Be the kind that will "put up", or rather weren't complaining in the first place
Be those who have little or no choice, as they need to either develop for Windows, the app they need is only available for Windows, or there has been an executive decision in their company in Windows' favour.
That said, those who decry M$ in a formulaic manner on/. are preaching to the choir as badly as anyone! I'm all in favour of interesting comments, but just "MS are evil, aren't they" comments are just restating the obvious (you can tell which side of the fence I'm on, can't you?). Try preaching to the congregation instead, folks.
...I'll bet they're planing to charge camera manufaturers a royalty to be able to make their cameras talk to windoze machines at all.
Thankfully they're unable to do that, owing to their own maneuvering. They've made this an open standard, so they can't charge for the details (besides, someone would certainly reverse-engineer it, rendering the whole thing pointless). So instead of fighting the battle on the protocol/connection/whatever, they're figting it on their home turf - their own OS, which no-one can modify.
...and now I'm about to get modded down for doing so. Or possibly up, as I'm deviating from the news item's point of view and that seems to be a surefire way to get modded up nowadays. Or possibly both. What the hell, moderate me how you want. That's not my point. This is:
Why are Kodak whining? Because Microsoft themselves are doing with their software exactly what Kodak wanted to do with theirs. See the article:
Mr. Gerskovich's camera and its allied software are seen as the best hope. The company's plan is to use the Internet to drive its digital-camera customers directly to Kodak picture labs to buy their prints. Any Microsoft obstacle would be a critical strategic blow to Kodak
You see? It's not that they are driving customers to certain printers by default, without their choice, but rather that they get to do this rather than Kodak themselves! You may argue that Kodak, as the people who sold the camera, have a right to do this more than MS, but from where I'm standing this is a distinct case of the pot calling the kettle black.
DoJ? Oh, what you mean that once-mighty thing that's just having its finest hour (in this dept at least) snatched and reversed in front of them? Microsoft no longer fears the GPL, which is why they are starting such flagrant as this again.
Welcome to the GPL! THe point is that the GPL is pretty darn good at preventing embrace-and-extend, which is why it's finally being friven out of MSs arsenal, and is being replaced by other methods, which are less subtle, and more dangerous to MS, as they are more flagrantly anticompetitive. Ther's nothing here that they can even claim improves the users' experience.
That said, with Dubya et al. in power, MS can pretty much do as they like, of which this is but the start...
Ah. Unfortunately you've got the two meanings of "free" mixed up:
Free as in no charge - This is how IE was distributed. This isn't the kind of free software the FSF talking about.
Free as in freedom - This is what the FSF means. It's not just about price, it's about what you can do with it. With M$, you can't do anything except use it on one computer (per license). With free software, you can do what you like - meddle with the source, recompile, distribute, sell it on, whatever!
That's not really fair, it's like Malda getting FP or something.
More like having his name on the site. Big deal. Bseides, someone needs to do it, otherwise some l33t h4x0r or another will think it cool to do so. THere's a far more prosaic version of this over at User Friendly, where kickstart (the board admin) uses his privileges to give his regular feature (the Question of the Day) FP automatically, thereby substantially reducing the problem of FP boneheads.
It's got it all, hasn't it? It's a near-monopoly, it's got th lock-in stuff (derivative works clause), the absolute business! I guess it's just 'cause the GPL guys aren't levering it to monetary advantage that people don't scream and shout (BSD bigots aside - hey, I didn't call *BSDers bigots, there are Linux bigots, there are windows bigots, there are BSD bigots).
The GPL means little to them. Except that its a convenient pawn. A handle. A toe-hold. A way to attack the amorphous phenomenon that is Linux.
I must disagree here. The GPL is why they can't attack this huge, amorphous Linux thing, and they've finally cottoned on. The GPL is why they can't do what they did to the poor BSD guys - take their blood, sweat&tears of a TCP/IP stact and make money out of it.
