I bought a used Dell Inspiron for $280, direct by Dell Financial. It a 800 mhz system, has a 20GB drive, an ATI 128 card, a CD drive, I upgraded it to 512MB. I do not need more power. And no, I don't use it as a router:-)... why would I want to buy a slower PPC system? Maybe to be able to use OSX, that would be the ONLY reason. They are always slower for the same price, and the bonus price is because it's costs more at the beggining, but allows you to use OSX at the end. And some people can't afford a new one, so there are more people needing ass slow Macs therefore.
You always waive AFTER THE FACT, so yes, Novell is telling SCO two things: first, how the license should be interpreted, and has always been. Second, that they "forgive" Sequent of any misintepration the contract they signed may have caused, basically telling SCO that Sequent code, and IBM code, are not under confidentialy agrement, and that they are free to do with it as they please.
Haven't even read the letter, and if you did, then worst yet, because you didn't get the important part.
Novell is telling the World that public company by the name IBM has been given green light to use their own code (JFS, EVMS, ETC), because the assets transfer to SCO allows Novel to Waive any right SCO may claim to their licensees.
Basically, they are overruling SCOs licence, making it clear they have the right to do so, and ordering SCO to cease the trial, because the are claming a right that has been clarified they do not have and never ever had.
So basically the _hole point_ of the Novell letter, is letting ANY investor all over the world, that IBM has already won the trial, and that there is no posibility they may lose $5000 billion, not even a 0.000001% chance.
So calling them unprofessional makes you look silly at best.
That's true. You can probe it easily. Their stock, instead of being higly volatile, and despite the strong indication that they not only can win the case, but that they don't even have the RIGHT to those claims, and despite the fact they have been lawfully revoked any right regarding those claims, based on the very same contract that granted them the (restricted) ownership of a SVRX, their stock has been maintained all day at a fixed value. A present value.
Somebody, for some reason, I forcing the stock not to fall. Once that "someone" is identified, and it's verified they operate in Bahamas o Caiman, then we'll know it was something very much illegal.
What you will never know is who ordered that SCOX should not go below certain threshold...unless Mr McBride talks in order to avoid jail.
Pump money to R&D...I mean, Microsoft has 20.000 million in the bank. That's their R&D for at least a decade, asuming they may no profit at all.
I think you aren't being honest. I know you can reinvest when you have better than market average performance. Micorosoft can only keep the pace if they destroy competition and play against the rules, and even then, they do not need that much money to run their business.
There are other reasons with the never sitributed dividends.
In the long run, distributing dividents the primary goal for any company. Because value may be based on grow, but value on growth is based on future divident payments.
"A necesary condition is that they make a resonable profit, and are valued accordingly."
The way companies trully contribute to their stockholders is by providing a rent. If you never ever distribute dividends (aka Microsoft), and try to take over the world with the cash you earned (20.000 millions for MS), you'll be losing your shareholders money, because other companies could make a greater profit.
Microsoft executives have 20.000 in cash to play monopoly or "let me try again" for ages. That's not good. How much do they really need to conduct their business? The remainder should be distributed as dividends. They are hoping to monopolize the world with their solutions. I say: I will not work!
But if you are so sure, buy more MS shares...it's your money after all!
Ok, I'll bite at the parent comment that I can't believe is modded up insightful.
Companies are created for a porpuse. Spoiler: making money is not a goal for companies, sa companies are allowed by the society because they are good for it's citicens (this argument can't be reversed). A necesary condition is that they make a resonable profit, and are valued accordingly.
Now comes where you miss the point:
"If Microsoft didn't venture into new areas, other companies would. Microsoft is interested in capitalizing in every area they can and they owe it to their stock holders to do so."
That's not true. Only the company survival depends on it. Shareholder, let's say Bill Gates, as a rich men he is, if free to invest in Google's (postponed) IPO, or any other stock. These companies could receive funds and that way a competitve market is built. And he would own a lot of competitive companies providing a service to the society they live in. Microsoft should focus on what they do well, and do it lawfully (which they do not, they just try to leverage their monopoly, and have been proved guilty many times, and go away for free many other times, though they where indeed guilty). They are venturing into markets they don't understand, they are creating artificial monopolies, they are buying laws, politicans, bribing and blackmailing countries and even continents. They try to extract a tax from every living creature on earth, no matter what the law says (it's just an equation) and what their clients needs are.
