Maybe it's been too long since I worked for a defense contractor where your briefcase was searching going into as well as out of the facility... but I don't see the problem. The company has trade secrets, etc., that it has to protect. Heck, the company I work for now used to have a policy where anyone bringing a camera on the premises could be fired.
If this were happening while entering or leaving a public place, that's a different story.
Because if they agreed to this law, then they probably would have to agree that the government could be justified in stepping in at any time to tell them how to design their hardware and software products. Wouldn't do to appear two-faced now would it.
Of, course, the MPAA doesn't like the proposed law because it doesn't go far enough.
2.) These schools aren't going to be calculating the Nine Billion Names of God are they?
Microsoft worried about becoming like IBM?
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 2
Ha ha ha!
I believe that Microsoft is already worse than IBM when Big Blue was at the height of its power and arrogance. If Microsoft needs to worry about anything, it's ``How can we get ourselves out of the mess we're in?''. I can't see how they're going to fix their situation any time soon. Partly because they are run by a group of people who seem to be megalomaniacs and their company's size prevents them from seeing their actions as having any downside. And, unfortunately for them, they've gotten so big that it'll be pretty difficult to change directions quickly (corporate inertia?). IBM's direction took a heck of a long time to change and so will Microsoft's. Normal folks as well as most businesses will probably find it far easier to change than will MS. I think we're just beginning to see a backlash against Microsoft that is similar to that seen by IBM back in the mid-80s and, IMHO, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch. Wonder how long it'll take them to react.
``In addition, Netizens should express their dismay at spam by boycotting products advertised with spam.''
Dismay?! More like anger. Boycotting doesn't work. The fact that I haven't purchased any ``100% Legal Temple Kiff'' hasn't stopped the fscking emails from coming.
I left AOL years ago (seems like nearly a decade ago now). I even got a letter from Steve Case (which I'm just positive was personally written:-) ) wanting to know what they could do to get me to come back. Ha ha ha. A lot of people I know left AOL when they couldn't gain access for days at a time and never went back. It wasn't worth the hassle so many switched to smaller ISPs.
Sure, Microsoft, be just like AOL and experience the feeling of having your customers leave in droves. My prediction is that your new XP release will convince a lot of people that using Microsoft products just isn't worth the hassle.
...of my being able to access something easily, I'll find a way to live without it.
Just about everyone I know who was using the early generations of copy protected PC software stopped using it after a short time when it got too difficult to use. Soft bits, writing to special floppy tracks... all those schemes turned out to be a major pain in the butt. I had some software rendered unusable because I had a hardware failure that required replacing the floppy drive. Another time I found myself unable to move some software from one computer to another even though such an activity was allowed by going through a de-installation procedure which re-enabled the installation procedure on the distribution floppies. They never thought about the case where your hard disk crashes and you are unable to properly de-install the software.
I predict that no ``content provider'' will be offering anything so compelling that users will bend-over backwards, turn around three times, and buy special hardware in order to use some software, music, etc., etc. that's protected using any of the DRM schemes that I've heard about.
Going back to one example in the main post: If anyone attempts to charge us for looking at my watch, someone will invent the wrist sundial and people will buy it. Maybe the fact that no one's currently charging us for the time of day explains why we can't get it from vendors.:-)
... may not understand that GPS has pretty crappy accuracy when you're down in the middle of a downtown area surrounded by tall buildings. GPS signal availability (L-band requires direct SV-to-user line-of-sight) and severe multipath reception problems made it fairly useless in the downtown canyons. I remember tests done in city environments where the receiver could get fooled into providing a position solution that it was a considerable distance from its true location; all because of the reflected signals one finds in cities. Or did someone rewrite the laws of physics since I've been out of the GPS arena?
All this does is provide someone with a false sense of security that the police will know where you are when you call. I wonder how many times we'll hear about the police showing up on the wrong side of Central Park when responding to a mugging? Or that the call came from 1000 feet over the river, etc.?
``...This court orders the defendent to use -- daily -- the software that was bundled with the personal computer that they purchased and further orders that the defendent cease use of any software that may be freely obtained from the Internet...''
Methinks that software vendors need to GET REAL! At a company where I used to work several years ago, new PCs were routinely wiped and loaded with whatever software was actually needed for the task for which the PC was purchased. (Lord only knew what crud had been loaded and what horrors in the registry awaited the unsuspecting user.) Sometimes the PC was purchased to run Linux or Novell. Do they think that someone's would actually toss out the Windows CD that came with the box? Har har har.
