No, I don't play kids games because I spent my time with them and I'm bored with them. I'm not saying that some people don't enjoy these games, I'm saying that I don't really care for them any more. I didn't imply that others wouldn't find them enjoyable.
You're not serious, are you? Fixed camera angles, linear gameplay, predictable action sequences.. this is what you consider the 'best game ever'? I think we can find a few more candidates than that to fill the spot of 'best game ever'.
...thanks for the tip about the spiderman 2 UMD, but I'll be playing GTA on my PSP, probably Need for Speed (damn, I think I'd prefer that any day over mario kart) and Mercury for my puzzle fix. All of which are infinately more fun than the latest incarnation of RE. And if I'm feeling a need for retro, I can always install emulators for NES, SNES, GB, GBA, mame, etc. If I'm really bored, there's always the PSP dev kit, where I can write my own software to take advantage of the wifi which uses a standard protocol instead of something crippled. Thanks, actually, I will go back to my PSP:)
Not to knock Nintendo here, but I'll probably never own one. The reason is simple. The problem is not the controller (I have to admit, it's a neat idea, although I'm skeptical about how comfortable it is), or the hardware, or even the fact that it's Nintendo. It's Nintendo's target audience. The games designed by Nintendo are primarily for kids. We can expect to see more of the cute loveable nintendo icons in many of their titles reincarnated a few thousand times more. These aren't the titles I want out of a console, and this will probably be the only reason I'll get an xbox 360 and skip the revolution all together. To me, price won't be the determining factor. The titles availabale will be.
The same thing happened initially when I got a portable. First I got a DS, however after 6 months of ownership I realized that Nintendo wasn't going to deliver on any of the game types I wanted to see. I sold my DS and got a PSP and haven't looked back since. The PSP simply has more titles which will appeal to the 30+ age group. Especially those who are tired of mario and friends.
Except, if it could be done with regular old html (which it can't) that just made a request, we'd be using it. There wouldn't be a need for XMLHttpRequest. Since turning off javascript means none of this works, your assesment is flawed. Sure you could make it link to and load a new page, but then, if all you're doing with this is basic content replacement, you may as well be doing it that way in the first place - no compatibility issues, complete accessability and faster development time. Not that it's an issue, people also generally don't turn off javascript. I work for a major corporation where my job is maintaining it's core systems (we provide web services to people), our ad system uses javascript. Believe me, we're not starving. The only people who turn off javascript, are people who know better, and people who have been scared in to doing it by people who should know better. They represent a miniscule minority.
Most government sites are informational to begin with, and likely wouldn't benefit much from the use of XMLHttpRequest anyway. If being more like a desktop application meant anything to these organizations, they'd be using flash in a big way by now, since it's been popular longer, and is capable of most of the things this can do, plus more that it isn't capable of.
Don't forget the MSDN site. It's been using xmlhttp request for years. Hell, I was using xmlhttprequest years before mozilla implemented it, and years before google decided to start using it. They're not at all behind the curve, they started the curve. All google did was make a few applications with it - I don't understand why so many people (excluding yourself) think this was some kind of google invention.
Of course, we should probably not talk about this, as it pretty much destroys the typical slashdot argument that microsoft doesn't innovate anything.
Essentially, those freelance designers are whining that the value they add isn't important to many people.
No, essentially those freelance designers are complaining because sites like this contribute to their work shortage. Some of them do cut their rates because they recognize that not everyone has $5000 for a new site. However, it forces some of them to have to give up design, and take other jobs. After 5+ years of learning how to do it right, it's hard to let it go without a fight. Imagine how angry you'd be if you were forced to give up something you love, something you worked at, because rank amateurs flooded the market with crap.
On the other hand, following your logic, outsourcing software development to India must be OK too. I mean, there's no value-add to the corporations for developing software in-country. So, I suppose all the people who were rendered jobless by the corporate machines are whiney people as well?
Hey, if you want to work at a 7-11 or McDonalds for the rest of your life, by all means, do it. You won't see me trying to stop you. While many of the designers I know didn't attend any art school (thus making your point somewhat questionable), they have spent many years in self-improvement. You'll know you're starting to do it right when finding people to look at what you're doing gets easier because they're asking you what you're doing out of interest.
