People have been doing experiments like these since the first search engine was rolled off the assembly line. They're prone to abuse and dependent on the goodwill of the user. Imagine of PageRank was based on this - that "SearchKing" dude would have a bot searching for crap and then voting "yes" every time.
Won't work. Goodwill as we knew it in '95 is gone from the Internet.
After all, they seem to have subsidized SuSe into winning the Munich contract over "M$"... at least that's what it looks like now that more details on the deal are being made public.
The start of a great synergy.
(btw: governments - as consumers - have the right to buy anything they want. It doesn't matter that SuSe won the contract. The problem is hailing that as a "great victory" just to find out that the government decided to "buy german" instead of "buy open source" is kinda deflating)
Ditto Unreal II. It wouldn't run past the first two cutscenes without crashing.
Now that they've released the obligatory patch it works, but that just goes to show you how things work.
Besides, I think that the environment out there is too diverse to have 100% foolproof testing. There are too many different system configurations to be sure. So, if it compiles, ship it. Figure out the bugs when people start calling in.
I can't see how this is a case against commercial software (the reason, I assume, why it was posted here, "LOL"). It never is bug-free, but then it rarely is unusable. It's interesting that the article doesn't clarify how many of those calls to tech support are simply users that can't figure out how to do something, and ascribe their inability to solve a problem to a bug.
I've been using commercial software for many years, like most other people, and I've rarely had to call anyone to do anything. Granted I'm more technical than the average user, but then that would be an argument for making software easier to use, not one against its existence. Now, there are companies out there that put out positively shitty software without hardly any testing, and that becomes plain the moment you open it up. The birthday card printers and the no-name PIMs and so on. Software from companies like Microsoft always has bugs, but these are rarely showstoppers and are normally fixed in service packs or whatnot. There's another issue - did the user check to see if there was a fix before he/she called? Microsoft (and most other big software companies) spend billions of dollars on testing. This article makes it sound like nothing is tested and software is simply unusable by the time it gets to the consumer. I don't think that's even remotely the case.
And going back to why this was posted... how is free software any better? There is, by definition, no support. There's a formal testing protocol (alphas and betas) as well as thousands of unpaid testers. It's often released too early to "get it out there". The stuff is often buggy (oh, look! The KDE segfault dialog again!), but it's also patched regularly. The big-name stuff is about as rock-solid as most big-name commercial software. Both have their unique problems and strengths.
I'm sure this will turn into the usual "hahah, m$ sux" fest, but I just don't see how all these "facts" make free/open source more attractive - at least to the consumer.
I've read that you can't move recorded music *off* the Zen. For example, if I visit a friend of mine that has a great LP collection and I rip some tracks using his turntable/receiver into the device - does the Zen have some sort of DRM that prevents me from copying the tracks to my PC when I get home?
Or does the iPod do that as well?
That would be one of my considerations for choosing a player, and I've been very close to just what-the-heck dropping $500 or whatever on the iPod...
I've tried to Google it but I find reviews that say "easy to share music among friends" right next to "I can't get my music off the thing".
I'd give you a link... but I'd have to shoot you =)
I'd rather not reveal my... ah, "alter ego" in the rest of the internet, sorry. I suppose my post comes through as a bit of grandstanding without backing proof, but it's preferable, trust me. Sorry =)
And no, contrary to popular belief I don't work for The Evil Empire.
I write a lot of free software that runs with Office, Visual Basic and Visual C++ (and lately.NET). Not complete applications - that's what I do for a living after all - but libraries, controls, generic system services and things like that.
"Free" may be "not really free" in the eye of the beholder (although most of it is released under a license which is considered GPL-compatible) since it runs on "closed platforms" and "closed technologies", but that's usually not a problem with the more normal Windows crowd.
And yes, the license allows you to do anything, including forking, selling, etc. It only provides copyright protection and name recognition. There is no EULA or anything like that.
My code is used by programmers at US and state government agencies, Fortune 100 (and lower) companies, commercial off the shelf software houses and shareware and freeware authors all over the world. At least that I know of - occasionally I get an email asking me to clarify the license or just thanking me for releasing it, so I kinda know some of the places its used.
Apple could quite easily make it so you can't install anything but OS X on the machine, just like they killed OS 9 on the newer machines
Let me see if I get this right - You can't install OS 9 on a G5 (but you get the 'Classic' thing), and you consider this to be a good thing?
That makes product activation look like free candy - I can install Windows 95 OSR2 on a spankin' new 2.0 GHz P4 with everything on it (no firewire, complicated USB and outdated drivers, but still), and in fact I have done that very thing (well, on a PIII).
BTW, I don't really care (and I wasn't asking) whether or not you like Microsoft operating systems.
Essentially, these are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. [...] ~40 visits per day as measured by webalizer after a short period of time. Is this an anomaly?
