The thread focuses a lot on the Office suite which is clearly critical, but there are several other very necessary features for Linux compatibility.
Rather than copy the whole page. Here is a good summary of some of the critical pieces and how one of the Linux desktop vendors goes about meeting them:
http://www.xandros.com/windowscompatibility2.htm l
Here is another of a bit more contentious nature:
http://www.xandros.com/windowsapplicationcompati bi lity.html
Not only are they "nice guys", but CodeWeavers Wine (CrossOver Office) works right now: today!
I have been running Office 97 on my Xandros desktop with it since last November and it has worked pretty much flawlessly (primary exception being that I find directory management a slight pain when saving or opening). Now I run Office XP: PowerPoint, Excel, Word on my Xandros Desktop and they work perfect. No complaints, you should definitely try it.
While CrossOver (CodeWeavers Wine) does not work for every app in the Windows universe, it does work for a couple of the most important and really kicks some butt while it is at it. By supporting these apps, it allows people to adopt Xandros where they otherwise would be stuck with Gates.
Aclerex poses little threat. Their technology does not work today and may never. Meanwhile CodeWeavers is chugging right along building up their user base.
My main concern is that their very open license will make it difficult for Code Weavers to make money long term. As anyone can grab the tree at any time and have their own version there is a low ceiling for what Code Weavers can charge. This in turn makes it harder for them to raise money, make money from selling their software, and, hence, invest in making CrossOver better, faster.
I agree with you over a short time horizon. However, if anti-piracy could be enforced, this would increase the revenue size and profitability of the industry as a whole.
This in turn would spur new entrants to come into the markets as well as existing software players to invest more in new products and improving existing ones (e.g. other virus solutions). The net result would be increased competition, likely better products, and a lower cost to the paying customers.
FWIW, the reason that you want a dimmer switch is that:
If the light is to hot -> the viscous fluid that you observe tends to turn into tons of small bubbles that go all over the place in not that cool of a way. If the light is too cold -> nothing will really happen. If the light is just right -> you'll get the sexy phallic undulating viscous membrane that women tend to prefer. Slight variations on this can be controlled with the switch.
I guess you design what virus' do, how they affect computers, and watch them in a 'real world' simulation. You can even turn off firewalls and watch them tear through corporate networks (no nightmares please).
This could be illegal, but it's perfectly fine to blast away innocent people (and evil orcs) on Quake XII. As long as you don't do it in real life, it should be alright (and maybe a bad idea for impressionable minors).
If Symantec were to recover a decent percentage of the currently pirated copies, this would generate more revenue to cover overhead and profit growth.
There then is an argument that this could lower the price that Symantec needs to (and does) charge the legitimate users.
I'm a big Linux enthusiast, but also fully support closed source and charging if that's what software companies need to do to make money. Without this, they wouldn't be in business so it's naturally their right.
Maybe a little offtopic, but it may be illustrative to view it from a consulting (read expensive hourly) perspective.
I used to work in consulting doing enterprise implimentations of supply chain software systems as both consultant (programmer) and project manager.
Two of the huge issues were always budget (not spending too much (working too much as we were hourly)) and time (getting everything done on time).
If the clients (boss) asked us to provide extra functionality or wanted to change the design of something after it was complete, it would cause both time and budget delays. At the time of request for a change we would actually provide a quote with the cost in both time and money and have them (literally) sign off on it. This way after 6 months of overruns, we could point to their decisions along the way. My company would actually provide "combat pay" to consultants who billed a lot so there actually would be compensation for those that worked the insane hours (and put in the extra time to come in at 5AM to check the cron jobs).
Getting back to the point, I think the important thing is to tie or limit your employer to the amount of overtime that you put in and to begin to keep track of your hours. You could maybe look to 'industry standard' numbers for how much you should be expected to work. Of course, if your boss is a true a**hole, this may not be too easy. At a minimum though, you can demonstrate how they are not living up to their commitments or you can show how you are going the extra mile. The alternative is to leave, which as people pointed out, makes sense to do *after* finding a different job.
BTW, I definitely don't recommend the consulting job I mentioned above. 5 days a week on the road is no long term lifestyle that I would recommend to anyone and you will (and should) eventually burn out.
The average non-programmer man has slept with 20 women.
Given that there has to be an opposite sex counterparty in each case, one side obviously is understating their actual logged 'events'. How do we know they aren't lying in this poll too?!?!!
The age ranges seem to bias the primary comparison. I know how 'techy' everyone is getting nowadays, but I don't think that many 'boys' below 5th grade actually are able to engage in a lot of serious gaming. For starters, they are very young (at 6 years old - the starting range in the study - 'boys' are only in kindergarden and probably cannot even turn on a computer). Furthermore, boys under 18 are likely to be moderated away from excessive gaming (like my old Civilization to dawn marathons at undergrad with people watching). My parents would have taken the hardrive pretty quickly after that.