As for the whole superiority complex, I don't recall saying that these *people* are superior to *other* people. I *do* recall saying they produce a superior product. They would even be quite happy to help you with some of the harder points in design provided you were making an effort to better yourself. The point here is they've honed a skill - it's a *fact* that anyone who works at something gets better at it. Don't be bitter that some people are better at things than you are because you've failed to invest yourself in to it. If you want it, *invest yourself in it*. Don't sit on the sidelines wishing you could.
I have a lot of other friends who are musicians. The vast majority of people who approach them seem to think they have some secret which, if shared, will make them master musicians too. The *fact* of the matter is, these people *worked* to get where they are with their talent. They sacrificed time for their art. They paid their dues. They've *earned* their talent.
*sigh*. It's hard to change an opinion on slashdot, many have their own opinions and views as to how things should be, and nobody, but *nobody* can change that. Except in a few rare instances where someone produces a really good argument, as you've done now.
I hate the freeloading bastards who make it hard for my friends to find work (I should mention, I'm not a designer, I'm a backend developer, but many people I know are *that good* at design. As a result of it getting too hard to freelance, I now work for a corporation, as do some of these people), but on the other hand, I'm a big supporter of education, and teaching people. I actively participate as a moderator in ##php on freenode. Before that, I was active (as a moderator) in many channels on EFNet helping people with HTML and Javascript related issues. I know, I just said I wasn't a designer. However, there is a big difference between understanding the mechanics of something, and being able to add an overall artistic vision to it. I have a great deal of respect for designers who can grasp both the mechanics, and the vision at the same time.
Perhaps you're right. Maybe I do have it all wrong. Perhaps what we need here is a provision that says you can't use a template (or site theme pack, or whatever you'd like to call it) for a commercial endevour. My goal with my initial post was not to take a learning resource away from people with a genuine interest in trying to figure it all out, but to make people aware that sites like oswd get *abused*. The end result of that abuse is less work for people who really need it. Good HTML/CSS design is not something that it's easy to find a professional course for. Many take to trial and error, and finding people who have 'been around the block', so to speak. Sifting the good information from the bad takes a significant amount of time, effort and energy. Especially considering how browsers have a tendancy to differ. On the other hand, what good is teaching these people how to do it right when they'll face the same problems professional designers do now? If I were to hazard an educated guess, I'd say for every 1 person who really wanted to learn something, there are at least 5 more who will take it for straight profit. Ignoring in the process all the intrinsic value the package has to teach them to do it themselves.
I'll always have a special place in my heart for those who struggle to learn something they didn't know yesterday, and a growing hate for those who try to live off the sweat of others who paid their dues.
F/OSS principles say that the advantage of having an open product is that you can fix problems in it if you need to. You're free to do this because the source code is available for you to work on. HTML is a lousy example of something that should *need* to be opensourced. It's *distributed* in source form. Ergo, anyone using it can modify and edit the html as they see fit. I don't see what the point of making a few people do a lot of work so the lazy can profit is. That's all this encourages, is a bunch of people who get to sell YOUR work for nothing. The only time this might make sense is with images, where the final product, and the raw photoshop image are different. I think a site like this is a mistake, and will only aim to create a bunch more clueless webmasters who don't need to understand anything, because the good people at oswd.com are doing it all for you. Thanks guys.
The biggest complaint I hear from freelance designers (who are very good at what they do, unlike the clueless masses of people who think they are web design gods) is that they lose contracts on a regular basis to people who either a) rip sites, or b) use sites like this for their designs. These people have no talent, no skill and no ability. They haven't worked at perfecting any kind of art. They simply take free things and copy/paste them together, and then sell them as their own to people who would otherwise be clients of people who do it for real, and produce a superior product.
I know what you're thinking, that it's a free market, and that people should have the right to choose, but often times what happens is the client only sees the bid value. Of course, the people who use sites like oswd will charge a lot less mostly because after they throw up their stock site, with their stock images, and their stock PHP code, it has taken them less than a few hours of work. On the other hand, it takes a professional a week or more to do something original and worth having.
So, excuse me if I don't shed a tear for oswd. Truth be told, I'd rather see them shut down. They help facilitate the mutilation of an industry that many independants rely on. I'm not talking about large corporations either, but people like you and me, living paycheque to paycheque on their talents and abilities.
