I thought they get like 6 months to show some profitability and then they are off the hook. Shouldn't be too hard. Just dump activities that aren't bringing in a profit and soon you have a profitable company (they were profitable until the American management screwed things up).
Btw, I just purchased a manual from mandrakestore, and THEY HAVE CHANGED. I got a confirmation e-mail when I purchased and another e-mail later to let me know that it had shipped, estimating the approximate time it would take to arrive.
If you have had trouble with the store in the past, I strongly suggest that you give it another try, if for no other reason but to experience the fruits of your own complaints.
"average slashdot person finally puts all of his/her effort into Linux."
all the really great hackers prefer XP and consider an OS experience like Linux to be a pain . ..
For some reason I feel that if someone picks XP over Linux, they are NOT the type of person that enjoys hacking their OS and adding non-existent features.
Sure I wish you people would see the light and all switch to Linux, but I am pretty sure that those ABLE to contribute the most to the community have already switched. Or do you all really think that the community is missing out from you 7331 4aXor skillz?
Economics calls it "diminishing returns." The first people to use Linux had much greater marginal benefit to the community than a later group of people that just made the switch. Besides, I get the feeling that by the time people like you switch, no major improvents in Linux as a Desktop will be needed . . . and you all will be bragging how smart you are 'cause you know Linux. Go figure.
A specific reference to the actual system used to manage the install, removal, and maintenance of packages (urpmi), or a vague discription of a black monitor icon you can click that will give you the option to add different programs?/. is supposed to be a tech savvy forum so people just say "urpmi." That has nothing to do with Linux or how user friendly urpmi is. If you tried Mandrake you would be able to install all the packages you ever wanted "WITHOUT" having to know how to even spell "urpmi." It is all part of a central "control panel," that a noob, like yourself, should be able to figure out. However, don't expect slashdotters to describe this system in your native "noob" speak (just click there and select . ..).
Again, all Linux users are not like that, just geeky slashdot linux users. Plenty of "non-techy" places to learn about Mandrake . . . why don't you check some of them out?
"Again, unless he's in IT, it's irrelevant to the business."
Well, for your specific case, I would say your ignorance of IT has led you to assume that just buying MS software is best for all your software needs because that seemed the easiest from your perspective. Your business could have gained a competitive advantage, but your prejudice that all Open Source software takes "5 months to learn" has caused you to commit to a "square peg" solution.
I know a guy owns his own successful business. Let me tell something, if you want specialization you should work for a company. This guy was able to speak legal talk with our lawyers, finance talk with our finance people (me), was very aware of his industry, new plenty about software (unrelated to his industry), and was a great negotiator. Of course he doesn't do everything himself, but he know enough to make the right decisions, and it took 6 different specialists at my company to talk about the different aspects of the deal that he was completely comfortable talking about. Needless to say, his company got the job and will be very successful as a result.
Specialization only works if you get enough people to fall in sync (corporation). If you want to run your own business, you would be better as a "Jack of all trades." Business is not about advancing the knowledge of a field but about advancing the IMPLEMENTATION of knowledge in a field. It is not about one's ability to master a specific field, but a careful balance of many different talents molded in such a way that brings a customer the most economic solution.
Your modern society seems to be stuck in the industrial age, while the rest of us are moving into the "information" age.
"I could've also spent 6 months learning how to acid stain my concrete floors and a few years learning carpentry to build my shelving "
I hope you didn't overpay in these areas too and at least did some minimal research on the Internet . . .
which is positively related to the monopoly power of a given company. If you are say, MS and you have a near perfect monopoly, price will be very inelastic (you can raise p with a smaller loss of q). In that case, I would say close to 100% of any cost will go to the consumer (government fines MS for abusing consumer, consumer is passed the cost through MS).
However, in more competive environments (McD's), perhaps very little will get passed on to the consumer since the price is more elastic, as consumers start buying burgers at Wendy's when McD's price increases just a little.
Of course, I was going to use this as a reason to advocate Open Source software . . . but I have given up on trying to convert strangers. Thus I have more energy to convert friends and family!:)
"What steps can one take to protect one's identity?"
Don't go to UT . . . wait a minute ; ;;
Actually, I also graduated from UT in the last couple of years. I majored in Economics, but that's not even a part of the Business School at UT! So, I see this as a opportunity to steal the identity of someone who DID graduate from the business school. Business school majors were usually snobs anyway.
