The Super DTA Zapmeister, my friend, is the solution to all your problems. It could make your life so much easier, giving you all luxury and comfort you deserve. There isn't anything quite like it on the market; and although you might expect such a miracle to sell for a high price, you might be pleasantly surprised to know that we will give you a 50% reduction if you buy now, and, on top of that, an option to upgrade to the Ultra WOW Blastomatic!
Super DTA Zapmeister... what would you do without it.
Our government only wants to protect us, and would never misuse technology.
Hah. The government, in first place, wants to protect its 'economical interests', and will gladly misuse technology against any individuals. Governments don't care about individuals at all, as far as it doesn't form a risk to their votes... and even then, if the lobbying pay is good enough...
America claims to be a country of freedom, but it's the first thing that gets throw out when something goes wrong, just so some could get a little safety. You can't stop terrorists. Everybody could be one, using several of infinite ways to get to you. Just take care that you aren't hated so damn much, and yes, there is definately room for improvement... terrorists don't randomly pick a target to loose their lives to.
The people will be the ones that pay for loosing their privacy, loosing to government and its lobbying friends, not some terrorists that can easily re-organize and start using things like PGP. Tell me how knowing what YOU do will help conquer terrorism. I can't believe how somebody actually believes giving up all their privacy and some of their rights will actually improve the world, while the government is fighting a war on the other side of the globe just because of said 'freedom'!
Sounds like "freedom is a nice thing to have, as long as it doesn't even become a potential threat to any of my shiny toys".
People used to carve bricks out of rocks. Look at the Egyptians, just sheer man power was used to build something that even today is still pretty hard to do. I have little faith that buildings build with todays' mass-production throw-away materials will last 500 years. Modern houses last rarely over 100 years... maybe it some ways that's better, who knows what new and better materials will be invented in 100 years, or how much the landscape would have changed; but in a way, it's sad that we won't leave much of anything behind - except maybe some plastic crap and a highly poluted planet.
Where are the consumer-right organisations? Isn't time we organize ourselves (better) to defend our rights against these lobbying corporations? As an individual, you're basically completely powerless against the sheer amount of money of these big companies and the politicians they have on their wagelist...
It's not the GUI that's bad, necessary. Microsoft spends a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears into designing their software, hiring the best companies, even for the sounds, fonts etc. That's the good thing about MS. It's rather the implementation that tends to suck; and the attitude. And the price. And... You go on.
Well, that is already one reason to push software companies have to make patches for security vulnerabilities - and make them in time: the security of their own network. They need the patches themselves too.
The longer it takes Microsoft to produce security patches, the longer they are vulnerable themselves. Kinda sweet justice...
(Yes I know there are patches for _this_ vulnerability, but it clearly shows Microsoft itself can get bitten by their own bugs)
E-Tray writes "It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids. Previously Teosto enforced a law that taxi drivers have to pay royalties if they play music while a customer is in the backseat."
This is absolutely ridiculous and non-enforcable. It even screams for civil disobedience, if something like this gets passed. Nobody will take the law serious anymore, if too many crazy laws are made. Even people I know who don't know anything about mp3s and P-t-P software, are becoming more and more pissed off at things like copyright protection and excessive prices for music that tends to get worse (cfr. bland, faceless, uninspired, synthethical pre-fab pop 'sensations' that are pushed and hyped everywhere these days).
It also goes to show (again) that many people involved in the music business are in it rather for the love of money than the love of music.
(Which is -in a horrible way- understandable when you make and sell 'artists' as 'products').
Blocking outgoing port 25 traffic is ridiculous. I should not become the victim because others abuse the system to send spam. I want full access to all ports, and I will never pay a provider that blocks access to any hosts or ports.
Not only do I wish to use my own mailservers (I don't right now, but I'm planning to because of overly restrictive rules on my providers outgoing smtp server), but I also would like to check access to remote mailservers I admin and do relay checks and scans on them from my home connection. Not to mention I'd be screwed royally next time my ISP's relay would crash again.
