It is all about margins vs. scale. Microsoft will of course make more off a PC than a phone, but how many PCs do you have in comparison to other things in your home (phones, tvs, stereos, cameras, etc)?
By the way, PCs are getting cheaper too so that is going to put downward pressure on the price of bundled copies of Windows...
If you think that then you are assuming the products are interchangable and both bring the same value (strangely enough people actually spend on IT for some benefit).
The reason that TCO is being brought up is because the primary argument people are using to push OSS on is based on it being 'free' or 'cheap'. If it costs more or even around the same amount then this should be stated.
Hopefully some day the argument should be able to move on to meaningful things like the benefit it provides!
CBS News: Exit polls show that Candidate A has taken a COMMANDING lead in Ohio.
Supporters of Candidate B: Well, shit, there's no use voting, we're going to lose anyway.
I would assume it is much more likely that supporters of A would say... We won!!!! lets not bother voting..:D
Sure, there is clearly the issue of how a system should try and be friendly.
But how a system is configured by default is changing quickly (SP2 firewall for example) and any gap between IE and FireFox could disappear overnight.
FireFox is going to have to fight really hard to keep or gain market share, not the least because of the future direction of the web experience. If that is your goal, then claiming one product is inherently more secure really doesn't help.
You make some good points, but fail to look for mine.
Simply put, the only argument that you have put forward that IE is less secure is that the default installation is not locked down properly. This has nothing to do with something so grand as a security model, but is simply an issue of default misconfiguration.
I happily run IE with more secure settings and see no reason in your argument that IE is less secure.
The advisories you pointed to do not suggest that I would be vulnerable.
I deliberately tried to stay away from arguing whether one browser was more secure than the other, I was simply stating how ridiculous it is to claim that FireFox is inherently more secure.
I think it is patently ridiculous to assert that Firefox is more secure than IE.
To begin with is a long and unclear argument of what 'security' means. A significant number of 'exploits' on IE are due to users stupidly agreeing to install components that they shouldn't. While there are arguments about how easy it should be for a user to do something stupid -- download, find, and execute vs. click on the wrong button -- I think it is sensible to cast these aside.
What serious exploits are left? Undoubtedly people will feel tempted to bring up past track records, but this doesn't lead to any constructive discussion. Most of the negative attitude here about IE has less to do with the quality of IE, and more to do with a general anti-MS sentiment and some bitterness about the way they stomped on the competition...
I do not think it is difficult to imagine that the next big browser exploit will be for FireFox rather than IE..
You just dont seem to get it. One clear benefit is that you can write a level of library that does not need to consider exceptional situations and can simply allow them to be handled at a simple higer level in the program.
Having to marshall back success and failure results through several methods and then branching at each individual point is cumbersome.
Exceptions allow you to simply ignore any exceptional case that you can not either react to or add contextual information to. Exceptions are not inherently expensive, and I have not seen any engineering reason that they are a Bad Thing. Performance is not the issue that is holding back software today.
It would not be nearly enough to equal Macintosh hardware sales. Apple grosses about 1.8 billion per quarter selling hardware. To equate that with just selling OS X at $129, they would need to sell 14 million units a quarter. Even if a lot of people would switch, that is an unrealistic expectation.
Although I do not think that it does make sense this is the most ridiculous argument I have seen. 1.8 billion gross for hardware is nothing like 1.8 billion gross for software. Software would cost SFA to produce, apple doesnt magically create the hardware for free...
Very interesting that there is no burden on RMS to detail why software patents are as evil as he assumes for majority of his argument.
Before reading more of his predictable drivel, I think it is necessary to argue that point first.
I am not saying that all software patents are valuable, but I think that this is a very different stance than saying that all software patents are evil.
Oh my god when I read this I thought it had to be a joke. Ideas are at many levels, and the highest level -- do something cool -- is pretty stupid.
In your example case you would patent the sort algorithm, which would be the valuable part. The idea of a really fast sort algorithm is hardly patentable.
Where I used to work we generated stored procedures for all tables based on the referential integrity and indexes defined in the database. This code was regenerated when the data structure changed. Along with this code a set of small classes to allow simple (typed) access to the data were also created. The classes also supported batch updating of mutliple rows for a set of data.
These generated procedures allowed for the majority of data access that was required to be done using all the benefits of SPs without having to write them, and made the number of SPs that needed to be handcrafted manageble..... From the application side where the logic was enforced the interface to retrieve and save data was very clean and neat and typed.
I totally agree. What I have an objection to is that people try to suggest that Gtk# is all you need and we can just throw wine at Windows.Forms. But I suppose with open source you have to follow the enthusiasm of the community...
Some people might think that Gtk# is 'cooler' than Windows.Forms (although I would disagree) but I don't think it is as beneficial to the success of Mono...
Gtk# is a ridiculous idea and only exists because some elite coder quickly hacked it up before Mono could get serious enough to implement Windows.Forms.
Windows.Forms really needs to be *the* standard implementation. I can't imagine many people taking Gtk# applications that seriously on Windows...
And as for the runtime itself... Why write a VM for a garbage collected language and not do proper garbage collection??!
It appears that Novell may have helped Mono pretty up the signs on the outside, but I am much more interested in something that is engineered well from the inside....
Slashdot Mirror
It is all about margins vs. scale. Microsoft will of course make more off a PC than a phone, but how many PCs do you have in comparison to other things in your home (phones, tvs, stereos, cameras, etc)?
By the way, PCs are getting cheaper too so that is going to put downward pressure on the price of bundled copies of Windows...
