If they don't release specs that usually means that you don't get good/tested drivers. That means you get (if you get at all) binary shitty drivers on some uncomfortable license.
So why to use it? Just choose something else - it is like common hardware (I presume from your statement).
If you run your favourite OS, which is the best and most valuable tool you can always switch the hardware. The hardware now is cheap and you have a broad choice. So if some company is offering a shitty hardware (what for you need HW without proper drivers?) just screw it and choose another company that fits you best.
> I just installed FC4 using the Custom option. Yeah me also...:)
> For each category, such as GNOME or Web > Server, some packages are required and > some are optional.
But if you experiment a bit you will find out that these are no single packages. These are *groups* of packages.
> If you click on the Details link, you can > choose to include or exclude individual > optional RPMs.
Yeah. I choosed not to install "sendmail" (I haven't choose any Mail Server Package) but it still installed me... Guess what... A sendmail package.;)
But I can deal with it, I am using RH/FC since RH4 and I get along well with rpm... But this GUI/install is in fact confusing, I prefer custom made strict lists of what package to install and what not to install...
I'am just during test drive instalation on my laptop. I've transferred entire partition (FC3) to my server and I do clean install. The instal right about now has rebooted me to fresh system.;)
So what I saw during instalation:
* Installer now uses different GTK theme (ClearLooks instead of Bluecurve?). * LVM partitioning actually works which is quite cool. * Subbmitting "linux reiserfs" as boot command does not work (it should activate ReiserFS as an option during partitioning). * Selecting packages is not selecting packages but you select functionalities - like "Web Server" instead of "httpd, php-foo..." package names - it is for sure less confising for newbies, but somebody who wishes to have more custom package setup needs to remaster instalation media... * "Minimal Instalation" option is still retarded, checking it still requires you to have discs 1, 2, 4 - and it copies less then 60MB from disc 2 and 4 so if somebody did it better you could do minimal just from disc 1.
Now the system has booted (few FAILED messages but I can manage that) and it is EXTREMELY FAST, it booted (Minimal Install) in like 10 seconds on P3 based low-end laptop. This is quite nice... Now im going to clean up this mess and see what this baby can do.;)
But such guides were aviable for any decent (I mean XXI century:P) versions of RHL/RHEL... Software is useless if you don't have manual describing such basic stuff like instalation...
> Linux server sales continued to show the > strongest growth at 35.2 per cent and > accounted for $1.2bn in sales. Linux > servers made up 10 per cent of total sales > in the quarter.
Linux is Unix in that matter - Unix servers (as well as older Windoze boxes) are replaced by it.
As a starter - you apparenty don't get what monopoly practices are. Let me explain by example:
> I am no fan of Microsoft, but I think that > they have been unfairly treated in these > "anti-trust" cases in Europe and the US.
Here goes your opinion without stating *why*.
> Though I prefer Netscape/Mozilla to IE, I > thought the arguments about a browser > monopoly were quite foolish.
Because they were not about browser monopoly - during browser wars MS had no monopoly on browser market. They used their monopolist position on operating system market to kill competitor on browser market and that is what the case was about.
MS had money from OS market and could give the browser away for free (as controlling the browser mean more control over the market). Netscape was only selling browser - they could not give it away so they got killed by MS.
The case was about killing competition - competition is good for you - mind you. It took several years for OSS community to bite MSIE market share - part of this achievement is due lack of competition - MSIE got stagnant and lame over the time while Mozilla evolved.
> And now the EU is making them produce a > reduced-media edition.
Well in my opinion the mosy important aspect is that of protocols. Not media player. Media players gained attention because other companies producing similar stuff feeled threatened by MS - they would got killed same way like Netscape was since they could not even complete. So they asked EU to help them and EU likes to protect (geez) its own market especially from foregin monopoly - so what is not right here?
> So does this mean that Microsoft will > eventually have to remove every > component which can be produced by a > competitor from their Windows distros? All > the while Linux and Mac users enjoy all the > bundled software that comes for free with > their OSs.
Yes that is what it mean. But keep in mind that MS in monopoly position. Others are not so we should protect the others as monopoly kills competition and competition is good for us (also it is good for MS and MS clients).
>This is blatently unfair to Microsoft; an > obvious exploitation of a wealthy > corporation by governments. This is made > obvious by the EU's 5% daily sales fine.
I completely agree with you. It is like Lucas has got this idea before but now tweaked it somehow it went all wrong.:\
(...)
> Chewie and Yoda were apparently > aquaintances and yet the Wookie never > mentioned this to Han, or if he did, despite > the trust between the two of them, Han > didn't consider it to be a reason to believe > in the Force.
Yes this is stupid. Like that R2D2 and C3P actually met first time on 4th episode. But also they were all made by Vader/Anakin and were pals thru 1, 2, 3 and then bang - 10 seconds scene - "lets get their memory ereased", "eeek (droids)" - this one destroyed me completely...
Also the contrast (I know I am being picky here) between the technology in Vader's suit (big red/green push buttons) and the rest of the world was like kind of funny.:) Those officers on Death Star had those walls of red and green HUGE buttons *and* touch screens.:)
> @ Both Linux and Windows can be easily > configured to auto-update patches.
Oh really so tell me how do I configure my windoze box to update OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, Photoshop, Eclipse... etc. at one row - with one click/command. I really want to know - the answer should be easy. Because it is so easy so please answer.:)
> @ Windows patches are smaller (binary > diffs as opposed to full updated packages).
