Looking through this thread is really sick. Here is a legitamte attempt to get Apple to support QT4 on Linux (presumably with Sorensen, so we can watch all the cool trailers and stuff.)
What is the response of some (lots) of Linux user? We don't want an Apple player. We want specs and source!
Get a grip. Don't you realize that big business doesn't get wise to open source over night? And that there are some people who spent lots of time and money developing Sorensen? Why should we get their work for free?
I just have a problem with the ever growing population of Linux users who can't leave well enough alone.
I agree. I think it would be really useful to see information on big Linux security holes posted on Slashdot, with the relevant patches in the article body perhaps. It would be a better addition than the latest sections, like all the patent crap, IMO.
This is one of the few remaining spots in Linux that just plain stinks. I used to say that printing and ppp made Linux difficult/impossible for the masses to use. PPP is finally pretty easy to use, with tools like RP3, the debian PPP support, kPPP, etc. Looks like printing will finally work as well.
I spent many, many hours trying to get my Linux workstation talking to the HP printers at work; after much failure I finally had success. I've never gotten printing to work reasonably well at all at home; trying to connect to my roommate's printer just didn't happen. We ended up sneaker-netting it, with printing to postscript and all. I had similar results with a Deskjet 600 physically connected to the box (ie, no network in the middle). Stuff would come out of the printer, but nothing was ever quite right. It was a classic case of configuration being prohibitively difficult, FOR NO GOOD REASON.
Let's hope that what comes of this announcement can change things.
Ever since DeCSS was first posted about on/. and linked from the oodles of comments, many a/.er has used the oft-quoted mantra: "the cat's out of the bag" or "the horse has escaped the barn" or other such sentiment. They seem to think that just because the "secret"[1] is out, it's all irrelevant. Wrong.
The whole DeCSS issue is an important one that will shape computer politics in the decades to come. The issues at hand, specifically the right of the consumer to reverse engineer products he owns, especially to further interoperability, is a very serious one.
The problem with the/. mentality is that, once the "secret" is out, the issue becomes all the more relevant. Suddenly there are criminal indictments, lawsuits, and hefty fines being thrown around.
The fact is, DeCSS can be used to make copies of DVDs. This is a serious concern with the movie industry, and they intend to do something about it. The very day that work on DeCSS was started, someone should have been considering the legal implications of the project.
Folks, this issue isn't going to go away until the final verdict is rendered. The MPAA and DVD CCA will try and go all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to; simply saying "cats ut of the bag!" and posting a link isn't doing anything to solve the problem. If nothing else, it is making it worse by possibly implicating yourself in the whole mess.
What can be done? Donate to the EFF to fund the defense. Raise awareness with intelligent conversation and advocacy. However, I believe the most important lesson that we can glean from all this concerns legal issues. The time has passed when we could code first, ask forgiveness later. There's big money and big prison time at stake. Perhaps it's time we sit back and think, if I'm going to hack away at a program/piece of hardware/whatever, 1) is this legal 2) is this ethical and 3) what can I do to ensure that the project STAYS legal and ethical?
This fiasco is a perfect example. The very moment the DVD CCA learned of DeCSS, their lawyers went to work. Can the same be said of ours? Playing catch-up and react is just what they want us to do. It's time we take the initiative.
[1] You'll note secret is in quotations. That is because the issue of CSS being a trade secret is still in debate.
I do agree with some of what you are saying; however it is not my intention to suggest that Linux be used as a form of propaganda.
Quite frankly, I see this as a wonderful opportunity to get kids to understand computers more. We have them understand science, the arts, language, all things vital to everyday living. As computers become more and more pervasive, those who can master them will be in that much better of a position.
I agree that not everyone needs to be an engineer...but I do think we would be wasting a valuable opportunity to further computer science if we DON'T take advantage of times like this to help kids learn more. Surely there are many kids in the UK schools in question that want to learn more about them....why not help them along?
Linux is a valuable, unique teaching tool. Squandering our chances can't be a good thing. That's all I'm saying.
