Well, we moved on to the general issue of making "educated decisions", but you're right. They could provide a thermal profile but it would probably be comprehensible to even fewer people.
I think the point is that there's nothing romantic, creative, or cool about supporting the big market leader, so MS doesn't have much to offer for an enthusiast.
The definition of fake or astroturfing can get rather tricky though. If somebody who works for Red Hat or somebody who has contributed to a Linux distro says something positive about Linux without disclosure of their relationships, why is this any different?
It can be challenging for consumers to make educated decisions on any purchase, but even if MS put a full schematic in the box, it wouldn't help 99% of their customers make an educated decision.
This just looks to me like another example of wanting to treat MS differently than other companies. Perhaps "full disclosure of hardware" should be added to Slashdot's imaginary special rules for what monopolists must do.
I didn't know about Apple's round mouse, but I used something like it on a DEC workstation in the 80's. The really bad thing is that if you tried to grab it without looking, you couldn't tell which way was up by touch.
that was one of the last to rent DVD's. I had my machine for 2 years before they stared renting them. So their track record isn't very good. They should hedge their bets and support both.
You can't upgrade a product that doesn't yet exist. The original announcement was probably deliberately misleading so they could announce an "improvement" just before the product is made available.
"Democracy =! A country in which you can have your political way by throwing money at stuff."
Then the US has never been a democracy. It wouldn't surprise me to find that Denmark isn't either, but I don't know enough about its political system to know for sure.
This isn't about fear of Windows clones, codebase forking, bug discovery, or hidden API exposure. It is simply protecting the trade secrets that are embodied in the source code that could give competitors a boost. If the source is made legally available to anyone who hasn't signed a NDA, those trade secrets will have not have any legal binding.
This 40% cheaper claim doesn't make any sense. What costs are they cutting to make it possible? Given their current tiny volumes, they probably are paying more for parts than the major PC makers. Most likely the Venezuela government is kicking in money to make the price artificially low or they are significantly exaggerating the price difference.
I can't say I understand this strange idea that it's immoral for developers to earn money by charging customers for proprietary software, but it's OK to bill them every month for "service" related to code they didn't even write. I guess "information wants to be free" but only if it's embedded in code and not when it's doled out month-by-month as a profitable enterprise.
"Who's making money off the kernel? Red Hat, for example, doesn't make money off the kernel per se. They put a great deal of time and effort into creating a distro, adding value to it, and supporting it. That's what earns them their money. The kernel enables them to make money, but that's quite a distinction from taking my code and locking it up into a proprietary app and charging me if I want to use it."
Red Hat would simply have no business if not for the kernel and other GNU software. If Red Hat were to create it's own original kernel incompatible with Linux, nobody would be interested in it. Not so with TiVo. They have an actual product that people are interested in and if it were implemented without Linux it wouldn't make it any less attractive to their customers.
"The goal of the project is to jump-start a domestic IT industry and become an IT exporter to the rest of Latin America."
So they're going to put free (as in beer as well as in "RMS-speak") on commodity hardware that they won't be able to manufacture any cheaper than US companies do. It doesn't sound like a big winner to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we moved on to the general issue of making "educated decisions", but you're right. They could provide a thermal profile but it would probably be comprehensible to even fewer people.
"I want ethical behavior from *all*"
Who doesn't? But you don't see stories on Slashdot on every company that screws up a product.
Sure, because all problems with GPL'd code are quickly identified and "solved immediately". That's why the bug lists are always empty.
I think the point is that there's nothing romantic, creative, or cool about supporting the big market leader, so MS doesn't have much to offer for an enthusiast.
The definition of fake or astroturfing can get rather tricky though. If somebody who works for Red Hat or somebody who has contributed to a Linux distro says something positive about Linux without disclosure of their relationships, why is this any different?
It can be challenging for consumers to make educated decisions on any purchase, but even if MS put a full schematic in the box, it wouldn't help 99% of their customers make an educated decision.
This just looks to me like another example of wanting to treat MS differently than other companies. Perhaps "full disclosure of hardware" should be added to Slashdot's imaginary special rules for what monopolists must do.
Sure, to the same degree as any manufacturer does. But that's not the subject here.
I didn't know about Apple's round mouse, but I used something like it on a DEC workstation in the 80's. The really bad thing is that if you tried to grab it without looking, you couldn't tell which way was up by touch.
that was one of the last to rent DVD's. I had my machine for 2 years before they stared renting them. So their track record isn't very good. They should hedge their bets and support both.
If the system has a heating problem don't buy it. MS has no obligation to inform anyone about their hardware design.
You can't upgrade a product that doesn't yet exist. The original announcement was probably deliberately misleading so they could announce an "improvement" just before the product is made available.
My smart-ass criteria for a true embedded system is that it's not allowed to parse any ASCII while booting.
"Democracy =! A country in which you can have your political way by throwing money at stuff."
Then the US has never been a democracy. It wouldn't surprise me to find that Denmark isn't either, but I don't know enough about its political system to know for sure.
"This is the company that sells software to Automatic Teller Machines"
How much software do ATM machines buy?
This isn't about fear of Windows clones, codebase forking, bug discovery, or hidden API exposure. It is simply protecting the trade secrets that are embodied in the source code that could give competitors a boost. If the source is made legally available to anyone who hasn't signed a NDA, those trade secrets will have not have any legal binding.
This 40% cheaper claim doesn't make any sense. What costs are they cutting to make it possible? Given their current tiny volumes, they probably are paying more for parts than the major PC makers. Most likely the Venezuela government is kicking in money to make the price artificially low or they are significantly exaggerating the price difference.
I can't say I understand this strange idea that it's immoral for developers to earn money by charging customers for proprietary software, but it's OK to bill them every month for "service" related to code they didn't even write. I guess "information wants to be free" but only if it's embedded in code and not when it's doled out month-by-month as a profitable enterprise.
"Who's making money off the kernel? Red Hat, for example, doesn't make money off the kernel per se. They put a great deal of time and effort into creating a distro, adding value to it, and supporting it. That's what earns them their money. The kernel enables them to make money, but that's quite a distinction from taking my code and locking it up into a proprietary app and charging me if I want to use it."
Red Hat would simply have no business if not for the kernel and other GNU software. If Red Hat were to create it's own original kernel incompatible with Linux, nobody would be interested in it. Not so with TiVo. They have an actual product that people are interested in and if it were implemented without Linux it wouldn't make it any less attractive to their customers.
"This doesn't mean that you can't charge money for it"
Right. It just means that nobody will pay for it once they realize they can get it for free.
But Chavez isn't paying these benefits through taxes.
Of course, that's a given.
Left off the word "software".
"The goal of the project is to jump-start a domestic IT industry and become an IT exporter to the rest of Latin America."
So they're going to put free (as in beer as well as in "RMS-speak") on commodity hardware that they won't be able to manufacture any cheaper than US companies do. It doesn't sound like a big winner to me.
Than perhaps Slashdot should interview executives from WalMart and Best Buy.
Heaven forbid that you might learn something new on Slashdot.