I know you were being nice and all, don't get me wrong, but would there really be any reason for him to pay extra money so he can get functionality on Linux which he already has in a fully working state on Windows?
I don't want to join a movement, or even learn about a movement. I want to use my computer. Your idea, while nice, doesn't really work for people who just want to know how to use things.
People love shinies, Flash gives them those shinies, Linux's Flash plugin is bollocks. That and mplayer and xine both having terrible, eye splitting guis make it a nono.
Stalker. I'm proud. You wouldn't have so many "stalkers" if you didn't talk so much shit in the manner of a 12 year old who's just discovered Ubuntu and now considers that an excuse to lord over all the Unwashed MassesTM using Windows.
Maybe if you'd actually used AmaroK or WMP, you'd notice that:
a) AmaroK doesn't automatically tag anything. WMPs pisspoor tagging is infinitely better than AmaroK's for this reason. b) AmaroK will also not fetch the right album cover if files are improperly tagged. Expecting it or WMP to do otherwise is expecting just a little too much. c) WMPs cover art feature, and its tagging feature, is dependent on AllMusic.com (the All Music Guide). If that goes wrong, so does WMPs tagging and cover art. Not Microsoft's problem, same as it's not AmaroK's problem if the lyrics site they use changes format or something (as it did recently), MusicBrainz goes down or Wikipedia goes down.
That's funny, because my copy of IE6 doesn't have Alexa on it. I'm fairly sure that was put there by an OEM, just how a (hypothetical) Linux-shipping OEM could (hypothetically) bundle malware with copies of Mandrake or something.
So Microsoft should, out of the kindness of their hearts, give out free support for two operating systems which were released 7 and 5 years ago (2K and XP) and which have successors either here or in the pipeline? To be honest, I think it's fair to pay for support on Win2K...XP may be a little more tenuous, but when Vista's been around for a few years...
I'd presume that Vista beta builds would have debugging symbols included, would not be particularly optimised and almost certainly not designed to run in VMWare.
I don't think it'll be too catastrophic to be honest. People bought XP and that didn't offer much over Win2K (although it did offer LOTS more over WinMe/98). At least they're getting the message that Tahoma is a terrible UI font:D
There are benefits to automotive free software regardless of kill switches. If the kill switch was not required by law, you would be able to tell you had one and remove it....which is precisely why auto companies will either a) keep the software closed or b) make it open source but then an utter pain in the hole to change anything related to it.
As things are, you might have one and not know. If the switch were required by law, you could still remove it if you were willing to pay the price. Every government vehicle would be modified this way.
If the switch were required by law, I'm fairly sure you couldn't remove it without a long stiff jail penalty (and whatever's long and stiff while in jail, obviously).
In any case, the car's software could be improved and modified by people who love their car. It happens already but it would be nice to have the vendor's backing.
Comparing a car to RockBox is a bit specious. If RockBox fucks up, at the very least you'll have to restart the player or format the hard disk. If your car software fucks up you might at one extreme not be able to turn on the air conditioning or something; at the other you'll die at extremely high speeds with bits of car in you. There's a reason why highly tested closed source software (or highly tested OSS) is preferred in extremely critical situations such as cars, trains, planes etc rather than self modified code, and that's because if your code segfaults in one of those there'll be problems.
Not really. OSes and desktop environments are generally getting bigger anyway, with more flashy crap (I'm including XComposite in this). It's probably better having stringent hardware requirements so people can say "Yeah, my PC is too shit to run this" (or of course the reverse) rather than people buying it cluelessly, getting it home and blaming Microsoft when their PC can't run it.
That doesn't solve the problem of where the data is located, or how computers are supposed to access it. All Google's Appliance does is index it; it still needs somewhere to link to.
I'd love to know exactly what benefit you'd get out of having a car running on open source software, or what relation it would have to stopping a kill switch being implemented.
Thanks for saving me the hard work of responding to twitter there (he might like to look up the meaning of the word "twit" while he's out looking for reasons why M$ is teh suxx0r):)
Slashdot Mirror
I know you were being nice and all, don't get me wrong, but would there really be any reason for him to pay extra money so he can get functionality on Linux which he already has in a fully working state on Windows?
It's a pity Gates & Jobs couldn't join in rather then attempting to downplay the fine efforts of this group.
Gates maybe, but Jobs offered OS X free of charge but was turned down. He tried, they refused.
Actually WordArt is, for better or for worse, a very used feature. School projects and things for noticeboards for a start.
Anyway, there already is such a word processor. It's called "WordPad".
Yeah, I think that's sort of going beyond "decent security" into "irredeemably creepy".
I don't want to join a movement, or even learn about a movement. I want to use my computer. Your idea, while nice, doesn't really work for people who just want to know how to use things.
Oh it's easy to install, it's just that the plugin is of such pisspoor quality (a/v sync issues mostly) than it's not worth it.
I know about Kaffeine and AmaroK, they're good enough, but there's still a lot to be desired.
