> I'm the person who originally posted the story..
Unless you provide names - we can't hep you. But anyone who downloads free software and expects technical support at no cost shouldn't be running a business. Next time he call ask him to come round and fix your washing machine for free.
If you want an inexact analogy, if a shop gave ma a "free" washing machine then said I had to pay an engineer to come out every time I wanted to use it, I would get pissed off at their describing it as free.
Most non-technical people hear "free software" and fail to parse it into "free software but the support costs money".
If I were a customer and the helpline was a premium rate number, I would stop using that product, especially if I hadn't paid for it in the first place.
I'm the person who originally posted the story. Unfortunately when dealing with software targeted to businesses the IT person or the consultant is the one who installs the product, rarely the one who ends up calling support , so any "I agree" check boxes during the installation are unlikely to get the message to the people who really need it.
In fact most of the time the person calling has no idea they are using a free product, despite it being clearly displayed on every screen, and no idea if they have paid for support.
No doubt the "consultant" has trousered a fee for installing and setting up the "free" software, so why wouldn't the customer think they had paid for support?
On some things, you'd be fucking insane to go anywhere else. When I pass kids going into the bookstore at my university I almost want to slap their dumb asses sometimes. They pay 2-3 times what Amazon charges for books, and then bitch and moan about some $25 lab fee.
Online generation my ass.
Some of us oldies like to read real paper books, and also like to have real bookshops to go to.
I think it's a good sign that at least some young kids feel the same.
Yeah, the search and presentation of results is really horrible on Amazon. What I've been doing lately is using Newegg to find the exact mix of features that I want and then searching Amazon for that model number to get free shipping via Prime.
Hope you're happy when Newegg go out of business and you're left with Amazon, a shitty search function, and no competitors.
Now try saying that in a free market the consumer always ends up best off.
Combine that with the lack of Sales Tax collected in the state I live in
Isn't that tax evasion? If not, it should be.
Over here in the UK, you pay VAT regardless, and it's 20%.
I don't see why one type of business should be penalised over another through their inability to wriggle out of taxes. I'm fairly sure that a 20% increase on my gross margin would give me a huge and unfair advantage over my competitors.
If you put up a publicly accessible wishlist, don't even think of complaining about privacy issues with Amazon in the future.
Seriously, do people have that many casual so-called friends who buy them presents regularly that they need to maintain an online database of stuff they'd like because it's too much trouble to actually talk to them about it?
You might not be the big spender they're targetting. They maximize for revenue, not for # of shoppers.
What rubbish. Amazon are a high volume, low cost seller if ever there was one. They don't get 14% of internet traffic by selling custom painted Lamborghinis and Rolex watches crafted from unobtanium.
I hate to be cruel here, but people are going to need to starve if they can't survive without food stamps
Once a significant number people are literally dying of starvation in the world's richest and most powerful country, you will soon get to know what real revolution is about. Despite the warped priorities of most slashdotters, it's not copyright or anti-privacy laws that will get people onto the streets and attacking the rich with a variety of the easily available firearms in your country, it's the lack of something to eat.
The point is, that if you set up the rules so that anyone paying the correct contributions would get their guaranteed benefit at the end of it (in the UK we have a nominally separate National Insurance fund for this) then it is inequitable to change the rules and say that because you're rich you don't get the benefit.
In actual fact, the whole lot should just be treated as part of the taxation system, then it would be much more reasonable to means test it and not pay multi-billionaires the same state pension as a retired dustman.
The USA became a military and industrial super power during the 19th century, and especially during the late 19th century.
It may have been an industrial super power, but it certainly wasn't a military one. At the time, the US had relatively limited imperial pretensions, and only got involved in WW1 to a fairly limited extent. It was only after WW2 that the US truly became a super power.
What did what those programs do now is private charity, run by the same churches and rich people that we are blaming all our problems on now. We also had stronger and more extended families that helped maintain security for their members as well.
If you want to see the pure evil that reliance on fucking charity involves, try reading a few Dickens novels, and try and tell me again with a straight face how fucking wonderful life was in the Nineteenth century, with workhouses, soup kitchens and the rest.
Churches generally look after their own, or people they consider the "deserving poor." Look at the wonderful history of charities looking after the mentally ill, pregnant women, or anyone else who didn't fit in to their reading of the bible.
The right not to starve or freeze to death should not be dependent on the whims of Robber Barons and Fascists, so fuck you and all your right wing nutjob cronies.
Then you're either paying too much out in benefits, or you're not collecting enough in tax. While people on benefits struggle to feed and clothe themselves, and billionaires squander another couple of hundred million on yet another yacht, I know which I'd say was more likely.
