Nah, see I fundamentally disagree (and this in an old argument around here) -- MS got to where it's at by riding the coat tails of the PC explosion. The killer app was a cheap computer at home, not an unstable clone of someone else's windowing enviroment -- that's just what the cheap PC came bundled with.
They haven't ever invented anything (worthwhile) new, and haven't done anything in my opinion to get where they are at except hijacking consumers and competitors and by other dubious business practices.
Back on topic: though I agree that a 100% MS-free (no more closed file-formats and no more unecessary upgrade cycles!) would be preferrable, this is still a step forward, if only in the sense that it'll help loosen the OS monopoly grip. I think that if we manage to break this monopoly, then at least MS will have to compete on more level ground.
It isn't the barrage of mortar rounds some of us would like to see aimed at the Bloated Monopolist Beast from Redmond, but it is a small step in the right direction.
Cobron, maybe you're right and MS is capable of producing innovative kick-butt software that we'd all pay cash for the priviledge of using (instead of being forced to pay). I just want them to actually provide value ("providing value" isn't the same as "working hard" btw) for their income -- no more free rides!
Funny thing is, this is obvious even to kids (based on my own experience, and several posts above, including your own).
I was a *kiddie* disappointed when I saw specialized kits (esp. where you could really only build the one thing on the box cover) and overly-specialized parts.
What's up with LEGO? Aren't they making enough cash from all the lost pieces and new generations of kids whom must be bought LEGOS for? (it's one of the coolest toys I've ever had. My kids will get legos, and, just as importantly, hours devoted to building stuff with them. One of the fondest memories from my childhood and some of the coolest time I spent with my Dad where spent on the floor building and designing stuff. Of course, it was with TENTE*, but it's basically the same thing).
*Anyone here know the history of TENTE? I had that before LEGO, and when I saw LEGO I assumed (I was a kid, don't know the real history of this) that it was a rip-off of TENTE. I also assumed as a kid that TENTE and LEGO were American companies, but I realized later that they're both not.
Saturday night... 1:32am... You guys go look at LEGOs... I'll go back to looking at porn.
A saturday night spent looking at porn isn't exactly anything to feel smug about.
Even "I'm going to bed", or better yet, "I'm going to have sex with my hottie girlfriend", would work.
But not one-handed typing!:)
Having said that, I'm going to go look up some porn myself. But you see, I'm not proud!
Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?
on
Han Solo in Lego Carbonite
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Yup, I got as much use out of my Capsela set as my Lego sets as a kid.
The really cool capsela bubbles (and the neat thing about Capsela besides being letting you build motorized cars, boats, etc.) was seeing the special gearing bubbles. The most fascinating was the worm-gear. One set would turn the other set very slowly, but man did it increase its torque. It was absolute magic to a kid -- I was amazed that the cheap-looking motors (powered by two AA batteries) could, when used with the worm-gear, turn a wheel so that it was hard to stop it with your hand. The transparent bubbles made it so that you could see how it worked (even if I didn't quite understand it at the time).
Funny too, I remember being puzzled because I couldn't put the motor on the other end of the worm gear, and get a wheel that turned super fast (as I had orignially guessed)! But it did work great the other way around, with a slower, but magically more determined, wheel...
I'm afraid we're still talking about different groups (and the areas where we work reflect this):
We use the Aventail client for VPN connectivity from the customer site. Yes, I know there's a Linux version. No one at our site has yet gotten it to work.
That's something that about six thousand IBM employees where I work don't use at all ever.
To get into the client's network, I need to have access to the VPN they use
again, not applicable to the tens of thousands (hundred thousand?) IBMers that never visit customer sites -- actually everything I've said and we don't agree with applies to this group.
YES, emphaticly. As I mentioned before, our client likes Microsoft Project.
But you see, here you're talking about switching IBM's customers to Linux, not internal deployment of Linux.
I work in hardware development, and even the hard-core researchers and developers maybe use Matlab (which does run on UNIX -- not positive about Linux versions), Notes (everyone uses that!), and a web browser for purchase orders, and administrative stuff in general -- that's it. Maybe you know tens of thousands of people where the cocerns you listed apply, but not where I work nor for 50, 60, 150 thousand (I really have no idea here) IBMers.
That's also whom I refer to in terms of remote administration. IBM IT (internal IT, the armies that serve our computers, upgrades, and all the people our internal standard software installer services) would be whooping with joy if they saw what they could do remotely with Linux (from the other side of the country even!) -- heck for most administrative tasks the thundering horde of engineers, researchers, secretaries, managers, lab technitians, operators wouldn't even know that an admin is at that moment updating several packages on their computers as they work (except with a kernel update, but that's about the only exception).
Like our internal AIX support groups (for Catia design, mostly, and for some of the hard-core computer modeling we do in our development) are aware of what a difference it is to work with an OS that has had remote administration with mind from the beginning. I remember having issues with an AIX box running Catia when it was first setup for me (no root access for me! But that's OK, I'd probably screw up the box seeing if I could get xmms running or something), it was eerie to have the person on the other side of the phone saying stuff like "I'm in your computer right now, OK, I'm renaming these and these files, I'm editing some config stuff that's broken, ok, I'm about to restart your program -- cool looking desing, BTW, what are you working on?" That's just simply impossible with Windows, and we all know what calls are like with that OS! " ok, click here, what's is say? Ok, now look here, you'll see a button. Press it. What's it say now?". No competition -- if I were in charge of computers within IBM, I know I'd be pushing hard for Linux just for the remote administration. When IBM's customers also switch (and the world runs X), can you imagine how much nicer your life will also be?:)
Of course, if you are logging on to customer's sites (and IBM's, IMHO, good in that regard; the customer's always right!) -- you will deal with what they use and an internal deployment of Linux by IBM won't affect them.
Internal deployment of Linux makes a ton of sense fo the people I described -- and yes, I place POs, do my PBCs, access my benefits page all within Mozilla and within Linux.
I have to deal with Excell, Word, and PDFs, and that's about the only thing (recently, more esoteric electronic design file format called Gerber, and the wine that comes with C4EB dealt with the "windows only" install.exe file identically as it would have worked within Windows, click, install and use -- I never even saw a command line!)
