We've had to deal with bugs and incompatibilities in IE and Netscape both for years, and bitched and moaned about it the whole time. Finally Netscape puts out a browser that is standards compliant (or will be once the bugs are worked out), and you're bitching about that too? If they had put out an intermediate release, it wouldn't have made the situation any better. It still wouldn't be standards compliant.
You seriously think that two whole years of development went into supporting the existing standards? An intermediate release should have supported the existing standards that NS4 tried to support before tackling anything more difficult, and definitely before chucking in a whole mess of other features.
At the moment, it's impossible to use a lot of complex CSS on a site, simply because NS4 will render the pages completely unusable (I'm talking unclickable links, content off-screen with no scrollbars, overlapping areas, etc). They shouldn't have tried to implement new standards until they had released a browser that didn't butcher the existing ones.
Netscape 6's CSS support is more standards-compliant than anything else on the market, with the possible exception of IE 5.5 on the Mac.
And how is that going to help the people who have spent countless hours working around some obscure Netscape 4 bug over the past few years? If there had been a release between the horrific NS4 and the just-one-more-feature NS6, then NS4 would be a legacy browser that hardly anyone would use any more due to bugs. As it is, web developers will have to deal with NS4 bugs for years to come.
Everything can be regarded as a derived work. For example, GNU pages clearly state, when explaining readline case, that I cannot use this library in non-GPL program. Even that my work is in no way related to readline, I just want to provide user with comfortable way of typing in. It's still "derived work" and it still should be GPL or nothing.
In this case you are distributing binaries that link with the GPLed library, not just bundling two pieces of software together on the same CD, which the original post stated was a violation. I quote from the GPL:
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
The current GPL makes it very hard to distribute GPL and non-GPL programs together
How? Distributing programs together isn't a problem as far as I can see - it's just combining them to create a derived work that can sometimes cause problems.
Sadly, I can't figure out exactly what you're fighting for for the life of me.
I can't speak for the OP, but it basically comes down to this:
Big companies are stealing from the public.
No, I'm not being overzealous, that is the basic problem with removing fair use. The deal is that the government, in order to advance the nation, grants people (and companies) an exclusive right to copy something they created. In other words, they are specifically taking a creation out of the public domain, and making it legal for the person who created it to produce copies, but nobody else.
This is a way to ensure that books still get written, music still gets recorded, etc, etc. The artifical monopoly provides one way to "reward" the copyright holder - by being able to sell copies.
This is not intended to give the copyright holder the ability to tell people what they can and cannot do with their copy. What would that achieve? The government has already given that a massive reward for creating something, that should be enough, right? There is no basis for the big companies to stop us from doing what we like with our copies. The copies belong to us. We may be legally obliged to protect the "reward" the government gave them, by not making copies, but that is all.
By restricting fair use, they are taking away more from the public domain than they are entitled to. And that is theft.
If "This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors." was not being displayed, it was in violation.
I notice by your very careful wording, you aren't actually claiming that the notice was not displayed.
If you don;t enforce your rights, you loose them.)
You're thinking of trademarks, not copyright.
Until such time you can provide proof there were no clause 3 violations, I'll go by the statement and CONTIUNE to point out how the positioning of RMS as some kind of moral absolutist WRT software licensing is hyprocritcal.
Is RMS actually aware of the mistake (assuming it exists)? You don't mention anywhere that you have actually told him about it. RMS has forgiven past licensing mistakes where the FSF is "wronged". He hasn't, AFAIK, ever whined about a technicality in obsolete software, without notifying the person(s) responsible.
What if a novel equivalent of napster appeared... how would authors make money then?
Check out the street performer protocol. Stephen King tried this recently, apparently with success. Also, bear in mind that an actual book is way more readable than any electronic equivelant, and will continue to be so for quite a long time.
The main reasons for making something closed-source is so you can stop people from hacking it or giving copies away.
Government has no need for this. I can't think of any good reason for making something closed-source in the first place.
Now licensing something under, say, the BSD license, isn't the same as having an open development model. For some software, it would be so specialised that the resources spent on setting up websites, mailing lists, CVS servers, etc. just wouldn't be worth it. But others would be free to do that if the software was generally useful outside of the government, and the license was right.
As far as game playing goes, complexity is often a good thing. Look at Sim City or the Civilisation-type games. You have to run cities, manage economies, and basically manage complexity the best you can. These games *must* be more immersive, since many people sit down for hours at a time with them, and lose track of time.
