When the shuttle retires, the Soyuz will be the only vehicle that can reach ISS. Boosting ISS to another orbit would mean the Soyuz can't reach it either.
Of course without the Shuttle's boost, I'm not sure how long the ISS can even maintain its current orbit.
His bringing up the example of XLSX being easier for Gnumeric to implement than ODF spreadsheets is bizarre. The author of that post said that XLSX was easier because it shared much of the same code and concepts of the already reverse engineered XLS format. But if he didn't already support the legacy format, wouldn't it be expected that XLSX would be just as difficult to write an import filter for as ODF?
Perhaps this is not true for spreadsheets though. It seems that open source support for most of XLS is excellent. It could very well be a different story for DOCX vs ODF text documents. Word processing is generally where the most attention gets paid.
Yeah, I found it funny that Obi-Wan interpreted Anikan's "I hate you!" to mean "please give the lightsaber that you just stole from me to the son I don't even know I have".
Obi-Wan was certainly feeding a load of crap to Luke in Episode 4.
I think this partially has to do with the businesses they are in.
Apple is mostly a hardware company. They want to be able to patent their innovations involving the iPod and iPhone. Though I'm sure they have some software patents too, most of their patents are tied to hardware and the software interface to hardware. For a company that tends to lead the pack on hardware innovations, the system works very well for them.
Google's big business is web based software. Software patents have been handled fairly poorly by the patent office. And Google is arriving on the scene late. Apple and MS already have a huge patent portfolio. Google is probably building one as well, but since their business is software based, they are quite vulnerable to patent threats. Especially when a company that has stated they want to crush Google has one of the largest collections of software patents, and has already threatened the open source software that Google's business runs on.
In Canada, it is often the local phone monopoly vs the local cable monopoly as well. But these companies actually compete with each other and bring the prices down to very low levels. In fact, due to monopoly deregulation, they're also often competing in the phone and TV business with each other too. But even before they lost their monopolies, there were often some good price wars with high speed internet.
Why is that not the same in the US? If there are two companies in the same region, would they not still be fighting each other for business?
MS has been looking at Vancouver for a long while. It is a natural fit, being so close to and so similar to Seattle.
Back when the anti-trust trial was on, they were threatening to move their entire operation to Vancover to get away from the US government and avoid being broken up. I'm not sure if they would've went through with it or not though.
I remember a while back that they had tested and recommended mplayer for some of their streaming. Of course they still use Real in places too, but at least there is a Linux client for Real. And I've never had problems with their site in any browser, so I have to think they are making sure it is cross platform.
I'm not sure it was very helpful to have some random contributor bash their explanation of the GPL, especially considering it wasn't all that bad of an explanation considering the intended audience. The fact that CBC is even reporting on the Linux distros that are resisting the shady MS patent deals is a pleasant surprise.
So how about "Thank You CBC" instead of "lets publish an "article" which nitpicks and pokes fun of CBC".
I believe the person receiving the code gets to choose which version applies. So if they wish to TiVo-ize it, they will opt to accept the terms of the GPLv2 license instead of the GPLv3 license.
I have also heard they're surprisingly good in snow. After a good snowfall here, someone who drives to work in a Smart Car was asked how he got out of his driveway. He said he just did a U-turn in the driveway, and plowed forward through the snow drift. Pretty cool that you can turn them that tight.
How is Farenheight better for weather? I don't see any advantage there at all.
In many climates, it is the freezing point of water that is important. Having that be the 0 degree is fairly handy for weather. Above and below 0 is then equivalent to above or below freezing, and we get a temperature range of around -40 to +40 (neither extreme is fun). Above or below 32 seems a bit arbitrary.
But now, my mind no longer remembers phone numbers, even ones that I call on a regular basis. I can always just look up numbers, so there is no reason to remember them.
It used to be no problem to memorize stuff. In fact, I was extremely good at it. But now that my computer remembers everything for me, I find that my own memory has gotten very poor. It would probably take quite a while to adapt to not having it.
The only times I've really gone without technology recently were on vacations. It is definitely relaxing, but part of that could be the vacation and place itself, not just freedom from technology. There isn't really much that stressful going on, or a need to memorize much of anything.
I think this shows the downside of MS moving into every market imaginable. I don't think this guy will win the suit against MS, but the fact that MS is heavily involved in entertainment and home electronics gives him a slim hope. If MS truly only made an operating system, and didn't bolt (bundle) a bunch of other crap onto it, they'd be a lot more immune from sillyness like this.
It seems somewhat problematic to put phrases in the license that the license creators admit are there to hurt MS. This is something they really shouldn't be saying publicly, as it could hurt them down the road legally.
Of course, MS has never played fair, so maybe we shouldn't complain too much if the FSF doesn't play fair either.
