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Domain: badtux.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to badtux.org.
Comments · 12
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Re:Where's the motivation for Open Source?I'm surprised that you're surprised.
SGI gave us their journaling file system. Sun gave us Staroffice. IBM has given a laundry list, but I'm drawing a blank for specifics. There was an announcement on
Each of these are doing that for only one reason: that intellectual ``property'' has more value to them if they share it. IBM sells services. They can't make much money servicing Microsoft's software, so they popularize things like Linux. THey also sell hardware, and if making the OS cheaper helps them to sell their high-profit-margin servers, they'd be fools not to do anything which makes that OS cheaper. Sun opened Staroffice for exactly that reason. I'm sure that SGI had a similar rational.
There is also netscape/mozilla. They just needed someone else to do the development that they no longer had the resources to do alone. Opening their code let them do that without selling the whole company.
If a company opens code that they couldn't sell anyway, they get at least as many competent developers working on it, at the same cost. They get at least as much revenue. There will be at least as much demand for support contracts. Others will be able to bid on those support contracts, but a fraction of something is bigger than all of nothing
This phenomenon has gone on long enough that academics are begining to try to explain it. Learner and Tyrole have a paper out, this isn't academic, but is accessible, this looks interesting, but I haven't done more than glance at it.
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Re:"Programmers" are a commodity"If you are a seasoned engineer with a proven track record, finding a job may take a little time, but won't be that hard. But then, if you're a seasoned engineer, you probably already know this and aren't too worried..."
Well, I'm a seasoned engineer with proven track record, and I *am* worried.
-E
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Try a state university.Middle-tier state universities (as vs. top-tier universities) typically don't care whether this is your second or fiftieth undergraduate degree. They get funded by the state based on how many bodies they have filling chairs, so most of them will accept you regardless as long as your transcript shows that you had at least a 2.5 GPA at your last university. Though I'll note that in many cases it's just as easy to get into a Master's degree program as it is to get another bachelor's degree at these universities (though you have to take the GRE and have a 3.0 GPA in most cases). For example, at the university I graduated from, many of the folks going for a MS in Computer Science had degrees in a wide variety of subjects. My TA when I was a freshman had an undergraduate degree in general studies!
Eric Lee Green BadTux
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Re:Security certsLOL! Security is a mindset, not a product. All the certificates in the world are no good unless you have the kind of deviant, paranoid mindset that sees a threat behind every innocuous-appearing file on disk. I've seen some of these "certified" people, and yeah, they know the jargon, but they don't have the chops.
But since everybody wants certificates nowdays, I guess I gotta have some of my own.
-- Eric Lee Green, ELGCSP, POOE*
[*ELGCSP -- ELG Certified Security Professional.
POOE -- Piercer Of Overblown Egos.][Get your own POOE here!]
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Java has won *nothing*I currently make my living writing
Conclusions:
1. Java is a nice language. I would prefer Java to C++ any time of the day.
2. Java is a useless language outside of a very controlled environment. Because it is not Open Source, it is highly unportable (just try running Java on OpenBSD sometime!), and because the existing runtimes are so bloated, it's only useful for applications where you don't mind having a spare 40 megabytes of bloat hanging around.
In other words, Java is *not* a panacea, and certainly isn't a replacement for highly dynamic languages such as Python or Ruby, which tackle an entirely different problem set.
For a bit of background:
My opinion of Ruby: Nice language. Some stupidities though -- the whole notion of making variable types case-sensitive reeks of Fortran. I considered Ruby for the TapiocaStor project, but had to dismiss it from contention because it's not yet mature enough. We're using Java, but only because we can't use Python for legal reasons.
-E
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Compaq Presario 1800 model 850XLCompaq laptop machines seem to be generally well supported under Linux. See my Compaq laptop's config at my home page.
-E
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Not that simpleFirst of all, unless you are an international corporation, you can't sue just anywhere for libel. You have to have reputation in that country and prove publication in that country (i.e., that at least one person in that country read the message). I got that info from Lawrence Godfrey of Demon Internet libel suit fame, if anybody knows about international libel law, he does
Secondly, there is still the issue of expense. If a particular virulent group of spammers in Britain are publishing defamatory nonsense about me, sure, I can sue them here in a Phoenix AZ court of law or there in Britain (I have correspondents in both country who would testify to publication in both places). But if I sued them here in Phoenix I'd end up having to sue them in a British court to enforce the judgement, and if I sued them there in Britain, I'd have to spend a bunch of time in London. Sorry, I don't like the dreary isles that much.
