One of the sad things is that slashdot had a semi-decent journal system before the likes of facebook, but never pushed it.
There's quite a community that blogs here on all sorts of topics, many of which are at best only slightly tech-related, but it's invisible to most users because they don't bother looking at posters' journal postings.
It sure beats the likes of facebook with it's "stream of consciousness in 75 words or less".
It's an operating system, not a religion. I'm using Windows 7 right now as I'm perusing/. while avoiding doing some photo touchups in Photoshop. In a few hours I'll boot into my Debian system and continue working on a project in Python. I feel no shame when I use Windows, it's a tool...it's there to aid in completing a job.
Exactly. What's interesting is the progression of linux as a viable alternative, not the "OMG either switch or you're a dirty person who deserves to live in a cardboard box above a heating grate" attitude, which, pardon the pun, just grates.
That's why I call them "fresh blood", and not, as the GP said, "poseur wannabes". Fresh blood invigorates the lineage. Heck, I still use it when I feel nostalgic for some SimCity once a year:-)
Wait, how does a pro-open source tech site having majority Windows using readers prove open source is the biggest threat to Microsoft? You don't know the proportion of Windows users that are interested in Linux, you only know the proportion of tech site readers that use Windows. Are you really extrapolating tech site readership out to the general population?!
Read what I wrote. It wasn't ME making the claim. Microsoft's filings with the SEC make the claim that linux and open source are their biggest threat.
So, why are they so scared? Because it threatens their stack, which includes Office, their one true cash cow.
They've never turned an annual profit with servers.
They've been a complete loss in terms of revenue from HPC, and are abandoning the field.
Ditto for corporate projects like the stock exchange mess, that they totally failed at.
Windows doesn't bring in all that much money. Most people simply don't buy it retail. The real money is in the "software assurance" program, and in Office. Get rid of those, and Microsoft is a perennial money loser.
And linux has been used as a threat to dump the software assurance program, which most businesses don't need, since they can now get by with doing a cheap hardware refresh instead with the money they save. Desktops no longer cost $2k apiece.
So that leaves Office. The one solid, year-in, year-out, for 15 years #1 profit center. And people are asking "why upgrade any more? What I've got is good enough."
If you don't need to upgrade, and the vendor tries to force an upgrade on you, and you have a choice, it's time for the vendor to cut prices. Office will continue to be a cash cow for the next decade, but that's about it.
I don't come here to be enlightened. I come for a fight.
Well, at least you're up front about your pro-ms trolling...
Think about it - even with less than 1% of the desktop, and being distributed for free, it's more of a threat than Apple, who are worth more than Microsoft.
Can I have some of what you're smoking? Linux is a threat to MS in the enterprise/server space while Apple is not. On the desktop, Linux is by far and wide not nearly as much of a threat as Apple.
Two points:
On the corporate desktop side, where the real money is, the threat of migration has been used to induce Microsoft to lower costs, and/or unbundle products;
I've never been, and never will be, a smoker, not even for recreational pharmacological purposes.
Apple isn't nearly as much of a threat. After all, people who switch to Apple don't suddenly find OpenOffice as their default. And they don't discover that they don't need CALs to access servers, or licenses to deploy those servers, etc.
I originally thought that too... but consider this:
Microsoft is pretty much the smallest player in the mobile phone field
If the phone also serves as a touchpad-style and/or wii-style remote control, phone service is optional, and competitors can offer the same functionality;
Competitors are selling bundles of phones + service;
Competitors are locking people into their own app stores;
It takes 5 to 10 years for anti-trust to move their collective rump.
Besides, do you really expect a government that rewards Goldman-Sachs and AIG,. and brings in a universal health care program that benefits the insurance companies to the detriment of the consumer, to do anything anti-business?
They'll eventually give them away with Windows when you buy your next laptop. Activate Office.Whatever_the_next_version_is, and get 1 year's service with phone carrier X and some mobile office apps. Use the phone+blutooth as a remote for your laptop when connected to your HDTV, etc. The XBox variant will come with a "buy new games each month and get 1 month's free phone service" and mobile games as a bonus.
