They care that the can find, download, install, and run a package without hassles.
This is exactly why I use Gentoo Linux, have converted a few Linux users to Gentoo, and even started a few Windows people off with Linux because they liked what they saw in Gentoo.
Sure, it's not without the occasional compilation problem but you use one command, "emerge", to find the package you are looking for and then use "emerge" again to download and compile it (and dependencies if you've set it up correctly with a few "USE" flags). Then just leave it to it.
Not at all, but if it's superior we should want to spread it as much as possible.
Why? If my 14-year-old niece is perfectly happy doing her homework in MS Word on a Windows PC, why do I need to force OpenOffice down her throat?
OO will do everything she would need for her homework but the fact is she's using a tool she's accustomed to that gets the job she needs doing done at the speed she needs to do it in.
If she comes and asks her old uncle about Linux, or has a problem that can be solved by Linux rather than using a pirated Windows application, then I'll happily show her how to use it.
But otherwise, she's using her PC as a tool to get a job done and she's happy with it - leave her to it.
And if you look in those forums deeply enough, I'm sure you'll find an answer to whatever networking problems you have.
Sure, it can be tricky (and sometimes impossible) to set up some wireless stuff on Linux - but then the solution is to carefully choose your hardware and do some research into what is and isn't supported by Linux before you make the commitment to use it.
And as for wired networking, pretty much every distro in the past five years has supported DHCP out of the box such that by the time you've booted it the first time, the network connectivity is there.
Beyond that, it's a case of understanding the network characteristics which you would have to configure into your OS whether you were using Linux or Windows.
There are many ways software is packaged in the Linux world, I agree 100% on this issue. But I also know that until software becomes portable *across* distributions, chances of Linux gaining a foothold in Joe User's mind and on hid desktop will be continue to be illusive at best. This is not good enough.
You're making the somewhat dangerous assumption that a general policy of "one sizs fits all" is what the Linux user base both wants and needs - this is entirely incorrect.
For example, as an experienced Linux user, the last thing that I want is a single, binary-packaged method of distribution of software. I use a source-code based distro called Gentoo which means that I get to compile the stuff I run my way on the basis that, if something goes wrong with compilation (as it does sometimes) then it's up to me to try to work out why. But the advantage is that I get to optimize all my applications the way I want to, all of them (hopefully) linked nicely to system libraries as they should be.
Sure, this isn't the way Joe Public wants it but then if he wants something simpler then, great, good luck to him - use something simpler. I've used Ubuntu a couple of times and this seems to heve a pretty good package management mechanism which I guess is based on the Debian system. (Please don't flame me if I'm wrong here, BTW, but Gentoo is the only Linux I really use these days so I fully admit to not being up to speed on other package management methods.)
I have always wondered why bright minds, working for "free" and able to produce an OS that is giving corporations with big budgets a run for their money, cannot agree on how best to package software. To many users, we in the Linux world are still a bunch of jokes.
This has absolutely *NOTHING* to do with "agreeing" to anything and you have totally missed the point of Open Source. Open Source is about a single or bunch of programmers thinking that they have a neat way of doing something with software and then making that software available for others to improve. Ultimately, if you're looking for Open Source software to achieve a specific task, then you probably have a number of different applications to choose from which will achieve at least some of what you want. This view of the world is typified by Vi and Emacs, for example, both of which at their heart are text editors but can be extended in certain ways to do a whole lot more. Consequently, some people prefer Vi, others prefer Emacs, that's just what happens when people get choices.
Unfortunately, as things stand currently, you cannot come into the OSS world with a "Windows mindset". In the OSS world, you do not hand over some money and have a piece of shrinkwrapped software fall into your lap. Instead, you have to take some responsibility for your computer and what you run on it and there's an expectation that you take the time to research what's out there and decide what you're going to use and how you're going to use it. Nobody's forcing you to use Open Source - it's there if you want it but if you don't, then stick with Windows and enjoy it.