You will undoubtedly counter that all health care should be run by government, well now all health care workers are government employees, now you're heading down
the path of communism, and history has already told us how well that works.
Tripe, pure and simple. In Britain we (still) have the National Health Service, and the last I looked we weren't communist.
Indoctrinating people into thinking the government should take care of them is ultimately poor public policy that will just lead to abuse of a continually shrinking pool of resources. (See Greece and Spain)
There is nothing wrong with the government taking care of people if they can afford to. And why does the pool of resources have to be continually shrinking? If the economy is doing well, and people are working and paying taxes, the amount available to government shold go up, not down.
Cuba would have had a lot easier time if the US hadn't spent all the time since the revolution in undermining it politically, then when that failed economically.
Venezuela luckily has oil wealth so it can stand up against the US better.
China, I find boring in its pursuit of economic growth over everything else, and Libya was just a boil waiting to be lanced.
Communism demonstrated itself to be highly authoritarian ironically under the ostensible goal of anarchy.
The problem with Communism is that it was most enthusiastically taken up in countries with authoritarian political backgrounds such as Russia and China, or in places with inadequate social/political systems generally, such as in newly independent African countries.
However, there was never any ostensible goal of anarchy: the ostensible goal was liberty, equality, and fraternity.
So I REALLY don't get the circle jerking we've had the past couple of elections on focus groups, hell all they can do is help you target ads and a lot of the young people i know simply don't allow ads, they DVR the TV and they have adblock on the browser, so you can spend until hell freezes over they just ain't listening.
Yes, but if you worked out that a large number of young people would probably vote for you with a little encouragement, you'd then know not to bother wasting all your money on conventional advertising, but would maybe try to use "viral" marketing on facebook, hand out leaflets outside schoools, get boy bands to release songs with subliminal messages on, or whatever.
I don't follow the logic of why you couldn't be pro-Palestinian-rights but not in favour of their attitudes to women and gays.
I'm actually quite strongly pro-Israeli, that doesn't mean I can't (for instance) criticise the actions of the more extreme settlers in provoking the Palestinians.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that support is a large part of their business model, so giving away FAQ's and a forum undermines their primary mode of income.
I hate to say this, but in that case perhaps their basic business model is flawed.
Just because FOSS is a good thing and you are good at it doesn't mean that it guarantees you a means of earning a living.
There are plenty of talented poets, artists and musicians who don't earn enough from their craft to cover the cost of materials.
> I'm the person who originally posted the story ..
Unless you provide names - we can't hep you. But anyone who downloads free software and expects technical support at no cost shouldn't be running a business. Next time he call ask him to come round and fix your washing machine for free.
If you want an inexact analogy, if a shop gave ma a "free" washing machine then said I had to pay an engineer to come out every time I wanted to use it, I would get pissed off at their describing it as free.
Most non-technical people hear "free software" and fail to parse it into "free software but the support costs money".
If I were a customer and the helpline was a premium rate number, I would stop using that product, especially if I hadn't paid for it in the first place.
I'm the person who originally posted the story. Unfortunately when dealing with software targeted to businesses the IT person or the consultant is the one who installs the product, rarely the one who ends up calling support , so any "I agree" check boxes during the installation are unlikely to get the message to the people who really need it.
In fact most of the time the person calling has no idea they are using a free product, despite it being clearly displayed on every screen, and no idea if they have paid for support.
No doubt the "consultant" has trousered a fee for installing and setting up the "free" software, so why wouldn't the customer think they had paid for support?
It might help if you told us who you were.
Yes, I'm sure that publicising your downwardly-spiralling company performance on slashdot would be a PR dream come true.
There are an almost infinite number of people on here who think that eBay owes them a fucking living.
On some things, you'd be fucking insane to go anywhere else. When I pass kids going into the bookstore at my university I almost want to slap their dumb asses sometimes. They pay 2-3 times what Amazon charges for books, and then bitch and moan about some $25 lab fee.
Online generation my ass.
Some of us oldies like to read real paper books, and also like to have real bookshops to go to.
I think it's a good sign that at least some young kids feel the same.
Yeah, the search and presentation of results is really horrible on Amazon. What I've been doing lately is using Newegg to find the exact mix of features that I want and then searching Amazon for that model number to get free shipping via Prime.
Hope you're happy when Newegg go out of business and you're left with Amazon, a shitty search function, and no competitors.
Now try saying that in a free market the consumer always ends up best off.
Combine that with the lack of Sales Tax collected in the state I live in
Isn't that tax evasion? If not, it should be.
