No, that's reality. The FOSSies, especially the Slashdot zealots, aren't interested in putting out quality software, they are only interested in strategically positioning technology as an attack on Microsoft. '
Oh, right... We just want to make software to hurt Microsoft.
The whole FOSS movement is just about hurting Microsoft. Through crap software nobody would ever use save for political/religious reasons, i.e. hating MS.
Boy, aren't there hordes of anti-MS masochistic fanatics?
Take a look at the whole "browser wars" non-issue: MS was giving away a browser with their OS, just like Lunix does, just like Apple does, etc.
First of all, typing Lunix is just about as pathetic as typing Micro$oft. Now that we got that out of the way, let's comment on this "non-issue".
So... I see that you don't understand that Linux is just a kernel, not a company. Furthermore, there are quite a few browsers available in any Linux or BSD distro. And none of them bring Linux money.
And it is not the giving away of a browser that is the problem; the unnecessary integration of the browser and the inability to remove it is more of a problem. As is the good old MS practice of extending standards in broken and incompatible manner.
MS was ADDING VALUE to their product, which EVERY company should have the right to do.
You do KNOW that random CAPITALIZATION will not MAKE you any MORE right, right?
It's because of MS, and ONLY becuase of MS, that every consumer isn't forced to pay extra for a TCP/IP protocol, for a winsock, and for the browser.
Oh, right.
There were no free browsers before IE, right? And there were no BSD implementations of TCP/IP stacks which Microsoft used in Windows, right?
I guess I should be thankful you didn't mention printer drivers.
That right there was at least $100 in additional software purchases, but MS said "screw that, if everyone wants it, it should be part of the OS". Just like the did with terminal emulation software. Just like they did with disk defragmentation. Just like they did with COMPUTER NETWORKING, and everything OS related.
Well, would you look at that... I guess there was really no GNU or BSD code with the same functionality before that...
Pause not.
Then again, look at Linux... every distro gives you Gimp and OpenOffice.org and *D-ripping software, and just MS Office and Photoshop would be... how much in additional software purchases? If Microsoft included a Photoshop-killer app in their OS, claiming that it was an essential part of it, what would you say? And what do you think the courts would say?
The problem is that when FOSSies (and MS's competitors) can't succeed in the marketplace, or in the marketplace of ideas, their final resort to sociopathically forcing their will on everyone else is to try winning either in the courtroom or by convincing lawmakers.
Oh, deary, deary me... I thought it was MS that was not only convincing lawmakers by heavy lobbying, but also very nearly proposing laws themselves... I must have been mistaken.
FOSSies bang the drum that "consumers should have choice", but what they really mean is "we feel that no consumer should be allowed to choose Microsoft, and are going to force everyone to not choose Microsoft", just like they are trying to do with the BBC. And the truth of that latter statement is being proven time and again, and being proven on in this forum every single day.
Now, now... wipe that foam from your mouth or we'll have to call in a vet, Yeller...
Yes, when you have a monopoly, usually the freedom to choose is the freedom to choose something but the monopoly. This is the stage you try to get your freedom from something, so that you could later have the freedom for something.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration to my little fear cells... etc. etc. etc.
Uh... I know this is going to bring me some really bad karma, and people will put me on their Foe list because I know nobody can be friends with a person like that (besides, that's why I spend my time here), but... I don't drink beer.
I don't like its smell, and the taste I actually hate.
I'm a dirty commie and my poison of choice is vodka.
Which could have also worked, but I'd have had to work in some Russian in it, and it would have lost some of its spontaneity.
I must not drink.
Drink is the mind-killer.
Drink is the little-death that brings total obliteration to my little fear cells.
I will face my drink.
I will permit it to pass through me, but not over me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the drink has gone there will be nothing.
Only a yellow puddle will remain.
And thirst. Do not forget the thirst.
If you want a SERIOUS keyboard, go for an Unicomp or a Matias.
As a proud owner of a brand-new SpaceSaver from Unicomp, I have to agree. Worth every penny, though the postage cost me as much as the keyboard itself.
Wouldn't know about characters fading, though; mine's a blank, like Das Keyboard.
Does this statistic underline or undermine the argument that integrating and bundling IE with Windows harmed the competition?
It does neither.
That the bundling of IE with Windows practically destroyed the competition at one point is a historical fact; however, the competition's picking up again has got to do with something completely different, though related: having annihilated the competition, MS stopped innovating - actually, MS stopped doing anything about it. The war was won, there was nothing left to do, and any further innovation in a market you monopolize would be redundant.
