You get segfaults? I run Linux and do absolutely everything on it. Segfaults?
Wow, I haven't seen anything like that in, what? Like 3 years now I haven't seen anything remotely related to that.
I fix PCs every day and know what the BSODs are and what causes them. I get paid good money to know that,so I know what a segfault is (or it's equivalent). I can't even remember seeing one in a very long time...that's why I was prompted to write this comment--a segfault...wow, what an old concept.
Fortunately, Linux is user friendly. No problem with that statement. It is as easy to use as any desktop is. What's currently wrong with it is that it is still buggy, and that is due at least in part to the fact that there's so much fragmentation in the distros. For instance, the latest Ubuntu kernel update wreaked havoc on people's audio, usb, video, wireless, etc. There's a thread on ubuntuforums.org that discusses the various update issues.
That being said, if you can get a machine that is stable and you do no updates to the kernel or other important features, then you can continue to use a very user friendly, stable, attractive, and fun operating system. If, by chance, you see the icon in your sys tray that says you have updates and you are just an average Joe (a human being), and you say it is OK to install (without truly knowing the potential impact of those updates), you can disable your whole system or even create such a mess that your individual features (hardware such as wireless, video, & sound) no longer work or don't work as expected.
I'm not saying this to disrespect linux because it is obvious that the parent to this post was flaimbait. That generally means a Microsoft lover.
Microsoft has had a slew of female programmers for years and years. During the Windows 3.x development they had many women working on the project as programmers. The person that did the "program manager" part of the OS was a woman.
At no time did anyone claim that women were better programmers nor that they are better program managers or better at any job. This isn't to say that men are better. It just isn't representative that women are better--nor men. There's no greater focus, no greater attention to detail, no greater determination to get it right.
You can just ask the guy who was tasked with writing the start button and menu for Vista. Much of the time what you program and how you program are not even within the purview of your own skill sets.
How a doctor gets his doctorate in academia is that they work on their thesis, teach courses, and then when they finish their thesis they submit it for a vote by the other doctors. It is hard to see how this man from Nokia (with his doctorate) could possibly be even remotely saying what he is.
It is very simple. If you don't want to play by the rules you don't get to make your own up. The GPL and FOSS principles provide his company with the code to create their product. They use it freely under the GPL and other licenses. Why would we want to bend our licenses and ideals to fit within one segment of another segment of an industry? Their segment is a small part of the software industry that produces content, and that is a segment of the larger software industry. There's no need to have a world wide Open Source community stop and redirect itself for the purposes of this small segment of a segment of one industry; of all the industries that drive the economics of the world.
Now, he says that Nokia has grabbed the rainbow and is going to hold the colors for ransom unless we all agree to do things their way--that is utterly ludicrous. They use this open source software at the choice of the people who develop it, not the other way around. Of course, they know this, so they purchase a critical component and say, "Hey, guess what? We now own a critical piece of open source, play by our rules or get kicked in the gonads."
These people are so utterly stupid as to not understand how that will play out? Forking the code at that point in time removes them from the picture altogether. It doesn't harm other businesses (other than Nokia) to have the code forked. It doesn't even affect businesses that have created proprietary products. Forking simply removes the future development from Nokia's control.
Honestly, what is wrong with these people, even those purported to be doctors and granted the title and recognition? They can't understand even the concept that Open Source is open? This is why the OS and all the components necessary to manage the OS should always be free and never be in the hands of one entity.
What these guys have also misunderstood is that when word goes forth that Nokia is implementing extensive use of DRM the slash.dot type individuals (whom are responsible for guiding a huge amount of purchases of technology) will put the dampers on those Nokia DRM products.
DRM is something that Microsoft foams at the mouth over. They are desperate to regrow that market. Nothing more would make them happier than to see everyone forced back to DRM. They want this because they want control over the tools and delivery process for the content. As Bill Gates said, the computer is no longer used primarily to produce content. It is used to consume it.
