7. In your opinion, what can bring Linux closer to the "desktop"?
Some friggin' decent font support, folks! That's what's needed in Linux. That's probably all that's needed -- given KDE's other features.
How do we do this? What would help the most? Are there patent or other IP issues? What's the problem here?
I think you're primarily looking at things from a status quo perspective, in the first place. So of course a thinking-out-of-the-box idea will not work in the context of how money is made, in today's market. Therefore, you're half right.
However, wherein labels use traditional channels of promotion to help move their product, including advertising (costly), commercial exposure (costly TV concerts and tie-ins), I would suggest a non-traditional approach to promotion (having suggested a non-traditional approach to distribution).
Word of mouth is a rather powerful tool -- and is free. Also, there seem to be many "independent" on-line radio stations cropping up which pride themselves in playing the obscure. (I'm listening to one now: KGNU. There's also KPIG, RadioParadise.com, etc.) If it's popular, they may play it. If it's good, they *will* play it. The DJs decide what's good, not a programming "consultant".
These means of promotion fit the rest of my model. Therefore, they should work. Save the CD selling for the concert. Charge $5 for a "cheap" run. Mass CD-R burners are relatively inexpensive. Paper cases are, as well. Don't depend on CD sales for much. Don't depend on publishers for much, either.
Why does making money have to conform in any way to yesterday's methods? This is like saying, farmers should stick to selling their goods locally, because selling to a broker that has a railway at his disposal isn't how it's ever been done, before.
We have new means of distribution (the web); We *could* use new means of marketing. I don't see why we need any part of the old edifice.
I hope some artist (I'm not an artist), someday, tries the following model on for size: * Post all music on-line, as free, high-quality MP3 and Ogg formats * Offer a concert signup (w/CCV) page -- "Coming to your city on [date] (based on demand)" * Offer refunds for cancelled concerts (for dates that fail, due to a lack of interest) * Upon crossing the right signup/cost threshold, rent concert space and go to town!
I would think this business model would make the right band a killing and incur no strings attached from any label!
Let the music (downloads) drive people into the concert hall; Let the concert-take be the real source of income.
Could be far more work, but... Isn't this sort of what the Grateful Dead did much of the time?
My wife uses Linux... Does that count? She's patient, still raising me -- kids are all older.
My mom's 83 years old. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what a computer's for... She uses phrases like, "New fangled notion!". Anyone know what that means?
Diferentiate between quick-learners and, uh, reluctant-learners, first. If you can't figure this out intuitively, ask. "Would you like to try something new?"
Entice even *one* person to try a new, alternative Office suite (start with an MS-Windows install of TOS Office). Ask for their feedback. Observe their learnning experience and learn from it, yourself. Then take it to the next level.
Teach a half-dozen people -- in your spare time. Grow your "install base". Always return to the original group(s) and make sure they're not feeling abandoned, etc.
Next, introduce *one* new person to a "pretty" desktop (Grome/KDE). Show them all the ease-of-use options first. Then help them understand the details as they walk through the learning curve. Every newbie will be diferent. But every newbie needs encouragement; A reason to stay the course.
By all means, show them the same app. they used on MS-Windows (e.g. TOS Office) running on the new desktop! Help them make "familiarity connections".
Be methodical, plodding, patient and open-minded. You'll succeed far sooner than you ever dreamed! The initial newbies, if you employ them, will help newer newbies. And the love will spread...
I got all panicky and changed my preferences. Then I figured, if they're (obviously) not going to protect my privacy, why give away personal information?
So, thinking my birth-year information matters (it does to me) I put a bogus "1999" in the appropriate place. What resulted was an endless loop of the silly system asking "Is your parent there with you? [Yes] [No]" in a Microsoft.NET "Kids" page!
When I clicked "Yes", it asked for Passport login info. (I only have one Passport account). When I clicked "No" it asked for my name and my parents e-mail address. In other words, I'm now LOCKED out of an account I've had for four years!
Now what e-mail address am I going to use to register with at spam-bombers, like 1-800-FLOWERS.com or ILLUMINATIONS.com or IMSI.com? Or what about when bots no longer find my hotmail.com address at InterNIC? Will I miss all that spam?
