Do Blu-rays look better than DVDs? Yes, at least on screens that have higher native resolution than DVD.
But at the current price, even if I do own one of those screens, I'll stick to DVDs. I prefer to buy two DVDs than one Blu-ray, and I will only buy a Blu-ray player... when the PS3 price will drop.
I'm not getting your point about OS X, have you tried the damn thing ? It does everything you described plus less time wasting over configuration crap and more multimedia.
Out of the box, it does SMB, SSH, and there is an HTPC interface build in.
So what's your point exactly ?
French law allows private copying, à la fair use, and is actually pretty liberal about what it actually means. You can make copies of music for your own use, providing you have the original CD (or files) at the moment of copying (providing no copy protection has to be broken). This apply to rented CDs, library CDs, friend's CDs etc., Distribution of copy is however totally forbidden.
Fairplay is not a bad DRM scheme, it allows unlimited CD-burning (officially more than any so called Copy Protected Disc).
The cost, maximum 20 for a CD-burner and a CDRW if you don't already have them.
And just to be precise, Norway is not part of EU.
Simply not true, most distro could do with redistribution of binary only, and the source code distribution would remain the responsability of the original software maker, a small price to pay to maintain consistency on a given platform for certain software such as web browser which are already a mess to deal with. The end user is always able to modify its own version for his purpose, and the company retain some control, add a clause about porting on originally unsupported plateform and you get a licence that seems quite fair.
Otherwise you can fork, and change the name because you break the consistency, that's what Debian is doing, and I'm fine with the idea of fork, I just find the name ridiculusly childish, and the lack of compromise (probably from both side) appealing.
You said Debian developpers don't want to mess with Gecko, but what prevent them to do so at the end of the day?
I thought that the whole point of the Open Source movement was to make Free Software more appealing to the market place, and their we have the stupidest name ever, Iceweasel, use as a kind of childish spite toward an entity defending an important piece of software.
I know bug fixing is important, but there is a more important goal behind the Mozilla.com insistance on consitent control of the Firefox binaries: a consistant rendering of web pages under the 3 main plateforms, a close to standard rendering which makes Firefox a de facto standard.
I think that what Mozilla.com tries to achieve is a kind of Open Source "Opera", so that the software is the same on Windows, OSX and Linux, and reacts the same to all web pages.
I think that Open Source is a bit restrictive on this issue, and misleading due to its Free Software roots because of the whole redistribution thingy.
RC1 was fine on my system, this pseudo RC2 is rotten, Firefox can't even run after trying to install flash, the system doesn't keep the settings I change, I am going to try a re-install, because I can't believe it to be that bad.
Do people forbid you to jump from page 5 to page 10 on a book, no, you might not get all the experienced planned by the artist though.
What should really happen, is that some people should do album(LP), and other should do track(single).
What happens today is that the people that do track, or the people behind them, want to make more money by releasing some track as an album, hence the "filling track", iTunes just deconstructs this model, and it is a good thing because it concerns mostly "bad" pop music.
I see a future where artists choose if their track can be sold as single or not, and there you'll see the difference between people working on an album as a whole, and the others
I'm sick of those unconstructive comments from people who have no clue.
I agree that Real had an approach to Windows computing that fitted perfectly with the trend, bloatware and spyware, but to anybody who actually do not use Windows, Real as been more good than bad.
Their Mac and Linux players, which I use, have nothing to do with the Windows offering, they are nice clean and effective little application that do their job well and nothing else. The only thing missing really is a playlist.
As for the buffering joke, I watch and listen BBC program, French national TV program and a lot of other music related streams and it always delivers a adequate experience, much better than any WMa/v or Quicktime.
If people don't understand that offering a legal way to play content is what Linux need to get accepted, nothing can be done really. I know Open Source implementation are out there, but they are usually enough in the gray area (especilly in the US) that distro can't ship them. If SuSE, which is already my distro of choice, since it can play mp3 out of the box through a clever integration with the Helix software. can ship a distro that plays mp3, wma, Real and flash 9 out of the box, they have a killer. I mean Automatix and easyubuntu are nice, but you have to know about it, and chances are that most new users don't (as most people don't know you don't have to use IE, MSN messenger, etc.)
