Nowhere in the WSJ article does it say that Sprint counts transfers between departments as "calls" !!! I'd rather wish that people would refrain from posting inaccurate statements about articles linked to from/., especially in cases where the article is not publically accessible...
Presumably someone from the CentOS project pays for a Red Hat support plan (or two, or three), and in return is able to download the product (and get the sources as required by the GPL). Remember, the GPL allows you to charge for your product, and that's pretty much what RHEL does (although you can alternatively get a trial account and access the downloads in that manner).
You know, I think this kind of incident is really unfortunate, in that it really is going to do nothing other than bolster a negative perception of the Linux community. A company deploys a distro of Linux, and is immediately subject to a barrage of criticism for selecting that particular distro. Would those complaining about the use of Unbreakable Linux rather the company had instead chosen to be an all-Windows environment?
Another aspect I don't get in all of this is the preference for Red Hat over Oracle. Red Hat is a great company that has contributed a lot to Linux, but to be fair, they are also a company that does not provide free access to downloads of their signature product (which is why we have CentOS), and a company the CEO of which once stated that Windows was a superior alternative to Linux for desktop users (admittedly a few years ago). Oracle, on the other hand, makes Unbreakable Linux freely availible to anyone who wants to download it, and additionally, also gave a major boost to Linux when it started supporting Linux as a platform in the late 1990s.
To be clear, though, I am not saying that Oracle has a better record than Red Hat, rather, that the two have both made contributions to the Linux community, and for a large number of people to attack a company for using Unbreakable Linux as opposed to RHEL is, in my opinion, retarded.
Specifically its an issue of a service provider exiting a business, after having distributed Linux to people, and the new service providers failing to provide the source code as required by the GPL.
Well, this would be a great opportunity for a lawsuit, instigated by the FSF or another stakeholder in the matter. The flipside of that, however, is that proponents of proprietary OSes would then immediately cite the case as an example of the "dangers" of using Linux. Tough call; I'm in favor of an attempt to enforce the GPL (and potentially get validation from a US court that it is, in fact, a legally enforceable license).
Interesting. So I guess the story was inaccurate in calling this "open source." I myself was highly perplexed at the though of Microsoft opening up anything significant like that. In this instance though, it looks like a logical move by Microsoft to increase interest in one of its more underperforming products by moving it to a shared source license.
Of course, then you run into a whole can of worms in the process of determining who was paid versus who wasn't. One can conceivably imagine the provision being used as an excuse for law enforcement (or worse) to rifle through bloggers' bank accounts to determine evidence of "illegal payment." This could cause all kinds of hassles, especially for bloggers who use their blog as a source of income and who might (as is often the case with self-employed workers) not follow proper proceedures for recording who paid them for what in terms of legal, legitimate advertising. Thus, it could be alleged that they had illegally accepted money for a political post on their blog without having registered as a lobbyist, and they could face jail time, et cetera. It is of course axiomatic that the ruling party of the moment could use this as a tool with which to quickly silence opposition.
I'm of the opinion that Slashdot's extensive coverage of the iPhone is warranted by virtue of the enormous public interest in the iPhone as a product. While there is really nothing new in the iPhone (although it is a clever combination of existing technologies), the public interest in it is intense, and if it does indeed live up to its promise and deliver a dramatically improved user interface experience for smartphones and handheld devices, it could become an extremely signficant product. What is terrifying about this prospect, is of course, the fact that the iPhone represents a blatant rejection of everything the FOSS community has been advocating: open platforms, open standards, open source, and user choice. If the iPhone promotes the idea that closed source, closed platform monopolies are cool, then that obviously does not bode well for us.
Consequently, there is an obvious need for Slashdot to cover the iPhone as extensively as possible, so that we as a community can (a) better understand the threat that it poses, and (b) get a sense of how best to respond.
As a graphics designer (among other things), I vehemently reject the notion that graphics design is some magic art that only a circle of "gifted creatives" can practice. This, I cannot help but believe, is sheer balderdash, created by designers to reinforce the illusion that they are indispensible wizards.
Though I was interested in art from day one, and cannot speak from personal experience, I believe that it is possible for anyone to develop the creative skills neccessary to become a good artist or graphics designer, and the fact that the poster has shown an interest is probably the single greatest hurdle. With that said, I would reccommend the following course of action:
1. Go to a bookstore and take a look at the various books they might have on graphics design, perhaps picking up one or two of interest. Visit the galleries on aiga.org. Learn to appreciate graphic design as an art, study the works of the great figures in the discipline (Paul Rand, William Golden, Saul Bass, Massimo Vignelli, et cetera), and get an understanding of the differences in style and the subtleties of different types of graphics.
2. Before deciding whether or not to commit to graphics design, download an open source app and play around with it. Try various typographic treatments, try creating web buttons, and do other practice work. See if it's a process you find enjoyable. Keep experimenting until you start to really like what you see.
3. If you have trouble coming up with design ideas, you might try playing a computer game that requires or stimulates creativity regarding design - building houses in The Sims would probably be the best example of that.
If you like what you see in your studies of design, then I would encourage you to pursue it further. If you find typography, color management, and the other aspects of the discipline to be exceedingly dull after studying them for a bit, then you should probably avoid wasting your time (and your clients money) going after it, but don't come to that conclusion until you've played around with it. Remember, though, it's a serious discipline, and you won't achieve good results unless you respect it.
Contrary to popular belief, using Suse does not turn you into a vile subhuman ogre. Also, it didn't say what Suse they were migrating to, so if they're downloading free copies of OpenSuse, I really don't see why you'd even care. The various SUSE distros are wonderful operating systems, and they are (mostly) FOSS, so even if you don't agree with the Novell deal, I don't see why you feel the need to keep trolling about it.
On what basis do you claim that Wal-Mart is evil to begin with? They donate massive amounts to charity, have been working on being more environmentally friendly since the early 1990s (when they first built a prototype eco-friendly store with skylights and electric car charging facilities), and from an ethical standpoint they seem to at least have parity with the rest of the Fortune 500. Yes, they have crushed a lot of competitors in retail, but that's because for a long time they had a substantially better business model than anyone else. Wal-Mart's victory was an honest one, and (regardless of whether you're pro or anti-Microsoft) you can't even draw a parallel between Wal-Mart's victory and the dominance of the Windows platform (nor, for that matter, does Wal-Mart enjoy market share or margins anywhere near those of Microsoft). Retail is a brutally competitive, extremely low margin business with massive overcapacity, and unlike with technology products, there is seldom anything (other than geography) that forces you to shop exclusively at one store.
My only gripe about Wal-Mart is their generally dour merchandising and overall brand experience compared to Target. Wal-Mart's dominance in retail will soon likely fade anyway, as consumers embrace specialized big box retailers like Best Buy and resurgent midmarket department stores like Kohl's.
I run a design firm primarily using XP boxes, as I prefer to have a choice when it comes to what hardware I run my business on. With OS X I'm forced into only using Apple hardware, which imposes unacceptable limitations (no 8-12" laptops, no tablet PCs, very expensive workstations, limited parts availibility, et cetera). Windows can be a pain, but the added freedom and broader software library I get with it makes it worthwhile. I'm sure that the musicians asking us in this thread feel the same way.
The really annoying thing about Vista in this context is that it now forces us to choose between a locked hardware/software platform (by a company that is not exactly known for stellar support of legacy products), an OS that has an infuriating amount of use restrictions and DRM, and then Linux/BSD/etc, which are great operating systems that are sadly not supported by the majority of commercial software firms, forcing the use of open-source alternatives that are quite frequently inferior to their closed-source breathren. I see myself slowly migrating my firm to Linux as the applications improve, while continuing to use XP for running things that won't work in Linux/WINE/et cetera.
Thanks to the LXF85 coverdisc, I installed SLED 10 on one of my older (2000) Dell Pentium 4 desktops, and it runs quite well. I'm using VMWare Server to run PCBSD and Mandriva One on it (more or less for the sheer heck of it), and they run at a usable, if agonizingly slow speed. SLED is a wonderful distro, although installing VMWare Server on it was challenging (it forced me to beef up my knowledge of the command line, for which I am thankful). I am also using VMWare on several of my Windows machines, and am a major fan of virtualization as a tool for escaping dependance on any single operating systems.
A few flaws with your argument:
1. Advertising cannot create needs, only wants. These wants are based on showing how a particular brand satisfies pre-existing needs .
2. Advertising that creates a buzz around a product can be hugely successful, if you have a product that lives up to its expectations. Look at Apple as a classic example of that. Their 1984 commercial for the Macintosh provided virtually no information about the product or its benefits, but created a huge amount of excitement around the laucnh. When the product was unveiled, it was of course outstanding, and the result was that the Apple brand grew in strength by a huge margin that year.
The problem here is that the Samsung Q1 just isn't a good implementation of the Origami concept. We were shown pictures of prototypes on CNBC and elsewhere featuring show-stoppers such as laser-projector keyboards, and the Q1 doesn't have any of that, its just an unusually small, glorified slate (keyboard-less TabletPC). Until an Origami appears which actually offers some meaningful differentiation from the smaller tablets produced by companies like Motion Computing and Fujitsu, the UMPC concept just won't take off.
They also completely butchered the classic Landor Associates identity from the mid 1990s by setting the logo in a meaningless circle, and switching from the elegant serif font to a cheap-looking sans font, doubtless in response to Apple's similiar image adjustment.
There is no real concept of "identity" on Netscape...its just a flat, visually boring, uninspiring design, which also strikes me as needlessly clumsy in terms of navigation.
Slashdot Mirror
Nowhere in the WSJ article does it say that Sprint counts transfers between departments as "calls" !!! I'd rather wish that people would refrain from posting inaccurate statements about articles linked to from /., especially in cases where the article is not publically accessible...
Presumably someone from the CentOS project pays for a Red Hat support plan (or two, or three), and in return is able to download the product (and get the sources as required by the GPL). Remember, the GPL allows you to charge for your product, and that's pretty much what RHEL does (although you can alternatively get a trial account and access the downloads in that manner).
Another aspect I don't get in all of this is the preference for Red Hat over Oracle. Red Hat is a great company that has contributed a lot to Linux, but to be fair, they are also a company that does not provide free access to downloads of their signature product (which is why we have CentOS), and a company the CEO of which once stated that Windows was a superior alternative to Linux for desktop users (admittedly a few years ago). Oracle, on the other hand, makes Unbreakable Linux freely availible to anyone who wants to download it, and additionally, also gave a major boost to Linux when it started supporting Linux as a platform in the late 1990s.
To be clear, though, I am not saying that Oracle has a better record than Red Hat, rather, that the two have both made contributions to the Linux community, and for a large number of people to attack a company for using Unbreakable Linux as opposed to RHEL is, in my opinion, retarded.
Specifically its an issue of a service provider exiting a business, after having distributed Linux to people, and the new service providers failing to provide the source code as required by the GPL.
Well, this would be a great opportunity for a lawsuit, instigated by the FSF or another stakeholder in the matter. The flipside of that, however, is that proponents of proprietary OSes would then immediately cite the case as an example of the "dangers" of using Linux.
Tough call; I'm in favor of an attempt to enforce the GPL (and potentially get validation from a US court that it is, in fact, a legally enforceable license).
Interesting. So I guess the story was inaccurate in calling this "open source." I myself was highly perplexed at the though of Microsoft opening up anything significant like that. In this instance though, it looks like a logical move by Microsoft to increase interest in one of its more underperforming products by moving it to a shared source license.
I don't suppose anyone knows what open source license the software in question was released under? I looked in the article, without success.
Of course, then you run into a whole can of worms in the process of determining who was paid versus who wasn't. One can conceivably imagine the provision being used as an excuse for law enforcement (or worse) to rifle through bloggers' bank accounts to determine evidence of "illegal payment." This could cause all kinds of hassles, especially for bloggers who use their blog as a source of income and who might (as is often the case with self-employed workers) not follow proper proceedures for recording who paid them for what in terms of legal, legitimate advertising. Thus, it could be alleged that they had illegally accepted money for a political post on their blog without having registered as a lobbyist, and they could face jail time, et cetera. It is of course axiomatic that the ruling party of the moment could use this as a tool with which to quickly silence opposition.
I'm of the opinion that Slashdot's extensive coverage of the iPhone is warranted by virtue of the enormous public interest in the iPhone as a product. While there is really nothing new in the iPhone (although it is a clever combination of existing technologies), the public interest in it is intense, and if it does indeed live up to its promise and deliver a dramatically improved user interface experience for smartphones and handheld devices, it could become an extremely signficant product. What is terrifying about this prospect, is of course, the fact that the iPhone represents a blatant rejection of everything the FOSS community has been advocating: open platforms, open standards, open source, and user choice. If the iPhone promotes the idea that closed source, closed platform monopolies are cool, then that obviously does not bode well for us. Consequently, there is an obvious need for Slashdot to cover the iPhone as extensively as possible, so that we as a community can (a) better understand the threat that it poses, and (b) get a sense of how best to respond.
As a graphics designer (among other things), I vehemently reject the notion that graphics design is some magic art that only a circle of "gifted creatives" can practice. This, I cannot help but believe, is sheer balderdash, created by designers to reinforce the illusion that they are indispensible wizards. Though I was interested in art from day one, and cannot speak from personal experience, I believe that it is possible for anyone to develop the creative skills neccessary to become a good artist or graphics designer, and the fact that the poster has shown an interest is probably the single greatest hurdle. With that said, I would reccommend the following course of action: 1. Go to a bookstore and take a look at the various books they might have on graphics design, perhaps picking up one or two of interest. Visit the galleries on aiga.org. Learn to appreciate graphic design as an art, study the works of the great figures in the discipline (Paul Rand, William Golden, Saul Bass, Massimo Vignelli, et cetera), and get an understanding of the differences in style and the subtleties of different types of graphics. 2. Before deciding whether or not to commit to graphics design, download an open source app and play around with it. Try various typographic treatments, try creating web buttons, and do other practice work. See if it's a process you find enjoyable. Keep experimenting until you start to really like what you see. 3. If you have trouble coming up with design ideas, you might try playing a computer game that requires or stimulates creativity regarding design - building houses in The Sims would probably be the best example of that. If you like what you see in your studies of design, then I would encourage you to pursue it further. If you find typography, color management, and the other aspects of the discipline to be exceedingly dull after studying them for a bit, then you should probably avoid wasting your time (and your clients money) going after it, but don't come to that conclusion until you've played around with it. Remember, though, it's a serious discipline, and you won't achieve good results unless you respect it.
