"You are completely out of your mind, dude." and "You do realize that practically nobody plays computer games, right?"
that you got away with:) Comes around goes around.
Re:Who cares about this battle?
on
The Case for FreeBSD
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Advocacy is to free software what marketing is to commercial software
Actually there's a key difference. Most marketing is carefully directed at potential new customers. Most "advocacy" takes place in forums specifically designed for advocacy (comp.*.advocacy, slashdot, ars technica battlefront, etc), where a tiny number of relatively knowlegable users quibble amongst themselves for kicks.
Let's take this very article as an example. Both FreeBSD and NetBSD have relatively small userbases which primarily consists of Unix and BSD-saavy users. Neither project has very much to gain by converting the other's users. (Unless there really is some threat of one or the other dying.) Either project would have much more to gain trying to convert the HUGE market of fleeing commercial UNIX users instead of arguing amongst themselves. You'll notice that's what RedHat is doing rather than trying to pick off Debian customers.
No, but traditionally a very high percentage of Mac users eventually buy a new Mac, and Apple's current sales figures aren't all that different from 3-5 years ago.
But since you refuse to provide any detail about your mystery meat numbers, it's a fair assumption that you either don't know the complete picture or are intentionally trying to distort things.
Do you have a reference for your telephone survey, or is it confidential Apple marketing data?
Something seems funky about that stat: Mac sales were up 25%, but if 50% were "switchers", that means a large number of Mac customers have stopped buying Macs.
Or those people aren't "switchers" (eg Windows User at work, Mac User at home).
I'm not going to bother arguing whether or not a electrical outlet and security cord is a dealbreaker, only point out that the lack of AIO hasn't hurt Apple's competitors for the most part. (Plus according to my EDU source, AIO is not exactly ideal if eMac's CRT fails, which is a main reason they are looking at Minis)
Fully one out of every two Mac sales during Q42004 was made to a customer who self-identified as a Windows user
That was Apple Stores retail only. I don't think they've stated a total breakdown, but Apple Stores seems to be about 20% of revenues, so 10% switchers might be a fair guess.
A mini would be the opposite of what these customers want.
You seem sure that the emac is what EDU wants. Maybe it's because (until the Mini), it was the only option.
Look at the eMac versus Mini thing this way: Mini costs $500. eMac cost $800. That means Apple is charging people $300 for a 17" CRT that costs $100 or less on the open market.
(And no, I don't think Apple is ripping people off. It's just very inefficent for them to ship and support a heavy, commodity, low-tech component like a CRT.)
Now any EDU customer with their brain screwed on is going to figure out they can save ~$200 (25%!) per machine by going with 3rd Party monitors and keyboards. Who cares about AIO when you can stretch your money like that. (And I do know of a EDU customer who is evaulating Minis instead of eMacs.)
Replacing a G3 iMac with a mini would necessitate buying a new display to go along with it, and by that point you're up near iMac prices
No, $600 is nowhere near iMac G5 prices. Believe me, I know people that would be leaving the Mac world if it weren't for the Mini simply because they can't easily afford an iMac.
There are very, very few of these people
Very few Mac users want more Macs??? I thought most Mac users were in love with their Macs. Think kids computers, etc.
As for "switchers", my guess is 20% of sales tops. If the numbers are good, Apple will be crowing. So far, they've said nothing about switchers.
> Apple has no idea who their market is for the mini-mac
Well, the specs are basically the same as the eMac & iBook. He said that the margins are the same. Rather than a "revolutionary new product", maybe the Mini really is just more of the same??
> A major market for the mini mac is corp replacement for beige boxes
It's no corporate box until you can officially and easily open it up. No putty knives at the help desk.
You can't explain the corporate world's unwillingness to use Macs away with "No Games". It really is the lack of applications.
Look at this way: Many people think that Macs are a superior video editing machines due to the applicaitons, primarily Final Cut Pro. Now realize that video editing is only 1 in a Million niche markets, and in most of those niches Windows or Unix dominates the applicaiton choices.
The Mac mini is specifically for switchers who are replacing an obsolete PC with a new Mac.
Funny how the Apple exec didn't say that. I'm guessing the main markets for the Mini are (in this order):
1) People who would otherwise buy eMacs (schools, etc) 2) People with older G3 Macs that are looking for a cheap upgrade 3) People with newer Macs that want a second machine 4) Switchers or PC users who are Mac Curious. 5) New computer users
This is based on the historical trend that most Mac sales tend to go to existing Mac users. Even for the most successful machines like the G3 iMac, only a small % of sales went to switchers.
