"Furthermore, as others have commented elsewhere in these threads, prices for MS software in various application areas have remained below the price of equivalent software prior to MS entering that application area."
The thought crosses ones mind that this is a calculated move to create an inward spiral towards MS Office and MS Windows so they can continue to monopolize these markets and enjoy obscene profit margins on these two products that cover their losses elsewhere.
"In 1996 you got your choice of office suites; lotus, microsoft or corel free with a new PC. I don't think any of those suites, at that time, cost more than 75 bucks retail. Now there is only office for 300 dollars, and you get MS(doesn't)works free w/ a new pc."
You can get MS Office "free w/ a new pc" too, if you are willing to pay the higher price to get a computer that includes it as part of the package deal.;)
"The problem is that "day 1" for OpenOffice was the day Sun handed them a huge codebase specifically written for X11 and Win32. No Mac API support included."
The source handed out by Sun on day 1 was a functional product.
"By contrast, Mozilla was given an app that had already been coded for Mac, so on "day 1" the porting project was already complete."
By contrast the code netscape released was incomplete, then scrapped after several months, so what there was and was not code for really makes no difference. It seems to me there were several issues with aqua based Mac ports of Mozilla. Is there on that is kept in sync with the main tree?
If there are developers that are willing to step in and do the work, then the work will continue.
"The difference is that if the leading scientific theory is proven wrong then it is no longer the leading scientific theory."
"Only religious types think that a "Belief" is something you have to decide early then never change."
During the time it has taken for many theories to be considered "proven wrong" the old theory was religiously clung to until the mass of ideas revolving around the new theory was so great there was not much choice other than to let go of the old.
People like to quote "Seek and ye shall find" but have a tendency to forget to take the blinders off, so only see things that support their pre-concieved notions.
Scientific... Religious... Doesn't matter, it is a part of human nature and we are all guilty of it at times to some greater or lesser degree.
"Reason people don't accept it is because it pretty much destroy all the accepted continuity and heart of Star Trek(Vulcans behaving irrational and emotional etc)."
Some of that time travel stuff was stretching things a bit, but I don't think continuity is that big of an issue. Some hardcore fans may be able to point out some continuity errors, but much of what would be history from the standpoint of the other trek shows is vague and open to interpretation.
On the Vulcan emotion issues...
There are plenty of times when it appeared that Spock decided on a course of action, conclusion, etc.. then built a logical argument to support it as opposed to using logic to lead him to the proper action/conclusion.
Also we know there have been sects of Vulcans who embrace their emotions and that Romulans are an offshoot of the Vulcans.
Now that there has been a Romulan thrown into the mix I think the Vulcans and emotions stuff fits it pretty well.
"If Hauppauge supports Linux in any way, I'm unaware of it."
The support of Linux from Hauppauge leaves something to be desired, but projects working on drivers for Hauppauge cards have been able to get technical data sheets and technical information in addition to the data sheets from Hauppauge.
The additional factors are:
A: It seems it is not always easy to come into contact with the right people at Hauppauge that are able to provide technical details.
B: The makers of the chips that go on to Hauppauge products are not always very open with information and so NDAs become a factor in what information Hauppauge is able to provide.
"Certification of gentoo is almost certainly out of the picture, as you can't know from one system to annother which libraries are installed."
I don't run Gentoo, so I don't know what this slots idea is refering to.
Does Gentoo allow for multiple versions of things to be installed? And does it allow for some form of a virtually package that provides nothing and has the necessary dependencies to pull in everything that is required for complience?
Debian provides this. It is not fully complient, but Progeny which is mostly Debian is certified.
The LSB does not specify that a distrobution has to use any particular form of packaging for it's native format. Just that LSB complient.rpm files with their one dependency on lsb-versionx are able to be installed and run.
Probably not before the presentation of the air theory which states...
Air breathed by developers of Unix has been circulating for quite some time and must surely have later been breathed by Linux developers, so you must surely see the link between code added to Linux and code for which SCO holds the copyright.
apt-get works fine if you are willing to take the time to learn what you can and can't do. I use it to install several packages.