Linux and OSS is *NOT* a fashion statement - it's not about being "cool" or different. If you use either, then be an adult and accept the ramifications of that decision. OSS will not come to you, you need to go to it.
Sadly, it appears that because of bigotry, selfishness and ego, it will be a few more years before those that command authority in the Linux world wake up. I hope we'll still be relevant by then.
Sorry, but now it is quite clear you've lost it - you're now sounding like a bitter little man who's frustrated with Linux and/or OSS but is not prepared to put in some effort to helping himself.
"Bigotry"? Where? If you mean that certain people have rejected the Windows way of doing things and have decided to do things a different way, then surely that's their choice, isn't it? I really can't see how it's impacted Windows users in any way - apart from in a good way where OSS surel
I have no sympathy for the parents who were too disinterested in their kids' lives to stop this happening in the first place but I have little sympathy for MySpace either.
You only have to look at a few other large online "monopolies in their own business space" to witness their total arrogance and their complete and utter disdain for anyone but the smallest percentage of their user base that generates them the most income.
eBay - if you perform a minor miracle of actually getting to one of their employees in the first place to stop sending you canned email responses to every email you send them, you end up getting your account locked out for reporting to them the fact that someone else is using your account to scam other users.
Paypal - not so many canned responses but when you've paid for an item that eBay has *afterwards* removed as an illegal listing, it takes half a dozen emails and two weeks to get your money back. And I find it amusing that when you pay for something with Paypal, it disappears from your bank account immediately - but when you transfer money from Paypal to your bank account it takes 7 working days.
Amazon - just look at another Slashdot posting today for an example of a ruthless company playing to their own rule book and treating customers like crap for a mistake they themselves made.
Sorry, MySpace. But like all the others, you're beginning to get far too bloody big for your boots and could do with a damned good kick in the pants occasionally for forgetting about the little guys like us.
Actually, I think you'll find it's called "MySpace" because a group of smartly-dressed marketing consultants were paid a hideous amount of money to come up with a catchy, "kewl", teen-grabbing name.
Nothing that IBM, HP or any other company is doing with Linux at a commercial level adversely affects me, Mr Grass Roots Linux user, in any way whatsoever. If anything, the fact that those companies are using it so heavily means that an old bloke of 45 years of a age like me, who's into a bit of programming, scripting and general mucking about on Linux and UNIX, has some useful skills that may put a job my way more readily if I ever need one.
Even in my current job, working as consultant/engineer for a business telecoms company who has already migrated their core telephony platforms onto Linux and is phasing out commercial UNIXes for Linux on our telecoms-related application servers, I get the freedoms to experiment with Linux on our platforms at a level that would be impossible on Windows.
Away from work, I can use Linux to build low cost solutions for friends, family members and "friends of friends" with small businesses. I've built them web servers, file servers, firewalls and multimedia centres, secure in the knowledge that I am doing so entirely legally without owing any corporation one penny for a software license.
Even more, I can trundle along to any one of a number of evening Linux computer clubs within driving distance of my house. As someone who "grew his computer teeth" on the Amiga and the BBS scene of the late 80s/early 90s, I've definitely got a feeling of the hobbyist, grass roots movement that just wasn't there in the early days of Windows. And I know of absolutely no Windows computer clubs anywhere, let alone in my area.
And finally, Linux and Open Source has made my computing time fun again. I'm not in a position where I'm "forced" to use a piece of overpriced commercial software that doesn't do half of what it should do. I use MS Office for what I need it to do - hell, I even quite like XP now I've stripped it back to the classic Windows desktop view and stripped out all the stuff I don't need it to run. I can play all my favourite games on it, write a few documents I need to and then switch over to one of my Linux boxes when I've had enough of it.
So David Rosenberg perhaps need to remove those spectacles that only let him see the corporate view of the world and look a bit closer to home because the grass roots movement is still very much there.
And many thanks to Linus - he was right, I am "having fun"...
In the unix world, if I want to modify a file that I don't own I must elevate my permissions using something like su root. And that's somehow *less* annoying than Vista's UAC prompt?
Yes, quite frankly.
