First off [different poster], I use box edition RH and RHN and am looking at getting ES now, to see if its possible to do for my workplace for our needs, within our budget. I do think there are users who 'freeload' (like me at home along with other distros, though I try to pay for box editions and CD packs when I find them and have the dough, impulse shopping used for good, for a change:) and then recommend RH over other solutions as a result. So in this way, Joe User can have an impact on things. Fedora will be the choice for them [me] in this regard. I'd like it if RH kept going, at least a while longer in supporting RH9 updates, as it provides what we need, but if nothing else there's a whole slew of ditros to choose from, if Enterprise ES is not within our grasp, that can handle the services. I still wouldn't hold a grudge against RH for having to switch. They do provide a test bed with Fedora (that is what the x.0 releases were intended to be after a certain point anyway right?) SuSE has a similar dual line of Linux that still as far as I know supports the box edition line (been out of the loop a little with SuSE, anyone please correct me).
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for some current users who only need certain services for a relatively small user base to learn to build a system from the kernel up with only the software that's needed installed for a server, using a more minimalist distro (not in what's available TO install, only in what gets installed by default; gentoo was an education for me, as would be debian and other distros or FreeBSD - the hardcore education - for that matter in this regard); no need to install a kitchen sink to water the front lawn, etc).
If they had never put autoruns on CDs, then maybe you wouldn't be getting so many stupid people calling no-a-days, since they would have thought at some point: "Gee, if I put this disk in that drive, then there's something there in that drive that does something I want it to do. Maybe I should open that drive and take a look - What's this? Some tiny icon called setup or install? What does that do? Well I wonder. Should I click on it to see?"
One doesn't need to be a techie to be curious. Nor be a hacker to figure out that that coffee cup holder in the front of that PC is useful for more than a convenient place to hold goodies from Starbucks.
Hell maybe the Springer show would have a more shallow pool of people to pick from to put on the show if more people were motivated to be just a little bit curious now and then (and I'm not even going into the political what-ifs). Command-lines are more useful. But then again, GUIs do let you run many many command-line windows with pretty bitmap backgrounds along with the GUI apps. So yeah, I guess GUIs can serve a purpose afterall:) Add virtual desktops with easy-to-use keyboard shortcuts to the mix, well then things start to get interesting.
I forget. What was the topic again? Oh well, maybe one too many virtual desktops.;-)
Ignoring the fact that this is obvious flaimbait, I'm going to offer this advice to any reader who hadn't considered it before:
Next time get an AMD or a refurb. Half[.ebay].com had some Duron 900MHz boxes for $80 bucks with 128MB RAM and a 20Gig hard drive, or refurb'ed PIII 500MHz's for about the same, amazon resellers have cheap refurb system also. Guess shopping around a little more next time looking for an upgrade? Better luck next time (me too; I found them after shelling out $150 for a similar box, such is life;-)
Geeze I get PII's and K6-II's for free when I set up other people's new PIII's and P4's. Show some kindness to 'end-users' out there when they spend their riches and see what comes your way as a result (or charge for your time plugging in a keyboard and mouse et al and buy a P4 after a while, whatever; you may still be asked "do you know where I can get rid of this old PC? I don't want to just throw it away...") Bring a boot disk and reformat their old hard drive with them watching you do it (Might want to aks them 2 or 3 times if they have everything they want to save off of it first:). You'd have a super computing cluster of old but functional systems in no time (or polish up the ones you don't use and donate them somewhere that needs them; Give away a penguin, get good Karma!).
If someone tries to sell you an indemnification (which is really just a kind of insurance), then they are telling you that there is a real risk that you may get sued.
Sure, there's a risk of being sued, because lawsuits are filed with or without justification. It still doesn't make the basis for the suit valid, nor does it add any bit of power (proof, etc) behind the claims behind the threat. You could buy home owner's insurance to protect yourself from among other things in case a burgler stubs his/her toe breaking into your home and sues you over the cluttered floor inside from the window he/she climbed into in order to enter the house. It doesn't mean the claim behind the suit would be validated due to indemnification. Its an extreme example I grant you.
Furthermore, if Sun and HP manage to cement the perception that corporations cannot run Linux without paying some deep-pocketed UNIX licensee, then Linux has effectively become non-free. Therefore, Sun's and HP's indemnification is an attack on the open source and free software nature of Linux.
