I understand your perspective, but crikey, I've used all the major operating systems and none of them standardise.
And take a course in diplomacy dick, being offensive made me think you must have a small prick.
What I don't get is that every moron has a different and unstructured opinion on what we must do to make Linux more succesful. Frankly I have no interest in making some grand unified experience for morons. I find it pretty interesting to see how different products innovate. My girlfriend can use Mac OSX, which I also love, that's the most consistent OS I've used.
Look, sorry for being rude. I just get worked up by this shit. You act like we're all a bunch of shit because we don't do this easy thing but the reality is you don't know shit about it and words are easy to type into this input box. Give it some thought next time or I'll just flame you again.
I don't think Linux is the best OS or any of that shit. I do use it most days. But at least when I talk about Linux, its community and its developers, I have a slight fucking clue what the fuck I am saying.
You know fuck all, and it is abundantly obvious to everyone apart from the clueless newbie moderators who moderated you up.
Here's a beginning for your education: There is no organisation in the wide-world of linux software. Enjoy believing that there is some bunch of people that dictate the future of the whole platform. That's just not how things work. Sometimes this is detrimental to the 'platform', but that is just how it is.
But I don't want you to waste time on my request. I am interested in relocation but I don't enjoy abusing other peoples' time:-) Thanks for your offer though, hope to hear from you.
Call me crazy, but as a fairly socially libreal/libertarian UK citizen, it shocks me what people in the US put up with. The DMCA? The family entertainment copyright bill? Infinite copyrights for lovable animated mice? A president whose facial expressions are hilarious?
But anyway, here in the UK taxes seem reasonable to me. I have to pay for society afterall.
Healthcare seems fine.
I don't notice the cameras really.
Yeah the bureacuracy sucks.
TV Licenses are cheap and the result is great, advert-free, TV, great radio stations and a great bbc online resource. At the very least it pays for Doctor Who.
Speed Cameras make it less likely that some speeding arsehole will get me killed, and don't bother me because I don't break the speed limit! The fines aren't much really, I think it's the 3 points on the license that hurt.
I don't mind cameras, speed cameras, etc. Who the fuck cares if they're getting watched? I'd much rather be safe on the streets and the roads, which I believe these cameras assist.
I'm interested by your move to Japan. If you would be so kind, when did you move and how has it gone? Did you know Japanese in advance? I don't know your ethnic origin, but if you are not-Japanese in ethnicity, how are you treated by the Japanese? Hope you answer thanks!:-)
My girlfriend always is telling me "Britain's alright, look at all this great stuff!" and she then shows me some great stuff. But frankly I agree with you, it sucks here.
I was going to move to Australia, but then they started acting really funny about Immaterial Rights Laws. So prolly Canada. I'd move to America but I don't want to get shot.
My parents lost their ADSL connection for two months. A friend of mine lost his for 6 months. The whole time BT in both circumstances claimed that there was no problem and it must be a fault at their end. In my friends case he eventually figured out there was a fault at their end and exactly what it was so he phoned them and explained to their operators what they should do to fix it. It fixed it.
I forget what fixed my parents problem. My parents still use BT for ADSL (yeah I think they are stupid too). The BT DNS servers regularly fail resulting in my eventually installing a DNS cache for them.
My last employer at one point had their external phone lines go down most days in a 2 week period because BT were doing something on the local exchange. The company makes half it's money from cold-calls. And it coincided with payday and meant we very nearly didn't get paid that month because accounts couldn't wire the bank (or whatever it is they do which require the phones).
My experience with BT is quite poor. If the stuff they provide works, it works well. If it breaks you will suffer potentially weeks of crap customer service. Eventually it will magically get fixed.
Having said all this I agree with you that they are better than the rest that you can choice from in this country. But I wanted to dispute your good response times/reasonable service claims.
As a fellow brit, I have to disagree. He pretty much spoke the truth (eg BT suck, and so do most of the related industries). His comments such as "Does that even happen in the US?" etc, were sometimes silly (nothing's perfect), but otherwise pretty tame. I've read commentries about people visiting other countries before and usually people are far less pleasant.
Take a step back and look at your response, bit extreme perhaps?
Frankly your response does damage to how people here on slashdot will generally perceive us, so thanks for that.
I once wrote a post like yours, about 2 weeks later I realised that people call things what they call them and being a pedantic fool wouldn't endear me to anyone.
You have to make choices in life. Your company chose to go the Microsoft route, and now they are a little stuck. There are many reasons that OpenOffice etc. don't support these MS solutions. Yes a few of them are a little pathetic (eg. "I aint supporting no MS shit!"). But this is just how it is.
