Over the past several years, Apple has done this with the iPod, iTunes, and now the iPhone. Their best interest is to keep their products under their control. Whenever there is a method to utilize iTunes through wine they include updates in order to interfere with installation and operation. It used to be that you could download previous versions of their binaries from their website that would work in wine but once there was a capable way of installing them through wine they were altered to impair such activity. I'm talking about 7.0 and up. I haven't tested 6.x and below. This is how they run their business and it's up to them on how they wish to run it. While I don't like it I respect their business decision. Apple makes a good product but it makes sense to use their product only when using their products.
For the best interest of the consumer, stop using their restricted products. If you do, just don't update the software. I hate saying don't update but it's their policy to break any alteration in their products. Also don't trust downloads of their binaries from other sources. While some can be reliable, it is best to get them from the source. My suggestion is to use Amazon.com with their DRM free music downloads, or use the Real.com subscription to listen to streamed media using Helix or the RealPlayer. There are other online music sites but right now Amazon.com has the model that stands out more than any other for commercial music.
It's cool that somebody put a lot of money to investigate how much money we are spending in energy. Sarcasm aside, it is kind of cool to find out how much we really are using something. Well, at least through an estimate. Other than that, how is this news worthy. It would help out students to develop an argument for energy use or for a independent study to reference for their own report.
Should I be worried that downloading porn is becoming too expensive. Should we start reducing the amount of time on the computer so I can save energy. The weird thing about this is that it only accounts for 10% of energy use. What about the other 90%? According to the reverenced CIA Factbook it says that 71% of the energy produced comes from fossil fuels. How much of that is used in vehicles? I could understand coal and natural gas plants but how much of that is used for fueling planes, trains or automobiles? Secondly, businesses need computers to operate but they also need faxes, printers, not to mention light. I mean do we really have to have street lights on all night long. I mean there are millions of them and they are on for at least 8 hours each day. Again with the sarcasm, I apologize for that but come on.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in pleasure and were suddenly silenced by some mind numbing device. I fear something wonderful has happened."
I've agreed to agree with the agreements here. It's simple, small, and stylish. They were the first ones to really create a business model around the digital music era. Back when the original Napster was around no one had enough nerve to stand up and capitalize on the developing market. Apple made a business model that, at the time, made sense. It wasn't theft and it was affordable. Right now it seems that all they want to do plug holes in their plans because they had enough foresight to capitalize on it but not enough insight to appreciate furthering developments within that market. It just seems to me every time they do stuff like this that they are greedy. I understand that they would like to have higher market share but by isolating their consumers into their bottleneck they only come off looking like a bunch of greedy weasels. They have good products but the company has unhealthy ethics.
I could be off here but this article talks about cooling lasers. ('Radio Wave Cooling' Offers New Twist on Laser Cooling) IANAP but they could have something done locally on the blast plate to act as a buffer between the laser itself and the drive plate. Depending on how much energy is isolated on the plate and depending on whether such a cooling technique can handle high temperatures or even use the laser a source of energy it might be possible to do it. It's bad logic but I thought it was interesting two stories about lasers came out about the same time on two different sites.
Yeah, it does seem too small considering the type of attack. Sounds to me that some individual wanted to test their skills or at least test the security of Pentagon computers. Could be that a computer from the PLA was used as a proxy. That's more of a possibility. While I hate to even suggest this, it might mean that there are people out there instigating conflict between countries. That in itself could mean that terrorism has taken a new form. I really hate using that word but considering the parties involved and what would be at stake if there was a conflict between the two, it seems plausible that there would be a third party involved.
It really is hard to say whether the China is responsible or not after reading both articles. I don't know what kind of security policies they use within their government and I don't really care to know. Unfortunately, how they handle hackers is ultimately their own business. How we deal with our own data gathering policies is another story altogether. IMHO, I think America's paranoia finally caught up with us. It's too early to say what will happen. This is an isolated event and I doubt anything serious would come from this. To be honest with everyone, I don't like where any of this is going. I hate using this adage but if only the strongest survive then it means that death will be the only thing the strongest will see for quite a long time. What good is that?
I was under the impression that it was reasonably common though.
Same here. They started splitting up the kids at about the 5th grade. Actually I do believe they started in the fourth but it's been a while and the skill level was limited only to a handful.
