----- 2. Documentation ----- Go ahead. Pick on Documentation. Just one more time. I dare you. I double dare you.
But before you do... please provide one example where any comparable situation can be solved in Windows.
If this is about documentation for OpenOffice then, for pete's sake, don't people know how to type on a keyboard yet?
If this is about documentation for a particular command... Oh wait, Windows is point and click. The user doesn't use commands and, with today's blessing of KDE and Gnome, they don't need typed commands with Linux either.
And tell me how the help command is better than any man page. At best they're equivalent and this whole whining about "Linux doesn't have good documentation" is completely crap propagated by a corporate bung-sucker whose end-of-year goal is "to increase public awareness of the benefits of commercial software".
----- The developer responsible for documentation must make sure tasks performed . .. ----- You are on more CRACK than I have ever seen in my LIFE.
If the user can't figure out how to use the program by reading three pages in "man" then the user is a) using the wrong effing program for the task or b) a blithering idiot. Don't blame the toolbox or the tools because the user is a moron.
That said, *NIX/*BSD still have readily available documentation that is decades ahead of anything that MS or Lotus provides. It's called www.tldp.org. Go ahead, whine because the docs don't make sense. Did you consider the possibility that maybe you're not competent?
Pure BULL-CR-DOG-P00P to ease the conscience of everyone that spends all day at a computer.
----- then you're spending less time making the computer do things the way that you want them done, and you're wasting everybody's time. ----- What do you really do with a computer? You write e-mail, surf the web, maybe print a page? All of this can be accomplished in under 5 minutes. You want to write a scientific thesis? SPEND MORE TIME IN THE LAB AND LESS TIME AT YOUR COMPUTER PLAYING EFFING SOLITAIRE! You can write a thesis just fine in any standard text editor. The only formatting you need to do is for the title and the index.
Can someone please honestly state why Windows is so appealing other than it gives everyone an excuse to be wasting time?
What in the H-E-double-TOOTHPICKS do you want Wordperfect for? Are you addicted to one particular piece of software?
If you want to type a real memo, use a text editor. If you're hung up on fancy fonts and pizzazz and glitter then go write a webpage and print it out from Mozilla.
Oh, I forgot. You're one of those "please! hand-hold me and spoon feed my butt with sugar coated plum" types.
----- Linux in 1998 and over the past six years the UI has improved... (KDE, Gnome, ect.) is still not as clean as Windows ----- Look, if you want to watch TV, then GO WATCH TV. If you want to use a computer, then USE A COMPUTER.
What do you do with your computer? You read e-mail, you surf the web, maybe you print, maybe you type documents, maybe you use a spreadsheet, maybe you do your taxes or check your stocks (through an http interface). You play games which come with their own user interface. You don't need Windows, KDE, or Gnome for any of this crap.
Quit spilling this "mature OS" crap. Maybe user's should be more mature about what they actually use a box for. Enough with the hand holding and the virtual blowjob. If they want a WP, it's there, regardless of the WM. If they want a spreadsheet, it's there, regardless of the WM. If they want a database, it's there, regardless of the WM.
Are you getting my point? Catching my drift? Or am I being too obtuse?
OpenOffice has a lightbulb helper. I almost puked.
And you want to talk about documentation? How is a bad AI paperclip equivalent to providing decent documentation on a well-structured program? We wouldn't need a frickin' paperclip or other AI character if they'd quit stuffing the d**n program full of useless features that get in the way.
----- You only open them up when you have problems or need to do something. ----- The MS documentation isn't opened even then. The first reaction is to call the corporate help line. 99% of home users can't even find their original CDs, much less the documentation.
----- Besides, OS software install length runs into the years. How many patches go into it and the various smaller apps it comes with within that time span? ----- If you're going to talk about install length in terms of patches, I'm still installing patches for Win98 you dumb MS-zombie sod. You can't add patches to install time for Linux and correlate it to the base CD install of Windows. Not meaningfully. If you work in marketing, then okay. You're doing your job well (spreading BULL-SH-DOG-P00).
----- Online docsOnline docs that can be downloaded ----- Go ahead, make me laugh. No one in the Windows world actually reads documentation unless their job is IT. If it doesn't appeal to them in point and click fashion they call the help desk.
----- Look at it another way - if not printing all the manuals with the product alows the vendor employ a couple more programmers leading to a better product or a shorter launch date, it's well worth it. ----- It's called www.tldp.org you ignorant MS zombie. I've got 6 x 3" x 3 ring black binders full of documentation and, if people would get past their EasyIntallLinux helper apps (like rpm and deb) there isn't anything that those binders won't tell you about the Linux OS.
man owns MS from now 'til the US sinks into the ocean.
