It is perfectly understandable for a business to avoid spending a lot of money building a Linux-specific version.
However - what they should do is add Wine as one of their officially supported "windows" platforms. For example, they can guarantee that a stock Ubuntu 10.04 desktop will be able to load their software with just one pre-requisite: apt-get install wine.
I have been waiting in anticipation for ATI's driver to be usable. I play Warcraft and use VDPAU so I will unfortunately have a tough time being an early adopter:(
Ubuntu does the best job of a simple consistent desktop, and their installer "just works".
Linux Mint is my favorite - it is 99.9% Ubuntu, but out of the box they install DVD support, media codecs, Flash, Java, and have a more Windows-like start menu.
Same thing happened to me, I bought a DVR after I had been a customer for many years. A year after I bought the DVR I switched to Dish but DirecTV wanted to bill me for another year of service. I still get calls about it and that was like 4 years ago.
I did a little bit of research, but it didn't seem like a good open source platform to play with. I couldn't find a site with publicly downloadable dev tools and there were app-store-like restrictions. If it isn't any better than my Motorola Ming (cool phone in its day but a huge disappointment) then why bother?
As a hard core open source advocate, I don't see any reason to use Android - I am going to wait for the Nokia N900 to compare.
I don't even have time to respond to the original poster. Most of his complains are just completely ridiculous - and many (such as differences between distros) are a strength rather than a weakness!
The only valid complaint about Linux is that maybe it takes some time to learn a new OS (same as if you jumped from Windows to Mac) and the lack of native app support (Wine/Crossover/Cedega covers 99% of this problem).
I haven't read the whole article, but the issue that the poster mentioned - sound hardware problems - are simply not a valid complaint when it comes to mass market Linux.
Mac & Windows generally come pre-installed on compatible hardware. If you try something like the Dell Ubuntu models things work great. It is a miracle that Ubuntu runs so well on the range of hardware that it supports - I would like to see Mac do that.
For businesses, I can certainly understand the appeal of a BSD style license. The problem is that you will potentially end up with a situation like what we have with Apple - all of the work that went into BSD was stolen by Apple and Macs don't allow proper code sharing.
As an end user, I always want true GPL software so that I know it will be mine forever.
If I were developing software to integrate with some proprietary code, that would obviously make the decision a little more painful. Unless one is willing to make the full RMS kinds of sacrifices for freedom, the occasional BSD style of license will be required.
This is trivial, I use dvdbackup to do this. It is especially easy if you start with Linux Mint which pre-installs all of the dvd decryption and codecs you will need.
I went through this same agony a few years ago, and I ended up with an mencoder command line that does a good job.
The only problem is that it can't auto detect the media you are encoding, which is mainly a problem with frame rates. e.g. some are 30000/1001 and some are 24000/1001.
Under no circumstances should you bill for bandwidth used - this kind of gotcha capitalism is immoral.
You should, however, set up multiple tiers of service. For example, the entry level can be 256 kilobits a second, and for a little more money allow 640kbits etc etc. I would also do some limited QoS to limit the 256k users to maybe 128k if there is a lot of traffic.
It is ridiculous that we let the telcos drag their feet so much.
We need to understand the failure of the Clinton/Gore attempt to wire the country with fiber, and make it happen for real. This will mean a lot of shared sacrifice for the local phone monopolies.
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What happened, did you bring Hemos back or something? He was always the worst for this kind of nonsense.
It is an interesting fact, no two multi-earth-sized snowflakes are identical.
It is perfectly understandable for a business to avoid spending a lot of money building a Linux-specific version.
However - what they should do is add Wine as one of their officially supported "windows" platforms. For example, they can guarantee that a stock Ubuntu 10.04 desktop will be able to load their software with just one pre-requisite: apt-get install wine.
Mark
They license per-core, so more cores per CPU can be more costly.
I have been waiting in anticipation for ATI's driver to be usable. I play Warcraft and use VDPAU so I will unfortunately have a tough time being an early adopter :(
https://www.sendside.com
Secure document management, electronic signatures, and many other features, using a SaaS model like Salesforce
Ubuntu does the best job of a simple consistent desktop, and their installer "just works".
