Slashdot Mirror
Corel Chief On Corel, Open Source, .NET And Others
taylor_b writes "CEO Chief Derek Burney has some interesting ideas about open source. Among other things he says in this interview that the open source concept is 'one notch better' when you keep the code to yourself. And Corel wonders why the community never received them with open arms?" It's actually more interesting than just that comment - Burney has an interesting perspective on what's needed to make Linux/Open Source ultimately work. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm sure you folks can debate it *grin*
http://www.google.com/search?q=packet+sniffer&hl=
my apologies if you are using a browser other than ie. slashdot adds spaces to hrefs, ie doesn't seem to care though. I've heard complaints from the linuxy netscape bunch, though. irony.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
"Or how about the hundred times I've asked where I could start from to be able to tweak the virtual memory management of Linux because I have certain needs to take care of. No one can tell me."
Well, I'll tell you. Or rather, I'll give you this link. It's a good start.
I am constantly amazed that the morons on Slashdot moderate up posts like yours, posts that do nothing but point out the obvious caveats that go along with any non-dissertation length post.
Of course software, like (almost) every other type of asset, depreciates over time. Is writing program like having a perpetual license to print an infinite amount of money? No. Do clients' needs change over time, giving developers opportunities to do follow-on projects? Yes.
But the fact -- uncontested by you -- is that without proprietary software, programmers' compensation structures look like this:
pay = hours_worked * hourly_rate
In other words, you are a high-paid burger flipper. You may boost your hourly rate because you are a damn fast burger flipper, but there are only so many hours in a day for you to stand in front of the grill.
How does Microsoft make so much money? By capturing labor in an asset (software) and selling it to millions of people. A neutron bomb could go off in Redmond, WA, killing every Microsoft employee, and yet Microsoft would still be worth billions of dollars, because the software can still be sold, some of it perhaps for years to come.
If the staff of an advertising agency or a law firm or RedHat was wiped out, the value of the company would be zero, because revenue is proportional to services provided by employees.
Setting aside your probable dislike of Microsoft (hey, as someone who bleeds six colors, I consider them Evil Incarnate), there is no disputing that their business model is far more stable and liberating than RedHats. There is no gun pointed to their head.
I for one am glad that Microsoft bundles in the add-in software that one used to have to buy separately (i.e. Norton Utilities). The price of their basic Operating System hasn't gone up, but the functionality has increased over time.
The only people bemoaning this are the people who developed the original add-ins, and the 'hot dogs' whose seat of honor as the local 'PC Guru' is threatened when Microsoft gives their cherished 'bag of tricks' to every user by default.
Hehehe.
You cannot escape reality, no matter how much you try.
You could've fooled me.
Water ? hmm ...
It looks like most people prefer to pay for Microsoft water than to go and hassle with free stuff like Linux.
In the latest issue of Maximum Linux (which, unfortunately, I left at home, so I can't quote directly), there is an op-ed piece about Corel. Now, due to the lag time for preparing print media, this article was written before the announcement of Corel spinning off their Linux. What's sad about the article is the optimism that Corel wouldn't do that. As proof, they pointed out that Burney was to be attending a Linux show (I believe in Paris, but it could have been LinuxWorld in NY) along with other Corel personnel.
I presume he's attending to spread the new "sort-of-open-but-not-open-source" philosophy.
---Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there.---
Really ?
So tell me how many people are using "free" products on Windows as opposed to commercial stuff NOT from Microsoft ?
I dont know. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But when people say "IE is great" ... well Maybe for pr0n... but besides that, gecko is perfect for all my browsing. Fuck microsoft's API.s Embrace and extend my ass. Sounds more like a method for extracting sperm from livestock. I think in this case, the bull has cummed.
Burney: I don't think distributions in general are profitable for anybody. Really, in what way can people make money at all on Linux?
Wow, now that's a fine statement. It seems to be quite profitable for the CUSTOMER and the USER. Maybe some old school technology companies should focus more on the needs of their customers than just the needs of their shareholders. RedHat, Mandrake and Suse all seem to be figuring out how to create revenues by focusing on service solutions instead of holding their customers hostage. For those distros that remain true to the values of the communities that support them, they will surely create profits. It quite early in this new paradigm to decide that one cannot make money.
Burney: Proprietary [software] is a good way to make money; with open source, there's no way [to make money] because you don't control your intellectual property.
Another enlightened statement. A weather balloon doesn't control mother nature, but the designers have understood that there are forces that can be tapped with incredible potential. Just don't @#$% with mother nature or you can quickly meet your death. The problem here is that it's difficult to change a proprietary closed control oriented company into an standards based, open, cooperative oriented company. When you start from scratch with the right corporate DNA, it can work. The new open sources companies are more aligned with their users, and this will ultimately win. The ways to make money are just being developed.
Don't look now, but I think something tragic is happening to 'the commons.'
'You make baby RMS cry!'
heh
There's no stipulation that the desktop must be Windows, but how about the server? I've ignored this .NET thing from the beginning, so I'm speaking from ignorance, but is the thinking at Redmond that the desktop, which essentially becomes a browser on steroids (and hence free as in beer), is a loss leader and all revenue generation comes from leasing software time on the server end? This way they can claim compatibility with Linux, Mac, etc., but continue to corner the software market.
Am I way off here?
Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better, because the source wouldn't be open ... so the companies that write them can keep them and sell them, but from the user's perspective you get the benefit of open source because you can have the content coming from a variety of companies. So I see that model as being a nice bridge between proprietary software on one side and open source on the other.
I think we've see this. It's called Windows and all of the small companies that tried to make a buck writing useful, "plug-in" utilities. For example, disk compression, internet browsers, etc.. If history is our guide, if your utility/plug-in is unpopular you make no money (of course), but if your utility/plug-in is popular the 800 lb. gorilla incorporates a rip-off version into the next release and you make no money anyway.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
You've gotta respect them a little for at least trying to market Linux as a desktop OS though.
"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death."
OK. Mod me down as "plain stupid"
-1, Redundant.
First, the spreadsheet example is a bead one: You have some x^y numbers, and you want a median. You send all the numbers to a server, that computes the median, and sends the result back. This means, you send some MB of data to a server instead of downloading some bytes of the formula. The server may examin your data, that may be sensible data, and you cannot control that and the server may be overloaded, as it may do the number crunching for several packets of multiple MB od data.
Second, the ability to make money from proprietary software depends on the ability to make money from intelectual property without further development on that technology and preventing others from further development. So needing closed source is just a sign of a bad development section. When you make a great piece of software and realease it open source, your technological knowledge advance should be big enough to compete and make further development, as all others first have to read and understand the source and the concepts.
Third, the bad support is just wrong. There are almost never solutions from just one company (maybe except a full IBM server solution), and you always have to phone several companies to get support. But in open source, all information you need can be found on the net, for free. Of course you need a skilled maintainer in your own house for that, but someone with a serious project should always have a maintainer in the house.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
And of course the wonderful '640K should be enough for anybody', which becomes increasingly amusing as Windows memory footprint blossoms.
--
--
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
On the subject of that racist asshole TRoLL, kick his ass, I hate guys like him.
// the vastness of space and time, and I end up here?
he says in this interview that the open source concept is 'one notch better' when you keep the code to yourself. And Corel wonders why the communnity never received them with open arms?
Maybe the second realization relates to the first in some way?
Corel needs to crawl under the rock they came out of. I'm trying to think of something corel has actually produced, not word perfect, which they inherited from novel. A graphical installer? I mean, what?! Either they have 10 employees or the Canadian government heavily subsidises them.
This also applies to machines with intermittent low bandwidth connections (56k modems). These big companies are really pushing new systems and ways of distribution that assume cheap broadband for all is a reality, when it isn't, and won't be for a very, very long time. I'm in one of the better broadband connected areas of the UK, and some friends I know who live about 100 yards away cannot get it, while I can. Many countries aren't going to have broadband at all.
I can see it now: "sorry , you can't run the new version of Excel because you don't have cheap broadband access"
--
--
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Burney's standpoint regarding open source is quite simple: Corel is in deep trouble, mostly because of the former CEO's business adventures. What Corel needs now is to focus on its core business to survive, and to be able to do this they cannot afford to distract themselves with open-source.
From business perspective, he may be right. Open source has proven itself as a better way for creating software, but there is no bussiness model yet that had proven itself as a good way to generate money from open source. The companies that do generate income like Redhat may get enough money to survive but no more than this.
A company like Corel can't afford that risk. They have too much to loose and not enough financial backup.
It is a pitty Burney have so little technical understanding, however. The "great" things about
I can see your point, but on the other hand, an individual or small company determined the need, took the risk, developed the product, and built a customer base (even if that customer base was 'hot dogs'). If they were unsuccessful, they suffered the consequences. If they were successful, the operating system platform (whether it's Windows, .NET, or whatever) incorporates their idea and puts them out of business.
In the context of this thread, the question is not whether MS is good or bad but whether the Corel CEO's vision of small companies able to make a profit from designing plug-ins and utilities to interoperate with .NET is valid or not. My contention is that his vision is not valid in the future for the same reasons it wasn't valid in the old/current OS-centric world.
There are, of course, exceptions. MS doesn't bundle a competitor to ArcInfo or AutoCAD with their OS and there will be some companies that will develope a product that either fills a small-enough niche that it's only competition is other small companies. In the .NET world, don't expect to make a living writing useful extensions to Word, EXcel. If they are really useful, they'll be included in the next release and you'll be out of a job.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Are you so-o sure that consumers don't want to be dominated. I'm willing to argue that statement. From what I've seen going on these days, people want to be coddled like little babies. Most people are pathetically afraid of looking after themselves and damn large percentage of people don't look at the longer-run issues unless it affects them today.
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
I switched almost entirely to Opera about a month ago. Opera 5 is really good. Now that they've got SSL and decent Javascript support, there are only a few sites that I have problems connecting to. Opera isn't free, though (they do have the new 'advertising supported' version for those who won't pony up a bit of cash). It's definitely superior to Netscape on Win32.
I pitched Outlook for Eudora and Forte' Agent at about the same time (it was definitely my big month for sending money to shareware developers.) I use Windows 2000 to connect to the 'net but nary a Microsoft client app once I'm connected.
I am reminded of the Ameritrade commercial, where the woman dumps 300 shares of stock because she "didn't like the management."
