Re:Microsoft is relentless
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I would hardly call citrix a thriving company. They used to be the only company that sold thin client solutions for windows and now MS is giving away what citrix is selling.
I suppose it's something that they are still in business but going from being the only vendor of something to competing with something MS is giving away can't be a picnic.
You are missing the point entirely. The argument was that the economy is not a zero sum process because if china got richer it would not have to be at the expense of US. In other words it's possible for all nations to get richer without bounds and not cause economic harm to other nations. I have also seen similar arguments about individual wealth as if it was theoretically possible for every person to be a billionaire.
So you can bet your ass that if china gets richer it will impact the US and most other nations too. We are all dependent on the same pool of natural resources whether they be oil, trees, water or air.
Economy takes energy. Even for purely intellectual forms of commerce there is a heavy natural resources component. If you are going to attempt to argue something try aguing against this statement and let's see where it gets you.
"All forms of eceonomic activity use natural resources in an unsustainable manner". That's right ALL of them. Even if you are a lawyer or an accountant who produces no real goods you eat, you need clothing, you drive, you shit, you need to be kept warm and cooled down. All of that requires natural resouces which you are consuming at a rate faster then they can regenerate.
If you want to assert that the economy is not a zero sum game prove my sentence wrong.
They won with IE but are not backsliding. They haven't won with xbox, MSN (despite years of trying), expedia, sidewalk, hotmail, CE, IIS the list goes on and on.
My favorite MS failure is "microsoft at work". For those that don't remember gates was going to put windows on copiers and fax machines, supposedly he signed contracts with companies like canon and xerox. It died a well deserved death but I remember it's dying sounds fondly.
Actually it's sociapathy. Not all sociopaths end up as low level criminals or murderers. A bunch of them end up as CEOs, white collar ciminals and crooked thug businessman.
I think we have all worked for a sociopath at least once in our lives.
Re:Microsoft's Customers
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Yea, it's called dumping. Supposedly it's illegal but the only companies who ever get changed with it are foreign. Although in a new twist the FSF is being sued civilly for it.
Re:Microsoft is relentless
on
Gates on Google
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Along with DON'T EVER EVER EVER EVER PARTNER WITH MS. I can't think of one company that continued to thrive after partnering with MS. The only reason MS ever wants to parner with anybody is to learn their business and then compete with them.
" When (if) China becomes a economic supercenter, it won't be at the direct expense of the American lifestyle. Economics isn't a zero sum game, after all."
No it will be at the expense of natural resources. The economy IS a zero sum game but not the way most people think. Economic advancement comes at the cost of natural resources. Since there is not an infinate amount of natural resources the economy is a zero sum game.
Actually the only way for the economy not be a zero sum game would be for there to be an infinate amount of something in the universe. We all know that even the number of atoms in the universe is finite so the economy HAS to be a zero sum game.
Re:I truly wished they have given a different name
on
KDE Switches to Subversion
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
" My managers simply refuse to use anything proposed by us, the development team, and named subversion."
For the umpteenth time people. When you say things like this name your company. We all want to make sure we don't have ny stock in companies with this kind of management.
"Of course, such a user also probably wouldn't be updating his or her X server, but that's beside the point."
I beg to differ. That is the point. Your average grandma will never install an X driver, hell she will probably never install any driver. For those users there is no appreciable difference between windows and linux when it comes to drivers.
To the people who are likely to install drivers it's very important.
I especially loved your omission of all the gui based tools. That's one point I forgot to mention. Lies of omission are a very effective shilling technique.
I also loved the way you didn't compare the actual installation techniques of drivers in windows to apt. That was pretty smart of you not point out the old.
Browse to some web site, click around for 15 minutes to find the driver, agree to some weird EULA, download the software, save it to disk, open up windows explorer, find the MSI file, double click on it, click YES about five times, cross your figers, reboot.
We all know that's sooooooooo much easier then apt-get install.