I understand, and you have very eloquently stated why Linux simply won't work for you. But, it has worked for me for a yea
Notes runs in some ways better under wine and Linux than under Windows (Notes under wine is the way I've been doing it for well over a year now). Zap-Notes (when Notes misbehaves) is nearly instantaneous when you're on Linux, and at best it's killed the instance of wine when it really screws up -- never my whole computer.
Ditto for MS Office under wine (not to mention there are MS-free alternatives).
Most everything else is web-based.
Maybe it depends on what you do and what your perceptions are, but honestly Notes and Mozilla is probablly *all* the software that a good chunk of IBMers need to do all of IBM's business.
What doesn't can be made to run under wine (and I think for large entities it's cheaper to have a small army of people making sure everything needed works under Linux than paying MS licenses).
What about remote administration? Windows still pales to UNIX from decades ago, and is a joke in this department compared to Linux (and people bemoan X's network transparency).
It's far from fanciful -- Linux on the desktop inside of IBM makes, IMHO, practical and financial sense, and it's made more sense in large entities like IBM and governments than Windows for quite some time now.
Are you using the RPMs available internally (there's *tons* of more software available than what the screenshots show in these articles, BTW -- including office and Notes pre-wrapped in Wine, ready for the C4EB Linux internal, totally unofficial but tolerated, linux distro).
I know I have more stringent software requirements than management and secretarial people, BTW, and I've been running Linux exclusively and painlessly at work for well over a year. Esoteric DOS apps run great under dos emulators (take your pick), and Wine does a ton of things already without any tweaking or even seeing a command line (download "installer.exe",click on it, and shortcuts even placed in "start" menu). I run and have installed several engineering "windows only" apps literaly this easily.
I added the Ximian desktop to the RH7.3 (I'm pretty sure it's RH7.3 based -- maybe you tried it a really long time ago?) I run, and even based on aesthetics and usability Linux has left Windows behind.
Anyways, another viewpoint from "inside".
PS
Yes, sharing documents with the outside world is important, but is this really an issue anymore? I'm constantly in touch with outside vendors, and it's just never been in an issue for me (Word, Excell, e-mail, PDFs are the bulk of communication for my line of work -- and none have ever been an issue for me).
I realize that we work in pretty different enviroments, but maybe all that means is that, today, IBM could only switch 50% of it's employees to Linux (not sure what the breakdown is). I would also question your assertion that the bulk of IBMers work at customer sites -- maybe it's where the biggest revenues come from, or maybe it's where the biggest profits come from, but I do think that it's enabled by the fact that IBM makes everything under the sun hardware related (that's armies of research, development, and manufacturing engineers that never visit customer sites, not to mention management, techs, secretaries, manufacturing *complexes* with 100's of operators, etc.)
I'm one of those people who fell in love with RPN when it came out.
I worked for an entire summer to help pay for grad school, and the only "treat" I spent money on was an HP48 (G I think), did symbolic calculus -- all that insanely kewl stuff. I remember it was an expensive toy, but I was really happy with it.
Until I dropped it, fell from my desk onto a carpeted floor and never worked again.:(
I was actually pretty disappointed -- I know it's fancy electronics but it's also a damn expensive hand-held electronic calculator. It should be able to withstand a fall from a desk, IMHO.
For the two or three years before the "incident", I was pleased as punch - and I will vouch for the RPN notation as being the way to go.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Ghandi
I'm personally suspicious of MS ever being competitive on any ground, especially TCO (seriously, what a joke) -- but even if this were to magically be the case (no weekly reboots, exploits, mysterious computer breakdows that is the MS computing enviroment), how do you put a price on actually being in charge of what your computers do, and how they do it?
About your comment, I have to imagine that as far as software licenses go, the high end is where the pure gravy's at, and that's where MS has a real fight (no 90% + penetration there!)
It may not speak volumes about me personally, but I have to admit I was surprised that birds get caught.
I know enough that the turbines aren't going to suck a bird in, and I would have assumed that the birds would have the sense to avoid a quickly-moving massive hunk of metal.:)
Of course, I have no idea how easy it may be to miss a blurry set of blades (if spinning fast enough), or if it's a matter of weird accidents if the birds live surrounded by large open blenders (just a series of "oops!" on the bird's part. Maybe the relatively small number of bird deaths is due to this). I know several people that wouldn't last too long if they had to move around with care at work or at home, so I'm not suggesting that it's the bird's fault for being dumb (bird-brained!) or clumsy.
Maybe this is genuinely one of those 20/20 hindsight type of things.
Sort of on topic though; supposedly you can keep birds from slamming into your windows by cutting out the form of a hawk or other predator bird in dark paper and sticking it on the window. Just enough to warn birds to stay away from that area. I know above people have joked about a scarecrow, but I wonder if subterfuge like this wouldn't be the best way. Of course, I don't know what natural predators a bald eagle has, or how we could tell it "Danger! Keep far away!" in a language they'd understand...
No man, the turbines are pushed by air. They're not massive fans pushing the air around.
If the birds can handle the very same air currents that *power* these fans, I don't see a problem nor the scenario you've described.
If anything, these turbines slow down the air around them, as they rob the winds of energy to power our computers.
Not to say that chicken wire would be practical. For one thing, I saw the blade of one of these things on a flatbed truck on highway 5. These things are huuuuge, much bigger than I had thought for years -- after all, sitting in the distance on a hill it's hard to gauge size. I imagine they would have to be reinforced to be able to handle the extra drag of chicken wire (don't know what the wind-load difference would be between a well-designed set of blades and generator vs. chicken wire though). But I think we're talking about much more chicken wire than most people realize!
but why is it that everything that micrsoft does has to be some ploy to wipe out linux
It's not paranoid delusions -- MS wants to survive I'm sure, and right now I think wiping out Linux by any means necessary has to be the #1 priority at MS. Well, either that or compete on merit, in which case they're toast anyways (and I'm sure they've figured this out too).
Besides, this being a ploy to wipe out competition would be par for the course (and a long history at that). If this was an honest innovation, well, *that'd* be a first! It's certainly not the safe bet, IMHO, and would go against how MS has pretty much always made its living.