And as for McDonald's as far as me and my friends are concerned, they simply sell hamburgers (and lousy ones at that.) Nothing more.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but this never works. The theory always sounds good, "Hey! get them while they're young!", but the strategy has always been a failure. Look at Apple: They gave tons of subsidies to the schools, but how much did this affect their market share?
I beg to differ. Look at McDonald's. They are a PRIME (and fairly well documented) case of infiltrating the minds of children to affect marketshare in the future. It has been written that most children know the jingle of the current advertising campaign put on by McDonald's by age 4, perhaps earlier. That certainly affects how things work in the future.
Others in this thread have pointed out that DEC did this back in the old days, and it worked well for them (albeit for different reasons). The fact is, exposing kids to Linux will get them used to the Linux way of doing things. One example of the confusion many experience when they are forced to abandon the rather arbitrary A: B: C: etc scheme for naming drives for the (perhaps more sensible)/dev/hdxy scheme. Getting kids to understand the reason this is done early on will only help them to further grasp the OS. And this is but one example.
I'd think this would be a real benefit if we could teach these kids more than basic Linux usage and system administration. As we all know, Linux is an extremely valuable educational tool because of its open nature. Being able to show the kids kernel code to demonstrate file systems principles would be a wonderful use of the technology. Another example would be security. Linux could be used to demonstrate why open systems are superior to closed ones when it comes to security.
These are perhaps the most important lessons to be learned by kids. It's wonderful they will be exposed to X, GNOME, KDE, the shell and all. But this is a wonderful opportunity to actually teach the kids ABOUT computers, not merely how to use them.
I applaud RedHat for their insight and their efforts.
I think Dr. Lederman hit the nail on the head...we need shorter patent durations to encourage further developments in the field. I think a small number like 5 years is a lot more appropriate; it allows the company or individual that funded the development to have a "head start", so to speak; but not to forever dominate the field.
Of course, this doesn't solve the issue of software patents; imagine if someone had patented CGI scripts to generate HTML on the fly way back in 1994, when the Net really started getting big. Only recently would we be free of this encumberance.
I think the ultimate solution is to further educate USPTO and other patent organizations worldwide on the fallacies of far-reaching softwar e patents, and encourage software developers worldwide to open their technology to everyone else. Open-source has proven that being open and free (as in speech) only leads to a bettering of the market, not a stagnation as others predict. I think it's high time we spread this ideology.
Matrox has done a great 180. They used to have the worst driver support in the industry, even under Windows.
In my experience, the dubious honor of worst Windows drivers goes to ATI. They have alway s had poor 2d AND 3d drivers (remember when Gateway quit using them ~5 years ago? There was a reason.)
Now they're working hard, and they're putting out good Linux support. I think the G200/G400 is the fastest 2d card you can get for XFree86, and their 3d support is getting better fast.
A lot of the reason for this is the Matrox driver project - a bunch of guys are writing good drivers for Matrox. Don't be too hasty in chalking this one up to Matrox...there are other (open) sources at work.
You said that no proprietary programs could be written in Java because it must be linked with the Java classes.
That simply isn't true. Java does this sort of "linking" (which is really just class loading) at run time. if I distribute a Java class that uses the Swing user interface package, for example, none of that code is included in my class. It's loaded at run time. AFAIK, that is permitted under the GPL.
You raise some good points, but one I think is key to the issue is: just what is the difference between 'discovery' and 'invention'?
Genetic patents are discovery, I think we could all agree on that.
Making something like ethernet is invention. I think we could all agree on that as well.
But what chemical companies that play around in the labs all day long, experimenting with different compounds and energies and the like? There's elements of both things going on. They are discovering the way chemicals behave when mixed together, but they are creating things anew as well.
The problem I see with patents is they too often allow one to patent a discovery, which is basically patenting knowledge.
It seems like the recent comments on patents are mostly made by selfish individuals who don't understand the financial consequences behind research. Hopefully I can set the record straight.
