(1) software is like fire. You can copy without really 'loosing'. I don't really agree with the term 'stealing', because they don't really 'loose'. You wouldn't have bought it anyway, because you can't afford it.
(2) so, by committing this 'soft crime' (which it even isn't, in my opinion), you greatly enhance the future of yourself, your family, your country, your economy, _if_ you use it for your own _intellectual_ benefit, that is. And by improving these things, this will have indirectly and even directly a beneficial influence on those companies, because both the demand for their product, as well as the money that can be spend on that product, will rise.
In my (left) opinion, ofcourse it's ok to use pirated software if (1) you can't afford it, but really need it - otherwise, you're in a circle you can never get out: no money, no software, no skills, no hightech-industry, no progress, no money; and (2) why would I pay the ridiculously high fees of most software packages (not only the Redmond rip-off) _before_ I use it? I'm not gonna spend $500 on some graphics suite without at least trying the software for some months. I like it, I buy it; otherwise I delete it. How can they expect us to pay these high prices, without being able to test it? I never pay before I receive the service, surely not when it's that high for something that in reality is just a $1 digital copy.
Same goes for music - how can you buy a cd without knowing you like it? Who has the money to gamble on it with the current price?
Furthermore, I play music, and I've been thinking... Imagine I make a cd. Some people will buy it (hopefully;) ), some will copy it, and some will just not care about it. The group that copies it, must have a reason: most likely, they can't afford to buy it, or maybe they don't think it's that good they will spend $20 on it - which is actually the same as not really having money.
Do I mind that those people enjoy my music? Not at all. I actually would prefer that people copy it if they can't afford it, and enjoy what I made. For free. How can I mind? If I don't allow those people to listen to my music, nobody gets anything out of it. If you really don't want or can't pay it, and like it, please, by all means, copy it. Give me at least the pleasure to know that someone likes what I do.
This is what I do too. I am a student. I download songs. The cds I really like, I have on a list. When I have money, I will pay for the cds. If I wouldn't download it, I wouldn't know it, and I would never buy it. And even if I wouldn't pay for it, maybe I pass it on to someone who does, or maybe I check out a concert of the band. Why do you make music? Only for the money?...
But, ofcourse, I am kinda leftish.:)
Now, this counts as much for software (I just can't explain as good as with music, because I don't really write software). You can't go to the shop and ask for something you don't know, or didn't try. So, you must try the product first. Learn it. Use it. Only then you can express your appreciation. Especially with this ridiculously high prices some programs have.
When these students graduate, they'll make money. And pay. Possibly even recommend your product. Look ahead, see it as an investment. If I would be Micro$oft, I'd give all my software away for free (except hard costs like packing and shipping) to development countries. It won't cost me a thing, because that software is made already, I don't have to do anything about it; and it's not like they will buy it anyway. That's where there's possible market growth, not in the US or Europe, those markets are pretty satisfied (that's probably why Micro$oft raises the price).
If they don't allow this 'pirating' to happen (mind, they don't really loose anything at all), free software or local companies will take the market when those countries come 'round (let's hope they do), and you've lost one of the only markets where you can still get rid of your products.
Well, at least that's my view. I wouldn't mind at all if open source philosophy in software, music etc will take over though.
I don't really believe your boxing-match theory. I think when something like this will happen, a true and direct danger for the planet - not a horror story with a funny picture - it will be dealt with in a global way, and will rather unite people because it will make them focus on the 'common enemy' rather than their petty differences.
Essentially, if we can conquer it, it will benefit mankind. And even more if we can't, depending on how negative your worldview is.
Lots of people have computers only as a fancy typewriter and a websurfing device.
But that's my point. I think it's wrong. A computer is a complex general purpose machine, too complex for 'just surfing the web'. The people expect it to be a house hold appliance, which it isn't. You can run out of memory, out of harddisk. Your cooler can fail, your disks can crash, your cdwriter can burn a coaster. You don't just put it off, because 'the buffers have to be flushed'. Etc. If the difference between the point-and-click interface becomes too big from the complex nature of the machine, people are bound to get confused, frustrated, and unable to deal with about any problem that can pop up with a computer, be it software, hardware, or external appliances and toys.