Ahh, now this I can see. HP and Sun do have cause to want to see Linux go down ever since it became more and more a serious threat to their Unix brands. Sun even makes out like they're pushing Linux on business desktops, which they may well be to get some cash flow from the Intel/x86-centric desktop market at a time when the existing dominant Windows OS's are looking particularly insecure and unreliable. It might be a red herring, in that Sun makes their profits on non-intel hardware, for which server-based Linux on Intel is a threat to said profit.
With HP, I've always had a shock-n-duh! reaction thinking about HP and Unix due to when I watched a company in the late 90's pay over $20K just to 'upgrade' a small HP3000 box for y2K compliance (something rational people now-a-days call a bug fix), a box that was only supporting circa 150 people, with a mainframe system (no bigger than my desktop, and less powerful, given the tech curve of course) that if a company needed today could be set up for very little on cheap and redundant hardware with Linux, and software upgrades could cost nothing.
I can see why these companies could have their reasons to like to see Linux fall out the picture. Buyers beware, and for more than just hyped up IP claims it would seem or be plausible to anyway.
I'm beginning to wonder if the people managing yahoo finance don't already have their stock portfolios stacked in SCOX's favor. I'm not trying to make claims against anyone at Yahoo, mind you, since I don't know what circumstances dictate what articles get selected to be shown in a given section, but it's starting to look a little fishy. Maybe its just 'dumb luck' (and maybe I'll hit the lottery twice tomorrow then come home to have an impromptu dinner/breakfdast with a super model).
I'm no lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but:
Indemnification does not imply that what is being indemnified against is a valid claim. I'm indemnified through auto insurance against damages suffered or caused should I strike another car on the way home from work or if the other driver strikes me. That doesn't mean that it is OK to go play "bumber cars" on the interstate. HP is simply agreeing under certain circumstances to stand up for their commercial customers to any (unjustified in this case, IMBHO) claims made by SCO.
It doesn't make SCO's case any better (or worse), no more than my potential claim that I should be allowed to drive right over the slow sunday drivers who won't get out of the fast lane this evening on the way home justifies me to do so.
"I struck a key once, twice, three times, and still it didn't work. So then I went to the garage to get a hammer, to more accurately follow the instructions, and... "
I'd just love to hear that call in progress and what comes next ("But your instructions told me to! I want a new keyboard for free. Also the coffee cup holder doesn't keep my coffe warm. I need a new one, I think.")
Nothing intended against Compaq users. "Coffee cup" poeple have probably gone through more than one selection of hardware vendors learning not to use the CDROM that way anyhow:)
If you want to make money you have to spend it. Looking to buy $250K-$500K+ in hardware assumes you'd have few extra $K for the software. I think you made the right point in that regard.
I also think that there are a lot of 'toys' out there helping to make a profit for businesses, and they're doing a damn fine job of it without a proprietary OS running them. If $2K-$5K stand-alone servers, rack-mounted hardware for less that or $4K-$10K, or even yesterday's workstations with a few hundred in upgrade parts can run today's file/backup servers, web servers, and SOHO mutlifunction servers, then more power to those fortunate people.
Not everyone needs enterprise-class systems to make their money and/or get their tasks done, much to the disdain of people selling enterprise hardware and enterprise software of both proprietary and opensource origin. I know I'd sure love to have a $8,000 Sun Blade 2000 workstation or an Enterprise-ready Sun Fire 15K starting at a cool $861,330 (up to 106 UltraSPARC III Cu processors). However, much to my disdain, it ain't going to happen in my work environment nor at home (except maybe that $8K Sun Blade 2000; to hell with it, I'll sell the car and take a bus to work;-). For me and for many people out here, it's about dealing with what is possible, not with what is buyable, and not just in terms of using for private use.
Looking at it from this view, paying RedHat or SuSE for professional versions of the otherwise free software and being able to use that software as I see fit, such as installing on more than one system or using third-party software to get some enterprise-level functionality out of them like small-scale - ~1000+ people - mail and groupware functionality, is a great option for anyone to have.
Then later, who would you want to give your money to when fortune comes and the business then justifies/demands enterprise-level computing? The company(s) who made it possible in the first place or the ones that told you to stop dreaming and to come back when you have the cash in hand? Maybe the demands of the business will require something the latter offers that is unique or special to it, but my bet is with the former.
