Product activation over the internet has been having some success with regards to checking piracy.
No, it isn't. There's not a single activated product I can think of that hasn't been cracked and made freely available to software pirates.
Where activation has been extremely successful is in forcing honest customers to buy the same product over and over again as their hardware fails or is replaced. That's its real function - to artificially obsolete software so developers can get more money for less effort.
Sun Tzu was 4th century BC, but his advice is still apposite. I think Machiavelli might have said it better though, if less succinctly.
And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
Better to acquire a lukewarm defender that retain a bitter enemy...
It's Konqueror. The Ark Linux devs give their reasons in one of the forums:
We think that Konqueror is a much better browser. Konqueror follows the standards (in particular CSS) more closely than any other browser, it integrates better with the rest of the system, it doesn't drag in hundreds of libraries nothing else needs, and its user interface is better, because it doesn't make weird decisions like using the wrong button order. (We think the weird "Do you want to do this? [No] [Yes]" button order used by Firefox and a couple of other projects is plain wrong, because it contradicts normal language use -- what's the last time someone asked you in plain English "Do you want to xyz? No or yes?"?
If you absolutely need it, you can simply apt-get install firefox though.
We should be quite concerned about Grigori Perelman since he returned to Russia.
Nice bit of jingoistic xenophobia there, but that's about all that's nice about your post.
Gang Tian, who has co-wrote a guide to Perelman's proof, said in 2004: "He certainly has no interest in material things. If he gets the Fields Medal, there is the issue of whether or not he will accept it." He also refused a prize from the European Mathematical Society many years before that.
He is not being threatened, he is simply a person with little interest in material matters.
a guy from Microsoft, who has probably never configured or operated any of the systems he mentions, is telling a group of people, who also have probably never used those systems, that it's really scarey if you move away from Microsoft...
And this is NEWS?
It's even sadder than that. If you have a look at the website of IBS Synergy, the ISV they're quoting, it's an amateurish effort, full of spelling errors and broken links. The company has a grand total of five customers, two of which seem to be the same organisation, and one of which appears to no longer exist.
If this is the most authoritative source Microsoft can assemble to substantiate their claims Open Source is complex, I'd say they're a long way from being convincing. It's almost sad to see they're still stooping to such pathetic tactics.
The same with media PC's. Given the size restrictions, media PC's performance are heavily watered down and harder to interface with (a remote that gives you little control or a mouse on a couch), so when you expect a full on media experience you instead get a mediocre one.
Mostly true. I've built a few media PCs and tried out the different packages available, including Windows Media Center, MythTV and a couple of the apps that came with the DTV cards. They worked, but not the way an appliance works - there'd be delays responding to the remote, some pictures or videos wouldn't play, there were sound or vision glitches when the OS decided it had more important things to do than let me watch my movie, etc etc. Pretty much what we've all grown to expect from the computing industry, but annoying when you want a seamless experience.
I (and the friends I built the boxes for) put up with their foibles because the advantages were enough to make it worthwhile. We're dumping the Media PCs now though, because we can buy things like these networked DVD players that do the job like an appliance http://www.kiss-technology.com/?p=dvd2&v=users for less than A$500. The PCs are all being repurposed back into desktop machines, and movies are being stored on the server.
This is just a variation of the old debate about whether art (including popular expressions of art such as movies, games etc) merely reflects the society that created it or whether it is art that creates and changes society.
The answer, obviously, is that neither choice is exclusive of the other, and that both are often true.
The dangerous animals in Aussie just scare me too much;-)
Well, the All Blacks seem to be doing all right against them. I think there's a good chance they'll cane the Springboks in Sydney, but they'll struggle to come up with a win in Aukland.
This won't be marketed at home users, at least not to start with. It'll be promoted as an option for public kiosks, and terminals in shopping areas, etc.
The thing is, all the major software makers are desperate to find some sort of subscription or rental model so they can get a guaranteed revenue stream without having to stay on the product improvement treadmill. Improving software is HARD - Vista is a crystal clear example of how hard - which makes it expensive. If a software house can persuade customers to keep giving them money without improving the product, they're on a win.
That's why they're tying software to hardware with product activation and pushing DRM or other methods of artificially obsoleting their products. Almost all of Microsoft's OS sales are with new PCs but even then, your ordinary punter, after paying for the OS for the Nth time, is starting to ask "how many times do I have to pay for this crap? It's barely changed in the past five years, but I still have to fork out the same $$ as I did the first time." Expect to see more of this sort revenue model as software becomes more complex.