This has nothing to do with feeling l33t because of console skills. It has something to do with having a vague idea of what you are doing, and how things are working. Computers are expensive; most of the people I know - and I'm talking about average joe-sixpacks rather than techies - get tricked into buying a computer because of all the FUD around it, all the commercials, all the hype about multimedia, internet, and whatnot. But these people's dream more often than not turns into a nightmare when things don't work out as advertised. It's too complicated, things go wrong, the thing crashes and refuses to boot, and they are stuck. Do you know the waiting time and prices of local computer stores for simple computer problems? Because that's where mum's gonna bring the machine if she's stuck. Probably to be sold rather than fixed, though.
It's especially because technology has to adapt to people, we should see that computers in their current incarnation do not go together all too well with the average Joe or Jill. I'm not defending consoles at all, I'm merely pointing out that the learning curve is still too steep, even with windows, and the reason why so many people have computers, is _not_ because they need it or will be more happy with them, but because it seems a simple and cool gadget.
This is far beyond the gui. It's too complex, the difference between what people expect or want (especially after all those cheapass commercials) is way out of perspective compared to what it is. You think that computers and OS'es (combined! not one without the other...) can be so simple and reliable that people can just click a few buttons and be happy? I don't. Not by long.
If you can make it (1) really, damn easy to use, and (2) still find a magical way to explain all complex issues in a way that even the least technical inclined user can get it, you might have a chance. This is what Micro$oft tries, but in my eyes also where it fails - point (2).
"Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven much like Windows precursor, DOS. So converting meant learning an arcane vocabulary of computerese to give the PC even the simplest commands. But Linux software is getting better -- [...]"
This disturbs me, the view that the prettier the pictures, the better OS is. Where does this fear (hate?) for the console come from? Are people really that weary of actually *learning* to work with their computer?
I guess I'm just too geeky to understand that everybody just wants pretty pictures and a very big button in the middle of the screen that says 'click me' and does whatever you want.
A computer is not a 2-button household appliance, and won't be that for many years. Come to think of it, I even think the need of the masses for computers is artificially - commercially generated. Like everyone had a typewriter in their house... I love computers, but if people want to play games, I'd suggest them to buy one of those consoles... If they want to watch movies, to buy a dvd or video-player... And hifi stuff for music.
It's this fear for learning that makes Micro$oft the monster it is. It also seems to be the reason Linux isn't the monster it could be (yet?) - at least on the desktop.
Seriously though... don't they (= whoever puts the sat up there) have a cleanup-plan to get the things back down on earth when they are retired? I know it's very, very expensive, but (1) so is the satellite, and (2) I generally wonder about the likelyhood of problems if everyone leaves their electronic junk up there, collisions by deviation of orbit and interference and things like that...
After all, it can't be that hard to just crash it in the atmosphere and let it go up in smoke, if they want to get rid of it. Then at least we won't hear about some spaceship or newer satellite hitting one of those old piles of junk in 20 years, or some other fun thing happening (more likely every day) to these expensive toys.
Why don't we (as in 'people who dislike this spying-on-us stuff') plan a nice holiday-trip to one of these echelon-locations nearby? I'd like to see their reaction when a couple of thousand people demand to see the installation that they paid for themselves, indirectly, and that "doesn't exist"...:)
Why don't we (as in 'people who dislike this spying-on-us stuff') plan a nice holiday-trip to one of these echelon-locations nearby? I'd like to see their reaction when a couple of thousand people demand to see the installation that they paid for themselves, indirectly, and that "doesn't exist"...:)
We need a global government, with fair and equal representation for every country.
And a world-wide juridical system - that will stop all those ridiculous treaties between individual countries.
Re: Linux is good enough (but are your admins?)
on
FreeBSD 4.6
·
· Score: 1
After considering it we stick with Linux: Linux firewalls, Linux servers for DB, CVS, email and web, Linux on desktops with OpenOffice, Gimp and NetBeans. Why would we need BSD?
Well. If you run the same distribution of linux everywhere, you're gonna be seriously screwed if there's some security problem / stability problem / whatever... with it.
If you _don't_ run the same distro everywhere, your argument about 'zoo' and 'mix of different systems' doesn't really matter, because different linux distro's can be as different as some linux distro's and *bsd. Compare slackware with freebsd, for instance. If your admins need training to work with your linux systems, they'll need it for every other distribution just as for bsd, so you save nothing.
