If anything, this is bad for free software, because it closes the gap between free and proprietary, so why wouldn't your average joe be more inclined to go with cheaper commercial closed source software?
You are missing the point. The point is that Linux and OSS in general are gaining in popularity and is being used enough so that Microsoft is feeling enough "heat" to lower prices. It means that OSS is gaining significant momentum. Microsoft is seeing enough customer defection to reassess price/demand curves of profitability. If Microsoft never felt any crunch in how they do business then it would prove that OSS is a marginal player.
The difference is that the examples you listed all have serious drawbacks. This stuff, on the other hand, is supposed to improve whatever it's added to without huge negatives.
Lets say that you are drinking coffe with this chemical because like coffee (but only sweet) and somehow poison was spilled into the coffee. With the chemical in the coffee, the poison might just taste like a nice flavored coffee instead of giving a warning to your brain.
That is a little extreme of an example but it really comes down to this: I trust my senses to alert me to what the hell is going on and I don't want to ever eat anything that is trying to fool me. If you are going to ask me about sacarin and nutrisweet and olestra- I don't eat that stuff either.
If you were posting this to say that SQL Server is more popular than one thinks because some small vendors bundle SQL Server stuff in thier product means "diddly squat". Oracle and DB2 have a much bigger market in other vendor's software. That is not research.
But I dont think its fair to say programmers must be good at large scale design since thats a career path unto itself. And those who can design large scale systems are usually not so good at the nitty gritty... so I think your point is more one of semantics.
I totally DISAGREE. Good programmers have a total picture of how thier programs work and interact and that is why they work and interact very well (the nitty gritty is done with a debugger and testing). If a system architect was not at one time a very good programmer then he is probably a bad system architect. Of course thier are tons of bad programmers who then become bad system architects FWIW.
Re:A lesson the Linux worlds needs to learn
on
Why VHS Was Better
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· Score: 1
What they seem to fail to understand is that many, if not most computer users, aren't that interested in computers, no more than they have an abiding interest in how television works. Its "what" it enables them to do, not how it does it, that counts.
It is not only "average users" who just want things to "just work"....
I am a computer programmer and year after year Linux disappoints me on the usability front. I have a "Linux server" for my internet connection (that is also used as a desktop machine) and a "Duel boot" machine (Windows 2000 and RedHat 8.0). The "Duel boot" machine is almost always in Win2000. One reason is that my wife prefers 2000 (though she spends quite a bit of time on the server machine when we both want to use a computer). The other is that too often Linux is just too much of a hassle. Installing a piece of software in Linux, still too often means compiling and then in the middle of compiling, it might say it needs to compile or upgrade xyz other things. I have done it but I don't LIKE it. I don't like spending a couple of hours figuring out how to get some basic functionality of my computer working when in Windows, it takes just several seconds to click on "Setup.exe" and a few seconds later, I am playing with what I installed.
I used to think that I would switch completely over to Linux but for five years some usability fundamentals of software installation are still just not there. RPMS only work if it is compatible with your version of Linux, Apt is the same way, individual installers don't know if you have another version of software on the system and so on. Even after installation, many things need far more configuration to just tell it where other things are on the system.
Linux can be the most beautiful desktop in the world but if you still have to compile "frozen bubbles" from scratch which asks you to upgrade perl and compile/install SDL_perl and a few other packages and for which one needs to comb the internet to find (something I recently bothered to do), most home users will say it is not worth it.
I love to play with Linux and I feel it is an excellent server operating system but this article explains very neatly why Linux is not being adopted in droves by the average "man on the street" despite the many strengths Linux has.
I have read most of the the major threads on this article and they essentially revolve around the idea that Alpha cpu's are so damn fast and reliable and it is a shame that it will die. It is hard for me to sympathize when my 900 Mhz AMD machine can run everything I need (and a whole lot more). When my AMD machine's CPU is more powerful than any Mainframe sold in the 80's, I just can't get all that excited about a really well designed CPU that is dying. Sure some things need more horse power and if it is important, they can buy rediculously expensive hardware to give them the cycles but the day is nearing when cycles and hardware mean less and less and application compatibility, support, and price mean everything.
