Software companies from just about day one, have been doing this. Call it what you want, a "sunset clause", a "bomb", etc. Basically the software expires and you must pay up for another.
The main cause of this isn't closed source software, but lack of competition.
It's the lack of competition that allows the companies to do this. Obviously if there was another software service you could buy from, you would, wouldn't you? Even today there are a lot of small industries that buy software with these "expiration dates" in them because they have no where else to go, and can not afford to pay someone to write their own code.
To all you up and coming developers.... find these markets and make software for them. It won't make you rich, but it's a start....
I honestly believe that people will pay for such a convienence. I personally would love to have music playing that doesn't cut in and out while I'm driving a long distance. Or trying to find a good radio station that doesn't play country way up in northern vermont or maine.
And no advertisements! yes, yes, yes!
But the real question is this: "Will the satelite radio compainies get enough subscribers to sustain themselves"
This is very important and should really be looked into first. I mean, so many wireless internet companies failed. We just saw @thome go under just recently, and they had a LARGE customer base.
Regretfully, very few companies could pull this off. And I firmly believe that the only ones who will, are the ones that are already established such as Time-Warner or Microsoft. They already have the capital and the means and they can suffer the losses that will incur for the early years of this new business cycle. Not some startup.
who's the moderator who called the original post "flaimbait"? That was a valid response. He likes Opera... hell, I like Opera. And he's correct that the Opera UI with the gesture movements gets addictive. I'll hop on a computer using IE and I find myself trying to go back into history using the right click gesture method.
Opera is a great browser (I personally prefer 5 instead of 6).
Someone mod the parent (or mine to get some attention) up. Mod me down for being an ass if you want but moderation like that, on a valid post is uncalled for.
Need to team up with thinkgeek.com
on
Binary Watch
·
· Score: 3, Funny
and get a matching binary "ties suck tie", and the "you are dumb" binary t-shirt!
Sell all three together as a set.... Then head to work for the day..... That will keep you from getting a date for at least the next year!
On a side note, the idea is cool for the watch and I like it, I just wish they looked a little cooler... They kinda look cheap.
Nice ap, but no real world potential yet
on
Quantum Holography
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
As I see it, if you CAN'T see the back side of an object, then you can't see it!
You can assume what it looks like and then create an image out of that assumption, but unless you are looking directly at it, you'll never know.
Heck 4 and 8 tracks will be a thing of the past if this goes. Instead of hooking your guitars up to a 4 track and then making recording off of that for your demo, you now go straight into your computer.... your basic studio setup but with digital quality sound and digital output onto a demo CD....
The more I write the more I like the idea....
Better start learning where to put my finger for that A chord now....
What about all the new technology companies are producing to prevent all of the current MP3 sharing? I mean, they now are producing mp3 players where music can not be shared.... the only mp3's you can play on them are the ones you personally rip and encode.
So, lets say I go out and just bought one of these "new" mp3 players because I only listen to my cd's anyways.... And these "new" mp3 players are being made because the RIAA is making such a big stink...
Now lets say I sign up for the RIAA's new subscription service at $10.00 a month and find out these songs don't work on my "new" mp3 player!
This sounds to me like a simple case of media overload! I mean, how much information do we really need at once? And where's the application for this?
"sarcastic voice"
oooo, ooooo look streaming video
"/sarcastic voice"
Really, so what? What can the average person do with this except maybe the I'm-late-for-a-bored-meeting (board purposely spelt incorrect). or a new twist to phone sex and 1-900 numbers.... After that, what would the average person want with this..... Sorry CMDTACO... You are not the average person so you're allowed to want this....
I have no need for this, nor would I wish to pay for such a device Any ideas how much extra this would cost? Heck, I can't even reason with paying for wireless internet access anymore. It was a great novelty at first, and maybe checking my stocks or e-mail at the beach...
The web was meant to share information. Really! No Really! That's why it was initally created.... Not to sell stuff. No Really....
Idealy, portals are just that, a way to share mass amounts of information and allow users to find their way there. Also communities are a way to share information of a like idea, sport, subject matter, whatever....
