You're talking about a disparate group of people on every continent in every nation that has electricity and phone service. There is no common goal. They are all users and developers of a set of tools, and those tools they turn to the service of their own goals.
Microsoft does not figure into the overwhelming majority of those goal-sets. Microsoft could continue their hegemony on the desktop until the sun cools and not affect the Linux community in any meaningful way.
There is no "OSS" that is making corporate decisions (as in, with a central "hidden agenda".)
There are people who develop for Linux who want to kill their competition and control the world desktop, but a) they're not running the show and b) they couldn't do it anyway.
Even after enabling 30 second skip on my TiVo, I find the fastforward function to be much more accurate and reliable.
Sometimes, commercials aren't exactly 30 seconds. Then I have to rewind to find the beginning of the show. With the "pop-back" fastforward feature, there is no guesswork. I thought I'd be annoyed by this feature, but it's supremely well designed.
There's no "make up your minds". Microsoft designed the system poorly, and now they're having to hack together a solution that's still not going to solve the problem.
Why should I cut them slack? Why should I not bag on their shoddy workmanship?
The TV show was different from the radio play, and the radio play was different from the books. All were very amusing. I expect the movie to be the same way.
How could the movie diminish the books anyhow? I mean, nobody's going to come take your book away...
I wish Roblimo had really skewered him on this point. If MS's software isn't fit for any purpose, and Debian isn't fit for any purpose, and Debian doesn't cost me anything, and MS won't stand behind their product anyway, why should I buy Microsoft?
I also like the way Martin totally failed to address interoperability concerns. Like he could, without being struck dead by a bolt of lightning from either God (for lying) or Bill (for telling the truth).
"You'd rather they evaporated entirely, disabling one of the internet backbones, leaving 75 government agencies and much of the Fortune 1000 without phone and internet service, putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and completely destroying the investments of people taken in by the accounting fraud?"
Yep.
"Maybe the assets and obligations should go to some organization capable of managing them honestly?"
Oh, right...the HONEST phone company. Which one was that again?
"The idea that a corporation is a legal entity with rights and responsibilities is a useful fiction in making the law function at all, but it doesn't actually make sense to talk about "the same MCI" from then to now."
Brand marketing can be both a positive, and a negative, thing. Hoist by their own petard.
Too bad it's riddled with plot-stopping bugs. I got 3/4 of the way through the game, and my savegames got corrupted. And I was screwed. And I couldn't get any help to fix it.
Good riddance. Deus Ex 1 was awesome. Thief was pretty good. Everything else was crap.
How has Apple illegally leveraged their "monopoly" on their own hardware (which is a silly idea to begin with: Ford has a monopoly on making Fords too) to dominate another market?
Answer: They haven't.
Apple bought SoundJam and improved it radically. They built a service whose "monopoly" exists only because lots of people bought stuff from them.
It's not illegal to have a monopoly. It's illegal to use that monopoly to leverage another market. Apple hasn't done that.
If an artist had the audacity to sell me a piece, and then tried to tell me who was allowed to look at it, I'd send him high-res video of me destroying it in the most inventive ways possible.
I have 6000 songs on my iPod. 5500 of them are 192kb VBR LAME encoded MP3's. The rest are orphans I've collected from a number of sources. Of those orphans, a lot are jazz tunes recorded 50 years ago that sound pretty scratchy and tinny. Is that the iPod's fault?
The iPod sounds as good as its source material. You put in bad source material, it doesn't sound very good.
"And let's face it, even CD quality inherently sucks which is why there is up and oversampling and DSD to try and get better sound out of the digital medium"
Let me guess: You're bitter because the portable phonograph never took off, aren't you?
I am so very, very glad that I don't have golden ears. I'd have to be a pretentious dick about everything that has speakers. If I want music to sound better than it does on my iPod, I'll go to a concert. Or perform one myself.
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Who is "they"? Do they have a secret handshake?
You're talking about a disparate group of people on every continent in every nation that has electricity and phone service. There is no common goal. They are all users and developers of a set of tools, and those tools they turn to the service of their own goals.
Microsoft does not figure into the overwhelming majority of those goal-sets. Microsoft could continue their hegemony on the desktop until the sun cools and not affect the Linux community in any meaningful way.
You, my friend, have a persecution complex.
But that has nothing whatsoever with your imagined scenario where "OSS" is hypocritical because they want to take over the world.
There is no hive mind. Different developers have different agendas. Some are corporations, some are meaty humans with BO and lots of hair.
What do IBM's and Novell's and Oracle's motivations have to do with Joe Average Linux developer?
Nothing.
What do Microsoft's motivations have to do with Joe Average Microsoft developer?
Everything.
Linux's raison d'etre has nothing to do with corporate domination. Corporations may well be attempting to use Linux to achieve corporate domination.
There is no "OSS" that is making corporate decisions (as in, with a central "hidden agenda".)
There are people who develop for Linux who want to kill their competition and control the world desktop, but a) they're not running the show and b) they couldn't do it anyway.
