"Irrelevant. Everybody in the South calls a glass of Pepsi a "Coke". That doesn't mean that Pepsi should get a trademark on the word "Coke"."
You just brought up a good point, sadly it's in my favor. First off, people don't call a can of Pepsi a can of Coke. This is a myth. Instead, what happens is if somebody orders a Coke, but Pepsi is all they have, it's assumed that it is an acceptable alternative. In the case of soft-drinks, it is not that big of deal. However, Windows and Linux are not very interopable at all. You cannot go to Best Buy, pick up a game, and expect it to work on Lindows. Alternatively, Linux software is not going to work on Windows. So if you say "Gimme Windows", and they give you Lindows instead, you're screwed. You're not getting what you asked for.
As for whether or not they should get the trademark, that is not the point at all. The point is that if Pepsi were to lose its trademark because somebody trademarked Pepsin (weak, I know, just bear with me), Coke would be harming the consumer by creating a duplicate brand called Pepsi. It would taste different, and it'd confuse the market place. Who owns the (R) is not at issue, it's what is the expectation of the customer based on the brand that was developed. That should be protected above all else.
"If those two choices seem confusing to you, you've got bigger problems than choosing an OS."
Get off your high horse. Not everybody is born knowing computers backwards and forwards.
"And yet they're supposed to read, understand and agree to abide by the 10-page EULA full of obscure legal and technical language."
Irrelevant, seperate topic. Not trying to just shoot you down willy nilly, but we could spend all day arguing about EULAs (thought I doubt we have dissimilar views) before getting back on topic.
What's interesting'
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Who Wrote Linux?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
... is if you replace 'written' with 'created', 'based on', or 'developed', you can concievably get different answers.
Sorry if I'm being nauseatingly obvious, but it occured to me after considering that I was blending the terms 'written' and 'created by' together.
Re:Here it comes.... 3, 2, 1...
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Who Wrote Linux?
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· Score: 1
"OK, this should be fun... a/. sanctioned trollfest..."
I dunno, I kind of picture it as more of a food fight. But maybe I'm giving you all too much credit in assuming this thread won't result in people banging their fists on the table.
"The consumer is already protected without needing to privatize a word already in general use."
Bullshit. Everybody calls it Windows, not Microsoft Windows. Additionally, the parent company if Linspire is called Lindows.com. To further confuse things, Microsoft has several variations of Windows like 2000, XP, Me, etc that people are familiar with. Calling it "Microsoft Windows" is not enough by a long shot, especially when compared to "Lindows.Com Lindows".
What they'd need is a big bold sentence saying "This is not the same as Windows! Watch out!" Not even a screenshot would differentiate between the two. Protected consumer, my ass. If Microsoft made a product called Winux, you all'd suddenly change sides on this issue.
"That's what Microsoft said too; that's why they sued Lindows. But of course, anyone who suggested that they might just be right about the confusion got flame broiled..."
A.) No because Lindows.com will want some money back out of it.
B.) No because it's not clear that Dell actually spends that much to get that license.
C.) No because Dell will want at least a little bit of profit out of it to offset the cost of technical support issues.
It might be a little bit cheaper, but it won't be $150 cheaper.
"Imagine how confusing that would have been: selecting between Lindows and Windows in the OS box while config'ing your machine."
It's funny how this detail is conveniently forgotten on Slashdot when it comes to making arguments about why Microsoft is in the wrong in that case. Protect the consumer, not the underdog.
"here are no external firewire drives. There are (to my knowledge) no Firewire drives at all. People take standard ATA/IDE drives and use an ATA/Firewire bridge to connect them up externally and bypass the extremely limited cable length of ATA."
Well that totally blows my point out of the water!
"Not to criticize the parents, but, when are linux zealots going to stop saying "it works for ME, therefore it's the best". Just notice the number of I and me and my. After a while it becomes stale and stinks. Give a break."
Additionally, I'm sure people are sick of "I did it the hard way, and everybody else should too so they'll be smart like me" attitude as well.
" They never comment on that fact that open source means you can mix and match features for the perfect distribution."
I doubt you're the only one bothered by it, but obviously you're also informed enough on this topic to go get what you want. To those of us not using Linux, too many choices is a right pain in the ass.
