That was my first thought, then it occurred to me how useful this would be. In addition to the census taker recording your address, the system records the lat & long. Not only does this help provide error correction & prevent fraudulent entries (I imagine some census takers just fill out the forms without actually making their rounds), but it also simplifies interpreting geographic data. Want to know how many people live between the 44th & 45th parallels in the US? No problem, the data's already in the system.
Again, you see them as asking for charity. They are not. They are asking their users to pay for the product they are currently using for free. You site Compaq as an example, but of course that is a stupid example. Compaq does not give away the vast majority of their computers.
If 10% of the users who download Mandrake for free would subscribe at $60 a year, I doubt they would be having even a short term problem. But, the vast majority of users are not willing to do that. This creates a problem. They can continue to give everything away for free & go out of business, they can do like some other distros & REQUIRE a subscription to download, or they can ASK users to subscribe & hope a high enough number do to support the rest who can't or won't. To me, three is the best option.
As for getting VC or a loan, those may still be options. But why get money that you have to pay back, or give away more ownership, when they can ask their user base to pay up for what they've been getting for free. This is a win-win situation for their users and for them: Their users continue to get the best distribution for their needs, they get the cash they need without the issues the other options entail.
I guess what it boils down to is that I don't understand how you can criticize Mandrake's business model when all they are really doing is MARKETING THEIR SERVICES. One aspect of Mandrakes business model is selling subscriptions. Here they are asking people to subscribe. Are they playing on your guilt in doing so? Sure, but Microsoft does the same thing in their anti-piracy campains. The only difference is that Mandrake doesn't threaten you with jail time if you don't subscribe.
So, users (or non-users in many cases) religiously spend tons of money to support this COMPANY and any owners it may have. First off, doesn't it seem hypocritical that your donations are not improving the world, but rather, making someone's pocket a little more stuffed?
Ummm... Mandrake isn't asking for donations. They are asking for people to support them by joining the Mandrake club, which includes several benefits:
Club-only download of commercial applications normally only available in retail products (even before the commercial packages are available in the shops!).
Discounts on products and special offers (would you like us to negotiate a discount on Sharp PDA or Win4Lin ?).
A place in MandrakeSoft's "Hall of Fame".
Direct trading of MandrakeSoft shares.
Possibility to ask questions (and receive answers) in "Ask Mandrake" series. The first one was with Gael Duval - the creator of Mandrake Linux
Special Internet services that will be created by the suggestions of members (such as voting rights, special chat sessions with Mandrake team members, etc.)
If you don't find these benefits, coupled with the benefits provided by their distribution (which you probably downloaded for free) to be of value, don't join. Don't use Mandrake? Fine, don't join. If you read the article, they are asking users to join the club, not everyone who runs Linux. (And, for the record, Mandrake does have a donations page allowing users to donate to help support a specific OS project that Mandrake sponsors. These donations do not, however, go to supporting Mandrakesoft as a company.)
Secondly, do you think that all the tons of money being spent by people like yourself is worth the code Mandrake has contributed?
Without question, yes. Mandrake's distribution is absolutely second to none for new users. And for the record, I do not use it currently myself, having recently switched to Gentoo (another distribution that you probably think should go away).
RedHat contributes, but they don't hide the fact that they are a company. And most of all, they have a sustainable business model that doesn't require generosity from a bunch of naieve Linux/GNU zeleots.
Mandrake has historically made a profit on it's Linux Distribution, and last I heard had the number one retail distribution (more then 30% of all Linux distributions purchased in the US are Mandrake. See The Register for more details). Poor management by their previous management team led them into their current financial straits. Asking their users to help chip in (they do give away their product for free, remember) is not the least bit unreasonable.
Yes, companies like Eazel contribute to the rest of the community as well, yet nobody decided to shell out tons of money on the odd chance it would keep them floating. Why? No buzzword! I don't mind if you still want to 'donate' to this 'company', but at least be honest about it...
Had Eazel actually had a forseeable revenue stream, I'm sure they would have survived without a problem. The issue in their case was simply one of timing. They ran out of money at a time when VC was extremely scarce & they couldn't have survived more then a short time on the amount of revenue that they could have generated with a program such as this. Mandrake on the other hand is much healthier, but needs a short-term cash infusion.