The "documentation" argument? What documentation argument?
My documentation isn't "idiot friendly", but it sure beats the sheer absence of documentation with Windows. Have you read the Windows user's manual? Does anyone except the office "wannabecool" actually keep the documentation for MSOffice within reaching distance? I have 100% disdain for those effing water-cooler nimwits that think they're going to impress anyone just because they have the bound books for Access, Word, Powerpoint, and Works on their shelf. Dust them for fingerprints. The darn things never get touched.
You know how I know they never get touched? Because companies PAY FOR OUTSIDE MENTORS TO COME IN AND OFFER 1 HOUR PRIMER COURSES ON HOW TO USE EVERY FRIGGIN' MS APP!
'nuff said.
man kicks MS butt six ways to Sunday and then some left over for lunch.
Have you read the user's manual for Windows lately? Oh wait... did you even get one?
For effs sake. This documentation issue is complete crap. We're going to match documentation which isn't "idiot friendly" vs. documentation which is nonexistant?
What prevents this from being done using your cell phone (which you carry with you in the car)already? All cell phones must, by law, have 911 locating capability...
A receiver has a tuning and resonant frequency. With the proper equipment and technical specs anyone can scan an emag range, listen for the feedback, and use a solid state receiver as a transmitter.
Microsoft has competitors? Where? If MS could provide a clean, secure product then I wouldn't care if they were the only product. I don't have a problem with a good wheel, or the perfect blender, or the perfect Mountain Dew.
MS has competitors in the free software community, maybe, but I did state that I believe free software is "at your own risk".
----- They aren't charging for it, so by your rules, they couldn't be held liable for it ----- Is their startup backed by a government business loan? How about publicly traded stocks or bonds which come from public 401k funds? How about money that comes from loan sharks who get that money from public banking institutions? In any of those cases the WhenU software is _not_ free because the consumer paid to start the company.
The large majority of open software comes from private individuals writing the software in their free time. Some of it comes from government research grants.
That's my favorite part. If you follow the money trail on a company like WhenU it goes to a number of business heads having dinner with politicians. If you follow the money trail on an organization like FSF it goes to a large pool of people who are using it to write useful and productive software that doesn't rely on being invasive, subversive, or try to fall back on technical EULAs to justify its existence.
An end to the legal protection of an EULA would encourage MS, though the threat of impending lawsuits, to release products that cannot be so easily exploited. Hopefully the lawyers would pursue this only for software which is paid for. No one should be held liable for providing free software. Free software is "at your own risk". If a user pays for software, however, the software provider should be liable.
An EULA essentially grants the "at your own risk" protection to a paid-for product. Aircraft manufacturers like Boeing could get rich if they could slap an EULA on the 747.
----- Amendment 10 give power to the States to make new laws as long as they do not step on Federal law ----- Amendment 10 says not delegated to the feds nor prohibited to it by the states. Contrary to federal belief State law preempts federal law if there's a conflict.
Good luck making it stick in court though. The feds get a bigger chunk of taxpayer dollars than any individual state.
----- We simply need to pass a law to remove the power of the EULA ----- You've got it right, but backwards.
We've got to REPEAL the laws which ensure the powers of the EULA.
Remember: More laws = "bad" Laws are diretly related to abuse Fewer laws = "good" There are fewer technical loopholes for abuses.
The rights always started in the hands of the consumers and the citizens. It was the act of passing more laws which handed those rights out to corporations and vaporous entities.
Rather than happily trotting down the road of legislating ourselves to death and enacting new laws which will, inevitably, be twisted around to imprison some poor old grandmother who's establishing an online outlet for her counted cross-stitch work . ..
Why don't states like Utah spend more time lobbying the Feds to repeal all of the laws which funnel taxpayer dollars into these corrupt startups? Why don't states like Utah spend more time repealing laws which protect companies like MS when they release products which have "exploit me and my user base" written all over them? It's always easier to pass more laws. America is going to legislate itself into a corner where everyone can be construed as doing something illegal at any time.
I hate spam and adware as much as the next honest citizen but it's very predictable the way the politicians and business owners run this dog and pony show and run off with our money year after year after year.
----- If the slave had to sign a document that made it ok for him to be a slave, then I imagine slaves would never willingly do this ----- My experience is that the situation would be approximated in this fashion,"Sign the papers or take your chances with the wild indians out there. You won't get a better deal from anyone else within a month's walk."