The genius of GPL is that in order to defeat the GPL you have invalidate all software licenses.
In order to actually get to use the GPLed code without paying the GPL price you have to invalidate copyright.
Stallman was a frekin genious. He hacked the law and placed an annoying thorn in the side all proprietary software companies and the only way to remove it is to not make proprietary software possible at all.
I certainly understand that impulse. But there is a difference between saying I like this product and yelling it from the rooftops. I like my car and if somebody asked me what kind of car to get I would tell them that I enjoy mine and have never had any troubles with it. Does that make me a shill? No.
What would make me a shill? If I hung out at bulletin boards badmouthing other cars, or defending the car maker against people who say they have had bad experiences with my car maker or model then I would be a shill.
I like my jacket, I like my shoes, I like my car, I like my TV. I don't hang out on web sites and sing the praises of those products to the world and I don't "defend" them against anonymous people who don't like them.
"But what if [Pick Your Favorite Evil] decides to fund a real research to find a way to manipulate the laws until they make the GPL look illegal?"
Oh I know the answer to this one.
If the GPL is found to be illegal then it becomes invalidated and with it goes all your rights to redistribute. All the GPL code reverts back to copyright. If you want to ever redistribute GPLed code you will have to get permissions from the copyright holders individually.
If the MS and SCOs of the world think that all that GPLed code will magically become public domain they are fooling themselves.
What will probably happen is a new license will be cooked up and it too will be thorn on the side of MS. Rinse repeat.
You are doing it all wrong. YOu have to say something like this...
"I really like linux but lets face it it's not ready for grandma. Nobody wants to compile a kernel just to make a game work and besides gimp is not nearly good as photoshop. Oh and autocad doesn't run on linux.
Windows used suck but it's never crashed on me since 2000 came out and let's face it XP has solved all the security issues with windows.
I love linux and sometimes its fun to spend five hours messing with config files but I use windows when I just want to get things done. "
The trick is to pretend you like linux while saying bad things about it.
Technically any person who advocates for any corporation is a shill. Some are paid shills other shill voluntarily but they are shills nevertheless.
I honestly don't know why any human being would volunteer to act as a PR agent for a corporation but that's just me. I am sure people have profound reasons for it.
The person I was replying to was arguing AGAINST helping third world people get computing infrastructure because they need clean water and food and are nomadic herders. go read his post, I date you.
I made the deduction that he is an American because a) Slashdot is mostly composed of Americans. b) He used american idioms
I deduced that he was an ignorant american because he actually thinks most people in the third world are starving, thirsty nomadic herders who don't need no stinking computers.
I stand by all my deductions. You have said nothing to convince me that he is not an american nor ignorant.
OK?
"I will stop trying to point out your hypocrisy of ignorantly labelling people whose views you simply disagree with as ignorant."
I don't call him ignorant because I disagree with him. I call him ignorant because he thinks people in the third world are nomadic herders who don't have clean water and food.
"Or, he could be from a country where he received a good education in the English language and picks up Americanisms because he (or she) spends a lot of time on largely American sites like Slashdot. You don't know."
I think there might be 1 or 2 percent chance of that.
"He never claimed anything of the sort"
Yes he did. I quoted him. You should go read his post.
"But there are a large number of third world countries (a word, BTW which should is deprecated -- use underdeveloped instead) which are. Why don't you go to Cambodia."
Well I haven't made it cambodia yet. I suppose to you that completely invalidates my experiences in afghanistan, iraq, iran and the rest of the countries I have been in. Even though I have never been in cambodia let me make a guess OK?
There are schools in cambodia that need computers. There are schools in cambodia where there is electricy and running water and food. Not every person in cambodia is starving and in need of drinking water.
The idea that we should not deliver computers to cambodia because some people in cambodia don't have clean water is stupid and ignorant. Only an American would say something that collasaly dumb.
"In truth, few of the countries you listed qualify as underdeveloped."