I see what you're getting at, and I'd ask whether you consider the RIAA to be the local pharmacy or the drug maker in this example. I'd view them in the position of the drug maker (not joking here, just following the example:). Then the question of theft hinges on whether you actually paid for the drugs you sold illegally. And if you had stolen the goods then yes a theft has been committed above and beyond the illegal sale of controlled substances. If the physical theft occurred at 3am/whenever at the local pharmacy, then the local pharmacy is the victim, else whoever owned the drugs at the time of the deed, or the drug maker if they hadn't managed to sell the goods before the act.
In terms of digital music files, the production process occurs at some point outside of the RIAA's facilities, after the legal sale of the tangible product when someone makes mp3's from a CD, or buys a copy of someone else's authorized encoded music files from a authorized mp3 file store online. The product is not tangible so it can't be 'stolen', but it is copyright protected. The victim of theft in terms of the copyright (i.e. copyright theft) is then the holder(s) of that copyrighted music (movies/texts too, just sticking mainly to music for this example here).
I believe that movie/music sharing in the manner Naptser et al does really constitute stealing. In light of copyright's new long-long-LONG life span however, I also see the point of those who argue against the prinicple. For example, should a person who sings "Happy Birthday" at a child's party be cited for copyright theft? What about the person/business who makes money off the occasion by hosting the party (resturant, etc), or even the paid clown to sings along with the party-goers? Someone has a copyright on that song don't they? It does not equal GB/TB's of copyrighted music on a shared network, so I'm not saying 'go after those scary-ass clowns, they deserve it anyway!' or anything, but the actions are at some level the same (There's always one person who has to stand up and make everyone else at the party break copyright law, assuming donations aren't collected to pay the royalties afterward; Gee, who invited that person anyway?!).
The RIAA makes tons of money on what they produce, and as long as the sharing doesn't have a profit motive behind it, then one could argue that the affect on the RIAA side is less, and not always negative either. Loss is not nill, of course... Still, I used to buy music all the time after hearing a song I downloaded back before naptser was targeted and the reality set it; now-a-days I could count the CD's I bought this year on one hand, and when I do buy, I consider how much I want it 1, 2, 3 times before buying anything not in the "used CD's" section. Paying up to $20 for a new CD just isn't all that fun a prospect anymore, and if not for sales and discount sellers online and the 'brick-n-morter's, I would never buy new music (and one REALLY good sale, not just the weekly high-volume sales discount on whoever's being sold via MTV, Clear Channel Comm's, whovever, for any given week). I obey the law. I just don't buy the hype anymore as a consequence of all this. That's my experience and 2 cents worth anyway.
"Happy Birthday" likely falls under fair use, but I think it illustrates the question none-the-less.
For office work? Name one? No really, I'm not flaming the poster.
Lets take a survey. I think It'd be on topic for this article. There are lists of alternatives out there but what's the first ones we think of? OpenOffice for MS Office is one, though I've read here that there can be annoyances using it with MS Office people. I haven't experienced it too much, though perhaps the Excel to Calc power users or users who use more graphics in their docs than what I see in my workplace uses may have another story. What have they been?
Financial, Mail, etc. Spicifically working with MS users, e.g. accountants may probably have to 'just pick one' until the bank goes OSS, with some exceptions since QIF format compatible tools for GNU/Linux like gnucash works, whether or not an accountant's point of view would be the same I couldn't say. Maybe a tool out there that works better? Another is a java-written tool that I found excellent - jgnash, found at http://sourceforge.net/. I'm fishing here, not 'pitching' apps. What's been your experience?
I heard the same thing years ago about GNU/Linux, how it must be the hardware or alpha development drivers. Not much anymore though I use standard stuff. My nvidia card works in Linux flawlessly, and NOT so well on my XP Home edition [XP-lite] Desktop. I got the re-run-around when looking for answers and one install attempt did make it work, for a while anyway. It was later said to be 'bad' hardware [But shhhh! Don't tell my Linux install that. It doesn't seem to know how bad the hardware is...]
Welcome to the Twilight Zone [spooky music playing in the background]. Ironic isn't it?;-)
I am impressed on the uptime though. Sounds like a genuine improvement.
If you bought a smartcard programmer, they will not be able to convict based on only that, they would have to have other evidence.
