Just because you do not want to pay the going price for something, this does not give you the right to steal it - end of story.
If, as a software pirate, you believe yourself to be on some moral crusade against the "scourge of Microsoft" or the high prices of commercial software in general, then the best way to hurt those comapnies is to not buy their products - it REALLY is that simple.
The problem is that for a lot of computer users, software has become a "fashion accessory" just like a pair of designer jeans or a new mobile phone - everyone HAS to have the latest version of the latest package without stopping to think about whether there is actually a need for those additional features that the latest version provides. Right down from the warez crackers on the Internet to the end users, piracy is simply about peer pressure, nothing more.
The majority of computer users need to grow up and join the world of adults rather than sit in front of their PCs with the attitudes of schoolchildren.
There is a wealth of good quality free software for any operating system that you choose to run and while it may not, on some occasions, match up to commercial offerings, it IS free and will get better if you take the trouble to voice your dislikes and likes about it to the people that program it.
Pirates achieve one thing and one thing only - they create an excuse for large corporations to restrict the rights of ALL users in making fair use of products that they own and for those corporations to push through DRM, copy protection etc. on the basis of revenue loss and the honest users just end up paying more.
Being in the UK myself, I saw this news report on the TV yesterday with a reporter interviewing an employee of the coastguard.
I really got the impression that the reporter was trying desperately to make this into a dramatic news story whereas the coastguard person was fairly level-headed about it. Even she stated that every employee has a backup laptop that is not connected to the Internet as a contingency plan in just these circumstances. Plus, they can also rely on paper maps if necessary.
Yes, we all know Windows has security holes (just like any other piece of software) and that Microsoft could do a whole lot more to make their software more secure - however, the fact is that using good firewalling and educating users properly is the best way of stopping 99.9% of all known worms and viruses.
Microsoft must take some of the blame but so should the salesmen and IT people for possibly not deploying the right platform in the first place and then, post deployment, not ensuring it's secure.
Do we keep having to have constant reference to this non-existent competition between Windows & Linux?
Knowledgeable users will choose the best software for a specific job they need to do and the best knowledgeable users are those that take the time to investigate both Windows, Linux & other OSes as providing the possible solutions to computing problems that they need to overcome.
It is more important to focus our attention on Open Source software to ensure that the scourge of proprietary formats is wiped from the face of our planet. There is nothing wrong with using commercial software as long as there is an interoperability with Open Source software such that everyone can exchange the data they want to with any people that they need to.
I fully accept that there are security issues in Windows just as much as there are learning curve concerns with Linux.
But the Windows community should embrace Open Source software much more readily than it currently does - for example, Mozilla/Firefox should now be the number one browser because it is free, available on most platforms, and conforms to the HTML standard much more than IE has ever done and will do.
Furthermore, we should all stop being hypocrites. If we are not prepared to pay the going rates for commercial software then we should all actively seek to use (and better) the Open Source alternatives. It is wrong to sit back and wait for OpenOffice.org (for example) to reach 100% compatibility with MS Office while using an illegal copy of MS Office - instead, we should use OOO with equal passion and give our opinions (and time) to the OOO developers to ensure that the product (and others) go in the direction that we need them to go.
It's now the time where we should all grow up a little and take some responsibility for ourselves and how run our computers. MS exists because there is a demand for their products and, if you don't like their products or the way they do things, the best way to get them to change is not give them your money... it's that simple.
I still use Windows 2000 and MS Office because I quite like both as products and because my place of work provides both as tools to me - however, I use Linux more because I've worked hard to learn it and am fortunate to work in a company that embraces Linux also. Going forwards, I will strive to migrate fully to Linux because I personally loathe MS's business strategy and will never pay them (or anyone else) money to access the data and information I already own due to proprietary format licenses.
But in the mean time, I have both work and leisure activities to do on my computers and I am not going to make either harder purely because media pundits believe every computer user is on one or the other side of a non-existent Windows v Linux war.
Be aware of some of the dangers of commercial software, sure, but otherwise use what's best for the job you need to do - as a result, you will be more efficient and find your computing experiences much more fun.
The vast majority of MS Office users use it because it happens to be "free", either as a volume MS licensing deal through their place of work and/or because they have access to MSDN CDs such that they can make copies and run it illegally at home. I know of absolutely no individuals who run a legal copy of MS Office at home due to actually going into a store and buying it.
The fact is that if those individuals were forced to pay 200 Dollars/Euros/Pounds for MS Office, I am sure all of them would seriously look at the additional features that MS Office provides over OpenOffice.org and decide then whether or not they are worth that money.
I am not defending OOO's "inferiority" to MS Office, the fact is that it is purely a matter of perception - I personally, for example, do not embed one document within another or use VB programming - therefore OOO's feature-set is perfectly adequate for me and the only problem I have with it is importing some documents that others have created with MS Office.
Likewise, if MS Office is the accepted benchmark for office packages currently, then I hope that OOO evolves to the point where that benchmark is challenged purely on the basus of document compatibility and useful features.
However, everyone should remember that MS Office is a commercial package that most people run illegally. Any comparison should take cost of the respective products into account and whether it is worth buying MS Office purely because of the extra features it has over OOO.
I hope this didn't appear as an attack on Linux newbies because it isn't - like I said, we were all there once upon a time.
