This is an inaccurate post in certain ways I am afraid.
You cannot meaningfully talk about a "median" hardware platform over a 6-10 year time scale.
That's at least 2 upgrade cycles in duration.
When I ran XP the first time I checked to see how much RAM it was using and it was over 64MB without anything else loaded up.
That's wasn't criminal on its release date and it doesn't tally with (assuming the hyperbole of reports is accurate) Vista requiring high-end hardware on release.
I am also baffled as to how Vista's alleged requirement for powerful hardware is at all 'foresight'. Of course it'll run better on faster hardware, everything does.
Here's a prediction - Vista will not require the massive resources people are fearing to run that well. At least you'll be able to buy a reasonably-priced PC that can cope fine. Anything else would be commercially inept.
The case I pointed out, however, was exceptional. All supermarkets will have issues with human stupidity but Sainsbury had unprecedented difficulties with a very expensive system that failed.
In the UK the supermarket giant Sainsbury had problems with their stock in warehouses after barcode scanning software turned out to be less than reliable. Cages of goods were going into their warehouses and literally getting lost as no one knew they were there. Lots of fresh produce was going to waste and shelves were suspiciously empty as a result. And meanwhile their main rival Tesco were busy building up a large market lead...
Assuming that you meant to say it doesn't even write to ONE hard drive (as opposed to any hard drive at all!) well, what did you expect? It makes a lot more sense to record on two 500GB drives given they're going to be way cheaper and the performance difference will be unnoticeable.
The fact that you could build one for $1200 is moot. If you wanted this functionality you'd have built a quiet PC to do this. This unit is aimed at those who don't have the time or inclination to do such a thing, and as it is a top-end product in its class its being sold at a premium price. It works for products people want.
I din't think the RIAA have anything to do with this - this was a British survey. The survey found that they are less likely to spend more on CDs, which are way more expensive than downloads. That £4 margin in download spending is half the price of the cheapest chart CDs.
The report also said that people who downloaded music for free spent less on music overall than those who didn't. While the RIAA and BPI are guilty of heavy-handed tactics in taking tracts of their customer base to court, it doesn't actually make copyright infringment any better.
Actually it is an indication of just how high quality Ladybird books were. My mother bought us loads of them because she believed in the educational value of them and in quite a few cases they really were very good. This is a case in point.
It is fascinating to see how Slashdot editing has advanced over time. Back in November 2004 dupes were occuring only a few days apart. In July 2005 they are taking 8 months to occur!
If there was a credible ICANN replacement it would be good to see control ceded to them. The DoC has not done a terrible job, agreed, but it will be interesting to see what other countries do now. If they really want a say in how things are run then I wonder if they have the guts to try and run an alternative DNS.
That is a very fair and well-put point. I do wish, though, like the person who wrote the original story, that people would be a bit more careful. My pet hates on here are: "should of" "more then that" confusing of "their", "there", "they're" confusing of "affect" and "effect"
If nothing else I worry that if I read that stuff and don't register it as incorrect I'll lapse into it myself. Call me anal.;-)
So say you. The correctness, or otherwise, of the English being used is independent of whether the English is conversational or formal to a certain extent. My conversational English tries to be as correct as possible, mainly because I like conversations where I discuss stuff with people and thus I need to really communicate./. is a place to discuss stuff. Communicating your ideas is often important. When people communicate sloppily can be irritating because you lose the subtlety in the language that allows you to make a point really really well. Subtlety can appear in conversational English but sloppiness can't appear in what we'd consider formal English.
Well you've given no real rebuttal of his allegedly-insubstantial article. Perhaps you are only able to give your opinion of views because you're unable to factually counter what has been presented?
Quite. The only benefit might be that you can have arguments with yourself before you die, which would be quite cool. This is just for the vainglorious.
The pesky DoJ got off their backs a long long time ago. I am quite sure Microsoft would love the opportunity to have a good name with the OSS community but this is slightly offset by seeing their share price crash through the floor, investors deserting them wholesale and finding their profit margins on OS sales cut 99.99%.
Somehow I just can't quite see Microsoft weighing up the balance and going for building Windows based on a GPLed kernel. You never know. Stranger things have happened. Maybe.
I think you've gone mad. Microsoft could indeed use the Linux kernel to build its next generation of Windows. And it would be legally obliged to release the source code for that next generation of Windows to boot. Now given Microsoft guard their source code more closely than Fort Knox guards its gold bullion, what do you think the chances of this happening are?
Damn if I'd not already posted I'd have modded you up for that - that is a very interesting blog entry yes. Thanks for bringing it up. Reducing competition to one company makes a fair bit of sense.
Yes but Microsoft do not themselves fund development of GPLed code. The only exception to this I can think of is where they employ at least one person who works on the Glasgow Haskell Compiler but not specifically to work on GHC as far as I can tell.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an inaccurate post in certain ways I am afraid.
You cannot meaningfully talk about a "median" hardware platform over a 6-10 year time scale. That's at least 2 upgrade cycles in duration.