A couple of years ago, I installed Redhat. It was nothing but a pain in the ass. I bitched about it on Slashdot and everybody told me what an idiot I was because I used the wrong distro. Never mind that I was a total uninformed newb trying out what Slashdot had been beating into my brain, no no no, I missed my "in the know" Linux brain implant.
There is a need for newbs such as myself to be able to start with the friendliest distro. It's tiring to those of you that know, but surely you all want for more people to use Linux. The more the numbers grow, the better commercial support it'll recieve for new bits of hardware coming down the line.
I understand you're point, not trying to shoot it down, just trying to point out that I don't think the article was directed towards you.
"Oh God NO!!!! Anything but the command line. I need pretty pictures and maybe a dancing paper clip thingy. It's too much to remember a few commands."
When other OS's don't require it, then yes, it is too much to ask. It's annoying to go have to look up commands when it's dirt simple to create an interface that asks appropriate questions.
I wasn't defending Bush. Frankly, I'm just plain sick and tired of the Bush vs. Kerry debates here in thinly disguised on-topic babble.
There's a radio station I listen to that's conservative in the evening, and liberal in the morning. I drove home after work listening to badmouthing of Michael Moore's movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I could tell that they were being so slimey about it. Instead of saying "Here is where it lied, and why he should have known better", they took a single quote and blew it way out of proportion. "Michael Moore says that the United States spreads misery, have they forgotten how we beat back the Nazis?" Uh okay.
So the following day I was driving to work, and the big news story was that the US handed over control to Iraq. I listened to 10 minutes of "How can they call it sovereign when we still have troops there? Why is it called sovereign when the US troops don't have to obey their laws despite the obvious reasonable reasons why that law would be in place?" Blah blah blah. The democrats can't see the good in anything, and it is very fucking tiring to listen to.
I'm so tired of the uneducated mudslinging being fired from both sides. I'm so tired of both sides being so extreme. (I like how somebody can be comfortable in their extremism without knowing anything about the other side's views.) And I'm getting really tired that I can't get away from it, even on Slashdot. Instead of modding somebody insightful because they have a point, instead it's the Moderator's way of saying "I agree".
I'm half tempted to just go into hibernation until this dumb election's over. The only reason I don't is I'm quite sure that because half the country feels one way, and the other half feels another, that half the country will end up bitching over frivilous issues and, in some cases, pure fiction.
"is there a similar restriction on bringing cell phones to military bases or "sensitive" areas? "
Yes for exactly the reasons you describe. If you connect your laptop to a machine labeled 'secure', they confiscate your laptop, completely wipe it, and return it to you. If you EVER visit a secured location with a laptop, turn off wifi, and turn off your IR port.
"When you enter a secure area,you leave your cell,pager,PDA,laptop,etc,at the door."
It'll be watches before too long. Today you can buy a watch with a camera built in, another that has memory so you can drop computer data into it. Before long there'll be watches with 2-way radio bulit into them. (I'm talking about USA here, I'm aware that there are wrist-watch cell phones elsehwere.)
Eventually the gov't is going to have to find a way to keep data secure with the assumption that people have all these devices. (Sadly, I do not claim to have the answer to that.)
For long term storage, how do you feel about firewire drives? Maybe not as cheap as you'd like, but you can get them in >160 gig flavors, plus you can hook them up to just about anything. Once you do the backup, which'd be a simple copy and paste, you can just unplug the drive and store it in a safe or something.
Again, I'm not sure if that's as cheap as you'd want, but that's a solution I came up with for a similar problem. My company's going to be 3D rendering some stuff that could end up eating 50 megabytes a frame. (Extra data is stored for future refinement... I can go into detail if I've piqued anybody's curiosity.) We can't afford to lose this data, so the Firewire drive approach is what we're considering right now.
Slashdot Mirror
"Irrelevant. Everybody in the South calls a glass of Pepsi a "Coke". That doesn't mean that Pepsi should get a trademark on the word "Coke"."
You just brought up a good point, sadly it's in my favor. First off, people don't call a can of Pepsi a can of Coke. This is a myth. Instead, what happens is if somebody orders a Coke, but Pepsi is all they have, it's assumed that it is an acceptable alternative. In the case of soft-drinks, it is not that big of deal. However, Windows and Linux are not very interopable at all. You cannot go to Best Buy, pick up a game, and expect it to work on Lindows. Alternatively, Linux software is not going to work on Windows. So if you say "Gimme Windows", and they give you Lindows instead, you're screwed. You're not getting what you asked for.
