"Am I really the only one who thinks it's ridiculous to pay intuit $30 to send my return electronically..."
I did my taxes myself, and got a bottom line in which I owed the IRS a couple hundred dollars. I then did my taxes through Intuit's web site (I run Linux) and got a refund of $600. The same thing happened on my state return. Giving Intuit a few bucks seemed a rather petty expense compared to the benefits received.
Yeah, there are more games for the 360. Yeah, the 360 and the PS3 have better graphics. But you know what? To the average real-world person, those don't matter. Price, "cute" and "simple" matter. That is exactly right. When the Wii's were first released, two of my coworkers were each able to track one down. One of those coworkers brought the system to work the next day, and the entire department spent half the day playing Wii Sports. He promised to bring it in the next day, too. Coincidentally, I was maxed out on vacation time and had to take a day off. I spent my vacation day at work playing Wii Sports again.
The main difference between the Wii and the other consoles is that the Wii is easy fun and not work. Most console games are more work than play, which is probably why they appeal to a relatively small part of the population. Consider that the Wii has a VERY intuitive controller that allows people to become comfortable with the basic game controls in mere seconds rather than several hours of wrist-crunching button combinations, and it's self-evident why the Wii's are in such high demand that Nintendo can't produce them fast enough.
"And don't forget -- gotta navigate all 4 pages for maximum impressions!"
You hit on one of my pet peeves -- web sites that break a single article into multiple pages. I rarely go beyond the first page, and I only read the first page of this self-serving article. If I knew ahead of time that this was one of those articles, I would have skipped it entirely. Maybe a [WARNING: multiple pages] heads-up is warranted on future Slashdot postings.
"If he'd lived in the US and hacked into UK government computers, do you think there'd be any chance at all of him being extradited? No, it would be ruled unconstitutional."
In this case, it's almost guaranteed that he would be extradited if the British government requested it. He confessed to the crime, so the probably cause hurdle would be met automatically.
"...if someone offends your sense of social stratification, you manufacture evidence and fry him."
In this case, there was no manufactured evidence. Gary admitted the crimes, but tried to justify them with the age old crap of "curiosity". Curiosity with disregard for others is a pale excuse even for a minor, and no excuse for a grown adult like Gary. He didn't click a link on a web site thinking it was going to take him to Slashdot, only to be tricked into breaking into NASA's (and other government agencies') computers. He intentionally broke into their computers, knowing full well that it was illegal in both the U.S. and Britain, and weak security does not excuse that. He is guilty, and he has admitted that.
That said, the penalties in the U.S. for intentional unauthorized access where no damage was done are ridiculously harsh. At his age, the proposed punishment is a life sentence for relatively minor law violations. While I think extradition would otherwise be reasonable is this case, I also think the statements made by the New Jersey prosecutor indicate an absurdity of justice which are enough in my mind to allow him to be punished at home. Perhaps something along the lines of 180 days in the local jail and a few tens of thousands of pounds in fines -- enough to hurt and discourage him, but not so much as to ruin his life.
He also argues that putting the onus of spotting infringement onto the content providers represents an undue burden on them. Yet this is exactly what the DMCA (the law purchased by the MPAA) says must happen. Content providers are responsible for notifying web sites of infringement, and then proceeding from there.
"Grokster, if you recall, was explicit about saying that the company was guilty of contributory infringement only because they *encouraged unauthorized copying. The argument that "they benefited" from this copying was insufficient to that holding. Now here's the argument again..."
I think you misinterpreted the decision. The ruling said that the plaintiffs didn't need to show that the defendants benefited from unauthorized copying by 3rd parties because the defendant's software's primary purpose was to encourage that unauthorized copying. The latter was sufficient to show liability for 3rd-party copyright infringement.
