Voodoo is when they call it "content". As in, "DRM protects the rights of content owners from thieves who would steal it."
It's bullshit. They're not referring to "content". My coffee cup is full of "content". They're referring to "knowledge and culture".
As in, "DRM protects the rights of "knowledge and culture" owners from thieves who would steal it."
Except that's wrong. If you wanted to fix the sentence, it would read "DRM allows thieves to steal "knowledge and culture" and to be protected from peoples rights"
The desire to "monetize" their creations led to a world full of banal crap that doesn't hold anyone's attention.
Now, work that was never paid for, that's the good stuff. Lord of the Rings, for example. He wrote it for the entertainment of his children, and it's considered one of the finest stories ever told. Stole from other peoples stories too. Beowulf, Norse mythology, Celtic mythology, etc.
This reminds me of a conversation with a friend about C++. He told me, and it was true, "I don't use C++, you can do it all in straight C." I just couldn't make him see that the fact that it's EASIER to do with all that "sugar" is a real benefit, resulting in things getting done in reality that wouldn't get done if they weren't so easy. Not everyone wants to use a hand saw to cut their wood.
Yes, but in this case, there really isn't much that makes it easier. The sugar you're thinking of comes from libraries, not from significant improvements in the underlying technology. For example, if your fancy AJAX libraries are any good, they degrade to IFRAMES transparently... mute evidence that they could have existed several generations ago. And they did, they just weren't used outside of a LAN, and they weren't shared around as much.
Every time I hear about Web 2.0 and how revolutionary it is, I think back to how proud I was creating my first powerful Web 2.0 style app that ran across a corporate LAN, only to find that the secretary couldn't use it because her P133 choked validating a long form and the road warriors couldn't use them because they were on a modem, so I had to gut it all out and move it to the server.
It really is nothing but a pack of buzzwords and marketing.
It is my contention that those who have much, stole it from those who have not
Generalization? On what foundation do you base this claim?
Ownership "rights" depend entirely on laws created by society.
Prior to the existence of those laws, there was no basis by which any person could claim that anything in the world was "exclusively theirs" without naked violence. Get off my land or I'll knock your brains out with this stick.
The creation of the laws did nothing to change the nature of what was happening. The violence is no longer naked, but it is there. Ignore the claim to exclusivity, and violence will come knocking on your door. Get off my land or I'll send the cops. They are receiving payola from me in the form of taxes, and they will knock your brains out with a stick.
So, that's the nature of private property. It's a fundamentally anti-social and psychopathic concept.
Believing that you can "earn" the right to engage in anti-social behavior that hurts other people makes you an evil person. Doesn't matter if you saved a billion orphans and discovered the cure for cancer. Completely irrelevant.
Blah. I'm done. You disagree because you're a piece of shit, and you're not going to be convinced, because you're a piece of shit from a society full of pieces of shit. You and all your neighbours are going to pay the price, not because of anything I'm going to do, but because of what you've already done to yourselves.
There is practically nothing new you can do today that you couldn't do before. The main differences are:
a) The old ways of doing things were more vulnerable to abuse, which never prevented you from using them properly. Think IFRAMES and popups.
b) The common desktop PC is capable of handling complex Javascript where before it would be too slow to be useable on low end machines.
c) The average person has a high speed connection where before they didn't, so all the things that used to be LAN only are now useful across the Internet.
That is pretty much it. All the "progress" was about making the browser less capable than it used to be in the name of security. Whose security is being safeguarded is subject to debate.
It is my contention that those who have much, stole it from those who have not.
It is also my contention that those who want to live in a world where they can earn much more than others, through any means, are psychopaths who should be driven into the ocean.
To covet the "American Dream" is to dream of being a tyrant. To achieve it is to be a tyrant. Neither should be tolerated in a sane and equitable society.
