If I say that 'There sure are a lot of clever people in my town' - am I being sarcastic or factual? You cannot tell unless you know something about where I live. I do not know anything about Segway popularity in the USA. I know that I have not encountered Segways on my travels elsewhere. Now, how is anyone to know that the comment in this instance was intended as sarcasm?
The use of sarcasm as a form of humour depends upon the person using it, and those to whom his comments are being addressed, knowing the true situation and therefore appreciating the sarcasm contained in the comment. In this case the user only thought of those Americans who might be reading his comments (and who therefore might be expected to know the truth regarding the popularity or otherwise of Segways in the USA). I am not one of them.
Of course, we all appreciate an AC showing how clever he is, so you have more than compensated for any misapprehension I might have been under. Oh, by the way, on your own extensive travels, have you ever been called an asshole?
And I was just going to ask "WTF is a Segway", because they've not taken this part of the world by storm. Or did you mean the world according to most Americans? In fact, other than on the TV news, I've never actually seen a Segway, and I have travelled quite extensively.
We had the same discussion last year regarding the use of traffic cameras in the UK. And it all boils down to 'they could be misused'. And so I offer the following for the paranoid amongst you.
Let's get rid of all cars/autos. They could be misused during a bank robbery or other crime.
Let's ban the ownership of guns and other weapons. They could be misused to kill someone.
Let's ban the use of the internet. It could be misused by terrorists or pedophiles.
Let's ban the use of aircraft. They could be misused by terrorists to mount an attack on an iconic target.
Let's ban the use of television. It could be misused by the Government to spread evil propaganda.
What's that I hear? You don't agree? Oh, I see. YOU can be trusted to use such things responsibly, it those OTHER nasty folk who must be prevented from having such access. Well, that makes it quite clear to me now, thank you.
Why don't people realize that any society that trusts it's citizens enough to let them decide where and when to fire a gun will also trust them to decide who to have sex with?
That's is a nice soundbite, but the following suggests that it is not true:
And of course, the contents of the TFA itself. Hardly a demonstration of responsible weapon ownership. I'm not sure how it relates to his sex life, however.
There is no evidence that I have seen to prove that he was burgled by the SAME individuals. He had been burgled, that is true, but during the trial he was asked what measures he had taken to prevent further break-ins. He had taken none. So living in an isolated place, known to have some money, taking no protective measures around his property. Crime is never justified but it is not surprising in this case that he was burgled more than once.
....and restore your God given rights.
Which God would that be? If it's the Christian God that you are referring to, which of the Ten Commandments mentions that you can shoot people. I do recall 'Thou shalt not kill', but I cannot remember one suggesting that you can shoot burglars. Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention last time I went to Church.
Your 'rights' regarding firearms are nothing more than a throwback to the Wild West and the events that followed during the formative years of your nation. However, I stopped thinking that I was a cowboy when I grew up. You are entitled, both individually and as a Nation, to continue to carry weapons but please don't think less of others because they choose not to.
Martin did not make a stand for justice. After the event he hid the weapon at his mother's house (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_(farmer)). He can hardly claim that he did not know that he was committing a crime if he went so far as to try to hide the weapon. His defence successfully used the excuse that 'Martin suffered paranoid personality disorder'. So, nobody was claiming that he was making a stand but simply that he had killed without justification (under our law - not yours) and therefore should be punished accordingly. The defence, as is their job, managed to get the sentence reduced.
From the wiki-link: The jury at the trial were told that they had the option of returning a verdict of manslaughter, rather than murder, if they thought that Martin "did not intend to kill or cause serious bodily harm". However, they found Martin guilty of murder by a 10 to 2 majority. He was sentenced to life in prison, the mandatory sentence for murder under English law.
I do not agree with your point of view. Ten members of the 12 man jury disagree with you also. The other 2 are welcome to emigrate to the USA, if they haven't already done so.:-)
And what threat to his well-being did they pose while running away from him?
These people were habitual criminals and needed removed, the courts wouldn't do it, so Tony did.
And that is the reasoning that every vigilante uses. It is still wrong. He did not know their criminal record at the time that he shot them so he can hardly use the justification that he was doing what the courts could not, or would not, do. They were not the same people who burgled him earlier - or at least there is no evidence to suggest that they were.
