Red Hat publishes all their software under the GPL, I fail to see the difference here. And they seem to be doing very well with the GPL. and if the employees still retain majority of the shares, then the outside-stockholders can't really do much.
It would be very difficult for the stockholders to make demands regarding the licensing ofthe product.
I love how I got modded as Flamebait repeatedly for making a coherent argument and responding to provocation, whereas you, who initiated the whole matter get modded up as Insightful for calling me an ass.
I did not "initiate" the whole matter. You were having a discussion with someone else, and I commented from the sidelines, that you are an ass. And I said that because you really are an ass.
I'm pissed because I have read enough economic books to know about price discrimination and the problems that come with it e.g. how certain steps like preventing arbitrage have to be taken if you want to be a successful price discriminator.
Well, the laptop is meant for children in the third-world, not some geeks in rich countries. So they are selling them to those third-world countries for $100 a piece. People in the "west" can also get one, but it will cost extra: $300. Idea propably is that if they were sold at same rice, then they would just be sold to the geeks in the west, and not to the people it's really meant for. If they ask the geeks for extra money, they would then have more money to spend on the laptops meant for the developing countries. But since their purpose is not to sell cheap gadgets to geeks, I fail to see why they should sell them here for $100.
Are you pissed because there might be cases of someone who got it for $100 selling it for $200? I don't buy that for a second. You are just pissed because you want a cheap gadget, and you can't get one. And just because you had a crappy life when you were younger, you somehow feel that you are entitled to this particular gadget. Here's a news-flash for you: You aren't entitled to one damn thing! The fact that you used to live in some shithole does not mean that you are entitled to anything.
How could they prevent arbitrage? Well, the $100 laptops would end up in third-world countries. They would then have to be shipped back to rich countries and sold there at a profit. I don't think that it's worth it in the end.
Well, you might have had a tough life, but you are still an ass. And no, having a tough life is not an excuse for being an asshole. You are just pissed because people in third-world countris can have this laptop for 100 bucks, whereas you have to pay $300. Well, cry me a river. Don't like the price? Then don't buy it and stop your whining.
Ballmer: "Well, allright! It was an idea for "pay-as-you-go"-computing! You see, there's this full-featured computer, but you have to buy these tokens in order to use it"
Geek A: "That is the worst idea I have ever heard in my life Steve"
"My point is that compared to regular cameras, they suck."
And compared to cell-phones, cameras are crappy phones. So what is your point? Just because cameraphones have cameras does not mean that they should be compared to proper cameras, and then judged to "suck" because real camera takes better pictures. No-one is suggesting that cameraphones are real alternatives to real cameras. I fail to see how you can compare a frigging cell-phone to camera, when the two serve wildly different purpose, with camera or without!
Does my Digital Ixus suck, because there are some professional cameras out there that take better pictures?
"And while some people swear by their cellphone-pda devices, those people are a tiny minority."
Well, smartphones have lots of PDA-functionality (calendar, email, installable apps etc. etc.) and their sales are skyrocketing. Just about all phones these days are PDA-phones in one way or the other.
"There are both better pdas and better cellphones than the Communicator."
Maybe, and I would need to carry two devices with me then, instead of one compact device.
I think you are off-base here. Yes, there are zillion cameraphones out there. Yes, their image-quality is not as good as on "real" cameras (but they are getting better). But that's not the point. Their purpose is not to replace cameras as such (although someone might decide not to buy a camera if he has a cameraphone). Their purpose is that the user will always have a camera with him. People don't usually walk around with cameras, but they have their phones with them all the time. Cameraphones are meant for those ad-hoc situations when you need to snap a picture. If you are attending a wedding, then you will propably use a proper camera instead.
And I do have one of those "cellphone-pda's" (Nokia 9300 Communicator). And I love the thing. Only marginally bigger than a phone, fits well in to my pocket, web-browser, push email, calendar, text-editor, ssh-client, QWERTY-keyboard... And it's also a very good phone! I just love the speakerphone on this thing:).
Re:Apple is acting like Microsoft
on
Apple Sues Creative
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Creative is scum. they have played the lawsuit-game to crush smaller companies with better products (Aureal...). I for one would just LOVE to see Creative spanked in similar way.
What we have here is one company (Creative) that is unable to compete with their products against competitor, so they resort to lawsuits instead.
"Yeah, I did. And if you'll read my original reply to you I quite clearly said it's "just one more reason""
Yet you spent quite a bit of time whining about it. Regardless of the fact that Windows or OS X aren't one bit better in this area.
"That's nice. Was anyone buying it?"
Gee, I don't know. I have better things to do that spend my time in some computer-store and watch what people are buying
"Was it called Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop Elements?"
No, should they? If you want to use those particular apps with Linux, go whine to Adobe and Microsoft.
"Because if it wasn't something common like that the type of user I'm talking about couldn't care less."
Well, I have seen "ordinary users" use Linux. And they seem to manage just fine without Microsoft Office and Photoshop Elements.
"The kind of software most non-technical users install on their computer usually comes from a box. Insert disc, double-click Setup.exe. Or on Mac, insert disc, double-click installer icon or drag the application icon to the Applications folder. It really isn't that hard, even for non-technical people."
And on Linux it can be exactly like that (like it is if you buy shrink-wrapped software). Or you can install apps through the package-manager. What is the problem here? "Windows is great because I just doubleclick on setup.exe and go through a wizard. Linux sucks because I can do the same thing with Linux!"
