My understanding is you're basically right, but he was at one point told that he'd only get 4 seasons and so had to cut the Shadow War content down significantly, then when the ratings justified the 5th season after the 4th season was almost done finishing he got to take time to finish various aspects in the last season.
If so then he got his 5 seasons, but not the 5 seasons he -wanted-.
That explanation made sense to me because after over 3 years of build up the Shadow War seemed to end -awefully- quickly and easily. But as with all SciFi show mythos it could be incorrect.
I always took this as an ending in it's own right... the Millennium Group off'ed Frank for his meddlesome ways and since all the episodes were about Frank, the series was over:)
The miniseries is a good idea. There are some things that need to be resolved. Would I have preferred the final season in it's completeness? Sure.
As for bringing back the show "permanently" (as in with no end in sight purely for the sake of watching FarScape), I say no.
If I hadn't known that there was supposed to be another season and that a number of sideplots were unresolved, I actually -liked- the "cliffhanger" if it would have ended exactly where they got blasted. It is extremely rare that a show has the guts to have a tragic ending.
A series doesn't need to go on for a decade or more to be good. In fact, going on and on often ends up wasting the creativity that kept the show good at first and leads to jumping the shark. They planned one more season to tie things up but from what I understood the writers felt that the arc was almost finished.
Sopranos' creators understand this (so far at least, HBO might convince them to keep going but I don't think they should) and is ending soon. M*A*S*H* learned this though it was almost too late. Seinfeld "got it". I think SG-1 "got it", or at least RD Anderson did (Atlantis? We'll see... I was skeptical at first but looking at past episodes they did set it up pretty nicely). Babylon 5 -definitely- got it... the fact that they had a time limit and planned plot is what let that show flourish.
Sometimes an ending is a good thing. I for one still miss the creativity of FarScape (like the cartoon dream episode) and the actors, and I wish all the best for the Henson company, but I definitely don't want to see FarScape around for years past a logical conclusion and falling into the trap where every other episode is a hallucination, parody or flashback and it was starting to show those characteristics too often already (one of each category per season for a tension breaker is valid but not too much).
"Red Hat reminds everyone"
on
Red Hat Recap
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· Score: 1
You call that a reminder? I call ridiculous.
I have an RHN account at work. It's never had a machine registered to it because we ran out of licenses for RHEL3 before I got mine test machine running.
That means I've never registered a RH9 machine with RHN... but I have gotten more than 10 identical notices about Red Hat's EOL of RH9.
I notified their postmaster, but honestly who checks their postmaster account? Not Red Hat apparently as my work mail had more notices today.
And the PHBs already know that... which is probably why they even know Linux exists. But that doesn't solve the ISV issue... open source projects currently do only a small part of what is available to the Windows world at large, and even if the replacement is better, commercial support is often not available for 3rd party (as in "not in the distro box") software.
The point here is not to show that the PHB is wrong in many cases, we already know that, the point was to find out why they stick to that position. And just because the PHB is -often- wrong in the opinion that Linux will not work in their org doesn't mean they are -always- wrong. There are still key applications and support models that can currently only be found for Windows.
You have a valid point, I just don't feel it addresses the question posed in this thread.
You can't honestly expect vim to be a piece of software that a PHB is going to give -any- thought to.
I'm not saying it's not useful in it's own right, but it is simply not a good example here.
And bundling applications in the box is a FAR cry from seeing a choice of commercially supported programs in the aisle along with the distribution box. And without that wide ranging ISV support, PHBs won't take Linux seriously.
Funny thing is I actually would have bought the EZ-Bake... my wife always says "I never got to have one of those" when we're in a toy department and pass one of those... and she's about to get a new Microtel PC to replace her iMac... it would have been the perfect convergence.
Except for the heat, but that's what fans are for.
a) have a system similar to FetchYahoo!, but limited to downloading headers only (or imap/pop3 access)
and
b) write a quick program to parse commands out of the headers.
Heck... you could even get real fun and encrypt the information with PGP and randomly use different headers for the request (no need for it to be in a displayed header) just to make it harder to determine a message as being a request.