Earlier versions of Linspire were mostly woody with an updated version of KDE. So in every version you have not been able to apt-get KDE apps if you want to maintain the ability to install apps from the warehouse, since the CnR client application is a KDE application.
Lindows Inc., has been porting software from Sarge into Linspire, but because of limitations in the warehouse client and server software they have made compromises. As a result of this they are in limbo somewhere between Woody and Sarge from the compatibility standpoint.
Because of these issues apt-get is a mine field for those not allready familiar with the ins and outs of apt-get and solving conflicts that arise.
The issues with the warehouse software are being worked out and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting close for that process. It remains to be seen what the result of that will be for those of us who install things using apt-get, but I expect it to be much better.
"They don't respect the GPL (they put a disclaimer that basically say : everything in there is copyrighted by us and us alone, don't steal !)."
If you include your artwork in an application and limit it's distrobution beause of that, but make the source code minus the artwork available, then there is nothing wrong with that as far as the GPL is concerned.
It may not be clear when you install Linspire, but there is only a limited amount of stuff that Lindows Inc. claims as it's own that is not released under an open license. The primary thing being the CnR client.
http://www.besonic.com has been around for a few years.
There are forums, music news, streamed playlists, real media streaming for all songs, downloads in mp3 format - some free and some for a fee. And they have a radio feature that streams music that is available from the service.
"Like it or not, Copyleft/GPL/etc is much like communism, it's great in theory, and works well in practice only when everyone plays by the rules. As I hate communism and enjoy profiting directly from my proprietary work, I do not use Linux or any other GPL software."
Like it or not, whatever similarity open source shares with communism in theory in practice it is better for free enterprise. If you don't want to play by the rules I will pay some other enterprise for the service I desire, that's how it works and that's why it works, and that's why it's starting to have success in the free enterprise market.
"Give up trying to be a "platform". Not gonna happen."
That was an early design decision. Create a platform for building network enabled applications then use it to build a browser, email client, etc... It would be counter productive to give up on that now.
It may not be a widespread platform, but Active State thought it was good enough to use for the Komodo integrated developmet environmet and OEone thought it was good enough to create their Homebase Desktop Suite with.
"You have disjoint teams of hackers working on different parts and there's no "unifying vision"."
I see this as a strength. These teams may be disjointed, but they do not work in a vacuum. As stuff is developed by one team they get feedback from other teams that are impacted by the changes.
Companies/teams that provide distros/solutions have a vision of what they want to provide their users/customers and the users/customers provide feedback on what needs to be added/fixed.
The disjointed development is one of the things that allows a Linux distrobution to be stipped down and built up in so many different ways.
I feel the efforts in creating the LSB and the efforts going on at freedesktop.org are plenty of evidence that when things develop enough in a particular area that a standard is needed work will be done to create one.
As for the example of copy and paste if copy and paste is not working between two applications it is most likely a bug in one or both applications and should be reported to the application developers or your distrobution provider as a bug.
"So what is the Cylon religion? Its based on Human religion - picked up during their progress towards sentience. Unfortunately for us, it seems they took too much of our self-lothing nature to heart. They decided they were God's tools and the method of visiting retribution and punishment on man for his sins. And then went about that business. But at the same time, that religion also provides a roadmap to becoming one with God. And that includes adopting many of Man's characteristics (although presumably not all of them)."
As creations of man it is natural that our flaws would be reflected in the Cylons and by extension for them to make God in their image.
It is a common assumption without any data to the contrary that any entities that can be viewed as sentient will create some for of mythic/religious beliefs. And those beliefs are shaped by the events that occur to or within that society as much as they are used to shape that society.
Even with the Vulcans on Star Trek who pride themselves on logic, their logic is sometimes fluid and created to support an emotional response instead of being completely derived from the facts. And even they have their myths and religions that they cling to.