So you choose the MS way, the Open Source way, or perhaps a company that has a solution and doesn't believe in lock-in.
Once you've chosen you have to eat what you've picked; there's no point whinging about it afterwards.
Documentation is boring to write. But it is something you could write for your favourite project. You have no right to be sarcastic unless you are willing to do that kind of work yourself.
If you happen to be a documentation writer I apologise, but I felt the point deserved to be made.
I write software, Open Source software. I really care about the interface. Sometimes I spend 20 hour days tweaking and improving the interface, rewriting entire elements of interface, all in response to user-feedback and my own careful analysis.
Comments like yours -- comments that are so fashionable and trendy nowadays -- really put me off writing any software altogether. Such broad, unpleasant, unkind and rude generalisation and obvious distate.
Many users say things like "developers don't give a shit about us!" Well guess what, many users are equally horrid and unpleasant to developers.
I used to moderate down useless first post comments in an attempt to draw more attention to comments that would provoke more interesting discussion. One I remember was an article about KOffice and the first post was "Try Open Office, it's well good!" By the end of the week it was +5 Informative.
Eventually I stopped getting moderator points presumably because the meta-modderators decided I was being unfair on these fascinating first posts.
Apparently you and me are the only ones who find that first-post warriors ruin the quality of the discussion.
But maybe if you'd used a community distribution (eg Debian), it would have worked out better? I wonder. For sure XFree86 still exists despite the fact their userbase dried up, but will they exist forever?
I agree with you that nothing is as simple as OSS zealots like to portray.
You can't judge a community based on the actions of one person. Sure OSDL didn't fire the guy, but if it was my company I wouldn't fire him either. His actions may reflect my company, but really it is his own time, and he is probably a valuble employee.
Anyway my original point, I don't judge you based on the "business community" you are part of. Don't judge me similarly if you please.
I'm not sure why you thought I was trying to insult you.
It's true that software are tools, and you search for the tool by name, and you hope the name will reveal the tool's use. However it isn't that big a deal. All GUIs nowadays have a description field, Google will help you if you search well (eg "pacman ArchLinux"), man pacman would also help, so will "man pacman".
The best thing a name can be is memorable and catchy. Car manufacturers have long since given up on contextual names, they do fine.
No I've never heard of Kenshoo, I don't know what it does either. I logically assume that if I wanted a tool that did what it does I'd find out about it. I doesn't really matter what it's called; word-of-mouth, google, whatever, would lead me to it.
But yeah I agree that on a scale of things, essential command-line tools like a package manager and directory listing tool need good names, and UNIX sucks for those for sure. But compared to apt, yum, rpm and portage I think pacman is the best.
Congratulations! You haven't got a clue what you are talking about. You clearly have no grasp of Linux packaging, what is involved, what is required, what is sensible, what autopackage is, what autopackage is good for, nor did you read the fucking article.
Why does every FOSS package name tells us nothing about what it does?
Pacman stands for Package Manager.
But to defend less well named products, it is very difficult to name things, and extremely difficult to name things well. Also frankly it is far more important to pick a name that is memorable and easy to pronounce. It doesn't take long to figure out what something does (man pacman, pacman --help, google for pacman etc.), but if you can't remember it next time you need to use it, then the name is useless.
Sure it's still a good idea to have a small reference to what the application does in the name, but it isn't that important. Google does ok. Not having a reference to what you do in your name means you get more word of mouth. People have to ask "What does that do?", and straight away they are interested.
Generic names don't really make good names in the overcrowded world of software. People don't realise that you are talking about an Application when you refer to Mac OSX's "Mail". Word does OK because it is so commonly known. But Excel is an excellent name for an application, Access too. You get a small feel for what the application does but the name is fairly unique and memorable.
And finally, your name (sfcat) tells me nothing about you, why didn't you pick a name that would instantly help me know what kind of person you are? My name is obviously better, it tells you that I am a bit weird.
I love the unwritten assumption that lingers between the lines in these kinds of posts. The assumption that Linux only exists to eradicate Windows and to fill Christmas with tales of how Grandma says "Linux is so easy to use!"
Sure it'd be nice, but maybe Linux isn't ever going to turn out like that. Does it really matter?
But anyway your post is a bit stupid. Distros like SUSE and Linspire both have marketing departments, install in 3 clicks and install with only one text-editor, calculator and widget appearance. Grandma won't be saying "I use Linux", she'll be saying "I use Linspire, what's this Linux thing you're talking about?"
Bonch, why are you so obsessed with OSS becoming the number 1? As an OSS developer I am thrilled that some people benefit from the stuff I write. It is not a goal of mine to take over the fricking world. As the other guy said, if you don't like how OSS gets developed then go use something else. At the very least stop trolling slashdot.