And having different systems and people who _understand_ them is much more beneficial to your company in many ways, than cheap click-monkey admins who need gui's.
Re:Linux for desktop, *BSD for servers? - why not.
on
FreeBSD 4.6
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I like linux, but if I can choose freely, there is nothing I would pick over a *bsd, most likely freebsd.
There is no linux distribution that is as mature and aimed for servers. Don't even start talking about the bloated linux 'server' editions... A minimal bsd install, the latest versions of the services you really need compiled by hand and optimized, and you're set.
Mind though: I really don't think there's such a big difference between freebsd and linux, each has its pro's and con's... It really doesn't matter that much. Just use the right tools for the job, it's all opensource anyway.
And you can build a very minimal Linux distro yourself too, if you want... It's all about freedom, if you want linux on workstations (because that's what most distro's aim at) and freebsd on servers, you do that. And it'll work.
I wish the 'x is better than y'-people would just shut up and use 'x' in silence. Or contribute, if they really have too much time and energy anyway.
I really hope that plain old source tarballs will stay, I've noticed with recent releases of several software packages, the rpm was released _before_ the plain source, or even only the rpm. It scares me, I really don't want to be forced to use rpms for my system (slackware/linux from scratch). You loose a lot of freedom, deciding what/where/...
I don't understand why people have to offer tarballs, rpm's, deb's, slp's,... these days. It's a mess, no standards as usually.
Take a look at Ximian's ftp server. For every new version, they have to build specific packages for every distribution, and even every different version of that distribution.
People like me who either like to build from source, or don't have one of those 'supported distributions' - like my slackware and lfs - can't install ximian. Or have to go through hell and back to trick the crap out of the installation-scripts.
I don't want to start a flamewar, but this is not 'free software', if you need specific systems and/or packagers to install it. If it only supports commercial systems like redhat/suse/..., and not me with my little self-made linux system that I made just because of the philosophy gpl-given liberty and the fun of doing it, than it doesn't follow the philosophy I see behind the gpl - or only partially.
This is a nobrainer. Yes, ofcourse the company should be honest about what happened to data that's not theirs. It's only fair to the customers that trust them with their valuable information. It also shows that the company puts more value on the customers and the way they are treated, than on profits and deception.
It also seems to me admitting 'guilt' (well, things can always go wrong, nothing is 100% secure, and we're all human), they show respect for their customers, take responsability and very likely have the intention to do something about it, while if they choose to keep everything hidden, it's like shhh... nobody knows = nobody cares... not an attitude I would want to show to the people depending on my services.
In general, I would rather trust a company that can give good _and bad_ points about itself, completely open and honest, than a company that's always best, greatest, biggest, 100% secure, etc.
Especially so when it's purely an internet company.
it's worth noting that the privacy rules intended to protect us can also work against us.
You know, that's such bullshit. If everything that -one way or another- can be used against you would be evil, there would be nothing left. Hey, privacy is bad, let's just forget about about it. What about aircraft, snailmail and email, the whole internet. Let's go back to live in caves.
You can't make a rule, a law, or better, in the case of privacy, a right only work for 'the good guys'. Whose responsability would it be to decide who is right? Who are 'the good guys'? Even when you'd know everything about somebody else, considering privacy wouldn't be existing at all (oh horror), you're just one part of the equation.
A much better way would be to try to find out what's wrong with the world, not only with them but also with us, that people would like to use these rifle scopes... We might be more succesful in trying to take away the reasons for terrorism than in (literally) fighting it; I think in the end, it would end up being much cheaper in many ways.
It's not that Micro$oft is against OpenSource software per se. It's that they fear for their money.
I can see at least 2 reasons:
- the old idea that when you give the source code with the binaries, nobody's still going to buy you stuff (aka why opensource-companies fall like flies)
- we would see how bad their code is:)
If it's proven you could make _more_ money with opensource products ('better products', as in stability and security just won't convince them), although I don't see how myself, they will be the first in line to adapt it.
