Well, only parts are submitted to ECMA
on
DotGNU Meet-a-thon
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· Score: 2
Fighting.NET is stupid..NET is a great technology, it's an ECMA standard.
Hardly. The only parts that have been submitted to the ECMA are C# and the CLI. Everything else, all the parts that provide the.NET functionality are another matter entirely.
Sure, because we all know SourceForge will continue running and providing free services to OSS projects after VA Linux^H^H^H^H^HSoftware runs out of money in a year or two.
Ya, funny how one of the most popular games, based on the most popular FPS game engine, get's mentioned but a far less popular, niche-market targetted game doesn't get mentioned.
It's almost as if Slashdot stories came from submissions from its readers, so naturally a more popular game would have more attention, and thus more potential news submissions.
No, it's not just you. The problem seems to be that MS has tried to expand too quickly at quite an inopportune time. Their attempts at horizontal integration of the entire consumer electronics industry has backfired with the current antitrust issues going on.
And this certainly isn't the first time. We all remember when the Interent wasn't something MS was interested in. It wasn't big enough, if I remember Gates's sentiments. Instead, they were going to replace it with MSN, in one of MSN's many reincarnations. How many times did they reinvent MSN, each time diving into a new idea head on, only to find nothing there to grab on to? (Of course, this time, they're just buying out Qwest DSL, so it'll probably work just fine)
The half-assed attempt at a console, also known as the X-Box, is surely just an investment for the future home entertainment systems created by Microsoft, but at the rate they're going there will not be enough cash on hand to take the losses normally associated with selling console systems.
I'm not so sure about this. If there's one thing that we can be sure about, it's that MS is persistant to levels no other business can finance. They've launched programs and fallen on their face more times than most companies could ever hope to afford. Many would say that they've finally gotten Windows right, and it only took them 15 years.
I'm sure MS will get the X-Box right, even if it takes another 15 years, because when they do get it right, they'll have it all. Why bother with Windows on PC's when they can put everything; game console, DVD player, PC, all in one box that they get the revenues from?
It will be interesting to see how successful Microsoft will be with their current networking desires that follow their.NET and passport ideas, and whether or not these too will fail or just become immensely unpopular. Regardless, the deathly grip they hold on the OS market has yet to see a legitimate adversary, so it will be a long time before we see the complete downfall of Microsoft.
.NET will happen, and it will succeed famously, at least in the Windows world. It's simply the next logical step for Windows development, even if we ignore the cross-platform and passport elements. The number of developers and businesses out there that declare anything made by MS to be divine gospel will see to that. Whether or not it's accepted by those that aren't followers of Redmond remains to be seen, I think, and I'm sure it won't come without a fight.
Sun knows fighting.NET is their priority. They know they have an uphill battle ahead of them, and I know they'll fight it, because losing it will make life extremely difficult for Java.
The notion that this comment rated as insightful speaks volumes as to the validity of Slashdot's moderating public.
My stance on it is, KDE-3.0 sucks ass clowns. I would probably be a lot more happy about it if they actually looked into the bug report I submitted without closing it instantly.
Give me a fucking break. Yeah. You don't like how your bug report was handled, so KDE really sucks. Man, go write your own desktop and see if you take the time to graciously answer every bug report you receive.
There's a huge amount of junk orbiting the Earth. The various space agencies of the world have done a beautiful job making sure there's no doubt as to which species lives here.
And while every piece of that junk does pose extreme danger to anything of a non-junk nature in orbit (Astronauts on EVAs, satellites, ISS..) it's still not economically feasible to go on a garbage collecting mission.
So yes, they let the batteries crash. Would you rather them spend several million tax dollars chasing it down? As you may recall, they've let far larger things fall out of the sky like, oh, Skylab.
In any case, this device is hardly obsolete. It has ethernet, it has an amplifier, and I can serve it from Linux. What more is there to talk about? I don't care if the manufacturer hasn't done anything new with the software, I intend to do a lot of stuff with the software.
Besides, the protocol's already documented. It's not like this stuff is rocket science to figure out.
