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Question of the Day: How do you normally pay for purchases in stores?
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Good thing for us he is stinking rich! 
pkid
Expert Member
I think he does good work. Ubuntu seems to make good progress with each release. Except for things like Pulseaudio breaking some of my apps...
TheRoDent
Cool Ideas Rep
Disagree with him. He just focused on the wrong end of the market. I'm making money selling OSS, that's customised with Intellectaul Property thrown in. The bottom line is just that you're never going to make much money on the OSS DESKTOP market.
The server/appliance/solution market is where it's at. Repacking debian for desktop consumption, with the latest package releases is not. I do however, give him points for his philanthropic commitments, and if it does pay off - good for him.
For me, as a OSS developer/integrator/architect - I cannot be afforded the luxury. Let's face it. He didn't make his first $500 million with OSS only. He made it with a cunning email to Netscape (who then included his root cert in their browser), and a business that was geared to sell certificates.
The server/appliance/solution market is where it's at. Repacking debian for desktop consumption, with the latest package releases is not. I do however, give him points for his philanthropic commitments, and if it does pay off - good for him.
For me, as a OSS developer/integrator/architect - I cannot be afforded the luxury. Let's face it. He didn't make his first $500 million with OSS only. He made it with a cunning email to Netscape (who then included his root cert in their browser), and a business that was geared to sell certificates.
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Don't you think this is as much a dream of his as a business opportunity?
It's like one of the linux gurus on the forum that actually has the money to turn it into reality and his famous for it.
TheRoDent
Cool Ideas Rep
I don't disagree with the dream. You'll find my name in the Linux kernel contributors list (http://www.kernel.org/pub//scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.5/drivers/usb/serial/ipw.c,v).
Without my, and thousands of other peoples' dreams, Linux wouldn't have matured to where it is.
I dream lots. (http://www.neology.co.za/products/opensource/)
My point is just that it isn't that easy to make money out of OSS (even if you have a lot of money), and I think people had this great expectation that Ubuntu would be the next Redhat. That, just simply isn't true.
Finding a niche in OSS, and monetizing it, whilst still maintaining the dream is more important than philantropy and fame (unless you can afford to feed it).
<moLe>
Expert Member
Ubuntu...got to love it, its like Debian for simple folk...got it installed on my old laptop I gave to my mother..and she new nothing about computers or anything on got to work on it in like 5minutes. Now 2 months later she discovered Pidgin Messenger, using Thunderbird without any hassles, and doing the occasional document or two on open office. She even managed to download new themes from www.gnome-look.org and install them (I was impressed).
And my point is this, for people that never used a computer before, Ubuntu is nice and easy. The people that complain about it are those people who are used to Windows and expect Ubuntu to be a clone of XP. And another thing of Ubuntu that I noticed, was how briliant their forums are, they have just about any and everything covered and most of the guys in the forums are rather nice and wont mock you when u ask dumb questions (actually most linux forums are like that). But suppose all of us had to start somewhere. SO thank U mark, and the community for making Linux accessible enough for old ladies to use..u are the man
And my point is this, for people that never used a computer before, Ubuntu is nice and easy. The people that complain about it are those people who are used to Windows and expect Ubuntu to be a clone of XP. And another thing of Ubuntu that I noticed, was how briliant their forums are, they have just about any and everything covered and most of the guys in the forums are rather nice and wont mock you when u ask dumb questions (actually most linux forums are like that). But suppose all of us had to start somewhere. SO thank U mark, and the community for making Linux accessible enough for old ladies to use..u are the man
Rouxenator
Dank meme lord
As soon as they start running win32 apps natively without any issues then they will take over the world.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Isn't Red Hat making money? Why shouldn't Canonical?
<moLe>
Expert Member
Red Hat sells their Premium server packages on a per year license base (not sure for how much but quite a penny)
Canonical makes money via support, while giving u all of the ubuntu sweet from desktop to server for free!..very ambitious plan Shuttleworth has..and suppose rather noble
<moLe>
Expert Member
latest version of wine arent to bad at that..but requires some toggling..But got everything from MS Office, winamp, itunes to COD4 running via wine..and not that hard hey.
Rouxenator
Dank meme lord
Any DirectX stuff working with wine? Also, they say it is done natively in wine and not emulated, is that really true ?
I am a big fan of ReactOS but they are making very little progress but I have made a few donations to the cause.
Pretty much everything apart from the very latest software runs on WINE. Really impressive. Now they only need to make the interface between WINE and the desktop a bit more user-friendly- I often have issues starting a program (once it's started it's fine) and alt-tabbing between WINE and Ubuntu.
Shuttleworth is spending money on something that he knows is a very very good long-term investment. Not only for him, but also for the rest of us who either use Ubuntu as a desktop and those who use it in the commercial environment.
<moLe>
Expert Member
wget http://www.m3fe.com/files/d3dx9_34.zip
unzip d3dx9_34.zip -d ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/ installs the directx9 dll's.. yes run's it natively with wine..not always a flawless task. But if u google "install ""game-title"" in wine" you normally find nice walkthroughs explaining which DLL's are needed. And If u are as lazy as I am then I can just copy and paste most of the terminal commands hehe
Geek_wannabe
Well-Known Member
A little random question: I am currently downloading Ibex...but for some or other odd reason the UCT download servers are so....slow. I mean....I am not even getting 1 kbps. (This one: http://ftp.leg.uct.ac.za//pub/linux/ubuntu-releases/) Does anyone know what's up?
Anyway, I am capped, so that's my only way to get 8.10.
I think everyone should try it, at least. if only one could get office 2007 in ubuntu. I mean, OpenOffice is cool and all, but it just doesn't cut it.
Anyway, I am capped, so that's my only way to get 8.10.
I think everyone should try it, at least. if only one could get office 2007 in ubuntu. I mean, OpenOffice is cool and all, but it just doesn't cut it.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
upgrade to Open Office 3.0
pkid
Expert Member
Open office is fine for basic word processing and spreadsheets etc. It is not a bad product and my parents and friend use it. If you need that 1% funtionality that Office gives you and that perfect compatibility with office formats then Office 2007 is the only software for you.
That said I am not knocking OO 3 but pointing out that Office and OO are aimed at a slightly different market. The guys are making good progress though.