Why not linux? Part of the point of linux is that it is open source. I'm sure with a few good programmers and a bit of time the right portions of linux could be filtered out to run it. Since linux already has the power and stability, why not just remove what is not needed? Yes linux is large but it has become that way to support various systems and needs. A hand held system would not need to have support for hundreds of net cards, or different motherboard chip sets. When you think about it, Linux can become very small when needed too. If you equipment is fixed then your kernal can be built specificly to that hardware.
It really won't bother me if hp uses linux or not. But I think that because linux is already customizable down to the kernal level it could work well. I'm not that familiar with Minix, and thought it was what linux was modeled after. If so and it hasn't been kept up to date then it might be more work to upgrade it than to remove the unneeded parts of linux.
Overall I think that switching to linux would lower the cost. Since winCE I'm sure requires a licensing fee, and linux does not. Once they have what they want that lowers cost, and if that were shifted to lower buying price then maybe I'd get one. But I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Originally patents did help the little guys. The real inventors that have made our lives better. I really think software/business model patents should be a shorter time period. Maybe 3 years. 3 years in the computer world can be a very long time. 17 (I believe it was) is just about forever.
Slashdot and its readers are doing the same to make themselves feel justified about stealing music
So basicly you are saying I am a thief? With over 400+ audio cd's and several hundred records...which by the way I don't get a discount on any of the cd's of which I own the record. So I think if I get a couple songs of of napster are more than well paid for since I've rebought quite a few of my records on cd and paid full price for them.
Also it seems to me that the manufacturing of a cassette tape costs like $2.00 more than it costs to make a cd. So if this is the case why is the cd $5+ dollars more?
I don't know about anyone else but I am tired of being screwed by major corporations. DVD copy protection...overpriced music, and all for what? So we can see the adds on tv? Or so some high level executive can buy another sports car.
I begin to wonder at some of the people here who like to accuse all of us as being cheap freeloading scum. I work for a living....and I bet allot of the people here do the same thing...work. Now what justification do corporations have for screwing all us working people? The music industry is screwing us, the musicians, and everyone else they can.
As for us not doing the numbers right, well we have an excuse...most of us wouldn't fall under the accountant catagory. We are allowed to make mistakes. The RIAA on the other hand has accountants, whats thier excuse? They are so busy trying to fudge the numbers they forget that someone half intellegent might actually look at it.
Do not call all the people on/. thieves, since YOU are here. Guess that makes you a thief.
Just a thought but would netscape have been so bad if they had continued to make money off thier browser. If M$ had not started giving away thier browser to all and had charged people the same way that netscape was would netscape have continued to improve?
Its very hard to contunue to upgrade software when there is no salery in it for the programmers. I agree that Netscape 4 just sucked. I use IE...but if IE wasn't pushed so hard by M$ and people got used to netscape would they have switched to IE? I know people now who still use netscape because it is the browser they know.
If netscape would have had a large corporation backing them with billions to blow on a free browser I bet netscape would have been as good or better than IE today.
They still do - Paradox and dbase still are used by programmers for small db applications. Iterbase which is now multi-platform and open source is just as good and possibly better then MS SQL. But Borland has and will be a development tools company. And their new concepts for their programming environment will help distance them from platform dependence.
Lotus did spreadsheets
Lotus Notes (or whomever owns it now) still exsists and is in use in allot of companies since it is cheaper than exchange.
Oracle is gradually being squeezed out of the database on Intel market
Oracle is still going pretty strong, since it runs on Windows, Novell, Unix, Linux and Solaris. Most database developers who have worked with both Oracle and MS SQL will chose Oracle for database server. Oracle is a better and faster product than MS Sql. MS SQL has only done as well as it has because it was bundled in Back office. "Why buy a new SQL server when we have one." Thats the concept I've herd many times.
Sybase is already a victim of "embrace and extend"
And if I am not mistaken (which is possible) MS SQL is built on Sybase, or is Sybase, I forget which, but yes it has a new name.
to force its "me too" products on its customers.