So when you look at it the 'effective' age range for boys is probably 12-18 compared to a 40 year age range for women.
What probably is better to look at is just that 38% of the gamers are women. Surprisingly high to me, but good for them!
I can imagine a world where everyone lives in peace with no danger or ill-will. No one would even lie lies and there would be no need for protection. The whole planet would be bathed in love and know nothing else.
I can also imagine finding this planet, enslaving everyone, taxing them at 40%, and selling thousands of Starbucks and McDonalds franchises to collect the rest.
Very interesting. For argument's sake, let's say that we took an ISO that had an application on it that was a blend of GPL and proprietary code (many examples exist). I think it would be safe to say that the provider of this could lease the entire software package even if some additional rights relating to the GPL portion were passed along.
The recipients (or lessee) of the software would (by your arguments and I think justifiably) have ongoing access to the GPL'd portions of the code (and specifically the source). However, it seems to me that their ongoing, use of the entire package could certainly be restricted by the proprietary portion present (whose copyright is owned by the lessor).
Taking this one step further, I think the argument could be made that even with a fully GPL'd product, that the distributor could restrict (and hence lease) the compiled version of the software even if the recipient would have the right to compile it himself and own the right to continue using the product.
I think that this is one of several arguments/ways that companies can try to control the use of GPL'd software.
One other example is Red Hat which has a fairly restrictive user license that terminates their support and upgrades of your purchased product if you take actions supported by the GPL (e.g. deploying "unlicensed" copies of Red Hat GPL software).
Is it just me or does anyone else see the irony of Microsoft being one of the leaders to keep anything "open"? With something as important as the internet, is anyone really comfortable with the idea of Microsoft having anything to do with it. Not to even begin to brainstorm potential conflicts of interest or ways they would pervert the outcome,it scares me.
Coming next MSinternet 1.0: the only internet communication format that is optimized for speed and compatible with Windows IE. Yes it's mildly proprietary, but Microsoft insists that the 'old' internet needs to be dumped for security reasons!
I very much hope that they actually use a 'real' distribution for much of their work. However, the fact that it works under IE could be important for many of their customers (we certainly assume it functions under Mozilla).
I'd rather someone run Word on CrossOver Xandros than on XP. One step atta time one step atta time...
Not only should we listen to what he has to say because of who Ian is, people should take a look at the article and these threads should be spending more time discussing the content of what Progeny is proposing.
If you go through and take a look at what it offers, Progeny's platform management not only makes life much easier for development houses (hopefully attracting more apps), but it also makes Linux (using their componentizatio) a much more bullet-proof solution.
If this catches on, it could become a very widespread product. Regardless of who posted it, it's not just news, it's important news!
In the end, I think we both share very similar views about what is right and wrong in this, but I don't think either of us (can) know all the facts and certainly don't know how things are going to pan out.
That said, I honestly believe that 5 years from now Iraq is going to be self run and much better off regardless of which mobile standard they end up with.
2. Yes, lots of "collateral damage". Living in downtown New York, I appreciate how much this sucks. And yes, they will pay for much of the reconstruction, but they will have substantial help from Britain (~$70B pledged) and the US (not fixed yet, but estimated at $50-100B that the US will pay to rebuild Iraq). Furthermore, the Iraqi people will get a lot more benefit off their oil revenues when they are not being used to build Saddam's palaces, torture chambers, weapon programs, etc.
3. Yes, Saddam is major a**hole and I believe deserves anything he gets.
4. Actually, oil companies probably make less money in the long run. Although oil countries get the lions share of the profits when the prices are high, oil companies also substantially benefit. The result of this war will likely A) increase stability in the Gulf (with Saddam gone) and B) increase oil supply (with Iraq oil sources opened up). The net result of these two should substantially reduce the cost of oil and hence profits for oil companies.
Reason is that Iraqis are not being forced to have US standards. They are simply being provided to them for free. If they chose to go with GSM or any other standard they are more than able (as New York has done) to build have both systems simultaneously. The US just won't foot the bill.
I happen to use a Motorola phone that I paid to purchase and I pay Verizon a monthly bill. If someone gave me a free GSM Nokia phone and took care of monthly MCI bills, instead of saying "screw off you imperialist bastard", I would say: "Thankyou very much".
I've got to say that this is *ridiculous*. The US government is paying (using it's own money) to rebuild Iraq and should do whatever the hell they want. It's their money. If they want to build a huge "DISNEY WORLD IRAQ", more power to them.
The whole oil for money argument is bogus by the way. The bill for the war alone is heading way north of $100B for the parties involved. If every drop of oil went to defray the costs of the war (not to mention paying to rebuild the falling apart oil infrastructure first), it would take over two years to pay for the war. And, of course, the US and Britain are not going to divert the 100% of the oil fees for the next two years.