Companies, whether large or small, simply cannot afford to fund research without at least some assurance that profit will be made. This typically comes by selling products/services based on ideas that come from that research. However, the company has spent large sums of money generating these new products and services, and needs to protect its investment to keep competitors from stealing their research. This is why companies patent ideas found in their research.
It's selfish and downright rediculous to expect companies to simply donate their research to the public domain. This removes all incentive for the corporation to conduct the research. This is akin to the desire often expressed by/.ers to have all software released for free. Why should a company spend time and money developing software only to give it away for free?
The fact is, patents are a necessary evil. It gives business a reason to pursue research, since it is clear that universities and other government funded institutions (like the military and especially NASA) don't have enough money to do it themselves. Patents ensure that technology moves on.
(Note that this doesn't mean that I support the idea of patenting genes. I think that the idea of having corporations own the very makeup of all human beings proposterous. Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to the obvious question that arises: without the possibility of patens, how do you encourage companies to conduct research?)
I agree. The MMC sucks big time. It's probably one of the most disappointing things about Win2k. The old tools like WinDisk and such are now tied into that load of bloat, making the tool run slower for no good reason. And the startup time is VERY annoying as well.
Why can't the DJs just play the MP3s anyways, as long as they have bought the CD in the first place?
Is there a reason why a DJ here in the US can't buy a CD, MP3 it, and then take that somewhere to play it? He's already paid the record company (and thus the RIAA) and now he is just using his music.
Where's the problem? Why does he need a license?
(And yes I know this law exists in Canda, but the wired article implied US DJs can't use MP3s. I don't understand why.)
While it is always good to see a flurry of activity spring up around free software, I can't help but wonder if this is going to do anything useful.
Support isn't the end all be all of free software justification. Someone else hit the nail on the head when they noted that the OS is the most complicated part of a system, and thus support there is justified...but support for an app (or set of apps even) just isn't. Things are easy to use, relatively abstracted from the hardware (which causes most support issues anyway when you don't have to worry about software components conflicitng with each other, as on an MS platform.)
So what role does support have? Developer support? MS and Sun have laid groundwork there with MSDN and Sun Developer Essentials...but there's already plenty of web pages, FAQs, HOW-TOs, and free (as in beer) components out there to help the budding Linux App Designer.
What about large-scale IT support? There is at least something here. Having to piece together a set of apps to form your company's entire working platform is formidable, and having an organization like Helix Code to hold your hand and help you make changes, etc would be useful. But this market isn't that big.
Small-scale groups (like individual departments and SOHO users) won't want to pay for this. They'll just hire a one-time contractor to do this sort of work, or educate one person enough so that they can do it in house.
Individual users, of course, will pay no attention to this. They will continue to leech off the work of others as they have always done. To them "free" means as in beer, and ONLY that. The average user is mostly concerned with the fact they got it for nothing; especially since they have to work just as hard to get it to work as they do a commercial package.
So what does this mean? It's a questionable venture. It will likely accelerate the development and acceptance of GNOME, which is wonderful. But I don't see it as being lasting (especially since we still haven't seen a proven example of the Open Source Enhancements and Support business model yet.)
I was hoping that Melissa would make companies wake up and rethink the "lets move everything to Outlook/Exchange/IE" philosophy. Apparently IT people forget quickly...
Now we have time and time again exploits against IE due to its extreme integration with Windows and such. How long until one of these gets really nasty? How long until someone gets bitted a little too hard, and then they want to bite back?
I saw preliminary pricing for the board; the 64MB version is expected to go for ~$800 if I recall correctly.
I see some people complaining about prices here. While it's not the $250 price point of the GeForce, it's still very reasonable/pretty inexpensive for workstation-class graphics.
Nvidia has now expressed an amazing commitment to Linux across the board with their products. Let's hope SGI would do the same with their 3d Software, Maya on Linux would be oh so cool:)
Eudora is probably the best email client I have ever used. I love the organization of the features and it is nice and speedy. Fortunately the damn thing isn't full of bloatware like Outlook; it just does what it does well: email.
