support is more than bug fixes, although you'd think it was mostly that. It's also about restoring operation when something non bug related happens. Major system failures for instance. I worked somewhere once where they flew a guy in by jet from Microsoft's UK HQ to a local airfield to help us get our systems back up in the middle of the night. It wasn't their fault that the system had failed, but it sure was their responsibility to help us get it up and running again.
Not all customers think free is better, especially those who are long term Microsoft houses. Not just them though, there are still a lot of proprietary Unix houses out there who are a long way from thinking Linux is what they need.
The OS itself is almost unimportant, it's the service that goes with it that matters. corporations never did just buy site licenses, they bought massive support contracts. Linux needs to convince a lot of companies that are happy with their current arrangement that its ok to switch.
Ok, a lot of these Microsoft only companies are rejecting Vista, but that's not a statement of personal dislike, it's a business decision. Vista had a number of problems even before it left the gate. First, it's new. That alone meant that many businesses would hold off, nobody wants to be the first in the water. Secondly, it's not alone in the marketplace. Third, it's not actually that much better then XP (I think in usability terms its a step back, but there must be security improvements under the hood).
Many companies currently using XP will eventually migrate to Vista, there's no doubt there, if only because their bespoke software or other licensed software requires the windows platform, and XP will eventually be seen as too old as hardware changes. I wouldn't be expecting this for a few years though.
except for python programmers, but they're in a straight jacket
Ok, Python is very strict in terms of layout, but I wouldn't say it put users in a straightjacket. I'm predominantly a C coder, and I think Python is fantastic. I've started embedding it into my C programs so I can script stuff up to prototype it, then convert to C if required.
The freedom that introducing python scripting has provided is without equal in my experience.
Yes there is, we don't want to give them food, we want it all for ourselves.
I say this because we produce a massive, massive surplus of so many of the basic foodstuffs that we use, and yet they die each year from a lack of the very same food.
Ok, a few charities manage to buy food to give to them, piss small quantities for the most part when compared to the stuff we bin every day.
I seriously think that if we did start sending a fair share of our food to these starving millions, as in enough to solve the problem for *ever* (yes, we have that much food already), people would complain because some prices would go up a bit in the supermarket. People are not generally nice when they are asked to foot the bill for this sort of stuff (sort of the same reason why the US has no free health service).
You can complain about their purchase of YouTube, their ads in the sidebar for google.com, GMail's vulnerabilities, trying to capitalize on a wireless spectrum auction, etc. etc. etc...
Why thankyou, gracious sir..
I haven't found one thing yet to make me want to *truly* hate Google
I find it disturbing that so many define their relationship with companies in the IT world in terms of hatred (whether lack of or intensity of). Ever really hated? I have, its something of an extreme potition that does not, as a rule, provide comfort in the long term. The most I could ever feel towards an IT company is irritation, and my most extreme reaction would be abandonment of their product. I wouldn't waste the effort to go beyond that.
The fact is, yes - they *are* a for-profit company. BUT, that doesn't mean they are evil
There you go again. Evil? Define it, go on. Does *not* being for profit make you automatically good? (which you infer by your feeling the need to defend it) I has a doubt on that count. Unpleasant behaviour is more often inspired by status and power than money. You can get status or power by working in a charity shop or volunteering at a hospital.
Everyone has to make money, and making a sh*tload of money isn't so bad if you think about it, either
A meaningless statement. The mix of barstards and nice people among those I know is pretty much independant of fiscal status. Getting rich won't make you bad, nor will being poor. Wanting to be rich and acheiving it, while likely to inspire envy and adverse comment, is not as likely to change fundamental character traits as people think.
You just have to keep your morals and business ethics in check while you do so.
Do you? Sounds great, but lets be honest, to succeed you need to be a bit evil. Nice people get bulldozed aside. OK I don't mean it's ok to be a complete asshole, but predatory tendancies are an essential trait for success, or you'll never make it, even if all you do with it is defend yourself from the people who'll take what you have given half a chance. I have a friend who is a great bloke, nice to his customers, and going places. He's got a certain predatory side to him though, it's easy to spot, but you wouldn't want to cross him in business.
I've been a fan of douglas adams ever since I caught the very first broadcast of episode one of Hitch-hikers on the radio by pure, joyous chance.
I was somewhat surprised in later years to realise that it was actually his factual work 'Last Chance to See' that was my favorite of all his works (thought the Dirk Gebtly books are a close second). I never much liked the h2G2 books, I prefer the radio play.
What, they think if they ban it all the other nations of the world are going to say, 'ooh, mighty america, she say no', and not do it either?