I understand this would stop a lot of spammers, but I think it's too high a price to pay. First came dynamic ips, then NAT's and subnets, firewalls, speed restrictions, download restrictions, blocking incoming ports (my cable ISP blocks everything 1024 incoming, even though it's a dynamic ip), content filters for PtP... some isps even try to enforce a policy that lets people only use the emailaddress provided by that isp! What's next, paying extra to access any ports other than 80 (http)?
No way. I think it's time ISPs finally spend some more time and money on the problem by checking for abuse of their own servers, instead of restricting the average user even more and taking away more freedom and transparency.
It seems to me that beginning distro's do quite fine, being sponsored by the universities where they originate (I guess many distro's find their birth there). They can use the fast network of the educational institutions, and since many developers are students, the human cost is pretty low (perhaps nonexisting even).
But commercial Linux companies seem to have a hard time to survive. The point of open/free source, it's goal, is often the exact opposite of that of commercial entities - free, open, public domain-like software for all is a quite anti-capitalistic idea, and I'm a bit sceptical about profit for the brave companies who try. It seems a bit contradictory to try to make money of something that's often called 'free' software...
Perhaps the best chances for Linux are the public domain-approaches from distro's such as Debian (example, not endorsing). I think OpenSource companies can succeed, when done right; but they'd to have a clear 'extra-value', not just package software that's available for free. Perhaps they should give the 'service'-area more attention; train people to use Linux, educate them, and help companies switch from other, proprietary OSes.
I never gave money to a commercial distro (I am a poor student, though;) ). I would feel I did wrong to GNU and other developers who did it for free; I know most companies contribute to the OpenSource initiative, but still... I'd rather make a big contribution to GNU, Debian and family, than to pay for a packaged distro when I'd rather compile it myself without all the fluf and semi-proprietary binary package systems etc. I don't really see why I should pay Mandrake, SuSE or RedHat for their 'added value' when I'd really just want to have a raw system I can play with myself. It's all about the source, this binary distro's with their own package managers take away a big part of the freedom opensource software has.
Ofcourse, many people don't care about the source, and I guess they would buy those big, binary distro's. And need education. There is a big demand for people who can help to 'make the switch'; why not attach more importance to that? The main distro's focus on regular 'users' rather than (opensource) developers, unix guru's or real geeks anyway.
No. Maybe you will not give your piggy bank to Micro$oft for once.
This is an opensource forum with pro-free software people. Surely somebody must see that buying hardware from Redmond is feeding the beast? Especially since the thing comes with windows pre-installed?!
Besides, in my opinion, the thing is a gadget. I see no use for a geek or poweruser, only for those management-types that always buzz around everywhere with all their 'cool' new toys that are way too expensive for whatever use it has... If it has a use, that is.
It's funny how marketing people themselves always seem to fall for marketing talk, sales tricks and stupid show-off gadgets, you'd think they'd know better...
The thing which made us move on it was female employees complaining of sexually explicit spam from porn sites [...]
Yeah, if anything makes you move, it's got to be a group of angry, prude feminists who've come to hang the evil sysadmin for letting the degrading stuff pass the network and in their mailbox... blaming you personally as if you wrote the emails, made the porn, and generally have a pact with the devil. That's the stuff nightmares are made off...
Some people don't seem to get the randomness of spam, they think that somebody is sending it to them personally, set out to offend them - and only them; they never seem to understand that it's their stupid chainmails, greeting cards and forums that get them into the mess anyway.
Funny enough, it's usually the people who send the most chainmails or gossip, have the least relevant emails with unnecessary cc's, or fill up the mailqueue with bigass attachments, that complain most about spam.
That's when you know it's time to add 'cute kittens' to your spam filter.
Everybody has a computer these days, and everybody has computer problems. They know to find you pretty easily, and if you once agreed, you're up for daily calls and general stalking. HOW DO YOU GET RID OF THEM?! >=|
The masses are victims in this too, they get tricked to buy an expensive machine that can do 'all that cool multimedia stuff', but they fail to get how complex the machine is, that a computer's not an appliance. No matter how simple the OS is, when things go wrong, you better know something about the thing or you're screwed. And that's where it goes wrong, with most people. C'mon, many people can't even set up their own internet access or mail settings...
