"why would we work with #2 and stop making office for macs?"
Because Microsoft makes loads of money on programs they sell for the Mac platform. It's not like they started on 1984 and decided to go on until today to make Apple a favour.
"why would we work with the #2 processos archeteture (powerpc)?"
Because the PowerPC architecture was created by IBM and Motorola (I think). The fact that Apple uses PPC processors doesn't mean that such processors are only sold to Apple. Apple is just another customer filling IBM's pockets. Once again I doubt IBM is trying to do Apple a favour.
"why would we buy those macs that are the #3 (linux is surpassing macs)?"
Is this just a guess or is this factual information? Anyway, the value of a product is not given by it's cost. It's a mixture of variables, most of which depend on the view the customer has of the product. Apparently some people give more value to Macs than to other computers. It's all a matter of personal choice.
"No, we don't like Real. We just dislike Apple's arrogance. If they were somehow the dominant desktop, things would probably be much worse than they are now in terms of leveraging monopolies"
This sounds to me as meaningless as the argument that if Macs of Linux boxes were more popular they would surely have more viruses.
The simple answer is: Apple is not a monopoly, period. If they were dominant, no-one knows what they would be doing. And so far I haven't seen any behaviour that would make me think they wouldn't play by the rules if they were dominant.
And seriously, what would Apple ever want from Real Networks? The guys at Real Networks are loosing a lot of customers for making their free player too hard to find, and by putting way too many ads around. Why would Apple want to have anything to do with them now?
Maybe the words were a bit harsh, but they did make sense.
I think you got it wrong. Their purpose is not to make their OS work only on certain hardware, but to make it work flawlessly on such hardware. I doubt they will take the hassle to remove all the code that makes the OS run with other hardware.
And btw, the purpose of the GPL is not to restrict what one can do with the source. It is all about sharing your improvements and not getting monetary compensation from it, since the original authors gave it to you for free. A sort of chain reaction.
I can see nothing bad with selling Linux related services.
Why should I? I was just curious to try the game out, but I'm not going to die just because I couldn't do so. In the end the developers get one less potential user.
The fact that I want to use the computer to do stuff doesn't make me a linux geek. Don't get me wrong... the developers have the right to do whatever they want. Especially since they do it for free, but ultimately it's their choices that make people stay with them or go away. If they don't care, then just fine. But I think such a stance is not too intelligent when you develop software.
But one could then go ahead and say that if you buy a car, why don't you just assemble it yourself? As intelligent as such a comparison may seem to you, there IS a big difference.
Plus, on a side note, I would like to point out that mine was just curiosity to see the game. If trying the game out was just a matter of downloading and installing such a game then I would have probably liked it too. Ultimately the project developers would have had more people interested in their project, which is basically their goal. But my curiosity died when I noticed that the game was a pain in the ass to install.
Did I really want to have to manually remove all those libraries if the game turned out to be bad? Not really... I'll better spend my time using programs that don't require me to be a linux geek to make them run.
Two days ago I downloaded two projects from sourceforge just to see a few opensource games. They both were tagges as Mac OS X compatible.
Next thing I do is decompress the first one and check the readme. For some weird reason it wanted me to go through the hassle of compiling it myself... now I could have learnt how to compile from the command line, but I just felt lazy and the project didn't look THAT great from the screenshots so I ended up trashing it.
The other one wanted me to compile it too. And I said what the hell. So I run "sh build.sh" or something similar to build the code and the next thing I know is it won't compile. Reading through the docs I find out that there's like 5 or 6 libraries I am supposed to download and install in my system. SDL, ziplib, can't remember what they were... but I just decided to trash it too.
My point? I was interested in two open source projects and I ended up trashing them just because the developers didn't bother to make them easy to install. Because the developers didn't bother to make the process painless to someone who still has to learn the ways of Linux (actually OS X is based in BSD).
I know, many people here will probably tell me that compiling source codes from the command line is as basic as turning on the computer. But as an end user, I felt highly uninterested in learning the inner workings of my system or the programs I downloaded.
This has been this way forever and windows still has 90% of the marketshare. People are willing to pay for windows.
Nah, they are not. I find day after day more people wondering about this Linux OS. And the main reason they don't want to change is because they are afraid of something different.
