QA is made indeed by the users, the policy of "release early" is all about that indeed, but I wouldn't generalize your statement on the entire OSS movement.
Counterexamples: Debian has a community-driven QA system and takes care that its (long awaited) releases are bug-free. The same can't be said about OSs from Microsoft (what are Service packs made of?) or even Apple (users of OSX prior to 10.2 should remember about that:) ).
I recall wandering in my fave computer shop at the times, I was a proud Apple//c owner. There were the Lisa beast and the Mac. I could play with them a little. I was really blown away when I experienced the desktop metaphor and how it worked, it was the first time i could use a new system without touching a manual for command syntax.
In the UK, the usual tactics are the sounds of household accidents (plates falling onto the floor, fork/knives falling onto plates, children screaming, the TV blinking out into silence or white noise). I guess the advertisers are targetting those parents who are likely to be in the kitchen while their offspring are in the living room watching TV. Any "bad sound" is going to make them run into the living room to see what is happening...
... until somebody ignores a bad sound thinking it's a TV ad, has a genuine household accident, and sues the TV network and the advertised product makers for damages?
- 40 or 60 GB hard disk - Card slot for CF I/II and Microdrive (all other flash memory cards via JOBO Adapter SECF61) - internal Li-Ion-Battery - 3,8" Color TFT, QVGA, adjustable brightness - Touch Screen - WiFi compatible (optional CF-Wi-Fi card required) - USB 2.0 connection to PC/Mac (high-speed and full-speed) - TV-Out (incl. video cable) for PAL/NTSC
Photo-Features - Verify-Function - RAW-Format of Canon, Nikon and Kodak PRO (decoding and displaying) - Decodes 6 Megapix.JPG 1 Sec. - Download of 5-8 GB with one battery charge - Thumbnail-Mode with 12 thumbs per page - Power Zoom-Function: pixel per pixel presentable - Channel view RGB or B&W - Histogram - Dust-Detector - PictBridge direct connection to printer via USB - Editing mode for exif data (Keywords)
Extras - Download of 5-8 GB using one charge of battery - Saves all usual files (RAW, JPG, MP3, doc, xls, ppt, etc.) - Down and Upload - File management (Touch Screen) - Firmware Upgrade via Internet - Displays hard disk status (free/occupied memory) - Displays battery status - External hard disk to PC/Mac - Owner information and copyright notice
Multimedia - MP3-Player, incl. loudspeaker and earphones - Video Play: MPEG 1, 2, 4 & DivX 3, 4 , 5 - Video playing time: 120 min.
Accessories: - menu in D, GB, F, I, NL, SW - GIGA Vu PRO (Dimesions 145 x 107 x 38 m, 420 g) - protective cover - A/C adapter - USB cable - maual - video cable - earphones - Optional: battery-pack and car-adapter
If wireless, video-out, etc... work under linux I can well stop drooling after iPods. (Of course I think Apple is planning similar stuff for next generation gadgets.)
That would be Omni Consumer Product, or OCP. Of course "Robocop" is not the first movie to imagine a single company taking over the market, IIRC there was Central {Services, Banking,...} in "Brazil".
1) get ex employee into a competing company (as a "mole") 2) the employee, as previously instructed, comes up with an idea the ex-employer has already patented 3) wait until idea is deployed 4) sue 5) (no ???) 6) profit!!!
BTW I don't like smart tags, Google's or anyone else's.
Being a ppc user and disliking XP (the look of it, too, compared to gnome, kde, xfce, OSX default themes) is beside the point, now.
The point is: if i can perfectly well be a registered XP user and decide to run WINE to avoid booting xp and there is no technical limit that prevent me to access a site using wine, why the heck are they taking time to block me??? Just don't support me if i screw up, end of the story.
Nice to know about XPostFacto running on g3 cards, if i should ever decide to put a g3 inside my 7300/166 i will surely try out OSX:)
It has 96MB and barely able to run gnome before swapping out (I know, i should really try something lighter than gnome)
You don't happen to have old hardware around? I have installed debian on two macs and one intel. I can use the same software and share data on all three, no more shareware and tryware notices, and I can keep all machines current, I can experiment with free software packages without fuss (I mean, installing debian is easier than port packages) On my tibookII I have no problems with peripherals (digital cam, firewire hd bought yesterday - gotta repartition it NOW, printer, airport - not extreme, ati radeon), on an old mac i have a scsi scanner - see journal for details. The intel laptop is just behind NAT and firewalled when somebody wants windows. Mac on linux (running an istance of OSX in a separate linux window/virtual console) is also possible, but i didn't get it to run on the newest 2.6.10- guess what, i didn't care to as i seldom use OSX anymore.
