I glad this finally happened. I never got why Linspire (the company) - which partially relies on Click and Run money to keep the lights on - didn't allow as many distros to use it as possible a long time ago!
What is consistently one of the biggest gripes about the Linux desktop? I know one I hear and see often is the difficulty of of installing Linux applications when the disto does not provide them. Autopackage has tried its best to cross the gaps, but even its main programmers concede its hard to do all the cross distro work (that is often cleaning up messes) when there is no financial reward to inspire you. Its not exactly exciting and low hanging fruit like a new 3D snow pluggin for Beryl.
If Linspire does this right then here is the solution for one of the last few big complaints on the Linux desktop- new programs will be easy to install on any distro soon after release. If soon the user does not have to care that they have Ubuntu or Suse when a new Gimp or Crossover Office comes out then the Linux desktop might be ready for a big run. One main problem of course as this is a closed solution to the problem- removing both kinds of free in order to make it happen. Yet users pay for software now on both of the other primary desktop platforms, so I don't think many will care. If this is done through "partnerships" then Linspire might make a large amount of money in this new gatekeeper role while boosting marketshare of the Linux desktop in the hard to get at home market.
Glad this finally happened. Now the last big problem- the lack of drivers- will be fixed the only way it can be: increased marketshare. We hope...
The Future of the Linux Desktop is finally safe. Intel Graphics is so far the closest thing the world has seen to a successful open graphics project. Intel has hired some of the best minds in the Xorg project- such as Keith Packard and Eric Anholt- and has put out great free drivers for some time now. Sure the GMA 9xx series is not the best for games, but it can run a 3D accelerated desktop with the best of them.
If nothing else the excitement in and around the Linux community over these OpenGL possibilities on the desktop has brought forth a need for better drivers and acceleration. Nvidia has the most feature complete drivers on the Linux desktop, but they are not free in the licensed sense and therefore have to be installed by the user (bad in many ways). Ati's official drivers are just as closed with worse performance and features. For ATI cards there is a reverse engineered free driver that has more features than the official drivers but still lacks the performance of an official driver. Its a great effort and by far one of the best things so far, but it does not work with the newest Ati cards- meaning that Linux is always one step behind. This leaves a vacuum in the market for a discrete card maker to put out hardware that is nearly feature complete with open drivers before or on the day it's released to the public.
Intel so far looks to be that company, and now should be considered the best hardware friend so far to the future of the Linux desktop. Give credit where credit is due and buy their stuff and mail them and tell them you did. This is the best shot so far....
Not for all. I prefer an Intel chip because seperate VRAM uses more power. That means less battery life.
Plus the Intel GMA950 is NOT that bad for anything but games. And the only reason that is because it lacks hardware T&L. Otherwise is has full 2.0 Pixel shaders, decent performance (better than any Geforce 3 for anything not using hardware T&L), and uses less power than any modern GPU on the planet.
Some of us don't care about games at all. I have two Intel 950s. If the Macbook came with a ATI card I would have not bought one like I did. All I need a GPU to do is display things, give me minor 3D performance (for emulators and composited desktops), and use as little power as possible. My Macbook Intel GMA 950 can even do the "rain" effect on XGL without slowdowns which is not something I can say for the Nvidia 5200FX that often costs $50 at a Best Buy (note: I have seen MANY computers - over 5- with the 5200 FX running XGL and they ALL could not handle the rain effect well).
For most computer users games do not matter. Well...not 3D games. Solitare and Yahoo games does. I could do all of those on a Voodoo 3. The Intel GMA950 runs Vista fine even with Aero on. That is all most people need.
Buyers of integrated graphics aren't the informed type. In the current market, nobody of a technical inclination would buy integrated graphics based on principle (even if it was halfway decent), and the uninformed people wouldn't care if it was any good.
Not true. I consider myself to be quite the nerd (have had a desktop PC since before the 286 and have experiance with Windows since 3.1, Linux and OSX) and I prefer Intel graphics. Why? I don't game on my PCs. Even a little. Even solitare. To me the most important feature of a video card is compatibility.
The Intel graphics in my Macbook are more than enough for Expose and desktop compositing in OSX. Yet when I put in an XGL live CD it "Just Works" with open drivers and no fuss. Only Intel has decent open drivers on their newest GPUs (aka not old Radeons). XGL is by far the most demanding 3D application I have run in years.
