Hiding behind calling things "theories" seems to be the lastest fad amongs anti-intellectuals. Yes, evolution is a theory. It happens to be a very-well supported theory, which also makes it as much a fact as most of the other pieces of knowledge we rely on every day.
Contrast that with assertions by the political right, like "homsexuality destroys families" or "guns defend our freedoms" or "tax cuts for the rich strengthen the economy". Those are also theories, albeit poorly formulated ones, and ones that are completely lacking any factual support.
What matters is not whether something started out as a theory, what matters is whether it is well supported by observation and fact. And evolution is well-supported by observation and fact, unlike most of the drivel coming out of the political right or the religious nuts.
Yes. I own several OS X machines and help relatives with them. They are less of a pain than Windows when it comes to drivers and software installation and support, but they are by no means machines that "just work".
Only thing I ever have to download drivers for is a printer. And even then they usually come with the printer.
And scanners, web cams, digital cameras, several printers, USB Bluetooth adapters, PDAs, the list goes on.
I can't imagine what kind of freaky peripherals you must be using that required hours of fiddling, downloads, and software updates...
I have had problems with several scanners, some Bluetooth adapters, some PCMCIA cards, USB webcams, some digital cameras, and several different kinds of printers.
or much of any driver installation at all for that matter.
If you generally buy devices that don't require driver installation, you are buying standards-conforming devices. Good for you (yes, please support standards), but the devices that don't require drivers on OS X also don't require drivers on Linux or Windows.
So what you're saying is that the UI in XP is horrible but if someone points out that maybe Gnome or KDE isn't any better
But the Gnome and KDE UIs are already better, as is the Linux kernel, the Linux admin tools, and the standard applications applications. The only reason at this point to keep using Windows is compatibility and the existence of specific proprietary software that you may need if the vendor hasn't been enlightened enough to create a Linux version yet.
A PC with a Live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, Gnoppix, etc.) gives you something similar without being tied to a single vendor. You even get regular upgrades (subscribe to a CD burning service or have the kids burn the new CD every few months). It also comes with lots more applications out of the box.
For $500 and $8.33 a month, you could get a Mac mini and do the same thing, with less viruses and spyware.
Oh, well, no discussion of a new device, computer, or OS is complete without a bunch of Macintosh folks saying that the Macintosh did it all better and did it all first.
But, no, the Mac Mini does not do this. Macintoshes are a little easier to maintain than Windows machines, but parents and grandparents can easily screw them up. I know: I have been in the position of fixing them.
Another problem with the Mac Mini is that parents and grandparents will buy random software and hardware and expect it to work. Because, contrary to what people would have us believe, many products for the Mac don't "just work" but require lots of fiddling, driver downloads, software updates, and weird configuration options, that translates into many hours of work for the kids.
Something like a SimPC for Email/Web and a PS/2 for games seems like a great choice for the parents/grandparents.
I think they mostly got killed by poor screens and too limited functionality.
It's not easy selling computers to people who don't buy computers.
But it's easy to sell it to the kids that otherwise would have to spend hours each month fixing up their parent's computers. At some point, the kids make enough money that it's worth it.
IBM just wants to make software a free complimentary commodity so they can make tons of cash on hardware and service/support. Basic economics.
Yes, and it is good that IBM realizes that their economic interest is aligned with that of their customers. That makes them a good company.
Companies like Microsoft, on the other hand, try to entrap their customers in proprietary solutions and are then forced to pay over and over again for upgrades and versions of the software they don't want or need. That makes them an evil company, an anti-competitive company, and a company that you shouldn't do business with in the long term if you value your own business.
On OpenBSD the port tells you where to download the relevant files as part of installation : Java 1.4_2 Makefile
Sun won't let you download the JRE/JDK source unless you agree to their license terms. If you do agree to those terms, you become ineligible for participating in many open source projects because the conditions "contaminate" you. BSD seems to be a really brilliant way for Sun to infect a lot of FOSS programmers with their viral license. And unlike the GPL, which can be said to infect software, the Java license contaminates you.
Most FreeBSD Java users (myself included) build JDK 1.4 from source.
By agreeing to Sun's source licenses, you have agreed to a lot of legal restrictions on what you can and cannot do. I hope you are aware of those restrictions and disclose them clearly when you participate in other FOSS projects. For example, you will not be able to contribute to GNU gcj or Kaffe.
Microsoft doesn't have any control over Mono: Mono combines the ECMA core (which is clearly free and unencumbered) with standard FOSS libraries like Gnome and Gtk+.
