So MS switched names on the marketing program meant to tout it's capabilities over Linux. Seeing the vitriol being spewed in here I have to wonder, which side is really more hateful of the other here? The answer I get looking in here is not one which makes Linux look any more noble, simply less corporate.
Many of the things you rail against MS for are things MS has in the technology because corporations have asked for it (DRM for example), so flaming them for it, is flaming large corporate America, and isn't that who we're trying to woo over here? In many cases MS can win battles for corporate usage because on a very basic level they cater to corporations and most of the OS community has some level of contempt for one or more levels of "the man", meaning they will push against many things on personal or philosophical beliefs. The instant you tell a corporation they can't have what they want because you don't think it's ethically right, and someone else is willing to tell them they can have it, guess who wins?
And IMHO the largest hurdle still facing Linux is not a technical fact at all, it's the "what people already know how to use" fact of office existence. That can only change slowly and over time as more people grow up and go through school using non MS products. Unfortunately what many Linux supporters want is some kind of show down where they end up standing victorious over the bleeding corpses of Gates, Balmer, and Co. That isn't ever going to happen. At the best what will happen is that if Linux is really better, over time people and businesses will gradually move to using it more, and MS less. This is a war of attrition, and if this battle ever is "decided" it will end with a wimper, not a bang. The problem is that's not "cool" or "sexy" enough for many on either side.
Yeah, I'm already wearing my gel coated inferno suit, and yes it's got karma taped on the outside I'm willing to let burn in the ensuing flamefest simply to know I made the point I felt needed to be made.
Simply put the majority of hand over which happened in the last congressional election was done on the Democrats having a predominantly "Send us to DC and we will fix this mess and stand up to a president who has gone horribly astray".
Now people are asking them to do the job they were sent to do. If they aren't then they deserve any shellacking they get. People don't expect the republicans to turn on their boy in the white house, they do expect the Democrats not to roll over for him.
Instead to the untrained eye it would seem like they are spending their time in a bunch of high visibility witch hunts to make themselves look good while at the same time passing legislation like this , which is "new boss, same as the old boss".
I would like to know what evidence or proof you have to the "inevitable" catching up of open source to MS on the front of OS and Office apps.
I really would. Yes, there has been a trend towards more market acceptance of OS, that is great, but saying it's going to win because it's picked up to a larger sized minority doesn't prove that.
The Wii focuses on an innovative controller. It's about having controls that are intuitive and easy to pick up and learn.
I don't think "learning how to control the damn thing" should be part of what makes a game hardcore, which several "hardcore" games are. That is one reason to started getting less and less interested in console gaming when suddenly you had to remember which commands mapped to which of the 8-12 buttons plus D-pad on the controller. That much complexity? I'll just take a keyboard and play on my PC.
As for if the Wii has some hard to master games to it, go play the SSX game for the Wii for a while. Let me know what you think.
Is this "pledge" a PR release, or is it legally binding?
If new management comes into power at IBM can they suddenly just decide to rescind the pledge and nail people for IP infringement and demand royalties?
I'm not waiting for a specific price point, I'm just not enamoured with the product. They have generated no "need to own that" within me for it. And therein lies the failure.
If there was just one really revolutionary , fun game for it then I might be swayed. The problem is for me to believe that I would want to play said game somewhere, maybe at a friends house, in order to seal the deal and get me to buy one. And to this point besides one gadget and gaming accumulator where I work I don't know a single person I socialize with who owns one of these things.
Scientists were also overheard talking about the optimal delivery mechanism for this gene splicing technology being a radioactive spider. Further field tests are needed.
You can tell if when troubleshooting something you ask them "What SP/Update/Cluster Patch (for solaris) are you on?"
It's in how it's presented and perceived by the end users. Windows end users often don't want to see every little thing and every little fix. They want some big fix which hits on a regular schedule that they can install.
Maybe it's because whereas the geekcore like the idea of seeing dozens of small patches/updates to packages come down when they do an apt-get update the general populace likes seeing one package which fixes several bugs.
This is the difference between using Service Packs and using individual patches for individual packages/applications. It's a Monolith versus granular approach.
Because of the scale MS has to work on and support people it's far easier for them to work within the monolithic model.
As for why they choose to fix certain bugs in certain order , it's called prioritization. If they were dumping everything to fix every Vista bug then people would be bashing them for ignoring XP where the majority of their installed base still is. As it is they're handling the biggest fires first, then probably heading to take care of the medium and small sized ones next. In general this whole story is a heaping steaming pile of "meh" to me.
P.S. - If you're trying to earn some kinda Linux windows-bashing geek cred you're gonna need to step up the game a little to impress the judges around here, they're really finicky.
From TFA: "AT&T, which is requiring iPhone shoppers to sign up for a 2-year contract, has not yet revealed the service fees it will charge iPhone customers."
I know a word for what the service fees will be like. It's not pleasant, it's illegal almost everywhere, and it's something we commonly associate as something that happens to effeminate guys in prison.
If Microsoft wants to win over those waiting for compatibility issues to get resolved, and/or the release of SP1 for it why not just bit the profit bullet and man up on the problem?
A) Send developers out to work on site with hardware manufacturers who are having known device and/or software compatibility issues. (nVidia, I'm looking at you...) B) Redirect internal resources to get SP1 ready by, say, August. C) Find a way to build an XP style shell on top of the Vista style base. So you get the technology advantages of Vista (like improved app security), but you still look and feel like you're in XP.
Now, to get to why some people are really not upgrading it's cost. So let's address that.
A) Scrap the idea of "same program, with licensing enabling more features if you pay more" nonsense. At the MOST have a home and business edition. B) Get price competitive. No, I do not mean give it away for free like Linux, but be comparable to what people are paying for OS X. Right now they're still on the Sony mind train of "early adopters will pay anything" and they need to get off it. C) Take a page from how our government wants to handle illegal aliens. Offer a one-time cheap "Amnesty program" for people with illicit/older versions. "Have a pirated copy of XP, upgrade to Vista and get a permanent license for only $30. Have a legitimate copy? Upgrade for $20. But this ONLY lasts until XX/XX/XXXX..."
Some of step B I have seen already. At the local Fry's you can pick up the "System Builders" edition of vista for under $200, and it's the "ultimate" which I thought was costing upwards of $400. This, I think, was in response to the hobbyists who screamed bloody murder and were one of the most prone to switch to Linux groups.
The problem here is that MS has something along the lines of a DECADE of R&D costs to recoup with Vista. These ideas would cost them money. But at some point they need to ask themselves if they're in this to win it, or in this to milk it as long as they can.
The ending was to bring around a sense of inclusion of the viewer.
When the series started we were all outsiders seeing the dirty world of Tony, who was definitely a bad guy. We were boggling at how sadistic and brutal this world could be and not understanding how one could live in it.. yadda yadda yadda
By that last scene we're now seeing the world through his eyes. Every little detail around the restaurant was something we now saw as "that guy might be here to whack Tony" or "look out for that". In essence we're on the other side of that fence now. The job of this story is done at that point. He's told a story engrossing enough to pull you across to Tony's perspective. Done.
Essentially we've had 8 seasons of "a while in the life of Tony Soprano", it doesn't have any obligation to a morally just or redemptive ending. Life does, in fact, even for Tony, go on...
"Hey.. those nice Romans want me to come down to the collesium to talk about Christianity. Sounds like a rousing and obviously level headed forum for debate, don't you think?"
Here is the case they should bring the big guns to bear on. Make sure this person has the financial and legal backing to push this to conclusion......or of course drop it without prejudice the minute it looks like they might lose.
It's not the manufacturer who goes in saying "how much ad space do we need to buy to make sure you guys give us a glowing review?"
It's that if they buy a bunch of ad space and the product gets a mediocre to bad review they cut back. The sales guy asks them why, they say "You guys kinda trashed us, and we want to focus our advertising in friendlier environments".
At that point the sales guy goes to the VP's of the magazine, who pressure the editors , and POOF next product gets better review.
It's not as simple as this study would like it to be.
On top of that Those three articles and even the majority of TFA here all say it's a decently good smartphone. Heck PCmag gave it something like 4.5 out of 5. OTOH towards the end of ONE of the reviews is a disparaging comment about Windows Mobile 6, so what becomes the quote in the story lead in? Well that of course!
I've got Karma to burn and a full desire to call out the level to which this site is becoming more about hating the right things to hate and loving the right things to love rather than the actual technology involved.
With one exception. I rolled with a knoppix based setup. KnoppMyth. It did auto detect a lot, but there were some minor issues.
The problems were not in the backend, but in the frontend.
I switched out and tested MCE on top of WinXP (i.e. older, not the Vista version). Everything autodetected and ran out of the box, including tuner card. And it was easier to integrate with the other parts of my home network and media.
When it came down to it the deciding factor was which my wife could use easiest. People need to remember TV's are not "tinkering technology", they are simply supposed to work. And , in my case, the MCE option simply worked better and easier.
I don't agree with his flagrant fellating of Mr Jobs as the technological messiah. I have yet to test LinuxMCE, but also that one very nice looking video of it lost credibility with me when I realized it was just a fanboy of the thing evangelizing.
Right now, the MCE box does everything I need, and does it well.
IIRC ARpa-net and milnet get mentioned, and something about the web but not much. For me the book was not great due to it's predictions, but due to learning a lot about the motivation and lives behind the people who made things like the first computers, the first programming language, the a-bomb, the whole chapter on Alan Turing is just great..
A really nice book on the evolution of our tech
on
The Myths of Innovation
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I read this back in 86, a year after it was published in 85. Recently it was republished with a new afterword by the author. So now it's "retro history" but still great if you want to learn about the people behind a bunch of the technology :
"GPL3 will prevent them from owning free software by patents, so they will have to go free to be competitive or die under their dog food."
Here is where the problem lies. Yes, GPL3 will keep them from doing what the did with Novell and the whole cross licensing juggling show they put on to make money off it, and subsequently lock Novell into playing along with them. The problem is if it takes that option off the table what are they left with if they feel they have legitimate software patents on things and deserve compensation for their use? Lawsuits.
I share many of the same reservations about the new GPL that others have stated already, I will admit this. Personally, I think Stallman just has a holy war mentality over it, and whereas that's romantic to have it's not conducive to the acceptance of more OSS integrated with non-OSS.
The fight isn't close to done, it's close to getting far uglier though.
I am tempering my "gloom and doom". I'm not saying it will destroy OSS. All it has to do to be a win for Microsoft is show that OSS as venerabilities from a legal standpoint and they don't have to get a million judgments to so that in the eyes of corporate America. The corporate IT departments will move their OSS stuff to people MS has partnerships with to be "safe". Because suddenly to be in legal compliance they will need to get updates and they'll have to say "who is legally responsible for this", and in some cases that answer is too ambiguous for corporate liking (which has been one of the problems with many OSS projects for a while).
The real problems would be if some of those patents aren't just on explicit pieces of code, but rather ways of doing things with software which there is no easy work around for. Most of these would be in the realm of interoperability. Some of these patents they have aren't on explicit pieces of code, which the "well you have to show us the code" crowd should remember.
Another aspect of this to think about is how far people like the founding farther of GNU licensing will go to make a philosophical/religious point about "free software".
Be a huge monopolistic overlord and financial robber-baron for his career, then dive into philanthropy in his later years so that history records him as a great humanitarian.
More power to him, as it gets good works done with those mountains of money he has.
"Because start menu -> Add/remove programs -> Ticking 'ubuntu restricted extras' to get proprietary codecs, flash, java etc. is so much harder than 'Click2Run'."
Actually yeah, it is. Maybe not for us. But I see needing to explain what a repository is, what a codec is, why some codecs are restricted, why others aren't, and how to use the repository to put codecs onto the system to my 12 year old niece, or 55 year old mother.
Both of which would then as "But why is it when I have Windows it just works without all this?"
Once again the hurdle for Linux acceptance is not technology, it's ease-of-use.
Slashdot Mirror
So MS switched names on the marketing program meant to tout it's capabilities over Linux. Seeing the vitriol being spewed in here I have to wonder, which side is really more hateful of the other here? The answer I get looking in here is not one which makes Linux look any more noble, simply less corporate.
Many of the things you rail against MS for are things MS has in the technology because corporations have asked for it (DRM for example), so flaming them for it, is flaming large corporate America, and isn't that who we're trying to woo over here? In many cases MS can win battles for corporate usage because on a very basic level they cater to corporations and most of the OS community has some level of contempt for one or more levels of "the man", meaning they will push against many things on personal or philosophical beliefs. The instant you tell a corporation they can't have what they want because you don't think it's ethically right, and someone else is willing to tell them they can have it, guess who wins?
And IMHO the largest hurdle still facing Linux is not a technical fact at all, it's the "what people already know how to use" fact of office existence. That can only change slowly and over time as more people grow up and go through school using non MS products. Unfortunately what many Linux supporters want is some kind of show down where they end up standing victorious over the bleeding corpses of Gates, Balmer, and Co. That isn't ever going to happen. At the best what will happen is that if Linux is really better, over time people and businesses will gradually move to using it more, and MS less. This is a war of attrition, and if this battle ever is "decided" it will end with a wimper, not a bang. The problem is that's not "cool" or "sexy" enough for many on either side.
Yeah, I'm already wearing my gel coated inferno suit, and yes it's got karma taped on the outside I'm willing to let burn in the ensuing flamefest simply to know I made the point I felt needed to be made.
Simply put the majority of hand over which happened in the last congressional election was done on the Democrats having a predominantly "Send us to DC and we will fix this mess and stand up to a president who has gone horribly astray".
Now people are asking them to do the job they were sent to do. If they aren't then they deserve any shellacking they get. People don't expect the republicans to turn on their boy in the white house, they do expect the Democrats not to roll over for him.
Instead to the untrained eye it would seem like they are spending their time in a bunch of high visibility witch hunts to make themselves look good while at the same time passing legislation like this , which is "new boss, same as the old boss".
What flavor was this mornings kool aid?
I would like to know what evidence or proof you have to the "inevitable" catching up of open source to MS on the front of OS and Office apps.
I really would. Yes, there has been a trend towards more market acceptance of OS, that is great, but saying it's going to win because it's picked up to a larger sized minority doesn't prove that.
The Wii focuses on an innovative controller. It's about having controls that are intuitive and easy to pick up and learn.
I don't think "learning how to control the damn thing" should be part of what makes a game hardcore, which several "hardcore" games are. That is one reason to started getting less and less interested in console gaming when suddenly you had to remember which commands mapped to which of the 8-12 buttons plus D-pad on the controller. That much complexity? I'll just take a keyboard and play on my PC.
As for if the Wii has some hard to master games to it, go play the SSX game for the Wii for a while. Let me know what you think.
Is this "pledge" a PR release, or is it legally binding?
If new management comes into power at IBM can they suddenly just decide to rescind the pledge and nail people for IP infringement and demand royalties?
I'm not waiting for a specific price point, I'm just not enamoured with the product. They have generated no "need to own that" within me for it. And therein lies the failure.
If there was just one really revolutionary , fun game for it then I might be swayed. The problem is for me to believe that I would want to play said game somewhere, maybe at a friends house, in order to seal the deal and get me to buy one. And to this point besides one gadget and gaming accumulator where I work I don't know a single person I socialize with who owns one of these things.
Where is this generations Katamari?
Scientists were also overheard talking about the optimal delivery mechanism for this gene splicing technology being a radioactive spider. Further field tests are needed.
Good to see Uncle Rico come out to play finally.
I wonder if the RIAA can throw a football over a mountain?
Yes, exactly.
RHAS 4 Update 3 == SP for linux.
You can tell if when troubleshooting something you ask them "What SP/Update/Cluster Patch (for solaris) are you on?"
It's in how it's presented and perceived by the end users. Windows end users often don't want to see every little thing and every little fix. They want some big fix which hits on a regular schedule that they can install.
Maybe it's because whereas the geekcore like the idea of seeing dozens of small patches/updates to packages come down when they do an apt-get update the general populace likes seeing one package which fixes several bugs.
This is the difference between using Service Packs and using individual patches for individual packages/applications. It's a Monolith versus granular approach.
Because of the scale MS has to work on and support people it's far easier for them to work within the monolithic model.
As for why they choose to fix certain bugs in certain order , it's called prioritization. If they were dumping everything to fix every Vista bug then people would be bashing them for ignoring XP where the majority of their installed base still is. As it is they're handling the biggest fires first, then probably heading to take care of the medium and small sized ones next. In general this whole story is a heaping steaming pile of "meh" to me.
P.S. - If you're trying to earn some kinda Linux windows-bashing geek cred you're gonna need to step up the game a little to impress the judges around here, they're really finicky.
From TFA:
"AT&T, which is requiring iPhone shoppers to sign up for a 2-year contract, has not yet revealed the service fees it will charge iPhone customers."
I know a word for what the service fees will be like. It's not pleasant, it's illegal almost everywhere, and it's something we commonly associate as something that happens to effeminate guys in prison.
If Microsoft wants to win over those waiting for compatibility issues to get resolved, and/or the release of SP1 for it why not just bit the profit bullet and man up on the problem?
A) Send developers out to work on site with hardware manufacturers who are having known device and/or software compatibility issues. (nVidia, I'm looking at you...)
B) Redirect internal resources to get SP1 ready by, say, August.
C) Find a way to build an XP style shell on top of the Vista style base. So you get the technology advantages of Vista (like improved app security), but you still look and feel like you're in XP.
Now, to get to why some people are really not upgrading it's cost. So let's address that.
A) Scrap the idea of "same program, with licensing enabling more features if you pay more" nonsense. At the MOST have a home and business edition.
B) Get price competitive. No, I do not mean give it away for free like Linux, but be comparable to what people are paying for OS X. Right now they're still on the Sony mind train of "early adopters will pay anything" and they need to get off it.
C) Take a page from how our government wants to handle illegal aliens. Offer a one-time cheap "Amnesty program" for people with illicit/older versions. "Have a pirated copy of XP, upgrade to Vista and get a permanent license for only $30. Have a legitimate copy? Upgrade for $20. But this ONLY lasts until XX/XX/XXXX..."
Some of step B I have seen already. At the local Fry's you can pick up the "System Builders" edition of vista for under $200, and it's the "ultimate" which I thought was costing upwards of $400. This, I think, was in response to the hobbyists who screamed bloody murder and were one of the most prone to switch to Linux groups.
The problem here is that MS has something along the lines of a DECADE of R&D costs to recoup with Vista. These ideas would cost them money. But at some point they need to ask themselves if they're in this to win it, or in this to milk it as long as they can.
The ending was to bring around a sense of inclusion of the viewer.
When the series started we were all outsiders seeing the dirty world of Tony, who was definitely a bad guy. We were boggling at how sadistic and brutal this world could be and not understanding how one could live in it.. yadda yadda yadda
By that last scene we're now seeing the world through his eyes. Every little detail around the restaurant was something we now saw as "that guy might be here to whack Tony" or "look out for that". In essence we're on the other side of that fence now. The job of this story is done at that point. He's told a story engrossing enough to pull you across to Tony's perspective. Done.
Essentially we've had 8 seasons of "a while in the life of Tony Soprano", it doesn't have any obligation to a morally just or redemptive ending. Life does, in fact, even for Tony, go on...
"Hey.. those nice Romans want me to come down to the collesium to talk about Christianity. Sounds like a rousing and obviously level headed forum for debate, don't you think?"
Here is the case they should bring the big guns to bear on. Make sure this person has the financial and legal backing to push this to conclusion... ...or of course drop it without prejudice the minute it looks like they might lose.
It's not the manufacturer who goes in saying "how much ad space do we need to buy to make sure you guys give us a glowing review?"
It's that if they buy a bunch of ad space and the product gets a mediocre to bad review they cut back. The sales guy asks them why, they say "You guys kinda trashed us, and we want to focus our advertising in friendlier environments".
At that point the sales guy goes to the VP's of the magazine, who pressure the editors , and POOF next product gets better review.
It's not as simple as this study would like it to be.
Just come out with a nice firmware update to more fully utilize the USB support.
a) USB HD
b) USB keyboard
Do that and I am peachy keen fine with the world.
I've got to agree on this.
On top of that Those three articles and even the majority of TFA here all say it's a decently good smartphone. Heck PCmag gave it something like 4.5 out of 5. OTOH towards the end of ONE of the reviews is a disparaging comment about Windows Mobile 6, so what becomes the quote in the story lead in? Well that of course!
I've got Karma to burn and a full desire to call out the level to which this site is becoming more about hating the right things to hate and loving the right things to love rather than the actual technology involved.
With one exception. I rolled with a knoppix based setup. KnoppMyth. It did auto detect a lot, but there were some minor issues.
The problems were not in the backend, but in the frontend.
I switched out and tested MCE on top of WinXP (i.e. older, not the Vista version). Everything autodetected and ran out of the box, including tuner card. And it was easier to integrate with the other parts of my home network and media.
When it came down to it the deciding factor was which my wife could use easiest. People need to remember TV's are not "tinkering technology", they are simply supposed to work. And , in my case, the MCE option simply worked better and easier.
I don't agree with his flagrant fellating of Mr Jobs as the technological messiah. I have yet to test LinuxMCE, but also that one very nice looking video of it lost credibility with me when I realized it was just a fanboy of the thing evangelizing.
Right now, the MCE box does everything I need, and does it well.
IIRC ARpa-net and milnet get mentioned, and something about the web but not much. For me the book was not great due to it's predictions, but due to learning a lot about the motivation and lives behind the people who made things like the first computers, the first programming language, the a-bomb, the whole chapter on Alan Turing is just great..
I read this back in 86, a year after it was published in 85. Recently it was republished with a new afterword by the author. So now it's "retro history" but still great if you want to learn about the people behind a bunch of the technology :
E xpanding-Technology/dp/0262681153/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/ 002-1089548-0663244?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179948333 &sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Tools-Thought-History-Mind-
"GPL3 will prevent them from owning free software by patents, so they will have to go free to be competitive or die under their dog food."
Here is where the problem lies. Yes, GPL3 will keep them from doing what the did with Novell and the whole cross licensing juggling show they put on to make money off it, and subsequently lock Novell into playing along with them. The problem is if it takes that option off the table what are they left with if they feel they have legitimate software patents on things and deserve compensation for their use? Lawsuits.
I share many of the same reservations about the new GPL that others have stated already, I will admit this. Personally, I think Stallman just has a holy war mentality over it, and whereas that's romantic to have it's not conducive to the acceptance of more OSS integrated with non-OSS.
The fight isn't close to done, it's close to getting far uglier though.
I am tempering my "gloom and doom". I'm not saying it will destroy OSS. All it has to do to be a win for Microsoft is show that OSS as venerabilities from a legal standpoint and they don't have to get a million judgments to so that in the eyes of corporate America. The corporate IT departments will move their OSS stuff to people MS has partnerships with to be "safe". Because suddenly to be in legal compliance they will need to get updates and they'll have to say "who is legally responsible for this", and in some cases that answer is too ambiguous for corporate liking (which has been one of the problems with many OSS projects for a while).
The real problems would be if some of those patents aren't just on explicit pieces of code, but rather ways of doing things with software which there is no easy work around for. Most of these would be in the realm of interoperability. Some of these patents they have aren't on explicit pieces of code, which the "well you have to show us the code" crowd should remember.
Another aspect of this to think about is how far people like the founding farther of GNU licensing will go to make a philosophical/religious point about "free software".
He's hoping to pull a Carnegie.
Be a huge monopolistic overlord and financial robber-baron for his career, then dive into philanthropy in his later years so that history records him as a great humanitarian.
More power to him, as it gets good works done with those mountains of money he has.
"Because start menu -> Add/remove programs -> Ticking 'ubuntu restricted extras' to get proprietary codecs, flash, java etc. is so much harder than 'Click2Run'."
Actually yeah, it is. Maybe not for us. But I see needing to explain what a repository is, what a codec is, why some codecs are restricted, why others aren't, and how to use the repository to put codecs onto the system to my 12 year old niece, or 55 year old mother.
Both of which would then as "But why is it when I have Windows it just works without all this?"
Once again the hurdle for Linux acceptance is not technology, it's ease-of-use.