Businesses in America enjoy many freedoms that individuals don't have. Lower tax burden, limited liability, generally favorable outcomes in the civil court system.
In a perfect world, my employer would hire my corporation and treat my corporation as the employee. I'd be interested to hear any rational arguements besides the conventional being taxed twice arguement.
1. Binary compatibility. It seems likely to me that they would make the two versions incompatible. They need to have a clear distinction between the two versions. Binary INcompatibility is that distinction.
2. Novell makes the right product. They could screw up a great distro by having a license/revenue/feature package that the market doesn't like. It's easier to screw this up than you think.
3. Novell actually offers something that will drive enterprise consumers over to their product from RH. So far, they are a me-too product with lots of potential given their back-end stuff.
4. The battle for systems management tools is on and Novell's a likely loser. MS and RH don't want them in their market. They'll likely get screwed by both firms when they buddy-up somehow. Sun will probably throw a couple of punches in as well.
They will do exactly like RH because it appears to be profitable.
It's difficult to see how this makes them an actual meaningful competitor to RH though.
It will be interesting to see if they drop java in the forthcoming project. In 9.3 they distribute it on the cd. They pay Sun for this priviledge, so I find it hard to believe they would be so charitable in the future.
It's sad (predictable though) that Linux is going this way. The open project portion is essentially free development and testing for the corporate parent. The "open" portions of the distros are becoming the red-headed stepchild to the supported version.
Please, no comments about how CentOS is "the same" as whatever RH product they got it from. Service, service, service is what makes it different.
Charge a fortune for something that's free and the world will beat a path to your door.
For CAFTA members. Developing countries get increased access to our markets and we get to enforce our IP schemes.
Move along because their's truly nothing to see here.
It never ceases to amaze me that the savvy/. crowd is outraged about this kind of thing.
-Capitalism is about owning things so you can capture the wealth making capacities of that thing. Variations of capitalism that conflict with the american version are not welcome.
-The U.S. gov't wants IP/whatever to remain in total control of the current owners. Anything less is giving away the store.
-The modern american political administration is focused on making it safe to make a profit and create wealth. DMCA and the rest is just an extension of that belief.
-I don't want to hear complaints about rights being trampled on either. In exchange for remanding whatever right you feel has been violated, you will likely get something else in return. (Generally speaking, it's entertainment)
It's capitalism and everything is for sale, including your precious rights.
I think the linux desktop thing is being done well these days. Some problems exist for joe and jane home user: -Printing set up. Cups isn't flawless and tends to be too complex for home users. -The oft-cited hardware support. (getting better though) -Delivery of the Linux software application universe. This is where lindows click-n-run is helpful. Otherwise it's searching far and wide figuring out that gimp is the image editor, scribus is the Illustrator and more. I have suse 9.3 and they don't make it any easier. You have to know what you are looking for and then the package thing works great.
I'm still concerned that MS is going to be taking most of the wealth created by Linux. They are going to have a management layer that elegantly integrates linux and windows boxes. This allows them to control linux for their most profitable customers like govt. and big business.
I switched the home to Linux after paying for an antivirus subscription and still getting hosed by a virus/bho/something.
1. Setting the GUI to behave like windows. 2. Setting up hardware to "just work." It takes a little extra time especially if you are like me and learning along the way. 3. Permissions can be set in some places to prevent things from happening that the user may want. Ex. can't write to a USB stick or camera card. (Secure? yes. Easy? No.) 4. Buying hardware. Linux hardware is a completely different shopping experience. Wife/Mom/Pop might not get into shopping this way and probably won't understand at first. Does it work? Who's writing drivers? Is it an ongoing project?
Overall the Wife Aceptance Factor started low and as I got things working the way she was used to is quite high. Now, no admin or concern on my part at all and high WAF.
So, your resources are spent differently. Good excuse for some time with the folks though.
1. RH is the unquestionable leader in OSS to Microsoft's most profitable customers. For Microsoft, it's the devil they know. For red hat they will be "spared" the legal onslaught in exchange for being a good, and not too competitive partner.