I've been wondering for some time what MS was going to do (if I were Bill Gates, and if like Bill Gates I didn't care about screwing over the very poeple that have made me all this money, what would I do?). Controlling the BIOS was something I had personally not considered, I've always assumed that MS would fight Linux through legal means instead. But, yeah, I have to admit that at this point, to me this move is pretty transparent, and it is designed for MS' only remaining, and scary as hell, competition.
If/when linux can boot from the same bios that MS and Intel have worked out*, I'll retract these statements and credit MS with honestly trying to improve something in the world of PCs. But it just doesn't make sense: if this is open to Linux, why would MS bother? MS only benefits when hardware is sold to run MS software. The good ol' Wintel doing things -- I don't think anyone needs to make excuses for being extremely skeptical at this point!
* world hackers got Linux to boot in the Xbox, despite MS' best efforts. Getting Linux to boot/run/utilize this BIOS *despite* wintel's best efforts doesn't count!
Actually, it'd be great for Wine -- imagine 100% compatability with MS apps.
As for the MS OS itself, well, a lot more people would then be able to just throw that part away and run Linux.
I think this would make more sense than rewriting and fixing Windows (not that that wouldn't happen eventually anyways -- I'm sure there's no shortage of people that would do it just for fun).
Yeah, I didn't mean to put down/. -- a failed attempt at humor, I guess.
For me it was a bit different. I started getting linked to/. a lot from google. This was when I was learning Linux and still hadn't figured out where to go for help -- so it was mostly done from Google. After being directed here so many times, I started reading (first about whatever Linux topic I coincidentally was having problems with), then to read the comments and the topics.
Yeah, there's a lot of bright people making good points on slashdot -- that's the best part. Well, there's also trolls, the goatse linkers, flamebait, and now the horrible Tub Girl, etc.
I guess it's not all "hard core" discussion though, plenty of chit-chat as well. That's OK, in real life, I don't know that many people that would gladly get into a "which superhero is best" type discussion (that's what/. is for!).
PS
my first obsessive topic was "will Linux ever see mainstream deployment" -- I wanted to read about the penguinista progress on a daily basis. That's passed, I guess I'm comfortable now with Linux penetration. It's big enough, IMHO, that Linux won't simply die out or go away -- I don't care as much if the rest of the world uses it, I just want to be able to have the choice to run it if I choose to (and in my mind that required at least a visible deployment -- maybe some honest to goodness hardware support, that sort of thing).
I have to admit, until very recently, I wanted my daily update on SCO -- again I've sort of lost interest, I think because I'm convinced that there's no threat, just a lot of hot air and a nice cash pile for Darl and Co. (well, not the company, but his cronies - you know what I mean!).
Yeah, I read it but the main point you were making was that speed of head-into-pavement collision was *independent* of motorcycle speed.
Now, in re-reading it, I guess that what you were saying was "YES" (not "NO"), it does of course matter, except in the case of empty road, here's how that works, etc. but that's not what was written!
I read before replying, sometimes not carefully enough (granted -- the worst is replying to the wrong person, heh!):)
It seems that Wine's improved to the point where I've had good success running all kinds of windows programs seamlessly, from downloading to installing to running under Wine.
I've gotten several propietary engineering CAD* programs running -- *no* setup! Just worked, down to the links in the main menu. I even got Quicktime to install and work (though it doesn't run well enough to be useable -- but it does work). I had been running Winamp2, mostly because I could, and that also installed with zero effort on my part. Just download, click, install and use (down to the visualization). Oh yeah, my Gnome's set up to launch wine on files with *.exe extensions, so I didn't even have to see a command line, just clicked on the WinZip Self-Installer (or whatever it actually was), it installed and ran.
Good good stuff this Wine is (I know it's still not 100% -- but with so much more stuff "just working" than even just a year ago, well, it seems that the dream of 100% MS App compatability less of a pipe dream).
What an ultimate coup, if Linux quickly gets to the point where it can support all (or an overwhelming majority anyways) of Win95/98 programs -- it'd make more sense to most people to upgrade to Linux than to "upgrade" to the latest MS offering if you wanted to keep using your apps and wanted all the bells and whistles and stability of a better OS.... Can you imagine the headlines? "Linux offers better MS support than MS"
Ah, enough daydreaming!
*ViewMate Viewer (used for circuit design) is what I'm using right now. I don't have the full version as it costs tons of money, and I don't design, I only needed to view some designs.
I can't imagine the majority of/. only reads the provided links and skips over the editor's comments and the posts made by the thundering herd below.
Let's be honest with ourselves here, fellas. As much we'd all like to think that reading/. is only an intellectual excercise, I think it's as much about the gossip and the bitching:) as it is about the news.
Hell, a large number of us are often reported to not even read the articles!
Honestly, I don't personally feel like I can criticize knitting circles...
Not that it's necessarily a bad thing! (or that I think/. is only gossip)
Hmm, if we were really going by technical merits, Gates would be a homeless drunk living in an alley, no one would remember a software company called Microsoft who put out half-assed software, and Apple would be dominating the desktop.
Unfortunately, it's not always the best technology or innovation that wins out.
Strangely enough, I agree with you on DeBeers. Just like MS, they don't really do anything of value for consumers, and only concern themselves with charging money to fill the artificial need they created for their products.
Oh well, differing opinions. I am curious about one thing: how do you see Apple as a monopoly? How can a company with single-digit percent usage ever be considered a monopoly? Isn't this, like, by definition anything other than a monopoly?
Geez, I'm just starting to feel like I took the troll bait.. (maybe not, but geez man, I think you're trying to bait Mac fans). Monopoly? Apple? Yeah, must be a troll...:)
That's a really bad analogy though. It's not that everyone purposedly did nothing; it seems that the world at large genuinely didn't know exactly what was going on inside NAZI Germany (and this is why your analogy doesn't apply).
Another analogy that would fit this scenario would be if the world at large said, "Oh well, I choose to do nothing in this case" when it came to NAZI concentration camps in WWII. But crimes against humanity elsewhere, we'll police *those*, for whatever reason. Then you'd also be seeking explanations -- why here and not there?
I think that's the basic point of the parent: either we have equal protection under the law or we don't. If these cases weren't important enough for law enforcement before, why would they be now if we do think we have equal protection?.
