Are you in any way, shape or form correlating a videogame's graphics with its actual quality as a game? or did whole paragraphs of your post suddenly and inexplicably banish into the aether of the interwebz?
As Eric Raymond says, "scratch one's itch" does not imply listening to users.
It is if your only intended user is yourself.
Thing is, not all users are intended users. To continue with your car analogy, just because your neighbor puts his 5-years-old in front of the wheel doesn't mean we should put the pedals higher so he can reach 'em.
Will IBM drop their support for Linux and switch to Solaris and OpenSolaris for their hardware?
Most likely, no. IBM isn't a company that puts all its eggs into one basket, it's much more likely they'll simply add Solaris as an option alongside Linux, Windows et al rather than replace 'em all with an OS they just bought.
Will IBM release ClassPath under the GPL2, making Java ENTIRELY GPL? They will if they want Java to remain competitive to.NET and expand.
Probably, IBM has little to gain with a half-propietary Java, and a lot to gain from increasing its mindshare among developers and a fully-open Java would go a long way towards that.
The only thing I'm worried about is NetBeans, honestly. I luv Eclipse, but I'd hate to see my NetBeans-using friends left out in the cold, and a move like that could even push a few of 'em towards VS and.NET if only to spite IBM.
People forget OSX is UNIX because it doesn't follow *any* of UNIX's design philosophies, such as allowing users to change any part of the system with ease, or letting users customize their working enviroment as they see fit.
And OMG, so small and light it runs on a phone, just like, well, every other OS on the planet. Even Windows runs on phones and PDAs, Linux even runs on watches and toasters and frankly, with the CPUs those things carry nowadays, I can't imagine an OS that *couldn't* run on them.
So no, they're hardly a "great company", if those two things are the criteria you're basing your claim on.
I'm always surpried at the amount of hatred that Slashdotters give RealPlayer. The Linux version is an excellent video player, with a (mostly) well designed interface and isn't a resource hog, two things I can *definitely* not say of either Windows Media Player nor Quicktime. And Flash is a piece of shit, a very popular piece of shit but shit nonetheless.
If people simply exercised good manners and common sense, we wouldn't need piles of laws to clumsily try to regulate acceptable behavior and common sense. Yeah... I dream of an impossible utopia. I know.
Yes. Mostly, because what one considers "common sense" is for another "stupid paranoia". I believe that prohibiting Google from taking photos of their houses does absolutely nothing to prevent burglary and is a stupid and ineffective roadblock in the face of progress. I hold this opinion as "common sense". These villagers believe differently.
And that's precisely why I don't believe "what the subject would likely think" is a good definition for where to draw the line between public and private spaces, sorry. Ohh and btw, if the boy can be seen with a mere telephoto lens, I don't believe he has any right to 'privacy' either.
Why? You've only said "because we don't agree to it", but *why* don't you agree with it? what are the reasons for you to claim this is an unacceptable action on Google's part?
For the sake of staying away from the "OMG child porn!" witch hunters, let us pretend it was not a child but a woman instead. Now:
- Is it an invasion of privacy to film her as she changes her chothes from a public street, then upload the video to the internet? - What if it's just a photographic camera? - What if the subject in question doesn't upload anything to the internet, but rather keeps them for personal use? - What if the subject in question doesn't take any photo but is simply content to use the telephoto lens as a telescope of sorts? - What if the subject doesn't *need* a telephoto lens due to very good eyesight and/or the woman being relatively close?
Because they were an OEM before IBM created the PC as we know it, long before UNIX came to the PCs let alone Linux was born. Why would you suppose it was?
You're making the point of the article very nicely. Linux proponents don't WANT to know why Linux isn't more successful. You're not even willing to consider there might be any truth whatsoever in this criticism.
Wrong. I've already stated that Microsoft's dominance isn't due to any one factor and that it's a situation that needs to be analyzed from many angles before any definite conclusion can be drawn from it. You on the other hand simplify beyond absurdity all facts in order to support your poorly-thought argument, in a misguided effort to paint Linux users as fanatical zealots. Ironic, in context.
Macs have been sold on regular stores for *ages* now, Linux only reached that recently with the advent of Linux-equipped netbooks, which added to the fact that few people install their own OS and that Linux-based companies don't spend *nearly* as much as Apple in marketing and you have the difference accounted for.
