Lastly, you make the argument that Linux comes with those programs out of the box. Actually, you said Ubuntu comes with those programs. It seems to me, most Linux distro's only come with the bare necessities (Browser, Productivity Software, Media Player, Etc.). Windows typically has all of these, PLUS a bunch of crap you'll never need, use, or want. You must be kidding, aren't you? Out of the box Ubuntu gives you:
- OpenOffice
- GIMP
- Movie Player (admittedly you have to install a couple of packages to full-format support, but then you play virtually anything. it's also easy to install VLC).
- Evolution
- K3B
- F-Spot
- CD-extractor
- CD creator
- Trnasmission
And so many others are *directly installable* under Applications-Add/Remove. Not so easy to miss.
So do you compare those with what? Paint and WordPad? The only Windows pre-installed software worth something is Media Player. And Internet Explorer (to download firefox).
PS. This is about Windows XP. I have no experience of Vista.
Memory is expensive, hard drives are cheap. That's it. No matter what happens, nothing is going to change that equation anytime soon. You mean *per gigabyte* and that's true. But tape drives are even cheaper, yet few people are using them because 1) access is ridiculously slow 2) nobody needs so much space. Hard drives are taking the same path. I don't need more than 64GB on my laptop, and soon I'll have much more than that. What I do need is to replace my 4200 rpm slug with something faster, without draining my battery. If I can get a 64gb flash disk at the price of a 500gb hdd, I'll do it today.
RMS is a hippie Indeed, good for him.
that thinks nobody should be allowed to make non-GPL software at all. There are perfectly good reasons to believe that software (and anything the can be copied in general) should be freely used, and distributed and studied and modified, without the need of any license to enforce that. If the resource is infinite then the full use of it is ethical and it's in the society's best interest. This is what (always IMHO) RMS believes and I fully agree with him. GPL is a good way to achieve this, given then current legal system.
It wasn't until people started not paying attention to him that FOSS outside of BSD took off at all in any real sense Well, it's hard to overemphasize RMS's contribution to free software. But, in any case, RMS is just another person whose opinion you should consider when forming your own. If you don't like hippies, just ignore him.
If the GPLv4 came out next week and said "to distribute software under this license, you have to send RMS a case of beer", Hum... this poses new philosophical questions. Would that be "free as in free speech" or "free as in free beer"? I guess it would be "free only with a beer" for you and just "free beer" for RMS.
> I dont' see why they can't limit the OS of the computer to certain specifications that they will warantee.
I understand your point but I think there is an important counter-argument. First, in many countries including the UK there are implicit guarantees that must be provided by the manufacturer, the latter cannot chose the conditions of these guarantees even if he says so in the included papers. Then (without being a lawyer) I believe that the guarantees cover the "expected" or "reasonable" use of the product, as defined by the generic category of this product. The manufacturer, unless he has clearly displayed some limitations of the use of the product, cannot claim that the product was meant to be used in a certain way and not another. For example, if you buy a laptop you expect to use it the way people usually use laptops. The manufacturer cannot limit the guarantee and say, for example, that it can only be used indoors, on a table, wearing pyjamas or whatever. If the use is "reasonable" then you can do it.
Now when you buy a PC the reasonable use is that it could run whatever software you put it on, not only the ones provided by the manufacturer. And the distinction between the operating system and the userspace software is irrelevant: the problems that you describe could be very well be produced by userspace programs. Of course, if you can prove that a program cause the damage then it's not the manufacturer's fault, but this cannot be claimed *a priori* by the mere fact that you use a different operating system, because IMHO running your own OS is a reasonable use of the product. Otherwise, the manufacturer could claim that if you install any software whatsoever then the guarantee is void since they cannot support arbitrary 3rd party software.
By this reasoning, the car analogy is not valid because the expected use of a car is to drive it, not to run software on it.
Sorry, this guy has prior art.... better luck next time.
Yes, but his copyright was registered a long time ago so it has expired. Let alone the fact that it was in a galaxy far, far away so earth law do not apply. However he could sue under the trade federation law.
It's good to see that this patent is (or appears to be) registered as a free patent that can be used by anyone.
This gave me a good idea. I think that there should be a mechanism to register free patents (where you irreversibly allow everyone to freely make use of the patent) without any charge for holding the patent (or with a very minimum fee to cover the expenses of the application). It's fair right? I expect no protection or income from my patent so I don't have to pay. Then these patents can be used as strong form a prior art, since not only you can show that a certain "invention" already exists, but that it is also already patented!
Then let all the open source developers patent everything in their programs and I bet that things like breakpoints will be "freely patented" decades before any patent attempt by any company.
I guess if someone truly believes that patents contribute to innovation by protecting the inventor's ideas (which I personally do not), he would find it very difficult to refuse the usefulness of such "free" patents.
