Umm... I think you need to check your timeline. Yes, I was not trying to imply that Sun did the work, but it certainly was not as late as 4.3BSD that IP was added! I certainly talked to my share of 4.2 systems over the 'net. Was it BB&N and not Berkely? This seems odd, as Berkely is always the one I've seen credited. Can someone confirm?
Re:What are the Differences?
on
Free Solaris 8
·
· Score: 2
You can easily make a Solaris distribution that includes most of the "goodies"
I don't consider Apache, mod_perl, Python, PHP, etc. to be "goodies". They're necessary tools for business.
While Linux is quite popular as a toy at home,
And at CISCO, IBM, US Govt, etc., etc. I'm really getting tired of the "Yeah, it's used for serious business applications all over the world by most of the fortune 500s, but it's just a toy for home use." How much does it need to dwarf Sun's server market share by to be a "business OS"?
What good does web mirroring software do, if you don't mirror web sites? Why bother with GIMP if the marketing drones have Windows PCs on their desks? Well written free software tends to run fine on both Linux and Solaris, thanks to tools like GNUs configure.
Sure. If you want to have to pull down an install a new package that isn't supported by the OS vendor every time you have a new need go for it. I'd rather pay for one support package. This, BTW, means that my TCO goes through the floor.
As to the "Solaris doesn't have what I don't need"... this seems a little backwards. Yes, I appreciate that with a Linux distribution, I don't have to install what I don't want, but do I want to be in the spot that I can't install what I DO WANT?! Your logic seems to have stumbled, here.
What I can do with Sun/Solaris, and were Linux is trailing (hopefully, not for long) is the situation where your N-CPU machine is no longer up to the task, and you order an M-CPU machine. The new machine comes in the morning, you boot from the install server, make a disk layout, install the OS, run your netconfig script, mount the disk(s) which have/usr/local,/home and other shared stuff, and be operational before lunch.
And Sun is lagging where I find that I need a little more horsepower, so I spend a fraction of what you just spent to add 10 more systems to my Beowulf cluster, turn them on, and I'm operational before it's time for the morning status meeting.
Linux: It's not just for lunch any more;-)
Re:What are the Differences?
on
Free Solaris 8
·
· Score: 3
Solaris is a descendent of a long history of what were glibly refered to as "The UNIX Holy Wars". Basically, Bell Labs' UNIX was picked up by Berkely, poked, proded, added to, etc. and thus was born BSD. Sun began when BSD (renamed SunOS by an infant Sun Microsystems) became fairly stable and added IP networking to the kernel. System V UNIX was a derivative of Bell Lab's original UNIX and many of the features of BSD. After a while, many industry camps began to form around this new version of UNIX, and Sun worked very closely with this effort. The result was eventually SystemV R4, which was what Solaris was based on (replacing the now aging, but still much loved BSD-derived SunOS).
Ok, 'nuf background Solaris, being a SystemV derivative has a few key features that Linux does not. For example, the streams interface is, in some ways, superior to the way Linux kernel modules work.
On the other hand, the Linux kernel has: IP Masquerading/firewalling/port forwarding/packet marking; numerous filesystems that Solaris does not support; and of course, source.
The various Linux distributions go another step. Theoretically, Solaris 8 will finally ship with Perl! Linux distributions, however, usually ship with Perl, Python, Scheme, TCL, Fortran, C, C++, and many other programming languages (scripting and otherwise). Linux distributions also commonly have:
Relational databases The world's most popular Web server TCP port wrappers A slew of debugging tools A slew of editing/development tools GNOME or KDE (to which Solaris merely has CDE) Photo editing tools (e.g. Gimp) Network debugging/analysis tools Web mirroring software GUI builder (GNOME has one, I think KDE does) Shells: tcsh and bash
All of this, and did I mention source? Oh, and Solaris' turnaround time on security fixes is pityable.
Now add to this that Linux exists for SPARC, x86, ARM, Alpha, PowerPC and others.... well, Solaris just doesn't have much to compete on except that it runs real fast on real fast hardware. So, if you want to spend megabucks on a single-point-of-hardware, you can run Solaris on it.
