You can praise Google if you want, but I suggest you read the FAQ http://picasa.google.com/linux/faq.html. It's a kludge, and a nasty sounding one, at that. Basically it sounds like they commisioned Codeweavers to hack up a version of Wine which would run Picasa. Whatever they couldn't get working, they disabled.
Here's an abbreviated list of items that they couldn't get functioning properly (gleaned from the FAQ):
- CD burning
- picture importing
- support for movie files
- screensaver functions
- mp3 playback (in screensaver mode) and video compression codecs were both omitted due to licensing issues
Since I'm on a roll, let's not forget that it's not open source.
Now don't get me wrong, I give Google credit for doing it. It's a lot more than most others are doing right now, but as someone else pointed out, you'd probably be better off with Digikam http://www.digikam.org/.
hence why customers are broadly happy with iTunes - it's FAIR!
Fair to who? Not the end user, that's for sure. A proprietary, DRM laden format which restricts how the owner uses what they bought doesn't sound fair to me.
I thought so. I said it then and I'll say it now: This is pointless until all of the major distros are on board. If you create standards and those standards get adopted by only some distros, then what you end up with is further fragmentation and your "standards" aren't.
"So the problem is serious, and well outlined by this question: Is the closed source code of Windows preventing us from actively defending our systems?"
The well thought out answer is that no, it isn't. But it does make us dependent on MS to protect us.
All of you who are using this article as an excuse to bash the RIAA again need to hold on for just a minute.
[pause while I brace for backlash]
The record companies bring a product to market and say, here you go, if you want this and have the means to use it (ie, the right player), enjoy. It's not there responsibilty to cater to every whim a consumer might have. If they want to exclude a lot of potential users who don't have/refuse to have "means to use it", that's their choice, albeit, a foolish one, IMHO.
An example, it isn't the role of Exxon-Mobil to make gasoline that will also work in a diesel engine. If you want your car to work with gas and/or diesel, you either need to build it/mod it yourself, or convince a car maker to do so.
I'm a linux user (Slackware, if you were wondering) and if the day comes when all commercial cd's aren't playable under linux, I'll either code my own player (less likely) or (more likely) go to the people with the skills and let them know that there is a market.
Don't mistake me, I think what the record labels are doing sucks, and ultimately, I think it will hurt there business more than they imagine. I am opposed to DRM in all it's forms. If I've paid for something, I should be able to do (almost**) anything I chose with it. Despite that, the RIAA and the labels are a company making products and they can do anything they chose. It's up to you to decide A)if you want what they're selling and B) how far will you go to get it.
** - I'm talking within the realm of personal use. Mass scale piracy is still wrong.
I think you are well aware Mr Monkey, that if Debian, Suse and Red Hat commit, the rest will follow (for instance Ubuntu will pick it up naturally next time they snapshot debian unstable).
While I agree that all the derivative distro's will follow suit (like Ubuntu), I really doubt Slackware will adopt something just because Red Hat did. I seem to recall a nice little debate here on/. last week about the necessity/relevance of Slackware when v10.2 was released. The over-riding point I tried to make was that Slack was still relevant and the reason it is, is because Pat follows his own set of standards, namely, simplicity, reliability and stability.
Personally, I think this whole thing is waste of time until all (or an overwhelming majority) distros adopt them. Until then, it shouldn't even be called a standard. They're guidelines.
It's story time....and before the flamewar begins, let me just say I am telling this story to illustrate my point...so cool it.
In the spring of 2003, I decided I was ready for Linux and somehow I ended up with discs for Redhat 9.0. Yes boys and girls, this is in the days before Fedora. A little disc partitioning, a few questions and a half hour of waiting later, and Red Hat was up and running. When it was done, I had a fully working Linux system....almost. I couldn't listen to my vast mp3 collection, but I know my audio card worked because I could play the random.wav file I had lying around. And how do I change the appearance of my desktop? What if I want to change my window manager? I couldn't answer these questions or any of the many others I had. Over the next week or so, I poked around on what felt like 100 different websites/fourms and was able to solve a few of my problems. I even learned all about RPM hell when I tried to install the proper mp3 codec package. As you might imagine, it didn't take long for me to abandon Red Hat. It wasn't that I didn't like it, I simply didn't know how to use it.
Rewind a few months to when I was investigating the various Distros. I looked at Suse, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, and probably some others. For whatever reason, I remember thinking that Slack's site just looked right. My impression of Linux at the time made me feel like it shouldn't be a product of a big company, but rather the efforts of a dedicated person(s). This notion ruled out Suse and Mandrake. At the same time, Gentoo and Debian seemed too hardcore. I'm not sure why I didn't go with Slack to begin with, but after the failed RH attempt, I went for it. Oddly enough, I reached this conclusion the day after Slack 9.1 dropped. Add to that the fact that I discovered the forums at LinuxQuestions.org right around this same time (if you're a linux newb, these _are_ the forums you need), and I had a shiny new distro, and a community of people working through the same kinks I was.