A few years ago most people would have asked you, after watching you use linux, what version of Windows it was. At least now people realize that there is more than just Windows.
Windows just works, and works with more hardware without extraconfiguration.
Right now it does, and I think that this is one of the several reasons why Linux can't be popular for desktop computing yet, even though it IS catching up.
Ummm rootkits? When more people switch over to linux you will see moreviruses out there for linux because right now windows is an easy targetwith a ton of machines out there. People much rather write a virus thatwill effect a much larger population. If linux was secure from viruss,why are there linux virus scanners?
Linux is not inmune to viruses, nor any other OS is inmune to them. But that doesn't mean Windows and Linux are at the same level with security. The proof so far has been that the number of viruses on Windows is much higher than the number viruses for Linux. The question is how can you be so sure that it is because of the ammount of people using the former? Isn't that just an unprovable (at least for the time being) hypothesis?
Right now you have far better security against viruses under Linux, no matter the reason. And if the day comes when the opposite happens I will be the first to say that Linux is insecure. But your speculation about viruses spreading around in proportion to the ammount of people using the system is just that: speculation.
So does windows
Not as modest as some linux distros (like micro distributions), but this is not really a reason why Linux will become popular in my opinion.
By far the worst reason I have ever read in my life for having linuxovertake Windows. Linux is about 100x more complex then windows, andsince when did complexity have to do with stability. In order to get Xhardware to work you have to download, configure, find missingdependicies, configure those, compile them install those, then go backto what you were originally doing and finish compiling and do aninstall. Of course there are package management solutions that solvealot of this but if the package aint available in it you are left tocompile. When I take a fresh machine an install windows on it,everything just works, with linux you need to figure out why your soundisnt working and then configure the driver and what not and edit configfiles.
The parent was plainly stating that Linux is more stable due to minor complexity, which in my opinion is true (although it is arguable). I doubt that he was talking about installations though, but rather about the system structure.
The potential for a Linux box to be more stable is there, but that doesn't mean you can't screw it up. This is why I think that the effort to make Linux more user friendly is important, and that it will be the key reason why people will ultimately decide to switch over.
Yea I am sure millions of users will switch to linux cause its the coolthing to do, there are plenty of "cool" applications out there forwindows.
Not sure what you guys mean with coolness. I tend to find OS X pretty cool. I suppose it depends on you.
But they still are using it and despite the security flaws the general public is perfecty comfortable using windows.
The fact that the general public is using Windows has nothing to do wi
Most linux distributions are free. Some of them aren't.
But I seriously doubt that the parent post was emphasizing the fact that EVERY single distribution is completely free. He was simply talking about the fact that you can run Linux for free, even if he expressed it with slightly mistaken words.
And even when you compare commercial distros to Windows you find out that they are really really cheap.
"Yes, because my house has never been broken into before means its more secure than any other."
No but if the houses of people in your town were broken into 50% less than in another town it'd mean that your town is more secure (at least for the time being).
Statistics take no role in making Macs more secure, but they can be surely used as an index to decide if they are more secure nowadays.
"But if *I* want to make music and sell it then at what point exactly do you think *you* have a right to take it without paying?"
The moment you buy a DVD you can only watch in certain countries, because you will obviously never have to move to live abroad. The moment you buy a music CD and later realize that it won't play on some of your CD players just because someone didn't want it to. Or when people has to pay piracy taxes on CDs because everyone is a potential music pirate.
Or when new technology of your own creation doesn't have a right to exist because it steps on some weird document that received the governments approval. Or even when the US government tries to step on the Internet as if it was part of their nation, by suing people from around the world because they infringed some law of them regarding copyrights or patents.
And as you might have guessed I am talking about all of the entertainment industry, not just the music industry.
As some people said in a previous post... the fact that a law is a law doesn't make it intrinsecally right. I am all for copyright protection to be honest, but I am also convinced that such an incredible situation like the one created by p2p networks is the direct result of something more than the coolness of getting songs for free. It is the result of a heavy abuse by those corporations on their customers.
PEOPLE ARE NOT HAPPY WITH HOW THEY ARE BEING TREATED.