Somebody save me, don't care how you do it just save me... How about some "the ends justify the means, the violence is forgivable, integrity be damned" propaganda?
a millionare who puts his own life and fortune on the line (Batman)
A millionaire whose rampant excesses are taking food from the mouth of the poor and oppressed, leaving them desperate and forced into a life of crime, operates above the law and brutalizes those who attempt to operate outside the rigged game with weapons that make the whole thing an exercise in shooting fish in a barrel.
scientist dealt a bum hand by fate (Hulk)
An amoral scientist who manufactures terrible weapons for the military spends his life on the run attempting to hide from them and not be noticed when they turn on him.
Face it. Your national heros are just as disgusting as your national ideology.
Check out Geany. It's cross platform, and it's a good minimalist editor. Combine it with sshfs on *nix or DokanSSHFS on Windows and you've got transparent remote editing.
Also, if I am living in this society, why, exactly, am I interested in working my ass off to create innovative solutions to any of society's problems?
I don't know. Why are you interested? If you're not interested, does that mean we should compel you to do so? If you're free, you should have the freedom not to work your ass off.
Your argument sounds very much like "Slaves are lazy when they're not beaten, and if the slaves are lazy, there won't be enough left over to feed them, so we better continue to beat them for their own good."
Are you talking about a specific case, or in general. I find it hard to believe that Assault is not being enforced when an innocent person is assaulted.
I'm talking in general. I'm talking about huge fights breaking out in the street while the police watch and do nothing. I'm talking a massive crime wave going on over the last week, with a massive number of assaults occurring and nothing being done about it. I'm talking about shootings on an almost daily basis in an area that doesn't usually see a lot of it. I'm talking a friend of mine got his head beat in in the middle of a movie theater, and the police advised him that they didn't do anything about common assault.
I'm noticing that people in my community who have been listening to me rant about what's going aren't arguing any more, but are looking to me for answers, and I'm thinking I'm going to have to organize people myself if anything is going to get done. I don't really like the idea very much, but my family and friends are here.
Laws against common assault are no longer being enforced by the police in my Canadian city. If you can't afford to pay the courts to charge them out of your own pocket, nothing will happen to your assailant. So, basically, the police are there to enforce your economic slavery. They are not there to protect you. Incidentally, they just hired 50 more of them here.
And if you were to argue that F won't vote A because when G, H, I, and J win the vote then they'll also kick F to the curb (thus breaking the dilemma by providing the same negative consequences either way but divergent positive consequences), then you've really traded one tyranny for another.
I'm confused... you think a democracy that is working properly and using due process to diminish the influence of an individual who violated the public's trust as "just one tyranny for another"?
Is that not the very definition of working communism? A central authority of chosen individuals making decisions for everyone according to their necessarily flawed understanding of what is best?
No, it is not. Communism is an economic system. It is not a political system. You can pair communism with any political system that you choose.
While there are a few holes in ShieldW0lf's idea (the public ballot idea is a huge question mark)
Question for you: If all your elected political representatives cast each and every vote in secret, and you never knew what they were actually supporting with the power you gave them, would you trust such a system?
How can you blur the line between government and governed and replace autocratic rule with popular leadership if you don't require your citizenry to at the very least have enough integrity to honestly speak their mind and be heard by their fellows?
To mitigate this, I would propose that we would require a certain percentage of the population to sponsor a bill before it is put to a larger vote, and allow any votes the individual already has authority over to count towards that number.
So, if you are a party of one, maybe you need to get 10,000 individuals to sponsor your bill before the rest of us vote on it. But if you already represent 9,000 people because those 9,000 people elected you (either directly or indirectly), then those people are considered to have already sponsored your bill, and you only need 1,000 more.
Make no mistake, there is no reason why we couldn't use a system like I'm describing to recreate the current system if it truly meets our needs. There is no need for the majority of people to micromanage the world in a system such as I've described.
The significant differences would be, people aren't restricted to a short list of approved party representatives, and they aren't forced to surrender their political voice for 4 years at a time with no recourse against betrayal by their representative. That is the entire point of the endeavor.
