The government would be bigger than it already is, and it would be empowered more than it already is to push people around.
There is already a strong precedent, and much disclosed IP out there. A massive government power grab as proposed here is the equivalent of changing the rules of a card hand after the cards are dealt and bets have been made.
The moderation is more incidious than that. First it's modded down as -1 flamebait, which punishes the karma of the poster. Then it's modded up as 'funny' which doesn't count toward said karma.
Net result, people get to see the comment, but the commenter is 'punished' for sharing his view.
Your whole second paragraph makes the HST sound like a PR stunt.
Oh, and your third paragraph immediately degenerated into the same after the first sentence. Which you didn't back up with any evidence.
I'm fairly certain the HST wasn't made to be a static display at the Smithsonian, and that the money would be much better spent on something else rather than 'preserving' it to be said static display.
Naw. It's about funding. You know, grants, so you can get new lab equipment and the U can cart your old equipment off to store in a warehouse until it's obsolete enough to sell at a surplus auction for scrap gold prices.
That's what a whole heck of a lot of 'science' is about, sadly.
Dell has just about the most efficient business in the entire world and is used to razor-thin margins.
Many people say the same thing about WalMart.
I'd still rather buy stuff from three or four local stores where the proprietor knows me by my first name.
I won't claim there's a direct coorelation here to a Dell/Sun comparison, but do challange your notion that 'most efficient' makes Dell automatically a better choice for the customer.
You can build OpenOffice native on any of the BSDs.
And as for Linux binaries, there are people who maintain that they run more reliably under emulation on (x86-based) BSD OSes than they do on a lot of the big spotty universe of Linux-based OSes.
Remember, when you run a Free/NetBSD, you're running the only 'flavor' of said OS that exists. Not a linux kernel with a 'whatever was thrown together' userland.
You offer panaceas, based on your experience and beliefs. However, you insist that you represent The Way Things Should Be.
I actually once OWNED a Red Hat 'RPM' tee-shirt. Not sure where that ended up. I've never been a fanboy, and grew to strongly disklike that packaging scheme. (As a telling aside, I distinctly remember that with Red Hat 5.0, the official distribution from the publisher, the binary for the graphical package management tool, 'glint' was BROKEN on delivery on the 5.0 CD. So you had to actually get down and dirty in command-line RPM to even install the 'fixed' glint RPM to get the 'graphical' tool working. It was an eyeopener about Red Hat's QA effort)
Look around. There are numerious alternatives to your chosen package management system. Some would argue that RPM is badly broken. You're either a fool or a demagogue for claiming it is THE package management system.
If you look closely, you'll find that many, many formal and established standards have to be purchased from the standardizing organization. As an example, try to find the old RS-232C standard. You'll end up at the ANSI website and need to 'flash the plastic' to get your own copy.
The C++ Standard also falls into this category of standard.
The idea that non-free information is automatically bad is sophomoric.
You're throwing around the words 'stupid,' 'ignorant,' 'intelligent' rather freely.
Personally, I use the NetBSD packages collection on the systems that I take seriously. I'll also put up a Slackware system where needed for some special case.
In no case have I found the need to use a system that depends on 'RPM' packages.
And when I want to make a NetBSD package from source, I often use the 'make package' command and it makes a binary tarball for me.
But the Linux world has gotten pretty slick lately. I don't like the word 'slick' particularly.
Normal users can usually download, compile and use apps, and delete that which is theirs, but that doesnt meant they have access to install or delete code or configurations available to every user on the system.
I think you'll find that in today's world there aren't that many people just sharing a 'slice' on a multi-user timesharing system. Heck, things have gone the opposite way. I have a 4 port KVM at home, and am wanting to upgrade to 8-way.
The user model for Unix is showing it's age. The way that it was 'cleaned up' in BeOS seemed pretty good, but BeOS has gone away. (BeOS had a lot of POSIX-ness, and the GNU toolchain, but not the cumbersome multi-user design)
There's also this thing called 'freedom of association' where you get to decide whom to associate with.