So: using Java is not safe from a legal perspective because Sun owns Java, both the major implementations and the platform itself. On the other hand, using Mono is safe from a legal perspective (at least no less safe than any other free platform) because Microsoft clearly doesn't own it.
Unlike Sun, Microsoft isn't pretending that.NET or their.NET implementation is "open" or "free". Unlike Sun, Microsoft isn't asking open source developers to contribute or getting free labor out of anti-Microsoft nerds as part of a so-called "community process".
If you want to use a free and open source system that's like Java or.NET, just use Mono with the Gnome bindings: it's high quality, it's fast, it's easy to learn if you already know Gnome/Gtk+, and you will not be at risk of interference or legal problems from either Sun or Microsoft.
Whether Sun did this intentionally or not, it still illustrates the situation surrounding Java on open platforms perfectly: Sun can revoke the license that lets you run Java on Linux or FreeBSD or anywhere else at any time. Furthermore, whether Sun actually intends to do so or not, it can happen for reasons beyond their control. If it isn't "dropping the ball", they may get acquired, they may go out of business, or they may decide that killing Java for Linux is suddenly in their best business interest.
The upshot of it all is: you're taking a big risk you make a significant investment in Java on any platform other than Solaris.
However, FreeBSD has not actually paid up to have the JVM branded as Java(tm). So Sun says, that's not branded Java, and if you keep saying it is, we will revoke your distribution license. And they did.
It doesn't matter whether FreeBSD calls it "Java", "Mocha", or anything else: Sun has revoked the license to the code and the technology itself; FreeBSD can't ship it under any name.
Java is and remains a proprietary system. Running Java on FreeBSD or Linux is a risky proposition: Sun can revoke your right to do so at any time.
Because in the end, Google may respect robots.txt but I, for one, don't when creating a local cache of a site using HTTrack.
What you cache in your HTTrack file doesn't matter to the rest of the world; you aren't Google or even AltaVista.
And I'd imagine there's search engines which ignore it just as well.
I doubt it: crawlers that don't respect robots.txt are going to have a boatload of complaints sent to their ISP, which will either shut them down or force them to fix their crawler.
Don't even try to tell me that anything in Linux is more intuitive.
Well, I'm sorry that your mind is closed, but it's true.
Administrative tools. Once again, in comparison to what? Linux? Sorry buddy, I like Linux, but running vi on files in/etc is hardly an easy-to-use tool.
Linux distributions have GUI-based admin tools that are more consistent, better organized, and easier to use than what Windows has. The fact that Linux also still has text-file based configurations is an additional bonus.
But on the desktop, it's hard to argue that Windows has anything but the best in functionality simply because there are so many 3rd party developers. Yes, you can do all sorts of weird and crazy QoS with the Linux kernel, but that's a pretty niche feature.
You're making the standard Microsoft mistake of confusing "better functionality" with "more features".
Windows isn't the best tool for everything, but to write off its user interface, administrative tools, and functionality is ridiculous. Those are its strengths, not its weaknesses.
You just go on believing that.
You're just FUDing.
You obviously don't understand what the term FUD means.
bloat - yea, my windows install still fits onto a single CD which is more then most linux distros can say.
That's because your Windows CD doesn't contain any useful applications. A 700M CD for a blank desktop, a browser, and mine sweeper is bloat. A 700M CD for a complete set of desktop applications, development tools, and office suite (like you get with Linux) is not.
its administrative tools - which you just have to find before being able to use, not to mention having to memorize sequences of random letters and numbers for program names.
Windows admin documentation contains flowcharts of screenshots that you have to memorize because the GUI paths are so non-intuitive.
In any case, Linux has several excellent GUI-based admin tools that beat the junk that comes with Windows hands-down.
its functionality - which is non-existent unless you dedicate your life to your OS, believe it or not, some of us actually use our computer to get work done.
Yes, Linux has the functionality most people need, out of the box: office suites, productivity software, development environments, scientific software. Windows is useless for getting work done--it doesn't ship with anything, and you'll have to spend lots of extra time and money getting separate applications.
As for functionality, I can still do more things in less amount of time on my windows box then on my linux. That tells me something.
I think not. "WAHHHH my cell phone bill is $400 because of text messages!" Well, did you send all of those messages? Yes? Then pay the bill!
