Get XM or Sirius radio - they're digital, they're commercial free or low commercial (depending on which one you choose), and they'er a lot less expensive than digital cable (at least on a monthly charge - the upfront equipment is another matter).
It appears that Sirius is totally ignoring everything but the car audio market, but XM does have some home products. Of course, if you're willing to hack then nothing is impossible.
Not sure that it's really a viable replacement, but it may be something you want to look into.
Re:At the risk of being modded redundant. . .
on
Passport vs. Plan 9
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· Score: 2
I too will question the very advisability of single sign on. There are good reasons I keep multiple banking, credit card and merchant accounts. I specifically * don't want* one single authority to be tracking my every move. I * don't want* all my finacial and personal assets and records piled up in one location.
Well, fortunately for you, there isn't one single authority tracking your every move.
Oh, and if you live outside the US, trust me, the same info is available. Just change the last one to the appropriate regional authority, and maybe change one or two of the first three names to someone else.
Obviously others disagree but I think that single access is just plain dumb
Well, oddly, the entities listed above disagree. They very much prefer to track you by a single method of access.
And just how secure do you think that is?
The argument is, of course, that there is less risk with a well protected central account, but that account is an all or nothing sort of deal
As it is with the current system. And the current system has essentially no safe guards. Once I have the magic number I can get every other account number you have. And through the wonders of Automated Clearing House and Electronic Funds Transfer I don't need any other information to get every penny out of the accounts. Nifty, huh?
The only thing protecting you from having this happen is that nobody gives a crap about you. Which is pretty much the same thing that will protect you in any future system.
I suggest living in a cabin in the woods somewhere with no utilities where you grow your own food? That's about the only way you can be even remotely "private"
And even then, They know where you are. Because there's a land deed somewhere with your name on it and you aren't showing up in any of Their databases as consuming goods, so the cabin is the only place you could be!
And while in the big picture you're correct, it doesn't matter unless you're important, the reality is that there is stuff I don't want getting out willy nilly. Does it matter if someone has my name and telephone number? Only if they're a telemarketer. What about medical records? Should your employer be able to access them and let you go if they believe you're too high a cost? Do you want your neighbors or coworkers knowing how much you make?
I don't really have an issue with a centralized database of this stuff, simply because I think it'll be a wash if done properly. No, I don't think we'll have an infallible system, but the current system isn't infallible either. And right now most of the data people worry about is already available - go pull your credit report at Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. You may be amazed at just what they know about you, at least within the last 10 years of your life. And that data is nowhere near as secure as you think it is.
And the issue about companies selling your information is a red herring. It's already done, it's regulated, and it works fine most of the time. See above for the names of the companies doing this as their main profit center for 50 years now.
Design a good secure system with limitations on who can access what data and you're already ahead of the game. I know with absolute certainty that it's better than what we have now.
What stops people from ALL becoming Dark Jedi called Darth l33t with double-ended red lightsabers
Presuming that there's interdependance on other PCs, then people will discover quickly that role-playing an "evil" character is no different from being an asshole. And in MMORPGs most assholes don't make it because they get a rep and can't advance by themselves.
So while there may be a preponderance of dark jedi (although I think SOE claimed they would be "limiting" the number of people playing Jedi somehow), they'll virtually all wind up being really nice guys, just like Dark Elves did in EQ.
Of course, as a reformed EQ addict, I can't implore people enough to stay away from EQ or SW:G or pretty much anything else like it. There are people who can balance something addictive like a MMORPG and real life, but most geeks don't fall into that category -- goal-oriented, highly focused personalities tend to get sucked in to this kind of thing, especially since it fulfills a social interaction need often not found elsewhere in geek life.
Of course, I appear to have replace the EQ addiction with a somewhat lesser/. addiction...
We already have two TiVo's, thanks to the scheduling conflict that came about when my wife moved in. Of course, we can't watch shows from TiVo1 on TV2 and visa versa, but it's not a big deal (and a bit more of electronics can fix that too!)
TiVo+DirecTV combination, which is what put it over the top for me
Unfortunately you can't get a lifetime subscription for a DirecTiVo, which means paying whatever the current monthly fee is forever (and that fee can go up).
