....for flash storage in notebooks. I for one would LOVE a notebook with "only" 16 GB of storage...provided that 16 GB was flash. No spinning motors and platters means a more useful, portable device.
Mozilla isn't giving many details on the soon-to-be-launched Firefox 2, but... there will be new features not found in current browsers.'"
Click here to find out more!
I guess those crafty open-source bastards were hiding their secrets pretty well!
It doesn't need to be. Most people use far less than 10% of the functionality. I've seen people using Excel on daily basis, but don't know how to even use formulas.
Most people are using Excel to present text in tables--totally ignorant of the fact that their word processor would probably be better at doing that job.
This is the "fratricidal conflict" post, which was entirely expected, as is its usual corollary the hope for the "Popular Front" strategy. This is wishful thinking at its best. The end of fratricidal Linux sniping will come when one distro (or set of distros) manages to grow faster, more stably, and more profitably than any other. This becomes the standard with which industry can do business. Other distributions (and their rabid fanbois) will continue to exist in the same way that Trotskyite parties exist in the political landscape.
Would an end to Linux sectarianism be desirable? Certainly! Is it necessary? Not nearly.
...and so we're left with the stylistic tyrrany of manga style. Again.
Honestly, who issued the fatwa that said that geeks should be obliged to love the manga/anime graphical style? Maybe I'm in the vanishing minority, but I'm thinking it feels a bit played-out to me.
The rule, as I see it: cel-shading is GOOD when it is applied to "grown-up" games about Japanese deities, and BAD when adults are expected to play a cel-shaded "kids'" game like a Zelda title. Nintendo's early success in videogames is perhaps boxing it in, as the first Nintendo Generation continues to think Nintendo makes kids' games (after all, they were kids when they played Nintendo!), and Nintendo happily obliges the kid market (see GameCube title list).
There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but I'm inclined to believe it will play into Apple's continuing obfuscation about "openness" in its products, development practices, and so on. It's a sore point among many that Apple (until fairly recently) traded on the "openness" of its kernel, only to close it once again.
I guess I'm allergic to the Apple hype machine's emissions, is all.
Is anyone else seeing this as a naked promotional stunt? If it succeeds, then Apple will spin this ad nauseam as an example of the limitless creative genius of the masses enabled by Apple Computer. Apple: Open to New Thinking!
This of course would ignore the irony that this sort of thing happens all the time in the Free/OpenSource community, under appropriately Free licenses. But the originator of this killer app would be sacrificing his project/idea/spec to the Moloch that is Apple, which would then take it and run with it.
Parent implies that the concern for accessibility is only a pretext; the aim is really the perpetuation of Microsoft file formats (and thus microsoft software)
hey don't try to lock-in users, nor do they threaten, bully, or try to destroy their own customers (in Microsoft's case, the OEMs).
So you're saying the whole iPod/iTunes/iTMS/DRM system is not vendor lock-in? Not to mention the fact that OSX is runnable (officially) only on Apple hardware?
How about the fact that Apple is notorious for breaking backwards compatibility when it suits them?
And as far as threatening and bullying their fanbase, have you forgotten the ThinkSecret litigation already?
Apple produces some fine hardware and software, but don't let that gull you into thinking that they're any fluffier or friendlier than the competition--because they're not.
I have concluded that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" rants like TFA and "This is the Year of Linux on the Desktop" raves are both equally irrelevant, because they both miss the point.
If an attractive, usable desktop environment with excellent multimedia capabilities were what it took to make a desktop computing platform dominant, I wouldn't be typing this comment from my Windows box at work. We'd all be using Amigas. The/. Macolytes will argue that we all would have been (and still should be) using Apple Macintoshes of one description or other. Let's review, though: the Amiga is on the dustbin of history. The Mac soldiers along, but for all its "Volkskomputer" propaganda, only a relatively small proportion of relatively affluent Macolytes ever use them.
What dominated the desktop? What made the Personal Computer a commodity item? Bring yourself to say it: IBM-Compatibles running MS-DOS. They were ugly and primitive. It were single-user/single-task systems. Keeping one running initiated a user or administrator into the secret world of cryptic command lines and oracular error messages (ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?). It certainly wasn't an attractive platform by any standard now applied....and yet it completely trounced all its competitors. Why?
Because it was extremely attractive to the sort of person we don't like here on/.--procurement types. It was "good enough," they were "smart enough," and, goshdarnit, the IBM-compatibles ran Lotus 1-2-3! Industry kicked off the massive adoption feedback loop, and, flash forward to the present day, we're all in a Microsoft universe.
We will leave that universe NOT because the competition offers a compelling, beautiful, secure product that is compatible with the latest Apple blobject. We will leave it when the same hated procurement types start to calculate that the costs of staying in proprietary software outweigh those of running Free software. Once the argument is framed in those terms, the adoption loop will turn again, and people will be forced to use the platform they use at work, at school, or wherever.