The UK does not refuse to police itself, it is simply that you don't agree with how it is done. That is your right. So stand up and say so. Take part in local community projects that interface with the police. Stand as a local councilor and get things changed. I know that the system is far from perfect but shooting people is not the solution. Have you ever done something foolish, perhaps when drunk? I have. Now how would you feel if, as a result of having too much to drink, you did something stupid and, instead of being detained by the police and receiving whatever punishment was appropriate, someone shot you. Dead! I suppose it would stop you from drinking too much in the future but it is hardly a sensible solution to your lack of self-control or possible drink problem.
The argument of self-defence, which goes hand-in-hand with the rule of using minimum force, is a good one, in my opinion. "Tony", (I assume that you know him personally because you appear to be on first name terms already) was not defending his life, nor was he under the belief that he was preventing them from coming back. He has admitted to being pissed-off at being burgled 'again'. So why didn't he fit a burglar alarm? Why didn't he buy a big dog? No, he shot them and the courts looked at what he could have done, and what he did, a judged that he use excessive force without the justification of self-defence. He was guilty under UK law, and was therefore punished accordingly. The comments of Americans on this US-centric forum are always welcome and often provide alternative viewpoints. But few of them are experts on UK law and some therefore make statements based on the law as it applies to them in whatever state they live. Interesting, but often totally irrelevant to the discussion. We are discussing UK law because this is not the wild west!
How about the government sues the ISPs for allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed?
I agree. The part you were referring to was my response to 'allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed' which would require ISPs to identify the content, and not the protocol. However, I'll take it a stage further. Are you suggesting that the ISPs pass details all BT traffic to the RIAA equivalent? Surely they only have an interest in illegal music downloads. For the ISP to pass only music downloads they must have some way of determining the actual content. A title is insufficient because I can name any piece of data 'Latest_Hits_by_Latest_Boyband' but it does not prove that I am abusing copyrighted material. The fact that this defence has not been successful in the US does not mean that it is doomed to failure elsewhere. If, on the other hand, the ISPs pass all BT data to the BPI then they are exceeding their authority and this can also be challenged in court. Finally, if it is encrypted then they only have BT protocols as evidence. The content is not known to the ISP. The use of BT is not illegal (currently) and if the ISP and/or BPI want to get involved in that legal battle then, please, let them be my guest.
No, he wasn't an idiot, he probably read the headline. There is no such thing as common carrier in the UK and, if you check, many Americans will tell you that they don't have common carrier status in the US either.
Doesn't this strip them of their "safe harbor" status?
No, because this is happening in the UK and there is no such thing as a 'safe harbour'. Perhaps that might be true in the US but other posts on/. suggest that its isn't even true there either.
How about the government sues the ISPs for allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed? Since they're no longer content-neutral, then they should be filtering for and preventing that. And because they're not, bad things costing billions have happened that are directly attributable to the ISP carrying such content...
I understand what you are getting at, but this leads to far bigger problems. At the moment in the UK, and throughout most of Europe, it is illegal to carry out intercepts without judicial authority. Expecting the ISPs to monitor all of the traffic and make a judgement call on its content means that they are no longer simply looking for the protocol (i.e. BT) but they are actually reading the content of the traffic. While Governments currently might think this is a good idea they will probably change their mind when people start complaining to national courts and possibly the European Court of Human Rights regarding illegal intercepts.
A possible solution is to start seeding masses of innocent data so that they simply cannot identify the music sharers from anyone else. After all, it isn't illegal to share any other kind of information using BT - not yet at least. Better still start 'sharing' random data. They will assume that it is encrypted and either spend masses of effort trying to crack the uncrackable, or be swamped with data. There is nothing that says you can only transfer data in your own native tongue or in a format that the ISP can understand. If they block it, they can be taken to court for not allowing you to use the internet for moving data, which is probably not what you agreed to in your contract. Your contract most likely doesn't forbid the use of any specific protocols and if everyone seeds and downloads, say, 1 CD's worth of random data each week it is hardly a case of abusing your bandwidth. (Dial up connections are excluded of course!). Sure it is a waste of resources but it will give the ISPs bigger problems than it will cause to each user.