``I've never seen someone lose their job because they said they were leaving...
Now if you work for a real jerk YMMV.''
I gave three weeks notice to leave a job some years ago figuring that that time would suffice to handle any transfer of responsibilities, knowledge, etc. I was asked to leave after only a couple of days. (But not really fired as they did pay me for the full time, though.) Either my improved spirits were demoralizing my coworkers or my plan on being in the office for the full three weeks just pissed off the president of the company. (My suspicion was that the latter was why I was asked to leave.) I was happy that they paid me for the time that I had intended to be in the office but it cost them even more in that I wasn't able to fully pass on everything that I needed to. And I felt bad about not being able to do that, too (man, you try to do the right thing...). At least I felt bad until I heard that people starting leaving in droves around six months later -- mainly due to other actions of the company president.
Be loyal to yourself and your family. You can bet that upper management doesn't think about how your going to fare at the end of the day. Heck, they probably don't even know you except as someone who drives one of the cars in the parking lot.
``Bill Landefeld, Microsoft's vice president of worldwide licensing and pricing, defended the changes. "I think customers have choice. They had choice before, and they have choice going forward."''
Does anyone else read this statement and think ``You customers have a choice: it's our way or the highway.''
And moving up (with a bullet) in the ranking of my major pet peeves: Not answering the question and/or responding with seemingly randomly selected sentances as exemplified by:
``"We would certainly want to know more about" any veiled threats, said Landefeld, who said such sales tactics would not be condoned. "If that is happening, what people need to understand is that administering software is very difficult, especially for large, multinational companies."''
I would like to know how the difficulty in managing software licenses in a company of any size has to do with Microsoft's sales channel threatening customers. Guess I'm just funny that way.
``A lot of business software for minis and mainframes would be licensed with different costs based on the power of the hardware running it.''
You make it sound like this is a thing of the past.
Oracle not too long ago ignited a firestorm of protests by introducing a license pricing plan that scaled according to the processor clock speed. (They might have dumped this plan, though, there was a great gnashing of teeth when it was announced.) I heard no justification from Oracle as to why my employer, having just shelled out $20K to doubled the speed of a pair of 4xCPU Alphaservers, should have to pay Oracle any more money because we're now executing their compiled code twice as fast. It would be like the power company coming after me for more money because I switch to florescent bulbs from incandescent because, now, I'm getting more lumens for the same (or lower) wattage. Silly? No more silly than Oracle reaching into our wallet to tax our hardware investment.
Anyway, I cringe every time I hear a vendor telling me that they need to know how many processors are in our servers and at what clock speed are they running. I can just imagine the ``corrected'' invoices rolling in...
``Would you accept more
government involvement in
your life if it meant more
security against terrorism?''
If one could be reasonably assured that that government involvement would actually be effective. It's been a long, long time since most people reacted to the phrase ``Hi. We're from the Government and we're here to help.'' with anything but derisive laughter.
From what I've been reading in the papers and hearing on the radio and TV, the government had been receiving intelligence that could have warned them of these attacks for some time (as long as years) and little-to-nothing was done. IMHO, new laws that further restrict citizens' freedoms and reduce privacy do nothing to offset the incompetence of the people who failed to act on the intelligence they had in their hands. If the reports of some listening posts receiving 2,000,000 messages per hour are correct -- heck, if it was 2M/day it'd still be an impressive amount -- how will collecting even more information eliminate the terrorist threat?
Oh if only you knew what you were talking about... I should know better than to respond to such an obvious piece of astroturf but here goes...
``Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.''
First of all, I don't know what part of the country you in but I've never seen salaries for people doing pure Linux that I'd call ``high'', except, maybe, when compared to some entry level IT salaries but then I suppose I haven't been looking as hard as you. I know I'd never be able to support a family too well on what I've seen offered.
Second, based on what do you make the claim that Linux requires lots of maintenance? I've seen Linux systems set up and not had any downtime required for maintenance. Of course, these were systems that weren't facing the
Internet. If you have Linux systems in your organization that have to undergo all this maintenance you should be looking deeper. You might have an idiot for an administrator or it may be that someone's trying to run Linux on a system
that should be in the dumpster. Faulty hardware would make any operating system look bad.
``Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.''
