Personally, as a former Windows 95b user, I prefer KDE over GNOME. However, I use tons of the GNOME apps that came with my RedHat 6.1 distro. I simply find the KDE interface more intuitive (or probably just closer to what I'm used to) and more stable. It's good to read things like:
The wm-spec team is almost ready with their new window manager specification which is unified across GNOME and KDE.
Anyways, I wish the GNOME team the best. If you're not a programmer, you can still help by sending in bug reports as you find the need to do so.
When the interviewer asked Mr. Gates about user's wishing that Microsoft and Radio Shack in this particular case could possibly make available some more, a lot of detail about the [Level II] ROM, Bill basically denied, deferred, and dodged the question:
G: Well, if there's a problem with Level II ROM, people can work with Radio Shack. They have their own support team.
B-K: I'm talking about the software specifically.
G: Why is that an area of such interest? Why don't they demand that the circuit diagrams for the Z-80 chip be included then? All that stuff be documented? I mean, they bought the box for one function, and the price was set to support them.
But the really telling part is this comment:
G: We put flexibility into the ROM which isn't documented at all, and which is not sold as a feature on the thing.
It's not a bug! It's a feature! We would be foolish to believe that a person like Bill Gates would add a feature and not charge for it. I doubt that much of anything was documented in those ROMs
Microsoft has made a comprehensive effort to build Windows 2000 with security in mind, including having a staff of 15 people study the code for breaches, denials of service, and bugs.
What are some rough yet realistic estimates on the number of qualified people doing this sort of thing to open source operating systems?
Remember that the people you count:
must be qualified
must be committed, not just contributors
I would suspect that conservative estamates would put the number greater than Microsoft's by at least a factor of 20. Witness the power of peer review.
I thought it was interesting that although Red Hat came out on top by a decent margin, the article said that RedHat could be even faster if they payed more attention to the community.
Update: Thanks to efforts of the Loki Entertainment email tech-support staff, I can now frag in Q3 with the best of 'em. (To bad I'm not that good of a player;))
It turns out that because I had installed Glide I was having a conflict problem. Also the version I bought was one of the first produced and had a small bug that messed up a config file. I was able to edit the file and run the game! Yay Loki, yay id!
Corel GNU/Linux is aimed towards the consumer desktop market, perhaps with an office slant. How successful (profitable?) has your product been in that market and what do you predict for the future of Corel GNU/Linux?
Do you see Corel GNU/Linux as having a major role in defeating that other company's desktop monopoly or is your product aimed at more of a niche market?
Crashing the W2K release should not be about bashing Microsoft. It should be about promoting GNU/Linux as an alternative. If you are unclear about how to go about that, please read the Linux Advocacy Mini How-To.
For information about the Microsoft W2K release hoopla, check out Microsoft's Event Page.
I hope that the support is good for these games. I've been trying to get Quake III to run properly for days now. I just asked Loki support to help via email and they seem to have decent support services. I doubt that the average end-user would be able to trouble shoot anything with the sparse documentation that comes with the game, however.
Microsoft only stated that Windows 2000 is the most secure operating system Microsoft has ever shipped. No claims about being the most secure OS; just that W2K is the most secure Microsoft OS.
If you check out LinuxOne's order form you will notice that the source codes are available upon request. The fact that the default choice for receiving source codes is "no" is another story...
Also notice that although they have changed their name from "LinuxOpen" to "LinuxOne" (as stated in the article above) linuxopen.com is still registered and their orderforms are located on a computer called gabriel.linuxopen.com
the house is located near the head waters that feed the well. (and no, the septic tank doesnt have a chance in hell of getting into the mix). i get it tested about once a month and bacteria/chemical filter it.
of course there is a chance that it will somehow be contaminated (sp?) but then if you realized how far out we from that which is known as civilization...
Not that I'm bragging, but I sure am glad that I live in an area where well water is a viable alternative to the public sewage other people drink. We have our waters tested regularly and it's alot more pure than a majority of the bottled water being sold these days. Of course if on January 1, 2000 the power goes out, and Mexico invades I guess I'll still be screwed. Oh well...
