If we want to maintain the quality and stability that the Linux kernel has, we need to resist binary drivers. Many of the stability issues remaining with Windows today I believe are in fact driver issues.
Yes, most stability issues come from drivers. But is Linux different? Anyway, based on my personal experience, I don't think Linux is more stable than Windows.
to countless programmers who may or may not have special interest in improving Linux specifically
This idea that there is countless people doing the quality control stuff is simply whishful thinking. Sure, important drivers do get tested and reviewed. But for the less common hardware, there's only a few people doing all the work. Are those few people better than the one working for the hardware company?
It might even lead to someone eventually getting into a position where they could charge for an essential part of the system thus rendering it non-free even in the beer sense.
Computers are tools, nothing more. Most people don't mind paying for softwares and most people don't care about being able to have access to the source code of a driver. Even in the Linux world, people don't mind using Nvidia and ATI binary drivers.
There is one fact. Linux is not succeeding on the desktop. Can you tell why?
Maybe it's just "fucking kernel modules" that need to be recompiled, but this is why linux is not supported by most hardware companies. And this is why linux has only 1 or 2% market share on the desktop.
Maybe you're not aware of it, but copy protections cost money. So why do you think every companies use them? Yep, they spend money on copy protections because of people like you.
I hate copy protections too, but I know one thing : the source of the problem is people like you. If I can't make a backup it's because of people like you. I don't hate Valve or any other game developer, but I certainly hate people like you.
There's one thing I'd like to know... where do you live? If you live in Canada, could you give me your real name and your address? I'll certainly take the time to call the RCMP.
BTW, I'm not a Valve fanboy. I didn't buy the game and probably will never buy it. It's just that I hate assholes who try to abuse other people.
What do you mean by "prohibitively expensive"? From what I read, a caddy would cost less than $1. Adding one dollar to a $15 music CD, or a $20 movie, or a $40 games is not significant. And my backups are worth far more than a dollar.
I tried SuSE 9.2 live CD and, even though I couldn't use my TV card (compro videomate TV ultra) nor my scanner (parallel port) out of the box, it looks better than Mandrake 10.0. But I have a question... Is there anything like PLF for SuSE?
Re:Old school hackers vs. new school hackers.
on
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· Score: 1
Pauvre minable. Obnubilé par ta propre médiocrité intellectuelle, tu espères façonner un monde où tu pourrais satisfaire l'instinct qui te pousse à chier sur les autres. Ta vision sociale n'est que le rêve d'un vulgaire animal incapable de voir autre chose que son nombril. Tu n'es qu'une des briques de notre société pourrie; et, le pire, est que tu en es fier. Crétin.
Re:Old school hackers vs. new school hackers.
on
Good Bad Attitude
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· Score: 1
"Little brat"? I said I wasn't using P2P. This should have given you a hint. I don't even rent books from my local library.
My problem is not with copyrights. I believe copyrights are not a good solution but it's better than nothing (in theory). My problem is with assholes like you who thinks it's perfectly ok to abuse a system and other people. Honestly, you could starve to death I wouldn't care less. I don't give a shit about your "rights".
BTW, would you care to say what is your book so I don't spend my money buying it?
Re:Old school hackers vs. new school hackers.
on
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· Score: 1
And why should people respect this idea of "intellectual property". I'm sorry, but thinking of something should not give you the right to forbid other people to think of the same thing. This is abuse. If you don't want people to use your idea, keep it for yourself. It is as simple as that.
I have no respect whatsoever for people who try to limit my freedom in order to "make money". Patents and copyrights should only be there to encourage creativity. Nothing more.
This afternoon I just saw a little girl (8 or 9 years old) buying some bread and ketchup with some small change. This was the only food she could afford. In front of the cash register she was looking at some CD on display, probably dreaming of having enough money to buy one. And you are saying that we should be more respectful of intellectual property? Sorry, but you can go to hell. What I saw this afternoon disgust me. Britney Spears can go to hell. Long live P2P (unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that little girl didn't have a computer).
BTW, I guess you think I say this because I'm selfish (thinking how better than me you are). Well, guess what... I don't use P2P. Of course, I dont buy CDs either. The only one I will buy this year is the new Rammstein when it's out on november 16. And the funny part is, from an ideological point of view, I know I should not buy it.
I guess you think of yourself as someone "good". Sorry, but this is not my opinion.