Again, You are free to buy Mandrake's products or join their club or not, as you see fit. But arguing that they are somehow wrong for asking for their users to do so is simply stupid.
I don't remember all of the details, but the previous management did things like buying training companies that no experience with Linux and such. I wish I remembered more, but I remember being quite annoyed after reading the article.
Anyway, the original French management is back in charge now (the old management were mostly Americans brought in to opave the way for an american IPO), so hopefully they can get passed their current problems and get back on the road to profitability.
Why on earth would a Mac user use vi when they could be using BBEdit? While I use vi frequently, I'd drop it in a second if BareBones would port BBEdit to Linux.
This is +4 interesting? I've rarely read more blatant Flamebait.
As others have pointed out, Mandrake makes significant contributions to the Linux world. Mandrakes DiskDrake partitioning utility (for example) is better then some commercial I've seen. And unlike most other distributions, everything Mandrake does is GPL'd (politely correct me if this is wrong. At the very least, most of what they do is GPL'd).
As for all of the other distributions, while some may be less relavent then others, they all contribute in one way or another. At the least, they come up with new ideas, some of which may eventually find there way into the big distros.
Don't support them if you don't want to, but if they die, all Linux users will directly or indirectly suffer as a result.
But, this sort of situation is why companies go public (like mandrake did) and I'd wonder where their capital has gone. Perhaps they haven't been as frugal as required to survive in these recessionary times.
As the article suggests, they are paying for the screw-ups of the previous management. While the big management shake-up happened before they went public, it's not surprising that there are lingering costs considering how bad the previous management appears to have been.
<pedantic> No it couldn't. "There's" means "there is" or "there has," but never "there was." In the context of "there's that qt thing" it can only mean "there is that qt thing." </pedantic>
Ummm, I'm not an english major or anything, but I think you're full of shit... "There's" is a contraction of there and some short word ending in "s". As far as I know, there is no law saying that that word cannot be "was". Note, there may be stylistic guidelines saying that, for clarity, you shouldn't use it for anything other then "there is". Nonetheless, I don't believe it is grammatically incorrect. Normally, I wouldn't be this pedantic, but, well, you started it...
The free market system determines all of this. We do not need government to do this. The copyright holder has the right to do what he/she wants with his/her property.
I agree with this in the case where the author and the copyright holder are the same. Unfortunately, in the case of music, they rarely are. Many artists catalogs are out-of-print, but the record company-- for reasons that may have nothing to do with merchantability-- refuses to reissue it. This ends up screwing the artist.
I personally believe that the copyright law needs to be rewritten & the author (not the publisher) actually considered this time. Copyrights should last a reasonable period, say 50 years, or the authors life + 10 years, whichever is shorter (I don't think an authors great grandchildren have an inherent right to live off their dead relative). In addition, while rights can be assigned, said rights should revert back to the author if a work remains out-of-print for more then, say, 3 years. Some measure to prevent abuse of this clause (say a publisher releasing 100 copies every 2 years & 11 months) would obviously need to be in place, as would an exception for work done for hire (and more protections to prevent abuse of this exception). Such a clause would return copyright law back to what it was originally designed for-- to encourage authorship, not make corporations richer.
That's absolutely wrong. No such law exists, and some stores have accepted returns (I believe that Wherehouse used to). Unfortunately, since record companies refuse to accept more then a certain % of sales as returns (probably 1%), the store ended up eating most of the returns.
But, I have a question, how do you tie the PayPal payment to the slashdot account? I have different email address on PayPal and slashdot. Should I sync them up or can I put a note in the comments "this is for Dr. Awktagon" or what should I do?
Just be logged in when you click on the "subscribe" page (presumably, it will make you if you aren't already). The rest is automatic.
Also implementing high level crypto for real time strategy games that you want to provide access to for free on servers would at the very least greatly increase the computing horsepower required by those servers (thats assuming that sort of real time high powered encryption is even possible). Blizzard wants to provide a free service to anyone who wants to play their games online, but they can only continue to do that while it is economically viable. Anything that increases the cost of this service will also have a knock on effect on its quality.
Ok, you start out strong by saying that removing pass-through authentication would be easy, then you ruin your point with this paragraph. You don't need high level encryption for this. Simple SSL would be plenty secure. And how is verifying keys for other servers more expensive then both authentication and serving the game itself?
