Of course they just trying to protect themselves. But against what exactly?
Lawsuits? Patent/Copyright infringement claims?
If it is poor wording. It's very, very poor at it should have been fixed by now.
Re-read my post and refresh the page. They have updated it.
And they should notify their customers about these things.
Sure, while you're at it, could you ask Bell Canada, Rogers AT&T, Telus Mobility, GM Canada, IBM, Microsoft et al. to implement the same practises? Thanks.
Obviously the article author modified what Tolliver actually said
While I forget the literary term for it, that was a perfectly normal 'correction' to make. Tolliver was likely already talking about something, and when extracting that sound-bite from his line of thought the author had to substitute "put" for a possibly long, detailed line that would probably digress from the point at hand.
However, that wasn't what Luminair was talking about. He indicated that the article submitter and Timothy (the Slashdot editor who posted the article) had somehow modified the quote, and further accused them of not reading the article. The irony, of course, is that Luminair now appears to be the one who didn't read the article, because if (s)he had, (s)he would realize that the quote was not altered in any way by the submitter or Timothy.
It's a viscious "RTFA" circle, so I'll just step out now.:)
'All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows.'
Nice correction made by the submitter. Did he even read it? Did timothy even read it? Doesn't seem so...
Actually, that line was quoted verbatim from the article. Removed from context, yes, but verbatim nonetheless.
Now, I'd have to gripe about Mr. Tolliver's flagrant mis-use of the popular idiom "All of a sudden.", but hey; the English language will go downhill with or without me kicking and screaming, so I'll just sit here and fester quietly.
I'd say that the term "network administrator" is ambiguous. To they administer the Microsoft Windows servers and user base, or to they work with Network equipment (switches, routers, PABXs etc.).
It's not ambiguous at all, actually. Network [administrators | engineers | operators] are responsible for the network; routers, switches, distribution. Systems [administrators | engineers | operators] are responsible for the systems; servers et al. Then there are subsets of each; cable technicians are responsible for the physical cabling, backup operators for the system backups, etc.
These titles have always reflectec the responsibilities of the positions they represent. There's no need to change them, make them more or less specific, or play with them so they sound better on business cards.
Then again, if you're administering a network, are competent at what you do, and are sucessful in your company I suppose it wouldn't make much difference if you called yourself "Senior Nerf Brandisher".
... until you have to find another job. See, the users don't know, nor do they need to know the intricacies of my job. I make their e-mail come to their desktop 'somehow' and that's all that matters. The people who need to know what I do are my current and future employers.
While a USB NIC may have been useful to you repairing systems (and is not a bad idea to keep around) he said he wanted a kit for repairing old systems so I don't really think a USB NIC would be useful to him.
Often I'll come across low-end Pentium and K6 systems with one or two USB ports. If a system is much older than that, well, we tell them how much more expensive our increased trouble will cost them versus an upgrade. Strangely, some people actually opt to spend upwards of several hundred dollars in labour charges (across multiple visits, usually) over buying $300 worth of parts to build a new PC. I think our record is about $500 dropped on a 486 DX-33 with 16MB of RAM crammed into it and about three hard drives totalling about 600MB. We've kept it together (upon great insistance) with whatever 'best of breed' used equipment we have in the shop, but with a failing motherboard, chip, and RAM and a case that won't stay closed without a length of duct-tape there's not much more we can do for it. But now, see, they've got so much invested in it they don't WANT to buy new.
{shrug} I take their money and get paid either way, but I'll still never understand people.
Well if you lock down a Linux machine properly, lets say RH 8 for instance then as long as your running a firewall you are nice and safe. Even just running apache and PhP should creat much of a problem
Wow. Week-end cowboy if I've ever seen one.
Apache and PHP. Great examples. There've been, what, six vulnerabilities in these two packages alone in as many months?
The way we built our rescue disc was to figure out what software we were using day in, day out. Some was on CD-Rs, some on floppies, some on various HDDs.
We just combined it all and threw it together on a bootable CD-R. Used it for a while, modified it, used it for a while longer, and I'm working on the "V2.0" series disc now.
