After trying out Debian itself a month or two ago, I received Xandros 2.0 from my wife for Christmas. I am much happier with it than the author of this review was.
Shipping
We also had some shipping issues. Namely, my family had "Christmas morning" early this year when my sister was in town. Xandros didn't make it in time due to the release delay. I did receive it on December 23, however, the same day that the reviewer did. I too welcomed the manual, and I read almost the whole thing.
Installation
I had no problems whatsoever with the installation. Everything just worked. With the Debian install (my only previous Linux installation), I had a few things that took a few hours of reading on the web before I was confident that I had configured them correctly. As can be expected from an end-user OS like Xandros, everything just worked on its own. I do like that they give the option to tinker, though. I considered partitioning my drive myself, and selected that option. I was pleasantly suprised to be given a graphical partioner, instead of being dumped into fdisk. When I changed my mind, I just hit Back and chose their default.
The reviewer spends two days ranting about how his CD ROM drive didn't work with the default installation, and how Xandros didn't provide support for this on the day after Christmas. Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem like it was nearly a big enough deal to go on about it for that many pages. I know he got better support from another distribution, but that distribution sounds like just one guy. What happens when that guy has a heart attack? This bad experience on install seems to have tainted the whole rest of the review.
Networking
Xandros (well, Samba) is far better than Windows with networking, in my experience. Our home network has six computers - four running Win2k, an old Win98, and my wifes work laptop via WiFi when she brings it home. They connect via a Netgear router and an Intel hub. Using Windows networking, her second Win2k machine can see my second Win2k machine on the network, but I can see hers back. My Win98 machine can see her primary Win2k machine. That's it. Network browsing doesn't find anything else. Searching finds nothing else. We have to manually move the printer cable between computers because the stupid Windows machines can't see each other, and we transfer things between machines using FTP because that's the only thing that works.
With Xandros, I was quite impressed that it autodetected and set up my printer. I was even more impressed when I shared it, and lo and behold, my wife's primary machine saw the printer, configured it, and printed on the first try. We haven't been able to do that with Windows for years.
Windows Compatibility
As someone who is trying to move from Windows to Linux, the compatibility is very important. I am simultaneously moving to OpenOffice, so I don't need to install Word or anything, but I still use other Windows programs (TaxCut, for example) and want those to keep working. I do wish that Xandros had better Windows game support, but I know I can buy WineX for that. (Maybe Codeweavers will work on this eventually.)
Xandros Networks
Other than the limited number of distributions, I have to say that I am quite impressed at this. It worked wonderfully for me for the things that I chose to tinker with. I was also pleased that I was able to immediately go online and get all security updates for everything I had installed. This is one of my big fears about Linux that had kept me from trying it for so long - the knowledge that I didn't know enough to keep it secure without help.
Hardware Support
Quote from the article:
>> I may be wrong, but I don't think I have ever been able to use a Windows box to access a network shared printer that was hooked directly to a Linux box before. Of course, this may simply be evidence of my own ignorance of proper networking. I toss this out for whatever it might
VHS tapes stored in a typical house might last 10-30 years before they degrade beyond use. See this Google find.
At 20 C (68 F) and 50% RH, an estimated LE value of ~30 years is indicated. If the storage temperature is raised to 25 C (76 F) at 50% RH, the LE is reduced to ~10 years.
Moving old family videos to DVD is a very reasonable home use for a DVD burner. No, no one NEEDS to save their old VHS tapes. But if people WANT to save their old VHS tapes then they NEED a DVD burner to do it at home.
Well, they could sue their own ISP, since it provided all the bits to them.
Of course, the ISP didn't know that it was transferring Metallica.
It could sue every ISP that delivered a bit.
Of course, those ISPs didn't know that they were transferring Metallica.
It could sue every user that passed a bit.
Of course, those users didn't know that they were transferring Metallica.
---
There really isn't a difference between any of the above examples, legally, unless any layer KNOWS that they are transferring material illegally. And the users can claim that THEY only trade bootlegs of Pearl Jam live sessions, which are just fine. It's not their fault that others use the system for other songs.
I learned a good bit during Leo's interview with the FCC chairman last week.
And I learn a good bit from the other people on the show. They are all very technical, and explain things in a more technical way. And, as the other reply to my original post said, they also just talk about tech things in the news. That is, in a nutshell, a TV version of slashdot.