"More importantly, did I not just get finished pointing out that you cannot select an application that doesn't exist in your package management system?"
And I can't install apps on Windows if they don't have that much vaunted setup.exe.
"Where is the yum or apt source for Picasa? Where is the desktop publishing software that is as usable as Publisher or Pages, or is a cross-platform standard like Adobe InDesign?"
isn't that more or less same if I started whining "Where is f-spot for Windows? Where is Tomboy for Windows? Where is Beagle for Windows? Where is Amarok for Windows? Where is Konqueror for Windows? Where is KDE for windows?". If your argument basically is that Linux sucks because there is a bunch of Windows-only or Mac-only apps that don't run on Linux, then I might as well say that Windows and Mac sucks because there is bunch of Linux-only apps that don't work on those platforms.
"Do you know of anyone who has actually purchased the sole commercial DVD player application for Linux?"
I believe it ships with some commercial distros like Linspire. So quite a few has bought it, although indirectly.
"I really don't know what your problem is with this. Nobody is telling you not to use Linux"
Well, I don't know what YOUR problem is. No-one is forcing you to use Linux, and you don't use Linux. Yet you keep on whining about it. And you keep out pointing "flaws" in it that
a) Exists in OS X and Windows as well b) Boil down to "Linux is different from Windows and Mac!"
"on the flip side I suspect you aren't going around to everyone you know and installing some Linux distro on their computer"
Actually, I have done that on occasion. If the user has a PC, and they keep on having problems with Windows, I _might_ recommend Linux for them (depending what they do with the machine). If they are buying a new computer, I usually recommend a Mac. I'm the semi-official tech-support for my extended family, and I have had it with fixing problems in Windows, so I usually recommend anything but Windows. However, if the people asking for recommendation have kids that want to play games, I usually just tell them to stick with Windows.
"It's not one particular issue, it's many, many issues that you aren't going to solve by continuing to rant about how "it works for me"."
And you keep on telling me how OS X and Windows are superior. Well, I have extensive experience on both. I use Windows at work, and I used OS X for a year. I had/have all kinds of problems with them that make them unpleasant to use for
"The attack was probably large, but then why wouldn't they seek out help from law enforcement?"
That would basically mean asking assistance from RUSSIAN law-enforcement, since the spammers were Russian. Call me prjudiced, but I have very little faith in 'em.
"No, basically my problem with Linux is that there are ten thousand little things you have to struggle with to do what comes easily with other desktop operating systems. The filesystem is just a minor piece of the puzzle."
No, you quite clearly whined about the filesystem. Backpedal much? And I haven't really had any issues with Ubuntu. My iPod works just fine, my digital camera works fine. Everything I did on the Mac, I can do on the Linux as well.
"Sorry, but desktop users want to install the desktop apps that they purchase at Best Buy"
Well, I HAVE seen Linux-apps that have been sold at stores. They usually contain a nice installer not that different from those Wizards in Windows. So what is the problem here?
"It's great that the package management thing is working for you, but you are not a common desktop computer user with no idea what a package manager is."
Common Linux-user most certainly know what package manager is. Windows-users might not, but there's nothing preventing them from learning. Why is it that everyone think that hunting for installers online, saving them, running them, going through wizards etc. etc. is somehow "easier" than selecting the app from a list and clicking "Apply"?
"And somebody always brings up that last part about Windows even though everyone knows that A) any Windows computer that comes with a DVD drive installed will have some kind of DVD software included"
And if you sometime in the future decide to (for one reason or the other) decide to remove the pre-installed OEM-configured XP (which is usually full of useless crap), and reinstall plain ol' Windows, you will suddenly notice tht you can't play back your DVD's anymore. You whine how Linux doesn't play back DVD's. Well, it doesn't, you need third-party apps to do so. AND IT'S THE EXACT SAME THING WITH WINDOWS! Double-standards, anyone?
"Again, laying blame doesn't change the fact that Linux in general does not support most wireless cards."
Linux supports wireless cards just fine. If the manufacturers decide not to release Linux-drivers, there's very little Linux-developers could do about it. You are blaming the wrong people here.
"Anyway, you may personally prefer Linux but you have to admit that it is still a little rough around the edges."
Sure there are problems with Linux. Just like there are problems with Windows and OS X. I did use OS X more or less exclusively for about a year. Then I moved back to Linux, because OS X simply did not appeal to me all that much.
"There is a kind of user that is very common who will go around deleting files and folders they don't understand."
Well, that could be a problem in Windows, where the user has admin-rights by default. He could go and delete some important files or folders from c:\Windows for example. In Linux, the user could not do it. He doesn't have the rights to do so. I HAVE seen users delete vital system-files or folders in Windows. I have NEVER seen users delete vital system-files or folders in Linux. If they tried to do so, they would get a nice dialog-box saying "Permission denied". So what was your problem with Linux again? The fact that there are users who delete folders they do not understand? Since that is a real problem with Windows, whereas it's not a problem with Linux, I REALLY fail to see what grounds you have to whine about Linux on this matter!
And I still haven't heard why having weird folders in OS X and Windows is a "good thing", whereas having weird folders in Linux is a "bad thing". Why is it OK for Windows to have c:\Windows\System32, whereas having/usr/lib in Linux is the epitome of suckiness? Is it because the slashes point the other way or something?
"No, Linux sucks because it shows me all that crap that as a common user I will never need to access and just appears to be cluttering up my filesystem."