In all fairness, I did make good money when the stock went from $6 to $40 per share, my mistake being to buy it back at $12 and ride it down to $4. Nevertheless, when it became clear that Corel didn't understand Open Source or Free Software and that their Linux strategy was more of a flirtation than a strategy, I dumped their stock like a hot potato and ate the $8 per share loss. (I still made $26/share overall, so I can't really complain I guess)
I only wish I'd done it sooner (having tried their Linux product and discovering how closely tied it was to their particular distribution and how unfriendly it was to other distros such as Red Hat and Mandrake, I certainly had plenty of early warning). The cluelessness of this fool's comments underscore the entire company's inability to think outside of their little box. Their willingness to sell their soul to their most dangerous competitor, while ignoring and downplaying an emerging market (Linux) that, in world wide terms, will probably grow much larger than Microsoft's share of the pie over the next several years, is indicative of their inability to form any coherent strategy beyond "survive for the moment, hope for the best, and remain as buzzword compliant as possible."
With solid commercial products like Applixware available today and emerging products like Koffice and gnome office it is unlikely Corel will get much if any market share at all so late in the game. Whatever chance they may have had they've now squandered and sabataged, both with the belated releases of the Linux version(s) of their software vs. the Windows versions and with their openly dismissive rhetoric of their (Linux) customer's and the communities values and philosophies. No PR company on the planet can rehabilitate Corel's image at this point.
I am glad I made so much money on their stock's brief ascent, but am ever so glad to be rid of it today. I do not give the company as such more than two years of continued existence, although I'm sure someone will purchase the WordPerfect product and keep it alive, as their is an existing market in the legal profession that, if managed correctly, can remain profitable.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
...typical capatalist pig, "look at the expensive dead animal hide satchel I carry and my nice $7,000 watch" nonsence". ".(..)..will be better because it won't be open." Yeah, how else will you pay for the $10,000 chair you slide under your piss ass and the Mercedes and the "paté de fois gras" you feed to your rug rats...?
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
The cost is not always marginal. For a large enterprise, the cost can be downright large. Doing an install (and potentially retraining) across thousands of nodes is no small feat. The vast majority of people you are trying to hire already know how to use windows.
There are other examples, though. I had spec'd out a pair of PIX-515s for our firewall, and was informed that we would not be spending the money to buy them, so could I come up with something free instead? At first, I had planned to use linux, but had problems with the install and the operation of the system; Odd, because it's a very straightforward intel-chipset PC clone with a P3 chip, a Trident VGA card, no sound, and 3com 3x59x cards. It doesn't get much more vanilla than that.
Granted, that was redhat, but if I'm going to deploy linux, I want to use something with a lot of support, and which unix newbies can understand. If I'm not going to be able to do that, I might as well go with BSD.
So I install OpenBSD 2.8 from CD (I bought it mostly to add my voice to the others who think that TdR is not a choad.) The install goes well (and quickly), and I install src and ports trees, update 'em, and build a new kernel, and install some other stuff.
And now the fun begins; I set up ipfilter rules, tracking state, and in about six hours, my state table has filled up.
After many trials and tribulations, I ended up tweaking my kernel to dramatically increase the size of the state table (to something like 100 times its original size) and lo and behold, everything works now, but the defaults were lame. I had to get on the openbsd tech mailing list to solve this problem (thank god it's there) and it took me three days. If we had bought a PIX, we would never have had the problem.
The costs of using open source tools and operating systems are real, not imagined. So far, we have saved some money, and I still do love openbsd, but it would have been easier to just buy cisco's product, and I'd spend less time worrying about whether or not I'll have a new ipfilter-related problem crop up.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
OK. What Corel did not understood is that Linux is not ready for that. Linux distros are still more a set of nice tools than an out-of-the-box system (and Corel was based on Debian, nevertheless).
If one can/like fiddle with his computer and his OS, one can use a Linux distro to transform his computer in a better and more powerful tool.
If one wants the soup ready, the best chance is NOT to buy a distro, but to get a PC with Linux pre-installed, on which soneone else already fixed the miriad of little problems a Linux user usually face. And he shall remember to always ask his Linux vendor before buying pretty new hardware for his PC.
Corel failed at Linux beacuse its goals were stark and unappreciated in the world of dedicated computer lovers.
This was irrelevant for Corel objectives, since, as you have said, computer lovers are only a 0.5% of computer user.
Ciao
----
FB
I can mention at least 2 other failures.
MOD THE CHILD UP!
this guy seens to be at large of the open source movemment in general. Strange things....
Scientia est Potentia
Their perspective on OSS is now very warped, but the sad fact is that the Corel case may indeed prove that a successful company has to concern itself with whether or not OSS can be long-term viable - especially for operating systems. Perhaps they have a point - that giving away and adhering to open standards and api's is a better solution than giving away all the source code.
Quite frankly your case here is paper thin. Corel has been a technology chasers for years always in search of "The Next Big Thing"(tm). Perhaps you'd like to ask Corel how their Java based office suite is coming? Or their Linux based office suite? Or their .NET office suite? Please, this is an old company which has no spring in it's step and no creative vision left in them. They are merely content to chase the lastest passing fad much like that dog in your neighborhood who cases every car that zooms by. Corel finally got it's nose clipped for chasing one passing car too many. The company has lacked a clear vision for their future for some time now and they're finally paying the piper.
I find it amusing that you use Corel as your model of a "long-term" linux company. How long were they even actively in "The Linux Market"? six months? a year perhaps? If anything Corel proves that an old company can't reinvent itself by sprinkling a bit of linux pixie dust (or insert buzzword here) on itself. Corel was a grandiose failure all right but it wasn't because of any inherent flaws with making money from OSS. Corel's ultimate failure was that of it's flip flop management. Changing the wholesale direction (and culture) of your ship every 6-12 months won't get you anywhere and you will likely find yourself lost at the end. Corel proved this in spades. Call me when you start to see the likes of Red Hat, IBM and Mandrake pulling up stakes and moving out of the OS bazaar. Then I'll really start to become concerned about the long term viability of OSS business models. Until then we'll have to wait and see how well OSS businesses scale.
But companies like Corel, even to a degree RedHat, and especially Microsoft, (also, to a lesser degree Sun) really don't care much about the slashdot crowd. This is for a few reasons.
This type of knee jerk bashing of Red Hat is becoming all to common nowadays here at /. The kind that goes, "You know Microsoft, Corel, Red Hat all those big morally bankrupt companies." Just ask RMS what he thinks of RH and he'll tell you that RH does the right thing for Free Software almost all of the time (who can agree with RMS 100% of the time anyway?). Anyone who employs Allen Cox full time doesn't belong in the dubious company that you place them. And no, I don't use Red Hat but I think your grouping of them with the likes of MS, Sun and Corel is highly unfair and distasteful.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
After reading this paragraph a few times, I started to wonder if Bill Gates is actually thinking of trying to market .Net to Linux users. First of all, I don't see how that's technically feasible, unless he (heaven forbid!) made all his Windows applications Linux-compatible. Second, I don't see how anyone will accept it, because don't many people use Linux specifically because they don't like Microsoft?
Just a thought.
Also, the CD-ROM in the cover of the second edition of the book actually runs on Windows NT. (the CD in the first edition wouldn't, *snicker*).
Among other things he says in this interview that the open source concept is 'one notch better' when you keep the code to yourself.
By that logic, Windows is Opened Sourced, and "One Notch Better" than Windows.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
slashdot:
Burney has an interesting perspective on what's needed to make Linux/Open Source ultimately work.
Burney:
I don't think distributions in general are profitable for anybody. Really, in what way can people make money at all on Linux?
I'm inclined to insightful rather than interesting, actually.
.NET and app subscriptions is a project of Titanic proportions that simply cannot fail, being run by the chief architect, Mr. Goldfinger himself. Smart money'd be loading up on Msft stock - antitrust is going to quietly fade away, and their value only goes up on major paradigm shifting releases like this, no matter what happens.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If that example of how to use a formula in a spreadsheet was an analogy of .NET then M$ is on drugs. How crazy can you get? If you dont know how to calculate something, you dont keep sending your friend the data to do your work. You learn how to do it from him, get the formula etc, and thats that.
Whats going to happen when a server goes down? Sorry couldnt do your tax today, the formula server was down!
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
Yeah - Microsoft is good at looking down the road a few years and talking about what that world is like... The fact that they're looking down the wrong road is irrelevant. And they're particularly good at the talking-about-it part.
:-)
Hmmm, a bit like Slashdot...
--
http://www.gimbo.org.uk/
Actually, Corel themselves happened to be the first high flying Linux stock, almost one year before Redhat's IPO. Whitness the rise from $1 1/6 in September 1998 to almost 5 in January 1999. That was (at least in part) due to Corel's new engagement into Linux. They may have reacted to the hype, but certainly not to the high stock prices: they actually were the first to see a rise in valuation as a result of a Linux strategy. But that was then, when Cowpland still was in charge, and long before they sold their soul to Micro$oft.
no prob, you've a friend in me. glad to see you stick up for yourself. *smooooch*
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
This guy runs a company that FAILED, and he got bailed out by Bill. He pissed away a very profitable property (WordPerfect) that still has a strong, loyal following.
His insistence that Open Source is not viable, is no more valid than Steve Ballmer's huffing and puffing about how useless GUIs were back when MicroSquish didn't have one.
This clown is a bought-and-paid-for MicroSquish mouthpiece. Who the FUCK cares what he says?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It looks much nicer when when one links the printable version of a story. That is, when there is the option.
"*I* pay money to send MY data across the wires to SOMEONE ELSE'S SYSTEM (with who knows what type of security model). !?!?!?! "
:)
Just wait until MS contracts with Juno to do it's back end processing
Keep in mind, this is a company that's been on the edge of going out of business for a long time. With this guy at the helm, is it any wonder?
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Even more troubling than the point you raised is the notion of privacy. I certainly don't want my tax information I calculate in Excel (hypothetically that is) streaming to MS or anyone else for that matter just to be crunched. It would make far more sense, I'd think, to build in a method to distribute time-sensitive versions of the functions to be executed in a sandbox of sorts. I may only need function X for a week to tweak some numbers, but don't ever need it again. I get the code, it runs locally, then destroys itself. True, the author may be subject to having their IP violated/stolen across the wires, but THEY'D GET PAID. That's the whole model. They'd sell loads of 'use' of their software, with the risk of piracy (which exists now anyway).