I've been thinking for a long time already that it'd be cool to set up some company people can call to if they have computer problems. Not like a support contract or anything, rather like a docter who takes housecalls. If you take care that you send out someone the same day, you'd definately beat those damn computer shops here that overcharge for fixing your machine, taking it into custody for a month or so... Replacing some so-called 'broken hardware components' you never asked for in the process.
A simple, fast on-site computer help/repair hotline in a reasonably populated area would make you a millionaire, if set up properly.
As much as I am pro freedom and privacy, and hate the power of the state and big corporations like a good leftish boy, there are good reasons to have some kind of identification on the 'net... No CC fraud, less spam (accountability for one's actions), and a definate way to prove who you are.
If it's implemented in a way that I can decide to use this identification, when, where, and how I want, without any possibility of being forced to do so, there is no privacy problem. If you don't want to give the information, you don't. If you need to do it, you can.
The internet could use a way to identify people for who they really are; as long as it's not mandatory or enforcible, it's only a positive thing, in my eyes.
You see, when you buy something with a credit card, or when you just really want to prove to someone who you are, you _want_ to give some information already. There is no privacy issue, since you want the information to be known; you can just back it up with proof.
It could be used as an optional extra check to avoid CC fraud, for instance.
Maybe it's time we blow of the dust of the (e.g.) pgp protocol, and try to find a way to make a official central directory in which we can be sure anybody is who he claims to be. If you don't want to use it and remain anonymous, you don't have to. It's all about choice.
Yeah, well. 'Not always the case' indeed. We might have more laws here in Europe, but I dare you to find a provider that will kick you for 'hate speech' if you give a philosophical view about the problems in Western society, or because posting a nude picture (as in 'art', not as in 'jill sucks 3 studs'), or anything that is not completely in line with 'common morals and healthy values of a [christian] society'. Then, try the same with an American ISP.
You really can't compare our countries' systems by law. In reality, we live in just exactly the same world. Only, in America it's up to each individual court to decide (it's common practice to sue somebody), while in Europe there's more a tendency to have a law about it (which only gets lived up to in extreme cases).
All the same shit. We both have to fight to keep our world free. Let's spend time doing that, instead of bitching about each others' continents (countries, whatever).
You vote out the rotten apples in your government, we'll vote out ours. That's democracy.
Also, note that -as I already said somewhere before- the slashdot headline is -1, troll. It's a proposition, one of tens/hundreds every day, it's lo-o-ong away from even being voted on. Proposals end up in the trash every day.
Ofcourse, you'll need extra support for and retraining of staff, when you switch from closed to open. You trained your people for closed, now you'll have to train them for open. Only logical.
Maybe it's expensive to switch for people already used to closed source products to e.g. linux, but what about the new people arriving that need to be trained? Training costs would be pretty much equal.
There really isn't such a big difference in the software itself anymore, so I can't believe the costs for one solution would differ so much from the other. Starting from someone with no knowledge of either windows (/software) or linux (/software), I bet educating them would cost equally much.
Anyone can win a race, if they're close enough to the finish. The race's only fair if everyone has the same starting point.
So maybe you won't re-train your old staff, but you educate the new ones with your opensource software. And everything will be fine, 'in the long run'.
"[...] but the contest sponsors (who provide encryption products for Cisco, Nortel and Palm among others) believe it's still impossible to break their 163 bit keys."
'Impossible' is the wrong word to use when it comes to cryptography.
Perhaps that's why that word is nowhere in the text linked to.
It's exactly the attitude not to have, if you care about security.
You know, you're completely right. I have been using Linux/*BSD/... for 5 years almost, no windows whatsoever, but nothing beats the look - or better, the quality of the look of Micro$oft's desktop. It's not really my taste, but I have to admit it looks damn beautiful.
Luckily we (opensource-side) have more quality in software-coding (the performance of some of the more mature programs is just way better - it's not about selling, but about producing good software) and definately more stability. Because we are really lagging behind when it comes to intuitivity and niceness of the GUI... even something as basic as fonts.
