Unfortunately, despite the fact that you've put a lot of effort into your post, what you wrote is idiotic.
Suppose I confide in a friend by email about some problem I'm having. On the same day, I post the latest version of some open source/free software somewhere on the internet. I then send out an email to interested parties that there is a new version available. You are suggesting that because I distribute some software and news about that software, other people should be allowed to re-distribute my private email. I'm afraid that is idiotic.
The difference in speed between X-Windows and Windows is not measurable by humans.
The Adoption Of A Single, Standardized Interface Design.
Why? What will happen is what is already happening. RedHat for example likes Gnome, so they put together a Gnome desktop. SuSE likes KDE, so their standard is KDE. In business, a user is going to see KDE every day or Gnome every day. If a user sees KDE every day, it doesn't matter if Gnome exists or not. On the other hand, if the user's company settled on a Gnome based solution, why should the user care about KDE?
Make Graphical Setup "Wizards" For Everything.
Why? Businesses don't want end-users installing software. The whole point about going to a Linux desktop is so that the administrators can install EVERYTHING. The average end-user is going to be locked out of installing software. And of course that is right. I'm no fan of Windows, but I bet that a very large proportion of the cost of supporting Windows is incurred because of users installing their own software.
Binary Distributions For Everything.
Distributions? End-users? WTF? This is BUSINESS. The user turns up at work, switches on her PC and an OS boots. They don't know what the fuck a distribution is, and why should they?
Workstation Configurations With Dangerous Deamons (ftpd, httpd, etc...) Turned Off By Default.
Well, D'UH! You seem to think that a company is going to buy RH8.0 and give the CDs to their users and ask the users to install them. What will happen (and I guess this is the same with Windows) is that a company will evaluate Linux, set it up once and then copy that setup all over the company.
Linux Evangelists Stop Insulting MS And Its Users.
Organizations are going to switch because they will save thousands upon thousands of dollars. None of what you say here is going to matter one jot, as soon as they see the cost of keeping Windows up to date with MS's new licensing rules.
That's interesting... Wrong, but interesting. SUN does have a monopoly over it's products, that is a key element of a free capitalist society, otherwise you have chaos and socialism. Thus my statements are correct.
Have you lost your mind? Of course X has a monopoly over X's products, but what possible relevance does that have? At the beginning of this debate, you asked how Sun giving away StarOffice is different from what MS was doing. I replied that MS was using its giveaway to extend its monopoly. Now you're telling me that Sun has a monopoly over its own products. What the fuck does that have to do with the price of bread? Of course what you said is true, but it's utterly irrelevant.
To re-iterate. MS was using IE to extend its monopoly. Sun doesn't have a monopoly. Since you have "two business degrees", I'm sure you will be able to understand the difference.
As for your tirade about Judge Jackson, his ruling that MS was attempting to extend its monopoly has not been overturned and still stands. You can argue all you want about it, but it is the law.
You obviously don't know what a monopoly is, otherwise you wouldn't have said that "Sun has a monopoly over its own products", which doesn't mean anything.
As for this letter, do you think that Judge Jackson didn't know about it? All the evidence was considered, and the Judge, notwithstanding his rather foolish comments to journalists, found Microsoft to be illegally attempting to extend their monopoly. There's really no point debating this issue.
Sun doesn't have a monopoly, so they're allowed to give their stuff away. Microsoft's tactics were illegal because they held a monopoly (which is legal), but then took actions (ie bundling IE) to maintain their monopoly (which is illegal).
Re:Google, and corporate responsibility,
on
Google vs. Evil
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· Score: 2
You're posting like an idiot, matey. Google doesn't have any power over you or anyone else. If you think that google is the internet, you're an idiot and deserve to be exploited.
Your argument is equivalent to saying that because a newspaper prints certain stories and doesn't print others, it is "censoring" the news. But they're just not printing stuff; they can't prevent a reader from finding the "missing" stories elsewhere.
Google is a business and as such they are going to make arbitrary decisions that you don't like. Your best response to these decisions is to find another search engine which doesn't make decisions like this, if it bothers you so much.
Sorry. I tried, but I couldn't resist..
on
Tornado in a Can
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· Score: 2
One of the criteria they have is that each application should have a professional-looking install process. Some applications have been rejected on the grounds that their installation processes weren't up to scratch. From what I read, it seems that the programs are installed individually, not as a group.
A full 30 minutes before you posted your message someone had posted, quoting from the copyright page in the book, that unlimited copying is legal, so long as the copyright notice is preserved. It seems to me that the classy thing to do would be to publicly withdraw your slur.
