Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to disparage the people working on this. I've done plenty of my own projects that will go nowhere. Should I start dragging them out so Slashdot can run stories on them?
Only if you want to stress-test your webserver. =^.^=
In all seriousness, though, it depends on the project. If it's something that you feel will go nowhere but would be useful if it went somewhere (and you feel you have the bandwidth to cope) then why not?
The worst that can happen is that the editors will reject your article.
It very much depends on what the course is called, though. Although the "curriculum" states Word & Powerpoint, we don't know whether the course title is that or id it's "Word processing and Presentations". So the OP may not have taken a course that was titles "Microsoft Office", but was then told that that's all he could use.
The centre where I'm currently doing IT Support teaches "Computer Literacy" classes. There's nothing in the actual course titles about Microsoft Products. (Yes, I know some places offer "introduction to Powerpoint", but that's not the type of course that gets taught here.)
But the course material itself not only is based around MS Office, but seems to assume/imply that this way is the only way to use wordprocessors/spreadsheets/etc.
Plus, to make it worse, course materials always seem to be printed using the lastest version of Office on the latest version of Windows. And rather than teaching/examining, say, "Spreadsheets", they're doing it on "Excel from office XP under Windows XP".
We even have the worst-case-extrapolation in some of the exams. In that the expected results as taught by the course are not what you get on our hardware. And we're not in a position to mass-upgrade.
One of the Computer Literacy exams was so XP-centric, that the results gained under Windows 98 simply didnt tally. I ended up going through the mark-scheme with the tutor to get a consistent set of answers that would arise under our classroom setup when following the instructions to the letter.
The course is supposed to be teaching "Computer Literacy", dammit. Yes, I know you have to have a basic direction from which to teach things, but you can't really automatically assume that everyone will run the software that you mandate. Especially if you're a nationwide examinations body, you can not assume that every centre everywhere will have upgraded to the "next big thing" (or even "next best thing") yet.
We, the Slashdot-reading public, know that SCO is blowing smoke, and that their claims are baseless. The problem, however, isn't the techies. It isn't even Joe Average-User. It's Joe Management. They probably don't know that everything is fine. All they'll see is "SCO goes after Linux" and they'll wonder if it's safe to go for. And probably go for something else. With Novell giving this indemnity, it's not only showing Novell's confidence in SCO blowing smoke, it's them showing they're willing to put their money on the line in case the midden hits the mill.
And the main issue?
It's beyond truth and lies now. It's down to reputation - and big companies stepping up helps. And it's down to the courts.
It doesn't matter who's right or wrong any more. It's down to the lawyers, and the court, and about who puts forward the best argument.
My money's against SCO on that. And Novell have joined in to (literally) say that their's is too.
This could make all the difference between management taking a risk with Linux, or sticking with Windows.
WinMe sucked. Especially for a corporate setting. So if you wanted to do networking and couldn't afford the NT or 2K Workstation/Server combo, 98SE was still the way to go.
Even for home users, there wasn't really that much advantage in moving up from Win98. 95, maybe, but not 98.
Windows 2000 is too much of a price-step for your average home-user. Never mind the technical differences under the hood.
Personally, I'd recommend it over the others, but there's stil lthe whole "justifying the cost" issue - software and hardware. So unless you're buying new PC, it's better to stick.
WinXP's OK. I guess. Plus it does come with new PCs. But the simple fact it that what with Activation and stuff, I'd advise anyone on 2K to stick with it. Not enough new advantages to justify the cost.
And as for Win98 users, well the chances of them being able to run XP on their hardware is pretty damn slim. So if the curernt PC/OS combo works, why spend a few hundred quid/dollars that you don't really need to?
OK, for older hardware, there's always Linux. But chances are that anyone who cant' afford to upgrade hardware for the latest Windows falls into one of two categories:
1) Not tech-savvy. So they're unlikely to convert.
2) Already run Linux (or another alternative OS)
In the same light, though, there are so many bugs and problems that only crop up in NT/2K/XP. And if you're supporting a computer room in a company or college, sometimes it's better to stick with the problems you know about.
Where I work even the tutors know most of the eccentricities that Win98 throws out. So they're able to guide their students through the simple things like logging on themselves.
Switching to 2K to XP would bring in a whole new set of problems. True it would make some thigns easier, but at least the current set of problems is known, and has known workarounds.
And I'm guessing a lot of corporate/educational setups think the same way.
What would be nice (pretty damned unlikely but nice...) would be if they GLPd (or similar) the Win98 core.
