Wouldn't your analogy be better suited to a plumbing supplier saying "Hey, all 1/2 PVC Plumbing Widgets 50% off"...
If you are a plumbing supply companys and that's your core competency, what are the odds you can write decent software anyway? If you are so good at writing software, why are you in the plumbing business in the first place? Now if you were writting some sort of "e-z plumbing ordering app" that was tied to your company's ordering system, I can see giving that to your customers, but if you open source it (or make it free) your competition can grab it, modify it, and use it, in which case, why did you do that in the first place?
Take, for example, a company that sells plumbing supplies wholesale, and provides Free software to its customers to manage specialized plumbing equipment inventory. If you were a plumbing supplies retailer, the availability of this software and its acceptance by said company adds to the value of the proposition of purchasing and managing your supplies from this corporation.
If you are adding value for someone else, and not charging for it, then you are an idiot. Yes, I know free means you can charge for it, yada yada yada, this leads to the correlary: If there is free software out there and you pay for it, you are also an idiot.
For instance, he argues that the money we spend on luxuries rather than the charity we know would save lives is morally equivalent to killing for luxuries. On this basis he donates 10% of his annual income to charity.
Why only 10%, I wonder. Shouldn't someone who actually belived that donate every penny they have over what is needed for their barest survival?
Yeah, tell that to the American Indians, or the Germans in either World War, on the Chinese during the boxer rebellion, or the Chinese Nationalists during the Civil War, or the South during the American Civil War, or Spain and their Armada, or......
Oh, I thought we were talking about operating systems here. Win 9x is based on MS-DOS. WinNT has a microkernal archetecure and has no legacy MS-DOS code in it. (although it can run an emulator for MS-DOS code).
I think my favorite quote is this: "Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership" Notice how they pointed out they were speaking about free as in beer; not free as in speech.
Reguardless, it is still true, and 99% of the users out there don't give a damn about getting the source code.
What are you talking about, no one else had a language called J...
...plus what do you mean IE isn't as good as lynx or Netscape? You mean Netcape crashing when viewing a page with Java on it is a feature? I'll stick with IE thanks, never crashes on my NT box.
...but I tend to place VRML on that wonderful scrapheap that includes Push Technology, Home Video Phones, DIVX, Betamax, and other overhyped but ultimately rejected technologies.
OK, so I am quite enamoured with the University of Chicago school of economic thought, this is true.
On the other hand human and corportate behavior being what it is, no one leaves $20 bills lying on the ground. The history of IT spending in the 80s and 90s is massive throwing of dollars at IT spending in hopes of sometimes marginal returns in effeciency. You mean to tell me that despite all this if people thought that switching out a few $20 keyboards, some training, and a couple of software patches, etc... would provide some sort of return on the investment, we wouldn't be typing on one right now?
I certainly would like to see a definitive study in this direction done. If anything from my own experiences, and those of people I know who have switched and switched back in some cases it seems to me that keyboard layout in most cases makes no difference in typing speed once people grow acclimated to their new layout. There may be a case made that for some small percentage of typists (say the top 1/2 of 1 %) that they may be faster on a DVORAK layout given that the fastest typists in competiton use this layout, however drawing any conclustions from this data for the average typist doesn't really lead to any sort of definitive conclusion.
Nope, Pepsi spun off all of its resturant operations (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC) a couple of years ago. The company that runs those places is called Tricon.
Look, you know there are really only a few ways this can work out:
1) QWERTY is more efficient than DVORAK. If this is the case there is no market failure, since this is the way the world works today.
2) DVORAK is more efficient than QWERTY. Really this has two sub cases:
2a) DVORAK is more efficient than QWERTY, but the cost of retraining everyone, new equipment, etc.. outweighs the benefits of switching. There is no market failure in this case either.
2b) DVORAK is more efficient than QWERTY, and the benefits of switching outweigh the cost. And really, if this were the case, we would have switched by now.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok then, how come when GM goes on strike for a few weeks the price of their vehicles don't jump by 400%? Huh?
Um, because this doesn't effect the supply of cars from Ford, Crysler, Audi, BMW, etc. etc. etc...
Try reading an economic text sometime...
Wouldn't your analogy be better suited to a plumbing supplier saying "Hey, all 1/2 PVC Plumbing Widgets 50% off"...
If you are a plumbing supply companys and that's your core competency, what are the odds you can write decent software anyway? If you are so good at writing software, why are you in the plumbing business in the first place? Now if you were writting some sort of "e-z plumbing ordering app" that was tied to your company's ordering system, I can see giving that to your customers, but if you open source it (or make it free) your competition can grab it, modify it, and use it, in which case, why did you do that in the first place?