Don't I know it. I think the point of splitting them up is so Office and other M$ applications will not be able to Modify and change the OS. Since I cannot easily get away with making my own version of a M$ dll and add my own functionality to it, why should office be allowed to? This also makes it harder on other programmers write software for windows since the underlying dll's can change depending on the current version of Office and IE. M$ hasn't killed off all thier competition in particular fields, but since they are competing with all of us programmers out there it is just a matter of time before they either buy out or "render incompatable" other smaller products.
I personally don't want to work for M$. But if something is not done to fix their current business practices and strong arm techniques then that may be the only place left to do commercial programming for windows.
In short the 'sheeple' are perfectly well aware of what they want in an OS
I have to disagree, I know for a fact that most people don't have the first clue what they want. They want the computer to do it all for them, and with little to no help from them but beyond that they really don't know what they want. They do know that if they go with what everyone else (just about) has then it becames easier for them.
Supporting the different versions of windows can be a pain, but I couldn't imagine supporting 3 or 4 different desktop managers and different distrabutions. Overall windows has less support hassles than linux. but don't even even start to compare NT4 to linux. w2k is close but NT4 was far from stable, and is worse than linux to get all the hardware working if you have a "not completely supported" card. Not to mention if you screw up the drivers they were almost impossible to fix.
I think the big thing is would it be better for us if M$ was broken up? I think so, but that is my opinion.
Obviously you have never delt with customer support or the user side of system administration. Overall users don't HATE microsoft, but if more people in the customer support field applied the name "Microsoft" to refer to the offending program/os that just lost the user 3 hours of work (which most was user stupidity for not saving sooner) then they would hate microsoft. People are more complacent when they don't really know who is causing their problems. Not everyone realizes "Microsoft" and "windows" are one and the same.
Are people really happy with M$ products? Why don't you take a poll when rentware becomes a reality. Will you be happy paying M$ yearly/quarterly/monthly/per min for a M$ product?
We're up to Win2K and they still haven't got it up to the same standard as people enjoyed in the early 80's with Unix.
Ok, Win2k isn't rock solid stable. But after about 6 months of use here at work, where it is left on for months at a time, it isn't bad. Ok, I'm not running a server machine, but for programming I'd be rebooting 10-15 times a day with 98. They have done quite a bit of improvement, even if a good bit might be the benifit of BSD source code (unprovable I know).
I personally would love to see them ripped up into smaller companies. I very much dislike their marketing and business practices. But for once I do have to give the programmers some credit, they did a decent job on w2k.
Actually the windows 95 plus pack had themes. Even though it wasn't the greatest in the world it did allow for simplistic chang of cursors, sounds, icons, graphics, fonts...all the things that can take 20 min or so to change...
Although this is not as complex it is still called theaming and was around in 1995, which does predate the pattent. Not that I am implying this is M$ created but they did come out with it.
Maybe there wasn't a larg rock that hit the earth and wiped out the dinosours. What if humanities ancestors crashed into earth in a very very large ship...the survivors came out of the ship and ended up replacing the dinosours....Ok, I agree, thats streching it quite a bit...but it was just a thought.
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone.
I wonder if the other forms of life don't use a different form of communications. If a life form developed with direct mental communications or the chemicl communication (like in some insects) then our frequencies shot out in space would mean nothing to them. They may be mentally projecting thier greetings to us be we are not equiped to recieve.
Could someone please explain to me what this means?
It means that M$ is upset that the govt might give something back to us the tax payer. Also if the govt is giving it away then maybe people might believe it is better than their "paid for/rented" software. I'd almost bet that even the people at M$ was confused, which is why they felt the need to clarify it.
Borland is still doing ok. I use thier products almost every day. Borland is also moving to the linux world. Can't say I am happy with the $700+ price tag on kylix. But if you look at the concept below it I think borland will stay around.
Have you ever tried to use photopaint? Wordperfect wasn't bad but they bought that. Most corel created software was quite complex. I think Adobe helped in the current state of corel. As for thier linux distro, I don't think they really understood the linux concept.
Do you see a cool and innovative idea that you want to use in your product? THEN WRITE THE SOURCE FOR IT FROM SCRATCH!
