From TFA: "Under terms of the settlement agreement, PayPal said it is not admitting any liability for the allegations in the dispute."
From the actual court transcript: "Your Honor, my client PayPal is sorry, but not sorry for what the plaintiffs thought we should be sorry for. I mean sorry in a general yet noble way. My client will keep doing what they were doing but with a much more cautious unscrupulousness.
At the same time, Your Honor, PayPal recognizes that people were genuinely angry and my client is sincere in their wish for the plaintiff to shut the hell up before more people can smell the stink.
Oops! Gotta run... Would Your Honor please give the plaintiff this bag of cash? Thanks!"
"It's expensive, slow, sucks CPU, and crashes. The packaging is photoshopped by the same guy who removes the moles, stretch marks and rolls of skin in the Victoria's Secret catalogues.
BUT I GOTTA HAVE IT!"
Steve Jobs must be behind this somewhere, because you are under the control of a powerful Reality Distortion Field.
I predict that the Sony® PRS-500 Portable Reader System® featuring innovative E-Ink® technology will meet the same fate as the Kamen Segway® Human Transporter featuring the innovative S-Feet® and S-Walking® technologies.
"Most of our members have came from slashdot through my sig link, so I guess that helped us get members that were above average in terms of writing and discussion skills."
The Author Of TFA fails to consider the biggest object on the radar: the Open Source Movement.
And it's big enough to scare Monoposoft. Consider:
A) The Web is where it's at. One competent, cross-platform browser that supports a very high level of Web interactivity makes the choice of client OS much less important.
B) Where the above is true, the unspecialized user with limited funds will choose piracy or FOSS. Monoposoft and the US government are chasing pirates (any except China) and suing families.
C) There are thousands of talented programmers giving their energy to design something free and international, with good design and often-amusing, non-corporate quirks. If you don't like what you see, you roll up your sleeves and you change it. Or you offer a bounty. Simple.
D) Large, successful corporations backing FOSS as part of a new generation of hardware-software consultancy. Yes, I mean deep-pocketed folks like Google (googol of cash) and IBM as well as smaller players whose best interest is not served by Redmond's domination.
OS X is very nice and Apple makes cool hardware and has a good plan. They want to make gains with the new generation of home users who benefit from A and B in particular. Things can change quickly but Monoposoft has feet in the corporate doors and has plentiful money too -- they can buy their way into any market.
Linux is a wedge with a formidable force behind it. It is MUCH more than just a "good kernel".
Don't be a consumer whore just because some shiny new wireless protocol comes out... stick with what you have unless it sucks.
Lookee here, boa... I wouldn't want to see yew git yourself strung up for talkin' all Communist like that.
One man's Consumer Whore is another man's Early Adopter with high Consumer Confidence driving the Upward Economic Trend and generating wholesome, virtuous Profits that good Corporate Citizens reinvest in your community.
I like a debate and I think you do too. Please keep ad hominem comments on Digg where they will receive repayment in kind. Ok? I'm old enough, I work in a corp, I use spreadsheets, I know Excel's the champ in its division.
When Microsoft bungles, people switch to Apple.. and sometimes Linux. Google has nothing to do with it. "Traditional software" is here to stay.
Apple is doing better than ever, but let's not buy Apple's iHype. The Linux phenomenon is changing an entire market. Google certainly is one of the variables in Microsoft's current Fear Equation. So, why is Microsoft scared, in your opinion?
I am saying that Google is making plenty o' money and and doesn't ~have~ to turn everything into instant cash -- it just has to be done well and fit into a Big Strategy. Google's backing several strategic ops. Traditional Software is not going away... but Miss Redmond ain't the only pretty girl at the party anymore. And Miss Redmond's daddy has a shotgun.
It is an often repeated fallacy (it has a name which I can't remember) which states that you can take over an established market by implementing only 5% of the most used featuers and selling cheaper.
Well, yes, you keep repeating it. It wouldn't be the "Ford SUV Fallacy", would it? Just kiddin'.:o)
You don't have to ~take over~ a market to do some damage to a competitor. That would be crude.
People have been saying something along those lines FOREVER about Microsoft products..