Also, after buying a second monitor you need some time to configure it, get the latest drivers, adjust the resolution, etc. You also need to figure out which application to move where, try several options, etc. Then you have to post on your blog (or better slashdot) to let people know about your great dual-monitor system. You need different wallpapers for each screen. You have more free screen space so you can download some more desktop goodies like dancing teddy-bears or virtual pets that you have to feed every 10 seconds or else they get sad. You can have your mail client open all the time so that you instantly see all the funny-videos/urban-legend/spam and forward it right away to even more people. You can even have youtube open all the time so that you can finally catch up with the millions of people who upload so fast that you couldn't watch everything with a single monitor. You don't need to switch back and forth between tetris, solitaire and google earth, everything is nicely arranged in front of your eyes so that you don't lose a second of your precious time.
And when you get bored of all that, you have the wonderful idea of configuring your dual monitor in Linux, using of course XGL and all the mambo-jumbo effects from the latest build of Beryl. So you're set for a lifetime of great productivity at the cost of a lousy second monitor.
PS. Gadgets are toys for big boys (read geeks). They have nothing to do with productivity, you lame Blackberry junkies.
Is it significantly more worrying than that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are able to dictate who is allowed to print games designed to be played on a television onto discs? No, if Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have indeed this power (I'm not a gamer so I can't tell) then both are equally awful but the one will not justify the other.
Imagine, for example, what would happen if Microsoft could do the same for software running on Windows. No firefox, no open office, no gaim, no [you name it].
A picture of the Windows and Mac supporters was already made public. The Linux guy is still unknown, but unconfirmed sources suggest that he's looking like this.
Hey, at least the Sony rootkit comes with music!... this thing comes with worse: Windows!
lol. this reminds me of the classic one:
Some people say that if you play a Windows install CD backwards you will hear demon voices commanding you to worship Satan. But that's nothing. If you play it forward it will install Windows.
Of course the study assumes that every "pirated" copy of a movie would be replaced by a ticket or dvd sale, if there was no "piracy".
Not only that, but also assumes that the sales coming as a direct result of the publicity gained by "piracy" would still be there, if there was no "piracy".
Yesterday I went to a concert of Arctic Monkeys in Paris, I paid 25 euros for the ticket. I also bought an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt for 20 euros. Their CD, which I downloaded from the net, costs 15 euros. I leave the conclusion to the RIAA.
Another $1/song service with absolutely no selection... It would be cool that they used ogg if I were ever disposed to use it.
"no selection" means no big-names that you see on MTV right? Now wait for a moment and think the analogy between music and software.
The big-name in software is Microsoft and propriatary software in general. Of course nobody will give you a copy of windows for free, let you use it in whatever machine you like or allow you to make copies of it, right? So what do we do about that? Instead of whine or download pirate copies, we develop free software that we can freely use, copy, modify etc. And although it's ofter easier to use propriatary software, we try to promote free software, we use it even if it is sometimes more difficult, we improve it and we help others use it too.
Now the same thing is happening with music, expect that it comes with a 10 years delay. Big corporations, often with the cooperation of big artists, wants us to pay big bucks without having any freedom on the music we own. At the same time there are some people who understand that this situation can change, that with the technological means of today artists can produce great quality music without the need of big music labels. And most important, they can *distribute* their music, in electronic form, without the need of music labels. And also promote their music through blogs, fanzines, independent music sites etc. Without any f***ing help from any f***ing music label.
So now you have music stores where you can find such music, from artists who don't want to take away your freedom. Is it good music? You bet it is! Is it the shit you see on MTV? I'm afraid not. Exactly like windows is not the OS you see on TV commercials or Wal-Mart stores. Now it's up to you to decide who you want to support.
Last post from a laptop running XP SP2 with a USB 2.0 device connected with the asynchronous scheduler component running preventing my CPU from entering one of the ACPI sleep states and thus draining my battery life.
The GPL 3 draft is clearly inferior in this respect. There's no way I would push that forward as an example to a free software newbie.
I agree, but the purpose of a free licence is to protect the rights of the authors and the users of free software, not to provide an easy example for newbies. Simplicity is of course a good thing, and I'm very glad about GPL v2 on that matter. But technology advances and licences should evolve to cover new important topics such as patents, DRM and software-as-a-service. It's unavoidable to complicate the licence to cover such things.
Also have in mind that, above all, a licence is a legal document, which means that it should be understandable and enforcable in a court of law. For this, it should be very precise and clear. For example, GPLv2 should be summurized as
"You can do whatever you want with the software as long as it remains free" This one-line licence would be much better for newbies to understand, but useless in a court.