It would be wise for Microsoft to concetrate on their key markets, to play fair, and to leave the markets they don't understand, and the ones where only by leveraging a monopoly they can have provide what they "owe" to their stockholders. They better off doing that, and distributing thei profits as dividends, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER NORMAL COMPANY ON EARTH DOES...so that comny can be spent on other competitive companies that do have key strenghs and are denied a competitive play field.
There is a solution, long term, ok, but it's the only solution. Run out of poor people, and businesses will have to start competing for talent. You won't see this stopping (law can only slow it down) until wealth is spread more evenly. As more and more cheap Indians are hired, the less tallent that will be accepting to work for the daily rice.
The other solution is to make sure poor people don't get an education. That's not a very desirable outcome.
In brief, we need more people to have decent incomes, and everyone to be productive. And we need to turn humman labor into a scarce resource. Nowadays, it's very cheap in some places (mostly to rich countries policies against inmigrants).
Childs need parent guidance. When you get to grow alder, you can do whatever you want of course. Now, I am not saying I am anyone's parent. But the reality s I have tryed cut & paste under Windows, and then undex X, and found X not to be good. But then, I learned to CONNECT stuff in interested ways that can be automated easily, and everything makes sense. Now I know cut & paste most important feature is good to avoid typing resources, text and images.
And while I enjoy C&P under Windows, I am unable to do most of the important stuff. I can get something easy done really easy, but something a bit more complex is imposible, or just takes a LOT of C7P that should be automated.
Now, I don't know, I think you reason differently when you get used to unix likes, and you get to appreaciate C&P is nice but limited and teaches how to do many things the worng way.
Anyway, keep your ideas and discard other people ones. You'll progress like hell for sure.
What are you trying to cut and paste? I can't paste anything usefull underwindows, except images and some other content that will get embedded into another app (which is not even usefull).
I mean, the power of Cut & Paste is highly overestimated. Linking in PowerPoint or Word from Excel is nice, but how much Cut & Paste does make sense?
Advanced Cut & Paste under Linux is piping streams. Yes, a nice Cut & Paste could be usefull, and is trivial to implement, but nobody did it. It could be as easy as telling a mime type, kind of a n HTTP header, for data. But if nobody does it, it may be well because it's not so needed.
In fact, I'm I tended to hate X style coping, but now, having gone BACK to Windows (work mandated, an Windows is quite usefull for many office tasks) I tend to miss simplicity in Cut & Paste. It's not really only CP, but everything. In general, the notion that under Windows, in not on charge. For example, I am using PivotTable reports. And I know SQL and how to tabulate myself, but the pivottable insists on limiting me to the GUI. I can't see the SQL query no matter what. And because of having used the rel thing (SQL), I can know I am not able to perform many needed and simple things. I wouldn't know them otherwise. Not only that, but the tools I have to use are now based on non normaliced tables, because crosstabbing is so easy , and the windows DB guys here don't even notice how ugly and future-limiting everything is.
Windows forces you unnoticeably into doing things the worng way, and you start to think many things cannot be accomplished...there's no "application for that". But you will never know how most things are if you've never gotten away from theGUI centric view. Playing with Linux for a year can make you view things differently. You will never know what you are missing otherwise.
Or..."By the way, you have a Linux machine, so you are a biased judge, and thus we'll be granted another trial...please be ready for the $699 deal, or your'll have to pay us more":-)
It didn't came as a flame. Yoour pointof view is correct. However, being unable to earn higher salaries is not the problem of India or the rest of the world. I mean, they are poor, and some of them can work really well. Why can't they work at the US? They can't sell their services to you? Why would they want to buy anything from you if that was the case?
What I am trying to say the problem is not indians, but how companies behave. They don't give a shit about anything. If one of them does, it'll start having problems.
The problem that I see are the (rich) people always expecting to always invest, expect ever higher returns, and in the case something looks to be remotely be slowing down, they halt investments AND consumption. Also, remember the US spends a lot of money uneffciciently, and thus you have high taxes, so your money is worth less.
That it the problem. And the rich people does not live in India, thought there are rich guys, they are the a minority and the exception.
Ah, the US hypocrats. They love free markets, capital mobility, but want all the jod jobs for themselves.
Hint: the rest of the world is cartching up, and charge less. And your rich guys couldn't care less about where people live. They are in the job of making profits, not the American population rich.