"That's the way of nature. The strongest survive. We're the alpha male of the world tribe. Eventually, we'll grow old and a new alpha male will arise. Until then, we get to choose whatever female of the species (metaphor for smaller countries) that we want. When other males (metaphor for other larger countries, but not as big as us) do something we don't like, we express our dominance and smack them down. It's a giant fight for territory."
Shame on that statement. The way of nature doesn't mean I must smack down my neighbor just because I have the power to. If all of the US citizens thought like you do, there would be far more than two towers to shed a tear for.
Do you seriously think that if some other country finds itself in a position to nuke the US it should do so to become the strongest? The way of nature means I should care for myself and only for myself? Then why is it a crime to shoot down someone in the street because you can?
It's not like you have to ignore your interests, but there's a big difference between following those interests and purposedly exploiting other people/countries to gain a better position.
You get respect if you deserve respect. Threating others like your personal slaves is not the only way to retain your leadership position.
Diego Rey
PS: this is not against USA, but against that selfish way of reasoning
"Ashby argued that the cables weren't on his map, that the jet's altitude-gauging equipment malfunctioned and that an optical illusion made him think he was flying higher."
Oh come on! Maybe he was sick too and following direct orders from the president? I lived that event and to be honest I am not too sure of how much the US military wanted to bring light to the matter. Can you think how embarrasing it would be if they admitted that one of their pilots was just playing the tough guy? They just didn't want to let down one of their own.
"What he was nailed for was the disappearance of a videotape filmed by his navigator."
Maybe he ate it thinking it was a pie? Hell, those optical illusions surely are useful, aren't they? Under such circumstances I can't see how it took the martial court so little to rule on the matter...
And anyway, this matter wouldn't be as important to me if I wasn't sure the US government would move mountains if that thing happened to them. I love America as a country but day after day I get the feeling it's growing into a sort of "dictatorship of the world". It wants to be excempted from all international laws, but it also wants to set the parameters for those laws.
Agreed. I wrote like that to explain why I think DRM (as well as any other kind of similar system) is almost "dangerous" if widely adopted. I slightly extremized the situation but it was only to put in clear words what I think they are trying to do with it.
I have faith I will always be able to use my PC regardless of the level of the so called "trust" it can offer. Right now I am using a Mac, but I plan on getting a linux box of my own soon.
I am not against regulations, as long as they don't consider you to be a potential criminal. Trusted computing is all about letting remote hosts know that you can be trusted upon, as well as trying to ensure your own self that you can be trusted.
An analogy would be to prevent you from going the direction you want with your car as that would make it an untrusted car.
Oh, so that's what "trust" is all about? It's all about being able to trust ME?
So my PC needs to be locked so I don't cheat in multiplayer games, steal from banks online, or modify my programs...? But why would I do that in the first place? Next thing they'll do is take away the knives from my kitchen to make sure I don't kill anyone?
"Trusted computing" is all about remote hosts trusting YOU. The only way in which this can happen is by making sure YOU won't be able to behave as you want. Those who are pushing this initiative forward are doing so because they want to control what you do, they want to be able to certify what you can do with your PC. While it may be a good thing to try to make online games, online gambling, online banking and others as secure as possible, personal freedom shouldn't be limited in such ways!
It's all a big paradox, because on one hand you get Microsoft releasing an OS that no-one trusts on a security level, while on the other hand they (and others) want to tell you how to use your computer to make sure you can be trusted?
I don't know if you feel the same way, but those examples that would make "trusted computing" such an interesting idea make me feel like a cybercriminal of some sort.
"Apparently, the simple act of selecting the message activates the code. Given that you have to select an E-mail to delete it, how are users supposed to protect themselves from this one?"
Well, at least this one requires you to open Outlook Express to install itself into your box. The real threat are "viruses" like the (in)famous blaster worm (ok it's a worm but it still has the same effects a virus would have) that hit many computers last year. Such a virus was able to spread into Windows PCs just because of a vulnerability of Windows itself, which means it didn't need to come as an attachment with an email. Just connecting to the internet could have been enough to infect your PC.
Yes, having a firewall set up would probably have prevented it, but unfortunately you just can't put up a firewall into everyone's computer. Especially when those that will use the computer are "technology-ignorant".