For the inexperienced, the UNIX permissions methodology may seem confusing - but the fact is that it's based around the simply idea of "me", "the people I trust" and "the people I don't trust". And because sometimes a user needs to run a program that is outside the boundaries of what they are allowed to do, there are tools like "su" and "sudo" to let that happen - as well as setting a sticky bit on file permissions.
But the fact is that it's only "root" that can set that stuff up in the first place and UNIX places a great deal of responsibility on the "root" account because it then assumes you know exactly what you are doing and are prepared to face the consequences of it if you make a mistake.
The Microsoft security policy has always been about "users", "administrator" and "other convoluted exceptions like program installers".
So in other words, there are a lot of gamers out there who are gullible enough to install a new MS operating system with the belief that it is going to provide a better gaming platform than what they had on Windows XP from the moment it is released.
I would suggest that those same people need to take some example from the majority of us using open source software who are *fully aware* that if you make a major update to your system, you may end up screwing up a piece of software that you were able to run fine previously.
I'm sorry, but whether you use Linux or Windows, you're a complete and utter fool if you always run the "latest and greatest" version of everything AND expect everything to run smoothly out of the box.
What are you doing READING, let alone COMMENTING, on this Article?
Because I'm a computer professional with 25 years plus experience in the industry who can give a balanced viewpoint.
And if I've never owned an Apple product, as a non-customer Apple would surely be interested in understanding why so that they *might* consider trying to include me in their demographic in the future.
To have an opinion of something, you merely have to understand it, not own it.
I usually have it open on my media server and no one at my parties that I've seen has had any problems using it. I might mention, that is a seven year old machine, and it seems to run it just fine while also recording my TV shows and serving up Web pages, so it can't be too bloated.
I usually have an application open at my parties called "Tunez" - please Google for it if you don't believe me.
It's essentially a PHP script linked into Apache Web Server and MySQL. It has a simple web interface that can be accessed from anything with a web browser; be it a laptop, PC, handheld, whatever. No proprietary software is needed to access the non-proprietary format music files to play at my parties.
Oh, and it should all run quite nicely on a reasonable 486 machine that's probably about 10-15 years old - possibly a 386 even.
You may also wish to Google for "MythTV" or "Freevo" also as these will happily handle the video side of things - in fact we could scrap Tunez completely and just use those with a web server or with a simple infra-red remote control. It's unlikely that either would run on anything other than a reasonable Pentium machine but a machine of about 7-8 years of age should be fine.
So if you've got one propping open a door somewhere, load on a Linux distro and an app (or just use a bootable CD) and you've got a box that will do all that yours will - but in an open fashion with no requirement to hand over any money in the process.
And you conveniently forget that Apple came late to the digital music party, but won their market position by producing a better product than the competition.
Apple won their market position by making a product liked by a lot of people because they marketed it very carefully around the "cool" factor.
Saying something is a "better product" is entirely subjective. I consider my Hong-Kong manufactured 2GB MP3 player that I bought for £30 to be better than an iPod because it cost about 1/4 as much and holds as much audio at one moment in time as I need it to. You may disagree with that. So what?
Oh pull your head out of Bill G's ass and stop being such a sanctimonious prick!
Ah, right, I get you. Your logic is that because I'm not "wowed" by Apple's products, then I must be a Windows fanboy... clever!
Well, you're partly right, I guess. I've used Windows over the years as a gaming platform and to provide compatibility with some stuff I do at work, I also do some general desktop work with it. But it's not my main OS.
And that's more than I've ever done with any Apple products. I've seen them, played with them but never found a reason to actually
want to go buy any of their products.
Yes, hard to believe but Apple could disappear from this time/space continuum completely and it would have zero effect on anything that I do.
I'm in the UK and when my late mother told me about life in her "poor" family during the Second World War, one thing she made very clear to me was the fact that as a child she was never bored or without anything to do because she and her siblings made up their own games and toys - or had a parent make a toy for them.