It's interesting how all the hardware sites lambasted Intel for the design of the Pentium 4, because it didn't have the raw speed of the AMD Athlon or Pentium 3.
Actually the Athlon was designed to compete with the Pentium II/III and the Athlon has scaled significantly better than the Pentium III. Intel may never have released the pentium 4 if it was not for the fact that people were not buying into titanium and the Pentium III was weak in comparison to an Athlon. What AMD was SUPPOSED to have out by now was the Clawhammer/Sledgehammer/Opteron/Whatever. But for whatever reasons, they are having problems. I hope AMD releases this to market soon because once it does, Intel might well be in a terrible pickle to the benefit of the consumer. I am very impressed with how well the Athlon has scaled considering how old the design is and am hoping to see AMD's 64 bit chip (which they bet thier future on) come out soon.
Why does the kernel module interface change so often though? I mean, surely there are only so many ways to write a mouse driver
The simplest answer is that the kernel developers are not sure how they want modules to communicate with the kernel. How are modules to communicate when things go wrong? how do you insure there are no races, how do you shut down a module that is still in use by others, how much information and what information should/needs to be passed to a module(and vice versa)? All these questions and more need to be dealt with. The more important modules become, the more serious those issues become and kernel developers are not yet satisfied with how modules do these things (and they have no qualms about backward compatibilty since they never promised there would be). Sure if modules only had to deal with mouse drivers then these issues would not exist but some kernel developers are dreaming of the day when all device drivers are modules and no kernel has any drivers compiled internally. I also hope that one day they will promise an API freeze (at least for the duration of any stable release) but I don't expect that to happen until the driver code is much better than it is right now.
Re:I wonder how much of this is quality . . .
on
Critics Pan Nemesis
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· Score: 2
Have you read Voltaire, Dickens, Bronte, Shelly, Twain, Crane, Poe, Swift, Doyle, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Morrison, Moliere, Angelou, Morrow, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Pope, Perleman, Woodhouse, Dahl, and thousands of others writing every kind fiction, illuminating every corner of human experience.
Funny but I have read something from all of those authors but I prefered the previous posters list of Asimov, Heinlein, Bear, Benford, Brin, Adams, Niven, Pournelle with the exceptions of Poe and Swift (and I would add Homer and Hawthorne!).
People who love to read "sci fi" are looking to read about what might be. How "man" changes his world. Most of the authors you listed are not writing to the sci fi audience.
Considering the staggering number of scientific discoveries that await us outside of Earth's atmosphere, you could tell me this was a $40 million a year project and I wouldn't blink.
yeah... 40 million is not much except it is 40 BILLION. Still I think that the goal of a space station is worth while. I just wish I was sure they were not pissing it away. It seems to be going so slow and cost so much with so little progress. The BIG number in the article is 100 BILLION and another 7 billion to finish. I thought we should have been much further into space now and it is pathetic that we have not touched down on Mars yet let alone a space station! My view though is that if it could have been done for a 1/4 the cost, I still won't complain- we need to do more in space.
but I think Microsoft is doing the right thing here. They are in a pickle and they have given a good solution (and one that is embarrasing to them). Of course what they should really do is redesign IE to not run in "root" mode but that is another story. I wish the slashdot editors did not relish so much the foibles of Microsoft in their editorial comments.
People who think that Linux isn't ready for the desktop haven't used it in on a desktop in a while. If you can use MS Office, you can use OpenOffice.org
And Codeweavers has cross office which makes it so you can run MS Office and their mail client on Linux- still not the point. I have Redhat 8.0 on my machine. I like Linux. I even like Linux as a desktop machine and I am STILL telling you it is not ready for the desktop. Redhat, SUSE, Mandrake are all much more user friendly than they were in the past but they all behave differently than Microsoft and for power users, this would be fustrating to them for quite awhile. Non-computer related professionals (and even some computer related professioanls) HATE to learn how to use a computer and they HATE to throw out all that they know for something new and unknown. They only want to use the computer to get things done (or play games) and not about the computer itself. 2. Ok you have a couple of applications but there are a ton of others that are just not there. Believe it or not, people in bussiness do more than email word doc files everywhere. I estimate that Linux needs another five years for desktop competetiveness to arise but I am looking forward to its arival. Five years for most companies who want to expand beyond Windows. IBM and Oracle were early adopters (and IBM has not ported all their software to Linux yet). Around now, some companies are just starting to think about porting their software.