2. HP did exactly this in the 90's to all of the scanner companies when they were ready to rule flatbed scanners. Killed the weak ones in -months-. Gone. Goodbye. Phones unplugged. 2a. Think about all the distros they can destroy in less than 1 month's time. All of the diversity and interest in Linux just gone with a single lawsuit repeated many times over. 2b. Adobe did the same thing to any competitor underfunded with a good idea in the 80's and 90's.
3. It's just like a corporation to do market research on something they want to do. It's totally within reason. I'd do it if I were in their shoes.
4. It's reasonable that someone from the ivy-league would be chosen for their opinion. They don't really care what the unwashed masses think because they understand how public opinion is shaped. people listen to people from MIT, not a mere state college graduate. This kind of thinking pervades marketing. They all want influencial people to bless their stuff. Microsoft too.
5. The swiftness in which this will happen will be amazing. MS is great at many things and influencing opinion will be one of them.
6. Anyone actively using Linux knows there's lots of software available that -might- infringe patents in some parts of the world. I don't use it, but I'm sure there are plenty who do. Easy pickings for lawyers.
Blowing up is not a -guaranteed- outcome in this scenario.
Even if the worst things really did happen, there would be the usual media hue and cry followed by some empty corporate-speak response followed by a government hearing or two and the whole thing would eventually die down.
IMHO That -is- a viable alternative. The corporation representatives dealing with the government representatives. That's "proper channels" communicating with each other. He needed to wait to get something similar in order, maybe have the EFF deliver it? ACLU? Certainly not what he did.
I wish him all the luck, because it's going to be a bumpy ride for a while.
Execute the delivery of the information in a way that protects him is what's got him in trouble.
This guy's smart enough comprehend the exploit, he utterly failed in communicating it.
Never in a million years do you just blurt something out like this. I don't care how bad it is. Figure out the proper channels and work them. That's what a focused and intelligent adult interaction with the world looks like.
Now, I admit he needed a Karl Rove power broker/media bulldog to keep the story from spinning against him. But he really needed to spend some time figuring out how to deliver the message to insulate himself better.
In this case, the retailer thinks he's going to do well reselling internet access. Giving it away for free doesn't really fit into his business plan.
I'm guessing the guy isn't technically savvy either if you had to explain the whole wireless thing to him.
Other Retailers: The average coffee retailer may not be so sophisticated as to understand loss-leader pricing. Loss-leading is a financial disaster if it isn't executed well. This might lead to the camping-out characters.
It seems simple to most./'s. Set up cable/dsl account, connect wireless access point and be on your way. But it's a black art to many, especially someone focused on selling coffee.
OT Panera We have a Panera and a Starbucks near us. If I'm not mistaken, you still pay for access at starbucks and that place has people with laptops in it all the time. Meanwhile panera has a couple of laptop users now and again, but is otherwise busy with people buying food. That's what Panera had in mind and I'd like to know how they execute that to keep it that way.
Re:With proper Slipstreaming and OPK.....
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Whoooaaa... Take two steps back there cowboy.
Slipstreaming and OPK have a place in a company with very many PC's. But getting your GF's laptop going is not one of them.
The parent post is quite clear, He turns on his GF's new laptop.
I know of what he's talking about because I have the same experience at the small company I work for. Even after buying a computer with SP2 installed, there's a truckload of MS updates requiring reboots. Followed by more Symantec updates requiring reboots.
Before firing off a quick dismissal, please remember there's a whole world of users outside your immediate circle that can and likely do have very different experiences than yours.
If MS was seriously trying to limit the appeal of the Web, why push RSS (a relatively new web-based app) into the mainstream by including it in IE?
1. Because they haven't made any money in RSS yet. 2. It's just got to be good enough and it's a feature that keeps the browser close enough to the market minimum.
No matter how good IE or the web gets, there will always be plenty of PC-based activities that are better as local apps than as web-based apps. And local apps means using an OS, and that means a sales opportunity for MS.