We have two TiVo's, both with lifetime subs. One has already paid for itself, the other will do so within a few months.
I may finally be able to get DirecTV, since I think that the tree that was blocking my view of the satellite fell on my house last weekend (hint - this is not a good way to get DirecTV), but I'm not real interested in DirecTiVo's because of the ongoing cost.
My wife and I both have TiVo's, and I've upgraded both of them with a second 80G drive, giving us something like 130 hours at lowest quality.
We both have around 18 season passes or wishlists, and whenever we shuffle them around in priority it can take up to 5 minutes for the TiVo to sort things out.
These are both original v1 TiVo's with the speedy 40 MHz PPC CPU, so a v2 box with a 350 MHz MIPS CPU might be better off.
As a side note, you really don't want a 7200 rpm drive in a TiVo. 5400 rpm is preferred, since they generate less heat, and TiVo's can have heat problems as is.
It isn't laziness, but the lack of any real typing skills
It has to be this... on IRC and in games I can easily out-type anyone using "short hand" while I type full words.
Once upon a time I was a very fast typist (>100 wpm), but it's gone down to probably around 70 wpm nowadays. Sure, that's still fast, but any touch typist should be able to type faster than I can if they aren't typing full words.
Perhaps it should become a requirement to teach kids to touch-type at an earlier age
It should probably be taught shortly after writing skills. Being able to type is just as important as being able to write nowadays. I know some people will blanch at that, but take the average office worker and compare how much they have to type into a computer versus how much they have to write down on a piece of paper.
I just hope that schools have gotten out of the dark ages regarding touch typing. I recall going to a school competition around 1990. I entered into the typing competition since I knew I was a fast and accurate typist. I don't think I got more than a couple sentences done though -- I was definitely not expecting to have to deal with an electric typewriter that didn't even process line breaks properly. I spent more time being amazed at how backwards the competition was than I did actually typing.
I would assume this can also include other forms of digital recording
Depends.
As with any other restrictions technology, it's up to all parties involved to participate. If you have a digital VCR that doesn't grok 5C (such as the original D-VHS decks from Panasonic (I think)) then it will happily record any digital broadcast regardless of the flags on the broadcast saying not to, or to only record in reduced resolution.
The same goes for computer based recording with a HDTV card - the only ones that will pay attention to the digital no-record bits are the ones that implement the restrictions in hardware. Put them in firmware or software and they'll get disabled -- just like you can disable region locking on most DVDs or the no-copy bit on DAT decks.
And yet they still have the balls to run commercials saying how customers need crappy Long Island news channels [news12.com] and boring local programming [metro.tv] instead of a popular sports team.
I'm not all that familiar with the NY area, but are those broadcast stations? As in, over-the-air broadcast?
If so then they fall into the "must carry" clause for cable stations. A cable company must carry all regional broadcast stations upon request of the broadcaster. So sayeth the FCC. Declining to do so is a quick way to losing your license and get hit with heavy fines.
As for Yes - know nothing about it. But if Cablevision is the predominant cable carrier in the area, maybe the Yankees should've considered selling rights to a channel that's actually carried locally... while CableVision may be asses for not carrying it, you can't simply lay all the blame on them.
This isn't getting a taste of DRM, its the digital equivalent of your analogue signal being blocked by bad weather or the antenna falling off the roof
Which is a total and utter misunderstanding of what 5C is.
5C most certainly is DRM. It serves no purpose to the consumer except to place artificial restrictions on what, when, and how you can watch shows being broadcast over DTV or digital cable.
Was it human error that caused it to be activated in this circumstance? Sure. But it's still DRM.
Vehicles don't manipulate data that is essential to the functioning of governement.
Ok. A better example is CPUs and other chips. As well as other electronics such as hard drives, tape drives, and other storage media.
So they should all be open source, with the exact VLSI layouts, engineering diagrams, and other manufacturing data laid out so that we can be sure that things are working right?
How insanely stupid. You'd cripple government because they would have to purchase equipment from a small selection of vendors who would be willing to produce equipment that met that requirement.