Netscape failed because Microsoft managed to build a good enough product, bundled it with Windows and then improved at least to the point people wouldn't bother downloading Netscape. It was a hard blow, and Netscape never recovered, though they might have.
Now, history is repeating itself; this time Microsoft sat on their collective heels and Mozilla hit them.
there is only one issue with that, that you might have inserted features in the file not supported under the old format. I'm sure word could warn you about that though, but that still requires idiots to read whats in front of them which is the whole core of this problem to begin with.
Well, it's much easier to just code one simple warning - "Well, you might have used some new features, so why not save in the new format?" - than setting up flags to trigger the warning only if new features are actually used.
In all fairness, MS is hardly the only company guilty of such practice.
how can you add new features to a product without changing the format, and rending it unreadable by OLD software?
I should think that a properly designed document format would not change a bit but for the most complicated documents, which make use of the new features. Therefore, I don't see why any version of MS Office shouldn't be able to extract at least the text, if not most of the formatting, from any version of an MS Office document - unless the format is either intentionally obfuscated or poorly designed.
I most certainly do not see what can be improved on in saving a fairly simple text document, for instance...
As I said at the bottom of my post, that may very well be true in the US, as well as presently in Croatia.
However, I remember the old days, when the software was not in the least cheaper than now, and my contact lenses cost as much as my mother earned in a month.
Amazingly enough, at that time virtually no-one ever bothered whether the software was paid for or not. PCs were sold with DOS and/or Windows, but unless you'd asked for it specifically, it was just something some tech would install as a freebie. I cannot say whether this was intentional on MS's part, but I do notice they're reaping all the benefits.
As for pre-installed software, I see many people believing it's free. I'm buying a laptop these days; having done some research some weeks ago, I decided on IBM/Lenovo T60p, as it was one of the very few models available without Windows preinstalled, and it was rated rather well in the Gentoo wiki. Tough: no longer in stock, anywhere in Croatia, at least the model without Windows. So now I'm getting a MacBook Pro; OS X I don't mind paying for, as it is something I will actually use (though in a dual boot). I'm not paying the MS tax ever again.
First, they let all their software be pirated very easily, thus creating a large userbase. Then their software started phoning home, and the BSA made sure that as much of their software used in the public and business sectors is legal, i.e. bought - but only after the price of moving away from MS was higher than just paying up.
Drug dealers give you the first dose for free. When you get addicted, they sell you upgrade licences.
No, wait...
Oh, disclaimer: I guess this is a bit different in the US. I'm speaking from the perspective of a country whose inhabitants usually cannot easily afford a copy of anything.
I do wonder... if mail from thousands of Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts gets to be tagged regularly as spam, maybe Gmail starts blocking them, thus making people jump ship from the first two... Therefore, I'd guess it's just GoogleSpammer Beta. An excellent plan, except...
Don't browse through menus; shake the phone twice to mute the ringtone. Program it to make lightsabre sounds as you swing it around. And I wonder what can be done for blind typers, since I guess they'd have trouble without keys (esp. home key).
Not only 'find it via a web site', but as another poster already mentioned, an app which would send the GPS location to your computer, i.e. by e-mail, so that you can find it if it gets stolen.
Other nifty apps come to mind... IM-like away messages, for instance: record your away messages and program the phone to change you voicemail message to that - nobody I know uses voicemail; I have it turned off completely, but I'd turn it on if it meant I could change the voicemail message to something like "in class; don't leave a message, I'll call you later". Pack that with a scheduler (gCalendar connectivity would be especially nifty), so I don't have to think about it at all, and we're all set.
The Big Brother app would make for a nice kid phone, though an expensive one ATM: program in the location of the school and you can even have it notify you if your kid's skipping classes.
Oh, yes: add a SuDoku game, too;) - I guess Tetris wouldn't quite work on a touchscreen.
The greatest benefit of this phone is that you can answer to almost any "oh, I wish it had $FEATURE" with "OK, so let's code it", as long as it's within the hardware's capabilities.
So, basically, all that stand in the way of F/OSS is the lack of marketing?
Yes, maybe we should devise some way to market such products. However, F/OSS does not have the advantage of ubiquitousness like Windows or iPod; therefore, it has to offer more features, which take a longer time to develop. Add to that the fact that F/OSS is lagging some ten years behind everyone else due to closed hardware, and there you have it: yet again we play catch-up.
However, the interface design of this phone seems good[1]; the F/OSS community can be counted on to develop all kinds of nifty apps; as soon as the phone becomes widely available, there is no reason for it not to sell.
