Actually, asshole, the Bill of Rights gives us the right to disagree with your opinion. So next time you suggest that Americans shut up if they disagree with you, why don't YOU go buy a ticket to some country that punishes anyone who doesn't agree with the party line, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
It's far more patriotic to state your opinion and risk being wrong, than to suppress an opinion and risk losing the ability to express it.
The whole article reads as if it were being announced by some bubble-headed bleach blond on the evening news. Such a happy, chirpy little article about the potential death of a company. We should all be sent to our graves with such an obit.
</sarcasm>
At least it's speld kerekkly.
</end cheap shot at/.'ers who are able to re-wire an HD in the dark while being poked with a sharp stick repeatedly, and yet couldn't spell if you offered them a week with a harem of supermodels, excepting the parent post who apparently does know how to spell and this post in which it was intentional.>
Even if I was running the world's most insecure operating system, which waved it's little electronic "tool" in the face of every hacker, skript-kiddie, and 733t-wannabe out there on a continual basis...
THERE IS NO WAY I AM GOING TO RUN GOVERNMENT MANDATED SOFTWARE ON ANY COMPUTER I OWN.
I will destroy my computers first, as painful as it might be.
Lewis - you lost me. What was the original point of your post? To suggest that Linux distributor sue Microsoft or the hardware distributors?
Either way, I fail to see how that would actually help, since Linux distributors are not kept out of the market. There are a multitude of other channels by which a consumer can obtain a Linux-based computer, some of whom even use reverse-discrimination by not selling Microsoft-powered machines. If the Linux distributors have a valid lawsuit against Microsoft, then in turn Microsoft has a valid lawsuit against Penguin, since they are being kept out Penguin's market. Guess who could afford to win that one?
I think all those years of lawyering have gone to your head and made you lawsuit-happy, but that is my opinion, and I could be wrong. Worse things have happened.
Your first option is a "no-go" because customers expect support after the sale. Saying "no support is provided" is a really good way of generating a whole lot of ill-will with your customers.
Selling the machine with no operating system might work, except that one would only be able to provide support if the hardware was clearly malfunctioning. About the best you can say is "it was working when it left the factory." Again, another good way to generate ill-will.
Finally, why would one bother buying a OS-less Dell, when equivalent performance can be had for less money by buying from a local supplier, with superior support?
Dell's function in the market is to sell a large number of homogenous machines, regardless of OS. To so requires that one set a standard base package, which they have done.
Whining about the fact that they don't sell Linux just makes you look like a whiner, not a winner.
At what point are you forcing someone to distribute a product for which they make no profit?
Consider - if I am selling software A, which is comparable to software YB, but the the demand for software A is 1000x the demand for software B, then why should I be forced to sell software B?
If the cost of support for software B outweighs the returns, then your lawsuit mere forces me into a losing proposition and I will eventually go out of business.
I would suggest that you sue Dell to find out what the actual demand for Linux-based servers and desktops was. I bet you will find that it probably didn't cover the potential costs of providing support for those installations, REGARDLESS of the contractual obligations to Microsoft. While several vocal/.'ers might have wanted a Dell Linux box, they can hardly be considered a representative market since they are such a small percentage in comparison to the rest of the population.
There is a point in business in which you have to say "I will not provide services for some customers" because the actual return is not worth the effort expended. You write that market segment off and watch to see if the numbers improve. If so, then you add it back in.
Personally, I think the market for Linux in the US is going to be fixed at a little above current levels for a while (for desktops mainly). There's not anything "new and different" coming out for that platform that can attract the average user (ie., no killer app). Most of the software being produced seems to be platform-specific rehashes of other stuff. Moreover, most of the desktop distributions are available for free for the people that absolutely have to have it. There is no real incentive to pay for them (ie., if you don't pay, you don't get it legally).
On the other hand, I could be wrong. Worse things have happenend.
Well, if you're really a cynic, fraud IS worse than murder.
Murder causes the cessation of life (a horrible act in and of itself) but one which carries no further consequences for the victim, since he/she/it has no further earthly concerns.