I use Solaris at work, and I can honestly say that it occasionally makes me want to look into W2K (then the head trauma wears off).
The problem that I have with what you describe would be about the same as the problem that I would have if Microsoft only had 30% of the Operating Systems market, but owned the largest chain of retail stores AND PC manufacturers!
AOL/Time/Warner/EMI will have the ability to dictate HOW THEIR COMPETITION SELLS if they aply any competent management to the integration of these companies... Of course the word competent is definitely the rub....
Several points: 1) what do you propose as an alternative form of compensation which lacks the above problems? Profit sharing? Same problem (short sighted, competitors must fail). Large salary increases? Company can only affort this under the same terms that would make salary profitable.
What you are saying is that workers in a capitalist economy tend to be short sighted, and generally cannot profit as much as the corporations and their owners.
Yep, we've all known that for the last 100 years. Next!
The bottom line is that capitalism works fairly well, and better than most. Thus, we stick with it. If you have any real ideas, please post them.
Things like Astronomy have been languishing for years. You'd think that with the recent hoopla over asteroids, we'd at least be spending megabucks on a complete mapping of the local area of the solar system. Nope, just the same token investments through NASA as always.
This, not to mention the tremendous value in such things as solar research which could help us better understand our climate and the dangers that might be posed to us by our own "life-giving" sun.
Nah, nanotech is cooler. If we shrink the space used for the Library of Congress, we'll have *really* accomplished something.:-(
I'm picking on astronomy because I have a friend in the field (who also reads/posts to/., so he can say his peace), but there are plenty of other sciences that the US is ignoring, and other countries are mostly following our lead.
I disagree that W98 is a singled, integrated product. If they had created an API in both directions, then I would agree. What they did was put IE into the system libraries. Can netscape write a "Navigator" that looks and feels just like their current product, but uses MS' API? Nope. If they could replace the IE parts of the system libraries with Netscape, and have everything work, that too would count, IMHO.
None of the above. Thus, Windows 98 is both "The product formerly known as IE" and "The product formerly known as Windows 95". Microsoft was clearly trying to eliminate Netscape as competition by employing their operating system as leverage. And, it worked. Netscape would have been the one buying AOL if it had not....
This is the shot, lady's and gentemen. Come back 6 months later, and you will see the world of eCommerce, encryption and security transformed. Here's to the US government moving slightly toward rational policy.
Can't wait to get a copy of Red Hat 6.2 and see what they've tucked into it....
Ok, Slashdot has some obnoxious flamers. Given. But Robin, what's with the "you guys don't like me, I'm going home" attitude? Hasn't Slashdot thickened your skin a bit more than this?
Bottom line is that this article promissed more than it delivered. The thread in question brought up a point which several people quickly pointed out was a non-starter. Why waste Slashdot reader's time? Discussions of what the GPL does or does not have going for it should certainly be persued (the GPL is at the heart of some very large doin's and as such should never be taken for granted). But, this article simply wasn't up to the usual Slashdot standard.
It's OK we all have off-days. Relax. Have a "drink for nerds" (which appears to be defined as cheap wine, based on the Andover.net party at the Bazaar;-)
On a related point, I've seen quite a few requests for "article moderation". Cool idea, I think. It could allow for a much more free-wheeling sort of Slashdot where more articles are published. I still think that an editor (preferably one with experience in the print world) would be a better short-term solution, though. The overall quality of the articles HAS gone up over the last year, but not to the standards of, say, a print newspaper.
The other thing to remember is that/. is what pumped up Corel stock.
I rather think that PR Newswire and other such sources of news that non-technical investors see had more to do with it. Headlines like "Corel announces entry into NC market" and "Corel announces entry into Linux market" went much farther and wider than Slashdot could have every spread the word. Slashdot is a tiny niche demographic, and even given that the average wealth of that demographic is probably higher than the norm, I don't think that we have THAT large an impact on the market.