It would be interesting to see what (if anything) the various OSS Hackers would do with it.
Maybe nothing. Maybe people would just start rolling their own patches and fixes. Maybe some brave (or foolish...) souls would even try to fork it.
That and you could imagine the boost it would make to Wine.
But if nothing else, MS could finally drop support that they're obviously reluctant to continue. As there would at least be the possibility of in-house/home-brew patches to be done.
It's all-but-impossible to ever happen. But it'd certainly be an interesting scenario.
Windows 95 I'd agree with you. But not really with any of the other two.
Win2K still works fine. Apart from a few issues, there's very little in XP over Win2K. And the improvements which are there aren't really worth the hefty price-tag. And that's just for home use.
Corporately, why should companies have to spend stacks of money on replacing software that not only does it's job, but would require newer hardware to support the change.
Hell, where I work I'd dearly love to be able to switch them out of Win98. But the money isn't there. Plus for everything which shifting from Win9X fixes, switching to NT-based throws up another problem.
And that's not even talking about bugs. More in the way that Windows NT/2K/XP works. Not to mention the fact that I dread to think how I'd get it to work with NetWare. (Again, not my choice)
But the simple fact is that older versions still work. And they work on hardware that newer versions simply wouldn't run on. And when you add software and hardware costs, there's very often very little justification to upgrade.
Some radio stations still use them. Certainly some community stations here in the UK.
Not only does a friend of mine bring some of her music in on MD when she's recording in the studio, but when she's recording from home she dumps the show to MD and posts that in.
What he did was disruptive. True.
Disruptive behaviour on a large-ish scale at a school is going to get you disciplined. True.
Being accused of Hacking by using a bog-standard command is way over the top, though.
And as for "Missing the Larger Point" - personally I don't think there's much alrger a point than realising that "Qualified" Teachers are assigned to teach courses that they have little-to-no knowledge of, and the kids know more than them.
I'm sorry, but I just find that worrying. Kids are supposed to go to school to learn. That means that if the kids know more than the teachers about a given subject, something is badly in need of being done. (And suspending the kids in question isn't the full answer).
Being suspended in a manner that shows that the teacher is ignorant about her own subject isn't really going to increase the level of respect that teachers are meant to have.
After all, it's hard to respect a "teacher" who has very little new to teach you.
What helped me get my current job was through voluntary work at a local Primary School. OK, no "l33t h4XX0rz" to try and stop, but I was basically there to help out 'cos they had no admins. (The local authorities being somewhat clueless).
That said. Where I work now, if anyone was caught doing something like that I'd firstly advise them against it, explaining it was rude. Then if they did it again I'd bust them to the people in chare of the college side of things.
I guess the problem is teh same the world over. Whichever aspect of Local Government is in charge of education always seems to miss the point that there's no real difference between computers at a Primary School, a Secondary School or a Business Office.
The schools may not make money, but the computers damn well need the same level of system administration - if not more so.
As formats go, even I have to admit that RealVideo is pretty good, and RealAudio makes for good streams.
If anything, the only things that really get me annoyed is the double-whammy of closed format and bloated/ad-ridden player.
Some old video clips I have are in Real format. Either 'cos the sites didn't provide an alternative, or that the RealVideo files were actually clearer quality than the AVI files that other people chucked out. I didn't like being forced into using a different player, and I didn't like the way the player evolved, but the format itself was good.
What would be nice (unlikely, but nice) would be providing codecs/plugins for other Media Players. Heck, make WMP codecs and Winamp plugins which handle the basic features, and then make the official player slightly mroe feature-loaded. You'll always get some people who will play for the advanced palyer. Plus if it's easy to play back on any player and/or platform, then you increase the amount of people wanting to encode in your format - and hance increase the people willing to pay for the creation software. (Think: Adobe/PDF)
Here's a question for you: how many codecs do you actually use? Personally i use mp3...And i have a few songs in wma. That's it, end of story.
You've hit the nail on the head. Both when it comes to closed file formats and, unsurprisingly enough, DRM.
Most people have a preferred format and/or player. Audio format-wise, I stick with MP3. It might not be as "Open" as Ogg Vorbis, but it plays on everything. Plus I know that if people post conient in OGG, it's so open a format I can easily transcode to format of preference should I want/need to.
Player-wise personally, I prefer using Winamp, but I know that an MP3 will also play on WMP9, Media Player Classic, and I assume Real and Quicktime - but I refuse to install either of them on my box principle. And that's just under Windows.
I also know that if it's an MP3 it'll play on my Linux box (even under the command line), and also on my cheap Goodmans CD/MP3 player.
