Well I think it's a little more insightful to look at just mp3 players, since Zune doesn't compete with HD TVs or blank CD-Rs
Which is likely the reason I noted there were 16 MP3 players in front of the Zune in the top 100 list. Not 16 HDTVs or blank CD-Rs, there are 16 MP3 players ahead of the Zune.
And to restrict it further, to just the hard drive based MP3 players, since people looking to buy a 4GB MP3 player won't even consider Zune, it shows up at #6
Which is still far from #2, good research.
You could even argue that it should really only be compared with the other 30 GB MP3 players, which would make it #4
Oooh, your getting closer to #2, now restrict the cirteria to sale of Zunes only.:)
I'm not surprised my post was labeled as a troll, whatever, but that article was just as absurd. The truth is there are some serious issues in the entire Zune package, and I'm not an iPod fanboi, I wont buy an iPod either because they have their own DRM issues with iTunes.
The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF
I suppose if your talking DRM only then you are correct. Apple holds a monopoly on the idiocy of DRM in digital music stores and players. But the last thing we need is another player with competing DRM, we need to get rid of DRM altogether.
The market for MP3 players is highly competitive, Zune brings nothing new to the market and is simply a Microsoft me too product. It will make no difference in fair use for music consumers and in fact brings a BS royalty tax on every device consumers purchase. Now even if you don't buy the corporate backed music you still have to pay for it in the form of a royalty to the coroprate music industry on every Zune sold. Thanks Microsoft.
Turns out Zune was the #2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales.
Umm, yeah, and Windows has a lower TCO than linux, I got that.
There are 16 other MP3 players, a mix of iPods Sans and Creative players, ahead of the only Zune on Amazon's top 100 list, the black one which is currently at 63.
I suppose bank robbery wouldn't be a bad thing either as long as the criminal is a corporation instead of a person.
I don't pirate music but I also tend to buy indie music now because I don't want to pay for the lunacy in the music industry and the crappy music they hock. If there is a royalty or tax on music devices like the iPod it is theft, plain and simple.
I presume you mean that being pro-ODF doesn't make you anti-MS. It certainly does in my experience, although you're right in that it shouldn't.
Hey, its not my fault if the same rational logic that leads someone to be pro-ODF results in a realization that doing business with Microsoft only fuels future illegal business tactics so its best just to stay away.
Either a technology savvy/aware person would be pro MS or pro-ODF
And a key difference between the pro-MS and pro-ODF is that the pro-ODF may also be pro-MS while the pro-MS is definitely anti-ODF.;)
There is nothing stopping Microsoft from supporting ODF and the ODF standard is not a ploy to push Microsoft out of the market. You could be pro-ODF and still recommend Microsoft Office as the application of choice, as long as it meets the ODF requirement.
The same can't be said for the pro-MS bias because the MS option locks everyone else out.
Both sides of the Microsoft vs ODF battle are special interests.
Actually no, one side is a special interest. Microsoft is paying lobbyists to sway government policy so that Microsoft will profit. Microsoft is the special and the profit is the interest. The Microsoft side of the arguement serves only Microsoft's interest in profits. Microsoft can sell software that supports ODF so the only reason to not support ODF is to again ensure their own interest, profit in a monopoly.
ODF is a standard developed by an industry consortium (OASIS) to provide documented methods of accessing data by anyone whether it be a corporation who want to develop and sell an application to read or generate documents based on the standard or if someone is trying to extract data from a document that was generated by software from a company that is long gone or no longer supports the software.
ODF was a selected format for government documents because it makes sense for public documents to not be forever tied to a proprietary format that locks the public out of the documents they own and paid for unless they pay an additional tax to a private corporation.
So the ODF side is definitely an interest but its not special, its broad, its the public.
in lieu of things that might actually generate revenue
Yep, and who would have ever imagined you could generate revenue from competitors by removing your development resources from your competitive project. It makes you wonder how far Novell can go with this, they may be able to get by with threats of hiring developers instead wasting capital on labor expenses.
Interesting business model. Pay us cash or we'll hire people to develop a competing product. Wow, I should patent that.
This latest backdoor attack on the "American hegemony" is nothing to be shocked by
I can't say I know much about Korean politics but they seem to be a close ally with the United States even if they don't always see eye to eye with US policies. But to assume that Microsoft's loss in a patent lawsuit is somehow a backdoor attack is ludicrous. If the guy has a patent and Microsoft violated it then they should respect his ip as they claim they do and pay him.
