>I will just cut and paste from my previous comment, you might read it this time:
I did read it, and nothing is different. It is still not a fault with *LINUX* but with certain applications combined with certain hardware. Sure, I will agree that to the end user, it will just be "Linux", but it really isn't.
>the only difference is the Operating System
No, that is not the ONLY difference, you are also using diffent applications. Had you been using (for example) Amarok to play the music and Kbattleship as the game, with would have produced sound at the same time just fine (through artsd).
It is a matter of semantics. I am sure if I were to look hard, I could find some legacy MS-Windows/DOS applications that try to talk directly to the sound hardware and also show similar problems.
>What I belive is that THAT should be fixed, they could for example route all the sound "petitions" to the old sound system into the sound daemon just to provide an interface for old apps.
TOTALLY agreed. In fact, I thought of that after I posted, but I wasn't going to stop and post something else, especially since I was late for work:)
Seems like it would make a lot of sense to just rip control of/dev/dsp from the hardware driver and put a sound daemon in it's place. Then (theoretically, anyway), any program that doesn't use a sound daemon, will do so anyway, and not even know it. I have no idea how feasible that is, though.
I also agree that it is annoying and hard to explain to people.
Regardless of the effect, the reason there is no built-in mp3 encoder has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with horribly, crappy, (probably unconstitutional) software patents.
And if you want gaming, get a game console. Games are cheaper, faster, better than on most computers, anyway.
>Unfortunately it seems you just can have 1 sound output because
That is a limitation of the application and hardware you have, NOT LINUX. You are using cheapy (probably on-motherboard) sound hardware. With such hardware, it is only possible for it to play one stream at a time. Then, the two applications you are using were not written to use (for example) artsd (a sound daemon). If they were written right, they would send their sound to the daemon, not the hardware driver directly. Artsd would mix the multiple streams, and output a single composite stream that your cheap hardware could handle.
There are two ways to "fix" the issue. One would be to get a "real" soundcard, like a SoundBlaster Live (or similar), which can handle multiple streams at once. I have such hardware, so I can play several streams at once, even when the program is not using a sound daemon.
The other way is to only use programs that are written to talk to a sound daemon.
The only fault of Linux would be that it doesn't provide and "enforce" the use of a single sound daemon. Instead, sound daemons are part of the desktop.
>Time to wake up. Audio on Linux is just as bad as gaming.
Wrong.
>No major distro supports mp3s by default.
Wrong. Mandriva/Mandrake does and always has. If, by "suppport", you mean PLAYING mp3 files. Now CREATING mp3 files is not included. That takes all of about 1 min to download and load the lame rpm from PLF.
>They crash. A Lot
I have never had Amarok "crash", but I do tend to use xmms the most.
>Not only that but they rely almost completely on id3 tags, which sucks if your music collection happens to be anything other than ripped from personal CDs or very good quality rips.
Um, yes, they rely on id3, just like most "jukebox" programs do. So what you are REALLY complaining about is that your illegally downloaded, illegally distributed mp3 files have bad/poor id3 tags? Boo hoo!
"but maybe he wants binary compatibility? "
I was going to mod you up, but I would rather respond...
Yep- I think that is what he meant. One huge problem for some areas of Linux use is binary compatability, not API. Users want to go to a site like getfirefox.com and grab a single install of a program for ANY Linux distro of any reasonable age (I will let you decide what is reasonable. I think 4 or 5 years is reasonable).
This *CAN* be done, and Firefox and OpenOffice are an example of that. The problem is that to do it, they have to either
1) Compile statically, which results in a REALLY huge binary, depending on how crazy you get with "static"
2) Include all the libraries you used, along with the program so there are no dependancies, which ultimately uses the same amount of resources as a static compile.
Either way, let's call it a "static distribution" of the program. It is almost a requirement for all commercial programs. A vendor usually can't force the user to use a SPECIFIC distro AND version of that distro. They would fragment their potential market and alienate customers. So they either have to compile it 100 ways and try to cover all the major distros and versions, or just give up and include a self-contained environment... the so-called "static distribution".