As for whether or not they should get the trademark, that is not the point at all. The point is that if Pepsi were to lose its trademark because somebody trademarked Pepsin (weak, I know, just bear with me), Coke would be harming the consumer by creating a duplicate brand called Pepsi. It would taste different, and it'd confuse the market place. Who owns the (R) is not at issue, it's what is the expectation of the customer based on the brand that was developed. That should be protected above all else.
"If those two choices seem confusing to you, you've got bigger problems than choosing an OS."
Get off your high horse. Not everybody is born knowing computers backwards and forwards.
"And yet they're supposed to read, understand and agree to abide by the 10-page EULA full of obscure legal and technical language."
Irrelevant, seperate topic. Not trying to just shoot you down willy nilly, but we could spend all day arguing about EULAs (thought I doubt we have dissimilar views) before getting back on topic.
... is if you replace 'written' with 'created', 'based on', or 'developed', you can concievably get different answers.
Sorry if I'm being nauseatingly obvious, but it occured to me after considering that I was blending the terms 'written' and 'created by' together.
"OK, this should be fun... a /. sanctioned trollfest..."
I dunno, I kind of picture it as more of a food fight. But maybe I'm giving you all too much credit in assuming this thread won't result in people banging their fists on the table.
"The consumer is already protected without needing to privatize a word already in general use."
Bullshit. Everybody calls it Windows, not Microsoft Windows. Additionally, the parent company if Linspire is called Lindows.com. To further confuse things, Microsoft has several variations of Windows like 2000, XP, Me, etc that people are familiar with. Calling it "Microsoft Windows" is not enough by a long shot, especially when compared to "Lindows.Com Lindows".
What they'd need is a big bold sentence saying "This is not the same as Windows! Watch out!" Not even a screenshot would differentiate between the two. Protected consumer, my ass. If Microsoft made a product called Winux, you all'd suddenly change sides on this issue.
"That's what Microsoft said too; that's why they sued Lindows. But of course, anyone who suggested that they might just be right about the confusion got flame broiled..."
A.) No because Lindows.com will want some money back out of it.
B.) No because it's not clear that Dell actually spends that much to get that license.
C.) No because Dell will want at least a little bit of profit out of it to offset the cost of technical support issues.
It might be a little bit cheaper, but it won't be $150 cheaper.
"Imagine how confusing that would have been: selecting between Lindows and Windows in the OS box while config'ing your machine."
It's funny how this detail is conveniently forgotten on Slashdot when it comes to making arguments about why Microsoft is in the wrong in that case. Protect the consumer, not the underdog.
"But somehow people put up with this, and somehow (at least according to MS) Windows has a lower TCO."
We put up with it so we don't have to go search Google for obscure things like the setting up of dual monitors.
"As far as I'm concerned, there is only The Matrix. I refuse to acknowledge the existence of any followup films."
Why even go that far? What was it about the first one that was underwear-tent-popping good?
I'm serious about this. What I saw was a flash in the pan that hardly survived a second viewing. What'd everybody else take out of it?
Here comes a bunch of "Matrix sucks" comments. Hurry up, I'm anxious to read them!!
"here are no external firewire drives. There are (to my knowledge) no Firewire drives at all.
People take standard ATA/IDE drives and use an ATA/Firewire bridge to connect them up externally and bypass the extremely limited cable length of ATA."
Well that totally blows my point out of the water!
Soon Spiderman will overtake Star Trek in women repellance!
"I never got the word "blog." What is its etymology?"
It started with the word 'bog', and they added the l to describe the people who are hopelessly addicted to it.
"Not to criticize the parents, but, when are linux zealots going to stop saying "it works for ME, therefore it's the best". Just notice the number of I and me and my. After a while it becomes stale and stinks. Give a break."
Additionally, I'm sure people are sick of "I did it the hard way, and everybody else should too so they'll be smart like me" attitude as well.
"If it's so simple, why haven't you done it already?"
Because the problem is already solved for me?
" They never comment on that fact that open source means you can mix and match features for the perfect distribution."
I doubt you're the only one bothered by it, but obviously you're also informed enough on this topic to go get what you want. To those of us not using Linux, too many choices is a right pain in the ass.