Their are not binary diffs - what the hell is binary diff anyway - their are just single files. If you use properly modularized (splitted packages) Linux system then also you just download packages that you need.
> @ However, there are more critical > updates to Windows.
Than to what? To Linux kernel or common distro with everything installed. Counting updates is stupid in this case.
> @ Windows has SUS, whereas Linux > doesn't seem (excuse me if I'm wrong)
You are wrong. Linux has apt, yum, yast whatever that do exactly the same.
> If bandwidth costs (it does), it could well > be that Windows easily has less data to > transfer for large organisations.
Phehefff. You actually belive it that large organizations pull updates directly from Internet to production machines.:) You don't know shit about how it works. Don't you?
> We, Unixers, usually miss the point that, I hardly belive that you are unixer sir. Please stop that "we". I will explain:
> while we don't have to reboot the whole > computer at each and every important > patch, we have to bring services down and > then back up when they are significantly ? > patched.
This is stupid. Yes the binary must be reloaded - no entire system must not be taken down.
Secondly - it depends what services. Some of them can just get a signal to reload themselves and you can do this at low system load (like shedule it) and it is almost transparent to the service. Nothing more than serious load of this service. But this is when we talk about extremeely critical HA stuff. With more common servers you can restart them and nobody will notice this half of a second.
Also most of patching mechanisms care themself (you can turn it off if you need total control) about reloading the service. F.e. on RHEL when you reload sshd being logged via sshd it won't loose your connection since your connection is being made by separate process. With threaded stuff it is more difficult but still it can be done. Also in Fedora when you f.e. update glibce sshd (and other services) get restarted automagically.
> For a database server it's not the system > uptime that counts - it's the database > uptime.
So what? Still restart of one service is less than entire system.
> If it goes down, I could as well have > rebooted the whole server - the phone will > ring just the same.
If it gets down you could just restart the service and then it wont be stupid. And maybe next thing to do will be to analyze the problem, logs etc. Rebooting the system if one service fails is thing that unexperienced admins do - when you reboot it you loose some tracks (like running processes, memory state etc.) that can lead you to actually soving the problem not just rebooting it and hoping it never hapen again. This (problem -> reboot) is not unix way. Reminds me rather of some other popular system...
Lately Windows patch costed me two evenings. It started like my friend asked me for assistance since her computer has started to crash (this was happening for about month). As I've known from her the system was 2 years old (but fully patched, firewalled with AV etc.) - so I decided it would be faster to reinstall it instead of debugging it.
Reinstalled it (XP SP2). Went smooth. I've just advised her to leave computer on for night to get patches via Automagic Updates.
Next evening she called me that her computer wont boot anymore. I've visited her again and she was right - the machine rebooted constantly without even going into logging screen. None of rescue modes worked.
Since previous night I have installed fresh system I decided to debug it. Hour with Knoppix (Windoze wont boot, and I've needed to access NTFS partition to look at logs) and googling from my laptop at hand I've analyzed the cause of the problem (but I still don't know the details) - it was MS patch issued like month before (since the computer started to crash). The patch that patched something in kernel. I've removed and blocked the patch and now it works.
Now guess what - MS has nothing to say about it. Actually their "support" advised me to install it over again (which I did previous night).:))) Also my googling revealed that at least 50 people had the same issue. I know that this must be something specific for some hardware that she (and others) had. But mind you - *all* of her hardware was running *certified* (by MS) drivers. So don't give me shit with hardware vendor fault since MS has certified this hardware.
Now this was just not too important home dekstop machine. But I can imagine the same case with more critical stuff.
I have *never* experienced something like this with Linux. I can hardly imagine it. Faultly kernel patch? No problem, just boot previous kernel and it is OK (all modern update mechanisms keep older kernels for this purpose). Report bug. Wait few days for newer kernel and get done with it.
Now with MS in serious setup you need not also to install the patches. You need to do hell lot of stupid shit with them. You need to test them roughly before you apply them to production. And it *is* quite costly - not to mention that if you want proper update mechanisms you need full MS infrastructure (servers etc.) that costs a lot. And it still wont update all your software at once...
So dont give me stupid shitty shit.:) And go fuck yourself with this report. Nobody actually belives it instead of stupid fuckers that are too stupid to actually decide about anything.
Why they always masturbate themselves with vapourware instead of actually doing something? Who cares that in year something will do something. We have real problems to solve now.
> Well there is a very important difference for > the companies between going to cinema and paying > $5, and downloading and watching it once for $5.
Well $5 was just example of the scale.
> If a bounch of 10 of you will go to the cinema, > the industry will earn 5x10 = $50.
Minus cinema costs - cleaning, staff, promotion etc. - it won't be plain $5, with dload also they need to have some costs. Mainly bandwith - and technical staff - but on large scale staff scales well as well.;)
(...)
> If a bounch of you meet in a friends house, the > industry will earn only $5.
It depends what you mean by the industry if you download directly from movie maker and pay him $5 he gets all $5 for him. If you go to cinema you pay the distributor, the cinema, the marketing team and finaly the movie maker.
I know we can argue about this costs - but actually I think that You and I don't have a clue about how these numbers look. But I haven't mean that newer distribution methods should exchange the old - I mean that they can *coexist* as another revenue stream for movie industry. Look if somebody has habbit of downloading movies from net and you apparently cannot do anything about it (at least in EU) so you need to get a way to benefit from this person also. Instead of (nonsence) pursuing such people go with an attractive offer for them - like download a movie legitimately for $5, with comfortable service, good quality etc. At least *some* of people using P2P now would have switch to new paid service. Take iTunes success for example. Same thing IMHO.
