"sure, that talent will go elsewhere and get absorbed into the rest of the economy, somewhere, somehow, hopefully. but the point gates is making: this won't be fun for anyone."
Correct. The essence of Gates' statement, one he has every right to make I might add, is 'Do what I say and nobody gets hurt.'
Cute. But as you must know, but maybe not those who didn't go to Groklaw to read what was said, you quoted only part of the sentence. The full sentence reads:
"Thanks to Richard Stallman and his GNU Project, Linus Torvalds, and thousands and thousands of good-hearted and skilled programmers who cared enough to give the world some very fine software, you actually do have a choice. "
It's nice to see all the excitement about the Mac Mini, and it is a cool box that is cheap but without cheap parts. But let's remember that a Mac Mini is basically just a Mac in a new box. If you can install Debian onto a Mac Mini, you can do it for any Mac.
True, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. Even if Apple invited them to licence iPod-compatabile software, they would refuse and go their own way. Microsoft wants to own the DRM world, and they don't share.
Nah, the difference is that Microsoft went in a different direction than Apple, and made software that won't work with the iPod. That's why Napster-compatible devices are incompatible, not because Apple locks you in. In fact, Apple barely locks you into anything. Want to convert your music and save it to a CD? Go ahead. Want to download MP3s for free? They'll work. Etc.
Apple is doing what it has to in order to get the music companies to play along, but only doing as little as it has to. Their limitations are easy to get around. The Slashdot crowd, mostly, understands why Apple is doing this and gives them a partial pass for using evil DRM. Microsoft, on the other hand, is trying to crush the iPod market and take it for themselves. No pass.
You can market to a person only to an extent. Ultimately the product has to live up to at least a little of the hype. If you get marketed into buying something that isn't good, the hype is gone, and the marketer has lost a customer no matter how many commercials he runs.
Is the iPod just a case of marketing? No. Sure there is plenty of marketing involved, both traditional and word of mouth. But once a person gets the iPod, they tend to like it. A lot. They personalize it in their minds. It's "their" iPod. It's very successful not because of the commercials but because the end product delivers, and often delivers more than they expected ("it knows what I want to hear more than I do!")
So Napster can throw as much money as they want in commercials, and bad mouth iPods as much as they want. They'll convince some people. And a subset of them really will be happy, for they can listen to all new music all the time and thrash through thousands of new songs. But a lot of people who buy the Napster marketing pitch will notice two things: 1) They have to keep paying forever, no matter what, or else they lose it all; and 2) They have to give up their iPod, something they've grown attached to.
The Napster reality won't live up to the hype for most people. In contrast, the iPod reality exceeds the hype for most people. Do the math...
Pfizer and Microsoft announced today that they had stiffened their resolve to go after sellers of counterfeit Viagra(r). They realized such spams were peaking, and they knew they had to harden the course for such counterfeiters.
"These guys think they can keep profits rising endlessly," complained a Pfizer spokesperson. "They are really beginning to poke us in the eye with their nonsense. We are a big company, and Viagra has helped up grow considerably. We won't let these crooks cut our profits off prematurely."
(Memo to editorial staff: Does the above sound right? Something seems a bit odd.)
I am aware of it, but I was using all the similarities deliberately. In fact, that is the reason why North Korea won't be attacked -- they can fight back.
Your toll of 8,000 civilian casualties in Iraq seems an order of magnitude too low. That's closer to the death toll in Afghanistan. Unless maybe you are only counting the civilians killed in the early days of the war, and ignoring the next coupe of years or something.
I didn't forget the diplomacy in Iraq, an effort that worked to disarm Saddam quite effectively for years. It did not lead up to the Iraq war. It was short-circuited so that the Iraq war could take place.
North Korea:
Dictator: Check
Oppressed people: Check
No legitimate elections: Check
WMDs: Check
Threatening to the West: Check
Send in the troops! What's that? We're going to use diplomacy instead? We're going to try to avoid tens of thousands of deaths and injured? Wow, good thinking. Too bad about that other country...