WP7 becomes the Kin's next-of-next-of-kin.
Since Microsoft isn't market-savvy enough to make deals to do #1, their phones will end up as big piles of #2 doing the swirly around the porcelain god.
Which is funny because if you look at the web stats of Slashdot, 90% of visitors are using Windows computers. LOL, bunch of poseur wannabes
[citation needed]
Yes, a large portion of the visitors to slashdot use Windows. Then again, when compared to the general population, a large portion don't.
That so many Windows users see value in, and frequent, a site that is definitely pro-linux/bsd/open source, and what is arguably, even with all the "web 2.0" junk, the most influential tech forum on the net, says that Ballmer is right when Microsoft tells the SEC that linux and open source are the biggest threat to Microsoft.
Think about it - even with less than 1% of the desktop, and being distributed for free, it's more of a threat than Apple, who are worth more than Microsoft.
I don't call them poseur wannabes - I call them fresh blood:-)
Don't be such a wimp. Even at -30, the dogs have to be walked for half an hour first thing in the morning before work and again in the evening after work.
As long as it's not windy, I don't care. That's what boots, coats, hats, sweaters, gloves, etc., are made for.
Not warm enough? Put on another layer and MOVE AROUND! You'll warm up to it.
Winter's not going to go away for a few months, so might as well enjoy it.
Really? They've seized goldmansachs.com, aig.com, and countrywidefinancial.com?
No, they only seize certain domains that make them look good to seize, in a "think of the children" sense (where the voters are child-like sheeple). It's political.
The parts of the SCO lawsuit where SCO claimed infringement were dropped - by SCO - long ago.
Just as GNU's not Unix, Linux is not unix
All the patents that Novell currently holds, linux is safe from any infringement claims, because Novell distributed, and continues to distribute, linux under the GPL. So it would have to be something NEW that is added to linux AFTER the sale goes through next year that would form the basis of any (bogus) lawsuit.
Actually, since linux contains no unix code that isn't public domain, Microsoft owning Unix would be a bigger problem for Unix than for linux.
However, BSD Unix is free of any AT&T code (which is what Novell bought from AT&T in the first place), so neither BSD, nor linux, is threatened.
In other words, there are NO issues, no matter who now owns the AT&T code. And everyone else already has a paid-up perpetual license... so it only matters if you want to create a new Unix based on the AT&T code - which is pretty darned obsolete. Might as well buy a copy of SCO OpenSewer.
The Regents of Southern California would have a thing to say about that - the AT&T settlement made one thing clear - no one entity "owns" unix.
The University also claimed that similar lines of source code (which were presented during discovery) did not infringe on USL's copyright because they had become public domain by the actions of AT&T: AT&T had promoted UNIX as a standard, licensing it to universities and allowing UNIX source code to be published in textbooks. The University submitted briefs from the UC Berkeley students and staff, explaining how they had audited the code, looking for freely available copies of the source code and methods. When they could find none, they said, they removed the code and rewrote it using publicly known techniques—and so any remaining similarities existed because AT&T had effectively abandoned the copyright to them.
Novell didn't have to show they owned the rights to Unix in SCO vs Novell - just that, whatever rights they had, they didn't convey them to Santa Cruz.
So whatever they bought from AT&T, it wasn't "ALL right to Unix."
Very true. However, there are some cases where desktops are a better choice, especially environments where the machine is not leaving the building:
1: Desktops are effectively kept shut by a padlock and/or Kensington lock slot. This doesn't mean that someone can get the case open somehow, but it keeps components (RAM, hard disks, video cards, CPUs) from disappearing.
You can't be serious. I have yet to see a desktop computer that can't be cannibalized VERY quickly - but lets face it, the components in most office desktops are run-of-the-mill. Who'd want them?
Even a tethered laptop still has accessible doors for this type of stuff, and it isn't hard for someone to wander around, pop out hardware and pocket it.
