> Tick -- no smart phone vendor can implement ogg theora -- there's no hardware support for it.
Isn't that chicken-egg problem? I am sure Theora support in hardware isn't that hard to build in. And standard things aren't exactly "let's throw everything we got here". Lot of vendors oppose H.264 as defaulted codec for a reason. I think it is more psyhological problem (implementing still not popular codec while having uknown legal status - in US, that means wait for someone to rise up and sue you), not a technical.
> Even ignoring the submarine patent risk, and the fact that it's worse quality than h.264.
In fact, H.264 sure is bigger submarine patent magnet than Theora. And about worse quality - it is really subjective in this case. Take a look on Dailymotion video tests - they are practically even to human eye. Ahh, suddenly "good enough" isn't good enough? I don't think it is valid reason and Theora critics know it.
> There really isn't any of B going on here. h.264 may be somewhat proprietry, but it's already cheeply licensed, and it's *everywhere*.
Cheeply licensed? Of course, from *known* patent holders. What about those you don't know? Which will propably first start with smallest companies to build a war chest and finally will go after Apple and friends? Do you really think that in US softpatent climate it won't happen? About Theora there are people who worked FOR YEARS on it to make it sure it REALLY IS ROYALITY FREE. And seeing what happens in multimedia scene with patents, it is a HUGE salepoint.
>Movies bought off the internet are more often than not h.264, bluray disks are more often than not h.264, even high def pirated torrents are more often than not... you guessed it... h.264. When was the last time you saw an ogg theora video that didn't involve a bunny rabbit?
Today. And ohh, Bunny Rabbit was available for lot of formats, including H.264:)
Anyway, your reasoning in nutshell is "Get real, no one will put away their toys and suddenly will go in circle together singing prise for world united under one codec". It is ok, just make it more facts oriented.
Emotionally I love idea about Theora because I HATE idea paying someone about codec of general use.
I guess it is *only* Apple who wants to force W3C to drop video tag. And it is for a reason - their locking on about how l33t and nice is H.264 and how it should be used as standard somehow played much differently than they hoped for - most of alternatives addapting Theora!. I guess they are trying to lower Theora influence, but I guess it is too little and too late.
No one else see strange timing about showing up this article and release of FF3.5, where Theora as support is MAIN feature besides speed improvements? And FF3.5 demos, Dailymotion service and Video Bay shows that Apple simply DOES NOT CONTROL situation anymore. So they try to ruin the party while they can.
I guess Bill can welcome Jobs to the club. I thought with all release of new products they have changed...but I was wrong. They have gone totally sideways. When you have enough money, you are easy on spending and easy on how much you have left. When you have too much enough, it shows.
Wow, in what naive world we live in. In fact, I *expect* head of police to have his own drug mob. Heck, why not? You have authorisation, you have power....
Someone who had to check Madoff has been too soft, period. And this 'someone' should be identified and brought to court, too. Someone hasn't done their job well, and maybe there are even financial reasons why.
Islam hardliners see current Iran's regime as only force who can stand against 'Western corruption'. They are desperate as they influence around the world shrinks after more moderate US goverment came into power. So it propably wasn't ordered attack, just people who sees current democratical movement with Mousavi as leader as real threat for the regime.
So this fight will echo around the world. If you support those guys in Iran, be ready to take some hits. Let's hope there won't be killings or something, but it will be ugly nevertheless.
1) Poor UI - what he is talking about? Windows CE is a mess. Yes, Windows Mobile 5 was kinda Teletubies land as Windows XP, but still, it's a huge mess stiched together 2) Doesn't support devices larger than smartphones? Ohh boy, yes, it doesn't, because it doesn't aim for it!
Sounds like Microsoft partner trashing competitor. Propably there are technical reasons why Nvidia have chosen Windows CE, but these doesn't sound like valid one.
So bloody seconded. Wanted to start clean with buying newest Keane "Perfect Symmetry" which I love so much and after that wanted to get "Ode to Mr Smith". They don't even care to inform you before registering your credit card data that it is for US ONLY.
Seconded. Most *advanced* users I know uses Google Search to reach page (if they haven't bookmarked it), because URLs are tiresome to remember (true), and even harder to type correctly on laptop (also true).