This touches on an important point which most of the people posting in this article need to realize: The fact that Mandrake being a company that supports and sells Open Source software is completely irrelevant to the real issue here, which is Economics 101.
There's a market for Linux distros. That's obvious. RedHat's making a profit, Mandrake's on track to. However, that doesn't mean there's a market for all the distros out there that want to make money on packaging, services, and support.
If the market isn't large enough to support all the distros that are in business today, some of them have to go, plain and simple. Either through closing the doors or consolidating with another distro to lower costs. Once that happens (perhaps a few times over), the market will have itself a few distros who can actually operate profitably. And this is a good thing, even if it means we lose some distros!
Sure, Mandrake wouldn't be my first choice to prune from the list, but that's not up to me, or to any of us as individuals, it's up to the market as a whole.
I don't know why anyone feels commercial Linux distros should be treated as though they're special. They're selling a product. They're a business. Yes, they love Open Source, we do to, and we're glad they're here. None of that matters when it comes down to keeping the doors open, because if they can't keep the doors open on their own, the sure as hell aren't going to by panhandling before their userbase. And frankly, I'd rather see just a handful of Linux companies succeed than a whole lot of them scrape by.
The article is pretty short, and I can't help but wondering if any of his statements were taken at all out of context. For example, the "should be offered an alternative" statement seems pretty silly for MS to take - after all the monopoly allegation problems, why complain that there is a movement to have a Passport alternative? One would think that the presence of other central authentication database standards would allow them to continue to tout the "we are not dominating" stance.
While this makes sense, and I'd be quick to agree if it were anyone else, I'd point out two things:
First, this is Craig Mundie we're talking about, a man that's spent a lot of time writing documents that manage to actually reduce the intelligence of people who listen to him with each new article. I'm continuously amazed that Craig Mundie is allowed to represent Microsoft in the apparent manner that he does, given the calibur of his "arguments".
And second, to echo another comment, Microsoft has passed the point of worrying about any significant punishment from the government. The whole matter has been effectively shut down by the current administration, and MS knows, just as everyone else does, that they're securely out of danger from any sort of federal action.
With all due respect to your friends, I really couldn't care less how they're treated by Verizon, as long as they're in business.
What's important to me, the consumer, is that I have a choice in who I get my DSL service from. I don't care if it was a pain in the ass for my ISP to get set up in the local telco, all I care about is that they got set up, and they can give me service. That's what's critical. I'm not interested in paying for DSL service from the only game in town, I want a selection. Right now, I've got it. So yes, the Telco act of '96 did help, and it must not be allowed to be tossed aside.
Only if you consider Mozilla "worse" than Netscape 6. Because that's really all we're talking about here. The same codebase, but a commercial version that has extras that, when you get right down to it, just aren't necessary.
I don't know about building it, but I've been using their binary release builds for the better part of a year now, and have been quite pleased.
As any project in active development, it has crashed a few times, however every time the crash recovery reopens every document I had open, right down to where the cursor was. Pretty damned slick.
Not to mention it's opened every MS Office document I've thrown at it without a problem. Definitely not complaining.
You may have missed it, but the kit includes two DVD's, one of which is all the sources.
I don't know about you, but I don't recall hearing about Windows shipping with a source CD.
The fact that Sony's charging for it is not the point of the GPL. The point is that even though they're charging for it, they still have to release the source. The GPL has never been against selling software.
A few people have touched on this, but if put together, the strategy becomes clear, and simple.
AOL needs to fight MS in every way it can. AOL's known this for years, which is why they partnered with Sun & Netscape, and why they're buying strategic projects. Think about the most visible points of contact with MS software.
* MSN Service, IM
AOL's got these, always have. But picking up ICQ was a quick way to buy up a bigger userbase. MS is actually the ones fighting back on this front, partnering agressively with broadband providers like Qwest to push MSN-branded net access.
* IE
AOL has used IE as long as they've had a browser, but you can be sure it's not because they liked the idea. There just wasn't a viable non-MS browser out there. You can be sure they'll switch to NS6 as soon as they feel it's ready.
