The situation isn't that much different in the UK... most of the banks need windows, or some need the windows quirks to work properly...
However, this has been enough for me to change my main bank. I used to bank with the Royal Bank of Scotland, but solely because of the availability and features of their internet banking uner linux, I have changed to Barclays Bank!
Of the others I've approached...
egg.com works, as long as you turn java off,, but it's so basic (savings and credit card only) and so SLOW to react (they respond to e-requests sometimes over a week later).
first-e.com and smile are impossible to apply under linux because they run afoul of the "long drop down list and keyboard freezing" bug in netscape... I couldn't even apply for first-e under windows as their forms were all messed up when using large fonts! When I contact them about it, they gave me step by step instructions to set my monitor to 800x600 with small fonts. Fine, but... I do not think I'd bank with them if I had to change fonts and resolution every time I wanted to do some banking!
Does anyone know if the law in France (where I assume this case is being heard) is the same as in the UK? Neil Hamilton had a defense fund, lost the case, and now owes about two million pounds in legal fees. My point is, UK law apparantly says that if you financially support a claim that would not have otherwise gone through, and that claim loses, you (the people who contibuted into the fund) are liable for the resulting court costs and legal bills (details here).
If I had the money, I'd like to help out in this case, but not at the risk of potentially having to pay out tens of thousands if the good guys lose.
I'll pay too... if anything, to stop "silly" netscape updates like the "shop@netscape" button on version 4.7!
At $17.50 (student price), it's almost worth the hassle of getting rid of the afore mentioned shop button and the netscape communication screen when you fire up netscape's email...
And to think that they spent time adding the shop button instead of fixing bugs... netscape crashes regularly on my machine:-(
And finally, I feel that opera must not be swallowed up by anyone... see what happens when a perfectly good browser gets bought by an on-line service (delays of releases to integrate instant messaging) or an OS company (I'd try using IE for Linux if microsoft developed it).
Plenty of Athlon systems in the UK's biggest high-street PC retailer - PC World... though prices (and specs) are often a tad steeper than their Pentium III counterparts. But me? I've got a Celeron-400 running at 594MHz on a BP6... 1/3 the price of a K6/3-500 and I would assume a tad faster, too. Got a K6/2-300 @ 380, too though...
A precedent distinguishing between beta and final release should not be allowed to stand. Take, for instance, ICQ - today it is still in beta, yet it netted millions upon millions to Mirabilis' founders when they sold it to AOL.
Take this potential scenario. Corel develops linux, albeit makes it better so that everyone uses it, widely distributes it, but all the time under beta (like ICQ) without releasing the code, claiming it to be beta. From then on, they can practically do anything - and potentially make mucho money out of it, by someting as trivial as perhaps putting a forced banner ad on one of their later versions of "beta" (or shall we call it gamma, or even zeta) releases. Clearly wrong when you think about it - making money off GPL'd work.
Yet, all things considered, I doubt that a closed-source OS will prosper in the long run... and we already have a closed-source linux-compatible OS, which hasn't exactly caught on. It's called unix.
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However, this has been enough for me to change my main bank. I used to bank with the Royal Bank of Scotland, but solely because of the availability and features of their internet banking uner linux, I have changed to Barclays Bank!
Of the others I've approached...
egg.com works, as long as you turn java off,, but it's so basic (savings and credit card only) and so SLOW to react (they respond to e-requests sometimes over a week later).
first-e.com and smile are impossible to apply under linux because they run afoul of the "long drop down list and keyboard freezing" bug in netscape... I couldn't even apply for first-e under windows as their forms were all messed up when using large fonts! When I contact them about it, they gave me step by step instructions to set my monitor to 800x600 with small fonts. Fine, but... I do not think I'd bank with them if I had to change fonts and resolution every time I wanted to do some banking!
If I had the money, I'd like to help out in this case, but not at the risk of potentially having to pay out tens of thousands if the good guys lose.
I guess that's one "new labour" way to spend the ever increasing fuel tax they're squeezing out of us!
Personally, I'd rather they spend the money to bring back Dr. Who...
What I hate most is that now half the time the stop button is off the screen because of the shop@netscape thinggy :-(
Netscape have an option I understand in prefs.js (was that the file) to disable the button... just haven't got around to doing it yet...
I'll pay too... if anything, to stop "silly" netscape updates like the "shop@netscape" button on version 4.7!
:-(
At $17.50 (student price), it's almost worth the hassle of getting rid of the afore mentioned shop button and the netscape communication screen when you fire up netscape's email...
And to think that they spent time adding the shop button instead of fixing bugs... netscape crashes regularly on my machine
And finally, I feel that opera must not be swallowed up by anyone... see what happens when a perfectly good browser gets bought by an on-line service (delays of releases to integrate instant messaging) or an OS company (I'd try using IE for Linux if microsoft developed it).
Plenty of Athlon systems in the UK's biggest high-street PC retailer - PC World... though prices (and specs) are often a tad steeper than their Pentium III counterparts. But me? I've got a Celeron-400 running at 594MHz on a BP6... 1/3 the price of a K6/3-500 and I would assume a tad faster, too. Got a K6/2-300 @ 380, too though...
A precedent distinguishing between beta and final release should not be allowed to stand. Take, for instance, ICQ - today it is still in beta, yet it netted millions upon millions to Mirabilis' founders when they sold it to AOL.
Take this potential scenario. Corel develops linux, albeit makes it better so that everyone uses it, widely distributes it, but all the time under beta (like ICQ) without releasing the code, claiming it to be beta. From then on, they can practically do anything - and potentially make mucho money out of it, by someting as trivial as perhaps putting a forced banner ad on one of their later versions of "beta" (or shall we call it gamma, or even zeta) releases. Clearly wrong when you think about it - making money off GPL'd work.
Yet, all things considered, I doubt that a closed-source OS will prosper in the long run... and we already have a closed-source linux-compatible OS, which hasn't exactly caught on. It's called unix.