Having Cylons with a religious belief also opens the door for there to be heretics which could provide some good story lines.
Also some of the sleeper Cylons upon learning their true nature may lead other Cylons to reject their religious beliefs and revolt or become double agents.
"For example, when Baltar framed the (what he thought was a) human, claiming that he was a Cylon, he made up some story about spectroscopic analysis or something, and everyone believed him. At the very least, they should have had someone studying his methods, so that someone could take over if something happened to Baltar."
The whole mini series seemed to only span 2 or 3 days so there was not a lot of time for verification and backup plans. Hence the reference by the blonde Cylon that keeps appearing to Baltaar when she commented on the "wonderful Baltaar just throwing a Cylon detector together.." or some words to that effect.
The pattern of events leading up to this is not hard to imagine.
Man creates machine to do all the crap he does not want to do.
Man wants machine to be more intelligent so he makes it so.
Either by accident or design machine gains a sense of self preservation which develops into a desire to be treated as an equal to man.
Man rejects that idea which marks the beginning of a class war.
During this war machine begins to see itself as superior to man.
The details of these events are not interesting in and of themselves. If there are follow ups to this mini series in the form of a series I am sure more details will be filled in about these events to round out and give context to future story lines.
A couple of the Cylons referenced God and I am curious to see how that works into future story lines. Is this an abstract belief or is there a Cylon entity they refer to as God.
The sleeper Cylons, Cylons that don't know they are Cylons is another idea that sounds like it has promise for future story lines especially since they left you with the expectation that Boomer is one of these sleepers and will have to come to terms with that at some point when she is woken.
The debconf configuration can be called up a few different ways.
Dpkg-reconfigure and gkdebconf to name a couple. IN newer versions Synaptic there is a filter that shows the packages that are managed by debconf and there is a configure button that will initiate the debconf configuration for a selected package as well.
If the utilities had an option to only show the packages managed by debconf that provide user interaction it would be better, but it is not hard to initiate the debconf configuration.
Alien is good for the occasional package where dependencies are a minor concern.
The problem with Alien is you lose the dependency tracking information during the package conversion, so it is not good on a larger scale.
I believe.rpm files can already be handled directly in Debian (not by apt) if they are LSB compliant, but the only thing these packages depend on is the LSB package that provides support for the version of the LSB specification that is required by the.rpm.
Viewing the quote with that context in mind and including the next statement in the quote:
"We are also working with various parties to add/merge RPM support into the mainline APT, to allow Debian- and RPM-based distributions to be managed using a single APT codebase, and possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by side. This work also aims to merge our various APT extensions (e.g., support for authenticated APT repos) into the mainline APT.
It is our hope that a distribution-independent Anaconda and a distribution-independent APT (plus, eventually, a distribution- independent configuration framework) will, along with a stronger LSB, help unify further the various Linux distributions."
Relatively speaking, it is probably only a small stretch once the codebase is unified to add support for management of LSB compliant.rpm files on a Debian based system. And it may only be a small stretch to add support for managing an RPM based distrobution on another machine using APT from a Debian based distrobution or vice versa.
To add full support for handling of.deb and.rpm files on the same system is a little more of a stretch. In which case the phrases:
"possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by side"
"What are these BTX computers going to run that will make them appeal to current users."
PVR, DVD and Music softare, firewalls, network storage, etc... the same things people are using Mini ITX boards for now. Of course that is just the small form factor, with the larger form factor the primary attraction would be more efficient cooling.
Looking back over the last 3 years it's not like changing powersupply, processor and memory requirements and the phasing out of ISA slots was kind to people who just wanted to make their system a little faster/better.
"Debian's got all the way up to 3.0. Shouldn't it be up to somewhere between 28.0 and 42.0"
There were several R releases for Debain Potato and a couple for Woody which are probably the nearest thing to a Windows SP release in the Linux world and come out more often.