* Media Player
A biggie. Especially with the changes made in XP. MS wants to push WMP as the RIAA-friendly media, figuring if they can get support from the labels, it won't matter what the users want, because WMP will be the one that has the copy protection the RIAA will support. AOL picked up WinAmp because it was the player with the best chance of pushing back against WMP.
* IIS
All three partners in the deal, AOL, Sun, and Netscape, went in with one goal in mind. Fight MS. Did it work? Eh, not really. But they've still got a lot of NS server software available for use at some point, if they can find a good use.
* Windows
So, picking up a Linux distro is perfectly logical for them. They're trying as best they can on all the above fronts, so why not pick up an OS and push it as an alternative? Imagine what a company with AOL's media control powers could do with RedHat. Build AOL services right into the desktop, stick it in a set-top (To fight WebTV).
Now here's a fine example of somebody who Doesn't Get What Linux is About.
- KDE and GNOME desktop's look like crap: I find every GNOME and KDE environment I try, just looks like junk compared to a Mac or Windows experience.
Did you stop to consider customizing the appearance? Me, I can't bear to use Windows. It feels nothing but crude to me. To each his own. Maybe you should stick with Windows or MacOS, you seem to hate everything about the current Linux desktop offerings.
2. Standardize on one API layer for the GUI, much like Win32, we should have a set of API's that are "God" when it comes to writing GUI under Linux.
No, no, no. Nothing should _ever_ be God when it comes to Linux. If I don't like how the God library works, I'm going to write a better one. If we subscribe to this "There can be only one" crap that MS and Apple dictate on their platforms, we'd be nowhere near as far along as we are now. Virtually all great projects in the free software world stand on the shoulders of other free software projects.
I agree with your points about IE and the browser companies. I should clarify something: "IE Compatible" simply meant that when I go to a site that uses XSL or Flash (yech!) or Java Applet's -- it should "just work". Also, when you create some HTML/CSS or whatever in these browsers, it displays in them as good as it does in IE. Thats all. Hell, I use Konq, I like it, but there are somethings that I say to myself "wtf, why doesn't that look right...". Then I go over to my Mac or Windows box and sure enough IE looks pretty good.
Its just an observation.
Maybe I just keep up on this stuff more than you do, but I've been doing everything you list above all year with Galeon. Flash, applets, no problem. XSL? Of course. CSS? Better than IE. Rarely do I see a page render in IE differently from how it renders in mozilla. And usually, the reason is a failure of IE to comply with the spec properly.
I would love to have one of these to prop up on my table and just surf on while eating breakfast. Much broader (and current) news than my newspaper can provide, takes up less space, and I don't have to flip it inside out to continue a story.
Hell, I can browse mail without needing a keyboard. At least then I can filter out all the mail I don't care about, and reply to the stuff I do care about later when I'm at a computer.
DS1 was actually part of NASA's cheaper/faster program. They tested a whole slew of totally new technologies, put it on a (relatively) cheap probe, and off it went.
As for using it as a listening post, I'd be very surprised if it had any equipment onboard to be of much use. It's got a finite amount of manuevering propellant, which is required to point an antenna at the Earth to send back whatever does manage to collect. If it hasn't run out yet, it will after not too long. Finally, there has to be a staff planetside to tell the probe what to do, when to send back data, etc. That's salaries and equipment that's better spent elsewhere.
So, no, it wasn't a waste of money. They set out to test new approaches, almost all of them worked fantastically. And after they completed the intended mission, they went off and did another one. There's nothing more it can do that'd be worth the trouble.
The time and money was well spent, I'd say, but it's done now. Look back on its accomplishments with pride, and look forward to the projects that will benefit from the results.
Yeah, God forbid a distro follow the bloody standard by having man pages where the FHS says man pages should go. And it's definitely too much to ask that developers of programs follow the same standard. It'll be much more fun to just do what the other guy's doing, and hope they don't change.
Like I said, Debian doesn't avoid these problems because of technological superiority, they avoid it because they don't have different groups of competing packagers. That's great now, but it'll be ugly if they ever fork.
This happened a few times. Connectiva, Stormix, Corel, all essentially Debian forks. Y'know what happened? Corel sucked (And nobody was surprised), but Stormix and Connectiva remained compatible. In fact, it was common for Connectiva users to upgrade straight from an existing Debian install to a Connectiva release, or vis versa.