TechTV has to stay in business, so they do attempt to appeal to a slightly larger market. Heck, they even have a "Wonders of Microsoft" tv show on during the day. That doesn't make them less geeky. After all, a lot of geeks whore themselves out to corporations who use Microsoft crap, and then laugh all the way to the bank.
(Sigh. I Love it when I post a reply, and it automatically assumes plain text. Then I post another reply on another thread, don't preview it, and it decides to switch to HTML.)
Repeated here, with carriage returns:
>>You know, whenever you step out of your house there is a chance you'll get run over by a car, don't you?
Yes, and so the robots will drive the cars for us, and they will ensure that we are safe. (Or the car is one of these robots. It will listen to your instructions, item 2, unless your instructions will cause you or others harm.
Really, read some Asimov. He has all this covered.
>>You know, whenever you step out of your house there is a chance you'll get run over by a car, don't you?
Yes, and so the robots will drive the cars for us, and they will ensure that we are safe. (Or the car is one of these robots. It will listen to your instructions, item 2, unless your instructions will cause you or others harm.)
Really, read some Asimov. He has all this covered.
Tech TV is far more for us than Sci Fi. At least given the poor state of Sci Fi today.
If you haven't watched, I suggest you check out an evening of X-Play, Screen Savers, and, of course, Unscrewed. (Tech Live as well, but I don't get home in time for that, and wouldn't have time to watch it if I recorded it.)
(No, Leo isn't always technical, but he is there to try to explain things to the masses.)
I think you completely misunderstand the meaning behind Asimov's laws.
In a world where robots are built with these laws, we do not need robot killing machines as you suggest.
If there are drug kingpens in secret bases who are harming people with their trade, then those robots MUST apprehend those individuals. Otherwise, through their inaction, they are allowing many many other humans to be harmed. This doesn't mean that they will kill the drug kingpens. It just means that they will prevent them from doing any more harm to anyone else.
If other parts of the world build robots that do not obey these laws, and those robots come to harm us, then our robots must take action to destroy the opposing robots, or else they allow humans to be harmed. Even allowing those robots to be built in the first place could be construed as inaction that could lead to harm of a human, so our robots might independently prevent that.
In short, when robots of this nature exist, there is no need to assume that others will or will not break civilized rules. The robots will due their duty to protect human life at all cost.
You are thinking of robots like machines, like guns. Think of them as entities that have these laws ingrained in their processes. And read some Asimov.
They answer this in the article. In short, it is because of gerrymandering. Districts are drawn so that representatives of the party of a district are guaranteed a seat if they win their party primary.
So, to win a primary, they have to be "as Republican" or "as Democrat" as possible. They never have to be "as Moderate" as possible to win a general election, because the general elections were decided by the people who drew the districts by strict party lines.
State courts can't say a thing about a federal law.
Now some federal district judge could allow spammers to claim it was unconstitutional. I would actually encourage this, as I want the supreme court to say once and for all that commercial speech is not protected by the first amendment.
If the court said otherwise, and directly overruled something supported by congress AND the people, then it would be the time for a constitutional amendment that changes companies back from the human-demi-gods they claim to be into the sub-human form they deserve. (An amendment such as that, as a side effect, would probably block commercial campaign donations too, ending another problem.)
Agreed. When I installed Linux for the first time a month ago, I chose Debian. I took notes on another machine as I worked, and noted the following:
Quote, starting right after I set up the filesystem:
Now the installation path becomes too complicated too quickly. The installer asks me to identify the modules that I need, without telling me what it already identified. It also provides the lists via menus, and I foolishly didn't write down the hardware list in the machine. I use a network card and sound card built onto the motherboard; these may not be supported but I really have no way of knowing at this point, nor could I go grab a driver for them from the internet and have any clue as to how to install it.
I do add the lp module for parallel printer support. At least I may be able to print.
Interesting. After I give up and assume that I will not have network support, the next page of the installer says "You have a network device, but it is not yet configured. Press Next to configure." If it knew I had a network card, why didn't it say so before I had to worry about finding its driver? (Woo! DHCP works!)