Also, if and when it becomes your mainstream OS is just for you to decide, no-one else. It's my main OS about 75% of the time but I like my games and a few work apps so I do use Windows the rest of the time - besides, I don't actually have that much of an issue with Windows 2000, to be perfectly honest (although I loathe XP with a passion due to it's overbearing and patronising interface), I'd just rather not support Microsoft in ultimately limiting my personal freedoms and right to choice.
Just make sure that you make best use of binary distributions of Linux software and always jump onto a help forum for a particular Linux application - generally, compilation is pretty straightforward but if you have a problem, someone has usually seen it before you and has posted a message somewhere to which someone else has probably given a solution.
Why does everyone who writes an article in the popular media about Linux always define it in terms of Microsoft threat or Windows competition?
Why can't these people just explain what it does and maybe show a few screenshots of KDE or Gnome in action?
Linux is not, repeat NOT, competing with Windows. Microsoft consider Linux as a threat to their penetration and revenue but that is a purely Microsoft facet, not a Linux one.
Linux is an alternative way of doing things, a free way of doing things, and does some things better and other things worse that Windows does. It does what it does despite Microsoft and will continue to do it whether or not MS exists in the future.
The media should take a responsibility to make the general populace aware of the Linux alternative rather than using Linux as a weapon to make MS do what they want them to do.
I'd love to reach the day when I can ditch all my MS products because I personally do not like to support companies that have bad business practices - in the same way I don't eat Macdonalds (or Burger King) burgers or wear Nike sports shoes - and I guess today I'm about 75% there with Linux.
But I'm certainly not going to "cut my nose off to spite my face" and do without certain apps and games purely because I consider myself in a (non-existent) Windows v Linux war.
Just give people the facts and let them use their own intelligence to decide what they like.
This is not the case with Linux, I spend all night trying to find all the dependancies and then the program still doesn't work right.
Then I would suggest that you are not using the correct distribution suitable for your current Linux expertise level.
For example, with Mandrake Linux 10.0, the latest release, you can install updates as packages and not worry about dependencies.
Have you not also looked for binary distributions on rpmfind.net?
I'm not trying to be facetious but you virtually claim to be a newbie Linux user (not a problem because we were all newbie users once) and then complain about having to resolve dependencies.
It's great that you're delving deeper already but don't complain if you have problems getting a program working if you don't, at this stage, know what you are doing with source code and compilation.
then i will be compelled to download music that i don't pay for.
You are not compelled to do anything.
Try a little experiment on yourself:
1. Go dig out the last full album you downloaded free from the Internet.
2. Decide for yourself how much the CD would cost you to buy using the normal CD retailer you would use.
3. Now start reducing the price of that CD by dollar/pound/Euro/other currency amounts until you get to a price where you would have bought that CD legitimately.
4. If you hit a price that isn't zero (in your local currency), then the price of the CD, in your opinion, is too high.
5. If you hit zero, then you would not have bought the CD anyway.
6. Now look at your PC. Imagine a friend of yours stole your PC, you found out and when you challenged your friend, he said he stole it because he didn't want to pay for a PC - because they are too expensive. Would you consider that justified?
I'm not playing the "holier than thou" card, believe me, but this illustrates a perceptional idea.
Firstly, everyone will have a different view of what is a fair price to pay for that CD. It'll be based primarily on how much they like the artist and how much disposable income they have. So what is the fair price for a CD?
Secondly, certain people will download music freely no matter what the cost of a CD is. This is because of convenience or because they don't want to part with their hard-earned money. They do it just because it's there.
Thirdly, theft is theft, no matter what justification you create for it. Just because you want something does not mean you are entitled to simply take it. To say you are compelled to do something implies that some external force is causing you to do it - I'm sorry, it's completely your choice.
I'm not, in any way, supporting the record companies. The industry is plagued with monopolistic practices and price fixing. The quality of modern music is dire, invariably plastic tunes churned out by pretty, but talentless, girl and boy bands.
But, I do not steal music. I actually go one better - I don't buy it or listen to it.
And if there are enough people like me, then record company execs will need to sit up and take notice.
Remember, you always have a choice...
Business Is Business - Hit Them In The Wallet!
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RIAA's Nasty Easter Egg
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I assume most people on/. are in regular employment. Those that are in regular employment are there because we make money for our respective companies - that is, we make the company more than it costs to employ each one of us. Likewise, every one of us would feel aggrieved if we lost our jobs through redundancy because our companies were no longer making money.
The record companies are no different. They too are employers trying to make money. It does not matter one bit to them whether music sharing actually loses them revenue or not - the fact is that their perception is that it does.
I live in the UK and the fact is that record stores like Virgin and HMV are packed on a weekend full of people queueing up at the checkouts, willing to pay anything up to 18 pounds (=$30 approx.) for a single CD. Despite the rise of Internet music sites, the trade in these stores seems just as bouyant as ever.
The fact is that whether we here believe record companies rip us off or not is neither here nor there. Whilst there are people willing to pay these high prices, record companies have no need to reduce prices, it's that simple.
If you share music, then at least have the guts to admit that you do it because it's free, because you have no qualms about ripping the record companies and musicians off or because you don't want to pay the high prices of CDs. Don't try to put any other form of justification behind those actions, perhaps in trying to present yourself as some modern-day Robin Hood of the CD world.