Welcome to the world my friend! Untill ALL of the world population get the same pay for equal talents, this trend will not end. So you better hope India's economy does well and income rises steadily, because that's the only way your salaries will stop bleeding. If you don't like it, you'll have to have more qualifications than people abroad, and not just a US green card or nationality.
You don't get it, don't you? Learn something that is scarse and valuable, like knowing the problem domain (business logic for ex) and the implementation details (programming). Or do something that requires that you be really trusted (trust is not a commodity). In any other case, you'll have like hundreds of candidates and only one position to fill. No wonder they will set the price level low. After all, the other 99 guys also have to eat, so they don't have an option, they will accept lower salaries. And no, forcing companies to pay more will not solve the problem, the ones that get the jobs will earn more, but the 99 guys that didn't make it, would starve to death. Moreover, at a higher price, they will hire less, and the divide and hate between the "lucky ones" and the losers will by impossible to sustain. Also, your economy will suffer.
In brief, there is a golden rule that you must turn yourself into a scarce product, uncommoditize yourself, and then you'll earn a decent salary. In any other case, your salary will depend on average incomes and how low your comrates must go to generate enough jobs to hire most of the bulk.
More importantly, you CAN'T remove the TV from the car (to follow the analogy). And this TV is compatibe with normal television only for a limited period of time. Now imagine you can produce a TV show without paying to MS.
My point is the consumer and the media companies are unknowingly is being raped. Not just the TV producers.
It's ugly. If I where the EU, I'd tell them they can sell everything they want in the form they want, AS LONG AS IT'S NOT PREINSTALLED and users can opt to receive a discount at the FULL STREET PRICE OF THE OS. And that ANY OEM should pay the same exact price for the OS and be allowed to preinstall whatever they want with the OS (say Winamp, in this example...or a different TV brand).
Maybe IBM got a bit upset, and made some calls. After all, they are official sponsors of Forbes "Executive Connection", as anyone visiting forbes can notice (front page):-)
Problem is GNU Software is not GNU's software. It software contributed by thouthands of develeopers that didn't just *join* GNU. GNU does not pay their bills usually, and is not really an umbrella company. So it would be more polite if just Stallman stated that GNU is not his project, but a community project where every contributor deserves credit.
I don't know, in any case, people know what they have done. That should be enough, along with the copyright notices.
It's true, I haven't read the article. But seems to me that there are a lot of web parsers available. Or you could just parse RSS feeds or make some simple regexps on your favorite website, and pipe stuff to festival.
The guy that introduced me to Linux for a second try (I have done a first try with slackware in 1997, sucesfull, but I didn't know what to do with it at all, ie: no office suite, no games, no mozilla, etc) has his Licq linked to festival, as well as some other tailored alerts as well as selected email address, so that things where spoken aloud to him with a nice sexy (?) young woman for him. It was actually scary, but funny...
I've tryed that recently with Gaim, to let me know when my girlfriend was online, and together with other packages, I was able to listen to what she type... over my cell phone:-)
Simple, they are not shipping an OS. They are shipping THE OS that more than 95% of the people use. And when MS goes to tell the EU that they can't remove a Media Player (for crist sake) from the OS, they are really telling the EU to "f*ck off or the user will blame you".
Now, in retrospect, I think that if the DOJ wanted to stop the monopoly abuse from Microsoft, they should have created a "technical definitions group" and defined what an OS is, what an interface is, what an application is clearly, and only demanded from Micrsoft that they provide a OS without any "integrated" application. They can do it, but they must sell the stripped down version AND make sure there are no internal ties. Furthermore, the application developers (Office, etc) should have no contact with the OS team, except for published specs that are available to everyone else.
I guess that will never happen... but I'd hope people working under the Windows plataform (applications) will someday realize that if they hit a mayor sales, they have only managed to mark themselves for extinction...
Who will deploy a large Samba instalation? Who will adapt it if somethings needed? Who will tune the kernel for a new cluster that needs some specialties. Who will program that bussines logic that company A needs to be done asap?
Free software are the tools so that companies and users can put those technologies to good use. It's not an end in itself, as the need for programmers is vast and diverse.
What you need is free tools at some levels, so that not one company can monopolice a large chunck of it. Your salary will not go up until the generic software gets cheap, and talent expensive. Also, technically sound desicions depends on this also. You need to be able to choose.
