I don't think anyone begrudges Ubuntu taking advantage of a perfectly acceptable revenue model. That's not the problem here.
The problem is that Ubuntu is shipping a modified version of Firefox instead of the default Firefox shipped by Mozilla. Sure, both Ubuntu and Debian ship patched versions of just about every package they include in the repository. But the overwhelming majority of those patches don't noticeably effect the user experience.
Firefox, on the other hand, is pretty much the #1 most important part of the user experience in Ubuntu. It's the application most people are going to use more than anything else. In fact, after Ubuntu is installed, the user will probably spend more time interacting with Firefox than with all the rest of Ubuntu combined. It's not inaccurate to say it's a Firefox machine, as opposed to an Ubuntu or Linux machine.
Since Firefox is the most important part of the user experience, the users don't want Firefox changed in any way. They want the default Firefox as shipped by Mozilla. They don't want the named changed to Shiretoko or IceWeasel. They don't want the icons changed. They don't want weird extensions that change behaviour. They also don't want updates to come from Ubuntu repositories, as they do for every other package. They want the newest version of Firefox from Mozilla at the exact moment that Mozilla ships it.
I understand the reasoning behind Ubuntu and Debians policies, but I think it is obvious that Firefox trumps Ubuntu. They should make a special exception for it. Just ship the raw Firefox as released by Mozilla. Don't modify it in any way whatsoever. The world is just getting more browser centric. The operating system is just the code that talks between the browser and the hardware. You can do anything you want to the OS, but don't touch the browser or you'll lose all the users you worked so hard to gain.
Think about Sudoku for a second. Let's say you never played it before. Someone gives you a board and the rules. The first step you have is to figure out how to solve it. Eventually you develop an algorithm that can solve any sudoku. Once you have developed this algorithm, sudoku is no longer an intellectual exercise. It is no longer a matter of solving a problem, but merely executing an algorithm. It becomes manual labor. Likewise, if someone gives you the algorithm, you can bypass the first part entirely.
An MMO is very similar. In the beginning you don't know what to do. You have to learn the game and solve problems. Many of the rules of the game are hidden or secret. Thus, it can take awhile. However, eventually, you learn it. You know exactly what to press in order to do the maximum damage per unit time in any given situation with any given character. You don't even need to learn this, either. Someone can just tell you.
At some point you switch from developing an algorithm to executing an algorithm. You switch from developing a solution to executing a known solution. You switch from skill to knowledge.
This is why there is such an attraction tïo eurogames like Puerto Rico, Agricola, Caylus, Power Grid, Tigris and Euphrates, etc. These games tend to have little to no randomness, so they aren't games of chance. They are complex enough that it is very difficult to solve them, though perhaps not as complex as Go. They also have a significant theme and other elements that make them more "fun" than a game like Go or Chess.
Even so, many eurogames are solvable. We have a shelf full of games, but we only actually play about half of them. For the other half, everyone already knows the algorithm for optimal play. When we play with each other, it becomes a perfect Nash equilibrium. When we play with anyone else who hasn't solved the game, they are completely crushed.
The answer is to never play a game you have solved, and never play games that are easily solvable.
Many open source projects fail to succeed because everyone working on them is a developer. They design the software to meet their own personal needs. Thus we get projects like the Gimp which does not meet the needs of any artist I have ever known.
However, when it comes to making development tools, who better to know the needs of the end user than other developers? When it comes to software that is used by developers, open source will always be king. Look where the real successes in open source are right now. Most of it is in libraries and frameworks like django, rails, and jquery. These are things made by developers to make developing easier.
Earlier this year Gizmodo pulled a prank on supposed sister-site Kotaku, putting the infamous and inappropriate tubgirl image to the Kotaku front page. After that I pretty much stopped reading, and lost all respect for, Gizmodo and it's writers and editors. Apparently that was justified. Maybe they should think about exactly why Engadget is kicking their asses.
In college I was big into Gentoo. It had it's problems, sure, but when you got it working, it was terrific. Then after the college days were over, and I started working, I had a lot less free time. I realized that with Gentoo I spend a lot more time working on the computer itself as opposed to using the computer to do other things. I've switched to Ubuntu, and haven't looked back since.
I don't really use Facebook very much. For the things most people use Facebook for, I use Google for domains. However, I do use other sites like Listal, Last.fm, Flickr, etc. While these sites have social networking features, I use them for their database features primarily. Storing my photos, tracking my music listening, those are things I want to do.