Yes, the same argument could be made for requiring purchases of only software that used open document formats and open protocols, but it's nowhere near as crippling and it is necessary to ensure future access to the information.
This is exactly what I think should be required - whether by executive order or by legislation. To some extent it's stupid and silly to have to have another law on the books for this, but it seems like it may be necessary to ensure that future generations can reasonably access information.
Good suggestion, and it might work... don't know that RTF can handle document revision markup though, and that's one of the needs. Along with embedded tables (which Word2000 rather sucks with) and cross-references (which Word also sucks with beyond the absolute basics).
After writing a mere 40 page doc speccing a new file format I've become more familiar with Word's limitations and how to work around some of them, but it's still the best tool for the job right now. We (meaning the new developers) are trying to move toward open standards and open source tools, but it's tough to bludgeon people who are used to the status quo.
BTW, my original post on this thread was meant to be humorous, not an attack... after reading it again later the sarcasm wasn't clear at all though.
I entirely agree that.doc is a bad way to send files around, but there's just an insane lack of options, especially when clients/partners want it in.doc. I really hope OpenOffice.org's open document forum works out.
Since this entire argument is about computer stored files, anyone without a computer is pretty damn SOL. Maybe we should store all the data on paper. In Esperanto. After all, that's the official universal language, right?
latest versions of Word (which are incompatible with earlier versions).
Office XP documents can be read by Word97 or Word2000. Word 97 can be run on a 80386 (albeit badly). If you have something older than that then yes, you're screwed. But you also can't run Linux or any other OS more modern than DOS, Win3.x, or Xenix (puke).
If I walked down the halls of the building I work in, I would pass the offices of over 500 software developers, and less than 10% would be able to read Word documents. 100% of them could read a.txt document
Good for you. Realize that you're in the vast minority. Of the personal computers in the US, the vast majority (90% or more I'd be willing to bet) are capable of reading a Word document. And both MS and Apple make it very easy to do so. Install OpenOffice.org or StarOffice on Linux/Solaris/etc. (or even Windows - I have OOo at home) and you can read most Word docs as well.
Frankly, in every company I've worked at I could read Word.doc documents. And I've been a Unix C/C++ developer at each and every one. Even when I had a Sparc sitting on my desk as my main computer I had a second computer (rarely used, thankfully) sitting in the corner running NT.
Shrug, keep sending your.doc format. You're missing out on the input of hundreds of very, very talented SUN and other UNIX software engineers.
Shrug, keep your holier-than-thou attitude. I am a talented Unix software engineer as are my coworkers. I'd happily send it out in a more open format except that there isn't one that meets our needs. OOo/StarOffice aren't common enough to start sending out stuff in their formats, PDF isn't editable without extremely expensive tools, and HTML doesn't cut it on the editing side either. Plain text isn't any good either.
Oh, and all of our partner companies want it in Word format too... funny that.
I damn well wish there was an open format that was widely accepted, but there isn't.
Governments should be required to use only software that is amenable to public examination.
Wow am I tired of reading this red herring.
By the same twisted logic, all vehicles purchased by governments should have their blueprints, down to the VLSI layout of the controller, available freely. Because there's no other way to do "public examination".
Public examination does not mean you get to micro-manage every decision made by the government. It means that the government process should be open and accessible, and that decisions should be reviewable and accountable. California buying more licenses of Oracle than there are constituents in the state is a wonderful example of the process gone wrong. And several people got their asses fired for it, and the contract is being reviewed last I heard. That is public examination.
Otherwise the citizens will have no control over or access to their government's data
So mandate open standards in document storage format. That's all that's needed. What software creates the document is irrelevant - as long as the format is standard and available then the public can view it in a variety of methods - whether it's the same program used to create the document or not.
We can see this clearly in the new voting equipment that's being installed in parts of Florida
If by clearly you mean "there's absolutely no proof that the software was at fault or that OSS would do better" then I'll agree with you. Otherwise you're twisting reality again.
So anyone who can bribe the software vendors can control the election
Ah, so OSS will stop bribes? Are you sure I couldn't bribe someone to install stealth code on the actual field systems that would go undetected? Sure, you have the source code in front of you. That's nice. It's not what's running on the box, and the right bribes in the right places can ensure that modifications will never be noticed.
