No, I'm using language that is appropriate for the context of the subject of which I'm speaking. AMD uses their "rating" as a measure for performance (they state vs previous generations of their own chip, "common knowledge" puts it vs the P4), I made no claims/comments about the _correctness_ of this use.
As for your claim, you are of course right and wrong. The chips are not SOOO different as to not be able to make some comparisions. E.G. a 2Ghz XP will kick a 1Ghz PIII in pretty much any type of metric you could come up with. Add to that the fact that they are designed to run the same (or nearly the same fp differences not withstanding) binaries, makes a comparison much more meaningful. Not 100% meaningful, but much more so than trying to compare say a 1.5ghz G4 vs a 2.5ghz P4.
I have NEVER bought an Intel based computer (well, as long as you don't count the iPSC and MindSet), and I WOULD buy a 3000+. If that cpu was at the price/performance point that I was looking for, why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't you? OR, was what you were really trying to say was that you would not pay a premium for a 3000+ vs say a 2800+, knowing that the improvements made to get it to that 3000+ level probably wouldn't translate into any meaningful performance gains in the real world?
For AMD it's simple, product differentation and market prestige. AMD is in a position that they always look like they are feeding off of Intels table scraps. This is an opportunity for them to establish themselves as a tech. leader and not simply a me-too company.
That and the fact that the margins on the new processors will be significantly higher than existing chips, a much needed boost in revenues.
How is this any different from when AMD adopted the "performance rating" vs the clock speed to begin with? If the increase in performance makes it perform like a 3ghz P4, then thats how it should be marked. After all, isn't that what the name represents? Intel still uses the raw ghz number, and for them to change now wouldn't make any sense (that and the fact that it's hard to pin down "performance" increases with HT esp if you're using most of the common benchmarks which are not MT).
Which brings up an interesting marketing difference, by sticking with just ghz #'s, it's harder for Intel to easily communicate/quantify architecture gains (vs simple clock increases) vs the "relative performance" rating that AMD uses. People blasted AMD at first for confusing matters, but they may be reaping at least some the benefits of divorcing raw clock rate from performance.
Oh, I wasn't implying that you made that claim. Just thinking out loud, it would be interesting to see if the frequency of articles posted increased with OSX (which _could_ support my position), or if's at basically the same level, or say the level around the time of the iMac intro (i.e. nothing concerning OSS) which would support your position more.
But really that's all that changed, Apples business is fundamentally the same, simply using a POSIX compliant kernel and using various unix tools doesn't change anything really except peoples perceptions.
Well their POSIX compliant kernel is OS (even if it's not GPL), which is saying a lot more than any of the other larger manuf. I can't see how you can say that there hasen't been a change. Sure Apple does basically what Apple has always done, but like it or not, intentional or not, Apple has adopted, and somewhat embraced, the ways of the *nix world. Before that, they were COMPLETELY proprietary, they are breaking out of that, as Safari is a good example of. In the old days they would always completely do things in house to have complete control, they are realizing that they can't remain profitable with that attitude, so now their shifting. I think Pink then Taligent taught them some valuable lessons in this regard.
Anyway, I agree with most of your assessments about/. and the types of posts to these types of articles (can't really argue there, the proofs in the reading). We have a small dissagreement about Apple's position in the OSS/*nix world, that's ok too, if Apple can help push OSS and continue to provide resonable alternatives to other OS's, then I say more power to'em. If they do this by having a "real" OS at it's core, then I'll say even more power to'em.
But if you're free of Sony then there is absolutely no reason to go with the format.
My point was that, at least in my case, I'm not going with a "format", I going with a product, that happens to use a particular format. I just purchased my camcorder, the fact that it uses memory sticks meant nothing to me (esp. in this case since it's a camcorder and the tape format is the most important). I'm now ready to retire my Olympus and move up to a nice hi-end consumer/prosumer camera. Will media format be an issue, for me, no. Now it's a bit of a non issue since Sony doesn't play in the space that I'm looking in, but if they did, my concern would not be for the format used (again, unless everything was equal). I know that not everyone else places the same value on the same features as I do, but for me there are a great many things that are much more important than media formats. If it has more meaning to you, then I can't really argue that.