Just because more than one group is doing the packaging doesn't mean they'll be incapable of following the same rules. That's why Debian works with 300+ people making packages, after all, they follow the rules.
The Debian community is so passionate because it is a distribution supported 100% by the people, and only the people. There's no commercial entity that funds the Debian Project. The release manager doesn't get a bonus if he gets the release out ahead of schedule, and the QA team doesn't get paid to manage packages that fall through the cracks.
Every single aspect of Debian's development, support, and growth comes from people who care about it enough to contribute their time. Does this tend to breed fanatics? Quite possibly. Is it understandable? Certainly to me. I don't see such fanatical support of other distros, because virtually all of them are developed by a company, not by a community.
Now, if that's not your cup of tea, great. There are plenty of other distros. That's the whole point, after all. That's the beauty of Linux's "fragmentation" that has forever been a point of criticism from the commercial software world which is so used to not having a choice.
I may be misunderstanding what you're asking for, but bash has been completing my commands for me for years. ^R, start typing, it autocompletes from ~/.bash_history
I use it for the vast majority of the commands I type.
Re:Netscape? no thanks.
on
Netscape 6.2
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The bad thing is there's 10% of the userbase that seems to be holding out for good on Netscape 4.x -- they aren't interested in IE, they aren't interested in Netscape 6. That essentially means that modern HTML authoring will never really come into vogue, and we will be stuck in 1995 until Microsoft actually finally gets the balls to 'fork' the WWW so that their stuff only works on their platform.
Nah. Netscape 4 holdouts will find themselves left behind as more and more web shops stop caring about making their sites look good in NS4, and just worry about IE6/NS6.
This is a good thing. Netscape 4's time has passed.
Make sure you get word to the Senator that because of his willingness to be a mouthpiece for Disney and friends, you will not be voting for him next term, and that you will do your best to actively lobby against him.
Then get a bunch of other people to send the same kind of thing to him.
Slashdot Mirror
Fighting .NET is stupid. .NET is a great technology, it's an ECMA standard.
.NET functionality are another matter entirely.
Hardly. The only parts that have been submitted to the ECMA are C# and the CLI. Everything else, all the parts that provide the
Hopefully it will find a new home on Sourceforge.
Sure, because we all know SourceForge will continue running and providing free services to OSS projects after VA Linux^H^H^H^H^HSoftware runs out of money in a year or two.
Ya, funny how one of the most popular games, based on the most popular FPS game engine, get's mentioned but a far less popular, niche-market targetted game doesn't get mentioned.
It's almost as if Slashdot stories came from submissions from its readers, so naturally a more popular game would have more attention, and thus more potential news submissions.
Weird.
No, it's not just you. The problem seems to be that MS has tried to expand too quickly at quite an inopportune time. Their attempts at horizontal integration of the entire consumer electronics industry has backfired with the current antitrust issues going on.
.NET and passport ideas, and whether or not these too will fail or just become immensely unpopular. Regardless, the deathly grip they hold on the OS market has yet to see a legitimate adversary, so it will be a long time before we see the complete downfall of Microsoft.
.NET is their priority. They know they have an uphill battle ahead of them, and I know they'll fight it, because losing it will make life extremely difficult for Java.
And this certainly isn't the first time. We all remember when the Interent wasn't something MS was interested in. It wasn't big enough, if I remember Gates's sentiments. Instead, they were going to replace it with MSN, in one of MSN's many reincarnations. How many times did they reinvent MSN, each time diving into a new idea head on, only to find nothing there to grab on to? (Of course, this time, they're just buying out Qwest DSL, so it'll probably work just fine)
The half-assed attempt at a console, also known as the X-Box, is surely just an investment for the future home entertainment systems created by Microsoft, but at the rate they're going there will not be enough cash on hand to take the losses normally associated with selling console systems.
I'm not so sure about this. If there's one thing that we can be sure about, it's that MS is persistant to levels no other business can finance. They've launched programs and fallen on their face more times than most companies could ever hope to afford. Many would say that they've finally gotten Windows right, and it only took them 15 years.
