This Microsoft FUD campaign really needs to be challenged, IMHO. I am an attorney, and I don't think that Microsoft has valid patent claims against me personally, and I am using Edgy Ubuntu and Mepis 6.5 and SuSE 10.0 and SuSE 10.2. The Mepis 6.5 SuSE 10.2 I am using in my law practice; and the Edgy and SuSE 10.0 I am using to make a film about Microsoft's anticipated loss of market share due to the growing popularity of FOSS. The film is called the Digital Tipping Point, so you would think that if Microsoft has a desire to shut up anyone, I would be among them. At any rate, I have created a list of people who would like to be sued by Microsoft. Please feel free to sign up. The more the merrier! It's a wiki page. Here is the tinyURL:
I am an attorney, and I don't think that Microsoft has valid patent claims against me personally, and I am using Edgy Ubuntu and Mepis 6.5 and SuSE 10.0 and SuSE 10.2. The Mepis 6.5 SuSE 10.2 I am using in my law practice; and the Edgy and SuSE 10.0 I am using to make a film about Microsoft's anticipated loss of market share due to the growing popularity of FOSS. The film is called the Digital Tipping Point, so you would think that if Microsoft has a desire to shut up anyone, I would be among them. At any rate, I have created a list of people who would like to be sued by Microsoft. Please feel free to sign up. The more the merrier! It's a wiki page. Here is the tinyURL:
Okay, so the term "Open Source" gets stretched a lot these days, from "Open Source" religion to "Open Source" politics. In some places, it applies better than others. But IMHO, it is actually possible to share the "source code" by abstracting the hardware and sharing the info on-line. Think of it as a free and open inventory of hardware that anyone could access. Maybe "co-op hardware" is a better term for it. But still, the idea is that if we want to see a wider adoption of FOSS, we are going to have help people get it on hardware. And why not save the environment in the process? I started DIYparts.org, which is a free (beer and freedom) site for exchanging hardware locally, so as to avoid the cost of shipping. This is not really a shameless, plug, because it is there for the community to use. I don't make any money from the site.
According to proponents of a burgeoning new genre of independent film - "open source" cinema - New Line's U-turn [in adopting changes demanded by the prospective film audience] foreshadows the future of filmmaking, one where audiences control what kind of movies get made.
More info on open source video can be found on Wikipedia's article on the subject. Newsforge's very own Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier has also penned an article about the subject. Bias disclosure: I have sunk a bunch of money into producing a free open source video project called the Digital Tipping Point, and we are giving away our "source code" for free (as in free speech and free beer) on the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point, which you are going to have to google yourself, because I don't want to do too much shameless self-promotion here.
Regardless of how well Vista is selling, every new box purchased with Vista pre-installed means the potential for GNUsters and Penguinistas to pick up a box from their neighbor and install GNU Linux on it and give it so someone who has never tried Free Open Source Software. How cool would it be if we could match FOSS installs one-for-one with XP cast-off boxes. Look for gifting opportunities through Craigslist, Freecycle, and DIYparts.org. I'm sure that there are about 300 sites that I have forgotten there, but you get the picture.
It was written by someone who has no hopes of ever being a journalist and should stop writing to try to convince people.
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357,974 people would disagree with you. That's the number of people who read another article by Adam Doxtater published on Mad Penguin. The article is about Ubuntu:
You can point out people use Macs without calling them all dirty hippies.
You take Adam too seriously. Adam Doxtater has long dark hair, is a guitarist, and is an administrator for a major US water manager where they run Macs and Linux. He was just yanking yer chain, dude.
Why is "Benjamin Horst"'s name in the ad? Since when do ads have "producer credits"?
I am assuming that he is doing it for practical reasons, such as to make it easier for people to address him when they contact him about changes to the ad, so that they don't have to say, "hey you" in emails.
Is this an ad for OpenOffice or a chance for some guy to get his name in the paper?
No. I know Ben. He is not an arrogant person. And he's been an active member of the OOo community for at least the three years that I have known him.
I'm helping Ben a wee bit with publicity for this ad campaign. Thanks for your feedback. I'm sure that your input will help Ben make a better ad. A new and better ad certainly is now in the works! Please stay tuned!
Again, this is an all grassroots effort done on nearly a zero budget, so every little bit of feedback helps!
And I guess I am the only one to think that this is a Microsoft plant.
Ben Horst, the guy who started this project, has been a member of the OOo membership and active on the discuss lists at OOo for a long time. I have known him for 3 years. So no, this ad campaign most certainly is not a Microsoft plant.
The 'free people' bit raised a few chuckles around my workplace. After all the stories of the US government rapidly meeting their aim of converting the country to a fascist state, with universal surveilence of all ( including bank records ), I find it laughable that Americans still consider themselves free. There are also a plethora of countries around the world who have experienced first-hand the flip-side of US imperialist 'freedom'.