I know, a batter "life support" system is needed, while it works for some people in the free software world, and other are already done (rich), a lot of talented people are not finding a way to work more in OSS.
I once proposed something like a Funded GPL, that was similar to a GPL, but required the users to pay a small anual fee to support developement, to a central entity (say $20). Ok, it will change the GPL drastically, becoming also a a user license (ie: not distributors license only).
But what the heck:-) The OSS movement does work great, in many ways. Nobody has all the answers...
You don't have liabilities in this industry, you can only burn reputation (karma) points. If you burn too much of it, people will look somewhere else.
If MS software where to suddenly explode, you wouldn't be able to hold Mr. Gates accoutable. Now, I think that chaging for software should include some kind of warranty at least at the process level, etc. Companies and individuals alike should be liable if they sell a product for money, they should offer a warranty with respect to that offering.
The warranty may be: will will provide patches in 1 day after discovery, or be held liable. We will not include new features in product release Z, and will make it compatible with future products for 10 years...and the likes, as examples.
Slashdot Mirror
I bought a used Dell Inspiron for $280, direct by Dell Financial. It a 800 mhz system, has a 20GB drive, an ATI 128 card, a CD drive, I upgraded it to 512MB. I do not need more power. And no, I don't use it as a router :-) ... why would I want to buy a slower PPC system? Maybe to be able to use OSX, that would be the ONLY reason. They are always slower for the same price, and the bonus price is because it's costs more at the beggining, but allows you to use OSX at the end. And some people can't afford a new one, so there are more people needing ass slow Macs therefore.
You always waive AFTER THE FACT, so yes, Novell is telling SCO two things: first, how the license should be interpreted, and has always been. Second, that they "forgive" Sequent of any misintepration the contract they signed may have caused, basically telling SCO that Sequent code, and IBM code, are not under confidentialy agrement, and that they are free to do with it as they please.
Haven't even read the letter, and if you did, then worst yet, because you didn't get the important part.
Novell is telling the World that public company by the name IBM has been given green light to use their own code (JFS, EVMS, ETC), because the assets transfer to SCO allows Novel to Waive any right SCO may claim to their licensees.
Basically, they are overruling SCOs licence, making it clear they have the right to do so, and ordering SCO to cease the trial, because the are claming a right that has been clarified they do not have and never ever had.
So basically the _hole point_ of the Novell letter, is letting ANY investor all over the world, that IBM has already won the trial, and that there is no posibility they may lose $5000 billion, not even a 0.000001% chance.
So calling them unprofessional makes you look silly at best.
That's true. You can probe it easily. Their stock, instead of being higly volatile, and despite the strong indication that they not only can win the case, but that they don't even have the RIGHT to those claims, and despite the fact they have been lawfully revoked any right regarding those claims, based on the very same contract that granted them the (restricted) ownership of a SVRX, their stock has been maintained all day at a fixed value. A present value.
Somebody, for some reason, I forcing the stock not to fall. Once that "someone" is identified, and it's verified they operate in Bahamas o Caiman, then we'll know it was something very much illegal.
What you will never know is who ordered that SCOX should not go below certain threshold...unless Mr McBride talks in order to avoid jail.
Pump money to R&D...I mean, Microsoft has 20.000 million in the bank. That's their R&D for at least a decade, asuming they may no profit at all.
I think you aren't being honest. I know you can reinvest when you have better than market average performance. Micorosoft can only keep the pace if they destroy competition and play against the rules, and even then, they do not need that much money to run their business.
There are other reasons with the never sitributed dividends.
In the long run, distributing dividents the primary goal for any company. Because value may be based on grow, but value on growth is based on future divident payments.
I will just selfquote:
"A necesary condition is that they make a resonable profit, and are valued accordingly."
The way companies trully contribute to their stockholders is by providing a rent. If you never ever distribute dividends (aka Microsoft), and try to take over the world with the cash you earned (20.000 millions for MS), you'll be losing your shareholders money, because other companies could make a greater profit.
Microsoft executives have 20.000 in cash to play monopoly or "let me try again" for ages. That's not good. How much do they really need to conduct their business? The remainder should be distributed as dividends. They are hoping to monopolize the world with their solutions. I say: I will not work!
But if you are so sure, buy more MS shares...it's your money after all!
Ok, I'll bite at the parent comment that I can't believe is modded up insightful.
