Just yesterday afternoon (Jan 20) I was sniffing a wireless network in downtown salt lake. There was a lot of Kazaa activity there. I then moved to another nice location to sniff another network...there was active kazaa transfers going on in that network too.
Can't tell you what client it was...likely the doze client, but it seems that the network itself was working as of yesterday afternoon.
It might be a good thing if someone like IBM bought Redhat, but not a RIAA lacky/SSSCA/DMCA lackey like AOL.
IBM has corporate respect, it is serious rather than frivolous (like AOL). It already in in the linux market, and helps linux. It would be better than AOL and, of course, it isn't in bed with RIAA...
Killing "women and children" is justified if they are trying to kill you. Self-defense is ALWAYS justified unless you are a criminal involved in criminal activity with criminal intent. Soldiers are carrying out policy, determined by a legitimate government authority, backed by Congress. Totally Constitutional and valid. Thus, soldiers serving lawful orders cannot be criminal. Soldiers defending their lives or the lives of comrades against ANYONE is justified and legal.
Let me guess...you are a soldier in country x on a legitimate, legal mission. A kid comes running up to you with a grenade in his little hand, preparing to toss it at you (likely at the instruction of an adult coward). You ignore the kid and allow him to toss his death-ball at you because, to you, it is stupidly unjustified to defend yourself against a death-dealing child? You moron. It is justified to kill the little shit. He was dead anyway to boot, the grenade was highly likely to cream him as well as you.
This sort of nasty crap occured in Vietnam too and it was always justified in such cases for soldiers to gun the little shit down.
Err..what do you mean "mistake"? Does running sorcery trash the system or does it just tie it up until the magic happens?
I guess that could be a problem with it that needs attention. It is a small, new distro lacking in mirrors. Running the sorcery tool tries to get the magic from a single site(?), but everyone else and their mother is also running sorcery.
They need a bunch of mirrors through which sorcery could traverse until it gets a connection and succeeds.
The PC is a deadend. It is pretty much maxed out in the developed world. The future for companies like AOL and M$ is in appliances. AOL could use Redhat in an AOL internet appliance - as easy to use as a toaster. Turn it on and you are surfing AOL.
This wouldn't be a bad thing...what would be a bad thing is the RIAA, SSSCA, DRM, etc, etc, all being folded into a linux. The SSSCA, if passed, would then be used to turn AOL-Redhat Linux into the only LEGAL-TO-USE linux distro in the USA. When our European neighbors get bullied by the US into passing similar crapola laws, then the other distros will also have to include copy protection, etc, or Redhat will be the only LEGAL-TO-USE version of linux there too.
If AOL stuck/sticks with appliances, no problem, but if they stick their nasty RIAA fingers into the heart and soul of linux itself, then be afraid. Be very afraid.
By the by, AOL hasn't done jacksquat good for Netscape. It is still a non-player. It's not even their default frickin' AOL browser AND THEY OWN THE DAMN THING!
Apple has ALWAYS been in the software/operating system/hardware business. AOL has NEVER been in any of these businesses, except in passing.
The AOL software shoveled out to everyone and their mother is merely a means to a service: content, merchandise, etc. You expect AOL to suddenly become a software/hardware company and be successful? Not!
And then I go back to Netscape. AOL has Netscape and look at how mainstream it is. Look at all the ground it is getting back.
Netscape/mozilla is one of the options we have (konqueror, galleon, etc) but none of them is in any way competing with IE anymore. AOL taking on Netscape didn't do jack shit for Netscape. It is a huge...thing...going nowhere. Why would AOL-Redhat be different?
...with builtin copy protection, etc. AOL/Warner would own your linux box and control a good part of what you did with it. If legislation passes (the SSSCA or whatever it's called) then Redhat, with AOL at the controls, would become the only valid version of linux in the USA (and other contries the USA bullies into passing similar laws) because it would have that builtin copy protection crapola.
