Your father-in-law is apparently ridiculously more tech-savvy than mine, who needs to visit the Apple Store Geniuses for help multiple times every month.
I honestly don't think Apple has made money off of him, in the grand scheme of things.
As soon as Apple can convince Microsoft and Adobe to hand over 30% of their revenue from Office and Photoshop.
You say that as though it's a good thing that Mac owners are now essentially dependent on Microsoft and Adobe of all horrible things to safeguard their freedom of choice, as surreal as it sounds.
Those two companies provide pieces of software too crucial for Apple to flip them the bird... for now. Otherwise you'd already have the scenario you deride as a conspiracy theory.
I know a few dozen Mac owners, and of them, only one's not dual booting Windows -- and trust me, that guy's not technical enough to figure out even a simple App Store.
But my sample may be skewed because most of the people I know with Macs are trying to get work done with them.
I mean, App Store for iPhone / iPod touch? I get that. It's basically the first of its kind and creates its own market share. Apps which would have been trivial and/or freeware for a desktop could be sold to mobile users if they were good or early to market enough. Kinds of apps that would be made wholly useless given a full-size-screen web browser and a keyboard could have a market, too.
But for the Mac? When roughly all Mac users are dual booting Windows anyway?
With the amount of money states/countries have spent renting/licensing these solutions. One of them, or a collection of them could have contracted the work for hire, and stipulated they receive the source code.
Probably, but that's not really the way local government works. Custom software development tends to be reserved for things for which there can be no shrink-wrapped-ish universal solution, usually because that city/county/etc. has unique laws that make the more established solution somehow incompatible with how they have to do things.
The most effective way to get people to do the right thing is to make it easy for them to do the right thing.
Does there currently exist a complete open source voting solution? Something that you could drop in in place of a Diebold or what have you.
It seems like we'd make more headway with local governments if we could say, "Here it is, it's free, it's ready to go, all you have to do is okay it." and I'm not sure if that solution yet exists?
They knew (or should have known; it's common knowledge) that Blizzard is a sue-happy, highly evil company that regularly attacks its customers.
Most of Blizzard's customers I'm sure don't know and don't care, but if they did, they probably would see it as something more like:
It's common knowledge that Blizzard is a good company that tries very hard to keep play fair by aggressively targetting people who try to cheat at its games and ruin the fun of others.
There's more than one side to a story; I'm not saying this is the right one, but you're kidding yourself if you think Joe Random Starcraft 2 player places a higher priority on software freedom than reduced cheating.
Actually, though, I am glad the ACLU came out in favor of net neutrality. They are a good litmus test for me. I have been torn on the issue, but now that they have taken a side I now know which position I support.
If they come out against jumping off bridges, will you jump off a bridge?
If that seems like a stupid question, consider the context.
Because most of the people who buy their games don't know about any of those stories, and almost all of those people wouldn't care at all if they did.
The pro-software-freedom side of this debate lost it as far as the mass market is concerned a long time ago. The average gamer is much more interested in having the company that made a game they like try to keep people from cheating at it -- through whatever means -- than in their freedom to do what they want with software they bought. Something like this incident that makes Blizzard an evil company in the eyes of many people who post here makes them a good company in the eyes of most of the people who actually buy their products, or would if they knew about.
I'm not arguing they're right. I'm just telling you how it is.
Do you also believe that all you have to do is start a business, work hard, and you too can be rich?
I believe it's more likely to produce success than anonymous whining on the internet.
Smart people who work hard eventually have a voice in the decisions that affect their jobs. Not always, and not immediately, but that's generally what happens.
If it doesn't for you, you might not be as smart or as valuable as you like to think you are. In that case your options are to find a different job where you're valued more appropriately, or come to terms with being the ultimately replaceable cog in a grander machine that you actually are.
I'll install OpenOffice 500 times and you can pay me the $36k. Deal?
Nope. Although "you get what you pay for" is sometimes true, charging to install OpenOffice doesn't make it good enough for an awful lot of businesses that use Office.
(Cue a dozen people who claim OO is better because they're too luddite for the ribbon interface.)
Their web site claims "Works with the devices you use most - including PC, Mac, Windows Phone, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry" but it doesn't say "Works well".
I'd think it would have to be relatively browser-agnostic to make that claim, but who knows?
I'm surprised it's taken this long to get this kind of offering and price point out -- it's seemed clear for a while that Microsoft would like to grow a presence in the "software as a service" space.
Hey, be glad for small editorial favors. The headline could have been something like: "Douchebag thinks the douchey way he does things is better than competing, less douchey way."
Slashdot Mirror
Your father-in-law is apparently ridiculously more tech-savvy than mine, who needs to visit the Apple Store Geniuses for help multiple times every month.
I honestly don't think Apple has made money off of him, in the grand scheme of things.
Why is the paranoia of non-mac users posting in a web forum to be believed
Because, historically, it usually turns out to be correct.
As soon as Apple can convince Microsoft and Adobe to hand over 30% of their revenue from Office and Photoshop.
You say that as though it's a good thing that Mac owners are now essentially dependent on Microsoft and Adobe of all horrible things to safeguard their freedom of choice, as surreal as it sounds.
Those two companies provide pieces of software too crucial for Apple to flip them the bird... for now. Otherwise you'd already have the scenario you deride as a conspiracy theory.
I know a few dozen Mac owners, and of them, only one's not dual booting Windows -- and trust me, that guy's not technical enough to figure out even a simple App Store.
But my sample may be skewed because most of the people I know with Macs are trying to get work done with them.
