It was becoming one of those situations where you're worried that it's going to wind up like a plot for a bad movie. "Thank you for tuning into KUSA (yeah, I'm a left-coaster), the ONE broadcasting company you need!"
At least there will be some discourse, or so one would hope.
...in a perfect vacuum, and someone discovered it thousands (millions?) of years later, would it still work? (provided there was power for it, some type of solar, perhaps?)
Well, if Microsoft isn't serving your needs, perhaps you should look into one of the excellent alternatives out there? A Powerbook or Linux perhaps? Sure you don't want to pay for Windows pre-installed, then wipe it and pay for SuSE or whatever, but if that extra ~$70 actually gets you a computer YOU have control over instead of MS, maybe it's worth it?
We expect people who run a very popular weblog/discussion site who constantly preach openness and free speech and who also say that the site is self-moderated to actually live up to their word instead of moderating an entire thread of well over 100 posts down indiscrimantly instead of letting the users take care of it themselves.
Yes, except Kosovo isn't the capitol of Servia/Yugoslavia, Belgrade is. Kosovo is the southernmost province of Serbia where all the ethnic Albanians live. Most/all of the bombs were dropped on Belgrade, not Kosovo.
One doesn't generally bomb the very people you're trying to save.:)
We [the majority, anyway] blindly assume that egg troll is actually a consultant, that he/she is posting in honesty, and even assume that he/she is actually a human.
Actually, Trelane, many of us know that egg troll is simply Trolling in this case. A pure, unadulterated Troll, crafted and posted for no purpose other that to get bites. There isn't one shred of truth or sincerity in its entirety.
I'm surprised, given your UID, that you didn't see that.
Please tell me where in my post I used the word "productive"? Oh, that's right, I didn't!
All I said was that the 3 people mentioned created something with what could be argued was their addiction. People who play games (my favorites are Descent3 online and MechWarrior3) aren't creating anything except perhaps some personal enjoyment.
When that personal enjoyment starts pushing aside things like school, work, family and friends, that's when it has become an addiction.
Did you really read my post? Please go back and read it again.
The 3 analogies you mention just don't work, since they all involve people creating something. The people playing Everquest aren't creating anything, they're just playing a game.
And just because it's profitable doesn't mean it isn't an addiction. We've all heard the stories of people losing their wives, friends or their minds through an over-zealous commitment to their work.
This is a dangerous guitar. I played one once and almost shelled out the $1500 for it, because it played so damn sweet.
*whew* That was close!:)
Now, if it had an ethernet port on it? I probably wouldn't have been able to resist. Music and geekery combined into one? An absolutely irresistable combination, IMO.
Unfortunately, our beloved country is ever more controlled by corporate interests. Even Al "I hate Big Oil" Gore receives a ridiculous amount of money from corporate sponsors. No comment needs to be made about GWB and his administration.
Here's my take on why most people in government support Microsoft. First, whatever the morality of their practices, they are arguably the most successful business in history. They pay lots of salaries and benefits and have created much wealth.
Also, many people remember how scary it was in the 80's when the Japanese were kicking our asses in every way (with the Koreans and other Asian nations not far behind). MS, along with Intel, Oracle, Sun, etc. have brought the world technology leadership solidly back to the US. Many politicians want to keep it that way.
Don't get me wrong, I'm badly disappointed with this proposed settlement and the one for the still-pending DOJ case. That's why I only use Linux on my computers (except for a lingering Win98 partition at home to play a couple of Windows only games).
You know what? Thank God for all MS's security holes. If Windows/IE/IIS/Passport were all actually secure, then they would completely take over everything, no question about it. Then we'd all truly have our entire computing experience controlled by Redmond.
I'm getting depressed, I'm going to shut up now.....
Thus I find it hard to believe that most people can get away with, never mind prefer, using Linux in lieu of Windows or Macintosh.