I do not agree with, nor do I support, illegal file sharing, but I disagree even more vehemently with the idea that ISPs can arbitrarily prevent me from transferring data using whatever protocol is most effective. Now, I'm not advocating civil disobedience but, if the idea takes off, I'll be one of the first to join in.:-)
No, please look again. I didn't say that PDFs are not used, simply that I am not aware of there being any REQUIREMENT for them to be used. And I have looked at each of the cites now, but nowhere can I find where it says that PDFs MUST be used. Can you please direct me to where that statement is made? Otherwise your cites are useless for supporting your argument that "some jurisdictions require them". I think you will find they use them but they are not forced to do so. I am quite content to be corrected on this. Simply, as of today, PDFs seem the best of the options available but they can be improved upon.
There are many reasons why PDFs are not suitable for long term archive of information. Let me give you one example - although I am sure you can think of many more for yourself - as to why they are not acceptable. Imagine in 100 years time that someone in the US wants to study decisions made in Europe early in this century which, if we follow your suggestion, will have been saved as read-only PDFs. He wants to load them into his his word processor so that he can manipulate them himself. He needs to change the font to suit the rest of the report that he is writing, plus add some links to his own work. How do you achieve that with a PDF? Do you expect him to scan each page in? There may be a solution that I am unaware of, but I have had this problem and eventually asked for the data in another format which was usable. Now I know that there are programs that will let you edit PDFs (but OpenOffice does not - I've just tried again!) - but it is not our place to dictate what software people must use in 100 years time. They should be free to use whatever word processing tool they want. That is why an open format is so important. Even if the word processor that was used to produce the original document is no longer in use, and perhaps even the original hardware that the word processor runs on cannot be easily replicated, but if the format is known then the document can be reproduced exactly as the original, or modified to suit any new page size, change of font, or whatever is needed. That is why there is such a fuss about this. Microsoft will not tell anyone how their formats work so how can someone in 100 years time reproduce the document?
If I could send you a beer I certainly would - I'm just going upstairs to enjoy one now!:-)))
Many EU courts and government agencies currently require downloadable documents which they provide to the public to be formatted in PDF.
This is news to me - perhaps I'm learning something new. Where is this requirement mandated? Is it in an EU directive? I cannot find any reference to it in UK or FR legislation. But simply because I cannot find any reference to it doesn't mean it isn't a fact, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Cite or reference please - or are you just making this 'fact' up to bolster your argument?
90% of business documents could be in this format with no loss of information, a 99% reduction in size and ability to use any number of tools to search and organise it.
But only if they use American English. Or would you please point me towards the cyrillic characters, or the Greek characters, or the mathematical symbols etc within the ASCII specification. I do not think that documents written in English account for 90% of business documents in the world, although that figure might be an accurate estimate for your own country. However, I suspect that your suggestion is somewhat tongue-in-cheek and merely offered as a rebuttal to 'HTML'. If I'm wrong and you were serious, then please take off your blinkers (or, should that be blinders in USspeak?) before making your next suggestion.
By "marketing" I simply mean being able to present a case to the average person -- THAT HE SEES -- why he should switch, and how he should do it.
And so we see, copyright is criticial to generating the funds necessary to get folks to come over.
Why would *they* switch?
The Linux community *could* take over the home desktop market.
No, I didn't miss the 'fucking' point (hey, isn't it big to use naughty words....!). Your quote was asking why people were not switching, as though you think that someone should be trying to persuade them to do so. If that isn't the point you were trying to make, could you please trying stringing some words together that explain your case, preferably without the profanities. I don't stay in my basement but I haven't got your view of the world either. There is funding for Linux projects available, and quite a few of the big names in Linux are employed and continue to work on their software with their employer's blessing.
Do you have a particular piece of software in mind that needs writing? If so, and assuming that you are competent to do so, why don't you write it or at least offer to fund it?
Yeah, you can rely on the little open source projects hobbled together by folks that don't like doing all the tedious work
OK, I'm retired now but I was employed for quite some years writing real-time software for military avionic and weapons systems. My browser, my Office suite, and my compiler all seem to be well written and supported, in my most humble opinion.
I am not the OP you were responding to, but I think that you have missed the point(s):
Reaching the layman takes MONEY.
Why should we try to reach the layman, or anyone else for that matter? Those that want to use linux can, those that want to stay with Windows are welcome to it. There isn't a desire, or need, to increase the user base. The linux community can survive at its current size. More would be welcome, but they are not essential for linux to continue.
This is where I dispute your claim that Linux is useful TO YOU. Where is your Linux photoshop equivalent? Your games?