Hum, my SuSE came with mp3 support out of the box, thanks to a clever integration with real helix software used as a back end.
What the hell is it with Ubuntu anyway, you might be able to do the same with automatix or easy ubuntu or what not, but freespire makes it LEGAL (at least in the US, in the civilised word software patent don't yet apply)!
That's what I was gonna say. I have it running on my Ubuntu box, and it works pretty well, the only thing it need is really ram, I run Windows 2003 server RC2 on top on Linux to do some photoshop, and it works just as it should, it's probably a bit slower, but you can't really tell until you got some pretty serious rendering.
This should be the solution for a lot of people, except gamers, I sure hope their port it to OS X now (by the way it is also great to test all this linux arround, i just love it, and its free!! as in beer)
First, dual boot is a myth, it is damn annoying and so counterproductive. Most people dont realise that until they actually experiment it, it's hype now, but all Linux users know it's a pain, and I know from experience that a dual boot Windows/Linux means one thing... Windows 90% of the time. Vmware and others solutions are the way to go for people who need Windows professionaly for a given application, I can't wait for a Mac OS X version.
Second, some people try to makes us believe that companies will buy Apple PC to their employees now that they can run Windows, yeah right, serious manager will buy more expensive hardware, plus a Windows licence, so that their employees can have an Apple design and the joy of using Mac OS X out of the office...
Lastly, Gamers, Well Windows users will probably not switch to Apple hardware to play, it's more expensive, and you'll get a better gaming PC for the price, hardcore gamers don't really care for Apple design, last time I checked it was more neon and see through glass panel...Seriously, You already have to be freaking rich to play seriously on laptop, do you think people will pay even more for an Apple on the back screen...
I see this all thing as one big geek experiment, because it is what it is, mostly geek will do it, just because it is fun, but Apple geek will at the end stay under OS X, and Windows geek will soon realise they over paid their Windows laptop...
This is plain BullShit, Google do what they want on their pages, and because they use a certain way to organise information and people like it, does't mean that they have to explain anything, nobody force you to use Google.
If this company want to be up, they can pay to advertise on Google, end of the story, otherwise, they have to face the Google way like the rest of us, meaning having a good website and not trying to cheat!
Give me a break.
I use Ubuntu and love it, but this is one of the worse security breach I've ever seen, and ironically with an easy fix (for godness sake I'm not a Ubuntu hacker, but a rm/var/whatever is something I can do myself, even a chmod for that matter)
Anyway my point is that I'm sure that MS or Apple would have answer quickly (maybe only today...) because it is so simple to fix this oh so critcal hole. No code to write, no nothing, just a file to remove or to chmod.
No the real problem is that it was there at the first place, I sure hope that Dapper is pushed 6 weeks now and that they will take the time for some serious QA.
Think about school, library etc. if they uses Ubuntu, yesterday might have been judgement day.
If OSX, or Apple, had such a hole, people would riot in the street, for days even after a fix, but their, it is Ubuntu, it is Linux, so it seems to be fine, well hell it's not.
My real question is where all this money goes, I had the, maybe stupid, idea that the Mozilla foundation was non for profit, hence all the money they make is to pay their employees and invest.
Now, if they make real money out of it, I would be a little bit pissed off, since I donated money to advertise their product, I mean if they have that much money, they can sure do some advertisement, can't they?
I'm not saying I'm ennoyed I gave money, but when I see that :
"# What is the purpose of this site?
As a small, non-profit organization, the Mozilla Foundation has very limited resources at its disposal to market Firefox to the world. SpreadFirefox was created to fill this void, and was founded on the same principles of community involvement that drive the development and testing of Firefox. We believe there is nothing that a large community of enthusiastic volunteers can't accomplish, and this site exists to unite the community into one cohesive marketing force that even competitors with unlimited resources can't compete with. For more information, see our original announcement."
And then I hear about all these arrangements, it sounds to me like their limited ressources are not that limited, so I understand it's not Mozilla directly, but spread firefox in this instance, but it sounds like a lot of bs suddendly.
First of all, I'm a Linux user, I have a Linux desktop, but I know how difficult it is too talk about the desktop with the Linux crowd. Most of us/them think that Linux is so good, both technically and morally, that it will just make its way to everybody's desktop without the need to adapt to whatever the wannabe Linuxes have to say. Most of the time you would get something like, why would you want that, if you do, stay with your [insert swearing] Windows (funny whan you use Mac OS X).
