I think you may be missing the common thread between the trend of liking Linux and liking AMD on Slashdot. Now it could be, as you seem to connote, that we're just biased and playing favorites. I think it's probably more that we realize that competition is healthy for the consumer, so when the game is lop-sided we vote for the underdog. It's simple understanding of capitalism, and the only way to keep people honest.
Ugh. And I even had mod points. I couldn't resist:
but no good reason why the UI and "user experience" shouldn't be better than that offered by OS X or Vista It is. I have *never* used a system that had the seamless interface that (Gnome or KDE) + Beryl has. Expose? Check. Zoom(useful for graphics design)? Check. Invert (useful for web app creation)? check. Taskbar previews? Check. Drag and drop from an SFTP or FTP site to your (graphics, text, etc) editor, and save within the editor? Check and ONLY check in KDE and Gnome. Windows and OSX still can't do that. Show hidden files? Simple hotkey (control+h (for "hidden")) in Nautilus (Gnome's file manager). In OSX? Edit a config file, kill finder (from terminal). In Windows? Tools->Folder Options->view->show hidden files. Virtual desktops are still not supported in Windows (unless there are 3rd party apps I don't know about... the ones that existed last year were cumbersome hacks, well intentioned as they were), and in Leopard they are a new addition. Linux has had for ages.
I've used OSX, I've used Windows a TON, and the interfaces that really seem to increase my efficiency just tend to be Gnome and KDE. The only advantage Windows or OSX give me are 3rd party apps. That is NOT an inherent quality of the OS, just a simple circumstance. Circumstances can change.
I cannot find an interface I like better than (Gnome or KDE) + Beryl. Maybe you like OSX better, but it just frustrated me. It's all a matter of opinion. Before saying that Linux (by which you only actually mean Gnome and KDE) hasn't caught up with OSX (by which you mean ONLY the interface since the kernel and many drivers already existed) in 15 years, maybe you should think about that.
Those are some ok options, but VNC isn't very secure (5 digit max pass length, no punctuation allowed in them), and remote assistance invitations require a lot of things to be working - like your mouse and keyboard, your graphics drivers, your GUI layer, and your messenger so you can send the invite (or whatever program you use to send those. I've never used them).
With ssh, the only thing you need running is network. The entire gui could be down - bad graphics driver, etc, and you could still tunnel in there and poke around. "Mom, your keyboard isn't plugged in, that's why it's not working." It's also nice that you can be logged in fixing things and her activities needn't be disturbed.
For a lot problems the remote assistance invite is sufficient, but ssh has all the bases except network trouble covered.
And once that happens MS can help nuture a happy little band of developers, all sucking up MSDN licenced tools. If you think they'll settle for that you are misled.
It was wise for Microsoft to release this code, yes. And it would be wise for open source developers not to touch it or.NET with a 10 foot pole. Candy from a stranger is stupid, candy from a known backstabber is beyond retarded.
Mono is a boon to them. If people are using it then Microsoft can point out that.NET doesn't feed their monopoly because it runs on other platforms. Never mind that it doesn't run very WELL on other platforms - which their marketing team will leverage in any way they can, and will discourage developers from actually writing cross platform.NET stuff.
If Mono ever catches up and runs as well as the Windows version of.NET, they can cripple its reputation easily be releasing new standards and extensions months after they've started working on the implementation so competing implementations will always look out of date and inferior.
My point was that even low end PCs you find at stores have... 1+GB of RAM Not really. Notebooks especially. You can find plenty of those in Best Buy, on HP.com, etc that ship with 512 and good old Vista Home Basic OEM.
I agree with you about the idea of Vista requiring a dual core system to run well is B.S. - I didn't intentionally mean to reinforce that point by including mention of buying the processor for $60 - I was just echoing the parent post's list of prices and mentioning there's more to it than that. You're right - there's no need for a dual core system to run vista passably.
I would argue that if one buys a computer with Vista on it, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to make sure their damn machine can run the OS they install sufficiently well. But that's the problem - they don't. Head into a best buy or head over to HP.com or the like and you'll see a lot of laptops with 512 MB of ram shipping with Vista on them. Customers trust that since it's being sold in that configuration it should be good enough - besides, a few years ago 512 MB of ram was a lot (they may reason).
Anyway I don't find it too hard to fault Microsoft - they didn't have to take away the option of computers coming with XP installed. Just making Vista the default and making customers actually have to ask to get XP would have been reasonable enough. But that's off topic, sorry.
