And now for Slashdot madlibs: it would only take a few ______ (large time intervals ) at that speed to backup the average _____ (insert rival group here)'ers pr0n collection!
Doesn't this mean that the service will digress into an advertising platform for studios, etc.? If it's "professionals only", I believe this will cause it to collapse in the same way that mp3.com ate it when they sold out and quit hosting amateur music.
Click once and run, sure, but run what? The program I wanted, or some spyware installing, DRM-adding beast app? Google has a huge competitive advantage in that they don't need to lock people in with that stuff in order to enjoy success. They simply make apps that perform well, and for some reason people continue to use those. Over time,.Net's massive overhead and microsoft's high licensing costs will cripple upstart developers. These developers will turn to OSS alternatives for cost and other benefits, it's only a matter of time. Microsoft may maintain a large market share, but Google will not "lose" because they're doing something different, even if the end result is a similar set (from a stratospherically high-level view) of apps.
Yeah, how can game quality really be called dwindling when its the same football game every year? If they aren't talking about the sports games, that's fine, but EA is definitely known for the sports games. Just the fact that I can imagine a better football game shows that they aren't thinking outside the box. For example, integrate a wii-powered wireless football for completing passes to your friends in the living room, not a shocking idea but we'd be talking a different story here.
Here's an example with bank vaults. Suppose I have two identical looking bank vaults, one showing the schematic and one hiding it. Which one can you exploit more easily? The vault showing the schematic has nothing to hide... if it's secure, then seeing the schematic doesn't make getting through a foot of steel any easier. However, the one not showing the schematic might have reason not to show it from a security standpoint, i.e. that little screw in the back of the vault, that if you just were to unscrew it, you could break in. Whether the system is strong or weak, open source will expose that. So from a security standpoint, your system's strength doesn't lie in its obscurity, it lies in your ability to disclose exactly what it is doing and still not be compromising its security.
Strong security discloses the facts, i.e. : "here's the pile of money, and there's the guy that will shoot you if you try to take the money."
A lot of this centers around that because the source is exposed, anyone could exploit it for flaws.
Consider which is less secure, a project whose source is always available, or a project whose source suddenly becomes available? I would guess that since Microsoft has never officially had its source be in the hands of hackers, there are TONS more exploits there that if you did see the source, you would easily find. Since OSS is always visible, people are quick to point out and fix various holes. This is a much more effective way to manage source control, since any fixed number of people can only read so much into a massive body of source code.
Also, not anyone can modify the actual gold master source for an OSS project, so it's not insecure in that way.
I think the MS evangelist is missing the point. What drives Microsoft to make those small improvements? I have heard from other recent articles, such as the 9-choice Vista shutdown menu fiasco, that the development team supposedly has Macintosh computers around as "good examples". I'd say that's playing catch-up. Of course, it completely makes sense that anyone wanting to dominate has a much shorter road to use a 90+% install base as a copycat platform rather than risk an innovation that doesn't work... MS lets the little guys figure out what doesn't work. If it works, they either copy you or buy you, whichever is cheaper. They'd be dumb not to given their position. After all, why earn a ph.d when you can hire one; and why hire one when you can just buy the end result off of him/her; and why buy the end result when you can just copy it and patent it from under them?
An original IBM PC cost thousands of dollars when they were new. An iPod costs 200 dollars new, approximately. Surely a 10-fold difference in price reflects more than advancements in technology, it also must reflect a decline in longevity/quality based on price? If you made a $2000 iPod and focused that money on making a lasting piece of equipment, it would probably come out significantly longer-lived than the $200 model.
The article says that this could 'prevent Microsoft from selling Microsoft Office in South Korea'... that's how you stop a monopoly: block it from selling a monopoly product. Fines don't really do anything to Microsoft, but anywhere they are prevented from selling even just one piece of their software blanket is a huge blow to their long-term strategy.
There's also a great aquarium on the ohio-kentucky border, so it's not ALL bad... although I can tell you right now, there will be protests at the Creationist museum on a regular basis from the various atheist groups in Ohio. I'd be surprised if the Pope endorsed this -- I think even he understands that if you try to prove faith, you fail, just as it says in the Bible that you can't "test god".
What message are we sending to Kim Jong Il here? We have China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States all cooperating to build a giant nuclear device, and then to tell the one country in that area that isn't involved, North Korea, to abstain from any nuclear operations or face sanctions or worse...
Flickr has the nice advantage of getting them off of your drive and making them painfully easy to feed/share/etc. and the tagging isn't "that" bad. However, it only lets you have 3 "sets" in free mode, which makes it difficult unless you use really broad categories. I produce so many pictures that the bandwidth is a real problem for me, and probably will be until I bite the bullet and buy a ton of throughput for a month or two ("available" space is measured on flickr in throughput, so a few big pictures all at once and you're done for the month).
