I would like to post a comment to your discussion of "The Obligation To Recycle", but the links to "must be a member" and "comment..." both lead me to "Bad username/password combination" with no way to say, "Of course it's bad, where do I sign up?"
Comment: I believe the real fault has been in the abusive extension of "copyright" enforcement beyond any rational meaning of "limited time". If copyright were given the same weight as patent, 7 years, such problems as the Lotus Improv one addressed in your article would be moot. If intellectual efforts after 7 years moved into the public domain just like physical efforts, we would all benefit.
Especially in computer terms, software more than 7 years old (dare I say two years?) is not something anyone is going to make a profit by keeping closed.
Releasing under GPL has a further problem: Later products from the same company may very well re-use code, so placing the earlier product under the GPL would backstab the later products. I have no wish to hinder people who want to sell closed source software if they so choose.
For centuries "we" have had the public domain for ideas that have run their commercial course. It is time that the extreme efforts of the entertainment lobby that has corrupted copyright, and destroyed the idea of the benefits of public domain, be rolled back.
Yes, Disney would loose their enforcement of a character invented early in the last century. But I would finally be able to put three black circles together any way I wanted to without asking anyone's permission for the first time in my life.
I make no "presumption" about the flat files, I state that I consider their use quite effective and "optimal" in my opinion. There is no presumption, because there is nothing "pre" about it. Email programs use flat file, I find that so useful and effective that I consider it "optimal".
Netscape 4 uses a "database" structure for its address book, where Netscape 3 used an HTML text document which I could read without running Netscape. I consider this use of plain text to be another "optimal" situation, as opposed to a format which I cannot read with any other program.
As for "guns", if you can support your assertion that passengers with private firearms "would have caused the planes to crash anyway", I would appreciate your insight. Until that time, I consider it just another mass murder in a "gun free zone" where the perps were ensured to have disarmed victims that could not fight back.
Concerning your last paragraph, I will elaborate:
"Other party" means either Republican or Democrat, the "other" from whatever one it is that you are arguing against. It doesn't matter, they're the same party anyway. Basic human rights are dead horses, whipped so often and to such a degree that they are merely a greasy stain on the road, or that the bill of rights and the constitution are not even worth the paper they're printed on when they can be ignored at will. The centralization of the control of security at airports, specifically, ensuring that airlines themselves, their insurance companies, the airports or their insurance companies, or any one else could not adapt security for the particulars of the place and time.
This is not illuminati conspiracy stuff. It requires no more than tens or hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats, over decades of time, each one ensuring they keep their own jobs and increase their control and power each and every time an opportunity to do so came up.
In question about your.sig, what about not initiating force against others do you consider "not free"?
Yes, the flat text file format is not optimal, but that depends on what your opinion of "Optimal" is. I consider the fact that I am not restricted to any email client in order to read the mail folders to be a really good thing. Quite optimal, actually, since if anything goes wrong I can read the mail without an email client at all.
I don't think it's an odd thing, I think it's a deliberate choice for compatability.
The success of gun control and central planning advocates in ensuring the success of the September 11th attack is a done deal. Those particular restrictions are merely reaching their logical extremes now to no effect what so ever.
Don't worry about "aspects of dictatorship", since the ones you note are already greasy stains on the road. What use is it to continue to advance disamement when there is so much more to do? The other party is so good at disarmement and centralizing of control that the present party doesn't need to address it at this time. And obaying the laws once in a while gives the all the sheen of "legality" while they slip the knives into your back with their other hands.
They taught me by my having used MS software since Dos1.0. Ease of use counts in software presentation, especially to the non-technical. And I will not fault Microsofts efforts to make consistant interfaces, buttons that mean the same thing put in the same places, and the like.
I fault Microsoft quality and stability all day long, and I will gladly sneer at the attitudes which reject anything but Microsoft for erroneous or simplistic (inertia) reasons.
Sorry, A.C., not for me. I don't like having to wear earplugs just to drink, and yell to have a conversation.
The latest fad in Tokyo "Living Bars" is very interesting, though. It reminds me of Spider Robinson's comments about Calahan's, "It was lit up like someone's livingroom, since people who like to drink in caves are unstable."
Fact is, I don't drink enough to make a good Tokyo-ite.
The "sendmail" issue is what I was trying to address. Exchange/Outlook package is, as has been said, a suite. They work best together.
Everything folks posted about my transposition of "outlook" and "exchange" is valid. I was imprecise. Thanks for the (polite) corrections.