Laptop sales way outnumber desktops among consumers - it's not likely that someone is going to try to fit desktop ram or hard drives into their laptop:-:
This is especially true in call centers, student computer labs, and other places of high turnover
Student computer labs? They're so last century. Obsolete, as are the junky computers in them. In a couple of years, you'll have to PAY someone (literally) to dispose of them.
2: Desktops tend to be more salvageable. This means that a problem can be fixed by a RAM swap or a HD replacement as opposed to swapping out entire machines.
It's easier to replace ram or a hard disk in a laptop than it is in a desktop. Try it some time:-)
Then what happens with the old machines? Make sure your hardware service plan (even at a business level)is decent, or else the laptops might end up having to be mailed to a depot where they can languish 6-8 weeks.
3: Desktop drivers tend to be easier to find and update.
Why bother with a "service plan" when a desktop replacement laptop that is "good enough" is currently selling for $350 (Compaq presario, 320 gig hd, 2.3 ghz pentium, 3 gig ram, Win 7, etc). With a second screen, this is "good enough" and then some, and if it breaks - not likely - it's cheap enough that business won't care.
With laptop video, you depend on the machine maker to be able to cough up working drivers for video, motherboard, RAID, et. al.
Absolutely not true. Most video now works out of the box. It's the desktops that have the problem, with the more exotic video cards.
Even going to the OEM may not net you working drivers, because even though generic drivers for the new OS may be available for the device from the OEM, they won't install on that device... and often, trying ini file hacking to make the driver think its running on different hardware may not work. Laptops tend to have planned obsolescence in this fashion, while with desktops, there is a higher chance of finding a driver that works with the new OS.
Most laptops are basically desktops in a different form factor, with better components, specifically because return costs are higher than a desktop, unless you're buying the very6 bottom of the barrel, same as desktops.
4: Desktops tend to be cheaper for business features. For example, TPM chips on hardware that will be going in a call center
Call centers generally don't use TPM chips. Ordinary desktops.
[1]. Laptops need to be fairly high end to sport these, while all but the cheapest business lines of desktops sport these.
5: Desktops can be better customized. For example, one place I worked at had all desktops use their onboard RAID cards and have two hard drives. This way, a drive failure would mean that the user's work wouldn't stop.
So buy $499 18.4" laptops and throw a second hard drive in. Even my current laptop (17" hp pavilion) has twin 320 gig hds.
Why all the dissing laptops? I switched to using mine as my main desktop and I couldn't be happier (primary screen is a 26" 1920x1200, laptop is a 1440x900).
Just plug in a keyboard and mouse, and put the laptop off on one side, raised a bit for better viewing and cooling. Much quieter than a desktop, and you've got a built-in UPS that's good for a couple of hours. Forget docking stations.
You can always stuff a second hard drive in a 17" or better latop, so with over a terabyte of local storage, you should be good to go - pair the laptops and have people back up on each other's second drive.
Networking? Use the built-in wireless (you can use both the wireless and the ethernet port at the same time, so a null cable will work fine to speed up the buddy backups at the end of the day).
Enjoy the lower noise, the lack of a tower underfoot or on the desk, etc.
And the benefit of portability, for meetings, fixing it, working as an impromptu team, etc.
DTR (desktop replacement) laptops are CHEAP, and they make setting up a dual-screen system a no-brainer.
hehe "a couple of hardrives" hehe, each "job" at work generates a few 100MB of data that needs to be stored, archived, and transfered... I do 3-4 "jobs" a week, so around 5TB of data a week. I work with 3 other people doing just about the same... so no "a couple of harddisks" isn't going to cut it.
You need to work on your math skills. 3-4 "jobs" a week at 200 - 500 megabytes of data each is only a couple of gigabytes a week, not 5 TB a week. A couple of hard disks will be fine.
People using Apple laptops and desktops still see themselves as being "different". Same as linux users. Same as bsd users. Same as plan9 users.
Just because something is done by a significant portion of the population doesn't mean that those participating don't think of themselves as "counter-culture".
Example - tattoos, esp. tramp stamps, and piercings.
Reality has little to do with end-user perceptions. Ask anyone in, for example, customer support.
