They already do.
See also:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/08/14/136244 &mode=thread&tid=109.
Where've you been?
I've been right here, watching. What you refer to was just for select business systems. What about the average person buying a PC? Where is the option for no OS?
No, because that would be a configuration management and helpdesk nightmare (not that it isn't already). I would hope that Dell tries to ship something that at least will boot the first time. With patches, who knows?
Exactly. Then they should be required to offer systems with no OS (without having to pay the OEM fees to MS either). It is irresponsible to ship systems with known, documented vulnerabilities. If they aren't willing to provide a patched system, they should be required to provide a blank system. I don't care what headaches it causes them, unpatched systems cause all of us headaches.
I just thought of something - what do companies like Dell do? They just sell the stock OS on their systems, right? Everyone always complains that people don't patch their systems, but what if you buy a new machine from Dell? I am sure people don't think "oh man, I have a new system, I need to go out and figure out which patches to install". They fire it up and go. Should OEMs be required to sell systems that are up to date on the OS patches?
In post-capitalist 17th century UK, people couldn't afford bread. Rather than storm the bakeries and steal the bread, they stormed the bakeries and demanded a fair price.
People are happy to pay a fair price. Thats the very definition of fair value. A value people will pay.
When I worked at a pizza place back in '86, I had a similar experience. (OK, so it isn't 17th century UK, but it's the best I've got). We allowed free refills on drinks. Not many people took advantage of it. They would have to bring up their glass and ask us to refill it, since the machine was behind the counter. I guess people didn't want to ask for something for free. So they changed the policy, and all refills were 25 cents, if it was a glass or a pitcher. What a deal! People were getting refills all the time. Considering that a pitcher of soda cost us a few cents, it was no big deal. But it improved business.
It will work with CDs too. I wonder if the "new release" price will go down too. I hate the fact that if you want to get a CD for $13, you have to get it when it is new. After it has been out a while, they jack the price up. Look for anything older than 6 months, and the price will be around $18. The only reason I have gotten any CDs recently is because someone gave me a gift card for Best Buy, so I picked up a few CDs. Man, that new Metallica is crap. Luckily I found some old Clutch in the bins.
Optimally, what you would want to do is download the songs, and then mail the artists a nice crisp $2 bill (Or coin, or whatever) along with a letter explaining WHY you are mailing them money.
I have wanted to do this for a long time, but how do you do it? Even if you could find an address of the band, how do you know it is real, and how do you know who is getting the money?
I think some popular artist needs to set up a mailing address for this. Come out and instead of saying "stop stealing our music", they say "hey, if you downloaded our music, send us a couple of bucks". They would need some "official" way to track these additional album sales, because that is part of their business. Of course, the record company wouldn't like this one bit, but I think THAT is part of the point.
Reminds me of the story (urban ledgend?) about the lawyer who insured his cigars, smoked them, and won the insurance claim in court because the contract didn't specify what kind of fire. Then the dumb bastard was charged with multiple counts of arson and fined 10x what he got from the insurance.
At work (Outlook *shudder*) I organize everything by month. Jan03, Feb03, Mar03, etc....
I am much better at remembering what month something happened than classifying the email. There is no doubt as to when I got the email, but there will always be a doubt as to who sent it, what it dealt with, etc.
I keep 2 months in the Inbox. If I don't need something, it gets deleted right away. It is rare that I have to go back into my archive to find something. I can always search my archive as well.
At home, I use pine. I have incoming messages going to folders for cron, DMCA (mailing list), merch (for merchandise related stuff) and that's it. If I don't need it, I delete it. If my inbox gets really big, I clean it up. If I need to, I can always go to ~/mail and grep for what I need.
I think the more complicated your mail system is, the more, well, complicated it is.
I am still waiting for all those stock options I got in 1999 to pay off. Of course, the company no longer exists, but I am still clinging to some hope.
It could happen.
Really.
*sob*
*goes back to work*
Re:I'm still waiting for you to give it up
on
What's Always Next?
·
· Score: 1
I'm still waiting for my paperless office. It hasn't happened yet: no matter how much I cut back, my coworkers always want to print repeated drafts of documents to review interim versions, print emails and notes for archiving where they can find them, and so on.
