I don't play gamoes to have a socially-dictated morality imposed on me. Games are a sandbox for me, to let the most fucked-up aspects of yourself take over without hurting anyone in real life. Exploring ethical boundaries is a necessary process in our self-development. I see nothing wrong with it provided it does not deter from real life. I contend it's been benefitial to everyone I know who's ever gamed.
Your expectations are too high. Using a compiled application in a Linux distro is like grabbing the sources for a Windows application and compiling them with Visual Studio yourself. Te equivalent of donwloading a nice.exe installed on Windows is when the package is available for your distro of choice. If you can't wait until then you'll have to live with compiling, just like any other platform.
Your only "problem" is that since the development process if much more transparent you want to get the product before it's ready for everonye. Consider that a benefit in itself.
Do you remember SimCity 2000 when you could build an orbital solar power station that could potentially misalign and burn down half the city? Fun times.
In practice, it'd be a piece of cake to implement a safeguard against that.
My local LUG is having a large conference tomorrow, where one of the highlights is an introduction to programming on the OLPC.
At least in Argentina, where a deployment is being scheduled, the entire Free Software community has the hots for this. Whether it succeeds or not as en educational tool, it's pioneering a new paradigm of computing; the truly small, truly cheap, truly rugged laptop.
There is no security model that's better than others for all cases. They're all tradeoffs between convenience and security at the user level, and no, a security model is not quantifiable, as the amount of variation between specifications is mindboggling. Do you know the difference between RBAC, RAS, SELinux, AppArmor? Between the dozens of different and incompatible security systems used in AIX, Solaris, i5/OS, QNX, z/OS, and VMS? They all have their places, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Security doesn't stop with setting the "sticky bit".
But most importantly, security models are not CPU-intensive. Even the most demanding model will check file access permissions once in a blue moon in comparison to a scheduler. Schedulers store and use differnt information in very different ways which makes it difficult to make a generic framework that will support every possible datum they might need without making a significant impact on performance (it's a piece of code called thousands of times a second, performing rather complex computations).
Besides, it doesn't mean that Linux doesn't have several schedulers. It does, but they're kept under different branches, and they're sufficiently tunable to meet all your usual requirements, and CFS is a sufficiently superior alternative with the right stuff to warrant its maintenance in the mainline.
Regardless of the rights of Apple or not to fix bricked iPhones, we have to admit that Jobs' promotion of the iPhone around OS X and such was intellectually dishonest, as is the fact that the phones' locking is not easily circumventable. Sure, they can do that, but it's something that should be thought of as offensive for consumers as loyal as Apple buyers. That's why I'd never buy one of those or recommend it for anyone.
And RAID isn't for safety of your data either, hey?
Locks on your house aren't for security, they're just to keep the door closed if a cat pushes on it, right?
Seatbelts aren't to prevent you from flying through a windshield, they're just there so you don't slide around while taking corners.
Your thinking is exactly the reason why most users fail to use chroot correctly:
RAID provides SOME data protection, but the RAID card itself is a point of failure and RAID by itself in no way replaces a backup and recovery solution.
Locks keep honest people honest. A sufficiently determined lockpicker will work his way through almost any lock. The only thing it does is raise the difficulty of opening the door to the point where it's not worth it.
Seatbels will preveny you from flying through a windshield, but without an appropiately designed car with functional airbags and good lateral protection their effectiveness is reduced considerably.
Same thing with chroot. It's not the end-all-be-all solution, but alongside other things it is extremely appropiate.
Freedom is not appreciated by owners of mainstream computer architectures and mainstream operating system. Under x86 and a few other common architectures, most stuff is already supported, such as Flash on Linux x86 or the NVidia binary drivers.
Now, have you ever tried running any of those things under less common architectures? SPARC systems with FreeBSD? Linux on Alpha?
