Today, ANY idiot with enough cash or access to a computer at work can jump online and post anything he or she wants to. They can be as "authoritative" as they want. Why did this happen? Because the true point of the internet (free exchange of information, ideas, collaboration on culturally and globally beneficial non-profit projects) was lost.
If you have gatekeepers you don't have free exchange. There is far more free exchange in the web today than on the old internet from just ten years ago. Just because a person has to take measures to make sure any info they get is true, which has always been true, does not mean free exchange has been lost. Simply the more free exchange there is the more people have to take measures to be sure about the reliability of they see or hear on the net, and tools for Google make it easier to do research.
There was even an early time on the web where a search in Altavista would give you decent results on various topics without providing many links to companies that sell related products. But today, no matter which search engine you use, various searches inevitably turn up a lot of dreck that is meant to convince you to BUY a solution to a problem instead of BUILD one. It's no wonder that I've resorted to using Wikipedia when I have questions about things as well as AUGMENTING the information with the subscription databases that my public library provides to it's members for free. At least following those routes, one can avoid the McNet for the most part.
More ten years ago I started using Altavista and I still use it. I have no problem distiguishing ads from real results in my searchs. However if you have this problem maybe you should give Mooter a try. And if it weren't for the internet and web your Wikipedia wouldn't even exist. Me, I have found the web emminently helpful and valiable. After having survived a TBI, Traumatic Brain injury, more than ten years ago (after I started using Altavista) I was able to find websites like the one above by using search engines. These websites I have found have been helpful. I have even found chatrooms I can chat with other TBI survivors and/or their caregivers as well as medical, neurological professionals. If I had to go through gatekeepers I doubt I'd ever have been able to find any of these sites. No, the internet would only be a gated community only the elite would have access to.
In fairness to the Slashdot summary, the article itself starts, "The freedoms built in to the net are under attack like never before, argues regular columnist Bill Thompson", which seems like nonsense. He goes on about how important the end-to-end principle is, then says it's not really Vista that's attacking it at all.
Yeah, reading the/. summary I thought the actual article was going to come down on Vista hard but RTFA it doesn't say much about Vista at all. While I don't like MS's tactics and business methods I can only take the summary as FUD.
They were wrong, and their parent publications were generally too stupid (or embarrassed) to archive their words on the Internet, so I don't have links for you...
Oh God.. Don't remind me. I was trying this weekend to write a college paper on the history of the internet. I eventually gave up and picked another topic because the myraid of things I remember that were interesting and not just technical simply aren't recorded or have been removed. Some of the things I remember myself (got my first email account and was big into MUDS in the last 80s) simply can't be found anymore and I needed solid references not just what I remembered. Sad really.
I predict that a lot of people with no clue will buy HD videos, take them home, try to play them in their PC, find out that they can't do that without additional software, and return them - so the ICT will be a non-issue.
Unfortunately when they return a movie that won't play on thier computer, people will find out they can't get a refund. Once the media container is opened all they can do is exchange it.
I suggest you read the various opinions of Thomas Jefferson, his inspirations, and his contemporaries.
Yeap, at first Thomas Jefferson was against copyrights and patents. Eventually though his friend James Madison convinced him that they would spur the arts and sciences. Once convinced he sat down with an actuary table and calculated the optimum length copyrights and patents should last was 14 years, with one 14 year exention possible. TJ eventually took out some patents himself.
Copyright is an attempt to bridge the infinitely scarce with the infinitely plenty. If it didn't exist then some of the greatest writers would have had to keep day jobs in order to stay alive and thus could not have put nearly as much effort into their work. We wouldn't have most sci-fi films because the cost of doing them would be prohibitive. It goes on.
While I agree with the limited monopoly copyrights and patents afford to creators, I used to write and still photograph, to say nothing would be written if not for copyright and nothing invented if not for patents is to ignore the vast majority of human history. When Shakespear wrote his plays he didn't have copyrights, nor did Chaucer when he wrote "Tale of Two Cities". Copyrights didn't exist when Gilgamesh, the oldest known written story, was written. Ancient Greece, Athens, was known for it's arts however Athenians didn't enjoy copyrights.