(Yes, I got blocked the first attempt, too, using Konqueror; Switched to NS 4.78:-(
Our 14 year old daughter had weeks of homework to catch up on. Everything we tried failed to motivate. Finally we decided to replace the things she cares most about with the things we care most about. No homework? No blow-dryer. Still no homework? No more makeup. Still no more homework? We buy clothes from a thrift store for her to wear to school and take away her designer jeans, et al.
She's now getting straight A's, including math, science, etc. It's a start...
The point of all this: Kids are not taught to care about grades. TV/Media teaches them to care about everything but being smart. Parents, apparently, are the only hold out; All others are sell-outs. (sigh)
Because we often buy copyrighted material, say books, and clearly see the copyright notice on or in the "product", I think we naturally confuse "ownership" with the law, or our perceived "rights".
Copyright has nothing to do with ownership. What you've bought is paper, glue, etc., -- when you bought a book, say.
Someone had the right to make a copy of the information that is in the book, though. The right to copy is not the same as the right to own.
When you download GPL'd s/w, someone has given you the right to "make a copy". That right comes with several restrictions. With conventional, commercial information distribution, one typically must pay for every copy made -- often whether the copy is sold or not.
Start with the familiar: 1) Install a distro (preferably one that will have the easiest time with the hardware) 2) Configure a windowing environment (prefereably one that looks the most like Windows) 3) Show them an Office suite (preferably one that's comperable to MS-Office) 4) Fire up some awesome games (preferably XPilot;-) or LBreakout) 5) Start up a variety of browsers (preferable w/ Quicktime, Flash, RealPlayer, XMMS) 6) Configure and use an e-mail client, Jabber/Yahoo/AIM client (Gaim's good) 7) Spend some time on XMMS with various skinns -- and point to http://www.jazzradio.net/ and say, "This is coming from Germany" 8) Show them Palm Pilot support (Jpilot's the best) 9) Show them Quanta's HTML, PHP, SQL, Java and C/C++ syntax coloring 10) Show them a GUI file manager (e.g. Konqueror, et al)
Last, but not least, show them SWAT, Webmin and other easy-to-use administrative tools. You want to leave them with the sense that the Linux environment will be friendly, not ominous.
Let them at least start with some motivation to want to learn more!
It strikes me as ironic that the Slashdot crowd complains about feature bloat on PC software, all the while extolling the virtues of having a gazillion switches for a single command line program.
But doesn't "bloatware" refer to Megs of memory required? No one's complaining about mega-options (in closed-arch. s/w). Whereas most closed-architecture providers throw features together, thus creating "bloatware", most hackers pride themselves in the fact that each added feature of their swiss-army-knife-ware cost little to add -- by design.
Even the GUI s/w (e.g. KDE, GNOME, et al) is built with carefully crafted pride. It may be somewhat more bloated than CLI code, but by comparison (to the crap that exists behind closed "architecture" apps.), it's good stuff.
Your complaint seem to be grounded more in impatience, not good logic. Good code takes time. I'd say that, not only is your observation about finger-pointing unfounded and illogical, it's also complementary to OSS hacks;-)
I think we've been hearing this same sort of complaint a lot, lately. "Why does it take seven years for Wine to match the Win95 API?". To me, this means that people are hanging their hopes on OSS to save (or at least better) their future. But the waiting game is something we're not used to having to play, either.
A glacier is a good analogy for OSS progress as well as market impact. Moves really slow, but is absolutely unstoppable! (Oh, and it eventually destroys everything in its path, too.)
ZDNet Reporter: Hello, I'm a MSNBC, er uh, ZDNet reporter and I'm calling you because you are a regular Mandrake member. Are you *pissed* that Mandrake has decided to take StarOffice 6.0 away from you because you're just a regular member?
Interviewee1: Well, uh... Yes. Uh... Yes I AM! I'm darn to heck pissed!
[click]
ZDNet Reporter: Hello, I'm a ZDNet reporter and I'm calling you because you are a regular Mandrake member. Are you *pissed* that Mandrake has decided to take StarOffice 6.0 away from you because you're just a regular member?
When Win2k *was* stable, it was called NT and it was stable before it got out of the MS-Door. At some point MS-Marketing insisted the OS kernel be cracked open to allow "features" to bypass the normal OS hierarchy (speed issues). The original hacker subsequently left MS in disgust. NT/2K has been unstable ever since...