End Quote
As far as a graphical installer goes... well, a text installer is great for me, but I would rather have a pretty graphical one that let me use a mouse instead. It also opens up the opportunity for a user to more easily customize his or her installation; optional popup submenus get messy quickly on a text only screen.
Sorry bud. No chance. Your business model may be pop ups and flashing banners, but its your fault if your business fails because everyone chooses to block them.
I have the right to choose how I use content that enters my home.
When I watch a TV show, I don't have to watch the commercials and no one can make me. They can't stop me from muting them out either, or turning the TV off until they are over.
When I visit a web page, I don't have to look at the advertisements and no one can make me. They can't stop me from suppressing popups and blocking images either, both of which Mozilla does very well without any of these external programs.
It doesn't matter that I chose to "come to your site". I choose the TV stations I watch as well, but that doesn't make me watch their ads.
---
Back to the original post. I do recognize the concern of the original poster. Namely, he doesn't consider it a problem that people CAN turn off his ads. He considers it a problem that machines come with them turned off automatically, and most computer users won't realize that the page has been altered.
I would have nothing against NAV leaving the ads exposed by default, but making it incredibly easy (read, anyone with a PC easy) to block them out. That way it is a conscious choice made by the consumer, which businesses have to respect.
(Heck, NAV should install a big "AD MUTE" button in IE. When viewing a website, click the button and all ad content from page is removed.)
Not reading an article or a post before replying to it is just as bad a/. problem.
>> Now we've got such serious flux in the two most important linux distributions that it'll take six months to a year before I feel comfortable pitching either of these to buisnesses.
He isn't saying a thing about the -development- side of Linux. That isn't going to be affected by this.
He is talking about the growth of Linus in the -business- world. When a business decides to move to Linux (on the desktop), they aren't buying into "Linux", they are buying into "Red Hat" or "SuSe". With both of these companies in flux, businesses will hesitate to embrace them. Businesses know that, for all its faults, Microsoft has $40 billion in the bank and isn't going anywhere. Until the big name Linux distros settle down, it could be hard to convince businesses to buy an unsure thing.
Your only valid point is that yes, there are other Linux distributions. While none have yet been embraced that well by the business world, maybe this is a chance for one of them to step up. Xandros, maybe?
I see the users of Debian to be the creators of these free and non-free derivative distributions, and the users that are drawn into Linux through them. Bruce mentions two of those distros, but Xandros is the one that specifically comes to my mind.
(Disclaimer: I am a hardware engineer, and don't really mess much with the innards of software. I just want an OS that is clean and works.)
The Xandros distribution was and is very appealing to me because of its ease of use and installation (like Lindows), but it doesn't have as many of the downsides of the other "easy to use" Linux disto (Lindows). It was also very important to me to have the ability to easily expand beyond what the commercial package offered, and apt-get was the program that I felt would provide this.
After considering Xandros for the past year, however, and realizing that I don't truly need Crossover Office at home (I need WineX, but free software already covers my business application needs), I decided to "take the plunge" and start directly with Debian. I built my first Linux machine using Debian last weekend.
So, I guess, I am a Debian "user". I read and agreed to their social contract before I chose their software. I use Linux because of Debian.
Well, the other reply says it too, but I thought I should reiterate that "artists hardly make any money off of albums" because of the recording industry.
I think you just proved my point. Artists need the recording industry to promote them so they can make a little money off of concerts and the publicity, while the recording industry makes a ton money off the albums.
An artist who made more money off of fewer albums doesn't need the industry promotion, and thus doesn't really need the industry at all.
No, not everything is classified for a reason. Many things are classified because:
A) It was classified for a reason in the past, but the reason is gone (i.e. US-Soviet stuff, most of which is now being declassified)
B) It might hurt the political future of a government employee
C) It's easier to cover up everything than to explain anything
Well, I guess those are all reasons, but they are all pretty poor ones.
The Freedom of Information Act exists because of item C) above, after lengthy court and political battles that let us keep our right to know what our government is doing. There are exceptions, of course, for classified materials, but government censors can be overly broad about what is classified.
Does anyone know what the oldest classified government documents are?
Is there anything from WWII that is still classified? I hope not.
Is there anything from the Korean War that is still classified? I expect there is, as there likely should be.
Is there anything from the Vietnam War that is still classified? Probably less than from the Korean War.
