My own viewpoint on the whole thing is that the majority of the companies considered to be the antithesis of Open Source products are American, a lot of the Internet is American-based, a lot of media and events that we hear about are of American involvement and yet America makes up about 4% (rough maths based on rough figures) of the world population. The 'American Way' to me is to assume control of industries and processes by sheer financial clout, but this simply can't work in the case of Open Source. Sure, there are more privileged hackers in the US simply because of the power of the economy, but Open Source will succeed because it's not limited to the abilities of just one economy. This is my feeling with the intention of the original point.
A monopoly is when a market is unbreachable due to the cost of entry being higher than is affordable due to the major player enjoying massive economies of scale, and being able to set the prices accordingly in order to maximise profits or keep competition at bay.
There will be absolutely no barrier to entry for Microsoft, KDE, Gnome, IBM, or whomever else care to develop a screen reader interface for the 97% of desktops out there that are not OS X compatible. There will also be no barrier to a skilled developer releasing a version for the Mac that is superior to Apple's own implementation. There are plenty of examples of non-free or more expensive solutions being preferred by consumers on the Mac: Appleworks is not exactly superfluous for example.
Did you ever consider that the monopolists here are the companies charging $1200 for their software? Maybe this will bring some competition into the market? Maybe you'll learn something, anything, about economics?
As for your final paragraph of trolling (and yes, this is almost the definition of trolling, passing off your opinion as some kind of truth), Apple systems may not be to your tastes but they are most certainly to mine, and many people I know. I'm forced to use Windows XP at work, along with the Solaris and AIX systems I develop. I also keep a Linux machine running KDE 3.2 on my desk with the excuse that it's easier to administer the systems that I have to support. All of these system pale in comparison to the flexibility and ease of use of Mac OS X, and the quality of the hardware (OK maybe not the IBM p670 in the corner;-), which is why I flogged all of my x86 kit and bought three Macs for my home last year, and haven't looked back once.
Do you not think it a little contrary to accuse Apple of a monoplistic attitude in one sentence and then complain of their existence in the next? The REAL monopoly here is with Microsoft, who could EASILY implement a real screen reader interface for a fraction of a percent of their development budget and bundle it free with their OS to reach a userbase orders of magnitudes larger than Apple will (realistically) ever hope to reach.
Rule #2: Programs that are exposed to unsafe data (server processes) should run at some minimum and constrained privilege level, not as root. The "must be root to bind to ports less than 1024" rule on Unix is almost exactly the opposite of what the rule should be.
Hear, hear. I've always wanted a kernel option to disable that, as I'm the only user on my machines and it would be nicer if I could just run my daemons as non-root than being secure in the knowledge that all of the other (zero) people who have access to my machines can't start their own server processes below 1024.
Having sat through more than my share of HP sales briefings about their dedication to Linux I can confirm that they haven't got a bloody clue what they're on about. Of the three Unix vendors I have to deal with Sun, IBM, HP, HP blatantly care the least and are purely in it for the ca$h.
I think a problem here is that there are a many more possible versions of the linux kernel floating around than windows; it's easy to write and distribute a driver package that can cope with a few different kernel versions when there are such a limited number of platforms to write against, even including service packs.
Not trying to flame or troll, but I mean, seriously, if you posted asking about a software solution for your Mac and people started posting about all sorts of Windows and Linux software, wouldn't you be annoyed?
Possibly, but because right up until they want to do something creative like this, which is practically the Mac's raison d'etre, people won't even consider a Mac, and this is where we get our own back and make them jealous:-)
Unfortunately the release of Longhorn has already been obseleted by OS X 10.3 (and 10.4 and 10.5 which will both have come out by the time we see Longhorn).
Microsoft only innovate in ways to manipulate the law.
This problem seems to occur much more frequently on non-Apple Airport wi-fi base stations. Just my observation, but do you think Apple are going to be in a great hurry to fix that?
Possibly because when you actually got to see him act in person instead of completely redrawn (and probably some speech re-records) by CGI you noticed that he wasn't actually that brilliant at all? Have you even seen the level of quality he was up against in terms of the actual nominees for that award?
I'm sorry but I simply didn't feel Gollums pain. None of the acting parts in the LotR trilogy were big or special enough to facilitate the respective actors to get a nomination for any of the categories available; this wasn't their fault, there are simply too many parts to convey in such a short time period. To claim that anyone in the LotR films deserved an acting Oscar is belittling the quality and performance of all of the other competing films over the last three years. Maybe the part of Bilbo will offer something in this respect.
Their hardware _is_ underperforming, and you can know that when benchmarks start pitting a dual CPU G5 against a single CPU P4.
You know you've been brainwashed by Intel's marketing when you still believe that the primary reason to buy a system should be based on the raw processing power that it provides in certain benchmarks.
The sooner we can all stop obsessing about benchmarks and Ghz and start putting quality of software first the better.
I'm forced to use Windows at work and I used to run Debian at home, but the level of quality and flexibility of the software that comes with the Mac is simply streets ahead in my opinion. I'm going to be a Mac user for a long time to come. I don't mind paying 150 pounds a year to keep 3 Macs at the latest level when the software is this good. I've saved that much in time alone not having to tinker with anything, which is how a home system should be for a sysadmin in my opinion.
I haven't been this creative since the Amiga/Atari ST days, simply because I'm not messing about under the hood so much.
I would say Windows; people who dual boot want to go to Linux but may find that the lack of some capability is holding them back. I can't think of a good reason why you'd keep Windows if Linux did everything you needed it to.
