"At your expense"? Like, what, exactly? If you wrote any OSS code, and gave it away, then there is no expense for you if it is used by Microsoft or anybody else.
They play hard, yes. So does every other business. So does my business. They do NOT have a history of aggressively suing patent infringers. In fact, they've started promising that they WILL NOT do this. And, they won't have any grounds to do so with this deal, unless there are some GPL programmers stealing code, which apparently rarely happens.
"Yes". "Yes". And "it helps, yes". I need all of my software to run together flawlessly. I can't have some hacked together stuff that that may or may not interact well. So yes, it most definitely helps. In my business, I need an OS that lets us do regular stuff (email, web, blah, blah, blah), but that's not really important. Any OS on any computer will do all of that. My IMPORTANT functions, though... accounting, cash registers, etc. all need to work together perfectly. If they don't, we have to close our doors, and I have to fire lots of people. So yes, I would give significantly more weight to a Linux that has MS's stamp of approval.
Imho it was just a matter of time before the community got screwed by commercial interests.
How, exactly, is the community getting screwed? The community can happily go on developing whatever they'd like. Just ignore Novell/SUSE if you don't like them.
It's not about it being against the GPL, it's provide MSFT with an excuse, and an attack point with which to target open source developers.
That is 100% pure FUD, completely baseless and ridiculous. MS doesn't have a history of doing this, and it makes no business sense that they would do so in the future.
I couldn't disagree more. Being able to go to sleep and not worry about the software is why I don't use Linux in my business. I'm looking forward to being able to try out a Linux that at least has the MS stamp of approval, and am even more excited about using a version that may have been improved by MS. Microsoft has the potential to add a lot of value to SUSE, and at this point, it is the only one that I would consider using in my business (assuming that MS does improve the current offering). I simply cannot stake the livelihood of myself, my family, and all of my employees on what's out there now.
You forgot a big one... a semester or two in database theory and design. Since most programming projects in the real world end up interacting with data in some way, this could be good. I can't count the number of times where I caught a programmer treating an RDBS like a flat file because they had no idea what a database was for or how they work.
That's a red herring. You're already using the term "convicted monopoly". That's kinda' like calling somebody that disagrees with the government a "terrorist". Welcome to 1984.
There is nothing stopping people from choosing what software they would like to use on their computer. The market is working just fine. Nobody is being coerced. However, you seem to be in favor of the government coercing a private business by force. Sounds like DoubleSpeak to me.
Sorry, but GNUCash is useless for any both the most basic accounting needs. It doesn't even do payroll! And, none of those POS systems are even remotely as good as any of the proprietary versions. True, there may technically be "accounting" and "point of sale" software, but what's available is embarassingly bad.
You guys forget the massive small business segment. This will be one of the last adopters. There's very little usable small-business software that works on Linux (basic accounting package, anyone? how about point of sale?). And small business don't have whole departments for IT like big companies, so most small businesses don't have the money, time, and/or expertise to get a Linux box working.
Pretty sneaky, huh? Maybe you (and the other lemmings in your group) should try to do some reading once in a while. Your knees have got to be getting tired from all of that jerking.
The controller is a gimmick. A bad gimmick at that. Somehow, I can't see a lot of people swinging around the room after the novelty wears off in the first 10 minutes. That stupid Nintendo controller will sink Nintendo faster than you can say "Power Glove"
It happened to me too. Sony sent me a brand new unit (twice... another one a few years later). Sony puts a one year warranty on this thing, and it's almost no questions asked. Why did you do it yourself?
I know. 12 Gig? WTF does this thing do that it needs 12 Gig? That's absolutely unbelievable. I still use lots and lots of 6-20 gig hard drives at work. I won't be upgrading to Vista any time soon just because of the hard drive space!
The article was surprisingly positive. The article summary on Slashdot wasn't. The article summary even said "Also, their experience with 'in-place upgrades' was abysmal,". That simply was not in the article. Has Slashdot stooped to just making shit up, now?
I wouldn't know. Last time I tried Linux, it was Ubuntu about a year ago. One machine had no GUI at all... just a command line prompt and some esoteric error messages. Windows was immediately re-installed on that machine. The other one came out with a resolution so tiny, that I couldn't read the screen to do anything. Again, Windows was immediately re-installed on that machine, too. Well, then, maybe I should say that maybe MS will come out with a version of Linux that defaults to 640x480 VGA that always works. But, there's no reason that the masochists that like to twiddle with.config files won't still be able to do that on whatever's available at the time (Gentoo, Ubuntu, DogPoo, whatever). That's the beauty of OSS. But Linux most definitely needs some sane people who can smooth out the nightmare patchwork that it is now.
Exactly. I just needed to buy some blank DVD's and CD's for my business. And to be honest, I didn't even look or care whether or not they were +/-R or whatever. The trend has always been for hardware to incoprate multiple standards. I don't see why this one would be any different. In a few years, when I need to buy some more DVD's (at the local drugstore, no less), I probably won't care whether they're dual layer DVD, Blue-Ray or HD. eh. I never understood why geeks got their panties in a bunch over this in the first place.
