Since the GPL allows you to charge for the cost of distributing the code, why not make money at it? Note FSF did the same thing; although they've gone to public downloads now, they used to charge (IIRC) $75 for an emacs tape, or $150 for the gcc source.
So start with the cost of a blank DVD ($1); add the cost of shipping ($5 or so for USPS Priority Mail); and then your time, including the time it takes to burn the DVD, to pack it, and to go down to the post office and mail it; say 1.5 hours@$30/hour. ($100/hour if you're a consultant.)
The source code is free, you have to provide it to anyone who asks for it; but it isn't free, you don't have to pay to give it away.
billg, per the article: "we do know their slogan and we disagree with that." If the great software maker can't or won't specify any better than that what he disagrees with, we have to go look for it.
Would you prefer "We don't believe in pop-up ads"? or are you arguing that neither google nor billg are going to give people tools to let them organize the world's information?
There wasn't anything in the article that really sounded that impressive. Martin Black (and Ball Black, and a goodly number of other light baffle coatings) have been below 1% reflectance for decades, from 0 to 180 degree angle of incidence and exitance. Look carefully at the claim -- "at some angles." OK, the distribution functions aren't flat -- but it sounds like they snookered the reporter into writing an article about the best point on the curve.
If you're running 24x7, and your company is financially viable, that means about 8-10 windows servers per admin. Because if you're running 24x7, you'll need 3 shifts 5 days a week and 2-3 on weekends and holidays.
Cisco's annual report, while the stock dropped some 90% from its peak, noted with pride that the company had increased the number of VPs and upper management by a half this year. Ain't it great? Now we can manage the stock, er, company.
Maybe its time for someone to start developing a OSS competitor to BitKeeper (without using BitKeeper of course!)
Nobody will; Why? Nobody has really tried so far- even RMS is too stubborn to ask "Well, what is it that bitkeeper does that (cvs|subversion|arch|pcrs) doesn't do?", and then gone off and tried to implement it- in fact, this is what all of bitkeeper's advocates, including it's creator, Larry McVoy, and Linus Torvalds have been saying all this time. "Make me something better, and we'll use it.". Yet, everyone is very willing to complain, and just ignore when $KERNEL_DEVELOPER_USING_BK says "$FEATURE is something i use every day with BK, and isn't in any of the OSS source management tools."
Since I don't follow the kernel mailing lists, has anyone compiled a list of features Linus and the other developers want? From what I've read, it sounds like Linus glanced cursorily at a few other source control systems, and then pounced on BK. (Maybe Larry bought him a beer at the right time, or maybe the planets were aligned correctly the night he tried it out.) But I haven't seen a list of what the kernel developers want in the product. And the only comment I've read about why Linus didn't use one of the free source control systems basically said they didn't give him the warm fuzzies.
Unless somebody can put together a comprehensive list of what features they want or use, the rest of us will just keep wondering: why can't Linus use CVS, for instance, when other projects apparently can use it? Looking at the largest downloads I have, gcc, gdb, and xemacs have similar sizes, but they don't use BK. Why? and why can't the kernel developers?
What too many Americans don't realize is exactly what is being pursued under the "small government" rubric. Are the number of civil servants going down or remaining flat? Yes. Is total government spending going down? No. Where's the difference?
What's called "private sector" is all too often government contractors. We, your government contractors, aren't bound by all the government's rules, restrictions, or protections. We can be laid off or fired relatively easily. We can use private databases to watch you. You can't see us, because we're private. But we can contribute to PACs, to keep the money flowing to political campaigns. We call it "access" and as a result your elected officials pay more attention to our lobbyists than they do to you.
As one of my previous bosses put it, "Our company has no problems that cannot be solved by more growth."
Let's see, I'm going to spend 5 digits up to protect way upwards of 7 digits in information. Therefore I should insert the CD, click the mouse, and that's all the expertise I need.
So how come alarm companies exist? According to this logic, everyone should send a co-op to Home Depot and have them install the company alarm system. Maybe it'll take a day.
Where have I seen this attitude before? Oh yeah, the guys who turned on their new computer, plugged it in, and called it their web server. The ones that scan my boxes' port 80. The ones that are owned by Code Red, Nimda, and Klez. The "network administrators" with an MSCX certificate on the wall. The Windoze users.