Citizen A introduces a bill. Citizen B votes yes. Citizen C votes no. Citizen D and E vote for C.
Now it gets ugly. Citizen F, G, H, I and J are employed by A. Citizen A is very rich and the owner of a big corporation.
Citizen A tells F, G, H, I and J: "If you don't vote for me, you'll lose your jobs and you won't be able to work anywhere in this town".
Citizens F, G, H, I and J vote for A and A can do anything he wants.
Lesson: The secrecy of the vote is not there because it's fun.
Ok. Lets continue this scenario out. I'll be Citizen K.
I've hitchiked across the entire continent and lived in the woods for months with nothing more than I can carry, and I'm definitely not scared of Citizen A's punk ass.
I introduce a bill that states that the laws that reinforce private ownership of corporations are no longer in effect, and that they are to be run democratically. Citizens F, G, H, I and J are all over that action.
Now Citizen A has no authority over his factory. He can't fire anyone, and no one will ever vote for him, because he's an asshole. Now Citizen A sweeps the floors and brings people coffee, because he's demonstrated that's all the responsibility he can be trusted with.
Now Citizen A decides he wants to tamper with the voting system to get what he wants. He no longer has the resources of a small nation at his disposal, and he fails and gets caught. We try him for treason, we find him guilty and we hang him from the neck until he is dead. Bye bye, Citizen A.
Capitalism is the idea that a small group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims. Communism is the idea that we are all in this together.
Totalitarianism is the idea that a small group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims. Democracy is the idea that we are all in this together.
Western capitalism is totalitarianism. Western democracy is broken. There is no more heartless, brutal and exploitative social system on earth. That is why it has been so successful.
In a world where western civilization has roots, any intelligent society will prepare to be attacked, in the same way that intelligent societies living below the water table will build protective dikes.
Western civilization is like a tsunami, spreading across the world and leaving slavery, poison and death in it's wake. You don't elect Mr Nice Guy to run things until the tsunami is passed, which is why all the communist nations have brutal, iron-fisted leaders. They live under constant threat from us, and while that's true, it's wise and good to submit to a strong leader so they can survive.
We are the evil ones. The world should fight tooth and nail against us until we change or die, because it's the right thing to do.
2) Every citizen gets to introduce bills to be voted upon
3) Every vote is public information, no private ballot. You are your own politician, you cast votes openly like one.
4) Any citizen can vote for any other citizen rather than voting on issues directly. If they choose to do so, the one they voted for casts their vote on the issues.
5) All votes are sent to a central tabulation authority through a secure wired network.
6) Votes are also broadcast across a citizens mesh network and stored in a multitude of widely geographically dispersed sites, making wide scale tampering impractical.
How it works:
Citizen A introduces a bill. Citizen B votes yes. Citizen C votes no. Citizen D and citizen E both voted for B, citizen F voted for C, citizen G voted for E. Citizen B casts yes votes for B, D, E and G, while Citizen C casts no votes for C and F. The bill is introduced into law.
Oops. Citizen B was a corrupt bastard, and voted contrary to the wishes of those who supported him on a very important law with wide reaching consequences. Everyone immediately revokes their assignment of votes to him and passes them to someone else. Now Citizen B has no significant voice beyond his own vote. A new bill is introduced to repair the damage the next day.
This is a functional model for democracy that scales. I'm actively working towards designing the infrastructure that will make it possible. Hopefully I will finish before I die. Maybe not.
I wish more people recognized this. It's like listening to people who were young during the cold war era talking about stupid commies, and how communism doesn't work... if they were so stupid and if their system doesn't work, how come your entire generation dedicated the entirety of their lives to destroying them and never succeeded?
Man, I wish they would find out all sorts of unsavory stuff about me and send their lawyers to destroy my life.
Deep down inside, I want to be a desperate man, and do those violent and vicious things that desperate men do... I'm just waiting for an excuse to let go of my responsibilities.