I use Debian 2.2r4 at home (I do dual-boot to Win98SE to play Descent3, MechWarrior3 and the demos off my PC Gamer CD) exclusively for email, web, letters, etc. I also use it at work exclusively. OpenOffice allows me to interact with MS Office and everything else just works.
All the other computers in the office run some version of Windows (except the server, which is also Debian).
Not only do I "get away with it", I definitely prefer it. Windows drives me up the wall when I try to use it (except for web-browsing. Mozilla0.9.5 is very good, but it still doesn't quite match IE5.5sp2, IMO).
My parents also use Debian on their computer, since they got tired of Win95 crashing on their old computer, and didn't want to spend an extra $180 when I built them their new one 2 years ago. My mom types letters just fine in Abiword, and they use Mozilla for web browsing and to access their hotmail account (I know, but they're loathe to change).
Plus, I have 2 other friends who use Linux exclusively, although they are both uber-geeks. One of them is the sysadmin for a small company with 6 locations and about 30 total employess. They use Debian exclusively, including custom Java apps and a custom scheduling/billing server setup with PostgreSQL (sp?) and they use Squirrel Mail for webmail.
First, GPL doesn't allow its technology to be used by vendors who will charge for their wares.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your meaning, but you do know that it's is perfectly ok to sell GPL'd software, don't you? After all, that's what SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake et al do. You just can't use GPL'd code with non-GPL'd code, nor can you take it 'closed' then sell it.
However, regarding your main premise, which seems to be: Linux (and FS in general) present their own boundary to entry due to the fact that you can get the software for no monetary cost, provided you have internet access. This lack of monetary cost precludes a commercial entity from offering an alternative to Microsoft because if someone is going to switch from MS products, why would they pay when there is a (F)(f)ree alternative?
I think this concept is a valid one, but there is a reason why it is so. I think it goes right back to Microsoft in the first place (and other closed/commercial OS vendors to a much lesser extent). Windows (and now Office and Internet Explorer) have such a high monopoly barrier to entry that the only alternative product that could be created and survive is a Free one (or actually several Free ones, if you include the BSD's).
Please recall that there used to be 'traditional' commercial alternatives to Windows: From CP/M to DR-DOS, to OS/2 (and others I'm sure I'm omitting). They were all run out of business by Microsoft's predatory use of its monopoly (this point can obviously be debated, but the Appeals Court agreed with this premise unanimously, 7-0, and this was supposed to be the one court in all the US that was most likely to come down on Microsoft's side) Since there was no more commercail competition (short of $5-10,000+ Unix boxes), the market came up with an alternative that could not be killed or bought out. IMO, Microsoft created this situation by its behavior.
I believe that markets (or any large group of people) react very similarly to biological organisms. In this case, Microsoft is a bad element (I hesitate to use emotionally charged words like cancer or virus that carry their own ulterior connotations) which is controlling an inordinate portion of the market/organism, so the rest of the organism has been trying to take it down a notch or two. Finally, the only choice seems to be to "cut off their air supply" by attempting to kill their 2 main sources of revenue/sustenance: Windows and Office.
If these forces were to succeed absolutely and kill off Microsoft (highly unlikely and certainly not necessarily a good thing), then the mainstream software components we all use every day (OS, word processor, email, browser, etc.) would be Free, commodity products, and commercial vendors could focus on providing something tangible that actually requires true manufacturing: hardware (this is, of course, the main business of many of MS's competitors: IBM, Sun, Apple)
Summation: I think you're basically right, but the situation was created by Microsoft itself. Linux simply grew out of the situation as it existed. Regardless, there's certainly nothing that can be done about it now.:)
Is this a case of people only hearing what they want to hear?
While I certainly wouldn't put that sort of thing past the Slashdot editors, it's not the case here. I read the BBC article right after the link was posted above, and then I just now checked it after I saw your post. The article has been changed/updated.
Originally, it said there was a 6/6/6 split over the case, but now it is saying that there is a "breakthrough", with 9 states agreeing to sign on. John Warden, one of the MS lawyers, had originally said that the settlement was dead and that they wouldn't negotiate any further and they would have to continue with the remedy phase of the trial.
