I don't see any mention of a control group or comparison to other occupations.
Maybe 34% of all people gain 10 pounds anyway regardless of their profession or even whether or not they're employed. A lot of people gain weight over time irrespective. What phenomena is being described here?
I know I'm in the minority when I say I'm against the CAN-SPAM Act. I'm against it because it's pretty much a waste of time.
Note the contradictory statement FTA:
The judgment is a big victory for MySpace, although service providers often have a tough time collecting such awards.
I'd hazard a guess whatever MySpace collects it's still gonna end up costing them more in attorney fees than they could have spent on a technological solution.
Five years after CAN-SPAM and spam is at an all-time high. CAN-SPAM hasn't even made a dent.
The real problem with CAN-SPAM is that it's an extremely inefficient way of stopping something that could be accomplished more elegantly with technology.
Indeed, the reason my inbox isn't filled with spam is because of real-time black holes and filters, *not* because of CAN-SPAM.
that according to FBI statistics the Internet is a relatively safe place for kids.
The mythological sexual predator has far greater opportunities in the real world than he does online. According the the stats a child a gazillion times more likely to be physically abused in the real world than online.
The real danger is from the child's teacher, priest, or guardian, not the Internet.
In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the US Treasury...
But ultimately the winners are going to have to make their money back by sticking it to the consumer. The bidding system is basically a government tax on something that's free, the airways. So the revenues Google so kindly helped raise for the Feds are ultimately gonna be paid for by the end user.
This is nothing more than a shameless tax on a free medium -- the wireless spectrum.
Historically the FCC has always accepted bids almost without regard to how the winner will use the spectrum and it's overall benefit to the consumer. This time round they have the requirement that the spectrum will be 'somewhat' open to competition by forcing the winner to allow any compatible device to use the spectrum.
But by allowing bids of +$4 billion they leave the winner no choice but to stick it to the consumer in order to get their money back. And that will come in the tried and true method of nickel and diming us for every trivial service they can think of.
The winners in this auction should be the ones who have the best ideas that will best benefit the consumer, *not* the ones who come up with the most bucks. I mean, did the FCC even consider that the 700Mhz part of the spectrum would probably be best used for a meshed Internet and that MIT already has a working prototype for such a network? Sadly we probably just gonna get another phone network based on the old 20th century model that maximizes profit and stifles innovation.
The patent system is *not* supposed to raise the price of security.
The patent system is supposed to:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts [source: US Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8.
Making a profit from something as obvious as putting a filter in a firewall does little or nothing to achieve this goal. The largest patent holders (including IBM and Microsoft) all agree the system needs reform. But patent reform is a lot like campaign finance reform, everyone agrees there's a problem but no one really has anything they can realistically take to congress.
Apple is not interested in paying royalties to Microsoft for WMA
Is that what the plaintiffs are asking as a remedy?
I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?
Apple may have a better product than Microsoft but I'd be interested to know how the Sheman Antitrust Act applies differently to Apple than it did in The US vs Microsoft antitrust case when Microsoft excluded Netscape from its desktop. The question in law is how is Apple controlling the hardware and the content different from say Standard Oil controlling the product and the distribution system (i.e. the railroad). My guess is that this is not a trivial suit. A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option. I think that's what this suit is about. And no matter how you feel about Apple's right to exercise such control, the law on the matter may be entirely different.
Perhaps the last thing youtube needs right now is this kind of feature-creep. If enough people share our dislikes the clip won't be shared and it won't be popular.
What's nice about youtube is any clip can become popular. It's a very democratic system. Contrast this with the big media distribution system we've suffered all these years (aka television) where other people decided what was good for us.
I wouldn't call this a resounding victory. There are still plenty o' torrent sites out there.
The MPAA, like the RIAA, has failed the grasp the significance of what's unfolding in the 21st century. However you feel about sharing copyrighted material (right or wrong), suing sites into oblivion will not stop what is apparently going to be the new pervasive form of distribution. Just as the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile, so the delivery mechanism of physically moving data around on DVDs in face of the industry's unwillingness to provide it's own online delivery alternative, will naturally give way to a more efficient system.
