Don't assume that because an application is FOSS that it is somehow inferior to a closed source product.
To me, it seems that people often get that impression because with most OSS, you can see the development.
They release 0.x versions to the public, you see the app evolved from a buggy and featureless start up to a release 1.0 version (ie. Firefox).
With commercial software, all the development phase is hidden and it seems to everybody that a finalized product just appeared from nowhere while in fact it went through all the same buggy and featureless phases and its OSS brethen.
Most people don't actually care about the philosophy behind FOSS. GPL? Whazzat?
Yes, but most people care even less about paying hundreds of bucks for buggy software that is vulnerable to viruses, with EULAs out the wazoo and built-in obsolescence.
The reason why proprietary software is so popular in people's homes (I'm not talking about corporations) is because 1) They don't really have a choice. They use what comes with the computer they bought or 2) they just copy it for free from some computer savvy person in their family/circle of friends.
I suspect that if everybody really had to pay, and if they really were well informed about the choices, things might be different... Which is not to say that OSS is perfect and shouldn't get better (but it does rapidly, so bravo to the coders out there!).
The web is the only thing that got better, but even there, most people go to cnn.com and so.
As for the rest, it is you who's flat out wrong. I just did a 8000 thousand words paper on media consolidation in the US and that research really frightened me. 5 corporations own over 90% of the 37,000 media outlets in the US, 20 years ago it was 20 corporations, and a 100 years ago each city of any size had at least 3 independent newspapers.
I suggest you read on it and realize that most media outlets you think are independent are actually owned by the big five (hell, Clear Channel has 1200 radio stations about 296 (as of 2003. It takes 10 typed pages to list all the corporations owned by Time Warner, with an annual revenue of almost 300 billion dollars. Bertelsmann is the biggest english-language book publisher in the world and they own basically all the publishing houses you can think of (most of them formely independent but not anymore)) employees, it's centralized to the bone). The Nation and The Progressive and such exist, but they are not mainstream and have very small public shares.
Well, does anyone actually expect the US commercial media (Time Warner, News Corps, Disney, Viacom.. The multi-billion dollars corporations that are basically the media oligarchy of the US, owning more than 90% of all media outlets (radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, book publishers), with interests in all economic sectors) to cover favorably Hugo Chavez?
One of the main reasons for that could be that most Linux/KDE/etc programmers don't own Macs (although I'm sure many wish they did) and so are not all that familiar with OS X.
Open Source/Free Software is about cooperation instead of competition, because the current capitalist market is deeply flawed and it's often impossible for good ideas to see the light of days because the market is pretty much totally dominated by multi-billion dollars corporations.
The only way to survive, to not be driven out of business, to not be bought, is not to try to compete on their terms, not to be for sale and not to be a business.
Especially since at 25$ it would take you years to give as much as what Windows would cost you (and I'm not even talking about Office, Photoshop, whatever..).
Small donations are really a wonderful thing. I'd donate to Wikipedia, EFF and the NRDC before FreeBSD, but if I had the money I'd definitely encourage them with a little something.
Well, at least they don't have headlines about "Linux gaining marketshare on the desktop" and "OSS becoming more popular with non-techies". That's a good sign, I guess... Heh.
I'd be curious to look at the date at which each of the 2.6.x kernels were released, and also at how the level of activity on 2.4.x decreased.. Maybe people just had more time to add stuff to 2.6.x lately, or they moved from working on 2.4.x to 2.6.x.. Or maybe it's just that recent changes have been on smaller things, making for bigger lists in changelogs, which at the beginning it was big things but that take fewer lines to write in the changelog.
Are you sure of that? I'm fairly sure from what I've read at kerneltrap.org that 2.7 hasn't branched into 2.7 yet, and it's not on kernel.org either... But maybe I missed something.
You can download just the patch to go from 2.6.9 to 2.6.10, y'know. On dialup that'll save you a lot of time, and that'll save Kernel.org some bandwidth (not that they are short on that).
I'd just like to add that people who criticize wikipedia too often forget that there are also many problems with "pro" encyclopedias like Britannica & Encarta.. The difference is that with those we can't fix the problems, and that the bias they have are mostly coming from only one place (Britannica ->british vision of the world) and that Wikipedia is written by people all around the world, often from people who live close to the things they write their articles about.
Yeah, I'm curious about that too. I don't see why it would be much slower, and in fact, I'd expect most graphical desktops to become faster with the new thing coming in X.Org (not the fancy graphical effects, but the things like damage and others I forgot the names).
Wether or not it can compete *right now* is not all that important, what is important is that they are headed in the wrong direction and that it's putting some heat on microsoft to better its products -- so it's a win/win situation for the users.
The Freenet concept is great and Ian Clarke must be applauded, but it really needs an implementation that is more user-friendly and lower latency before it can become really popular.
I know that there are a lot of technical problems that keep these things from happening right now, but I have hope that they'll figure out something before it is impossible to have any real privacy on the net.
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Don't assume that because an application is FOSS that it is somehow inferior to a closed source product.
To me, it seems that people often get that impression because with most OSS, you can see the development.
They release 0.x versions to the public, you see the app evolved from a buggy and featureless start up to a release 1.0 version (ie. Firefox).
With commercial software, all the development phase is hidden and it seems to everybody that a finalized product just appeared from nowhere while in fact it went through all the same buggy and featureless phases and its OSS brethen.
