Yes, I understand that when I read it, I just don't think its that great of an idea. How many people are actually going to bother to install from those CD's? How many are just going to toss them out like they do with AOL CD's? If they're taking an Ubuntu CD off his desk (with permission, of course), the implication is that they're going to put it to use.
If someone is technically inclined enough to use Ubuntu, just copy the ISO onto their USB key, let them borrow a CD-RW, or give them the torrent URL. You can also have them download and run Wubi in some cases. Handing out CD's like you're AOL isn't going to make a difference. My mother's not technically inclined. She runs Ubuntu. Not every "mainstream user" has a USB key (s)he carries around on a keyring, and even then you have to be sure their computer starts from a USB key. Borrowed CD-RWs have to be returned (ideally); a CD-R, not so much. Torrents are still a foreign language to many mainstream users; just because a user doesn't know what a torrent is they aren't disqualified from using Ubuntu, or indeed any flavor of Linux.
And I would be willing to bet you that handing out LiveCDs would make a difference. "Take it home and use it to restart your system. It won't do anything to your hard drive until you're ready to tell it to. Give it a test drive. If you don't like it, no harm done.... Return it? Oh, no. It's yours to keep. I have plenty and CD-Rs are cheap."
Re:Started the download 20 minutes ago
on
Ubuntu 8.04 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
The Kubuntu 8.04 Remix installs KDE 4, which is not ready for prime time.
Physical media that isn't rewritable is a waste. For installing new VM's with Ubuntu, I don't even need to burn a disc, I just need an ISO file. For existing Ubuntu installations I just upgrade. For installing when I absolutely need physical media, burn a CD-RW (probably erasing an old version I had on the disk). Did you not read what he wrote? He's burning them on non-rewritable CD-Rs to give away to people. CD-RWs are rather more expensive than basic blank CD-Rs. I agree with Calumi: The way to get Linux on non-geek-owned computers is to do it the AOL way.
I have no mod points this week. Can somebody mod Calumi's post "insightful," please? Because it is. Gracias, amigos.
To get rid of KDE after you've supplementally installed it. you can't just get rid of the kubuntu-desktop item in Synaptic/apt-get. Instead, you have to paste the following command on the command line:
That will get you back to your pure GNOME install. YOu may have to reinstall some optional software you already installed after doing that. More information here.
Meanwhile, the GNU implementation of SWF is GNASH, which just released a new version. GNASH is also not preinstalled, but it's in some ways superior to Adobe's Flash, while remaining compatible (with practically all features found in the wild, and adding the rest) - and free, including not adding DRM you don't want. And GNASH was announced to be part of the new KDE, so it will in fact be preinstalled on lots of Linux machines.
That's the first beta release after four alphas, correct? How "beta" is it?
Although the Linux Foundation hailed Adobe's arrival as "a natural extension of its commitment to open standards and open source," that commitment stops short of publishing source code for the Linux version of Air. Adobe's end-user license for the code explicitly forbids any attempt to "reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the software."
In other words, "We'll let you play in our sandbox, but don't try to figure out how we built our sandbox so you can build your own sandbox that looks just like our sandbox."
Patrick Durusau, editor of the OpenDocument Format standard, posted a letter on his website (PDF format warning) last week in favor of ISO adopting OOXML as a standard. His reason: passage benefits ODF as much as anybody else.
He says ODF currently lacks formula definitions for spreadsheets and says that "many core financial functions in spreadsheets are undefined except for actual Excel output" which "varies by version and service pack of MS Office." He then asks, "What happens if OpenDocument and OpenXML reach different definitions of those functions?"
Durusau also notes that ODF doesn't yet support Microsoft format legacy features which "will be easier with a formal definition of those features," and points out something we already know: "OpenDocument does not have a robust mapping to the current Microsoft format." He says that task would be easier if OpenXML completes the ISO process and adds, "If OpenXML is unclear, it must be fixed in order to create a robust mapping between the two."
