It's great to see Open Source used as a tool to help foster healthy competition where it otherwise may not happen. But it's also potentially bad if the Open Source path leads to worse results for end users.
Take for example the iPhone/Android comparison made. The iPhone took control away from the mobile phone carriers in regards to the device, allowing all iPhone users to see updates all at the same time. It also put a dent in the phone crapware problem. Android has done nether, suffering problems because devices can't be all easily updated. Google today announced that they will be updating APIs through Google Play. All because their attempts to update those APIs at the OS level failed due to carrier and device manufacturers holding up, or never providing OS updates. Google is only regaining control and providing better user experience on Android by becoming more closed, at least when it comes to how they deal with carriers and device manufacturers.
Yep but the whole point of open source is that people can modify it and fork it. Your argument can apply to desktop Linux too. Personally I think diversity is a good thing. But then again, not everyone is a geek.
>I've encountered companies like that. I wouldn't work for a company that had such a small R&D budget unless it was very, very small.
The OP is talking about expenses, not salaries. This is not about salary. the people at the engineering probably still get paid quite a lot, even though they are not buying new toys.
Sometimes I do wonder if the US having all the control is such a good idea - Megaupload was shut down last January, without judicial due process. However I am pretty damn sure that I don't want countries like China to control my Internet...
His family is now $2+ million richer in exchange for a chunk of worthless metal that was simply a physical symbol of a non-transferable honor paid to him.
Well, you said it yourself, that piece of metal is worth "$2+ million". It probably would be worth more, if his family keep it for longer.
What intrigues me is the fact that when I search Bioboosti/Biomobie, nothing much interesting comes up about that company. I wonder how Jack Wang is funding his company. I also want to know more about this mysterious new owner. Does he have any link to the top brasses in China?
Without the big investment by the pharmaceutical companies, new drugs would not have existed in the first place. It is a high-risk and high-reward business. However extorting dying patients is a bit morally questionable. But hey, we live in a society where everything can be measured by money.
Having said that, I think if the modification is small, and the investment into this new modification is small, then patent shouldn't be granted. I hope India doesn't end up with U.S's patenting culture, where the rounded corner on a phone can be patented.
"In response to the growing proliferation of the use of "secret sauce" as a vehicle for entrepreneurs', venture capitalists', and investment bankers' thinly veiled proprietary machinations, a global consortium of premium condiment manufacturers has launched the Open Sauce Foundation (OSF). Founding members include McIlhenny Company (producer of Tabasco brand pepper sauce), Huy Fong Foods (producer of "Rooster Brand" Sriracha sauce), and Kikkoman (producer of Kikkoman brand Soy Sauce). The new foundation's stated aim is not only to uphold the virtues of buying worthy sauce manufacturers' products, but to demonstrate to the tech, financial, and media communities that "Open" companies, and condiments, can, and do, assume leadership roles in their respective markets."
I have just uninstalled OpenSUSE and gone back to Debian testing. I found OpenSUSE has way too many settings exposed. Things got a bit confusing. It felt like reading through the whole squid.conf example file. My brain couldn't cope with so many settings.
I would say OpenSUSE is a good distro if you like being in charge of things. The KDE PIM in OpenSUSE actually works, except Kmail keeps forgeting the SMTP password every time after reboot. This problem happens in Kubuntu as well. The KDE PIM in Debian Testing is very dodgy.
Anyway, I have given up on KDE PIM. I am using Mint's Thunderbird alongside with Debian testing. You can add Mint's repository to your Debian system. They are fully compatible. Although you can do a bit of APT pinning if you are paranoid about Mint taking over the system.
I only want Mint's Thunderbird stuff. I suppose I could download Thunderbird's binary directly from Mozilla website, but I prefer to install things from a repository.
It is about people hacking the docking station for laptops...
If the victim is very important to the organisation which conducts hacking, a custom made PCB might be implant into the docking station... There is no need to use Raspberry Pi, which would make the whole thing very amateur.
MTP looks great on paper, in practice it is dog slow and buggy. Back to the drawing board please.
True, I had trouble copying files between my Nexus 7 tablet and my Xubuntu laptop. But other than MTP, what royalty-free protocol for transferring files is compatible with a Windows host without having to download drivers, become an administrator, and install them? FAT over MSC, the solution used in Android 2.x, was found not to be royalty-free; Microsoft has been winning lawsuits with its FAT patents.
How about a nice Samba server? Windows, Linux and Mac all support them. You can even copy media file over Wifi.
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?" A: "Because it is there."