Since we are *not* talking about mass human murder, I think it makes sense to say "gee, I hope that it's because we have equal, but maybe incomplete, protection under the law and not because only moneyed corporations with connections get protection"
It's certainly *not* a non-sensible argument though. You might disagree, but I think you've sidestepped the point entirely in your reply.
In fact, I'm sort of suspicious that you had to compare it to death camps / human massacre. Don't you lose arguments the moment you bring this up?;)
I know the feeling regarding preview (and work -- it's sort of barren around here with most senior people having the vacation days to not show up until after New Year's... it's hard to find the motivation to do work -heh-)
No one is going to accuse you of being an MS Shill -- you're making a good case and make sense.
OK, I can agree with the general sentiment that you made, but it's my understanding that MS did take a risk, and it's only recently been challenged -- so it's still not clear that it "paid off" or if indeed, it was "wasted money" on the part of MS (which I understand is another strike agains MS -- 3rd party vendors have been using parts of the name "windows" -- winamp, etc. etc. -- for a long time and only now MS is defending its trademarked word). That's sort of an aside, but it supposedly does hurt MS in the courtroom.
BTW, the "official" reason (and one that makes sense to me) for the name wasn't just to tick off MS, it was because Lindows was going to have a super version of Wine that would allow you to run Windows programs within Lindows. Robertson backed off on that claim after a while, and then that "feature" was dropped (IMHO because it proved harder than what Robertson and company thought)
For what it's worth, as part of their defense Lindows also conducted surveys and there was no confusion in the general public: they saw Lindows and did *not* think it had anything to do with MS or a product of MS -- which I think is the only real way that MS might be hurt by the name Lindows (which is, after re-reading, one of the points you were making, is it confusing and deceptive?).
I think MS would only have a case if this was clearly confusing, like the Sonny tapes a friend bought in the flea market ("how come these sound so shitty? It's a Sony!?" -- we had to point out they weren't). The fonts looked just like what Sony uses, if it wasn't for that extra 'n'...
So, I'm not sure. It seems at least that MS didn't coin the word in a vacuum, maybe they added a letter and came up with something not *literally* the same as everyone else. But I do think it's disingenous, because even at the time, MS chose that word because of its existing value and known meaning in computing. It was never original as a word, or a concept, nor in what it described. I would only grant MS some leeway if they had, indeed, introduced to the world the concept and name it thus; instead of picking a common name that would, because of common knowledge, imply the meaning of MS Windows (it's like other windowing enviroments you've seen!)
I'm not sure if it's germane that Windows has *now* become closely branded to MS* -- I think the question boils down to: should it have been granted in the first place, and will anyone spend money on Lindows thinking it is a Microsoft Windows product.
After reading your points, I'm no longer so sure that MS should definitely lose the term Windows, but I'm still unconvinced that Lindows is in any way hurting the Microsoft brand.
Granted, I wouldn't put cash down myself on a bet until I saw an independent survey asking people if they associated Microsoft in any way with Lindows (and that's the final test I can think of). Otherwise, couldn't Lindows be named after the X-Windowing enviroment, which is does use, BTW? Seriously, you could claim that Lindows and Microsoft took their names from the common roots of windowing eviroments from a while ago... (I wish I could find the link to the MS manual that described Windows as a "generic industry term")
*I've heard the argument that MS spent so much money, they should own it. I don't like this argument; it's not up to the government to make sure investments by private businesses pay off.
PS
I just realized that I'm arguing as to what makes sense and sounds "fair" to me -- well, and I'm parroting off whatever legal arguments I read before. I have a feeling that "common sense" may not mean as much as the little details around the actual law (IANAL after all!)
"It is undisputed that several other companies had developed interfaces with an overlapping windows feature prior to the release of Windows 1.0 in 1985."
and
"The USPTO's February 17, 1993 Final Action stated that 'the term Windows is widely used, both by the public, consumers, and the relevant industry, to name a class of goods or a type of software, that is, a genus of goods, referred to as windows programs, or windowing software."
Yeah, I know, ideally they should be independent links, but at least you know it's not just my opinion.
Besides, what's the likelihood that MS actually came up with something new on their own? (Even if it's just a name!):P
The real issue that issuing that trademark was a mistake in the first place -- too bad that MS didn't come up with something original and probably wasted money advertising and building a brand name they don't have strong claims to (or really, probably *any*).
It's still to be decided in the US, but it's certainly not just my opinion and not that impossible that MS loses the term "windows".
I also differentiate between "being into understanding things" and "socially inept".
I'm not sure if there are strict definitions on the two words, but I had decided on my own and I ended up picking the opposite definitions (can be a nerd and good-looking and a "Don Juan" with the ladies, but a geek is by definition socially inept, and may not even be smart or curious).
I'm not arguing with you here, in fact we agree that smart doesn't necessarily mean socially inept, I just thought it funny that I picked the opposite words to describe what I think are essentially the same things (I'm not claiming to know better either, BTW).
Is there, somewhere, an authoritative definition of "geek" and "nerd"? Cuz, I'm afraid that in everyday language, the two are synonymous with "smelly, greasy undesireable, may or not be smart, but probably plays with computers too much" or something along those lines.
Apparently, "windows" to decribe a "computer windowing enviroment" was a generic term in computing long before Microsoft came about.
During the first fight with Lindows here in the states, a lot of factoids came up, including how Microsoft was first advertising its own MS Windows. It came with descriptions such as "windows is a computer term describing the desktop enviroment used in operating systems, such as MS Windows" -- all paraprhased from my crappy memory but that was the gist of it.
"Windows" was already a generic industry term that Microsoft was nowhere near first in using to describe their OS, so the validity of their trademark is certainly questionable.
I'm not a hardened veteran here, but I do know (Ok, I just googled it) that MIT's X-Window system came out in 1984 -- When did Microsoft first have a GUI or something they could hang the already well-known computer buzzword "windows" on?
how would this work? If MS loses its trademark on the word Windows (which I also agree makes sense, given the history of "windowing enviroments" -- it's way too generic a word even within computing and they were far from first with it), would they immediate lose decisions made elsewhere in the world?
Or does MS (and every other multinational) have copyrights in every country they operate, and would have to lost its trademark on a per-country basis?
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, see I fundamentally disagree (and this in an old argument around here) -- MS got to where it's at by riding the coat tails of the PC explosion. The killer app was a cheap computer at home, not an unstable clone of someone else's windowing enviroment -- that's just what the cheap PC came bundled with.
