So you're basing your judgement on Office and Windows circa 10 years ago?
I'm not sure what he is basing his argument on, but in my experience, OfficeX on OSX is not at all stable, with multiple crashes for no apparent reason. Now, it isn't the latest version, but nor is it 10 years old.. Maybe 3??
NeoOffice, on the other hand was terribly slow when I last tried it, but it looks like they have made some improvements to perfomance, so perhaps I should try it again.
There is a big move against this type of thing. Nature, for example, are very particular about the importance of using clear language, avoiding passive voice etc. I think if someone cannot understand the paper then it really is not going to impress them. I would certainly downgrade any paper I was reviewing if the language was excessively obtuse.
On the subject of Wikipedia articles, I have never found them particularly difficult to understand, just that they are often disappointingly short (usually on the subjects I don't really know much about so I can't add anything).
So, many binary drivers will conflict with the GPL.. The fact that they "help" Linux users in making more hardware compatible means that the GPL violations may be overlooked.. I think if Wii used binary kernel drivers with a Linux kernel, they would be in serious risk of litigation for violating the GPL.
You can just direct the WMP11 play back audio stream into an OGG/MP3 encoder via a loopback on the sound card. Virtualy no loss of quality (well provided your not an uber-anal sound freak) and no more DRM
Except you've entirely missed the point of an open source operating system. By the death of a thousand pin-pricks, Linux may soon depend so much on closed code that a great number of the advantages it presents over closed operating systems like MS Windows will largely evaporate. You will either have a flakey system of dubious security that frequently breaks on OS upgrades due to dated drivers, or Linux will be locked into outdated but unchangable kernel schemes, for fear of breaking it's hordes of proprietary device drivers.
I cannot believe this has been modded insightful! Linux will never be dependent on closed source blobs. If people choose to use them, then that is their choice, and choice is surely the purpose of freedom? But the kernel does not contain any closed source (and never will).
By making linux easier for the "unwashed masses" to use, leading to a greater user-base, I would expect that open source implementations of closed-source technologies (ogg vs mp3 etc) would become more readily known, and attain greater popularity. IMHO the first thing is to get people using a Linux based system. If this means luring them in with the promise of a system that actually works to play games, watch DVDs legally etc. then so be it.
Taking the example of the nvidia drivers, which everyone seems to get so worked up about, I hardly see how the existence of a closed source graphics driver (that works), puts any sort of threat on the open source implementation (nv). It is up to each manufacturer to set their own licensing terms for their software, and up to each user to decide whether to use it or not. This is what freedom is about IMHO. As a developer I wish to defend my rights to use whatever license I choose (GPL). Linus Torvalds says pretty much the same thing in "Just For Fun". It is not just about the freedom of the end user, it is also about the freedom of the developer.
I think Linspire is a great product for a certain sector of the community (those less-technically inclined who want the computer to "just work", those who wish to watch DVDs legally on their computer in the US without jumping through hoops for example!) and I was shocked by PJ's attack on the company. Promoting Linux use to as wide a range of people possible can only have beneficial effects in the long term.
They had all the opportunity to fix it in this month's security patch, but thy did not. So the patch will come no earlier than 2 months after discovery - that's a huge window of exposure.
I guess that's why it's called Windows.
Re:constructive and nonconstructive
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Hooked On The Web
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This is interesting. Could you give a reference for this "thinking rewiring the brain" as I was under the impression it was drugs direct interaction with brain dopamine activating the "salience" pathways, and making drug seeking behaviour "needed" by the individual which led to dependence (Robinson and Berridge theory). By this model, psychologically addictive behaviours such as gambling (and slashdot!?) would not have such a biological drive since they activate the salience pathway in a more physiological manner. However, I think this is probably a load of rubbish, but I have yet to see a well designed study that proves that psychological processes can alter the brains dopamine responsiveness.. (perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough).
KDE must run like a pig on top of OSX.. KDE (standalone) is already a massive piece of software. Personally I use Blackbox to run X apps on OSX.. It loads in less than a second, and is entirely unobtrusive.. and much nicer than the tvwm interface (or whatever the default XDarwin window manager is).
On a slightly related note: for some reason, when I start XDarwin from the command line, with startx &, it loads about 50x faster than if I click the XDarwin icon. Anyone know why this might be???
RLPlot is really nice, working towards being the opensource SigmaPlot..
... It even does error bars on coloured bar charts! (not seen that in any other graphing program on Linux, not even gnuplot). It exports nice vector graphics charts that import into Lyx nicely.
Don't know if I've got something set up wrong, but when I click date to organise files by date, it does not always work under OS X 10.3. Often I get recent files somewhere in the middle of the list. Maybe something to do with UK locale, but I wouldn't say it was brilliant. Never seen anything like this in Linux (or Windoze for that matter)
Built in Python. It makes Python developers happy.
It doesn't make me happy.. what's with this pythonw to access the GUI?? I would prefer to have no preinstalled (hacked around by Apple) version of Python, so I can install a proper version.
But apart from those two gripes, I agree with your other points.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure what he is basing his argument on, but in my experience, OfficeX on OSX is not at all stable, with multiple crashes for no apparent reason. Now, it isn't the latest version, but nor is it 10 years old.. Maybe 3??