The reason it looks so good, is because every little detail has been designed to fit in the look (next to superior anti-aliasing and fonts).
We need more not-geeks using linux. Micro$oft has hundreds (?) of people working on interface design, hiring specialized companies and designers for certain tasks (their core fonts, for instance)... Something that opensource can't do, really. So our only hope is that enough artistic people start helping opensource projects, and reach a common vision of consistent design throughout all of (Gnome's/KDE's/...) software.
The problem is that those arty people are seldom really interested enough in computers to spend their free time designing computerstuff. Or even just to learn to use linux (or a computer in general). Geeks and graphic design... it just doesn't add up (with a few exceptions that confirm the rule).:)
Is it just me, or are companies really trying to screw their customers over in any possible way? One would expect a bit of respect from corporations for their customers, be it quality of service and goods, or just ethical and friendly ('human') behavior...
It seems Internet, media, music and entertainment companies are working on a system of income without uhm... well, customers. Because that's where they're headed.
And if it's that easy to uncap their modem, well, doesn't that just as much point to a flaw in their own products and services, as in the moral of their customers... Ofcourse people want to get the maximum out of the money they spend. With all the problems my ISPs have had over the last years (network outage, (too) slow connectivity, system crashes, dns misconfiguration, sudden extra restrictions on bw/mailsize/mailboxsize, administrative fuck-ups,...), I'm not surprised some customers do these kind of things.
It's wrong, ofcourse. But is it more wrong than not getting what you paid for?
We need stronger protection of customer rights. Corporations become too big, ubiquitous and have too much influence by lobbying or the sheer power of their legal departements. In theory, everybody's equal in the eyes of the law; in reality, I'd like to see a small individual with a small-town lawyer fight off the legal team of a big corporation. That is, if that person can even afford a lawyer and the legal costs for a case that might last forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Hah... he doesn't know the Super DTA Zapmeister.
What's this world coming to...
The Super DTA Zapmeister, my friend, is the solution to all your problems. It could make your life so much easier, giving you all luxury and comfort you deserve. There isn't anything quite like it on the market; and although you might expect such a miracle to sell for a high price, you might be pleasantly surprised to know that we will give you a 50% reduction if you buy now, and, on top of that, an option to upgrade to the Ultra WOW Blastomatic!
Super DTA Zapmeister... what would you do without it.
Hah. The government, in first place, wants to protect its 'economical interests', and will gladly misuse technology against any individuals. Governments don't care about individuals at all, as far as it doesn't form a risk to their votes... and even then, if the lobbying pay is good enough...
America claims to be a country of freedom, but it's the first thing that gets throw out when something goes wrong, just so some could get a little safety. You can't stop terrorists. Everybody could be one, using several of infinite ways to get to you. Just take care that you aren't hated so damn much, and yes, there is definately room for improvement... terrorists don't randomly pick a target to loose their lives to.
The people will be the ones that pay for loosing their privacy, loosing to government and its lobbying friends, not some terrorists that can easily re-organize and start using things like PGP. Tell me how knowing what YOU do will help conquer terrorism. I can't believe how somebody actually believes giving up all their privacy and some of their rights will actually improve the world, while the government is fighting a war on the other side of the globe just because of said 'freedom'!
Sounds like "freedom is a nice thing to have, as long as it doesn't even become a potential threat to any of my shiny toys".
Time to ask yourself what really matters to you.
Uh... won't fool me. This thing is like a cell phone. When you finally want to use it, it will start beeping and flash *low battery*...
Would be cool to play quake on it. Is somebody porting it already?
People used to carve bricks out of rocks. Look at the Egyptians, just sheer man power was used to build something that even today is still pretty hard to do. I have little faith that buildings build with todays' mass-production throw-away materials will last 500 years. Modern houses last rarely over 100 years... maybe it some ways that's better, who knows what new and better materials will be invented in 100 years, or how much the landscape would have changed; but in a way, it's sad that we won't leave much of anything behind - except maybe some plastic crap and a highly poluted planet.
