TV already works around my schedule. There's only one show that I feel I have to watch and that's 24 on Fox. Everything else I could care less about. If I am not home at the instant it is on, or I'm doing something else...
I simply don't watch the TV Show.
TV just isn't that important in my life. I don't think I'm that unusual in this regard. Most everyone I know has maybe 1 or 2 shows that they really want to watch and will tape if they can't. Everything else is just filler to kill the time.
"You can skip the commercials. "
I can already do this with my VCR. Maybe not in the same way, but close enough.
The only advantage I see of TiVo is being able to record like a VCR without having to mess with setup. i.e. I don't have to insert a tape, make sure it's rewound, properly set the recording quality so that a 3 hour movie actually ends up on the tape instead of the first 2 hours of it, etc.
But TiVo is dependent upon the subscription service, something I really don't need or want.
"Why would the government and military suddenly be honest now?"
Because the government is not one person, or one entity... it is dynamic, it changes. That is why. The people behind Gulf of Tonkin are no longer around.
Look, you obviously don't believe anything the government tells us. Fine, I remain skeptical and prefer multiple credible sources.
But I question why you would instantly believe what someone else was saying. That's just assinine. Look at your discussion of Kosovo, which you are clearly wrong on but nevertheless still believe it because it is anti-US-government.
I honestly do not know who to believe when I hear stories like this. But our government has a much better reputation than many of the local Afghans, and especially over Palestinians.
Looking at the article it's unclear exactly what happened. It mentions an ammo depot being used for disarming, but then goes on to say that these rival groups were just simply keeping the weapons for themselves. This doesn't sound like an entirely innocent situation.
Call it stereotyping, but the people who engage and support terrorism use tricks like this to gain sympathy. It's ok for them to conspire and attack innocents, but we aren't supposed to retaliate or act to stop them because it's "unfair".
"With.Net they're gambling that they can out-code all of their competitors "
No problem, they've historically proven that they can do this. The Java JVM that Microsoft was shipping in 1997 was the fastest in the industry, and some suspect that Sun sued Microsoft to stop them because of this.
"Imagine if a few other large companies joined the effort."
That is Microsoft's great hope.
"If AOL, Oracle, IBM, HP, Intel, and the Open Source companies worked togother on a Free.Net implementation, then the MS version would be marginalized. "
Cool. What are they going to bring to the table?
"Nobody would use MS-propietary extensions if it meant shutting out Oracle or AOL users."
That doesn't matter.
The MS proprietary extensions available for Windows will ensure that Windows remains the dominant desktop and server OS. But if you want to write something for Linux, you'll have that choice and it will be very easy to integrate it into the mix because they will communicate with one another seamlessly.
You have to remember,.Net isn't about platform independence in terms of running the same code, it is about language independence and platform interoperability on the wire.
I think it's amazing how every time I point out your lies to the public, you go off whining about how I'm an astroturfer and advocate for a company.
Why don't you just make intelligent comments and back up your statements with facts and evidence? Wouldn't that be more productive than going around calling people names?
"Most people doubt that even at this price that they can significantly impact Microsoft's market share."
Actually it's largely because they don't believe Sun is fully committed behind it. Are they? Is Sun willing to risk the company on being a Microsoft competitor, or are they just tossing something out to make a point?
But I do agree that file formats should be documented. In fact I think it should be a Federal law and apply to everybody as it has been a pain in the butt with every product I've ever used.
Apparently a really good book on the issue is 'Competing on Internet Time Lessons from the Netscape' battles with Microsoft'
I found a short review that talks about it:
http://www.timescomputing.com/19990113/eml1.html
"The book also chronicles how Netscape's arrogance caused it to often violate another cardinal principle of competing on Internet time: Build external relationships to compensate for limited internal resources. Ironically, Netscape rejected repeated overtures from AOL for a strategic alliance.
That mistake cost Netscape the opportunity to conquer another 10-12 million users and allowed Microsoft to gain ground rapidly."
"If you had actually followed the events at the time, you'd know that the only reason Netscape "stumbled" was because Microsoft came along and put ten times more money into the development of IE while giving it away for free."
No, you obviously weren't around then to follow the events.
Netscape stumbled on a number of issues. They were arrogant and lost the contract for AOLs browser as a result.
They were arrogant and refused to work with the W3C standards body. Netscape 4.x was especially bad because they had lost a battle with the W3C over CSS and released a product which had major kludges in it.
Articles such as this one:
http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/worst_ ni ghtmare.php
Detail most of the problems that Netscape caused for themselves.
"As a result their browser became a buggy mess as they didn't have the time to do the decent development there were doing before. "
But somehow Microsoft had the time. Basically you are agreeing that Netscape's problems were caused because their developers were not as good. We should punish Microsoft because they are more competent?
Since when does that promote a competitive marketplace?