Unfortunately, many people and interests strongly oppose the notion that a private group can choose who to admit as members.
Which is un-American of them.
(apologies to non-Americans reading this who take offense. Un-American is something Americans accuse each other of. It's not the same as Non-American, which is a perfectly alright thing.)
If it is purely about a computer you've aleady bought, why bother to mention that the computer is cheap?
Because the computer that I got was REALLY cheap, and I can get many more of them for that price, to set up many more people with cheap computers. I can't buy a skid of Mac Minis for ~$100, refurbish them, install Linux on them, and sell them for $100 each and make a profit. I can with non-Apple systems. Quite easily.
I can cobble together hardware for less than $500 that'll handle Linux.
I'm running Linux... well, I'm running NetBSD, but I have run Linux on it... on Dell Optiplex GX1s with Pentium 3 processors that I paid less than a dollar for (80 machines on a skid, at auction, for $40).
These discussions about 'cheap platforms' are ludicrious, in a day and age where bloatware from Microsoft and the Linux vendors (KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice, and other bloatware messes) drives perfectly good PII and P3 systems right out of institutions.
Slashdot Mirror
The government would be bigger than it already is, and it would be empowered more than it already is to push people around.
There is already a strong precedent, and much disclosed IP out there. A massive government power grab as proposed here is the equivalent of changing the rules of a card hand after the cards are dealt and bets have been made.
The moderation is more incidious than that. First it's modded down as -1 flamebait, which punishes the karma of the poster. Then it's modded up as 'funny' which doesn't count toward said karma.
Net result, people get to see the comment, but the commenter is 'punished' for sharing his view.
Your whole second paragraph makes the HST sound like a PR stunt.
Oh, and your third paragraph immediately degenerated into the same after the first sentence. Which you didn't back up with any evidence.
I'm fairly certain the HST wasn't made to be a static display at the Smithsonian, and that the money would be much better spent on something else rather than 'preserving' it to be said static display.
Naw. It's about funding. You know, grants, so you can get new lab equipment and the U can cart your old equipment off to store in a warehouse until it's obsolete enough to sell at a surplus auction for scrap gold prices.
That's what a whole heck of a lot of 'science' is about, sadly.
Dell has just about the most efficient business in the entire world and is used to razor-thin margins.
Many people say the same thing about WalMart.
I'd still rather buy stuff from three or four local stores where the proprietor knows me by my first name.
I won't claim there's a direct coorelation here to a Dell/Sun comparison, but do challange your notion that 'most efficient' makes Dell automatically a better choice for the customer.
All the new linux servers are suse enterprise v9.
Ummm. So what you're getting at is your operation is slowly becoming a Novell shop.
You can build OpenOffice native on any of the BSDs.
And as for Linux binaries, there are people who maintain that they run more reliably under emulation on (x86-based) BSD OSes than they do on a lot of the big spotty universe of Linux-based OSes.
Remember, when you run a Free/NetBSD, you're running the only 'flavor' of said OS that exists. Not a linux kernel with a 'whatever was thrown together' userland.
No, your poxy M$ Turd word processor probably doesn't need 64 bits just now, but in 5 years time it will.
Gawd!
Don't SAY things like that. Now you've got me imaging what singing, dancing bullshit Microsoft could come up with the suck up all that memory.
You offer panaceas, based on your experience and beliefs. However, you insist that you represent The Way Things Should Be.
I actually once OWNED a Red Hat 'RPM' tee-shirt. Not sure where that ended up. I've never been a fanboy, and grew to strongly disklike that packaging scheme. (As a telling aside, I distinctly remember that with Red Hat 5.0, the official distribution from the publisher, the binary for the graphical package management tool, 'glint' was BROKEN on delivery on the 5.0 CD. So you had to actually get down and dirty in command-line RPM to even install the 'fixed' glint RPM to get the 'graphical' tool working. It was an eyeopener about Red Hat's QA effort)
Look around. There are numerious alternatives to your chosen package management system. Some would argue that RPM is badly broken. You're either a fool or a demagogue for claiming it is THE package management system.