Yes, I don't doubt there are better formats out there. But MP3 is de-facto standard, and good enough. And if I really want something better quality I'll buy the (DRM-free, natch) CD.
Similarly, I know that should I want to make audio content available to other people, if I encode it in MP3 then they'll be able to play it "out of the box". (And, similarly, many ripping applications support MP3 out of the box, too)
But that open-ness sums up everything I don't like about Real (i.e. that it doesn't have it. You can't technically play it under anything other than Real's official player. Real Alternative is great. But it's hard to track down. Plus I can't see Real standing by and keeping with a format that can be read by "unofficial" software. They've changed codecs before mandating an update just 'cos someone encodes data in an annoying closed format. And I can see them doing it again.
On the flipside, when some music industry execs look at this and wonder why they can't control their content, there are a number fingers going to be point at the OSS community because of it.
Where do we draw the line at control? The **AA industries wants to control their content, and we (I use "we" very loosely) want to have control over that which we've purchased. But who truly owns the bits? A series of 1s and 0s? Who's allowed to make the rules?
It's an interesting set of questions, but one that would make sense if the Industries just took a closer look at things.
They can't control their content because (most of...) the programmers are on "the other side".
And as to who owns the bits? - well that's a tricky question. But in this age of worms, viruses, malware, and OS holes and exploits, I know full well that I prefer to have final say on how the 1s and 0s run on my machine.
It was fine when entertainment only came on physical media, and could only play on standalone players. Sure, some "restrictions" were still annoying, but in a way you were stuck with it.
These days it's data, and it's on computers. And the Industry doesn't seem to realise that it's suddenly a completely different ballgame. People like to decide how things work on their machines. Especially the geek-types.
The average User merely prefers to have the choice on who things work. The techie often tends to demand it. And many of them have the technical knowhow to crack, reverse-engineer, and similarly work around any restrictions placed by a third party.
Especially seeing that the restrictions tend to carry extra overheads. For me it's not that the DRM stops me being able to "share" files, or download them on P2P, or whatever. It's the fact that you get tied to one player, or one platform.
Now if there were legitimate codecs with legitimate ways of using your keys in any player you choose, and on any OS then they'd reduce the amount of people desperate to crack it. There's always be someone, but there'd be less of them. 'Cos if your "secure filetype-X" would play out of the box on anything going, you'd have less people looking for a way around it.
There's a difference between an encrypted session and an encrypted file.
One would assume that encrypted sessions mainly rely on taking longer to break than the time of the session. Oh and, one would hope, periodically changing the keys[*]. If the encryption gets broken, you change your keys, notify all the recent customers, and limit the damage to a small time-window.
With a file, that's it. Someone breaks the encryption and that file's in the open for good.
[*] - Even then, you're not relying on unbreakable encryption. You rely on strong encryption, try to minimise the chances of it being broken, and have plans of what to do if (and when) it gets cracked.
This is feasible in realtime communications. But as soon as you deal in static files you're fighting a losing battle if encryption is your main "advantage".
P2P usage down and legitimate purchase numbers up would mean that the music industries are doing something right.
P2P usage down and legitimate purchases down means that they's getting it so wrong that they're stuff's too crap for even lazy people to want to download.
Not exactly a good marketing method.
As to which it is, I won't hazard a guess. But I get the sneaking suspicion it ain't the reason the RIAA thinks it is.
The RIAA tactics don't scare me one bit. Buy or download? Either way, I'll only get the music I want. And I've not done a huge amount of either recently. There' nothing I really want to "spend" the bandwidth/discspace on at the moment.
Hell, the only 2 CDs I've bought recently were two I've had on MP3 for many months and thought perhaps I should get a legit copy.
And even the stuff I've downloaded isn't that new. More like I found random MP3s from an older disc i got off a friend, and thought "This song sounds OK, what other stuff do the band do"? (Often been a precursor for purchases in my case. I can't speak for other people.) That, and downloading copies of old singles I bought on cassette that I can't home-rip like CDs.
There's just more generic stuff out at the moment. OK, nothing so bad that I'll turn the radio off. But not much even good enough to justify the time spent searching P2P - never mind paying for the CD.
just the films, with no piracy warning bullshit or added garbage
Heh. I just bought X-Men 2 last week. And before it even gets to the trailers (never mind the menu...) you get a "This DVD is for sale, not rental. If you rented it...." spiel.
Screw that. I've just paid for the film. i don't want to have to sit through that crap every time I want to watch it. If that's not incentive to get a fully-modded DVD-player with all the "anti-piracy" measures removed (just to skip through that or the FACT/FBI warnings) then I don't know what is.