Unlimited SMS cost around $10. At some point, the carrier should have done an automatic "courtesy upgrade". Charging 40x the flatrate because someone didn't have the good sense to switch to it is just very unfriendly to the customer. It may cost the carrier $10/month/customer to maintain the SMS infrastructure and make a decent profit, but the remaining $390 are just excessive.
In different words, no, it is not OK for companies to set arbitrary and complicated pricing schemes and trap customers in it. Sometimes it isn't legally OK, and usually, it is just really stupid from the point of view of retaining customers.
We're starting to see some devicess with the QWERTY keyboard, which is significantly more efficient for typing.
So, why is that a pain? There are lots such devices, and they work pretty well.
Length limitations; if you want to spell properly and maybe even write in full sentences of decent size as you might in an e-mail or IM, forget about it.
This isn't new: we used to have telegrams with similar length limitations. Also, IMs are now automatically chained, giving you up to four times the length.
High rates -- it's a dime to send even if you have free reception, unless you are willing to pay $10 or so with a breakeven point of 100 SMS messages.
Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. It still seems to be worth the money to many people. And it's often cheaper than a phone call--and less intrusive.
Maybe they should buy a device aimed at the youth market and priced to match? You get unlimited SMS, unlimited messaging (via AOL Instant Messenger), unlimited E-mail, plus a voice plan, starting at around $30/month. Anything else is just a rip-off.
Apple's been inheriting SGI and Sun workstation customers at a pretty good clip over the last couple of years;-)
Nowhere near as much as Linux has. OS X doesn't make a good substitute for a UNIX workstation (I tried to make it work): they have non-standard administrative interfaces and their X11 server isn't very good and poorly integrated with the desktop.
Seriously, the problem with Windows are ultimately its bloat, its user interface, its administrative tools, and its functionality. While making it more stable and porting it to a 64bit processor are nice, they don't fix what is fundamentally wrong with it.
We are used to Microsoft's demos and software crashing: nobody gives a damn.
The thing that they should take heat for is to call "communist" people who want to revise IP law. Microsoft deserves to take heat for that in particular because they are a convicted monopolist and the primary reason we don't have a free and competitive market in PC software.
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Hiding behind calling things "theories" seems to be the lastest fad amongs anti-intellectuals. Yes, evolution is a theory. It happens to be a very-well supported theory, which also makes it as much a fact as most of the other pieces of knowledge we rely on every day.
Contrast that with assertions by the political right, like "homsexuality destroys families" or "guns defend our freedoms" or "tax cuts for the rich strengthen the economy". Those are also theories, albeit poorly formulated ones, and ones that are completely lacking any factual support.
What matters is not whether something started out as a theory, what matters is whether it is well supported by observation and fact. And evolution is well-supported by observation and fact, unlike most of the drivel coming out of the political right or the religious nuts.
Knoppix's desktop is too busy.
Well, the one on the Ubuntu LiveCD isn't. So, you get a choice.
have you used a mac since OSX?
Yes. I own several OS X machines and help relatives with them. They are less of a pain than Windows when it comes to drivers and software installation and support, but they are by no means machines that "just work".
Only thing I ever have to download drivers for is a printer. And even then they usually come with the printer.
And scanners, web cams, digital cameras, several printers, USB Bluetooth adapters, PDAs, the list goes on.
I can't imagine what kind of freaky peripherals you must be using that required hours of fiddling, downloads, and software updates...
I have had problems with several scanners, some Bluetooth adapters, some PCMCIA cards, USB webcams, some digital cameras, and several different kinds of printers.
or much of any driver installation at all for that matter.
If you generally buy devices that don't require driver installation, you are buying standards-conforming devices. Good for you (yes, please support standards), but the devices that don't require drivers on OS X also don't require drivers on Linux or Windows.
So what you're saying is that the UI in XP is horrible but if someone points out that maybe Gnome or KDE isn't any better
But the Gnome and KDE UIs are already better, as is the Linux kernel, the Linux admin tools, and the standard applications applications. The only reason at this point to keep using Windows is compatibility and the existence of specific proprietary software that you may need if the vendor hasn't been enlightened enough to create a Linux version yet.
A PC with a Live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, Gnoppix, etc.) gives you something similar without being tied to a single vendor. You even get regular upgrades (subscribe to a CD burning service or have the kids burn the new CD every few months). It also comes with lots more applications out of the box.
For $500 and $8.33 a month, you could get a Mac mini and do the same thing, with less viruses and spyware.
Oh, well, no discussion of a new device, computer, or OS is complete without a bunch of Macintosh folks saying that the Macintosh did it all better and did it all first.
