Contrary to what some people try to claim, businesses aren't sticking with XP because they are lazy or stupid. Many people really don't understand the business aspect of this. It's not the same as a person upgrading one or two computers in their home.
Businesses have a very legitimate problem -- changing thousands (or tens of thousands) of computers to a new operating system is very expensive -- not just the cost of the OS itself but you have to pay people to do all the upgrading and deal with all the problems that come up. And after you spend all that money, what do you have? You have thousands of computers that look slightly different but work exactly the same as they did before. So what benefit did your company gain from spending all that money? This is a legitimate business concern.
Then there is the problem of software, and this is something that affects many companies both large and small. Many businesses run specialized software that is very expensive and, unfortunately, in many cases, very poorly written, meaning that it runs on Windows XP but often won't work on never versions of Windows. And so, in addition to all the expense involved in changing the OS, there is the additional expense of buying new versions of other software. And once again, once you've spend all that time, effort and money, what do you have? Computers that function exactly the same as they did before. There may be improvements "under the hood" but there is no obvious improvement in functionality.
What you really have here is an inherent conflict between the software companies and the companies use use the software. Software has matured to the point that 12 year old Windows XP, 10 year old Office 2003 and 8 year old Photoshop CS2 are still perfectly fine and able to do everything that most people need. But the software companies need to keep selling software, so they keep making changes to create "new" versions.
But businesses don't want "new". They want stability. They don't want to be constantly changing things because that disrupts their business and costs them a lot of money, with little or no benefit.
like most professions it is the few bad eggs you hear about that really do tarnish everyone. There really are quite a lot of good judges that really are only interested in doing what's right
Sadly, this is not true. If it was, there would be many more cases like this one. When you see the rulings by the judge in this case, it makes you realize just how corrupt and incompetent most other judges are.
To bad Judge Wright wasn't in charge of the SCO vs IBM case. The whole thing could have been wrapped up in a fraction of the time.
Yeah, it's sad but it was also inevitable in a world of companies driven more by selfish buisness interests than a desire to improve the system as a whole.
Unfortunately, it's not that simply. ISPs are faced with a very serious and legitimate business problem. -- switching to IPv6 is very expensive but provides no benefit to them. For example, the millions (tens of millions?, hundreds of millions??) of modems that would have to be replaced because they can only handle IPv4. These are typically supplied by the ISP. Replacing all of them is an enormous expense, and when you're done, everything works exactly the same as it did before. From a business standpoint, there is no benefit to justify the expense.
Or, the ISPs can say to their customers:
"We've made a change to our system. It isn't any faster, it isn't any different, everything works exactly as it did before, BUT, you have to pay for a new modem or else you can no longer connect to the Internet. Oh, and by the way, you'll probably have to buy a new router too, since many home routers, even new ones sold recently, don't support IPv6. So good luck with that."
The software to create and edit documents on the tablet just isn't mature enough to do the things I am used to. Web based editors act weird. Apps miss a feature I want or whatever.
You're right, but you're missing the point. What really makes using a PC so much better than a tablet for creating documents (or other real work that people have to do) is not the software, its the hardware: a nice big monitor, a real keyboard and a real mouse.
Tablets will never have that and so will always remain inferior for certain things.
Perhaps you are the one who doesn't get it. Why should a fully capable PC and a tablet be two different experiences?
Because a fully functional PC is for content creation while a tablet is for content consumption. And many people don't understand the difference.
People who use their PC for nothing but browsing the web, occassionaly sending email and posting to Facebook or Twitter are perfect candidates for a tablet. People who do real work use a "fully functional PC". Last year, the two largest PC companies, HP and Lenovo, sold a combined total of 110 Million PCs. Regardless of how that compares to tablet sales or previous year's PC sales, that's a lot of computers.
While tablets have certainly become popular, due to the fact that there are a lot of content consumers out there. the rumors of the death of the PC are greatly exaggerated.
Graphics people could decide to contribute money to the project and feature requests but coding, don't hold your breath. All of the best graphics people I know couldn't code there way out of a paper bag, no offense to paper bags, some of my best friends are paper bags.
And you've just discovered the fallacy of open source. The number of people who (a) are expert programmers in whatever language Gimp is written in and (b0 are intimately familiar with the Gimp codebase so that they can make actual contributions to the code, is VERY small.
The claim that "Anyone can contribute to [insert name of open source program] " is just simply false.
Not use GIMP, obviously. If a pirated product is better than the FOSS "true alternative", then don't expect much use out of said alternative.
Which is the one thing that the FOSS community refuses to admit. When you put everything on a level playing field -- pirated copies of Windows, Photoshop and Microsoft Office cost exactly the same as Linux, GIMP and Open Office -- people overwhelming choose the pirated versions of commercial products.