Companies are created for a porpuse. Spoiler: making money is not a goal for companies, sa companies are allowed by the society because they are good for it's citicens (this argument can't be reversed). A necesary condition is that they make a resonable profit, and are valued accordingly.
Now comes where you miss the point:
"If Microsoft didn't venture into new areas, other companies would. Microsoft is interested in capitalizing in every area they can and they owe it to their stock holders to do so."
That's not true. Only the company survival depends on it. Shareholder, let's say Bill Gates, as a rich men he is, if free to invest in Google's (postponed) IPO, or any other stock. These companies could receive funds and that way a competitve market is built. And he would own a lot of competitive companies providing a service to the society they live in. Microsoft should focus on what they do well, and do it lawfully (which they do not, they just try to leverage their monopoly, and have been proved guilty many times, and go away for free many other times, though they where indeed guilty). They are venturing into markets they don't understand, they are creating artificial monopolies, they are buying laws, politicans, bribing and blackmailing countries and even continents. They try to extract a tax from every living creature on earth, no matter what the law says (it's just an equation) and what their clients needs are.
It would be wise for Microsoft to concetrate on their key markets, to play fair, and to leave the markets they don't understand, and the ones where only by leveraging a monopoly they can have provide what they "owe" to their stockholders. They better off doing that, and distributing thei profits as dividends, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER NORMAL COMPANY ON EARTH DOES...so that comny can be spent on other competitive companies that do have key strenghs and are denied a competitive play field.
There is a solution, long term, ok, but it's the only solution. Run out of poor people, and businesses will have to start competing for talent. You won't see this stopping (law can only slow it down) until wealth is spread more evenly. As more and more cheap Indians are hired, the less tallent that will be accepting to work for the daily rice.
The other solution is to make sure poor people don't get an education. That's not a very desirable outcome.
In brief, we need more people to have decent incomes, and everyone to be productive. And we need to turn humman labor into a scarce resource. Nowadays, it's very cheap in some places (mostly to rich countries policies against inmigrants).
That's it...
>MS did nothing wrong.
How about "they broke the law"?
Childs need parent guidance. When you get to grow alder, you can do whatever you want of course. Now, I am not saying I am anyone's parent. But the reality s I have tryed cut & paste under Windows, and then undex X, and found X not to be good. But then, I learned to CONNECT stuff in interested ways that can be automated easily, and everything makes sense. Now I know cut & paste most important feature is good to avoid typing resources, text and images.
And while I enjoy C&P under Windows, I am unable to do most of the important stuff. I can get something easy done really easy, but something a bit more complex is imposible, or just takes a LOT of C7P that should be automated.
Now, I don't know, I think you reason differently when you get used to unix likes, and you get to appreaciate C&P is nice but limited and teaches how to do many things the worng way.
Anyway, keep your ideas and discard other people ones. You'll progress like hell for sure.
What are you trying to cut and paste? I can't paste anything usefull underwindows, except images and some other content that will get embedded into another app (which is not even usefull).
I mean, the power of Cut & Paste is highly overestimated. Linking in PowerPoint or Word from Excel is nice, but how much Cut & Paste does make sense?
Advanced Cut & Paste under Linux is piping streams. Yes, a nice Cut & Paste could be usefull, and is trivial to implement, but nobody did it. It could be as easy as telling a mime type, kind of a n HTTP header, for data. But if nobody does it, it may be well because it's not so needed.
In fact, I'm I tended to hate X style coping, but now, having gone BACK to Windows (work mandated, an Windows is quite usefull for many office tasks) I tend to miss simplicity in Cut & Paste. It's not really only CP, but everything. In general, the notion that under Windows, in not on charge. For example, I am using PivotTable reports. And I know SQL and how to tabulate myself, but the pivottable insists on limiting me to the GUI. I can't see the SQL query no matter what. And because of having used the rel thing (SQL), I can know I am not able to perform many needed and simple things. I wouldn't know them otherwise. Not only that, but the tools I have to use are now based on non normaliced tables, because crosstabbing is so easy , and the windows DB guys here don't even notice how ugly and future-limiting everything is.
Windows forces you unnoticeably into doing things the worng way, and you start to think many things cannot be accomplished...there's no "application for that". But you will never know how most things are if you've never gotten away from theGUI centric view. Playing with Linux for a year can make you view things differently. You will never know what you are missing otherwise.