The ones that excelled outperformed students from other cities within the state. The ones that didn't perform as well often stated their boredom and focused on varied interests that kept their attention. People had an idea of where they wanted to be except for a very small handful.
I listen to this station a lot (Radio Kansas). They have several local programs that can't be heard anywhere else. It's wonderful programming but the funding comes from community support (i.e.: contributions). As stated on their online streaming service:
Music rights holders and streaming radio stations continue to negotiate fees and documentation procedures. The additional paperwork may include data on listener usage and musical performances that our current system simply cannot provide. We will restore our stream when we can do so in accordance with the new rules.
The problem is that this type of music isn't what the majority wants (even though people in general should take more interest in the Arts). Half the time, what the majority wants isn't of any real value anyways. For a non-profit to be put into a position where they would have to consider data-mining, it would seem that they are forced into a position where they won't be able to afford it. The other tragedy is that it doesn't just affect the music that they broadcast, it's the news as well. Due to all of this action, it is forcing the entire radio stream to be taken off the internet which limits the scope of where NPR news can be broadcasted. You can go to the NPR website but regardless it does limit the scope of viewers who would be potential supporters and contributors to the originating station. The radio stations had a system that worked well with the RIAA before. Why does the RIAA have to complicate everything when they just need to keep it simple?
You can still use your radio and surf for other local stations comparable to the content you are used to but living in Miami, Orlando, Wichita, Kansas City and Denver I had a hard enough time finding a decent station that carries similar programming. There is one exception and that is if you are a regular listener of any Clear Channel stations. At least they can guarantee the same crap anywhere you go.
IANAL. Even then, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. They do it in schools, universities and not to mention meetings at the office. Little packets of information to inform have a little thing called a bibliography. Now if they applied for and ISBN number for the packets then it might be a different story.
The problem with this though is that they are a commercial business and not a nonprofit organization. That isn't stated inside the article. It's implied without any thought into what the decision really meant. It's bad reporting because he doesn't cite the reason why the company lost the case. He doesn't bring up the specific law or precedence used to create the decision. If there is sensationalism on the part of the poster there is good reason. And yes, I did RTFA.
Hillary was the wife of a person that committed adultery. She handled it publicly and was very conservative with how she handled the public. In terms of popularity, she held on to her position as Senator of New York, so that has to account for something. About what her platform is based on, it's been pretty consistent even though I disagree with some of it. How it develops overtime is anyones guess.
I do know that I am ultimately responsible as a citizen of the US to educate myself about whom I would chose to represent us to the world. So instead of writing someone off because you have a superstitious feeling about them, try to make an educated unbiased guess before you concede to a nihilistic haphazard attitude. Stand up for once and stop saying that it doesn't matter. Apathy is the most ridiculous aspect of humanity sometimes. If you don't like someone, there has to be a reason why other than just superstitious intuition.
Neither. Humans are completely irrelevant, as far as the universe as a whole is concerned.
I disagree. Just like in capitalism, just one tiny thing can change and mold the market but it's a gradual process for that thing to create the broader effect.
Yes, but they are a business. Linux is a business too. Linux has to fight to get a fair share of the market. When a company is trying to defend their share of the market from an abstract source, they tend to do some pretty stupid things to keep their dominance. Hopefully, both sides understand that they are competitors and competition can create some bad things to happen for both sides not to mention some good things as well. It's part of the game but it doesn't have to result in a violent fiasco forcing business after business into bankruptcy. If both Microsoft and Linux can accept this then it would be like the whites accepting desegregation in the 1950's. It's not easy but it needs to be done for the right reasons.
Know the battles that need to be fought and disregard the rest. It's a good way to lose precious energy and resources if you fight against everything without knowing what you are really fighting for.
Volume Pricing on all makes and models of SuSE. Now with an eduction pipe... Get it while it's open and hot!!!
A hushed and hurried voice is then heard off from a distance: Subject to license agreement and acceptance there of. A portion of the funds and proceeds will be distributed to a third party for improving the quality of education for the masses.
Novell does have an opportunity but so does Red Hat. They both can actually do good and no one would be the wiser. While Novell has higher stock volume, Red Hat has a strong enough price to compensate for volume.
In terms of increasing competition within the Linux market, it's nothing new. I've read reports/articles of MS trying to divide the community. The community does a fine job doing it itself and for good reason. Everybody believes in their product especially when they do have something that they feel is important enough to be shared with the world (hence forking). It neat to see things work but it's even better to see things work for people who really need the product.
