It is closed source the newcomer: up to the seventies not giving you the source code would seem quite as stupid as if somebody would try to sell you a car but retains control of the engine keys
Yea, it was Harvard dropout Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen who wanted source code closed, and threw a fit when hackers shared software. If it wasn't because they liked to share he would not have become the world's wealthiest person.
makes perfect sense. People who know what is up can still go to ctrl-alt-f1 and kill X from there. People who don't know what they are doing shouldn't loose all their data every time they smash the keyboard with their palm.
First let me say I don't know what CTRL+ALT+Backspace is or does though I know what CRT+ALT+Delete is and does in Windows. With that out of the way, don't you think it's just as easy to CTRL+ALT+F1 by smashing the keyboard as it is to CTRL+ALT+Backspace?
You tell others to RTFA but apparently you didn't read both of them. The second one has this tidbit:
"Change #2 is just an artefact of collecting the usage data. We could only see what parts of the FF UI people were using to do searches if we sent them to our custom page. This usage data is important because it helps us channel design and development resources to useful features, and is also important because it can be tied to revenue generation."
It's a no-effort, free-as-in-beer way of supporting my favourite OS.
I plan on installing Ubuntu Studio on my Mac and if Firefox has this extension I will be looking on how I can get rid of or disable it. If I want to support Canonical and Ubuntu I'll help those I can and buy support from Canonical. I already have Firefox setup the way I want on my Mac and I want to use the same data stores in both OSes. That's what I do now, I have both Firefox 2 and 3 and they both use the same ones. I have FF 2 running now with a bunch of tabs open. If I start FF 3 it will open with the same tabs open. If I add a bookmark to one it will be there in the other too.
Actually free software isn't new. Members of the Tech Model Railroad Club, some of the original computer hackers, at MIT openly posted source code as early as 1959, 50 years ago. Open source Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Unix was released in 1977.
I doubt that there are that many Ubuntu users that know how the program or read the source and understand it though. Ubuntu's supposed to be a user friendly Linux distro for the masses.
Why is it that when MS releases something, everyone darkly talks about hidden backdoors, but when an open source vendor releases someone, people complain that the vendor wasn't completely forthcoming in the release notes?
What's the difference between MS's backdoors and Ubuntu's backdoors if nobody is told? Windows and other proprietary software company fanbois would be complaining if Linux/Ubuntu/FOSS fanbois didn't complain, and here you're complaining because they are complaining.
Well, I can publicly say you're wrong, but I can't in public say why I know you're wrong.
You can not say I'm wrong because I am not wrong. If anyone is wrong, it's Yahoo!, Capital IQ, and or you. I did not make up or create the data I provided, I simply copied and pasted it from the Yahoo! page I provided the link to. If you have an argument with it your argument is with Yahoo! and Capital IQ.
Why don't you tell them for me now that you've been educated? You seem to be much more closely aware of their faults. I'm not interested in telling every fool out there about their misuse of words --- only you, so far.
You are the one who cited the Dictionary.com definition not me. If you were not interested you would not have cited the definition.
No one has over 80% of profit from their total sales.
Those are not my figures, they were copied and pasted from Yahoo! which got then from Capital IQ, "except where noted."
From your lack of response to the main body of my post, I receive the impression that you didn't understand my main point.
I was not replying to your "main point", I included only the part I was replying to, specifically "The problem with pretending that any Linux distro is a competitor to anything is that none of the Linux distro's have a viable economic model. Living on charity doesn't cut it for real programmers." Redhat is a Linux distributor and makes a profit. Therefore it has a viable economic model. The same with IBM.
It doesn't matter as long as it's not abused. Only when a monopoly is abuse does it matter what a monopoly is. I do agree though that different people in different places at different tymes have different definitions of what a monopoly is.
I guess it's kind of like "I can't describe it but I'll know it when I see it."
How can you know if you're abusing a monopoly position if you don't know whether or not you're a monopoly?
That's easy, if you're requiring OEMs to pay for a license for every PC sold whether your software is installed on it or not, that's abuse. Or if you require railroads to ship only your oil, or charge competitors more to ship their oil. Which is what Rockefeller did with his Standard Oil.
Those are obvious cases though, other cases would be harder to judge. To me it it's anti-competitive then it's abusive. And no, dropping prices is not anti-competitive. There are at least two ways to compeat, on price or on quality. Of course there could be competition on features as well as others.