Ask Fox what they think. They sued the creators of the original Battlestar Galactica for copyright infringement, saying that BG ripped off from Star Wars.
And Universal filed a countersuit against Fox, claiming Star Wars stole ideas from the film Silent Running.
Given that you think BG stole from the Book of Mormon, should the Mormon Church sue the creators of BG?
The Book of Mormon (which Glen Larson grabbed from in a wholesale manner) isn't copyrighted material, to the best of my knowledge. Glen Larson also took from the Aeneid, which again isn't copyrighted.
A lot of my objection goes back to the concept of permission. If the originating author gives his permission (and with most authors I know, that permission wouldn't be granted without a rigorous review of the manuscript to make sure that A| it fits with previously-established canon, B| it fits with what the author has planned for the character and C| the writing is of high-enough quality to do right by the character and the works of the originating author), then there shouldn't be a problem. But if somebody wants to take David Weber's Honor Harrington universe and do whatever he or she wants... sorry, but that's just not right.
If you were going to make a movie that was a direct copy of "Interview with the Vampire" except with slightly different names, I'd say that's a situation where the law should smack you in the face. If, on the other hand, you were to write a book about Lestat that branched out from the original story and made a whole new creation that enriches the character... if it were any good, I think it would be in the best interests of the producers that it was made. Right now, those things still go on, but the derivative authors are under constant threat they might get sued JUST FOR WRITING, not even selling things.
Anne Rice owns the rights to the character Lestat. If you get her permission, that's fine. But if you're trying to take her creation and make money with it without giving her what she's due... well, "go away" covers it.
"Derivative authors"... right. I prefer to think of them as "authors who can't come up with interesting characters on their own." That's not copyright sanity you're advocating --- it's thievery.
As I read Mr. Lessig's comments, he believes that if somebody wants to make a movie based on one of Spider Robinson's books, or Robert Ludlum's books, or Tom Clancy's books, then those authors have no right to be compensated.
That's bunk. If somebody's taking your ideas, your concepts and/or your creations and making money off them, then you have the right to be compensated for the other party's adaption of your idea.
Mash-ups, like rappers' "sampling," are nothing more than stealing somebody else's creativity and hard work.
They even had the ringtone as a downloadable ringtone there (you can't of course hear it at all if you're over 25 or so, as you age you lose the ability to hear in those outlier frequency ranges).
I remember that story and downloaded the ringtone to check it out. That noise is downright painful.
And I'll turn 39 in December. So much for "you can't of course hear it at all if you're over 25 or so."
The real problem is that they tried to get his attention via IM. Damn Luddites! How can you get somebody's attention when he insists in staying in the Neanderthal era of the telephone and snail mail?!?
Porritt: Good. In fact, better than the current/. interface.
Johnson: Text too small and there's too much white space (I used to be in newspapers until I got smart, and too much white space is not a good thing). The text is kind of floating there, lost.
Lada: Slashdotted, of course.
Off-topic suggestion: Everyone who offers his opinion on this one should be modded up for "Informative" because... well, they're offering information, aren't they?
"Exactly. This is a bold move by Apple essentially because they are admitting that they may have been wrong."
No, actually this is a bold move by Apple because it takes advantage of hardware the PC user already has. Most of the so-called "right-click" mouse functions are available with an Apple mouse simply by holding the control key as you click.
Re:time to jump the shark: 5 minutes
on
The Media in 2014
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· Score: 1
is it me, or did this animation start to become laughable right around when the narrator managed to spit out the phrases "Googlezon" and "Newsbotster" without laughing his ass off?
No, actually it didn't. That was when it started getting freaky.
Slashdot Mirror
(Tangent: I use Yarssr [for *nix/GNOME] to organize my feeds. Lives in the GNOME panel notification area as a pop-up menu.)