About openSUSE, it's sponsored by Novell but other than that I can't tell Novell's involvement within the community. That should be clarified.
Props to the OP. I hate searching needlessly as well.
Seriously, with a title like "Many Antivirus Tools Fail in LinuxWorld Test" you would expect something new. Well, I guess I was surprised. I didn't think Symantec had it in them. Kudos to them. ClamAV, no surprise there at all. Same goes for Kaspersky. You could've figured that out by using Google.
I was about to say... Azureus is one of the better bittorrent clients out there. I've never even heard of utorrent before. I might have glanced it on wikipedia but that's about it. Azureus seems like it has always been open source (as long as you get it from sourceforge.net). It works on both Windows and Linux pretty much the same way. As far as bittorent is concerned, I could care less. I gave up using a limited ui a long time ago. So meh...
Ubuntu is based overseas, while Red Hat is an American company. While it doesn't matter much to me, how this company will be able to serve my needs is another question. Having to go through a third party for paid support is somewhat risky (list of affiliates). Having to have someone fix my problems through email correspondence is lame. With Red Hat at least I know who I'm talking to and I know that they have a complete list of any issues over the duration of my contract with them.
Red Hat has a solid desktop as it is, much more stable than Ubuntu especially if you know how to configure it right. The majority of the installations I have done over the years have been a Red Hat project because of its stability.
Secondly, Ubuntu's support is expensive even for Microsoft standards. RHEL has plans that range from 80 USD (Basic Desktop) to 2,500 USD (Premium Server). It's much more competitive than the Microsoft range of products especially for businesses. Commercial support for Ubuntu starts at 250 USD per year all the way up to 4,000 USD (pricing list). Even for basic 9x5 support, Red Hat is substantially better priced than Ubuntu.
To say to a business owner that they have to receive support from someone they will never see who will never give them a guarantee to make sure the product works is just stupid. "As Is" is a horrible business model especially for businesses that can't afford to take risks. Like another post said, businesses like accountability especially when something goes wrong. If the support in which they had paid for fixes the problem then there isn't a problem and there is less litigation overall. I'm glad that they are focusing on a competitive product especially in the form of a desktop distribution. It's good to hear that someone within the Linux community is starting to do something with legalizing certain video formats. For a community to depend on software from Microsoft in order to run various types of media is weird. For a community that tries to spend so much time trying to make alternative ways in doing the same thing as other operating systems it kind of makes me indifferent that they haven't done this already. All in all, it shows that someone is going in the right direction by taking an initiative to fix the problem.
Last but not least, Red Hat has been established long before Ubuntu ever gained popularity. Ubuntu gained popularity around the 5.10 release and even then it was buggy. Red Hat has been around for years and has always maintained a consistent amount of popularity throughout that time. They are a good business but if you like to have a system in which you can do what you what, experiment with the latest software, my suggestion would be to compile Linux from source. If you don't want to do that then Ubuntu would be a decent alternative especially for college students and other people who can't necessarily afford the money but can afford the time. All in all, there is the business perspective as opposed to the personal perspective and they are two very different things. You can't assume that you can make a product that covers both sides that makes everyone happy. As long as there are reasonable alternatives then it helps cover a variety of concerns for a varying range of people.
but this is John Dvorak we're talking about. He's hit or miss. I think he's miss on this one because sometimes when markets don't resonate it's due to the lack of application to innovation. Right now there is a lot of innovation but what do we do with it. I mean web 2.0 is fine and stuff but really what good is it if all we do is popularize sites by bookmarking them. While we have faith in the consumers opinion, there are bots and spiders that can be used in a persons place. Web 2.0 has been argued over frequently for being over hyped. Regardless, there is a ton of other innovations outside the market that will sustain our economy outside of web 2.0. Screw Web 2.0, it's a marketing innovation. On top of everything else, even if there was a bubble burst, it wouldn't be as bad as post 9/11. I think we learned from that experience so we know how to handle those types of situations with a little more perspective. In summary IMHO, if there was a burst, it would be a blimp on the radar. We would move on and hopefully we were smart enough from the first time to protect ourselves from the mistake a second time.