The GPL ain't the pawn here, it's the King, and M$ don't even need to checkmate it, they just need to pursuade enough spectators that the game's not watching, that they've already won. (OK, maybe I'm carrying on a metaphor a little too far, I'll stop now =))
Sorry, my fault. What I meant was avoiding accidents. Nor am I talking about 107MPH. If someone suddenly loses control and starts cutting across lanes, you really *want* to be able to break the speed limit for the few seconds necessary to get yourself out of the way. My butt has been saved by a maneuver of this kind before now, and doubtless it will happen again. I acknowledge your point that most accidents are caused by people driving too fast, but a limit like this will endanger the safety of the rule-abiding majority for the sake of the dangerous minority.
There's a difference between an automatic fine and a piece of hardware that makes it physically impossible to go over the limit. I prefer the former, though for the following reason:
Speed limiting devices are not safe. There are, and always will be, situations when it is necessary to put on a sudden burst of speed - in an accident, for example. Something that would limit your speed, especially with the "lurch" talked about earlier, could risk lives.
I thought only the police could nab you for something like that...and $150 is way over normal! If they reported you to the cops automagically, I would be behind this. But as it is, it's worse than Big Brotherism. It's a corporation taking over a function of the state.
Alternatively, you just do what i did and go from GB to the US of A for long enough to pick up a bit, by which point you sound American to the British, and English to the Americans. Considering that most of the market is American, I suppose that's all they really needed to do.
Up until that point I was all in favour of what you were doping, but BEWARE THE BOTS! A bot will never be very accurate - use people! Unfortunately human judgements are a high-workload activity...sigh...
That said, I think opened, GPL'ed censorware is a brilliant idea, and I'll be keeping an eye on how it goes.
Hm, I have a daughter. If she'd like to, she can go to the X-rated movie.
Either
(1) You're in for one hell of a shock
or
(2) You've actually spent time with and brought up your daughter, and you've got to the point where you trust her - which is basically what half the people around here are saying should be done.
I think it's important that the GNU/free software thing gets a greater airing - after all, it's what makes Linux what it is. Also, if we don't push the whole "free software" thing, we become vulnerable - "shared source", anyone? RMS is quite often correct...
Lets face it, my 16 year old sister can learn to be a windows admin from one of those tech schools that'll make you certified in 3 months. And you can pay 5 of those newbie admins for the price of one unix admin.
I fear you insult your sister's intelligence!:-)
Seriously, though - ordinary end users used to use DOS, and unix is if anything easier. Three months is easily enough time to learn to be a UNIX admin, certainly to the level that you get from one of the MS classes you talk about.
Some of the posts they allow are so outrageously stupid they HAVE to know its flamebait
The only reason it's flamebait is because it's wrong. Unfortunately, large surveys like this are what far too many suits read, so you gotta make a noise, otherwise ppl will think it's accurate research.
A company can succeed by raping customers for a limited length of time. Eventually it has to produce a product people actually want, or go away. IBM knows this all too well. Microsoft will learn it too.
Boy how I wish that were the case. No, actually, it is. THe problem is that with effective marketing you can make your product what the customers want. It ain't pretty, but it's true...
Damn, you beat me to it. That said, the minimum supported with -current is 16M, which is beginning to drop my stuff off the end:-(
That said, Linux still does run well on old hardware, it's just that the definition of "old" moves with the definition of "new". Besides, I wouldn't think twice about installing Win95 on an i586 (Win98 would creak BADly...), but somehow we're averse to Slackware 4 'cause it's too old...
Hey, I've overcome my irritation at having my pet theory squashed in front of my face through actually seeing a lawyer on/. - you see sooo many IANAL disclaimers, it's nice to see the occasional person who *is* a lawyer. Thanks!
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The only Windows users around here will either:
That said, those who decry M$ in a formulaic manner on
43rd Law of Computing:
...I'll bet they're planing to charge camera manufaturers a royalty to be able to make their cameras talk to windoze machines at all.
