Can I watch the movie as it originally showed if I want? "Director's Cut"s are often nice, but there's some authenticity lost when you're not watching what you watched and liked before. Maybe it's too much to ask for a DVD player to optionally splice in the extra new material, but I still think it's something that should_be_done.
Maybe you should be asking "Where can I buy a laptop with long battery life?" or "Where can I buy a laptop with really low energy consumption?". Maybe the answer won't be a Crusoe laptop.
$999: 500MHz G3, 20GB disk, firewire, usb, cd-rw, built in 15" monitor, 128MB ram, 10/100 10bT, 56k. MacOS X with iTunes beats ugly HP box for user interface.
How about a command line where you can See pipes and redirections visually? Context sensitive pop-up menus off commands to set flags and options.
OK, so it's not totally new. It will borrow from visual programming, but be dynamic and just as quick or quicker to spawn off a gem like
'find/usr/include -name "*.h" -exec grep \{\} \; -print'
Biggest hurdle: standard meta-data for little utilities that describe both to the automatic system that is the GUICL and to the Human How-To-Run-Me and What-I-Do information.
Not more than anyone else who writes software for a job.
If you're company does X, you should think twice about working on Open Source project that does X.
Apple has a stated policy about Open Source (Darwin etc and the APSL). I think that pretty much handles this case.
I work for a company with a competitive closed source optimizing compiler. Even though I work in a different division, I hesitate at trying to add to GCC when futzing around at home.
Suppose ext4fs (some time in the future) has built in MIME types associated with every file, and an optional XML metadata piece too.
Apache gets mod'd to use the MIME types built into the files when possbile instead of using other magik.
GNOME/KDE/whatever access a database associating MIME/XML with applications.
So far, we have a great, at-least-as-good-as-Mac user experience, within the machine. Files moved by HTTP will retain the basic type. The XML could be available to those who want it by other extensions to protocol.
But, lots of things need updating. How do you "rm *.html" when things are "text/html" behind the scences? Shells need updating. New C library calls. Much of unix may need some rethought. Perl will need extensions (been done, see MacPerl).
Like the article said, FTP and Mail need updating to talk to foriegners and translate metadata to their system.
Apple may still have a chance to not botch it too. I'd like to see that.
Live plants will do amazing things for your cube. Not only do they bring a little of the 'great outdoors' (that everyone is trying so badly to get to) in to your space, they can actually improve the air quality.
If you go to a Nursery they may have specific indoor plants, or look for 'shade' plants. Spider plants are reliable and tough. Aloe is a good one too, and you can cut off a sprig and squeeze the sap on cuts and burns. If you need a plant with personality to keep you company, try raising a Bonsai Tree.
anything new for less than $1600 will be a piece of shit that skimps on quality all over the place.
Not true. The $1500 iBook is fine. Doesn't skimp at all. Solidly built like a Volvo or BMW. Though I'd add $100 wireless ethernet to it and ~$100 of RAM.
about 5 lb, 1024x768 screen, 128 MB RAM (almost enough, and upgrades easily), 10GB disk, 2 USB ports, FireWire (aka iLink or IEEE 1394), 10/100 Ethernet, DVD-ROM drive, tv-out, rgb-monitor-out. $1500
Most importantly, it's built very solidly. Wrap it in a t-shirt if you want to keep it from getting scratched, otherwise it will do just fine in a backpack or other light luggage.
Con: 3d acceleration is a little weak. Rage 128 mobility IIRC. Still better than software-render and enough for all but 'serious' gamers.
More disk would be nice, but I just wirelessly net-mount my mp3's off my G4-450 and all is good. The wireless is good. Very good. (and cheaper than Lucent/Orinoco cards)
I really do not want to start a flame war but I have recently had a bad
interaction with Dell and I want to make it known. I figure the only way
they will improve things is if their lack of training and communication
within their tech support gives them a bad reputation and the only way
that will happen is if people actually know how they work. So here goes.