Not sure if I conveyed such an assumption, but let me clarify. I do not expect every businessman to know accounting, but I do assume more competent businessmen to have taken the time and effort to master it, at least the basics of it. The same for, say, someone who wants to do business in Japan. I don't assume that they need to actually learn Japanese (a very time consuming process, more so than accounting. I can personal attest to this), but you better believe I would pay the individual fluent in Japanese more.
Knowledge about computers is different only in that it effects EVERYTHING these days. There is NOTHING you can decide to do in this world that having knowledge about computers will not greatly increase your value in the workforce. Some people learn enough to get by with Windows, but you better believe that, for now, the person that has gone to the trouble learn Linux (and, say, what an IP address), will have better luck getting a job or starting a business these days. With Lindows and other easy distros becoming more prevalent, this probably will soon not be true with Linux as a whole (and you will no longer be posting messages like this, as the rest of the herd moves to cheaper and easier Linux), but I suppose distros like Debian will still require some set of computer skills.
I do assume that you are from a wealthy western country, probably the U.S. and are very uncomfortable with the idea that you might have to change or learn new stuff to sustain your quality of life, but this is a reality. You couldn't have missed the/. article about India moving in on higher level American jobs. You must accept this as a trend or face serious consequences later. Global competition is just getting started, and if you are not willing to "dirty" your hands in crafting skills in powerfull tools like "Open Source", then someone in this world will for half your wage. Unfortunately, you probably won't understant this for another couple of years until AFTER this occurs, but who can blame me for trying?
"infinite amount of time, patience, and lack of a life."
Maybe, but it is also the best and most direct way to learn all about computers. If that is a waste of time to you, by all means let someone else do the thinking there for you (though, I think you could end up saving more time than you give once you start understanding how things work . . . but I am pretty biased towards the perceived benefits of education).
I think you have just described a basic human condition in that the things worth learning seem to take an infinite amount of time, require patience, and make you appear to not have a life to those without the same interests as you.
However, our world would be in pretty bad shape if a significant number of individuals didn't obstain from "instant gratification" in order to better themselves and the community they live in, perhap reaping even better rewards further down the road.
All lives ARE short, but if you don't waste it doing SOMETHING significant, you are definitely wasting it.
"what are they supposed when someone sends them.doc files?"
of creating great open source aps like Open Office, when people like you are too lazy to even do some research and discover their existence. Or maybe that's fine, since you are obviously too lazy to report bugs or add features, there is no loss to the community.
Open source IS the end-all be-all of software, just not for lazy people like you that need to be told what to buy. I find it ironic that you waste your time at a forum so closely modeled after Open Source.
"As a store owner though I certainly wouldn't want a supplier being able to track my inventory . .."
Yeah, but this could revolutionize goods sold on consignment. In fact, we just may see the majority of products sold in stores switch to a model of consignment. The actual stores would just be hollow shells, without any inventory at all.
Honestly, I don't even know why that is funny here. I really don't think BSD is dead, and I have nothing against it . . . Slashdot is just really starting to effect me in strange ways.
For instance, the other day I was making a little presentation to my boss and suddenly used the:
1. 2. . .. 3. Profit!!
Step list . ..
slashdot is going to get me unemployed and single.
The majority of $ these people have is caught up in MS stock. From what I hear, with out the stock options, these people make a lot less than everyone else. So you really do need to treat them like they are in a cult, or they WILL flip out on you.
I know a guy who works for Dell and does nothing but sell MS licenses. I never mention the 'L' word around him, but I do occassionally ask him how business is going.
The great thing about being into OSS is that you can walk around in T-shirts advertising the fact, or you can pretend to be a super-hero in disguise. Me, being a corp drone, prefer the later and only trust my true identity with people I truly trust;)
For what it is worth, I enjoyed hearing about your experience, as I have always wondered just how this guy I know would react if I confronted him with a few well known market trends (I think he is made completely of commission;).
Exclude iso downloads to club members and cheapbytes buys one membership so that it can download the iso and then sell it for $5 each. Exclude all iso downloads for a while and cheapbytes buys the box set and starts selling cds for $5 each. Since one of the things that makes Mandrake so great is its lack of restrictive licensing, I guess there really is no way around this.