Furthermore, there may be very legitimate reasons why somebody might want to ship a piece of crippled hardware that can only run a single image. That's true. I guess I automatically assumed abuses would be more prevalent than legitimate reasons, but that isn't necessarily true. You're right. But even now while I'm pondering that new view of the situation I can't help but think that a lot of those legitimate reasons could be short sighted. Like, say your device has security holes in its software image but the device vendor has gone belly up for some reason or another and thus can't fix it for you? Sure, they may have restricted the device to a specific image for reasons of consistency/quality control, ease of service, etc - could be for good reasons, but the customers could still end up screwed:-(.
If somebody wants to distribute my code or derivatives of it, all I ask is that they give me the freedom to do whatever I want with it on my own hardware--not on theirs. This is not just fair, it's a very reasonable stance and I can see what you mean about not imposing hardware restrictions on others
I guess the beef that I have here is that if I have mobile device X and a trivial modification of source/recompile could solve compatibility issues or bugs its having, I'm not free to do that if it's DRM'd to a specific kernel image. Even though I have access to the source, that access is useless because I'm denied the right to affect any change using it unless I find alternative hardware - and there may not be any. With the GPL3 the users of the code in question are guaranteed the right to support their own stuff if their device vendors won't.
So I agree with you on a lot of this stuff, and I certainly think GPL3 seems to stretch beyond the bounds of copyright and software licensing (meaning, it's moving beyond the purpose of the original GPL and GPL2), but I believe it does guarantee a certain measure of choice, control, and freedom to the end users of the software that GPL2 doesn't. Do I like that it limits the choices of device vendors? No. You've convinced me that it's less free than GPL2 in that respect (thanks for that, I wasn't so clear on it). But I think the customers need more defending than the corporations.
MmHmm, and how much for the motherboard that supports that dual core CPU? How about a case and power supply for the whole thing, since your average computer user doesn't know (or doesn't think they know) how to swap mother boards and their current one is single-core only? Do you honestly expect the average computer user to feel comfortable installing an HDD and an optical drive themselves?
Add the whole package up, and don't forget to include a copy of Vista (since most users don't know they can buy a computer without it) and you're at an EASY$500.
Then take into account laptops. My only computer is a laptop I bought 2 years ago. I can't afford a new one yet. Changing the RAM in this bad boy is not only pretty expensive (upgrading to 2GB would be at least $120), but would require taking the entire thing apart. The 2nd ram module is UNDER THE KEYBOARD. Think Mom and Pop can do that?
It's not as easy as dropping $60 on a CPU and $75 on ram, and even if it was: $135 + cost of OS license is just a bit much to just enjoy a smoothly operating OS.
I believe anti-DRM provisions are out of scope for a software license, because it attempts to dictate what sort of hardware you are allowed to distribute with your software. I can really understand your point of view. It seems ludicrous to dictate what hardware can be distributed with your software at first, but I see it this way: If the hardware affects the behavior of your software, it conceptually may as well be a part of the software.
If the hardware has the ability to alter the fundamental behavior of the software, I think it's fair and logical for the software license to protect its self from the abuse of that ability.
Good advice there. Yeah, it's also important to learn the difference between casual conversation (where you don't have to word everything correctly if people know what you mean anyway) and formal conversation (where technicalities are important).
I just graduated in December and ran around applying at places for a while. I got some pretty decent job offers (73k + full medical, dental, vision, 18 days paid vacation + 7 paid holidays... etc), but in the end I ended up just working for myself. Bad idea? Probably. I have no business experience, just software engineering. Paying off in the short term? Not as much as one of those jobs would have. Sure, some of my clients are billing out at $75/hour, some at $65, some at $45, some at $30, but it's unpredictable who will need how much help when. However, for the first time in a long time I'm happy.
So I may be a long term failure or a long term success, who knows and who cares, but I have to say the freedom rocks. Can an engineer without much business sense make it with his own business? I guess I'll find out, but I like the fact that I'm at least trying. I can tuck my tail between my legs later if I have to. I get a strange feeling I won't have to.
MapQuest has been around since the 90's. That's probably the only reason a lot of people use it - it's had a long time to get its name out there before maps on the Internet were a very big deal.
That's probably also why their stuff sucks - it's been around for ages. We're comparing an early web player to new web offerings.
Actually Google Maps overlays can be used from a browser. On top of that - they don't just have to be images. They can be anything you can do in a DOM object, so they can do whatever a web page can.