The first problem I had with my laptop (Dell Inspiron 3800) was
the keyboard. the '8ik,' diagonal of keys did not respond unless the keys
were pressed with unusual force. This was fixed in 2 days by a dell
representative in Pittsburgh, as covered by my warranty.
The second problem came a few weeks later, when the power became
erratic. They replaced the AC adapter and then the motherboard. Again,
fairly fast. I was OK with this.
The keyboard broke within 2 weeks. I decided to ignore it. I note that I
have found I know 7 other dell laptop owners and 6 have had the same
problem at least once. A few weeks later one of the mouse buttons
broke. I called in to get them fixed. Dell rep #1 noticed I had a lot of
problems with my system and offered to send me a newly built
computer if I had any more problems. The Pittsburgh dell representative
was supposed to call me and set up the keyboard/mouse repair.
That night my memory card broke. I checked to make sure it was a hardware
problem by swapping it to another Inspiron laptop owned by a friend. I
called into rep #1 and he said he would not schedule the memory card fix
until the keyboard/mouse fix was done. He thought the first might fix the
second. (??) I was supposed to call him once the
Pittsburgh tech guy came in. He would not talk about the exchange he'd
promised.
The Pittsburgh representative did not call that day. I called into rep #1
and left several messages.
He did not call back.
Meanwhile, I got myself another person on the dell support line. He told
me the best thing to do would be to send my system in and have it
tested. It would take 5-7 days max because if the problems were severe
they would send me a newly built machine. This seemed reasonable. The
only tricky part was since I was headed to Maine after finals I had to get
the airborne tag the day my computer was fixed so I could track where they
sent it (no street addresses where I live). This was a bit of a hassle
since it takes somewhere between 15 and 40 minutes on hold to talk to a
dell technician. But I decided it was tolerable.
The first two people I talked to over the next few days told me that the
system was under test. The problem had not yet been found.
The third person agreed to email the tests which were being done. I
wanted to make sure progress was being made. He did not even write down
my email address (I later found out it was not in the system)
The fourth person agreed to call me with the progress. He noted to me
that my system was marked as being fixed out of warranty so it would take
a bit longer. Apparently though my warranty covered in-home repair, it
did not cover me sending in my laptop. This representative told me should
not have been advised to send it in.
He called back the next day to tell me they did not actually know where my
computer was. It had never gotten to the proper warehouse. I leave it to
you to figure out why the first three people told me it was there and
being worked on
At this point I asked to talk to a manager. I got the floor supervisor,
and
explained the situation. He explained that neither he, nor anyone else,
would do anything until the following Tuesday. It was the Friday before
new years. Because I had brought the airborne receipt with me from
Pittsburgh, they did manage to figure out where my laptop was (the wrong
warehouse) but since it was closing in an hour they did not want
to try to get it shipped to the right one in the next three days. He did
promise to do what he could and call Tuesday, by noon.
Tuesday evening, I called back into Dell, as the manager had not called
me. I was told that the thing which should have been done in the first
place was to build me a new machine. The person I was connected to
emailed the depo where my laptop was to see if he could get my hard drive
back so I would not loose all my data. He promised to call back when he
heard from them. I was assured I would have a computer within 5-7 days.
No calls about the hard drive.
4 days later I called in to make sure my computer was getting shipped
out. There was no computer being built -- the order had been
cancelled. No one had told me or any of my contacts. I had the person I
was on with order another one to be built for me. He could not get any
improvements added in (after 2 weeks without a computer I was hoping for
some compensation) I should talk to customer service about that. When I
asked to talk to his manager I got disconnected. Despite the fact he had
asked for my number when I called in (exact words "so I can call you in
the case we get disconnected") he did not call back.
I called customer service. No, they could not offer compensation. They
listened to my problems and said I should talk to tech support about an
upgrade.
I called tech support to make sure that the order had been put in
correctly before I lost contact. I was put in touch with the tech support
guy who had set up the initial exchange. He was indeed sorry it was
cancelled and no one had told me. He would call me the next day and make
sure that the new order went through.