1. That makes sense from a consumer's perspective. but from MS perspective, that control you have over your desktop is excess value they haven't tapped yet. So, they want you to transition to your cable satellite box that has PC functions. You pay a little each month, they control the content you have access to. If you want total control over your desktop, then you will pay much more for the priviledge.(sp) You could argue that OSS could evolve to a similar kind of business model, because it's very lucrative and people are used to it.
Reality Check: These OSes are closed systems where no new software can be introduced without the blessing of the distro maintainers.
Uhhh, not true. In apt, I add another source to/etc/sources.list. I've done it quite successfully and I'm no genius. I can report that I benefitted from this endeavor many times over. Now, getting your project into a distro's official repository probably takes much longer than you have been willing to commit.
These OSes are closed systems where no new software can be introduced without the blessing of the distro maintainers.
Uhh, wrong again. Again, I'm no genius but I figured out make, make install when there was no binary I couldn't get from different apt-sources.
I'll be glad to help you through your issues because it sounds like I've been there and done that and you may benefit from my experience.
I'm thinking the EFF is trying to make this some kind of poster child for moving their agenda into the minds of more people. Someone way up in the EFF probably is really hooked on the idea and used their affluence to move it forward.
I just wish they had picked a more compelling topic than printers.
Scribus is the closest thing that really pursues the print market. Good enough color management and real effort in conquering cmyk. Ties in pretty well with Gimp too.
IMHO, most of the people behind distro's are more technically minded.
So getting the distro to work well everywhere is what they do. They "just" rely on KDE/Gnome defaults because they look pretty good.
Getting all of the graphics to be pretty to many people is really hard and as time consuming as getting the OS working.
What both KDE and Gnome need to do is have a distro-independent apt-like repository full of themes. There are lots of themes for each desktop but rounding them up and checking them out is time consuming.
Yes, Ubuntu is pretty. And I'd say it's directly related to the money flying out of the company coffers backing it.
Please do not claim it is the distro with no big problems. That's just enough to burn a potential switcher and Linux doesn't need that.
I have had problems in EVERY area the the Parent post mentions in Ubuntu's Hoary ProblemHog. And, like most distros, Grand Canyon sized gaps in community support regarding resolving them.
That is not to say MS equivalent OS/apps/hardware provide useful support, because they don't.
Let's see where Ubuntu is in a few more years when the deep pockets behind it stop throwing money at it and expect it to fund itself. Not to mention the software design flaws they are making today that end up being big problems tomorrow.
Dire warnings aside, the Japanese did take world-class American know-how and made it cheaper and smaller and built a patent portfolio on their processes and cut Americans out of the entire industry. Same story, new character. It's death by a thousand cuts.
The sad thing is the richest 10% of Americans have no urgent reason to care so the average american won't have much work besides washing the rich guy's car and serving his overweight family at the Golden Arches in a few more generations.
Some of that is the fault of the average american in many ways, so there's lots of blame to pass around.
I'm afraid you have a very creative way of observing the world that does not in fact include what is so painfully obvious to others observers.
1. If Microsoft were not a monopoly, then the metrics used to assess financial performance would be much lower than they are. 2. If Microsoft were not a monopoly, then there would be at least two other viable alternatives (oligopoly) for computer operating systems. 3. The current political and social environment in the U.S. embraces and enhances the ability for the wealthiest few to become more wealthy. Monopolies generate more profit, so a monopoly is preferred above all other economic systems. A vibrant marketplace does not aggregate and concentrate wealth.
Slashdot Mirror
Businesses in America enjoy many freedoms that individuals don't have. Lower tax burden, limited liability, generally favorable outcomes in the civil court system.
In a perfect world, my employer would hire my corporation and treat my corporation as the employee. I'd be interested to hear any rational arguements besides the conventional being taxed twice arguement.
Seriously,
Whoever runs the top-3 poultry company in the U.S. will likely pay top-dollar to have their most profitable birds cloned.
That is if they haven't done so already.
So, when do I get my finders fee?
You are making a few assumptions:
1. Binary compatibility. It seems likely to me that they would make the two versions incompatible. They need to have a clear distinction between the two versions. Binary INcompatibility is that distinction.