Anyway the point is that a lot of the so called Linux advocate, at least the more vocals, don't want their cherished OS to be tainted by popular commercial apps.
Let's face the truth, most of the Linux users use Linux to build a better tool for themselves, their computer, while what the pro users discussed here, creative people, really want is the tool to be ready to work.
Today still, the difference between using Linux and Win or OS X, is the same in spirit as using a home built-pc or a mac (or a dell if you wanna strech it)
On one hand, you'll have to spend time to get everything working, and the people doing it like it, and on the other you will plug, and play, and that's what people working with computer as a tool and not not an end want.
Linux desktop has its place, the geek users, the "poorer users" (Look at the real goal of Ubuntu=>Linux for African users), the corporate write and mail users, but if it wants to get to other places, it will have to listen, and in the Linux world it is very difficult to be listen to if you don't wanna write code or submit bug, that's all.
I have 4 machines at home, a Windows XP laptop, a Windows 2003 "desktop", an Ubuntu Linux desktop and a iBook.
I also have a Linksys router, and I didn't get a virus, a trojan or whatever on any of the machine yet.
Now I use to have Windows 2k and I got blaster, once, and the now Windows 2003 "desktop" use to have 2k as well and had a blocked trojan (was there but couldn't connect out) when it was my girlfriend who was taking care of it. I don't consider myself lucky, there are a few steps to keep yourself secure, as far as possible because nobody is immune to system bug.
Now, I just do thing in order, first I install the OS, then activate a firewall,and then start to update from trusted place (Windows Update, Apple, or the Ubuntu repositories) all the machine are connected to Internet from the beginning, because I think that in most case my Router will protect me, if I didn't have it, I would not connect them before the firewall is on.
After that, I install an antivirus, usually clam, but lately I tried Norton thanks to Google pack, and it seems to work fine. From then it is just a matter of auto updating and scaning whatever you download, it is not 100% protection since an exploit is always arround the corner, but I think it as close as I can get without compromising the ease of use.
Just to be clear, I use the integrated firewall in Windows and Mac OS and Firestarter in Linux.
Bonus, with multiplateform, if one catch a cold, the other can do the doctor.
What's the point to put it on the public ftp then, if I want to launch something big time, I just wait before I put it on the ftp, I just don't put it and expect people not to see it.
And actually downloading it right now and torrent it will help more than just waiting for the big hit.
If only half of what you're assuming was true, Linux desktop would be all over the place.
But lets take it point by point:
a) most people get their cell from the phone company, the sale person will show it to them and show them the basic function and it will come usually with a network specific manual to use the more advanced function but basically they will do two things: call and text. If you give a ready to use Linux desktop to people expecting them to only do what you set up, it will be fine, but if they want to do something that wasn't set up, good luck, maybe you should give them some oreilly book as well then. People do not add hardware to their cellphone, they do not put more memory, a bigger harddrive or a new 3d card, and when they install software it usually is some java stuff that cannot break out of virtual machine.
b)People do not necessarily want what the distro offers, they want the application they choose, and the latest one. They also want some commercial stuff, they want java, flash, mp3, realplayer and dvd, and last time I checked it was not just a matter of google app, download, install, run but more like find out the unofficial faq, open the shell, learn how to use it, join vi, add repositorie, get the package, get it to install edit the menu to find where the hell it went or maybe download some binary, open the shell, change rights, solve dependnecies and so on...
If you have one distro that can do that as google app, download, install and run, please tell me I've been looking.
c) damn the last time I installed Ubuntu I probably missed the bit where they asked me if I wanted to be able to watch my tv card, have 3d accelaration, listen to some mp3 and play some video with not too much static in Alsa...
Also assuming that Windows users are pirates is a little far from the truth, some people do use what they get with their computer, install Open Source stuff, or even buy software! Assuming that Linux has the monopole on cool OSS is just non-sense, Firefox, Gaim, OpenOffice , VLC, Clamwin anyone?
No, it is not one of those stallmanian rhetoric about Linux being the kernel, but Linux is still only the kernel.