Actually, the profs are just as adverse to learning anything new. In fact, the general public is just as lazy as these college kids, and often have little need for the advanced features in Office at all, no matter where they are in the UI. Rich Text would cover 90% or more of what a lot of people do with Office.
And given that Office is free to university users, no matter what the version is, you think that there would be more uptake of the new version than in the general public, not less. Things change pretty quick when you have to pay for updates you don't need, even if they are supposedly nicer.
Though I have to admit that Vista is bombing much worse than Office. MS always has had a problem getting Office users to upgrade to the latest version, ever since Office 97 took care of most people's needs. This is nothing new. The reluctance to touch Vista is definitely new though. Of course very few people actually update their Windows at all from what their OEM gives them to begin with, that is not new.
What is new is that people who are looking to buy new machines are also avoiding Vista. The "word on the street" is that Vista isn't very good, and even the non-techie people are avoiding it. I wasn't surprised that a lot of IT people were avoiding it (and often buying Macs), as sites like this one have said nothing good about Vista. But I was surprised with how many non-techie people seem to cringe when Vista is mentioned as well.
Time might change that, but Dell's move to bring back XP seems to indicate that this upgrade is more painful for MS than any in the past. I guess they get a sale either way, but it still looks bad.
Office 2007 is actually crushing everything else. It is making people excited about an office suite again (which is pretty amazing, actually). I have yet to encounter anyone who was excited about Office 2007. Most people don't want to relearn a new interface, and quite frankly, had everything they needed already in Office 97. What I do see is a lot of converts to OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice. The rest choose Office 2003 or earlier, or MS Office for Mac.
Even in the universities where every version is free, people are often choosing the older versions. I would have to think you'd have to be a huge MS fanboy or an astroturfer to actually be excited about using Office 2007. I'm sure these people exist, but their view of the world is distorted. They still see every new version of Microsoft's OS and Office Suite as the best thing since sliced bread. Whereas in the real world, you're seeing a heck of a lot more Apple machines, and a lot of hesitation shown by regular users when talking about Vista.
I'm sure developers tied to the MS platform may not like all of this, and may even be blind to the situation entirely, but it is what is happening out there. I almost hope MS is blind to this as well, but they're sure acting scared, as if they know they're in trouble.
I wonder if these words from Jon would dissuade Microsoft a bit:
"Sun has what I'd argue to be the single most valuable and focused patent portfolio on the web (and yes, we'd use it to defend Red Hat and Ubuntu, both)."
But I also wonder if they already have cross-licenses this stuff with MS, making it tougher to defend against them.
Sounds a lot like Java. Therefore it will never fly.
There will always be a vendor like MS to make everything so much easier for us, without thinking about the consequences. It will happen on Linux too. Some would argue it already is (just compare most Linux distros to OpenBSD for example), just not nearly as bad as on the Windows platform.
Featuritis is an illness that is cross platform I'm afraid. Many small and efficient projects seem to be doomed to become bloatware, once they've become popular.
That is my thought as well. Though WiMax sure is taking a long time to ramp up.
Cellular internet may have already taken over by the time WiMax is ready. Though WiMax may get a boost if the cellular providers are the ones providing it, which is likely what will happen around here (WiMax base stations on cell towers, telco offers yet another package to their users).
"With business down and customers leaving, we had more than a few choices at our disposal. We were invited by one company to sue the beneficiaries of open source. We declined. We could join another and sue our customers. That seemed suicidal."
Gee, I wonder who those companies would've been?
Interesting bit of writing by Jonathan. However, I do wish it would read more like "don't even try it MS, or else", instead of a friendly warning that it'd be a poor business decision. But I guess they are partners and all, so I can't expect it to be as unfriendly as the days where Sun obsessed about MS instead of their own products.
I'd be surprised if IBM started a patent fight with MS, or even threatened it. They'll fight if they have to (and probably damage MS greatly too), but the status quo is much better for IBM than a flurry of patent lawsuits and possible patent reform.
Hadn't thought of Nokia though, or any other device maker in fact.
Microsoft's desire to make enemies out of everyone could be their undoing. A company like Google might not spend a lot of time thinking of ways to hurt MS if MS hadn't declared Google their enemy, and jumped into Google's markets. Google may have been happy just doing search and advertising, and competing with Yahoo.
But now Google is forced to come up with all sorts of ways that they can hurt MS, for the sake of their own survival. If Google knows that MS will not rest until Google is dead, that really forces Google to come up with a way to kill MS. Bare minimum, they need plans for dealing with any attack MS can possibly try, but that is probably much too reactive. It'd be interesting to know what plans Google might have up their sleeve, even if a lot of them never actually get implemented.
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Wouldn't the phone belong to the person who bought it, not Apple?
It'll be interesting to see what happens here, since it isn't uncommon for companies to refuse warranty for "unauthorized" use.