I am waiting for people to give up on the ridiculous notion of a paperless office. We aren't there yet with technology, we aren't even close. Stop trying to force it.
What are these "video games" that the author speaks of? I guess they do need to be more popular, so I can experience them.
WTF? I am not a gamer, I don't own a console system (OK, I do have a SNES). I do, however, own a Galaga machine, and used to own more full arcade cabinets. I own several PCs, and play a few games on there. I grew up in the arcade golden era. I may not be a hardcore gamer, but I think I have a grasp of the popularity and mainstream acceptance of video games. This guy is an idiot.
My rule of argument: what is the assumption being made? This article makes the assumption that TV, movies, and music is the pinnacle of social acceptance. Moreover, it assumes that reaching that pinnacle is somehow a goal of an industry. Anyone who suggests that the video game industry is struggling is clueless. Over the last 5 years, the video game industry has exploded, and this nutsack is somehow painting it as failing. It is like suggesting that Linux cannot possibly succeed unless it takes over the desktop from Microsoft. There is only one goal, all else is worthless.
Whenever I ask people why they choose MSWord over a competing product, I always get the same answer: "It has more features."
Really? I always get "What else is there?" or "It's what everyone uses".
You use the words "choose" and "competing product" lightly. Several people I know loved Word Perfect, but finally had to switch to Word because that was "the standard". One of the big reasons MS has done so well is because they got into the businessworld.
Ask all those people where they got MSWord, that answer is usually one of...
From the article: "Music and studio executives are finally beginning to understand that they must create new media services through channels that consumers will pay for. Consumers have spoken - they are tired of paying the high cost of CDs and DVDs and prefer more flexible forms of on-demand media delivery," he said.
Hmm, according to this article over at azcentral , DVDs are "a freight train that can't be stopped". Full article text: DVD sales up 57% in 1st half of 2003 Greg Hernandez Los Angeles Daily News Aug. 4, 2003 12:00 AM
LOS ANGELES - The DVD express continues to gather steam.
During the first six months of 2003, a phenomenal 427.2 million DVD units were shipped to retailers, representing a 57 percent leap compared with the same period a year ago, according to the DVD Entertainment Group, an industry trade association.
"This is a freight train that can't be stopped," DVD Entertainment Group President Bob Chapek said. "We are enjoying the momentum and looking to the future for continued growth with an eye toward what is next."
Fueling the growth in software sales are the 10.3 million DVD players that have already been sold so far this year, easily outpacing the first half of 2002 when 7.3 million players were sold.
There are now DVD players in close to 50 percent of all U.S. homes,with more than 66 million players sold in the past six years.
These robust hardware sales are connected to the soaring sales of DVD software.
Overall, the number of DVD units shipped in North America has reached nearly 1.8 billion since the format was launched in mid-1997, according to figures compiled by Ernst & Young for the trade association.
Now, back to the crappy article at hand... According to Forrester, music sales are set to increase by more than half a billion dollars in 2004 thanks to online revenues.
Equally, on-demand movie distribution channels will generate $1.4 billion by 2005, while revenue from DVDs and tapes will decline 8 percent. Yeah, they will be down from 100 gazillion dollars to 92 gazillion dollars.
What is this wild speculation garbage? Someone actually gets *paid* to think up this crap? The DVD industry is a huge part of the movie studios' revenue. Even if there were a way to deliver online movies, they would still be raking it in. And they aren't going to change their proven moneymaking business. Look at the record industry, and their unwillingness to change. Hell, they won't even consider change towards a *proven* market for their product. So you think the stakeholders in the DVD market will gladly switch away from their "free" money?
You make it sound like BNC connector are outdated tech. They are still used in televison (professional equip), osciliscopes and other test&measrment devices, and some RF equipment; to name a few uses...
It isn't outdated, but it is old.
My wife's monitor (older 21") has both BNC ports and a VGA port on the back.
Would it be fair to say then, that Red Hat has the right idea trying to make a standardised GUI using the bets bits of (predominantly) GNOME and KDE?
Having used Bluecurve'd GNOME over other versions of GNOME, it really is a superb piece of work.. definately the way forward imho, and a huge improvement over the standard.