Turn this around to the Corel-described Excel example. *I* pay money to send MY data across the wires to SOMEONE ELSE'S SYSTEM (with who knows what type of security model). !?!?!?!
For *trivial* things this might be OK. For serious number crunching, this is, imo, a huge hole.
creation science book
The cost is not always marginal. For a large enterprise, the cost can be downright large.
:)
I'm not sure if you were making a play on words here, but just in case: I meant "marginal" in the sense it is used by economists. That is, meaning the incremental cost. I didn't mean marginal in the sense of small or inconsequential.
Your point is a good one, though. The cost of most software does lie only in the purchase price. So, free-as-in-speech software will never really be free-as-in-beer.
Well, not until OS's and apps can install, configure, update, and maintain themselves!
He *literally* doesn't know what he's talking about. The spreadsheet example just proves the point. It's a really bad example of application components and middleware creating complex systems.
.Net for again?
In business you want to share information between business departments and different applications. You'd use some sort of middleware system to share the information. Invoicing information, financial results, dispatch confirmations etc. You wouldn't rent an algorithm the way he's describing. There's a short article at http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/middleware/ which describes how middleware can be helpful.
Thing is, it isn't even that difficult to set up your own middleware system. I assembled my own because the commercial systems were so expensive. It's just a news server and some scripts but it works and handles hundreds of messages per day. (http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/appsnet/)
With the openadaptor stuff (http://www.openadaptor.org/) application integration is getting easier and easier. What's
Deleted
There's one other way that you can profit from OS software that I almost never see mentioned - simply sell it! That's right, sell the software but also keep the code open. With every CD would be the source for the app as well, and online you could download the source for free but possibly have to pay to download a compiled or pacakged application.
That way the project is still wide open to those that want to work on it, but you make money from the people who simply do not have the time or inclanation to compile that particular project - to help increase rate of adoption you could also include typical time or feature limiting code that most demo apps have. It seems like madness to provide a time limited version when you could just download the source and have the full thing but I think it would work, as long as you keep the cost of the software low.
This strategy would probably only work for mass-market kind of applications, but who knows! Perhaps it would work for most apps.
I really agree that the main way OS sofwtare can compete is to add value, and keep innovating. I've always thought companies were pretty stupid to guard internal IP so closley, when they just let the creative people that developed the IP wither and leave!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
BSD doesn't have cool points anymore. Mind you, it's great stuff; it just doesn't get the buzz it did in, say, 1983.
/Brian
Hey Barney, keep imagining, because IMHO the publication of these calling convention will not happen. Why? Microsoft wants us to pay them for all those 'great formulas' for Excel that we can 'just download' off the web. Why would they allow just anyone the opportunity to develop formulae? Only tool companies like Corel will get in the game, mainly because Bill Gates paid for your sorry company.
How does it feel to be Bill Gates' BITCH?
Oh, yeah, but Microsoft isn't a monopoly...
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
Commerically successfuly OS's like Windows are popular and profitable not because they are the best, but because its good enough.
Lest it be forgotten, Windows is popular because Microsoft used illegal tactics to make sure everyone who bought a computer also bought a copy of Windows, not because it's "good enough."
However, if what you meant was that people continue to use Windows because it is good enough, then you're right. For most people, the marginal cost of moving to another platform is greater than the percieved benefit of doing so.
I love free software. My wife and I have been free of Microsoft products at home for almost three years now, and free of commercial software at home for well over a year. I've successfully integrated two FreeBSD servers and two OpenBSD servers into my employer's network after convincing management that it was the right thing to do. I really, truly believe in free software.
But I don't see the masses switching to it for their OS and apps anytime soon, unfortunately.
--
microsoft and linux stay seperate forever.
and this is a bad thing? I find it very interesting that Microsoft makes it's OS change to be compatable with Un*x protocols instead of using thier "closed" stuff....
I say keep them apart, and when we get market-share start eliminating any MS compatability. (What moron developed the DOC format anyways?)
I am happy that I am not MS compatable. It makes me proud.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Most of the people involved in open source software couldn't care less wehter some company is able to make money or not, that's not how sucess is rated.
There have been other articles detailing the problems that some linux companies are have making money and then drawing the conclusion that linux is failing because of that. Weird.
P.S. The article talks about "open APIs" like microsoft's
Sig is taking a break!
I'm probably one of the people that "missed a few years" regarding .Net
Yes, quite a few years. The idea is old. However, it was formerly known as Java, the Network Computer, Thin Client, etc. The whole .net thing is just a reimplementation of those, but Microsoft specific.
For example, a simple search on Google turned up this paper from 1999: Beyond Client/Server--Centralizing Networks with Thin- Client
Or, far more interesting, an article from 1997, written by... Corel. On their NC running Linux.
So, yes. You've missed at least three years.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
I made one assumption.
There are more then one linux user(s) in the world.
I dont think you are being seriuos.
Uhmmmm, slashdot doesn't have an editorial board with an editorial opinion... unless of course you count "modding"...
Alas.. Microsoft just doesn't know how to fight in a world where the enemy isn't a business...
It's time to rally the troops. BSD, Linux, throw down your mice and stop fighting. There's a greater battle on the horizon. IBM, SUN, victims of past wars, feigning for glory, join us!.. Microsoft's evil empire can be destroyed, and we can do it - together with the pervasiveness of openness, the magnanimity of concession, the petulence of advocacy, and the hard work of millions of us on... on... on whatever we damn well want to work on! just so long as it's not microsoft API's.. come on, we can do it.
OH AND BY THE WAY, Microsoft has started the astroturf campains. Either that or the pro-microsoft drones are coming out of the woodwork for god knows what reason come up with lame excuses for a satanic monopolistic corperation with only self-interest in mind.
The Jihad has started. And although the aftermath may not be pretty, it's sure gonna be one hell of an adrenaline rush!!
Are you with me?!
What gold? The guy was right. You cannot make a profit off an item that is free. It does not generate revenue. Revenue is money and without it, a company cannot run. Linux is not gold, gold is money. Linux is free, it is sand between our toes that gets irritating from time to time.
To be perfectly blunt, I guy as far up in Corel as he is knows a thing or two about business. Not some kid from Ohio who has yet to take Economics. A good business man knows when somthing has gone awry and the best thing to do is back out. I agree totally.
Open Source maybe a good thing for some, but it is not the answer to the computing world. If it was, it would be Corel and RedHat buying Microsoft stock and not the other way around. It amazes me to see how many Linux fans walk around with their eyes closed. People smart enough to use a complex OS can't even see the reality of the situation.
~AdmrlNxn
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
YES YES YES!!! You have tasted blood and you want mroe.. MORE.. WE CAN DESTROY MICROSOFT. Monopolies don't die gracefully, the implode with thermonuclear consequences!!!!
Well *DUH!*. That's an opportunity, not a threat. Be that company taking the 1 support call.
"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death."
With Open Source we get:
Do we get anything of this if we use
Also, what happens if the company offering the service goes out of business? Poof, thousands of documents can't calculate the formulas anymore!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Gee, how can you accuse the poor guy of not getting it when he comes out with insightful comments like:
Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better, because the source wouldn't be open ...
What could be finer than open source software to which you don't have the source? Sounds like an even better idea than decaf.
--
I would be a paid subscriber if Taco and Hemos weren't such cunts
It seems to me that he's right in one respect - if more apps had a good API that you could develop plugins for, that would be great. But even better than that is when you can see what the plugin is going to be hooking into, how it will behave - and being able to make a change to better the API and submit that to whoever is maintaining the code when the plugin API isn't quite enough for what you want to do. Now that's power!
.Net might be unpleasant in apps - let's look at the example of the spredsheet he gave where you pull down a menu, it connects to the web, and presents you with an updated list of formulas. Sounds great, right? Well not when you actually experience the 1-4 second delay it takes for that menu to come up EVERY TIME you try and use it. Imagine what apps would be like if most menus behaved as badly as the drive letter pulldown in the file selector when you have mapped network drives.
.Net cannot support that model, it just doesn't sound like that's where it's going at the moment. Plus of course Corel was trying to get Microsoft to seperate subscription models from the web plugin model, and they seemed reluctant. I also am personally not sure about where security fits into the world with a myriad of plugins, like when you download a PGP plugin for outlook from a company that's really a front for the NSA.
Also, the other thing that makes me think
Personally, I think the model that will end up working is one where you can have the app look for (or point it to) useful plugins and then download those to reside locally with instant lookup.
Not to say
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better,because the source wouldn't be open..."
Derek Burney, CEO of Corel on benefits of .NET
in pcworld.com Feb. 6, 2001
Talk about not getting it! Perhaps Sun should go back to their Reality Check document we discussed yesterday, and do a:
1,$s/Chuck/Derek/g
How do you miss the fact that it's about Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Beer? Isn't that repeated so many times, over and over again, from thousands of directions?
Isn't this the point where Richard Stallman points out that you've misunderstood the differences between Open Source and Free Software?
The Open Source movement isn't about Free Speech at all, but rather about the fact that Open Source software can be better because multiple people can improve it, and better quality software has an economic advantage (there's that "make money" thing again) over lesser quality software.
It seems to me that Corel was never interested in Free Software, but only the economic advantage of Open Source, and in fact that this is precisely the type of confusion that RMS was trying to prevent by insisting on the name Free Software, and clarifying that at every conceivable opportunity (not that I'm in any way qualified to speak for RMS).
So Corel isn't rejecting "Free, as in speech" Software, as they never accepted it in the first place. They are, instead, rejecting Open Source (and Burney did use the term correctly), which doesn't have the same "Free, as in speech" requirement.
I most heartily disagree with this sentiment. There are many ways to make money with open source software, but it is more work because you have to ADD VALUE. If you cease to add value, no one has an incentive to come to you for customization work, or assistance integrating the software into an existing system. Tech support doesn't cut it.
I think a better way to put it is that there is no way for a company like Corel to make money with Open Source. This is not a moral criticism, just a fact. Corel is structured in a way that they need to recoup money from licenses to create software. It's not that coding can't get paid for, it's that you need a revenue stream to support overhead.