We need partitioning and filesystem navigation utilities, primarily, but we also have scant few networking tools available to us.
In general, the rescue disc is used to make a system bootable which doesn't have critical hardware problems. For those, we use a suite of diagnostic tools. Once the system is booted, we use various native OS tools.
My next endeavour will be to make a dual-booting rescue disc with a network system onboard that will allow us to mount (via SMB or NFS) a backup drive on our server. This will probably become one of the most frequently used components of our disc.
We do keep a current copy of Norton Utilities / Systemworks handy, as well as CDs for all versions of Microsoft's client operating systems (OEM CDs and pre-installs) for their own native rescue functionality, as well as a small assortment of Linux and FreeBSD discs. We also stash generic (not tagged to a specific brand) CD burning software package, and the latest of each of the major word processor packages 'just because'.
Also handy is both a regular and high-speed CD-RW disc.
WTF!!!!! I cannot believe they think that that clause is in any way shape or form is ok. Maybe I'm overreacting, but, oh wait I'm not.
Perhaps you are. Per a quick, simple e-mail conversation I had with their helpdesk and legal department, you might want to reload their TOS and see what I thought in the first place; they're protecting themselves. Nothing more, nothing less.
I'm certain you'll find similar clauses in many (most?) other large ISPs in and out of North America.
Note that we were talking about copying ("making copies for all of his friends", see above), not lending, I don't know where that came from.
Oh, I don't know, perhaps if you'd read the article you'd know what we were actually talking about;
"Also is it then okay to loan these CDs to my friends at university that were not able to make it to the presentation but are interesting in trying.NET?"
But thanks for beating down that strawman so efficiently.
On another note, I think this guy had no business at a VS.NET conference. He's just being a prick...
Is that to say that Microsoft developers aren't pricks? And they say Linux is elitist! {snerk}
especially the part where he suggested "making copies for all of his friends," knowing full well that action is NOT OK.
HOW does he know that action is "NOT OK"? That's the type of caveat that's typically included in a license agreement, n'est pas?
Moreover, the e-mail conversation gave him a (small) number of terms and conditions of use of this software. Conditions that would be found in a license. "Free for non-commercial use", and "May not lend/distribute" are two such examples.
You have stability problems with Mozilla? I frequently have 15+ day uptimes with it, and I'm a *power* user. I've almost always got more than thirty tabs open, all with a full page.
Sure, if you view plain text. From version 0.8x until 1.3a you couldn't even view a Java applet under Linux, irrespective of plugin.
Of course, then there was the long-standing issue of having more than one, or even one SMTP server which mysteriously became configured 13 times, yet Mozilla couldn't find it.
Then there was the time (more than one "stable" release) where you couldn't print or save an attachment of any kind from an e-mail or news message without a hard crash.
Or, there was the issue (which still exists, to some degree) when opening Mail & News, closing it, and opening the browser and Mozilla would proceed to consume all available system resources until alternate means had to be taken to shut it down (forcibly, always).
Please, oh please, don't lecture me about Mozilla's stability.
If Mozilla crashing even every day you may want to try running memtest86 for a few hours and maybe 3DMark 2001 (just as an example of a very taxing app) in a loop overnight.
Speaking of problems with OSS software; people who make excuses for it. No, it is not my hardware, and I've got the diagnostics reports on my machines to prove it (no, not "memtest86" or "3DMark", but software that our suppliers take seriously). These issues have existed for hundreds of users that I know about, and countless others who I don't.
People who make excuses for OSS software's perceived speed, stability, or overall quality are drastically setting back the progress of our "movement". Deluding ourselves into believing that overly bloated projects like Mozilla or OpenOffice are streamlined, or in any way on the same playing field as many of their (closed-source) equivalents gets us nowhere but three steps back.
When I tell people how great OpenOffice is, only to have them sit there and wait for it to load on a modern machine - a machine that loads Microsoft Word inside of the blink of an eye - they stare at me in disbelief. When OpenOffice crashes on them, they give up on it completely.