If the old software isn't good enough now, was it good enough when I bought it? Furthermore, is the new software good enough? And by what date will it no longer be good enough? I don't think any business has needs that change so much that they need a new set of office apps after a few years. In fact, if they are doing things well, why change anything at all? The only reason you "need" to stay current is because Microsoft discontinues support on the older software. If NT support continuted, for example, I am certain that various companies would have been relieved to leave older production systems as is.
A PS3 costs around $600 for the good one, way more on eBay apparently. So why not just buy a full-on PC? Correct me if I'm wrong, but are there any highly-desired games exclusive to the PS3, that wouldn't be available as PC games? You can get similar controllers, etc. Power-wise, you can certainly have a system that rivals a PS3 for that money, plus it will do real email with a full-size keyboard, and all the other stuff a PC does.
So if Linux includes some of Windows's code, and Linux is GPL'd, does that mean that Windows is GPL'd now? That would be so great if at the end of whatever trial results from this, it turns out that Microsoft GPL'd themselves.
If you want to record movies from TV but dont want to get in trouble, VCR is the way to go. It's analog, so no one can say you have an exact digital copy of something... plus, with years and years of grandfathering against those pesky new laws, you have a perfect defense. The VCR performs a useful function at a very good price, which means it will probably never go completely away. If one day FAR in the future, you go to a movie rental place and they have NO vcr tapes, then it is "dead".
For some reason, public rhetoric about open source's downfall seems to center around a false belief that "open source" means that any developer can submit a change to a controlled source, i.e. to Sun's JVM. Obviously that would make it crappy software, but that isn't what is happening. Anyone can SEE the source, which is helpful for learning, but not anyone can just modify i.e. Sun's "master" copy of the JVM...
OK, I'll pretend. My first question is when we ask users this question... if it's in 1995, then Opera isn't on the list (Wikipedia just told me that its first public release was in 1996) and neither is Firefox. If it's today, then, candidly, we have 10+ years of people seeing the IE icon and all that that means to them. "
Ok, and why is it that those people have 10+ years of seeing the IE icon? Oh yeah, I remember, because you COULDNT REMOVE IT.
These people are creating their own illegal market for movies by distribtuing free products. It's really not sensible for them to both distribute free copies of movies, and say that for regular people, distributing free copies of movies is bad.
Slashdot Mirror
And now for Slashdot madlibs: it would only take a few ______ (large time intervals ) at that speed to backup the average _____ (insert rival group here)'ers pr0n collection!
Doesn't this mean that the service will digress into an advertising platform for studios, etc.? If it's "professionals only", I believe this will cause it to collapse in the same way that mp3.com ate it when they sold out and quit hosting amateur music.
Are you trying to say that sysadmins aren't judged by their looks, or that they aren't good looking? Oh... both. OK, well, back to the cave!
Click once and run, sure, but run what? The program I wanted, or some spyware installing, DRM-adding beast app? Google has a huge competitive advantage in that they don't need to lock people in with that stuff in order to enjoy success. They simply make apps that perform well, and for some reason people continue to use those. Over time, .Net's massive overhead and microsoft's high licensing costs will cripple upstart developers. These developers will turn to OSS alternatives for cost and other benefits, it's only a matter of time. Microsoft may maintain a large market share, but Google will not "lose" because they're doing something different, even if the end result is a similar set (from a stratospherically high-level view) of apps.
Yeah, how can game quality really be called dwindling when its the same football game every year? If they aren't talking about the sports games, that's fine, but EA is definitely known for the sports games. Just the fact that I can imagine a better football game shows that they aren't thinking outside the box. For example, integrate a wii-powered wireless football for completing passes to your friends in the living room, not a shocking idea but we'd be talking a different story here.
Here's an example with bank vaults. Suppose I have two identical looking bank vaults, one showing the schematic and one hiding it. Which one can you exploit more easily? The vault showing the schematic has nothing to hide... if it's secure, then seeing the schematic doesn't make getting through a foot of steel any easier. However, the one not showing the schematic might have reason not to show it from a security standpoint, i.e. that little screw in the back of the vault, that if you just were to unscrew it, you could break in. Whether the system is strong or weak, open source will expose that. So from a security standpoint, your system's strength doesn't lie in its obscurity, it lies in your ability to disclose exactly what it is doing and still not be compromising its security.
Strong security discloses the facts, i.e. : "here's the pile of money, and there's the guy that will shoot you if you try to take the money."
A lot of this centers around that because the source is exposed, anyone could exploit it for flaws.
Consider which is less secure, a project whose source is always available, or a project whose source suddenly becomes available? I would guess that since Microsoft has never officially had its source be in the hands of hackers, there are TONS more exploits there that if you did see the source, you would easily find. Since OSS is always visible, people are quick to point out and fix various holes. This is a much more effective way to manage source control, since any fixed number of people can only read so much into a massive body of source code.
Also, not anyone can modify the actual gold master source for an OSS project, so it's not insecure in that way.