In addition, also make sure that you go to Microsoft's site and run the cleartype tune up.
Some LCDs look awful first up with ClearType but this lets you tune the sub-pixel rendering for your panel!
If you think that then you are assuming the products are interchangable and both bring the same value (strangely enough people actually spend on IT for some benefit).
The reason that TCO is being brought up is because the primary argument people are using to push OSS on is based on it being 'free' or 'cheap'. If it costs more or even around the same amount then this should be stated.
Hopefully some day the argument should be able to move on to meaningful things like the benefit it provides!
wtf???
But either way.... its fucked up
Quite similar really... But that does not mean it is ok for either party......
This is a denial of service. You are unfairly denying them the full service of the internet connection that they pay for.
Saying this is not a DoS because they can still get some data through is besides the point.
Sure, there is clearly the issue of how a system should try and be friendly.
But how a system is configured by default is changing quickly (SP2 firewall for example) and any gap between IE and FireFox could disappear overnight.
FireFox is going to have to fight really hard to keep or gain market share, not the least because of the future direction of the web experience. If that is your goal, then claiming one product is inherently more secure really doesn't help.
You make some good points, but fail to look for mine.
Simply put, the only argument that you have put forward that IE is less secure is that the default installation is not locked down properly. This has nothing to do with something so grand as a security model, but is simply an issue of default misconfiguration.
I happily run IE with more secure settings and see no reason in your argument that IE is less secure.
The advisories you pointed to do not suggest that I would be vulnerable.
I deliberately tried to stay away from arguing whether one browser was more secure than the other, I was simply stating how ridiculous it is to claim that FireFox is inherently more secure.
I think it is patently ridiculous to assert that Firefox is more secure than IE.
To begin with is a long and unclear argument of what 'security' means. A significant number of 'exploits' on IE are due to users stupidly agreeing to install components that they shouldn't. While there are arguments about how easy it should be for a user to do something stupid -- download, find, and execute vs. click on the wrong button -- I think it is sensible to cast these aside.
What serious exploits are left? Undoubtedly people will feel tempted to bring up past track records, but this doesn't lead to any constructive discussion. Most of the negative attitude here about IE has less to do with the quality of IE, and more to do with a general anti-MS sentiment and some bitterness about the way they stomped on the competition...
I do not think it is difficult to imagine that the next big browser exploit will be for FireFox rather than IE..
You just dont seem to get it. One clear benefit is that you can write a level of library that does not need to consider exceptional situations and can simply allow them to be handled at a simple higer level in the program.
Having to marshall back success and failure results through several methods and then branching at each individual point is cumbersome.
Exceptions allow you to simply ignore any exceptional case that you can not either react to or add contextual information to. Exceptions are not inherently expensive, and I have not seen any engineering reason that they are a Bad Thing. Performance is not the issue that is holding back software today.
It would not be nearly enough to equal Macintosh hardware sales. Apple grosses about 1.8 billion per quarter selling hardware. To equate that with just selling OS X at $129, they would need to sell 14 million units a quarter. Even if a lot of people would switch, that is an unrealistic expectation.
Although I do not think that it does make sense this is the most ridiculous argument I have seen. 1.8 billion gross for hardware is nothing like 1.8 billion gross for software. Software would cost SFA to produce, apple doesnt magically create the hardware for free...
How about the users of the software?
Make them public incrementally. Or work out what to do before you release them..
Nobody wants to invite legal action...
Bad bad idea... If they are publicly identified then they have to be defended....
Very interesting that there is no burden on RMS to detail why software patents are as evil as he assumes for majority of his argument.
Before reading more of his predictable drivel, I think it is necessary to argue that point first.
I am not saying that all software patents are valuable, but I think that this is a very different stance than saying that all software patents are evil.
Cup is a metric measure (250mL) :-)
The issue with this is simple: Multi-tasking.
I would really hate to have the types that subscribe to slashdot telling me what it is important that I read...
Oh my god when I read this I thought it had to be a joke. Ideas are at many levels, and the highest level -- do something cool -- is pretty stupid.
In your example case you would patent the sort algorithm, which would be the valuable part. The idea of a really fast sort algorithm is hardly patentable.
Where I used to work we generated stored procedures for all tables based on the referential integrity and indexes defined in the database. This code was regenerated when the data structure changed. Along with this code a set of small classes to allow simple (typed) access to the data were also created. The classes also supported batch updating of mutliple rows for a set of data.
These generated procedures allowed for the majority of data access that was required to be done using all the benefits of SPs without having to write them, and made the number of SPs that needed to be handcrafted manageble..... From the application side where the logic was enforced the interface to retrieve and save data was very clean and neat and typed.
It may be that linux would have d3d emulation if it wasnt for id :-)
I totally agree. What I have an objection to is that people try to suggest that Gtk# is all you need and we can just throw wine at Windows.Forms. But I suppose with open source you have to follow the enthusiasm of the community...
Some people might think that Gtk# is 'cooler' than Windows.Forms (although I would disagree) but I don't think it is as beneficial to the success of Mono...
Gtk# is a ridiculous idea and only exists because some elite coder quickly hacked it up before Mono could get serious enough to implement Windows.Forms.
Windows.Forms really needs to be *the* standard implementation. I can't imagine many people taking Gtk# applications that seriously on Windows...
And as for the runtime itself... Why write a VM for a garbage collected language and not do proper garbage collection??!
It appears that Novell may have helped Mono pretty up the signs on the outside, but I am much more interested in something that is engineered well from the inside....
2005 XBox 2..
:-)