It's when you throw in a large commercial aspect of pop-up ads, click here for this, or buy that from me, that people / surfers loose interest in your site. They are there to share ideas and information, not buy something. If they want to buy something, then they'll go to the appropriate store or online store, not a community that sells it. Just go direct to the horses mouth.
A web community that I'm still apart of went through this failed transition. He wanted to make money off of his extrememly popular and traveled web community. He added lots of ads. And took it from a small, focused community, and made it into a large portal. This failed because the focused community only cared about one thing, not the rest. He dropped back to where he started. He then charged a small fee and made a membership section. I paid for a membership. Very few did.
Everyone else jumped ship and went to another FREE community. Communities are easy to build and find. If it's good, and the information is there, people will come. If you force advertisements and memberships or sales down the throats of users, they will leave. Information was meant to be free. Keep it so, and people will come.
My advice: Don't do it for the money, do it because you love it. Do it because you have something to share. Do it because you want to talk about what you enjoy with others that enjoy the same thing. Don't do it to make a quick buck... It will never work.
I honestly can see both sides of the issue... On one hand, we want to be safe. On the other, we want our privacy protected from corporate america and from "big brother" as some would put it. Personally: If you have to worry about big brother, you are either paranoid, a conspiracy nut, or how I used to be.... I stopped caring, about it and now fill my time with useful stuff like hacking linux, programming, etc... On the other hand I still DO CARE, because I do not want corporate america spamming me with sh*t because they can now check which sites I'm going to by getting logs. In short if the DOJ does it... Nothing we can do, if Amazon does it.... That will have to stop.
And think about it... Only in corporate america do we really have a say. We can just stop buying their product or give a backlash to them... The DOJ... Nothing. Really if you think about it. You can call your Rep. but really what does that do. If things don't go their way, they can just find a way around it. And laws are passed in their favor despite what many may think.... It's like a town meeting I once went to: you know the Yeah's and Neigh's, well we voted audibly on a subject and the Neigh's had it voted down considerably but the Power's to Be, said Yes instead..... Why? Well they already bought the object in question. So they had to pass it whether the people wanted it or not... That's the truth on how things are run, both small time and big time.
Wow, someone forgot to have their bottle of Bawls today....
And as for Screen Saver Passwords... I love mine! It completely protects my computer from anyone trying to get into it. Just as they move the mouse the screen stops and pops up with a message that says "Please enter your password!"
Ha, I got them! Now I can leave my computer days at a time and never be worried!
As for NetBIOS? What is that some kind of linux thing? All you linux people.... Kernel this, NetBIOS that, don't you people realize that some of us actually LIKE windows 95 or 98 first edition!? Man.......
I like to program but I'm not a huge trojan nut but have the basic concept and idea on how these things work....
First off: Everyone keeps talking about how it will just be a matter of time before a wild version of "green lantern" or something of the sort shows up in the wild.... Dude, if you have Green Lantern on your computer and you find out about it, you've got a lot more things to worry about then sharing it with the hacker / cracker community!
Second of all: Who cares that the anti-virus software won't recognize it. They haven't detected half the viruses for years! Heck, Just create your basic client server in c++ or whatever and you'll notice that it is not recognized by the software anyways..... I started to learn sockets and create client/server chats, remote access for work, etc. My anti-virus, anti-trojan software never picked up on it... only my Zone Alarm caught it.
The search engines use robots, and the robots read your site through links... So unless the file is in the root directory or has a direct link to the information. It should not show up.
So create a folder called "mystuff" and keep everything in it... and don't create a link to it, just remember it and type in the url. http://www.my-site.com/mystuff You'll then be sent to your secret folder that no one knows about, even the robots. So I'm not sure what all the yelling is about. Just do that, or set up the robots.txt correctly, but most people don't realize they can do that....
I am reading this, because I am in the same boat and have some projects I would like to see continued, just that I no loger have the desire.
Most of the posts say, just let the community judge it. Well that's fine if you have a large site that's really popular. But what if you don't? Sure my site gets good traffic, but nothing fantastic.... I do not advertise, or offer anything substantial other than code. My purpose is to code, not to get traffic....
So what's my alternative.... Be another freshmeat or sourceforge project that doesn't get traffic too? I mean go and see for yourself how many defunct projects there are..... and the list! Oh my god the list.... So many to go through, so many with no source code at all!