"As others have pointed out, it was not so much that Netscape was not able to keep up with Microsoft and IE, but rather that IE was being given away for free. "
If this was the only issue, Linux would be dominant on the desktop by now.
"To make money instead from the server software."
Which they lost marketshare to Apache, which was also free, but also had the added luxury of being "good enough."
The thing to remember is that the WWW market started with free clients and free servers. So early adopters were used to getting stuff for free. Netscape didn't make a compelling enough argument for people to buy stuff from them only, even though they did try vendor-lockin by promoting non-standard HTML tags and other tricks.
" I mean, for a while I believe that AOL was still distributing IE with AOL (due to a prior agreement), "
I don't know if AOL distributes IE, but they still require it. I believe with version 7.0 they now also support Netscape. Nothing to do with agreements rather just convenience.
"Now, however, with the Department of Justice and this lawsuit, it would seem that AOL is getting more use out of the Netscape name in the lawsuits than it ever did as an actual product. "
This is true, and works more against AOL than for. They certainly have no tried to compete since '98 when they dumped the source onto the world and said "Here, go see if you can make this work."
"Is is not possible that AOL saw Netscape as a way to get some settlement money from Microsoft?"
It's called the "sue-Microsoft" business plan. It's pretty popular these days.
I think this article was interesting and don't mind seeing this stuff. You get an idea of what exists out on the market. Sometimes even if you don't need it right now in six months you may go "wait, I saw something that would do that..."
Now as far as bias, what I find interesting is that/. made absolutely no mention last week of Microsoft making.Net available for download. The free SDK compilers, the free redistributable, or the MSDN subscription downloads of VS.Net.
It made all the other news sites, along with articles complaining about server capacity. (VS.Net is like a 3 Gig download)
I was at least expecting an article titled "Microsoft servers don't hold up to massive load!":)
This is true. I'm not ordering any new computers today with any less than 512Megs of RAM. I've found even our older PIII-550 machines are much much much more useful when fully loaded with RAM. There's no reason not to load a machine out with RAM.
I don't understand this fascination with 128M, that's like so 1999!:)
I think you misunderstood CAL, but you are on the right track. This comparison of a ML350 to a low end Athlon desktop is ridiculous.
For $1200 I can buy a Compaq D500 Evo minitower with two 40 Gig IDE drives, 128Megs RAM and a 1.5Ghz P4. That's more than equivalent to the iMass hardware.
Now as far as software. The iMass comparison goes off showing full price of Win2k and Exchange. Great, but Microsoft's solution to the very problem iMass solves is Small Business Server.
If you go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/howtobuy/defau lt.asp
SBS 2000 comes with 5 CALs, purchase another 25 for around $1300. So we're at $2800 for that, plus $1200 for the desktop puts us at $4000 compared to $2700 for the iMass.
Even so I'd still go with an ML320 at least, and a tape backup solution. Yes, it's going to be more expensive, but I've been there done that, and I think it's worth it.
RedHat has no value other than the employees working for them. Employees are not something that you can guarantee to purchase in a corporate buyout. It's just like any other consulting firm. After the buyout, if the employees don't feel like they were treated well they'll walk... Soon AOL will be held holding an empty bag.
This is the stupidest move AOL has made since the Netscape acquisition and seeing how they ran that one, a RH buyout is guaranteed to fail.
But then since I don't particularly like RedHat, I am 100% supportive of this decision! Go for it AOL!:)
Slashdot Mirror
"This means TV works around my schedule."
TV already works around my schedule. There's only one show that I feel I have to watch and that's 24 on Fox. Everything else I could care less about. If I am not home at the instant it is on, or I'm doing something else...
I simply don't watch the TV Show.
TV just isn't that important in my life. I don't think I'm that unusual in this regard. Most everyone I know has maybe 1 or 2 shows that they really want to watch and will tape if they can't. Everything else is just filler to kill the time.
"You can skip the commercials. "
I can already do this with my VCR. Maybe not in the same way, but close enough.
The only advantage I see of TiVo is being able to record like a VCR without having to mess with setup. i.e. I don't have to insert a tape, make sure it's rewound, properly set the recording quality so that a 3 hour movie actually ends up on the tape instead of the first 2 hours of it, etc.
But TiVo is dependent upon the subscription service, something I really don't need or want.
"Why would the government and military suddenly be honest now?"
Because the government is not one person, or one entity... it is dynamic, it changes. That is why. The people behind Gulf of Tonkin are no longer around.
Look, you obviously don't believe anything the government tells us. Fine, I remain skeptical and prefer multiple credible sources.
But I question why you would instantly believe what someone else was saying. That's just assinine. Look at your discussion of Kosovo, which you are clearly wrong on but nevertheless still believe it because it is anti-US-government.
I read it. I remain skeptical.
