05.01
Here we go again. Another 6 months, another ‘revolution’ in Linux usability. I am tempted to take a photo of myself now and submit it to the Wikipedia article for ‘underwhelmed’ as it would make a perfect example of the state. It’s amazing how the FOSS community like to mock Windows 7 as ‘Vista SP2′, conveniently ignoring the fact that no less than six releases of Ubuntu were made in the same time frame it took to go from Vista to 7.
As a developer I believe in two main approaches to software development – solving problems at the correct level and keeping things as modular as possible. If you wanted a new fuzzy dice for your car you wouldn’t replace the mirror, or the windscreen. If you wanted a new chopping board in your kitchen you wouldn’t replace the sink. So why, when looking at the change notes for Lucid does it appear to be almost entirely of things that have absolutely nothing to do with the OS? You hear the FOSS brigade freak out that MS dares integrate a browser into it’s OS yet what amounts to a bunch of applications is somehow core to a whole new OS. I can get DirectX not getting backported to XP and while a bit of a dick move it’s understandable, being a core system API. But a music store? A software store? A new theme? Is there anything here that actually warrants a new install? And of course with every episode of the BiannualForcedDeathMarch™ they manage to break stuff that used to work. There is a very good reason every sane developer uses a (preferrably well documented) API to communicate between modules – and is one of the reasons for the rise of OOP. This problem has been solved long ago – can someone please tell them that? If things randomly stop working each minor revision that is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. It is not – and should not – be the status quo and is a waste of everyone’s time.
And lets face it it really is lipstick on a pig. I covered this over a year ago and the substance of my argument dates back much further than that. It’s still crappy Gnome, you still have to manually unlock, move and re-lock each and every item to move things about (global lock is for pussies apparently), it’s still Windows 95 split onto two bars. I mean not only have you copied a UI that is nearly 15 years old you’ve actually managed to make it worse. Amazing! Check out the screenshot for yourself comparing Lucid to Windows 98 after spending 5 minutes rearranging things and if you still think it is somehow different or innovative then you are seriously deluding yourself.
The same crappy bugs have still not been fixed – you can’t actually access the help on any game starting with a K
– you’d think since this has been an issue for two years that it would be fixed, but no (see screenshot). Alignment issues are everywhere as usual and guess what, the new fantastic ‘left hand side’ window controls are on the left, but not entirely on the left, thus handily defeating Fitt’s Law once you have sacked off the top bar. Genius.
So in summary it’s the same as before (and it always has been) – Windows 95 tarted up a little bit with a few more programs installed and a whole load of stuff broken. If you think Ubuntu is fantastic, you’ll probably like 10.04. If you don’t then there is absolutely nothing new here.
*snore*
P.S. I want to punch who came up with that tooltip thing that appears everywhere and states the obvious while covering up whatever you are looking for. Usability is about making things intuitive, but typical to FOSS fashion they approach it by throwing documentation at it, albeit Twitter style.
Awesommmme. I can’t wait to upgrade.
Freetards don’t care. It’s NotMicrosoft(TM) and that’s good enough for them. It’s a deadlock: they’ll never admit it sucks, and normal people will never use something that sucks so much. That’s why Linux is stuck at 1% marketshare: more or less it gives you an idea of how many are willing to put up with a crappy system for a stupid ideology.
One thing about the new theme I quite like is the ability to move windows about by the blank space in the menu bar; it makes it a lot easier to move the window if you didn’t know the alt+click method.
BUT, and this is a very important detail that pisses me off to no end, programs that don’t use GTK cannot be moved by the blank menu bar space, making it much harder to move the windows as their is no good visual indicator as to the difference. You’d think it wouldn’t be a big deal, but Firefox and OpenOffice don’t actually use GTK, and they are kind of the biggest selling points (as applications) for Linux at all. I found the bugzilla item on this a few days back and the developer said it was fixed but it hasn’t changed for me…
Still, it’s hard to complain about the lack of new features cause it is a longterm support release; we’ll have to wait to see if it was as much a disaster as the last one though. I also would applaud the 100 papercuts project, but they really gotta remove the “easy to fix” condition; I’m sure it discourages people from suggesting them and it just looks bad.
Oh I should also mention: if you do an Underwhelmed picture for wikipedia, try to beat the reigning champ of least convincing photo, Surprise (emotion).
Microsoft stole the taskbar idea from RiscOS.
Andrew,
If you are so interested in innovation, you should check out Gnome-Shell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgUc8BTvi_A
I’d like you to make a Win95 comparison on this one.
Or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsCpIeLLoT8
Personally I use a dock. Gnome-Do Docky, which is like the Mac OS X dock but better.
“Microsoft stole the taskbar idea from RiscOS.”
Just like they way Ubuntu stole with window button position idea from Mac and even that Taskbar idea from both mac and windows. Have you taken a look at the taskbar icons of Ubuntu 10.4? In case you haven’t here is a “summary” – Mac Task Bar Replicant. Just like the way Docky is a Mac OS X dock replicant. Also, just like the way the whole idea behind Linux kernel is a stolen idea of Unix.
“Personally I use a dock. Gnome-Do Docky, which is like the Mac OS X dock but better”
That should be a TM, LikeItemXButBetter.
Duh! Of COURSE it’s better! It’s Linux, for crying out loud! If two devs took a shit, one working for “m$” and the other for a Linux distro, we all know the Linux dev’s crap will smell better than the “m$” dev’s crap! Ditto for Mac devs.
But yeah, the “new” Ubuntu failed to impress me. If I wanted a new theme, I’d go to gnome-look.org. Underneath, it’s the same old Linux, with a handful of new apps and rearranged stuff. Having to look at new bars doesn’t make up for functionality loss.
“Microsoft stole the taskbar idea from RiscOS.”
If anyone stole the RiscOS icon bar it was Apple. I’m sure if you’d actually used RiscOS you’d understand why.
And I’m glad they did, because it meant the basic idea lives on.
Teddy X: I’ve added JustLikeThatButBetter(TM) as a trademark. Any complaints about the text, let me know and I’ll fillet it.
“Just like they way Ubuntu stole with window button position idea from Mac and even that Taskbar idea from both mac and windows.”