MSN is not going to beat google anytime soon in my opinion. Not unless google makes some silly decision. And the reason why I think this may sound a bit stupid to some:
When I want to do online searches, I just open the browser and type www.google.com. I never click on the search button (that some browsers have). And it's not just me. Most of the people I know do exactly the same thing. It's a sort of automatic behaviour.
Now one could argue that MS can try to put search buttons all over the place that lead to MSN, or even embed an MSN searching feature right into their OS, but given how immediate www.google.com has become to many of us, they will also have to fight against such a reflex in most people. Google is not just a name. For most people it is a sinonym of "web searching".
But that's just my opinion... who knows what could happen in a few years.
Slashdot Mirror
Interplanetary pong!
Diego
Because Microsoft makes loads of money on programs they sell for the Mac platform. It's not like they started on 1984 and decided to go on until today to make Apple a favour.
Because the PowerPC architecture was created by IBM and Motorola (I think). The fact that Apple uses PPC processors doesn't mean that such processors are only sold to Apple. Apple is just another customer filling IBM's pockets. Once again I doubt IBM is trying to do Apple a favour.
Is this just a guess or is this factual information? Anyway, the value of a product is not given by it's cost. It's a mixture of variables, most of which depend on the view the customer has of the product. Apparently some people give more value to Macs than to other computers. It's all a matter of personal choice.
Diego Rey
This sounds to me as meaningless as the argument that if Macs of Linux boxes were more popular they would surely have more viruses.
The simple answer is: Apple is not a monopoly, period. If they were dominant, no-one knows what they would be doing. And so far I haven't seen any behaviour that would make me think they wouldn't play by the rules if they were dominant.
And seriously, what would Apple ever want from Real Networks? The guys at Real Networks are loosing a lot of customers for making their free player too hard to find, and by putting way too many ads around. Why would Apple want to have anything to do with them now?
Maybe the words were a bit harsh, but they did make sense.
Diego Rey
...cos if someone drops a nail while you're listening to your cells, it will sound like having your head inside a giant church bell at midnight.
Diego Rey
Oh, taxes on LANs... for a second I thought they were into something stupid.
Diego
I think you got it wrong. Their purpose is not to make their OS work only on certain hardware, but to make it work flawlessly on such hardware. I doubt they will take the hassle to remove all the code that makes the OS run with other hardware.
And btw, the purpose of the GPL is not to restrict what one can do with the source. It is all about sharing your improvements and not getting monetary compensation from it, since the original authors gave it to you for free. A sort of chain reaction.
I can see nothing bad with selling Linux related services.
Diego Rey
...2004 is the year of Linux!!!
Why should I? I was just curious to try the game out, but I'm not going to die just because I couldn't do so. In the end the developers get one less potential user.
The fact that I want to use the computer to do stuff doesn't make me a linux geek. Don't get me wrong... the developers have the right to do whatever they want. Especially since they do it for free, but ultimately it's their choices that make people stay with them or go away. If they don't care, then just fine. But I think such a stance is not too intelligent when you develop software.
Diego Rey
Quite an interesting comparison.
But one could then go ahead and say that if you buy a car, why don't you just assemble it yourself? As intelligent as such a comparison may seem to you, there IS a big difference.
Plus, on a side note, I would like to point out that mine was just curiosity to see the game. If trying the game out was just a matter of downloading and installing such a game then I would have probably liked it too. Ultimately the project developers would have had more people interested in their project, which is basically their goal. But my curiosity died when I noticed that the game was a pain in the ass to install.
Did I really want to have to manually remove all those libraries if the game turned out to be bad? Not really... I'll better spend my time using programs that don't require me to be a linux geek to make them run.
Diego Rey
Two days ago I downloaded two projects from sourceforge just to see a few opensource games. They both were tagges as Mac OS X compatible.
Next thing I do is decompress the first one and check the readme. For some weird reason it wanted me to go through the hassle of compiling it myself... now I could have learnt how to compile from the command line, but I just felt lazy and the project didn't look THAT great from the screenshots so I ended up trashing it.
The other one wanted me to compile it too. And I said what the hell. So I run "sh build.sh" or something similar to build the code and the next thing I know is it won't compile. Reading through the docs I find out that there's like 5 or 6 libraries I am supposed to download and install in my system. SDL, ziplib, can't remember what they were... but I just decided to trash it too.
