate time and effort into something else?
Hell, I'm all for adoption of other operating systems, but I really can't work out what advantages this is going to give anyone - save for about 10 minutes of downloading and transferring over to the PS3 for the small legion of hardcore individuals who want to give this a go.
I never said that. Don't put words into my mouth.
I am pointing out that when people complain about the restrictions placed on music, they conveniantly forget that there is someone in-between Microsoft and the punter that makes the actual decision on how restrictive they will be.
Just because someone gives you something that can, doesn't mean that you do.
Do you vent your anger at gun companies because they make something that could kill people? Or would it be more appropriate to direct it at the people that actually made the choice to take someones life?
Finally, I have no problem with you claiming that Microsoft are guilty of corporate greed for making something which can be licenced to other. So does the rest of the worlds corporations in one way or another and if you're going to hate them too, well that might make you a little too bitter and twisted for anyones good.
I am a apologist for no-one. However I do understand that how people chose to use technology is often dictated by the people that purchase and manage it and not by the people who wrote and sold it.
Having worked with downloadable music content I can tell you that getting the music industry labels to agree to non-DRM'ed content in any format is practically impossible. They are so paranoid about their music being "stolen" that they won't accept anything else.
(which, to be fair, the volumes traded on Kazaa do give their paranoia some justification - even if DRM has been proven time and time again not to actually work or prevent it)
The music industry attitude that I've come across is simple ... if you aren't prepared to sell our content with DRM, then you don't get our content.
Granted, the big labels aren't the be all and end all and there are labels which have a more enlightened view - however 80% of a services revenue will be chart related and, as such, they have to have the big labels on board to be able to provide that coverage.
Finally, I do understand that there are some legitimate sites out there that do sell MP3's with no DRM. I've never been to them, but if they are selling big label content like this legally then I have no idea how they managed to agree such a deal.
In other words, you can't blame them if Napster set the DRM of certain music to the most fascist restrictions possible. That wrath should be directed at the people who made that decision, not those that made that functionality possible.
Personally, I'm interested to see what buying power they will have with the labels who will, naturally, try and enforce heavily DRM'ed content which will only serve to put customers off.
In addition, how the EU (America might make noises, but as shown in the past, won't do anything much about it) will view the integration of their music service with the "buy music" link in XP.
As a consumer, if you want your products nice and cheap, then these sorts of negotiations are par for the course. If they didn't do it, you'd take your money elsewhere.
Over here in the UK, only one operator sells the Treo (Orange) and the others aren't remotely interested in them. As such, Blackberry's heavily outnumber Treo's.
Once I found I could manage my servers with PalmVNC on the Treo, that was it for me.
To be fair, I don't think that really is a killer reason for the majority of people.
Don't forget that Microsoft are also hot on the heels with their SP2 for Exchange 2003 (linky) so this isn't a good time for RIM.
I have no doubt that at some point in the future it will become a universal media format.
Univeral to Sony's products and only Sony's products mind you - just like the Memory Stick Duo/Pro/Whatever.
Yes, we did (eventually) get Froogle here in the UK, but I don't believe any of the other countries have. Google maps also arrived, but again, I don't believe it covers anywhere else.
Now you have satellite imagery and 3D maps and again the UK hope for it and the rest of Europe seems to be out on a limb.
I have no doubt that the UK will eventually see this stuff (as with the others) and for that I am thankful - however our friends elsewhere in Euroland I fear will never see the light of day of some of this rather cool products.
Oh and don't forget that Firefox borrowed some stuff from IE too.
Sure, they have done some pretty neat original functionality - but don't assume that Microsoft do nothing and Firefox does all the R&D work as Opera might have something to say about that.
Maybe now, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't be like that in the future.
All I'm saying is if you use Firefox and you assume that security isn't an issue, then you could be heading for a large fall.
I don't believe that Microsoft are intending IE 7 to draw people from Firefox, but rather encourage users not to consider switching. Remember, they still have 90%+ of the market share so getting back those 10% isn't going to be a priority. However keeping the 90% is.
And security is not an issue with Firefox, so that's not a good enough reason.
Funny, I've been seeing rather a lot of security related alerts regarding Firefox recently. Granted it's not as wideopen as IE - but saying that security isn't an issue is a tad off the mark.
Hopefully this will be copied (a la the yellow information strip) into Firefox pretty soon. I'm fed up of printing a page only to find that the rightmost 20% is missing.
However, if they do, then they must also appreciate that outside of standard working hours I will do nothing for them.
If they aren't willing to accept a small amount of encroachment of personal stuff into work time - then they have absolutely no right to expect any encroachment of work stuff into my personal time.
They can't have it one way without it working the other.
(emphasis mine)
Some people say that about junk email too (replace "submission" with "email" and "dupe" with "spam") but there is rather a large industry working to combat such a thing because it's not seen as acceptable to "just skip it and go on to the next one".