Take a hint: For about the past 70 years, advertising has fully paid for free content via broadcast radio and TV.
So if Viamcom is going to put shows on the Internet then it would make sense for them to recommend BitTorrent as a distribution method, even though Viacom is also an ISP, the total bandwidth is the same whether downloaded directly from a Viacom site or using a torrent. But using a torrent is the least expensive and most efficient method for the distributor.
OK, so assuming Viacom, as a content producer and an ISP, prefers BitTorrent, where does that put Comcast? I wonder if this will also encourage competition?
So they have all this great bandwidth and all they can think of is more phones?
Phone systems are a relic of the last century. A much better use would be mobile IP addresses where consumers choose their own devices for Internet, text, voice, or whatever and cell phone companies can't limit our choice of devices or nickel and dime us for trivial stuff, like opening a port for email and selling it as a service (I'm sure glad the cell phone companies aren't running the Internet).
So perhaps we need to stop thinking in terms of phones and start thinking more about expanding the wireless spectrum to be part of the Internet because that's where we'll get real choice and innovation.
Before computers were networked we used to copy files onto floppy disks and walk them down the hall to the next office. As a form of content distribution, this is about where DVDs are at today.
From an engineering point of view, putting stuff on plastic disks and physically moving them to their destination is a pretty dumb way to distribute content in the face of an Internet.
In the absence of a successfully viable Internet distribution method that ensures some form of copy restriction, the likely reason for movies on DVD is to safeguard distribution rights. But things may change if the current method of funding Internet content through advertising is to expand to include television and movies, much like it does for broadcast TV and radio. So while IBM may hope to gain a market share in DVD advertising, the whole medium may be obsolete in a few years. Just a thought.
I wonder if the problem with Municipal Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi in general, is that companies like EarthLink
are trying to operate with their hands tied behind their back with restrictive power limitations and limited frequencies while the FCC gives away large chunks of the best part of the
spectrum to cell phone providers for millions of dollars who then nickel and dime us for every trivial service they can think of.
Perhaps he reason we don't have a ubiquitous and cheap wireless Internet and why TCP/IP mesh networks are *not* on the horizon for the 700MHz part of the spectrum is because the government
insists on auctioning off a zero cost medium for mega bucks to legal monopolies who have
no choice but to turn around and stick it their customers.
Maybe we need to stop thinking in terms of phone systems when we think about the spectrum and start thinking more in terms of extending the Internet. Just a thought.
Allard sounds like Ballmer. Microsoft is still clinging the old media establishment ideology of 'content providers' who only get paid because you've DRMed their stuff.
They still don't get the concept of an Internet.
Anyone who's been following trends since Napster was shut down back in 2001 will understand we're undergoing a natural progression from centralized, controlled delivery systems to those where content is everywhere all at once.
An obvious revenue model for this is one where advertising is embedded in content freely distributed over the Internet. After all, that's what worked for free broadcast TV and radio. It's the easiest and least restrictive method of raising revenue to pay for content. I doubt folks will be flocking to buy xboxes and zunes AND giving money to Microsoft so they can watch their favorite shows. Nothing to see here, move on.
Perhaps the whole problem with the FCC is that they auction the spectrum to the highest bidder.
No wonder providers lock out third party handsets. They just paid billions for the spectrum, they have every incentive to maximize profits.
What would be most beneficial to the consumer is perhaps a company that just sold mobile IP addresses and had nothing to do with selling devices. Let consumers choose their own devices in a competitive market for the bandwidth they purchase. Maybe the FCC should stop thinking about billions of short term dollars and start thinking about what's best for consumers and the industry as a whole.
...a massive super bug some day that will kill you...
That's sounds a bit emotional. If it has any basis in scientific fact you haven't established it.