All in all, the Mini is great for Apple because it allows them to the 'trailing edge' of their installed base up to OS X-level specs before they are tempted by Dell's prices. But whether it is compelling to PC users is still an open question.
Actually you do blanket almost every even mildly anti-Apple Slashdot story with Pro-Apple "spin". You've made a half-dozen posts over something as pointless as a firewire cable. It's really too bad (or too sad) you aren't being paid, because you've obviously made it a very important job for yourself.
Apple's early insistence to charge $1/port on each device that used FireWire/IEEE-1394 ports
Yes, this basically killed Intel's plans to include 1394 as a built-in feature on their chipsets and develop USB2 instead. Had they signed Intel, Firewire would be on at least 70% of the world's PCs. Firewire was never meant to be a specialized AV-Only interface, but that's more or less what it has become.
Apple insistance on $$$ for firewire from Intel was despite the fact that Apple uses all sorts of Intel technology like PCI and USB for free. It's very unfortunate that they were slow in understanding that the IBM-compatible world demands royalty-free standards.
There was a Amiga add-on board that allowed you to BYOR and run Mac programs. (Pissed me off when some dirty Amigian stole all the ROMs from the Mac IIcxs in our computer lab!)
Also, for a while there was a blackmarket which you could get rid of your "dirty" buggy ROMs for 32-bit clean ones from newer machines. Eventually there was a software fix tho.
If SBC ever gets around to laying fiber, they will fill it up with television and their own proprietary PPV content and leave 1.5Mbps left for you surf the Internet on.
The future is wireless -- cheap build-out, easy to upgrade to the next technological level (unlike fibre/copper), good for suburban spawl, and open for compeition (unlike anything hanging from a pole). A corporation would have to be demented to start burying new wires right now.
Urban areas are generally much more dense in Canada than in the US due to land planning restrictions and so on. So, it's easier/cheaper to wire than the average US sprawl. (Although, I'm not arguing that the US broadband situation doesn't suck.)
To make it clear, I wasn't talking about the mass-market Circuit City's or Fry's, but the boutique full service Mac shops that were pretty much driven out of busines by Apple Stores.
As for marketshare increase, the numbers haven't shown it. However with a more retail oriented lineup like iPods and Mac Mini, I have no doubt that Apple Stores are moving a lot product.
I hardly feel bad for Mac Resellers, considering many of them stayed in business by shafting people with vastly markedup memory and peripherals. Furthermore, the Mac reseller business survived for a decade longer than on the PC side -- when's the last time anyone has bought a HP or IBM from a local shop?
However, criticizing them for not growing Mac Market Share is an non-starter, because 90% of the problem is/was Apple's product lineup and positioning. Apple made the Mac a boutique computer and these guys were the boutique.
I also quesiton how much Apple Stores have done to increase marketshare versus just sending the retail profit back to Apple.
(The big reason IIS is 'less secure' is because does user impersonation to handle permissions correctly. However in this case this is actually what you want. Properly configured/patched, you should be fine.)
Well, this is a rather one-dimentional argument. What is worse:
+ A dumb automated worm programmed to attack a 3 year old hole. + A script kiddie with fresh "0-day" vulnerabilties and the desire to penetrate deeper into your network looking for things of value.
The worms might be damaging, but in terms of real "security", they don't mean a whole lot.
+ The page is from 1998, before IE took over the market. + Firefox renderes it identically to Netscape 4.8 + The document was "converted to HTML by Theodore Ts'o" (who is a Linux Kernel developer). + It is a document targeted towards UNIX users.
Not exactly where you'd expect IE-oriented HTML, eh?
One has to conclude that Firefox is rendering it to the author's intentions, and that IE is doing it 'wrong' -- but just happens to be more readable.
Plus, I'd argue that this is a perfect use of table, as row/column information is a bitch in pure CSS.
The hooks aren't into "WMP", per se, they are into the Windows Media API, which the player is just a simple client of. This is more like DirectX than OpenGL -- it is a Microsoft framework could be used in a vendor-indepedant way.
The EU failed to make this distinction because Real and Apple choose also to use their own proprietary API frameworks and have no interest in using Microsoft's. So you are basically asking for something that nobody else wants (end users, developers, or third parties).