> I hear you saying that cracking a drm file will > be too advanced for most people.
No I haven't said that. I've said that I would agree on such DRM (movies). Most people also. Look a record album is something different from movie ticket.
(...)
> Unless there is a way to enforce a pay-per-viewer > license
There is already a way - totally DRMed and controlled dedicated hardware.
> Actual damages from bittorrent have to be > very small.
It is hard to tell in general it can be even the opposite... Meaning BT makes people to see more movies. I can explain it like this:
Disclimer: keep in mind that I am not about piracy and I prefer to go to theater and watch something good instead of watching shitty CAM rip of stupid movie.
*But*
In my country (Poland, but I can imagine it is the same somwhere else) some titles are not distributed at all - take Korean or Japanese movies - I find them great but most of them does not make it to cinemas or even DVD distribution here. So my only chance to actually watch them is either go to some country where it is aviable or get it via BT. So guess what I do?:) But some films *do* make it to cinemas (and DVD distribution) so as now I know I like such movies (I get to know that due to BT) I will go to cinema for those few titles (and get others from BT).
It is not the matter of people wanting to watch stuff on computer (actually I have proper sound system and beam projector to wall), it is not the matter of quality either - it is a matter of old *distribution* methods/channels - they simply do not fit no more - I can imagine a service where you can download movie for $5. Watch it once (I would even agree on DRM here, most of the people also - things with movies are different than f.e. audio - when you go to cinema you pay for the ticket and watch it once - so the analogy with DRM would be painless) and be satisfied - also it would speed up the distribution.
Right now I have to wait till the title gets published in my region - why? I have to wait till the title gets translation - why? I don't need translation I know english. I have to wait till the title gets marketed locally - why? I don't need marketing - I already know that I want to watch it.
So traditional distribution sucks and that is why BT is so popular among saavy users - traditional model does not fit us.
> Most people simply don't even know what > bittorrent is.
So what? They don't need to - they know what P2P is - place where you can get fresh and rare stuff. They don't care if it is BT, or Emule or Kazaa or whatever - they just click and if it works it is OK for them.
Also do you know that BT is one of biggest traffic generators in Internet?
(...)
> I have better things to do with my time > than wander through various video files in > various states of compression (almost all > lossy).
All DVD rips (looseless) titles. Just click them and get it over your DSL. No need to go to the store or rental anymore. And the choice there is comparable to small rental/store.
> They are just being greedy for the small > amount of money they might be losing.
Money is not the point here - as you have stated there is no comparsion between watching movie at home or going to cinema. It is beetween getting movie from rental (I don't know anybody that actually buys DVD) and getting it from BT - BT is for some people more convinient, not only (can be) money counts here. Also if BT is only way for me to get movie - where is money in this situation? Either I get it for free or I don't get it at all...
People who distribute and benefit from movies should notice that.
Any electric device can be dangerous to health - if it is not tottaly closed/water-proof etc. Even very low voltages can be harmfull if f.e. applied in long peroid of time.
> I can also appreciate that using SUN Java > can pose problems for some people.
It mostly creates (let aside purists like Stallman) distribution issues - Fedora cannot ship Sun Java it will be against its policy (only free software) also it would require special agreements with Sun.
IMHO Sun is doing big mistake here - I know project Harmony is launched - but they have serious competition from.Net and the only right path is to open Java and benefit from opensource to gain dominance (but it wont be dominance like MS dominance in f.e. Office area) - a true open/free one. They can do it assuming that they want to focus (they should) their business around services - not software licenses (like MS does).
(...)
> However my subtle point is this, SUN > needs to develop features in OOo in order > for StarOffice to be competitive with other > office packages.
I don't know here - it is really so difficult to develop such features in open variant (that runs on something else than Sun Java also)? IMHO no - if Red Hat can do it - it is not difficult.
> Novell/Ximian also wants the most > competitive package they can get.
But Novell intrest is also aside Sun Java - they have own Mono..Net implementation - in the end I think it is good thing to have such variety - as it remains open I am cool with it. It is like Novell plays nice with their Mono - it is open. Red Hat does not use *any* closed software - trully free/open. Only Sun offers its closed (unfree) Java - and I really don't know if it is practical reason or just political/naughty business play...
> The most argued point with OOo 2 is the > fact that Base will only work with java - > where before most of the java reliance did > not directly affect usage here it actually > degrades the "total experience[tm]".
It is not about Java in general it is about specific (Sun) implementation of Java. Of course they eat their own (closed) food - but this may produce issues because also (not only Sun) other firms base their business in OOo, contribute to it (and have done so in past) not to make it closed (by realiyng on closed Java implementation) product since it is against their (f.e. Red Hat *and* Novell) intrest.
> however StarOffice uses it's own >dictionaries and translations
I think the dictionaries is a matter of intellectual property. There are paid dictionaries (licensed with Sun Star Office) and free ones (that you can use freely with OOo) - here it is good point to have differencies - some people wish to have nonfree dictionary so why not let them to have one? But dictionary is not main feature of Office suite - you can (I can with EN and PL) go with free ones as well...
(...)
> The OOo project faces some difficulties. > Firstly, the codebase is apparently a mess > (I don't know how to code, but even the > OOo developers have stated this so I'll > take their word for it).
It is - but for credit - they have admitted it and started working on this issue - this is nice.
> Secondly the codebase has always relied > on java (version 5 did, which was the > version SUN purchased).
