Anyone who tries to convince the world that he runs a naked installation of Windows, and routinely browses the internet without viral infections is simply lying through his teeth.

Or connects through a firewall...

My Google Browser Sync replacement is Xmarks (formerly foxmarks). I only use it on Firefox, but it works on IE and Safari too. The only thing I miss from GBS is how it saves the last windows you closed and then opens them up next time you start the browser on any computer, does Weave do this? Xmarks also gives you a nice page to manage your bookmarks and create different profiles, etc. You can also run your own Xmarks server so you can store your own passwords. I think it uses WebDAV, which could also be of use to the OP.

As a software development company, we regularly use Twitter to see what people think of our software and try to improve it based on the feedback on Twitter. Twitter has also been a tremendous help in spreading our news announcements throughout the community. The business value is huge.

I've heard that Site Catalyst does the same thing as your company, and those in our company that work with it have been trained to use Twitter instead of filing a formal help request. Not only do we get faster responses from Twitter, but this has the added benefit of not costing us our support time. This is what you're encouraging.

Each time I'm baffled by how Slashdotters totally miss the point of Twitter, and try to paint it off as a useless website with no substance.

The value you get out of it has no point for me; I don't want to bitch about people's products over the web and I don't work for a company that would benefit from scouring Twitter looking for whiners. Maybe others feel the same way.

Its also a great way to mentor newer developers and teach them the tricks of the trade.

Agreed. I'm a junior dev, and I have learned a few things from our group's team lead during code reviews. It also helps in the communication between the devs and the team lead. For instance, if some library code we're using needs refactoring because it's making our code awkward, it's helps him identify if we should possibly spend some time working on that to help the whole team write better code.

Honda and Toyota wouldn't even know how to start building a car that tough.

It's funny, because for the whole first part of your comment, I thought you were talking about this. For those with short attention spans, it's the Top Gear episode where they ravage a toyota truck. For example, they put it on top of a sky scraper they demolish, among other things. The cool thing was, the engineers were only allowed to use a can of wd-40 to get it running again, and it started up without much of a problem through each course.

But you're defending American cars, which are the laughing stock of every Mechanical Engineer I know. I owned 2 Fords, and the mechanics I would sometimes goto would just end the list of problems with, "But you know, it's a Ford." I have a Honda now, and I can tell you, I'm never going back. With the current economic climate, it might not even be an option anyway. Now, they have def caught up in recent years, but to say they surpassed, or even caught up to the Japanese is ridiculous.

Mindshare gains are to not accomplished by wasting energy squabbling with your logical ally. AFTER sufficient mindshare has been won from closed source--then squabble and be stupid if you want to! But meanwhile--cooperate on the breakaway!!!! It makes for a better race!!

That's really inspiring and stuff, but, like all analogies, leaves some things out. This is why analogies are a tool for explaining things, not for coming to some logical conclusion (there is no Proof by Analogy in discrete math). Many of the OSI crowd just really don't care how close the dreaded "proprietary software" comes to competing with them, they just want to do their thing the best way they know how. Wiping out proprietary software is the goal of the FSF guys, it's a side effect for the OSI guys.

And what is all of this "wasted energy" nonsense? How is having ideological discussions wasted energy? These users of software, for the most part, don't really care what their software is licensed under. This is something that's really only discussed by the developers of software (and possibly their employers), and so maybe if the OSI and FSF were to join forces to get the proprietary software devs, this might make sense. But I don't see discussion of ideologies as something that hampers the use of F/OSS.

On top of this, I see most of the animosity from the FSF side; they are the ones who are all hung up on ideology and get angry when people *gasp* even explain how to install proprietary software. I know, it's not fair to equate RMS' ideology with that of the entire FSF organization, but he /is/ on /your/ side.

I understand your point about the OSI, but I'm not sure how it relates to this topic of corporations contributing back code. Sure, there may be less strict licenses that OSI approve of, but the GPL allows corporations to do the _exact same thing_.

Now we complain that these corporations are taking advantage of Open Source software in exactly the way the OSI told them they could?

The OSI _and_ the FSF.

But none of them will ever contribute back as much as they get

I'm not sure that's possible for anyone at this point.

This is what you get when you take a movement based on an ideal and pervert it to try and take "market share" for a free product. You get more people using the product, but you lose the ideal in the process.