However, the EU is forcing them to unbundle the whole infrastructure and not just the player. This actually hurts many 3rd parties (like DivX or ZoomPlayer) in the guise of helping others (Real). That was dave420's point.
Codecs are already an issue, so you'll need more than handwaving to convince me.
Also, a developer can use the Windows Media stuff without using Microsoft's player (see WinAmp) or codecs (see DivX). So, the generic API you're asking for seems to already be built in to Windows. Feel free to be more technically specific if that's not what you mean.
It seems like a rather moot argument, because even if one could define a "generic media API", you would still have the problem that nearly all of the codecs are proprietary and must be otained from Vendor XYZ.
Furthermore, the competitors already have their own API frameworks like Apple QuickTime and don't necessary want a generic solution, they want you to write to QuickTime.
This is somewhat similar to the idea of the IE-API, where Marc Andresson of Netscape came out and told everyone that the idea of an embeddable web browser was stupid. That is, even if there was a generic webbrowser API, Netscape wouldn't have supported it. Likewise, Mozilla hasn't done anything to help "alternative suppliers", because they want you to link to Mozilla.
Most importantly is hardware pricing. Currently you pay a pretty big premium for a 2-way over a 1-way system (often more than twice the price).
In the future, Intel/AMD Commodity 2-Core systems will cost the same as 1-Core systems do today. If you are buying the cheap-ass bottom-servers Dell servers, it doesn't make any sense for your licencing costs to double in one year.
> Because her only motivation in following the story was to politically damage George W. Bush.
This seems like a very dubious way of trying to damage Bush:
1) Nobody really debates that Bush was a rich irresponsible party boy, in fact this is a key point of attraction for for his "Born Again" supporters.
2) The only people who really care about whether or not Bush was AWOL are hard-core partisans on each side. There was very little swing interest in this story.
3) The TANG stories had been floating around for 8+ years and had never damaged Bush up to this point.
4) If they were going to invent documents to damange Bush, they could do a lot better. "Memo: Bush has damaged the Oval Office desk while cutting cocaine"
Take a step back and see that the reporters could care less about the partisan piss-match and were only reviving this story because of the new documents, and they reacted poorly because they'd really fucked up.
Slashdot Mirror
Karma retribution for your trolls yesterday:
:) Comes around goes around.
"You are completely out of your mind, dude."
and
"You do realize that practically nobody plays computer games, right?"
that you got away with
Advocacy is to free software what marketing is to commercial software
Actually there's a key difference. Most marketing is carefully directed at potential new customers. Most "advocacy" takes place in forums specifically designed for advocacy (comp.*.advocacy, slashdot, ars technica battlefront, etc), where a tiny number of relatively knowlegable users quibble amongst themselves for kicks.
Let's take this very article as an example. Both FreeBSD and NetBSD have relatively small userbases which primarily consists of Unix and BSD-saavy users. Neither project has very much to gain by converting the other's users. (Unless there really is some threat of one or the other dying.) Either project would have much more to gain trying to convert the HUGE market of fleeing commercial UNIX users instead of arguing amongst themselves. You'll notice that's what RedHat is doing rather than trying to pick off Debian customers.
No, but traditionally a very high percentage of Mac users eventually buy a new Mac, and Apple's current sales figures aren't all that different from 3-5 years ago.
But since you refuse to provide any detail about your mystery meat numbers, it's a fair assumption that you either don't know the complete picture or are intentionally trying to distort things.
Do you have a reference for your telephone survey, or is it confidential Apple marketing data?
Something seems funky about that stat: Mac sales were up 25%, but if 50% were "switchers", that means a large number of Mac customers have stopped buying Macs.
Or those people aren't "switchers" (eg Windows User at work, Mac User at home).
I'm not going to bother arguing whether or not a electrical outlet and security cord is a dealbreaker, only point out that the lack of AIO hasn't hurt Apple's competitors for the most part. (Plus according to my EDU source, AIO is not exactly ideal if eMac's CRT fails, which is a main reason they are looking at Minis)
Fully one out of every two Mac sales during Q42004 was made to a customer who self-identified as a Windows user
That was Apple Stores retail only. I don't think they've stated a total breakdown, but Apple Stores seems to be about 20% of revenues, so 10% switchers might be a fair guess.
http://www.appleinsider.com/print.php?id=690
A mini would be the opposite of what these customers want.
You seem sure that the emac is what EDU wants. Maybe it's because (until the Mini), it was the only option.
