"And not incidentally: we don't need to "tell" people what they "need" to drive. We can tax them based on the size and/or fuel-efficiency of their vehicle, and, like true conservatives, we'll "let the market work.""
Isn't governmental taxation and regulation interference in "the market"?
I say again my last. Let the majority of systems start running Linux, or OS X, or some other OS, and the hackers will concentrate their efforts on compromising those system. Linux may not be as "open" by default, but it can still be attacked, rooted, socially engineered, and trojaned. And will be.
Frankly, developers tend to focus their efforts in the wrong places. Take the whole monolithic/micro-kernel argument. Yes, we could create systems with more internal safeguards and protected layers... but we don't, because when we do we get 78 FPS running Quake instead of 80...
Linux, Linux, Linux. If every computer in the world ran Linux instead of Windows hacker's would simply change targets and find ways to compromise it as well. Much like OS X, Linux enjoys most of it's "security" due to the fact that there simply aren't that many machines out there in the hands of "common" folk who don't understand the ramifications of their actions.
Building botnet's is simply too lucrative a business.
"this is also why mac users can tolerate many windows on the screen at once"
Another reason is Expose. If you're going to have a lot of windows open at the same time, at some point you're going to need to find them again... quickly.
Another point is that with the hideable dock and applications, Expose, Dashboard, and so on, the interface on a Mac tends to stay out of the way until it's needed, resulting in a cleaner look and less clutter, even though I rarely have fewer than seven or eight applications running at once.
Be interesting to see what impact Spaces has on this.
So? Where was the TCP/IP network interface on that 1978 Apple ][? No, wait, it didn't have one, did it? Hard disk and file management systems? 802.11? CD/DVD drive? Graphics co-processor drawing routines? Built-in video playback? MP3 audio support? Bluetooth? USB? Firewire? Window and dialog management? Event management? User accont management? HTML rendering? Security and firewalls? Printer drivers? Power management?
Didn't have any of them, did it? More to the point, would you or any other user buy a comupter and OS today that DIDN'T provide those things?
Hardware has gotten just a little more complex than the days when you could change the screen by poking a memory location, and we tend to do just a LITTLE more with those systems than run Visicalc and Lemonade Stand.
Further, the number and complexity of the APIs has bloomed, and yes, most people only use a core set of them... because they usually don't need the others. How often does your desktop application dive deep into the power management APIs? Never? And unless you're doing video editing, how deep into QuickTime do you really need to go, other than "play movie"?
Yes, computers today are complex. RTFM(s) and deal with it. You're supposed to be a professional, after all...
Your "control" is an illusion, and the potential to lose your data is just as real. In fact, a service org probably has RAIDed drives and automated and offsite backup systems superior to what most people are doing on thier own... if they're doing it at all.
In your case you may "think" you're in control, when in fact your last backup copied over the same corrupted data, your archive DVD is now unreadable, and your last full offsite backup is two months old.
"There are only a handful of rendering engines... IE. Gecko. Webkit. Opera. iCal"
I assume you mean "modern" engines, because you're missing things like the pre-gecko Netscape engines. Or the fact that the Mac version of IE was totally different from the PC version.
"... even Opera's lousy little 1.5% or whatever it is ends up being *millions* of users."
Yeah, but what percentage of them are coming to your local transportation information website? Take your hyperbolic "whole world" down to your actually market and demographic, and you'll probably find that those "millions" of users may only equate to a dozen or so. So do you pay your developers to "fix" the site for Opera, and then pay a dozen other people to regression test it to make sure your Opera fix didn't bust Safari?
Or do you go on as best you can because you're behind schedule and over-budget anyway?
Sorry Charlie, but in the real world there are always tradeoffs...
"The sad part is that there is no point in bitching about it."
If you disagree then make your point and back it up with facts (if you can). Then accept the final decision and do your absolute best to implement it. That's called being a professional.
Ditto. Or to put it another way, "standards" are what the market says they are. People buy and use your products because they work. Support some "standard" to the extent that your product no longer works in the marketplace, and you're screwed.
"Find a way to make it work in all of them, and be standards-compliant."
Non-sequitur. For most advanced sites that use drop-downs, panels, and so on, you CAN'T make it work on ALL of them (IE3?, NS4?), and to force them to work across the board on as many as possible you have to cheat and use browser hacks that are most definitely not standards-compliant.