The only way the situation will change is if enough people stop paying the high prices and the record companies are hit in their bank balances - therefore, if you want the situation to change, you let the general public and the retailers know that prices are too high.
I'm not judging people who share music - at the end of the day, everyone of us comes from a culture where music has been shared amongst the populace for centuries - however, all that file sharing is actually doing is forcing record companies to manufacture protected CDs and bring in DRM'ed music, nothing more.
In the long term, that means that the rights of all of us get curtailed but absolutely nothing changes with regard to the price of music.
Metroid Prime was the reason I bought a Gamecube and I'm currently playing through Metroid Fusion on my GBA. I've also played a few of the earlier ones Metroid games through emulators.
They're good games, hours of entertainment but they are just games. They are not novelisations of potential film scripts and if the Tomb Raider & Mortal Kombat films are anything to go by, the Metroid movie will be another dire game adapation to be a quick money generating scheme from the teenage masses. (I've not seen Resident Evil so I can't comment on that one.)
Why, oh why, when we have a wealth of good science fiction novels on the shelves of our bookstores, can Hollywood not just take a chance and film an Iain Banks, Greg Bear, etc. novel and just give us some good science fiction?
In the past ten years or so, we've had two rubbish Star Trek films, two average Star Wars movies & Solaris (yawn!) Other than that, I cannot think of any other films that could be classified as nitty-gritty science fiction - the Dune mini series was good, I'm looking forward to Ringworld but they're TV releases.
What happened to the early 80s when we had the likes of 2010, Enemy Mine, Blade Runner, Alien & Aliens, etc?
Give us geeks some good sci-fi movies and leave the games for entertainment between trips to the cinema...
If the developers are still employed making new games, the old games being available for free hurts them because it gives people an alternative to buying the new game. It hurts the game vendors the same way.
I'm not sure that's necessarily the case.
I'm in my early 40s and into retrogaming in a big way because I remember Space Invaders, Defender, etc. in the arcades and all the games I had on ZX Spectrums and Amigas. I also play a lot of the PC games from 10 years ago also.
I would imagine that most of the people in the retrogaming scene are of a similar age group and not really in the target market for games manufacturers anyway. Plus I think we're all a little older and wiser based on the amount of money we've probably spent in the past on games, particularly dire ones!
Don't get me wrong, I'm eagerly awaiting Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 but I'm simply not prepared to part with hard-earned cash for most of the average games that get output by the games companies these days - that would be the case whether I retrogamed or not.
I just really don't see that MAME and a few Space Invaders ROMs are going to compete with the likes of Gran Turismo for the younger generations.
It also makes it harder for competitors to sell new games. Under things the way they stand now, 'abandonware' should cease to exist, because if the software exists, there is an interested body who will want to buy it, and either distribute it or bury it so they can sell their game to you instead.
I think there are interested bodies who would want to distribute old software. I think the problem is that it will never happen because with the amount of games company mergers over the years, it's such a legal minefield deciding who owns the right to these games in the first place that there's no financial incentive for any company to do the distribution.
I also think that a games author is more likely to allow free distribution of his/her game rather than letting a third party sell it and make money from it that he/she won't get a slice of.
And 'abandonware' assumptions destroy the market for those games we can all buy for $5-10 on the 'bare jewel case' rack at stores. This hurts the game itself, because it means there's no 'official' distribution, just people passing around random old copies.
Yes, but look at the bargain software racks and they are filled with a majority of games that were released within the past 2-3 years - there are exceptions but not many.
Also, what about "long dead" platforms like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga (please don't rip into me about the state of the Amiga market, it's just a generic statement!), etc?
If we're talking music CDs or films, I can generally pick up any music or movies released over the past 50 years with little or no trouble - why can there not be a similar mechanism for games?
I personally don't see a problem with Abandonware provided no-one is making any money from those games currently and that when someone does decide to redistribute them, those titles are removed from the Abandonware classification.
You put as many "locked doors" as possible in the way of a potential intruder so that each time the intruder is faced with a new "door", he or she may simply decide your system is no longer worth the effort and give up trying to get in.
Patches are the "last locked door" - in other words, once you've definitely decided that you need to run a specific application on the Internet, you make sure that it's updated to the latest version.
However, prior to that, you've already ensured the application is configured correctly, that the box it's running on has security permissions locked down, that the box is behind a firewall and probably a NAT box also for good measure.
Not to mention some good system logging and alarming going on so you have the best chance of shutting the box down when someone does get in.
Linux has a LONG way to go. Let's face facts. In Linux it's a pain in the arse to install a package, to uninstall packages, to do anything that's simple in Windows basically, it's harder in Linux.
And which particular package management system did you suffer a problem with? rpm? apt-get? Gentoo's emerge system?
Almost everything has a million dependancies,
Were you unable to compile some source code due to having the wrong version of GLIBC perhaps? Were you using the wrong version of GCC? Were you trying to compile a module but didn't have the kernel headers in place?
countless bugs
Did you suffer from a particular orphaned process due to an application crash? Did you find that X-Windows wouldn't start? Did a piece of hardware not work properly?
security holes everywhere
Did you configure xinetd correctly? Did you run a particular daemon as root rather than a normal user? Did you set some permissions bit incorrectly set?
I've tried Lindows and Xandros and both have serious flaws
Did you report these flaws to either company?
This isn't bashing Linux, it's facing facts.