Slashdot
Various Associated Press news wires
BBC News
CNN
Daily Kos
Several local news feeds from my local newspaper
Multiple single-topic feeds from ESPN
The International Herald Tribune
A custom feed from Careerbuilder
The Top Stories and In Depth feeds from Reuters
My regional surf reports from Surfline
Politics coverage from The Hill
A HYPERSPACE BYPASS will be constructed (LOCAL DATE) 23 DECEMBER 2012. Please make arrangements to evacuate to a safe zone before that date.
This is your final warning. Resistance is useless.
VOGON CONSTRUCTOR FLEET
Reiser4 will absolutely kill ext4.[/badtastedaemon]
And I would be willing to bet you that handing out LiveCDs would make a difference. "Take it home and use it to restart your system. It won't do anything to your hard drive until you're ready to tell it to. Give it a test drive. If you don't like it, no harm done.
The Kubuntu 8.04 Remix installs KDE 4, which is not ready for prime time.
I have no mod points this week. Can somebody mod Calumi's post "insightful," please? Because it is. Gracias, amigos.
To get rid of KDE after you've supplementally installed it. you can't just get rid of the kubuntu-desktop item in Synaptic/apt-get. Instead, you have to paste the following command on the command line:
sudo apt-get remove adept adept-batch adept-common adept-installer adept-manager adept-notifier adept-updater akregator amarok amarok-xine apport-qt ark arts debtags digikam dolphin enscript fftw3 foomatic-db-gutenprint gdebi-kde gnupg-agent gpgsm gtk-qt-engine gwenview hplip-gui hwdb-client-kde ijsgutenprint k3b kaddressbook kaffeine kaffeine-xine kamera karm katapult kate kbstate kcontrol kcron kde-guidance kde-guidance-powermanager kde-icons-mono kde-style-polyester kde-systemsettings kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdebase-bin kdebase-data kdebase-kio-plugins kdebluetooth kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdemultimedia-kio-plugins kdenetwork-filesharing kdenetwork-kfile-plugins kdepasswd kdepim-kio-plugins kdepim-kresources kdepim-wizards kdeprint kdesktop kdesudo kdm kdnssd keep kfind kghostview khelpcenter kicker kio-apt kio-locate kio-umountwrapper kipi-plugins klipper kmag kmail kmailcvt kmenuedit kmilo kmix kmousetool kmplayer-base kmplayer-konq-plugins knetworkconf knotes konq-plugins konqueror konqueror-nsplugins konsole kontact konversation kooka kopete korganizer kpdf kpf kppp krdc krfb kscreensaver ksmserver ksnapshot ksplash ksplash-engine-moodin ksvg ksysguard ksysguardd ksystemlog ktorrent kubuntu-artwork-usplash kubuntu-default-settings kubuntu-desktop kubuntu-docs kubuntu-konqueror-shortcuts kvkbd kwalletmanager kwin kwin-style-crystal language-selector-qt libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1c2a libartsc0 libaudio2 libavahi-qt3-1 libclucene0 libcluceneindex0 libdbus-qt-1-1c2 libept0 libexiv2-0 libflac++6 libgmp3c2 libgpgme11 libid3tag0 libifp4 libijs-0.35 libimlib2 libjpeg-progs libk3b2 libkbluetooth0 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdcraw1 libkdepim1a libkexiv2-1 libkipi0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2 libkonq4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libksba8 libkscan1 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblua50 liblualib50 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmpcdec3 libmysqlclient15off libnjb5 libofa0 libopenexr2c2a libopenobex1 libpoppler-qt2 libpq5 libpth20 libpulse0 libpythonize0 libqt-perl libqt3-mt libqt4-core libqt4-gui librsync1 libruby1.8 libsamplerate0 libsearchclient0 libskim0 libsmokeqt1 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libstrigihtmlgui0 libtunepimp5 libungif4g libxapian15 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-shm0 libxcb-xv0 libxcb1 libxine1 libxvmc1 mysql-common network-manager-kde networkstatus openoffice.org-kde openoffice.org-style-crystal perl-suid pinentry-qt poster psutils pykdeextensions python-kde3 python-qt3 python-qt4 python-qt4-dbus python-sip4 python2.5-dev qca-tls rdiff-backup restricted-manager-kde ruby ruby1.8 scim-qtimm skim software-properties-kde speedcrunch strigi-applet strigi-daemon && sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
That will get you back to your pure GNOME install. YOu may have to reinstall some optional software you already installed after doing that. More information here.