Heck, last month I took out an ATI card that came with my Dell XPS 200 just to use the onboard Intel graphics instead because the GMA950 works better with OSX86. For some the best graphics card is one that works with as many OSes as possible with the minimal amount of hassle. THAT sounds like a nerdy reason to like Intel GPUs to me.....
If someone was learning from scratch one OS or the other, perhaps linux could be a better choice, but there's some of us that have already invested more time than we care learning to use an OS and associated apps (it took a long time for some people to learn the really basic things they know computer wise), and just aren't going to relearn it all.
Which is why Linux works great for grandma- she did not have the big investment in the first place. "Just click here to get on the web grandma." One day its a blue E icon, the next day it's a red fox. BOOM. The learning curve for Linux for her is done. Heck, you can put the blue E icon on a Linux box to cut the learning curve to nothing from the start.
Low end users is not where Linux fails on the desktop (unless they are trying to install it, and no true low end users whould ever install an OS with success). It fails for middle of the road Windows users that have MANY predetermined uses and demands from a computer, but little patience for learning more than one way to accomplish these things.
Personally, I have pushed myself to learn Linux and OSX over the last few years because despite having many demands of a computer, I find it fun and comforting to be able to get what I need from any popular system out there. I know that I am in a minority and I am willing to accept that- and so is most of the Linux community. Such acceptance is better than the alternative: copying MS's best pixel by pixel...
Sure. But who moves windows about very often, or for extended periods of time?
Does it really matter if your computationally intensive task takes 1200 minutes or 1200 minutes and ten seconds?
Its not just about moving windows- its about being able to easily manipulate them. My desktop is a lot nicer now that Linux has a decent Expose ccopy with XGL and Compiz. Before XGL, the software that tried to do that without the GPU sucked (look up skippy).
So NVidia and ATi are crap at providing Linux drivers. But is there any video card which is really supported under linux (open source drivers provided by the manufacturer) that is any good and economically viable? It can even be an equivalent to a NVidia mx400. Is there anything like that in the market?
Yes. Its made by the company that ships the most GPUs- Intel. The GMA 950 (whats in a Intel MacMini) has fully open drivers, has more features than a MX400 (like Pixel Shader 2.0 support) and open drivers. It runs XGL like a dream.....
And I don't buy for a second the contrived sophistry of saying "what if I bought an Intel-based Mac, formatted the drive, use only Linux on it, and wanted to use that copy of Mac OS X (Intel) on my Gateway". Puh-lease.
I did it. It makes sense when you think about it.
Historically the higher priced the Apple computer, the greater the "Apple Tax." A Macbook Pro version costs more than an near equal Dell than the Macbook does. The Apple tax is hundreds more in that case. When the Intel Desktop Macs come out, let us say that the high end ones will be more than $600 more expensive than an equal Dell would be (the G5 desktop Macs had at least this tax at the high end). At that cost, its cheaper to buy an Intel Macmini off of Ebay, put Linux on it (would make a good server) and use the OS off the Mini to run on a high end Dell desktop that is equal hardware to a desktop Mac. Not many would because it would be a pain, but for a basement nerd that just had to be a least a little legal to sleep at night it would be an interesting option- especially in a year when the first gen single core Mac minis will be under $400. Then the only thing that stands in your way is a EULA (which has never been held up in court).
In my case I needed a laptop, I am a nerd, and I am vain. Linux on my Macbook gives me better effects that OSX does (the Intel GPU can do all of XGL's effects) and gives me HUGE geek street cred. But I will be honest that I do this to show off to others, so to many the response to my situation would be to "get a life." I don't care about being a pirate personally and if I didn't then have the extra copy of the legal OSX86 to put on my XPS Dell I would have taken it anyway. But for some that actually care about such things, buying an Intel Mac to get OSX86 legally for another system is not some pipe dream.
Apple must have SOME standing as the creators of the product to determine its distribution and use, no?
They get just as much as they prove they deserve in the courts- no more, no less.
if you're having to "relearn" things, you never really
mastered the use of it in the first place; you're operating by rote and you're going to have problems
each and every time MS "updates" the os and apps.
First let me say I am no MS zealot. In fact, I don't have a single Windows install on any of my three computers at home.
But if you have done any work helping regular people use their computer, then you find out that 90% are "operating by rote." They just know that clicking here, here and here does blank. Whats worse (from a nerd's perspective) is that they don't care. Thats all they want to know.
Of course, that was not your point. Your point was "they will have to relearn anyway when the new Windows/Office comes out" and to an extent I agree with that. But then suddenly the problem is perspective. In the views of a common user/pointy haired boss it would seem to them that replacing a MS solution with another MS solution would involved learning less new things than an entire new system. Even if that is not the case (from what I have seen of the next version of Office, Openoffice is more similiar to Office 2003 or XP than that) the problem is that it does not seem that way.