"I'm sorry, but the lawyers just managed to "discover" a 35-week period gap? According to the article, all the e-mails printed out filled 140 boxes. Now unless they decided to hire a couple hundred interns to sort through all that, or they used very small boxes, I seriously doubt Burst.com didn't plan this."
I would have a tendency to think they printed the documents in an organized fashion that would not require a huge amount of sorting after the fact.
Why would they need a bunch of interns to sort through the printed out emails when they have them on a disk and could have a computer do it?
Why would they have any need of the printed email other than to have them on hand in court to present as evidence?
The issues broght up as agruments about why there should only be one GUI make no sense to me.
The user does not have to make a choice. They can accept the default or in the case of LindowsOS or Desktop/LX they are not offered a choice during installation.
The people creating an application do not have to support more than one GUI, the application should run the same with whatever Desktop Evironment/Window manager that the user chooses to use.
If drag and drop, cut and paste, etc... does not work between two applications it is a bug in one of the applications.
The fact that you may have to edit a configuration file somewhere to get a different window manager or desktop environment to run has no bearing on whether there should be more than one choice.
There is work being done to create standards in areas where it make sense to do so. Window notificaton, file alteration, cut and paste, etc...
The one thing that is lacking that would be really nice is an independently created them selector that is easy to use and allows plugins to be created so the people creating toolkits and applications that are themeable can maintain a plugin for the theme selector. Metatheme may someday fill this need, but the last time I checked it was not there yet.
Slashdot Mirror
"Furthermore, as others have commented elsewhere in these threads, prices for MS software in various application areas have remained below the price of equivalent software prior to MS entering that application area."
The thought crosses ones mind that this is a calculated move to create an inward spiral towards MS Office and MS Windows so they can continue to monopolize these markets and enjoy obscene profit margins on these two products that cover their losses elsewhere.
Later, Seeker
"In 1996 you got your choice of office suites; lotus, microsoft or corel free with a new PC. I don't think any of those suites, at that time, cost more than 75 bucks retail. Now there is only office for 300 dollars, and you get MS(doesn't)works free w/ a new pc."
You can get MS Office "free w/ a new pc" too, if you are willing to pay the higher price to get a computer that includes it as part of the package deal.;)
Later, Seeker
"The problem is that "day 1" for OpenOffice was the day Sun handed them a huge codebase specifically written for X11 and Win32. No Mac API support included."
The source handed out by Sun on day 1 was a functional product.
"By contrast, Mozilla was given an app that had already been coded for Mac, so on "day 1" the porting project was already complete."
By contrast the code netscape released was incomplete, then scrapped after several months, so what there was and was not code for really makes no difference. It seems to me there were several issues with aqua based Mac ports of Mozilla. Is there on that is kept in sync with the main tree?
If there are developers that are willing to step in and do the work, then the work will continue.
Later, Seeker
"The difference is that if the leading scientific theory is proven wrong then it is no longer the leading scientific theory."
"Only religious types think that a "Belief" is something you have to decide early then never change."
During the time it has taken for many theories to be considered "proven wrong" the old theory was religiously clung to until the mass of ideas revolving around the new theory was so great there was not much choice other than to let go of the old.
People like to quote "Seek and ye shall find" but have a tendency to forget to take the blinders off, so only see things that support their pre-concieved notions.
Scientific... Religious... Doesn't matter, it is a part of human nature and we are all guilty of it at times to some greater or lesser degree.
Later, Seeker
"Reason people don't accept it is because it pretty much destroy all the accepted continuity and heart of Star Trek(Vulcans behaving irrational and emotional etc)."
Some of that time travel stuff was stretching things a bit, but I don't think continuity is that big of an issue. Some hardcore fans may be able to point out some continuity errors, but much of what would be history from the standpoint of the other trek shows is vague and open to interpretation.
On the Vulcan emotion issues...
There are plenty of times when it appeared that Spock decided on a course of action, conclusion, etc.. then built a logical argument to support it as opposed to using logic to lead him to the proper action/conclusion.
Also we know there have been sects of Vulcans who embrace their emotions and that Romulans are an offshoot of the Vulcans.