As I said, the thing with market share is *way* more complex than a simple "$X sucks, $Y is great!".
It's you who just don't get it. Fault, responsability, how you call it is irrelevant, what matter is who are you pestering in order to get your problem fixed. And you're pestering the wrong person, simple as that.
Just to clarify, it's not that the Linux community in general doesn't *WANT* their OS to be opened up "for the masses", it's just that they simply don't care. If it works for you and you find it useful, sweet! good for you. It doesn't? too bad, sucks to be you.
Personally I find this whole e-penis thing with marketshare and "Joe Average" fairly sick. I'm searching for an OS to do my work, not to win some high-school popularity contest, for God's sake.
Your argument of free for Linux vs $$ for Windows only comes into play when you are talking about a new purchase (or justifying Linux over an upgrade from versions of Windows).
Exactly. So? no one's gonna switch from something that currently works perfectly for them, even to something that will work perfectly for them for free because there's a time cost involved.
Seriously, what do you expect? free blowjobs? the whole concept of switching OSes implies there's a cost involved in keeping the current one so you can do a cost/benefit analysis to decide the route to take. Otherwise it is, by definition, an useless excercise.
So if the goal is Linux on the desktop then that attitude has got to change.
Prove it. 'Cause I've got a counter example: OSX, which (allegedly) doesn't have that attitude yet still holds a pitiful share of the desktop market.
No, the reason Microsoft still holds the majority share on the world's desktops goes *far* beyond simple stuff like that. It involves price, openness, closedness, marketing, culture, inertia and probably other factors I'm overlooking as well.
If you're gonna criticize Linux's traditionally DIY approach then do so on its own merits, don't bring up the "OMG no one uses it" boogieman to rally people behind your cause.
"We're not here to help newbs figure out how Linux works, do the research and solve the problem yourself."
Developers are developers, not free tech support. Point to the devs.
"There is no problem, that's the way it's supposed to work, Linux is not (Windows, OSX,....)
Explain to me how the fuck is that a problem? if I submit a patch to IceWM that adds web server capabilities to it, I fully expect it to be shot down as it is outside the design and focus of the application. If you want a different focus, get a different application or write one yourself. Point to the devs.
"Yes there is a problem, but Linux is open source so fix it yourself."
Ahh, I see it now. Another "Free as in Free Labor" troll. Game, set and match: Developers.
If I were to say Linux sucks because it doesn't have X or Y, most Linux users/developers would just reply that I should code it myself or shut up.
On the other hand most of the same people would consider it acceptable to criticize Windows in the same manner just because it's closed source.
We who bash Windows' problems are fully aware of the futility of our efforts but, lacking the means to buy Microsoft outright, it is the most we can do to fix them. You don't have the same excuse.
Some of us just want to use them as tools, and not extend them every time something's missing. The tired and old reply of "code it yourself" just goes on further to spread the notion that the tool you're trying to use may soon become a source of more work for you, instead of a solution.
*ALL* tools can become a source of more work for you instead of a solution. Its just that as with normal, closed software your only option is to either use it or not, with Free Software you're given the added choice of improving the software for your needs and then use it. It may or may not be cost effective but it is nevertheless another option besides the usual ones.
a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense
Exactly. Accept the fact that most Linux devs are more interested in making the best possible software they're able to, rather than getting 95%+ marketshare, and the apathy towards "I know its not your fault but I'm gonna blame you anyways" users is nicely explained.
His reasoning seems to be as follows: Google bans applications that go against their carrier's wishes. Apple bans applications that go against their carrier's wishes *and* those that would otherwise be accepted by the carriers but that they, themselves, dislike. Therefore it stands to reason that you'll get access to more applications through Google, even though you probably won't get as many as you would with a completely open platform.
Probably, because it seems that Google, unlike Apple, has no problem allowing alternate ways of installing apps to the phone, so it's less a "I don't want your app on *my* platform" and more of a "I don't wanna advertise your app on my store".
Well, those manufacturers *did* take notice of that, it's just that they're adjusting the software to match the hardware instead of the other way around. Hence XP, Linux, and the direction MS has taken with Windows 7.