Again, then, as the article states, to get to a neutron star state, entropy must be lost. Why is it unreasonable to call for a proportionately higher increas is entropy loss for a more massive object's formation (a gravastar) vs formation of a neutron star? For me, Occam's razor would mean that the gravastar idea is MORE likely than the blackhole idea. It fits into already factual reality...neutron stars DO form, they lose entropy in the process (the star that produces them, that is). Thus, a more massive star, too big to form a simple neutron star, produces a gravastar by essentially the same mechanism - entropy loss but with the greater mass/energy involved, vacuum fluctuation energy becomes prominent.
Hey dickwads, do something else for a while, check out a Brittney Spears fansite or something. I want to get to the site! I believe I know what my next linux distro install is going to be. Seriously, this is way cool.
What about a simple PC using WRP? Could a PC running wireless linux router act as a repeater?
I am considering building a pentium/celeron diskless/headless PC exclusively for the purpose of acting as an access point. It would be VERY helpful if I could, instead, make it a simple repeater.
The numbers/version game is NOT a good indicator of how good/nice/developed the two desktop systems are. I am a KDE user - I LIKE KDE and eagerly await KDE 3.0 but I certainly do not consider the still pending release of Gnome 2.0 to mean that Gnome is automatically behind KDE 2.0.
The version numbers are meaningful mainly within the development tree, not external to it. Gnome 2.x is not equivalent to KDE 2.x, it is simply a full version beyond Gnome 1.0 and thus it should include bug fixes, improvements, and new features relative to the previous version, that's all.
Irrelevant. OpenGL is OPEN and can work on any platform/operating system. DirectX and its progeny are M$ only.
If not for OpenGL, there would be no DirectX/Direct3D. It is the only competitor to microsnot in this area. Killing it is bad no matter what you think of DirectX/Direct3d.
OpenGL is in continual evolution. It is gaining features just as Direct3d has. It has fallen behind in a few areas in recent history but the new features being brought into it bring the two libs to parity. M$ can't stand this, and the fact that most game developers STILL support OpenGL, so they wish to eliminate it. Bad no matter how you slice it.
It really isn't a valid criticism of preventing cheating in a compsci class to refer to the real work world where you DO consult and work together. The point of the university class is to help teach you a computer language - to make sure an individual gets it, understands it, and can use it. Once you get that, THEN you can enter the work world and collaborate instead of simply leach off the expertise of another.
If you take a chemistry class, it is generally expected that you the individual student will understand the reactions and the processes/tools rather than simply copy or leach off another student who DOES know what they're doing. You gain nothing and provide nothing if you can't do the basics on your own FIRST.
Erm...no. Almost as soon as a *nix-based exploit is published/becomes known, there is a patch. With M$, they try to keep it under a rug, drag their feet, blame everyone but themselves for the problem, FINALLY come up with a patch and recommend everyone upgrade (and hope to hell that the patch doesn't break something else or introduce some new vulnerability to hide for a while).
BIG difference in the nature of the response to a vulnerability and a BIG difference in the speed of response. After that, what all systems have in common then is the end-user bottleneck...but then, *nix people are more intuned and more knowledgeable as a rule about computers and their systems in particular so they are less likely to blow off upgrades. Casual home users of *nix are another story...though I'd wager that they would be faster on the uptake of a released patch/kernel upgrade than a doze clueless user.
So...with YOUR attitude and belief system, the government shouldn't come after me for misappropriating YOUR household goods. Its just "capitalism" (some how). I am stronger than you, so I get to take from you and the guv'mnt shouldn't DO ONE OF ITS PRIMARY JOBS and uphold the (antitrust) laws. M$ STEALS. It ILLEGALLY leverages its monopoly to develop controlling interest or monopolies in other areas. All these activities are patently illegal and anti-capitalism. What YOU think is capitalism is NOT capitalism. It is not "robber barons get to do whatever they want because...well, just because they can".
It's a municipal issue in regards to funding and who has a finger of control in the system. With the open software, it is cheaper (period), and prevents clowns like M$ lawyers from playing thug and doing audits to make sure you have paid their extortion money (licenses) again and again and again.