Not in such degree. With OOo 1.x it was distributed with RedHat/Fedora and it has all features implemented with GCJ Java version. Now it is dependant solely on Sun Java implementation - that is the difference between past and current version. Read the article please.:P
> Now what I've been ranting about is, that > since this seems to be a big issue for a lot > of people with the OOo java dependency, > why not help the OOo developers in 2 > ways - help convert the java dependent > code, and help clean up the code so it is > more modular and less messy.
And that is proper question.:) We (opensource community) are working on that, but we woul
> Oh come on - there are 4 (!) community > developers on Open Office, 40 developers > from SUN and 10 from Novell [Ximian].
OK developement is one thing - dont forget maintaining, testing, finding bugs etc. - that is what Linux distributors and users do and it *is* IMHO important input to the project. Add to it translating and writing documentation (even silly howtos on how to do mail merge *are* useful). Translating is done (I assume so) mostly by local developers and I don't think they are employed by Sun. Polish version (I am Pole) is maintained by UX Systems (ux.pl) they build services around OOo and Linux.
Look I am not trying to bash anybody it is like I see the problem (the problem *does* exist) from both sides.
> Of course they'll choose java if the choice > is between getting the feature or not.
Good that they coded it anyway.:) Here you are perfectly right. But also keep in mind that free software is not about features - of course there can be excelent free software lika Apache, there can be software with less features but free. Free software is not about features only - it is about your freedom. I would not give my freedom for features. Of course it is a bit dramatizing OOo is still free but the use of Sun Java poses *some* difficulties - f.e. I use Fedora in my work - I use OpenOffice.org packaged with Fedora - now they cannot package it (the 2.0 vanilla version) - they must rewrite some stuff etc. etc. - but it can be done - so why the mainstream code cannot be done same way?
> It's perfectly fine if the community wants a > java free OOo or a free java - then go > work on it.
We do work.:)
> Stop bashing SUN or Novell for contributing > code to OOo.
Novel does not contribute Sun Java specific code AFAIK. But I think you got it wrong - the case is not about bashing somebodys useful job - it just focuses/highlighst some issues that *need* to be discussed - such discussion is *healthly* for the project itself - I am far from calling it bashing anything.
> Hey ASSHOLES, the current Java source > code can be downloaded here, and the > latest development version can be > downloaded here.
So what that it can be downloaded? It has distribution restrictions and cannot be distributed in free products like Red Hat Fedora or Debian GNU Linux. This is also the case since they *want* to distribute OpenOffice.org (and have full rights to it as it was licensed so it allowed) - but they can not since it is dependant on Sun Java.
(...)
> I don't particularly care if you like Java or > not, but I've had enough of this bullshit > about Java being open or not.
There is not much to bullshit about, Java is not free, it may be open in some ways.
(...)
> Not to mention that OpenOffice is Sun's > baby. They PAID MONEY FOR IT. (I know > that's a foreign concept here, since the ? > entire fraking world is supposed to be FREE > for the fraking taking.)
So what? They benefit from opensourcing Star Office - they get labour and testing for free it is very nice that they decided on such move but this is not like giving something away for nothing. They also take back from opensource community - they take back what they seeded.
> If you don't like the direction OpenOffice > has taken, then go play with KOffice.
Oh so this is so simple? What if somebody has contributed some code to OpenOffce.org (for FREE) and now you tell him to go play with KOffice? Why? You don't bother if people contribute to it or not? Using OpenOffice.org means also contributing to it - f.e. by testing it or propagating it - I've choosen OpenOffice.org because it is not expensive and its formats are open. I don't care to much that I need to install Java to use it - but I can imagine somebody who cares.
> You've been given a gift and all you can do > is look it in the mouth.
This is *not* a gift like some rich country gives money to 3rd world country or something. It is actually a model in which both Sun and OpenOffice.org users benefit. It is like a business deal - not a free gift.
I use spare Linux PC (Celeron 800Mhz) it is also a server for home purposes/developement. It has two 200GB drives inside and exports that drives via Samba (Windows clients) and NFS (UNIX clients). I store all my multimedia stuff on this machine. Home workstations (two) play off it (via mounted.network drive), if I want to sync my laptop with it I just run rsync and I am done.:)
Oh also the server itself plays those files - it is attached to my hifi in living room and has nice GUI (Freevo) for browsing/playing music).
Does anybody have a clue what software they used to generate those PDFs? I am curious how various software treats such stuff in PDFs... I mean f.e. it is obvious that simple printout to PDF converter will erease any such hidden data, but what with f.e. OpenOffice.org export function or various other utilities?
> Even if IE7 turns out to be the best product > ever created by mortal man, people will > immediately assume it sux (minus MS zealots of > course).
If MSIE 7 will be better product I'll use it. What defines better product that it is better for me. So if it is better why I need to use worse? But it will not happen.;) My definition of good product:
1. It actually works. 2. It actually works on my system (X11 and so on). 3. It is actually better. 4. It (as I am developer) is easy to develop against.
Slashdot Mirror
If they don't release specs that usually means that you don't get good/tested drivers. That means you get (if you get at all) binary shitty drivers on some uncomfortable license.
So why to use it? Just choose something else - it is like common hardware (I presume from your statement).
If you run your favourite OS, which is the best and most valuable tool you can always switch the hardware. The hardware now is cheap and you have a broad choice. So if some company is offering a shitty hardware (what for you need HW without proper drivers?) just screw it and choose another company that fits you best.
Simple as that.
> I just installed FC4 using the Custom option. :)
;)
Yeah me also...