Please note my minor but very important corrections to your statements:
Would it be fair to say then, that Red Hat has a right idea trying to make a standardised GUI using the bets bits of (predominantly) GNOME and KDE?
Having used Bluecurve'd GNOME over other versions of GNOME, it really is a superb piece of work.. definately one way forward imho, and a huge improvement over the standard.
Choice is one of the critical strengths of Linux. Standardizing the GUI (if that were even possible) for everyone would weaken it. No matter how you standardized it, someone would lose out. I have thought at times that Gnome and KDE should merge and work together. But that would kill off parts of each one of them.
I personally don't like RedHat's Bluecurve, but I do appreciate what they are trying to do with it. Hey, if it takes off, then maybe RedHat would become the "average-user-friendly" distro because of it. But talking about standardizing the GUI for all of the Linux world is just crazy talk. I found Bluecurve more confusing because I can tell the difference between KDE and Gnome. You put the same front-end on both, and it would be harder to explain to a non-computer user what the differences are. At least if they are separate, they can see the differences.
From the article header: the open source community must recognize that its primary goals: freedom of choice, freedom of source code, and freedom to alter applications, are not the goals of the average user.
I think it is very important that the open source community recognize this too - but I don't think they have to do anything about it. Why compromize the primary goals and strengths to simply appease the average user? Linux didn't get to where it is by appeasing the average user, why start now? I am not being elitest, I just think that there is no reason to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator. You want to make a dumbed-down distro - go for it. Challenge Microsoft's desktop, take it over. Win over the average computer user. Just make sure you don't stomp on those primary goals in the process. Having installed older distros, I can absolutely appreciate the advances that have taken place in newer distros. There are still things that can be improved upon as well. But none of these have or will compromize the strengths of Linux.
Should that read: "Now may be the time to stop cheating people and start paying for your music!"
You mean: "Now may be the time to stop cheating a record label that has no problem cheating you, and start paying them for the right to own one copy of music that they own the rights to simply because they control the music industry and artists have no viable alternative."
Re:as Linus said ...(karma whore)
on
Mandrake 9.2 RC1
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with back-up tapes." -Linus
Mod parent down.
What karma whoring. I have never heard this quote attributed to Linus. The source of it is somewhat sketchy, but it surely wasn't Linus.
Fundings funding. If they want to give my alma mater 1.6 million to use Windows, I think that's just great.
Computer Science isnt "how to use your computer". The concepts and techniques you learn are beyond any operating system. Good algorithm design and analysis transcends linux vs windows vs mac osx.
I agree with you, in principle. But you have to ask yourself this question - if it doesn't make a difference, then why does Microsoft spend the money to get Windows into schools?
Whether you like to believe it or not, Microsoft has some of the best programmers in the world - it also has some of the most rushed programmers in the world, and some not so great QA. Even the very best programmers don't often get their code perfect the first time around, and if a problem with some MS code is not picked up by MS's testers and QA people, it doesn't get fixed.
As a 10 year tester/QA person, let me say that even if a bug is found by the QA/Test team, it may not get fixed. Project Managers rule, and have been known on occasion to ship software with known bugs in it. I can't imagine Microsoft is any different. I'll bet there are some QA people at Microsoft who get to say "I told you so" on a daily basis.:-)
Sure it does. You take your old config do a 'make oldconfig' and it'll prompt you for the new features. Then you just compile and install as usual. It's easy.
I don't have a problem compiling a new kernel. I have done it before (back around Redhat 6.1). So I am not looking for some super-easy way to compile it. I want to know what is in it, in "plain English". I understand that there's a lot of technical stuff in there, and I don't expect it to be explained so I can completely understand every single modification. But how about two sections, one for the big features (like USB 2.0 support) and one for tweaks (optomized function blah, which you'll never see).
I know that this info is kind of out there, if you look. I just wonder why it can't be put together and released with the official announcement. The information should come from the source, which IMO is the kernel maintainer. I think it would make people more likely to adopt a new kernel, without them having to wait until the update their distro. It isn't for the end user, not even close. I can't imagine that everyone else either is clueless and just upgrades their distro, or knows and understands everything that goes on with the kernel. I am somewhere in between. I could probably research it and figure it out, but couldn't the kernel maintainers just tell everyone what is in the new kernel? I would think they would want to promote it. Not marketoid speak, just good, informative release notes.
