The other issue is that businessmen/women don't give a damn about Open Source, save for ownership issues of anything designed in-house. Why? Unless the point of teh company is to develope software, they are not interested in getting at the source code. They are interested in a solution that works and will be supported by a vender of some sort.
The theology of Open Source is meaningless to them.
and I tend to agree with them. I'm not aprogrammer. I don't care about the source code. I couldn't find a trojen or back door if the comments in the source code told me it was there. I do care about open formats and standards that allow flexibility in my software chioices (say, using MPG video rather than WMV, or XML rather than that funky crap Word and Excel use).
The problem isn't always "quality" but "completion". I'm always running into programs versioned at 0.4 and 0.9-beta all the time. Even on the better distrobutions. Personally, I'm tired of half-finished programs being distributed as workable solutios when they aren't. The worst is what look like good and usefull programs that have been abandoned by their developers.
"But you could finish it yourself", some of you are saying. No, that I can not do. I am not a programmer. I have not written a program since 1994 and I have no plans to start again, unless you all want to convert to Turbo Pascal, which I doubt you are willing to do.
I mean instead of letting the companies attempt to crack down on piracy their own way the companies beg and plead that the US government step in and be the daddy.
Okay, How should the companies deal with the issue? Ever more protected media formats? DDOS attacks on downloader's computers? Poluting P2P networks with destructive viruses? Private armies that kick down your door at 3:00 am and take your computer away while they beat the crap out of you?
The problem is that the government is not supposed to be involved in such matters.
Bullshit.
The ONLY thing the governement to supposed to do receive taxes to defend our countries citizens from outside attacks.
What part of "uphold the common good" do you not understand? Do you honestly think we should disband the police and let everyone do as they please? Do you really want a world full of corporations hiding in huge fortresses with their private armies while the private citizens either join forces with these fudal overlords or hide in our hovels and hope that we don't get in anyone's crossfire?
You want to see a world without a police force? Go to Iraq. Go see a land where fathers form armed posses to insure that their children to to and from school alive. Go see a world where rape, murder and looting run rampant and unpunished.
Is that the world you want?
[..] or be involved in corporate legalities that do not directly affect the us citizens.
But it does affect the US citizen. It affects the US citizens that own or are employed by these companies. Or does the owner of a large company lose any rights to see that his/her holdings are protected by the law?
Online music piracy (incorrectly identified BTW), is nothing more than an easier way to "tape" a CD. We all know this. They know this. The bottom line is that the corporation needs to address this NOT the fucking government!!!
And just how would they address this? I don't want BMG bursting through my doors with M16's blazing away. Do you?
But I could be wrong...
There is no "could" about it.
Weren't record sales up 10% during the height of Napster?
The economy was also in a hell of a lot better shape at that time. And that's not even the real issue here. The money issues what they push because it's the issue people can relate to. The issue here is control. Copyright holders want to control the media they own. And justifiably so. It doesn't matter to them that P2P networls might have increased sales of an album. What matters to them is that someone has usurped control of their holdings.
Their concern is no different than the usual gang of GNU zealots who get upset every time a company iuses GNU sourcecode without abiding by the GPL (not giving their improvements back to the community, removing the existing credtis, etc...).
Yes, but you are citing extreme examples. What about movies where the included sex, violence or profanity is not central to the story, where it is just bolted on to get a hight rating so adults will actually go watch it?
I wholly agree that editing out the sex and violence from 1984 and Clockwork Orange would be stupid, but the people who would want to remove Kate Winslet's (sp?) nude scenes from Titanic wouldn't want to watch Clockwork Orange or 1984 in the first place.
Personally I'd like to be able to edit the stupidity out of movies. But that's me.
What single thing that makes mankind unique is that we ask questions. We wonder why things are the way they are. We want to know what came before us and what will follow after us. We want to know, well, EVERYTHING!
Why does any answer have to have a practical application? Stop trying to make everything around you serve your will. Take some time to enjoy and examine the magisty, the wonder, the terrible beauty that is the universe we live in.