If this was a free site with the editors doing it in their free time, then we wouldn't be able to complain. But it isn't, there is a subscription service and the editors are paid to manage the site.
As such, the level of expectations that visitors have of what they receive tend to be higher than that of a not-for-profit part-time hobbiest website.
So far, the only way I've found of solving this is to download the miniT extension and then modify a text file. This is 2005, not 1995.
Something like this would be great for sticking in a flat where space is at a premium and/or you want something that looks good and doesn't make a lot of noise.
It would be nice if companies now concentrated on size and quietness rather than mhz. If my next PC was smaller than a shoebox (and just as expandable) then I'd be there in a shot.
Of course I could just get a Mac Mini, but having lots of money invested in PC software, I'm not yet prepared to make the switch.
So what exactly was it that products like sendmail, bind, apache, etc where copying from the closed source world?
He said "most" not "all". Freshmeat has a large list of applications written to replace commercial ones. In a lot of cases the user interface is very very similar.
It also seems that Internet Explorer starts to rip off features, which where introduced with open source browsers.
Don't forget that the Firefox developers copied the yellow alert strip directly from IE.
Works both ways.
iTunes and iPod's may be #1 at the moment but it can't and won't stay that way forever.
Sure, it may take time but at some point others will catch up - even if it is by simply copying what Apple does.
Not bad, however for 17.99 BT gives you 1 mbs, but Zen charges you 15.31 for only get a quarter of that speed. To match your speed on Zen with BT you'd have to part with just under 30 quid a month.
Also, you only get the 20:1 contention at 38 quid a month. The lower packages are 50:1 (I don't know what BT's contention is).
Thats not to say that BT's is good (or Zen's is bad), after all, the no cap is nice but it's offset by the slower speeds.
If I could be arsed to sit on hold for 25 minutes I'd bitch at them for their crummy wording on the website :)
Nope, only the one which they use broadband. Is that right? The reason they did that was because the BT website said the following:
Since they only want to use one phone extension with broadband, they just got the two.Why do I get the sinking feeling that BT's wording isn't very good?
- Connecting fails 9 times out of 10 with errors messages such as "no response from the server"
- If I phone them on the landline, the connection invariably drops.
- Even if I don't phone them, the connection will, without warning and randomly, drop.
I don't have broadband myself, I'm trying to troubleshoot over the phone with no real idea what is going on and getting very little help ("an error has occurred" is all very fine and well but getting specific details out of someone who is barely computer literate such as what the specific error message and code is trying to say the least).Phoning BT technical support has been a disaster, so far I gave up after sitting for 25 minutes in a queue and being told for the 100th time that my call is "important to them".
Whatever happened to just plugging it in, installing the software and it just working(tm)?
Personally, I don't really have a problem with Microsoft (or any other company) copying as long as they do it well and add a few new features or a bit of additional polish to the mix.
There seems to be this Slashdot-think that companies should always come up with radical innovations. Even Google hasn't, after all, plenty of companies were doing searching, web-mail and news browsing way before them. They just took an idea, added a few new features and a bit of polish.
As for Microsoft, without sounding like zealot either way, everything they've tried outside of Windows has been a humbling experience but they are persistant. Last time I looked their PDA/Smartphone line is looking strong and their media centre isn't bad at all. The problems they've had with the XBox come down to the radically different style of market - you can't just throw out incremental OS releases on a month by month basis.
As I wrote previously, having suffered the painful experience that is the Sony Ericsson P910, I am actually looking forward to going back to the HTC Magician. Thats not to say that WinCE is heaven, far from it, but it has come on in leaps and bounds.
Essentially, the business model (of having development in the US or similar countries) is a failing one and, as such, if companies do not wish to find themselves disappearing - they need to adopt to the changing market or die.
Sound familiar? It's the key point made by people on here about the RIAA and MPAA's business models. If it doesn't work any more, it's time to change it.
Unfortunately it's really easy to rationalise it when you have nothing to do with that market (a la music and the RIAA) but when it starts to directly affect you (outsourcing) then the arguments become more emotional.
Last time I checked people have a definitive list of what they want a PDA to do. As far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter if it's written in Cobol and runs on the same chip as the ZX81 as long as it does what they want. Often this is:
- Syncs nicely with Outlook
- Calendar, contacts, notes and tasks
- Alarms, reminders
- Logical UI
- Ability to see what they have to do soon/today on one screen
- Small, light, good looking, nice screen, long battery life
- Plenty of applications - preferably free (as in at no-cost)
Having Linux on a PDA isn't a big seller to many. We have Linux on phones and people still say "so what?". The magical cost savings that Linux supposidly gives aren't passed onto the customer - at the end of the day, its what runs on top of the OS and what features and functionality it has, not what the OS is.