> For each category, such as GNOME or Web
> Server, some packages are required and
> some are optional.
But if you experiment a bit you will find out that these are no single packages. These are *groups* of packages.
> If you click on the Details link, you can
> choose to include or exclude individual
> optional RPMs.
Yeah. I choosed not to install "sendmail" (I haven't choose any Mail Server Package) but it still installed me... Guess what... A sendmail package.
But I can deal with it, I am using RH/FC since RH4 and I get along well with rpm... But this GUI/install is in fact confusing, I prefer custom made strict lists of what package to install and what not to install...
I'am just during test drive instalation on my laptop. I've transferred entire partition (FC3) to my server and I do clean install. The instal right about now has rebooted me to fresh system. ;)
;)
So what I saw during instalation:
* Installer now uses different GTK theme (ClearLooks instead of Bluecurve?).
* LVM partitioning actually works which is quite cool.
* Subbmitting "linux reiserfs" as boot command does not work (it should activate ReiserFS as an option during partitioning).
* Selecting packages is not selecting packages but you select functionalities - like "Web Server" instead of "httpd, php-foo..." package names - it is for sure less confising for newbies, but somebody who wishes to have more custom package setup needs to remaster instalation media...
* "Minimal Instalation" option is still retarded, checking it still requires you to have discs 1, 2, 4 - and it copies less then 60MB from disc 2 and 4 so if somebody did it better you could do minimal just from disc 1.
Now the system has booted (few FAILED messages but I can manage that) and it is EXTREMELY FAST, it booted (Minimal Install) in like 10 seconds on P3 based low-end laptop. This is quite nice... Now im going to clean up this mess and see what this baby can do.
Thank you Fedora Devs!
> OpenOffice 2
AFAIK it is not yet finished. How do they ship 2.0 - it was not yet released...
But such guides were aviable for any decent (I mean XXI century :P) versions of RHL/RHEL... Software is useless if you don't have manual describing such basic stuff like instalation...
> Linux server sales continued to show the
> strongest growth at 35.2 per cent and
> accounted for $1.2bn in sales. Linux
> servers made up 10 per cent of total sales
> in the quarter.
Linux is Unix in that matter - Unix servers (as well as older Windoze boxes) are replaced by it.
As a starter - you apparenty don't get what monopoly practices are. Let me explain by example:
> I am no fan of Microsoft, but I think that
> they have been unfairly treated in these
> "anti-trust" cases in Europe and the US.
Here goes your opinion without stating *why*.
> Though I prefer Netscape/Mozilla to IE, I
> thought the arguments about a browser
> monopoly were quite foolish.
Because they were not about browser monopoly - during browser wars MS had no monopoly on browser market. They used their monopolist position on operating system market to kill competitor on browser market and that is what the case was about.
MS had money from OS market and could give the browser away for free (as controlling the browser mean more control over the market). Netscape was only selling browser - they could not give it away so they got killed by MS.
The case was about killing competition - competition is good for you - mind you. It took several years for OSS community to bite MSIE market share - part of this achievement is due lack of competition - MSIE got stagnant and lame over the time while Mozilla evolved.
> And now the EU is making them produce a
> reduced-media edition.
Well in my opinion the mosy important aspect is that of protocols. Not media player. Media players gained attention because other companies producing similar stuff feeled threatened by MS - they would got killed same way like Netscape was since they could not even complete. So they asked EU to help them and EU likes to protect (geez) its own market especially from foregin monopoly - so what is not right here?
> So does this mean that Microsoft will
> eventually have to remove every
> component which can be produced by a
> competitor from their Windows distros? All
> the while Linux and Mac users enjoy all the
> bundled software that comes for free with
> their OSs.
Yes that is what it mean. But keep in mind that MS in monopoly position. Others are not so we should protect the others as monopoly kills competition and competition is good for us (also it is good for MS and MS clients).
>This is blatently unfair to Microsoft; an
> obvious exploitation of a wealthy
> corporation by governments. This is made
> obvious by the EU's 5% daily sales fine.
> What annoyed me most was the
:\
:) Those officers on Death Star had those walls of red and green HUGE buttons *and* touch screens. :)
> inconsistancy.
I completely agree with you. It is like Lucas has got this idea before but now tweaked it somehow it went all wrong.
(...)
> Chewie and Yoda were apparently
> aquaintances and yet the Wookie never
> mentioned this to Han, or if he did, despite
> the trust between the two of them, Han
> didn't consider it to be a reason to believe
> in the Force.
Yes this is stupid. Like that R2D2 and C3P actually met first time on 4th episode. But also they were all made by Vader/Anakin and were pals thru 1, 2, 3 and then bang - 10 seconds scene - "lets get their memory ereased", "eeek (droids)" - this one destroyed me completely...
Also the contrast (I know I am being picky here) between the technology in Vader's suit (big red/green push buttons) and the rest of the world was like kind of funny.
> @ Both Linux and Windows can be easily
... etc. at one row - with one click/command. I really want to know - the answer should be easy. Because it is so easy so please answer. :)
:) You don't know shit about how it works. Don't you?
> configured to auto-update patches.
Oh really so tell me how do I configure my windoze box to update OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, Photoshop, Eclipse
> @ Windows patches are smaller (binary
> diffs as opposed to full updated packages).
Their are not binary diffs - what the hell is binary diff anyway - their are just single files. If you use properly modularized (splitted packages) Linux system then also you just download packages that you need.
> @ However, there are more critical
> updates to Windows.