Perfect example of the frustration: I have distro A running on a machine. It is a few releases behind because it is TONS of work to upgrade this mission-critical machine. But I want to run a new version of program B. Try to find an rpm. No joy- nobody has an RPM of B back-ported to the older A, or if they do, it has a list of 100 add-on dependancies that might break X, Y, and Z applications. So I get the source (luckily it is FOSS). It won't compile. Why? It needs newer development libraries for 20 other things. But in the Linux mode of things, nobody has a static compile of the program.... so I am left with no options but to spend perhaps 40 hours upgrading the OS on that machine, recompile all other 100 other customized things I have done and hope nothing breaks.
And before someone jumps in with "yo dude- that's why you need virtual machines"... let's get real. There is a LOT of work involved with installing, configuring, running, and syncing multiple VM's.
Compare with MS-Windows. There is a reasonable expectation that you can download and install a single "package" of a program that will run on ANY 95/98/ME machine; or perhaps 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; or sometimes 2000/XP/2003. In most cases it will span an OS base of at least 5 years, often longer.
OK, I am ranting, so I will shut up now.
You are very correct. A co-operative doesn't neccessarily mean everyone is equal. In fact, going back to the main "article" (well, there is no article, per se, but a question)... The poster was asking about an "open source structured business". He never mentioned the words "co-op" or "cooperatives". I suppose when I was replying, I was kind of thinking of a business where everyone was relatively equal and there was, as the poster said:
"There is no leader , no CEO no boss. Everyone as a group decides what should be done."
So, let's strike the whole comparison to a cooperatives, since that is not what he is talking about, anyway.
Generally, co-ops only work well with a relatively homogeneous collection of people. In a business, it is less likely that all the employees will be in such equal mindsets.
I wouldn't think that co-ops would scale well. It is not all that hard to get 2 to 5 people to agree on a course of action. Much harder , but still doable with 10. But it is nearly impossible with 100 or 1,000. So it will just be a "majority rules".
Without some type of heiarachy, decision making can be much too slow in an "everyone is equal" environment. You need specialization and sub-grouping to focus on particular issues in depth. And some specialization will, inevitably, put some employees on different authority levels than others. For example, hiring and firing... with 1000 employees, there is no way that such an on-going staffing task could be done by "majority rules".
Another example is financing. How many of those employees will really understand finance enough to participate in the voting/control of the spending? Buying? Information Systems? Marketing? Etc.
I am almost 38, and I have absolutely NO trouble hearing that sound. It is horrible and very annoying, even at low volumes. If a neighbor intentionally installed such a device and it could be heard from my yard, then I would consider it asault and would have no guilt sneaking over and destroying the unit in such a way that he would not know it no longer worked.
Now, what about the other annoying sounds neighbors make? Loud music (especially bass), constant dog barking, car horns for no reason, motorcycles with illegally modified (absent) exhaust systems, basketball thumping over and over for hours... they are all "wrong", but at least it is not intentionally done to annoy.
>"Linux didn't come with anything useful. How do I watch DVDs or play MP3s without having to go get software to do it?"
Well, that is certainly a troll.
A modern Linux distro comes with *hundreds* of useful applications to do the majority of things typical users want. Watching DVD's can't be done in MS-Windows either, without installing an application. As for mp3, Mandriva supports that right away.
I have installed dozens of MS-Windowses and hundreds of Linuxes. When you install XP, you end up with a single browser, and a very small handful of utilities. In just about the same amount of time, I can do a DVD install of Linux that has 4 browsers, several Email clients, 50 games, two full office suites, two major graphics editors, several MP3 players, etc, etc.
"If you ARE paranoid, a major step to eliminate tracking is to go cash only. Stop using electronic payments of any kind. Stop using grocery discount cards too. They track spending habits."
And as was used as an example in the original post, they keyed in a driver's license number. So it doesn't matter if it was cash or not. Now, why anyone would allow cashiers to do that is beyond me. They can LOOK at a card to verify age, keying (scanning/whatever) in an ID number is an instant violation of the customer's privacy. There are many ways to tie someone's identity to cash purchases and it will get much worse.
