Agree that Linux needs an "Linux and OSS industry marketing firm". Everybody else has one. I thought the ODSL was supposed to be it, but apparently not.
See my post below. I volunteer to be "Linux Minister of Information."
Who cares how many distros there are? By definition, all these people producing them are not going to all work on one or even a dozen distros.
Is Red Hat or Novell going to hire another five hundred guys to produce a distro? Many of these guys aren't even developers in the sense the kernel maintainers are. They can put together the packages making up a distro but they don't DESIGN or code them in many cases.
Most of the distros differ only in what packages are included, and perhaps which desktops are included or how the desktops defaults are tweaked. This is totally irrelevant to which distro someone might want to use in a corporate setting although it might be confusing for a home user looking to switch.
Now, if you're talking about the fact that there are six or eight MAIN distros (RH, Novell, Mandriva, Sun, Debian, Ubuntu, Xandros, Lycoris, and Linspire, depending on how you count), what are you implying? That all these companies and organizations should unite? Even less likely to happen than that the community will unite as a whole.
For corporations, only the big three (Red Hat, Sun and Novell) are considered serious because they have (reasonably) large corporate support behind them. None of these corporations are going to unite behind one version.
The only thing preventing Linux from swamping the desktop is the number of enterprise applications available, the number of developers willing to work on enterprise-level applications, the number of VARS able to handle large-scale migrations in large corporations, and the number of VARS total able to handle the scores of thousands of small businesses. And this is only going to change slowly as more and more people pick up on Linux and get more experience.
It has NOTHING to do with installability, or usability on the desktop, or hardware support, or the number of mildly varying distros. It's strictly an economic and manpower issue which will sort itself out over the next ten years. How long did it take to get scores or hundreds of thousands of Java developers to come into existence? And that was a language controlled by one company.
If you want Linux on the desktop, hang your shingle out and start Linux consulting to the businesses in your locality or industry. This will also prove one can make money from OSS.
Where there could be some "consolidation" to assist this would be in some "consolidated marketing" that presents a more united front against the inertia of corporations (the biggest obstacle) and the FUD coming from Microsoft and its paid flacks in the "research" and trade media industry. And here the big Linux distros need to be more proactive and more vocal and visible.
We need a "Linux Press Office." Or maybe a "Linux Minister of Information." If the Big Three would pay me a half-decent wage, I humbly volunteer. Back in the late '80's, I was up for the job of spokesman for Atari on BIX, CompuServe, etc. and ran the Atari conference on the WELL. Didn't work out (just as well since Atari went down the tubes shortly after), but if I spent ten or fourteen hours a day coordinating the media response from the various Linux companies and organizations to the latest Microsoft FUD or industry nonsense, I could do some good. Somebody needs to do it. If the RIAA can have industry spokesmen like Hilary Rosen used to be, the Linux movement needs one as well. So far I can think of only a couple people doing some of it, and they're not a DAILY presence in the media. They get quoted in various articles, but the response is diffuse.
Hire me, guys. I'll ream Steve Ballmer and Rob Enderle and Laura DiDio in the ass the next time they open their mouths. (I might even enjoy it with Laura.)
That's happened. I remember many years ago hearing about a "get tough" police chief who advocated the death penalty who ended up shooting his wife or something and getting executed. Don't quote me, it was back in the 1970's I heard this and no telling when it actually happened. I'm sure there have been other cases, though.
I doubt most end users are, so it's unlikely they could use that as a defense. In any event, even if they did, they'd have to produce the machine to prove it.
Not to insult the kid who is probably very smart (well, as smart as you need to be to be an MCSE), but we just had a discussion about Microsoft hiring practices here, in which I stated they just want clever puzzle solvers with no real world experience.
And here we go - we have an MCSE with a whole nine years of experience.
If this doesn't symbolize the entire Microsoft culture AND the MS shills and trolls here at/., I don't know what does.
Adding this sort of stupidity to the OS GUARANTEES it's going to be a nearly useless bloated insecure unreliable POS.
As if we didn't already know that based on how many features previously promised have had to be REMOVED from the specs.
Oh, wait, my XP Pro just said it has "recovered from a serious error" and wants to send a message to Bill - without telling me what the error was of course. Unless you think:
"What percentage of engineering decisions are made by "Pointy Haired Bosses" instead of programmers with real experience?"
As we discussed recently here, Microsoft doesn't hire programmers with "real experience". They hire clever greedy problem-solvers who are good at word puzzles.