What each of us can do is inquire with their GSM providers on whether they are going to offer the Neo. We cannot compete against the iPhone's hype because we do not have the millions of $CURRENCY to spend on marketing, but we can nag the providers to create the impression of widespread interest. After all, that's what marketing's all about.
[1] I would still suggest abandoning yes/no prompts in favour of Gnome-oid ones (delete/leave), but that's about my only gripe.
I hear you cp.tar, and how was it for you being born and raised under communism/socialism ?
Just fine, thank you. In many aspects, it was actually better than the rampant capitalism we now have.
Which country? Which years ?
Yugoslavia, while it still existed.
What does "thanks for playing" mean ?
It means that you have accused me of having capitalism deeply ingrained in my psyche, while the opposite could be said to be much more true. So you have lost.
As for the rest of the crap you've put in your post, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You combine the worst features of conspiracy theoreticians, religious fanatics and multi-level marketers, and you use random capitalization to boot. And all that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
You've disproved nothing I've stated so far with at least some fairly coherent argumentation; therefore, I repeat: TFP. YHL. HAND.
And even if you believe that linux is more resistant to holes than windows that's not an issue: Remember most of these bots come in as trojans not remote execution exploits, and they don't even need to run as root--so linux is not going to be more secure against trojans people welcome into their user spaces.
And how many Linux users install programs outside their distro's repositories?
Under Windows, you can lure users to download your cursors, smiley collections and screensavers, because downloading from wherever and running setup.exe has been the preferred method since forever. Under Linux, programs are installed through repositories, and users can see the difference immediately.
You can explain "if it's not in the repository, it's dangerous". You cannot explain "well, if it's from this website, it's OK, this one is good, this one is fine, go here if you want a crack, but be careful, and don't download fancy stuff". Besides, the amount of software in the repository can keep even the manic installers of everything "just to see how it works" interested and busy for months
All in all, I think this method of installing programs adds quite a bit to Linux security, though I'm certain there will be user-friendly ways to circumvent that... But not in such a great extent - the philosophy is different enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, dear gods, not Alias...
Started off as a spy series, then turned into a bloody soap opera.
I have never seen an episode of Lost, but now I have no desire to check it out. At all.
So if the owl gets intercepted, you'll know it by the look of its feathers.
Are owls therefore quantum?
This! Is! Slashdooooooooot!
Ahem.
Do carry on. I don't know what came over me.
Oh, right... We just want to make software to hurt Microsoft.
The whole FOSS movement is just about hurting Microsoft. Through crap software nobody would ever use save for political/religious reasons, i.e. hating MS.
Boy, aren't there hordes of anti-MS masochistic fanatics?
Take a look at the whole "browser wars" non-issue: MS was giving away a browser with their OS, just like Lunix does, just like Apple does, etc.First of all, typing Lunix is just about as pathetic as typing Micro$oft. Now that we got that out of the way, let's comment on this "non-issue".
So... I see that you don't understand that Linux is just a kernel, not a company. Furthermore, there are quite a few browsers available in any Linux or BSD distro. And none of them bring Linux money.
And it is not the giving away of a browser that is the problem; the unnecessary integration of the browser and the inability to remove it is more of a problem. As is the good old MS practice of extending standards in broken and incompatible manner.
MS was ADDING VALUE to their product, which EVERY company should have the right to do.You do KNOW that random CAPITALIZATION will not MAKE you any MORE right, right?
It's because of MS, and ONLY becuase of MS, that every consumer isn't forced to pay extra for a TCP/IP protocol, for a winsock, and for the browser.Oh, right.
There were no free browsers before IE, right? And there were no BSD implementations of TCP/IP stacks which Microsoft used in Windows, right?
I guess I should be thankful you didn't mention printer drivers.
That right there was at least $100 in additional software purchases, but MS said "screw that, if everyone wants it, it should be part of the OS". Just like the did with terminal emulation software. Just like they did with disk defragmentation. Just like they did with COMPUTER NETWORKING, and everything OS related.Well, would you look at that... I guess there was really no GNU or BSD code with the same functionality before that...
Pause not.
Then again, look at Linux... every distro gives you Gimp and OpenOffice.org and *D-ripping software, and just MS Office and Photoshop would be... how much in additional software purchases? If Microsoft included a Photoshop-killer app in their OS, claiming that it was an essential part of it, what would you say? And what do you think the courts would say?
