I've seen this happen quite a few times already; why would a US corporation complain to Europe about another US corporation? Why not take legal action in the US itself? Is there a perception that the US political system is already in the pockets of mighty corporations like Microsoft?
Fine. If they do other studies that are useful to scinece then that's just fine. I just find the idea of looking for intelligent extra-terrestrial life in very, very far space rather silly - it reeks of the UFO craze redux, more science fiction than science.
Such rainbow feelings above are nice, but the facts are that not everyone can code for an application as big and complex as openoffice. Far more people use openoffice than those who can code for it. There are less than a 100 developers working on openoffice, 80 of them are Sun employees, 10 from Novell, and one from Red Hat - that leaves ~8 volunteer developers. Those who don't code, can contribute in tender either in donation or by buying StarOffice to support the project. Sun is a company that has not had a profitable quarter for four years, yet has given more source code to the OSS community that any commercial entity on earth or in history - it does need and deserve any money it can get.
I love linux! I wish I had a major big organisation so I could deploy it all over, from the servers, through the desktops, to the devices. Wait, make that a government, I wish I were a head of a government so I could dictate that Linux would run on all its computers. I'm sure with linux the schools and public libraries would be alright. Once it's in the schools and libraries, people would get used to it, firefox and gaim are just fine, so are gimp and openoffice, and there'd be no reason for them to fear it in the workplace or at home.
Your bewilderment may vanish once you understand that they really don't care about their customers. In fact, they don't care about music either, nor the artists. This is the societal ill called unrestrained businessmen. May be fine for the factory or bank, but it's without a doubt bad for culture and other concerns of a society's life. I listened to a lecture the other day by a noted historian about the mass society, the mass-consumer society. One of the things she mentioned was that there used to be a time when music belonged to the cutlure of the cummunity, and memebers of the community participated in its creation and consumption. Blues for the Black community, country for the country folks, and so on. Then entered the invention of recording, records were a tangile product that could be made and sold independent of the original artist and his music (i.e, once the artist recorded, the businessman could make as many record copies as he wants, whereas before that the music was tied to the artist), and then the horde of profit-obsessed businessmen followed. To be brief without going into much detail, over time, music became just a mass consumption product, owned by businessmen and not the community, no longer expressing its culture, and no longer are its members participants but now they are passive consumers. They have to pay the businessmen for the music that was originally theirs, that was originally the culture of their community - for example, a New Orleans cultural heritage of hundreds of years become now owned by a corporation from New York, London or Japan that doesn't give a fuck about it except for the Ka-ching sound of the cash register. As such, the Recording Industry wants there to be no culture that doesn't pay them. If there is a culture, they want full claim to it, they want to seize it from the artists and enslave them with unfair contracts, and they certainly want no outlet for communal interaction that doesn't go through their cash register. To that, I say, fuck the recording industry.
I have to say, however much I may not like Microsoft's shenanigans, that given the history of Sony's formats, I would, without even needing to know the details, choose whatever solution other than theirs.
What a Mac OS X rip-off. Which reminds me, I wish open source developers would stop copying the microsoft look-and-feel in the hope that users will find it familiar, since it seems microsoft responds to this by *gasp* making a new interface! I wish OSS developers would just innovate and drop the needless burden of the Microsoft legacy.
Everytime I see all the work that's happening on KDE I wonder what's the point of having an OSS desktop thta relies on the proprietary Qt from trolltech. What a shame. I wish all the effort would've gone on something truly free like Gnome.
I hate such markettingspeak, when I see phrase by a Microsoft-like corporation such as "gives consumers the freedom to", my bullshit indicator shoots up.
If you want to see repressive governments you only need to look at key US allies such as Uzbekestan and Saudi Arabia. Iran had a calming influence in Iraq, in fact, Iran can be thanked for the remarkable restraint the Shias had despite the terrorism against them (Sadr and Mahdi army are anti-Iran). On the other hand, the Saudi government has been too happy to export its repressed and disillusioned youth to die in Iraq instead of bothering the Saudi royals, friends of Bush.
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I've seen this happen quite a few times already; why would a US corporation complain to Europe about another US corporation? Why not take legal action in the US itself? Is there a perception that the US political system is already in the pockets of mighty corporations like Microsoft?
Even worse, they may try to get their purchased unit replaced with whatever excuse in the hope of getting a faster unit.
What's wrong the jEdit?
36 of the 37 wild cat species are already at near-extinction, and this guy is posing in pride. My stomach too did a cartwheel.
Idiot! http://www.google.com/search?q=hunting+extinction
Let's not forget that it is scum like this guy that drove many, many species to extinction.