Open document formats? Hell yes. Forced Open Source? No. That's no better than being forced to use proprietary software. You're implementing artificial restrictions that will help ensure the best product doesn't get used.
ISC: If you are an organisation claiming to promote open standards, why in the world are you releasing data in the very, very closed DOC format?
Because, of course, this irony will be lost on the 90% of the world that has Word installed and can read.doc documents as easily as.txt ones.
Shrug, as I just said in another post, my company is creating standards for interoperating with numerous other companies. And those standards are released in.doc format.
Okay, I haven't hit the website because it appears to be/.'d already, but I think you're misreading the quote.
How I read that is that just because company X uses software A, company Y shouldn't have to use software A as well just to talk to company X. Instead, there should be clearly documented standards for talking to each other (whether that be via file, socket, carrier pigeon, etc) so that company Y can use software B and both A and B will blindly think that the other side is using the same software.
It's not about letting employees run rampant installing software willy-nilly. It's about having the choice on what you want installed -- and not forced on you because you have to read file X, and it's format is undefined. This is why virtually all companies use MS Office - without it you're screwed when someone sends you a Word document that has data in it you need.
The company I work for is currently integrating systems with several other companies - sending data back and forth. We're writing the specs for that interface and laying them out very explicitly. Our end is a C++ backend, Java frontend, all running on Unix servers. But I don't give a crap what freaking system you're running on your end, just that you can read and write the data in the specified format.
Of course, the irony is that these documents are being exchanged in Word.doc format...
Perhaps it would have, perhaps it wouldn't have, but it certainly wouldn't exist in it's current incarnation. The middle men would never have gotten so much power, money, and influence.
The world is changing, and it's eliminating a lot of the need for the studios. Just because they don't like it doesn't mean they get to legislate reality to fit them.
My sister's entire school district is switching to it
Wow!
Is this just for the classroom, or the administrative offices as well?
And do you mind sharing which district (city/state/country)?
I've used OOo only a bit, but won't install Office97 at this point - I have a valid license, but don't care for the potential security issues (well before this problem), and it works well enough for what I need at home.
Once I saw that I kinda started to wonder what the point is at all... Ximian has a client already, and there are numerous Exchange replacements out there that work with the Bynari connector.
I figured (w/o reading the article of course) that they were planning to replace Exchange entirely, without requiring the Bynari bit.
So, exactly what makes Bynari suck? And what's missing in the Evolution/IMAP Server bits that make the German government's investment worthwhile?
I'm a coder, not an admin, so I really have no hands-on experience with Exchange or other Groupware software. The companies I've worked in the past few years have been too small to bother with Exchange too.
When the US subsidizes a company, its intention is not to displace an entire sector with whatever it's ordered, ie. we take a bid for a jet, which is a standard product that can be produced by a number of US companies
Ding ding ding!
That's the key - US companies. When we take military bids we most certainly don't allow foreign companies to bid on them. Similarly virtually all emergency vehicles (police, fire; ambulance is different) are domestic vehicles despite the fact that both Japanese and European cars are cheaper to maintain in the long run.
And when it comes to private industry you can bet that those government contracts come to bear. How would Boeing do against Airbus if they didn't have military contracts? Would Lockheed even exist still? Heck, Jeep was created due to a government contract!
It's very reasonable for a government to want key pieces of infrastructure to not be restricted by a foreign company or country. More and more countries outside of the US are realizing that virtually their entire IT infrastructure is controlled by a single company based in the US that has $38 billion in the bank. It would be silly to not look into and even fund alternative sources -- and that's what Germany is doing.
Oh, to be clear - the US certainly isn't the only country that funds private industry through government contracts. Virtually all countries do. And it's silly not to - private industry is far more efficient and effective than government is (and that should really, really scare you when you consider just how bureaucratic and wasteful a lot of private companies are!).
Slashdot Mirror
Er, so why are you paying so much for them?
Get XM or Sirius radio - they're digital, they're commercial free or low commercial (depending on which one you choose), and they'er a lot less expensive than digital cable (at least on a monthly charge - the upfront equipment is another matter).