Self expression? People have been selling modified/original case designs for PCs for a long time now, in many shapes, colours and designs. Apple doesn't express MY personal expression at all. In fact, they don't have a clue what MY personal expression is in the first place. If you buy in to this whole "Apple lets me express myself through it's hardware design" thing, you've been caught by Apple's marketing BS.
In fact, all their "self expression" says to me, is "Buy our products, because we're trendy. You're not cool like us unless you're going along like sheep with our trend.". And then, this always appears to come to mind right after.
What makes you think the lawyers aren't themselves free software contributors? As both a software engineer and an attorney, I think your characterization of our ilk may be misconceived.
With you being a lawyer, I would hope that you are capable of reading and interpreting everything that I said, not just the bits you wanted to see, and certainly not the bits that weren't there to begin with. At no point did I say lawyers couldn't be free software contributors. I only made the point of saying people who have an excellent working knowledge of the subject should have a say in the rewrite of the GPL. IE: Lawyers and software engineers who have an intimate knowledge of the GPL. *Obviously* lawyers need to be involved. It is, after all, a legal document, and the law has bloated up to the point where it takes a legal specialist (and in this case, probably several of them) to make it air-tight.
We see reports of companies misusing GPL'd code a lot, and we almost never hear about a successful prosicution. A great example that comes to mind is Maui X-Stream, who has been proven guilty of violating the GPL several times in most, if not all, of their products. However, we never hear about those people actually doing jail time for it. One has to ask, is the GPL effective at all?
This obsession people seem to have with democracy is silly. Do doctors and nurses in the operating room vote on how to proceed with an operation? Should pilots ask for a vote on how to land a plane?
No, because these are established procedures. If you're inventing a procedure, then it should be put to a vote where the voters are people qualified to make those choices. In this case, it's more like a pseudo-democracy, because you're only involving people with an intimate knowledge of the subject at hand.
I don't know about where you live, but where I'm at, the PSP sold out in every store in the first week. Stores were climbing over each other to try to get the next shipment.
Yeah, like this tactic is anything new. Sony does exactly the same thing. With the PSP, they only released so many units, and of those units, a larger number were given to companies which followed sony's advertising guidelines more carefully. This is a common tactic, and shouldn't be seen as only something Microsoft would do.
Most of the benefits revolve around crunching large numbers, and even those are lost if the software isn't specificly compiled for 64-bit architecture. The speed of 32-bit software inside a 64-bit architecture can also be slower than comparable native 32-bit computers, because an emulation layer needs to sit in the middle making translations. Couple that with the fact that OS X's kernel is not as granular as other operating systems (which is why they make relatively lousy servers performace-wise), and you have something which may not stack up to it's 32-bit sibling. The moral of the story here is, 64-bit desktop computing is about 50% hype. There are some benefits, but they really depend on what you're doing. One should read about it before committing to buying one. You might be better off with a 32-bit machine.
I just wanted to point out that I didn't write the parent post, but I do agree with it. My point was more that when you talk to people about opensource and Linux in general that you are more or less an ambassador for the whole community. If the person you're talking to takes any stock in the things you say, then what you say is important. If you spend time beating down the things they know, flawed as they may be, people are not going to recieve your ideas as well.
For example, you're talking to Bob, and you say something like "Wow, why are you using THAT piece of Microcrap shit?" The person you're talking to is going to go on the defensive. The moment this happens, they stop listening, and start looking for ways to defend their choice, even if they don't know why. In fact, they are more likely to stay with Windows when you do this because they'll think we're all like that. However, if you tempter your hostile opinion with some tact, and present it as a viable alternative with strong parallels to what they already know, they may be more inclined to at least look instead of getting mad. This example might be a little extreme, but coming across with slants like 'M$', and 'Windoze' doesn't help the situation any. Remember, I represent the F/OSS community, as does the parent poster, and the original poster, and thousands of other people. What we say has an impact on the opinions of those who know less. Lets try to leave them with a positive opinion, instead of driving them off.