Saying you own the "right" to a specific order of notes, is as about stupid as a photographer trying to claim he owns the copyright on a photo. If I retake the photo with my own camera, in the same location, and same time of day, do I now _also_ have copyright?!
I agreed with your statement until I got to the end and read this, above. A photographer does own the rights to any and all photos s/he takes unless they shoot while working for hire or until they sale the rights. That does not mean they have the right to prevent someone else from taking the same photo, except in certain circumstances. For instance I have the right to take a photo of someone in a public space without their permission just as everyone else does. Now if the person is identifiable I can't sale the photo unless I get their permission, but I can sale it without a release if the person is not identificable. I can't prevent someone else from enjoying the same rights however,. I love to walk around a lake near where I live and take photos of the wind surfers on the lake, often I wish I were out there too, and I have no right to prevent others from doing the same though I do have the right to prevent someone else from using the photo I took.
The ATMs (aids, tuberculosis, malaria) kill millions (yes, millions!!!) of people every year because they can't afford to pay for the patents over the medicine. These drugs are easily reproducable at cheap enough cost to save the majority of these people.
While I agree more people would be saved if they could afford drugs it's also true that many die from drug resistent strains of TB, malaria, and other microbes.
You can't profit from something which is available for free(or copied for free).
A bunch of businesses do just this, make money for something that's freely available. Let's start with IBM, the company is making money off of Linux, not so much from selling it as offering Linux support. Redhat, Novell, and other Linux distro do the same thing. Other business that use different methodologies also make money, say those that offer computer rentals. They don't sale computers, they sale service and support for computer systems. Auto manufacturers and dealers rent out vehicles on long term leases.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid you're expecting way too much of users. They'll go "bah, who cares, it's just a computer" like they do about everything else and just buy the new version of whatever crap they're expected to buy.
And they'll keep on getting searched at airports, being scared of tshirts, believing whatever imaginary threats are shown on TV and so on. Just like they're supposed to.
I fear you're not only not wrong, but also that people will sale their soul for security, and to get stuff cheap.
It's a threat to my continuing to use the Windows family of products... I'll stick with XP for a while but once I'm ready to upgrade I'm either going Mac or Linux.
The threat of my continued use of Windows started with XP. Because of Activation and WGA/WPA I decided to switch to Linux on my desktop and OSX on my laptop. While I beleive in innocence before guilt MS not only wants the user to prove innocence just to install Windows but once installed wants to continually spy on the user and assumes guilt at all tymes.
But please don't take your pension and my social security and offer services which are priced lower than normal wholesale costs. In the international arena it's called dumping and it's illegal. Remember - this guy is being supported on SS (or will be in a few years - by the time he's worth anything) - so it's not exactly apples to apples.
First if someone's retiring and is going to collect Social Security then they paid into it. Next, if they had instead of paying SS tax, they had invested the same amount of money throughout their working life they actually be ahead of someone would paid SS tax. If a person saves and invests just $2000 a year from the age of 18 to 25 when they reach 65 they have almost a million dollars invested with an ROI of 10%.
If you're going to get a mac book, i'd look into Aperture from Apple. Its a pretty good program. Adobe has had to counter it by creating a similar program called Lightroom. I've heard good things about Aperture on the Mac from my mac friends. I'm not sure how deep its photoediting features are compared to Photoshop. Photoshop is pretty much the standard tool.
I've thought about getting Aperture. For archiving and keeping a record of all editting done on photos it's good but it's not really a photo editor. It can be used to get photos ready to print on a consumer printer but I wouldn't want to use it on a pro printer model or to send to a pro lab.
They would want to buy a Mac. You can do a LOT more things a LOT cheaper on a normal PC.
I'll tell you why I'm switching from Windows PCs to Linux for my desktop and Mac OSX for my laptop. I'm switching because I believe in innocence before guilt, and MS makes you prove you're innocent to begin with, Windows and Office Activation, then makes you continue proving you're innocent with WGA/WPA and constant spying. And that's leaving out all the DRM Vista incorporates.
Agreed! Especially for photographers, serious amateurs and pros. When GIMP offers at least 12 bit colour depth then it may be a good cheap, free, replacement for Photoshop.