It's true that the original comments were WAY off base, and don't really apply. However, there's a strange sort of logic that appears when I squint through the lens that this article provides. If I work for a company that has modified a piece of GPLed code, and they give it to me to use in my job (e.g. let's say gnumeric spreadsheet, and I'm a trader for a financial firm that's added a real-time quote handling feature). Now, am I receiving that software under the terms of the GPL or under the terms of my non-disclosure/non-compete/etc agreements? Is the company bound to NOT distribute that code to me because I would be restricted by prior agreements (the GPL strictly prohibits distribution of the code if it would be encumbered by that distribution). Or, do I suddenly have all the rights that the GPL provides? Could the company sue and/or fire for cause if I then posted the changes to the gnumeric mailing list? What if I turn around and start cutting $10 CDs with source? Certainly the latter would trigger my non-compete, so I think that the company is required NOT to distribute to me unless they specifically waive my non-compete and agree to let me use the GPL to it's fullest!
This might put a hole in a few companies' plans for internal development.... It could also be the downfall of internal use of GNU tools in large organizations. The advantage of Open Source suddenly becomes an onerous proposition. Companies would have to very closely monitor which company information went into GPLed code (e.g. adding a database password to a GPLed program!)
The most important Corel feature in the Linux world (and likely to be the most profitable) is their Corel Linux distribution. No mention is made of it, only Corel's acquisitions. In fact, Corel's stock price is mentioned, but no mention is made of the primary reason that Corel stock recenty jumped: the annoncement that they plan on providing a way to run Windows apps (ala Citrix) under Corel Linux.
So, what was this article supposed to be about, exactly, and why did the author not perform research? This really did not deserve the Slashdot Effect.
Hmmm... I seemed to have touched a nerve. The documentation in question is on the screen during the 6.1 install from CD. The message says something to the effect that you should NOT install to the MBR if you are trying to dual-boot with NT. Instead, you should install lilo on the boot partition, and make a boot disk. Corel's loader just installs next to NT without a word, and boots into this fancy screen that lets you choose (semi-graphically) from the various boot options.
I'll tell you what *I* see. I see Corel Linux dual-booting my Windows NT system with a better boot-manager than NT. Red Hat 6.1 documentation tells you that if you want to dual-boot an NT system, you have to boot from floppy!
Corel has a video-mode control widget (open source) which is nicely integrated into the KDE control panel. They also have some very nice (don't know if this is Debian or Corel) Samba integration, to the point where it's easier for me to deal with the NT network at work than it is for the NT users!
This was asked at The Bazaar. Mr. Cowpland's repsonse was that they would wait to see how thier release of the modifications to Debian went. They have contributed a lot of Open Source code, and it really should not come as a surprise that they are being cautious about their flagship products. Certainly this is a good question to ask, but I would expect them to want to see Corel Linux at least match the sales of one of those products before they would change the licensing on, say, Corel Draw or Word Perfect.
At The Bazaar, I asked you if you recommended to your customers that they install Red Hat Linux as their server OS, and you said "Yes." Is this still Corel's stand, or are you moving toward the server market as well? Do you have a formal arrangement with Red Hat to provide a single point of technical support for a Corel-deskstop/Red Hat-server installation? I would think this would be very important to anyone deploying in the large.
VMS learned the hard way, back in the 80s that you just don't leave default passwords lying around, even if you think your users might be smart enough to change them.
You will notice that when you install most software these days that needs such facilities that it asks for a password during the install.
This is the way it should be. If a user choses a dumb password, that's different, but having a default is a good way to get bad PR, and companies that succede in getting bad PR for that will earn no sympathy from me.
No, then it's dead in the water for corporate adoption.
Linux owns a good sized chunk of the Web. I consider that "corporate adoption". Check out the April Operating Systems counter for numbers. Back in April, Linux was at 28% and all versions of Windows were at 24%. I suspect that it's larger for Linux now, especially having walked through some large co-location facilities and seen the racks of VA/Linux and Penguin Computing boxes.
controlling one market allows you to rapidly extend into other
Yep, and the server market will be Linux's springboard to the desktop.
the hardware drivers are not on par with their NT counterparts, nor is the support infrastructure there.
Corel recently annonced a major effort to bring hardware manufacturers on-board (it's why I bought their stock). The first results were turn-arounds on releasing driver source from Creative and some other video manufacturer. This will be the Linux story of 2000 -- driver support will start shipping with the hardware, and it will snow-ball until you start getting Linux drivers with your breakfast cereal!