It is impossible to compare Linux to Windows because they are not the same thing! Windows is a Windows distribution, and the only one, except if you argue that XP Home, XP Pro and 2k(3) are different enough to be considered different distributions but I don't. Linux is a general term used to described thousands of distributions.
In a sense you could compare Windows XP Pro (just to be clear) to RedHat EL4 WS, Windows XP Home to Ubuntu 5.10 or Fedora Core 4, and the server version to server version of different distribution, because at the end of the day, in the real world, people do not build their Linux from scratch, even if they could (and this is THE point of OSS).
It is not fair for Windows, and I'm not particularly pro-Microsoft, to compare it to LINUX as a whole. When you will be able to take ALL software from one distro to another without any change, yes you will be able to. Now I'm not saying this is what has to happen, because I think people are fine with choice, but for the sake of comparaison, Windows need to be compared to A Linux distribution like Linux distribution are compared to each other, it is not about the kernel, it is about everything arround.
It might be sad for some idealist, but look at commercial OS, Windows XP and Mac OS, 95% of the time, you will download an app, any app, install it and it will just work, this is this level of usability before all the eye candy that people want. Now I know you can't expect Linux apps developper to produce ready to use package all the time, considering the mess it is out there, but something has to be done, static binary might be the way - who cares about space when you have convenience and a 80 GB drive - some kind of BETTER standardization might be another, leave the package management to those who want it, leave the source for the geeks.
Real people want what is supposed to be an operating system, a system that make the link between the machine and the apps, and yes you can call it a appliance if you want, some people do not really care about tinkering if their machine works with the apps they want. Put some standardization on document format, so everybody can access information, and leave the do it yourself computing to those who want it. How many people use a car, how many people can or want to fix it or build their own? How many people use a TV, how many can or want to fix it or build their own? How many people use a computer? How many people can or want to fix it or build their own?
Because geeks thinks that computer are easy to tinker with does't mean that people want to tinker with theirs!
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Do Blu-rays look better than DVDs? Yes, at least on screens that have higher native resolution than DVD. But at the current price, even if I do own one of those screens, I'll stick to DVDs. I prefer to buy two DVDs than one Blu-ray, and I will only buy a Blu-ray player... when the PS3 price will drop.
I'm not getting your point about OS X, have you tried the damn thing ? It does everything you described plus less time wasting over configuration crap and more multimedia. Out of the box, it does SMB, SSH, and there is an HTPC interface build in. So what's your point exactly ?
French law allows private copying, à la fair use, and is actually pretty liberal about what it actually means.
You can make copies of music for your own use, providing you have the original CD (or files) at the moment of copying (providing no copy protection has to be broken). This apply to rented CDs, library CDs, friend's CDs etc., Distribution of copy is however totally forbidden.
Fairplay is not a bad DRM scheme, it allows unlimited CD-burning (officially more than any so called Copy Protected Disc). The cost, maximum 20 for a CD-burner and a CDRW if you don't already have them. And just to be precise, Norway is not part of EU.
Simply not true, most distro could do with redistribution of binary only, and the source code distribution would remain the responsability of the original software maker, a small price to pay to maintain consistency on a given platform for certain software such as web browser which are already a mess to deal with. The end user is always able to modify its own version for his purpose, and the company retain some control, add a clause about porting on originally unsupported plateform and you get a licence that seems quite fair. Otherwise you can fork, and change the name because you break the consistency, that's what Debian is doing, and I'm fine with the idea of fork, I just find the name ridiculusly childish, and the lack of compromise (probably from both side) appealing. You said Debian developpers don't want to mess with Gecko, but what prevent them to do so at the end of the day?
I thought that the whole point of the Open Source movement was to make Free Software more appealing to the market place, and their we have the stupidest name ever, Iceweasel, use as a kind of childish spite toward an entity defending an important piece of software. I know bug fixing is important, but there is a more important goal behind the Mozilla.com insistance on consitent control of the Firefox binaries: a consistant rendering of web pages under the 3 main plateforms, a close to standard rendering which makes Firefox a de facto standard. I think that what Mozilla.com tries to achieve is a kind of Open Source "Opera", so that the software is the same on Windows, OSX and Linux, and reacts the same to all web pages. I think that Open Source is a bit restrictive on this issue, and misleading due to its Free Software roots because of the whole redistribution thingy.
but it doesn't sound really good for reiser wether it is FS or H.
