More expensive by what... $5/hard drive? $20/computer? They probably play their employees livable wages. And don't say it's not your fault. Every dollar you give a big box store is one less badly needed dollar for the independent. I guess if big box stores is what you want, keep doing it. Think about how insanely hypocritical you're being.
So then, how do these computer stores pay rent and employees, if they give a 3rd party all of their softtware support? They don't make money on hardware. On top of that, their business would drop like a rock since the market has proven time and time again that not even Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in history can sell Linux-based machines.
Well speaking for a small computer shop. The bulk of our income isn't from those who walk in the door. But from doing business with other businesses. Hardware, software, and services.
Ok, same thing. Do you want to sell MS Office to businesses, or tell them, "You know, just take this free CD. We don't need your business"?
And how exactly are stores supposed to make money from this? This whole article is ridiculous. Indepdent computer stores are already pinching pennies to compete with the big box stores, and the online merchants. Why would a store replace one of their last remaining revenue streams with a non-revenue stream? Computer stores aren't going to stay alive selling beige boxes with $10 markus. It ain't gonna happen, and I think that most know, which is my no store (that will be in business in the near future) would consider touching Free Software.
Why would the stores listen to you or care? Honestly, Slashdotters (admittedly, like most people) have no clue what it takes to run a successful business. Independent computer stores have been hit very hard by the fact that geeks have no loyalty, and shop mainly at big box stores, and generic online merchants (tiger direct, etc). The *only* way that the few remaining independent computer stores, which are already probably struggling, will even begin to listen is if you have a way for them to improve their bottom line. Bottom line.
Ideals about "Freedom" don't really matter to people if you can't pay rent. You'd do well to remember that before you started preaching to them about how they should run their business.
The *are* two separate functions, but they are *related* for most people (ie: you get an email about a meeting, etc.). Also, you can't "loose" productivity, but you can "lose" it.
People that think that $8K/semester is a lot for a college education should simply not be allowed to reproduce.
Then, you leave this poor kid stranded on a college campus with a computer that nobody could fix? Are you some kind of sadist? So instead of this kid getting the most out of oh-so-expensive college, you force him to waste his time dicking around with his computer because of some bullshit principles you have about computer software?
If my dad was as much of a dick to me in the same way you are to your son, I'd disown him.
I can't believe it. Has Slashdot gone so far downhill that they now write their own massive flamebaits, post them on another one of the corporate websites, and then point to it, calling it an article? Is Slashdot getting so desperate for traffic that they've resorted to this kind of ridiculous garbage? At the very least, they should have put the silly foot icon next to it so it's obvious that it's a joke. But then again, the picture of the Bill Gates Borg is about as juvenile as you can get. I now consider Slashdot's "jounalism" to be on par with the Onion as far as accuracy. Unfortunately, the Onion is actually funny, whereas Slashdot, more and more, makes me just surf elsewhere.
I mean really. Why would I want to run actual applications on my OS? 1/10 times, when I can get a Linux install to finish, it is often quite pretty to sit and look at. Of course, I can't get a decent accounting package, point of sale package, and there's nothing that comes close to VB for quick development, but Linux *is* pretty to look at. I think that once I actually got Firefox to work on a distribution (well, once... I never found a shortcut and couldn't figure out how to launch it after the first time), and it was very cool! I felt like I was back in 1995... excited just to get a program actually working! Sure, my sound never worked, but it was pretty to look at once it got finished installing.
Fucking Windows. It always works, and it's easy to install useful programs and get work done. What's the point of that?
Market forces of the sheer user base would dictate that if this were not so, more spyware would have been ported to Firefox by now. 25 million downloads, right? That's a sizable chunk for any malware vendor, or aspiring intruder, to infiltrate.
That may be true, but Firefox users still make up around 10% of all web surfers. You write something that you want as many people to be affected by as possible... do you go with the product that 90% of people use, or 10%? Market forces, as you say, are most definitely are at work.
Even after being a geek for a looong time, I'm still shocked at how clueless most geeks are to the real world. "25 million is a lot, right?". No. It isn't.
The point is that schools should not be teaching how to use computer programs. That's a waste of time and money. No wonder most of the kids that have graduated in the past few years can barely speak English (as is evidenced by this site).
The school had about a hundred older computers running Microsoft Office 97 and Windows NT, and some kind of upgrade was clearly required.