I'm a Linux system administrator. I implement Linux servers in place of Windows every chance I get. However, I don't trust the user land as far as I can throw a moderately sized PowerEdge, and that's why I don't reccomend it to anybody *BUT* Linux power users.
Until Linux-Land returns to its roots and vies for stability and streamlining over glitz and "Catch Up With Bill"-syndrome we'll never get there. Lying to yourself abouut it won't change matters, either.
If you want a bunch of people to work on one thing until completion, PAY THEM.
Otherwise you get what you get- a sea of productivity that comes and goes in fits and spurts. you also get a lot of different ideas on how to approach the same problem.
What we need (is more people doing what we need, rather than talking about what we need, but I digress) is a group of programmers, quite possibly (probably) with some commercial interests in mind (unless you've got a senile billionaire philanthropist uncle kicking around somewhere who's just off his nut enough to do your bidding... ) to gather up the best code from each implementation and smash it all together (in an organized fashion) into something great.
Honestly, in every application we have little gems of code - some big, some small - that are just better than everything else that's out there. Unfortunately, so many of those gems are wrapped in bovine feces.
Take Mozilla - my favourite example. It just does mail RIGHT. Best IMAP implementation, best keymappings (which could be customizeable...), best layout, etc.. Unfortunately, the bloat and overall bugginess/instability of the client make it unuseable for all but the most tolerant among us. Seriously; deleting your profile between upgrades to appease the developers for going in a completely new direction? Can I honestly tell five thousand employees to re-create all their browsing and mail preferences because, hey, that's the price of freedom?
Linux used to be the platform that I could exclaim would run on low-end hardware; it was fast, efficient, stable, and free. Now I wouldn't reccomend a Linux GUI to my family members unless I was living with them to help hold its hand.
So, to make a long story longer...
Taking the best and brightest, most widely adopted software from each of the many categories (daemons, word processing, graphics, sound, video,... ), streamlining the code, and implementing the missing features would greatly behoove the community (and the world {cough, snicker} ) overall. However, I don't believe that all free software programmers should drop their tools and join an existing project. That would take us into the realm of the evil corporate software development system where it's "this way or the highway". No, we need forks, we need radical innovation, we need emotion, and we need (believe it or not) politics. These are the fuels that drive the OSS engine (did he just say that?) and create those gems.
The U.S. is going to spend upwards of $75 Billion dollars on the war alone, with who knows how many more Billions rebuilding Iraq, and when all is said and done we probably won't even get a thank you card. Even if half of the aid was in loans it would still be a good deal. This is especially true considering that the loans are likely to be given at ridiculously low rates. Loans at below market rates is still basically free money.
Yeah, when somebody kicks my ass, I'm ever so greatful when they throw me a fiver afterwards. And hey, if I only have to pay back six bucks by Friday, all the better! I actually feel GOOD about being bruised and battered!
Considering the vested interests of America's Big Oil El Presidente going after a country with such large oil reserves, once again 'accidentally' lobbing some of the most high-tech, modern, "smart" guided weaponry into markets et al. and terrorizing the very citizenry he claims to be helping, I don't think you should be patting yourselves on the back for your proposed rebuilding efforts.
Because most electronics rarely fail if they don't initially after a couple of months. The only reasons that they would mostly fail for are reasons nullified by "fine print".
Funny, I personally RMA'd about 30 Fujitsu 20GB hard drives in a period of 13-18 months after the initual purchase date. Boy, were our customers ever glad they had three years' warranty on those units!
Then there was the faulty capacitor issue that saw dozens of systems come back to the store because several manufacturers' products were failing after a period of time anywhere between 6 months and 2 years after the date of purchase (usage dependant).
Or there are the six recalls I've received on my 1995 car between the years of 1998-2003, due to manufacturing defects.
Sorry, chum, but the real world just doesn't hold true to the 90 day myth.
You're missing the point. (See the big EVER! in my post!) The $250 you spent on this warranty, along with the $250 on the last one, and the $150 on the one before that, and the nickel and dimes (to death) that you spent on all of the "what the heck" warranties you could have ever bought, would EASILY cover the cost of the $600. Unless you're the most unlucky person in the world, and everything you buy breaks within the extended warranty period. It's just about the odds - the same odds that they use to MAKE tons of money off of these warranties.