The incentive is to keep that flow of cash coming in. The pressure will be from other companies who feel they can offer a competing product at a more compelling price point, and take away Adobe's business.
Or did you really think once you signed up for a subscription, you were committing to pay $50 a month in perpetuity?
I can't speak for all Adobe products, but Photoshop has no meaningful competition. That's why they can get away with charging such a high price for it. Which means, yes you are committing to pay $50 a month forever, because once you stop paying, the software stops working, and you have no useful alternative.
It seems clear that the basic YouTube service will be free. The pay service will be for premium content.
"Premium Content". I laugh every time I hear that phrase.
What exactly would this "Premium Content" be? What do they have in that crappy little window that is so wonderful and "Premium" that I will gladly pay them for it?
By now, the whole damn OS API is implemented in browsers. But slower. And shittier. And crippled.
s/browser/shell/g; s/tab bar/task bar/g; and you're done. In fact they already went that far, and called it ChromeOS!
In fact they went even further: The browser is not the new OS, but the new machine.
Don't believe they went too far? Then feast your eyes at THIS: http://jslinux.org/ Yes, that's right! The actual Linux kernel... running on an actual virtual CPU... actually implemented in JavaScript inside your browser!
If you don't think this path is fucked-up, you're fucked-up.
Irrelevant examples are irrelevant.
You use your Web browser to go to a web page and there's a video. How do you play it? Your browser uses some sort of plugin. This is not an example of the "Inner Platform Effect" but simply the most efficient and straight forward way to do it. As for the other examples, yes they are stupid, but irrelevant. All browsers contain a Javascript interpreter and ORBX.js is just another Javascript file. In fact, this *reduces* browser bloat by eliminating the need for a video plugin and instead, just using the Javascript interpreter that already exists in the browser.
Except for the fact that every day I encounter websites that do not display properly and/or are non-functional in any browser other than Internet Explorer.. Despite the popularity of Firefox and Chrome, we are still very much locked into "Microsoft's vision of the net"
I am a professional software developer for a fortune 500 company, all the the projects I've been on for the past 14 years have been web related in one way or another.
If you were any fuller of shit you would simply explode.
I see . . . and so I am trapped in some sort of alternate universe and all those websites I have encountered which do not function properly in Firefox, but work just fine in Internet Explorer don't actually exist.
They INVENTED JavaScript and are single handedly responsible for us not being locked into MS's 'vision' of the net - without costing you a cent. Give them a break.
Except for the fact that every day I encounter websites that do not display properly and/or are non-functional in any browser other than Internet Explorer.. Despite the popularity of Firefox and Chrome, we are still very much locked into "Microsoft's vision of the net"
As for giving them a break, I don't think so. After using Firefox for several years, my wife, the typical clueless nontechnical user, switched to Internet Explorer. Partly because it "worked better" on the websites she visits most often and partly because she updated to the latest release of Firefox and suddenly found that Firefox was "broken" -- some features she liked and used frequently were missing.
Please stop turning Firefox into a OS. I want my browser back.
Unless I'm missing something, there is no need for any additional code in Firefox or any other browser. Your browser just executes the ORBX.js javascript.
Watermarking, not DRM. This could be huge. OTOY’s GPU cloud approach enables individually watermarking every intra-frame, and according to some of its Hollywood supporters including Ari Emanuel, this may be enough to eliminate the need for DRM.
LOL.
"Hollywood Supporters". Those two words alone are enough to make this something to avoid.
I swear that if anyone approaches me wearing those things I'm going to punch him in the face.
No, you've got it all wrong.
First you go up to them and say "Wow, are those the new Google Glasses?" like you're really excited and interested. Then you grab them off his face, throw them on the ground, stomp on them a few times, and THEN you punch him in the face.
Basing anything on ad revenue is a cursed way to make money, and in the long run, unsustainable. Google and other large ad companies, including Microsoft may be making money, but that income from ads is not sustainable forever..
I don't know about that. The television networks have been doing it for 60 years. That seems pretty "sustainable" to me.
On the other hand I would agree that the idea of "anybody can make a buttload of money from ads on the Internet" is a flawed business model. I particularly like this one comment from the article:
"I used to have a good bit of impressions / day then it dropped to barely nothing last week and now we're essentially at zero. I do only free apps so this is killing me! How am I even supposed to cover my Windows Azure costs let alone all the labor invested!" wrote user "silverdollar."
Translation: I want free money and I'm pissed that I"m not getting it.
