I skimmed the article, misinterpreted the author's message, and posted a comment that was completely off-topic. Anyone modding the parent up obviously did not read the article thoroughly either. It got modded down to 0 earlier, but people keep modding it up again as Insightful. It wasn't Insightful, it was Illiterate. If you want to moderate the parent, MOD IT DOWN. Thank you.
No, I meant Stallmanism. As in Richard M. Stallman, the father of GNU and the man who screams from the rooftops that "all software should be Free" at every available opportunity. He's the same guy that will turn his back to you in the middle of a conversation if you happen to slip up and say "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux".
But that wouldn't outlaw someone from writing a program on the Windows platform, or any other platform that supports DRM, and then releasing the program under a Free software license like BSD or GPL. I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't really outlaw Free software per se, though it may make it difficult to run Linux or other Free OS's within the confines of the US. Free software will always be around as long as someone is willing to write applications, and give away the source.
As to the patent and the requirement for DRM-enabled computers, I think that if it ever passed Congress and was signed into law, the next stop would be the Supreme Court. They would likely find that either the law or the patent would have to go, since not doing so would result in a unconstitutional restriction of the right to freedom of expression (running the OS of your choice). If it came down to that, my bet would be that the patent would go under the axe, not the law.
...have a bad sense of humor and money to burn. Some of these patents that have come to light lately seem more like practical jokes, or like two guys betting each other over whether or not the patent will be granted. How else can you explain a patent on a procedure like going to the bathroom?
When we now consider the right to Free software a basic human right, I think we are all starting to take ourselves a little too seriously. It's not like someone is trying to outlaw the writing of Free software, or suppress the Free software movement (okay, maybe Microsoft is trying to talk trash about it, but they can't really do anything to stop it). Or is this the prelude to an argument that people should have access to source code for proprietary commercial apps, because not having it is a violation of their human rights?
Free software is good. But that doesn't mean that all software should be Free. It's a big jump from intellectual openness to Stallmanism.
FYI: Oberon and Titania were from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", not "Much Ado About Nothing". They were the King and Queen of the fairies.
Although, I have to admit that "Much Ado About Nothing" might have been more interesting with them included, particularly the Kenneth Branagh screen version...
Sun made a colossal mistake the day they announced that Solaris x86 version 9 would be indefinitely deferred. And I think they realized it about 10 minutes after they announced it. They drastically overestimated the popularity of the Sun hardware platform, and totally discounted the fact that a lot of budding sysadmins would like to cut their teeth on Solaris, but can't afford a Sun Blade to do it. Ever since then, they've been trying to backpeddle while saving face. Looks like they've almost gotten back to where they started. Now they just need to offer Solaris x86 version 9 as an option of the Free Solaris program ($95 for unlimited non-commercial use on up to 8 cpus) and we'll be back to the parity of platforms we had two years ago.
It's not the initial development of drivers and an application interface that is such the expense for the ISP. It is the ongoing support of an additional platform. By adding Mac support for your product, you've just doubled your ongoing testing and debug workload. It is also an additional platform for which they will have to provide user support. They either have to train their existing help desk staff to resolve both Windows and Mac problems, or they have to hire a special "Mac staff" and create a separate help desk to support that userbase.
In the realm of mass market computing, the majority rules. Most companies can't afford to expend the budget to gain a small fraction of a platform that only makes up 5% of the industry as a whole. Remember, it's not like EVERY Mac user will start using the product just because they support the Mac. So, why would a company spend even 2% of their R&D budget to get 1% of a 5% market (if they're lucky).
Here's the thing I wish the "desktop Linux" community would come to understand. It doesn't matter how nice the desktop environment is, how cool it looks, or how easy it is to use. It's all about the applications, or more specifically, the DOCUMENTS.
Linux would be making serious headway onto the desktops of corporate machines (and greater penetration into the consumer market) if the Wine project would mature to the point that you could run any Windows app flawlessly on your Linux machine.
Barring that, if there were even a collection of native Linux apps that could read and write perfectly to the MS Office document formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ACCESS, VISIO, PUBLISHER, etc), Linux would see a major boom.
Some folks "get it". When Ximian developed Evolution, they realized that in order to make it to the corporate desktop, they would have to write a plugin for Exchange. Crossover is doing great work extending Wine, and may someday reach the point where Windows apps can "just work". The only problem (in some people's view) is that these products are closed source and proprietary.
There could have been Open Source alternatives to these products, but OSS developers have decided that having five or six desktop UI's is more important than having one good UI and applications that can open the file formats that 95% of the world uses.
Ready for the "business desktop"? I don't think so.
Okay, it plays, so it's not actually useless. But the Lego Star Destroyer is.
THAT is frickin COOL! I'm gonna pre-order mine today! And only $270?! Awesome! Just make me a bunch of little tie fighters and x-wings and...