Take, for example, a company that sells plumbing supplies wholesale, and provides Free software to its customers to manage specialized plumbing equipment inventory. If you were a plumbing supplies retailer, the availability of this software and its acceptance by said company adds to the value of the proposition of purchasing and managing your supplies from this corporation.
If you are adding value for someone else, and not charging for it, then you are an idiot. Yes, I know free means you can charge for it, yada yada yada, this leads to the correlary: If there is free software out there and you pay for it, you are also an idiot.
For instance, he argues that the money we spend on luxuries rather than the charity we know would save lives is morally equivalent to killing for luxuries. On this basis he donates 10% of his annual income to charity.
Why only 10%, I wonder. Shouldn't someone who actually belived that donate every penny they have over what is needed for their barest survival?
Hmmmm...
:)
For some reason there is never a psychohistorian around when you need one
Yeah, tell that to the American Indians, or the Germans in either World War, on the Chinese during the boxer rebellion, or the Chinese Nationalists during the Civil War, or the South during the American Civil War, or Spain and their Armada, or......
Oh, I thought we were talking about operating systems here. Win 9x is based on MS-DOS. WinNT has a microkernal archetecure and has no legacy MS-DOS code in it. (although it can run an emulator for MS-DOS code).
That is why he was completely incorrect.
Trying to get the sites hits up before the big IPO, huh?
Isn't a large portion of NT based on Windows 9x, which I don't have to comment on?
No, you are incorrect.
I think my favorite quote is this: "Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership"
Notice how they pointed out they were speaking about free as in beer; not free as in speech.
Reguardless, it is still true, and 99% of the users out there don't give a damn about getting the source code.
What are you talking about, no one else had a language called J...
...plus what do you mean IE isn't as good as lynx or Netscape? You mean Netcape crashing when viewing a page with Java on it is a feature? I'll stick with IE thanks, never crashes on my NT box.
You can get a Palm IIIe for $189 if you look around... get a job that doesn't involve flipping burgers and you should be able to afford it.
Maybe GW knows he doesn't have to pander for votes.
Come on say it, say "64 bits should be enough for anyone". You could be immortalized in peoples .sig files in 20 years...
You make it sound like these are bad things...
...ever hear of economies of scale?
Your friends are idiots then...
/. again...
Go to edgar.sec.gov, look up the 10-K statements for each company.
Now come back here and promise never to post heresay on
...but I tend to place VRML on that wonderful scrapheap that includes Push Technology, Home Video Phones, DIVX, Betamax, and other overhyped but ultimately rejected technologies.
OK, so I am quite enamoured with the University of Chicago school of economic thought, this is true.
On the other hand human and corportate behavior being what it is, no one leaves $20 bills lying on the ground. The history of IT spending in the 80s and 90s is massive throwing of dollars at IT spending in hopes of sometimes marginal returns in effeciency. You mean to tell me that despite all this if people thought that switching out a few $20 keyboards, some training, and a couple of software patches, etc... would provide some sort of return on the investment, we wouldn't be typing on one right now?
I certainly would like to see a definitive study in this direction done. If anything from my own experiences, and those of people I know who have switched and switched back in some cases it seems to me that keyboard layout in most cases makes no difference in typing speed once people grow acclimated to their new layout. There may be a case made that for some small percentage of typists (say the top 1/2 of 1 %) that they may be faster on a DVORAK layout given that the fastest typists in competiton use this layout, however drawing any conclustions from this data for the average typist doesn't really lead to any sort of definitive conclusion.
I'm pretty sure Pizza Hut is owned by Pepsi,
Nope, Pepsi spun off all of its resturant operations (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC) a couple of years ago. The company that runs those places is called Tricon.
Thanks for playing.
Look, you know there are really only a few ways this can work out:
1) QWERTY is more efficient than DVORAK. If this is the case there is no market failure, since this is the way the world works today.
2) DVORAK is more efficient than QWERTY. Really this has two sub cases:
2a) DVORAK is more efficient than QWERTY, but the cost of retraining everyone, new equipment, etc.. outweighs the benefits of switching. There is no market failure in this case either.
2b) DVORAK is more efficient than QWERTY, and the benefits of switching outweigh the cost. And really, if this were the case, we would have switched by now.
I've heard far too much anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
And ancedotal evidence has how much scientific value? That's right, none.
Please,
If the saving were astonomical, it would have already been done by now.
Now excuse me, I have to go pick up all those $20 bills lying around out there.
Boy we sure had a hot Thermidor this year didn't we?
Then feel free to write you own implementation. Or don't use it.
We never had this problem back in the days of good ol' POTS service. Good old copper wire never cut cut or went dolkjsd;flkh#&&(
NO CARRIER