How large the old Excel limit feels depends on what you are doing.
If you are using at a database and importing lots of data, it is small.
If you are typing in even a formula per line, even leaving leaving white space for readability, 16,000+ lines per sheet with multiple workbooks feels like plenty.
I do remember one occasion when I did have some sheets with lots of imported data. I handed them over to my successor when I left and she looked rather stunned. It turned out that it had not occurred to her that it was imported from another source and she thought I had spent months typing it all in!
I do not believe CentOS should be the server winner for the simple reason that RPM is not a very good package system in this century.
What exactly is wrong with RPM per se? The disadvantages of rpm + urpmi against deb + apt are the lack of suggests recommends functionality, and that the GUIs are not as good as Synaptic.
These are problems with the layer above (apt or urpmi) rather than the package format.
I have no idea how yum, Smart or rpm + deb compares because I have not used them, but the latter would solve the problem with the GUI.
... Ubuntu won, with the added incentive that it's focus is on reliability, ease of maintenance and lower TCO.
You mean:
... Ubuntu won, with the added incentive that it's focus is on brilliant PR.
I really do not see what is so good about Ubuntu. I used both Ubuntu and Kubuntu for about an year. I loved installing software in Synaptic, but that was really all there was to like. I switched back to Mandriva which is much easier to configure.
Linus and, for instance, Mark Shuttleworth et al are nicely paving the way, but it's taking too long for Richard and I think there's a bit of an ego thing here where Linus gets the nice interviews and press where Richard is barely mentioned.
That is true, but I think it is good that someone like RMS keeps talking about how things should be.
I am fairly pragmatic about software and I use some proprietary software (and, worse, proprietary formats) because it is useful or convenient, however I think it is good that RMS says things that remind me that this is not ideal.
I have studied some law (a long time ago, and not as much as a lawyer), and as far as I can see your statement of the law, and your advice, are correct.
I would also add this: do not buy things at PC World. It is a part of Dixons (strictly speaking DSG International plc), so what do you expect? They are set up to sell to clueless customers who do as their told, and will not install XP let alone Linux, and could not install an OS.
The German, Pakistani and Turkish governments cooperated, thereby denying their citizen's rights.
The other problem with the "foreigners do not have rights" arguments (apart from being wrong in principle) is that it means governments can simply sub-contract spying on their citizen's to each other. That is part of what Echelon does: the British spy on American citizens the American's spy on British citizens and then the data is swapped.
I find it tremendously amusing that when big media companies try to defend their right to their business model
Except that, in this case, it is not just the big media companies that are affected. They can evade the ad blockers if they want to (e.g. by inserting the ads server side so they are hard to distinguish from content). It is Fred Blogger with an Adsense adblock on his site who is worst affected.
Neither spreadsheet is too bad. I used to prefer Excel in the days when I did large spreadsheets, but now I regard them as essentially identical - except that I need WINE to run Excel.
I agree the word processors are horrible, but I think that is because the concept is flaws. What we need is something like Lyx, but a lot more polished: what Lyx would be if it had received the same resources as Open Office.
The video ads Google already distributes to other websites only play if you click on them: not that intrusive. Some of the formats used would take up no more space than the ads Google already puts on search results.
So, probably, they will not play every time you search, they will not be large or obnoxious, and they will not loop.
when Linux gets to the point that it is so easy to operate that my IT-retarded mom can use it
That is tough.
But adding this:
with the same ease that she is used to on her XP
Makes it easy. Linux is at least as easy to use as Windows, but people are used to Windows, so there is a learning curve on switching.
forgetting the problems that I come over to her house to fix
If she switched to Linux you would have a whole lot of calls for help to start with, but that would gradually wind down to a lower level than Windows - at least that is my experience.
However, I must say the last fedora I saw was a good step in that direction.
Fedora is not the best desktop oriented distro. Ubuntu is better, and Mandriva better still.
I agree completely. I tried Kubuntu and went back to Mandriva.
There is one thing that is better in Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Package installation. The repo is a bit larger, Synaptic has a lot more in the way of search and filtering than RPMDrake, and apt has suggested and recommended package relationships as well a required.
Other than that, Mandriva is better in every way. Configuration, in particular, is way ahead of Ubuntu, and more ahead of Kubuntu.
Is there any chance that Slashdot moderators can apply 'Troll' and 'Deliberately Misleading Flamebait' to article titles and summaries?
Slashdot editors clearly want flamebait. Look at the number of irrelevant religion related stories (see "Will the Pope declare Google evil?", for example, with yet another misleading title), when they know perfectly that the typical Slashdotter will argue passionately about religion from a position of total ignorance. That is what they want.