Forgot to mention the install for SuSE products is the most thought out install process for any OS. That includes Windows, Mac OS, and any other Linux distro I've used. I think everyone should learn from what Novell did with Installation and system repair. I've never fixed an MBR so easily without risking loss of information not to mention a variety of other problems which I couldn't have fixed without using a SuSE installation cd. Even Knoppix couldn't do half the stuff I did with SuSE. That's about the only thing going for that OS.
Most of his observations are actually spot on but he did fail to bring up several items that I believe need attention. These are things that need to be fixed in order to have a better product IMHO. I'm coming from my experience with Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE (SLE/open), Debian, and Mandrake (Mandriva). I have yet to test PCLinuxOS, CentOS, Mepis, Gentoo, Solaris, FreeBSD, etc. Whereas I'm not a so called "expert", I am a regular end user.
m4p format (all distros)
Evolution/Thunderbird sucks, Sylpheed/claws is close to anything that I would use. (all distros)
Flash properly displayed in web browser so it doesn't cover up page content. (all distros)
The UI in Ubuntu still has more bugs than Red Hat and SuSE.
Red Hat uses anaconda for the OS install which complicates the partitioning process.
YUM and Yast suck compared to Synaptic. Thankfully there is a RPM based version of Synaptic Package manager for Red Hat. I believe SuSE has it as well.
Updates for SuSE suck because of how long it takes and some hurdles you have to go through just to get the update started.
The most stable version out there, even with unstable packages, is Red Hat but Ubuntu fixes unstable packages faster than other distributions.
Updates for RPM based systems take longer than DEB based systems especially if you don't configure SELinux the right way.
MPlayer feels incomplete but does some neat things. Totem is fine but needs to have more options.
Now that I gone over some of my pet-peeves I want to cover some of my opinion of what makes Linux great.
Beryl (Love it, makes the desktop easier to use)
OpenOffice (There are some things that can be improved but overall it works great)
Synaptic Package Manager / APT / APTitude (Great way for people to find out more of what Linux can offer to them depending on how their repos are configured)
Amarok (Best audio player out there for Linux. Has the ability to minimize to task bar, Options to turn on or off the OCD, works great for organizing online radio streams, plays Linux restricted formats fine and last but not least, it's pretty light weight.)
Firefox and it's extensibility (Most of the extensions are shared between OSs)
su (Once you got what you want set, you'll never have to use this again except for maybe updates depending on how you configured you package manager)
Complete control to customize the GDM, KDM or XDM
Gconf-editor saves time on configuring for people that don't want to know how to program to get something simple done
Sylpheed/Claws provides the most realistic extensions for an email client available on Linux (especially in terms of spam filters and how the mail is viewed / organized)
For hardware support, this area has improved over the past several years. In Ubuntu it takes a couple of clicks to have 3D hardware support whereas it took a long process before. Used to be that I would have to live without a certain piece of hardware because of incompatibility but most of those concerns have been taken care of for the majority of the distributions. I could go over some of the terminal apps but I am talking about a desktop environment so apples and oranges.
I do get frustrated with what is available, not because of bugs but because of the same problem the parent post stated. Taking 20 minutes to do something that should take 1 minute should be a serious concern especially with software in which most businesses need for compiling large mailing lists and what not. There can be ways of getting around limitations but for most people they can't afford the time to figure out another way. There is a business aspect that doesn't necessarily exist within the Linux Desktop market which needs to improve. If the idealism surrounding this product continues, it would prevent any realistic reach outside of the server market. I'm all for knowing what is on my computer but I shouldn't have to sacrifice productivity for it. Linux is getting there just needs to have a little more polish for the market.
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Over the past several years, Apple has done this with the iPod, iTunes, and now the iPhone. Their best interest is to keep their products under their control. Whenever there is a method to utilize iTunes through wine they include updates in order to interfere with installation and operation. It used to be that you could download previous versions of their binaries from their website that would work in wine but once there was a capable way of installing them through wine they were altered to impair such activity. I'm talking about 7.0 and up. I haven't tested 6.x and below. This is how they run their business and it's up to them on how they wish to run it. While I don't like it I respect their business decision. Apple makes a good product but it makes sense to use their product only when using their products.
For the best interest of the consumer, stop using their restricted products. If you do, just don't update the software. I hate saying don't update but it's their policy to break any alteration in their products. Also don't trust downloads of their binaries from other sources. While some can be reliable, it is best to get them from the source. My suggestion is to use Amazon.com with their DRM free music downloads, or use the Real.com subscription to listen to streamed media using Helix or the RealPlayer. There are other online music sites but right now Amazon.com has the model that stands out more than any other for commercial music.