A while back I implemented a system that would monitor the status of devices at various locations and each little overlay would make AJAX calls to the status server and change their image accordingly. On mouseover they could resize and include more in-depth info.
Now I'm not saying it's an alternative to MapCruncher, just saying if people think Google Maps overlays are limited to just static images they're misinformed.
Zero-click shopping by using MOUSE_OVERs. Better yet let's just start sending people shit and billing them for it! I mean, what about the people without computers or Internet?
I guess Linux users are not into music that much. Odd. I would be pretty unhappy with an OS that didn't recognize my soundcard. I will not accept an OS I can't listen to music with. I'm used to Windows not recognizing my stuff until I've installed the right drivers, but I've never had Linux miss the mark with my sound card (and I've used it since 1999). What chipset are you using?
And why do you hate freedom? (Ok, that was oblig, sorry)
When I first started using Linux I couldn't code for crap. I used it because it was fun learning something new. Once I started to learn to code (because I was curious, not because I had a special need to code) I started delving into things like patches.
People like 'me 6 years ago' benefit from work submitted by 'me now' types. Yes, there are people out there that scrutinize updates. Only one person has to come up with a fix for a whole world of people to benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you may be missing the common thread between the trend of liking Linux and liking AMD on Slashdot. Now it could be, as you seem to connote, that we're just biased and playing favorites. I think it's probably more that we realize that competition is healthy for the consumer, so when the game is lop-sided we vote for the underdog. It's simple understanding of capitalism, and the only way to keep people honest.
I wonder if that isn't one of the major factors in AMD's recent decision to open up their GPU specs.
Please, Intel and AMD, get into a war of openness one-upmanship. Everyone benefits.
I've used OSX, I've used Windows a TON, and the interfaces that really seem to increase my efficiency just tend to be Gnome and KDE. The only advantage Windows or OSX give me are 3rd party apps. That is NOT an inherent quality of the OS, just a simple circumstance. Circumstances can change.
I cannot find an interface I like better than (Gnome or KDE) + Beryl. Maybe you like OSX better, but it just frustrated me. It's all a matter of opinion. Before saying that Linux (by which you only actually mean Gnome and KDE) hasn't caught up with OSX (by which you mean ONLY the interface since the kernel and many drivers already existed) in 15 years, maybe you should think about that.
Those are some ok options, but VNC isn't very secure (5 digit max pass length, no punctuation allowed in them), and remote assistance invitations require a lot of things to be working - like your mouse and keyboard, your graphics drivers, your GUI layer, and your messenger so you can send the invite (or whatever program you use to send those. I've never used them).
With ssh, the only thing you need running is network. The entire gui could be down - bad graphics driver, etc, and you could still tunnel in there and poke around. "Mom, your keyboard isn't plugged in, that's why it's not working." It's also nice that you can be logged in fixing things and her activities needn't be disturbed.
For a lot problems the remote assistance invite is sufficient, but ssh has all the bases except network trouble covered.
There's more license squabbling in the OSS world, because in the closed source world the EULA is "accept it and be boned or decline it and be boned."
I'll take license squabbling over that any day.
The real burning question is "How long until they make new hide-a-pods to match?"
It was wise for Microsoft to release this code, yes. And it would be wise for open source developers not to touch it or
Trojan Sore? It doubles as a reminder of the asspounding the copyright holder is capable of as well as the obvious interpretation.
Mono is a boon to them. If people are using it then Microsoft can point out that .NET doesn't feed their monopoly because it runs on other platforms. Never mind that it doesn't run very WELL on other platforms - which their marketing team will leverage in any way they can, and will discourage developers from actually writing cross platform .NET stuff.
.NET, they can cripple its reputation easily be releasing new standards and extensions months after they've started working on the implementation so competing implementations will always look out of date and inferior.
.NET is in their ballcourt.
If Mono ever catches up and runs as well as the Windows version of
They LOVE Mono -
Here's to you, SCO!
I would argue that if one buys a computer with Vista on it, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to make sure their damn machine can run the OS they install sufficiently well. But that's the problem - they don't. Head into a best buy or head over to HP.com or the like and you'll see a lot of laptops with 512 MB of ram shipping with Vista on them. Customers trust that since it's being sold in that configuration it should be good enough - besides, a few years ago 512 MB of ram was a lot (they may reason).