Some examples might seem "far fetched", but they will come- checkout aisles already have cameras- easy, cheap, accurate facial recognition is not far away. Carrying a cell phone? Another window into your identity. Have anything purchased on you with an active RFID tag (that contains a unique serial number)? A cross-reference will reveal the purchases. You leave DNA and fingerprints all over the place. There is no question in my mind that the incidence of compulsory AND covert identification will increase exponentially over the next few decades.
Besides, at the rate we are going, cash will be outlawed in probably less than 50 years. And even before that, your cash withdrawals will be recorded and tied to the machine-readable serial numbers on the cash, providing another trace.
The vast majority of the American population won't understand (or care about) the technology/methods that will lead to their steadily declining freedom and privacy. It has already been made quite clear that perceived safety is much more important than freedom in the USA.
I compared the Q to the Treo 700P. I must admit, for such a low-cost device, the screen is fantastic! It also seems suitably snappy. Even the form-factor is quite sexy (amazingly thin and yet such a large screen). But the user interface is absolutely horrible. Even after using the Q for an HOUR, it was still extremely difficult to use. The keyboard is not well designed but the lack of a touch screen is what REALLY kills it. Trying to type something? The backspace is, well, a joke. Trying to navigate the menus? Good luck, it is a bear.
So, while is has a lot of impressive technology, you better try actually USING it for a while before thinking of purchasing it. When you are done with the test, the more expensive Treo will start looking more attractive all the time.
Now, if we could merge/meld the Treo 700P and the Q and the Nokia 770, and have an open OS like Linux running pocket Opera on it... Well, we can dream...
>I would like to ask you not to refer to it as theft/stealing.
I didn't. I refered to it at quote stealing onquote ("stealing", not stealing). There is a difference, and I aknowledge it. So, yes, I understand and appreciate what you are saying.
But in the same light, let's say you are a sole developer that lives off the fruits of your programming labor and everyone takes your copyrighted binaries without paying for it. They have deprived you of your income... essentially depriving you of your house (mortgage), food, insurance, clothing, etc... your ability to survive. How does that differ all THAT much from someone who creates physical widgets? Sure, the widget maker had to pay for physical raw goods, but perhaps that developer had to pay for his own licensing of software tools. And they both have all kinds of fixed business expenses (rent, insurance, marketing, legal, etc).
It is not a far leap to say that commercial software companies are just that- an entity that survives based on charging for it's services. If those services are not paid for, their "goods" have been "stolen", just as much as some other company producing physical widgets.
Don't get me wrong- there are a lot of (IMHO) "evil" software companies that are WAY too fat and greedy and do all kinds of horrible things to their customers. But that shouldn't give everyone justification to just take whatever they want based on whatever justification seems "right" in their mind at that time.
I prefer to not attack copyright law, but to work with it and see open source impowered by it... acting as the ultimate weapon against abusive corporations. Now... software patents? That is another whole ball of wax, indeed.
>Well let's try a reasonable business price then. >Paying $500 for Windows and Office to a man who has billions of dollars at his disposal is ludicrous. >$300 for writing PDF files is insane. Paying $1,000 for a code to have 25 more users log on to a server >is just nuts.
You are right on all counts, above. Lots of pricing is insane. Other pricing is unfair. But that is not justification for "stealing" software. It just means that if one don't like the price, then one should seek something else. I bet 80% of people could get 80% of their computing needs done with open source software (the old 80/20 rule)... maybe not as easily... perhaps with the need for additional support. But the licensing and upgrade fee costs? $0.
The more unreasonable the terms of using commercial software (legally) becomes, the more attractive open source software becomes. The more copy protection and spyware added to commercial software, the more attractive open source software becomes. The more restrictive the license flexibility is and the higher the enforcement, the more attractive open source software becomes. So at least there might be a slight silver lining to the cloud.
I couldn't agree more. More power to the BSA for enforcing legit copyrights, as long as they stay within the law. Neither businesses nor individuals should "steal" (borrow, pirate, whatever) commercial software. And the more people are forced to comply with buying the stuff, the more they might gravitate towards using open source instead.
It is especially dangerous for ANY business to violate copyrights- they typically have much deeper pockets and far more potential violations and violators than a single individual. And the larger the business, the more stupid something like "we didn't know" sounds.