I guess I;ve been leading a particularly charmed life. I've been running Linux for at least six years (at home, somewhat shorter at work) and have never (read: number_of_times = 0) lost any files due to an improperly unmounted
ext2 filesystem. Having said that, however, I should point out that I am looking forward to ext3 since the elimination of having to run e2fsck following a power failure (need to get a UPS at home) will certainly be welcome.
``Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes
usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they
have frequent "hardware problems".''
Gee... It appears that you have a crappy Linux setup which crashes therefore all Linux system are prone to mysterious crashes. Go find out how surveys work before you try to extraplote from a single data point.
Your experience is certainly not my experience. (Hint: Supply a URL showing the credible data to back up your assertion if you want anyone to take you seriously.) As for cost, how do you account for all those people who report uptimes of months and months on their Linux systems? We are currently experiencing an outage of some Windows-based services here at work that have all the people in our Northern Illinois offices dependent on Windows sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Talk about cost... (I'm composing this
reply on a UNIX box, BTW.)
``The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages,
indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.''
Steep learning curve? Perhaps to some. Those who do not wish to learn will find a problem when encountering anything new. At least Linux's (and UNIX, in general) learning curve is worth the climb; something like Windows penalizes you for becoming proficient when it offers no way to perform simple tasks that don't require navigating a slew of menues. And, contrary to your assertion, learning Linux is not significantly different than learning other UNIX implementations. I found it quite easy to pick up AIX, HP/UX, and SVR4 after learning on Coherent and Linux was not any more difficult than any of these. There are slight differences but the same could have been said about HP/UX versus AIX versus BSD. You an old SunOS user still P.O.d about the SVR4 switch or something?
I find the tools on Linux to be top-notch. They may not be as ``pretty'' as those you find on, say, Windows. However, they get the job done and have equal if not better performance than I've encountered on other systems. What you don't like the messages you get from the software? The totally useless messages I see issued from Windows systems take the cake. Personally, if I were you I'd move to an IBM mainframe. I'm sure you'll find ``IHC240'' a lot more satisfying. BTW, my current favorite error message is: ``WARNING:
preposterous time in TOY clock -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!!'' (from Tru64 - hardly a rinky-dink operating system). If that's one of the more serious criticisms you have of Linux, well, get a life.
As for random data munging that you've been encountering under Linux? You really should have someone look at your hardware. (Oh, there I go blaming the hardware again.) You are aware that just because a given hardware configuration
works under a Windows desktop OS is no gaurantee that it'll necessarily run error-free under Linux? Or under a Windows server OS? (Yes, Redmond puts out a hardware compatibility list as well.)
``Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.''
Hmm... I'll have to tell those paranoid Oracle DBAs at work that they should stop considering Linux right now!
I've often used IETF documents (RFCs) to better understand Linux services. Odd that they appear to adhere to those standards quite nicely. This, of
course, is different than the way a commercial software producer, say Microsoft, adheres to standards. They write the quirky software, sell a whole bunch of it, and proclaim it a standard. (Then patent something in their proprietary
software and extort licensing fees from any vendor that has the gaul to attempt to interoperate with said software.)
Your ``cost-benefit analysis'' was nothing more than a lot of pissing and moaning about things that I suspect were not your direct experiences. If you feel that Linux is not an option for you, then don't use it. I doubt that there's a gun to your head. The rest of us will just go on watching our uptime get higher, and higher, and higher...
``TECO debs and rpms are made (if this has already happened, I don't want to know).''
Well not yet. But there are versions of TECO written in C. Any bets on whether I could get it to run under Linux in my copious spare time? Would RPMs by Christmas do?
``Somebody writes a kernel module to accept input (through serial I'd guess, not that I'm advocating this) from handmade front panel switches...''
This'd mean I could actually find something neat to do with the PDP/8 and 11/70 front panels I have down in the basement!
``Two words: PDP port. (tech sidenote: yeah yeah, I know)''
Sort of like getting back to one's roots, eh?
``Termcap gets an entry for "asr33".''
I've seen this already (on a SVR4.2 for the PC and, if memory serves, on Coherent) but not on a Linux box.
I'll bet that there's still quite a few EISA systems alive and kicking out there (maybe hidden behind some drywall:-) ).
I had one on the home network up until just last month. It was, alas, decommissioned it after ten years of service and replaced with a PIII/733. Originally, purchased with an Adaptec 1740 adapter (later switched to a 2740) and 420MB of disk space (later up to 12GB) to run Coherent and SVR4.2, it ran various flavors of Linux (mostly Slackware and RedHat) beginning in 1996. If it weren't for what appeared to be problems developing with the memory (hard to find that old stuff) it'd probably still be performing some useful function on the home network. (I haven't tossed it yet so there's still that possibility.)