I personally am in a similar position, although orders of magnitude smaller. I'd like to open source the project I'm working on, but I work with a team of people, a sales person, an office manager, an engineer, all of whom contributed in critical organizational and conceptual ways to making the project a possibility. They all have to paid out of the fruits of my labor. There are consulting fees, but they are too low and transaction costs too high to support everyone we need. If the product were open source, I would have a much easier time selling my labor -- I'd give the product away for free and charge for changes and make a good living adding value. All the other people who have worked just as hard but who aren't coders would be out of luck.
In other words, I'm stuck with overhead. And overhead in this case is people. My friends and coworkers.
When projects like the Linux kernel or Apache self organize around a group of hackers, there is no overhead, no secretaries or salesmen or janitors to be paid. This is a good thing, when it can happen.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Its fuckin pathetic.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
A ton of poory documented code written by amateurs with little, or non-existant documentation. (Dam, that sounds alot like our game code too ;-) By the time i have reverse engineered what the hell the code is doing, I would be better off re-writing from scratch. I don't have time to do that.
I don't care if this gets modd'd down as flaimbait. OSS is NOT perfect. I just think it is the lesser of the 2 evils: proprietary-buggy-closed-vendor-lockin-software, or open-nonreadable-source-bugs-get-fixed-software.
*sigh*
*neither are the best answer*
I have heard some of *BSDs's code has been written really well. Has anyone found that to be true?
I have no control over the closed source stuff I write to pay the bills. My employer controls that. They use that control to restrict the freedom of the purchasers of that software.
You're being paid by your evil employers for doing their dirty deeds...
I think what Derek Burney actually means is that open source software removes his ability to extort money from his user base.
You don't happen to be on Corel's payroll by any chance?
In any case, I suggest you stop accepting "dirty" money from any company involved in such extortionist activities such as (dare I say it) selling software.
Way to go Corel! You've earned my contempt.
Yeah! Linux or its users need no steenkin' software companies! (well, one or two 100% GNU consultancies may continue to exist as long as noone gets paid). Hell, we should dump Leh-nooks while we're at it - GNU/HURD is the ONLY TRUE CHOICE!
Right.
Wouldn't billg really love that.
--
A. Bullard
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Firstly, regarding the major glare toward the article: The CEO states Linux is not profitable. That isn't the case for a lot of companies out there. An innovative Linux distribution with extra features not found in the more common ones (i.e. the ReiserFS installation in SuSE) is as good downloaded as sold, they argue, and thus is as good as dead as a business opportunity. Wrong! I can think of many ways to implement "extra features" for paying customers while maintaining adherence with the GPL (redhat pro being the perfect example.) Be creative, be thoughtful. The more the community comes to praise and like a distribution they more willing they are to show support and pay for it. Plus, genuinely quailty documentation in printed format for Linux is costly -- if it came with that and the documentation was known to be of the utmost help (Oreilly quality) people would be all the more motivated to pay for it. Obviously, though, with as many distributions as there are today, you'd have to try to be "as compatible" with an existing one as possible -- and be GROUNDBREAKING to make it anywhere.
Corel's distribution did try the free to "delue" version thing, but they did it wrong. IMHO, they failed for these reasons: They weren't offering anything new and groundbreaking; The programs they were offering in deluxe weren't anything special, i.e. wordperfect 8 wasn't even more then the free, downloadable version; The cost was too high. Corel's distribution also failed because it had a reputation of failing to keep up with the latest releases. They should have pushed for KDE 1.9x series, as they were atleast working on Konquerer, and tried to make more packages available. They had good ideas, though -- especially basing it off Debian.
As far as Corel's "Linux" applications go, complete shite. You might as well buy the Windows version and have the latest version of the REAL Wine run them. You'd probably have a much easier go. Corel has never written a true UNIX app (widely used; yes, I am aware they had Paint 3.5 available many moons ago) aside from Word Perfect 7 (I'm not going to say 8 because it had so many bugs it was disgusting. Way to ruin a program that functioned perfectly, Corel.) I think if they want a real chunk of the UNIX market (which could easily be theirs) they ought to find some talented UNIX/MOTIF programmers who can actually make ports of the applications they are so found of. It wouldn't be *Impossible*, but it would be quite an undertaking; I don't expect it to happen.
Well, I guess it shouldn't be much of a suprise
mwtr / THIS SIG HAS BEEN PRAYED OVER AND MAY BE USED AS A POINT OF CONTACT (ACTS 19:12)
Are you sure that people are afraid and short-sighted, or are they just kept in the dark because they are surrounded by elitists who are too afraid to lose their priestly status and show people the truth? Like you, most tech. snobs write off the public good and show nothing but contempt for those who have not had the same opportunity to learn about proprietary technology and freedom. Instead of looking at the long-term benefit of helping more people understand, you act like a baby and settle for the quick cheap thrill of snubbing those who know less than you. Microsoft is counting on people like you to do nothing. I'm sure they would be quite pleased with your non-efforts.
The coolest feature of .net is its standardized object, struct, and data format. The most obvious benefit of this is crosslanguage development, but its not the biggest benefit. .Net is a cure for the perfomance nightmare associated with marshalling in DCOM/Corba. No data reformatting step is needed between each call.
.net format. There would thus be a way to develop cross platform clients and servers that can communicate with MS or crossplatform servers at high speed.
I expect they will have some commercial success with it.
Most people get rightfully intimidated at the prospect of porting MS's entire CLR to their OS.
The real value though is simply adding a MSIL target to gcc. And developing a JIT or dynamic IL compiler for your platform. The shortcut of applying MS's standard data format but compiling directly to native could also be possible.
IL can link to any code... not just the CLR. An OpenCLR thats crossplatform could be developed without trying to copy MS's APIs. Just recompiling (and OOPing a bit) alternative similar services ((g)Tk, Qt, apache, mysql...)into the
If it were a case of "either break Canadian law or break the GPL", you'd be right.
But it ain't. At most it's a case of "break Canadian law or break the GPL or don't distribute the software", and if so, Corel's gotta choose option 3.
But actually, Canadian law doesn't say this. It is perfectly legal to distribute GPLed software to a minor. The copyright holder may not be able to enforce the GPL properly on the minor, but that doesn't make it illegal to distribute to him.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
This guy really does need a severe beating with a cluestick. Some of his more choice quotes:
and
But the one that sums it all up is:
I find it interesting that .NET and a lot of other companies are pushing the Internet Server Application concept. It's an effecient use of resources on a LAN, but over the internet it poses a bigger problem. If I had a dollar for every time I couldn't reach some server because CERF.net or some other backbone provider was having routing problems (probably due to incompetent administration) I'd be rich. Bottom line is that if I can't reach the server the app I need is on it does me no good and wastes even more of my valuable time than the all too frequent crashes of Microsoft's OS's.
The thing I like most about this job is all the rocket scientists who bang their mice on their desks shouting 'It Broke!
I most heartily disagree with this sentiment. There are many ways to make money with open source software, but it is more work because you have to ADD VALUE. If you cease to add value, no one has an incentive to come to you...
Precisely: it is more work. It also makes you a slave. With propriertary software, you can create an asset that has lasting value and generates money over an extended period of time. With "free" software, you can create no such thing. You wrote a spreadsheet yesterday? Well good for you; go out and write me a word processor today or else you're fired.
That's the thing people don't get with consulting. If you want to earn twice as much money, you need to work twice as many hours. While you can earn very impressive hourly rates, if you are at all competent, your clients will develop a tendency to run out of problems. And that leads to you running out of food to eat.
It is the Holy Grail of consultants everywhere to "productize" their services. The more that you can create software assets that can be re-used -- and re-billed -- the less you need to work for an additional dollar of revenue.
This is what the Richard M. Stallman doesn't get, and it's no suprise when you consider that he's spent his life in a cloistered academic environment: proprietary and free software have a symbiotic relationship. My ability to make lots of money creating and selling proprietary software gives me the time and the freedom to work on projects for the common good.
Hmm.... What has Corel produced.... Can't think of anything at all!
.
.
.
OHHH!! Wait! I remember now! They created Corel Draw!
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
The rest of the comments were -so- predictable :)
He certainly had no control over his extensions to KDE. When one writes an app using qt or KDE it MUST BE GPL"d...
As opposed to gnome/gtk, WHICH ARE BOTH LGPL..
This moron should have done some more research into -troll-tech before basing his business around some shady europeans with 5 o'clock shadows.
I'm going to spell it out for those easily flame-baited: KDE is pointless for commercial development, unless YOU BRIBE TROLLTECH. bahahahah..
IMPORTANT LIBRARIES SHOULD BE LGPL.. Trolltech knows this, too bad most of the community doesn't.
There is nothing satanic about Microsoft.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
OH MY GOD, HERE COMES THE ASTROTURF. LET ALL LINUX USERS BEWARE, MICROSOFT HAS SENT ITS MINIONS OUT TO DEBASE OUR GLORIOUS MOVEMENT. Don't listen to this shyster-head.
I CANT BELEIVE anyone would be so naive as to buy into microsoft's bullllllsh*t.
YOU SEEM HAPPY THAT MICROSOFT IS A MONOPOLY. May I aske, what your drug dealer PUT IN YOUR CRACK TODAY?
Omfg,... I will repeat again, the astroturf campaign is out in full force.
Proprietary [software] is a good way to make money; with open source, there's no way [to make money] because you don't control your intellectual property.
I most heartily disagree with this sentiment. There are many ways to make money with open source software, but it is more work because you have to ADD VALUE. If you cease to add value, no one has an incentive to come to you for customization work, or assistance integrating the software into an existing system. Tech support doesn't cut it.
He also says:
I don't think distributions in general are profitable for anybody. Really, in what way can people make money at all on Linux?
Hmm... So suppose that a company that makes servers and, say, also manufactures their version of UNIX. By switching to Linux, opening up their proprietary technologies, and cutting the amount of development work while leveraginb other OSS projects, they can increase the quality of their servers while decreasing the cost, thus undercutting their competition. I suspect that IBM is moving in this direction. It is a business decision which is very sensible and avoids every problem that Burney raises.
However, he is right in some respects. Corel can't make a profit in this market. However, I still think I can.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
corel draw? Heh. worthless. Gimp runs on Win32 and Linux. Next?
From paragraph 7 of the GPL v2: "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all."
