okay, let's say i have a new idea. in order to get a patent on this idea, i have to implement it first and be able to show a working model. the trouble is, my idea can only be implemented after i have implemented other ideas which are already patented. these patent holders refuse to give me the right to implement the things covered by their patents. now i cannot do anything with my idea. instead, a large company will probably think of it at some stage and patent it.
i think the move to vinyl (if indeed there is such a thing) has more to do with an attempt to escape technology in one part of your life. retro-chic in other words.
call me cynical, but it's a bit like saying 'my computer my be infested with DRM, the secret service may have complete records of my whereabouts ever since i've had a mobile phone, all my text messages are recorded, and my computer regularly phones home to tell the manufacturer personal data, but i'm turning my nose up at this brave, new world by listening to vinyl'
bush won for a number of reasons which have little to do with the personalities of bush and kerry.
although there probably was some vote tampering to help the show along, the people who decided the election was the media. i don't know the exact figures, but i remember hearing that fox news, for example, spent much more airtime covering the republican convention than it did covering the democratic convention.
such basic irregularities (such coverage would be illegal in germany) were bad enough.
the advantage open source and free software enjoys in this case which explains why asterisk et al. are off to such a good start is that they are not being hindered by a disadvantage.
basically, microsoft and proprietary software had 20 years head start on foss and used this time building up dependencies which forced high levels of customer retention. this places foss at a considerable disadvantage. in the voip and internet telephony business, there is no established closed source solution in the eyes of the general populous. ergo open source is competing on a level playing field.
it's not discounting 25% of it's (sic) own users, it's discounting the software 25% of its users use.
moving to a more standards-compliant browser is usually no big deal. the move would have the advantage of letting web developers develop more consistant and more robust web sites. in short, the world could become a better place.
if a site is designed to only work with ie, then it is often much more difficult to view the site, if the user does not have windows (or apple) installed. should i now repartition my hard-drive, spend 130 euros on windows xp (and so finance a criminal corporation), buy anti-virus software/firewall etc., learn to use windows so that i can view the internet page of my bank?
if slashdot did refuse to render in ie, this wouldn't be hypocrisy.
isn't saying '90% of functionality is the same. The difference doesn't justify what we make of it' pretty much the same thing as saying 'because my personal design of ethernet plug is 90% as big as a standard one, i don't see what you have against me patenting it and selling them at a bargain rate to every university/hotel/government office in the world'.
okay, i'm exaggerating a little bit, but 90% compliance results in more than 10% of pages were you have problems, because a page uses more than one function.
no, it isn't free. not if it breaks dependencies and makes important software unuseable. the user has fallen into a proprietary software trap. what happens if the manufacturer of a software you use has gone out of business and sp2 breaks the software on your computer? if the software zou use(d) also saves information in a proprietary format, sp2 is suddenly enormously expensive.
not 'obviously, windows cannot win', but rather, 'microsoft has manouvered itself into an untenable position'. The EU is just making this clear by applying the law.
this isn't about the 'typical EU citizen'--this is about the minority. the typical EU citizen would not have a problem with the microsoft monopoly, the minority of citizens who use other software would. this is about protecting the minority.
no no no. microsoft has pushed itself into this position. there is no graceful way out now. either the eu will abide by the law and punish microsoft severely, or they will back down (like the american courts did) and the rule of law will take one more blow.
no no no. the job of a government isn't to follow the whims of the people but to produce a just system where the minority (independent security software producters) is not oppressed by a tyrannical majority (microsoft).
it's not about that. the problem is that if microsoft includes security tools in its operating system, less third party tools would be bought. the industry which currently offers employment to many thousand people would be destroyed. microsoft would achieve this not because their products would necessarily be better (although they do have a home advantage), but because of their status as a monopoly. they do not have to conceal their apis, they just have to move into the new market.
let's say i have a large company and i want to change all the servers from windows bla-bla-bla to linux. how much do good linux sys-admins cost compared with windows sys-admins? would i need as many of them, or just for the transitional period? is it worth having a support contract with ubuntu/redhat/suse if i have competent sys-admins?
no, it's not a rant. it's english journalism. the idea of english journalism is to entertain the reader. you have to be able to separate the facts from the polemnic. it is an established tradition in england.
it is not that microsoft will lose this war, it is that microsoft has already lost it. now we are witnessing the last stages of desparation. using the legal system to ensure dominance. linux as an operating system kernel overtook windows NT with version 2.0. nowadays it isn't even close. linux is light-years ahead and growing at a trememdous rate. the killer app for linux will come along, if it isn't already there as the 3d-desktop (which makes vista look like a DOS screen). and guess what? the 3d-desktop will continue to improve. they are updates every 2 weeks adding new features or improving the code. there is no way in hell that microsoft can compete in this market. the legal and technical hurdles the proprietary software world creates are transient.
howie
you know, microsoft is targeting people, just as apple is. these are both companies that see a financial benefit from selling their products.
linux isn't targeting users to the same extent, linux is about making the best possible operating system. and for this reason, linux is steam-rolling a path through the competition. we have a situation now, where a shoe-string project started in the early nineties is technically light-years ahead of anything else.