I vote because I get some personal enjoyment out of it, but really, when has an individual vote ever mattered? Almost never. You could vote your entire life or never vote your entire life and chances are, nothing would be the slightest bit different.
A friend once cited a study or some such to me that showed you were more likely to be hit by a car on the way to your polling place than to have your vote make a difference.
Depends on the recount laws. Here, for example, any time the vote is within 100 votes, there's an automatic recount, so each one of those 100 votes can make a difference. Based on that alone, I think your friend's analysis is slightly flawed - and I bet you still look before crossing a street:-)
Slashdot Mirror
There's quite a community that blogs here on all sorts of topics, many of which are at best only slightly tech-related, but it's invisible to most users because they don't bother looking at posters' journal postings.
It sure beats the likes of facebook with it's "stream of consciousness in 75 words or less".
It's an operating system, not a religion. I'm using Windows 7 right now as I'm perusing /. while avoiding doing some photo touchups in Photoshop. In a few hours I'll boot into my Debian system and continue working on a project in Python. I feel no shame when I use Windows, it's a tool...it's there to aid in completing a job.
Exactly. What's interesting is the progression of linux as a viable alternative, not the "OMG either switch or you're a dirty person who deserves to live in a cardboard box above a heating grate" attitude, which, pardon the pun, just grates.
That's why I call them "fresh blood", and not, as the GP said, "poseur wannabes". Fresh blood invigorates the lineage. Heck, I still use it when I feel nostalgic for some SimCity once a year :-)
-- Barbie
Wait, how does a pro-open source tech site having majority Windows using readers prove open source is the biggest threat to Microsoft? You don't know the proportion of Windows users that are interested in Linux, you only know the proportion of tech site readers that use Windows. Are you really extrapolating tech site readership out to the general population?!
Read what I wrote. It wasn't ME making the claim. Microsoft's filings with the SEC make the claim that linux and open source are their biggest threat.
Better yet, Ballmer has been saying that linux is the #1 threat since 2001
And they also admitted it to the SEC in official filings in 2009
So, why are they so scared? Because it threatens their stack, which includes Office, their one true cash cow.
They've never turned an annual profit with servers.
They've been a complete loss in terms of revenue from HPC, and are abandoning the field.
Ditto for corporate projects like the stock exchange mess, that they totally failed at.
Windows doesn't bring in all that much money. Most people simply don't buy it retail. The real money is in the "software assurance" program, and in Office. Get rid of those, and Microsoft is a perennial money loser.
And linux has been used as a threat to dump the software assurance program, which most businesses don't need, since they can now get by with doing a cheap hardware refresh instead with the money they save. Desktops no longer cost $2k apiece.
So that leaves Office. The one solid, year-in, year-out, for 15 years #1 profit center. And people are asking "why upgrade any more? What I've got is good enough."
If you don't need to upgrade, and the vendor tries to force an upgrade on you, and you have a choice, it's time for the vendor to cut prices. Office will continue to be a cash cow for the next decade, but that's about it.
I don't come here to be enlightened. I come for a fight.
Well, at least you're up front about your pro-ms trolling ...
Think about it - even with less than 1% of the desktop, and being distributed for free, it's more of a threat than Apple, who are worth more than Microsoft.
Can I have some of what you're smoking? Linux is a threat to MS in the enterprise/server space while Apple is not. On the desktop, Linux is by far and wide not nearly as much of a threat as Apple.
Two points:
Apple isn't nearly as much of a threat. After all, people who switch to Apple don't suddenly find OpenOffice as their default. And they don't discover that they don't need CALs to access servers, or licenses to deploy those servers, etc.
-- Barbie
Besides, do you really expect a government that rewards Goldman-Sachs and AIG,. and brings in a universal health care program that benefits the insurance companies to the detriment of the consumer, to do anything anti-business?
Since Microsoft isn't market-savvy enough to make deals to do #1, their phones will end up as big piles of #2 doing the swirly around the porcelain god.