It appears that Sirius is totally ignoring everything but the car audio market, but XM does have some home products. Of course, if you're willing to hack then nothing is impossible.
Not sure that it's really a viable replacement, but it may be something you want to look into.
I too will question the very advisability of single sign on. There are good reasons I keep multiple banking, credit card and merchant accounts. I specifically * don't want* one single authority to be tracking my every move. I * don't want* all my finacial and personal assets and records piled up in one location.
Well, fortunately for you, there isn't one single authority tracking your every move.
There's four.
Equifax.
Experian.
Trans Union.
IRS.
Oh, and if you live outside the US, trust me, the same info is available. Just change the last one to the appropriate regional authority, and maybe change one or two of the first three names to someone else.
Obviously others disagree but I think that single access is just plain dumb
Well, oddly, the entities listed above disagree. They very much prefer to track you by a single method of access.
And just how secure do you think that is?
The argument is, of course, that there is less risk with a well protected central account, but that account is an all or nothing sort of deal
As it is with the current system. And the current system has essentially no safe guards. Once I have the magic number I can get every other account number you have. And through the wonders of Automated Clearing House and Electronic Funds Transfer I don't need any other information to get every penny out of the accounts. Nifty, huh?
The only thing protecting you from having this happen is that nobody gives a crap about you. Which is pretty much the same thing that will protect you in any future system.
I suggest living in a cabin in the woods somewhere with no utilities where you grow your own food? That's about the only way you can be even remotely "private"
And even then, They know where you are. Because there's a land deed somewhere with your name on it and you aren't showing up in any of Their databases as consuming goods, so the cabin is the only place you could be!
And while in the big picture you're correct, it doesn't matter unless you're important, the reality is that there is stuff I don't want getting out willy nilly. Does it matter if someone has my name and telephone number? Only if they're a telemarketer. What about medical records? Should your employer be able to access them and let you go if they believe you're too high a cost? Do you want your neighbors or coworkers knowing how much you make?
I don't really have an issue with a centralized database of this stuff, simply because I think it'll be a wash if done properly. No, I don't think we'll have an infallible system, but the current system isn't infallible either. And right now most of the data people worry about is already available - go pull your credit report at Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. You may be amazed at just what they know about you, at least within the last 10 years of your life. And that data is nowhere near as secure as you think it is.
And the issue about companies selling your information is a red herring. It's already done, it's regulated, and it works fine most of the time. See above for the names of the companies doing this as their main profit center for 50 years now.
Design a good secure system with limitations on who can access what data and you're already ahead of the game. I know with absolute certainty that it's better than what we have now.
What stops people from ALL becoming Dark Jedi called Darth l33t with double-ended red lightsabers
/. addiction...
Presuming that there's interdependance on other PCs, then people will discover quickly that role-playing an "evil" character is no different from being an asshole. And in MMORPGs most assholes don't make it because they get a rep and can't advance by themselves.
So while there may be a preponderance of dark jedi (although I think SOE claimed they would be "limiting" the number of people playing Jedi somehow), they'll virtually all wind up being really nice guys, just like Dark Elves did in EQ.
Of course, as a reformed EQ addict, I can't implore people enough to stay away from EQ or SW:G or pretty much anything else like it. There are people who can balance something addictive like a MMORPG and real life, but most geeks don't fall into that category -- goal-oriented, highly focused personalities tend to get sucked in to this kind of thing, especially since it fulfills a social interaction need often not found elsewhere in geek life.
Of course, I appear to have replace the EQ addiction with a somewhat lesser
We already have two TiVo's, thanks to the scheduling conflict that came about when my wife moved in. Of course, we can't watch shows from TiVo1 on TV2 and visa versa, but it's not a big deal (and a bit more of electronics can fix that too!)
TiVo+DirecTV combination, which is what put it over the top for me
Unfortunately you can't get a lifetime subscription for a DirecTiVo, which means paying whatever the current monthly fee is forever (and that fee can go up).
We have two TiVo's, both with lifetime subs. One has already paid for itself, the other will do so within a few months.
