You'd see it get chaotic in meatspace if any manufacturer were allowed to sell "caveat emptor" products with no government required warranty
You don't have government required warranties NOW. At least in the US you don't. Yet you still get them. Heck, with automobiles and other big ticket items, the consumer routinely purchases and *extended* warrant. There some some implied and express warranties, but they pretty much all fall under the category of merchantibility.
The problem isn't that the government is mandating warranties for software, it's that the general public simply doesn't expect them. I think the first major software vendor that provides warranties is going to make all the others follow suit.
Let's say there's one thousand APIs out there, beyond the "core" interfaces, each of which are only used by a very few applications. Unfortunately, this still means that there's a heck of a lot of Windows applications that will never run under Wine because they use one of those rare APIs.
Please note that I said "all those", and not simply "all". I also said it in a slightly smarmy/sarcastic attitude. Please go back and read my original comment in its context.
I am not implying that all greenies drive SUV's, only that the incidence of green+SUV occurs often enough to make note of. Nor am I implying that more greenies drive SUVs than non-greenies. Also, by using the term "Green Party members" I am not referring to the die hard leadership of the party, just people who at least loosely associate themselves with the party, such as claiming to have voted for a Green candidate.
p.s. Santa Cruz, despite being on the other other side of a mountain, is still a bedroom community for many bay area employees. If you time the commute to avoid rush hour, it's only a half hour drive away.
My personal experience is that an inordinately large amount of environmentalist drive SUVs. They might merely be posers. I don't know. But I do know one Green Party member personally in Santa Cruz who drives a monster SUV (with a Kucinich sticker). Four years ago the number of Nader stickers on SUVs was nothing short of astounding.
If they care about it, and are savvy enough, they'll prefer the one that's the easiest to use for the experienced user, regardless of the requisite learning curve.
There's three kinds of "easy". "Easy to use", "easy to learn", and "easy to use without learning". FreeBSD prefers the first two, while most "easy" Linux distros prefer the latter.
The FreeBSD installer is easy to learn, and once you've learned it, it's easy to use. And since it wasn't designed to be used without learning, it actually comes with a heck of a lot of flexibility and funtionality! It is EASY TO USE for intermediate and expert users.
Yeah, sort of like Java. Is Sun behind the 'm' thing too? It's a bitch having to go grab the Linux 'm' binary just to build the native FreeBSD 'm' software. All because Sun won't approve distribution of a native FreeBSD binary. Sigh...
Humans are dumber. Not because we have computers and flying cars. But in the sense that we are less educated. I personally have more formal education than Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln combined, yet I am nowhere close to their level of erudition. Also consider the educational biographies of Franklin, Edison and Carnegie. Babies are born with the same potential as these men, but it was beaten out of them by formal regimented schooling.
Humans have arrested maturity. Like a dog who insists on puppy-like play until its dying days, we demand constant entertainment. Since the days of cro-magnon, men and women were expected to take their full place in society by their early to mid teens. In only the last century that has been thrown out the window. Most of us don't take our first real job until the mid twenties. Adults in the America's past read Plato, Cicero and Aquinas. Adults today read comic books. We want instant gratification to all our needs and wants. When we don't get our way we whine. It's always someone else's fault.
And of course, we're dependent on the state. Government has since stopped being a dangerous servant or fearful master, it's now our parent. It provides for all of our needs. When we face a problem, the first words out of our mouths is "government should do something about it!" When you get laid off do you go to your friends, family church for help, or do you turn to the government unemployment line first? Do you know what a corporation is? It's a business with a special government privilege of not having to be liable for its actions. It's nearly impossible to run a business now without being a corporation with that government privilege/dependency.
Just like a pet dog or cat, we have traded the uncertainties of living free in the wild with the security of domestication.
It's four years later. Your candidate lost. Dry your eyes and get on with life.
The Republicans did not steal the election. George Bush did not steal the election. It was won by the rules of the election as set out before the election began.
Dammit, you guys are so fucking pissed at losing that you haven't thought of anything else in four years. It's pathetic. You're so bitter that your side lost on a technicality that it's become a festering boil on your soul. It has made you hate Bush so much that you have lost all sense of proportion and dignity. I imagine spittle drools down your chin when you say his name...
Okay, I'm seeing a lot of posts here disputing the linking of innovation with America. But where are the posts disputing the linking of precision with Germany? Or linking continuous improvement with Japan?
Perhaps a tad more humbleness might be in order from the writer of this article?