Please, RIAA, come take our responsibilities away and make more desperate men. Then we can all get together in your offices and have a party!
It needs the ability for third parties to integrate with Windows Update. That way I do not get Sun Java Update, and Adobe updater CS3, ect. ect.
Windows update is actually fairly non-intrusive and respectful, I would love it if other companies were able to hook into it for themselves.
I agree. It's totally awesome. It's a very major part of what made me leave Windows and switch to Ubuntu permanently. Vista came along and bombed, and Windows 7 is coming along, and I've been enjoying the ease of use all this time. Plus, it's totally free of charge. Zero. Nadda. Zilch. How much of a no-brainer can you get?
As one example, to install software, I can go on the web, find the primary site for it, make sure it passes malware tests, and install it. On Linux, there's a repository (as I understand, never figured that part out).
You use Windows Update, right? It tells you when there are upgrades available to your existing software, and it offers you software that you don't already have installed, like MSN or Windows Media Player, or whatever.
Now, imagine that Microsoft allowed groups like Mozilla, Adobe and Valve to distribute their software via Windows Update, so you could install any of their software from a central point.
That's what the default repositories are like. Like using Windows Update to install software from a variety of vendors, and remove it properly if you change your mind.
Now, imagine that some other group out there is releasing software, but they don't get along with Microsoft, so they decided to build their own Windows Update server and release all their software through it. If you want, you can add that companies Windows Update server to the list of servers that your operating system checks for updates, and use the same tools you're used to to install and update any software they release.
That's what third party repositories are like.
Unless you've never used Windows Update in your entire life, there is nothing even vaguely foreign about any of this.
Slashdot Mirror
Voodoo is when they call it "content". As in, "DRM protects the rights of content owners from thieves who would steal it."
It's bullshit. They're not referring to "content". My coffee cup is full of "content". They're referring to "knowledge and culture".
As in, "DRM protects the rights of "knowledge and culture" owners from thieves who would steal it."
Except that's wrong. If you wanted to fix the sentence, it would read "DRM allows thieves to steal "knowledge and culture" and to be protected from peoples rights"
The desire to "monetize" their creations led to a world full of banal crap that doesn't hold anyone's attention.
Now, work that was never paid for, that's the good stuff. Lord of the Rings, for example. He wrote it for the entertainment of his children, and it's considered one of the finest stories ever told. Stole from other peoples stories too. Beowulf, Norse mythology, Celtic mythology, etc.
This reminds me of a conversation with a friend about C++. He told me, and it was true, "I don't use C++, you can do it all in straight C." I just couldn't make him see that the fact that it's EASIER to do with all that "sugar" is a real benefit, resulting in things getting done in reality that wouldn't get done if they weren't so easy. Not everyone wants to use a hand saw to cut their wood.
Yes, but in this case, there really isn't much that makes it easier. The sugar you're thinking of comes from libraries, not from significant improvements in the underlying technology. For example, if your fancy AJAX libraries are any good, they degrade to IFRAMES transparently... mute evidence that they could have existed several generations ago. And they did, they just weren't used outside of a LAN, and they weren't shared around as much.
Every time I hear about Web 2.0 and how revolutionary it is, I think back to how proud I was creating my first powerful Web 2.0 style app that ran across a corporate LAN, only to find that the secretary couldn't use it because her P133 choked validating a long form and the road warriors couldn't use them because they were on a modem, so I had to gut it all out and move it to the server.
It really is nothing but a pack of buzzwords and marketing.
It is my contention that those who have much, stole it from those who have not
Generalization? On what foundation do you base this claim?
Ownership "rights" depend entirely on laws created by society.
Prior to the existence of those laws, there was no basis by which any person could claim that anything in the world was "exclusively theirs" without naked violence. Get off my land or I'll knock your brains out with this stick.
The creation of the laws did nothing to change the nature of what was happening. The violence is no longer naked, but it is there. Ignore the claim to exclusivity, and violence will come knocking on your door. Get off my land or I'll send the cops. They are receiving payola from me in the form of taxes, and they will knock your brains out with a stick.