Granted japan, korea, australia etc are not third world countries but iran, iraq definately are and turkey probably is.
"The bottom line is that you assumed a lot about this person, making generalizations about both him and all Americans ("typical American"), and flamed him without cause, inflicting a sort of poetic justice upon yourself."
He is an ignorant american and I called him on it. I stand by my assessment which is based 100% on what he said.
"It's obvious that you are well-travelled and consider yourself enlightened."
I am well traveled but in no way shape or form do I consider myself enlightened. I simply have had the depths of my own ignorance revealed to me in my travels and interactions with the people of this planet. I admit my ignorance freely.
"You should take the next step and control your anger, asking relevant, pointed questions instead of assuming things that weren't said and casting yourself in a poor light."
I don't believe in that crap. I don't care how you see me, I don't care how anybody sees me. When I see ignorant people make outrageous statements and then get modded up I have to speak out. Sorry if you don't like it.
"There are plenty of countries where people don't have these things, and need them more than computers. He was saying that charities should concentrate on that first."
That's an ignorant thing to say. It's offensive to say that people should not try to provide third world countries with computers or IT infrastuctrure until everybody has clean water ro food. I have news for you, not every person in the US has clean water or food either.
We also know that people were released from guantanamo after two or more years of imprisomnent, torture and being subjected to numerous drugs of unkown nature. All they got for two years of hell was a new pair of jeans and sneakers.
Once they got back to afghanistan they told their tales of being tortured and injected with various drugs but of course the US press doesn't carry that kinds of news.
Slashdot Mirror
I would hardly call citrix a thriving company. They used to be the only company that sold thin client solutions for windows and now MS is giving away what citrix is selling.
I suppose it's something that they are still in business but going from being the only vendor of something to competing with something MS is giving away can't be a picnic.
You are missing the point entirely. The argument was that the economy is not a zero sum process because if china got richer it would not have to be at the expense of US. In other words it's possible for all nations to get richer without bounds and not cause economic harm to other nations. I have also seen similar arguments about individual wealth as if it was theoretically possible for every person to be a billionaire.
So you can bet your ass that if china gets richer it will impact the US and most other nations too. We are all dependent on the same pool of natural resources whether they be oil, trees, water or air.
Economy takes energy. Even for purely intellectual forms of commerce there is a heavy natural resources component. If you are going to attempt to argue something try aguing against this statement and let's see where it gets you.
"All forms of eceonomic activity use natural resources in an unsustainable manner". That's right ALL of them. Even if you are a lawyer or an accountant who produces no real goods you eat, you need clothing, you drive, you shit, you need to be kept warm and cooled down. All of that requires natural resouces which you are consuming at a rate faster then they can regenerate.
If you want to assert that the economy is not a zero sum game prove my sentence wrong.
They won with IE but are not backsliding. They haven't won with xbox, MSN (despite years of trying), expedia, sidewalk, hotmail, CE, IIS the list goes on and on.
My favorite MS failure is "microsoft at work". For those that don't remember gates was going to put windows on copiers and fax machines, supposedly he signed contracts with companies like canon and xerox. It died a well deserved death but I remember it's dying sounds fondly.
Actually it's sociapathy. Not all sociopaths end up as low level criminals or murderers. A bunch of them end up as CEOs, white collar ciminals and crooked thug businessman.
I think we have all worked for a sociopath at least once in our lives.
Yea, it's called dumping. Supposedly it's illegal but the only companies who ever get changed with it are foreign. Although in a new twist the FSF is being sued civilly for it.
Along with DON'T EVER EVER EVER EVER PARTNER WITH MS. I can't think of one company that continued to thrive after partnering with MS. The only reason MS ever wants to parner with anybody is to learn their business and then compete with them.
" When (if) China becomes a economic supercenter, it won't be at the direct expense of the American lifestyle. Economics isn't a zero sum game, after all."
