I don't think the the FSF has been able to mandate that the english language be changed so that open and free mean what they wanted it to mean. Personally, I don't find anything implied by the parent post which isn't true. The documentation is freely available, to all. That seems openly available to me. Maybe not by the FSF's definition of open or free, but good thing I stopped giving a fuck about them a long time ago.
But regardless, if you want to disagree that it's not "open", you can do so without being a douche bag about it and accusing the original poster of trying to perpetrate some sort of fraud. Jesus.
The Linux kernel might be fairly low on bugs, but the entire library of software that typically comes with it is not. If you really think that's not true, then you must not watch Linux forums that list things like critical security updates for a distribution very often.
Your post reads like you've never thought to question any of the rhetoric associated with OSS. Have you ever heard of social engineering? How about the fact that you wouldn't need root privileges to install a keylogger on a user's account if you can get them to run a malicious program?
Are you going to try and suggest that if we all ran Linux that an exploit for MySQL wouldn't be just as bad as SQL slammer? There are plenty of applications which are installed on the vast majority of Linux systems, like the kernel, bash, XFree86, etc.. If one of those had a major security vulnerability how is the lack of a "monoculture" going to help you?
Just about everyone who posts something like what you did points out that most Linux users do not run under root. Guess what? That's because most of them are computer geeks like me, and I would assume you. I don't run Windows under my admin account and I don't run Linux under root. If the average user moves to Linux, they will probably end up running everything under root, because the average user doesn't want to deal with two logins and having to move from one to the other to do certain tasks. If you think somehow it will magically solve that problem because it's Linux, you're fooling yourself.
So a salary cap would violate the antitrust laws unless you somehow convinced SAG to agree (pretty unlikely, I think).
Unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility.. What percent of their membership will ever make enough that it would effect them? Less than one tenth of one percent I'd guess? If the studios could convince them it would benefit their profession as a whole by getting more movies made, or something like that, it's concievable.
Yeah, it's such a shame that once the XBOX 360 comes out, all lower cost systems will disappear from store shelves and any game systems people already own will stop working. I mean there is just no way for people without a lot of money to play video games now. And there should be other brands of cars besides Porsche and Jaguar, so regular people can afford to buy cars too.
Way to ignore all of the other meanings associated with the word gamer, apart just from someone who plays games. One of the first issues of the escapist had a good article about what it means to be a gamer.. Read it. Or maybe you already know that the term gamer means more than just someone who plays games, and you're just being a tool.
For the love of god, who modded the first post up? There is absolutely nothing insightful about this post. All it is is a collection of all of the worst elitist generalizations you see repeated over and over on slashdot. Is everyone who posts here really so arrogant that they think everyone else is like this? I've met plenty of dumbasses in my day, but nobody who is as stupid as what people on slashdot describe. Guess what, just because someone doesn't post on slashdot doesn't mean they aren't a perfectly rational person.
A huge chunk of the posts in this thread are about how stupid parents are and what I'd like to know is how many of the people who are up on their soapbox telling us how parents should be actually have kids, have any expertise in child development, or give them any particular basis for spouting off about it. Is it possible, that maybe, raising children is a little harder than people on slashdot want to pretend? Maybe most parents do ignore the video game ratings. Maybe it could be because there are many much more important things for them to worry about with regards to their children. Maybe some parents know their children are mature enough to be able to handle "adult" content.
Or what about a game where you can be a mass murderer, but have to go to confessions afterwards?
Better yet.. how about you can play a mass murderer in the game, but afterwards, real guys dressed like police officers come to your house to beat a confession out of you.
Have you ever used it? It's definitely an inferior product to Office for Windows. Also, OSX has a higher desktop marketshare than Linux and all OSX users use the same GUI toolkit.