Sigsegv_11 hits the nail on the head, however, in noting that everyone else (other software packages) seem to work together quite well, with no platform dependencies. Which, lame as my attempt might have been, was what I was trying to point out.
Of course, as others here have said, I don't expect much change in shipping rates because of the change in bundling rules, MS will simply find another way to make sure that 99.999% of machines ship with the Latest Windows.
Sterio AM didn't survive because people didn't want it. This is a "failure"?
I am looking forward to the discussion on HDTV to see if anyone has a good reason to go buy it. Is wiz-bang enough, like sterio AM wasn't, to support the cost to producers and consumers to re-tool?
Since the FCC is using force to make people change, the only producer/consumer decision is "when". This is a failure, it reduces real choice into someone elses idea of right and wrong.
If you wouldn't stand that choice being made for you about religion, why do you support that choice being made for you about TV?
Does the preference for Windows make the (percieved IMHO) monopoly status of Microsoft right? Does your preference for the mandates of the FCC make their use of force right? Maybe in your eyes it does. Die, infadel, in the holy name of Alah!
Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure what wireless communication technology would be like without the FCC, because they have so hamstrung and restricted innovation for so long. However, I have in my pocket a Japanese cell phone from 3 years ago, so small, light and useful compared to the "American" versions of a technology the Americans invented.
One reason is because of the frequency restrictions that the FCC, in their infinite and perfect judgement for the betterment of mankind, placed on cellphones.
You may disagree with what specific technology is best, in fact I enjoy such discussions. Just be glad you're disagreeing with me, and not the FCC, because if you disagree with them you go to jail.
Bob-
The FCC and their mandates can go climb a tree.
on
To HDTV or Not to HDTV?
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Please insert here the usual factual, rational and well considered argument that the FCC only hinders real innovation without adding any benefits.
The FCC: Another monopoly, another failure. No surprise.
Yes. A couple hundred helpless, disarmed, law abiding individuals held hostage then killed by thugs out-numbered 5 and more to 1, who happened to have box-cutters.
The passengers on Flight 93 fought back, saved lives, and died anyway. They deserve hero status.
One citizen with their own firearms on any of those flights would have saved the lives of that plane, at least, and more likely hundreds or thousands of lives since 3 of the 4 planes reached their destinations.
Every advocate of gun control has the blood of those who died in the September 11th attack on their hands. Oh, but the hypocritical cries from those same mouths now for "air martials" to (surprise surprise) carry GUNS on airplanes to defend them from terrorists...
Oh, save me save me from the folly of my belief in victim disarmement, but what ever you do don't challange my assumptions!
You cowards make me sick, and endanger my life and others with your cowardice.
Back in 1997 running Samba, I didn't find any problem with 'seamless integration' for my two Windows game (mostly) machines to use the Linux box as server, or for the Linux box to work perfectly well along side of the other two as a peer machine.
If I may elaborate on your point, I think you mean "seamless MS-Office integration."
It takes a serious shift of my perception to think of MS-Exchange as "email". It's an email CLIENT, one of many. So is Netscape Mail. So is elm. Elm doesn't read Netscape Mail folders (ok, maybe it does for someone who wants to take the time, but we're talking seamless here), that doesn't stop someone from using elm to "seamlessly" talk with someone in the same office using Netscape Mail.
MS-Office is a monolithic group-ware package that works (well? at all?) only with itself. As such, there never can be "seamless integration" because Microsoft doesn't want there to be.
Microsoft has won the perception battle with MS-Office. Many managers think that in order to be compatable with anyone else, they must use MS-Office, and that only runs on MS-Win.
If "we" are going to open the desktop market, "we" must change that perception. I am very, very glad to see OpenOffice, KDE-Office, and all the other suites being built. The Noosphere is being homesteaded at the office application layer, and I couldn't be happier.
BTW, my last two jobs have been in shops where the one and only reason they use MS-Win is because they are entrenched into using MS-Office.
Ok, can anyone explain what this guy meant by loosening of Microsoft licensing?
As far as I can tell, one wave which Linux could ride is the tide of greater restrictions of the Microsoft license, like the XP configuration dependent "activation" concept. Swap your video card, loose your OS license!
The other half is because people have ignorantly abrogated their responsibility for prosecuting their own loss.
If just ONE of those companies that "lost billions" had prosecuted the perp themselves, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
But no, we sit here and decry how "law enforcement is overworked" to do all the prosecuting for us. And in those places where medical service is also government provided? Gee, the same discussion, how "medical providers are overworked".