>Incidentally, you can get a CD burner for less than a Blu-Ray blank
Yes, but that is not the point. Many people have smaller systems now and either don't want a separate drive or CAN'T have a second, optical internal drive. I see no reason why the drive should not support reading and writing CD/CDR/CDRW, it should be extremely easy. It is a bad precedent to set- not having backwards support, and for something that is physically the same size disc!
CD's are not going away anytime soon. There are billions/trillions of audio CD's, VCD's, picture CD's, software CD's, and backups archives floating around out there.
Now, if it didn't support full 52x CD writing speeds, that's OK.
I, for one, am annoyed (again) at the posting of a propretary file format by the government. Have they YET to hear of PDF or ODF? Wish I could even see what the "cio.gov" site is supposed to be, but it is slashdotted into the next year and falling apart (appears to be running under some obsure MS-Windows 2000/IIS thing).
Too much time for thermite? Yet they will have time to remove each hard drive from each computer and feed it through a 100 pound machine to erase it? Insane!
1) I have been around many cats all my life. Never has one urinated on any bed. In fact, with the exception of one that was dying, they none have ever urinated anywhere but the litter box.
2) Sorry, can't help you there. But a self-cleaning litterbox is great tech (when it works).
3) But insanity is part of the fun!
4) Do you take "orders" from your friends? Then why should cats? Cats have a mind of their own. If you want a slave that focuses on you all the time, you want a dog...
MS-Windows running the house... what a wonderful thought. You, too, can have a house that crashes and gets virii and malware! Just imagine: Toilets flushing for no reason, come home to 100 degree interior, get told you must upgrade to MS-House version XXX by next month for $2,000 or lose support, arguing with the house that you really DO want to install a new cabinet, forgetting your registration key and being locked out of the house, having a chair thrown at you automatically if you try to install Linux on your laptop computer... OOOh, the possibilities are endless!
>I've never heard of a printer that printed PDF directly
All the recent, larger Xerox machines can print PDF directly, just send the raw PDF file and the "printer/copier" will gladly produce it, just as easily as with Postscript (PDF is pretty much just postscript, anyway).
And I know this doesn't count because it is software, but Linux machines can print PDF files from anywhere to anything, since CUPS will call Ghostscript (which can handle PDF) to rasterize it correctly.
A better topic for this article would be: "Why doesn't/hasn't Adobe released Acrobat, Flash 8, Illustrator, or Photoshop for Linux yet?". Generally, I find Adobe to be irritating as hell.
I was thinking the same thing! If it is based on something GPL, then it also has to be GPL and could not be kept closed, nor could it be released under a BSD license. Something is fishy.
Besides, what we want is Linux to run on their phones, just like the 770. I think that might be their long-term plan. Someone mentioned the Treo/Palm. Verizon JUST released the Treo 700p, running PalmOS and Palm's plan *is* to convert PalmOS over to an emulation/UI on top of Linux. Should be quite interesting. I can't wait to get my hands on a Treo 700p, but I would be even more excited if Palm back-ports a newer Linux based PalmOS to the Treo 700 when ready!
As others have said, and no doubt will continue to say, you will not change the masses' behavior. The problem is not that people will click on things that look interesting, the problem is that the program will execute something presented to it.
There is no reason that *any* instant message client should ever execute other code, privileged or not. That is not the purpose of IM- IM is not a program launcher, it is a tool for communication.
I couldn't agree with you more. And calling it a "movie" or "film" is just... well.... WRONG. A ten minute psycho-trip with no story, no plot, and uninteresting/undeveloped characters is more like a graphics demo. Perhaps a video hardware benchmark (HD).
I am impressed at the graphics... and the open nature... but that is about all it has going for it.
> "*ix" (and "*nix") doesn't match "linux", so stop using it you stupid moron.
I can see why you posted anonymously.
What do you suggest people use, oh polite and insightful one? "*ix" is a hell of a lot easier to type than "Unix, Linux, BSD, and other Unix-like/clone operating systems" and generally, everyone knows exactly what you mean.
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>I will just cut and paste from my previous comment, you might read it this time:
:)
/dev/dsp from the hardware driver and put a sound daemon in it's place. Then (theoretically, anyway), any program that doesn't use a sound daemon, will do so anyway, and not even know it. I have no idea how feasible that is, though.