That was a reason to climb the mountain, not walk around it. Landing people on Mars would enable them to do a lot of scientific exploration. A fly-by is pointless. We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
Well, people don't live on top of Mount Everest. They come back home. Dismissing the significance of this mission is like dismissing the significance of Apollo 8.
Whats the point? You're shoving many extra tons (between person and life support), and you have to put it on an orbit that brings it back home, and for a payload that can do little more than look out the window and go "ohh, pretty" while being irradiated for years outside of the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?" A: "Because it is there."
I think I will invoke Betteridge's law of headlines here. The simple answer is no. Quickoffice on Chromebook is a bit like a pocket knife. Microsoft Office is a similar to a kitchen knife. They both have their purposes, and they are designed for different market niches. Yes sometimes there are overlaps. However in this case the overlap is not big enough.
noble prize don't mean anything anymore since they awarded to Obama for doing NOTHING!
Well, Nobel Peace Prize has been like that for the past 4 decades. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger)
Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," signed the January previous.[20] Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been really restored in South Vietnam.[28] Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility."[29][30] The conflict continued until an invasion of the South by the North Vietnamese Army resulted in a North Vietnamese victory in 1975 and the subsequent progression of the Pathet Lao in Laos towards figurehead status.
I live in the UK, it has never come across to me that unlocking mobile phone is illegal. In fact the service providers here tend to provide instructions on how to unlock your phone. e.g. http://giffgaff.com/unlock
Want good care that you might have to wait a while for, but won't bankrupt you in the process?
Well, in quite a lot of European countries, you need to have paid certain amount of tax before they let you join the queue. There are laws deterring medical tourism. It might end up costing the same as US, if you go to EU for medical tourism.
Slashdot Mirror
It's so old school.
I think Industrial Control System came before Ice Cream Sandwich...
It's great to see Open Source used as a tool to help foster healthy competition where it otherwise may not happen. But it's also potentially bad if the Open Source path leads to worse results for end users.
Take for example the iPhone/Android comparison made. The iPhone took control away from the mobile phone carriers in regards to the device, allowing all iPhone users to see updates all at the same time. It also put a dent in the phone crapware problem. Android has done nether, suffering problems because devices can't be all easily updated. Google today announced that they will be updating APIs through Google Play. All because their attempts to update those APIs at the OS level failed due to carrier and device manufacturers holding up, or never providing OS updates. Google is only regaining control and providing better user experience on Android by becoming more closed, at least when it comes to how they deal with carriers and device manufacturers.
Yep but the whole point of open source is that people can modify it and fork it. Your argument can apply to desktop Linux too. Personally I think diversity is a good thing. But then again, not everyone is a geek.
>I've encountered companies like that. I wouldn't work for a company that had such a small R&D budget unless it was very, very small.
The OP is talking about expenses, not salaries. This is not about salary. the people at the engineering probably still get paid quite a lot, even though they are not buying new toys.
Sometimes I do wonder if the US having all the control is such a good idea - Megaupload was shut down last January, without judicial due process. However I am pretty damn sure that I don't want countries like China to control my Internet...
His family is now $2+ million richer in exchange for a chunk of worthless metal that was simply a physical symbol of a non-transferable honor paid to him.
Well, you said it yourself, that piece of metal is worth "$2+ million". It probably would be worth more, if his family keep it for longer.
Considering the Hollywood loves using lawyers to sue this and that, they are not going to make this kind of film any time soon...
Cricks received this medal for reaching the pinnacle of science research at his time. Now the medal is going to be given to a quack...
What intrigues me is the fact that when I search Bioboosti/Biomobie, nothing much interesting comes up about that company. I wonder how Jack Wang is funding his company. I also want to know more about this mysterious new owner. Does he have any link to the top brasses in China?
Without the big investment by the pharmaceutical companies, new drugs would not have existed in the first place. It is a high-risk and high-reward business. However extorting dying patients is a bit morally questionable. But hey, we live in a society where everything can be measured by money.
Having said that, I think if the modification is small, and the investment into this new modification is small, then patent shouldn't be granted. I hope India doesn't end up with U.S's patenting culture, where the rounded corner on a phone can be patented.
"In response to the growing proliferation of the use of "secret sauce" as a vehicle for entrepreneurs', venture capitalists', and investment bankers' thinly veiled proprietary machinations, a global consortium of premium condiment manufacturers has launched the Open Sauce Foundation (OSF). Founding members include McIlhenny Company (producer of Tabasco brand pepper sauce), Huy Fong Foods (producer of "Rooster Brand" Sriracha sauce), and Kikkoman (producer of Kikkoman brand Soy Sauce). The new foundation's stated aim is not only to uphold the virtues of buying worthy sauce manufacturers' products, but to demonstrate to the tech, financial, and media communities that "Open" companies, and condiments, can, and do, assume leadership roles in their respective markets."