Desktop Linux does not have a marketing department (or budget) to displace these myths. At best it has an army of geeks with goodwill who are willing to help users migrate for free. It does not have a good shot at taking down MS any time this decade- the monopoly will last as long as a desktop computer is what it is today. One day many years down the road when the Dells on the desk are replaced with office appliances (running Linux or whatever) then our favorite alternatives will have their day in in sun.
Until that day comes, my personal solution is to use whatever I want and look the other way when less nerdy people get caught in the primative swamp created by Wintel. You are only responsible for your personal salvation.
What you are missing is that Larry doesn't get this whole OSS thing. He thinks that he can steal Redhat's IP. He thinks that this will hurt Redhat. From the article:
"We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."
Um.....no you can't Larry. Redhat owns its name. It owns its logos. It uses these to maintain its control over their OS. You can't just take Redhat and stick it in a box and sell it as your own. Redhat will sue you into the ground for using their trademarks without permission. Just like Balmer ("the GPL is viral!") it seems the leaders of the old guard in the software industry don't get how these things work...
With this move Ellison is making Redhat's name (which he does not control) more valuable. That means more money for Redhat in the long run. One again he is trying to rule the world but ends up shooting himself in the foot. That is what he and you are missing. If I was a Redhat today, I would be popping corks...
However, by dropping Red Hat Distro for the Desktop they have weakened their position somewhat. The average Joe cares less about Red Hat now because generally they use Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, and even Fedora.
Who gives a damn about the average Joe? The average Joe does not buy multi-thousand dollar support contracts. Companies do. Average Joes only pay a minimal amount for your OS and software when they buy their computer (if even then) and take up your phone lines with their problems. The money in Linux right now is servers, not the desktop. The Linux desktop is for hobbiests for the most part- it is a side effect of Linux's strong server market. Let MS have the average Joe. There are bigger fish to fry!
Red Hat has wasted enourmous amounts of money on the kernel if any johnny-come-lately can best their support offerings and contribute nothing? What's the incentive to give away your code now?
Go RTFA. It doesn't say "Oracle will support Fedora" or "Oracle will support CentOS." It says "Oracle will support Redhat." As in the Redhat OS that you have to pay to get a copy of. It seems even Ellison doesn't get it either. To quote the article:
"We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."
Um.....no you can't Larry. Redhat owns its name. It owns its logos. It uses these to maintain its control over their OS. You can't just take Redhat and stick it in a box and sell it as your own. Redhat will sue you into the ground for using their trademarks without permission. Then suddenly Redhat's money would come from litigation- much of the market uses that as a business model.
With this move Ellison is making Redhat's name (which he does not control) more valuable. That means more money for Redhat in the long run. One again he is trying to rule the world but ends up shooting himself in the foot. OSS is fine, Oracle's leader's grasp of trademark is not....
If you honestly think about it, this is great news for Redhat. I know that some investors are nervous that Oracle is now cutting into Redhat's core business, but what they give back is more than worth it.
Oracle says they plan to support Redhat. Not SUSE. Not some Oracle distro. So that right there is a stamp of approval on the entire Redhat "platform" if you will. Now there will be less fear that Oracle might make another distro its favorite soon- they would not hire a bunch of people to support Redhat if they planned to move to SUSE next month. Also this gives the Redhat+Oracle platform something you can't get with Solaris+Oracle or Windows+Oracle- a one stop shop for support. Redhat will be the ONLY OS that Oracle can completely provide support for. That means as of now Redhat is the best platform for Oracle. Period.
Oracle plans to support Redhat. Not CentOS or Fedora or some other free Redhat. That means if someone wants a solution for Oracle supported Redhat they still have to BUY Redhat's OS from the company. There might be some people (in fact I know one for sure) that might be holding out on switching to a Redhat Oracle solution (from a Solaris or Windows one) because they want support from a company far bigger than Redhat (like Sun and MS are). Now they have that. Plus I would not be surprised if many companies (do to ignorance, comfort, whatever) double dip- buy both Redhat and Oracle Redhat support. This can only grow Redhat's marketshare!
Its a win-win for Redhat- there platform becomes more stable and accepted, they will maybe get more people to buy their OS (that would prefer Oracle support compared to support from an OS vender like Microsoft or Redhat) and they get tons of free press.