I'm sure MS will get the X-Box right, even if it takes another 15 years, because when they do get it right, they'll have it all. Why bother with Windows on PC's when they can put everything; game console, DVD player, PC, all in one box that they get the revenues from?
It will be interesting to see how successful Microsoft will be with their current networking desires that follow their
.NET will happen, and it will succeed famously, at least in the Windows world. It's simply the next logical step for Windows development, even if we ignore the cross-platform and passport elements. The number of developers and businesses out there that declare anything made by MS to be divine gospel will see to that. Whether or not it's accepted by those that aren't followers of Redmond remains to be seen, I think, and I'm sure it won't come without a fight.
Sun knows fighting
The notion that this comment rated as insightful speaks volumes as to the validity of Slashdot's moderating public.
My stance on it is, KDE-3.0 sucks ass clowns. I would probably be a lot more happy about it if they actually looked into the bug report I submitted without closing it instantly.
Give me a fucking break. Yeah. You don't like how your bug report was handled, so KDE really sucks. Man, go write your own desktop and see if you take the time to graciously answer every bug report you receive.
There's a huge amount of junk orbiting the Earth. The various space agencies of the world have done a beautiful job making sure there's no doubt as to which species lives here.
And while every piece of that junk does pose extreme danger to anything of a non-junk nature in orbit (Astronauts on EVAs, satellites, ISS..) it's still not economically feasible to go on a garbage collecting mission.
So yes, they let the batteries crash. Would you rather them spend several million tax dollars chasing it down? As you may recall, they've let far larger things fall out of the sky like, oh, Skylab.
And we've got lots of them.
Eh? A socket is a socket, last time I looked.
In any case, this device is hardly obsolete. It has ethernet, it has an amplifier, and I can serve it from Linux. What more is there to talk about? I don't care if the manufacturer hasn't done anything new with the software, I intend to do a lot of stuff with the software.
Besides, the protocol's already documented. It's not like this stuff is rocket science to figure out.
This touches on an important point which most of the people posting in this article need to realize: The fact that Mandrake being a company that supports and sells Open Source software is completely irrelevant to the real issue here, which is Economics 101.
There's a market for Linux distros. That's obvious. RedHat's making a profit, Mandrake's on track to. However, that doesn't mean there's a market for all the distros out there that want to make money on packaging, services, and support.
If the market isn't large enough to support all the distros that are in business today, some of them have to go, plain and simple. Either through closing the doors or consolidating with another distro to lower costs. Once that happens (perhaps a few times over), the market will have itself a few distros who can actually operate profitably. And this is a good thing, even if it means we lose some distros!
Sure, Mandrake wouldn't be my first choice to prune from the list, but that's not up to me, or to any of us as individuals, it's up to the market as a whole.
I don't know why anyone feels commercial Linux distros should be treated as though they're special. They're selling a product. They're a business. Yes, they love Open Source, we do to, and we're glad they're here. None of that matters when it comes down to keeping the doors open, because if they can't keep the doors open on their own, the sure as hell aren't going to by panhandling before their userbase. And frankly, I'd rather see just a handful of Linux companies succeed than a whole lot of them scrape by.
The article is pretty short, and I can't help but wondering if any of his statements were taken at all out of context. For example, the "should be offered an alternative" statement seems pretty silly for MS to take - after all the monopoly allegation problems, why complain that there is a movement to have a Passport alternative? One would think that the presence of other central authentication database standards would allow them to continue to tout the "we are not dominating" stance.
While this makes sense, and I'd be quick to agree if it were anyone else, I'd point out two things:
First, this is Craig Mundie we're talking about, a man that's spent a lot of time writing documents that manage to actually reduce the intelligence of people who listen to him with each new article. I'm continuously amazed that Craig Mundie is allowed to represent Microsoft in the apparent manner that he does, given the calibur of his "arguments".
And second, to echo another comment, Microsoft has passed the point of worrying about any significant punishment from the government. The whole matter has been effectively shut down by the current administration, and MS knows, just as everyone else does, that they're securely out of danger from any sort of federal action.