I'd love an explination of "clearly required". Why was some kind of an upgrade "clearly required"? Did all of these computers stop functioning? Were there some features that Office 97 was missing?
Blogs are simply online diaries that have become popular because the simple fact is people like getting attention.
Exactly. And the fact is that virtually nobody outside of the "blogging community" even knows what a "blog" is. So the "community" ends up being a bunch of people patting themselves on the back.
Yeah yeah, but what about your ongoing internal struggle about choosing which different wattages of lightbulbs to buy?
You're absolutely right... the world needs to know! I am *that* important, that the rest of the planet is hanging on my every word. Now, let me tell everybody about my last trip to the bathroom...
And I have always thought that personal blogging is a result of extreme self-centeredness. Blogging is the ultimate vanity... a public diary about "me" that the rest of the worls is just *dying* to read. I mean, really... who wouldn't want to know what I had for breakfast this morning?
There are more and more people who, such as myself, use a TV for playing video games and watching DVD movies. TV, as far as I can see, has -zero- redeeming qualities, and only pushes civilzation further down the proverbial toilet. If I want to be entertained, I'll put in a movie that I have a good chance at liking, or... god forbid... read a book!
Companies cannot be treated as isolated intangibles for the purposes of this discussion
Sure they can. That's exactly how they're treated by society, law, and business. So they do, indeed have rights, whether you say so or not. It's a construct and by-product of living in a society. If you don't like it, I'm sure that there are some tiny desert islands that you could buy where there are no corporations.
Then they tacitly gave the ok for people to use the term.
It doesn't have anything to do with using the word. It has to do with commerical products using their name.
I've just invented this new kind of anal douche that helps clear out unwanted fecal matter and semen and blood. I'm calling it "Linux". Hope nobody minds.
You're free to use your own language as you see fit. But the second you start naming a commercial entity or product the same thing as a pre-existing commercial entity or product, you're outside of your rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Jealous is so ugly and nasty. Ayn Rand would call your kind of stupidity "evil", in fact.
Small independent stores are more expensive
More expensive by what... $5/hard drive? $20/computer? They probably play their employees livable wages. And don't say it's not your fault. Every dollar you give a big box store is one less badly needed dollar for the independent. I guess if big box stores is what you want, keep doing it. Think about how insanely hypocritical you're being.
So then, how do these computer stores pay rent and employees, if they give a 3rd party all of their softtware support? They don't make money on hardware. On top of that, their business would drop like a rock since the market has proven time and time again that not even Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in history can sell Linux-based machines.
Well speaking for a small computer shop. The bulk of our income isn't from those who walk in the door. But from doing business with other businesses. Hardware, software, and services.
Ok, same thing. Do you want to sell MS Office to businesses, or tell them, "You know, just take this free CD. We don't need your business"?
but the retail culture here doesn't allow it!
It "doesn't allow it" because they're working hard to keep you employed, I'm sure. You really shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you.
And how exactly are stores supposed to make money from this? This whole article is ridiculous. Indepdent computer stores are already pinching pennies to compete with the big box stores, and the online merchants. Why would a store replace one of their last remaining revenue streams with a non-revenue stream? Computer stores aren't going to stay alive selling beige boxes with $10 markus. It ain't gonna happen, and I think that most know, which is my no store (that will be in business in the near future) would consider touching Free Software.
Why would the stores listen to you or care? Honestly, Slashdotters (admittedly, like most people) have no clue what it takes to run a successful business. Independent computer stores have been hit very hard by the fact that geeks have no loyalty, and shop mainly at big box stores, and generic online merchants (tiger direct, etc). The *only* way that the few remaining independent computer stores, which are already probably struggling, will even begin to listen is if you have a way for them to improve their bottom line. Bottom line.
Ideals about "Freedom" don't really matter to people if you can't pay rent. You'd do well to remember that before you started preaching to them about how they should run their business.
The *are* two separate functions, but they are *related* for most people (ie: you get an email about a meeting, etc.). Also, you can't "loose" productivity, but you can "lose" it.
(they should, at $8k a semester!)
People that think that $8K/semester is a lot for a college education should simply not be allowed to reproduce.
Then, you leave this poor kid stranded on a college campus with a computer that nobody could fix? Are you some kind of sadist? So instead of this kid getting the most out of oh-so-expensive college, you force him to waste his time dicking around with his computer because of some bullshit principles you have about computer software?