When I used OS X, I could access all kinds of strange library-folders that I had no idea what they contained. I can do the same on Linux as well, of course. But by default when I open a filemanager, it displays my home-folder (like OS X does). If I want to go see that "crap" you talk about, I have to explicitly doubleclick on the "filesystem"-icon. By default, none of that "crap" is visible, I just see the files and folder that are in my home-directory. So basically your problem with Linux is that you _can _ go poke at folders that contain "crap", if you really want to? Well you can do the same in Windows and OS X as well. Why the double-standards? you can see all kinds of "crap" in all three OS'es if you want to, yet only Linux "sucks"?
"OK, I have just one question, what desktop environment and file manager are you using? Because I have seen none of those things occurring on the Linux distros that I have played with, even the recent Ubuntu/Kubuntu."
IIRC, I got those media-icons in my KDE/Gentoo-combo. Then I moved to Kubuntu (KDE), and I got those icons. Then I moved to Ubuntu (with GNOME) and I got those icons. then I upgraded my Breezy-Ubuntu to Dapper Drake Beta, and I still got those icons. In the end, I ended up disabling the "show mounted volumes on the desktop" because I wanted to keep my desktop clear of icons. But I still get the mounted volumes in my filemanager.
In short: I have had no problems with removable media in a long time. Gentoo had some occasional hiccups over a year ago (mostly when unplugging/removing the media), but (K)Ubuntu has been rock-solid.
"Maybe you're using GNOME and Nautilus."
I am, but things "just worked" in KDE as well. I honestly don't know what's wrong with your system, since my system worked beatifully.
"Furthermore, I complain about drive access in Linux"
What "drive access"?
"the whole software install process"
I could complain about the same process on OS X and Windows as well. In Linux I have a nice package manager. I just select the apps I want to install, and I'm done with it. In OS X and Windows, I have to hunt for files in the net, copy them to my machine, run them, and maybe I have to go through some kind of wizard as well. Yes, the "linux-way" of installing apps might annoy some people. Espesially if they are accustomed to the "Windows-way". I for one dislike the windows-way, and I appreciate the elegance of package-managers.
You might dislike the "Linux-way", but that does not mean that it's objectively speaking inferior to "Windows-way". It's different, but it's not necessarily worse.
"support for multimedia like playing DVDs LEGALLY"
I think you need to complain to the lawmakers, and not to the makers of Linux. That said, there are commercial Linux-distros out there that do support legal DVD-playback. Unfortunately that functionality has to be bought from a third-party, so it can't be bundled to a free (as in beer and speech) distro, you need a commercial distro for it. That said, if you are willing to settle for illegal DVD-playback, free distro will suit you just fine. It wont work OOB however. But it doesn't work on Windows either IIRC.
"WIRELESS support"
I have a wireless PCMCIA-card. I tried it in OpenSUSE. I plugged it in, and it worked right away. But you do have a point. hardware-support could ALWAYS be improved upon. maybe you should complain to the makers of wireless gear?
Windows is no saint either. Windows basically has zero native support for SATA-controllers, which makes installation to SATA hard-drives a pain in the ass. You need to install the drivers via a floppy during the installation. Only floppies are accepted, you can't use CDs or USB-sticks. And what if you don't have a floppy-drive (I don't, for example)? Seriously? I guess you just have to buy/borrow a floppy-drive, rip open the case, install the drive and THEN start the install-process? So lets hear it for kick-ass hardware-support!
I was reading the thread about the MacBooks in arstechnica. Someone posted a link to benchmarks that showed that the Integrated Intel GPU is actually faster than the GeForce5200 found on the 12" PowerBook.
"You don't get any of the powersaving magic and literal coolfactor of using a performing PPC notebook. "
Are those PPC-CPU's REALLY that "powersaving"? IIRC the G4 PowerBooks weren't that good on the battery. And those G5's in PowerMac runs very hot and consume quite a bit of power.
The G4-CPU's Apple used were designed for embedded systems, hence the relatively low power-requirements. Now Intel has designed a CPU from the groud up to consume little power, and it's perfectly competetive with PPC as far as power-consumption is concerned. And it's dual-core!
I belive that the MBP has a latch that actually moves and hooks up to something. It might work magnetically, but it's still a traditional latch. The macBook has no such latch, it just has magnets. No moving "hooks" or anything, like on the MBP.
"I didn't say they were. I said they should be treated as applications are, WRT the GPL."
Well, I'm going to suggest something racical here: Why dont we treat drivers as drivers instead of application, WRT the GPL? Drivers are treated differently from application because they are different, they behave different and they have different requirements. Apps don't link deeply to the kernel, drivers do.
"Are you kidding me? Have you seen the performance of Intel's integrated graphics chips? They're not aiming to compete on performance - that is not a barrier to releasing their source code as it is for ATI and nVidia."
So, NVIDIA can't release the source because their products are fast? Is that it?
"The sheer idiocy of this whole "stay in your home folder, n00b" idea is just one more reason I dropped Linux as a desktop OS and would never recommend it to anyone."
Like I said, the user really has no reason to go outside his home-folder. But if he wants to, he could do so. I'm not telling anyone to just stay in their home-folder. And I really don't see your argument here. Linux sucks because the filesystem contains lots of stuff the user doesn't understand? Well, so does Windows-filesystem. So does OS X-filesystem. What's the problem here?