Now that there has been a Romulan thrown into the mix I think the Vulcans and emotions stuff fits it pretty well.
Later, Seeker
"If Hauppauge supports Linux in any way, I'm unaware of it."
The support of Linux from Hauppauge leaves something to be desired, but projects working on drivers for Hauppauge cards have been able to get technical data sheets and technical information in addition to the data sheets from Hauppauge.
The additional factors are:
A: It seems it is not always easy to come into contact with the right people at Hauppauge that are able to provide technical details.
B: The makers of the chips that go on to Hauppauge products are not always very open with information and so NDAs become a factor in what information Hauppauge is able to provide.
Later, Seeker
"Certification of gentoo is almost certainly out of the picture, as you can't know from one system to annother which libraries are installed."
.rpm files with their one dependency on lsb-versionx are able to be installed and run.
I don't run Gentoo, so I don't know what this slots idea is refering to.
Does Gentoo allow for multiple versions of things to be installed? And does it allow for some form of a virtually package that provides nothing and has the necessary dependencies to pull in everything that is required for complience?
Debian provides this. It is not fully complient, but Progeny which is mostly Debian is certified.
The LSB does not specify that a distrobution has to use any particular form of packaging for it's native format. Just that LSB complient
Later, Seeker
"Will there EVER really be an end though?"
Probably not before the presentation of the air theory which states...
Air breathed by developers of Unix has been circulating for quite some time and must surely have later been breathed by Linux developers, so you must surely see the link between code added to Linux and code for which SCO holds the copyright.
Later, Seeker
"apt-get doesn't work if you don't pay."
apt-get works fine if you are willing to take the time to learn what you can and can't do. I use it to install several packages.
Earlier versions of Linspire were mostly woody with an updated version of KDE. So in every version you have not been able to apt-get KDE apps if you want to maintain the ability to install apps from the warehouse, since the CnR client application is a KDE application.
Lindows Inc., has been porting software from Sarge into Linspire, but because of limitations in the warehouse client and server software they have made compromises. As a result of this they are in limbo somewhere between Woody and Sarge from the compatibility standpoint.
Because of these issues apt-get is a mine field for those not allready familiar with the ins and outs of apt-get and solving conflicts that arise.
The issues with the warehouse software are being worked out and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting close for that process. It remains to be seen what the result of that will be for those of us who install things using apt-get, but I expect it to be much better.
"They don't respect the GPL (they put a disclaimer that basically say : everything in there is copyrighted by us and us alone, don't steal !)."
If you include your artwork in an application and limit it's distrobution beause of that, but make the source code minus the artwork available, then there is nothing wrong with that as far as the GPL is concerned.
It may not be clear when you install Linspire, but there is only a limited amount of stuff that Lindows Inc. claims as it's own that is not released under an open license. The primary thing being the CnR client.
Later, Seeker
http://www.besonic.com has been around for a few years.
There are forums, music news, streamed playlists, real media streaming for all songs, downloads in mp3 format - some free and some for a fee. And they have a radio feature that streams music that is available from the service.
Later, Seeker
"Like it or not, Copyleft/GPL/etc is much like communism, it's great in theory, and works well in practice only when everyone plays by the rules. As I hate communism and enjoy profiting directly from my proprietary work, I do not use Linux or any other GPL software."
Like it or not, whatever similarity open source shares with communism in theory in practice it is better for free enterprise. If you don't want to play by the rules I will pay some other enterprise for the service I desire, that's how it works and that's why it works, and that's why it's starting to have success in the free enterprise market.
Later, Seeker
Don't stomp on Seattle you will destroy some good stuff and completely miss the Microsoft headquarters by some tens of miles. ;)
Later, Seeker
"Give up trying to be a "platform". Not gonna happen."
That was an early design decision. Create a platform for building network enabled applications then use it to build a browser, email client, etc... It would be counter productive to give up on that now.