Sure, your pretty GeForce will run great on Windows, even Linux, but you have to remember Linux is not the end-all of operating systems and x86 is not the end-all of computer architectures. The future has new and better things for us all, and that's where open formats and systems count, preserving our software and documents, making them future-proof. 15 years from now you'll still be able to run Apache on NetBSD on an IBM pSeries (yes, an unlikely software-hardware combo, but I'm making a case here). Probably 25 years from now GCC will still be the premier compiler on the large majority of architectures, and Visual Studio and Borland will be relegated to fairy tales. Who'll remember Flash? Who remembers a large amount of software written for MacOS 9, or the Commodore 64? Already there's a lot of games made for Windows 98 that won't run on Vista. Who will you be crying to when you'll want to retrieve your old data or experiment with older libraries or systems?
The beauty of Free Software becomes apparent only on those time frames. THEN Stallman's critics will see his point.
Except that the value of things is not, unlike some Libertarians like to think, totally contemplated within the market. You think if farmland's expensive, buildings will be torn down? I'd say, forests and other natural ecosystems will be torn down WAY before buildings are! Have you looked at the Amazon recently?
The fact remains, continued growth of the population will result in the destruction of fragile ecosystems long before it makes an impact (at least in the short term) to city dwellers. It's not like animals or rare plants are active participants in the economy, so their interests are a bit underrepresented.
As a sysadmin slacking off means I'm being productive, since no problems are occurring. You could say that the goal of a sysadmin is to legitimately slack off as much as possible.
Uhh, no. If you were a bit more aware of the subject, you would know that there are "GPL-compatible" licenses, where you can link code between them and the clauses of each license permit so without trouble.
I'm actually quite suprised how little most people know on the subject. If you want a license that frees your code while letting others link proprietary code to it, you have the LGPL, which allows just that, and is IMO the best license for core libraries such as GTK a libc.
Sounds to me like you people should take a look at the LGPL. The FSF and Stallman realized that some of the freedoms of the GPL might translate into unreasonable restrictions to others, and that's why they created that license.
GPL -> Distribution restrictions.
BSD -> No restrictions.
No restrictions -> More freedom.
More freedom -> Possible unsavory side effects that people choose to live with
GPL -> Code will always be open and derivatives will stay that way
BSD -> Code can be closed off and new improvements to it can remain closed off forever.
Always open code -> More freedom
Sometimes open code -> Permanent loss of freedom with regards to that code.
Indeed, logic is great.
BSD has a similar one, except that it doesn't place restrictions on how that happens. No one can make BSD-licensed software "non free", it will always be available to everyone. The only difference is that it might not benefit from coerced third party improvements, but that's what you sign up for.
I never said that you can't sign up for that if so you wish, but code is always used within contexts, and when used in the context of proprietary software, any improvements on the code will be lost, any bug fixes will be lost, any added functionality will be lost.
Sure, some people will build upon it, but losing the obligation of putting the improvements back into the codebase means that it will eventually stagnate, and that the improvements that could have been used for the good of everyone who contributed can be denied at will. Look at FreeBSD with OS X: Apple got the foundation of their OS for free, and after that they simply closed up the rest at will. Perhaps the Apple folks got to improve their memory management, or add some new DRM techniques. Whatever they've done, the FreeBSD devs will never get to see it.
If they don't mind as users and developers to see their work used to create a proprietary, vendor-locked platform then it's their prerogative; as a used and dev I prefer to make sure that my code is an established base of constant improvement. With the GPL they're empowered and free to do that; with BSD new parties are empowered to do whatever and completely ignore original creators aside from the required attributions.
Notice that I'm not saying the BSD license is more free; it is equally free, but shifting freedom to new developers and vendors to be,IMO, lazy bastards and profiting for nothing, while GPL shifts it to original developers, contributors and users to get reciprocal treatment from others. You're free to think that the former is more important; I belive the latter brings greater benefits to everyone in the long term.
BSD has a similar one, except that it doesn't place restrictions on how that happens. No one can make BSD-licensed software "non free", it will always be available to everyone. The only difference is that it might not benefit from coerced third party improvements, but that's what you sign up for.
No one is coercing anyone here. If you had read and understoof the GPL, and it looks like you haven't, you'd know that the conditions apply only to those who want to redistribute software. If you want to keep your patches to yourself you can do that and it's your right, but if you're going to be using other's code to sell it or gain from it you have to abide by the creator's conditions. Going back to my point about freedom, perhaps as distributor you have less leeway regarding your changes, but your users have just gained the guarantee that they'll always be able to see and change the code. The BSD could not have done that.