What does Photoshop do that I need that GIMP doesn't? GIMP serves me well, thank you. Oh, and I don't play games. Not because I can't, but I grew up quite some time ago and don't need to play games on my computer. Now, a good board game with members of my family, well that is something different....
I tried to switch to Linux myself. I'm pretty technically inclined (ignore my troll posts). I ran into inexcusable problems.
So linux isn't for you. OK, we will get over it. Perhaps it just isn't your scene, or perhaps you are not as 'pretty technically inclined' as you think you are. But neither is my wife, and she uses it daily, nor my father-in-law, who is in his 70s but has no problem with it.
You seem to have made the assumption that linux and Windows are in some kind of competition. They're not. Linux is an alternative that, for those who want to try it, will probably meet their needs and then some. But for those that want to continue paying Microsoft or Apple, be my guest. The recent popularity of some linux distros, particularly Ubuntu and Suse, has brought new users who think that the only purpose of linux is to defeat Microsoft. That's not the way that I, and many others, see it.
Don't do these half-assed efforts while confounded as to why people aren't joining.
Joining what? Its not a club. Nor are we on different 'sides' in some kind of battle. If you like linux then great, if not, make your own choice of OS and live your life. Its not a big philosophical thing...
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, it probably originated somewhere that doesn't care about US companies, US laws....
Well, that covers most of the world then.
....or what people think about spam.
True, but it is probably an accurate statement to say that spammers don't care what people think about spam.
Yes of course I have
If I say that 'There sure are a lot of clever people in my town' - am I being sarcastic or factual? You cannot tell unless you know something about where I live. I do not know anything about Segway popularity in the USA. I know that I have not encountered Segways on my travels elsewhere. Now, how is anyone to know that the comment in this instance was intended as sarcasm?
The use of sarcasm as a form of humour depends upon the person using it, and those to whom his comments are being addressed, knowing the true situation and therefore appreciating the sarcasm contained in the comment. In this case the user only thought of those Americans who might be reading his comments (and who therefore might be expected to know the truth regarding the popularity or otherwise of Segways in the USA). I am not one of them.
Of course, we all appreciate an AC showing how clever he is, so you have more than compensated for any misapprehension I might have been under. Oh, by the way, on your own extensive travels, have you ever been called an asshole?
I stand corrected, or at least, more aware. Thank you.
And I was just going to ask "WTF is a Segway", because they've not taken this part of the world by storm. Or did you mean the world according to most Americans? In fact, other than on the TV news, I've never actually seen a Segway, and I have travelled quite extensively.
We had the same discussion last year regarding the use of traffic cameras in the UK. And it all boils down to 'they could be misused'. And so I offer the following for the paranoid amongst you.
Let's get rid of all cars/autos. They could be misused during a bank robbery or other crime.
Let's ban the ownership of guns and other weapons. They could be misused to kill someone.
Let's ban the use of the internet. It could be misused by terrorists or pedophiles.
Let's ban the use of aircraft. They could be misused by terrorists to mount an attack on an iconic target.
Let's ban the use of television. It could be misused by the Government to spread evil propaganda.
What's that I hear? You don't agree? Oh, I see. YOU can be trusted to use such things responsibly, it those OTHER nasty folk who must be prevented from having such access. Well, that makes it quite clear to me now, thank you.
Why don't people realize that any society that trusts it's citizens enough to let them decide where and when to fire a gun will also trust them to decide who to have sex with?
That's is a nice soundbite, but the following suggests that it is not true:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Two-Killed-During-Fatal-Shooting-At-Gay-Friendly-Knoxville-Tennessee-Church/Article/200807415057730?lpos=World%2BNews_6&lid=ARTICLE_15057730_Two%2BKilled%2BDuring%2BFatal%2BShooting%2BAt%2BGay-Friendly%2BKnoxville%252C%2BTennessee%2BChurch
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/schools/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/529336.stm
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Fatal_shooting_at_school_in_Pennsylvania,_USA
And of course, the contents of the TFA itself. Hardly a demonstration of responsible weapon ownership. I'm not sure how it relates to his sex life, however.
Need I go on?.....
The perps had burgled him previously
There is no evidence that I have seen to prove that he was burgled by the SAME individuals. He had been burgled, that is true, but during the trial he was asked what measures he had taken to prevent further break-ins. He had taken none. So living in an isolated place, known to have some money, taking no protective measures around his property. Crime is never justified but it is not surprising in this case that he was burgled more than once.