The solution:
Traffic And lots of it. These two projects will now probably get a home thanks to Slashdot. My Proposal: Maybe Slashdot can add a new feature.... Projects in need of a home, and can showcase a new project every day or week.
Do you really think it was just the business model of making money, or was it also the fact they probably had to spend tons of money with lawyers, etc. when there was a problem with someone using their system for something wrong.
I can imagine that not everyone was being anonymous just because they didn't want spam, but also cracking websites.....
So how much flack did places like this get? That's something I would like to know. I had freedom found at www.freedom.net and I thouroughly enjoyed their services and anti-spam and anti-cookie features. Now with an exploit in the browsers where your cookies can be read by a third party, the idea of having a cookie keeper and anonymous surfing was looking better. I hardly used the service, but they also shut down on Nov. 11th.... Well only the anonymous surfing part. They're keeping everything else, so this makes me want to believe that the shutting down of this services was not due to money, but due to lawyer problems and head aches caused by anonymous surfing. I mean really, how much does it really cost to keep a server up... ( I know it can be a lot but these people are charging $50.00 a year each.... )
I have a webpage at http://www.mcarterbrown.com where I set up my own proxy that will strip cookies, java, javascript, etc. and allow anonymous surfing. I use it, when I don't want to see annoying pop-up ads that every website under the sun are now using. Drop me a line and I'll zip you the code.
Just because a program has the name shareware attached to it, doesn't mean you need to cough up money $$$$$.
Most "shareware" programs just have a simple screen (a minor annoyance) that allows the coder to announce who wrote it. Nothing more. And then states that if you want the registered version, with out the minor annoyance then please cough up $5.00 or somthing like that.
An excellent example is WinZip for Mircosoft OS computers.
You can download it for free and use it as much as you want. But there is a minor annoyance screen that asks if you wish the register it. That's all. That is a shareware program.
I see it as a way for a developer to still live by his / her "software should be free" ideas but also a way to maybe make a little money for his / her time. And we should all take heed... If you like and use a program... Pay the few bucks and honor the coder.
This is an extrememly excellent point! Please mod the parent up!
Just because a program has the name shareware attached to it, doesn't mean you need to cough up money $$$$$. Most "shareware" programs just have a simple screen (a minor annoyance) that allows the coder to announce who wrote it. Nothing more. And then states that if you want the registered version, with out the minor annoyance then please cough up $5.00 or somthing like that.
An excellent example is WinZip for Mircosoft OS computers. You can download it for free and use it as much as you want. But there is a minor annoyance screen that asks if you wish the register it. That's all. That is a shareware program.
I see it as a way for a developer to still live by his / her "software should be free" ideas but also a way to maybe make a little money for his / her time. And we should all take heed... If you like and use a program... Pay the few bucks and honor the coder.
I'm not a big poster, and my comment will probably not be read by many because the mod will be low, and there are already too many people posting their 0.02$ but.....
Here I go:
I would not go for the penny a page model but would be willing to see other ways of making money. Example: I would like to see extremely low cost ISP's.... Bringing us back to the pay-by-the-hour model. This is for the people like my grandmother who just checks her e-mail and nothing else. Maybe it would cost her only a few bucks a month (if that).
I would also like to see more sites where you paid for content.... but at an extremely low cost. Now Before You all Jump Out the Window... Here's the skinny... I would pay for slashdot. But at a low cost. Make it extremely enticing. Like $0.50 a month. What's that, $6.00 a year. No big deal to me, or about 85% of you either..... Now take $6.00 x %85 of the people here.... That's the annual revenue of slashdot.
But Why? Slashdot is free because VA Linux is helping us out, along with the good effort and time of lots of people and coders. What if we loose this? Then what?
Finishing Points: By designing some sites like this We would be pushing and asking / demanding better content. Up to date information. Top of the line technology. If a site wants to be free and can afford it. Like my site, and many many many others... then great. But advertising does not work. This we know. But give me a site with an extremely low monthly / yearly payment with demanding content... And people will pay
Seriously look into it. Made by Hewlett Packard. The OmniBook XP (or any variation of) works perfectly with linux. Resolution, screen size, harware detection, etc.
