Why does it seem like everyone is so blind to this fact? Microsoft is violating anti-trust laws like crazy, their agreements with companies to force Vista down everyone's throat is appalling, just go to any common PC vendor and gaze in wonder at their similarity. If I read one more "We recommend Vista Crap Version" I'm going to puke. If true competition were actually allowed into the marketplace, all these companies would offer consumers the ability to save by either not having ANY OS installed, or by offering a free OS, and it would be RIGHT ALONGSIDE VISTA. I'm sick that Microsoft has pushed this on all these companies in return for these companies being *allowed* to sell their OS and allowed to keep their so-called "discounts" from Microsoft. Competition is broken, consumers are deprived and taken advantage of, and it's flat wrong. When are the courts going to step in and kick their ass for this behavior?
...and don't try to tell me customers wouldn't jump at the opportunity to save $50-150 by having a free OS that can do most everything they need, or that there is ANY reason whatsoever for them not to have a no OS option. If the market was fixed, MS would be in the dumps.
So if someone wanted to appease the GUI users they could write a simple app to do this graphically. Aaah, I love command-line/GUI duality, so much nicer than being forced into the GUI in Windows in which scripting and other things can be much more annoying for a lot of tasks. Linux is so much more programmer-friendly because of that, and other reasons.
Unless we passed a law that outlawed government secrets, eventually making the U.S. a polite, helpful, and nice country in the eyes of the rest of the world AND it's citizens by no longer being able to cover up scandal and abuse of power, and allowing us all to know what really happened and to throw those involved into jail like they should be.
Well aside from the fact that all companies care about is money so it can be a powerful tool against them, you're right. There should be *laws*, and those *laws* should be enforced. What's right should have nothing to do with money, but sadly this nation sucks and is sue-happy. If a company made some of their money by wronging someone else, it should go back to where it came from or something, and the CEOs who agreed to go along with the NSA should be thrown in jail along with the NSA members who convinced them. Hell, the whole NSA should be dissolved, "government secrets" can go to fucking hell. What a corrupt system...
..for having articles like this one. Consumers REALLY need to learn to start saying no to businesses that use fuck-you-over tactics like these. Choose brands that give you *freedom*, consumers, not ones that control you. YOU should be in control, especially when you buy something, it controlling you.
This is mostly true for all companies. It's about making money, not being cozy friends with everybody.
I could respond to the rest but...I am insanely tired of the argument that it's OK to only care about money, and in doing so you can in no way do anything mean to anyone else. It's a sad day when being greedy is seen as a positive attribute. The world sucks enough as it is, you don't have to try to perpetuate that further. MS has done a lot of things that aren't good for us, but benefit them instead. Us, meaning taxpayers, consumers, and developers alike, have all been hurt by MS in one way or another, from our pocketbooks to the progression of open source software. For example, a lot of your tax money has gone to school systems (I work in one) and other government institutions to pay for ridiculously-priced software, and if they would all simply cooperate they could easily fund the development a thousand times over of any open source software that they all need to use. MS pays money to prevent government agencies from adopting competitive standards. You fuck over the taxpayers and consumers so that your own business can profit. Could you argue that it's the laws in the U.S. and the corruption that are the problem, and not MS? To a degree, but if you made murder legal that doesn't take away the blame from the one who committed it. Being an asshole is still being an asshole, no matter if it's technically legal or not. It'd be very sad if someone's morals were based solely on the law.
I hate lecturing those who are probably just trolls. The typical Slashdot thread:
Headline: MS Did Another Bad Thing!
Informed Poster: That sucks, MS was an asshole to us consumers for doing that.
Uninformed Poster (often simply a troll): Why do you always have to pick on MS, they've never done anything bad! Caring about only money is OK!
Maybe you live on the planet Awesomeness, where everyone is looked after and consumers don't get raped, but especially here in America, companies fucking over consumers is a common occurrence. We have to put up with a LOT of shit and often have NO alternatives.
"Hmmmm, do I want to get shit on, or thrown off a cliff....damn it, I guess I'll choose to be shit on again."
I just wonder how long it'll be before everyone thinks that it's a business's god-given right to do whatever the hell they want to do in order to get money. It's like when the airline companies suffered because of the fear of flying after 911, and the government compensating them because of it. Awwww did your business model fail, weee're sorryyyy here's a few billion out of the pocket of taxpayers. WTF is happening to this country.