The only risk is if a naughty exploit hits debian. But it's a risk that win-only or mac-only setups have, too. Especially win;)
Well, artists got their 17" monitor, anyway you are talking to the wrong person here. Sure, I think OSX is the best desktop OS out there, and have been using Apples since//c, but i'm no Apple or Jobs fanboy, I go for what I think is the most rewarding computing experience. That is, debian (see my journal).
Apple fanboys might sure ask for better hardware. Microsoft fanboys might sure ask for a better OS. Linux fanboys might sure start STFU, boycotting closed hardware manufacturers, and contributing code and docs.
I stand corrected on the vaio line being already available around that time.
All the rest of your comment seems not very informative. I haven't found any laptops who had the same array of features of powerbooks at that time - i repeat: wireless, gigabit ethernet, firewire. If you think an integrated cam is the same, we are obviously requiring different things from our machines. More specs and less schooling, if you can.
I completely agree with you and all those people thinking that this is a scandal. Like there were no other matters to discuss, sw patents hit the EU agenda every 40 days. Shame on you politicians.
Anyway my interpretation of the situation doesn't involve democracy but economics.
Software big firms are managed by business people. The most cunning of them, who supposedly end up with most of the power and influence, realized that software is a peculiar market. The product isn't physical, the distibution and manufacturing costs can get to near zero, costumers can switch to the competition in a matter of days (look at how google got the market of altavista, excite, lycos, or how xfree86 was quickly dropped for x.org).
So the usual tactics that big corporations employ to 0wn a market have no effect on the oh so virtual software market.
What can make it different? EASY, Software Patents! Put silly patents into the pictures and voila' the software market is at the mercy of the big players just like anything else: they do not need to Own the market anymore, they just need to get a slice of the patents and anybody who wants to do business will have to face them or the courts.
Forget about all the BS about innovation. Nobody cares about innovation, all they want is big $.
Now off my rant... Macs truly are great, and the PowerBooks of the time were great, but that DOES NOT MEAN they were the BEST
At the time there was no sony vaio, so the powerbook titanium was the smallest laptop around. It also had optional wireless and standard firewire and gigabit ethernet built in. Os 10.1 was a bit lacking but i'd take it over whatever windows version any day (i tried 98 2000 and xp home)
I'd be careful when surfing sites that needs the user to enter logins/passwords/personal data: if you cannot or don't want to see the certificates enter the url by hand instead of clicking on links.
I'm sorry if I sounded like treating you like an idiot, I didn't mean to. The Slashdot green-red dot that makes you an enemy of a friend doesn't quite interest me BTW.
The dictionary definition was crucial to make my point, anyway sticking to your example:
Network config files have a format. That format under linux is open and documented like anything else, so it's interoperable with other open and documented systems.
I don't know how much RH and similar companies are trying to improve vs. embrace and extend linux. According to the dictionary, as long as it keeps things open there are no problems.
About reusing skills, I'm using debian on four completely different platforms now (intel, UML intel in a virtual server, G4, and an older ppc), which seems to me a valid counterpoint to your stating that windows is similar across all versions.
Else, I can testify that I'm currently using the same set of bash commands I used as a student on a VAX mainframe some 15 years ago, now that's interoperability according to you;)
Wrong button, my bad. I still had to complete the post.
What i meant: the fact that debian has/etc/network/interfaces and redhat has ??? (honestly i don't know) doesn't stop those systems to be interoperable because their open source status makes it POSSIBLE to communicate at whatever level, so the definition of interoperable is satisfied.
On the other hand, having to reverse engineer closed source system to get it to cooperate is the clear opposite.
About the whole discussion, I think Billy boy had it backwards. If windows doesn't interoperate with open source the problem lies in windows:)
Interoperability
1. The ability of systems, units, or forces to provide services to and accept services from other systems, units or forces and to use the services so exchanged to enable them to operate effectively together.