BSD licenses guarantee absolutely nothing. Here's the code, do whatever the heck you want with it. The perceived benefits to using the GPL are nice, but please don't insult people's intelligence by claiming they result in more freedom. A restriction to ensure X or Y is still that - a restriction. The distribution restrictions on the GPL are designed to further Stallman's social causes (some of which I actually agree with). If you feel that's fine, then by all means use the GPL. That's your choice.
You know, I'm absolutely tired of the BSD trolls that claim that the BSD license is "freer", not because I have a beef with the BSD, simply because your definition of "freedom" is ludicrous.
There are no absolute freedoms. Freedom to infringe on other's rights or freedoms gives more freedom to yourself, but limits it to other members of society. So long as there are things that cannot be owned or achieved communaly without side effects to others, freedoms have a limit, that is the actions that you cannot do so that others can do them.
The GPL definition of freedom is that a sofware and derivatives must always, under all conditions, be free. Yes, it a restriction to the developer who would wish to close up his source and use a GPLed piece of code, but it is an additional freedom to all the users who now have access to this source, which would have otherwise been denied.
Analogy time: the King is free to treat his peasants as dogs if he wished and if he has sufficient power to repress any opinions the peasants would have about that. The peasants, however, are limited by the freedoms the king has. Therefore the balance of freedoms for a more equal society would be that the king's freedoms be limited in order to allow the peasants to live their life.
So as you said, the GPL is also a social instrument, but it is no less free than the BSD; it simply distributes freedoms in a different matter. If you have a problem with that, use whichever license you wish to use. But don't go around accusing the GPL is limiting freedoms when it gives others freedoms that the BSD could never guarantee.
IBM is becoming primarily a services company, doing systems development, "solutions architecture", and outsourced operations. A LOT of people at IBM are familiar with Sun technology and have used it at one point or another. Heck, most of the Global Services staff that maintain AIX servers also maintain Solaris servers. How hard do you think it would be for IBM to expand their business saying "Sure, we support Solaris. We can build that payroll system that you need for your company on your existing Sun infrastructure. BTW, can we interest you in a new pSeries for these workloads?".
Indeed, this is opening up a new area of the market where they can now claim expertise and recognition. And when the installed customer base is satisfied with what they have, it'll be 10 times easier to migrate their hardware to IBM stuff, and software to IBM proprietary OSes, if there's more profit to be made there.
Who told you that it's bullshit that male colleagues don't have to endure?
I recall reading somewhere that as workplace equalty increases, men have come to see women as peers, and what that implies is that they are placed in a level game where the sorts of abuse that men perform on other men are being experienced by women. Women have more at stake now than they ever did, and what that means is that your average office bastard sees them as potential threats to their activities.
At my workplace we have several women working in IT positions. They are all treated very well; the locker-room mentality only happens in male-only subgroups. The one reason why I think that there's not as many women as there could be is becase the job is simply not rewarding to most female personality types. I don't know how many want or can stand to be on-call, or handle high-stree meetings with enraged customers who want to see their servers working NOW. Not to say that women can't handle stress, just saying that the stress that emanates from an IT environment may not be the one they can handle best.
If your biggest employment issue with females is that other employees treat them like crap, then you've either have the problem of asshole male employees (happens, but then again I wonder how the hell you're managing to have a decent IT infrastructure with those people), or submissive females, who are not few, and who end up meeting the same fat as submissive males.
I don't know about you guys, but as a UNIX admin I'm on call 1 out of 4 weeks, work frequently on Saturday and Sunday nights during maintenance windows so as to not bother anyone who might be working with those machines and have to work holidays if the systems go down, have frequent upgrade and maintenance cycles, etc. It's not an easy job when an entire organization is breathing down your neck to get things working as quickly as possible. Some appreciation is indeed welcome. I know some devs have to work on the deadline and all, but generally speaking they don't seem to have as much pressure (I'm generalizing; I'm sure there are lazier admins and weird-working-hours programmers too).