i imagine in the future our idea of the relationship between application software, operating system, and hardware will change.
i read reviews of vista where people complain because the return button looks different to the forward button, and that this will somehow hurt the sales of the product. if windows was written in a modular manner, the answer would be simple: just install a new window manager. (don't like konqueror? use nautilus (or hack konqueror)).
i am of course being one sided here. the distribution manufacturers do have an interest in market share for recognised standards, if not for their software per se. it only makes sense to an artist to let a superior language evolve if the rest of the world speaks a different language and refuses to tell you what it means. but i digress.
the basic point is, if you don't regard linux as being fundamentally different from a company, you're missing the point entirely.
howie
apple have managed to put together an operating system in such a short time because the operating system doesn't have to support that much hardware.
windows has never supported that much hardware itself, relying instead on hardware manufacturers to write drivers for it. of course, this leaves windows full of legacy apis in the kernel, to ensure that a driver written in 1993 for win 3.0 will still run on the new operating system.
the true master of hardware support is linux. the operating system offers native support for so many items of hardware on so many architectures. nothing remotely like it has ever existed before, as far as i know.
the right is not being removed by the corporation. inalienable rights cannot be removed, you always have them. the corporation is in this case transgressing your right and could be held accountable.
i think it's obvious, that they can't be talking about 6341 laptop batterypacks, but about 6341 laptop battery cells. at which point you can get these bulk for about 50 eurocents each.
i don't use linux because it's technically superior, i use linux because it's morally superior. if microsoft became a morally reasonable company, i would have nothing against using their products or compatible products. until this happens, i don't care how technically superior they are, i will not sully my hands with them.
this reminds me of that video of a beheading which the cia/fbi/white house/fox/whoever certified as being real, before some film students in poland(?) came forward and showed that they'd made it on their pcs at home.
the american military should be thanking this kid for testing their software and showing them how inept their safeguards are. if some kid in england can walk straight into a system which is meant to be the most secure on the planet, then anybody else could as well.
and btw, people dislike bush because he's a rediculous frontman for a group of extremely wealthy people who have complete control over american government and media, have stolen the last two elections, have initiated two major wars to line their own pockets and in so doing caused the death of many hundreds of thousands of people, and will continue to do similar things until the american people stop them.
no it wouldn't completely defeat the purpose. it would have the effect that no government agency could refuse to give someone a copy of a file in odt format which the agency already has in microsoft word format.
Slashdot Mirror
would be a good idea, but you still have to show a working model.
okay, let's say i have a new idea. in order to get a patent on this idea, i have to implement it first and be able to show a working model. the trouble is, my idea can only be implemented after i have implemented other ideas which are already patented. these patent holders refuse to give me the right to implement the things covered by their patents. now i cannot do anything with my idea. instead, a large company will probably think of it at some stage and patent it.
so that's how patents are bad for ideas.
howie
i think the move to vinyl (if indeed there is such a thing) has more to do with an attempt to escape technology in one part of your life. retro-chic in other words.
call me cynical, but it's a bit like saying 'my computer my be infested with DRM, the secret service may have complete records of my whereabouts ever since i've had a mobile phone, all my text messages are recorded, and my computer regularly phones home to tell the manufacturer personal data, but i'm turning my nose up at this brave, new world by listening to vinyl'
howie
bush won for a number of reasons which have little to do with the personalities of bush and kerry.
although there probably was some vote tampering to help the show along, the people who decided the election was the media. i don't know the exact figures, but i remember hearing that fox news, for example, spent much more airtime covering the republican convention than it did covering the democratic convention.
such basic irregularities (such coverage would be illegal in germany) were bad enough.
the advantage open source and free software enjoys in this case which explains why asterisk et al. are off to such a good start is that they are not being hindered by a disadvantage.
basically, microsoft and proprietary software had 20 years head start on foss and used this time building up dependencies which forced high levels of customer retention. this places foss at a considerable disadvantage. in the voip and internet telephony business, there is no established closed source solution in the eyes of the general populous. ergo open source is competing on a level playing field.
it's not discounting 25% of it's (sic) own users, it's discounting the software 25% of its users use. moving to a more standards-compliant browser is usually no big deal. the move would have the advantage of letting web developers develop more consistant and more robust web sites. in short, the world could become a better place. if a site is designed to only work with ie, then it is often much more difficult to view the site, if the user does not have windows (or apple) installed. should i now repartition my hard-drive, spend 130 euros on windows xp (and so finance a criminal corporation), buy anti-virus software/firewall etc., learn to use windows so that i can view the internet page of my bank? if slashdot did refuse to render in ie, this wouldn't be hypocrisy.
isn't saying '90% of functionality is the same. The difference doesn't justify what we make of it' pretty much the same thing as saying 'because my personal design of ethernet plug is 90% as big as a standard one, i don't see what you have against me patenting it and selling them at a bargain rate to every university/hotel/government office in the world'.
okay, i'm exaggerating a little bit, but 90% compliance results in more than 10% of pages were you have problems, because a page uses more than one function.