Here, we have one remaining Win2K box that has been stripped down to run one, solitary, proprietary application. The box is cut off from Internet access (unless one succeeds in hacking into the Linux box between it and the Internet). Under heavy load, we reboot this Win2K thingie about once every three weeks. Not bad, compared to our old WinNT boxen.
We estimate that to use Win2K, exclusively, would require us to use at least four times the hardware we now have, running Linux.
Reasons: * Can't pear down the overhead much in Win2K (no control) * Can't patch Win2K fast enough (people-resource hog) * Can't patch/upgrade much of anything on Win2K without a re-boot * Requires *so* much more work to use other, more stable servers (e.g. Apache/PHP, PostgreSQL, Oracle)
We have never rebooted Linux or BSD.
Exceptions: H/W upgrade; Kernel upgrade; Root-kitting:-) But these don't count...
Time in the WinNT/Win2K world: 6 years Time in the Linux/BSD world: Uh, when was RH5.2 released?
Sounds more like your Linux installations aren't stable because they aren't based in reality? Be honest, now...
Slashdot Mirror
7. In your opinion, what can bring Linux closer to the "desktop"? Some friggin' decent font support, folks! That's what's needed in Linux. That's probably all that's needed -- given KDE's other features. How do we do this? What would help the most? Are there patent or other IP issues? What's the problem here?
Er, what Konqueror problem?
The problem's been fixed in Konqueror. Can you say the same for IE V5, 5.5 and 6?
Noooooooo...
Er... Allende was not executed in Argentina. He was assassinated in Santiago, Chille, by Pinoche henchmen (about four blocks from my house).
I think you're primarily looking at things from a status quo perspective, in the first place. So of course a thinking-out-of-the-box idea will not work in the context of how money is made, in today's market. Therefore, you're half right.
However, wherein labels use traditional channels of promotion to help move their product, including advertising (costly), commercial exposure (costly TV concerts and tie-ins), I would suggest a non-traditional approach to promotion (having suggested a non-traditional approach to distribution).
Word of mouth is a rather powerful tool -- and is free. Also, there seem to be many "independent" on-line radio stations cropping up which pride themselves in playing the obscure. (I'm listening to one now: KGNU. There's also KPIG, RadioParadise.com, etc.) If it's popular, they may play it. If it's good, they *will* play it. The DJs decide what's good, not a programming "consultant".
These means of promotion fit the rest of my model. Therefore, they should work. Save the CD selling for the concert. Charge $5 for a "cheap" run. Mass CD-R burners are relatively inexpensive. Paper cases are, as well. Don't depend on CD sales for much. Don't depend on publishers for much, either.
Why does making money have to conform in any way to yesterday's methods? This is like saying, farmers should stick to selling their goods locally, because selling to a broker that has a railway at his disposal isn't how it's ever been done, before.
We have new means of distribution (the web); We *could* use new means of marketing. I don't see why we need any part of the old edifice.
I hope some artist (I'm not an artist), someday, tries the following model on for size:
* Post all music on-line, as free, high-quality MP3 and Ogg formats
* Offer a concert signup (w/CCV) page -- "Coming to your city on [date] (based on demand)"
* Offer refunds for cancelled concerts (for dates that fail, due to a lack of interest)
* Upon crossing the right signup/cost threshold, rent concert space and go to town!
I would think this business model would make the right band a killing and incur no strings attached from any label!
Let the music (downloads) drive people into the concert hall; Let the concert-take be the real source of income.
Could be far more work, but... Isn't this sort of what the Grateful Dead did much of the time?
My wife uses Linux... Does that count? She's patient, still raising me -- kids are all older.
My mom's 83 years old. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what a computer's for... She uses phrases like, "New fangled notion!". Anyone know what that means?
Tiny booth, for Microsoft. Sun's boot is about 16 times larger.
Of course, size... doesn't... matter... Right?
People pick on Microsoft because they are slimy, lying scumbags...
People are? Or Microsoft? Which side are you on, man!
Er, should be using Postgres... ;-)
Diferentiate between quick-learners and, uh, reluctant-learners, first. If you can't figure this out intuitively, ask. "Would you like to try something new?"