2. The condition achieved among communications-electronics systems or items of communications-electronics equipment when information or services can be exchanged directly and satisfactorily between them and/or their users. The degree of interoperability should be defined when referring to specific cases.
Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms in support of MIL-STD-188.
With respect to software, the term interoperability is also used to describe the capability of different programs to read and write the same file formats and utilise the same protocols.
Interoperability can have important economic consequences, such as network externalities. If competitors' products are not interoperable (due to causes such as patents, trade secrets or coordination failures), the result may well be monopoly or market failure. For this reason, it may be prudent for governments to take steps to encourage interoperability in various situations.
This would cause a massive migration to Macs for the high-end market. Add that to the fact that:
1) Game developers would already be using PowerPC systems to develop their games for all three consoles
2) The Macs would be far more powerful than their x86 counterparts, allowing for much higher-powered software and games
or bemoan the horrible practices of the giant corporations
I have no particular reason to like lefties. I know next to nothing about most of the issues they raise about big bad corporations. But, I happen to know a little about PCs, and I have experienced on my skin the impact of corporations' common practices on the development of IT, and politicians' ineptitude or servitude towards their interests. You have probably experienced it yourself.
So i reasonably concluded long ago that what happens in the IT field is no different from what happens in other fields, and it's irrelevant that the leftists are a bunch of hippies or the brightest minds of humankind. End Of Rant.
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QA is made indeed by the users, the policy of "release early" is all about that indeed, but I wouldn't generalize your statement on the entire OSS movement.
:) ).
Counterexamples: Debian has a community-driven QA system and takes care that its (long awaited) releases are bug-free. The same can't be said about OSs from Microsoft (what are Service packs made of?) or even Apple (users of OSX prior to 10.2 should remember about that
Time to send another round of complaint emails to EU... er... representatives.
Patent laws: made for the benefit of little inventors, opposed by little inventors, pushed by big corporations. Something is quite wrong.
I recall wandering in my fave computer shop at the times, I was a proud Apple //c owner. There were the Lisa beast and the Mac. I could play with them a little. I was really blown away when I experienced the desktop metaphor and how it worked, it was the first time i could use a new system without touching a manual for command syntax.
This guy made a difference.
In the UK, the usual tactics are the sounds of household accidents (plates falling onto the floor, fork/knives falling onto plates, children screaming, the TV blinking out into silence or white noise). I guess the advertisers are targetting those parents who are likely to be in the kitchen while their offspring are in the living room watching TV. Any "bad sound" is going to make them run into the living room to see what is happening...
... until somebody ignores a bad sound thinking it's a TV ad, has a genuine household accident, and sues the TV network and the advertised product makers for damages?
From one page buried in the jobo website...
- 40 or 60 GB hard disk
- Card slot for CF I/II and Microdrive (all other flash memory cards via JOBO Adapter SECF61)
- internal Li-Ion-Battery
- 3,8" Color TFT, QVGA, adjustable brightness
- Touch Screen
- WiFi compatible (optional CF-Wi-Fi card required)
- USB 2.0 connection to PC/Mac (high-speed and full-speed)
- TV-Out (incl. video cable) for PAL/NTSC
Photo-Features
- Verify-Function
- RAW-Format of Canon, Nikon and Kodak PRO (decoding and displaying)
- Decodes 6 Megapix.JPG 1 Sec.
- Download of 5-8 GB with one battery charge
- Thumbnail-Mode with 12 thumbs per page
- Power Zoom-Function: pixel per pixel presentable
- Channel view RGB or B&W
- Histogram
- Dust-Detector
- PictBridge direct connection to printer via USB
- Editing mode for exif data (Keywords)
Extras
- Download of 5-8 GB using one charge of battery
- Saves all usual files (RAW, JPG, MP3, doc, xls, ppt, etc.)
- Down and Upload
- File management (Touch Screen)
- Firmware Upgrade via Internet
- Displays hard disk status (free/occupied memory)
- Displays battery status
- External hard disk to PC/Mac
- Owner information and copyright notice
Multimedia
- MP3-Player, incl. loudspeaker and earphones
- Video Play: MPEG 1, 2, 4 & DivX 3, 4 , 5
- Video playing time: 120 min.