no, it isn't free. not if it breaks dependencies and makes important software unuseable. the user has fallen into a proprietary software trap. what happens if the manufacturer of a software you use has gone out of business and sp2 breaks the software on your computer? if the software zou use(d) also saves information in a proprietary format, sp2 is suddenly enormously expensive.
not 'obviously, windows cannot win', but rather, 'microsoft has manouvered itself into an untenable position'. The EU is just making this clear by applying the law.
this isn't about the 'typical EU citizen'--this is about the minority. the typical EU citizen would not have a problem with the microsoft monopoly, the minority of citizens who use other software would. this is about protecting the minority.
no no no. microsoft has pushed itself into this position. there is no graceful way out now. either the eu will abide by the law and punish microsoft severely, or they will back down (like the american courts did) and the rule of law will take one more blow.
no no no. the job of a government isn't to follow the whims of the people but to produce a just system where the minority (independent security software producters) is not oppressed by a tyrannical majority (microsoft).
it's not about that. the problem is that if microsoft includes security tools in its operating system, less third party tools would be bought. the industry which currently offers employment to many thousand people would be destroyed. microsoft would achieve this not because their products would necessarily be better (although they do have a home advantage), but because of their status as a monopoly. they do not have to conceal their apis, they just have to move into the new market.
let's say i have a large company and i want to change all the servers from windows bla-bla-bla to linux. how much do good linux sys-admins cost compared with windows sys-admins? would i need as many of them, or just for the transitional period? is it worth having a support contract with ubuntu/redhat/suse if i have competent sys-admins?
no, it's not a rant. it's english journalism. the idea of english journalism is to entertain the reader. you have to be able to separate the facts from the polemnic. it is an established tradition in england.
it is not that microsoft will lose this war, it is that microsoft has already lost it. now we are witnessing the last stages of desparation. using the legal system to ensure dominance. linux as an operating system kernel overtook windows NT with version 2.0. nowadays it isn't even close. linux is light-years ahead and growing at a trememdous rate. the killer app for linux will come along, if it isn't already there as the 3d-desktop (which makes vista look like a DOS screen). and guess what? the 3d-desktop will continue to improve. they are updates every 2 weeks adding new features or improving the code. there is no way in hell that microsoft can compete in this market. the legal and technical hurdles the proprietary software world creates are transient.
howie
you know, microsoft is targeting people, just as apple is. these are both companies that see a financial benefit from selling their products.
linux isn't targeting users to the same extent, linux is about making the best possible operating system. and for this reason, linux is steam-rolling a path through the competition. we have a situation now, where a shoe-string project started in the early nineties is technically light-years ahead of anything else.
i imagine in the future our idea of the relationship between application software, operating system, and hardware will change.
i read reviews of vista where people complain because the return button looks different to the forward button, and that this will somehow hurt the sales of the product. if windows was written in a modular manner, the answer would be simple: just install a new window manager. (don't like konqueror? use nautilus (or hack konqueror)).
i am of course being one sided here. the distribution manufacturers do have an interest in market share for recognised standards, if not for their software per se. it only makes sense to an artist to let a superior language evolve if the rest of the world speaks a different language and refuses to tell you what it means. but i digress.
the basic point is, if you don't regard linux as being fundamentally different from a company, you're missing the point entirely.
howie
apple have managed to put together an operating system in such a short time because the operating system doesn't have to support that much hardware.
windows has never supported that much hardware itself, relying instead on hardware manufacturers to write drivers for it. of course, this leaves windows full of legacy apis in the kernel, to ensure that a driver written in 1993 for win 3.0 will still run on the new operating system.
the true master of hardware support is linux. the operating system offers native support for so many items of hardware on so many architectures. nothing remotely like it has ever existed before, as far as i know.
the right is not being removed by the corporation. inalienable rights cannot be removed, you always have them. the corporation is in this case transgressing your right and could be held accountable.
good idea. count me in.
i think it's obvious, that they can't be talking about 6341 laptop batterypacks, but about 6341 laptop battery cells. at which point you can get these bulk for about 50 eurocents each.
howie
you really don't get it.
i don't use linux because it's technically superior, i use linux because it's morally superior. if microsoft became a morally reasonable company, i would have nothing against using their products or compatible products. until this happens, i don't care how technically superior they are, i will not sully my hands with them.
hope this clarifies things.
not wishing to troll, but i never thought i'd ever here the sentence 'amarok is very important to how i live'.
i must admit to having difficulties imagining how you live... but chacun a son gout
no no no.
this reminds me of that video of a beheading which the cia/fbi/white house/fox/whoever certified as being real, before some film students in poland(?) came forward and showed that they'd made it on their pcs at home.
the american military should be thanking this kid for testing their software and showing them how inept their safeguards are. if some kid in england can walk straight into a system which is meant to be the most secure on the planet, then anybody else could as well.
and btw, people dislike bush because he's a rediculous frontman for a group of extremely wealthy people who have complete control over american government and media, have stolen the last two elections, have initiated two major wars to line their own pockets and in so doing caused the death of many hundreds of thousands of people, and will continue to do similar things until the american people stop them.
no it wouldn't completely defeat the purpose. it would have the effect that no government agency could refuse to give someone a copy of a file in odt format which the agency already has in microsoft word format.