That being said, it's quite a stretch to apply that reasoning to YouTube. In fact, that ruling works in YouTube's favor as YouTube is marketed for the purpose of sharing user-created content. That it is being used (even substantially) for 3rd party copyright infringement is not solely the issue to determine if YouTube is liable for its user's actions. In the Sony case, the Justices noted that VCRs were largely used for 3rd party copyright infringement, but were still protected because they had substantial non-infringing uses. Since YouTube is complying with the DMCA by providing a means for copyright holders to mark their content for removal (and the DMCA requires copyright holders to shoulder the responsibility for finding and marking infringing materials), and assuming that YouTube removes the infringing content upon notification, then I think YouTube will readily prevail.
In the Grokster decision, Justice Breyer noted that the Court cannot possibly decide whether a technology has future non-infringing uses when even professionals in the field cannot agree. As such, it strongly implies that if a reasonable argument can be made for probable substantial non-infringing uses, then it's better to err on the side of the new technology than to decide against it and stifle future commerce.
Grokster is little more than a footnote regarding YouTube, and seems to have very little applicability to it.
"what's to stop someone lying to Dell and getting 77 bucks"
Dell: Hi, this is Dell technical support. How may I help you?" Customer: Uh, I want a refund for Vista since I'm not using it. Dell: Okay, I just need you to answer one randomly selected question. What does "ls -l" do? Customer: It displays a long directory listing. Dell: Your refund check is on the way.
The article says the referendum was not intended to change any laws. If that is true, and if the wording on the ballot indicated that it was a non-binding referendum, then the county prosecutor was right: you did not understand the initiative. If the ballot indicated that the referendum was binding, then the county commissioners are guilty of election fraud.
I suspect the former.
It is almost always a waste of time to vote on a non-binding resolution (as you discovered). It is not a waste of time to vote on a binding change in the law.
Thank you, Plato, for that enlightening discourse.
Even though I liked the videos, I think Novell totally dropped the ball by failing to be at all original. The girl's really cute, but I hope these videos never air anywhere. Parodying a competitor's commercials in Novell's own commercials is a very bad choice, and reflects poorly on Novell.
Computer operating systems must have certain similarities as demanded by market forces. That is why the three major operating systems look so similar on the front end: market forces demand it. Commercial marketing, on the other hand, has no such constraints. In fact, marketing abhors imitation. So Novell, don't be a marketing copycat.
I liked the "Geek My Sled" videos, though they took way too long to get to the point. Of course, none of those videos are meant to air on TV, but rather are meant to spread through the Internet.
Someone in another thread mentioned that Novell should hire professional marketers instead of doing the spots themselves. Even assuming that Novell did the videos in-house (unlikely), professional marketers miss more than they hit. Remember IBM's abstract Linux commercials several years ago? Those were truly painful to watch, as they were trying to shove Linux into a market it wasn't nearly ready to enter (the average consumer desktop).
Kubuntu 6.10 is very nearly ready for a mass market, but it still has a couple show stopping problems. The biggest one (and all Linux distributions have this problem. Fix it for one, and it's fixed for all) is that sound is not properly mixed at the kernel level. Unless your audio hardware has multiple dedicated audio channels (like the Sound Blaster Live!), only one application at a time can use/dev/dsp. Run KDE, and non-KDE media applications are silent (and vice-versa).
No good answer can be given that doesn't begin with: it depends on the area in which you live. There are no large companies where I live, so employers need people with a wide variety of computer skills. Someone who only wants to be an Oracle DBA won't find a lot of opportunities here. Someone with average Oracle experience who is also decent with some 3 out of 4 combination of C#, C++, PHP, and Linux administration could easily find a job here (we're looking to hire someone like this right now).
Your mileage will vary in other locales. You're asking a very vague question with a wide variety of good answers.
"They finally get a serial abuser of the DMCA to apologize, and it's just some guy with a nudie picture that he didn't want people to see?"
It wasn't even a nude shot, or anything anyone would think twice about. It was a picture of him appearing on Fox News in a suit and tie. All jokes aside, the picture shows nothing embarassing. The only thing that's embarassing about is the supreme lack of intelligence he showed in trying to get it removed. That broadcast to the world how rabidly insecure he is.