On the other hand this seems more like the sad state of affairs in software patents coming back to bite one of the big software corporations that fail to work in a positive way to fix the system because in most cases it works to their benefit by stamping out competition.
Software patents should be trashed for two reasons, 1) software is covered by copyright not patents, and 2) software patents violate the patent rules because by their nature software patents end up as patents on ideas or abstracts instead of an actual working process and that is why we have people and corporations winning these idiotic software patent lawsuits.
This has less to do with Korean politics and more to do with the ongoing stupidity of software patents.
And when a monopolist uses illegal business tactics you use the law to ensure interoperability, cooperation, and a competative free market, you don't sign contracts or agreements with a corporation known to use illegal business tactics to destroy competition.
If you you have over the air HDTV already in your area then HDTV may be a good investment.
I'm on my second HDTV with built in OTA HDTV tuner (note, don't buy Mitsubishi, they are crap) and I get a better picture with a medium sized antennae inside my attic than I do with my Dishnetwork digital satellite system.
Aside from the awesome video you get with HDTV broadcasts the digital reception of basic NTSC video is great.
Is there a business case? Well all I can say is screw the bean counters, if we held back advancement in technology until the bean counters could justify the business case we'd still be communicating with smoke signals and drums.
The cost of the technology is coming down fast and broadcasters who refuse to step up to the new technology to satisfy their customers (the viewers) will be swept aside.
Almost all of the money made by open source has been made by exploiting open source. Yes most of the internet runs on OSS. But how many of the billions if not trillions of dollars has made it back to the pockets of the developers of the big parts like Apache?
This is not an open source phenomenon;
Walmart exploits the building and property where they hock their wares and not one red cent of the revenue makes it back to the laborers who constructed the building, parking lot, or surface roads that make the opeartion feasible.
The local copper mine makes millions in profit from the ore they strip and process from their mine with the equipment they purchased from manufacturers such as Caterpillar, Case, etc., and not one red cent of their profits makes it back to the laborers who designed and manufactured the machines.
And you may find this shocking but the huge monetary gains that upper management at Microsoft make from the exploitation of Microsoft closed source products is not payment for their labor in developing the software because they didn't develop it. The laborers who actually made the code which Microsoft exploits do not receive the profits from the 80%+ margins on the code.
Resources are exploited at many levels in economic endeavors and there is no difference between open source exploitation or any other model. To suggest that the lack of a direct revenue stream between the developers of a tool and the profits derived from endeavors of the tool users is some how an inherent function of open source is incorrect and far from insightful.
Now understanding how the developers of open source applications are compensated for their labor may not be as obvious or transparent as other economic models but at the same time it should be obvious that there is some type of compensation considering that in contrast to the Thai ICT Minister's conclusions that "With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated" open source retains copyright protection for the developer, people and companies are making money from it, and there is by far more development occuring in open source than all closed source developers combined, sourceforge.net alone has almost 1.5 million registered developers. The Thai minister is clearly an ignorant buffoon.
They're getting something out of this (or at least they believe they are), and if you've directly benefited, then it's reasonable to believe that it's costing you something as well (TNSTAAFL).
And you are correct, it is costing SuSE users something, cash.
"Novell will make ongoing payments of at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft, based on percentages of Novell's Open Platform Solutions and Open Enterprise Server revenues." http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8976869042.html
can any slashdoter tell me why this deal is really bad and should be avoided?
Absolutely.
As with laptops and desktop hardware there is no reason I should be forced to pay a Microsoft tax for crappy software I have not intention of utilizing simply because Microsoft made some sweet deal with OEMs.
Likewise there should be no reason why I should have to pay a Microsoft tax for bogus patents I have no intention of utilizing when I purchase a linux service and support contract.
I find the answer to question number 2 intriguing:
Q2. Why did Novell make this deal with Microsoft? Was Microsoft threatening a lawsuit?
Novell started discussions with Microsoft in order to solve problems for our customers by improving Linux/Windows interoperability in areas like virtualization, heterogeneous server management, and office document compatibility. By securing a commitment from Microsoft to support the use of Linux and open source software, we have allayed any potential concerns for our customers and removed a barrier to enterprise-wide Linux adoption.
There was no threatened litigation.
