I reckon a serious investigation should be launched. The fact of the matter here is that Microsoft, and any hardware manufacturer involved; have together sold a product promising features it turns out not to have. As I see it from a certain perspective you could say that this is about how much a company is allowed to lie or mislead to sell their product. IF Microsoft or the manufacturer were aware that these computers wouldn't support Vista, or probably wouldn't support Vista; then it is fraud and they should be punished accordingly.
Of course more features means more resources consumed. I'd argue that bloat isn't the system using more resources, but using more resources on crap you don't need, don't want and/or shouldn't use that much resources.
Lead have many uses. I was mostly referring to the oil industry through many years absolute insistence that lead in fuel had no health risk and that lead itself were not poisonous.
Results from the latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) published in the Journal of the American Medical Association show that mean blood lead levels in people 1 to 74 years of age declined by 78 percent between 1978 and 1991.
1973 was the year they began to phase out lead in gasoline.
Capitalism (and Socialism for that matter) are more general ideas than fully fledged systems. Compare countries that call themselves capitalistic and you'll find massive deviations in how their laws and regulations work in practice.
Any economic, social and/or political structure that do not prohibit the ruthless from profiting at the expense of the decent will create long term consequences that could impact their society negatively. Perhaps the multinational corporation is better at generating profit for their shareholders over a relatively short span of years; but does that in the end provide a greater value for the society as a whole than your local store. Is it really of benefit to purchase cheap goods if those goods turn out to me made from vastly inferior, or toxic, materials. Of course the ruthless will lie, cheat, bribe and blackmail to ensure their products continue to sell; even if they know said product is a health risk. As long as they manage to keep a sliver of denyability they'll rather sell toxic shit than risk cutting into their profit. Hell some corporations rather spend millions each year denying the problems with their products than to spend even a penny more to developing something that is actually safe.
Oh and by the way lead isn't poisonous; that is just propaganda. Come down to Friendly Freds Lead Retailer for everything from Lead Toothpaste to Lead Bread. If it is Lead; It's Fred. If it ain't Fred is probably a communist hippy that want to sell you anti-freedom vares.
I'm a software engineer and I'd be out on the streets if our customers illegally downloaded our software.
No, you'd be out on the streets if not enough of your customers paid for your software to keep the company profitable.
Actually Adobe is a company that directly benefits from people pirating Photoshop. People pirate it, learn to use it while aspiring to become someone who works with such tools; and then when they do get a job they either get a legal license from their workplace; or they purchase one themselves.
A friend of mine went this route with some heavy duty music mixing software. He wanted to be a musician and like to mix around with what he recorded. Eventually his skill level on mixing and sound stuff made him the go to guy for all minor bands and groups in the area ("help us make our demo sound good please"); now he is older and making money of being a sound guy for larger projects in the district (its a relatively small place in the middle of nowhere) and eventually he bought the software since he now had the money to do just that.
I reckon that a certain amount of companies (this includes movies and music ones) have various deals and contracts with publishers, and retailers, around the world. The publishers/retailers are in some regions of the world not only a middleman for getting the product to consumers; but also responsible for a portion of the marking of the product in their region.
Untangling from long standing contracts could take time and carry with it loss of other benefits for the company.
If anyone have some proper documentation of how these things work I would like to get some links or detailed explanations.
Perhaps this is a bit unrelated. But several years ago I bought The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Megaset. I ordered it from Canada (I live in Scandinavia); including shipping I saved about a lot compared to what I would have had to pay for a complete set bought here (or ordered from England). The reason for this was that at the time the DvDs were sold individually for about 1/6 of the box price and there were 14 DvDs in total. Further each DvD (as sold in Scandinavia) contained on average an episode or two less than the ones in the boxed set.
I don't mind paying for what I want, however I feel I should get a fair deal and not be expected to pay more just because the publisher (or whoever was responsible) wanted to squeeze their customers for more money.
Of course these days the box can be bought from England for slightly below half what I paid. But I am still happy about the deal I got at the time.
Well as you say XP runs fine and it still covers the needs of many.
The father of a very close friend of mine owns and runs an electric service company, have a few dozen employees. He runs XP (and still runs Word 98 last time I checked); it covers the needs of his company and he see no reason to spent money on upgrades he really don't need at all. Basically his philosophy is "if it works; leave it the hell alone". I reckon his way of looking at the IT issue isn't uncommon among people who are running a business (especially when it is a local one). Vista costs money, new computers cost money, re-education costs money; keeping what you have that works does not infer an additional cost.
