An interesting thing happened in my Object Oriented Programming Class for IS majors -- a discussion about open source software. In fact, the professor said that from an education stand point, OSS is much better. He went on to say that the reason that the Department choose to teach Java over.Net is because of the cost to students -- in other words, they felt that using OSS would allow students to fully explore Object Oriented Programing beyond the scope of the class. Further, the teachers (yes plural) pointed out that Linux is a better web server. The other interesting thing today was that the teachers said that they want to teach us IS and programming independent of platform by using Java. That way we would not be locked into a certain platform for solutions and make us more marketable.
Just an interesting thing to point out. Because if Microsoft is to succeed in their FUD, they are targetting the wrong people. When education circles are embracing OSS, it is only a matter of time before it gets trickled down to buisness. Also, when people get farmiliar with an OSS solution, when they are employed they are more likely to deploy something that they know.
I am wondering here if the same people that are trading music online is nothing more than a new forum for trading music. I remember in high school friends lending others a CD or providing a CD or tape copy of the CD. When I was a senior in HS the whole MP3 thing really started and people would give others MP3 CD's. Granted, HS is a small sampling, but the comclusion that I have reached is that the people who will pirate just have a new forum; instead of relying on contacts and friends, people rely on people on the internet. Technology has allowed would-be pirates to get the "goods" online rather than in more traditional forums.
The second point is how on earth would people give that many CD's to each other? Four? That is a little excessive. Maybe I am speaking from my US perspective, but four is a lot, considering out of all the people I know, I had only ONE friend give two CD's to his girl friend. No one else would give a recordable CD. Personally, unless it was some sort of romantic mix I would think that giving a CD as a gift that you mixed would be cheap.
No, anything that has the terms, "BSD is Dead," "goatse.cx," and "In SOVIET Russia," should be parsed through the lameness filter. And anything with refrences to sexual encounters with animals should be simply run to/dev/null. The GNAA is just flat out offensive. The thing that blows my mind is why someone would spend the time to actually produce such dribble. I mean, on my time off I usually go do a little FreeBSD hacking (on my own machines) and enjoy a movie, or something. But I would never sit down and write about how to get a Mare all hot and bothered, or about the GNAA. And I more disturbed that such people are allowed to post such messages.
This is a great addition nontheless. If you can hide your SID then some warfaring punk can't find you easy. But then again you probably are using WEP or WPA or whatever the encyrption of the week is, so that is a nonissue.
Now, I would be impressed if more wireless cards were supported. I am getting sick and tired of using my windows machine to down load my FreeBSD software toys.
The way that the photographers could get around this is to license their works -- pull what the music and software industry does. Then, NGS and other magizines that get a wild hair and want to do something like put the articles on a CD-Rom would not have rights to use the photos but a license. Then the photographers would have to include a provision saying that the photos are licensed for printing on paper only with express language stating that CD-Rom's and online libraries are not allowed with out another license.
Now, whether or not the people using the photos will agree is another story. But the main thing is that it would chill such behavior.
Doesn't the photographers have some sort of Gild that protects their intrests in cases like this? I am not saying that I agree with their position; I could actually care less. But it seems like a little creative laywering could stop cases like this from ever reaching the courts.
Due to some family illness, my sister was in charge of the festivities. And so I awoke this morning to find Coal in my stocking. First time for everything? But she made up for it with a wireless keyboard and mouse combination as well as a switch and tv tuner card. Heck, with a haul like that for Christmas, I'll take coal any day...
Yeah, try to go to Best Buy and get your full money out of it. I think that they will try to get $15 or some restocking fee out of you since it is "open." My experience with returning products, even when the manufactor said to has been less than pleasurable.
Good luck....TiVo it is!
In a case where someone really does have the rights, who cares? I mean, it is there property, and just because they want to collect on it, is there right. Now if it was SCO, then I could see some room for complaint. But if the disk makers decide to move to some other format, that is fine. But in my mind, I don't see the big issue.
If it means anything, as the author of the post your are trashing, I understand and respect your position. And frankly I think that your comments are insightful themselves. So well I disagree, frankly, I am disappointed that you were modded down.