The Slack install was definitely more involved than RH, at least so much as to require a lot more input from me. By the time it was over, I already felt like I knew more, and little did I know what was waiting for me. When the install was done, I had a linux system which worked, but instead of staring at a highly customized KDE, I was looking at the command line (gasp!!). Bring on the fun...While I still didn't know how to config X, how to chose a window manager, how to set up ALSA or countless other things I needed to do, I also knew that I had to find out. RH did it for me and kept me ignorant - it took decisions out of my hands, which is one of the things I don't like about M$. Slack made me do it and in the process, learn it.
I've been on Slack ever since (except for my job and the wife's PC, where switching isn't an option) and although some things were a challenge, I couldn't be happier.
The point of this story is that Slack is a worthwhile distro and IS accessible to newb's.
So far you've all said the same basic thing and every single one of you has missed the point of the article.
It's a fluff piece talking about how a particular training session at the 'High Tech Crime Investigation Assoc.' event was well attended. It doesn't say that the law enforcement people can't learn to handle alternate browsers, it simply says they haven't learned yet.
I'm all for pointing out the absurdity that often occurs as law catches up with tech, but this just ain't one of those articles.
Being that I don't use WINE and almost never use Windows, I really don't care. However, this an interesting idea. Creating a virus which makes all infected Windows machines look like *nix running WINE would certainly be funny. Would MS remove the check? Would they just write a removal tool? Would we have Joe Public attempting edit his borked registry by hand? The amusing possibilities are endless. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
You think these pics of Gates are disturning, I've managed to dig up some "photos" Woz did for Hustler Mag back in 1986.
And yes, I am still trying to get the image of man-boobs outta my head all these years later....
no, i saw the footnote....and since this company probably isn't legit, it doesn't matter, but my point was that if I were introducing my business to the world, I would go armed with a better site design than that...One good book which covers, HTML, CSS and maybe Perl can be had for $50 and the "owner" could have himself a better site with a little reading and a little time...
i'm having a hard time believing this service is for real, but if it is, you would think they could take some of that $67 million and get a decent web site design done....not that there's anything wrong with teenage girls and FrontPage...but i'm just saying....
Slashdot Mirror
You can praise Google if you want, but I suggest you read the FAQ http://picasa.google.com/linux/faq.html. It's a kludge, and a nasty sounding one, at that. Basically it sounds like they commisioned Codeweavers to hack up a version of Wine which would run Picasa. Whatever they couldn't get working, they disabled.
Here's an abbreviated list of items that they couldn't get functioning properly (gleaned from the FAQ):
- CD burning
- picture importing
- support for movie files
- screensaver functions
- mp3 playback (in screensaver mode) and video compression codecs were both omitted due to licensing issues
Since I'm on a roll, let's not forget that it's not open source.
Now don't get me wrong, I give Google credit for doing it. It's a lot more than most others are doing right now, but as someone else pointed out, you'd probably be better off with Digikam http://www.digikam.org/.
Smaller Target Audience
You couldn't be more wrong. Every non-geek I've ever know who lusts after Apples toys does so because they are aesthetically pleasing.
Hell, I am a geek and I find the appearance of Apple prodcuts quite appealing.
about a month ago (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/21/13392 11&tid=185)?
I thought so. I said it then and I'll say it now: This is pointless until all of the major distros are on board. If you create standards and those standards get adopted by only some distros, then what you end up with is further fragmentation and your "standards" aren't.
"So the problem is serious, and well outlined by this question: Is the closed source code of Windows preventing us from actively defending our systems?"
The well thought out answer is that no, it isn't. But it does make us dependent on MS to protect us.
Which is exactly how I suspect MS wants it to be.
All of you who are using this article as an excuse to bash the RIAA again need to hold on for just a minute.
[pause while I brace for backlash]
The record companies bring a product to market and say, here you go, if you want this and have the means to use it (ie, the right player), enjoy. It's not there responsibilty to cater to every whim a consumer might have. If they want to exclude a lot of potential users who don't have/refuse to have "means to use it", that's their choice, albeit, a foolish one, IMHO.
An example, it isn't the role of Exxon-Mobil to make gasoline that will also work in a diesel engine. If you want your car to work with gas and/or diesel, you either need to build it/mod it yourself, or convince a car maker to do so.
I'm a linux user (Slackware, if you were wondering) and if the day comes when all commercial cd's aren't playable under linux, I'll either code my own player (less likely) or (more likely) go to the people with the skills and let them know that there is a market.
Don't mistake me, I think what the record labels are doing sucks, and ultimately, I think it will hurt there business more than they imagine. I am opposed to DRM in all it's forms. If I've paid for something, I should be able to do (almost**) anything I chose with it. Despite that, the RIAA and the labels are a company making products and they can do anything they chose. It's up to you to decide A)if you want what they're selling and B) how far will you go to get it.