Because memory sticks are ludicrously expensive compared to other formats
Quick look on pricewatch shows the cheapest 128mb MMC/SD card at $53, the cheapest 128mb memory stick at $57, hardly "ludicrously expensive". Plus, if you're buying a $800pda, how many memory cards do you need, and is a $4 differential in cost (or even $10) worth not purchasing the entire pda?
I own two CE devices that use electronic memory, an Olympus digital camera (smartmedia) and Sony camcorder (mem stick). The media they used was extremely low on my totem pole of "features" that influenced my decision to buy. Things like image quality and features factored WAY more heavily. Now had it boiled down to two devices that were basically the same and one used one format and the other used another, THEN I would probably lean toward using a more "common" format, but that hasen't happened yet. Esp. with SmartMedia, it was a struggle early on. But then again I'd much rather have inconvenience (and perhaps a bit more cost) to get a "superior" product in those areas that are most important to me.
Seems like the tact that Sony is taking is that they want to offer most of those features in the pda itself. Didn't Handspring learn that having the expansion port wasn't as big of a selling point as one would think?
Don't forget about the P800, cool stuff. The problem though with existing phones as pda's is that most real phones have to small a display and a very unsatisfying input device. They are getting closer though, well at the least the phones are. Sony keeps pushing the envelope though with the Clie's. Here I think that price is the biggest factor. If Sony could sell this new Clie for $400, they wouldn't be able to make them fast enough.
The thing that holds me back from buying Sony products is their memory stick.
Just out of curiosity why is that? Are you afraid that in a couple of years Sony will abandon the memory stick and leave to stuck unable to get new ones? Do you want to use your memory stick in other devices? Do you just not like the concept of a "proprietary (whatever that means in this context)" format?
No it's not more meaningful, Apple is fashionable and Dell is not. That's it.
Well I would agree with you up to a point. Apple does have the cult behind it, and therefore is more "pc" to swoon over. HOWEVER, this does not change the fact that Apple, primarily due to OSX, does have the strongest ties into the OSS/*nix community of all the major hardware manufacturers. Yes, they're fashionable and cool, and the posts responding to articles about them tend to be the same thing over and over, but then again, what somewhat repetively themed articles on/. don't end up being that way.
The idea that everybody loves Apple because they, ooooh, used Unix and woweee, took some open source code to do it with, is just plain wrong - the difference is the ridiculous groupthink here means that dissenting opinions only rarely get seen.
Well _I_ wouldn't mod you down;) I understand your point, but I also disagree with your statement, it's no more "ridiculous groupthink" than the whole OSS movement and the prevelant view of it here. I think the reason you get mod'ed down is that your opinion is not stated in a way that directly addresses the statements (at least it was in this case). I said that I think that Apple articles are more on topic than some other hardware manuf. because Apple utilizes a somewhat OSS as it's primary OS and because they ship more *nix boxen than any other manuf. Now you might have a disagreement with my facts, but you did not state it, instead you claim that those facts have nothing to do with it, and it's just groupthink. Well, you never countered my statements, you just dismissed them and proffered an opinion that can't be validated. That in many peoples books is a troll. One interesting test would be to see if these type of Apple articles appeared with their current frequency pre-OSX, if so, then your statement holds more water. If not, then that would tend to lend more weight to mine. But again, offering up something that can be intelligently discussed/checked/debated, vs a simple "ya'll are a bunch of anti-WinTel sheep" (but then again I guess if the shoe fits;)
...no one would like to be the one that yesterday bougth the last 3500$ 23" Cinema display, would you?
Actually if you did it yesterday, then you're fine. The Apple store has a 10day refund/return policy (and of course most of the retailers have some sort of price protection whatnot). It's the people who bought towards the end of the year that are a bit miffed right about now.
It's news because Apple ships more *nix/OSS "based" machines than anyone else on the planet. And since this site focuses on issues in the *nix and OSS world, I would say that the news it quite appropriate. Why are people so surprised by the attention Apple gets here on/.? Are they forgetting that the/. editors deem them worthy enough for their OWN SECTION?