If Qualcomm decided to make Eudora for Linux, I am sure I am not the only one who would run out and buy it. Perhaps we need some/. action to alert them to the fact that many of us would use Eudora at home and at the office if it was available.
We've gotten ourselves into a big mess with the whole licensing issue. Now we need to find a way out of it.
GPLinglibraries is just plain stupid. How do you ever expect someone to write a program using your library if they don't even understand the licensing issues? Especially if he is just some late night hacker making a cool program. He doesn't have the time, the energy, or the knowledge to work out the licensing issues. That's the very reason he came to Linux in the first place: he wanted freedom from restrictions, so he write some code and share it with others.
I believe this is a case of can't see the forest for the trees. At this point we've got SO many licenses, we are all arguing over which is better for a specific purpose. Isn't the purpose just supposed to be to write good software that people can use and modify without worry? Why create and continue to perpetuate all these silly licenses?
The community needs to stop and think about all this, and consolidate on a few GOOD licenses that will work together. The GPL and LGPL are good starts, but this debacle proves that the Linux game is still too complicated for many people (including corporations) to play. I know I don't want to check the license of every single library I use, to make sure they don't conflict (especially when I don't have the knowledge to understand them in the first place.) The fact is, I'm a coder, not a lawyer, and I'm certain there are a lot more like me out there. We've got to simplify these issues, and fast, before it gets to be a real problem.
I can see it now...Microsoft's Linux Myths II - why licensing makes Linux too much trouble. Sadly, they would have a point...
As the recent Slashdot Article on Patents (and subsequent comments) pointed out, patent defense is a risk: if the judge decides the "infringement" is not actually infringing on any IP at all, then the patent is rendered worthless.
Warez is more prevalent in business then you might imagine. I've been in environments where nearly everything installed was illegal. Copied CDs were passed around freely, stuff was posted on internal web servers for distribution, etc...
Piracy is a serious issue. Estimates on the impact of piracy on the industry are more accurate than most of us know (or want to admit.)
Yesterday was the first time I had ever upgraded a Linux box, or any operating system really, for that matter. Before, I always backed everything up, reformatted, and reinstalled. Windows taught me that lesson (How can I upgrade and have my sound card not work, but fresh install it works fine? Grrrr.)
I was upgrading a server from RH 5.2 to RH 6. Nothing could have been easier. I popped in the CD, told it to upgrade, and 15 minutes I was (almost) modern again. It was literally that easy.
The problem most people have with RedHat is they don't use RPMs. The whole secret to working with RedHat is to use RPMs for anything you install that isn't something trivial. Then your life is infinitely easier. Mixing the RedHat stock RPMs with a bunch of tarballs is a recipe for nightmares and headaches (I learned the hard way 8 months ago.)
Note that I'm not advocating anyone jump on the RHAT bandwagon. I just felt that a good, comprehensive package management system like Debian and RedHat have make things a LOT easier. Especially compared to the Windows world...
Regarding your statement about that according to analysts, current trends will continue indefinitely, I couldn't agree more.
This reminds me of Calculus, and the notion of a derivitive. One geometric interpretation of a derivitive is, of course, the change in the slope of a line on a graph. This is something that analysis groups don't consider: TRENDS CHANGE!
This is a mathematical certainty, established at least 300+ years ago when Newton and Leibnitz (spelling?) discovered Calculus. Why haven't market analysis firms understood this yet?
The fact is, these sorts of reports are like snapshots in time. They don't represent all of the present (no snapshot does). And they aren't very useful in predicting the future either. Ever looked at a picture someone else took and been able to tell them what happened after the picture was taken? I haven't been able to with any statistical certainty. This is the same sort of thing going on here. These types of reports are more like current affairs reports done in High School than roadmaps for the future.
Read the report and notice the number of times we see synonyms of "and never will," or the number of times the future is completely left out, thus implicitly assuming that the current status quo will continue indefinitely. Sometims the most important information is that what is not stated.