I believe you're espousing the age old theory that we'll eventually destroy ourselves by playing with nature.
That mad scientists with blow us all up.
When automobiles were invented, some people believed it
was unhealthy and dangerous to travel faster than 30 miles an hour because it wasn't natural.
People make similar arguments again cloning.
Ever since the dawn of man people have
manipulated nature to their own advantage.
That's how we got here today.
That's why you're posting on slashdot.
Wether man is breeding cats to solve his rat problem,
or genetically modifying food because he thinks it tastes better,
he's always seeking to change his environment. That's who he is.
It would be foolish to say we won't eventually destroy ourselves by fooling around with fire.
But what's the point of saying we will?
As these CRIMINALS should - guilty - pay the piper or don't do the crime
This is a civil matter, not a criminal one. No crime has been committed. No one will be found 'guilty' of anything. If they refuse to settle they could be found 'liable' for copyright 'infringement' in court.
Try not to get too emotional about this. It's irrelevant what one thinks is wrong or right. The RIAA cannot go on indefinitely suing the whole world. And file-sharing is not going to go away any more than the Internet. It's likely that as more artists target their audiences directly, online, the less we'll have need for an organization like the RIAA. History and a new economic model will defeat them.
Microsoft is under no more obligation than youtube to safegaurd
against "pirated content".
Microsoft is extending DRM way beyond anything required by the DMCA.
Microsoft perhaps has a theory that if they can protect
content providers, those providers will be more willing to distribute through Microsoft.
When Vista has a certain critical mass, look for deal with
a major provider to distribute their content through Microsoft.
This is likely to come in the form of DVDs playable on a
Windows-only hard-ware DRMed platform.
Vista will probably be the most hacked OS ever. The content providers
are going to find out their content is no more protected from unauthorized access
than an average computer is against spyware and consumers are going to
encounter all kinds of problems watching legitimate content.
But probably, what's more likely to happen over the next few years, given the history
of Napster-->Gnutella-->BitTorrent, is that the whole landscape
will change. And Vista's 'secure' content will likely seem irrelevant.
Some wise media folks already know it's better make money by
selling content than suing people.
We're already starting to see freely distributed content,
funded by embedded advertising. There's a lot of opportunity out there,
but people need to abandon the old ways of the last century and start
being a bit more creative. That includes Microsoft.
Also remember that in our system the only way to challenge a law as unconstitutional is to break it.
I don't think that's true. Four librarians from Connecticut
challenged the law without breaking it and won, after which the FBI withdrew the SNL.
What I don't understand is why the FBI doesn't get a good old fashion search warrent signed by a judge in accordance with the fourth amendment. I always thought having a judge sign off on these things was part of the checks and balances designed to prevent abuse.
Other cynical parts of me want to say they are also smart enough to be able to recognize the top 40 drivel that is being disseminated by the recording industry.
Maybe you shouldn't read too much into this. This is a survey, not a study.
Having a control group might help.
If they excluded the 'gifted' variable and did the survey on the whole population,
and got similar results, I wonder if this would be news.
if one wants something different then there is Linux...
Been a Linux admin for 10 years, running slackware as my sole OS for most of that time. The one thing people don't understand about Linux on the desktop is the nature of Linux and GNU development.
Windows and Macs offer a relatively stable development environment with a limited number of options. By stable I don't mean "doesn't crash", I mean "not changing much over time". An app that worked on the first version of XP will likely work on the last.
Linux isn't like that. Linux and the core developers have said many times they're not really interested in going out of their way to support backwards compatibility of legacy apps because doing so would hinder the nature of kernel development.
Add to that the gazillion combinations of kernel features, libs, etc. and you begin to see why it's so difficult for a company like Dell to sell pre-installed Linux to consumers who expect everything (including third party apps) to just work.
In Linux an app that was developed for one configuration won't necessarily compile under a different configuration. It often depends, not only what kernel version you have and how that kernel was compiled, but what libraries you have, not only what libraries but what versions, are you running gtk-1.2 or gtk-2.0?