By your logic, I can only repair/replace one major component of one major item purchased before I'm at a loss. If my TFT breaks, I've just spent all the "saved" money on a new screen. Now if something else is damaged, I'm at a loss. If something happens to my television, DVD player, iPod, or any other device, I'm completely screwed.
As for the odds, sure, it's easy to keep all your expensive devices in good working order if you only use them at home (no travel, no job sites), you're the only one who uses them (no careless roommates, significant others, or children), and you have decent surge supressors on all your equipment and are lucky enough not to get hit with a surge that the supressor can't handle. (Yes, there are many, many, many surges that even expensive supressors can't/won't handle, and result in equipment damage and/or complete failure).
Each of the above conditions, plus innumerable others increase the "odds" of some of your equipment breaking. Add into that the wear and tear of every day use, both business and personal, and the chances of needing that little bit of extra warranty coverage increases exponentially.
On top of that, let's factor in the lost money when I have to ship my laptop away to the manufacturer for ${DEITY} only knows how long and hope they return it in good working order in a timely fashion.
But if you want to play the odds and hope you don't have to undergo even as many as two major repairs on expensive electronic equipment, by all means, be my guest. Me, I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I'm covered, and that if a key copmonent breaks I'll get a brand-new replacement unit worth the equivalent cost of what I paid for the original unit.
Since you like to count numbers, a $2000 laptop received based on a $250 warranty coverage is a $1750, or 800% return on my investment.
This is a no-brainer. If you never buy them - EVER! - you can take the money you will save and replace your own stuff when it breaks! Duh!
So the $250 I spent on an extended warranty for my laptop will replace the $600 TFT display? How 'bout the motherboard/CPU?
Sure thing!
The money I spent on the extended warranty would barely cover my Li-ION battery 'down the road', but instead I just take it to the nearest store and have them replace it for me. No hunting, no S&H charges, no credit card verification required. Just painless, easy replacement.
You're saying a warranty on a $1k laptop costs about $250. Ignoring risk aversion, the warranty price would be fair if you had a 25% probability of completely breaking your laptop (1k*0.25=250), or 50%probability of $500 damage (0.5K*.5=250), and so on..
Factor in some risk aversion and you can somewhat lower those probabilities, but it seems to me that your assessment of the probabilities of breaking your stuff would have to be pretty high in order for the warranty to be worth its money. Or, your risk aversion should be pretty high.
I bought a $250 three year International extended warranty on my $2k laptop. It offered several advantages, for example the manufacturer guaranteed my TFT to 30 pixels worth of damage, while the store guarantees 15, etc. It also guarantees that if my TFT is broken within three years, they'll replace the unit with the equivalent unit at the time (which will mean an upgrade over my current unit).
Originally purchased for college use, I also use my laptop in network environments that differ greatly. I can find myself working on my lap in a comfortable office chair without much (any) elbow room, or find myself sitting on the floor in a concrete basement/closet with my laptop perched on a duct of some sort, patched into the network.
Combined with constant transportation in the back seat of my car (my 'office'), I'd consider a 12.5% investment to be a pretty good one. I can't buy a mid-high end laptop for $250, even at today's reduced prices.
Yeah, but what price is worth "piece of mind". Added to the fact that most hardware allready has manufacturer's warrenty for at least a year sorta nullifies this. for cheaper you can just ship it to them for replacement, many will even refund shipping costs.
How, exactly, does a 1 (one) year manufacturer warranty, plus shipping costs, nullify a 3 (three) year store warranty which can be redeemed at any of hundreds of stores in a national chain?
A friend shut up an over-eager saleskid REALLY QUICK one day. He was buying a new TV, and the kid kept pushing and pushing the warranty. Completely pleading with him to get the warranty, it's the best thing ever. My friend set the remote down and turned to the saleskid: "So what you're saying is, I need the warranty because this $500 TV will probably break within the next two years?" Silence.