On the other hand, fraud hurts the victim for an indefinitely long period of time, since he/she/it still has earthly concerns and obligations that must be met in order to maintain some standard of living.
So perhaps our priorities are wrong: economic crimes should be capital crimes, and murder should be the lesser of the two.
If you want to get really cynical about it, the murderer has actually done the victim a favor, since the world and everyone in it are worthless bags of intemperately violent meat.
But if I said that, then I'd be condoning murder.
Re:Does anyone actually use windows ME?
on
QuickTime 6 Is Out
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
You mean like Linux? Like OSX?
(Cool your jets, I use all three at some point during the day).
Re:Does anyone actually use windows ME?
on
QuickTime 6 Is Out
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Even Win95 users are laughing at you for that. ME should have been called "Mistaken Edition" for combining the worst aspects of Win98 and Win2K into one horrible mishmash that makes Win3.1 users feel superior.
Why should they? IBM has narrowed their field of interest down to the server - for that you need a GUI? You might need it on the terminals used to monitor the system, but you don't need a gui for that.
Because Apple is a corporate entity, whereas Open Source is a philosophy?
If you consider the makeup of the board, only IBM has any kind of direct interest in Linux and I really don't think they want Linux for it's amazing leaps forward in GUI design.
The remainder of the board all have their own fish to fry and none of them are direct contributors to Linux, AFAIK.
So, boys and girls, time to nut up and get some corporation to back the OpenGL initiative on Linux, which means someone's gonna have to make some bucks off it somewhere to cover the cost of all that politicking.
A serious question here: why does anyone "need" to learn about alternate OS'es?
I ask because in order to get this message across you need to use an argument that has more meaning than "stopping the MS hegemony" or to "create choice". There needs to be a reason than people can actually personally relate to, such as "because we have the best quilting design software" or "because we provide the easiest-to-configure internet access".
It's easy to convince as/.'er - just throw out a few neat acronyms, flame some other OS, and claim to be the latest-and-greatest-but-still-in-development. But that may only impress 10% of the market.
What about the other 90% who just want the damn thing to work most of the time without too much hassle? What do you offer them?
I wasn't speaking about the effects of any particular drug - make them all legal regardless of effect.
"Alcoholization" refers to the manner in which intoxication offenses would be handled. Someone who committed a crime on methamphetamines would be handled the same way that someone who commits a crime on alcohol would be. Primarily, this would be aimed at motorists, although it does come into play in other areas.
I suggest that alcoholization of all drugs would be very effective at solving the problem of abuse. Many hardcore users would overdose and die, thus removing themselves from the gene pool. Many people would not ever do them, they aren't a concern. Casual users could choose to remain casual users, quit, or become hardcore users (see previous effects).
There would be a period of adjustment while society worked its way out of a dark age. But in the end, it may be the only way.
No, it's not particularly kind. But draconian methods may be the only way out of the current mess.
Yeah, I probably should have left that out. Personally, I prefer the Mac interface over KDE, which I prefer over Gnome. Both of the latter look and feel enough like Windows that it bugs me.
I just wish someone could come up with something really different to kind of kickstart ideas.
Enforced consistency would also be nice.
Re:Magic Was Never Designed For This Business Mode
on
Why Magic Online Will Suck
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The expense is the reason I gave up on MtG. After dropping about $200 on cards, I realized that it was going to cost way too much to ever keep up. Mind you, I spent some of it about 1 tournament before some of my cards became unusable.
The tournament system was ridiculous in our area. It was the same people over and over, with no qualified judge, because WotC wanted way too much time and money to certify someone. Our nearest official judge in Lubbock, TX - which meant a three hour drive for him just to sit around and arbitrate. I don't think he ever really enjoyed it and in the end, I believe he quit working as a judge.
In the end, I watched the Magic community in our town switch over to other games. It stopped being fun and the requirements of running a real tournament were too high. I think the main discouragement for me was realizing that the point system in place meant that no one from our group was ever going to get outside the county (anyone from our group would have been OK).