With all due respect to your friends, I really couldn't care less how they're treated by Verizon, as long as they're in business.
What's important to me, the consumer, is that I have a choice in who I get my DSL service from. I don't care if it was a pain in the ass for my ISP to get set up in the local telco, all I care about is that they got set up, and they can give me service. That's what's critical. I'm not interested in paying for DSL service from the only game in town, I want a selection. Right now, I've got it. So yes, the Telco act of '96 did help, and it must not be allowed to be tossed aside.
Of course it will be worst than StarOffice 6.
Only if you consider Mozilla "worse" than Netscape 6. Because that's really all we're talking about here. The same codebase, but a commercial version that has extras that, when you get right down to it, just aren't necessary.
I don't know about building it, but I've been using their binary release builds for the better part of a year now, and have been quite pleased.
As any project in active development, it has crashed a few times, however every time the crash recovery reopens every document I had open, right down to where the cursor was. Pretty damned slick.
Not to mention it's opened every MS Office document I've thrown at it without a problem. Definitely not complaining.
You may have missed it, but the kit includes two DVD's, one of which is all the sources.
I don't know about you, but I don't recall hearing about Windows shipping with a source CD.
The fact that Sony's charging for it is not the point of the GPL. The point is that even though they're charging for it, they still have to release the source. The GPL has never been against selling software.
A few people have touched on this, but if put together, the strategy becomes clear, and simple.
AOL needs to fight MS in every way it can. AOL's known this for years, which is why they partnered with Sun & Netscape, and why they're buying strategic projects. Think about the most visible points of contact with MS software.
* MSN Service, IM
AOL's got these, always have. But picking up ICQ was a quick way to buy up a bigger userbase. MS is actually the ones fighting back on this front, partnering agressively with broadband providers like Qwest to push MSN-branded net access.
* IE
AOL has used IE as long as they've had a browser, but you can be sure it's not because they liked the idea. There just wasn't a viable non-MS browser out there. You can be sure they'll switch to NS6 as soon as they feel it's ready.
* Media Player
A biggie. Especially with the changes made in XP. MS wants to push WMP as the RIAA-friendly media, figuring if they can get support from the labels, it won't matter what the users want, because WMP will be the one that has the copy protection the RIAA will support. AOL picked up WinAmp because it was the player with the best chance of pushing back against WMP.
* IIS
All three partners in the deal, AOL, Sun, and Netscape, went in with one goal in mind. Fight MS. Did it work? Eh, not really. But they've still got a lot of NS server software available for use at some point, if they can find a good use.
* Windows
So, picking up a Linux distro is perfectly logical for them. They're trying as best they can on all the above fronts, so why not pick up an OS and push it as an alternative? Imagine what a company with AOL's media control powers could do with RedHat. Build AOL services right into the desktop, stick it in a set-top (To fight WebTV).
Now here's a fine example of somebody who Doesn't Get What Linux is About.
- KDE and GNOME desktop's look like crap: I find every GNOME and KDE environment I try, just looks like junk compared to a Mac or Windows experience.
Did you stop to consider customizing the appearance? Me, I can't bear to use Windows. It feels nothing but crude to me. To each his own. Maybe you should stick with Windows or MacOS, you seem to hate everything about the current Linux desktop offerings.
2. Standardize on one API layer for the GUI, much like Win32, we should have a set of API's that are "God" when it comes to writing GUI under Linux.
No, no, no. Nothing should _ever_ be God when it comes to Linux. If I don't like how the God library works, I'm going to write a better one. If we subscribe to this "There can be only one" crap that MS and Apple dictate on their platforms, we'd be nowhere near as far along as we are now. Virtually all great projects in the free software world stand on the shoulders of other free software projects.
I agree with your points about IE and the browser companies. I should clarify something: "IE Compatible" simply meant that when I go to a site that uses XSL or Flash (yech!) or Java Applet's -- it should "just work". Also, when you create some HTML/CSS or whatever in these browsers, it displays in them as good as it does in IE. Thats all. Hell, I use Konq, I like it, but there are somethings that I say to myself "wtf, why doesn't that look right...". Then I go over to my Mac or Windows box and sure enough IE looks pretty good.