Gates knew that when they built Vista. They did so with the intent of selling massive DRM technologies to content creation companies. Why? Because it ties you to Microsoft and to Windows--it is another one of those many lock-in technologies. Microsoft will not license the content restrictions management to use by anyone unless they produce that content for their tools on their platform. Even the Mac OS would suffer as they don't have the same architecture in their OS to play this game with DRM the way Microsoft has incorporated it into the heart of Vista.
This is precisely why we do NOT want DRM, ever. Nor do we want to let some hokey company such as Nokia attempt to hold the world hostage unless we implement their view (of how it should be done in one segment of another segment of a market).
My experience with google software is that very little, if any, is a port to Linux. Most of it is simply a wine implementation. So, in effect, it is a windows program running on linux.
If google wants to really commit to linux they'll make real linux programs and not some wine implementation.
One has to understand that this man is most likely very unstable but has a loud voice. He knows a squeeky wheel gets the grease.
A friend of mine, when I asked him why he was yelling to the crowd of students (in the cafeteria) instead of just speaking to them told me someone told him that if you want to get elected, then speak real loud. He was elected to the student board.
Jack Thompson has his followers but obviously this man is a kook. I can't imagine anyone getting away with the bullshit he has and not be punished. So now, he's saying they have no authority over him? He'll be surprised when he's arrested for practicing law after he's been disbarred.
Microsoft has created absolutely no products that weren't copied or predicated on someone elses work. So, it isn't that it has been that way for the past few years. They have never during their whole history. I wish people would just look at Microsoft for what they are--a copycat. They are destined to failure because they have become such a behemoth that they are bound to collapse in on themselves.
Not only that, when you consider how much money these guys are hoarding everyone should be questioning whether we want more of the same mentality that goes into this form of hoarding. Can you imagine a man with a trillion dollars to his name while most of the rest of the world starves and all this trillionaire can do is tell countries that he'll help them as long as they commit to buying his products?
Microsoft isn't any good at anything and mostly they are not good at data. The end.
Who cares about Bill Gates. Good bye, and good riddens. I'd rather we had a world without his influences.
Take care of your charity, please don't predicate your charity on whether a country buys your products any more, and stay the hell out of the computer industry.
Wow, you couldn't be more accurate about how dated their site looks. In fact, it looks more like 1990 than 6 years later.
Never get upset about someone responding to your posts because it means that at least someone is hearing you even if they are blind in their mind's eye--and that's a lot of zealots in the land of linux.
I used linux and have used it for the past 3 years. I'd tried it a couple years before for a year then went back to windows for a year. When Ubuntu started gaining popularity I returned and haven't even thought about going back. Sheesh, it does everything I want, everything, with the exception of windows gaming. In that matter I couldn't really care because I do have a machine set aside for that which only plays games.
In fact, it wouldn't bother me one bit if 5-10 years down the road we look upon windows as a gaming console-type OS where that's all you do--where your real work is done on Linux.
Notebook support in Linux is some of the worst. In fact, in my opinion (speaking from years of experience with Linux and owning a computer store myself), the support for laptops in Linux is deplorable. The HP zv zx, etc line of P4 class laptops were their main laptop products for nearly 3 years. They sold millions of them, yet getting sound, getting video, getting wireless to work, is nearly impossible, and is THE impossible for the average notebook home user.
So, what? Now we have Shuttleworth having focused his efforts targetting ultra portables? I doubt he will be able to pull it off. He isn't giving regular laptops enough attention--I believe it is because they don't understand them--and the result is that we end up with a half-assed implementation that harms the reputation of Linux more than any linux zealot ever could.
I'm afraid they do know that or they'd be more inclined to swap it out. I know it because I own and operate a small computer store and deal with customers every day. They know they are paying for the OS.
Sheesh, who wrote the lead into this story? They sound the baboon taken by Microsoft's orgy of gorillas.
Microsoft has never ever supported open standards and no amount of OOXML will ever support that fact.
Microsoft's attempt is to subvert the true meaning of open source and to beguile and lie to those not smart enough to understand the real reason behind open source.