1) It wasn't right then, it's not right now. If you really love Linux/Unix/Etc, then at least try to support it in a way that encourages new users. This brand of advocacy that you endorse just makes it so people think you're a raving lunatic with no objective opinion. You know, a zealot.
2) Sure it can. Right now, OS X is better than Linux is, and it appears to have coexisted just fine in a Windows dominated world.
3) Most people don't know anything about OSS, and are unlikely to move to Linux just to experience it. Face it, Linux users in general are the minority, and if you want to see that userbase increase, we need to slowly get these people used to the idea that OSS is not something to fear.
[..]we shouldn't be supporting windows by making it more usable.
4) Actually, as per your original post (see above line), you flat out said we shouldn't port OSS to Windows. That's limiting choice based on platform. Isn't part of the whole FOSS argument that you're giving the user choice and freedom?
1) There is no operating system called "doze" - You might benefit from the link in my tagline. 2) You can't defeat something unless you have something better to replace it with. Linux is not better from an end-user standpoint. 3) People who port their software are NOT part of the problem. They are part of the solution. Exposure to what F/OSS is capable of will make it more likely that someone will use it in the future. 4) People like you are part of the problem. You would limit choice based on platform.
I think most OSS people just want to see your OSS Windows software running under multiple platforms. I think the lack of respect comes when people build things for windows which are then not ported to linux.
Apache, Mozilla, MySQL, PHP - these are examples of OSS projects where they are both cross-platform, and respected. I don't think they would have been nearly as well recieved if they were for Windows only. Of course, there is a large subset who think that anything designed for the Windows platform must be crap. I think it's easy enough to recognise and filter those opinions out though.
Often times you're not presented with a choice. The first time you insert a CD, it will autoplay - this is when this crap makes it in. I know you can shut that feature off, but most people either don't knwo how, or won't.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I don't play kids games because I spent my time with them and I'm bored with them. I'm not saying that some people don't enjoy these games, I'm saying that I don't really care for them any more. I didn't imply that others wouldn't find them enjoyable.
Resident Evil 4 = one of the best games ever
You're not serious, are you? Fixed camera angles, linear gameplay, predictable action sequences .. this is what you consider the 'best game ever'? I think we can find a few more candidates than that to fill the spot of 'best game ever'.
...thanks for the tip about the spiderman 2 UMD, but I'll be playing GTA on my PSP, probably Need for Speed (damn, I think I'd prefer that any day over mario kart) and Mercury for my puzzle fix. All of which are infinately more fun than the latest incarnation of RE. And if I'm feeling a need for retro, I can always install emulators for NES, SNES, GB, GBA, mame, etc. If I'm really bored, there's always the PSP dev kit, where I can write my own software to take advantage of the wifi which uses a standard protocol instead of something crippled. Thanks, actually, I will go back to my PSP :)
Not to knock Nintendo here, but I'll probably never own one. The reason is simple. The problem is not the controller (I have to admit, it's a neat idea, although I'm skeptical about how comfortable it is), or the hardware, or even the fact that it's Nintendo. It's Nintendo's target audience. The games designed by Nintendo are primarily for kids. We can expect to see more of the cute loveable nintendo icons in many of their titles reincarnated a few thousand times more. These aren't the titles I want out of a console, and this will probably be the only reason I'll get an xbox 360 and skip the revolution all together. To me, price won't be the determining factor. The titles availabale will be.
The same thing happened initially when I got a portable. First I got a DS, however after 6 months of ownership I realized that Nintendo wasn't going to deliver on any of the game types I wanted to see. I sold my DS and got a PSP and haven't looked back since. The PSP simply has more titles which will appeal to the 30+ age group. Especially those who are tired of mario and friends.
Except, if it could be done with regular old html (which it can't) that just made a request, we'd be using it. There wouldn't be a need for XMLHttpRequest. Since turning off javascript means none of this works, your assesment is flawed. Sure you could make it link to and load a new page, but then, if all you're doing with this is basic content replacement, you may as well be doing it that way in the first place - no compatibility issues, complete accessability and faster development time. Not that it's an issue, people also generally don't turn off javascript. I work for a major corporation where my job is maintaining it's core systems (we provide web services to people), our ad system uses javascript. Believe me, we're not starving. The only people who turn off javascript, are people who know better, and people who have been scared in to doing it by people who should know better. They represent a miniscule minority. Most government sites are informational to begin with, and likely wouldn't benefit much from the use of XMLHttpRequest anyway. If being more like a desktop application meant anything to these organizations, they'd be using flash in a big way by now, since it's been popular longer, and is capable of most of the things this can do, plus more that it isn't capable of.