You have a point - up to a point. But there are some reasons why people would be able to get something from downloading that's simply not available from the commercial release.
Firstly, there's a long wait in between the cinema and Video/DVD releases. I know there've been times when I'd gladly have bought the DVD immediately after I'd seen the film in the cinema - just 'cos I want a copy of my own then and there. It's not too much of a stretch for people to want to download for that reason.
Then there's a few reasons that are specific to non-US areas - especially the UK.
For one thing, there's the usual wait beween US and UK releases - thankfully decreasing in some cases. This measn that the US DVD is available before the UK release. And although, personally, I'd import the DVD. Some would download - especially seeing that it'll be a DVD-rip not a camcorder-in-cinema job.
Price-hike/cut philosophy - way too prevalent over here. You can pay 15-25GBP for a new DVD release, only to see it in the same shops for under a tenner within the year. Certainly doesn't really encourage me to want to go straight out and buy stuff anymore. Hell, The Matrix was still going for #18 when Reloaded was out in the cinema, then got dropped to about #8 in most shops shortly before Reloaded's DVD release. I already had the VHS, and if the DVD hadn't dropped in price I was looking into downloading a high-quality rip.
The "January Sales" queues are jammed full at the moment. Lots of people wanting to buy stuff that there's no way they'd pay full-price for. And that is why people "pirate" or "steal" these movies. Many* have nothing against paying for them, but they refuse to pay more than what they feel is [a] a worthwhile price or [b] the inevitable cheaper cost.
(* - And the rest, well they wound't pay anyway. But at least they're sinking their money into ISP bills rather than funding market-stall pirates.)
To a Windows user, needing to reboot is nothing; to a Unix user, needing to recompile is as naught.
Interesting. But it suddenly highlighted to me the other slight disadvantage Windows have over *nix systems in terms of getting patches out.
Once a patch has been tested and is ready for deployment, there is one significant difference in Windows vs *nix patches.
Patches to Windows (even if software rather than OS components) tend to require a reboot. Patches to *nix systems mostly tend to only require the relevant service being brought down and back up. The main exception to this being changes to the OS Kernel.
What this means is that the majority of Windows patches will then require you finding a time when bringing your production-level machine will cause least disruption. not only that, but if the machine has multiple purposes you take them all down in one go.
When patching a Unix vulnerability (one that doesn't require changing the Kernel), more often than not you simply restart a service. Only one thing (hopefully) will go down, and the only for a much shorter amount of time. Plus, in teh case of the "one box, multiple purposes" scenario, if someting does go wrong, then you've only hosed one service not the entire box. (Still not a good thing, depending on the service, but you only get "chaos" not "standstill")
Screw wanting to see how they work, most people just want the source so that they can get it to work, period. Since they're binary only it means that they're usually tied to a specific kernel version and sometimes a specific distro. If you deviate from the path of the most popular distros you soon get into uncharted water.
One thing this seems to raise is that NVidia, ATI, and any other company who releases these binary-only drivers, they're almost definitely not in it for the good of Linux as an OS.
Yeah, it's in their favour that they're at least making an effort to "support" their customers who use their product in a non-Windows environment.
But it seems to me like they're only really doing it because they seem than many users use "that Linux system" and want to be seen as companies that support their users.
But they do seem to have completely missed the point of why many people use Linux.
I might not be a "hardcore" or "serious" Linux user myself (it's a firewall/masquerade and fileserver that mostly does it's job left alone). but even I like Linux 'cos of it's under the hood tweaking capabilities.
I know that should I decide that I want something to work better, I can have a look at the source of what I use and (try to...) tweak it to work better. (And even if I don't, a bit of searching wil usually yileld a project where someone has)
For me the strength of Linux (and other Free and Open software) is that it's written by and for people who want to use it. If something doesn't work, there's a chance that someone else will be able to fine a workaround. And if one person out of many can't get something to work "out of the box" they at least have the option to hack the source themselves.
Binary drivers like these just seem to throw up problems 'cos not only do they seem to be tested on a narrow set of systems, but I doubt they're coded/tested by actual Users.
If NVidia and their ilk really wanted to support Linux users then they'd release, if not the source, at least the fulls specs so that people could do what many use Linux for and tweak it until it works. Plus that way they'd be more likely to support a wider range of distros, kernels, and hardware combinations.
Sadly it seems that it would be incompatible with current business models. But, looking at the feedback here, I'm not sure that their current level of "support" for Linux is exactly doing them any favours.