While perhaps the ISP's have "invisible" quota, the people being affected by this are downloading truly pathological amounts: enough to fill modern hard drivers SEVERAL times over in a month.
I think that is completely irrelevent. The ISP advertised a service for x megabits per second, and sold a subscription knowing full well that the customer reasonably thought he is getting a continuous x megabits per second. The customer should be able to use that service at the advertised rate. Period. The customer should be able to keep his connection pegged at that rate 24/7 if he wants to. If the ISP cannot deliver on their advertisements, then they shouldn't advertise or sell service at that rate.
On a different note (replying to a different posting), a high usage limit is not unlimited usage. Unlimited usage allows the connection to be run at the full transfer rate listed in the subscription contract for the duration of the subscription. Anything less (barring normal ebb and flow of network traffic) is a limit.
"if flip3d is only an application switcher then what's the point of being able to scroll through the open windows?"
The 3D cube represents virtual desktops, not applications, and is not a mere application switcher (which is shown separately in that demo video). A virtual desktop can have an arbitrary number of applications running on it. Having multiple virtual desktops is a useful way of organizing running applications. Showing the entire working environment on a rotating 3D cube is clean and appealing. It's a step up from the traditional 2D representation of virtual desktops.
"Reporting security holes on bugzilla get them marked DUPE/WONTFIX/NOTABUG and ignored for 5+ years. Publishing detailed explanations of the exploits on your blog gets them fixed within a few weeks."
Unfortunately, that seems to be the case frequently in other areas as well. I recently asked a question on a development mailing list (which shall remain anonymous) on how to accomplish alpha blending within the published API, and got nothing but silence for over a week. I then asked a similar question, but ranted on about how incompetent the API developers had been. I had half a dozen answers within the hour. They were ranting back at me, but they were answering my question.
All too often, politeness doesn't get the job done. Too many people seem to be moved to cooperate only when they are presented with anger and stress.
"Consumers won't just accept that they can't install software X because it's an RPM and alien doesn't work (this is of course after looking online for half an hour to figure out that alien is the tool to use)."
Agreed. Multiple package formats are a non-starter, and shouldn't even be a consideration. The LSB has standardized on a subset of RPM, and that should be the universal package format. The Debian-based distros are harming the package standardization processes, and should learn to play with the other children. Debian's strength is not in the.deb package format, but in the package management tools. Those same tools will still be available upon switching the the LSB RPM format, so I don't see Debian's hangup about cooperating with the LSB.
"The first time grandma needs to go download dependencies means Linux has failed on the consumer desktop."
On which planet is this mythical grandma that downloads her own software? I've never seen one. Not on Linux, and not on Windows. Grandma gets her son or grandson to install all of her software for her. That, however, does not invalidate your premise. Software installation needs to be simple as: click on package, enter password to authorize installation, use newly installed software.
Microsoft does NOT have a single, standardized installation method. There's setup.exe, *.msi, and the ever-enjoyable add/remove programs. The latter has multiple user requirements that depend on the type of software being installed. USB device drivers are particularly painful to install because you have to plug in the device at the precisely correct moment in the install process or the device just won't work.
"We don't have a mission from God to spread and conquer. It seems a little strange how atheists are very keen to strike down the pointless values of religion, yet still believe in many aspects which have no basis."
What atheists ever promoted the expansion of human knowledge as a mission from any supernatural force of any of the countless pointless religions? The desire to explore space is the result of a deep seated desire for knowledge about the universe in which we live. Given the immense size of the universe (the bounds of which, if any, are seemingly undefinable), colonizing other planets is an early necessity.
"But I mean [dumb terminals] for general office use."
Most of the departments where I work use text-based dumb terminals for most operations. They are actually full PCs with telnet interfaces, but they are essentially dumb terminals. The main reasons we didn't use X-Window terminals were:
1) The bandwidth at the time was limited, and full GUI interfaces saturated our network. With everything now being gigabit fiber, this wouldn't be an issue anymore.