Look at the eMac versus Mini thing this way: Mini costs $500. eMac cost $800. That means Apple is charging people $300 for a 17" CRT that costs $100 or less on the open market.
(And no, I don't think Apple is ripping people off. It's just very inefficent for them to ship and support a heavy, commodity, low-tech component like a CRT.)
Now any EDU customer with their brain screwed on is going to figure out they can save ~$200 (25%!) per machine by going with 3rd Party monitors and keyboards. Who cares about AIO when you can stretch your money like that. (And I do know of a EDU customer who is evaulating Minis instead of eMacs.)
Replacing a G3 iMac with a mini would necessitate buying a new display to go along with it, and by that point you're up near iMac prices
No, $600 is nowhere near iMac G5 prices. Believe me, I know people that would be leaving the Mac world if it weren't for the Mini simply because they can't easily afford an iMac.
There are very, very few of these people
Very few Mac users want more Macs??? I thought most Mac users were in love with their Macs. Think kids computers, etc.
As for "switchers", my guess is 20% of sales tops. If the numbers are good, Apple will be crowing. So far, they've said nothing about switchers.
> Apple has no idea who their market is for the mini-mac
Well, the specs are basically the same as the eMac & iBook. He said that the margins are the same. Rather than a "revolutionary new product", maybe the Mini really is just more of the same??
> A major market for the mini mac is corp replacement for beige boxes
It's no corporate box until you can officially and easily open it up. No putty knives at the help desk.
You can't explain the corporate world's unwillingness to use Macs away with "No Games". It really is the lack of applications.
Look at this way: Many people think that Macs are a superior video editing machines due to the applicaitons, primarily Final Cut Pro. Now realize that video editing is only 1 in a Million niche markets, and in most of those niches Windows or Unix dominates the applicaiton choices.
The Mac mini is specifically for switchers who are replacing an obsolete PC with a new Mac.
Funny how the Apple exec didn't say that. I'm guessing the main markets for the Mini are (in this order):
1) People who would otherwise buy eMacs (schools, etc)
2) People with older G3 Macs that are looking for a cheap upgrade
3) People with newer Macs that want a second machine
4) Switchers or PC users who are Mac Curious.
5) New computer users
This is based on the historical trend that most Mac sales tend to go to existing Mac users. Even for the most successful machines like the G3 iMac, only a small % of sales went to switchers.
All in all, the Mini is great for Apple because it allows them to the 'trailing edge' of their installed base up to OS X-level specs before they are tempted by Dell's prices. But whether it is compelling to PC users is still an open question.
Actually you do blanket almost every even mildly anti-Apple Slashdot story with Pro-Apple "spin". You've made a half-dozen posts over something as pointless as a firewire cable. It's really too bad (or too sad) you aren't being paid, because you've obviously made it a very important job for yourself.
Apple's early insistence to charge $1/port on each device that used FireWire/IEEE-1394 ports
Yes, this basically killed Intel's plans to include 1394 as a built-in feature on their chipsets and develop USB2 instead. Had they signed Intel, Firewire would be on at least 70% of the world's PCs. Firewire was never meant to be a specialized AV-Only interface, but that's more or less what it has become.
Apple insistance on $$$ for firewire from Intel was despite the fact that Apple uses all sorts of Intel technology like PCI and USB for free. It's very unfortunate that they were slow in understanding that the IBM-compatible world demands royalty-free standards.
Nice troll, though!
Nice Astroturfing!
There was a Amiga add-on board that allowed you to BYOR and run Mac programs. (Pissed me off when some dirty Amigian stole all the ROMs from the Mac IIcxs in our computer lab!)
Also, for a while there was a blackmarket which you could get rid of your "dirty" buggy ROMs for 32-bit clean ones from newer machines. Eventually there was a software fix tho.
If SBC ever gets around to laying fiber, they will fill it up with television and their own proprietary PPV content and leave 1.5Mbps left for you surf the Internet on.
The future is wireless -- cheap build-out, easy to upgrade to the next technological level (unlike fibre/copper), good for suburban spawl, and open for compeition (unlike anything hanging from a pole). A corporation would have to be demented to start burying new wires right now.
Urban areas are generally much more dense in Canada than in the US due to land planning restrictions and so on. So, it's easier/cheaper to wire than the average US sprawl. (Although, I'm not arguing that the US broadband situation doesn't suck.)
To make it clear, I wasn't talking about the mass-market Circuit City's or Fry's, but the boutique full service Mac shops that were pretty much driven out of busines by Apple Stores.