Oracle. I cannot get it to install on newer systems without installing lots of backwards compatibility stuff.
What you are talking about has nothing to do with the Linux kernel but everything to do with your Linux distributor who did not do the right thing and provide compatibility by default. Oracle claims to only run on Redhat and I am surprised if Redhat messed this one up but since I don't run Oracle, I really don't know the details. However, glibc breakage has nothing to do with kernel breakage.
I think it's a mistake to simply say that "high level languages make for buggier/bloated code". After all, many abstractions are created to solve common problems. If you don't have a string class then you'll either roll your own or have code that is complex and bug prone from calling 6 different functions to append a string.
-by binaryDigit.
You said my own thoughts so well that I decided to quote you instead! Actually I thought the article just "stated the obvious" but that it didn't really matter. When I want to "just get things done", abstractions just make it so that I can do it in a magnitude faster than hand coding the machine language [even assembler is an abstraction]. Abstractions allow people to forget the BS and just get stuff done. Are abstractions slower, bloated, and buggy? To some degree yes! But the reason why they are so widely accepted and appreciated is that it makes life SIGNIFICANTLY easier, faster and better for programmers. My Uncle who was a programmer in the 1960's had a manager who said "an assembler compiler took too many cycles on the mainframe and was a waist of time". Now in the 1960's that may have been true but today that would be a joke. Today, I won't even go near a programming language lower than C and I like Python much better.
I guess the submitter has never read anything by Linus on the Linux mailing list. He is constantly making changes to the kernel and saying "screw stupid userland apps, this is the right way to do things". Even about non-security issues
Actually I HAVE read Linus's post on LKML and that is far from true. In most cases he is willing to break the internals of the kernel but he loaths to break something in userland (but will do it if there is a really really good reason). That is why most programs written for 2.0 still work for 2.4.
Very true, but also try to figure out how much it would cost you to start using desktop Linux (and if that would be wise in yur situation) in situations where a group of desktop computers would be replaced and you would become subject to heavy new licencing
I don't think this guy has any intention of replacing desktop computers and frankly Linux is not ready for the desktop yet. For two reasons: 1. average users HATE to learn how to use a computer and they already invested too much time into learning Windows and 2. Not all desktop applications that are standard in American bussiness are there yet for Linux.
Linux still needs about five years to really get going in the desktop world.
The server market is totally different. Bussinesses should look to Linux now as a server machine because it is widely TESTED and accepted system in that role with a lot of highly functional free and commercial products to work with it.
...However, there is still *a lot* to be worried about.
Consider that once the thing is there on the chipset, people (namely RIAA and friends) will want to use it. With the DMCA and other such laws already on the books, might not be to hard to *require* Linux to use LaGrande (via legislation) and limit your rights....
That has nothing to do with what intel is doing but what legislators are doing and that is a completely different story and irrelevent to what intel is implimenting.
Technology that is under development is never better for end-users than stable software. Those of us who run GNU/Hurd and are involved with the project want to help develop an architectually-superior Free OS.
While I don't necessarily agree with your assertion, I will just skip it because it is not important to the discussion. RMS was saying for awhile that Hurd was almost ready for prime time. If that is the case, then "under developement" is not what Hurd was going for. As I said in the parent post "If the Hurd wants to be more than an academic curiosity, it has to perform well.". You are saying you like Hurd for academic reasons and that is fine. I was only making a point about BEYOND academia.
1)Eolas wins, microsoft is crippled. 2)Microsoft wins, stupid patents are crippled.
Either way, we(the consumers) win.
I think your logic is short sighted. If Microsoft loses such a fundamental battle, then I think 2 things might/will happen:
1) It will cause more stupid patents to be asked for and make life harder for all (including Mozilla).