From reading the article, I got the feeling that the author was simply stating "some games don't work when converted from 2D to 3D". This I agree with. That all game genres are getting "less fun" over time, I disagree with.
45 days seems like a long, long time. In a single day, the average kiddie can go through a hell of a lot of computers. Do vendors really need that long to provide a fix, or are they just dragging their heels?
Are domains this specific any use? Amazon aren't going to make it their default, since they do more than books. Nobody is going to guess "do they sell product <foobar>" by guessing TLDs now, are they?
.solutions
Mmm... good, wholesome marketese. Or do they mean people who don't want to do homework should search here?
.free
As in sugar?
.gay
Bagsy "is":)
Seriously though. TLDs like these aren't useful. Being able to see what sites are in a category is useful. That's why the open directory works, it helps you find stuff. Being able to see what categories a site is in is of questionable value, seeing as you could just go to that site and find out.
And of those, how many are RedHat's fault as opposed to buggy packages?
Well, all of them, of course. Redhat decided to put the packages in, they didn't just magically appear on the CD. If they put buggy packages in, they should be responsible.
Don't be fooled by the techonology here. What this thing depends on is the willingness of people to develop for it, and that is determined by the market realities, not the technology. No developer is going to risk their ass to produce an Idrema-specific game.
I remember people saying the same thing about the Playstation. "Sony? Making a console? But nobody's going to risk developing for Sony when they can just develop for the already-proven Sega and Nintendo...". OK, Sony had more money. But the Indrema has the advantage of open, already proven APIs, like OpenGL. There is already a ton of developers out there with experience with these resources, and the barrier to entry is a hell of a lot lower, since you don't have to shell out just to develop.
So, Idrema consoles will, for the most part, be running games that were developed for the wider PC market, and which happen to also run on Idrema. In other words, economically, it's a PC that you can't do much with, not a console.
I was making the distinction between a PC and a console primarily because of the silly idea that supporting diverse hardware would be critical to their success. This is true for a gaming OS for PCs, but not for a console. As far as being "a PC that you can't do much with", have you taken a look at the specs for every major console lately? They're all like that. Sure, Sega has Sonic, and Nintendo has Mario, but they also have "PC" games (not sure I see a big difference myself). The FAQ says they will have ~30 titles at launch, which isn't bad. Plus, you have to remember that this is more than just a gaming machine. Things like DVD playing and web surfing.
I'd rather pay for open software than get closed software for free.
This is silly; you clearly don't mean what you're saying here.
Please don't tell me what I mean.
In order for the software to be "open", you have to have the option of getting it for free. So why would you pay for it?
I'm saying I value open software more than closed software. I'm saying that I'll pay more for something of higher value. Neither of these points change just because open software is usually available at no cost.
And, knowing this, why would any games developer make the software open in the first place.
I'm not saying they should. But if you want a reason, then how about a simple observation. Virtually all games fit into a small number of categories, and the main thing that makes them different to one another is the levels, artwork, and things like that. The content. The engines themselves aren't that important, as long as they do their job (would you buy a game with awful content just because the engine was good?). It would make sense to have a few open engines that could be shared and improved by the various companies that make games using those engines. The cost for developing those engines would be shared across multiple companies, at the price of competition.
Even Eric Raymond knows that the Open Source model isn't appropriate for games until they've passed the end of their commercial life.
Wow! Even Eric Raymond knows it? I'll have to change my opinion accordingly, then. </sarcasm>
...so now I want to make a cool game for my open source console. I don't care about marketing or whatnot, I just want to code something for the console. Can I do this without going bankrupt?
From the Indrema FAQ:
Q: Can a developer release freeware for IES? A: Yes, there will be an Indrema Certification program for freeware. Freeware certification will not require a per unit certification fee.
Now, if the console companies seem (and they do at that!) to be doing well for themselves without DirectX, why on this Earth would it be an issue for this machine?
Errrrrr.... because they are consoles? Do you not think that this is just a tiny bit different from PC gaming?
Who mentioned PC gaming? The Indrema is a console.
Particularly when they know that the target market of this console is notorious for its desire to pick up all of its software, DVDs and music without paying for it?
Have you taken a look at any of the links above? The target market is the same as that of the other consoles. It's not being marketed for free software advocates. Even if it were, free software is about freedom, not price. I'd rather pay for open software than get closed software for free.
Face it, unless Linux has suddenly developed drivers for a whole load of modern graphics accelerator cards through some form of magic
Sorry, no. This isn't a PC we are talking about here. It's a console. That means that it needs support for only a couple of graphics accelerators - and the Indrema folks get to pick which ones.