Maybe the pattern this obvious to me is obvious to others. Has anyone who claims to have lost money gone after a virus writer? Anyone? Any company? Any organization?
The negative effects of abrogating your physical security to "law enforcement" is well known. There is very little argument that even the best firewall does not eliminate the requirement that individual PC's and servers be individually hardened.
Yet with all this emphasis on distributed defense, there is not a distributed offence against these virus writers?
The power of "open source" is its diversity and parallel nature.
Admittedly, if every open source project had a profitable business model, that would be an answer that fit every projects problem.
Since differences between projects is as much an attribute of open source as being able to read the code, there would have to be infinite numbers of different, successful, open source business models to fit everyone.
As painful as the present moment is, business wise, I much prefer that people and projects seek their own success. That way the best idea wins.
"Best Idea" isn't just technology. The Beta vs VHS argument usually forgets that while Beta was and is far better technology, it's "closed source" nature is what killed it in the consumer marketplace.
Ah, where to begin. I said such a foul-mouthed blow-hard would have to comport themselves better at work than they do here, in order to earn my employ. You then call me an idiot because you do, in fact, comport yourself better at work than you do here.
I gather from your last two paragraphs that you deliberately hide your identity in order to not sully your otherwise good reputation while being an ass online. I must ask what need you have that is filled by making such a fool of yourself?
Lastly, I wonder why you seem so happy being able to spew hatred, saying things to people that you do not say to their face. Have you ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray? It would seem Oscar Wilde is still relevant reading in the digital world.
No, I'm saying that I wouldn't hire a foul mouthed blow-hard egotist.
Japan still hasn't caught on to the idea of "telecommuting", even with the awful commute traffic, office space costs, &etc., which would allow an individual with no social skills what so ever to be gainfully employed based solely on their engineering savvy.
The fact is that here, you have to be able to play well with others.
All this A.C. would have to do is not to comport themselves on the job as they have here.
The conclusion you jumped to, ascribing any action of mine on a mythical "gut instinct that they MIGHT" anything, says quite a bit about your own interactions with others. Did you have a bad experience with an ignorant manager in your past that is still colouring your perceptions?
Unfortunately, basic personality traits come through in writing style quite clearly, and very quickly.
If these three A.C. postings were actually made by the same person, which seems likely since they're of the same style, you can be mostly assured that you would not in fact ever be an employee of mine.
Self confidence is a good trait, it leads to success. Arrogance overlayed on stupidity usually leads only to profanity.
There is neither night nor holidays on the net as a whole. NetOps is the glue that holds this web together.
I remember a day when our entire NetOps team got scheduled to be in a class together. It was the only time it happened, and "Network Engineering" and "Server Engineering" had to take over for the day.
It was amazing! Our Sparc2 work stations were upgraded to Sparc10's within days, and never again was a request by our manager for additional hardware or support delayed, much less refused!
All it took was that little reminder that the guys in the glass room really, really do have a job to do.
I got lucky, doing network operations on the evening shift in a high-availability 24x7x365 shop for 6 years. "The Holidays" were my best time for making overtime pay, taking shifts for people with kids, or who were on trips.
It earned me the brownie points to be able to take days off the rest of the year without anyone hesitating to say "yes" even when I wanted things like 4-day weekends.
But I'm Japan now. Dec. 24 is the Emporer's birthday, so Monday was a holiday, but Dec. 25th is just another day.
However, NewYears is a really big thing here. For three days there is actually almost nothing open for business. Not stores, not restaurants, not offices, banks, whatever. It's amazing! It's really a good idea to stock up on food, unless you like rice-balls from the local AM-PM which is the only thing open.
But we're back to work on the 4th (Friday), back to normal. A one day work week! I wonder how long it will take them to legislate a one-day work week in France?
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. O'Reilly,
I would like to post a comment to your discussion of "The Obligation To Recycle", but the links to "must be a member" and "comment..." both lead me to "Bad username/password combination" with no way to say, "Of course it's bad, where do I sign up?"
Comment: I believe the real fault has been in the abusive extension of "copyright" enforcement beyond any rational meaning of "limited time". If copyright were given the same weight as patent, 7 years, such problems as the Lotus Improv one addressed in your article would be moot. If intellectual efforts after 7 years moved into the public domain just like physical efforts, we would all benefit.
Especially in computer terms, software more than 7 years old (dare I say two years?) is not something anyone is going to make a profit by keeping closed.