They haven't ever invented anything (worthwhile) new, and haven't done anything in my opinion to get where they are at except hijacking consumers and competitors and by other dubious business practices.
Back on topic: though I agree that a 100% MS-free (no more closed file-formats and no more unecessary upgrade cycles!) would be preferrable, this is still a step forward, if only in the sense that it'll help loosen the OS monopoly grip. I think that if we manage to break this monopoly, then at least MS will have to compete on more level ground.
It isn't the barrage of mortar rounds some of us would like to see aimed at the Bloated Monopolist Beast from Redmond, but it is a small step in the right direction.
Cobron, maybe you're right and MS is capable of producing innovative kick-butt software that we'd all pay cash for the priviledge of using (instead of being forced to pay). I just want them to actually provide value ("providing value" isn't the same as "working hard" btw) for their income -- no more free rides!
Funny thing is, this is obvious even to kids (based on my own experience, and several posts above, including your own).
I was a *kiddie* disappointed when I saw specialized kits (esp. where you could really only build the one thing on the box cover) and overly-specialized parts.
What's up with LEGO? Aren't they making enough cash from all the lost pieces and new generations of kids whom must be bought LEGOS for? (it's one of the coolest toys I've ever had. My kids will get legos, and, just as importantly, hours devoted to building stuff with them. One of the fondest memories from my childhood and some of the coolest time I spent with my Dad where spent on the floor building and designing stuff. Of course, it was with TENTE*, but it's basically the same thing).
*Anyone here know the history of TENTE? I had that before LEGO, and when I saw LEGO I assumed (I was a kid, don't know the real history of this) that it was a rip-off of TENTE. I also assumed as a kid that TENTE and LEGO were American companies, but I realized later that they're both not.
Saturday night ... 1:32am ... ... I'll go back to looking at porn.
:)
You guys go look at LEGOs
A saturday night spent looking at porn isn't exactly anything to feel smug about.
Even "I'm going to bed", or better yet, "I'm going to have sex with my hottie girlfriend", would work.
But not one-handed typing!
Having said that, I'm going to go look up some porn myself. But you see, I'm not proud!
Yup, I got as much use out of my Capsela set as my Lego sets as a kid.
...
The really cool capsela bubbles (and the neat thing about Capsela besides being letting you build motorized cars, boats, etc.) was seeing the special gearing bubbles. The most fascinating was the worm-gear. One set would turn the other set very slowly, but man did it increase its torque. It was absolute magic to a kid -- I was amazed that the cheap-looking motors (powered by two AA batteries) could, when used with the worm-gear, turn a wheel so that it was hard to stop it with your hand. The transparent bubbles made it so that you could see how it worked (even if I didn't quite understand it at the time).
Funny too, I remember being puzzled because I couldn't put the motor on the other end of the worm gear, and get a wheel that turned super fast (as I had orignially guessed)! But it did work great the other way around, with a slower, but magically more determined, wheel
Ah, the memories!
I'm afraid we're still talking about different groups (and the areas where we work reflect this):
:)
We use the Aventail client for VPN connectivity from the customer site. Yes, I know there's a Linux version. No one at our site has yet gotten it to work.
That's something that about six thousand IBM employees where I work don't use at all ever.
To get into the client's network, I need to have access to the VPN they use
again, not applicable to the tens of thousands (hundred thousand?) IBMers that never visit customer sites -- actually everything I've said and we don't agree with applies to this group.
YES, emphaticly. As I mentioned before, our client likes Microsoft Project.
But you see, here you're talking about switching IBM's customers to Linux, not internal deployment of Linux.
I work in hardware development, and even the hard-core researchers and developers maybe use Matlab (which does run on UNIX -- not positive about Linux versions), Notes (everyone uses that!), and a web browser for purchase orders, and administrative stuff in general -- that's it. Maybe you know tens of thousands of people where the cocerns you listed apply, but not where I work nor for 50, 60, 150 thousand (I really have no idea here) IBMers.
That's also whom I refer to in terms of remote administration. IBM IT (internal IT, the armies that serve our computers, upgrades, and all the people our internal standard software installer services) would be whooping with joy if they saw what they could do remotely with Linux (from the other side of the country even!) -- heck for most administrative tasks the thundering horde of engineers, researchers, secretaries, managers, lab technitians, operators wouldn't even know that an admin is at that moment updating several packages on their computers as they work (except with a kernel update, but that's about the only exception).
Like our internal AIX support groups (for Catia design, mostly, and for some of the hard-core computer modeling we do in our development) are aware of what a difference it is to work with an OS that has had remote administration with mind from the beginning. I remember having issues with an AIX box running Catia when it was first setup for me (no root access for me! But that's OK, I'd probably screw up the box seeing if I could get xmms running or something), it was eerie to have the person on the other side of the phone saying stuff like "I'm in your computer right now, OK, I'm renaming these and these files, I'm editing some config stuff that's broken, ok, I'm about to restart your program -- cool looking desing, BTW, what are you working on?" That's just simply impossible with Windows, and we all know what calls are like with that OS! " ok, click here, what's is say? Ok, now look here, you'll see a button. Press it. What's it say now?". No competition -- if I were in charge of computers within IBM, I know I'd be pushing hard for Linux just for the remote administration. When IBM's customers also switch (and the world runs X), can you imagine how much nicer your life will also be?
Of course, if you are logging on to customer's sites (and IBM's, IMHO, good in that regard; the customer's always right!) -- you will deal with what they use and an internal deployment of Linux by IBM won't affect them.
Internal deployment of Linux makes a ton of sense fo the people I described -- and yes, I place POs, do my PBCs, access my benefits page all within Mozilla and within Linux.
I have to deal with Excell, Word, and PDFs, and that's about the only thing (recently, more esoteric electronic design file format called Gerber, and the wine that comes with C4EB dealt with the "windows only" install.exe file identically as it would have worked within Windows, click, install and use -- I never even saw a command line!)
I understand, and you have very eloquently stated why Linux simply won't work for you. But, it has worked for me for a yea
Hmmm...