But, no, the Mac Mini does not do this. Macintoshes are a little easier to maintain than Windows machines, but parents and grandparents can easily screw them up. I know: I have been in the position of fixing them.
Another problem with the Mac Mini is that parents and grandparents will buy random software and hardware and expect it to work. Because, contrary to what people would have us believe, many products for the Mac don't "just work" but require lots of fiddling, driver downloads, software updates, and weird configuration options, that translates into many hours of work for the kids.
Something like a SimPC for Email/Web and a PS/2 for games seems like a great choice for the parents/grandparents.
How soon we forget: webtv, iopener, audrey etc.
I think they mostly got killed by poor screens and too limited functionality.
It's not easy selling computers to people who don't buy computers.
But it's easy to sell it to the kids that otherwise would have to spend hours each month fixing up their parent's computers. At some point, the kids make enough money that it's worth it.
IBM just wants to make software a free complimentary commodity so they can make tons of cash on hardware and service/support. Basic economics.
Yes, and it is good that IBM realizes that their economic interest is aligned with that of their customers. That makes them a good company.
Companies like Microsoft, on the other hand, try to entrap their customers in proprietary solutions and are then forced to pay over and over again for upgrades and versions of the software they don't want or need. That makes them an evil company, an anti-competitive company, and a company that you shouldn't do business with in the long term if you value your own business.
In what species does "giving birth" involve having a narrow belt around your midsection???
On OpenBSD the port tells you where to download the relevant files as part of installation : Java 1.4_2 Makefile
Sun won't let you download the JRE/JDK source unless you agree to their license terms. If you do agree to those terms, you become ineligible for participating in many open source projects because the conditions "contaminate" you. BSD seems to be a really brilliant way for Sun to infect a lot of FOSS programmers with their viral license. And unlike the GPL, which can be said to infect software, the Java license contaminates you.
Most FreeBSD Java users (myself included) build JDK 1.4 from source.
By agreeing to Sun's source licenses, you have agreed to a lot of legal restrictions on what you can and cannot do. I hope you are aware of those restrictions and disclose them clearly when you participate in other FOSS projects. For example, you will not be able to contribute to GNU gcj or Kaffe.
Microsoft doesn't have any control over Mono: Mono combines the ECMA core (which is clearly free and unencumbered) with standard FOSS libraries like Gnome and Gtk+.
So: using Java is not safe from a legal perspective because Sun owns Java, both the major implementations and the platform itself. On the other hand, using Mono is safe from a legal perspective (at least no less safe than any other free platform) because Microsoft clearly doesn't own it.
So...what do you think about .NET?
.NET or their .NET implementation is "open" or "free". Unlike Sun, Microsoft isn't asking open source developers to contribute or getting free labor out of anti-Microsoft nerds as part of a so-called "community process".
.NET, just use Mono with the Gnome bindings: it's high quality, it's fast, it's easy to learn if you already know Gnome/Gtk+, and you will not be at risk of interference or legal problems from either Sun or Microsoft.
Unlike Sun, Microsoft isn't pretending that
If you want to use a free and open source system that's like Java or
Whether Sun did this intentionally or not, it still illustrates the situation surrounding Java on open platforms perfectly: Sun can revoke the license that lets you run Java on Linux or FreeBSD or anywhere else at any time. Furthermore, whether Sun actually intends to do so or not, it can happen for reasons beyond their control. If it isn't "dropping the ball", they may get acquired, they may go out of business, or they may decide that killing Java for Linux is suddenly in their best business interest.
The upshot of it all is: you're taking a big risk you make a significant investment in Java on any platform other than Solaris.
However, FreeBSD has not actually paid up to have the JVM branded as Java(tm). So Sun says, that's not branded Java, and if you keep saying it is, we will revoke your distribution license. And they did.
It doesn't matter whether FreeBSD calls it "Java", "Mocha", or anything else: Sun has revoked the license to the code and the technology itself; FreeBSD can't ship it under any name.
Java is and remains a proprietary system. Running Java on FreeBSD or Linux is a risky proposition: Sun can revoke your right to do so at any time.
Because in the end, Google may respect robots.txt but I, for one, don't when creating a local cache of a site using HTTrack .
What you cache in your HTTrack file doesn't matter to the rest of the world; you aren't Google or even AltaVista.
And I'd imagine there's search engines which ignore it just as well.
