I'm a teacher in a high school, so this is different for others I'm sure. Still, I find that arriving early is often just as time-consuming. I get there early and so I don't HAVE to get right to work, so instead, I fool around online, look at the important stuff on/. and otherwise keep myself from getting started. If I show up with a lot less time on my hands, I frantically dive into work. Of course, I might just be weird...
There is something to be said for building community and counting downloads tends to get people going. It seems to have worked pretty well at iTunes and I for one wouldn't mind seeing an active counter over at the Firefox main site.
Whatever the case, this whole article sounds more than a little trollish.
I remember thinking that WordPerfect 5.1 with a GUI could have been all the word processor I would have ever needed. Thank goodness, I was taught the error of my ways.
Who cares what MS thinks of OpenOffice? The more important concern is what Sun and Google think of it. I'm hoping that at some point soon, OO.o gets its own foundation and becomes more like Firefox. I remember, way back when the idea for Mozilla came around that the idea was to remake the Netscape Navigator suite. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came what would eventually be named Firefox. Seems to have caught on fairly well. That's what I want from OO.o, a product that responds to the desires and needs of the community.
My first vote is for something smaller and faster. Of course, I don't code and just leach of the kindness of others, so don't take this as complaining.
Hey, I just thought of one other thing: Isn't Microsoft's pricing model right about what StarOffice's was ten years ago? Or is it much more?
If Sun is interested in goodwill, then this seems a great way to go. If Sun is interested in hurting Microsoft, then this is a great way to go. If Sun is interested in a broader partnership with Google, then this can't hurt that either.
I'm not as informed about all this as I could be, so who can say what the downsides are for Sun if they release this to a Mozilla-like foundation?
Anything that keeps OpenOffice going, helps it become faster and less of a resource hog, and further forces open document standards on the proprietary office suites is a good thing to me.
Aside from the pun of trying to change history, the growing pains of Wikipedia are going to be looked back on as historic. This is the new media and there are difficulties with it. What impresses me is that, for the most part, the people running the show have been the users. The people who created the site have stuck to the idea of a democratic and open system. This is fascinating stuff.
We've seen open source in operating systems and computer programs. We're seeing it more and more with publishing. (Those failed attempts at open-source books were just an early stumble, this is the real deal.) And I wonder how long it will be before music and film go this way as publicly and fully as Wikipedia.
I don't think that the importance of Wikipedia can be overstated. I'll keep watching.
I don't get how this could happen a third time. Let's hope that this is a joke. Otherwise, it really would make a good topic for the next About Slashdot article. Wow. I've been reading for a long time and haven't seen this happen before. Weird. I think that this is some of the reason why editors and CmdrTaco get so much crap hurled at them. If you give people the ammunition, they're likely to fire it on you sooner or later.
All that said, it's not the end of the world. It just makes the site look sloppy and haphazard rather than polished. In many ways, it's kind of the stigma that Linux has faced when compared to Windows. Oh well.
I'm in Central NY and hoping that we are smarter than the folks including Romney and Kennedy on Cape Cod who, though they may talk about being green (word is, it's not easy), don't want the towers in their area. Ugh. Maybe we could set up an oil burning plant or a nice nuclear (or, as Bush would say nook-you-ler) cooling tower. Sheesh
I live near the wind farms in Madison County and have ridden my bicycle up to the bases of some of the towers. It's a great thing. THere is even a song about them by Karen Savoca on her new album. Most of us around here are for the wind farms knowing that it's just what we need, that the terrain is right, and that we need to move forward in this region before everyone flees our snow fall.
Start thinking about making your move to Central/Upstate New York now. Very little traffic, cheap housing, beautiful four seasons, apple picking, the Finger Lakes, the Adirondacks, Niagara Falls, and the Thousand Islands. My friend, a software engineer, formerly from Oakland, lives here now and telecommutes at incredible savings.
Best of all, there's Wegmans and if you've never been to Wegmans, your first visit will make it so you never want to leave.
Let me know if you need help unloading the moving van.
I had an old iMac that I've since retired on which I used NeoOfficeJ. It was alright when I really _had_ to do something on the Mac, but not really a working solution on that machine. It would be cool if Apple would take OpenOffice on as its office suite, but that seems unlikely. Getting OO.o to work with X11 was just too much work for me. Luckily, I have an XP machine now so I hook my iPod to that. I only kept the iMac around for updating the iPod.
I think that a lot of this discussion mirrors what happened before their was comment moderation. I remember when that first went into effect, there was a huge hullabaloo about it, but the site got better even as it got bigger. The same can't be said of a lot of newsgroups I used to read.