Given the complicated things it tries to cover, I think GPLv3 is doing a pretty descent job, it's not that complicated if you read it carefully and take a look at the rationale behind the changes.
Roberts took the company to court in October and won, with damages to be decided at a hearing on 4 January 2006. Just prior to Xmas, however, the company offered £300 as a final settlement which Mr Roberts agreed to. He is due to receive the cheque tomorrow.
I don't get it. The guy won in court and had an excellent chance to set a legal precedent, and settled for just £300? I don't say that he could get more in court but it would make a great victory in the anti-spam war. Why waste it for just £300?
Well, it didn't have much choice, did it? The north pole is the only place on earth where no matter where you're going, you're going south. So what's all the fuss about?
(of course the fact that it is actually moving is quite a story)
Slashdot Mirror
- OpenOffice
- GIMP
- Movie Player (admittedly you have to install a couple of packages to full-format support, but then you play virtually anything. it's also easy to install VLC).
- Evolution
- K3B
- F-Spot
- CD-extractor
- CD creator
- Trnasmission
And so many others are *directly installable* under Applications-Add/Remove. Not so easy to miss.
So do you compare those with what? Paint and WordPad? The only Windows pre-installed software worth something is Media Player. And Internet Explorer (to download firefox).
PS. This is about Windows XP. I have no experience of Vista.
given the delays of Vista I would schedule the next version for tomorrow, and hope to deliver some time in 2010.
license, you have to send RMS a case of beer", Hum... this poses new philosophical questions. Would that be "free as in free speech" or "free as in free beer"? I guess it would be "free only with a beer" for you and just "free beer" for RMS.
> I dont' see why they can't limit the OS of the computer to certain specifications that they will warantee.
I understand your point but I think there is an important counter-argument. First, in many countries including the UK there are implicit guarantees that must be provided by the manufacturer, the latter cannot chose the conditions of these guarantees even if he says so in the included papers. Then (without being a lawyer) I believe that the guarantees cover the "expected" or "reasonable" use of the product, as defined by the generic category of this product. The manufacturer, unless he has clearly displayed some limitations of the use of the product, cannot claim that the product was meant to be used in a certain way and not another. For example, if you buy a laptop you expect to use it the way people usually use laptops. The manufacturer cannot limit the guarantee and say, for example, that it can only be used indoors, on a table, wearing pyjamas or whatever. If the use is "reasonable" then you can do it.
Now when you buy a PC the reasonable use is that it could run whatever software you put it on, not only the ones provided by the manufacturer. And the distinction between the operating system and the userspace software is irrelevant: the problems that you describe could be very well be produced by userspace programs. Of course, if you can prove that a program cause the damage then it's not the manufacturer's fault, but this cannot be claimed *a priori* by the mere fact that you use a different operating system, because IMHO running your own OS is a reasonable use of the product. Otherwise, the manufacturer could claim that if you install any software whatsoever then the guarantee is void since they cannot support arbitrary 3rd party software.
By this reasoning, the car analogy is not valid because the expected use of a car is to drive it, not to run software on it.
Sorry, this guy has prior art.... better luck next time.
Yes, but his copyright was registered a long time ago so it has expired. Let alone the fact that it was in a galaxy far, far away so earth law do not apply. However he could sue under the trade federation law.
You don't have a TV?! Then what's all your furniture pointing at?
\joey
You mister are a terrorist, a threat to our society. Somebody has to teach you a lesson.
I am inserting my penis into your unwilling vagina
It's good to see that this patent is (or appears to be) registered as a free patent that can be used by anyone.
This gave me a good idea. I think that there should be a mechanism to register free patents (where you irreversibly allow everyone to freely make use of the patent) without any charge for holding the patent (or with a very minimum fee to cover the expenses of the application). It's fair right? I expect no protection or income from my patent so I don't have to pay. Then these patents can be used as strong form a prior art, since not only you can show that a certain "invention" already exists, but that it is also already patented!
Then let all the open source developers patent everything in their programs and I bet that things like breakpoints will be "freely patented" decades before any patent attempt by any company.
I guess if someone truly believes that patents contribute to innovation by protecting the inventor's ideas (which I personally do not), he would find it very difficult to refuse the usefulness of such "free" patents.
Oh and while your at it, can't you set up open source supermarkets too?
Better make it web 2.0 too.
Also, after buying a second monitor you need some time to configure it, get the latest drivers, adjust the resolution, etc. You also need to figure out which application to move where, try several options, etc. Then you have to post on your blog (or better slashdot) to let people know about your great dual-monitor system. You need different wallpapers for each screen. You have more free screen space so you can download some more desktop goodies like dancing teddy-bears or virtual pets that you have to feed every 10 seconds or else they get sad. You can have your mail client open all the time so that you instantly see all the funny-videos/urban-legend/spam and forward it right away to even more people. You can even have youtube open all the time so that you can finally catch up with the millions of people who upload so fast that you couldn't watch everything with a single monitor. You don't need to switch back and forth between tetris, solitaire and google earth, everything is nicely arranged in front of your eyes so that you don't lose a second of your precious time.