As for being unable to find 5000 people who won't give their copy to warez sites, well, get real. All it takes is *one* person to give their copy to the warez sites. If Blizzard believed that out of 5000 people, not a single one would give away their copy, then they deserve all the piracy they're getting.
Finally, I would be surprised if they're really all that concerned about piracy of their beta, regardless of what they may say publically. Most beta versions have lingering bugs, and frequently don't ship with all levels, and features of the final version. Asuming this is the case, a widely distributed beta will probably increase sales, rather then hurt them. I suspect that Blizzard's complaint originates more from the possibility to play the final versions more then the beta's.
You're correct, no one could produce works starring Mickey Mouse without disney's approval. However anyone could distribute out-of-copyright disney cartoons without their permission or profit.
Obviously Disney hates the idea of losing any profit, but losing control may be even more terrifying to them. Disney made several blatantly racist cartoons in their early days that they have almost completely buried over the decades. If they go out of copyright, they could be distributed at will, which would show disney's PC reputation as what it really is-- yet another business move.
Not only is the fact that they are untethered mentioned, the article also contains the following sentence: "Although weather balloons have been used day-in and day-out for more than six decades, Space Data is the first company to adapt this very reliable system for wireless communications," he said.
Presumably, if this was going to be a problem, it already would have been.
Umm... It means that they will abide by the terms of the law? The DMCA may be a bad law, but it is the law nonetheless. Unless they choose to fight a particular case in court, Sourceforge is obligated to obey the law. And since they have know obligation to fight any case in court, let alone all of them, the clause is necessary.
of course, this forum is heavily non-M$, so expect to see VB downplayed.
You imply that an anti-VB bias is solely based on a similar anti-MS bias. In reality, there is one main reason that I would never develop a VB app-- complete lack of portability. I'll admit I detest Microsoft, but regardless, given the option of using a portable language (Python comes to mind) and one that is not, there is little reason to choose the non-portable one.
Actually, none of the comments in this thread were unfriendly. One person didn't agree with you, but his response was not unfriendly. But since he disagrreed with you, of course you had to be pedantic & attack his inaccurate use of the word 'impossible'. So, who's being unfriendly here?
Isn't ADODB a Windows only technology? How do you connect to your databases? I looked around on the interakt site, but could find nothing that suggested the possibility of serving the pages from Unix. Pointers or more info would be appreciated.
I agree. I haven't had a Mac for 3 or four years, but the one thing that I really miss is BBEdit. No editor for Unix or Windows matches BBEdit's perfect balance of ease and power, all wrapped up in a clean interface. And, even 5 or 6 years ago, it provided HTML tools superior to anything I have found since. Who needs wysiwyg when the tools are that easy?
PHAkt looks cool, but I have one issue-- From what I can see, you're stuck serving on Windows. One of the main advantages of php over the other options Ultradev provides is easy portability. Is their any hope of getting the pages generated using PHAkt to work on other platforms? I understand the Ultradev won't, but it seems like the output should.
Re:Enough for several radio stations...
on
80 Gig MP3 Player
·
· Score: 2
You apparently listen to the wrong station. Try KEXP. Guaranteed to have enough vareity for all but the most pretentious listener (check out their review page for a better idea of the vareity).
Plus, they are, I believe, the only station in the world that broadcasts an uncompressed stream (true CD quality. Unfortunately the uncompressed stream requires WMP).
I wish everyone would shut the hell up and maybe try to get constructive here.
Oh, come on. Before you criticize others for not offering constructive solutions, please have one to offer yourself. While I understand your point, you're as bad as all the people who complain about Slashdot's anti-Microsoft bias. If you don't want to read these complaints, don't click on the "Read More" link. It's that easy.
But I strongly doubt the AI is capable of that level of behavior. I rather believe that the AI simply ignores borders, and when someone complains, decides based on relative strength whether or not to comply or declare war.
Actually, I think the AI is much better then you think. Remember, every culture in CivIII is different. This, combined with your culture & military force, will mean that each culture will act differently towards you. While I personally haven't experienced the behavior you report, I have noticed that the Aztecs constantly disregard my telling them to get out. They may leave for a turn or two, but they're back soon enough. A short war stopped the transgressions briefly, but after a century or so they were back at it. Most of the other cultures I've dealt with so far either respect my borders, or at worst make occasional, minor transgressions (unless they are actually attacking me or we are at war). Overall, I think that the AI is a big improvement.