2) Microsoft might start thinking of suing others over stupid patents seeing how advantageous it was against them. Microsoft has always had a policy of not using patents in court and I would hate to see them change their mind by seeing how effective it can be.
As much as I don't like Microsoft products or how they abuse their position in the market, I hope they win this one. I don't think software should be patentable and as far as I understand, Microsoft in practice, agrees and I hope they win.
No new Free/Open Source kernel is going to ship and be immediately as fast and full-featured as Linux... things just don't work that way.
What's important is that the Hurd represents new OS technology... and that's more important that any current lack of performance or drivers.
The Hurd has been in developement for far longer than when the first line of Linux was written. That does not mean that the Hurd will not one day be a spiffy OS but it does beg the question of how does it fair with its distant cousin. If the Hurd wants to be more than an academic curiosity, it has to perform well. It does not have to perform as well as Linux, but well enough that you don't notice it. New technology is only interesting if it is better or faster in some noticable way to the user.
Most people who hear about these projects don't really understand how little control or privacy these projects will leave us.
Actually I don't see any problem with what Intel is doing. If you are using software that you trust has your interests at heart (for me that is Linux) then you don't have to worry that your software is going to limmit you. However, if you do not trust your software or the provider of that software, then WHY ARE YOU STILL USING IT? If you give money or use software from people who you think are out to cheat you then you only have yourself to blame when it happens. Intel is adding features to thier hardware that could be used for good or bad but I only intend running software that will only utilize these features to my benefit.
This is more than "a bit of a scam" -- it's immoral and undoubtedly illegal. There are ways to get defeat all their little scams and still use the Fasttrack P2P network.
But why endorse thier service at all? There are other p2p software and if something else becomes more popular and Kazaa dies, then we no longer have to "defeat all their little scams". It is just better to "JUST SAY NO!".
You have shown, that it is easy to remove the money redirection software TODAY but in the next release, it might be more difficult. But even if it will always be that easy, do you really want to endorse companies who install stuff like this on your computer?
That's why if your going to use Kazaa you should really use Kazaa Lite. It's Kazaa without all the spy stuff installed.
Ok so you are saying to not do it yourself but to endorse the community around it. If the community grows (whether from "Lite" users or not), it will be good for the Kazaa company. Do you really want to support a company that is twisting the internet in such an underhanded way? At first I was like you. They put in some spyware and they said that they would take it out (which as far as I am aware, they never did) and so I downloaded the Lite and thought 'mostly harmless'. Yet now they are showing thier true colors. The Kazaa company thinks that any underhanded way they can possibly make money is fair game in bussiness and war. I don't want to support a company with no moral standard and embraces such a corporate culture. I want the whole kazaa p2p to whither and die and to be never heard of from again.
You mean like these guys who posted serial numbers for the Linux version of Opera here at Slashdot ? (at an Opera article some months ago) And like these people who would rather download distro iso instead of buying a full distribution ?
Just because SOME Linux users are like that, it does not mean they ALL are. Every group has thier "cheap skates" (such as the people who pirate MS Office). If we judge the "whole" based on the "worst in humanity" then we would all be labeled pimps and prostitutes who kill just for the fun of it. BTW, I am not trying to imply that being cheap has anything to do with the "worst in humanity".
Slashdot Mirror
You are missing the point. The point is that Linux and OSS in general are gaining in popularity and is being used enough so that Microsoft is feeling enough "heat" to lower prices. It means that OSS is gaining significant momentum. Microsoft is seeing enough customer defection to reassess price/demand curves of profitability. If Microsoft never felt any crunch in how they do business then it would prove that OSS is a marginal player.
Lets say that you are drinking coffe with this chemical because like coffee (but only sweet) and somehow poison was spilled into the coffee. With the chemical in the coffee, the poison might just taste like a nice flavored coffee instead of giving a warning to your brain.
That is a little extreme of an example but it really comes down to this: I trust my senses to alert me to what the hell is going on and I don't want to ever eat anything that is trying to fool me. If you are going to ask me about sacarin and nutrisweet and olestra- I don't eat that stuff either.