And this is where I stand now. I have been missing my computer for over
2 weeks when my warranty says I should get in-house repair within 2
days. It looks like I will get a new computer built but I have to wait
another 5-7 days, so I will not get it until I am back at CMU.
Half the reason I bought a laptop was so I would not be in Maine and
Vermont for 3 weeks without a computer. Due to the repeated incompetence
of the Dell technical support I did not have a laptop over break. The
representatives I spoke to did not know what they were allowed to
authorize or what their departments were allowed to do -- they referred me
around or promised things and then ignored my messages when they could not
deliver. They did not understand computers -- I do not understand how
anyone working in tech support could think replacing a mouse button would
fix a hardware problem in a memory card. They did not keep contact with
me or follow up on their jobs.
I am sure there are people who have dell computers and have no problems
with them. But if you do have a problem, you may have to face weeks with
no computer, and hours on hold daily, trying to figure out where it
is. They still have not found my laptop, which means even when I do get a
computer back I lose all the data I did not back up. Much as I hate junk
mail forwards, I'd really appreciate people sending this on to friends and
family who are in the market for computers. From talking to people after
I got my Dell I have a low opinion of their hardware, and from my
experiences their support is terrible. Don't buy Dells.
I had built a 4 legged robot with 2 motors on each for a total of 8 motors. It was controlled by an HC11 with some 1000+ lines of assembly. By all debugging information I had it was thinking the right things and trying to make the legs move in a way that should walk. All that it did was move incoherently.
So, I told all the judges that it was thinking the right thing and I just couldn't figure out what was wrong and it probably needed just a little more debugging.
After the fair I took it home, unscrewed all the wires and re-connected the motors to controllers and suddely it worked. I had just had a few motors connected to wrong controllers or backwards.
If you want small and low power, the G3 and G4 offerings from Apple are cheaper and get you more (more peripheral ports, CD-or-something-drive, and a built in monitor!).
MS Office has the mind-share in so many people and so many companies of being the only thing to do. I would say 'the only reasonable alternative' except that implies the acknowledgement of other possibilities.
I for one will be quite glad to see non-MS utilities being used more. I don't have, and don't care to pay for or pirate any MS products. It quite annoys me when people email me a Word or Excel file assuming I can read it.
It happens when my ISP emails me a form in an MS format. It happens when the freshly hired new professor only distrubutes study material in Word. (The older professors know better and even if their slides were made in powerpoint they'll distribute in.ps and.pdf)
That's just life vaguely as we know it. They talk about chlorophyll and alternate metabolisms that we know here, but there could be other ways. Complexity theory suggests that any system with the right rate of change and stimulus (energy) could generate life.
Mars doesn't have it. Mars is too frozen. Gas giants probably don't have it, being too chaotic. Anything liquid is a good place to start. Saturn's moon may be too energy poor, despite it's oceans and geysers. I bet Jupiter's moons are just right.
Of course, that's just my information and speculation, I could be wrong.
The thing that eliminated any empathy with the writers for me was the win2k advocate stating ~"I don't want an FTP server wasting space in my OS"~. A stupid statement because the space taken up is negligible and I (and many others) do want an FTP server.
The multiplicity of options is splintering developer talent and making it more difficult to get devices to work together.
Not true, IMFO. The multiplicity of options is essential to the industry because every product will be produced in large quantites. Every inneficency that costs money (needing more memory, faster processor, etc) gets magnified by tens of thousands to millions. Thus, the options are needed to find exactly the right tool for each job.
Also, I cannot see this as the root of interoperability problems. That's what open protocols and file formats are for.
The article does rightly outline many of the limitations for Linux in the embedded world. As I play pundit, I expect Linux to do better than WinCE because it is a better OS. But, it's still not the right tool for many jobs and I expect the traditional solutions to maintain 90% or more of the market.