Releasing under GPL has a further problem: Later products from the same company may very well re-use code, so placing the earlier product under the GPL would backstab the later products. I have no wish to hinder people who want to sell closed source software if they so choose.
For centuries "we" have had the public domain for ideas that have run their commercial course. It is time that the extreme efforts of the entertainment lobby that has corrupted copyright, and destroyed the idea of the benefits of public domain, be rolled back.
Yes, Disney would loose their enforcement of a character invented early in the last century. But I would finally be able to put three black circles together any way I wanted to without asking anyone's permission for the first time in my life.
Bob-
I make no "presumption" about the flat files, I state that I consider their use quite effective and "optimal" in my opinion. There is no presumption, because there is nothing "pre" about it. Email programs use flat file, I find that so useful and effective that I consider it "optimal".
.sig, what about not initiating force against others do you consider "not free"?
Netscape 4 uses a "database" structure for its address book, where Netscape 3 used an HTML text document which I could read without running Netscape. I consider this use of plain text to be another "optimal" situation, as opposed to a format which I cannot read with any other program.
As for "guns", if you can support your assertion that passengers with private firearms "would have caused the planes to crash anyway", I would appreciate your insight. Until that time, I consider it just another mass murder in a "gun free zone" where the perps were ensured to have disarmed victims that could not fight back.
Concerning your last paragraph, I will elaborate:
"Other party" means either Republican or Democrat, the "other" from whatever one it is that you are arguing against. It doesn't matter, they're the same party anyway. Basic human rights are dead horses, whipped so often and to such a degree that they are merely a greasy stain on the road, or that the bill of rights and the constitution are not even worth the paper they're printed on when they can be ignored at will. The centralization of the control of security at airports, specifically, ensuring that airlines themselves, their insurance companies, the airports or their insurance companies, or any one else could not adapt security for the particulars of the place and time.
This is not illuminati conspiracy stuff. It requires no more than tens or hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats, over decades of time, each one ensuring they keep their own jobs and increase their control and power each and every time an opportunity to do so came up.
In question about your
Bob-
Yes, the flat text file format is not optimal, but that depends on what your opinion of "Optimal" is. I consider the fact that I am not restricted to any email client in order to read the mail folders to be a really good thing. Quite optimal, actually, since if anything goes wrong I can read the mail without an email client at all.
I don't think it's an odd thing, I think it's a deliberate choice for compatability.
The success of gun control and central planning advocates in ensuring the success of the September 11th attack is a done deal. Those particular restrictions are merely reaching their logical extremes now to no effect what so ever.
Don't worry about "aspects of dictatorship", since the ones you note are already greasy stains on the road. What use is it to continue to advance disamement when there is so much more to do? The other party is so good at disarmement and centralizing of control that the present party doesn't need to address it at this time. And obaying the laws once in a while gives the all the sheen of "legality" while they slip the knives into your back with their other hands.
Bob-
"Histrionics"? Irrelevant. It is still the use of force to advance opinion. And that is wrong.
Beta didn't win because Sony kept it proprietary. The same reason Microchannel didn't win over ISA.
Of course the market is chaotic and irrational, just like people. You might give some thought as to why you are frightened by choice.
Bob-
They taught me by my having used MS software since Dos1.0. Ease of use counts in software presentation, especially to the non-technical. And I will not fault Microsofts efforts to make consistant interfaces, buttons that mean the same thing put in the same places, and the like.
I fault Microsoft quality and stability all day long, and I will gladly sneer at the attitudes which reject anything but Microsoft for erroneous or simplistic (inertia) reasons.
Bob-
Sorry, A.C., not for me. I don't like having to wear earplugs just to drink, and yell to have a conversation.
The latest fad in Tokyo "Living Bars" is very interesting, though. It reminds me of Spider Robinson's comments about Calahan's, "It was lit up like someone's livingroom, since people who like to drink in caves are unstable."
Fact is, I don't drink enough to make a good Tokyo-ite.
Bob-
The "sendmail" issue is what I was trying to address. Exchange/Outlook package is, as has been said, a suite. They work best together.
Everything folks posted about my transposition of "outlook" and "exchange" is valid. I was imprecise. Thanks for the (polite) corrections.
Sigsegv_11 hits the nail on the head, however, in noting that everyone else (other software packages) seem to work together quite well, with no platform dependencies. Which, lame as my attempt might have been, was what I was trying to point out.
Bob-
Thanks Publicus, that makes sense.