I don't get it - competition can be fun without being as anally organized as WotC made it. They managed to take a game that looked great and played pretty well and turn it into some sort worldwide bizarre Darwinistic system. For what? Grins? I doubt it.
I think that maybe DnD and most paper-and-pencil RPG's are more fun because you can't make a tournament system work in that way. In the end, I went back to my book games and that's where I am now.
You're running up against the weight of history on the Mac GUI, which so far has proven pretty successful. Most of the common commands are accessible via keystroke and are the same in every program. Multiple desktops is not a huge requirement with Mac users, nor is the configurable look.
The one part I don't get is "Any experienced programmer would instantly fear 'an easy-to-use, approachable, English-like language'". Why? Because it's not arcane enough? Because people might actually understand what you're doing?
Are you arguing that because these people have a different history from ours basic ideals like free speech and the free exchange of ideas shouldn't be important to them?
Actually, to assume that they should value the same ideals as we do is arrogance at it highest level. All of our values are predicated on the fact that we are descendants (generally) of Europeans, with a strong Christian influence on our ideas and philosophy. Asians and others on that portion of the continent are descendants of a philosophy that bears almost no resemblance to ours.
It is more natural to assume that their ideals would be completely different to us. In Western philosophy, we emphasize the value of the individual, which leads to the ideals of free speech and non-violent exchange of ideas to reduce conflict. Eastern philosophies assume the opposite, that individual action disturbs the natural order and leads to conflict.
So the fact that they don't value free speech and exchange of ideas doesn't particularly bother me. Apparently, neither of those values is absolutely essential to survival as a species.
Slashdot Mirror
He says that like it's something bad. Hey, if I get a European email address, does that mean I won't get spammed?
Sign me up!
Actually, asshole, the Bill of Rights gives us the right to disagree with your opinion. So next time you suggest that Americans shut up if they disagree with you, why don't YOU go buy a ticket to some country that punishes anyone who doesn't agree with the party line, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
It's far more patriotic to state your opinion and risk being wrong, than to suppress an opinion and risk losing the ability to express it.
The whole article reads as if it were being announced by some bubble-headed bleach blond on the evening news. Such a happy, chirpy little article about the potential death of a company. We should all be sent to our graves with such an obit.
/.'ers who are able to re-wire an HD in the dark while being poked with a sharp stick repeatedly, and yet couldn't spell if you offered them a week with a harem of supermodels, excepting the parent post who apparently does know how to spell and this post in which it was intentional.>
</sarcasm>
At least it's speld kerekkly.
</end cheap shot at
Even if I was running the world's most insecure operating system, which waved it's little electronic "tool" in the face of every hacker, skript-kiddie, and 733t-wannabe out there on a continual basis ...
THERE IS NO WAY I AM GOING TO RUN GOVERNMENT MANDATED SOFTWARE ON ANY COMPUTER I OWN.
I will destroy my computers first, as painful as it might be.
That is my final word on this subject.
Except that you're preaching to the choir on /.
BSOD jokes here, on this forum, are pointless.
Lewis - you lost me. What was the original point of your post? To suggest that Linux distributor sue Microsoft or the hardware distributors?
Either way, I fail to see how that would actually help, since Linux distributors are not kept out of the market. There are a multitude of other channels by which a consumer can obtain a Linux-based computer, some of whom even use reverse-discrimination by not selling Microsoft-powered machines. If the Linux distributors have a valid lawsuit against Microsoft, then in turn Microsoft has a valid lawsuit against Penguin, since they are being kept out Penguin's market. Guess who could afford to win that one?
I think all those years of lawyering have gone to your head and made you lawsuit-happy, but that is my opinion, and I could be wrong. Worse things have happened.
Your first option is a "no-go" because customers expect support after the sale. Saying "no support is provided" is a really good way of generating a whole lot of ill-will with your customers.
Selling the machine with no operating system might work, except that one would only be able to provide support if the hardware was clearly malfunctioning. About the best you can say is "it was working when it left the factory." Again, another good way to generate ill-will.