Yeah, you're probably right. I guess I'll pay a visit to all my clients and remove all tape backups right now! And while I'm at it I'll also remove hard disks because they can obviously be removed. And I'll buy computers whithout SCSI controllers because anyone could put a hard drive in it. Oh and I guess I'll have to buy computers without PCI slots... or USB... or serial ports...
No, I have the solution : I'll cut the power. That should do it... Oh no... It's true, batteries do exist! OMG! I'm in deep shit!
As if North Korea was the only country spying on other countries. I'm pretty sure North Korea secret service is a joke compared to the one from the US, Israel, the UK, France... From the US governemnt spying on Airbus for the benefit of Boeing, to Israel spying on the US so they can better influence it's middle east policy, everyone is spying on everyone.
I'm sure the NSA is really frightened by those 500 hackers...
And the fact that this comment is moderated as "Insightful" instead of "Funny" is a proof that the war on drugs is a failure and moderators are on crack.
FUD? You may believe whatever you wish, but I have far more problems with my mandrake 10.0 box at home than with Windows 2000. Oh, most of the time it's not big problems and I can find workaround. But I'm to a point where I'm fed up with Linux distros. Why the hell mandrake use totem by default? XMMS works great, but no, they had to use the shiny thing that crash like if there was no tomorrow. And I'm not even talking about their configuration tools. For example, this stupid things can't understand that I have two sound card on my computer. Sure, using vi to edit modules.conf each time their tool rewrite my file is not that hard, but it's certainly annoying to redo the same thing again and again.
Don't get me wrong, I know Linux is fine on servers... I install them. Of course some things are to be avoided (like 2.6.x or LVM) but overall it does the job.
What pisses me off is people who pretend everything is fine. I remember when I first tried 2.6.2 on my home computer. After 15 minutes I had my first hard lockup (guess what chipset I was using). I don't really blame linux for those lockups but I certainly blame all morons who were saying there was no problem with nforce2 and linux. A few weeks ago, I upgraded to 2.6.8. And guess what... yep, no more CD burning. But you can still find people who say this is not true.
Now, you say that you have a lot of problems with Outlook. Sorry, but THIS is FUD. Yes, there is some bugs in Outlook and I believe you when say "you've had whole inboxes eaten". It even happened to me once (although it was a long time ago with Outlook 97/windows 95). But the fact is those kind of problems are very rare.
Now back to mozilla... Single data point? Well, no it's not a single data point. Just test the damn address book for 45 minutes and you'll find errors. When I say Mozilla's address book is unusable it's not because of a single error. I tried (again) thunderbird not long ago and it took me 5 minutes before a contact disappeared. For God's sake, 5 minutes of testing! (BTW, I'm using thunderbird at home, but since my address book has only 10 contacts, everything works fine)
You may think losing a whole inbox is worse than losing a contact... no it's not. All my clients have at least daily backups. The most they can lose is one day of e-mail. If they received anything important, they can ask the person to re-send the e-mail (I know, I had some people who deleted their inbox by mistake). If it happens once in a blue moon, that's annoying but acceptable. (BTW, most of my clients use an IMAP server and every e-mail, incoming or outgoing, is permanently saved on a backup server, so even if their local hard disk crash or if they erased all their mail by mistake, they won't lose anything)
OTOH, when you have to check your address book every time you send an e-mail to a group of person because contacts disappear regularly, that's bad. When you send an e-mail to the WRONG ADDRESS, that's even worse.
You want to think everything that I say is FUD. Fine. But then don't be surprised if management don't want to hear about OSS after a bad experience.
One less vote do not becomes 50. One less vote is only one less vote, nothing more. I'm not a "leader" and if my neighbour don't vote it's not because of what I do, but because of what HE thinks. But you really don't seem to understand that.
Having said that, I'm not a sheep so I WON'T vote. It's not apathy, it's just that I'm not a moron. I'll vote the day I live in a democracy.
I know it's hard to resist the temptation, but if you want to live in a democracy, please, don't vote. It only encourage them.
You pay an employe $50,000 a year. If you pay $100 for a license, your employee will be happy. If not, your employee will think you're cheap. Now... guess how people react when they think their boss is cheap...
You are right in saying that most features are not that important. But since the cost is so low, who cares?