Summary of changes from v2.4.22-rc2 to v2.4.22-rc3
@lt;len.brown:intel.com>:
o ACPI update
o ACPI build fix
o linux-acpi-2.4.22.patch
What, you can't tell from these extremely descriptive release notes?
Unfortunately, for most of the world, releasing a new kernel doesn't mean much until a distro releases it in a release. Why? Well, there is no way to tell what the hell is in a new kernel. OK, you could search the LKML, or wait for someone else to do some legwork and post the results of it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - whoever releases the kernel should take a few minutes and do a quick writeup of what is new in the kernel. Not "fixed bug in foo.c" but something a bit more descriptive. Is it so hard? I am not being an ingrate, but I don't get why the maintainers don't do this. Yeah, you could go with the "they're engineers, not doc people!" but who better to describe what is fixed than the people who fixed it? Are you telling me that these people are incapable of describing in a sentence or two what their fix does?
No big deal I guess, and I am sure I'll get modded down for not drooling over a new kernel. But I'll bet 90% of the people who rave about it don't know what they are compiling.
Slashdot Mirror
And possibly his wife.
Hey! I don't know what the guy is into...
I've been right here, watching. What you refer to was just for select business systems. What about the average person buying a PC?
Where is the option for no OS?
Exactly. Then they should be required to offer systems with no OS (without having to pay the OEM fees to MS either). It is irresponsible to ship systems with known, documented vulnerabilities. If they aren't willing to provide a patched system, they should be required to provide a blank system. I don't care what headaches it causes them, unpatched systems cause all of us headaches.
I just thought of something - what do companies like Dell do? They just sell the stock OS on their systems, right? Everyone always complains that people don't patch their systems, but what if you buy a new machine from Dell? I am sure people don't think "oh man, I have a new system, I need to go out and figure out which patches to install". They fire it up and go. Should OEMs be required to sell systems that are up to date on the OS patches?
When I worked at a pizza place back in '86, I had a similar experience. (OK, so it isn't 17th century UK, but it's the best I've got). We allowed free refills on drinks. Not many people took advantage of it. They would have to bring up their glass and ask us to refill it, since the machine was behind the counter. I guess people didn't want to ask for something for free. So they changed the policy, and all refills were 25 cents, if it was a glass or a pitcher. What a deal! People were getting refills all the time. Considering that a pitcher of soda cost us a few cents, it was no big deal. But it improved business.
It will work with CDs too. I wonder if the "new release" price will go down too. I hate the fact that if you want to get a CD for $13, you have to get it when it is new. After it has been out a while, they jack the price up. Look for anything older than 6 months, and the price will be around $18. The only reason I have gotten any CDs recently is because someone gave me a gift card for Best Buy, so I picked up a few CDs. Man, that new Metallica is crap. Luckily I found some old Clutch in the bins.
I have wanted to do this for a long time, but how do you do it? Even if you could find an address of the band, how do you know it is real, and how do you know who is getting the money?
I think some popular artist needs to set up a mailing address for this. Come out and instead of saying "stop stealing our music", they say "hey, if you downloaded our music, send us a couple of bucks". They would need some "official" way to track these additional album sales, because that is part of their business. Of course, the record company wouldn't like this one bit, but I think THAT is part of the point.
Snopes is your friend
Uhh, new?
I am much better at remembering what month something happened than classifying the email. There is no doubt as to when I got the email, but there will always be a doubt as to who sent it, what it dealt with, etc.
I keep 2 months in the Inbox. If I don't need something, it gets deleted right away. It is rare that I have to go back into my archive to find something. I can always search my archive as well.
At home, I use pine. I have incoming messages going to folders for cron, DMCA (mailing list), merch (for merchandise related stuff) and that's it. If I don't need it, I delete it. If my inbox gets really big, I clean it up. If I need to, I can always go to ~/mail and grep for what I need.
I think the more complicated your mail system is, the more, well, complicated it is.
It could happen.
Really.
*sob*
*goes back to work*
I am waiting for people to give up on the ridiculous notion of a paperless office. We aren't there yet with technology, we aren't even close. Stop trying to force it.