Well, anyone with half of a brain cell and the logic abilities of a four year old can figure out that the SCO lawsuit is a bunch of hog-wash. Seriously, any large scale deployments of Linux will not be deterred because of the cost. Who would get the money? If SCO does win (and we all know that SCO winning is like betting that a snow ball can survive five minute in hell) then they might be forced to pay out IF SCO finds out about the deployment before there is a conversion over to one of the BSD's. Also a compitent admin can hide a Linux machine from looking like a Linux machine on the internet.
But all this does not really matter. What matters is that the public statments SCO has made do not add to there case but take away. IBM has been smart and kept their mouth shut. If you notice, the more SCO talks, the more bad press they get. When this whole fiasco started, SCO was blabbing away, and IBM kept quiet. Then IBM counter-sued and kept moving. While SCO started to cry foul. Now even the NYTimes has picked up on the merritless nature of their case. More and more editorials are not boading well for them. So even the non-geeks are getting into it.
But still, Darl did get a place on the top 25 CEO's. And there is still some favorable press. However, by and by, it looks like SCO shot themselves in the foot by refusing to keep their mouth shut, substaniate their claims and by alienating a lot of people.
Well, further analysis revealed, suprise, nothing new.
In fact, the only thing that I was able to tell is that Linux has nothing to be tainting it or SCO is blowing a lot of smoke -- which we already new.
I took three kernels -- 2.4.20, 2.4.21, and 2.4.22 and compared errno.h, ioctl.h and signal.h. In all three cases, each and every one of the kernel's uses the exact same files. Further comparison reveal that there are differences between 2.4 and the 2.5 and 2.6 for signal.h and ioctl.h. But with the errno.h files there was some structural and organizational differences. But in 2.3.50, 2.3.51, 2.4.20, 2.4.21, 2.4.22, 2.4.23, 2.5.0, and 2.6.0... the errno.h files are the same. (Note, that the only difference is one comment, arg vs. argument.)
Now, to throw some light on objectivity, I am a FreeBSD fan that is just as pissed off with the SCO lawsuits. In fact I want to see SCO destroyed. So I ran the 2.4.21 kernel verse the FreeBSD 5.2 errno.h -- and suprise! they are completely different files. (Heck, I even felt a little wierd downloading and untaring Linux kernels on my FreeBSD box) Enough so that error numbers are completely different. Note that SCO claims that the Linux errno.h was included in the BSD settlement. Well, I am no expert on computer science, but to me those are two different files, with different arrangments and different variables.
You know, SCO should have tried to pull this off when a lot of people didn't have broadband. In the past day, I have download about 300mb in Kernel files. But with the mindshare of a million+ people, no expert is going to be able to out expert that many people. I am just a 23-year old IS major, and if I can find this, then surely there is a major hole in the case. Either I have really over-simplified this case or it is this easy. And frankly, SCO is really looking to have it. The simplisity of the evidence is what is going to destroy SCO. With all the Kernel's freely avaiable, then they are going to die.
Linus commented that he himself remembers writing those files. Well, thanks to Kernel.org and a little too much time on my hands, I did a little exploring. Kernel 2.6.0 has errno.h in two files. To make my life a little easier, I combined the two files, errno.h and errno-base.h. In Kernel 2.3.50 it is one file.
Well, as we know, SCO is claiming that 2.4.21 is the kernel that started with the problems. If that is the case, assuming that SCO actually has a case then we have a problem.
But the thing is that the errno.h and errno-base.h in 2.6.0 and the errno.h in 2.3.50 have only one difference other than being split up and the appropriate location indicators. The only difference is: #define E2BIG 7/*Argument list too long*/ -- 2.6.0 #define E2BIG 7/*Arg list too long*/ -- 2.3.50
I obtained this by using diff. So a simple utility disproves SCO's claim on that ground. Also, you will notice that the Kernel v. 0.01 has only 39 error numbers. They are also included, with the same error numbers in the current 2.3.50 and the 2.6.0 files. A cursory look revealed that 2.4.23 has the same errno.h err codes.