Even after enabling 30 second skip on my TiVo, I find the fastforward function to be much more accurate and reliable.
Sometimes, commercials aren't exactly 30 seconds. Then I have to rewind to find the beginning of the show. With the "pop-back" fastforward feature, there is no guesswork. I thought I'd be annoyed by this feature, but it's supremely well designed.
Of course, that's not enough to save TiVo...
"When Microsoft gives away free software, it's for evil purpose with a hidden agenda"
Uh, yeah. That's been the historical truth. Do you have a counterexample?
Okay.
So read a review written by somebody who's seen the movie.
Or continue jumping to conclusions. Whatever floats your boat.
"Ruined"? Did they come take your book away from you?
There's no "make up your minds". Microsoft designed the system poorly, and now they're having to hack together a solution that's still not going to solve the problem.
Why should I cut them slack? Why should I not bag on their shoddy workmanship?
How about (now, I know this is a crazy idea, but bear with me) we watch the movie before we assume that it sucks?
You are wound way too tight to enjoy this movie.
Please, for all our sakes, indulge in your muscle relaxant of choice and chill the hell out.
Yeah, a cerebral book with a sperm whale talking with a bowl of gladiolas (?) running into a planet.
The books were FUNNY. If the movie is funny, it is good. If it's not, it's bad.
The TV show was different from the radio play, and the radio play was different from the books. All were very amusing. I expect the movie to be the same way.
How could the movie diminish the books anyhow? I mean, nobody's going to come take your book away...
I wish Roblimo had really skewered him on this point. If MS's software isn't fit for any purpose, and Debian isn't fit for any purpose, and Debian doesn't cost me anything, and MS won't stand behind their product anyway, why should I buy Microsoft?
I also like the way Martin totally failed to address interoperability concerns. Like he could, without being struck dead by a bolt of lightning from either God (for lying) or Bill (for telling the truth).
Which would be just fine, if there were some way to safeguard the interests of the customers.
But there's not, so this is bad.
"You'd rather they evaporated entirely, disabling one of the internet backbones, leaving 75 government agencies and much of the Fortune 1000 without phone and internet service, putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and completely destroying the investments of people taken in by the accounting fraud?"
Yep.
"Maybe the assets and obligations should go to some organization capable of managing them honestly?"
Oh, right...the HONEST phone company. Which one was that again?
"The idea that a corporation is a legal entity with rights and responsibilities is a useful fiction in making the law function at all, but it doesn't actually make sense to talk about "the same MCI" from then to now."
Brand marketing can be both a positive, and a negative, thing. Hoist by their own petard.
Is it Microsoft bashing to make an observation about how Microsoft does business? Are there Microsoft software programs that work All The Time?
Yeah, and your opinion is much more rational than their opinion. Righto.
Then the artist is welcome to kiss both sides of my ass.
Too bad it's riddled with plot-stopping bugs. I got 3/4 of the way through the game, and my savegames got corrupted. And I was screwed. And I couldn't get any help to fix it.
Good riddance. Deus Ex 1 was awesome. Thief was pretty good. Everything else was crap.
I don't buy singles on iTMS because they're a bad deal. Albums, on the other hand, are a much better value.
Why do the habits of other people prevent you from buying albums, if that's what you want to do?
How has Apple illegally leveraged their "monopoly" on their own hardware (which is a silly idea to begin with: Ford has a monopoly on making Fords too) to dominate another market?
Answer: They haven't.
Apple bought SoundJam and improved it radically. They built a service whose "monopoly" exists only because lots of people bought stuff from them.
It's not illegal to have a monopoly. It's illegal to use that monopoly to leverage another market. Apple hasn't done that.
If an artist had the audacity to sell me a piece, and then tried to tell me who was allowed to look at it, I'd send him high-res video of me destroying it in the most inventive ways possible.
Do you think Jean Louis Gassee could have presided over Apple's comeback? Would he have had the vision to re-invent the company the way Jobs has?
If they had bought Be, they wouldn't have survived the dot com bubble. Say what you will about Jobs...he knows what he's doing.
Forget OSX vs. Be. The real competition was between Jobs and Gassee.
I have 6000 songs on my iPod. 5500 of them are 192kb VBR LAME encoded MP3's. The rest are orphans I've collected from a number of sources. Of those orphans, a lot are jazz tunes recorded 50 years ago that sound pretty scratchy and tinny. Is that the iPod's fault?
The iPod sounds as good as its source material. You put in bad source material, it doesn't sound very good.
"And let's face it, even CD quality inherently sucks which is why there is up and oversampling and DSD to try and get better sound out of the digital medium"
Let me guess: You're bitter because the portable phonograph never took off, aren't you?
I am so very, very glad that I don't have golden ears. I'd have to be a pretentious dick about everything that has speakers. If I want music to sound better than it does on my iPod, I'll go to a concert. Or perform one myself.
I never use Google's advertising banners, and I still somehow find products that solve problems for me.
If you think that advertising is about providing you with information, I think you're delusional.