Hell, you can't even specify the width of a padded DIV without a hack...
"Their core principle is that people should be free to use their computers without any artificial software-induced restrictions. "
Oh PLEASE. I cringe every time I see this. There are literally millions of lines of code in the bios, kernel, drivers, firmware, and OS-based managers, and that's not counting what's in the tools, utilities and applications they use.
99.9% of the people out there can not code at the application or system or driver level, so they're stuck with whatever choices other developers have made. Even if you're one of the few, there are millions of lines of code running on your box that you'll never see, and have no clue as to what they're really doing.
To put it bluntly, any control you think you have is an illusion.
Of course, now you'll trot out the "pay someone to fix it" line, and it's true you could... if you don't want your personal changes zapped by the next release or bug fix or security update.
You "may" be able to get you change rolled up into the core... if the current czar likes it. You could make your own fork... and lose out on all of the improvements and patches all those other people are making to the other version.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of people will always be faced with "restrictions."
I like how you compare spending $1,800 on one side vs. spending, what, $6,000 on the other. No wonder you're "losing" five grand. Now run the numbers on renting $1,800 a month vs. an $1,800 a month house/insurance payment...
"Reconfiguring the imaging of a system has pretty much no cost... Offering the image separately..."
As to "no cost", the point I made is that the "image' is on a $1,000 SKU which DOES have a cost, and gets us into inventory issues.
Speaking of which, does Best Buy want to manage a bunch of "image" disks? How do they make sure they have enough disks of the right type? Are they for the right computers? What happens when HP wants to ship a new computer and none of the old disks have the right drivers? What support issues go up when the image disk or user has problems?
Does the user want to plug his computer in and start using it, or spend a hour setting it up and configuring it?
Sorry Charlie, but there are PLENTY of costs involved in giving less than 1% of their probable market a "choice".
"It makes no sense for HP to refuse to offer PCs without Windows when there are customers who want them that way."
Yeah? How many?
I think this is the assumption your argument lies upon, and to my mind it's rather key, because it DOES make sense for HP to refuse to offer PCs without Windows if they perceive that there's not a significant market for them.
People act like all they need to do is put a different image on the hard drive, when in fact that when they do so they're creating a box with an entirely different SKU that needs to be managed, stocked, shipped, and so on. And what retailers are going to order it? How many people are going to walk into Best Buy or Circuit City and ask to buy a non-functional computer?
1 in 100? 1 in 1,000? Maybe 1 in 10,000? How much "unwanted" inventory that doesn't turn around are the retailers going to stock? How long should they sit on it in the hope that some Linux geek is going to walk in and want to buy a "plain" computer? How many OSes and how much software are they going to stock for it?
Given the rather dismal penetration of Linux in the home market, I'd say that the demand simply isn't there. I don't know ANYONE who's running Linux as a home system who: A) isn't an IT geek; or B) didn't have it setup for them BY an IT geek who convinced them it was "better".
Given the above, it makes not sense whatsoever for Best Buy to have a bunch of $1,000 boxes sitting around that no one wants, and as such, it makes no sense whatsoever for HP to sell them.
Go to the Finder and do a Command-Shift-G. Type/etc and hit return.
For this to be really effective, however, you need to enable the root account and do all of your/etc-type stuff there, as those files are read-only to "normal" users.
So? All user data, including preferences, is in your Home (~) folder. Backup your home folder and you've backed up pretty much everything that's yours...
"Linux kernel developers have in the past made conscious decisions to not support old code, in the interests of cleanliness of implementation."
Yeah, like I want all my applications broken because some geek thinks he can save 50 lines of code and shave 20-microseconds off a kernel function call...
"Our justice system might work better if it stopped arresting MOST people."
I disagree. People need to learn responsibility, and to recognize that actions have consequences. What those consequences should be, however, is another topic of discussion...
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"And not incidentally: we don't need to "tell" people what they "need" to drive. We can tax them based on the size and/or fuel-efficiency of their vehicle, and, like true conservatives, we'll "let the market work.""
Isn't governmental taxation and regulation interference in "the market"?
I say again my last. Let the majority of systems start running Linux, or OS X, or some other OS, and the hackers will concentrate their efforts on compromising those system. Linux may not be as "open" by default, but it can still be attacked, rooted, socially engineered, and trojaned. And will be.