If you look closely, you'll find that many, many formal and established standards have to be purchased from the standardizing organization. As an example, try to find the old RS-232C standard. You'll end up at the ANSI website and need to 'flash the plastic' to get your own copy.
The C++ Standard also falls into this category of standard.
The idea that non-free information is automatically bad is sophomoric.
1. Beer should not contain rice.
2. It's debatable wether Budweiser is beer in the first place.
You're throwing around the words 'stupid,' 'ignorant,' 'intelligent' rather freely.
Personally, I use the NetBSD packages collection on the systems that I take seriously. I'll also put up a Slackware system where needed for some special case.
In no case have I found the need to use a system that depends on 'RPM' packages.
And when I want to make a NetBSD package from source, I often use the 'make package' command and it makes a binary tarball for me.
But the Linux world has gotten pretty slick lately. I don't like the word 'slick' particularly.
And if you are running an RPM-based distro (Redhat, Fedora, Suse, etc) then installing RPMs is the recommended way to install software.
Indeed. They've made it almost as 'slick' as Windoze. I guess that's okay for the kind of people who don't hang out here.
Normal users can usually download, compile and use apps, and delete that which is theirs, but that doesnt meant they have access to install or delete code or configurations available to every user on the system.
I think you'll find that in today's world there aren't that many people just sharing a 'slice' on a multi-user timesharing system. Heck, things have gone the opposite way. I have a 4 port KVM at home, and am wanting to upgrade to 8-way.
The user model for Unix is showing it's age. The way that it was 'cleaned up' in BeOS seemed pretty good, but BeOS has gone away. (BeOS had a lot of POSIX-ness, and the GNU toolchain, but not the cumbersome multi-user design)
There's also this thing called 'freedom of association' where you get to decide whom to associate with.
Unfortunately, many people and interests strongly oppose the notion that a private group can choose who to admit as members.
Which is un-American of them.
(apologies to non-Americans reading this who take offense. Un-American is something Americans accuse each other of. It's not the same as Non-American, which is a perfectly alright thing.)
For just a second there, I thought this might be about muzzle loaders, gun enthusiasts, etc.
Well, that things in concern here are 'highly collectable' but it's debatable if they are 'national treasures.'
.
Perhaps in a nation of flea-market denizens. .
So, basically, he's a carny-that-done-good.
Get a giant pneumatic tube installed between corporate headquarters and each customer. Where this proves impractical, have a canal dug instead.
Then, deliver all your companies manuals on CDROM media to customers through the pneumatic shuttle in the tube, or by barge on the canal.
Find out when your local University holds it's surplus equipment auctions. Or if they have a 'surplus store' in the warehouse area of the campus.
If it is purely about a computer you've aleady bought, why bother to mention that the computer is cheap?
Because the computer that I got was REALLY cheap, and I can get many more of them for that price, to set up many more people with cheap computers. I can't buy a skid of Mac Minis for ~$100, refurbish them, install Linux on them, and sell them for $100 each and make a profit. I can with non-Apple systems. Quite easily.
Did you forget that the $500 doesn't even include a keyboard, mouse, or monitor?
You can look at the $500 Mac Mini as a $260 computer with a $130 OS, $50 iLife suite, and $60 Quicken.
Also add a $30 keyboard, $14 mouse, and $170 monitor, since Apple doesn't provide any of those in the $500 price they tout all over.
I can cobble together hardware for less than $500 that'll handle Linux.
I'm running Linux... well, I'm running NetBSD, but I have run Linux on it... on Dell Optiplex GX1s with Pentium 3 processors that I paid less than a dollar for (80 machines on a skid, at auction, for $40).
These discussions about 'cheap platforms' are ludicrious, in a day and age where bloatware from Microsoft and the Linux vendors (KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice, and other bloatware messes) drives perfectly good PII and P3 systems right out of institutions.
NetBSD has 64-bit support.
Are you going to say 'Oh Wow! A 64-bit OS!' when I run it on my Macintosh SE/30?