However, he may not have laughed at this one: http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/2004/stata_kiosks/
When the shuttle retires, the Soyuz will be the only vehicle that can reach ISS. Boosting ISS to another orbit would mean the Soyuz can't reach it either.
Of course without the Shuttle's boost, I'm not sure how long the ISS can even maintain its current orbit.
His bringing up the example of XLSX being easier for Gnumeric to implement than ODF spreadsheets is bizarre. The author of that post said that XLSX was easier because it shared much of the same code and concepts of the already reverse engineered XLS format. But if he didn't already support the legacy format, wouldn't it be expected that XLSX would be just as difficult to write an import filter for as ODF?
Perhaps this is not true for spreadsheets though. It seems that open source support for most of XLS is excellent. It could very well be a different story for DOCX vs ODF text documents. Word processing is generally where the most attention gets paid.
Yeah, I found it funny that Obi-Wan interpreted Anikan's "I hate you!" to mean "please give the lightsaber that you just stole from me to the son I don't even know I have".
Obi-Wan was certainly feeding a load of crap to Luke in Episode 4.
I think this partially has to do with the businesses they are in.
Apple is mostly a hardware company. They want to be able to patent their innovations involving the iPod and iPhone. Though I'm sure they have some software patents too, most of their patents are tied to hardware and the software interface to hardware. For a company that tends to lead the pack on hardware innovations, the system works very well for them.
Google's big business is web based software. Software patents have been handled fairly poorly by the patent office. And Google is arriving on the scene late. Apple and MS already have a huge patent portfolio. Google is probably building one as well, but since their business is software based, they are quite vulnerable to patent threats. Especially when a company that has stated they want to crush Google has one of the largest collections of software patents, and has already threatened the open source software that Google's business runs on.
In Canada, it is often the local phone monopoly vs the local cable monopoly as well. But these companies actually compete with each other and bring the prices down to very low levels. In fact, due to monopoly deregulation, they're also often competing in the phone and TV business with each other too. But even before they lost their monopolies, there were often some good price wars with high speed internet.
Why is that not the same in the US? If there are two companies in the same region, would they not still be fighting each other for business?
MS has been looking at Vancouver for a long while. It is a natural fit, being so close to and so similar to Seattle.
Back when the anti-trust trial was on, they were threatening to move their entire operation to Vancover to get away from the US government and avoid being broken up. I'm not sure if they would've went through with it or not though.
I remember a while back that they had tested and recommended mplayer for some of their streaming. Of course they still use Real in places too, but at least there is a Linux client for Real. And I've never had problems with their site in any browser, so I have to think they are making sure it is cross platform.
I'm not sure it was very helpful to have some random contributor bash their explanation of the GPL, especially considering it wasn't all that bad of an explanation considering the intended audience. The fact that CBC is even reporting on the Linux distros that are resisting the shady MS patent deals is a pleasant surprise.
So how about "Thank You CBC" instead of "lets publish an "article" which nitpicks and pokes fun of CBC".
I believe the person receiving the code gets to choose which version applies. So if they wish to TiVo-ize it, they will opt to accept the terms of the GPLv2 license instead of the GPLv3 license.
I have also heard they're surprisingly good in snow. After a good snowfall here, someone who drives to work in a Smart Car was asked how he got out of his driveway. He said he just did a U-turn in the driveway, and plowed forward through the snow drift. Pretty cool that you can turn them that tight.
How is Farenheight better for weather? I don't see any advantage there at all.
In many climates, it is the freezing point of water that is important. Having that be the 0 degree is fairly handy for weather. Above and below 0 is then equivalent to above or below freezing, and we get a temperature range of around -40 to +40 (neither extreme is fun). Above or below 32 seems a bit arbitrary.
But now, my mind no longer remembers phone numbers, even ones that I call on a regular basis. I can always just look up numbers, so there is no reason to remember them.
It used to be no problem to memorize stuff. In fact, I was extremely good at it. But now that my computer remembers everything for me, I find that my own memory has gotten very poor. It would probably take quite a while to adapt to not having it.
The only times I've really gone without technology recently were on vacations. It is definitely relaxing, but part of that could be the vacation and place itself, not just freedom from technology. There isn't really much that stressful going on, or a need to memorize much of anything.
Someone really needs to put an end to this patent threat nonsense.
I think this shows the downside of MS moving into every market imaginable. I don't think this guy will win the suit against MS, but the fact that MS is heavily involved in entertainment and home electronics gives him a slim hope. If MS truly only made an operating system, and didn't bolt (bundle) a bunch of other crap onto it, they'd be a lot more immune from sillyness like this.
It seems somewhat problematic to put phrases in the license that the license creators admit are there to hurt MS. This is something they really shouldn't be saying publicly, as it could hurt them down the road legally.