Here's my thing: I set my comment threshold to what I feel like I want to hear. If the moderators are doing the job (and I include myself in there with them) then all goes well. If, like me, they haven't moderated well lately, things get messy. A note like this from CmdrTaco is useful as a wakeup. And maybe that's all that we need.
I have noticed that Beatles-Beatles keeps coming up on the page. I noticed because that's a weird and memorable name. I hadn't noticed who was posting the stuff from that submitter (is that a word?) because I just don't care. And here's why:
I've been on/. for a while, but I think I've only tried to submit stories five or six times. Personally, I don't have the time to get things right. It's okay though because I don't suggest stories for the NY Times, NPR, or the Wired Magazine. I read them. I don't mind if someone else writes them. With each of those outlets, I read some of the stuff and others get tossed out. That's how I read/. except that I also get to talk back very easily.
I suppose that it's different for those people who are looking to make money by posting to/. but I don't give a damn about that. If Beatles-Beatles profits from this, I don't care. If you aren't profiting, I don't care about that either. I want to read, discuss, and read what others have to say. The rest of it be damned.
There will always be those people who go off topic, there will always be the idiots concerned with being the first post, and there will always be flame-bait. Beyond that, there will also be intelligent conversation and debate, funny stuff that makes us laugh, and new things to learn on/.
I'm going to moderate more carefully for now. I'll need another reminder down the road. I'm still not going to give a damn who posts what. I'll just read whatever strikes my fancy.
I know that I'm dreaming, but the ideal Linux combination would be Dell bundling Kubuntu on their low end machine. My guess, given that such a machine with XP now sells for $299, is that they could offer it at $249 with a big warning that says "All support for this system will be handled online at dell.support.kubuntu online forum." There would be a warranty on hardware for which phone support would still exist, but all other issues would be handled online, primarily by other users.
The Koobox has three problems for me: (1) Linspire, (2) no monitor, (3) no modem.
I'm not blaming GIMP's lack of popularity on its name or claiming that it is unpopular. I'm just saying that it has been a barrier to my getting friends, students and associates to use it. That's all.
"so if you're new around here how much did you pay for your UID?"
Never said I was new to/. It's just new that I'm not bickering like the child I really am. As for the UID, to the best of my knowledge it was free. I wish I could remember what first brought me to/. That's a thing I've long ago forgotten. Oh well.
I'm really not trying to be self-righteous in any way. Again, I use the GIMP and have never used Photoshop. I like the program, and like it more and more with each revision. That said, the name doesn't work well in terms of getting others to use it. In each case where I have gotten someone to use it, I have had to get them past the name. That's counterproductive.
As for taking the high-ground, it's new territory for me and I'm stumbling around like a drunk. Still, it is pretty nice up here...
Alright, I admit, I'm no PR genius! But, on the serious side, some of those names are pretty clear indications of what the programs do. It gives me no pleasure to give MS kudos for much of anything, though XP is a great system (talk about bad naming).
So what's a good name for GIMP that indicates what it does, sounds professional, is easy to remember, and sells?
No, not really. Consider PS as the name for PhotoShop. Does it work? No.
Now, I'm not suggesting that the name of the GIMP really be changed. At least, not right away. Perhaps there could be a subtitle as in GIMP: (something recognizable). What I am suggesting is that the naming conventions of Open Source programs need to be more recognizable if they are to penetrate more of the market.
One issue, I know, is that things are tough to get through the lawyers. Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix had this problem. I'm not sure how to solve it, but I know that the names represent a barrier. I like the GIMP. I just don't like the name. And I don't like the name because it keeps people from adopting it. The name makes it sound amateurish and non-professional.
I know what it stands for. You know why? Because I read things like/. and keep up with some of the Open Source news. But here's the thing: only one of my friends is a geek and keeps up with this the way I do. Almost all of the others have digital cameras and use image software of one kind or another, but have no idea what a GIMP is other than a derogatory term for someone who can't walk well. Thus, they don't use it.
As for the idea that GNU Image Minipulation Program is more specific than Photoshop, who cares? The name Photoshop (and I have to say here that I have never used Photoshop) makes it sound like a workshop in which someone can alter photos. Simple. It's a one-degree operation. GIMP is at least three degrees: GIMP = GNU Image Manipulation Program = a program for altering images (maybe even photos). I'm saying that the name is not a great way to "sell" the product.
Why would the product need to be "sold"? It's that thing about the more users something has, the more likely it is to get better faster. Firefox (another program with a non-descriptive name) comes to mind as an example of this.