2. Novell makes the right product. They could screw up a great distro by having a license/revenue/feature package that the market doesn't like. It's easier to screw this up than you think.
3. Novell actually offers something that will drive enterprise consumers over to their product from RH. So far, they are a me-too product with lots of potential given their back-end stuff.
4. The battle for systems management tools is on and Novell's a likely loser. MS and RH don't want them in their market. They'll likely get screwed by both firms when they buddy-up somehow. Sun will probably throw a couple of punches in as well.
In theory anyway.
They will do exactly like RH because it appears to be profitable.
It's difficult to see how this makes them an actual meaningful competitor to RH though.
It will be interesting to see if they drop java in the forthcoming project. In 9.3 they distribute it on the cd. They pay Sun for this priviledge, so I find it hard to believe they would be so charitable in the future.
It's sad (predictable though) that Linux is going this way. The open project portion is essentially free development and testing for the corporate parent. The "open" portions of the distros are becoming the red-headed stepchild to the supported version.
Please, no comments about how CentOS is "the same" as whatever RH product they got it from. Service, service, service is what makes it different.
Charge a fortune for something that's free and the world will beat a path to your door.
For CAFTA members. Developing countries get increased access to our markets and we get to enforce our IP schemes.
/. crowd is outraged about this kind of thing.
Move along because their's truly nothing to see here.
It never ceases to amaze me that the savvy
-Capitalism is about owning things so you can capture the wealth making capacities of that thing. Variations of capitalism that conflict with the american version are not welcome.
-The U.S. gov't wants IP/whatever to remain in total control of the current owners. Anything less is giving away the store.
-The modern american political administration is focused on making it safe to make a profit and create wealth. DMCA and the rest is just an extension of that belief.
-I don't want to hear complaints about rights being trampled on either. In exchange for remanding whatever right you feel has been violated, you will likely get something else in return. (Generally speaking, it's entertainment)
It's capitalism and everything is for sale, including your precious rights.
I think the linux desktop thing is being done well these days. Some problems exist for joe and jane home user:
-Printing set up. Cups isn't flawless and tends to be too complex for home users.
-The oft-cited hardware support. (getting better though)
-Delivery of the Linux software application universe. This is where lindows click-n-run is helpful. Otherwise it's searching far and wide figuring out that gimp is the image editor, scribus is the Illustrator and more. I have suse 9.3 and they don't make it any easier. You have to know what you are looking for and then the package thing works great.
I'm still concerned that MS is going to be taking most of the wealth created by Linux. They are going to have a management layer that elegantly integrates linux and windows boxes. This allows them to control linux for their most profitable customers like govt. and big business.
I switched the home to Linux after paying for an antivirus subscription and still getting hosed by a virus/bho/something.
1. Setting the GUI to behave like windows.
2. Setting up hardware to "just work." It takes a little extra time especially if you are like me and learning along the way.
3. Permissions can be set in some places to prevent things from happening that the user may want. Ex. can't write to a USB stick or camera card. (Secure? yes. Easy? No.)
4. Buying hardware. Linux hardware is a completely different shopping experience. Wife/Mom/Pop might not get into shopping this way and probably won't understand at first. Does it work? Who's writing drivers? Is it an ongoing project?
Overall the Wife Aceptance Factor started low and as I got things working the way she was used to is quite high. Now, no admin or concern on my part at all and high WAF.
So, your resources are spent differently. Good excuse for some time with the folks though.
I believe it. Do you know why?
1. RH is the unquestionable leader in OSS to Microsoft's most profitable customers. For Microsoft, it's the devil they know. For red hat they will be "spared" the legal onslaught in exchange for being a good, and not too competitive partner.
2. HP did exactly this in the 90's to all of the scanner companies when they were ready to rule flatbed scanners. Killed the weak ones in -months-. Gone. Goodbye. Phones unplugged.
2a. Think about all the distros they can destroy in less than 1 month's time. All of the diversity and interest in Linux just gone with a single lawsuit repeated many times over.
2b. Adobe did the same thing to any competitor underfunded with a good idea in the 80's and 90's.
3. It's just like a corporation to do market research on something they want to do. It's totally within reason. I'd do it if I were in their shoes.
