DVD's: No ads. Only content that you want to watch. Not paying the cable companies. Those are the main reasons that there's no cable TV, broadcast TV, satellite TV, or TV programming of any kind, whatsoever in my house (unless it's on a DVD, of course).
I have the Netflix super-duper account (8 movies at a time), and have for a while. What you're describing, I've seen I think once or twice in more than a year. Just a glitch, in my opinion. As a hardcore movie buff, I think that Netflix is just fantastic. Good service, quick turnaround, and a much, much better selection than somebody like BallBuster could ever have. Plus, they don't intentionally mislead their customers like BallBuster (hence the "no late fees!" class action lawsuit). I feel bad for not going to my local video store, but considering I try to watch one new (to me) movie every night, I was quickly going broke at my local store.
I tend to agree. However, I tend not to support large, aggressive, "family" based, international media conglomerates. The difference for me isn't worth becoming a corporate whore.
I'm happy, she's happy. So cut the BS about grandmothers unable to cope with "Linux".
Well, I'm not a grandmother. In fact I used to be a programmer. How about telling me what I'm supposed to do in Ubuntu when I install a new application, then there's no way to start it? I ran into that nice little problem twice just this morning. This is just one reason why Linux is just on my "fun box". I would never use it as is for anything important.
First, you shouldn't apologize at all. That's the whole point of posting online: arguements/discussions.
I stand by my opinion, however, that in general, the Wall Street Journal has a difficult time understanding FOSS, and continues to try to cast into the mold they know well: competing proprietary products.
And this is really something that the OSS community has to overcome. They're advocating a completely foreign way of doing business, releasing products, etc. To everybody not involved in the OSS community (the vast majority of people), there's no reason to think that OSS is any different than traditional software. And yes, that's a huge hurdle to overcome, but ultimate if Red Hat or any other OSS vendor wants to sell software (or services), it's Red Hat's (etc) job to inform potential customers about their products. The WSJ is comparing OSS to proprietary software because that IS the alternative. It doesn't matter that they're different. They both serve the same needs. *Why* they are different is largely irrelevant to a business person. They want to know what piece of software is going to solve problem X.
History is full of good products that have come and gone because they were simply too foreign to their market, and the company's way of doing business was simply too strange to people. I don't think that it's either right or wrong, but that's the way it is. Expecting people to seek out OSS, and take time to learn, what is to them, just another software package, is unrealistic.
If the WSJ doesn't understand that OSS may have value even after the death of the founding person/company, then what that says to me is that OSS companies have not done their marketing job.
Case in point: My business is unusual. I own a pet supply shop/online business that does business very differently than anything else I've seen. It's OUR job to educate people how and why we are different than either mega-stores or traditional "pet shops", and we do it every day. I, in no way, expect people to simply seek us out. We have to do our legwork. We have to explain to people how and why we do business the way we do. Hell, even most of our vendors don't understand us. And of course, once our customers do "get it", they tend to be customers for life. My business is continually growing by leaps and bounds, but it was a hell of a struggle explaining it to customers. And, after all, most people don't come to us because we're different. They come to us because we're better than the competition. Most people don't care how or why we're better as far as our philosophy goes. They just know that we have the best products at the best prices with the best service.
And the people who the WSJ talks to are the decision makers. The ones who make rational decisions based on business needs, not some idealogical mumbo-jumbo about "information wants to be free". These ARE the people that Open Source advocates need to convince if they want to advance their agenda. Prosletyzing to sysadmins only goes so far. As both a business owner AND a techie, I understand the technical and moral repurcussions of using Open Source, but as a business person, I'm still not convinced that it's a good fit for our business, and we only use one or two open source applications that are not for mission critical functions.
If there's confusion, then these open source companies need to get off their ass and offer business reasons (ie: This will save you $xx on this and $yy on that). It's wrong to assume that every company has people that will go out of their way to investigate new products. Marketing is part of doing business, and if open source companies aren't willing to compete in the marketing arena, then Open Source will continue to be something used only by techo-geeks, hobbyists, and the occasional renegade sysadmin.
