Consider Nicholas Cage's character in Wild at Heart:
Guy at Nightclub: You look like a clown in that stupid jacket. Sailor: This is a snakeskin jacket! And for me it's a symbol of my individuality, and my belief... in personal freedom.
The US bias in the individual vs. society question is relatively more in favor of the individual than Asia and Europe.
Talking to my lovely German wife, I was shocked to discover that, if you own a bookstore in Germany, you can't be open whenever you want, or sell books at your desired price point.
Sure, there are restrictions on such activity in the US. You can't just offer books at next-to-nothing indefinitely, to break the market. My perception, however, is that the amount of government interference in the market is substantially lower in the US than elsewhere.
Government is the second oldest business. Can't have it stifling the rest.
Bill Gates got where his is by targeting "the average user", who didn't care about the difference between logical and physical partitions, root and user accounts, and command-line interfaces.
The advent of cheap bandwidth and free browsers affords Google the opportunity to out-Redmond Redmond.
As for the spreadsheet product, when the xpcom programming interfaces for Firefox support the kind of ad-hack programming achievable with MS-Office and VBA (hopefully without the insecurities), it'll be time to start going short on MSFT. I like it.
A fair and balanced comment, but missing a couple of important dimensions.
a) What was your outlay, in currency, for these "like any other piece of software" operating systems?
b) Were you coerced^Wvery strongly encouraged towards hardware upgrades to boot the OS?
c) Were you given reasonable source-code level opportunity to deal with those little situation that arise for "any other piece of software"
I do agree with your basic premise, that later Redmond releases are quite stable. The one or two BSODs I've ever seen on XP had to do with crappy older hardware and bad drivers. Beyond the "credit where due" department, though, the relentless onslaught of GNU/Linux will one day bury Soviet Redmond, at least up to the neck. Because markets are just a beach like that, you know.
The last version of Firefox to support 98 and earlier should be kept up for easy download.
What is your security vulnerability threshold? Though the vulnerabilities in the OS itself may dwarf anything exposed by the browser, there is still some ethical question about enabling possible stupid behavior.
The increasing availability of free, robust, svelte GNU/Linux distributions might offer a better alternative than metaphorically sticking forks in the electrical outlet with an old Windows version.
Fair enough, though when "if mindshare is the criterion then Windows wins" moves past the conditional and assumes the position, it certainly becomes a boo-boo.
This is protection in the sense that a plaster cast helps a fractured arm.
Sure, you've got to let the bone heal, but you need to remove the plaster cast and strengthen the muscle, or the limb weakens.
Enough plaster-cast legislation, and we'll be a society of mummies.
Far be it from us to encourage individual maturity and responsibility. Far better to weaken the many under the misguided assertion that this will somehow protect the many from the criminal few.
I'm serious. Groove is a rockin' piece of software. I had a version a few years back (2002) that worked well on a PIII-800 w/256MB RAM and a 56k dialup. Granted, only collaborating with one other person, but I was quite blown away when "it just worked".
The Kool-Aid Kid, an MS sales rep I used to bump into on a regular basis said "Yeah, we saw it as a competitor to SharePoint, so we found the principal, and bought him."
As with Visio, one hopes that assimilation by the Axis of Sinister Software (ASS) doesn't destroy a good product.
I like to think of MS Access as a somewhat productive, yet stupid, employee.
If you abuse it in a sufficiently brutal way, it can do OK work within certain bounds.
MS-Access and VBA form a sort of Fachidiot Duo that can actually be quasi-helpful.
That would be a major departure for Microsoft, the software maker that is legendary for toiling on its own until it captures a new market.
I would have said that Microsoft is legendary for letting the market become somewhat stable, and then buying the best product therein. Visio, Groove, (OK, maybe not SQL Server). Did MS actually make PowerPoint from scratch?
Just as long as they aren't paying for such crap-tastic hardware.
May it die the death of Divx, or whatever that lobotomized thing Circuit City was pushing was called.
Yeah, I thought about that pun when I was writing the original post, but if I made dumb jokes instead of a point, people would think I was merely trying to stall, man. Bdump-bump (tch).
It's kind of sad that while normally one would be concerned over whether or not this level of secret activity is justified
Sad?
Consider that, if you strolled around Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius, (when Russel Crowe was doin' his thang) and posed the question: "Was Rome better under the Republic, or the Empire?", you'd get a lot of confused expressions. Why?
There was no overt break between the eras. They still had a Senate, Tribunes, and all. The circuses, in fact, were better.
Bureaucracy corrupts, and absolute bureacracy expands to meet the needs of an absolutely corrupt bureaucracy[1]
This one is worth panicking about in a calm, persistent manner, lest we go the route of Rome. The government may need some extra tools in the information age, but it, too, needs to justify those requirements and be subject to its own level of scrutiny.
Just installing the thing and getting a good set of apps on it took about 8 hours. I followed a guide posted online. It worked well, but that's 8 hours I'll never get back.
What you say is true--there is serious work to do to get business productivity applications fairly close to the integrated polish of MS Office.
OTOH, I've experienced meltdowns with Redmond apps that blow by the 8 hour loss quite handily.
The difference is that, with FOSS, I got what I paid for.
Yep. When the CEOO/cyborg sits there, immobile, because all of the augments crashed, it may herald a new era in which someone can be fired for buying Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
The US bias in the individual vs. society question is relatively more in favor of the individual than Asia and Europe.
Talking to my lovely German wife, I was shocked to discover that, if you own a bookstore in Germany, you can't be open whenever you want, or sell books at your desired price point.
Sure, there are restrictions on such activity in the US. You can't just offer books at next-to-nothing indefinitely, to break the market. My perception, however, is that the amount of government interference in the market is substantially lower in the US than elsewhere.