Call me a woolly-minded old liberal, but they could always, y'know, try them, and either bang them up legitimately or let them go as appropriate.
Since you try to approach this subject with reason you are obviously one of them hippy-pinko-commie-muslim fundamentalist-atheist-white supremacist-baby killing-liberals the media keeps warning us about. As an enemy of the people I have reported you to Stasi and expect you to be promptly taken to HohenschÃnhausen for indefinite detention and some random acts of torture.
I was under the impression there were already several parties (beyond the Democratic Party and the Republican Party) in the US. Just that people don't support them because they 1) Don't Agree with them. 2) Don't know they exist. 3) Don't believe any other parties can rule the country. 4) Some of them are filled with nutters (or believed to be filled with nutters). 5)They have almost no money so the other parties run them off the court.
Basically what I am saying; there is little that stops you from doing some research; finding what other parties exist; read their documentation/information/propaganda (underline appropriate) and make an informed decision about which one is right for you; then actively supporting that party. A two party system exists only as long as people believe those two are their only choices.
It would be good if statistics like this could be used to start grooming the next generation of contributors to these projects. Just because they're n00bs (and not necessarily programmers) doesn't mean they can't be useful in reporting bugs, testing new features, amending documentation, suggesting UI improvements and so on.
Now while what you describe sounds like a idealistic world (for programmers and Linux enthusiasts) I think one could assume that if Linux ever gets a large share of the home-user market most people cba to make any contribution. Though that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As person with above average interest in the dynamics behind Open Source software and the social principles involved I am happy to see the number of Liunx users expand. The more people use it the more it will grow as a system, and the more resources will be spent perfecting it for various uses.
However, I believe, that if Linux is ever to get a significant market share the philosophy behind a Distro (aimed at home-users) should always be ease of use, simplicity; balanced against resource efficiency. Most people are not interested in tinkering, nor doing any sort of bug reporting, feature testing or document augmentation; it be good if they did, but they don't; nor will they ever. By far the large majority of people using a computer today needs it for tasks not related computers in any way (if you discount the fact that they are using one).
I might have digressed a bit; but the point I am trying to make is the larger the group of users the larger the group of "low level helpers" will be; that is give. But the the larger the user base of Linux becomes the more people will use it that don't give a toss one way or another about programming or in anyway care about helping the makers of said software at all.
A mate of mine got a nice fat phone bill after waiting in phone queue to get some support for his legally purchased OS. So Not only did he have to pay for support, wait for support, he also had to wait until support was open to get said support since, at least in this country, MS customer support isn't open Twenty-Four/Seven. Of course if he had a illegitimate copy, or was running Linux, he wouldn't actually have had to wait to reactive a product he had used for months already.
Monopolies might be bad, but the current situation not only gives certain Telecoms more influence and power than they perhaps should have, many smaller townships and isolated communities are without any sort of choice at all. At least "Government owned local data infrastructure" would provide the inhabitants of said communities with at least ONE broadband choice instead of No-Choice.
Of course sometimes when local Government, Businesses, and citizens take matters into their own hands the Telecoms begin to initiate legal proceedings to ensure that they maintain an advantage where they should have none.
"In a predictable move, TDS Telecom has filed an appeal after its complaint against Monticello, Minnesota's new fiber network was tossed by a county judge in early October. As you may remember, the city decided to build its own fiber-optic network after the telco made it clear they wouldn't build it because it wouldn't be economically feasible for them. TDS Telecom then changed its mind and sued the city for unfair competition."
I haven't read GamerDNA before this and I probably won't start now. Risking a negative rating as some undoubtedly disagree with what I am going to write here I'll present my views regardless.
MMO Focus: Traits of Popular Subscription Games
The BlogPost is first of all presented with colours that make it hard for some of us to read. White on Black text causes me, and others like me, physical discomfort and can lead to migraines. Something several websites have yet to acknowledge. But be that as it may.
For something called MMO Focus it seems very unfocused at times, riddled with generalization, non-objective and unsubstantiated statements.
Simply put, there are a crazy number of people who boot up a game in order to play as a soldier. Sure, that's a reflection of how many games there are where the main character is a soldier of some kind, but the games wouldn't be produced if there weren't a tremendous hunger to portray that archetype. Interesting, given that our culture does not encourage people to become actual soldiers.