There are alot of holes left to fill for such a system, but it is possible. For instance, FetchYahoo only handles grabbing messages but messages are sent from the local system... but a similar script could be written to send the file through the Google interface. If sending to another google address the send should be fairly automatic.
If there is an attachment size limitation that can easily be fixed by sending multipart messages (ahhh, UUencode could make a comeback).
Do I think the above is likely? No, Google is fairly savvy, but anything is possible.
In addition to the reply you've already gotten, because those technologies were not created, nurtured and depended upon by any one commercial entity.
Sun created Java and has a significant stake in it's success... it is more in Microsoft's (IBM as well) interested to undermine it than it would be for them to go after any of the other items. If anyone were to fork gcc, python, perl or whatnot they would have no effect on Microsoft or Sun.
In the case of Java, though, Microsoft has the ability to push out to a HUGE install base (how many microsoft users would ever think about installing any of the other items you mentioned). If Python or Perl or Sendmail, etc ever became items that were useful to the end user, I think you very likely -would- see MS "embracing" their own versions.
Listen, I'm not saying that Java wouldn't be more ubiquitous if it were open sourced, but that is only one factor in the equation.
Besides as a commercial product I think it would be harder to find a more fractured product than the Linux kernel. Each distribution uses slightly different versions and that often requires device drivers and services to be compiled specifically for each and every commercial distribution. That has continually hampered Linux adoption in business. Very much what Sun is trying not to have happen to Java.
I doubt the SJDS machines will be bought with the intent to put Windows on them. If someone wants to do that Wal-Mart.com also sells whiteboxes for even less than the SJDS SKUs.
That's part of the issue, but only part. The bigger problem is that Wal-Mart sacrifices the quality of employment to -keep- those prices low. That starts a domino effect on any community that Wal-Mart has a presence in where people can't afford to work OR shop anywhere else, which ends up damaging the local economy.
However while Wal-Mart.com gives it's profits to the same accounts, it is not nearly as damaging as that SuperCenter down the road.
I'll disclaim this by saying I work for Sun on the Java Desktop System.
That said, it is more likely that if Sun ever reached a monopoly in place of Windows they would -open source- Java than start charging for it. 1) to avoid anti-trust issues and 2) to endear themselves further.
The reason Sun doesn't open it is because it would immediately be abused, forked and made trivial by the existing monopolistic folks. It would be another case of a bastardized JVM that polluted the development story for Java.
Seriously, it took Sun and Microsoft years to fight that battle... and the only reason Sun "won" was because it owned Java outright. Any license that would make the Open Source community 100% happy would also lessen Sun's ability to protect Java. Remember Microsoft claiming that the GPL was viral? Microsoft would love nothing better than to have that working -for- them.
Does Sun want the power you mention? What company doesn't? And it would corrupt Sun just like it did Microsoft. But until that becomes an issue it is better for MS's competition if Java stays as is.
To be exact, Windows license adds $50 to the price over the Linux PCs... it adds $100 to the price over the whitebox (same box is $248 with nothing, $298 with Linux and $348 with Windows).
That is a 100% increase over the cost of Linux.
Worth it to some for better games and hardware support, but for the web browser / email / occasional word processing crowd it may not make sense.
A large portion of Wal-Mart sales are made on Visa and if WM didn't offer Visa the people affected would likely leave Visa, not WM.
On the other hand, a very tiny portion of WM's sales are PCs and if WM didn't offer MS Windows on WM PCs most people would buy their PC elsewhere.
Seriously, if grandad goes to buy a PC and is told to use Linux or buy elsewhere, what do you think he's going to do?
Will MS yank their product because this? Hell no, that's an antitrust issue though, not a sales issue. I strongly doubt WM is going to be able to force MS to lower prices -until- grandad knows what Linux is -and- thinks of WM as a computer place rather than a place that might sell computers.
Besides, it's a moot point for now, the non-Linux PCs are not available at Wal-Mart stores, only from Wal-Mart.com... and grandad hasn't gotten to e-commerce for large purchases yet.