Also, while literacy rate is high, the rate of people who graduate high school and cannot locate europe or australia on a map is staggering.
You don't need to know where Europe is to serve burgers or build houses. And that (along with other menial tasks) is the best most people who only have a high school education can do in their careers.
We don't need brilliant janitors, and someone has to clean the floors.....
some of us regular people think we could reduce spending to a mere $100 billion, spend the other $400 billion on health, education, infrastructure, etc., and still have more than enough power to defend our country from anyone else in the world. We outspend the next 20 countries combined---we don't need to spend that much.
Then regular people like yourself need to open their eyes.
We could spend much less than we do now and defend our nation from any "real" threat- that is true- but most of our military spending is not to defend us from threats. The U.S. spends so much on the armed forces for the same reason that at one point the U.S.S.R had enough nukes to destroy the entire planet a few times over- we want to make the idea of (a major nation) going against us in any significant way (as in more than "we don't support what you are doing") a horrifying thought. We want to have so much power that the rest of the world is FORCED to follow our lead or pay the price for getting in front.
China and India have over a billion people each. The economic force of such numbers mean that realistically THEY should be the superpowers, not us. But they (in my lifetime) will not dare challenge the authority of the U.S. because they know that we have a millitary that can take them back to the stone ages if they cross us. Because of our military, we get access to cheaper and more resources than they do (Iraq oil anyone?) Because of our military, we will stay on top of the world long after when we should no longer be.
There is also that whole "military spending leads to domestic jobs" thing as well.
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I expect that economic forces will stomp out this abberation eventually.
Sure. Just like piracy or terrorism. Russia soon will no longer be a safe haven at least...
I find the moral position very clear even if the legal one isn't.
Sure it might not be the fairest way to get music, but until the music gatekeepers decide to go light on the DRM (that keeps paid for online music off my Linux desktop) I will pay a little extra to actually get the music with some plausible deniability (something no P2P app has)....
Re:Ok. You Piqued My Interest.
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The position of the Russian ROMS system that collects royalties seems to be that their members can sell just about any music they want, and it's the copyright holder's job to make sure they collect their fair share of the royalties for it. Clearly this is backwards; they shouldn't sell anything until they've obtained those rights first.
Each nation gets to decide how copyrights are treated in that nation. A U.S. copyright does not have international jurisdiction. The Russian government organization ROMS "obtained" the rights by simply saying that "we have the rights." When its your nation, you get to make the laws. You might call it backwards, and it probably is (a relic of a Soviet time). But that does not make it illegal (in Russia). Illegal means you are breaking a law.
If I own the copyright on something, you can't just decide that it's OK to distribute it.
Copyright applies to the law. Copyright without government backing is nothing. Therefore if your local government (aka your nation) decides not to recognize the copyright established in a foreign nation then that copyright has no force. It is meaningless. That work is not protected by government- it cannot be illegal to distribute something copyrighted anywhere if in that area copyright has no force. You try to act like copyright is some universal law. It is not.
Of course, if the Beatles and Metallica wouldn't act like such luddites and just allow me to buy music in a modern format, then I would have to find loopholes in other nation's copyright laws to get their stuff.
(And don't even try to tell me that because I'm an American then I can't use AllofMP3 legally. The law allows bringing back products you buy legally in foreign nations and that is exactly what I am doing. Russia allows me to have the cake and eat it too. Sorry if its not "proper" enough for you).
They are both Gnome based distros, and both have decent package management systems, so how exactly are you arguing that Ubuntu is better?
The actual systems used to manage packages mean nothing. Deb and RPM are equal. What does matter (and is why I like Ubuntu more and I think its the better of the two) is how many packages a distro has.
Thanks to its forking of Sid, Ubuntu has over 16000 packages in its repos. Fedora at its best has maybe 6000 before a new release (which is then knocked down because the third parties have to repackage each piece of software for each release). That means (unlike when I was a Fedora user) I NEVER have to compile a program ever again. Every program I need is in the Ubuntu repos ready to be installed. THATS why Ubuntu lacks a compiler by default, but Fedora does not. It's because many home Fedora users need one....
My PC works. And trust me, my buddies don't think it's "cool".
Dunno why you Mac guys have so many problems running Windows, but I bet it's user error.
There is my problem with running Windows- it's not cool. Why spend hundreds or thousands on what is basically (to me since I don't do any real work on my home computers) a toy only to get the non cool version? My Macbook looks great on the outside and the OS looks great on the screen.