Now, while I don't use Facebook itself, I do have an account. Thanks to Facebook's application API, Facebook is already sort of a social networking aggregator. Every one of the web applications I use has a Facebook application. If you add all of them to your Facebook, you get sort of an aggregated profile all in one place. Adding those applications I think is the smartest thing Facebook ever did.
I'm proud of my code when I actually try to write quality code, and I write it from scratch. The problem is that most often at work I am modifying crappy code, or writing code that is built on top of crappy old code. The crap is contagious, and pride flies out the window.
No matter what the do with IE7, the problem is many people still use IE6. I'm seeing about half of IE users on 6, and half on 7. This means that no matter what Microsoft does to IE7, we still have to develop for multiple platforms because people are still using 6.
The other problem is this. I'm a web developer. In order to make my job easier I use many software tools. Most of those tools, like the web developer toolbar and Firebug, are Firefox extensions. No version of IE really has any tool that can equal Firebug. I was considering moving away from Firefox because of its instability and poor memory usage, but I am so dependent on the extensions that I can not leave.
The result of this is that I will always develop for Firefox where the handy developer tools are. Then after I am done, I will tweak and hack until it works under IE. Really, Microsoft created this horrible situation, and now there's almost no way out. Honestly, they should just get rid of IE and have Firefox be the default browser for everybody. That's about all they can do at this point.
The only reason I've stuck with Firefox instead of switching to Opera is because there are Firefox extensions that I absolutely depend on. I tested out Firefox 3, and I would switch to it this instant if the extensions were compatible with it.
The infamous bug in Ubuntu destroyed the magnetic disk drive in my Fujitsu P7230. I replaced the failing drive with a 16GB Samsung SSD that I bouht on Newegg for $200. I'm usually very conservative and cautious in my technology purchases, but this time I went out on a limb.
After a month or so of using the SSD, I can say it is a success. I don't need much space on my laptop, just room for the OS. I no longer have to worry so much about dropping my laptop. The already incredible battery life of the P7230 is extended for at least 30 extra minutes. And in all other ways it's just fine.
The only problem with the SSD is, of course, the fact that it can only take a certain number of write cycles before it goes down. However, considering the lack of moving parts, and the algorithms that reduce unnecessary writing, I predict it will last a lot longer than the magnetic drive did.
You are exactly correct. Allow me to make another analogy.
Vinyl is a 1 gallon bucket. CDs are a 10 gallon bucket. Just because people are filling the 1 gallon buckets to the brim, but only putting 2 cups of water in the 10 gallon buckets does not mean the 1 gallon buckets have a greater capacity!
This is the perfect move for Adobe. They almost completely eliminate piracy by putting the application online. Next, they get automatic cross-platform support, including Linux. It's wins across the board.
I've been using Ubuntu for a few years now. I think I can safely say that from a user perspective there aren't any major difference between Feisty and Gutsy besides the eye candy. Despite this, I am seriously loving the fact that people are going nuts over how awesome Gutsy is when those same people were meh about Feisty and Linux in general. It just shows that all these people who have been putting down Linux because of its lack of hardware compatability, etc. really just wanted eye candy this whole time. Meanwhile, the real problems with desktop Linux, that they would use as ammo for hate, are as present as ever.
Seriously, I never understood this obsession with e-mail limits. Who really needs this much e-mail storage? Who? Sure, if you were some Internet celebrity getting a pile of e-mail, then you might need some sort of infinite storage. I think that a letter to the right people at Google, and maybe some money, could get you infinite storage if you really were a celebrity.
Seriously though. I have been using GMail for domains for years now. I like to think I get an average amount of e-mail. I never delete anything, and the GMail spam filter is in perfect working order. As of right now I am using 404 MB (13%) of my 2910 MB. Why the hell do I need more space? Maybe if I were using that GMail file system thing to store stuff. While that is a cool hack, it is entirely impractical. It's much easier to just get a real networked storage solution. I guess I would need more space if I were sending and receiving lots of large attachments. But e-mail attachments are crap. I never download attachments. They can't be trusted, even in Linux. And there are better and faster ways to transfer files to people than e-mail.
So seriously. You people who are dying for more storage, what the heck are you using all that space for? Are you an Internet celebrity getting a million e-mails? Are you not deleting your spam? Are you using e-mail attachments despite their obsolescence? I just don't get it.
GMail killed Thunderbird. Until we replace the SMTP/IMAP/POP e-mail system with something better, desktop e-mail will continue to be primarily the domain of businesses. Even then, it will mostly be done with Exchange/Outlook and Evolution.