Because the government would rather burn all these papers than ever make them accessible, it does often take lawsuits to get them released.
As far as this particular event goes, it was probably an airplane with nuclear weapons that went up in a ball of flames, and the government still wants to hide the fact that it almost killed a few hundred thousand people or something. That is not, in my opinion, a reason to keep something classified.
But that doesn't work, either. There was never a time (well, only a few times) that Microsoft intentionally broke other browsers on their operating system. Any user could at any time choose to install and use another browser.
The antitrust rulings had to do with the software that was pre-installed on the machine, such as Windows Media Player and the Shop for Music Online function.
If Microsoft made those packages available separately on their website, or if Microsoft allowed CDNow to ship a version of Mozilla with windows that had a "shop for music" button link to cdnow.com, then this wouldn't be a problem. But they don't.
So your argument about "force" is flawed. The antitrust has nothing to do with end users being "forced" into anything. It has to do with bundling of the OS with something else, such as Windows Media Player and IE. The only "force" used was Microsoft preventing PC vendors from stripping the features.
>> band that became successful (as in, the average person knows they exist)
I think this is a misconception. Success for all artists is not based on the "average" person knowing their name. For business-oriented artists, success could be earning enough money to give their family a good life. For esoteric-oriented artists, success could be just having the opportunity to make music.
Neither of those require that the average person know they exist. If an artist sells 1,000,000 albums, but earn $0.05 each after label fees, then they made $50,000 for maybe a year of work. If an artist sells 10,000 albums but earns $5 per album, they make the same amount without necessarily being known to the "average" person.
I was going to add that some companies, like O'Reilly Publishing, are following the Founder's Copyright and releasing works into the public domain after 14 (or 28) years at most.
However, in fact, they are not. Instead they are releasing the books with an open license. Thus, while Project Gutenberg could republish these works under the terms of the license, they would remain copyrighted and probably miss the spirit of the project.
Microsoft's marketing arm is far more dangerous than their technical arm. I have nothing against a product that makes good software - or a company that makes bad software, depending on your opinion of Microsoft - as long as users can make their own decisions and choose alternatives, and those alternatives are allowed to compete on the same level.
What I have against Microsoft has everything to do with their business and marketing wings and little to do with their technical wing.
Because Microsoft is a convicted criminal, and convicted criminals do not get to always do things that make themselves the most money.
That's not flamebait or trolling, it is a simple fact./shrug
Microsoft is required to maintain its Office suite on the Mac per its antitrust settlement. Apple, well, isn't a monopoly, and isn't mandated by the government to do anything special.
Sorry, I don't trust you. Microsoft and H&R Block have been building a business relationship for years to take on Intuit together.
From a March 2000 PC World article:
It's the marriage of an Internet heavyweight with the undisputed champ of tax preparation tools in the bricks-and-mortar world: Microsoft is dropping TaxSaver after this season, pairing with H&R Block's TaxCut to jointly take on the leader, Intuit TurboTax.
Microsoft will see through the remaining three weeks of the tax season, says Ed Bland, group product manager for Microsoft Personal Finance Software. It will still sell federal versions of TaxSaver and support some 300,000 TaxSaver customers through the federal tax extension deadline of October 16.
But next year, TaxSaver customers are invited to upgrade to H&R Block's TaxCut program. Microsoft already has a relationship with H&R Block; it markets the electronic version of TaxCut on MSN Money Central.
But soon the link will be stronger.
Microsoft and H&R Block's tax software subsidiary Block Financial will develop native data links between TaxCut and Microsoft Money personal financial management software. And the firms will develop ways for you to integrate your online financial activities, including online tax preparation, with the 70,000 tax experts in H&R Block's 9000 storefront offices, says Gene Goldenberg, senior vice president with Block Financial....
After a fitful two years in the tax business, Microsoft opted for Block's TaxCut, which is the caliber of Intuit's TurboTax and has about a quarter slice of the $150 million tax software pie....
Microsoft realized more than two years ago that it's cheaper to buy tax expertise; that's how long it's been negotiating a strategic alliance with H&R Block, Bland says....
Block will be exclusive provider of online tax preparation software downloads and boxed software sale references from the many MSN Web sites for three years. The MSN portal in general is one of the top five Web destinations, Bland reports.