Linux Mint is my favorite - it is 99.9% Ubuntu, but out of the box they install DVD support, media codecs, Flash, Java, and have a more Windows-like start menu.
They were just a smaller laptop. Certainly, blurring the lines is going to happen.
Same thing happened to me, I bought a DVR after I had been a customer for many years. A year after I bought the DVR I switched to Dish but DirecTV wanted to bill me for another year of service. I still get calls about it and that was like 4 years ago.
These guys are just weaselly in general.
No weird problems like this at all. I didn't do an upgrade though, it was a fresh Alpha 5 install.
I will never do an operating system upgrade - it seems too risky.
These were engineered to last forever and parts are cheap & plentiful on eBay
Downside - big & ugly, my wife hates it.
I did a little bit of research, but it didn't seem like a good open source platform to play with. I couldn't find a site with publicly downloadable dev tools and there were app-store-like restrictions. If it isn't any better than my Motorola Ming (cool phone in its day but a huge disappointment) then why bother?
As a hard core open source advocate, I don't see any reason to use Android - I am going to wait for the Nokia N900 to compare.
I would expect that the BSD product is similar in design - basically chroot on steroids.
I don't even have time to respond to the original poster. Most of his complains are just completely ridiculous - and many (such as differences between distros) are a strength rather than a weakness!
The only valid complaint about Linux is that maybe it takes some time to learn a new OS (same as if you jumped from Windows to Mac) and the lack of native app support (Wine/Crossover/Cedega covers 99% of this problem).
I haven't read the whole article, but the issue that the poster mentioned - sound hardware problems - are simply not a valid complaint when it comes to mass market Linux.
Mac & Windows generally come pre-installed on compatible hardware. If you try something like the Dell Ubuntu models things work great. It is a miracle that Ubuntu runs so well on the range of hardware that it supports - I would like to see Mac do that.
YouTube videos are depressingly awful. They should allow users to submit high quality videos and charge extra for them. I would pay $10/mo for it.
For businesses, I can certainly understand the appeal of a BSD style license. The problem is that you will potentially end up with a situation like what we have with Apple - all of the work that went into BSD was stolen by Apple and Macs don't allow proper code sharing.
As an end user, I always want true GPL software so that I know it will be mine forever.
If I were developing software to integrate with some proprietary code, that would obviously make the decision a little more painful. Unless one is willing to make the full RMS kinds of sacrifices for freedom, the occasional BSD style of license will be required.
This is trivial, I use dvdbackup to do this. It is especially easy if you start with Linux Mint which pre-installs all of the dvd decryption and codecs you will need.
I went through this same agony a few years ago, and I ended up with an mencoder command line that does a good job.
The only problem is that it can't auto detect the media you are encoding, which is mainly a problem with frame rates. e.g. some are 30000/1001 and some are 24000/1001.
Under no circumstances should you bill for bandwidth used - this kind of gotcha capitalism is immoral.
You should, however, set up multiple tiers of service. For example, the entry level can be 256 kilobits a second, and for a little more money allow 640kbits etc etc. I would also do some limited QoS to limit the 256k users to maybe 128k if there is a lot of traffic.
Just don't have surcharges for bandwitch usage.
Sadly, without the ability to get HD channels like Discovery, HBO, etc, these boxes will always be at a serious disadvantage.
It is ridiculous that we let the telcos drag their feet so much.
We need to understand the failure of the Clinton/Gore attempt to wire the country with fiber, and make it happen for real. This will mean a lot of shared sacrifice for the local phone monopolies.
There is no way to prevent someone from doing something like taking a photo of all the pages on a screen and sending them to someone.
However, a product like Sendside will let you track everyone who receives, opens, and forwards a message that you send.
If you are really paranoid you can use encryption on the document and make all recipients provide their own encryption keys.
You are better off getting a 4 year degree. In retrospect, I wish I had.
However, I never got a degree and I am doing OK. 6 figure salary and all the side project hours I could want doing interesting Linux stuff.
Not having a degree definitely closes some doors, but experience trumps a degree in this line of work.
Usually I have a ton of squishy rotten apples in my yard right around Halloween, but this year I didn't have to pick up any.
I'm not sure if the Utah climate was just weird this year.