It stopped meaning that much at least as far back as when you could drop in (what was it again?) an NEC processor in place of your 8088 and see a performance gain for some software because of the improvements in certain addressing modes in the NEC chip. That was back in '85 or so. And it was most likely true far earlier than that.
Why the heck has it started making a difference again?
``Good money decision, but really bad in the long run.
Aside from your misunderstanding of what constitutes an "education", exactly why is this bad in the long run?''
Great question! Every time I hear some goof talking about how children are supposed to learn ``the standard'', I wonder whether this is supposed to be a general education or is it supposed to be vocational training. And you never hear a decent argument about why teaching a vendor-specific product is the correct thing to be included in a school curriculum. Heck, when you hear any arguments at all that attempt to support it, they all boil down to ``we got a donation from the vendor'', blah, blah, blah.
What was that Isaac Asimov novella again? Oh, yes: ``Profession''. Should be required reading for any numbnuts that proposes teaching a vendor-specific technology in schools.
Years ago, on long drives, we'd sometimes be able to pick up distant radio stations in the crummy radio in our Dart. The record was a New Orleans station we picked up in central Indiana. Getting to hear Wolfman Jack (before his death) doing an oldies show [what else!] was better than the bad country or Bible-thumping you'd normally have to listen to.
``Austa (sic) Georgia, very authentic as they had a local news story about fishing someone out of a river who had been fitted with concrete shoes''
Rubes. Concrete shoes went out of fashion is big cities like Chicago and New York decades ago.:-)
To make it even more interesting, just pack your employees into The Cube. Just think how you can cut down on all those unproductive breaks that your employees take. They'll sure think twice if they know that could very well be julienned or incinerated on the way to their coworker's cube.
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Maybe it's been too long since I worked for a defense contractor where your briefcase was searching going into as well as out of the facility... but I don't see the problem. The company has trade secrets, etc., that it has to protect. Heck, the company I work for now used to have a policy where anyone bringing a camera on the premises could be fired.
If this were happening while entering or leaving a public place, that's a different story.
Because if they agreed to this law, then they probably would have to agree that the government could be justified in stepping in at any time to tell them how to design their hardware and software products. Wouldn't do to appear two-faced now would it.
Of, course, the MPAA doesn't like the proposed law because it doesn't go far enough.
1.) Aren't they concerned with EMI up in Nepal?
2.) These schools aren't going to be calculating the Nine Billion Names of God are they?
Ha ha ha!
I believe that Microsoft is already worse than IBM when Big Blue was at the height of its power and arrogance. If Microsoft needs to worry about anything, it's ``How can we get ourselves out of the mess we're in?''. I can't see how they're going to fix their situation any time soon. Partly because they are run by a group of people who seem to be megalomaniacs and their company's size prevents them from seeing their actions as having any downside. And, unfortunately for them, they've gotten so big that it'll be pretty difficult to change directions quickly (corporate inertia?). IBM's direction took a heck of a long time to change and so will Microsoft's. Normal folks as well as most businesses will probably find it far easier to change than will MS. I think we're just beginning to see a backlash against Microsoft that is similar to that seen by IBM back in the mid-80s and, IMHO, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch. Wonder how long it'll take them to react.
Dismay?! More like anger. Boycotting doesn't work. The fact that I haven't purchased any ``100% Legal Temple Kiff'' hasn't stopped the fscking emails from coming.
I left AOL years ago (seems like nearly a decade ago now). I even got a letter from Steve Case (which I'm just positive was personally written :-) ) wanting to know what they could do to get me to come back. Ha ha ha. A lot of people I know left AOL when they couldn't gain access for days at a time and never went back. It wasn't worth the hassle so many switched to smaller ISPs.
Sure, Microsoft, be just like AOL and experience the feeling of having your customers leave in droves. My prediction is that your new XP release will convince a lot of people that using Microsoft products just isn't worth the hassle.
...of my being able to access something easily, I'll find a way to live without it.
Just about everyone I know who was using the early generations of copy protected PC software stopped using it after a short time when it got too difficult to use. Soft bits, writing to special floppy tracks... all those schemes turned out to be a major pain in the butt. I had some software rendered unusable because I had a hardware failure that required replacing the floppy drive. Another time I found myself unable to move some software from one computer to another even though such an activity was allowed by going through a de-installation procedure which re-enabled the installation procedure on the distribution floppies. They never thought about the case where your hard disk crashes and you are unable to properly de-install the software.