Frankly, developers tend to focus their efforts in the wrong places. Take the whole monolithic/micro-kernel argument. Yes, we could create systems with more internal safeguards and protected layers... but we don't, because when we do we get 78 FPS running Quake instead of 80...
Linux, Linux, Linux. If every computer in the world ran Linux instead of Windows hacker's would simply change targets and find ways to compromise it as well. Much like OS X, Linux enjoys most of it's "security" due to the fact that there simply aren't that many machines out there in the hands of "common" folk who don't understand the ramifications of their actions.
Building botnet's is simply too lucrative a business.
"Accidental bugs which lead to buffer overflows and such are different..."
Yep. Those bugs were accidental... really.
"this is also why mac users can tolerate many windows on the screen at once"
Another reason is Expose. If you're going to have a lot of windows open at the same time, at some point you're going to need to find them again... quickly.
Another point is that with the hideable dock and applications, Expose, Dashboard, and so on, the interface on a Mac tends to stay out of the way until it's needed, resulting in a cleaner look and less clutter, even though I rarely have fewer than seven or eight applications running at once.
Be interesting to see what impact Spaces has on this.
So? Where was the TCP/IP network interface on that 1978 Apple ][? No, wait, it didn't have one, did it? Hard disk and file management systems? 802.11? CD/DVD drive? Graphics co-processor drawing routines? Built-in video playback? MP3 audio support? Bluetooth? USB? Firewire? Window and dialog management? Event management? User accont management? HTML rendering? Security and firewalls? Printer drivers? Power management?
Didn't have any of them, did it? More to the point, would you or any other user buy a comupter and OS today that DIDN'T provide those things?
Hardware has gotten just a little more complex than the days when you could change the screen by poking a memory location, and we tend to do just a LITTLE more with those systems than run Visicalc and Lemonade Stand.
Further, the number and complexity of the APIs has bloomed, and yes, most people only use a core set of them... because they usually don't need the others. How often does your desktop application dive deep into the power management APIs? Never? And unless you're doing video editing, how deep into QuickTime do you really need to go, other than "play movie"?
Yes, computers today are complex. RTFM(s) and deal with it. You're supposed to be a professional, after all...
Your "control" is an illusion, and the potential to lose your data is just as real. In fact, a service org probably has RAIDed drives and automated and offsite backup systems superior to what most people are doing on thier own... if they're doing it at all.
In your case you may "think" you're in control, when in fact your last backup copied over the same corrupted data, your archive DVD is now unreadable, and your last full offsite backup is two months old.
"There are only a handful of rendering engines... IE. Gecko. Webkit. Opera. iCal"
I assume you mean "modern" engines, because you're missing things like the pre-gecko Netscape engines. Or the fact that the Mac version of IE was totally different from the PC version.
"... even Opera's lousy little 1.5% or whatever it is ends up being *millions* of users."
Yeah, but what percentage of them are coming to your local transportation information website? Take your hyperbolic "whole world" down to your actually market and demographic, and you'll probably find that those "millions" of users may only equate to a dozen or so. So do you pay your developers to "fix" the site for Opera, and then pay a dozen other people to regression test it to make sure your Opera fix didn't bust Safari?
Or do you go on as best you can because you're behind schedule and over-budget anyway?
Sorry Charlie, but in the real world there are always tradeoffs...
"The sad part is that there is no point in bitching about it."
If you disagree then make your point and back it up with facts (if you can). Then accept the final decision and do your absolute best to implement it. That's called being a professional.
Ditto. Or to put it another way, "standards" are what the market says they are. People buy and use your products because they work. Support some "standard" to the extent that your product no longer works in the marketplace, and you're screwed.
"Now think that the linux/bsd markets have near zero competition for anyone who sells to them."
;)
Too bad those markets are allergic to paying for software. Against their religion or something...
"Find a way to make it work in all of them, and be standards-compliant."
Non-sequitur. For most advanced sites that use drop-downs, panels, and so on, you CAN'T make it work on ALL of them (IE3?, NS4?), and to force them to work across the board on as many as possible you have to cheat and use browser hacks that are most definitely not standards-compliant.
Hell, you can't even specify the width of a padded DIV without a hack...
"We may see the Chinese embrace open source..."
;)
Why the heck do people always have to "embrace" open source? Why can't they just use it? What kind of sick love-fest are you guys running here?