I honestly do not know who to believe when I hear stories like this. But our government has a much better reputation than many of the local Afghans, and especially over Palestinians.
Looking at the article it's unclear exactly what happened. It mentions an ammo depot being used for disarming, but then goes on to say that these rival groups were just simply keeping the weapons for themselves. This doesn't sound like an entirely innocent situation.
Call it stereotyping, but the people who engage and support terrorism use tricks like this to gain sympathy. It's ok for them to conspire and attack innocents, but we aren't supposed to retaliate or act to stop them because it's "unfair".
"...and would I be forced to purchase these from seperate companies?"
Yes, that is their general attitude.
I recall having to buy MS-DOS 6.0 for $50, Windows 3.1 for $100, QEMM for another $40, LANtastic for $90, etc. back in 1994.
Then Windows 95 came out and I replaced all of that software with a $90 package. I also had improved performance, fewer compatibility problems, etc.
Your example of Win2k is similar.
" How does this affect distributions liek RedHat?"
Oh no, you see this doesn't apply to RedHat, only to Microsoft.
"With .Net they're gambling that they can out-code all of their competitors "
.Net implementation, then the MS version would be marginalized. "
.Net isn't about platform independence in terms of running the same code, it is about language independence and platform interoperability on the wire.
No problem, they've historically proven that they can do this. The Java JVM that Microsoft was shipping in 1997 was the fastest in the industry, and some suspect that Sun sued Microsoft to stop them because of this.
"Imagine if a few other large companies joined the effort."
That is Microsoft's great hope.
"If AOL, Oracle, IBM, HP, Intel, and the Open Source companies worked togother on a Free
Cool. What are they going to bring to the table?
"Nobody would use MS-propietary extensions if it meant shutting out Oracle or AOL users."
That doesn't matter.
The MS proprietary extensions available for Windows will ensure that Windows remains the dominant desktop and server OS. But if you want to write something for Linux, you'll have that choice and it will be very easy to integrate it into the mix because they will communicate with one another seamlessly.
You have to remember,
Sounds to me that you believe Windows XP will be very popular indeed.
There's no such thing as Windows Worshipers.
#insert
"Bullshit. You are a troll for Microsoft. "
No, I simply do not care for your lies.
I think it's amazing how every time I point out your lies to the public, you go off whining about how I'm an astroturfer and advocate for a company.
Why don't you just make intelligent comments and back up your statements with facts and evidence? Wouldn't that be more productive than going around calling people names?
Why doesn't slashdot have a killfile?
I only wish to read intelligent commentary, and it's become abundantly clear Malcontent is incapable of that.
"Most people doubt that even at this price that they can significantly impact Microsoft's market share."
Actually it's largely because they don't believe Sun is fully committed behind it. Are they? Is Sun willing to risk the company on being a Microsoft competitor, or are they just tossing something out to make a point?
But I do agree that file formats should be documented. In fact I think it should be a Federal law and apply to everybody as it has been a pain in the butt with every product I've ever used.
"Though many know of Bork only because of the partisan fiasco that accompanied his nomination for the Supreme Court"
Reagan should not have nominated a Watergate flunky.
"Bork is widely acknowledged in legal circles as one of our country's greatest legal minds. "
Well yeah, according to Rush Limbaugh anyway.
"He is widely respected for his integrity. "
Except for being a Watergate flunky.
Then of course there is the fact that he was paid by Netscape, Oracle, Sun, etc. to say these anti-Microsoft things.
Wow! That's really interesting.
/.
:(
You just got modded up to +20 in my book, that's one of the most interesting comments I have ever read on
Personally I'm ashamed I did not know that, but then I was only 5 when Watergate happened.
I am a troll for Truth, Justice and the American Way.
You troll for lies, not ideas. You always fail to respond when you are questioned on your assertions.
But that's because you are an ignorant little troll.
These rules that are different, can you list them?
Didn't think so.
Apparently a really good book on the issue is 'Competing on Internet Time Lessons from the Netscape' battles with Microsoft'
l
I found a short review that talks about it:
http://www.timescomputing.com/19990113/eml1.htm
"The book also chronicles how Netscape's arrogance caused it to often violate another cardinal principle of competing on Internet time: Build external relationships to compensate for limited internal resources. Ironically, Netscape rejected repeated overtures from AOL for a strategic alliance.
That mistake cost Netscape the opportunity to conquer another 10-12 million users and allowed Microsoft to gain ground rapidly."
Except in this case Microsoft didn't dump a product. They simply incorporated it into an existing product as an enhancement.
There's nothing illegal about that.
In fact every other OS vendor in the past 5 years has done the same thing.
"If you had actually followed the events at the time, you'd know that the only reason Netscape "stumbled" was because Microsoft came along and put ten times more money into the development of IE while giving it away for free."