I have successfully run both Linux Mandrake and Red Hat on it. (Even back to Red Hat 6.2!)
I use a Xircom ethernet card, and that was detected by both with no effort..... Why build your own when you can easily buy one ready to go?
A dail up with a good provider can be around $9.95 a month. That's $119.40 a month, for e-mail, websurfing, uploading new webpages to your site, and downloading some source code.....
I like to play Counter Strike (Half-Life) over the internet. Therefore I have a broadband (cable) connection. This costs me around $45.00 a month.... Extra $10.00 in that number because I rented the $300.00 modem instead of buying it. My reasoning... New technology will be available soon!
That comes to a whopping $540.00 a year. Over 5 years now.... You could save $2,103.00
Now how many of us here can just run around and blow $2,103.00!!!!!
I'm eventually going to dump the broadband if the prices do not come down. I like the idea of always online. But the idea of having my work pay for my high speed access and me using a zip drive to transfer files home is looking better and better every day when you look at those numbers.
What if you don't even know where your severs are? I bet you, that most people don't. The go to some fly-by-night cheap priced NT server or something like that and sign up. Hey, the prices were right.
All of a sudden the get a nice letter from a lawyer in the mail. Whose fault is it now. The server admin for allowing it? The site owner for posting it. Or Ignorance? But most places won't allow you to claim ignorance.... They never agreed with him anyways.
I can't believe that people at slashdot are biased... I actually thought this was a legit news source.
On another not the original posted who used the... I wasn't really sure if it was sarcasm or not since it was an incorrect script.. It never started with therefore my browser did not translate it correctly....
One more note: Yes the Bill Gates looks like a borg... But isn't he? I'm still waiting for the slashdot filters to take the word Microsoft and change it to a link just like xp. so now when I write it it looks like this
Slashdot Mirror
Software companies from just about day one, have been doing this.
Call it what you want, a "sunset clause", a "bomb", etc. Basically the software expires and you must pay up for another.
The main cause of this isn't closed source software, but lack of competition.
It's the lack of competition that allows the companies to do this. Obviously if there was another software service you could buy from, you would, wouldn't you?
Even today there are a lot of small industries that buy software with these "expiration dates" in them because they have no where else to go, and can not afford to pay someone to write their own code.
To all you up and coming developers.... find these markets and make software for them. It won't make you rich, but it's a start....
I honestly believe that people will pay for such a convienence.
I personally would love to have music playing that doesn't cut in and out while I'm driving a long distance. Or trying to find a good radio station that doesn't play country way up in northern vermont or maine.
And no advertisements! yes, yes, yes!
But the real question is this: "Will the satelite radio compainies get enough subscribers to sustain themselves"
This is very important and should really be looked into first. I mean, so many wireless internet companies failed. We just saw @thome go under just recently, and they had a LARGE customer base.
Regretfully, very few companies could pull this off. And I firmly believe that the only ones who will, are the ones that are already established such as Time-Warner or Microsoft. They already have the capital and the means and they can suffer the losses that will incur for the early years of this new business cycle. Not some startup.
who's the moderator who called the original post "flaimbait"?
That was a valid response. He likes Opera... hell, I like Opera. And he's correct that the Opera UI with the gesture movements gets addictive. I'll hop on a computer using IE and I find myself trying to go back into history using the right click gesture method.
Opera is a great browser (I personally prefer 5 instead of 6).
Someone mod the parent (or mine to get some attention) up. Mod me down for being an ass if you want but moderation like that, on a valid post is uncalled for.
and get a matching binary "ties suck tie", and the "you are dumb" binary t-shirt!
Sell all three together as a set.... Then head to work for the day..... That will keep you from getting a date for at least the next year!
On a side note, the idea is cool for the watch and I like it, I just wish they looked a little cooler... They kinda look cheap.
As I see it, if you CAN'T see the back side of an object, then you can't see it!
You can assume what it looks like and then create an image out of that assumption, but unless you are looking directly at it, you'll never know.
to "live" music over the internet!