If Mandrake depends on the community supporting it, I am afraid you guys will only get just enough to eat and will have to broadcast a "crisis" every once in a while to get funding (like PBS, here in the states).
That leaves services. Being able to vote for packages, access the mirror script, and use the splat forums are real services. Having dedicated servers for members will be great, but they may also be expensive, which means less money to developers like you. Also, services can take time to catch on.
Restricting access to the ISO's seemed the perfect way to increase revenue without expenses, but as you pointed out, there is just no way for it to work, and I am sure Deno has come to that conclusion since that post.
So I guess there is not much more that I can do besides continue to support Mandrake, hope that others will do the same, and wish someone smarter than me would come up with a better way for Mandrake to make more money.
"I find it odd that Americans are all so willing to insult France for being defeated by one of the most powerful armies in modern time, but are now all upset when they don't want to aid an attack on a small, middle-eastern country who has shown no signs of a direct threat."
Sorry I can't mod you up . . . I have been posting like crazy on this thread, and they have this weird rule about not allowing you to mod on threads you post on.
Anyway, I can certainly add "clear thinking" to one of the great things to come from France since the U.S. began this whole Iraq ordeal.
Slashdot Mirror
Countries with less piracy use more Open Source software.
I thought they get like 6 months to show some profitability and then they are off the hook. Shouldn't be too hard. Just dump activities that aren't bringing in a profit and soon you have a profitable company (they were profitable until the American management screwed things up).
Btw, I just purchased a manual from mandrakestore, and THEY HAVE CHANGED. I got a confirmation e-mail when I purchased and another e-mail later to let me know that it had shipped, estimating the approximate time it would take to arrive.
If you have had trouble with the store in the past, I strongly suggest that you give it another try, if for no other reason but to experience the fruits of your own complaints.
Cheers.
Nothing can "suck" in the vacuum of space.
/., I could stand to look at myself in the mirror . . .
Before I came to
That is because, out of consideration for viewing American audience, the stealth bombers have now been outfitted with stealth bombs.
Instead of using the already established "Mon" day "Tues" day system, they have to go out and create their own system for naming days.
At least my tax dollars are being used for other purposes besides just reducing a 3rd world country to a, what?, "D" country?
"wants to jail some college students"
I'm no longer a college student.
"average slashdot person finally puts all of his/her effort into Linux."
.
all the really great hackers prefer XP and consider an OS experience like Linux to be a pain . .
For some reason I feel that if someone picks XP over Linux, they are NOT the type of person that enjoys hacking their OS and adding non-existent features.
Sure I wish you people would see the light and all switch to Linux, but I am pretty sure that those ABLE to contribute the most to the community have already switched. Or do you all really think that the community is missing out from you 7331 4aXor skillz?
Economics calls it "diminishing returns." The first people to use Linux had much greater marginal benefit to the community than a later group of people that just made the switch. Besides, I get the feeling that by the time people like you switch, no major improvents in Linux as a Desktop will be needed . . . and you all will be bragging how smart you are 'cause you know Linux. Go figure.
A specific reference to the actual system used to manage the install, removal, and maintenance of packages (urpmi), or a vague discription of a black monitor icon you can click that will give you the option to add different programs? /. is supposed to be a tech savvy forum so people just say "urpmi." That has nothing to do with Linux or how user friendly urpmi is. If you tried Mandrake you would be able to install all the packages you ever wanted "WITHOUT" having to know how to even spell "urpmi." It is all part of a central "control panel," that a noob, like yourself, should be able to figure out. However, don't expect slashdotters to describe this system in your native "noob" speak (just click there and select . . .).
Again, all Linux users are not like that, just geeky slashdot linux users. Plenty of "non-techy" places to learn about Mandrake . . . why don't you check some of them out?
I said once, and I'll say it again . . . there is NO need to go through this. Linux has adapter; you haven't. Observe:
urpmi gcc
Okay, I did have to SPELL gcc correctly, but other than that it was pretty painless.
Not looking forward to making this same post next week . . . but, everything at slashdot seems to be repeated.
"Again, unless he's in IT, it's irrelevant to the business."