So when Linus says that he wrote them there is proof. Further, since 2.4.21 is the infected one, what is the difference between 2.3.50 and 2.4.23 and the comments. Surely SCO can not be so stupid as to say that comments are a cause for action -- the end user does not even see nor are they accessable to the end user unless they have the source.
Linus commented that he himself remembers writing those files. Well, thanks to Kernel.org and a little too much time on my hands, I did a little exploring.
Kernel 2.6.0 has errno.h in two files. To make my life a little easier, I combined the two files, errno.h and errno-base.h. In Kernel 2.3.50 it is one file.
Well, as we know, SCO is claiming that 2.4.21 is the kernel that started with the problems. If that is the case, assuming that SCO actually has a case then we have a problem.
But the thing is that the errno.h and errno-base.h in 2.6.0 and the errno.h in 2.3.50 have only one difference other than being split up and the appropriate location indicators. THe only difference is: #define E2BIG 7/*Argument list too long*/ #define E2BIG 7/*Arg list too long*/
So if you buy SCO's argument they are saying that a comment is to blame on this. Again, this is an SCO FUD campaign, but come on.
What we need to do is a distributed buy out -- have every Linux user buy one or two or ten shares of stock from SCO -- privalaged with voting rights. But then it would not be a buy out perse, because it will not be a single entity doing the buy out. It will be individuals that do it and therefore not subject to the buy out clause.
With a distributed buy out, then we simply call a stock-holders meeting. To which we propose that we are going to raze the company from within. With Darl at the meeting, then the Linux users vote to opensource all the SCO source code -- every single bit of it. Well Darl is still in shock, we vote to have Darl booted with the whole board. As Darl is picking up the bricks he just dropped out of his pants then we vote to dissolve the company.
The way I figure is that if we get half of the/. community and the Linux users to spend a little money then we could dispatch this company to/dev/null.
The best part is that since it is no company but a group of stock holders that are really pissed off it is not illegal. How? Because it is not a hostile take over, and it is not the actions of one entity, but in this case the actions of several thousand people -- who hold interest in the company -- making the decisions to Enron it.
ANYBODY else wonder what is going on with the laywers? I mean, SCO forked out $9 Million to pay for laywers, and then the laywers don't even show up to oral arguments for the Motion to Compel from IBM. Does this make sense to anyone else? Or am I the only confused one? Is Darl's brother Kevin earning some serious money here that maybe we should know about? And who is this Tibbit's guy? I don't know about you but I am thinking that SCO is using the term "laywer" pretty liberally.
If you remember way back when there was some discussion about the SCO NDA -- which if Linus et al, were to sign would make it so that they could not even participate in the Linux process. So the even bigger issue is that they offered to show but the restrictions on the showing were so severe that no say developer would ever sign the documents.
Actually, some dude did sue God a few years ago in 1999. The Federal Judge ruled that the suit was frivolious. But as I recall, the Judge said that as God is the Soveriegn of the Universe, he has no power to compel, besides the fact that the suit was frivolous.
So since God made light, the courts don't have the authority -- or so they ruled.
Actually in anti-trust proceedings they just have to prove that M$ is engaging in anti-competitive practices by distributing Windows Media player. Real does not have to prove a fitness of use -- becaues that is not the issue. The issue is that the contracts which M$ has with vendors excludes Real Media from being able to compete, and thus the issue is that Real can not be installed on OEM computers. Whether or not Real sucks is a moot point.
That is why Microsoft has such a diverse product line. In there anti-trust proceedings they stated that in the technology sector the ruling king may not be the ruling king later. As the Linux transformation happens and more people start to run Linux, they may even release a Linux MS Office. Frankly, in terms of survivability, they might be better of releasing a Linux MS Office, becuase then they would be the most advanced game in town for an office suite. But they won't do it for a while.