That is different now that half the states are on board. With 3-6 more states on the fence (depending on which article you read), this continues to be a fluid situation.
I think it is this fluidity that caused the discrepancy you mention rather than some intentional bias on the part of Slashdot.
Install was mostly painless, but I did have to poke around a bit and 'activate' a couple of the plugins. Joe Average User might have some problems, but we're definitely getting closer.
Those "friendly reminders" are anything but. Damned annoying, IMO. Also, my fonts in Flash animations looked suspiciously like the default font in Netscape (I use Moz0.9.5) after I installed it. I uninstalled it after a few short minutes, mostly because of the annoying reminders, and the Flash fonts reverted back to their previous appearance.
While I do appreciate the usefulness of this product, Flash and Real already work for me, and that added to the annoying font issue make it not worth my $19.95 yet.
Wired has an article about the settlement allowing dual-boots. An addition at the end says that Senator Pat Leahy intends to have Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to review the settlement.
Also, the EU is still going forward with its investigation
Finally, Sun is mulling the possibility of a civil lawsuit of its own.
Slashdot Mirror
Get offa my lawn!
PJ (or whomever is purporting to be her),
The headline certainly is grammatically challenged, but it does say: "...some of the Groklaw.net members seem to agree that
(, that since in the U.S. any citizen has a right to review court records in order to monitor the performance of a judge, that)
O'Gara's 'motion to intervene' will most likely succeed."
The "anonymous reader" is actually saying "some Groklaw members" think it will succeed not you/PJ.
It was becoming one of those situations where you're worried that it's going to wind up like a plot for a bad movie. "Thank you for tuning into KUSA (yeah, I'm a left-coaster), the ONE broadcasting company you need!"
At least there will be some discourse, or so one would hope.
...in a perfect vacuum, and someone discovered it thousands (millions?) of years later, would it still work? (provided there was power for it, some type of solar, perhaps?)
Frosty!!!
Mandrake's doing a version of Windows now? Wow, I can't believe that I hadn't heard about it! :)
(no, it's not a Troll, it's FUNNY, a joke, get it?)
Well, if Microsoft isn't serving your needs, perhaps you should look into one of the excellent alternatives out there? A Powerbook or Linux perhaps? Sure you don't want to pay for Windows pre-installed, then wipe it and pay for SuSE or whatever, but if that extra ~$70 actually gets you a computer YOU have control over instead of MS, maybe it's worth it?
We expect people who run a very popular weblog/discussion site who constantly preach openness and free speech and who also say that the site is self-moderated to actually live up to their word instead of moderating an entire thread of well over 100 posts down indiscrimantly instead of letting the users take care of it themselves.
I've got it to burn, but everyone needs to know the truth.
...wouldn't that be Serbia?
:)
Yes, except Kosovo isn't the capitol of Servia/Yugoslavia, Belgrade is. Kosovo is the southernmost province of Serbia where all the ethnic Albanians live. Most/all of the bombs were dropped on Belgrade, not Kosovo.
One doesn't generally bomb the very people you're trying to save.
We [the majority, anyway] blindly assume that egg troll is actually a consultant, that he/she is posting in honesty, and even assume that he/she is actually a human.
Actually, Trelane, many of us know that egg troll is simply Trolling in this case. A pure, unadulterated Troll, crafted and posted for no purpose other that to get bites. There isn't one shred of truth or sincerity in its entirety.
I'm surprised, given your UID, that you didn't see that.
When I edit the From Pattern field, can I enter more than one domain? Or do I have to have a separate filter for each domain?
:)
:)
If I want to filter out pm0.net, do I just enter that or @pm0.net or *@pm0.net or......
Thanks
Please tell me where in my post I used the word "productive"? Oh, that's right, I didn't!