Microsoft has no intention of streamlining Linux even for purposes of interoperability. Their goal is to get as many Linux distros under their belt as they can so they can control linux. This will narrow down the field for them to sue. If they can control linux it is better than having to beat or compete with it. Hell, much of what was implemented in Vista is essentially concepts stolen from Linux. Even their trash bin is very close to the look of one of the icon sets available on kde-look.org. If they can narrow the field and control the majority it saves them money in the long run when fighting the remaining in court.
Why do you say that? MS doesn't have an unusual history of suing their competitors. You must be thinking of Sun and Netscape. An intelligent look at MS's history wouldn't suggest to most thinking people that MS is planning on suing anybody.
Whoa. You bought that whole "do no evil" thing hook, line, and sinker, huh? Well, there's one born every minute, so they say. Anyway, he meant making revenue from advertising and giving the product away for free. The whole "Do No Evil" is called "marketing". If it were authentic, it would be called a "mission statement".
I love it when individuals think that they're smarter than all of the individuals in one of the smartest run companies on the planet...
it's still going to be free and maintained by developers from all over.
That's all well and good, but up to this point, "developers from all over" still haven't been able to put together a product that people will take for free. MS isn't going to "buy" anything. They're going to streamline and clean up SUSE and other products, to make them much more useable by people working in mixed platform environments. The "developers from all over" can keep doing their thing. It's just that most Linux users in 5 years won't be using their version (it's easy to change your screen resolution... just open a terminal, type 'blah, blah')... they'll be paying for MS's version with all of the bells and whistles that people expect from a modern OS (it's easy to change your screen resolution... click the button that says 'screen resolution').
Curious that he left out 'make good software' and 'support'...
That's because anybody with even the tiniest modicum of business sense realizes that not only does that business model not work, but part of the definition of "good software" is not needing support.
Cars don't have "IPod Connectors". Cars are now (finally) coming with the world-wide standard 1/8" stereo jack for input. You can plug in virtually any audio device in the planet into one of these things. iPods have nothing to do with a 1/8" stereo jack.
... for using MySQL. I hate to say it, but it's the truth. Remember kids: if MS Access can't handle what you're doing, MySQL probably can't handle it, either. I know that at least Oracle can re-index on the fly. Probably MS SQL, DB2, and even PostgreSQL, too.
Slashdot Mirror
"At your expense"? Like, what, exactly? If you wrote any OSS code, and gave it away, then there is no expense for you if it is used by Microsoft or anybody else.
They play hard, yes. So does every other business. So does my business. They do NOT have a history of aggressively suing patent infringers. In fact, they've started promising that they WILL NOT do this. And, they won't have any grounds to do so with this deal, unless there are some GPL programmers stealing code, which apparently rarely happens.
"Yes". "Yes". And "it helps, yes". I need all of my software to run together flawlessly. I can't have some hacked together stuff that that may or may not interact well. So yes, it most definitely helps. In my business, I need an OS that lets us do regular stuff (email, web, blah, blah, blah), but that's not really important. Any OS on any computer will do all of that. My IMPORTANT functions, though... accounting, cash registers, etc. all need to work together perfectly. If they don't, we have to close our doors, and I have to fire lots of people. So yes, I would give significantly more weight to a Linux that has MS's stamp of approval.
We don't have any of that. Try this, instead:
Microsoft: Supports all mission critical software that we use to run our business.
Linux: Runs our web site (not mission critical). Supports none of our business software.
Imho it was just a matter of time before the community got screwed by commercial interests.
How, exactly, is the community getting screwed? The community can happily go on developing whatever they'd like. Just ignore Novell/SUSE if you don't like them.
It's not about it being against the GPL, it's provide MSFT with an excuse, and an attack point with which to target open source developers.
That is 100% pure FUD, completely baseless and ridiculous. MS doesn't have a history of doing this, and it makes no business sense that they would do so in the future.
I couldn't disagree more. Being able to go to sleep and not worry about the software is why I don't use Linux in my business. I'm looking forward to being able to try out a Linux that at least has the MS stamp of approval, and am even more excited about using a version that may have been improved by MS. Microsoft has the potential to add a lot of value to SUSE, and at this point, it is the only one that I would consider using in my business (assuming that MS does improve the current offering). I simply cannot stake the livelihood of myself, my family, and all of my employees on what's out there now.
You forgot a big one... a semester or two in database theory and design. Since most programming projects in the real world end up interacting with data in some way, this could be good. I can't count the number of times where I caught a programmer treating an RDBS like a flat file because they had no idea what a database was for or how they work.
That's a red herring. You're already using the term "convicted monopoly". That's kinda' like calling somebody that disagrees with the government a "terrorist". Welcome to 1984.
There is nothing stopping people from choosing what software they would like to use on their computer. The market is working just fine. Nobody is being coerced. However, you seem to be in favor of the government coercing a private business by force. Sounds like DoubleSpeak to me.
Sorry, but GNUCash is useless for any both the most basic accounting needs. It doesn't even do payroll! And, none of those POS systems are even remotely as good as any of the proprietary versions. True, there may technically be "accounting" and "point of sale" software, but what's available is embarassingly bad.