Why the hell can't the "community" just bite on the bullet and produce DirectX support?
Since the e-mail was sent to you, that is evidence enough that the sender intended for you to read it. Using software that can understand the format cannot be construed as an attempt to violate the copyright.
Since the DVD was sold to you, that is evidence enough that the seller intended for you to read it. Using software that can understand the format cannot be construed as an attempt to violate the copyright.
OK, I'm being faecetious:), the difference here is that there is no deliberate encryption. What I really want to know is why it's called "Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format", when it's obvious that it does matter which transport you use.
Open Source really doesn't need a set QA system, it already has one. It's called peer review. Say Hacker X creates a program with obvious bugs. He/she releases it, and Hacker Y downloads it. Because Hacker Y has access to the source code, he/she can find the bug and fix it.
While peer review cuts back on bugs, it's no substitute for QA. What you fail to mention is that a hundred other people download the same version as Hacker Y, and it's just as buggy as ever, in fact more so than a project that had QA. Also, there is less pressure on the developers to test properly, since "we can always just release a new version" is in the back of their minds.
I think the simpler we make the whole process, the better.
I agree. This doesn't mean ignoring even the most rudimentary QA, instead putting out a release that probably has a lot of bugs, and hoping that other people will find them.
What it asks is very straight forward. You load drivers (through a menu) partition your disk, set up your network and go. Just because they don't auto detect your hardware doesn't make the install hard.
No. My distro of preference is Slackware. It doesn't autodetect, and a lot of people think that it's a hard install because of this. Autodetection isn't the issue. The problem is that Debian just dumps a whole mess of packages that you might want to install on the screen, and expects you to sort it all out. When you select the packages you want, it tells you that it's not right because package A conflicts with package B, even though they are completely unrelated.
And in comparison to that other os, Debian is cake. I don't know where it ever started that windows is easy to install.
Umm... perhaps because you can click on 'standard install' and get it all on easily? The Windows install process has a lot of problems, but it's nowhere near as fucked up as Debian's.
Ever installed windows on a board where the specific IDE chipset doesn't have the specific driver?
Nope, Windows generally comes with the hardware support. Let's face it, if hardware aimed at the x86 market doesn't have Windows drivers, it's basically DOA.
Windows wouldn't even install on my most recent box.
Funnily enough, the same happened to me. I installed Slack.
There is no reason to do a major UI overhaull, so they stick with the old -- why is that a bad thing? Why should Microsoft force 200 million people to learn some new obscure user interface paradigm?
Stop throwing buzzwords in where they don't fit. Nobody mentioned a new paradigm. It's just that the screenshots are almost identical to current version of windows. While, as you say, there is little need to change the interface, it seems that this small amount of changes could easily fit into a service pack. Which begs the question: why are we supposed to pay for the same operating system again?
No need to recompile the kernel or find patches, no need to spend time reading countless manuals etc. I sincearly hope that some day Linux achieve such "lack of innovation".
FFS, a random piece of FUD to take attention away from Windows. There's no need to recompile the kernel or find patches in most distributions of Linux. You need to read the manual or take a course with anything as complex as a computer system, which includes Windows.
There is no reason to do a major UI overhaull, so they stick with the old -- why is that a bad thing? Why should Microsoft force 200 million people to learn some new obscure user interface paradigm?
Stop throwing buzzwords in where they don't fit. Nobody mentioned a new paradigm. It's just that the screenshots are almost identical to current version of windows. While, as you say, there is little need to change the interface, it seems that this small amount of changes could easily fit into a service pack. Which begs the question: why are we supposed to pay for the same operating system again?
No need to recompile the kernel or find patches, no need to spend time reading countless manuals etc. I sincearly hope that some day Linux achieve such "lack of innovation".
FFS, a random piece of FUD to take attention away from Windows. There's no need to recompile the kernel or find patches in most distributions of Linux. You need to read the manual or take a course with anything as complex as a computer system, which includes Windows.
If I use KDE 2 (which I plan to as soon as KOffice hits public beta)
KOffice is part of KDE, which has had a number of public betas now. In fact, I'm using the latest right now, and KWord seems a hell of a lot faster than any other similar package I've used. I switched over a long time ago, without any problems whatsoever.
Slashdot Mirror
We've had to deal with bugs and incompatibilities in IE and Netscape both for years, and bitched and moaned about it the whole time. Finally Netscape puts out a browser that is standards compliant (or will be once the bugs are worked out), and you're bitching about that too? If they had put out an intermediate release, it wouldn't have made the situation any better. It still wouldn't be standards compliant.