That's the 'fun' part about the difference between criminal and civil cases. They don't need to prove it, just talk a jury or a judge into buying their side of the story. To defend oneself against what will quickly become a team of trial lawyers who would have argued the same case enough to know just what works (after say the first **200** cases or so I'd expect a D-TV plantiff could have a shot at successfully arguing the court case while sleeping) a defendant would need to fork over serious money for a defence. Therein lies a big loophole that this class of company can crawl through. Would you pay $3500 and loose a security door locking system (assuming a perfectly legal reason for having said equipment; such reasons DO exist!) or as much as humanly possible for the best defense against such a much practiced argument in court. Then for all you efforts you still might loose...
Must be what 'less government' means to business leaders. Who needs a police state with this kind of tactic coming down the road? Shit! Give me higher taxes please...
We are the people who others ask about such things... "You know gadgets and waste 3/4 of your life in from one screen or another... What would you recommend I go with?":-/
Think "word of mouth". Buzz words like that really get to marketing people.
Those who know what they're doing (or think they do) like open systems because they can find answers without having to call up into some qued support line just to be told it was user error or thrid-party software to blame, anything but the OS, which is perfect, always, no discussions (unless some 'hacker' proves them wrong and the story hits CNN...). To be blatently biased as you already probably figured out about me: For those wothout a clue and no desire to get one, there's Microsoft.
Reality isn't so black and white as this, and I know plenty of MS-centric people who know what they're talking about, just as many Mac people who know their wares, many of whom more experienced than me I'm sure. But to say that Linux has zero support suggests that documentation isn't counted, which I count and count on daily. Speaking of documentation, Try using MS's knowledgebase to find an article on a specific issue, then hop to google.com/linux and look up how to do something specific in Linux, then tell me which one procuded a usable answer faster and easier.
As far as why more people don't use Linux, or any otehr OS, why not ask the hardware vendors that one. They sell the systems with Windows pre-installed to customers who have bought into the marketing over the years and are now floating though MS-land on auto-pilot. Someone interested in using Linux still for the most part has to install it themselves, something most people have no desire to do even to spite the OS they might percieve as evil (personally I don't think MS does anything any other profit-motivated entity would do given the position they're in; Everyone wants to own a monopoly in business, that's the reason we have public and consumer rights laws right?).
I hear end-users say "Gates is evil", "Microsoft is an monopoly", etc, all the time, though relearning their own computer is too much to do to put their feelings into some action. I can't blame them. If I wasn't interested in this stuff in the first place I'd probably be in the same situation.
Also when was the last time you saw an MS box act as a DDOS drone?
To offer a middle ground: Command-line can be valuable, though not by extension automatically desired. This statement also means that it is not often desired by a large portion of cumputer users, in fact not many by comparison to the total userbase and its growing numbers. Very true. Time can only bring this change for the better. Rates of change on the other hand, if I had the vision to always predict, would mean I wouldn't need to work anymore via the the stock market:). I look forward to seeing longhorn, and do have the expectations that it will be something different.
Linux was started from a foundation in a *nix tradition three decades long, granted. How it grows and adapts is one of the interesting things about it. Whether the tradition overtakes the creation, or the creation can evolve, will also be interesting to see. We'll all be using/interfacing with who-knows-what 20 years from now at any rate.
Thank you for the information on the differences between WinFS and JFS. WinFS does really sound like a good system. Very enlightening. Finding files and searching metadata would be well improved in such a system. I had read about how JFS helps in data recovery, but hadn't considered the implications for a database-oriented filesystem. I see the concept would have innovative uses for netowrk filesystems, and would work well with active directory.
Linux is a 30-year step backwards as far as human interface is concerned
Its a matter of opinion and personal choice albeit, but I'd dissagree. Command-line is not a step backward. GUIs just can't do the same degree of robust detail within computing. *nix and like systems are old and have been around for decades, true. Ever wonder why? Its useful, relevant, and powerful. GUI's are the present/future, especially of computing "appliances" and similarly tasked computing systems. Just because a platform has a command-line at the base of it all doesn't make it outdated or backward. If anything it makes it flexible. Provided, if you want an appliance from your computer, which is a perfectly valid desire, GUIs are a must unless you for some reason already know command-line. Learning a few commands to use on a command-line can make that UI more useful, to have a 'back door' to the computer behind the toaster, uh, umm, word processor/web browser/email station.
There are some cases where one still needs to use command-line to change the system on many flavors of Linux, though SuSE I've experienced has made the most extensive changes in this area, to the point that I don't think command-line knowledge is ever needed, not even a text file editor, to update a computer's settings, add hardware, etc.
