"Microsoft are using their desktop OS monopoly to bundle a free media player and leverage the use of their proprietary media codecs and DRM, which will lock customers into MS toolchains.
The EU can see this and wishes to stop it."
Errr.... Microsoft has already submitted to EU's demands and released a version of XP that doesn't include their media player, it's called Windows XP N and it has been shipped to EU counties in June 2005! The problem is no OEMs and no consumers actually WANT a Windows version without a media player and I believe it has sold less than 10000 copies thus far. I hate Microsoft and their practices as much as the next guy, but the reason for the current EU vs MS trial is simply to milk MS for money.
"However, none of these reasons seems to provide a complete explanation for why there isn't even a single example of an extremely popular GPL game. I mean, there's no reason whatsoever that the next Counterstrike couldn't be built on Cube or the GPL'd Quake 2 source... so why isn't anyone doing it?"
Because at the time during which CS was initially developed, the HL engine it used was rather considered rather advanced. In the year 2006, the Cube and Quake 2 engines are not advanced by any stretch of imagination.
Forgot to mention: your initial example is rather poor actually. If you are a content provider, serving say... movies. Reading gigantic video files from the RAM in order to steal them is not exactly feasible, at no point is the entire movie loaded into RAM, so you would not only have to process a huge amount of data, but you would also have to wait a lot of time to actually snatch every little loaded piece of the entire file as it gets loaded.
You enter some codes to access an online bank or a login/password to a company site containing vital data. Do you think this somehow skips the RAM? OpenBSD actually goes a bit further, they have an option to encrypt the swap file.
"Linux and OS X come with all drivers they'll ever need (well, most all. ATI and NVIDIA are big exceptions)."
And they dont come with support for many webcams, graphical tablets and many other devices.
"The Windows notion of drivers doesn't really work the same way on Linux. On Linux, you install everything you can possibly imagine. The kernel does some probing on bootup, and a variety of kernel-space services handle module dependancies, and it will load whatever is needed (and only what's needed) as the system boots up."
Err, Windows does exactly that as well. Drivers which are not used by the system do not get loaded on start-up.
"Ever try taking a hard drive with Windows on it and booting it on a system with a different motherboard? Or even just trying turning ACPI off in the BIOS? BSoD, most likely. At a minimum, you'll get 10 minutes of "Finding drivers", and a couple reboots."
Stop using Windows 98. I have moved harddrives between different Windows XP systems using different motherboard/chipsets and even CPUs. And I only had to reboot once at most.
"But the worst problem is that.net is still very much a bolt-on to Windoes. When you load the system,.net does not load. In fact, many of the machines in the office didn't even have it installed. What this means is that when you start your (my) 32k compiled app, it takes about 15-20 seconds for the libs to load up."
What a ridiculous bunch of FUD. What machines are you using, Pentium 166 ? My machine is rather dated by today's standards, a 1 Ghz Athlon with 512mb or ram and all the.NET apps I have run so far start up in 1-4 seconds.
I think there is a reson to believe that more guns are used in robberies, murders and other unlawful cases compared to the gun usage for self-defense and shooting practice. Guns have legitimate uses, but most times they are used, the use is illegal. See a pattern here?
"Like most other high school dropouts, he'll wind up spending most of his days in jail."
Excuse me while I call BULLSHIT. I am an european high-school dropout (albeit only 4 courses short from graduating, but either way I have no diploma). I dropped out of school 2 years ago and now I am earning a decent living (~1300 euro/month ain't that bad where I live) doing completely legal activities. I also have multiple friends who have also dropped out of high school to pursue work. Being a high school dropout does not automatically turn one into a criminal.
"I've got Evolution (there is no good Windows equivalent of this)"
You must've somehow missed Outlook (the full version, not Express). Evolution has nothing on it.
"everybody knows WYSIWYG editors are evil"
Professional web designers also know they are necessary.
Re:and it's completely useless on OS X because...
on
Blender 2.40 Released
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· Score: 1
"You can put a software only driver in your blender folder that will fix pretty much any card."
What the hell? This is supposed to solve perfomance problems how exactly? Do you have any idea how slow software OpenGL is under *ANY* OS?
Re:Linux is wrong on one thing at least.
on
Torvalds Says 'Use KDE'
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"Not really true. If you bring up a Gnome file dialog and just start typing a file name Gnome will open a text box and allow you to enter the file name with tab completion."
How on earth can this be considered intuitive? How would a first-time user know about this? (Notice that even Linus didn't)
"A few years ago, many looked at TV-on-cell technology as an expensive oddity. TV service began in South Korea in 2002, but the TV signal came over the cellular network, resulting in massive phone bills. Since then, cell phone makers have decided to integrate TV tuners into handsets. Service providers still charge consumers for delivering content, but overall, it's much cheaper."