Your point is well-taken. I'm helping Ben Horst out a bit on this campaign, and I've gotta tell you, I am extremely concerned about the prospects for the implementation of "perfect control" in the US. The more Microsoft owns of the market in the world, the closer the day of perfect control becomes. DRM. Spyware. Closed format standards. A two-tiered Internet. Paying to access your own data, whereas the government and the corporations get it for free.
There really are a lot of things that are ass-backwards here in the US. I'm not kidding when I say that we in the US need help from the rest of the world to remind us what freedom means. I'm glad that you and your colleages got a chuckle, but I ain't laughing. I live here. If you think the US looks locked down from the outside, you should come here and experience it. We really are sliding into the abyss. So don't mock us, help us. Seriously. There are a lot of people here in the US who are very, very opposed to the direction that things are going, but we need help. The media is owned by conservatives. The conservatives control all three branches of government, and a majority of the States' governments. We need money, and we need publicity for the few areas where free-thinkers are winning. Open source software is one of those few areas where free thinkers are winning. Come on, throw us a bone! Support this effort!
Christian Einfeldt
Why? Why should I make a mockup for you? I'm your *customer*
Ya know, Doc Searls of the Linux Journal once said that "open source is what happens when the demand side supplies itself." That's quite true, IMHO.
This is a total grassroots effort. Neither Sun Microsystems nor IBM nor Novell or anyone else has "officially" given a dime so far to this OOo ad campaign. YOU own this ad campaign, just like YOU own OOo and every other Free Open Source Software project.
I'm sure you've heard this joke. Microsoft says, "Where do you want to go today?" Apple says, "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" FOSS says, "Are you coming, or what?"
So, what are you going to do? Just sit back and complain? Or do something positive and help with this ad campaign?
Yes, Ben is going to redo the ad. It seems as if his community effort is spreading, in part in response to this/. article. So stick around. You will probably see a better version released soon!
...of your ideas and send it to Ben Horst? His email address is right there on the ad. I know Ben, and I'm helping him out a bit with this totally grassroots campaign, and I KNOW that he would love the help.
Hi DoD,
Ben just emailed me with the link to this/. article, and so I know that he is reading it now.
WRT to quality of the ad, I'm thinking that Ben's idea was probably "release early and often" in the hopes that he would spark a discussion such as we are getting now on/. If people don't like the ad, it would be really helpful if people could 1) make some detailed constructive criticisms, or 2) maybe do a quick mock-up themselves, so that we could improve it.
Thanks again for contributing to the effort, DoD!!
Christian Einfeldt
Hi,
I did an interview with Ben Horst for Mad Penguin. You can read the interview here, if you would like more info about Ben's effort to start this grassroots OOo ad campaign:
Hi,
A lot of people have complained about the layout of this ad. It would help if people would give more detailed feedback. And even better, if anyone reading this has the talents to whip something together quickly and would like to do a quick mockup, all that much better.
Please remember that this is a total grassroots effort. I'm not "officially" part of the project, but I have done a wee bit of publicity for the effort, but I do know that the guy who started this effort is fresh out of college, and doesn't have a big budget. So any substantive help would be appreciated!! As with any open source project, if you don't like it, make it better!!! Don't just complain!
hi DoofusOfDeath,
Thanks for contributing. I'm not "officially" part of the team, but I have helped out with a wee bit of publicity, and so I appreciate the help. I have known Ben Horst, the guy who started this project, for some time, and he really is a great person to know. He's just a very enthusiastic person who likes to see things happen, and is willing to put in work to make it happen. I'm glad to see people supporting his effort.
IMHO, we won't know if it is "worth it" until we try. The strength of open source software is trying, and learning. Ben has done a pretty good job of bootstrapping this ad campaign. Firefox did a really good ad campaign, but for a wide variety of reasons, the OOo community has not yet managed to pull together a similar ad campaign. Maybe because there were doubts as to its effectiveness.
At any rate, I find it extremely tempting to try to make this effort fly, which is why I have been supporting the effort with a wee bit of publicity.
You are a GNU/Linux gadget lover. Just think, you get to rub your Mac friends' noses in the fact that a Linux device was first to have a touch screen....
Apple Newton, anyone?
The Newton didn't sell well and underperforms for today's uses. But you and many others have correctly pointed out the error in my article. The Newton was so long ago, and so far out of circulation that I omitted it as irrelevant. Maybe it is still relevant. Probably not. But you're correct. My statement was historically inaccurate.
And yet I can't help but think that the Newton was such a bomb that it almost deserves to be considered more its failure than as a successful implementation of a touch screen. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. What do you think, JamesGecko?