Landscaping can also be a municipal issue, by the by. Out here in the desert, you use landscaping in the form of city-funded and controlled landscaping demonstration projects to encourage people to kill their damn lawns and do xeroscaping (in a desert like Nevada, Utah, and so forth, xeroscaping saves water, a shared critical resource that costs money to boot).
The open software thing would be a mere sideline special interest item for certain IT consituents - but it could also be used to push for local schools to adopt more and more of it. Save money, protect from a monstrous company extorting local gov and schools. A real live issue.
One minor question that REALLY prevents me, up to this point, from considering coughing up for an LCD flat panel: How does it handle graphics-intensive games? Hows the lag? I seem to recall that early LCDs were NOT what you wanted if you played FP-type games (in particular)due to lag/refresh speed issues with LCDs.
You didn't drive cars, or RACE CARS - and CERTAINLY not in a life-or-death match. Children are rightfully removed from homes and placed in foster care for less agregious mistreatments and recklessness on the part of parents.
You may have done some "crazy" crap on your tricycle and bicycle when you were as young as Anakin was in Ep 1 - and such is believable and likely no matter what sort of wunderkind you have. The GREATEST wunderkind is STILL emotionally undeveloped and uncoordinated as per the NORMAL/AVERAGE of his/her age group.
Don't apologize or try to defend the use of a toddler in an adult situation (or teen situation at worst). The pod race shouldn't have occurred with Anakin until he was AT LEAST 13 or 14 at the earliest to allow for SOME believability (even in a fantasy, believability is important).
No. This point shouldn't have come up with a 5 year old child at the helm. Totally unbelievable no matter how you apologize for this.
Anakin as a TEENAGER doing this would be believable, but NOT (I repeat, NOT!) as a diaper-wearing infant. This was merely a kiss-ass move by Lucas to those who play with Tickle-me Elmo dolls and watch Barney, plain and simple.
This part of the story was simply for flash and dash, which isn't a problem, but it SHOULD have been in the NEXT episode rather than the first where the child still likely pooped his little pants and sucked his wittle fum.
I will certainly NEVER see this one. I waited for Ep1 to come out on video before I sprang for that one. Wont do it for Ep2.
Since the obvious audience for the latest incarnations, even starting back with Ep4 and those goddamn-stupid-awful muppet-like Ewoks, is the diaper-wearing set.
Jar-Jar, Ewoks, a thumbsucking-aged Anakin/Darth who DRAG RACES(He should be yanked from his parents by social services since they had no problems with endangering the life of a frickin' infant), NSYNC... Damn diaper-wearering kiss-assing. Damn Lucas and his declining mental acuity and emotional regression.
It IS possible to make an excellent movie, tell a cool story, that both adults and children can enjoy without dumbing it down to the lowest-common-denominator by sticking muppets and other cartoonish, ridiculous super-infants into it (see LOTR...even Harry Potter had a more mature focus than Lucas' Star Wars as it plods on).
The FAQ provides the answer: no. There WILL be a unix version...for Macs, but that doesn't do linux a lick of good (nor *BSD flavors either).
I have given up asking game companies to release linux versions. They simply will not do so - they do not want the user support headache and do not believe the effort will be made up for in sales (see id Software's failed attempt at boxed linux games).
Instead, I ask game companies (that are not owned by M$) to consider producing and releasing an unsupported linux game binary for download - like id Software does now (and before their failed boxed game trial). It allows them to produce a simple binary with little extra effort on their part and it doesn't require them to provide customer support for it. That is left to the community or the goodness of company coders providing information/support in newsgroups on an ad hoc basis.
Seriously, it is much more like that at this stage of linux user-hood that one could convince a company to release a near-painless unsupported linux game binary than to try to convince them to release a full-blown, supported linux version of some game...barring a deal with Loki, that is.
BeOS is no more and is thus merely a footnote, a "might-have-been". All we can get from BeOS now is rough modeling on some of the things it did well - ROUGH is the keyword since the source is not available.