Slashdot Mirror
After trying out Debian itself a month or two ago, I received Xandros 2.0 from my wife for Christmas. I am much happier with it than the author of this review was.
Shipping
We also had some shipping issues. Namely, my family had "Christmas morning" early this year when my sister was in town. Xandros didn't make it in time due to the release delay. I did receive it on December 23, however, the same day that the reviewer did. I too welcomed the manual, and I read almost the whole thing.
Installation
I had no problems whatsoever with the installation. Everything just worked. With the Debian install (my only previous Linux installation), I had a few things that took a few hours of reading on the web before I was confident that I had configured them correctly. As can be expected from an end-user OS like Xandros, everything just worked on its own. I do like that they give the option to tinker, though. I considered partitioning my drive myself, and selected that option. I was pleasantly suprised to be given a graphical partioner, instead of being dumped into fdisk. When I changed my mind, I just hit Back and chose their default.
The reviewer spends two days ranting about how his CD ROM drive didn't work with the default installation, and how Xandros didn't provide support for this on the day after Christmas. Maybe it's just me, but this doesn't seem like it was nearly a big enough deal to go on about it for that many pages. I know he got better support from another distribution, but that distribution sounds like just one guy. What happens when that guy has a heart attack? This bad experience on install seems to have tainted the whole rest of the review.
Networking
Xandros (well, Samba) is far better than Windows with networking, in my experience. Our home network has six computers - four running Win2k, an old Win98, and my wifes work laptop via WiFi when she brings it home. They connect via a Netgear router and an Intel hub. Using Windows networking, her second Win2k machine can see my second Win2k machine on the network, but I can see hers back. My Win98 machine can see her primary Win2k machine. That's it. Network browsing doesn't find anything else. Searching finds nothing else. We have to manually move the printer cable between computers because the stupid Windows machines can't see each other, and we transfer things between machines using FTP because that's the only thing that works.
With Xandros, I was quite impressed that it autodetected and set up my printer. I was even more impressed when I shared it, and lo and behold, my wife's primary machine saw the printer, configured it, and printed on the first try. We haven't been able to do that with Windows for years.
Windows Compatibility
As someone who is trying to move from Windows to Linux, the compatibility is very important. I am simultaneously moving to OpenOffice, so I don't need to install Word or anything, but I still use other Windows programs (TaxCut, for example) and want those to keep working. I do wish that Xandros had better Windows game support, but I know I can buy WineX for that. (Maybe Codeweavers will work on this eventually.)
Xandros Networks
Other than the limited number of distributions, I have to say that I am quite impressed at this. It worked wonderfully for me for the things that I chose to tinker with. I was also pleased that I was able to immediately go online and get all security updates for everything I had installed. This is one of my big fears about Linux that had kept me from trying it for so long - the knowledge that I didn't know enough to keep it secure without help.
Hardware Support
Quote from the article:
>> I may be wrong, but I don't think I have ever been able to use a Windows box to access a network shared printer that was hooked directly to a Linux box before. Of course, this may simply be evidence of my own ignorance of proper networking. I toss this out for whatever it might
If you do, you won't for long.
VHS tapes stored in a typical house might last 10-30 years before they degrade beyond use. See this Google find.
Moving old family videos to DVD is a very reasonable home use for a DVD burner. No, no one NEEDS to save their old VHS tapes. But if people WANT to save their old VHS tapes then they NEED a DVD burner to do it at home.
Well, they could sue their own ISP, since it provided all the bits to them.
Of course, the ISP didn't know that it was transferring Metallica.
It could sue every ISP that delivered a bit.
Of course, those ISPs didn't know that they were transferring Metallica.
It could sue every user that passed a bit.
Of course, those users didn't know that they were transferring Metallica.
---
There really isn't a difference between any of the above examples, legally, unless any layer KNOWS that they are transferring material illegally. And the users can claim that THEY only trade bootlegs of Pearl Jam live sessions, which are just fine. It's not their fault that others use the system for other songs.
If you signed anything the RIAA told you to, you are still and forever screwed.
I learned a good bit during Leo's interview with the FCC chairman last week.
And I learn a good bit from the other people on the show. They are all very technical, and explain things in a more technical way. And, as the other reply to my original post said, they also just talk about tech things in the news. That is, in a nutshell, a TV version of slashdot.
