* Metacity and Nautilus are lacking features - Of course, he doesn't say what these missing features are, though.
Metacity? How about the ability to turn off the sluggish, hideous, ungainly, disgusting, pile-of-shit window animation whenever you minimize an app? Wanna see pathological stubbornness in action? Read the comments for that bug (don't have it handy).
Or, how about the ability to flag a window to be "on top"?
Or, how about the ability to relegate a window's taskbar icon to that applet tray area where the clock is?
I'm still using RH8, but not their GNOME desktop (nor KDE for that matter).
I'm among the most disappointed with RedHat's choice to reduce desktop configurability to near zero (no, themes do not count as configurability...a real window manager with extensively modifiable behaviors does) in RH8.0.
Same here. After the Metacity abortion found its way onto the RH8 desktop, I just dumped the gnome desktop environment and used IceWM. Light, fast, configurable, attractive.
You have the choice of "not buying" or "being Amish".
You also have the opportunity of playing an educational role by simply ask that people send you information in a non-proprietary format.
And by sending them information in a non-proprietary format as well.
There are a lot of "power users" who have a vague understanding of this whole "microsoft monopoly" issue but haven't encountered it in the real world for themselves yet. A polite request that someone send you something in non-proprietary format immediately makes the issue non-abstract to them.
So what did I do about it? I did what most people would have done... I went to Kazaa Lite and downloaded the Enterprise Architect version.
Whereas what you should have done is wised up, thrown that proprietary ass-sucking shitbag of a development environment into the trash, and discovered the world of open source development tools.
Switching is not that bad. Really. Even a retard like me can do it. And that's saying something.
You bastard! Why did you leave out clothing? That forced me to picture a naked slashdotter eating and drinking while reading/. on a Windows PC in their home.
*whew*
Until you said "Windows", I thought you were staring through my fucking patio window.
I'm 28, own a house and a car, have a family, have a very well paid job, and *I* can't afford MS Office. Hell, I can't afford Visual C#.NET, which costs about 1/7th as much.
Spend less money on crack?
But then again, that's the only thing that would make you consider C#.NET anyway, so it's a wash.
As a small social experiment I decided to use only open source and non-MS apps for school. I study CS at an all-Microsoft campus so it's a bit more of challenge than it probably sounds.
Cheers to you!
But I'm honestly flabbergasted whenever I hear that a CS department is "MS-only". It's simply, utterly, completely perplexing.
More to the point -- what are they supposed when someone sends them.doc files?
Open them in OpenOffice?
Or better, send them back with the URL for OpenOffice, tell the sender to download it for free, convert the document to native OpenOffice format, and send you that copy?
What? Are you saying the receiver of a.DOC file should be obligated to spend a wad of cash just to read your proprietary format documents? I don't think so.
Fine, if they won't develop the critical services, take the physical infrastructure away from them and auction it off like we do the EM spectrum.
Their physical lines run along roads and highways on public property. If they're going to squander the resource just because they can't accept a world in which they have competitors, then take their lines through some sort of eminent domain mechanism and divvy up the bandwidth among providers who are willing.
Bush is a hardcore Methodist. I'm related to hardcore Methodists. When hardcore Methodists say Evil, they mean the influence of Satan. If Bush is genuine in his language, I don't doubt he'll do anything, at any cost, to get rid of Saddam. That kinda freaks me out a little.
This is what scares the crap out of me on both sides.
The terrorists rolling their eyes back into their heads saying "Yes Allah, Jihad!", and Bush rolling his eyes back into his head saying "Yes Jesus, I am the instrument of The Rapture!"
Would it be feasible for local and state governments to make roll-out of physical broadband components a part of the civic infrastructure, like roads?
Or contract separately for the physical infrastructure and the networking services?
This way they could provide the conditions necessary for competition.
Sounds like you're out $200. Here's the thing to do:
1. Go to the bank. Withdraw $200. Get four fifties. 2. Find a skank bar. Drink, for four nights beginning Tuesday, $50 worth of booze nightly. Even at a fairly pricey bar, $50 will get you wasted. Be sure to get properly belligerent drunk. Accost people. Fondle women. Get some phone numbers, bruises, and a split lip. It really doesn't hurt that bad. A bloody lip heals in about four days. Plus, even if you win a fight, it still hurts just as bad as losing. Do wear robust boots, however. 3. On Saturday, when you're a hung-over pile, go gandi.net and register a new domain. It's about $12 yearly. Find some good web hosting. I found some for $5/month. Then, write about your drunken exploits.