You seriously think that two whole years of development went into supporting the existing standards? An intermediate release should have supported the existing standards that NS4 tried to support before tackling anything more difficult, and definitely before chucking in a whole mess of other features.
At the moment, it's impossible to use a lot of complex CSS on a site, simply because NS4 will render the pages completely unusable (I'm talking unclickable links, content off-screen with no scrollbars, overlapping areas, etc). They shouldn't have tried to implement new standards until they had released a browser that didn't butcher the existing ones.
And how is that going to help the people who have spent countless hours working around some obscure Netscape 4 bug over the past few years? If there had been a release between the horrific NS4 and the just-one-more-feature NS6, then NS4 would be a legacy browser that hardly anyone would use any more due to bugs. As it is, web developers will have to deal with NS4 bugs for years to come.
In this case you are distributing binaries that link with the GPLed library, not just bundling two pieces of software together on the same CD, which the original post stated was a violation. I quote from the GPL:
The current GPL makes it very hard to distribute GPL and non-GPL programs together
How? Distributing programs together isn't a problem as far as I can see - it's just combining them to create a derived work that can sometimes cause problems.
Netscape 4.x absolutely reeks of bugs on Linux, I can't imagine they'd be using that....but then what? Netscape would crash too much
What about Konqueror? KDE 2 was released not too long ago, which comes with Konqueror.
Sadly, I can't figure out exactly what you're fighting for for the life of me.
I can't speak for the OP, but it basically comes down to this:
Big companies are stealing from the public.
No, I'm not being overzealous, that is the basic problem with removing fair use. The deal is that the government, in order to advance the nation, grants people (and companies) an exclusive right to copy something they created. In other words, they are specifically taking a creation out of the public domain, and making it legal for the person who created it to produce copies, but nobody else.
This is a way to ensure that books still get written, music still gets recorded, etc, etc. The artifical monopoly provides one way to "reward" the copyright holder - by being able to sell copies.
This is not intended to give the copyright holder the ability to tell people what they can and cannot do with their copy. What would that achieve? The government has already given that a massive reward for creating something, that should be enough, right? There is no basis for the big companies to stop us from doing what we like with our copies. The copies belong to us. We may be legally obliged to protect the "reward" the government gave them, by not making copies, but that is all.
By restricting fair use, they are taking away more from the public domain than they are entitled to. And that is theft.
If "This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors." was not being displayed, it was in violation.
I notice by your very careful wording, you aren't actually claiming that the notice was not displayed.
If you don;t enforce your rights, you loose them.)
You're thinking of trademarks, not copyright.
Until such time you can provide proof there were no clause 3 violations, I'll go by the statement and CONTIUNE to point out how the positioning of RMS as some kind of moral absolutist WRT software licensing is hyprocritcal.
Is RMS actually aware of the mistake (assuming it exists)? You don't mention anywhere that you have actually told him about it. RMS has forgiven past licensing mistakes where the FSF is "wronged". He hasn't, AFAIK, ever whined about a technicality in obsolete software, without notifying the person(s) responsible.
What if a novel equivalent of napster appeared... how would authors make money then?
Check out the street performer protocol. Stephen King tried this recently, apparently with success. Also, bear in mind that an actual book is way more readable than any electronic equivelant, and will continue to be so for quite a long time.
You need to restrict them to registering within a single TLD.
If you're a for-profit company, you can get .com.
If you're a web-portal, you can get .web.
If your a network provider, you can get .net.
What happens if you are a for-profit, web-portal and network provider (e.g. Altavista)?
The main reasons for making something closed-source is so you can stop people from hacking it or giving copies away.
Government has no need for this. I can't think of any good reason for making something closed-source in the first place.
Now licensing something under, say, the BSD license, isn't the same as having an open development model. For some software, it would be so specialised that the resources spent on setting up websites, mailing lists, CVS servers, etc. just wouldn't be worth it. But others would be free to do that if the software was generally useful outside of the government, and the license was right.
As far as game playing goes, complexity is often a good thing. Look at Sim City or the Civilisation-type games. You have to run cities, manage economies, and basically manage complexity the best you can. These games *must* be more immersive, since many people sit down for hours at a time with them, and lose track of time.
From reading the article, I got the feeling that the author was simply stating "some games don't work when converted from 2D to 3D". This I agree with. That all game genres are getting "less fun" over time, I disagree with.