If Canadian law really prevented them from offering the software to under 18s, then they wouldn't've been allowed to distribute the software at all.
Actually, Canadian law does no such thing. It might make it so that the original copyright holder can't enforce the license against a minor, but that's not Corel's problem, and they shouldn't have to (and indeed cannot) change the license to avoid that.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
You're right. maybe not satanic. But there's nothing as motivating as fighting satan. :)
I'm not religious myself.. But think, if we could get ossamma bin laden focused on microsoft instead of USA, we could save NYC, Washing D.C., and all we'd have to sacrifice is Redmond. Sounds like a plan!
Your whole comment is based on the idea of there being this 99% of computer software users that don't care about the benefits of open source. That may be true about the people that use computers, but it isn't true of those who plan, manage and pay for the deployment of software.
/. and throughout the IT industry). It is also why IBM is moving so fast on using open source, and opening their own sources - they see open source as very attractive for their customers. Don't forget that they are still the largest software (and hardware) company in the world.
I am guessing that you think that the majority of software sales by value come from consumers, and that the most significant software in terms of sales is office applications, games, etc. That is simply not the case. Those software sales are worth a lot of money, but they are not king. Software bought by governments and private companies is worth a lot more. The people sitting at their desks using a computer to write a letter or enter some financial information may not care for open source, but the head of IT, the CFO and ultimately the managing director are open to its benefits.
This is especially true for large organisations, who also make up most of the sales. The opportunity to get software for low costs, and then have as much control over that software as they need is a significant attraction. Interoperability is another significant attraction, along with the ease of doing your own integration work on serious system software - which led to a large bank open sourcing their business to business connection software last week (reported on
One of the reasons I've gotten into web services like XML-RPC is that with them you can create platform independent and language neutral components. In a weird way, web services remind me of unix shell pipes; as long as programs agree to read from STDIN and write to STDOUT, you can string any of them together. Web services promote an Open and Documented architecture because you can easily read the communication going over the wire between clients and servers. This, for most applications, is a Good Thing (TM).
The .NET strategy from M$ seemed to me to be the best idea out of Redmond in years. It seemed like .NET would finally provide a level playfield for M$ competitors by opening up application component APIs.
I was greatly disappointed (but not really surprised) to read in this article that Corel and Microsoft see .NET as a way to charge customers more money for the same functionality that traditional desktop apps already have.
Instead of a playing field, .NET is going to be another Gated Community, where customers lose.
Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better, because the source wouldn't be open ...
... that's what a'cappella means! I mean, that's what it doesn't mean. A'cappella means without instruments."
This reminds me of a college comedy sketch I saw once:
"So... did you like our song?"
"Yeah, it was great... but I thought you said it was going to be a'cappella."
"It was. We're an a'cappella group."
"But... you were playing the guitar. And he was playing the bass. And you had a drummer."
"We're taking a'cappella to the next level: a'cappella... WITH INSTRUMENTS!"
"But... but... that's
"Why're you always trying to bring us down, man?"
Courtesy of The Garrens. See if you can find their CD and listen to it...
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
What you've got to remember is that when the last IT monopoly (IBM) was seen off we got Microsoft. Be careful what you wish for......
They are accused of being a monopoly, they have not proved Microsoft of being a monopoly.
.ctE .cte .cte
Lemme ask you somthing... say you are the biggest micro-processor manufacturer in the world, and there is this company who specifically purchased the code base and used it to write optimizations in their OS so that the chip and the OS would run more compliant with each other. With that favor paid to you in hand, wouldn't you return the favor in any way possible? OF COURSE YOU WOULD YOU NUMB SKULL! That is the whole point behind businesses, MS did a favor for Intel and now Intel will repay a favor. If that isn't clear enough for you then you are legally retarded.
Now as for this (supposed) array of bullshit -
1. They have a vision, I am going to laugh this fall with Whistler. Considering in order for you to run it you have to buy it. Because I know somthing you don't know. Wanna knnow there vision? To connect everyone. Evolve the internet into one giant gelatenous mass. Evolve it into what it should and not what it is. 100 years from now when people look back at the internets origins. The first name that will appear in every history book will be either (A)Bill Gates (B) MIcrosoft or (C) Windows. Linu$ Torvald$ or Linux won't even be mentioned.
2. Well if there products are soooo bad. Then why does everyone use them? If they are so bad then everyone would use Corel or Mac. If Windows programs are so bad then they wouldn't have even had a chance. Frankly, if Office 2000 was offered on the Linux Plat, I bet you would use it and if you say "no"... (This is my way of saying go to hell) I would reply... "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU."
I am not even touching three and four, if you are that dense then you aren't even worht argueing with.
5. Well for a man who has 50+ billion dollars... he can't be dumb. Chalk another stupid remark made by you.
6. Well at least I can run xchat in root mode without a problem. Whereas every Linux user is insane to do that. Hell someone with enough braisn could shut you down. Then again i wouldn't call Linux secure, it has its holes.
7. I am sure only one or two recruiters came there to get a resume. Doens't mena you will get the job. YOU HAVE TO BE A GOOD RPOGRAMMER! Just in case you didn't know.
8.
~AdmrlNxn
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
Microsoft created Win16 and Win32. That was the whole point, to have an API that was compatible between NT and 9x. Of course 99 percent of programs run on it... IT IS THE MOST POPULAR OS IN THE EXISTENCE OF COMPUTERS.
May I? Microsoft isn't a monopoly because it hasn't been proved in court and I doubt it will. If it isn't proven in court then legally they aren't one. That was also pretty fucking stupid of you to think that because since MAC exist and Linux exist that they aren't a monopoly. Tell me, do you eat paint chips for breakfast. Because they sure have fucked up your brain.
Open your eyes oh little peon. Whistler is coming! The day of reckoning is at hand.
~AdmrlNxn
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
While I agree that one of the primary goals of OSS is to be Free (as in Freedom), that was not what the author was getting at. Corel was a company with a mandate to make money, as most corporations try to do.
so why didn't they base their distro on BSD? Apple's doing it correctly, and while they're being slammed by the Linux zealots, they'll probably make money off of their "open source" software.
at any rate, it's very obviously that Corel didn't understand the market they were getting into, and they're spiraling downwards because of it. it serves them right: to change the direction of your company without fully understanding the market you're getting into is very dangerous.
so the original poster is correct in his main point: they had no idea what they were doing.
i just hope that when they go out of business they don't take down the great software they bought from Metacreations with them.
- j
Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better, because the source wouldn't be open
All I can say is . . . wow!
I won't even bother to comment otherwise, because there's no way I could improve on the perfection of his admission of idiocy.
You know, someone who was used to working with medium-sized C programs and who wanted to tweak the virtual memory code would probably just cd to /usr/src/linux/mm (where I simply guessed that "mm" stood for "memory management") and start there. The Linux kernel is organized fairly well and is no worse documented than most of the source I've inherited over the last 10 years of embedded-systems programming that I've done. However, you do have to be prepared to do some detective work on your own.
Just about any large project is going to be, as you put it, a "zoo" because it is tough to write large programs. Programmers that expect to spend any time at all working with other people's source are going to anticipate this and develop a toolkit to deal with it and, although it is difficult to become familiar enough with a source set to find your way around it without trouble, the more experience you have with the source set, the easier it is.
My point was that the users won't be fscked because they won't pay for something they can't use. They'll just use the old versions and not be too bothered about being at the forefront of technology.
Dear Mr. Burney... "My belief is that people would be willing to pay, for lack of a better term, for an end-to-end solution."
.Net is, it's not mutually exclusive with Linux ."
.NET will assure the Microsoft lock-in
by forcing out Apache and other servers. In Microsoft's vision, the
only way the Web will be browsed is with Microsoft's .NET is the strategy to make that reality. As
"hard-ball" (Ballmer) recently said:
.Net
initiative, Microsoft will continue to protect any intellectual property
that it embeds as objects in XML wrappers. We will have proprietary
formats to protect our intellectual property..."
Right on the money! A soup-to-nuts solution is the only way to un-root the Micro$oft desktop.
"...making the appropriate acquisitions to fill in the holes would have cost us around $300 million."
You don't understand. That knowledge was in-house, with those that put together your distribution. Adding and testing server applications would not have been THAT big of a leap. That $300M figure is totally bogus. The only partner you'd have needed was one of the big-name hardware vendors.
"So you end up making 15 calls and they're all pointing at each other. "
That's what people do now with Micro$oft. You could have made a single-access-point of service, which would have destroyed the Micro$oft shrink-wrap paradigm.
"...there's no way [to make money] because you don't control your intellectual property."
It's the service, stupid.
Between the proprietary office apps and the service on an open hardware and software platform, Corel was uniquely positioned to be the first company to give Micro$oft true competition.
As long as you try to compete with Micro$oft on their own turf, you loose. You can make a better product at a better price, but they own the platform. They have, can, and will change the platform at-will to suit their application and competitive needs, leaving Corel always chasing their tail. As long as Corel is "just another Office suite" on the WinDoh's platform, Microsoft wins.
"And Corel wonders why the community never received them with open arms?" (a Quote from the slashdot article).
Screw the Linux community: that was not your market. Redhat, SuSE, Debian, etc... can fill our needs. You were focused on the average and business user -- where Linux needs to go.
"And a great thing about
Maybe that's what your Micro$oft handlers are telling you. With IE the only browser of relevance,
servers and clients.
"In adopting Internet standards such as XML as part of its
He went on to obfuscate that statement with wanting to maintain "a certain level of interoperability", but he's a known spin-doctor, and we've seen what tricks he's pulled with "interoperability" in the past.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
If you click on my user info, you'll see that I've said this before.
;> ).
This line: "But, at that time, there was not a single easy-to-use Linux distribution.... " implies to me that he wants a "defacto standard" Linux distro (to which he could target the way his software products work) similar to the way Windows is a defacto standard.
Meanwhile, the "IBM Compatible PC" (as it was called years ago... and still is sometimes) is the "defacto standard" desktop system. The difference between both of these "defacto standards" is that Windows is closed, but the "IBM PC" was open. This is what I'd like to see IBM do with Linux... put out a distro with IBM's good name on it (which instills confidence from suit's like Burney) but it's still open enough (which the GPL gaurantees) for the rest of the world outside IBM to push the envelope of what it can do. (Kinda like what happened with the IBM PC) IBM simply becomes the "brand name" that people rely on as well as the central point of where all the development comes into the distro. (Redhat already has the expertise to do this... IBM should simply buy them and put their name on it... "Big Blue Red Hat"
IBM, being a hardware company, would not have to concern itself so much with putting a bunch of hooks into it to work with their software as MS or Corel might do... simply because IBM isn't really a software company. They want to sell hardware... a successful Linux is good for IBM hardware sales.