Why unbundle?
Your forgot one:
7) Private property rights are less important than your own personal preference in perconal computer operating system.
You guys forget the massive small business segment. This will be one of the last adopters. There's very little usable small-business software that works on Linux (basic accounting package, anyone? how about point of sale?). And small business don't have whole departments for IT like big companies, so most small businesses don't have the money, time, and/or expertise to get a Linux box working.
Unfortunately, you've got it backwards. Microsoft has said that they're not going to enforce those patents. On the other hand, VA Software (the owner of Slashdot) has said publically that they will aggressively prosecute people who violate their patents.
Pretty sneaky, huh? Maybe you (and the other lemmings in your group) should try to do some reading once in a while. Your knees have got to be getting tired from all of that jerking.
The controller is a gimmick. A bad gimmick at that. Somehow, I can't see a lot of people swinging around the room after the novelty wears off in the first 10 minutes. That stupid Nintendo controller will sink Nintendo faster than you can say "Power Glove"
It happened to me too. Sony sent me a brand new unit (twice... another one a few years later). Sony puts a one year warranty on this thing, and it's almost no questions asked. Why did you do it yourself?
I know. 12 Gig? WTF does this thing do that it needs 12 Gig? That's absolutely unbelievable. I still use lots and lots of 6-20 gig hard drives at work. I won't be upgrading to Vista any time soon just because of the hard drive space!
The article was surprisingly positive. The article summary on Slashdot wasn't. The article summary even said "Also, their experience with 'in-place upgrades' was abysmal,". That simply was not in the article. Has Slashdot stooped to just making shit up, now?
I wouldn't know. Last time I tried Linux, it was Ubuntu about a year ago. One machine had no GUI at all... just a command line prompt and some esoteric error messages. Windows was immediately re-installed on that machine. The other one came out with a resolution so tiny, that I couldn't read the screen to do anything. Again, Windows was immediately re-installed on that machine, too. Well, then, maybe I should say that maybe MS will come out with a version of Linux that defaults to 640x480 VGA that always works. But, there's no reason that the masochists that like to twiddle with .config files won't still be able to do that on whatever's available at the time (Gentoo, Ubuntu, DogPoo, whatever). That's the beauty of OSS. But Linux most definitely needs some sane people who can smooth out the nightmare patchwork that it is now.
Exactly. I just needed to buy some blank DVD's and CD's for my business. And to be honest, I didn't even look or care whether or not they were +/-R or whatever. The trend has always been for hardware to incoprate multiple standards. I don't see why this one would be any different. In a few years, when I need to buy some more DVD's (at the local drugstore, no less), I probably won't care whether they're dual layer DVD, Blue-Ray or HD. eh. I never understood why geeks got their panties in a bunch over this in the first place.
Microsoft has no intention of streamlining Linux even for purposes of interoperability. Their goal is to get as many Linux distros under their belt as they can so they can control linux. This will narrow down the field for them to sue. If they can control linux it is better than having to beat or compete with it. Hell, much of what was implemented in Vista is essentially concepts stolen from Linux. Even their trash bin is very close to the look of one of the icon sets available on kde-look.org. If they can narrow the field and control the majority it saves them money in the long run when fighting the remaining in court.
Why do you say that? MS doesn't have an unusual history of suing their competitors. You must be thinking of Sun and Netscape. An intelligent look at MS's history wouldn't suggest to most thinking people that MS is planning on suing anybody.
Whoa. You bought that whole "do no evil" thing hook, line, and sinker, huh? Well, there's one born every minute, so they say. Anyway, he meant making revenue from advertising and giving the product away for free. The whole "Do No Evil" is called "marketing". If it were authentic, it would be called a "mission statement".
I love it when individuals think that they're smarter than all of the individuals in one of the smartest run companies on the planet...
it's still going to be free and maintained by developers from all over.
That's all well and good, but up to this point, "developers from all over" still haven't been able to put together a product that people will take for free. MS isn't going to "buy" anything. They're going to streamline and clean up SUSE and other products, to make them much more useable by people working in mixed platform environments. The "developers from all over" can keep doing their thing. It's just that most Linux users in 5 years won't be using their version (it's easy to change your screen resolution... just open a terminal, type 'blah, blah')... they'll be paying for MS's version with all of the bells and whistles that people expect from a modern OS (it's easy to change your screen resolution... click the button that says 'screen resolution').
Curious that he left out 'make good software' and 'support'...
That's because anybody with even the tiniest modicum of business sense realizes that not only does that business model not work, but part of the definition of "good software" is not needing support.
Cars don't have "IPod Connectors". Cars are now (finally) coming with the world-wide standard 1/8" stereo jack for input. You can plug in virtually any audio device in the planet into one of these things. iPods have nothing to do with a 1/8" stereo jack.
... for using MySQL. I hate to say it, but it's the truth. Remember kids: if MS Access can't handle what you're doing, MySQL probably can't handle it, either. I know that at least Oracle can re-index on the fly. Probably MS SQL, DB2, and even PostgreSQL, too.