I also don't mind the memory usage if it means we can eliminate the crashing and the slowness. I started using Phoenix(take that!) originally because it was light, fast, and minimalist, but it had the tab feature to make browsing more efficient.
Shaolin monks are pretty cool, and their kung-fu is very awesome. However, there seems to be this aura of invincibility around their martial arts masters. People are so amazed at their abilities that they think beating them in a fight is such a huge deal. If this is the case, how come shaolin kung-fu masters aren't winning UFC championships and such? The reason is simple. Shaolin kung-fu is easily beaten by powerful grappling just as easily as scissor beats paper. When a huge Zangeif type person grabs all their limbs and holds them to the ground, their fancy kung-fu runs out pretty quickly. There's no reason a clever ninja couldn't have also come up with clever techniques to beat monks as well.
OSS was crap and alsa was supposed to save us. Guess what? Alsa sucks too. We've reached a point in Linux where if you want to play stereo sound out of your sound card, it mostly works. However, more and more people are using on-board sound cards, and if you buy a new motherboard the chances are that the sound card will not work at all. Having your sound input, like your microphone or your line-in work is seemingly up to pure chance. If you have somethign weird like a microphone built into your laptop, just pretend it isn't even there. If you're planning on surround sound, just kill yourself.
Playing and recording audio is one of the most basic functions of a computer. The situation back in the DOS days where you had to tell every game you installed that you had a sound blaster is better than the situation in Linux now. Have you looked at an alsa configuration file? Why do I need to setup extra dbus stuff to be able to play audio from more than one source at a time?
Playing audio is basic desktop functionality. It's well understood. Everyone who uses Linux on their desktop wants audio to just work. For many people, it doesn't. Fix it. Fix it now.
If you hurt your hand using your mouse, you are doing it wrong. If you want to use a mouse properly, I suggest you start by turning your sensitivity and acceleration up a tiny bit each day until it is maxed out. More sensitivity means you move the mouse less in order to get the arrow to cover more screen real-estate. Less moving, less hurting.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think anyone begrudges Ubuntu taking advantage of a perfectly acceptable revenue model. That's not the problem here.
The problem is that Ubuntu is shipping a modified version of Firefox instead of the default Firefox shipped by Mozilla. Sure, both Ubuntu and Debian ship patched versions of just about every package they include in the repository. But the overwhelming majority of those patches don't noticeably effect the user experience.
Firefox, on the other hand, is pretty much the #1 most important part of the user experience in Ubuntu. It's the application most people are going to use more than anything else. In fact, after Ubuntu is installed, the user will probably spend more time interacting with Firefox than with all the rest of Ubuntu combined. It's not inaccurate to say it's a Firefox machine, as opposed to an Ubuntu or Linux machine.
Since Firefox is the most important part of the user experience, the users don't want Firefox changed in any way. They want the default Firefox as shipped by Mozilla. They don't want the named changed to Shiretoko or IceWeasel. They don't want the icons changed. They don't want weird extensions that change behaviour. They also don't want updates to come from Ubuntu repositories, as they do for every other package. They want the newest version of Firefox from Mozilla at the exact moment that Mozilla ships it.
I understand the reasoning behind Ubuntu and Debians policies, but I think it is obvious that Firefox trumps Ubuntu. They should make a special exception for it. Just ship the raw Firefox as released by Mozilla. Don't modify it in any way whatsoever. The world is just getting more browser centric. The operating system is just the code that talks between the browser and the hardware. You can do anything you want to the OS, but don't touch the browser or you'll lose all the users you worked so hard to gain.
Think about Sudoku for a second. Let's say you never played it before. Someone gives you a board and the rules. The first step you have is to figure out how to solve it. Eventually you develop an algorithm that can solve any sudoku. Once you have developed this algorithm, sudoku is no longer an intellectual exercise. It is no longer a matter of solving a problem, but merely executing an algorithm. It becomes manual labor. Likewise, if someone gives you the algorithm, you can bypass the first part entirely.
An MMO is very similar. In the beginning you don't know what to do. You have to learn the game and solve problems. Many of the rules of the game are hidden or secret. Thus, it can take awhile. However, eventually, you learn it. You know exactly what to press in order to do the maximum damage per unit time in any given situation with any given character. You don't even need to learn this, either. Someone can just tell you.
At some point you switch from developing an algorithm to executing an algorithm. You switch from developing a solution to executing a known solution. You switch from skill to knowledge.