Having an array of choices of GUI desktops to choose from, with the list always growing and changing, that - to me - seems to fuel innovation, more than simply relocating "My Computer" and "My Documents" to the start menu and calling it innovation. MS changed more than that as a whole I know, but the UI itself? No big changes since 1994 for the most part. With window managers on *nix (GNU's not....), this case Linux, but also with the BSDs, etc, we've actually seen something different, at least from the Windows model anyway (older users may see 'Motif' everywhere they look, though I won't argue since the Motif-ish UI is really one of the desirable alternatives to me anyway:). Some of the greener window managers are really interesting diversions from the norm. And I've never seen a Windows user actually use a desktop like a *nix/X user. The MS enviornment just doesn't seem to lend itself to mutlitasking in quite the same way. I'm probably wrong about that but its been my impression.
As for the development of Linux, I'm sure there's better qualified readers to answer how advanced or not it is compared to Windows or any other system on the low-end levels, but when I unarchive/compile/install two applications, run GUI network monitoring software, and play a openGL video game all at the same time without hardly missing a beat, that tells me something was done right (running on a p4 with 512MB DDR RAM, 64MB agp video).
PS: WinFS (database-driven filesystem)? You mean like JFS, XFS, etc (Journaled File Systems)? Well its about time MS saw the light...:)
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lol, good point:)
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So true. Its such an inconvenience for all those who count on this feature existing in everyone else's email clients. Why doesn't Ximian learn from the choices businesses today make? I mean how else is the latest virus/worm/etc going to make it around the world before lunch time if this feature isn't in place? And congrats to M$ for their anti-spam and antivirus efforts, it seems a good place to add...
Oh wait... Don't forget to make attachments launch as applications when you click on them, especially the macros, don't forget macros... That's muy importante also...
If it isn't Outlook, then it simply isn't usable...
Slashdot Mirror
I checked it out on safari...
It looks good.
Oh great, now to add a pair of sunglasses to go with that tinfoil hat.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for some current users who only need certain services for a relatively small user base to learn to build a system from the kernel up with only the software that's needed installed for a server, using a more minimalist distro (not in what's available TO install, only in what gets installed by default; gentoo was an education for me, as would be debian and other distros or FreeBSD - the hardcore education - for that matter in this regard); no need to install a kitchen sink to water the front lawn, etc).
If they had never put autoruns on CDs, then maybe you wouldn't be getting so many stupid people calling no-a-days, since they would have thought at some point: "Gee, if I put this disk in that drive, then there's something there in that drive that does something I want it to do. Maybe I should open that drive and take a look - What's this? Some tiny icon called setup or install? What does that do? Well I wonder. Should I click on it to see?"
One doesn't need to be a techie to be curious. Nor be a hacker to figure out that that coffee cup holder in the front of that PC is useful for more than a convenient place to hold goodies from Starbucks.
Hell maybe the Springer show would have a more shallow pool of people to pick from to put on the show if more people were motivated to be just a little bit curious now and then (and I'm not even going into the political what-ifs). Command-lines are more useful. But then again, GUIs do let you run many many command-line windows with pretty bitmap backgrounds along with the GUI apps. So yeah, I guess GUIs can serve a purpose afterall
I forget. What was the topic again? Oh well, maybe one too many virtual desktops.
Next time get an AMD or a refurb. Half[.ebay].com had some Duron 900MHz boxes for $80 bucks with 128MB RAM and a 20Gig hard drive, or refurb'ed PIII 500MHz's for about the same, amazon resellers have cheap refurb system also. Guess shopping around a little more next time looking for an upgrade? Better luck next time (me too; I found them after shelling out $150 for a similar box, such is life
Geeze I get PII's and K6-II's for free when I set up other people's new PIII's and P4's. Show some kindness to 'end-users' out there when they spend their riches and see what comes your way as a result (or charge for your time plugging in a keyboard and mouse et al and buy a P4 after a while, whatever; you may still be asked "do you know where I can get rid of this old PC? I don't want to just throw it away...") Bring a boot disk and reformat their old hard drive with them watching you do it (Might want to aks them 2 or 3 times if they have everything they want to save off of it first :). You'd have a super computing cluster of old but functional systems in no time (or polish up the ones you don't use and donate them somewhere that needs them; Give away a penguin, get good Karma!).
