You ASSUME they contribute very little back. Did it ever occur to you that they might be donating anonymously rather than very publicly like some foundations we know? The Google guys aren't in deep need of good PR like some other company heads.
I like where you're going here... so... since PlaysForSewer DRM forces me to use Windows, I think Norway should make Windows illegal since PFS forces a single choice!
If your copy of Ubuntu won't play DVDs, that's between you and Google, my friend
I know you're being funny, but last time I checked, Windows didn't play DVDs "out of the box" either. Try laying down a fresh XP or Vista install and playing a DVD. On that note, there is 1 "legal" way I know of to play DVDs on Linux, and (sadly) it's via the CNR... as for no-so-legal ways... umm... Google!
Kind of... Nvu... granted it doesn't have as many bells and whistles but it's fine for basic pages. If you're looking for more whiz-bang things like image viewers, etc... then no, not really. However, Nvu pages will work in all browsers, unlike the incompatible HTML FP puts out.
I recently took ownership of a MacBook Pro, cautiously expecting OSX to pry me from Linux, but guess what... it hasn't. I have to say that OSX is a very nice GUI, but the fact that the underlying OS is closed really rubs me the wrong way (yeah... I know... Darwin... but show me a non-Apple Darwin build that Aqua will run on). As such, I've got a dual boot OSX / Gentoo install on it now, and the only time I'm ever in OSX is for video editing. Is getting Gentoo up on a MBP for the faint of heart? Hell no. It's a friggen pain in the ass to get setup. However, for me at least, the fact that I can now do whatever I want with the underlying OS / drivers beats shiny zoom icons hands down. Besides, KDE really isn't all that bad, it handles all the things a desktop should, just not as prettily as OSX.
Java is hardly what I would call enterprise ready either.
Man... that's a +5 Funny if I've ever read one. You obviously don't work in an "enterprise". Take it from someone who does (telco), Java is used in massive deployments where Mono/.Net doesn't even make the faintest blip on the radar. There are production Java apps running with 5-9 uptimes that have been going for years.
I have had no user-installed programs since I started administrating the system here at a 3500-employee corporation
Now THAT'S funny... you are delusional if you think that... give me 5 minutes with one of your PC / laptops and I'll have administrator access to your domain. All I need is a PC with a bootable CD/DVD/USB drive. This isn't a Linux/OSX is better thing either, if you can reboot the machine, there is NOTHING you can to do completely lock that sucker down regardless of the OS.
I disagree, Linus does care about derived works. Much as I admire the altruistic nature of the BSD license, it offers absolutely no protection from derived works. What Linus doesn't care for is imposing the derived work status on non-derived works. To put this in perspective, if Linux is a DVD player, Linus says you have to show any bits you change in the DVD player code, but he's not going to force you to show the bits on the DVDs you play. Personally, I think the BSD license is not a good choice for platform type code, it's too tempting to create an incompatible closed source fork as a competitive advantage. However, I think it's great for application type code, where you don't have this scenario of having rely on potentially closed-source BSD fork to run some software.
Yep, you're right, also don't forget that since you authored the code, you can develop against the GPL ver, and can just buy a QT license to distribute it if you decide to keep it closed. Seems fair to me.
I was there on the NWN Linux client a few years ago... in fact, if it HADN'T been ported to Linux, I wouldn't have bought the series in the first place.
I read the article, I'm not the Breast Surgery Chief but I do have a fairly solid background in biology. The thing that made my bullshit meter go into the red is when he tried to discredit pasteurization. Also, he uses very weak arguments and then doesn't back them up. You can't just say milk has bacteria, bacteria makes people sick, therefore milk is bad... it's simply too broad a brush to use in biological terms. If you want to talk about scary stuff, look at all the recent fecal coliform contaminated vegetables in this county. If this author took a stance on that subject, it would read like this: fertilizer and reclaimed water used to irrigate vegetable fields contain fecal coliforms, fecal coliforms make people sick, therefore vegetables are bad. Disconnected facts do not an argument make.