I did read it, and nothing is different. It is still not a fault with *LINUX* but with certain applications combined with certain hardware. Sure, I will agree that to the end user, it will just be "Linux", but it really isn't.
>the only difference is the Operating System
No, that is not the ONLY difference, you are also using diffent applications. Had you been using (for example) Amarok to play the music and Kbattleship as the game, with would have produced sound at the same time just fine (through artsd).
It is a matter of semantics. I am sure if I were to look hard, I could find some legacy MS-Windows/DOS applications that try to talk directly to the sound hardware and also show similar problems.
>What I belive is that THAT should be fixed, they could for example route all the sound "petitions" to the old sound system into the sound daemon just to provide an interface for old apps.
TOTALLY agreed. In fact, I thought of that after I posted, but I wasn't going to stop and post something else, especially since I was late for work
Seems like it would make a lot of sense to just rip control of
I also agree that it is annoying and hard to explain to people.
You need to take a chill pill.
Regardless of the effect, the reason there is no built-in mp3 encoder has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with horribly, crappy, (probably unconstitutional) software patents.
And if you want gaming, get a game console. Games are cheaper, faster, better than on most computers, anyway.
>Unfortunately it seems you just can have 1 sound output because
That is a limitation of the application and hardware you have, NOT LINUX. You are using cheapy (probably on-motherboard) sound hardware. With such hardware, it is only possible for it to play one stream at a time. Then, the two applications you are using were not written to use (for example) artsd (a sound daemon). If they were written right, they would send their sound to the daemon, not the hardware driver directly. Artsd would mix the multiple streams, and output a single composite stream that your cheap hardware could handle.
There are two ways to "fix" the issue. One would be to get a "real" soundcard, like a SoundBlaster Live (or similar), which can handle multiple streams at once. I have such hardware, so I can play several streams at once, even when the program is not using a sound daemon.
The other way is to only use programs that are written to talk to a sound daemon.
The only fault of Linux would be that it doesn't provide and "enforce" the use of a single sound daemon. Instead, sound daemons are part of the desktop.
>Time to wake up. Audio on Linux is just as bad as gaming.
Wrong.
>No major distro supports mp3s by default.
Wrong. Mandriva/Mandrake does and always has. If, by "suppport", you mean PLAYING mp3 files. Now CREATING mp3 files is not included. That takes all of about 1 min to download and load the lame rpm from PLF.
>They crash. A Lot
I have never had Amarok "crash", but I do tend to use xmms the most.
>Not only that but they rely almost completely on id3 tags, which sucks if your music collection happens to be anything other than ripped from personal CDs or very good quality rips.
Um, yes, they rely on id3, just like most "jukebox" programs do. So what you are REALLY complaining about is that your illegally downloaded, illegally distributed mp3 files have bad/poor id3 tags? Boo hoo!
"but maybe he wants binary compatibility? " I was going to mod you up, but I would rather respond... Yep- I think that is what he meant. One huge problem for some areas of Linux use is binary compatability, not API. Users want to go to a site like getfirefox.com and grab a single install of a program for ANY Linux distro of any reasonable age (I will let you decide what is reasonable. I think 4 or 5 years is reasonable). This *CAN* be done, and Firefox and OpenOffice are an example of that. The problem is that to do it, they have to either 1) Compile statically, which results in a REALLY huge binary, depending on how crazy you get with "static" 2) Include all the libraries you used, along with the program so there are no dependancies, which ultimately uses the same amount of resources as a static compile. Either way, let's call it a "static distribution" of the program. It is almost a requirement for all commercial programs. A vendor usually can't force the user to use a SPECIFIC distro AND version of that distro. They would fragment their potential market and alienate customers. So they either have to compile it 100 ways and try to cover all the major distros and versions, or just give up and include a self-contained environment... the so-called "static distribution". Perfect example of the frustration: I have distro A running on a machine. It is a few releases behind because it is TONS of work to upgrade this mission-critical machine. But I want to run a new version of program B. Try to find an rpm. No joy- nobody has an RPM of B back-ported to the older A, or if they do, it has a list of 100 add-on dependancies that might break X, Y, and Z applications. So I get the source (luckily it is FOSS). It won't compile. Why? It needs newer development libraries for 20 other things. But in the Linux mode of things, nobody has a static compile of the program.... so I am left with no options but to spend perhaps 40 hours upgrading the OS on that machine, recompile all other 100 other customized things I have done and hope nothing breaks. And before someone jumps in with "yo dude- that's why you need virtual machines"... let's get real. There is a LOT of work involved with installing, configuring, running, and syncing multiple VM's. Compare with MS-Windows. There is a reasonable expectation that you can download and install a single "package" of a program that will run on ANY 95/98/ME machine; or perhaps 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; or sometimes 2000/XP/2003. In most cases it will span an OS base of at least 5 years, often longer. OK, I am ranting, so I will shut up now.