Have you figured out how to add an item to the queue after the current item is finished? I'm not sure if it is possible. The two times I tried, it didn't work & I lost seveal shields as a result.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, why would GPS be even necessary?
That was my first thought, then it occurred to me how useful this would be. In addition to the census taker recording your address, the system records the lat & long. Not only does this help provide error correction & prevent fraudulent entries (I imagine some census takers just fill out the forms without actually making their rounds), but it also simplifies interpreting geographic data. Want to know how many people live between the 44th & 45th parallels in the US? No problem, the data's already in the system.
Again, you see them as asking for charity. They are not. They are asking their users to pay for the product they are currently using for free. You site Compaq as an example, but of course that is a stupid example. Compaq does not give away the vast majority of their computers.
If 10% of the users who download Mandrake for free would subscribe at $60 a year, I doubt they would be having even a short term problem. But, the vast majority of users are not willing to do that. This creates a problem. They can continue to give everything away for free & go out of business, they can do like some other distros & REQUIRE a subscription to download, or they can ASK users to subscribe & hope a high enough number do to support the rest who can't or won't. To me, three is the best option.
As for getting VC or a loan, those may still be options. But why get money that you have to pay back, or give away more ownership, when they can ask their user base to pay up for what they've been getting for free. This is a win-win situation for their users and for them: Their users continue to get the best distribution for their needs, they get the cash they need without the issues the other options entail.
I guess what it boils down to is that I don't understand how you can criticize Mandrake's business model when all they are really doing is MARKETING THEIR SERVICES. One aspect of Mandrakes business model is selling subscriptions. Here they are asking people to subscribe. Are they playing on your guilt in doing so? Sure, but Microsoft does the same thing in their anti-piracy campains. The only difference is that Mandrake doesn't threaten you with jail time if you don't subscribe.
Ummm... Mandrake isn't asking for donations. They are asking for people to support them by joining the Mandrake club, which includes several benefits:
If you don't find these benefits, coupled with the benefits provided by their distribution (which you probably downloaded for free) to be of value, don't join. Don't use Mandrake? Fine, don't join. If you read the article, they are asking users to join the club, not everyone who runs Linux. (And, for the record, Mandrake does have a donations page allowing users to donate to help support a specific OS project that Mandrake sponsors. These donations do not, however, go to supporting Mandrakesoft as a company.)
Secondly, do you think that all the tons of money being spent by people like yourself is worth the code Mandrake has contributed?
Without question, yes. Mandrake's distribution is absolutely second to none for new users. And for the record, I do not use it currently myself, having recently switched to Gentoo (another distribution that you probably think should go away).
RedHat contributes, but they don't hide the fact that they are a company. And most of all, they have a sustainable business model that doesn't require generosity from a bunch of naieve Linux/GNU zeleots.
Mandrake has historically made a profit on it's Linux Distribution, and last I heard had the number one retail distribution (more then 30% of all Linux distributions purchased in the US are Mandrake. See The Register for more details). Poor management by their previous management team led them into their current financial straits. Asking their users to help chip in (they do give away their product for free, remember) is not the least bit unreasonable.
Yes, companies like Eazel contribute to the rest of the community as well, yet nobody decided to shell out tons of money on the odd chance it would keep them floating. Why? No buzzword! I don't mind if you still want to 'donate' to this 'company', but at least be honest about it...
Had Eazel actually had a forseeable revenue stream, I'm sure they would have survived without a problem. The issue in their case was simply one of timing. They ran out of money at a time when VC was extremely scarce & they couldn't have survived more then a short time on the amount of revenue that they could have generated with a program such as this. Mandrake on the other hand is much healthier, but needs a short-term cash infusion.
Again, You are free to buy Mandrake's products or join their club or not, as you see fit. But arguing that they are somehow wrong for asking for their users to do so is simply stupid.
I don't remember all of the details, but the previous management did things like buying training companies that no experience with Linux and such. I wish I remembered more, but I remember being quite annoyed after reading the article.
Anyway, the original French management is back in charge now (the old management were mostly Americans brought in to opave the way for an american IPO), so hopefully they can get passed their current problems and get back on the road to profitability.
