As much as I like Linux, I don't think I would implement it in the scenario you've indicated. Exchange is as bad a choice.
I currently work for a company with only a few hundred users at our location. We have been using Exchange servers for about a year and it has been a constant nightmare.
Scalability and stability of this solution has finally even convinced pro-Microsoft management that Exchange is not the product for large scale deployment.
We are now moving to an ISOCOR IMAP solution running on big Sun Solaris boxes.
"since most of the internet still uses Windows unfortuanly"
What!?!?!?
The majority of what would be considered the internet runs on various flavors of Unix.
I'll allow that the majority of web browsers are likely Windows based, but that means little since IPv6 provides backward compatibility for low end systems (read Windows).
redhog asks this question dealing with the viral nature of the GPL
really should be avoided, as the use of the term "viral" is an obvious put down of the GPL and its adherents. Surely you can come up with a better term to describe the benign nature of the GPL.
It's too bad they've (Apple) painted themselves into this position. I only use OS/2 and Linux, so if I can't play the QT content, I simply don't worry about it. A loss for QuickTime. On a side note, Practice Corp's QuickMotion for OS/2 is a great product.
My LD player does have both TOSLINK and coaxial digital out (as well as the idiotic DD RF out). It obviously doesn't have on board DTS ( or DD) decoding, but then I don't know of a single LD player that does.
As for cost, I only paid $449 for it.
And my Criterion LD's in many cases look much better than their DVDs.
Can't we just stop wasting time rebuilding Microsoft or its products, and focus instead on making better (and more user-friendly) software?
Unfortunately no. Microsoft's one and only goal is to prevent you and me from building any software that doesn't earn them money. They want us to develop for Windows or not develop at all. This is hardly a position I would be trying to support.
Ummm, the audio characteristics you note have been available for some time on LD, so DVD has nothing new to offer in the sound arena. DD and, even better, DTS are discrete audio formats that are available on LD.
If anything, DVD has actually made audio matters worse. So many companies feel compelled to provide 5.1 tracks that they're messing with classics.
Take "The Ten Commandments" for example. The widescreen laserdisc has a much better soundtrack than the DVD. For the DD 5.1 version they got rid of the directional dialog.
I guess I'm jaded when it comes to extras, having suffered through many of them on laserdisc.
I'm to the point now that I just want to watch the freekin' movie, a seemingly impossible task with many DVD's.
My favorite DVD feature is when the designer is so enchanted with their idiotic menus that they force you into the menus with no way to just put the disc in and hit play.
Ugh!
For me, my motto is now "damn the extras, full feature ahead!"
I have to admit, there's little that RA can do to prevent MS from grabbing the audio market if MS wants to.
Because the quality is generally so bad, I usually only use RA to listen to "radio" stations.
A more important problem for Linux users is that many sites are converting to the G2 format meaning that the VERY OLD (they can't even be bothered to provide a fix for the 2.2 and glibc2 issues) RealAudio player is rapidly making RA a non-entity.
If MS were to release a Linux-based player in short order, I'm guessing many people would use it.
This is another area where IBM really screwed the pooch by dropping Bamba. Had they made a concerted effort, they could have flooded the market with encoders and clients.
Several months ago I wrote to the Bamba manager and received a nice reply noting that Bamba was no longer being worked on. This is unfortunate, as it was a slick tool (including a Java viewer) and we used it to convert a number of inhouse training tapes for electronic ditribution. THe best part was that, using the Java applet, there was no need for the end user to install a viewer or plugin. A very disappointing loss.
I agree with most of the early posters here with one exception. While I also maintain it will be years (if not decades) before a digital transmission media can match film in the consumer/theatrical realm, I also think digital transmission of features will (unfortunately) begin earlier than that. The market for most theatrical product is targetted at the least common denominator. Eg., your Joe Sixpack VHS owner who has recently moved to DVD and doesn't see anything wrong with encoding errors or pixilation. For these people (and they are the majority) it likely won't make any difference. A friend of mine managed a theatre at the same time I did. I went to see "The Untouchables" on Sunday of the opening weekend. As soon as the film started, I noticed that the wrong lens was in (the film was supposed to be scope but they had their normal spherical lens in.) I went out and told my friend who immediately fixed it and told me after the film that it had been that way all weekend. If the average audience doesn't notice that Kevin Costner is suddenly much thinner than normal, how do we expect them to fight of the less than stellar performance of digital transmission?
