Intel Macs' EFI can function as a BIOS, and will run Linux fine. This feature was added at the same time as boot camp (the drivers), but it works fine with any OS. It's quite simple to get Linux to run on an Intel Mac.
So, as is consistent with your theory, you will not have noticed that [sic] letter order in this comment? Not so much that I didn't perfectly understand what you meant. Interesting yes?
How much harm has come from Apple bundling Safari? How much harm has come from Microsoft bundling IE? In court, damages play a significant role in deciding whether or not to prosecute. Sure, but there has to be a crime in the first place. Configuring your software in a way that displeases some people is not a crime in any sense, even if it is insecure (warranties/guarantees/etc. aside, but Microsoft has never guaranteed Windows is impervious anyway). In the end, "harm" has only come to those who bought the product and used it (generally without proper precaution, I might add). Should I sue a pen maker if I poke myself in the eye?
Also, there are different standards for monopolies and non-monopolies. Is this fair? Yes, especially when corporations are nothing more than legal entities that obtain their monopoly status through government protection. Microsoft is not a monopoly. A monopoly is, from Oxford Dictionary, a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service. Microsoft does not have exclusive control at all. They have very significant control, but anyone can and many have come out with a competing product. Not all that many people are looking for one, but they can and do exist.
Also, Microsoft did not obtain a monopoly through government protection. It got an overwhelming market presence (which you incorrectly call a monopoly) by selling it's product in a (generally) free market.
There is nothing wrong with the government undermining large corporations for the greater good. The notion of corporations exist to serve the public good and must be regulated to that end. Corporations would exist, in some form or another, regardless of laws (except, possibly, in a totalitarian region where such organization was not allowed). The notion of corporations exists so that the law can be applied to such groups in a manner that fits with their situation rather than that of a person.
"The greater good" can mean a lot of things, and is not a sufficient reason to begin messing with people, whether they choose to act independently or as a group.
I see nothing wrong with their decision to go after microsoft.... mainly because I have no stock in the company So anything you don't have a direct financial interest in is perfectly okay for the government to rob?
As an aside, "ending up like RMS" would hardly be anything to be ashamed of. The world would be a lot better off if more of us had the courage to take his route.You mean having no job, no home, and living off of fame which is based on ridiculous beliefs and behavior.
Redhat is not closed source. The source code is free to download. Redhat's binaries are not, you have to buy them, but that is not required by the GPL. You can get free binaries made from the source from CentOS, also.
SuSE is not closed source, either, although I am unaware of the exact distribution scheme.
Debian Linux is completely open source (or "Free", if you insist). The only reason it's not on the FSF's list is because the official debian servers have proprietary software (it's not inlcuded in the distro).
You act like he's living the high life or somethingHe is living what some would consider "high life". From what you posted, he does no work, and supports very little financially.
He supports himself with awards, speaker fees, but guess what, if he didn't take the positions he does he wouldn't win awards and no one would want to hear him speak. That suggests he only takes his often-ridiculous positions in order to get easy money. Which I doubt you were trying to say, but that statement is strangely worded and rather meaningless otherwise.
Screw guns aren't all that good. They're rather hard to use, and the screw isn't driven right for about 1/5 screws. When it messes up, it takes a while to fix it. Beyond that, they aren't very fast. You can do 500 nails in the time it takes to do 50 screws.
NASA's data isn't nearly as good. The resolution is poor for most places. Beyond that, NASA has no non-windows client, and the windows only one they have isn't as good.
That open source project was using Google's services without authorization. It not only uses their servers, but it could also get Google in trouble with the people they license their data from. How would you feel if someone routed your cable service to themselves, with the imminent possibility the cable company finds out and fines you?
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down! I mean, this is an important issue, but you're going a bit far with an internet petition.
It's not as if everyone and their dog has such a petition on any trivial issue; they're very drastic steps in moving towards change. You should really take more gradual steps.
February 5, 2007 In accordance with the new "Unsafe is Safe" paradigm shift, new initiatives are beginning utilization:
All violent criminals will be freed from jail. They will then be armed with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and given classified national secrets. The police will have their weapons taken away, replaced with nerf nightsticks.
Industrial waste and sewage will be redirected into drinking water supplies.
Medicine, sunscreen, and nutritious food will be banned, smugglers will be put to death. On the other hand, previously illegal drugs will be given away for free.
All public areas will require people to smoke.
Mailmen will randomly delivery explosives instead of the right packages.
Seeing eye dogs will be required to be pit bulls.
Previously elected officials will now be chosen by the mafia.
The people running this program know technology and computers. They are using what they know to do something. It's a lot better then most, who do nothing.
That's partially true, but the people doing this aren't doing all the work. They are designing a neat computer system, but they are not paying for it to be deployed. They are claiming that it's worth the price for those who are paying, but it probably isn't, and it will end up costing far more than it's one hundred dollar defining price.
It WILL provide a tool for education
Is it really providing a tool for education when it costs 1000x as much as an equivalent tools, which many more associated problems? If you spend millions on laptops, how much less do you have for schools?
How is this going to educate people? How is a $1000/person (after maintenance, a reasonable estimate) laptop going to be better for education than a $1/person book, and using the rest of the money to build schools and train teachers?
You can feed them forever or you can educate them.
Then you should educate them. Not hand out laptops that will do nearly nothing as far as education. First of all, the most you can really do is preload some books. In no way is that going to educate someone who is not otherwise being educated, and in no way is it going to be better than paper books.
Second of all, this is going to be a logistical nightmare. Estimates already put it at a net cost of $1000 per laptop, after all maintenance and set up. That's for some glorified books, that could otherwise be printed for pennies a piece. (Obviously, retail books cost more, albeit much less than laptops, but there are many projects (e.g. Wikimedia's) to make public domain books that are far more feasible and less expensive than OLPC, and it certainly isn't ridiculous to suggest a publisher might donate books.)
Thirdly, they aren't going to be used. Is it honestly reasonable to suggest that someone is going to be handed a laptop, never having used a computer before, and start it up and start learning to read, write, and learn science, history, and geography? Then magically go on to learn vocational skill from it?
Fourth, is internet access. It is the one thing that could give it an advantage over books, although not enough to make up for it's disadvantages and cost. But it will have huge problems. If people are relying on the mesh networking for access, they won't get it. Joe next door lost his laptop. Bob's is broken, and the service staff don't have the time or resources to fix it within the month. Bill sold his. The other neighbors don't have children. This will certainly happen to a lot of people.
They need to work for real education. Spend this ridiculous amount of money building schools and training teachers.
"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. Give him a laptop, and he will have a doorstop."
Slashdot Mirror
Intel Macs' EFI can function as a BIOS, and will run Linux fine. This feature was added at the same time as boot camp (the drivers), but it works fine with any OS. It's quite simple to get Linux to run on an Intel Mac.
Also, Microsoft did not obtain a monopoly through government protection. It got an overwhelming market presence (which you incorrectly call a monopoly) by selling it's product in a (generally) free market. There is nothing wrong with the government undermining large corporations for the greater good. The notion of corporations exist to serve the public good and must be regulated to that end. Corporations would exist, in some form or another, regardless of laws (except, possibly, in a totalitarian region where such organization was not allowed). The notion of corporations exists so that the law can be applied to such groups in a manner that fits with their situation rather than that of a person.
"The greater good" can mean a lot of things, and is not a sufficient reason to begin messing with people, whether they choose to act independently or as a group. I see nothing wrong with their decision to go after microsoft.... mainly because I have no stock in the company So anything you don't have a direct financial interest in is perfectly okay for the government to rob?
Rlaley? So, as is costnsient wtih yuor toerhy, you wlil not hvae ntoiecd the lteter odrer in tihs comemnt?
Regardless of whether he's right or not, which he might very well be, he took power from a coup and has no right to make those decisions.
As an aside, "ending up like RMS" would hardly be anything to be ashamed of. The world would be a lot better off if more of us had the courage to take his route.You mean having no job, no home, and living off of fame which is based on ridiculous beliefs and behavior.
Redhat is not closed source. The source code is free to download. Redhat's binaries are not, you have to buy them, but that is not required by the GPL. You can get free binaries made from the source from CentOS, also.
SuSE is not closed source, either, although I am unaware of the exact distribution scheme.
Debian Linux is completely open source (or "Free", if you insist). The only reason it's not on the FSF's list is because the official debian servers have proprietary software (it's not inlcuded in the distro).
You act like he's living the high life or somethingHe is living what some would consider "high life". From what you posted, he does no work, and supports very little financially. He supports himself with awards, speaker fees, but guess what, if he didn't take the positions he does he wouldn't win awards and no one would want to hear him speak. That suggests he only takes his often-ridiculous positions in order to get easy money. Which I doubt you were trying to say, but that statement is strangely worded and rather meaningless otherwise.
Screw guns aren't all that good. They're rather hard to use, and the screw isn't driven right for about 1/5 screws. When it messes up, it takes a while to fix it. Beyond that, they aren't very fast. You can do 500 nails in the time it takes to do 50 screws.
r rrrpopbrrrrrrasdfasdfasdfGrabdrilldriverandfinisht hescrewbrrrrrrrpopbrrrrrrrrrpop
Nailgun:
poppoppoppoppoppoppopopop
Screwgun:
brrrrrrrrrrrrrpopbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpopbrrrrrrrrrr
NASA's data isn't nearly as good. The resolution is poor for most places. Beyond that, NASA has no non-windows client, and the windows only one they have isn't as good.
That open source project was using Google's services without authorization. It not only uses their servers, but it could also get Google in trouble with the people they license their data from. How would you feel if someone routed your cable service to themselves, with the imminent possibility the cable company finds out and fines you?
Why would it be so bad if English became the dominant language? How many people there know no English?
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down! I mean, this is an important issue, but you're going a bit far with an internet petition.
It's not as if everyone and their dog has such a petition on any trivial issue; they're very drastic steps in moving towards change. You should really take more gradual steps.
Those are really just color/"theme" changes. They don't function any differently, although there are some applications that do.
The implications of that are fearful. Slashdotters might be starting to read the articles before commenting!
That's bad for the cars driving on them. It's like replacing sidewalks with grates with 6 inch gaps. It will slow people down, but it won't be good.
February 5, 2007
In accordance with the new "Unsafe is Safe" paradigm shift, new initiatives are beginning utilization:
All violent criminals will be freed from jail. They will then be armed with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and given classified national secrets. The police will have their weapons taken away, replaced with nerf nightsticks.
Industrial waste and sewage will be redirected into drinking water supplies.
Medicine, sunscreen, and nutritious food will be banned, smugglers will be put to death. On the other hand, previously illegal drugs will be given away for free.
All public areas will require people to smoke.
Mailmen will randomly delivery explosives instead of the right packages.
Seeing eye dogs will be required to be pit bulls.
Previously elected officials will now be chosen by the mafia.
Welcome to the 21st century!
Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. Give him a laptop, and he will have a doorstop.
Is it really providing a tool for education when it costs 1000x as much as an equivalent tools, which many more associated problems? If you spend millions on laptops, how much less do you have for schools?
How is this going to educate people? How is a $1000/person (after maintenance, a reasonable estimate) laptop going to be better for education than a $1/person book, and using the rest of the money to build schools and train teachers?
Second of all, this is going to be a logistical nightmare. Estimates already put it at a net cost of $1000 per laptop, after all maintenance and set up. That's for some glorified books, that could otherwise be printed for pennies a piece. (Obviously, retail books cost more, albeit much less than laptops, but there are many projects (e.g. Wikimedia's) to make public domain books that are far more feasible and less expensive than OLPC, and it certainly isn't ridiculous to suggest a publisher might donate books.)
Thirdly, they aren't going to be used. Is it honestly reasonable to suggest that someone is going to be handed a laptop, never having used a computer before, and start it up and start learning to read, write, and learn science, history, and geography? Then magically go on to learn vocational skill from it?
Fourth, is internet access. It is the one thing that could give it an advantage over books, although not enough to make up for it's disadvantages and cost. But it will have huge problems. If people are relying on the mesh networking for access, they won't get it. Joe next door lost his laptop. Bob's is broken, and the service staff don't have the time or resources to fix it within the month. Bill sold his. The other neighbors don't have children. This will certainly happen to a lot of people.
They need to work for real education. Spend this ridiculous amount of money building schools and training teachers.
"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. Give him a laptop, and he will have a doorstop."
Does a completely unhackable ink print of a fingerprint not qualify as biometric information?