On other news, the slow climb into the games market progresses. I was playing Myth II under Linux last night, and DAMN that Voodoo3 support is nice. The card cost me a lot, but it was well worth the price to see such flawless graphics and animation. Plus, I didn't have to take down my DNS server (primary for my domain), Web server or shut down any of my encrypted login sessions to other systems. It just performed perfectly. Of course I had to engage a whole 300MHz system to do it. What a shame it just runs a little too slow on a 166.;-)
Check out the page for it on Comming Attractions. They've been pretty consistant about it being Christmas this year and then Summer next year and then Christmas next year for the whole trillogy. Pretty ambitious, but I'm holding out a good deal of hope for this one!
After all, how likely is it that a D&D movie will be designed for anything other than merchandising. At least if you take a novel (like Lord of the Rings) or a graphic novel (like The Books of Magic) and turn it into a movie, you already know what worked. In some cases directors and screenwriters ignore that, but you have a place to start from.
It could be brilliant, but I'm not holding my breath. They'll probably wait until the end of the year and try to capitalize on the LotR hype. Sigh.
While I dislike scientology for spouting the same "shut-off-your-brain-and-think" mantra as every other semi-popular fringe religon, I am a bit offended by the fact that a religous statement that was actually on-topic was moderated down to "-1 flamebait".
I realize that the scientologists have tried very hard to burn their bridges with the rest of the world (e.g. suing anyone that publishes negative info about them), but we should rise above their level and treat this message objectively. It's not flame-bait, it's a statement of opinion. I can see it neever going up any, as there wasn't much in the way of useful info, but it's not a first-post, and it was on-topic, so just leave it alone.
Would someone with some moderator points push the post back up to a 0, please (underrated would be fine).
Slashdot Mirror
Umm... I think you need to check your timeline. Yes, I was not trying to imply that Sun did the work, but it certainly was not as late as 4.3BSD that IP was added! I certainly talked to my share of 4.2 systems over the 'net. Was it BB&N and not Berkely? This seems odd, as Berkely is always the one I've seen credited. Can someone confirm?
You can easily make a Solaris distribution that includes most of the "goodies"
/usr/local, /home and other shared stuff, and be operational before lunch.
;-)
I don't consider Apache, mod_perl, Python, PHP, etc. to be "goodies". They're necessary tools for business.
While Linux is quite popular as a toy at home,
And at CISCO, IBM, US Govt, etc., etc. I'm really getting tired of the "Yeah, it's used for serious business applications all over the world by most of the fortune 500s, but it's just a toy for home use." How much does it need to dwarf Sun's server market share by to be a "business OS"?
What good does web mirroring software do, if you don't mirror web sites? Why bother with GIMP if the marketing drones have Windows PCs on their desks? Well written free software tends to run fine on both Linux and Solaris, thanks to tools like GNUs configure.
Sure. If you want to have to pull down an install a new package that isn't supported by the OS vendor every time you have a new need go for it. I'd rather pay for one support package. This, BTW, means that my TCO goes through the floor.
As to the "Solaris doesn't have what I don't need"... this seems a little backwards. Yes, I appreciate that with a Linux distribution, I don't have to install what I don't want, but do I want to be in the spot that I can't install what I DO WANT?! Your logic seems to have stumbled, here.
What I can do with Sun/Solaris, and were Linux is trailing (hopefully, not for long) is the situation where your N-CPU machine is no longer up to the task, and you order an M-CPU machine. The new machine comes in the morning, you boot from the install server, make a disk layout, install the OS, run your netconfig script, mount the disk(s) which have
And Sun is lagging where I find that I need a little more horsepower, so I spend a fraction of what you just spent to add 10 more systems to my Beowulf cluster, turn them on, and I'm operational before it's time for the morning status meeting.
Linux: It's not just for lunch any more
Ok, 'nuf background Solaris, being a SystemV derivative has a few key features that Linux does not. For example, the streams interface is, in some ways, superior to the way Linux kernel modules work.