Not necessarily. No open services save SSH and a strong password? Indeed no worries to the average user. Even great antiviruses sometimes elude viruses or exploits made against specific antivirus solutions.
What are these people doing demoing this product with stupid family pictures BS??
This has the potential to be THE breakthrough for CAD, CAM, 3D and 2D design applications. Imagine using a CAD application with this interface. It'd be the fastest and most intuitive thing ever.
Video compositing? Just drag and drop stuff, manage the effects layers naturally, etc.
What they need to do is find a way to lower the price and start getting some developers to work on creating UI concepts for professional software.
That's honestly the dumbest answer I've ever heard of this question. End users might be ignorant but they're not stupid, and knowing applications names takes a whole 2 to 3 seconds. Hell, the KDE menu has a description on the side of every application in its menu.
Really, if users are that idiotic then why do people user Foobar2000, Lotus Notes, Nero, Adobe Reader (under your logic, "I'm too dumb to know what Adobe Reader's supposed to read"), VNC, etc.? What the hell does "Outlook" have to do with email?
I can understand when someone might be afraid of a the "/usr" filesystem, but I don't know what kind of mouthbreather would be scared away by having to use "Pidgin (Chat Client)" on KDE instead of "Windows LIVE Messenger".
PS, I know this post came off as a complete flame, but really, this is taking too far the "dumb user" card.
AMD makes the processors for the OLPC. Never mind that Intel is undercutting the OLPC at a loss just to gain market share on what may be one the largest untapped markets for computers.
The more Microsoft tightens control the sale of Windows in the third world, the more they'll promote the use and development of Free alternatives.
Not that they don't have a right to do it, of course, since anyone has the right to demand that their products not be pirated. It's just that in this case it will turn out to be quite negative for them.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't play gamoes to have a socially-dictated morality imposed on me. Games are a sandbox for me, to let the most fucked-up aspects of yourself take over without hurting anyone in real life. Exploring ethical boundaries is a necessary process in our self-development. I see nothing wrong with it provided it does not deter from real life. I contend it's been benefitial to everyone I know who's ever gamed.
Who's this "Bill" guy and why does he want open access to papers?
Your expectations are too high. Using a compiled application in a Linux distro is like grabbing the sources for a Windows application and compiling them with Visual Studio yourself. Te equivalent of donwloading a nice .exe installed on Windows is when the package is available for your distro of choice. If you can't wait until then you'll have to live with compiling, just like any other platform.
Your only "problem" is that since the development process if much more transparent you want to get the product before it's ready for everonye. Consider that a benefit in itself.
Hope you've got some strong crypto to make sure voting is done fairly. You wouldn't want to have a million people voting the CowboyNeal option.
Do you remember SimCity 2000 when you could build an orbital solar power station that could potentially misalign and burn down half the city? Fun times.
In practice, it'd be a piece of cake to implement a safeguard against that.
My local LUG is having a large conference tomorrow, where one of the highlights is an introduction to programming on the OLPC.
At least in Argentina, where a deployment is being scheduled, the entire Free Software community has the hots for this. Whether it succeeds or not as en educational tool, it's pioneering a new paradigm of computing; the truly small, truly cheap, truly rugged laptop.
There is no security model that's better than others for all cases. They're all tradeoffs between convenience and security at the user level, and no, a security model is not quantifiable, as the amount of variation between specifications is mindboggling. Do you know the difference between RBAC, RAS, SELinux, AppArmor? Between the dozens of different and incompatible security systems used in AIX, Solaris, i5/OS, QNX, z/OS, and VMS? They all have their places, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Security doesn't stop with setting the "sticky bit".
But most importantly, security models are not CPU-intensive. Even the most demanding model will check file access permissions once in a blue moon in comparison to a scheduler. Schedulers store and use differnt information in very different ways which makes it difficult to make a generic framework that will support every possible datum they might need without making a significant impact on performance (it's a piece of code called thousands of times a second, performing rather complex computations).