Slashdot Mirror
Only if you want to stress-test your webserver. =^.^=
In all seriousness, though, it depends on the project. If it's something that you feel will go nowhere but would be useful if it went somewhere (and you feel you have the bandwidth to cope) then why not?
TiggsThe worst that can happen is that the editors will reject your article.
It very much depends on what the course is called, though. Although the "curriculum" states Word & Powerpoint, we don't know whether the course title is that or id it's "Word processing and Presentations". So the OP may not have taken a course that was titles "Microsoft Office", but was then told that that's all he could use.
The centre where I'm currently doing IT Support teaches "Computer Literacy" classes. There's nothing in the actual course titles about Microsoft Products. (Yes, I know some places offer "introduction to Powerpoint", but that's not the type of course that gets taught here.)
But the course material itself not only is based around MS Office, but seems to assume/imply that this way is the only way to use wordprocessors/spreadsheets/etc.
Plus, to make it worse, course materials always seem to be printed using the lastest version of Office on the latest version of Windows. And rather than teaching/examining, say, "Spreadsheets", they're doing it on "Excel from office XP under Windows XP".
We even have the worst-case-extrapolation in some of the exams. In that the expected results as taught by the course are not what you get on our hardware. And we're not in a position to mass-upgrade.
One of the Computer Literacy exams was so XP-centric, that the results gained under Windows 98 simply didnt tally. I ended up going through the mark-scheme with the tutor to get a consistent set of answers that would arise under our classroom setup when following the instructions to the letter.
The course is supposed to be teaching "Computer Literacy", dammit. Yes, I know you have to have a basic direction from which to teach things, but you can't really automatically assume that everyone will run the software that you mandate. Especially if you're a nationwide examinations body, you can not assume that every centre everywhere will have upgraded to the "next big thing" (or even "next best thing") yet.
TiggsIn this case, however, it's genuinely needed.
We, the Slashdot-reading public, know that SCO is blowing smoke, and that their claims are baseless. The problem, however, isn't the techies. It isn't even Joe Average-User. It's Joe Management. They probably don't know that everything is fine. All they'll see is "SCO goes after Linux" and they'll wonder if it's safe to go for. And probably go for something else. With Novell giving this indemnity, it's not only showing Novell's confidence in SCO blowing smoke, it's them showing they're willing to put their money on the line in case the midden hits the mill.
And the main issue?
It's beyond truth and lies now. It's down to reputation - and big companies stepping up helps. And it's down to the courts.
It doesn't matter who's right or wrong any more. It's down to the lawyers, and the court, and about who puts forward the best argument.
My money's against SCO on that. And Novell have joined in to (literally) say that their's is too.
This could make all the difference between management taking a risk with Linux, or sticking with Windows.
TiggsThe real problem is the alternatives.
WinMe sucked. Especially for a corporate setting. So if you wanted to do networking and couldn't afford the NT or 2K Workstation/Server combo, 98SE was still the way to go.
Even for home users, there wasn't really that much advantage in moving up from Win98. 95, maybe, but not 98.
Windows 2000 is too much of a price-step for your average home-user. Never mind the technical differences under the hood.
Personally, I'd recommend it over the others, but there's stil lthe whole "justifying the cost" issue - software and hardware. So unless you're buying new PC, it's better to stick.
WinXP's OK. I guess. Plus it does come with new PCs. But the simple fact it that what with Activation and stuff, I'd advise anyone on 2K to stick with it. Not enough new advantages to justify the cost.
And as for Win98 users, well the chances of them being able to run XP on their hardware is pretty damn slim. So if the curernt PC/OS combo works, why spend a few hundred quid/dollars that you don't really need to?
OK, for older hardware, there's always Linux. But chances are that anyone who cant' afford to upgrade hardware for the latest Windows falls into one of two categories:
Tiggs1) Not tech-savvy. So they're unlikely to convert.
2) Already run Linux (or another alternative OS)
In the same light, though, there are so many bugs and problems that only crop up in NT/2K/XP. And if you're supporting a computer room in a company or college, sometimes it's better to stick with the problems you know about.
Where I work even the tutors know most of the eccentricities that Win98 throws out. So they're able to guide their students through the simple things like logging on themselves.
Switching to 2K to XP would bring in a whole new set of problems. True it would make some thigns easier, but at least the current set of problems is known, and has known workarounds.
And I'm guessing a lot of corporate/educational setups think the same way.
TiggsWhat would be nice (pretty damned unlikely but nice...) would be if they GLPd (or similar) the Win98 core.