The great thing about Linux is there are so many choices, you can make the system to almost anything. I work on a 2000+ Linux cluster and what we do with Linux is limited only by our imaginations.
But as far as the desktop goes, for folks who expect everything to be like it is in a Windows and Mac world, there remain a few challenges.
ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES ARE OFFERED. If you have a ton of money riding on finding all the right loopholes and getting everything 100% perfect, buy a tax program or use an accountant.
I think you'll find commercial programs also come with a similar disclaimer, although worded in more convoluted legalese. Usually if there's a bug in the software the fine print prevents you from any recourse against the manufacturer.
In the United States, it's not illegal to be a monopoly. But, once a monopoly, what was once a competitive advantage becomes criminal conduct.
I thought being a monopoly in the US was illegal under the
Sherman and
Clayton antitrust acts.
Microsoft was found guilty
of acting as a monopoly in 2002 after being sued by 20 US State Attorneys General.
You might think the punishment didn't go far enough, but that's
different from a monopoly not being illegal.
My problem, I guess, is that I just can't bring myself to trust these folks any longer. They'll go for cheap over quality any day of the week- even when it means a 7 year delay in the next operating system only to have a bunch of GUI bells and whistles and no real new fixes or functionality.
But is there really an inversely proportional relationship between cheap and quality?
In other words do people from, say, India have less talent than Americans because they're willing to work for less?
I wonder if better paid Americans really do produce better products?
If so, I wonder what it is about Americans that makes them better and why there's not a market for such talent.
I work for a company as an administrator for a 2000+ Linux cluster.
We hire a lot of people from India and Eastern Europe. Should we fire them because they're not American?
There seems to be a hint of racism in your argument. I really don't know, perhaps
we are better off being isolationist.
But maybe you need to make the argument against free trade
and diminishing borders in broader economic terms rather than
in just citing Microsoft's delayed release of Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see any mention of a control group or comparison to other occupations.
Maybe 34% of all people gain 10 pounds anyway regardless of their profession or even whether or not they're employed. A lot of people gain weight over time irrespective. What phenomena is being described here?
I know I'm in the minority when I say I'm against the CAN-SPAM Act. I'm against it because it's pretty much a waste of time.
Note the contradictory statement FTA:
The judgment is a big victory for MySpace, although service providers often have a tough time collecting such awards.
I'd hazard a guess whatever MySpace collects it's still gonna end up costing them more in attorney fees than they could have spent on a technological solution.
Five years after CAN-SPAM and spam is at an all-time high. CAN-SPAM hasn't even made a dent.
The real problem with CAN-SPAM is that it's an extremely inefficient way of stopping something that could be accomplished more elegantly with technology.
Indeed, the reason my inbox isn't filled with spam is because of real-time black holes and filters, *not* because of CAN-SPAM.
If only the lawyers were programmers.
Realize also ....
that according to FBI statistics the Internet is a relatively safe place for kids.
The mythological sexual predator has far greater opportunities in the real world than he does online. According the the stats a child a gazillion times more likely to be physically abused in the real world than online.
The real danger is from the child's teacher, priest, or guardian, not the Internet.
In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the US Treasury ...
But ultimately the winners are going to have to make their money back by sticking it to the consumer. The bidding system is basically a government tax on something that's free, the airways. So the revenues Google so kindly helped raise for the Feds are ultimately gonna be paid for by the end user.
is this education or indoctrination?
Why not let scientists decide what should be taught in science?
Now there's a radical idea!
This is nothing more than a shameless tax on a free medium -- the wireless spectrum.
Historically the FCC has always accepted bids almost without regard to how the winner will use the spectrum and it's overall benefit to the consumer. This time round they have the requirement that the spectrum will be 'somewhat' open to competition by forcing the winner to allow any compatible device to use the spectrum.