Owning a computer means that at some point you had to find money to buy it and to pay for the electricity to run it - though I'll admit you could pirate all the games and software you need for it.
Having "toys" means that someone has spent money buying them, or, quite possibly, time making them.
Man, you have do have a bad case of Applefanboyitis!
Does anyone think it would be better if Apple refused to do business with them and let Microsoft dominate the DRM market?
I think it would be better (and "cooler") if Apple accepted that DRM is evil, full stop. And took the trouble to realise that DRM is sneaking in the back door because most of the populace is far too ill-informed to realise what is happening. Oh, and not locking iTunes into iPod by using a proprietary DRM format themselves.
Does anyone complain that OpenOffice reads and writes.doc files
I'm sorry, how is this a comparison??? You mean an office package that allows importation of a closed standard but exportation/saving as an open standard is the same as Apple supporting DRM?
They have about 70% which is the minimum share where some governments start investigating possible antitrust issues due to dominance.
But by your definition, Apple have reached the minimum criteria for possible investigation for antitrust issues.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but two monopolies battling one another is a lot better than one screwing consumers as hard as possible.
Rubbish. You just have two monopolies battling twice as hard to screw the customer over. And the distinct possibility of a price-fixing cartel between the two of them which is even worse.
I like it when companies come out with cool toys. I hate it when they come out with crap that no one likes but everyone has to use anyway.
And I like it when companies come out with *REASONABLY PRICED* *WELL DESIGNED* *USEFUL GADGETS* that *DON'T HAVE TO* have a little silver Apple logo on them to make me want to buy them. Stuff I buy has to be useful to *ME*, not as something purely to elevate me amongst my peers. You'll find this out for yourself with some proper assertion and self-worth therapy.
Could Apple suddenly gain a dominant position in the market and then abuse that position?
Yes, because they are a corporation who are responsible for making as much money for their shareholders as possible. At this level they are no different to Microsoft. Get used to it.
but one nice thing Apple has done to date is avoided any lock-in that keeps me from migrating all my hardware and files to another platform like Linux.
This is total reverse logic. Surely if you are not locked in to an operating system, then you are free to explore the technical merits of other operating systems and thus embrace the strengths of all of them as you see fit.
I think you'll find that if you remove those "Apple-tinted" spectacles for a moment, you'll clearly see that piece of Steve Jobs' faeces on the end of your nose...
Apparently everyone in the world is supposed to do things the same way you do them.
Not at all. But at the same time I'm defending the fact that when it comes to bog standard, unprotected audio CDs, I quite like things the way that they are and do not want my listening pleasure ruined by the "we want it now and our way" generation. CDs are fine, just make them better value for money.
Sorry, but I enjoy browsing through music catalogues, music stores, review web sites and magazines looking for new and interesting music. And there's nothing quite like putting on a new piece of music and really enjoying it. I've got some albums that I've listened to for some 35+ years, I also have bought debut albums from artists in 2006.
MP3 is great for portability of a music collection but nothing more. It goes hand-in-hand with modern popular music and dance music which is designed to be fashionable and throwaway.
It is therefore not suitable for someone who is passionate about the music that they enjoy - yes, give me a shiny disc, album cover and sleeve notes and a hard plastic case any day.
I certainly had a large collection of vinyl LPs but I always thought turntables and styli to be far more hassle than they were worth.
I'm not in a position to argue with claims about vinyl reproduction being better than CD but the CD format is more convenient and gives excellent reproduction for much lower cost.
You have to spend a lot of money to get the best reproduction from vinyl and be ultra-careful about LP storage, stylus wear, etc. I treat CDs carefully but, for me, vinyl is just not worth the effort.
You are DEFINITELY shopping in the wrong places. Amazon.co.uk has most of the Beatles' catalog on sale for £7.99 - £8.99.
Just to clarify that I do the majority of my music shopping online. But I do also browse round stores like HMV or Virgin and *only occasionally* do I find something worth buying at a low enough price. Most of the time, I use them to discover a new album is out, then go home and buy it from Amazon or some other online retailer.