"I'm sorry Mr. Schwartzeneggar, but you can't rip that rootkit protected Sony audio CD"
"I'll be back!"
Don't forget the MSDN site. It's been using xmlhttp request for years. Hell, I was using xmlhttprequest years before mozilla implemented it, and years before google decided to start using it. They're not at all behind the curve, they started the curve. All google did was make a few applications with it - I don't understand why so many people (excluding yourself) think this was some kind of google invention.
Of course, we should probably not talk about this, as it pretty much destroys the typical slashdot argument that microsoft doesn't innovate anything.
Why is this article marked under the 'Java' category by slashdot? That's amazingly silly. xmlhttprequest has *nothing* to do with java.
Because you guys don't understand that aluminum/tin foil doesn't *actually* contain tin! *dons his *real* tinfoil hat.
Sure. As soon as you stop trolling, and log in with a real slashdot account so I know who to add to my 'enemies' list.
Essentially, those freelance designers are whining that the value they add isn't important to many people.
No, essentially those freelance designers are complaining because sites like this contribute to their work shortage. Some of them do cut their rates because they recognize that not everyone has $5000 for a new site. However, it forces some of them to have to give up design, and take other jobs. After 5+ years of learning how to do it right, it's hard to let it go without a fight. Imagine how angry you'd be if you were forced to give up something you love, something you worked at, because rank amateurs flooded the market with crap.
On the other hand, following your logic, outsourcing software development to India must be OK too. I mean, there's no value-add to the corporations for developing software in-country. So, I suppose all the people who were rendered jobless by the corporate machines are whiney people as well?
Hey, if you want to work at a 7-11 or McDonalds for the rest of your life, by all means, do it. You won't see me trying to stop you. While many of the designers I know didn't attend any art school (thus making your point somewhat questionable), they have spent many years in self-improvement. You'll know you're starting to do it right when finding people to look at what you're doing gets easier because they're asking you what you're doing out of interest.
As for the whole superiority complex, I don't recall saying that these *people* are superior to *other* people. I *do* recall saying they produce a superior product. They would even be quite happy to help you with some of the harder points in design provided you were making an effort to better yourself. The point here is they've honed a skill - it's a *fact* that anyone who works at something gets better at it. Don't be bitter that some people are better at things than you are because you've failed to invest yourself in to it. If you want it, *invest yourself in it*. Don't sit on the sidelines wishing you could.
I have a lot of other friends who are musicians. The vast majority of people who approach them seem to think they have some secret which, if shared, will make them master musicians too. The *fact* of the matter is, these people *worked* to get where they are with their talent. They sacrificed time for their art. They paid their dues. They've *earned* their talent.
*sigh*. It's hard to change an opinion on slashdot, many have their own opinions and views as to how things should be, and nobody, but *nobody* can change that. Except in a few rare instances where someone produces a really good argument, as you've done now.
I hate the freeloading bastards who make it hard for my friends to find work (I should mention, I'm not a designer, I'm a backend developer, but many people I know are *that good* at design. As a result of it getting too hard to freelance, I now work for a corporation, as do some of these people), but on the other hand, I'm a big supporter of education, and teaching people. I actively participate as a moderator in ##php on freenode. Before that, I was active (as a moderator) in many channels on EFNet helping people with HTML and Javascript related issues. I know, I just said I wasn't a designer. However, there is a big difference between understanding the mechanics of something, and being able to add an overall artistic vision to it. I have a great deal of respect for designers who can grasp both the mechanics, and the vision at the same time.