This is the same as present day America. "Sign these papers or take your chances on the open job market. I hear McDonald's is hiring."
I'm suddenly reminded of Qui-Gon Jinn in Episode I trying to buy a new engine from Watto. America the beautiful isn't really any different for all the pretty rhetoric that the politicians have.
If a husband says "have sex" and his wife says "no" and he forces her then he is still legally accountable for sexual assault. If a company says "sign this" and the employee says "no" the company is not liable for wrongful termination. This is only legal because power currently takes precedence over rights. In that case why are citizens ever deluded into thinking that they have rights? Who would ever refuse a consent form to be monitored if the implicit alternative was to get a "dangerous driving" ticket every time they pulled out of their parking lot? The "dangerous driving" may be disproved in court, though the police typically get the benefit of the doubt, but the constant harassment alone will have more of a toll than the ticket.
----- You have no fundamental right not to be recorded ----- If we start from here then anything else comes down to "how long has the ink been dry on that?" or "how many speeding tickets do we need to write to his wife, children, and parents before he gets the hint?"
I personally have no illusions about the complete lack of privacy here in the US and the questionable but ultimately unproveable means by which consent can be gathered. In a nation that purports to be the foundation of righteousness, truth, and democracy, why have things evolved to this level?
I was hoping that someone else would bring this up. This is an issue of power vs. rights.
In most cases a husband has physical power ("have sex or get out") over his wife yet the laws of most states still recognize the wife's right to say "no" to the husband's sexual policy.
In most cases an employer has psychological power over their employee ("sign this or find another job") yet the laws of most states still DO NOT recognize the employee's right to say "no" to company policies.
In both situations the consideration is one of power vs. rights. I'm probably the only one that sees these two parallel situations as being at odds with each other.
Slashdot Mirror
-----
2. Documentation
-----
Go ahead. Pick on Documentation. Just one more time. I dare you. I double dare you.
But before you do... please provide one example where any comparable situation can be solved in Windows.
If this is about documentation for OpenOffice then, for pete's sake, don't people know how to type on a keyboard yet?
If this is about documentation for a particular command... Oh wait, Windows is point and click. The user doesn't use commands and, with today's blessing of KDE and Gnome, they don't need typed commands with Linux either.
man owns MS. Accept it.
And tell me how the help command is better than any man page. At best they're equivalent and this whole whining about "Linux doesn't have good documentation" is completely crap propagated by a corporate bung-sucker whose end-of-year goal is "to increase public awareness of the benefits of commercial software".
----- .
The developer responsible for documentation must make sure tasks performed . .
-----
You are on more CRACK than I have ever seen in my LIFE.
If the user can't figure out how to use the program by reading three pages in "man" then the user is a) using the wrong effing program for the task or b) a blithering idiot. Don't blame the toolbox or the tools because the user is a moron.
That said, *NIX/*BSD still have readily available documentation that is decades ahead of anything that MS or Lotus provides. It's called www.tldp.org. Go ahead, whine because the docs don't make sense. Did you consider the possibility that maybe you're not competent?
Pure BULL-CR-DOG-P00P to ease the conscience of everyone that spends all day at a computer.
-----
then you're spending less time making the computer do things the way that you want them done, and you're wasting everybody's time.
-----
What do you really do with a computer? You write e-mail, surf the web, maybe print a page? All of this can be accomplished in under 5 minutes. You want to write a scientific thesis? SPEND MORE TIME IN THE LAB AND LESS TIME AT YOUR COMPUTER PLAYING EFFING SOLITAIRE! You can write a thesis just fine in any standard text editor. The only formatting you need to do is for the title and the index.
Can someone please honestly state why Windows is so appealing other than it gives everyone an excuse to be wasting time?
What in the H-E-double-TOOTHPICKS do you want Wordperfect for? Are you addicted to one particular piece of software?
If you want to type a real memo, use a text editor. If you're hung up on fancy fonts and pizzazz and glitter then go write a webpage and print it out from Mozilla.
Oh, I forgot. You're one of those "please! hand-hold me and spoon feed my butt with sugar coated plum" types.
Compare apples to apples, dunderhead.
/help" in DOS, there's an equivalent in Linux shell. Usually it's " -?" or " --help".
Point me to a single Windows command which has a one page summary. Oh wait... there AREN'T any unless you pay $10k for an MCSE course.
If you're thinking about "
Windows has no documentation. It's easy to attack Linux docs from the vantage point of vapor.