2) Most of our programmers at the time knew nothing about GUI programming. This is still a problem, as all the primary systems are still text based and maintained by those same programmers. The apps are slowly being replaced, but management has allowed some of those apps to be written without consideration for remote execution (C# and C++ Builder, with the latter thankfully being abandoned).
3) Even now, only two of us have any experience with any X-Window toolkits, and only one of us (me) has any extensive experience (Qt). Fortunately for me, I am able to write all my desktop apps with Qt, and I keep remote execution in mind when designing my apps.
4) The cost of X-Window server licenses.
All this took place before I arrived and started introducing Free Software. There is now nothing technical holding us back from basing all our operations on Linux X-Window terminals for most departments, and doing so would be a very smart move. The only obstacle at this point (that I can think of) is scanner support. We are imaging all of our historical documents, and SANE does not support the high volume scanners we use.
"Technically both HP-UX and Solaris are derivatives of code that SCO somewhat controls."
Both IBM and SUN bought out their royalty obligations years ago, and neither owes royalties to anyone. SCO has no control over either (even if we accept SCO's fantasy-land theory that it bought UNIX).
"How important do you think 'self-made' software will be in the future?"
About as important as it's been up until now. The vast majority of people who have to use computers are totally incapable of using them beyond launching applications with them. In an era where people have to be trained on specific keypresses and mouse clicks for specific applications, there is exactly zero chance of these people developing any kind of software, using any kind of environment, to solve any kind of business problem.
There is no way this will even remotely impact the role of professional software developers. None. Zero. Zilch.
I had to look up and see if the fabric of the universe was tearing, because this is one of the times that Microsoft is right. Whenever my workplace buys me a new laptop, the first thing I do is dual boot it with Fedora. I used to just repartition the drive, but all the OEM crapware has forced me to wipe it clean and reinstall everything from scratch.
Microsoft is right that OEMs make Windows look worse than it already is.
Slashdot Mirror
"Am I really the only one who thinks it's ridiculous to pay intuit $30 to send my return electronically..."
I did my taxes myself, and got a bottom line in which I owed the IRS a couple hundred dollars. I then did my taxes through Intuit's web site (I run Linux) and got a refund of $600. The same thing happened on my state return. Giving Intuit a few bucks seemed a rather petty expense compared to the benefits received.
The main difference between the Wii and the other consoles is that the Wii is easy fun and not work. Most console games are more work than play, which is probably why they appeal to a relatively small part of the population. Consider that the Wii has a VERY intuitive controller that allows people to become comfortable with the basic game controls in mere seconds rather than several hours of wrist-crunching button combinations, and it's self-evident why the Wii's are in such high demand that Nintendo can't produce them fast enough.
"And don't forget -- gotta navigate all 4 pages for maximum impressions!"
You hit on one of my pet peeves -- web sites that break a single article into multiple pages. I rarely go beyond the first page, and I only read the first page of this self-serving article. If I knew ahead of time that this was one of those articles, I would have skipped it entirely. Maybe a [WARNING: multiple pages] heads-up is warranted on future Slashdot postings.
If the Japanese candidate violates Japanese election laws, disqualify the candidate. Duh.
"If he'd lived in the US and hacked into UK government computers, do you think there'd be any chance at all of him being extradited? No, it would be ruled unconstitutional."
In this case, it's almost guaranteed that he would be extradited if the British government requested it. He confessed to the crime, so the probably cause hurdle would be met automatically.
"...if someone offends your sense of social stratification, you manufacture evidence and fry him."
In this case, there was no manufactured evidence. Gary admitted the crimes, but tried to justify them with the age old crap of "curiosity". Curiosity with disregard for others is a pale excuse even for a minor, and no excuse for a grown adult like Gary. He didn't click a link on a web site thinking it was going to take him to Slashdot, only to be tricked into breaking into NASA's (and other government agencies') computers. He intentionally broke into their computers, knowing full well that it was illegal in both the U.S. and Britain, and weak security does not excuse that. He is guilty, and he has admitted that.