If you want to take on photoshop... You have to get serious. Its not that hard to make a better app than photoshop. Painter and Alias Sketchbook pro both feature things that make photoshop seem primative....
Are Painter and Alias really good photo editors, better than PS? I'm hoping to break into photography but as I'm on disability and don't work I can't justify the expense of PS. So I've been considering other programs like Painter, Blender, Xara Xtreme, Inkscape, or ImageMagick. I'm hoping to get a Macbook Pro rsn and when I do I've give them a test drive.
Last time i ran linux.. the whole dependency thing drove me mad and installing things were varied experiences.
Linspire is coming out with ports for different distros of linux for Click N Run or CNR. Installing software with it means there's no dependencies to deal with, CNR takes care of installing software. Once the CNR software is installed the user goes to the CNR software warehouse, choose what software they want, then click the install button. CNR downloads and installs the software, if there are any dependencies it takes care of them. Linux geeks may frown on such things, but they have to realize that if they want the average computer user to use Linux then there has to be an easy way for users to install apps.
It was a good product introduced at the right time for the right audience.
Compared to MacOS Windows 3.1 was a piece of shit. I used it for programming but for everything else, word processing, drawing, and desktop publishing, I used Macs. And the only reason I used it for programming was because the programming classes used it not MacOS, I'd rather have used Macs when programming.
In my view, these are the features of the mythical desktop-distro-for-the-masses:
1. It has to be available in stores. Joe Bloggs wants to just go and buy it. A net install would also be necessary of course. The installation must be as automatic as possible, it must ask the minimum number of questions as it can.
Joe Bloggs doesn't want to go into a store to buy a Linux distro, he wants to buy a computer with an OS already installed.
2. Remove choices. Yes. REMOVE choices. Have the distro setup so that it has one carefully selected instance of each software type you need, one word processor, one spreadsheet, one database, one graphics package... Everything is installed, there is no asking "do you want", it is there in your "start menu" from the get-go. When Joe decides one Sunday afternoon to make a movie... "Start > Movies > Movie Maker".
I'm not sure about removing choices but having an app for each use yes, and Linspire Linux, Debian based, does this. When you bootup it even looks kind of like Windows, and you click on "start", er "launch" button, as there's the menu for programs.
3. In the start menu it's not "GIMP" it's "Image Editor".
"Paint program" in Linspire.
In the software repository (Debian based naturally), again, remove choices. People don't want 20 different examples of a web browser, they want 1 which has been carefully chosen as "the best". And installing software from the repository should be seamless, I'd go so far as to make it as easy as selecting "Start > Games > Tetris" and it installs from the repository if it's not already there. Do away with package management interfaces,
Linspire has a software warehouse, CNR, which they ar in the process of offering to other Linux distros wherein a person can select programs to install then click on the install button after which they ar downloaded and installed without having to worry about dependencies or anything else. If the user doesn't like a program it's just anothe rclick to uninstall the program.
Joe Bloggs down the road doesn't WANT all that stuff. They want to do a job, they want the computer to just get out of the way and let him do the job, they want the computer to help him, not to make him jump through hoops to tell the computer exactly how to do such and such.
That's a bit of a contradiction isn't it? If Joe Bloggs doesn't want to jump through hoops then why is he using Windows which requires a bunch of jumps? And that's if he's lucky and it doesn't crapout on him. Tyme will only tell if Vista is good and stable.
And don't get me started on the forums, I've seen plenty of them where if you didn't know, you were an idiot or a troll and were cast away..
I've noticed slashdot is getting more and more like this, if you show the slightest lack of knowledge on a subject people come out of the jungle to pounce and say you're a troll or are an ignorant fool who shouldn't be touching a computer. And I remember when hackers helped willingly without being snide. Then again, today "hackers" are only criminals, scammers, and vandals. At least to the mass media, and the public is swallowing what they say up.
Still needs support and transitioning to it can be a major expense
I think this is an invalid arugment against upgrading to Linux. Saying switching to Linux has costs involved without mentioning anything about the expense of upgradng from say Win2000 or even XP to Vista is FUD. All upgrades have expenses.