So if the US is going to provide free infrastructure for the Iraqi people, they should buy exactly whatever they want. If you want to bring in UN funds or your credit card then that would be a different story, but I don't see anyone mathcing the US and Britain's $150B free money for rebuilding.
Slashdot Mirror
The thread focuses a lot on the Office suite which is clearly critical, but there are several other very necessary features for Linux compatibility.
m l
i bi lity.html
Rather than copy the whole page. Here is a good summary of some of the critical pieces and how one of the Linux desktop vendors goes about meeting them:
http://www.xandros.com/windowscompatibility2.ht
Here is another of a bit more contentious nature:
http://www.xandros.com/windowsapplicationcompat
Not only are they "nice guys", but CodeWeavers Wine (CrossOver Office) works right now: today!
I have been running Office 97 on my Xandros desktop with it since last November and it has worked pretty much flawlessly (primary exception being that I find directory management a slight pain when saving or opening). Now I run Office XP: PowerPoint, Excel, Word on my Xandros Desktop and they work perfect. No complaints, you should definitely try it.
While CrossOver (CodeWeavers Wine) does not work for every app in the Windows universe, it does work for a couple of the most important and really kicks some butt while it is at it. By supporting these apps, it allows people to adopt Xandros where they otherwise would be stuck with Gates.
Aclerex poses little threat. Their technology does not work today and may never. Meanwhile CodeWeavers is chugging right along building up their user base.
My main concern is that their very open license will make it difficult for Code Weavers to make money long term. As anyone can grab the tree at any time and have their own version there is a low ceiling for what Code Weavers can charge. This in turn makes it harder for them to raise money, make money from selling their software, and, hence, invest in making CrossOver better, faster.
I agree with you over a short time horizon. However, if anti-piracy could be enforced, this would increase the revenue size and profitability of the industry as a whole.
This in turn would spur new entrants to come into the markets as well as existing software players to invest more in new products and improving existing ones (e.g. other virus solutions). The net result would be increased competition, likely better products, and a lower cost to the paying customers.
FWIW, the reason that you want a dimmer switch is that:
If the light is to hot -> the viscous fluid that you observe tends to turn into tons of small bubbles that go all over the place in not that cool of a way.
If the light is too cold -> nothing will really happen.
If the light is just right -> you'll get the sexy phallic undulating viscous membrane that women tend to prefer. Slight variations on this can be controlled with the switch.
Just an FYI....
Are they sure it wasn't the new Sims Virus Beta?
I guess you design what virus' do, how they affect computers, and watch them in a 'real world' simulation. You can even turn off firewalls and watch them tear through corporate networks (no nightmares please).
This could be illegal, but it's perfectly fine to blast away innocent people (and evil orcs) on Quake XII. As long as you don't do it in real life, it should be alright (and maybe a bad idea for impressionable minors).
GO TO BEDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!
If Symantec were to recover a decent percentage of the currently pirated copies, this would generate more revenue to cover overhead and profit growth.
There then is an argument that this could lower the price that Symantec needs to (and does) charge the legitimate users.
I'm a big Linux enthusiast, but also fully support closed source and charging if that's what software companies need to do to make money. Without this, they wouldn't be in business so it's naturally their right.
Maybe a little offtopic, but it may be illustrative to view it from a consulting (read expensive hourly) perspective.
I used to work in consulting doing enterprise implimentations of supply chain software systems as both consultant (programmer) and project manager.
Two of the huge issues were always budget (not spending too much (working too much as we were hourly)) and time (getting everything done on time).
If the clients (boss) asked us to provide extra functionality or wanted to change the design of something after it was complete, it would cause both time and budget delays. At the time of request for a change we would actually provide a quote with the cost in both time and money and have them (literally) sign off on it. This way after 6 months of overruns, we could point to their decisions along the way. My company would actually provide "combat pay" to consultants who billed a lot so there actually would be compensation for those that worked the insane hours (and put in the extra time to come in at 5AM to check the cron jobs).
Getting back to the point, I think the important thing is to tie or limit your employer to the amount of overtime that you put in and to begin to keep track of your hours. You could maybe look to 'industry standard' numbers for how much you should be expected to work. Of course, if your boss is a true a**hole, this may not be too easy. At a minimum though, you can demonstrate how they are not living up to their commitments or you can show how you are going the extra mile. The alternative is to leave, which as people pointed out, makes sense to do *after* finding a different job.
BTW, I definitely don't recommend the consulting job I mentioned above. 5 days a week on the road is no long term lifestyle that I would recommend to anyone and you will (and should) eventually burn out.
The average women has slept with 5 men.
The average non-programmer man has slept with 20 women.
Given that there has to be an opposite sex counterparty in each case, one side obviously is understating their actual logged 'events'. How do we know they aren't lying in this poll too?!?!!