Perhaps you're right. Maybe I do have it all wrong. Perhaps what we need here is a provision that says you can't use a template (or site theme pack, or whatever you'd like to call it) for a commercial endevour. My goal with my initial post was not to take a learning resource away from people with a genuine interest in trying to figure it all out, but to make people aware that sites like oswd get *abused*. The end result of that abuse is less work for people who really need it. Good HTML/CSS design is not something that it's easy to find a professional course for. Many take to trial and error, and finding people who have 'been around the block', so to speak. Sifting the good information from the bad takes a significant amount of time, effort and energy. Especially considering how browsers have a tendancy to differ. On the other hand, what good is teaching these people how to do it right when they'll face the same problems professional designers do now? If I were to hazard an educated guess, I'd say for every 1 person who really wanted to learn something, there are at least 5 more who will take it for straight profit. Ignoring in the process all the intrinsic value the package has to teach them to do it themselves.
I'll always have a special place in my heart for those who struggle to learn something they didn't know yesterday, and a growing hate for those who try to live off the sweat of others who paid their dues.
F/OSS principles say that the advantage of having an open product is that you can fix problems in it if you need to. You're free to do this because the source code is available for you to work on. HTML is a lousy example of something that should *need* to be opensourced. It's *distributed* in source form. Ergo, anyone using it can modify and edit the html as they see fit. I don't see what the point of making a few people do a lot of work so the lazy can profit is. That's all this encourages, is a bunch of people who get to sell YOUR work for nothing. The only time this might make sense is with images, where the final product, and the raw photoshop image are different. I think a site like this is a mistake, and will only aim to create a bunch more clueless webmasters who don't need to understand anything, because the good people at oswd.com are doing it all for you. Thanks guys.
The biggest complaint I hear from freelance designers (who are very good at what they do, unlike the clueless masses of people who think they are web design gods) is that they lose contracts on a regular basis to people who either a) rip sites, or b) use sites like this for their designs. These people have no talent, no skill and no ability. They haven't worked at perfecting any kind of art. They simply take free things and copy/paste them together, and then sell them as their own to people who would otherwise be clients of people who do it for real, and produce a superior product.
I know what you're thinking, that it's a free market, and that people should have the right to choose, but often times what happens is the client only sees the bid value. Of course, the people who use sites like oswd will charge a lot less mostly because after they throw up their stock site, with their stock images, and their stock PHP code, it has taken them less than a few hours of work. On the other hand, it takes a professional a week or more to do something original and worth having.
So, excuse me if I don't shed a tear for oswd. Truth be told, I'd rather see them shut down. They help facilitate the mutilation of an industry that many independants rely on. I'm not talking about large corporations either, but people like you and me, living paycheque to paycheque on their talents and abilities.
Self expression? People have been selling modified/original case designs for PCs for a long time now, in many shapes, colours and designs. Apple doesn't express MY personal expression at all. In fact, they don't have a clue what MY personal expression is in the first place. If you buy in to this whole "Apple lets me express myself through it's hardware design" thing, you've been caught by Apple's marketing BS.
In fact, all their "self expression" says to me, is "Buy our products, because we're trendy. You're not cool like us unless you're going along like sheep with our trend.". And then, this always appears to come to mind right after.
What makes you think the lawyers aren't themselves free software contributors? As both a software engineer and an attorney, I think your characterization of our ilk may be misconceived.
With you being a lawyer, I would hope that you are capable of reading and interpreting everything that I said, not just the bits you wanted to see, and certainly not the bits that weren't there to begin with . At no point did I say lawyers couldn't be free software contributors. I only made the point of saying people who have an excellent working knowledge of the subject should have a say in the rewrite of the GPL. IE: Lawyers and software engineers who have an intimate knowledge of the GPL. *Obviously* lawyers need to be involved. It is, after all, a legal document, and the law has bloated up to the point where it takes a legal specialist (and in this case, probably several of them) to make it air-tight.
We see reports of companies misusing GPL'd code a lot, and we almost never hear about a successful prosicution. A great example that comes to mind is Maui X-Stream, who has been proven guilty of violating the GPL several times in most, if not all, of their products. However, we never hear about those people actually doing jail time for it. One has to ask, is the GPL effective at all?
This obsession people seem to have with democracy is silly. Do doctors and nurses in the operating room vote on how to proceed with an operation? Should pilots ask for a vote on how to land a plane?
No, because these are established procedures. If you're inventing a procedure, then it should be put to a vote where the voters are people qualified to make those choices. In this case, it's more like a pseudo-democracy, because you're only involving people with an intimate knowledge of the subject at hand.