First I'd like to ask of the SuSE customers who frequent slashdot, were you having problems with "Linux/Windows interoperability in areas like virtualization, heterogeneous server management, and office document compatibility" which you brought to Novell's attention?
And second, exactly what were your potential concerns about any "barrier to enterprise-wide Linux adoption" that were allayed by Novell's agreement with Microsoft?
It seems that we have seen article after article and report after report that shows significant progess by the open source community in providing everything that Novell claims this agreement addresses so I'm a bit skeptical of this answer and would like to know what SuSE customers think.
"In addition to the approximate 40 patents the company has secured or acquired over the past 15 years, Forgent has applied for dozens of patents relating to various products and software the company has developed over the past several years."
Ah yes, Forgent has a 15 year history of developing various products and software which they patent. And the two prominent patents are their '672 patent for video compression and the '746 patent for a computer controlled video conferencing system. And these two patented technologies are used in their products known as... oh wait, they don't have any products that use video compression or video conferencing.
Hey, in fact Forgent hasn't been around for 15 years and is actually a spin off from VTEL back in 2001 when the employees of VTEL purchased the business unit that develops, manufactures, and sells of all things computer controlled video conferencing equipment.
Wow, so what is it exactly that Forgent does for business that is based on the patented technology they developed?
Such claimes must be backed up by evidence. Is this libel?! SUE SUE SUE SUE SUE!
Aha, it all starts to make sense, could it be that the purpose of Forgents business is not to develop, manufacture, and sell video conferencing equipment but instead is to produce lawsuits? Boy, the deeper one digs the more it stinks.
That's because the majority of home users do NOT upgrade their OS. They use whatever was installed by the OEM. They use the drivers provided by the OEM. They won't even install and update anti-virus software.
I would add that Windows user's who do attempt upgrades of their OS, installation of new hardware and drivers, and even installation and configuration of a new applications or games run into exactly the same problems that these articles complain about in linux.
As someone who knows much more about linux than Windows and still has to suffer the occassional request for support on a Windows box I can verify that Windows suffers from the same failings in compatability and ease of use as is experienced with any other platform.
When I have to edit the registry to delete User DSN entries that cannot be deleted from the nice UI because the drivers were updated then something is wrong with Windows ease of use.
When I plug in a USB drive to a Windows box and it says the device is recognized and everything is working fine but there is no drive letter to access the device because Windows needs the drive letter which is currently being used for a mounted netware drive and can't figure out that there are 26 letters in the alphabet something is seriously flawed in the USB mass storage system on Windows.
When Microsoft hard codes a restriction on the number of incomplete outgoing TCP/IP connections to mitigate DDOS attacks from zombied Windows machines and adjusting the limit for a client machine connecting to an MS SQL server requires hacking a DLL with a hex editor the usability of the OS is questionable.
Linux is not perfect but many of the problems which people claim are holding it back exist in the dominant desktop platform as well.
Being the owners of such an important patent and winning a nice settlement I assumed that Forgent must be a premier technology company providing important advances in technology and related products to our technology driven society, so I had a look at their website and what did I find?
"Our software division, NetSimplicity makes easy-to-use, scheduling software for any need -- scheduling rooms, resources and I.T. assets."
WTF, they make scheduling software for meeting rooms?!? I think I smell patent troll.
Serious question for those familiar with the technology:
I work in a factory that utilizes several touchscreens of various types, makes, and models for the user interface on the equipment, these screens are subjected to 24x7x365 operation and sustain heavy abuse from pens, excessive physical pressure, and exposure to acid and solvent residues, they do not continuously slip out of sync. Once they are calibrated recalibration is very rare, perhaps once or twice every couple of years.
The statement from the Supervisor of Elections about out of sync touchscreens being normal seems like BS to me. More importantly if the touchscreens do normally slip out of sync then they should not be used for an election and the Supervisor of Elections is failing to do their job if they are allowing such subpar equipment to be used for elections as they put the implementation of democracy at risk.
Sure you could build your own firewall appliance and shove it in a DMZ on your home LAN. And you could implement hardware dongles for wireless. And you could sandbox everything and so on and so on and so on.
But is that reasonable? Do you really have content on your machines that's so valuable that it has to be preserved at all costs? Is it really worth the time, effort and money to do so? Did you remember to back it up?
I tried backing up the cash I keep in my online banking account just in case my Windows box gets zombied and sends off my keyboard input to some h4k3r in russ14, but I learned from the FBI that backups are illegal.
many in the Linux community do see Utah as the root of many problems within the technical world. Hatch's twisted understanding of technology, and the legislation it helps lead to, is one issue. Another is the whole SCO debacle.