In my opinion, all of them are art, being the product of human creativity, but none of them should be copyrighted. Consider for a second what would that mean: we are giving a specific entity the exclusive right of copying and distribution over *SIX* words. Six.
You even notice the inherent problems of such an idea yourself, the extremely fucking high possibility of someone else doing the same thing as someone else, without knowing. So, no, and the same applies to Twitter posts: regardless of the artistic merits of the work in question, granting copyright over so little material is nuts, IMHO.
Yes, I can. Be so overwhelmingly powerful so that no one will dare make an open war against you.
That only helps the citizens of the superpower at the expense of the rest of the world, and in any case as history shows, ruling through fear is a quick way to unite all your enemies (and most formerly neutral parties) against you, and there's plenty of examples of that during history.
Well, if you're very strict about the word "logical", then only specific types of argument can be "illogical". But that's not the common use of the word:
The "common use" of the word is: "I agree with X, therefore X is logical", which as most "common" definitions is completely and utterly idiotic.
Ditto for religion, the "Jews/gays/blacks/redheads are inferior" beliefs, UFOs, and the "A Tiger Got Him" theory of the JFK assassination - none of it's illogical with the right axioms.
Of course. However, simply enumerating axioms of the type "X is true", "Y is false" doesn't tell you anything new and is, therefore, useless. And if you have a definite set of axioms that *do* imply that "Jews/gays/blacks/redheads are inferior", allow you to deduce other axioms as consequences from them, and is perfectly self-consistent, then yes it is logical and it'd be foolish to state otherwise.
Without serial keys, anyone could just buy say, an RTS like AoE3 and install it on all your friends computers real quick so you can play together online.
Funny you'd say that since AoE1 specifically let you do that with a single copy for up to 3-player LAN games, it required two actual copies for 4-6 players, and three for 7 or 8 players. Pretty nifty feature, and the reason why it still remains as the only RTS where I've tried its multiplayer modes.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you in any way, shape or form correlating a videogame's graphics with its actual quality as a game? or did whole paragraphs of your post suddenly and inexplicably banish into the aether of the interwebz?
Nexuiz is actually fun, y'know.
As Eric Raymond says, "scratch one's itch" does not imply listening to users.
It is if your only intended user is yourself.
Thing is, not all users are intended users. To continue with your car analogy, just because your neighbor puts his 5-years-old in front of the wheel doesn't mean we should put the pedals higher so he can reach 'em.
Will IBM drop their support for Linux and switch to Solaris and OpenSolaris for their hardware?
Most likely, no. IBM isn't a company that puts all its eggs into one basket, it's much more likely they'll simply add Solaris as an option alongside Linux, Windows et al rather than replace 'em all with an OS they just bought.
Will IBM release ClassPath under the GPL2, making Java ENTIRELY GPL? They will if they want Java to remain competitive to .NET and expand.
Probably, IBM has little to gain with a half-propietary Java, and a lot to gain from increasing its mindshare among developers and a fully-open Java would go a long way towards that.
The only thing I'm worried about is NetBeans, honestly. I luv Eclipse, but I'd hate to see my NetBeans-using friends left out in the cold, and a move like that could even push a few of 'em towards VS and .NET if only to spite IBM.
People forget OSX is UNIX because it doesn't follow *any* of UNIX's design philosophies, such as allowing users to change any part of the system with ease, or letting users customize their working enviroment as they see fit.
And OMG, so small and light it runs on a phone, just like, well, every other OS on the planet. Even Windows runs on phones and PDAs, Linux even runs on watches and toasters and frankly, with the CPUs those things carry nowadays, I can't imagine an OS that *couldn't* run on them.
So no, they're hardly a "great company", if those two things are the criteria you're basing your claim on.
I'm always surpried at the amount of hatred that Slashdotters give RealPlayer. The Linux version is an excellent video player, with a (mostly) well designed interface and isn't a resource hog, two things I can *definitely* not say of either Windows Media Player nor Quicktime. And Flash is a piece of shit, a very popular piece of shit but shit nonetheless.
If people simply exercised good manners and common sense, we wouldn't need piles of laws to clumsily try to regulate acceptable behavior and common sense. Yeah... I dream of an impossible utopia. I know.