It would make it more likely, even if not very much more likely. And considering most Linux users attitudes about closed source software and especially Microsoft, I doubt they'd sell enough copies to turn a profit. Okay, I'll admit that maybe it's only the most vocal Linux users who scream at the top of their lungs to anyone who will listen about Micro$oft, but even so, considering Linux's small marketshare on the desktop and the fact that no matter which framework Microsoft used to write Linux native Office that someone (either KDE or Gnome users at least) would complain, I can't see Office for Linux as being a good business move.
Can you back that up at all? My experience is that people who do things for their own fulfillment (whether software, woodworking, or haberdashery) tend to take more personal pride in their craft than paid assembly-line workers. This is a generalization, of course.
Well, let's start by pointing out how bad your generalization is. First of all, there's a huge difference between building things for crafts and manufacturing things that are commodities. The difference in quality between the two things has little to do with the skill of the designer and more to do with the amount of time and cost involved. Comparing hand-crafted wood furniture made by a master woordworker to something I can go buy from a local department store in terms of quality is a worthless comparison. One cost orders of magnitute more effort to create, and would cost orders of magnitute more money to purhcase. On the other hand, I would be willing to bet that many more programmers hours have gone into writing and fine-tuning Microsoft Office than Open Office, and the cost of ownership isn't an order of magnitude difference in either direction.
In addition, all of the programmers I know are programmers because they want to be and like coding. We're not forced into slave labor by evil corporations. We take a lot of pride in our work.
Also, just about every good professional programmer I know is constantly trying to teach themselves knew and better ways to do things. On the other hand, huge numbers of OSS projects use backwards methodologies (such as insisting everything be done in C, or disallowing the STL for no reason other than they've heard it's bad). Plus many OSS projects are started because someone wants to write a piece of software that does a very specific task, than gradually expanded into a real project. But this eliminates the design phase (even if we allow that most OSS projects have one) which will not lead to improved software.
Can't you respond to any criticism of your MS views without calling people OSS fanatics or mentioning OSS religion?
I can, but why bother? You see, your whole original post was nothing more than attempting to wave away the oppositions arguments by calling them an apologist and calling their comment propaganda. I actually made some points, in addition to just showing my disdain for OSS apologists who don't care about facts when they don't fit their arguments. See the difference? No, I guess you wouldn't.
*Ahem* Did you preview your own post?
Yes, and I reread it again, and I still think my original post was an accurate critique of yours. I still fail to see how your original post, as well as now also your second post amounts to enough value to be worth the bandwidth you consumed sending it to slashdot. I consider the spam emails which are so convoluted that you can barely read them to be a more valuable use of bandwidth than anything you've said.
Let's face it; MS products are also cobbled together by paid lackeys that hate their jobs.
Can you back that up at all? People I've talked to who worked for Microsoft said it was a fantastic place to work.
Can't you MS apologists find some another choice of words in your anti OSS diatribes. Ever since Balmer first uttered the words "cobbled together" to describe open source, these words have been repeatedly used in MS propaganda ever since.
If the shoe fits, wear it. Most OSS software is written with little to no thought to creating elegant code, writing it so that it will fit together with a larger system, etc. Hey, speaking of inability to argue points well, can't you OSS fanatics respond to any criticism of your religion with something other than calling people MS apologists or fanboys or calling what they have to say propaganda?
Your post has absolutely no useful or interesting information. You just denounce someone because they don't degree with you, and you act self righteous about it. It doesn't bother you to spew this waste of storage bytes and bandwidth?
OMG this is gonna wtfpwnbbq Bill Gates! He'll bo so fookin mad!!11!!!1youredumb!!1
Or maybe he'll just laugh and roll around in a huge pile of money and not care at all, even if this does harm XBOX's sales.
Plus don't take it as a given that OSX is going to run on the PS3 just because of this. This would mean creating new PPC machines during the Intel transition and creating a Mac that wasn't created by Apple.
Whatever Microsoft has now, the Amiga pretty much had it, fifteen years ago.