Which is funny because if you look at the web stats of Slashdot, 90% of visitors are using Windows computers. LOL, bunch of poseur wannabes
[citation needed]
Yes, a large portion of the visitors to slashdot use Windows. Then again, when compared to the general population, a large portion don't.
That so many Windows users see value in, and frequent, a site that is definitely pro-linux/bsd/open source, and what is arguably, even with all the "web 2.0" junk, the most influential tech forum on the net, says that Ballmer is right when Microsoft tells the SEC that linux and open source are the biggest threat to Microsoft.
Think about it - even with less than 1% of the desktop, and being distributed for free, it's more of a threat than Apple, who are worth more than Microsoft.
I don't call them poseur wannabes - I call them fresh blood :-)
The alternative would be an echo chamber.
As long as it's not windy, I don't care. That's what boots, coats, hats, sweaters, gloves, etc., are made for.
Not warm enough? Put on another layer and MOVE AROUND! You'll warm up to it.
Winter's not going to go away for a few months, so might as well enjoy it.
-- Barbie
No, they only seize certain domains that make them look good to seize, in a "think of the children" sense (where the voters are child-like sheeple). It's political.
shouldn't it be encouraged? lots of people would want to shoot nazis. pathetic.
Lot's of people want to shoot paedophiles, lets add animated models rapping children for motivation...
People already shoot rappers all the time. It's one way to get their music more air time.
Just as GNU's not Unix, Linux is not unix
All the patents that Novell currently holds, linux is safe from any infringement claims, because Novell distributed, and continues to distribute, linux under the GPL. So it would have to be something NEW that is added to linux AFTER the sale goes through next year that would form the basis of any (bogus) lawsuit.
It's just not in the cards.
Sorry - I'm tired - I meant Regents of the University of California.
However, BSD Unix is free of any AT&T code (which is what Novell bought from AT&T in the first place), so neither BSD, nor linux, is threatened.
In other words, there are NO issues, no matter who now owns the AT&T code. And everyone else already has a paid-up perpetual license ... so it only matters if you want to create a new Unix based on the AT&T code - which is pretty darned obsolete. Might as well buy a copy of SCO OpenSewer.
You are probably right. I'd fight hard to defend Open Source (as much as I dislike the GPL as an OS license), but probably not to the death.
Depends on whose death we're talking about, doesn't it?
Novell didn't have to show they owned the rights to Unix in SCO vs Novell - just that, whatever rights they had, they didn't convey them to Santa Cruz.
So whatever they bought from AT&T, it wasn't "ALL right to Unix."
Very true. However, there are some cases where desktops are a better choice, especially environments where the machine is not leaving the building:
1: Desktops are effectively kept shut by a padlock and/or Kensington lock slot. This doesn't mean that someone can get the case open somehow, but it keeps components (RAM, hard disks, video cards, CPUs) from disappearing.
You can't be serious. I have yet to see a desktop computer that can't be cannibalized VERY quickly - but lets face it, the components in most office desktops are run-of-the-mill. Who'd want them?
Even a tethered laptop still has accessible doors for this type of stuff, and it isn't hard for someone to wander around, pop out hardware and pocket it.
Laptop sales way outnumber desktops among consumers - it's not likely that someone is going to try to fit desktop ram or hard drives into their laptop :-:
This is especially true in call centers, student computer labs, and other places of high turnover
Student computer labs? They're so last century. Obsolete, as are the junky computers in them. In a couple of years, you'll have to PAY someone (literally) to dispose of them.
2: Desktops tend to be more salvageable. This means that a problem can be fixed by a RAM swap or a HD replacement as opposed to swapping out entire machines.
It's easier to replace ram or a hard disk in a laptop than it is in a desktop. Try it some time :-)
Then what happens with the old machines? Make sure your hardware service plan (even at a business level)is decent, or else the laptops might end up having to be mailed to a depot where they can languish 6-8 weeks.
3: Desktop drivers tend to be easier to find and update.