TechTV has to stay in business, so they do attempt to appeal to a slightly larger market. Heck, they even have a "Wonders of Microsoft" tv show on during the day. That doesn't make them less geeky. After all, a lot of geeks whore themselves out to corporations who use Microsoft crap, and then laugh all the way to the bank.
(Sigh. I Love it when I post a reply, and it automatically assumes plain text. Then I post another reply on another thread, don't preview it, and it decides to switch to HTML.)
Repeated here, with carriage returns:
>>You know, whenever you step out of your house there is a chance you'll get run over by a car, don't you?
Yes, and so the robots will drive the cars for us, and they will ensure that we are safe. (Or the car is one of these robots. It will listen to your instructions, item 2, unless your instructions will cause you or others harm.
Really, read some Asimov. He has all this covered.
>>You know, whenever you step out of your house there is a chance you'll get run over by a car, don't you? Yes, and so the robots will drive the cars for us, and they will ensure that we are safe. (Or the car is one of these robots. It will listen to your instructions, item 2, unless your instructions will cause you or others harm.) Really, read some Asimov. He has all this covered.
Tech TV is far more for us than Sci Fi. At least given the poor state of Sci Fi today.
If you haven't watched, I suggest you check out an evening of X-Play, Screen Savers, and, of course, Unscrewed. (Tech Live as well, but I don't get home in time for that, and wouldn't have time to watch it if I recorded it.)
(No, Leo isn't always technical, but he is there to try to explain things to the masses.)
I think you completely misunderstand the meaning behind Asimov's laws.
In a world where robots are built with these laws, we do not need robot killing machines as you suggest.
If there are drug kingpens in secret bases who are harming people with their trade, then those robots MUST apprehend those individuals. Otherwise, through their inaction, they are allowing many many other humans to be harmed. This doesn't mean that they will kill the drug kingpens. It just means that they will prevent them from doing any more harm to anyone else.
If other parts of the world build robots that do not obey these laws, and those robots come to harm us, then our robots must take action to destroy the opposing robots, or else they allow humans to be harmed. Even allowing those robots to be built in the first place could be construed as inaction that could lead to harm of a human, so our robots might independently prevent that.
In short, when robots of this nature exist, there is no need to assume that others will or will not break civilized rules. The robots will due their duty to protect human life at all cost.
You are thinking of robots like machines, like guns. Think of them as entities that have these laws ingrained in their processes. And read some Asimov.
They answer this in the article. In short, it is because of gerrymandering. Districts are drawn so that representatives of the party of a district are guaranteed a seat if they win their party primary.
So, to win a primary, they have to be "as Republican" or "as Democrat" as possible. They never have to be "as Moderate" as possible to win a general election, because the general elections were decided by the people who drew the districts by strict party lines.
State courts can't say a thing about a federal law.
Now some federal district judge could allow spammers to claim it was unconstitutional. I would actually encourage this, as I want the supreme court to say once and for all that commercial speech is not protected by the first amendment.
If the court said otherwise, and directly overruled something supported by congress AND the people, then it would be the time for a constitutional amendment that changes companies back from the human-demi-gods they claim to be into the sub-human form they deserve. (An amendment such as that, as a side effect, would probably block commercial campaign donations too, ending another problem.)
Agreed. When I installed Linux for the first time a month ago, I chose Debian. I took notes on another machine as I worked, and noted the following:
Quote, starting right after I set up the filesystem:
Now the installation path becomes too complicated too quickly. The installer asks me to identify the modules that I need, without telling me what it already identified. It also provides the lists via menus, and I foolishly didn't write down the hardware list in the machine. I use a network card and sound card built onto the motherboard; these may not be supported but I really have no way of knowing at this point, nor could I go grab a driver for them from the internet and have any clue as to how to install it.
I do add the lp module for parallel printer support. At least I may be able to print.
Interesting. After I give up and assume that I will not have network support, the next page of the installer says "You have a network device, but it is not yet configured. Press Next to configure." If it knew I had a network card, why didn't it say so before I had to worry about finding its driver? (Woo! DHCP works!)
End Quote
As far as a graphical installer goes... well, a text installer is great for me, but I would rather have a pretty graphical one that let me use a mouse instead. It also opens up the opportunity for a user to more easily customize his or her installation; optional popup submenus get messy quickly on a text only screen.