Ok, China's a long way off from anything like that, but the US proved it doesn't take long from baked bean cans with windows in orbit to men playing golf and finding orange soil on the surface of another planet (ok moon).
'Bout that 'losing the initiative' thing. Oh wait, that happened in the seventies..
When you get to the step 4, the parts are of no worth to anyone.
I disagree, they have a use. For example, I've still got my old ZX Spectrum. I showed it to my son last year, and he asked me in all seriousness where the dvd's went in. Then I mentioned the memory capacity (oh how awesome 48k was back then..) and he looked at me like it was time for me to visit the 'special' home.
Ok so the use was to make me feel old and look silly, but it's still a use..
Anyone who thought Microsoft would support a format produced my a major business rival (in a field they have only made a loss in), is kidding themselves.
I don't think its related to increasing the usefulness of downloads. I think actually that if a friend of microsoft were making Blu ray they'd be all over it. It's superior technology, but has the disadvantage that it requires major infrastructure upgrades for most companies to utilise it (well, to build the discs, this is my simple understanding). Hell, that's practically the definition of every microsoft product these days.
HD-DVD is less advanced, but it's cheaper to re-tool. I see advantages there too personally, cheap sounds good.
The way data storage space needs are increasing, 30GB seems a bit small, but then so does the 50Gb of a blu ray disc. Ok blu ray might go up to 200 Gb, which is a bit more useful, but right now I'm finding it far simpler to just buy additional external HD's every time my data storage needs increase. Their harder to damage too, and more easily re-used.
support their proprietary software platforms (see Mono) and pushes by some people within GNOME
I thought Mono was an entirely seperate implementation of the technology that wasn't initially compatible with, or related to the microsoft.NET thing in any case.
Not that I care much, I don't much like all this.NET style stuff anyway, my needs are somewhat simpler. C or Python (or both together, Mmm embedding...) fulfill all of my requirements, and they don't have any platform issues.
I beleive they have no problem in people implementing readers and writers usually. Microsoft were wanting to make it part of their saleable product without paying royalties. Microsot aren't your usual player.
The big issue was, I think, that if they had PDF in MSOffice, they could artificially deprectate it by having a 'This format may not save all the features of this document, use ours instead'. That was the groklaw suspicion I recall. Everyone else says 'use this, use ours, whatever you want', which does not harm Adobe.
No, it is actually Reading, UK. A fine city that has a wonderful Pub called The Hob Goblin. Its ales are brilliant!
The Boars Head was a better pub, really great music, one of those 'sawdust on the floor places. It's also Readings oldest Public house I beleive.
Until the Landlord got, um, shot in both knee's for cracking down on drug dealers in the early nineties that is. Damn shame really. Last I saw it was still boarded up.
If you really are an academic, I suggest you brush up on your spelling and grammar, since 'your' coming over as something of an 'amatour'./sigh
Once again the grammer nazi's strike. I *can't* spell well without the aid of a spellchecker, and the browser I'm using today doesn't have one. Tough, not everyone is able to spell, some of us will never be able to spell well without help. In my case any word with consecutive vowels gets a bit optional. There are lots of words I find tricky.
Many of my colleagues have exactly the same problem.
I refer specifically to the asteroid monitoring and discovery work they do, which is essential, and involves too high a volume of observation time for most profesional astronomers to maintain. Not deep space work though, that costs money.
Again, you have no right to comment on the issue if you possess no academic qualifications. Those who can't make it in the exploration of knowledge are always ready to claim there's some problem with the academic process, when the real problem is their lack of qualifications.
I think I should respond to this. let me se, reasoned, well thought out, adult...
Your talking utter utter shite. No really, you are.
Lets look at an example, amatour astronomy. the overwhelming majority of the worlds astronomers are amatours, almost none of whome have academic qualifications. In spite of this they are the acknowledged backbone of astronomy, responsible for a huge volume of discoveries and research. The field would be a wasteland without them.
That's just one field, there are others, but I don't want to produce a huge list. This 'right to comment' you describe is rubbish. Anyone can comment on anything, and have the right to be heard. How seriously they are taken depends on how useful or informed their contribution is. That's the hard part, and this usefulness can be acheived either through academic work, or independant work as an amatour. Both are valid, although I have to say the latter is often the one with greater passion.
I'm an academic, and I bow to the superior domain knowledge of a number of my 'unqualified' freinds when it comes to things they understand well and I do not.
Seriously, this is just a bunch of useless trolls (who exist in every community) trying to present themselves as big, important, and note worthy to the world
What actually happened, as another poster said occurs, is that he lost his ability/conviction to keep the secret.