ZFS is irrelevant to the desktop user, though. (How many desktop users care what filesystem they have?)
In general they do not, but if it offers features that are useful they do. For example, I care about having a journaled filesystem.
In the case of ZFS, form what I have read it does have features I could want. Incremental backup at individual file level, sound good. Sun claims better data integrity: if that is true (I have no idea) it is the most important feature possible.
imagine if Microsoft and Apple decided to pool all of their resources and patents and copyrights
Like a cross-licensing agreement? It happens in lots of industries.
Semiconductor manufacturing for a start. Even if a would be new entrant had the huge amount of money needed to build a fab, they would still have to pay a huge amount of money on licensing patents. The established companies in the industry have cross licensed their patent portfolios so they do not have to pay this, so they would have a lasting cost advantage over any new entrant.
Your scenario is slightly worse in that it implies some sort of agreement to sue to protect each other, but it is not that different.
Oh, so you you fix PCs used by stupid people. I guess it's OK if you generalize that to everyone.
Most people are "stupid" with computers, so it is a valid generalisation. Certainly Windows is fine for geeks who know how to keep it secure, but it is just not ready for Joe Sixpack/Grandma.
given how much of the world runs Windows without a problem
I was with you till you got to the "without a problem". Most people run Windows, but most people have LOTS of problems with their PCs, mostly Windows problems.
I was not thinking of the regulation of monopolies (although I agree it is a problem) as much as protectionism etc.
The GP also said it "reeks of mercantilism", not that it was. I agree with that in that the motivations and mechanisms behind
1) The failure to regulate monopolies sufficiently
2) Other bad domestic regulation
3) Protectionism, subsidy of exporting industries etc in international trade
Given it has not happened yet, and there is no sign that it will, the risk appear pretty minimal. Linux and other OSS OSes(like the BSDs) have been around a while now, they have a track record of not being successfully sued.
There is a small risk, but any IT business faces patent risks. A Windows OEM of an Apple OEM is in a very similar position. They might get support from the MS or Apple, but there are people who will put money behind fighting off threats to Linux too.
Are there any cases of an OEM for any OS being successfully sued for a breach of copyright or patent by the software they sold?
1) Mainstream Christians do not believe the Bible to be literally true as Creationist fundies do. Far from being heretical, you are not too far off being orthodox. 2) Religion is about more than moral codes and how to live: it is about the purpose of life. In the case of Christianity (and other theistic religions) it is about developing a relationship with God.
Given that there are millions (the last number I saw was over 5m) British citizens living abroad there are going to be a lot of borderline cases, and a lot of unfairness in using residence as a criterion. If you use citizenship as the requirement, you will create a lot of paperwork.
As for abusive registrations, these are largely done by professional domain squatters who would simply set up a UK front company (the UK economy is big enough for it to be worth it).
He does not actually ask if it is legal. He asks if "there is a case", which sounds like he wants to know what the right ting to do is.
If he wants to know the law, he should take proper advice.
I doubt if people care. Most people probably agree with the implicit view of the authorities (not just in the US) that there is no need for people to have hobbies like this, and they should spend their spare time watching TV like everyone else. A few geeks and civil liberties types care, but since when did that make any difference?
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How large the old Excel limit feels depends on what you are doing. If you are using at a database and importing lots of data, it is small. If you are typing in even a formula per line, even leaving leaving white space for readability, 16,000+ lines per sheet with multiple workbooks feels like plenty. I do remember one occasion when I did have some sheets with lots of imported data. I handed them over to my successor when I left and she looked rather stunned. It turned out that it had not occurred to her that it was imported from another source and she thought I had spent months typing it all in!
These are problems with the layer above (apt or urpmi) rather than the package format.
I have no idea how yum, Smart or rpm + deb compares because I have not used them, but the latter would solve the problem with the GUI.
You mean:I really do not see what is so good about Ubuntu. I used both Ubuntu and Kubuntu for about an year. I loved installing software in Synaptic, but that was really all there was to like. I switched back to Mandriva which is much easier to configure.
That is true, but I think it is good that someone like RMS keeps talking about how things should be.
I am fairly pragmatic about software and I use some proprietary software (and, worse, proprietary formats) because it is useful or convenient, however I think it is good that RMS says things that remind me that this is not ideal.
More seriously, it is simply the evolution of the English language, and the meaning of the word "gay" is changing again.
I have studied some law (a long time ago, and not as much as a lawyer), and as far as I can see your statement of the law, and your advice, are correct.
I would also add this: do not buy things at PC World. It is a part of Dixons (strictly speaking DSG International plc), so what do you expect? They are set up to sell to clueless customers who do as their told, and will not install XP let alone Linux, and could not install an OS.