I doubt it: crawlers that don't respect robots.txt are going to have a boatload of complaints sent to their ISP, which will either shut them down or force them to fix their crawler.
Don't even try to tell me that anything in Linux is more intuitive.
/etc is hardly an easy-to-use tool.
Well, I'm sorry that your mind is closed, but it's true.
Administrative tools. Once again, in comparison to what? Linux? Sorry buddy, I like Linux, but running vi on files in
Linux distributions have GUI-based admin tools that are more consistent, better organized, and easier to use than what Windows has. The fact that Linux also still has text-file based configurations is an additional bonus.
But on the desktop, it's hard to argue that Windows has anything but the best in functionality simply because there are so many 3rd party developers. Yes, you can do all sorts of weird and crazy QoS with the Linux kernel, but that's a pretty niche feature.
You're making the standard Microsoft mistake of confusing "better functionality" with "more features".
Windows isn't the best tool for everything, but to write off its user interface, administrative tools, and functionality is ridiculous. Those are its strengths, not its weaknesses.
You just go on believing that.
You're just FUDing.
You obviously don't understand what the term FUD means.
bloat - yea, my windows install still fits onto a single CD which is more then most linux distros can say.
That's because your Windows CD doesn't contain any useful applications. A 700M CD for a blank desktop, a browser, and mine sweeper is bloat. A 700M CD for a complete set of desktop applications, development tools, and office suite (like you get with Linux) is not.
its administrative tools - which you just have to find before being able to use, not to mention having to memorize sequences of random letters and numbers for program names.
Windows admin documentation contains flowcharts of screenshots that you have to memorize because the GUI paths are so non-intuitive.
In any case, Linux has several excellent GUI-based admin tools that beat the junk that comes with Windows hands-down.
its functionality - which is non-existent unless you dedicate your life to your OS, believe it or not, some of us actually use our computer to get work done.
Yes, Linux has the functionality most people need, out of the box: office suites, productivity software, development environments, scientific software. Windows is useless for getting work done--it doesn't ship with anything, and you'll have to spend lots of extra time and money getting separate applications.
As for functionality, I can still do more things in less amount of time on my windows box then on my linux. That tells me something.
You're kidding yourself if you believe that.
I think not. "WAHHHH my cell phone bill is $400 because of text messages!" Well, did you send all of those messages? Yes? Then pay the bill!
Unlimited SMS cost around $10. At some point, the carrier should have done an automatic "courtesy upgrade". Charging 40x the flatrate because someone didn't have the good sense to switch to it is just very unfriendly to the customer. It may cost the carrier $10/month/customer to maintain the SMS infrastructure and make a decent profit, but the remaining $390 are just excessive.
In different words, no, it is not OK for companies to set arbitrary and complicated pricing schemes and trap customers in it. Sometimes it isn't legally OK, and usually, it is just really stupid from the point of view of retaining customers.
We're starting to see some devicess with the QWERTY keyboard, which is significantly more efficient for typing.
So, why is that a pain? There are lots such devices, and they work pretty well.
Length limitations; if you want to spell properly and maybe even write in full sentences of decent size as you might in an e-mail or IM, forget about it.
This isn't new: we used to have telegrams with similar length limitations. Also, IMs are now automatically chained, giving you up to four times the length.
High rates -- it's a dime to send even if you have free reception, unless you are willing to pay $10 or so with a breakeven point of 100 SMS messages.
Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. It still seems to be worth the money to many people. And it's often cheaper than a phone call--and less intrusive.
Maybe they should buy a device aimed at the youth market and priced to match? You get unlimited SMS, unlimited messaging (via AOL Instant Messenger), unlimited E-mail, plus a voice plan, starting at around $30/month. Anything else is just a rip-off.
Apple's been inheriting SGI and Sun workstation customers at a pretty good clip over the last couple of years ;-)
Nowhere near as much as Linux has. OS X doesn't make a good substitute for a UNIX workstation (I tried to make it work): they have non-standard administrative interfaces and their X11 server isn't very good and poorly integrated with the desktop.
... and still nothing decent on.
Seriously, the problem with Windows are ultimately its bloat, its user interface, its administrative tools, and its functionality. While making it more stable and porting it to a 64bit processor are nice, they don't fix what is fundamentally wrong with it.
We are used to Microsoft's demos and software crashing: nobody gives a damn.
The thing that they should take heat for is to call "communist" people who want to revise IP law. Microsoft deserves to take heat for that in particular because they are a convicted monopolist and the primary reason we don't have a free and competitive market in PC software.