It would be interesting to see what (if anything) the various OSS Hackers would do with it.
Maybe nothing. Maybe people would just start rolling their own patches and fixes. Maybe some brave (or foolish...) souls would even try to fork it.
That and you could imagine the boost it would make to Wine.
But if nothing else, MS could finally drop support that they're obviously reluctant to continue. As there would at least be the possibility of in-house/home-brew patches to be done.
It's all-but-impossible to ever happen. But it'd certainly be an interesting scenario.
TiggsWindows 95 I'd agree with you. But not really with any of the other two.
Win2K still works fine. Apart from a few issues, there's very little in XP over Win2K. And the improvements which are there aren't really worth the hefty price-tag. And that's just for home use.
Corporately, why should companies have to spend stacks of money on replacing software that not only does it's job, but would require newer hardware to support the change.
Hell, where I work I'd dearly love to be able to switch them out of Win98. But the money isn't there. Plus for everything which shifting from Win9X fixes, switching to NT-based throws up another problem.
And that's not even talking about bugs. More in the way that Windows NT/2K/XP works. Not to mention the fact that I dread to think how I'd get it to work with NetWare. (Again, not my choice)
But the simple fact is that older versions still work. And they work on hardware that newer versions simply wouldn't run on. And when you add software and hardware costs, there's very often very little justification to upgrade.
22 mentions of KMart? LOL
Some radio stations still use them. Certainly some community stations here in the UK.
Not only does a friend of mine bring some of her music in on MD when she's recording in the studio, but when she's recording from home she dumps the show to MD and posts that in.
Actually, no, it's STILL bad news.
Yet again with the "We've patented something useful, so lets sue other people for doing the same thing" philosophy.
Bugger that for a game of soldiers, Microsoft or not.
That was eeeevil!
That said, leaving it world-writable was moronic. Thank Gods you didn't decide to write out something "less polite".
Yes, and no.
What he did was disruptive. True.
Disruptive behaviour on a large-ish scale at a school is going to get you disciplined. True.
Being accused of Hacking by using a bog-standard command is way over the top, though.
And as for "Missing the Larger Point" - personally I don't think there's much alrger a point than realising that "Qualified" Teachers are assigned to teach courses that they have little-to-no knowledge of, and the kids know more than them.
I'm sorry, but I just find that worrying. Kids are supposed to go to school to learn. That means that if the kids know more than the teachers about a given subject, something is badly in need of being done. (And suspending the kids in question isn't the full answer).
Being suspended in a manner that shows that the teacher is ignorant about her own subject isn't really going to increase the level of respect that teachers are meant to have.
TiggsAfter all, it's hard to respect a "teacher" who has very little new to teach you.
What helped me get my current job was through voluntary work at a local Primary School. OK, no "l33t h4XX0rz" to try and stop, but I was basically there to help out 'cos they had no admins. (The local authorities being somewhat clueless).
That said. Where I work now, if anyone was caught doing something like that I'd firstly advise them against it, explaining it was rude.
Then if they did it again I'd bust them to the people in chare of the college side of things.
I guess the problem is teh same the world over. Whichever aspect of Local Government is in charge of education always seems to miss the point that there's no real difference between computers at a Primary School, a Secondary School or a Business Office.
TiggsThe schools may not make money, but the computers damn well need the same level of system administration - if not more so.
As formats go, even I have to admit that RealVideo is pretty good, and RealAudio makes for good streams.
If anything, the only things that really get me annoyed is the double-whammy of closed format and bloated/ad-ridden player.
Some old video clips I have are in Real format. Either 'cos the sites didn't provide an alternative, or that the RealVideo files were actually clearer quality than the AVI files that other people chucked out. I didn't like being forced into using a different player, and I didn't like the way the player evolved, but the format itself was good.
What would be nice (unlikely, but nice) would be providing codecs/plugins for other Media Players. Heck, make WMP codecs and Winamp plugins which handle the basic features, and then make the official player slightly mroe feature-loaded. You'll always get some people who will play for the advanced palyer. Plus if it's easy to play back on any player and/or platform, then you increase the amount of people wanting to encode in your format - and hance increase the people willing to pay for the creation software. (Think: Adobe/PDF)
Tiggs
You've hit the nail on the head. Both when it comes to closed file formats and, unsurprisingly enough, DRM.
Most people have a preferred format and/or player. Audio format-wise, I stick with MP3. It might not be as "Open" as Ogg Vorbis, but it plays on everything. Plus I know that if people post conient in OGG, it's so open a format I can easily transcode to format of preference should I want/need to.
