Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 26th Aug 2009 22:23 UTC
When Windows Vista was launched, the Free Software Foundation started its BadVista campaign, which was aimed at informing users about what the FSF considered user-restrictive features in Vista. Luckily for the FSF, Vista didn't really need a bad-mouthing campaign to fail. Now that Windows 7 is receiving a lot of positive press, the FSF dusted off the BadVista drum, and gave it a fresh coat of paint.
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Member since:2005-06-30
Off-topic from the main article, yes. off-topic from the parent post, no.
Yeah, I know. I guess it's better drifting from the main article than feeding the trolls.
And I wouldn't say that upgrading dozens of computers every six months is "just out of the question" in and of itself, kinda depends on the situation. For large deployments with exotic configurations and old software/hardware, it probably would be out of the question to do something major like a distro upgrade every 6 months. But not every distribution pushes radical changes down the pipe every release, and not every distribution even cares much about releases, like the previously mentioned Gentoo and Arch.
Sure, there is no problem to update your personal network every six month. However, it's quite risky to adopt such schedule in a production environment as there is always a possibility to break something for someone. In this case, I believe it's better stay with the devil you know until there is enough incentive to upgrade, hence why some people might want to stick with older releases.
As for distributions with rolling releases, I cannot count the number of times my system was left broken after an "emerge" or "pacman" on the stable branch. My opinion: these distributons are quite great for hackers wanting the complete control of their system... but I question the sanity (and the accountability) of somebody deploying one of them in a production environment (esp. if it's a desktop deployment)! Of course, YMMV.
Edited 2009-08-27 04:15 UTC
Member since:2005-10-05
About the rolling releases I would have figured that making use of portage to mask package versions you do not want changed would be a good method of keeping things in order. I don't have experience actually trying to get all that going, but I would have figured the tools had capabilities to allow oneself to strictly manage the software installed. I do hear a lot though from various users that Gentoo and the like suffer from problems in such deployments.
Member since:2009-02-19
We've got a number-crunching cluster at work. It's using the now-really-old-and-feature-poor Red Hat Enterprise 4. We've had a RHEL5 site-license for a long time. Why haven't we installed it yet? We're busy, we can't afford the cluster down-time, and nobody will pay for the man-hours to perform the update. It is kinda ridiculous on our part, but it isn't completely for no reason. Updates take time, cost money and carry risks: corporations don't suffer them gladly, in general. I think, anyway. So far as I know.
So... yeah. Companies expect OS's that they can get a few years out of. They do not like OS's that make major architectural changes every six months. Or maybe even every year or two years.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/25/13 0:45 UTC
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 23:59 UTC
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 22:33 UTC
Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Linked by Howard Fosdick on 05/24/13 21:41 UTC
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 14:44 UTC
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 23:22 UTC
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:04 UTC
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:01 UTC
"In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 17:52 UTC
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.More News »
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Member since:
2005-10-05
Off-topic from the main article, yes. off-topic from the parent post, no.
And I wouldn't say that upgrading dozens of computers every six months is "just out of the question" in and of itself, kinda depends on the situation. For large deployments with exotic configurations and old software/hardware, it probably would be out of the question to do something major like a distro upgrade every 6 months. But not every distribution pushes radical changes down the pipe every release, and not every distribution even cares much about releases, like the previously mentioned Gentoo and Arch.