My opinion on this will also be unpopular. Not making enough money from ads? Boo-fuckking-hoo. Get a real job and stop annoying us with your bullshit ads.
...I know I certainly don't want to see ads in Windows 8 apps.
Exactly right.
Screw them and their ads. Want to make money? Create something worthwhile and sell it. Want to make money from ads? Fuck You. I get bombarded with enough ads already.
What rubbish - with everyone and his brother being a programmer nowadays, anything new always ends up with a call to develop more software for it. When all you have is a hammer, then every problem is made to look like a nail. Software is most certainly not the bottleneck. There are plenty of 3D modeling programs out there,
Although I agree that 3D printers that can do something really useful are still too expensive, dismissing software is just plain wrong. If you think that software isn't a big part of the problem, then you've never used 3D modeling software.
The idea that anyone can design a 3D item as easily as drawing a picture in Microsoft Paint (or GIMP) is a fantasy that may never become a reality. If you've ever actually used 3D modelling software, you understand this.
The claim that "There is a significant band in the middle of people who will pirate if it's easy and buy if it's not" is pure Hollywood Media Cartel Propaganda Bullshit.
People who are willing to buy your product will buy it. People who are not willing to buy your product will either copy it from somewhere, or, simply ignore it and go on their way without it.
The problem is it is impossible create a DRM system that both protects the artist's right and respects the consumer's rights.
In any case it looks like the OP is drinking the big media kool-aid. DRM isn't about protecting the artists; in fact they mostly hate it. DMR is about increasing corporate profits buy taking away consumer rights like format shifting, backing up, resale and so forth.
The claim that "DRM protects the rights of content creators" is false and has been shown to be false a thousand times. DRM is based on the idea that consumers have no rights. DRM assumes, right from the very beginning, that you are a criminal that the content producer must be protected from. DRM is an example of the old saying "if you tell the same lie enough times, you will eventually start to believe it".
Slashdot Mirror
Contrary to what some people try to claim, businesses aren't sticking with XP because they are lazy or stupid. Many people really don't understand the business aspect of this. It's not the same as a person upgrading one or two computers in their home.
Businesses have a very legitimate problem -- changing thousands (or tens of thousands) of computers to a new operating system is very expensive -- not just the cost of the OS itself but you have to pay people to do all the upgrading and deal with all the problems that come up. And after you spend all that money, what do you have? You have thousands of computers that look slightly different but work exactly the same as they did before. So what benefit did your company gain from spending all that money? This is a legitimate business concern.
Then there is the problem of software, and this is something that affects many companies both large and small. Many businesses run specialized software that is very expensive and, unfortunately, in many cases, very poorly written, meaning that it runs on Windows XP but often won't work on never versions of Windows. And so, in addition to all the expense involved in changing the OS, there is the additional expense of buying new versions of other software. And once again, once you've spend all that time, effort and money, what do you have? Computers that function exactly the same as they did before. There may be improvements "under the hood" but there is no obvious improvement in functionality.
What you really have here is an inherent conflict between the software companies and the companies use use the software. Software has matured to the point that 12 year old Windows XP, 10 year old Office 2003 and 8 year old Photoshop CS2 are still perfectly fine and able to do everything that most people need. But the software companies need to keep selling software, so they keep making changes to create "new" versions.
But businesses don't want "new". They want stability. They don't want to be constantly changing things because that disrupts their business and costs them a lot of money, with little or no benefit.
Out? Why? There's nothing here that AdBlock Plus can't fix.
I don't go to Facebook, i have absolutely no interest in it. but, you are right. This is exactly why AdBlock was created.
like most professions it is the few bad eggs you hear about that really do tarnish everyone. There really are quite a lot of good judges that really are only interested in doing what's right
Sadly, this is not true. If it was, there would be many more cases like this one. When you see the rulings by the judge in this case, it makes you realize just how corrupt and incompetent most other judges are.
To bad Judge Wright wasn't in charge of the SCO vs IBM case. The whole thing could have been wrapped up in a fraction of the time.
Yeah, it's sad but it was also inevitable in a world of companies driven more by selfish buisness interests than a desire to improve the system as a whole.
Unfortunately, it's not that simply. ISPs are faced with a very serious and legitimate business problem. -- switching to IPv6 is very expensive but provides no benefit to them. For example, the millions (tens of millions?, hundreds of millions??) of modems that would have to be replaced because they can only handle IPv4. These are typically supplied by the ISP. Replacing all of them is an enormous expense, and when you're done, everything works exactly the same as it did before. From a business standpoint, there is no benefit to justify the expense.