WSJ doesn't need a "smack with a cluestick", the open source companies do.
I always keep all Javascript and other active scripting turned off, and have been happily surfing the Web problem-free for years. I have no desire or interest in enabling Javascript.
Sure. And I happily use my PC with the ethernet cable unplugged. I've been virus-free for years.
I agree 100%. All I use are the old, solid well built (Nobody seems to care about that any more), clicky-click keyboards. I get them for $1/apiece at the local thrift store. My employees think I'm crazy, but I, too, can type much, much faster on them, they last *forever*, and they're just more enjoyable to use.
Let the Terra Forming begin, what is the idea behind this?
Plants are the source for all life here on earth in every way: the water, the air, food, and raw energy. You kill all the animals on the planet, life continues. Kill all the plants: life will end. We (and all other animal life) are dependent in every way on plants.
If the President could start an illegal war without Congress' consent, this would be a walk in the park. It won't be Bush, but I bet it'll be another Jesus-Freak idiot that all of the Jesus-Freak idiots in the country elect after George.
"Praise Jesus and pass the RFID chips! After all, it's all of our jobs to protect the children from terrorists"
It's your fault, dipshit, for continuing to shop at these stores. You KNOW that you get no customer service, but you're whining like you deserve some. I say "Waaaah" to you. You get exactly what you pay for. If you want customer service, shop at your local retailer that actually needs and wants your business.
Good retailers, such as myself, actually pay reasonable wages to hire good people, instead of morons. This happens exactly -zero- percent in my store. How's that for a solution?
You chose to shop at a bix box store. Anybody with a brain knows that they offer no customer service. You got what you paid for. Next time, you may want to think about doing business with your local retailer, that A. Actually needs and wants your business and B. Actually offers real customer service.
Again, how do you know that ANY of that information about XML is correct? Who wrote it? An expert on XML? A creator of the XML standard? You may be learning *something*, but what you learn is only as good as the source. And in this case, the source is....?
Hell, looking at the XML article, right up at the top I can see several statements that are simply not true in real life (an "efficient" parsing algorithm" when referring to XML, for example, is an oxymoron). But hey, it's on Wikipedia, so it *must* be right, huh?
All I know is that Wikipedia is a great sign of the same fundamental value that drives open source -- that it is so phenomenally inexpensive to produce something that can then provide good for so many people that traditional market economics may not do a good job of serving us any more in an information age.
And Wikipedia and OSS are both lacking in the same thing... consistent quality. In an age where anybody can spew anything from their PC and call it a "fact", if anything, Wikipedia simply cheapens real information and dillutes it to the point where NOBODY knows the difference between a fact and a generally agreed upon myth.
This explains what EB got wrong and what WP got right, ironically featured on WP's site.
And if somebody were to list all of the things wrong in Wikipedia, they'd have to be a *very* fast typist since there's a lot wrong at all times, and it's always changing. One article on Wikipedia could have, what, 100?, 1000?, 10000? entirely different contents every second. Wikipedia essentially shits all over the idea of peer review and the fact that some sources are more correct than others. The whole idea of "facts according to the masses" is inherently a bad idea.
Err... whick part of wikipedia do you think isn't working?
It's obviously not working as intended if the creators are having to lock the information. Then it'll be no better than a regular encyclopedia. In fact, I'd say at that point it'll be even worse, since the information sources can't be readily verified.
The alternative is to have constantly fluctuating, incorrect data. It's not just changing a major picture in an article, either that causes a problem. To test, I took an article with some facts and figures, changed a single digit in a statistic, and waited, and waited, and waited for it to be fixed. I guarantee that everybody checking out that article for real information during that time got the wrong information. And really, what's to say that that isn't happening hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times a day?
So with something like Wikipedia, you have either fixed, unverifiable data, or fluctuating data "verified" only by consensus. Neither one works.