I think the reason why Apple stuff is tolerated a lot more (other than the fact that it is not WinTel), is that Apple is the #1 producer of *nix based machines in the world. Not only that, but the ship more OSS "based" machines in the world (not to mention OSS based OS). So in that regard, they are much more meaningful than someone like Dell simply bumping the speed of their boxes. Remember that/. actually has a separate Apple section, so why is it news to YOU that Apple stuff would get mentioned more frequently?
True, why bother releasing new better competing products when you have new product coming out in 6 to 12 months (which we all know is nothing in computer time). People would be much more impressed with a jump from 1.25Ghz to 2Ghz vs seeing incremental steps and lowered prices along the way. Shame on them for not releasing new PowerBooks, after all it's been weeks since the previous announcment. Tying up those vast resources to bump up the processor speed and adding a few extra features, I'm sure this totally derailed any iMac or iBook efforts.
Look, I agree that they have soft spots that they have to work on, but laptops is not one of them. iMacs need to get cheaper, agreed. But they MUST continue to bump the TOTL PowerMac's to keep and hearts and minds of their high end buyers in the Mac camp. If they waited until the 970 to release ANYTHING in the PowerMac line, they'd be screwed big time.
If as some suggest that the new machines will be out in time for Summer MacWorld, then great. If not, don't be too surprised to see maybe one more bump if the new guys don't make it until the end of the year. I bet if Motorola can get them faster G4's, they'd put them out there pronto (as they did with these).
but it still makes me want to pull my hair out when people single click on shit that needs double clicking, and even worse, trying to guide somebody through the gui and having them double clicking where they should be single clicking.
Actually this is one of the things that bugs me the most about Mac OSX, I don't know if it's just because I was primarily a Windoze user before, but it really bugs me that things seem to be rather confused about what to single click and what to double click.
Back in the day, the rules were fairly simple, single clicking was for "buttons" or other controls, basically anything that could not be "selected". Double clicking was for "objects", since these could be selected (single click), and double clicking merely invoked the default action on the object. In general, in the old days any type of icon required a double click since they were use mainly to represent objects. Now days, "buttons" look flat just like icons, so now you can't tell what things represent objects. The advent of the web and links just made things 100% worse, I still see people double click on links (which with the "old" way of looking at thinks would correct in many cases since links often represent other pages (i.e. objects), though now web apps use links to perform actions as well, so that distinction is really thrown out the window).
I think all of todays gui's have some serious ui issues since they all pretty much have similar ui conventions (menu bars with similar menus, drag/drop, context menus, OO ui objects).
Very little free software is written for political reasons
No it's not useless. How is talking about making computers a better tool useless. Is expecting better quality software somehow political. After all, isn't that the whole point. Isn't that why people are taking a hard look at Linux, because they expect "better"? If Windows was significantly better than it is now (and priced the same), nobody would be giving "free" Linux a second glance, so quality (not just measured in bugs, but also in usefulness) is important.
Write it yourself, or pay someone to write it for you
I assume you're talking about "free" software, because you seemed to have completely forgotten the old "provide feedback to your software vendors and talk with your pocketbook". And if those two options are the only viable ones for "free software", then "free software" is doomed (it'll never go away, but it will never become more than the sideshow to the big act).
Nobody is obliged to program for you for free, if you think so you have misunderstood what the free in free software means.
Actually "they" are if "they" are pushing "free software" as a viable alternative to "not-free" software. If you view "free software" as a tinkerers toy, then you are correct. Which do YOU think it should be?
All that said, if you dont like it the way it is, break out your EMacs, and Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!
I think you're missing the point of HIS rant. In the end, computers (and the apps that run on them) should be tools that allow users to get what they want done done, with as minimal amount of effort required. He is approaching this as a USER of the software. As an OS, Linux suffers when things like this happen to a category of app that is very "common". And the generic "well write it yourself" response is amusing, but in the end, not very productive.
Now his style certainly leaves a lot to be desired, and he does attack the apps (and via association, it's writers) and that is VERY counterproductive, but one can't let his style get in the way of his general message, the state of Linux applications is not where it should be. Yes, it's getting there, but it's NOT there.
Being "greatful its out there at all" is fine for a "tinkerers" OS, not one that is vying to become a "real" OS for the masses (and yes, there are those whose opinion about this differ as well).
Hey man, I didn't say that the number was "accurate", I just said that given their statements that that was the most likely explaination. Remember, this is startup marketing propaganda. Does anyone really think that they have a chance in hell anyway?