My point? I was interested in two open source projects and I ended up trashing them just because the developers didn't bother to make them easy to install. Because the developers didn't bother to make the process painless to someone who still has to learn the ways of Linux (actually OS X is based in BSD).
I know, many people here will probably tell me that compiling source codes from the command line is as basic as turning on the computer. But as an end user, I felt highly uninterested in learning the inner workings of my system or the programs I downloaded.
Diego
Nah, they are not. I find day after day more people wondering about this Linux OS. And the main reason they don't want to change is because they are afraid of something different.
A few years ago most people would have asked you, after watching you use linux, what version of Windows it was. At least now people realize that there is more than just Windows.
Right now it does, and I think that this is one of the several reasons why Linux can't be popular for desktop computing yet, even though it IS catching up.
Linux is not inmune to viruses, nor any other OS is inmune to them. But that doesn't mean Windows and Linux are at the same level with security. The proof so far has been that the number of viruses on Windows is much higher than the number viruses for Linux. The question is how can you be so sure that it is because of the ammount of people using the former? Isn't that just an unprovable (at least for the time being) hypothesis?
Right now you have far better security against viruses under Linux, no matter the reason. And if the day comes when the opposite happens I will be the first to say that Linux is insecure. But your speculation about viruses spreading around in proportion to the ammount of people using the system is just that: speculation.
Not as modest as some linux distros (like micro distributions), but this is not really a reason why Linux will become popular in my opinion.
The parent was plainly stating that Linux is more stable due to minor complexity, which in my opinion is true (although it is arguable). I doubt that he was talking about installations though, but rather about the system structure.
The potential for a Linux box to be more stable is there, but that doesn't mean you can't screw it up. This is why I think that the effort to make Linux more user friendly is important, and that it will be the key reason why people will ultimately decide to switch over.
Not sure what you guys mean with coolness. I tend to find OS X pretty cool. I suppose it depends on you.
The fact that the general public is using Windows has nothing to do wi
Most linux distributions are free. Some of them aren't.
But I seriously doubt that the parent post was emphasizing the fact that EVERY single distribution is completely free. He was simply talking about the fact that you can run Linux for free, even if he expressed it with slightly mistaken words.
And even when you compare commercial distros to Windows you find out that they are really really cheap.
Diego Rey
iChick told me she's tall, blonde with blue eyes, works as a top model and wouldn't mind dating ugly guys.
So mine is not escapism, I'm investing my time on a possible (hot and sexy) future.
Diego
Crap, I wish it was a fortress like XP. I am feeling so insecure now.
Diego Rey
No but if the houses of people in your town were broken into 50% less than in another town it'd mean that your town is more secure (at least for the time being).
Statistics take no role in making Macs more secure, but they can be surely used as an index to decide if they are more secure nowadays.
Diego Rey.
The moment you buy a DVD you can only watch in certain countries, because you will obviously never have to move to live abroad. The moment you buy a music CD and later realize that it won't play on some of your CD players just because someone didn't want it to. Or when people has to pay piracy taxes on CDs because everyone is a potential music pirate.
Or when new technology of your own creation doesn't have a right to exist because it steps on some weird document that received the governments approval. Or even when the US government tries to step on the Internet as if it was part of their nation, by suing people from around the world because they infringed some law of them regarding copyrights or patents.
And as you might have guessed I am talking about all of the entertainment industry, not just the music industry.
As some people said in a previous post... the fact that a law is a law doesn't make it intrinsecally right. I am all for copyright protection to be honest, but I am also convinced that such an incredible situation like the one created by p2p networks is the direct result of something more than the coolness of getting songs for free. It is the result of a heavy abuse by those corporations on their customers.
PEOPLE ARE NOT HAPPY WITH HOW THEY ARE BEING TREATED.
Diego
Shame on that statement. The way of nature doesn't mean I must smack down my neighbor just because I have the power to. If all of the US citizens thought like you do, there would be far more than two towers to shed a tear for.
Do you seriously think that if some other country finds itself in a position to nuke the US it should do so to become the strongest? The way of nature means I should care for myself and only for myself? Then why is it a crime to shoot down someone in the street because you can?