Don't get me wrong, URLs are definition of addresing in Internet, just for usual users it is difficult to get them - and I really understand them. Even now I more and more like Firefox search in URL bar feature - it really saves the day when I try to remember one interesting site which particular keywords in it.
First of all, those "harsh words" are somehow pulled out from context to prove that "Linux sucks". I don't know what you guys are trying to prove but: 1) There are two, serious, commercially used toolkits GTK+ and Qt. As far as I know it is much less than several tens of toolkits which rules Windows world. I prefer GTK+ and quite happy how Qt/KDE fanbois are pushed compete; 2) "inconsistencies across applications" - news at eleven. Are you talking about applications as general? Because it is kinda rule of numb; 3) "the lack of a unified and comprehensive HIG" - again, there are two toolkits and two HIGs. Actually there is no Microsoft or Windows HIG, only different ones for each application group in Windows. Same as for OS X. Maybe it indicates that such unified HIG is kinda impossible? 4) " GTK not being a very compelling toolkit" - bug reports with patches or whishes are welcome. Linus did it and his suggestions with patches were accepted in two weeks time;
Other parts of article indicates that Google guy has very strong anti Linux bias. For example: "Committing to any single toolkit could potentially marginalize other segments of the community, so it's not a decision that can be made easily."
What a heck? If they really think so, how Skype manages to be ran by thousands of casual Ubuntu users? It uses qt and it is not installed by default. Uhhh ohhh, dependencies man. Compile package with sane version of qt libs and you are set to go. Several years ago yes, there were kinda alien feeling running Qt app in GTK+ environment and vice versa. But now it's non-issue.
""First of all let me generally comment that this entire situation is a clusterf*ck. I am not happy with the technical constraints imposed by Linux and its assorted UIs on Chrome's UI and feature set," he wrote. "There isn't dominant consensus around toolkit and HIG, there seems to be variance in commonly used software as to how it's constructed and what it matches, and I've not heard anyone glow about how they can create the coolest looking UIs with GTK."
For those who are unaware, Ben Goodger is a former employee of Mozilla and used to be the lead developer of the Firefox project."
Wow hang on here. Isn't that the same Firefox which was for a moment developed for Windows only and Linux was just fucking afterthought? How they screwed everything under the sun doing FF 2 with GTK+? Ohhh, I see. Real answer is "I couldn't master it, because I tried to use toolkit to do as I want - instead of following HIG and toolkit coding practice.". And using nice terms and phrases like "clusterfuck", and "dominant consensus around toolkit and HIG" (Ben, let's be honest, everyone standardizes around GTK+. You don't like it, end of story.) indicates that there is something else going on here than honest evaluation of things.
So more or less - article or more concretely, Ben is a flamebat. And comments "Why not to use Qt instead?" and "Phono is so nice to use" from Slashdot crowd today indicates that it clearly works nothing such retribution magnet for KDE fanbois who loose their impact to market with each day. And that's what harsh.
Sorry for putting myself under karma flamethrower, but it was too much.
Yeah, North Korean are really Communism nirvana. Wait, it isn't.
It is authoritarian regime claiming to believe in Communism (while it clearly shows that they believe just having this power and holing it at all costs). It's called Bolshevism. And North Korea leadership are Bolshevists who are literally and officially nuts.
Well, interesting that you said that, because I am quite tired of black/white view of ideologies. Most of people don't want to know and don't care, but even smartest ones gets into ugly flamewars which leads nowhere.
Said that, most interesting thing is to research weakneses of Communism as real ideology behind society. Again, junk science and capitalism woodoos says that Communism doesn't work because of human nature. Fail. It does, but it does in *microscale*. Problems arises when you scale it for larger society. People who usually want capitalism at all cost ar "broken goods" - e.g. people who parents have been poor, people who thing they will prove the world that they are the best, etc. They are not even slightly interested in common good. It is good or bad - it is not a point.
Another point that there are two rather different movements who can be called Socialist or Communist. First of all, it is Bolshevists which represents hardcore, taking-no-prisoners attitude towards change in society. They believed that harsh regime should be implemented between capitalism and socialism. Of course, such attitude demotivated most of their supporting base in matter of months (for example, there were Bolshevist rulling for half a year in part of my country. Before they came into power people were kinda very positive towards Communism. When shootings, looting and baseless killings began, everyone understood that they just crooks with different label) and they fell into policy state regime.