NeoOffice, on the other hand was terribly slow when I last tried it, but it looks like they have made some improvements to perfomance, so perhaps I should try it again.
There is a big move against this type of thing. Nature, for example, are very particular about the importance of using clear language, avoiding passive voice etc. I think if someone cannot understand the paper then it really is not going to impress them. I would certainly downgrade any paper I was reviewing if the language was excessively obtuse.
On the subject of Wikipedia articles, I have never found them particularly difficult to understand, just that they are often disappointingly short (usually on the subjects I don't really know much about so I can't add anything).
From TFA:
According to Karpushin, schools would start using freely distributed software like the Linux OS, Russky office and Open office desktop apps.
But what _is_ Russky Office???
I think you meant "released under a non-Free license". Everything released under the GPL is copyrighted!!
It's all about whether the binary driver is considered a derivative work.
See:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
So, many binary drivers will conflict with the GPL.. The fact that they "help" Linux users in making more hardware compatible means that the GPL violations may be overlooked.. I think if Wii used binary kernel drivers with a Linux kernel, they would be in serious risk of litigation for violating the GPL.
This would be a GPL violation. NVidia is an exception allowed by Linus because the driver was not written specifically for Linux.
It's designed to be of use to hackers! It's the crackers I would be worried about!
... and even then it's pretty hard to tell with most of the RIAA shi^h^h^h quality offerings..
It's almost too easy......
No need to be rude.
But turning hidden files off should at least be an option...
Its a real PITA to browse a samba mounted UNIX drive under OSX..
And there I was thinking TFA was about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5187276.stm
....without getting my hand sticky?
Eww!
I cannot believe this has been modded insightful! Linux will never be dependent on closed source blobs. If people choose to use them, then that is their choice, and choice is surely the purpose of freedom? But the kernel does not contain any closed source (and never will).
By making linux easier for the "unwashed masses" to use, leading to a greater user-base, I would expect that open source implementations of closed-source technologies (ogg vs mp3 etc) would become more readily known, and attain greater popularity. IMHO the first thing is to get people using a Linux based system. If this means luring them in with the promise of a system that actually works to play games, watch DVDs legally etc. then so be it.
Taking the example of the nvidia drivers, which everyone seems to get so worked up about, I hardly see how the existence of a closed source graphics driver (that works), puts any sort of threat on the open source implementation (nv). It is up to each manufacturer to set their own licensing terms for their software, and up to each user to decide whether to use it or not. This is what freedom is about IMHO. As a developer I wish to defend my rights to use whatever license I choose (GPL). Linus Torvalds says pretty much the same thing in "Just For Fun". It is not just about the freedom of the end user, it is also about the freedom of the developer.
I think Linspire is a great product for a certain sector of the community (those less-technically inclined who want the computer to "just work", those who wish to watch DVDs legally on their computer in the US without jumping through hoops for example!) and I was shocked by PJ's attack on the company. Promoting Linux use to as wide a range of people possible can only have beneficial effects in the long term.
I guess that's why it's called Windows.
Mod parent up. Excellent points.
This is interesting. Could you give a reference for this "thinking rewiring the brain" as I was under the impression it was drugs direct interaction with brain dopamine activating the "salience" pathways, and making drug seeking behaviour "needed" by the individual which led to dependence (Robinson and Berridge theory). By this model, psychologically addictive behaviours such as gambling (and slashdot!?) would not have such a biological drive since they activate the salience pathway in a more physiological manner. However, I think this is probably a load of rubbish, but I have yet to see a well designed study that proves that psychological processes can alter the brains dopamine responsiveness.. (perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough).
Wow, a worm that actually creates Linux and BSD systems.. now this is something I have to see! ;)
Thinkfree office has exactly the same service (a MS compatible office program available online, with document saving on their server for free)..
http://www.thinkfree.org/
But I imagine Google/Sun will get more publicity.
KDE must run like a pig on top of OSX.. KDE (standalone) is already a massive piece of software. Personally I use Blackbox to run X apps on OSX.. It loads in less than a second, and is entirely unobtrusive.. and much nicer than the tvwm interface (or whatever the default XDarwin window manager is).
On a slightly related note: for some reason, when I start XDarwin from the command line, with startx &, it loads about 50x faster than if I click the XDarwin icon. Anyone know why this might be???
'Linux is a computer operating system and its kernel' ...
I thought it was just the kernel..
That's what I keep telling my wife, but she doesn't believe me!
RLPlot is really nice, working towards being the opensource SigmaPlot..
... It even does error bars on coloured bar charts! (not seen that in any other graphing program on Linux, not even gnuplot). It exports nice vector graphics charts that import into Lyx nicely.
I thought it was female... I was just waiting for some applets to come along! doh!
Don't know if I've got something set up wrong, but when I click date to organise files by date, it does not always work under OS X 10.3. Often I get recent files somewhere in the middle of the list. Maybe something to do with UK locale, but I wouldn't say it was brilliant. Never seen anything like this in Linux (or Windoze for that matter)
It doesn't make me happy.. what's with this pythonw to access the GUI?? I would prefer to have no preinstalled (hacked around by Apple) version of Python, so I can install a proper version.
But apart from those two gripes, I agree with your other points.