;-)
Entice even *one* person to try a new, alternative Office suite (start with an MS-Windows install of TOS Office). Ask for their feedback. Observe their learnning experience and learn from it, yourself. Then take it to the next level.
Teach a half-dozen people -- in your spare time. Grow your "install base". Always return to the original group(s) and make sure they're not feeling abandoned, etc.
Next, introduce *one* new person to a "pretty" desktop (Grome/KDE). Show them all the ease-of-use options first. Then help them understand the details as they walk through the learning curve. Every newbie will be diferent. But every newbie needs encouragement; A reason to stay the course.
By all means, show them the same app. they used on MS-Windows (e.g. TOS Office) running on the new desktop! Help them make "familiarity connections".
Be methodical, plodding, patient and open-minded. You'll succeed far sooner than you ever dreamed! The initial newbies, if you employ them, will help newer newbies. And the love will spread...
Do I sound like I've done this before?
Ok. That was fun!
.NET "Kids" page!
:-(
I got all panicky and changed my preferences. Then I figured, if they're (obviously) not going to protect my privacy, why give away personal information?
So, thinking my birth-year information matters (it does to me) I put a bogus "1999" in the appropriate place. What resulted was an endless loop of the silly system asking "Is your parent there with you? [Yes] [No]" in a Microsoft
When I clicked "Yes", it asked for Passport login info. (I only have one Passport account). When I clicked "No" it asked for my name and my parents e-mail address. In other words, I'm now LOCKED out of an account I've had for four years!
Now what e-mail address am I going to use to register with at spam-bombers, like 1-800-FLOWERS.com or ILLUMINATIONS.com or IMSI.com? Or what about when bots no longer find my hotmail.com address at InterNIC? Will I miss all that spam?
(Yes, I got blocked the first attempt, too, using Konqueror; Switched to NS 4.78
Our 14 year old daughter had weeks of homework to catch up on. Everything we tried failed to motivate. Finally we decided to replace the things she cares most about with the things we care most about. No homework? No blow-dryer. Still no homework? No more makeup. Still no more homework? We buy clothes from a thrift store for her to wear to school and take away her designer jeans, et al.
She's now getting straight A's, including math, science, etc. It's a start...
The point of all this: Kids are not taught to care about grades. TV/Media teaches them to care about everything but being smart. Parents, apparently, are the only hold out; All others are sell-outs. (sigh)
He's part of an evangelical family of Bible-thumpers -- along with his sister, Vaginal Roberts and brother, Rectal Roberts.
Because we often buy copyrighted material, say books, and clearly see the copyright notice on or in the "product", I think we naturally confuse "ownership" with the law, or our perceived "rights".
Copyright has nothing to do with ownership. What you've bought is paper, glue, etc., -- when you bought a book, say.
Someone had the right to make a copy of the information that is in the book, though. The right to copy is not the same as the right to own.
When you download GPL'd s/w, someone has given you the right to "make a copy". That right comes with several restrictions. With conventional, commercial information distribution, one typically must pay for every copy made -- often whether the copy is sold or not.
"All I want are sharks with friggin' laser beams coming out of their heads! Is that so much to ask?" -- Dr. Evil
Start with the familiar: ;-) or LBreakout)
1) Install a distro (preferably one that will have the easiest time with the hardware)
2) Configure a windowing environment (prefereably one that looks the most like Windows)
3) Show them an Office suite (preferably one that's comperable to MS-Office)
4) Fire up some awesome games (preferably XPilot
5) Start up a variety of browsers (preferable w/ Quicktime, Flash, RealPlayer, XMMS)
6) Configure and use an e-mail client, Jabber/Yahoo/AIM client (Gaim's good)
7) Spend some time on XMMS with various skinns -- and point to http://www.jazzradio.net/ and say, "This is coming from Germany"
8) Show them Palm Pilot support (Jpilot's the best)
9) Show them Quanta's HTML, PHP, SQL, Java and C/C++ syntax coloring
10) Show them a GUI file manager (e.g. Konqueror, et al)
Last, but not least, show them SWAT, Webmin and other easy-to-use administrative tools. You want to leave them with the sense that the Linux environment will be friendly, not ominous.