Also, they are talking about in the next versions of Windows introducing some new API's including a competitor to Flash called Sparkle. Then they are going to use the new API's for internet web sites -- to force people who want to have the full internet experience to use Windows. But ultimately that is just going to piss people off. In fact, if you read the specs for Windows XP SP2 you see that for all intensive purpouses it is a completely different operating system. Some of the stuff is great, but some of the stuff ticks me off. For example some of the older programs will not run on XP/SP2, and of course some new programs will require XP/SP2. Why? Because they are talking about a seperation of a data and executable code in memory (prevents virus's and malicous code from being run). Which is a good thing -- it is very needed. But by calling it a SP people will download it and not realize that some of the programs which they have installed will not work.
Anyhow, if your bored, it is a good read to entertain yourself.
I understand the whole idea, however, I maintain my position. However, it does not add to the whole/. experience when you have mod points and the whole dicussions for that day are way above your head or it is all Apple stuff. Honestly, how can you moderate a discussion if you don't care about the topic?
Now some moderator accountability would be nice. It would make life really nice. I like the idea of knowing who moderated you what. That might make some moderators think twice. But that is what Meta Moderating is all about I guess. I also got an off-topic moderation when the parent had been moderated up. Oh well.
Personally we ought to do away with the "Use or Loss 'Em" policy -- why? Because sometimes people just don't have the time to use them, or they don't want to use them on the dicussions that are avialbe for the those three days. Point in case -- I lost a couple mod points because I did not want to mod a weekend discussion, since there was nothing going on (it was a weekend when the articles were not personally interesting to me) At least, they ought to give a longer time to mod so that you can take your time and puruse when you have the time. Rushing people gets the first posts points, and those with something intellegent, don't have the opportunity.
At the very least, give the mod points out and then have it so people can not get more mod points until they have used the ones they have. I think then people will get moderated in a way that will reflect the quality of a comment.
They may have been in response to my ISP, Cox Communication. Cox (prefered pronouncation as Cocks) advertised 3 Mbit download, so I think that it may be related as your said for competition. But out in the Centreville area, they are the only game in town.
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An interesting thing happened in my Object Oriented Programming Class for IS majors -- a discussion about open source software. In fact, the professor said that from an education stand point, OSS is much better. He went on to say that the reason that the Department choose to teach Java over .Net is because of the cost to students -- in other words, they felt that using OSS would allow students to fully explore Object Oriented Programing beyond the scope of the class. Further, the teachers (yes plural) pointed out that Linux is a better web server. The other interesting thing today was that the teachers said that they want to teach us IS and programming independent of platform by using Java. That way we would not be locked into a certain platform for solutions and make us more marketable.
Just an interesting thing to point out. Because if Microsoft is to succeed in their FUD, they are targetting the wrong people. When education circles are embracing OSS, it is only a matter of time before it gets trickled down to buisness. Also, when people get farmiliar with an OSS solution, when they are employed they are more likely to deploy something that they know.
I am wondering here if the same people that are trading music online is nothing more than a new forum for trading music. I remember in high school friends lending others a CD or providing a CD or tape copy of the CD. When I was a senior in HS the whole MP3 thing really started and people would give others MP3 CD's. Granted, HS is a small sampling, but the comclusion that I have reached is that the people who will pirate just have a new forum; instead of relying on contacts and friends, people rely on people on the internet. Technology has allowed would-be pirates to get the "goods" online rather than in more traditional forums.
The second point is how on earth would people give that many CD's to each other? Four? That is a little excessive. Maybe I am speaking from my US perspective, but four is a lot, considering out of all the people I know, I had only ONE friend give two CD's to his girl friend. No one else would give a recordable CD. Personally, unless it was some sort of romantic mix I would think that giving a CD as a gift that you mixed would be cheap.
Something tells me that the testing center is going to get one of these things real fast --
Testing Center Employee: "Excuse me sir, we have detected that you are using a Palm Pilot to access 'TestAnswers.com'"
Me: "Ah crap!" (Beeline for the door.)
No, anything that has the terms, "BSD is Dead," "goatse.cx," and "In SOVIET Russia," should be parsed through the lameness filter. And anything with refrences to sexual encounters with animals should be simply run to /dev/null. The GNAA is just flat out offensive. The thing that blows my mind is why someone would spend the time to actually produce such dribble. I mean, on my time off I usually go do a little FreeBSD hacking (on my own machines) and enjoy a movie, or something. But I would never sit down and write about how to get a Mare all hot and bothered, or about the GNAA. And I more disturbed that such people are allowed to post such messages.
