i can see it now
some U.S. general in 2020 controlling his brigade with a souped up version of Command & Conquer from the relative safety of the Pentagon.
Java Desktop - the last dying gasp of an old-fashioned company trying to look hip again.
Almost like your Dad buying a Harley and rediscovering Led Zeppelin.
Trouble is , the rest of us know that he's still an old fart.
Think about this - Google run on 100,000 Linux servers. Sun bought Cobalt in 1999.
Does the phrase "lost opportunity" come to mind?
"I agree that Sun would have to have to do something dramatic to avoid what is looking more and more like an inevitability at this point, but what could stop this slide toward the same fate as DEC? "
Funny that this comparison should be made - was talking to a Sun employee about to be laid off about 2 years ago - he was making comparisons to DEC at the time.
That premonition has now popped up on Slashdot and i've got goosebumps over it.
My view? - yeah - Sun should throw in the towel and get their engineers over to SuSe/Novell pronto. At least McNealy and his execs has a few million in the bank so they are ok.
DEEP BREATH - "go away Sun - you are in the way of open source" - AND EXHALE
"It can still be a nightmare for home users to install"
Err.. Mandrake/Lindows/Xandros are hard to install ?????
"Worse, there are still too few applications."
Several thousand apps in Debians apt-get repository. Mandrake comes on 7 CDs last time I checked, packed full with apps. SuSe is the same. Then there's Lindows "click-n-run" software warehouse.
"Fewer than 1% of all computer games, for instance, work on Linux."
Game software is a chicken-and-egg scenario. You could say the same about Macs. If I want to play games, I use my Xbox.
"Software to manage personal finances or organise digital photos is also missing."
Mandrake : plug USB camera in, gPhoto launches.
Mandrake (and numerous others) come with GnuCash.
"In theory these programs could all be written but, without a huge increase in users, code-writers will not bother."
Misses the point completely about open source development.
Brilliant article. Thanks salon and/.
I couldn't help feeling , when reading it, that there's a film script in there somewhere. All the different characters - the punters, the "santas" , charles, ken "total bullshit", the managers - were very memorable and very well described.
Any film script based on this wouldn't be anything like "Office Space". It would be much more relentless, much more castigating, and much more pressurized. Alienation , pressure, stress and moments of humour thrown in.
Think the adrenalin, energy, and mania of Boiler Room, meets the characters,humour and alienation of Office Space, in union with the sheer unadulterated white-collar anger of Falling Down.
Heck - my two year simply LOVES my tux wallpapers, to such an extent that she refuses to go to bed unless she's got her cuddly penguin with her. Gods honest truth!
Fast forward several years, and my future 8 year old daughter will be telling me "awww - dad. Why are using Pico - that sucks big time. You should try vi"
Dad meanwhile, looks on bemused as said 8 year old downloads, compiles and runs the latest open source variant of Medal of Honour. :-)
Medal of Honor is still a firm multiplayer favourite with me. The "team match" mode is probably the best is you are starting off, as no matter how many times you get shot, you immediately respawn (kinda like Quake Arena in that respect). But, if you feel you're not up to the skill levels of the other players, you can always just pick a sniper rifle as your weapon and sit in a bush or up a church tower, hiding , and occassionally sniping the opposing side.
I've not tried Call Of Duty multiplayer yet, so i cant comment on it - but for pure thrills , Medal Of Honor multiplayer is awesome.
This is a very smart move by Mandrake. The Cooker idea worked well, but it was never officially promoted in a big way i.e. you never hit the Mandrake home page and saw "Cooker release 9.2 available for download"
Dare I say, but it sounds very like the Debian way of doing things (unstable - testing - stable).
But there's a double-edged sword with doing things this way , in that you'll never have the bleeding edge stuff in a "Community" Mandrake release.
But then, if you want that,you must know what you are doing - and you'll just end up using Cooker anyway.
imho,the Community thing is more aimed at the general casual Linux user - a bit experienced,but not experienced enough to compile their own kernels. And that's a good thing - more exposure to a wider range of platforms and better bug feedback.
As an example on why they had to introduce this (possibly), the much advertised MandrakeMove Live CD doesnt even recognise some PCMCIA wireless cards in laptops. A bad oversight.
A MandrakeMove community edition would have helped in identifying this glaring omission.
Overall, it's a big big thumbs up from myself - well done Mandrake for introducing the Community Edition idea.
