I don't really want to argue one way or the other whether it is google's responsibility to do what you suggest but think of it from a logistics standpoint. Essentially your asking them to get into the AntiSpyware/AntiVirus game. They would need to setup a database of malware signatures, keep it up to date and then deal with the flack from users when they happen to miss something. Not to mention the whole "We're suing you for calling us spyware!" from the companies that deal in borderline, questionable software. I'm sure they would come out of the woodwork to sue someone with pockets like google's.
If anyone has the resources to do something like this on a massive scale it's Google; but I can understand why they don't. To me this is akin to the argument that ISPs should cut off users with obviously infected boxes. Hell, ISPs could block sites using the same method you want Google to employ. Sure it would be helpful to the public at large but dealing with the customer service issues and false positives would be a real headache! Try explaining to Aunt Tillie why she can't get to knitting.com anymore because there is a trojan on her box spamming thousands of people everyday.
I don't know, that just seemed to be a knock off of the old SNL sketch where the NBC staff/crew catch up to the Enterprise in an old station wagon and come in and start taking apart the set while Belushi, Chase and Ackroyd all continue to act like Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Not to mention the Simpsons with a Sneak Preview of "Star Trek XII: So Very Tired" before the Itchy and Scratchy Movie.
Not to mention changing the wallpaper, setting default apps to Firefox, Thunderbird and WinAMP and editing the global policy to disallow MSN Messanger to run at all.
OK fine, you're not paying for the service. But your still online and "the game is the network" to spin the gist of the article a little. Just as there are free alternatives to local business apps there will always be free alternatives to SaaS. But that doesn't change the fact that the underlying platform has shifted from your PC to the network. Sure it's a local network but the concept is the same; you may not need the internet to play but you need some type of connection to a machine other then your own to play...
Not saying I agree with the concept completely, at least I don't think it's going to happen overnight. But your reply to the gp didn't really refute what was said as much as add more weight to what was said.
Although similar this is not a dupe. The previous article announced the program. This article espouses the opinions of the EFF, specifically Mark Rotenberg.
It's things like this that I like about slashdot. Posting multiple articles from different sources about the same subject allows for both a healthy debate by us and tends to provide more then one side to a story. Instead of just getting the bias of one publication we get to see the subtle shades of bias and decide for ourselves who makes sense, who we want to agree with or believe.
It wasn't two teachers fighting, it was a teacher yelling at a 13 year old kid. The other 13 year old recorded it and put it on youtube. Depending on why exactly he was yelling, and there aren't many good reasons, he probably should be embarassed.
IMHO yelling at a kid just teaches a kid how to yell.
While I love to sell OO to my friends on the fact that it's so compatible with Office that's the only thing about it's compatibility that I like.
Office for the most part has had a good UI. It has served people well over the years with millions of people getting used to it and being productive with it. Copying the interface and features of Office is a good way to get people to switch (Hey, it's free and it does the same thing, cool!).
But in the end I think all this "we can do that too" mentality ends up stifling free software. While I applaud the efforts of OO and am grateful for it's inclusion in modern distros I would also love to see them wake up one day and deceide they were going to take a "and now for something completely different" approach. Forget chasing the MS UI. Come up with your own, or stick to the one that's in there already and work on optimizing OO's use of resources. Create more filters for different file formats. Expand on the scripting capabilities to make OO a better tool for office automation. The UI is fine the way it is! Tweak it, yeah, but redo it to make it look like MS every few years? Screw that!
I understand why they do it but watching the OO team spend the next few years implementing knock offs of ribbons only to see these supplanted by some new inane concept in Office 2010 just seems like a waste to me.
The *reality* is that the EMCA specification for.NET CLR does not include WinForms. Mono not only implements the CLR of.Net but tries to also implelement the graphical aspects.
With Perl and C/C++ available on just about every system out there I can't see choosig Mono for command line work. If I want to go Mono, it's because I want a common platform for creating a graphical interface. Choosing Mono means that I am hoping that they can keep up as MS continuesly developes and extends those aspects of.Net not covered by the EMCA spec. Whether they do it on purpose or not MS will break the API as time goes on and the Mono project will continuously scramble to keep up.
Now this doesn't even take into account the new deal between MS and Novell which has a number of us Star Wars nerds nervous about patents as well. So cheap shot aside I think your take is overly simplistic and a knee jerk reaction to FOSS zealotry. Just because FOSS fans can sometimes go over the top about "teh evil MS" doesn't change the fact the MS has consistently abused their monopoly influence over the years and screwed over partner after partner.
Bottom line, now that Java is GPL I beleive it will be the safer choice between it and Mono for cross platform development without hidden "IP violations" to worry about.
Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Package java-examples is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source E: Package java-examples has no installation candidate
I agree it would be great. But imagine the MS FUD then. Linux? You mean the OS the commies use?
Suddenly MS would be the hero that stood up to big bad China while FOSS would be the collaborating traitors who provide the repressive regimes of the world with software.
I imagine it is probably more to do with putting pressure on China over piracy issues as other posters have pointed out. But if China calls their bluff and starts using FOSS instead you can bet MS marketing will run with it and claim they were right all along and why can't the FOSS developers of the world live up to MS's high moral standards... Or some such nonsense anyway!
Hey, I've met a bunch of the Firefox folks and respect them and am not about to say mean things about them or their product, period. I have started to see some things that even some Slashdotters find a little confusing, like the whole Iceweasel thing.
Nice. Nothing "mean" to say about FF but who at MS could resist taking a little pop shot at Free Software?
OK I can see your point. I don't really agree that WoW actually screws up people's lives. I still take the stance that people do that fine on their own. But there is a difference between someone else saying a game is evil (ala chick) and someone claiming that a game screwed up their own life (like in TFA).
I recently got back into D&D by playing with my kids and having the internet to get resources from has proven to be a real boon for DMing the game. So I recently came across the chick website and was reminded of the talk my Mom had with me when she jumped on the bandwagon over "evil Role Playing Games" when I was a kid.
When it comes to people who don't play WoW making the claim that it ruins lives I think the analogy to D&D stands. But of course TFA is by what must be considered "an insider" so in that sense the D&D comparison is flawed.
IMHO though the guy sounds a little over the top. He made his own choice to spend so much time in the game and his weight gain, loss of other hobbies, etc are his own demons to deal with, not Blizzards'. Just another "It's society's fault, not mine" if you ask me.
Slashdot Mirror
In New York that's called a mugging.
Exactly. 82% of the population knows that.
I don't really want to argue one way or the other whether it is google's responsibility to do what you suggest but think of it from a logistics standpoint. Essentially your asking them to get into the AntiSpyware/AntiVirus game. They would need to setup a database of malware signatures, keep it up to date and then deal with the flack from users when they happen to miss something. Not to mention the whole "We're suing you for calling us spyware!" from the companies that deal in borderline, questionable software. I'm sure they would come out of the woodwork to sue someone with pockets like google's.
If anyone has the resources to do something like this on a massive scale it's Google; but I can understand why they don't. To me this is akin to the argument that ISPs should cut off users with obviously infected boxes. Hell, ISPs could block sites using the same method you want Google to employ. Sure it would be helpful to the public at large but dealing with the customer service issues and false positives would be a real headache! Try explaining to Aunt Tillie why she can't get to knitting.com anymore because there is a trojan on her box spamming thousands of people everyday.
Don't forget the random rearrangement of water molecules that makes everyone act drunk!
This sounds too depressing too me. I'll watch the Matrix if I want to be depressed.
You must mean the third one...
I don't know, that just seemed to be a knock off of the old SNL sketch where the NBC staff/crew catch up to the Enterprise in an old station wagon and come in and start taking apart the set while Belushi, Chase and Ackroyd all continue to act like Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Not to mention the Simpsons with a Sneak Preview of "Star Trek XII: So Very Tired" before the Itchy and Scratchy Movie.
Well then color me disturbed! Hello, Jesica Rabbit? Foxy Love?
Man, even Wayne* digs a cartoon once in a while, Betty Rubble IIRC!
* - Mike Myers, Wayne's World
include #YouInsensitiveClod.h
Agreed, except I think you're taking something away from the retarded and blind by bringing the TSA up to their level...
Downlevel = Anything from MS that's not => Windows 6.0 and everything not sold by MS.
At least that's my guess.
Not to mention changing the wallpaper, setting default apps to Firefox, Thunderbird and WinAMP and editing the global policy to disallow MSN Messanger to run at all.
OK fine, you're not paying for the service. But your still online and "the game is the network" to spin the gist of the article a little. Just as there are free alternatives to local business apps there will always be free alternatives to SaaS. But that doesn't change the fact that the underlying platform has shifted from your PC to the network. Sure it's a local network but the concept is the same; you may not need the internet to play but you need some type of connection to a machine other then your own to play...
Not saying I agree with the concept completely, at least I don't think it's going to happen overnight. But your reply to the gp didn't really refute what was said as much as add more weight to what was said.
Although similar this is not a dupe. The previous article announced the program. This article espouses the opinions of the EFF, specifically Mark Rotenberg.
It's things like this that I like about slashdot. Posting multiple articles from different sources about the same subject allows for both a healthy debate by us and tends to provide more then one side to a story. Instead of just getting the bias of one publication we get to see the subtle shades of bias and decide for ourselves who makes sense, who we want to agree with or believe.