So, that's the nature of private property. It's a fundamentally anti-social and psychopathic concept.
Believing that you can "earn" the right to engage in anti-social behavior that hurts other people makes you an evil person. Doesn't matter if you saved a billion orphans and discovered the cure for cancer. Completely irrelevant.
Blah. I'm done. You disagree because you're a piece of shit, and you're not going to be convinced, because you're a piece of shit from a society full of pieces of shit. You and all your neighbours are going to pay the price, not because of anything I'm going to do, but because of what you've already done to yourselves.
There is practically nothing new you can do today that you couldn't do before. The main differences are:
a) The old ways of doing things were more vulnerable to abuse, which never prevented you from using them properly. Think IFRAMES and popups.
b) The common desktop PC is capable of handling complex Javascript where before it would be too slow to be useable on low end machines.
c) The average person has a high speed connection where before they didn't, so all the things that used to be LAN only are now useful across the Internet.
That is pretty much it. All the "progress" was about making the browser less capable than it used to be in the name of security. Whose security is being safeguarded is subject to debate.
It is my contention that those who have much, stole it from those who have not.
It is also my contention that those who want to live in a world where they can earn much more than others, through any means, are psychopaths who should be driven into the ocean.
To covet the "American Dream" is to dream of being a tyrant. To achieve it is to be a tyrant. Neither should be tolerated in a sane and equitable society.
Whether it be an accident of birth (Superman)
Somebody save me, don't care how you do it just save me... How about some "the ends justify the means, the violence is forgivable, integrity be damned" propaganda?
a millionare who puts his own life and fortune on the line (Batman)
A millionaire whose rampant excesses are taking food from the mouth of the poor and oppressed, leaving them desperate and forced into a life of crime, operates above the law and brutalizes those who attempt to operate outside the rigged game with weapons that make the whole thing an exercise in shooting fish in a barrel.
scientist dealt a bum hand by fate (Hulk)
An amoral scientist who manufactures terrible weapons for the military spends his life on the run attempting to hide from them and not be noticed when they turn on him.
Face it. Your national heros are just as disgusting as your national ideology.
Check out Geany. It's cross platform, and it's a good minimalist editor. Combine it with sshfs on *nix or DokanSSHFS on Windows and you've got transparent remote editing.
Also, if I am living in this society, why, exactly, am I interested in working my ass off to create innovative solutions to any of society's problems?
I don't know. Why are you interested? If you're not interested, does that mean we should compel you to do so? If you're free, you should have the freedom not to work your ass off.
Your argument sounds very much like "Slaves are lazy when they're not beaten, and if the slaves are lazy, there won't be enough left over to feed them, so we better continue to beat them for their own good."
Are you talking about a specific case, or in general. I find it hard to believe that Assault is not being enforced when an innocent person is assaulted.
I'm talking in general. I'm talking about huge fights breaking out in the street while the police watch and do nothing. I'm talking a massive crime wave going on over the last week, with a massive number of assaults occurring and nothing being done about it. I'm talking about shootings on an almost daily basis in an area that doesn't usually see a lot of it. I'm talking a friend of mine got his head beat in in the middle of a movie theater, and the police advised him that they didn't do anything about common assault.
I'm noticing that people in my community who have been listening to me rant about what's going aren't arguing any more, but are looking to me for answers, and I'm thinking I'm going to have to organize people myself if anything is going to get done. I don't really like the idea very much, but my family and friends are here.
Laws against common assault are no longer being enforced by the police in my Canadian city. If you can't afford to pay the courts to charge them out of your own pocket, nothing will happen to your assailant. So, basically, the police are there to enforce your economic slavery. They are not there to protect you. Incidentally, they just hired 50 more of them here.