"Their core principle is that people should be free to use their computers without any artificial software-induced restrictions. "
Oh PLEASE. I cringe every time I see this. There are literally millions of lines of code in the bios, kernel, drivers, firmware, and OS-based managers, and that's not counting what's in the tools, utilities and applications they use.
99.9% of the people out there can not code at the application or system or driver level, so they're stuck with whatever choices other developers have made. Even if you're one of the few, there are millions of lines of code running on your box that you'll never see, and have no clue as to what they're really doing.
To put it bluntly, any control you think you have is an illusion.
Of course, now you'll trot out the "pay someone to fix it" line, and it's true you could... if you don't want your personal changes zapped by the next release or bug fix or security update.
You "may" be able to get you change rolled up into the core... if the current czar likes it. You could make your own fork... and lose out on all of the improvements and patches all those other people are making to the other version.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of people will always be faced with "restrictions."
I like how you compare spending $1,800 on one side vs. spending, what, $6,000 on the other. No wonder you're "losing" five grand. Now run the numbers on renting $1,800 a month vs. an $1,800 a month house/insurance payment...
"Reconfiguring the imaging of a system has pretty much no cost... Offering the image separately..."
As to "no cost", the point I made is that the "image' is on a $1,000 SKU which DOES have a cost, and gets us into inventory issues.
Speaking of which, does Best Buy want to manage a bunch of "image" disks? How do they make sure they have enough disks of the right type? Are they for the right computers? What happens when HP wants to ship a new computer and none of the old disks have the right drivers? What support issues go up when the image disk or user has problems?
Does the user want to plug his computer in and start using it, or spend a hour setting it up and configuring it?
Sorry Charlie, but there are PLENTY of costs involved in giving less than 1% of their probable market a "choice".
"It makes no sense for HP to refuse to offer PCs without Windows when there are customers who want them that way."
Yeah? How many?
I think this is the assumption your argument lies upon, and to my mind it's rather key, because it DOES make sense for HP to refuse to offer PCs without Windows if they perceive that there's not a significant market for them.
People act like all they need to do is put a different image on the hard drive, when in fact that when they do so they're creating a box with an entirely different SKU that needs to be managed, stocked, shipped, and so on. And what retailers are going to order it? How many people are going to walk into Best Buy or Circuit City and ask to buy a non-functional computer?
1 in 100? 1 in 1,000? Maybe 1 in 10,000? How much "unwanted" inventory that doesn't turn around are the retailers going to stock? How long should they sit on it in the hope that some Linux geek is going to walk in and want to buy a "plain" computer? How many OSes and how much software are they going to stock for it?
Given the rather dismal penetration of Linux in the home market, I'd say that the demand simply isn't there. I don't know ANYONE who's running Linux as a home system who: A) isn't an IT geek; or B) didn't have it setup for them BY an IT geek who convinced them it was "better".
Given the above, it makes not sense whatsoever for Best Buy to have a bunch of $1,000 boxes sitting around that no one wants, and as such, it makes no sense whatsoever for HP to sell them.
"... would be a total prohibition on bundling software with a computer system."
I guess my phone, iPod, DVD player, TV, XBox, and microwave all need to ship without software now? I mean, they're all essentially computers...
"The world will be a much better place when 73% of companies take the mitigating control of dumping Windoze."
At which point they'll REALLY focus on Linux where (better yet) they have the source...
Go to the Finder and do a Command-Shift-G. Type /etc and hit return.
/etc-type stuff there, as those files are read-only to "normal" users.
For this to be really effective, however, you need to enable the root account and do all of your
So? All user data, including preferences, is in your Home (~) folder. Backup your home folder and you've backed up pretty much everything that's yours...
"Linux kernel developers have in the past made conscious decisions to not support old code, in the interests of cleanliness of implementation."
Yeah, like I want all my applications broken because some geek thinks he can save 50 lines of code and shave 20-microseconds off a kernel function call...
"FWIW, I think the cells will make more sense on the roofs of low-rise "flex office space" initially."
Not to mention that most businesses are open, and as such, need power, during the daylight hours...
"That would be cool, as long as you don't need special paper or ink."
You can only use genuine Epson ink, at $500 a milliliter...
"Our justice system might work better if it stopped arresting MOST people."
I disagree. People need to learn responsibility, and to recognize that actions have consequences. What those consequences should be, however, is another topic of discussion...