No it will be at the expense of natural resources. The economy IS a zero sum game but not the way most people think. Economic advancement comes at the cost of natural resources. Since there is not an infinate amount of natural resources the economy is a zero sum game.
Actually the only way for the economy not be a zero sum game would be for there to be an infinate amount of something in the universe. We all know that even the number of atoms in the universe is finite so the economy HAS to be a zero sum game.
" My managers simply refuse to use anything proposed by us, the development team, and named subversion."
For the umpteenth time people. When you say things like this name your company. We all want to make sure we don't have ny stock in companies with this kind of management.
"Of course, such a user also probably wouldn't be updating his or her X server, but that's beside the point."
I beg to differ. That is the point. Your average grandma will never install an X driver, hell she will probably never install any driver. For those users there is no appreciable difference between windows and linux when it comes to drivers.
To the people who are likely to install drivers it's very important.
"consider updating the X driver for a video card -- you have to restart X to use it, which is equivalent to a reboot in Windows"
Restarting X is not equvalent to rebooting the computer. Your services continue to run and that's a big thing. Nice try though.
Congratulations. An excellent troll. I explained the MS shill tactics in this post (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=148082&cid=12 411098) and you have nailed it. Bravo.
I especially loved your omission of all the gui based tools. That's one point I forgot to mention. Lies of omission are a very effective shilling technique.
I also loved the way you didn't compare the actual installation techniques of drivers in windows to apt. That was pretty smart of you not point out the old.
Browse to some web site, click around for 15 minutes to find the driver, agree to some weird EULA, download the software, save it to disk, open up windows explorer, find the MSI file, double click on it, click YES about five times, cross your figers, reboot.
We all know that's sooooooooo much easier then apt-get install.
The genius of GPL is that in order to defeat the GPL you have invalidate all software licenses.
In order to actually get to use the GPLed code without paying the GPL price you have to invalidate copyright.
Stallman was a frekin genious. He hacked the law and placed an annoying thorn in the side all proprietary software companies and the only way to remove it is to not make proprietary software possible at all.
I certainly understand that impulse. But there is a difference between saying I like this product and yelling it from the rooftops. I like my car and if somebody asked me what kind of car to get I would tell them that I enjoy mine and have never had any troubles with it. Does that make me a shill? No.
What would make me a shill? If I hung out at bulletin boards badmouthing other cars, or defending the car maker against people who say they have had bad experiences with my car maker or model then I would be a shill.
I like my jacket, I like my shoes, I like my car, I like my TV. I don't hang out on web sites and sing the praises of those products to the world and I don't "defend" them against anonymous people who don't like them.
"But what if [Pick Your Favorite Evil] decides to fund a real research to find a way to manipulate the laws until they make the GPL look illegal?"
Oh I know the answer to this one.
If the GPL is found to be illegal then it becomes invalidated and with it goes all your rights to redistribute. All the GPL code reverts back to copyright. If you want to ever redistribute GPLed code you will have to get permissions from the copyright holders individually.
If the MS and SCOs of the world think that all that GPLed code will magically become public domain they are fooling themselves.
What will probably happen is a new license will be cooked up and it too will be thorn on the side of MS. Rinse repeat.
You know if a boycott was organized against their advertisers they would stop tommorow.
These people don't know the meaning of ethics, morals, truth or honor but they know all about the greenbacks.
You are doing it all wrong. YOu have to say something like this...
"I really like linux but lets face it it's not ready for grandma. Nobody wants to compile a kernel just to make a game work and besides gimp is not nearly good as photoshop. Oh and autocad doesn't run on linux.
Windows used suck but it's never crashed on me since 2000 came out and let's face it XP has solved all the security issues with windows.
I love linux and sometimes its fun to spend five hours messing with config files but I use windows when I just want to get things done. "
The trick is to pretend you like linux while saying bad things about it.
Technically any person who advocates for any corporation is a shill. Some are paid shills other shill voluntarily but they are shills nevertheless.