The other problem with the "foreigners do not have rights" arguments (apart from being wrong in principle) is that it means governments can simply sub-contract spying on their citizen's to each other. That is part of what Echelon does: the British spy on American citizens the American's spy on British citizens and then the data is swapped.
It is far better to block just annoying ads (animations etc), thereby making less annoying ads (e.g. text ads) comparatively more profitable.
I find the best thing is to use Flashblock: almost all the really annoying ads use Flash.
Neither spreadsheet is too bad. I used to prefer Excel in the days when I did large spreadsheets, but now I regard them as essentially identical - except that I need WINE to run Excel.
I agree the word processors are horrible, but I think that is because the concept is flaws. What we need is something like Lyx, but a lot more polished: what Lyx would be if it had received the same resources as Open Office.
The video ads Google already distributes to other websites only play if you click on them: not that intrusive. Some of the formats used would take up no more space than the ads Google already puts on search results.
So, probably, they will not play every time you search, they will not be large or obnoxious, and they will not loop.
And have they tried putting 50,000 volts through it?
But adding this:
Makes it easy. Linux is at least as easy to use as Windows, but people are used to Windows, so there is a learning curve on switching. If she switched to Linux you would have a whole lot of calls for help to start with, but that would gradually wind down to a lower level than Windows - at least that is my experience. Fedora is not the best desktop oriented distro. Ubuntu is better, and Mandriva better still.I agree completely. I tried Kubuntu and went back to Mandriva.
There is one thing that is better in Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Package installation. The repo is a bit larger, Synaptic has a lot more in the way of search and filtering than RPMDrake, and apt has suggested and recommended package relationships as well a required.
Other than that, Mandriva is better in every way. Configuration, in particular, is way ahead of Ubuntu, and more ahead of Kubuntu.
In the case of ZFS, form what I have read it does have features I could want. Incremental backup at individual file level, sound good. Sun claims better data integrity: if that is true (I have no idea) it is the most important feature possible.
Like a cross-licensing agreement? It happens in lots of industries.
Semiconductor manufacturing for a start. Even if a would be new entrant had the huge amount of money needed to build a fab, they would still have to pay a huge amount of money on licensing patents. The established companies in the industry have cross licensed their patent portfolios so they do not have to pay this, so they would have a lasting cost advantage over any new entrant.
Your scenario is slightly worse in that it implies some sort of agreement to sue to protect each other, but it is not that different.
The GP also said it "reeks of mercantilism", not that it was. I agree with that in that the motivations and mechanisms behind
1) The failure to regulate monopolies sufficiently 2) Other bad domestic regulation 3) Protectionism, subsidy of exporting industries etc in international trade
are much the same.
Incidentally, most of the definitions I can find of mercantilism do include some domestic policy issues, for example monopolies, see here: http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures /mercantilism.html
Given it has not happened yet, and there is no sign that it will, the risk appear pretty minimal. Linux and other OSS OSes(like the BSDs) have been around a while now, they have a track record of not being successfully sued.
There is a small risk, but any IT business faces patent risks. A Windows OEM of an Apple OEM is in a very similar position. They might get support from the MS or Apple, but there are people who will put money behind fighting off threats to Linux too.
Are there any cases of an OEM for any OS being successfully sued for a breach of copyright or patent by the software they sold?
Mercantilism is not"pre-capitalist", it is a form of capitalism that takes a different from free market capitalism.
I would say mercantilism is still very much alive and well, although no one would call it that: the usual phrase is something like "business friendly"
If you cannot see why any decent human being would be involved in a war like that, you have a serious moral defect.
Two things:
1) Mainstream Christians do not believe the Bible to be literally true as Creationist fundies do. Far from being heretical, you are not too far off being orthodox.
2) Religion is about more than moral codes and how to live: it is about the purpose of life. In the case of Christianity (and other theistic religions) it is about developing a relationship with God.
Given that there are millions (the last number I saw was over 5m) British citizens living abroad there are going to be a lot of borderline cases, and a lot of unfairness in using residence as a criterion. If you use citizenship as the requirement, you will create a lot of paperwork.
As for abusive registrations, these are largely done by professional domain squatters who would simply set up a UK front company (the UK economy is big enough for it to be worth it).
He does not actually ask if it is legal. He asks if "there is a case", which sounds like he wants to know what the right ting to do is.
If he wants to know the law, he should take proper advice.
I doubt if people care. Most people probably agree with the implicit view of the authorities (not just in the US) that there is no need for people to have hobbies like this, and they should spend their spare time watching TV like everyone else. A few geeks and civil liberties types care, but since when did that make any difference?