A couple of years ago, I installed Redhat. It was nothing but a pain in the ass. I bitched about it on Slashdot and everybody told me what an idiot I was because I used the wrong distro. Never mind that I was a total uninformed newb trying out what Slashdot had been beating into my brain, no no no, I missed my "in the know" Linux brain implant.
There is a need for newbs such as myself to be able to start with the friendliest distro. It's tiring to those of you that know, but surely you all want for more people to use Linux. The more the numbers grow, the better commercial support it'll recieve for new bits of hardware coming down the line.
I understand you're point, not trying to shoot it down, just trying to point out that I don't think the article was directed towards you.
"Oh God NO!!!! Anything but the command line. I need pretty pictures and maybe a dancing paper clip thingy. It's too much to remember a few commands."
When other OS's don't require it, then yes, it is too much to ask. It's annoying to go have to look up commands when it's dirt simple to create an interface that asks appropriate questions.
Whoop-de-de, you can use a CLI, you're so elite.
" It literally blew me away... "
How long did it take you to walk back?
"Where was this last week when I was looking for this exact comparison?"
Yeah, the one time where a dupe would have been useful...
"What about a Dubya mouthpiece mod???"
I wasn't defending Bush. Frankly, I'm just plain sick and tired of the Bush vs. Kerry debates here in thinly disguised on-topic babble.
There's a radio station I listen to that's conservative in the evening, and liberal in the morning. I drove home after work listening to badmouthing of Michael Moore's movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I could tell that they were being so slimey about it. Instead of saying "Here is where it lied, and why he should have known better", they took a single quote and blew it way out of proportion. "Michael Moore says that the United States spreads misery, have they forgotten how we beat back the Nazis?" Uh okay.
So the following day I was driving to work, and the big news story was that the US handed over control to Iraq. I listened to 10 minutes of "How can they call it sovereign when we still have troops there? Why is it called sovereign when the US troops don't have to obey their laws despite the obvious reasonable reasons why that law would be in place?" Blah blah blah. The democrats can't see the good in anything, and it is very fucking tiring to listen to.
I'm so tired of the uneducated mudslinging being fired from both sides. I'm so tired of both sides being so extreme. (I like how somebody can be comfortable in their extremism without knowing anything about the other side's views.) And I'm getting really tired that I can't get away from it, even on Slashdot. Instead of modding somebody insightful because they have a point, instead it's the Moderator's way of saying "I agree".
I'm half tempted to just go into hibernation until this dumb election's over. The only reason I don't is I'm quite sure that because half the country feels one way, and the other half feels another, that half the country will end up bitching over frivilous issues and, in some cases, pure fiction.
"So you have data that you can't afford to lose and you're going to store it on a single disk bought from Target?"
As opposed to a bunch of recordable DVDs also bought from Target?
So where's your solution, smart ass?
"is there a similar restriction on bringing cell phones to military bases or "sensitive" areas? "
Yes for exactly the reasons you describe. If you connect your laptop to a machine labeled 'secure', they confiscate your laptop, completely wipe it, and return it to you. If you EVER visit a secured location with a laptop, turn off wifi, and turn off your IR port.
"I wonder how healthy it is to be surrounded day in and day out by all these microwaves and such...."
What's it been, 3 generations so far?
"When you enter a secure area,you leave your cell,pager,PDA,laptop,etc,at the door."
It'll be watches before too long. Today you can buy a watch with a camera built in, another that has memory so you can drop computer data into it. Before long there'll be watches with 2-way radio bulit into them. (I'm talking about USA here, I'm aware that there are wrist-watch cell phones elsehwere.)
Eventually the gov't is going to have to find a way to keep data secure with the assumption that people have all these devices. (Sadly, I do not claim to have the answer to that.)
"What about Fox News, where it's all high alert, but don't worry because Glorious Leader will protect you."
What about an off-topic mod?
For long term storage, how do you feel about firewire drives? Maybe not as cheap as you'd like, but you can get them in >160 gig flavors, plus you can hook them up to just about anything. Once you do the backup, which'd be a simple copy and paste, you can just unplug the drive and store it in a safe or something.
Again, I'm not sure if that's as cheap as you'd want, but that's a solution I came up with for a similar problem. My company's going to be 3D rendering some stuff that could end up eating 50 megabytes a frame. (Extra data is stored for future refinement... I can go into detail if I've piqued anybody's curiosity.) We can't afford to lose this data, so the Firewire drive approach is what we're considering right now.