This is why there is such an attraction tïo eurogames like Puerto Rico, Agricola, Caylus, Power Grid, Tigris and Euphrates, etc. These games tend to have little to no randomness, so they aren't games of chance. They are complex enough that it is very difficult to solve them, though perhaps not as complex as Go. They also have a significant theme and other elements that make them more "fun" than a game like Go or Chess.
Even so, many eurogames are solvable. We have a shelf full of games, but we only actually play about half of them. For the other half, everyone already knows the algorithm for optimal play. When we play with each other, it becomes a perfect Nash equilibrium. When we play with anyone else who hasn't solved the game, they are completely crushed.
The answer is to never play a game you have solved, and never play games that are easily solvable.
Many open source projects fail to succeed because everyone working on them is a developer. They design the software to meet their own personal needs. Thus we get projects like the Gimp which does not meet the needs of any artist I have ever known.
However, when it comes to making development tools, who better to know the needs of the end user than other developers? When it comes to software that is used by developers, open source will always be king. Look where the real successes in open source are right now. Most of it is in libraries and frameworks like django, rails, and jquery. These are things made by developers to make developing easier.
Open source will always own that market.
No reason to download 17 gigs. Just wait for someone to filter out the non-pr0n and make a "greatest hits" torrent.
Is the way to go.
Playing Atari 2600 while in the womb. I'm just fine.
Earlier this year Gizmodo pulled a prank on supposed sister-site Kotaku, putting the infamous and inappropriate tubgirl image to the Kotaku front page. After that I pretty much stopped reading, and lost all respect for, Gizmodo and it's writers and editors. Apparently that was justified. Maybe they should think about exactly why Engadget is kicking their asses.
In college I was big into Gentoo. It had it's problems, sure, but when you got it working, it was terrific. Then after the college days were over, and I started working, I had a lot less free time. I realized that with Gentoo I spend a lot more time working on the computer itself as opposed to using the computer to do other things. I've switched to Ubuntu, and haven't looked back since.
Have you ever played Burning Wheel, or other indy RPGs? What do you say to people who complain that D+D is taking all the RP out of the RPG?
I don't really use Facebook very much. For the things most people use Facebook for, I use Google for domains. However, I do use other sites like Listal, Last.fm, Flickr, etc. While these sites have social networking features, I use them for their database features primarily. Storing my photos, tracking my music listening, those are things I want to do.
Now, while I don't use Facebook itself, I do have an account. Thanks to Facebook's application API, Facebook is already sort of a social networking aggregator. Every one of the web applications I use has a Facebook application. If you add all of them to your Facebook, you get sort of an aggregated profile all in one place. Adding those applications I think is the smartest thing Facebook ever did.
How can it possibly be anything other than Portal? Maybe you could make an argument for the Orange Box as a whole. That's about it.
I'm proud of my code when I actually try to write quality code, and I write it from scratch. The problem is that most often at work I am modifying crappy code, or writing code that is built on top of crappy old code. The crap is contagious, and pride flies out the window.
No matter what the do with IE7, the problem is many people still use IE6. I'm seeing about half of IE users on 6, and half on 7. This means that no matter what Microsoft does to IE7, we still have to develop for multiple platforms because people are still using 6.
The other problem is this. I'm a web developer. In order to make my job easier I use many software tools. Most of those tools, like the web developer toolbar and Firebug, are Firefox extensions. No version of IE really has any tool that can equal Firebug. I was considering moving away from Firefox because of its instability and poor memory usage, but I am so dependent on the extensions that I can not leave.
The result of this is that I will always develop for Firefox where the handy developer tools are. Then after I am done, I will tweak and hack until it works under IE. Really, Microsoft created this horrible situation, and now there's almost no way out. Honestly, they should just get rid of IE and have Firefox be the default browser for everybody. That's about all they can do at this point.
The only reason I've stuck with Firefox instead of switching to Opera is because there are Firefox extensions that I absolutely depend on. I tested out Firefox 3, and I would switch to it this instant if the extensions were compatible with it.
The infamous bug in Ubuntu destroyed the magnetic disk drive in my Fujitsu P7230. I replaced the failing drive with a 16GB Samsung SSD that I bouht on Newegg for $200. I'm usually very conservative and cautious in my technology purchases, but this time I went out on a limb.
After a month or so of using the SSD, I can say it is a success. I don't need much space on my laptop, just room for the OS. I no longer have to worry so much about dropping my laptop. The already incredible battery life of the P7230 is extended for at least 30 extra minutes. And in all other ways it's just fine.