I hate to put down any product that runs Linux, but it's my understanding that the 770 bogs down with multiple websites open. Also, the screen size is really to small for comfy viewing. That is why the Pepper Pad is the size that it is.
I've never used a 770, so I have no direct experience. It's just what I have heard.
There are multiple DRM schemas and while none of them 'command the market', ALL are playable on an Origami device
No, actually, Apple's market-leading AAC DRM is not playable on Origami.
it severely limits the Pepper Pad's usefulness outside of that narrow market. All in all, not a great idea.
I understand your core argument: DRM is dominant on most commercially popular music, and without DRM, the Pepper Pad is locking itself out of that market. It's a serious argument, and one that Sun has been making WRT its DReaM open source DRM.
But IMHO, the mistake that you are making is in assessing the market. I don't think that DRM'd music is the majority IN MOST PEOPLE'S CURRENT COLLECTIONS. I think that most people still have a vast amount of pre-DRM music in their collections. Also, I think that sales of big label music are slowing, and I blame DRM in part for it. I think that consumers understand that DRM is bloat, and they are rejecting it and they are looking for non-DRM'd music on the Internet. I don't have any studies to exhibit to support my opinion, but that is my sense from reading tech media. I think that DRM is going to go away. I don't think that DRM has caught on. I think it has been resisted, and to the extent that it exists, it is fragmented, with Real, Microsoft, and Apple each offering their own DRM.
Plus, there is also the major problem of the analog loophole. I live in San Francisco, and I take the bus to work every day. The kids who sit (with me) on the back of the bus (where all the action is) are recording music OFF OF THE RADIO from speakers!!! The sound quality is really, really poor, but these kids don't care!! They don't want to spend money on music, or can't spend money on music, and they just record this music and email it to each other via their cell phones! I'm telling you, FTP-type file sharing is just the tip of the iceberg upon which the good ship RIAA will be impaled. There are so many ways to exploit the analog loophole, and the RIAA will NEVER close all of these analog loopholes.
BTW, I do want to emphasize that I do not condone copyright infringement. I think that it is awful the way that the RIAA has prosecuted people, but I also think that copyright licenses need to be respected. After all, the GPL is a copyright license. If an artist wants to reserve his / her full copyrights, fine. I won't buy their music, unless it is very very good, but neither will I violate the law by making illegal copies.
At the same time, however, I do understand the outrage at the licensing scheme. It just doesn't make sense to have to purchase as song on an LP record; then buy the same song again on a cassette tape; and then buy the same song again on CD; and then pay to download it to a different computers that are intended for non-infringing purposes. The license should run to the purchases, not with the medium.
But breaking the law is not the best form of citizen action in this particular case, IMHO. The better course of action is to try to find music that you like that is released under a more fair license. There is LOTS of it out there.
You made several good points that I would like to address.
Like many others here, I had known about the Pepperpad's technical specifications beforehand. What I found disturbing about the review was the hyperbole: at one point you say that pressing a button on the text software is easier than turning a page, implying that it's better than a book. Of course, I don't plug my books into walls, nor do I strain my eyes to read them.
I don't know if you have had an opportunity to handle a Pepper Pad. If you do have the opportunity to do so, you might see why I say that it is easier to read than a book. The problem I have with books is that they are a little bit awkward to handle, IMHO. I know that might sound strange, but it kind of bugs me that you need to apply pressure to keep the book open and on the current page. Also, reading is sometimes difficult if you happen to be in a place that has poor lighting, which is not a problem with the backlit Pepper Pad. I personally found that reading with the Pepper Pad was easier because it just sits in your lap or on top of your fingers, and changing the page was as easy as rolling the scroll ball. Books require you to shift the book in your hand while you are turning the page.
You really have to have the Pepper Pad in you hand to believe that it is easier to read the Pepper Pad than to read a book. We are so accustomed to books that it seems false and counter-intuitive to say that, but it's true, in my experience. Books have a very strong esthetic appeal, which adds to the heresy of saying that it might be more satisfying to read from a metallic object like the Pepper Pad, but it's true. It's long design means that it feels pretty stable in your lap.
But the reason why I brought up the iRex (which probably will not be a success either, at least not in its current incarnation), mp3 players and the rest: there's a core problem with this design, and, for that matter, with Origami. It's a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.
No, actually, that is one of the main points that I was trying to get at with my review. It doesn't try to be a cell phone. It doesn't try to be a PDA. It doesn't try to be a notebook. It focuses on entertainment.
You bring up video editing. What kind of video editing would you want to do on a device like this that couldn't better be done at a proper workstation?
You could use the Pepper Pad to edit small videos that are taken with phones and emailed around via phone and then downloaded to a computer; or small family videos. I'm talking about the kind of thing that you see on YouTube or Revver. You would use Eyespot to edit them while on line, and then send them back to your friends and family.