I may finally be able to get DirecTV, since I think that the tree that was blocking my view of the satellite fell on my house last weekend (hint - this is not a good way to get DirecTV), but I'm not real interested in DirecTiVo's because of the ongoing cost.
Go wish-list crazy
You'll so regret this.
My wife and I both have TiVo's, and I've upgraded both of them with a second 80G drive, giving us something like 130 hours at lowest quality.
We both have around 18 season passes or wishlists, and whenever we shuffle them around in priority it can take up to 5 minutes for the TiVo to sort things out.
These are both original v1 TiVo's with the speedy 40 MHz PPC CPU, so a v2 box with a 350 MHz MIPS CPU might be better off.
As a side note, you really don't want a 7200 rpm drive in a TiVo. 5400 rpm is preferred, since they generate less heat, and TiVo's can have heat problems as is.
It isn't laziness, but the lack of any real typing skills
It has to be this... on IRC and in games I can easily out-type anyone using "short hand" while I type full words.
Once upon a time I was a very fast typist (>100 wpm), but it's gone down to probably around 70 wpm nowadays. Sure, that's still fast, but any touch typist should be able to type faster than I can if they aren't typing full words.
Perhaps it should become a requirement to teach kids to touch-type at an earlier age
It should probably be taught shortly after writing skills. Being able to type is just as important as being able to write nowadays. I know some people will blanch at that, but take the average office worker and compare how much they have to type into a computer versus how much they have to write down on a piece of paper.
I just hope that schools have gotten out of the dark ages regarding touch typing. I recall going to a school competition around 1990. I entered into the typing competition since I knew I was a fast and accurate typist. I don't think I got more than a couple sentences done though -- I was definitely not expecting to have to deal with an electric typewriter that didn't even process line breaks properly. I spent more time being amazed at how backwards the competition was than I did actually typing.
I would assume this can also include other forms of digital recording
Depends.
As with any other restrictions technology, it's up to all parties involved to participate. If you have a digital VCR that doesn't grok 5C (such as the original D-VHS decks from Panasonic (I think)) then it will happily record any digital broadcast regardless of the flags on the broadcast saying not to, or to only record in reduced resolution.
The same goes for computer based recording with a HDTV card - the only ones that will pay attention to the digital no-record bits are the ones that implement the restrictions in hardware. Put them in firmware or software and they'll get disabled -- just like you can disable region locking on most DVDs or the no-copy bit on DAT decks.
And yet they still have the balls to run commercials saying how customers need crappy Long Island news channels [news12.com] and boring local programming [metro.tv] instead of a popular sports team.
I'm not all that familiar with the NY area, but are those broadcast stations? As in, over-the-air broadcast?
If so then they fall into the "must carry" clause for cable stations. A cable company must carry all regional broadcast stations upon request of the broadcaster. So sayeth the FCC. Declining to do so is a quick way to losing your license and get hit with heavy fines.
As for Yes - know nothing about it. But if Cablevision is the predominant cable carrier in the area, maybe the Yankees should've considered selling rights to a channel that's actually carried locally... while CableVision may be asses for not carrying it, you can't simply lay all the blame on them.
From the original parent post:
This isn't getting a taste of DRM, its the digital equivalent of your analogue signal being blocked by bad weather or the antenna falling off the roof
Which is a total and utter misunderstanding of what 5C is.
5C most certainly is DRM. It serves no purpose to the consumer except to place artificial restrictions on what, when, and how you can watch shows being broadcast over DTV or digital cable.
Was it human error that caused it to be activated in this circumstance? Sure. But it's still DRM.
Does it strike anyone else that the people least likely to be fit enough to travel to space are also the ones who guzzle tons of soft drinks?
And yes, I almost certainly fit into that group too.
Vehicles don't manipulate data that is essential to the functioning of governement.
Ok. A better example is CPUs and other chips. As well as other electronics such as hard drives, tape drives, and other storage media.
So they should all be open source, with the exact VLSI layouts, engineering diagrams, and other manufacturing data laid out so that we can be sure that things are working right?
How insanely stupid. You'd cripple government because they would have to purchase equipment from a small selection of vendors who would be willing to produce equipment that met that requirement.
