Compared to the price of a product in which all of the bugs were fixed - yes I am saying it's cheap.
There is a general rule, which applies particularly to software development that 80% of the value takes 20% of the effort. That last 20% of the value costs the remaining 80%. It's the 80:20 rule. Microsoft are masters of this rule. Many failed companies failed because they didn't take this rule into account.
Edward
Didn't see the episode. You sure it was a PC and not a Mac ? Apple's lovely cinema displays (like the 23" one I'm using with my dual G5 ) only have one ADC cable that carries the digital signal and power to the monitor.
Edward
If it deserved it, it would have it already.
Personally I don't see it working, for two reasons:
1. Mass-market by definition cannot be cool. Cool requires a degree of exclusivity.
2. Microsoft's philosophy is "pile em' high sell 'em cheap, and fix the bugs eventually". Again, this is the anti-thesis of cool. Basically MS lack the perfectionist drive.
I'm not making either of these points to knock MS as a company - they're very succesful at what they do and make a ton of cash. It's just that what do is incompatible with being "cool".
Edward
I don't know about you, but here in civilised countries we have this idea that children below a certain age aren't sufficiently mature to understand that what they're doing is wrong and therefore they can't be held accountable.
Clearly this is the case here - in fact I would go as far as to say that would hold true for any reasonable person - they're paying a fee to Kazaa - what for if not to download music. If anyone's guilty it's the Kazaa for charging the fee for a service they couldn't legally provide.
Oh for crying out loud, this question has been answered so many times before.
FREE AS IN SPEECH, NOT FREE AS IN BEER.
Intellectual goods != material goods. I take your car, you've lost a car. I take a copy of your source code, you have lost nothing (other than theoretical loss involving the theory that I might have paid you for the copy - yeah right). And you gain from any insight I can offer into your bug-ridden code;-) And vice-versa from any code I make.
Can people make money from Free and Open (not the same thing) software - certainly they can. Look at RedHat, JBoss, Mandrake, Debian, the FSF. Is the business model different from companies that sell their code ? of course it is.
You completely fail to understand Free software - which is entriely your failing - RMS has done more than enough to ensure that anyone listening would get the message.
The whole, 100%, entire point about FREE (as opposed to Open) software is that it is FREE. *Not* that it is the best, most bug-free or anything else but that it is free for me to distribute and discuss and re-use it however I like (and don't try and prevent anyone else from doing likewise).
If you don't understand that, you won't understand Free software nor RMS.
You completely miss the RMS's point, and the difference between FREE and OPEN. (This is of course a simplification.)
RMS's stanbd point is that non-free software is inherently a bad thing; doesn't matter if it's "superior" in terms of functionality or quality - it's inherently a bad thing.
Open software says Open software will, inherently, evolve into the best software - lowest bugs, best functionality etc etc - but whilst there is better non-Open software it's ok to use until Open catches up.
That difference in view point is something very few people, it seems, who ramble on the subject and about RMS, understand.
RMS has always, and I suspect always will be, completely consistent in his view point. The only variable has been peoples (lack) of understanding that RMS/FSF != Open software.
Edward
You would have thought that now scientists have decided they were wrong about cholesterol and that eating margarine rather than butter and cutting out eggs was actually "a really bad idea"(TM the food industry) they'd learn to leave alone.
We spent millions of years to evolving to eat the shit that grows around us - not some factory grown crap that no-one actually has any idea about what it's effects on everything else (us, other plants, the biosphere) might be. Some scientist with too much funding and driven by greedy food corporations (Hi Monsanto!) simply is not going to improve on what we evolved to consume.
Sometimes I despair at the thought that a company will produce "Batchelor Chow" (and then realise they have - it's called Pot Noodle in the UK). And that it won't be Matrix style uber-computers feeding us recycled human but uber-corporations run by humans.
A common fallacy, but both Open Source and Free software *depend* on intellectual property rights.
Without it there would be no reason to agree to the OS or Free license terms (you could just ignore them and do what you like) and therefore no onus to put back into the pool any improvements etc you might make.
of course Linus is going to have little regard for software patents. He's a European and that's one bit of stupidity we have yet to import from the US (please God we never do).
I'm surprised SCO hasn't tried to persuade Linus to support them. "Join me my son!".;-)
Here's a suggestion: read the story and the sources before commenting ? Even try reading the story posted at the top.
If you did, you would realise that this is to stop customer's abusing their service contract with RH. Shock, horror, customer's abusing a contract, surely not!