If Linux is or isn't ready for YOU, that's really your decision. But it's pointless to evaluate desktop Linux's chances of mass adoption assuming that the masses will all flock to a better, more secure, and more usable platform without being compelled to do so by some external force.
If politics mattered so much to you, you'd take the time to vote, rather than bitch about inaccessibility for "informed people who have shit to do." Evidently, since you have shit to do *other* than politics, you are content to delegate to those people who will gladly worry about politics for you.
To paraphrase Trotsky--you might not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested in YOU.
If Ubuntu has violated no license or broken no law, then would people do us the great favour of shutting the fuck up already? Goodwill is not enforceable. It may be desireable, but it is not a necessary condition for progress in the Free Software ecosystem. Is it just me, or is the Debian project moving a LOT faster now that the Debian Daughter Distributions--Ubuntu included!--have vastly expanded the pool of developers, testers and users?
We don't have to like each other. But it would be nice if we could appreciate what we mean to each other collectively.
Point taken. I brought up the anecdote because I'm detecting the same level of bitterness and consequent ineffectiveness.
My main question, though, remains: No matter how Debianistas bitch, nobody has shown me any positive reason that Ubuntu and its community should simply bow to Debian's every wish. This is Free Software, right? If you really believe in Free Software, you CANNOT bitch about what happens when someone takes the sources from your project and builds on them, even if they build in ways that you did not anticipate or would have intended to build. Instead of having the courage of its convictions, the community seems more content to indulge in infantile bickering.
Flamebait, pure and simple. Listen up, Debianistas: the only hard and fast requirements are encoded in the licenses under which software is released. So, comrades, point to me how the ubuntu project (or any of the other Debian daughters, like, say Xandros) violate the terms of the licenses under which software in the Debian project is released?
How about "Not at all?" Take your bitterness, compact it into a pill, and swallow that.
The whole Debian/Ubuntu internecine bitchfest reminds me a lot of the communists I knew on campus--the Maoist faction couldn't even be seen with the Stalinist faction. Did anybody but them care? No. But I'm sure they had a lot of fun in their respective cell meetings, counting the meagre takings of their pamphlet sales (which had to be on alternate days, lest they have to share space with the traitors from the other side)
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. Just try getting them in on visas under the current immigration regime.
....for flash storage in notebooks. I for one would LOVE a notebook with "only" 16 GB of storage...provided that 16 GB was flash. No spinning motors and platters means a more useful, portable device.
So when are they going to start caning chavs?
Mozilla isn't giving many details on the soon-to-be-launched Firefox 2, but... there will be new features not found in current browsers.'" Click here to find out more!
I guess those crafty open-source bastards were hiding their secrets pretty well!
It doesn't need to be. Most people use far less than 10% of the functionality. I've seen people using Excel on daily basis, but don't know how to even use formulas.
Most people are using Excel to present text in tables--totally ignorant of the fact that their word processor would probably be better at doing that job.
This is the "fratricidal conflict" post, which was entirely expected, as is its usual corollary the hope for the "Popular Front" strategy. This is wishful thinking at its best. The end of fratricidal Linux sniping will come when one distro (or set of distros) manages to grow faster, more stably, and more profitably than any other. This becomes the standard with which industry can do business. Other distributions (and their rabid fanbois) will continue to exist in the same way that Trotskyite parties exist in the political landscape.
Would an end to Linux sectarianism be desirable? Certainly! Is it necessary? Not nearly.
Why it's so good, you hardly know it's there.
ReactOS is such a good copy, it even BSODs correctly!
If you want them to take note--don't buy products that don't satisfy your requirements. Otherwise, suffer with what you've bought.
There are motherF***in' snakes on the motherf***in' Plane!
*shrug* The point is taken, but my question remains: when did manga/anime become the accepted "progressive" graphical style?
patent!=trademark
...and so we're left with the stylistic tyrrany of manga style. Again.
Honestly, who issued the fatwa that said that geeks should be obliged to love the manga/anime graphical style? Maybe I'm in the vanishing minority, but I'm thinking it feels a bit played-out to me.
The rule, as I see it: cel-shading is GOOD when it is applied to "grown-up" games about Japanese deities, and BAD when adults are expected to play a cel-shaded "kids'" game like a Zelda title. Nintendo's early success in videogames is perhaps boxing it in, as the first Nintendo Generation continues to think Nintendo makes kids' games (after all, they were kids when they played Nintendo!), and Nintendo happily obliges the kid market (see GameCube title list).
There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but I'm inclined to believe it will play into Apple's continuing obfuscation about "openness" in its products, development practices, and so on. It's a sore point among many that Apple (until fairly recently) traded on the "openness" of its kernel, only to close it once again.
I guess I'm allergic to the Apple hype machine's emissions, is all.
Is anyone else seeing this as a naked promotional stunt? If it succeeds, then Apple will spin this ad nauseam as an example of the limitless creative genius of the masses enabled by Apple Computer. Apple: Open to New Thinking!