On the other hand, the Linux kernel has: IP Masquerading/firewalling/port forwarding/packet marking; numerous filesystems that Solaris does not support; and of course, source.
The various Linux distributions go another step. Theoretically, Solaris 8 will finally ship with Perl! Linux distributions, however, usually ship with Perl, Python, Scheme, TCL, Fortran, C, C++, and many other programming languages (scripting and otherwise). Linux distributions also commonly have:
Relational databases
The world's most popular Web server
TCP port wrappers
A slew of debugging tools
A slew of editing/development tools
GNOME or KDE (to which Solaris merely has CDE)
Photo editing tools (e.g. Gimp)
Network debugging/analysis tools
Web mirroring software
GUI builder (GNOME has one, I think KDE does)
Shells: tcsh and bash
All of this, and did I mention source? Oh, and Solaris' turnaround time on security fixes is pityable.
Now add to this that Linux exists for SPARC, x86, ARM, Alpha, PowerPC and others.... well, Solaris just doesn't have much to compete on except that it runs real fast on real fast hardware. So, if you want to spend megabucks on a single-point-of-hardware, you can run Solaris on it.
I use Solaris at work, and I can honestly say that it occasionally makes me want to look into W2K (then the head trauma wears off).
That's not "cocksuckers". It's cog-sarging bastiches!
Oh, I do so love our legal system. And all I wanted was to watch my Matrix DVD after hours at work. Was that so much to ask?
The problem that I have with what you describe would be about the same as the problem that I would have if Microsoft only had 30% of the Operating Systems market, but owned the largest chain of retail stores AND PC manufacturers!
AOL/Time/Warner/EMI will have the ability to dictate HOW THEIR COMPETITION SELLS if they aply any competent management to the integration of these companies... Of course the word competent is definitely the rub....
Oopes forgot the other points:
2) Please stop using phrases like "COMPANY SCRIP" as an argument. It's just a phrase. Please pose thought, argument or at least opinion.
3) Since the mean quality of life has risen over the past 20 years, what is the point of bemoaning the quality of life?
4) If you're making a reasonable wage and you are offered stock options (as is the case is most high-tech companies) why not? Do you lose something?
Several points: 1) what do you propose as an alternative form of compensation which lacks the above problems? Profit sharing? Same problem (short sighted, competitors must fail). Large salary increases? Company can only affort this under the same terms that would make salary profitable.
What you are saying is that workers in a capitalist economy tend to be short sighted, and generally cannot profit as much as the corporations and their owners.
Yep, we've all known that for the last 100 years. Next!
The bottom line is that capitalism works fairly well, and better than most. Thus, we stick with it. If you have any real ideas, please post them.
Things like Astronomy have been languishing for years. You'd think that with the recent hoopla over asteroids, we'd at least be spending megabucks on a complete mapping of the local area of the solar system. Nope, just the same token investments through NASA as always.
:-(
/., so he can say his peace), but there are plenty of other sciences that the US is ignoring, and other countries are mostly following our lead.
This, not to mention the tremendous value in such things as solar research which could help us better understand our climate and the dangers that might be posed to us by our own "life-giving" sun.
Nah, nanotech is cooler. If we shrink the space used for the Library of Congress, we'll have *really* accomplished something.
I'm picking on astronomy because I have a friend in the field (who also reads/posts to
www.freshmeat.net .....
Actually, I was confused by this, as both GNOME and KDE have a solide, reasonable printing API, and Corel already uses KDE.
Perhaps he meant that they would be re-architecting the back-end (currently GhostScript/lpd).
I disagree that W98 is a singled, integrated product. If they had created an API in both directions, then I would agree. What they did was put IE into the system libraries. Can netscape write a "Navigator" that looks and feels just like their current product, but uses MS' API? Nope. If they could replace the IE parts of the system libraries with Netscape, and have everything work, that too would count, IMHO.
None of the above. Thus, Windows 98 is both "The product formerly known as IE" and "The product formerly known as Windows 95". Microsoft was clearly trying to eliminate Netscape as competition by employing their operating system as leverage. And, it worked. Netscape would have been the one buying AOL if it had not....