What pain? NT 4.0 is the only version of Windows I have used I did not have crash, give me the BSOD, or freeze on me. Even XP froze on me the first tyme I used it, but NT 4 never has. Now I have had some pain with the PC NT is installed on, however that's not the fault of the OS. The problem is that the cpu is a DEC Alpha and I wasn't able to get much software installed on it.
Now, with XP, you need to ask daddy Bill permission to run your system if you changed something they think is crucial.
Yeap, both Activation and WGA/WPA are driving me away from MS Windows and to Linux and Macs. I recently got a PC with Linux preinstalled to replace my desktop and I plan on getting a Macbook Pro for my laptop. I'll not stay in hot water until I'm boiled.
That one fact alone means a whole lot to the average person. They want something they can get help with from people they know, the want something they can replace easily, they want the dominant operating system. Just like most people want the dominant movie format, and will wait to get it.
I don't think the average person wants the dominant OS, what they want to to get a computer with an OS already installed, most never install an OS. And because Windows is preinstalled in most PCs people buy a PC with Windows. If more OEMs offered PCs with Linux preinstalled, yes there are some as I bought one a few months ago, then more people would buy them and use Linux. Unfortunately there's also the public perception that Linux is for nerds and most who have heard of Linux don't believe it can be used to do the same things as Windows PCs can. I frequently hear the same thing stated about Macs, that it's not something that can used productively, or in another area, there's no games for Macs. I'm puzzled about this, if Macs can't be used for productive work and there's no games for them then what are they for? I know Macs can be just as productive as Windows PCs and while there aren't as many there are games for Macs.
Get 4 people to together to discuss OSes and you'll get 6 different opinions.
Slashdot Mirror
Today, ANY idiot with enough cash or access to a computer at work can jump online and post anything he or she wants to. They can be as "authoritative" as they want. Why did this happen? Because the true point of the internet (free exchange of information, ideas, collaboration on culturally and globally beneficial non-profit projects) was lost.
If you have gatekeepers you don't have free exchange. There is far more free exchange in the web today than on the old internet from just ten years ago. Just because a person has to take measures to make sure any info they get is true, which has always been true, does not mean free exchange has been lost. Simply the more free exchange there is the more people have to take measures to be sure about the reliability of they see or hear on the net, and tools for Google make it easier to do research.
There was even an early time on the web where a search in Altavista would give you decent results on various topics without providing many links to companies that sell related products. But today, no matter which search engine you use, various searches inevitably turn up a lot of dreck that is meant to convince you to BUY a solution to a problem instead of BUILD one. It's no wonder that I've resorted to using Wikipedia when I have questions about things as well as AUGMENTING the information with the subscription databases that my public library provides to it's members for free. At least following those routes, one can avoid the McNet for the most part.
More ten years ago I started using Altavista and I still use it. I have no problem distiguishing ads from real results in my searchs. However if you have this problem maybe you should give Mooter a try. And if it weren't for the internet and web your Wikipedia wouldn't even exist. Me, I have found the web emminently helpful and valiable. After having survived a TBI, Traumatic Brain injury, more than ten years ago (after I started using Altavista) I was able to find websites like the one above by using search engines. These websites I have found have been helpful. I have even found chatrooms I can chat with other TBI survivors and/or their caregivers as well as medical, neurological professionals. If I had to go through gatekeepers I doubt I'd ever have been able to find any of these sites. No, the internet would only be a gated community only the elite would have access to.
FalconIn fairness to the Slashdot summary, the article itself starts, "The freedoms built in to the net are under attack like never before, argues regular columnist Bill Thompson", which seems like nonsense. He goes on about how important the end-to-end principle is, then says it's not really Vista that's attacking it at all.
Yeah, reading the /. summary I thought the actual article was going to come down on Vista hard but RTFA it doesn't say much about Vista at all. While I don't like MS's tactics and business methods I can only take the summary as FUD.
FalconThey were wrong, and their parent publications were generally too stupid (or embarrassed) to archive their words on the Internet, so I don't have links for you...