Finally, as a representative of the "retards like you" club, thanks for the kind words. It's elitist nonsense like this that leads all but one of my friends to think that most computer geeks are introverts or childern who can't function in real society and so retreat into virtual societies on the web where they can tell people to "Get over it or suck cock you whining losers." Beyond the inanity of your comment, it doesn't help move anything forward.
Rename the GIMP so that people who aren't already devoted to it might have a clue as to what it does.
There was another article a while ago about program names that made sense to me. If the Open Source programs had more recognizable names, they would have more traction. As it is, in my school, it is very difficult to get people to use things like the GIMP instead of Photoshop but much easier to convince them that OpenOffice is a good choice over MS Office.
Seems to me that very few would object to Google creating and running a library on the model of public libraries. I go to our library two or three times each week to get books, music, and movies. I return the things I've borrowed and someone else borrows them.
Here's the problem: the digital stuff, especially the music, is very easy to copy. I copy some of it. The books however, are too difficult to copy and I don't need to own a copy anyway. (I've moved enough times in my life to realize how much books weigh and noticed that the library is significanly cheaper and Barnes & Noble or Amazon.)
But if Google runs a library, everything will be digital. That's fine if what they were lending was in the public domain, but, thanks to Disney et. al., public domain is a thing of the past.
Seems to me that a Google library will be a marketplace for copying. Then again, most of the people who run Google are about a foot and a half smarter than I am. So maybe they have this all figured out.
"In short, I think Jobs is right on the money here."
On the money? Oh, how true.
There was a great signature I saw once that went something like this: "Information wants to be $7.99" (or some other figure like that. At least I thought it was funny.
In fact, let's really show those greedy bastards and set the per song price of an iTunes download to twenty-five cents! That way, downloading an album would actually be cheaper than buying the jewel box.
You go, Steve!
Um, he is talking about lowering the prices, isn't he?
My little brother's girlfriend is named Katrina. She's pretty pissed about being blamed for the destruction of the Gulf Coast. She hears about it all the time. Luckily, she's a fairly balanced person, but what about all those other Katrina's out there. How long before they start suing? Not that I'm hoping they will...
I think that they ought to name the hurricanes after Jerry Bruckheimer movies. I mean, one disaster deserves another.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a teacher in a high school, so this is different for others I'm sure. Still, I find that arriving early is often just as time-consuming. I get there early and so I don't HAVE to get right to work, so instead, I fool around online, look at the important stuff on /. and otherwise keep myself from getting started. If I show up with a lot less time on my hands, I frantically dive into work. Of course, I might just be weird...
There is something to be said for building community and counting downloads tends to get people going. It seems to have worked pretty well at iTunes and I for one wouldn't mind seeing an active counter over at the Firefox main site.
Whatever the case, this whole article sounds more than a little trollish.
I remember thinking that WordPerfect 5.1 with a GUI could have been all the word processor I would have ever needed. Thank goodness, I was taught the error of my ways.
Who cares what MS thinks of OpenOffice? The more important concern is what Sun and Google think of it. I'm hoping that at some point soon, OO.o gets its own foundation and becomes more like Firefox. I remember, way back when the idea for Mozilla came around that the idea was to remake the Netscape Navigator suite. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came what would eventually be named Firefox. Seems to have caught on fairly well. That's what I want from OO.o, a product that responds to the desires and needs of the community.
My first vote is for something smaller and faster. Of course, I don't code and just leach of the kindness of others, so don't take this as complaining.
Hey, I just thought of one other thing: Isn't Microsoft's pricing model right about what StarOffice's was ten years ago? Or is it much more?
If Sun is interested in goodwill, then this seems a great way to go. If Sun is interested in hurting Microsoft, then this is a great way to go. If Sun is interested in a broader partnership with Google, then this can't hurt that either.
I'm not as informed about all this as I could be, so who can say what the downsides are for Sun if they release this to a Mozilla-like foundation?
Anything that keeps OpenOffice going, helps it become faster and less of a resource hog, and further forces open document standards on the proprietary office suites is a good thing to me.
Aside from the pun of trying to change history, the growing pains of Wikipedia are going to be looked back on as historic. This is the new media and there are difficulties with it. What impresses me is that, for the most part, the people running the show have been the users. The people who created the site have stuck to the idea of a democratic and open system. This is fascinating stuff.
We've seen open source in operating systems and computer programs. We're seeing it more and more with publishing. (Those failed attempts at open-source books were just an early stumble, this is the real deal.) And I wonder how long it will be before music and film go this way as publicly and fully as Wikipedia.
I don't think that the importance of Wikipedia can be overstated. I'll keep watching.