As far as I understand vxWorks is basically the industry leader in RTOS's,
In the same way that Microsoft is the leader in desktop OSs: they sell the most. For an RTOS with some more advanced features, see INTEGRITY. I think it's nifty anyhow.
Things like that may be what BSDi is needed for in WR's portfolio. BSD has features like memory protection and services other than the traditional Real Time scheduling. Are more devices moving to 'good enough time' scheduling that a unix provides?
Drivers. As I write this from MacOS X Public Beta on my iBook, I wish I had a driver for my wireless ethernet card, and I wish I had a driver for my fire wire camera. I wish ATI would port their TV watching app so that I can watch TV under MacOS X on my G4 desktop with XClaim VR 128.
DVD? I hardly ever do that. A reboot will be tolerable.
> I will not do business with a company that behaves like this.
Not everything is Free or even free. Some things, are worked hard on, by many people, for a corporation, for profit. Those things are Owned by those people/corporations. Whether it be music or software, original artistic works are being created. If Sting can sue or demand royalties when an R&B group uses his sound as part of a song, then Apple deserves the same rights over Aqua.
So, if the {KDE,GNOME,Enligtenment} people maybe get up enough cash, they could licence Aqua. Otherwise, unrightful users get sued. This is normal Business. Apple is not the bad guy.
Slashdot Mirror
Can I watch the movie as it originally showed if I want? "Director's Cut"s are often nice, but there's some authenticity lost when you're not watching what you watched and liked before. Maybe it's too much to ask for a DVD player to optionally splice in the extra new material, but I still think it's something that should_be_done.
There were a couple such steps during the Clinton administration, and probably this has been going on since the Cray 1 was a hot little number.
/. doesn't seem to have years attatched to its articles.
I think I even missed a step, article says current limit is 85 GOPS, last I heard was 12.
Don't forget too that there are different grades of countries we may or may not export "supercomputers" to.
See Dec 11, 2001, Jan 11, 2001, Aug 3, (2000? 1999?
Heh, pity
The solution will never be made public. It will be abducted and dissapeared away into the NSA or worse.
Maybe you should be asking "Where can I buy a laptop with long battery life?" or "Where can I buy a laptop with really low energy consumption?". Maybe the answer won't be a Crusoe laptop.
$999: 500MHz G3, 20GB disk, firewire, usb, cd-rw, built in 15" monitor, 128MB ram, 10/100 10bT, 56k. MacOS X with iTunes beats ugly HP box for user interface.
How about a command line where you can See pipes and redirections visually? Context sensitive pop-up menus off commands to set flags and options.
/usr/include -name "*.h" -exec grep \{\} \; -print'
OK, so it's not totally new. It will borrow from visual programming, but be dynamic and just as quick or quicker to spawn off a gem like
'find
Biggest hurdle: standard meta-data for little utilities that describe both to the automatic system that is the GUICL and to the Human How-To-Run-Me and What-I-Do information.
Possibilities: Java interfaces. ELF sections. Forked files. Bundles.
But, the technical stuff is easy. Figuring out the Right Way is hard. What is the Right Way to present these elements to the user?
Perhaps /. should just make a Cringley slashbox in the default set and save everyone the trouble.
Of course, the same goes for the pattern of linux kernel articles. Download, compile, repeat...
Not more than anyone else who writes software for a job.
If you're company does X, you should think twice about working on Open Source project that does X.
Apple has a stated policy about Open Source (Darwin etc and the APSL). I think that pretty much handles this case.
I work for a company with a competitive closed source optimizing compiler. Even though I work in a different division, I hesitate at trying to add to GCC when futzing around at home.
Suppose ext4fs (some time in the future) has built in MIME types associated with every file, and an optional XML metadata piece too.
Apache gets mod'd to use the MIME types built into the files when possbile instead of using other magik.
GNOME/KDE/whatever access a database associating MIME/XML with applications.
