From the eyes of executives and for lack of a better term noob computer user Linux doesn't work.
It's more than that, though - it's not enough to just be "good enough" for the individual users. Enterprise markets want cookie cutter builds, the ability to manage security & usage policies across thousands of systems, and Windows is still beating Linux in that area with Active Directory.
The problem is, Linux offers a "more or less equivalent" system to replace Windows for people... but that comes with the expense of retraining users, retraining or hiring new sysadmins, deploying all new replacement tools, converting (or losing) legacy documentation and other stuff that's locked in Windows-only binary formats, reworking a huge chunk of support infrastructure... and all of that expense will put you back at... "just about where we started."
This is the problem Linux has to overcome if it's going to make serious inroads on the desktop in the enterprise. For an enterprise of tens of thousands of people, there's a significant cost to convert, and a slow return on that investment for desktop systems.
Again, I don't disagree with your premise of what would happen if Microsoft got squeezed. However, until they get squeezed in the mega-corporation environment, I don't see them getting squeezed to the point of desperation.
Agreed - Microsoft won't fully devote itself to competing on features until they are squeezed, and hard, by other platforms.
Interestingly, Mac OS has recently posted some interesting gains in the government & enterprise markets - if this trend continues, perhaps Microsoft is seeing that they're going to get squeezed in the enterprise space - perhaps this is an early signal of them acknowledging these trends? It'll be interesting to see if these numbers are a trend, rather than a single-quarter anomaly.
The main thing stopping Linux from penetrating deeper and deeper into the mainstream computing circuit is the lack of knowledge teachers have about it.
Linux is already plenty mainstream, I don't think you'll find too many enterprises that don't have some significant Linux instalation. Over the last 10 years, it's replaced probably 10-20% of the Windows servers my company runs (perhaps more), probably about 30-40% of the AIX servers, and another 25-30% of the Solaris servers we run. Key word there: *servers*.
Linux on the desktop has been evaluated ("officially sanctioned evaluations") 3 times at my company that I'm aware of in the last 10 years - it's come back 'close, closer, closer,' but missing significant chunks of functionality that are deemed "required" for the purposes of the evaluations. Until it can close the gaps that are causing it to get shot down during these evaluations, it won't achieve much mainstream success *on the desktop*, regardless of how much teachers flog it at universities. If you learn C, C++, Java, or whatever, you should be able to apply those skills to new platforms without inordinate difficulty.
That's all nice, but the question I was answering specifically stipulated "And if by some magical cosmic occurence that everyone switches to Ubuntu overnight, I could even see Windows becoming free (as in beer) to stay afloat, while they pull something out of their hat to make enough money to sustain themselves."
In other words, if they lost so much market share that Windows was relegated to the status of bit player, they would simply move to developing for the dominant platform.
I'd also suggest that Access & Project are pretty specialized tools - Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint are MUCH more commonly used in the large enterprise I work for (~60k employees, last count I saw) - for every 40-50 users using those 4, there's one or two who use Project actively (more than "I need to look at the project plan"), and Access hasn't been used for much outside of "something quick for my own use and tracking" in a long time, though that might have something to do with centralized DBA support & an enterprise agreement with Oracle.
The loss of VB macros was a pain, but they *did* promise (and the announcement back in Feb. of this year of Mac Office 2011 confirms) that they'd add it back in. It was dropped in the 2008 version, ostensibly for PPC->Intel porting issues, and I'm tempted to believe that, since they're adding it back in the 2011 release. I don't think the VBA stuff is necessarily evidence of a conspiracy to cripple that software for non-Windows use.
I think if/when you see a significant drop in MS's desktop OS market share (most likely that loss will go to Mac OS X unless Linux comes up with something really compelling on the desktop in the next year or two), you'll suddenly see them get a lot more excited about the notion of "cross-platform" development. They'll try to control the OS choices as long as possible, but if it becomes apparent that they can't, they'll start competing on features. They did it with IE when suddenly Firefox came along and started eating their lunch. I have no doubt that they're pragmatic enough to drop the "MS-only" principle when it's a choice of "MS-Only" vs. "Survival".