Yeah right, I doubt many in the linux community are that ignorant. Hatch doesn't have a twisted understanding of technology, he has NO understanding of technology. Hatch is a mere puppet of the real trouble makers, MPAA, RIAA, BSA, and hey, don't they all come from the west coast, California and Washington? Perhaps a boycott isn't enough, maybe we should just nuke 'em and save the technical world from all their meddling. Then again perhaps labeling all the people in a geographic area is kinda dumb and perhaps we should get to the real source of the trouble which is likely to be a very small percentage of the population from any specific area. In fact I bet we could narrow it down to a handful of wealthy corporations who are acting out of greed.
For the most part you are dead on with your analysis of Utah, its religion, and its politics but I think I can help clarify why people in Utah will send Hatch back to DC.
You see, Ashdown is Mormon as well, so it isn't about the religious persuasion of the candidate, its about forcing christian fundamentalism onto everyone else. Ashdown is a moderate when it comes to religion and unlike Hatch has no interest in forcing his religion on the rest of our nation. What Hatch means by "save the Constitution" is that he will assist in introducing and if possible passing laws based on hate and ignorance. While our personal rights as citizens are trampled by our government and by corporations with the assistance of Hatch the people of Utah vote for Hatch because they believe it is more important to create hate laws against homosexuals, eliminate science which contradicts their beliefs from our schools, and turn our society into a fundamental christian society pretty much like Afghanistan or Iran.
Hatch and his supporters don't have any plans to save the constitution, their plans are to change it into the christian constitution so that it only provides rights to those who follow their religion. To the fundamentalists in Utah that is a goal which is more important than freedom.
Anyhow, I'll be voting for Ashdown no matter what the polls say because I still have faith in this countries ability to be a free nation.
When Novell purchased SuSE supposedly Red Hat was doomed because Novell was better positioned to bring linux to the enterprise. Red Hat continued to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
When Sun open sourced Solaris Red Hat was doomed because Sun knows the enterprise and Solaris is a better linux than linux. Red Hat continued to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
When Sun annouced that they would make Ubuntu linux enterprise ready then linux would finally be ready for the enterprise and Red Hat's end was near. And Red Hat continued to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
Now Ellison's monsterous ego is lumbering through the market hunting down Red Hat to finally squash it because Oracle has... lots of money. And guess what will happen, Red Hat will continue to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
I think the key commonality in all these situations is that we have three closed source proprietary vendors who have been forced into accepting open source, sometimes kicking and screaming, as a significant part of the software stack their businesses rely on, but in the case of Red Hat they are an open source company.
Oh, and just as a side note for anyone reading this, that article started off with quite the ignorant flaimbait claims. Oracle cannot and will not be removing Red Hat copyrights from linux, they will be removing trademarks. Red Hat has licensed their copyrights on the code under the GPL and those copyrights will remain. And I'm not so sure about the author's claim that Red Hat said there would be hardware incompatibility, I think what they said is any changes to the code in the distribution would invalidate any certifications.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is likely the reason I noted there were 16 MP3 players in front of the Zune in the top 100 list. Not 16 HDTVs or blank CD-Rs, there are 16 MP3 players ahead of the Zune.
Which is still far from #2, good research.
Oooh, your getting closer to #2, now restrict the cirteria to sale of Zunes only.
I'm not surprised my post was labeled as a troll, whatever, but that article was just as absurd. The truth is there are some serious issues in the entire Zune package, and I'm not an iPod fanboi, I wont buy an iPod either because they have their own DRM issues with iTunes.
burnin
I suppose if your talking DRM only then you are correct. Apple holds a monopoly on the idiocy of DRM in digital music stores and players. But the last thing we need is another player with competing DRM, we need to get rid of DRM altogether.
The market for MP3 players is highly competitive, Zune brings nothing new to the market and is simply a Microsoft me too product. It will make no difference in fair use for music consumers and in fact brings a BS royalty tax on every device consumers purchase. Now even if you don't buy the corporate backed music you still have to pay for it in the form of a royalty to the coroprate music industry on every Zune sold. Thanks Microsoft.
burnin
Umm, yeah, and Windows has a lower TCO than linux, I got that.