So far, we have a great, at-least-as-good-as-Mac user experience, within the machine. Files moved by HTTP will retain the basic type. The XML could be available to those who want it by other extensions to protocol.
But, lots of things need updating. How do you "rm *.html" when things are "text/html" behind the scences? Shells need updating. New C library calls. Much of unix may need some rethought. Perl will need extensions (been done, see MacPerl).
Like the article said, FTP and Mail need updating to talk to foriegners and translate metadata to their system.
Apple may still have a chance to not botch it too. I'd like to see that.
Live plants will do amazing things for your cube. Not only do they bring a little of the 'great outdoors' (that everyone is trying so badly to get to) in to your space, they can actually improve the air quality.
If you go to a Nursery they may have specific indoor plants, or look for 'shade' plants. Spider plants are reliable and tough. Aloe is a good one too, and you can cut off a sprig and squeeze the sap on cuts and burns. If you need a plant with personality to keep you company, try raising a Bonsai Tree.
Not true. The $1500 iBook is fine. Doesn't skimp at all. Solidly built like a Volvo or BMW. Though I'd add $100 wireless ethernet to it and ~$100 of RAM.
the current iBook from Apple is what I'd get.
about 5 lb, 1024x768 screen, 128 MB RAM (almost enough, and upgrades easily), 10GB disk, 2 USB ports, FireWire (aka iLink or IEEE 1394), 10/100 Ethernet, DVD-ROM drive, tv-out, rgb-monitor-out. $1500
Most importantly, it's built very solidly. Wrap it in a t-shirt if you want to keep it from getting scratched, otherwise it will do just fine in a backpack or other light luggage.
Con: 3d acceleration is a little weak. Rage 128 mobility IIRC. Still better than software-render and enough for all but 'serious' gamers.
More disk would be nice, but I just wirelessly net-mount my mp3's off my G4-450 and all is good. The wireless is good. Very good. (and cheaper than Lucent/Orinoco cards)
I really do not want to start a flame war but I have recently had a bad
interaction with Dell and I want to make it known. I figure the only way
they will improve things is if their lack of training and communication
within their tech support gives them a bad reputation and the only way
that will happen is if people actually know how they work. So here goes.
The first problem I had with my laptop (Dell Inspiron 3800) was
the keyboard. the '8ik,' diagonal of keys did not respond unless the keys
were pressed with unusual force. This was fixed in 2 days by a dell
representative in Pittsburgh, as covered by my warranty.
The second problem came a few weeks later, when the power became
erratic. They replaced the AC adapter and then the motherboard. Again,
fairly fast. I was OK with this.
The keyboard broke within 2 weeks. I decided to ignore it. I note that I
have found I know 7 other dell laptop owners and 6 have had the same
problem at least once. A few weeks later one of the mouse buttons
broke. I called in to get them fixed. Dell rep #1 noticed I had a lot of
problems with my system and offered to send me a newly built
computer if I had any more problems. The Pittsburgh dell representative
was supposed to call me and set up the keyboard/mouse repair.
That night my memory card broke. I checked to make sure it was a hardware
problem by swapping it to another Inspiron laptop owned by a friend. I
called into rep #1 and he said he would not schedule the memory card fix
until the keyboard/mouse fix was done. He thought the first might fix the
second. (??) I was supposed to call him once the
Pittsburgh tech guy came in. He would not talk about the exchange he'd
promised.
The Pittsburgh representative did not call that day. I called into rep #1
and left several messages.
He did not call back.
Meanwhile, I got myself another person on the dell support line. He told
me the best thing to do would be to send my system in and have it
tested. It would take 5-7 days max because if the problems were severe
they would send me a newly built machine. This seemed reasonable. The
only tricky part was since I was headed to Maine after finals I had to get
the airborne tag the day my computer was fixed so I could track where they
sent it (no street addresses where I live). This was a bit of a hassle
since it takes somewhere between 15 and 40 minutes on hold to talk to a
dell technician. But I decided it was tolerable.