_ ni ghtmare.php
No, you obviously weren't around then to follow the events.
Netscape stumbled on a number of issues. They were arrogant and lost the contract for AOLs browser as a result.
They were arrogant and refused to work with the W3C standards body. Netscape 4.x was especially bad because they had lost a battle with the W3C over CSS and released a product which had major kludges in it.
Articles such as this one:
http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/worst
Detail most of the problems that Netscape caused for themselves.
"As a result their browser became a buggy mess as they didn't have the time to do the decent development there were doing before. "
But somehow Microsoft had the time. Basically you are agreeing that Netscape's problems were caused because their developers were not as good. We should punish Microsoft because they are more competent?
Since when does that promote a competitive marketplace?
"As others have pointed out, it was not so much that Netscape was not able to keep up with Microsoft and IE, but rather that IE was being given away for free. "
If this was the only issue, Linux would be dominant on the desktop by now.
"To make money instead from the server software."
Which they lost marketshare to Apache, which was also free, but also had the added luxury of being "good enough."
The thing to remember is that the WWW market started with free clients and free servers. So early adopters were used to getting stuff for free. Netscape didn't make a compelling enough argument for people to buy stuff from them only, even though they did try vendor-lockin by promoting non-standard HTML tags and other tricks.
" I mean, for a while I believe that AOL was still distributing IE with AOL (due to a prior agreement), "
I don't know if AOL distributes IE, but they still require it. I believe with version 7.0 they now also support Netscape. Nothing to do with agreements rather just convenience.
"Now, however, with the Department of Justice and this lawsuit, it would seem that AOL is getting more use out of the Netscape name in the lawsuits than it ever did as an actual product. "
This is true, and works more against AOL than for. They certainly have no tried to compete since '98 when they dumped the source onto the world and said "Here, go see if you can make this work."
"Is is not possible that AOL saw Netscape as a way to get some settlement money from Microsoft?"
It's called the "sue-Microsoft" business plan. It's pretty popular these days.
I think this article was interesting and don't mind seeing this stuff. You get an idea of what exists out on the market. Sometimes even if you don't need it right now in six months you may go "wait, I saw something that would do that..."
/. made absolutely no mention last week of Microsoft making .Net available for download. The free SDK compilers, the free redistributable, or the MSDN subscription downloads of VS.Net.
:)
Now as far as bias, what I find interesting is that
It made all the other news sites, along with articles complaining about server capacity. (VS.Net is like a 3 Gig download)
I was at least expecting an article titled "Microsoft servers don't hold up to massive load!"
This is true. I'm not ordering any new computers today with any less than 512Megs of RAM. I've found even our older PIII-550 machines are much much much more useful when fully loaded with RAM. There's no reason not to load a machine out with RAM.
:)
I don't understand this fascination with 128M, that's like so 1999!
I think you misunderstood CAL, but you are on the right track. This comparison of a ML350 to a low end Athlon desktop is ridiculous.
u lt .asp
For $1200 I can buy a Compaq D500 Evo minitower with two 40 Gig IDE drives, 128Megs RAM and a 1.5Ghz P4. That's more than equivalent to the iMass hardware.
Now as far as software. The iMass comparison goes off showing full price of Win2k and Exchange. Great, but Microsoft's solution to the very problem iMass solves is Small Business Server.
If you go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/howtobuy/defa
SBS 2000 comes with 5 CALs, purchase another 25 for around $1300. So we're at $2800 for that, plus $1200 for the desktop puts us at $4000 compared to $2700 for the iMass.
Even so I'd still go with an ML320 at least, and a tape backup solution. Yes, it's going to be more expensive, but I've been there done that, and I think it's worth it.
"large-scale corporate development is all about factoring out individual employees."
I agree, but large-scale corporate development has historically maintained intellectual capital in the form of their source code.
This isn't the model that Linux has adopted.
The employees could leave, pick up the source on the way out the door and start a new competing company the next day.
"They have market share, they have revenues, they have contracts."
But since there is no lock-in as is traditionally done in business, none of that makes any difference.
RedHat isn't a producer of goods, they are a consulting company. It's important that AOL understands that distinction.
Looking at AOL's target market, i.e. AOL users.
How many of them do you think have heard the name RedHat?
1% maybe?
The name has little to no value.
RedHat has no value other than the employees working for them. Employees are not something that you can guarantee to purchase in a corporate buyout. It's just like any other consulting firm. After the buyout, if the employees don't feel like they were treated well they'll walk... Soon AOL will be held holding an empty bag.
:)
This is the stupidest move AOL has made since the Netscape acquisition and seeing how they ran that one, a RH buyout is guaranteed to fail.
But then since I don't particularly like RedHat, I am 100% supportive of this decision! Go for it AOL!
See previous article on Somalia having it's internet service disconnected...
6 24 5
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/23/174