It's not only palm. I'm increasingly worried about the quality of hardware - it seems hardware manufacturers keep pushing the limits to produce cheaper and faster electronics, just like in about all other electronic markets, but don't pay any attention to QA. My hardware is failing at a truly horrifying rate, compared to the 286's, 386's and 486's that keep on running, with all their old hardware. My old pc's outlive my newer and cooler stuff; (relatively) new harddrives crash, cpu's burn, dimms produce random data...
You see, a pc, pda, or whatever, is _not_ like a VCR. People depend on it. It often houses invaluable data, not to mention, alltogether, it costs a hell of a lot more than some 'dumb' machine as the average VCR. A harddrive that breaks after a couple of months, no matter how cheap those things are these days, is a lot of money wasted, especially for students like me.
And it's not just the money, ofcourse. The loss of data. The work that goes into restoring this data. The pain of re-installing the os, and fine-tuning it again.
I wish I knew which brands I could trust... I had two HD's crashing on me in a month, my ram broke and took half of my filesystem with it, and I even had to replace my keyboard recently (it was new!) just because some keys didn't work - I traced it to an electronic problem, not just because I made it swim in coke or anything...
With this mass-production of electronics and the broken?-throw-away-and-buy-a-new-one philosophy, I would really like to know where to turn and who to trust when it comes to stable hardware. With even big companies like IBM producing crap (cfr. the 'ibm harddisk incident'), where to turn for quality? Warranty is a main point for me now when buying new hardware (how about the warranty on that Palm?), and although this protects my finances somewhat, this does nothing for my data.
My system crashes more because of hardware, than because of a software hangup...
(Kudos to *BSD and Linux for that...)
You're shit with a good os if the hardware it runs on fails. With hardware at Micro$oft-quality, does the stability of the OS still matter even...
Actually, would there be any interesting similar parties where _men_ are lacking... Somehow, there always seem to be much less women than men on this planet.
And what about the US huh... Billions go to events like the Grammy Awards while hundreds, thousands die of hunger in this world. I don't think any other part of the world spends so much money on cosmetics, drugs, useless luxury products, and yes, sweat shop products from China.
At least kids working in sweat shops can have _something_ to eat, while if we all follow your philosophy, they get to watch Harry Stinking Potter while they die.
Slashdot Mirror
(1) software is like fire. You can copy without really 'loosing'. I don't really agree with the term 'stealing', because they don't really 'loose'. You wouldn't have bought it anyway, because you can't afford it.
(2) so, by committing this 'soft crime' (which it even isn't, in my opinion), you greatly enhance the future of yourself, your family, your country, your economy, _if_ you use it for your own _intellectual_ benefit, that is. And by improving these things, this will have indirectly and even directly a beneficial influence on those companies, because both the demand for their product, as well as the money that can be spend on that product, will rise.
In my (left) opinion, ofcourse it's ok to use pirated software if (1) you can't afford it, but really need it - otherwise, you're in a circle you can never get out: no money, no software, no skills, no hightech-industry, no progress, no money; and (2) why would I pay the ridiculously high fees of most software packages (not only the Redmond rip-off) _before_ I use it? I'm not gonna spend $500 on some graphics suite without at least trying the software for some months. I like it, I buy it; otherwise I delete it. How can they expect us to pay these high prices, without being able to test it? I never pay before I receive the service, surely not when it's that high for something that in reality is just a $1 digital copy.
;) ), some will copy it, and some will just not care about it. The group that copies it, must have a reason: most likely, they can't afford to buy it, or maybe they don't think it's that good they will spend $20 on it - which is actually the same as not really having money.
:)
Same goes for music - how can you buy a cd without knowing you like it? Who has the money to gamble on it with the current price?
Furthermore, I play music, and I've been thinking... Imagine I make a cd. Some people will buy it (hopefully
Do I mind that those people enjoy my music? Not at all. I actually would prefer that people copy it if they can't afford it, and enjoy what I made. For free. How can I mind? If I don't allow those people to listen to my music, nobody gets anything out of it. If you really don't want or can't pay it, and like it, please, by all means, copy it. Give me at least the pleasure to know that someone likes what I do.
This is what I do too. I am a student. I download songs. The cds I really like, I have on a list. When I have money, I will pay for the cds. If I wouldn't download it, I wouldn't know it, and I would never buy it. And even if I wouldn't pay for it, maybe I pass it on to someone who does, or maybe I check out a concert of the band. Why do you make music? Only for the money?...