However, it could be succesful if they market it to hotels, airlines, trains, doctors, dentists, cafes, etc
Many of these places are already placing systems that have internet access and nintendo/genesis games, so that market isn't exactly a "gimme" either. The things gotta be cheap and bullet proof. Their two claims to fame, speed and large game library don't mean squat to the markets you mention.
Just think of the possibilities if they take over/.. Everytime a story is posted with typos, CmdrTaco gets a shock! The whole moderation system could be loads of fun and cut down on "First Post", "All your...", "In Soviet Russia..." posts. That's right, just giving a user -1 isn't good enough any more;)
He is simply pissed because of the way they went about it.
Fine, so they didn't do it as nicely as they could have. How about his seemingly immature reaction. Does PCI-SIG's perhaps heavy handed first communique warrant such an immature response? What's worse, is that while PCI-SIG is protecting their trademark and not trying to suppress content, by Jim having such a knee-jerk reaction, HE becomes the one that is preventing this information from being available. After all, it has been said that it's the developer who truely benefits from this (and not necessarily PCI-SIG), so who has he really hurt by not simply complying with PCI-SIG and keeping the info available?
I can understand PCi-SIG, standard legal procedure, maybe not the nicest, but it's the standard. Jim on the otherhand really has no excuse, he should grow up.
This is a prime example of the OSS community cutting off their nose to spite their face. It amounts to not much more than a tantrum
What are you saying that certain members of/. and OSS community are prone to fly off the handle, coming to judgements and conclusions without reading all the facts and blindly pushing their own agendas, NO, I don't believe it;) Which begs the question, why are you hanging out here?
Slashdot Mirror
you are ignorant of CPU architechture
No, I'm using language that is appropriate for the context of the subject of which I'm speaking. AMD uses their "rating" as a measure for performance (they state vs previous generations of their own chip, "common knowledge" puts it vs the P4), I made no claims/comments about the _correctness_ of this use.
As for your claim, you are of course right and wrong. The chips are not SOOO different as to not be able to make some comparisions. E.G. a 2Ghz XP will kick a 1Ghz PIII in pretty much any type of metric you could come up with. Add to that the fact that they are designed to run the same (or nearly the same fp differences not withstanding) binaries, makes a comparison much more meaningful. Not 100% meaningful, but much more so than trying to compare say a 1.5ghz G4 vs a 2.5ghz P4.
I have NEVER bought an Intel based computer (well, as long as you don't count the iPSC and MindSet), and I WOULD buy a 3000+. If that cpu was at the price/performance point that I was looking for, why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't you? OR, was what you were really trying to say was that you would not pay a premium for a 3000+ vs say a 2800+, knowing that the improvements made to get it to that 3000+ level probably wouldn't translate into any meaningful performance gains in the real world?
For AMD it's simple, product differentation and market prestige. AMD is in a position that they always look like they are feeding off of Intels table scraps. This is an opportunity for them to establish themselves as a tech. leader and not simply a me-too company.
That and the fact that the margins on the new processors will be significantly higher than existing chips, a much needed boost in revenues.
How is this any different from when AMD adopted the "performance rating" vs the clock speed to begin with? If the increase in performance makes it perform like a 3ghz P4, then thats how it should be marked. After all, isn't that what the name represents? Intel still uses the raw ghz number, and for them to change now wouldn't make any sense (that and the fact that it's hard to pin down "performance" increases with HT esp if you're using most of the common benchmarks which are not MT).
Which brings up an interesting marketing difference, by sticking with just ghz #'s, it's harder for Intel to easily communicate/quantify architecture gains (vs simple clock increases) vs the "relative performance" rating that AMD uses. People blasted AMD at first for confusing matters, but they may be reaping at least some the benefits of divorcing raw clock rate from performance.
No, I never claimed they did
/. and the types of posts to these types of articles (can't really argue there, the proofs in the reading). We have a small dissagreement about Apple's position in the OSS/*nix world, that's ok too, if Apple can help push OSS and continue to provide resonable alternatives to other OS's, then I say more power to'em. If they do this by having a "real" OS at it's core, then I'll say even more power to'em.