I know what you're getting at, but re-read that and appreciate how misleading that sounds. he way it's worded it makes it sound like the graphics subsystem doesn't use native widgets? Ummm, yeah, that's exactly the way X is SUPPOSED to work since there ARE no widgets (or windows for that matter) defined in X.
Don't forget that if that passes, we will be able to deduct all expenses incurred while potentially making those earnings including monthly fees, ISP costs, electricity costs, cost of the game, hardware, "office" space, training costs in terms of cable bill for receiving G4, plasma TV cost, etc. By treating gaming as an independent "business" they're gonna be promoting a whole lot of deductions that wouldn't otherwise be deductible. Heck... I hope they go ahead and do it... I'm looking to claiming my gaming "losses".
Shame... the US gov could have bought out MS for far less than the cost of the Iraq war to date. At least we'd have gotten something more useful out of that money than a few million angry Iraqis and few thousand newly fatherless American children. Oh right, I forgot... WMDs WMDs!!!
Look at Germany...
That's true... HOWEVER... they also have some of the strictest traffic laws in the world. So, yeah, I'm all for a German like system... but when the f-tard on my ass gets nailed for tailgating, I'd like the satisfaction of knowing he's gonna be walking to work for a minimum of 1 to 3 months. If government really wanted to save lives, they'd bump the speed limits to 90mph and hand out monstrous fines for dangerous driving. Of course, it's far harder to use judgment for traffic offenses than hanging pointing a laser gun out your window and waiting for the beep.
you're far more likely to see a company code for IE first and then make Firefox 'work'
That used to be true a few years ago. I'm seeing a lot code now starting in Firefox, then being tweaked for IE. It makes sense since if it works in FF, odds are it will work in IE, the inverse not being so cut and dry. The reason is simple, FF is far stricter about standards than IE. On that note, I'll give MS props for moving towards more standards compliance in IE7. If IE6 could just die, life would be much easier for web devs.
I don't want to break any 733t rules by posting this info so read between the lines, it's the escape code for the Delete key in the Very best text edItor
Almost... in reality whomever you try to hire for protection has far more incentive to divest you of all your wealth since there are no enforcement agency to enforce the "for hire" enforcement agencies. In anarchocapitalism, maximizing profits is king, so why settle for a few hundred a month at an added cost to my organization when I can simply take all your millions and put a bullet in your head at a cost of $1 to my organization?
Appointing an employee of one of the companies bidding as your tech advisor is not exactly indicative of impartial decision making.
I thought the same thing... at first... but then, if you think about it, this guy was PAID to take that stance. Now he's in a position where he can be paid to take a different stance. I seriously doubt that this guy has any personal preference either way. If he can be bought one way, I'm sure he can be bought the other way. The question is, is he still employed by the same lobbyist firm?
... forgot to give props to http://www.werkshop.com/ if you like artists signed to the Nettwerk label, they have the right idea... nice MP3 (some FLAC) all w/o DRM at $0.79-$0.99/track.
... it wasn't so much the prices as much as the fact that the music is offered in the format you want it, all DRM free. If there was a legit site that offered music by the track at $0.99/track in un-DRMed mp3 format at 256kbps, it would have similar success. I don't like buying iTunes tracks at $0.99/track in a DRMed low bitrate AAC format that I have to burp, rip and convert to MP3 although I have several times in the past. Also, the fact that iTunes is Mac/Win only rubs me the wrong way as an OSS enthusiast, and Win only sites I simply do not buy from since I refuse to encourage MS tech at least for the foreseeable future.
... not to mention that it's virtually impossible to lose data in an Oracle database. You can literally take a mish-mash of old backups from an Oracle db and have a solid chance of recovering your data if you run in archive log mode. I can't imagine anybody keeping data they give a damn about in MS-SQL, especially considering that it only runs on one of the most insecure OSes known to man. Yeah, Oracle is way too expensive and complex, but if you need your data available 99.999%, it's really does offer the best guarantee of meeting that availability.
Slashdot Mirror
You ASSUME they contribute very little back. Did it ever occur to you that they might be donating anonymously rather than very publicly like some foundations we know? The Google guys aren't in deep need of good PR like some other company heads.