Oh, man! I want to make a comment, but it will get observed by others. And moderated! By sarcastic geek types! What to do, what to do? And I had such a clever response planned, it would have really been dazzling because I'm so clever. Oh, but what will the mods think of this? Will it hurt my karma? What will be the result of this comment? Wait....I've lost my thought.....
She was the big mover behind HP's merger with Compaq, even being accused of underhanded deals to get the vote pushed through. Like all such mergers, things rarely go as well as people anticipate. And with the loss in recent years of the "HP Way" that they were famous for, she basically failed. I'm not a bit surprised she was forced out.
What browser war? How do you fight a war when the other side doesn't use your ammunition (profits)? How do you fight a war when the other side doesn't need to impress shareholders with market share data? How do you fight a war when the other side doesn't bother showing up on the battlefield, but takes large tracts of enemy territory anyway?
What browser war? Some of us have taken our guns and gone elsewhere.
"the open source development approach encourages the creation of many permutations of the same type of software application, which could add implementation and testing overhead to interoperability efforts,"
Gates is telling the truth here. If the whole world standardized on one set of standard software, it would (obviously) make interoperability a lot easier. That's common sense. And we can understand why this vision would appeal to him, especially if the world decided to standardize on his software.
However, there is far more to choosing software than just that. OK, so we work harder to make interoperability work between software. It's worth it so people can have choice.
The architecture of Windows is inherently more insecure than Linux or BSD or OS X. Those were business decisions that led to that level of insecurity, but they exist. You can certainly point out that all OSes get patched for security issues, but I can tell you that if you take a fresh install of BSD or Linux and put it on the Web, it will not be 0wn3d within ten minutes, in all likelihood. Try a fresh Windows box on the Net for ten minutes. In all likelihood, it will be infected by multiple malware.
Agreed. Advertisers like to pretend their product is the only product in the universe. Notice how in a commercial the moment you see a logo, no matter how quickly or subliminally, you realize this must be a commercial for that product. It always is. Advertisers wouldn't think of mixing logos from different companies unless both companies were combing forces for a commercial.
I understand why Louis-Vuitton would be unhappy with Google ads for competitors. They want to control their advertising environment, and in every other venue they get that power. Not on the Internet. There is nothing wrong with a purveyor of knock-off Louis-Vuitton goods putting an ad, clearly labeled as an ad, next to LV search results. LV has no recourse, if the courts are sane, other than to do the logical thing in the first place: Sue the knockoff makers.
Say anything negative against Microsoft nowadays, except in the meekest of manners, and you get modded to oblivion. What I wrote is 100% true, done in a humorous way, and the last sentence is optional but highly recommended. Anyone who doesn't know by now that Windows is the least secure OS out there gets what they deserve.
You can suppress what I'm saying, but not the reality of what I said.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct. The essence of Gates' statement, one he has every right to make I might add, is 'Do what I say and nobody gets hurt.'
"Thanks to Richard Stallman and his GNU Project, Linus Torvalds, and thousands and thousands of good-hearted and skilled programmers who cared enough to give the world some very fine software, you actually do have a choice. "
In context, no grammatical confusion.
Beware, people! You know how all those horror movies go. Just when you think the hybrid human is dead he comes back to life and terrorizes you!
It's nice to see all the excitement about the Mac Mini, and it is a cool box that is cheap but without cheap parts. But let's remember that a Mac Mini is basically just a Mac in a new box. If you can install Debian onto a Mac Mini, you can do it for any Mac.
True, but this is Microsoft we're talking about. Even if Apple invited them to licence iPod-compatabile software, they would refuse and go their own way. Microsoft wants to own the DRM world, and they don't share.
Apple is doing what it has to in order to get the music companies to play along, but only doing as little as it has to. Their limitations are easy to get around. The Slashdot crowd, mostly, understands why Apple is doing this and gives them a partial pass for using evil DRM. Microsoft, on the other hand, is trying to crush the iPod market and take it for themselves. No pass.