And if you were to argue that F won't vote A because when G, H, I, and J win the vote then they'll also kick F to the curb (thus breaking the dilemma by providing the same negative consequences either way but divergent positive consequences), then you've really traded one tyranny for another.
I'm confused... you think a democracy that is working properly and using due process to diminish the influence of an individual who violated the public's trust as "just one tyranny for another"?
And if you would say the same thing but with 3 girls, then no one would belief you.
My girlfriend, my daughter, my niece and my mother all run Ubuntu.
That joke is way past it's best before date... you might want to try some new material...
Is that not the very definition of working communism? A central authority of chosen individuals making decisions for everyone according to their necessarily flawed understanding of what is best?
No, it is not. Communism is an economic system. It is not a political system. You can pair communism with any political system that you choose.
While there are a few holes in ShieldW0lf's idea (the public ballot idea is a huge question mark)
Question for you: If all your elected political representatives cast each and every vote in secret, and you never knew what they were actually supporting with the power you gave them, would you trust such a system?
How can you blur the line between government and governed and replace autocratic rule with popular leadership if you don't require your citizenry to at the very least have enough integrity to honestly speak their mind and be heard by their fellows?
Good point.
To mitigate this, I would propose that we would require a certain percentage of the population to sponsor a bill before it is put to a larger vote, and allow any votes the individual already has authority over to count towards that number.
So, if you are a party of one, maybe you need to get 10,000 individuals to sponsor your bill before the rest of us vote on it. But if you already represent 9,000 people because those 9,000 people elected you (either directly or indirectly), then those people are considered to have already sponsored your bill, and you only need 1,000 more.
Make no mistake, there is no reason why we couldn't use a system like I'm describing to recreate the current system if it truly meets our needs. There is no need for the majority of people to micromanage the world in a system such as I've described.
The significant differences would be, people aren't restricted to a short list of approved party representatives, and they aren't forced to surrender their political voice for 4 years at a time with no recourse against betrayal by their representative. That is the entire point of the endeavor.
Now, here's an scenario for you:
Citizen A introduces a bill. Citizen B votes yes. Citizen C votes no. Citizen D and E vote for C.
Now it gets ugly. Citizen F, G, H, I and J are employed by A. Citizen A is very rich and the owner of a big corporation. Citizen A tells F, G, H, I and J: "If you don't vote for me, you'll lose your jobs and you won't be able to work anywhere in this town". Citizens F, G, H, I and J vote for A and A can do anything he wants.
Lesson: The secrecy of the vote is not there because it's fun.
Ok. Lets continue this scenario out. I'll be Citizen K.
I've hitchiked across the entire continent and lived in the woods for months with nothing more than I can carry, and I'm definitely not scared of Citizen A's punk ass.
I introduce a bill that states that the laws that reinforce private ownership of corporations are no longer in effect, and that they are to be run democratically. Citizens F, G, H, I and J are all over that action.
Now Citizen A has no authority over his factory. He can't fire anyone, and no one will ever vote for him, because he's an asshole. Now Citizen A sweeps the floors and brings people coffee, because he's demonstrated that's all the responsibility he can be trusted with.
Now Citizen A decides he wants to tamper with the voting system to get what he wants. He no longer has the resources of a small nation at his disposal, and he fails and gets caught. We try him for treason, we find him guilty and we hang him from the neck until he is dead. Bye bye, Citizen A.
Capitalism is the idea that a small group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims. Communism is the idea that we are all in this together.
Totalitarianism is the idea that a small group of individuals ought to be able to make unilateral decisions with wide reaching consequences according to their own arbitrary whims. Democracy is the idea that we are all in this together.
Western capitalism is totalitarianism. Western democracy is broken. There is no more heartless, brutal and exploitative social system on earth. That is why it has been so successful.
In a world where western civilization has roots, any intelligent society will prepare to be attacked, in the same way that intelligent societies living below the water table will build protective dikes.