When I ran XP the first time I checked to see how much RAM it was using and it was over 64MB without anything else loaded up.
That's wasn't criminal on its release date and it doesn't tally with (assuming the hyperbole of reports is accurate) Vista requiring high-end hardware on release.
I am also baffled as to how Vista's alleged requirement for powerful hardware is at all 'foresight'. Of course it'll run better on faster hardware, everything does.
Here's a prediction - Vista will not require the massive resources people are fearing to run that well. At least you'll be able to buy a reasonably-priced PC that can cope fine.
Anything else would be commercially inept.
As much as he's no doubt done a lot, he could do with toning his ego down a bit.
Could you not, like, change the clock on your PC? Or is that too simple?
The case I pointed out, however, was exceptional. All supermarkets will have issues with human stupidity but Sainsbury had unprecedented difficulties with a very expensive system that failed.
In the UK the supermarket giant Sainsbury had problems with their stock in warehouses after barcode scanning software turned out to be less than reliable. Cages of goods were going into their warehouses and literally getting lost as no one knew they were there. Lots of fresh produce was going to waste and shelves were suspiciously empty as a result.
And meanwhile their main rival Tesco were busy building up a large market lead...
Assuming that you meant to say it doesn't even write to ONE hard drive (as opposed to any hard drive at all!) well, what did you expect? It makes a lot more sense to record on two 500GB drives given they're going to be way cheaper and the performance difference will be unnoticeable.
The fact that you could build one for $1200 is moot. If you wanted this functionality you'd have built a quiet PC to do this. This unit is aimed at those who don't have the time or inclination to do such a thing, and as it is a top-end product in its class its being sold at a premium price. It works for products people want.
It is there alright. Read through the middle section very very carefully.
I din't think the RIAA have anything to do with this - this was a British survey.
The survey found that they are less likely to spend more on CDs, which are way more expensive than downloads. That £4 margin in download spending is half the price of the cheapest chart CDs.
The report also said that people who downloaded music for free spent less on music overall than those who didn't.
While the RIAA and BPI are guilty of heavy-handed tactics in taking tracts of their customer base to court, it doesn't actually make copyright infringment any better.
Headline of every magazine ever:
"(We've been waiting for) Duke Nukem Forever"
Actually it is an indication of just how high quality Ladybird books were. My mother bought us loads of them because she believed in the educational value of them and in quite a few cases they really were very good.
This is a case in point.
It is fascinating to see how Slashdot editing has advanced over time.
Back in November 2004 dupes were occuring only a few days apart. In July 2005 they are taking 8 months to occur!
If there was a credible ICANN replacement it would be good to see control ceded to them.
The DoC has not done a terrible job, agreed, but it will be interesting to see what other countries do now. If they really want a say in how things are run then I wonder if they have the guts to try and run an alternative DNS.
That is a very fair and well-put point.
;-)
I do wish, though, like the person who wrote the original story, that people would be a bit more careful.
My pet hates on here are:
"should of"
"more then that"
confusing of "their", "there", "they're"
confusing of "affect" and "effect"
If nothing else I worry that if I read that stuff and don't register it as incorrect I'll lapse into it myself.
Call me anal.
So say you. The correctness, or otherwise, of the English being used is independent of whether the English is conversational or formal to a certain extent. /. is a place to discuss stuff. Communicating your ideas is often important.
My conversational English tries to be as correct as possible, mainly because I like conversations where I discuss stuff with people and thus I need to really communicate.
When people communicate sloppily can be irritating because you lose the subtlety in the language that allows you to make a point really really well.
Subtlety can appear in conversational English but sloppiness can't appear in what we'd consider formal English.
That kill babies in the third world! ;-)
Well you've given no real rebuttal of his allegedly-insubstantial article. Perhaps you are only able to give your opinion of views because you're unable to factually counter what has been presented?
Who are you? Dirk Diggler?
This MUST be sarcasm!
Quite. The only benefit might be that you can have arguments with yourself before you die, which would be quite cool.
This is just for the vainglorious.
A person can dream can't they?
The pesky DoJ got off their backs a long long time ago.
I am quite sure Microsoft would love the opportunity to have a good name with the OSS community but this is slightly offset by seeing their share price crash through the floor, investors deserting them wholesale and finding their profit margins on OS sales cut 99.99%.
Somehow I just can't quite see Microsoft weighing up the balance and going for building Windows based on a GPLed kernel. You never know. Stranger things have happened. Maybe.
I think you've gone mad.
Microsoft could indeed use the Linux kernel to build its next generation of Windows. And it would be legally obliged to release the source code for that next generation of Windows to boot.
Now given Microsoft guard their source code more closely than Fort Knox guards its gold bullion, what do you think the chances of this happening are?
Damn if I'd not already posted I'd have modded you up for that - that is a very interesting blog entry yes.
Thanks for bringing it up.
Reducing competition to one company makes a fair bit of sense.
Yes but Microsoft do not themselves fund development of GPLed code. The only exception to this I can think of is where they employ at least one person who works on the Glasgow Haskell Compiler but not specifically to work on GHC as far as I can tell.