Good riddance. I'm glad the OSI did what they did, and I'm glad because it allows the pragmatic OSS people to be disassociated with the FSF while still with them in some underlying principles. Now, I'm grateful for what the FSF has done, but they will usually stick to their ideals when it's impractical. I simply want people to use my code, and if they redistribute it, then they should give their changes back to me. That's all I want, not some dream about people using free software everywhere (although I have no problem with that either).

What other ideas are out there to keep news journalism profitable?

This is the web, it is difficult, as the newspapers are seeing, to charge your users directly. It is also hard to convince advertisers to fork over the dough that the newspapers need to sustain themselves. Instead, they need to start looking at ways of monetizing people's viewing patterns, much like google has done.

You see that idea? I prob came up with it on the shitter, I wasn't even paid to think about it. That's what's so sad, these newspaper fat cats aren't thinking outside of their old paper media; they are just trying to brute force the money out of people the way they have always been doing.

But they don't get it, and it's painfully obvious. It's like they have never even used the web before. I know, as a web user (and in this scenario, one that doesn't use adblock), if I visit a website and all of a sudden have nothing but a giant ad on my screen, or something following my cursor, I'm just going to leave or, at the very least, am going to be irritated. Check it out, go to the ajc and turn off your ad block. Ya... Seriously, wtf were they thinking? Now, go have a looksie at ajcexchange, their new craigslist knock-off. What I find hilarious is that it's free to post a classified on their site, but if you want the premium listing, the one that shows up in the paper that no one is getting anymore (they have stopped delivering in many places in GA), they charge you. They don't get it.

As if that wasn't the end of their worries, they also have content issues. Many people want local news and in-depth coverage about some scam that is going on (that's why they're reading the /local/ paper right?). Instead they get AP wire stories and other information they can get elsewhere.

It would go about as well as the money Congress gave telcos in the 90's to give everyone fast, cheap broadband service.

Not that I think you're lying, I've always found your posts to be insightful which is why I'm a fan, but do you have a link where I can read more about this? My google-fu is failing me.

From the linked page:

"Jaunty Jackalope" is the code name for Ubuntu 9.04

This is very confusing to me. If websites don't want aggregators to compile all of their content for them and place it in a convenient (for the viewer) format and location then they should just make their robots.txt act accordingly.

It's worse. Members of AP (like the company I work for) actually compile all of their content and send it to Google,Yahoo, etc. themselves... The real complaint is that Google is supposedly going to start putting their own ads on Google News, and AP wants a piece of the action. Fair? I don't think so. In the current setup, AP members are the ones making the money; Google News drives traffic to their sites, which have ads (a LOT of them, actually a sickening amount of them, like I have flashbacks to geocities websites when I have to work on them).

It seems to me they need Google more than Google et al needs them, considering, you know, that Google is the one who /gets/ the internet.

Sorry. Did I not suck enough ass before I told you how the real world works, rather than fairytale land?

Yes, please go suck more ass (wtf?).

Ya, that's it, you go and show everyone by not using Linux... Oh noes, please we needs you! We need the bitching about impossible problems. Config files? Are you fucking kidding?

And this is why the real world, and collective individuals like myself, despite trying to be accommodating when you shit-spewing retard monkeys say that your OS is "better", despite offering up a real critique in good faith about what it'll take to get more than a handful of social rejects using Linux, will eventually turn to shit-spewing retard monkeys like you and say SHUT THE FUCK UP because you weren't even paying attention to what we said before you went off on your standard boilerplate diatribe.

Entertaining! Read the news, entire countries are using Linux not to mention huge enterprises throughout the world. Oh noes! Don't call me a shit-spewing retard monkey, guy on the internet! pleease! You still don't get it, your critique is fucking impossible, and it amounts to nothing but bitching, and bitching at the wrong people no less. Man, this is really helpful. I'm going to talk to my boss tomorrow and see if he can hire a guy like you to sit on the sidelines and bitch bitch bitch. If he says we want insightful critiques, I'll tell him, "we're living in the real world bro, there's only crybabies der der der". Oh no, the barrier to entry involves me spending $20 on hardware that works!