But by allowing bids of +$4 billion they leave the winner no choice but to stick it to the consumer in order to get their money back. And that will come in the tried and true method of nickel and diming us for every trivial service they can think of.
The winners in this auction should be the ones who have the best ideas that will best benefit the consumer, *not* the ones who come up with the most bucks. I mean, did the FCC even consider that the 700Mhz part of the spectrum would probably be best used for a meshed Internet and that MIT already has a working prototype for such a network? Sadly we probably just gonna get another phone network based on the old 20th century model that maximizes profit and stifles innovation.
Respectfully disagree.
The patent system is *not* supposed to raise the price of security.
The patent system is supposed to:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts [source: US Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8.
Making a profit from something as obvious as putting a filter in a firewall does little or nothing to achieve this goal. The largest patent holders (including IBM and Microsoft) all agree the system needs reform. But patent reform is a lot like campaign finance reform, everyone agrees there's a problem but no one really has anything they can realistically take to congress.
Apple is not interested in paying royalties to Microsoft for WMA
Is that what the plaintiffs are asking as a remedy?
I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?
Apple may have a better product than Microsoft but I'd be interested to know how the Sheman Antitrust Act applies differently to Apple than it did in The US vs Microsoft antitrust case when Microsoft excluded Netscape from its desktop. The question in law is how is Apple controlling the hardware and the content different from say Standard Oil controlling the product and the distribution system (i.e. the railroad). My guess is that this is not a trivial suit. A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option. I think that's what this suit is about. And no matter how you feel about Apple's right to exercise such control, the law on the matter may be entirely different.
Perhaps the last thing youtube needs right now is this kind of feature-creep. If enough people share our dislikes the clip won't be shared and it won't be popular.
What's nice about youtube is any clip can become popular. It's a very democratic system. Contrast this with the big media distribution system we've suffered all these years (aka television) where other people decided what was good for us.
I wouldn't call this a resounding victory. There are still plenty o' torrent sites out there.
The MPAA, like the RIAA, has failed the grasp the significance of what's unfolding in the 21st century. However you feel about sharing copyrighted material (right or wrong), suing sites into oblivion will not stop what is apparently going to be the new pervasive form of distribution. Just as the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile, so the delivery mechanism of physically moving data around on DVDs in face of the industry's unwillingness to provide it's own online delivery alternative, will naturally give way to a more efficient system.
Take a hint: For about the past 70 years, advertising has fully paid for free content via broadcast radio and TV.
So if Viamcom is going to put shows on the Internet then it would make sense for them to recommend BitTorrent as a distribution method, even though Viacom is also an ISP, the total bandwidth is the same whether downloaded directly from a Viacom site or using a torrent. But using a torrent is the least expensive and most efficient method for the distributor.
OK, so assuming Viacom, as a content producer and an ISP, prefers BitTorrent, where does that put Comcast? I wonder if this will also encourage competition?
So they have all this great bandwidth and all they can think of is more phones?
Phone systems are a relic of the last century. A much better use would be mobile IP addresses where consumers choose their own devices for Internet, text, voice, or whatever and cell phone companies can't limit our choice of devices or nickel and dime us for trivial stuff, like opening a port for email and selling it as a service (I'm sure glad the cell phone companies aren't running the Internet).
So perhaps we need to stop thinking in terms of phones and start thinking more about expanding the wireless spectrum to be part of the Internet because that's where we'll get real choice and innovation.
Before computers were networked we used to copy files onto floppy disks and walk them down the hall to the next office. As a form of content distribution, this is about where DVDs are at today.
From an engineering point of view, putting stuff on plastic disks and physically moving them to their destination is a pretty dumb way to distribute content in the face of an Internet.
In the absence of a successfully viable Internet distribution method that ensures some form of copy restriction, the likely reason for movies on DVD is to safeguard distribution rights. But things may change if the current method of funding Internet content through advertising is to expand to include television and movies, much like it does for broadcast TV and radio. So while IBM may hope to gain a market share in DVD advertising, the whole medium may be obsolete in a few years. Just a thought.