Oh, I wasn't implying that you made that claim. Just thinking out loud, it would be interesting to see if the frequency of articles posted increased with OSX (which _could_ support my position), or if's at basically the same level, or say the level around the time of the iMac intro (i.e. nothing concerning OSS) which would support your position more.
But really that's all that changed, Apples business is fundamentally the same, simply using a POSIX compliant kernel and using various unix tools doesn't change anything really except peoples perceptions.
Well their POSIX compliant kernel is OS (even if it's not GPL), which is saying a lot more than any of the other larger manuf. I can't see how you can say that there hasen't been a change. Sure Apple does basically what Apple has always done, but like it or not, intentional or not, Apple has adopted, and somewhat embraced, the ways of the *nix world. Before that, they were COMPLETELY proprietary, they are breaking out of that, as Safari is a good example of. In the old days they would always completely do things in house to have complete control, they are realizing that they can't remain profitable with that attitude, so now their shifting. I think Pink then Taligent taught them some valuable lessons in this regard.
Anyway, I agree with most of your assessments about
Now consider you need the memory in a hurry and buy from a camera shop. The gulf would widen considerably.
:
Wolf Camera (lots of them here where I live)
128MB MemStick - 79.99
128MB SD - 89.99
128MB CF - 69.99
Walmart
128MB MemStick - 69.98
128MB SD - 94.86
128MB CF - 54.86
128MB SmartMedia - 51.86
But if you're free of Sony then there is absolutely no reason to go with the format.
My point was that, at least in my case, I'm not going with a "format", I going with a product, that happens to use a particular format. I just purchased my camcorder, the fact that it uses memory sticks meant nothing to me (esp. in this case since it's a camcorder and the tape format is the most important). I'm now ready to retire my Olympus and move up to a nice hi-end consumer/prosumer camera. Will media format be an issue, for me, no. Now it's a bit of a non issue since Sony doesn't play in the space that I'm looking in, but if they did, my concern would not be for the format used (again, unless everything was equal). I know that not everyone else places the same value on the same features as I do, but for me there are a great many things that are much more important than media formats. If it has more meaning to you, then I can't really argue that.
Because memory sticks are ludicrously expensive compared to other formats
Quick look on pricewatch shows the cheapest 128mb MMC/SD card at $53, the cheapest 128mb memory stick at $57, hardly "ludicrously expensive". Plus, if you're buying a $800pda, how many memory cards do you need, and is a $4 differential in cost (or even $10) worth not purchasing the entire pda?
I own two CE devices that use electronic memory, an Olympus digital camera (smartmedia) and Sony camcorder (mem stick). The media they used was extremely low on my totem pole of "features" that influenced my decision to buy. Things like image quality and features factored WAY more heavily. Now had it boiled down to two devices that were basically the same and one used one format and the other used another, THEN I would probably lean toward using a more "common" format, but that hasen't happened yet. Esp. with SmartMedia, it was a struggle early on. But then again I'd much rather have inconvenience (and perhaps a bit more cost) to get a "superior" product in those areas that are most important to me.
Seems like the tact that Sony is taking is that they want to offer most of those features in the pda itself. Didn't Handspring learn that having the expansion port wasn't as big of a selling point as one would think?
Don't forget about the P800, cool stuff. The problem though with existing phones as pda's is that most real phones have to small a display and a very unsatisfying input device. They are getting closer though, well at the least the phones are. Sony keeps pushing the envelope though with the Clie's. Here I think that price is the biggest factor. If Sony could sell this new Clie for $400, they wouldn't be able to make them fast enough.
The thing that holds me back from buying Sony products is their memory stick.
Just out of curiosity why is that? Are you afraid that in a couple of years Sony will abandon the memory stick and leave to stuck unable to get new ones? Do you want to use your memory stick in other devices? Do you just not like the concept of a "proprietary (whatever that means in this context)" format?
Good luck fitting it into your shirt pocket or purse.
No it's not more meaningful, Apple is fashionable and Dell is not. That's it.
/. don't end up being that way.