Now, let's say that John Miller posted as JonM at 3 am, you might not know that he's the USAF trainer, but you might ask him how he knows, and he might tell you to call him at the base during his office hours. Then you might know.
And, how exactly do I know that anybody who posts information on Wikipedia is who they are? I know that with real printed material that if a company or university went through the trouble to print the information that they probably at least asked for an ID from the author. I don't feel like I need to check, say, Encyclopedia Brittanica's sources, or in your example, the manual from the manufacturer. I wouldn't trust any of Wikipedia's sources any further than I could throw them. Are you gonna trust some information posted on Wikipedia about.Net because it's posted by "BillG"?
Give them both time. eBay is definitely starting to see a downturn in business (check any business magazine) and much of it is due to bullshit. Eventually, it's going to get so bad that their labor costs to keep it in check will be un do-able, or people will simply stop using it. Same thing with Wikipedia. They're both very new businesses/websites, and just because they haven't collapsed yet doesn't mean that they won't.
Personally, I don't trust eBay or Wikipedia for this exact reason. My family doesn't touch eBay any more because of fraud, either. They've never heard of Wikipedia.
And how, exactly, does one know what information is correct? It doesn't have to be something as obvious as a picture. Are you going to notice if a zero is missing from some obscure statistic? Probably not. And you'd also have bad information that you thought was right. Wikipedia is a fundamentally flawed idea. It simply can't work in the real world.
I doubt it's deliberate (I'm giving many OSS projects the benefit of the doubt). It's just what happens when idealism meets reality. Honestly, I think that Wikipedia is a nice, idealistic, Star-Trek-esque idea. Very nice. A real world implementation of it? c'mon. You'd have to be a very naive, sheltered 10 year old kid to think that something like Wikipedia would work in real life.
No, I'm actively celebrating specialization of skills and knowledge, which is how a society advances. But there is a society in which people have a good understanding of all of the products they use. They're called "Amish".
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DVD's: No ads. Only content that you want to watch. Not paying the cable companies. Those are the main reasons that there's no cable TV, broadcast TV, satellite TV, or TV programming of any kind, whatsoever in my house (unless it's on a DVD, of course).
I have the Netflix super-duper account (8 movies at a time), and have for a while. What you're describing, I've seen I think once or twice in more than a year. Just a glitch, in my opinion. As a hardcore movie buff, I think that Netflix is just fantastic. Good service, quick turnaround, and a much, much better selection than somebody like BallBuster could ever have. Plus, they don't intentionally mislead their customers like BallBuster (hence the "no late fees!" class action lawsuit). I feel bad for not going to my local video store, but considering I try to watch one new (to me) movie every night, I was quickly going broke at my local store.
I tend to agree. However, I tend not to support large, aggressive, "family" based, international media conglomerates. The difference for me isn't worth becoming a corporate whore.
Ubuntu Universe Reposity. Check the box next to the app. Hit apply. It's installed. Now what readme file are you talking about, and how do I find it?
I'm happy, she's happy. So cut the BS about grandmothers unable to cope with "Linux".
Well, I'm not a grandmother. In fact I used to be a programmer. How about telling me what I'm supposed to do in Ubuntu when I install a new application, then there's no way to start it? I ran into that nice little problem twice just this morning. This is just one reason why Linux is just on my "fun box". I would never use it as is for anything important.
First, you shouldn't apologize at all. That's the whole point of posting online: arguements/discussions.
I stand by my opinion, however, that in general, the Wall Street Journal has a difficult time understanding FOSS, and continues to try to cast into the mold they know well: competing proprietary products.
And this is really something that the OSS community has to overcome. They're advocating a completely foreign way of doing business, releasing products, etc. To everybody not involved in the OSS community (the vast majority of people), there's no reason to think that OSS is any different than traditional software. And yes, that's a huge hurdle to overcome, but ultimate if Red Hat or any other OSS vendor wants to sell software (or services), it's Red Hat's (etc) job to inform potential customers about their products. The WSJ is comparing OSS to proprietary software because that IS the alternative. It doesn't matter that they're different. They both serve the same needs. *Why* they are different is largely irrelevant to a business person. They want to know what piece of software is going to solve problem X.