In all fairness, having the window controls on the left is better for the crappy window managers that can’t seem to collect windows when the screen resolution changes. When they are on the left there are fewer chances that this will cause the window controls are off the screen. Papering over technical deficiencies with cosmetic changes is clearly the hallmark of a healthy system.
@DrLoser: Cool
The text is okay.
Guys, have you seen this http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7110657.ece
The guy thinks Ubuntu is prettier than Mac (even with the mighty widget controls in Gnome). The Ubuntu buttons are almost as big as the head of a camel yet someone thinks it is prettier than Mac. Wow
Teddy… come on… my faith in humanity is already as low as it gets! Don’t kick it while it’s down
Linux zealots are the only people in the world that would consider brown, purple, black, orange, ultra wide fonts, poorly positioned buttons and wobbly windows to be a winning combination.
Why isn’t gnome dead yet? seriously… it fills no niche.
Want looks? KDE.
Want speed? LXDE.
What does gnome have?
Thanks for hilarious link Teddy X. Posted to FUD: http://tmrepository.com/fudtracker/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-worksforme/
@Kommenter: It has Gnome Shell, a rip off of expose which has smoked all too much crack, JustAroundTheCorner ™. What’s not to love?
“It has Gnome Shell”
Heh… had already forgotten about that crap. And i’d suspect most people have as well.
Although, like you said, it’s JustAroundTheCorner™ as long as you believe that AlphaIsBetaIsFinal™ and YouDontNeedThat™.
@Kommenter: I’ve added a proper AlphaIsBetaIsFinal(TM), enjoy.
Hum… I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it, must have seen on LHB.
Surprised it wasn’t on the repository already!
Mr K., you’re clearly not hip with the Tea Party crowd.
What’s wrong with lipstick on a penguin?
Huh. I must have run a different version of gnome on opensolaris (Or a modify one), because I never experience any problems with it.
Who the **** came up with the 6 months releases cycle anyways? I can create a list of open source projects that take their time when it comes to the releasing a stable version.
Surprised it wasn’t on the repository already!
I spent a good deal of time arguing it on the LHB. I just finally got around to posting it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvfRpmqKRbs
You like?
Dose anyone care for useless eye candy?
@1234swordy:
1) I think the variant of Gnome DE in OpenSolaris is actually what Sun/Oracle calls “Java Desktop Environemnt” and has been modified heavily with, of course, Java. At least, this is definitely the case for all releases of Solaris 10.
2) You have forgotton to mention the VirtualBox bit, which I think is hilarious at best given the overhead incurred by full virtualization and the fact that the creator of the video obviously has a fully-licensed copy of Dreamweaver that _requires_ XP or better to run. Never mind the sense of priorities. Wobbly windows are all that matters at the end of the day. Don’t forget to pick up your copy of closed-source nVidia driver before you start enjoying your “freedom”, though.
@ Inspired by freedom.
Yes, I like. I just love a CPU being reamed by a computer that’s only playing back a movie and opening and closing windows. It was clocking in at over 70% even before opening VirtualBox. I also love the way the movie flickers on and off when the window focus changes.
I’m not one of those who believes every cpu cycle and and bit is sacred – they’re both there to be used – but if the OS is taking all that CPU time doing two fairly simple tasks, there’s not that much left for actual work.
I think the same thing after watching every demo of Compiz (or Beryl, or whatever 3D desktop thing) “When are you going to start actually using the computer?”
@ Inspired by freedom.
I feel quietly confident in saying that an OS that gives your motion sickness is not something that should be considered a ‘good thing’. What is it with you people anyway? It’s either green-on-black terminals or FREAKING EXPLODING FLAME WINDOWS (TM) (is it a TM?). Why not have a nice middle ground, like Windows or OSX? Is that too much to ask?
I like green on black terminals. Nostalgic and easy on the eyes.
@Adam Queef: Why won’t you like it? When there are no better GUI alternative.
@Kerberos
Here’s the TM:
http://tmrepository.com/trademarks/partytricksmakelinuxbetter/
How does Wobbly Windows and excessive graphics effects (paired with rediculous CPU usage and the obligatory “I want to be like MacOSX” dock whilst having flickering video playback – when you move the Windows and change focus) present something that many of us (as Windows Users) should be flocking to?
Show me something that can increase my productivity, or give me a better way at accomplishing the same tasks on another OS (like Windows or MacOSX).
Better yet, just show me a GTK application that doesn’t look like shit, and has a Menu Bar + Toolbars that don’t eat up more screen real estate than the Office 2007 ribbon (whilst providing a worst user experience).
I don’t care about desktop cube. The first thing I’ve always done when trying out a new Linux distro, and set it to use only one desktop.
It’s pretty sad, the types of things the free software community waste resources in. They always complain about how proprietary software has the backing of multi-billion dollar corporations, while they are forking or duplicating effort left and right – or otherwise providing functionality which really serves no benefit other than to test if you graphics card is truly supported (cause we know those FOSS graphics drivers are complete shit).
Regarding the tooltip thing:
I actually think that Blender in many ways is a great application, but they hold the absolute record in Tooltip ridiculousness with the infamous “Click to change” tooltip on number fields
@AnonGuy
Yeah, Linux advocates are desperate to attract followers and consistently rely on cheap desktop tricks. The cube, while initially a novelty, gets old pretty fast and does nothing to make Linux a more feasible desktop choice.
I feel the same about multiple desktops, and have expounded my feelings in other posts. I simply don’t understand the big deal and why Linux advocates keep flaunting it. Not even taking into account that Windows has third-party software which allows it, it’s not something I have a need to use. Maybe multiple desktops are useful if your resolution is 640×480, but modern desktops at a “moderate” 1600×1000 or even 1440×900 are ample space for me to work in.
Wobbly windows and the recent UI changes in Ubuntu are done because they can be done. They have to give the impression of progress somehow to the external observer.
The things that could really make Linux viable (true standardization and money to fund actual development) can’t be achieved. The only way for Linux to be relevant is for someone to pull an OS X trick. And while that doesn’t happen, and it´s not looking likely, I’m staying far away from Linux.
Only fools believe that Canonical can take Ubuntu to that level. The rest, we’re aware that it’s just the same crap as always, just another lame distribution that packages random shit time after time and is going nowhere, just like the million distributions that came before it, and those that will come after it.