It's cool that somebody put a lot of money to investigate how much money we are spending in energy. Sarcasm aside, it is kind of cool to find out how much we really are using something. Well, at least through an estimate. Other than that, how is this news worthy. It would help out students to develop an argument for energy use or for a independent study to reference for their own report.
Should I be worried that downloading porn is becoming too expensive. Should we start reducing the amount of time on the computer so I can save energy. The weird thing about this is that it only accounts for 10% of energy use. What about the other 90%? According to the reverenced CIA Factbook it says that 71% of the energy produced comes from fossil fuels. How much of that is used in vehicles? I could understand coal and natural gas plants but how much of that is used for fueling planes, trains or automobiles? Secondly, businesses need computers to operate but they also need faxes, printers, not to mention light. I mean do we really have to have street lights on all night long. I mean there are millions of them and they are on for at least 8 hours each day. Again with the sarcasm, I apologize for that but come on.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in pleasure and were suddenly silenced by some mind numbing device. I fear something wonderful has happened."
I've agreed to agree with the agreements here. It's simple, small, and stylish. They were the first ones to really create a business model around the digital music era. Back when the original Napster was around no one had enough nerve to stand up and capitalize on the developing market. Apple made a business model that, at the time, made sense. It wasn't theft and it was affordable. Right now it seems that all they want to do plug holes in their plans because they had enough foresight to capitalize on it but not enough insight to appreciate furthering developments within that market. It just seems to me every time they do stuff like this that they are greedy. I understand that they would like to have higher market share but by isolating their consumers into their bottleneck they only come off looking like a bunch of greedy weasels. They have good products but the company has unhealthy ethics.
I could be off here but this article talks about cooling lasers. ('Radio Wave Cooling' Offers New Twist on Laser Cooling) IANAP but they could have something done locally on the blast plate to act as a buffer between the laser itself and the drive plate. Depending on how much energy is isolated on the plate and depending on whether such a cooling technique can handle high temperatures or even use the laser a source of energy it might be possible to do it. It's bad logic but I thought it was interesting two stories about lasers came out about the same time on two different sites.
Yeah, it does seem too small considering the type of attack. Sounds to me that some individual wanted to test their skills or at least test the security of Pentagon computers. Could be that a computer from the PLA was used as a proxy. That's more of a possibility. While I hate to even suggest this, it might mean that there are people out there instigating conflict between countries. That in itself could mean that terrorism has taken a new form. I really hate using that word but considering the parties involved and what would be at stake if there was a conflict between the two, it seems plausible that there would be a third party involved.
It really is hard to say whether the China is responsible or not after reading both articles. I don't know what kind of security policies they use within their government and I don't really care to know. Unfortunately, how they handle hackers is ultimately their own business. How we deal with our own data gathering policies is another story altogether. IMHO, I think America's paranoia finally caught up with us. It's too early to say what will happen. This is an isolated event and I doubt anything serious would come from this. To be honest with everyone, I don't like where any of this is going. I hate using this adage but if only the strongest survive then it means that death will be the only thing the strongest will see for quite a long time. What good is that?
Same here. They started splitting up the kids at about the 5th grade. Actually I do believe they started in the fourth but it's been a while and the skill level was limited only to a handful.
The ones that excelled outperformed students from other cities within the state. The ones that didn't perform as well often stated their boredom and focused on varied interests that kept their attention. People had an idea of where they wanted to be except for a very small handful.
I listen to this station a lot (Radio Kansas). They have several local programs that can't be heard anywhere else. It's wonderful programming but the funding comes from community support (i.e.: contributions). As stated on their online streaming service:
The problem is that this type of music isn't what the majority wants (even though people in general should take more interest in the Arts). Half the time, what the majority wants isn't of any real value anyways. For a non-profit to be put into a position where they would have to consider data-mining, it would seem that they are forced into a position where they won't be able to afford it. The other tragedy is that it doesn't just affect the music that they broadcast, it's the news as well. Due to all of this action, it is forcing the entire radio stream to be taken off the internet which limits the scope of where NPR news can be broadcasted. You can go to the NPR website but regardless it does limit the scope of viewers who would be potential supporters and contributors to the originating station. The radio stations had a system that worked well with the RIAA before. Why does the RIAA have to complicate everything when they just need to keep it simple?