Wireless: it's got a 802.11b card. Obviously something that costs around 800 Euros can't have at least b/g.
+1 That's a problem. But for me, it wasn't a huge problem. It was something that you live with.
And ultimately there's a philosophical and religious difference underlying the positions.
I have correctly been criticized for being too enthusiastic about open source. I have been using it since 2001, but I am still amazed and enthused by it to the point of being obnoxious, that's true. This stems from the fact that I personally have never been a wealthy person, and so I have had to really struggle to afford computers and software. But since I started using open source software, I have old computers coming out of my ears, and I actually give computers to middle school students at a school here in San Francisco. Sharing is just plain fun for me, and so sometimes I get carried away. Which is why I write for Mad Penguin. Excessiveness is the theme of that website. Heh.
As I see it, the position you express here, and to a lesser degree in the article, is permeated by a Tux-Millenarianism, and you're reading the pepper pad as part of a larger eschatological scheme of unseating the tho
So, basically, you are using the failings of Origami to justify the bad points of the pepper pad.
Microsoft and its partners will be spending millions of dollars to build, market and distribute Origami. Products need to be reviewed in context. Origami is getting a lot of press, and so I chose to compare the Pepper Pad to Origami.
I personally liked the Pepper Pad, and I explained why in great detail. I also detailed what I thought were the shortcomings of the Pepper Pad. Mad Penguin provides detailed reviews. We let the readers decide. My personal conclusion was that the downsides of the Pepper Pad were not a big deal in the context of what is (and is not) out there currently on the market.
Ignoring it's other drawbacks, the fact that the Pepper Pad can't play DRMed music and the Origami can is a serious one. Whatever your feelings on DRMed music neither the Pepper Pad or the Origami would ever be creating that DRMed music, only play it. And if someone's got DRMed music the Pepper Pad is useless.
How big do you think DRM is, currently? There are multiple DRM schemas, and none of them command the market. I have actually stopped buying music that is DRM'd. I don't download music illegally. I just have decided that I will only buy music that is not DRM'd. As a result, I look for music that is either free as in beer, or that is distributed by sites that don't use DRM. IMHO, most of the content out there is still pre-DRM. So as of today, the Pepper Pad is relevant, and DRM is not a problem for many of the Pepper Pad's target customers.
So, what you're saying is that the pepper pad deserved a potential 9 out of 10, but actually merits something more along a 3?
Objection. Argumentative. Misstates testimony.;-)
The Pepper Pad is something entirely new. It's in a product category all by itself. It's a bit rough, for the reasons that I outlined in my review. But for a new product, it's pretty cool. If people had refused to buy the first cell phones, saying, "oh, I'm going to wait until it is small enough to fit in my pocket," they would have waited, what, two decades? I went into great detail in my review to explain what I felt were the ups and the downs about the Pepper Pad. I liked holding the thing. I liked the touch pad. I liked watching it play video, knowing that it was open source under the hood. I liked to think about how it will affect the future of computing.
I don't know how much you use open source products. I use Windows for about one hour every three months. The rest of the time I'm on GNU/Linux of one flavor or another. I have become accustomed to the fact that 1) software is a work in progress; 2) people will release early and often; 3) the user is encouraged to give back, through bug testing and feedback. IMHO, the mere fact that the Pepper Pad was rough in some areas didn't mean that it sucked, or that it was a three out of ten. I felt that it was a good early effort that was fun to hold and to use, within the shortcomings that I listed in my review.
When considering a purchase, the future I care about is not what the next generation will be, but what this generation will be a couple years from now. And if I buy a pepper pad now, in a year that stunning two hours of battery life is going to be down to a "2-minute dash to find an outlet before the bloody thing dies".
Mad Penguin software and hardware reviews are typically 5x longer than what you get in most other magazines. We like to think that we give the reader the information to judge whether or not our final conclusions are meritorious or not. You felt that there was a disconnect between my detailed analysis of the product and my conclusion. Fine. But the point is that you certainly had the information there to reach your own conclusions. That makes me feel good. That's why we write long reviews. So many product reviews are merely glowing rehashing of the product features. We tend to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly about products. So I will remember your criticisms next time I write a review. But IMHO, there is no disconnect between my conclusion (9/10) and my analysis.
These guys have some real problems. Yes, they've got a neat idea,
Thank you, your honor, I have no further questions for this witness.;-)
and they could pull it off,
I rest my case.
but their volume is so low, the price is prohibitive for most of us.
True, they have problems. But my interest in writing the review was not just a price-for-price comparison of products out there. To accomplish that, the review would have to have sort of a grid or table type of feel to it. I wanted to address what I felt where the big, exciting ideas that the Pepper Pad represents.