History is full of good products that have come and gone because they were simply too foreign to their market, and the company's way of doing business was simply too strange to people. I don't think that it's either right or wrong, but that's the way it is. Expecting people to seek out OSS, and take time to learn, what is to them, just another software package, is unrealistic.
If the WSJ doesn't understand that OSS may have value even after the death of the founding person/company, then what that says to me is that OSS companies have not done their marketing job.
Case in point: My business is unusual. I own a pet supply shop/online business that does business very differently than anything else I've seen. It's OUR job to educate people how and why we are different than either mega-stores or traditional "pet shops", and we do it every day. I, in no way, expect people to simply seek us out. We have to do our legwork. We have to explain to people how and why we do business the way we do. Hell, even most of our vendors don't understand us. And of course, once our customers do "get it", they tend to be customers for life. My business is continually growing by leaps and bounds, but it was a hell of a struggle explaining it to customers. And, after all, most people don't come to us because we're different. They come to us because we're better than the competition. Most people don't care how or why we're better as far as our philosophy goes. They just know that we have the best products at the best prices with the best service.
And the people who the WSJ talks to are the decision makers. The ones who make rational decisions based on business needs, not some idealogical mumbo-jumbo about "information wants to be free". These ARE the people that Open Source advocates need to convince if they want to advance their agenda. Prosletyzing to sysadmins only goes so far. As both a business owner AND a techie, I understand the technical and moral repurcussions of using Open Source, but as a business person, I'm still not convinced that it's a good fit for our business, and we only use one or two open source applications that are not for mission critical functions.
If there's confusion, then these open source companies need to get off their ass and offer business reasons (ie: This will save you $xx on this and $yy on that). It's wrong to assume that every company has people that will go out of their way to investigate new products. Marketing is part of doing business, and if open source companies aren't willing to compete in the marketing arena, then Open Source will continue to be something used only by techo-geeks, hobbyists, and the occasional renegade sysadmin.
WSJ doesn't need a "smack with a cluestick", the open source companies do.
I always keep all Javascript and other active scripting turned off, and have been happily surfing the Web problem-free for years. I have no desire or interest in enabling Javascript.
Sure. And I happily use my PC with the ethernet cable unplugged. I've been virus-free for years.
I agree 100%. All I use are the old, solid well built (Nobody seems to care about that any more), clicky-click keyboards. I get them for $1/apiece at the local thrift store. My employees think I'm crazy, but I, too, can type much, much faster on them, they last *forever*, and they're just more enjoyable to use.
Let the Terra Forming begin, what is the idea behind this?
Plants are the source for all life here on earth in every way: the water, the air, food, and raw energy. You kill all the animals on the planet, life continues. Kill all the plants: life will end. We (and all other animal life) are dependent in every way on plants.
... when it actually happens. A PR release from the company trying to sell their stuff isn't exactly news; it's marketing.
If the President could start an illegal war without Congress' consent, this would be a walk in the park. It won't be Bush, but I bet it'll be another Jesus-Freak idiot that all of the Jesus-Freak idiots in the country elect after George.
"Praise Jesus and pass the RFID chips! After all, it's all of our jobs to protect the children from terrorists"
It's your fault, dipshit, for continuing to shop at these stores. You KNOW that you get no customer service, but you're whining like you deserve some. I say "Waaaah" to you. You get exactly what you pay for. If you want customer service, shop at your local retailer that actually needs and wants your business.
Good retailers, such as myself, actually pay reasonable wages to hire good people, instead of morons. This happens exactly -zero- percent in my store. How's that for a solution?
You chose to shop at a bix box store. Anybody with a brain knows that they offer no customer service. You got what you paid for. Next time, you may want to think about doing business with your local retailer, that A. Actually needs and wants your business and B. Actually offers real customer service.
Tell me the truth... was *everybody* at that party a total dork, or were they just particularly bad pictures?