It's the same in my house, but for different reasons. Almost 3 years ago I got a desktop, well tower, PC with Linux preinstalled. Then a year later I got a MacBook Pro for my new laptop, which I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu on it to set it up as a dualboot computer. Microsoft is practically irrelevant to me now.
Multimedia is just broken on Linux.
Multimedia is why I've thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio on my Mac. It has everything needed for multimedia including audio, graphics, and video.
Imagine if Microsoft started to write commercial software for Linux like MS-Office, MS-Money, Visual Studio, etc? What would that mean?
For years, I wondered why Microsoft didn't release Office for Linux. While they wouldn't have a Windows sell they would have had Office sells. Now however Open Office is, slowly maybe but, growing. And not just on Linux PCs but on Macs and Windows PCs too. Once people use FOSS on Windows it's possible they'll want to try other FOSS software, including Linux. Half a pie is better than no pie.
So, when are you going to tell the European Commission they're wrong? When will you tell the US Justice Department and judges they are wrong? Fact is is at least one US and one European court has ruled MS is a monopoly. You may disagree with them but they enjoy the force of law whereas you don't.
What is the standard companies are measured against to determine if they are monopoly or not? 90% market share? What ever 'feels' about right? How can one avoid crossing anti-trust laws if one cannot know when they will apply or not?
It is not illegal to be a monopoly, what is illegal is to abuse monopoly position.
Monopolies themselves are legal. What's illegal is an abusive use of a monopoly. MS having a monopoly in OSes and Office suites is legal, what's illegal is MS barring computer OEMs from installing other OSes and suites on computers, ie being anti-competitive.
You can nitpick in some conversations but for the most part when the phrases free speech/free beer are used you'll have to take them for their intended meaning
You still don't understand. Sure "free as in speech" means people have to right to speak, but I don't know what "free as in beer" means. In no way, shape, or form is beer free. Some think it's a right. But I wouldn't say it's anymore a right than soda or tea is a right.
Our Windows licenses are cheaper than our Redhat licenses
You probably get volume licenses for Windows. If I wanted to pay Redhat, even though I'm not legally required to do so to use Redhat Linux, a 1 year Basic desktop subscription is $80. The cheapest stand alone version, ie not an upgrade, of Windows Vista Amazon lists is Home Basic, which isn't good for much more than browsing the Internet, using e-mail, or viewing photos and costs $110 whereas for a more capable OS you'll pay more.
The longer support you'll get from MS makes it worthwhile but all the activation, spyware, and other things MS requires is what made me switch from a Windows to a Linux and Mac user. And with my Mac I actually get more support from Apple, if needed, than I did from MS. However I've used less support for my Mac in 2 years than I needed in one year for each and every one of the Windows PCs I owned. And I didn't pay any more for it than I would have for a similarly specified Windows PC.
The problem with pretending that any Linux distro is a competitor to anything is that none of the Linux distro's have a viable economic model. Living on charity doesn't cut it for real programmers.
Though not in the same league as Microsoft, there are Linux distro companies and venders that make a nice profit. One which is in MS's league is IBM, and it had gross profits of $45.66 Billion on revenue of $97.27 Billion. That's less than $1 Billion less than Microsoft's profits. Redhat had profits of $546.45 Million on revenue of $670.33 Million. And I bet though his net worth isn't as much as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds is worth more than a million dollars. as are other Linux developers.
there are two kinds of free: free as in no cost (free as in beer)
As I said in the post you replied to, beer is not free. Even if you brew it yourself, which I've done, it's not free. Brewing beer yourself can actually be more expensive than buying it in a store.
I purchase jugs of spring water because I like the taste. I pay $2.50 for a large (25L) container when refilling it myself from the depot.
That's better than buying water in 1 liter use once bottles. I can go into many different stores and see row after row of water in 1 liter, and smaller, disposable bottles. Heck, I early today I refilled my 5 gallon refillable water bottle, and I paid less than $1. However I'd prefer to have a Whole-House Water Filter. That or a spring with good water near my home, actually I'd prefer the spring then if needed would use the filter.
Slashdot Mirror
It is closed source the newcomer: up to the seventies not giving you the source code would seem quite as stupid as if somebody would try to sell you a car but retains control of the engine keys
Yea, it was Harvard dropout Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen who wanted source code closed, and threw a fit when hackers shared software. If it wasn't because they liked to share he would not have become the world's wealthiest person.