4. It's reasonable that someone from the ivy-league would be chosen for their opinion. They don't really care what the unwashed masses think because they understand how public opinion is shaped. people listen to people from MIT, not a mere state college graduate. This kind of thinking pervades marketing. They all want influencial people to bless their stuff. Microsoft too.
5. The swiftness in which this will happen will be amazing. MS is great at many things and influencing opinion will be one of them.
6. Anyone actively using Linux knows there's lots of software available that -might- infringe patents in some parts of the world. I don't use it, but I'm sure there are plenty who do. Easy pickings for lawyers.
Someone else hasn't realized that he'll make people pay for VOIP and push it through cable boxes everywhere he can.
In taiwan it's called the triple play. (Media, Internet, Telephone)
He really doesn't care about the "free." He cares that it's a proven system that works.
Michael
Blowing up is not a -guaranteed- outcome in this scenario.
Even if the worst things really did happen, there would be the usual media hue and cry followed by some empty corporate-speak response followed by a government hearing or two and the whole thing would eventually die down.
IMHO That -is- a viable alternative. The corporation representatives dealing with the government representatives. That's "proper channels" communicating with each other. He needed to wait to get something similar in order, maybe have the EFF deliver it? ACLU? Certainly not what he did.
I wish him all the luck, because it's going to be a bumpy ride for a while.
Execute the delivery of the information in a way that protects him is what's got him in trouble.
This guy's smart enough comprehend the exploit, he utterly failed in communicating it.
Never in a million years do you just blurt something out like this. I don't care how bad it is. Figure out the proper channels and work them.
That's what a focused and intelligent adult interaction with the world looks like.
Now, I admit he needed a Karl Rove power broker/media bulldog to keep the story from spinning against him. But he really needed to spend some time figuring out how to deliver the message to insulate himself better.
In this case, the retailer thinks he's going to do well reselling internet access. Giving it away for free doesn't really fit into his business plan.
./'s. Set up cable/dsl account, connect wireless access point and be on your way. But it's a black art to many, especially someone focused on selling coffee.
I'm guessing the guy isn't technically savvy either if you had to explain the whole wireless thing to him.
Other Retailers:
The average coffee retailer may not be so sophisticated as to understand loss-leader pricing. Loss-leading is a financial disaster if it isn't executed well. This might lead to the camping-out characters.
It seems simple to most
OT Panera
We have a Panera and a Starbucks near us. If I'm not mistaken, you still pay for access at starbucks and that place has people with laptops in it all the time. Meanwhile panera has a couple of laptop users now and again, but is otherwise busy with people buying food. That's what Panera had in mind and I'd like to know how they execute that to keep it that way.
Whoooaaa... Take two steps back there cowboy.
Slipstreaming and OPK have a place in a company with very many PC's. But getting your GF's laptop going is not one of them.
The parent post is quite clear, He turns on his GF's new laptop.
I know of what he's talking about because I have the same experience at the small company I work for. Even after buying a computer with SP2 installed, there's a truckload of MS updates requiring reboots. Followed by more Symantec updates requiring reboots.
Before firing off a quick dismissal, please remember there's a whole world of users outside your immediate circle that can and likely do have very different experiences than yours.
If MS was seriously trying to limit the appeal of the Web, why push RSS (a relatively new web-based app) into the mainstream by including it in IE?
1. Because they haven't made any money in RSS yet. 2. It's just got to be good enough and it's a feature that keeps the browser close enough to the market minimum.
No matter how good IE or the web gets, there will always be plenty of PC-based activities that are better as local apps than as web-based apps. And local apps means using an OS, and that means a sales opportunity for MS.
1. That makes sense from a consumer's perspective. but from MS perspective, that control you have over your desktop is excess value they haven't tapped yet. So, they want you to transition to your cable satellite box that has PC functions. You pay a little each month, they control the content you have access to. If you want total control over your desktop, then you will pay much more for the priviledge.(sp) You could argue that OSS could evolve to a similar kind of business model, because it's very lucrative and people are used to it.