Okay. What culture are you speaking of here? MMO players hail from many different nations, and cultures, across the world and as such their views upon different "archetypes" could vary.
One thing MMO people do that isn't done by players of other genres is to identify very closely with their particular classes. This habit tends to fragment their "playing as" trait participation, since each game has multiple classes, and often unique names for the classes.
Really? Some do, some don't. Unless you provide some actual data substantiating this; it's just perception and generalization.
"Massively multiplayer" didn't even make the How It's Played list for EVE. The top How It's Played trait for EVE was "complexity" with 24%. A tiny handful of WAR players chose "massively multiplater," but when I say tiny, I mean less than 1%. WAR players went overwhelmingly with RVR, with 45% of players choosing that trait. 32% of LOTRO players selected "massively multiplayer," but almost as many (31%) chose "story." 29% of WOW players chose "raids" for How It's Played, a trait that doesn't appear in the lists of the other three games in our sample at all.
Okay... could the information here perhaps be presented in a way that is understandable?
WOW players are completely bonkers. They have given forty one possible options, at first glance. On second glance, the problem is getting them to agree on terms. LOTRO players, for example, all tend to simply say "NPC" when they mean any kind of non-player character, from monster to humanoid to instance boss. WOW players are moreâ¦creative. Terms include undead, demons, monsters, mobs, NPCs, elementals, murlocs, goblins, aliens, epic bosses, dragons, and more are all on the list, and all in statistically significant numbers, too. Once you lump them all into a single NPC category (and consolidate "alliance" with "alliance scum" and so on), you get a slightly more rational twelve traits.
I guess the amount of people playing WoW over the others dosn't affect the variation in their answers? And calling WoW players Bonkers is distracting and not helping presenting the "data" at all.
This time, LOTRO and EVE players are both tightly focused, and both WOW and WAR players canâ(TM)t seem to agree. Again, that's not a disadvantage in an MMO â" you want to appeal to as many people as possible!
Again, size of player base perhaps affecting some of these findings? The larger the base the more diversity.
Good luck with the project as a whole, though I feel you might want to reconsider your approach to how you interpret the data before you make it a fundament for any type of larger project.
A tiny handful of WAR players chose âoemassively multiplater,â but when I say tiny, I mean less than 1%. WAR players went overwhelmingly with RVR, with 45% of players choosing that trait.
Yes I think I would agree with them that I would prefer RvR over any type of Massive MultiPlater.
Disclaimer: I am a former WoW player and a current EVE player. I am not employed, nor am I (beyond the extent of being a player) affiliated with the makers of any game.
The game is not for casual players, but it -is- fun. If you haven't played, please give it a shot, there are trial periods available.
I am sorry, I would if I could; but unfortunately I AM Employed.
The big problem here is whether you'll be allowed to buy a mini notebook with 1GB and a 120-160 MB hard disk without Windows. Microsoft certainly does not want notebook vendors selling them that way, and has effective strategies to induce them not to do so.
I know that at least from my local computer stores here in Norway I can chose between Linux or a Version of XP when buying an Asus EEE. So you are definitely "allowed" to buy a notebook without Windows in some countries; and I don't believe Norway is the only place where this is the case.
How about if the Publishers themselves began buying back used copies of their games and resold them for a lower price, perhaps with some extra goodies thrown in to draw customers away from places like GameStop.
To me this basically sounds like more greedy bitching and whining from an industry that still produces mostly crap (with a few notable exceptions here and there).
I guess the growing number of schools across the world that have, and is, adapting versions of Skolelinux are being duped then?
Debian Edu / Skolelinux
Debian Edu * is a Debian project to make the best distribution for educational purposes.
Skolelinux
is the name of a Debian Pure Blend which is produced by the Debian Edu project.
"Skole" ([skuËl]) is the Norwegian form of "school". Both "skole" and "school" comes from the Latin word "schola".
Goals
* Provide a complete software solution using free software and... * tailored for the needs and use-cases in educational scenarios. * preconfigured for easy installation (standalone, as well as network-wide rollout). * easy to use, maintain, and administer. * supporting your language natively. * Classify and package all free software related to education. * Write documentation to describe how to use the various softwares (in an educational context). * International availability, currently being translated into XX languages
Slashdot Mirror
I reckon a serious investigation should be launched. The fact of the matter here is that Microsoft, and any hardware manufacturer involved; have together sold a product promising features it turns out not to have. As I see it from a certain perspective you could say that this is about how much a company is allowed to lie or mislead to sell their product. IF Microsoft or the manufacturer were aware that these computers wouldn't support Vista, or probably wouldn't support Vista; then it is fraud and they should be punished accordingly.