Western civilization is like a tsunami, spreading across the world and leaving slavery, poison and death in it's wake. You don't elect Mr Nice Guy to run things until the tsunami is passed, which is why all the communist nations have brutal, iron-fisted leaders. They live under constant threat from us, and while that's true, it's wise and good to submit to a strong leader so they can survive.
We are the evil ones. The world should fight tooth and nail against us until we change or die, because it's the right thing to do.
How to make a democracy that actually scales out:
1) Every citizen gets to vote on every issue
2) Every citizen gets to introduce bills to be voted upon
3) Every vote is public information, no private ballot. You are your own politician, you cast votes openly like one.
4) Any citizen can vote for any other citizen rather than voting on issues directly. If they choose to do so, the one they voted for casts their vote on the issues.
5) All votes are sent to a central tabulation authority through a secure wired network.
6) Votes are also broadcast across a citizens mesh network and stored in a multitude of widely geographically dispersed sites, making wide scale tampering impractical.
How it works:
Citizen A introduces a bill. Citizen B votes yes. Citizen C votes no. Citizen D and citizen E both voted for B, citizen F voted for C, citizen G voted for E. Citizen B casts yes votes for B, D, E and G, while Citizen C casts no votes for C and F. The bill is introduced into law.
Oops. Citizen B was a corrupt bastard, and voted contrary to the wishes of those who supported him on a very important law with wide reaching consequences. Everyone immediately revokes their assignment of votes to him and passes them to someone else. Now Citizen B has no significant voice beyond his own vote. A new bill is introduced to repair the damage the next day.
This is a functional model for democracy that scales. I'm actively working towards designing the infrastructure that will make it possible. Hopefully I will finish before I die. Maybe not.
Can think of ways to make it better?
I wish more people recognized this. It's like listening to people who were young during the cold war era talking about stupid commies, and how communism doesn't work... if they were so stupid and if their system doesn't work, how come your entire generation dedicated the entirety of their lives to destroying them and never succeeded?
To besmirch your enemy is to belittle yourself.
Man, I wish they would find out all sorts of unsavory stuff about me and send their lawyers to destroy my life.
Deep down inside, I want to be a desperate man, and do those violent and vicious things that desperate men do... I'm just waiting for an excuse to let go of my responsibilities.
Please, RIAA, come take our responsibilities away and make more desperate men. Then we can all get together in your offices and have a party!
In soviet America products design you to fail!
That is the best quote I've read in ages.
Skype uses Postgres. That's a pretty glowing endorsement.
That is what Windnows needs!
It needs the ability for third parties to integrate with Windows Update. That way I do not get Sun Java Update, and Adobe updater CS3, ect. ect.
Windows update is actually fairly non-intrusive and respectful, I would love it if other companies were able to hook into it for themselves.
I agree. It's totally awesome. It's a very major part of what made me leave Windows and switch to Ubuntu permanently. Vista came along and bombed, and Windows 7 is coming along, and I've been enjoying the ease of use all this time. Plus, it's totally free of charge. Zero. Nadda. Zilch. How much of a no-brainer can you get?
As one example, to install software, I can go on the web, find the primary site for it, make sure it passes malware tests, and install it. On Linux, there's a repository (as I understand, never figured that part out).
You use Windows Update, right? It tells you when there are upgrades available to your existing software, and it offers you software that you don't already have installed, like MSN or Windows Media Player, or whatever.
Now, imagine that Microsoft allowed groups like Mozilla, Adobe and Valve to distribute their software via Windows Update, so you could install any of their software from a central point.
That's what the default repositories are like. Like using Windows Update to install software from a variety of vendors, and remove it properly if you change your mind.
Now, imagine that some other group out there is releasing software, but they don't get along with Microsoft, so they decided to build their own Windows Update server and release all their software through it. If you want, you can add that companies Windows Update server to the list of servers that your operating system checks for updates, and use the same tools you're used to to install and update any software they release.
That's what third party repositories are like.
Unless you've never used Windows Update in your entire life, there is nothing even vaguely foreign about any of this.