Finally, why would one bother buying a OS-less Dell, when equivalent performance can be had for less money by buying from a local supplier, with superior support?
Dell's function in the market is to sell a large number of homogenous machines, regardless of OS. To so requires that one set a standard base package, which they have done.
Whining about the fact that they don't sell Linux just makes you look like a whiner, not a winner.
(sorry, couldn't resist).
At what point are you forcing someone to distribute a product for which they make no profit?
/.'ers might have wanted a Dell Linux box, they can hardly be considered a representative market since they are such a small percentage in comparison to the rest of the population.
Consider - if I am selling software A, which is comparable to software YB, but the the demand for software A is 1000x the demand for software B, then why should I be forced to sell software B?
If the cost of support for software B outweighs the returns, then your lawsuit mere forces me into a losing proposition and I will eventually go out of business.
I would suggest that you sue Dell to find out what the actual demand for Linux-based servers and desktops was. I bet you will find that it probably didn't cover the potential costs of providing support for those installations, REGARDLESS of the contractual obligations to Microsoft. While several vocal
There is a point in business in which you have to say "I will not provide services for some customers" because the actual return is not worth the effort expended. You write that market segment off and watch to see if the numbers improve. If so, then you add it back in.
Personally, I think the market for Linux in the US is going to be fixed at a little above current levels for a while (for desktops mainly). There's not anything "new and different" coming out for that platform that can attract the average user (ie., no killer app). Most of the software being produced seems to be platform-specific rehashes of other stuff. Moreover, most of the desktop distributions are available for free for the people that absolutely have to have it. There is no real incentive to pay for them (ie., if you don't pay, you don't get it legally).
On the other hand, I could be wrong. Worse things have happenend.
But with fraud, everyone suffers - victim, family, all those nice people surrounding them, etc.
Kill 'em all. Don't sort them out.
Well, if you're really a cynic, fraud IS worse than murder.
Murder causes the cessation of life (a horrible act in and of itself) but one which carries no further consequences for the victim, since he/she/it has no further earthly concerns.
On the other hand, fraud hurts the victim for an indefinitely long period of time, since he/she/it still has earthly concerns and obligations that must be met in order to maintain some standard of living.
So perhaps our priorities are wrong: economic crimes should be capital crimes, and murder should be the lesser of the two.
If you want to get really cynical about it, the murderer has actually done the victim a favor, since the world and everyone in it are worthless bags of intemperately violent meat.
But if I said that, then I'd be condoning murder.
You mean like Linux? Like OSX?
(Cool your jets, I use all three at some point during the day).
Even Win95 users are laughing at you for that. ME should have been called "Mistaken Edition" for combining the worst aspects of Win98 and Win2K into one horrible mishmash that makes Win3.1 users feel superior.
It some asshole capitalizing on people who can't spel kurrectly. It's almost as obnoxious as namesquatting.
If they don't, then they should.
Why should they? IBM has narrowed their field of interest down to the server - for that you need a GUI? You might need it on the terminals used to monitor the system, but you don't need a gui for that.
So what's the technique for pounding in nails with one blow (if it can be adequately explained without a visual reference)?
Because Apple is a corporate entity, whereas Open Source is a philosophy?
If you consider the makeup of the board, only IBM has any kind of direct interest in Linux and I really don't think they want Linux for it's amazing leaps forward in GUI design.
The remainder of the board all have their own fish to fry and none of them are direct contributors to Linux, AFAIK.
So, boys and girls, time to nut up and get some corporation to back the OpenGL initiative on Linux, which means someone's gonna have to make some bucks off it somewhere to cover the cost of all that politicking.
A serious question here: why does anyone "need" to learn about alternate OS'es?
/.'er - just throw out a few neat acronyms, flame some other OS, and claim to be the latest-and-greatest-but-still-in-development. But that may only impress 10% of the market.
