I think we should all call in, tell them we're disgruntled employees, and claim that our employers are buying only one copy of RedHat or SuSE and installing on multiple computers.
They might do this, but I wouldn't expect all that many consumers to take advantage of it. Why? WinXP has higher CPU/RAM requirements than the older OS's, and most owners are not up to upgrading their own hardware.
Well, actually, I was just being lazy. But there does seem to be an awfully large amount of publicity for something that's not very well explained.
But now I'm beginning to see:.Net is Microsoft's answer to Java: A language (or two) that compiles to a binary byte code which is supposed to run everywhere, with lots of libraries to do the useful stuff. Whoohoo.
I keep hearing about.net, but still don't know what it is (other than some nebulous concept of 'goodness' involving the internet).
Same for Passport. It's an authentification service, right? Won't it work with any browser? Or will it take a special client? If the latter case, I assume there's a published API that Ximian will use to implement a Linux client. And I can certainly understand Petreley's fear of relying on something that MS can undermine at any time.
Is any other reasonably well-known company providing an alternative to Passport? Seems like Sun, IBM, and Oracle would want to be in this business as well.
Wait a second! One of the complaints I used to see leveled against Linux was that you had to login to use it, and that consumers didn't want to have to deal with that.
Now that it's going to be in WinXP, it's a "compelling" feature. Guess this is another point for Petreley ("Nothing's been invented until MS implements it.")
...I know this is supposed to be funny, but what if that teenager is just working on his open-source MP3 player, and his name was phoned in by one of his classmates who didn't care much for computer geeks.
Or what if MS tries to convince the public that Linux is a primary hacker tool, and gets it declared illegal. They already have been making noises about it being communist and un-American. If you think the notion of the police breaking in your door to confiscate your Linux system is preposterous, try growing a couple pot plants in your living room.
Good points, but I think things are settling out for Linux. At the least, there's no confusion about 3D; it's OpenGL. For input, 2D, and simple audio, it's SDL. Sure, there are plenty of other libraries that sit on top of these, but the same situation exists in Windows.
First, I wish writers wouldn't confuse Gnome with GTK. I like KDE for my desktop, but often prefer GTK applications because it's easier to keep up with the library dependencies needed to build them.
Second, there's no reason why you can't program in C++ and use GTK, which is my preferred way to do GUI's in Linux. Plus, there was no mention of GLADE, which, although it seems a bit clunky at first, has turned out to be one of my favorite development apps.
I'm pretty sure 'word' and 'writer' were used fairly commonly for word-processors and text-editors before MS Word came along. In fact, IBM's 'DisplayWriter' preceded the PC by about a year.
If you're doing 2D graphics, have your software engineers look at the SDL library. It's multiplatform (Linux, Windows, Mac, and others), and very easy to program for.
I'd even be willing to convert or implement a small application as a demo (though not necessarily for free:-)).
Most people don't think of their PC operating system as a 'service', any more than they think of a book that way. Your average person doesn't see anything wrong with updating his 2-3 home computers with the same upgrade, just as there's nothing wrong with buying one copy of a novel and sharing it among his family members.
You completely miss the point as.NET is not entirely what you seem to think it is. See my previous post for more information, or
better yet, do some reading on it first.
The trouble is, I'm reading about.NET all the time, but I'm still vague about what it is. Seems to have something to do with the internet, something to do with accessing my data from whereever I am, and something to do with being wonderful because Microsoft invented it. Oh yes, there's something about a language (C#?) that will run everywhere (just like Pascal, C, C++, and Java have promised to do).
No kidding! At my previous job, my boss wanted to set up a Linux server. I offered my recent SuSE CD, but he insisted on spending a couple hundred $$'s on 'Red Hat Professional'.
Some of us 'kiddies' remember learning to program on punchcards. And we are professional developers.
In some sense, it's just as logical for experienced engineers to write free software as it is for students. Imagine spending a year writing a novel... and then burning the manuscript. Now do this a few more times. Would it help if someone were paying you to do this?
People starting out often think they and their company are going to change the world. But usually, a company's management, marketing, competitors, and general economic environment have a lot more influence on success than the software (or hardware) developers. The last place I worked ran out of money about a month after I left. The previous sold my group to another company that already had the same product that I was working on.
Meanwhile, the GPL'd game project I started got over 10,000 downloads in the last three months.
...then you can improve it. You could download what you need and install it yourself. If this cable company is really smart, they'll take suggestions from customers and use them to enhance the base package.
Now that would give them an even bigger advantage over anything MS could provide.
I believe it does. Jikes (which I haven't used for about a year) was a quite amazing piece of code. The compiler itself was blazingly fast, and gave excellent error messages.
I tried GCJ about a year ago with a large parser I'd written in Java. It was a pure command-line program, with no GUI at all, and I compared a GCJ-compiled version with one compiled and running with IBM's Jikes compiler/JRE.