Like Bill, security is the last thing on their minds.
Obviously has never used Linux to do the things he says can't be done there.
The only comment that is even partially correct is that most game companies are publishing primarily for Windows. Mostly because they're too stupid to realize that the same geeks and early adoptors that use Linux are usually game nutcases as well (I'm not)...which means they're ignoring twenty-five million new game sales.
Natalie looked great in III. The outfits maybe weren't as hot as II, and her role seemed to be mostly standing around waiting for Anakin to turn up and crying, so perhaps that's where your problem lies.
Natalie's not the hottest girl in Hollywood, anyway. She's very pretty, but she's not particularly "hot" in the sense that, say, Andrea Corr is hot. Not that I wouldn't do Natalie in an instant.
"At the end of the day, the user DRM is meant to defend against is the most unsophisticated and least capable among us."
Exactly! And these are EXACTLY the people who go and buy the legal stuff ANYWAY!
Which makes DRM just a way to raise costs on the product to justify a higher price tag ("See! Those pirates forced us to triple our profit margin!") It's like the oil companies - "Oh, woe is us! There's no oil left! We have to triple our profits this year!"
Makes you wonder if the RIAA is the one doing all the P2P downloading - just to create a justification for raising prices!
Nobody buys product because it's got DRM. Unless it gets in their way, nobody even notices DRM. So saying anybody is "prevented" from downloading free stuff because of DRM is nonsense. Most people buy stuff because of impulse purchases or because they don't know about or know where to find the free stuff.
That will change as broadband becomes ubiquitous and the industries move to online purchases of product. Once people make a habit of searching for product on the Net, they'll suddenly start seeing the free stuff.
Nobody is stopped from downloading free stuff once it's cracked either. You're assuming people have to download cracks, etc., which simply isn't true. Once the DRM is cracked, the product looks exactly the same as when it wasn't, and anybody who knows enough to do a download at all can get it with no hassles.
All it does is raise the cost of the product to those people who do buy it.
However, the basic point is correct - some people will NEVER bother to get free stuff, either because they're dumb or they actually prefer to get it from the people who make it for quality or other reasons. Whether those people will make a product profitable enough is another issue.
I myself have taken a long time to move completely to Linux for the same reason. That doesn't change the fact that I'd be better off getting off my butt and doing so.
It DOES take a while to get into the habit of using Linux (especially if your default dual boot is still Windows), but every time I get pissed off at some stupid Windows pet trick, I get a lot closer to dumping it totally.
Unfortunately, since I do freelance tech support, I can't afford to just yet - even though I have two machines, one is too old to run Windows XP ( I run Windows 98 and RH 7.0 on it - the newer RHs won't even install on it), so I have to continue to dual boot. When I get a newer machine than my dual boot machine, I expect to put XP on my current machine and use the new one Linux only. Maybe some months yet, unfortunately.
The average person doesn't have a bunch of Word templates (maybe the average OFFICE user does, but I doubt even that.) In any event, re-adding a template (or even ten) is a one-time minor task.
Mail history is easy - there are tools to convert most mailbox formats to mbox and from there it's trivial. Granted, someone needs to know about them - it would be nice if such a tool was prominently available when a user installs Linux.
I believe there are now tools to migrate much of Windows to Linux such as the OpenMoveOver Project.
Slashdot Mirror
Agree that Linux needs an "Linux and OSS industry marketing firm". Everybody else has one. I thought the ODSL was supposed to be it, but apparently not.
See my post below. I volunteer to be "Linux Minister of Information."
Who cares how many distros there are? By definition, all these people producing them are not going to all work on one or even a dozen distros.
Is Red Hat or Novell going to hire another five hundred guys to produce a distro? Many of these guys aren't even developers in the sense the kernel maintainers are. They can put together the packages making up a distro but they don't DESIGN or code them in many cases.
Most of the distros differ only in what packages are included, and perhaps which desktops are included or how the desktops defaults are tweaked. This is totally irrelevant to which distro someone might want to use in a corporate setting although it might be confusing for a home user looking to switch.
Now, if you're talking about the fact that there are six or eight MAIN distros (RH, Novell, Mandriva, Sun, Debian, Ubuntu, Xandros, Lycoris, and Linspire, depending on how you count), what are you implying? That all these companies and organizations should unite? Even less likely to happen than that the community will unite as a whole.
For corporations, only the big three (Red Hat, Sun and Novell) are considered serious because they have (reasonably) large corporate support behind them. None of these corporations are going to unite behind one version.