I've seen it a lot, we once had an immensly dignified, lovely old lady who turned out to have enjoyed the cannabis in her youth, going for walks in the jungle where she lived, high as a kite. She used to relive those walks out loud, as if the memory were replaying in her head. It was quite interesting, but on some walks she went with friends, and she'd say her side of conversations only, which made it hard to follow.
I met a spy once. Well a guy who'd been a spy in the second world war, fascinating stuff. Alas he was bcoming senile, hence why I met him, he was a client of mine (used to be a nurse you see).
What was really funny is all through the war, and right up till the mid nineties, his wife had beleved he was a truck driver with some very long postings abroad on convoy duty or somesuch. Once she thought he was up in scotland for six months when he was actually in Africa. He only talked when he started to realise his mind was going.
You know the problem with people who have been around technology for a long time is when they go senile, their babble will change but most people probably won't be able to tell the difference
Why you young insensitive clod, I'm gonna sma.....ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz whut?
This is all a bit silly to me. Ok, so people are annoyed at Facebook, and I see the story has been tagged BigBrother. That's utter rubbish for a start, but of exactly the kind you expect from people who don't really know what big brother represents in 1984, or never read the bookt.
Why can't it be Big Brother? It's an elective free service, which is two things that the figure Big Brother in 1984 most definatelly does not represent. You are under no obligation to use it. That's all there is folks, don't like it? Don't use it, problem solved.
People do like it though, most of the people I know who are on it don't care about this new storm+teacup, which they view as, well, not worthy of notice. Facebook does what they want, end of problem. I use it too. Ok I block the sidebar beacon adverts, but otherwise I like it.
Oh yes, and online shopping is going to be tracked by everyone who can possibly manage it soon. It's big, big money. So Facebook are doing it now, well, give it a year or so and try to find a free online service of this type that doesn't do tracking, or promises not to in the future.
I think you better look up Diogenes for advice first mind.
Slashdot Mirror
support is more than bug fixes, although you'd think it was mostly that. It's also about restoring operation when something non bug related happens. Major system failures for instance. I worked somewhere once where they flew a guy in by jet from Microsoft's UK HQ to a local airfield to help us get our systems back up in the middle of the night. It wasn't their fault that the system had failed, but it sure was their responsibility to help us get it up and running again.
Define 'better'.
Not all customers think free is better, especially those who are long term Microsoft houses. Not just them though, there are still a lot of proprietary Unix houses out there who are a long way from thinking Linux is what they need.
The OS itself is almost unimportant, it's the service that goes with it that matters. corporations never did just buy site licenses, they bought massive support contracts. Linux needs to convince a lot of companies that are happy with their current arrangement that its ok to switch.
Ok, a lot of these Microsoft only companies are rejecting Vista, but that's not a statement of personal dislike, it's a business decision. Vista had a number of problems even before it left the gate. First, it's new. That alone meant that many businesses would hold off, nobody wants to be the first in the water. Secondly, it's not alone in the marketplace. Third, it's not actually that much better then XP (I think in usability terms its a step back, but there must be security improvements under the hood).
Many companies currently using XP will eventually migrate to Vista, there's no doubt there, if only because their bespoke software or other licensed software requires the windows platform, and XP will eventually be seen as too old as hardware changes. I wouldn't be expecting this for a few years though.
except for python programmers, but they're in a straight jacket
Ok, Python is very strict in terms of layout, but I wouldn't say it put users in a straightjacket. I'm predominantly a C coder, and I think Python is fantastic. I've started embedding it into my C programs so I can script stuff up to prototype it, then convert to C if required.
The freedom that introducing python scripting has provided is without equal in my experience.
Of course there's no reason it can't be both
Yes there is, we don't want to give them food, we want it all for ourselves.
I say this because we produce a massive, massive surplus of so many of the basic foodstuffs that we use, and yet they die each year from a lack of the very same food.
Ok, a few charities manage to buy food to give to them, piss small quantities for the most part when compared to the stuff we bin every day.
I seriously think that if we did start sending a fair share of our food to these starving millions, as in enough to solve the problem for *ever* (yes, we have that much food already), people would complain because some prices would go up a bit in the supermarket. People are not generally nice when they are asked to foot the bill for this sort of stuff (sort of the same reason why the US has no free health service).
Sex is done in company? Wow!
er, I mean, of course it is, um...
You can complain about their purchase of YouTube, their ads in the sidebar for google.com, GMail's vulnerabilities, trying to capitalize on a wireless spectrum auction, etc. etc. etc...
Why thankyou, gracious sir..