Quote from the article:
"Because Linux is open source, it can be obtained for free, although most companies pay software developers for a package of Linux-based applications, including e-mail and word processing."
That is so wrong wrong wrong on many levels. This just adds to the FUD around Linux. I'm amazed that such a blatant falsehood has made it to the pages of the BBC. Sloppy journalism IMHO. (
Maybe someone in authority from KDE, Gnome or OpenOffice could care to inform the BBC of their inaccuracy?
(and no - i really do think that the Hutton report is a whitewash and that the BBC WERE right. But thats a different story and off topic)
Hey! With James Cameron designing the spaceships, we're well on our way to faking a Mars landing - in just the same kind of way that the original moon landings were faked.
And it gets around the budget deficit problem too.
great article. i particularly like this quote "It's free, It works, Duh!"
Snappy catchphrase, don't ya think?
Pretty snappy chorus for a rock song as well.
"and then nukes the system it's living on, causing real widespread damage rather than minor annoyances."
If you start nuking systems, you are looking at
a) all of Corporate America being pissed off and telling the FBI to do something
b) the FBI getting seriously cheesed off because of a)
c) the Courts getting seriously cheesed off because of the FBI pressure to make you "go down"...
you're looking at a minimum of 50 years behind bars because of a+b+c.
Lesson : cause mayhem on the networks, but dont EVER touch the corporate data. It's its a "network problem" Mr. CEO isn't too concerned - he can use the phone.
Now, wiping Mr. CEO's hard drive is a different thing altogether. If I were a virus writer, i wouldnt even venture into that deadly territory. Much easier (and more profitable) to set up a spam zombie network.
"the support for Microsoft Word 95 and Microsoft Word 97 documents has become much better."
Guys (and girls) in the KOffice team - i'm not interested in those formats. I'm a KOffice fan big time, but I want MS Office 2000 filters at the very least. May I suggest that instead of adding features, the team focuses on filters for the next release.
I can't understand why this hasnt been done - especially since OpenOffice can do it.
I love the speed of KOffice on KDE - but I'm still stuck with OO as a result of this MS filter issue.
Quote:"Q: You've received bomb threats, death threats and plenty of hate mail because of what you're doing. Have you ever wanted to say to your detractors, "Hey folks, this is just software here?"
A: They say if you want to get into an argument at the dinner table, start a conversation about religion or politics. I would argue that Linux is a cross between religion and politics."
Jeez Daryl! Those Linux guys are walkovers compared to the hardcore GNU people.
Just wait until you start sueing Richard Stallman - it won't be pretty , and you'll be begging for your mama!!
Here's some simple reasons why everyone isnt setting up a "software company"
a)Indian programmers can work at a fraction of the cost of U.S. programmers. In a lot of cases you simply cannot compete on price.
b) Restrictions on worldwide travel - U.S. and European programmers cannot simply up and leave and move to India or China say. You probably wont be allowed to work there due to the visa restrictions. Free trade does not equate to free movement of labour.
c) Microsoft's monopolistic practises and stranglehold on the hardware industry.
Think you can set up a profitable Linux desktop company? Think again. What about Lindows so, I hear you say. Well, that's bankrolled by Mr Robertson's fortune from selling MP3.com. Lesson: if you want to break the mould, you have to have a few hundred million dollars to even BEGIN to start competing.
In other words, the I.T. market is seriously screwed up.
has anyone figured out how to run it under vmware or wine? one could easily run multiple virtual "Windows" sessions on a single box, load the virus, and hey presto - goodbye SCO.
This takes The Best Democracy Money Can Buy to a whole new level.
What next - "Introducing the Presidential Survivor elections - sponsored by Halliburton, General Electric, AT & T , Monsanto, IBM.."?
ERR,, scrap that - doesnt that already happen anyway... oh dear
(krafy koder goes into "move along now - nothing to see here" mode)
What would be extremely interesting would be, in a years time, a "zeitgeist" of Orkut, in graphical (maybe even Flash) form, that shows the spread of the network from the initial 12,000.
A similar concept has already been done for the corporate pigopolists at They Rule - Flash required, but it's worth it.