But, ofcourse, I am kinda leftish.
Now, this counts as much for software (I just can't explain as good as with music, because I don't really write software). You can't go to the shop and ask for something you don't know, or didn't try. So, you must try the product first. Learn it. Use it. Only then you can express your appreciation. Especially with this ridiculously high prices some programs have.
When these students graduate, they'll make money. And pay. Possibly even recommend your product. Look ahead, see it as an investment. If I would be Micro$oft, I'd give all my software away for free (except hard costs like packing and shipping) to development countries. It won't cost me a thing, because that software is made already, I don't have to do anything about it; and it's not like they will buy it anyway. That's where there's possible market growth, not in the US or Europe, those markets are pretty satisfied (that's probably why Micro$oft raises the price).
If they don't allow this 'pirating' to happen (mind, they don't really loose anything at all), free software or local companies will take the market when those countries come 'round (let's hope they do), and you've lost one of the only markets where you can still get rid of your products.
Well, at least that's my view. I wouldn't mind at all if open source philosophy in software, music etc will take over though.
Here's to rights back to consumer.
I don't really believe your boxing-match theory. I think when something like this will happen, a true and direct danger for the planet - not a horror story with a funny picture - it will be dealt with in a global way, and will rather unite people because it will make them focus on the 'common enemy' rather than their petty differences.
Essentially, if we can conquer it, it will benefit mankind. And even more if we can't, depending on how negative your worldview is.
This has Bin Laden written all over it.
'sup with that session-id? Shouldn't you strip it from the link...
...Install something unix-like on their servers?
:)
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
No, it's not a anti-micro$oft troll, well, maybe, yes, but it really would be the solution, wouldn't it?
But that's my point. I think it's wrong. A computer is a complex general purpose machine, too complex for 'just surfing the web'. The people expect it to be a house hold appliance, which it isn't. You can run out of memory, out of harddisk. Your cooler can fail, your disks can crash, your cdwriter can burn a coaster. You don't just put it off, because 'the buffers have to be flushed'. Etc. If the difference between the point-and-click interface becomes too big from the complex nature of the machine, people are bound to get confused, frustrated, and unable to deal with about any problem that can pop up with a computer, be it software, hardware, or external appliances and toys.
This has nothing to do with feeling l33t because of console skills. It has something to do with having a vague idea of what you are doing, and how things are working. Computers are expensive; most of the people I know - and I'm talking about average joe-sixpacks rather than techies - get tricked into buying a computer because of all the FUD around it, all the commercials, all the hype about multimedia, internet, and whatnot. But these people's dream more often than not turns into a nightmare when things don't work out as advertised. It's too complicated, things go wrong, the thing crashes and refuses to boot, and they are stuck. Do you know the waiting time and prices of local computer stores for simple computer problems? Because that's where mum's gonna bring the machine if she's stuck. Probably to be sold rather than fixed, though.
It's especially because technology has to adapt to people, we should see that computers in their current incarnation do not go together all too well with the average Joe or Jill. I'm not defending consoles at all, I'm merely pointing out that the learning curve is still too steep, even with windows, and the reason why so many people have computers, is _not_ because they need it or will be more happy with them, but because it seems a simple and cool gadget.
This is far beyond the gui. It's too complex, the difference between what people expect or want (especially after all those cheapass commercials) is way out of perspective compared to what it is. You think that computers and OS'es (combined! not one without the other...) can be so simple and reliable that people can just click a few buttons and be happy? I don't. Not by long.
If you can make it (1) really, damn easy to use, and (2) still find a magical way to explain all complex issues in a way that even the least technical inclined user can get it, you might have a chance. This is what Micro$oft tries, but in my eyes also where it fails - point (2).
This disturbs me, the view that the prettier the pictures, the better OS is. Where does this fear (hate?) for the console come from? Are people really that weary of actually *learning* to work with their computer?
I guess I'm just too geeky to understand that everybody just wants pretty pictures and a very big button in the middle of the screen that says 'click me' and does whatever you want.