Where are the consumer-right organisations? Isn't time we organize ourselves (better) to defend our rights against these lobbying corporations? As an individual, you're basically completely powerless against the sheer amount of money of these big companies and the politicians they have on their wagelist...
It's not the GUI that's bad, necessary. Microsoft spends a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears into designing their software, hiring the best companies, even for the sounds, fonts etc. That's the good thing about MS. It's rather the implementation that tends to suck; and the attitude. And the price. And... You go on.
Yeah. Just what I always wanted to hear from a girl.
No selfrespecting geek would give his girlfriend better hardware than his own box has.
Well, that is already one reason to push software companies have to make patches for security vulnerabilities - and make them in time: the security of their own network. They need the patches themselves too.
The longer it takes Microsoft to produce security patches, the longer they are vulnerable themselves. Kinda sweet justice...
(Yes I know there are patches for _this_ vulnerability, but it clearly shows Microsoft itself can get bitten by their own bugs)
This is absolutely ridiculous and non-enforcable. It even screams for civil disobedience, if something like this gets passed. Nobody will take the law serious anymore, if too many crazy laws are made. Even people I know who don't know anything about mp3s and P-t-P software, are becoming more and more pissed off at things like copyright protection and excessive prices for music that tends to get worse (cfr. bland, faceless, uninspired, synthethical pre-fab pop 'sensations' that are pushed and hyped everywhere these days).
It also goes to show (again) that many people involved in the music business are in it rather for the love of money than the love of music.
(Which is -in a horrible way- understandable when you make and sell 'artists' as 'products').
Blocking outgoing port 25 traffic is ridiculous. I should not become the victim because others abuse the system to send spam. I want full access to all ports, and I will never pay a provider that blocks access to any hosts or ports.
Not only do I wish to use my own mailservers (I don't right now, but I'm planning to because of overly restrictive rules on my providers outgoing smtp server), but I also would like to check access to remote mailservers I admin and do relay checks and scans on them from my home connection. Not to mention I'd be screwed royally next time my ISP's relay would crash again.
I understand this would stop a lot of spammers, but I think it's too high a price to pay. First came dynamic ips, then NAT's and subnets, firewalls, speed restrictions, download restrictions, blocking incoming ports (my cable ISP blocks everything 1024 incoming, even though it's a dynamic ip), content filters for PtP... some isps even try to enforce a policy that lets people only use the emailaddress provided by that isp! What's next, paying extra to access any ports other than 80 (http)?
No way. I think it's time ISPs finally spend some more time and money on the problem by checking for abuse of their own servers, instead of restricting the average user even more and taking away more freedom and transparency.
404 File Not Found
The requested URL (metamod.pl) was not found.
I just clicked the link on the homepage... Oh no, I can't metamod today! There goes my illusion of selfimportance...
's wrong?
It seems to me that beginning distro's do quite fine, being sponsored by the universities where they originate (I guess many distro's find their birth there). They can use the fast network of the educational institutions, and since many developers are students, the human cost is pretty low (perhaps nonexisting even).
;) ). I would feel I did wrong to GNU and other developers who did it for free; I know most companies contribute to the OpenSource initiative, but still... I'd rather make a big contribution to GNU, Debian and family, than to pay for a packaged distro when I'd rather compile it myself without all the fluf and semi-proprietary binary package systems etc. I don't really see why I should pay Mandrake, SuSE or RedHat for their 'added value' when I'd really just want to have a raw system I can play with myself. It's all about the source, this binary distro's with their own package managers take away a big part of the freedom opensource software has.
But commercial Linux companies seem to have a hard time to survive. The point of open/free source, it's goal, is often the exact opposite of that of commercial entities - free, open, public domain-like software for all is a quite anti-capitalistic idea, and I'm a bit sceptical about profit for the brave companies who try. It seems a bit contradictory to try to make money of something that's often called 'free' software...
Perhaps the best chances for Linux are the public domain-approaches from distro's such as Debian (example, not endorsing). I think OpenSource companies can succeed, when done right; but they'd to have a clear 'extra-value', not just package software that's available for free. Perhaps they should give the 'service'-area more attention; train people to use Linux, educate them, and help companies switch from other, proprietary OSes.