The button up world of Fortune 500 can have their boring Dells running XP (as opposed to my Dell running OSX) as it suits them. For millions of people out there (to whom computers are entertainment boxes) Mac are funner.
I'd rather worry about doing NICE signs for an anti war demo than about whether Linspire has a closed source media player or whatever.
I'm a nerd so I'd rather talk about Linspire. Yet in the end both things (a sign for an anti-war demo and slashdot trolling) will bring about the same results- jack shit.
Linspire will do what they want regardless of what Slashdot says if the law will let them, and War Hawks will do what they want regardless of what anti-war protesters say if the laws will let them.
In the end the use of a free software is more important to me then impressing some trendy people at a protest. Scratch your own itch and quit wasting time telling me how to scratch mine.....
While I understand some peoples prima facie tendency to lump the PS3's crippled motion detection in with the Wii's, I hope developers don't make this mistake. I want them to focus on games that use all of the functionality of the Wii-mote, not just a muddled down port of a PS3 game. I'm sure this might be Sony's goal in including motion detection, but this would be the worst thing that could happen to our gaming future (killing the potential of the Wiimote if the majority of 3rd party developers take this route).
Think about it. As with almost any Nintendo innovation on one of their systems, the only group that WILL use it to the full potential is themselves. I imagine that the first native Mario game will use the controller better than the 100 platform games to follow it. Its the way of the Nintendo world. On no other platform do third parties matter less.
People who want to watch TV on their couch and/or with other people. Using your monitor for your TV is fine if you are in a college or you live alone, but get a girlfriend or get married and watching TV on your computer becomes unappealing.
The Svideo out on my Nvidia card mixed with a long Svideo cable fixes that problem.....
Slashdot Mirror
What is consistently one of the biggest gripes about the Linux desktop? I know one I hear and see often is the difficulty of of installing Linux applications when the disto does not provide them. Autopackage has tried its best to cross the gaps, but even its main programmers concede its hard to do all the cross distro work (that is often cleaning up messes) when there is no financial reward to inspire you. Its not exactly exciting and low hanging fruit like a new 3D snow pluggin for Beryl.
If Linspire does this right then here is the solution for one of the last few big complaints on the Linux desktop- new programs will be easy to install on any distro soon after release. If soon the user does not have to care that they have Ubuntu or Suse when a new Gimp or Crossover Office comes out then the Linux desktop might be ready for a big run. One main problem of course as this is a closed solution to the problem- removing both kinds of free in order to make it happen. Yet users pay for software now on both of the other primary desktop platforms, so I don't think many will care. If this is done through "partnerships" then Linspire might make a large amount of money in this new gatekeeper role while boosting marketshare of the Linux desktop in the hard to get at home market.
Glad this finally happened. Now the last big problem- the lack of drivers- will be fixed the only way it can be: increased marketshare. We hope...
If nothing else the excitement in and around the Linux community over these OpenGL possibilities on the desktop has brought forth a need for better drivers and acceleration. Nvidia has the most feature complete drivers on the Linux desktop, but they are not free in the licensed sense and therefore have to be installed by the user (bad in many ways). Ati's official drivers are just as closed with worse performance and features. For ATI cards there is a reverse engineered free driver that has more features than the official drivers but still lacks the performance of an official driver. Its a great effort and by far one of the best things so far, but it does not work with the newest Ati cards- meaning that Linux is always one step behind. This leaves a vacuum in the market for a discrete card maker to put out hardware that is nearly feature complete with open drivers before or on the day it's released to the public.
Intel so far looks to be that company, and now should be considered the best hardware friend so far to the future of the Linux desktop. Give credit where credit is due and buy their stuff and mail them and tell them you did. This is the best shot so far....
Or makes it harder too use things they have bought in legal ways (how do I backup my Blue Ray disks like I do my DVDs?- I don't yet because of DRM).
It's unfortunate that we need DRM, but there are quite a few dishonest people that simply don't feel convicted to actually purchase media.
I don't need DRM. I intend to avoid the media "products" that require DRM in the hardware and the OS. I can find other ways to entertain myself.....
Plus the Intel GMA950 is NOT that bad for anything but games. And the only reason that is because it lacks hardware T&L. Otherwise is has full 2.0 Pixel shaders, decent performance (better than any Geforce 3 for anything not using hardware T&L), and uses less power than any modern GPU on the planet.