Sure, there's a risk of being sued, because lawsuits are filed with or without justification. It still doesn't make the basis for the suit valid, nor does it add any bit of power (proof, etc) behind the claims behind the threat. You could buy home owner's insurance to protect yourself from among other things in case a burgler stubs his/her toe breaking into your home and sues you over the cluttered floor inside from the window he/she climbed into in order to enter the house. It doesn't mean the claim behind the suit would be validated due to indemnification. Its an extreme example I grant you.
Furthermore, if Sun and HP manage to cement the perception that corporations cannot run Linux without paying some deep-pocketed UNIX licensee, then Linux has effectively become non-free. Therefore, Sun's and HP's indemnification is an attack on the open source and free software nature of Linux.
Ahh, now this I can see. HP and Sun do have cause to want to see Linux go down ever since it became more and more a serious threat to their Unix brands. Sun even makes out like they're pushing Linux on business desktops, which they may well be to get some cash flow from the Intel/x86-centric desktop market at a time when the existing dominant Windows OS's are looking particularly insecure and unreliable. It might be a red herring, in that Sun makes their profits on non-intel hardware, for which server-based Linux on Intel is a threat to said profit.
With HP, I've always had a shock-n-duh! reaction thinking about HP and Unix due to when I watched a company in the late 90's pay over $20K just to 'upgrade' a small HP3000 box for y2K compliance (something rational people now-a-days call a bug fix), a box that was only supporting circa 150 people, with a mainframe system (no bigger than my desktop, and less powerful, given the tech curve of course) that if a company needed today could be set up for very little on cheap and redundant hardware with Linux, and software upgrades could cost nothing.
I can see why these companies could have their reasons to like to see Linux fall out the picture. Buyers beware, and for more than just hyped up IP claims it would seem or be plausible to anyway.
I'm beginning to wonder if the people managing yahoo finance don't already have their stock portfolios stacked in SCOX's favor. I'm not trying to make claims against anyone at Yahoo, mind you, since I don't know what circumstances dictate what articles get selected to be shown in a given section, but it's starting to look a little fishy. Maybe its just 'dumb luck' (and maybe I'll hit the lottery twice tomorrow then come home to have an impromptu dinner/breakfdast with a super model).
Indemnification does not imply that what is being indemnified against is a valid claim. I'm indemnified through auto insurance against damages suffered or caused should I strike another car on the way home from work or if the other driver strikes me. That doesn't mean that it is OK to go play "bumber cars" on the interstate. HP is simply agreeing under certain circumstances to stand up for their commercial customers to any (unjustified in this case, IMBHO) claims made by SCO.
It doesn't make SCO's case any better (or worse), no more than my potential claim that I should be allowed to drive right over the slow sunday drivers who won't get out of the fast lane this evening on the way home justifies me to do so.
I'd just love to hear that call in progress and what comes next ("But your instructions told me to! I want a new keyboard for free. Also the coffee cup holder doesn't keep my coffe warm. I need a new one, I think.")
Nothing intended against Compaq users. "Coffee cup" poeple have probably gone through more than one selection of hardware vendors learning not to use the CDROM that way anyhow :)
I also think that there are a lot of 'toys' out there helping to make a profit for businesses, and they're doing a damn fine job of it without a proprietary OS running them. If $2K-$5K stand-alone servers, rack-mounted hardware for less that or $4K-$10K, or even yesterday's workstations with a few hundred in upgrade parts can run today's file/backup servers, web servers, and SOHO mutlifunction servers, then more power to those fortunate people.
Not everyone needs enterprise-class systems to make their money and/or get their tasks done, much to the disdain of people selling enterprise hardware and enterprise software of both proprietary and opensource origin. I know I'd sure love to have a $8,000 Sun Blade 2000 workstation or an Enterprise-ready Sun Fire 15K starting at a cool $861,330 (up to 106 UltraSPARC III Cu processors). However, much to my disdain, it ain't going to happen in my work environment nor at home (except maybe that $8K Sun Blade 2000; to hell with it, I'll sell the car and take a bus to work ;-). For me and for many people out here, it's about dealing with what is possible, not with what is buyable, and not just in terms of using for private use.
Looking at it from this view, paying RedHat or SuSE for professional versions of the otherwise free software and being able to use that software as I see fit, such as installing on more than one system or using third-party software to get some enterprise-level functionality out of them like small-scale - ~1000+ people - mail and groupware functionality, is a great option for anyone to have.
Then later, who would you want to give your money to when fortune comes and the business then justifies/demands enterprise-level computing? The company(s) who made it possible in the first place or the ones that told you to stop dreaming and to come back when you have the cash in hand? Maybe the demands of the business will require something the latter offers that is unique or special to it, but my bet is with the former.