Contrary to popular belief, using Suse does not turn you into a vile subhuman ogre. Also, it didn't say what Suse they were migrating to, so if they're downloading free copies of OpenSuse, I really don't see why you'd even care. The various SUSE distros are wonderful operating systems, and they are (mostly) FOSS, so even if you don't agree with the Novell deal, I don't see why you feel the need to keep trolling about it.
On what basis do you claim that Wal-Mart is evil to begin with? They donate massive amounts to charity, have been working on being more environmentally friendly since the early 1990s (when they first built a prototype eco-friendly store with skylights and electric car charging facilities), and from an ethical standpoint they seem to at least have parity with the rest of the Fortune 500. Yes, they have crushed a lot of competitors in retail, but that's because for a long time they had a substantially better business model than anyone else. Wal-Mart's victory was an honest one, and (regardless of whether you're pro or anti-Microsoft) you can't even draw a parallel between Wal-Mart's victory and the dominance of the Windows platform (nor, for that matter, does Wal-Mart enjoy market share or margins anywhere near those of Microsoft). Retail is a brutally competitive, extremely low margin business with massive overcapacity, and unlike with technology products, there is seldom anything (other than geography) that forces you to shop exclusively at one store. My only gripe about Wal-Mart is their generally dour merchandising and overall brand experience compared to Target. Wal-Mart's dominance in retail will soon likely fade anyway, as consumers embrace specialized big box retailers like Best Buy and resurgent midmarket department stores like Kohl's.
I run a design firm primarily using XP boxes, as I prefer to have a choice when it comes to what hardware I run my business on. With OS X I'm forced into only using Apple hardware, which imposes unacceptable limitations (no 8-12" laptops, no tablet PCs, very expensive workstations, limited parts availibility, et cetera). Windows can be a pain, but the added freedom and broader software library I get with it makes it worthwhile. I'm sure that the musicians asking us in this thread feel the same way. The really annoying thing about Vista in this context is that it now forces us to choose between a locked hardware/software platform (by a company that is not exactly known for stellar support of legacy products), an OS that has an infuriating amount of use restrictions and DRM, and then Linux/BSD/etc, which are great operating systems that are sadly not supported by the majority of commercial software firms, forcing the use of open-source alternatives that are quite frequently inferior to their closed-source breathren. I see myself slowly migrating my firm to Linux as the applications improve, while continuing to use XP for running things that won't work in Linux/WINE/et cetera.
Thanks to the LXF85 coverdisc, I installed SLED 10 on one of my older (2000) Dell Pentium 4 desktops, and it runs quite well. I'm using VMWare Server to run PCBSD and Mandriva One on it (more or less for the sheer heck of it), and they run at a usable, if agonizingly slow speed. SLED is a wonderful distro, although installing VMWare Server on it was challenging (it forced me to beef up my knowledge of the command line, for which I am thankful). I am also using VMWare on several of my Windows machines, and am a major fan of virtualization as a tool for escaping dependance on any single operating systems.
A few flaws with your argument: 1. Advertising cannot create needs, only wants. These wants are based on showing how a particular brand satisfies pre-existing needs . 2. Advertising that creates a buzz around a product can be hugely successful, if you have a product that lives up to its expectations. Look at Apple as a classic example of that. Their 1984 commercial for the Macintosh provided virtually no information about the product or its benefits, but created a huge amount of excitement around the laucnh. When the product was unveiled, it was of course outstanding, and the result was that the Apple brand grew in strength by a huge margin that year. The problem here is that the Samsung Q1 just isn't a good implementation of the Origami concept. We were shown pictures of prototypes on CNBC and elsewhere featuring show-stoppers such as laser-projector keyboards, and the Q1 doesn't have any of that, its just an unusually small, glorified slate (keyboard-less TabletPC). Until an Origami appears which actually offers some meaningful differentiation from the smaller tablets produced by companies like Motion Computing and Fujitsu, the UMPC concept just won't take off.
They also completely butchered the classic Landor Associates identity from the mid 1990s by setting the logo in a meaningless circle, and switching from the elegant serif font to a cheap-looking sans font, doubtless in response to Apple's similiar image adjustment. There is no real concept of "identity" on Netscape...its just a flat, visually boring, uninspiring design, which also strikes me as needlessly clumsy in terms of navigation.