More or less there are another wing which represents more classic Communism ideology - that when capitalism will reach it's tipping point and maximum effectivity, then Communism will come naturally.
Of course, all of this is theoretical "bla bla bla", BUT it gives me food of thought and you can see similar patterns in our society. For example - open source - it is capitalism, but in same time - it is Communism at micro scale. Everyone get what they want and what they need (of course it is absolute, it is not possible 100%, but anyway...).
Also I don't like people avoiding to critize capitalism and feeling uneasy to do that. Yes, this system gives me job and posibility to do stuff, but I don't feel obliged to avoid criticism. Because capitalism can be better. People can be better.
Just my thoughts as Linux user and advocate: 1) 1% is much more than 50% in the begining of the nineties. So Windows and OS X is still more - so what? If 1% constitutes about ~ 50 milion users, That's a heck of the user base on which to grow on; 2) More or less market share statistics started to become less meaningful (but not meaningless) after globalisation - these numbers fits more for Western sphere, but Linux based OSes have good adaptation rate in Asia and Northen/Eastern Europe; 3) I think it is meaningless to count on such stats as indicator is Linux ready for desktop - it is empty concept, because mine desktop differs heavily from yours. Mostly Linux is ready for desktop, there is just not enough apps to satisfy different needs for users. It is ready for webmaster desktop for sure, it is ready for musician's desktop (those who are not afraid take a risk and dive in Linux world), it is ready for grandma's and my girlfriends desktop.
And, please remember - most of us use Linux because we really like it. When we do advancements, when we improve code, we do it firstly for ourselves. It's fun to create better and better software. There are lot of things to improve, yes, and that is why we should keep crunching.
Well, Euro fines doesn't work that way. First, you get initial warning and fine. After that, you got monitored for years for repeated abuse. If that happens - slap, another fine, possibly even bigger. In the end, Intel will have to comply. Because it's ain US, where you can drag out case in the court. You have to pay fine first.
Intel have been anti-competitive since end of the nineteens. Once AMD vas viable as alternative, suddenly you couldn't buy AMD supported motherboards anymore, let's not talk about systems. Actually Intel did bad for their distributors, because disallowing to sell AMD it allowed to do it their new competitors - in result new branch of distributors grow up with AMD-only stuff (reselling Intel only when it was really needed).
Intel dealership tactics have been ugly all the time. Even now, OLPC got burned from them few years ago.
First of all, there is clear notion that statistics can be "lying", or even better, people are drawing wrong conlutions from them. That's fine, because decrypting stats is daunting task and can require full-time team of specs to do that.
I personally don't care about TOTAL number, because it is not all about market share. As lot of people have already pointed out, most people DON'T care about what OS they use, they care about APPS. So question is more like - do Ubuntu has nice DVD player with Tango niceness and integration with rest of desktop? No? Vola! Afaik, Gstreamer guys works on one so it could be available commercially for OEMs and people who cares about legitimacy of DVD playback on computer. Do Linux has Visio replacement? Of course it doesn't. It is so hard to do? No! (let's be honest, it's not a web browser). So why then anyone ignores it?
Because everyone waits for some kind of grand sign to come out!:) Guess what - unless Linux Foundation don't create some kinda of OEM sales counter, Linux sales will and will stay a mystery.
Anyway, numbers does matter to check progress. But it is only one of things. We, Linux devs and active users, have still lot to do. But let's not forget that that's OS for us. We do this for us. And rest of bunch are just invited to join:)
Is it really illegal? Or people who are scared that goverment will use this excuse to mangle some exploited Windows XP for their own use says so?:)
More to point, afaik what they done borders with illegal, but it would be very very hard to convince that harm to society is done (which is basis of *any* conviction, ask any lawyer).
And also all situation is farse - botnet owners and operators are laughing all the way to the bank, no one can shut them down because it is illegal (someone is stealing money and stopping them is illegal...yeah, right).