Reality Check:
/etc/sources.list. I've done it quite successfully and I'm no genius. I can report that I benefitted from this endeavor many times over. Now, getting your project into a distro's official repository probably takes much longer than you have been willing to commit.
These OSes are closed systems where no new software can be introduced without the blessing of the distro maintainers.
Uhhh, not true. In apt, I add another source to
These OSes are closed systems where no new software can be introduced without the blessing of the distro maintainers.
Uhh, wrong again. Again, I'm no genius but I figured out make, make install when there was no binary I couldn't get from different apt-sources.
I'll be glad to help you through your issues because it sounds like I've been there and done that and you may benefit from my experience.
As one very wise post said, it's about extending their management tools into Linux.
As another wise post said, Microsoft knows how to sell their IP better than anyone in the industry.
Sadly, I predict Microsoft will be the ones capturing most of the revenue from the adoption of Linux in the enterprise.
Microsoft picks a couple of projects to connect their products to and lets the distros fight for the crumbs falling off the table.
Sad, really...
Cable subscriber box uniquely identifies household...
I'm thinking the EFF is trying to make this some kind of poster child for moving their agenda into the minds of more people. Someone way up in the EFF probably is really hooked on the idea and used their affluence to move it forward.
I just wish they had picked a more compelling topic than printers.
Hello,
Just resize the toolbar. It's either in the control panel or right-click on the toolbar itself.
KDE is quite nice that way. No matter the screen resolution, I can modify the size of pretty much everything. It's not perfect, but really good.
Seriously.
They can't let this kind of thing go on for too long. They sued Macromedia and countless other competitors when they started to look viable.
Creative types might discover there are legitimate alternatives to their pirate>upgrade monopoly. They can't let that happen.
Scribus is the closest thing that really pursues the print market. Good enough color management and real effort in conquering cmyk. Ties in pretty well with Gimp too.
www.scribus.org.uk
IMHO, most of the people behind distro's are more technically minded.
So getting the distro to work well everywhere is what they do. They "just" rely on KDE/Gnome defaults because they look pretty good.
Getting all of the graphics to be pretty to many people is really hard and as time consuming as getting the OS working.
What both KDE and Gnome need to do is have a distro-independent apt-like repository full of themes. There are lots of themes for each desktop but rounding them up and checking them out is time consuming.
Don't mod me down yet.
Yes, Ubuntu is pretty. And I'd say it's directly related to the money flying out of the company coffers backing it.
Please do not claim it is the distro with no big problems. That's just enough to burn a potential switcher and Linux doesn't need that.
I have had problems in EVERY area the the Parent post mentions in Ubuntu's Hoary ProblemHog. And, like most distros, Grand Canyon sized gaps in community support regarding resolving them.
That is not to say MS equivalent OS/apps/hardware provide useful support, because they don't.
Let's see where Ubuntu is in a few more years when the deep pockets behind it stop throwing money at it and expect it to fund itself. Not to mention the software design flaws they are making today that end up being big problems tomorrow.
Okay, you can mod me down.
Yes, right before your very eyes.
Dire warnings aside, the Japanese did take world-class American know-how and made it cheaper and smaller and built a patent portfolio on their processes and cut Americans out of the entire industry. Same story, new character. It's death by a thousand cuts.
The sad thing is the richest 10% of Americans have no urgent reason to care so the average american won't have much work besides washing the rich guy's car and serving his overweight family at the Golden Arches in a few more generations.
Some of that is the fault of the average american in many ways, so there's lots of blame to pass around.
I'm afraid you have a very creative way of observing the world that does not in fact include what is so painfully obvious to others observers.
1. If Microsoft were not a monopoly, then the metrics used to assess financial performance would be much lower than they are.
2. If Microsoft were not a monopoly, then there would be at least two other viable alternatives (oligopoly) for computer operating systems.
3. The current political and social environment in the U.S. embraces and enhances the ability for the wealthiest few to become more wealthy. Monopolies generate more profit, so a monopoly is preferred above all other economic systems. A vibrant marketplace does not aggregate and concentrate wealth.
Denial is not just a river in Africa.