Hey! If you work it right, adulthood can be a hundred times more fun than childhood. Screw the neighbors! I'm going to put a bigass Lego Death Star in the front yard and stage a battle... Let's see that little punk Jedi wannabe down the block top THAT! I'll teach him for kicking my ass at Pokemon!
Feel the vengeance of a Sith sysadmin, you little turd...
This actually stems from a quiet dissatisfaction with what they have. It is my belief that there are a lot of people using Linux because they think that somehow that makes them cooler, better, smarter, etc than everyone else. They don't use it because they actually *like* it, they use it because it is the "geek" thing to do.
Before I get flamed, let me state that there are a lot of people who use Linux because they truly love it for one reason or another. It's usually pretty easy to tell the two apart:
Geek 1: Reads email in Pine and has been running Slackware for like 8 years (without a reboot!).
Geek 2: Switches distros every time a new one hits the FTP servers and boots into Windows XP to play Neverwinter Nights when no one is watching.
... they can check "Looks Cool" off their TODO list. It LOOKS pretty darn slick.
As for how good it is, I'd say that depends on your application. For a kiosk or home Linux computer for non-geeks (which I believe is the point) I think it'll serve nicely. If you want a customized "power desktop" move on, there's nothing here to see. In fact, why'd you even bother clicking the link? We already know what you are going to say:
"Why do you need this desktop? <INSERT WM HERE> is way better and far more customizable, and <INSERT GUI HERE> totally rocks! Besides, it's not <INSERT LICENSE HERE> so it isn't really Free."
Given the fact that PC games and console games are for the most part comparably priced at around $50, to me it just makes more sense to buy a $200-300 game console every three years or so, than to buy a $2000 PC and have to spend more money on incremental hardware upgrades every year, just so I can play the latest games.
Not to mention that consoles "keep" really well. I've got a few old game consoles in my closet and a box full of old games. Whenever I feel nostalgic for some old game, it's a piece of cake to take out a console, plug it in, play a few games, then put it away again. With PC games, there tend to be software compatibility problems that always crop up with older games on newer systems. I don't want to have to tweak settings for an hour to just so I can play a couple rounds of Super Breakout should I get the urge.
Yes, as some have pointed out, there are some limitations to console gaming, most notably multiplayer Internet gaming. But I think that in one or two year's time, those shortcomings will vanish, and the line between game console and PC will blur significantly. I expect to see web-browsing and email become common features on game consoles in the near future. And long term, my guess is that the console will beat out the PC as the entertainment hub of the average household. Why else would Microsoft be investing in the XBox so aggressively?
While it doesn't cut down on my postal direct mail marketing, I have found one way to cut the WHOIS-related telemarketing down to almost nil. I used my cell phone number on the contact info.
At first thought, this might seem like a crazy idea, but it really works. In the US, it is illegal for telemarketers to call your cell phone number to solicit services, or to use a war-dialer on cell phone exchanges to fill their call lists.
On the rare occasions that I have received a telemarketing call, I have simply informed the caller that they were calling a cell phone, that it was illegal, and that if they called again within a one year period I would have legal right to take them to small claims court for a settlement of $500 per offense. I haven't gotten a telemarketing call from the same company twice.
Since I switched my WHOIS record info from my business number to my cell number, I've seen my telemarketing calls drop by well over 99%.
"...but a year from now 64MB cards might just be obsolete."
So? A year from now, 128MB might be a low-end card, too. So in a year, buy a new card. Don't invest in tomorrow's technology today at a premium, when you can get it tomorrow at a discount. That's why smart buyers invest in modular components. When your hardware gets outdated, pluck and chuck.
I never invest in the top-end. I buy in the middle ground. Why? Because components drop from high-end to mid-range very quickly, but then stay there a long time before obsolescing to the low-end (or dead-end). And when a product drops from the high-end to the middle ground, the pricetag typically gets cut in half.
to rent a 30 minute movie. Because that's how long most two hour Hollywood flicks would be if you cut out the sex, violence, and profanity. Hey, while we're at it, can we cut out the product placement advertising as well? Then I could watch Minority Report in like 10 minutes.
One idea that might be an interesting compromise:
A lot of DVDs come with the viewer option to include deleted footage into the presentation of the film. Why couldn't this work in reverse? Flag scenes with ratings, and give the viewer the option of viewing the 'R' rated version (the original), the 'PG-13' version (slight edit), the 'PG' version (bigger edit), or the 'G' version (running time: 23 minutes). The DVD player would simply skip scenes that were rated higher than the chosen threshold. Then video rental companies could carry the standard DVD, but the viewer could choose their own level of "cleanliness".
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So would that make me the Six Million Dollar Nerd? That could be cool.
duunananananaa...