It would be like trying to sell for money a competitor of WINE that fully implemented the win32 APIs on Linux -- who would buy it if no one has Windows?
Somebody who wants the features it has. It would force them to compete on feature sets again, rather than coasting on the "everybody has Windows..." mindset. Wouldn't that be a great thing for users, if MSOffice & OpenOffice - or some other competitor(s) - were forced to innovate and come up with new features and functionality? If Microsoft suddenly stopped developing Office, sure, OpenOffice would inevitably win, because it would continue to get "good enough"-er for more and more people while Office stagnated. Look at IE6 versus IE8 - Firefox (and to a lesser extent, Chrome, Safari, and Opera) pushed a lot of those developments you see. From a consumer's perspective, that's good stuff, even if you don't use IE8, they're competing, rather than just coasting on an installed user base.
They might still fail, but I think it'd be foolish to assume they wouldn't even *try* if suddenly Windows weren't an option. They're not just going to throw away multi-billion dollar assets and give up.
Yes, a by-product that is still actively developed and kept roughly feature-equivalent.
Do you *really* think that if Windows dies off, Microsoft is just going to walk away from a still-hugely-lucrative enterprise office suite market without a fight? "Well guys, we tried. Let's just pack it up and go home?"
The premise was that Windows magically dies overnight. MSFT - as a company - would not simply give up and liquidate, they would continue writing software for the dominant platform, which, in the given premise, is Linux.
As I said, that doesn't mean it'd be good, or open source, but they're certainly not just going to close up shop due to eroding Windows market share.
Perhaps one of the best things for them in the long run would be to have some competition in the application space, and make them compete on software features, rather than lock-in to a single platform. I don't think anybody would disagree that newer versions of IE are immensely better than their IE5/IE6 versions.
If Linux ever became a large enough presence on the desktop in the enterprise or the home, you can almost bet that they'd roll a version of Office for Ubuntu or whatever the "big" Linux distro was. Same as they do with Mac Office - Macs are a "big enough" factor - at what, 8-10% of the desktop / laptop market? - that they support Office on them. If Linux achieved a similar market share, you'd see them writing software for the platform.
This doesn't mean it would necessarily be *good* or *open source,* but make no mistake about it - they'll go where the money is. If Windows died tomorrow, they'd shift gears to porting their apps to the new "dominant" player.
I think that's exactly the point he was trying to make - the characterization of AAVE & "Standard English" as "incompatible" dialects is probably a little overblown, when people are less likely to understand a contract written in "standard english" than they are to somebody speaking a vernacular form.
Well so far, technology has helped create the problem.
Technology is the cause of our predicament, not the solution.
You have repeatedly asserted that technology is the cause, not the solution. You cited a stone age civilization as the group of people who "got it right."
But yeah, I'm totally setting up straw men in asking you what your alternative is to "using technology" to solve our problems. You have specifically stated that technology will not and cannot solve our problems. That leaves us with precious little alternative to communing with the animal spirits, don't you think?
Now, if you're revising those previous statements to mean "technology *will* be the solution," then we're in agreement. If you're not revising them that way, don't accuse me of setting up a straw man when you're asking us to be very concerned about a problem which you can't characterize the size, scope, or severity of, and which you can only define a solution for by what that solution *is not*.
OK, first of all, I'm now convinced you're a fucking idiot.
Why, because I'm pointing out the logical consequences of what you're proposing to "save us from a Malthusian dilemma"? Pardon me for not embracing your call to embrace the standard of "poverty" or "mass murder" as a reasonable way for mankind to live.
I was using it to support my point that it is not modern tech that will save us from a Malthusiam dilemma.
Right, modern tech won't. The technology based on our current tech, however, will.
You're sitting here asserting that: 1) You don't know what the number of people is who may 'sustainably' live on earth; 2) You DO know that we've somehow gone by it because 'Americans consume 17 times the natural resources per capita'.
(Special note for the impaired: You have not demonstrated that "17 times the natural resources per capita" is an unsustainable rate, or why it would be.)