WOW. What a silly way to work around the GREEDY GSM PROVIDERS! If 3G/EDGE traffic is expensive in your country, you shouldn't be inventing and pushing new technology, you should be pushing down the 3G/EDGE traffic prices to the same level as in different countries. I have unlimited 3G/EDGE/GPRS here for a flat fee of 10e/month. I can watch TV broadcasts over 3G. What does this new technology bring (in 2006) that I don't already have?
There are around 280 million people in the US, and the typical household size would probably be 3. Divide population of 280 million by 3 to get roughly 90 million households. 16 million households out of 90 million means HDTV penetration is 18%.
I was thinking the other day that hardware makers should be a little scared about OSS as well. I mean, now that you can run a nice GUI on hardware that is 4 years old without issues, how are they going to sell newer and faster?
Well, at least now we know you aren't talking about GNOME or KDE;)
"Sun is offering a deal that seems torn from a cell-phone company playbook: offering a "free" Ultra 20 Opteron workstation if you sign up for a $29.95/mo, 3-year service contract."
Goddamn. This nearly had me fall off my chair. Then I went to SUN's site and realised that this offer is for the US customers only and not applicable to EU customers:(
A pre-installed version from a Dell or HPaq (without the media, so you can't reinstall and configure it yourself) would cost a little less, but certainly nowhere near $50.
Actually, it most certainly is near $50. Again, the big OEMs get HUGE discounts on software. That 30-pack you mention is NOTHING compared to the volume of millions upon millions of WinXP installations moved by the likes of DELL.
1) You are looking at retail packages, not OEM (OEM versions by themselves are noticably cheaper. 2) You DO realise that big OEM resellers get the OEM versions of software at huge discounts?
Ben Rothke writes "Load up a computer today with a basic set of applications software, and there will be a de facto Microsoft tax on that computer. Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay.
I stopped reading right there. What a load of crap. It's roughly 50$ for Windows XP Home and 100$ for MS Office.
"Interest is one thing. Ask them if they'd pay the usually high prices carriers charge for these kinds of services, and you'll see that percentage lower very very quickly..."
What high prices? You can get unlimited 3G/EDGE/GRPS traffic for 10 euro/month here. If you live in Finland, look into "Saunalahti Dataetu".
Personally I don't see the appeal of it. Not like you can really watch TV while walking around downtown... and expect to survive. On the bus/train it's too noisy [and honestly you don't always get a seat] and on airplanes they tell you to shut it off cuz it could "send the plane up the bomb!"
I heard they have invented headphones quite a long time ago...
Before any of you dismiss it with a "who wants to watch TV on their phone", you should give it a try at your local mobile phone reseller, you will be surprised. I purchased a Nokia 6630 and you should've seen the jaws of my co-workers when I showed them the latest TV news being streamed to my phone over a 3G connection. The 6630 can play fullscreen 16:9 video and has 16 bit 44Hz stereo sound. On a related note, the was recently a poll in Finland (which is where I live), asking people if they would be interested in watching TV on their phone. Slightly [b]over 60%[/b] answered YES.
There are people who don't have a computer, the internet and don't have a DVD player. Yet, many of these people (I know quite a few) enjoy playing console games on their TV. A device like XBOX360 is perfect for them: they get a game console AND a whole lot of stuff they didn't have before. Quite obviously they won't be picking it up for launch prices, but they will surely come, just as they did with the original XBOX.
A single consumer grade harddisk is capable of storing hundreds of hours of HD video.
Hundreds of hours? Did 10 TERAbyte consumer grade harddrives become so common overnight and I've missed it? You don't seem to have any idea how much space video content takes, let alone HD video content. 1080i HDTV is 1920 × 1080, which means it is 6 times higher the resolution of DVD discs (720 × 480).
A single-layer DVD can store 4.7 Gbyte with typical data rates for DVD movies ranging from 3 to 10 Mbit/s. Can your standard DSL line stream video at 3 to 10 mbit/s? No? Thanks to the advances in codec technology the data rates for HD-DVD discs will "only" be 8-10 Mbit/s (even though the increase in resolution is 6-fold). Lets debunk your disc space argument: 9 mbit x 60 seconds x 60 minutes = 32,4 GBit and thats just for 1 hour. 300 hours (you said hundreds of hours) = 9720 GBit.
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Because at the time during which CS was initially developed, the HL engine it used was rather considered rather advanced. In the year 2006, the Cube and Quake 2 engines are not advanced by any stretch of imagination.
Forgot to mention: your initial example is rather poor actually. If you are a content provider, serving say... movies. Reading gigantic video files from the RAM in order to steal them is not exactly feasible, at no point is the entire movie loaded into RAM, so you would not only have to process a huge amount of data, but you would also have to wait a lot of time to actually snatch every little loaded piece of the entire file as it gets loaded.