Yes, the same argument could be made for requiring purchases of only software that used open document formats and open protocols, but it's nowhere near as crippling and it is necessary to ensure future access to the information.
This is exactly what I think should be required - whether by executive order or by legislation. To some extent it's stupid and silly to have to have another law on the books for this, but it seems like it may be necessary to ensure that future generations can reasonably access information.
Good suggestion, and it might work... don't know that RTF can handle document revision markup though, and that's one of the needs. Along with embedded tables (which Word2000 rather sucks with) and cross-references (which Word also sucks with beyond the absolute basics).
After writing a mere 40 page doc speccing a new file format I've become more familiar with Word's limitations and how to work around some of them, but it's still the best tool for the job right now. We (meaning the new developers) are trying to move toward open standards and open source tools, but it's tough to bludgeon people who are used to the status quo.
BTW, my original post on this thread was meant to be humorous, not an attack... after reading it again later the sarcasm wasn't clear at all though.
.doc is a bad way to send files around, but there's just an insane lack of options, especially when clients/partners want it in .doc. I really hope OpenOffice.org's open document forum works out.
I entirely agree that
not even 90% of the world even own computers
.txt document
.doc documents. And I've been a Unix C/C++ developer at each and every one. Even when I had a Sparc sitting on my desk as my main computer I had a second computer (rarely used, thankfully) sitting in the corner running NT.
.doc format. You're missing out on the input of hundreds of very, very talented SUN and other UNIX software engineers.
Wow, way to take things out of context!
Since this entire argument is about computer stored files, anyone without a computer is pretty damn SOL. Maybe we should store all the data on paper. In Esperanto. After all, that's the official universal language, right?
latest versions of Word (which are incompatible with earlier versions).
Office XP documents can be read by Word97 or Word2000. Word 97 can be run on a 80386 (albeit badly). If you have something older than that then yes, you're screwed. But you also can't run Linux or any other OS more modern than DOS, Win3.x, or Xenix (puke).
If I walked down the halls of the building I work in, I would pass the offices of over 500 software developers, and less than 10% would be able to read Word documents. 100% of them could read a
Good for you. Realize that you're in the vast minority. Of the personal computers in the US, the vast majority (90% or more I'd be willing to bet) are capable of reading a Word document. And both MS and Apple make it very easy to do so. Install OpenOffice.org or StarOffice on Linux/Solaris/etc. (or even Windows - I have OOo at home) and you can read most Word docs as well.
Frankly, in every company I've worked at I could read Word
Shrug, keep sending your
Shrug, keep your holier-than-thou attitude. I am a talented Unix software engineer as are my coworkers. I'd happily send it out in a more open format except that there isn't one that meets our needs. OOo/StarOffice aren't common enough to start sending out stuff in their formats, PDF isn't editable without extremely expensive tools, and HTML doesn't cut it on the editing side either. Plain text isn't any good either.
Oh, and all of our partner companies want it in Word format too... funny that.
I damn well wish there was an open format that was widely accepted, but there isn't.
Governments should be required to use only software that is amenable to public examination.
Wow am I tired of reading this red herring.
By the same twisted logic, all vehicles purchased by governments should have their blueprints, down to the VLSI layout of the controller, available freely. Because there's no other way to do "public examination".
Public examination does not mean you get to micro-manage every decision made by the government. It means that the government process should be open and accessible, and that decisions should be reviewable and accountable. California buying more licenses of Oracle than there are constituents in the state is a wonderful example of the process gone wrong. And several people got their asses fired for it, and the contract is being reviewed last I heard. That is public examination.
Otherwise the citizens will have no control over or access to their government's data
So mandate open standards in document storage format. That's all that's needed. What software creates the document is irrelevant - as long as the format is standard and available then the public can view it in a variety of methods - whether it's the same program used to create the document or not.
We can see this clearly in the new voting equipment that's being installed in parts of Florida
If by clearly you mean "there's absolutely no proof that the software was at fault or that OSS would do better" then I'll agree with you. Otherwise you're twisting reality again.