Of course, as others here have said, I don't expect much change in shipping rates because of the change in bundling rules, MS will simply find another way to make sure that 99.999% of machines ship with the Latest Windows.
Bob-
Sterio AM didn't survive because people didn't want it. This is a "failure"?
I am looking forward to the discussion on HDTV to see if anyone has a good reason to go buy it. Is wiz-bang enough, like sterio AM wasn't, to support the cost to producers and consumers to re-tool?
Since the FCC is using force to make people change, the only producer/consumer decision is "when". This is a failure, it reduces real choice into someone elses idea of right and wrong.
If you wouldn't stand that choice being made for you about religion, why do you support that choice being made for you about TV?
Does the preference for Windows make the (percieved IMHO) monopoly status of Microsoft right? Does your preference for the mandates of the FCC make their use of force right? Maybe in your eyes it does. Die, infadel, in the holy name of Alah!
Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure what wireless communication technology would be like without the FCC, because they have so hamstrung and restricted innovation for so long. However, I have in my pocket a Japanese cell phone from 3 years ago, so small, light and useful compared to the "American" versions of a technology the Americans invented.
One reason is because of the frequency restrictions that the FCC, in their infinite and perfect judgement for the betterment of mankind, placed on cellphones.
You may disagree with what specific technology is best, in fact I enjoy such discussions. Just be glad you're disagreeing with me, and not the FCC, because if you disagree with them you go to jail.
Bob-
Please insert here the usual factual, rational and well considered argument that the FCC only hinders real innovation without adding any benefits.
The FCC: Another monopoly, another failure. No surprise.
Bob-
Yes. A couple hundred helpless, disarmed, law abiding individuals held hostage then killed by thugs out-numbered 5 and more to 1, who happened to have box-cutters.
The passengers on Flight 93 fought back, saved lives, and died anyway. They deserve hero status.
One citizen with their own firearms on any of those flights would have saved the lives of that plane, at least, and more likely hundreds or thousands of lives since 3 of the 4 planes reached their destinations.
Every advocate of gun control has the blood of those who died in the September 11th attack on their hands. Oh, but the hypocritical cries from those same mouths now for "air martials" to (surprise surprise) carry GUNS on airplanes to defend them from terrorists...
Oh, save me save me from the folly of my belief in victim disarmement, but what ever you do don't challange my assumptions!
You cowards make me sick, and endanger my life and others with your cowardice.
Bob-
f you give Red Hat the market share that MS has right now, do you really think they would be as bad as MS??
Of course! Power corrupts!
Bob-
Back in 1997 running Samba, I didn't find any problem with 'seamless integration' for my two Windows game (mostly) machines to use the Linux box as server, or for the Linux box to work perfectly well along side of the other two as a peer machine.
If I may elaborate on your point, I think you mean "seamless MS-Office integration."
It takes a serious shift of my perception to think of MS-Exchange as "email". It's an email CLIENT, one of many. So is Netscape Mail. So is elm. Elm doesn't read Netscape Mail folders (ok, maybe it does for someone who wants to take the time, but we're talking seamless here), that doesn't stop someone from using elm to "seamlessly" talk with someone in the same office using Netscape Mail.
MS-Office is a monolithic group-ware package that works (well? at all?) only with itself. As such, there never can be "seamless integration" because Microsoft doesn't want there to be.
Microsoft has won the perception battle with MS-Office. Many managers think that in order to be compatable with anyone else, they must use MS-Office, and that only runs on MS-Win.
If "we" are going to open the desktop market, "we" must change that perception. I am very, very glad to see OpenOffice, KDE-Office, and all the other suites being built. The Noosphere is being homesteaded at the office application layer, and I couldn't be happier.
BTW, my last two jobs have been in shops where the one and only reason they use MS-Win is because they are entrenched into using MS-Office.
Bob-
Ok, can anyone explain what this guy meant by loosening of Microsoft licensing?
As far as I can tell, one wave which Linux could ride is the tide of greater restrictions of the Microsoft license, like the XP configuration dependent "activation" concept. Swap your video card, loose your OS license!
Bob-
The other half is because people have ignorantly abrogated their responsibility for prosecuting their own loss.
If just ONE of those companies that "lost billions" had prosecuted the perp themselves, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
But no, we sit here and decry how "law enforcement is overworked" to do all the prosecuting for us. And in those places where medical service is also government provided? Gee, the same discussion, how "medical providers are overworked".
Maybe the pattern this obvious to me is obvious to others. Has anyone who claims to have lost money gone after a virus writer? Anyone? Any company? Any organization?