I admire the way you have crafted your trolls so perfectly now to always get modded up but you totally ruin any thread you post in.
Slashdot Mirror
Talk for yourself, my interfaces rock.
I understand your perspective, but crikey, I've used all the major operating systems and none of them standardise.
And take a course in diplomacy dick, being offensive made me think you must have a small prick.
What I don't get is that every moron has a different and unstructured opinion on what we must do to make Linux more succesful. Frankly I have no interest in making some grand unified experience for morons. I find it pretty interesting to see how different products innovate. My girlfriend can use Mac OSX, which I also love, that's the most consistent OS I've used.
Look, sorry for being rude. I just get worked up by this shit. You act like we're all a bunch of shit because we don't do this easy thing but the reality is you don't know shit about it and words are easy to type into this input box. Give it some thought next time or I'll just flame you again.
Jesus, you don't no shit do you?
I don't think Linux is the best OS or any of that shit. I do use it most days. But at least when I talk about Linux, its community and its developers, I have a slight fucking clue what the fuck I am saying.
You know fuck all, and it is abundantly obvious to everyone apart from the clueless newbie moderators who moderated you up.
Here's a beginning for your education: There is no organisation in the wide-world of linux software. Enjoy believing that there is some bunch of people that dictate the future of the whole platform. That's just not how things work. Sometimes this is detrimental to the 'platform', but that is just how it is.
Please educate yourself further, you'd benefit.
Sure:
:-) Thanks for your offer though, hope to hear from you.
max.howell + methylblue ! com
But I don't want you to waste time on my request. I am interested in relocation but I don't enjoy abusing other peoples' time
Call me crazy, but as a fairly socially libreal/libertarian UK citizen, it shocks me what people in the US put up with. The DMCA? The family entertainment copyright bill? Infinite copyrights for lovable animated mice? A president whose facial expressions are hilarious?
But anyway, here in the UK taxes seem reasonable to me. I have to pay for society afterall.
Healthcare seems fine.
I don't notice the cameras really.
Yeah the bureacuracy sucks.
TV Licenses are cheap and the result is great, advert-free, TV, great radio stations and a great bbc online resource. At the very least it pays for Doctor Who.
Speed Cameras make it less likely that some speeding arsehole will get me killed, and don't bother me because I don't break the speed limit! The fines aren't much really, I think it's the 3 points on the license that hurt.
I don't mind cameras, speed cameras, etc. Who the fuck cares if they're getting watched? I'd much rather be safe on the streets and the roads, which I believe these cameras assist.
I'm interested by your move to Japan. If you would be so kind, when did you move and how has it gone? Did you know Japanese in advance? I don't know your ethnic origin, but if you are not-Japanese in ethnicity, how are you treated by the Japanese? Hope you answer thanks! :-)
My girlfriend always is telling me "Britain's alright, look at all this great stuff!" and she then shows me some great stuff. But frankly I agree with you, it sucks here.
I was going to move to Australia, but then they started acting really funny about Immaterial Rights Laws. So prolly Canada. I'd move to America but I don't want to get shot.
My parents lost their ADSL connection for two months. A friend of mine lost his for 6 months. The whole time BT in both circumstances claimed that there was no problem and it must be a fault at their end. In my friends case he eventually figured out there was a fault at their end and exactly what it was so he phoned them and explained to their operators what they should do to fix it. It fixed it.
I forget what fixed my parents problem. My parents still use BT for ADSL (yeah I think they are stupid too). The BT DNS servers regularly fail resulting in my eventually installing a DNS cache for them.
My last employer at one point had their external phone lines go down most days in a 2 week period because BT were doing something on the local exchange. The company makes half it's money from cold-calls. And it coincided with payday and meant we very nearly didn't get paid that month because accounts couldn't wire the bank (or whatever it is they do which require the phones).
My experience with BT is quite poor. If the stuff they provide works, it works well. If it breaks you will suffer potentially weeks of crap customer service. Eventually it will magically get fixed.
Having said all this I agree with you that they are better than the rest that you can choice from in this country. But I wanted to dispute your good response times/reasonable service claims.
As a fellow brit, I have to disagree. He pretty much spoke the truth (eg BT suck, and so do most of the related industries). His comments such as "Does that even happen in the US?" etc, were sometimes silly (nothing's perfect), but otherwise pretty tame. I've read commentries about people visiting other countries before and usually people are far less pleasant.
Take a step back and look at your response, bit extreme perhaps?