Well if I have to do your research for you I will, take a look at this then
0 0. html?rtag=zdnetukhompage
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2129682,
If you were posting this to say that SQL Server is more popular than one thinks because some small vendors bundle SQL Server stuff in thier product means "diddly squat". Oracle and DB2 have a much bigger market in other vendor's software. That is not research.
I totally DISAGREE. Good programmers have a total picture of how thier programs work and interact and that is why they work and interact very well (the nitty gritty is done with a debugger and testing). If a system architect was not at one time a very good programmer then he is probably a bad system architect. Of course thier are tons of bad programmers who then become bad system architects FWIW.
It is not only "average users" who just want things to "just work"....
I am a computer programmer and year after year Linux disappoints me on the usability front. I have a "Linux server" for my internet connection (that is also used as a desktop machine) and a "Duel boot" machine (Windows 2000 and RedHat 8.0). The "Duel boot" machine is almost always in Win2000. One reason is that my wife prefers 2000 (though she spends quite a bit of time on the server machine when we both want to use a computer). The other is that too often Linux is just too much of a hassle. Installing a piece of software in Linux, still too often means compiling and then in the middle of compiling, it might say it needs to compile or upgrade xyz other things. I have done it but I don't LIKE it. I don't like spending a couple of hours figuring out how to get some basic functionality of my computer working when in Windows, it takes just several seconds to click on "Setup.exe" and a few seconds later, I am playing with what I installed.
I used to think that I would switch completely over to Linux but for five years some usability fundamentals of software installation are still just not there. RPMS only work if it is compatible with your version of Linux, Apt is the same way, individual installers don't know if you have another version of software on the system and so on. Even after installation, many things need far more configuration to just tell it where other things are on the system.
Linux can be the most beautiful desktop in the world but if you still have to compile "frozen bubbles" from scratch which asks you to upgrade perl and compile/install SDL_perl and a few other packages and for which one needs to comb the internet to find (something I recently bothered to do), most home users will say it is not worth it.
I love to play with Linux and I feel it is an excellent server operating system but this article explains very neatly why Linux is not being adopted in droves by the average "man on the street" despite the many strengths Linux has.
I have read most of the the major threads on this article and they essentially revolve around the idea that Alpha cpu's are so damn fast and reliable and it is a shame that it will die. It is hard for me to sympathize when my 900 Mhz AMD machine can run everything I need (and a whole lot more). When my AMD machine's CPU is more powerful than any Mainframe sold in the 80's, I just can't get all that excited about a really well designed CPU that is dying. Sure some things need more horse power and if it is important, they can buy rediculously expensive hardware to give them the cycles but the day is nearing when cycles and hardware mean less and less and application compatibility, support, and price mean everything.
Actually the Athlon was designed to compete with the Pentium II/III and the Athlon has scaled significantly better than the Pentium III. Intel may never have released the pentium 4 if it was not for the fact that people were not buying into titanium and the Pentium III was weak in comparison to an Athlon. What AMD was SUPPOSED to have out by now was the Clawhammer/Sledgehammer/Opteron/Whatever. But for whatever reasons, they are having problems. I hope AMD releases this to market soon because once it does, Intel might well be in a terrible pickle to the benefit of the consumer. I am very impressed with how well the Athlon has scaled considering how old the design is and am hoping to see AMD's 64 bit chip (which they bet thier future on) come out soon.
The simplest answer is that the kernel developers are not sure how they want modules to communicate with the kernel. How are modules to communicate when things go wrong? how do you insure there are no races, how do you shut down a module that is still in use by others, how much information and what information should/needs to be passed to a module(and vice versa)? All these questions and more need to be dealt with. The more important modules become, the more serious those issues become and kernel developers are not yet satisfied with how modules do these things (and they have no qualms about backward compatibilty since they never promised there would be). Sure if modules only had to deal with mouse drivers then these issues would not exist but some kernel developers are dreaming of the day when all device drivers are modules and no kernel has any drivers compiled internally. I also hope that one day they will promise an API freeze (at least for the duration of any stable release) but I don't expect that to happen until the driver code is much better than it is right now.