----- ... (KDE, Gnome, ect.) is still not as clean as Windows
Linux in 1998 and over the past six years the UI has improved
-----
Look, if you want to watch TV, then GO WATCH TV. If you want to use a computer, then USE A COMPUTER.
What do you do with your computer? You read e-mail, you surf the web, maybe you print, maybe you type documents, maybe you use a spreadsheet, maybe you do your taxes or check your stocks (through an http interface). You play games which come with their own user interface. You don't need Windows, KDE, or Gnome for any of this crap.
Quit spilling this "mature OS" crap. Maybe user's should be more mature about what they actually use a box for. Enough with the hand holding and the virtual blowjob. If they want a WP, it's there, regardless of the WM. If they want a spreadsheet, it's there, regardless of the WM. If they want a database, it's there, regardless of the WM.
Are you getting my point? Catching my drift? Or am I being too obtuse?
OpenOffice has a lightbulb helper. I almost puked.
And you want to talk about documentation? How is a bad AI paperclip equivalent to providing decent documentation on a well-structured program? We wouldn't need a frickin' paperclip or other AI character if they'd quit stuffing the d**n program full of useless features that get in the way.
-----
You only open them up when you have problems or need to do something.
-----
The MS documentation isn't opened even then. The first reaction is to call the corporate help line. 99% of home users can't even find their original CDs, much less the documentation.
-----
Besides, OS software install length runs into the years. How many patches go into it and the various smaller apps it comes with within that time span?
-----
If you're going to talk about install length in terms of patches, I'm still installing patches for Win98 you dumb MS-zombie sod. You can't add patches to install time for Linux and correlate it to the base CD install of Windows. Not meaningfully. If you work in marketing, then okay. You're doing your job well (spreading BULL-SH-DOG-P00).
-----
Online docsOnline docs that can be downloaded
-----
Go ahead, make me laugh. No one in the Windows world actually reads documentation unless their job is IT. If it doesn't appeal to them in point and click fashion they call the help desk.
-----
Look at it another way - if not printing all the manuals with the product alows the vendor employ a couple more programmers leading to a better product or a shorter launch date, it's well worth it.
-----
It's called www.tldp.org you ignorant MS zombie. I've got 6 x 3" x 3 ring black binders full of documentation and, if people would get past their EasyIntallLinux helper apps (like rpm and deb) there isn't anything that those binders won't tell you about the Linux OS.
man owns MS from now 'til the US sinks into the ocean.
The "documentation" argument? What documentation argument?
My documentation isn't "idiot friendly", but it sure beats the sheer absence of documentation with Windows. Have you read the Windows user's manual? Does anyone except the office "wannabecool" actually keep the documentation for MSOffice within reaching distance? I have 100% disdain for those effing water-cooler nimwits that think they're going to impress anyone just because they have the bound books for Access, Word, Powerpoint, and Works on their shelf. Dust them for fingerprints. The darn things never get touched.
You know how I know they never get touched? Because companies PAY FOR OUTSIDE MENTORS TO COME IN AND OFFER 1 HOUR PRIMER COURSES ON HOW TO USE EVERY FRIGGIN' MS APP!
'nuff said.
man kicks MS butt six ways to Sunday and then some left over for lunch.
All I have is a resounding...
BULL EFFING DOG P00P!!
Have you read the user's manual for Windows lately? Oh wait... did you even get one?
For effs sake. This documentation issue is complete crap. We're going to match documentation which isn't "idiot friendly" vs. documentation which is nonexistant?
This is complete crap.
What prevents this from being done using your cell phone (which you carry with you in the car)already? All cell phones must, by law, have 911 locating capability...
A receiver has a tuning and resonant frequency. With the proper equipment and technical specs anyone can scan an emag range, listen for the feedback, and use a solid state receiver as a transmitter.
Microsoft has competitors? Where? If MS could provide a clean, secure product then I wouldn't care if they were the only product. I don't have a problem with a good wheel, or the perfect blender, or the perfect Mountain Dew.
MS has competitors in the free software community, maybe, but I did state that I believe free software is "at your own risk".
-----
They aren't charging for it, so by your rules, they couldn't be held liable for it
-----
Is their startup backed by a government business loan? How about publicly traded stocks or bonds which come from public 401k funds? How about money that comes from loan sharks who get that money from public banking institutions? In any of those cases the WhenU software is _not_ free because the consumer paid to start the company.
The large majority of open software comes from private individuals writing the software in their free time. Some of it comes from government research grants.