The way some tell the story you’d believe Apple converted raw BSD into OS X, but that’s not the way it happened at all. Even at the NeXT level, BSD basically was to it what POSIX was to Windows NT: just another layer included to attract UNIX developers since UNIX had presence at the application level at the time. The whole intention from the start for both parties was to supplant the UNIX stuff with proprietary APIs and frameworks, and that’s what Apple bought, not some Linux-centric idea of a “BSD distro”. Then Apple added to it the stuff they were good at: GUI, multimedia, and presentation stuff.
So, Canonical is even more fucked than previously indicated. While NeXT on its own wasn’t a raving success, they did have a completely functional product. I mean it was good enough to invent the WWW on, after all (btw, love how advocates like to change history here and claim Berners-Lee did it on some pre-Alpha version of Linux). Furthermore, Apple got a working product out of the merger in less than three years. Meanwhile we’re rapidly approaching year six of Ubuntu, and they haven’t even covered a fraction of the ground Apple did in the same time. By year six after the NeXT acquisition, Apple was into point releases in 10.2, a version many/most consider to be a game changer in terms of Apple once again offering a viable alternative.
Still, it’s take about 2 GB versus 6 of W7, and has more software installed by default. And has no marketing limitations, like ‘you can have backup program but at expence of parental controls’ etc. And it comes fully in your language, no need to use Enterpri$$e version and buy additional MUI. And finally keyboard input is more customisable than in Windows. Linux, any version of it is made for the real productivity.
Yeah, and also it doesn’t fucking work. That’s real productivity to you.
@Lucid Lynx: It has more software installed by default? WOW… I didn’t know that. Wait a min… do you call those junks software? BTW, does your microphone work now? Talk about productivity. If Windows has those crap installed by default, you will say “its too bloated”. Hey lets do some video call on Pidgin, can we? Or change your empathy font (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/+bug/504771).
@Lucid Lynx:
“Still, it’s take about 2 GB versus 6 of W7, and has more software installed by default.”
Who cares, baby? Terabyte hard drives are coming into their own on desktops, and half-terabyte drives in laptops are now pretty common. Hell, even in the netbook category you guys are coveting, they’re still throwing 250GB hard drives in there. MS requires 16GB of HD space, even!
If you look a consumer in the eye and say, “You should use Linux, it only uses .1%/.3%/.8% of your hard drive, instead of the 1%/3%/6% of Window$”, they’re not going to give a shit, because it’s probably the first time they’ve ever heard of Linux.
“And has no marketing limitations, like ‘you can have backup program but at expence of parental controls’ etc.”
No, instead, you can cobble together some half-assed piece of shit versions of the above, but hell, at least you can have them for free!
Let’s not even get started on the fact that consumers are already pretty awful at backing up their data – it took Apple to make a giant-ass on/off switch on the Time Machine control panel, for Christ’s sake.
“And it comes fully in your language, no need to use Enterpri$$e version and buy additional MUI.”
Most people are getting copies of Windows preinstalled with computers that they buy in countries where they speak the language. And it’s not like localization has ever been strong on Linux. I read a post once where a MS engineer talked about how they had to consider all the localizations of Windows when adding a feature, and frequently how they had to account for things like German’s tendency for a word to actually be fivedifferentwordsstrungtogether, RTL text display, masculinity and femininity of nouns in Romance languages, etc., etc.
In other words, more than the “Hey, can somebody that speaks Italian come and translate my program? Thanks!” approach that Linux takes.
“And finally keyboard input is more customisable than in Windows.”
I just looked at my co-worker, a pretty average computer user, and asked him if he ever needed to customize his keyboard layout. He looked at me like I was a zombie and I had just asked him if I could chew on his corpus callosum for a minute.
What gets me is that you aren’t even arguing that it can’t be done in Windows, you just say that you can do it, uh, ‘more’ in Linux.
“Linux, any version of it is made for the real productivity.”
It’s made for people with too much time on their hands.
Hey guys, let’s be real mature and use $ instead of s, whenever possible. It’s clever! Tee hee. And stuff.
Why does the Linux crowd forever obsess about the most irrelevant crap? Linux is superior to Windows 7 because it takes up 6 gigs as opposed to 2? WOW! That’s CLEARLY a major issue! Having a smaller OS is definitely preferable to having a useful one! I have a clunky old IDE 80 gig drive somewhere… I tell you, that 6 gig Windows 7 installation is gonna *totally* kill it!
Come to think of it, DOS 6.22 only takes up, what, a few dozen megs? That’s it, I’m totally sold! It’s WAY superior to Linux! A few dozen megs versus TWO GIGS?! Insane! Stop making your OS so goddamn bloated, Canonical!!
It has more software installed by default. Sweet. It totally kicks Windows’ butt, even though Windows has a software library about 100 times larger than Linux’s. But, that’s cool. I prefer “kitchen-sink” OSes, which include low-featured FOSS programs, with two or three desktops and two or three browsers by default, just in case I ever need them.
I also love the way Linux comes “fully in my language”. Yeah. I’m not sure how my language, being English, is somehow not “full” in Windows. Oh but wait! Linux distros come with support for Esperanto! Awesomesauce! Now the 500,000 or 2 million people who speak a constructed language as second language won’t feel left out!
No need for Enterprise versions? Oh, you mean, like SuSE Enterprise Edition?
Keyboard input is more customizable than in Windows? What the hell does that even mean? If I press the “a” key, I kinda, y’know, would like the “a” character to appear, and stuff.
You all are just jealous of my hawt ass desktop. =)
Ubuntu is an awesome OS that is 100% free unlike Windows. It has many awesome applications and almost all of them are free of charge and you can also download the source code. Try doing that with Windows, you can’t.
“You all are just jealous of my hawt ass desktop. =)”
Not really. All the bling on a desktop means little to me – I usually have applications in the way.
“Ubuntu is an awesome OS that is 100% free unlike Windows.”
How are you running all that visual frippery without the proprietary video drivers?
Ubuntu will be free (as in cost) until Canonical decide to start making a profit and start micropayments for things like themes and music. Not too mention things like codecs, as licensing those costs money.
“It has many awesome applications”
Name any that are genuinely better than the paid-for version it rips off. “It’s free” or “It’s Free” are not reasons.