Ok, if you don't like Microsoft, that's fine. But jesus christ, pull your head out of your ass. Did Amiga have easy to use wifi? No? Did Amiga have a media player, instant messaging program, or web server built in? Did it have 3D graphics? Did it have the accessibility features that Windows does? Was it's UI as easy to use as Windows' UI?Oh wait, this is slashdot, I forgot, the only acceptable UIs run on top of an X server, so Windows must suck. Did the Amiga have the ability to automatically play DVDs, connect to a digital camera, use almost any kind of computer hardware without any configuration? Oh, it didn't have any of those things? Then shut the fuck up. People on slashdot sure bitch about FUD a lot considering they spew it out 24 hours a day.
I think that, in the long term, open source software may not prevail but it will be a more secure choice for the simple reason that commercial, closed-source software bonds you to its publisher.
I don't see how being bound to a publisher is worse than being bound to a license/religion/whatever-you-want-to-call-oss. Generally if a publisher stops supporting your software, you buy new software. If developers lose interest in an oss project (though I'm sure that's NEVER happened) you either buy new software, or maintain your own software. Just because you can maintain your own software with OSS if you're willing to pay the programmers, doesn't mean it is an attractive solution to the vast majority of companies.
Well, I've never run into a piece of windows software that I wanted to install which didn't have an installer or which didn't allow you to just save it to any folder on your hard drive and run it. Because for Windows programs, you don't have to worry about whether they packaged it for your distribution.
I've read your second paragraph several times and I still don't know what it's supposed to mean. What does treating different distributions like different operating systems mean? That if something is only packaged in RPMs for Redhat and Fedora, if you use Gentoo, you should assume you can't use it, just like you would if it was a mac program and you ran windows?
I guess that's fine, but then you need to get software developers who don't package their software for every distribution ever made to say their software will run on Linux.
Wow! Are you saying apt-get can automatically install programs that aren't even packaged for Debian now? Cause that's AWESOME! Or are you saying you're a fucking tool who replies to posts without reading them?
Going to wikipedia for factual information that needs to be accurate seems to me to be about as reliable as if some random person came up to you on the street and started telling you all about a particular subject, without telling you who they are, or how they know about it. I'm sure some or even most of the information is accurate, but wikipedia doesn't require you to demonstrate you're an expert in a topic to post about it, in fact I think they frown on experts in general.
I've used Linux quite a bit, and I like it. But I still like Windows better. And the point about Linux being hard to add things to is correct. It's easy to install things on Ubuntu? Sure, if someone wrote an installer package specifically for ubuntu. If you want something specialized, that hasn't been packaged for your distribution. It's a pain the ass.
Ok, you can commence with calling me a fanboi or say I'm astroturfing for M$ or whatever the hell stupid ass misspelling you people are using this week.
Slashdot Mirror
But the rampant misinformation on slashdot is okay?
But regardless, if you want to disagree that it's not "open", you can do so without being a douche bag about it and accusing the original poster of trying to perpetrate some sort of fraud. Jesus.
Each person with that kind of judgemental, elitist, narrow minded attitude makes me more likely to find a better place to work..
Your post reads like you've never thought to question any of the rhetoric associated with OSS. Have you ever heard of social engineering? How about the fact that you wouldn't need root privileges to install a keylogger on a user's account if you can get them to run a malicious program?
Are you going to try and suggest that if we all ran Linux that an exploit for MySQL wouldn't be just as bad as SQL slammer? There are plenty of applications which are installed on the vast majority of Linux systems, like the kernel, bash, XFree86, etc.. If one of those had a major security vulnerability how is the lack of a "monoculture" going to help you?
Just about everyone who posts something like what you did points out that most Linux users do not run under root. Guess what? That's because most of them are computer geeks like me, and I would assume you. I don't run Windows under my admin account and I don't run Linux under root. If the average user moves to Linux, they will probably end up running everything under root, because the average user doesn't want to deal with two logins and having to move from one to the other to do certain tasks. If you think somehow it will magically solve that problem because it's Linux, you're fooling yourself.
Unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility.. What percent of their membership will ever make enough that it would effect them? Less than one tenth of one percent I'd guess? If the studios could convince them it would benefit their profession as a whole by getting more movies made, or something like that, it's concievable.
Yeah, it's such a shame that once the XBOX 360 comes out, all lower cost systems will disappear from store shelves and any game systems people already own will stop working. I mean there is just no way for people without a lot of money to play video games now. And there should be other brands of cars besides Porsche and Jaguar, so regular people can afford to buy cars too.
Way to ignore all of the other meanings associated with the word gamer, apart just from someone who plays games. One of the first issues of the escapist had a good article about what it means to be a gamer.. Read it. Or maybe you already know that the term gamer means more than just someone who plays games, and you're just being a tool.
s/iPod/Linux/?
It seems to me like the threshold for Linux crap is much lower than the threshold for iPod crap getting on slashdot.
A huge chunk of the posts in this thread are about how stupid parents are and what I'd like to know is how many of the people who are up on their soapbox telling us how parents should be actually have kids, have any expertise in child development, or give them any particular basis for spouting off about it. Is it possible, that maybe, raising children is a little harder than people on slashdot want to pretend? Maybe most parents do ignore the video game ratings. Maybe it could be because there are many much more important things for them to worry about with regards to their children. Maybe some parents know their children are mature enough to be able to handle "adult" content.
Better yet.. how about you can play a mass murderer in the game, but afterwards, real guys dressed like police officers come to your house to beat a confession out of you.
Have you ever used it? It's definitely an inferior product to Office for Windows. Also, OSX has a higher desktop marketshare than Linux and all OSX users use the same GUI toolkit.
It would make it more likely, even if not very much more likely. And considering most Linux users attitudes about closed source software and especially Microsoft, I doubt they'd sell enough copies to turn a profit. Okay, I'll admit that maybe it's only the most vocal Linux users who scream at the top of their lungs to anyone who will listen about Micro$oft, but even so, considering Linux's small marketshare on the desktop and the fact that no matter which framework Microsoft used to write Linux native Office that someone (either KDE or Gnome users at least) would complain, I can't see Office for Linux as being a good business move.
Well, let's start by pointing out how bad your generalization is. First of all, there's a huge difference between building things for crafts and manufacturing things that are commodities. The difference in quality between the two things has little to do with the skill of the designer and more to do with the amount of time and cost involved. Comparing hand-crafted wood furniture made by a master woordworker to something I can go buy from a local department store in terms of quality is a worthless comparison. One cost orders of magnitute more effort to create, and would cost orders of magnitute more money to purhcase. On the other hand, I would be willing to bet that many more programmers hours have gone into writing and fine-tuning Microsoft Office than Open Office, and the cost of ownership isn't an order of magnitude difference in either direction.
In addition, all of the programmers I know are programmers because they want to be and like coding. We're not forced into slave labor by evil corporations. We take a lot of pride in our work.
Also, just about every good professional programmer I know is constantly trying to teach themselves knew and better ways to do things. On the other hand, huge numbers of OSS projects use backwards methodologies (such as insisting everything be done in C, or disallowing the STL for no reason other than they've heard it's bad). Plus many OSS projects are started because someone wants to write a piece of software that does a very specific task, than gradually expanded into a real project. But this eliminates the design phase (even if we allow that most OSS projects have one) which will not lead to improved software.
Can't you respond to any criticism of your MS views without calling people OSS fanatics or mentioning OSS religion?
I can, but why bother? You see, your whole original post was nothing more than attempting to wave away the oppositions arguments by calling them an apologist and calling their comment propaganda. I actually made some points, in addition to just showing my disdain for OSS apologists who don't care about facts when they don't fit their arguments. See the difference? No, I guess you wouldn't.