A computer is not a 2-button household appliance, and won't be that for many years. Come to think of it, I even think the need of the masses for computers is artificially - commercially generated. Like everyone had a typewriter in their house... I love computers, but if people want to play games, I'd suggest them to buy one of those consoles... If they want to watch movies, to buy a dvd or video-player... And hifi stuff for music.
It's this fear for learning that makes Micro$oft the monster it is. It also seems to be the reason Linux isn't the monster it could be (yet?) - at least on the desktop.
The aliens fixed it!
Seriously though... don't they (= whoever puts the sat up there) have a cleanup-plan to get the things back down on earth when they are retired? I know it's very, very expensive, but (1) so is the satellite, and (2) I generally wonder about the likelyhood of problems if everyone leaves their electronic junk up there, collisions by deviation of orbit and interference and things like that...
After all, it can't be that hard to just crash it in the atmosphere and let it go up in smoke, if they want to get rid of it. Then at least we won't hear about some spaceship or newer satellite hitting one of those old piles of junk in 20 years, or some other fun thing happening (more likely every day) to these expensive toys.
auto... autosuk... autoguses... autoseggus... autusoggistion... auto pfff... No. You win.
Why don't we (as in 'people who dislike this spying-on-us stuff') plan a nice holiday-trip to one of these echelon-locations nearby? I'd like to see their reaction when a couple of thousand people demand to see the installation that they paid for themselves, indirectly, and that "doesn't exist"...
Why don't we (as in 'people who dislike this spying-on-us stuff') plan a nice holiday-trip to one of these echelon-locations nearby? I'd like to see their reaction when a couple of thousand people demand to see the installation that they paid for themselves, indirectly, and that "doesn't exist"... :)
We need a global government, with fair and equal representation for every country.
And a world-wide juridical system - that will stop all those ridiculous treaties between individual countries.
Well. If you run the same distribution of linux everywhere, you're gonna be seriously screwed if there's some security problem / stability problem / whatever
If you _don't_ run the same distro everywhere, your argument about 'zoo' and 'mix of different systems' doesn't really matter, because different linux distro's can be as different as some linux distro's and *bsd. Compare slackware with freebsd, for instance. If your admins need training to work with your linux systems, they'll need it for every other distribution just as for bsd, so you save nothing.
And having different systems and people who _understand_ them is much more beneficial to your company in many ways, than cheap click-monkey admins who need gui's.
I like linux, but if I can choose freely, there is nothing I would pick over a *bsd, most likely freebsd.
There is no linux distribution that is as mature and aimed for servers. Don't even start talking about the bloated linux 'server' editions... A minimal bsd install, the latest versions of the services you really need compiled by hand and optimized, and you're set.
Mind though: I really don't think there's such a big difference between freebsd and linux, each has its pro's and con's... It really doesn't matter that much. Just use the right tools for the job, it's all opensource anyway.
And you can build a very minimal Linux distro yourself too, if you want... It's all about freedom, if you want linux on workstations (because that's what most distro's aim at) and freebsd on servers, you do that. And it'll work.
I wish the 'x is better than y'-people would just shut up and use 'x' in silence. Or contribute, if they really have too much time and energy anyway.
There's a release engineering information page: http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html
The information can be update and revised, though. Just to give you an idea.
I really hope that plain old source tarballs will stay, I've noticed with recent releases of several software packages, the rpm was released _before_ the plain source, or even only the rpm. It scares me, I really don't want to be forced to use rpms for my system (slackware/linux from scratch). You loose a lot of freedom, deciding what/where/...
I don't understand why people have to offer tarballs, rpm's, deb's, slp's,
Take a look at Ximian's ftp server. For every new version, they have to build specific packages for every distribution, and even every different version of that distribution.
People like me who either like to build from source, or don't have one of those 'supported distributions' - like my slackware and lfs - can't install ximian. Or have to go through hell and back to trick the crap out of the installation-scripts.
I don't want to start a flamewar, but this is not 'free software', if you need specific systems and/or packagers to install it. If it only supports commercial systems like redhat/suse/..., and not me with my little self-made linux system that I made just because of the philosophy gpl-given liberty and the fun of doing it, than it doesn't follow the philosophy I see behind the gpl - or only partially.