Besides, it doesn't mean that Linux doesn't have several schedulers. It does, but they're kept under different branches, and they're sufficiently tunable to meet all your usual requirements, and CFS is a sufficiently superior alternative with the right stuff to warrant its maintenance in the mainline.
Regardless of the rights of Apple or not to fix bricked iPhones, we have to admit that Jobs' promotion of the iPhone around OS X and such was intellectually dishonest, as is the fact that the phones' locking is not easily circumventable. Sure, they can do that, but it's something that should be thought of as offensive for consumers as loyal as Apple buyers. That's why I'd never buy one of those or recommend it for anyone.
Locks on your house aren't for security, they're just to keep the door closed if a cat pushes on it, right?
Seatbelts aren't to prevent you from flying through a windshield, they're just there so you don't slide around while taking corners.
Your thinking is exactly the reason why most users fail to use chroot correctly:RAID provides SOME data protection, but the RAID card itself is a point of failure and RAID by itself in no way replaces a backup and recovery solution.
Locks keep honest people honest. A sufficiently determined lockpicker will work his way through almost any lock. The only thing it does is raise the difficulty of opening the door to the point where it's not worth it.
Seatbels will preveny you from flying through a windshield, but without an appropiately designed car with functional airbags and good lateral protection their effectiveness is reduced considerably.
Same thing with chroot. It's not the end-all-be-all solution, but alongside other things it is extremely appropiate.
Freedom is not appreciated by owners of mainstream computer architectures and mainstream operating system. Under x86 and a few other common architectures, most stuff is already supported, such as Flash on Linux x86 or the NVidia binary drivers.
Now, have you ever tried running any of those things under less common architectures? SPARC systems with FreeBSD? Linux on Alpha?
Sure, your pretty GeForce will run great on Windows, even Linux, but you have to remember Linux is not the end-all of operating systems and x86 is not the end-all of computer architectures. The future has new and better things for us all, and that's where open formats and systems count, preserving our software and documents, making them future-proof. 15 years from now you'll still be able to run Apache on NetBSD on an IBM pSeries (yes, an unlikely software-hardware combo, but I'm making a case here). Probably 25 years from now GCC will still be the premier compiler on the large majority of architectures, and Visual Studio and Borland will be relegated to fairy tales. Who'll remember Flash? Who remembers a large amount of software written for MacOS 9, or the Commodore 64? Already there's a lot of games made for Windows 98 that won't run on Vista. Who will you be crying to when you'll want to retrieve your old data or experiment with older libraries or systems?
The beauty of Free Software becomes apparent only on those time frames. THEN Stallman's critics will see his point.
Except that the value of things is not, unlike some Libertarians like to think, totally contemplated within the market. You think if farmland's expensive, buildings will be torn down? I'd say, forests and other natural ecosystems will be torn down WAY before buildings are! Have you looked at the Amazon recently?
The fact remains, continued growth of the population will result in the destruction of fragile ecosystems long before it makes an impact (at least in the short term) to city dwellers. It's not like animals or rare plants are active participants in the economy, so their interests are a bit underrepresented.
As a sysadmin slacking off means I'm being productive, since no problems are occurring. You could say that the goal of a sysadmin is to legitimately slack off as much as possible.
Uhh, no. If you were a bit more aware of the subject, you would know that there are "GPL-compatible" licenses, where you can link code between them and the clauses of each license permit so without trouble.
I'm actually quite suprised how little most people know on the subject. If you want a license that frees your code while letting others link proprietary code to it, you have the LGPL, which allows just that, and is IMO the best license for core libraries such as GTK a libc.
Sounds to me like you people should take a look at the LGPL. The FSF and Stallman realized that some of the freedoms of the GPL might translate into unreasonable restrictions to others, and that's why they created that license.
GPL -> Distribution restrictions. BSD -> No restrictions. No restrictions -> More freedom. More freedom -> Possible unsavory side effects that people choose to live with
GPL -> Code will always be open and derivatives will stay that way
BSD -> Code can be closed off and new improvements to it can remain closed off forever.
Always open code -> More freedom
Sometimes open code -> Permanent loss of freedom with regards to that code.