Also, when I write for Mad Penguin, I know that we have enough readers now that they will catch the mistakes in what I write. Mad Penguin is an open sourcey-type project that way. We invite comments and criticisms. Most publications due, of course. So maybe the difference with Mad Penguin is they way that we respond to criticism. Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. I could never cover everything in an article. The article would be too long. And we want to leave some ground for our readers to cover. Mad Penguin is part of a conversation. It's not a lecture. We don't claim to be perfect. We hope to be informative and maybe even entertaining. At least Adam Doxtater is. I always laugh at hi
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This Microsoft FUD campaign really needs to be challenged, IMHO. I am an attorney, and I don't think that Microsoft has valid patent claims against me personally, and I am using Edgy Ubuntu and Mepis 6.5 and SuSE 10.0 and SuSE 10.2. The Mepis 6.5 SuSE 10.2 I am using in my law practice; and the Edgy and SuSE 10.0 I am using to make a film about Microsoft's anticipated loss of market share due to the growing popularity of FOSS. The film is called the Digital Tipping Point, so you would think that if Microsoft has a desire to shut up anyone, I would be among them. At any rate, I have created a list of people who would like to be sued by Microsoft. Please feel free to sign up. The more the merrier! It's a wiki page. Here is the tinyURL:
l e=Sue_me_first%2C_Microsoft
http://tinyurl.com/2wlemy
Here is the full page:
http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php?tit
I am an attorney, and I don't think that Microsoft has valid patent claims against me personally, and I am using Edgy Ubuntu and Mepis 6.5 and SuSE 10.0 and SuSE 10.2. The Mepis 6.5 SuSE 10.2 I am using in my law practice; and the Edgy and SuSE 10.0 I am using to make a film about Microsoft's anticipated loss of market share due to the growing popularity of FOSS. The film is called the Digital Tipping Point, so you would think that if Microsoft has a desire to shut up anyone, I would be among them. At any rate, I have created a list of people who would like to be sued by Microsoft. Please feel free to sign up. The more the merrier! It's a wiki page. Here is the tinyURL:
l e=Sue_me_first%2C_Microsoft
http://tinyurl.com/2wlemy
Here is the full page:
http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php?tit
Okay, so the term "Open Source" gets stretched a lot these days, from "Open Source" religion to "Open Source" politics. In some places, it applies better than others. But IMHO, it is actually possible to share the "source code" by abstracting the hardware and sharing the info on-line. Think of it as a free and open inventory of hardware that anyone could access. Maybe "co-op hardware" is a better term for it. But still, the idea is that if we want to see a wider adoption of FOSS, we are going to have help people get it on hardware. And why not save the environment in the process? I started DIYparts.org, which is a free (beer and freedom) site for exchanging hardware locally, so as to avoid the cost of shipping. This is not really a shameless, plug, because it is there for the community to use. I don't make any money from the site.
Regardless of how well Vista is selling, every new box purchased with Vista pre-installed means the potential for GNUsters and Penguinistas to pick up a box from their neighbor and install GNU Linux on it and give it so someone who has never tried Free Open Source Software. How cool would it be if we could match FOSS installs one-for-one with XP cast-off boxes. Look for gifting opportunities through Craigslist, Freecycle, and DIYparts.org. I'm sure that there are about 300 sites that I have forgotten there, but you get the picture.
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357,974 people would disagree with you. That's the number of people who read another article by Adam Doxtater published on Mad Penguin. The article is about Ubuntu:
http://madpenguin.org/cms/index.php/index.php?m=s
You take Adam too seriously. Adam Doxtater has long dark hair, is a guitarist, and is an administrator for a major US water manager where they run Macs and Linux. He was just yanking yer chain, dude.
I am assuming that he is doing it for practical reasons, such as to make it easier for people to address him when they contact him about changes to the ad, so that they don't have to say, "hey you" in emails.
No. I know Ben. He is not an arrogant person. And he's been an active member of the OOo community for at least the three years that I have known him.
hi jejones,
I'm helping Ben a wee bit with publicity for this ad campaign. Thanks for your feedback. I'm sure that your input will help Ben make a better ad. A new and better ad certainly is now in the works! Please stay tuned!
Again, this is an all grassroots effort done on nearly a zero budget, so every little bit of feedback helps!
Ben Horst, the guy who started this project, has been a member of the OOo membership and active on the discuss lists at OOo for a long time. I have known him for 3 years. So no, this ad campaign most certainly is not a Microsoft plant.
Your point is well-taken. I'm helping Ben Horst out a bit on this campaign, and I've gotta tell you, I am extremely concerned about the prospects for the implementation of "perfect control" in the US. The more Microsoft owns of the market in the world, the closer the day of perfect control becomes. DRM. Spyware. Closed format standards. A two-tiered Internet. Paying to access your own data, whereas the government and the corporations get it for free.