I still run on an 800MHz P3 desktop and a 600Mhz P3 laptop.
Would I like newer hardware sure, but I don't need it.
Maybe this is what Linux needs... the ability to show that we don't need to have a 2 or 3 GHz box to run a productive desktop. That is a very powerful argument for corporations who care FAR more about having long-term supportable environments than upgrading hardware or software due to the either obsoleting their environment.
Besides, $300 is the first SKU, it goes up to a 3GHz hyperthreaded box. They're just giving a range of choices.
Show us the numbers. I have spoken with people who OEM Windows and their cost is well over $50, often over $150 if they want to bundle Office.
The cost of a Linux distro for an OEM is generally in the $5 to $50 range depending on volume and support options.
For an OEM that is a HUGE difference. In the case of Windows+MS Office versus Linux+(Open|Star)Office it will be the difference between a $248 (whitebox), $298 (linux whitebox) and a $348 (windows whitebox) machine. Prices straight from comparing Wal-Mart.com's various SKUs
If someone is shopping for a machine that low cost, you better believe that a 15% difference is going to make a difference if they need an OS.
If you look at the major Desktop OSes out there (Windows and OSX for now), a VERY large portion of the drivers are not created by the OS vendor, they are created by the hardware vendor.
Do you seriously expect Microsoft or Apple to write your NVidia latest/greatest card driver? No.
How will Linux get to the point where there is better commercial driver support? By getting to the point where it is a major Desktop OS. That won't happen for all distributions, a couple will have to excel and get to the ubiquitous point.
Waitaminute though, half the people seem to argue against closed source drivers... we are our own barrier in this respect, and I can't honestly expect that hardware vendors will want to open up all of their drivers.
While it is very unfortunate that they are a part of a company like Wal-Mart, it is Wal-Mart.com that has started selling the SJDS PCs. Wal-Mart.com has been smacking of coolness for a year or more by selling white boxes with no OS or with Linux. They are quite different than the chain stores.
Those who fall down during a test generally know that they are in a safe environment so they can give in to manage the pain because they are not at risk.
Seriously, if you taze someone with a knife (or worse, a gun) that is in position to use it you run a serious risk that it will just cause them to do what they are ready for, which is hurt you, because that is their basest instinct at the time.
Pain strips away your cognitive ability (just ask someone who is suffering from chronic pain why they are an ass when the pain gets bad), it doesn't paralyze.
Any electrical current strong enough to truly paralyze is too strong to be approved.
Re:GNOME catching up to Windows...
on
GNOME 2.6 Reviewed
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It's a GNOME panel applet... right-click, tell it to "remove" and it's gone. It isn't rocket science and no one said you HAVE to use it.
When I was on Speakeasy they had an SLA for my SDSL service.
In fact, after a few complaints about speed from me they realized that they had accidentally put me at a slower througput for almost 3 months after they transitioned a POP. One email from me later and I had 3 months free (the easier option for me than a refund since I knew I was going to be on their service for awhile).
Speakeasy is not a telco. Things might have changed since but I doubt it. Speakeasy had a real clue what IT pros were looking for at home and provided it for a reasonable cost.
Oh just stick a bag over it's head and call it the Unknown Browser. It is seriously getting that silly.
And this won't fix the criticism, since it will officially still be Firefox and that is what ISVs will have to certify against.
Find a good brand for both the browser and mail client and move along please. It is a shame it can't be Mozilla since people are finally certifying on that platform but at least if one is picked (and I don't care if it is "cool" as long as it is not "silly" or easily disdained) we can start re-edumacating the various companies that had been moving towards Mozilla.
That leads to a lackadaisical structure at best, where it may never be created since it fit into the exist mold (however poorly) and a downright travesty at worst, where the government responsible for the legislation refuses to fix it because it gives them better loopholes.
Besides, a large portion of the law is created through judicial precedent. If the judge is willing to force a new category it may be unique today but will become the basis for new law tomorrow.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding is you're basically right, but he was at one point told that he'd only get 4 seasons and so had to cut the Shadow War content down significantly, then when the ratings justified the 5th season after the 4th season was almost done finishing he got to take time to finish various aspects in the last season.