You can still use your radio and surf for other local stations comparable to the content you are used to but living in Miami, Orlando, Wichita, Kansas City and Denver I had a hard enough time finding a decent station that carries similar programming. There is one exception and that is if you are a regular listener of any Clear Channel stations. At least they can guarantee the same crap anywhere you go.
IANAL. Even then, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. They do it in schools, universities and not to mention meetings at the office. Little packets of information to inform have a little thing called a bibliography. Now if they applied for and ISBN number for the packets then it might be a different story.
The problem with this though is that they are a commercial business and not a nonprofit organization. That isn't stated inside the article. It's implied without any thought into what the decision really meant. It's bad reporting because he doesn't cite the reason why the company lost the case. He doesn't bring up the specific law or precedence used to create the decision. If there is sensationalism on the part of the poster there is good reason. And yes, I did RTFA.
Hillary was the wife of a person that committed adultery. She handled it publicly and was very conservative with how she handled the public. In terms of popularity, she held on to her position as Senator of New York, so that has to account for something. About what her platform is based on, it's been pretty consistent even though I disagree with some of it. How it develops overtime is anyones guess.
I do know that I am ultimately responsible as a citizen of the US to educate myself about whom I would chose to represent us to the world. So instead of writing someone off because you have a superstitious feeling about them, try to make an educated unbiased guess before you concede to a nihilistic haphazard attitude. Stand up for once and stop saying that it doesn't matter. Apathy is the most ridiculous aspect of humanity sometimes. If you don't like someone, there has to be a reason why other than just superstitious intuition.
Sign of the times I guess.
If it can't be done here, it's gotta start somewhere...Yes, but they are a business. Linux is a business too. Linux has to fight to get a fair share of the market. When a company is trying to defend their share of the market from an abstract source, they tend to do some pretty stupid things to keep their dominance. Hopefully, both sides understand that they are competitors and competition can create some bad things to happen for both sides not to mention some good things as well. It's part of the game but it doesn't have to result in a violent fiasco forcing business after business into bankruptcy. If both Microsoft and Linux can accept this then it would be like the whites accepting desegregation in the 1950's. It's not easy but it needs to be done for the right reasons.
Know the battles that need to be fought and disregard the rest. It's a good way to lose precious energy and resources if you fight against everything without knowing what you are really fighting for.
Volume Pricing on all makes and models of SuSE. Now with an eduction pipe... Get it while it's open and hot!!!
A hushed and hurried voice is then heard off from a distance: Subject to license agreement and acceptance there of. A portion of the funds and proceeds will be distributed to a third party for improving the quality of education for the masses.
And in other news...
I knew it was popular in Europe, especially Germany where it originated. Not sure to what extent though. That would be nice to have someone clarify.
Novell does have an opportunity but so does Red Hat. They both can actually do good and no one would be the wiser. While Novell has higher stock volume, Red Hat has a strong enough price to compensate for volume.
In terms of increasing competition within the Linux market, it's nothing new. I've read reports/articles of MS trying to divide the community. The community does a fine job doing it itself and for good reason. Everybody believes in their product especially when they do have something that they feel is important enough to be shared with the world (hence forking). It neat to see things work but it's even better to see things work for people who really need the product.
About openSUSE, it's sponsored by Novell but other than that I can't tell Novell's involvement within the community. That should be clarified.
Props to the OP. I hate searching needlessly as well.
Come on, an MCSE would expect those results.
Seriously, with a title like "Many Antivirus Tools Fail in LinuxWorld Test" you would expect something new. Well, I guess I was surprised. I didn't think Symantec had it in them. Kudos to them. ClamAV, no surprise there at all. Same goes for Kaspersky. You could've figured that out by using Google.
I was about to say... Azureus is one of the better bittorrent clients out there. I've never even heard of utorrent before. I might have glanced it on wikipedia but that's about it. Azureus seems like it has always been open source (as long as you get it from sourceforge.net). It works on both Windows and Linux pretty much the same way. As far as bittorent is concerned, I could care less. I gave up using a limited ui a long time ago. So meh...
Red Hat has a solid desktop as it is, much more stable than Ubuntu especially if you know how to configure it right. The majority of the installations I have done over the years have been a Red Hat project because of its stability.