.....damn....another sounding-good movie from those Hollywood mafia guys. They keep bugging us with their "intelectual property" plans...They want to bring down The Pirate Bay....must hating them. We hating them.......Damn....trailer looks good....I will download bootleg....damn, it looks too good...oooh shiny...screw it, I will boycot them another time.
Run for parlament in your country and make people aware about copyright industry aka mob. It is just simple.
Yes, it requires more job than just downloading newest movie via torrents. Even starting with ignoring mainstream multimedia stuff would rock. Make aware to your favorite bands that unless they have some sane independent publisher you won't have deal with them. Etc.
...but we support them mostly just because we don't like fucked-up law and industry around it. We can't fight the industry (every year income in bilions), so we play pirates game. Sooner or later, 'pirates' gets cought.
But powerless feeling remains.
So, where we going from here? When people will stop screwing with law and instead fight lobbies and industries? When people will stop being politically ignorant? When they will understand that more they want to avoid to be connected with all it, the more they feel powerless and it kills them slowly.
Most ironic would be that after update they would patch Windows up to lastest update, clean themselves and leave informational message on screen about computer security. That would rock:)
Disclaimer: I'm on my way to be baptized this year, and I am very happy because I'm doing it out of my own free will, not because my parents, society or spouse says so.
You hit a right spot here. "God fearing Christian" has been always a breaking point for me not to go to Church. For me it's clear that in it's beginnings, church was clearly altruistic in their intends. However, all we know that lot of people love power above everything else and so they created Church as it is now - you must fear it (and God), you must obey it (and God), and they're always right. Right?
Not so fast. Such dogmatic views are still majority in Christianity, but it's something that changes - lot of priests these days hold rather liberal interpretations of Church rules (begining from the start with knowing all the truth about sins, Jesus and God). Yes, they still speak sometimes in bizarre language, but sometimes you just need to talk with them - and figure out that you feel the same way about lot of things.
I think that's whole difference between Christianity and other religions - it's basis is about philosophical and ethical thesis, not about "you have to fear me, I am mighty God". Problem, however, is that MOST of people simply won't get it if you will simply say - God says "do good to others, trust me, it gives you back in a way or another". In fact, all Jesus teachings where more like "pick it or leave it". They added "if you will drop us, you will burn in Hell" only after first 400 years of Christianity. In fact, Islam has similar problems that it turned to violent side some centuries after all brouhaha about Muhammad came out.
Why? There is why. Most people can't think in highly ethical terms without training or life expierence. They have to project physical image of it. Jesus didn't (and doesn't) require discipline of Catholicism or rich gravitas of Church proceedings. They wanted to make people feel fear and awe, while in fact they had to give them peace of mind, hope and understanding of themselves. "Punishment or reward" systems have been basis for human civilization for very long and Church, no matter how "full with spirit" they would like to be, are not protected from this influence.
"When I have kids, I am definitely NOT going to bring them up with any religious view. If your child needs to fear a horrible fire-filled afterlife in order to make good decisions in life, then I fear for that child's future. Being a good person should have NOTHING to do with religion, and everything to do with examples set forth by their role models. "
I heavily second your point of view. My parents came from different religious backgrounds, but they allowed to make our own decisions about religion. This freedom allowed me to find God in the way I could understand or relate with.
Schlong will simply trigger too much questions which in case will take too much time to answer (and most answers will be a lie, like "it is God's indicator to sort out girls and boys", etc.). Also propably there is huge problem with fact that showing huge man's penis is signaling that he is ready for sex. And it is just another embarasing topic to talk about with kids.
They don't this for kids, but for to avoid parent's embarrassment, so they don't have to waste their precious time with kids, but can stay late at work and work like slaves.
Yes, it won't be huge profit, but come on, for such violent and anti-mainstream experiment they got nice cash back. It is 165m (costed 120m), and it is only third week.
I love movie, I only would like to be it more itself not just a copy of living very good comic book. However, it would require to move sideways from original material.
Anyway, I think team who made it have proven their point. Kudos to them, all actors especially.
Slashdot Mirror
> Tick -- no smart phone vendor can implement ogg theora -- there's no hardware support for it.