Coincidentally, I've just finished reading this book, which gets into the original court case in the US. It's a very interesting read (although it's not so good at the very end). Unfortunately, I think it may be out of print.
One time I was in a cubicle in a public toilet. In the next cubicle this guy's phone went off and he answered it. He was telling some girl that he could get her a job in his office, "yeah, if I give the word, you're as good as in". I couldn't resist flushing the toilet in my stall. "Err.. yeah, I'm in the toilet. Ha ha! Errr...". I had to leave at this point as I thought my laughing might be heard too.
You know you could read the article. That isn't what the guy did. He simply sold PS2 modchips. MS is saying that if he can get away with it for a PS2, then he or others will get away with it for an XBox, which would make their economic model (sell the box at a loss and make money on the games) uneconomic.
What you say is true, but Daniel Robbins does state in his article that with Gentoo 1.4 you can be up and running in under one hour, including OpenOffice, KDE and some other stuff I forgot.
As for him initiating the free software movement. Bullshit. People were giving away software long before he was on the scene. We just didn't make it a big political issue.
Yes he is the initiator of the Free Software Movement (note the capitals). The fact that you think that free software in this context means "giving away software" just demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of the issue. In this context, it is "free" as in speech, not "free" as in beer.
I don't know about that. I've just been watching a documentary about building aircraft. They were talking about how the design and prduction of modern aircraft involves the work of hundreds if not thousands of companies. Suppose you're cooperating with some other company on supplying materials for an aircraft being built by a third company. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that your partner in this part of the contract might be a competitor in another part of the same contract (or in other contracts). And I'm sure some organizations exchange MS Word documents by email, with both recipient and sender alternately making edits. I think this stinks, actually. This is pretty serious for contracting companies that use MS Word documents cooperatively. I'm not suggesting that there are organizations out there that are going to lose millions because of this flaw. But even the most perfunctory security audit must address holes like this. Unfortunately, I expect many organizations will just upgrade to a later version of Word.
I think that's because so many people who administer Windows systems really don't want to change. They always say, "I'd love to change, except for X, which only Windows has". It's bollocks of course. They just can't face the idea that they will have to update their skills and learn to be professionals, instead of just repeating their magic incantation "Re-install Windows" everytime they don't understand what is going on.
Hmmmm.. Looks like I got a bit carried away there, but you get my meaning.
For all MS know, it may be used internally somewhere. They clearly found a vulnerability and fixed it, even though they may suspect that the SW is hardly used. That's one in the plus column for MS, no matter how much I might hate to say it.
I don't understand. You're saying that governments should not buy desktops based on Free Software? It is better for governments to buy Microsoft because it's better to have a Microsoft monopoly than a "government monopoly"? What on earth are you talking about?
Slashdot Mirror
What has this to do with anything? READ the post I was responding to. At least try to keep up with the level of debate here on Slashdot.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that you've put a lot of effort into your post, what you wrote is idiotic.
Suppose I confide in a friend by email about some problem I'm having. On the same day, I post the latest version of some open source/free software somewhere on the internet. I then send out an email to interested parties that there is a new version available. You are suggesting that because I distribute some software and news about that software, other people should be allowed to re-distribute my private email. I'm afraid that is idiotic.
My enemy's enemy is my ... Er wait a minute... I'll get back to you...
The difference in speed between X-Windows and Windows is not measurable by humans.
Why? What will happen is what is already happening. RedHat for example likes Gnome, so they put together a Gnome desktop. SuSE likes KDE, so their standard is KDE. In business, a user is going to see KDE every day or Gnome every day. If a user sees KDE every day, it doesn't matter if Gnome exists or not. On the other hand, if the user's company settled on a Gnome based solution, why should the user care about KDE?
Why? Businesses don't want end-users installing software. The whole point about going to a Linux desktop is so that the administrators can install EVERYTHING. The average end-user is going to be locked out of installing software. And of course that is right. I'm no fan of Windows, but I bet that a very large proportion of the cost of supporting Windows is incurred because of users installing their own software.
Distributions? End-users? WTF? This is BUSINESS. The user turns up at work, switches on her PC and an OS boots. They don't know what the fuck a distribution is, and why should they?
Well, D'UH! You seem to think that a company is going to buy RH8.0 and give the CDs to their users and ask the users to install them. What will happen (and I guess this is the same with Windows) is that a company will evaluate Linux, set it up once and then copy that setup all over the company.
Organizations are going to switch because they will save thousands upon thousands of dollars. None of what you say here is going to matter one jot, as soon as they see the cost of keeping Windows up to date with MS's new licensing rules.