Of course, MS has never played fair, so maybe we shouldn't complain too much if the FSF doesn't play fair either.
Lets make it a handicap tag team match. Steve Jobs and Steve "Woz" vs Gates, Ballmer, and Paul Allen.
Still, would you rather put Balmer up on stage? If the choice is between those two, the company will wisely pick Gates every time.
He's not a good as Jobs is on stage, but he's not that terrible either. And he's more recognizable.
Actually, the profs are just as adverse to learning anything new. In fact, the general public is just as lazy as these college kids, and often have little need for the advanced features in Office at all, no matter where they are in the UI. Rich Text would cover 90% or more of what a lot of people do with Office.
And given that Office is free to university users, no matter what the version is, you think that there would be more uptake of the new version than in the general public, not less. Things change pretty quick when you have to pay for updates you don't need, even if they are supposedly nicer.
Though I have to admit that Vista is bombing much worse than Office. MS always has had a problem getting Office users to upgrade to the latest version, ever since Office 97 took care of most people's needs. This is nothing new. The reluctance to touch Vista is definitely new though. Of course very few people actually update their Windows at all from what their OEM gives them to begin with, that is not new.
What is new is that people who are looking to buy new machines are also avoiding Vista. The "word on the street" is that Vista isn't very good, and even the non-techie people are avoiding it. I wasn't surprised that a lot of IT people were avoiding it (and often buying Macs), as sites like this one have said nothing good about Vista. But I was surprised with how many non-techie people seem to cringe when Vista is mentioned as well.
Time might change that, but Dell's move to bring back XP seems to indicate that this upgrade is more painful for MS than any in the past. I guess they get a sale either way, but it still looks bad.
Even in the universities where every version is free, people are often choosing the older versions. I would have to think you'd have to be a huge MS fanboy or an astroturfer to actually be excited about using Office 2007. I'm sure these people exist, but their view of the world is distorted. They still see every new version of Microsoft's OS and Office Suite as the best thing since sliced bread. Whereas in the real world, you're seeing a heck of a lot more Apple machines, and a lot of hesitation shown by regular users when talking about Vista.
I'm sure developers tied to the MS platform may not like all of this, and may even be blind to the situation entirely, but it is what is happening out there. I almost hope MS is blind to this as well, but they're sure acting scared, as if they know they're in trouble.
I wonder if these words from Jon would dissuade Microsoft a bit:
"Sun has what I'd argue to be the single most valuable and focused patent portfolio on the web (and yes, we'd use it to defend Red Hat and Ubuntu, both)."
But I also wonder if they already have cross-licenses this stuff with MS, making it tougher to defend against them.
Sounds a lot like Java. Therefore it will never fly.
There will always be a vendor like MS to make everything so much easier for us, without thinking about the consequences. It will happen on Linux too. Some would argue it already is (just compare most Linux distros to OpenBSD for example), just not nearly as bad as on the Windows platform.
Featuritis is an illness that is cross platform I'm afraid. Many small and efficient projects seem to be doomed to become bloatware, once they've become popular.
That is my thought as well. Though WiMax sure is taking a long time to ramp up.
Cellular internet may have already taken over by the time WiMax is ready. Though WiMax may get a boost if the cellular providers are the ones providing it, which is likely what will happen around here (WiMax base stations on cell towers, telco offers yet another package to their users).
"With business down and customers leaving, we had more than a few choices at our disposal. We were invited by one company to sue the beneficiaries of open source. We declined. We could join another and sue our customers. That seemed suicidal."
Gee, I wonder who those companies would've been?
Interesting bit of writing by Jonathan. However, I do wish it would read more like "don't even try it MS, or else", instead of a friendly warning that it'd be a poor business decision. But I guess they are partners and all, so I can't expect it to be as unfriendly as the days where Sun obsessed about MS instead of their own products.
I'd be surprised if IBM started a patent fight with MS, or even threatened it. They'll fight if they have to (and probably damage MS greatly too), but the status quo is much better for IBM than a flurry of patent lawsuits and possible patent reform.
Hadn't thought of Nokia though, or any other device maker in fact.
Microsoft's desire to make enemies out of everyone could be their undoing. A company like Google might not spend a lot of time thinking of ways to hurt MS if MS hadn't declared Google their enemy, and jumped into Google's markets. Google may have been happy just doing search and advertising, and competing with Yahoo.
But now Google is forced to come up with all sorts of ways that they can hurt MS, for the sake of their own survival. If Google knows that MS will not rest until Google is dead, that really forces Google to come up with a way to kill MS. Bare minimum, they need plans for dealing with any attack MS can possibly try, but that is probably much too reactive. It'd be interesting to know what plans Google might have up their sleeve, even if a lot of them never actually get implemented.