These reports ignore the fact that change itself changes. And until I see a report that accounts for that, I won't bother to worry about them.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. SGI and IBM care a lot about open source. So does AOL/Netscape; it appears as if Apple is at least concerned (OS-X).
They just need some handholding; rude Linux users don't function for that at all.
Looking through this thread is really sick. Here is a legitamte attempt to get Apple to support QT4 on Linux (presumably with Sorensen, so we can watch all the cool trailers and stuff.)
What is the response of some (lots) of Linux user? We don't want an Apple player. We want specs and source!
Get a grip. Don't you realize that big business doesn't get wise to open source over night? And that there are some people who spent lots of time and money developing Sorensen? Why should we get their work for free?
I just have a problem with the ever growing population of Linux users who can't leave well enough alone.
I agree. I think it would be really useful to see information on big Linux security holes posted on Slashdot, with the relevant patches in the article body perhaps. It would be a better addition than the latest sections, like all the patent crap, IMO.
This is one of the few remaining spots in Linux that just plain stinks. I used to say that printing and ppp made Linux difficult/impossible for the masses to use. PPP is finally pretty easy to use, with tools like RP3, the debian PPP support, kPPP, etc. Looks like printing will finally work as well.
I spent many, many hours trying to get my Linux workstation talking to the HP printers at work; after much failure I finally had success. I've never gotten printing to work reasonably well at all at home; trying to connect to my roommate's printer just didn't happen. We ended up sneaker-netting it, with printing to postscript and all. I had similar results with a Deskjet 600 physically connected to the box (ie, no network in the middle). Stuff would come out of the printer, but nothing was ever quite right. It was a classic case of configuration being prohibitively difficult, FOR NO GOOD REASON.
Let's hope that what comes of this announcement can change things.
Ever since DeCSS was first posted about on /. and linked from the oodles of comments, many a /.er has used the oft-quoted mantra: "the cat's out of the bag" or "the horse has escaped the barn" or other such sentiment. They seem to think that just because the "secret"[1] is out, it's all irrelevant. Wrong.
/. mentality is that, once the "secret" is out, the issue becomes all the more relevant. Suddenly there are criminal indictments, lawsuits, and hefty fines being thrown around.
The whole DeCSS issue is an important one that will shape computer politics in the decades to come. The issues at hand, specifically the right of the consumer to reverse engineer products he owns, especially to further interoperability, is a very serious one.
The problem with the
The fact is, DeCSS can be used to make copies of DVDs. This is a serious concern with the movie industry, and they intend to do something about it. The very day that work on DeCSS was started, someone should have been considering the legal implications of the project.
Folks, this issue isn't going to go away until the final verdict is rendered. The MPAA and DVD CCA will try and go all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to; simply saying "cats ut of the bag!" and posting a link isn't doing anything to solve the problem. If nothing else, it is making it worse by possibly implicating yourself in the whole mess.
What can be done? Donate to the EFF to fund the defense. Raise awareness with intelligent conversation and advocacy. However, I believe the most important lesson that we can glean from all this concerns legal issues. The time has passed when we could code first, ask forgiveness later. There's big money and big prison time at stake. Perhaps it's time we sit back and think, if I'm going to hack away at a program/piece of hardware/whatever, 1) is this legal 2) is this ethical and 3) what can I do to ensure that the project STAYS legal and ethical?
This fiasco is a perfect example. The very moment the DVD CCA learned of DeCSS, their lawyers went to work. Can the same be said of ours? Playing catch-up and react is just what they want us to do. It's time we take the initiative.
[1] You'll note secret is in quotations. That is because the issue of CSS being a trade secret is still in debate.
I do agree with some of what you are saying; however it is not my intention to suggest that Linux be used as a form of propaganda.
Quite frankly, I see this as a wonderful opportunity to get kids to understand computers more. We have them understand science, the arts, language, all things vital to everyday living. As computers become more and more pervasive, those who can master them will be in that much better of a position.
I agree that not everyone needs to be an engineer...but I do think we would be wasting a valuable opportunity to further computer science if we DON'T take advantage of times like this to help kids learn more. Surely there are many kids in the UK schools in question that want to learn more about them....why not help them along?