Yes. Mostly, because what one considers "common sense" is for another "stupid paranoia". I believe that prohibiting Google from taking photos of their houses does absolutely nothing to prevent burglary and is a stupid and ineffective roadblock in the face of progress. I hold this opinion as "common sense". These villagers believe differently.
And that's precisely why I don't believe "what the subject would likely think" is a good definition for where to draw the line between public and private spaces, sorry. Ohh and btw, if the boy can be seen with a mere telephoto lens, I don't believe he has any right to 'privacy' either.
Why? You've only said "because we don't agree to it", but *why* don't you agree with it? what are the reasons for you to claim this is an unacceptable action on Google's part?
For the sake of staying away from the "OMG child porn!" witch hunters, let us pretend it was not a child but a woman instead. Now:
- Is it an invasion of privacy to film her as she changes her chothes from a public street, then upload the video to the internet?
- What if it's just a photographic camera?
- What if the subject in question doesn't upload anything to the internet, but rather keeps them for personal use?
- What if the subject in question doesn't take any photo but is simply content to use the telephoto lens as a telescope of sorts?
- What if the subject doesn't *need* a telephoto lens due to very good eyesight and/or the woman being relatively close?
Where do you draw the line, and *why*?
Why do you suppose that is?
Because they were an OEM before IBM created the PC as we know it, long before UNIX came to the PCs let alone Linux was born. Why would you suppose it was?
You're making the point of the article very nicely. Linux proponents don't WANT to know why Linux isn't more successful. You're not even willing to consider there might be any truth whatsoever in this criticism.
Wrong. I've already stated that Microsoft's dominance isn't due to any one factor and that it's a situation that needs to be analyzed from many angles before any definite conclusion can be drawn from it. You on the other hand simplify beyond absurdity all facts in order to support your poorly-thought argument, in a misguided effort to paint Linux users as fanatical zealots. Ironic, in context.
Macs have been sold on regular stores for *ages* now, Linux only reached that recently with the advent of Linux-equipped netbooks, which added to the fact that few people install their own OS and that Linux-based companies don't spend *nearly* as much as Apple in marketing and you have the difference accounted for.
As I said, the thing with market share is *way* more complex than a simple "$X sucks, $Y is great!".
It's you who just don't get it. Fault, responsability, how you call it is irrelevant, what matter is who are you pestering in order to get your problem fixed. And you're pestering the wrong person, simple as that.
Just to clarify, it's not that the Linux community in general doesn't *WANT* their OS to be opened up "for the masses", it's just that they simply don't care. If it works for you and you find it useful, sweet! good for you. It doesn't? too bad, sucks to be you.
Personally I find this whole e-penis thing with marketshare and "Joe Average" fairly sick. I'm searching for an OS to do my work, not to win some high-school popularity contest, for God's sake.
Your argument of free for Linux vs $$ for Windows only comes into play when you are talking about a new purchase (or justifying Linux over an upgrade from versions of Windows).
Exactly. So? no one's gonna switch from something that currently works perfectly for them, even to something that will work perfectly for them for free because there's a time cost involved.
Seriously, what do you expect? free blowjobs? the whole concept of switching OSes implies there's a cost involved in keeping the current one so you can do a cost/benefit analysis to decide the route to take. Otherwise it is, by definition, an useless excercise.
So if the goal is Linux on the desktop then that attitude has got to change.
Prove it. 'Cause I've got a counter example: OSX, which (allegedly) doesn't have that attitude yet still holds a pitiful share of the desktop market.
No, the reason Microsoft still holds the majority share on the world's desktops goes *far* beyond simple stuff like that. It involves price, openness, closedness, marketing, culture, inertia and probably other factors I'm overlooking as well.
If you're gonna criticize Linux's traditionally DIY approach then do so on its own merits, don't bring up the "OMG no one uses it" boogieman to rally people behind your cause.
"We're not here to help newbs figure out how Linux works, do the research and solve the problem yourself."
Developers are developers, not free tech support. Point to the devs.
"There is no problem, that's the way it's supposed to work, Linux is not (Windows, OSX,....)