Isn't that chicken-egg problem? I am sure Theora support in hardware isn't that hard to build in. And standard things aren't exactly "let's throw everything we got here". Lot of vendors oppose H.264 as defaulted codec for a reason. I think it is more psyhological problem (implementing still not popular codec while having uknown legal status - in US, that means wait for someone to rise up and sue you), not a technical.
> Even ignoring the submarine patent risk, and the fact that it's worse quality than h.264.
In fact, H.264 sure is bigger submarine patent magnet than Theora. And about worse quality - it is really subjective in this case. Take a look on Dailymotion video tests - they are practically even to human eye. Ahh, suddenly "good enough" isn't good enough? I don't think it is valid reason and Theora critics know it.
> There really isn't any of B going on here. h.264 may be somewhat proprietry, but it's already cheeply licensed, and it's *everywhere*.
Cheeply licensed? Of course, from *known* patent holders. What about those you don't know? Which will propably first start with smallest companies to build a war chest and finally will go after Apple and friends? Do you really think that in US softpatent climate it won't happen? About Theora there are people who worked FOR YEARS on it to make it sure it REALLY IS ROYALITY FREE. And seeing what happens in multimedia scene with patents, it is a HUGE salepoint.
>Movies bought off the internet are more often than not h.264, bluray disks are more often than not h.264, even high def pirated torrents are more often than not... you guessed it... h.264. When was the last time you saw an ogg theora video that didn't involve a bunny rabbit?
Today. And ohh, Bunny Rabbit was available for lot of formats, including H.264 :)
Anyway, your reasoning in nutshell is "Get real, no one will put away their toys and suddenly will go in circle together singing prise for world united under one codec". It is ok, just make it more facts oriented.
Emotionally I love idea about Theora because I HATE idea paying someone about codec of general use.
I guess it is *only* Apple who wants to force W3C to drop video tag. And it is for a reason - their locking on about how l33t and nice is H.264 and how it should be used as standard somehow played much differently than they hoped for - most of alternatives addapting Theora!. I guess they are trying to lower Theora influence, but I guess it is too little and too late.
No one else see strange timing about showing up this article and release of FF3.5, where Theora as support is MAIN feature besides speed improvements? And FF3.5 demos, Dailymotion service and Video Bay shows that Apple simply DOES NOT CONTROL situation anymore. So they try to ruin the party while they can.
I guess Bill can welcome Jobs to the club. I thought with all release of new products they have changed...but I was wrong. They have gone totally sideways. When you have enough money, you are easy on spending and easy on how much you have left. When you have too much enough, it shows.
Wow, in what naive world we live in. In fact, I *expect* head of police to have his own drug mob. Heck, why not? You have authorisation, you have power....
Someone who had to check Madoff has been too soft, period. And this 'someone' should be identified and brought to court, too. Someone hasn't done their job well, and maybe there are even financial reasons why.
Islam hardliners see current Iran's regime as only force who can stand against 'Western corruption'. They are desperate as they influence around the world shrinks after more moderate US goverment came into power. So it propably wasn't ordered attack, just people who sees current democratical movement with Mousavi as leader as real threat for the regime.
So this fight will echo around the world. If you support those guys in Iran, be ready to take some hits. Let's hope there won't be killings or something, but it will be ugly nevertheless.
1) Poor UI - what he is talking about? Windows CE is a mess. Yes, Windows Mobile 5 was kinda Teletubies land as Windows XP, but still, it's a huge mess stiched together
2) Doesn't support devices larger than smartphones? Ohh boy, yes, it doesn't, because it doesn't aim for it!
Sounds like Microsoft partner trashing competitor. Propably there are technical reasons why Nvidia have chosen Windows CE, but these doesn't sound like valid one.
So bloody seconded. Wanted to start clean with buying newest Keane "Perfect Symmetry" which I love so much and after that wanted to get "Ode to Mr Smith". They don't even care to inform you before registering your credit card data that it is for US ONLY.
Amazon, it is really Stupid, stupid, STUPID.
Seconded. Most *advanced* users I know uses Google Search to reach page (if they haven't bookmarked it), because URLs are tiresome to remember (true), and even harder to type correctly on laptop (also true).