Thankfully they're unable to do that, owing to their own maneuvering. They've made this an open standard, so they can't charge for the details (besides, someone would certainly reverse-engineer it, rendering the whole thing pointless). So instead of fighting the battle on the protocol/connection/whatever, they're figting it on their home turf - their own OS, which no-one can modify.
43rd Law of Computing:
...and now I'm about to get modded down for doing so. Or possibly up, as I'm deviating from the news item's point of view and that seems to be a surefire way to get modded up nowadays. Or possibly both. What the hell, moderate me how you want. That's not my point. This is:
Why are Kodak whining? Because Microsoft themselves are doing with their software exactly what Kodak wanted to do with theirs. See the article:
Mr. Gerskovich's camera and its allied software are seen as the best hope. The company's plan is to use the Internet to drive its digital-camera customers directly to Kodak picture labs to buy their prints. Any Microsoft obstacle would be a critical strategic blow to Kodak
You see? It's not that they are driving customers to certain printers by default, without their choice, but rather that they get to do this rather than Kodak themselves! You may argue that Kodak, as the people who sold the camera, have a right to do this more than MS, but from where I'm standing this is a distinct case of the pot calling the kettle black.
43rd Law of Computing:
DoJ? Oh, what you mean that once-mighty thing that's just having its finest hour (in this dept at least) snatched and reversed in front of them? Microsoft no longer fears the GPL, which is why they are starting such flagrant as this again.
43rd Law of Computing:
The end of "Embrace and Extend"???
Welcome to the GPL! THe point is that the GPL is pretty darn good at preventing embrace-and-extend, which is why it's finally being friven out of MSs arsenal, and is being replaced by other methods, which are less subtle, and more dangerous to MS, as they are more flagrantly anticompetitive. Ther's nothing here that they can even claim improves the users' experience.
That said, with Dubya et al. in power, MS can pretty much do as they like, of which this is but the start...
43rd Law of Computing:
For mor info on the whole thing, read Richard Stallman's definition of free software, or even better, look at the whole GNU philosophy.
43rd Law of Computing:
That's not really fair, it's like Malda getting FP or something.
More like having his name on the site. Big deal. Bseides, someone needs to do it, otherwise some l33t h4x0r or another will think it cool to do so. THere's a far more prosaic version of this over at User Friendly, where kickstart (the board admin) uses his privileges to give his regular feature (the Question of the Day) FP automatically, thereby substantially reducing the problem of FP boneheads.
43rd Law of Computing:
Spare ID anyone? I don't want to sacrifice my soul, email address and demographic information to the NYT!
43rd Law of Computing:
What read:
...they just need to pursuade enough spectators that the game's not watching, that they've already won
...should have read:
...they just need to pursuade enough spectators that the game's not worth watching, that they've already won
43rd Law of Computing:
It's got it all, hasn't it? It's a near-monopoly, it's got th lock-in stuff (derivative works clause), the absolute business! I guess it's just 'cause the GPL guys aren't levering it to monetary advantage that people don't scream and shout (BSD bigots aside - hey, I didn't call *BSDers bigots, there are Linux bigots, there are windows bigots, there are BSD bigots).
43rd Law of Computing:
The GPL means little to them. Except that its a convenient pawn. A handle. A toe-hold. A way to attack the amorphous phenomenon that is Linux.
I must disagree here. The GPL is why they can't attack this huge, amorphous Linux thing, and they've finally cottoned on. The GPL is why they can't do what they did to the poor BSD guys - take their blood, sweat&tears of a TCP/IP stact and make money out of it.
The GPL ain't the pawn here, it's the King, and M$ don't even need to checkmate it, they just need to pursuade enough spectators that the game's not watching, that they've already won.