Take a look at the current technology. I think your FOREVER is arriving. When I see what I can do with a good browser now, all I really need is a server. But this computing architecture needs a ~trusted~ host. This is why Google needs to work hard to maintain its Do No Evil reputation... and why Microsoft's universal Do Lots Of Bungling reputation is going to hurt them more than ever in the modern Web market. (You can thank me for not saying "Web 2.0".)
It is a fallacy. What people need and what people want are two different things. For example, very few people NEED a brand new Ford Expedition SUV
I'll forgive your Ford SUV analogy just so we can keep this going.;o) The pressures that are driving Linux's growth on servers and desktops are changing Microsoft's bully status on the playground. Google is building momentum. I am not saying that Microsoft is going to go bankrupt but I ~am~ saying that their revenue model is in palpable danger of bringing in less money.
Also, you underestimate how many features your average corproate office uses from Excel.
Finance is Excel's strongest user-base. Microsoft will continue to make money there unless a server-based spreadsheet with enough functionality to meet people's needs is brought in. I don't think this is impossible. And OpenOffice is getting better... and getting backing.
If you think Google spreadsheets is going to make Excel obsolete, you've obviously never actually used a spreadsheet for anything more complicated than min-maxing a role playing character or managing a grocery shopping list.
But hey, what do I know? Maybe Google will come out with gPhotoshop for the browser and photographers will just boot up a BrowserOS and surf to gphotoshop.google.com to get work done.
If a Web application can do 100% of the 5% of functionality of Excel or Photoshop that most users use, and the intermediary software is free and cross-platform, what do you think is going to happen to revenue for these products?
But hey, what do I know? I'll just go back to min-maxing my role playing character's grocery shopping list.
That's right: Bah! Following the example of my heroes W Buffett and W Gates III, I hereby announce that I'm giving all my savings to the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation. I don't want any dynasty founded on my $763.84.
Google is building highly usable applications that are not OS-dependent. THAT is what is scaring the traditional software makers. The browser is the interpreter. Firefox is Google's wedge and everything they do is helping to change the way people use computers.
Suffering because of "early adoption", apparently... but that's my own fault in your esteemed opinion. It was my first experience with FreeBSD and I didn't know that 5.x release versions were bad news. Here's a quotation from elsewhere in this thread:
"The amount of development and change that went on between 4.X and 5.X is now widely accepted to have been a bad idea."
I'm willing to believe that 6.x is much better. But I'm also not going to be rebuilding my server anytime soon.
I have tried PC-BSD and I think it's the Ubuntu of BSD distributions, i.e. a boon to the home user. It's easy to install and the PBI packaging system for applications is tidy and is documented so the community can participate in creating PBIs. In my opinion, PBIs are an advantage over Linux.
But I like Gnome more than KDE. (Yes, I know that Linus T. despises me now.) PC-BSD is a KDE-based distribution.
There's enough buggy software in the world to waste your whole life.:o) So I give you this advice: virtualization is your friend. Get the free VMWare Server and install PC-BSD for yourself to see how you like it.
I liked it very much, but I switched to Ubuntu after suffering FreeBSD 5.x for a couple of years. If Ubuntu ever lets me down, I'd give PC-BSD a try.
Providing no real value, but pumping the stock market.
90-95% of Web surfers do nothing. They don't create content. They don't participate. The "Social Web" is millions of people waiting for something to happen and a small number of neurotics who think what they say is important or get a weird kick out the whole circus.
In the meantime, you throw advertizing at the aimless creatures and place your bets.
It's the hypnosis revenue model of television and radio. People have not changed. If this guy's ~really~ smart, he'll convert his "market value" into cold hard cash (and not Google stock) right now.
My employment terms essentially say that any code of any sort that I create at any time (even after regular work-hours) during my period of employment belongs to my employer.
I dislike this very much in principle and also because it forces me to contribute anonymously, where possible.
I believe open-source is the best thing that could have happened to software to benefit users of software and help make computing a more popular interest.
I wish I could work for Canonical. Mr Shuttleworth, I've sent my CV. Please consider it!
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
"Under terms of the settlement agreement, PayPal said it is not admitting any liability for the allegations in the dispute."