If so then he got his 5 seasons, but not the 5 seasons he -wanted-.
That explanation made sense to me because after over 3 years of build up the Shadow War seemed to end -awefully- quickly and easily. But as with all SciFi show mythos it could be incorrect.
I always took this as an ending in it's own right ... the Millennium Group off'ed Frank for his meddlesome ways and since all the episodes were about Frank, the series was over :)
The miniseries is a good idea. There are some things that need to be resolved. Would I have preferred the final season in it's completeness? Sure.
... I was skeptical at first but looking at past episodes they did set it up pretty nicely). Babylon 5 -definitely- got it ... the fact that they had a time limit and planned plot is what let that show flourish.
As for bringing back the show "permanently" (as in with no end in sight purely for the sake of watching FarScape), I say no.
If I hadn't known that there was supposed to be another season and that a number of sideplots were unresolved, I actually -liked- the "cliffhanger" if it would have ended exactly where they got blasted. It is extremely rare that a show has the guts to have a tragic ending.
A series doesn't need to go on for a decade or more to be good. In fact, going on and on often ends up wasting the creativity that kept the show good at first and leads to jumping the shark. They planned one more season to tie things up but from what I understood the writers felt that the arc was almost finished.
Sopranos' creators understand this (so far at least, HBO might convince them to keep going but I don't think they should) and is ending soon. M*A*S*H* learned this though it was almost too late. Seinfeld "got it". I think SG-1 "got it", or at least RD Anderson did (Atlantis? We'll see
Sometimes an ending is a good thing. I for one still miss the creativity of FarScape (like the cartoon dream episode) and the actors, and I wish all the best for the Henson company, but I definitely don't want to see FarScape around for years past a logical conclusion and falling into the trap where every other episode is a hallucination, parody or flashback and it was starting to show those characteristics too often already (one of each category per season for a tension breaker is valid but not too much).
You call that a reminder? I call ridiculous.
... but I have gotten more than 10 identical notices about Red Hat's EOL of RH9.
I have an RHN account at work. It's never had a machine registered to it because we ran out of licenses for RHEL3 before I got mine test machine running.
That means I've never registered a RH9 machine with RHN
I notified their postmaster, but honestly who checks their postmaster account? Not Red Hat apparently as my work mail had more notices today.
And the PHBs already know that ... which is probably why they even know Linux exists. But that doesn't solve the ISV issue ... open source projects currently do only a small part of what is available to the Windows world at large, and even if the replacement is better, commercial support is often not available for 3rd party (as in "not in the distro box") software.
The point here is not to show that the PHB is wrong in many cases, we already know that, the point was to find out why they stick to that position. And just because the PHB is -often- wrong in the opinion that Linux will not work in their org doesn't mean they are -always- wrong. There are still key applications and support models that can currently only be found for Windows.
You have a valid point, I just don't feel it addresses the question posed in this thread.
You can't honestly expect vim to be a piece of software that a PHB is going to give -any- thought to.
I'm not saying it's not useful in it's own right, but it is simply not a good example here.
And bundling applications in the box is a FAR cry from seeing a choice of commercially supported programs in the aisle along with the distribution box. And without that wide ranging ISV support, PHBs won't take Linux seriously.
camping, off roading, fishing, hiking, new restaurants.
Crap, did I just surrender my geekhood?
Funny thing is I actually would have bought the EZ-Bake ... my wife always says "I never got to have one of those" when we're in a toy department and pass one of those ... and she's about to get a new Microtel PC to replace her iMac ... it would have been the perfect convergence.
Except for the heat, but that's what fans are for.
Not if you can:
... you could even get real fun and encrypt the information with PGP and randomly use different headers for the request (no need for it to be in a displayed header) just to make it harder to determine a message as being a request.
... but a similar script could be written to send the file through the Google interface. If sending to another google address the send should be fairly automatic.
a) have a system similar to FetchYahoo!, but limited to downloading headers only (or imap/pop3 access)
and
b) write a quick program to parse commands out of the headers.