The salesman must have been new or not terribly bright. Off the top of my head (and I'm not a salesman), I can already think of several responses. If I called up a friend of mine (a former 'big chain' electronics salesman), I'm sure he could give me atleast five responses to any such challenge to his claims.
I've asked him, BTW, and he's told me that much of what he told people was double-speak, or even outright bullshit.
Well, none of us ever click on the stop-sending-me-this button, with good reason. When the spammer knows that theres a real person at the receiving end they INCREASE the amount of spam they send you, and tell all of they're spamming friends.
The only thing the company you call will do is sell your phone number (for more money!) to more companies and the amount of fax-span you get will INCREASE. It's sad but true.
Uhm.. When a fax is sucessfully sent, the fax machine reports the success to the sender. It's instant and immediate. Fax machines aren't like e-mail addresses, and aren't nearly as likely to be 'vacated' as is a fax machine.
When you phone a fax spammer, they then know that they're up for litigation, based on very real damages (cost of materials, phone line time wasted, etc.) as opposed to electronic SPAM, whose damages are, for the most part, beneath the surface and less quantifiable.
It sounds to be as if you're being a bit paranoid, is all.
Bwahahahaha. I have an excercise for you, take any software that uses FSF/GNU products and products derived directly or indirectly from same, and remove the FSF/GNU relevent pieces. Now tell me how function your "software" is.
How is that any different? Why single out Linux?
Because without GNU/FSF, Linux would be nothing, if only a cute toy for uber-geeks to play with in their development environments. Hell, without GNU, Linus probably wouldn't have set pen to paper, so to speak, so your precious "not GNU, just Linux" wouldn't even exist.
I'll assume all you frothing at the mouth types have all paid, or are prepared to pay for a commercial UNIX, right?
Linux is Linux and RMS wants more than just normal GNU credit when it comes to Linux. For some reason, he's singled out Linux as his "see what GNU can help build?" poster child. Unfortunately, that JACKASS mixes in poor judgement. His argument is summarily that of all the free OS development out there, Linux depended on and used GNU software the "most".
I have an excersize for you; take one of your "Linux" systems. Remove ALL FSF/GNU products and products derived directly from same. Now tell me how functional your "Linux" system is.
Oh, for extra credit - re-compile your Linux kernel and userland now that you've removed all those pesky GNU components. Lemme know when you're done.
Slashdot Mirror
Lawsuits? Patent/Copyright infringement claims?
Re-read my post and refresh the page. They have updated it.
Sure, while you're at it, could you ask Bell Canada, Rogers AT&T, Telus Mobility, GM Canada, IBM, Microsoft et al. to implement the same practises? Thanks.
While I forget the literary term for it, that was a perfectly normal 'correction' to make. Tolliver was likely already talking about something, and when extracting that sound-bite from his line of thought the author had to substitute "put" for a possibly long, detailed line that would probably digress from the point at hand.
However, that wasn't what Luminair was talking about. He indicated that the article submitter and Timothy (the Slashdot editor who posted the article) had somehow modified the quote, and further accused them of not reading the article. The irony, of course, is that Luminair now appears to be the one who didn't read the article, because if (s)he had, (s)he would realize that the quote was not altered in any way by the submitter or Timothy.
It's a viscious "RTFA" circle, so I'll just step out now. :)
Actually, that line was quoted verbatim from the article. Removed from context, yes, but verbatim nonetheless.
Now, I'd have to gripe about Mr. Tolliver's flagrant mis-use of the popular idiom "All of a sudden.", but hey; the English language will go downhill with or without me kicking and screaming, so I'll just sit here and fester quietly.
It's not ambiguous at all, actually. Network [administrators | engineers | operators] are responsible for the network; routers, switches, distribution. Systems [administrators | engineers | operators] are responsible for the systems; servers et al. Then there are subsets of each; cable technicians are responsible for the physical cabling, backup operators for the system backups, etc.
These titles have always reflectec the responsibilities of the positions they represent. There's no need to change them, make them more or less specific, or play with them so they sound better on business cards.