Notes runs in some ways better under wine and Linux than under Windows (Notes under wine is the way I've been doing it for well over a year now). Zap-Notes (when Notes misbehaves) is nearly instantaneous when you're on Linux, and at best it's killed the instance of wine when it really screws up -- never my whole computer.
Ditto for MS Office under wine (not to mention there are MS-free alternatives).
Most everything else is web-based.
Maybe it depends on what you do and what your perceptions are, but honestly Notes and Mozilla is probablly *all* the software that a good chunk of IBMers need to do all of IBM's business.
What doesn't can be made to run under wine (and I think for large entities it's cheaper to have a small army of people making sure everything needed works under Linux than paying MS licenses).
What about remote administration? Windows still pales to UNIX from decades ago, and is a joke in this department compared to Linux (and people bemoan X's network transparency).
It's far from fanciful -- Linux on the desktop inside of IBM makes, IMHO, practical and financial sense, and it's made more sense in large entities like IBM and governments than Windows for quite some time now.
Are you using the RPMs available internally (there's *tons* of more software available than what the screenshots show in these articles, BTW -- including office and Notes pre-wrapped in Wine, ready for the C4EB Linux internal, totally unofficial but tolerated, linux distro).
I know I have more stringent software requirements than management and secretarial people, BTW, and I've been running Linux exclusively and painlessly at work for well over a year. Esoteric DOS apps run great under dos emulators (take your pick), and Wine does a ton of things already without any tweaking or even seeing a command line (download "installer.exe",click on it, and shortcuts even placed in "start" menu). I run and have installed several engineering "windows only" apps literaly this easily.
I added the Ximian desktop to the RH7.3 (I'm pretty sure it's RH7.3 based -- maybe you tried it a really long time ago?) I run, and even based on aesthetics and usability Linux has left Windows behind.
Anyways, another viewpoint from "inside".
PS
Yes, sharing documents with the outside world is important, but is this really an issue anymore? I'm constantly in touch with outside vendors, and it's just never been in an issue for me (Word, Excell, e-mail, PDFs are the bulk of communication for my line of work -- and none have ever been an issue for me).
I realize that we work in pretty different enviroments, but maybe all that means is that, today, IBM could only switch 50% of it's employees to Linux (not sure what the breakdown is). I would also question your assertion that the bulk of IBMers work at customer sites -- maybe it's where the biggest revenues come from, or maybe it's where the biggest profits come from, but I do think that it's enabled by the fact that IBM makes everything under the sun hardware related (that's armies of research, development, and manufacturing engineers that never visit customer sites, not to mention management, techs, secretaries, manufacturing *complexes* with 100's of operators, etc.)
I'm one of those people who fell in love with RPN when it came out.
:(
I worked for an entire summer to help pay for grad school, and the only "treat" I spent money on was an HP48 (G I think), did symbolic calculus -- all that insanely kewl stuff. I remember it was an expensive toy, but I was really happy with it.
Until I dropped it, fell from my desk onto a carpeted floor and never worked again.
I was actually pretty disappointed -- I know it's fancy electronics but it's also a damn expensive hand-held electronic calculator. It should be able to withstand a fall from a desk, IMHO.
For the two or three years before the "incident", I was pleased as punch - and I will vouch for the RPN notation as being the way to go.
And to repeat a (somewhat over-used) quote:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Ghandi
I'm personally suspicious of MS ever being competitive on any ground, especially TCO (seriously, what a joke) -- but even if this were to magically be the case (no weekly reboots, exploits, mysterious computer breakdows that is the MS computing enviroment), how do you put a price on actually being in charge of what your computers do, and how they do it?
About your comment, I have to imagine that as far as software licenses go, the high end is where the pure gravy's at, and that's where MS has a real fight (no 90% + penetration there!)
It may not speak volumes about me personally, but I have to admit I was surprised that birds get caught.
:)
...
I know enough that the turbines aren't going to suck a bird in, and I would have assumed that the birds would have the sense to avoid a quickly-moving massive hunk of metal.
Of course, I have no idea how easy it may be to miss a blurry set of blades (if spinning fast enough), or if it's a matter of weird accidents if the birds live surrounded by large open blenders (just a series of "oops!" on the bird's part. Maybe the relatively small number of bird deaths is due to this). I know several people that wouldn't last too long if they had to move around with care at work or at home, so I'm not suggesting that it's the bird's fault for being dumb (bird-brained!) or clumsy.
Maybe this is genuinely one of those 20/20 hindsight type of things.
Sort of on topic though; supposedly you can keep birds from slamming into your windows by cutting out the form of a hawk or other predator bird in dark paper and sticking it on the window. Just enough to warn birds to stay away from that area. I know above people have joked about a scarecrow, but I wonder if subterfuge like this wouldn't be the best way. Of course, I don't know what natural predators a bald eagle has, or how we could tell it "Danger! Keep far away!" in a language they'd understand
No man, the turbines are pushed by air. They're not massive fans pushing the air around.
If the birds can handle the very same air currents that *power* these fans, I don't see a problem nor the scenario you've described.
If anything, these turbines slow down the air around them, as they rob the winds of energy to power our computers.
Not to say that chicken wire would be practical. For one thing, I saw the blade of one of these things on a flatbed truck on highway 5. These things are huuuuge, much bigger than I had thought for years -- after all, sitting in the distance on a hill it's hard to gauge size. I imagine they would have to be reinforced to be able to handle the extra drag of chicken wire (don't know what the wind-load difference would be between a well-designed set of blades and generator vs. chicken wire though). But I think we're talking about much more chicken wire than most people realize!
but why is it that everything that micrsoft does has to be some ploy to wipe out linux
It's not paranoid delusions -- MS wants to survive I'm sure, and right now I think wiping out Linux by any means necessary has to be the #1 priority at MS. Well, either that or compete on merit, in which case they're toast anyways (and I'm sure they've figured this out too).
Besides, this being a ploy to wipe out competition would be par for the course (and a long history at that). If this was an honest innovation, well, *that'd* be a first! It's certainly not the safe bet, IMHO, and would go against how MS has pretty much always made its living.
I've been wondering for some time what MS was going to do (if I were Bill Gates, and if like Bill Gates I didn't care about screwing over the very poeple that have made me all this money, what would I do?). Controlling the BIOS was something I had personally not considered, I've always assumed that MS would fight Linux through legal means instead. But, yeah, I have to admit that at this point, to me this move is pretty transparent, and it is designed for MS' only remaining, and scary as hell, competition.