From the actual court transcript: "Your Honor, my client PayPal is sorry, but not sorry for what the plaintiffs thought we should be sorry for. I mean sorry in a general yet noble way. My client will keep doing what they were doing but with a much more cautious unscrupulousness.
At the same time, Your Honor, PayPal recognizes that people were genuinely angry and my client is sincere in their wish for the plaintiff to shut the hell up before more people can smell the stink.
Oops! Gotta run... Would Your Honor please give the plaintiff this bag of cash? Thanks!"
Yes! It's about time this clamp-down happened. I'm glad that PayPal will now be forced skin me alive according to the best principles.
"It's expensive, slow, sucks CPU, and crashes. The packaging is photoshopped by the same guy who removes the moles, stretch marks and rolls of skin in the Victoria's Secret catalogues.
BUT I GOTTA HAVE IT!"
Steve Jobs must be behind this somewhere, because you are under the control of a powerful Reality Distortion Field.
I predict that the Sony® PRS-500 Portable Reader System® featuring innovative E-Ink® technology will meet the same fate as the Kamen Segway® Human Transporter featuring the innovative S-Feet® and S-Walking® technologies.
I can see the new communications strategy of the RIAA and MPAA:
"Not only are you a thief for downloading music and movies, downloading makes you gay!"
Yes, and the Pope is infallible.
[telephone rings]
"Hello?"
"Hello, this is Sergei Brin, owner of Google."
"Why, hello Mr Brin. What a surprise! I just had an interview with Google. I thought it went well, but those were some tough questions!"
"Yes. Er... Look, I am calling to let you know personally that Google is a terrible place to work."
"It is?"
"Yes... um... The 'Do No Evil' slogan is nonsense. We do plenty of evil."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. Evil like you can't believe. And, um, we're not nearly as visionary as the people at Microsoft. Have you ever worked there? Wonderful place."
[pause] "This is Steve Ballmer, isn't it?"
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" [sound of crashing furniture]
" It laid off 1,000 managers earlier in July, saying the move would speed decision-making. "
I wonder how many multi-core CPUs they needed to finally compute the wisdom of this decision.
The Author Of TFA fails to consider the biggest object on the radar: the Open Source Movement.
And it's big enough to scare Monoposoft. Consider:
A) The Web is where it's at. One competent, cross-platform browser that supports a very high level of Web interactivity makes the choice of client OS much less important.
B) Where the above is true, the unspecialized user with limited funds will choose piracy or FOSS. Monoposoft and the US government are chasing pirates (any except China) and suing families.
C) There are thousands of talented programmers giving their energy to design something free and international, with good design and often-amusing, non-corporate quirks. If you don't like what you see, you roll up your sleeves and you change it. Or you offer a bounty. Simple.
D) Large, successful corporations backing FOSS as part of a new generation of hardware-software consultancy. Yes, I mean deep-pocketed folks like Google (googol of cash) and IBM as well as smaller players whose best interest is not served by Redmond's domination.
OS X is very nice and Apple makes cool hardware and has a good plan. They want to make gains with the new generation of home users who benefit from A and B in particular. Things can change quickly but Monoposoft has feet in the corporate doors and has plentiful money too -- they can buy their way into any market.
Linux is a wedge with a formidable force behind it. It is MUCH more than just a "good kernel".
Linux is 15 and is getting set to screw that tramp from Redmond on the desktop!
Ok ok, too much pr0n...
Any mention of armies in the context of the Balkans worries me.
Lookee here, boa... I wouldn't want to see yew git yourself strung up for talkin' all Communist like that.
One man's Consumer Whore is another man's Early Adopter with high Consumer Confidence driving the Upward Economic Trend and generating wholesome, virtuous Profits that good Corporate Citizens reinvest in your community.
And the Zune looks like a PERFECT replacement for my Origami!
Apple is doing better than ever, but let's not buy Apple's iHype. The Linux phenomenon is changing an entire market. Google certainly is one of the variables in Microsoft's current Fear Equation. So, why is Microsoft scared, in your opinion?
I am saying that Google is making plenty o' money and and doesn't ~have~ to turn everything into instant cash -- it just has to be done well and fit into a Big Strategy. Google's backing several strategic ops. Traditional Software is not going away... but Miss Redmond ain't the only pretty girl at the party anymore. And Miss Redmond's daddy has a shotgun.