Coming from the OS/2 world, I can assure you that Wine is a bad idea and nobody in the Linux world should accept a Windows app that has been linked with Wine.
It simply becomes a quick and dirty way for companies to give us software that works the way Windows works (hot keys, etc.) and generally even less reliably if that's possible.
My guess is that most vendors are doing this because the don't have to woory about Microsoft for the time being. If the DOJ doesn't prevail in the trial, I'd be willing to place money on these vendors dropping Linux support do to "lack of interest."
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I currently work for a company with only a few hundred users at our location. We have been using Exchange servers for about a year and it has been a constant nightmare.
Scalability and stability of this solution has finally even convinced pro-Microsoft management that Exchange is not the product for large scale deployment.
We are now moving to an ISOCOR IMAP solution running on big Sun Solaris boxes.
The majority of what would be considered the internet runs on various flavors of Unix.
I'll allow that the majority of web browsers are likely Windows based, but that means little since IPv6 provides backward compatibility for low end systems (read Windows).
It's too bad they've (Apple) painted themselves into this position. I only use OS/2 and Linux, so if I can't play the QT content, I simply don't worry about it. A loss for QuickTime. On a side note, Practice Corp's QuickMotion for OS/2 is a great product.
As for cost, I only paid $449 for it.
And my Criterion LD's in many cases look much better than their DVDs.
If anything, DVD has actually made audio matters worse. So many companies feel compelled to provide 5.1 tracks that they're messing with classics.
Take "The Ten Commandments" for example. The widescreen laserdisc has a much better soundtrack than the DVD. For the DD 5.1 version they got rid of the directional dialog.
I'm with JWZ on this one.
I'm to the point now that I just want to watch the freekin' movie, a seemingly impossible task with many DVD's.
My favorite DVD feature is when the designer is so enchanted with their idiotic menus that they force you into the menus with no way to just put the disc in and hit play.
Ugh!
For me, my motto is now "damn the extras, full feature ahead!"
Because the quality is generally so bad, I usually only use RA to listen to "radio" stations.
A more important problem for Linux users is that many sites are converting to the G2 format meaning that the VERY OLD (they can't even be bothered to provide a fix for the 2.2 and glibc2 issues) RealAudio player is rapidly making RA a non-entity.
If MS were to release a Linux-based player in short order, I'm guessing many people would use it.
This is another area where IBM really screwed the pooch by dropping Bamba. Had they made a concerted effort, they could have flooded the market with encoders and clients.
Several months ago I wrote to the Bamba manager and received a nice reply noting that Bamba was no longer being worked on. This is unfortunate, as it was a slick tool (including a Java viewer) and we used it to convert a number of inhouse training tapes for electronic ditribution. THe best part was that, using the Java applet, there was no need for the end user to install a viewer or plugin. A very disappointing loss.
I agree with most of the early posters here with one exception. While I also maintain it will be years (if not decades) before a digital transmission media can match film in the consumer/theatrical realm, I also think digital transmission of features will (unfortunately) begin earlier than that. The market for most theatrical product is targetted at the least common denominator. Eg., your Joe Sixpack VHS owner who has recently moved to DVD and doesn't see anything wrong with encoding errors or pixilation. For these people (and they are the majority) it likely won't make any difference. A friend of mine managed a theatre at the same time I did. I went to see "The Untouchables" on Sunday of the opening weekend. As soon as the film started, I noticed that the wrong lens was in (the film was supposed to be scope but they had their normal spherical lens in.) I went out and told my friend who immediately fixed it and told me after the film that it had been that way all weekend. If the average audience doesn't notice that Kevin Costner is suddenly much thinner than normal, how do we expect them to fight of the less than stellar performance of digital transmission?
Title says it all.
Coming from the OS/2 world, I can assure you that Wine is a bad idea and nobody in the Linux world should accept a Windows app that has been linked with Wine.
It simply becomes a quick and dirty way for companies to give us software that works the way Windows works (hot keys, etc.) and generally even less reliably if that's possible.
My guess is that most vendors are doing this because the don't have to woory about Microsoft for the time being. If the DOJ doesn't prevail in the trial, I'd be willing to place money on these vendors dropping Linux support do to "lack of interest."