It is at the moment. If you have a look on their website, Novell are offering a free download for evaluation. Unlike some other evaluation versions of operating systems, it doesn't expire.
Some evidence from a Family First media release announcing their House of Representatives preference deal:
"There have been some Liberal candidates who we have asked to sign a 3 year voting agreement on certain FF policy platforms that may arise in the Parliament over that 3 year period."
http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/2004/09/21-0001. html
deregulation is a strong tennet of economic liberalism and media deregulation is consistent with those philosophies.
The fact that Rupert Murdoch's intervention with John Howard has resulted in the indefinite shelving of any reform should tell you just how little their principles matter.
Notice that of all the players with something to say in this article the government is the most restrained
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is calling on Network Ten to cancel its edition of Big Brother. (various news services)
HELEN COONAN: It is not technically broadcasting within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act and Schedule Five of the Act. So what we are doing is we are now going to extend by legislation the content rules to other sorts of services, new and emerging services, over converged platforms such as mobile and the internet.
The Liberals (just a name, they're not really liberal) know they're going to need the Family First's (Australia's fundamentalist political party) support over the next few years. This sort of posturing is their way of pandering to the religious nuts without actually changing anything. In reality, the Libs are pretty much owned by the big media outlets and won't be doing anything to annoy them - as evidenced by their response to attempted media reform. http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/media-reforms- whittled-down-to-a-runt/2006/06/29/1151174330032.h tml
Bridgestone and Microsoft have been granted exclusive contracts to be the sole suppliers, of tires and ECUs respectively, of Formula 1 beginning in 2008.
and...
WMSC also announced that due to a significant increase in cornering speeds in F1 this season, the sport's Technical Working Group will be consulted regarding possible measures to slow the cars down.
So what again are the names of those Atheist charities?
United Way, The Smith Family, Medecin Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Starlight foundation, etc etc. If you weren't just trolling, have a look here http://www.secularhumanism.org/ for an insight into compassion in secular society.
I'm wondering what they should really be doing, besides forcing Microsoft to stop doing business in member states as long as they remain noncompliant, perhaps.
Use the fine money to fund a public reverse-engineering project for all the APIs and communications protocols. Nullify any patents held by Microsoft which would prevent competitors from re-implimenting the OS and/or bundled software.
"if you refuse blood products for your child, his/her chances for survival are less than half what they are if you accept them." And many, many times, the parents still refused for religious reasons.
I ALWAYS say that!
** I'm not actually religious, but it serves the noisy little bastard right.
Would the smell of rotting meat be more effective than a loud siren as a burglar alarm?
It is more effective in certain applications. Underground mines use Ethyl Mercaptan (stench gas) to warn workers to evacuate the mine http://www.zacon.ca/stench-gas.asp. If you've ever experienced it, you'll know there's a strong incentive to get the hell out of there.
We also found a huge cache of WMD last month according to news reports.
If you're referring to the cache Hoekstra and Santorum have been parading in front of the news services, they were known about and listed on intelligence reports back in 2003. They were degraded beyond the possibility of use even back then. rawstory
1. Why does the same American government that sends soldiers to be permanently mutilated in Iraq refuse to allow the full range of stem cell research that could, one day, re-grow the limbs torn apart by pointless, wasteful war? Why should we condemn the mutilated soldiers to a life of crappy prosthetics?
Stem cell treatment would result in a one-off billable event which, while good for the soldier concerned, is not good for anyone else.
By contrast, prosthetics require continual maintenance and parts replacement. It's all very nice that the government supplies these latest and greatest prosthetics to their crippled soldiers, but without a commitment to lifetime support, they'll end up being an economic burden to their owners and an income stream for the manufacturer and maintainer.
2. More fundamentally, why does the American government send soldiers off to sacrifice their lives in Iraq when most Americans, including American politicians, refuse to make any sacrifice for the sake of that war? No one is sacrificing. Only the soldiers are sacrificing -- their lives.
The rest of the US _is_ making sacrifices, but you're defraying most of those sacrifices to the future. Since the war is being paid for by debt, it's more like a mortgage than a purchase agreement. The bright side of all this is that the money being spent is not vanishing. The bulk of that trillion dollars will go to to the contractors pbsopensecrets who are running the war for you.
It's probably best to visualise the Iraq war as a large siphon sucking wealth from you and your children's futures into the vaults of Bechtel, Fluor, Halliburton etc. The owners of those companies will then obviously ensure the money is spent wisely and fairly, to the benefit of all.
Those are not the real barriers to adoption of freenets in the real world. If you look at projects like WA Freenet http://www.e3.com.au/, you can see the infrastructure here is being built by a handful of enthusiasts. If there was a coordinated effort by local governments, the network would be complete by now.
The key problem is that such a network, allowing things like VOIP and video streaming, would cut the legs out from under existing telcos and media groups. It would make a decentralised network which is unaccountable and uncontrollable (by the government). In Australia, common carrier laws are being used to stop the freenets from connecting to the bigger internet. If a workaround is found for that, another barrier will be put in place.