Or..."By the way, you have a Linux machine, so you are a biased judge, and thus we'll be granted another trial...please be ready for the $699 deal, or your'll have to pay us more" :-)
I think something is wrong with my Gentoo or something...
fede usr # netstat -n -t
Active Internet connections (w/o servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
65.54.230.240:443 TIME_WAIT
tcp 0 0 148.240.150.139:32834 65.54.230.240:443 ESTABLISHED
tcp 1 0 148.240.152.95:34976
fede usr # host 65.54.230.240
Host 240.230.54.65.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
fede usr # ping 65.54.230.240
PING 65.54.230.240 (65.54.230.240) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- 65.54.230.240 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1014ms
fede usr # whois 65.54.230.240
OrgName: Microsoft Corp
OrgID: MSFT
Address: One Microsoft Way
City: Redmond
StateProv: WA
PostalCode: 98052
Country: US
NetRange: 65.52.0.0 - 65.55.255.255
CIDR: 65.52.0.0/14
NetName: MICROSOFT-1BLK
NetHandle: NET-65-52-0-0-1
Parent: NET-65-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS1.CP.MSFT.NET
NameServer: DNS2.CP.MSFT.NET
NameServer: DNS1.TK.MSFT.NET
NameServer: DNS1.DC.MSFT.NET
NameServer: DNS1.SJ.MSFT.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 2001-02-14
Updated: 2002-12-05
TechHandle: ZM23-ARIN
TechName: Microsoft Corporation
TechPhone: +1-425-882-8080
TechEmail: noc@microsoft.com
OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE231-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-425-882-8080
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@microsoft.com
OrgNOCHandle: ZM23-ARIN
OrgNOCName: Microsoft Corporation
OrgNOCPhone: +1-425-882-8080
OrgNOCEmail: noc@microsoft.com
OrgTechHandle: MSFTP-ARIN
OrgTechName: MSFT-POC
OrgTechPhone: +1-425-882-8080
OrgTechEmail: iprrms@microsoft.com
I am not using any SSL server right now...
It didn't came as a flame. Yoour pointof view is correct. However, being unable to earn higher salaries is not the problem of India or the rest of the world. I mean, they are poor, and some of them can work really well. Why can't they work at the US? They can't sell their services to you? Why would they want to buy anything from you if that was the case?
What I am trying to say the problem is not indians, but how companies behave. They don't give a shit about anything. If one of them does, it'll start having problems.
The problem that I see are the (rich) people always expecting to always invest, expect ever higher returns, and in the case something looks to be remotely be slowing down, they halt investments AND consumption. Also, remember the US spends a lot of money uneffciciently, and thus you have high taxes, so your money is worth less.
That it the problem. And the rich people does not live in India, thought there are rich guys, they are the a minority and the exception.
Ah, the US hypocrats. They love free markets, capital mobility, but want all the jod jobs for themselves.
Hint: the rest of the world is cartching up, and charge less. And your rich guys couldn't care less about where people live. They are in the job of making profits, not the American population rich.
Welcome to the world my friend! Untill ALL of the world population get the same pay for equal talents, this trend will not end. So you better hope India's economy does well and income rises steadily, because that's the only way your salaries will stop bleeding. If you don't like it, you'll have to have more qualifications than people abroad, and not just a US green card or nationality.
You don't get it, don't you? Learn something that is scarse and valuable, like knowing the problem domain (business logic for ex) and the implementation details (programming). Or do something that requires that you be really trusted (trust is not a commodity). In any other case, you'll have like hundreds of candidates and only one position to fill. No wonder they will set the price level low. After all, the other 99 guys also have to eat, so they don't have an option, they will accept lower salaries. And no, forcing companies to pay more will not solve the problem, the ones that get the jobs will earn more, but the 99 guys that didn't make it, would starve to death. Moreover, at a higher price, they will hire less, and the divide and hate between the "lucky ones" and the losers will by impossible to sustain. Also, your economy will suffer.
In brief, there is a golden rule that you must turn yourself into a scarce product, uncommoditize yourself, and then you'll earn a decent salary. In any other case, your salary will depend on average incomes and how low your comrates must go to generate enough jobs to hire most of the bulk.
I know, our contributions wouldn't make a monetary difference, but they would surely make us feel nice, along with putting some pressure on SCO :-)
More importantly, you CAN'T remove the TV from the car (to follow the analogy). And this TV is compatibe with normal television only for a limited period of time. Now imagine you can produce a TV show without paying to MS.