Anyway I don't find it too hard to fault Microsoft - they didn't have to take away the option of computers coming with XP installed. Just making Vista the default and making customers actually have to ask to get XP would have been reasonable enough. But that's off topic, sorry.
If somebody wants to distribute my code or derivatives of it, all I ask is that they give me the freedom to do whatever I want with it on my own hardware--not on theirs. This is not just fair, it's a very reasonable stance and I can see what you mean about not imposing hardware restrictions on others
I guess the beef that I have here is that if I have mobile device X and a trivial modification of source/recompile could solve compatibility issues or bugs its having, I'm not free to do that if it's DRM'd to a specific kernel image. Even though I have access to the source, that access is useless because I'm denied the right to affect any change using it unless I find alternative hardware - and there may not be any. With the GPL3 the users of the code in question are guaranteed the right to support their own stuff if their device vendors won't.
So I agree with you on a lot of this stuff, and I certainly think GPL3 seems to stretch beyond the bounds of copyright and software licensing (meaning, it's moving beyond the purpose of the original GPL and GPL2), but I believe it does guarantee a certain measure of choice, control, and freedom to the end users of the software that GPL2 doesn't. Do I like that it limits the choices of device vendors? No. You've convinced me that it's less free than GPL2 in that respect (thanks for that, I wasn't so clear on it). But I think the customers need more defending than the corporations.
MmHmm, and how much for the motherboard that supports that dual core CPU? How about a case and power supply for the whole thing, since your average computer user doesn't know (or doesn't think they know) how to swap mother boards and their current one is single-core only? Do you honestly expect the average computer user to feel comfortable installing an HDD and an optical drive themselves?
Add the whole package up, and don't forget to include a copy of Vista (since most users don't know they can buy a computer without it) and you're at an EASY$500.
Then take into account laptops. My only computer is a laptop I bought 2 years ago. I can't afford a new one yet. Changing the RAM in this bad boy is not only pretty expensive (upgrading to 2GB would be at least $120), but would require taking the entire thing apart. The 2nd ram module is UNDER THE KEYBOARD. Think Mom and Pop can do that?
It's not as easy as dropping $60 on a CPU and $75 on ram, and even if it was: $135 + cost of OS license is just a bit much to just enjoy a smoothly operating OS.
If the hardware has the ability to alter the fundamental behavior of the software, I think it's fair and logical for the software license to protect its self from the abuse of that ability.
Good advice there. Yeah, it's also important to learn the difference between casual conversation (where you don't have to word everything correctly if people know what you mean anyway) and formal conversation (where technicalities are important).
I just graduated in December and ran around applying at places for a while. I got some pretty decent job offers (73k + full medical, dental, vision, 18 days paid vacation + 7 paid holidays... etc), but in the end I ended up just working for myself. Bad idea? Probably. I have no business experience, just software engineering. Paying off in the short term? Not as much as one of those jobs would have. Sure, some of my clients are billing out at $75/hour, some at $65, some at $45, some at $30, but it's unpredictable who will need how much help when. However, for the first time in a long time I'm happy.
So I may be a long term failure or a long term success, who knows and who cares, but I have to say the freedom rocks. Can an engineer without much business sense make it with his own business? I guess I'll find out, but I like the fact that I'm at least trying. I can tuck my tail between my legs later if I have to. I get a strange feeling I won't have to.
MapQuest has been around since the 90's. That's probably the only reason a lot of people use it - it's had a long time to get its name out there before maps on the Internet were a very big deal.
That's probably also why their stuff sucks - it's been around for ages. We're comparing an early web player to new web offerings.
Actually Google Maps overlays can be used from a browser. On top of that - they don't just have to be images. They can be anything you can do in a DOM object, so they can do whatever a web page can.
A while back I implemented a system that would monitor the status of devices at various locations and each little overlay would make AJAX calls to the status server and change their image accordingly. On mouseover they could resize and include more in-depth info.
Now I'm not saying it's an alternative to MapCruncher, just saying if people think Google Maps overlays are limited to just static images they're misinformed.
And why do you hate freedom? (Ok, that was oblig, sorry)
When I first started using Linux I couldn't code for crap. I used it because it was fun learning something new. Once I started to learn to code (because I was curious, not because I had a special need to code) I started delving into things like patches.
People like 'me 6 years ago' benefit from work submitted by 'me now' types. Yes, there are people out there that scrutinize updates. Only one person has to come up with a fix for a whole world of people to benefit.