Funny but I have read something from all of those authors but I prefered the previous posters list of Asimov, Heinlein, Bear, Benford, Brin, Adams, Niven, Pournelle with the exceptions of Poe and Swift (and I would add Homer and Hawthorne!).
People who love to read "sci fi" are looking to read about what might be. How "man" changes his world. Most of the authors you listed are not writing to the sci fi audience.
yeah... 40 million is not much except it is 40 BILLION. Still I think that the goal of a space station is worth while. I just wish I was sure they were not pissing it away. It seems to be going so slow and cost so much with so little progress. The BIG number in the article is 100 BILLION and another 7 billion to finish. I thought we should have been much further into space now and it is pathetic that we have not touched down on Mars yet let alone a space station! My view though is that if it could have been done for a 1/4 the cost, I still won't complain- we need to do more in space.
but I think Microsoft is doing the right thing here. They are in a pickle and they have given a good solution (and one that is embarrasing to them). Of course what they should really do is redesign IE to not run in "root" mode but that is another story. I wish the slashdot editors did not relish so much the foibles of Microsoft in their editorial comments.
And Codeweavers has cross office which makes it so you can run MS Office and their mail client on Linux- still not the point. I have Redhat 8.0 on my machine. I like Linux. I even like Linux as a desktop machine and I am STILL telling you it is not ready for the desktop. Redhat, SUSE, Mandrake are all much more user friendly than they were in the past but they all behave differently than Microsoft and for power users, this would be fustrating to them for quite awhile. Non-computer related professionals (and even some computer related professioanls) HATE to learn how to use a computer and they HATE to throw out all that they know for something new and unknown. They only want to use the computer to get things done (or play games) and not about the computer itself. 2. Ok you have a couple of applications but there are a ton of others that are just not there. Believe it or not, people in bussiness do more than email word doc files everywhere. I estimate that Linux needs another five years for desktop competetiveness to arise but I am looking forward to its arival. Five years for most companies who want to expand beyond Windows. IBM and Oracle were early adopters (and IBM has not ported all their software to Linux yet). Around now, some companies are just starting to think about porting their software.
Oracle. I cannot get it to install on newer systems without installing lots of backwards compatibility stuff.
What you are talking about has nothing to do with the Linux kernel but everything to do with your Linux distributor who did not do the right thing and provide compatibility by default. Oracle claims to only run on Redhat and I am surprised if Redhat messed this one up but since I don't run Oracle, I really don't know the details. However, glibc breakage has nothing to do with kernel breakage.
You said my own thoughts so well that I decided to quote you instead! Actually I thought the article just "stated the obvious" but that it didn't really matter. When I want to "just get things done", abstractions just make it so that I can do it in a magnitude faster than hand coding the machine language [even assembler is an abstraction]. Abstractions allow people to forget the BS and just get stuff done. Are abstractions slower, bloated, and buggy? To some degree yes! But the reason why they are so widely accepted and appreciated is that it makes life SIGNIFICANTLY easier, faster and better for programmers. My Uncle who was a programmer in the 1960's had a manager who said "an assembler compiler took too many cycles on the mainframe and was a waist of time". Now in the 1960's that may have been true but today that would be a joke. Today, I won't even go near a programming language lower than C and I like Python much better.
Actually I HAVE read Linus's post on LKML and that is far from true. In most cases he is willing to break the internals of the kernel but he loaths to break something in userland (but will do it if there is a really really good reason). That is why most programs written for 2.0 still work for 2.4.
I don't think this guy has any intention of replacing desktop computers and frankly Linux is not ready for the desktop yet. For two reasons: 1. average users HATE to learn how to use a computer and they already invested too much time into learning Windows and 2. Not all desktop applications that are standard in American bussiness are there yet for Linux.
Linux still needs about five years to really get going in the desktop world.
The server market is totally different. Bussinesses should look to Linux now as a server machine because it is widely TESTED and accepted system in that role with a lot of highly functional free and commercial products to work with it.
...However, there is still *a lot* to be worried about.