There really are a lot of things that are ass-backwards here in the US. I'm not kidding when I say that we in the US need help from the rest of the world to remind us what freedom means. I'm glad that you and your colleages got a chuckle, but I ain't laughing. I live here. If you think the US looks locked down from the outside, you should come here and experience it. We really are sliding into the abyss. So don't mock us, help us. Seriously. There are a lot of people here in the US who are very, very opposed to the direction that things are going, but we need help. The media is owned by conservatives. The conservatives control all three branches of government, and a majority of the States' governments. We need money, and we need publicity for the few areas where free-thinkers are winning. Open source software is one of those few areas where free thinkers are winning. Come on, throw us a bone! Support this effort! Christian Einfeldt
Ya know, Doc Searls of the Linux Journal once said that "open source is what happens when the demand side supplies itself." That's quite true, IMHO.
This is a total grassroots effort. Neither Sun Microsystems nor IBM nor Novell or anyone else has "officially" given a dime so far to this OOo ad campaign. YOU own this ad campaign, just like YOU own OOo and every other Free Open Source Software project.
I'm sure you've heard this joke. Microsoft says, "Where do you want to go today?" Apple says, "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" FOSS says, "Are you coming, or what?"
So, what are you going to do? Just sit back and complain? Or do something positive and help with this ad campaign?
Hi FudRucker,
/. article. So stick around. You will probably see a better version released soon!
Yes, Ben is going to redo the ad. It seems as if his community effort is spreading, in part in response to this
Christian Einfeldt
...of your ideas and send it to Ben Horst? His email address is right there on the ad. I know Ben, and I'm helping him out a bit with this totally grassroots campaign, and I KNOW that he would love the help.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Christian Einfeldt
Hi DoD, Ben just emailed me with the link to this /. article, and so I know that he is reading it now.
/. If people don't like the ad, it would be really helpful if people could 1) make some detailed constructive criticisms, or 2) maybe do a quick mock-up themselves, so that we could improve it.
WRT to quality of the ad, I'm thinking that Ben's idea was probably "release early and often" in the hopes that he would spark a discussion such as we are getting now on
Thanks again for contributing to the effort, DoD!! Christian Einfeldt
Hi, I did an interview with Ben Horst for Mad Penguin. You can read the interview here, if you would like more info about Ben's effort to start this grassroots OOo ad campaign:
http://http//madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=7036/
Hi, A lot of people have complained about the layout of this ad. It would help if people would give more detailed feedback. And even better, if anyone reading this has the talents to whip something together quickly and would like to do a quick mockup, all that much better.
Please remember that this is a total grassroots effort. I'm not "officially" part of the project, but I have done a wee bit of publicity for the effort, but I do know that the guy who started this effort is fresh out of college, and doesn't have a big budget. So any substantive help would be appreciated!! As with any open source project, if you don't like it, make it better!!! Don't just complain!
hi DoofusOfDeath, Thanks for contributing. I'm not "officially" part of the team, but I have helped out with a wee bit of publicity, and so I appreciate the help. I have known Ben Horst, the guy who started this project, for some time, and he really is a great person to know. He's just a very enthusiastic person who likes to see things happen, and is willing to put in work to make it happen. I'm glad to see people supporting his effort.
IMHO, we won't know if it is "worth it" until we try. The strength of open source software is trying, and learning. Ben has done a pretty good job of bootstrapping this ad campaign. Firefox did a really good ad campaign, but for a wide variety of reasons, the OOo community has not yet managed to pull together a similar ad campaign. Maybe because there were doubts as to its effectiveness.
At any rate, I find it extremely tempting to try to make this effort fly, which is why I have been supporting the effort with a wee bit of publicity.
The Newton didn't sell well and underperforms for today's uses. But you and many others have correctly pointed out the error in my article. The Newton was so long ago, and so far out of circulation that I omitted it as irrelevant. Maybe it is still relevant. Probably not. But you're correct. My statement was historically inaccurate.
And yet I can't help but think that the Newton was such a bomb that it almost deserves to be considered more its failure than as a successful implementation of a touch screen. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. What do you think, JamesGecko?
hi mingrassia,
So how is this any better than the Nokia 770?
I hate to put down any product that runs Linux, but it's my understanding that the 770 bogs down with multiple websites open. Also, the screen size is really to small for comfy viewing. That is why the Pepper Pad is the size that it is.
I've never used a 770, so I have no direct experience. It's just what I have heard.
hi Swank,
There are multiple DRM schemas and while none of them 'command the market', ALL are playable on an Origami device
No, actually, Apple's market-leading AAC DRM is not playable on Origami.
it severely limits the Pepper Pad's usefulness outside of that narrow market. All in all, not a great idea.