Of course more features means more resources consumed. I'd argue that bloat isn't the system using more resources, but using more resources on crap you don't need, don't want and/or shouldn't use that much resources.
From a report released in 1994:
Results from the latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) published in the Journal of the American Medical Association show that mean blood lead levels in people 1 to 74 years of age declined by 78 percent between 1978 and 1991.
1973 was the year they began to phase out lead in gasoline.
Unless you are a project leader and you network with people that actually know their shit ;)
Capitalism (and Socialism for that matter) are more general ideas than fully fledged systems. Compare countries that call themselves capitalistic and you'll find massive deviations in how their laws and regulations work in practice.
Any economic, social and/or political structure that do not prohibit the ruthless from profiting at the expense of the decent will create long term consequences that could impact their society negatively. Perhaps the multinational corporation is better at generating profit for their shareholders over a relatively short span of years; but does that in the end provide a greater value for the society as a whole than your local store. Is it really of benefit to purchase cheap goods if those goods turn out to me made from vastly inferior, or toxic, materials. Of course the ruthless will lie, cheat, bribe and blackmail to ensure their products continue to sell; even if they know said product is a health risk. As long as they manage to keep a sliver of denyability they'll rather sell toxic shit than risk cutting into their profit. Hell some corporations rather spend millions each year denying the problems with their products than to spend even a penny more to developing something that is actually safe.
Oh and by the way lead isn't poisonous; that is just propaganda. Come down to Friendly Freds Lead Retailer for everything from Lead Toothpaste to Lead Bread. If it is Lead; It's Fred. If it ain't Fred is probably a communist hippy that want to sell you anti-freedom vares.
I'm reasonably sure that engineers are engineers because they DO NOT want to be politicians.
Bah! And here I was convinced a degree and experience as an engineer would be my ticket to the Big House for sure!
And who would that be? That minister post has not existed since 2003.
I'm a software engineer and I'd be out on the streets if our customers illegally downloaded our software.
No, you'd be out on the streets if not enough of your customers paid for your software to keep the company profitable.
Actually Adobe is a company that directly benefits from people pirating Photoshop. People pirate it, learn to use it while aspiring to become someone who works with such tools; and then when they do get a job they either get a legal license from their workplace; or they purchase one themselves.
A friend of mine went this route with some heavy duty music mixing software. He wanted to be a musician and like to mix around with what he recorded. Eventually his skill level on mixing and sound stuff made him the go to guy for all minor bands and groups in the area ("help us make our demo sound good please"); now he is older and making money of being a sound guy for larger projects in the district (its a relatively small place in the middle of nowhere) and eventually he bought the software since he now had the money to do just that.
If someone is avoiding buying games on principle to show how "cool" he is, you won't sway him
If someone does that he is probably twelve and already spending his allowance on cigarettes anyway.
I reckon that a certain amount of companies (this includes movies and music ones) have various deals and contracts with publishers, and retailers, around the world. The publishers/retailers are in some regions of the world not only a middleman for getting the product to consumers; but also responsible for a portion of the marking of the product in their region.
Untangling from long standing contracts could take time and carry with it loss of other benefits for the company.
If anyone have some proper documentation of how these things work I would like to get some links or detailed explanations.
Perhaps this is a bit unrelated. But several years ago I bought The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Megaset. I ordered it from Canada (I live in Scandinavia); including shipping I saved about a lot compared to what I would have had to pay for a complete set bought here (or ordered from England). The reason for this was that at the time the DvDs were sold individually for about 1/6 of the box price and there were 14 DvDs in total. Further each DvD (as sold in Scandinavia) contained on average an episode or two less than the ones in the boxed set.
I don't mind paying for what I want, however I feel I should get a fair deal and not be expected to pay more just because the publisher (or whoever was responsible) wanted to squeeze their customers for more money.
Of course these days the box can be bought from England for slightly below half what I paid. But I am still happy about the deal I got at the time.
Well as you say XP runs fine and it still covers the needs of many.