Microsoft's offerings have been nothing but opened source and that is a universe away from Open Source concepts.
Microsoft is run by a bunch of nuts if they think that we can't see that this is nothing more than their:
embrace, extend, extinguish
tactic.
Their demise won't come soon enough.
In the end open source will meet or exceed any closed source offering. This means that all features, concepts, capabilities will be equal to or better than in the closed source world. What this will relegate Windows to, and there's nothing wrong with it, is a gaming console type application. You'll only use it when and if you want to play games.
The transition to open source is inevitable. The world is far too large and there are too many people that know about how Microsoft does business. Big named companies are now involved. They know how to diffuse the obfuscated veil that Microsoft is draping over the eyes of the average fanboy worshiping at the feet of the criminal monopolist.
And this is supposed to be my concern how? $20,000 for toilet seats and I'm supposed to worry about the military having counterfeit routers? I'd say they got took just like anyone else.
Move on. Stop violating our Constitution, stop torturing people. Comply with the Constitution of the United States and stay out of our lives.
KDE 4.0 was pre-alpha. I mean it was bad. It was almost criminally bad. Significant rebuke has been placed on the KDE team. Such a horrible release that even now is still quite bad even with the updates.
KDE 4.1, hopefully will be much better. We'll see.
KDE 4.x has the potential to change the landscape of desktop managers in Linux but if these guys can't get it worked out and faster than say 5 years, it will seriously disappoint.
To be honest the reason why anyone would use Linux in face of such an incredible disclosure would be because they value their privacy. I've been saying for the past couple years that privacy is important no matter what.
With Ubuntu (or Linux in general) you aren't going to be making it easier for a company such as Microsoft to build such a tool which can and will be abused more than you can possibly imagine.
With Linux the privacy is protected by disclosure. You disclose your coding so that millions of eyes can see it. No surprises can crop up for this sort of thing because people have seen the code. No special facilities will be built that will allow companies to allow other entities undisclosed access to your computer.
I don't want to hear the shit about how if you aren't guilty you shouldn't be worried. That's absolute bullshit. You protect your privacy to keep others from invading your privacy in the future.
With Microsoft Windows you have your privacy violated all the time (especially in Vista). You let this go and down the road you are probably going to find more nefarious aspects to that privacy violations such as the ability of the federal government to invade undetectably into your computer.
It is my right to say what is disclosed about me and what I say to others in private conversation. Our laws were written to put the burden on the government to prove their cases and our laws are there to permit us to protect ourselves against self incrimination. These are there to keep government agencies from misusing their power, which happens regularly.
You give up your privacy today you give up your children's privacy tomorrow and they may not feel the same way about it as you do. And consider that our federal government has been monitoring all electronic and digital communications for some time without warrants is just one aspect of you allowing them to do it because you feel you have nothing to hide. Well, the vast majority of American's don't have anything serious to hide, but that's not enough reason to justify this blanket ability to invade
I used the term many times in various forums here and on digg.com. I used it in response to the "freetard" comments. I was trying to show them that more than one can play the same game.
Anyone in their right mind that is involved in computing and has knowledge of the GPL knows that the GPL does not do what Bill Gates says it does. This is a fact. The GPL, in fact, does just the opposite of what is said by Bill Gates.
What Bill Gates is doing is preying on the fact that many decision makers have never taken the time to understand the GPL. He's essentially a "the sky is falling" type of guy who is doing this to scare development away from open source. He's attempting to do several other things, such as slowing the adoption of alternative OSes to Vista, putting some black marks on the face of ODT due to how much incredibly bad press OOXML has gotten, and trying to keep others from adopting another platform for the future development.
I mean really, the GPL has statements specifically which state you can modify, distribute, reap profits, etc. It just says that if you use the work and derive anything from it by distributing it, you must give back your changes.