But you've not stated one fact! This is because you haven't tried Linux at all, or have given up at the first hurdle...
The Linux community does not want people like you. It wants people who contribute back, even if that is reporting problems they experienced and asking for help because that's how software gets made better.
You're better off sticking with what you're comfortable with - Linux is not for you.
The chaotic nature of open source is it's limiting factor regarding interfaces.
A totally paradoxical statement.
Closed source implies that you are limited to use only the "interfaces" programmed by the owner of the source.
Open source means that anyone can take the code and program in whatever "interfaces" they see fit to add.
I'm not sure what you mean by "interfaces" but if you mean the "look and feel" of software, then that is governed purely by the programming libraries that exist in desktop environments - be they Windows, Gnome, KDE etc.
Otherwise, you would have a far fewer number of applications around because programmers would have to spend much more time programming their own GUIs also, all of which would probably look completely different anyway.
Your statement, assuming I have read it right, is entirely self-defeating...
There's no "Linux marketing department" sat there watching these statistics, planning on pulling the product because it has only 1% of market share. In ten years time, it may still only have a 1% share or have gone up to a 99% share - who cares, it'll still be here, getting better and better all the time.
Sure, I care about standards and the fact that someone's used non-standard HTML extensions on a web site such that it won't render properly in Mozilla but then, hey, my beef is with the web site developer, not with IE or Microsoft.
There's no excuse because there's nothing to be excused for...
1. If you use Windows and are thinking of trying Linux, you should keep your Windows installation going and either have Linux as a dual-boot system or run it from a bootable CD. This takes away any risk that you'll end up with an unusable PC and you can take your time deciding if you like Linux or not. It does not matter what everyone else thinks - software is a tool for you and you use the best tool for the job, whether or not Microsoft make it.
2. Do not use Linux as a weapon to beat Microsoft about the head with. If you're not happy with Windows or Microsoft, then email Microsoft about it, don't migrate to Linux as some kind of "rebellion". Use Linux because you want freedom to run the software you want when you want, use it because you want to control your own access to your data, use it because you quite like the way KDE or Gnome looks or use it simply because it might be a lot more fun than Windows. These are all good reasons but if you're not happy to spend some time learning a new OS and it's associated tools, then don't bother.
3. Don't sit back and wait for Linux to "come to you". "Readiness for the desktop" is a personal opinion based on what applications you use in Windows and what their equivalents are in Linux. Do some research, trawl Sourceforge to find out what kind of software there is and try it, read what's included in boxed distros and, again as a dual-boot system, compare Linux software to the Windows stuff you already know. Migrate gradually and spend time learning.
4. Try some of the Open Source apps in Windows first, see how they run there - Mozilla, The GIMP, OpenOffice.org, etc. Find out whether your favourite web sites render correctly in Mozilla, find out whether OpenOffice can import your word documents, find out if The GIMP gives you the functionality you were used to having in Paintshop Pro or Photoshop.
5. Research your hardware. Will your scanner, printer, camera, etc. all work under Linux? If not, are you happy to use Windows for some work still until Linux catches up?
The idea that Linux is "ready" or "not ready" is subjective and rubbish. It's just about giving it a try and either ditching it or working with it and possibly showing some perseverence.
It's all about getting out what you put in, nothing more...
* Poke any Windows user in the eye with a sharp stick if they leave "Hide file extensions for known file types" set in Explorer.
* Force Windows users to understand that (with file extensions visible),.bat,.com,.exe,.scr, etc are things that should not be run from email attachments unless they are DEFINITELY trusted sources.
With those two things and the three you've stated above, there would be little or no need for virus scanners...
This is where I believe that "Linux for the masses" is a bad thing.
The whole UNIX philosphy has always been to install and run only the applications that you need - this gives you as slim an installation as possible that is much easier to maintain from an administrative perspective; i.e. the less you run, the less open to attack you are.
I'm more than happy to see people migrate to Linux from Windows but not without those people demonstrating that they are prepared to take more responsibility for their Linux machines than they probably ever had to with Windows.
Sure, there are a lot of good Windows people out there that never get hit by viruses because they're probably as geeky as us Linux-types in terms of the care and attention they pay to the boxes they maintain. However, the vast majority of Windows users do not know enough about operating systems in general and it's those people we have to be worried about.
In many ways, boxed Linux installations are a bad thing because they make the job "too easy". At least with a "roll your own" distro, you have the knowledge to upgrade applications quickly (or turn them off) when a new exploit is found.
Just use Linux... and hope to God the virus community doesn't turn an eye toward it.
I always get slightly annoyed when people make this statement - viruses on Linux cannot work in the same way that they do on Windows.
Linux and UNIX have insecurities, possibly less than Windows but that's irrelevant here anyway. All software is potentially buggy.
Viruses on Windows spread so rapidly because so many people in the Windows user base run Outlook or Outlook Express which allows viruses to take advantage of exploits in both those programs and in core Windows insecurities. Because so much of the Windows code base is reused, this means that when an exploit is found on Windows XP, it probably also exits in Windows 2000 and might well also exist on Windows 9x. Therefore, when a virus hits, the majority of the Windows user base is at risk.