Some of us don't care about games at all. I have two Intel 950s. If the Macbook came with a ATI card I would have not bought one like I did. All I need a GPU to do is display things, give me minor 3D performance (for emulators and composited desktops), and use as little power as possible. My Macbook Intel GMA 950 can even do the "rain" effect on XGL without slowdowns which is not something I can say for the Nvidia 5200FX that often costs $50 at a Best Buy (note: I have seen MANY computers - over 5- with the 5200 FX running XGL and they ALL could not handle the rain effect well).
For most computer users games do not matter. Well...not 3D games. Solitare and Yahoo games does. I could do all of those on a Voodoo 3. The Intel GMA950 runs Vista fine even with Aero on. That is all most people need.
Not true. I consider myself to be quite the nerd (have had a desktop PC since before the 286 and have experiance with Windows since 3.1, Linux and OSX) and I prefer Intel graphics. Why? I don't game on my PCs. Even a little. Even solitare. To me the most important feature of a video card is compatibility.
The Intel graphics in my Macbook are more than enough for Expose and desktop compositing in OSX. Yet when I put in an XGL live CD it "Just Works" with open drivers and no fuss. Only Intel has decent open drivers on their newest GPUs (aka not old Radeons). XGL is by far the most demanding 3D application I have run in years.
Heck, last month I took out an ATI card that came with my Dell XPS 200 just to use the onboard Intel graphics instead because the GMA950 works better with OSX86. For some the best graphics card is one that works with as many OSes as possible with the minimal amount of hassle. THAT sounds like a nerdy reason to like Intel GPUs to me.....
Which is why Linux works great for grandma- she did not have the big investment in the first place. "Just click here to get on the web grandma." One day its a blue E icon, the next day it's a red fox. BOOM. The learning curve for Linux for her is done. Heck, you can put the blue E icon on a Linux box to cut the learning curve to nothing from the start.
Low end users is not where Linux fails on the desktop (unless they are trying to install it, and no true low end users whould ever install an OS with success). It fails for middle of the road Windows users that have MANY predetermined uses and demands from a computer, but little patience for learning more than one way to accomplish these things.
Personally, I have pushed myself to learn Linux and OSX over the last few years because despite having many demands of a computer, I find it fun and comforting to be able to get what I need from any popular system out there. I know that I am in a minority and I am willing to accept that- and so is most of the Linux community. Such acceptance is better than the alternative: copying MS's best pixel by pixel...
Its not just about moving windows- its about being able to easily manipulate them. My desktop is a lot nicer now that Linux has a decent Expose ccopy with XGL and Compiz. Before XGL, the software that tried to do that without the GPU sucked (look up skippy).
Yes. Its made by the company that ships the most GPUs- Intel. The GMA 950 (whats in a Intel MacMini) has fully open drivers, has more features than a MX400 (like Pixel Shader 2.0 support) and open drivers. It runs XGL like a dream.....
Bullshit. XGL works great on my Macbook with Intel graphics using open drivers.
I did it. It makes sense when you think about it.
Historically the higher priced the Apple computer, the greater the "Apple Tax." A Macbook Pro version costs more than an near equal Dell than the Macbook does. The Apple tax is hundreds more in that case. When the Intel Desktop Macs come out, let us say that the high end ones will be more than $600 more expensive than an equal Dell would be (the G5 desktop Macs had at least this tax at the high end). At that cost, its cheaper to buy an Intel Macmini off of Ebay, put Linux on it (would make a good server) and use the OS off the Mini to run on a high end Dell desktop that is equal hardware to a desktop Mac. Not many would because it would be a pain, but for a basement nerd that just had to be a least a little legal to sleep at night it would be an interesting option- especially in a year when the first gen single core Mac minis will be under $400. Then the only thing that stands in your way is a EULA (which has never been held up in court).
In my case I needed a laptop, I am a nerd, and I am vain. Linux on my Macbook gives me better effects that OSX does (the Intel GPU can do all of XGL's effects) and gives me HUGE geek street cred. But I will be honest that I do this to show off to others, so to many the response to my situation would be to "get a life." I don't care about being a pirate personally and if I didn't then have the extra copy of the legal OSX86 to put on my XPS Dell I would have taken it anyway. But for some that actually care about such things, buying an Intel Mac to get OSX86 legally for another system is not some pipe dream.
Apple must have SOME standing as the creators of the product to determine its distribution and use, no?
They get just as much as they prove they deserve in the courts- no more, no less.
You can't seperate the two, they go hand in hand.
First let me say I am no MS zealot. In fact, I don't have a single Windows install on any of my three computers at home.