So when you look at it the 'effective' age range for boys is probably 12-18 compared to a 40 year age range for women.
What probably is better to look at is just that 38% of the gamers are women. Surprisingly high to me, but good for them!
To sum up the numbers:
6-17.......21....
18+........38.........26......64
The remaining 3% have morphed into an unidentifiable classification.
I can imagine a world where everyone lives in peace with no danger or ill-will. No one would even lie lies and there would be no need for protection. The whole planet would be bathed in love and know nothing else.
I can also imagine finding this planet, enslaving everyone, taxing them at 40%, and selling thousands of Starbucks and McDonalds franchises to collect the rest.
Ok, how about Lindows and much more impressively Xandros. Voila!
This is in their recent 1.1 release that really kicks some serious booty.
One is example is Red Hat's EULA that terminates your (paid for) service and support if you make 'unlicensed/paid for' copies of Red Hat software...
The recipients (or lessee) of the software would (by your arguments and I think justifiably) have ongoing access to the GPL'd portions of the code (and specifically the source). However, it seems to me that their ongoing, use of the entire package could certainly be restricted by the proprietary portion present (whose copyright is owned by the lessor).
Taking this one step further, I think the argument could be made that even with a fully GPL'd product, that the distributor could restrict (and hence lease) the compiled version of the software even if the recipient would have the right to compile it himself and own the right to continue using the product.
I think that this is one of several arguments/ways that companies can try to control the use of GPL'd software.
One other example is Red Hat which has a fairly restrictive user license that terminates their support and upgrades of your purchased product if you take actions supported by the GPL (e.g. deploying "unlicensed" copies of Red Hat GPL software).
Coming next MSinternet 1.0: the only internet communication format that is optimized for speed and compatible with Windows IE. Yes it's mildly proprietary, but Microsoft insists that the 'old' internet needs to be dumped for security reasons!
I'd rather someone run Word on CrossOver Xandros than on XP. One step atta time one step atta time...
If you go through and take a look at what it offers, Progeny's platform management not only makes life much easier for development houses (hopefully attracting more apps), but it also makes Linux (using their componentizatio) a much more bullet-proof solution.
If this catches on, it could become a very widespread product. Regardless of who posted it, it's not just news, it's important news!
That said, I honestly believe that 5 years from now Iraq is going to be self run and much better off regardless of which mobile standard they end up with.
1. Yes $100B out of US tax payer pockets.
2. Yes, lots of "collateral damage". Living in downtown New York, I appreciate how much this sucks. And yes, they will pay for much of the reconstruction, but they will have substantial help from Britain (~$70B pledged) and the US (not fixed yet, but estimated at $50-100B that the US will pay to rebuild Iraq). Furthermore, the Iraqi people will get a lot more benefit off their oil revenues when they are not being used to build Saddam's palaces, torture chambers, weapon programs, etc.
3. Yes, Saddam is major a**hole and I believe deserves anything he gets.
4. Actually, oil companies probably make less money in the long run. Although oil countries get the lions share of the profits when the prices are high, oil companies also substantially benefit. The result of this war will likely A) increase stability in the Gulf (with Saddam gone) and B) increase oil supply (with Iraq oil sources opened up). The net result of these two should substantially reduce the cost of oil and hence profits for oil companies.
5. Yes, but that was laready the case.
Reason is that Iraqis are not being forced to have US standards. They are simply being provided to them for free. If they chose to go with GSM or any other standard they are more than able (as New York has done) to build have both systems simultaneously. The US just won't foot the bill.
I happen to use a Motorola phone that I paid to purchase and I pay Verizon a monthly bill. If someone gave me a free GSM Nokia phone and took care of monthly MCI bills, instead of saying "screw off you imperialist bastard", I would say: "Thankyou very much".
The whole oil for money argument is bogus by the way. The bill for the war alone is heading way north of $100B for the parties involved. If every drop of oil went to defray the costs of the war (not to mention paying to rebuild the falling apart oil infrastructure first), it would take over two years to pay for the war. And, of course, the US and Britain are not going to divert the 100% of the oil fees for the next two years.
So if the US is going to provide free infrastructure for the Iraqi people, they should buy exactly whatever they want. If you want to bring in UN funds or your credit card then that would be a different story, but I don't see anyone mathcing the US and Britain's $150B free money for rebuilding.
Otherwise, please save this flame for yourself.
In the meantime, all I really care about is making my family safe from Arabian terrorist tyrants.
And please forgive the pragmatism (I could care less about the IRA, but yes they should track the money down and jail the donators).
A flabbergasted Saddam: "Who, me associate with Terorrists??? Never...
From: A New Yorker.
Ok
He who knows knows not what is not that he knows not
He who not knows knows not what he knows not of