Here's how it works. I install 50 copies of RH on my servers. I take out a service contract for just one of them with RH. Guess which is the server that always seems to have the problems....
RH's licence change for it's *services* stops that abuse.
Been using it for the last few months and it is AWFUL !
Sure it sounds great, colour screen, plays mp3s, core PDA functionality, web browsing and email using GPRS (I signed up for 7 megs a month because I thought this would be useful).
But it is terrible !
So what's the problem ? Well it hangs. All the time. I get busy cursors when all I'm doing is navigating the menus. It hangs when I'm trying to make a call (it seems to get its knickers in a twist if an incoming call arrives whilst your starting an outgoing call.
Personally I'm really pissed off at having skipped the Ericsson (which I thought was too big) for this pile of shit. Been very happy with every Orange 'phone I've ever owned (been an Orange customer since they opened up here in the UK) but the SPV stinks.
Edward
I've had SuSE, Debian and Red Hat distros running on my Picturebook C1-VE. Very nice and very little fiddling to get them working with the wide screen. Never did get the video camera working but then I didn't care enough to try very hard and people on the PB mailing list have reported success.
I'm guessing the silly moderators who modded my first post down thought I was criticising the story on slashdot. I wasn't, silly boys, I was criticsing the story about Apple - precisely as you were.
Slashdot Mirror
Compared to the price of a product in which all of the bugs were fixed - yes I am saying it's cheap.
There is a general rule, which applies particularly to software development that 80% of the value takes 20% of the effort. That last 20% of the value costs the remaining 80%. It's the 80:20 rule. Microsoft are masters of this rule. Many failed companies failed because they didn't take this rule into account. Edward
Didn't see the episode. You sure it was a PC and not a Mac ? Apple's lovely cinema displays (like the 23" one I'm using with my dual G5 ) only have one ADC cable that carries the digital signal and power to the monitor. Edward
Huh? Which UK are you living in ? The only place there are such restrictions is on the beeb which is paid for by us taxpayers.
If it deserved it, it would have it already. Personally I don't see it working, for two reasons: 1. Mass-market by definition cannot be cool. Cool requires a degree of exclusivity. 2. Microsoft's philosophy is "pile em' high sell 'em cheap, and fix the bugs eventually". Again, this is the anti-thesis of cool. Basically MS lack the perfectionist drive. I'm not making either of these points to knock MS as a company - they're very succesful at what they do and make a ton of cash. It's just that what do is incompatible with being "cool". Edward
That has got to be the best, and I mean the best, comment I've ever seen on /.
I want my Harley-Apple now !
God I can just seem my fellow commuters' faces as I revv' my Apple. Too cool for words.
You're plainly a moron.
I don't know about you, but here in civilised countries we have this idea that children below a certain age aren't sufficiently mature to understand that what they're doing is wrong and therefore they can't be held accountable.
Clearly this is the case here - in fact I would go as far as to say that would hold true for any reasonable person - they're paying a fee to Kazaa - what for if not to download music. If anyone's guilty it's the Kazaa for charging the fee for a service they couldn't legally provide.
I can just see the next evolution in this will be to add rfid tags to the change they give you to track where you spend it.
You can just see it can't you, after a couple of months every bank note will be as infested with these damn tags as a dog with fleas.
Well DUH!
"News at 11: Pope promotes Catholicism, Bush promotes big business and RMS promotes free software.
What did you think he would do moron - tell us all "Actually you know guys, Bill Gates is right" ?!?
Edward
Oh for crying out loud, this question has been answered so many times before.
FREE AS IN SPEECH, NOT FREE AS IN BEER.
Intellectual goods != material goods. I take your car, you've lost a car. I take a copy of your source code, you have lost nothing (other than theoretical loss involving the theory that I might have paid you for the copy - yeah right). And you gain from any insight I can offer into your bug-ridden code ;-) And vice-versa from any code I make.
Can people make money from Free and Open (not the same thing) software - certainly they can. Look at RedHat, JBoss, Mandrake, Debian, the FSF. Is the business model different from companies that sell their code ? of course it is.
Edward
You completely fail to understand Free software - which is entriely your failing - RMS has done more than enough to ensure that anyone listening would get the message.
The whole, 100%, entire point about FREE (as opposed to Open) software is that it is FREE. *Not* that it is the best, most bug-free or anything else but that it is free for me to distribute and discuss and re-use it however I like (and don't try and prevent anyone else from doing likewise).