I understand your core argument: DRM is dominant on most commercially popular music, and without DRM, the Pepper Pad is locking itself out of that market. It's a serious argument, and one that Sun has been making WRT its DReaM open source DRM.
But IMHO, the mistake that you are making is in assessing the market. I don't think that DRM'd music is the majority IN MOST PEOPLE'S CURRENT COLLECTIONS. I think that most people still have a vast amount of pre-DRM music in their collections. Also, I think that sales of big label music are slowing, and I blame DRM in part for it. I think that consumers understand that DRM is bloat, and they are rejecting it and they are looking for non-DRM'd music on the Internet. I don't have any studies to exhibit to support my opinion, but that is my sense from reading tech media. I think that DRM is going to go away. I don't think that DRM has caught on. I think it has been resisted, and to the extent that it exists, it is fragmented, with Real, Microsoft, and Apple each offering their own DRM.
Plus, there is also the major problem of the analog loophole. I live in San Francisco, and I take the bus to work every day. The kids who sit (with me) on the back of the bus (where all the action is) are recording music OFF OF THE RADIO from speakers!!! The sound quality is really, really poor, but these kids don't care!! They don't want to spend money on music, or can't spend money on music, and they just record this music and email it to each other via their cell phones! I'm telling you, FTP-type file sharing is just the tip of the iceberg upon which the good ship RIAA will be impaled. There are so many ways to exploit the analog loophole, and the RIAA will NEVER close all of these analog loopholes.
BTW, I do want to emphasize that I do not condone copyright infringement. I think that it is awful the way that the RIAA has prosecuted people, but I also think that copyright licenses need to be respected. After all, the GPL is a copyright license. If an artist wants to reserve his / her full copyrights, fine. I won't buy their music, unless it is very very good, but neither will I violate the law by making illegal copies.
At the same time, however, I do understand the outrage at the licensing scheme. It just doesn't make sense to have to purchase as song on an LP record; then buy the same song again on a cassette tape; and then buy the same song again on CD; and then pay to download it to a different computers that are intended for non-infringing purposes. The license should run to the purchases, not with the medium.
But breaking the law is not the best form of citizen action in this particular case, IMHO. The better course of action is to try to find music that you like that is released under a more fair license. There is LOTS of it out there.
Hi DingerX,
You made several good points that I would like to address.
Like many others here, I had known about the Pepperpad's technical specifications beforehand. What I found disturbing about the review was the hyperbole: at one point you say that pressing a button on the text software is easier than turning a page, implying that it's better than a book. Of course, I don't plug my books into walls, nor do I strain my eyes to read them.
I don't know if you have had an opportunity to handle a Pepper Pad. If you do have the opportunity to do so, you might see why I say that it is easier to read than a book. The problem I have with books is that they are a little bit awkward to handle, IMHO. I know that might sound strange, but it kind of bugs me that you need to apply pressure to keep the book open and on the current page. Also, reading is sometimes difficult if you happen to be in a place that has poor lighting, which is not a problem with the backlit Pepper Pad. I personally found that reading with the Pepper Pad was easier because it just sits in your lap or on top of your fingers, and changing the page was as easy as rolling the scroll ball. Books require you to shift the book in your hand while you are turning the page.
You really have to have the Pepper Pad in you hand to believe that it is easier to read the Pepper Pad than to read a book. We are so accustomed to books that it seems false and counter-intuitive to say that, but it's true, in my experience. Books have a very strong esthetic appeal, which adds to the heresy of saying that it might be more satisfying to read from a metallic object like the Pepper Pad, but it's true. It's long design means that it feels pretty stable in your lap.
But the reason why I brought up the iRex (which probably will not be a success either, at least not in its current incarnation), mp3 players and the rest: there's a core problem with this design, and, for that matter, with Origami. It's a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. No, actually, that is one of the main points that I was trying to get at with my review. It doesn't try to be a cell phone. It doesn't try to be a PDA. It doesn't try to be a notebook. It focuses on entertainment.
You bring up video editing. What kind of video editing would you want to do on a device like this that couldn't better be done at a proper workstation?
You could use the Pepper Pad to edit small videos that are taken with phones and emailed around via phone and then downloaded to a computer; or small family videos. I'm talking about the kind of thing that you see on YouTube or Revver. You would use Eyespot to edit them while on line, and then send them back to your friends and family.
Wireless: it's got a 802.11b card. Obviously something that costs around 800 Euros can't have at least b/g.
+1 That's a problem. But for me, it wasn't a huge problem. It was something that you live with. And ultimately there's a philosophical and religious difference underlying the positions.
I have correctly been criticized for being too enthusiastic about open source. I have been using it since 2001, but I am still amazed and enthused by it to the point of being obnoxious, that's true. This stems from the fact that I personally have never been a wealthy person, and so I have had to really struggle to afford computers and software. But since I started using open source software, I have old computers coming out of my ears, and I actually give computers to middle school students at a school here in San Francisco. Sharing is just plain fun for me, and so sometimes I get carried away. Which is why I write for Mad Penguin. Excessiveness is the theme of that website. Heh.