There are 16 other MP3 players, a mix of iPods Sans and Creative players, ahead of the only Zune on Amazon's top 100 list, the black one which is currently at 63.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/
I suppose bank robbery wouldn't be a bad thing either as long as the criminal is a corporation instead of a person.
I don't pirate music but I also tend to buy indie music now because I don't want to pay for the lunacy in the music industry and the crappy music they hock. If there is a royalty or tax on music devices like the iPod it is theft, plain and simple.
burnin
Hey, its not my fault if the same rational logic that leads someone to be pro-ODF results in a realization that doing business with Microsoft only fuels future illegal business tactics so its best just to stay away.
And a key difference between the pro-MS and pro-ODF is that the pro-ODF may also be pro-MS while the pro-MS is definitely anti-ODF.
There is nothing stopping Microsoft from supporting ODF and the ODF standard is not a ploy to push Microsoft out of the market. You could be pro-ODF and still recommend Microsoft Office as the application of choice, as long as it meets the ODF requirement.
The same can't be said for the pro-MS bias because the MS option locks everyone else out.
Actually no, one side is a special interest. Microsoft is paying lobbyists to sway government policy so that Microsoft will profit. Microsoft is the special and the profit is the interest. The Microsoft side of the arguement serves only Microsoft's interest in profits. Microsoft can sell software that supports ODF so the only reason to not support ODF is to again ensure their own interest, profit in a monopoly.
ODF is a standard developed by an industry consortium (OASIS) to provide documented methods of accessing data by anyone whether it be a corporation who want to develop and sell an application to read or generate documents based on the standard or if someone is trying to extract data from a document that was generated by software from a company that is long gone or no longer supports the software.
ODF was a selected format for government documents because it makes sense for public documents to not be forever tied to a proprietary format that locks the public out of the documents they own and paid for unless they pay an additional tax to a private corporation.
So the ODF side is definitely an interest but its not special, its broad, its the public.
Yep, and who would have ever imagined you could generate revenue from competitors by removing your development resources from your competitive project. It makes you wonder how far Novell can go with this, they may be able to get by with threats of hiring developers instead wasting capital on labor expenses.
Interesting business model. Pay us cash or we'll hire people to develop a competing product. Wow, I should patent that.
burnin
The last time I checked the Zune was at #96 and at risk of completely falling of the top 100 Amazon list.
5 1549011/ref=pd_ts_pg_4/103-2463489-7006241?ie=UTF8 &pg=4
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/
I can't say I know much about Korean politics but they seem to be a close ally with the United States even if they don't always see eye to eye with US policies. But to assume that Microsoft's loss in a patent lawsuit is somehow a backdoor attack is ludicrous. If the guy has a patent and Microsoft violated it then they should respect his ip as they claim they do and pay him.
On the other hand this seems more like the sad state of affairs in software patents coming back to bite one of the big software corporations that fail to work in a positive way to fix the system because in most cases it works to their benefit by stamping out competition.
Software patents should be trashed for two reasons, 1) software is covered by copyright not patents, and 2) software patents violate the patent rules because by their nature software patents end up as patents on ideas or abstracts instead of an actual working process and that is why we have people and corporations winning these idiotic software patent lawsuits.
This has less to do with Korean politics and more to do with the ongoing stupidity of software patents.
burnin
And when a monopolist uses illegal business tactics you use the law to ensure interoperability, cooperation, and a competative free market, you don't sign contracts or agreements with a corporation known to use illegal business tactics to destroy competition.
d =Microsoft+Meets+EU+Deadline
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=19883&he
If you you have over the air HDTV already in your area then HDTV may be a good investment.
I'm on my second HDTV with built in OTA HDTV tuner (note, don't buy Mitsubishi, they are crap) and I get a better picture with a medium sized antennae inside my attic than I do with my Dishnetwork digital satellite system.
Aside from the awesome video you get with HDTV broadcasts the digital reception of basic NTSC video is great.
Is there a business case? Well all I can say is screw the bean counters, if we held back advancement in technology until the bean counters could justify the business case we'd still be communicating with smoke signals and drums.
The cost of the technology is coming down fast and broadcasters who refuse to step up to the new technology to satisfy their customers (the viewers) will be swept aside.
burnin
Only time will tell, the verdict is still not out on the legality of the deal the suits concocted.
This is not an open source phenomenon;
Walmart exploits the building and property where they hock their wares and not one red cent of the revenue makes it back to the laborers who constructed the building, parking lot, or surface roads that make the opeartion feasible.