Well, for your specific case, I would say your ignorance of IT has led you to assume that just buying MS software is best for all your software needs because that seemed the easiest from your perspective. Your business could have gained a competitive advantage, but your prejudice that all Open Source software takes "5 months to learn" has caused you to commit to a "square peg" solution.
I know a guy owns his own successful business. Let me tell something, if you want specialization you should work for a company. This guy was able to speak legal talk with our lawyers, finance talk with our finance people (me), was very aware of his industry, new plenty about software (unrelated to his industry), and was a great negotiator. Of course he doesn't do everything himself, but he know enough to make the right decisions, and it took 6 different specialists at my company to talk about the different aspects of the deal that he was completely comfortable talking about. Needless to say, his company got the job and will be very successful as a result.
Specialization only works if you get enough people to fall in sync (corporation). If you want to run your own business, you would be better as a "Jack of all trades." Business is not about advancing the knowledge of a field but about advancing the IMPLEMENTATION of knowledge in a field. It is not about one's ability to master a specific field, but a careful balance of many different talents molded in such a way that brings a customer the most economic solution.
Your modern society seems to be stuck in the industrial age, while the rest of us are moving into the "information" age.
"I could've also spent 6 months learning how to acid stain my concrete floors and a few years learning carpentry to build my shelving "
I hope you didn't overpay in these areas too and at least did some minimal research on the Internet . . .
which is positively related to the monopoly power of a given company. If you are say, MS and you have a near perfect monopoly, price will be very inelastic (you can raise p with a smaller loss of q). In that case, I would say close to 100% of any cost will go to the consumer (government fines MS for abusing consumer, consumer is passed the cost through MS).
:)
However, in more competive environments (McD's), perhaps very little will get passed on to the consumer since the price is more elastic, as consumers start buying burgers at Wendy's when McD's price increases just a little.
Of course, I was going to use this as a reason to advocate Open Source software . . . but I have given up on trying to convert strangers. Thus I have more energy to convert friends and family!
"(the equivalent of 4 hours of DVD-quality movies)"
/. made me into a karma whore.
I thought these guys were supposed to be using it for "legitimate research," not sharing their ripped dvd collections.
You know, I really wouldn't mind if they gave me internet2 access too, you know.
"What steps can one take to protect one's identity?"
;
Don't go to UT . . . wait a minute ; ;
Actually, I also graduated from UT in the last couple of years. I majored in Economics, but that's not even a part of the Business School at UT! So, I see this as a opportunity to steal the identity of someone who DID graduate from the business school. Business school majors were usually snobs anyway.
Now, so is mine . . .
why do SO MANY PEOPLE completely miss this point. I mean, no offense to the parent, but this would seem a pretty obvious point.
If you can't connect the source to the binaries you are running, you can't say you have access to the source.
Maybe the majority of people really do not understand the very, very basics of programming.
One more reason that programming should be a required subject to graduate high school . . .
Not sure if I conveyed such an assumption, but let me clarify. I do not expect every businessman to know accounting, but I do assume more competent businessmen to have taken the time and effort to master it, at least the basics of it. The same for, say, someone who wants to do business in Japan. I don't assume that they need to actually learn Japanese (a very time consuming process, more so than accounting. I can personal attest to this), but you better believe I would pay the individual fluent in Japanese more.
/. article about India moving in on higher level American jobs. You must accept this as a trend or face serious consequences later. Global competition is just getting started, and if you are not willing to "dirty" your hands in crafting skills in powerfull tools like "Open Source", then someone in this world will for half your wage. Unfortunately, you probably won't understant this for another couple of years until AFTER this occurs, but who can blame me for trying?
Knowledge about computers is different only in that it effects EVERYTHING these days. There is NOTHING you can decide to do in this world that having knowledge about computers will not greatly increase your value in the workforce. Some people learn enough to get by with Windows, but you better believe that, for now, the person that has gone to the trouble learn Linux (and, say, what an IP address), will have better luck getting a job or starting a business these days. With Lindows and other easy distros becoming more prevalent, this probably will soon not be true with Linux as a whole (and you will no longer be posting messages like this, as the rest of the herd moves to cheaper and easier Linux), but I suppose distros like Debian will still require some set of computer skills.
