I agree with you on some of your points. Especially regarding the quality issues you've mentioned. But, I'm really not sure it's necessary that the head firefox has ever written code in her life. It really depends on the long term goals of the product. Would coding experience be helpful if the long term goals were to stay true to the geek crowd, to have the ability to effectively communicate with them, while possibly keeping it a fairly exlusive product? Sure it would.
But if the goal is to "spread firefox" I think other things may be more necessary. Marketing is necessary, legal knowledge is necessary, and being in the right circle of friends & investors may be necessary if you want funding. Keep in mind bittorrent is open source but it didn't stop a VC firm from investing $8 million for further development. Some of that development may be commercial, and I expect will be given the funding requirements. But it doesn't mean those who contributed to the initial source haven't benefited. I agree with you it's not 100% fair to leave some of the contributers out in the cold, but again, there are still benefits other than money as a result of that contribution.
In regards to Firefox, it appears through their campaign they are looking for the latter. Which means to convince users they have a better product than the competition, i.e. marketing their product. As you've mentioned, due to some lapses in code, they'll probably lose some of the more advanced users who prefer different functionality and tighter code. However, when looking to serve the masses, I think Microsoft has proven that a company can do pretty well despite imperfections in code, and rather focusing their resources in marketing and other such means of obtaining customers.
The University of Chicago is better off without you.
For those interested, the book "Freakonomics" (in fact written by a University of Chicago economist) does a really good job explaining the socioeconomic reasoning for black crime and crime in general for that matter.
In response to this post, it also has a good description of why people perceive threats as larger than they really are. (i.e. Swimming pools are 100 times more dangerous than guns to children)
I'm hoping you avoided your reasonable admission chances at Harvard which had a minimum of 8 times the forcible sexual assault. Though I couldn't give you accurate percentages for aggr. assault due to the difficulty of dividing by 0
As much as I hate to say it, I think you're right. If you look at this thread of comments you get some people saying its easy & some saying its difficult. This really shouldn't be a passionate subject. It just needs to work.
By all accounts I'm not very experienced in the Linux environs, but I am excited about the prospects and am trying it out. Taking an hour to figure out how to network my printer doesn't make me want to 'spread the good word' about Linux. Especially to friends and family less apt to try it in the first place.
just my thoughts, i may pay you $.02 to listen.
Actually, I think you're right. I majored in economics but entered our Robot Competition (Northwestern) a few years back. We were given a budget and the majority of the Tech students spent all on impressive components. We kept about half the budget, took a fairly unconventional (read simple) approach and spent the other half on beer & Franzia for our "display table" It got pretty funny as recruiters would ask us about our robot while drinking a fine Busch Light. Finished 3rd out of 32. Though never heard from a recruiter after that day:)
I believe this happened to my Brother printer. I don't print much and one day all cartridges needed replacing. I thought it was the ink sensor but sure enough, after buying new ink my printer works again.
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I agree with you on some of your points. Especially regarding the quality issues you've mentioned. But, I'm really not sure it's necessary that the head firefox has ever written code in her life. It really depends on the long term goals of the product. Would coding experience be helpful if the long term goals were to stay true to the geek crowd, to have the ability to effectively communicate with them, while possibly keeping it a fairly exlusive product? Sure it would. But if the goal is to "spread firefox" I think other things may be more necessary. Marketing is necessary, legal knowledge is necessary, and being in the right circle of friends & investors may be necessary if you want funding. Keep in mind bittorrent is open source but it didn't stop a VC firm from investing $8 million for further development. Some of that development may be commercial, and I expect will be given the funding requirements. But it doesn't mean those who contributed to the initial source haven't benefited. I agree with you it's not 100% fair to leave some of the contributers out in the cold, but again, there are still benefits other than money as a result of that contribution. In regards to Firefox, it appears through their campaign they are looking for the latter. Which means to convince users they have a better product than the competition, i.e. marketing their product. As you've mentioned, due to some lapses in code, they'll probably lose some of the more advanced users who prefer different functionality and tighter code. However, when looking to serve the masses, I think Microsoft has proven that a company can do pretty well despite imperfections in code, and rather focusing their resources in marketing and other such means of obtaining customers.
Is that 10x in metric or english measurements?
The University of Chicago is better off without you.
h tml
For those interested, the book "Freakonomics" (in fact written by a University of Chicago economist) does a really good job explaining the socioeconomic reasoning for black crime and crime in general for that matter.
In response to this post, it also has a good description of why people perceive threats as larger than they really are. (i.e. Swimming pools are 100 times more dangerous than guns to children)
I'm hoping you avoided your reasonable admission chances at Harvard which had a minimum of 8 times the forcible sexual assault. Though I couldn't give you accurate percentages for aggr. assault due to the difficulty of dividing by 0
http://www.securityoncampus.org/crimestats/index.
As much as I hate to say it, I think you're right. If you look at this thread of comments you get some people saying its easy & some saying its difficult. This really shouldn't be a passionate subject. It just needs to work. By all accounts I'm not very experienced in the Linux environs, but I am excited about the prospects and am trying it out. Taking an hour to figure out how to network my printer doesn't make me want to 'spread the good word' about Linux. Especially to friends and family less apt to try it in the first place. just my thoughts, i may pay you $.02 to listen.
Actually, I think you're right. I majored in economics but entered our Robot Competition (Northwestern) a few years back. We were given a budget and the majority of the Tech students spent all on impressive components. We kept about half the budget, took a fairly unconventional (read simple) approach and spent the other half on beer & Franzia for our "display table" It got pretty funny as recruiters would ask us about our robot while drinking a fine Busch Light. Finished 3rd out of 32. Though never heard from a recruiter after that day :)
Actually the IRS provides several programs that will help you out in their Free file section. It's not open source but it is free. http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp?/
I believe this happened to my Brother printer. I don't print much and one day all cartridges needed replacing. I thought it was the ink sensor but sure enough, after buying new ink my printer works again.