Incorporate it in ordinary looking glasses, and you have any guy's dream... =)
This is a nobrainer. Yes, ofcourse the company should be honest about what happened to data that's not theirs. It's only fair to the customers that trust them with their valuable information. It also shows that the company puts more value on the customers and the way they are treated, than on profits and deception.
It also seems to me admitting 'guilt' (well, things can always go wrong, nothing is 100% secure, and we're all human), they show respect for their customers, take responsability and very likely have the intention to do something about it, while if they choose to keep everything hidden, it's like shhh... nobody knows = nobody cares... not an attitude I would want to show to the people depending on my services.
In general, I would rather trust a company that can give good _and bad_ points about itself, completely open and honest, than a company that's always best, greatest, biggest, 100% secure, etc.
Especially so when it's purely an internet company.
You know, that's such bullshit. If everything that -one way or another- can be used against you would be evil, there would be nothing left. Hey, privacy is bad, let's just forget about about it. What about aircraft, snailmail and email, the whole internet. Let's go back to live in caves.
You can't make a rule, a law, or better, in the case of privacy, a right only work for 'the good guys'. Whose responsability would it be to decide who is right? Who are 'the good guys'? Even when you'd know everything about somebody else, considering privacy wouldn't be existing at all (oh horror), you're just one part of the equation.
A much better way would be to try to find out what's wrong with the world, not only with them but also with us, that people would like to use these rifle scopes... We might be more succesful in trying to take away the reasons for terrorism than in (literally) fighting it; I think in the end, it would end up being much cheaper in many ways.
It's not that Micro$oft is against OpenSource software per se. It's that they fear for their money.
I can see at least 2 reasons:
- the old idea that when you give the source code with the binaries, nobody's still going to buy you stuff (aka why opensource-companies fall like flies)
- we would see how bad their code is
If it's proven you could make _more_ money with opensource products ('better products', as in stability and security just won't convince them), although I don't see how myself, they will be the first in line to adapt it.
It's not only palm. I'm increasingly worried about the quality of hardware - it seems hardware manufacturers keep pushing the limits to produce cheaper and faster electronics, just like in about all other electronic markets, but don't pay any attention to QA. My hardware is failing at a truly horrifying rate, compared to the 286's, 386's and 486's that keep on running, with all their old hardware. My old pc's outlive my newer and cooler stuff; (relatively) new harddrives crash, cpu's burn, dimms produce random data...
You see, a pc, pda, or whatever, is _not_ like a VCR. People depend on it. It often houses invaluable data, not to mention, alltogether, it costs a hell of a lot more than some 'dumb' machine as the average VCR. A harddrive that breaks after a couple of months, no matter how cheap those things are these days, is a lot of money wasted, especially for students like me.
And it's not just the money, ofcourse. The loss of data. The work that goes into restoring this data. The pain of re-installing the os, and fine-tuning it again.
I wish I knew which brands I could trust... I had two HD's crashing on me in a month, my ram broke and took half of my filesystem with it, and I even had to replace my keyboard recently (it was new!) just because some keys didn't work - I traced it to an electronic problem, not just because I made it swim in coke or anything...
With this mass-production of electronics and the broken?-throw-away-and-buy-a-new-one philosophy, I would really like to know where to turn and who to trust when it comes to stable hardware. With even big companies like IBM producing crap (cfr. the 'ibm harddisk incident'), where to turn for quality? Warranty is a main point for me now when buying new hardware (how about the warranty on that Palm?), and although this protects my finances somewhat, this does nothing for my data.
My system crashes more because of hardware, than because of a software hangup...
(Kudos to *BSD and Linux for that...)
You're shit with a good os if the hardware it runs on fails. With hardware at Micro$oft-quality, does the stability of the OS still matter even...
Actually, would there be any interesting similar parties where _men_ are lacking... Somehow, there always seem to be much less women than men on this planet.
Yeah, all single, male geeks. Not my kind of orgy. :)
And what about the US huh... Billions go to events like the Grammy Awards while hundreds, thousands die of hunger in this world. I don't think any other part of the world spends so much money on cosmetics, drugs, useless luxury products, and yes, sweat shop products from China.
At least kids working in sweat shops can have _something_ to eat, while if we all follow your philosophy, they get to watch Harry Stinking Potter while they die.