You are very correct. A co-operative doesn't neccessarily mean everyone is equal. In fact, going back to the main "article" (well, there is no article, per se, but a question)... The poster was asking about an "open source structured business". He never mentioned the words "co-op" or "cooperatives". I suppose when I was replying, I was kind of thinking of a business where everyone was relatively equal and there was, as the poster said:
"There is no leader , no CEO no boss. Everyone as a group decides what should be done."
So, let's strike the whole comparison to a cooperatives, since that is not what he is talking about, anyway.
Generally, co-ops only work well with a relatively homogeneous collection of people. In a business, it is less likely that all the employees will be in such equal mindsets.
I wouldn't think that co-ops would scale well. It is not all that hard to get 2 to 5 people to agree on a course of action. Much harder , but still doable with 10. But it is nearly impossible with 100 or 1,000. So it will just be a "majority rules".
Without some type of heiarachy, decision making can be much too slow in an "everyone is equal" environment. You need specialization and sub-grouping to focus on particular issues in depth. And some specialization will, inevitably, put some employees on different authority levels than others. For example, hiring and firing... with 1000 employees, there is no way that such an on-going staffing task could be done by "majority rules".
Another example is financing. How many of those employees will really understand finance enough to participate in the voting/control of the spending? Buying? Information Systems? Marketing? Etc.
I am almost 38, and I have absolutely NO trouble hearing that sound. It is horrible and very annoying, even at low volumes. If a neighbor intentionally installed such a device and it could be heard from my yard, then I would consider it asault and would have no guilt sneaking over and destroying the unit in such a way that he would not know it no longer worked.
Now, what about the other annoying sounds neighbors make? Loud music (especially bass), constant dog barking, car horns for no reason, motorcycles with illegally modified (absent) exhaust systems, basketball thumping over and over for hours... they are all "wrong", but at least it is not intentionally done to annoy.
>"Linux didn't come with anything useful. How do I watch DVDs or play MP3s without having to go get software to do it?"
Well, that is certainly a troll.
A modern Linux distro comes with *hundreds* of useful applications to do the majority of things typical users want. Watching DVD's can't be done in MS-Windows either, without installing an application. As for mp3, Mandriva supports that right away.
I have installed dozens of MS-Windowses and hundreds of Linuxes. When you install XP, you end up with a single browser, and a very small handful of utilities. In just about the same amount of time, I can do a DVD install of Linux that has 4 browsers, several Email clients, 50 games, two full office suites, two major graphics editors, several MP3 players, etc, etc.
"If you ARE paranoid, a major step to eliminate tracking is to go cash only. Stop using electronic payments of any kind. Stop using grocery discount cards too. They track spending habits."
And as was used as an example in the original post, they keyed in a driver's license number. So it doesn't matter if it was cash or not. Now, why anyone would allow cashiers to do that is beyond me. They can LOOK at a card to verify age, keying (scanning/whatever) in an ID number is an instant violation of the customer's privacy. There are many ways to tie someone's identity to cash purchases and it will get much worse.
Some examples might seem "far fetched", but they will come- checkout aisles already have cameras- easy, cheap, accurate facial recognition is not far away. Carrying a cell phone? Another window into your identity. Have anything purchased on you with an active RFID tag (that contains a unique serial number)? A cross-reference will reveal the purchases. You leave DNA and fingerprints all over the place. There is no question in my mind that the incidence of compulsory AND covert identification will increase exponentially over the next few decades.