No. Because they are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. Calculate number of real estate offices in the US. Substract those that have a meaningful IT infrastructure beyond a few PCs to type and print contracts. Then substract those that use custom software. Then substract those that don't use an Office/VBA solution, or simply a Microsoft platform (and from my experience those are the majority). Then substract those that have actual in-house developers. Finally, substract those that use PHP and MySQL, specifically. Then add the number of people who create and sell software solutions for real estate offices based on PHP/MySQL. There you go, about 40 people.
If you are Apache, Perl, Python, GAIM, etc, etc. then yes, it's an anomaly. What you're seeing is about right, considering it's a pretty narrow niche. People won't get excited about something just because it's listed on FreshMeat and is GPLE'd. There are one-liner bash scripts there with wider audience than your code.
But I don't see what you're worried about - that's how it works. The fact that its released will eventually help someone out. Just don't expect Yahoo-sized traffic.
Some of those are simple "pings" - if the message is not bounced then the address is valid and ripe for more spamming. This is a less sophisticated version of the image bug technique. That's why it's important to have a way to fake bouncing spam from your domain, although nowadays more ISPs are blocking that kind of thing.
I read an article once (in Salon or Wired, I forget) about how some spammers simply feed on each other and rely on the fact that the message is sent, but not necessarily read or even (stupidly, as in this case) used to buy something. Some spams contain links to crap that doesn't even exist, and I don't mean the opt-out or anything - the website or telephone number or address are bogus, so even if you wanted to you can't actually buy anything from them.
It must have been very traumatic to have the Apple Corps barge into your home at night and thrust an iBook in your hand while holding a brushed metal gun to your head. "You will use this or wear teal, heathen!"
If you don't like life in the gated community, buy a flat downtown. Or a shack out of town. But stop whining about it.
Hey, that's a great argument. I mean, whenever someone tells me "Micro$oft is evil" I can say "oh yeah? tell that to all he people who bought Windows boxes and now are running Linux, *BSD, Plan9, Atheos, QNX, BeOS, FreeDOS and even a different version of Windows on those very same boxes! Howz dat!!"
Nothing personal - I just find it funny that Apple can be considered such a nice and great company because of that. And of course, that the mods actually agree with it.
I think I'd rather see the "their boxen are shiny!1!!" argument when making a case for Apple.
If it wasn't for that precise attitude, free software would be much farther along.
But no, he has to bitch and moan about "GNU/Linux" and Ximian and Bitkeeper and everything and anything he doesn't consider "appropriate" for his feverish vision of what software should be. Apparently he's forgoten that "freedom" also includes freedom to see free software in ways different than his.
The entire GNU website is one big rant dedicated to showing the world how unfair people (the very people who have helped make most of his vision true) are to him because they don't share his ideals.
Microsoft is also uncompromising. So is SCO. But I don't see everyone cheering them.
And GNU's response to this? "It's not free enough", which means "it's not the GPL, therefore it sucks".
Maybe one of these days RMS will learn to appreciate the jumps and hoops companies who sell software for a living go through to do these types of things, instead of just dismissing them with "they're evil, proprietary and you shouldn't use them". Life is so much simpler when you don't have shareholders, boards of directors, lawyers and... well, money.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be a good idea, but how do you keep metamod from being abused as well? Hmmm... a /. styled random system would probably help.
Won't work. Goodwill as we knew it in '95 is gone from the Internet.
The start of a great synergy.
(btw: governments - as consumers - have the right to buy anything they want. It doesn't matter that SuSe won the contract. The problem is hailing that as a "great victory" just to find out that the government decided to "buy german" instead of "buy open source" is kinda deflating)
I read "from my crotch to my finger".
But that's just me.
Now that they've released the obligatory patch it works, but that just goes to show you how things work.
Besides, I think that the environment out there is too diverse to have 100% foolproof testing. There are too many different system configurations to be sure. So, if it compiles, ship it. Figure out the bugs when people start calling in.
I've been using commercial software for many years, like most other people, and I've rarely had to call anyone to do anything. Granted I'm more technical than the average user, but then that would be an argument for making software easier to use, not one against its existence. Now, there are companies out there that put out positively shitty software without hardly any testing, and that becomes plain the moment you open it up. The birthday card printers and the no-name PIMs and so on. Software from companies like Microsoft always has bugs, but these are rarely showstoppers and are normally fixed in service packs or whatnot. There's another issue - did the user check to see if there was a fix before he/she called? Microsoft (and most other big software companies) spend billions of dollars on testing. This article makes it sound like nothing is tested and software is simply unusable by the time it gets to the consumer. I don't think that's even remotely the case.
And going back to why this was posted... how is free software any better? There is, by definition, no support. There's a formal testing protocol (alphas and betas) as well as thousands of unpaid testers. It's often released too early to "get it out there". The stuff is often buggy (oh, look! The KDE segfault dialog again!), but it's also patched regularly. The big-name stuff is about as rock-solid as most big-name commercial software. Both have their unique problems and strengths.