The fact that the bullet blew the head apart suggests that it must've been a small creature.
Fine. If they do other studies that are useful to scinece then that's just fine. I just find the idea of looking for intelligent extra-terrestrial life in very, very far space rather silly - it reeks of the UFO craze redux, more science fiction than science.
Is it really that important, or is it because it's popular culture media-friendly?
What's the point of spending all this money on such a useless and rather silly project? Seriously.
Such rainbow feelings above are nice, but the facts are that not everyone can code for an application as big and complex as openoffice. Far more people use openoffice than those who can code for it. There are less than a 100 developers working on openoffice, 80 of them are Sun employees, 10 from Novell, and one from Red Hat - that leaves ~8 volunteer developers. Those who don't code, can contribute in tender either in donation or by buying StarOffice to support the project. Sun is a company that has not had a profitable quarter for four years, yet has given more source code to the OSS community that any commercial entity on earth or in history - it does need and deserve any money it can get.
I love linux! I wish I had a major big organisation so I could deploy it all over, from the servers, through the desktops, to the devices. Wait, make that a government, I wish I were a head of a government so I could dictate that Linux would run on all its computers. I'm sure with linux the schools and public libraries would be alright. Once it's in the schools and libraries, people would get used to it, firefox and gaim are just fine, so are gimp and openoffice, and there'd be no reason for them to fear it in the workplace or at home.
It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than halfway up another you don't.
Your bewilderment may vanish once you understand that they really don't care about their customers. In fact, they don't care about music either, nor the artists. This is the societal ill called unrestrained businessmen. May be fine for the factory or bank, but it's without a doubt bad for culture and other concerns of a society's life. I listened to a lecture the other day by a noted historian about the mass society, the mass-consumer society. One of the things she mentioned was that there used to be a time when music belonged to the cutlure of the cummunity, and memebers of the community participated in its creation and consumption. Blues for the Black community, country for the country folks, and so on. Then entered the invention of recording, records were a tangile product that could be made and sold independent of the original artist and his music (i.e, once the artist recorded, the businessman could make as many record copies as he wants, whereas before that the music was tied to the artist), and then the horde of profit-obsessed businessmen followed. To be brief without going into much detail, over time, music became just a mass consumption product, owned by businessmen and not the community, no longer expressing its culture, and no longer are its members participants but now they are passive consumers. They have to pay the businessmen for the music that was originally theirs, that was originally the culture of their community - for example, a New Orleans cultural heritage of hundreds of years become now owned by a corporation from New York, London or Japan that doesn't give a fuck about it except for the Ka-ching sound of the cash register.
As such, the Recording Industry wants there to be no culture that doesn't pay them. If there is a culture, they want full claim to it, they want to seize it from the artists and enslave them with unfair contracts, and they certainly want no outlet for communal interaction that doesn't go through their cash register.
To that, I say, fuck the recording industry.
In Soviet Russia, evil kills... umm, nevermind.
I heard Staroffice is more capable of opening old microsoft office formats than the new MS Office. Is that true?
I have to say, however much I may not like Microsoft's shenanigans, that given the history of Sony's formats, I would, without even needing to know the details, choose whatever solution other than theirs.
What a Mac OS X rip-off. Which reminds me, I wish open source developers would stop copying the microsoft look-and-feel in the hope that users will find it familiar, since it seems microsoft responds to this by *gasp* making a new interface! I wish OSS developers would just innovate and drop the needless burden of the Microsoft legacy.
He said it would've cost $1000 for MS office per desktop, I couldn't hear how much he said it would've cost per openoffice.
How predictable of them. BS BS BS.
Everytime I see all the work that's happening on KDE I wonder what's the point of having an OSS desktop thta relies on the proprietary Qt from trolltech. What a shame. I wish all the effort would've gone on something truly free like Gnome.
I've seen "Kernel panic" in my first days as a linux newbie. I'm surprised he never saw it.
I hate such markettingspeak, when I see phrase by a Microsoft-like corporation such as "gives consumers the freedom to", my bullshit indicator shoots up.
No. This is what happens when the judge (Judge Henderson) is a Texas Republican; a corporate whore.
If you want to see repressive governments you only need to look at key US allies such as Uzbekestan and Saudi Arabia. Iran had a calming influence in Iraq, in fact, Iran can be thanked for the remarkable restraint the Shias had despite the terrorism against them (Sadr and Mahdi army are anti-Iran). On the other hand, the Saudi government has been too happy to export its repressed and disillusioned youth to die in Iraq instead of bothering the Saudi royals, friends of Bush.