Its just an observation.
Maybe I just keep up on this stuff more than you do, but I've been doing everything you list above all year with Galeon. Flash, applets, no problem. XSL? Of course. CSS? Better than IE. Rarely do I see a page render in IE differently from how it renders in mozilla. And usually, the reason is a failure of IE to comply with the spec properly.
I would love to have one of these to prop up on my table and just surf on while eating breakfast. Much broader (and current) news than my newspaper can provide, takes up less space, and I don't have to flip it inside out to continue a story.
Hell, I can browse mail without needing a keyboard. At least then I can filter out all the mail I don't care about, and reply to the stuff I do care about later when I'm at a computer.
DS1 was actually part of NASA's cheaper/faster program. They tested a whole slew of totally new technologies, put it on a (relatively) cheap probe, and off it went.
As for using it as a listening post, I'd be very surprised if it had any equipment onboard to be of much use. It's got a finite amount of manuevering propellant, which is required to point an antenna at the Earth to send back whatever does manage to collect. If it hasn't run out yet, it will after not too long. Finally, there has to be a staff planetside to tell the probe what to do, when to send back data, etc. That's salaries and equipment that's better spent elsewhere.
So, no, it wasn't a waste of money. They set out to test new approaches, almost all of them worked fantastically. And after they completed the intended mission, they went off and did another one. There's nothing more it can do that'd be worth the trouble.
The time and money was well spent, I'd say, but it's done now. Look back on its accomplishments with pride, and look forward to the projects that will benefit from the results.
Yeah, God forbid a distro follow the bloody standard by having man pages where the FHS says man pages should go. And it's definitely too much to ask that developers of programs follow the same standard. It'll be much more fun to just do what the other guy's doing, and hope they don't change.
Like I said, Debian doesn't avoid these problems because of technological superiority, they avoid it because they don't have different groups of competing packagers. That's great now, but it'll be ugly if they ever fork.
This happened a few times. Connectiva, Stormix, Corel, all essentially Debian forks. Y'know what happened? Corel sucked (And nobody was surprised), but Stormix and Connectiva remained compatible. In fact, it was common for Connectiva users to upgrade straight from an existing Debian install to a Connectiva release, or vis versa.
Just because more than one group is doing the packaging doesn't mean they'll be incapable of following the same rules. That's why Debian works with 300+ people making packages, after all, they follow the rules.
The Debian community is so passionate because it is a distribution supported 100% by the people, and only the people. There's no commercial entity that funds the Debian Project. The release manager doesn't get a bonus if he gets the release out ahead of schedule, and the QA team doesn't get paid to manage packages that fall through the cracks.
Every single aspect of Debian's development, support, and growth comes from people who care about it enough to contribute their time. Does this tend to breed fanatics? Quite possibly. Is it understandable? Certainly to me. I don't see such fanatical support of other distros, because virtually all of them are developed by a company, not by a community.
Now, if that's not your cup of tea, great. There are plenty of other distros. That's the whole point, after all. That's the beauty of Linux's "fragmentation" that has forever been a point of criticism from the commercial software world which is so used to not having a choice.
I may be misunderstanding what you're asking for, but bash has been completing my commands for me for years. ^R, start typing, it autocompletes from ~/.bash_history
I use it for the vast majority of the commands I type.
The bad thing is there's 10% of the userbase that seems to be holding out for good on Netscape 4.x -- they aren't interested in IE, they aren't interested in Netscape 6. That essentially means that modern HTML authoring will never really come into vogue, and we will be stuck in 1995 until Microsoft actually finally gets the balls to 'fork' the WWW so that their stuff only works on their platform.
Nah. Netscape 4 holdouts will find themselves left behind as more and more web shops stop caring about making their sites look good in NS4, and just worry about IE6/NS6.
This is a good thing. Netscape 4's time has passed.
Make sure you get word to the Senator that because of his willingness to be a mouthpiece for Disney and friends, you will not be voting for him next term, and that you will do your best to actively lobby against him.
Then get a bunch of other people to send the same kind of thing to him.