I do assume that you are from a wealthy western country, probably the U.S. and are very uncomfortable with the idea that you might have to change or learn new stuff to sustain your quality of life, but this is a reality. You couldn't have missed the
"infinite amount of time, patience, and lack of a life."
Maybe, but it is also the best and most direct way to learn all about computers. If that is a waste of time to you, by all means let someone else do the thinking there for you (though, I think you could end up saving more time than you give once you start understanding how things work . . . but I am pretty biased towards the perceived benefits of education).
I think you have just described a basic human condition in that the things worth learning seem to take an infinite amount of time, require patience, and make you appear to not have a life to those without the same interests as you.
However, our world would be in pretty bad shape if a significant number of individuals didn't obstain from "instant gratification" in order to better themselves and the community they live in, perhap reaping even better rewards further down the road.
All lives ARE short, but if you don't waste it doing SOMETHING significant, you are definitely wasting it.
"what are they supposed when someone sends them .doc files?"
of creating great open source aps like Open Office, when people like you are too lazy to even do some research and discover their existence. Or maybe that's fine, since you are obviously too lazy to report bugs or add features, there is no loss to the community.
Open source IS the end-all be-all of software, just not for lazy people like you that need to be told what to buy. I find it ironic that you waste your time at a forum so closely modeled after Open Source.
"Proves that size doesn't matter as much as will...(Don't pull that last sentence out of context will you)"
So size DOES matter more than will in some cases? This really ruins my plans . . .
"As a store owner though I certainly wouldn't want a supplier being able to track my inventory . . ."
Yeah, but this could revolutionize goods sold on consignment. In fact, we just may see the majority of products sold in stores switch to a model of consignment. The actual stores would just be hollow shells, without any inventory at all.
Honestly, I don't even know why that is funny here. I really don't think BSD is dead, and I have nothing against it . . . Slashdot is just really starting to effect me in strange ways.
.
.
For instance, the other day I was making a little presentation to my boss and suddenly used the:
1.
2. . .
3. Profit!!
Step list . .
slashdot is going to get me unemployed and single.
"It's kind of like a bizarre cult."
The majority of $ these people have is caught up in MS stock. From what I hear, with out the stock options, these people make a lot less than everyone else. So you really do need to treat them like they are in a cult, or they WILL flip out on you.
I know a guy who works for Dell and does nothing but sell MS licenses. I never mention the 'L' word around him, but I do occassionally ask him how business is going.
The great thing about being into OSS is that you can walk around in T-shirts advertising the fact, or you can pretend to be a super-hero in disguise. Me, being a corp drone, prefer the later and only trust my true identity with people I truly trust;)
For what it is worth, I enjoyed hearing about your experience, as I have always wondered just how this guy I know would react if I confronted him with a few well known market trends (I think he is made completely of commission;).
Of all that is holy, please mod parent up.
I now look at the scenario this way:
Exclude iso downloads to club members and cheapbytes buys one membership so that it can download the iso and then sell it for $5 each. Exclude all iso downloads for a while and cheapbytes buys the box set and starts selling cds for $5 each. Since one of the things that makes Mandrake so great is its lack of restrictive licensing, I guess there really is no way around this.
If Mandrake depends on the community supporting it, I am afraid you guys will only get just enough to eat and will have to broadcast a "crisis" every once in a while to get funding (like PBS, here in the states).
That leaves services. Being able to vote for packages, access the mirror script, and use the splat forums are real services. Having dedicated servers for members will be great, but they may also be expensive, which means less money to developers like you. Also, services can take time to catch on.
Restricting access to the ISO's seemed the perfect way to increase revenue without expenses, but as you pointed out, there is just no way for it to work, and I am sure Deno has come to that conclusion since that post.
So I guess there is not much more that I can do besides continue to support Mandrake, hope that others will do the same, and wish someone smarter than me would come up with a better way for Mandrake to make more money.
"I find it odd that Americans are all so willing to insult France for being defeated by one of the most powerful armies in modern time, but are now all upset when they don't want to aid an attack on a small, middle-eastern country who has shown no signs of a direct threat."
Sorry I can't mod you up . . . I have been posting like crazy on this thread, and they have this weird rule about not allowing you to mod on threads you post on.
Anyway, I can certainly add "clear thinking" to one of the great things to come from France since the U.S. began this whole Iraq ordeal.
And for the record, I am American.