I don't know about where you live, but where I'm at, the PSP sold out in every store in the first week. Stores were climbing over each other to try to get the next shipment.
Yeah, like this tactic is anything new. Sony does exactly the same thing. With the PSP, they only released so many units, and of those units, a larger number were given to companies which followed sony's advertising guidelines more carefully. This is a common tactic, and shouldn't be seen as only something Microsoft would do.
64-bit operating systems don't always offer the speed benefits people think they do. While it makes it possible for processors to handle larger memory addresses, it also increases the size of each instruction. Some operation sets which could fit inside cache memory now can't because of the size of 64-bit operations.
Most of the benefits revolve around crunching large numbers, and even those are lost if the software isn't specificly compiled for 64-bit architecture. The speed of 32-bit software inside a 64-bit architecture can also be slower than comparable native 32-bit computers, because an emulation layer needs to sit in the middle making translations. Couple that with the fact that OS X's kernel is not as granular as other operating systems (which is why they make relatively lousy servers performace-wise), and you have something which may not stack up to it's 32-bit sibling. The moral of the story here is, 64-bit desktop computing is about 50% hype. There are some benefits, but they really depend on what you're doing. One should read about it before committing to buying one. You might be better off with a 32-bit machine.
I just wanted to point out that I didn't write the parent post, but I do agree with it. My point was more that when you talk to people about opensource and Linux in general that you are more or less an ambassador for the whole community. If the person you're talking to takes any stock in the things you say, then what you say is important. If you spend time beating down the things they know, flawed as they may be, people are not going to recieve your ideas as well.
For example, you're talking to Bob, and you say something like "Wow, why are you using THAT piece of Microcrap shit?" The person you're talking to is going to go on the defensive. The moment this happens, they stop listening, and start looking for ways to defend their choice, even if they don't know why. In fact, they are more likely to stay with Windows when you do this because they'll think we're all like that. However, if you tempter your hostile opinion with some tact, and present it as a viable alternative with strong parallels to what they already know, they may be more inclined to at least look instead of getting mad. This example might be a little extreme, but coming across with slants like 'M$', and 'Windoze' doesn't help the situation any. Remember, I represent the F/OSS community, as does the parent poster, and the original poster, and thousands of other people. What we say has an impact on the opinions of those who know less. Lets try to leave them with a positive opinion, instead of driving them off.
1) It wasn't right then, it's not right now. If you really love Linux/Unix/Etc, then at least try to support it in a way that encourages new users. This brand of advocacy that you endorse just makes it so people think you're a raving lunatic with no objective opinion. You know, a zealot.
2) Sure it can. Right now, OS X is better than Linux is, and it appears to have coexisted just fine in a Windows dominated world.
3) Most people don't know anything about OSS, and are unlikely to move to Linux just to experience it. Face it, Linux users in general are the minority, and if you want to see that userbase increase, we need to slowly get these people used to the idea that OSS is not something to fear.
[..]we shouldn't be supporting windows by making it more usable.
4) Actually, as per your original post (see above line), you flat out said we shouldn't port OSS to Windows. That's limiting choice based on platform. Isn't part of the whole FOSS argument that you're giving the user choice and freedom?
5) You take things way too seriously. Relax.
1) There is no operating system called "doze" - You might benefit from the link in my tagline.
2) You can't defeat something unless you have something better to replace it with. Linux is not better from an end-user standpoint.
3) People who port their software are NOT part of the problem. They are part of the solution. Exposure to what F/OSS is capable of will make it more likely that someone will use it in the future.
4) People like you are part of the problem. You would limit choice based on platform.
I think most OSS people just want to see your OSS Windows software running under multiple platforms. I think the lack of respect comes when people build things for windows which are then not ported to linux.
Apache, Mozilla, MySQL, PHP - these are examples of OSS projects where they are both cross-platform, and respected. I don't think they would have been nearly as well recieved if they were for Windows only. Of course, there is a large subset who think that anything designed for the Windows platform must be crap. I think it's easy enough to recognise and filter those opinions out though.
Often times you're not presented with a choice. The first time you insert a CD, it will autoplay - this is when this crap makes it in. I know you can shut that feature off, but most people either don't knwo how, or won't.