Also, the alternatives are not far "superior". Take the Mozilla suite for example. I tested it with one of my clients who was using OE. I thought, "hey, OE! This guy is perfect for a switch"! It was catastrophic. Mozilla's address book regularly lose contacts. I even saw it once mixing addresses (deleted a contact, and the address of the deleted contact replaced the e-mail address of the previous one - it's a chance I caught that one, otherwise I would have been in big trouble). I mean, it's a very simple database, but it's buggy as hell. I checked Thunderbird and it does the same thing. I switched back to outlook express in no time.
I know here on slashdot everyone say OSS are great. But the fact is most OSS are extremely buggy. Some are ok (Linux, OpenOffice, Firebird...), some, like mozilla mail, are unusable in a business place.
Sure, from a philosophical point of view, freedom is kind of nice. But in practice, no one cares. And since license costs are low, using free alternatives is kind of dumb for a company.
The desktop is where a lot of people keep the file they are currently working on. It's like the folder you keep on your desk and put back in the box ONLY when you are done with it.
I don't know what kind of document you are working with, but I NEVER saw a document that OOo could handle better than a previous version of Word/Excel. In fact, it's very rare when Word 97 has any kind of problem opening a newer document. OTOH, OOo almost never import a complex document correctly.
Sure, I still remember what the mess was with Office 95. But NO ONE is still using Office 95.
Theft or not, do you really think people care about being honest? Yes, some of us do. But for the majority, the risk of being caught is the only thing that counts.
Being the first on their block? OOo is viewed as a cheap alternative for people who don't have money. Do you really think this is what people want to say to the world about them? What's next? You'd want people to ditch their $30,000 SUV for an ordinary car?
I am trying to push for OpenOffice, but it's an uphill battle to say the least.
Anyway, as long as OOo do not have near perfect MS Office filters, proposing to switch is really dumb for someone who want to keep his job/client .
It says patches for the new version of IE will only be available for people who have the new version of IE (i.e. the one with XP). It doesn't say anywhere that there won't be any new patches for the old version of IE (the one with 2000).
Slashdot Mirror
A Lamborghini may looks cool, but with the Smart, it's the driver who looks cool.
If we want to maintain the quality and stability that the Linux kernel has, we need to resist binary drivers. Many of the stability issues remaining with Windows today I believe are in fact driver issues.
Yes, most stability issues come from drivers. But is Linux different? Anyway, based on my personal experience, I don't think Linux is more stable than Windows.
to countless programmers who may or may not have special interest in improving Linux specifically
This idea that there is countless people doing the quality control stuff is simply whishful thinking. Sure, important drivers do get tested and reviewed. But for the less common hardware, there's only a few people doing all the work. Are those few people better than the one working for the hardware company?
It might even lead to someone eventually getting into a position where they could charge for an essential part of the system thus rendering it non-free even in the beer sense.
Computers are tools, nothing more. Most people don't mind paying for softwares and most people don't care about being able to have access to the source code of a driver. Even in the Linux world, people don't mind using Nvidia and ATI binary drivers.
There is one fact. Linux is not succeeding on the desktop. Can you tell why?
Maybe it's just "fucking kernel modules" that need to be recompiled, but this is why linux is not supported by most hardware companies. And this is why linux has only 1 or 2% market share on the desktop.
Maybe you're not aware of it, but copy protections cost money. So why do you think every companies use them? Yep, they spend money on copy protections because of people like you.
I hate copy protections too, but I know one thing : the source of the problem is people like you. If I can't make a backup it's because of people like you. I don't hate Valve or any other game developer, but I certainly hate people like you.
There's one thing I'd like to know... where do you live? If you live in Canada, could you give me your real name and your address? I'll certainly take the time to call the RCMP.
BTW, I'm not a Valve fanboy. I didn't buy the game and probably will never buy it. It's just that I hate assholes who try to abuse other people.
What do you mean by "prohibitively expensive"? From what I read, a caddy would cost less than $1. Adding one dollar to a $15 music CD, or a $20 movie, or a $40 games is not significant. And my backups are worth far more than a dollar.
I tried SuSE 9.2 live CD and, even though I couldn't use my TV card (compro videomate TV ultra) nor my scanner (parallel port) out of the box, it looks better than Mandrake 10.0. But I have a question... Is there anything like PLF for SuSE?