Well, yes, you keep repeating it. It wouldn't be the "Ford SUV Fallacy", would it? Just kiddin'.
You don't have to ~take over~ a market to do some damage to a competitor. That would be crude.
Take a look at the current technology. I think your FOREVER is arriving. When I see what I can do with a good browser now, all I really need is a server. But this computing architecture needs a ~trusted~ host. This is why Google needs to work hard to maintain its Do No Evil reputation... and why Microsoft's universal Do Lots Of Bungling reputation is going to hurt them more than ever in the modern Web market. (You can thank me for not saying "Web 2.0".)
I'll forgive your Ford SUV analogy just so we can keep this going.
Finance is Excel's strongest user-base. Microsoft will continue to make money there unless a server-based spreadsheet with enough functionality to meet people's needs is brought in. I don't think this is impossible. And OpenOffice is getting better... and getting backing.
If a Web application can do 100% of the 5% of functionality of Excel or Photoshop that most users use, and the intermediary software is free and cross-platform, what do you think is going to happen to revenue for these products?
But hey, what do I know? I'll just go back to min-maxing my role playing character's grocery shopping list.
That's right: Bah! Following the example of my heroes W Buffett and W Gates III, I hereby announce that I'm giving all my savings to the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation. I don't want any dynasty founded on my $763.84.
Google is building highly usable applications that are not OS-dependent. THAT is what is scaring the traditional software makers. The browser is the interpreter. Firefox is Google's wedge and everything they do is helping to change the way people use computers.
Suffering because of "early adoption", apparently... but that's my own fault in your esteemed opinion. It was my first experience with FreeBSD and I didn't know that 5.x release versions were bad news. Here's a quotation from elsewhere in this thread:
"The amount of development and change that went on between 4.X and 5.X is now widely accepted to have been a bad idea."
I'm willing to believe that 6.x is much better. But I'm also not going to be rebuilding my server anytime soon.
Leopard's system-wide grammar checker will help reduce the pressure on Slashdot's overworked Grammar Nazis. ;o)
Amigo, I was using 5.2 Release, 5.3 Release, and 5.4 Release. Is that what you call "early adoption"?
I have tried PC-BSD and I think it's the Ubuntu of BSD distributions, i.e. a boon to the home user. It's easy to install and the PBI packaging system for applications is tidy and is documented so the community can participate in creating PBIs. In my opinion, PBIs are an advantage over Linux.
:o) So I give you this advice: virtualization is your friend. Get the free VMWare Server and install PC-BSD for yourself to see how you like it.
But I like Gnome more than KDE. (Yes, I know that Linus T. despises me now.) PC-BSD is a KDE-based distribution.
There's enough buggy software in the world to waste your whole life.
I liked it very much, but I switched to Ubuntu after suffering FreeBSD 5.x for a couple of years. If Ubuntu ever lets me down, I'd give PC-BSD a try.
Providing no real value, but pumping the stock market.
90-95% of Web surfers do nothing. They don't create content. They don't participate. The "Social Web" is millions of people waiting for something to happen and a small number of neurotics who think what they say is important or get a weird kick out the whole circus.
In the meantime, you throw advertizing at the aimless creatures and place your bets.
It's the hypnosis revenue model of television and radio. People have not changed. If this guy's ~really~ smart, he'll convert his "market value" into cold hard cash (and not Google stock) right now.
It is hard to read what this man says without concluding that he is a fool.
China got "great" long before the dissastrous 20th century. China's history is measured in ~millenia~, Mr Bollocks.
China invented the first PDA (i.e. paper) thousands of years ago... and it's ~still~ better than Windows CE.
My employment terms essentially say that any code of any sort that I create at any time (even after regular work-hours) during my period of employment belongs to my employer.
I dislike this very much in principle and also because it forces me to contribute anonymously, where possible.
I believe open-source is the best thing that could have happened to software to benefit users of software and help make computing a more popular interest.
I wish I could work for Canonical. Mr Shuttleworth, I've sent my CV. Please consider it!
Maybe the U.S. had better bring the White House back to reality first.