Besides, at the rate we are going, cash will be outlawed in probably less than 50 years. And even before that, your cash withdrawals will be recorded and tied to the machine-readable serial numbers on the cash, providing another trace.
The vast majority of the American population won't understand (or care about) the technology/methods that will lead to their steadily declining freedom and privacy. It has already been made quite clear that perceived safety is much more important than freedom in the USA.
I compared the Q to the Treo 700P. I must admit, for such a low-cost device, the screen is fantastic! It also seems suitably snappy. Even the form-factor is quite sexy (amazingly thin and yet such a large screen). But the user interface is absolutely horrible. Even after using the Q for an HOUR, it was still extremely difficult to use. The keyboard is not well designed but the lack of a touch screen is what REALLY kills it. Trying to type something? The backspace is, well, a joke. Trying to navigate the menus? Good luck, it is a bear.
So, while is has a lot of impressive technology, you better try actually USING it for a while before thinking of purchasing it. When you are done with the test, the more expensive Treo will start looking more attractive all the time.
Now, if we could merge/meld the Treo 700P and the Q and the Nokia 770, and have an open OS like Linux running pocket Opera on it... Well, we can dream...
>I would like to ask you not to refer to it as theft/stealing.
I didn't. I refered to it at quote stealing onquote ("stealing", not stealing). There is a difference, and I aknowledge it. So, yes, I understand and appreciate what you are saying.
But in the same light, let's say you are a sole developer that lives off the fruits of your programming labor and everyone takes your copyrighted binaries without paying for it. They have deprived you of your income... essentially depriving you of your house (mortgage), food, insurance, clothing, etc... your ability to survive. How does that differ all THAT much from someone who creates physical widgets? Sure, the widget maker had to pay for physical raw goods, but perhaps that developer had to pay for his own licensing of software tools. And they both have all kinds of fixed business expenses (rent, insurance, marketing, legal, etc).
It is not a far leap to say that commercial software companies are just that- an entity that survives based on charging for it's services. If those services are not paid for, their "goods" have been "stolen", just as much as some other company producing physical widgets.
Don't get me wrong- there are a lot of (IMHO) "evil" software companies that are WAY too fat and greedy and do all kinds of horrible things to their customers. But that shouldn't give everyone justification to just take whatever they want based on whatever justification seems "right" in their mind at that time.
I prefer to not attack copyright law, but to work with it and see open source impowered by it... acting as the ultimate weapon against abusive corporations. Now... software patents? That is another whole ball of wax, indeed.
>Well let's try a reasonable business price then.
>Paying $500 for Windows and Office to a man who has billions of dollars at his disposal is ludicrous.
>$300 for writing PDF files is insane. Paying $1,000 for a code to have 25 more users log on to a server
>is just nuts.
You are right on all counts, above. Lots of pricing is insane. Other pricing is unfair. But that is not justification for "stealing" software. It just means that if one don't like the price, then one should seek something else. I bet 80% of people could get 80% of their computing needs done with open source software (the old 80/20 rule)... maybe not as easily... perhaps with the need for additional support. But the licensing and upgrade fee costs? $0.
The more unreasonable the terms of using commercial software (legally) becomes, the more attractive open source software becomes. The more copy protection and spyware added to commercial software, the more attractive open source software becomes. The more restrictive the license flexibility is and the higher the enforcement, the more attractive open source software becomes. So at least there might be a slight silver lining to the cloud.
>They should get busted.
I couldn't agree more. More power to the BSA for enforcing legit copyrights, as long as they stay within the law. Neither businesses nor individuals should "steal" (borrow, pirate, whatever) commercial software. And the more people are forced to comply with buying the stuff, the more they might gravitate towards using open source instead.
It is especially dangerous for ANY business to violate copyrights- they typically have much deeper pockets and far more potential violations and violators than a single individual. And the larger the business, the more stupid something like "we didn't know" sounds.