If those scientists are going up to trees and barking, I think they've been doing a little genetic engineering on themselves on the side. Woof!
Is the iPod just a case of marketing? No. Sure there is plenty of marketing involved, both traditional and word of mouth. But once a person gets the iPod, they tend to like it. A lot. They personalize it in their minds. It's "their" iPod. It's very successful not because of the commercials but because the end product delivers, and often delivers more than they expected ("it knows what I want to hear more than I do!")
So Napster can throw as much money as they want in commercials, and bad mouth iPods as much as they want. They'll convince some people. And a subset of them really will be happy, for they can listen to all new music all the time and thrash through thousands of new songs. But a lot of people who buy the Napster marketing pitch will notice two things: 1) They have to keep paying forever, no matter what, or else they lose it all; and 2) They have to give up their iPod, something they've grown attached to.
The Napster reality won't live up to the hype for most people. In contrast, the iPod reality exceeds the hype for most people. Do the math...
ROFL! That was truly hilarious!
"These guys think they can keep profits rising endlessly," complained a Pfizer spokesperson. "They are really beginning to poke us in the eye with their nonsense. We are a big company, and Viagra has helped up grow considerably. We won't let these crooks cut our profits off prematurely."
(Memo to editorial staff: Does the above sound right? Something seems a bit odd.)
That's short-term thinking. The quest for oil was long-term thinking. It was about oil. You just haven't seen the long-term results yet.
Your toll of 8,000 civilian casualties in Iraq seems an order of magnitude too low. That's closer to the death toll in Afghanistan. Unless maybe you are only counting the civilians killed in the early days of the war, and ignoring the next coupe of years or something.
I didn't forget the diplomacy in Iraq, an effort that worked to disarm Saddam quite effectively for years. It did not lead up to the Iraq war. It was short-circuited so that the Iraq war could take place.
North Korea:
Dictator: Check
Oppressed people: Check
No legitimate elections: Check
WMDs: Check
Threatening to the West: Check
Send in the troops! What's that? We're going to use diplomacy instead? We're going to try to avoid tens of thousands of deaths and injured? Wow, good thinking. Too bad about that other country...
Oh, man! I want to make a comment, but it will get observed by others. And moderated! By sarcastic geek types! What to do, what to do? And I had such a clever response planned, it would have really been dazzling because I'm so clever. Oh, but what will the mods think of this? Will it hurt my karma? What will be the result of this comment? Wait....I've lost my thought.....
Easily. Ask them to perform an average, day-to-day, normal part of work, business function, and you'll see how quickly they break down.
She was the big mover behind HP's merger with Compaq, even being accused of underhanded deals to get the vote pushed through. Like all such mergers, things rarely go as well as people anticipate. And with the loss in recent years of the "HP Way" that they were famous for, she basically failed. I'm not a bit surprised she was forced out.
What browser war? Some of us have taken our guns and gone elsewhere.
Thank you. Your points were valid and on target and added a lot to my simple statement.
Very true, and a valid point. I suppose he meant the same software and the same version, an impossible utopian vision he has.
Gates is telling the truth here. If the whole world standardized on one set of standard software, it would (obviously) make interoperability a lot easier. That's common sense. And we can understand why this vision would appeal to him, especially if the world decided to standardize on his software.
However, there is far more to choosing software than just that. OK, so we work harder to make interoperability work between software. It's worth it so people can have choice.
Who said I wasn't biased against Microsoft? However, what I said was true. And I didn't slander.
That's a key difference.
I understand why Louis-Vuitton would be unhappy with Google ads for competitors. They want to control their advertising environment, and in every other venue they get that power. Not on the Internet. There is nothing wrong with a purveyor of knock-off Louis-Vuitton goods putting an ad, clearly labeled as an ad, next to LV search results. LV has no recourse, if the courts are sane, other than to do the logical thing in the first place: Sue the knockoff makers.
You can suppress what I'm saying, but not the reality of what I said.