This is the shot, lady's and gentemen. Come back 6 months later, and you will see the world of eCommerce, encryption and security transformed. Here's to the US government moving slightly toward rational policy.
Can't wait to get a copy of Red Hat 6.2 and see what they've tucked into it....
Ok, Slashdot has some obnoxious flamers. Given. But Robin, what's with the "you guys don't like me, I'm going home" attitude? Hasn't Slashdot thickened your skin a bit more than this?
;-)
Bottom line is that this article promissed more than it delivered. The thread in question brought up a point which several people quickly pointed out was a non-starter. Why waste Slashdot reader's time? Discussions of what the GPL does or does not have going for it should certainly be persued (the GPL is at the heart of some very large doin's and as such should never be taken for granted). But, this article simply wasn't up to the usual Slashdot standard.
It's OK we all have off-days. Relax. Have a "drink for nerds" (which appears to be defined as cheap wine, based on the Andover.net party at the Bazaar
On a related point, I've seen quite a few requests for "article moderation". Cool idea, I think. It could allow for a much more free-wheeling sort of Slashdot where more articles are published. I still think that an editor (preferably one with experience in the print world) would be a better short-term solution, though. The overall quality of the articles HAS gone up over the last year, but not to the standards of, say, a print newspaper.
The other thing to remember is that /. is what pumped up Corel stock.
I rather think that PR Newswire and other such sources of news that non-technical investors see had more to do with it. Headlines like "Corel announces entry into NC market" and "Corel announces entry into Linux market" went much farther and wider than Slashdot could have every spread the word. Slashdot is a tiny niche demographic, and even given that the average wealth of that demographic is probably higher than the norm, I don't think that we have THAT large an impact on the market.
It's true that the original comments were WAY off base, and don't really apply. However, there's a strange sort of logic that appears when I squint through the lens that this article provides. If I work for a company that has modified a piece of GPLed code, and they give it to me to use in my job (e.g. let's say gnumeric spreadsheet, and I'm a trader for a financial firm that's added a real-time quote handling feature). Now, am I receiving that software under the terms of the GPL or under the terms of my non-disclosure/non-compete/etc agreements? Is the company bound to NOT distribute that code to me because I would be restricted by prior agreements (the GPL strictly prohibits distribution of the code if it would be encumbered by that distribution). Or, do I suddenly have all the rights that the GPL provides? Could the company sue and/or fire for cause if I then posted the changes to the gnumeric mailing list? What if I turn around and start cutting $10 CDs with source? Certainly the latter would trigger my non-compete, so I think that the company is required NOT to distribute to me unless they specifically waive my non-compete and agree to let me use the GPL to it's fullest!
This might put a hole in a few companies' plans for internal development.... It could also be the downfall of internal use of GNU tools in large organizations. The advantage of Open Source suddenly becomes an onerous proposition. Companies would have to very closely monitor which company information went into GPLed code (e.g. adding a database password to a GPLed program!)
Ick.
The most important Corel feature in the Linux world (and likely to be the most profitable) is their Corel Linux distribution. No mention is made of it, only Corel's acquisitions. In fact, Corel's stock price is mentioned, but no mention is made of the primary reason that Corel stock recenty jumped: the annoncement that they plan on providing a way to run Windows apps (ala Citrix) under Corel Linux.
So, what was this article supposed to be about, exactly, and why did the author not perform research? This really did not deserve the Slashdot Effect.
Hmmm... I seemed to have touched a nerve. The documentation in question is on the screen during the 6.1 install from CD. The message says something to the effect that you should NOT install to the MBR if you are trying to dual-boot with NT. Instead, you should install lilo on the boot partition, and make a boot disk. Corel's loader just installs next to NT without a word, and boots into this fancy screen that lets you choose (semi-graphically) from the various boot options.
I'll tell you what *I* see. I see Corel Linux dual-booting my Windows NT system with a better boot-manager than NT. Red Hat 6.1 documentation tells you that if you want to dual-boot an NT system, you have to boot from floppy!
Corel has a video-mode control widget (open source) which is nicely integrated into the KDE control panel. They also have some very nice (don't know if this is Debian or Corel) Samba integration, to the point where it's easier for me to deal with the NT network at work than it is for the NT users!