Social engineering traditionally comes from the bad guys. In this case (broken updates), maybe its still the right statement.
In terms of digital music files, the production process occurs at some point outside of the RIAA's facilities, after the legal sale of the tangible product when someone makes mp3's from a CD, or buys a copy of someone else's authorized encoded music files from a authorized mp3 file store online. The product is not tangible so it can't be 'stolen', but it is copyright protected. The victim of theft in terms of the copyright (i.e. copyright theft) is then the holder(s) of that copyrighted music (movies/texts too, just sticking mainly to music for this example here).
I believe that movie/music sharing in the manner Naptser et al does really constitute stealing. In light of copyright's new long-long-LONG life span however, I also see the point of those who argue against the prinicple. For example, should a person who sings "Happy Birthday" at a child's party be cited for copyright theft? What about the person/business who makes money off the occasion by hosting the party (resturant, etc), or even the paid clown to sings along with the party-goers? Someone has a copyright on that song don't they? It does not equal GB/TB's of copyrighted music on a shared network, so I'm not saying 'go after those scary-ass clowns, they deserve it anyway!' or anything, but the actions are at some level the same (There's always one person who has to stand up and make everyone else at the party break copyright law, assuming donations aren't collected to pay the royalties afterward; Gee, who invited that person anyway?!).
The RIAA makes tons of money on what they produce, and as long as the sharing doesn't have a profit motive behind it, then one could argue that the affect on the RIAA side is less, and not always negative either. Loss is not nill, of course... Still, I used to buy music all the time after hearing a song I downloaded back before naptser was targeted and the reality set it; now-a-days I could count the CD's I bought this year on one hand, and when I do buy, I consider how much I want it 1, 2, 3 times before buying anything not in the "used CD's" section. Paying up to $20 for a new CD just isn't all that fun a prospect anymore, and if not for sales and discount sellers online and the 'brick-n-morter's, I would never buy new music (and one REALLY good sale, not just the weekly high-volume sales discount on whoever's being sold via MTV, Clear Channel Comm's, whovever, for any given week). I obey the law. I just don't buy the hype anymore as a consequence of all this. That's my experience and 2 cents worth anyway.
"Happy Birthday" likely falls under fair use, but I think it illustrates the question none-the-less.
Lets take a survey. I think It'd be on topic for this article. There are lists of alternatives out there but what's the first ones we think of? OpenOffice for MS Office is one, though I've read here that there can be annoyances using it with MS Office people. I haven't experienced it too much, though perhaps the Excel to Calc power users or users who use more graphics in their docs than what I see in my workplace uses may have another story. What have they been?
Financial, Mail, etc. Spicifically working with MS users, e.g. accountants may probably have to 'just pick one' until the bank goes OSS, with some exceptions since QIF format compatible tools for GNU/Linux like gnucash works, whether or not an accountant's point of view would be the same I couldn't say. Maybe a tool out there that works better? Another is a java-written tool that I found excellent - jgnash, found at http://sourceforge.net/. I'm fishing here, not 'pitching' apps. What's been your experience?
Welcome to the Twilight Zone [spooky music playing in the background]. Ironic isn't it? ;-)
I am impressed on the uptime though. Sounds like a genuine improvement.
Not that one can't dodge a combine (trust me on that one) but...
That's the 'fun' part about the difference between criminal and civil cases. They don't need to prove it, just talk a jury or a judge into buying their side of the story. To defend oneself against what will quickly become a team of trial lawyers who would have argued the same case enough to know just what works (after say the first **200** cases or so I'd expect a D-TV plantiff could have a shot at successfully arguing the court case while sleeping) a defendant would need to fork over serious money for a defence. Therein lies a big loophole that this class of company can crawl through. Would you pay $3500 and loose a security door locking system (assuming a perfectly legal reason for having said equipment; such reasons DO exist!) or as much as humanly possible for the best defense against such a much practiced argument in court. Then for all you efforts you still might loose...
Must be what 'less government' means to business leaders. Who needs a police state with this kind of tactic coming down the road? Shit! Give me higher taxes please...
Think "word of mouth". Buzz words like that really get to marketing people.