I honestly don't know why any human being would volunteer to act as a PR agent for a corporation but that's just me. I am sure people have profound reasons for it.
"I don't know anything about Monterey, but I'd be happy to consider any evidence that people are willing to post :"
There is this site called groklaw. It contains lots of evidence. I suggest you check it out.
Too bad Bush went after the iraqis instead of the people who actually killed americans huh?
He could not even get the targets of his revenge right.
I am so glad the eight nightmare of peace and prosperity under clinton is over.
I much prefer $2.00 gas, a global war, record deficits, record trade deficits, a weak dollar, stagnant economy, and rising interest rates.
The person I was replying to was arguing AGAINST helping third world people get computing infrastructure because they need clean water and food and are nomadic herders. go read his post, I date you.
I made the deduction that he is an American because
a) Slashdot is mostly composed of Americans.
b) He used american idioms
I deduced that he was an ignorant american because he actually thinks most people in the third world are starving, thirsty nomadic herders who don't need no stinking computers.
I stand by all my deductions. You have said nothing to convince me that he is not an american nor ignorant.
OK?
"I will stop trying to point out your hypocrisy of ignorantly labelling people whose views you simply disagree with as ignorant."
I don't call him ignorant because I disagree with him. I call him ignorant because he thinks people in the third world are nomadic herders who don't have clean water and food.
"Or, he could be from a country where he received a good education in the English language and picks up Americanisms because he (or she) spends a lot of time on largely American sites like Slashdot. You don't know."
I think there might be 1 or 2 percent chance of that.
"He never claimed anything of the sort"
Yes he did. I quoted him. You should go read his post.
"But there are a large number of third world countries (a word, BTW which should is deprecated -- use underdeveloped instead) which are. Why don't you go to Cambodia."
Well I haven't made it cambodia yet. I suppose to you that completely invalidates my experiences in afghanistan, iraq, iran and the rest of the countries I have been in. Even though I have never been in cambodia let me make a guess OK?
There are schools in cambodia that need computers. There are schools in cambodia where there is electricy and running water and food. Not every person in cambodia is starving and in need of drinking water.
The idea that we should not deliver computers to cambodia because some people in cambodia don't have clean water is stupid and ignorant. Only an American would say something that collasaly dumb.
"In truth, few of the countries you listed qualify as underdeveloped."
Granted japan, korea, australia etc are not third world countries but iran, iraq definately are and turkey probably is.
"The bottom line is that you assumed a lot about this person, making generalizations about both him and all Americans ("typical American"), and flamed him without cause, inflicting a sort of poetic justice upon yourself."
He is an ignorant american and I called him on it. I stand by my assessment which is based 100% on what he said.
"It's obvious that you are well-travelled and consider yourself enlightened."
I am well traveled but in no way shape or form do I consider myself enlightened. I simply have had the depths of my own ignorance revealed to me in my travels and interactions with the people of this planet. I admit my ignorance freely.
"You should take the next step and control your anger, asking relevant, pointed questions instead of assuming things that weren't said and casting yourself in a poor light."
I don't believe in that crap. I don't care how you see me, I don't care how anybody sees me. When I see ignorant people make outrageous statements and then get modded up I have to speak out. Sorry if you don't like it.
"There are plenty of countries where people don't have these things, and need them more than computers. He was saying that charities should concentrate on that first."
That's an ignorant thing to say. It's offensive to say that people should not try to provide third world countries with computers or IT infrastuctrure until everybody has clean water ro food. I have news for you, not every person in the US has clean water or food either.
So you are saying that it's perfectly OK to imprison and torture people for a few years because you could have killed them instead?
We also know that people were released from guantanamo after two or more years of imprisomnent, torture and being subjected to numerous drugs of unkown nature. All they got for two years of hell was a new pair of jeans and sneakers.
Once they got back to afghanistan they told their tales of being tortured and injected with various drugs but of course the US press doesn't carry that kinds of news.