Then again, if you're administering a network, are competent at what you do, and are sucessful in your company I suppose it wouldn't make much difference if you called yourself "Senior Nerf Brandisher".
Often I'll come across low-end Pentium and K6 systems with one or two USB ports. If a system is much older than that, well, we tell them how much more expensive our increased trouble will cost them versus an upgrade. Strangely, some people actually opt to spend upwards of several hundred dollars in labour charges (across multiple visits, usually) over buying $300 worth of parts to build a new PC. I think our record is about $500 dropped on a 486 DX-33 with 16MB of RAM crammed into it and about three hard drives totalling about 600MB. We've kept it together (upon great insistance) with whatever 'best of breed' used equipment we have in the shop, but with a failing motherboard, chip, and RAM and a case that won't stay closed without a length of duct-tape there's not much more we can do for it. But now, see, they've got so much invested in it they don't WANT to buy new.
{shrug} I take their money and get paid either way, but I'll still never understand people.
Wow. Week-end cowboy if I've ever seen one.
Apache and PHP. Great examples. There've been, what, six vulnerabilities in these two packages alone in as many months?
Good call, Chester. Thanks for coming out.
We just combined it all and threw it together on a bootable CD-R. Used it for a while, modified it, used it for a while longer, and I'm working on the "V2.0" series disc now.
We need partitioning and filesystem navigation utilities, primarily, but we also have scant few networking tools available to us.
In general, the rescue disc is used to make a system bootable which doesn't have critical hardware problems. For those, we use a suite of diagnostic tools. Once the system is booted, we use various native OS tools.
My next endeavour will be to make a dual-booting rescue disc with a network system onboard that will allow us to mount (via SMB or NFS) a backup drive on our server. This will probably become one of the most frequently used components of our disc.
We do keep a current copy of Norton Utilities / Systemworks handy, as well as CDs for all versions of Microsoft's client operating systems (OEM CDs and pre-installs) for their own native rescue functionality, as well as a small assortment of Linux and FreeBSD discs. We also stash generic (not tagged to a specific brand) CD burning software package, and the latest of each of the major word processor packages 'just because'.
Also handy is both a regular and high-speed CD-RW disc.
I'm certain you'll find similar clauses in many (most?) other large ISPs in and out of North America.
Xtra was merely a victim of poor wording.
Oh, I don't know, perhaps if you'd read the article you'd know what we were actually talking about;
But thanks for beating down that strawman so efficiently.
Oh? Care to point out the portion of the copyright legislature that implicitly forbids lending or distribution rights?
While you're at it, could you contrast this with the GPL, BSD, etc. style licenses?
Thanks!
Is that to say that Microsoft developers aren't pricks? And they say Linux is elitist! {snerk}
HOW does he know that action is "NOT OK"? That's the type of caveat that's typically included in a license agreement, n'est pas?
Moreover, the e-mail conversation gave him a (small) number of terms and conditions of use of this software. Conditions that would be found in a license. "Free for non-commercial use", and "May not lend/distribute" are two such examples.
Sure, if you view plain text. From version 0.8x until 1.3a you couldn't even view a Java applet under Linux, irrespective of plugin.
Of course, then there was the long-standing issue of having more than one, or even one SMTP server which mysteriously became configured 13 times, yet Mozilla couldn't find it.
Then there was the time (more than one "stable" release) where you couldn't print or save an attachment of any kind from an e-mail or news message without a hard crash.
Or, there was the issue (which still exists, to some degree) when opening Mail & News, closing it, and opening the browser and Mozilla would proceed to consume all available system resources until alternate means had to be taken to shut it down (forcibly, always).
Please, oh please, don't lecture me about Mozilla's stability.
Speaking of problems with OSS software; people who make excuses for it. No, it is not my hardware, and I've got the diagnostics reports on my machines to prove it (no, not "memtest86" or "3DMark", but software that our suppliers take seriously). These issues have existed for hundreds of users that I know about, and countless others who I don't.
People who make excuses for OSS software's perceived speed, stability, or overall quality are drastically setting back the progress of our "movement". Deluding ourselves into believing that overly bloated projects like Mozilla or OpenOffice are streamlined, or in any way on the same playing field as many of their (closed-source) equivalents gets us nowhere but three steps back.
