Re: [News] Tim Bray Slams Microsoft Olympic Stunt (Lock-in)

All this bitching about the Olympics online reminds me of a dog I had
once. If you tossed him a bit of meat from the table, and a green bean
or carrot accidently happened to come with the meat, he'd eat the meat,
and leave the vegetable on the floor. You could point at it and say
"eat the carrot, boy! eat the carrot!", and he'd look at you like you
were some kind of idiot, since he's a dog--he eats meat.

But as soon as you'd actually try to take that vegetable away, he'd
growl at you, and grab it, and eat it.

I wonder how many of these people complaining actually are interested in
watching the Olympics online? In all the complaints I've seen so far,
it is notable that not one of them has mentioned trying to view the
videos using Moonlight. Does it work? If not, is it a problem with
Moonlight, or missing codecs, or poor site coding by NBC?

PS: you can watch the Olympics live on Linux:

<http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_to_Watch_Olympics_Live_under_Linux>

--
--Tim Smith

* Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:

> PS: you can watch the Olympics live on Linux:
>
> <http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_to_Watch_Olympics_Live_under_Linux>

This one's funny:

totalblackout, 11 hr 40 min ago, -6/+2for linux users who want to use
www.nbcolympics.com
I believe you can use
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
* then change your user agent to windows
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

The asterisk marks the funny part.

--
This is clearly another case of too many mad scientists, and not enough
hunchbacks.

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____/ Linonut on Tuesday 12 August 2008 12:07 : \____

> * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
>> PS: you can watch the Olympics live on Linux:
>>
>> <http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_to_Watch_Olympics_Live_under_Linux>
>
> This one's funny:
>
> totalblackout, 11 hr 40 min ago, -6/+2for linux users who want to use
> www.nbcolympics.com
> I believe you can use
> http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
> * then change your user agent to windows
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
>
> The asterisk marks the funny part.

Silverlight does not run on GNU/Linux. Why? Microsoft didn't want to port it.
Novell was its excuse, as reported (with a quote from Microsoft) about a month
ago.

Moonlight is only for Novell customers. Really? Yes, watch the covenant.
Moonlight requires Mono.

The Silverlight fiasco is far from over. Microsoft makes enemies by attempting
to exclude and 'punish' its #1 rival (by its own admission).

- --
~~ Best of wishes

Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
14:05:01 up 22 days, 11 min, 3 users, load average: 0.93, 0.76, 0.67
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
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On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:12:37 -0700, Tim Smith wrote:


> I wonder how many of these people complaining actually are interested in
> watching the Olympics online? In all the complaints I've seen so far,
> it is notable that not one of them has mentioned trying to view the
> videos using Moonlight. Does it work? If not, is it a problem with
> Moonlight, or missing codecs, or poor site coding by NBC?
>
> PS: you can watch the Olympics live on Linux:
>
> <http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_to_Watch_Olympics_Live_under_Linux>

It's proof of concept as an argument again....
IOW it's like the Linux people with their "you have the source code"
argument.
Yea, that's nice but how many people have the skill to modify it compared
to the number of people who just want to use the program?

FWIW I've watched a little of the Olympics and I find them quite boring...
The audio seems terrible with the crowd screaming so loud it drowns out
things, at least for some events.


--
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:
http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/

* Roy Schestowitz peremptorily fired off this memo:

> ____/ Linonut on Tuesday 12 August 2008 12:07 : \____
>
>> * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>>
>>> PS: you can watch the Olympics live on Linux:
>>>
>>> <http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_to_Watch_Olympics_Live_under_Linux>
>>
>> This one's funny:
>>
>> totalblackout, 11 hr 40 min ago, -6/+2for linux users who want to use
>> www.nbcolympics.com
>> I believe you can use
>> http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
>> * then change your user agent to windows
>> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
>>
>> The asterisk marks the funny part.
>
> Silverlight does not run on GNU/Linux. Why? Microsoft didn't want to port it.
> Novell was its excuse, as reported (with a quote from Microsoft) about a month
> ago.
>
> Moonlight is only for Novell customers. Really? Yes, watch the covenant.
> Moonlight requires Mono.

Thanks for the correction. /That/ is the true funniest part.

What a laugher!

Ha ha!

<weeps quietly>

--
"Floggings will continue until morale improves."
-- anonymous flyer being distributed at Exxon USA