RC1 was fine on my system, this pseudo RC2 is rotten, Firefox can't even run after trying to install flash, the system doesn't keep the settings I change, I am going to try a re-install, because I can't believe it to be that bad.
Before I ditch my (3 years) old 3200+ based PC which run RC1 pretty well as it is (GeForce FX 5200, 512MB RAM)...
a new GeForce 7300 GT or 7600 GS AGP card: 100
a new 512MB memory module: 70
a licence for Vista (OEM or upgrade): 100-200
Maximum Total: 370
I really wish the exchange rate was that 1 for 10$...
Do people forbid you to jump from page 5 to page 10 on a book, no, you might not get all the experienced planned by the artist though. What should really happen, is that some people should do album(LP), and other should do track(single). What happens today is that the people that do track, or the people behind them, want to make more money by releasing some track as an album, hence the "filling track", iTunes just deconstructs this model, and it is a good thing because it concerns mostly "bad" pop music. I see a future where artists choose if their track can be sold as single or not, and there you'll see the difference between people working on an album as a whole, and the others
I'm sick of those unconstructive comments from people who have no clue. I agree that Real had an approach to Windows computing that fitted perfectly with the trend, bloatware and spyware, but to anybody who actually do not use Windows, Real as been more good than bad. Their Mac and Linux players, which I use, have nothing to do with the Windows offering, they are nice clean and effective little application that do their job well and nothing else. The only thing missing really is a playlist. As for the buffering joke, I watch and listen BBC program, French national TV program and a lot of other music related streams and it always delivers a adequate experience, much better than any WMa/v or Quicktime. If people don't understand that offering a legal way to play content is what Linux need to get accepted, nothing can be done really. I know Open Source implementation are out there, but they are usually enough in the gray area (especilly in the US) that distro can't ship them. If SuSE, which is already my distro of choice, since it can play mp3 out of the box through a clever integration with the Helix software. can ship a distro that plays mp3, wma, Real and flash 9 out of the box, they have a killer. I mean Automatix and easyubuntu are nice, but you have to know about it, and chances are that most new users don't (as most people don't know you don't have to use IE, MSN messenger, etc.)
Hum, my SuSE came with mp3 support out of the box, thanks to a clever integration with real helix software used as a back end. What the hell is it with Ubuntu anyway, you might be able to do the same with automatix or easy ubuntu or what not, but freespire makes it LEGAL (at least in the US, in the civilised word software patent don't yet apply)!
That's what I was gonna say. I have it running on my Ubuntu box, and it works pretty well, the only thing it need is really ram, I run Windows 2003 server RC2 on top on Linux to do some photoshop, and it works just as it should, it's probably a bit slower, but you can't really tell until you got some pretty serious rendering. This should be the solution for a lot of people, except gamers, I sure hope their port it to OS X now (by the way it is also great to test all this linux arround, i just love it, and its free!! as in beer)
First, dual boot is a myth, it is damn annoying and so counterproductive. Most people dont realise that until they actually experiment it, it's hype now, but all Linux users know it's a pain, and I know from experience that a dual boot Windows/Linux means one thing... Windows 90% of the time. Vmware and others solutions are the way to go for people who need Windows professionaly for a given application, I can't wait for a Mac OS X version. Second, some people try to makes us believe that companies will buy Apple PC to their employees now that they can run Windows, yeah right, serious manager will buy more expensive hardware, plus a Windows licence, so that their employees can have an Apple design and the joy of using Mac OS X out of the office... Lastly, Gamers, Well Windows users will probably not switch to Apple hardware to play, it's more expensive, and you'll get a better gaming PC for the price, hardcore gamers don't really care for Apple design, last time I checked it was more neon and see through glass panel...Seriously, You already have to be freaking rich to play seriously on laptop, do you think people will pay even more for an Apple on the back screen... I see this all thing as one big geek experiment, because it is what it is, mostly geek will do it, just because it is fun, but Apple geek will at the end stay under OS X, and Windows geek will soon realise they over paid their Windows laptop...
You mean this.
This is plain BullShit, Google do what they want on their pages, and because they use a certain way to organise information and people like it, does't mean that they have to explain anything, nobody force you to use Google. If this company want to be up, they can pay to advertise on Google, end of the story, otherwise, they have to face the Google way like the rest of us, meaning having a good website and not trying to cheat!