I wonder if the problem with Municipal Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi in general, is that companies like EarthLink are trying to operate with their hands tied behind their back with restrictive power limitations and limited frequencies while the FCC gives away large chunks of the best part of the spectrum to cell phone providers for millions of dollars who then nickel and dime us for every trivial service they can think of.
Perhaps he reason we don't have a ubiquitous and cheap wireless Internet and why TCP/IP mesh networks are *not* on the horizon for the 700MHz part of the spectrum is because the government insists on auctioning off a zero cost medium for mega bucks to legal monopolies who have no choice but to turn around and stick it their customers.
Maybe we need to stop thinking in terms of phone systems when we think about the spectrum and start thinking more in terms of extending the Internet. Just a thought.
Allard sounds like Ballmer. Microsoft is still clinging the old media establishment ideology of 'content providers' who only get paid because you've DRMed their stuff.
They still don't get the concept of an Internet.
Anyone who's been following trends since Napster was shut down back in 2001 will understand we're undergoing a natural progression from centralized, controlled delivery systems to those where content is everywhere all at once.
An obvious revenue model for this is one where advertising is embedded in content freely distributed over the Internet. After all, that's what worked for free broadcast TV and radio. It's the easiest and least restrictive method of raising revenue to pay for content. I doubt folks will be flocking to buy xboxes and zunes AND giving money to Microsoft so they can watch their favorite shows. Nothing to see here, move on.
Perhaps the whole problem with the FCC is that they auction the spectrum to the highest bidder.
No wonder providers lock out third party handsets. They just paid billions for the spectrum, they have every incentive to maximize profits.
What would be most beneficial to the consumer is perhaps a company that just sold mobile IP addresses and had nothing to do with selling devices. Let consumers choose their own devices in a competitive market for the bandwidth they purchase. Maybe the FCC should stop thinking about billions of short term dollars and start thinking about what's best for consumers and the industry as a whole.
...a massive super bug some day that will kill you ...
That's sounds a bit emotional. If it has any basis in scientific fact you haven't established it. I believe you're espousing the age old theory that we'll eventually destroy ourselves by playing with nature. That mad scientists with blow us all up.
When automobiles were invented, some people believed it was unhealthy and dangerous to travel faster than 30 miles an hour because it wasn't natural. People make similar arguments again cloning.
Ever since the dawn of man people have manipulated nature to their own advantage. That's how we got here today. That's why you're posting on slashdot.
Wether man is breeding cats to solve his rat problem, or genetically modifying food because he thinks it tastes better, he's always seeking to change his environment. That's who he is.
It would be foolish to say we won't eventually destroy ourselves by fooling around with fire. But what's the point of saying we will?
As these CRIMINALS should - guilty - pay the piper or don't do the crime
This is a civil matter, not a criminal one. No crime has been committed. No one will be found 'guilty' of anything. If they refuse to settle they could be found 'liable' for copyright 'infringement' in court.
Try not to get too emotional about this. It's irrelevant what one thinks is wrong or right. The RIAA cannot go on indefinitely suing the whole world. And file-sharing is not going to go away any more than the Internet. It's likely that as more artists target their audiences directly, online, the less we'll have need for an organization like the RIAA. History and a new economic model will defeat them.
Microsoft is under no more obligation than youtube to safegaurd against "pirated content".
Microsoft is extending DRM way beyond anything required by the DMCA.
Microsoft perhaps has a theory that if they can protect content providers, those providers will be more willing to distribute through Microsoft. When Vista has a certain critical mass, look for deal with a major provider to distribute their content through Microsoft. This is likely to come in the form of DVDs playable on a Windows-only hard-ware DRMed platform.
Vista will probably be the most hacked OS ever. The content providers are going to find out their content is no more protected from unauthorized access than an average computer is against spyware and consumers are going to encounter all kinds of problems watching legitimate content.