Saying that a web site can only be sued in the country where it is published gives free rein for liars in one country to defame people in other countries all they want, knowing that the people in those other countries aren't going to have the resources to travel to some dreary little island in the North Atlantic just to sue some moronic spammers. The current situation is not ideal -- it basically means that if I sue under my own laws, I end up having to sue twice to enforce a judgement -- but the alternative is no better.
-E
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All the news that (isn't) printedI was actually present at an event that, according to the media, didn't exist. Note that I was not a participant in the event, did not agree with the position of the people holding the event (in fact, I wanted to go to the local Wal-mart and grab some posterboard and start a counter-protest, but decided I wasn't feeling that energetic that day), but it was an unmistakable event that pretty much reduced the main drag of Wilmington NC to an unnavigable state for four hours. In other words, you'd have to be a moron not to have noticed it. But no mention on the nightly news (I checked every local TV station, both the 6pm and 11pm news), no mention in the daily newspaper... as far as the corporate media was concerned, it did not exist.
That was when I started to think about how a few large corporations such as Disney and Gannet control almost all news media in the United States.
Anyhow, read my writeup of the experience, and judge for yourself. Are you being told the real news?
-E
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Open source a part of the market economy
Economic analysis of open source (such as this one and this one) come to the conclusion that open source software is often a loss-leader for individuals to advance their careers, or for corporations to sell support, hardware (e.g. VA Linux), hard copies (Red Hat), or books.
I think that we do also need to keep in mind that by significantly reducing the price-of-entry of computers and servers, open source expands the number of people and companies using computers and the Internet, which itself is often a return on the time investment, and drives plenty of for-profit business. -
Limits on CRA liabilityNote that credit reporting agencies are virtually immune from lawsuits. This is in the fine print of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which exempts CRA's from any liability for incorrect or inaccurate information (it places that liability upon the person who reported the incorrect information). The only time you can sue a CRA is if you provide them with the judgement/court order from a lawsuit against the provider of the incorrect information, and they *STILL* refuse to remove the incorrect information.
Amongst other things, this led to a friend having to sue a court because a clerk accidentally hit the wrong button and marked a lawsuit against him as "resolved" (i.e. he owed the debt and had to be sued before he'd pay it) rather than as "dismissed" (i.e., he didn't owe the debt in the first place). This despite a letter from the apartment complex manager to the CRA saying that the lawsuit against the friend had been a case of mistaken identity. The CRA replied that they could not remove the information because it had been provided by the court, rather than by the apartment complex. The court said they had no record of such a lawsuit (it'd been dismissed, after all) and could not provide any documentation to the CRA. The CRA thus refused to remove the information. Thus the need to sue the court in order to get it to issue a letter to the CRA -- not exactly the most pleasant of things to do.
See http://badtux.org/eric/grumblings/eviltwin.html for my own experience with deadbeats who have the name "Eric Green" and getting contacted by debt collectors... Note that every time this happens, I have to send the morons a certified letter demanding that they either provide proof of debt or cease and desist as required by the Fair Debt Collections Act. So far I haven't had to go to the next step (where my attorney sends them a cease and desist -- I have a kick-ass attorney for that kind of stuff).
-E
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Great stuff, except Bush "quote"George W. Bush never met a campaign contributor he didn't like, and as governor of Texas has had no problems signing laws that say corporations have more property rights than consumers. It is likely that George W. Bush would side with DC here, because "well, DC paid lots of money to develop this thing so it's theirs".
Check out The Leasing of America for a more extended rant on how recent changes in the law take away individual's property rights in favor of giving special rights to special interests.
-E
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Microsoft employees: Come to work for us...at Enhanced Software Technologies in Phoenix, Arizona.
I jumped on my mountain bike this morning, rode out my front door, crossed the street, and was immediately in the midst of a mountain biker's wonderland of twisty single-track and everything from modest whoop-de-whoops to crazed insane climbs/downhills for the next three hours -- in the middle of the city! For 360 days a year! (It's raining the other five days, grin). Gosh, aren't you tired of spending all that time indoors in the rainy northwest?
We need a NT/W2K God, someone who knows NT/W2K internals on an intimate basis, and we need a GUI designer. And if Microsoft fired you for sending information to slashdot, that's a +5 on the algorithm used to score your resume
Send me mail if you're interested!
-E