Re:Another 3dfx, etc, etc.
on
iBox Episode 2
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· Score: 1
You seem to forget one very important thing about Apple Computers: They are a HARDWARE coimpany. The software they provide, as good as it is, is there to service the hardware they sold you.
It is not in their best interests for clone makers to exist. It eats at their bottom line. And the bottom line is what all businesses care about.
And just how would clone makers "take a huge chunk of the market"? Do you really think THAT many people will jump ship because Macs suddenly got a few hundred dollars cheaper?
Let me ask you something: Where is the monsoon of new Linux converts? Linux is free. OpenOffice is free. Mozilla is free. KDE and Gnome are both free. gcc is free. Hell, everything about Linux is free. That translates into quite a savings on software costs associated with computers. So why hasn't John Q. Public and Joe Sixpack come running to Linux?
Why do you blame them because you bought a piece of crap DVD player? Sounds like the one at fault here is you. Take a little responcibility for your actions and admit you screwed the pooch.
When you do decide to buy working DVD player, do a little research first. Find out which units are crap BEFORE you waste your money on them. It doesn't take much time and it will save you money.
It matters because this is another expensive boondogle. It won't work. It will never work.
The problem is NOT the technology and it never was. The problem is the draconian nature of the entertainment industry and the rediculous prices they charge.
As for protecting the rights of the artists and content creators, we already have laws that do that.
While Plan9 is often rediculed as being outdated, it no doubt has its share of novel and useful algorithms, which may now be incorporated into more mainstream open source OSes such as Linux
You know, that's one of the problems I have with the Linux/Open Source movement. Everything is just fodder for rape and pillage. Failed/abondoned OSes/Games/whatever are just resources to be picked through and glommed onto Linux, like the junked robots from A.I.
Re:100% Right on the money!
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
And that 90% "routine, simple stuff" is what is killing Microsoft products. All of the huge security problems are the result of failures to see the problems in the mundane. Think about all of the buffer overrun and underrun exploits. They are the result of some inexperienced programmer (actually, a huge army of them) not thinking that function(whatever); is ever going to recieve invalid data so they never bother to impliment data checking routines.
Even with the mondane, routine, boring-as-watching-paint-dry code, you want someone in there with the skill and experience to know the things that can go wrong. Who can see the difference bewteen the Ideal World and the Real World. Someone who knows in his/her bones that the user is going to do things with the program that the programmers never imagined and has the skill and wisdom to take steps to mitigate the damage.
100% Right on the money!
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
It's all about the money. The truth is that younger workers will work for less. And that's all the hiring managers care about. Why pay ten coders a decent living wage when you can hire twenty kids for starvation wages? Who cares if the product is full of bugs? We'll fix that in the 1.1 release!
Youngin's can pick things up quicker in areas where older people have no experience, but they also tend to make grander and more damaging errors due to their lack of experience.
Bah! They should teach Pascal as a first language! Pascal was intentionally designed as a teaching language. BASIC, in all of its forms, teaches very bad programming concepts.
NO, they do understand the question. They also unserstand the technological problems much better than you do. There are already a dozen well thought out replies that lay out the basic issues already, so I won't bother rewriting what they had to say.
Eight years ago the OEM cost of MS Office was about $40-$50 per machines. Word Perfect Office was about $150.00 per machine OEM. The store I worked for wanted to offer a choice of office suites but we had a damned hard time telling people that the computer with WP Office was $100.00 more than the exact same system with MS Office. At margins of about $200.00 per $2,000.00 computer, we were not willing to eat $100.00 per system just to give people a choice.
I'm hungry and I want to eat! As much as I'm glad that people "over there" are getting jobs, I'm very unhappy that the employers in my country won't hire me, their own countryman.
It's easy to be idealistic when you are living off the graces of yor parents generosity. Wait until you have a mortgage to pay and children to feed. Your attitude might change a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Mostly because I agree that a lot of open source projects exist for that very reason.
But I'm also a cynic.