Bill Gates, in this regard, is showing how incredibly stupid even one of the richest people in the world can be. Yet, this isn't stupidity in regard to the GPL because Bill Gates knows perfectly well what the GPL does and how it works and hence he isn't being stupid about it, he's being stupid in that the GPL is becoming widely known and people hearing his comments begin to really understand how insanely stupid his FUD really is--we are smart enough about the GPL now to know what he says is wrong. He's stupid because he is making these comments in direct contradiction to what the GPL actually does. He's not out to say that he wants to use GPL code in his product and he can't because he has to give back. This would be one of the biggest PR debacles of all time for a proprietard company. What he's saying is this:
Open Source and the GPL are succeeding beyond his wildest nightmares and he's upset that his closed source idea stealing criminal monopoly company is having difficulty competing.
In the end, maybe we'll have Linux become the general desktop for productivity applications, internet, music, movies, etc., and Windows will be the desktop for gaming. In the end, all software ends up in the same place, meaning that the feature sets are there, the bugs are whittled away, they go through an upgrade cycle. The difference would then be in what extras the computing platform provides. Since it is obvious that Linux has a huge base of development and that Windows has essentially be relegated to a few large corporations building the mainstay applications, then when the Open Source world's applications catch up (and is all free), the Open Source world will have succeeded Windows as the platform of choice. That's how it will be, it is inevitable. Is it going to happen overnight? NO. Not at all, but the coming is in the works and anyone with even a bit of foresight can see it happening. It's inevitable.
The problem with Fujitsu has always been getting them to warrant their product. Most drives today come with a 3-5 year warranty while Fujitsu and Toshiba have been a stick in the mud selling mostly to OEMs and forcing you to get warranty replacements through the OEM. This means that after a year (in most cases) you don't get a replacement drive if it fails.
I'd rather put my money in Seagate or Western Digital.
The problem is, that there has been a long period of time between what SAMBA started to create at the beginning and what they have created so far. There are assumptions that have gone into place and there are assumptions that still exist. The issue is how difficult is it going to be for SAMBA to back out of a lot of those assumptions and to redo it all. They'll spend the next 6 months just looking at their code from the access to the protocol info they have and probably find that much of their code would need to be reworked. That'll mean another 3-6 months reworking it. Then it'll take another 6 or so months just to get it debugged, and into some distro's hands. Probably going to be 2 years before we actually see any solid smooth as a baby's butt integration come out of this for the Linux/Unix world.
That's the sad part. The cruel part is that Microsoft knows this and it gives them still 2 years to consider new things and new strategies. You can see that Microsoft knows that time is an important factor and timing even more so, and we can see that their feet dragging regarding the compliance with the EU ruling has netted them years of extra time to which they have certainly been working on other means to thwart any progress made in the server/protocol arena.
Anything that threatens their desktop or server OS market is a target of the most obscene threats, even those that could result in criminal prosecution if they were ever discovered to be done with malice in order to protect their monopoly.
Threats are Microsoft's business of the day. That's their plan for the future to thwart off all competition to their desktop OS. No matter that they begged, borrowed, and stole 90% of the ideas that went into it. If you can't compete any longer you litigate, or threaten to in order to have customers potentially switching to the competition stop in their tracks.
Those in their right mind knew this was just blather from the Ballmer, but it is enough to get companies re-examining their plans.
You can't trust Microsoft and you can't trust that they won't try to patent what they have failed to patent so far. Nor can you keep them from changing things once you have developed around them. You all saw the sheer bullshit with the ISO so you must understand that they are far more devious than this in other areas. We as the watchful eye haven't had a chance yet to gaze into their other practices, the real practices that keep people locked into their technologies.
I have never had a laptop wireless work under Ubuntu, tho I know others have. I have multiple laptops (compaq, HP, Dell, Toshiba) and not a single one works under 7.10 and as far as 8.04 goes on the laptops I have tested it with they don't work either.
Slashdot Mirror
You get segfaults? I run Linux and do absolutely everything on it. Segfaults?
Wow, I haven't seen anything like that in, what? Like 3 years now I haven't seen anything remotely related to that.