(OK, maybe I'm carrying on a metaphor a little too far, I'll stop now =))
43rd Law of Computing:
Sorry, my fault. What I meant was avoiding accidents. Nor am I talking about 107MPH. If someone suddenly loses control and starts cutting across lanes, you really *want* to be able to break the speed limit for the few seconds necessary to get yourself out of the way. My butt has been saved by a maneuver of this kind before now, and doubtless it will happen again. I acknowledge your point that most accidents are caused by people driving too fast, but a limit like this will endanger the safety of the rule-abiding majority for the sake of the dangerous minority.
43rd Law of Computing:
43rd Law of Computing:
I thought only the police could nab you for something like that...and $150 is way over normal! If they reported you to the cops automagically, I would be behind this. But as it is, it's worse than Big Brotherism. It's a corporation taking over a function of the state.
43rd Law of Computing:
Alternatively, you just do what i did and go from GB to the US of A for long enough to pick up a bit, by which point you sound American to the British, and English to the Americans. Considering that most of the market is American, I suppose that's all they really needed to do.
43rd Law of Computing:
I guess I didn't make it clear...The list will be entirely human edited
In which case, apologies...
43rd Law of Computing:
...running the porn sniffin' robot...
Up until that point I was all in favour of what you were doping, but BEWARE THE BOTS! A bot will never be very accurate - use people! Unfortunately human judgements are a high-workload activity...sigh...
That said, I think opened, GPL'ed censorware is a brilliant idea, and I'll be keeping an eye on how it goes.
43rd Law of Computing:
Not complete control, but if you don't wield any control at all you'll get a dysfunctional kid...parenting is and always will be a hands-on activity.
43rd Law of Computing:
Hm, I have a daughter. If she'd like to, she can go to the X-rated movie.
Either
(1) You're in for one hell of a shock
or
(2) You've actually spent time with and brought up your daughter, and you've got to the point where you trust her - which is basically what half the people around here are saying should be done.
43rd Law of Computing:
I think it's important that the GNU/free software thing gets a greater airing - after all, it's what makes Linux what it is. Also, if we don't push the whole "free software" thing, we become vulnerable - "shared source", anyone? RMS is quite often correct...
43rd Law of Computing:
Lets face it, my 16 year old sister can learn to be a windows admin from one of those tech schools that'll make you certified in 3 months. And you can pay 5 of those newbie admins for the price of one unix admin.
:-)
I fear you insult your sister's intelligence!
Seriously, though - ordinary end users used to use DOS, and unix is if anything easier. Three months is easily enough time to learn to be a UNIX admin, certainly to the level that you get from one of the MS classes you talk about.
43rd Law of Computing:
Some of the posts they allow are so outrageously stupid they HAVE to know its flamebait
The only reason it's flamebait is because it's wrong. Unfortunately, large surveys like this are what far too many suits read, so you gotta make a noise, otherwise ppl will think it's accurate research.
43rd Law of Computing:
A company can succeed by raping customers for a limited length of time. Eventually it has to produce a product people actually want, or go away. IBM knows this all too well. Microsoft will learn it too.
Boy how I wish that were the case. No, actually, it is. THe problem is that with effective marketing you can make your product what the customers want. It ain't pretty, but it's true...
43rd Law of Computing:
Slackware.
:-(
Damn, you beat me to it. That said, the minimum supported with -current is 16M, which is beginning to drop my stuff off the end
That said, Linux still does run well on old hardware, it's just that the definition of "old" moves with the definition of "new". Besides, I wouldn't think twice about installing Win95 on an i586 (Win98 would creak BADly...), but somehow we're averse to Slackware 4 'cause it's too old...
43rd Law of Computing:
...because IAAL (I am a lawyer).
/. - you see sooo many IANAL disclaimers, it's nice to see the occasional person who *is* a lawyer. Thanks!
Hey, I've overcome my irritation at having my pet theory squashed in front of my face through actually seeing a lawyer on
43rd Law of Computing: