I think AOL getting into the Linux business is a great thing. If anybody can bring Linux to the masses it's AOL. But why do they have to buy RedHat?
RedHat is doing well as a server OS company, not a consumer company, and it doesn't need any help from AOL in order to succeed.
Other more consumer oriented distributions like SuSE and Mandrake are struggling, could use the boost from AOL, and are a much better fit anyway. Besides that, they'd probably be much cheaper takeover targets.
That's entirely a matter of definition. I think saying that the operating system consists of only the kernel (which is arguably the least visible component) is a bit of a stretch. The Microsoft position that the operating system is everything that's shipped on the CD is a little extreme as well.
Re:Your own reference seems to contradict you
on
Black Holes Disputed
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· Score: 2
Your glider can''t fly upside down because you have no engine and therefore can't sustain a high angle of attack.
Non-aerobatic planes can't do it because the fuel is gravity-feed. Also I don't think a conventional engine likes it's oil pan being turned upside down.
Aerobatic planes can and do regularly fly upside-down.
Re:Your own reference seems to contradict you
on
Black Holes Disputed
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· Score: 2
Also, think for a moment that you (YANAAE) are disputing the word of an aerodynamics engineer who works with this stuff every day.
I'm afraid being an engineer doesn't give you the key to absolute truth. Engineers are given equations and taught the traditional explanation for lift. Since the equations do in fact work, the engineer can do his job even though his understanding of the mechanism is a little flawed.
Having a curved upper surface doesn't magically exempt you from the laws of physics. The basic physics behind lift are the same as everything else. The upward force of lift must be generated by something moving downwards. The only candidate when you're flying is 'air', so the wing must somehow be pushing air downwards in order to generate lift. This is acheived using the vortices the earlier poster mentioned and, at high angles of attack, by deflecting the air downwards.
In a way this is standardization, just of a different kind. In the past, if I wanted to use both Linux and NetBSD I was forced to use too completely different operating systems. Different packaging systems, different user environments, etc. Now I can use the Linux, NetBSD, and Hurd kernels while sticking with my 'standard' Debian operating system.
I, for one, welcome the idea. It makes it far more likely that I'll consider using the NetBSD kernel at some point in the future.
Hmm. Considering their bandwith utilization right now is only 40Mb/s (out of 100) I don't think it's a huge issue. And this while being Slashdotted too.
No, that'd be fine as far as I'm concerned. No need to even go that far - they could just say MS-Linux, provided it was really based on the Linux (tm) kernel:-).
It seems to me that MS is taking a big risk in that they might get their trademark invalidated if the pursue this to the end. First, 'Windows' is a generic word, second, it has come to be used in common speech to refer to windows on a computer screen. In fact, I don't know of any other word that could be used in it's place. So even if it was a valid trademark in 1985 (questionable) it may not be today.
I'm a little skeptical too, but I'm hoping that the management of this company realizes the.com days are over and actually found a market for this device before they built it.
I think there are some real possibilities aside from Grandmothers. Think about different types of specialized kiosks that would benefit from a super-easy interface. (How many times have you seen a mall information kiosk BSOD? I see them fairly often.) Also, specialized terminals for factories and warehouses that mostly run some web-based application.
If they can develop some good niche markets to pay the bills then they might be able to stay in business long enough to see these things go mainstream.
I know about Fitt's law, but the truth is that I find the global menu really irritating. Whenever I use a Mac I end up getting really frustrated that I can't find the menu bar where I expect it. It's like using one of those annoying French keyboards that re-arrange three or four alpha keys for no reason.
I realize it's just a question of getting used to it though. It would be cool if GNOME had this as an option - I might even try it out for a while to see if I could get used to it.
Hmm. My GNOME desktop has a Mac-like menubar at the top, complete with an application pull-down at the right and no silly "taskbar", which would be redundant and take up valuable space.
But each window gets it's own menus just like Windows. The widgets are IMHO, better than either Mac or Windows.
I'm quite happy with this layout and hate it when I have to use a Mac or Windows box for some reason. Obviously people who are used to one of the other systems won't like my interface choices, but then they can can choose different customizations.
My only complaint is that a few applications that I really need don't use the standard widget set and look butt-ugly. OpenOffice in particular. Once that's GNOMEified I won't have anything to complain about.
It looks to me like they want something with Digital Rights Management, but don't want to work with Microsoft (and Linux is too open). Evil.
It's also worth noting that 2005 is about the time the next Playstation should emerge. That's not a coincidence.
Re:are you sure that's lindows?
on
LindowsOS Marches On
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Indeed. Looks like KDE with a Windows theme. I'd forgotten how ugly Windows is.
The real test will be how well it runs those Windows apps. My cynical half says there's no way he got significantly better windows emulation than stock Wine or CodeWeavers, but part of me really hopes he's succeeded. We'll find out soon enough I suppose.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that. I don't have any statistics handy, but I've worked with seniors before and it's pretty clear that men die sooner. These are men that are well past the age of getting in fights, and they don't die in car accidents. It's just old age.
I find this rather amusing. Wouldn't the logical solution to this problem be better security features in the currency?
Seriously, if colour copiers are that good, what's to stop somebody from just stealing one, or buying one with cash (and false ID if required)?
It's actually pretty nifty what security features the new Euro has, I bet the U.S. treasury could adopt some of those while still keeping the classic Slashdot theme for American dollars.
The CIO certainly knows what's running the 'mission critical' application(s) for the company, but there are lots of applications that aren't mission critical. Your production supply chain software might be running Solaris or AIX, but there's a good chance your Oracle DBAs have a development box on Linux that they haven't told you about.
High profile projects will get lots of attention and money, but if I need a server quickly to solve a problem that affects me or my team, but that most of the company couldn't care less about, the easiest solution is a Linux box. There are probably a few Intel machines around that I can commandeer, and I don't need to get any POs approved.
This is what people mean when they talk about Linux being a stealth operating system. The difference between now and a few years ago is that you can install Linux and not need to hide it from your boss. Nowadays the boss will just nod and move on, while a few years ago he might have fired you for daring to install free software.
They do not support, out of the box, everything they claim to support.
Ok. I see what you're saying. Sounds like a quality issue with Red Hat. Certainly if it says on the box that it's supported then it should work.
What I was trying to say with my original post was that Linux distributions fill the same role as the *BSD distributions. They represent the safe, stable solution for the end user.
Re:Picture of bills with US bill
on
The Euro
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Dunno. Time will tell I guess. But I don't see why the differences between European states should be greater than the differences between (for example) American states. Labour, goods, and capital move freely, so when one part of the Eurozone becomes undervalued investors should come in and snap up the bargains.
s/half decade/half century/
on
The Euro
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· Score: 1
I figured I should correct that before somebody else does. Europe has been merging for a while.
Re:Picture of bills with US bill
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, there are certain advantages to having your own currency. The big thing is that interest rates, and the exchange rates are adjusted to your economy, not somebody elses.
Witness what's happening in Argentina right now. They pegged their currency to the U.S. dollar - in all practical terms that means they adopted the U.S. dollar. But the U.S. dollar kept gaining value as the American economy grew, so that Argentinian exports became too expensive and the economy suffered. A free-floating Peso would have devalued to keep things in balance.
This probably won't happen in Europe because European countries have been integrating their economies over the last half decade. With common regulations, and free-flowing goods, the economies should grow (or shrink) together. As long as that's true things should work out.
I don't see how any of this is relavent. What you're complaining about is that:
The packaged kernel doesn't have all the latest features and drivers.
Some drivers have bugs.
This is of course true. That will be true of any system. Obviously you're going to give up something in the trade-off between "easy to use and stable" vs. "bleeding edge".
your contention that the distributions are out-of-the-box solutions is just plain wrong.
No it's not. Distributions are the out-of-the-box solution. Your problem is that you aren't satisfied with the out-of-the-box solution. Would you have faired better with one of the BSDs? Do they even have XFS?
Hmmm... I wonder if I can run XFS without recompiling... Nope, looks like I'll have to upgrade the kernel. But wait! Do I use the -ac kernel with its new VM or do I use the main branch with the most "standard" stuff? Oh crap, looks like 2.4.whatever had a really bad bug by default, and they didn't fix it until 2.4.later. Shit, I don't have the time for this.
I'm glad you're happy with BSD, but really you could have had the same thing by ignoring the various development trees and optional components and sticking with a distribution you like. The nice people at Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. will happily test everything for you and make sure it works. Each of the Linux distributions fulfills the same role for the end user as one of the BSDs.
Mostly agreed, but there are a lot of components in these systems that could be shared. The import/export filters, for example, could construct a common in-memory structure that each application knows to deal with. The math functions in the different spreadsheets could probably be shared if they could agree on a common API.
I think the argument that competition leads to innovation is true of new or innovative features, but a lot of features are just check-box items that are well understood and that everybody needs.
I actually tried a few days ago to see if I could steal some code from OpenOffice and turn it into a reusable library, but it's not easy. There are interdependancies everywhere. The same is probably true of the other projects. Modularity needs to be built into the design.
6. One of the big five computer retailers offers a Linux boot (or dual boot) for a retail desktop machine.
Didn't somebody just announce a Crusoe based dual-boot machine a little while ago? It might not be shipping yet, but I'd give a half point for that. (I wish I could remember who it was).
7. Widespread government desktop adoption of Linux
There have been reports of various French, German, and Finnish government bodies 'seriously considering' Linux. Even if they're just using this a bargaining tool with MS, I think that still deserves a half point. My own prediction is that these pioneers will lead to widespread government use over the next year or two.
Over the last few months the word "terrorist" has lost all meaning. I also heard the other day that child pornographers were being called terrorists. And of course the Isrealis, Palestinians, and Americans are terrorists, depending on who you ask. I'm sure the people who set fires around Sydney were terrorists too. Nowadays a terrorist is anybody you don't like.
The old definition of terrorist was somebody who used terror as a tool to some political ends. Basically, if you can't defeat your enemy in a head-on attack, you choose an easy target calculated to demoralize the enemy.
It's too bad, because 'terrorist' really was a useful word. Now that it's being used so broadly there's no concise way to talk about 'classic' terrorists.
Even if the average per-capita invome is only $798, there are many people who make much more. Income isn't evenly distributed. If only 10% can afford internet access that's still over 100 million people.
Taiwan (Mandarine speaking), Hong Kong(Cantonese), are quite wealthy even by Western standards, with Shanghai closing fast.
Computers and everything else in China is cheaper than in the west
China is developing quickly.
I can't vouch for 2007, but it passes the sniff test and I'd be inclined to believe it, especially given the fact that the Internet has only taken off in the West since 1995. Another six years for China to catch up is reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
I think AOL getting into the Linux business is a great thing. If anybody can bring Linux to the masses it's AOL. But why do they have to buy RedHat?
RedHat is doing well as a server OS company, not a consumer company, and it doesn't need any help from AOL in order to succeed.
Other more consumer oriented distributions like SuSE and Mandrake are struggling, could use the boost from AOL, and are a much better fit anyway. Besides that, they'd probably be much cheaper takeover targets.
That's entirely a matter of definition. I think saying that the operating system consists of only the kernel (which is arguably the least visible component) is a bit of a stretch. The Microsoft position that the operating system is everything that's shipped on the CD is a little extreme as well.
Your glider can''t fly upside down because you have no engine and therefore can't sustain a high angle of attack.
Non-aerobatic planes can't do it because the fuel is gravity-feed. Also I don't think a conventional engine likes it's oil pan being turned upside down.
Aerobatic planes can and do regularly fly upside-down.
I'm afraid being an engineer doesn't give you the key to absolute truth. Engineers are given equations and taught the traditional explanation for lift. Since the equations do in fact work, the engineer can do his job even though his understanding of the mechanism is a little flawed.
Having a curved upper surface doesn't magically exempt you from the laws of physics. The basic physics behind lift are the same as everything else. The upward force of lift must be generated by something moving downwards. The only candidate when you're flying is 'air', so the wing must somehow be pushing air downwards in order to generate lift. This is acheived using the vortices the earlier poster mentioned and, at high angles of attack, by deflecting the air downwards.
For more information, check out this interesting article (unfortunately it's a PDF).
In a way this is standardization, just of a different kind. In the past, if I wanted to use both Linux and NetBSD I was forced to use too completely different operating systems. Different packaging systems, different user environments, etc. Now I can use the Linux, NetBSD, and Hurd kernels while sticking with my 'standard' Debian operating system.
I, for one, welcome the idea. It makes it far more likely that I'll consider using the NetBSD kernel at some point in the future.
Hmm. Considering their bandwith utilization right now is only 40Mb/s (out of 100) I don't think it's a huge issue. And this while being Slashdotted too.
I wish I had that kind of bandwidth :-).
No, that'd be fine as far as I'm concerned. No need to even go that far - they could just say MS-Linux, provided it was really based on the Linux (tm) kernel :-).
It seems to me that MS is taking a big risk in that they might get their trademark invalidated if the pursue this to the end. First, 'Windows' is a generic word, second, it has come to be used in common speech to refer to windows on a computer screen. In fact, I don't know of any other word that could be used in it's place. So even if it was a valid trademark in 1985 (questionable) it may not be today.
I'm a little skeptical too, but I'm hoping that the management of this company realizes the .com days are over and actually found a market for this device before they built it.
I think there are some real possibilities aside from Grandmothers. Think about different types of specialized kiosks that would benefit from a super-easy interface. (How many times have you seen a mall information kiosk BSOD? I see them fairly often.) Also, specialized terminals for factories and warehouses that mostly run some web-based application.
If they can develop some good niche markets to pay the bills then they might be able to stay in business long enough to see these things go mainstream.
I know about Fitt's law, but the truth is that I find the global menu really irritating. Whenever I use a Mac I end up getting really frustrated that I can't find the menu bar where I expect it. It's like using one of those annoying French keyboards that re-arrange three or four alpha keys for no reason.
I realize it's just a question of getting used to it though. It would be cool if GNOME had this as an option - I might even try it out for a while to see if I could get used to it.
Hmm. My GNOME desktop has a Mac-like menubar at the top, complete with an application pull-down at the right and no silly "taskbar", which would be redundant and take up valuable space.
But each window gets it's own menus just like Windows. The widgets are IMHO, better than either Mac or Windows.
I'm quite happy with this layout and hate it when I have to use a Mac or Windows box for some reason. Obviously people who are used to one of the other systems won't like my interface choices, but then they can can choose different customizations.
My only complaint is that a few applications that I really need don't use the standard widget set and look butt-ugly. OpenOffice in particular. Once that's GNOMEified I won't have anything to complain about.
It looks to me like they want something with Digital Rights Management, but don't want to work with Microsoft (and Linux is too open). Evil.
It's also worth noting that 2005 is about the time the next Playstation should emerge. That's not a coincidence.
Indeed. Looks like KDE with a Windows theme. I'd forgotten how ugly Windows is.
The real test will be how well it runs those Windows apps. My cynical half says there's no way he got significantly better windows emulation than stock Wine or CodeWeavers, but part of me really hopes he's succeeded. We'll find out soon enough I suppose.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that. I don't have any statistics handy, but I've worked with seniors before and it's pretty clear that men die sooner. These are men that are well past the age of getting in fights, and they don't die in car accidents. It's just old age.
I find this rather amusing. Wouldn't the logical solution to this problem be better security features in the currency?
Seriously, if colour copiers are that good, what's to stop somebody from just stealing one, or buying one with cash (and false ID if required)?
It's actually pretty nifty what security features the new Euro has, I bet the U.S. treasury could adopt some of those while still keeping the classic Slashdot theme for American dollars.
The CIO certainly knows what's running the 'mission critical' application(s) for the company, but there are lots of applications that aren't mission critical. Your production supply chain software might be running Solaris or AIX, but there's a good chance your Oracle DBAs have a development box on Linux that they haven't told you about.
High profile projects will get lots of attention and money, but if I need a server quickly to solve a problem that affects me or my team, but that most of the company couldn't care less about, the easiest solution is a Linux box. There are probably a few Intel machines around that I can commandeer, and I don't need to get any POs approved.
This is what people mean when they talk about Linux being a stealth operating system. The difference between now and a few years ago is that you can install Linux and not need to hide it from your boss. Nowadays the boss will just nod and move on, while a few years ago he might have fired you for daring to install free software.
Ok. I see what you're saying. Sounds like a quality issue with Red Hat. Certainly if it says on the box that it's supported then it should work.
What I was trying to say with my original post was that Linux distributions fill the same role as the *BSD distributions. They represent the safe, stable solution for the end user.
Dunno. Time will tell I guess. But I don't see why the differences between European states should be greater than the differences between (for example) American states. Labour, goods, and capital move freely, so when one part of the Eurozone becomes undervalued investors should come in and snap up the bargains.
I figured I should correct that before somebody else does. Europe has been merging for a while.
Well, there are certain advantages to having your own currency. The big thing is that interest rates, and the exchange rates are adjusted to your economy, not somebody elses.
Witness what's happening in Argentina right now. They pegged their currency to the U.S. dollar - in all practical terms that means they adopted the U.S. dollar. But the U.S. dollar kept gaining value as the American economy grew, so that Argentinian exports became too expensive and the economy suffered. A free-floating Peso would have devalued to keep things in balance.
This probably won't happen in Europe because European countries have been integrating their economies over the last half decade. With common regulations, and free-flowing goods, the economies should grow (or shrink) together. As long as that's true things should work out.
I don't see how any of this is relavent. What you're complaining about is that:
This is of course true. That will be true of any system. Obviously you're going to give up something in the trade-off between "easy to use and stable" vs. "bleeding edge".
No it's not. Distributions are the out-of-the-box solution. Your problem is that you aren't satisfied with the out-of-the-box solution. Would you have faired better with one of the BSDs? Do they even have XFS?
I'm glad you're happy with BSD, but really you could have had the same thing by ignoring the various development trees and optional components and sticking with a distribution you like. The nice people at Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. will happily test everything for you and make sure it works. Each of the Linux distributions fulfills the same role for the end user as one of the BSDs.
Mostly agreed, but there are a lot of components in these systems that could be shared. The import/export filters, for example, could construct a common in-memory structure that each application knows to deal with. The math functions in the different spreadsheets could probably be shared if they could agree on a common API.
I think the argument that competition leads to innovation is true of new or innovative features, but a lot of features are just check-box items that are well understood and that everybody needs.
I actually tried a few days ago to see if I could steal some code from OpenOffice and turn it into a reusable library, but it's not easy. There are interdependancies everywhere. The same is probably true of the other projects. Modularity needs to be built into the design.
Didn't somebody just announce a Crusoe based dual-boot machine a little while ago? It might not be shipping yet, but I'd give a half point for that. (I wish I could remember who it was).
There have been reports of various French, German, and Finnish government bodies 'seriously considering' Linux. Even if they're just using this a bargaining tool with MS, I think that still deserves a half point. My own prediction is that these pioneers will lead to widespread government use over the next year or two.
Over the last few months the word "terrorist" has lost all meaning. I also heard the other day that child pornographers were being called terrorists. And of course the Isrealis, Palestinians, and Americans are terrorists, depending on who you ask. I'm sure the people who set fires around Sydney were terrorists too. Nowadays a terrorist is anybody you don't like.
The old definition of terrorist was somebody who used terror as a tool to some political ends. Basically, if you can't defeat your enemy in a head-on attack, you choose an easy target calculated to demoralize the enemy.
It's too bad, because 'terrorist' really was a useful word. Now that it's being used so broadly there's no concise way to talk about 'classic' terrorists.
There are a few things to remember:
I can't vouch for 2007, but it passes the sniff test and I'd be inclined to believe it, especially given the fact that the Internet has only taken off in the West since 1995. Another six years for China to catch up is reasonable.