Why on earth would a Mac user use vi when they could be using BBEdit? While I use vi frequently, I'd drop it in a second if BareBones would port BBEdit to Linux.
This is +4 interesting? I've rarely read more blatant Flamebait.
As others have pointed out, Mandrake makes significant contributions to the Linux world. Mandrakes DiskDrake partitioning utility (for example) is better then some commercial I've seen. And unlike most other distributions, everything Mandrake does is GPL'd (politely correct me if this is wrong. At the very least, most of what they do is GPL'd).
As for all of the other distributions, while some may be less relavent then others, they all contribute in one way or another. At the least, they come up with new ideas, some of which may eventually find there way into the big distros.
Don't support them if you don't want to, but if they die, all Linux users will directly or indirectly suffer as a result.
But, this sort of situation is why companies go public (like mandrake did) and I'd wonder where their capital has gone. Perhaps they haven't been as frugal as required to survive in these recessionary times.
As the article suggests, they are paying for the screw-ups of the previous management. While the big management shake-up happened before they went public, it's not surprising that there are lingering costs considering how bad the previous management appears to have been.
Some relavent links:
MandrakeSoft loses more than CEO
Mandrake refocuses on Linux business
I remember reading another article that went into more detail on the past managements blunders, but unfortunately, I can't recall where. Sorry!
<pedantic>
No it couldn't. "There's" means "there is" or "there has," but never "there was." In the context of "there's that qt thing" it can only mean "there is that qt thing."
</pedantic>
Ummm, I'm not an english major or anything, but I think you're full of shit... "There's" is a contraction of there and some short word ending in "s". As far as I know, there is no law saying that that word cannot be "was". Note, there may be stylistic guidelines saying that, for clarity, you shouldn't use it for anything other then "there is". Nonetheless, I don't believe it is grammatically incorrect. Normally, I wouldn't be this pedantic, but, well, you started it...
The free market system determines all of this. We do not need government to do this. The copyright holder has the right to do what he/she wants with his/her property.
I agree with this in the case where the author and the copyright holder are the same. Unfortunately, in the case of music, they rarely are. Many artists catalogs are out-of-print, but the record company-- for reasons that may have nothing to do with merchantability-- refuses to reissue it. This ends up screwing the artist.
I personally believe that the copyright law needs to be rewritten & the author (not the publisher) actually considered this time. Copyrights should last a reasonable period, say 50 years, or the authors life + 10 years, whichever is shorter (I don't think an authors great grandchildren have an inherent right to live off their dead relative). In addition, while rights can be assigned, said rights should revert back to the author if a work remains out-of-print for more then, say, 3 years. Some measure to prevent abuse of this clause (say a publisher releasing 100 copies every 2 years & 11 months) would obviously need to be in place, as would an exception for work done for hire (and more protections to prevent abuse of this exception). Such a clause would return copyright law back to what it was originally designed for-- to encourage authorship, not make corporations richer.
That's absolutely wrong. No such law exists, and some stores have accepted returns (I believe that Wherehouse used to). Unfortunately, since record companies refuse to accept more then a certain % of sales as returns (probably 1%), the store ended up eating most of the returns.
But, I have a question, how do you tie the PayPal payment to the slashdot account? I have different email address on PayPal and slashdot. Should I sync them up or can I put a note in the comments "this is for Dr. Awktagon" or what should I do?
Just be logged in when you click on the "subscribe" page (presumably, it will make you if you aren't already). The rest is automatic.
Also implementing high level crypto for real time strategy games that you want to provide access to for free on servers would at the very least greatly increase the computing horsepower required by those servers (thats assuming that sort of real time high powered encryption is even possible). Blizzard wants to provide a free service to anyone who wants to play their games online, but they can only continue to do that while it is economically viable. Anything that increases the cost of this service will also have a knock on effect on its quality.
Ok, you start out strong by saying that removing pass-through authentication would be easy, then you ruin your point with this paragraph. You don't need high level encryption for this. Simple SSL would be plenty secure. And how is verifying keys for other servers more expensive then both authentication and serving the game itself?
As for being unable to find 5000 people who won't give their copy to warez sites, well, get real. All it takes is *one* person to give their copy to the warez sites. If Blizzard believed that out of 5000 people, not a single one would give away their copy, then they deserve all the piracy they're getting.
Finally, I would be surprised if they're really all that concerned about piracy of their beta, regardless of what they may say publically. Most beta versions have lingering bugs, and frequently don't ship with all levels, and features of the final version. Asuming this is the case, a widely distributed beta will probably increase sales, rather then hurt them. I suspect that Blizzard's complaint originates more from the possibility to play the final versions more then the beta's.
Umm... You mean like http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/s390/?
You're correct, no one could produce works starring Mickey Mouse without disney's approval. However anyone could distribute out-of-copyright disney cartoons without their permission or profit.
Obviously Disney hates the idea of losing any profit, but losing control may be even more terrifying to them. Disney made several blatantly racist cartoons in their early days that they have almost completely buried over the decades. If they go out of copyright, they could be distributed at will, which would show disney's PC reputation as what it really is-- yet another business move.
Not only is the fact that they are untethered mentioned, the article also contains the following sentence: "Although weather balloons have been used day-in and day-out for more than six decades, Space Data is the first company to adapt this very reliable system for wireless communications," he said.
Presumably, if this was going to be a problem, it already would have been.
Umm... It means that they will abide by the terms of the law? The DMCA may be a bad law, but it is the law nonetheless. Unless they choose to fight a particular case in court, Sourceforge is obligated to obey the law. And since they have know obligation to fight any case in court, let alone all of them, the clause is necessary.
of course, this forum is heavily non-M$, so expect to see VB downplayed.
You imply that an anti-VB bias is solely based on a similar anti-MS bias. In reality, there is one main reason that I would never develop a VB app-- complete lack of portability. I'll admit I detest Microsoft, but regardless, given the option of using a portable language (Python comes to mind) and one that is not, there is little reason to choose the non-portable one.
Actually, none of the comments in this thread were unfriendly. One person didn't agree with you, but his response was not unfriendly. But since he disagrreed with you, of course you had to be pedantic & attack his inaccurate use of the word 'impossible'. So, who's being unfriendly here?
Isn't ADODB a Windows only technology? How do you connect to your databases? I looked around on the interakt site, but could find nothing that suggested the possibility of serving the pages from Unix. Pointers or more info would be appreciated.
Thanks
I agree. I haven't had a Mac for 3 or four years, but the one thing that I really miss is BBEdit. No editor for Unix or Windows matches BBEdit's perfect balance of ease and power, all wrapped up in a clean interface. And, even 5 or 6 years ago, it provided HTML tools superior to anything I have found since. Who needs wysiwyg when the tools are that easy?
PHAkt looks cool, but I have one issue-- From what I can see, you're stuck serving on Windows. One of the main advantages of php over the other options Ultradev provides is easy portability. Is their any hope of getting the pages generated using PHAkt to work on other platforms? I understand the Ultradev won't, but it seems like the output should.
You apparently listen to the wrong station. Try KEXP. Guaranteed to have enough vareity for all but the most pretentious listener (check out their review page for a better idea of the vareity).
Plus, they are, I believe, the only station in the world that broadcasts an uncompressed stream (true CD quality. Unfortunately the uncompressed stream requires WMP).
I wish everyone would shut the hell up and maybe try to get constructive here.
Oh, come on. Before you criticize others for not offering constructive solutions, please have one to offer yourself. While I understand your point, you're as bad as all the people who complain about Slashdot's anti-Microsoft bias. If you don't want to read these complaints, don't click on the "Read More" link. It's that easy.
But I strongly doubt the AI is capable of that level of behavior. I rather believe that the AI simply ignores borders, and when someone complains, decides based on relative strength whether or not to comply or declare war.
Actually, I think the AI is much better then you think. Remember, every culture in CivIII is different. This, combined with your culture & military force, will mean that each culture will act differently towards you. While I personally haven't experienced the behavior you report, I have noticed that the Aztecs constantly disregard my telling them to get out. They may leave for a turn or two, but they're back soon enough. A short war stopped the transgressions briefly, but after a century or so they were back at it. Most of the other cultures I've dealt with so far either respect my borders, or at worst make occasional, minor transgressions (unless they are actually attacking me or we are at war). Overall, I think that the AI is a big improvement.
Have you figured out how to add an item to the queue after the current item is finished? I'm not sure if it is possible. The two times I tried, it didn't work & I lost seveal shields as a result.