This is a great addition nontheless. If you can hide your SID then some warfaring punk can't find you easy. But then again you probably are using WEP or WPA or whatever the encyrption of the week is, so that is a nonissue. Now, I would be impressed if more wireless cards were supported. I am getting sick and tired of using my windows machine to down load my FreeBSD software toys.
The way that the photographers could get around this is to license their works -- pull what the music and software industry does. Then, NGS and other magizines that get a wild hair and want to do something like put the articles on a CD-Rom would not have rights to use the photos but a license. Then the photographers would have to include a provision saying that the photos are licensed for printing on paper only with express language stating that CD-Rom's and online libraries are not allowed with out another license.
Now, whether or not the people using the photos will agree is another story. But the main thing is that it would chill such behavior.
Doesn't the photographers have some sort of Gild that protects their intrests in cases like this? I am not saying that I agree with their position; I could actually care less. But it seems like a little creative laywering could stop cases like this from ever reaching the courts.
Due to some family illness, my sister was in charge of the festivities. And so I awoke this morning to find Coal in my stocking. First time for everything? But she made up for it with a wireless keyboard and mouse combination as well as a switch and tv tuner card. Heck, with a haul like that for Christmas, I'll take coal any day...
Yeah, try to go to Best Buy and get your full money out of it. I think that they will try to get $15 or some restocking fee out of you since it is "open." My experience with returning products, even when the manufactor said to has been less than pleasurable. Good luck....TiVo it is!
In a case where someone really does have the rights, who cares? I mean, it is there property, and just because they want to collect on it, is there right. Now if it was SCO, then I could see some room for complaint. But if the disk makers decide to move to some other format, that is fine. But in my mind, I don't see the big issue.
If it means anything, as the author of the post your are trashing, I understand and respect your position. And frankly I think that your comments are insightful themselves. So well I disagree, frankly, I am disappointed that you were modded down.
Well, anyone with half of a brain cell and the logic abilities of a four year old can figure out that the SCO lawsuit is a bunch of hog-wash. Seriously, any large scale deployments of Linux will not be deterred because of the cost. Who would get the money? If SCO does win (and we all know that SCO winning is like betting that a snow ball can survive five minute in hell) then they might be forced to pay out IF SCO finds out about the deployment before there is a conversion over to one of the BSD's. Also a compitent admin can hide a Linux machine from looking like a Linux machine on the internet.
But all this does not really matter. What matters is that the public statments SCO has made do not add to there case but take away. IBM has been smart and kept their mouth shut. If you notice, the more SCO talks, the more bad press they get. When this whole fiasco started, SCO was blabbing away, and IBM kept quiet. Then IBM counter-sued and kept moving. While SCO started to cry foul. Now even the NYTimes has picked up on the merritless nature of their case. More and more editorials are not boading well for them. So even the non-geeks are getting into it.
But still, Darl did get a place on the top 25 CEO's. And there is still some favorable press. However, by and by, it looks like SCO shot themselves in the foot by refusing to keep their mouth shut, substaniate their claims and by alienating a lot of people.
Well, further analysis revealed, suprise, nothing new.
In fact, the only thing that I was able to tell is that Linux has nothing to be tainting it or SCO is blowing a lot of smoke -- which we already new.
I took three kernels -- 2.4.20, 2.4.21, and 2.4.22 and compared errno.h, ioctl.h and signal.h. In all three cases, each and every one of the kernel's uses the exact same files. Further comparison reveal that there are differences between 2.4 and the 2.5 and 2.6 for signal.h and ioctl.h. But with the errno.h files there was some structural and organizational differences. But in 2.3.50, 2.3.51, 2.4.20, 2.4.21, 2.4.22, 2.4.23, 2.5.0, and 2.6.0... the errno.h files are the same. (Note, that the only difference is one comment, arg vs. argument.)