I skimmed the article, misinterpreted the author's message, and posted a comment that was completely off-topic. Anyone modding the parent up obviously did not read the article thoroughly either. It got modded down to 0 earlier, but people keep modding it up again as Insightful. It wasn't Insightful, it was Illiterate. If you want to moderate the parent, MOD IT DOWN. Thank you.
Yes I am. Thanks for noticing. I noticed you didn't post a link to YOUR webcam, Charles Atlas...
No, I meant Stallmanism. As in Richard M. Stallman, the father of GNU and the man who screams from the rooftops that "all software should be Free" at every available opportunity. He's the same guy that will turn his back to you in the middle of a conversation if you happen to slip up and say "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux".
But that wouldn't outlaw someone from writing a program on the Windows platform, or any other platform that supports DRM, and then releasing the program under a Free software license like BSD or GPL. I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't really outlaw Free software per se, though it may make it difficult to run Linux or other Free OS's within the confines of the US. Free software will always be around as long as someone is willing to write applications, and give away the source.
As to the patent and the requirement for DRM-enabled computers, I think that if it ever passed Congress and was signed into law, the next stop would be the Supreme Court. They would likely find that either the law or the patent would have to go, since not doing so would result in a unconstitutional restriction of the right to freedom of expression (running the OS of your choice). If it came down to that, my bet would be that the patent would go under the axe, not the law.
Hmm. You're right. I went back and "re-skimmed" the article. Sorry. Someone go ahead and mod me down (OT).
No I wasn't. That was your mom's homepage.
...have a bad sense of humor and money to burn. Some of these patents that have come to light lately seem more like practical jokes, or like two guys betting each other over whether or not the patent will be granted. How else can you explain a patent on a procedure like going to the bathroom?
When we now consider the right to Free software a basic human right, I think we are all starting to take ourselves a little too seriously. It's not like someone is trying to outlaw the writing of Free software, or suppress the Free software movement (okay, maybe Microsoft is trying to talk trash about it, but they can't really do anything to stop it). Or is this the prelude to an argument that people should have access to source code for proprietary commercial apps, because not having it is a violation of their human rights?
Free software is good. But that doesn't mean that all software should be Free. It's a big jump from intellectual openness to Stallmanism.
FYI: Oberon and Titania were from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", not "Much Ado About Nothing". They were the King and Queen of the fairies.
Although, I have to admit that "Much Ado About Nothing" might have been more interesting with them included, particularly the Kenneth Branagh screen version...
Sun made a colossal mistake the day they announced that Solaris x86 version 9 would be indefinitely deferred. And I think they realized it about 10 minutes after they announced it. They drastically overestimated the popularity of the Sun hardware platform, and totally discounted the fact that a lot of budding sysadmins would like to cut their teeth on Solaris, but can't afford a Sun Blade to do it. Ever since then, they've been trying to backpeddle while saving face. Looks like they've almost gotten back to where they started. Now they just need to offer Solaris x86 version 9 as an option of the Free Solaris program ($95 for unlimited non-commercial use on up to 8 cpus) and we'll be back to the parity of platforms we had two years ago.
It's not the initial development of drivers and an application interface that is such the expense for the ISP. It is the ongoing support of an additional platform. By adding Mac support for your product, you've just doubled your ongoing testing and debug workload. It is also an additional platform for which they will have to provide user support. They either have to train their existing help desk staff to resolve both Windows and Mac problems, or they have to hire a special "Mac staff" and create a separate help desk to support that userbase.
In the realm of mass market computing, the majority rules. Most companies can't afford to expend the budget to gain a small fraction of a platform that only makes up 5% of the industry as a whole. Remember, it's not like EVERY Mac user will start using the product just because they support the Mac. So, why would a company spend even 2% of their R&D budget to get 1% of a 5% market (if they're lucky).
Here's the thing I wish the "desktop Linux" community would come to understand. It doesn't matter how nice the desktop environment is, how cool it looks, or how easy it is to use. It's all about the applications, or more specifically, the DOCUMENTS.
Linux would be making serious headway onto the desktops of corporate machines (and greater penetration into the consumer market) if the Wine project would mature to the point that you could run any Windows app flawlessly on your Linux machine.
Barring that, if there were even a collection of native Linux apps that could read and write perfectly to the MS Office document formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ACCESS, VISIO, PUBLISHER, etc), Linux would see a major boom.
Some folks "get it". When Ximian developed Evolution, they realized that in order to make it to the corporate desktop, they would have to write a plugin for Exchange. Crossover is doing great work extending Wine, and may someday reach the point where Windows apps can "just work". The only problem (in some people's view) is that these products are closed source and proprietary.
There could have been Open Source alternatives to these products, but OSS developers have decided that having five or six desktop UI's is more important than having one good UI and applications that can open the file formats that 95% of the world uses.
Ready for the "business desktop"? I don't think so.
Okay, it plays, so it's not actually useless. But the Lego Star Destroyer is.
...