The example solutions you've offered that illustrate 'sustainable' living have been: 1) Infanticide in stone age societies; 2) Oh, there was no #2, was there?
Furthermore, you assert that "collective discipline" is the "only thing that will save us." And by "collective discipline," I presume you mean "collective privation" - i.e., being willing to let some people starve to death for the "greater good," or brain a few babies, or force everybody to use no more than 1 hour of electricity a day, and destroy most of our modern technology because it's "consumption" - after all, the people in Africa who live in poverty, they must be doing something right to consume 1/17th the amount as americans!
I hear exactly what you're saying, and what you're saying is that the only way for man to exist on earth is to do so at dramatically reduced numbers (allowing us to keep 'modern' technology), or in larger numbers (with drastically reduced technology).
The former requires mass suicides and mass graves. The latter requires a return to stone age technology. These are not straw men, these are *exactly* what you are suggesting as reasonable, rational solutions to "overconsumption," while at the same time admitting that you have no idea what a "sustainable" number would be, or what you feel "appropriate" consumption is.
And still, you demand "discipline," while throwing away reason & technology, which are the only things which would allow us to know what our "discipline" needs to be harnessed to. Yes, that's right, a whole host of technology is required to understand the natural world around us, and how we're affecting it. Do we throw that all away in the name of "collective discipline", and just hope that we're doing the right thing by communing with the "animal spirits"?
Your argument also ignores the fact that as technology advances, *voluntary birth control* also advances, and allows people in technologically advanced places to take advantage of their education and LIMIT their reproduction VOLUNTARILY.
You know, as opposed to smashing a baby's head in with a rock, which is being suggested as a rational role model for civilization.
Yes, I've heard of Malthus. No, I'm not arguing that exponential reproduction is a tenable solution - as it obviously is not, though it would self-limit due to disease, starvation, and war.
Tell me, since you seem to feel that you're privy to some sort of knowledge nobody else has - what exactly is the golden number of people we can support on this planet? And what, exactly, is the technological level that they will be allowed to advance to?
You keep holding up stone age society as a model. I'm genuinely curious what you think a sustainable population is, and whether or not we'll be allowed to sharpen sticks for hunting, or if we just have to club things to death with a heavy branch? (or will we just be carrion eaters & eat whatever nuts and berries we find as a side dish?)
My company writes software that is deployed to AIX, Solaris, Windows, and Red Hat.
We have to test all 4 of these ports independently, because they are independent programs - despite the fact that the *NIXes are "not that much different."
The only "economy of scale" we find is that sometimes, a bug on ONE platform exists on all 4 platforms. But there are quite a few issues that exist on only one of the platforms. This means that each platform requires a full round of testing, regardless of how much "economy of scale" you think you get from having source code that's "mostly" the same.
Or, to parallel your completely scientific wild-ass guesses, it would net them a fraction of 1% more sales, and cost them 80% more effort.
Their ability to use their resources hinged not on their technology, but their collective discipline and determination.
Would read better as: "Their ability to maintain their lifestyle at the stone-age level hinged not on their technology, but their collective discipline and determination." Imagine if they had put some effort into actually advancing their stone-age technology level - they might have had enough food to not have to kill off their children.
They lived tough lives, which required... infanticide. And you're holding this up as the appropriate level of "dedication" and "discipline" we need?
Your argument amounts to this: we should be returning to the stone age and abandoning technology, and at the same time, we should be killing infants and possibly old people who are a drag on the system.
If you're expecting that to happen, you're in for a long, and ultimately disappointing, wait.
What technological breakthrough would let us continue this path without encouraging our wasteful ways?
Recycling is a newish breakthrough, and certainly reduces waste. Alternative energy sources require a shitload of technology to make them viable, and they're approaching that point. Agriculture has benefitted enormously from technology, increasing crop yields, reducing the amount of effort required to plant, harvest, etc.
Once again, if you want to hold up a stone age existence as the ideal example of life for mankind, then I suggest you go about being your own best example: shut off the computer, strip down naked, grab a pointy stick, and go see how awesome it is living off the land in a state of nature. Hope you're a quick study or you live somewhere warm, because it's getting pretty close to autumn here.