Excellent. I think one of the biggest mistakes in user-friendliness is assuming that the user has the I.Q. of a houseplant. I want complete control of my desktop with the access to that control arranged in a very logical (user-friendly) way. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
Will the new Debian distribution be aimed more toward's programmers, server stuff, end-users (like Corel's Debian distribution), or will it try to cover all bases equally well?
Set your browser to "prompt" before excepting cookies. Now view the SAP/Linux page. You'll notice that every time the animated tux.gif turns and looks at you a cookie message will pop-up.
To confirm the conspiracies that are now formulating in your brain, right click on the animated tux penguin and choose to view it (as in, view the.gif only). The cookies still try to set each time the penguin looks at you!
Now to see what happens when I open the.gif in GIMP...
And how is NTs world crashing down? This company wasn't using NT and still isn't using NT so NT and MS lost nothing.
MS lost a prospective client to Linux. So did the rest of the server companies...
NT is still growing rapidly. Sure Linux is growing faster, it's easy to double your installed base when the current base is extremely small.
Correction: Linux's install base was small, and Linux is growing much faster. Some estimate that Linux will eclipse MS "technology" in terms of server usage by the end of 2001. Personally, I think that will come much sooner...
If you think that W2K is NT4+SP6 you obviously haven't used either one and are either mindlessly repeating what someone equally mis informed [sic] has told you or just making things up.
I've used them both. W2K beta has a slicker interface but "feels" alot like NT4+SP5. But then I use Linux whenever possible, so I'm definitely not an "expert" Microsoft user.
According to the article, Kenwood chose Linux for very intelligent reasons; not because Linux has become the latest IT fad. Their people considered all of the server choices out there and picked the one that best fit their needs.
This is true, but I think that if the game had been designed with that high a level of detail the playability would really start to take a dive. Remember that plans like you described are hashed out by teams of specialists in real war situations. The StarCraft game is intended for one to four player teams, and each player usually controls on her own units. Still, good points you made there.
...even those that *try* to a degree (e.g. games that attract grognards) do not model things like communications issues, intelligence (down to profiles of leaders...), logistics (not that many games have the concept of moving ammunition, fuel, or food), delegation (generals did NOT have to order infantry sergeants to get their men to seek cover if, say, an MG42 starts firing towards their lines), and so forth.
StarCraft does a seemingly good job of simulating most of those things although the units involved are completely fictional.:)
I don't think it would be wise to make generalizations that game type #1 or game type #2 is worse on childrens' mindsets. It is just to complicated and each game should be rated on an individual basis by the child's parents.
<sarcasm>But this would require that parents be responsible for their own children, and we all know that the various governments of the world are responsible for raising children.</sarcasm>
If a parent thinks that a game is too violent for their child, don't let that child have the game. It's really that simple. Parents who whine about how hard or impossible it is to raise children in one breath and then give those same children obnoxios and irresponsible leeway in the other just need to be spanked themselves!
Long live the liberals [who are the only sane people left]!
That was sarcasm, for the humor impaired. Just curious, are you a die-hard liberal or do you consider issues for yourself, reguardless of their liberal/conservative "status"? Just wondering; not trying to start a flame war!
This country was founded for the people, by the people not for corporations, by their marketing staff. [Actually, one could draw some parallels there, but I'm not going to get into that one...]
On one hand, it does erk me when any politian goes groveling for $$$ from corporations who then "might" expect a few political favors, yadda, yadda, yadda.
On the other hand, the post was partially an attempt at some dry humor and partially an attempt to remind people that they can at least try to get in contact with our political leaders.
From what I can gather from your reply, you seem to have read way too much into my post. Also, just curious, if my post was so stupid and "not worth annoying people about", why did you post a reply?
The last remark about voting intelligently was a cut on those who blindly follow any given politcal party; a very stupid voting strategy indeed. Learn who your candidates are and what they claim to stand for. Ask questions. Get involved. Vote intelligently!
Cheers
p.s. please excuse any stooopid activist spelling errors;)
Slashdot Mirror
Here's The Honorable Jerry MacArthur Hultin's webpage. You can even snag a 1.5 megabyte picture of him! (Why anyone would do that is beyond me...)