Oh God.. Don't remind me. I was trying this weekend to write a college paper on the history of the internet. I eventually gave up and picked another topic because the myraid of things I remember that were interesting and not just technical simply aren't recorded or have been removed. Some of the things I remember myself (got my first email account and was big into MUDS in the last 80s) simply can't be found anymore and I needed solid references not just what I remembered. Sad really.
I don't know if they have any of it but have you thought of checking out the Way Back Machine, Internet Archives? Another place to look is Find Articles.
FalconArtists will largely accept this turn of events, because in their view, they've already spent more than enough years starving.
Actually more and more artists, muscians in this case, are turning to the Creative Commons and are uploading their music to services like this one as well as Internet Archives, GoingWare, and Magnatunes amoung others.
FalconI predict that a lot of people with no clue will buy HD videos, take them home, try to play them in their PC, find out that they can't do that without additional software, and return them - so the ICT will be a non-issue.
Unfortunately when they return a movie that won't play on thier computer, people will find out they can't get a refund. Once the media container is opened all they can do is exchange it.
FalconI suggest you read the various opinions of Thomas Jefferson, his inspirations, and his contemporaries.
Yeap, at first Thomas Jefferson was against copyrights and patents. Eventually though his friend James Madison convinced him that they would spur the arts and sciences. Once convinced he sat down with an actuary table and calculated the optimum length copyrights and patents should last was 14 years, with one 14 year exention possible. TJ eventually took out some patents himself.
FalconIn November 2006 Redhat made almost $90 million, almost all of it because of open source software.
The sell-service model is a highly limited sector.
Notice please I said selling services and support. Nowhere did I mention a self-service business model.
FalconCopyright is an attempt to bridge the infinitely scarce with the infinitely plenty. If it didn't exist then some of the greatest writers would have had to keep day jobs in order to stay alive and thus could not have put nearly as much effort into their work. We wouldn't have most sci-fi films because the cost of doing them would be prohibitive. It goes on.
While I agree with the limited monopoly copyrights and patents afford to creators, I used to write and still photograph, to say nothing would be written if not for copyright and nothing invented if not for patents is to ignore the vast majority of human history. When Shakespear wrote his plays he didn't have copyrights, nor did Chaucer when he wrote "Tale of Two Cities". Copyrights didn't exist when Gilgamesh , the oldest known written story, was written. Ancient Greece, Athens, was known for it's arts however Athenians didn't enjoy copyrights.
FalconTo encourage creativity and progress.
FalconSaying you own the "right" to a specific order of notes, is as about stupid as a photographer trying to claim he owns the copyright on a photo. If I retake the photo with my own camera, in the same location, and same time of day, do I now _also_ have copyright?!
I agreed with your statement until I got to the end and read this, above. A photographer does own the rights to any and all photos s/he takes unless they shoot while working for hire or until they sale the rights. That does not mean they have the right to prevent someone else from taking the same photo, except in certain circumstances. For instance I have the right to take a photo of someone in a public space without their permission just as everyone else does. Now if the person is identifiable I can't sale the photo unless I get their permission, but I can sale it without a release if the person is not identificable. I can't prevent someone else from enjoying the same rights however,. I love to walk around a lake near where I live and take photos of the wind surfers on the lake, often I wish I were out there too, and I have no right to prevent others from doing the same though I do have the right to prevent someone else from using the photo I took.
FalconThe ATMs (aids, tuberculosis, malaria) kill millions (yes, millions!!!) of people every year because they can't afford to pay for the patents over the medicine. These drugs are easily reproducable at cheap enough cost to save the majority of these people.
While I agree more people would be saved if they could afford drugs it's also true that many die from drug resistent strains of TB, malaria, and other microbes.
FalconYou can't profit from something which is available for free(or copied for free).
A bunch of businesses do just this, make money for something that's freely available. Let's start with IBM, the company is making money off of Linux, not so much from selling it as offering Linux support. Redhat, Novell, and other Linux distro do the same thing. Other business that use different methodologies also make money, say those that offer computer rentals. They don't sale computers, they sale service and support for computer systems. Auto manufacturers and dealers rent out vehicles on long term leases.
FalconUnfortunately, I'm afraid you're expecting way too much of users. They'll go "bah, who cares, it's just a computer" like they do about everything else and just buy the new version of whatever crap they're expected to buy.