I mean, App Store for iPhone / iPod touch? I get that. It's basically the first of its kind and creates its own market share. Apps which would have been trivial and/or freeware for a desktop could be sold to mobile users if they were good or early to market enough. Kinds of apps that would be made wholly useless given a full-size-screen web browser and a keyboard could have a market, too.
But for the Mac? When roughly all Mac users are dual booting Windows anyway?
With the amount of money states/countries have spent renting/licensing these solutions. One of them, or a collection of them could have contracted the work for hire, and stipulated they receive the source code.
Probably, but that's not really the way local government works. Custom software development tends to be reserved for things for which there can be no shrink-wrapped-ish universal solution, usually because that city/county/etc. has unique laws that make the more established solution somehow incompatible with how they have to do things.
The most effective way to get people to do the right thing is to make it easy for them to do the right thing.
Yes, there is. In Brazil, elections are fully electronic with Linux-based software and all the source used is public available.
Can you provide a little more information on this? Are there any known obstacles to using it for American elections?
My take is, if I didn't know about this, most of the people setting up local elections certainly don't.
You might be right, but until there's a viable choice, we won't know for certain.
If you build it, they might not come, but if you don't build it, they definitely won't come.
Yes, it's called the goddamn paper ballot.
Some ten year old hanging chads would like to have a word with you.
My local district still uses a paper ballot, but let's not pretend it doesn't have its own limitations, too.
Apparently I'm a link idiot today:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1641038&cid=32099156
You might want to prove your point finding luddites proclaiming OO superiority due to ribbon absence.
Here's one minute of using the Slashdot search feature. If you would like to find additional examples, it's very easy to do so.
So here's a question:
Does there currently exist a complete open source voting solution? Something that you could drop in in place of a Diebold or what have you.
It seems like we'd make more headway with local governments if we could say, "Here it is, it's free, it's ready to go, all you have to do is okay it." and I'm not sure if that solution yet exists?
They knew (or should have known; it's common knowledge) that Blizzard is a sue-happy, highly evil company that regularly attacks its customers.
Most of Blizzard's customers I'm sure don't know and don't care, but if they did, they probably would see it as something more like:
It's common knowledge that Blizzard is a good company that tries very hard to keep play fair by aggressively targetting people who try to cheat at its games and ruin the fun of others.
There's more than one side to a story; I'm not saying this is the right one, but you're kidding yourself if you think Joe Random Starcraft 2 player places a higher priority on software freedom than reduced cheating.
It's also a license to print money.
Which isn't going to persuade you or I to play it, but as far as a business is concerned that's very significant.
Actually, though, I am glad the ACLU came out in favor of net neutrality. They are a good litmus test for me. I have been torn on the issue, but now that they have taken a side I now know which position I support.
If they come out against jumping off bridges, will you jump off a bridge?
If that seems like a stupid question, consider the context.
so why buy their stuff?
Because most of the people who buy their games don't know about any of those stories, and almost all of those people wouldn't care at all if they did.
The pro-software-freedom side of this debate lost it as far as the mass market is concerned a long time ago. The average gamer is much more interested in having the company that made a game they like try to keep people from cheating at it -- through whatever means -- than in their freedom to do what they want with software they bought. Something like this incident that makes Blizzard an evil company in the eyes of many people who post here makes them a good company in the eyes of most of the people who actually buy their products, or would if they knew about.
I'm not arguing they're right. I'm just telling you how it is.
"Cue a dozen people who claim OO is better because they're too luddite for the ribbon interface" isn't a strawman right ?
Nope, because someone, if not you, will usually post that.
The rest of your reasons just aren't very good ones.
No, really ....do you actually believe that?
Do you also believe that all you have to do is start a business, work hard, and you too can be rich?
I believe it's more likely to produce success than anonymous whining on the internet.
Smart people who work hard eventually have a voice in the decisions that affect their jobs. Not always, and not immediately, but that's generally what happens.
If it doesn't for you, you might not be as smart or as valuable as you like to think you are. In that case your options are to find a different job where you're valued more appropriately, or come to terms with being the ultimately replaceable cog in a grander machine that you actually are.
Certainly I never said that "Linux is too different", so lumping me in with people who did is a strawman at best.
In case you're not really an idiot, I'll spell it out for you:
We're the ones who get stuck supporting users of these apps.
We're the ones who get stuck building/maintaining apps/infrastructure written against them.
We're generally NOT the ones who get to decide what the team's/division's/firm's platform and standard apps will be.
NOW do you get it?
Yes. You're bitter at your station in life and would like to blame someone else for it.
Work hard and move into management or a more valued technical position where you get a real voice in those decisions, or quit your bitching.
It's not a software company's fault that your employer doesn't care what you think.
Slashdot: where something negative about an Open Source project will always be modded troll, especially if it's true.
Seriously, pretending OO is just as good isn't going to do anything to help it be better.
I'll install OpenOffice 500 times and you can pay me the $36k. Deal?
Nope. Although "you get what you pay for" is sometimes true, charging to install OpenOffice doesn't make it good enough for an awful lot of businesses that use Office.
(Cue a dozen people who claim OO is better because they're too luddite for the ribbon interface.)
Their web site claims "Works with the devices you use most - including PC, Mac, Windows Phone, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry" but it doesn't say "Works well".
I'd think it would have to be relatively browser-agnostic to make that claim, but who knows?
I'm surprised it's taken this long to get this kind of offering and price point out -- it's seemed clear for a while that Microsoft would like to grow a presence in the "software as a service" space.
Hey, be glad for small editorial favors. The headline could have been something like: "Douchebag thinks the douchey way he does things is better than competing, less douchey way."