When I tell people how great OpenOffice is, only to have them sit there and wait for it to load on a modern machine - a machine that loads Microsoft Word inside of the blink of an eye - they stare at me in disbelief. When OpenOffice crashes on them, they give up on it completely.
I'm a Linux system administrator. I implement Linux servers in place of Windows every chance I get. However, I don't trust the user land as far as I can throw a moderately sized PowerEdge, and that's why I don't reccomend it to anybody *BUT* Linux power users.
Until Linux-Land returns to its roots and vies for stability and streamlining over glitz and "Catch Up With Bill"-syndrome we'll never get there. Lying to yourself abouut it won't change matters, either.
What we need (is more people doing what we need, rather than talking about what we need, but I digress) is a group of programmers, quite possibly (probably) with some commercial interests in mind (unless you've got a senile billionaire philanthropist uncle kicking around somewhere who's just off his nut enough to do your bidding ... ) to gather up the best code from each implementation and smash it all together (in an organized fashion) into something great.
Honestly, in every application we have little gems of code - some big, some small - that are just better than everything else that's out there. Unfortunately, so many of those gems are wrapped in bovine feces.
Take Mozilla - my favourite example. It just does mail RIGHT. Best IMAP implementation, best keymappings (which could be customizeable...), best layout, etc.. Unfortunately, the bloat and overall bugginess/instability of the client make it unuseable for all but the most tolerant among us. Seriously; deleting your profile between upgrades to appease the developers for going in a completely new direction? Can I honestly tell five thousand employees to re-create all their browsing and mail preferences because, hey, that's the price of freedom?
Linux used to be the platform that I could exclaim would run on low-end hardware; it was fast, efficient, stable, and free. Now I wouldn't reccomend a Linux GUI to my family members unless I was living with them to help hold its hand.
So, to make a long story longer ...
Taking the best and brightest, most widely adopted software from each of the many categories (daemons, word processing, graphics, sound, video, ... ), streamlining the code, and implementing the missing features would greatly behoove the community (and the world {cough, snicker} ) overall. However, I don't believe that all free software programmers should drop their tools and join an existing project. That would take us into the realm of the evil corporate software development system where it's "this way or the highway". No, we need forks, we need radical innovation, we need emotion, and we need (believe it or not) politics. These are the fuels that drive the OSS engine (did he just say that?) and create those gems.
Yeah, when somebody kicks my ass, I'm ever so greatful when they throw me a fiver afterwards. And hey, if I only have to pay back six bucks by Friday, all the better! I actually feel GOOD about being bruised and battered!
Considering the vested interests of America's Big Oil El Presidente going after a country with such large oil reserves, once again 'accidentally' lobbing some of the most high-tech, modern, "smart" guided weaponry into markets et al. and terrorizing the very citizenry he claims to be helping, I don't think you should be patting yourselves on the back for your proposed rebuilding efforts.
Funny, I personally RMA'd about 30 Fujitsu 20GB hard drives in a period of 13-18 months after the initual purchase date. Boy, were our customers ever glad they had three years' warranty on those units!
Then there was the faulty capacitor issue that saw dozens of systems come back to the store because several manufacturers' products were failing after a period of time anywhere between 6 months and 2 years after the date of purchase (usage dependant).
Or there are the six recalls I've received on my 1995 car between the years of 1998-2003, due to manufacturing defects.
Sorry, chum, but the real world just doesn't hold true to the 90 day myth.
By your logic, I can only repair/replace one major component of one major item purchased before I'm at a loss. If my TFT breaks, I've just spent all the "saved" money on a new screen. Now if something else is damaged, I'm at a loss. If something happens to my television, DVD player, iPod, or any other device, I'm completely screwed.
As for the odds, sure, it's easy to keep all your expensive devices in good working order if you only use them at home (no travel, no job sites), you're the only one who uses them (no careless roommates, significant others, or children), and you have decent surge supressors on all your equipment and are lucky enough not to get hit with a surge that the supressor can't handle. (Yes, there are many, many, many surges that even expensive supressors can't/won't handle, and result in equipment damage and/or complete failure).