That said, the penalties in the U.S. for intentional unauthorized access where no damage was done are ridiculously harsh. At his age, the proposed punishment is a life sentence for relatively minor law violations. While I think extradition would otherwise be reasonable is this case, I also think the statements made by the New Jersey prosecutor indicate an absurdity of justice which are enough in my mind to allow him to be punished at home. Perhaps something along the lines of 180 days in the local jail and a few tens of thousands of pounds in fines -- enough to hurt and discourage him, but not so much as to ruin his life.
He also argues that putting the onus of spotting infringement onto the content providers represents an undue burden on them. Yet this is exactly what the DMCA (the law purchased by the MPAA) says must happen. Content providers are responsible for notifying web sites of infringement, and then proceeding from there.
IANAL, yada, yada...
"Grokster, if you recall, was explicit about saying that the company was guilty of contributory infringement only because they *encouraged unauthorized copying. The argument that "they benefited" from this copying was insufficient to that holding. Now here's the argument again..."
I think you misinterpreted the decision. The ruling said that the plaintiffs didn't need to show that the defendants benefited from unauthorized copying by 3rd parties because the defendant's software's primary purpose was to encourage that unauthorized copying. The latter was sufficient to show liability for 3rd-party copyright infringement.
That being said, it's quite a stretch to apply that reasoning to YouTube. In fact, that ruling works in YouTube's favor as YouTube is marketed for the purpose of sharing user-created content. That it is being used (even substantially) for 3rd party copyright infringement is not solely the issue to determine if YouTube is liable for its user's actions. In the Sony case, the Justices noted that VCRs were largely used for 3rd party copyright infringement, but were still protected because they had substantial non-infringing uses. Since YouTube is complying with the DMCA by providing a means for copyright holders to mark their content for removal (and the DMCA requires copyright holders to shoulder the responsibility for finding and marking infringing materials), and assuming that YouTube removes the infringing content upon notification, then I think YouTube will readily prevail.
In the Grokster decision, Justice Breyer noted that the Court cannot possibly decide whether a technology has future non-infringing uses when even professionals in the field cannot agree. As such, it strongly implies that if a reasonable argument can be made for probable substantial non-infringing uses, then it's better to err on the side of the new technology than to decide against it and stifle future commerce.
Grokster is little more than a footnote regarding YouTube, and seems to have very little applicability to it.
"what's to stop someone lying to Dell and getting 77 bucks"
Dell: Hi, this is Dell technical support. How may I help you?"
Customer: Uh, I want a refund for Vista since I'm not using it.
Dell: Okay, I just need you to answer one randomly selected question. What does "ls -l" do?
Customer: It displays a long directory listing.
Dell: Your refund check is on the way.
"I thought that Linux with HIGHMEM4G could use up to 4 GiB RAM".
My work servers running RHEL3 and RHEL4 have 6GB of RAM, and all of it is reported (and presumably usable) by the system.
The article says the referendum was not intended to change any laws. If that is true, and if the wording on the ballot indicated that it was a non-binding referendum, then the county prosecutor was right: you did not understand the initiative. If the ballot indicated that the referendum was binding, then the county commissioners are guilty of election fraud.
I suspect the former.
It is almost always a waste of time to vote on a non-binding resolution (as you discovered). It is not a waste of time to vote on a binding change in the law.
"But those ads were just, um, well, stupid."
/dev/dsp. Run KDE, and non-KDE media applications are silent (and vice-versa).
Thank you, Plato, for that enlightening discourse.
Even though I liked the videos, I think Novell totally dropped the ball by failing to be at all original. The girl's really cute, but I hope these videos never air anywhere. Parodying a competitor's commercials in Novell's own commercials is a very bad choice, and reflects poorly on Novell.