Screw humblessness! When you've got something to crow about, crow!
Who actually invented a thing is not nearly as important as who first made that thing useful.
Human flight may or may not have been technically invented in the US, but we were the first to make aviation a commercial public venture instead of playtoys for the aristocracy. Oh, ditto for the automobile. We were the first to provide automobiles that nearly everyone could afford, instead of just the landed gentry.
Innovation isn't about coming up with an idea, it's about harnessing that idea. Americans are not smarter than other people, but we have had the advantage of not having a European style class system. We have had a class system, but it was one that allowed upward movement. Benjamin Franklin was the son of a poor candlemaker. Thomas Edison was also from a poor family. America is replete with stories of common people doing extraordinary things.
Yes, Europeans and Asians have done extraordinary things. But how many of them were done by peasants? Or the working class? A few, but not many.
This is not something the US should be ashamed of. It's not something we should hide away lest we embarrass other nations. It's something we should be proud of! It's also something we should be greatly concerned about keeping.
Listen to the big "L" libertarians sometime and those in the GOP who call themselves small "l" libertarian. Pretty much all they do is whine about the loss of the pioneer world.
It's not so much the loss of the "pioneer world" as it is the domestication of homo sapiens. Compare a wolf to a a domesticated dog. Or wild cats to domesticated cats. The latter are stupid in comparison to the first. They have arrested maturity. They are dependent on others for their very survival. Mankind now has all the traits of domestication. Dumber, less mature, and and dependent upon the state.
That's why I used the term "permanent homeless". The cause might certainly be due to some aspects of American culture (we're not so perfect as our friends across the Atlantic), but *permanent* homelessness is not caused by job loss. Temporary homelessness, yes, but not permanent.
When you look at the permanent homeless in the US, they are either mentally or "chemically" impaired. If I ever became homeless I would learn the location of every homeless shelter within ten kilometers. And I would use them until I got back on my feet. But in places like San Fransisco social workers have to go out into the street to "remind" the homeless about the existance of shelters.
The issue goes beyond that. The "rights" in copyright law are not in the Constitution. They're entirely the creation of Congress. So implying that there is no legal basis for Congress to "give" another right to people is disingenuous.
Whether or not the shifting location of an item confuses a user depends entirely on the user. It also depends on what it is that shifting. It also depends on how your using stuff. It depends, it depends, it depends...
I use the spatial metaphor all the time on my desktop (the flat root window with icons on it). Move my DVD or Trash icons and I'll get pissed. I want them to remain just where I placed them. But I could care less if adding a new wallpaper to the wallpaper folder changes the "location" of all the other wallpapers. Frankly, I don't care if "index.html" is three inches up and two to the right of the bottom corner of the public_html folder.
But that's me. I'm sure other people want everything firmly affixes to the last place they left it, even if it's the/etc/crontab file, or each and every one of their several hundred invoice files. My mom is this way and it drives me nuts. Who is correct, me or my mother? We both are!
It all boils down to two things: what should the Gnome defaults be, and how convenient is to change them.
As to what the defaults should be, I see a lot of theory about the benefits of spatial filesystems, but no actual data that users will want to use it enough to make it the default. Maybe it should be, but there needs to be some actual practical evidence of the benefits before the traditional "explorer" and "commander" models are tossed out the window. Is this something most users will benefit from, or just a few? It's important to know before making it the default.
If you read the article, it actually is informative. He is telling you that it's too hard to configure Nautilus the way he wants to use it. He is telling you that he's fed up with Gnome developers telling him how he should use Gnome. His perception of Gnome may be wrong, even 180 degrees off base, but SOMETHING gave him that perception.
I'm not arguing over the merits of tax funded healthcare. Only over the definition of "right". You broaden that too much and you suddenly end up with a bunch of people demanding their "rights" to all sorts of spurious things, like broadband access, banks that stay open later, and three-items-or-less lanes at the grocers.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd see it get chaotic in meatspace if any manufacturer were allowed to sell "caveat emptor" products with no government required warranty
You don't have government required warranties NOW. At least in the US you don't. Yet you still get them. Heck, with automobiles and other big ticket items, the consumer routinely purchases and *extended* warrant. There some some implied and express warranties, but they pretty much all fall under the category of merchantibility.
The problem isn't that the government is mandating warranties for software, it's that the general public simply doesn't expect them. I think the first major software vendor that provides warranties is going to make all the others follow suit.
No. But then again, I don't use glibc...