Meanwhile, if you asked this Burney guy if he'd like to see an IBM Linux become a "defacto standard" (much like the IBM PC was) to which he could target his products at, I think he'd reply with a resounding "yes".
No, that's capitalism.
Open source is where you see and can modify the code.
And now that's he's basically thrown this in the face of every OS geek there is, I'm doubting we'll see a lot of geeks saying "Hey, boss check out this new stuff from Corel..."
Looks like he also said that he has no idea of where he's going next and (later on in the intervies) that if he did, the legal department would make him keep his mouth shut. Mostly, he was self contradicting and vauge. That's what happens when you get Borg implants.
Eliminating Corel's MS dependency was a good idea poorly deployed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
For example, with Corel Draw (Linux Version) you hade to run a special version of Wine to get it to work. At least on my machine, that really bogged down resources and made the application (and my system in general when the app was running) run very poorly.
If they had made an actual Linux version, then the story might have been different. The same reasoning applies to all the Corel applications for Linux that I tried. If I want to run a Windows application, I'll hop onto a Windows box. I realize that they took this approach to increase the ease and speed at which applications could be ported, but if it makes the community that much less likely to use your product (and especially in the face of alternatives such as GIMP or StarOffice) then what's the point? There is, of course, also the matter of Corel's somewhat less than whole-hearted embrace of the Open Source theory, but that has been adequately covered in other posts
-B
benjones@superutility.net
-B
But is it not the truth!
I don't see how you can be so naive to deny the truth. Then again I don't see how Microsoft is a monopoly. They are a business and as a business if you have a competitor you crush them. An example of this is Netscape.
It was competition in the browser market. Best way to win? Starve the competition. Say you have 100 dollars and your friend has ten and every ten seconds you give a dollar away, who runs out of money first? (Do I need to do the math?)
My real question is, what is Microsofts bullshit? Seriously? I would like your honest opinion.
~AdmrlNxn
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
Not true: Microsoft is evil. Satan is evil. So?
Corel failed with their Linux distro because Linux isn't windows. People forget that Linux works differently from windows, has to be employed differently from windows, and needs different software. Corel didn't grok that, and as a result, we all saw(much to our horror) what Linux looks like when it is mauled to be a clone of Windows.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
No Microsoft is bad. There is good evil and bad evil, Microsoft isnt either.
Just like constructive order and constrictive disorder.
Microsoft just makes lousy products, minus IE.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Huh? Can anyone explain this to me? Where's the benefit of open source when it's not open source? And how is Mr Burney going to make money if someone writes a plugin and releases it under the GPL or a similar license?
Mr burney hasn't got a clue what the open source/Free software movement is all about. No wonder Corel "always had a somewhat rough time fitting into Penguinland."
That's the downside of being a programmer - you sometimes have to wade through shedloads of godawful code to find out what you want to know because there's little to no documentation. I'm sure a source-summariser tool exists, have a look on freshmeat.
When writing the message I only assumed that he doesnt fully grasp the opensource idea.
I knew he couldnt possible have read the book.
I have so I know what it is about.
About 10% of the computer users are using linux.
Linux is important to them.
They might be a small portion of the world but
I would like to know how you can know that the whole wourld would agree with your atatemnt that I assume that I dont know that the book clarifies the opensource model of software development and ownership amongst other things.
And as a side note. Linux is really important for corel since they are going to have their full line of products on linux.
Side note 2: You seam to be a bit angry.
This conversation we are having is really not worth being angry about. You might want to change your priorities a bit.
Microsoft may produce crappy software, but it's business people are top notch. You don't become a market monopoly without alot of clever people coming up with stuff like MCSE, their notorious channel agreements with computer hardware retailers and and convincing the great unwashed masses that Windows should be the defacto operating system of choice. Microsoft knows that "It's the OS, stupid". Keeping control of this technology will keep them at the top. They will do whatever they can to circumvent linux, including buying Corel for pennies to: 1)Stop Corel sponsored development on WINE. 2)Prevent more applications from running on linux. 3)Stop any other companies from getting any ideas about creating an "OS 4 Dummiez"
IE is lousy too.... "what?!" you say... Yes it is lousy. It is also the most efficient web renderer out there. But take away the plugins and the heavy win* integration and that's all you have. A renderer. Big f'ing deal. Gecko will be as good in a year. And is already verrry sufficient.
If I hear IE as another argument to stick with windows, I would like to remind that person that they are referring to the plugins that IE has. Gecko, galeon, mozilla, nautilus, whatever, will all be as good as the core IE in short order. So stop your bitching!
I am american.
I am also very anti american pop culture.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Here's another thing on how they can make more money : Suppose I have Excel with 5 formulas and you have Excel with 5 different formulas.
What happens if I email you an Excel sheet using my 5 formulas (which would certainly happen)? Either you'd have to pay a single charge for using 5 new formulas, or I get charged extra. Either way it means more money for Moneysoft. Almost like a tax.
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
Exactly, but .NOT is being pitched primarily at businesses. I doubt they'll try and force the home market onto it, as people won't buy it.
But I haven't folowed the .Net hype (is it a hype yet?) Apparentky from your post I haven't missed much (since it's M$ specific). Thx for letting me know.
Noticed googles pdf results? great huh?
120 chars is not enough!
I can't believe he actually said this:
...
Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better, because the source wouldn't be open
No wonder Corel's Linux efforts never took off! They didn't get it. Never will.
If they had concentrated on providing a decent port of Corel Draw (not through Wine, but a real port), people would have bought it. Instead they diverted their resources in a whole bunch of things that are already available with Linux (a distribution, an office suite, etc...).
What a lack of vision.
My reply wasn't meant as a rant against you, it was an indirect rant against Microsoft, for (again) reinventing the wheel, but making trying to make the wheel proprietary again.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Of course we can all disagree with him on that too, but misquoting him doesn't look professional!
PS: And please run your submissions through a spellchecker before publishing.
Zax
-- We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms.
I've made one or two comments before about Corel and my opinion of what happened them....go back and find them if you like cause I have other fish to fry here! To contextualise this I am an ex-Corel employee who worked supporting their Linux offerings.
Explain Netwinder (that was Corel wasn't it!) and your plans for creating a server version of Corel Linux? Oh yeah, you also provided the core ingredients for an end to end system with your OS. Some hacking was required to get routers and the like out of it (they didn't support dual nics properly). You did however give people a ftpd, httpd, sambad, nfsd, Desktop (plus your Office if you wanted) not much more to do really.
Yep, those calulations were definetly done on the back of an envelope! Good to see those new pen and ink technologies are taking hold.
The Perfect approach? So why were the applications released for all platforms simultaneously (well rpm and deb, no slackware support)? Your distro's distinctive features were KDE on Debian with a "simple" installer and control panel.....how did these have anything to do with a Wine Application?
And that about sums it up, this guy is a fscking idiot (or a spin doctor, but their the same thing aren't they? ask Peter Mandelson). The Open Source concept but better cause the users can't get the source so people can make money of it. Come on, Corel have never and seemingly will never get the idea of Open Source, let alone Free software. While I worked there all their servers ran Solaris and that about says it all for the corporate commitment to Linux.
I think it is a big pity that the Borland merger never happened as maybe then someone might have managed to do something with Corel (Copeland long ago lost his worth to the company, probably as soon as it first turned profit) and judging by what has come since I don't think they are going anywhere. Corel gambling on .NET is pure submission to Microsft and their business model and it leads to failure. If MS succeed with .NET it will be because they price their basic lineup cheaply enough for Joe Schmoe to "rent" it, and that is going to have to be damn cheap to stop people looking elsewhere (how many people do you know who don't pay a penny for software and only run proprietry software). If MS is releasing a range cheaply enough, where is the space for Corel? They get to exploit the same pathetic niche of the people who are willing to look beyond their nose (MS Office and Adobe) AND prefer the Corel way....good luck Guys.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I'm not sure that I can accept this as a basic postulate, but it is certainly clear that the possibility is ever present. This kind of transform of a technology company doesn't usually happen until the second or third generation of managers.
OTOH, as you pointed out, MicroSoft already has this mentality, and Corel seems to, also. It is to be expected that Red Hat will drift in that direction, but probably slowly. What should be prepared for is for one of the smaller distributions to take up where Red Hat left off, but it isn't time yet. Still, one wonders which of the new startups is most >. Were this the right time, there might be many choices.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
SUN is really putting that reply in perspective now. Read it again and the whole thing sounds a bit less profound.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Ouch!
It takes a little more than that. You also have to maintain general functionality of the source while at the same time changing it.
It's like I'm dooing plumbing work and as I change things I don't have any idea how to put the pieces back into a working whole again.
When you get source you end up having the small scale picture without a large scale model.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The GPL will become increasingly irrelevant as people change their conception of software. Increasingly, as you said, software isn't thought of as a thing but as a service. What happens when the reality that the Corel CEO describes comes to be, and you never see the code that implements the Net Present Value feature in your spreadsheet, because it's all tied together via some XML-based RPC mechanism? You'll pay a one-time fee for permanent access to the service, or a subscription for access over a given time period, or a one-time fee for a single use of the NPV feature.
You used to need the source code to use a product, because Unices aren't binary compatible. With Java, and wider binary compatibility, you can often get by with only object code today. Now -- thanks to the Internet -- and increasingly so in the future, you won't even need object code to do processing.
Anyway, the point is that the next software business model will hold users hostage just as much as the current one does, but instead of selling object code, you'll be selling access.
And there's nothing the GPL can do about it. I can use nothing but GPL'd software to create a service that I then charge for access to through the web or an XML interface or whatever.
Honestly, and I know everyone will say this too, but I saw this coming. However it wasn't when Corel started losing money hand over fist, but when the got rid of Cowpland as CEO. If anything Cowpland did things differently throughout his career and if what i read is right, he was a true supporter of open source, unfortunatly the rest of the board was not. Sad to see it revert to the easier old school business models instead of being on the cuting edge of something entirly new.
On a side note: I have done a bit of research with regard Microsoft's .Net framework. I'm wondering if any company or individuals have taken it upon themselves to play catch-up with Microsoft and adopt .Net for the open source platforms. I understand that the technologies .Net has to offer are equivilent to what we already have (SOAP, Java, Corba, ...), but I believe the adoption can only help the community as a whole... If I had the time and skills to tackle such a thing, I'd call it .Nix :)
Microsoft has a consistent business strategy of waiting to see what their competitors do, watch them make the mistakes, and then release software that's a generation behind what their competitors are sporting, but tie it close enough to their other products that the other vendors' products aren't as worthwhile to use. With a few exceptions (Microsoft Bob), few Microsoft products have ever failed miserably due to the level of integration and marketing, although Microsoft still refuses to acknowledge that Bob was a failure (official company line is it was 'ahead of it's time').
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
who, a few years ago, said that MS sucks and the future will be Java OS?
I personaly think hes good.
I dont care about his cause, but I think its good that america is AFRAID of someone like him.
A sign that we arent as powerful as we would like to be. This is good, it will keep us from acting like total americans.
Speaking of that, does anyone ever think about how aptly named 'American Cheese' is?
Got anything to add to that list?
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Seeing how you are a paid drone of microsoft I will refer you to your own comments. Scum. You don't deserve an airing of the facts, fit for HUMAN ears. Go back to the aluminum mine from whence you came.
/only/ have 95% of the market in desktop operating systems, they own 99.4% of the market in application interfaces.
Microsoft != Monopoly ?!? Are you F'ing KIDDING ME!? Monopoly is a legal term, and they have been lagally found to be what is "termed" a monopoly. You can disagree with that legal appalation, but that requires a modicum of intelligence. Ok. So if microsoft isn't "legally" a monopoly, which I will assume you meant, then you would say something like "MS isn't a monopoly because linux exists and mac exists, etc, ad infinitum" but what you fail to comprehend is that microsoft owns all of the win32 api's and low level undocumented, but oft-utilized apis, and that these are what 99% of new software are written for!!! so while microsoft maybe
Get a clue.. Oh and is microsoft hiring? I'm assuming they're gonna be liquidating their $15 billion in cash assets soon to maintain market share and expand it into other areas, using people like you for their dirty work.
Scmuck. I hope you wither on the vine microsoft has grafted you on.
'Well, it's the open source concept, but one notch better, because the source wouldn't be open'
Yeah baby! You sure know how it works. I see that M$'s investment was well spent.
The only question is: do the idiots outnumber the intelligent???
Dan
If I look a bit further, we'll end up with PDA's that will have (need!) much more storage capacity then our desktop computers since they have to store complete programs and the desktops won't. Unless wireless broadband Internet becomes available (read affordable) for eveyone everywhere. And with 'eveywhere' I also mean the -6 floor of the underground parking garage (and other similar places where I can currently use my not-Internet-connected-laptop without problem).
PS I've got to do something about that sig...
120 chars is not enough!
You fool! Corel Draw is a vector design app, while gimp is not (or it was not, last time I used it). You should compare gimp with Corel Photopaint, instead
Victor
Don't worry I did not see your post as an attac at all and understood it clearly: M$ is again serving old wine in new glasses. :-)
120 chars is not enough!
Teehee. Yes very funny. America has had 300 years of culture built on top of dirt. Can you blame us for being so crass? Ah well. We do reflect the world in many ways. Ethnically, geographically, religiously.
mm, Im thinking about moving to canada before Osamma gets a nuke, a breifcase and a one-way trip to DC/NYC.. Could you imagine? Global depression would ensue. Us government in chaos. Us Banking/financial in chaos.. For all your myopic environmentalists out there, rogue nukes and infectious diseases are our #1 enemies.. Of course, followed by micrsoft in close second.
They have already forced "live update" and stuff like that on home Windows users (noticed I didn't say "on us"? :-) That was/is also a service that is _very_ useful for businesses that need frequent updates and have broadband Internet connections.
Today Excel for the home user is exactly the same as Excel for the business user. Will they suddenly start to develop the same things twice? Guess what part will get the most development...
M$ might just have found the next step (after live update) against software piracy.
Live update and .Net are two completely different things of course but the implications for the home users are the same: If you don't have cheep broadband Internet access you're fsckd.
120 chars is not enough!
...that there are many ways to make (serious) money with open source. I hope someone does it soon!
Which they crushed using their monopoly power.
Just because you don't have a problem with them being a monopoly does not mean that they aren't one.
My real question is, what is Microsofts bullshit? Seriously?
Their bullshit is almost endless but, for example:
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
---
pack
1337
COREL, SUN, what's the difference?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
How do you miss the fact that it's about Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Beer? Isn't that repeated so many times, over and over again, from thousands of directions?
No wonder they couldn't pull off a Linux distribution; all they saw was the early marketing hype, the high stock prices, and tried to capitalize on the buzz.
Linux was the big thing on the horizon; now that the market has cooled a bit, and the next big buzz is .Net, lo and behold, Corel is racing to be a market leader.
What a useless company.
The irony is that you could have fit 1-2-3 and every formula you could possibly imagine on a 386 12 years ago.
If this is Microsoft's way of making more money in the future (network enabling desktop apps like Excel), they should seriously go back and rethink the issue until they can find a better "Killer App" than that. (Java's been struggling for the same Killer App for years, and the best thing they've come up with is Servlets/JSP, which is hardly that exciting.)
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
You know I still remember when the Slashdot crowd actually liked Corel. Sure they made mistakes in their licensing for their distro, but was it not all fixed? Christ get over it already. The /. crowed was cheering Corel on until they came out with their distro, then suddenly said "this sucks" and has been bashing Corel ever since.
I'm reminded of that great line of Homer Simpson: "Son, you tried your best, and failed miserably....the lesson is, never try."
There are people in the world who don't read SlashDot?
I've been following this .Net thing and I'll give Corel and MS the credit that they're the famous ones of the bunch who've been thinking the same things. That's as far as I go.
I have a different tack on the whole source deal. Source is useless nowadays from a reuse standpoint. Do you want to wade through OpenOffice? or Mozilla? It's a god damned zoo.
Or how about the hundred times I've asked where I could start from to be able to tweak the virtual memory management of Linux because I have certain needs to take care of. No one can tell me. I suppose I could meditate in front of that humongous 2.4.0 call trace poster.
What I'd prefer is function source. A scan of source is performed so that a functional subset is produced. Second every mountain of source can be translated into the internal source standards a company lives by. That way you have internal standard A, performance filter A1, General functional core B, performance filter C1, and internal standard C.
Companies A and C keep their respective source and the standards, where as B becomes a general resource.
Benefits: an end to fragmentation. The translation is performed by a computer therefore any claims of incompatibility and vendor lock-in are erased. The standards could even be derived by the computer so that teams that wish to perform a rock solid translation by hand can avoid doing extra work during the next patch. They'd be teaching the computer so to speak.
Companies compete on performance as they open up the possibility of people to do their own work and actually own software without putting the company at a risk of losing its edge.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
He says "people would be willing to pay, for lack of a better term, for an end-to-end solution" and follows that by "you have to get a server version from some company, a desktop from somebody else, and utilities from a few other people".
He misses the fact that has his company, along with RedHat, Suse, Mandrake etc, address that with packaged Linux distributions. He sees his companies Linux sojourns as 'Ohh, let's jump on this Linux bandwagon, I heard Dvorak say something about it, it must be good or something.'
And he can't see that by being able to get server from one company and utilities from the other company is a Good ThingTM because it means that you can pick and choose to end up with the best possible combination, rather than one-size-fits-all solutions (or 'you can have any colour as along as it's black and from next year dark blue') from certain companies.
He/his company got burnt by the Linux because of their bad approach ('let's assimilate everything Linux') and now he thinks that Linux is evil. Kind of like companies that ended up with shody web designers and crappy websites and when no one visitied thought 'ohh, look at all the money i spent and got nothing - Internet must be just a scam.'
Pittyfull...
-----
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
WinNT/2000, Netware, Linux, [your favorite OS here], etc all have their strengths and weaknesses. Linux (and all other unix-style systems) make excellent web servers. Netware excells at file and printer serving. NT/2000 offers some of the best office groupware. You won't find me using Linux blindly when an NT server would work better.
Besides, I'm a cynic by nature. It's practically instinctive for me to criticize, whether it be Microsoft, RedHat, Gnome, KDE, IBM, the Canadian federal government, or whatever pisses me off today.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Mr Derek Burney, if you are reading this I strongly encourage you to read the Cathedral and the bazar book. It clarifies what open source is. It seams to me that you dont fully grasp the subject of ownership and IP in an opensource world.
Derek Burney says:
Wrong! I have complete control over my intellectual property in the open source software that I have written. With that control I have chosen to allow other to use it as they see fit. That makes me much happier than a few dollars.
I have no control over the closed source stuff I write to pay the bills. My employer controls that. They use that control to restrict the freedom of the purchasers of that software.
I think what Derek Burney actually means is that open source software removes his ability to extort money from his user base.
And what's up with the Microsoft ass kissing? I guess someone thinks you can't beat them, join them. And then give an interview pretending that they are joining you. Way to go Corel! You've earned my contempt.
I think you make some interesting and accurate points. But I saw something last week that would have convinced me in the utter ubiquity of the Internet, if I hadn't been already.
The new Pennsylvania license plates advertise the state's website (www.state.pa.us). License plates!
If they're putting URLs on license plates now, I have to believe that most people know how to venture beyond the confines of AOL.
It's great, the guys in accounting are gonna recalculate the new salaries for everybody in the business after the new year and any moron on the network with a packet sniffer will be able to intercept the data. Are they at least gonna encrypt it? Why can't the client just check the server for formulas and get the ones he needs? Do you really want to send you confidential data to a microsoft server to be processed. I think not.
The IBM folks I talk to all deny that they are headed that direction. They are committed to running some form of Linux on all platforms (different distros for different platforms) and porting Linux libraries to AIX (which they've been doing) so that anything Linuxy will run on AIX too.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Actually, I think Bill got this one mostly right, just that MSN didn't turn out to be the proprietary online service of choice - AOL did.