Or, the ISPs can say to their customers:
"We've made a change to our system. It isn't any faster, it isn't any different, everything works exactly as it did before, BUT, you have to pay for a new modem or else you can no longer connect to the Internet. Oh, and by the way, you'll probably have to buy a new router too, since many home routers, even new ones sold recently, don't support IPv6. So good luck with that."
The software to create and edit documents on the tablet just isn't mature enough to do the things I am used to. Web based editors act weird. Apps miss a feature I want or whatever.
You're right, but you're missing the point. What really makes using a PC so much better than a tablet for creating documents (or other real work that people have to do) is not the software, its the hardware: a nice big monitor, a real keyboard and a real mouse.
Tablets will never have that and so will always remain inferior for certain things.
Perhaps you are the one who doesn't get it. Why should a fully capable PC and a tablet be two different experiences?
Because a fully functional PC is for content creation while a tablet is for content consumption. And many people don't understand the difference.
People who use their PC for nothing but browsing the web, occassionaly sending email and posting to Facebook or Twitter are perfect candidates for a tablet. People who do real work use a "fully functional PC". Last year, the two largest PC companies, HP and Lenovo, sold a combined total of 110 Million PCs. Regardless of how that compares to tablet sales or previous year's PC sales, that's a lot of computers.
While tablets have certainly become popular, due to the fact that there are a lot of content consumers out there. the rumors of the death of the PC are greatly exaggerated.
creatative professionals != gimp coders.
Graphics people could decide to contribute money to the project and feature requests but coding, don't hold your breath. All of the best graphics people I know couldn't code there way out of a paper bag, no offense to paper bags, some of my best friends are paper bags.
And you've just discovered the fallacy of open source. The number of people who (a) are expert programmers in whatever language Gimp is written in and (b0 are intimately familiar with the Gimp codebase so that they can make actual contributions to the code, is VERY small.
The claim that "Anyone can contribute to [insert name of open source program] " is just simply false.
Not use GIMP, obviously. If a pirated product is better than the FOSS "true alternative", then don't expect much use out of said alternative.
Which is the one thing that the FOSS community refuses to admit. When you put everything on a level playing field -- pirated copies of Windows, Photoshop and Microsoft Office cost exactly the same as Linux, GIMP and Open Office -- people overwhelming choose the pirated versions of commercial products.
The incentive is to keep that flow of cash coming in. The pressure will be from other companies who feel they can offer a competing product at a more compelling price point, and take away Adobe's business.
Or did you really think once you signed up for a subscription, you were committing to pay $50 a month in perpetuity?
I can't speak for all Adobe products, but Photoshop has no meaningful competition. That's why they can get away with charging such a high price for it. Which means, yes you are committing to pay $50 a month forever, because once you stop paying, the software stops working, and you have no useful alternative.
If you know where to look, there's lots of great content on YouTube. Personally, I enjoy watching Matt Chat, Lazy Game Reviews, and Classic Game Room HD, more than anything on TV.
Yes, I suppose this is true, if you have a very loose definition of "great".
I'd definitely pay $2/month to remove the damn ads
Or just use AdBlock.
It seems clear that the basic YouTube service will be free. The pay service will be for premium content.
"Premium Content". I laugh every time I hear that phrase.
What exactly would this "Premium Content" be? What do they have in that crappy little window that is so wonderful and "Premium" that I will gladly pay them for it?
This service will 'bring even more great content to YouTube
That made me laugh. "Great content on Youtube" is today's latest oxymoron.
Yes, you are completely missing the point.
By now, the whole damn OS API is implemented in browsers. But slower. And shittier. And crippled.
s/browser/shell/g; s/tab bar/task bar/g; and you're done. In fact they already went that far, and called it ChromeOS!
In fact they went even further: The browser is not the new OS, but the new machine .
Don't believe they went too far? Then feast your eyes at THIS: http://jslinux.org/
Yes, that's right! The actual Linux kernel... running on an actual virtual CPU... actually implemented in JavaScript inside your browser!
If you don't think this path is fucked-up, you're fucked-up.
Irrelevant examples are irrelevant.
You use your Web browser to go to a web page and there's a video. How do you play it? Your browser uses some sort of plugin. This is not an example of the "Inner Platform Effect" but simply the most efficient and straight forward way to do it. As for the other examples, yes they are stupid, but irrelevant. All browsers contain a Javascript interpreter and ORBX.js is just another Javascript file. In fact, this *reduces* browser bloat by eliminating the need for a video plugin and instead, just using the Javascript interpreter that already exists in the browser.
Except for the fact that every day I encounter websites that do not display properly and/or are non-functional in any browser other than Internet Explorer.. Despite the popularity of Firefox and Chrome, we are still very much locked into "Microsoft's vision of the net"
I am a professional software developer for a fortune 500 company, all the the projects I've been on for the past 14 years have been web related in one way or another.