Business: "We're going to put this black box into your home that spies on you and forces to to watch the things we want you to see!"
Consumer: "Aww you poor dears, your business model relies on that, it's OK then I guess!"
...is what is slowly happening here. The younger generations grow up thinking this kind of abuse is perfectly normal, and companies continue to get away with it more and more. It's like they're growing up slaves to the system and get used to it.
Message to all businesses: Consumers will share information, especially in this age of information technology, get used to it and adjust as necessary.
You're in the newspaper industry? Adapt or die. Gaming? Adapt or die. Horse and buggy? Good job, you finally adapted or died.
You fuckers can't turn this country into a police state with the FBI raiding some kid's home for sharing a song or movie with their friend just because a fucking industry thinks they need to use some outdated ancient laws that need to be removed from the law books in order to protect their revenue streams. If the government wasn't controlled by lobbyists with deep pockets and actually stood up for consumers, we wouldn't have this mess.
If anyone is thinking about it, don't give me the "Oh, it helps consumers, because otherwise no one could make anything for them that's information-based." I think that's total bull. Companies are very capable of finding alternate models, look at the uprising of the MMOGs, gaming has become a service. Instead of all games being a service, what is needed is for games to be paid for before they are released. The funny thing is, many games already are. Yeah yeah, I know that many games make more money after than before release, especially if they don't have a name for themselves, which is why systems to unify and sample games need to be created so that payment can be made before release. The problem is they haven't needed to since laws have helped them, just like the horse and buggy industry fought to stop the automobile. It's very possible to make these new models work, and I've been trying to work on creating it on my own project I'm working on. Unfortunately, no one else seems to give a damn, lol, so it's kind of slow going. That and I've had no free time. =P
No. You should have the freedom to do what you want with your electronics, this is all totally ridiculous, and you definitely shouldn't be declared guilty before proven innocent. The U.S. is becoming a police state.
Flawed. If you put quotes around "East Australian orange-ringed octopus" so that you're looking for that exact animal, the only link you get is the one for this Slashdot article.:)
...the consumers should have many ways of broadcasting things they want to broadcast. It's too bad you can't make it like domain names, where there is basically an infinite number of names available, so all you need is an address, and no one can crowd out the public by the ability of some organizations to fork over lots of money for the stranglehold of the spectrum.
Getting your electricity from a carbon-free source is no where near as important as getting rid of your gas motor or moving to a motor that consumes less gas at least. Combustion engines are insanely less efficient than having the electricity produced at a coal plant. A combustion engine produces lots of heat that is (usually) all wasted.
Exactly, if more people bought smaller cars, this painful gas-guzzling excuse wouldn't exist. (except for semis unfortunately, but god damnit what ever happened to the rail systems here in the U.S.. Not to start a whole other debate or anything...
Top speed of 25 mph of course kills it for, I'd say, 95% of all Americans at least. Most of them have to drive on highways to get where they need to be for work and for food.
This is pure speculation, as the real work will be in comparing the two schedulers and if one really is better than the other, adopting the better one, but I'd say that if one took a very long time to make, and the other a very short amount of time to make, that perhaps the shorter one has less code. If it does the same thing, then I'd pick the one with the less code, unless the other one provided extra features, including perhaps modularity.