Falcon
shortcut
makes perfect sense. People who know what is up can still go to ctrl-alt-f1 and kill X from there. People who don't know what they are doing shouldn't loose all their data every time they smash the keyboard with their palm.
First let me say I don't know what CTRL+ALT+Backspace is or does though I know what CRT+ALT+Delete is and does in Windows. With that out of the way, don't you think it's just as easy to CTRL+ALT+F1 by smashing the keyboard as it is to CTRL+ALT+Backspace?
Falcon
You tell others to RTFA but apparently you didn't read both of them. The second one has this tidbit:
"Change #2 is just an artefact of collecting the usage data. We could only see what parts of the FF UI people were using to do searches if we sent them to our custom page. This usage data is important because it helps us channel design and development resources to useful features, and is also important because it can be tied to revenue generation."
Falcon
It's a no-effort, free-as-in-beer way of supporting my favourite OS.
I plan on installing Ubuntu Studio on my Mac and if Firefox has this extension I will be looking on how I can get rid of or disable it. If I want to support Canonical and Ubuntu I'll help those I can and buy support from Canonical. I already have Firefox setup the way I want on my Mac and I want to use the same data stores in both OSes. That's what I do now, I have both Firefox 2 and 3 and they both use the same ones. I have FF 2 running now with a bunch of tabs open. If I start FF 3 it will open with the same tabs open. If I add a bookmark to one it will be there in the other too.
Falcon
Actually free software isn't new. Members of the Tech Model Railroad Club, some of the original computer hackers, at MIT openly posted source code as early as 1959, 50 years ago. Open source Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Unix was released in 1977.
Falcon
source code available / modifiable
I doubt that there are that many Ubuntu users that know how the program or read the source and understand it though. Ubuntu's supposed to be a user friendly Linux distro for the masses.
Why is it that when MS releases something, everyone darkly talks about hidden backdoors, but when an open source vendor releases someone, people complain that the vendor wasn't completely forthcoming in the release notes?
What's the difference between MS's backdoors and Ubuntu's backdoors if nobody is told? Windows and other proprietary software company fanbois would be complaining if Linux/Ubuntu/FOSS fanbois didn't complain, and here you're complaining because they are complaining.
Falcon
Well, I can publicly say you're wrong, but I can't in public say why I know you're wrong.
You can not say I'm wrong because I am not wrong. If anyone is wrong, it's Yahoo!, Capital IQ, and or you. I did not make up or create the data I provided, I simply copied and pasted it from the Yahoo! page I provided the link to. If you have an argument with it your argument is with Yahoo! and Capital IQ.
Falcon
Why don't you tell them for me now that you've been educated? You seem to be much more closely aware of their faults. I'm not interested in telling every fool out there about their misuse of words --- only you, so far.
You are the one who cited the Dictionary.com definition not me. If you were not interested you would not have cited the definition.
Falcon
No one has over 80% of profit from their total sales.
Those are not my figures, they were copied and pasted from Yahoo! which got then from Capital IQ, "except where noted."
From your lack of response to the main body of my post, I receive the impression that you didn't understand my main point.
I was not replying to your "main point", I included only the part I was replying to, specifically "The problem with pretending that any Linux distro is a competitor to anything is that none of the Linux distro's have a viable economic model. Living on charity doesn't cut it for real programmers." Redhat is a Linux distributor and makes a profit. Therefore it has a viable economic model. The same with IBM.
Falcon
and not the standard for monopoly.
It doesn't matter as long as it's not abused. Only when a monopoly is abuse does it matter what a monopoly is. I do agree though that different people in different places at different tymes have different definitions of what a monopoly is.
I guess it's kind of like "I can't describe it but I'll know it when I see it."
Falcon
After all, they need to hold on to that monopoly position on the desktop to keep their server business afloat.
Microsoft doesn't seem to be suffering much with a decline in web servers as compared to others. By a pretty good margin IIS is still number 2.
Falcon
How can you know if you're abusing a monopoly position if you don't know whether or not you're a monopoly?
That's easy, if you're requiring OEMs to pay for a license for every PC sold whether your software is installed on it or not, that's abuse. Or if you require railroads to ship only your oil, or charge competitors more to ship their oil. Which is what Rockefeller did with his Standard Oil.
Those are obvious cases though, other cases would be harder to judge. To me it it's anti-competitive then it's abusive. And no, dropping prices is not anti-competitive. There are at least two ways to compeat, on price or on quality. Of course there could be competition on features as well as others.
Falcon
about their relevance in my house.