As I see it, the position you express here, and to a lesser degree in the article, is permeated by a Tux-Millenarianism, and you're reading the pepper pad as part of a larger eschatological scheme of unseating the tho
Hi Mysterious X,
So, basically, you are using the failings of Origami to justify the bad points of the pepper pad.
Microsoft and its partners will be spending millions of dollars to build, market and distribute Origami. Products need to be reviewed in context. Origami is getting a lot of press, and so I chose to compare the Pepper Pad to Origami.
I personally liked the Pepper Pad, and I explained why in great detail. I also detailed what I thought were the shortcomings of the Pepper Pad. Mad Penguin provides detailed reviews. We let the readers decide. My personal conclusion was that the downsides of the Pepper Pad were not a big deal in the context of what is (and is not) out there currently on the market.
Hi Swank,
Ignoring it's other drawbacks, the fact that the Pepper Pad can't play DRMed music and the Origami can is a serious one. Whatever your feelings on DRMed music neither the Pepper Pad or the Origami would ever be creating that DRMed music, only play it. And if someone's got DRMed music the Pepper Pad is useless.
How big do you think DRM is, currently? There are multiple DRM schemas, and none of them command the market. I have actually stopped buying music that is DRM'd. I don't download music illegally. I just have decided that I will only buy music that is not DRM'd. As a result, I look for music that is either free as in beer, or that is distributed by sites that don't use DRM. IMHO, most of the content out there is still pre-DRM. So as of today, the Pepper Pad is relevant, and DRM is not a problem for many of the Pepper Pad's target customers.
hi DingerX,
;-)
;-)
So, what you're saying is that the pepper pad deserved a potential 9 out of 10, but actually merits something more along a 3? Objection. Argumentative. Misstates testimony.
The Pepper Pad is something entirely new. It's in a product category all by itself. It's a bit rough, for the reasons that I outlined in my review. But for a new product, it's pretty cool. If people had refused to buy the first cell phones, saying, "oh, I'm going to wait until it is small enough to fit in my pocket," they would have waited, what, two decades? I went into great detail in my review to explain what I felt were the ups and the downs about the Pepper Pad. I liked holding the thing. I liked the touch pad. I liked watching it play video, knowing that it was open source under the hood. I liked to think about how it will affect the future of computing.
I don't know how much you use open source products. I use Windows for about one hour every three months. The rest of the time I'm on GNU/Linux of one flavor or another. I have become accustomed to the fact that 1) software is a work in progress; 2) people will release early and often; 3) the user is encouraged to give back, through bug testing and feedback. IMHO, the mere fact that the Pepper Pad was rough in some areas didn't mean that it sucked, or that it was a three out of ten. I felt that it was a good early effort that was fun to hold and to use, within the shortcomings that I listed in my review.
When considering a purchase, the future I care about is not what the next generation will be, but what this generation will be a couple years from now. And if I buy a pepper pad now, in a year that stunning two hours of battery life is going to be down to a "2-minute dash to find an outlet before the bloody thing dies".
Mad Penguin software and hardware reviews are typically 5x longer than what you get in most other magazines. We like to think that we give the reader the information to judge whether or not our final conclusions are meritorious or not. You felt that there was a disconnect between my detailed analysis of the product and my conclusion. Fine. But the point is that you certainly had the information there to reach your own conclusions. That makes me feel good. That's why we write long reviews. So many product reviews are merely glowing rehashing of the product features. We tend to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly about products. So I will remember your criticisms next time I write a review. But IMHO, there is no disconnect between my conclusion (9/10) and my analysis.
These guys have some real problems. Yes, they've got a neat idea,
Thank you, your honor, I have no further questions for this witness.
and they could pull it off,
I rest my case.
but their volume is so low, the price is prohibitive for most of us.
True, they have problems. But my interest in writing the review was not just a price-for-price comparison of products out there. To accomplish that, the review would have to have sort of a grid or table type of feel to it. I wanted to address what I felt where the big, exciting ideas that the Pepper Pad represents.
Also, when I write for Mad Penguin, I know that we have enough readers now that they will catch the mistakes in what I write. Mad Penguin is an open sourcey-type project that way. We invite comments and criticisms. Most publications due, of course. So maybe the difference with Mad Penguin is they way that we respond to criticism. Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. I could never cover everything in an article. The article would be too long. And we want to leave some ground for our readers to cover. Mad Penguin is part of a conversation. It's not a lecture. We don't claim to be perfect. We hope to be informative and maybe even entertaining. At least Adam Doxtater is. I always laugh at hi