Linux is a valuable, unique teaching tool. Squandering our chances can't be a good thing. That's all I'm saying.
And as for McDonald's as far as me and my friends are concerned, they simply sell hamburgers (and lousy ones at that.) Nothing more.
I beg to differ. Look at McDonald's. They are a PRIME (and fairly well documented) case of infiltrating the minds of children to affect marketshare in the future. It has been written that most children know the jingle of the current advertising campaign put on by McDonald's by age 4, perhaps earlier. That certainly affects how things work in the future.
Others in this thread have pointed out that DEC did this back in the old days, and it worked well for them (albeit for different reasons). The fact is, exposing kids to Linux will get them used to the Linux way of doing things. One example of the confusion many experience when they are forced to abandon the rather arbitrary A: B: C: etc scheme for naming drives for the (perhaps more sensible)
I'd think this would be a real benefit if we could teach these kids more than basic Linux usage and system administration. As we all know, Linux is an extremely valuable educational tool because of its open nature. Being able to show the kids kernel code to demonstrate file systems principles would be a wonderful use of the technology. Another example would be security. Linux could be used to demonstrate why open systems are superior to closed ones when it comes to security.
These are perhaps the most important lessons to be learned by kids. It's wonderful they will be exposed to X, GNOME, KDE, the shell and all. But this is a wonderful opportunity to actually teach the kids ABOUT computers, not merely how to use them.
I applaud RedHat for their insight and their efforts.
I think Dr. Lederman hit the nail on the head...we need shorter patent durations to encourage further developments in the field. I think a small number like 5 years is a lot more appropriate; it allows the company or individual that funded the development to have a "head start", so to speak; but not to forever dominate the field.
Of course, this doesn't solve the issue of software patents; imagine if someone had patented CGI scripts to generate HTML on the fly way back in 1994, when the Net really started getting big. Only recently would we be free of this encumberance.
I think the ultimate solution is to further educate USPTO and other patent organizations worldwide on the fallacies of far-reaching softwar e patents, and encourage software developers worldwide to open their technology to everyone else. Open-source has proven that being open and free (as in speech) only leads to a bettering of the market, not a stagnation as others predict. I think it's high time we spread this ideology.
In my experience, the dubious honor of worst Windows drivers goes to ATI. They have alway s had poor 2d AND 3d drivers (remember when Gateway quit using them ~5 years ago? There was a reason.)
A lot of the reason for this is the Matrox driver project - a bunch of guys are writing good drivers for Matrox. Don't be too hasty in chalking this one up to Matrox...there are other (open) sources at work.
You said that no proprietary programs could be written in Java because it must be linked with the Java classes.
That simply isn't true. Java does this sort of "linking" (which is really just class loading) at run time. if I distribute a Java class that uses the Swing user interface package, for example, none of that code is included in my class. It's loaded at run time. AFAIK, that is permitted under the GPL.
You raise some good points, but one I think is key to the issue is: just what is the difference between 'discovery' and 'invention'?
Genetic patents are discovery, I think we could all agree on that.
Making something like ethernet is invention. I think we could all agree on that as well.
But what chemical companies that play around in the labs all day long, experimenting with different compounds and energies and the like? There's elements of both things going on. They are discovering the way chemicals behave when mixed together, but they are creating things anew as well.
The problem I see with patents is they too often allow one to patent a discovery, which is basically patenting knowledge.
So what do we do about it?
It seems like the recent comments on patents are mostly made by selfish individuals who don't understand the financial consequences behind research. Hopefully I can set the record straight.
/.ers to have all software released for free. Why should a company spend time and money developing software only to give it away for free?
Companies, whether large or small, simply cannot afford to fund research without at least some assurance that profit will be made. This typically comes by selling products/services based on ideas that come from that research. However, the company has spent large sums of money generating these new products and services, and needs to protect its investment to keep competitors from stealing their research. This is why companies patent ideas found in their research.