It's Windows Media DRM v10 ... so, like all other Windows DRM attempts, I predict this will fail miserably.
I like where you're going here ... so ... since PlaysForSewer DRM forces me to use Windows, I think Norway should make Windows illegal since PFS forces a single choice!
If your copy of Ubuntu won't play DVDs, that's between you and Google, my friend
... as for no-so-legal ways ... umm ... Google!
I know you're being funny, but last time I checked, Windows didn't play DVDs "out of the box" either. Try laying down a fresh XP or Vista install and playing a DVD. On that note, there is 1 "legal" way I know of to play DVDs on Linux, and (sadly) it's via the CNR
Kind of ... Nvu ... granted it doesn't have as many bells and whistles but it's fine for basic pages. If you're looking for more whiz-bang things like image viewers, etc ... then no, not really. However, Nvu pages will work in all browsers, unlike the incompatible HTML FP puts out.
I recently took ownership of a MacBook Pro, cautiously expecting OSX to pry me from Linux, but guess what ... it hasn't. I have to say that OSX is a very nice GUI, but the fact that the underlying OS is closed really rubs me the wrong way (yeah ... I know ... Darwin ... but show me a non-Apple Darwin build that Aqua will run on). As such, I've got a dual boot OSX / Gentoo install on it now, and the only time I'm ever in OSX is for video editing. Is getting Gentoo up on a MBP for the faint of heart? Hell no. It's a friggen pain in the ass to get setup. However, for me at least, the fact that I can now do whatever I want with the underlying OS / drivers beats shiny zoom icons hands down. Besides, KDE really isn't all that bad, it handles all the things a desktop should, just not as prettily as OSX.
Java is hardly what I would call enterprise ready either.
... that's a +5 Funny if I've ever read one. You obviously don't work in an "enterprise". Take it from someone who does (telco), Java is used in massive deployments where Mono/.Net doesn't even make the faintest blip on the radar. There are production Java apps running with 5-9 uptimes that have been going for years.
Man
I have had no user-installed programs since I started administrating the system here at a 3500-employee corporation
... you are delusional if you think that ... give me 5 minutes with one of your PC / laptops and I'll have administrator access to your domain. All I need is a PC with a bootable CD/DVD/USB drive. This isn't a Linux/OSX is better thing either, if you can reboot the machine, there is NOTHING you can to do completely lock that sucker down regardless of the OS.
Now THAT'S funny
I disagree, Linus does care about derived works. Much as I admire the altruistic nature of the BSD license, it offers absolutely no protection from derived works. What Linus doesn't care for is imposing the derived work status on non-derived works. To put this in perspective, if Linux is a DVD player, Linus says you have to show any bits you change in the DVD player code, but he's not going to force you to show the bits on the DVDs you play. Personally, I think the BSD license is not a good choice for platform type code, it's too tempting to create an incompatible closed source fork as a competitive advantage. However, I think it's great for application type code, where you don't have this scenario of having rely on potentially closed-source BSD fork to run some software.
Yep, you're right, also don't forget that since you authored the code, you can develop against the GPL ver, and can just buy a QT license to distribute it if you decide to keep it closed. Seems fair to me.
I was there on the NWN Linux client a few years ago ... in fact, if it HADN'T been ported to Linux, I wouldn't have bought the series in the first place.
I read the article, I'm not the Breast Surgery Chief but I do have a fairly solid background in biology. The thing that made my bullshit meter go into the red is when he tried to discredit pasteurization. Also, he uses very weak arguments and then doesn't back them up. You can't just say milk has bacteria, bacteria makes people sick, therefore milk is bad ... it's simply too broad a brush to use in biological terms. If you want to talk about scary stuff, look at all the recent fecal coliform contaminated vegetables in this county. If this author took a stance on that subject, it would read like this: fertilizer and reclaimed water used to irrigate vegetable fields contain fecal coliforms, fecal coliforms make people sick, therefore vegetables are bad. Disconnected facts do not an argument make.
X applications do not use the native widgets.