But if you have done any work helping regular people use their computer, then you find out that 90% are "operating by rote." They just know that clicking here, here and here does blank. Whats worse (from a nerd's perspective) is that they don't care. Thats all they want to know.
Of course, that was not your point. Your point was "they will have to relearn anyway when the new Windows/Office comes out" and to an extent I agree with that. But then suddenly the problem is perspective. In the views of a common user/pointy haired boss it would seem to them that replacing a MS solution with another MS solution would involved learning less new things than an entire new system. Even if that is not the case (from what I have seen of the next version of Office, Openoffice is more similiar to Office 2003 or XP than that) the problem is that it does not seem that way.
Desktop Linux does not have a marketing department (or budget) to displace these myths. At best it has an army of geeks with goodwill who are willing to help users migrate for free. It does not have a good shot at taking down MS any time this decade- the monopoly will last as long as a desktop computer is what it is today. One day many years down the road when the Dells on the desk are replaced with office appliances (running Linux or whatever) then our favorite alternatives will have their day in in sun.
Until that day comes, my personal solution is to use whatever I want and look the other way when less nerdy people get caught in the primative swamp created by Wintel. You are only responsible for your personal salvation.
"We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."
Um.....no you can't Larry. Redhat owns its name. It owns its logos. It uses these to maintain its control over their OS. You can't just take Redhat and stick it in a box and sell it as your own. Redhat will sue you into the ground for using their trademarks without permission. Just like Balmer ("the GPL is viral!") it seems the leaders of the old guard in the software industry don't get how these things work...
With this move Ellison is making Redhat's name (which he does not control) more valuable. That means more money for Redhat in the long run. One again he is trying to rule the world but ends up shooting himself in the foot. That is what he and you are missing. If I was a Redhat today, I would be popping corks...
However, by dropping Red Hat Distro for the Desktop they have weakened their position somewhat. The average Joe cares less about Red Hat now because generally they use Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, and even Fedora.
Who gives a damn about the average Joe? The average Joe does not buy multi-thousand dollar support contracts. Companies do. Average Joes only pay a minimal amount for your OS and software when they buy their computer (if even then) and take up your phone lines with their problems. The money in Linux right now is servers, not the desktop. The Linux desktop is for hobbiests for the most part- it is a side effect of Linux's strong server market. Let MS have the average Joe. There are bigger fish to fry!
Go RTFA. It doesn't say "Oracle will support Fedora" or "Oracle will support CentOS." It says "Oracle will support Redhat." As in the Redhat OS that you have to pay to get a copy of. It seems even Ellison doesn't get it either. To quote the article:
"We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."
Um.....no you can't Larry. Redhat owns its name. It owns its logos. It uses these to maintain its control over their OS. You can't just take Redhat and stick it in a box and sell it as your own. Redhat will sue you into the ground for using their trademarks without permission. Then suddenly Redhat's money would come from litigation- much of the market uses that as a business model.
With this move Ellison is making Redhat's name (which he does not control) more valuable. That means more money for Redhat in the long run. One again he is trying to rule the world but ends up shooting himself in the foot. OSS is fine, Oracle's leader's grasp of trademark is not....
Oracle says they plan to support Redhat. Not SUSE. Not some Oracle distro. So that right there is a stamp of approval on the entire Redhat "platform" if you will. Now there will be less fear that Oracle might make another distro its favorite soon- they would not hire a bunch of people to support Redhat if they planned to move to SUSE next month. Also this gives the Redhat+Oracle platform something you can't get with Solaris+Oracle or Windows+Oracle- a one stop shop for support. Redhat will be the ONLY OS that Oracle can completely provide support for. That means as of now Redhat is the best platform for Oracle. Period.
Oracle plans to support Redhat. Not CentOS or Fedora or some other free Redhat. That means if someone wants a solution for Oracle supported Redhat they still have to BUY Redhat's OS from the company. There might be some people (in fact I know one for sure) that might be holding out on switching to a Redhat Oracle solution (from a Solaris or Windows one) because they want support from a company far bigger than Redhat (like Sun and MS are). Now they have that. Plus I would not be surprised if many companies (do to ignorance, comfort, whatever) double dip- buy both Redhat and Oracle Redhat support. This can only grow Redhat's marketshare!
Its a win-win for Redhat- there platform becomes more stable and accepted, they will maybe get more people to buy their OS (that would prefer Oracle support compared to support from an OS vender like Microsoft or Redhat) and they get tons of free press.
I would be mad if I was at Novell or Sun today.
You don't need to know where Europe is to serve burgers or build houses. And that (along with other menial tasks) is the best most people who only have a high school education can do in their careers.