I fix PCs every day and know what the BSODs are and what causes them. I get paid good money to know that,so I know what a segfault is (or it's equivalent). I can't even remember seeing one in a very long time...that's why I was prompted to write this comment--a segfault...wow, what an old concept.
Fortunately, Linux is user friendly. No problem with that statement. It is as easy to use as any desktop is. What's currently wrong with it is that it is still buggy, and that is due at least in part to the fact that there's so much fragmentation in the distros. For instance, the latest Ubuntu kernel update wreaked havoc on people's audio, usb, video, wireless, etc. There's a thread on ubuntuforums.org that discusses the various update issues.
That being said, if you can get a machine that is stable and you do no updates to the kernel or other important features, then you can continue to use a very user friendly, stable, attractive, and fun operating system. If, by chance, you see the icon in your sys tray that says you have updates and you are just an average Joe (a human being), and you say it is OK to install (without truly knowing the potential impact of those updates), you can disable your whole system or even create such a mess that your individual features (hardware such as wireless, video, & sound) no longer work or don't work as expected.
I'm not saying this to disrespect linux because it is obvious that the parent to this post was flaimbait. That generally means a Microsoft lover.
Very.
Microsoft has had a slew of female programmers for years and years. During the Windows 3.x development they had many women working on the project as programmers. The person that did the "program manager" part of the OS was a woman.
At no time did anyone claim that women were better programmers nor that they are better program managers or better at any job. This isn't to say that men are better. It just isn't representative that women are better--nor men. There's no greater focus, no greater attention to detail, no greater determination to get it right.
You can just ask the guy who was tasked with writing the start button and menu for Vista. Much of the time what you program and how you program are not even within the purview of your own skill sets.
How a doctor gets his doctorate in academia is that they work on their thesis, teach courses, and then when they finish their thesis they submit it for a vote by the other doctors. It is hard to see how this man from Nokia (with his doctorate) could possibly be even remotely saying what he is.
It is very simple. If you don't want to play by the rules you don't get to make your own up. The GPL and FOSS principles provide his company with the code to create their product. They use it freely under the GPL and other licenses. Why would we want to bend our licenses and ideals to fit within one segment of another segment of an industry? Their segment is a small part of the software industry that produces content, and that is a segment of the larger software industry. There's no need to have a world wide Open Source community stop and redirect itself for the purposes of this small segment of a segment of one industry; of all the industries that drive the economics of the world.
Now, he says that Nokia has grabbed the rainbow and is going to hold the colors for ransom unless we all agree to do things their way--that is utterly ludicrous. They use this open source software at the choice of the people who develop it, not the other way around. Of course, they know this, so they purchase a critical component and say, "Hey, guess what? We now own a critical piece of open source, play by our rules or get kicked in the gonads."
These people are so utterly stupid as to not understand how that will play out? Forking the code at that point in time removes them from the picture altogether. It doesn't harm other businesses (other than Nokia) to have the code forked. It doesn't even affect businesses that have created proprietary products. Forking simply removes the future development from Nokia's control.
Honestly, what is wrong with these people, even those purported to be doctors and granted the title and recognition? They can't understand even the concept that Open Source is open? This is why the OS and all the components necessary to manage the OS should always be free and never be in the hands of one entity.
What these guys have also misunderstood is that when word goes forth that Nokia is implementing extensive use of DRM the slash.dot type individuals (whom are responsible for guiding a huge amount of purchases of technology) will put the dampers on those Nokia DRM products.
DRM is something that Microsoft foams at the mouth over. They are desperate to regrow that market. Nothing more would make them happier than to see everyone forced back to DRM. They want this because they want control over the tools and delivery process for the content. As Bill Gates said, the computer is no longer used primarily to produce content. It is used to consume it.
Gates knew that when they built Vista. They did so with the intent of selling massive DRM technologies to content creation companies. Why? Because it ties you to Microsoft and to Windows--it is another one of those many lock-in technologies. Microsoft will not license the content restrictions management to use by anyone unless they produce that content for their tools on their platform. Even the Mac OS would suffer as they don't have the same architecture in their OS to play this game with DRM the way Microsoft has incorporated it into the heart of Vista.