Ain't really a "fix" then, more a circumvention. It will always amaze me how since its Linux, it's not big deal, because the fix comes quick...
Give me a break. I use Ubuntu and love it, but this is one of the worse security breach I've ever seen, and ironically with an easy fix (for godness sake I'm not a Ubuntu hacker, but a rm /var/whatever is something I can do myself, even a chmod for that matter)
Anyway my point is that I'm sure that MS or Apple would have answer quickly (maybe only today...) because it is so simple to fix this oh so critcal hole. No code to write, no nothing, just a file to remove or to chmod.
No the real problem is that it was there at the first place, I sure hope that Dapper is pushed 6 weeks now and that they will take the time for some serious QA.
Think about school, library etc. if they uses Ubuntu, yesterday might have been judgement day.
If OSX, or Apple, had such a hole, people would riot in the street, for days even after a fix, but their, it is Ubuntu, it is Linux, so it seems to be fine, well hell it's not.
My real question is where all this money goes, I had the, maybe stupid, idea that the Mozilla foundation was non for profit, hence all the money they make is to pay their employees and invest. Now, if they make real money out of it, I would be a little bit pissed off, since I donated money to advertise their product, I mean if they have that much money, they can sure do some advertisement, can't they? I'm not saying I'm ennoyed I gave money, but when I see that : "# What is the purpose of this site? As a small, non-profit organization, the Mozilla Foundation has very limited resources at its disposal to market Firefox to the world. SpreadFirefox was created to fill this void, and was founded on the same principles of community involvement that drive the development and testing of Firefox. We believe there is nothing that a large community of enthusiastic volunteers can't accomplish, and this site exists to unite the community into one cohesive marketing force that even competitors with unlimited resources can't compete with. For more information, see our original announcement." And then I hear about all these arrangements, it sounds to me like their limited ressources are not that limited, so I understand it's not Mozilla directly, but spread firefox in this instance, but it sounds like a lot of bs suddendly.
First of all, I'm a Linux user, I have a Linux desktop, but I know how difficult it is too talk about the desktop with the Linux crowd. Most of us/them think that Linux is so good, both technically and morally, that it will just make its way to everybody's desktop without the need to adapt to whatever the wannabe Linuxes have to say. Most of the time you would get something like, why would you want that, if you do, stay with your [insert swearing] Windows (funny whan you use Mac OS X). Anyway the point is that a lot of the so called Linux advocate, at least the more vocals, don't want their cherished OS to be tainted by popular commercial apps. Let's face the truth, most of the Linux users use Linux to build a better tool for themselves, their computer, while what the pro users discussed here, creative people, really want is the tool to be ready to work. Today still, the difference between using Linux and Win or OS X, is the same in spirit as using a home built-pc or a mac (or a dell if you wanna strech it) On one hand, you'll have to spend time to get everything working, and the people doing it like it, and on the other you will plug, and play, and that's what people working with computer as a tool and not not an end want. Linux desktop has its place, the geek users, the "poorer users" (Look at the real goal of Ubuntu=>Linux for African users), the corporate write and mail users, but if it wants to get to other places, it will have to listen, and in the Linux world it is very difficult to be listen to if you don't wanna write code or submit bug, that's all.
I have 4 machines at home, a Windows XP laptop, a Windows 2003 "desktop", an Ubuntu Linux desktop and a iBook. I also have a Linksys router, and I didn't get a virus, a trojan or whatever on any of the machine yet. Now I use to have Windows 2k and I got blaster, once, and the now Windows 2003 "desktop" use to have 2k as well and had a blocked trojan (was there but couldn't connect out) when it was my girlfriend who was taking care of it. I don't consider myself lucky, there are a few steps to keep yourself secure, as far as possible because nobody is immune to system bug. Now, I just do thing in order, first I install the OS, then activate a firewall,and then start to update from trusted place (Windows Update, Apple, or the Ubuntu repositories) all the machine are connected to Internet from the beginning, because I think that in most case my Router will protect me, if I didn't have it, I would not connect them before the firewall is on. After that, I install an antivirus, usually clam, but lately I tried Norton thanks to Google pack, and it seems to work fine. From then it is just a matter of auto updating and scaning whatever you download, it is not 100% protection since an exploit is always arround the corner, but I think it as close as I can get without compromising the ease of use. Just to be clear, I use the integrated firewall in Windows and Mac OS and Firestarter in Linux. Bonus, with multiplateform, if one catch a cold, the other can do the doctor.