I never gave money to a commercial distro (I am a poor student, though
Ofcourse, many people don't care about the source, and I guess they would buy those big, binary distro's. And need education. There is a big demand for people who can help to 'make the switch'; why not attach more importance to that? The main distro's focus on regular 'users' rather than (opensource) developers, unix guru's or real geeks anyway.
No. Maybe you will not give your piggy bank to Micro$oft for once.
This is an opensource forum with pro-free software people. Surely somebody must see that buying hardware from Redmond is feeding the beast? Especially since the thing comes with windows pre-installed?!
Besides, in my opinion, the thing is a gadget. I see no use for a geek or poweruser, only for those management-types that always buzz around everywhere with all their 'cool' new toys that are way too expensive for whatever use it has... If it has a use, that is.
It's funny how marketing people themselves always seem to fall for marketing talk, sales tricks and stupid show-off gadgets, you'd think they'd know better...
Yeah, if anything makes you move, it's got to be a group of angry, prude feminists who've come to hang the evil sysadmin for letting the degrading stuff pass the network and in their mailbox... blaming you personally as if you wrote the emails, made the porn, and generally have a pact with the devil. That's the stuff nightmares are made off...
Some people don't seem to get the randomness of spam, they think that somebody is sending it to them personally, set out to offend them - and only them; they never seem to understand that it's their stupid chainmails, greeting cards and forums that get them into the mess anyway.
Funny enough, it's usually the people who send the most chainmails or gossip, have the least relevant emails with unnecessary cc's, or fill up the mailqueue with bigass attachments, that complain most about spam.
That's when you know it's time to add 'cute kittens' to your spam filter.
Oh, please... I'll giftwrap them even.
Uhm... that depends on what you mean with 'job'...
Everybody has a computer these days, and everybody has computer problems. They know to find you pretty easily, and if you once agreed, you're up for daily calls and general stalking. HOW DO YOU GET RID OF THEM?! >=|
The masses are victims in this too, they get tricked to buy an expensive machine that can do 'all that cool multimedia stuff', but they fail to get how complex the machine is, that a computer's not an appliance. No matter how simple the OS is, when things go wrong, you better know something about the thing or you're screwed. And that's where it goes wrong, with most people. C'mon, many people can't even set up their own internet access or mail settings...
I've been thinking for a long time already that it'd be cool to set up some company people can call to if they have computer problems. Not like a support contract or anything, rather like a docter who takes housecalls. If you take care that you send out someone the same day, you'd definately beat those damn computer shops here that overcharge for fixing your machine, taking it into custody for a month or so... Replacing some so-called 'broken hardware components' you never asked for in the process.
A simple, fast on-site computer help/repair hotline in a reasonably populated area would make you a millionaire, if set up properly.
As much as I am pro freedom and privacy, and hate the power of the state and big corporations like a good leftish boy, there are good reasons to have some kind of identification on the 'net... No CC fraud, less spam (accountability for one's actions), and a definate way to prove who you are.
If it's implemented in a way that I can decide to use this identification, when, where, and how I want, without any possibility of being forced to do so, there is no privacy problem. If you don't want to give the information, you don't. If you need to do it, you can.
The internet could use a way to identify people for who they really are; as long as it's not mandatory or enforcible, it's only a positive thing, in my eyes.
You see, when you buy something with a credit card, or when you just really want to prove to someone who you are, you _want_ to give some information already. There is no privacy issue, since you want the information to be known; you can just back it up with proof.
It could be used as an optional extra check to avoid CC fraud, for instance.
Maybe it's time we blow of the dust of the (e.g.) pgp protocol, and try to find a way to make a official central directory in which we can be sure anybody is who he claims to be. If you don't want to use it and remain anonymous, you don't have to. It's all about choice.
I wonder why PGP isn't more popular.
