Of course, but the interesting thing is why this isn't as successful a strategy as it seems: unless the field of the application is narrow and specialized, it only guarantees the visibility of a competitor FOSS project. The only way to effectively strangle the field is to own all of the ideas, and this is a lot rarer and more difficult than many assume. A good 80% of software is about the usability of an idea, not the idea itself, which is more generic.
Companies which are resorting to this tactic are in a corner: they cannot innovate at this speed, and their market leverage is weak. Mergers acquisitions and patent deals are all about fake growth. It's a classic short-term strategy, and always leads to self-strangulation. Ironically, this will lead to open-sourcing the problem again.
They don't know what they're buying. They think if they buy an open-source company they're getting "open-source". They don't get a free community unless they understand it. They dont get the product they think they're getting. Software companies have been trying to make their customers be unpaid beta testers for years and frequently they think this is a cheaper shortcut to that end. They waste the community's effort. This isn't just the case with FOSS, it's generally the case with most company acquisitions, it's just more obviously idiotic with FOSS.
Seriously, when WoW players are keeping the PC revolution alive by buying new hardware to cut lag down, a port to console is inconceivable. Nor do I see silly amounts of money being thrown at Blizzard by console manufacturers for such a port. This is obviously a joke story.
Statement:
There's also the problem of the "observer effect," which is potentially changing an environment being part of it. "This is the important part for Microsoft," he said. "We have an impact from what people call the ripple effect... What would actually happen if we were in that environment?"
Translation: Dammit, we reacted badly to the OSS movement and too many people noticed. Now we have to fight that perception as well as OSS itself.
Reaction: zomg mindshare is leaking...but we can't let them know that...but they know we know that they know we know...arghhh!!
For those like me who through illness have had practically no enamel on their teeth and have had to have numerous fluoride treatments which have a limited success rate, this treatment could be the difference between keeping my existing teeth or no teeth at all within a decade.
I only wish it was available 5 years ago before I had to lose 6 teeth. I only wish I had perfect sparklies so I wasn't so self-conscious.
For a less charitable view, see here http://www.linuxandmain.com/features/challenger.ht ml/ It is instructive to compare the two articles. They were a litle more forthcoming about the fate of the Columbia astronauts.
Man, has to be the biggest thing I ever saw, swallowing up sober journals like BusinessWeek. The metoo's are clustered around adoringly because he hasn't said BOOGA WOOGA this week...
They're going to run out of progressive musicians one of these days. Personally I was hoping for David Byrne, he could have done a great Hasta La Vista tune.
Icahn, who has said he is waging an "all-out proxy battle" to force Time Warner to step up asset sales and streamline, cited a recent report by Goldman Sachs that argued that Google may not be the best long-term partner for America Online.
This wouldn't be the same Goldman Sachs locked out by Google during its IPO, wouldn't it? Nothing to see here, just a couple of vested interests having a whine.
This is precisely why may so-called "security" companies also did nothing. DRM isn't going to work if the victims^H^H^H^Hcustomers are aware that they're being restricted. DRM is only going to succeed if it's so ubiquitous users give up and accept their presence anyway. It's just like so many privacy policies: if you don't know how to opt-out, you accept by default the loss of your privacy and companies are free to buy and sell your information. What, you didn't know they were doing that already?
The parent is correct. Even actual deaths aren't going to change anything if noone challenges corporate excuses and PR.
So let me guess: they'll stick binary data in RSS.
Then we have remote execution via RSS, system automation via RSS, a rootkit you never realized was there via RSS. FFS, use the tool for what it was intended, not a hacked-up stealth technology for taking over blogs and putting pretty pictures all over it.
Now I cannot trust Sony or EMI. This process will continue until I stop buying any industry products. I am more inclined to shore up my back catalogue than trust anything current on CD. Online mp3 retail can take care of the rest. Goodbye, music industry.
I recall when they tested all blood supplies about 6-7 years ago to prevent accidental infections like HIV and Hep C (after the horse had bolted naturally), they found something like 4 people who had been infected with HIV via the blood bank but had NOT gone on to develop AIDS. A couple subsequently did after some years but there were still at least 2 that were not. I wonder what happened to them?
They should be, but it seems they didn't test enough. There are a lot of complaints on the kubuntu.org forums. It may well be just a matter of working around the BIOS, which seems to be the real culprit.
That's the only serious difference between standard Ubuntu and Kubuntu, except the installation is the worst POS since two Debian distros ago. Unless you have one drive of one type, I guarantee you Grub will not boot properly. I have to use a FreeBSD boot manager FFS just to get to the Grub screen because it won't load off the SATA MBR properly. Another warning: if you don't expect to RAID your disks, make sure the install realizes that, because it never asks you, it just sets up md whether you like it or not. Fortunately no permanent damage was done. But despite all that, when it gets going, it's the most stable KDE environment I've ever had, and that's saying something after three years of it under Debian. Just don't expect any documentation when you run into trouble. Or want to understand why they set the system up that way.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems Western running dogs are terribly sensitive to being pwned by Chinese bloggers :) Let's pretend the topic doesn't exist?
pwned Western running dogs!