The other issue is that businessmen/women don't give a damn about Open Source, save for ownership issues of anything designed in-house. Why? Unless the point of teh company is to develope software, they are not interested in getting at the source code. They are interested in a solution that works and will be supported by a vender of some sort.
The theology of Open Source is meaningless to them.
and I tend to agree with them. I'm not aprogrammer. I don't care about the source code. I couldn't find a trojen or back door if the comments in the source code told me it was there. I do care about open formats and standards that allow flexibility in my software chioices (say, using MPG video rather than WMV, or XML rather than that funky crap Word and Excel use).
The problem isn't always "quality" but "completion". I'm always running into programs versioned at 0.4 and 0.9-beta all the time. Even on the better distrobutions. Personally, I'm tired of half-finished programs being distributed as workable solutios when they aren't. The worst is what look like good and usefull programs that have been abandoned by their developers.
"But you could finish it yourself", some of you are saying. No, that I can not do. I am not a programmer. I have not written a program since 1994 and I have no plans to start again, unless you all want to convert to Turbo Pascal, which I doubt you are willing to do.
*BOING*
When teh Mac first came out I openly laughed at the silly little machine and the people who used them.
Now I want one. o_O
Okay, How should the companies deal with the issue? Ever more protected media formats? DDOS attacks on downloader's computers? Poluting P2P networks with destructive viruses? Private armies that kick down your door at 3:00 am and take your computer away while they beat the crap out of you?
The problem is that the government is not supposed to be involved in such matters.
Bullshit.
The ONLY thing the governement to supposed to do receive taxes to defend our countries citizens from outside attacks.
What part of "uphold the common good" do you not understand? Do you honestly think we should disband the police and let everyone do as they please? Do you really want a world full of corporations hiding in huge fortresses with their private armies while the private citizens either join forces with these fudal overlords or hide in our hovels and hope that we don't get in anyone's crossfire?
You want to see a world without a police force? Go to Iraq. Go see a land where fathers form armed posses to insure that their children to to and from school alive. Go see a world where rape, murder and looting run rampant and unpunished.
Is that the world you want?
[..] or be involved in corporate legalities that do not directly affect the us citizens.
But it does affect the US citizen. It affects the US citizens that own or are employed by these companies. Or does the owner of a large company lose any rights to see that his/her holdings are protected by the law?
Online music piracy (incorrectly identified BTW), is nothing more than an easier way to "tape" a CD. We all know this. They know this. The bottom line is that the corporation needs to address this NOT the fucking government!!!
And just how would they address this? I don't want BMG bursting through my doors with M16's blazing away. Do you?
But I could be wrong...
There is no "could" about it.
The economy was also in a hell of a lot better shape at that time. And that's not even the real issue here. The money issues what they push because it's the issue people can relate to. The issue here is control. Copyright holders want to control the media they own. And justifiably so. It doesn't matter to them that P2P networls might have increased sales of an album. What matters to them is that someone has usurped control of their holdings.
Their concern is no different than the usual gang of GNU zealots who get upset every time a company iuses GNU sourcecode without abiding by the GPL (not giving their improvements back to the community, removing the existing credtis, etc...).
Specifically covered in BBQ sauce and slowly rotating on a spit above a huge pile of hot coals.
HMMM! Longpork veal! It doesn't get any better than that!
I've never been elected to anything in my entire life! And I hold that as a personal badge of honor.
The have both S-Video and composite. If you use S-video you can turn the composite video out into a coax digital audio out. Very sweet.
You missed the Japanese Fembot Mini-ITX case. Check out the unfortunate location of the PSU fan. :(
Yes, but you are citing extreme examples. What about movies where the included sex, violence or profanity is not central to the story, where it is just bolted on to get a hight rating so adults will actually go watch it?
I wholly agree that editing out the sex and violence from 1984 and Clockwork Orange would be stupid, but the people who would want to remove Kate Winslet's (sp?) nude scenes from Titanic wouldn't want to watch Clockwork Orange or 1984 in the first place.
Personally I'd like to be able to edit the stupidity out of movies. But that's me.