If you don't understand that, you won't understand Free software nor RMS.
Edward
You completely miss the RMS's point, and the difference between FREE and OPEN. (This is of course a simplification.)
RMS's stanbd point is that non-free software is inherently a bad thing; doesn't matter if it's "superior" in terms of functionality or quality - it's inherently a bad thing.
Open software says Open software will, inherently, evolve into the best software - lowest bugs, best functionality etc etc - but whilst there is better non-Open software it's ok to use until Open catches up.
That difference in view point is something very few people, it seems, who ramble on the subject and about RMS, understand.
RMS has always, and I suspect always will be, completely consistent in his view point. The only variable has been peoples (lack) of understanding that RMS/FSF != Open software. Edward
Slashdot to give this ongoing saga all this publicity ?
Decaffeinated diet coke (aka water).
You would have thought that now scientists have decided they were wrong about cholesterol and that eating margarine rather than butter and cutting out eggs was actually "a really bad idea"(TM the food industry) they'd learn to leave alone.
We spent millions of years to evolving to eat the shit that grows around us - not some factory grown crap that no-one actually has any idea about what it's effects on everything else (us, other plants, the biosphere) might be. Some scientist with too much funding and driven by greedy food corporations (Hi Monsanto!) simply is not going to improve on what we evolved to consume.
Sometimes I despair at the thought that a company will produce "Batchelor Chow" (and then realise they have - it's called Pot Noodle in the UK). And that it won't be Matrix style uber-computers feeding us recycled human but uber-corporations run by humans.
A common fallacy, but both Open Source and Free software *depend* on intellectual property rights.
Without it there would be no reason to agree to the OS or Free license terms (you could just ignore them and do what you like) and therefore no onus to put back into the pool any improvements etc you might make.
GO LINUS, GO!
of course Linus is going to have little regard for software patents. He's a European and that's one bit of stupidity we have yet to import from the US (please God we never do).
I'm surprised SCO hasn't tried to persuade Linus to support them. "Join me my son!". ;-)
Free software's philosophy is that it's free and therefore that's what must be used. No proprietary software ever.
Open's philosophy is that open source will produce good code, but where open/free isn't available or good enough then you should use proprietary.
So mandating the use of free software is very much in the spirit of the FSF. So an win for RMS rather than Linus (who is an Open software advocate).
Here's a suggestion: read the story and the sources before commenting ? Even try reading the story posted at the top.
If you did, you would realise that this is to stop customer's abusing their service contract with RH. Shock, horror, customer's abusing a contract, surely not!
Here's how it works. I install 50 copies of RH on my servers. I take out a service contract for just one of them with RH. Guess which is the server that always seems to have the problems....
RH's licence change for it's *services* stops that abuse.
I'll add a -1, troll, to the story.
I spent all of my mod points this morning, I wish a) I'd saved one and b) you could mod down, or at least meta-moderate, stories.
I think we'll have to agree to differ on the SPV.
Ah the good old 2140 ! Now that was a solid phone :-) So good, I had two of them ;-)
Been using it for the last few months and it is AWFUL !
Sure it sounds great, colour screen, plays mp3s, core PDA functionality, web browsing and email using GPRS (I signed up for 7 megs a month because I thought this would be useful).
But it is terrible !
So what's the problem ? Well it hangs. All the time. I get busy cursors when all I'm doing is navigating the menus. It hangs when I'm trying to make a call (it seems to get its knickers in a twist if an incoming call arrives whilst your starting an outgoing call.
Personally I'm really pissed off at having skipped the Ericsson (which I thought was too big) for this pile of shit. Been very happy with every Orange 'phone I've ever owned (been an Orange customer since they opened up here in the UK) but the SPV stinks. Edward
Did you actually READ the article (God forbid a slashdotter should do that before responding !).
He did it to save a PowerBook with a defective video connector that otherwise would have had to be thrown away.
People like you make us true Apple believers look like religous zealots :-(
Anonymous Cowards don't get mod points shit-wit.
I've had SuSE, Debian and Red Hat distros running on my Picturebook C1-VE. Very nice and very little fiddling to get them working with the wide screen. Never did get the video camera working but then I didn't care enough to try very hard and people on the PB mailing list have reported success.
I'm guessing the silly moderators who modded my first post down thought I was criticising the story on slashdot. I wasn't, silly boys, I was criticsing the story about Apple - precisely as you were.
Try not to be so damn paranoid in future please.