To my surprise, the Jikes version ran much faster, about 2X, than the native code. Only when I recompiled with GCJ with the option to skip array-bounds-checking, did the native version run at about the same speed as Jikes.
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I think we should all call in, tell them we're disgruntled employees, and claim that our employers are buying only one copy of RedHat or SuSE and installing on multiple computers.
They might do this, but I wouldn't expect all that many consumers to take advantage of it. Why? WinXP has higher CPU/RAM requirements than the older OS's, and most owners are not up to upgrading their own hardware.
But now I'm beginning to see: .Net is Microsoft's answer to Java: A language (or two) that compiles to a binary byte code which is supposed to run everywhere, with lots of libraries to do the useful stuff. Whoohoo.
Same for Passport. It's an authentification service, right? Won't it work with any browser? Or will it take a special client? If the latter case, I assume there's a published API that Ximian will use to implement a Linux client. And I can certainly understand Petreley's fear of relying on something that MS can undermine at any time.
Is any other reasonably well-known company providing an alternative to Passport? Seems like Sun, IBM, and Oracle would want to be in this business as well.
That's right, I'm suing the Internet. Every one of you will owe me a nickel.
Now that it's going to be in WinXP, it's a "compelling" feature. Guess this is another point for Petreley ("Nothing's been invented until MS implements it.")
Or what if MS tries to convince the public that Linux is a primary hacker tool, and gets it declared illegal. They already have been making noises about it being communist and un-American. If you think the notion of the police breaking in your door to confiscate your Linux system is preposterous, try growing a couple pot plants in your living room.
Why not just bring along a Furby? Or bring two, so they can talk to each other.
Good points, but I think things are settling out for Linux. At the least, there's no confusion about 3D; it's OpenGL. For input, 2D, and simple audio, it's SDL. Sure, there are plenty of other libraries that sit on top of these, but the same situation exists in Windows.
No, but you're dumb if you buy a set of tires without first checking on the size your car takes.
Do you make your own electricity ...
No, but I know enough not to stick my finger in the socket.
or are you a dumb person with just a stock car that gets you from point A to point B?
Yes, I am that dumb person. But I did try to choose a car that was safe and reliable. Lots of us chose Linux for the same reason.
Second, there's no reason why you can't program in C++ and use GTK, which is my preferred way to do GUI's in Linux. Plus, there was no mention of GLADE, which, although it seems a bit clunky at first, has turned out to be one of my favorite development apps.
How about KINI, which stands for Killustrator Is Not Illustrator?
I'm pretty sure 'word' and 'writer' were used fairly commonly for word-processors and text-editors before MS Word came along. In fact, IBM's 'DisplayWriter' preceded the PC by about a year.
Anyway, you forgot the part where the companion, usually a young woman in a miniskirt, trips while running from the monster.
I'd even be willing to convert or implement a small application as a demo (though not necessarily for free:-)).
And how is this different from the copy of Windows98 I bought last month?
Most people don't think of their PC operating system as a 'service', any more than they think of a book that way. Your average person doesn't see anything wrong with updating his 2-3 home computers with the same upgrade, just as there's nothing wrong with buying one copy of a novel and sharing it among his family members.
The trouble is, I'm reading about .NET all the time, but I'm still vague about what it is. Seems to have something to do with the internet, something to do with accessing my data from whereever I am, and something to do with being wonderful because Microsoft invented it. Oh yes, there's something about a language (C#?) that will run everywhere (just like Pascal, C, C++, and Java have promised to do).
Yes! And when they call something a 'Technology', it's something that others have been doing for at least a decade.
No kidding! At my previous job, my boss wanted to set up a Linux server. I offered my recent SuSE CD, but he insisted on spending a couple hundred $$'s on 'Red Hat Professional'.
In some sense, it's just as logical for experienced engineers to write free software as it is for students. Imagine spending a year writing a novel... and then burning the manuscript. Now do this a few more times. Would it help if someone were paying you to do this?
People starting out often think they and their company are going to change the world. But usually, a company's management, marketing, competitors, and general economic environment have a lot more influence on success than the software (or hardware) developers. The last place I worked ran out of money about a month after I left. The previous sold my group to another company that already had the same product that I was working on.
Meanwhile, the GPL'd game project I started got over 10,000 downloads in the last three months.
Now that would give them an even bigger advantage over anything MS could provide.
I believe it does. Jikes (which I haven't used for about a year) was a quite amazing piece of code. The compiler itself was blazingly fast, and gave excellent error messages.
To my surprise, the Jikes version ran much faster, about 2X, than the native code. Only when I recompiled with GCJ with the option to skip array-bounds-checking, did the native version run at about the same speed as Jikes.
Of course people are freaking out because it's Microsoft doing this. They've earned our distrust from their previous actions.