It may not be a widespread platform, but Active State thought it was good enough to use for the Komodo integrated developmet environmet and OEone thought it was good enough to create their Homebase Desktop Suite with.
Later, Seeker
"You have disjoint teams of hackers working on different parts and there's no "unifying vision"."
I see this as a strength. These teams may be disjointed, but they do not work in a vacuum. As stuff is developed by one team they get feedback from other teams that are impacted by the changes.
Companies/teams that provide distros/solutions have a vision of what they want to provide their users/customers and the users/customers provide feedback on what needs to be added/fixed.
The disjointed development is one of the things that allows a Linux distrobution to be stipped down and built up in so many different ways.
I feel the efforts in creating the LSB and the efforts going on at freedesktop.org are plenty of evidence that when things develop enough in a particular area that a standard is needed work will be done to create one.
As for the example of copy and paste if copy and paste is not working between two applications it is most likely a bug in one or both applications and should be reported to the application developers or your distrobution provider as a bug.
Later, Seeker
"So what is the Cylon religion? Its based on Human religion - picked up during their progress towards sentience. Unfortunately for us, it seems they took too much of our self-lothing nature to heart. They decided they were God's tools and the method of visiting retribution and punishment on man for his sins. And then went about that business. But at the same time, that religion also provides a roadmap to becoming one with God. And that includes adopting many of Man's characteristics (although presumably not all of them)."
As creations of man it is natural that our flaws would be reflected in the Cylons and by extension for them to make God in their image.
It is a common assumption without any data to the contrary that any entities that can be viewed as sentient will create some for of mythic/religious beliefs. And those beliefs are shaped by the events that occur to or within that society as much as they are used to shape that society.
Even with the Vulcans on Star Trek who pride themselves on logic, their logic is sometimes fluid and created to support an emotional response instead of being completely derived from the facts. And even they have their myths and religions that they cling to.
Having Cylons with a religious belief also opens the door for there to be heretics which could provide some good story lines.
Also some of the sleeper Cylons upon learning their true nature may lead other Cylons to reject their religious beliefs and revolt or become double agents.
Later, Seeker
"For example, when Baltar framed the (what he thought was a) human, claiming that he was a Cylon, he made up some story about spectroscopic analysis or something, and everyone believed him.
At the very least, they should have had someone studying his methods, so that someone could take over if something happened to Baltar."
The whole mini series seemed to only span 2 or 3 days so there was not a lot of time for verification and backup plans. Hence the reference by the blonde Cylon that keeps appearing to Baltaar when she commented on the "wonderful Baltaar just throwing a Cylon detector together.." or some words to that effect.
Later, Seeker
The pattern of events leading up to this is not hard to imagine.
Man creates machine to do all the crap he does not want to do.
Man wants machine to be more intelligent so he makes it so.
Either by accident or design machine gains a sense of self preservation which develops into a desire to be treated as an equal to man.
Man rejects that idea which marks the beginning of a class war.
During this war machine begins to see itself as superior to man.
The details of these events are not interesting in and of themselves. If there are follow ups to this mini series in the form of a series I am sure more details will be filled in about these events to round out and give context to future story lines.
A couple of the Cylons referenced God and I am curious to see how that works into future story lines. Is this an abstract belief or is there a Cylon entity they refer to as God.
The sleeper Cylons, Cylons that don't know they are Cylons is another idea that sounds like it has promise for future story lines especially since they left you with the expectation that Boomer is one of these sleepers and will have to come to terms with that at some point when she is woken.
Later, Seeker
The debconf configuration can be called up a few different ways.
Dpkg-reconfigure and gkdebconf to name a couple. IN newer versions Synaptic there is a filter that shows the packages that are managed by debconf and there is a configure button that will initiate the debconf configuration for a selected package as well.
If the utilities had an option to only show the packages managed by debconf that provide user interaction it would be better, but it is not hard to initiate the debconf configuration.
Later, Seeker
Alien is good for the occasional package where dependencies are a minor concern.