Than to what? To Linux kernel or common distro with everything installed. Counting updates is stupid in this case.
> @ Windows has SUS, whereas Linux
> doesn't seem (excuse me if I'm wrong)
You are wrong. Linux has apt, yum, yast whatever that do exactly the same.
> If bandwidth costs (it does), it could well
> be that Windows easily has less data to
> transfer for large organisations.
Phehefff. You actually belive it that large organizations pull updates directly from Internet to production machines.
> We, Unixers, usually miss the point that,
I hardly belive that you are unixer sir. Please stop that "we". I will explain:
> while we don't have to reboot the whole
> computer at each and every important
> patch, we have to bring services down and
> then back up when they are significantly ?
> patched.
This is stupid. Yes the binary must be reloaded - no entire system must not be taken down.
Secondly - it depends what services. Some of them can just get a signal to reload themselves and you can do this at low system load (like shedule it) and it is almost transparent to the service. Nothing more than serious load of this service. But this is when we talk about extremeely critical HA stuff. With more common servers you can restart them and nobody will notice this half of a second.
Also most of patching mechanisms care themself (you can turn it off if you need total control) about reloading the service. F.e. on RHEL when you reload sshd being logged via sshd it won't loose your connection since your connection is being made by separate process. With threaded stuff it is more difficult but still it can be done. Also in Fedora when you f.e. update glibce sshd (and other services) get restarted automagically.
> For a database server it's not the system
> uptime that counts - it's the database
> uptime.
So what? Still restart of one service is less than entire system.
> If it goes down, I could as well have
> rebooted the whole server - the phone will
> ring just the same.
If it gets down you could just restart the service and then it wont be stupid. And maybe next thing to do will be to analyze the problem, logs etc. Rebooting the system if one service fails is thing that unexperienced admins do - when you reboot it you loose some tracks (like running processes, memory state etc.) that can lead you to actually soving the problem not just rebooting it and hoping it never hapen again. This (problem -> reboot) is not unix way. Reminds me rather of some other popular system...
Lately Windows patch costed me two evenings. It started like my friend asked me for assistance since her computer has started to crash (this was happening for about month). As I've known from her the system was 2 years old (but fully patched, firewalled with AV etc.) - so I decided it would be faster to reinstall it instead of debugging it.
:))) Also my googling revealed that at least 50 people had the same issue. I know that this must be something specific for some hardware that she (and others) had. But mind you - *all* of her hardware was running *certified* (by MS) drivers. So don't give me shit with hardware vendor fault since MS has certified this hardware.
:) And go fuck yourself with this report. Nobody actually belives it instead of stupid fuckers that are too stupid to actually decide about anything.
;)
Reinstalled it (XP SP2). Went smooth. I've just advised her to leave computer on for night to get patches via Automagic Updates.
Next evening she called me that her computer wont boot anymore. I've visited her again and she was right - the machine rebooted constantly without even going into logging screen. None of rescue modes worked.
Since previous night I have installed fresh system I decided to debug it. Hour with Knoppix (Windoze wont boot, and I've needed to access NTFS partition to look at logs) and googling from my laptop at hand I've analyzed the cause of the problem (but I still don't know the details) - it was MS patch issued like month before (since the computer started to crash). The patch that patched something in kernel. I've removed and blocked the patch and now it works.
Now guess what - MS has nothing to say about it. Actually their "support" advised me to install it over again (which I did previous night).
Now this was just not too important home dekstop machine. But I can imagine the same case with more critical stuff.
I have *never* experienced something like this with Linux. I can hardly imagine it. Faultly kernel patch? No problem, just boot previous kernel and it is OK (all modern update mechanisms keep older kernels for this purpose). Report bug. Wait few days for newer kernel and get done with it.
Now with MS in serious setup you need not also to install the patches. You need to do hell lot of stupid shit with them. You need to test them roughly before you apply them to production. And it *is* quite costly - not to mention that if you want proper update mechanisms you need full MS infrastructure (servers etc.) that costs a lot. And it still wont update all your software at once...
So dont give me stupid shitty shit.
Peace.
Why they always masturbate themselves with vapourware instead of actually doing something? Who cares that in year something will do something. We have real problems to solve now.
> Well there is a very important difference for
;)
> the companies between going to cinema and paying
> $5, and downloading and watching it once for $5.
Well $5 was just example of the scale.
> If a bounch of 10 of you will go to the cinema,
> the industry will earn 5x10 = $50.
Minus cinema costs - cleaning, staff, promotion etc. - it won't be plain $5, with dload also they need to have some costs. Mainly bandwith - and technical staff - but on large scale staff scales well as well.
(...)
> If a bounch of you meet in a friends house, the
> industry will earn only $5.
It depends what you mean by the industry if you download directly from movie maker and pay him $5 he gets all $5 for him. If you go to cinema you pay the distributor, the cinema, the marketing team and finaly the movie maker.
I know we can argue about this costs - but actually I think that You and I don't have a clue about how these numbers look. But I haven't mean that newer distribution methods should exchange the old - I mean that they can *coexist* as another revenue stream for movie industry. Look if somebody has habbit of downloading movies from net and you apparently cannot do anything about it (at least in EU) so you need to get a way to benefit from this person also. Instead of (nonsence) pursuing such people go with an attractive offer for them - like download a movie legitimately for $5, with comfortable service, good quality etc. At least *some* of people using P2P now would have switch to new paid service. Take iTunes success for example. Same thing IMHO.
> I hear you saying that cracking a drm file will
> be too advanced for most people.