Player-wise personally, I prefer using Winamp, but I know that an MP3 will also play on WMP9, Media Player Classic, and I assume Real and Quicktime - but I refuse to install either of them on my box principle. And that's just under Windows.
I also know that if it's an MP3 it'll play on my Linux box (even under the command line), and also on my cheap Goodmans CD/MP3 player.
Yes, I don't doubt there are better formats out there. But MP3 is de-facto standard, and good enough. And if I really want something better quality I'll buy the (DRM-free, natch) CD.
Similarly, I know that should I want to make audio content available to other people, if I encode it in MP3 then they'll be able to play it "out of the box". (And, similarly, many ripping applications support MP3 out of the box, too)
But that open-ness sums up everything I don't like about Real (i.e. that it doesn't have it. You can't technically play it under anything other than Real's official player. Real Alternative is great. But it's hard to track down. Plus I can't see Real standing by and keeping with a format that can be read by "unofficial" software. They've changed codecs before mandating an update just 'cos someone encodes data in an annoying closed format. And I can see them doing it again.
TiggsIt's an interesting set of questions, but one that would make sense if the Industries just took a closer look at things.
They can't control their content because (most of...) the programmers are on "the other side".
And as to who owns the bits? - well that's a tricky question. But in this age of worms, viruses, malware, and OS holes and exploits, I know full well that I prefer to have final say on how the 1s and 0s run on my machine.
It was fine when entertainment only came on physical media, and could only play on standalone players. Sure, some "restrictions" were still annoying, but in a way you were stuck with it.
These days it's data, and it's on computers. And the Industry doesn't seem to realise that it's suddenly a completely different ballgame. People like to decide how things work on their machines. Especially the geek-types.
The average User merely prefers to have the choice on who things work. The techie often tends to demand it. And many of them have the technical knowhow to crack, reverse-engineer, and similarly work around any restrictions placed by a third party.
Especially seeing that the restrictions tend to carry extra overheads. For me it's not that the DRM stops me being able to "share" files, or download them on P2P, or whatever. It's the fact that you get tied to one player, or one platform.
Now if there were legitimate codecs with legitimate ways of using your keys in any player you choose, and on any OS then they'd reduce the amount of people desperate to crack it. There's always be someone, but there'd be less of them. 'Cos if your "secure filetype-X" would play out of the box on anything going, you'd have less people looking for a way around it.
TiggsThere's a difference between an encrypted session and an encrypted file.
One would assume that encrypted sessions mainly rely on taking longer to break than the time of the session. Oh and, one would hope, periodically changing the keys[*]. If the encryption gets broken, you change your keys, notify all the recent customers, and limit the damage to a small time-window.
With a file, that's it. Someone breaks the encryption and that file's in the open for good.
[*] - Even then, you're not relying on unbreakable encryption. You rely on strong encryption, try to minimise the chances of it being broken, and have plans of what to do if (and when) it gets cracked.
TiggsThis is feasible in realtime communications. But as soon as you deal in static files you're fighting a losing battle if encryption is your main "advantage".
P2P usage down and legitimate purchase numbers up would mean that the music industries are doing something right.
P2P usage down and legitimate purchases down means that they's getting it so wrong that they're stuff's too crap for even lazy people to want to download.
Not exactly a good marketing method.
As to which it is, I won't hazard a guess. But I get the sneaking suspicion it ain't the reason the RIAA thinks it is.
TiggsY'know, you raise a very good point there.
The RIAA tactics don't scare me one bit. Buy or download? Either way, I'll only get the music I want. And I've not done a huge amount of either recently. There' nothing I really want to "spend" the bandwidth/discspace on at the moment.
Hell, the only 2 CDs I've bought recently were two I've had on MP3 for many months and thought perhaps I should get a legit copy.
And even the stuff I've downloaded isn't that new. More like I found random MP3s from an older disc i got off a friend, and thought "This song sounds OK, what other stuff do the band do"?
(Often been a precursor for purchases in my case. I can't speak for other people.)
That, and downloading copies of old singles I bought on cassette that I can't home-rip like CDs.
There's just more generic stuff out at the moment. OK, nothing so bad that I'll turn the radio off. But not much even good enough to justify the time spent searching P2P - never mind paying for the CD.
Tiggs
Heh. I just bought X-Men 2 last week. And before it even gets to the trailers (never mind the menu...) you get a "This DVD is for sale, not rental. If you rented it...." spiel.