The only thing preventing Linux from swamping the desktop is the number of enterprise applications available, the number of developers willing to work on enterprise-level applications, the number of VARS able to handle large-scale migrations in large corporations, and the number of VARS total able to handle the scores of thousands of small businesses. And this is only going to change slowly as more and more people pick up on Linux and get more experience.
It has NOTHING to do with installability, or usability on the desktop, or hardware support, or the number of mildly varying distros. It's strictly an economic and manpower issue which will sort itself out over the next ten years. How long did it take to get scores or hundreds of thousands of Java developers to come into existence? And that was a language controlled by one company.
If you want Linux on the desktop, hang your shingle out and start Linux consulting to the businesses in your locality or industry. This will also prove one can make money from OSS.
Where there could be some "consolidation" to assist this would be in some "consolidated marketing" that presents a more united front against the inertia of corporations (the biggest obstacle) and the FUD coming from Microsoft and its paid flacks in the "research" and trade media industry. And here the big Linux distros need to be more proactive and more vocal and visible.
We need a "Linux Press Office." Or maybe a "Linux Minister of Information." If the Big Three would pay me a half-decent wage, I humbly volunteer. Back in the late '80's, I was up for the job of spokesman for Atari on BIX, CompuServe, etc. and ran the Atari conference on the WELL. Didn't work out (just as well since Atari went down the tubes shortly after), but if I spent ten or fourteen hours a day coordinating the media response from the various Linux companies and organizations to the latest Microsoft FUD or industry nonsense, I could do some good. Somebody needs to do it. If the RIAA can have industry spokesmen like Hilary Rosen used to be, the Linux movement needs one as well. So far I can think of only a couple people doing some of it, and they're not a DAILY presence in the media. They get quoted in various articles, but the response is diffuse.
Hire me, guys. I'll ream Steve Ballmer and Rob Enderle and Laura DiDio in the ass the next time they open their mouths. (I might even enjoy it with Laura.)
That's happened. I remember many years ago hearing about a "get tough" police chief who advocated the death penalty who ended up shooting his wife or something and getting executed. Don't quote me, it was back in the 1970's I heard this and no telling when it actually happened. I'm sure there have been other cases, though.
I'm aware of that.
I doubt most end users are, so it's unlikely they could use that as a defense. In any event, even if they did, they'd have to produce the machine to prove it.
I'm laughing too hard.
Not to insult the kid who is probably very smart (well, as smart as you need to be to be an MCSE), but we just had a discussion about Microsoft hiring practices here, in which I stated they just want clever puzzle solvers with no real world experience.
And here we go - we have an MCSE with a whole nine years of experience.
If this doesn't symbolize the entire Microsoft culture AND the MS shills and trolls here at
Adding this sort of stupidity to the OS GUARANTEES it's going to be a nearly useless bloated insecure unreliable POS.
As if we didn't already know that based on how many features previously promised have had to be REMOVED from the specs.
Oh, wait, my XP Pro just said it has "recovered from a serious error" and wants to send a message to Bill - without telling me what the error was of course. Unless you think:
Error code 000000ea, parameter1 8197b138, parameter2 82134b38, parameter3 822f00e8, parameter4 00000001.
actually means something to somebody.
It said:
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
So I did.
Got "Page cannot be displayed."
Thanks, Bill, real helpful.
Meanwhile you're gonna make sure I can't see a copied DVD I made for a backup, right? Gee, I'm so looking forward to Longhorn.
Mod: -5, Bush troll.
Additional Mod: -3 Probably Microsoft troll.
They looked.
They found nothing.
Nothing to see here except more lies. Move along.
Yeah, but he's got the right attitude!
I think you're referring to Bono, not Andrea.
Andrea certainly isn't ANY of that (well, she is rather forgetful to the point Jim refers to her as "Danger Dizzy.")
"Most users with DSL or cable service have firewalls."
Bullshit.
"People that still use dial-up connections can have problems, but this is becoming less important every day."
Yeah, right, in the time it takes them to connect via dialup, they get infected over that 28.8Kbps connection.
Your crack is sub-optimal. Get a better dealer, Windows troll.
Percentage of Linux users with a clue: 98%
Percentage of Windows users with a clue: 0%
Percentage of
Percentage of
Now go stuff your own dick up your ass, Windows troll.
"What percentage of engineering decisions are made by "Pointy Haired Bosses" instead of programmers with real experience?"
As we discussed recently here, Microsoft doesn't hire programmers with "real experience". They hire clever greedy problem-solvers who are good at word puzzles.