Each of the above conditions, plus innumerable others increase the "odds" of some of your equipment breaking. Add into that the wear and tear of every day use, both business and personal, and the chances of needing that little bit of extra warranty coverage increases exponentially.
On top of that, let's factor in the lost money when I have to ship my laptop away to the manufacturer for ${DEITY} only knows how long and hope they return it in good working order in a timely fashion.
But if you want to play the odds and hope you don't have to undergo even as many as two major repairs on expensive electronic equipment, by all means, be my guest. Me, I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I'm covered, and that if a key copmonent breaks I'll get a brand-new replacement unit worth the equivalent cost of what I paid for the original unit.
Since you like to count numbers, a $2000 laptop received based on a $250 warranty coverage is a $1750, or 800% return on my investment.
Here's to safe computing!
So the $250 I spent on an extended warranty for my laptop will replace the $600 TFT display? How 'bout the motherboard/CPU?
Sure thing!
The money I spent on the extended warranty would barely cover my Li-ION battery 'down the road', but instead I just take it to the nearest store and have them replace it for me. No hunting, no S&H charges, no credit card verification required. Just painless, easy replacement.
I bought a $250 three year International extended warranty on my $2k laptop. It offered several advantages, for example the manufacturer guaranteed my TFT to 30 pixels worth of damage, while the store guarantees 15, etc. It also guarantees that if my TFT is broken within three years, they'll replace the unit with the equivalent unit at the time (which will mean an upgrade over my current unit).
Originally purchased for college use, I also use my laptop in network environments that differ greatly. I can find myself working on my lap in a comfortable office chair without much (any) elbow room, or find myself sitting on the floor in a concrete basement/closet with my laptop perched on a duct of some sort, patched into the network.
Combined with constant transportation in the back seat of my car (my 'office'), I'd consider a 12.5% investment to be a pretty good one. I can't buy a mid-high end laptop for $250, even at today's reduced prices.
How, exactly, does a 1 (one) year manufacturer warranty, plus shipping costs, nullify a 3 (three) year store warranty which can be redeemed at any of hundreds of stores in a national chain?
The salesman must have been new or not terribly bright. Off the top of my head (and I'm not a salesman), I can already think of several responses. If I called up a friend of mine (a former 'big chain' electronics salesman), I'm sure he could give me atleast five responses to any such challenge to his claims.
I've asked him, BTW, and he's told me that much of what he told people was double-speak, or even outright bullshit.
Uhm.. When a fax is sucessfully sent, the fax machine reports the success to the sender. It's instant and immediate. Fax machines aren't like e-mail addresses, and aren't nearly as likely to be 'vacated' as is a fax machine.
When you phone a fax spammer, they then know that they're up for litigation, based on very real damages (cost of materials, phone line time wasted, etc.) as opposed to electronic SPAM, whose damages are, for the most part, beneath the surface and less quantifiable.
It sounds to be as if you're being a bit paranoid, is all.
Because without GNU/FSF, Linux would be nothing, if only a cute toy for uber-geeks to play with in their development environments. Hell, without GNU, Linus probably wouldn't have set pen to paper, so to speak, so your precious "not GNU, just Linux" wouldn't even exist.
I'll assume all you frothing at the mouth types have all paid, or are prepared to pay for a commercial UNIX, right?
I have an excersize for you; take one of your "Linux" systems. Remove ALL FSF/GNU products and products derived directly from same. Now tell me how functional your "Linux" system is.
Oh, for extra credit - re-compile your Linux kernel and userland now that you've removed all those pesky GNU components. Lemme know when you're done.
Yeah, the FSF only contributed the C and C++ libraries and compiler, the bulk of the userland, the loaders that make use of the kernel, ...
Damn crackpots. How can they expect to take credit for those meagre contributions, anyways?
Yeah, I guess IBM dropping USD $1Billion on Linux is a means of protest against the GPL, right?
Riiiiiiight.