>Incidentally, you can get a CD burner for less than a Blu-Ray blank
Yes, but that is not the point. Many people have smaller systems now and either don't want a separate drive or CAN'T have a second, optical internal drive. I see no reason why the drive should not support reading and writing CD/CDR/CDRW, it should be extremely easy. It is a bad precedent to set- not having backwards support, and for something that is physically the same size disc!
CD's are not going away anytime soon. There are billions/trillions of audio CD's, VCD's, picture CD's, software CD's, and backups archives floating around out there.
Now, if it didn't support full 52x CD writing speeds, that's OK.
>The latest additions, (MS Word) released in May,
I, for one, am annoyed (again) at the posting of a propretary file format by the government. Have they YET to hear of PDF or ODF? Wish I could even see what the "cio.gov" site is supposed to be, but it is slashdotted into the next year and falling apart (appears to be running under some obsure MS-Windows 2000/IIS thing).
Too much time for thermite? Yet they will have time to remove each hard drive from each computer and feed it through a 100 pound machine to erase it? Insane!
Works just fine on my dual core Athlon running Mandriva 2006.0 32 bit + NVidia. I am lovin' it!
Perhaps you were trying to be funny, but...
RE:
1) I have been around many cats all my life. Never has one urinated on any bed. In fact, with the exception of one that was dying, they none have ever urinated anywhere but the litter box.
2) Sorry, can't help you there. But a self-cleaning litterbox is great tech (when it works).
3) But insanity is part of the fun!
4) Do you take "orders" from your friends? Then why should cats? Cats have a mind of their own. If you want a slave that focuses on you all the time, you want a dog...
>Oh and (last joke) - the house runs windows
MS-Windows running the house... what a wonderful thought. You, too, can have a house that crashes and gets virii and malware! Just imagine: Toilets flushing for no reason, come home to 100 degree interior, get told you must upgrade to MS-House version XXX by next month for $2,000 or lose support, arguing with the house that you really DO want to install a new cabinet, forgetting your registration key and being locked out of the house, having a chair thrown at you automatically if you try to install Linux on your laptop computer... OOOh, the possibilities are endless!
>I've never heard of a printer that printed PDF directly
All the recent, larger Xerox machines can print PDF directly, just send the raw PDF file and the "printer/copier" will gladly produce it, just as easily as with Postscript (PDF is pretty much just postscript, anyway).
And I know this doesn't count because it is software, but Linux machines can print PDF files from anywhere to anything, since CUPS will call Ghostscript (which can handle PDF) to rasterize it correctly.
A better topic for this article would be: "Why doesn't/hasn't Adobe released Acrobat, Flash 8, Illustrator, or Photoshop for Linux yet?". Generally, I find Adobe to be irritating as hell.
I was thinking the same thing! If it is based on something GPL, then it also has to be GPL and could not be kept closed, nor could it be released under a BSD license. Something is fishy.
Besides, what we want is Linux to run on their phones, just like the 770. I think that might be their long-term plan. Someone mentioned the Treo/Palm. Verizon JUST released the Treo 700p, running PalmOS and Palm's plan *is* to convert PalmOS over to an emulation/UI on top of Linux. Should be quite interesting. I can't wait to get my hands on a Treo 700p, but I would be even more excited if Palm back-ports a newer Linux based PalmOS to the Treo 700 when ready!
As others have said, and no doubt will continue to say, you will not change the masses' behavior. The problem is not that people will click on things that look interesting, the problem is that the program will execute something presented to it.
There is no reason that *any* instant message client should ever execute other code, privileged or not. That is not the purpose of IM- IM is not a program launcher, it is a tool for communication.
I couldn't agree with you more. And calling it a "movie" or "film" is just... well.... WRONG. A ten minute psycho-trip with no story, no plot, and uninteresting/undeveloped characters is more like a graphics demo. Perhaps a video hardware benchmark (HD).
I am impressed at the graphics... and the open nature... but that is about all it has going for it.
> "*ix" (and "*nix") doesn't match "linux", so stop using it you stupid moron.
I can see why you posted anonymously.
What do you suggest people use, oh polite and insightful one? "*ix" is a hell of a lot easier to type than "Unix, Linux, BSD, and other Unix-like/clone operating systems" and generally, everyone knows exactly what you mean.