Well if there is anything MS should be good at by now it's crash recovery! /ducks
Mmmmmmm..... Sluts.
It wasn't two teachers fighting, it was a teacher yelling at a 13 year old kid. The other 13 year old recorded it and put it on youtube. Depending on why exactly he was yelling, and there aren't many good reasons, he probably should be embarassed.
IMHO yelling at a kid just teaches a kid how to yell.
While I love to sell OO to my friends on the fact that it's so compatible with Office that's the only thing about it's compatibility that I like.
Office for the most part has had a good UI. It has served people well over the years with millions of people getting used to it and being productive with it. Copying the interface and features of Office is a good way to get people to switch (Hey, it's free and it does the same thing, cool!).
But in the end I think all this "we can do that too" mentality ends up stifling free software. While I applaud the efforts of OO and am grateful for it's inclusion in modern distros I would also love to see them wake up one day and deceide they were going to take a "and now for something completely different" approach. Forget chasing the MS UI. Come up with your own, or stick to the one that's in there already and work on optimizing OO's use of resources. Create more filters for different file formats. Expand on the scripting capabilities to make OO a better tool for office automation. The UI is fine the way it is! Tweak it, yeah, but redo it to make it look like MS every few years? Screw that!
I understand why they do it but watching the OO team spend the next few years implementing knock offs of ribbons only to see these supplanted by some new inane concept in Office 2010 just seems like a waste to me.
Maybe before you respond next time you'll stop for a second and ask yourself; What was that whooshing sound I just heard?
The *reality* is that the EMCA specification for .NET CLR does not include WinForms. Mono not only implements the CLR of .Net but tries to also implelement the graphical aspects.
.Net not covered by the EMCA spec. Whether they do it on purpose or not MS will break the API as time goes on and the Mono project will continuously scramble to keep up.
With Perl and C/C++ available on just about every system out there I can't see choosig Mono for command line work. If I want to go Mono, it's because I want a common platform for creating a graphical interface. Choosing Mono means that I am hoping that they can keep up as MS continuesly developes and extends those aspects of
Now this doesn't even take into account the new deal between MS and Novell which has a number of us Star Wars nerds nervous about patents as well. So cheap shot aside I think your take is overly simplistic and a knee jerk reaction to FOSS zealotry. Just because FOSS fans can sometimes go over the top about "teh evil MS" doesn't change the fact the MS has consistently abused their monopoly influence over the years and screwed over partner after partner.
Bottom line, now that Java is GPL I beleive it will be the safer choice between it and Mono for cross platform development without hidden "IP violations" to worry about.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Package java-examples is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package java-examples has no installation candidate
I agree it would be great. But imagine the MS FUD then. Linux? You mean the OS the commies use?
Suddenly MS would be the hero that stood up to big bad China while FOSS would be the collaborating traitors who provide the repressive regimes of the world with software.
I imagine it is probably more to do with putting pressure on China over piracy issues as other posters have pointed out. But if China calls their bluff and starts using FOSS instead you can bet MS marketing will run with it and claim they were right all along and why can't the FOSS developers of the world live up to MS's high moral standards... Or some such nonsense anyway!
Not sure about x264 but I'm pretty sure that ffdshow does support theora with their latest release.
Related links:
Wikipedia
afterdawn.com
Hey, I've met a bunch of the Firefox folks and respect them and am not about to say mean things about them or their product, period. I have started to see some things that even some Slashdotters find a little confusing, like the whole Iceweasel thing.
Nice. Nothing "mean" to say about FF but who at MS could resist taking a little pop shot at Free Software?
But, but, Jeopardy! Jeaopardy man!
[sean_connery]Surprise Me, Trebek![/sean_connery]
"We think others should join in this discussion."
Like Claria maybe?
OK I can see your point. I don't really agree that WoW actually screws up people's lives. I still take the stance that people do that fine on their own. But there is a difference between someone else saying a game is evil (ala chick) and someone claiming that a game screwed up their own life (like in TFA).
I recently got back into D&D by playing with my kids and having the internet to get resources from has proven to be a real boon for DMing the game. So I recently came across the chick website and was reminded of the talk my Mom had with me when she jumped on the bandwagon over "evil Role Playing Games" when I was a kid.
When it comes to people who don't play WoW making the claim that it ruins lives I think the analogy to D&D stands. But of course TFA is by what must be considered "an insider" so in that sense the D&D comparison is flawed.
IMHO though the guy sounds a little over the top. He made his own choice to spend so much time in the game and his weight gain, loss of other hobbies, etc are his own demons to deal with, not Blizzards'. Just another "It's society's fault, not mine" if you ask me.