AOL has by far more subscribers than any other online service, and the vast majority of those people are not accessing the "Internet", but are instead using it for AOL E-mail, AOL Instant Messaging, AOL chat rooms, AOL shopping and AOL bulletin boards. Sure, the underlying backbone of this is the Internet, but the entire experience is wrapped in a nice, proprietary front end essentially design to keep you in AOL's area of cyberspace.
I think the AOL-Time Warner merger serves to underscore this. I don't think anyone (not even Bill ;-) could have imagined that an online service would eventually be big enough to purchase one of the largest media companies in the world. If you don't think there are millions of people who equate the terms AOL and Internet now, just wait...
Sommelier
First of all , I have to point out that some of you got the entire .NET thing all wrong.The spreadsheet example isn't like .NET as it exists now, but it is exactly like the Sun and ASP (Application Service Provider) thing.Sun wants thin clients everywhere (It has already claimed that the PC 'is ridiculous) and all the serious number-crunching running on ('f course) Sun's big fat expensive servers. It's quite the same thing with ASP, with big companies giving you access to their apps through the Internet after paying for rental.
.NET isn't all like that.If you want to know more about what .NET is all about, visit Microsoft's site or any other .NET dedicated site. The concepts behind it really are bright and may mark a new era of communication (XML of course being the base of it all), but that depends on Microsoft. The current state of the Internet and the amount of technologies coming and going at the speed of light have confused not-so-poor Bill's megacorp. On the one hand, they want their (quite nice I have to say) .NET way to work. From the other hand, they're scared to death by the ASP model and the possibility that it may succeed (leaving them behind like the time they tried to ignore the Internet).So they are trying to do both in a way. So, don't worry, the fog will clear out soon enough and we will see who won.
.NET to Linux), and do it right. Otherwise, Corel dies,Microsoft loses money, Linux & Windows stay separate for ever (since neither of them will die away in the next few years), and .NET is doomed to be a Windows Only Thing. Which is , of course, er, bad.
Both concepts scare me to death. What if these huge servers stop working( Think:'Excel is down- Try running it later').Surely, they want us to think that they simply won't. Read Murphy's Law aloud and repeat that statement if you dare. And do you really feel safe knowing that you can't work off-line(or even access your data, which will be held on their servers too)
Microsoft's
Anyway, back to Corel. For those of you who haven't noticed, this is their last chance before they go 'poof',since they screwed up one time too many. I really hope they manage to do what we want them to do( that is, bring
Oh, and that 'open source' definition by that Corel chap, isn't that an oxymoron? Oh, well.
There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
In addition, I think that people need to realize that ALL LINUX COMPANIES ARE NICHE MARKET COMPANIES and plan accordingly. Even if Linux becomes _the_ operating system, the above statement will still be true. This is because as long as there is a RedHat, there will be a CheapBytes selling RedHat for $2. This isn't a problem, as long as both companies realize they are in different niches. I think RedHat understands this quite well. I think that any free software company must realize the first fact before they can do anything else. This is where most people blew it.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Hmm... So suppose that a company that makes servers and, say, also manufactures their version of UNIX. By switching to Linux, opening up their proprietary technologies, and cutting the amount of development work while leveraginb other OSS projects, they can increase the quality of their servers while decreasing the cost, thus undercutting their competition. I suspect that IBM is moving in this direction. It is a business decision which is very sensible and avoids every problem that Burney raises.
It sounds to that your described scenario isn't making money off a linux distribution, but off of the reduced cost by using linux instead of aa more expensive OS with their hardware.
I think the author of the original question was asking how you can make money directly from a linux distribution, or indirectly with services relating to it. You scenario describes using linux as a less costly replacement for one component of the computer system. That's apples and oranges.
Or were you suggesting that the hardware in this case would be the value added to the linux distro?
If M$ uses Internet-based piracy protection (connect to some server to verify a license) for example, what would happen to those companies that don't use and DON'T NEED (even if Mr. Gates says everybody needs and blah blah blah) the Internet?
-
-----------------------------------------------
You think Bill Gates is evil?
This is *way* too late to get modded up, but such is life. I'm going to say what I've got to say, ignoring the fact that it's already been said here before ;)
:) However, to get work accomplished often takes longer, and involves more convoluted steps(that is to say, it's not particularily logical). I'd give Windows a 4 on ease-of-use, 3 on ease-of-maintenance, and 9 on ease-of-learning.
:)
In the interview, Mr. Burney said that at the time Corel Linux was being designed, there were no easy to use Linux distributions available.
WRONG. Oh, so WRONG.
Let's try to understand each other here, and seperate a few things:
Ease of use: The ability to easily get work done. If you can get more work done in less time, it's "easy to use".
Ease of learning: How long it takes you to start being productive. If you can sit down at a computer and immediately start writing a spreadsheet, it's "easy to learn".
Ease of maintenance: How easy it is to keep your system running. If you have to re-install all your software once a year to keep stuff running, it's *not* "easy to maintain.
Now, Linux in general is *very* difficult to learn. However, once learned, it's laughably easy to use. Easy-to-access scripting, pipes, the reliance on text-format data all makes Linux easy to use, if difficult to learn. I'd say on a score of 1-10, Linux has about 7 on ease-of-use, 2 on ease-of-learning, and 8 on ease-of-maintenance.
Windows, on the other hand is generally easy to learn. Hell, there's not much to learn in the first place
But Linux is *still* easier to use
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Now, you go off spouting that he missed the point that "it's about Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Beer". I think it is *you* who missed the author's point.
While I agree that one of the primary goals of OSS is to be Free (as in Freedom), that was not what the author was getting at. Corel was a company with a mandate to make money, as most corporations try to do. Obviously not enough people wanted to pay for freedom, so the freedom concept of Linux wasn't profitable -- not to mention the respect of the Linux concepts as pertaining to Corel. Corel didn't make the money they wanted to, so, they dropped it.
Corel is not a non-profit organization.
Corel, and Microsoft, and lots of other companies see this large majority as the goal, the target to be acquired. Why spend 90% of your resources to satisfy one percent of the audience? It doesn't make logical sense. Instead, they spend 100% of their resources to satisfy 90% of audience. Commerically successfuly OS's like Windows are popular and profitable not because they are the best, but because its good enough. Most people dont care that a better, cheaper product is available. Whats more, most people don't care that a more free, more elegant, and more interoperable product is available.
Generally this is true, however one area where this isn't is one area where Linux has really taken off, that this the server market. In this market the one-half of one percent control the majority of the spending power, and thing like source code, elegant design, customization, ability to run on out of the ordinary hardware, and interoperability are some of the most important features of an operating system.
The Economics of Website Security
Im thinking about moving to canada before Osamma gets a nuke, a breifcase and a one-way trip to DC/NYC..
I wouldn't move to Ottawa. Some guy who used to work at CSIS (Canada's equivalent to the CIA) said that if a terrorist wanted to set an example for the US rather than bombing in the US, it would be better to nuke Ottawa since:
1. It is the Capitol of Canada.
2. Is less than an hour or so from the US border.
3. Would take out the US embassy in Canada (not like that would be a bad thing it isn't the prettiest looking building).
.NET's vision is of this world, left behind in the 80's, but with the users sending in their jobs and receiving the results via the net. Yet we're all sitting here with machines which could cope with the biggest projects of the batch-processing days, with so much processing power spare that SETI can run in the background without impacting our word-processing/payroll/spreadsheet activities. Why on earth would we want to send all our data back and forth across the net when we can process it in situ faster than the transport time for .NET???
.NET is the product of a seriously deranged mind, if looked at from a user's point of view. From a sales point of view, of course, it's great. One thing about the old way of doing things was the cost: everything cost you money, including (especially) your mistakes. The great thing with the desktop machine is that you've paid for it and so the only cost of processing is your time and MS don't get paid for that.
So here is the vision of the future: 1970's batch programming with pay-as-you-go processing all run from a machine on your desk which is easily capable for doing the actual work faster and for free.
Pretty pathetic really, isn't it?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It's so much like a could_better_than_java but wont be.
.net servers in clusters.
.net problem on microsofts side, your going to be waiting along time for a patch, and getting a refund will probley be unheard of.
.net implementation in any large number of linux systems(not just redhat)?
It seems to be that this is a semi good idea, but at the same time using something like photoshop on a localcomputer is slow enough. He said that the numbers will go back to the server to be crunched, that seems like a big waste of bandwidth as well as a good idea to learn about
It seems that this is all leaning tword the subscription based model, this is one step into the furture of that in my oppinion. I for one would never want to pay for this, its not like cable at all, becase I dont get charged a huge rate for having my tv on all day when I forget to turn it off. This seems like it would charge you when ever it can. See next comment for why I say that.
They seem to want to drain every penny from people, Why pay for 150 formulas, when you only use 5? I would say the big reason to do that is because I dont want people knowing that you use those five, that I shouldnt be charged for the features because everything has bugs, and if you pay for 5 formulas and 4 dont work because of a
It seems aparent that this is slowly turning us into a society uncapable of even_thinking_about software piracy.
Can we expect to see a
Wasnt there a story on slashdot in the recent past that talked about the software police, and about "so and so giving out their password even though its agaist the law"?
As home computer's get better and better, why would you want to use this at all? Why use a client server model when you could just use the app on your desktop?
I see no motivation to do this at all. Whats your take?
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
But from the beginning of the talks around .Net and other distributed systems (client server or multi tier over Internet), one big question never was answered: What about all those systems that aren't connectoed to the Internet????
There are lots of systems that are not connected to the Internet for safety reasons or simply becouse there is no need to. If everybody (read M$ and Linux) start working on these Internet-needing-programs, who will make programs for all those other systems?
When I say systems not connectod to the Internet I do not only mean nuclear powerplants but also my mothers recepie computer. (generalise yourself please :-)
I think there still is a very big market for product that come in a box of the shelf (including the "105-functions-from-which-I-only-use-5") that won't need Internet simply to work.
If I missed something (see first line of post) that nullyfies my objections please inform me!
120 chars is not enough!
little does he know how easy it is to track post times against packet-sniffer feeds. I heartilly recommend someone do this to him, post his IP address after every fuckwit comment, etc.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat forever.
That said, forget having someone do it, where can I learn to do that?
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
He's not suggesting we go to closed source. He's noting a weakness in current open-source software IN ITSELF.
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.