All I said was that the 3 people mentioned created something with what could be argued was their addiction. People who play games (my favorites are Descent3 online and MechWarrior3) aren't creating anything except perhaps some personal enjoyment.
When that personal enjoyment starts pushing aside things like school, work, family and friends, that's when it has become an addiction.
Did you really read my post? Please go back and read it again.
The 3 analogies you mention just don't work, since they all involve people creating something. The people playing Everquest aren't creating anything, they're just playing a game.
And just because it's profitable doesn't mean it isn't an addiction. We've all heard the stories of people losing their wives, friends or their minds through an over-zealous commitment to their work.
This is a dangerous guitar. I played one once and almost shelled out the $1500 for it, because it played so damn sweet.
:)
*whew* That was close!
Now, if it had an ethernet port on it? I probably wouldn't have been able to resist. Music and geekery combined into one? An absolutely irresistable combination, IMO.
Unfortunately, our beloved country is ever more controlled by corporate interests. Even Al "I hate Big Oil" Gore receives a ridiculous amount of money from corporate sponsors. No comment needs to be made about GWB and his administration.
Here's my take on why most people in government support Microsoft. First, whatever the morality of their practices, they are arguably the most successful business in history. They pay lots of salaries and benefits and have created much wealth.
Also, many people remember how scary it was in the 80's when the Japanese were kicking our asses in every way (with the Koreans and other Asian nations not far behind). MS, along with Intel, Oracle, Sun, etc. have brought the world technology leadership solidly back to the US. Many politicians want to keep it that way.
Don't get me wrong, I'm badly disappointed with this proposed settlement and the one for the still-pending DOJ case. That's why I only use Linux on my computers (except for a lingering Win98 partition at home to play a couple of Windows only games).
You know what? Thank God for all MS's security holes. If Windows/IE/IIS/Passport were all actually secure, then they would completely take over everything, no question about it. Then we'd all truly have our entire computing experience controlled by Redmond.
I'm getting depressed, I'm going to shut up now.....
I think that most of us know that he does indeed post on Slashdot. In fact, he said as much in his interview with Slashdot.
A little research goes a long way, Anton.
I was intrigued at the thought of seeing internal pictures of the xbox, but when I went to www.firesquad.com, it says the domain is "parked".
Where/how do I find these pix?
(I did a few google searches to no avail, I'll keep trying...)
Thus I find it hard to believe that most people can get away with, never mind prefer, using Linux in lieu of Windows or Macintosh.
I use Debian 2.2r4 at home (I do dual-boot to Win98SE to play Descent3, MechWarrior3 and the demos off my PC Gamer CD) exclusively for email, web, letters, etc. I also use it at work exclusively. OpenOffice allows me to interact with MS Office and everything else just works.
All the other computers in the office run some version of Windows (except the server, which is also Debian).
Not only do I "get away with it", I definitely prefer it. Windows drives me up the wall when I try to use it (except for web-browsing. Mozilla0.9.5 is very good, but it still doesn't quite match IE5.5sp2, IMO).
My parents also use Debian on their computer, since they got tired of Win95 crashing on their old computer, and didn't want to spend an extra $180 when I built them their new one 2 years ago. My mom types letters just fine in Abiword, and they use Mozilla for web browsing and to access their hotmail account (I know, but they're loathe to change).
Plus, I have 2 other friends who use Linux exclusively, although they are both uber-geeks. One of them is the sysadmin for a small company with 6 locations and about 30 total employess. They use Debian exclusively, including custom Java apps and a custom scheduling/billing server setup with PostgreSQL (sp?) and they use Squirrel Mail for webmail.
So, yes, some of us definitely prefer Linux.
No, it just means you move verrrry slowly... ;)
First, GPL doesn't allow its technology to be used by vendors who will charge for their wares.
:)
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your meaning, but you do know that it's is perfectly ok to sell GPL'd software, don't you? After all, that's what SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake et al do. You just can't use GPL'd code with non-GPL'd code, nor can you take it 'closed' then sell it.