Mac perhaps. Linux no.
People love shinies, Flash gives them those shinies, Linux's Flash plugin is bollocks. That and mplayer and xine both having terrible, eye splitting guis make it a nono.
Stalker. I'm proud. You wouldn't have so many "stalkers" if you didn't talk so much shit in the manner of a 12 year old who's just discovered Ubuntu and now considers that an excuse to lord over all the Unwashed MassesTM using Windows.
Maybe if you'd actually used AmaroK or WMP, you'd notice that:
a) AmaroK doesn't automatically tag anything. WMPs pisspoor tagging is infinitely better than AmaroK's for this reason.
b) AmaroK will also not fetch the right album cover if files are improperly tagged. Expecting it or WMP to do otherwise is expecting just a little too much.
c) WMPs cover art feature, and its tagging feature, is dependent on AllMusic.com (the All Music Guide). If that goes wrong, so does WMPs tagging and cover art. Not Microsoft's problem, same as it's not AmaroK's problem if the lyrics site they use changes format or something (as it did recently), MusicBrainz goes down or Wikipedia goes down.
Wait a minute, WiMP does not do lyrics, cover art or even wikipedia lookups?
WMP can store lyrics and even time them to the song if you're willing to sort that out. It downloads cover art automatically.
Anything else, twitter? BTW, saying WiMP does not make you a big man.
Skin mode hasn't changed in years. I barely ever use it because it reminds me so much of WMP7.
Because it's a convenient feature and a perfect place to have it.
Bob: Did you get those sales figures?
Jim: No...
Bob sends file, job done.
Sorry, I tell a lie; WLM blocks sending .exe files if you don't have antivirus software installed. I just checked.
More to the point, MSN/Windows Live Messenger block sending and receiving .exe files. So unless the user has a hacked client...
Oh, lots of people have Win2K? Boo fucking hoo, cry me a damn river. Pay for support then. Same way Red Hat charges for support on RHL7.
That's funny, because my copy of IE6 doesn't have Alexa on it. I'm fairly sure that was put there by an OEM, just how a (hypothetical) Linux-shipping OEM could (hypothetically) bundle malware with copies of Mandrake or something.
We've seen Windows bundled with spyware
Elaborate, please.
So Microsoft should, out of the kindness of their hearts, give out free support for two operating systems which were released 7 and 5 years ago (2K and XP) and which have successors either here or in the pipeline? To be honest, I think it's fair to pay for support on Win2K...XP may be a little more tenuous, but when Vista's been around for a few years...
I'd presume that Vista beta builds would have debugging symbols included, would not be particularly optimised and almost certainly not designed to run in VMWare.
:D
I don't think it'll be too catastrophic to be honest. People bought XP and that didn't offer much over Win2K (although it did offer LOTS more over WinMe/98). At least they're getting the message that Tahoma is a terrible UI font
There are benefits to automotive free software regardless of kill switches. If the kill switch was not required by law, you would be able to tell you had one and remove it. ...which is precisely why auto companies will either a) keep the software closed or b) make it open source but then an utter pain in the hole to change anything related to it.
As things are, you might have one and not know. If the switch were required by law, you could still remove it if you were willing to pay the price. Every government vehicle would be modified this way.
If the switch were required by law, I'm fairly sure you couldn't remove it without a long stiff jail penalty (and whatever's long and stiff while in jail, obviously).
In any case, the car's software could be improved and modified by people who love their car. It happens already but it would be nice to have the vendor's backing.
Comparing a car to RockBox is a bit specious. If RockBox fucks up, at the very least you'll have to restart the player or format the hard disk. If your car software fucks up you might at one extreme not be able to turn on the air conditioning or something; at the other you'll die at extremely high speeds with bits of car in you. There's a reason why highly tested closed source software (or highly tested OSS) is preferred in extremely critical situations such as cars, trains, planes etc rather than self modified code, and that's because if your code segfaults in one of those there'll be problems.
Not really. OSes and desktop environments are generally getting bigger anyway, with more flashy crap (I'm including XComposite in this). It's probably better having stringent hardware requirements so people can say "Yeah, my PC is too shit to run this" (or of course the reverse) rather than people buying it cluelessly, getting it home and blaming Microsoft when their PC can't run it.
And then what, will they sue over searches for "Floyd?"
No, but Roger Waters would probably have a few things to say about it.
Um, if you're downloading someone's own homemade content, there are far better ways available to download it.
Face it. Practically nobody uses P2P to download legal stuff.
That doesn't solve the problem of where the data is located, or how computers are supposed to access it. All Google's Appliance does is index it; it still needs somewhere to link to.
I'd love to know exactly what benefit you'd get out of having a car running on open source software, or what relation it would have to stopping a kill switch being implemented.
Thanks for saving me the hard work of responding to twitter there (he might like to look up the meaning of the word "twit" while he's out looking for reasons why M$ is teh suxx0r) :)