My point is the consumer and the media companies are unknowingly is being raped. Not just the TV producers.
It's ugly. If I where the EU, I'd tell them they can sell everything they want in the form they want, AS LONG AS IT'S NOT PREINSTALLED and users can opt to receive a discount at the FULL STREET PRICE OF THE OS. And that ANY OEM should pay the same exact price for the OS and be allowed to preinstall whatever they want with the OS (say Winamp, in this example...or a different TV brand).
Maybe IBM got a bit upset, and made some calls. After all, they are official sponsors of Forbes "Executive Connection", as anyone visiting forbes can notice (front page) :-)
Problem is GNU Software is not GNU's software. It software contributed by thouthands of develeopers that didn't just *join* GNU. GNU does not pay their bills usually, and is not really an umbrella company. So it would be more polite if just Stallman stated that GNU is not his project, but a community project where every contributor deserves credit.
I don't know, in any case, people know what they have done. That should be enough, along with the copyright notices.
It's true, I haven't read the article. But seems to me that there are a lot of web parsers available. Or you could just parse RSS feeds or make some simple regexps on your favorite website, and pipe stuff to festival.
:-)
The guy that introduced me to Linux for a second try (I have done a first try with slackware in 1997, sucesfull, but I didn't know what to do with it at all, ie: no office suite, no games, no mozilla, etc) has his Licq linked to festival, as well as some other tailored alerts as well as selected email address, so that things where spoken aloud to him with a nice sexy (?) young woman for him. It was actually scary, but funny...
I've tryed that recently with Gaim, to let me know when my girlfriend was online, and together with other packages, I was able to listen to what she type... over my cell phone
Simple, they are not shipping an OS. They are shipping THE OS that more than 95% of the people use. And when MS goes to tell the EU that they can't remove a Media Player (for crist sake) from the OS, they are really telling the EU to "f*ck off or the user will blame you".
... but I'd hope people working under the Windows plataform (applications) will someday realize that if they hit a mayor sales, they have only managed to mark themselves for extinction...
Now, in retrospect, I think that if the DOJ wanted to stop the monopoly abuse from Microsoft, they should have created a "technical definitions group" and defined what an OS is, what an interface is, what an application is clearly, and only demanded from Micrsoft that they provide a OS without any "integrated" application. They can do it, but they must sell the stripped down version AND make sure there are no internal ties. Furthermore, the application developers (Office, etc) should have no contact with the OS team, except for published specs that are available to everyone else.
I guess that will never happen
Who will deploy a large Samba instalation? Who will adapt it if somethings needed? Who will tune the kernel for a new cluster that needs some specialties. Who will program that bussines logic that company A needs to be done asap?
:-) The OSS movement does work great, in many ways. Nobody has all the answers...
Free software are the tools so that companies and users can put those technologies to good use. It's not an end in itself, as the need for programmers is vast and diverse.
What you need is free tools at some levels, so that not one company can monopolice a large chunck of it. Your salary will not go up until the generic software gets cheap, and talent expensive. Also, technically sound desicions depends on this also. You need to be able to choose.
I know, a batter "life support" system is needed, while it works for some people in the free software world, and other are already done (rich), a lot of talented people are not finding a way to work more in OSS.
I once proposed something like a Funded GPL, that was similar to a GPL, but required the users to pay a small anual fee to support developement, to a central entity (say $20). Ok, it will change the GPL drastically, becoming also a a user license (ie: not distributors license only).
But what the heck
You don't have liabilities in this industry, you can only burn reputation (karma) points. If you burn too much of it, people will look somewhere else.
If MS software where to suddenly explode, you wouldn't be able to hold Mr. Gates accoutable. Now, I think that chaging for software should include some kind of warranty at least at the process level, etc. Companies and individuals alike should be liable if they sell a product for money, they should offer a warranty with respect to that offering.
The warranty may be: will will provide patches in 1 day after discovery, or be held liable. We will not include new features in product release Z, and will make it compatible with future products for 10 years...and the likes, as examples.
It doesn't seem to have really worked out for them.
:-)
Sure, becoming the #1 company in the world and the richest man on earth just proves your point, doesn't it?
Microsoft has decades before dissapearing, and will lead the software industry (in terms of revenue) for the coming years for sure.