"Is my CD-ROM going to be mounted in my home folder? No. It's in/mnt or/mount or/media, or who knows where depending on your distro"
user doesn't need to know where in the filesystem it's mounted in. On just about every distro I have used, CD-ROM's appear on the desktop. The user doubleclicks on it, and he can then browse the contents of the CD. USer does not even have to know that it's mounted in/mnt/cdrom or something. To him, it's on his desktop.
"That's why Apple completely hid those folders in the Finder."
So you dropped Linux because users are encouraged to stay in their home-folder, whereas you have no problems with Apple actually trying to FORCE users in to staying in their home-folder?
"Staying in the home folder in Linux also doesn't work because there is no clear visible way that I've ever encountered to access removeable media, or even other drives. Apple's Finder is great because drives get mounted and automatically show up in the sidebar."
Mounted devices (CDROMs, USB-sticks etc.) appear on the desktop, sidebar and "places"-menu on my desktop. I have zero reason to go hunting for them in the filesystem, they are right there in the filemanager and the desktop.
"For the love of Pete, we still have Linux users commonly making symlinks by hand to places like/media/cdrom/cdrom0 for the sake of convenience because it's a total pain to get into something as common as a CD-ROM the usual way!"
We do? On my Ubuntu-machine, I have made exactly one symlink. It was to a directory that contains my photos. It was located outside my home-directory, so my wife could access it as well. I have ZERO need to make symlinks to removable media because they appear right in my desktop, in my filemanager and in my "places"-menu. What exactly is the problem here?
"If they really want to get away from Windows, they'll go exactly where I went: Mac OS X. Until you use it, you won't understand how hard you've been working to do the simplest things"
I bought a Mac Mini about a year ago, and I used OS X for about a year. My wife did as well. It was cute, but I went back to Linux. My wife liked it at first, but she started having all kinds of little problems with it. And she had no problems going back to Linux as well.
"Is it really that much to ask that removable media be mounted by volume label rather than some obscure device name?"
When I put in a game-CD in my DVD-drive, it's displayed on the desktop with the name of the game as it's title. Same thing with DVD-movies or data-CD's. USB-sticks appear like they should. In short: they ARE mounted by their volume-label.
You keep on telling how removable media does not work in Linux. How users have to hunt for them in the filesystem, how they need to make symlinks, how their names are strange. I DON'T SEE THOSE PROBLEMS! Seriously. media appears in the desktop and filemanager. When I plug in my digital-camera, I get a dialog-box that asks me that do I want to import the pictures from that camera. my iPod works beautifully. Things just work.
Personally, I think the drivers should be treated as any application software would.. I mean, Crossover Office and VMWare (for example) are not licensed under the GPL (AFAIK), yet are commercially successful Linux applications..
Uh, drivers are NOT applications. If they were, they would be called "applications" and not "drivers". drivers need to intimately talk with the kernel, and that is something apps do not have to do. And misbehaving driver could bring the system down, a misbehaving app could not (well, not as easily at least).
That really depends on the particular hardware that the company develops.
Intel provides open-source drivers for their 3D-accelerators. NVIDIA could do the same.
which did a great job walking me through the manual configuration, didn't tell me how to edit fstab, or even get write access to fstab from a text editor.
That's because it's A LOT easier to write instructions for CLI than it is for GUI. With CLI you just tell "type "xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx", then type "yyy yyyy yyyyyyyy" and you are all set". Hell, the user could cut & paste the commands right from the instructions! Compare that to writing istructions for a GUI: "Open Nautilusm (places ==> Home Folder). Go to/xxx/xxxx/xxxx locate file called yyyyy and double-click it...."
"You could say nVidia - but do they really have any obligation beyond providing drivers that work?"
Well, is it Linux'es fault? Do they have an obligation to satisfy the whims of creators of proprietary software? They (all the people out there developing Linux) created a free operating system. Should they then bend over backwards to help out those who make proprietary software?
"It won't be worth - essentially - giving away their intellectual property for the small amount of market share Linux support would give them."
But there are other companies doing just that, and it doesn't seem to be hurting them one bit.
"I should NEVER need to open a console (How often do Windows Users need cmd.exe?)"
My wife uses Linux and she has never opened a console. I occasionally open it, but that's because I like to do "advanced" stuff. If I really wanted to, I could live without ever opening the console.
"The user doesn't care about the neat things they can get from/proc/dev and the likes. Hide these."
Well, normally they are hidden. Usually the user just sees his home-folder. Of course there are other interesting (and not so interesting) stuff lcated in/, but the user doesn't really have any reason to go poking there. If he wants to investigate, why should we try to artificially try to stop him from doing so?
"Coming from Windows all of my libraries are in windows\system32 or in the directory of the actual application. Linux could put them in/lib,/usr/lib,/usr/local/lib,/usr/share/lib/, etc, and my application is almost certainly not going to have its own directory."
And the problem is.....?? Is it "It's different from Windows!": Well, duh!
I can accept the fact that they're amateur actors, but that is still no excuse for the script.
I think the script was actually better than alot of the stuff Hollywood is pushing these days.
Even if they hired professional actors, the movie would have sucked because it simply wasn't funny.
I thought it was very funny. Maybe being a Finn helps me appreciate the Finnish humor more. And I think it was a lot funnier (again) than a lot of the stuff Hollywood pushes these days.
Considering EVERY writer starts out as an amateur, I think this is no excuse.