If someone has already come up with a good idea is it really innovation to copy the idea and write your own source? I'll admit that I copy cool features from other programs. Yes I might write the code to make it work, but I'll be the first to admit it wasn't my idea. I didn't invent the cool feature.
Lately when I here the word "innovate" my mind translates it to "theft" automaticly. I guess that is why I like open source, we all agree to share these cool ideas with each other. While I don't always agree with the GPL either, I see nothing wrong with it either.
I think M$ is getting a bit worried about all the court battles that have not went favorably thier way. The govt is still on them, not that I expect anything drastic to happen to them. But slowdown of computer sales, and software sales. Not enough corporations jumping on the w2k bandwagon. Their profits go down and there is a major panic at M$. Not like they really need more money.
To compensate they have their goon squads (Business Software Alliance) and will eventually have rentware, all their dreams will come true.
I think we would all be happy if they went back to their usuall methods, much less agressive. I'd be curious though to see how much GPL'd software is already in the windows source. W2k has definitly become more stable than NT4.
Well, from what I grasped from the article M$ doesn't like the GPL since leagaly it restricts them from using GPL'd sorce code in their software.
If you plan on using someone elses work in your project to save yourself time and trouble then you should comply to their wishes on how that code is used. If you dislike the GPL license then don't use GPL'd code.
I guess they feel it is destroying their freedom to innovate*
*innovate - (from the Microsoft dictionary) The aquisition of any code or idea that will make our products better, preferably in a way we can claim we created it.
Your making the assumption that creative people are sane. Well, for me thats debatable, but as for programming it was another form of creation (much easier one in fact). Creating a program is the most enjoyable part, the debuging is the work. Which puts the creating as art and the functionality more towards work. But overall, I still love it.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it still maintained? If it hasn't been upgraded in 5 years that could be allot of work.
Why not linux? Part of the point of linux is that it is open source. I'm sure with a few good programmers and a bit of time the right portions of linux could be filtered out to run it. Since linux already has the power and stability, why not just remove what is not needed? Yes linux is large but it has become that way to support various systems and needs. A hand held system would not need to have support for hundreds of net cards, or different motherboard chip sets. When you think about it, Linux can become very small when needed too. If you equipment is fixed then your kernal can be built specificly to that hardware.
It really won't bother me if hp uses linux or not. But I think that because linux is already customizable down to the kernal level it could work well. I'm not that familiar with Minix, and thought it was what linux was modeled after. If so and it hasn't been kept up to date then it might be more work to upgrade it than to remove the unneeded parts of linux.
Just my thoughts.
Overall I think that switching to linux would lower the cost. Since winCE I'm sure requires a licensing fee, and linux does not. Once they have what they want that lowers cost, and if that were shifted to lower buying price then maybe I'd get one. But I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Originally patents did help the little guys. The real inventors that have made our lives better. I really think software/business model patents should be a shorter time period. Maybe 3 years. 3 years in the computer world can be a very long time. 17 (I believe it was) is just about forever.
Slashdot and its readers are doing the same to make themselves feel justified about stealing music
/. thieves, since YOU are here. Guess that makes you a thief.
So basicly you are saying I am a thief? With over 400+ audio cd's and several hundred records...which by the way I don't get a discount on any of the cd's of which I own the record. So I think if I get a couple songs of of napster are more than well paid for since I've rebought quite a few of my records on cd and paid full price for them.
Also it seems to me that the manufacturing of a cassette tape costs like $2.00 more than it costs to make a cd. So if this is the case why is the cd $5+ dollars more?
I don't know about anyone else but I am tired of being screwed by major corporations. DVD copy protection...overpriced music, and all for what? So we can see the adds on tv? Or so some high level executive can buy another sports car.
I begin to wonder at some of the people here who like to accuse all of us as being cheap freeloading scum. I work for a living....and I bet allot of the people here do the same thing...work. Now what justification do corporations have for screwing all us working people? The music industry is screwing us, the musicians, and everyone else they can.
As for us not doing the numbers right, well we have an excuse...most of us wouldn't fall under the accountant catagory. We are allowed to make mistakes. The RIAA on the other hand has accountants, whats thier excuse? They are so busy trying to fudge the numbers they forget that someone half intellegent might actually look at it.