These pissing contest statements of linux vs windoze are usually silly when no useful content is added to them. Keyword here is USEFUL. There are some things that windoze does that linux distros/GUI developers should strive to copy NOT because they are necessarily the best way to do something, but because they are the way that most people are familiar with. Reduce the steepness of the linux learning curve as much as possible and make the transition from doze to linux as simple as possible.
It must be windoze that we copy in many ways, not MacOS X, nice in its own right, because no one is likely going to switch from MacOS X to linux. They are much more likely to switch from doze to linux. Make it as painless as possible while also NOT making the same mistakes that doze has made AND maintaining configurability for power users.
With linux as a casual user, all you need to do is post your question to a newsgroup or, better yet, a mailing list, and within a few hours you will have one or more answers to correct your problem. This doesn't happen with windoze support. For windoze support, you have to PAY$$ and then go through multiple levels of clueless idiots on the phone, none of them know ANYTHING (some may actually believe that having an MSCE certificate actually means something or means that you actually know what you are doing...NOT!). By the time you actually get to someone who knows anything, it may be days later. That is the real world.
If you want more than many thousands of users on various lists or newsgroups, many of whom actually KNOW what they are talking about, then you can pay for support from RedHat or even Mandrake (probably some of the others too but I do not have experience with the others). The person you get on the phone is CERTAIN to know what he/she is talking about - will NOT be some clueless drone they pulled off the street so they could earn candy-buying money. You will have your answer post haste, not later in the week.
That is the real world. I have personally known some of the clowns that pass for M$ tech support people. I literally know more than they do about that retarded OS and I'm a piddly know-nothing on windoze.
M$ happily takes your money to provide support and then passes you through dolts and idiots for hours and even days before someone with a clue ever gets to you.
Me thinks that Wine uses the damnable BSD license so NOTHING has to be given back. They get to make any changes or improvements they like and the rest of us get squat for it unless we tote up with $$$.
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Just yesterday afternoon (Jan 20) I was sniffing a wireless network in downtown salt lake. There was a lot of Kazaa activity there. I then moved to another nice location to sniff another network...there was active kazaa transfers going on in that network too.
Can't tell you what client it was...likely the doze client, but it seems that the network itself was working as of yesterday afternoon.
It might be a good thing if someone like IBM bought Redhat, but not a RIAA lacky/SSSCA/DMCA lackey like AOL.
IBM has corporate respect, it is serious rather than frivolous (like AOL). It already in in the linux market, and helps linux. It would be better than AOL and, of course, it isn't in bed with RIAA...
Killing "women and children" is justified if they are trying to kill you. Self-defense is ALWAYS justified unless you are a criminal involved in criminal activity with criminal intent. Soldiers are carrying out policy, determined by a legitimate government authority, backed by Congress. Totally Constitutional and valid. Thus, soldiers serving lawful orders cannot be criminal. Soldiers defending their lives or the lives of comrades against ANYONE is justified and legal.
Let me guess...you are a soldier in country x on a legitimate, legal mission. A kid comes running up to you with a grenade in his little hand, preparing to toss it at you (likely at the instruction of an adult coward). You ignore the kid and allow him to toss his death-ball at you because, to you, it is stupidly unjustified to defend yourself against a death-dealing child? You moron. It is justified to kill the little shit. He was dead anyway to boot, the grenade was highly likely to cream him as well as you.
This sort of nasty crap occured in Vietnam too and it was always justified in such cases for soldiers to gun the little shit down.
Err..what do you mean "mistake"? Does running sorcery trash the system or does it just tie it up until the magic happens?
I guess that could be a problem with it that needs attention. It is a small, new distro lacking in mirrors. Running the sorcery tool tries to get the magic from a single site(?), but everyone else and their mother is also running sorcery.
They need a bunch of mirrors through which sorcery could traverse until it gets a connection and succeeds.