This is precisely why we do NOT want DRM, ever. Nor do we want to let some hokey company such as Nokia attempt to hold the world hostage unless we implement their view (of how it should be done in one segment of another segment of a market).
My experience with google software is that very little, if any, is a port to Linux. Most of it is simply a wine implementation. So, in effect, it is a windows program running on linux.
If google wants to really commit to linux they'll make real linux programs and not some wine implementation.
One has to understand that this man is most likely very unstable but has a loud voice. He knows a squeeky wheel gets the grease.
A friend of mine, when I asked him why he was yelling to the crowd of students (in the cafeteria) instead of just speaking to them told me someone told him that if you want to get elected, then speak real loud. He was elected to the student board.
Jack Thompson has his followers but obviously this man is a kook. I can't imagine anyone getting away with the bullshit he has and not be punished. So now, he's saying they have no authority over him? He'll be surprised when he's arrested for practicing law after he's been disbarred.
Good riddance to him.
Microsoft has created absolutely no products that weren't copied or predicated on someone elses work. So, it isn't that it has been that way for the past few years. They have never during their whole history. I wish people would just look at Microsoft for what they are--a copycat. They are destined to failure because they have become such a behemoth that they are bound to collapse in on themselves.
Not only that, when you consider how much money these guys are hoarding everyone should be questioning whether we want more of the same mentality that goes into this form of hoarding. Can you imagine a man with a trillion dollars to his name while most of the rest of the world starves and all this trillionaire can do is tell countries that he'll help them as long as they commit to buying his products?
Microsoft isn't any good at anything and mostly they are not good at data. The end.
Who cares about Bill Gates. Good bye, and good riddens. I'd rather we had a world without his influences.
Take care of your charity, please don't predicate your charity on whether a country buys your products any more, and stay the hell out of the computer industry.
It's boring and dated. There are advancements in web browser technologies for a reason.
These advancements say that looks matter as much as substance. Debian and Ubuntu have substance, it is just that Ubuntu has looks too.
It doesn't excuse the attack that the linux zealot made upon him for his suggestion.
Wow, you couldn't be more accurate about how dated their site looks. In fact, it looks more like 1990 than 6 years later.
Never get upset about someone responding to your posts because it means that at least someone is hearing you even if they are blind in their mind's eye--and that's a lot of zealots in the land of linux.
I used linux and have used it for the past 3 years. I'd tried it a couple years before for a year then went back to windows for a year. When Ubuntu started gaining popularity I returned and haven't even thought about going back. Sheesh, it does everything I want, everything, with the exception of windows gaming. In that matter I couldn't really care because I do have a machine set aside for that which only plays games.
In fact, it wouldn't bother me one bit if 5-10 years down the road we look upon windows as a gaming console-type OS where that's all you do--where your real work is done on Linux.
Notebook support in Linux is some of the worst. In fact, in my opinion (speaking from years of experience with Linux and owning a computer store myself), the support for laptops in Linux is deplorable. The HP zv zx, etc line of P4 class laptops were their main laptop products for nearly 3 years. They sold millions of them, yet getting sound, getting video, getting wireless to work, is nearly impossible, and is THE impossible for the average notebook home user.
So, what? Now we have Shuttleworth having focused his efforts targetting ultra portables? I doubt he will be able to pull it off. He isn't giving regular laptops enough attention--I believe it is because they don't understand them--and the result is that we end up with a half-assed implementation that harms the reputation of Linux more than any linux zealot ever could.
I'm afraid they do know that or they'd be more inclined to swap it out. I know it because I own and operate a small computer store and deal with customers every day. They know they are paying for the OS.
Incorrect, the price of windows is included in the price of the computer. Hence they are paying for it, period!
Also, they pay when the have an existing computer that they upgrade to the latest.
So, stop spreading Microsoft mist over the eyes of the general public.
Bury thy head in the sand.