That's my favorite part. If you follow the money trail on a company like WhenU it goes to a number of business heads having dinner with politicians. If you follow the money trail on an organization like FSF it goes to a large pool of people who are using it to write useful and productive software that doesn't rely on being invasive, subversive, or try to fall back on technical EULAs to justify its existence.
Commercials aren't stored inside of your TV when you power off.
My hard drive is my notepad. Tell adware/spyware companies to go write on their own paper.
An end to the legal protection of an EULA would encourage MS, though the threat of impending lawsuits, to release products that cannot be so easily exploited. Hopefully the lawyers would pursue this only for software which is paid for. No one should be held liable for providing free software. Free software is "at your own risk". If a user pays for software, however, the software provider should be liable.
An EULA essentially grants the "at your own risk" protection to a paid-for product. Aircraft manufacturers like Boeing could get rich if they could slap an EULA on the 747.
-----
Amendment 10 give power to the States to make new laws as long as they do not step on Federal law
-----
Amendment 10 says not delegated to the feds nor prohibited to it by the states. Contrary to federal belief State law preempts federal law if there's a conflict.
Good luck making it stick in court though. The feds get a bigger chunk of taxpayer dollars than any individual state.
Spoken like a true lawyer or politician that only knows half your job.
I hope you get fired.
-----
We simply need to pass a law to remove the power of the EULA
-----
You've got it right, but backwards.
We've got to REPEAL the laws which ensure the powers of the EULA.
Remember:
More laws = "bad"
Laws are diretly related to abuse
Fewer laws = "good"
There are fewer technical loopholes for abuses.
The rights always started in the hands of the consumers and the citizens. It was the act of passing more laws which handed those rights out to corporations and vaporous entities.
Rather than happily trotting down the road of legislating ourselves to death and enacting new laws which will, inevitably, be twisted around to imprison some poor old grandmother who's establishing an online outlet for her counted cross-stitch work . . .
Why don't states like Utah spend more time lobbying the Feds to repeal all of the laws which funnel taxpayer dollars into these corrupt startups? Why don't states like Utah spend more time repealing laws which protect companies like MS when they release products which have "exploit me and my user base" written all over them? It's always easier to pass more laws. America is going to legislate itself into a corner where everyone can be construed as doing something illegal at any time.
I hate spam and adware as much as the next honest citizen but it's very predictable the way the politicians and business owners run this dog and pony show and run off with our money year after year after year.
-----
If the slave had to sign a document that made it ok for him to be a slave, then I imagine slaves would never willingly do this
-----
My experience is that the situation would be approximated in this fashion,"Sign the papers or take your chances with the wild indians out there. You won't get a better deal from anyone else within a month's walk."
This is the same as present day America. "Sign these papers or take your chances on the open job market. I hear McDonald's is hiring."
I'm suddenly reminded of Qui-Gon Jinn in Episode I trying to buy a new engine from Watto. America the beautiful isn't really any different for all the pretty rhetoric that the politicians have.
If a husband says "have sex" and his wife says "no" and he forces her then he is still legally accountable for sexual assault. If a company says "sign this" and the employee says "no" the company is not liable for wrongful termination. This is only legal because power currently takes precedence over rights. In that case why are citizens ever deluded into thinking that they have rights? Who would ever refuse a consent form to be monitored if the implicit alternative was to get a "dangerous driving" ticket every time they pulled out of their parking lot? The "dangerous driving" may be disproved in court, though the police typically get the benefit of the doubt, but the constant harassment alone will have more of a toll than the ticket.
-----
You have no fundamental right not to be recorded
-----
If we start from here then anything else comes down to "how long has the ink been dry on that?" or "how many speeding tickets do we need to write to his wife, children, and parents before he gets the hint?"
I personally have no illusions about the complete lack of privacy here in the US and the questionable but ultimately unproveable means by which consent can be gathered. In a nation that purports to be the foundation of righteousness, truth, and democracy, why have things evolved to this level?
This isn't a fault of capitalism. This same situation arises under a barter and trade system.
I'm sure you meant a free-market democracy? This same situation arises under communist societies.
This is an ages old problem of power vs. human rights.
I was hoping that someone else would bring this up. This is an issue of power vs. rights.
In most cases a husband has physical power ("have sex or get out") over his wife yet the laws of most states still recognize the wife's right to say "no" to the husband's sexual policy.
In most cases an employer has psychological power over their employee ("sign this or find another job") yet the laws of most states still DO NOT recognize the employee's right to say "no" to company policies.
In both situations the consideration is one of power vs. rights. I'm probably the only one that sees these two parallel situations as being at odds with each other.