What single thing that makes mankind unique is that we ask questions. We wonder why things are the way they are. We want to know what came before us and what will follow after us. We want to know, well, EVERYTHING!
Why does any answer have to have a practical application? Stop trying to make everything around you serve your will. Take some time to enjoy and examine the magisty, the wonder, the terrible beauty that is the universe we live in.
You seem to forget one very important thing about Apple Computers: They are a HARDWARE coimpany. The software they provide, as good as it is, is there to service the hardware they sold you.
It is not in their best interests for clone makers to exist. It eats at their bottom line. And the bottom line is what all businesses care about.
And just how would clone makers "take a huge chunk of the market"? Do you really think THAT many people will jump ship because Macs suddenly got a few hundred dollars cheaper?
Let me ask you something: Where is the monsoon of new Linux converts? Linux is free. OpenOffice is free. Mozilla is free. KDE and Gnome are both free. gcc is free. Hell, everything about Linux is free. That translates into quite a savings on software costs associated with computers. So why hasn't John Q. Public and Joe Sixpack come running to Linux?
f) Something to do with CowboyNiel
"You get what you pay for."
Why do you blame them because you bought a piece of crap DVD player? Sounds like the one at fault here is you. Take a little responcibility for your actions and admit you screwed the pooch.
When you do decide to buy working DVD player, do a little research first. Find out which units are crap BEFORE you waste your money on them. It doesn't take much time and it will save you money.
You need to have your XBox looked at. Maybe there's dust on the lens. My copy works just fine on my XBox. And my friend's XBox.
It matters because this is another expensive boondogle. It won't work. It will never work.
The problem is NOT the technology and it never was. The problem is the draconian nature of the entertainment industry and the rediculous prices they charge.
As for protecting the rights of the artists and content creators, we already have laws that do that.
You know, that's one of the problems I have with the Linux/Open Source movement. Everything is just fodder for rape and pillage. Failed/abondoned OSes/Games/whatever are just resources to be picked through and glommed onto Linux, like the junked robots from A.I.
And that 90% "routine, simple stuff" is what is killing Microsoft products. All of the huge security problems are the result of failures to see the problems in the mundane. Think about all of the buffer overrun and underrun exploits. They are the result of some inexperienced programmer (actually, a huge army of them) not thinking that function(whatever); is ever going to recieve invalid data so they never bother to impliment data checking routines.
Even with the mondane, routine, boring-as-watching-paint-dry code, you want someone in there with the skill and experience to know the things that can go wrong. Who can see the difference bewteen the Ideal World and the Real World. Someone who knows in his/her bones that the user is going to do things with the program that the programmers never imagined and has the skill and wisdom to take steps to mitigate the damage.
It's all about the money. The truth is that younger workers will work for less. And that's all the hiring managers care about. Why pay ten coders a decent living wage when you can hire twenty kids for starvation wages? Who cares if the product is full of bugs? We'll fix that in the 1.1 release!
Youngin's can pick things up quicker in areas where older people have no experience, but they also tend to make grander and more damaging errors due to their lack of experience.
Bah! They should teach Pascal as a first language! Pascal was intentionally designed as a teaching language. BASIC, in all of its forms, teaches very bad programming concepts.
NO, they do understand the question. They also unserstand the technological problems much better than you do. There are already a dozen well thought out replies that lay out the basic issues already, so I won't bother rewriting what they had to say.
Eight years ago the OEM cost of MS Office was about $40-$50 per machines. Word Perfect Office was about $150.00 per machine OEM. The store I worked for wanted to offer a choice of office suites but we had a damned hard time telling people that the computer with WP Office was $100.00 more than the exact same system with MS Office. At margins of about $200.00 per $2,000.00 computer, we were not willing to eat $100.00 per system just to give people a choice.
That killed off any WP business for our company.
I'm hungry and I want to eat! As much as I'm glad that people "over there" are getting jobs, I'm very unhappy that the employers in my country won't hire me, their own countryman.
It's easy to be idealistic when you are living off the graces of yor parents generosity. Wait until you have a mortgage to pay and children to feed. Your attitude might change a bit.