And people in developing countries don't buy legal Windows. Not even with new computers, which are usually assembled from parts and sold by small companies, who install pirated software.
Law enforcement is too weak in developing countries to provide enough incentive to go legal, and salaries are too low - buying a computer (from parts) itself is a major purchase which may require loans, nobody is going to pay for software for it.
You can install wine and then use Windows-based Firefox + flash (I'm also a Freebsd desktop user). It's less convenient than Linux plugin (which can be used in native FreeBSD Firefox), but you get faster access to newer Flash versions.
I fully agree that being able to communicate freely means less misunderstanding, less myths, and more organization. That's what even Bible tells us in a Tower of Babel story.
However, I think that the major problem is not with US sites blocking visitors from Russia (though certainly it does not help), but inability/unwillingness of most Russians to accept reality outside the country borders (including, but not limited to, lack of interest in learning foreign languages and culture).
Young people (my generation, I'm 28) are in somewhat better situation, as we know that outside world actually exists and that people inhabiting it are just like us. Still, for many Russians, Americans are some kind of extraterrestrial beings who are fun to watch in TV/films, but can never be seen in a real life. When you have such a limited world view (based on ungodly mix of pirated Hollywood movies and news from Interfax or ITAR-TASS agencies), it's easy to believe anything that they pour on you on the TV. Even if they say that Americans eat children for breakfast or plan a massive invasion to take over Russian oil.
In general, yes. Better economical situation makes law system stronger. Poor economical conditions are likely to result in mafia and other informal structures with their own (usually more complicated and brutal) laws.
Well, there is a lot of (deluded) people in Russia, who still believe that our country is an equal rival to States, and who are strongly anti-US (actually they're hypocrites who would not reject US money/jobs, if offered). However, such people do not, in general, visit English language sites.
People who work abroad (usually in IT (or financial) industries) are much less conservative. I spoke for myself, not for the majority of my country, who have never met/talked to an American.
I don't know of cases where cybercriminals were saved by Russian government from Western investigators. There are some political cases, not involving cyber crime, though, but it is a highly controversial topic.
And about EU deadlines: I'm afraid I don't believe that Bulgaria and Romania really fulfilled the obligations. In some cases, it's impossible to fight corruption given the country current situation - Russia is such a case, and one of the reasons why is being "huge", as you mention. In order to be effectively managed, Russia should be split into smaller independent states of the same language and culture which would later re-unite (something like US model). Russia is formally a federation, but really it's a feudal state with a single (but highly dependent on his leutenants) king.
Anyway, breaking Russia into parts is utopia and only few percent of my fellow countrymen (Russians) would agree with me, because it effectively means bringing Russia into a civil war and "wild west" way of life for some moment. So there's no easy solution to fight corruption and unlawfullness.
It'd be unfair to say that our (Russian) government ignores that problem. But little can it do to stop a major and profitable business of software/video/etc piracy and cyber crime with its numerous, but underpaid and corrupted police forces.
There might be some points in what you say, but I think that your conspiracy theory is way too advanced. Just imagine a secret service chief that relies on basement-dwelling hackers to "bring down supercomputers" of a hostile entity. Or just imagine that you're a secret service officer and you are repeating your above post to your chief.
The real problem with cybercrime is Russia is that government cannot control its own population, has no efficient mechanisms to uphold the law and Russia's own IT industry is too small. Anyway, that's not the largest problem for Russia: the country is probably facing a collapse and/or major riot in Caucasian republics if current financial situation continues for a prolonged period (and yes, I'm Russian and I know better).
You seem to overestimate the power of our (Russian) government. Asking them to "fix" cyber crime is essentially the same as asking them to make Russia a developed country. They cannot do that just by issuing some law.
Russian cyber crime is rooted in:
Poor and passive population
Nascent IT industry
Weak (or even lack of) law enforcement
I'm afraid that you cannot set any reasonable deadline for a government to fix those problems. If you really wanted to fight cybercrime, you'd be engaged yourself (one who is not willing seeks excuses, one who is, seeks possibilities). But from what you say, you prefer just hiding from Russians and Chineese. Too bad, we can still read you (I'm abroad):P
The Internet will fragment itself into pieces. See the history of IRC and how it all ended for the network.
Luckily, you actually cannot cut us (I'm Russian) off, nor you can do anything to prevent this large population (1,5 bln people: Russia and China combined) from using computers, joining networks and/or cracking the software. Just think how hard Chineese government tries to cut off its people from outside world and how badly it fails.
There's a lot more about programming than just "satisfying customers". Comparing VisualBasic "rapid programming" to "real" software products is like comparing tunes created for TV commercials and "real" music.
If you do programming for money only, then you will never advance above a certain, "good enough" level. That is a valid strategy, though. Not everyone wants to dedicate his/her entire life to a single activity.
Wonderful way of life, isn't it? How do you think, how long can it last? (Hint: until your government runs out of enough tax payers, then it will cut your unemployment benefit to something like 100 EUR/month)
Well, you don't understand the problem. Nobody is going to sit on the couch for 3 months.