I think a salient point would be that those using a cell phone in the experiment were probably not allowed to choose to hang up
The guy who ran into the back of my car last month could have chosen to hang up at any time. He didn't hang up because he was concentrating on his phone call instead of noticing I was turning into a carpark 50 metres in front of him.
By the time he noticed there was an almost stationary car in front of him, he was less than 20m away and travelling too fast to stop. He may have tried to hang up at that point, but even if he didn't, the call would have been terminated when his phone hit the windscreen of his car and shattered.
He may have been more likely to run into a virtual car, but by choosing to be an arsehole and put other people's lives and property at risk, he ran into mine instead.
He'll be prosecuted, and doubtless fined, and his insurance will pay for repairs, but that won't give me back the week of walking around in pain from the bruised hip. It won't return my MGF to pristine condition. It'll always be an accident-damaged car, and will be worth less when I sell it.
I don't care how interesting his phone call was to him, he had no right to involve me in it, and that was the choice he made when he tried to operate a car and a phone at the same time.
Then maybe a clever student, frustrated because the license won't allow him or her to modify it, will re-impliment a new OS out of Singularity. If they allow a lot of other people to contribute, it could get big really fast...
Christian,
I'll add myself to the list of people who are horrified by the advert as it stands.
1. The theme, "Free Software for a Free People" is sophomoric, as is the use of Mt Rushmore. In a time where fake patriotism is constantly used to maniplulate opinions, it comes across as cynical and shallow.
One of the key positive points of FOSS is that it operates from a postition of moral integrity. A manipulative advert (one which uses a non-related emotive theme to push the product) subverts that impression of integrity.
2. The branding of the advert is all wrong. The style of the advert does not echo the style of the product. Have a look at the OOo home page, then look at the advert. Even the title of the advert is different from the OOo title. There should be enough similarities for them to have a "family" resemblance.
3. Skip the pointless hyperbole of "World's Best...". Instead, list a couple of the strongest positives of the software "Supports the standard ODF format" "One click PDF output" etc.
4. Why only "Download for Windows or Mac"? Where's the *IX support? Cross-platorm capability and consistency is one of the key strengths of the platform. Don't be so dismissive of it.
Too bad the 10+ billion dollar a year party's over for the folks up in Redmond.
It's not though. It must be clear, even to Microsoft, that the world needs open and standard formats. It must be evident, even to them, what it is costing government and industry to retain the current closed, proprietary formats.
What they have to weigh that against though, is that every hour they can delay the inevitable change, they bank revnues in excess of a million dollars. Every day they stall competition, they rake in almost thirty million dollars.
One day Microsoft will have to compete on merit instead of format lockin, but until then, every hour of delay they can engineer is a million dollar win for them.
I'm sorry, but this pops up every time there's a Windows security discussion, and its wrong every time. There are new privilege escalation exploits being found every month in Windows, and the only reason black-hats aren't commonly using them is because there's no need. Running as non-admin is sensible, but its not a panacea.
Slashdot Mirror
It is at the moment. If you have a look on their website, Novell are offering a free download for evaluation. Unlike some other evaluation versions of operating systems, it doesn't expire.
You should. There were a lot premature M/B failures because of bad electrolytic caps between 2001 and 2004. http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030 207018535.htm
Some evidence from a Family First media release announcing their House of Representatives preference deal:
deregulation is a strong tennet of economic liberalism and media deregulation is consistent with those philosophies.
The fact that Rupert Murdoch's intervention with John Howard has resulted in the indefinite shelving of any reform should tell you just how little their principles matter.
The Liberals (just a name, they're not really liberal) know they're going to need the Family First's (Australia's fundamentalist political party) support over the next few years. This sort of posturing is their way of pandering to the religious nuts without actually changing anything. In reality, the Libs are pretty much owned by the big media outlets and won't be doing anything to annoy them - as evidenced by their response to attempted media reform.- whittled-down-to-a-runt/2006/06/29/1151174330032.h tml
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/media-reforms
The answer is in the article itself;
and... If you reverse the order, it all makes sense...My Smartphone has a reset button. If it didn't, you'd have to pull the battery pack out every couple of weeks to fix the lockups.
United Way, The Smith Family, Medecin Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Starlight foundation, etc etc. If you weren't just trolling, have a look here http://www.secularhumanism.org/ for an insight into compassion in secular society.
Use the fine money to fund a public reverse-engineering project for all the APIs and communications protocols. Nullify any patents held by Microsoft which would prevent competitors from re-implimenting the OS and/or bundled software.
True. They tend to form governments to get themselves organised, and it all goes downhill from there.
I ALWAYS say that!
** I'm not actually religious, but it serves the noisy little bastard right.
Now THAT is comedy gold!
It is more effective in certain applications. Underground mines use Ethyl Mercaptan (stench gas) to warn workers to evacuate the mine http://www.zacon.ca/stench-gas.asp. If you've ever experienced it, you'll know there's a strong incentive to get the hell out of there.