Exactly! What a concept?! Cooperation instead of savage competition...
Who'd have thought that you could built something that works that way?
Most people don't actually care about the philosophy behind FOSS. GPL? Whazzat?
/rant
Yes, but most people care even less about paying hundreds of bucks for buggy software that is vulnerable to viruses, with EULAs out the wazoo and built-in obsolescence.
The reason why proprietary software is so popular in people's homes (I'm not talking about corporations) is because 1) They don't really have a choice. They use what comes with the computer they bought or 2) they just copy it for free from some computer savvy person in their family/circle of friends.
I suspect that if everybody really had to pay, and if they really were well informed about the choices, things might be different... Which is not to say that OSS is perfect and shouldn't get better (but it does rapidly, so bravo to the coders out there!).
Or they could run BOINC and share their CPU cycles between many projects...
Why not use a free/OSS client like BOINC instead?
The web is the only thing that got better, but even there, most people go to cnn.com and so.
As for the rest, it is you who's flat out wrong. I just did a 8000 thousand words paper on media consolidation in the US and that research really frightened me. 5 corporations own over 90% of the 37,000 media outlets in the US, 20 years ago it was 20 corporations, and a 100 years ago each city of any size had at least 3 independent newspapers.
I suggest you read on it and realize that most media outlets you think are independent are actually owned by the big five (hell, Clear Channel has 1200 radio stations about 296 (as of 2003. It takes 10 typed pages to list all the corporations owned by Time Warner, with an annual revenue of almost 300 billion dollars. Bertelsmann is the biggest english-language book publisher in the world and they own basically all the publishing houses you can think of (most of them formely independent but not anymore)) employees, it's centralized to the bone). The Nation and The Progressive and such exist, but they are not mainstream and have very small public shares.
So you do your research.
Exactly. Microsoft, or any other corporation, isn't *entitled* to ANY sales except the ones it makes.
Well, does anyone actually expect the US commercial media (Time Warner, News Corps, Disney, Viacom.. The multi-billion dollars corporations that are basically the media oligarchy of the US, owning more than 90% of all media outlets (radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, book publishers), with interests in all economic sectors) to cover favorably Hugo Chavez?
Come on!
Thank you.
One of the main reasons for that could be that most Linux/KDE/etc programmers don't own Macs (although I'm sure many wish they did) and so are not all that familiar with OS X.
Open Source/Free Software is about cooperation instead of competition, because the current capitalist market is deeply flawed and it's often impossible for good ideas to see the light of days because the market is pretty much totally dominated by multi-billion dollars corporations.
The only way to survive, to not be driven out of business, to not be bought, is not to try to compete on their terms, not to be for sale and not to be a business.
Well, if you ask so nicely... How can I resist?
Especially since at 25$ it would take you years to give as much as what Windows would cost you (and I'm not even talking about Office, Photoshop, whatever..).
Small donations are really a wonderful thing. I'd donate to Wikipedia, EFF and the NRDC before FreeBSD, but if I had the money I'd definitely encourage them with a little something.
Well, at least they don't have headlines about "Linux gaining marketshare on the desktop" and "OSS becoming more popular with non-techies". That's a good sign, I guess... Heh.
I'd be curious to look at the date at which each of the 2.6.x kernels were released, and also at how the level of activity on 2.4.x decreased.. Maybe people just had more time to add stuff to 2.6.x lately, or they moved from working on 2.4.x to 2.6.x.. Or maybe it's just that recent changes have been on smaller things, making for bigger lists in changelogs, which at the beginning it was big things but that take fewer lines to write in the changelog.
All reasonable possibilities, IMO.
Not to be trollish, but the obvious answer is that they change and update lots of things...
2.7 has been out as a while
Are you sure of that? I'm fairly sure from what I've read at kerneltrap.org that 2.7 hasn't branched into 2.7 yet, and it's not on kernel.org either... But maybe I missed something.
You can download just the patch to go from 2.6.9 to 2.6.10, y'know. On dialup that'll save you a lot of time, and that'll save Kernel.org some bandwidth (not that they are short on that).
I'd just like to add that people who criticize wikipedia too often forget that there are also many problems with "pro" encyclopedias like Britannica & Encarta.. The difference is that with those we can't fix the problems, and that the bias they have are mostly coming from only one place (Britannica ->british vision of the world) and that Wikipedia is written by people all around the world, often from people who live close to the things they write their articles about.
Except that Trolltech has been TREMENDOUSLY helpful to Linux and OSS and SCO has not.
Not a big enough difference to register with you, obviously.
If movie trailers were largely in divx instead of QT, QT would be worthless!
That's either a fairly clever joke or a sad clueless poster...
Yeah, I'm curious about that too. I don't see why it would be much slower, and in fact, I'd expect most graphical desktops to become faster with the new thing coming in X.Org (not the fancy graphical effects, but the things like damage and others I forgot the names).
There is no hurry, young grasshopper.
Wether or not it can compete *right now* is not all that important, what is important is that they are headed in the wrong direction and that it's putting some heat on microsoft to better its products -- so it's a win/win situation for the users.
The Freenet concept is great and Ian Clarke must be applauded, but it really needs an implementation that is more user-friendly and lower latency before it can become really popular.
I know that there are a lot of technical problems that keep these things from happening right now, but I have hope that they'll figure out something before it is impossible to have any real privacy on the net.