Amazingly, is is possible to do this without copying Apple.
Even more amazing than the fact that they think the only way to do this is by copying Apple is the fact that most manufacturers today are *copying Apple badly.*
He would rather that content creators only build native iOS apps that work only for iDevices rather than use already-existing channels & platforms that work perfectly fine.
Your anecdote about iPhones clearly shows that everybody is buying a $199 iPhone just to prove that they have money, while people buy $199 Droids because they are just the best phones in existence.
Are you sure that your dad's friends have bought these things "just to show they have enough money"? Have you done a detailed analysis of this segment?
Or is it more likely that you're talking out your ass and ascribing stupid motives to people buying something that you wouldn't spend your money on because you don't like/need/want it?
Terry Childs was NOT doing his job, because he had been relieved of that job & reassigned. He refused to hand over passwords related to the job he was being reassigned away from, and so he was fired, and then arrested & charged with denial of services.
His job was not to obstruct "anybody who is not Terry Childs" from administering the systems. Rather than be cooperative and hand over the passwords (writing them down on a piece of paper, sealing it in an envelope, and turning them over to someone who he deemed 'authorized' would have sufficed, would it not? It wasn't a case of "either tell everybody in this room the passwords, or we will arrest you," there were compromise options he could have suggested), he stonewalled. And now he's paying the price for doing that.
And I agree - it does look as if the withdrawal of the charges & arrest warrant indicate that he's done nothing wrong. Skepticism is fine - "show me proof, I don't believe it's in his character, and this could be simply an attempt at character assassination."
My point was that blind support with absolutely zero facts - "He's pissed off powerful people, I'm sure this is just character assassination by the US government," is foolish, and that's essentially the tone of the early responses to this.
I agree - far too early to speculate on whether or not he's guilty, but I expect this will follow much the same pattern here on/. as other cases historically where someone with a bit of notoriety & "folk hero" status in the geek world is accused of something. Don't forget, there was "NO WAY" that Hans Reiser could be guilty; Same way Terry Childs "was just doing his job".
We don't want to believe that, perhaps, some of the people like us are capable of doing rotten things, too - think of it as "Say it ain't so, Joe!" for the geek set. Maybe it isn't so, and maybe it is, we'll have to wait and see what information is released.
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It's more than that, though - it's not enough to just be "good enough" for the individual users. Enterprise markets want cookie cutter builds, the ability to manage security & usage policies across thousands of systems, and Windows is still beating Linux in that area with Active Directory.
The problem is, Linux offers a "more or less equivalent" system to replace Windows for people... but that comes with the expense of retraining users, retraining or hiring new sysadmins, deploying all new replacement tools, converting (or losing) legacy documentation and other stuff that's locked in Windows-only binary formats, reworking a huge chunk of support infrastructure... and all of that expense will put you back at... "just about where we started."
This is the problem Linux has to overcome if it's going to make serious inroads on the desktop in the enterprise. For an enterprise of tens of thousands of people, there's a significant cost to convert, and a slow return on that investment for desktop systems.
Agreed - Microsoft won't fully devote itself to competing on features until they are squeezed, and hard, by other platforms.
Interestingly, Mac OS has recently posted some interesting gains in the government & enterprise markets - if this trend continues, perhaps Microsoft is seeing that they're going to get squeezed in the enterprise space - perhaps this is an early signal of them acknowledging these trends? It'll be interesting to see if these numbers are a trend, rather than a single-quarter anomaly.
How many Office for Linux licenses are you proposing to buy?
Linux is already plenty mainstream, I don't think you'll find too many enterprises that don't have some significant Linux instalation. Over the last 10 years, it's replaced probably 10-20% of the Windows servers my company runs (perhaps more), probably about 30-40% of the AIX servers, and another 25-30% of the Solaris servers we run. Key word there: *servers*.
Linux on the desktop has been evaluated ("officially sanctioned evaluations") 3 times at my company that I'm aware of in the last 10 years - it's come back 'close, closer, closer,' but missing significant chunks of functionality that are deemed "required" for the purposes of the evaluations. Until it can close the gaps that are causing it to get shot down during these evaluations, it won't achieve much mainstream success *on the desktop*, regardless of how much teachers flog it at universities. If you learn C, C++, Java, or whatever, you should be able to apply those skills to new platforms without inordinate difficulty.