Linux is completely different. Exploits in Linux (and UNIX-type systems) generally revolve around buffer overflow attacks that cause a daemon program (like ftpd, httpd, etc.) to crash allowing access to a shell prompt, hopefully a root prompt (to the cracker). An attack of this nature depends on that specific daemon being run in the first place, that the cracker can get to the daemon (through any firewalling) in the first place and that the daemon is at the specific version for the exploit to be usable. Even when the cracker has got into that system, he has compromised one system only - sure he might use it as a jump off point to other systems on that network or within that organisation but this is still a limited effect attack.
Also, you need to take into account the UNIX permissions model. Everything you or the system does in UNIX is done at a specific user level. Doing anything as "root" is always dangerous which is why many daemons are run at non-root level - this means that if a system is compromised, the attacker or malevolent program can still only do things at that user level and probably not affect the rest of the system.
Linux and UNIX is prone to attack but the difference is, by it's very nature of customisation and administration detail, no two systems are ever going to be identical - consequently, this type of virus attack can never exist in Linux.
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If, as a software pirate, you believe yourself to be on some moral crusade against the "scourge of Microsoft" or the high prices of commercial software in general, then the best way to hurt those comapnies is to not buy their products - it REALLY is that simple.
The problem is that for a lot of computer users, software has become a "fashion accessory" just like a pair of designer jeans or a new mobile phone - everyone HAS to have the latest version of the latest package without stopping to think about whether there is actually a need for those additional features that the latest version provides. Right down from the warez crackers on the Internet to the end users, piracy is simply about peer pressure, nothing more.
The majority of computer users need to grow up and join the world of adults rather than sit in front of their PCs with the attitudes of schoolchildren.
There is a wealth of good quality free software for any operating system that you choose to run and while it may not, on some occasions, match up to commercial offerings, it IS free and will get better if you take the trouble to voice your dislikes and likes about it to the people that program it.
Pirates achieve one thing and one thing only - they create an excuse for large corporations to restrict the rights of ALL users in making fair use of products that they own and for those corporations to push through DRM, copy protection etc. on the basis of revenue loss and the honest users just end up paying more.
I really got the impression that the reporter was trying desperately to make this into a dramatic news story whereas the coastguard person was fairly level-headed about it. Even she stated that every employee has a backup laptop that is not connected to the Internet as a contingency plan in just these circumstances. Plus, they can also rely on paper maps if necessary.
Yes, we all know Windows has security holes (just like any other piece of software) and that Microsoft could do a whole lot more to make their software more secure - however, the fact is that using good firewalling and educating users properly is the best way of stopping 99.9% of all known worms and viruses.
Microsoft must take some of the blame but so should the salesmen and IT people for possibly not deploying the right platform in the first place and then, post deployment, not ensuring it's secure.
Knowledgeable users will choose the best software for a specific job they need to do and the best knowledgeable users are those that take the time to investigate both Windows, Linux & other OSes as providing the possible solutions to computing problems that they need to overcome.
It is more important to focus our attention on Open Source software to ensure that the scourge of proprietary formats is wiped from the face of our planet. There is nothing wrong with using commercial software as long as there is an interoperability with Open Source software such that everyone can exchange the data they want to with any people that they need to.
I fully accept that there are security issues in Windows just as much as there are learning curve concerns with Linux.
But the Windows community should embrace Open Source software much more readily than it currently does - for example, Mozilla/Firefox should now be the number one browser because it is free, available on most platforms, and conforms to the HTML standard much more than IE has ever done and will do.
Furthermore, we should all stop being hypocrites. If we are not prepared to pay the going rates for commercial software then we should all actively seek to use (and better) the Open Source alternatives. It is wrong to sit back and wait for OpenOffice.org (for example) to reach 100% compatibility with MS Office while using an illegal copy of MS Office - instead, we should use OOO with equal passion and give our opinions (and time) to the OOO developers to ensure that the product (and others) go in the direction that we need them to go.
It's now the time where we should all grow up a little and take some responsibility for ourselves and how run our computers. MS exists because there is a demand for their products and, if you don't like their products or the way they do things, the best way to get them to change is not give them your money... it's that simple.
I still use Windows 2000 and MS Office because I quite like both as products and because my place of work provides both as tools to me - however, I use Linux more because I've worked hard to learn it and am fortunate to work in a company that embraces Linux also. Going forwards, I will strive to migrate fully to Linux because I personally loathe MS's business strategy and will never pay them (or anyone else) money to access the data and information I already own due to proprietary format licenses.
But in the mean time, I have both work and leisure activities to do on my computers and I am not going to make either harder purely because media pundits believe every computer user is on one or the other side of a non-existent Windows v Linux war.
Be aware of some of the dangers of commercial software, sure, but otherwise use what's best for the job you need to do - as a result, you will be more efficient and find your computing experiences much more fun.
The fact is that if those individuals were forced to pay 200 Dollars/Euros/Pounds for MS Office, I am sure all of them would seriously look at the additional features that MS Office provides over OpenOffice.org and decide then whether or not they are worth that money.
I am not defending OOO's "inferiority" to MS Office, the fact is that it is purely a matter of perception - I personally, for example, do not embed one document within another or use VB programming - therefore OOO's feature-set is perfectly adequate for me and the only problem I have with it is importing some documents that others have created with MS Office.
Likewise, if MS Office is the accepted benchmark for office packages currently, then I hope that OOO evolves to the point where that benchmark is challenged purely on the basus of document compatibility and useful features.