*Ahem* Did you preview your own post?
Yes, and I reread it again, and I still think my original post was an accurate critique of yours. I still fail to see how your original post, as well as now also your second post amounts to enough value to be worth the bandwidth you consumed sending it to slashdot. I consider the spam emails which are so convoluted that you can barely read them to be a more valuable use of bandwidth than anything you've said.
Can you back that up at all? People I've talked to who worked for Microsoft said it was a fantastic place to work.
Can't you MS apologists find some another choice of words in your anti OSS diatribes. Ever since Balmer first uttered the words "cobbled together" to describe open source, these words have been repeatedly used in MS propaganda ever since.
If the shoe fits, wear it. Most OSS software is written with little to no thought to creating elegant code, writing it so that it will fit together with a larger system, etc. Hey, speaking of inability to argue points well, can't you OSS fanatics respond to any criticism of your religion with something other than calling people MS apologists or fanboys or calling what they have to say propaganda?
Your post has absolutely no useful or interesting information. You just denounce someone because they don't degree with you, and you act self righteous about it. It doesn't bother you to spew this waste of storage bytes and bandwidth?
Yeah, damn Microsoft for not making a product that wouldn't make them a profit and would serve no function other than to help their competition.
Or maybe he'll just laugh and roll around in a huge pile of money and not care at all, even if this does harm XBOX's sales.
Plus don't take it as a given that OSX is going to run on the PS3 just because of this. This would mean creating new PPC machines during the Intel transition and creating a Mac that wasn't created by Apple.
Ok, if you don't like Microsoft, that's fine. But jesus christ, pull your head out of your ass. Did Amiga have easy to use wifi? No? Did Amiga have a media player, instant messaging program, or web server built in? Did it have 3D graphics? Did it have the accessibility features that Windows does? Was it's UI as easy to use as Windows' UI?Oh wait, this is slashdot, I forgot, the only acceptable UIs run on top of an X server, so Windows must suck. Did the Amiga have the ability to automatically play DVDs, connect to a digital camera, use almost any kind of computer hardware without any configuration? Oh, it didn't have any of those things? Then shut the fuck up. People on slashdot sure bitch about FUD a lot considering they spew it out 24 hours a day.
I don't see how being bound to a publisher is worse than being bound to a license/religion/whatever-you-want-to-call-oss. Generally if a publisher stops supporting your software, you buy new software. If developers lose interest in an oss project (though I'm sure that's NEVER happened) you either buy new software, or maintain your own software. Just because you can maintain your own software with OSS if you're willing to pay the programmers, doesn't mean it is an attractive solution to the vast majority of companies.
Do you really have to wonder about that one?
Maybe he's thinking of BMX XXX or whatever it whatever it was called... at least that had XXX in it's name and deserved an M rating.
I've read your second paragraph several times and I still don't know what it's supposed to mean. What does treating different distributions like different operating systems mean? That if something is only packaged in RPMs for Redhat and Fedora, if you use Gentoo, you should assume you can't use it, just like you would if it was a mac program and you ran windows?
I guess that's fine, but then you need to get software developers who don't package their software for every distribution ever made to say their software will run on Linux.
Wow! Are you saying apt-get can automatically install programs that aren't even packaged for Debian now? Cause that's AWESOME! Or are you saying you're a fucking tool who replies to posts without reading them?
Going to wikipedia for factual information that needs to be accurate seems to me to be about as reliable as if some random person came up to you on the street and started telling you all about a particular subject, without telling you who they are, or how they know about it. I'm sure some or even most of the information is accurate, but wikipedia doesn't require you to demonstrate you're an expert in a topic to post about it, in fact I think they frown on experts in general.
Ok, you can commence with calling me a fanboi or say I'm astroturfing for M$ or whatever the hell stupid ass misspelling you people are using this week.
After years of reading slashdot, I finally see a post I want to mod up and I don't have any mod points.