This was asked at The Bazaar. Mr. Cowpland's repsonse was that they would wait to see how thier release of the modifications to Debian went. They have contributed a lot of Open Source code, and it really should not come as a surprise that they are being cautious about their flagship products. Certainly this is a good question to ask, but I would expect them to want to see Corel Linux at least match the sales of one of those products before they would change the licensing on, say, Corel Draw or Word Perfect.
At The Bazaar, I asked you if you recommended to your customers that they install Red Hat Linux as their server OS, and you said "Yes." Is this still Corel's stand, or are you moving toward the server market as well? Do you have a formal arrangement with Red Hat to provide a single point of technical support for a Corel-deskstop/Red Hat-server installation? I would think this would be very important to anyone deploying in the large.
Yes, they can be held to blame.
VMS learned the hard way, back in the 80s that you just don't leave default passwords lying around, even if you think your users might be smart enough to change them.
You will notice that when you install most software these days that needs such facilities that it asks for a password during the install.
This is the way it should be. If a user choses a dumb password, that's different, but having a default is a good way to get bad PR, and companies that succede in getting bad PR for that will earn no sympathy from me.
Oh, give me a break! Linux is not leading Windows 2000. Does linux have an MS Office 2000 clone? 100% word compatibility?
;-)
Yep.
No, then it's dead in the water for corporate adoption.
Linux owns a good sized chunk of the Web. I consider that "corporate adoption". Check out the April Operating Systems counter for numbers. Back in April, Linux was at 28% and all versions of Windows were at 24%. I suspect that it's larger for Linux now, especially having walked through some large co-location facilities and seen the racks of VA/Linux and Penguin Computing boxes.
controlling one market allows you to rapidly extend into other
Yep, and the server market will be Linux's springboard to the desktop.
the hardware drivers are not on par with their NT counterparts, nor is the support infrastructure there.
Corel recently annonced a major effort to bring hardware manufacturers on-board (it's why I bought their stock). The first results were turn-arounds on releasing driver source from Creative and some other video manufacturer. This will be the Linux story of 2000 -- driver support will start shipping with the hardware, and it will snow-ball until you start getting Linux drivers with your breakfast cereal!
On other news, the slow climb into the games market progresses. I was playing Myth II under Linux last night, and DAMN that Voodoo3 support is nice. The card cost me a lot, but it was well worth the price to see such flawless graphics and animation. Plus, I didn't have to take down my DNS server (primary for my domain), Web server or shut down any of my encrypted login sessions to other systems. It just performed perfectly. Of course I had to engage a whole 300MHz system to do it. What a shame it just runs a little too slow on a 166.
Check out the page for it on Comming Attractions. They've been pretty consistant about it being Christmas this year and then Summer next year and then Christmas next year for the whole trillogy. Pretty ambitious, but I'm holding out a good deal of hope for this one!
I dunno, the animated series had a certain charm.
But, I'd rather have a good generic fantasy like The Books of Magic or The Fellowship of the Ring than a D&D movie anyhow.
After all, how likely is it that a D&D movie will be designed for anything other than merchandising. At least if you take a novel (like Lord of the Rings) or a graphic novel (like The Books of Magic) and turn it into a movie, you already know what worked. In some cases directors and screenwriters ignore that, but you have a place to start from.
It could be brilliant, but I'm not holding my breath. They'll probably wait until the end of the year and try to capitalize on the LotR hype. Sigh.
While I dislike scientology for spouting the same "shut-off-your-brain-and-think" mantra as every other semi-popular fringe religon, I am a bit offended by the fact that a religous statement that was actually on-topic was moderated down to "-1 flamebait".
I realize that the scientologists have tried very hard to burn their bridges with the rest of the world (e.g. suing anyone that publishes negative info about them), but we should rise above their level and treat this message objectively. It's not flame-bait, it's a statement of opinion. I can see it neever going up any, as there wasn't much in the way of useful info, but it's not a first-post, and it was on-topic, so just leave it alone.
Would someone with some moderator points push the post back up to a 0, please (underrated would be fine).