Let's say there's one thousand APIs out there, beyond the "core" interfaces, each of which are only used by a very few applications. Unfortunately, this still means that there's a heck of a lot of Windows applications that will never run under Wine because they use one of those rare APIs.
command.com was the shell, msdos.sys was the kernel.
You don't get the punchline to many jokes, do you?
Please note that I said "all those", and not simply "all". I also said it in a slightly smarmy/sarcastic attitude. Please go back and read my original comment in its context.
I am not implying that all greenies drive SUV's, only that the incidence of green+SUV occurs often enough to make note of. Nor am I implying that more greenies drive SUVs than non-greenies. Also, by using the term "Green Party members" I am not referring to the die hard leadership of the party, just people who at least loosely associate themselves with the party, such as claiming to have voted for a Green candidate.
p.s. Santa Cruz, despite being on the other other side of a mountain, is still a bedroom community for many bay area employees. If you time the commute to avoid rush hour, it's only a half hour drive away.
What? You want a photo or something?
My personal experience is that an inordinately large amount of environmentalist drive SUVs. They might merely be posers. I don't know. But I do know one Green Party member personally in Santa Cruz who drives a monster SUV (with a Kucinich sticker). Four years ago the number of Nader stickers on SUVs was nothing short of astounding.
Most computer users prefer the latter as well.
If they care about it, and are savvy enough, they'll prefer the one that's the easiest to use for the experienced user, regardless of the requisite learning curve.
There's a good essay on this I found. You should find it interesting as well.
Sigh...
There's three kinds of "easy". "Easy to use", "easy to learn", and "easy to use without learning". FreeBSD prefers the first two, while most "easy" Linux distros prefer the latter.
The FreeBSD installer is easy to learn, and once you've learned it, it's easy to use. And since it wasn't designed to be used without learning, it actually comes with a heck of a lot of flexibility and funtionality! It is EASY TO USE for intermediate and expert users.
Yeah, sort of like Java. Is Sun behind the 'm' thing too? It's a bitch having to go grab the Linux 'm' binary just to build the native FreeBSD 'm' software. All because Sun won't approve distribution of a native FreeBSD binary. Sigh...
It's time for Sun to Open Source M, dammit!
Of course! Gentoo on my 3.2GHz P4 is much faster and more responsive than my old SuSE 8.1 on a 866MHz K6...
Humans are dumber. Not because we have computers and flying cars. But in the sense that we are less educated. I personally have more formal education than Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln combined, yet I am nowhere close to their level of erudition. Also consider the educational biographies of Franklin, Edison and Carnegie. Babies are born with the same potential as these men, but it was beaten out of them by formal regimented schooling.
Humans have arrested maturity. Like a dog who insists on puppy-like play until its dying days, we demand constant entertainment. Since the days of cro-magnon, men and women were expected to take their full place in society by their early to mid teens. In only the last century that has been thrown out the window. Most of us don't take our first real job until the mid twenties. Adults in the America's past read Plato, Cicero and Aquinas. Adults today read comic books. We want instant gratification to all our needs and wants. When we don't get our way we whine. It's always someone else's fault.
And of course, we're dependent on the state. Government has since stopped being a dangerous servant or fearful master, it's now our parent. It provides for all of our needs. When we face a problem, the first words out of our mouths is "government should do something about it!" When you get laid off do you go to your friends, family church for help, or do you turn to the government unemployment line first? Do you know what a corporation is? It's a business with a special government privilege of not having to be liable for its actions. It's nearly impossible to run a business now without being a corporation with that government privilege/dependency.
Just like a pet dog or cat, we have traded the uncertainties of living free in the wild with the security of domestication.
p.s. I am not a Randroid, fuck you very much!
Unable to innovate, they stole the phrase wholesale from the brits.
Ouch! Stop it! I know I'm only supposed to make fun of Americans. Ow! That hurts! Okay, I'm sorry. Just don't make me sing the Frenchie song again...
It's four years later. Your candidate lost. Dry your eyes and get on with life.
The Republicans did not steal the election. George Bush did not steal the election. It was won by the rules of the election as set out before the election began.
Dammit, you guys are so fucking pissed at losing that you haven't thought of anything else in four years. It's pathetic. You're so bitter that your side lost on a technicality that it's become a festering boil on your soul. It has made you hate Bush so much that you have lost all sense of proportion and dignity. I imagine spittle drools down your chin when you say his name...
It will also get rid of some statistical artifacts, particularly in the minor races.