Frankly your response does damage to how people here on slashdot will generally perceive us, so thanks for that.
I once wrote a post like yours, about 2 weeks later I realised that people call things what they call them and being a pedantic fool wouldn't endear me to anyone.
Love your posts man, keep them coming :)
You have to make choices in life. Your company chose to go the Microsoft route, and now they are a little stuck. There are many reasons that OpenOffice etc. don't support these MS solutions. Yes a few of them are a little pathetic (eg. "I aint supporting no MS shit!"). But this is just how it is.
So you choose the MS way, the Open Source way, or perhaps a company that has a solution and doesn't believe in lock-in.
Once you've chosen you have to eat what you've picked; there's no point whinging about it afterwards.
Documentation is boring to write. But it is something you could write for your favourite project. You have no right to be sarcastic unless you are willing to do that kind of work yourself.
If you happen to be a documentation writer I apologise, but I felt the point deserved to be made.
I write software, Open Source software. I really care about the interface. Sometimes I spend 20 hour days tweaking and improving the interface, rewriting entire elements of interface, all in response to user-feedback and my own careful analysis.
Comments like yours -- comments that are so fashionable and trendy nowadays -- really put me off writing any software altogether. Such broad, unpleasant, unkind and rude generalisation and obvious distate.
Many users say things like "developers don't give a shit about us!" Well guess what, many users are equally horrid and unpleasant to developers.
I used to moderate down useless first post comments in an attempt to draw more attention to comments that would provoke more interesting discussion. One I remember was an article about KOffice and the first post was "Try Open Office, it's well good!" By the end of the week it was +5 Informative.
Eventually I stopped getting moderator points presumably because the meta-modderators decided I was being unfair on these fascinating first posts.
Apparently you and me are the only ones who find that first-post warriors ruin the quality of the discussion.
But maybe if you'd used a community distribution (eg Debian), it would have worked out better? I wonder. For sure XFree86 still exists despite the fact their userbase dried up, but will they exist forever?
I agree with you that nothing is as simple as OSS zealots like to portray.
You can't judge a community based on the actions of one person. Sure OSDL didn't fire the guy, but if it was my company I wouldn't fire him either. His actions may reflect my company, but really it is his own time, and he is probably a valuble employee.
Anyway my original point, I don't judge you based on the "business community" you are part of. Don't judge me similarly if you please.
I'm not sure why you thought I was trying to insult you.
It's true that software are tools, and you search for the tool by name, and you hope the name will reveal the tool's use. However it isn't that big a deal. All GUIs nowadays have a description field, Google will help you if you search well (eg "pacman ArchLinux"), man pacman would also help, so will "man pacman".
The best thing a name can be is memorable and catchy. Car manufacturers have long since given up on contextual names, they do fine.
No I've never heard of Kenshoo, I don't know what it does either. I logically assume that if I wanted a tool that did what it does I'd find out about it. I doesn't really matter what it's called; word-of-mouth, google, whatever, would lead me to it.
But yeah I agree that on a scale of things, essential command-line tools like a package manager and directory listing tool need good names, and UNIX sucks for those for sure. But compared to apt, yum, rpm and portage I think pacman is the best.
Congratulations! You haven't got a clue what you are talking about. You clearly have no grasp of Linux packaging, what is involved, what is required, what is sensible, what autopackage is, what autopackage is good for, nor did you read the fucking article.
Intelligent opinion. Marvelous. I take back some of the things I said about you. I'll try harder to see merit in your usual comments.
I love the unwritten assumption that lingers between the lines in these kinds of posts. The assumption that Linux only exists to eradicate Windows and to fill Christmas with tales of how Grandma says "Linux is so easy to use!"
Sure it'd be nice, but maybe Linux isn't ever going to turn out like that. Does it really matter?
But anyway your post is a bit stupid. Distros like SUSE and Linspire both have marketing departments, install in 3 clicks and install with only one text-editor, calculator and widget appearance. Grandma won't be saying "I use Linux", she'll be saying "I use Linspire, what's this Linux thing you're talking about?"
Bonch, why are you so obsessed with OSS becoming the number 1? As an OSS developer I am thrilled that some people benefit from the stuff I write. It is not a goal of mine to take over the fricking world. As the other guy said, if you don't like how OSS gets developed then go use something else. At the very least stop trolling slashdot.
I admire the way you have crafted your trolls so perfectly now to always get modded up but you totally ruin any thread you post in.
You've pretty much proved that you haven't read any of the Autopackage FAQs. Congratulations on your obvious ignorance.
Your problem bonch, is you're a fucking moron. Do you get any pleasure out of life? I hope not, and I doubt it too.
Dick.