But the fact that they give those CDs such high prices implies to me that there must be people out there dumbe enough to pay those prices...
How about you just *continue* to release albums in the best digital sound quality possible (i.e. on CD) and just make the price of those a lot more reasonable?
Then all of us out here in Consumerland can rip the CDs to whatever format is appropriate to us and not go into fits of hysterical laughter when a Beatles album that was recorded 40 years ago appears in a shop with a £15+ price tag.
If people want the option of picking tracks from albums in a lossy format, then let them have it - but if theire lives are so damned hectic that they cannot find the time to listen to an album from start to finish, then they are not the true, CD-buying music enthusiasts anyway.
And if people start whining about "only 2 or 3 good tracks on an album" then suggest that they do a little more research into music and go find some better music.
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly why I use Gentoo Linux, have converted a few Linux users to Gentoo, and even started a few Windows people off with Linux because they liked what they saw in Gentoo.
Sure, it's not without the occasional compilation problem but you use one command, "emerge", to find the package you are looking for and then use "emerge" again to download and compile it (and dependencies if you've set it up correctly with a few "USE" flags). Then just leave it to it.
Why? If my 14-year-old niece is perfectly happy doing her homework in MS Word on a Windows PC, why do I need to force OpenOffice down her throat?
OO will do everything she would need for her homework but the fact is she's using a tool she's accustomed to that gets the job she needs doing done at the speed she needs to do it in.
If she comes and asks her old uncle about Linux, or has a problem that can be solved by Linux rather than using a pirated Windows application, then I'll happily show her how to use it.
But otherwise, she's using her PC as a tool to get a job done and she's happy with it - leave her to it.
Sure, it can be tricky (and sometimes impossible) to set up some wireless stuff on Linux - but then the solution is to carefully choose your hardware and do some research into what is and isn't supported by Linux before you make the commitment to use it.
And as for wired networking, pretty much every distro in the past five years has supported DHCP out of the box such that by the time you've booted it the first time, the network connectivity is there.
Beyond that, it's a case of understanding the network characteristics which you would have to configure into your OS whether you were using Linux or Windows.
Who's looking for "acceptance"??? I'm just looking for neat ways of doing stuff with computers...
You're making the somewhat dangerous assumption that a general policy of "one sizs fits all" is what the Linux user base both wants and needs - this is entirely incorrect.
For example, as an experienced Linux user, the last thing that I want is a single, binary-packaged method of distribution of software. I use a source-code based distro called Gentoo which means that I get to compile the stuff I run my way on the basis that, if something goes wrong with compilation (as it does sometimes) then it's up to me to try to work out why. But the advantage is that I get to optimize all my applications the way I want to, all of them (hopefully) linked nicely to system libraries as they should be.
Sure, this isn't the way Joe Public wants it but then if he wants something simpler then, great, good luck to him - use something simpler. I've used Ubuntu a couple of times and this seems to heve a pretty good package management mechanism which I guess is based on the Debian system. (Please don't flame me if I'm wrong here, BTW, but Gentoo is the only Linux I really use these days so I fully admit to not being up to speed on other package management methods.)
I have always wondered why bright minds, working for "free" and able to produce an OS that is giving corporations with big budgets a run for their money, cannot agree on how best to package software. To many users, we in the Linux world are still a bunch of jokes.
This has absolutely *NOTHING* to do with "agreeing" to anything and you have totally missed the point of Open Source. Open Source is about a single or bunch of programmers thinking that they have a neat way of doing something with software and then making that software available for others to improve. Ultimately, if you're looking for Open Source software to achieve a specific task, then you probably have a number of different applications to choose from which will achieve at least some of what you want. This view of the world is typified by Vi and Emacs, for example, both of which at their heart are text editors but can be extended in certain ways to do a whole lot more. Consequently, some people prefer Vi, others prefer Emacs, that's just what happens when people get choices.