I don't get how this could happen a third time. Let's hope that this is a joke. Otherwise, it really would make a good topic for the next About Slashdot article. Wow. I've been reading for a long time and haven't seen this happen before. Weird. I think that this is some of the reason why editors and CmdrTaco get so much crap hurled at them. If you give people the ammunition, they're likely to fire it on you sooner or later.
All that said, it's not the end of the world. It just makes the site look sloppy and haphazard rather than polished. In many ways, it's kind of the stigma that Linux has faced when compared to Windows. Oh well.
I'm in Central NY and hoping that we are smarter than the folks including Romney and Kennedy on Cape Cod who, though they may talk about being green (word is, it's not easy), don't want the towers in their area. Ugh. Maybe we could set up an oil burning plant or a nice nuclear (or, as Bush would say nook-you-ler) cooling tower. Sheesh
I live near the wind farms in Madison County and have ridden my bicycle up to the bases of some of the towers. It's a great thing. THere is even a song about them by Karen Savoca on her new album. Most of us around here are for the wind farms knowing that it's just what we need, that the terrain is right, and that we need to move forward in this region before everyone flees our snow fall.
Here are some links:
Aerial Photos
About Madison County
The Fenner Wind Farm
Start thinking about making your move to Central/Upstate New York now. Very little traffic, cheap housing, beautiful four seasons, apple picking, the Finger Lakes, the Adirondacks, Niagara Falls, and the Thousand Islands. My friend, a software engineer, formerly from Oakland, lives here now and telecommutes at incredible savings.
Best of all, there's Wegmans and if you've never been to Wegmans, your first visit will make it so you never want to leave.
Let me know if you need help unloading the moving van.
I had an old iMac that I've since retired on which I used NeoOfficeJ. It was alright when I really _had_ to do something on the Mac, but not really a working solution on that machine. It would be cool if Apple would take OpenOffice on as its office suite, but that seems unlikely. Getting OO.o to work with X11 was just too much work for me. Luckily, I have an XP machine now so I hook my iPod to that. I only kept the iMac around for updating the iPod.
I just wrote a long, rambling comment which says much less gracefully what you have said here. Nicely put.
I think that a lot of this discussion mirrors what happened before their was comment moderation. I remember when that first went into effect, there was a huge hullabaloo about it, but the site got better even as it got bigger. The same can't be said of a lot of newsgroups I used to read.
/. for a while, but I think I've only tried to submit stories five or six times. Personally, I don't have the time to get things right. It's okay though because I don't suggest stories for the NY Times, NPR, or the Wired Magazine. I read them. I don't mind if someone else writes them. With each of those outlets, I read some of the stuff and others get tossed out. That's how I read /. except that I also get to talk back very easily.
/. but I don't give a damn about that. If Beatles-Beatles profits from this, I don't care. If you aren't profiting, I don't care about that either. I want to read, discuss, and read what others have to say. The rest of it be damned.
/.
Here's my thing: I set my comment threshold to what I feel like I want to hear. If the moderators are doing the job (and I include myself in there with them) then all goes well. If, like me, they haven't moderated well lately, things get messy. A note like this from CmdrTaco is useful as a wakeup. And maybe that's all that we need.
I have noticed that Beatles-Beatles keeps coming up on the page. I noticed because that's a weird and memorable name. I hadn't noticed who was posting the stuff from that submitter (is that a word?) because I just don't care. And here's why:
I've been on
I suppose that it's different for those people who are looking to make money by posting to
There will always be those people who go off topic, there will always be the idiots concerned with being the first post, and there will always be flame-bait. Beyond that, there will also be intelligent conversation and debate, funny stuff that makes us laugh, and new things to learn on
I'm going to moderate more carefully for now. I'll need another reminder down the road. I'm still not going to give a damn who posts what. I'll just read whatever strikes my fancy.
I know that I'm dreaming, but the ideal Linux combination would be Dell bundling Kubuntu on their low end machine. My guess, given that such a machine with XP now sells for $299, is that they could offer it at $249 with a big warning that says "All support for this system will be handled online at dell.support.kubuntu online forum." There would be a warranty on hardware for which phone support would still exist, but all other issues would be handled online, primarily by other users.
The Koobox has three problems for me: (1) Linspire, (2) no monitor, (3) no modem.
I'm not blaming GIMP's lack of popularity on its name or claiming that it is unpopular. I'm just saying that it has been a barrier to my getting friends, students and associates to use it. That's all.
"so if you're new around here how much did you pay for your UID?"
/. It's just new that I'm not bickering like the child I really am. As for the UID, to the best of my knowledge it was free. I wish I could remember what first brought me to /. That's a thing I've long ago forgotten. Oh well.