"Junior assistant dogcatcher? Hell I don't know! I'll just vote for the first guy!"
I've been saying over and over that our enviromental problems can be solved by technology, rather than by painful asceticism
And all those SUV driving Green Party members in the San Fransisco bay area agree with you!
Okay, I'm seeing a lot of posts here disputing the linking of innovation with America. But where are the posts disputing the linking of precision with Germany? Or linking continuous improvement with Japan?
Perhaps a tad more humbleness might be in order from the writer of this article?
Screw humblessness! When you've got something to crow about, crow!
Who actually invented a thing is not nearly as important as who first made that thing useful.
Human flight may or may not have been technically invented in the US, but we were the first to make aviation a commercial public venture instead of playtoys for the aristocracy. Oh, ditto for the automobile. We were the first to provide automobiles that nearly everyone could afford, instead of just the landed gentry.
Innovation isn't about coming up with an idea, it's about harnessing that idea. Americans are not smarter than other people, but we have had the advantage of not having a European style class system. We have had a class system, but it was one that allowed upward movement. Benjamin Franklin was the son of a poor candlemaker. Thomas Edison was also from a poor family. America is replete with stories of common people doing extraordinary things.
Yes, Europeans and Asians have done extraordinary things. But how many of them were done by peasants? Or the working class? A few, but not many.
This is not something the US should be ashamed of. It's not something we should hide away lest we embarrass other nations. It's something we should be proud of! It's also something we should be greatly concerned about keeping.
Listen to the big "L" libertarians sometime and those in the GOP who call themselves small "l" libertarian. Pretty much all they do is whine about the loss of the pioneer world.
It's not so much the loss of the "pioneer world" as it is the domestication of homo sapiens. Compare a wolf to a a domesticated dog. Or wild cats to domesticated cats. The latter are stupid in comparison to the first. They have arrested maturity. They are dependent on others for their very survival. Mankind now has all the traits of domestication. Dumber, less mature, and and dependent upon the state.
That's why I used the term "permanent homeless". The cause might certainly be due to some aspects of American culture (we're not so perfect as our friends across the Atlantic), but *permanent* homelessness is not caused by job loss. Temporary homelessness, yes, but not permanent.
When you look at the permanent homeless in the US, they are either mentally or "chemically" impaired. If I ever became homeless I would learn the location of every homeless shelter within ten kilometers. And I would use them until I got back on my feet. But in places like San Fransisco social workers have to go out into the street to "remind" the homeless about the existance of shelters.
The issue goes beyond that. The "rights" in copyright law are not in the Constitution. They're entirely the creation of Congress. So implying that there is no legal basis for Congress to "give" another right to people is disingenuous.
Ummm... How about OpenBSD!
Whether or not the shifting location of an item confuses a user depends entirely on the user. It also depends on what it is that shifting. It also depends on how your using stuff. It depends, it depends, it depends...
/etc/crontab file, or each and every one of their several hundred invoice files. My mom is this way and it drives me nuts. Who is correct, me or my mother? We both are!
I use the spatial metaphor all the time on my desktop (the flat root window with icons on it). Move my DVD or Trash icons and I'll get pissed. I want them to remain just where I placed them. But I could care less if adding a new wallpaper to the wallpaper folder changes the "location" of all the other wallpapers. Frankly, I don't care if "index.html" is three inches up and two to the right of the bottom corner of the public_html folder.
But that's me. I'm sure other people want everything firmly affixes to the last place they left it, even if it's the
It all boils down to two things: what should the Gnome defaults be, and how convenient is to change them.
As to what the defaults should be, I see a lot of theory about the benefits of spatial filesystems, but no actual data that users will want to use it enough to make it the default. Maybe it should be, but there needs to be some actual practical evidence of the benefits before the traditional "explorer" and "commander" models are tossed out the window. Is this something most users will benefit from, or just a few? It's important to know before making it the default.
...but that isn't very informative.
If you read the article, it actually is informative. He is telling you that it's too hard to configure Nautilus the way he wants to use it. He is telling you that he's fed up with Gnome developers telling him how he should use Gnome. His perception of Gnome may be wrong, even 180 degrees off base, but SOMETHING gave him that perception.
I'm not arguing over the merits of tax funded healthcare. Only over the definition of "right". You broaden that too much and you suddenly end up with a bunch of people demanding their "rights" to all sorts of spurious things, like broadband access, banks that stay open later, and three-items-or-less lanes at the grocers.