Yeah, well. 'Not always the case' indeed. We might have more laws here in Europe, but I dare you to find a provider that will kick you for 'hate speech' if you give a philosophical view about the problems in Western society, or because posting a nude picture (as in 'art', not as in 'jill sucks 3 studs'), or anything that is not completely in line with 'common morals and healthy values of a [christian] society'. Then, try the same with an American ISP.
You really can't compare our countries' systems by law. In reality, we live in just exactly the same world. Only, in America it's up to each individual court to decide (it's common practice to sue somebody), while in Europe there's more a tendency to have a law about it (which only gets lived up to in extreme cases).
All the same shit. We both have to fight to keep our world free. Let's spend time doing that, instead of bitching about each others' continents (countries, whatever).
You vote out the rotten apples in your government, we'll vote out ours. That's democracy.
Also, note that -as I already said somewhere before- the slashdot headline is -1, troll. It's a proposition, one of tens/hundreds every day, it's lo-o-ong away from even being voted on. Proposals end up in the trash every day.
Ofcourse, you'll need extra support for and retraining of staff, when you switch from closed to open. You trained your people for closed, now you'll have to train them for open. Only logical.
Maybe it's expensive to switch for people already used to closed source products to e.g. linux, but what about the new people arriving that need to be trained? Training costs would be pretty much equal.
There really isn't such a big difference in the software itself anymore, so I can't believe the costs for one solution would differ so much from the other. Starting from someone with no knowledge of either windows (/software) or linux (/software), I bet educating them would cost equally much.
Anyone can win a race, if they're close enough to the finish. The race's only fair if everyone has the same starting point.
So maybe you won't re-train your old staff, but you educate the new ones with your opensource software. And everything will be fine, 'in the long run'.
'Impossible' is the wrong word to use when it comes to cryptography.
Perhaps that's why that word is nowhere in the text linked to.
It's exactly the attitude not to have, if you care about security.
You know, you're completely right. I have been using Linux/*BSD/... for 5 years almost, no windows whatsoever, but nothing beats the look - or better, the quality of the look of Micro$oft's desktop. It's not really my taste, but I have to admit it looks damn beautiful.
:)
Luckily we (opensource-side) have more quality in software-coding (the performance of some of the more mature programs is just way better - it's not about selling, but about producing good software) and definately more stability. Because we are really lagging behind when it comes to intuitivity and niceness of the GUI... even something as basic as fonts.
The reason it looks so good, is because every little detail has been designed to fit in the look (next to superior anti-aliasing and fonts).
We need more not-geeks using linux. Micro$oft has hundreds (?) of people working on interface design, hiring specialized companies and designers for certain tasks (their core fonts, for instance)... Something that opensource can't do, really. So our only hope is that enough artistic people start helping opensource projects, and reach a common vision of consistent design throughout all of (Gnome's/KDE's/...) software.
The problem is that those arty people are seldom really interested enough in computers to spend their free time designing computerstuff. Or even just to learn to use linux (or a computer in general). Geeks and graphic design... it just doesn't add up (with a few exceptions that confirm the rule).
Is it just me, or are companies really trying to screw their customers over in any possible way? One would expect a bit of respect from corporations for their customers, be it quality of service and goods, or just ethical and friendly ('human') behavior...
It seems Internet, media, music and entertainment companies are working on a system of income without uhm... well, customers. Because that's where they're headed.
And if it's that easy to uncap their modem, well, doesn't that just as much point to a flaw in their own products and services, as in the moral of their customers... Ofcourse people want to get the maximum out of the money they spend. With all the problems my ISPs have had over the last years (network outage, (too) slow connectivity, system crashes, dns misconfiguration, sudden extra restrictions on bw/mailsize/mailboxsize, administrative fuck-ups,...), I'm not surprised some customers do these kind of things.
It's wrong, ofcourse. But is it more wrong than not getting what you paid for?
We need stronger protection of customer rights. Corporations become too big, ubiquitous and have too much influence by lobbying or the sheer power of their legal departements. In theory, everybody's equal in the eyes of the law; in reality, I'd like to see a small individual with a small-town lawyer fight off the legal team of a big corporation. That is, if that person can even afford a lawyer and the legal costs for a case that might last forever.