This of course would ignore the irony that this sort of thing happens all the time in the Free/OpenSource community, under appropriately Free licenses. But the originator of this killer app would be sacrificing his project/idea/spec to the Moloch that is Apple, which would then take it and run with it.
Parent implies that the concern for accessibility is only a pretext; the aim is really the perpetuation of Microsoft file formats (and thus microsoft software)
actually sincerely trying to improve their development of good products whose sales benefit both their customers and themselves.
So when Microsoft has vendor lock-in, it's evil. When Apple does it, it's 'sincere.' Enjoy your kool-aid?
hey don't try to lock-in users, nor do they threaten, bully, or try to destroy their own customers (in Microsoft's case, the OEMs).
So you're saying the whole iPod/iTunes/iTMS/DRM system is not vendor lock-in? Not to mention the fact that OSX is runnable (officially) only on Apple hardware?
How about the fact that Apple is notorious for breaking backwards compatibility when it suits them?
And as far as threatening and bullying their fanbase, have you forgotten the ThinkSecret litigation already?
Apple produces some fine hardware and software, but don't let that gull you into thinking that they're any fluffier or friendlier than the competition--because they're not.
I have concluded that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" rants like TFA and "This is the Year of Linux on the Desktop" raves are both equally irrelevant, because they both miss the point.
If an attractive, usable desktop environment with excellent multimedia capabilities were what it took to make a desktop computing platform dominant, I wouldn't be typing this comment from my Windows box at work. We'd all be using Amigas. The /. Macolytes will argue that we all would have been (and still should be) using Apple Macintoshes of one description or other. Let's review, though: the Amiga is on the dustbin of history. The Mac soldiers along, but for all its "Volkskomputer" propaganda, only a relatively small proportion of relatively affluent Macolytes ever use them.
What dominated the desktop? What made the Personal Computer a commodity item? Bring yourself to say it: IBM-Compatibles running MS-DOS. They were ugly and primitive. It were single-user/single-task systems. Keeping one running initiated a user or administrator into the secret world of cryptic command lines and oracular error messages (ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?). It certainly wasn't an attractive platform by any standard now applied....and yet it completely trounced all its competitors. Why?
Because it was extremely attractive to the sort of person we don't like here on /.--procurement types. It was "good enough," they were "smart enough," and, goshdarnit, the IBM-compatibles ran Lotus 1-2-3! Industry kicked off the massive adoption feedback loop, and, flash forward to the present day, we're all in a Microsoft universe.
We will leave that universe NOT because the competition offers a compelling, beautiful, secure product that is compatible with the latest Apple blobject. We will leave it when the same hated procurement types start to calculate that the costs of staying in proprietary software outweigh those of running Free software. Once the argument is framed in those terms, the adoption loop will turn again, and people will be forced to use the platform they use at work, at school, or wherever.
If Linux is or isn't ready for YOU, that's really your decision. But it's pointless to evaluate desktop Linux's chances of mass adoption assuming that the masses will all flock to a better, more secure, and more usable platform without being compelled to do so by some external force.
If politics mattered so much to you, you'd take the time to vote, rather than bitch about inaccessibility for "informed people who have shit to do." Evidently, since you have shit to do *other* than politics, you are content to delegate to those people who will gladly worry about politics for you.
To paraphrase Trotsky--you might not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested in YOU.
what, you didn't put it up as MOTD yet?
If Ubuntu has violated no license or broken no law, then would people do us the great favour of shutting the fuck up already? Goodwill is not enforceable. It may be desireable, but it is not a necessary condition for progress in the Free Software ecosystem. Is it just me, or is the Debian project moving a LOT faster now that the Debian Daughter Distributions--Ubuntu included!--have vastly expanded the pool of developers, testers and users?
We don't have to like each other. But it would be nice if we could appreciate what we mean to each other collectively.
Point taken. I brought up the anecdote because I'm detecting the same level of bitterness and consequent ineffectiveness.
My main question, though, remains: No matter how Debianistas bitch, nobody has shown me any positive reason that Ubuntu and its community should simply bow to Debian's every wish. This is Free Software, right? If you really believe in Free Software, you CANNOT bitch about what happens when someone takes the sources from your project and builds on them, even if they build in ways that you did not anticipate or would have intended to build. Instead of having the courage of its convictions, the community seems more content to indulge in infantile bickering.
Flamebait, pure and simple. Listen up, Debianistas: the only hard and fast requirements are encoded in the licenses under which software is released. So, comrades, point to me how the ubuntu project (or any of the other Debian daughters, like, say Xandros) violate the terms of the licenses under which software in the Debian project is released?
How about "Not at all?" Take your bitterness, compact it into a pill, and swallow that.
The whole Debian/Ubuntu internecine bitchfest reminds me a lot of the communists I knew on campus--the Maoist faction couldn't even be seen with the Stalinist faction. Did anybody but them care? No. But I'm sure they had a lot of fun in their respective cell meetings, counting the meagre takings of their pamphlet sales (which had to be on alternate days, lest they have to share space with the traitors from the other side)