That's all nice, but the question I was answering specifically stipulated "And if by some magical cosmic occurence that everyone switches to Ubuntu overnight, I could even see Windows becoming free (as in beer) to stay afloat, while they pull something out of their hat to make enough money to sustain themselves."
In other words, if they lost so much market share that Windows was relegated to the status of bit player, they would simply move to developing for the dominant platform.
I'd also suggest that Access & Project are pretty specialized tools - Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint are MUCH more commonly used in the large enterprise I work for (~60k employees, last count I saw) - for every 40-50 users using those 4, there's one or two who use Project actively (more than "I need to look at the project plan"), and Access hasn't been used for much outside of "something quick for my own use and tracking" in a long time, though that might have something to do with centralized DBA support & an enterprise agreement with Oracle.
The loss of VB macros was a pain, but they *did* promise (and the announcement back in Feb. of this year of Mac Office 2011 confirms) that they'd add it back in. It was dropped in the 2008 version, ostensibly for PPC->Intel porting issues, and I'm tempted to believe that, since they're adding it back in the 2011 release. I don't think the VBA stuff is necessarily evidence of a conspiracy to cripple that software for non-Windows use.
I think if/when you see a significant drop in MS's desktop OS market share (most likely that loss will go to Mac OS X unless Linux comes up with something really compelling on the desktop in the next year or two), you'll suddenly see them get a lot more excited about the notion of "cross-platform" development. They'll try to control the OS choices as long as possible, but if it becomes apparent that they can't, they'll start competing on features. They did it with IE when suddenly Firefox came along and started eating their lunch. I have no doubt that they're pragmatic enough to drop the "MS-only" principle when it's a choice of "MS-Only" vs. "Survival".
Somebody who wants the features it has. It would force them to compete on feature sets again, rather than coasting on the "everybody has Windows..." mindset. Wouldn't that be a great thing for users, if MSOffice & OpenOffice - or some other competitor(s) - were forced to innovate and come up with new features and functionality? If Microsoft suddenly stopped developing Office, sure, OpenOffice would inevitably win, because it would continue to get "good enough"-er for more and more people while Office stagnated. Look at IE6 versus IE8 - Firefox (and to a lesser extent, Chrome, Safari, and Opera) pushed a lot of those developments you see. From a consumer's perspective, that's good stuff, even if you don't use IE8, they're competing, rather than just coasting on an installed user base.
They might still fail, but I think it'd be foolish to assume they wouldn't even *try* if suddenly Windows weren't an option. They're not just going to throw away multi-billion dollar assets and give up.
Yes, a by-product that is still actively developed and kept roughly feature-equivalent.
Do you *really* think that if Windows dies off, Microsoft is just going to walk away from a still-hugely-lucrative enterprise office suite market without a fight? "Well guys, we tried. Let's just pack it up and go home?"
The premise was that Windows magically dies overnight. MSFT - as a company - would not simply give up and liquidate, they would continue writing software for the dominant platform, which, in the given premise, is Linux.
As I said, that doesn't mean it'd be good, or open source, but they're certainly not just going to close up shop due to eroding Windows market share.
Perhaps one of the best things for them in the long run would be to have some competition in the application space, and make them compete on software features, rather than lock-in to a single platform. I don't think anybody would disagree that newer versions of IE are immensely better than their IE5/IE6 versions.
If Linux ever became a large enough presence on the desktop in the enterprise or the home, you can almost bet that they'd roll a version of Office for Ubuntu or whatever the "big" Linux distro was. Same as they do with Mac Office - Macs are a "big enough" factor - at what, 8-10% of the desktop / laptop market? - that they support Office on them. If Linux achieved a similar market share, you'd see them writing software for the platform.
This doesn't mean it would necessarily be *good* or *open source,* but make no mistake about it - they'll go where the money is. If Windows died tomorrow, they'd shift gears to porting their apps to the new "dominant" player.