If my dad was as much of a dick to me in the same way you are to your son, I'd disown him.
I can't believe it. Has Slashdot gone so far downhill that they now write their own massive flamebaits, post them on another one of the corporate websites, and then point to it, calling it an article? Is Slashdot getting so desperate for traffic that they've resorted to this kind of ridiculous garbage? At the very least, they should have put the silly foot icon next to it so it's obvious that it's a joke. But then again, the picture of the Bill Gates Borg is about as juvenile as you can get. I now consider Slashdot's "jounalism" to be on par with the Onion as far as accuracy. Unfortunately, the Onion is actually funny, whereas Slashdot, more and more, makes me just surf elsewhere.
I mean really. Why would I want to run actual applications on my OS? 1/10 times, when I can get a Linux install to finish, it is often quite pretty to sit and look at. Of course, I can't get a decent accounting package, point of sale package, and there's nothing that comes close to VB for quick development, but Linux *is* pretty to look at. I think that once I actually got Firefox to work on a distribution (well, once... I never found a shortcut and couldn't figure out how to launch it after the first time), and it was very cool! I felt like I was back in 1995... excited just to get a program actually working! Sure, my sound never worked, but it was pretty to look at once it got finished installing.
Fucking Windows. It always works, and it's easy to install useful programs and get work done. What's the point of that?
Market forces of the sheer user base would dictate that if this were not so, more spyware would have been ported to Firefox by now. 25 million downloads, right? That's a sizable chunk for any malware vendor, or aspiring intruder, to infiltrate.
That may be true, but Firefox users still make up around 10% of all web surfers. You write something that you want as many people to be affected by as possible... do you go with the product that 90% of people use, or 10%? Market forces, as you say, are most definitely are at work.
Even after being a geek for a looong time, I'm still shocked at how clueless most geeks are to the real world. "25 million is a lot, right?". No. It isn't.
The point is that schools should not be teaching how to use computer programs. That's a waste of time and money. No wonder most of the kids that have graduated in the past few years can barely speak English (as is evidenced by this site).
The school had about a hundred older computers running Microsoft Office 97 and Windows NT, and some kind of upgrade was clearly required.
I'd love an explination of "clearly required". Why was some kind of an upgrade "clearly required"? Did all of these computers stop functioning? Were there some features that Office 97 was missing?
Oh? Tell that to Red Hat, et al. He, he, he... If only that were true...
Blogs are simply online diaries that have become popular because the simple fact is people like getting attention.
Exactly. And the fact is that virtually nobody outside of the "blogging community" even knows what a "blog" is. So the "community" ends up being a bunch of people patting themselves on the back.
Yeah yeah, but what about your ongoing internal struggle about choosing which different wattages of lightbulbs to buy?
You're absolutely right... the world needs to know! I am *that* important, that the rest of the planet is hanging on my every word. Now, let me tell everybody about my last trip to the bathroom...
And I have always thought that personal blogging is a result of extreme self-centeredness. Blogging is the ultimate vanity... a public diary about "me" that the rest of the worls is just *dying* to read. I mean, really... who wouldn't want to know what I had for breakfast this morning?
Microsoft.
My point, exactly.
There are more and more people who, such as myself, use a TV for playing video games and watching DVD movies. TV, as far as I can see, has -zero- redeeming qualities, and only pushes civilzation further down the proverbial toilet. If I want to be entertained, I'll put in a movie that I have a good chance at liking, or... god forbid... read a book!
Companies cannot be treated as isolated intangibles for the purposes of this discussion
Sure they can. That's exactly how they're treated by society, law, and business. So they do, indeed have rights, whether you say so or not. It's a construct and by-product of living in a society. If you don't like it, I'm sure that there are some tiny desert islands that you could buy where there are no corporations.
They are not trying to do that. They're trying to stop commercial entities from using their name.
Then they tacitly gave the ok for people to use the term.
It doesn't have anything to do with using the word. It has to do with commerical products using their name.
I've just invented this new kind of anal douche that helps clear out unwanted fecal matter and semen and blood. I'm calling it "Linux". Hope nobody minds.
You're free to use your own language as you see fit. But the second you start naming a commercial entity or product the same thing as a pre-existing commercial entity or product, you're outside of your rights.