If you were any fuller of shit you would simply explode.
I see . . . and so I am trapped in some sort of alternate universe and all those websites I have encountered which do not function properly in Firefox, but work just fine in Internet Explorer don't actually exist.
You sir, are the one who is full of shit.
They INVENTED JavaScript and are single handedly responsible for us not being locked into MS's 'vision' of the net - without costing you a cent. Give them a break.
Except for the fact that every day I encounter websites that do not display properly and/or are non-functional in any browser other than Internet Explorer.. Despite the popularity of Firefox and Chrome, we are still very much locked into "Microsoft's vision of the net"
As for giving them a break, I don't think so. After using Firefox for several years, my wife, the typical clueless nontechnical user, switched to Internet Explorer. Partly because it "worked better" on the websites she visits most often and partly because she updated to the latest release of Firefox and suddenly found that Firefox was "broken" -- some features she liked and used frequently were missing.
Please stop turning Firefox into a OS. I want my browser back.
Unless I'm missing something, there is no need for any additional code in Firefox or any other browser. Your browser just executes the ORBX.js javascript.
Watermarking, not DRM. This could be huge. OTOY’s GPU cloud approach enables individually watermarking every intra-frame, and according to some of its Hollywood supporters including Ari Emanuel, this may be enough to eliminate the need for DRM.
LOL.
"Hollywood Supporters". Those two words alone are enough to make this something to avoid.
I swear that if anyone approaches me wearing those things I'm going to punch him in the face.
No, you've got it all wrong.
First you go up to them and say "Wow, are those the new Google Glasses?" like you're really excited and interested. Then you grab them off his face, throw them on the ground, stomp on them a few times, and THEN you punch him in the face.
Basing anything on ad revenue is a cursed way to make money, and in the long run, unsustainable. Google and other large ad companies, including Microsoft may be making money, but that income from ads is not sustainable forever. .
I don't know about that. The television networks have been doing it for 60 years. That seems pretty "sustainable" to me.
On the other hand I would agree that the idea of "anybody can make a buttload of money from ads on the Internet" is a flawed business model. I particularly like this one comment from the article:
"I used to have a good bit of impressions / day then it dropped to barely nothing last week and now we're essentially at zero. I do only free apps so this is killing me! How am I even supposed to cover my Windows Azure costs let alone all the labor invested!" wrote user "silverdollar."
Translation: I want free money and I'm pissed that I"m not getting it.
My opinion on this will also be unpopular. Not making enough money from ads? Boo-fuckking-hoo. Get a real job and stop annoying us with your bullshit ads.
...I know I certainly don't want to see ads in Windows 8 apps.
Exactly right.
Screw them and their ads. Want to make money? Create something worthwhile and sell it. Want to make money from ads? Fuck You. I get bombarded with enough ads already.
What rubbish - with everyone and his brother being a programmer nowadays, anything new always ends up with a call to develop more software for it. When all you have is a hammer, then every problem is made to look like a nail. Software is most certainly not the bottleneck. There are plenty of 3D modeling programs out there,
Although I agree that 3D printers that can do something really useful are still too expensive, dismissing software is just plain wrong. If you think that software isn't a big part of the problem, then you've never used 3D modeling software.
The idea that anyone can design a 3D item as easily as drawing a picture in Microsoft Paint (or GIMP) is a fantasy that may never become a reality. If you've ever actually used 3D modelling software, you understand this.
The claim that "There is a significant band in the middle of people who will pirate if it's easy and buy if it's not" is pure Hollywood Media Cartel Propaganda Bullshit.
People who are willing to buy your product will buy it. People who are not willing to buy your product will either copy it from somewhere, or, simply ignore it and go on their way without it.
The problem is it is impossible create a DRM system that both protects the artist's right and respects the consumer's rights.
In any case it looks like the OP is drinking the big media kool-aid. DRM isn't about protecting the artists; in fact they mostly hate it. DMR is about increasing corporate profits buy taking away consumer rights like format shifting, backing up, resale and so forth.
The claim that "DRM protects the rights of content creators" is false and has been shown to be false a thousand times. DRM is based on the idea that consumers have no rights. DRM assumes, right from the very beginning, that you are a criminal that the content producer must be protected from. DRM is an example of the old saying "if you tell the same lie enough times, you will eventually start to believe it".
Amazon probably wants the .amazon tld to protect the "intellectual property" of their name..
Yes, I'm sure they do. And there's nothing wrong with that. But an easier way to do it is simpley don't create a TLD of .amazon. Problem solved.