Pauvre minable. Obnubilé par ta propre médiocrité intellectuelle, tu espères façonner un monde où tu pourrais satisfaire l'instinct qui te pousse à chier sur les autres. Ta vision sociale n'est que le rêve d'un vulgaire animal incapable de voir autre chose que son nombril. Tu n'es qu'une des briques de notre société pourrie; et, le pire, est que tu en es fier. Crétin.
"Little brat"? I said I wasn't using P2P. This should have given you a hint. I don't even rent books from my local library.
My problem is not with copyrights. I believe copyrights are not a good solution but it's better than nothing (in theory). My problem is with assholes like you who thinks it's perfectly ok to abuse a system and other people. Honestly, you could starve to death I wouldn't care less. I don't give a shit about your "rights".
BTW, would you care to say what is your book so I don't spend my money buying it?
And why should people respect this idea of "intellectual property". I'm sorry, but thinking of something should not give you the right to forbid other people to think of the same thing. This is abuse. If you don't want people to use your idea, keep it for yourself. It is as simple as that.
I have no respect whatsoever for people who try to limit my freedom in order to "make money". Patents and copyrights should only be there to encourage creativity. Nothing more.
This afternoon I just saw a little girl (8 or 9 years old) buying some bread and ketchup with some small change. This was the only food she could afford. In front of the cash register she was looking at some CD on display, probably dreaming of having enough money to buy one. And you are saying that we should be more respectful of intellectual property? Sorry, but you can go to hell. What I saw this afternoon disgust me. Britney Spears can go to hell. Long live P2P (unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that little girl didn't have a computer).
BTW, I guess you think I say this because I'm selfish (thinking how better than me you are). Well, guess what... I don't use P2P. Of course, I dont buy CDs either. The only one I will buy this year is the new Rammstein when it's out on november 16. And the funny part is, from an ideological point of view, I know I should not buy it.
I guess you think of yourself as someone "good". Sorry, but this is not my opinion.
Yeah, you're probably right. I guess I'll pay a visit to all my clients and remove all tape backups right now! And while I'm at it I'll also remove hard disks because they can obviously be removed. And I'll buy computers whithout SCSI controllers because anyone could put a hard drive in it. Oh and I guess I'll have to buy computers without PCI slots... or USB... or serial ports...
No, I have the solution : I'll cut the power. That should do it... Oh no... It's true, batteries do exist! OMG! I'm in deep shit!
As if North Korea was the only country spying on other countries. I'm pretty sure North Korea secret service is a joke compared to the one from the US, Israel, the UK, France... From the US governemnt spying on Airbus for the benefit of Boeing, to Israel spying on the US so they can better influence it's middle east policy, everyone is spying on everyone.
I'm sure the NSA is really frightened by those 500 hackers...
And the fact that this comment is moderated as "Insightful" instead of "Funny" is a proof that the war on drugs is a failure and moderators are on crack.
Is there a port for Windows?
FUD? You may believe whatever you wish, but I have far more problems with my mandrake 10.0 box at home than with Windows 2000. Oh, most of the time it's not big problems and I can find workaround. But I'm to a point where I'm fed up with Linux distros. Why the hell mandrake use totem by default? XMMS works great, but no, they had to use the shiny thing that crash like if there was no tomorrow. And I'm not even talking about their configuration tools. For example, this stupid things can't understand that I have two sound card on my computer. Sure, using vi to edit modules.conf each time their tool rewrite my file is not that hard, but it's certainly annoying to redo the same thing again and again.
Don't get me wrong, I know Linux is fine on servers... I install them. Of course some things are to be avoided (like 2.6.x or LVM) but overall it does the job.
What pisses me off is people who pretend everything is fine. I remember when I first tried 2.6.2 on my home computer. After 15 minutes I had my first hard lockup (guess what chipset I was using). I don't really blame linux for those lockups but I certainly blame all morons who were saying there was no problem with nforce2 and linux. A few weeks ago, I upgraded to 2.6.8. And guess what... yep, no more CD burning. But you can still find people who say this is not true.
Now, you say that you have a lot of problems with Outlook. Sorry, but THIS is FUD. Yes, there is some bugs in Outlook and I believe you when say "you've had whole inboxes eaten". It even happened to me once (although it was a long time ago with Outlook 97/windows 95). But the fact is those kind of problems are very rare.