Reality isn't so black and white as this, and I know plenty of MS-centric people who know what they're talking about, just as many Mac people who know their wares, many of whom more experienced than me I'm sure. But to say that Linux has zero support suggests that documentation isn't counted, which I count and count on daily. Speaking of documentation, Try using MS's knowledgebase to find an article on a specific issue, then hop to google.com/linux and look up how to do something specific in Linux, then tell me which one procuded a usable answer faster and easier.
As far as why more people don't use Linux, or any otehr OS, why not ask the hardware vendors that one. They sell the systems with Windows pre-installed to customers who have bought into the marketing over the years and are now floating though MS-land on auto-pilot. Someone interested in using Linux still for the most part has to install it themselves, something most people have no desire to do even to spite the OS they might percieve as evil (personally I don't think MS does anything any other profit-motivated entity would do given the position they're in; Everyone wants to own a monopoly in business, that's the reason we have public and consumer rights laws right?).
I hear end-users say "Gates is evil", "Microsoft is an monopoly", etc, all the time, though relearning their own computer is too much to do to put their feelings into some action. I can't blame them. If I wasn't interested in this stuff in the first place I'd probably be in the same situation.
Also when was the last time you saw an MS box act as a DDOS drone?
Your kidding right? Look here.
Linux was started from a foundation in a *nix tradition three decades long, granted. How it grows and adapts is one of the interesting things about it. Whether the tradition overtakes the creation, or the creation can evolve, will also be interesting to see. We'll all be using/interfacing with who-knows-what 20 years from now at any rate.
Thank you for the information on the differences between WinFS and JFS. WinFS does really sound like a good system. Very enlightening. Finding files and searching metadata would be well improved in such a system. I had read about how JFS helps in data recovery, but hadn't considered the implications for a database-oriented filesystem. I see the concept would have innovative uses for netowrk filesystems, and would work well with active directory.
Its a matter of opinion and personal choice albeit, but I'd dissagree. Command-line is not a step backward. GUIs just can't do the same degree of robust detail within computing. *nix and like systems are old and have been around for decades, true. Ever wonder why? Its useful, relevant, and powerful. GUI's are the present/future, especially of computing "appliances" and similarly tasked computing systems. Just because a platform has a command-line at the base of it all doesn't make it outdated or backward. If anything it makes it flexible. Provided, if you want an appliance from your computer, which is a perfectly valid desire, GUIs are a must unless you for some reason already know command-line. Learning a few commands to use on a command-line can make that UI more useful, to have a 'back door' to the computer behind the toaster, uh, umm, word processor/web browser/email station.
There are some cases where one still needs to use command-line to change the system on many flavors of Linux, though SuSE I've experienced has made the most extensive changes in this area, to the point that I don't think command-line knowledge is ever needed, not even a text file editor, to update a computer's settings, add hardware, etc.
Having an array of choices of GUI desktops to choose from, with the list always growing and changing, that - to me - seems to fuel innovation, more than simply relocating "My Computer" and "My Documents" to the start menu and calling it innovation. MS changed more than that as a whole I know, but the UI itself? No big changes since 1994 for the most part. With window managers on *nix (GNU's not ....), this case Linux, but also with the BSDs, etc, we've actually seen something different, at least from the Windows model anyway (older users may see 'Motif' everywhere they look, though I won't argue since the Motif-ish UI is really one of the desirable alternatives to me anyway :). Some of the greener window managers are really interesting diversions from the norm. And I've never seen a Windows user actually use a desktop like a *nix/X user. The MS enviornment just doesn't seem to lend itself to mutlitasking in quite the same way. I'm probably wrong about that but its been my impression.
As for the development of Linux, I'm sure there's better qualified readers to answer how advanced or not it is compared to Windows or any other system on the low-end levels, but when I unarchive/compile/install two applications, run GUI network monitoring software, and play a openGL video game all at the same time without hardly missing a beat, that tells me something was done right (running on a p4 with 512MB DDR RAM, 64MB agp video).
PS: WinFS (database-driven filesystem)? You mean like JFS, XFS, etc (Journaled File Systems)? Well its about time MS saw the light... :)
So true. Its such an inconvenience for all those who count on this feature existing in everyone else's email clients. Why doesn't Ximian learn from the choices businesses today make? I mean how else is the latest virus/worm/etc going to make it around the world before lunch time if this feature isn't in place? And congrats to M$ for their anti-spam and antivirus efforts, it seems a good place to add...
Oh wait... Don't forget to make attachments launch as applications when you click on them, especially the macros, don't forget macros... That's muy importante also...
If it isn't Outlook, then it simply isn't usable...