The father of a very close friend of mine owns and runs an electric service company, have a few dozen employees. He runs XP (and still runs Word 98 last time I checked); it covers the needs of his company and he see no reason to spent money on upgrades he really don't need at all. Basically his philosophy is "if it works; leave it the hell alone". I reckon his way of looking at the IT issue isn't uncommon among people who are running a business (especially when it is a local one). Vista costs money, new computers cost money, re-education costs money; keeping what you have that works does not infer an additional cost.
Call me a woolly-minded old liberal, but they could always, y'know, try them, and either bang them up legitimately or let them go as appropriate.
Since you try to approach this subject with reason you are obviously one of them hippy-pinko-commie-muslim fundamentalist-atheist-white supremacist-baby killing-liberals the media keeps warning us about. As an enemy of the people I have reported you to Stasi and expect you to be promptly taken to HohenschÃnhausen for indefinite detention and some random acts of torture.
I would welcome a third party.
I was under the impression there were already several parties (beyond the Democratic Party and the Republican Party) in the US. Just that people don't support them because they
1) Don't Agree with them.
2) Don't know they exist.
3) Don't believe any other parties can rule the country.
4) Some of them are filled with nutters (or believed to be filled with nutters).
5)They have almost no money so the other parties run them off the court.
Basically what I am saying; there is little that stops you from doing some research; finding what other parties exist; read their documentation/information/propaganda (underline appropriate) and make an informed decision about which one is right for you; then actively supporting that party. A two party system exists only as long as people believe those two are their only choices.
When something new is released and it isn't just right, for our expectations, then it just seems like an abomination.
To a degree you are probably right. But none can convince me, as a fan of Hellblazer, that Constantine isn't just that.
It would be good if statistics like this could be used to start grooming the next generation of contributors to these projects. Just because they're n00bs (and not necessarily programmers) doesn't mean they can't be useful in reporting bugs, testing new features, amending documentation, suggesting UI improvements and so on.
Now while what you describe sounds like a idealistic world (for programmers and Linux enthusiasts) I think one could assume that if Linux ever gets a large share of the home-user market most people cba to make any contribution. Though that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As person with above average interest in the dynamics behind Open Source software and the social principles involved I am happy to see the number of Liunx users expand. The more people use it the more it will grow as a system, and the more resources will be spent perfecting it for various uses.
However, I believe, that if Linux is ever to get a significant market share the philosophy behind a Distro (aimed at home-users) should always be ease of use, simplicity; balanced against resource efficiency. Most people are not interested in tinkering, nor doing any sort of bug reporting, feature testing or document augmentation; it be good if they did, but they don't; nor will they ever. By far the large majority of people using a computer today needs it for tasks not related computers in any way (if you discount the fact that they are using one).
I might have digressed a bit; but the point I am trying to make is the larger the group of users the larger the group of "low level helpers" will be; that is give. But the the larger the user base of Linux becomes the more people will use it that don't give a toss one way or another about programming or in anyway care about helping the makers of said software at all.
Was the call free or did you have to pay for it?
A mate of mine got a nice fat phone bill after waiting in phone queue to get some support for his legally purchased OS. So Not only did he have to pay for support, wait for support, he also had to wait until support was open to get said support since, at least in this country, MS customer support isn't open Twenty-Four/Seven. Of course if he had a illegitimate copy, or was running Linux, he wouldn't actually have had to wait to reactive a product he had used for months already.
Of course sometimes when local Government, Businesses, and citizens take matters into their own hands the Telecoms begin to initiate legal proceedings to ensure that they maintain an advantage where they should have none.
"In a predictable move, TDS Telecom has filed an appeal after its complaint against Monticello, Minnesota's new fiber network was tossed by a county judge in early October. As you may remember, the city decided to build its own fiber-optic network after the telco made it clear they wouldn't build it because it wouldn't be economically feasible for them. TDS Telecom then changed its mind and sued the city for unfair competition."
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/08/1532237
So to conclude. Monopolies = Bad. No-Choice = Worse. Telecoms using their position to ensure that their is no choice = Insane by any standard.
MMO Focus: Traits of Popular Subscription Games
The BlogPost is first of all presented with colours that make it hard for some of us to read. White on Black text causes me, and others like me, physical discomfort and can lead to migraines. Something several websites have yet to acknowledge. But be that as it may.
For something called MMO Focus it seems very unfocused at times, riddled with generalization, non-objective and unsubstantiated statements.