The problem is that when FOSSies (and MS's competitors) can't succeed in the marketplace, or in the marketplace of ideas, their final resort to sociopathically forcing their will on everyone else is to try winning either in the courtroom or by convincing lawmakers.Oh, deary, deary me... I thought it was MS that was not only convincing lawmakers by heavy lobbying, but also very nearly proposing laws themselves... I must have been mistaken.
FOSSies bang the drum that "consumers should have choice", but what they really mean is "we feel that no consumer should be allowed to choose Microsoft, and are going to force everyone to not choose Microsoft", just like they are trying to do with the BBC. And the truth of that latter statement is being proven time and again, and being proven on in this forum every single day.Now, now... wipe that foam from your mouth or we'll have to call in a vet, Yeller...
Yes, when you have a monopoly, usually the freedom to choose is the freedom to choose something but the monopoly. This is the stage you try to get your freedom from something, so that you could later have the freedom for something.
Ah. Good point.
However, since I'm not a native speaker of English, and I don't drink beer, it just never crossed my mind.
Ah, well.
Beer is the mind-killer.
Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration to my little fear cells... etc. etc. etc.
Uh... I know this is going to bring me some really bad karma, and people will put me on their Foe list because I know nobody can be friends with a person like that (besides, that's why I spend my time here), but... I don't drink beer.
I don't like its smell, and the taste I actually hate.
I'm a dirty commie and my poison of choice is vodka.
Which could have also worked, but I'd have had to work in some Russian in it, and it would have lost some of its spontaneity.
I must not drink.
Drink is the mind-killer.
Drink is the little-death that brings total obliteration to my little fear cells.
I will face my drink.
I will permit it to pass through me, but not over me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the drink has gone there will be nothing.
Only a yellow puddle will remain.
And thirst. Do not forget the thirst.
As a proud owner of a brand-new SpaceSaver from Unicomp, I have to agree. Worth every penny, though the postage cost me as much as the keyboard itself.
Wouldn't know about characters fading, though; mine's a blank, like Das Keyboard.
It does neither.
That the bundling of IE with Windows practically destroyed the competition at one point is a historical fact; however, the competition's picking up again has got to do with something completely different, though related: having annihilated the competition, MS stopped innovating - actually, MS stopped doing anything about it. The war was won, there was nothing left to do, and any further innovation in a market you monopolize would be redundant.
Netscape failed because Microsoft managed to build a good enough product, bundled it with Windows and then improved at least to the point people wouldn't bother downloading Netscape. It was a hard blow, and Netscape never recovered, though they might have.
Now, history is repeating itself; this time Microsoft sat on their collective heels and Mozilla hit them.
It is not senseless; MS has worked really hard to get every idiot using a computer; this is what happens when idiots use computers.
Well, it's much easier to just code one simple warning - "Well, you might have used some new features, so why not save in the new format?" - than setting up flags to trigger the warning only if new features are actually used.
In all fairness, MS is hardly the only company guilty of such practice.
I should think that a properly designed document format would not change a bit but for the most complicated documents, which make use of the new features. Therefore, I don't see why any version of MS Office shouldn't be able to extract at least the text, if not most of the formatting, from any version of an MS Office document - unless the format is either intentionally obfuscated or poorly designed.
I most certainly do not see what can be improved on in saving a fairly simple text document, for instance...
As I said at the bottom of my post, that may very well be true in the US, as well as presently in Croatia.
However, I remember the old days, when the software was not in the least cheaper than now, and my contact lenses cost as much as my mother earned in a month.
Amazingly enough, at that time virtually no-one ever bothered whether the software was paid for or not. PCs were sold with DOS and/or Windows, but unless you'd asked for it specifically, it was just something some tech would install as a freebie. I cannot say whether this was intentional on MS's part, but I do notice they're reaping all the benefits.
As for pre-installed software, I see many people believing it's free. I'm buying a laptop these days; having done some research some weeks ago, I decided on IBM/Lenovo T60p, as it was one of the very few models available without Windows preinstalled, and it was rated rather well in the Gentoo wiki. Tough: no longer in stock, anywhere in Croatia, at least the model without Windows. So now I'm getting a MacBook Pro; OS X I don't mind paying for, as it is something I will actually use (though in a dual boot). I'm not paying the MS tax ever again.
Well, it's not that far from truth...
First, they let all their software be pirated very easily, thus creating a large userbase. Then their software started phoning home, and the BSA made sure that as much of their software used in the public and business sectors is legal, i.e. bought - but only after the price of moving away from MS was higher than just paying up.
Drug dealers give you the first dose for free. When you get addicted, they sell you upgrade licences.
No, wait...
Oh, disclaimer: I guess this is a bit different in the US. I'm speaking from the perspective of a country whose inhabitants usually cannot easily afford a copy of anything.