Indeed, logic is great.
BSD has a similar one, except that it doesn't place restrictions on how that happens. No one can make BSD-licensed software "non free", it will always be available to everyone. The only difference is that it might not benefit from coerced third party improvements, but that's what you sign up for.
I never said that you can't sign up for that if so you wish, but code is always used within contexts, and when used in the context of proprietary software, any improvements on the code will be lost, any bug fixes will be lost, any added functionality will be lost.
Sure, some people will build upon it, but losing the obligation of putting the improvements back into the codebase means that it will eventually stagnate, and that the improvements that could have been used for the good of everyone who contributed can be denied at will. Look at FreeBSD with OS X: Apple got the foundation of their OS for free, and after that they simply closed up the rest at will. Perhaps the Apple folks got to improve their memory management, or add some new DRM techniques. Whatever they've done, the FreeBSD devs will never get to see it.
If they don't mind as users and developers to see their work used to create a proprietary, vendor-locked platform then it's their prerogative; as a used and dev I prefer to make sure that my code is an established base of constant improvement. With the GPL they're empowered and free to do that; with BSD new parties are empowered to do whatever and completely ignore original creators aside from the required attributions.
Notice that I'm not saying the BSD license is more free; it is equally free, but shifting freedom to new developers and vendors to be,IMO, lazy bastards and profiting for nothing, while GPL shifts it to original developers, contributors and users to get reciprocal treatment from others. You're free to think that the former is more important; I belive the latter brings greater benefits to everyone in the long term.
BSD has a similar one, except that it doesn't place restrictions on how that happens. No one can make BSD-licensed software "non free", it will always be available to everyone. The only difference is that it might not benefit from coerced third party improvements, but that's what you sign up for.
No one is coercing anyone here. If you had read and understoof the GPL, and it looks like you haven't, you'd know that the conditions apply only to those who want to redistribute software. If you want to keep your patches to yourself you can do that and it's your right, but if you're going to be using other's code to sell it or gain from it you have to abide by the creator's conditions. Going back to my point about freedom, perhaps as distributor you have less leeway regarding your changes, but your users have just gained the guarantee that they'll always be able to see and change the code. The BSD could not have done that.
BSD licenses guarantee absolutely nothing. Here's the code, do whatever the heck you want with it. The perceived benefits to using the GPL are nice, but please don't insult people's intelligence by claiming they result in more freedom. A restriction to ensure X or Y is still that - a restriction. The distribution restrictions on the GPL are designed to further Stallman's social causes (some of which I actually agree with). If you feel that's fine, then by all means use the GPL. That's your choice.
You hit the nail on the head. Th
You know, I'm absolutely tired of the BSD trolls that claim that the BSD license is "freer", not because I have a beef with the BSD, simply because your definition of "freedom" is ludicrous.
There are no absolute freedoms. Freedom to infringe on other's rights or freedoms gives more freedom to yourself, but limits it to other members of society. So long as there are things that cannot be owned or achieved communaly without side effects to others, freedoms have a limit, that is the actions that you cannot do so that others can do them.
The GPL definition of freedom is that a sofware and derivatives must always, under all conditions, be free. Yes, it a restriction to the developer who would wish to close up his source and use a GPLed piece of code, but it is an additional freedom to all the users who now have access to this source, which would have otherwise been denied.
Analogy time: the King is free to treat his peasants as dogs if he wished and if he has sufficient power to repress any opinions the peasants would have about that. The peasants, however, are limited by the freedoms the king has. Therefore the balance of freedoms for a more equal society would be that the king's freedoms be limited in order to allow the peasants to live their life.
So as you said, the GPL is also a social instrument, but it is no less free than the BSD; it simply distributes freedoms in a different matter. If you have a problem with that, use whichever license you wish to use. But don't go around accusing the GPL is limiting freedoms when it gives others freedoms that the BSD could never guarantee.
Disclaimer: I work for IBM.