And usually those scripts are then put to silver-screen with professional directors, professional actors and budget that is few orders of magnitude bigger than these guys had to work with. But hey, since you didn't have to pay one dime for the movie, I don't think you have lots of reason to complain. So you didn't like it. Big deal. You can't please everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat publishes all their software under the GPL, I fail to see the difference here. And they seem to be doing very well with the GPL. and if the employees still retain majority of the shares, then the outside-stockholders can't really do much.
It would be very difficult for the stockholders to make demands regarding the licensing ofthe product.
I did not "initiate" the whole matter. You were having a discussion with someone else, and I commented from the sidelines, that you are an ass. And I said that because you really are an ass.
Well, the laptop is meant for children in the third-world, not some geeks in rich countries. So they are selling them to those third-world countries for $100 a piece. People in the "west" can also get one, but it will cost extra: $300. Idea propably is that if they were sold at same rice, then they would just be sold to the geeks in the west, and not to the people it's really meant for. If they ask the geeks for extra money, they would then have more money to spend on the laptops meant for the developing countries. But since their purpose is not to sell cheap gadgets to geeks, I fail to see why they should sell them here for $100.
Are you pissed because there might be cases of someone who got it for $100 selling it for $200? I don't buy that for a second. You are just pissed because you want a cheap gadget, and you can't get one. And just because you had a crappy life when you were younger, you somehow feel that you are entitled to this particular gadget. Here's a news-flash for you: You aren't entitled to one damn thing! The fact that you used to live in some shithole does not mean that you are entitled to anything.
How could they prevent arbitrage? Well, the $100 laptops would end up in third-world countries. They would then have to be shipped back to rich countries and sold there at a profit. I don't think that it's worth it in the end.
Well, you might have had a tough life, but you are still an ass. And no, having a tough life is not an excuse for being an asshole. You are just pissed because people in third-world countris can have this laptop for 100 bucks, whereas you have to pay $300. Well, cry me a river. Don't like the price? Then don't buy it and stop your whining.
Steve Ballmer: "I once had a great idea..."
Geek A: "Really Steve, what was it?"
Ballmer: "Well, allright! It was an idea for "pay-as-you-go"-computing! You see, there's this full-featured computer, but you have to buy these tokens in order to use it"
Geek A: "That is the worst idea I have ever heard in my life Steve"
Geek B: "Yes, this is horrible, this idea."
"My point is that compared to regular cameras, they suck."
And compared to cell-phones, cameras are crappy phones. So what is your point? Just because cameraphones have cameras does not mean that they should be compared to proper cameras, and then judged to "suck" because real camera takes better pictures. No-one is suggesting that cameraphones are real alternatives to real cameras. I fail to see how you can compare a frigging cell-phone to camera, when the two serve wildly different purpose, with camera or without!
Does my Digital Ixus suck, because there are some professional cameras out there that take better pictures?
"And while some people swear by their cellphone-pda devices, those people are a tiny minority."
Well, smartphones have lots of PDA-functionality (calendar, email, installable apps etc. etc.) and their sales are skyrocketing. Just about all phones these days are PDA-phones in one way or the other.
"There are both better pdas and better cellphones than the Communicator."
Maybe, and I would need to carry two devices with me then, instead of one compact device.
I think you are off-base here. Yes, there are zillion cameraphones out there. Yes, their image-quality is not as good as on "real" cameras (but they are getting better). But that's not the point. Their purpose is not to replace cameras as such (although someone might decide not to buy a camera if he has a cameraphone). Their purpose is that the user will always have a camera with him. People don't usually walk around with cameras, but they have their phones with them all the time. Cameraphones are meant for those ad-hoc situations when you need to snap a picture. If you are attending a wedding, then you will propably use a proper camera instead.
:).
And I do have one of those "cellphone-pda's" (Nokia 9300 Communicator). And I love the thing. Only marginally bigger than a phone, fits well in to my pocket, web-browser, push email, calendar, text-editor, ssh-client, QWERTY-keyboard... And it's also a very good phone! I just love the speakerphone on this thing
Creative is scum. they have played the lawsuit-game to crush smaller companies with better products (Aureal...). I for one would just LOVE to see Creative spanked in similar way.
What we have here is one company (Creative) that is unable to compete with their products against competitor, so they resort to lawsuits instead.
"Yeah, I did. And if you'll read my original reply to you I quite clearly said it's "just one more reason""
Yet you spent quite a bit of time whining about it. Regardless of the fact that Windows or OS X aren't one bit better in this area.
"That's nice. Was anyone buying it?"
Gee, I don't know. I have better things to do that spend my time in some computer-store and watch what people are buying
"Was it called Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop Elements?"
No, should they? If you want to use those particular apps with Linux, go whine to Adobe and Microsoft.
"Because if it wasn't something common like that the type of user I'm talking about couldn't care less."
Well, I have seen "ordinary users" use Linux. And they seem to manage just fine without Microsoft Office and Photoshop Elements.
"The kind of software most non-technical users install on their computer usually comes from a box. Insert disc, double-click Setup.exe. Or on Mac, insert disc, double-click installer icon or drag the application icon to the Applications folder. It really isn't that hard, even for non-technical people."
And on Linux it can be exactly like that (like it is if you buy shrink-wrapped software). Or you can install apps through the package-manager. What is the problem here? "Windows is great because I just doubleclick on setup.exe and go through a wizard. Linux sucks because I can do the same thing with Linux!"