;) I understand your point, but I also disagree with your statement, it's no more "ridiculous groupthink" than the whole OSS movement and the prevelant view of it here. I think the reason you get mod'ed down is that your opinion is not stated in a way that directly addresses the statements (at least it was in this case). I said that I think that Apple articles are more on topic than some other hardware manuf. because Apple utilizes a somewhat OSS as it's primary OS and because they ship more *nix boxen than any other manuf. Now you might have a disagreement with my facts, but you did not state it, instead you claim that those facts have nothing to do with it, and it's just groupthink. Well, you never countered my statements, you just dismissed them and proffered an opinion that can't be validated. That in many peoples books is a troll. One interesting test would be to see if these type of Apple articles appeared with their current frequency pre-OSX, if so, then your statement holds more water. If not, then that would tend to lend more weight to mine. But again, offering up something that can be intelligently discussed/checked/debated, vs a simple "ya'll are a bunch of anti-WinTel sheep" (but then again I guess if the shoe fits ;)
Well I would agree with you up to a point. Apple does have the cult behind it, and therefore is more "pc" to swoon over. HOWEVER, this does not change the fact that Apple, primarily due to OSX, does have the strongest ties into the OSS/*nix community of all the major hardware manufacturers. Yes, they're fashionable and cool, and the posts responding to articles about them tend to be the same thing over and over, but then again, what somewhat repetively themed articles on
The idea that everybody loves Apple because they, ooooh, used Unix and woweee, took some open source code to do it with, is just plain wrong - the difference is the ridiculous groupthink here means that dissenting opinions only rarely get seen.
Well _I_ wouldn't mod you down
...no one would like to be the one that yesterday bougth the last 3500$ 23" Cinema display, would you?
Actually if you did it yesterday, then you're fine. The Apple store has a 10day refund/return policy (and of course most of the retailers have some sort of price protection whatnot). It's the people who bought towards the end of the year that are a bit miffed right about now.
It's news because Apple ships more *nix/OSS "based" machines than anyone else on the planet. And since this site focuses on issues in the *nix and OSS world, I would say that the news it quite appropriate. Why are people so surprised by the attention Apple gets here on /.? Are they forgetting that the /. editors deem them worthy enough for their OWN SECTION?
I think the reason why Apple stuff is tolerated a lot more (other than the fact that it is not WinTel), is that Apple is the #1 producer of *nix based machines in the world. Not only that, but the ship more OSS "based" machines in the world (not to mention OSS based OS). So in that regard, they are much more meaningful than someone like Dell simply bumping the speed of their boxes. Remember that /. actually has a separate Apple section, so why is it news to YOU that Apple stuff would get mentioned more frequently?
But, seriously, why did Apple even release this
True, why bother releasing new better competing products when you have new product coming out in 6 to 12 months (which we all know is nothing in computer time). People would be much more impressed with a jump from 1.25Ghz to 2Ghz vs seeing incremental steps and lowered prices along the way. Shame on them for not releasing new PowerBooks, after all it's been weeks since the previous announcment. Tying up those vast resources to bump up the processor speed and adding a few extra features, I'm sure this totally derailed any iMac or iBook efforts.
Look, I agree that they have soft spots that they have to work on, but laptops is not one of them. iMacs need to get cheaper, agreed. But they MUST continue to bump the TOTL PowerMac's to keep and hearts and minds of their high end buyers in the Mac camp. If they waited until the 970 to release ANYTHING in the PowerMac line, they'd be screwed big time.
If as some suggest that the new machines will be out in time for Summer MacWorld, then great. If not, don't be too surprised to see maybe one more bump if the new guys don't make it until the end of the year. I bet if Motorola can get them faster G4's, they'd put them out there pronto (as they did with these).
but it still makes me want to pull my hair out when people single click on shit that needs double clicking, and even worse, trying to guide somebody through the gui and having them double clicking where they should be single clicking.
Actually this is one of the things that bugs me the most about Mac OSX, I don't know if it's just because I was primarily a Windoze user before, but it really bugs me that things seem to be rather confused about what to single click and what to double click.
Back in the day, the rules were fairly simple, single clicking was for "buttons" or other controls, basically anything that could not be "selected". Double clicking was for "objects", since these could be selected (single click), and double clicking merely invoked the default action on the object. In general, in the old days any type of icon required a double click since they were use mainly to represent objects. Now days, "buttons" look flat just like icons, so now you can't tell what things represent objects. The advent of the web and links just made things 100% worse, I still see people double click on links (which with the "old" way of looking at thinks would correct in many cases since links often represent other pages (i.e. objects), though now web apps use links to perform actions as well, so that distinction is really thrown out the window).