That's the first beta release after four alphas, correct? How "beta" is it?
In other words, "We'll let you play in our sandbox, but don't try to figure out how we built our sandbox so you can build your own sandbox that looks just like our sandbox."
He says ODF currently lacks formula definitions for spreadsheets and says that "many core financial functions in spreadsheets are undefined except for actual Excel output" which "varies by version and service pack of MS Office." He then asks, "What happens if OpenDocument and OpenXML reach different definitions of those functions?"
Durusau also notes that ODF doesn't yet support Microsoft format legacy features which "will be easier with a formal definition of those features," and points out something we already know: "OpenDocument does not have a robust mapping to the current Microsoft format." He says that task would be easier if OpenXML completes the ISO process and adds, "If OpenXML is unclear, it must be fixed in order to create a robust mapping between the two."
The comments attached to Infoworld's coverage of Durusau's announcement raise some interesting points, as well.
I just sent them this link. Explains everything.
This is the first statement on the page that has the ring of truth. Mod him up, please.
Newspapers have a better chance of long-term survival than this "rumor" does of being true.
An interesting idea that ushers us back to the Age of Dumb Terminals. Can't exactly remember anything great about that age, though.
And Universal filed a countersuit against Fox, claiming Star Wars stole ideas from the film Silent Running .
The Book of Mormon (which Glen Larson grabbed from in a wholesale manner) isn't copyrighted material, to the best of my knowledge. Glen Larson also took from the Aeneid, which again isn't copyrighted.
A lot of my objection goes back to the concept of permission. If the originating author gives his permission (and with most authors I know, that permission wouldn't be granted without a rigorous review of the manuscript to make sure that A| it fits with previously-established canon, B| it fits with what the author has planned for the character and C| the writing is of high-enough quality to do right by the character and the works of the originating author), then there shouldn't be a problem. But if somebody wants to take David Weber's Honor Harrington universe and do whatever he or she wants ... sorry, but that's just not right.
And yes, that includes fanfic.
Anne Rice owns the rights to the character Lestat. If you get her permission, that's fine. But if you're trying to take her creation and make money with it without giving her what she's due ... well, "go away" covers it.
"Derivative authors" ... right. I prefer to think of them as "authors who can't come up with interesting characters on their own." That's not copyright sanity you're advocating --- it's thievery.
That's bunk. If somebody's taking your ideas, your concepts and/or your creations and making money off them, then you have the right to be compensated for the other party's adaption of your idea.
Mash-ups, like rappers' "sampling," are nothing more than stealing somebody else's creativity and hard work.
I remember that story and downloaded the ringtone to check it out. That noise is downright painful.
And I'll turn 39 in December. So much for "you can't of course hear it at all if you're over 25 or so."
The real problem is that they tried to get his attention via IM. Damn Luddites! How can you get somebody's attention when he insists in staying in the Neanderthal era of the telephone and snail mail?!?
Johnson: Text too small and there's too much white space (I used to be in newspapers until I got smart, and too much white space is not a good thing). The text is kind of floating there, lost.
Lada: Slashdotted, of course.
Off-topic suggestion: Everyone who offers his opinion on this one should be modded up for "Informative" because ... well, they're offering information, aren't they?
I guess I had that coming.
I'd lay 1:1 odds that Sunbird is no longer being actively developed.
The only downside to NeoOffice/J is that it takes f--o--r--e--v--e--r to load when you first start the application.
No, actually this is a bold move by Apple because it takes advantage of hardware the PC user already has. Most of the so-called "right-click" mouse functions are available with an Apple mouse simply by holding the control key as you click.
No, actually it didn't. That was when it started getting freaky.