** - I'm talking within the realm of personal use. Mass scale piracy is still wrong.
I think you are well aware Mr Monkey, that if Debian, Suse and Red Hat commit, the rest will follow (for instance Ubuntu will pick it up naturally next time they snapshot debian unstable).
/. last week about the necessity/relevance of Slackware when v10.2 was released. The over-riding point I tried to make was that Slack was still relevant and the reason it is, is because Pat follows his own set of standards, namely, simplicity, reliability and stability.
While I agree that all the derivative distro's will follow suit (like Ubuntu), I really doubt Slackware will adopt something just because Red Hat did. I seem to recall a nice little debate here on
Personally, I think this whole thing is waste of time until all (or an overwhelming majority) distros adopt them. Until then, it shouldn't even be called a standard. They're guidelines.
It's story time....and before the flamewar begins, let me just say I am telling this story to illustrate my point...so cool it.
.wav file I had lying around. And how do I change the appearance of my desktop? What if I want to change my window manager? I couldn't answer these questions or any of the many others I had. Over the next week or so, I poked around on what felt like 100 different websites/fourms and was able to solve a few of my problems. I even learned all about RPM hell when I tried to install the proper mp3 codec package. As you might imagine, it didn't take long for me to abandon Red Hat. It wasn't that I didn't like it, I simply didn't know how to use it.
In the spring of 2003, I decided I was ready for Linux and somehow I ended up with discs for Redhat 9.0. Yes boys and girls, this is in the days before Fedora. A little disc partitioning, a few questions and a half hour of waiting later, and Red Hat was up and running. When it was done, I had a fully working Linux system....almost. I couldn't listen to my vast mp3 collection, but I know my audio card worked because I could play the random
Rewind a few months to when I was investigating the various Distros. I looked at Suse, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, and probably some others. For whatever reason, I remember thinking that Slack's site just looked right. My impression of Linux at the time made me feel like it shouldn't be a product of a big company, but rather the efforts of a dedicated person(s). This notion ruled out Suse and Mandrake. At the same time, Gentoo and Debian seemed too hardcore. I'm not sure why I didn't go with Slack to begin with, but after the failed RH attempt, I went for it. Oddly enough, I reached this conclusion the day after Slack 9.1 dropped. Add to that the fact that I discovered the forums at LinuxQuestions.org right around this same time (if you're a linux newb, these _are_ the forums you need), and I had a shiny new distro, and a community of people working through the same kinks I was.
The Slack install was definitely more involved than RH, at least so much as to require a lot more input from me. By the time it was over, I already felt like I knew more, and little did I know what was waiting for me. When the install was done, I had a linux system which worked, but instead of staring at a highly customized KDE, I was looking at the command line (gasp!!). Bring on the fun...While I still didn't know how to config X, how to chose a window manager, how to set up ALSA or countless other things I needed to do, I also knew that I had to find out. RH did it for me and kept me ignorant - it took decisions out of my hands, which is one of the things I don't like about M$. Slack made me do it and in the process, learn it.
I've been on Slack ever since (except for my job and the wife's PC, where switching isn't an option) and although some things were a challenge, I couldn't be happier.
The point of this story is that Slack is a worthwhile distro and IS accessible to newb's.
So far you've all said the same basic thing and every single one of you has missed the point of the article.
It's a fluff piece talking about how a particular training session at the 'High Tech Crime Investigation Assoc.' event was well attended. It doesn't say that the law enforcement people can't learn to handle alternate browsers, it simply says they haven't learned yet.
I'm all for pointing out the absurdity that often occurs as law catches up with tech, but this just ain't one of those articles.
yep, that's what the stats say...but what about all the linux users who read /. at work where they have no control over the OS they use?
Why would you need DOS support? Maybe it'll run OS Warp too....
someone's a little cranky today....
Being that I don't use WINE and almost never use Windows, I really don't care. However, this an interesting idea. Creating a virus which makes all infected Windows machines look like *nix running WINE would certainly be funny. Would MS remove the check? Would they just write a removal tool? Would we have Joe Public attempting edit his borked registry by hand? The amusing possibilities are endless. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
You think these pics of Gates are disturning, I've managed to dig up some "photos" Woz did for Hustler Mag back in 1986. And yes, I am still trying to get the image of man-boobs outta my head all these years later....
I think the obvious choice is John Goodman...although the Son of Barf idea ain't too bad either..
no, i saw the footnote....and since this company probably isn't legit, it doesn't matter, but my point was that if I were introducing my business to the world, I would go armed with a better site design than that...One good book which covers, HTML, CSS and maybe Perl can be had for $50 and the "owner" could have himself a better site with a little reading and a little time...
i'm having a hard time believing this service is for real, but if it is, you would think they could take some of that $67 million and get a decent web site design done....not that there's anything wrong with teenage girls and FrontPage...but i'm just saying....