I haven't found one thing yet to make me want to *truly* hate Google
I find it disturbing that so many define their relationship with companies in the IT world in terms of hatred (whether lack of or intensity of). Ever really hated? I have, its something of an extreme potition that does not, as a rule, provide comfort in the long term. The most I could ever feel towards an IT company is irritation, and my most extreme reaction would be abandonment of their product. I wouldn't waste the effort to go beyond that.
The fact is, yes - they *are* a for-profit company. BUT, that doesn't mean they are evil
There you go again. Evil? Define it, go on. Does *not* being for profit make you automatically good? (which you infer by your feeling the need to defend it) I has a doubt on that count. Unpleasant behaviour is more often inspired by status and power than money. You can get status or power by working in a charity shop or volunteering at a hospital.
Everyone has to make money, and making a sh*tload of money isn't so bad if you think about it, either
A meaningless statement. The mix of barstards and nice people among those I know is pretty much independant of fiscal status. Getting rich won't make you bad, nor will being poor. Wanting to be rich and acheiving it, while likely to inspire envy and adverse comment, is not as likely to change fundamental character traits as people think.
You just have to keep your morals and business ethics in check while you do so.
Do you? Sounds great, but lets be honest, to succeed you need to be a bit evil. Nice people get bulldozed aside. OK I don't mean it's ok to be a complete asshole, but predatory tendancies are an essential trait for success, or you'll never make it, even if all you do with it is defend yourself from the people who'll take what you have given half a chance. I have a friend who is a great bloke, nice to his customers, and going places. He's got a certain predatory side to him though, it's easy to spot, but you wouldn't want to cross him in business.
Saturn's moons are made of Scrith?
darn you CaseyB, you beat me to it...
For those who are interested, Douglas gave a lecture just a few weeks before his tragic demise. You can watch it here:
http://webcast.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/UCSD_TV/5779UniCalSanBar.rm
I've been a fan of douglas adams ever since I caught the very first broadcast of episode one of Hitch-hikers on the radio by pure, joyous chance.
I was somewhat surprised in later years to realise that it was actually his factual work 'Last Chance to See' that was my favorite of all his works (thought the Dirk Gebtly books are a close second). I never much liked the h2G2 books, I prefer the radio play.
but the problem is you can tell who voted for who and that's bad.
:-)
Only for the people who don't vote the way you want. It would only take a couple of elections and you could make them all go away anyway.
See? Nice and tidy
What, they think if they ban it all the other nations of the world are going to say, 'ooh, mighty america, she say no', and not do it either?
Ok, China's a long way off from anything like that, but the US proved it doesn't take long from baked bean cans with windows in orbit to men playing golf and finding orange soil on the surface of another planet (ok moon).
'Bout that 'losing the initiative' thing. Oh wait, that happened in the seventies..
When you get to the step 4, the parts are of no worth to anyone.
I disagree, they have a use. For example, I've still got my old ZX Spectrum. I showed it to my son last year, and he asked me in all seriousness where the dvd's went in. Then I mentioned the memory capacity (oh how awesome 48k was back then..) and he looked at me like it was time for me to visit the 'special' home.
Ok so the use was to make me feel old and look silly, but it's still a use..
Anyone who thought Microsoft would support a format produced my a major business rival (in a field they have only made a loss in), is kidding themselves.
I don't think its related to increasing the usefulness of downloads. I think actually that if a friend of microsoft were making Blu ray they'd be all over it. It's superior technology, but has the disadvantage that it requires major infrastructure upgrades for most companies to utilise it (well, to build the discs, this is my simple understanding). Hell, that's practically the definition of every microsoft product these days.
HD-DVD is less advanced, but it's cheaper to re-tool. I see advantages there too personally, cheap sounds good.
The way data storage space needs are increasing, 30GB seems a bit small, but then so does the 50Gb of a blu ray disc. Ok blu ray might go up to 200 Gb, which is a bit more useful, but right now I'm finding it far simpler to just buy additional external HD's every time my data storage needs increase. Their harder to damage too, and more easily re-used.
support their proprietary software platforms (see Mono) and pushes by some people within GNOME
.NET thing in any case.
.NET style stuff anyway, my needs are somewhat simpler. C or Python (or both together, Mmm embedding...) fulfill all of my requirements, and they don't have any platform issues.
I thought Mono was an entirely seperate implementation of the technology that wasn't initially compatible with, or related to the microsoft
Not that I care much, I don't much like all this
I beleive they have no problem in people implementing readers and writers usually. Microsoft were wanting to make it part of their saleable product without paying royalties. Microsot aren't your usual player.