IBM is becoming primarily a services company, doing systems development, "solutions architecture", and outsourced operations. A LOT of people at IBM are familiar with Sun technology and have used it at one point or another. Heck, most of the Global Services staff that maintain AIX servers also maintain Solaris servers. How hard do you think it would be for IBM to expand their business saying "Sure, we support Solaris. We can build that payroll system that you need for your company on your existing Sun infrastructure. BTW, can we interest you in a new pSeries for these workloads?".
Indeed, this is opening up a new area of the market where they can now claim expertise and recognition. And when the installed customer base is satisfied with what they have, it'll be 10 times easier to migrate their hardware to IBM stuff, and software to IBM proprietary OSes, if there's more profit to be made there.
Who told you that it's bullshit that male colleagues don't have to endure?
I recall reading somewhere that as workplace equalty increases, men have come to see women as peers, and what that implies is that they are placed in a level game where the sorts of abuse that men perform on other men are being experienced by women. Women have more at stake now than they ever did, and what that means is that your average office bastard sees them as potential threats to their activities.
At my workplace we have several women working in IT positions. They are all treated very well; the locker-room mentality only happens in male-only subgroups. The one reason why I think that there's not as many women as there could be is becase the job is simply not rewarding to most female personality types. I don't know how many want or can stand to be on-call, or handle high-stree meetings with enraged customers who want to see their servers working NOW. Not to say that women can't handle stress, just saying that the stress that emanates from an IT environment may not be the one they can handle best.
If your biggest employment issue with females is that other employees treat them like crap, then you've either have the problem of asshole male employees (happens, but then again I wonder how the hell you're managing to have a decent IT infrastructure with those people), or submissive females, who are not few, and who end up meeting the same fat as submissive males.
I don't know about you guys, but as a UNIX admin I'm on call 1 out of 4 weeks, work frequently on Saturday and Sunday nights during maintenance windows so as to not bother anyone who might be working with those machines and have to work holidays if the systems go down, have frequent upgrade and maintenance cycles, etc. It's not an easy job when an entire organization is breathing down your neck to get things working as quickly as possible. Some appreciation is indeed welcome. I know some devs have to work on the deadline and all, but generally speaking they don't seem to have as much pressure (I'm generalizing; I'm sure there are lazier admins and weird-working-hours programmers too).
Not necessarily. No open services save SSH and a strong password? Indeed no worries to the average user. Even great antiviruses sometimes elude viruses or exploits made against specific antivirus solutions.
What are these people doing demoing this product with stupid family pictures BS??
This has the potential to be THE breakthrough for CAD, CAM, 3D and 2D design applications. Imagine using a CAD application with this interface. It'd be the fastest and most intuitive thing ever.
Video compositing? Just drag and drop stuff, manage the effects layers naturally, etc.
What they need to do is find a way to lower the price and start getting some developers to work on creating UI concepts for professional software.
If your software is not in the repos it's as good as it is on Windows, that is, it's up to the developers to figure something out.
Your post smells of troll.
That's honestly the dumbest answer I've ever heard of this question. End users might be ignorant but they're not stupid, and knowing applications names takes a whole 2 to 3 seconds. Hell, the KDE menu has a description on the side of every application in its menu.
Really, if users are that idiotic then why do people user Foobar2000, Lotus Notes, Nero, Adobe Reader (under your logic, "I'm too dumb to know what Adobe Reader's supposed to read"), VNC, etc.? What the hell does "Outlook" have to do with email?
I can understand when someone might be afraid of a the "/usr" filesystem, but I don't know what kind of mouthbreather would be scared away by having to use "Pidgin (Chat Client)" on KDE instead of "Windows LIVE Messenger".
PS, I know this post came off as a complete flame, but really, this is taking too far the "dumb user" card.
So they're not going to sue you but they'll force corporate customers to license under threat of litigation, even though they won't sue??
AMD makes the processors for the OLPC. Never mind that Intel is undercutting the OLPC at a loss just to gain market share on what may be one the largest untapped markets for computers.
The more Microsoft tightens control the sale of Windows in the third world, the more they'll promote the use and development of Free alternatives.
Not that they don't have a right to do it, of course, since anyone has the right to demand that their products not be pirated. It's just that in this case it will turn out to be quite negative for them.