The local copper mine makes millions in profit from the ore they strip and process from their mine with the equipment they purchased from manufacturers such as Caterpillar, Case, etc., and not one red cent of their profits makes it back to the laborers who designed and manufactured the machines.
And you may find this shocking but the huge monetary gains that upper management at Microsoft make from the exploitation of Microsoft closed source products is not payment for their labor in developing the software because they didn't develop it. The laborers who actually made the code which Microsoft exploits do not receive the profits from the 80%+ margins on the code.
Resources are exploited at many levels in economic endeavors and there is no difference between open source exploitation or any other model. To suggest that the lack of a direct revenue stream between the developers of a tool and the profits derived from endeavors of the tool users is some how an inherent function of open source is incorrect and far from insightful.
Now understanding how the developers of open source applications are compensated for their labor may not be as obvious or transparent as other economic models but at the same time it should be obvious that there is some type of compensation considering that in contrast to the Thai ICT Minister's conclusions that "With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated" open source retains copyright protection for the developer, people and companies are making money from it, and there is by far more development occuring in open source than all closed source developers combined, sourceforge.net alone has almost 1.5 million registered developers. The Thai minister is clearly an ignorant buffoon.
And you are correct, it is costing SuSE users something, cash.
"Novell will make ongoing payments of at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft, based on percentages of Novell's Open Platform Solutions and Open Enterprise Server revenues."
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8976869042.htm
Absolutely.
As with laptops and desktop hardware there is no reason I should be forced to pay a Microsoft tax for crappy software I have not intention of utilizing simply because Microsoft made some sweet deal with OEMs.
Likewise there should be no reason why I should have to pay a Microsoft tax for bogus patents I have no intention of utilizing when I purchase a linux service and support contract.
United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected all of the claims of Microsoft's patent on the FAT file system
http://www.pubpat.org/Microsoft_517_Rejected.htm
Microsoft Wants A Patent For Conjugating Verbs
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060831/144251.
Microsoft Patents 'IsNot', Enlists WTO
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/19/1
Microsoft Double-click Patent Sows FUD
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/
I can do this all day.
First I'd like to ask of the SuSE customers who frequent slashdot, were you having problems with "Linux/Windows interoperability in areas like virtualization, heterogeneous server management, and office document compatibility" which you brought to Novell's attention?
And second, exactly what were your potential concerns about any "barrier to enterprise-wide Linux adoption" that were allayed by Novell's agreement with Microsoft?
It seems that we have seen article after article and report after report that shows significant progess by the open source community in providing everything that Novell claims this agreement addresses so I'm a bit skeptical of this answer and would like to know what SuSE customers think.
Ah yes, Forgent has a 15 year history of developing various products and software which they patent. And the two prominent patents are their '672 patent for video compression and the '746 patent for a computer controlled video conferencing system. And these two patented technologies are used in their products known as
Hey, in fact Forgent hasn't been around for 15 years and is actually a spin off from VTEL back in 2001 when the employees of VTEL purchased the business unit that develops, manufactures, and sells of all things computer controlled video conferencing equipment.
Wow, so what is it exactly that Forgent does for business that is based on the patented technology they developed?
Aha, it all starts to make sense, could it be that the purpose of Forgents business is not to develop, manufacture, and sell video conferencing equipment but instead is to produce lawsuits? Boy, the deeper one digs the more it stinks.
I would add that Windows user's who do attempt upgrades of their OS, installation of new hardware and drivers, and even installation and configuration of a new applications or games run into exactly the same problems that these articles complain about in linux.
As someone who knows much more about linux than Windows and still has to suffer the occassional request for support on a Windows box I can verify that Windows suffers from the same failings in compatability and ease of use as is experienced with any other platform.
When I have to edit the registry to delete User DSN entries that cannot be deleted from the nice UI because the drivers were updated then something is wrong with Windows ease of use.
When I plug in a USB drive to a Windows box and it says the device is recognized and everything is working fine but there is no drive letter to access the device because Windows needs the drive letter which is currently being used for a mounted netware drive and can't figure out that there are 26 letters in the alphabet something is seriously flawed in the USB mass storage system on Windows.
When Microsoft hard codes a restriction on the number of incomplete outgoing TCP/IP connections to mitigate DDOS attacks from zombied Windows machines and adjusting the limit for a client machine connecting to an MS SQL server requires hacking a DLL with a hex editor the usability of the OS is questionable.