I mean they're not default options. I was trying to point out why the Linux desktop figures probably match up very well with what Google Zietgeist says. Most Desktop machines are still used for business after all. Like it or not, these are two paradigms (as opposed to specific products) that are holding Linux off from the business desktop. Even the Mac has Applescript and Filemaker. You simply can't make a dent in installed base without something to match these business oriented RAD tools.
Slashdot Mirror
My own viewpoint on the whole thing is that the majority of the companies considered to be the antithesis of Open Source products are American, a lot of the Internet is American-based, a lot of media and events that we hear about are of American involvement and yet America makes up about 4% (rough maths based on rough figures) of the world population. The 'American Way' to me is to assume control of industries and processes by sheer financial clout, but this simply can't work in the case of Open Source. Sure, there are more privileged hackers in the US simply because of the power of the economy, but Open Source will succeed because it's not limited to the abilities of just one economy. This is my feeling with the intention of the original point.
Soon they won't need the actual x86 instruction set at all!
A monopoly is when a market is unbreachable due to the cost of entry being higher than is affordable due to the major player enjoying massive economies of scale, and being able to set the prices accordingly in order to maximise profits or keep competition at bay.
There will be absolutely no barrier to entry for Microsoft, KDE, Gnome, IBM, or whomever else care to develop a screen reader interface for the 97% of desktops out there that are not OS X compatible. There will also be no barrier to a skilled developer releasing a version for the Mac that is superior to Apple's own implementation. There are plenty of examples of non-free or more expensive solutions being preferred by consumers on the Mac: Appleworks is not exactly superfluous for example.
Did you ever consider that the monopolists here are the companies charging $1200 for their software? Maybe this will bring some competition into the market? Maybe you'll learn something, anything, about economics?
As for your final paragraph of trolling (and yes, this is almost the definition of trolling, passing off your opinion as some kind of truth), Apple systems may not be to your tastes but they are most certainly to mine, and many people I know. I'm forced to use Windows XP at work, along with the Solaris and AIX systems I develop. I also keep a Linux machine running KDE 3.2 on my desk with the excuse that it's easier to administer the systems that I have to support. All of these system pale in comparison to the flexibility and ease of use of Mac OS X, and the quality of the hardware (OK maybe not the IBM p670 in the corner ;-), which is why I flogged all of my x86 kit and bought three Macs for my home last year, and haven't looked back once.
Do you not think it a little contrary to accuse Apple of a monoplistic attitude in one sentence and then complain of their existence in the next? The REAL monopoly here is with Microsoft, who could EASILY implement a real screen reader interface for a fraction of a percent of their development budget and bundle it free with their OS to reach a userbase orders of magnitudes larger than Apple will (realistically) ever hope to reach.
Keep you pathetic trolling to yourself.
Hear, hear. I've always wanted a kernel option to disable that, as I'm the only user on my machines and it would be nicer if I could just run my daemons as non-root than being secure in the knowledge that all of the other (zero) people who have access to my machines can't start their own server processes below 1024.
Boo, hiss HP.
I think a problem here is that there are a many more possible versions of the linux kernel floating around than windows; it's easy to write and distribute a driver package that can cope with a few different kernel versions when there are such a limited number of platforms to write against, even including service packs.
You clearly haven't seen some of the recent GBA releases
Possibly, but because right up until they want to do something creative like this, which is practically the Mac's raison d'etre, people won't even consider a Mac, and this is where we get our own back and make them jealous
Microsoft only innovate in ways to manipulate the law.
Perhaps because what a company runs on its web server has ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL to do with what it runs on its actual network.
- Vroomfondel
I've only got a 12", but it's still the best laptop I've ever used!
Not in Slashdotland they don't!
It's an interesting tool for any company looking at easy consolidation without the prohibitive costs of hardware partitioning.
Gentoo has a Live-CD? I've never heard it did before, Knoppix seems to be the market leader here. Sorry.
I'm sorry but I simply didn't feel Gollums pain. None of the acting parts in the LotR trilogy were big or special enough to facilitate the respective actors to get a nomination for any of the categories available; this wasn't their fault, there are simply too many parts to convey in such a short time period. To claim that anyone in the LotR films deserved an acting Oscar is belittling the quality and performance of all of the other competing films over the last three years. Maybe the part of Bilbo will offer something in this respect.
They're selling them on ebay!
Except now we know what (2) is.
Do you hate having a large improvement in threaded performance too?
Yeah, apart from the much larger breadth of GNU tools, ssh and much higher performing threading model, 9 really sucked.
You know you've been brainwashed by Intel's marketing when you still believe that the primary reason to buy a system should be based on the raw processing power that it provides in certain benchmarks.
The sooner we can all stop obsessing about benchmarks and Ghz and start putting quality of software first the better.
I'm forced to use Windows at work and I used to run Debian at home, but the level of quality and flexibility of the software that comes with the Mac is simply streets ahead in my opinion. I'm going to be a Mac user for a long time to come. I don't mind paying 150 pounds a year to keep 3 Macs at the latest level when the software is this good. I've saved that much in time alone not having to tinker with anything, which is how a home system should be for a sysadmin in my opinion.
I haven't been this creative since the Amiga/Atari ST days, simply because I'm not messing about under the hood so much.
I would say Windows; people who dual boot want to go to Linux but may find that the lack of some capability is holding them back. I can't think of a good reason why you'd keep Windows if Linux did everything you needed it to.
I mean they're not default options. I was trying to point out why the Linux desktop figures probably match up very well with what Google Zietgeist says. Most Desktop machines are still used for business after all. Like it or not, these are two paradigms (as opposed to specific products) that are holding Linux off from the business desktop. Even the Mac has Applescript and Filemaker. You simply can't make a dent in installed base without something to match these business oriented RAD tools.
I was trying to emphasise the cost of entry, where Linux is considerably lower than Windows; let alone Mac.