It's selfish and downright rediculous to expect companies to simply donate their research to the public domain. This removes all incentive for the corporation to conduct the research. This is akin to the desire often expressed by
The fact is, patents are a necessary evil. It gives business a reason to pursue research, since it is clear that universities and other government funded institutions (like the military and especially NASA) don't have enough money to do it themselves. Patents ensure that technology moves on.
(Note that this doesn't mean that I support the idea of patenting genes. I think that the idea of having corporations own the very makeup of all human beings proposterous. Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to the obvious question that arises: without the possibility of patens, how do you encourage companies to conduct research?)
Note that the parent company of them all is of course FDX...now that's unimaginative :) But hey FedEx is cool, so we will excuse them :)
I agree. The MMC sucks big time. It's probably one of the most disappointing things about Win2k. The old tools like WinDisk and such are now tied into that load of bloat, making the tool run slower for no good reason. And the startup time is VERY annoying as well.
More Microsoft bloat with no useful gain.
Why can't the DJs just play the MP3s anyways, as long as they have bought the CD in the first place?
Is there a reason why a DJ here in the US can't buy a CD, MP3 it, and then take that somewhere to play it? He's already paid the record company (and thus the RIAA) and now he is just using his music.
Where's the problem? Why does he need a license?
(And yes I know this law exists in Canda, but the wired article implied US DJs can't use MP3s. I don't understand why.)
While it is always good to see a flurry of activity spring up around free software, I can't help but wonder if this is going to do anything useful.
Support isn't the end all be all of free software justification. Someone else hit the nail on the head when they noted that the OS is the most complicated part of a system, and thus support there is justified...but support for an app (or set of apps even) just isn't. Things are easy to use, relatively abstracted from the hardware (which causes most support issues anyway when you don't have to worry about software components conflicitng with each other, as on an MS platform.)
So what role does support have? Developer support? MS and Sun have laid groundwork there with MSDN and Sun Developer Essentials...but there's already plenty of web pages, FAQs, HOW-TOs, and free (as in beer) components out there to help the budding Linux App Designer.
What about large-scale IT support? There is at least something here. Having to piece together a set of apps to form your company's entire working platform is formidable, and having an organization like Helix Code to hold your hand and help you make changes, etc would be useful. But this market isn't that big.
Small-scale groups (like individual departments and SOHO users) won't want to pay for this. They'll just hire a one-time contractor to do this sort of work, or educate one person enough so that they can do it in house.
Individual users, of course, will pay no attention to this. They will continue to leech off the work of others as they have always done. To them "free" means as in beer, and ONLY that. The average user is mostly concerned with the fact they got it for nothing; especially since they have to work just as hard to get it to work as they do a commercial package.
So what does this mean? It's a questionable venture. It will likely accelerate the development and acceptance of GNOME, which is wonderful. But I don't see it as being lasting (especially since we still haven't seen a proven example of the Open Source Enhancements and Support business model yet.)
I was hoping that Melissa would make companies wake up and rethink the "lets move everything to Outlook/Exchange/IE" philosophy. Apparently IT people forget quickly...
Now we have time and time again exploits against IE due to its extreme integration with Windows and such. How long until one of these gets really nasty? How long until someone gets bitted a little too hard, and then they want to bite back?
I saw preliminary pricing for the board; the 64MB version is expected to go for ~$800 if I recall correctly.
:)
I see some people complaining about prices here. While it's not the $250 price point of the GeForce, it's still very reasonable/pretty inexpensive for workstation-class graphics.
Nvidia has now expressed an amazing commitment to Linux across the board with their products. Let's hope SGI would do the same with their 3d Software, Maya on Linux would be oh so cool
Eudora is probably the best email client I have ever used. I love the organization of the features and it is nice and speedy. Fortunately the damn thing isn't full of bloatware like Outlook; it just does what it does well: email.
/. action to alert them to the fact that many of us would use Eudora at home and at the office if it was available.