The PC is a deadend. It is pretty much maxed out in the developed world. The future for companies like AOL and M$ is in appliances. AOL could use Redhat in an AOL internet appliance - as easy to use as a toaster. Turn it on and you are surfing AOL.
This wouldn't be a bad thing...what would be a bad thing is the RIAA, SSSCA, DRM, etc, etc, all being folded into a linux. The SSSCA, if passed, would then be used to turn AOL-Redhat Linux into the only LEGAL-TO-USE linux distro in the USA. When our European neighbors get bullied by the US into passing similar crapola laws, then the other distros will also have to include copy protection, etc, or Redhat will be the only LEGAL-TO-USE version of linux there too.
If AOL stuck/sticks with appliances, no problem, but if they stick their nasty RIAA fingers into the heart and soul of linux itself, then be afraid. Be very afraid.
By the by, AOL hasn't done jacksquat good for Netscape. It is still a non-player. It's not even their default frickin' AOL browser AND THEY OWN THE DAMN THING!
Apple has ALWAYS been in the software/operating system/hardware business. AOL has NEVER been in any of these businesses, except in passing.
The AOL software shoveled out to everyone and their mother is merely a means to a service: content, merchandise, etc. You expect AOL to suddenly become a software/hardware company and be successful? Not!
And then I go back to Netscape. AOL has Netscape and look at how mainstream it is. Look at all the ground it is getting back.
Netscape/mozilla is one of the options we have (konqueror, galleon, etc) but none of them is in any way competing with IE anymore. AOL taking on Netscape didn't do jack shit for Netscape. It is a huge...thing...going nowhere. Why would AOL-Redhat be different?
...with builtin copy protection, etc. AOL/Warner would own your linux box and control a good part of what you did with it. If legislation passes (the SSSCA or whatever it's called) then Redhat, with AOL at the controls, would become the only valid version of linux in the USA (and other contries the USA bullies into passing similar laws) because it would have that builtin copy protection crapola.
Again, then, as the article states, to get to a neutron star state, entropy must be lost. Why is it unreasonable to call for a proportionately higher increas is entropy loss for a more massive object's formation (a gravastar) vs formation of a neutron star? For me, Occam's razor would mean that the gravastar idea is MORE likely than the blackhole idea. It fits into already factual reality...neutron stars DO form, they lose entropy in the process (the star that produces them, that is). Thus, a more massive star, too big to form a simple neutron star, produces a gravastar by essentially the same mechanism - entropy loss but with the greater mass/energy involved, vacuum fluctuation energy becomes prominent.
Hey dickwads, do something else for a while, check out a Brittney Spears fansite or something. I want to get to the site! I believe I know what my next linux distro install is going to be. Seriously, this is way cool.
What about a simple PC using WRP? Could a PC running wireless linux router act as a repeater?
I am considering building a pentium/celeron diskless/headless PC exclusively for the purpose of acting as an access point. It would be VERY helpful if I could, instead, make it a simple repeater.
The numbers/version game is NOT a good indicator of how good/nice/developed the two desktop systems are. I am a KDE user - I LIKE KDE and eagerly await KDE 3.0 but I certainly do not consider the still pending release of Gnome 2.0 to mean that Gnome is automatically behind KDE 2.0.
The version numbers are meaningful mainly within the development tree, not external to it. Gnome 2.x is not equivalent to KDE 2.x, it is simply a full version beyond Gnome 1.0 and thus it should include bug fixes, improvements, and new features relative to the previous version, that's all.
Irrelevant. OpenGL is OPEN and can work on any platform/operating system. DirectX and its progeny are M$ only.
If not for OpenGL, there would be no DirectX/Direct3D. It is the only competitor to microsnot in this area. Killing it is bad no matter what you think of DirectX/Direct3d.
OpenGL is in continual evolution. It is gaining features just as Direct3d has. It has fallen behind in a few areas in recent history but the new features being brought into it bring the two libs to parity. M$ can't stand this, and the fact that most game developers STILL support OpenGL, so they wish to eliminate it. Bad no matter how you slice it.