Now back to mozilla... Single data point? Well, no it's not a single data point. Just test the damn address book for 45 minutes and you'll find errors. When I say Mozilla's address book is unusable it's not because of a single error. I tried (again) thunderbird not long ago and it took me 5 minutes before a contact disappeared. For God's sake, 5 minutes of testing! (BTW, I'm using thunderbird at home, but since my address book has only 10 contacts, everything works fine)
You may think losing a whole inbox is worse than losing a contact... no it's not. All my clients have at least daily backups. The most they can lose is one day of e-mail. If they received anything important, they can ask the person to re-send the e-mail (I know, I had some people who deleted their inbox by mistake). If it happens once in a blue moon, that's annoying but acceptable. (BTW, most of my clients use an IMAP server and every e-mail, incoming or outgoing, is permanently saved on a backup server, so even if their local hard disk crash or if they erased all their mail by mistake, they won't lose anything)
OTOH, when you have to check your address book every time you send an e-mail to a group of person because contacts disappear regularly, that's bad. When you send an e-mail to the WRONG ADDRESS, that's even worse.
You want to think everything that I say is FUD. Fine. But then don't be surprised if management don't want to hear about OSS after a bad experience.
One less vote do not becomes 50. One less vote is only one less vote, nothing more. I'm not a "leader" and if my neighbour don't vote it's not because of what I do, but because of what HE thinks. But you really don't seem to understand that.
Having said that, I'm not a sheep so I WON'T vote. It's not apathy, it's just that I'm not a moron. I'll vote the day I live in a democracy.
I know it's hard to resist the temptation, but if you want to live in a democracy, please, don't vote. It only encourage them.
You pay an employe $50,000 a year. If you pay $100 for a license, your employee will be happy. If not, your employee will think you're cheap. Now... guess how people react when they think their boss is cheap...
You are right in saying that most features are not that important. But since the cost is so low, who cares?
Also, the alternatives are not far "superior". Take the Mozilla suite for example. I tested it with one of my clients who was using OE. I thought, "hey, OE! This guy is perfect for a switch"! It was catastrophic. Mozilla's address book regularly lose contacts. I even saw it once mixing addresses (deleted a contact, and the address of the deleted contact replaced the e-mail address of the previous one - it's a chance I caught that one, otherwise I would have been in big trouble). I mean, it's a very simple database, but it's buggy as hell. I checked Thunderbird and it does the same thing. I switched back to outlook express in no time.
I know here on slashdot everyone say OSS are great. But the fact is most OSS are extremely buggy. Some are ok (Linux, OpenOffice, Firebird...), some, like mozilla mail, are unusable in a business place.
Sure, from a philosophical point of view, freedom is kind of nice. But in practice, no one cares. And since license costs are low, using free alternatives is kind of dumb for a company.
Bush did acknowledge those effects. It's just that he thinks Kyoto would hurt the economy.
Saying it's a beta product is an excuse, nothing more. 20 years ago, alpha, beta and release had clear significations. Now, it doesn't mean anything.
The desktop is where a lot of people keep the file they are currently working on. It's like the folder you keep on your desk and put back in the box ONLY when you are done with it.
And what about putting "i" and "e" after "MS" ?
Will copy protected CD become the "New Coke"? By looking at the first reactions here I'd say yes!
I don't know what kind of document you are working with, but I NEVER saw a document that OOo could handle better than a previous version of Word/Excel. In fact, it's very rare when Word 97 has any kind of problem opening a newer document. OTOH, OOo almost never import a complex document correctly.
Sure, I still remember what the mess was with Office 95. But NO ONE is still using Office 95.
Theft or not, do you really think people care about being honest? Yes, some of us do. But for the majority, the risk of being caught is the only thing that counts.
Being the first on their block? OOo is viewed as a cheap alternative for people who don't have money. Do you really think this is what people want to say to the world about them? What's next? You'd want people to ditch their $30,000 SUV for an ordinary car?
I am trying to push for OpenOffice, but it's an uphill battle to say the least.
Anyway, as long as OOo do not have near perfect MS Office filters, proposing to switch is really dumb for someone who want to keep his job/client
.
It's certainly better to learn from an average computer than a poor human player. No?
It says patches for the new version of IE will only be available for people who have the new version of IE (i.e. the one with XP). It doesn't say anywhere that there won't be any new patches for the old version of IE (the one with 2000).