Even though you may not know what exactly all went down with CFS and CK's version, you can look at the code and compare them yourself. There are lots and lots and lots of people with an interest in making Linux a good OS, so if Linus made the wrong choice, he should be made aware.:)
Correct, but the government could have told them to. The government here in the U.S. has their hands inside the inner workings of the entire technology industry all in the name of anti-terrorism and patriotism and whatever other BS they can think up. What he needs to do is find out why, from their mouths, they shut him down. Then, he can tell the rest of the world in order to make sure everyone knows about their policies and practices. This way, people can act against these companies if they believe it unfair by flocking to companies which do not enforce censorship, or making their own organizations which solve these problems. In other words, I'm simply saying everyone should still be aware of what is happening around the world as far as censorship goes. But you're right, you as an individual and business and group etc have the right not to allow certain individuals into your "club". Perhaps Google will become a restrictive and censored search engine. In this case, I will move to a different search engine which does not censor, or that allows filters so that I can filter out the things I don't care to hear/see/experience.:)
Host your blog on your own server? That way, no one can shut you down.:) I know that you shouldn't have to do that, and I would highly recommend that you delve into the Google/Technorati/Blogger policies and try to find out why they shut you down, and definitely also email and call them. Record everything, too. Then come back, and tell the world what you found out. Viva la revolution!:)
Right, since currently there is no method for updating certain parts of a kernel without restarting it. You don't have to reboot and use the new kernel, though. Perhaps someone should try to think up a system to "hot swap" updates into a kernel? Wouldn't it be cool if you could freeze things that are using a certain part that needs an upgrade, swap out that part, then resume normal functionality? Perhaps if everything was modular enough (used standard points of interface) it would be possible? Did I ever think it possible that I would be having this kind of open discussion about an operating system kernel back when I used Windows?
Oh the answer to that last question was "no", btw.
Well at the very least there will always be a demand for freedom. Regardless of if some Linux distros run closed software, or closed drivers, and others do not, there will still be an ever-growing group wanting more freedom across all OSes and hardware.
The way I look at it is like this: Imagine looking at a software box showing you the features that it offers. Restrictions are not features. If there is another box sitting right next to it that has the same features, but is less restrictive, it will be the better product. Software that grants full freedoms is ultimately what everyone wants, so let competition work it's magic. Intel already has open graphics drivers at least.:)
Can you back up your claim with specific numbers and details of problems, or are you just spouting FUD? Troll. Troll because most likely you do know many of the reasons that make FOSS better than CSS already, the way they grant you freedoms, the way they have transparency, are pro-standards and anti-proprietary, and not to mention free. But instead you choose to selectively forget about all that, just so you can be a troll, or a n00b (and if a n00b I apologize for calling you a troll). I'm sure your Vista installs run "OK", for the select tasks you use it for, and if you like it, great. Everyone should use what they enjoy. But, if you ever find the price of your OS annoying, or the restrictions on what you can do with it annoying (try reading the license sometime?), maybe you should check out the great advancements that are being made in the FOSS communities that everyone can use and are not restricted by, including the poor as well as the rich. If you like that kind of freedom, perhaps you may consider even paying money toward that type of progress, instead of toward controlled, dead-end programs and companies. But if you aren't interested in that, and prefer closed source programs, suit yourself. Just don't ask for a challenge as to what the benefits of using FOSS are, because then you'll be called ignorant, or a troll. If it's the former, you no longer are.
Right, you can just fork the last copy of the source, so even if the "owner" decides to "close it down", it can be revived. So, having a BSD-style totally free and open license can be useful and such but a GPL gives that extra bit of reassurance that things can't be screwed with so easily. Any way, I can't imagine how Microsoft could attack licenses unless they also weakened their own by weakening license laws in general which would be funny.
I think the answer is simple though. Open source is now more of a buzz word, and they're trying to get attention by using it, attract "free developers!" (developers, developers, developers, developers, after all), and finally it's yet another attempt at, like another poster pointed out, paint over their image with happy puppy flower unicorns which is just sad on so many levels.
Maybe their marketing department isn't used to dealing with more intelligent "target groups", and doesn't know that most open source developers strangely happen to be much more informed about Microsoft's detrimental actions against open source and many of their attacks and tactics against it. No clue why, though. If someone punches me in the face, I usually just tell my mommy that I fell.
While you do make a legitimate point that you can't expect one system to be completely compatible with another, still, the fact is (and the point that was trying to be made) is that Microsoft is very capable of making BIG moves toward using and helping improve standardized open APIs and cooperating in general with free software standards if they wanted to, as well as helping and contributing to FOSS/OSS projects, and dumping their technology and ideas into the information pool we call Earth to be used by everyone, but they don't want to. Why? If I have to tell you that, you've been living under a rock with your brain removed. Maybe they will start doing that eventually since they're feeling the pressure of FOSS/OSS, but so far they've said fuck you to ODF, fuck you to FOSS/OSS in general about patents, and a billion other negative things toward the FOSS/OSS communities, so gee I wonder why everyone is pissed at them, and gee I wonder if they'll suddenly wake up one day with angel wings. Again, eventually yes, but now? I highly doubt it.