And when you get bored of all that, you have the wonderful idea of configuring
your dual monitor in Linux, using of course XGL and all the mambo-jumbo effects from the latest build of Beryl. So you're set for a lifetime of great productivity at the cost of a lousy second monitor.
PS. Gadgets are toys for big boys (read geeks). They have nothing to do with productivity, you lame Blackberry junkies.
If your salary is $50 an hour, then every second you spend on unproductive things becomes a very visible cost, especially if those seconds add up.
If you make $50 an hour (approx. $100k a year) then go buy yourself a monitor and stop whining.
A picture of the Windows and Mac supporters was already made public. The Linux guy is still unknown, but unconfirmed sources suggest that he's looking like this.
unauthorized copies of Microsoft's new Anti-Piracy comics just appeared in various BitTorrent trackers.
Hey, at least the Sony rootkit comes with music!... this thing comes with worse: Windows!
lol. this reminds me of the classic one:
Some people say that if you play a Windows install CD backwards you will hear demon voices commanding you to worship Satan. But that's nothing. If you play it forward it will install Windows.
It experiments and knocks things over until it can pick them up for itself.
You don't need an advanced AI to do that, the algorithm goes like this:
while(1) {
throw_toy();
while(!toy_is_back())
cry_loud();
}
Of course the study assumes that every "pirated" copy of a movie would be replaced by a ticket or dvd sale, if there was no "piracy".
Not only that, but also assumes that the sales coming as a direct result of the publicity gained by "piracy" would still be there, if there was no "piracy".
Yesterday I went to a concert of Arctic Monkeys in Paris, I paid 25 euros for the ticket. I also bought an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt for 20 euros. Their CD, which I downloaded from the net, costs 15 euros. I leave the conclusion to the RIAA.
Another $1/song service with absolutely no selection... It would be cool that they used ogg if I were ever disposed to use it.
"no selection" means no big-names that you see on MTV right? Now wait for a moment and think the analogy between music and software.
The big-name in software is Microsoft and propriatary software in general. Of course nobody will give you a copy of windows for free, let you use it in whatever machine you like or allow you to make copies of it, right? So what do we do about that? Instead of whine or download pirate copies, we develop free software that we can freely use, copy, modify etc. And although it's ofter easier to use propriatary software, we try to promote free software, we use it even if it is sometimes more difficult, we improve it and we help others use it too.
Now the same thing is happening with music, expect that it comes with a 10 years delay. Big corporations, often with the cooperation of big artists, wants us to pay big bucks without having any freedom on the music we own. At the same time there are some people who understand that this situation can change, that with the technological means of today artists can produce great quality music without the need of big music labels. And most important, they can *distribute* their music, in electronic form, without the need of music labels. And also promote their music through blogs, fanzines, independent music sites etc. Without any f***ing help from any f***ing music label.
So now you have music stores where you can find such music, from artists who don't want to take away your freedom. Is it good music? You bet it is! Is it the shit you see on MTV? I'm afraid not. Exactly like windows is not the OS you see on TV commercials or Wal-Mart stores. Now it's up to you to decide who you want to support.
Last post from a laptop running XP SP2 with a USB 2.0 device connected with the asynchronous scheduler component running preventing my CPU from entering one of the ACPI sleep states and thus draining my battery life.
See you again when I find my charger.
The GPL 3 draft is clearly inferior in this respect. There's no way I would push that forward as an example to a free software newbie.
I agree, but the purpose of a free licence is to protect the rights of the authors and the users of free software, not to provide an easy example for newbies. Simplicity is of course a good thing, and I'm very glad about GPL v2 on that matter. But technology advances and licences should evolve to cover new important topics such as patents, DRM and software-as-a-service. It's unavoidable to complicate the licence to cover such things.
Also have in mind that, above all, a licence is a legal document, which means that it should be understandable and enforcable in a court of law. For this, it should be very precise and clear. For example, GPLv2 should be summurized as
"You can do whatever you want with the software as long as it remains free"
This one-line licence would be much better for newbies to understand, but useless in a court.
Given the complicated things it tries to cover, I think GPLv3 is doing a pretty descent job, it's not that complicated if you read it carefully and take a look at the rationale behind the changes.
North Pole Heads South
Well, it didn't have much choice, did it? The north pole is the only place on earth where no matter where you're going, you're going south. So what's all the fuss about?
(of course the fact that it is actually moving is quite a story)