45 days seems like a long, long time. In a single day, the average kiddie can go through a hell of a lot of computers. Do vendors really need that long to provide a fix, or are they just dragging their heels?
Woohoo. Now I can firewall off an entire TLD!
Are domains this specific any use? Amazon aren't going to make it their default, since they do more than books. Nobody is going to guess "do they sell product <foobar>" by guessing TLDs now, are they?
Mmm... good, wholesome marketese. Or do they mean people who don't want to do homework should search here?
As in sugar?
Bagsy "is" :)
Seriously though. TLDs like these aren't useful. Being able to see what sites are in a category is useful. That's why the open directory works, it helps you find stuff. Being able to see what categories a site is in is of questionable value, seeing as you could just go to that site and find out.
And of those, how many are RedHat's fault as opposed to buggy packages?
Well, all of them, of course. Redhat decided to put the packages in, they didn't just magically appear on the CD. If they put buggy packages in, they should be responsible.
Besides, once an idea is public, it is a lot easier to copy.
...and illegal if they hold patents. Course, I can forgive you if you weren't aware they had any :)
Don't be fooled by the techonology here. What this thing depends on is the willingness of people to develop for it, and that is determined by the market realities, not the technology. No developer is going to risk their ass to produce an Idrema-specific game.
I remember people saying the same thing about the Playstation. "Sony? Making a console? But nobody's going to risk developing for Sony when they can just develop for the already-proven Sega and Nintendo...". OK, Sony had more money. But the Indrema has the advantage of open, already proven APIs, like OpenGL. There is already a ton of developers out there with experience with these resources, and the barrier to entry is a hell of a lot lower, since you don't have to shell out just to develop.
So, Idrema consoles will, for the most part, be running games that were developed for the wider PC market, and which happen to also run on Idrema. In other words, economically, it's a PC that you can't do much with, not a console.
I was making the distinction between a PC and a console primarily because of the silly idea that supporting diverse hardware would be critical to their success. This is true for a gaming OS for PCs, but not for a console. As far as being "a PC that you can't do much with", have you taken a look at the specs for every major console lately? They're all like that. Sure, Sega has Sonic, and Nintendo has Mario, but they also have "PC" games (not sure I see a big difference myself). The FAQ says they will have ~30 titles at launch, which isn't bad. Plus, you have to remember that this is more than just a gaming machine. Things like DVD playing and web surfing.
I'd rather pay for open software than get closed software for free.
This is silly; you clearly don't mean what you're saying here.
Please don't tell me what I mean.
In order for the software to be "open", you have to have the option of getting it for free. So why would you pay for it?
I'm saying I value open software more than closed software. I'm saying that I'll pay more for something of higher value. Neither of these points change just because open software is usually available at no cost.
And, knowing this, why would any games developer make the software open in the first place.
I'm not saying they should. But if you want a reason, then how about a simple observation. Virtually all games fit into a small number of categories, and the main thing that makes them different to one another is the levels, artwork, and things like that. The content. The engines themselves aren't that important, as long as they do their job (would you buy a game with awful content just because the engine was good?). It would make sense to have a few open engines that could be shared and improved by the various companies that make games using those engines. The cost for developing those engines would be shared across multiple companies, at the price of competition.
Even Eric Raymond knows that the Open Source model isn't appropriate for games until they've passed the end of their commercial life.
Wow! Even Eric Raymond knows it? I'll have to change my opinion accordingly, then. </sarcasm>
From the Indrema FAQ:
Q: Can a developer release freeware for IES?
A: Yes, there will be an Indrema Certification program for freeware. Freeware certification will not require a per unit certification fee.
Now, if the console companies seem (and they do at that!) to be doing well for themselves without DirectX, why on this Earth would it be an issue for this machine?
Errrrrr .... because they are consoles? Do you not think that this is just a tiny bit different from PC gaming?
Who mentioned PC gaming? The Indrema is a console.
Particularly when they know that the target market of this console is notorious for its desire to pick up all of its software, DVDs and music without paying for it?
Have you taken a look at any of the links above? The target market is the same as that of the other consoles. It's not being marketed for free software advocates. Even if it were, free software is about freedom, not price. I'd rather pay for open software than get closed software for free.
Face it, unless Linux has suddenly developed drivers for a whole load of modern graphics accelerator cards through some form of magic
Sorry, no. This isn't a PC we are talking about here. It's a console. That means that it needs support for only a couple of graphics accelerators - and the Indrema folks get to pick which ones.