So anyone who can bribe the software vendors can control the election
Ah, so OSS will stop bribes? Are you sure I couldn't bribe someone to install stealth code on the actual field systems that would go undetected? Sure, you have the source code in front of you. That's nice. It's not what's running on the box, and the right bribes in the right places can ensure that modifications will never be noticed.
Open document formats? Hell yes. Forced Open Source? No. That's no better than being forced to use proprietary software. You're implementing artificial restrictions that will help ensure the best product doesn't get used.
ISC: If you are an organisation claiming to promote open standards, why in the world are you releasing data in the very, very closed DOC format?
.doc documents as easily as .txt ones.
.doc format.
Because, of course, this irony will be lost on the 90% of the world that has Word installed and can read
Shrug, as I just said in another post, my company is creating standards for interoperating with numerous other companies. And those standards are released in
Okay, I haven't hit the website because it appears to be /.'d already, but I think you're misreading the quote.
.doc format...
How I read that is that just because company X uses software A, company Y shouldn't have to use software A as well just to talk to company X. Instead, there should be clearly documented standards for talking to each other (whether that be via file, socket, carrier pigeon, etc) so that company Y can use software B and both A and B will blindly think that the other side is using the same software.
It's not about letting employees run rampant installing software willy-nilly. It's about having the choice on what you want installed -- and not forced on you because you have to read file X, and it's format is undefined. This is why virtually all companies use MS Office - without it you're screwed when someone sends you a Word document that has data in it you need.
The company I work for is currently integrating systems with several other companies - sending data back and forth. We're writing the specs for that interface and laying them out very explicitly. Our end is a C++ backend, Java frontend, all running on Unix servers. But I don't give a crap what freaking system you're running on your end, just that you can read and write the data in the specified format.
Of course, the irony is that these documents are being exchanged in Word
Perhaps it would have, perhaps it wouldn't have, but it certainly wouldn't exist in it's current incarnation. The middle men would never have gotten so much power, money, and influence.
The world is changing, and it's eliminating a lot of the need for the studios. Just because they don't like it doesn't mean they get to legislate reality to fit them.
Insert obligatory Heinlein quote here.
My sister's entire school district is switching to it
Wow!
Is this just for the classroom, or the administrative offices as well?
And do you mind sharing which district (city/state/country)?
I've used OOo only a bit, but won't install Office97 at this point - I have a valid license, but don't care for the potential security issues (well before this problem), and it works well enough for what I need at home.
Once I saw that I kinda started to wonder what the point is at all... Ximian has a client already, and there are numerous Exchange replacements out there that work with the Bynari connector.
I figured (w/o reading the article of course) that they were planning to replace Exchange entirely, without requiring the Bynari bit.
So, exactly what makes Bynari suck? And what's missing in the Evolution/IMAP Server bits that make the German government's investment worthwhile?
I'm a coder, not an admin, so I really have no hands-on experience with Exchange or other Groupware software. The companies I've worked in the past few years have been too small to bother with Exchange too.
When the US subsidizes a company, its intention is not to displace an entire sector with whatever it's ordered, ie. we take a bid for a jet, which is a standard product that can be produced by a number of US companies
Ding ding ding!
That's the key - US companies. When we take military bids we most certainly don't allow foreign companies to bid on them. Similarly virtually all emergency vehicles (police, fire; ambulance is different) are domestic vehicles despite the fact that both Japanese and European cars are cheaper to maintain in the long run.
And when it comes to private industry you can bet that those government contracts come to bear. How would Boeing do against Airbus if they didn't have military contracts? Would Lockheed even exist still? Heck, Jeep was created due to a government contract!
It's very reasonable for a government to want key pieces of infrastructure to not be restricted by a foreign company or country. More and more countries outside of the US are realizing that virtually their entire IT infrastructure is controlled by a single company based in the US that has $38 billion in the bank. It would be silly to not look into and even fund alternative sources -- and that's what Germany is doing.
Oh, to be clear - the US certainly isn't the only country that funds private industry through government contracts. Virtually all countries do. And it's silly not to - private industry is far more efficient and effective than government is (and that should really, really scare you when you consider just how bureaucratic and wasteful a lot of private companies are!).