The only problem with the SSD is, of course, the fact that it can only take a certain number of write cycles before it goes down. However, considering the lack of moving parts, and the algorithms that reduce unnecessary writing, I predict it will last a lot longer than the magnetic drive did.
You are exactly correct. Allow me to make another analogy.
Vinyl is a 1 gallon bucket. CDs are a 10 gallon bucket. Just because people are filling the 1 gallon buckets to the brim, but only putting 2 cups of water in the 10 gallon buckets does not mean the 1 gallon buckets have a greater capacity!
This is the perfect move for Adobe. They almost completely eliminate piracy by putting the application online. Next, they get automatic cross-platform support, including Linux. It's wins across the board.
I've been using Ubuntu for a few years now. I think I can safely say that from a user perspective there aren't any major difference between Feisty and Gutsy besides the eye candy. Despite this, I am seriously loving the fact that people are going nuts over how awesome Gutsy is when those same people were meh about Feisty and Linux in general. It just shows that all these people who have been putting down Linux because of its lack of hardware compatability, etc. really just wanted eye candy this whole time. Meanwhile, the real problems with desktop Linux, that they would use as ammo for hate, are as present as ever.
Seriously, I never understood this obsession with e-mail limits. Who really needs this much e-mail storage? Who? Sure, if you were some Internet celebrity getting a pile of e-mail, then you might need some sort of infinite storage. I think that a letter to the right people at Google, and maybe some money, could get you infinite storage if you really were a celebrity.
Seriously though. I have been using GMail for domains for years now. I like to think I get an average amount of e-mail. I never delete anything, and the GMail spam filter is in perfect working order. As of right now I am using 404 MB (13%) of my 2910 MB. Why the hell do I need more space? Maybe if I were using that GMail file system thing to store stuff. While that is a cool hack, it is entirely impractical. It's much easier to just get a real networked storage solution. I guess I would need more space if I were sending and receiving lots of large attachments. But e-mail attachments are crap. I never download attachments. They can't be trusted, even in Linux. And there are better and faster ways to transfer files to people than e-mail.
So seriously. You people who are dying for more storage, what the heck are you using all that space for? Are you an Internet celebrity getting a million e-mails? Are you not deleting your spam? Are you using e-mail attachments despite their obsolescence? I just don't get it.
GMail killed Thunderbird. Until we replace the SMTP/IMAP/POP e-mail system with something better, desktop e-mail will continue to be primarily the domain of businesses. Even then, it will mostly be done with Exchange/Outlook and Evolution.
I also don't mind the memory usage if it means we can eliminate the crashing and the slowness. I started using Phoenix(take that!) originally because it was light, fast, and minimalist, but it had the tab feature to make browsing more efficient.
Shaolin monks are pretty cool, and their kung-fu is very awesome. However, there seems to be this aura of invincibility around their martial arts masters. People are so amazed at their abilities that they think beating them in a fight is such a huge deal. If this is the case, how come shaolin kung-fu masters aren't winning UFC championships and such? The reason is simple. Shaolin kung-fu is easily beaten by powerful grappling just as easily as scissor beats paper. When a huge Zangeif type person grabs all their limbs and holds them to the ground, their fancy kung-fu runs out pretty quickly. There's no reason a clever ninja couldn't have also come up with clever techniques to beat monks as well.
OSS was crap and alsa was supposed to save us. Guess what? Alsa sucks too. We've reached a point in Linux where if you want to play stereo sound out of your sound card, it mostly works. However, more and more people are using on-board sound cards, and if you buy a new motherboard the chances are that the sound card will not work at all. Having your sound input, like your microphone or your line-in work is seemingly up to pure chance. If you have somethign weird like a microphone built into your laptop, just pretend it isn't even there. If you're planning on surround sound, just kill yourself.
Playing and recording audio is one of the most basic functions of a computer. The situation back in the DOS days where you had to tell every game you installed that you had a sound blaster is better than the situation in Linux now. Have you looked at an alsa configuration file? Why do I need to setup extra dbus stuff to be able to play audio from more than one source at a time?
Playing audio is basic desktop functionality. It's well understood. Everyone who uses Linux on their desktop wants audio to just work. For many people, it doesn't. Fix it. Fix it now.
http://www.burningwheel.org/
If you hurt your hand using your mouse, you are doing it wrong. If you want to use a mouse properly, I suggest you start by turning your sensitivity and acceleration up a tiny bit each day until it is maxed out. More sensitivity means you move the mouse less in order to get the arrow to cover more screen real-estate. Less moving, less hurting.