Let them at least start with some motivation to want to learn more!
What about a SlashBotted sight? Like the one featured on this article? (It's down at the moment).
Who's Minnesota Bill? Is he related to Buffalo Bill? Did they ever meet?
It strikes me as ironic that the Slashdot crowd complains about feature bloat on PC software, all the while extolling the virtues of having a gazillion switches for a single command line program.
But doesn't "bloatware" refer to Megs of memory required? No one's complaining about mega-options (in closed-arch. s/w). Whereas most closed-architecture providers throw features together, thus creating "bloatware", most hackers pride themselves in the fact that each added feature of their swiss-army-knife-ware cost little to add -- by design.
Even the GUI s/w (e.g. KDE, GNOME, et al) is built with carefully crafted pride. It may be somewhat more bloated than CLI code, but by comparison (to the crap that exists behind closed "architecture" apps.), it's good stuff.
Your complaint seem to be grounded more in impatience, not good logic. Good code takes time. I'd say that, not only is your observation about finger-pointing unfounded and illogical, it's also complementary to OSS hacks ;-)
I think we've been hearing this same sort of complaint a lot, lately. "Why does it take seven years for Wine to match the Win95 API?". To me, this means that people are hanging their hopes on OSS to save (or at least better) their future. But the waiting game is something we're not used to having to play, either.
A glacier is a good analogy for OSS progress as well as market impact. Moves really slow, but is absolutely unstoppable! (Oh, and it eventually destroys everything in its path, too.)
Uh huh. And criticism is often the *best* form of publicity.
MSNBC's just doing a good PR job (supporting their biggest partner).
ZDNet Reporter: Hello, I'm a MSNBC, er uh, ZDNet reporter and I'm calling you because you are a regular Mandrake member. Are you *pissed* that Mandrake has decided to take StarOffice 6.0 away from you because you're just a regular member?
Interviewee1: Well, uh... Yes. Uh... Yes I AM! I'm darn to heck pissed!
[click]
ZDNet Reporter: Hello, I'm a ZDNet reporter and I'm calling you because you are a regular Mandrake member. Are you *pissed* that Mandrake has decided to take StarOffice 6.0 away from you because you're just a regular member?
Interviewee2: Well, uh... Yes. Uh... Yes I AM! I'm totally pissed!
[click]
ZDNet Reporter: COPY!!!
Geez! Can't someone mod this up as funny?!
Good one...
When Win2k *was* stable, it was called NT and it was stable before it got out of the MS-Door. At some point MS-Marketing insisted the OS kernel be cracked open to allow "features" to bypass the normal OS hierarchy (speed issues). The original hacker subsequently left MS in disgust. NT/2K has been unstable ever since...
:-) But these don't count...
Here, we have one remaining Win2K box that has been stripped down to run one, solitary, proprietary application. The box is cut off from Internet access (unless one succeeds in hacking into the Linux box between it and the Internet). Under heavy load, we reboot this Win2K thingie about once every three weeks. Not bad, compared to our old WinNT boxen.
We estimate that to use Win2K, exclusively, would require us to use at least four times the hardware we now have, running Linux.
Reasons:
* Can't pear down the overhead much in Win2K (no control)
* Can't patch Win2K fast enough (people-resource hog)
* Can't patch/upgrade much of anything on Win2K without a re-boot
* Requires *so* much more work to use other, more stable servers (e.g. Apache/PHP, PostgreSQL, Oracle)
We have never rebooted Linux or BSD.
Exceptions: H/W upgrade; Kernel upgrade; Root-kitting
Time in the WinNT/Win2K world: 6 years
Time in the Linux/BSD world: Uh, when was RH5.2 released?
Sounds more like your Linux installations aren't stable because they aren't based in reality? Be honest, now...
> And i'd sure want to RTFM if there were some usefull FM avaialble at all. Would you contribute some, if it really works for you?
:-)
Er, I see your point... Perhaps "I'm just in a mood...", too.
Rough week. Sorry
This should *really* be modded as flame-bait!
We've been using OpenLDAP for several years, at several data centers, heavy loads (e.g. remember Sept. 11? nimda?), etc. What are you talking about?
Easy to blame the application; Tough to blame the installer, I'm sure. RTFM?