Unfortunately, as things stand currently, you cannot come into the OSS world with a "Windows mindset". In the OSS world, you do not hand over some money and have a piece of shrinkwrapped software fall into your lap. Instead, you have to take some responsibility for your computer and what you run on it and there's an expectation that you take the time to research what's out there and decide what you're going to use and how you're going to use it. Nobody's forcing you to use Open Source - it's there if you want it but if you don't, then stick with Windows and enjoy it.
Linux and OSS is *NOT* a fashion statement - it's not about being "cool" or different. If you use either, then be an adult and accept the ramifications of that decision. OSS will not come to you, you need to go to it.
Sadly, it appears that because of bigotry, selfishness and ego, it will be a few more years before those that command authority in the Linux world wake up. I hope we'll still be relevant by then.
Sorry, but now it is quite clear you've lost it - you're now sounding like a bitter little man who's frustrated with Linux and/or OSS but is not prepared to put in some effort to helping himself.
"Bigotry"? Where? If you mean that certain people have rejected the Windows way of doing things and have decided to do things a different way, then surely that's their choice, isn't it? I really can't see how it's impacted Windows users in any way - apart from in a good way where OSS surel
You only have to look at a few other large online "monopolies in their own business space" to witness their total arrogance and their complete and utter disdain for anyone but the smallest percentage of their user base that generates them the most income.
eBay - if you perform a minor miracle of actually getting to one of their employees in the first place to stop sending you canned email responses to every email you send them, you end up getting your account locked out for reporting to them the fact that someone else is using your account to scam other users.
Paypal - not so many canned responses but when you've paid for an item that eBay has *afterwards* removed as an illegal listing, it takes half a dozen emails and two weeks to get your money back. And I find it amusing that when you pay for something with Paypal, it disappears from your bank account immediately - but when you transfer money from Paypal to your bank account it takes 7 working days.
Amazon - just look at another Slashdot posting today for an example of a ruthless company playing to their own rule book and treating customers like crap for a mistake they themselves made.
Sorry, MySpace. But like all the others, you're beginning to get far too bloody big for your boots and could do with a damned good kick in the pants occasionally for forgetting about the little guys like us.
Actually, I think you'll find it's called "MySpace" because a group of smartly-dressed marketing consultants were paid a hideous amount of money to come up with a catchy, "kewl", teen-grabbing name.
Even in my current job, working as consultant/engineer for a business telecoms company who has already migrated their core telephony platforms onto Linux and is phasing out commercial UNIXes for Linux on our telecoms-related application servers, I get the freedoms to experiment with Linux on our platforms at a level that would be impossible on Windows.
Away from work, I can use Linux to build low cost solutions for friends, family members and "friends of friends" with small businesses. I've built them web servers, file servers, firewalls and multimedia centres, secure in the knowledge that I am doing so entirely legally without owing any corporation one penny for a software license.
Even more, I can trundle along to any one of a number of evening Linux computer clubs within driving distance of my house. As someone who "grew his computer teeth" on the Amiga and the BBS scene of the late 80s/early 90s, I've definitely got a feeling of the hobbyist, grass roots movement that just wasn't there in the early days of Windows. And I know of absolutely no Windows computer clubs anywhere, let alone in my area.
And finally, Linux and Open Source has made my computing time fun again. I'm not in a position where I'm "forced" to use a piece of overpriced commercial software that doesn't do half of what it should do. I use MS Office for what I need it to do - hell, I even quite like XP now I've stripped it back to the classic Windows desktop view and stripped out all the stuff I don't need it to run. I can play all my favourite games on it, write a few documents I need to and then switch over to one of my Linux boxes when I've had enough of it.
So David Rosenberg perhaps need to remove those spectacles that only let him see the corporate view of the world and look a bit closer to home because the grass roots movement is still very much there.
And many thanks to Linus - he was right, I am "having fun"...
Yes, quite frankly.
For the inexperienced, the UNIX permissions methodology may seem confusing - but the fact is that it's based around the simply idea of "me", "the people I trust" and "the people I don't trust". And because sometimes a user needs to run a program that is outside the boundaries of what they are allowed to do, there are tools like "su" and "sudo" to let that happen - as well as setting a sticky bit on file permissions.