I would recommend LMDE rather than the standard Mint. LMDE is easier to upgrade/update.
Debian testing doesn't change as radically as Ubuntu, which is why I like it.
I have just uninstalled OpenSUSE and gone back to Debian testing. I found OpenSUSE has way too many settings exposed. Things got a bit confusing. It felt like reading through the whole squid.conf example file. My brain couldn't cope with so many settings.
I would say OpenSUSE is a good distro if you like being in charge of things. The KDE PIM in OpenSUSE actually works, except Kmail keeps forgeting the SMTP password every time after reboot. This problem happens in Kubuntu as well. The KDE PIM in Debian Testing is very dodgy.
Anyway, I have given up on KDE PIM. I am using Mint's Thunderbird alongside with Debian testing. You can add Mint's repository to your Debian system. They are fully compatible. Although you can do a bit of APT pinning if you are paranoid about Mint taking over the system.
Not bad. Xubuntu is pure gold.
KDE on Debian + Mint repo.
I only want Mint's Thunderbird stuff. I suppose I could download Thunderbird's binary directly from Mozilla website, but I prefer to install things from a repository.
It is about people hacking the docking station for laptops...
If the victim is very important to the organisation which conducts hacking, a custom made PCB might be implant into the docking station... There is no need to use Raspberry Pi, which would make the whole thing very amateur.
MTP looks great on paper, in practice it is dog slow and buggy. Back to the drawing board please.
True, I had trouble copying files between my Nexus 7 tablet and my Xubuntu laptop. But other than MTP, what royalty-free protocol for transferring files is compatible with a Windows host without having to download drivers, become an administrator, and install them? FAT over MSC, the solution used in Android 2.x, was found not to be royalty-free; Microsoft has been winning lawsuits with its FAT patents.
How about a nice Samba server? Windows, Linux and Mac all support them. You can even copy media file over Wifi.
No, Google bundles the OS with the browser...
The EU is just using Microsoft as a cash machine. The whole EU is in recession, you see...
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
That was a reason to climb the mountain, not walk around it. Landing people on Mars would enable them to do a lot of scientific exploration. A fly-by is pointless. We would learn nothing about Mars that couldn't be done with an unmanned orbiter. We would learn nothing about humans in space that we couldn't learn in Earth orbit.
Well, people don't live on top of Mount Everest. They come back home. Dismissing the significance of this mission is like dismissing the significance of Apollo 8.
Whats the point? You're shoving many extra tons (between person and life support), and you have to put it on an orbit that brings it back home, and for a payload that can do little more than look out the window and go "ohh, pretty" while being irradiated for years outside of the protection of the Earth's magnetic field.
Even if the mission goes 100% to plan, the cancer risk alone is probably a death sentence for the two passengers.
Q: "Why climb Mount Everest?"
A: "Because it is there."
I think I will invoke Betteridge's law of headlines here. The simple answer is no. Quickoffice on Chromebook is a bit like a pocket knife. Microsoft Office is a similar to a kitchen knife. They both have their purposes, and they are designed for different market niches. Yes sometimes there are overlaps. However in this case the overlap is not big enough.
There's no point buying a Class 10 card if your camera's write speed is no faster than Class 6.
Well, with a faster card, you can copy the data out of the card quicker.
noble prize don't mean anything anymore since they awarded to Obama for doing NOTHING!
Well, Nobel Peace Prize has been like that for the past 4 decades. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger)
Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," signed the January previous.[20] Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been really restored in South Vietnam.[28] Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility."[29][30] The conflict continued until an invasion of the South by the North Vietnamese Army resulted in a North Vietnamese victory in 1975 and the subsequent progression of the Pathet Lao in Laos towards figurehead status.
I live in the UK, it has never come across to me that unlocking mobile phone is illegal. In fact the service providers here tend to provide instructions on how to unlock your phone. e.g. http://giffgaff.com/unlock
All those SDK/OS releases are cool. However for end consumers to use it, we do need devices that support it...
Want good care that you might have to wait a while for, but won't bankrupt you in the process?
Well, in quite a lot of European countries, you need to have paid certain amount of tax before they let you join the queue. There are laws deterring medical tourism. It might end up costing the same as US, if you go to EU for medical tourism.