I think all of todays gui's have some serious ui issues since they all pretty much have similar ui conventions (menu bars with similar menus, drag/drop, context menus, OO ui objects).
Very little free software is written for political reasons
No it's not useless. How is talking about making computers a better tool useless. Is expecting better quality software somehow political. After all, isn't that the whole point. Isn't that why people are taking a hard look at Linux, because they expect "better"? If Windows was significantly better than it is now (and priced the same), nobody would be giving "free" Linux a second glance, so quality (not just measured in bugs, but also in usefulness) is important.
Write it yourself, or pay someone to write it for you
I assume you're talking about "free" software, because you seemed to have completely forgotten the old "provide feedback to your software vendors and talk with your pocketbook". And if those two options are the only viable ones for "free software", then "free software" is doomed (it'll never go away, but it will never become more than the sideshow to the big act).
Nobody is obliged to program for you for free, if you think so you have misunderstood what the free in free software means.
Actually "they" are if "they" are pushing "free software" as a viable alternative to "not-free" software. If you view "free software" as a tinkerers toy, then you are correct. Which do YOU think it should be?
All that said, if you dont like it the way it is, break out your EMacs, and Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!
I think you're missing the point of HIS rant. In the end, computers (and the apps that run on them) should be tools that allow users to get what they want done done, with as minimal amount of effort required. He is approaching this as a USER of the software. As an OS, Linux suffers when things like this happen to a category of app that is very "common". And the generic "well write it yourself" response is amusing, but in the end, not very productive.
Now his style certainly leaves a lot to be desired, and he does attack the apps (and via association, it's writers) and that is VERY counterproductive, but one can't let his style get in the way of his general message, the state of Linux applications is not where it should be. Yes, it's getting there, but it's NOT there.
Being "greatful its out there at all" is fine for a "tinkerers" OS, not one that is vying to become a "real" OS for the masses (and yes, there are those whose opinion about this differ as well).
Hey man, I didn't say that the number was "accurate", I just said that given their statements that that was the most likely explaination. Remember, this is startup marketing propaganda. Does anyone really think that they have a chance in hell anyway?
However, it could be succesful if they market it to hotels, airlines, trains, doctors, dentists, cafes, etc
Many of these places are already placing systems that have internet access and nintendo/genesis games, so that market isn't exactly a "gimme" either. The things gotta be cheap and bullet proof. Their two claims to fame, speed and large game library don't mean squat to the markets you mention.
but getting enough people to develop 32,679 games and keeping it quiet would be tough.
I think the obvious answer is that they are simply coming out with a pc compatable "console", from their website:
here are currently 32,679 retail game titles available
Notice how they say currently, it's either a pc or a incredibly souped up SNES.
Just think of the possibilities if they take over /.. Everytime a story is posted with typos, CmdrTaco gets a shock! The whole moderation system could be loads of fun and cut down on "First Post", "All your ...", "In Soviet Russia ..." posts. That's right, just giving a user -1 isn't good enough any more ;)
Care to cite the text that proves your assertion?
He is simply pissed because of the way they went about it.
Fine, so they didn't do it as nicely as they could have. How about his seemingly immature reaction. Does PCI-SIG's perhaps heavy handed first communique warrant such an immature response? What's worse, is that while PCI-SIG is protecting their trademark and not trying to suppress content, by Jim having such a knee-jerk reaction, HE becomes the one that is preventing this information from being available. After all, it has been said that it's the developer who truely benefits from this (and not necessarily PCI-SIG), so who has he really hurt by not simply complying with PCI-SIG and keeping the info available?
I can understand PCi-SIG, standard legal procedure, maybe not the nicest, but it's the standard. Jim on the otherhand really has no excuse, he should grow up.
This is a prime example of the OSS community cutting off their nose to spite their face. It amounts to not much more than a tantrum
/. and OSS community are prone to fly off the handle, coming to judgements and conclusions without reading all the facts and blindly pushing their own agendas, NO, I don't believe it ;) Which begs the question, why are you hanging out here?
What are you saying that certain members of