Don't get me wrong, URLs are definition of addresing in Internet, just for usual users it is difficult to get them - and I really understand them. Even now I more and more like Firefox search in URL bar feature - it really saves the day when I try to remember one interesting site which particular keywords in it.
First of all, those "harsh words" are somehow pulled out from context to prove that "Linux sucks". I don't know what you guys are trying to prove but:
1) There are two, serious, commercially used toolkits GTK+ and Qt. As far as I know it is much less than several tens of toolkits which rules Windows world. I prefer GTK+ and quite happy how Qt/KDE fanbois are pushed compete;
2) "inconsistencies across applications" - news at eleven. Are you talking about applications as general? Because it is kinda rule of numb;
3) "the lack of a unified and comprehensive HIG" - again, there are two toolkits and two HIGs. Actually there is no Microsoft or Windows HIG, only different ones for each application group in Windows. Same as for OS X. Maybe it indicates that such unified HIG is kinda impossible?
4) " GTK not being a very compelling toolkit" - bug reports with patches or whishes are welcome. Linus did it and his suggestions with patches were accepted in two weeks time;
Other parts of article indicates that Google guy has very strong anti Linux bias. For example: "Committing to any single toolkit could potentially marginalize other segments of the community, so it's not a decision that can be made easily."
What a heck? If they really think so, how Skype manages to be ran by thousands of casual Ubuntu users? It uses qt and it is not installed by default. Uhhh ohhh, dependencies man. Compile package with sane version of qt libs and you are set to go. Several years ago yes, there were kinda alien feeling running Qt app in GTK+ environment and vice versa. But now it's non-issue.
""First of all let me generally comment that this entire situation is a clusterf*ck. I am not happy with the technical constraints imposed by Linux and its assorted UIs on Chrome's UI and feature set," he wrote. "There isn't dominant consensus around toolkit and HIG, there seems to be variance in commonly used software as to how it's constructed and what it matches, and I've not heard anyone glow about how they can create the coolest looking UIs with GTK."
For those who are unaware, Ben Goodger is a former employee of Mozilla and used to be the lead developer of the Firefox project."
Wow hang on here. Isn't that the same Firefox which was for a moment developed for Windows only and Linux was just fucking afterthought? How they screwed everything under the sun doing FF 2 with GTK+? Ohhh, I see. Real answer is "I couldn't master it, because I tried to use toolkit to do as I want - instead of following HIG and toolkit coding practice.". And using nice terms and phrases like "clusterfuck", and "dominant consensus around toolkit and HIG" (Ben, let's be honest, everyone standardizes around GTK+. You don't like it, end of story.) indicates that there is something else going on here than honest evaluation of things.
So more or less - article or more concretely, Ben is a flamebat. And comments "Why not to use Qt instead?" and "Phono is so nice to use" from Slashdot crowd today indicates that it clearly works nothing such retribution magnet for KDE fanbois who loose their impact to market with each day. And that's what harsh.
Sorry for putting myself under karma flamethrower, but it was too much.
Yeah, North Korean are really Communism nirvana. Wait, it isn't.
It is authoritarian regime claiming to believe in Communism (while it clearly shows that they believe just having this power and holing it at all costs). It's called Bolshevism. And North Korea leadership are Bolshevists who are literally and officially nuts.
Well, interesting that you said that, because I am quite tired of black/white view of ideologies. Most of people don't want to know and don't care, but even smartest ones gets into ugly flamewars which leads nowhere.
Said that, most interesting thing is to research weakneses of Communism as real ideology behind society. Again, junk science and capitalism woodoos says that Communism doesn't work because of human nature. Fail. It does, but it does in *microscale*. Problems arises when you scale it for larger society. People who usually want capitalism at all cost ar "broken goods" - e.g. people who parents have been poor, people who thing they will prove the world that they are the best, etc. They are not even slightly interested in common good. It is good or bad - it is not a point.
Another point that there are two rather different movements who can be called Socialist or Communist. First of all, it is Bolshevists which represents hardcore, taking-no-prisoners attitude towards change in society. They believed that harsh regime should be implemented between capitalism and socialism. Of course, such attitude demotivated most of their supporting base in matter of months (for example, there were Bolshevist rulling for half a year in part of my country. Before they came into power people were kinda very positive towards Communism. When shootings, looting and baseless killings began, everyone understood that they just crooks with different label) and they fell into policy state regime.