Never said I was new to
I'm really not trying to be self-righteous in any way. Again, I use the GIMP and have never used Photoshop. I like the program, and like it more and more with each revision. That said, the name doesn't work well in terms of getting others to use it. In each case where I have gotten someone to use it, I have had to get them past the name. That's counterproductive.
As for taking the high-ground, it's new territory for me and I'm stumbling around like a drunk. Still, it is pretty nice up here...
Alright, I admit, I'm no PR genius! But, on the serious side, some of those names are pretty clear indications of what the programs do. It gives me no pleasure to give MS kudos for much of anything, though XP is a great system (talk about bad naming).
So what's a good name for GIMP that indicates what it does, sounds professional, is easy to remember, and sells?
How about Graphic Manipulator?
I don't love it, but it's a start toward naming it for what it does and getting away from the acronym which, I agree, sounds less than serious.
"Satisfied?"
No, not really. Consider PS as the name for PhotoShop. Does it work? No.
Now, I'm not suggesting that the name of the GIMP really be changed. At least, not right away. Perhaps there could be a subtitle as in GIMP: (something recognizable). What I am suggesting is that the naming conventions of Open Source programs need to be more recognizable if they are to penetrate more of the market.
One issue, I know, is that things are tough to get through the lawyers. Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix had this problem. I'm not sure how to solve it, but I know that the names represent a barrier. I like the GIMP. I just don't like the name. And I don't like the name because it keeps people from adopting it. The name makes it sound amateurish and non-professional.
I know what it stands for. You know why? Because I read things like /. and keep up with some of the Open Source news. But here's the thing: only one of my friends is a geek and keeps up with this the way I do. Almost all of the others have digital cameras and use image software of one kind or another, but have no idea what a GIMP is other than a derogatory term for someone who can't walk well. Thus, they don't use it.
As for the idea that GNU Image Minipulation Program is more specific than Photoshop, who cares? The name Photoshop (and I have to say here that I have never used Photoshop) makes it sound like a workshop in which someone can alter photos. Simple. It's a one-degree operation. GIMP is at least three degrees: GIMP = GNU Image Manipulation Program = a program for altering images (maybe even photos). I'm saying that the name is not a great way to "sell" the product.
Why would the product need to be "sold"? It's that thing about the more users something has, the more likely it is to get better faster. Firefox (another program with a non-descriptive name) comes to mind as an example of this.
Finally, as a representative of the "retards like you" club, thanks for the kind words. It's elitist nonsense like this that leads all but one of my friends to think that most computer geeks are introverts or childern who can't function in real society and so retreat into virtual societies on the web where they can tell people to "Get over it or suck cock you whining losers." Beyond the inanity of your comment, it doesn't help move anything forward.
Here's laughing at you kid.
Rename the GIMP so that people who aren't already devoted to it might have a clue as to what it does.
There was another article a while ago about program names that made sense to me. If the Open Source programs had more recognizable names, they would have more traction. As it is, in my school, it is very difficult to get people to use things like the GIMP instead of Photoshop but much easier to convince them that OpenOffice is a good choice over MS Office.
Seems to me that very few would object to Google creating and running a library on the model of public libraries. I go to our library two or three times each week to get books, music, and movies. I return the things I've borrowed and someone else borrows them.
Here's the problem: the digital stuff, especially the music, is very easy to copy. I copy some of it. The books however, are too difficult to copy and I don't need to own a copy anyway. (I've moved enough times in my life to realize how much books weigh and noticed that the library is significanly cheaper and Barnes & Noble or Amazon.)
But if Google runs a library, everything will be digital. That's fine if what they were lending was in the public domain, but, thanks to Disney et. al., public domain is a thing of the past.
Seems to me that a Google library will be a marketplace for copying. Then again, most of the people who run Google are about a foot and a half smarter than I am. So maybe they have this all figured out.
I'm curious to see what they come up with.
"In short, I think Jobs is right on the money here."
On the money? Oh, how true.
There was a great signature I saw once that went something like this: "Information wants to be $7.99" (or some other figure like that. At least I thought it was funny.
In fact, let's really show those greedy bastards and set the per song price of an iTunes download to twenty-five cents! That way, downloading an album would actually be cheaper than buying the jewel box.
You go, Steve!
Um, he is talking about lowering the prices, isn't he?
Oh.
Never mind.
My little brother's girlfriend is named Katrina. She's pretty pissed about being blamed for the destruction of the Gulf Coast. She hears about it all the time. Luckily, she's a fairly balanced person, but what about all those other Katrina's out there. How long before they start suing? Not that I'm hoping they will...
I think that they ought to name the hurricanes after Jerry Bruckheimer movies. I mean, one disaster deserves another.
There are other reasons to buy books?! Geez, I've never heard of such things.