However, regarding your main premise, which seems to be: Linux (and FS in general) present their own boundary to entry due to the fact that you can get the software for no monetary cost, provided you have internet access. This lack of monetary cost precludes a commercial entity from offering an alternative to Microsoft because if someone is going to switch from MS products, why would they pay when there is a (F)(f)ree alternative?
I think this concept is a valid one, but there is a reason why it is so. I think it goes right back to Microsoft in the first place (and other closed/commercial OS vendors to a much lesser extent). Windows (and now Office and Internet Explorer) have such a high monopoly barrier to entry that the only alternative product that could be created and survive is a Free one (or actually several Free ones, if you include the BSD's).
Please recall that there used to be 'traditional' commercial alternatives to Windows: From CP/M to DR-DOS, to OS/2 (and others I'm sure I'm omitting). They were all run out of business by Microsoft's predatory use of its monopoly (this point can obviously be debated, but the Appeals Court agreed with this premise unanimously, 7-0, and this was supposed to be the one court in all the US that was most likely to come down on Microsoft's side) Since there was no more commercail competition (short of $5-10,000+ Unix boxes), the market came up with an alternative that could not be killed or bought out. IMO, Microsoft created this situation by its behavior.
I believe that markets (or any large group of people) react very similarly to biological organisms. In this case, Microsoft is a bad element (I hesitate to use emotionally charged words like cancer or virus that carry their own ulterior connotations) which is controlling an inordinate portion of the market/organism, so the rest of the organism has been trying to take it down a notch or two. Finally, the only choice seems to be to "cut off their air supply" by attempting to kill their 2 main sources of revenue/sustenance: Windows and Office.
If these forces were to succeed absolutely and kill off Microsoft (highly unlikely and certainly not necessarily a good thing), then the mainstream software components we all use every day (OS, word processor, email, browser, etc.) would be Free, commodity products, and commercial vendors could focus on providing something tangible that actually requires true manufacturing: hardware (this is, of course, the main business of many of MS's competitors: IBM, Sun, Apple)
Summation: I think you're basically right, but the situation was created by Microsoft itself. Linux simply grew out of the situation as it existed. Regardless, there's certainly nothing that can be done about it now.
Cheers..............
Is this a case of people only hearing what they want to hear?
While I certainly wouldn't put that sort of thing past the Slashdot editors, it's not the case here. I read the BBC article right after the link was posted above, and then I just now checked it after I saw your post. The article has been changed/updated.
Originally, it said there was a 6/6/6 split over the case, but now it is saying that there is a "breakthrough", with 9 states agreeing to sign on. John Warden, one of the MS lawyers, had originally said that the settlement was dead and that they wouldn't negotiate any further and they would have to continue with the remedy phase of the trial.
That is different now that half the states are on board. With 3-6 more states on the fence (depending on which article you read), this continues to be a fluid situation.
I think it is this fluidity that caused the discrepancy you mention rather than some intentional bias on the part of Slashdot.
Do you think he would donate his time to the cause to prepare the brief on behalf of the Samba team and submit it for them?
Install was mostly painless, but I did have to poke around a bit and 'activate' a couple of the plugins. Joe Average User might have some problems, but we're definitely getting closer.
Those "friendly reminders" are anything but. Damned annoying, IMO. Also, my fonts in Flash animations looked suspiciously like the default font in Netscape (I use Moz0.9.5) after I installed it. I uninstalled it after a few short minutes, mostly because of the annoying reminders, and the Flash fonts reverted back to their previous appearance.
While I do appreciate the usefulness of this product, Flash and Real already work for me, and that added to the annoying font issue make it not worth my $19.95 yet.
YMMV...........
Not by a long shot.
Wired has an article about the settlement allowing dual-boots. An addition at the end says that Senator Pat Leahy intends to have Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to review the settlement.
Also, the EU is still going forward with its investigation
Finally, Sun is mulling the possibility of a civil lawsuit of its own.