More or less there are another wing which represents more classic Communism ideology - that when capitalism will reach it's tipping point and maximum effectivity, then Communism will come naturally.
Of course, all of this is theoretical "bla bla bla", BUT it gives me food of thought and you can see similar patterns in our society. For example - open source - it is capitalism, but in same time - it is Communism at micro scale. Everyone get what they want and what they need (of course it is absolute, it is not possible 100%, but anyway...).
Also I don't like people avoiding to critize capitalism and feeling uneasy to do that. Yes, this system gives me job and posibility to do stuff, but I don't feel obliged to avoid criticism. Because capitalism can be better. People can be better.
Just my thoughts as Linux user and advocate:
1) 1% is much more than 50% in the begining of the nineties. So Windows and OS X is still more - so what? If 1% constitutes about ~ 50 milion users, That's a heck of the user base on which to grow on;
2) More or less market share statistics started to become less meaningful (but not meaningless) after globalisation - these numbers fits more for Western sphere, but Linux based OSes have good adaptation rate in Asia and Northen/Eastern Europe;
3) I think it is meaningless to count on such stats as indicator is Linux ready for desktop - it is empty concept, because mine desktop differs heavily from yours. Mostly Linux is ready for desktop, there is just not enough apps to satisfy different needs for users. It is ready for webmaster desktop for sure, it is ready for musician's desktop (those who are not afraid take a risk and dive in Linux world), it is ready for grandma's and my girlfriends desktop.
And, please remember - most of us use Linux because we really like it. When we do advancements, when we improve code, we do it firstly for ourselves. It's fun to create better and better software. There are lot of things to improve, yes, and that is why we should keep crunching.
Well, Euro fines doesn't work that way. First, you get initial warning and fine. After that, you got monitored for years for repeated abuse. If that happens - slap, another fine, possibly even bigger. In the end, Intel will have to comply. Because it's ain US, where you can drag out case in the court. You have to pay fine first.
Duh.
Intel have been anti-competitive since end of the nineteens. Once AMD vas viable as alternative, suddenly you couldn't buy AMD supported motherboards anymore, let's not talk about systems. Actually Intel did bad for their distributors, because disallowing to sell AMD it allowed to do it their new competitors - in result new branch of distributors grow up with AMD-only stuff (reselling Intel only when it was really needed).
Intel dealership tactics have been ugly all the time. Even now, OLPC got burned from them few years ago.
Afaik DOSBox supports emulating standard lp qeues as printers, so printing from it shouldn't be a problem.
First of all, there is clear notion that statistics can be "lying", or even better, people are drawing wrong conlutions from them. That's fine, because decrypting stats is daunting task and can require full-time team of specs to do that.
I personally don't care about TOTAL number, because it is not all about market share. As lot of people have already pointed out, most people DON'T care about what OS they use, they care about APPS. So question is more like - do Ubuntu has nice DVD player with Tango niceness and integration with rest of desktop? No? Vola! Afaik, Gstreamer guys works on one so it could be available commercially for OEMs and people who cares about legitimacy of DVD playback on computer. Do Linux has Visio replacement? Of course it doesn't. It is so hard to do? No! (let's be honest, it's not a web browser). So why then anyone ignores it?
Because everyone waits for some kind of grand sign to come out! :) Guess what - unless Linux Foundation don't create some kinda of OEM sales counter, Linux sales will and will stay a mystery.
Anyway, numbers does matter to check progress. But it is only one of things. We, Linux devs and active users, have still lot to do. But let's not forget that that's OS for us. We do this for us. And rest of bunch are just invited to join :)
Is it really illegal? Or people who are scared that goverment will use this excuse to mangle some exploited Windows XP for their own use says so? :)
More to point, afaik what they done borders with illegal, but it would be very very hard to convince that harm to society is done (which is basis of *any* conviction, ask any lawyer).
And also all situation is farse - botnet owners and operators are laughing all the way to the bank, no one can shut them down because it is illegal (someone is stealing money and stopping them is illegal...yeah, right).