WTF? I am not a gamer, I don't own a console system (OK, I do have a SNES). I do, however, own a Galaga machine, and used to own more full arcade cabinets. I own several PCs, and play a few games on there. I grew up in the arcade golden era. I may not be a hardcore gamer, but I think I have a grasp of the popularity and mainstream acceptance of video games. This guy is an idiot.
My rule of argument: what is the assumption being made? This article makes the assumption that TV, movies, and music is the pinnacle of social acceptance. Moreover, it assumes that reaching that pinnacle is somehow a goal of an industry. Anyone who suggests that the video game industry is struggling is clueless. Over the last 5 years, the video game industry has exploded, and this nutsack is somehow painting it as failing. It is like suggesting that Linux cannot possibly succeed unless it takes over the desktop from Microsoft. There is only one goal, all else is worthless.
What a pile of crap.
Really? I always get "What else is there?" or "It's what everyone uses".
You use the words "choose" and "competing product" lightly. Several people I know loved Word Perfect, but finally had to switch to Word because that was "the standard". One of the big reasons MS has done so well is because they got into the businessworld.
Ask all those people where they got MSWord, that answer is usually one of...
I borrowed a copy from a friend/family member
I borrowed a copy from work
I downloaded a copy from the internet
I don't know
"Music and studio executives are finally beginning to understand that they must create new media services through channels that consumers will pay for. Consumers have spoken - they are tired of paying the high cost of CDs and DVDs and prefer more flexible forms of on-demand media delivery," he said.
Hmm, according to this article over at azcentral , DVDs are "a freight train that can't be stopped".
Full article text:
DVD sales up 57% in 1st half of 2003
Greg Hernandez
Los Angeles Daily News
Aug. 4, 2003 12:00 AM
LOS ANGELES - The DVD express continues to gather steam.
During the first six months of 2003, a phenomenal 427.2 million DVD units were shipped to retailers, representing a 57 percent leap compared with the same period a year ago, according to the DVD Entertainment Group, an industry trade association.
"This is a freight train that can't be stopped," DVD Entertainment Group President Bob Chapek said. "We are enjoying the momentum and looking to the future for continued growth with an eye toward what is next."
Fueling the growth in software sales are the 10.3 million DVD players that have already been sold so far this year, easily outpacing the first half of 2002 when 7.3 million players were sold.
There are now DVD players in close to 50 percent of all U.S. homes,with more than 66 million players sold in the past six years.
These robust hardware sales are connected to the soaring sales of DVD software.
Overall, the number of DVD units shipped in North America has reached nearly 1.8 billion since the format was launched in mid-1997, according to figures compiled by Ernst & Young for the trade association.
Now, back to the crappy article at hand...
According to Forrester, music sales are set to increase by more than half a billion dollars in 2004 thanks to online revenues.
Equally, on-demand movie distribution channels will generate $1.4 billion by 2005, while revenue from DVDs and tapes will decline 8 percent.
Yeah, they will be down from 100 gazillion dollars to 92 gazillion dollars.
What is this wild speculation garbage? Someone actually gets *paid* to think up this crap? The DVD industry is a huge part of the movie studios' revenue. Even if there were a way to deliver online movies, they would still be raking it in. And they aren't going to change their proven moneymaking business. Look at the record industry, and their unwillingness to change. Hell, they won't even consider change towards a *proven* market for their product. So you think the stakeholders in the DVD market will gladly switch away from their "free" money?
Technically, yes, you can. But *are* you?
Now go hang your head in shame.
It isn't outdated, but it is old.
My wife's monitor (older 21") has both BNC ports and a VGA port on the back.
For networking, though, it is outdated.
Anyone who is actually old enough to have used one of these would certainly know how to spell it correctly.
I call faker! You are just trying to pretend you are some 31337 old geek when you probably have never used anything slower than a DSL line.
Now get out of here before I whip ya with this here cable with BNC connectors.
Please note my minor but very important corrections to your statements:
Would it be fair to say then, that Red Hat has a right idea trying to make a standardised GUI using the bets bits of (predominantly) GNOME and KDE? Having used Bluecurve'd GNOME over other versions of GNOME, it really is a superb piece of work.. definately one way forward imho, and a huge improvement over the standard.