Sorry bud. No chance. Your business model may be pop ups and flashing banners, but its your fault if your business fails because everyone chooses to block them.
I have the right to choose how I use content that enters my home.
When I watch a TV show, I don't have to watch the commercials and no one can make me. They can't stop me from muting them out either, or turning the TV off until they are over.
When I visit a web page, I don't have to look at the advertisements and no one can make me. They can't stop me from suppressing popups and blocking images either, both of which Mozilla does very well without any of these external programs.
It doesn't matter that I chose to "come to your site". I choose the TV stations I watch as well, but that doesn't make me watch their ads.
---
Back to the original post. I do recognize the concern of the original poster. Namely, he doesn't consider it a problem that people CAN turn off his ads. He considers it a problem that machines come with them turned off automatically, and most computer users won't realize that the page has been altered.
I would have nothing against NAV leaving the ads exposed by default, but making it incredibly easy (read, anyone with a PC easy) to block them out. That way it is a conscious choice made by the consumer, which businesses have to respect.
(Heck, NAV should install a big "AD MUTE" button in IE. When viewing a website, click the button and all ad content from page is removed.)
Not reading an article or a post before replying to it is just as bad a /. problem.
>> Now we've got such serious flux in the two most important linux distributions that it'll take six months to a year before I feel comfortable pitching either of these to buisnesses.
He isn't saying a thing about the -development- side of Linux. That isn't going to be affected by this.
He is talking about the growth of Linus in the -business- world. When a business decides to move to Linux (on the desktop), they aren't buying into "Linux", they are buying into "Red Hat" or "SuSe". With both of these companies in flux, businesses will hesitate to embrace them. Businesses know that, for all its faults, Microsoft has $40 billion in the bank and isn't going anywhere. Until the big name Linux distros settle down, it could be hard to convince businesses to buy an unsure thing.
Your only valid point is that yes, there are other Linux distributions. While none have yet been embraced that well by the business world, maybe this is a chance for one of them to step up. Xandros, maybe?
I see the users of Debian to be the creators of these free and non-free derivative distributions, and the users that are drawn into Linux through them. Bruce mentions two of those distros, but Xandros is the one that specifically comes to my mind.
(Disclaimer: I am a hardware engineer, and don't really mess much with the innards of software. I just want an OS that is clean and works.)
The Xandros distribution was and is very appealing to me because of its ease of use and installation (like Lindows), but it doesn't have as many of the downsides of the other "easy to use" Linux disto (Lindows). It was also very important to me to have the ability to easily expand beyond what the commercial package offered, and apt-get was the program that I felt would provide this.
After considering Xandros for the past year, however, and realizing that I don't truly need Crossover Office at home (I need WineX, but free software already covers my business application needs), I decided to "take the plunge" and start directly with Debian. I built my first Linux machine using Debian last weekend.
So, I guess, I am a Debian "user". I read and agreed to their social contract before I chose their software. I use Linux because of Debian.
Well, the other reply says it too, but I thought I should reiterate that "artists hardly make any money off of albums" because of the recording industry.
I think you just proved my point. Artists need the recording industry to promote them so they can make a little money off of concerts and the publicity, while the recording industry makes a ton money off the albums.
An artist who made more money off of fewer albums doesn't need the industry promotion, and thus doesn't really need the industry at all.
No, not everything is classified for a reason. Many things are classified because:
A) It was classified for a reason in the past, but the reason is gone (i.e. US-Soviet stuff, most of which is now being declassified)
B) It might hurt the political future of a government employee
C) It's easier to cover up everything than to explain anything
Well, I guess those are all reasons, but they are all pretty poor ones.
The Freedom of Information Act exists because of item C) above, after lengthy court and political battles that let us keep our right to know what our government is doing. There are exceptions, of course, for classified materials, but government censors can be overly broad about what is classified.
Does anyone know what the oldest classified government documents are?
Is there anything from WWII that is still classified? I hope not.
Is there anything from the Korean War that is still classified? I expect there is, as there likely should be.
Is there anything from the Vietnam War that is still classified? Probably less than from the Korean War.
Because the government would rather burn all these papers than ever make them accessible, it does often take lawsuits to get them released.