It really isn't a valid criticism of preventing cheating in a compsci class to refer to the real work world where you DO consult and work together. The point of the university class is to help teach you a computer language - to make sure an individual gets it, understands it, and can use it. Once you get that, THEN you can enter the work world and collaborate instead of simply leach off the expertise of another.
If you take a chemistry class, it is generally expected that you the individual student will understand the reactions and the processes/tools rather than simply copy or leach off another student who DOES know what they're doing. You gain nothing and provide nothing if you can't do the basics on your own FIRST.
Erm...no. Almost as soon as a *nix-based exploit is published/becomes known, there is a patch. With M$, they try to keep it under a rug, drag their feet, blame everyone but themselves for the problem, FINALLY come up with a patch and recommend everyone upgrade (and hope to hell that the patch doesn't break something else or introduce some new vulnerability to hide for a while).
BIG difference in the nature of the response to a vulnerability and a BIG difference in the speed of response. After that, what all systems have in common then is the end-user bottleneck...but then, *nix people are more intuned and more knowledgeable as a rule about computers and their systems in particular so they are less likely to blow off upgrades. Casual home users of *nix are another story...though I'd wager that they would be faster on the uptake of a released patch/kernel upgrade than a doze clueless user.
So...with YOUR attitude and belief system, the government shouldn't come after me for misappropriating YOUR household goods. Its just "capitalism" (some how). I am stronger than you, so I get to take from you and the guv'mnt shouldn't DO ONE OF ITS PRIMARY JOBS and uphold the (antitrust) laws. M$ STEALS. It ILLEGALLY leverages its monopoly to develop controlling interest or monopolies in other areas. All these activities are patently illegal and anti-capitalism. What YOU think is capitalism is NOT capitalism. It is not "robber barons get to do whatever they want because...well, just because they can".
It's a municipal issue in regards to funding and who has a finger of control in the system. With the open software, it is cheaper (period), and prevents clowns like M$ lawyers from playing thug and doing audits to make sure you have paid their extortion money (licenses) again and again and again.
Landscaping can also be a municipal issue, by the by. Out here in the desert, you use landscaping in the form of city-funded and controlled landscaping demonstration projects to encourage people to kill their damn lawns and do xeroscaping (in a desert like Nevada, Utah, and so forth, xeroscaping saves water, a shared critical resource that costs money to boot).
The open software thing would be a mere sideline special interest item for certain IT consituents - but it could also be used to push for local schools to adopt more and more of it. Save money, protect from a monstrous company extorting local gov and schools. A real live issue.
One minor question that REALLY prevents me, up to this point, from considering coughing up for an LCD flat panel: How does it handle graphics-intensive games? Hows the lag? I seem to recall that early LCDs were NOT what you wanted if you played FP-type games (in particular)due to lag/refresh speed issues with LCDs.
You didn't drive cars, or RACE CARS - and CERTAINLY not in a life-or-death match. Children are rightfully removed from homes and placed in foster care for less agregious mistreatments and recklessness on the part of parents.
You may have done some "crazy" crap on your tricycle and bicycle when you were as young as Anakin was in Ep 1 - and such is believable and likely no matter what sort of wunderkind you have. The GREATEST wunderkind is STILL emotionally undeveloped and uncoordinated as per the NORMAL/AVERAGE of his/her age group.
Don't apologize or try to defend the use of a toddler in an adult situation (or teen situation at worst). The pod race shouldn't have occurred with Anakin until he was AT LEAST 13 or 14 at the earliest to allow for SOME believability (even in a fantasy, believability is important).
No. This point shouldn't have come up with a 5 year old child at the helm. Totally unbelievable no matter how you apologize for this.
Anakin as a TEENAGER doing this would be believable, but NOT (I repeat, NOT!) as a diaper-wearing infant. This was merely a kiss-ass move by Lucas to those who play with Tickle-me Elmo dolls and watch Barney, plain and simple.
