Re: Wonder how much it would cost

Oh no, storing energy is expensive!

Be reasonable, we have 3 sources of energy: geothermal, nuclear and solar. Everything else is storage. I understand why you don't think it's sensible to install solar (certainly not the current generation), but everything else about your comment reeks of arrogant assumption.

Local generation with local storage can not only help smooth out the grid, but also I think make people more aware of just how much energy their wasting. Solar, wind, bio-digetion or just granny on a peddle bike, it's certainly more poignant than some big project to burn shale trapped plankton farts.

Re: And here come the OSX and Linux users...

Nevar!

Re: Over to Linux for me

I don't think open sorcerers are ever going to stop telling you that you're weird for using Microsoft software.

It just looks odd, like your computer has been plugged into... the Twilight Zone!

But

It's amusing to see the comments Alan. Worth it just for those.

And...

there are people who would rather eat lit TNT sticks than buy into an Apple monopoly.

Cost of Creation

The way open source software is created, deployed and maintained is subtly different from proprietary methods.

Simply the cost of creation is higher, deployment is comparable and maintenance is lower. Open Source tends towards the long haul and if your project only requires you use the software for one weekend, it's not too important what exactly the method of production was.

But if you're doing some kind of crazy, integrated system which includes lots of government data and plan to be in use for a few years. You might want to consider placing more emphasis on maintenance costs.

It sounds like to me that they understand there is a bias for proprietary, and that it should be fixed. But they're not exactly understanding why open source appears more expensive on their calculations yet. Point being that their calculations are not accounting for factors that make proprietary expensive over long periods.

Or one of the blokes bought the guy a really nice lunch at a fancy restaurant, either way. ;-)

That Number

Is probably very conservative estimate based on the number of unique IP addresses that contact the central apt server.

Of course this computer lab full of Ubuntu computers (which installs many laptops and desktops with Ubuntu) is not only one ip address for many computers, but also sets the apt mirror to MIT or Berkeley and not to the central canonical UK servers.

I do sometimes get the feeling though that Canonical are deliberately understating their numbers for some unfathomable reason.

No comment on the cloud thing, I don't think many people know what they're doing there.

In Business

You mean to say that every other competitor was driven INTO business, right? Apple Mac competes against HP, Dell, Toshiba, and so on. If the IBM-compatibles market (i.e. PC) didn't exist, we'd not have any of those businesses in any sort of business.

Unless you're attempting to make a trite and ignorant comparison between Apple's OSX and Microsoft's Windows. In which case Mac didn't survive at all, and had to go 'borrow' open source to get a working and compatible system.

No.

>> A properly applied patent system works.

Assumption.

Content Theft!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4

Hmm

Being honest about your loved-one is important. If you're just going to be uncritical then no one is really going to be interested in what you have to say.

I use Ubuntu, but I have an entire bag of issues we have, some being worked on, others being ignored. But I might be able to get into the details of the Ubuntu community because it's all done out in the open, unlike Microsoft where you would have no idea what's happening except from the press releases. Which might be a little biased.

And

Doesn't that worry you?

Perhaps I'm just being daft, but you sound like you care more about a company and it's products than society as a whole.

Sometimes I despair, I think the world has created a better kind of social idiot and they post randomly on El Reg.

Interesing

Seriously: I'm happy you've made your work public domain (it's not a license, but what ever) but you shouldn't try and promote your ideology of unaccountable anarchy to other software developers who are simply not interested in your world view.

Especially since it has known flaws.

Taxes

I like paying taxes... so long as I get to vote.

But we're not all excusing ourselves of our social obligations and responsibilities with half-clever moral myths about self-interest.

Heh

Yes, and replaced him with an Ex-Microsoft pod-person. But I think you mean the ODF scandal.

The only state I know looking into Linux is ____ and I don't want to say because walls have ears and people get fired surprisingly easily for trying to advance their states computer technology.

Pride

Pride follows with a Fall.

And, that you are getting a warm feeling from the spread of Apple's ball and chains is perhaps some form of mental illness possibly linked to a deformed tribal gene.

Seriously if you want to support something with all your heart, at least make sure that you actually get to own what it is your throwing your pride into it. Apple doesn't make anything you actually get to own, so it's junk as far as social progress goes.

When they make it all open source, we'll talk about supporting them...

Not quite

Their personal copyright or anything weakly licensed can be kept closed. Anything GPL though will have to be released in source format as per section 2(b), unless they own the entire copyright on the GPL piece... and last I checked, google don't own the linux kernel; so that at least should be available.

Everything else though, will probably have to be rewritten from scratch with a proper license.

Yes

We do.

Er

How many people have billions of dollars more than they could ever spend in a hundred lifetimes?

"I would wonder sire, how such people come by such property in the first place"

Wubi

Wubi is like one of those sickly sweets you get when you're 8 and you think it's so awesome that you just have to have 20 in one sitting. Then, later, you realise it was a really bad idea now that're sick all over the carpet and your mums gone berserk at you for eating the Christmas box.

Advice: Use Wubi for testing, using a proper install for actually using the thing. Personally I think we should disable upgrades and have a giant red background saying 'WARNING YOUR DATA ISN'tT SAFE' instead of the default light theme.

bug report

Have you reported the bug? With logs?

But what about

What about me, I'm an Apatheist, how many of us are bloody likely to care to tick any box in that question?

Rereading

I think you might have to go back to your Quick and Easy Free and Open Source for Microsoft Engineers book. It doesn't say "Free software is about hacking together a mess of code in order to extract ever greater amounts of money from support". It says something along the lines of "The economics of code distribution, like most other creative works, has fallen to zero. If you still would like to earn money you can do a couple of things: a) lock your product up and milk your customers like cattle (Microsoft, Oracle, Apple), b) Get paid for performing code creation (Independent SMEs) or c) Get paid for supporting the software in an business context, with a note that you should probably push a bit of that money into development in order to keep your customers."

Sometimes I think Microsoft people learn about FOSS on the back of cornflake packets.

Right

Is harm being caused? can you link downloading to reduced sales?

Because I can show you a couple of studies and cases which show downloads cause increases in sales.

You're assumptions are counter to reality.

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Because Free Software isn't about developer right, but about user rights? Just a thought.