The negative effects of abrogating your physical security to "law enforcement" is well known. There is very little argument that even the best firewall does not eliminate the requirement that individual PC's and servers be individually hardened.
Yet with all this emphasis on distributed defense, there is not a distributed offence against these virus writers?
Bob-
You Silly! WINE is not an emulator! (n/t)
The power of "open source" is its diversity and parallel nature.
Admittedly, if every open source project had a profitable business model, that would be an answer that fit every projects problem.
Since differences between projects is as much an attribute of open source as being able to read the code, there would have to be infinite numbers of different, successful, open source business models to fit everyone.
As painful as the present moment is, business wise, I much prefer that people and projects seek their own success. That way the best idea wins.
"Best Idea" isn't just technology. The Beta vs VHS argument usually forgets that while Beta was and is far better technology, it's "closed source" nature is what killed it in the consumer marketplace.
There's a lesson to us all.
Joyous solstace, all.
Bob-
Ah, where to begin. I said such a foul-mouthed blow-hard would have to comport themselves better at work than they do here, in order to earn my employ. You then call me an idiot because you do, in fact, comport yourself better at work than you do here.
I gather from your last two paragraphs that you deliberately hide your identity in order to not sully your otherwise good reputation while being an ass online. I must ask what need you have that is filled by making such a fool of yourself?
Lastly, I wonder why you seem so happy being able to spew hatred, saying things to people that you do not say to their face. Have you ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray? It would seem Oscar Wilde is still relevant reading in the digital world.
Bob-
No, I'm saying that I wouldn't hire a foul mouthed blow-hard egotist.
Japan still hasn't caught on to the idea of "telecommuting", even with the awful commute traffic, office space costs, &etc., which would allow an individual with no social skills what so ever to be gainfully employed based solely on their engineering savvy.
The fact is that here, you have to be able to play well with others.
All this A.C. would have to do is not to comport themselves on the job as they have here.
The conclusion you jumped to, ascribing any action of mine on a mythical "gut instinct that they MIGHT" anything, says quite a bit about your own interactions with others. Did you have a bad experience with an ignorant manager in your past that is still colouring your perceptions?
Bob-
...to the NSA Secure Linux project.
/., yes it's open source, yes you can read about it on www.nsa.gov)
Bob-
(Yes, it's been written up on
Dear A.C.,
Unfortunately, basic personality traits come through in writing style quite clearly, and very quickly.
If these three A.C. postings were actually made by the same person, which seems likely since they're of the same style, you can be mostly assured that you would not in fact ever be an employee of mine.
Self confidence is a good trait, it leads to success. Arrogance overlayed on stupidity usually leads only to profanity.
Bob-
There is neither night nor holidays on the net as a whole. NetOps is the glue that holds this web together.
I remember a day when our entire NetOps team got scheduled to be in a class together. It was the only time it happened, and "Network Engineering" and "Server Engineering" had to take over for the day.
It was amazing! Our Sparc2 work stations were upgraded to Sparc10's within days, and never again was a request by our manager for additional hardware or support delayed, much less refused!
All it took was that little reminder that the guys in the glass room really, really do have a job to do.
Bob-
I got lucky, doing network operations on the evening shift in a high-availability 24x7x365 shop for 6 years. "The Holidays" were my best time for making overtime pay, taking shifts for people with kids, or who were on trips.
It earned me the brownie points to be able to take days off the rest of the year without anyone hesitating to say "yes" even when I wanted things like 4-day weekends.
But I'm Japan now. Dec. 24 is the Emporer's birthday, so Monday was a holiday, but Dec. 25th is just another day.
However, NewYears is a really big thing here. For three days there is actually almost nothing open for business. Not stores, not restaurants, not offices, banks, whatever. It's amazing! It's really a good idea to stock up on food, unless you like rice-balls from the local AM-PM which is the only thing open.
But we're back to work on the 4th (Friday), back to normal. A one day work week! I wonder how long it will take them to legislate a one-day work week in France?
Bob-
Such things are already happening. Pick one, support it, add some value, make it what you want.
Do the one essential thing that E.S.R. mentions in Cathedral and Bazaar: Scratch your personal itch.
If printing is what is important to you, do something about it.
Bob-
Here it is, 3rd party vendors supporting the OS. And it (is supposed to) just work(s)!
I'm seriously impressed. Lexmark just went up to the front of the line in my future printer purchases if for no other reason than this.
Bob-