Mention GIMP at your dire mortal peril.
“and almost all of them are free of charge”
As the old saying goes – “You get what you pay for”
For the FSF, it’s all about “Free as in speech, not free as in beer.”
For all the LY, it’s always free as in beer. If you can’t afford Windows, look this up; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_(role)
And what’s to stop a Windows user from downloading any of the free software out there? OpenOffice and the rest are all available on Windows. Firefox even runs better on Windows.
“and you can also download the source code.”
As I’m not an operating system programmer, this is of supreme indifference to me. I’m placing a wild guess that for the other 99.99% of computer users it’s not a major selling point, either.
Have YOU ever looked at the source code of a program you’ve downloaded?
“Try doing that with Windows, you can’t.”
But the number of things I CAN do with Windows far outweighs the supposed advantages of Ubuntu or Linux on the desktop.
You can pick up used newspapers from the street for free. Guess what? People still pay for toilet paper.
I don’t dispute Linux desktops can be made to look beautiful. So can Windows and Mac. The difference between the three is that Windows and Mac can be beautiful *and* useful, whereas Linux lacks substance behind the eye candy.
The fact that Linux is free does not make it better. We are concerned about value, not price.
The most popular apps, such as OpenOffice and GIMP, are okay. Not awesome. They’re good for what they are; freebies. But they don’t compare to commercial offerings. Not only that, but they, including Firefox, are available for Windows and Mac too.
Being able to see the source code doesn’t make it superior either. If Volkswagen suddenly started giving every customer a copy of the entire company’s car schematics, it wouldn’t make them a better company, it wouldn’t make their cars better and it would be irrelevant to the vast majority of Volkswagen owners who simply want transport (with a few non-essential bells and whistles).
Most Windows themes are butt ugly and require hacking system DLLs to even function. Mac OS X can’t be themed at all!
What is MS Office going to do for me that justify paying $400 for it (5/8 the cost of my fast ass computer)? I can answer that: nothing.
Being able to see the source code means people who are smart enough to modify it can share their changes with everyone else. If Linus kept the source code to Linux all to himself, you think Linux would be as good as it is today? No, it wouldn’t.
@Freedom: “Being able to see the source code means people who are smart enough to modify it can share their changes with everyone else
But definitely not you, because you don’t even sound smart. The problem with most of you Lusers is that, the minute you write a crappy “hello world” program you think you can jump into OS source code. Can you direct us to any modification you have made on the Linux kernel or GIMP or any of the “free as in free beer” program you use? How many times have you found bugs in Open Office and you fixed it yourself? You think just filling bug report makes you kernel developer? So pathetic.
“What is MS Office going to do for me that justify paying $400 for it”
Please, you Lusers should get off you grand mothers basement for a while and get a job.
I’m not good enough yet to make useful contributions to Linux kernel code, that is true. But the fact that it is open source means people who are good enough can make contributions. This is not possible with closed source!
And I know you instantly think Linux users are cheap and jobless. But I have a very good job thank you very much. $400 for an Office application that isn’t even that good is still not justifiable in any way. I could buy a whole new computer for that price.
How many of you actually paid for MS Office anyway? I bet not much.
” But I have a very good job thank you very much”
Wait a min, you’r call spending 23hours per day in your grandmothers basement, a job?
How many of you actually paid for MS Office anyway? I bet not much.
If you think not many of us actually paid for MS Office, then what are you still crying about? I don’t understand Lusers sometimes. I bet you are one of those newly brainwashed dudes. Accept my sympathy.
My advice to you is just to get a job. just like Ted pointed out, take this again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_(role)
What is MS Office going to do for me that justify paying $400 for it
Where’s this price coming from? 2010 Professional “product card” costs $350 and you’re probably an Access hater so buying that version would be pointless. Meanwhile Home and Business is $200.
Or you could do what everyone else does and get work to buy it for you or do they gray market thing by piggybacking their VLKs.
But the fact that it is open source means people who are good enough can make contributions. This is not possible with closed source!
Huh? What about all the system level utilities for Windows and Mac OS? The latter is somewhat limited, but Windows lets you rip out all sorts of subsystems.
If you think not many of us actually paid for MS Office, then what are you still crying about?
Hypocrisy? Wintards pirate all their shit, as Tux Sux said “gray market” it.
LOL!!! Random losers on the Internet think they know everything. Clearly, no one who uses Linux has a job. It is clearly a hobby OS used by NO ONE SERIOUS!
This is clearly an illusion!
http://jobsearch.monster.com/PowerSearch.aspx?q=Linux
O_o
LOL, Kerberos thinks his first name “And-rew” (remove the dash) is a bad word! Try for yourself.
Listen And-rew,
If you are so fucking paranoid about people knowing your personal info (even your first name?!), you should have gave it to anyone who is interested in it in the first place. You YOURSELF made the you name, address, city, state, zip, phone numbers, place of employment, etc. etc. a public record by registering this domain name. Maybe next time this will teach to actually read EULA/TOSes on before clicking through them. It’s a bad habit bro, it is a valid contract you are agreeing to everything you click “I Agree”. I’m just trying to save you more heartache in the future.
“Wintards pirate all their shit”
I can see that you dont seem to understand english so much. There is something called a JOB. We do that thing, we get paid in return and we buy our shit. We don’t have to sit in a basement and wait for free stuff.
Have a look at you sweet OS: Touchpad not working.
Come on mate, this is 2010 and you can’t even get touchpad to work properly? Tomorrow, you will say “DistroX is better than Mac OS suX and Windoze”.
Touchpad not working
Come on mate, this is 2010 and you can’t even get touchpad to work properly? Tomorrow, you will say “Windows is better than Mac OS suX and Loonix”.
You’re correct Inspired by Stallman’s Incorrect Definition of Freedom, there are plenty of people with jobs that use linux, those people are linux administrators, or linux kernel developers.
They usually have mac at home, like my great friend Linus, maybe you’ve heard of him?
You see Inspired by Stallman’s Incorrect Definition of Freedom Based on Fungology, most people with jobs, use linux for what it’s good, servers. At home they have money to buy something that actually works as a desktop.