Computer operating systems must have certain similarities as demanded by market forces. That is why the three major operating systems look so similar on the front end: market forces demand it. Commercial marketing, on the other hand, has no such constraints. In fact, marketing abhors imitation. So Novell, don't be a marketing copycat.
I liked the "Geek My Sled" videos, though they took way too long to get to the point. Of course, none of those videos are meant to air on TV, but rather are meant to spread through the Internet.
Someone in another thread mentioned that Novell should hire professional marketers instead of doing the spots themselves. Even assuming that Novell did the videos in-house (unlikely), professional marketers miss more than they hit. Remember IBM's abstract Linux commercials several years ago? Those were truly painful to watch, as they were trying to shove Linux into a market it wasn't nearly ready to enter (the average consumer desktop).
Kubuntu 6.10 is very nearly ready for a mass market, but it still has a couple show stopping problems. The biggest one (and all Linux distributions have this problem. Fix it for one, and it's fixed for all) is that sound is not properly mixed at the kernel level. Unless your audio hardware has multiple dedicated audio channels (like the Sound Blaster Live!), only one application at a time can use
No good answer can be given that doesn't begin with: it depends on the area in which you live. There are no large companies where I live, so employers need people with a wide variety of computer skills. Someone who only wants to be an Oracle DBA won't find a lot of opportunities here. Someone with average Oracle experience who is also decent with some 3 out of 4 combination of C#, C++, PHP, and Linux administration could easily find a job here (we're looking to hire someone like this right now).
Your mileage will vary in other locales. You're asking a very vague question with a wide variety of good answers.
"They finally get a serial abuser of the DMCA to apologize, and it's just some guy with a nudie picture that he didn't want people to see?"
It wasn't even a nude shot, or anything anyone would think twice about. It was a picture of him appearing on Fox News in a suit and tie. All jokes aside, the picture shows nothing embarassing. The only thing that's embarassing about is the supreme lack of intelligence he showed in trying to get it removed. That broadcast to the world how rabidly insecure he is.
While perhaps the ISP's have "invisible" quota, the people being affected by this are downloading truly pathological amounts: enough to fill modern hard drivers SEVERAL times over in a month.
I think that is completely irrelevent. The ISP advertised a service for x megabits per second, and sold a subscription knowing full well that the customer reasonably thought he is getting a continuous x megabits per second. The customer should be able to use that service at the advertised rate. Period. The customer should be able to keep his connection pegged at that rate 24/7 if he wants to. If the ISP cannot deliver on their advertisements, then they shouldn't advertise or sell service at that rate.
On a different note (replying to a different posting), a high usage limit is not unlimited usage. Unlimited usage allows the connection to be run at the full transfer rate listed in the subscription contract for the duration of the subscription. Anything less (barring normal ebb and flow of network traffic) is a limit.
"If the analysts are to be believed each time there's a change we save $4.7B."
And we spend $5B making sure the changes work.
"if flip3d is only an application switcher then what's the point of being able to scroll through the open windows?"
The 3D cube represents virtual desktops, not applications, and is not a mere application switcher (which is shown separately in that demo video). A virtual desktop can have an arbitrary number of applications running on it. Having multiple virtual desktops is a useful way of organizing running applications. Showing the entire working environment on a rotating 3D cube is clean and appealing. It's a step up from the traditional 2D representation of virtual desktops.
"Reporting security holes on bugzilla get them marked DUPE/WONTFIX/NOTABUG and ignored for 5+ years. Publishing detailed explanations of the exploits on your blog gets them fixed within a few weeks."
Unfortunately, that seems to be the case frequently in other areas as well. I recently asked a question on a development mailing list (which shall remain anonymous) on how to accomplish alpha blending within the published API, and got nothing but silence for over a week. I then asked a similar question, but ranted on about how incompetent the API developers had been. I had half a dozen answers within the hour. They were ranting back at me, but they were answering my question.
All too often, politeness doesn't get the job done. Too many people seem to be moved to cooperate only when they are presented with anger and stress.