As far as this particular event goes, it was probably an airplane with nuclear weapons that went up in a ball of flames, and the government still wants to hide the fact that it almost killed a few hundred thousand people or something. That is not, in my opinion, a reason to keep something classified.
But that doesn't work, either. There was never a time (well, only a few times) that Microsoft intentionally broke other browsers on their operating system. Any user could at any time choose to install and use another browser.
The antitrust rulings had to do with the software that was pre-installed on the machine, such as Windows Media Player and the Shop for Music Online function.
If Microsoft made those packages available separately on their website, or if Microsoft allowed CDNow to ship a version of Mozilla with windows that had a "shop for music" button link to cdnow.com, then this wouldn't be a problem. But they don't.
So your argument about "force" is flawed. The antitrust has nothing to do with end users being "forced" into anything. It has to do with bundling of the OS with something else, such as Windows Media Player and IE. The only "force" used was Microsoft preventing PC vendors from stripping the features.
>> band that became successful (as in, the average person knows they exist)
I think this is a misconception. Success for all artists is not based on the "average" person knowing their name. For business-oriented artists, success could be earning enough money to give their family a good life. For esoteric-oriented artists, success could be just having the opportunity to make music.
Neither of those require that the average person know they exist. If an artist sells 1,000,000 albums, but earn $0.05 each after label fees, then they made $50,000 for maybe a year of work. If an artist sells 10,000 albums but earns $5 per album, they make the same amount without necessarily being known to the "average" person.
I was going to add that some companies, like O'Reilly Publishing, are following the Founder's Copyright and releasing works into the public domain after 14 (or 28) years at most.
However, in fact, they are not. Instead they are releasing the books with an open license. Thus, while Project Gutenberg could republish these works under the terms of the license, they would remain copyrighted and probably miss the spirit of the project.
Microsoft's marketing arm is far more dangerous than their technical arm. I have nothing against a product that makes good software - or a company that makes bad software, depending on your opinion of Microsoft - as long as users can make their own decisions and choose alternatives, and those alternatives are allowed to compete on the same level.
What I have against Microsoft has everything to do with their business and marketing wings and little to do with their technical wing.
Because Microsoft is a convicted criminal, and convicted criminals do not get to always do things that make themselves the most money. That's not flamebait or trolling, it is a simple fact. /shrug
Microsoft is required to maintain its Office suite on the Mac per its antitrust settlement. Apple, well, isn't a monopoly, and isn't mandated by the government to do anything special.
Sorry, I don't trust you. Microsoft and H&R Block have been building a business relationship for years to take on Intuit together.
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From a March 2000 PC World article:
It's the marriage of an Internet heavyweight with the undisputed champ of tax preparation tools in the bricks-and-mortar world: Microsoft is dropping TaxSaver after this season, pairing with H&R Block's TaxCut to jointly take on the leader, Intuit TurboTax.
Microsoft will see through the remaining three weeks of the tax season, says Ed Bland, group product manager for Microsoft Personal Finance Software. It will still sell federal versions of TaxSaver and support some 300,000 TaxSaver customers through the federal tax extension deadline of October 16.
But next year, TaxSaver customers are invited to upgrade to H&R Block's TaxCut program. Microsoft already has a relationship with H&R Block; it markets the electronic version of TaxCut on MSN Money Central.
But soon the link will be stronger.
Microsoft and H&R Block's tax software subsidiary Block Financial will develop native data links between TaxCut and Microsoft Money personal financial management software. And the firms will develop ways for you to integrate your online financial activities, including online tax preparation, with the 70,000 tax experts in H&R Block's 9000 storefront offices, says Gene Goldenberg, senior vice president with Block Financial.
After a fitful two years in the tax business, Microsoft opted for Block's TaxCut, which is the caliber of Intuit's TurboTax and has about a quarter slice of the $150 million tax software pie.
Microsoft realized more than two years ago that it's cheaper to buy tax expertise; that's how long it's been negotiating a strategic alliance with H&R Block, Bland says.
Block will be exclusive provider of online tax preparation software downloads and boxed software sale references from the many MSN Web sites for three years. The MSN portal in general is one of the top five Web destinations, Bland reports.
I used LOAD "*",8,9 because, while it did the same thing, I thought it was cooler to use the less well known option. Heh.