If/when linux can boot from the same bios that MS and Intel have worked out*, I'll retract these statements and credit MS with honestly trying to improve something in the world of PCs. But it just doesn't make sense: if this is open to Linux, why would MS bother? MS only benefits when hardware is sold to run MS software. The good ol' Wintel doing things -- I don't think anyone needs to make excuses for being extremely skeptical at this point!
* world hackers got Linux to boot in the Xbox, despite MS' best efforts. Getting Linux to boot/run/utilize this BIOS *despite* wintel's best efforts doesn't count!
As for the MS OS itself, well, a lot more people would then be able to just throw that part away and run Linux.
I think this would make more sense than rewriting and fixing Windows (not that that wouldn't happen eventually anyways -- I'm sure there's no shortage of people that would do it just for fun).
Yeah, I didn't mean to put down /. -- a failed attempt at humor, I guess.
/. a lot from google. This was when I was learning Linux and still hadn't figured out where to go for help -- so it was mostly done from Google. After being directed here so many times, I started reading (first about whatever Linux topic I coincidentally was having problems with), then to read the comments and the topics.
/. is for!).
For me it was a bit different. I started getting linked to
Yeah, there's a lot of bright people making good points on slashdot -- that's the best part. Well, there's also trolls, the goatse linkers, flamebait, and now the horrible Tub Girl, etc.
I guess it's not all "hard core" discussion though, plenty of chit-chat as well. That's OK, in real life, I don't know that many people that would gladly get into a "which superhero is best" type discussion (that's what
PS
my first obsessive topic was "will Linux ever see mainstream deployment" -- I wanted to read about the penguinista progress on a daily basis. That's passed, I guess I'm comfortable now with Linux penetration. It's big enough, IMHO, that Linux won't simply die out or go away -- I don't care as much if the rest of the world uses it, I just want to be able to have the choice to run it if I choose to (and in my mind that required at least a visible deployment -- maybe some honest to goodness hardware support, that sort of thing).
I have to admit, until very recently, I wanted my daily update on SCO -- again I've sort of lost interest, I think because I'm convinced that there's no threat, just a lot of hot air and a nice cash pile for Darl and Co. (well, not the company, but his cronies - you know what I mean!).
Yeah, I read it but the main point you were making was that speed of head-into-pavement collision was *independent* of motorcycle speed.
:)
Now, in re-reading it, I guess that what you were saying was "YES" (not "NO"), it does of course matter, except in the case of empty road, here's how that works, etc. but that's not what was written!
I read before replying, sometimes not carefully enough (granted -- the worst is replying to the wrong person, heh!)
Whoa, is the objection stricly with the use of the word "fellas"?
It seems that Wine's improved to the point where I've had good success running all kinds of windows programs seamlessly, from downloading to installing to running under Wine.
.... Can you imagine the headlines? "Linux offers better MS support than MS"
I've gotten several propietary engineering CAD* programs running -- *no* setup! Just worked, down to the links in the main menu. I even got Quicktime to install and work (though it doesn't run well enough to be useable -- but it does work). I had been running Winamp2, mostly because I could, and that also installed with zero effort on my part. Just download, click, install and use (down to the visualization). Oh yeah, my Gnome's set up to launch wine on files with *.exe extensions, so I didn't even have to see a command line, just clicked on the WinZip Self-Installer (or whatever it actually was), it installed and ran.
Good good stuff this Wine is (I know it's still not 100% -- but with so much more stuff "just working" than even just a year ago, well, it seems that the dream of 100% MS App compatability less of a pipe dream).
What an ultimate coup, if Linux quickly gets to the point where it can support all (or an overwhelming majority anyways) of Win95/98 programs -- it'd make more sense to most people to upgrade to Linux than to "upgrade" to the latest MS offering if you wanted to keep using your apps and wanted all the bells and whistles and stability of a better OS
Ah, enough daydreaming!
*ViewMate Viewer (used for circuit design) is what I'm using right now. I don't have the full version as it costs tons of money, and I don't design, I only needed to view some designs.
It is funny, but it's also literally true.
/. only reads the provided links and skips over the editor's comments and the posts made by the thundering herd below.
/. is only an intellectual excercise, I think it's as much about the gossip and the bitching :) as it is about the news.
...
/. is only gossip)
I can't imagine the majority of
Let's be honest with ourselves here, fellas. As much we'd all like to think that reading
Hell, a large number of us are often reported to not even read the articles!
Honestly, I don't personally feel like I can criticize knitting circles
Not that it's necessarily a bad thing! (or that I think
Hmm, if we were really going by technical merits, Gates would be a homeless drunk living in an alley, no one would remember a software company called Microsoft who put out half-assed software, and Apple would be dominating the desktop.
.. (maybe not, but geez man, I think you're trying to bait Mac fans). Monopoly? Apple? Yeah, must be a troll ... :)
Unfortunately, it's not always the best technology or innovation that wins out.
Strangely enough, I agree with you on DeBeers. Just like MS, they don't really do anything of value for consumers, and only concern themselves with charging money to fill the artificial need they created for their products.
Oh well, differing opinions. I am curious about one thing: how do you see Apple as a monopoly? How can a company with single-digit percent usage ever be considered a monopoly? Isn't this, like, by definition anything other than a monopoly?
Geez, I'm just starting to feel like I took the troll bait
That's a really bad analogy though. It's not that everyone purposedly did nothing; it seems that the world at large genuinely didn't know exactly what was going on inside NAZI Germany (and this is why your analogy doesn't apply).
;)
Another analogy that would fit this scenario would be if the world at large said, "Oh well, I choose to do nothing in this case" when it came to NAZI concentration camps in WWII. But crimes against humanity elsewhere, we'll police *those*, for whatever reason. Then you'd also be seeking explanations -- why here and not there?
I think that's the basic point of the parent: either we have equal protection under the law or we don't. If these cases weren't important enough for law enforcement before, why would they be now if we do think we have equal protection?.