Accessories:
- menu in D, GB, F, I, NL, SW
- GIGA Vu PRO (Dimesions 145 x 107 x 38 m, 420 g)
- protective cover
- A/C adapter
- USB cable
- maual
- video cable
- earphones
- Optional: battery-pack and car-adapter
If wireless, video-out, etc... work under linux I can well stop drooling after iPods. (Of course I think Apple is planning similar stuff for next generation gadgets.)
What is the OPC? The company who made robocop?
That would be Omni Consumer Product, or OCP. Of course "Robocop" is not the first movie to imagine a single company taking over the market, IIRC there was Central {Services, Banking,...} in "Brazil".
unless...
(anti-MS paranoid mode ON)
1) get ex employee into a competing company (as a "mole")
2) the employee, as previously instructed, comes up with an idea the ex-employer has already patented
3) wait until idea is deployed
4) sue
5) (no ???)
6) profit!!!
BTW I don't like smart tags, Google's or anyone else's.
I presume that finding two colliding contracts both written in a meaningful and legally binding language is harder than finding a simple collision.
Being a ppc user and disliking XP (the look of it, too, compared to gnome, kde, xfce, OSX default themes) is beside the point, now.
The point is: if i can perfectly well be a registered XP user and decide to run WINE to avoid booting xp and there is no technical limit that prevent me to access a site using wine, why the heck are they taking time to block me??? Just don't support me if i screw up, end of the story.
It might as well be a joke, a zero length department for a project to cram a browser in the least possible memory. Or am I overrating ./ editors? :)
:P
BTW, about correcting you if you're wrong, I usually say "have", not "ahve", but then, I'm no native english speaker
...to support his childish claims about OSS software having poor interoperability.
For me it's just another good reason to stay well clear from a software company with such business tactics.
Multi-drug-resistant HIV strain raises alarm
The coincidence that an engineered HIV against cancer comes around just when another HIV mutation appears on the wild... Where is my tinfoil hat?
Nice to know about XPostFacto running on g3 cards, if i should ever decide to put a g3 inside my 7300/166 i will surely try out OSX :)
It has 96MB and barely able to run gnome before swapping out (I know, i should really try something lighter than gnome)
You don't happen to have old hardware around? I have installed debian on two macs and one intel. I can use the same software and share data on all three, no more shareware and tryware notices, and I can keep all machines current, I can experiment with free software packages without fuss (I mean, installing debian is easier than port packages) On my tibookII I have no problems with peripherals (digital cam, firewire hd bought yesterday - gotta repartition it NOW, printer, airport - not extreme, ati radeon), on an old mac i have a scsi scanner - see journal for details. The intel laptop is just behind NAT and firewalled when somebody wants windows. Mac on linux (running an istance of OSX in a separate linux window/virtual console) is also possible, but i didn't get it to run on the newest 2.6.10- guess what, i didn't care to as i seldom use OSX anymore.
;)
The only risk is if a naughty exploit hits debian. But it's a risk that win-only or mac-only setups have, too. Especially win
Well, artists got their 17" monitor, anyway you are talking to the wrong person here. Sure, I think OSX is the best desktop OS out there, and have been using Apples since //c, but i'm no Apple or Jobs fanboy, I go for what I think is the most rewarding computing experience. That is, debian (see my journal).
Apple fanboys might sure ask for better hardware. Microsoft fanboys might sure ask for a better OS. Linux fanboys might sure start STFU, boycotting closed hardware manufacturers, and contributing code and docs.
I stand corrected on the vaio line being already available around that time.
All the rest of your comment seems not very informative. I haven't found any laptops who had the same array of features of powerbooks at that time - i repeat: wireless, gigabit ethernet, firewire. If you think an integrated cam is the same, we are obviously requiring different things from our machines. More specs and less schooling, if you can.
I completely agree with you and all those people thinking that this is a scandal. Like there were no other matters to discuss, sw patents hit the EU agenda every 40 days. Shame on you politicians.
Anyway my interpretation of the situation doesn't involve democracy but economics.