If Qualcomm decided to make Eudora for Linux, I am sure I am not the only one who would run out and buy it. Perhaps we need some
We've gotten ourselves into a big mess with the whole licensing issue. Now we need to find a way out of it.
GPLinglibraries is just plain stupid. How do you ever expect someone to write a program using your library if they don't even understand the licensing issues? Especially if he is just some late night hacker making a cool program. He doesn't have the time, the energy, or the knowledge to work out the licensing issues. That's the very reason he came to Linux in the first place: he wanted freedom from restrictions, so he write some code and share it with others.
I believe this is a case of can't see the forest for the trees. At this point we've got SO many licenses, we are all arguing over which is better for a specific purpose. Isn't the purpose just supposed to be to write good software that people can use and modify without worry? Why create and continue to perpetuate all these silly licenses?
The community needs to stop and think about all this, and consolidate on a few GOOD licenses that will work together. The GPL and LGPL are good starts, but this debacle proves that the Linux game is still too complicated for many people (including corporations) to play. I know I don't want to check the license of every single library I use, to make sure they don't conflict (especially when I don't have the knowledge to understand them in the first place.) The fact is, I'm a coder, not a lawyer, and I'm certain there are a lot more like me out there. We've got to simplify these issues, and fast, before it gets to be a real problem.
I can see it now...Microsoft's Linux Myths II - why licensing makes Linux too much trouble. Sadly, they would have a point...
err woops. i clicked on the wrong article. Silly me.
As the recent Slashdot Article on Patents (and subsequent comments) pointed out, patent defense is a risk: if the judge decides the "infringement" is not actually infringing on any IP at all, then the patent is rendered worthless.
Let's hope the judge is sensible in this case.
Warez is more prevalent in business then you might imagine. I've been in environments where nearly everything installed was illegal. Copied CDs were passed around freely, stuff was posted on internal web servers for distribution, etc...
Piracy is a serious issue. Estimates on the impact of piracy on the industry are more accurate than most of us know (or want to admit.)
I disagree.
Yesterday was the first time I had ever upgraded a Linux box, or any operating system really, for that matter. Before, I always backed everything up, reformatted, and reinstalled. Windows taught me that lesson (How can I upgrade and have my sound card not work, but fresh install it works fine? Grrrr.)
I was upgrading a server from RH 5.2 to RH 6. Nothing could have been easier. I popped in the CD, told it to upgrade, and 15 minutes I was (almost) modern again. It was literally that easy.
The problem most people have with RedHat is they don't use RPMs. The whole secret to working with RedHat is to use RPMs for anything you install that isn't something trivial. Then your life is infinitely easier. Mixing the RedHat stock RPMs with a bunch of tarballs is a recipe for nightmares and headaches (I learned the hard way 8 months ago.)
Note that I'm not advocating anyone jump on the RHAT bandwagon. I just felt that a good, comprehensive package management system like Debian and RedHat have make things a LOT easier. Especially compared to the Windows world...
Regarding your statement about that according to analysts, current trends will continue indefinitely, I couldn't agree more.
This reminds me of Calculus, and the notion of a derivitive. One geometric interpretation of a derivitive is, of course, the change in the slope of a line on a graph. This is something that analysis groups don't consider: TRENDS CHANGE!
This is a mathematical certainty, established at least 300+ years ago when Newton and Leibnitz (spelling?) discovered Calculus. Why haven't market analysis firms understood this yet?
The fact is, these sorts of reports are like snapshots in time. They don't represent all of the present (no snapshot does). And they aren't very useful in predicting the future either. Ever looked at a picture someone else took and been able to tell them what happened after the picture was taken? I haven't been able to with any statistical certainty. This is the same sort of thing going on here. These types of reports are more like current affairs reports done in High School than roadmaps for the future.
Read the report and notice the number of times we see synonyms of "and never will," or the number of times the future is completely left out, thus implicitly assuming that the current status quo will continue indefinitely. Sometims the most important information is that what is not stated.
These reports ignore the fact that change itself changes. And until I see a report that accounts for that, I won't bother to worry about them.