The first two people I talked to over the next few days told me that the
system was under test. The problem had not yet been found.
The third person agreed to email the tests which were being done. I
wanted to make sure progress was being made. He did not even write down
my email address (I later found out it was not in the system)
The fourth person agreed to call me with the progress. He noted to me
that my system was marked as being fixed out of warranty so it would take
a bit longer. Apparently though my warranty covered in-home repair, it
did not cover me sending in my laptop. This representative told me should
not have been advised to send it in.
He called back the next day to tell me they did not actually know where my
computer was. It had never gotten to the proper warehouse. I leave it to
you to figure out why the first three people told me it was there and
being worked on
At this point I asked to talk to a manager. I got the floor supervisor,
and
explained the situation. He explained that neither he, nor anyone else,
would do anything until the following Tuesday. It was the Friday before
new years. Because I had brought the airborne receipt with me from
Pittsburgh, they did manage to figure out where my laptop was (the wrong
warehouse) but since it was closing in an hour they did not want
to try to get it shipped to the right one in the next three days. He did
promise to do what he could and call Tuesday, by noon.
Tuesday evening, I called back into Dell, as the manager had not called
me. I was told that the thing which should have been done in the first
place was to build me a new machine. The person I was connected to
emailed the depo where my laptop was to see if he could get my hard drive
back so I would not loose all my data. He promised to call back when he
heard from them. I was assured I would have a computer within 5-7 days.
No calls about the hard drive.
4 days later I called in to make sure my computer was getting shipped
out. There was no computer being built -- the order had been
cancelled. No one had told me or any of my contacts. I had the person I
was on with order another one to be built for me. He could not get any
improvements added in (after 2 weeks without a computer I was hoping for
some compensation) I should talk to customer service about that. When I
asked to talk to his manager I got disconnected. Despite the fact he had
asked for my number when I called in (exact words "so I can call you in
the case we get disconnected") he did not call back.
I called customer service. No, they could not offer compensation. They
listened to my problems and said I should talk to tech support about an
upgrade.
I called tech support to make sure that the order had been put in
correctly before I lost contact. I was put in touch with the tech support
guy who had set up the initial exchange. He was indeed sorry it was
cancelled and no one had told me. He would call me the next day and make
sure that the new order went through.
And this is where I stand now. I have been missing my computer for over
2 weeks when my warranty says I should get in-house repair within 2
days. It looks like I will get a new computer built but I have to wait
another 5-7 days, so I will not get it until I am back at CMU.
Half the reason I bought a laptop was so I would not be in Maine and
Vermont for 3 weeks without a computer. Due to the repeated incompetence
of the Dell technical support I did not have a laptop over break. The
representatives I spoke to did not know what they were allowed to
authorize or what their departments were allowed to do -- they referred me
around or promised things and then ignored my messages when they could not
deliver. They did not understand computers -- I do not understand how
anyone working in tech support could think replacing a mouse button would
fix a hardware problem in a memory card. They did not keep contact with
me or follow up on their jobs.
I am sure there are people who have dell computers and have no problems
with them. But if you do have a problem, you may have to face weeks with
no computer, and hours on hold daily, trying to figure out where it
is. They still have not found my laptop, which means even when I do get a
computer back I lose all the data I did not back up. Much as I hate junk
mail forwards, I'd really appreciate people sending this on to friends and
family who are in the market for computers. From talking to people after
I got my Dell I have a low opinion of their hardware, and from my
experiences their support is terrible. Don't buy Dells.
I had built a 4 legged robot with 2 motors on each for a total of 8 motors. It was controlled by an HC11 with some 1000+ lines of assembly. By all debugging information I had it was thinking the right things and trying to make the legs move in a way that should walk. All that it did was move incoherently.
So, I told all the judges that it was thinking the right thing and I just couldn't figure out what was wrong and it probably needed just a little more debugging.
After the fair I took it home, unscrewed all the wires and re-connected the motors to controllers and suddely it worked. I had just had a few motors connected to wrong controllers or backwards.