Linux is not perfect but many of the problems which people claim are holding it back exist in the dominant desktop platform as well.
Being the owners of such an important patent and winning a nice settlement I assumed that Forgent must be a premier technology company providing important advances in technology and related products to our technology driven society, so I had a look at their website and what did I find?
"Our software division, NetSimplicity makes easy-to-use, scheduling software for any need -- scheduling rooms, resources and I.T. assets."
WTF, they make scheduling software for meeting rooms?!? I think I smell patent troll.
I work in a factory that utilizes several touchscreens of various types, makes, and models for the user interface on the equipment, these screens are subjected to 24x7x365 operation and sustain heavy abuse from pens, excessive physical pressure, and exposure to acid and solvent residues, they do not continuously slip out of sync. Once they are calibrated recalibration is very rare, perhaps once or twice every couple of years.
The statement from the Supervisor of Elections about out of sync touchscreens being normal seems like BS to me. More importantly if the touchscreens do normally slip out of sync then they should not be used for an election and the Supervisor of Elections is failing to do their job if they are allowing such subpar equipment to be used for elections as they put the implementation of democracy at risk.
I tried backing up the cash I keep in my online banking account just in case my Windows box gets zombied and sends off my keyboard input to some h4k3r in russ14, but I learned from the FBI that backups are illegal.
Yeah right, I doubt many in the linux community are that ignorant. Hatch doesn't have a twisted understanding of technology, he has NO understanding of technology. Hatch is a mere puppet of the real trouble makers, MPAA, RIAA, BSA, and hey, don't they all come from the west coast, California and Washington? Perhaps a boycott isn't enough, maybe we should just nuke 'em and save the technical world from all their meddling. Then again perhaps labeling all the people in a geographic area is kinda dumb and perhaps we should get to the real source of the trouble which is likely to be a very small percentage of the population from any specific area. In fact I bet we could narrow it down to a handful of wealthy corporations who are acting out of greed.
For the most part you are dead on with your analysis of Utah, its religion, and its politics but I think I can help clarify why people in Utah will send Hatch back to DC.
You see, Ashdown is Mormon as well, so it isn't about the religious persuasion of the candidate, its about forcing christian fundamentalism onto everyone else. Ashdown is a moderate when it comes to religion and unlike Hatch has no interest in forcing his religion on the rest of our nation. What Hatch means by "save the Constitution" is that he will assist in introducing and if possible passing laws based on hate and ignorance. While our personal rights as citizens are trampled by our government and by corporations with the assistance of Hatch the people of Utah vote for Hatch because they believe it is more important to create hate laws against homosexuals, eliminate science which contradicts their beliefs from our schools, and turn our society into a fundamental christian society pretty much like Afghanistan or Iran.
Hatch and his supporters don't have any plans to save the constitution, their plans are to change it into the christian constitution so that it only provides rights to those who follow their religion. To the fundamentalists in Utah that is a goal which is more important than freedom.
Anyhow, I'll be voting for Ashdown no matter what the polls say because I still have faith in this countries ability to be a free nation.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
When Novell purchased SuSE supposedly Red Hat was doomed because Novell was better positioned to bring linux to the enterprise. Red Hat continued to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
When Sun open sourced Solaris Red Hat was doomed because Sun knows the enterprise and Solaris is a better linux than linux. Red Hat continued to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
When Sun annouced that they would make Ubuntu linux enterprise ready then linux would finally be ready for the enterprise and Red Hat's end was near. And Red Hat continued to be the leading provider of linux to the enterprise.
Now Ellison's monsterous ego is lumbering through the market hunting down Red Hat to finally squash it because Oracle has
I think the key commonality in all these situations is that we have three closed source proprietary vendors who have been forced into accepting open source, sometimes kicking and screaming, as a significant part of the software stack their businesses rely on, but in the case of Red Hat they are an open source company.
Oh, and just as a side note for anyone reading this, that article started off with quite the ignorant flaimbait claims. Oracle cannot and will not be removing Red Hat copyrights from linux, they will be removing trademarks. Red Hat has licensed their copyrights on the code under the GPL and those copyrights will remain. And I'm not so sure about the author's claim that Red Hat said there would be hardware incompatibility, I think what they said is any changes to the code in the distribution would invalidate any certifications.
burnin