You want it in your lifetime? Who's going to certify it? Better yet, who's going to pay to have it certified? Unless you want to explain, in court, to arrogant, hostile morons, why an OSS product meets the standards, you have to have somebody else state that it does. That costs money. One way or another, you're going to have to pay.
Why in court? Because at some point, somebody can claim that you failed to exercise "due diligence" for something -- somebody else's proprietary secrets, personal information, or your own insider information. That's why people pay for certification -- they can point to somebody else, whom they paid to tell them it was "good."
Re: "a version that broke existing functionality." FWIW, I was worried whtn Theo threw out his gentle hints (or was that a stinkbomb?) yesterday and tried to upgrade my systems to openssh 3.3. Fortunately, I tested it on one system before broadly deploying it. 3.3 was broke. Neither ssh nor sshd would interoperate with anything else. 3.4 seems to be working, with some (relatively minor) nits.
But after seeing the easy patch (ChallengeResponseAuthentication no in the sshd_config file and restart sshd), I wonder where I can contribute to the "get Theo's attention" fund.
$60BN huh? How did they arrive at this figure? Travel to an alternate dimension where all software works perfectly and compare company's pocketbooks?
Naw, this comes from the same people who estimate the cost of hacker break-ins. You know, the ones who decide that since someone accessed an electronic copy of a $25 book, it cost the company $6 million.
Back when I bought my first VCR, Circuit City was the low-cost vendor for the things; you could buy on for $300-400 from CC, or go to an electronics boutique and spend $1,000 or more.
That's changed, obviously. Walmart sells them for under $100. That's probably what has driven CC out of the business. As long as you can buy a VCR at one of these discounters, or even a grocery store or pharmacy, it just doesn't make any difference. Now when they start carrying DVD, or dropping VCRs, watch out!
You make a good point; a lot does depend on what your sim does. Interestingly enough, ours depend fairly heavily on floating-point calculations. Unlike some other sims I know of, there are a fair number of branches and conditionals. Looking at the code, I've always thought the floating-point had to be driving execution speed. But between the matrix and vector manipulations, I guess there's enough checks to slow it down.
Of course, there's always the other possibility, that we lose lots of speed by not using the right compiler (tuned for things like SPECmarks).
It's part of OBSD. You have to crank through a kernel mod to use it. And it's still "highly portable?" Sure, and command line Linux is "user friendly" and Winblows is "highly secure."
Gee, tell that to the simulation folks I work with! We've got a good half-dozen recent-vintage Linux servers also in use as desktops. At least once a week someone comes by to ask why my machine is running so slow. The answer is that I have a genuine Intel 2GHz processor. The "1.7+" and even "1.6+" AMD machines kick my Intel's butt. These AMDs have clock speeds at least 25% slower than my Intel's, but their throughput is 20-40% better. I never really believed in "clock equivalence" bullshit before, but I do now!
Maybe it would have hit its target without that bug. But the OP's point, I think, is that that Scud would have been the first one intercepted by a Patriot. Unfortunately, it seems there's a lot more than blind luck required to hit a bullet with a bullet. Why weaken the list, and the impact of the "fix your bugs" message, with this highly questionable item?
Front page for an eight month old essay? Seems like we hashed this over, like, maybe, last August? What's next -- New stable fork, Linux 2.4 kernel? Or maybe perl 5.0 finally out? Maybe gcc 2.8?
Don't sign up the (stoopid luser of a) judge that ruled spam faxers have a constitutional right to use your connection, equipment, paper and toner. No, he's already stuck his foot in it, and he won't change his mind.
Instead, sign up all the judges on the appeals court that will hear the appeal, and fax them your junk e-mails, etc. They're the ones who will decide next. If they can't get any useful faxes (like submissions from Fax.com), maybe they'll see reason.
(flame) Lusers named Limbaugh are a hopeless case.(/flame)
Precisely. You take a money-making outfit (@home) and buy out a money-losing outfit (Excite). If you buy enough money-losing outfits, you can lose more money than all your profitable activities generate.
While I don't doubt that this will provide entertainment^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heducation for an entire generation of MBAs, I don't think it's beyond the grasp of the average beginning accounting student. Or, for that matter, someone who has never had accounting but understands a balance sheet and cash flow.
FWIW, it appears Comcast has decided to provide a giganews account for its subscribers. You have to "activate" the account, and it has a 1 Gb/month limit. So maybe I won't be in such a hurry to switch to another cable/ISP company...
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Since the GPL allows you to charge for the cost of distributing the code, why not make money at it? Note FSF did the same thing; although they've gone to public downloads now, they used to charge (IIRC) $75 for an emacs tape, or $150 for the gcc source.
So start with the cost of a blank DVD ($1); add the cost of shipping ($5 or so for USPS Priority Mail); and then your time, including the time it takes to burn the DVD, to pack it, and to go down to the post office and mail it; say 1.5 hours@$30/hour. ($100/hour if you're a consultant.)
The source code is free, you have to provide it to anyone who asks for it; but it isn't free, you don't have to pay to give it away.
billg, per the article: "we do know their slogan and we disagree with that." If the great software maker can't or won't specify any better than that what he disagrees with, we have to go look for it.
Would you prefer "We don't believe in pop-up ads"? or are you arguing that neither google nor billg are going to give people tools to let them organize the world's information?
There wasn't anything in the article that really sounded that impressive. Martin Black (and Ball Black, and a goodly number of other light baffle coatings) have been below 1% reflectance for decades, from 0 to 180 degree angle of incidence and exitance. Look carefully at the claim -- "at some angles." OK, the distribution functions aren't flat -- but it sounds like they snookered the reporter into writing an article about the best point on the curve.
If you're running 24x7, and your company is financially viable, that means about 8-10 windows servers per admin. Because if you're running 24x7, you'll need 3 shifts 5 days a week and 2-3 on weekends and holidays.
Cisco's annual report, while the stock dropped some 90% from its peak, noted with pride that the company had increased the number of VPs and upper management by a half this year. Ain't it great? Now we can manage the stock, er, company.
Nobody will; Why? Nobody has really tried so far- even RMS is too stubborn to ask "Well, what is it that bitkeeper does that (cvs|subversion|arch|pcrs) doesn't do?", and then gone off and tried to implement it- in fact, this is what all of bitkeeper's advocates, including it's creator, Larry McVoy, and Linus Torvalds have been saying all this time. "Make me something better, and we'll use it.". Yet, everyone is very willing to complain, and just ignore when $KERNEL_DEVELOPER_USING_BK says "$FEATURE is something i use every day with BK, and isn't in any of the OSS source management tools."
Since I don't follow the kernel mailing lists, has anyone compiled a list of features Linus and the other developers want? From what I've read, it sounds like Linus glanced cursorily at a few other source control systems, and then pounced on BK. (Maybe Larry bought him a beer at the right time, or maybe the planets were aligned correctly the night he tried it out.) But I haven't seen a list of what the kernel developers want in the product. And the only comment I've read about why Linus didn't use one of the free source control systems basically said they didn't give him the warm fuzzies.
Unless somebody can put together a comprehensive list of what features they want or use, the rest of us will just keep wondering: why can't Linus use CVS, for instance, when other projects apparently can use it? Looking at the largest downloads I have, gcc, gdb, and xemacs have similar sizes, but they don't use BK. Why? and why can't the kernel developers?
What too many Americans don't realize is exactly what is being pursued under the "small government" rubric. Are the number of civil servants going down or remaining flat? Yes. Is total government spending going down? No. Where's the difference?
What's called "private sector" is all too often government contractors. We, your government contractors, aren't bound by all the government's rules, restrictions, or protections. We can be laid off or fired relatively easily. We can use private databases to watch you. You can't see us, because we're private. But we can contribute to PACs, to keep the money flowing to political campaigns. We call it "access" and as a result your elected officials pay more attention to our lobbyists than they do to you.
As one of my previous bosses put it, "Our company has no problems that cannot be solved by more growth."
How much memory does it take to run KDE nowadays? It seems to be keeping pace with Winblows (NTM) as a prime example of bloatware.
Let's see, I'm going to spend 5 digits up to protect way upwards of 7 digits in information. Therefore I should insert the CD, click the mouse, and that's all the expertise I need.
So how come alarm companies exist? According to this logic, everyone should send a co-op to Home Depot and have them install the company alarm system. Maybe it'll take a day.
Where have I seen this attitude before? Oh yeah, the guys who turned on their new computer, plugged it in, and called it their web server. The ones that scan my boxes' port 80. The ones that are owned by Code Red, Nimda, and Klez. The "network administrators" with an MSCX certificate on the wall. The Windoze users.
Funnily enough, when I used XP's auto-update feature this morning (6/28), it didn't give me an option for either update.