No I haven't said that. I've said that I would agree on such DRM (movies). Most people also. Look a record album is something different from movie ticket.
(...)
> Unless there is a way to enforce a pay-per-viewer
> license
There is already a way - totally DRMed and controlled dedicated hardware.
> Actual damages from bittorrent have to be
:) But some films *do* make it to cinemas (and DVD distribution) so as now I know I like such movies (I get to know that due to BT) I will go to cinema for those few titles (and get others from BT).
> very small.
It is hard to tell in general it can be even the opposite... Meaning BT makes people to see more movies. I can explain it like this:
Disclimer: keep in mind that I am not about piracy and I prefer to go to theater and watch something good instead of watching shitty CAM rip of stupid movie.
*But*
In my country (Poland, but I can imagine it is the same somwhere else) some titles are not distributed at all - take Korean or Japanese movies - I find them great but most of them does not make it to cinemas or even DVD distribution here. So my only chance to actually watch them is either go to some country where it is aviable or get it via BT. So guess what I do?
It is not the matter of people wanting to watch stuff on computer (actually I have proper sound system and beam projector to wall), it is not the matter of quality either - it is a matter of old *distribution* methods/channels - they simply do not fit no more - I can imagine a service where you can download movie for $5. Watch it once (I would even agree on DRM here, most of the people also - things with movies are different than f.e. audio - when you go to cinema you pay for the ticket and watch it once - so the analogy with DRM would be painless) and be satisfied - also it would speed up the distribution.
Right now I have to wait till the title gets published in my region - why? I have to wait till the title gets translation - why? I don't need translation I know english. I have to wait till the title gets marketed locally - why? I don't need marketing - I already know that I want to watch it.
So traditional distribution sucks and that is why BT is so popular among saavy users - traditional model does not fit us.
> Most people simply don't even know what
> bittorrent is.
So what? They don't need to - they know what P2P is - place where you can get fresh and rare stuff. They don't care if it is BT, or Emule or Kazaa or whatever - they just click and if it works it is OK for them.
Also do you know that BT is one of biggest traffic generators in Internet?
(...)
> I have better things to do with my time
> than wander through various video files in
> various states of compression (almost all
> lossy).
Also you are far from reality here. Take a look:
http://trackerwww.prq.to/liveindex.php?cat=19
All DVD rips (looseless) titles. Just click them and get it over your DSL. No need to go to the store or rental anymore. And the choice there is comparable to small rental/store.
> They are just being greedy for the small
> amount of money they might be losing.
Money is not the point here - as you have stated there is no comparsion between watching movie at home or going to cinema. It is beetween getting movie from rental (I don't know anybody that actually buys DVD) and getting it from BT - BT is for some people more convinient, not only (can be) money counts here. Also if BT is only way for me to get movie - where is money in this situation? Either I get it for free or I don't get it at all...
People who distribute and benefit from movies should notice that.
Any electric device can be dangerous to health - if it is not tottaly closed/water-proof etc. Even very low voltages can be harmfull if f.e. applied in long peroid of time.
> I can also appreciate that using SUN Java
.Net and the only right path is to open Java and benefit from opensource to gain dominance (but it wont be dominance like MS dominance in f.e. Office area) - a true open/free one. They can do it assuming that they want to focus (they should) their business around services - not software licenses (like MS does).
.Net implementation - in the end I think it is good thing to have such variety - as it remains open I am cool with it. It is like Novell plays nice with their Mono - it is open. Red Hat does not use *any* closed software - trully free/open. Only Sun offers its closed (unfree) Java - and I really don't know if it is practical reason or just political/naughty business play...
:P
:) We (opensource community) are working on that, but we woul
> can pose problems for some people.
It mostly creates (let aside purists like Stallman) distribution issues - Fedora cannot ship Sun Java it will be against its policy (only free software) also it would require special agreements with Sun.
IMHO Sun is doing big mistake here - I know project Harmony is launched - but they have serious competition from
(...)
> However my subtle point is this, SUN
> needs to develop features in OOo in order
> for StarOffice to be competitive with other
> office packages.
I don't know here - it is really so difficult to develop such features in open variant (that runs on something else than Sun Java also)? IMHO no - if Red Hat can do it - it is not difficult.
> Novell/Ximian also wants the most
> competitive package they can get.
But Novell intrest is also aside Sun Java - they have own Mono.
> The most argued point with OOo 2 is the
> fact that Base will only work with java -
> where before most of the java reliance did
> not directly affect usage here it actually
> degrades the "total experience[tm]".
It is not about Java in general it is about specific (Sun) implementation of Java. Of course they eat their own (closed) food - but this may produce issues because also (not only Sun) other firms base their business in OOo, contribute to it (and have done so in past) not to make it closed (by realiyng on closed Java implementation) product since it is against their (f.e. Red Hat *and* Novell) intrest.
> however StarOffice uses it's own
>dictionaries and translations
I think the dictionaries is a matter of intellectual property. There are paid dictionaries (licensed with Sun Star Office) and free ones (that you can use freely with OOo) - here it is good point to have differencies - some people wish to have nonfree dictionary so why not let them to have one? But dictionary is not main feature of Office suite - you can (I can with EN and PL) go with free ones as well...
(...)
> The OOo project faces some difficulties.
> Firstly, the codebase is apparently a mess
> (I don't know how to code, but even the
> OOo developers have stated this so I'll
> take their word for it).
It is - but for credit - they have admitted it and started working on this issue - this is nice.