Doh!
If you want small and low power, the G3 and G4 offerings from Apple are cheaper and get you more (more peripheral ports, CD-or-something-drive, and a built in monitor!).
iBook (500MHz) $1299-1799
PB G4 (400MHz-500Mhz) $2599-3499
the iBook wins in all ways, the TiBook nearly so. See Apple Store, and TerraSoft Store
For those of you who like it direct, the home page of the project at CMU
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/sunsync/
MS Office has the mind-share in so many people and so many companies of being the only thing to do. I would say 'the only reasonable alternative' except that implies the acknowledgement of other possibilities.
.ps and .pdf)
I for one will be quite glad to see non-MS utilities being used more. I don't have, and don't care to pay for or pirate any MS products. It quite annoys me when people email me a Word or Excel file assuming I can read it.
It happens when my ISP emails me a form in an MS format. It happens when the freshly hired new professor only distrubutes study material in Word. (The older professors know better and even if their slides were made in powerpoint they'll distribute in
Fight the Hegemony, don't buy in to MS Office.
That's just life vaguely as we know it. They talk about chlorophyll and alternate metabolisms that we know here, but there could be other ways. Complexity theory suggests that any system with the right rate of change and stimulus (energy) could generate life.
Mars doesn't have it. Mars is too frozen. Gas giants probably don't have it, being too chaotic. Anything liquid is a good place to start. Saturn's moon may be too energy poor, despite it's oceans and geysers. I bet Jupiter's moons are just right.
Of course, that's just my information and speculation, I could be wrong.
The thing that eliminated any empathy with the writers for me was the win2k advocate stating ~"I don't want an FTP server wasting space in my OS"~. A stupid statement because the space taken up is negligible and I (and many others) do want an FTP server.
Not true, IMFO. The multiplicity of options is essential to the industry because every product will be produced in large quantites. Every inneficency that costs money (needing more memory, faster processor, etc) gets magnified by tens of thousands to millions. Thus, the options are needed to find exactly the right tool for each job.
Also, I cannot see this as the root of interoperability problems. That's what open protocols and file formats are for.
The article does rightly outline many of the limitations for Linux in the embedded world. As I play pundit, I expect Linux to do better than WinCE because it is a better OS. But, it's still not the right tool for many jobs and I expect the traditional solutions to maintain 90% or more of the market.
In the same way that Microsoft is the leader in desktop OSs: they sell the most. For an RTOS with some more advanced features, see INTEGRITY. I think it's nifty anyhow.
Things like that may be what BSDi is needed for in WR's portfolio. BSD has features like memory protection and services other than the traditional Real Time scheduling. Are more devices moving to 'good enough time' scheduling that a unix provides?
Drivers. As I write this from MacOS X Public Beta on my iBook, I wish I had a driver for my wireless ethernet card, and I wish I had a driver for my fire wire camera. I wish ATI would port their TV watching app so that I can watch TV under MacOS X on my G4 desktop with XClaim VR 128.
DVD? I hardly ever do that. A reboot will be tolerable.
There should be binary compatibility of apps over a long period of time. MS only gets away with breaking this every couple of years. This means,
for these are the things that break binary compatibility. And yet, all these things are done without thought to the consequences.
> I will not do business with a company that behaves like this.
Not everything is Free or even free. Some things, are worked hard on, by many people, for a corporation, for profit. Those things are Owned by those people/corporations. Whether it be music or software, original artistic works are being created. If Sting can sue or demand royalties when an R&B group uses his sound as part of a song, then Apple deserves the same rights over Aqua.
So, if the {KDE,GNOME,Enligtenment} people maybe get up enough cash, they could licence Aqua. Otherwise, unrightful users get sued. This is normal Business. Apple is not the bad guy.
This should be a Poll and not an Ask Slashdot.
Anyhow, I vote 'bail and move on'
And tomorrow I'll vote 'move in with Hemos'