-- The idea of MS innovating its way out of this is silly. --
No, it's not. MS has some extremely bright people working for them, they have contributed a lot to computing, and it's rediculous to attribute all of their success to "luck" or "aggressive business".
Well, I think MS is in a no-win situation, because Linux/Free/OSS software have completely changed the rules of the game.
MS is good at the "make-money" game; but the free software crowd don't play by those rules. They keep score in units of "software value", not dollars.
Maybe MS could win the units-of-software-value game; but only at the expense of severely handicapping its "make-money" game. MS has to decide which game it wants to play.
It may be that the only way to stay on top of its "make-money" game is to leave the commodity software field altogether and find another playing field.
Which would suit me fine. MS can go into, say, the investments business and continue to make its shareholders wheelbarrows-full of money - just as long as they stop crapping indiscriminately all over the software landscape.
Microsoft has worn out its welcome in this arena a looooong time ago - the time for diplomacy is long past. Now it's just a matter of getting its bloated carcass off the living room couch and out the door.
But what if M$ tries to get in the Linux market? Would you guys use it? I mean, is it about Linux to you guys or strictly OSS?
I wouldn't use it unless there was some indication that MS has really changed its stripes: a complete turn-over of management, and the old guard currently in place at MS marched into the center of Redmond campus and hung from the lamp-posts. (Monkey-boy's last dance, as it were).
But hey, if that happens - you can reach me here at/. and I'll cheerfully go out and buy some MS open source software.
Despite this, Microsoft is at risk of following this path, due to the corporate delusion that goes by many names: "better together," "unified platform," and "integrated software." There is false hope in Redmond that these outmoded approaches to software integration will attract and keep international markets, governments, academics, and most importantly, innovators, safely within the Microsoft sphere of influence. But they won't .
No one has respect for innovators who are kept whores of a mega-corp.
Why do you, David Stutz, get so soft and warm and mushy about your (former) employer? Can't you see what a vastly better place this planet will be once their pernicious influence on the computing landscape is scrubbed away?
Unless your article was a disguised way of telling MS why they suck; but it really does seem like a heart-felt bit of advice to the vicious monster you love; an agonizing "Dear John" letter sent as you set out for other climes.
Next thing you know they'll be telling us they can send TV over broadband wires!
They can keep their drivelous TV. I want to know why charter just cut my so-ho account off at the knees without telling me (went from 768K to 128K upstream - and I was promised 1.0M upstream initially).
now they're trying to "guide" me into a commercial plan with less speed at twice the cost.
unfortunately, dsl, which isn't even available in my area yet, is little better.
as for the power line stuff, i'm all for any improvements that bring competition to the broadband market. it's two-thousand-and-fucking-three and there still isn't reasonably-priced broadband competition in my area?
Chalk another one up for greed and mis-guided beliefs. IBM backs up their talk about not charging for their patents by donating software to open source. Until microsoft puts their money where their mouth is, they just lost a huge chunk of credibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Metacity? How about the ability to turn off the sluggish, hideous, ungainly, disgusting, pile-of-shit window animation whenever you minimize an app? Wanna see pathological stubbornness in action? Read the comments for that bug (don't have it handy).
Or, how about the ability to flag a window to be "on top"?
Or, how about the ability to relegate a window's taskbar icon to that applet tray area where the clock is?
I'm still using RH8, but not their GNOME desktop (nor KDE for that matter).
Same here. After the Metacity abortion found its way onto the RH8 desktop, I just dumped the gnome desktop environment and used IceWM. Light, fast, configurable, attractive.
I've had a link to the snowflake page on my personal home page for some time.
You: If you're using Microsoft products from front-to-back
It's really the proprietary part that gets me.
You also have the opportunity of playing an educational role by simply ask that people send you information in a non-proprietary format.
And by sending them information in a non-proprietary format as well.
There are a lot of "power users" who have a vague understanding of this whole "microsoft monopoly" issue but haven't encountered it in the real world for themselves yet. A polite request that someone send you something in non-proprietary format immediately makes the issue non-abstract to them.
Whereas what you should have done is wised up, thrown that proprietary ass-sucking shitbag of a development environment into the trash, and discovered the world of open source development tools.
Switching is not that bad. Really. Even a retard like me can do it. And that's saying something.
*whew*
Until you said "Windows", I thought you were staring through my fucking patio window.
Spend less money on crack?
But then again, that's the only thing that would make you consider C#.NET anyway, so it's a wash.
Cheers to you!
But I'm honestly flabbergasted whenever I hear that a CS department is "MS-only". It's simply, utterly, completely perplexing.