Choice is one of the critical strengths of Linux. Standardizing the GUI (if that were even possible) for everyone would weaken it. No matter how you standardized it, someone would lose out. I have thought at times that Gnome and KDE should merge and work together. But that would kill off parts of each one of them.
I personally don't like RedHat's Bluecurve, but I do appreciate what they are trying to do with it. Hey, if it takes off, then maybe RedHat would become the "average-user-friendly" distro because of it. But talking about standardizing the GUI for all of the Linux world is just crazy talk. I found Bluecurve more confusing because I can tell the difference between KDE and Gnome. You put the same front-end on both, and it would be harder to explain to a non-computer user what the differences are. At least if they are separate, they can see the differences.
From the article header:
the open source community must recognize that its primary goals: freedom of choice, freedom of source code, and freedom to alter applications, are not the goals of the average user.
I think it is very important that the open source community recognize this too - but I don't think they have to do anything about it. Why compromize the primary goals and strengths to simply appease the average user? Linux didn't get to where it is by appeasing the average user, why start now? I am not being elitest, I just think that there is no reason to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator. You want to make a dumbed-down distro - go for it. Challenge Microsoft's desktop, take it over. Win over the average computer user. Just make sure you don't stomp on those primary goals in the process. Having installed older distros, I can absolutely appreciate the advances that have taken place in newer distros. There are still things that can be improved upon as well. But none of these have or will compromize the strengths of Linux.
As OJ says, that would be ludacrisp. :-)
You mean: "Now may be the time to stop cheating a record label that has no problem cheating you, and start paying them for the right to own one copy of music that they own the rights to simply because they control the music industry and artists have no viable alternative."
Mod parent down.
What karma whoring. I have never heard this quote attributed to Linus. The source of it is somewhat sketchy, but it surely wasn't Linus.
I agree with you, in principle. But you have to ask yourself this question - if it doesn't make a difference, then why does Microsoft spend the money to get Windows into schools?
"Fuck off, loser" doesn't mean they are ready and willing to accept your seed(ling).
As a 10 year tester/QA person, let me say that even if a bug is found by the QA/Test team, it may not get fixed. Project Managers rule, and have been known on occasion to ship software with known bugs in it. I can't imagine Microsoft is any different. I'll bet there are some QA people at Microsoft who get to say "I told you so" on a daily basis. :-)
I don't have a problem compiling a new kernel. I have done it before (back around Redhat 6.1). So I am not looking for some super-easy way to compile it. I want to know what is in it, in "plain English". I understand that there's a lot of technical stuff in there, and I don't expect it to be explained so I can completely understand every single modification. But how about two sections, one for the big features (like USB 2.0 support) and one for tweaks (optomized function blah, which you'll never see).
I know that this info is kind of out there, if you look. I just wonder why it can't be put together and released with the official announcement. The information should come from the source, which IMO is the kernel maintainer. I think it would make people more likely to adopt a new kernel, without them having to wait until the update their distro. It isn't for the end user, not even close. I can't imagine that everyone else either is clueless and just upgrades their distro, or knows and understands everything that goes on with the kernel. I am somewhere in between. I could probably research it and figure it out, but couldn't the kernel maintainers just tell everyone what is in the new kernel? I would think they would want to promote it. Not marketoid speak, just good, informative release notes.
@lt;len.brown:intel.com>:
o ACPI update
o ACPI build fix
o linux-acpi-2.4.22.patch
What, you can't tell from these extremely descriptive release notes?
Unfortunately, for most of the world, releasing a new kernel doesn't mean much until a distro releases it in a release. Why? Well, there is no way to tell what the hell is in a new kernel. OK, you could search the LKML, or wait for someone else to do some legwork and post the results of it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - whoever releases the kernel should take a few minutes and do a quick writeup of what is new in the kernel. Not "fixed bug in foo.c" but something a bit more descriptive. Is it so hard? I am not being an ingrate, but I don't get why the maintainers don't do this. Yeah, you could go with the "they're engineers, not doc people!" but who better to describe what is fixed than the people who fixed it? Are you telling me that these people are incapable of describing in a sentence or two what their fix does?
No big deal I guess, and I am sure I'll get modded down for not drooling over a new kernel. But I'll bet 90% of the people who rave about it don't know what they are compiling.