Over here in the UK, you pay VAT regardless, and it's 20%.
I don't see why one type of business should be penalised over another through their inability to wriggle out of taxes. I'm fairly sure that a 20% increase on my gross margin would give me a huge and unfair advantage over my competitors.
Seriously, do people have that many casual so-called friends who buy them presents regularly that they need to maintain an online database of stuff they'd like because it's too much trouble to actually talk to them about it?
but as an individual using a netbook
You might not be the big spender they're targetting. They maximize for revenue, not for # of shoppers.
What rubbish. Amazon are a high volume, low cost seller if ever there was one. They don't get 14% of internet traffic by selling custom painted Lamborghinis and Rolex watches crafted from unobtanium.
I hate to be cruel here, but people are going to need to starve if they can't survive without food stamps
Once a significant number people are literally dying of starvation in the world's richest and most powerful country, you will soon get to know what real revolution is about. Despite the warped priorities of most slashdotters, it's not copyright or anti-privacy laws that will get people onto the streets and attacking the rich with a variety of the easily available firearms in your country, it's the lack of something to eat.
In actual fact, the whole lot should just be treated as part of the taxation system, then it would be much more reasonable to means test it and not pay multi-billionaires the same state pension as a retired dustman.
The USA became a military and industrial super power during the 19th century, and especially during the late 19th century.
It may have been an industrial super power, but it certainly wasn't a military one. At the time, the US had relatively limited imperial pretensions, and only got involved in WW1 to a fairly limited extent. It was only after WW2 that the US truly became a super power.
What did what those programs do now is private charity, run by the same churches and rich people that we are blaming all our problems on now. We also had stronger and more extended families that helped maintain security for their members as well.
If you want to see the pure evil that reliance on fucking charity involves, try reading a few Dickens novels, and try and tell me again with a straight face how fucking wonderful life was in the Nineteenth century, with workhouses, soup kitchens and the rest.
Churches generally look after their own, or people they consider the "deserving poor." Look at the wonderful history of charities looking after the mentally ill, pregnant women, or anyone else who didn't fit in to their reading of the bible.
The right not to starve or freeze to death should not be dependent on the whims of Robber Barons and Fascists, so fuck you and all your right wing nutjob cronies.
You make Russians who yearn for the return of Stalin look positively wishy washy.
Is there no equivalent of the UK's National Grid in the US?
Don't be stupid, that's socialism.
If 100% of tax revenue goes to Social Security
Then you're either paying too much out in benefits, or you're not collecting enough in tax. While people on benefits struggle to feed and clothe themselves, and billionaires squander another couple of hundred million on yet another yacht, I know which I'd say was more likely.
And you want to know what led to the collapse of the Roman Empire?
Christianity.
You will undoubtedly counter that all health care should be run by government, well now all health care workers are government employees, now you're heading down the path of communism, and history has already told us how well that works.
Tripe, pure and simple. In Britain we (still) have the National Health Service, and the last I looked we weren't communist.
Indoctrinating people into thinking the government should take care of them is ultimately poor public policy that will just lead to abuse of a continually shrinking pool of resources. (See Greece and Spain)
There is nothing wrong with the government taking care of people if they can afford to. And why does the pool of resources have to be continually shrinking? If the economy is doing well, and people are working and paying taxes, the amount available to government shold go up, not down.
Venezuela luckily has oil wealth so it can stand up against the US better.
China, I find boring in its pursuit of economic growth over everything else, and Libya was just a boil waiting to be lanced.
Communism demonstrated itself to be highly authoritarian ironically under the ostensible goal of anarchy.
The problem with Communism is that it was most enthusiastically taken up in countries with authoritarian political backgrounds such as Russia and China, or in places with inadequate social/political systems generally, such as in newly independent African countries.
However, there was never any ostensible goal of anarchy: the ostensible goal was liberty, equality, and fraternity.
So I REALLY don't get the circle jerking we've had the past couple of elections on focus groups, hell all they can do is help you target ads and a lot of the young people i know simply don't allow ads, they DVR the TV and they have adblock on the browser, so you can spend until hell freezes over they just ain't listening.
Yes, but if you worked out that a large number of young people would probably vote for you with a little encouragement, you'd then know not to bother wasting all your money on conventional advertising, but would maybe try to use "viral" marketing on facebook, hand out leaflets outside schoools, get boy bands to release songs with subliminal messages on, or whatever.
I'm actually quite strongly pro-Israeli, that doesn't mean I can't (for instance) criticise the actions of the more extreme settlers in provoking the Palestinians.