What are these schools??
Open them in OpenOffice?
Or better, send them back with the URL for OpenOffice, tell the sender to download it for free, convert the document to native OpenOffice format, and send you that copy?
What? Are you saying the receiver of a .DOC file should be obligated to spend a wad of cash just to read your proprietary format documents? I don't think so.
Their physical lines run along roads and highways on public property. If they're going to squander the resource just because they can't accept a world in which they have competitors, then take their lines through some sort of eminent domain mechanism and divvy up the bandwidth among providers who are willing.
This is what scares the crap out of me on both sides.
The terrorists rolling their eyes back into their heads saying "Yes Allah, Jihad!", and Bush rolling his eyes back into his head saying "Yes Jesus, I am the instrument of The Rapture!"
They're all a bunch of primitive, medieval fucks.
No, I'm talking wide-open limber shaved asian teen pr0n.
When HD pr0n reaches critical mass.
Would it be feasible for local and state governments to make roll-out of physical broadband components a part of the civic infrastructure, like roads? Or contract separately for the physical infrastructure and the networking services? This way they could provide the conditions necessary for competition.
1. Go to the bank. Withdraw $200. Get four fifties.
2. Find a skank bar. Drink, for four nights beginning Tuesday, $50 worth of booze nightly. Even at a fairly pricey bar, $50 will get you wasted. Be sure to get properly belligerent drunk. Accost people. Fondle women. Get some phone numbers, bruises, and a split lip. It really doesn't hurt that bad. A bloody lip heals in about four days. Plus, even if you win a fight, it still hurts just as bad as losing. Do wear robust boots, however.
3. On Saturday, when you're a hung-over pile, go gandi.net and register a new domain. It's about $12 yearly. Find some good web hosting. I found some for $5/month. Then, write about your drunken exploits.
That's my MO. It's not bad.
Daddy?!
How about this one:
a) [ ] <= your total income
b) - [ ] <= subtract your total expenses
----------
c) [ ] <= please make out a check for this amount to the IRS
No, it's not. MS has some extremely bright people working for them, they have contributed a lot to computing, and it's rediculous to attribute all of their success to "luck" or "aggressive business".
Well, I think MS is in a no-win situation, because Linux/Free/OSS software have completely changed the rules of the game.
MS is good at the "make-money" game; but the free software crowd don't play by those rules. They keep score in units of "software value", not dollars.
Maybe MS could win the units-of-software-value game; but only at the expense of severely handicapping its "make-money" game. MS has to decide which game it wants to play.
It may be that the only way to stay on top of its "make-money" game is to leave the commodity software field altogether and find another playing field.
Which would suit me fine. MS can go into, say, the investments business and continue to make its shareholders wheelbarrows-full of money - just as long as they stop crapping indiscriminately all over the software landscape.
Microsoft has worn out its welcome in this arena a looooong time ago - the time for diplomacy is long past. Now it's just a matter of getting its bloated carcass off the living room couch and out the door.
I wouldn't use it unless there was some indication that MS has really changed its stripes: a complete turn-over of management, and the old guard currently in place at MS marched into the center of Redmond campus and hung from the lamp-posts. (Monkey-boy's last dance, as it were).
But hey, if that happens - you can reach me here at /. and I'll cheerfully go out and buy some MS open source software.
No one has respect for innovators who are kept whores of a mega-corp.
Why do you, David Stutz, get so soft and warm and mushy about your (former) employer? Can't you see what a vastly better place this planet will be once their pernicious influence on the computing landscape is scrubbed away?
Unless your article was a disguised way of telling MS why they suck; but it really does seem like a heart-felt bit of advice to the vicious monster you love; an agonizing "Dear John" letter sent as you set out for other climes.
They can keep their drivelous TV. I want to know why charter just cut my so-ho account off at the knees without telling me (went from 768K to 128K upstream - and I was promised 1.0M upstream initially).
now they're trying to "guide" me into a commercial plan with less speed at twice the cost.
unfortunately, dsl, which isn't even available in my area yet, is little better.
as for the power line stuff, i'm all for any improvements that bring competition to the broadband market. it's two-thousand-and-fucking-three and there still isn't reasonably-priced broadband competition in my area?
WELL FUCKIN DUH!
You're new around here aren't you?
I'm pretty sure I don't care. I'll get back to you on that.
Not that it doesn't contain a lot of truth - I just think it's a fake.
Yeah, thank god there is someone with crystal-clear perception and a brilliant intellect, untainted by stereotypes, to straighten us out.