I think the MS evangelist is missing the point. What drives Microsoft to make those small improvements? I have heard from other recent articles, such as the 9-choice Vista shutdown menu fiasco, that the development team supposedly has Macintosh computers around as "good examples". I'd say that's playing catch-up. Of course, it completely makes sense that anyone wanting to dominate has a much shorter road to use a 90+% install base as a copycat platform rather than risk an innovation that doesn't work... MS lets the little guys figure out what doesn't work. If it works, they either copy you or buy you, whichever is cheaper. They'd be dumb not to given their position. After all, why earn a ph.d when you can hire one; and why hire one when you can just buy the end result off of him/her; and why buy the end result when you can just copy it and patent it from under them?
"Due to this new lack of poverty, er I mean bugs, the oracle bug project has been cancelled."
An original IBM PC cost thousands of dollars when they were new. An iPod costs 200 dollars new, approximately. Surely a 10-fold difference in price reflects more than advancements in technology, it also must reflect a decline in longevity/quality based on price? If you made a $2000 iPod and focused that money on making a lasting piece of equipment, it would probably come out significantly longer-lived than the $200 model.
just don't buy any more cd's or download crap for a while, legal or not. If we all did it at once, they'd get the picture.
The article says that this could 'prevent Microsoft from selling Microsoft Office in South Korea'... that's how you stop a monopoly: block it from selling a monopoly product. Fines don't really do anything to Microsoft, but anywhere they are prevented from selling even just one piece of their software blanket is a huge blow to their long-term strategy.
There's also a great aquarium on the ohio-kentucky border, so it's not ALL bad... although I can tell you right now, there will be protests at the Creationist museum on a regular basis from the various atheist groups in Ohio. I'd be surprised if the Pope endorsed this -- I think even he understands that if you try to prove faith, you fail, just as it says in the Bible that you can't "test god".
What message are we sending to Kim Jong Il here? We have China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States all cooperating to build a giant nuclear device, and then to tell the one country in that area that isn't involved, North Korea, to abstain from any nuclear operations or face sanctions or worse...
Flickr has the nice advantage of getting them off of your drive and making them painfully easy to feed/share/etc. and the tagging isn't "that" bad. However, it only lets you have 3 "sets" in free mode, which makes it difficult unless you use really broad categories. I produce so many pictures that the bandwidth is a real problem for me, and probably will be until I bite the bullet and buy a ton of throughput for a month or two ("available" space is measured on flickr in throughput, so a few big pictures all at once and you're done for the month).
If the old software isn't good enough now, was it good enough when I bought it? Furthermore, is the new software good enough? And by what date will it no longer be good enough? I don't think any business has needs that change so much that they need a new set of office apps after a few years. In fact, if they are doing things well, why change anything at all? The only reason you "need" to stay current is because Microsoft discontinues support on the older software. If NT support continuted, for example, I am certain that various companies would have been relieved to leave older production systems as is.
one of the stock phrases, whenever you try to touch something interesting but non-functional in the game:
"Doooon't mess with it!"
In this case, it sounds extremely functional, in the gravity-that-rips-your-arms-off sense.
I've been working with nanotech for years, and I haven't noticed any brain damage-amage-amage-amage-amage.
A PS3 costs around $600 for the good one, way more on eBay apparently. So why not just buy a full-on PC? Correct me if I'm wrong, but are there any highly-desired games exclusive to the PS3, that wouldn't be available as PC games? You can get similar controllers, etc. Power-wise, you can certainly have a system that rivals a PS3 for that money, plus it will do real email with a full-size keyboard, and all the other stuff a PC does.
So if Linux includes some of Windows's code, and Linux is GPL'd, does that mean that Windows is GPL'd now? That would be so great if at the end of whatever trial results from this, it turns out that Microsoft GPL'd themselves.
If you want to record movies from TV but dont want to get in trouble, VCR is the way to go. It's analog, so no one can say you have an exact digital copy of something... plus, with years and years of grandfathering against those pesky new laws, you have a perfect defense. The VCR performs a useful function at a very good price, which means it will probably never go completely away. If one day FAR in the future, you go to a movie rental place and they have NO vcr tapes, then it is "dead".
For some reason, public rhetoric about open source's downfall seems to center around a false belief that "open source" means that any developer can submit a change to a controlled source, i.e. to Sun's JVM. Obviously that would make it crappy software, but that isn't what is happening. Anyone can SEE the source, which is helpful for learning, but not anyone can just modify i.e. Sun's "master" copy of the JVM...
"Dean Hachamovitch:
OK, I'll pretend. My first question is when we ask users this question... if it's in 1995, then Opera isn't on the list (Wikipedia just told me that its first public release was in 1996) and neither is Firefox. If it's today, then, candidly, we have 10+ years of people seeing the IE icon and all that that means to them. "
Ok, and why is it that those people have 10+ years of seeing the IE icon? Oh yeah, I remember, because you COULDNT REMOVE IT.
We could all chip in and buy it, just to have it redirect to microsoft.com, but they'd probably just sell even more software from the publicity.
These people are creating their own illegal market for movies by distribtuing free products. It's really not sensible for them to both distribute free copies of movies, and say that for regular people, distributing free copies of movies is bad.