However, everyone should remember that MS Office is a commercial package that most people run illegally. Any comparison should take cost of the respective products into account and whether it is worth buying MS Office purely because of the extra features it has over OOO.
Also, if and when it becomes your mainstream OS is just for you to decide, no-one else. It's my main OS about 75% of the time but I like my games and a few work apps so I do use Windows the rest of the time - besides, I don't actually have that much of an issue with Windows 2000, to be perfectly honest (although I loathe XP with a passion due to it's overbearing and patronising interface), I'd just rather not support Microsoft in ultimately limiting my personal freedoms and right to choice.
Just make sure that you make best use of binary distributions of Linux software and always jump onto a help forum for a particular Linux application - generally, compilation is pretty straightforward but if you have a problem, someone has usually seen it before you and has posted a message somewhere to which someone else has probably given a solution.
Why can't these people just explain what it does and maybe show a few screenshots of KDE or Gnome in action?
Linux is not, repeat NOT, competing with Windows. Microsoft consider Linux as a threat to their penetration and revenue but that is a purely Microsoft facet, not a Linux one.
Linux is an alternative way of doing things, a free way of doing things, and does some things better and other things worse that Windows does. It does what it does despite Microsoft and will continue to do it whether or not MS exists in the future.
The media should take a responsibility to make the general populace aware of the Linux alternative rather than using Linux as a weapon to make MS do what they want them to do.
I'd love to reach the day when I can ditch all my MS products because I personally do not like to support companies that have bad business practices - in the same way I don't eat Macdonalds (or Burger King) burgers or wear Nike sports shoes - and I guess today I'm about 75% there with Linux.
But I'm certainly not going to "cut my nose off to spite my face" and do without certain apps and games purely because I consider myself in a (non-existent) Windows v Linux war.
Just give people the facts and let them use their own intelligence to decide what they like.
Then I would suggest that you are not using the correct distribution suitable for your current Linux expertise level.
For example, with Mandrake Linux 10.0, the latest release, you can install updates as packages and not worry about dependencies.
Have you not also looked for binary distributions on rpmfind.net?
I'm not trying to be facetious but you virtually claim to be a newbie Linux user (not a problem because we were all newbie users once) and then complain about having to resolve dependencies.
It's great that you're delving deeper already but don't complain if you have problems getting a program working if you don't, at this stage, know what you are doing with source code and compilation.
Good luck with Linux in the future though.
You are not compelled to do anything.
Try a little experiment on yourself:
1. Go dig out the last full album you downloaded free from the Internet.
2. Decide for yourself how much the CD would cost you to buy using the normal CD retailer you would use.
3. Now start reducing the price of that CD by dollar/pound/Euro/other currency amounts until you get to a price where you would have bought that CD legitimately.
4. If you hit a price that isn't zero (in your local currency), then the price of the CD, in your opinion, is too high.
5. If you hit zero, then you would not have bought the CD anyway.
6. Now look at your PC. Imagine a friend of yours stole your PC, you found out and when you challenged your friend, he said he stole it because he didn't want to pay for a PC - because they are too expensive. Would you consider that justified?
I'm not playing the "holier than thou" card, believe me, but this illustrates a perceptional idea.
Firstly, everyone will have a different view of what is a fair price to pay for that CD. It'll be based primarily on how much they like the artist and how much disposable income they have. So what is the fair price for a CD?
Secondly, certain people will download music freely no matter what the cost of a CD is. This is because of convenience or because they don't want to part with their hard-earned money. They do it just because it's there.
Thirdly, theft is theft, no matter what justification you create for it. Just because you want something does not mean you are entitled to simply take it. To say you are compelled to do something implies that some external force is causing you to do it - I'm sorry, it's completely your choice.
I'm not, in any way, supporting the record companies. The industry is plagued with monopolistic practices and price fixing. The quality of modern music is dire, invariably plastic tunes churned out by pretty, but talentless, girl and boy bands.
But, I do not steal music. I actually go one better - I don't buy it or listen to it.
And if there are enough people like me, then record company execs will need to sit up and take notice.
Remember, you always have a choice...
The record companies are no different. They too are employers trying to make money. It does not matter one bit to them whether music sharing actually loses them revenue or not - the fact is that their perception is that it does.
I live in the UK and the fact is that record stores like Virgin and HMV are packed on a weekend full of people queueing up at the checkouts, willing to pay anything up to 18 pounds (=$30 approx.) for a single CD. Despite the rise of Internet music sites, the trade in these stores seems just as bouyant as ever.
The fact is that whether we here believe record companies rip us off or not is neither here nor there. Whilst there are people willing to pay these high prices, record companies have no need to reduce prices, it's that simple.
If you share music, then at least have the guts to admit that you do it because it's free, because you have no qualms about ripping the record companies and musicians off or because you don't want to pay the high prices of CDs. Don't try to put any other form of justification behind those actions, perhaps in trying to present yourself as some modern-day Robin Hood of the CD world.
The only way the situation will change is if enough people stop paying the high prices and the record companies are hit in their bank balances - therefore, if you want the situation to change, you let the general public and the retailers know that prices are too high.
I'm not judging people who share music - at the end of the day, everyone of us comes from a culture where music has been shared amongst the populace for centuries - however, all that file sharing is actually doing is forcing record companies to manufacture protected CDs and bring in DRM'ed music, nothing more.