....and restore your God given rights.
Which God would that be? If it's the Christian God that you are referring to, which of the Ten Commandments mentions that you can shoot people. I do recall 'Thou shalt not kill', but I cannot remember one suggesting that you can shoot burglars. Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention last time I went to Church.
Your 'rights' regarding firearms are nothing more than a throwback to the Wild West and the events that followed during the formative years of your nation. However, I stopped thinking that I was a cowboy when I grew up. You are entitled, both individually and as a Nation, to continue to carry weapons but please don't think less of others because they choose not to.
Martin did not make a stand for justice. After the event he hid the weapon at his mother's house (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_(farmer)). He can hardly claim that he did not know that he was committing a crime if he went so far as to try to hide the weapon. His defence successfully used the excuse that 'Martin suffered paranoid personality disorder'. So, nobody was claiming that he was making a stand but simply that he had killed without justification (under our law - not yours) and therefore should be punished accordingly. The defence, as is their job, managed to get the sentence reduced.
From the wiki-link: The jury at the trial were told that they had the option of returning a verdict of manslaughter, rather than murder, if they thought that Martin "did not intend to kill or cause serious bodily harm". However, they found Martin guilty of murder by a 10 to 2 majority. He was sentenced to life in prison, the mandatory sentence for murder under English law.
I do not agree with your point of view. Ten members of the 12 man jury disagree with you also. The other 2 are welcome to emigrate to the USA, if they haven't already done so. :-)
I argue that he was acting in self defense.
And what threat to his well-being did they pose while running away from him?
These people were habitual criminals and needed removed, the courts wouldn't do it, so Tony did.
And that is the reasoning that every vigilante uses. It is still wrong. He did not know their criminal record at the time that he shot them so he can hardly use the justification that he was doing what the courts could not, or would not, do. They were not the same people who burgled him earlier - or at least there is no evidence to suggest that they were.
The UK does not refuse to police itself, it is simply that you don't agree with how it is done. That is your right. So stand up and say so. Take part in local community projects that interface with the police. Stand as a local councilor and get things changed. I know that the system is far from perfect but shooting people is not the solution. Have you ever done something foolish, perhaps when drunk? I have. Now how would you feel if, as a result of having too much to drink, you did something stupid and, instead of being detained by the police and receiving whatever punishment was appropriate, someone shot you. Dead! I suppose it would stop you from drinking too much in the future but it is hardly a sensible solution to your lack of self-control or possible drink problem.
The argument of self-defence, which goes hand-in-hand with the rule of using minimum force, is a good one, in my opinion. "Tony", (I assume that you know him personally because you appear to be on first name terms already) was not defending his life, nor was he under the belief that he was preventing them from coming back. He has admitted to being pissed-off at being burgled 'again'. So why didn't he fit a burglar alarm? Why didn't he buy a big dog? No, he shot them and the courts looked at what he could have done, and what he did, a judged that he use excessive force without the justification of self-defence. He was guilty under UK law, and was therefore punished accordingly. The comments of Americans on this US-centric forum are always welcome and often provide alternative viewpoints. But few of them are experts on UK law and some therefore make statements based on the law as it applies to them in whatever state they live. Interesting, but often totally irrelevant to the discussion. We are discussing UK law because this is not the wild west!
Oh, it's not a problem, he just thought that you might want to switch to his DNS so that you can also enjoy the benefits of the intertube thingy.
Higher education stopped being about learning things and bettering oneself
Dus that inklude speling? E.g. presented in the coarse (course). "Of coarse...." (course, again).
This is not a dig at you because the rest of your comment was well written, but you obviously have a hang up about coarse/course.
I'm also willing to bet that, despite all my checking, I've also made a mistake in this comment!
How about the government sues the ISPs for allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed?
I agree. The part you were referring to was my response to 'allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed' which would require ISPs to identify the content, and not the protocol. However, I'll take it a stage further. Are you suggesting that the ISPs pass details all BT traffic to the RIAA equivalent? Surely they only have an interest in illegal music downloads. For the ISP to pass only music downloads they must have some way of determining the actual content. A title is insufficient because I can name any piece of data 'Latest_Hits_by_Latest_Boyband' but it does not prove that I am abusing copyrighted material. The fact that this defence has not been successful in the US does not mean that it is doomed to failure elsewhere. If, on the other hand, the ISPs pass all BT data to the BPI then they are exceeding their authority and this can also be challenged in court. Finally, if it is encrypted then they only have BT protocols as evidence. The content is not known to the ISP. The use of BT is not illegal (currently) and if the ISP and/or BPI want to get involved in that legal battle then, please, let them be my guest.