TiggsScrew that. I've just paid for the film. i don't want to have to sit through that crap every time I want to watch it. If that's not incentive to get a fully-modded DVD-player with all the "anti-piracy" measures removed (just to skip through that or the FACT/FBI warnings) then I don't know what is.
You have a point - up to a point. But there are some reasons why people would be able to get something from downloading that's simply not available from the commercial release.
Firstly, there's a long wait in between the cinema and Video/DVD releases. I know there've been times when I'd gladly have bought the DVD immediately after I'd seen the film in the cinema - just 'cos I want a copy of my own then and there. It's not too much of a stretch for people to want to download for that reason.
Then there's a few reasons that are specific to non-US areas - especially the UK.
For one thing, there's the usual wait beween US and UK releases - thankfully decreasing in some cases. This measn that the US DVD is available before the UK release. And although, personally, I'd import the DVD. Some would download - especially seeing that it'll be a DVD-rip not a camcorder-in-cinema job.
Price-hike/cut philosophy - way too prevalent over here. You can pay 15-25GBP for a new DVD release, only to see it in the same shops for under a tenner within the year. Certainly doesn't really encourage me to want to go straight out and buy stuff anymore.
Hell, The Matrix was still going for #18 when Reloaded was out in the cinema, then got dropped to about #8 in most shops shortly before Reloaded's DVD release. I already had the VHS, and if the DVD hadn't dropped in price I was looking into downloading a high-quality rip.
The "January Sales" queues are jammed full at the moment. Lots of people wanting to buy stuff that there's no way they'd pay full-price for.
And that is why people "pirate" or "steal" these movies. Many* have nothing against paying for them, but they refuse to pay more than what they feel is [a] a worthwhile price or [b] the inevitable cheaper cost.
(* - And the rest, well they wound't pay anyway. But at least they're sinking their money into ISP bills rather than funding market-stall pirates.)
You do realise that there probably are things out there with comments like this... ...right up until the point of release.
Tiggs
Interesting. But it suddenly highlighted to me the other slight disadvantage Windows have over *nix systems in terms of getting patches out.
Once a patch has been tested and is ready for deployment, there is one significant difference in Windows vs *nix patches.
Patches to Windows (even if software rather than OS components) tend to require a reboot. Patches to *nix systems mostly tend to only require the relevant service being brought down and back up. The main exception to this being changes to the OS Kernel.
What this means is that the majority of Windows patches will then require you finding a time when bringing your production-level machine will cause least disruption. not only that, but if the machine has multiple purposes you take them all down in one go.
When patching a Unix vulnerability (one that doesn't require changing the Kernel), more often than not you simply restart a service. Only one thing (hopefully) will go down, and the only for a much shorter amount of time. Plus, in teh case of the "one box, multiple purposes" scenario, if someting does go wrong, then you've only hosed one service not the entire box. (Still not a good thing, depending on the service, but you only get "chaos" not "standstill")
Tiggs
One thing this seems to raise is that NVidia, ATI, and any other company who releases these binary-only drivers, they're almost definitely not in it for the good of Linux as an OS.
Yeah, it's in their favour that they're at least making an effort to "support" their customers who use their product in a non-Windows environment.
But it seems to me like they're only really doing it because they seem than many users use "that Linux system" and want to be seen as companies that support their users.
But they do seem to have completely missed the point of why many people use Linux.
I might not be a "hardcore" or "serious" Linux user myself (it's a firewall/masquerade and fileserver that mostly does it's job left alone). but even I like Linux 'cos of it's under the hood tweaking capabilities.
I know that should I decide that I want something to work better, I can have a look at the source of what I use and (try to...) tweak it to work better. (And even if I don't, a bit of searching wil usually yileld a project where someone has)
For me the strength of Linux (and other Free and Open software) is that it's written by and for people who want to use it. If something doesn't work, there's a chance that someone else will be able to fine a workaround. And if one person out of many can't get something to work "out of the box" they at least have the option to hack the source themselves.
Binary drivers like these just seem to throw up problems 'cos not only do they seem to be tested on a narrow set of systems, but I doubt they're coded/tested by actual Users.
If NVidia and their ilk really wanted to support Linux users then they'd release, if not the source, at least the fulls specs so that people could do what many use Linux for and tweak it until it works. Plus that way they'd be more likely to support a wider range of distros, kernels, and hardware combinations.
Sadly it seems that it would be incompatible with current business models. But, looking at the feedback here, I'm not sure that their current level of "support" for Linux is exactly doing them any favours.
Tiggs
Errrm, you already can remove it from your homepage settings.