Why the hell can't the "community" just bite on the bullet and produce DirectX support?
http://www.winehq.com
Since the e-mail was sent to you, that is evidence enough that the sender intended for you to read it. Using software that can understand the format cannot be construed as an attempt to violate the copyright.
Since the DVD was sold to you, that is evidence enough that the seller intended for you to read it. Using software that can understand the format cannot be construed as an attempt to violate the copyright.
OK, I'm being faecetious :), the difference here is that there is no deliberate encryption. What I really want to know is why it's called "Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format", when it's obvious that it does matter which transport you use.
Open Source really doesn't need a set QA system, it already has one. It's called peer review. Say Hacker X creates a program with obvious bugs. He/she releases it, and Hacker Y downloads it. Because Hacker Y has access to the source code, he/she can find the bug and fix it.
While peer review cuts back on bugs, it's no substitute for QA. What you fail to mention is that a hundred other people download the same version as Hacker Y, and it's just as buggy as ever, in fact more so than a project that had QA. Also, there is less pressure on the developers to test properly, since "we can always just release a new version" is in the back of their minds.
I think the simpler we make the whole process, the better.
I agree. This doesn't mean ignoring even the most rudimentary QA, instead putting out a release that probably has a lot of bugs, and hoping that other people will find them.
What it asks is very straight forward. You load drivers (through a menu) partition your disk, set up your network and go. Just because they don't auto detect your hardware doesn't make the install hard.
No. My distro of preference is Slackware. It doesn't autodetect, and a lot of people think that it's a hard install because of this. Autodetection isn't the issue. The problem is that Debian just dumps a whole mess of packages that you might want to install on the screen, and expects you to sort it all out. When you select the packages you want, it tells you that it's not right because package A conflicts with package B, even though they are completely unrelated.
And in comparison to that other os, Debian is cake. I don't know where it ever started that windows is easy to install.
Umm... perhaps because you can click on 'standard install' and get it all on easily? The Windows install process has a lot of problems, but it's nowhere near as fucked up as Debian's.
Ever installed windows on a board where the specific IDE chipset doesn't have the specific driver?
Nope, Windows generally comes with the hardware support. Let's face it, if hardware aimed at the x86 market doesn't have Windows drivers, it's basically DOA.
Windows wouldn't even install on my most recent box.
Funnily enough, the same happened to me. I installed Slack.
Found a bug in Konqueror :(
There is no reason to do a major UI overhaull, so they stick with the old -- why is that a bad thing? Why should Microsoft force 200 million people to learn some new obscure user interface paradigm?
Stop throwing buzzwords in where they don't fit. Nobody mentioned a new paradigm. It's just that the screenshots are almost identical to current version of windows. While, as you say, there is little need to change the interface, it seems that this small amount of changes could easily fit into a service pack. Which begs the question: why are we supposed to pay for the same operating system again?
No need to recompile the kernel or find patches, no need to spend time reading countless manuals etc. I sincearly hope that some day Linux achieve such "lack of innovation".
FFS, a random piece of FUD to take attention away from Windows. There's no need to recompile the kernel or find patches in most distributions of Linux. You need to read the manual or take a course with anything as complex as a computer system, which includes Windows.
There is no reason to do a major UI overhaull, so they stick with the old -- why is that a bad thing? Why should Microsoft force 200 million people to learn some new obscure user interface paradigm?
Stop throwing buzzwords in where they don't fit. Nobody mentioned a new paradigm. It's just that the screenshots are almost identical to current version of windows. While, as you say, there is little need to change the interface, it seems that this small amount of changes could easily fit into a service pack. Which begs the question: why are we supposed to pay for the same operating system again?
No need to recompile the kernel or find patches, no need to spend time reading countless manuals etc. I sincearly hope that some day Linux achieve such "lack of innovation".
FFS, a random piece of FUD to take attention away from Windows. There's no need to recompile the kernel or find patches in most distributions of Linux. You need to read the manual or take a course with anything as complex as a computer system, which includes Windows.
I'm not going to hold my breath for it, but it would be nice if this version came with IPv6 support enabled by default.
Erm... by default? Why? Think about the userbase Redhat is targeting, and think about how many of them with need IPV6 out of the box.
If I use KDE 2 (which I plan to as soon as KOffice hits public beta)
KOffice is part of KDE, which has had a number of public betas now. In fact, I'm using the latest right now, and KWord seems a hell of a lot faster than any other similar package I've used. I switched over a long time ago, without any problems whatsoever.