I'm sure this will turn into the usual "hahah, m$ sux" fest, but I just don't see how all these "facts" make free/open source more attractive - at least to the consumer.
I think that's what goes between "Write free software" and "PROFIT!!1!!".
Here's a word of advise, asswipe. Your writing patterns give you away faster than I can say "paranoid". So fuck off and go troll someone else.
Or does the iPod do that as well?
That would be one of my considerations for choosing a player, and I've been very close to just what-the-heck dropping $500 or whatever on the iPod...
I've tried to Google it but I find reviews that say "easy to share music among friends" right next to "I can't get my music off the thing".
Look at his posting history. He's writing the ultimate Slashdot adjective haiku, one entry at a time.
Thanks.
Sorry. I suck at teh maths =)
I'd rather not reveal my... ah, "alter ego" in the rest of the internet, sorry. I suppose my post comes through as a bit of grandstanding without backing proof, but it's preferable, trust me. Sorry =)
And no, contrary to popular belief I don't work for The Evil Empire.
Is Taco using the story generator again?
But anyway, better read all this carefully.
"Free" may be "not really free" in the eye of the beholder (although most of it is released under a license which is considered GPL-compatible) since it runs on "closed platforms" and "closed technologies", but that's usually not a problem with the more normal Windows crowd.
And yes, the license allows you to do anything, including forking, selling, etc. It only provides copyright protection and name recognition. There is no EULA or anything like that.
My code is used by programmers at US and state government agencies, Fortune 100 (and lower) companies, commercial off the shelf software houses and shareware and freeware authors all over the world. At least that I know of - occasionally I get an email asking me to clarify the license or just thanking me for releasing it, so I kinda know some of the places its used.
WTF?
Apple could quite easily make it so you can't install anything but OS X on the machine, just like they killed OS 9 on the newer machines
Let me see if I get this right - You can't install OS 9 on a G5 (but you get the 'Classic' thing), and you consider this to be a good thing?
That makes product activation look like free candy - I can install Windows 95 OSR2 on a spankin' new 2.0 GHz P4 with everything on it (no firewire, complicated USB and outdated drivers, but still), and in fact I have done that very thing (well, on a PIII).
BTW, I don't really care (and I wasn't asking) whether or not you like Microsoft operating systems.
No. Because they are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. Calculate number of real estate offices in the US. Substract those that have a meaningful IT infrastructure beyond a few PCs to type and print contracts. Then substract those that use custom software. Then substract those that don't use an Office/VBA solution, or simply a Microsoft platform (and from my experience those are the majority). Then substract those that have actual in-house developers. Finally, substract those that use PHP and MySQL, specifically. Then add the number of people who create and sell software solutions for real estate offices based on PHP/MySQL. There you go, about 40 people.
If you are Apache, Perl, Python, GAIM, etc, etc. then yes, it's an anomaly. What you're seeing is about right, considering it's a pretty narrow niche. People won't get excited about something just because it's listed on FreshMeat and is GPLE'd. There are one-liner bash scripts there with wider audience than your code.
But I don't see what you're worried about - that's how it works. The fact that its released will eventually help someone out. Just don't expect Yahoo-sized traffic.
FWIW, I think you're very jiggy with the party line. The problem is that this is apple.slashdot.org, so the rules kinda change.
I read an article once (in Salon or Wired, I forget) about how some spammers simply feed on each other and rely on the fact that the message is sent, but not necessarily read or even (stupidly, as in this case) used to buy something. Some spams contain links to crap that doesn't even exist, and I don't mean the opt-out or anything - the website or telephone number or address are bogus, so even if you wanted to you can't actually buy anything from them.
Weird.
If you don't like life in the gated community, buy a flat downtown. Or a shack out of town. But stop whining about it.
Nothing personal - I just find it funny that Apple can be considered such a nice and great company because of that. And of course, that the mods actually agree with it.
I think I'd rather see the "their boxen are shiny!1!!" argument when making a case for Apple.
If it wasn't for that precise attitude, free software would be much farther along.
But no, he has to bitch and moan about "GNU/Linux" and Ximian and Bitkeeper and everything and anything he doesn't consider "appropriate" for his feverish vision of what software should be. Apparently he's forgoten that "freedom" also includes freedom to see free software in ways different than his.
The entire GNU website is one big rant dedicated to showing the world how unfair people (the very people who have helped make most of his vision true) are to him because they don't share his ideals.
Microsoft is also uncompromising. So is SCO. But I don't see everyone cheering them.
Maybe one of these days RMS will learn to appreciate the jumps and hoops companies who sell software for a living go through to do these types of things, instead of just dismissing them with "they're evil, proprietary and you shouldn't use them". Life is so much simpler when you don't have shareholders, boards of directors, lawyers and... well, money.