Simply put, there are a crazy number of people who boot up a game in order to play as a soldier. Sure, that's a reflection of how many games there are where the main character is a soldier of some kind, but the games wouldn't be produced if there weren't a tremendous hunger to portray that archetype. Interesting, given that our culture does not encourage people to become actual soldiers.
Okay. What culture are you speaking of here? MMO players hail from many different nations, and cultures, across the world and as such their views upon different "archetypes" could vary.
One thing MMO people do that isn't done by players of other genres is to identify very closely with their particular classes. This habit tends to fragment their "playing as" trait participation, since each game has multiple classes, and often unique names for the classes.
Really? Some do, some don't. Unless you provide some actual data substantiating this; it's just perception and generalization.
"Massively multiplayer" didn't even make the How It's Played list for EVE. The top How It's Played trait for EVE was "complexity" with 24%. A tiny handful of WAR players chose "massively multiplater," but when I say tiny, I mean less than 1%. WAR players went overwhelmingly with RVR, with 45% of players choosing that trait. 32% of LOTRO players selected "massively multiplayer," but almost as many (31%) chose "story." 29% of WOW players chose "raids" for How It's Played, a trait that doesn't appear in the lists of the other three games in our sample at all.
Okay... could the information here perhaps be presented in a way that is understandable?
WOW players are completely bonkers. They have given forty one possible options, at first glance. On second glance, the problem is getting them to agree on terms. LOTRO players, for example, all tend to simply say "NPC" when they mean any kind of non-player character, from monster to humanoid to instance boss. WOW players are moreâ¦creative. Terms include undead, demons, monsters, mobs, NPCs, elementals, murlocs, goblins, aliens, epic bosses, dragons, and more are all on the list, and all in statistically significant numbers, too. Once you lump them all into a single NPC category (and consolidate "alliance" with "alliance scum" and so on), you get a slightly more rational twelve traits.
I guess the amount of people playing WoW over the others dosn't affect the variation in their answers? And calling WoW players Bonkers is distracting and not helping presenting the "data" at all.
This time, LOTRO and EVE players are both tightly focused, and both WOW and WAR players canâ(TM)t seem to agree. Again, that's not a disadvantage in an MMO â" you want to appeal to as many people as possible!
Again, size of player base perhaps affecting some of these findings? The larger the base the more diversity.
Good luck with the project as a whole, though I feel you might want to reconsider your approach to how you interpret the data before you make it a fundament for any type of larger project.
A tiny handful of WAR players chose âoemassively multiplater,â but when I say tiny, I mean less than 1%. WAR players went overwhelmingly with RVR, with 45% of players choosing that trait.
Yes I think I would agree with them that I would prefer RvR over any type of Massive MultiPlater.
Disclaimer: I am a former WoW player and a current EVE player. I am not employed, nor am I (beyond the extent of being a player) affiliated with the makers of any game.
The game is not for casual players, but it -is- fun. If you haven't played, please give it a shot, there are trial periods available.
I am sorry, I would if I could; but unfortunately I AM Employed.
The big problem here is whether you'll be allowed to buy a mini notebook with 1GB and a 120-160 MB hard disk without Windows. Microsoft certainly does not want notebook vendors selling them that way, and has effective strategies to induce them not to do so.
I know that at least from my local computer stores here in Norway I can chose between Linux or a Version of XP when buying an Asus EEE. So you are definitely "allowed" to buy a notebook without Windows in some countries; and I don't believe Norway is the only place where this is the case.
Living in Norway all the ISPs provide internet without needing anything else (cable/phone). Personally I have a 12mb line.
How about if the Publishers themselves began buying back used copies of their games and resold them for a lower price, perhaps with some extra goodies thrown in to draw customers away from places like GameStop.
To me this basically sounds like more greedy bitching and whining from an industry that still produces mostly crap (with a few notable exceptions here and there).
Debian Edu / Skolelinux
...
Debian Edu
* is a Debian project to make the best distribution for educational purposes.
Skolelinux
is the name of a Debian Pure Blend which is produced by the Debian Edu project.
"Skole" ([skuËl]) is the Norwegian form of "school". Both "skole" and "school" comes from the Latin word "schola".
Goals
* Provide a complete software solution using free software and
* tailored for the needs and use-cases in educational scenarios.
* preconfigured for easy installation (standalone, as well as network-wide rollout).
* easy to use, maintain, and administer.
* supporting your language natively.
* Classify and package all free software related to education.
* Write documentation to describe how to use the various softwares (in an educational context).
* International availability, currently being translated into XX languages