Sheesh, who wrote the lead into this story? They sound the baboon taken by Microsoft's orgy of gorillas.
Microsoft has never ever supported open standards and no amount of OOXML will ever support that fact.
Microsoft's attempt is to subvert the true meaning of open source and to beguile and lie to those not smart enough to understand the real reason behind open source.
Microsoft's offerings have been nothing but opened source and that is a universe away from Open Source concepts.
Microsoft is run by a bunch of nuts if they think that we can't see that this is nothing more than their:
embrace, extend, extinguish
tactic.
Their demise won't come soon enough.
In the end open source will meet or exceed any closed source offering. This means that all features, concepts, capabilities will be equal to or better than in the closed source world. What this will relegate Windows to, and there's nothing wrong with it, is a gaming console type application. You'll only use it when and if you want to play games.
The transition to open source is inevitable. The world is far too large and there are too many people that know about how Microsoft does business. Big named companies are now involved. They know how to diffuse the obfuscated veil that Microsoft is draping over the eyes of the average fanboy worshiping at the feet of the criminal monopolist.
And this is supposed to be my concern how? $20,000 for toilet seats and I'm supposed to worry about the military having counterfeit routers? I'd say they got took just like anyone else.
Move on. Stop violating our Constitution, stop torturing people. Comply with the Constitution of the United States and stay out of our lives.
KDE 4.0 was pre-alpha. I mean it was bad. It was almost criminally bad. Significant rebuke has been placed on the KDE team. Such a horrible release that even now is still quite bad even with the updates.
KDE 4.1, hopefully will be much better. We'll see.
KDE 4.x has the potential to change the landscape of desktop managers in Linux but if these guys can't get it worked out and faster than say 5 years, it will seriously disappoint.
To be honest the reason why anyone would use Linux in face of such an incredible disclosure would be because they value their privacy. I've been saying for the past couple years that privacy is important no matter what.
With Ubuntu (or Linux in general) you aren't going to be making it easier for a company such as Microsoft to build such a tool which can and will be abused more than you can possibly imagine.
With Linux the privacy is protected by disclosure. You disclose your coding so that millions of eyes can see it. No surprises can crop up for this sort of thing because people have seen the code. No special facilities will be built that will allow companies to allow other entities undisclosed access to your computer.
I don't want to hear the shit about how if you aren't guilty you shouldn't be worried. That's absolute bullshit. You protect your privacy to keep others from invading your privacy in the future.
With Microsoft Windows you have your privacy violated all the time (especially in Vista). You let this go and down the road you are probably going to find more nefarious aspects to that privacy violations such as the ability of the federal government to invade undetectably into your computer.
It is my right to say what is disclosed about me and what I say to others in private conversation. Our laws were written to put the burden on the government to prove their cases and our laws are there to permit us to protect ourselves against self incrimination. These are there to keep government agencies from misusing their power, which happens regularly.
You give up your privacy today you give up your children's privacy tomorrow and they may not feel the same way about it as you do. And consider that our federal government has been monitoring all electronic and digital communications for some time without warrants is just one aspect of you allowing them to do it because you feel you have nothing to hide. Well, the vast majority of American's don't have anything serious to hide, but that's not enough reason to justify this blanket ability to invade
I used the term many times in various forums here and on digg.com. I used it in response to the "freetard" comments. I was trying to show them that more than one can play the same game.
Anyone in their right mind that is involved in computing and has knowledge of the GPL knows that the GPL does not do what Bill Gates says it does. This is a fact. The GPL, in fact, does just the opposite of what is said by Bill Gates.
What Bill Gates is doing is preying on the fact that many decision makers have never taken the time to understand the GPL. He's essentially a "the sky is falling" type of guy who is doing this to scare development away from open source. He's attempting to do several other things, such as slowing the adoption of alternative OSes to Vista, putting some black marks on the face of ODT due to how much incredibly bad press OOXML has gotten, and trying to keep others from adopting another platform for the future development.