Why bother with a "service plan" when a desktop replacement laptop that is "good enough" is currently selling for $350 (Compaq presario, 320 gig hd, 2.3 ghz pentium, 3 gig ram, Win 7, etc). With a second screen, this is "good enough" and then some, and if it breaks - not likely - it's cheap enough that business won't care.
With laptop video, you depend on the machine maker to be able to cough up working drivers for video, motherboard, RAID, et. al.
Absolutely not true. Most video now works out of the box. It's the desktops that have the problem, with the more exotic video cards.
Even going to the OEM may not net you working drivers, because even though generic drivers for the new OS may be available for the device from the OEM, they won't install on that device... and often, trying ini file hacking to make the driver think its running on different hardware may not work. Laptops tend to have planned obsolescence in this fashion, while with desktops, there is a higher chance of finding a driver that works with the new OS.
Most laptops are basically desktops in a different form factor, with better components, specifically because return costs are higher than a desktop, unless you're buying the very6 bottom of the barrel, same as desktops.
4: Desktops tend to be cheaper for business features. For example, TPM chips on hardware that will be going in a call center
Call centers generally don't use TPM chips. Ordinary desktops.
[1]. Laptops need to be fairly high end to sport these, while all but the cheapest business lines of desktops sport these.
5: Desktops can be better customized. For example, one place I worked at had all desktops use their onboard RAID cards and have two hard drives. This way, a drive failure would mean that the user's work wouldn't stop.
So buy $499 18.4" laptops and throw a second hard drive in. Even my current laptop (17" hp pavilion) has twin 320 gig hds.
In some
Just plug in a keyboard and mouse, and put the laptop off on one side, raised a bit for better viewing and cooling. Much quieter than a desktop, and you've got a built-in UPS that's good for a couple of hours. Forget docking stations.
You can always stuff a second hard drive in a 17" or better latop, so with over a terabyte of local storage, you should be good to go - pair the laptops and have people back up on each other's second drive.
Networking? Use the built-in wireless (you can use both the wireless and the ethernet port at the same time, so a null cable will work fine to speed up the buddy backups at the end of the day).
Enjoy the lower noise, the lack of a tower underfoot or on the desk, etc.
And the benefit of portability, for meetings, fixing it, working as an impromptu team, etc.
DTR (desktop replacement) laptops are CHEAP, and they make setting up a dual-screen system a no-brainer.
hehe "a couple of hardrives" hehe, each "job" at work generates a few 100MB of data that needs to be stored, archived, and transfered... I do 3-4 "jobs" a week, so around 5TB of data a week. I work with 3 other people doing just about the same... so no "a couple of harddisks" isn't going to cut it.
You need to work on your math skills. 3-4 "jobs" a week at 200 - 500 megabytes of data each is only a couple of gigabytes a week, not 5 TB a week. A couple of hard disks will be fine.
The '90s called - they want their troll back. Oo can save in Word .doc format.
Just because something is done by a significant portion of the population doesn't mean that those participating don't think of themselves as "counter-culture".
Example - tattoos, esp. tramp stamps, and piercings.
Reality has little to do with end-user perceptions. Ask anyone in, for example, customer support.
-- Barbie
IBM, ABC, HP, CBS, NBC, CAT (Caterpillar), BBC, ABB, SKF, ...
So I take it you're not going to vote any more ...
I vote because I get some personal enjoyment out of it, but really, when has an individual vote ever mattered? Almost never. You could vote your entire life or never vote your entire life and chances are, nothing would be the slightest bit different.
A friend once cited a study or some such to me that showed you were more likely to be hit by a car on the way to your polling place than to have your vote make a difference.
Depends on the recount laws. Here, for example, any time the vote is within 100 votes, there's an automatic recount, so each one of those 100 votes can make a difference. Based on that alone, I think your friend's analysis is slightly flawed - and I bet you still look before crossing a street :-)
-- Barbie
And everyone obviously knows we're talking about Apple's iOS when it's written like that.
And when Apple uses it, it stands for iPhone Operating System, so it's STILL an acronym.
... and to help put them in the right frame of mind, make sure your laptop background is set to either the goat guy or tubgirl.