Since we are *not* talking about mass human murder, I think it makes sense to say "gee, I hope that it's because we have equal, but maybe incomplete, protection under the law and not because only moneyed corporations with connections get protection"
It's certainly *not* a non-sensible argument though. You might disagree, but I think you've sidestepped the point entirely in your reply.
In fact, I'm sort of suspicious that you had to compare it to death camps / human massacre. Don't you lose arguments the moment you bring this up?
I know the feeling regarding preview (and work -- it's sort of barren around here with most senior people having the vacation days to not show up until after New Year's... it's hard to find the motivation to do work -heh-)
...
... (I wish I could find the link to the MS manual that described Windows as a "generic industry term")
No one is going to accuse you of being an MS Shill -- you're making a good case and make sense.
OK, I can agree with the general sentiment that you made, but it's my understanding that MS did take a risk, and it's only recently been challenged -- so it's still not clear that it "paid off" or if indeed, it was "wasted money" on the part of MS (which I understand is another strike agains MS -- 3rd party vendors have been using parts of the name "windows" -- winamp, etc. etc. -- for a long time and only now MS is defending its trademarked word). That's sort of an aside, but it supposedly does hurt MS in the courtroom.
BTW, the "official" reason (and one that makes sense to me) for the name wasn't just to tick off MS, it was because Lindows was going to have a super version of Wine that would allow you to run Windows programs within Lindows. Robertson backed off on that claim after a while, and then that "feature" was dropped (IMHO because it proved harder than what Robertson and company thought)
For what it's worth, as part of their defense Lindows also conducted surveys and there was no confusion in the general public: they saw Lindows and did *not* think it had anything to do with MS or a product of MS -- which I think is the only real way that MS might be hurt by the name Lindows (which is, after re-reading, one of the points you were making, is it confusing and deceptive?).
I think MS would only have a case if this was clearly confusing, like the Sonny tapes a friend bought in the flea market ("how come these sound so shitty? It's a Sony!?" -- we had to point out they weren't). The fonts looked just like what Sony uses, if it wasn't for that extra 'n'
So, I'm not sure. It seems at least that MS didn't coin the word in a vacuum, maybe they added a letter and came up with something not *literally* the same as everyone else. But I do think it's disingenous, because even at the time, MS chose that word because of its existing value and known meaning in computing. It was never original as a word, or a concept, nor in what it described. I would only grant MS some leeway if they had, indeed, introduced to the world the concept and name it thus; instead of picking a common name that would, because of common knowledge, imply the meaning of MS Windows (it's like other windowing enviroments you've seen!)
I'm not sure if it's germane that Windows has *now* become closely branded to MS* -- I think the question boils down to: should it have been granted in the first place, and will anyone spend money on Lindows thinking it is a Microsoft Windows product.
After reading your points, I'm no longer so sure that MS should definitely lose the term Windows, but I'm still unconvinced that Lindows is in any way hurting the Microsoft brand.
Granted, I wouldn't put cash down myself on a bet until I saw an independent survey asking people if they associated Microsoft in any way with Lindows (and that's the final test I can think of). Otherwise, couldn't Lindows be named after the X-Windowing enviroment, which is does use, BTW? Seriously, you could claim that Lindows and Microsoft took their names from the common roots of windowing eviroments from a while ago
*I've heard the argument that MS spent so much money, they should own it. I don't like this argument; it's not up to the government to make sure investments by private businesses pay off.
PS
I just realized that I'm arguing as to what makes sense and sounds "fair" to me -- well, and I'm parroting off whatever legal arguments I read before. I have a feeling that "common sense" may not mean as much as the little details around the actual law (IANAL after all!)
Sorry, but it's not made up:
:P
"It is undisputed that several other companies had developed interfaces with an overlapping windows feature prior to the release of Windows 1.0 in 1985."
and
"The USPTO's February 17, 1993 Final Action stated that 'the term Windows is widely used, both by the public, consumers, and the relevant industry, to name a class of goods or a type of software, that is, a genus of goods, referred to as windows programs, or windowing software."
Those are taken from a Judge's order, BTW.
read more here:
Yeah, I know, ideally they should be independent links, but at least you know it's not just my opinion.
Besides, what's the likelihood that MS actually came up with something new on their own? (Even if it's just a name!)
The real issue that issuing that trademark was a mistake in the first place -- too bad that MS didn't come up with something original and probably wasted money advertising and building a brand name they don't have strong claims to (or really, probably *any*).
It's still to be decided in the US, but it's certainly not just my opinion and not that impossible that MS loses the term "windows".
Interesting.
I also differentiate between "being into understanding things" and "socially inept".
I'm not sure if there are strict definitions on the two words, but I had decided on my own and I ended up picking the opposite definitions (can be a nerd and good-looking and a "Don Juan" with the ladies, but a geek is by definition socially inept, and may not even be smart or curious).
I'm not arguing with you here, in fact we agree that smart doesn't necessarily mean socially inept, I just thought it funny that I picked the opposite words to describe what I think are essentially the same things (I'm not claiming to
know better either, BTW).
Is there, somewhere, an authoritative definition of "geek" and "nerd"? Cuz, I'm afraid that in everyday language, the two are synonymous with "smelly, greasy undesireable, may or not be smart, but probably plays with computers too much" or something along those lines.
Apparently, "windows" to decribe a "computer windowing enviroment" was a generic term in computing long before Microsoft came about.
During the first fight with Lindows here in the states, a lot of factoids came up, including how Microsoft was first advertising its own MS Windows. It came with descriptions such as "windows is a computer term describing the desktop enviroment used in operating systems, such as MS Windows" -- all paraprhased from my crappy memory but that was the gist of it.
"Windows" was already a generic industry term that Microsoft was nowhere near first in using to describe their OS, so the validity of their trademark is certainly questionable.
I'm not a hardened veteran here, but I do know (Ok, I just googled it) that MIT's X-Window system came out in 1984 -- When did Microsoft first have a GUI or something they could hang the already well-known computer buzzword "windows" on?
how would this work? If MS loses its trademark on the word Windows (which I also agree makes sense, given the history of "windowing enviroments" -- it's way too generic a word even within computing and they were far from first with it), would they immediate lose decisions made elsewhere in the world?
Or does MS (and every other multinational) have copyrights in every country they operate, and would have to lost its trademark on a per-country basis?
MC Hammer's now broke.
Your point?