And they'll keep on getting searched at airports, being scared of tshirts, believing whatever imaginary threats are shown on TV and so on. Just like they're supposed to.
I fear you're not only not wrong, but also that people will sale their soul for security, and to get stuff cheap.
FalconIt's a threat to my continuing to use the Windows family of products... I'll stick with XP for a while but once I'm ready to upgrade I'm either going Mac or Linux.
The threat of my continued use of Windows started with XP. Because of Activation and WGA/WPA I decided to switch to Linux on my desktop and OSX on my laptop. While I beleive in innocence before guilt MS not only wants the user to prove innocence just to install Windows but once installed wants to continually spy on the user and assumes guilt at all tymes.
FalconBut please don't take your pension and my social security and offer services which are priced lower than normal wholesale costs. In the international arena it's called dumping and it's illegal. Remember - this guy is being supported on SS (or will be in a few years - by the time he's worth anything) - so it's not exactly apples to apples.
First if someone's retiring and is going to collect Social Security then they paid into it. Next, if they had instead of paying SS tax, they had invested the same amount of money throughout their working life they actually be ahead of someone would paid SS tax. If a person saves and invests just $2000 a year from the age of 18 to 25 when they reach 65 they have almost a million dollars invested with an ROI of 10%.
FalconIf you're going to get a mac book, i'd look into Aperture from Apple. Its a pretty good program. Adobe has had to counter it by creating a similar program called Lightroom. I've heard good things about Aperture on the Mac from my mac friends. I'm not sure how deep its photoediting features are compared to Photoshop. Photoshop is pretty much the standard tool.
I've thought about getting Aperture. For archiving and keeping a record of all editting done on photos it's good but it's not really a photo editor. It can be used to get photos ready to print on a consumer printer but I wouldn't want to use it on a pro printer model or to send to a pro lab.
FalconThey would want to buy a Mac. You can do a LOT more things a LOT cheaper on a normal PC.
I'll tell you why I'm switching from Windows PCs to Linux for my desktop and Mac OSX for my laptop. I'm switching because I believe in innocence before guilt, and MS makes you prove you're innocent to begin with, Windows and Office Activation, then makes you continue proving you're innocent with WGA/WPA and constant spying. And that's leaving out all the DRM Vista incorporates.
FalconAgreed! Especially for photographers, serious amateurs and pros. When GIMP offers at least 12 bit colour depth then it may be a good cheap, free, replacement for Photoshop.
If you want to take on photoshop... You have to get serious. Its not that hard to make a better app than photoshop. Painter and Alias Sketchbook pro both feature things that make photoshop seem primative....
Are Painter and Alias really good photo editors, better than PS? I'm hoping to break into photography but as I'm on disability and don't work I can't justify the expense of PS. So I've been considering other programs like Painter, Blender, Xara Xtreme, Inkscape, or ImageMagick. I'm hoping to get a Macbook Pro rsn and when I do I've give them a test drive.
Last time i ran linux.. the whole dependency thing drove me mad and installing things were varied experiences.
Linspire is coming out with ports for different distros of linux for Click N Run or CNR. Installing software with it means there's no dependencies to deal with, CNR takes care of installing software. Once the CNR software is installed the user goes to the CNR software warehouse, choose what software they want, then click the install button. CNR downloads and installs the software, if there are any dependencies it takes care of them. Linux geeks may frown on such things, but they have to realize that if they want the average computer user to use Linux then there has to be an easy way for users to install apps.
FalconIt was a good product introduced at the right time for the right audience.
Compared to MacOS Windows 3.1 was a piece of shit. I used it for programming but for everything else, word processing, drawing, and desktop publishing, I used Macs. And the only reason I used it for programming was because the programming classes used it not MacOS, I'd rather have used Macs when programming.
FalconIn my view, these are the features of the mythical desktop-distro-for-the-masses:
1. It has to be available in stores. Joe Bloggs wants to just go and buy it. A net install would also be necessary of course. The installation must be as automatic as possible, it must ask the minimum number of questions as it can.
Joe Bloggs doesn't want to go into a store to buy a Linux distro, he wants to buy a computer with an OS already installed.