"Consumers won't just accept that they can't install software X because it's an RPM and alien doesn't work (this is of course after looking online for half an hour to figure out that alien is the tool to use)."
.deb package format, but in the package management tools. Those same tools will still be available upon switching the the LSB RPM format, so I don't see Debian's hangup about cooperating with the LSB.
Agreed. Multiple package formats are a non-starter, and shouldn't even be a consideration. The LSB has standardized on a subset of RPM, and that should be the universal package format. The Debian-based distros are harming the package standardization processes, and should learn to play with the other children. Debian's strength is not in the
"The first time grandma needs to go download dependencies means Linux has failed on the consumer desktop."
On which planet is this mythical grandma that downloads her own software? I've never seen one. Not on Linux, and not on Windows. Grandma gets her son or grandson to install all of her software for her. That, however, does not invalidate your premise. Software installation needs to be simple as: click on package, enter password to authorize installation, use newly installed software.
Microsoft does NOT have a single, standardized installation method. There's setup.exe, *.msi, and the ever-enjoyable add/remove programs. The latter has multiple user requirements that depend on the type of software being installed. USB device drivers are particularly painful to install because you have to plug in the device at the precisely correct moment in the install process or the device just won't work.
"We don't have a mission from God to spread and conquer. It seems a little strange how atheists are very keen to strike down the pointless values of religion, yet still believe in many aspects which have no basis."
What atheists ever promoted the expansion of human knowledge as a mission from any supernatural force of any of the countless pointless religions? The desire to explore space is the result of a deep seated desire for knowledge about the universe in which we live. Given the immense size of the universe (the bounds of which, if any, are seemingly undefinable), colonizing other planets is an early necessity.
The goal is to learn for its own sake.
"But I mean [dumb terminals] for general office use."
Most of the departments where I work use text-based dumb terminals for most operations. They are actually full PCs with telnet interfaces, but they are essentially dumb terminals. The main reasons we didn't use X-Window terminals were:
1) The bandwidth at the time was limited, and full GUI interfaces saturated our network. With everything now being gigabit fiber, this wouldn't be an issue anymore.
2) Most of our programmers at the time knew nothing about GUI programming. This is still a problem, as all the primary systems are still text based and maintained by those same programmers. The apps are slowly being replaced, but management has allowed some of those apps to be written without consideration for remote execution (C# and C++ Builder, with the latter thankfully being abandoned).
3) Even now, only two of us have any experience with any X-Window toolkits, and only one of us (me) has any extensive experience (Qt). Fortunately for me, I am able to write all my desktop apps with Qt, and I keep remote execution in mind when designing my apps.
4) The cost of X-Window server licenses.
All this took place before I arrived and started introducing Free Software. There is now nothing technical holding us back from basing all our operations on Linux X-Window terminals for most departments, and doing so would be a very smart move. The only obstacle at this point (that I can think of) is scanner support. We are imaging all of our historical documents, and SANE does not support the high volume scanners we use.
"Technically both HP-UX and Solaris are derivatives of code that SCO somewhat controls."
Both IBM and SUN bought out their royalty obligations years ago, and neither owes royalties to anyone. SCO has no control over either (even if we accept SCO's fantasy-land theory that it bought UNIX).
"How important do you think 'self-made' software will be in the future?"
About as important as it's been up until now. The vast majority of people who have to use computers are totally incapable of using them beyond launching applications with them. In an era where people have to be trained on specific keypresses and mouse clicks for specific applications, there is exactly zero chance of these people developing any kind of software, using any kind of environment, to solve any kind of business problem.
There is no way this will even remotely impact the role of professional software developers. None. Zero. Zilch.
I had to look up and see if the fabric of the universe was tearing, because this is one of the times that Microsoft is right. Whenever my workplace buys me a new laptop, the first thing I do is dual boot it with Fedora. I used to just repartition the drive, but all the OEM crapware has forced me to wipe it clean and reinstall everything from scratch.
Microsoft is right that OEMs make Windows look worse than it already is.