Consider that once the thing is there on the chipset, people (namely RIAA and friends) will want to use it. With the DMCA and other such laws already on the books, might not be to hard to *require* Linux to use LaGrande (via legislation) and limit your rights....
That has nothing to do with what intel is doing but what legislators are doing and that is a completely different story and irrelevent to what intel is implimenting.
Technology that is under development is never better for end-users than stable software. Those of us who run GNU/Hurd and are involved with the project want to help develop an architectually-superior Free OS.
While I don't necessarily agree with your assertion, I will just skip it because it is not important to the discussion. RMS was saying for awhile that Hurd was almost ready for prime time. If that is the case, then "under developement" is not what Hurd was going for. As I said in the parent post "If the Hurd wants to be more than an academic curiosity, it has to perform well.". You are saying you like Hurd for academic reasons and that is fine. I was only making a point about BEYOND academia.
1)Eolas wins, microsoft is crippled.
2)Microsoft wins, stupid patents are crippled.
Either way, we(the consumers) win.
I think your logic is short sighted. If Microsoft loses such a fundamental battle, then I think 2 things might/will happen:
1) It will cause more stupid patents to be asked for and make life harder for all (including Mozilla).
2) Microsoft might start thinking of suing others over stupid patents seeing how advantageous it was against them. Microsoft has always had a policy of not using patents in court and I would hate to see them change their mind by seeing how effective it can be.
As much as I don't like Microsoft products or how they abuse their position in the market, I hope they win this one. I don't think software should be patentable and as far as I understand, Microsoft in practice, agrees and I hope they win.
No new Free/Open Source kernel is going to ship and be immediately as fast and full-featured as Linux... things just don't work that way.
What's important is that the Hurd represents new OS technology... and that's more important that any current lack of performance or drivers.
The Hurd has been in developement for far longer than when the first line of Linux was written. That does not mean that the Hurd will not one day be a spiffy OS but it does beg the question of how does it fair with its distant cousin. If the Hurd wants to be more than an academic curiosity, it has to perform well. It does not have to perform as well as Linux, but well enough that you don't notice it. New technology is only interesting if it is better or faster in some noticable way to the user.
Actually I don't see any problem with what Intel is doing. If you are using software that you trust has your interests at heart (for me that is Linux) then you don't have to worry that your software is going to limmit you. However, if you do not trust your software or the provider of that software, then WHY ARE YOU STILL USING IT? If you give money or use software from people who you think are out to cheat you then you only have yourself to blame when it happens. Intel is adding features to thier hardware that could be used for good or bad but I only intend running software that will only utilize these features to my benefit.
But why endorse thier service at all? There are other p2p software and if something else becomes more popular and Kazaa dies, then we no longer have to "defeat all their little scams". It is just better to "JUST SAY NO!".
You have shown, that it is easy to remove the money redirection software TODAY but in the next release, it might be more difficult. But even if it will always be that easy, do you really want to endorse companies who install stuff like this on your computer?
That's why if your going to use Kazaa you should really use Kazaa Lite. It's Kazaa without all the spy stuff installed.
Ok so you are saying to not do it yourself but to endorse the community around it. If the community grows (whether from "Lite" users or not), it will be good for the Kazaa company. Do you really want to support a company that is twisting the internet in such an underhanded way? At first I was like you. They put in some spyware and they said that they would take it out (which as far as I am aware, they never did) and so I downloaded the Lite and thought 'mostly harmless'. Yet now they are showing thier true colors. The Kazaa company thinks that any underhanded way they can possibly make money is fair game in bussiness and war. I don't want to support a company with no moral standard and embraces such a corporate culture. I want the whole kazaa p2p to whither and die and to be never heard of from again.
And like these people who would rather download distro iso instead of buying a full distribution ?
Just because SOME Linux users are like that, it does not mean they ALL are. Every group has thier "cheap skates" (such as the people who pirate MS Office). If we judge the "whole" based on the "worst in humanity" then we would all be labeled pimps and prostitutes who kill just for the fun of it. BTW, I am not trying to imply that being cheap has anything to do with the "worst in humanity".