In the long term, that means that the rights of all of us get curtailed but absolutely nothing changes with regard to the price of music.
They're good games, hours of entertainment but they are just games. They are not novelisations of potential film scripts and if the Tomb Raider & Mortal Kombat films are anything to go by, the Metroid movie will be another dire game adapation to be a quick money generating scheme from the teenage masses. (I've not seen Resident Evil so I can't comment on that one.)
Why, oh why, when we have a wealth of good science fiction novels on the shelves of our bookstores, can Hollywood not just take a chance and film an Iain Banks, Greg Bear, etc. novel and just give us some good science fiction?
In the past ten years or so, we've had two rubbish Star Trek films, two average Star Wars movies & Solaris (yawn!) Other than that, I cannot think of any other films that could be classified as nitty-gritty science fiction - the Dune mini series was good, I'm looking forward to Ringworld but they're TV releases.
What happened to the early 80s when we had the likes of 2010, Enemy Mine, Blade Runner, Alien & Aliens, etc?
Give us geeks some good sci-fi movies and leave the games for entertainment between trips to the cinema...
Leisure Suture Larry
Transplant Tycoon
Hostile Aortas
Total Amputation: Kingdoms?
...I bet the script was typed in Microsoft Word & the screenplay done in Powerpoint.
I'm not sure that's necessarily the case.
I'm in my early 40s and into retrogaming in a big way because I remember Space Invaders, Defender, etc. in the arcades and all the games I had on ZX Spectrums and Amigas. I also play a lot of the PC games from 10 years ago also.
I would imagine that most of the people in the retrogaming scene are of a similar age group and not really in the target market for games manufacturers anyway. Plus I think we're all a little older and wiser based on the amount of money we've probably spent in the past on games, particularly dire ones!
Don't get me wrong, I'm eagerly awaiting Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 but I'm simply not prepared to part with hard-earned cash for most of the average games that get output by the games companies these days - that would be the case whether I retrogamed or not.
I just really don't see that MAME and a few Space Invaders ROMs are going to compete with the likes of Gran Turismo for the younger generations.
It also makes it harder for competitors to sell new games. Under things the way they stand now, 'abandonware' should cease to exist, because if the software exists, there is an interested body who will want to buy it, and either distribute it or bury it so they can sell their game to you instead.
I think there are interested bodies who would want to distribute old software. I think the problem is that it will never happen because with the amount of games company mergers over the years, it's such a legal minefield deciding who owns the right to these games in the first place that there's no financial incentive for any company to do the distribution.
I also think that a games author is more likely to allow free distribution of his/her game rather than letting a third party sell it and make money from it that he/she won't get a slice of.
And 'abandonware' assumptions destroy the market for those games we can all buy for $5-10 on the 'bare jewel case' rack at stores. This hurts the game itself, because it means there's no 'official' distribution, just people passing around random old copies.
Yes, but look at the bargain software racks and they are filled with a majority of games that were released within the past 2-3 years - there are exceptions but not many.
Also, what about "long dead" platforms like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga (please don't rip into me about the state of the Amiga market, it's just a generic statement!), etc?
If we're talking music CDs or films, I can generally pick up any music or movies released over the past 50 years with little or no trouble - why can there not be a similar mechanism for games?
I personally don't see a problem with Abandonware provided no-one is making any money from those games currently and that when someone does decide to redistribute them, those titles are removed from the Abandonware classification.
You put as many "locked doors" as possible in the way of a potential intruder so that each time the intruder is faced with a new "door", he or she may simply decide your system is no longer worth the effort and give up trying to get in.
Patches are the "last locked door" - in other words, once you've definitely decided that you need to run a specific application on the Internet, you make sure that it's updated to the latest version.
However, prior to that, you've already ensured the application is configured correctly, that the box it's running on has security permissions locked down, that the box is behind a firewall and probably a NAT box also for good measure.
Not to mention some good system logging and alarming going on so you have the best chance of shutting the box down when someone does get in.
In security, only the paranoid survive...
Concise description, has done his research & knows exactly what's right and what's wrong with Linux.
"Race? What race? I'm going this way, send me a postcard when you get to the finish-line."
And which particular package management system did you suffer a problem with? rpm? apt-get? Gentoo's emerge system?
Almost everything has a million dependancies,
Were you unable to compile some source code due to having the wrong version of GLIBC perhaps? Were you using the wrong version of GCC? Were you trying to compile a module but didn't have the kernel headers in place?
countless bugs
Did you suffer from a particular orphaned process due to an application crash? Did you find that X-Windows wouldn't start? Did a piece of hardware not work properly?
security holes everywhere
Did you configure xinetd correctly? Did you run a particular daemon as root rather than a normal user? Did you set some permissions bit incorrectly set?
I've tried Lindows and Xandros and both have serious flaws
Did you report these flaws to either company?
This isn't bashing Linux, it's facing facts.
But you've not stated one fact! This is because you haven't tried Linux at all, or have given up at the first hurdle...
The Linux community does not want people like you. It wants people who contribute back, even if that is reporting problems they experienced and asking for help because that's how software gets made better.
You're better off sticking with what you're comfortable with - Linux is not for you.
A totally paradoxical statement.
Closed source implies that you are limited to use only the "interfaces" programmed by the owner of the source.