It's the same in my house, but for different reasons. Almost 3 years ago I got a desktop, well tower, PC with Linux preinstalled. Then a year later I got a MacBook Pro for my new laptop, which I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu on it to set it up as a dualboot computer. Microsoft is practically irrelevant to me now.
Multimedia is just broken on Linux.
Multimedia is why I've thinking of installing Ubuntu Studio on my Mac. It has everything needed for multimedia including audio, graphics, and video.
Falcon
Imagine if Microsoft started to write commercial software for Linux like MS-Office, MS-Money, Visual Studio, etc? What would that mean?
For years, I wondered why Microsoft didn't release Office for Linux. While they wouldn't have a Windows sell they would have had Office sells. Now however Open Office is, slowly maybe but, growing. And not just on Linux PCs but on Macs and Windows PCs too. Once people use FOSS on Windows it's possible they'll want to try other FOSS software, including Linux. Half a pie is better than no pie.
Falcon
So, when are you going to tell the European Commission they're wrong? When will you tell the US Justice Department and judges they are wrong? Fact is is at least one US and one European court has ruled MS is a monopoly. You may disagree with them but they enjoy the force of law whereas you don't.
Falcon
What is the standard companies are measured against to determine if they are monopoly or not? 90% market share? What ever 'feels' about right? How can one avoid crossing anti-trust laws if one cannot know when they will apply or not?
It is not illegal to be a monopoly, what is illegal is to abuse monopoly position.
Falcon
no competitors.
yes it does. wtf?
No it doesn't. Microsoft was found to be a monopoly, which is not illegal, yet it has competitors.
Falcon
Monopolies themselves are legal. What's illegal is an abusive use of a monopoly. MS having a monopoly in OSes and Office suites is legal, what's illegal is MS barring computer OEMs from installing other OSes and suites on computers, ie being anti-competitive.
Falcon
They are so like children.
No more than Mac, Windows, or other zealots.
Falcon
You can nitpick in some conversations but for the most part when the phrases free speech/free beer are used you'll have to take them for their intended meaning
You still don't understand. Sure "free as in speech" means people have to right to speak, but I don't know what "free as in beer" means. In no way, shape, or form is beer free. Some think it's a right. But I wouldn't say it's anymore a right than soda or tea is a right.
Falcon
Our Windows licenses are cheaper than our Redhat licenses
You probably get volume licenses for Windows. If I wanted to pay Redhat, even though I'm not legally required to do so to use Redhat Linux, a 1 year Basic desktop subscription is $80. The cheapest stand alone version, ie not an upgrade, of Windows Vista Amazon lists is Home Basic, which isn't good for much more than browsing the Internet, using e-mail, or viewing photos and costs $110 whereas for a more capable OS you'll pay more.
The longer support you'll get from MS makes it worthwhile but all the activation, spyware, and other things MS requires is what made me switch from a Windows to a Linux and Mac user. And with my Mac I actually get more support from Apple, if needed, than I did from MS. However I've used less support for my Mac in 2 years than I needed in one year for each and every one of the Windows PCs I owned. And I didn't pay any more for it than I would have for a similarly specified Windows PC.
Falcon
The problem with pretending that any Linux distro is a competitor to anything is that none of the Linux distro's have a viable economic model. Living on charity doesn't cut it for real programmers.
Though not in the same league as Microsoft, there are Linux distro companies and venders that make a nice profit. One which is in MS's league is IBM, and it had gross profits of $45.66 Billion on revenue of $97.27 Billion. That's less than $1 Billion less than Microsoft's profits. Redhat had profits of $546.45 Million on revenue of $670.33 Million. And I bet though his net worth isn't as much as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds is worth more than a million dollars. as are other Linux developers.
Falcon
A straw man.
Falcon
there are two kinds of free: free as in no cost (free as in beer)
As I said in the post you replied to, beer is not free. Even if you brew it yourself, which I've done, it's not free. Brewing beer yourself can actually be more expensive than buying it in a store.
Falcon
I purchase jugs of spring water because I like the taste. I pay $2.50 for a large (25L) container when refilling it myself from the depot.
That's better than buying water in 1 liter use once bottles. I can go into many different stores and see row after row of water in 1 liter, and smaller, disposable bottles. Heck, I early today I refilled my 5 gallon refillable water bottle, and I paid less than $1. However I'd prefer to have a Whole-House Water Filter. That or a spring with good water near my home, actually I'd prefer the spring then if needed would use the filter.
Falcon