Of course, but the interesting thing is why this isn't as successful a strategy as it seems: unless the field of the application is narrow and specialized, it only guarantees the visibility of a competitor FOSS project. The only way to effectively strangle the field is to own all of the ideas, and this is a lot rarer and more difficult than many assume. A good 80% of software is about the usability of an idea, not the idea itself, which is more generic.
Companies which are resorting to this tactic are in a corner: they cannot innovate at this speed, and their market leverage is weak. Mergers acquisitions and patent deals are all about fake growth. It's a classic short-term strategy, and always leads to self-strangulation. Ironically, this will lead to open-sourcing the problem again.
They don't know what they're buying. They think if they buy an open-source company they're getting "open-source". They don't get a free community unless they understand it. They dont get the product they think they're getting. Software companies have been trying to make their customers be unpaid beta testers for years and frequently they think this is a cheaper shortcut to that end. They waste the community's effort. This isn't just the case with FOSS, it's generally the case with most company acquisitions, it's just more obviously idiotic with FOSS.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Seriously, when WoW players are keeping the PC revolution alive by buying new hardware to cut lag down, a port to console is inconceivable. Nor do I see silly amounts of money being thrown at Blizzard by console manufacturers for such a port. This is obviously a joke story.
As PJ from Groklaw says:
Interesting, no? Or should we blindly accept any old document from any old law firm who work for the opposition?Statement: ... What would actually happen if we were in that environment?"
There's also the problem of the "observer effect," which is potentially changing an environment being part of it. "This is the important part for Microsoft," he said. "We have an impact from what people call the ripple effect
Translation:
Dammit, we reacted badly to the OSS movement and too many people noticed. Now we have to fight that perception as well as OSS itself.
Reaction:
zomg mindshare is leaking...but we can't let them know that...but they know we know that they know we know...arghhh!!
*head explodes*
For those like me who through illness have had practically no enamel on their teeth and have had to have numerous fluoride treatments which have a limited success rate, this treatment could be the difference between keeping my existing teeth or no teeth at all within a decade.
I only wish it was available 5 years ago before I had to lose 6 teeth. I only wish I had perfect sparklies so I wasn't so self-conscious.
For a less charitable view, see here http://www.linuxandmain.com/features/challenger.ht ml/ It is instructive to compare the two articles. They were a litle more forthcoming about the fate of the Columbia astronauts.
Man, has to be the biggest thing I ever saw, swallowing up sober journals like BusinessWeek.
The metoo's are clustered around adoringly because he hasn't said BOOGA WOOGA this week...
They've bought the line that its more expensive to support OSS than it is to license AND support Windows.
They're going to run out of progressive musicians one of these days. Personally I was hoping for David Byrne, he could have done a great Hasta La Vista tune.
Guess who got an iPod for Christmas?
No shit and here's why:
This wouldn't be the same Goldman Sachs locked out by Google during its IPO, wouldn't it? Nothing to see here, just a couple of vested interests having a whine.
Baby seals are cautiously optimistic.
by "rootkit" you mean the Windows Vista installer?
That's what bloggers keep telling me.
It's got little to do with actual functionality and everything to do with the perception that you need an Outlook replacement for email.
You know it's serious budget justification time when /. will link to this kind of crap.
This is precisely why may so-called "security" companies also did nothing. DRM isn't going to work if the victims^H^H^H^Hcustomers are aware that they're being restricted. DRM is only going to succeed if it's so ubiquitous users give up and accept their presence anyway. It's just like so many privacy policies: if you don't know how to opt-out, you accept by default the loss of your privacy and companies are free to buy and sell your information. What, you didn't know they were doing that already?
The parent is correct. Even actual deaths aren't going to change anything if noone challenges corporate excuses and PR.
So let me guess: they'll stick binary data in RSS.
Then we have remote execution via RSS, system automation via RSS, a rootkit you never realized was there via RSS. FFS, use the tool for what it was intended, not a hacked-up stealth technology for taking over blogs and putting pretty pictures all over it.
Now I cannot trust Sony or EMI. This process will continue until I stop buying any industry products. I am more inclined to shore up my back catalogue than trust anything current on CD. Online mp3 retail can take care of the rest. Goodbye, music industry.
I recall when they tested all blood supplies about 6-7 years ago to prevent accidental infections like HIV and Hep C (after the horse had bolted naturally), they found something like 4 people who had been infected with HIV via the blood bank but had NOT gone on to develop AIDS. A couple subsequently did after some years but there were still at least 2 that were not. I wonder what happened to them?
They should be, but it seems they didn't test enough. There are a lot of complaints on the kubuntu.org forums. It may well be just a matter of working around the BIOS, which seems to be the real culprit.
That's the only serious difference between standard Ubuntu and Kubuntu, except the installation is the worst POS since two Debian distros ago. Unless you have one drive of one type, I guarantee you Grub will not boot properly. I have to use a FreeBSD boot manager FFS just to get to the Grub screen because it won't load off the SATA MBR properly. Another warning: if you don't expect to RAID your disks, make sure the install realizes that, because it never asks you, it just sets up md whether you like it or not. Fortunately no permanent damage was done. But despite all that, when it gets going, it's the most stable KDE environment I've ever had, and that's saying something after three years of it under Debian. Just don't expect any documentation when you run into trouble. Or want to understand why they set the system up that way.