If you're referring to the cache Hoekstra and Santorum have been parading in front of the news services, they were known about and listed on intelligence reports back in 2003. They were degraded beyond the possibility of use even back then.
rawstory
Self-Driving Vehicle promptly hits the bar, gets thoroughly oiled and rolls off into the red light district looking for a "service".
Stem cell treatment would result in a one-off billable event which, while good for the soldier concerned, is not good for anyone else.
By contrast, prosthetics require continual maintenance and parts replacement. It's all very nice that the government supplies these latest and greatest prosthetics to their crippled soldiers, but without a commitment to lifetime support, they'll end up being an economic burden to their owners and an income stream for the manufacturer and maintainer.
The rest of the US _is_ making sacrifices, but you're defraying most of those sacrifices to the future. Since the war is being paid for by debt, it's more like a mortgage than a purchase agreement. The bright side of all this is that the money being spent is not vanishing. The bulk of that trillion dollars will go to to the contractors pbs opensecrets who are running the war for you.
It's probably best to visualise the Iraq war as a large siphon sucking wealth from you and your children's futures into the vaults of Bechtel, Fluor, Halliburton etc. The owners of those companies will then obviously ensure the money is spent wisely and fairly, to the benefit of all.
Ok. I blame the person.
Now how do I reduce the probability of this sort of accident recurring?
Those are not the real barriers to adoption of freenets in the real world. If you look at projects like WA Freenet http://www.e3.com.au/, you can see the infrastructure here is being built by a handful of enthusiasts. If there was a coordinated effort by local governments, the network would be complete by now.
The key problem is that such a network, allowing things like VOIP and video streaming, would cut the legs out from under existing telcos and media groups. It would make a decentralised network which is unaccountable and uncontrollable (by the government). In Australia, common carrier laws are being used to stop the freenets from connecting to the bigger internet. If a workaround is found for that, another barrier will be put in place.
The guy who ran into the back of my car last month could have chosen to hang up at any time. He didn't hang up because he was concentrating on his phone call instead of noticing I was turning into a carpark 50 metres in front of him.
By the time he noticed there was an almost stationary car in front of him, he was less than 20m away and travelling too fast to stop. He may have tried to hang up at that point, but even if he didn't, the call would have been terminated when his phone hit the windscreen of his car and shattered.
He may have been more likely to run into a virtual car, but by choosing to be an arsehole and put other people's lives and property at risk, he ran into mine instead.
He'll be prosecuted, and doubtless fined, and his insurance will pay for repairs, but that won't give me back the week of walking around in pain from the bruised hip. It won't return my MGF to pristine condition. It'll always be an accident-damaged car, and will be worth less when I sell it.
I don't care how interesting his phone call was to him, he had no right to involve me in it, and that was the choice he made when he tried to operate a car and a phone at the same time.
With Suse Linux, Office software, Photo-editing software, 3D animation package, etc, etc: $550
With Windows Vista: $650
Fixed that for you.
Then maybe a clever student, frustrated because the license won't allow him or her to modify it, will re-impliment a new OS out of Singularity. If they allow a lot of other people to contribute, it could get big really fast...
And if this truly works, does that make xeyes a productivity tool?
I'll add myself to the list of people who are horrified by the advert as it stands.
1. The theme, "Free Software for a Free People" is sophomoric, as is the use of Mt Rushmore. In a time where fake patriotism is constantly used to maniplulate opinions, it comes across as cynical and shallow.
One of the key positive points of FOSS is that it operates from a postition of moral integrity. A manipulative advert (one which uses a non-related emotive theme to push the product) subverts that impression of integrity.
2. The branding of the advert is all wrong. The style of the advert does not echo the style of the product. Have a look at the OOo home page, then look at the advert. Even the title of the advert is different from the OOo title. There should be enough similarities for them to have a "family" resemblance.
3. Skip the pointless hyperbole of "World's Best...". Instead, list a couple of the strongest positives of the software "Supports the standard ODF format" "One click PDF output" etc.
4. Why only "Download for Windows or Mac"? Where's the *IX support? Cross-platorm capability and consistency is one of the key strengths of the platform. Don't be so dismissive of it.
It's not though. It must be clear, even to Microsoft, that the world needs open and standard formats. It must be evident, even to them, what it is costing government and industry to retain the current closed, proprietary formats.
What they have to weigh that against though, is that every hour they can delay the inevitable change, they bank revnues in excess of a million dollars. Every day they stall competition, they rake in almost thirty million dollars.
One day Microsoft will have to compete on merit instead of format lockin, but until then, every hour of delay they can engineer is a million dollar win for them.
Stop beating around the bush. We all know they'll blame lost sales on piracy and download sites.
This won't change the *AA focus, but it might give some ammunition to the anti-DRM campaigners to debunk the lies.
I'm sorry, but this pops up every time there's a Windows security discussion, and its wrong every time. There are new privilege escalation exploits being found every month in Windows, and the only reason black-hats aren't commonly using them is because there's no need. Running as non-admin is sensible, but its not a panacea.