Do not call all the people on
Just a thought but would netscape have been so bad if they had continued to make money off thier browser. If M$ had not started giving away thier browser to all and had charged people the same way that netscape was would netscape have continued to improve?
Its very hard to contunue to upgrade software when there is no salery in it for the programmers. I agree that Netscape 4 just sucked. I use IE...but if IE wasn't pushed so hard by M$ and people got used to netscape would they have switched to IE? I know people now who still use netscape because it is the browser they know.
If netscape would have had a large corporation backing them with billions to blow on a free browser I bet netscape would have been as good or better than IE today.
Borland did databases
They still do - Paradox and dbase still are used by programmers for small db applications. Iterbase which is now multi-platform and open source is just as good and possibly better then MS SQL. But Borland has and will be a development tools company. And their new concepts for their programming environment will help distance them from platform dependence.
Lotus did spreadsheets
Lotus Notes (or whomever owns it now) still exsists and is in use in allot of companies since it is cheaper than exchange.
Oracle is gradually being squeezed out of the database on Intel market
Oracle is still going pretty strong, since it runs on Windows, Novell, Unix, Linux and Solaris. Most database developers who have worked with both Oracle and MS SQL will chose Oracle for database server. Oracle is a better and faster product than MS Sql. MS SQL has only done as well as it has because it was bundled in Back office. "Why buy a new SQL server when we have one." Thats the concept I've herd many times.
Sybase is already a victim of "embrace and extend"
And if I am not mistaken (which is possible) MS SQL is built on Sybase, or is Sybase, I forget which, but yes it has a new name.
to force its "me too" products on its customers.
Don't I know it. I think the point of splitting them up is so Office and other M$ applications will not be able to Modify and change the OS. Since I cannot easily get away with making my own version of a M$ dll and add my own functionality to it, why should office be allowed to? This also makes it harder on other programmers write software for windows since the underlying dll's can change depending on the current version of Office and IE. M$ hasn't killed off all thier competition in particular fields, but since they are competing with all of us programmers out there it is just a matter of time before they either buy out or "render incompatable" other smaller products.
I personally don't want to work for M$. But if something is not done to fix their current business practices and strong arm techniques then that may be the only place left to do commercial programming for windows.
In short the 'sheeple' are perfectly well aware of what they want in an OS
I have to disagree, I know for a fact that most people don't have the first clue what they want. They want the computer to do it all for them, and with little to no help from them but beyond that they really don't know what they want. They do know that if they go with what everyone else (just about) has then it becames easier for them.
Supporting the different versions of windows can be a pain, but I couldn't imagine supporting 3 or 4 different desktop managers and different distrabutions. Overall windows has less support hassles than linux. but don't even even start to compare NT4 to linux. w2k is close but NT4 was far from stable, and is worse than linux to get all the hardware working if you have a "not completely supported" card. Not to mention if you screw up the drivers they were almost impossible to fix.
I think the big thing is would it be better for us if M$ was broken up? I think so, but that is my opinion.
Most people are happy with Microsoft products
Obviously you have never delt with customer support or the user side of system administration. Overall users don't HATE microsoft, but if more people in the customer support field applied the name "Microsoft" to refer to the offending program/os that just lost the user 3 hours of work (which most was user stupidity for not saving sooner) then they would hate microsoft. People are more complacent when they don't really know who is causing their problems. Not everyone realizes "Microsoft" and "windows" are one and the same.
Are people really happy with M$ products? Why don't you take a poll when rentware becomes a reality. Will you be happy paying M$ yearly/quarterly/monthly/per min for a M$ product?
We're up to Win2K and they still haven't got it up to the same standard as people enjoyed in the early 80's with Unix.
Ok, Win2k isn't rock solid stable. But after about 6 months of use here at work, where it is left on for months at a time, it isn't bad. Ok, I'm not running a server machine, but for programming I'd be rebooting 10-15 times a day with 98. They have done quite a bit of improvement, even if a good bit might be the benifit of BSD source code (unprovable I know).
I personally would love to see them ripped up into smaller companies. I very much dislike their marketing and business practices. But for once I do have to give the programmers some credit, they did a decent job on w2k.