You enter some codes to access an online bank or a login/password to a company site containing vital data. Do you think this somehow skips the RAM? OpenBSD actually goes a bit further, they have an option to encrypt the swap file.
And they dont come with support for many webcams, graphical tablets and many other devices.
Err, Windows does exactly that as well. Drivers which are not used by the system do not get loaded on start-up.
Stop using Windows 98. I have moved harddrives between different Windows XP systems using different motherboard/chipsets and even CPUs. And I only had to reboot once at most.
What a ridiculous bunch of FUD. What machines are you using, Pentium 166 ? My machine is rather dated by today's standards, a 1 Ghz Athlon with 512mb or ram and all the
I am sorry, but I shake my head at THAT.
I think there is a reson to believe that more guns are used in robberies, murders and other unlawful cases compared to the gun usage for self-defense and shooting practice. Guns have legitimate uses, but most times they are used, the use is illegal. See a pattern here?
Excuse me while I call BULLSHIT. I am an european high-school dropout (albeit only 4 courses short from graduating, but either way I have no diploma). I dropped out of school 2 years ago and now I am earning a decent living (~1300 euro/month ain't that bad where I live) doing completely legal activities. I also have multiple friends who have also dropped out of high school to pursue work. Being a high school dropout does not automatically turn one into a criminal.
You must've somehow missed Outlook (the full version, not Express). Evolution has nothing on it.
Professional web designers also know they are necessary.
What the hell? This is supposed to solve perfomance problems how exactly? Do you have any idea how slow software OpenGL is under *ANY* OS?
How on earth can this be considered intuitive? How would a first-time user know about this? (Notice that even Linus didn't)
WOW. What a silly way to work around the GREEDY GSM PROVIDERS! If 3G/EDGE traffic is expensive in your country, you shouldn't be inventing and pushing new technology, you should be pushing down the 3G/EDGE traffic prices to the same level as in different countries. I have unlimited 3G/EDGE/GPRS here for a flat fee of 10e/month. I can watch TV broadcasts over 3G. What does this new technology bring (in 2006) that I don't already have?
There are around 280 million people in the US, and the typical household size would probably be 3. Divide population of 280 million by 3 to get roughly 90 million households. 16 million households out of 90 million means HDTV penetration is 18%.
Well, at least now we know you aren't talking about GNOME or KDE
Goddamn. This nearly had me fall off my chair. Then I went to SUN's site and realised that this offer is for the US customers only and not applicable to EU customers
WOW, that was a well-written mask for a troll basically saying "Windows users are stupid, Linux users are smart".
Actually, it most certainly is near $50. Again, the big OEMs get HUGE discounts on software. That 30-pack you mention is NOTHING compared to the volume of millions upon millions of WinXP installations moved by the likes of DELL.
1) You are looking at retail packages, not OEM (OEM versions by themselves are noticably cheaper.
2) You DO realise that big OEM resellers get the OEM versions of software at huge discounts?
I stopped reading right there. What a load of crap. It's roughly 50$ for Windows XP Home and 100$ for MS Office.
What high prices? You can get unlimited 3G/EDGE/GRPS traffic for 10 euro/month here. If you live in Finland, look into "Saunalahti Dataetu".
I heard they have invented headphones quite a long time ago...
Before any of you dismiss it with a "who wants to watch TV on their phone", you should give it a try at your local mobile phone reseller, you will be surprised. I purchased a Nokia 6630 and you should've seen the jaws of my co-workers when I showed them the latest TV news being streamed to my phone over a 3G connection. The 6630 can play fullscreen 16:9 video and has 16 bit 44Hz stereo sound. On a related note, the was recently a poll in Finland (which is where I live), asking people if they would be interested in watching TV on their phone. Slightly [b]over 60%[/b] answered YES.
There are people who don't have a computer, the internet and don't have a DVD player. Yet, many of these people (I know quite a few) enjoy playing console games on their TV. A device like XBOX360 is perfect for them: they get a game console AND a whole lot of stuff they didn't have before. Quite obviously they won't be picking it up for launch prices, but they will surely come, just as they did with the original XBOX.
Hundreds of hours? Did 10 TERAbyte consumer grade harddrives become so common overnight and I've missed it? You don't seem to have any idea how much space video content takes, let alone HD video content. 1080i HDTV is 1920 × 1080, which means it is 6 times higher the resolution of DVD discs (720 × 480).
A single-layer DVD can store 4.7 Gbyte with typical data rates for DVD movies ranging from 3 to 10 Mbit/s. Can your standard DSL line stream video at 3 to 10 mbit/s? No? Thanks to the advances in codec technology the data rates for HD-DVD discs will "only" be 8-10 Mbit/s (even though the increase in resolution is 6-fold). Lets debunk your disc space argument: 9 mbit x 60 seconds x 60 minutes = 32,4 GBit and thats just for 1 hour. 300 hours (you said hundreds of hours) = 9720 GBit.