I only except cookies from a VERY select group of websites, /. being one of them. Cookies are bad, very bad (except the chocolate chip kind, yum!).
Personally, as a former Windows 95b user, I prefer KDE over GNOME. However, I use tons of the GNOME apps that came with my RedHat 6.1 distro. I simply find the KDE interface more intuitive (or probably just closer to what I'm used to) and more stable. It's good to read things like:
The wm-spec team is almost ready with their new window manager specification which is unified across GNOME and KDE.
Anyways, I wish the GNOME team the best. If you're not a programmer, you can still help by sending in bug reports as you find the need to do so.
I find that http://www.aol.com reminds me of opening the trunk of my car and discovering some gym clothes I exercised in last month.
When the interviewer asked Mr. Gates about user's wishing that Microsoft and Radio Shack in this particular case could possibly make available some more, a lot of detail about the [Level II] ROM, Bill basically denied, deferred, and dodged the question:
G: Well, if there's a problem with Level II ROM, people can work with Radio Shack. They have their own support team.
B-K: I'm talking about the software specifically.
G: Why is that an area of such interest? Why don't they demand that the circuit diagrams for the Z-80 chip be included then? All that stuff be documented? I mean, they bought the box for one function, and the price was set to support them.
But the really telling part is this comment:
G: We put flexibility into the ROM which isn't documented at all, and which is not sold as a feature on the thing.
It's not a bug! It's a feature! We would be foolish to believe that a person like Bill Gates would add a feature and not charge for it. I doubt that much of anything was documented in those ROMs
I guess old habits do die hard.
Microsoft has made a comprehensive effort to build Windows 2000 with security in mind, including having a staff of 15 people study the code for breaches, denials of service, and bugs.
What are some rough yet realistic estimates on the number of qualified people doing this sort of thing to open source operating systems?
Remember that the people you count:
I would suspect that conservative estamates would put the number greater than Microsoft's by at least a factor of 20. Witness the power of peer review.
I thought it was interesting that although Red Hat came out on top by a decent margin, the article said that RedHat could be even faster if they payed more attention to the community.
Update: Thanks to efforts of the Loki Entertainment email tech-support staff, I can now frag in Q3 with the best of 'em. (To bad I'm not that good of a player ;))
It turns out that because I had installed Glide I was having a conflict problem. Also the version I bought was one of the first produced and had a small bug that messed up a config file. I was able to edit the file and run the game! Yay Loki, yay id!
Just the thoughts of a happy gamer
Corel GNU/Linux is aimed towards the consumer desktop market, perhaps with an office slant. How successful (profitable?) has your product been in that market and what do you predict for the future of Corel GNU/Linux?
Do you see Corel GNU/Linux as having a major role in defeating that other company's desktop monopoly or is your product aimed at more of a niche market?
Crashing the W2K release should not be about bashing Microsoft. It should be about promoting GNU/Linux as an alternative. If you are unclear about how to go about that, please read the Linux Advocacy Mini How-To.
For information about the Microsoft W2K release hoopla, check out Microsoft's Event Page.
I hope that the support is good for these games. I've been trying to get Quake III to run properly for days now. I just asked Loki support to help via email and they seem to have decent support services. I doubt that the average end-user would be able to trouble shoot anything with the sparse documentation that comes with the game, however.
Just the thoughts of a frustrated gamer
Microsoft only stated that Windows 2000 is the most secure operating system Microsoft has ever shipped. No claims about being the most secure OS; just that W2K is the most secure Microsoft OS.
Gotta love that spin...
If you check out LinuxOne's order form you will notice that the source codes are available upon request. The fact that the default choice for receiving source codes is "no" is another story...
Also notice that although they have changed their name from "LinuxOpen" to "LinuxOne" (as stated in the article above) linuxopen.com is still registered and their orderforms are located on a computer called gabriel.linuxopen.com
Funny stuff...
the house is located near the head waters that feed the well. (and no, the septic tank doesnt have a chance in hell of getting into the mix). i get it tested about once a month and bacteria/chemical filter it.
of course there is a chance that it will somehow be contaminated (sp?) but then if you realized how far out we from that which is known as civilization...
cheers
Not that I'm bragging, but I sure am glad that I live in an area where well water is a viable alternative to the public sewage other people drink. We have our waters tested regularly and it's alot more pure than a majority of the bottled water being sold these days. Of course if on January 1, 2000 the power goes out, and Mexico invades I guess I'll still be screwed. Oh well...