Heck
There are alot of holes left to fill for such a system, but it is possible. For instance, FetchYahoo only handles grabbing messages but messages are sent from the local system
If there is an attachment size limitation that can easily be fixed by sending multipart messages (ahhh, UUencode could make a comeback).
Do I think the above is likely? No, Google is fairly savvy, but anything is possible.
In addition to the reply you've already gotten, because those technologies were not created, nurtured and depended upon by any one commercial entity.
... it is more in Microsoft's (IBM as well) interested to undermine it than it would be for them to go after any of the other items. If anyone were to fork gcc, python, perl or whatnot they would have no effect on Microsoft or Sun.
Sun created Java and has a significant stake in it's success
In the case of Java, though, Microsoft has the ability to push out to a HUGE install base (how many microsoft users would ever think about installing any of the other items you mentioned). If Python or Perl or Sendmail, etc ever became items that were useful to the end user, I think you very likely -would- see MS "embracing" their own versions.
Listen, I'm not saying that Java wouldn't be more ubiquitous if it were open sourced, but that is only one factor in the equation.
Besides as a commercial product I think it would be harder to find a more fractured product than the Linux kernel. Each distribution uses slightly different versions and that often requires device drivers and services to be compiled specifically for each and every commercial distribution. That has continually hampered Linux adoption in business. Very much what Sun is trying not to have happen to Java.
I doubt the SJDS machines will be bought with the intent to put Windows on them. If someone wants to do that Wal-Mart.com also sells whiteboxes for even less than the SJDS SKUs.
That's part of the issue, but only part. The bigger problem is that Wal-Mart sacrifices the quality of employment to -keep- those prices low. That starts a domino effect on any community that Wal-Mart has a presence in where people can't afford to work OR shop anywhere else, which ends up damaging the local economy.
However while Wal-Mart.com gives it's profits to the same accounts, it is not nearly as damaging as that SuperCenter down the road.
I'll disclaim this by saying I work for Sun on the Java Desktop System.
... and the only reason Sun "won" was because it owned Java outright. Any license that would make the Open Source community 100% happy would also lessen Sun's ability to protect Java. Remember Microsoft claiming that the GPL was viral? Microsoft would love nothing better than to have that working -for- them.
That said, it is more likely that if Sun ever reached a monopoly in place of Windows they would -open source- Java than start charging for it. 1) to avoid anti-trust issues and 2) to endear themselves further.
The reason Sun doesn't open it is because it would immediately be abused, forked and made trivial by the existing monopolistic folks. It would be another case of a bastardized JVM that polluted the development story for Java.
Seriously, it took Sun and Microsoft years to fight that battle
Does Sun want the power you mention? What company doesn't? And it would corrupt Sun just like it did Microsoft. But until that becomes an issue it is better for MS's competition if Java stays as is.
To be exact, Windows license adds $50 to the price over the Linux PCs ... it adds $100 to the price over the whitebox (same box is $248 with nothing, $298 with Linux and $348 with Windows).
That is a 100% increase over the cost of Linux.
Worth it to some for better games and hardware support, but for the web browser / email / occasional word processing crowd it may not make sense.
Bad Analogies rule /.
... and grandad hasn't gotten to e-commerce for large purchases yet.
A large portion of Wal-Mart sales are made on Visa and if WM didn't offer Visa the people affected would likely leave Visa, not WM.
On the other hand, a very tiny portion of WM's sales are PCs and if WM didn't offer MS Windows on WM PCs most people would buy their PC elsewhere.
Seriously, if grandad goes to buy a PC and is told to use Linux or buy elsewhere, what do you think he's going to do?
Will MS yank their product because this? Hell no, that's an antitrust issue though, not a sales issue. I strongly doubt WM is going to be able to force MS to lower prices -until- grandad knows what Linux is -and- thinks of WM as a computer place rather than a place that might sell computers.