I also think it's "double funny" (another wtf?), that you are stereotyping EVERY linux user because you couldn't get your POS capture card to work. Seriously man, I'll send you the tens of dollars to get working hardware. Wait, nevermind, I think it would be hilarious if you stick to your commitment of never using Linux again. Good luck, hope you enjoy Windows 7 (that costs more than it would to get a video capture card)! Oh you're gonna stick with XP, even funnier! We're livin in the REAL WORLD bro! lol...

I hope you don't expect anyone to use Linux then.

Because those two points are not very compatible: wanting others to use it but not caring whether it works for them.

I hope you don't expect anyone to fix your problems then.

Because those two points are not very compatible: wanting others to fix your problems but not doing anything about them yourselves.

The stated goal - at least from a large portion of the linux community - is to see as many people using Linux as possible. Even as "volunteers" and "freeloaders", it is to Linux's advantage to try to reach this goal.

That's great if that's your goal for Linux, it really is. That's great if it's Ubuntu's goal or whatever. But OSS devs do it for a large variety of reasons, and many really don't care if it's ready for average joe. But look at this from a developer's perspective. This is a community effort. We really do appreciate feedback, really. But yours goes a little farther than just feedback, almost demanding, and appearing to have some sort of deserving attitude. The OSS developers are trying, and you're sitting there telling them it's just not good enough, but then you add additional taunting like "linux will never be ready for the desktop". And then "threaten" to stick with Windows. It can be offensive, especially when a developer is defending his pet project. Linux needs constructive insightful critics, not crybabies.

Now, you seem to understand the problem, but not its implications. Hardware support, in some situations, is better in Windows than Linux (I find this to be less and less true at a FAST rate). Windows does not deserve credit for the drivers provided by the hardware manufacturers (HM). If some piece of hardware is not working in Linux, this is a hardware manufacturer problem. Linux devs are /begging/ for specs from HM's to make good drivers themselves, when really, this is something the HMs should be addressing. And we understand your point that we need to get over the hump in order to get HM's attention. But wouldn't you find it a little bit aggrevating as a developer to be trying very hard to get something accomplished when you have someone on the sidelines taunting you and blaming you for their problems? I can only imagine if my boss did that at work, and I'm getting paid in that case. Seriously, if you were working at some charity, and some homeless person came up to you and told you you were doing absolutely shit work wouldn't you just say, "eh, go fuck yourself", and go contribute to something where you will be appreciated? OSS devs appreciate each other prob more than anyone else, that is why Linux is sometimes seen as for devs by devs.

Not only this, but non-dev and non-contributing users are only good for adding a number to a count that needs to be so high in order to get HM support. It's an invisible bar; there isn't some set goal when this will happen. You aren't really bringing alot to the table, right? Why should a dev struggle so hard to get you to stay, when they can try to get a contributor to stay?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, no, it's really not our problem, it's your problem and you're trying to find someone to blame. Where as I would buy hardware that's supported by Linux, you will buy anything and then not even blame the manufacturer you bought it from! From a perspective of a trying to get more hardware support for linux, you're actually prob hurting more than helping because you aren't pushing HMs to release drivers, or specs, for Linux. Try installing Winders from scratch and see all the hardware of yours that it detects, it's hilarious. It's not our problem, because we don't have your problems, because we made wise buying decisions. Uh dude, you're trying to get a 10 year old card that prob costs less than $20 to work, from a notoriously unsporting manufacturer. And let me tell you, if I did have a hardware issue, I would work to fix it. At the very least I would not sit and bitch about how linux won't be ready for the desktop. That's not helping, trust me.

Wow. Thank you for proving my point so well with your vitriolic, hate-spewing post.

Aw, you're /such/ a victim. "All I wanted to do was bitch about my problems to try to force someone who doesn't care to fix it for me". You are the one making the offense, you are the one not bringing anything to the table but demanding those who do to worry about YOUR problems. Try seeing this from a contributor perspective (the REAL bread and butter of OSS). Listen, the water is GREAT over here for me and for many other wise hardware buyers; Linux is far easier for me to use than Winders ever will be. But honestly, I don't like your attitude. OSS is about sharing, and you're all about me me me. And, as I stated above, we really don't need you. In all actuality it prob hurts us to have you. So please, use whatever works for you, or whatever you're used to because you seem to be happy with that, and we get less bitching all around that way. We all know Winders is perfect and should be what every Linux distro strives to be (read: Your angle is laughable).