Government is the second oldest business. Can't have it stifling the rest.
Bill Gates got where his is by targeting "the average user", who didn't care about the difference between logical and physical partitions, root and user accounts, and command-line interfaces.
The advent of cheap bandwidth and free browsers affords Google the opportunity to out-Redmond Redmond.
As for the spreadsheet product, when the xpcom programming interfaces for Firefox support the kind of ad-hack programming achievable with MS-Office and VBA (hopefully without the insecurities), it'll be time to start going short on MSFT. I like it.
A fair and balanced comment, but missing a couple of important dimensions.
a) What was your outlay, in currency, for these "like any other piece of software" operating systems?
b) Were you coerced^Wvery strongly encouraged towards hardware upgrades to boot the OS?
c) Were you given reasonable source-code level opportunity to deal with those little situation that arise for "any other piece of software"
I do agree with your basic premise, that later Redmond releases are quite stable. The one or two BSODs I've ever seen on XP had to do with crappy older hardware and bad drivers. Beyond the "credit where due" department, though, the relentless onslaught of GNU/Linux will one day bury Soviet Redmond, at least up to the neck. Because markets are just a beach like that, you know.
Oh, really?
While I have no background in criminal psychology, I'm curious how people can "know what they are doing" in the one-shot scenario you posit.
OTOH, hubris has melted the wings of more than one Icarus...
What is your security vulnerability threshold? Though the vulnerabilities in the OS itself may dwarf anything exposed by the browser, there is still some ethical question about enabling possible stupid behavior.
The increasing availability of free, robust, svelte GNU/Linux distributions might offer a better alternative than metaphorically sticking forks in the electrical outlet with an old Windows version.
transparency, e.g. the auditability of FOSS.
FOSS is chess. Proprietary is poker, and you're the pokee.
More to the point, is such a merger getting us any closer to a FOSS video driver?
Threw her in with the rest of the lot and made a blueberry Newton out of her.
Hence the lack of news on the topic.
Fair enough, though when "if mindshare is the criterion then Windows wins" moves past the conditional and assumes the position, it certainly becomes a boo-boo.
Point taken, but, nevertheless, consider that you've fallen into the classic boo-boo of comparing a full operating system with a kernel.
What's to defend? Whenever a free microkernel design comes remotely close to the mindshare of Linux, there may be a basis for discussion.
This is protection in the sense that a plaster cast helps a fractured arm.
Sure, you've got to let the bone heal, but you need to remove the plaster cast and strengthen the muscle, or the limb weakens.
Enough plaster-cast legislation, and we'll be a society of mummies.
Far be it from us to encourage individual maturity and responsibility. Far better to weaken the many under the misguided assertion that this will somehow protect the many from the criminal few.
I'm serious. Groove is a rockin' piece of software. I had a version a few years back (2002) that worked well on a PIII-800 w/256MB RAM and a 56k dialup. Granted, only collaborating with one other person, but I was quite blown away when "it just worked".
The Kool-Aid Kid, an MS sales rep I used to bump into on a regular basis said "Yeah, we saw it as a competitor to SharePoint, so we found the principal, and bought him."
As with Visio, one hopes that assimilation by the Axis of Sinister Software (ASS) doesn't destroy a good product.
Agreed. The 'maybe not' was referring to 'best product'. :)
I like to think of MS Access as a somewhat productive, yet stupid, employee.
If you abuse it in a sufficiently brutal way, it can do OK work within certain bounds.
MS-Access and VBA form a sort of Fachidiot Duo that can actually be quasi-helpful.
I would have said that Microsoft is legendary for letting the market become somewhat stable, and then buying the best product therein. Visio, Groove, (OK, maybe not SQL Server). Did MS actually make PowerPoint from scratch?
Just as long as they aren't paying for such crap-tastic hardware.
May it die the death of Divx, or whatever that lobotomized thing Circuit City was pushing was called.
Yeah, I thought about that pun when I was writing the original post, but if I made dumb jokes instead of a point, people would think I was merely trying to stall, man. Bdump-bump (tch).
Keep up the pressure! This is a step in the direction of liberated video driver code.
t .html
RMS has been visible on the video driver front as well: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/rms-ati-protes
If the theological debates could be set aside, a unified front may help sway the video card manufacturers.
Couldn't agree less.u dge.html
Given any symbol, humans are capable of overloading its meaning in spoken language.
Monty Python "explored" this concept: http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/n
Sad?
Consider that, if you strolled around Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius, (when Russel Crowe was doin' his thang) and posed the question: "Was Rome better under the Republic, or the Empire?", you'd get a lot of confused expressions. Why?
There was no overt break between the eras. They still had a Senate, Tribunes, and all. The circuses, in fact, were better.
Bureaucracy corrupts, and absolute bureacracy expands to meet the needs of an absolutely corrupt bureaucracy[1]
This one is worth panicking about in a calm, persistent manner, lest we go the route of Rome. The government may need some extra tools in the information age, but it, too, needs to justify those requirements and be subject to its own level of scrutiny.
[1]Paraphrase of CivIV. Anyone with a better ref?
What you say is true--there is serious work to do to get business productivity applications fairly close to the integrated polish of MS Office.
OTOH, I've experienced meltdowns with Redmond apps that blow by the 8 hour loss quite handily.
The difference is that, with FOSS, I got what I paid for.
Yep. When the CEOO/cyborg sits there, immobile, because all of the augments crashed, it may herald a new era in which someone can be fired for buying Microsoft.
Go, Ludd.
For SMS usage, the mini-keyboard is more compelling on the E61 than the N93's video integration.
Still hoping they'll offer some sweet bundle on a 770.
Standing by for my overrated mod from the coolest editor evar!
How can this be? DCOP has no 'K' in it. ;)
Seriously, thanks for the link.