Heck 4 and 8 tracks will be a thing of the past if this goes. Instead of hooking your guitars up to a 4 track and then making recording off of that for your demo, you now go straight into your computer.... your basic studio setup but with digital quality sound and digital output onto a demo CD....
The more I write the more I like the idea....
Better start learning where to put my finger for that A chord now....
What about all the new technology companies are producing to prevent all of the current MP3 sharing? I mean, they now are producing mp3 players where music can not be shared.... the only mp3's you can play on them are the ones you personally rip and encode.
So, lets say I go out and just bought one of these "new" mp3 players because I only listen to my cd's anyways.... And these "new" mp3 players are being made because the RIAA is making such a big stink...
Now lets say I sign up for the RIAA's new subscription service at $10.00 a month and find out these songs don't work on my "new" mp3 player!
So who's going to refund my money?
This sounds to me like a simple case of media overload! I mean, how much information do we really need at once? And where's the application for this?
"sarcastic voice"
oooo, ooooo look streaming video
"/sarcastic voice"
Really, so what? What can the average person do with this except maybe the I'm-late-for-a-bored-meeting (board purposely spelt incorrect). or a new twist to phone sex and 1-900 numbers.... After that, what would the average person want with this..... Sorry CMDTACO... You are not the average person so you're allowed to want this....
I have no need for this, nor would I wish to pay for such a device
Any ideas how much extra this would cost?
Heck, I can't even reason with paying for wireless internet access anymore. It was a great novelty at first, and maybe checking my stocks or e-mail at the beach...
But really, do we all need to be THAT connected?
The web was meant to share information. Really! No Really! That's why it was initally created.... Not to sell stuff. No Really....
Idealy, portals are just that, a way to share mass amounts of information and allow users to find their way there. Also communities are a way to share information of a like idea, sport, subject matter, whatever....
It's when you throw in a large commercial aspect of pop-up ads, click here for this, or buy that from me, that people / surfers loose interest in your site. They are there to share ideas and information, not buy something. If they want to buy something, then they'll go to the appropriate store or online store, not a community that sells it. Just go direct to the horses mouth.
A web community that I'm still apart of went through this failed transition. He wanted to make money off of his extrememly popular and traveled web community. He added lots of ads. And took it from a small, focused community, and made it into a large portal. This failed because the focused community only cared about one thing, not the rest. He dropped back to where he started. He then charged a small fee and made a membership section. I paid for a membership. Very few did.
Everyone else jumped ship and went to another FREE community. Communities are easy to build and find. If it's good, and the information is there, people will come. If you force advertisements and memberships or sales down the throats of users, they will leave. Information was meant to be free. Keep it so, and people will come.
My advice:
Don't do it for the money, do it because you love it. Do it because you have something to share. Do it because you want to talk about what you enjoy with others that enjoy the same thing. Don't do it to make a quick buck... It will never work.
I honestly can see both sides of the issue... On one hand, we want to be safe. On the other, we want our privacy protected from corporate america and from "big brother" as some would put it.
Personally:
If you have to worry about big brother, you are either paranoid, a conspiracy nut, or how I used to be....
I stopped caring, about it and now fill my time with useful stuff like hacking linux, programming, etc...
On the other hand I still DO CARE, because I do not want corporate america spamming me with sh*t because they can now check which sites I'm going to by getting logs. In short if the DOJ does it... Nothing we can do, if Amazon does it.... That will have to stop.
And think about it... Only in corporate america do we really have a say. We can just stop buying their product or give a backlash to them... The DOJ... Nothing. Really if you think about it. You can call your Rep. but really what does that do. If things don't go their way, they can just find a way around it. And laws are passed in their favor despite what many may think.... It's like a town meeting I once went to: you know the Yeah's and Neigh's, well we voted audibly on a subject and the Neigh's had it voted down considerably but the Power's to Be, said Yes instead..... Why? Well they already bought the object in question. So they had to pass it whether the people wanted it or not... That's the truth on how things are run, both small time and big time.
Wow, someone forgot to have their bottle of Bawls today....
And as for Screen Saver Passwords... I love mine! It completely protects my computer from anyone trying to get into it. Just as they move the mouse the screen stops and pops up with a message that says "Please enter your password!"
Ha, I got them! Now I can leave my computer days at a time and never be worried!