What's really needed, of course, is a new way of writing and maintaining software. The programs we use today are essentially bespoke, hand-built items, much the way cars were at the start of the 20th century. The primitive fabrication methods are masked because computer software can be duplicated infinitely without additional cost, but it's still an industry ripe for a new enry Ford to invent the digital equivalent of a production line.
You should. NZ is often well ahead of the pack when it comes to political freedoms. Universal suffrage, indigenous rights, social services and even the McGillicuddy Serious Party were established there well in advance of most of the world.
I'm an Aussie, so I should be taking the piss out of them, but the Kiwis benefit strongly from having a compact country, well educated population and a history of pragmatic politics.
PS, I'm a little ashamed of saying nice things about UnZudders, so if uny uv ewes read thus, please take the puss ut uv yersulves. Thunks.
That's true, but if the coder won't accept retaining closed course as a condition for hire, they're under no obligation to accept the job.
I've been employing people on software projects for the past ten years, and I've worked in the biz for more than double that, and I have yet to have a coder refuse a job because their code was going to be closed, open, or printed on toilet paper and flushed for that matter.
I don't know what bizarro world you're inhabiting, but it all sounds like FUD to me.
"Linux == Open Source" and "Closed Source != Welcome On Linux"
What a load of bollocks. If I pay a developer to write an app that will run on Linux, I get to choose whether to release the source or not, not some bloody coder I've hired. If it's compiled for Linux, it'll run on Linux. It doesn't matter what Random J Geek's feelings on running closed apps on Linux are.
Once I've installed it, Linux is MY operating system. I can install what I like on it. I can compile what I like on it.
How the hell did drivel like this get modded "Informative"?
I believe it is time for the closed source community to grow up and find some common ground with Linux.
There will come a time when proprietary software will be routinely written for Linux, but I would prefer it didn't happen too soon. At the moment, the consequence of proprietary software developers ignoring Linux (and other FOSS OSs) is that open source developers are having to create the entire software stack.
The FOSS community won't just be developing an OS, but office apps, graphics tools, audio, video, CAD etc. It makes the task of creating a viable alternative to Microsoft harder, true, but the end result will be that an entire suite of FOSS software will exist for the platform by the time commercial interests start noticing the market.
At the moment, the lack of pressure from commercial interests is allowing the FOSS solutions to develop at their own pace, so the longer the proprietary companies keep shooting themselves in the foot by ignoring Linux, the better. Given time, any company wishing to compete in the Linux market will have to produce software which is significantly better than the established FOSS tools, and that has to be good for us computer users.
I've always had a very high success rate with these.
I haven't tested this one myself, Barrett Filter but I understand it is 100% effective at reducing spam from known sources. False positives may be a problem, however.
Course, i still can't play movies, I ran into the end of the line trying to install mplayer because some dependencies escape my intellectual capability to install.
Slashdot Mirror
We're out of superlatives, but it's even worse than that. There's already an effective, well-tested electronic voting system available. It's called EVACS and was developed in Australia in 2001. You can download the source here:m l
http://www.elections.act.gov.au/Elecvote.html
Wired's story here:
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.ht
No, it isn't. There's not a single activated product I can think of that hasn't been cracked and made freely available to software pirates.
Where activation has been extremely successful is in forcing honest customers to buy the same product over and over again as their hardware fails or is replaced. That's its real function - to artificially obsolete software so developers can get more money for less effort.
Sun Tzu was 4th century BC, but his advice is still apposite. I think Machiavelli might have said it better though, if less succinctly.
Better to acquire a lukewarm defender that retain a bitter enemy...It's Konqueror. The Ark Linux devs give their reasons in one of the forums:
http://forum.arklinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=65&highFixed that for you.
It's baboon not babboon, you buffoon.
I love my silver hammer, you insensitive clod!
No, but the design team dropped a few tabs.
Nice bit of jingoistic xenophobia there, but that's about all that's nice about your post.
Gang Tian, who has co-wrote a guide to Perelman's proof, said in 2004: "He certainly has no interest in material things. If he gets the Fields Medal, there is the issue of whether or not he will accept it." He also refused a prize from the European Mathematical Society many years before that.
He is not being threatened, he is simply a person with little interest in material matters.
And this is NEWS?
It's even sadder than that. If you have a look at the website of IBS Synergy, the ISV they're quoting, it's an amateurish effort, full of spelling errors and broken links. The company has a grand total of five customers, two of which seem to be the same organisation, and one of which appears to no longer exist.
If this is the most authoritative source Microsoft can assemble to substantiate their claims Open Source is complex, I'd say they're a long way from being convincing. It's almost sad to see they're still stooping to such pathetic tactics.