"More importantly, did I not just get finished pointing out that you cannot select an application that doesn't exist in your package management system?"
And I can't install apps on Windows if they don't have that much vaunted setup.exe.
"Where is the yum or apt source for Picasa? Where is the desktop publishing software that is as usable as Publisher or Pages, or is a cross-platform standard like Adobe InDesign?"
isn't that more or less same if I started whining "Where is f-spot for Windows? Where is Tomboy for Windows? Where is Beagle for Windows? Where is Amarok for Windows? Where is Konqueror for Windows? Where is KDE for windows?". If your argument basically is that Linux sucks because there is a bunch of Windows-only or Mac-only apps that don't run on Linux, then I might as well say that Windows and Mac sucks because there is bunch of Linux-only apps that don't work on those platforms.
"Do you know of anyone who has actually purchased the sole commercial DVD player application for Linux?"
I believe it ships with some commercial distros like Linspire. So quite a few has bought it, although indirectly.
"I really don't know what your problem is with this. Nobody is telling you not to use Linux"
Well, I don't know what YOUR problem is. No-one is forcing you to use Linux, and you don't use Linux. Yet you keep on whining about it. And you keep out pointing "flaws" in it that
a) Exists in OS X and Windows as well
b) Boil down to "Linux is different from Windows and Mac!"
"on the flip side I suspect you aren't going around to everyone you know and installing some Linux distro on their computer"
Actually, I have done that on occasion. If the user has a PC, and they keep on having problems with Windows, I _might_ recommend Linux for them (depending what they do with the machine). If they are buying a new computer, I usually recommend a Mac. I'm the semi-official tech-support for my extended family, and I have had it with fixing problems in Windows, so I usually recommend anything but Windows. However, if the people asking for recommendation have kids that want to play games, I usually just tell them to stick with Windows.
"It's not one particular issue, it's many, many issues that you aren't going to solve by continuing to rant about how "it works for me"."
And you keep on telling me how OS X and Windows are superior. Well, I have extensive experience on both. I use Windows at work, and I used OS X for a year. I had/have all kinds of problems with them that make them unpleasant to use for
"The attack was probably large, but then why wouldn't they seek out help from law enforcement?"
That would basically mean asking assistance from RUSSIAN law-enforcement, since the spammers were Russian. Call me prjudiced, but I have very little faith in 'em.
"No, basically my problem with Linux is that there are ten thousand little things you have to struggle with to do what comes easily with other desktop operating systems. The filesystem is just a minor piece of the puzzle."
No, you quite clearly whined about the filesystem. Backpedal much? And I haven't really had any issues with Ubuntu. My iPod works just fine, my digital camera works fine. Everything I did on the Mac, I can do on the Linux as well.
"Sorry, but desktop users want to install the desktop apps that they purchase at Best Buy"
Well, I HAVE seen Linux-apps that have been sold at stores. They usually contain a nice installer not that different from those Wizards in Windows. So what is the problem here?
"It's great that the package management thing is working for you, but you are not a common desktop computer user with no idea what a package manager is."
Common Linux-user most certainly know what package manager is. Windows-users might not, but there's nothing preventing them from learning. Why is it that everyone think that hunting for installers online, saving them, running them, going through wizards etc. etc. is somehow "easier" than selecting the app from a list and clicking "Apply"?
"And somebody always brings up that last part about Windows even though everyone knows that A) any Windows computer that comes with a DVD drive installed will have some kind of DVD software included"
And if you sometime in the future decide to (for one reason or the other) decide to remove the pre-installed OEM-configured XP (which is usually full of useless crap), and reinstall plain ol' Windows, you will suddenly notice tht you can't play back your DVD's anymore. You whine how Linux doesn't play back DVD's. Well, it doesn't, you need third-party apps to do so. AND IT'S THE EXACT SAME THING WITH WINDOWS! Double-standards, anyone?
"Again, laying blame doesn't change the fact that Linux in general does not support most wireless cards."
Linux supports wireless cards just fine. If the manufacturers decide not to release Linux-drivers, there's very little Linux-developers could do about it. You are blaming the wrong people here.
"Anyway, you may personally prefer Linux but you have to admit that it is still a little rough around the edges."
Sure there are problems with Linux. Just like there are problems with Windows and OS X. I did use OS X more or less exclusively for about a year. Then I moved back to Linux, because OS X simply did not appeal to me all that much.
Oh, I missed this gem from your post:
/usr/lib in Linux is the epitome of suckiness? Is it because the slashes point the other way or something?
"There is a kind of user that is very common who will go around deleting files and folders they don't understand."
Well, that could be a problem in Windows, where the user has admin-rights by default. He could go and delete some important files or folders from c:\Windows for example. In Linux, the user could not do it. He doesn't have the rights to do so. I HAVE seen users delete vital system-files or folders in Windows. I have NEVER seen users delete vital system-files or folders in Linux. If they tried to do so, they would get a nice dialog-box saying "Permission denied". So what was your problem with Linux again? The fact that there are users who delete folders they do not understand? Since that is a real problem with Windows, whereas it's not a problem with Linux, I REALLY fail to see what grounds you have to whine about Linux on this matter!
And I still haven't heard why having weird folders in OS X and Windows is a "good thing", whereas having weird folders in Linux is a "bad thing". Why is it OK for Windows to have c:\Windows\System32, whereas having
Honestly: you are not making any sense.