.rpm files can already be handled directly in Debian (not by apt) if they are LSB compliant, but the only thing these packages depend on is the LSB package that provides support for the version of the LSB specification that is required by the .rpm.
.rpm files on a Debian based system. And it may only be a small stretch to add support for managing an RPM based distrobution on another machine using APT from a Debian based distrobution or vice versa.
.deb and .rpm files on the same system is a little more of a stretch. In which case the phrases:
The problem with Alien is you lose the dependency tracking information during the package conversion, so it is not good on a larger scale.
I believe
Viewing the quote with that context in mind and including the next statement in the quote:
"We are also working with various parties to add/merge RPM support
into the mainline APT, to allow Debian- and RPM-based
distributions to be managed using a single APT codebase, and
possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by
side. This work also aims to merge our various APT extensions
(e.g., support for authenticated APT repos) into the mainline APT.
It is our hope that a distribution-independent Anaconda and
a distribution-independent APT (plus, eventually, a distribution-
independent configuration framework) will, along with a
stronger LSB, help unify further the various Linux distributions."
Relatively speaking, it is probably only a small stretch once the codebase is unified to add support for management of LSB compliant
To add full support for handling of
"possibly even to allow Debian and RPM packages to coexist side by side"
and
"along with a stronger LSB"
become key phrases.
Later, Seeker
"So now I'll have to buy expansion cards (and waste slots) to use my IBM Model M, UPS comms cable, modem and printer?"
Some of the laptops are coming with port replicators now. Here are links to a couple of port replicators:
http://www.goldxproducts.com/usb/1240.htm
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=300F
Later, Seeker
"What are these BTX computers going to run that will make them appeal to current users."
PVR, DVD and Music softare, firewalls, network storage, etc... the same things people are using Mini ITX boards for now. Of course that is just the small form factor, with the larger form factor the primary attraction would be more efficient cooling.
Looking back over the last 3 years it's not like changing powersupply, processor and memory requirements and the phasing out of ISA slots was kind to people who just wanted to make their system a little faster/better.
Later, Seeker
"Microsoft aren't regular 'deadline'-missers - opting to release sub-par software instead just to reach the deadline."
;)
But sometimes the release date was pushed back many times before it became a deadline.
Later, Seeker
"Debian's got all the way up to 3.0. Shouldn't it be up to somewhere between 28.0 and 42.0"
There were several R releases for Debain Potato and a couple for Woody which are probably the nearest thing to a Windows SP release in the Linux world and come out more often.
Later, Seeker
"I'm sorry, but the lawyers just managed to "discover" a 35-week period gap? According to the article, all the e-mails printed out filled 140 boxes. Now unless they decided to hire a couple hundred interns to sort through all that, or they used very small boxes, I seriously doubt Burst.com didn't plan this."
I would have a tendency to think they printed the documents in an organized fashion that would not require a huge amount of sorting after the fact.
Why would they need a bunch of interns to sort through the printed out emails when they have them on a disk and could have a computer do it?
Why would they have any need of the printed email other than to have them on hand in court to present as evidence?
Later, Seeker
The issues broght up as agruments about why there should only be one GUI make no sense to me.
The user does not have to make a choice. They can accept the default or in the case of LindowsOS or Desktop/LX they are not offered a choice during installation.
The people creating an application do not have to support more than one GUI, the application should run the same with whatever Desktop Evironment/Window manager that the user chooses to use.
If drag and drop, cut and paste, etc... does not work between two applications it is a bug in one of the applications.
The fact that you may have to edit a configuration file somewhere to get a different window manager or desktop environment to run has no bearing on whether there should be more than one choice.
There is work being done to create standards in areas where it make sense to do so. Window notificaton, file alteration, cut and paste, etc...
The one thing that is lacking that would be really nice is an independently created them selector that is easy to use and allows plugins to be created so the people creating toolkits and applications that are themeable can maintain a plugin for the theme selector. Metatheme may someday fill this need, but the last time I checked it was not there yet.
Later, Seeker