As for marketshare increase, the numbers haven't shown it. However with a more retail oriented lineup like iPods and Mac Mini, I have no doubt that Apple Stores are moving a lot product.
I hardly feel bad for Mac Resellers, considering many of them stayed in business by shafting people with vastly markedup memory and peripherals. Furthermore, the Mac reseller business survived for a decade longer than on the PC side -- when's the last time anyone has bought a HP or IBM from a local shop?
However, criticizing them for not growing Mac Market Share is an non-starter, because 90% of the problem is/was Apple's product lineup and positioning. Apple made the Mac a boutique computer and these guys were the boutique.
I also quesiton how much Apple Stores have done to increase marketshare versus just sending the retail profit back to Apple.
It's easy if you use Windows and IIS.
(The big reason IIS is 'less secure' is because does user impersonation to handle permissions correctly. However in this case this is actually what you want. Properly configured/patched, you should be fine.)
Well, this is a rather one-dimentional argument. What is worse:
+ A dumb automated worm programmed to attack a 3 year old hole.
+ A script kiddie with fresh "0-day" vulnerabilties and the desire to penetrate deeper into your network looking for things of value.
The worms might be damaging, but in terms of real "security", they don't mean a whole lot.
+ The page is from 1998, before IE took over the market.
+ Firefox renderes it identically to Netscape 4.8
+ The document was "converted to HTML by Theodore Ts'o" (who is a Linux Kernel developer).
+ It is a document targeted towards UNIX users.
Not exactly where you'd expect IE-oriented HTML, eh?
One has to conclude that Firefox is rendering it to the author's intentions, and that IE is doing it 'wrong' -- but just happens to be more readable.
Plus, I'd argue that this is a perfect use of table, as row/column information is a bitch in pure CSS.
The hooks aren't into "WMP", per se, they are into the Windows Media API, which the player is just a simple client of. This is more like DirectX than OpenGL -- it is a Microsoft framework could be used in a vendor-indepedant way.
The EU failed to make this distinction because Real and Apple choose also to use their own proprietary API frameworks and have no interest in using Microsoft's. So you are basically asking for something that nobody else wants (end users, developers, or third parties).
However, the EU is forcing them to unbundle the whole infrastructure and not just the player. This actually hurts many 3rd parties (like DivX or ZoomPlayer) in the guise of helping others (Real). That was dave420's point.
Codecs are already an issue, so you'll need more than handwaving to convince me.
Also, a developer can use the Windows Media stuff without using Microsoft's player (see WinAmp) or codecs (see DivX). So, the generic API you're asking for seems to already be built in to Windows. Feel free to be more technically specific if that's not what you mean.
It seems like a rather moot argument, because even if one could define a "generic media API", you would still have the problem that nearly all of the codecs are proprietary and must be otained from Vendor XYZ.
Furthermore, the competitors already have their own API frameworks like Apple QuickTime and don't necessary want a generic solution, they want you to write to QuickTime.
This is somewhat similar to the idea of the IE-API, where Marc Andresson of Netscape came out and told everyone that the idea of an embeddable web browser was stupid. That is, even if there was a generic webbrowser API, Netscape wouldn't have supported it. Likewise, Mozilla hasn't done anything to help "alternative suppliers", because they want you to link to Mozilla.
Most importantly is hardware pricing. Currently you pay a pretty big premium for a 2-way over a 1-way system (often more than twice the price).
In the future, Intel/AMD Commodity 2-Core systems will cost the same as 1-Core systems do today. If you are buying the cheap-ass bottom-servers Dell servers, it doesn't make any sense for your licencing costs to double in one year.
> Because her only motivation in following the story was to politically damage George W. Bush.
This seems like a very dubious way of trying to damage Bush:
1) Nobody really debates that Bush was a rich irresponsible party boy, in fact this is a key point of attraction for for his "Born Again" supporters.
2) The only people who really care about whether or not Bush was AWOL are hard-core partisans on each side. There was very little swing interest in this story.
3) The TANG stories had been floating around for 8+ years and had never damaged Bush up to this point.
4) If they were going to invent documents to damange Bush, they could do a lot better. "Memo: Bush has damaged the Oval Office desk while cutting cocaine"
Take a step back and see that the reporters could care less about the partisan piss-match and were only reviving this story because of the new documents, and they reacted poorly because they'd really fucked up.