"No, Linux sucks because it shows me all that crap that as a common user I will never need to access and just appears to be cluttering up my filesystem."
When I used OS X, I could access all kinds of strange library-folders that I had no idea what they contained. I can do the same on Linux as well, of course. But by default when I open a filemanager, it displays my home-folder (like OS X does). If I want to go see that "crap" you talk about, I have to explicitly doubleclick on the "filesystem"-icon. By default, none of that "crap" is visible, I just see the files and folder that are in my home-directory. So basically your problem with Linux is that you _can _ go poke at folders that contain "crap", if you really want to? Well you can do the same in Windows and OS X as well. Why the double-standards? you can see all kinds of "crap" in all three OS'es if you want to, yet only Linux "sucks"?
"OK, I have just one question, what desktop environment and file manager are you using? Because I have seen none of those things occurring on the Linux distros that I have played with, even the recent Ubuntu/Kubuntu."
IIRC, I got those media-icons in my KDE/Gentoo-combo. Then I moved to Kubuntu (KDE), and I got those icons. Then I moved to Ubuntu (with GNOME) and I got those icons. then I upgraded my Breezy-Ubuntu to Dapper Drake Beta, and I still got those icons. In the end, I ended up disabling the "show mounted volumes on the desktop" because I wanted to keep my desktop clear of icons. But I still get the mounted volumes in my filemanager.
In short: I have had no problems with removable media in a long time. Gentoo had some occasional hiccups over a year ago (mostly when unplugging/removing the media), but (K)Ubuntu has been rock-solid.
"Maybe you're using GNOME and Nautilus."
I am, but things "just worked" in KDE as well. I honestly don't know what's wrong with your system, since my system worked beatifully.
"Furthermore, I complain about drive access in Linux"
What "drive access"?
"the whole software install process"
I could complain about the same process on OS X and Windows as well. In Linux I have a nice package manager. I just select the apps I want to install, and I'm done with it. In OS X and Windows, I have to hunt for files in the net, copy them to my machine, run them, and maybe I have to go through some kind of wizard as well. Yes, the "linux-way" of installing apps might annoy some people. Espesially if they are accustomed to the "Windows-way". I for one dislike the windows-way, and I appreciate the elegance of package-managers.
You might dislike the "Linux-way", but that does not mean that it's objectively speaking inferior to "Windows-way". It's different, but it's not necessarily worse.
"support for multimedia like playing DVDs LEGALLY"
I think you need to complain to the lawmakers, and not to the makers of Linux. That said, there are commercial Linux-distros out there that do support legal DVD-playback. Unfortunately that functionality has to be bought from a third-party, so it can't be bundled to a free (as in beer and speech) distro, you need a commercial distro for it. That said, if you are willing to settle for illegal DVD-playback, free distro will suit you just fine. It wont work OOB however. But it doesn't work on Windows either IIRC.
"WIRELESS support"
I have a wireless PCMCIA-card. I tried it in OpenSUSE. I plugged it in, and it worked right away. But you do have a point. hardware-support could ALWAYS be improved upon. maybe you should complain to the makers of wireless gear?
Windows is no saint either. Windows basically has zero native support for SATA-controllers, which makes installation to SATA hard-drives a pain in the ass. You need to install the drivers via a floppy during the installation. Only floppies are accepted, you can't use CDs or USB-sticks. And what if you don't have a floppy-drive (I don't, for example)? Seriously? I guess you just have to buy/borrow a floppy-drive, rip open the case, install the drive and THEN start the install-process? So lets hear it for kick-ass hardware-support!
"Don't suppose you could post a link?"
Link. Mac Mini with the integrated graphics handidly beats the 12" PowerBook.
I was reading the thread about the MacBooks in arstechnica. Someone posted a link to benchmarks that showed that the Integrated Intel GPU is actually faster than the GeForce5200 found on the 12" PowerBook.
"3D is gone."
No it's not. the dedicated vid-card can do 3D jsut fine.
"You don't get any of the powersaving magic and literal coolfactor of using a performing PPC notebook. "
Are those PPC-CPU's REALLY that "powersaving"? IIRC the G4 PowerBooks weren't that good on the battery. And those G5's in PowerMac runs very hot and consume quite a bit of power.
The G4-CPU's Apple used were designed for embedded systems, hence the relatively low power-requirements. Now Intel has designed a CPU from the groud up to consume little power, and it's perfectly competetive with PPC as far as power-consumption is concerned. And it's dual-core!
"iPods cost almost double what equivilent devices cost"
prove it. I have looked at what Creative and others offer, and price seems to be comparable.
I belive that the MBP has a latch that actually moves and hooks up to something. It might work magnetically, but it's still a traditional latch. The macBook has no such latch, it just has magnets. No moving "hooks" or anything, like on the MBP.
"I didn't say they were. I said they should be treated as applications are, WRT the GPL."
Well, I'm going to suggest something racical here: Why dont we treat drivers as drivers instead of application, WRT the GPL? Drivers are treated differently from application because they are different, they behave different and they have different requirements. Apps don't link deeply to the kernel, drivers do.
"Are you kidding me? Have you seen the performance of Intel's integrated graphics chips? They're not aiming to compete on performance - that is not a barrier to releasing their source code as it is for ATI and nVidia."
So, NVIDIA can't release the source because their products are fast? Is that it?
"The sheer idiocy of this whole "stay in your home folder, n00b" idea is just one more reason I dropped Linux as a desktop OS and would never recommend it to anyone."