As for NetBIOS? What is that some kind of linux thing? All you linux people.... Kernel this, NetBIOS that, don't you people realize that some of us actually LIKE windows 95 or 98 first edition!? Man.......
I like to program but I'm not a huge trojan nut but have the basic concept and idea on how these things work....
First off:
Everyone keeps talking about how it will just be a matter of time before a wild version of "green lantern" or something of the sort shows up in the wild....
Dude, if you have Green Lantern on your computer and you find out about it, you've got a lot more things to worry about then sharing it with the hacker / cracker community!
Second of all:
Who cares that the anti-virus software won't recognize it. They haven't detected half the viruses for years!
Heck, Just create your basic client server in c++ or whatever and you'll notice that it is not recognized by the software anyways..... I started to learn sockets and create client/server chats, remote access for work, etc. My anti-virus, anti-trojan software never picked up on it... only my Zone Alarm caught it.
Now we can get online and give Dr. Laura some REAL competition!
Don't forget to listen tonight at 9.....
Just make sure you're within a 20 foot radius to hear me!
The search engines use robots, and the robots read your site through links... So unless the file is in the root directory or has a direct link to the information. It should not show up.
So create a folder called "mystuff" and keep everything in it... and don't create a link to it, just remember it and type in the url.
http://www.my-site.com/mystuff
You'll then be sent to your secret folder that no one knows about, even the robots.
So I'm not sure what all the yelling is about. Just do that, or set up the robots.txt correctly, but most people don't realize they can do that....
I am reading this, because I am in the same boat and have some projects I would like to see continued, just that I no loger have the desire.
Most of the posts say, just let the community judge it.
Well that's fine if you have a large site that's really popular. But what if you don't?
Sure my site gets good traffic, but nothing fantastic.... I do not advertise, or offer anything substantial other than code.
My purpose is to code, not to get traffic....
So what's my alternative.... Be another freshmeat or sourceforge project that doesn't get traffic too? I mean go and see for yourself how many defunct projects there are..... and the list! Oh my god the list.... So many to go through, so many with no source code at all!
The solution:
Traffic
And lots of it. These two projects will now probably get a home thanks to Slashdot.
My Proposal:
Maybe Slashdot can add a new feature.... Projects in need of a home, and can showcase a new project every day or week.
Do you really think it was just the business model of making money, or was it also the fact they probably had to spend tons of money with lawyers, etc. when there was a problem with someone using their system for something wrong.
I can imagine that not everyone was being anonymous just because they didn't want spam, but also cracking websites.....
So how much flack did places like this get? That's something I would like to know.
I had freedom found at www.freedom.net and I thouroughly enjoyed their services and anti-spam and anti-cookie features. Now with an exploit in the browsers where your cookies can be read by a third party, the idea of having a cookie keeper and anonymous surfing was looking better. I hardly used the service, but they also shut down on Nov. 11th.... Well only the anonymous surfing part. They're keeping everything else, so this makes me want to believe that the shutting down of this services was not due to money, but due to lawyer problems and head aches caused by anonymous surfing. I mean really, how much does it really cost to keep a server up... ( I know it can be a lot but these people are charging $50.00 a year each.... )
Just a thought....
I have a webpage at http://www.mcarterbrown.com where I set up my own proxy that will strip cookies, java, javascript, etc. and allow anonymous surfing. I use it, when I don't want to see annoying pop-up ads that every website under the sun are now using. Drop me a line and I'll zip you the code.
Just because a program has the name shareware attached to it, doesn't mean you need to cough up money $$$$$.
Most "shareware" programs just have a simple screen (a minor annoyance) that allows the coder to announce who wrote it. Nothing more. And then states that if you want the registered version, with out the minor annoyance then please cough up $5.00 or somthing like that.
An excellent example is WinZip for Mircosoft OS computers.
You can download it for free and use it as much as you want. But there is a minor annoyance screen that asks if you wish the register it. That's all. That is a shareware program.
I see it as a way for a developer to still live by his / her "software should be free" ideas but also a way to maybe make a little money for his / her time. And we should all take heed... If you like and use a program... Pay the few bucks and honor the coder.