The big issue was, I think, that if they had PDF in MSOffice, they could artificially deprectate it by having a 'This format may not save all the features of this document, use ours instead'. That was the groklaw suspicion I recall. Everyone else says 'use this, use ours, whatever you want', which does not harm Adobe.
No, it is actually Reading, UK. A fine city that has a wonderful Pub called The Hob Goblin. Its ales are brilliant!
The Boars Head was a better pub, really great music, one of those 'sawdust on the floor places. It's also Readings oldest Public house I beleive.
Until the Landlord got, um, shot in both knee's for cracking down on drug dealers in the early nineties that is. Damn shame really. Last I saw it was still boarded up.
If you really are an academic, I suggest you brush up on your spelling and grammar, since 'your' coming over as something of an 'amatour'. /sigh
Once again the grammer nazi's strike. I *can't* spell well without the aid of a spellchecker, and the browser I'm using today doesn't have one. Tough, not everyone is able to spell, some of us will never be able to spell well without help. In my case any word with consecutive vowels gets a bit optional. There are lots of words I find tricky.
Many of my colleagues have exactly the same problem.
I refer specifically to the asteroid monitoring and discovery work they do, which is essential, and involves too high a volume of observation time for most profesional astronomers to maintain. Not deep space work though, that costs money.
And yet you cannot spell "amateur", nor can you tell the difference between "your" and "you're". Ridiculous.
Yes, I'm dyspraxic. I have a doctorate though, and all you have is a whiners attitude.
Again, you have no right to comment on the issue if you possess no academic qualifications. Those who can't make it in the exploration of knowledge are always ready to claim there's some problem with the academic process, when the real problem is their lack of qualifications.
I think I should respond to this. let me se, reasoned, well thought out, adult...
Your talking utter utter shite. No really, you are.
Lets look at an example, amatour astronomy. the overwhelming majority of the worlds astronomers are amatours, almost none of whome have academic qualifications. In spite of this they are the acknowledged backbone of astronomy, responsible for a huge volume of discoveries and research. The field would be a wasteland without them.
That's just one field, there are others, but I don't want to produce a huge list. This 'right to comment' you describe is rubbish. Anyone can comment on anything, and have the right to be heard. How seriously they are taken depends on how useful or informed their contribution is. That's the hard part, and this usefulness can be acheived either through academic work, or independant work as an amatour. Both are valid, although I have to say the latter is often the one with greater passion.
I'm an academic, and I bow to the superior domain knowledge of a number of my 'unqualified' freinds when it comes to things they understand well and I do not.
Seriously, this is just a bunch of useless trolls (who exist in every community) trying to present themselves as big, important, and note worthy to the world
You got a citation for this?
What actually happened, as another poster said occurs, is that he lost his ability/conviction to keep the secret.
I've seen it a lot, we once had an immensly dignified, lovely old lady who turned out to have enjoyed the cannabis in her youth, going for walks in the jungle where she lived, high as a kite. She used to relive those walks out loud, as if the memory were replaying in her head. It was quite interesting, but on some walks she went with friends, and she'd say her side of conversations only, which made it hard to follow.
I met a spy once. Well a guy who'd been a spy in the second world war, fascinating stuff.
Alas he was bcoming senile, hence why I met him, he was a client of mine (used to be a nurse you see).
What was really funny is all through the war, and right up till the mid nineties, his wife had beleved he was a truck driver with some very long postings abroad on convoy duty or somesuch. Once she thought he was up in scotland for six months when he was actually in Africa. He only talked when he started to realise his mind was going.
Great stuff I thought.
You know the problem with people who have been around technology for a long time is when they go senile, their babble will change but most people probably won't be able to tell the difference
Why you young insensitive clod, I'm gonna sma.....ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz whut?
This is all a bit silly to me. Ok, so people are annoyed at Facebook, and I see the story has been tagged BigBrother. That's utter rubbish for a start, but of exactly the kind you expect from people who don't really know what big brother represents in 1984, or never read the bookt.
Why can't it be Big Brother? It's an elective free service, which is two things that the figure Big Brother in 1984 most definatelly does not represent. You are under no obligation to use it. That's all there is folks, don't like it? Don't use it, problem solved.
People do like it though, most of the people I know who are on it don't care about this new storm+teacup, which they view as, well, not worthy of notice. Facebook does what they want, end of problem. I use it too. Ok I block the sidebar beacon adverts, but otherwise I like it.
Oh yes, and online shopping is going to be tracked by everyone who can possibly manage it soon. It's big, big money. So Facebook are doing it now, well, give it a year or so and try to find a free online service of this type that doesn't do tracking, or promises not to in the future.
I think you better look up Diogenes for advice first mind.
Hey, nice summary.