No, he wasn't an idiot, he probably read the headline. There is no such thing as common carrier in the UK and, if you check, many Americans will tell you that they don't have common carrier status in the US either.
Doesn't this strip them of their "safe harbor" status?
No, because this is happening in the UK and there is no such thing as a 'safe harbour'. Perhaps that might be true in the US but other posts on /. suggest that its isn't even true there either.
How about the government sues the ISPs for allowing VoIP calls where terrorism is discussed? Since they're no longer content-neutral, then they should be filtering for and preventing that. And because they're not, bad things costing billions have happened that are directly attributable to the ISP carrying such content...
I understand what you are getting at, but this leads to far bigger problems. At the moment in the UK, and throughout most of Europe, it is illegal to carry out intercepts without judicial authority. Expecting the ISPs to monitor all of the traffic and make a judgement call on its content means that they are no longer simply looking for the protocol (i.e. BT) but they are actually reading the content of the traffic. While Governments currently might think this is a good idea they will probably change their mind when people start complaining to national courts and possibly the European Court of Human Rights regarding illegal intercepts.
A possible solution is to start seeding masses of innocent data so that they simply cannot identify the music sharers from anyone else. After all, it isn't illegal to share any other kind of information using BT - not yet at least. Better still start 'sharing' random data. They will assume that it is encrypted and either spend masses of effort trying to crack the uncrackable, or be swamped with data. There is nothing that says you can only transfer data in your own native tongue or in a format that the ISP can understand. If they block it, they can be taken to court for not allowing you to use the internet for moving data, which is probably not what you agreed to in your contract. Your contract most likely doesn't forbid the use of any specific protocols and if everyone seeds and downloads, say, 1 CD's worth of random data each week it is hardly a case of abusing your bandwidth. (Dial up connections are excluded of course!). Sure it is a waste of resources but it will give the ISPs bigger problems than it will cause to each user.
I do not agree with, nor do I support, illegal file sharing, but I disagree even more vehemently with the idea that ISPs can arbitrarily prevent me from transferring data using whatever protocol is most effective. Now, I'm not advocating civil disobedience but, if the idea takes off, I'll be one of the first to join in. :-)
Thank you very much for the links - I'm going through them now.
No, please look again. I didn't say that PDFs are not used, simply that I am not aware of there being any REQUIREMENT for them to be used. And I have looked at each of the cites now, but nowhere can I find where it says that PDFs MUST be used. Can you please direct me to where that statement is made? Otherwise your cites are useless for supporting your argument that "some jurisdictions require them". I think you will find they use them but they are not forced to do so. I am quite content to be corrected on this. Simply, as of today, PDFs seem the best of the options available but they can be improved upon.
There are many reasons why PDFs are not suitable for long term archive of information. Let me give you one example - although I am sure you can think of many more for yourself - as to why they are not acceptable. Imagine in 100 years time that someone in the US wants to study decisions made in Europe early in this century which, if we follow your suggestion, will have been saved as read-only PDFs. He wants to load them into his his word processor so that he can manipulate them himself. He needs to change the font to suit the rest of the report that he is writing, plus add some links to his own work. How do you achieve that with a PDF? Do you expect him to scan each page in? There may be a solution that I am unaware of, but I have had this problem and eventually asked for the data in another format which was usable. Now I know that there are programs that will let you edit PDFs (but OpenOffice does not - I've just tried again!) - but it is not our place to dictate what software people must use in 100 years time. They should be free to use whatever word processing tool they want. That is why an open format is so important. Even if the word processor that was used to produce the original document is no longer in use, and perhaps even the original hardware that the word processor runs on cannot be easily replicated, but if the format is known then the document can be reproduced exactly as the original, or modified to suit any new page size, change of font, or whatever is needed. That is why there is such a fuss about this. Microsoft will not tell anyone how their formats work so how can someone in 100 years time reproduce the document?
If I could send you a beer I certainly would - I'm just going upstairs to enjoy one now! :-)))
Many EU courts and government agencies currently require downloadable documents which they provide to the public to be formatted in PDF.