This is an extrememly excellent point! Please mod the parent up!
Just because a program has the name shareware attached to it, doesn't mean you need to cough up money $$$$$.
Most "shareware" programs just have a simple screen (a minor annoyance) that allows the coder to announce who wrote it. Nothing more. And then states that if you want the registered version, with out the minor annoyance then please cough up $5.00 or somthing like that.
An excellent example is WinZip for Mircosoft OS computers.
You can download it for free and use it as much as you want. But there is a minor annoyance screen that asks if you wish the register it. That's all. That is a shareware program.
I see it as a way for a developer to still live by his / her "software should be free" ideas but also a way to maybe make a little money for his / her time. And we should all take heed... If you like and use a program... Pay the few bucks and honor the coder.
I'm not a big poster, and my comment will probably not be read by many because the mod will be low, and there are already too many people posting their 0.02$ but.....
Here I go:
I would not go for the penny a page model but would be willing to see other ways of making money.
Example:
I would like to see extremely low cost ISP's.... Bringing us back to the pay-by-the-hour model. This is for the people like my grandmother who just checks her e-mail and nothing else. Maybe it would cost her only a few bucks a month (if that).
I would also like to see more sites where you paid for content.... but at an extremely low cost.
Now Before You all Jump Out the Window...
Here's the skinny...
I would pay for slashdot. But at a low cost. Make it extremely enticing. Like $0.50 a month. What's that, $6.00 a year. No big deal to me, or about 85% of you either..... Now take $6.00 x %85 of the people here.... That's the annual revenue of slashdot.
But Why?
Slashdot is free because VA Linux is helping us out, along with the good effort and time of lots of people and coders. What if we loose this? Then what?
Finishing Points:
By designing some sites like this We would be pushing and asking / demanding better content. Up to date information. Top of the line technology. If a site wants to be free and can afford it. Like my site, and many many many others... then great. But advertising does not work. This we know. But give me a site with an extremely low monthly / yearly payment with demanding content... And people will pay
Seriously look into it. Made by Hewlett Packard. The OmniBook XP (or any variation of) works perfectly with linux. Resolution, screen size, harware detection, etc.
I have successfully run both Linux Mandrake and Red Hat on it. (Even back to Red Hat 6.2!)
I use a Xircom ethernet card, and that was detected by both with no effort.....
Why build your own when you can easily buy one ready to go?
Linuxrunner
Anonymous Coward Probably from M$ Said:
Jesus Christ guys, don't you ever get tired of bashing MS?
My Reply:
No!
Linuxrunner
A dail up with a good provider can be around $9.95 a month. That's $119.40 a month, for e-mail, websurfing, uploading new webpages to your site, and downloading some source code.....
I like to play Counter Strike (Half-Life) over the internet. Therefore I have a broadband (cable) connection. This costs me around $45.00 a month.... Extra $10.00 in that number because I rented the $300.00 modem instead of buying it. My reasoning... New technology will be available soon!
That comes to a whopping $540.00 a year. Over 5 years now.... You could save $2,103.00
Now how many of us here can just run around and blow $2,103.00!!!!!
I'm eventually going to dump the broadband if the prices do not come down. I like the idea of always online. But the idea of having my work pay for my high speed access and me using a zip drive to transfer files home is looking better and better every day when you look at those numbers.
What if you don't even know where your severs are? I bet you, that most people don't. The go to some fly-by-night cheap priced NT server or something like that and sign up. Hey, the prices were right.
All of a sudden the get a nice letter from a lawyer in the mail.
Whose fault is it now. The server admin for allowing it? The site owner for posting it. Or Ignorance? But most places won't allow you to claim ignorance.... They never agreed with him anyways.
I can't believe that people at slashdot are biased... I actually thought this was a legit news source.
... I wasn't really sure if it was sarcasm or not since it was an incorrect script.. It never started with therefore my browser did not translate it correctly....
On another not the original posted who used the
One more note: Yes the Bill Gates looks like a borg... But isn't he? I'm still waiting for the slashdot filters to take the word Microsoft and change it to a link just like xp. so now when I write it it looks like this
Microsoft
Take it all with a grain of salt, because too much salt is bad for your health!