Again, how do you know that ANY of that information about XML is correct? Who wrote it? An expert on XML? A creator of the XML standard? You may be learning *something*, but what you learn is only as good as the source. And in this case, the source is....?
Hell, looking at the XML article, right up at the top I can see several statements that are simply not true in real life (an "efficient" parsing algorithm" when referring to XML, for example, is an oxymoron). But hey, it's on Wikipedia, so it *must* be right, huh?
All I know is that Wikipedia is a great sign of the same fundamental value that drives open source -- that it is so phenomenally inexpensive to produce something that can then provide good for so many people that traditional market economics may not do a good job of serving us any more in an information age.
And Wikipedia and OSS are both lacking in the same thing... consistent quality. In an age where anybody can spew anything from their PC and call it a "fact", if anything, Wikipedia simply cheapens real information and dillutes it to the point where NOBODY knows the difference between a fact and a generally agreed upon myth.
This explains what EB got wrong and what WP got right, ironically featured on WP's site.
And if somebody were to list all of the things wrong in Wikipedia, they'd have to be a *very* fast typist since there's a lot wrong at all times, and it's always changing. One article on Wikipedia could have, what, 100?, 1000?, 10000? entirely different contents every second. Wikipedia essentially shits all over the idea of peer review and the fact that some sources are more correct than others. The whole idea of "facts according to the masses" is inherently a bad idea.
Err... whick part of wikipedia do you think isn't working?
It's obviously not working as intended if the creators are having to lock the information. Then it'll be no better than a regular encyclopedia. In fact, I'd say at that point it'll be even worse, since the information sources can't be readily verified.
The alternative is to have constantly fluctuating, incorrect data. It's not just changing a major picture in an article, either that causes a problem. To test, I took an article with some facts and figures, changed a single digit in a statistic, and waited, and waited, and waited for it to be fixed. I guarantee that everybody checking out that article for real information during that time got the wrong information. And really, what's to say that that isn't happening hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times a day?
So with something like Wikipedia, you have either fixed, unverifiable data, or fluctuating data "verified" only by consensus. Neither one works.
Now, let's say that John Miller posted as JonM at 3 am, you might not know that he's the USAF trainer, but you might ask him how he knows, and he might tell you to call him at the base during his office hours. Then you might know.
.Net because it's posted by "BillG"?
And, how exactly do I know that anybody who posts information on Wikipedia is who they are? I know that with real printed material that if a company or university went through the trouble to print the information that they probably at least asked for an ID from the author. I don't feel like I need to check, say, Encyclopedia Brittanica's sources, or in your example, the manual from the manufacturer. I wouldn't trust any of Wikipedia's sources any further than I could throw them. Are you gonna trust some information posted on Wikipedia about
Give them both time. eBay is definitely starting to see a downturn in business (check any business magazine) and much of it is due to bullshit. Eventually, it's going to get so bad that their labor costs to keep it in check will be un do-able, or people will simply stop using it. Same thing with Wikipedia. They're both very new businesses/websites, and just because they haven't collapsed yet doesn't mean that they won't.
Personally, I don't trust eBay or Wikipedia for this exact reason. My family doesn't touch eBay any more because of fraud, either. They've never heard of Wikipedia.
And how, exactly, does one know what information is correct? It doesn't have to be something as obvious as a picture. Are you going to notice if a zero is missing from some obscure statistic? Probably not. And you'd also have bad information that you thought was right. Wikipedia is a fundamentally flawed idea. It simply can't work in the real world.
I doubt it's deliberate (I'm giving many OSS projects the benefit of the doubt). It's just what happens when idealism meets reality. Honestly, I think that Wikipedia is a nice, idealistic, Star-Trek-esque idea. Very nice. A real world implementation of it? c'mon. You'd have to be a very naive, sheltered 10 year old kid to think that something like Wikipedia would work in real life.
No, I'm actively celebrating specialization of skills and knowledge, which is how a society advances. But there is a society in which people have a good understanding of all of the products they use. They're called "Amish".