But probably, what's more likely to happen over the next few years, given the history of Napster-->Gnutella-->BitTorrent, is that the whole landscape will change. And Vista's 'secure' content will likely seem irrelevant.
Some wise media folks already know it's better make money by selling content than suing people. We're already starting to see freely distributed content, funded by embedded advertising. There's a lot of opportunity out there, but people need to abandon the old ways of the last century and start being a bit more creative. That includes Microsoft.
Also remember that in our system the only way to challenge a law as unconstitutional is to break it.
I don't think that's true. Four librarians from Connecticut challenged the law without breaking it and won, after which the FBI withdrew the SNL.
What I don't understand is why the FBI doesn't get a good old fashion search warrent signed by a judge in accordance with the fourth amendment. I always thought having a judge sign off on these things was part of the checks and balances designed to prevent abuse.
Other cynical parts of me want to say they are also smart enough to be able to recognize the top 40 drivel that is being disseminated by the recording industry.
Maybe you shouldn't read too much into this. This is a survey, not a study. Having a control group might help. If they excluded the 'gifted' variable and did the survey on the whole population, and got similar results, I wonder if this would be news.
if one wants something different then there is Linux...
Been a Linux admin for 10 years, running slackware as my sole OS for most of that time. The one thing people don't understand about Linux on the desktop is the nature of Linux and GNU development.
Windows and Macs offer a relatively stable development environment with a limited number of options. By stable I don't mean "doesn't crash", I mean "not changing much over time". An app that worked on the first version of XP will likely work on the last.
Linux isn't like that. Linux and the core developers have said many times they're not really interested in going out of their way to support backwards compatibility of legacy apps because doing so would hinder the nature of kernel development.
Add to that the gazillion combinations of kernel features, libs, etc. and you begin to see why it's so difficult for a company like Dell to sell pre-installed Linux to consumers who expect everything (including third party apps) to just work.
In Linux an app that was developed for one configuration won't necessarily compile under a different configuration. It often depends, not only what kernel version you have and how that kernel was compiled, but what libraries you have, not only what libraries but what versions, are you running gtk-1.2 or gtk-2.0?
The great thing about Linux is there are so many choices, you can make the system to almost anything. I work on a 2000+ Linux cluster and what we do with Linux is limited only by our imaginations.
But as far as the desktop goes, for folks who expect everything to be like it is in a Windows and Mac world, there remain a few challenges.
ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES ARE OFFERED. If you have a ton of money riding on finding all the right loopholes and getting everything 100% perfect, buy a tax program or use an accountant.
I think you'll find commercial programs also come with a similar disclaimer, although worded in more convoluted legalese. Usually if there's a bug in the software the fine print prevents you from any recourse against the manufacturer.
In the United States, it's not illegal to be a monopoly. But, once a monopoly, what was once a competitive advantage becomes criminal conduct.
I thought being a monopoly in the US was illegal under the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts.
Microsoft was found guilty of acting as a monopoly in 2002 after being sued by 20 US State Attorneys General. You might think the punishment didn't go far enough, but that's different from a monopoly not being illegal.
My problem, I guess, is that I just can't bring myself to trust these folks any longer. They'll go for cheap over quality any day of the week- even when it means a 7 year delay in the next operating system only to have a bunch of GUI bells and whistles and no real new fixes or functionality.
But is there really an inversely proportional relationship between cheap and quality? In other words do people from, say, India have less talent than Americans because they're willing to work for less?
I wonder if better paid Americans really do produce better products? If so, I wonder what it is about Americans that makes them better and why there's not a market for such talent.
I work for a company as an administrator for a 2000+ Linux cluster. We hire a lot of people from India and Eastern Europe. Should we fire them because they're not American?
There seems to be a hint of racism in your argument. I really don't know, perhaps we are better off being isolationist. But maybe you need to make the argument against free trade and diminishing borders in broader economic terms rather than in just citing Microsoft's delayed release of Vista.