It's not like you have to ignore your interests, but there's a big difference between following those interests and purposedly exploiting other people/countries to gain a better position.
You get respect if you deserve respect. Threating others like your personal slaves is not the only way to retain your leadership position.
Diego Rey
PS: this is not against USA, but against that selfish way of reasoning
Oh come on! Maybe he was sick too and following direct orders from the president? I lived that event and to be honest I am not too sure of how much the US military wanted to bring light to the matter. Can you think how embarrasing it would be if they admitted that one of their pilots was just playing the tough guy? They just didn't want to let down one of their own.
Maybe he ate it thinking it was a pie? Hell, those optical illusions surely are useful, aren't they? Under such circumstances I can't see how it took the martial court so little to rule on the matter...
And anyway, this matter wouldn't be as important to me if I wasn't sure the US government would move mountains if that thing happened to them. I love America as a country but day after day I get the feeling it's growing into a sort of "dictatorship of the world". It wants to be excempted from all international laws, but it also wants to set the parameters for those laws.
Diego Rey
In a world without walls and fences (internet), we don't need Windows and Gates.
Diego
Agreed. I wrote like that to explain why I think DRM (as well as any other kind of similar system) is almost "dangerous" if widely adopted. I slightly extremized the situation but it was only to put in clear words what I think they are trying to do with it.
I have faith I will always be able to use my PC regardless of the level of the so called "trust" it can offer. Right now I am using a Mac, but I plan on getting a linux box of my own soon.
Diego
I am not against regulations, as long as they don't consider you to be a potential criminal. Trusted computing is all about letting remote hosts know that you can be trusted upon, as well as trying to ensure your own self that you can be trusted.
An analogy would be to prevent you from going the direction you want with your car as that would make it an untrusted car.
Diego Rey
Oh, so that's what "trust" is all about? It's all about being able to trust ME?
So my PC needs to be locked so I don't cheat in multiplayer games, steal from banks online, or modify my programs...? But why would I do that in the first place? Next thing they'll do is take away the knives from my kitchen to make sure I don't kill anyone?
"Trusted computing" is all about remote hosts trusting YOU. The only way in which this can happen is by making sure YOU won't be able to behave as you want. Those who are pushing this initiative forward are doing so because they want to control what you do, they want to be able to certify what you can do with your PC. While it may be a good thing to try to make online games, online gambling, online banking and others as secure as possible, personal freedom shouldn't be limited in such ways!
It's all a big paradox, because on one hand you get Microsoft releasing an OS that no-one trusts on a security level, while on the other hand they (and others) want to tell you how to use your computer to make sure you can be trusted?
I don't know if you feel the same way, but those examples that would make "trusted computing" such an interesting idea make me feel like a cybercriminal of some sort.
Diego Rey
Oh, so open-sourcing java will be good for Sun for when it dies?
Diego
Well, at least this one requires you to open Outlook Express to install itself into your box. The real threat are "viruses" like the (in)famous blaster worm (ok it's a worm but it still has the same effects a virus would have) that hit many computers last year. Such a virus was able to spread into Windows PCs just because of a vulnerability of Windows itself, which means it didn't need to come as an attachment with an email. Just connecting to the internet could have been enough to infect your PC.
Some data by symantec regarding the virus:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/v
Yes, having a firewall set up would probably have prevented it, but unfortunately you just can't put up a firewall into everyone's computer. Especially when those that will use the computer are "technology-ignorant".
Diego
MSN is not going to beat google anytime soon in my opinion. Not unless google makes some silly decision. And the reason why I think this may sound a bit stupid to some:
When I want to do online searches, I just open the browser and type www.google.com. I never click on the search button (that some browsers have). And it's not just me. Most of the people I know do exactly the same thing. It's a sort of automatic behaviour.
Now one could argue that MS can try to put search buttons all over the place that lead to MSN, or even embed an MSN searching feature right into their OS, but given how immediate www.google.com has become to many of us, they will also have to fight against such a reflex in most people. Google is not just a name. For most people it is a sinonym of "web searching".
But that's just my opinion... who knows what could happen in a few years.
Diego Rey