Instead, they will probably have to work in some startup, where people for 9 to 21 six or seven days a week without much time left for other activities - there will be not many "established" and "developer-friendly" companies willing to hire.
If you make something that is significant, people will always find a way to support you, even if the mechanisms by which they generally give that support are lacking.
Not really. There's quite a few historical examples of inventors who did not profit from the significant things they invented.
It's not enough to create something "significant", it has to be also useful for people. And frankly speaking, OSS projects way too often pursue the goals of their creators, not their users (take KDE4 as an example).
From what I've heard MS even has an open source (but non-free) implementation of.NET (AFAIR called Rotor) that works under FreeBSD. Hm...
That's here - it's unusual to see FreeBSD in requirements on Microsoft Downloads site:)
If I were MS I'd use FreeBSD (to avoid the GPL), and maybe take the old (BSD-licensed) version of Wine and patch it with bits of the original implementation of win32 to have some backward compatibility.
You don't know what you are talking about. Going to break binary compatibility for millions of applications (most of which are without sources)? That's a suicide for every company.
If you ever tried to change whatever API/ABI that has a lot of (external) client code - no matter, commercial or not, you'd understand how much woe it inflicts on your client developers. Even in opensource world, deprecated things (like libbonobo) hang around for long.
The main reason why Windows is so popular is because of its continuous binary compatibility spanning 10+ years.
Linux won't be ready for desktop as long as it's not ready for commercial software market.
Give users the ability to download whatever (Linux) binary they find over the net and run it, without having them learn about package management, dependencies and without requiring them to install/uninstall anything. (Yes, I know that would make Linux boxen much less secure. That's the price you pay for freedom of deciding yourself what you want to run).
Well, I'm a (relatively) young man, but also have a worrying tendency to resist changes:)
Joel(onSoftware) has a nice article about what makes things usable and unusable (rule of least surprise IIRC). Too lazy to look it up now, but it could explain why Mac can be both usable (for you) and completely unusable for OP.
That's the problem with Mac software: it can't accept the fact that UI guidelines are now being written by Windows world. Not being compatible enough with Windows UI behavior means nowadays being unusable for 90% of people (those accustomed to Windows + those accustomed to Windows-like X desktop environments)
(And as a sidenote: having menus right at the window relieves you from scrolling to the top of the screen after you set focus to that window. Screens are quite large these days).
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And people in developing countries don't buy legal Windows. Not even with new computers, which are usually assembled from parts and sold by small companies, who install pirated software.
Law enforcement is too weak in developing countries to provide enough incentive to go legal, and salaries are too low - buying a computer (from parts) itself is a major purchase which may require loans, nobody is going to pay for software for it.
You can install wine and then use Windows-based Firefox + flash (I'm also a Freebsd desktop user). It's less convenient than Linux plugin (which can be used in native FreeBSD Firefox), but you get faster access to newer Flash versions.
They get less than they paid for, so they are effectively losing money.
Weren't they already less successful, when white colonists arrived on their ships with guns?
I fully agree that being able to communicate freely means less misunderstanding, less myths, and more organization. That's what even Bible tells us in a Tower of Babel story.
However, I think that the major problem is not with US sites blocking visitors from Russia (though certainly it does not help), but inability/unwillingness of most Russians to accept reality outside the country borders (including, but not limited to, lack of interest in learning foreign languages and culture).
Young people (my generation, I'm 28) are in somewhat better situation, as we know that outside world actually exists and that people inhabiting it are just like us. Still, for many Russians, Americans are some kind of extraterrestrial beings who are fun to watch in TV/films, but can never be seen in a real life. When you have such a limited world view (based on ungodly mix of pirated Hollywood movies and news from Interfax or ITAR-TASS agencies), it's easy to believe anything that they pour on you on the TV. Even if they say that Americans eat children for breakfast or plan a massive invasion to take over Russian oil.
In general, yes. Better economical situation makes law system stronger. Poor economical conditions are likely to result in mafia and other informal structures with their own (usually more complicated and brutal) laws.
That's not something specific to Russia.
Well, there is a lot of (deluded) people in Russia, who still believe that our country is an equal rival to States, and who are strongly anti-US (actually they're hypocrites who would not reject US money/jobs, if offered). However, such people do not, in general, visit English language sites.
People who work abroad (usually in IT (or financial) industries) are much less conservative. I spoke for myself, not for the majority of my country, who have never met/talked to an American.
I don't know of cases where cybercriminals were saved by Russian government from Western investigators. There are some political cases, not involving cyber crime, though, but it is a highly controversial topic.
And about EU deadlines: I'm afraid I don't believe that Bulgaria and Romania really fulfilled the obligations. In some cases, it's impossible to fight corruption given the country current situation - Russia is such a case, and one of the reasons why is being "huge", as you mention. In order to be effectively managed, Russia should be split into smaller independent states of the same language and culture which would later re-unite (something like US model). Russia is formally a federation, but really it's a feudal state with a single (but highly dependent on his leutenants) king.
Anyway, breaking Russia into parts is utopia and only few percent of my fellow countrymen (Russians) would agree with me, because it effectively means bringing Russia into a civil war and "wild west" way of life for some moment. So there's no easy solution to fight corruption and unlawfullness.