> Secondly the codebase has always relied
> on java (version 5 did, which was the
> version SUN purchased).
Not in such degree. With OOo 1.x it was distributed with RedHat/Fedora and it has all features implemented with GCJ Java version. Now it is dependant solely on Sun Java implementation - that is the difference between past and current version. Read the article please.
> Now what I've been ranting about is, that
> since this seems to be a big issue for a lot
> of people with the OOo java dependency,
> why not help the OOo developers in 2
> ways - help convert the java dependent
> code, and help clean up the code so it is
> more modular and less messy.
And that is proper question.
> Oh come on - there are 4 (!) community
:) Here you are perfectly right. But also keep in mind that free software is not about features - of course there can be excelent free software lika Apache, there can be software with less features but free. Free software is not about features only - it is about your freedom. I would not give my freedom for features. Of course it is a bit dramatizing OOo is still free but the use of Sun Java poses *some* difficulties - f.e. I use Fedora in my work - I use OpenOffice.org packaged with Fedora - now they cannot package it (the 2.0 vanilla version) - they must rewrite some stuff etc. etc. - but it can be done - so why the mainstream code cannot be done same way?
:)
> developers on Open Office, 40 developers
> from SUN and 10 from Novell [Ximian].
OK developement is one thing - dont forget maintaining, testing, finding bugs etc. - that is what Linux distributors and users do and it *is* IMHO important input to the project. Add to it translating and writing documentation (even silly howtos on how to do mail merge *are* useful). Translating is done (I assume so) mostly by local developers and I don't think they are employed by Sun. Polish version (I am Pole) is maintained by UX Systems (ux.pl) they build services around OOo and Linux.
Look I am not trying to bash anybody it is like I see the problem (the problem *does* exist) from both sides.
> Of course they'll choose java if the choice
> is between getting the feature or not.
Good that they coded it anyway.
> It's perfectly fine if the community wants a
> java free OOo or a free java - then go
> work on it.
We do work.
> Stop bashing SUN or Novell for contributing
> code to OOo.
Novel does not contribute Sun Java specific code AFAIK. But I think you got it wrong - the case is not about bashing somebodys useful job - it just focuses/highlighst some issues that *need* to be discussed - such discussion is *healthly* for the project itself - I am far from calling it bashing anything.
> Hey ASSHOLES, the current Java source
> code can be downloaded here, and the
> latest development version can be
> downloaded here.
So what that it can be downloaded? It has distribution restrictions and cannot be distributed in free products like Red Hat Fedora or Debian GNU Linux. This is also the case since they *want* to distribute OpenOffice.org (and have full rights to it as it was licensed so it allowed) - but they can not since it is dependant on Sun Java.
(...)
> I don't particularly care if you like Java or
> not, but I've had enough of this bullshit
> about Java being open or not.
There is not much to bullshit about, Java is not free, it may be open in some ways.
(...)
> Not to mention that OpenOffice is Sun's
> baby. They PAID MONEY FOR IT. (I know
> that's a foreign concept here, since the ?
> entire fraking world is supposed to be FREE
> for the fraking taking.)
So what? They benefit from opensourcing Star Office - they get labour and testing for free it is very nice that they decided on such move but this is not like giving something away for nothing. They also take back from opensource community - they take back what they seeded.
> If you don't like the direction OpenOffice
> has taken, then go play with KOffice.
Oh so this is so simple? What if somebody has contributed some code to OpenOffce.org (for FREE) and now you tell him to go play with KOffice? Why? You don't bother if people contribute to it or not? Using OpenOffice.org means also contributing to it - f.e. by testing it or propagating it - I've choosen OpenOffice.org because it is not expensive and its formats are open. I don't care to much that I need to install Java to use it - but I can imagine somebody who cares.
> You've been given a gift and all you can do
> is look it in the mouth.
This is *not* a gift like some rich country gives money to 3rd world country or something. It is actually a model in which both Sun and OpenOffice.org users benefit. It is like a business deal - not a free gift.
I use spare Linux PC (Celeron 800Mhz) it is also a server for home purposes/developement. It has two 200GB drives inside and exports that drives via Samba (Windows clients) and NFS (UNIX clients). I store all my multimedia stuff on this machine. Home workstations (two) play off it (via mounted.network drive), if I want to sync my laptop with it I just run rsync and I am done. :)
Oh also the server itself plays those files - it is attached to my hifi in living room and has nice GUI (Freevo) for browsing/playing music).
Does anybody have a clue what software they used to generate those PDFs? I am curious how various software treats such stuff in PDFs... I mean f.e. it is obvious that simple printout to PDF converter will erease any such hidden data, but what with f.e. OpenOffice.org export function or various other utilities?
Heh maybe... :) It is old anyway... I don't bother with searching.
The same was mentioned like 3 months ago... I don't even bother to look for previous /. link.
So it is not like that somebody in Europe can just screw it. Write a tool that converts it to PNG and just leave it to users to use it?
> Even if IE7 turns out to be the best product
;) My definition of good product:
:)
> ever created by mortal man, people will
> immediately assume it sux (minus MS zealots of
> course).
If MSIE 7 will be better product I'll use it. What defines better product that it is better for me. So if it is better why I need to use worse? But it will not happen.
1. It actually works.
2. It actually works on my system (X11 and so on).
3. It is actually better.
4. It (as I am developer) is easy to develop against.
I don't think MS will manage with those points.
PS. I am using Opera on Linux and Windows.
Yes maybe not. But ESR is a bit right. I would have problem with that dialog and I *know* how printing works in Linux.