I guess a few epic neckbeard freaks might have job and have a DurdenRenderStation™ at home with linux… Gotta pay that Internet bill, how else do you update compiz and get those extra 0.5fps while rotating a cube? But they are an exception, not a rule.
You think because you have a “JOB” at a coffee shop you don’t pirate? Bullshit.
Even professional sysadmins were caught, tried, and convicted for being members of PIRACY RINGS in the past.
It’s really this simple: if you make $500k a year you can afford Photoshop, easily. But if you DON’T pay for Photoshop, you are still $800 richer. Regardless if you make $0, $50k, $500k, or $50 billion. You are still $800 richer. So you don’t have to be poor to pirate.
“DurdenRenderStation™”
Is that a reference to blender rendering station?
“But the fact that it is open source means people who are good enough can make contributions. ”
Freetard bullshit. I trust Microsoft employees to do that work for me. And judging by the results they’re doing a much better job than the Open Source Basement Army.
http://tmrepository.com/trademarks/basementdeveloperarmy/
Is it ironic that someone who loves his psedonyms is trying to ‘out’ me? Congratulations you can use whois. Dude, go to University, grow some chest hair, get a job and then come back here when you are capable of acting like an adult.
And-rew,
All you seem to have is insults, and no actual arguments. Good job.
I trust Microsoft employees to do that work for me.
LOL. Good luck with that.
“All you seem to have is insults, and no actual arguments. Good job.”
I also have your static IP address, mind me posting it on here? It’s of public record after all.
But if you DON’T pay for Photoshop, you are still $800 richer.
You give yourself away with this one. While you claim to have a “very good job”, you obviously don’t understand the time value of money, which is the practice of putting a dollar value on your time, a figure that increases as your life becomes busier and/or your earnings rise. Teenagers with little money and lots of time don’t understand why everyone doesn’t pirate everything while busy people with cash to burn don’t understand why anyone would blow a Friday night discarding fakes and trojans acquired from The Pirate Bay.
Quote: “Hypocrisy? Wintards pirate all their shit, as Tux Sux said “gray market” it.”
Don’t you think it’s kind of embarassing that people would rather pirate Microsoft Office instead of using free Alternatives like OpenOffice + Evolution or Thunderbird?
I paid for Office 97 Pro, Offiec XP SBE, and Office 2003 Pro. The cost is not an issue, when I spend $300 to take a trip to pay a tech $13 to get my skates sharpened.
Alternative != Replacement, and being an Alternative doesn’t necessarily make an application great. They look like shit, and in many ways they function like shit. Deal with it and move on. You don’t have to be so bitter.
That’s funny, I am not the one being better. This site and almost of it’s commenters have an extremely negative attitude. I might not like Microsoft, but I am not going to dedicate a whole fucking blog for the purpose of insulting them and their work every fucking day. I guess I’m just not that kind of person.
I also have your static IP address, mind me posting it on here? It’s of public record after all.
What are you going to do, try and WinNuke me?
I can ensure you any IP address you claim to have isn’t even mine, anyway. So go ahead.
This site and almost of it’s commenters have an extremely negative attitude.
This from the guy who spent his Sunday afternoon angrily calling out the blogmaster.
“You think because you have a “JOB” at a coffee shop you don’t pirate?”
Having a “JOB” at a coffee shop – as you put it – ends up or sums up to be called what, a “JOB”. A “Grandma’s Basement Occupancy” does not end up to be called a Job. It ends up to be called a Lunatic.
Take this, you richard stallman brainwashed (toy): Cool guy
Having a shitty job is not exactly something to be proud of dude. There is an entire world outside making Frappichinos. I hope one day you’ll get to see it.
Actually Teddy, skip the Frappichinos for today. I’d like a Venti Chai Tea Latte.
Thanks.
LOL, love the retreat to LH, champ.
This is my first post here so I’ll do my best to make a good start.
Inspired by Freedom, there’s a basic and common flaw in your reasoning. Let’s examine your logic : Microsoft Office costs money (120 € here in France if I’m not mistaken, you do the maths if you don’t live in a country using our somewhat collapsing euro currency) while OpenOffice is free. They’re both office suites. Therefore, all people using Microsoft Office are brainwashed idiots as they could use a free office suite instead of emptying their wallets for the same thing. (And emptying them for the benefit of those Redmond devils only worsens the picture I guess.)
Well, you, sir, are overlooking a little detail : they’re not exactly the same thing. While OpenOffice *is* a decent office suite, it *does not* fill everyone’s needs. Yes, there are people who really need MS Office to do their job, or to do it faster or in a more convenient way. For these people, the money spent on MS Office isn’t wasted since it has a positive impact on their productivity. They may be 300 € poorer after buying, say, the professional version of MS Office but this is a rather short-sighted analsys and I suggest you fire your accountant immediately. Try to hire another one who actually knows that spending money on a better tool leads to increased productivity which in turn leads to counterbalancing the purchase… you may even end up earning more money thanks to your purchase.
I do agree though, that for some people (quite a lot actually), buying MS Office isn’t really mandatory. OpenOffice is a relevant tool if you have the need for a full-fledged office suite but not for MS Office extras. Or if you’re “ribbon-sick”. But, hey, if you plan on using a word processor from time to time to type your correspondance as my grandmother does, OpenOffice is also a tad overkill. I stongly believe in using the right tool for the job. If OpenOffice suits you, by all means use it and don’t misspend your money on something you don’t need. That seems common sense to me. But it is also common sense to not use software that hinder you in your daily work.
Saying that people are stupid is too easy. There is a reason why many professionnals use MS Office even though OpenOffice exists and is offered for free, same goes for Photoshop for example. It’s not that they are idiots or ignorant of the alternatives (well, admittedly, they may be as well) or reluctant to change their habits – though they sometimes are, they’re just not that reluctant so they happily spend hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars or euros for no benefit. They quite simply need these tools. If they could be as productive with OpenOffice or GIMP for free, they’d use it. I would take some time but if these software really were viable options, they’d be much more widely used. After all, everyone likes to spend less money. Tools sometimes are expensive (and that’s true for other tools which have nothing to do with computers) but there’s more to the picture than the price tag.
See, in the end, it’s a simple question of what you need – that’s the key word. It’s up to you to evaluate what the benefits of any tool are and then choose accordingly.