My prediction - that ALL of the branches of the social Orkut network bend back on themselves to focus on a single individual being that is the source and underpinning of all human thought , culture and society on this planet - Kevin Bacon
Slashdot Mirror
i can see it now
some U.S. general in 2020 controlling his brigade with a souped up version of Command & Conquer from the relative safety of the Pentagon.
some targets for slashdotters out there - DoS or a wget loop would be appreciated:
Chinese spammer
And yet another one
home loan spammer
junk health spammer
sorry xandros , but kde without konqueror just isnt kde. i'll stick with mandrake...
i happened to come across these fantastic spyware removal sites. if you download their software you are guaranteed 100 per cent no more spyware
Debian
Mandrake
Linspire
Fedora
Mepis
Xandros
Suse
Slackware
Gentoo
Java Desktop - the last dying gasp of an old-fashioned company trying to look hip again.
Almost like your Dad buying a Harley and rediscovering Led Zeppelin.
Trouble is , the rest of us know that he's still an old fart.
Think about this - Google run on 100,000 Linux servers. Sun bought Cobalt in 1999.
Does the phrase "lost opportunity" come to mind?
"I agree that Sun would have to have to do something dramatic to avoid what is looking more and more like an inevitability at this point, but what could stop this slide toward the same fate as DEC? "
Funny that this comparison should be made - was talking to a Sun employee about to be laid off about 2 years ago - he was making comparisons to DEC at the time.
That premonition has now popped up on Slashdot and i've got goosebumps over it.
My view? - yeah - Sun should throw in the towel and get their engineers over to SuSe/Novell pronto. At least McNealy and his execs has a few million in the bank so they are ok.
DEEP BREATH - "go away Sun - you are in the way of open source" - AND EXHALE
"Started by Barth Netterfield, an astrophysicist,"
is it just me, but when i first scanned that my brain said
"Started by Battlefield Earth..."
"It can still be a nightmare for home users to install"
Err.. Mandrake/Lindows/Xandros are hard to install ?????
"Worse, there are still too few applications."
Several thousand apps in Debians apt-get repository. Mandrake comes on 7 CDs last time I checked, packed full with apps. SuSe is the same. Then there's Lindows "click-n-run" software warehouse.
"Fewer than 1% of all computer games, for instance, work on Linux."
Game software is a chicken-and-egg scenario. You could say the same about Macs. If I want to play games, I use my Xbox.
"Software to manage personal finances or organise digital photos is also missing."
Mandrake : plug USB camera in, gPhoto launches.
Mandrake (and numerous others) come with GnuCash.
"In theory these programs could all be written but, without a huge increase in users, code-writers will not bother."
Misses the point completely about open source development.
"Motion Picture Ass Head Jack Valenti"
maybe that's why so much crap comes out of his mouth.
I couldn't help feeling , when reading it, that there's a film script in there somewhere. All the different characters - the punters, the "santas" , charles, ken "total bullshit", the managers - were very memorable and very well described.
Any film script based on this wouldn't be anything like "Office Space". It would be much more relentless, much more castigating, and much more pressurized. Alienation , pressure, stress and moments of humour thrown in.
Think the adrenalin, energy, and mania of Boiler Room, meets the characters,humour and alienation of Office Space, in union with the sheer unadulterated white-collar anger of Falling Down.
All i can say in response is "give this Eben Moglin guy a knighthood!" A white hat legal eagle.
Heck - my two year simply LOVES my tux wallpapers, to such an extent that she refuses to go to bed unless she's got her cuddly penguin with her. Gods honest truth!
:-)
Fast forward several years, and my future 8 year old daughter will be telling me "awww - dad. Why are using Pico - that sucks big time. You should try vi"
Dad meanwhile, looks on bemused as said 8 year old downloads, compiles and runs the latest open source variant of Medal of Honour.
Medal of Honor is still a firm multiplayer favourite with me. The "team match" mode is probably the best is you are starting off, as no matter how many times you get shot, you immediately respawn (kinda like Quake Arena in that respect). But, if you feel you're not up to the skill levels of the other players, you can always just pick a sniper rifle as your weapon and sit in a bush or up a church tower, hiding , and occassionally sniping the opposing side. I've not tried Call Of Duty multiplayer yet, so i cant comment on it - but for pure thrills , Medal Of Honor multiplayer is awesome.
This is a very smart move by Mandrake. The Cooker idea worked well, but it was never officially promoted in a big way i.e. you never hit the Mandrake home page and saw "Cooker release 9.2 available for download"
,you must know what you are doing - and you'll just end up using Cooker anyway.
,but not experienced enough to compile their own kernels. And that's a good thing - more exposure to a wider range of platforms and better bug feedback.