Software big firms are managed by business people. The most cunning of them, who supposedly end up with most of the power and influence, realized that software is a peculiar market. The product isn't physical, the distibution and manufacturing costs can get to near zero, costumers can switch to the competition in a matter of days (look at how google got the market of altavista, excite, lycos, or how xfree86 was quickly dropped for x.org).
So the usual tactics that big corporations employ to 0wn a market have no effect on the oh so virtual software market.
What can make it different? EASY, Software Patents! Put silly patents into the pictures and voila' the software market is at the mercy of the big players just like anything else: they do not need to Own the market anymore, they just need to get a slice of the patents and anybody who wants to do business will have to face them or the courts.
Forget about all the BS about innovation. Nobody cares about innovation, all they want is big $.
Now off my rant... Macs truly are great, and the PowerBooks of the time were great, but that DOES NOT MEAN they were the BEST
At the time there was no sony vaio, so the powerbook titanium was the smallest laptop around. It also had optional wireless and standard firewire and gigabit ethernet built in. Os 10.1 was a bit lacking but i'd take it over whatever windows version any day (i tried 98 2000 and xp home)
I'd say it was the best.
I'd be careful when surfing sites that needs the user to enter logins/passwords/personal data: if you cannot or don't want to see the certificates enter the url by hand instead of clicking on links.
"file" command says it's a Divx, mplayer says it's an xvid with avi file format, maybe adding .avi to the filename solves problems if there are any.
I'm sorry if I sounded like treating you like an idiot, I didn't mean to. The Slashdot green-red dot that makes you an enemy of a friend doesn't quite interest me BTW.
;)
The dictionary definition was crucial to make my point, anyway sticking to your example:
Network config files have a format. That format under linux is open and documented like anything else, so it's interoperable with other open and documented systems.
I don't know how much RH and similar companies are trying to improve vs. embrace and extend linux. According to the dictionary, as long as it keeps things open there are no problems.
About reusing skills, I'm using debian on four completely different platforms now (intel, UML intel in a virtual server, G4, and an older ppc), which seems to me a valid counterpoint to your stating that windows is similar across all versions.
Else, I can testify that I'm currently using the same set of bash commands I used as a student on a VAX mainframe some 15 years ago, now that's interoperability according to you
Wrong button, my bad. I still had to complete the post.
/etc/network/interfaces and redhat has ??? (honestly i don't know) doesn't stop those systems to be interoperable because their open source status makes it POSSIBLE to communicate at whatever level, so the definition of interoperable is satisfied.
:)
What i meant: the fact that debian has
On the other hand, having to reverse engineer closed source system to get it to cooperate is the clear opposite.
About the whole discussion, I think Billy boy had it backwards. If windows doesn't interoperate with open source the problem lies in windows
Interoperability 1. The ability of systems, units, or forces to provide services to and accept services from other systems, units or forces and to use the services so exchanged to enable them to operate effectively together. 2. The condition achieved among communications-electronics systems or items of communications-electronics equipment when information or services can be exchanged directly and satisfactorily between them and/or their users. The degree of interoperability should be defined when referring to specific cases. Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms in support of MIL-STD-188. With respect to software, the term interoperability is also used to describe the capability of different programs to read and write the same file formats and utilise the same protocols. Interoperability can have important economic consequences, such as network externalities. If competitors' products are not interoperable (due to causes such as patents, trade secrets or coordination failures), the result may well be monopoly or market failure. For this reason, it may be prudent for governments to take steps to encourage interoperability in various situations.
This would cause a massive migration to Macs for the high-end market. Add that to the fact that:
1) Game developers would already be using PowerPC systems to develop their games for all three consoles
2) The Macs would be far more powerful than their x86 counterparts, allowing for much higher-powered software and games
3) Linux runs very well on powerpc...
or bemoan the horrible practices of the giant corporations
I have no particular reason to like lefties. I know next to nothing about most of the issues they raise about big bad corporations. But, I happen to know a little about PCs, and I have experienced on my skin the impact of corporations' common practices on the development of IT, and politicians' ineptitude or servitude towards their interests. You have probably experienced it yourself.
So i reasonably concluded long ago that what happens in the IT field is no different from what happens in other fields, and it's irrelevant that the leftists are a bunch of hippies or the brightest minds of humankind. End Of Rant.