I think that's exactly the point he was trying to make - the characterization of AAVE & "Standard English" as "incompatible" dialects is probably a little overblown, when people are less likely to understand a contract written in "standard english" than they are to somebody speaking a vernacular form.
Your words:
You have repeatedly asserted that technology is the cause, not the solution. You cited a stone age civilization as the group of people who "got it right."
But yeah, I'm totally setting up straw men in asking you what your alternative is to "using technology" to solve our problems. You have specifically stated that technology will not and cannot solve our problems. That leaves us with precious little alternative to communing with the animal spirits, don't you think?
Now, if you're revising those previous statements to mean "technology *will* be the solution," then we're in agreement. If you're not revising them that way, don't accuse me of setting up a straw man when you're asking us to be very concerned about a problem which you can't characterize the size, scope, or severity of, and which you can only define a solution for by what that solution *is not*.
Why, because I'm pointing out the logical consequences of what you're proposing to "save us from a Malthusian dilemma"? Pardon me for not embracing your call to embrace the standard of "poverty" or "mass murder" as a reasonable way for mankind to live.
Right, modern tech won't. The technology based on our current tech, however, will.
You're sitting here asserting that:
1) You don't know what the number of people is who may 'sustainably' live on earth;
2) You DO know that we've somehow gone by it because 'Americans consume 17 times the natural resources per capita'.
(Special note for the impaired: You have not demonstrated that "17 times the natural resources per capita" is an unsustainable rate, or why it would be.)
The example solutions you've offered that illustrate 'sustainable' living have been:
1) Infanticide in stone age societies;
2) Oh, there was no #2, was there?
Furthermore, you assert that "collective discipline" is the "only thing that will save us." And by "collective discipline," I presume you mean "collective privation" - i.e., being willing to let some people starve to death for the "greater good," or brain a few babies, or force everybody to use no more than 1 hour of electricity a day, and destroy most of our modern technology because it's "consumption" - after all, the people in Africa who live in poverty, they must be doing something right to consume 1/17th the amount as americans!
I hear exactly what you're saying, and what you're saying is that the only way for man to exist on earth is to do so at dramatically reduced numbers (allowing us to keep 'modern' technology), or in larger numbers (with drastically reduced technology).
The former requires mass suicides and mass graves. The latter requires a return to stone age technology. These are not straw men, these are *exactly* what you are suggesting as reasonable, rational solutions to "overconsumption," while at the same time admitting that you have no idea what a "sustainable" number would be, or what you feel "appropriate" consumption is.
And still, you demand "discipline," while throwing away reason & technology, which are the only things which would allow us to know what our "discipline" needs to be harnessed to. Yes, that's right, a whole host of technology is required to understand the natural world around us, and how we're affecting it. Do we throw that all away in the name of "collective discipline", and just hope that we're doing the right thing by communing with the "animal spirits"?
Your argument also ignores the fact that as technology advances, *voluntary birth control* also advances, and allows people in technologically advanced places to take advantage of their education and LIMIT their reproduction VOLUNTARILY.
You know, as opposed to smashing a baby's head in with a rock, which is being suggested as a rational role model for civilization.
Yes, I've heard of Malthus. No, I'm not arguing that exponential reproduction is a tenable solution - as it obviously is not, though it would self-limit due to disease, starvation, and war.
Tell me, since you seem to feel that you're privy to some sort of knowledge nobody else has - what exactly is the golden number of people we can support on this planet? And what, exactly, is the technological level that they will be allowed to advance to?
You keep holding up stone age society as a model. I'm genuinely curious what you think a sustainable population is, and whether or not we'll be allowed to sharpen sticks for hunting, or if we just have to club things to death with a heavy branch? (or will we just be carrion eaters & eat whatever nuts and berries we find as a side dish?)
My company writes software that is deployed to AIX, Solaris, Windows, and Red Hat.
We have to test all 4 of these ports independently, because they are independent programs - despite the fact that the *NIXes are "not that much different."