Dare I say, but it sounds very like the Debian way of doing things (unstable - testing - stable).
But there's a double-edged sword with doing things this way , in that you'll never have the bleeding edge stuff in a "Community" Mandrake release.
But then, if you want that
imho,the Community thing is more aimed at the general casual Linux user - a bit experienced
As an example on why they had to introduce this (possibly), the much advertised MandrakeMove Live CD doesnt even recognise some PCMCIA wireless cards in laptops. A bad oversight.
A MandrakeMove community edition would have helped in identifying this glaring omission.
Overall, it's a big big thumbs up from myself - well done Mandrake for introducing the Community Edition idea.
Quote from the article: "Because Linux is open source, it can be obtained for free, although most companies pay software developers for a package of Linux-based applications, including e-mail and word processing." That is so wrong wrong wrong on many levels. This just adds to the FUD around Linux. I'm amazed that such a blatant falsehood has made it to the pages of the BBC. Sloppy journalism IMHO. ( Maybe someone in authority from KDE, Gnome or OpenOffice could care to inform the BBC of their inaccuracy? (and no - i really do think that the Hutton report is a whitewash and that the BBC WERE right. But thats a different story and off topic)
Hey! With James Cameron designing the spaceships, we're well on our way to faking a Mars landing - in just the same kind of way that the original moon landings were faked.
And it gets around the budget deficit problem too.
great article. i particularly like this quote
"It's free, It works, Duh!"
Snappy catchphrase, don't ya think?
Pretty snappy chorus for a rock song as well.
"and then nukes the system it's living on, causing real widespread damage rather than minor annoyances." If you start nuking systems, you are looking at a) all of Corporate America being pissed off and telling the FBI to do something b) the FBI getting seriously cheesed off because of a) c) the Courts getting seriously cheesed off because of the FBI pressure to make you "go down"... you're looking at a minimum of 50 years behind bars because of a+b+c. Lesson : cause mayhem on the networks, but dont EVER touch the corporate data. It's its a "network problem" Mr. CEO isn't too concerned - he can use the phone. Now, wiping Mr. CEO's hard drive is a different thing altogether. If I were a virus writer, i wouldnt even venture into that deadly territory. Much easier (and more profitable) to set up a spam zombie network.
"the support for Microsoft Word 95 and Microsoft Word 97 documents has become much better." Guys (and girls) in the KOffice team - i'm not interested in those formats. I'm a KOffice fan big time, but I want MS Office 2000 filters at the very least. May I suggest that instead of adding features, the team focuses on filters for the next release. I can't understand why this hasnt been done - especially since OpenOffice can do it. I love the speed of KOffice on KDE - but I'm still stuck with OO as a result of this MS filter issue.
Jeez Daryl! Those Linux guys are walkovers compared to the hardcore GNU people.
Just wait until you start sueing Richard Stallman - it won't be pretty , and you'll be begging for your mama!!
hmmm... what about a worldwide wget campaign. arranged at a specific time at a specific hour?
Here's some simple reasons why everyone isnt setting up a "software company" a)Indian programmers can work at a fraction of the cost of U.S. programmers. In a lot of cases you simply cannot compete on price. b) Restrictions on worldwide travel - U.S. and European programmers cannot simply up and leave and move to India or China say. You probably wont be allowed to work there due to the visa restrictions. Free trade does not equate to free movement of labour. c) Microsoft's monopolistic practises and stranglehold on the hardware industry. Think you can set up a profitable Linux desktop company? Think again. What about Lindows so, I hear you say. Well, that's bankrolled by Mr Robertson's fortune from selling MP3.com. Lesson: if you want to break the mould, you have to have a few hundred million dollars to even BEGIN to start competing. In other words, the I.T. market is seriously screwed up.
has anyone figured out how to run it under vmware or wine? one could easily run multiple virtual "Windows" sessions on a single box, load the virus, and hey presto - goodbye SCO.
What next - "Introducing the Presidential Survivor elections - sponsored by Halliburton, General Electric, AT & T , Monsanto, IBM.."?
ERR,, scrap that - doesnt that already happen anyway... oh dear
(krafy koder goes into "move along now - nothing to see here" mode)
A similar concept has already been done for the corporate pigopolists at They Rule - Flash required, but it's worth it.
My prediction - that ALL of the branches of the social Orkut network bend back on themselves to focus on a single individual being that is the source and underpinning of all human thought , culture and society on this planet - Kevin Bacon