/mnt or /mount or /media, or who knows where depending on your distro"
/mnt/cdrom or something. To him, it's on his desktop.
/media/cdrom/cdrom0 for the sake of convenience because it's a total pain to get into something as common as a CD-ROM the usual way!"
Like I said, the user really has no reason to go outside his home-folder. But if he wants to, he could do so. I'm not telling anyone to just stay in their home-folder. And I really don't see your argument here. Linux sucks because the filesystem contains lots of stuff the user doesn't understand? Well, so does Windows-filesystem. So does OS X-filesystem. What's the problem here?
"Is my CD-ROM going to be mounted in my home folder? No. It's in
user doesn't need to know where in the filesystem it's mounted in. On just about every distro I have used, CD-ROM's appear on the desktop. The user doubleclicks on it, and he can then browse the contents of the CD. USer does not even have to know that it's mounted in
"That's why Apple completely hid those folders in the Finder."
So you dropped Linux because users are encouraged to stay in their home-folder, whereas you have no problems with Apple actually trying to FORCE users in to staying in their home-folder?
"Staying in the home folder in Linux also doesn't work because there is no clear visible way that I've ever encountered to access removeable media, or even other drives. Apple's Finder is great because drives get mounted and automatically show up in the sidebar."
Mounted devices (CDROMs, USB-sticks etc.) appear on the desktop, sidebar and "places"-menu on my desktop. I have zero reason to go hunting for them in the filesystem, they are right there in the filemanager and the desktop.
"For the love of Pete, we still have Linux users commonly making symlinks by hand to places like
We do? On my Ubuntu-machine, I have made exactly one symlink. It was to a directory that contains my photos. It was located outside my home-directory, so my wife could access it as well. I have ZERO need to make symlinks to removable media because they appear right in my desktop, in my filemanager and in my "places"-menu. What exactly is the problem here?
"If they really want to get away from Windows, they'll go exactly where I went: Mac OS X. Until you use it, you won't understand how hard you've been working to do the simplest things"
I bought a Mac Mini about a year ago, and I used OS X for about a year. My wife did as well. It was cute, but I went back to Linux. My wife liked it at first, but she started having all kinds of little problems with it. And she had no problems going back to Linux as well.
"Is it really that much to ask that removable media be mounted by volume label rather than some obscure device name?"
When I put in a game-CD in my DVD-drive, it's displayed on the desktop with the name of the game as it's title. Same thing with DVD-movies or data-CD's. USB-sticks appear like they should. In short: they ARE mounted by their volume-label.
You keep on telling how removable media does not work in Linux. How users have to hunt for them in the filesystem, how they need to make symlinks, how their names are strange. I DON'T SEE THOSE PROBLEMS! Seriously. media appears in the desktop and filemanager. When I plug in my digital-camera, I get a dialog-box that asks me that do I want to import the pictures from that camera. my iPod works beautifully. Things just work.
Uh, drivers are NOT applications. If they were, they would be called "applications" and not "drivers". drivers need to intimately talk with the kernel, and that is something apps do not have to do. And misbehaving driver could bring the system down, a misbehaving app could not (well, not as easily at least).
Intel provides open-source drivers for their 3D-accelerators. NVIDIA could do the same.
That's because it's A LOT easier to write instructions for CLI than it is for GUI. With CLI you just tell "type "xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx", then type "yyy yyyy yyyyyyyy" and you are all set". Hell, the user could cut & paste the commands right from the instructions! Compare that to writing istructions for a GUI: "Open Nautilusm (places ==> Home Folder). Go to
"You could say nVidia - but do they really have any obligation beyond providing drivers that work?"
Well, is it Linux'es fault? Do they have an obligation to satisfy the whims of creators of proprietary software? They (all the people out there developing Linux) created a free operating system. Should they then bend over backwards to help out those who make proprietary software?
"It won't be worth - essentially - giving away their intellectual property for the small amount of market share Linux support would give them."
But there are other companies doing just that, and it doesn't seem to be hurting them one bit.
"I should NEVER need to open a console (How often do Windows Users need cmd.exe?)"
/proc /dev and the likes. Hide these."
/, but the user doesn't really have any reason to go poking there. If he wants to investigate, why should we try to artificially try to stop him from doing so?
/lib, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib, /usr/share/lib/, etc, and my application is almost certainly not going to have its own directory."
My wife uses Linux and she has never opened a console. I occasionally open it, but that's because I like to do "advanced" stuff. If I really wanted to, I could live without ever opening the console.
"The user doesn't care about the neat things they can get from
Well, normally they are hidden. Usually the user just sees his home-folder. Of course there are other interesting (and not so interesting) stuff lcated in
"Coming from Windows all of my libraries are in windows\system32 or in the directory of the actual application. Linux could put them in
And the problem is.....?? Is it "It's different from Windows!": Well, duh!
I think the script was actually better than alot of the stuff Hollywood is pushing these days.
I thought it was very funny. Maybe being a Finn helps me appreciate the Finnish humor more. And I think it was a lot funnier (again) than a lot of the stuff Hollywood pushes these days.
And usually those scripts are then put to silver-screen with professional directors, professional actors and budget that is few orders of magnitude bigger than these guys had to work with. But hey, since you didn't have to pay one dime for the movie, I don't think you have lots of reason to complain. So you didn't like it. Big deal. You can't please everyone.