THAT is frickin COOL! I'm gonna pre-order mine today! And only $270?! Awesome! Just make me a bunch of little tie fighters and x-wings and
Hey! If you work it right, adulthood can be a hundred times more fun than childhood. Screw the neighbors! I'm going to put a bigass Lego Death Star in the front yard and stage a battle... Let's see that little punk Jedi wannabe down the block top THAT! I'll teach him for kicking my ass at Pokemon!
Feel the vengeance of a Sith sysadmin, you little turd...
Well, it's a wide spectrum... :^) Those were just two examples at opposite ends.
This actually stems from a quiet dissatisfaction with what they have. It is my belief that there are a lot of people using Linux because they think that somehow that makes them cooler, better, smarter, etc than everyone else. They don't use it because they actually *like* it, they use it because it is the "geek" thing to do.
Before I get flamed, let me state that there are a lot of people who use Linux because they truly love it for one reason or another. It's usually pretty easy to tell the two apart:
Geek 1: Reads email in Pine and has been running Slackware for like 8 years (without a reboot!).
Geek 2: Switches distros every time a new one hits the FTP servers and boots into Windows XP to play Neverwinter Nights when no one is watching.
... they can check "Looks Cool" off their TODO list. It LOOKS pretty darn slick.
As for how good it is, I'd say that depends on your application. For a kiosk or home Linux computer for non-geeks (which I believe is the point) I think it'll serve nicely. If you want a customized "power desktop" move on, there's nothing here to see. In fact, why'd you even bother clicking the link? We already know what you are going to say:
"Why do you need this desktop? <INSERT WM HERE> is way better and far more customizable, and <INSERT GUI HERE> totally rocks! Besides, it's not <INSERT LICENSE HERE> so it isn't really Free."
Given the fact that PC games and console games are for the most part comparably priced at around $50, to me it just makes more sense to buy a $200-300 game console every three years or so, than to buy a $2000 PC and have to spend more money on incremental hardware upgrades every year, just so I can play the latest games.
Not to mention that consoles "keep" really well. I've got a few old game consoles in my closet and a box full of old games. Whenever I feel nostalgic for some old game, it's a piece of cake to take out a console, plug it in, play a few games, then put it away again. With PC games, there tend to be software compatibility problems that always crop up with older games on newer systems. I don't want to have to tweak settings for an hour to just so I can play a couple rounds of Super Breakout should I get the urge.
Yes, as some have pointed out, there are some limitations to console gaming, most notably multiplayer Internet gaming. But I think that in one or two year's time, those shortcomings will vanish, and the line between game console and PC will blur significantly. I expect to see web-browsing and email become common features on game consoles in the near future. And long term, my guess is that the console will beat out the PC as the entertainment hub of the average household. Why else would Microsoft be investing in the XBox so aggressively?
While it doesn't cut down on my postal direct mail marketing, I have found one way to cut the WHOIS-related telemarketing down to almost nil. I used my cell phone number on the contact info.
At first thought, this might seem like a crazy idea, but it really works. In the US, it is illegal for telemarketers to call your cell phone number to solicit services, or to use a war-dialer on cell phone exchanges to fill their call lists.
On the rare occasions that I have received a telemarketing call, I have simply informed the caller that they were calling a cell phone, that it was illegal, and that if they called again within a one year period I would have legal right to take them to small claims court for a settlement of $500 per offense. I haven't gotten a telemarketing call from the same company twice.
Since I switched my WHOIS record info from my business number to my cell number, I've seen my telemarketing calls drop by well over 99%.
"...but a year from now 64MB cards might just be obsolete."
So? A year from now, 128MB might be a low-end card, too. So in a year, buy a new card. Don't invest in tomorrow's technology today at a premium, when you can get it tomorrow at a discount. That's why smart buyers invest in modular components. When your hardware gets outdated, pluck and chuck.
I never invest in the top-end. I buy in the middle ground. Why? Because components drop from high-end to mid-range very quickly, but then stay there a long time before obsolescing to the low-end (or dead-end). And when a product drops from the high-end to the middle ground, the pricetag typically gets cut in half.
to rent a 30 minute movie. Because that's how long most two hour Hollywood flicks would be if you cut out the sex, violence, and profanity. Hey, while we're at it, can we cut out the product placement advertising as well? Then I could watch Minority Report in like 10 minutes.
One idea that might be an interesting compromise:
A lot of DVDs come with the viewer option to include deleted footage into the presentation of the film. Why couldn't this work in reverse? Flag scenes with ratings, and give the viewer the option of viewing the 'R' rated version (the original), the 'PG-13' version (slight edit), the 'PG' version (bigger edit), or the 'G' version (running time: 23 minutes). The DVD player would simply skip scenes that were rated higher than the chosen threshold. Then video rental companies could carry the standard DVD, but the viewer could choose their own level of "cleanliness".