Secondly, Ubuntu's support is expensive even for Microsoft standards. RHEL has plans that range from 80 USD (Basic Desktop) to 2,500 USD (Premium Server). It's much more competitive than the Microsoft range of products especially for businesses. Commercial support for Ubuntu starts at 250 USD per year all the way up to 4,000 USD (pricing list). Even for basic 9x5 support, Red Hat is substantially better priced than Ubuntu.
To say to a business owner that they have to receive support from someone they will never see who will never give them a guarantee to make sure the product works is just stupid. "As Is" is a horrible business model especially for businesses that can't afford to take risks. Like another post said, businesses like accountability especially when something goes wrong. If the support in which they had paid for fixes the problem then there isn't a problem and there is less litigation overall. I'm glad that they are focusing on a competitive product especially in the form of a desktop distribution. It's good to hear that someone within the Linux community is starting to do something with legalizing certain video formats. For a community to depend on software from Microsoft in order to run various types of media is weird. For a community that tries to spend so much time trying to make alternative ways in doing the same thing as other operating systems it kind of makes me indifferent that they haven't done this already. All in all, it shows that someone is going in the right direction by taking an initiative to fix the problem.
Last but not least, Red Hat has been established long before Ubuntu ever gained popularity. Ubuntu gained popularity around the 5.10 release and even then it was buggy. Red Hat has been around for years and has always maintained a consistent amount of popularity throughout that time. They are a good business but if you like to have a system in which you can do what you what, experiment with the latest software, my suggestion would be to compile Linux from source. If you don't want to do that then Ubuntu would be a decent alternative especially for college students and other people who can't necessarily afford the money but can afford the time. All in all, there is the business perspective as opposed to the personal perspective and they are two very different things. You can't assume that you can make a product that covers both sides that makes everyone happy. As long as there are reasonable alternatives then it helps cover a variety of concerns for a varying range of people.
That's the only thing I read in your post and I concur...
but this is John Dvorak we're talking about. He's hit or miss. I think he's miss on this one because sometimes when markets don't resonate it's due to the lack of application to innovation. Right now there is a lot of innovation but what do we do with it. I mean web 2.0 is fine and stuff but really what good is it if all we do is popularize sites by bookmarking them. While we have faith in the consumers opinion, there are bots and spiders that can be used in a persons place. Web 2.0 has been argued over frequently for being over hyped. Regardless, there is a ton of other innovations outside the market that will sustain our economy outside of web 2.0. Screw Web 2.0, it's a marketing innovation. On top of everything else, even if there was a bubble burst, it wouldn't be as bad as post 9/11. I think we learned from that experience so we know how to handle those types of situations with a little more perspective. In summary IMHO, if there was a burst, it would be a blimp on the radar. We would move on and hopefully we were smart enough from the first time to protect ourselves from the mistake a second time.
Forgot to mention the install for SuSE products is the most thought out install process for any OS. That includes Windows, Mac OS, and any other Linux distro I've used. I think everyone should learn from what Novell did with Installation and system repair. I've never fixed an MBR so easily without risking loss of information not to mention a variety of other problems which I couldn't have fixed without using a SuSE installation cd. Even Knoppix couldn't do half the stuff I did with SuSE. That's about the only thing going for that OS.
Now that I gone over some of my pet-peeves I want to cover some of my opinion of what makes Linux great.
For hardware support, this area has improved over the past several years. In Ubuntu it takes a couple of clicks to have 3D hardware support whereas it took a long process before. Used to be that I would have to live without a certain piece of hardware because of incompatibility but most of those concerns have been taken care of for the majority of the distributions. I could go over some of the terminal apps but I am talking about a desktop environment so apples and oranges.
I do get frustrated with what is available, not because of bugs but because of the same problem the parent post stated. Taking 20 minutes to do something that should take 1 minute should be a serious concern especially with software in which most businesses need for compiling large mailing lists and what not. There can be ways of getting around limitations but for most people they can't afford the time to figure out another way. There is a business aspect that doesn't necessarily exist within the Linux Desktop market which needs to improve. If the idealism surrounding this product continues, it would prevent any realistic reach outside of the server market. I'm all for knowing what is on my computer but I shouldn't have to sacrifice productivity for it. Linux is getting there just needs to have a little more polish for the market.