.....damn....another sounding-good movie from those Hollywood mafia guys. They keep bugging us with their "intelectual property" plans...They want to bring down The Pirate Bay....must hating them. We hating them.......Damn....trailer looks good....I will download bootleg....damn, it looks too good...oooh shiny...screw it, I will boycot them another time.
Run for parlament in your country and make people aware about copyright industry aka mob. It is just simple.
Yes, it requires more job than just downloading newest movie via torrents. Even starting with ignoring mainstream multimedia stuff would rock. Make aware to your favorite bands that unless they have some sane independent publisher you won't have deal with them. Etc.
...but we support them mostly just because we don't like fucked-up law and industry around it. We can't fight the industry (every year income in bilions), so we play pirates game. Sooner or later, 'pirates' gets cought. But powerless feeling remains. So, where we going from here? When people will stop screwing with law and instead fight lobbies and industries? When people will stop being politically ignorant? When they will understand that more they want to avoid to be connected with all it, the more they feel powerless and it kills them slowly.
They will simply won't have slightest idea how to use these data usefully. It will be abused and finnally revoked.
Unfortunately people in power NEVER learns. Because we let them to skip that.
Most ironic would be that after update they would patch Windows up to lastest update, clean themselves and leave informational message on screen about computer security. That would rock :)
Disclaimer: I'm on my way to be baptized this year, and I am very happy because I'm doing it out of my own free will, not because my parents, society or spouse says so.
You hit a right spot here. "God fearing Christian" has been always a breaking point for me not to go to Church. For me it's clear that in it's beginnings, church was clearly altruistic in their intends. However, all we know that lot of people love power above everything else and so they created Church as it is now - you must fear it (and God), you must obey it (and God), and they're always right. Right?
Not so fast. Such dogmatic views are still majority in Christianity, but it's something that changes - lot of priests these days hold rather liberal interpretations of Church rules (begining from the start with knowing all the truth about sins, Jesus and God). Yes, they still speak sometimes in bizarre language, but sometimes you just need to talk with them - and figure out that you feel the same way about lot of things.
I think that's whole difference between Christianity and other religions - it's basis is about philosophical and ethical thesis, not about "you have to fear me, I am mighty God". Problem, however, is that MOST of people simply won't get it if you will simply say - God says "do good to others, trust me, it gives you back in a way or another". In fact, all Jesus teachings where more like "pick it or leave it". They added "if you will drop us, you will burn in Hell" only after first 400 years of Christianity. In fact, Islam has similar problems that it turned to violent side some centuries after all brouhaha about Muhammad came out.
Why? There is why. Most people can't think in highly ethical terms without training or life expierence. They have to project physical image of it. Jesus didn't (and doesn't) require discipline of Catholicism or rich gravitas of Church proceedings. They wanted to make people feel fear and awe, while in fact they had to give them peace of mind, hope and understanding of themselves. "Punishment or reward" systems have been basis for human civilization for very long and Church, no matter how "full with spirit" they would like to be, are not protected from this influence.
"When I have kids, I am definitely NOT going to bring them up with any religious view. If your child needs to fear a horrible fire-filled afterlife in order to make good decisions in life, then I fear for that child's future. Being a good person should have NOTHING to do with religion, and everything to do with examples set forth by their role models. "
I heavily second your point of view. My parents came from different religious backgrounds, but they allowed to make our own decisions about religion. This freedom allowed me to find God in the way I could understand or relate with.
Schlong will simply trigger too much questions which in case will take too much time to answer (and most answers will be a lie, like "it is God's indicator to sort out girls and boys", etc.). Also propably there is huge problem with fact that showing huge man's penis is signaling that he is ready for sex. And it is just another embarasing topic to talk about with kids.
They don't this for kids, but for to avoid parent's embarrassment, so they don't have to waste their precious time with kids, but can stay late at work and work like slaves.
Yes, it won't be huge profit, but come on, for such violent and anti-mainstream experiment they got nice cash back. It is 165m (costed 120m), and it is only third week.
I love movie, I only would like to be it more itself not just a copy of living very good comic book. However, it would require to move sideways from original material.
Anyway, I think team who made it have proven their point. Kudos to them, all actors especially.
Huh, better tell me how about grapes?!
(For those who didn't get...yeah, that story about fox)