But the fact is that it's only "root" that can set that stuff up in the first place and UNIX places a great deal of responsibility on the "root" account because it then assumes you know exactly what you are doing and are prepared to face the consequences of it if you make a mistake.
The Microsoft security policy has always been about "users", "administrator" and "other convoluted exceptions like program installers".
I would suggest that those same people need to take some example from the majority of us using open source software who are *fully aware* that if you make a major update to your system, you may end up screwing up a piece of software that you were able to run fine previously.
I'm sorry, but whether you use Linux or Windows, you're a complete and utter fool if you always run the "latest and greatest" version of everything AND expect everything to run smoothly out of the box.
In addition to this, of course, is the fact that legal users of MS software pay a premium high price that finances those that use pirate copies.
Vienna...
Presumably "Windows Vagina" is due for release some time around 2011 then...
Windows Vienna - the OS formerly known as "Service Pack".
Because I'm a computer professional with 25 years plus experience in the industry who can give a balanced viewpoint.
And if I've never owned an Apple product, as a non-customer Apple would surely be interested in understanding why so that they *might* consider trying to include me in their demographic in the future.
To have an opinion of something, you merely have to understand it, not own it.
I usually have an application open at my parties called "Tunez" - please Google for it if you don't believe me.
It's essentially a PHP script linked into Apache Web Server and MySQL. It has a simple web interface that can be accessed from anything with a web browser; be it a laptop, PC, handheld, whatever. No proprietary software is needed to access the non-proprietary format music files to play at my parties.
Oh, and it should all run quite nicely on a reasonable 486 machine that's probably about 10-15 years old - possibly a 386 even.
You may also wish to Google for "MythTV" or "Freevo" also as these will happily handle the video side of things - in fact we could scrap Tunez completely and just use those with a web server or with a simple infra-red remote control. It's unlikely that either would run on anything other than a reasonable Pentium machine but a machine of about 7-8 years of age should be fine.
So if you've got one propping open a door somewhere, load on a Linux distro and an app (or just use a bootable CD) and you've got a box that will do all that yours will - but in an open fashion with no requirement to hand over any money in the process.
OH MY GOD!!!!
Where in the HELL did that Gentoo Linux OS on my hard disk come from, then???
Apple won their market position by making a product liked by a lot of people because they marketed it very carefully around the "cool" factor.
Saying something is a "better product" is entirely subjective. I consider my Hong-Kong manufactured 2GB MP3 player that I bought for £30 to be better than an iPod because it cost about 1/4 as much and holds as much audio at one moment in time as I need it to. You may disagree with that. So what?
Oh pull your head out of Bill G's ass and stop being such a sanctimonious prick!
Ah, right, I get you. Your logic is that because I'm not "wowed" by Apple's products, then I must be a Windows fanboy... clever!
Well, you're partly right, I guess. I've used Windows over the years as a gaming platform and to provide compatibility with some stuff I do at work, I also do some general desktop work with it. But it's not my main OS.
And that's more than I've ever done with any Apple products. I've seen them, played with them but never found a reason to actually want to go buy any of their products.
Yes, hard to believe but Apple could disappear from this time/space continuum completely and it would have zero effect on anything that I do.
Owning a computer means that at some point you had to find money to buy it and to pay for the electricity to run it - though I'll admit you could pirate all the games and software you need for it.
Having "toys" means that someone has spent money buying them, or, quite possibly, time making them.
Does anyone think it would be better if Apple refused to do business with them and let Microsoft dominate the DRM market?
I think it would be better (and "cooler") if Apple accepted that DRM is evil, full stop. And took the trouble to realise that DRM is sneaking in the back door because most of the populace is far too ill-informed to realise what is happening. Oh, and not locking iTunes into iPod by using a proprietary DRM format themselves.
Does anyone complain that OpenOffice reads and writes .doc files
I'm sorry, how is this a comparison??? You mean an office package that allows importation of a closed standard but exportation/saving as an open standard is the same as Apple supporting DRM?