Exactly, EricTheGreen said:
and omits how useless it is without having already purchased a decidedly non-open and very expensive SharePoint product. So he's saying yes, SharePoint is some kind of sudo-open source software perhaps but what you need to use it is not. If this is true (I haven't looked into it) I'm not at all surprised as Microsoft has done this thing many times before. In fact their main anti-FOSS/OSS strategy seems to be make things that seem like they're open source and such, but built to run on and require closed source software.
Sort of like a used car salesman trying to sell a Pacer with a Porche body.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Clarification: Bad for businesses built on closed-source commercial software, good for consumers wanting choice and freedom. But I'm sure everyone already knew that.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Why does it seem like everyone is so blind to this fact? Microsoft is violating anti-trust laws like crazy, their agreements with companies to force Vista down everyone's throat is appalling, just go to any common PC vendor and gaze in wonder at their similarity. If I read one more "We recommend Vista Crap Version" I'm going to puke. If true competition were actually allowed into the marketplace, all these companies would offer consumers the ability to save by either not having ANY OS installed, or by offering a free OS, and it would be RIGHT ALONGSIDE VISTA. I'm sick that Microsoft has pushed this on all these companies in return for these companies being *allowed* to sell their OS and allowed to keep their so-called "discounts" from Microsoft. Competition is broken, consumers are deprived and taken advantage of, and it's flat wrong. When are the courts going to step in and kick their ass for this behavior?
...and don't try to tell me customers wouldn't jump at the opportunity to save $50-150 by having a free OS that can do most everything they need, or that there is ANY reason whatsoever for them not to have a no OS option. If the market was fixed, MS would be in the dumps.
So if someone wanted to appease the GUI users they could write a simple app to do this graphically. Aaah, I love command-line/GUI duality, so much nicer than being forced into the GUI in Windows in which scripting and other things can be much more annoying for a lot of tasks. Linux is so much more programmer-friendly because of that, and other reasons.
Unless we passed a law that outlawed government secrets, eventually making the U.S. a polite, helpful, and nice country in the eyes of the rest of the world AND it's citizens by no longer being able to cover up scandal and abuse of power, and allowing us all to know what really happened and to throw those involved into jail like they should be.
Well aside from the fact that all companies care about is money so it can be a powerful tool against them, you're right. There should be *laws*, and those *laws* should be enforced. What's right should have nothing to do with money, but sadly this nation sucks and is sue-happy. If a company made some of their money by wronging someone else, it should go back to where it came from or something, and the CEOs who agreed to go along with the NSA should be thrown in jail along with the NSA members who convinced them. Hell, the whole NSA should be dissolved, "government secrets" can go to fucking hell. What a corrupt system...
..for having articles like this one. Consumers REALLY need to learn to start saying no to businesses that use fuck-you-over tactics like these. Choose brands that give you *freedom*, consumers, not ones that control you. YOU should be in control, especially when you buy something, it controlling you.
This is mostly true for all companies. It's about making money, not being cozy friends with everybody.
I could respond to the rest but...I am insanely tired of the argument that it's OK to only care about money, and in doing so you can in no way do anything mean to anyone else. It's a sad day when being greedy is seen as a positive attribute. The world sucks enough as it is, you don't have to try to perpetuate that further. MS has done a lot of things that aren't good for us, but benefit them instead. Us, meaning taxpayers, consumers, and developers alike, have all been hurt by MS in one way or another, from our pocketbooks to the progression of open source software. For example, a lot of your tax money has gone to school systems (I work in one) and other government institutions to pay for ridiculously-priced software, and if they would all simply cooperate they could easily fund the development a thousand times over of any open source software that they all need to use. MS pays money to prevent government agencies from adopting competitive standards. You fuck over the taxpayers and consumers so that your own business can profit. Could you argue that it's the laws in the U.S. and the corruption that are the problem, and not MS? To a degree, but if you made murder legal that doesn't take away the blame from the one who committed it. Being an asshole is still being an asshole, no matter if it's technically legal or not. It'd be very sad if someone's morals were based solely on the law.
I hate lecturing those who are probably just trolls. The typical Slashdot thread:
Headline: MS Did Another Bad Thing!