I know what you're getting at, but re-read that and appreciate how misleading that sounds. he way it's worded it makes it sound like the graphics subsystem doesn't use native widgets? Ummm, yeah, that's exactly the way X is SUPPOSED to work since there ARE no widgets (or windows for that matter) defined in X.
Don't forget that if that passes, we will be able to deduct all expenses incurred while potentially making those earnings including monthly fees, ISP costs, electricity costs, cost of the game, hardware, "office" space, training costs in terms of cable bill for receiving G4, plasma TV cost, etc. By treating gaming as an independent "business" they're gonna be promoting a whole lot of deductions that wouldn't otherwise be deductible. Heck ... I hope they go ahead and do it ... I'm looking to claiming my gaming "losses".
Shame ... the US gov could have bought out MS for far less than the cost of the Iraq war to date. At least we'd have gotten something more useful out of that money than a few million angry Iraqis and few thousand newly fatherless American children. Oh right, I forgot ... WMDs WMDs!!!
I take it you did NOT attended Harvard then?
You just may not have enough memory for the last one
MS is probably trying to get WindowsCE on there, not Fista
Look at Germany ...
That's true ... HOWEVER ... they also have some of the strictest traffic laws in the world. So, yeah, I'm all for a German like system ... but when the f-tard on my ass gets nailed for tailgating, I'd like the satisfaction of knowing he's gonna be walking to work for a minimum of 1 to 3 months. If government really wanted to save lives, they'd bump the speed limits to 90mph and hand out monstrous fines for dangerous driving. Of course, it's far harder to use judgment for traffic offenses than hanging pointing a laser gun out your window and waiting for the beep.
you're far more likely to see a company code for IE first and then make Firefox 'work'
That used to be true a few years ago. I'm seeing a lot code now starting in Firefox, then being tweaked for IE. It makes sense since if it works in FF, odds are it will work in IE, the inverse not being so cut and dry. The reason is simple, FF is far stricter about standards than IE. On that note, I'll give MS props for moving towards more standards compliance in IE7. If IE6 could just die, life would be much easier for web devs.
I don't want to break any 733t rules by posting this info so read between the lines, it's the escape code for the Delete key in the Very best text edItor
Almost ... in reality whomever you try to hire for protection has far more incentive to divest you of all your wealth since there are no enforcement agency to enforce the "for hire" enforcement agencies. In anarchocapitalism, maximizing profits is king, so why settle for a few hundred a month at an added cost to my organization when I can simply take all your millions and put a bullet in your head at a cost of $1 to my organization?
Appointing an employee of one of the companies bidding as your tech advisor is not exactly indicative of impartial decision making.
... at first ... but then, if you think about it, this guy was PAID to take that stance. Now he's in a position where he can be paid to take a different stance. I seriously doubt that this guy has any personal preference either way. If he can be bought one way, I'm sure he can be bought the other way. The question is, is he still employed by the same lobbyist firm?
I thought the same thing
... forgot to give props to http://www.werkshop.com/ if you like artists signed to the Nettwerk label, they have the right idea ... nice MP3 (some FLAC) all w/o DRM at $0.79-$0.99/track.
... it wasn't so much the prices as much as the fact that the music is offered in the format you want it, all DRM free. If there was a legit site that offered music by the track at $0.99/track in un-DRMed mp3 format at 256kbps, it would have similar success. I don't like buying iTunes tracks at $0.99/track in a DRMed low bitrate AAC format that I have to burp, rip and convert to MP3 although I have several times in the past. Also, the fact that iTunes is Mac/Win only rubs me the wrong way as an OSS enthusiast, and Win only sites I simply do not buy from since I refuse to encourage MS tech at least for the foreseeable future.
... not to mention that it's virtually impossible to lose data in an Oracle database. You can literally take a mish-mash of old backups from an Oracle db and have a solid chance of recovering your data if you run in archive log mode. I can't imagine anybody keeping data they give a damn about in MS-SQL, especially considering that it only runs on one of the most insecure OSes known to man. Yeah, Oracle is way too expensive and complex, but if you need your data available 99.999%, it's really does offer the best guarantee of meeting that availability.