They have about 70% which is the minimum share where some governments start investigating possible antitrust issues due to dominance.
But by your definition, Apple have reached the minimum criteria for possible investigation for antitrust issues.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but two monopolies battling one another is a lot better than one screwing consumers as hard as possible.
Rubbish. You just have two monopolies battling twice as hard to screw the customer over. And the distinct possibility of a price-fixing cartel between the two of them which is even worse.
I like it when companies come out with cool toys. I hate it when they come out with crap that no one likes but everyone has to use anyway.
And I like it when companies come out with *REASONABLY PRICED* *WELL DESIGNED* *USEFUL GADGETS* that *DON'T HAVE TO* have a little silver Apple logo on them to make me want to buy them. Stuff I buy has to be useful to *ME*, not as something purely to elevate me amongst my peers. You'll find this out for yourself with some proper assertion and self-worth therapy.
Could Apple suddenly gain a dominant position in the market and then abuse that position?
Yes, because they are a corporation who are responsible for making as much money for their shareholders as possible. At this level they are no different to Microsoft. Get used to it.
but one nice thing Apple has done to date is avoided any lock-in that keeps me from migrating all my hardware and files to another platform like Linux.
This is total reverse logic. Surely if you are not locked in to an operating system, then you are free to explore the technical merits of other operating systems and thus embrace the strengths of all of them as you see fit.
I think you'll find that if you remove those "Apple-tinted" spectacles for a moment, you'll clearly see that piece of Steve Jobs' faeces on the end of your nose...
...They'd have to prise my designer coffee table from my cold, dead hands first!
Haven't tried them, I'm pretty happy with my reasonable quality CD player, amplifier and speakers. I enjoy my music on those.
Maybe one day I'll hear SACD and DVD-A and be convinced otherwise. But for the moment I'm happy with what I've got.
Not at all. But at the same time I'm defending the fact that when it comes to bog standard, unprotected audio CDs, I quite like things the way that they are and do not want my listening pleasure ruined by the "we want it now and our way" generation. CDs are fine, just make them better value for money.
Sorry, but I enjoy browsing through music catalogues, music stores, review web sites and magazines looking for new and interesting music. And there's nothing quite like putting on a new piece of music and really enjoying it. I've got some albums that I've listened to for some 35+ years, I also have bought debut albums from artists in 2006.
MP3 is great for portability of a music collection but nothing more. It goes hand-in-hand with modern popular music and dance music which is designed to be fashionable and throwaway.
It is therefore not suitable for someone who is passionate about the music that they enjoy - yes, give me a shiny disc, album cover and sleeve notes and a hard plastic case any day.
I'm not in a position to argue with claims about vinyl reproduction being better than CD but the CD format is more convenient and gives excellent reproduction for much lower cost.
You have to spend a lot of money to get the best reproduction from vinyl and be ultra-careful about LP storage, stylus wear, etc. I treat CDs carefully but, for me, vinyl is just not worth the effort.
Just to clarify that I do the majority of my music shopping online. But I do also browse round stores like HMV or Virgin and *only occasionally* do I find something worth buying at a low enough price. Most of the time, I use them to discover a new album is out, then go home and buy it from Amazon or some other online retailer.
But the fact that they give those CDs such high prices implies to me that there must be people out there dumbe enough to pay those prices...
How about you just *continue* to release albums in the best digital sound quality possible (i.e. on CD) and just make the price of those a lot more reasonable?
Then all of us out here in Consumerland can rip the CDs to whatever format is appropriate to us and not go into fits of hysterical laughter when a Beatles album that was recorded 40 years ago appears in a shop with a £15+ price tag.
If people want the option of picking tracks from albums in a lossy format, then let them have it - but if theire lives are so damned hectic that they cannot find the time to listen to an album from start to finish, then they are not the true, CD-buying music enthusiasts anyway.
And if people start whining about "only 2 or 3 good tracks on an album" then suggest that they do a little more research into music and go find some better music.