I think the illicit ways of M$ was a major buying point for some investors. "Willing to sell our soul for higher profits" seems to fit them well.
Actually the windows 95 plus pack had themes. Even though it wasn't the greatest in the world it did allow for simplistic chang of cursors, sounds, icons, graphics, fonts...all the things that can take 20 min or so to change...
Although this is not as complex it is still called theaming and was around in 1995, which does predate the pattent. Not that I am implying this is M$ created but they did come out with it.
The content providers have money, lots of it. And they are sharing it so they can make more money.
My concern is that once you give them control of your computer how long will it remain "your" computer?
hmm, or they are sending the same byte over and over waiting for the parity check.
Maybe there wasn't a larg rock that hit the earth and wiped out the dinosours. What if humanities ancestors crashed into earth in a very very large ship...the survivors came out of the ship and ended up replacing the dinosours....Ok, I agree, thats streching it quite a bit...but it was just a thought.
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone.
I wonder if the other forms of life don't use a different form of communications. If a life form developed with direct mental communications or the chemicl communication (like in some insects) then our frequencies shot out in space would mean nothing to them. They may be mentally projecting thier greetings to us be we are not equiped to recieve.
Who knows?
Yes, M$ could leagaly release something under the GPL that uses GPL'd code. But realisticly, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Could someone please explain to me what this means?
It means that M$ is upset that the govt might give something back to us the tax payer. Also if the govt is giving it away then maybe people might believe it is better than their "paid for/rented" software. I'd almost bet that even the people at M$ was confused, which is why they felt the need to clarify it.
And innovate ~ theft in the M$ dictionary.
Borland is still doing ok. I use thier products almost every day. Borland is also moving to the linux world. Can't say I am happy with the $700+ price tag on kylix. But if you look at the concept below it I think borland will stay around.
why Corel failed too....
Have you ever tried to use photopaint? Wordperfect wasn't bad but they bought that. Most corel created software was quite complex. I think Adobe helped in the current state of corel. As for thier linux distro, I don't think they really understood the linux concept.
This is just my opinion.
Do you see a cool and innovative idea that you want to use in your product? THEN WRITE THE SOURCE FOR IT FROM SCRATCH!
If someone has already come up with a good idea is it really innovation to copy the idea and write your own source? I'll admit that I copy cool features from other programs. Yes I might write the code to make it work, but I'll be the first to admit it wasn't my idea. I didn't invent the cool feature.
Lately when I here the word "innovate" my mind translates it to "theft" automaticly. I guess that is why I like open source, we all agree to share these cool ideas with each other. While I don't always agree with the GPL either, I see nothing wrong with it either.
Yes, you have a point, but since all their software is closed we can't see it.
;-)
They are perfectly free to do that
I think we all know this is not likely to happen.
I think M$ is getting a bit worried about all the court battles that have not went favorably thier way. The govt is still on them, not that I expect anything drastic to happen to them. But slowdown of computer sales, and software sales. Not enough corporations jumping on the w2k bandwagon. Their profits go down and there is a major panic at M$. Not like they really need more money.
To compensate they have their goon squads (Business Software Alliance) and will eventually have rentware, all their dreams will come true.
I think we would all be happy if they went back to their usuall methods, much less agressive. I'd be curious though to see how much GPL'd software is already in the windows source. W2k has definitly become more stable than NT4.
Well, from what I grasped from the article M$ doesn't like the GPL since leagaly it restricts them from using GPL'd sorce code in their software.
If you plan on using someone elses work in your project to save yourself time and trouble then you should comply to their wishes on how that code is used. If you dislike the GPL license then don't use GPL'd code.
I guess they feel it is destroying their freedom to innovate*
*innovate - (from the Microsoft dictionary) The aquisition of any code or idea that will make our products better, preferably in a way we can claim we created it.
Your making the assumption that creative people are sane. Well, for me thats debatable, but as for programming it was another form of creation (much easier one in fact). Creating a program is the most enjoyable part, the debuging is the work. Which puts the creating as art and the functionality more towards work. But overall, I still love it.