Open source means that anyone can take the code and program in whatever "interfaces" they see fit to add.
I'm not sure what you mean by "interfaces" but if you mean the "look and feel" of software, then that is governed purely by the programming libraries that exist in desktop environments - be they Windows, Gnome, KDE etc.
Otherwise, you would have a far fewer number of applications around because programmers would have to spend much more time programming their own GUIs also, all of which would probably look completely different anyway.
Your statement, assuming I have read it right, is entirely self-defeating...
There's no "Linux marketing department" sat there watching these statistics, planning on pulling the product because it has only 1% of market share. In ten years time, it may still only have a 1% share or have gone up to a 99% share - who cares, it'll still be here, getting better and better all the time.
Sure, I care about standards and the fact that someone's used non-standard HTML extensions on a web site such that it won't render properly in Mozilla but then, hey, my beef is with the web site developer, not with IE or Microsoft.
There's no excuse because there's nothing to be excused for...
2. Do not use Linux as a weapon to beat Microsoft about the head with. If you're not happy with Windows or Microsoft, then email Microsoft about it, don't migrate to Linux as some kind of "rebellion". Use Linux because you want freedom to run the software you want when you want, use it because you want to control your own access to your data, use it because you quite like the way KDE or Gnome looks or use it simply because it might be a lot more fun than Windows. These are all good reasons but if you're not happy to spend some time learning a new OS and it's associated tools, then don't bother.
3. Don't sit back and wait for Linux to "come to you". "Readiness for the desktop" is a personal opinion based on what applications you use in Windows and what their equivalents are in Linux. Do some research, trawl Sourceforge to find out what kind of software there is and try it, read what's included in boxed distros and, again as a dual-boot system, compare Linux software to the Windows stuff you already know. Migrate gradually and spend time learning.
4. Try some of the Open Source apps in Windows first, see how they run there - Mozilla, The GIMP, OpenOffice.org, etc. Find out whether your favourite web sites render correctly in Mozilla, find out whether OpenOffice can import your word documents, find out if The GIMP gives you the functionality you were used to having in Paintshop Pro or Photoshop.
5. Research your hardware. Will your scanner, printer, camera, etc. all work under Linux? If not, are you happy to use Windows for some work still until Linux catches up?
The idea that Linux is "ready" or "not ready" is subjective and rubbish. It's just about giving it a try and either ditching it or working with it and possibly showing some perseverence.
It's all about getting out what you put in, nothing more...
* Poke any Windows user in the eye with a sharp stick if they leave "Hide file extensions for known file types" set in Explorer.
* Force Windows users to understand that (with file extensions visible), .bat, .com, .exe, .scr, etc are things that should not be run from email attachments unless they are DEFINITELY trusted sources.
With those two things and the three you've stated above, there would be little or no need for virus scanners...
The whole UNIX philosphy has always been to install and run only the applications that you need - this gives you as slim an installation as possible that is much easier to maintain from an administrative perspective; i.e. the less you run, the less open to attack you are.
I'm more than happy to see people migrate to Linux from Windows but not without those people demonstrating that they are prepared to take more responsibility for their Linux machines than they probably ever had to with Windows.
Sure, there are a lot of good Windows people out there that never get hit by viruses because they're probably as geeky as us Linux-types in terms of the care and attention they pay to the boxes they maintain. However, the vast majority of Windows users do not know enough about operating systems in general and it's those people we have to be worried about.
In many ways, boxed Linux installations are a bad thing because they make the job "too easy". At least with a "roll your own" distro, you have the knowledge to upgrade applications quickly (or turn them off) when a new exploit is found.
I always get slightly annoyed when people make this statement - viruses on Linux cannot work in the same way that they do on Windows.
Linux and UNIX have insecurities, possibly less than Windows but that's irrelevant here anyway. All software is potentially buggy.
Viruses on Windows spread so rapidly because so many people in the Windows user base run Outlook or Outlook Express which allows viruses to take advantage of exploits in both those programs and in core Windows insecurities. Because so much of the Windows code base is reused, this means that when an exploit is found on Windows XP, it probably also exits in Windows 2000 and might well also exist on Windows 9x. Therefore, when a virus hits, the majority of the Windows user base is at risk.
Linux is completely different. Exploits in Linux (and UNIX-type systems) generally revolve around buffer overflow attacks that cause a daemon program (like ftpd, httpd, etc.) to crash allowing access to a shell prompt, hopefully a root prompt (to the cracker). An attack of this nature depends on that specific daemon being run in the first place, that the cracker can get to the daemon (through any firewalling) in the first place and that the daemon is at the specific version for the exploit to be usable. Even when the cracker has got into that system, he has compromised one system only - sure he might use it as a jump off point to other systems on that network or within that organisation but this is still a limited effect attack.
Also, you need to take into account the UNIX permissions model. Everything you or the system does in UNIX is done at a specific user level. Doing anything as "root" is always dangerous which is why many daemons are run at non-root level - this means that if a system is compromised, the attacker or malevolent program can still only do things at that user level and probably not affect the rest of the system.
Linux and UNIX is prone to attack but the difference is, by it's very nature of customisation and administration detail, no two systems are ever going to be identical - consequently, this type of virus attack can never exist in Linux.
They're not allowed to by the stranglehold that Microsoft maintains on PC manufacturers.
This is one reason why the EU was able to take action against MS and Media Player.