It'd be unfair to say that our (Russian) government ignores that problem. But little can it do to stop a major and profitable business of software/video/etc piracy and cyber crime with its numerous, but underpaid and corrupted police forces.
There might be some points in what you say, but I think that your conspiracy theory is way too advanced. Just imagine a secret service chief that relies on basement-dwelling hackers to "bring down supercomputers" of a hostile entity. Or just imagine that you're a secret service officer and you are repeating your above post to your chief.
The real problem with cybercrime is Russia is that government cannot control its own population, has no efficient mechanisms to uphold the law and Russia's own IT industry is too small. Anyway, that's not the largest problem for Russia: the country is probably facing a collapse and/or major riot in Caucasian republics if current financial situation continues for a prolonged period (and yes, I'm Russian and I know better).
Russian cyber crime is rooted in:
I'm afraid that you cannot set any reasonable deadline for a government to fix those problems. If you really wanted to fight cybercrime, you'd be engaged yourself (one who is not willing seeks excuses, one who is, seeks possibilities). But from what you say, you prefer just hiding from Russians and Chineese. Too bad, we can still read you (I'm abroad) :P
The Internet will fragment itself into pieces. See the history of IRC and how it all ended for the network.
Luckily, you actually cannot cut us (I'm Russian) off, nor you can do anything to prevent this large population (1,5 bln people: Russia and China combined) from using computers, joining networks and/or cracking the software. Just think how hard Chineese government tries to cut off its people from outside world and how badly it fails.
There's a lot more about programming than just "satisfying customers". Comparing VisualBasic "rapid programming" to "real" software products is like comparing tunes created for TV commercials and "real" music.
If you do programming for money only, then you will never advance above a certain, "good enough" level. That is a valid strategy, though. Not everyone wants to dedicate his/her entire life to a single activity.
No, it is going make programmers accept worse working conditions/terms. Like, say, working 10 hours a day without days off.
Or, alternatively, get fired and join/found a new startup company. And you can't work in a startup and have a lot of free time.
Wonderful way of life, isn't it? How do you think, how long can it last? (Hint: until your government runs out of enough tax payers, then it will cut your unemployment benefit to something like 100 EUR/month)
Well, you don't understand the problem. Nobody is going to sit on the couch for 3 months.
Instead, they will probably have to work in some startup, where people for 9 to 21 six or seven days a week without much time left for other activities - there will be not many "established" and "developer-friendly" companies willing to hire.
When you'll have to work from 9 to 21 six days a week as a professional code monkey, you are not going to contribute much to OSS during evenings
If you make something that is significant, people will always find a way to support you, even if the mechanisms by which they generally give that support are lacking.
Not really. There's quite a few historical examples of inventors who did not profit from the significant things they invented.
It's not enough to create something "significant", it has to be also useful for people. And frankly speaking, OSS projects way too often pursue the goals of their creators, not their users (take KDE4 as an example).
How come that you (US & British) are still using outdated imperial system with its inches, feet, legs, arms, and so on? :)
A Cell prototype? :) Old news, they already released it.
;-)
From what I've heard MS even has an open source (but non-free) implementation of .NET (AFAIR called Rotor) that works under FreeBSD. Hm...
That's here - it's unusual to see FreeBSD in requirements on Microsoft Downloads site :)
If I were MS I'd use FreeBSD (to avoid the GPL), and maybe take the old (BSD-licensed) version of Wine and patch it with bits of the original implementation of win32 to have some backward compatibility.
You don't know what you are talking about. Going to break binary compatibility for millions of applications (most of which are without sources)? That's a suicide for every company.
If you ever tried to change whatever API/ABI that has a lot of (external) client code - no matter, commercial or not, you'd understand how much woe it inflicts on your client developers. Even in opensource world, deprecated things (like libbonobo) hang around for long.
The main reason why Windows is so popular is because of its continuous binary compatibility spanning 10+ years.
Linux won't be ready for desktop as long as it's not ready for commercial software market.
Give users the ability to download whatever (Linux) binary they find over the net and run it, without having them learn about package management, dependencies and without requiring them to install/uninstall anything.
(Yes, I know that would make Linux boxen much less secure. That's the price you pay for freedom of deciding yourself what you want to run).
Well, I'm a (relatively) young man, but also have a worrying tendency to resist changes :)
Joel(onSoftware) has a nice article about what makes things usable and unusable (rule of least surprise IIRC). Too lazy to look it up now, but it could explain why Mac can be both usable (for you) and completely unusable for OP.
That's the problem with Mac software: it can't accept the fact that UI guidelines are now being written by Windows world. Not being compatible enough with Windows UI behavior means nowadays being unusable for 90% of people (those accustomed to Windows + those accustomed to Windows-like X desktop environments)
(And as a sidenote: having menus right at the window relieves you from scrolling to the top of the screen after you set focus to that window. Screens are quite large these days).
On fresh Linux install one can start working already. On fresh *BSD setup - you have to start compiling ports. Feel the difference.
That's true for user-oriented Linux distros (e.g. Ubuntu) only. With developer-oriented Linux distros (e.g. Gentoo) you also start compiling ports.