Now, to throw some light on objectivity, I am a FreeBSD fan that is just as pissed off with the SCO lawsuits. In fact I want to see SCO destroyed. So I ran the 2.4.21 kernel verse the FreeBSD 5.2 errno.h -- and suprise! they are completely different files. (Heck, I even felt a little wierd downloading and untaring Linux kernels on my FreeBSD box) Enough so that error numbers are completely different. Note that SCO claims that the Linux errno.h was included in the BSD settlement. Well, I am no expert on computer science, but to me those are two different files, with different arrangments and different variables.
You know, SCO should have tried to pull this off when a lot of people didn't have broadband. In the past day, I have download about 300mb in Kernel files. But with the mindshare of a million+ people, no expert is going to be able to out expert that many people. I am just a 23-year old IS major, and if I can find this, then surely there is a major hole in the case. Either I have really over-simplified this case or it is this easy. And frankly, SCO is really looking to have it. The simplisity of the evidence is what is going to destroy SCO. With all the Kernel's freely avaiable, then they are going to die.
Enjoy peoples!
Linus commented that he himself remembers writing those files. Well, thanks to Kernel.org and a little too much time on my hands, I did a little exploring. Kernel 2.6.0 has errno.h in two files. To make my life a little easier, I combined the two files, errno.h and errno-base.h. In Kernel 2.3.50 it is one file.
/*Argument list too long*/ -- 2.6.0 /*Arg list too long*/ -- 2.3.50
Well, as we know, SCO is claiming that 2.4.21 is the kernel that started with the problems. If that is the case, assuming that SCO actually has a case then we have a problem.
But the thing is that the errno.h and errno-base.h in 2.6.0 and the errno.h in 2.3.50 have only one difference other than being split up and the appropriate location indicators. The only difference is:
#define E2BIG 7
#define E2BIG 7
I obtained this by using diff. So a simple utility disproves SCO's claim on that ground. Also, you will notice that the Kernel v. 0.01 has only 39 error numbers. They are also included, with the same error numbers in the current 2.3.50 and the 2.6.0 files. A cursory look revealed that 2.4.23 has the same errno.h err codes.
So when Linus says that he wrote them there is proof. Further, since 2.4.21 is the infected one, what is the difference between 2.3.50 and 2.4.23 and the comments. Surely SCO can not be so stupid as to say that comments are a cause for action -- the end user does not even see nor are they accessable to the end user unless they have the source.
Linus commented that he himself remembers writing those files. Well, thanks to Kernel.org and a little too much time on my hands, I did a little exploring.
/*Argument list too long*/ /*Arg list too long*/
Kernel 2.6.0 has errno.h in two files. To make my life a little easier, I combined the two files, errno.h and errno-base.h. In Kernel 2.3.50 it is one file.
Well, as we know, SCO is claiming that 2.4.21 is the kernel that started with the problems. If that is the case, assuming that SCO actually has a case then we have a problem.
But the thing is that the errno.h and errno-base.h in 2.6.0 and the errno.h in 2.3.50 have only one difference other than being split up and the appropriate location indicators. THe only difference is:
#define E2BIG 7
#define E2BIG 7
So if you buy SCO's argument they are saying that a comment is to blame on this. Again, this is an SCO FUD campaign, but come on.
Thanks to diff for the comparision.
What we need to do is a distributed buy out -- have every Linux user buy one or two or ten shares of stock from SCO -- privalaged with voting rights. But then it would not be a buy out perse, because it will not be a single entity doing the buy out. It will be individuals that do it and therefore not subject to the buy out clause.
/. community and the Linux users to spend a little money then we could dispatch this company to /dev/null.
With a distributed buy out, then we simply call a stock-holders meeting. To which we propose that we are going to raze the company from within. With Darl at the meeting, then the Linux users vote to opensource all the SCO source code -- every single bit of it. Well Darl is still in shock, we vote to have Darl booted with the whole board. As Darl is picking up the bricks he just dropped out of his pants then we vote to dissolve the company.
The way I figure is that if we get half of the
The best part is that since it is no company but a group of stock holders that are really pissed off it is not illegal. How? Because it is not a hostile take over, and it is not the actions of one entity, but in this case the actions of several thousand people -- who hold interest in the company -- making the decisions to Enron it.