What's the point to put it on the public ftp then, if I want to launch something big time, I just wait before I put it on the ftp, I just don't put it and expect people not to see it. And actually downloading it right now and torrent it will help more than just waiting for the big hit.
If only half of what you're assuming was true, Linux desktop would be all over the place.
But lets take it point by point:
a) most people get their cell from the phone company, the sale person will show it to them and show them the basic function and it will come usually with a network specific manual to use the more advanced function but basically they will do two things: call and text.
If you give a ready to use Linux desktop to people expecting them to only do what you set up, it will be fine, but if they want to do something that wasn't set up, good luck, maybe you should give them some oreilly book as well then.
People do not add hardware to their cellphone, they do not put more memory, a bigger harddrive or a new 3d card, and when they install software it usually is some java stuff that cannot break out of virtual machine.
b)People do not necessarily want what the distro offers, they want the application they choose, and the latest one. They also want some commercial stuff, they want java, flash, mp3, realplayer and dvd, and last time I checked it was not just a matter of google app, download, install, run but more like find out the unofficial faq, open the shell, learn how to use it, join vi, add repositorie, get the package, get it to install edit the menu to find where the hell it went or maybe download some binary, open the shell, change rights, solve dependnecies and so on...
If you have one distro that can do that as google app, download, install and run, please tell me I've been looking.
c) damn the last time I installed Ubuntu I probably missed the bit where they asked me if I wanted to be able to watch my tv card, have 3d accelaration, listen to some mp3 and play some video with not too much static in Alsa...
Also assuming that Windows users are pirates is a little far from the truth, some people do use what they get with their computer, install Open Source stuff, or even buy software! Assuming that Linux has the monopole on cool OSS is just non-sense, Firefox, Gaim, OpenOffice , VLC, Clamwin anyone?
No, it is not one of those stallmanian rhetoric about Linux being the kernel, but Linux is still only the kernel.
It is impossible to compare Linux to Windows because they are not the same thing!
Windows is a Windows distribution, and the only one, except if you argue that XP Home, XP Pro and 2k(3) are different enough to be considered different distributions but I don't.
Linux is a general term used to described thousands of distributions.
In a sense you could compare Windows XP Pro (just to be clear) to RedHat EL4 WS, Windows XP Home to Ubuntu 5.10 or Fedora Core 4, and the server version to server version of different distribution, because at the end of the day, in the real world, people do not build their Linux from scratch, even if they could (and this is THE point of OSS).
It is not fair for Windows, and I'm not particularly pro-Microsoft, to compare it to LINUX as a whole. When you will be able to take ALL software from one distro to another without any change, yes you will be able to. Now I'm not saying this is what has to happen, because I think people are fine with choice, but for the sake of comparaison, Windows need to be compared to A Linux distribution like Linux distribution are compared to each other, it is not about the kernel, it is about everything arround.
It might be sad for some idealist, but look at commercial OS, Windows XP and Mac OS, 95% of the time, you will download an app, any app, install it and it will just work, this is this level of usability before all the eye candy that people want. Now I know you can't expect Linux apps developper to produce ready to use package all the time, considering the mess it is out there, but something has to be done, static binary might be the way - who cares about space when you have convenience and a 80 GB drive - some kind of BETTER standardization might be another, leave the package management to those who want it, leave the source for the geeks.
Real people want what is supposed to be an operating system, a system that make the link between the machine and the apps, and yes you can call it a appliance if you want, some people do not really care about tinkering if their machine works with the apps they want. Put some standardization on document format, so everybody can access information, and leave the do it yourself computing to those who want it. How many people use a car, how many people can or want to fix it or build their own? How many people use a TV, how many can or want to fix it or build their own? How many people use a computer? How many people can or want to fix it or build their own?
Because geeks thinks that computer are easy to tinker with does't mean that people want to tinker with theirs!
Stupid / forgotten, why can't we edit our post?