Informed Poster: That sucks, MS was an asshole to us consumers for doing that.
Uninformed Poster (often simply a troll): Why do you always have to pick on MS, they've never done anything bad! Caring about only money is OK!
Maybe you live on the planet Awesomeness, where everyone is looked after and consumers don't get raped, but especially here in America, companies fucking over consumers is a common occurrence. We have to put up with a LOT of shit and often have NO alternatives.
"Hmmmm, do I want to get shit on, or thrown off a cliff....damn it, I guess I'll choose to be shit on again."
Thank you. =P
I just wonder how long it'll be before everyone thinks that it's a business's god-given right to do whatever the hell they want to do in order to get money. It's like when the airline companies suffered because of the fear of flying after 911, and the government compensating them because of it. Awwww did your business model fail, weee're sorryyyy here's a few billion out of the pocket of taxpayers. WTF is happening to this country.
Business: "We're going to put this black box into your home that spies on you and forces to to watch the things we want you to see!"
Consumer: "Aww you poor dears, your business model relies on that, it's OK then I guess!"
...is what is slowly happening here. The younger generations grow up thinking this kind of abuse is perfectly normal, and companies continue to get away with it more and more. It's like they're growing up slaves to the system and get used to it.
Message to all businesses: Consumers will share information, especially in this age of information technology, get used to it and adjust as necessary.
You're in the newspaper industry? Adapt or die. Gaming? Adapt or die. Horse and buggy? Good job, you finally adapted or died.
You fuckers can't turn this country into a police state with the FBI raiding some kid's home for sharing a song or movie with their friend just because a fucking industry thinks they need to use some outdated ancient laws that need to be removed from the law books in order to protect their revenue streams. If the government wasn't controlled by lobbyists with deep pockets and actually stood up for consumers, we wouldn't have this mess.
If anyone is thinking about it, don't give me the "Oh, it helps consumers, because otherwise no one could make anything for them that's information-based." I think that's total bull. Companies are very capable of finding alternate models, look at the uprising of the MMOGs, gaming has become a service. Instead of all games being a service, what is needed is for games to be paid for before they are released. The funny thing is, many games already are. Yeah yeah, I know that many games make more money after than before release, especially if they don't have a name for themselves, which is why systems to unify and sample games need to be created so that payment can be made before release. The problem is they haven't needed to since laws have helped them, just like the horse and buggy industry fought to stop the automobile. It's very possible to make these new models work, and I've been trying to work on creating it on my own project I'm working on. Unfortunately, no one else seems to give a damn, lol, so it's kind of slow going. That and I've had no free time. =P
No. You should have the freedom to do what you want with your electronics, this is all totally ridiculous, and you definitely shouldn't be declared guilty before proven innocent. The U.S. is becoming a police state.
Flawed. If you put quotes around "East Australian orange-ringed octopus" so that you're looking for that exact animal, the only link you get is the one for this Slashdot article. :)
...the consumers should have many ways of broadcasting things they want to broadcast. It's too bad you can't make it like domain names, where there is basically an infinite number of names available, so all you need is an address, and no one can crowd out the public by the ability of some organizations to fork over lots of money for the stranglehold of the spectrum.
Getting your electricity from a carbon-free source is no where near as important as getting rid of your gas motor or moving to a motor that consumes less gas at least. Combustion engines are insanely less efficient than having the electricity produced at a coal plant. A combustion engine produces lots of heat that is (usually) all wasted.
Exactly, if more people bought smaller cars, this painful gas-guzzling excuse wouldn't exist. (except for semis unfortunately, but god damnit what ever happened to the rail systems here in the U.S.. Not to start a whole other debate or anything...
Top speed of 25 mph of course kills it for, I'd say, 95% of all Americans at least. Most of them have to drive on highways to get where they need to be for work and for food.
This is pure speculation, as the real work will be in comparing the two schedulers and if one really is better than the other, adopting the better one, but I'd say that if one took a very long time to make, and the other a very short amount of time to make, that perhaps the shorter one has less code. If it does the same thing, then I'd pick the one with the less code, unless the other one provided extra features, including perhaps modularity.