This part of the story was simply for flash and dash, which isn't a problem, but it SHOULD have been in the NEXT episode rather than the first where the child still likely pooped his little pants and sucked his wittle fum.
I will certainly NEVER see this one. I waited for Ep1 to come out on video before I sprang for that one. Wont do it for Ep2.
Since the obvious audience for the latest incarnations, even starting back with Ep4 and those goddamn-stupid-awful muppet-like Ewoks, is the diaper-wearing set.
Jar-Jar, Ewoks, a thumbsucking-aged Anakin/Darth who DRAG RACES(He should be yanked from his parents by social services since they had no problems with endangering the life of a frickin' infant), NSYNC... Damn diaper-wearering kiss-assing. Damn Lucas and his declining mental acuity and emotional regression.
It IS possible to make an excellent movie, tell a cool story, that both adults and children can enjoy without dumbing it down to the lowest-common-denominator by sticking muppets and other cartoonish, ridiculous super-infants into it (see LOTR...even Harry Potter had a more mature focus than Lucas' Star Wars as it plods on).
The FAQ provides the answer: no. There WILL be a unix version...for Macs, but that doesn't do linux a lick of good (nor *BSD flavors either).
I have given up asking game companies to release linux versions. They simply will not do so - they do not want the user support headache and do not believe the effort will be made up for in sales (see id Software's failed attempt at boxed linux games).
Instead, I ask game companies (that are not owned by M$) to consider producing and releasing an unsupported linux game binary for download - like id Software does now (and before their failed boxed game trial). It allows them to produce a simple binary with little extra effort on their part and it doesn't require them to provide customer support for it. That is left to the community or the goodness of company coders providing information/support in newsgroups on an ad hoc basis.
Seriously, it is much more like that at this stage of linux user-hood that one could convince a company to release a near-painless unsupported linux game binary than to try to convince them to release a full-blown, supported linux version of some game...barring a deal with Loki, that is.
Horse, dead. Beat.
BeOS is no more and is thus merely a footnote, a "might-have-been". All we can get from BeOS now is rough modeling on some of the things it did well - ROUGH is the keyword since the source is not available.
These pissing contest statements of linux vs windoze are usually silly when no useful content is added to them. Keyword here is USEFUL. There are some things that windoze does that linux distros/GUI developers should strive to copy NOT because they are necessarily the best way to do something, but because they are the way that most people are familiar with. Reduce the steepness of the linux learning curve as much as possible and make the transition from doze to linux as simple as possible.
It must be windoze that we copy in many ways, not MacOS X, nice in its own right, because no one is likely going to switch from MacOS X to linux. They are much more likely to switch from doze to linux. Make it as painless as possible while also NOT making the same mistakes that doze has made AND maintaining configurability for power users.
What color is the sky on your world?
With linux as a casual user, all you need to do is post your question to a newsgroup or, better yet, a mailing list, and within a few hours you will have one or more answers to correct your problem. This doesn't happen with windoze support. For windoze support, you have to PAY$$ and then go through multiple levels of clueless idiots on the phone, none of them know ANYTHING (some may actually believe that having an MSCE certificate actually means something or means that you actually know what you are doing...NOT!). By the time you actually get to someone who knows anything, it may be days later. That is the real world.
If you want more than many thousands of users on various lists or newsgroups, many of whom actually KNOW what they are talking about, then you can pay for support from RedHat or even Mandrake (probably some of the others too but I do not have experience with the others). The person you get on the phone is CERTAIN to know what he/she is talking about - will NOT be some clueless drone they pulled off the street so they could earn candy-buying money. You will have your answer post haste, not later in the week.
That is the real world. I have personally known some of the clowns that pass for M$ tech support people. I literally know more than they do about that retarded OS and I'm a piddly know-nothing on windoze.
M$ happily takes your money to provide support and then passes you through dolts and idiots for hours and even days before someone with a clue ever gets to you.
Me thinks that Wine uses the damnable BSD license so NOTHING has to be given back. They get to make any changes or improvements they like and the rest of us get squat for it unless we tote up with $$$.