I ask because in order to get this message across you need to use an argument that has more meaning than "stopping the MS hegemony" or to "create choice". There needs to be a reason than people can actually personally relate to, such as "because we have the best quilting design software" or "because we provide the easiest-to-configure internet access".
It's easy to convince as
What about the other 90% who just want the damn thing to work most of the time without too much hassle? What do you offer them?
I wasn't speaking about the effects of any particular drug - make them all legal regardless of effect.
"Alcoholization" refers to the manner in which intoxication offenses would be handled. Someone who committed a crime on methamphetamines would be handled the same way that someone who commits a crime on alcohol would be. Primarily, this would be aimed at motorists, although it does come into play in other areas.
I suggest that alcoholization of all drugs would be very effective at solving the problem of abuse. Many hardcore users would overdose and die, thus removing themselves from the gene pool. Many people would not ever do them, they aren't a concern. Casual users could choose to remain casual users, quit, or become hardcore users (see previous effects).
There would be a period of adjustment while society worked its way out of a dark age. But in the end, it may be the only way.
No, it's not particularly kind. But draconian methods may be the only way out of the current mess.
I just did the same to /. ;)
Yeah, I probably should have left that out. Personally, I prefer the Mac interface over KDE, which I prefer over Gnome. Both of the latter look and feel enough like Windows that it bugs me.
I just wish someone could come up with something really different to kind of kickstart ideas.
Enforced consistency would also be nice.
The expense is the reason I gave up on MtG. After dropping about $200 on cards, I realized that it was going to cost way too much to ever keep up. Mind you, I spent some of it about 1 tournament before some of my cards became unusable.
The tournament system was ridiculous in our area. It was the same people over and over, with no qualified judge, because WotC wanted way too much time and money to certify someone. Our nearest official judge in Lubbock, TX - which meant a three hour drive for him just to sit around and arbitrate. I don't think he ever really enjoyed it and in the end, I believe he quit working as a judge.
In the end, I watched the Magic community in our town switch over to other games. It stopped being fun and the requirements of running a real tournament were too high. I think the main discouragement for me was realizing that the point system in place meant that no one from our group was ever going to get outside the county (anyone from our group would have been OK).
I don't get it - competition can be fun without being as anally organized as WotC made it. They managed to take a game that looked great and played pretty well and turn it into some sort worldwide bizarre Darwinistic system. For what? Grins? I doubt it.
I think that maybe DnD and most paper-and-pencil RPG's are more fun because you can't make a tournament system work in that way. In the end, I went back to my book games and that's where I am now.
Never again.
You're running up against the weight of history on the Mac GUI, which so far has proven pretty successful. Most of the common commands are accessible via keystroke and are the same in every program. Multiple desktops is not a huge requirement with Mac users, nor is the configurable look.
The one part I don't get is "Any experienced programmer would instantly fear 'an easy-to-use, approachable, English-like language'". Why? Because it's not arcane enough? Because people might actually understand what you're doing?
Go work on your own interface. Leave ours alone.
Are you arguing that because these people have a different history from ours basic ideals like free speech and the free exchange of ideas shouldn't be important to them?
Actually, to assume that they should value the same ideals as we do is arrogance at it highest level. All of our values are predicated on the fact that we are descendants (generally) of Europeans, with a strong Christian influence on our ideas and philosophy. Asians and others on that portion of the continent are descendants of a philosophy that bears almost no resemblance to ours.
It is more natural to assume that their ideals would be completely different to us. In Western philosophy, we emphasize the value of the individual, which leads to the ideals of free speech and non-violent exchange of ideas to reduce conflict. Eastern philosophies assume the opposite, that individual action disturbs the natural order and leads to conflict.
So the fact that they don't value free speech and exchange of ideas doesn't particularly bother me. Apparently, neither of those values is absolutely essential to survival as a species.
So taking property owned by others, if they are no longer using it, is justified? At what point does this stop?
"Oh, yeah. This house wasn't being used by the owner, so I just took it over." "Hey, this car's just sitting here. So I borrowed it."
I fail to see any difference between your rhetoric and the spew of a common criminal.