2. Remove choices. Yes. REMOVE choices. Have the distro setup so that it has one carefully selected instance of each software type you need, one word processor, one spreadsheet, one database, one graphics package... Everything is installed, there is no asking "do you want", it is there in your "start menu" from the get-go. When Joe decides one Sunday afternoon to make a movie... "Start > Movies > Movie Maker".
I'm not sure about removing choices but having an app for each use yes, and Linspire Linux, Debian based, does this. When you bootup it even looks kind of like Windows, and you click on "start", er "launch" button, as there's the menu for programs.
3. In the start menu it's not "GIMP" it's "Image Editor".
"Paint program" in Linspire.
In the software repository (Debian based naturally), again, remove choices. People don't want 20 different examples of a web browser, they want 1 which has been carefully chosen as "the best". And installing software from the repository should be seamless, I'd go so far as to make it as easy as selecting "Start > Games > Tetris" and it installs from the repository if it's not already there. Do away with package management interfaces,
Linspire has a software warehouse, CNR, which they ar in the process of offering to other Linux distros wherein a person can select programs to install then click on the install button after which they ar downloaded and installed without having to worry about dependencies or anything else. If the user doesn't like a program it's just anothe rclick to uninstall the program.
Joe Bloggs down the road doesn't WANT all that stuff. They want to do a job, they want the computer to just get out of the way and let him do the job, they want the computer to help him, not to make him jump through hoops to tell the computer exactly how to do such and such.
That's a bit of a contradiction isn't it? If Joe Bloggs doesn't want to jump through hoops then why is he using Windows which requires a bunch of jumps? And that's if he's lucky and it doesn't crapout on him. Tyme will only tell if Vista is good and stable.
FalconHe should of been president in 1988.
FalconAnd don't get me started on the forums, I've seen plenty of them where if you didn't know, you were an idiot or a troll and were cast away..
I've noticed slashdot is getting more and more like this, if you show the slightest lack of knowledge on a subject people come out of the jungle to pounce and say you're a troll or are an ignorant fool who shouldn't be touching a computer. And I remember when hackers helped willingly without being snide. Then again, today "hackers" are only criminals, scammers, and vandals. At least to the mass media, and the public is swallowing what they say up.
FalconStill needs support and transitioning to it can be a major expense
I think this is an invalid arugment against upgrading to Linux. Saying switching to Linux has costs involved without mentioning anything about the expense of upgradng from say Win2000 or even XP to Vista is FUD. All upgrades have expenses.
FalconWhat pain? NT 4.0 is the only version of Windows I have used I did not have crash, give me the BSOD, or freeze on me. Even XP froze on me the first tyme I used it, but NT 4 never has. Now I have had some pain with the PC NT is installed on, however that's not the fault of the OS. The problem is that the cpu is a DEC Alpha and I wasn't able to get much software installed on it.
Now, with XP, you need to ask daddy Bill permission to run your system if you changed something they think is crucial.
Yeap, both Activation and WGA/WPA are driving me away from MS Windows and to Linux and Macs. I recently got a PC with Linux preinstalled to replace my desktop and I plan on getting a Macbook Pro for my laptop. I'll not stay in hot water until I'm boiled.
FalconThat one fact alone means a whole lot to the average person. They want something they can get help with from people they know, the want something they can replace easily, they want the dominant operating system. Just like most people want the dominant movie format, and will wait to get it.
I don't think the average person wants the dominant OS, what they want to to get a computer with an OS already installed, most never install an OS. And because Windows is preinstalled in most PCs people buy a PC with Windows. If more OEMs offered PCs with Linux preinstalled, yes there are some as I bought one a few months ago, then more people would buy them and use Linux. Unfortunately there's also the public perception that Linux is for nerds and most who have heard of Linux don't believe it can be used to do the same things as Windows PCs can. I frequently hear the same thing stated about Macs, that it's not something that can used productively, or in another area, there's no games for Macs. I'm puzzled about this, if Macs can't be used for productive work and there's no games for them then what are they for? I know Macs can be just as productive as Windows PCs and while there aren't as many there are games for Macs.
Get 4 people to together to discuss OSes and you'll get 6 different opinions.
Falcon