ANYBODY else wonder what is going on with the laywers? I mean, SCO forked out $9 Million to pay for laywers, and then the laywers don't even show up to oral arguments for the Motion to Compel from IBM. Does this make sense to anyone else? Or am I the only confused one? Is Darl's brother Kevin earning some serious money here that maybe we should know about? And who is this Tibbit's guy? I don't know about you but I am thinking that SCO is using the term "laywer" pretty liberally.
If you remember way back when there was some discussion about the SCO NDA -- which if Linus et al, were to sign would make it so that they could not even participate in the Linux process. So the even bigger issue is that they offered to show but the restrictions on the showing were so severe that no say developer would ever sign the documents.
Man, I wish I made batteries. I would make one for the iPod and charge half as much. I think that I could make a fortune.
Actually, some dude did sue God a few years ago in 1999. The Federal Judge ruled that the suit was frivolious. But as I recall, the Judge said that as God is the Soveriegn of the Universe, he has no power to compel, besides the fact that the suit was frivolous.
So since God made light, the courts don't have the authority -- or so they ruled.
Actually in anti-trust proceedings they just have to prove that M$ is engaging in anti-competitive practices by distributing Windows Media player. Real does not have to prove a fitness of use -- becaues that is not the issue. The issue is that the contracts which M$ has with vendors excludes Real Media from being able to compete, and thus the issue is that Real can not be installed on OEM computers. Whether or not Real sucks is a moot point.
Oh, I was not complaining or belly acking. I was just expressing my opinion. That is all.
That is why Microsoft has such a diverse product line. In there anti-trust proceedings they stated that in the technology sector the ruling king may not be the ruling king later. As the Linux transformation happens and more people start to run Linux, they may even release a Linux MS Office. Frankly, in terms of survivability, they might be better of releasing a Linux MS Office, becuase then they would be the most advanced game in town for an office suite. But they won't do it for a while.
Also, they are talking about in the next versions of Windows introducing some new API's including a competitor to Flash called Sparkle. Then they are going to use the new API's for internet web sites -- to force people who want to have the full internet experience to use Windows. But ultimately that is just going to piss people off. In fact, if you read the specs for Windows XP SP2 you see that for all intensive purpouses it is a completely different operating system. Some of the stuff is great, but some of the stuff ticks me off. For example some of the older programs will not run on XP/SP2, and of course some new programs will require XP/SP2. Why? Because they are talking about a seperation of a data and executable code in memory (prevents virus's and malicous code from being run). Which is a good thing -- it is very needed. But by calling it a SP people will download it and not realize that some of the programs which they have installed will not work.
Anyhow, if your bored, it is a good read to entertain yourself.
I understand the whole idea, however, I maintain my position. However, it does not add to the whole /. experience when you have mod points and the whole dicussions for that day are way above your head or it is all Apple stuff. Honestly, how can you moderate a discussion if you don't care about the topic?
Now some moderator accountability would be nice. It would make life really nice. I like the idea of knowing who moderated you what. That might make some moderators think twice. But that is what Meta Moderating is all about I guess. I also got an off-topic moderation when the parent had been moderated up. Oh well.
Do you get feed-back from Meta Moderations?
Personally we ought to do away with the "Use or Loss 'Em" policy -- why? Because sometimes people just don't have the time to use them, or they don't want to use them on the dicussions that are avialbe for the those three days. Point in case -- I lost a couple mod points because I did not want to mod a weekend discussion, since there was nothing going on (it was a weekend when the articles were not personally interesting to me) At least, they ought to give a longer time to mod so that you can take your time and puruse when you have the time. Rushing people gets the first posts points, and those with something intellegent, don't have the opportunity.
At the very least, give the mod points out and then have it so people can not get more mod points until they have used the ones they have. I think then people will get moderated in a way that will reflect the quality of a comment.
They may have been in response to my ISP, Cox Communication. Cox (prefered pronouncation as Cocks) advertised 3 Mbit download, so I think that it may be related as your said for competition. But out in the Centreville area, they are the only game in town.