I know free software evangelists will object that it’s not all that matters and that Freedom is important. Well, you’re free to believe in free software if you like ; obviously, I don’t.
By the way, I’m quite convinced that Stallman’s views on software freedom possibly are the biggest thing holding the quality of free software back. Oh the irony. Because of him, so much time is spent on writing equivalent tools of proprietary software only to be able to say “yay! I can do that too now! And freely!”. So much for free software inherent innovation qualities. My two cents : software would progress much quicker without said views as all that energy and time would be devoted to actually create new things.
Hope that’s not too long.
Thanks for your intelligent response. I do agree that some people OpenOffice.org is not sufficient, people who require MS specific functionality. However, this is rather minimal and I don’t think most people really need MS Office, and certainly I do not.
People like to talk loads of shit about OOo for some reason, but it is really unfounded. It is a decent office suite with a lot of functionality and it is free. I wish more people knew about it.
His arguments also fail in pretending nothing exists between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office when there’s Google Docs, iWork, Star Office, WordPerfect, and SoftMaker.
Yeah I use Google Docs also. I think OOo is better personally, although Google Docs has it’s finer points.
“I’d like a Venti Chai Tea Latte”
, but that my friend is not free as in free beer. You have to pay for it. You’ve got the money. I don’t think Grandma will give you any pocket money today.
Nice choice
No she gives a weekly allowance, silly man. Here is $6.50 or whatever the fuck you guys charge these days for something that costs you 10 cents to produce.
And yeah your fucking Chai Tea is hella overpriced, but I am addicted to it. So hand it over.
No she gives a weekly allowance, silly man. Here is $6.50 or whatever the fuck you guys charge these days for something that costs you 10 cents to produce.
Fine then, do whatever task you do at cost and take no profit.
“His arguments also fail in pretending nothing exists between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office”
Errr, actually, I pretended nothing of the kind even if I didn’t mention other alternatives. I even said that for the casual letter-writing grandma OpenOffice is inadequate; that was a way of implying there are other tools for other needs, perhaps that was not so clear. It just happens everyone was talking about OpenOffice and Microsoft Office and I didn’t feel like mentioning other ones (or didn’t think about it). But you are of course right, there are other office suites on the market, there are simpler tools for simpler tasks as well. Heck, I sometimes find myself using WordPad these days.
Anyway, my (pretty basic) point was that everyone should just use what they need/want/like and that there is no need trying to convince people they should use something else if they are happy about their current tool. Even less so when it comes to telling people they should drop the tool they need for another one which won’t meet their expectations.
Nothing new here, of course, and It’s hard to fail with that one. I don’t think I did.
@Inspired by Freedom: Enjoy your Tea. Now I have made a profit of $6.40 while you are out of $6.50 and waiting for Grandma to give you the next allowance. Now I can invest another 10 cents to make two cups of tea that you can buy again. Now, I have $12.8 profit while again, you are out of $13.00.
Enjoy the tea in the basement, but remember to go out of the basement for a while to shave your beard. Oops.. sorry. You don’t have money for that? Well, you have two choices (I know you like choice)
You can keep your beard so you look just like stallman or I can lend you some money and you pay back with a 200% profit. More profit for me while you keep your head in Grandma’s purse.
Enjoy the tea in the basement, but remember to go out of the basement for a while to shave your beard. Oops.. sorry. You don’t have money for that?
I spotted a hole in your argument. Kids can’t grow beards.
Please, Inspired by Freedom, don’t play the victim card. People talk loads of shit about OOo because there are shitty aspects of it.
Like the bad interop with complex macros involving VBA, among other things.
The crap-ass user interface that makes it look like a GTK application given a facelift to make it look borderline decent on a Windows System.
The lack of an Access replacement (Base isn’t even comparable).
The lack of an Outlook replacement (I laugh at people who say to use Thunderbird or Evolution… you can tell they haven’t used Outlook seriously as a Power or Business User).
OpenOffice is a decent Office Suite for people who probably could get away with using Microsoft Works and Windows Live Essentials with 0 complaints.
Another thing… WordPerfect Office is clearly the runner-up to Microsoft Office, and to put it in the same sentence with such shit as OpenOffice, iWork (which is more analagous to Microsoft Works – not necessarily a bad product, SoftMaker and *GASPS* Google Docs really shows how much you people actually pay attention to the this segment of the software market.
WordPerfect didn’t lose to MSO because of Monopoly (often stated excuse), they loss because when consumers were moving to Windows en masse, the products in WordPerfect Office (and WordPerfect itself) simply weren’t fast enough.
Paradox, Quattro Pro, and WordPerfect (3/4 of the Professional Edition Office Suite, for the most part) were all late moving to Windows. People used what they could back then. The later versions of WordPerfect (which used Graphics mode, etc.) put Microsoft Word to shame, but Windows evened the playing field out quite a bit, and they simply weren’t fast enough to move, and lost customers as a result. Also, the fact that Windows had a stable driver interface meant that customers weren’t going to just buy WordPerfect or any other software just because it supported their esoteric printer hardware… (that was a particular strong area for WordPerfect, back then).
The move to Windows killed other products as well, like dBase. Paradox, dBase, and Quattro Pro all used to be Borland Products. They also lost a large part of their C/C++ user base because of their buggy Windows development tool IDEs (but saved face with Delphi, at least somewhat), even though they had quite a lead over Microsoft (having a Windows IDE at least a year or two before Microsoft launched Visual C++).
WordPerfect Office’s biggest issue, from my standpoint, is the fact that it has no mail/groupware application that is competitive with Outlook from a Power/Business Userpoint of view. Thunderbird simply doesn’t cut it.
Also, Paradox would be best as an actual Development tool a’la Visual FoxPro (RIP) or Visual dBase. No one wants to program ObjectPAL, though
My grandma gives me $50,000 dollars a week. You see, it is something called a “trust fund”. Sorry you don’t have one, you dirty proletarians.
Says the guy who refuses to spend money on software? Face it, you’re poor. Stop claiming sour grapes you broke gutterfish.
“My grandma gives me $50,000 dollars a week”
Wow, I am stumped. $50,000 dollars a week and you still complain over a tea that cost $6.50. Mate, you’ve got to loosen up a little. Stop leaving in your fantasy land
Sorry you don’t have one, you dirty proletarians
Hey kid, there is no point getting all worked up and bitchy. When you freetards are out of what to say why must insults be your last resort? Freetards, Freetards, Freetards
“LOL. Good luck with that.”