Mostly true. I've built a few media PCs and tried out the different packages available, including Windows Media Center, MythTV and a couple of the apps that came with the DTV cards. They worked, but not the way an appliance works - there'd be delays responding to the remote, some pictures or videos wouldn't play, there were sound or vision glitches when the OS decided it had more important things to do than let me watch my movie, etc etc. Pretty much what we've all grown to expect from the computing industry, but annoying when you want a seamless experience.
I (and the friends I built the boxes for) put up with their foibles because the advantages were enough to make it worthwhile. We're dumping the Media PCs now though, because we can buy things like these networked DVD players that do the job like an appliance http://www.kiss-technology.com/?p=dvd2&v=users for less than A$500. The PCs are all being repurposed back into desktop machines, and movies are being stored on the server.
The answer, obviously, is that neither choice is exclusive of the other, and that both are often true.
You mean it isn't? Whoops...
Well, the All Blacks seem to be doing all right against them. I think there's a good chance they'll cane the Springboks in Sydney, but they'll struggle to come up with a win in Aukland.
The thing is, all the major software makers are desperate to find some sort of subscription or rental model so they can get a guaranteed revenue stream without having to stay on the product improvement treadmill. Improving software is HARD - Vista is a crystal clear example of how hard - which makes it expensive. If a software house can persuade customers to keep giving them money without improving the product, they're on a win.
That's why they're tying software to hardware with product activation and pushing DRM or other methods of artificially obsoleting their products. Almost all of Microsoft's OS sales are with new PCs but even then, your ordinary punter, after paying for the OS for the Nth time, is starting to ask "how many times do I have to pay for this crap? It's barely changed in the past five years, but I still have to fork out the same $$ as I did the first time." Expect to see more of this sort revenue model as software becomes more complex.
What's really needed, of course, is a new way of writing and maintaining software. The programs we use today are essentially bespoke, hand-built items, much the way cars were at the start of the 20th century. The primitive fabrication methods are masked because computer software can be duplicated infinitely without additional cost, but it's still an industry ripe for a new enry Ford to invent the digital equivalent of a production line.
You should. NZ is often well ahead of the pack when it comes to political freedoms. Universal suffrage, indigenous rights, social services and even the McGillicuddy Serious Party were established there well in advance of most of the world.
I'm an Aussie, so I should be taking the piss out of them, but the Kiwis benefit strongly from having a compact country, well educated population and a history of pragmatic politics.
PS, I'm a little ashamed of saying nice things about UnZudders, so if uny uv ewes read thus, please take the puss ut uv yersulves. Thunks.
What are you doing with the other hand?
Yep, you're right. The best long-term information storage media ever invented is poetry.
I've been employing people on software projects for the past ten years, and I've worked in the biz for more than double that, and I have yet to have a coder refuse a job because their code was going to be closed, open, or printed on toilet paper and flushed for that matter.
I don't know what bizarro world you're inhabiting, but it all sounds like FUD to me.
What a load of bollocks. If I pay a developer to write an app that will run on Linux, I get to choose whether to release the source or not, not some bloody coder I've hired. If it's compiled for Linux, it'll run on Linux. It doesn't matter what Random J Geek's feelings on running closed apps on Linux are.
Once I've installed it, Linux is MY operating system. I can install what I like on it. I can compile what I like on it.
How the hell did drivel like this get modded "Informative"?
There will come a time when proprietary software will be routinely written for Linux, but I would prefer it didn't happen too soon. At the moment, the consequence of proprietary software developers ignoring Linux (and other FOSS OSs) is that open source developers are having to create the entire software stack.
The FOSS community won't just be developing an OS, but office apps, graphics tools, audio, video, CAD etc. It makes the task of creating a viable alternative to Microsoft harder, true, but the end result will be that an entire suite of FOSS software will exist for the platform by the time commercial interests start noticing the market.
At the moment, the lack of pressure from commercial interests is allowing the FOSS solutions to develop at their own pace, so the longer the proprietary companies keep shooting themselves in the foot by ignoring Linux, the better. Given time, any company wishing to compete in the Linux market will have to produce software which is significantly better than the established FOSS tools, and that has to be good for us computer users.
I haven't tested this one myself, Barrett Filter but I understand it is 100% effective at reducing spam from known sources. False positives may be a problem, however.
This is Windows. It'll freeze all by itself.
This is a pretty good step-by-step guide to getting the non-free parts of Suse 10.1 working properly. http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7527984757. html
Even worse, what if the nuclear waste explodes and triggers a fusion reaction on the surface of the sun. How much trouble would we be then?