We don't need brilliant janitors, and someone has to clean the floors.....
Then regular people like yourself need to open their eyes.
We could spend much less than we do now and defend our nation from any "real" threat- that is true- but most of our military spending is not to defend us from threats. The U.S. spends so much on the armed forces for the same reason that at one point the U.S.S.R had enough nukes to destroy the entire planet a few times over- we want to make the idea of (a major nation) going against us in any significant way (as in more than "we don't support what you are doing") a horrifying thought. We want to have so much power that the rest of the world is FORCED to follow our lead or pay the price for getting in front.
China and India have over a billion people each. The economic force of such numbers mean that realistically THEY should be the superpowers, not us. But they (in my lifetime) will not dare challenge the authority of the U.S. because they know that we have a millitary that can take them back to the stone ages if they cross us. Because of our military, we get access to cheaper and more resources than they do (Iraq oil anyone?) Because of our military, we will stay on top of the world long after when we should no longer be.
There is also that whole "military spending leads to domestic jobs" thing as well.
Sure. Just like piracy or terrorism. Russia soon will no longer be a safe haven at least...
I find the moral position very clear even if the legal one isn't.
Sure it might not be the fairest way to get music, but until the music gatekeepers decide to go light on the DRM (that keeps paid for online music off my Linux desktop) I will pay a little extra to actually get the music with some plausible deniability (something no P2P app has)....
Each nation gets to decide how copyrights are treated in that nation. A U.S. copyright does not have international jurisdiction. The Russian government organization ROMS "obtained" the rights by simply saying that "we have the rights." When its your nation, you get to make the laws. You might call it backwards, and it probably is (a relic of a Soviet time). But that does not make it illegal (in Russia). Illegal means you are breaking a law.
If I own the copyright on something, you can't just decide that it's OK to distribute it.
Copyright applies to the law. Copyright without government backing is nothing. Therefore if your local government (aka your nation) decides not to recognize the copyright established in a foreign nation then that copyright has no force. It is meaningless. That work is not protected by government- it cannot be illegal to distribute something copyrighted anywhere if in that area copyright has no force. You try to act like copyright is some universal law. It is not.
Of course, if the Beatles and Metallica wouldn't act like such luddites and just allow me to buy music in a modern format, then I would have to find loopholes in other nation's copyright laws to get their stuff.
(And don't even try to tell me that because I'm an American then I can't use AllofMP3 legally. The law allows bringing back products you buy legally in foreign nations and that is exactly what I am doing. Russia allows me to have the cake and eat it too. Sorry if its not "proper" enough for you).
The actual systems used to manage packages mean nothing. Deb and RPM are equal. What does matter (and is why I like Ubuntu more and I think its the better of the two) is how many packages a distro has.
Thanks to its forking of Sid, Ubuntu has over 16000 packages in its repos. Fedora at its best has maybe 6000 before a new release (which is then knocked down because the third parties have to repackage each piece of software for each release). That means (unlike when I was a Fedora user) I NEVER have to compile a program ever again. Every program I need is in the Ubuntu repos ready to be installed. THATS why Ubuntu lacks a compiler by default, but Fedora does not. It's because many home Fedora users need one....
Dunno why you Mac guys have so many problems running Windows, but I bet it's user error.
There is my problem with running Windows- it's not cool. Why spend hundreds or thousands on what is basically (to me since I don't do any real work on my home computers) a toy only to get the non cool version? My Macbook looks great on the outside and the OS looks great on the screen.
The button up world of Fortune 500 can have their boring Dells running XP (as opposed to my Dell running OSX) as it suits them. For millions of people out there (to whom computers are entertainment boxes) Mac are funner.
I'm a nerd so I'd rather talk about Linspire. Yet in the end both things (a sign for an anti-war demo and slashdot trolling) will bring about the same results- jack shit.
Linspire will do what they want regardless of what Slashdot says if the law will let them, and War Hawks will do what they want regardless of what anti-war protesters say if the laws will let them.
In the end the use of a free software is more important to me then impressing some trendy people at a protest. Scratch your own itch and quit wasting time telling me how to scratch mine.....
Think about it. As with almost any Nintendo innovation on one of their systems, the only group that WILL use it to the full potential is themselves. I imagine that the first native Mario game will use the controller better than the 100 platform games to follow it. Its the way of the Nintendo world. On no other platform do third parties matter less.
The Svideo out on my Nvidia card mixed with a long Svideo cable fixes that problem.....