Well, when you have time have a look at the real world, will you? Windows is system people are willing to pay for (I’m glad I did). In contrast, I wouldn’t use the shit that your Basement Army develops even if I got paid for it.
“What are you going to do, try and WinNuke me?
I can ensure you any IP address you claim to have isn’t even mine, anyway. So go ahead.”
Are you sure, Jonathan, that you want me to do that?
“OpenOffice is a decent Office Suite for people who probably could get away with using Microsoft Works and Windows Live Essentials with 0 complaints.”
True. But there isn’t anything wrong with that per se. As long as OpenOffice, or Thunderbird since you mentioned it, are shown for what they are, I.e. generic alternatives suitable for people with limited needs, there’s no harm done.
The problem is when freedom preachers enter the game and start telling that everyone can swap the powerful application with advanced features they need to get the job done with the generic alternative (which in fact just doesn’t cut it when it comes to advanced features).
And I am not censoring you. The fully open source LAMP stack running the opensource WordPress is automatically flagging your posts as spam based upon the fact that, well, you sound like a whiny spammer. Open Source Fail?
Huh?! I’m not sure who you’re talking to here but I sure didn’t mean to sound like a whiny spammer. If that was directed at me, well, this won’t be posted but sorry for the inconvenience anyway. So long, I guess.
Inspired by Freedom: Your problem – like most of the people promoting FOSS – ultimately is you think you are better, smarter and more knowledgeable than everyone else. I have known, and surpassed, many people like you because you believe you know it all and have nothing to learn from anyone and as a result you are intellectually stagnant.
I could be wrong on a lot of matters and am willing to accept this fact and reassess my beliefs regularly and use whatever technique or software I think is best at the time. You on the other hand are just parroting late 90′s anti MS propaganda that has no real basis and substance, accepting the greater evils to freedom (Google Docs, come on!) while regurgitating propaganda which can only be described as fascist.
You and your cohorts on the other hand always approach every situation where someone disagrees with you from the perspective of them either not understanding or not being clever enough to understand your ‘truth’, and this makes you stupid.
@Guybrush – not at you, at ‘Inspired by Freedom’ – Akismet ate his last few posts, lol. If he wants to stop it doing it he should patch the source upstream and stop blaming me. – sorry about that btw.
you believe you know it all and have nothing to learn from anyone and as a result you are intellectually stagnant.
I guess due to their stunted social development they don’t understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. The confident fellow goes forward assuming victory, but he also knows when to cut losses or change direction when things aren’t going well. The arrogant fellow will never admit defeat and sticks to his guns even when he’s out of ammo because his pride won’t allow admission of failure. Most overbearingly arrogant people actually lack self-confidence and go overboard in faking it.
I [...] reassess my beliefs regularly and use whatever technique or software I think is best at the time.
Same here. Pro tip to the freetards: if you can’t think of a single instance of “Boy, I was mistaken about [whatever] all along!” within the past year, you’re doing it wrong.
I have the beta of Office 2010 installed and it kicks ass. I love the enhancements they’ve made to Outlook, having multiple email addresses linked to my outlook is much more streamlined. It was somewhat clunky under 2003/07. The ‘view more about *contactname*’ panel is great, too. When I have an email open, I can click one button and get my ENTIRE email history with the sender, or any of the other recipients. It’s really sweet, and actually quite innovative. Outlook is something that I have open whenever my computer is awake. I probably use it more than any other program, and it’s nice to see forward progress with it. They made rule creation and scripting more streamlined too, which is nice as I have a lot of rules setup to handle mail from various sources across various accounts.
I use the windows 7 usability enhancements every single day at work. Aero Snap, jumplists, mouseover preview, I use these things all day long and others.
I do some pretty advanced stuff with Office, too. I don’t think I could get away with it under OO.org. Right now I’m writing a program that opens an ODBC connection to an access .mdb file (generated by a proprietary alarm system) and extracts meaningful information from it and puts it into a nicely formatted report. It may be doable under OO but using Visual Studio for it makes it really easy to put the connectors together, and it’s all part of the same ecosystem so interoperability is very high.
My 0.02c.
Same here. Pro tip to the freetards: if you can’t think of a single instance of “Boy, I was mistaken about [whatever] all along!” within the past year, you’re doing it wrong.
Exactly. Ask a freetard to point out some flaws in their software, or better yet, their attitude towards it. You’ll always be met with calculated apologetic responses. See Ellipsis(TM)
There is no flaws in FOSS software. It is perfect.
“There is no flaws in FOSS software. It is perfect”
This is pure denial that even a list of why gimp sucks (or any Foss software you can think of) won’t convince you. You just find excuses for the problems that we here address. Common freetard thinking will get you nowhere in this blog boy.
Now I’m think he’s adam queef
There is no flaws in FOSS software. It is perfect.
That explains why Linux has stagnated for 15 years. There’s nothing left to change. So tell me again why I need access to the source if there’s nothing to fix?
There is no flaws in FOSS software. It is perfect.
That is stallman doing the thinking for them. Way to go dude, just say what you are told – “no flaws in FOSS software. It is perfect”. Repeat it 10 times when you get off the bed in the morning and before you go back to bed in the night. And do make sure you are on your knees when you recite it.
Repeated for emphasis, if FOSS is perfect, why open the source if there is nothing to fix?
There is no flaws in FOSS software. It is perfect.