Explain to me how the fuck is that a problem? if I submit a patch to IceWM that adds web server capabilities to it, I fully expect it to be shot down as it is outside the design and focus of the application. If you want a different focus, get a different application or write one yourself. Point to the devs.
"Yes there is a problem, but Linux is open source so fix it yourself."
Ahh, I see it now. Another "Free as in Free Labor" troll. Game, set and match: Developers.
If I were to say Linux sucks because it doesn't have X or Y, most Linux users/developers would just reply that I should code it myself or shut up.
On the other hand most of the same people would consider it acceptable to criticize Windows in the same manner just because it's closed source.
We who bash Windows' problems are fully aware of the futility of our efforts but, lacking the means to buy Microsoft outright, it is the most we can do to fix them. You don't have the same excuse.
Some of us just want to use them as tools, and not extend them every time something's missing. The tired and old reply of "code it yourself" just goes on further to spread the notion that the tool you're trying to use may soon become a source of more work for you, instead of a solution.
*ALL* tools can become a source of more work for you instead of a solution. Its just that as with normal, closed software your only option is to either use it or not, with Free Software you're given the added choice of improving the software for your needs and then use it. It may or may not be cost effective but it is nevertheless another option besides the usual ones.
a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense
Exactly. Accept the fact that most Linux devs are more interested in making the best possible software they're able to, rather than getting 95%+ marketshare, and the apathy towards "I know its not your fault but I'm gonna blame you anyways" users is nicely explained.
His reasoning seems to be as follows: Google bans applications that go against their carrier's wishes. Apple bans applications that go against their carrier's wishes *and* those that would otherwise be accepted by the carriers but that they, themselves, dislike. Therefore it stands to reason that you'll get access to more applications through Google, even though you probably won't get as many as you would with a completely open platform.
Probably, because it seems that Google, unlike Apple, has no problem allowing alternate ways of installing apps to the phone, so it's less a "I don't want your app on *my* platform" and more of a "I don't wanna advertise your app on my store".
Well, those manufacturers *did* take notice of that, it's just that they're adjusting the software to match the hardware instead of the other way around. Hence XP, Linux, and the direction MS has taken with Windows 7.
In my opinion, all of them are art, being the product of human creativity, but none of them should be copyrighted. Consider for a second what would that mean: we are giving a specific entity the exclusive right of copying and distribution over *SIX* words. Six.
You even notice the inherent problems of such an idea yourself, the extremely fucking high possibility of someone else doing the same thing as someone else, without knowing. So, no, and the same applies to Twitter posts: regardless of the artistic merits of the work in question, granting copyright over so little material is nuts, IMHO.
Yes, I can. Be so overwhelmingly powerful so that no one will dare make an open war against you.
That only helps the citizens of the superpower at the expense of the rest of the world, and in any case as history shows, ruling through fear is a quick way to unite all your enemies (and most formerly neutral parties) against you, and there's plenty of examples of that during history.
Well, if you're very strict about the word "logical", then only specific types of argument can be "illogical". But that's not the common use of the word:
The "common use" of the word is: "I agree with X, therefore X is logical", which as most "common" definitions is completely and utterly idiotic.
Ditto for religion, the "Jews/gays/blacks/redheads are inferior" beliefs, UFOs, and the "A Tiger Got Him" theory of the JFK assassination - none of it's illogical with the right axioms.
Of course. However, simply enumerating axioms of the type "X is true", "Y is false" doesn't tell you anything new and is, therefore, useless. And if you have a definite set of axioms that *do* imply that "Jews/gays/blacks/redheads are inferior", allow you to deduce other axioms as consequences from them, and is perfectly self-consistent, then yes it is logical and it'd be foolish to state otherwise.
Without serial keys, anyone could just buy say, an RTS like AoE3 and install it on all your friends computers real quick so you can play together online.
Funny you'd say that since AoE1 specifically let you do that with a single copy for up to 3-player LAN games, it required two actual copies for 4-6 players, and three for 7 or 8 players. Pretty nifty feature, and the reason why it still remains as the only RTS where I've tried its multiplayer modes.
Yeah, well, they also got mad at Hitler, despite being considered one of the 20th century's greatest strategists.
And that, my friend, is why Appeals to Authority are considered a logical fallacy ;)