You want it in your lifetime? Who's going to certify it? Better yet, who's going to pay to have it certified? Unless you want to explain, in court, to arrogant, hostile morons, why an OSS product meets the standards, you have to have somebody else state that it does. That costs money. One way or another, you're going to have to pay.
Why in court? Because at some point, somebody can claim that you failed to exercise "due diligence" for something -- somebody else's proprietary secrets, personal information, or your own insider information. That's why people pay for certification -- they can point to somebody else, whom they paid to tell them it was "good."
So I'm a thief because I use Junkbuster?
Are you closely related to Ted Turner and the rest of the Time-Warner-AOHell crew?
Does this mean gnome-panel won't crash on half the machines it's installed on any more?
I'm just about ready to leave Redhat over this one. If only KDE weren't such a memory hawg.
Re: "a version that broke existing functionality." FWIW, I was worried whtn Theo threw out his gentle hints (or was that a stinkbomb?) yesterday and tried to upgrade my systems to openssh 3.3. Fortunately, I tested it on one system before broadly deploying it. 3.3 was broke. Neither ssh nor sshd would interoperate with anything else. 3.4 seems to be working, with some (relatively minor) nits.
But after seeing the easy patch (ChallengeResponseAuthentication no in the sshd_config file and restart sshd), I wonder where I can contribute to the "get Theo's attention" fund.
Naw, this comes from the same people who estimate the cost of hacker break-ins. You know, the ones who decide that since someone accessed an electronic copy of a $25 book, it cost the company $6 million.
Back when I bought my first VCR, Circuit City was the low-cost vendor for the things; you could buy on for $300-400 from CC, or go to an electronics boutique and spend $1,000 or more.
That's changed, obviously. Walmart sells them for under $100. That's probably what has driven CC out of the business. As long as you can buy a VCR at one of these discounters, or even a grocery store or pharmacy, it just doesn't make any difference. Now when they start carrying DVD, or dropping VCRs, watch out!
Of course, there's always the other possibility, that we lose lots of speed by not using the right compiler (tuned for things like SPECmarks).
It's part of OBSD. You have to crank through a kernel mod to use it. And it's still "highly portable?" Sure, and command line Linux is "user friendly" and Winblows is "highly secure."
That's what the Microsloth world calls "upgrading" anyhow!
Gee, tell that to the simulation folks I work with! We've got a good half-dozen recent-vintage Linux servers also in use as desktops. At least once a week someone comes by to ask why my machine is running so slow. The answer is that I have a genuine Intel 2GHz processor. The "1.7+" and even "1.6+" AMD machines kick my Intel's butt. These AMDs have clock speeds at least 25% slower than my Intel's, but their throughput is 20-40% better. I never really believed in "clock equivalence" bullshit before, but I do now!
Maybe it would have hit its target without that bug. But the OP's point, I think, is that that Scud would have been the first one intercepted by a Patriot. Unfortunately, it seems there's a lot more than blind luck required to hit a bullet with a bullet. Why weaken the list, and the impact of the "fix your bugs" message, with this highly questionable item?
Front page for an eight month old essay? Seems like we hashed this over, like, maybe, last August? What's next -- New stable fork, Linux 2.4 kernel? Or maybe perl 5.0 finally out? Maybe gcc 2.8?
Don't sign up the (stoopid luser of a) judge that ruled spam faxers have a constitutional right to use your connection, equipment, paper and toner. No, he's already stuck his foot in it, and he won't change his mind.
Instead, sign up all the judges on the appeals court that will hear the appeal, and fax them your junk e-mails, etc. They're the ones who will decide next. If they can't get any useful faxes (like submissions from Fax.com), maybe they'll see reason.
(flame) Lusers named Limbaugh are a hopeless case.(/flame)
Precisely. You take a money-making outfit (@home) and buy out a money-losing outfit (Excite). If you buy enough money-losing outfits, you can lose more money than all your profitable activities generate.
While I don't doubt that this will provide entertainment^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heducation for an entire generation of MBAs, I don't think it's beyond the grasp of the average beginning accounting student. Or, for that matter, someone who has never had accounting but understands a balance sheet and cash flow.
FWIW, it appears Comcast has decided to provide a giganews account for its subscribers. You have to "activate" the account, and it has a 1 Gb/month limit. So maybe I won't be in such a hurry to switch to another cable/ISP company...