The only "economy of scale" we find is that sometimes, a bug on ONE platform exists on all 4 platforms. But there are quite a few issues that exist on only one of the platforms. This means that each platform requires a full round of testing, regardless of how much "economy of scale" you think you get from having source code that's "mostly" the same.
Or, to parallel your completely scientific wild-ass guesses, it would net them a fraction of 1% more sales, and cost them 80% more effort.
Would read better as: "Their ability to maintain their lifestyle at the stone-age level hinged not on their technology, but their collective discipline and determination." Imagine if they had put some effort into actually advancing their stone-age technology level - they might have had enough food to not have to kill off their children.
They lived tough lives, which required... infanticide. And you're holding this up as the appropriate level of "dedication" and "discipline" we need?
Your argument amounts to this: we should be returning to the stone age and abandoning technology, and at the same time, we should be killing infants and possibly old people who are a drag on the system.
If you're expecting that to happen, you're in for a long, and ultimately disappointing, wait.
Recycling is a newish breakthrough, and certainly reduces waste. Alternative energy sources require a shitload of technology to make them viable, and they're approaching that point. Agriculture has benefitted enormously from technology, increasing crop yields, reducing the amount of effort required to plant, harvest, etc.
Once again, if you want to hold up a stone age existence as the ideal example of life for mankind, then I suggest you go about being your own best example: shut off the computer, strip down naked, grab a pointy stick, and go see how awesome it is living off the land in a state of nature. Hope you're a quick study or you live somewhere warm, because it's getting pretty close to autumn here.
Sure, on servers.
Do a survey of desktop systems, and then consider whether anybody even knows or cares what os the server they're talking to runs?
It would take just as long as testing on windows, and they'd sell a handful of additional copies as a result of that effort.
And that, in a nutshell, is why they won't bother.
Translation: "I'm unable to defend my position, so i'll call the person who disagreed with me stupid."
Why don't you, instead? It'll help keep the population down.
Ah, I see. I wish I lived on the Jersey Shore, too. I love that show.
Caricatures make for poor statistics.
Even more amazing than the fact that they think the only way to do this is by copying Apple is the fact that most manufacturers today are *copying Apple badly.*
Um. HTML5?
Your anecdote about iPhones clearly shows that everybody is buying a $199 iPhone just to prove that they have money, while people buy $199 Droids because they are just the best phones in existence.
Are you sure that your dad's friends have bought these things "just to show they have enough money"? Have you done a detailed analysis of this segment?
Or is it more likely that you're talking out your ass and ascribing stupid motives to people buying something that you wouldn't spend your money on because you don't like/need/want it?
*cough* Thanks for illustrating my point.
Terry Childs was NOT doing his job, because he had been relieved of that job & reassigned. He refused to hand over passwords related to the job he was being reassigned away from, and so he was fired, and then arrested & charged with denial of services.
His job was not to obstruct "anybody who is not Terry Childs" from administering the systems. Rather than be cooperative and hand over the passwords (writing them down on a piece of paper, sealing it in an envelope, and turning them over to someone who he deemed 'authorized' would have sufficed, would it not? It wasn't a case of "either tell everybody in this room the passwords, or we will arrest you," there were compromise options he could have suggested), he stonewalled. And now he's paying the price for doing that.
And I agree - it does look as if the withdrawal of the charges & arrest warrant indicate that he's done nothing wrong. Skepticism is fine - "show me proof, I don't believe it's in his character, and this could be simply an attempt at character assassination."
My point was that blind support with absolutely zero facts - "He's pissed off powerful people, I'm sure this is just character assassination by the US government," is foolish, and that's essentially the tone of the early responses to this.
I agree - far too early to speculate on whether or not he's guilty, but I expect this will follow much the same pattern here on /. as other cases historically where someone with a bit of notoriety & "folk hero" status in the geek world is accused of something. Don't forget, there was "NO WAY" that Hans Reiser could be guilty; Same way Terry Childs "was just doing his job".
We don't want to believe that, perhaps, some of the people like us are capable of doing rotten things, too - think of it as "Say it ain't so, Joe!" for the geek set. Maybe it isn't so, and maybe it is, we'll have to wait and see what information is released.