Excellent. I think one of the biggest mistakes in user-friendliness is assuming that the user has the I.Q. of a houseplant. I want complete control of my desktop with the access to that control arranged in a very logical (user-friendly) way. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
Will the new Debian distribution be aimed more toward's programmers, server stuff, end-users (like Corel's Debian distribution), or will it try to cover all bases equally well?
This is interesting...
Set your browser to "prompt" before excepting cookies. Now view the SAP/Linux page. You'll notice that every time the animated tux .gif turns and looks at you a cookie message will pop-up.
To confirm the conspiracies that are now formulating in your brain, right click on the animated tux penguin and choose to view it (as in, view the .gif only). The cookies still try to set each time the penguin looks at you!
Now to see what happens when I open the .gif in GIMP...
And how is NTs world crashing down? This company wasn't using NT and still isn't using NT so NT and MS lost nothing.
MS lost a prospective client to Linux. So did the rest of the server companies...
NT is still growing rapidly. Sure Linux is growing faster, it's easy to double your installed base when the current base is extremely small.
Correction: Linux's install base was small, and Linux is growing much faster. Some estimate that Linux will eclipse MS "technology" in terms of server usage by the end of 2001. Personally, I think that will come much sooner...
If you think that W2K is NT4+SP6 you obviously haven't used either one and are either mindlessly repeating what someone equally mis informed [sic] has told you or just making things up.
I've used them both. W2K beta has a slicker interface but "feels" alot like NT4+SP5. But then I use Linux whenever possible, so I'm definitely not an "expert" Microsoft user.
Happy computing
According to the article, Kenwood chose Linux for very intelligent reasons; not because Linux has become the latest IT fad. Their people considered all of the server choices out there and picked the one that best fit their needs.
Choice is good. Go Linux.
Happy computing!
This is true, but I think that if the game had been designed with that high a level of detail the playability would really start to take a dive. Remember that plans like you described are hashed out by teams of specialists in real war situations. The StarCraft game is intended for one to four player teams, and each player usually controls on her own units. Still, good points you made there.
Happy computing
StarCraft does a seemingly good job of simulating most of those things although the units involved are completely fictional. :)
Happy computing!
I don't think it would be wise to make generalizations that game type #1 or game type #2 is worse on childrens' mindsets. It is just to complicated and each game should be rated on an individual basis by the child's parents.
<sarcasm>But this would require that parents be responsible for their own children, and we all know that the various governments of the world are responsible for raising children.</sarcasm>
If a parent thinks that a game is too violent for their child, don't let that child have the game. It's really that simple. Parents who whine about how hard or impossible it is to raise children in one breath and then give those same children obnoxios and irresponsible leeway in the other just need to be spanked themselves!
Happy computing
Republicans are the scum of the earth!
Bill Clinton got a terribly bad wrap!
Long live the liberals [who are the only sane people left]!
That was sarcasm, for the humor impaired. Just curious, are you a die-hard liberal or do you consider issues for yourself, reguardless of their liberal/conservative "status"? Just wondering; not trying to start a flame war!
Have a good day!
No basis?
This country was founded for the people, by the people not for corporations, by their marketing staff. [Actually, one could draw some parallels there, but I'm not going to get into that one...]
On one hand, it does erk me when any politian goes groveling for $$$ from corporations who then "might" expect a few political favors, yadda, yadda, yadda.
On the other hand, the post was partially an attempt at some dry humor and partially an attempt to remind people that they can at least try to get in contact with our political leaders.
From what I can gather from your reply, you seem to have read way too much into my post. Also, just curious, if my post was so stupid and "not worth annoying people about", why did you post a reply?
The last remark about voting intelligently was a cut on those who blindly follow any given politcal party; a very stupid voting strategy indeed. Learn who your candidates are and what they claim to stand for. Ask questions. Get involved. Vote intelligently!
Cheers
p.s. please excuse any stooopid activist spelling errors ;)