Like Bill, security is the last thing on their minds.
Windows troll.
Obviously has never used Linux to do the things he says can't be done there.
The only comment that is even partially correct is that most game companies are publishing primarily for Windows. Mostly because they're too stupid to realize that the same geeks and early adoptors that use Linux are usually game nutcases as well (I'm not)...which means they're ignoring twenty-five million new game sales.
There are two issues here.
1) The OS needs to have at least several levels of security and needs to enforce them itself.
2) If 1) is true, the end user needs only to be informed about committing actions against which the OS can NOT (with existing technology) defend.
3) If 1) is NOT true, the end user needs to know a LOT more about defending the system by their actions.
Linux does this reasonably well given the level of technololgy. Windows doesn't.
If you do Scientology, you ain't "cool" - you're a freakin' nutcase or a con man - or both, like Hubbard was.
Natalie looked great in III. The outfits maybe weren't as hot as II, and her role seemed to be mostly standing around waiting for Anakin to turn up and crying, so perhaps that's where your problem lies.
Natalie's not the hottest girl in Hollywood, anyway. She's very pretty, but she's not particularly "hot" in the sense that, say, Andrea Corr is hot. Not that I wouldn't do Natalie in an instant.
"At the end of the day, the user DRM is meant to defend against is the most unsophisticated and least capable among us."
Exactly! And these are EXACTLY the people who go and buy the legal stuff ANYWAY!
Which makes DRM just a way to raise costs on the product to justify a higher price tag ("See! Those pirates forced us to triple our profit margin!") It's like the oil companies - "Oh, woe is us! There's no oil left! We have to triple our profits this year!"
Makes you wonder if the RIAA is the one doing all the P2P downloading - just to create a justification for raising prices!
DRM does NOT work.
Nobody buys product because it's got DRM. Unless it gets in their way, nobody even notices DRM. So saying anybody is "prevented" from downloading free stuff because of DRM is nonsense. Most people buy stuff because of impulse purchases or because they don't know about or know where to find the free stuff.
That will change as broadband becomes ubiquitous and the industries move to online purchases of product. Once people make a habit of searching for product on the Net, they'll suddenly start seeing the free stuff.
Nobody is stopped from downloading free stuff once it's cracked either. You're assuming people have to download cracks, etc., which simply isn't true. Once the DRM is cracked, the product looks exactly the same as when it wasn't, and anybody who knows enough to do a download at all can get it with no hassles.
All it does is raise the cost of the product to those people who do buy it.
However, the basic point is correct - some people will NEVER bother to get free stuff, either because they're dumb or they actually prefer to get it from the people who make it for quality or other reasons. Whether those people will make a product profitable enough is another issue.
I've read it. Very cool stuff in there about future tech.
The cat is the coolest character. A real Transhuman!
I myself have taken a long time to move completely to Linux for the same reason. That doesn't change the fact that I'd be better off getting off my butt and doing so.
It DOES take a while to get into the habit of using Linux (especially if your default dual boot is still Windows), but every time I get pissed off at some stupid Windows pet trick, I get a lot closer to dumping it totally.
Unfortunately, since I do freelance tech support, I can't afford to just yet - even though I have two machines, one is too old to run Windows XP ( I run Windows 98 and RH 7.0 on it - the newer RHs won't even install on it), so I have to continue to dual boot. When I get a newer machine than my dual boot machine, I expect to put XP on my current machine and use the new one Linux only. Maybe some months yet, unfortunately.
The average person doesn't have a bunch of Word templates (maybe the average OFFICE user does, but I doubt even that.) In any event, re-adding a template (or even ten) is a one-time minor task. Mail history is easy - there are tools to convert most mailbox formats to mbox and from there it's trivial. Granted, someone needs to know about them - it would be nice if such a tool was prominently available when a user installs Linux. I believe there are now tools to migrate much of Windows to Linux such as the OpenMoveOver Project.
1) dn: uid=anonymous, ou=linux, o=slashdot.org
2) changetype: add
3) slashComment: First Post!
4) slashModLevel: +5 Funny
5) ???
6) Profit!!!
"NOTE: Since Slashdot Crashed our Server :o) , we have reduced the queries from 500 to 100 MAX."
After all, Sturgeon's Law already states that 90% of EVERYTHING is crap.
With inflation, this has been raised to 98%. I hold out for 99% myself.
So this study is at least 65% wrong if it claims 33% of studies are wrong.