Hey, look – a modern-day Epimenides is here!
you guys don’t understand the discussion of features is irrelevant because that’s not linux’s strongest claim just yet it’s strongest claim is total and utter freedom like if M$ decides to make every windows user pay $50000 to keep using their crappy operating system that forces you to pay ridiculous amounts of money for everything you can’t say no because they can just remotely deactivate your windows license starting in windows 7 so you either have to pay $50000 or stop using windows so linux doesn’t do that you can modify anything the way you want it and if a project dies you can pick it up and shape just like you want but you can’t do that if M$ goes under yes there are dead free projects but they can be revived you can’t revive a dead commercial project because the company is being greedy and not releasing the code anyone is free to get involved with linux so if it doesn’t meet your requirements its your falt for not getting involved it doesn’t cost you anything and it will save you money down the road
@linux pride: So which software have you revived? How many times have you found bug in Open Office or Gimp or Gnome or KDE and you fixed it yourself? If none, then what is your point? When Ubuntu moved window button from right to left… you all screen like babies. why didn’t you fork it and put the button back on the right and have fellow followers.
you guys don’t understand the discussion of features is irrelevant because that’s not linux’s strongest claim just yet it’s strongest claim is total and utter freedom
So you’re saying having less choice in features is somehow making you more free?
if M$ decides to make every windows user pay $50000 to keep using their crappy operating system that forces you to pay ridiculous amounts of money for everything you can’t say no
Or they’ll just start using Macs.
you can’t revive a dead commercial project
A dead commercial project means it was a failure, it shouldn’t be revived.
@Inspired by Freedom: What the hell do you want to do? All you have done was… to publicize Piestar’s name and occupation. Adding absolutely nothing to the discussion. If you have problem with the Piestar guy, talk to him privately not here. No one wants to see your off-topic personal incoherent rants.
Quote: “I have the beta of Office 2010 installed and it kicks ass. I love the enhancements they’ve made to Outlook, having multiple email addresses linked to my outlook is much more streamlined.”
>> I haven’t heard much about this. I have 4 Desktops and a Laptop. 2 Desktops on my desk, so I have one Outlooked hooked into Exchange (I use an Exchange Host, I’m dumping GMail), and the other Outlook hooked into Windows Live Hotmail (Using the Hotmail Connector, functioning much like an Exchange Server). I typically don’t like my Email to all by consolidated in one client. I’m a bit OCD when it comes to organization, though
My Windows Mobile Device gets my Exchange and Hotmail, but it keeps them separated in seperate inboxes quite cleanly.
“It was somewhat clunky under 2003/07. The ‘view more about *contactname*’ panel is great, too.”
>> I need to look into this
Sounds like it’s doing something similar to Windows Live Messenger, right?
“When I have an email open, I can click one button and get my ENTIRE email history with the sender, or any of the other recipients. It’s really sweet, and actually quite innovative.”
>> The Outlook Social Connector can be installed on Outlook 2003 and 2007, as well. That’s not limited to Outlook 2010. They need to hurry up and release the Facebook and Windows Live Connectors, though…
“Outlook is something that I have open whenever my computer is awake. I probably use it more than any other program, and it’s nice to see forward progress with it. They made rule creation and scripting more streamlined too, which is nice as I have a lot of rules setup to handle mail from various sources across various accounts.”
>> I agree. I use it more than anything, and it’s always open.
“I use the windows 7 usability enhancements every single day at work. Aero Snap, jumplists, mouseover preview, I use these things all day long and others.”
>> I wouldn’t know about that. I’m still on Vista and XP. I actually had the Vista disk since release, but was too lazy to install it until January this year. Seriously, who wants to reinstall Visual Studio 2008, all your Add-Ins, back up and restore your entire Mailbox/Calendar, etc. etc. I don’t do OS upgrades (doesn’t matter what OS it is).
“I do some pretty advanced stuff with Office, too. I don’t think I could get away with it under OO.org. Right now I’m writing a program that opens an ODBC connection to an access .mdb file (generated by a proprietary alarm system) and extracts meaningful information from it and puts it into a nicely formatted report. It may be doable under OO but using Visual Studio for it makes it really easy to put the connectors together, and it’s all part of the same ecosystem so interoperability is very high. ”
>> I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but Visual Studio is not Microsoft Office, unless they’ve replace VBA with a .NET replacement, and you’re referring to that. The only thing else I can think of is Visual Studio tools for Office, but you get that with Visual Studio (certain Editions), not Microsoft Office.
However, developing Extensions for Office is a better experience than with other Office Suites, because the tools used to do it (both in and out of Office) are simply better.
While I have someone’s attention, please tell me what the tags are for bolding and italicizing text in replies here are. I don’t wanna try anything incorrect with no preview button!
Oh, btw, those people who are intrigued by the Social Networking features in Outlook should also check out what they’re doin with Windows Live (Messenger for now, at least) in the next version: http://windowslivepreview.com/messenger/
The standard HTML tags do the trick: <b></b> and <>i<></i>.
Whoops. You knew what I meant.
While I’m at it:
strong
em
Wow. The hatetards are still wining like little girls. The queen hatetard is apparently some guy named Andrew. All this time linux marches on and Microhardon stands still in the dust. Suck it winbreds.
Wow. The hatetards are still wining like little girls. The queen hatetard is apparently some guy named Andrew.
Even if it’s him, what does it matter? Is his credibility suddenly tarnished because you might know his name?
All this time linux marches on and Microhardon stands still in the dust.
Linux marches into obscurity. Enjoy your left mounted window buttons.
Suck it winbreds.
Kerberos, the author, runs a mac. Idiot.
anyone is free to get involved with linux so if it doesn’t meet your requirements its your falt for not getting involved it doesn’t cost you anything and it will save you money down the road
ILearn to punctuate, please. Paragraphics and basic syntax and sentence structure wouldn’t hurt either.
When was the last time you revived an abandoned project? When was the last time you ever modified a non-trivial piece of software (hacking Makefiles to make shit compile doesn’t count, sorry).
So you’re saying that time costs nothing? Time spend learning languages and APIs, time spent familiarizing oneself with the codebase, time spent developing, testing and debugging? Open source is powered by MagickalPixieDust(TM) and labour is free, right?
Ultimately, what you’re regurgitating is that the fact that Linux is sorely inadequate for the overwhelming majority of people, is not due to any shortcomings on Linux’s end, but solely on the shoulders of users who don’t even use it, that’s complete and utter bollocks.
While Linux may have a purchase price of $0, it has yet to show that it actually saves any money, as it gets destroyed on TCO and TCA every time.
OMGOMG AM MAKE TYPO QUICK QUICK CALL MY SEXUAL ORIENTATION INTO QUESTION LOLOL!!!11111eleven.
paragraphing*
What an idiot. ANyone can make Linux look bad by citing the shitpile that is Ubunut.
Well done shooting fish in a barrel fuckface.