Have you lost your mind? Of course X has a monopoly over X's products, but what possible relevance does that have? At the beginning of this debate, you asked how Sun giving away StarOffice is different from what MS was doing. I replied that MS was using its giveaway to extend its monopoly. Now you're telling me that Sun has a monopoly over its own products. What the fuck does that have to do with the price of bread? Of course what you said is true, but it's utterly irrelevant.
To re-iterate. MS was using IE to extend its monopoly. Sun doesn't have a monopoly. Since you have "two business degrees", I'm sure you will be able to understand the difference.
As for your tirade about Judge Jackson, his ruling that MS was attempting to extend its monopoly has not been overturned and still stands. You can argue all you want about it, but it is the law.
As for this letter, do you think that Judge Jackson didn't know about it? All the evidence was considered, and the Judge, notwithstanding his rather foolish comments to journalists, found Microsoft to be illegally attempting to extend their monopoly. There's really no point debating this issue.
Sun doesn't have a monopoly, so they're allowed to give their stuff away. Microsoft's tactics were illegal because they held a monopoly (which is legal), but then took actions (ie bundling IE) to maintain their monopoly (which is illegal).
IANAL, by the way.
The point is that it is art.
Your argument is equivalent to saying that because a newspaper prints certain stories and doesn't print others, it is "censoring" the news. But they're just not printing stuff; they can't prevent a reader from finding the "missing" stories elsewhere.
Google is a business and as such they are going to make arbitrary decisions that you don't like. Your best response to these decisions is to find another search engine which doesn't make decisions like this, if it bothers you so much.
Obligatory Simpsons quote: "Mmmmmm... Pulverised chicken heads"
One of the criteria they have is that each application should have a professional-looking install process. Some applications have been rejected on the grounds that their installation processes weren't up to scratch. From what I read, it seems that the programs are installed individually, not as a group.
A full 30 minutes before you posted your message someone had posted, quoting from the copyright page in the book, that unlimited copying is legal, so long as the copyright notice is preserved. It seems to me that the classy thing to do would be to publicly withdraw your slur.
This must be the most utterly humiliating admission I have ever read. The fact that it comes in the context of a security problem beggars belief.
Coincidentally, I've just finished reading this book, which gets into the original court case in the US. It's a very interesting read (although it's not so good at the very end). Unfortunately, I think it may be out of print.
One time I was in a cubicle in a public toilet. In the next cubicle this guy's phone went off and he answered it. He was telling some girl that he could get her a job in his office, "yeah, if I give the word, you're as good as in". I couldn't resist flushing the toilet in my stall. "Err.. yeah, I'm in the toilet. Ha ha! Errr...". I had to leave at this point as I thought my laughing might be heard too.
Actually, I wanted to do the Internet King joke, but someone had already made it. Nice link, though :-)
"Mr Search, that's my name, that name again is Mr Search!"
You know you could read the article. That isn't what the guy did. He simply sold PS2 modchips. MS is saying that if he can get away with it for a PS2, then he or others will get away with it for an XBox, which would make their economic model (sell the box at a loss and make money on the games) uneconomic.
What you say is true, but Daniel Robbins does state in his article that with Gentoo 1.4 you can be up and running in under one hour, including OpenOffice, KDE and some other stuff I forgot.
Lola Rennt is also known as "Run Lola Run". It's a nice short German movie which takes three attempts to get to its ending.
Yes he is the initiator of the Free Software Movement (note the capitals). The fact that you think that free software in this context means "giving away software" just demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of the issue. In this context, it is "free" as in speech, not "free" as in beer.
I don't know about that. I've just been watching a documentary about building aircraft. They were talking about how the design and prduction of modern aircraft involves the work of hundreds if not thousands of companies. Suppose you're cooperating with some other company on supplying materials for an aircraft being built by a third company. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that your partner in this part of the contract might be a competitor in another part of the same contract (or in other contracts). And I'm sure some organizations exchange MS Word documents by email, with both recipient and sender alternately making edits. I think this stinks, actually. This is pretty serious for contracting companies that use MS Word documents cooperatively. I'm not suggesting that there are organizations out there that are going to lose millions because of this flaw. But even the most perfunctory security audit must address holes like this. Unfortunately, I expect many organizations will just upgrade to a later version of Word.
Hmmmm.. Looks like I got a bit carried away there, but you get my meaning.
For all MS know, it may be used internally somewhere. They clearly found a vulnerability and fixed it, even though they may suspect that the SW is hardly used. That's one in the plus column for MS, no matter how much I might hate to say it.
I don't understand. You're saying that governments should not buy desktops based on Free Software? It is better for governments to buy Microsoft because it's better to have a Microsoft monopoly than a "government monopoly"? What on earth are you talking about?