:)
Even though you may not know what exactly all went down with CFS and CK's version, you can look at the code and compare them yourself. There are lots and lots and lots of people with an interest in making Linux a good OS, so if Linus made the wrong choice, he should be made aware.
Correct, but the government could have told them to. The government here in the U.S. has their hands inside the inner workings of the entire technology industry all in the name of anti-terrorism and patriotism and whatever other BS they can think up. What he needs to do is find out why, from their mouths, they shut him down. Then, he can tell the rest of the world in order to make sure everyone knows about their policies and practices. This way, people can act against these companies if they believe it unfair by flocking to companies which do not enforce censorship, or making their own organizations which solve these problems. In other words, I'm simply saying everyone should still be aware of what is happening around the world as far as censorship goes. But you're right, you as an individual and business and group etc have the right not to allow certain individuals into your "club". Perhaps Google will become a restrictive and censored search engine. In this case, I will move to a different search engine which does not censor, or that allows filters so that I can filter out the things I don't care to hear/see/experience. :)
Host your blog on your own server? That way, no one can shut you down. :) I know that you shouldn't have to do that, and I would highly recommend that you delve into the Google/Technorati/Blogger policies and try to find out why they shut you down, and definitely also email and call them. Record everything, too. Then come back, and tell the world what you found out. Viva la revolution! :)
Right, since currently there is no method for updating certain parts of a kernel without restarting it. You don't have to reboot and use the new kernel, though. Perhaps someone should try to think up a system to "hot swap" updates into a kernel? Wouldn't it be cool if you could freeze things that are using a certain part that needs an upgrade, swap out that part, then resume normal functionality? Perhaps if everything was modular enough (used standard points of interface) it would be possible? Did I ever think it possible that I would be having this kind of open discussion about an operating system kernel back when I used Windows?
Oh the answer to that last question was "no", btw.
Well at the very least there will always be a demand for freedom. Regardless of if some Linux distros run closed software, or closed drivers, and others do not, there will still be an ever-growing group wanting more freedom across all OSes and hardware.
:)
The way I look at it is like this: Imagine looking at a software box showing you the features that it offers. Restrictions are not features. If there is another box sitting right next to it that has the same features, but is less restrictive, it will be the better product. Software that grants full freedoms is ultimately what everyone wants, so let competition work it's magic. Intel already has open graphics drivers at least.
We have so many terrorists running around these days, it's wonderful that someone has invented something to blind them all.
Right, you can just fork the last copy of the source, so even if the "owner" decides to "close it down", it can be revived. So, having a BSD-style totally free and open license can be useful and such but a GPL gives that extra bit of reassurance that things can't be screwed with so easily. Any way, I can't imagine how Microsoft could attack licenses unless they also weakened their own by weakening license laws in general which would be funny.
Lol, Nightmare on Redmund Road?
I think the answer is simple though. Open source is now more of a buzz word, and they're trying to get attention by using it, attract "free developers!" (developers, developers, developers, developers, after all), and finally it's yet another attempt at, like another poster pointed out, paint over their image with happy puppy flower unicorns which is just sad on so many levels.
Maybe their marketing department isn't used to dealing with more intelligent "target groups", and doesn't know that most open source developers strangely happen to be much more informed about Microsoft's detrimental actions against open source and many of their attacks and tactics against it. No clue why, though. If someone punches me in the face, I usually just tell my mommy that I fell.
While you do make a legitimate point that you can't expect one system to be completely compatible with another, still, the fact is (and the point that was trying to be made) is that Microsoft is very capable of making BIG moves toward using and helping improve standardized open APIs and cooperating in general with free software standards if they wanted to, as well as helping and contributing to FOSS/OSS projects, and dumping their technology and ideas into the information pool we call Earth to be used by everyone, but they don't want to. Why? If I have to tell you that, you've been living under a rock with your brain removed. Maybe they will start doing that eventually since they're feeling the pressure of FOSS/OSS, but so far they've said fuck you to ODF, fuck you to FOSS/OSS in general about patents, and a billion other negative things toward the FOSS/OSS communities, so gee I wonder why everyone is pissed at them, and gee I wonder if they'll suddenly wake up one day with angel wings. Again, eventually yes, but now? I highly doubt it.
Sort of like a used car salesman trying to sell a Pacer with a Porche body.