I mean really, the GPL has statements specifically which state you can modify, distribute, reap profits, etc. It just says that if you use the work and derive anything from it by distributing it, you must give back your changes.
Bill Gates, in this regard, is showing how incredibly stupid even one of the richest people in the world can be. Yet, this isn't stupidity in regard to the GPL because Bill Gates knows perfectly well what the GPL does and how it works and hence he isn't being stupid about it, he's being stupid in that the GPL is becoming widely known and people hearing his comments begin to really understand how insanely stupid his FUD really is--we are smart enough about the GPL now to know what he says is wrong. He's stupid because he is making these comments in direct contradiction to what the GPL actually does. He's not out to say that he wants to use GPL code in his product and he can't because he has to give back. This would be one of the biggest PR debacles of all time for a proprietard company. What he's saying is this:
Open Source and the GPL are succeeding beyond his wildest nightmares and he's upset that his closed source idea stealing criminal monopoly company is having difficulty competing.
In the end, maybe we'll have Linux become the general desktop for productivity applications, internet, music, movies, etc., and Windows will be the desktop for gaming. In the end, all software ends up in the same place, meaning that the feature sets are there, the bugs are whittled away, they go through an upgrade cycle. The difference would then be in what extras the computing platform provides. Since it is obvious that Linux has a huge base of development and that Windows has essentially be relegated to a few large corporations building the mainstay applications, then when the Open Source world's applications catch up (and is all free), the Open Source world will have succeeded Windows as the platform of choice. That's how it will be, it is inevitable. Is it going to happen overnight? NO. Not at all, but the coming is in the works and anyone with even a bit of foresight can see it happening. It's inevitable.
The problem with Fujitsu has always been getting them to warrant their product. Most drives today come with a 3-5 year warranty while Fujitsu and Toshiba have been a stick in the mud selling mostly to OEMs and forcing you to get warranty replacements through the OEM. This means that after a year (in most cases) you don't get a replacement drive if it fails.
I'd rather put my money in Seagate or Western Digital.
The problem is, that there has been a long period of time between what SAMBA started to create at the beginning and what they have created so far. There are assumptions that have gone into place and there are assumptions that still exist. The issue is how difficult is it going to be for SAMBA to back out of a lot of those assumptions and to redo it all. They'll spend the next 6 months just looking at their code from the access to the protocol info they have and probably find that much of their code would need to be reworked. That'll mean another 3-6 months reworking it. Then it'll take another 6 or so months just to get it debugged, and into some distro's hands. Probably going to be 2 years before we actually see any solid smooth as a baby's butt integration come out of this for the Linux/Unix world.
That's the sad part. The cruel part is that Microsoft knows this and it gives them still 2 years to consider new things and new strategies. You can see that Microsoft knows that time is an important factor and timing even more so, and we can see that their feet dragging regarding the compliance with the EU ruling has netted them years of extra time to which they have certainly been working on other means to thwart any progress made in the server/protocol arena.
Anything that threatens their desktop or server OS market is a target of the most obscene threats, even those that could result in criminal prosecution if they were ever discovered to be done with malice in order to protect their monopoly.
Threats are Microsoft's business of the day. That's their plan for the future to thwart off all competition to their desktop OS. No matter that they begged, borrowed, and stole 90% of the ideas that went into it. If you can't compete any longer you litigate, or threaten to in order to have customers potentially switching to the competition stop in their tracks.
Those in their right mind knew this was just blather from the Ballmer, but it is enough to get companies re-examining their plans.
You can't trust Microsoft and you can't trust that they won't try to patent what they have failed to patent so far. Nor can you keep them from changing things once you have developed around them. You all saw the sheer bullshit with the ISO so you must understand that they are far more devious than this in other areas. We as the watchful eye haven't had a chance yet to gaze into their other practices, the real practices that keep people locked into their technologies.
I have never had a laptop wireless work under Ubuntu, tho I know others have. I have multiple laptops (compaq, HP, Dell, Toshiba) and not a single one works under 7.10 and as far as 8.04 goes on the laptops I have tested it with they don't work either.