Besides, it's a moot point for now, the non-Linux PCs are not available at Wal-Mart stores, only from Wal-Mart.com
I still run on an 800MHz P3 desktop and a 600Mhz P3 laptop.
... the ability to show that we don't need to have a 2 or 3 GHz box to run a productive desktop. That is a very powerful argument for corporations who care FAR more about having long-term supportable environments than upgrading hardware or software due to the either obsoleting their environment.
Would I like newer hardware sure, but I don't need it.
Maybe this is what Linux needs
Besides, $300 is the first SKU, it goes up to a 3GHz hyperthreaded box. They're just giving a range of choices.
Show us the numbers. I have spoken with people who OEM Windows and their cost is well over $50, often over $150 if they want to bundle Office.
The cost of a Linux distro for an OEM is generally in the $5 to $50 range depending on volume and support options.
For an OEM that is a HUGE difference. In the case of Windows+MS Office versus Linux+(Open|Star)Office it will be the difference between a $248 (whitebox), $298 (linux whitebox) and a $348 (windows whitebox) machine. Prices straight from comparing Wal-Mart.com's various SKUs
If someone is shopping for a machine that low cost, you better believe that a 15% difference is going to make a difference if they need an OS.
If you look at the major Desktop OSes out there (Windows and OSX for now), a VERY large portion of the drivers are not created by the OS vendor, they are created by the hardware vendor.
... we are our own barrier in this respect, and I can't honestly expect that hardware vendors will want to open up all of their drivers.
Do you seriously expect Microsoft or Apple to write your NVidia latest/greatest card driver? No.
How will Linux get to the point where there is better commercial driver support? By getting to the point where it is a major Desktop OS. That won't happen for all distributions, a couple will have to excel and get to the ubiquitous point.
Waitaminute though, half the people seem to argue against closed source drivers
While it is very unfortunate that they are a part of a company like Wal-Mart, it is Wal-Mart.com that has started selling the SJDS PCs. Wal-Mart.com has been smacking of coolness for a year or more by selling white boxes with no OS or with Linux. They are quite different than the chain stores.
Exactly.
Those who fall down during a test generally know that they are in a safe environment so they can give in to manage the pain because they are not at risk.
Seriously, if you taze someone with a knife (or worse, a gun) that is in position to use it you run a serious risk that it will just cause them to do what they are ready for, which is hurt you, because that is their basest instinct at the time.
Pain strips away your cognitive ability (just ask someone who is suffering from chronic pain why they are an ass when the pain gets bad), it doesn't paralyze.
Any electrical current strong enough to truly paralyze is too strong to be approved.
It's a GNOME panel applet ... right-click, tell it to "remove" and it's gone. It isn't rocket science and no one said you HAVE to use it.
When I was on Speakeasy they had an SLA for my SDSL service.
In fact, after a few complaints about speed from me they realized that they had accidentally put me at a slower througput for almost 3 months after they transitioned a POP. One email from me later and I had 3 months free (the easier option for me than a refund since I knew I was going to be on their service for awhile).
Speakeasy is not a telco. Things might have changed since but I doubt it. Speakeasy had a real clue what IT pros were looking for at home and provided it for a reasonable cost.
Oh just stick a bag over it's head and call it the Unknown Browser. It is seriously getting that silly.
And this won't fix the criticism, since it will officially still be Firefox and that is what ISVs will have to certify against.
Find a good brand for both the browser and mail client and move along please. It is a shame it can't be Mozilla since people are finally certifying on that platform but at least if one is picked (and I don't care if it is "cool" as long as it is not "silly" or easily disdained) we can start re-edumacating the various companies that had been moving towards Mozilla.
That leads to a lackadaisical structure at best, where it may never be created since it fit into the exist mold (however poorly) and a downright travesty at worst, where the government responsible for the legislation refuses to fix it because it gives them better loopholes.
Besides, a large portion of the law is created through judicial precedent. If the judge is willing to force a new category it may be unique today but will become the basis for new law tomorrow.
I wasn't comparing the hardware, I was comparing the technology transition of which aquisition cost is a definite factor.
:P
Your apples are my orchard in this case.