And you know the best part?
Every Harry Potter fan will want it. And the phone.
You could put everyone's gCalendar schedule there, as well as download GPS info... nice...
I do wonder... if mail from thousands of Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts gets to be tagged regularly as spam, maybe Gmail starts blocking them, thus making people jump ship from the first two... Therefore, I'd guess it's just GoogleSpammer Beta. An excellent plan, except...
This seems interesting...
Don't browse through menus; shake the phone twice to mute the ringtone. Program it to make lightsabre sounds as you swing it around. And I wonder what can be done for blind typers, since I guess they'd have trouble without keys (esp. home key).
This has potential, indeed.
Well, I'm quite certain it'll run Gentoo.
Cue the compilation of compilation jokes... now.
Not only 'find it via a web site', but as another poster already mentioned, an app which would send the GPS location to your computer, i.e. by e-mail, so that you can find it if it gets stolen.
Other nifty apps come to mind... IM-like away messages, for instance: record your away messages and program the phone to change you voicemail message to that - nobody I know uses voicemail; I have it turned off completely, but I'd turn it on if it meant I could change the voicemail message to something like "in class; don't leave a message, I'll call you later". Pack that with a scheduler (gCalendar connectivity would be especially nifty), so I don't have to think about it at all, and we're all set.
The Big Brother app would make for a nice kid phone, though an expensive one ATM: program in the location of the school and you can even have it notify you if your kid's skipping classes.
Oh, yes: add a SuDoku game, too ;) - I guess Tetris wouldn't quite work on a touchscreen.
The greatest benefit of this phone is that you can answer to almost any "oh, I wish it had $FEATURE" with "OK, so let's code it", as long as it's within the hardware's capabilities.
So, basically, all that stand in the way of F/OSS is the lack of marketing?
Yes, maybe we should devise some way to market such products. However, F/OSS does not have the advantage of ubiquitousness like Windows or iPod; therefore, it has to offer more features, which take a longer time to develop. Add to that the fact that F/OSS is lagging some ten years behind everyone else due to closed hardware, and there you have it: yet again we play catch-up.
However, the interface design of this phone seems good[1]; the F/OSS community can be counted on to develop all kinds of nifty apps; as soon as the phone becomes widely available, there is no reason for it not to sell.
What each of us can do is inquire with their GSM providers on whether they are going to offer the Neo. We cannot compete against the iPhone's hype because we do not have the millions of $CURRENCY to spend on marketing, but we can nag the providers to create the impression of widespread interest. After all, that's what marketing's all about.
[1] I would still suggest abandoning yes/no prompts in favour of Gnome-oid ones (delete/leave), but that's about my only gripe.
Well, in that case maybe you should look into rPhone...
It features custom ringtones, satellite connectivity with Killerwave(TM) technology, vibrating action and steampunk technology.
Arrrrrrrrrr!
Not to me, it doesn't. Unless you agree with me disagreeing with everything you stated.
Why does this smell of 'thank you sir, may I have another sir'...
I'm not your friend. And don't suck up to me.
No. Nor do I have a desire to come at the moment.
I'm a student (again). And I actually do get paid for it.
Just fine, thank you. In many aspects, it was actually better than the rampant capitalism we now have.
Yugoslavia, while it still existed.
It means that you have accused me of having capitalism deeply ingrained in my psyche, while the opposite could be said to be much more true. So you have lost.
As for the rest of the crap you've put in your post, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You combine the worst features of conspiracy theoreticians, religious fanatics and multi-level marketers, and you use random capitalization to boot. And all that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
You've disproved nothing I've stated so far with at least some fairly coherent argumentation; therefore, I repeat: TFP. YHL. HAND.
I was born and raised in communism/socialism.
Thanks for playing. YHL. HAND.
And how many Linux users install programs outside their distro's repositories?
Under Windows, you can lure users to download your cursors, smiley collections and screensavers, because downloading from wherever and running setup.exe has been the preferred method since forever. Under Linux, programs are installed through repositories, and users can see the difference immediately.
You can explain "if it's not in the repository, it's dangerous". You cannot explain "well, if it's from this website, it's OK, this one is good, this one is fine, go here if you want a crack, but be careful, and don't download fancy stuff". Besides, the amount of software in the repository can keep even the manic installers of everything "just to see how it works" interested and busy for months
All in all, I think this method of installing programs adds quite a bit to Linux security, though I'm certain there will be user-friendly ways to circumvent that... But not in such a great extent - the philosophy is different enough.