This is news to me - perhaps I'm learning something new. Where is this requirement mandated? Is it in an EU directive? I cannot find any reference to it in UK or FR legislation. But simply because I cannot find any reference to it doesn't mean it isn't a fact, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Cite or reference please - or are you just making this 'fact' up to bolster your argument?
90% of business documents could be in this format with no loss of information, a 99% reduction in size and ability to use any number of tools to search and organise it.
But only if they use American English. Or would you please point me towards the cyrillic characters, or the Greek characters, or the mathematical symbols etc within the ASCII specification. I do not think that documents written in English account for 90% of business documents in the world, although that figure might be an accurate estimate for your own country. However, I suspect that your suggestion is somewhat tongue-in-cheek and merely offered as a rebuttal to 'HTML'. If I'm wrong and you were serious, then please take off your blinkers (or, should that be blinders in USspeak?) before making your next suggestion.
has to be in PDF
Only in your country. There is a whole big wide world outside of it, you know, and we don't all think that PDF is the answer to the problem.
By "marketing" I simply mean being able to present a case to the average person -- THAT HE SEES -- why he should switch, and how he should do it.
And so we see, copyright is criticial to generating the funds necessary to get folks to come over.
Why would *they* switch?
The Linux community *could* take over the home desktop market.
No, I didn't miss the 'fucking' point (hey, isn't it big to use naughty words....!). Your quote was asking why people were not switching, as though you think that someone should be trying to persuade them to do so. If that isn't the point you were trying to make, could you please trying stringing some words together that explain your case, preferably without the profanities. I don't stay in my basement but I haven't got your view of the world either. There is funding for Linux projects available, and quite a few of the big names in Linux are employed and continue to work on their software with their employer's blessing.
Do you have a particular piece of software in mind that needs writing? If so, and assuming that you are competent to do so, why don't you write it or at least offer to fund it?
Yeah, you can rely on the little open source projects hobbled together by folks that don't like doing all the tedious work
OK, I'm retired now but I was employed for quite some years writing real-time software for military avionic and weapons systems. My browser, my Office suite, and my compiler all seem to be well written and supported, in my most humble opinion.
I am not the OP you were responding to, but I think that you have missed the point(s):
Reaching the layman takes MONEY.
Why should we try to reach the layman, or anyone else for that matter? Those that want to use linux can, those that want to stay with Windows are welcome to it. There isn't a desire, or need, to increase the user base. The linux community can survive at its current size. More would be welcome, but they are not essential for linux to continue.
This is where I dispute your claim that Linux is useful TO YOU. Where is your Linux photoshop equivalent? Your games?
What does Photoshop do that I need that GIMP doesn't? GIMP serves me well, thank you. Oh, and I don't play games. Not because I can't, but I grew up quite some time ago and don't need to play games on my computer. Now, a good board game with members of my family, well that is something different....
I tried to switch to Linux myself. I'm pretty technically inclined (ignore my troll posts). I ran into inexcusable problems.
So linux isn't for you. OK, we will get over it. Perhaps it just isn't your scene, or perhaps you are not as 'pretty technically inclined' as you think you are. But neither is my wife, and she uses it daily, nor my father-in-law, who is in his 70s but has no problem with it.
You seem to have made the assumption that linux and Windows are in some kind of competition. They're not. Linux is an alternative that, for those who want to try it, will probably meet their needs and then some. But for those that want to continue paying Microsoft or Apple, be my guest. The recent popularity of some linux distros, particularly Ubuntu and Suse, has brought new users who think that the only purpose of linux is to defeat Microsoft. That's not the way that I, and many others, see it.
Don't do these half-assed efforts while confounded as to why people aren't joining.
Joining what? Its not a club. Nor are we on different 'sides' in some kind of battle. If you like linux then great, if not, make your own choice of OS and live your life. Its not a big philosophical thing...
I will say that very little child pornography is produced in the USA.
Source please? Do you have expert knowledge in this area or is it something that you pulled from an orifice?
Is it too much to ask that the topic under discussion, i.e. TFA, should not require each /.er to sign up to the site in question?
Only if he is an American..... The rest of us don't really care too much about other nation's laws.
They are not uncommon in France. Orange provides an internet TV service as, I believe, do others.
They have already experimented with this idea, but had problems keeping the sharks under control.