I predict that no ``content provider'' will be offering anything so compelling that users will bend-over backwards, turn around three times, and buy special hardware in order to use some software, music, etc., etc. that's protected using any of the DRM schemes that I've heard about.
Going back to one example in the main post: If anyone attempts to charge us for looking at my watch, someone will invent the wrist sundial and people will buy it. Maybe the fact that no one's currently charging us for the time of day explains why we can't get it from vendors. :-)
... may not understand that GPS has pretty crappy accuracy when you're down in the middle of a downtown area surrounded by tall buildings. GPS signal availability (L-band requires direct SV-to-user line-of-sight) and severe multipath reception problems made it fairly useless in the downtown canyons. I remember tests done in city environments where the receiver could get fooled into providing a position solution that it was a considerable distance from its true location; all because of the reflected signals one finds in cities. Or did someone rewrite the laws of physics since I've been out of the GPS arena?
All this does is provide someone with a false sense of security that the police will know where you are when you call. I wonder how many times we'll hear about the police showing up on the wrong side of Central Park when responding to a mugging? Or that the call came from 1000 feet over the river, etc.?
... could pull it off you'd hear accounts like:
Methinks that software vendors need to GET REAL! At a company where I used to work several years ago, new PCs were routinely wiped and loaded with whatever software was actually needed for the task for which the PC was purchased. (Lord only knew what crud had been loaded and what horrors in the registry awaited the unsuspecting user.) Sometimes the PC was purchased to run Linux or Novell. Do they think that someone's would actually toss out the Windows CD that came with the box? Har har har.
I gave three weeks notice to leave a job some years ago figuring that that time would suffice to handle any transfer of responsibilities, knowledge, etc. I was asked to leave after only a couple of days. (But not really fired as they did pay me for the full time, though.) Either my improved spirits were demoralizing my coworkers or my plan on being in the office for the full three weeks just pissed off the president of the company. (My suspicion was that the latter was why I was asked to leave.) I was happy that they paid me for the time that I had intended to be in the office but it cost them even more in that I wasn't able to fully pass on everything that I needed to. And I felt bad about not being able to do that, too (man, you try to do the right thing...). At least I felt bad until I heard that people starting leaving in droves around six months later -- mainly due to other actions of the company president.
Be loyal to yourself and your family. You can bet that upper management doesn't think about how your going to fare at the end of the day. Heck, they probably don't even know you except as someone who drives one of the cars in the parking lot.
... of these guys is astounding:
Does anyone else read this statement and think ``You customers have a choice: it's our way or the highway.''
And moving up (with a bullet) in the ranking of my major pet peeves: Not answering the question and/or responding with seemingly randomly selected sentances as exemplified by:
I would like to know how the difficulty in managing software licenses in a company of any size has to do with Microsoft's sales channel threatening customers. Guess I'm just funny that way.
You make it sound like this is a thing of the past.
Oracle not too long ago ignited a firestorm of protests by introducing a license pricing plan that scaled according to the processor clock speed. (They might have dumped this plan, though, there was a great gnashing of teeth when it was announced.) I heard no justification from Oracle as to why my employer, having just shelled out $20K to doubled the speed of a pair of 4xCPU Alphaservers, should have to pay Oracle any more money because we're now executing their compiled code twice as fast. It would be like the power company coming after me for more money because I switch to florescent bulbs from incandescent because, now, I'm getting more lumens for the same (or lower) wattage. Silly? No more silly than Oracle reaching into our wallet to tax our hardware investment.
Anyway, I cringe every time I hear a vendor telling me that they need to know how many processors are in our servers and at what clock speed are they running. I can just imagine the ``corrected'' invoices rolling in...
God bless Microsoft for that, as that migration would surely be a sign that the End of Days were upon us.
If one could be reasonably assured that that government involvement would actually be effective. It's been a long, long time since most people reacted to the phrase ``Hi. We're from the Government and we're here to help.'' with anything but derisive laughter.
From what I've been reading in the papers and hearing on the radio and TV, the government had been receiving intelligence that could have warned them of these attacks for some time (as long as years) and little-to-nothing was done. IMHO, new laws that further restrict citizens' freedoms and reduce privacy do nothing to offset the incompetence of the people who failed to act on the intelligence they had in their hands. If the reports of some listening posts receiving 2,000,000 messages per hour are correct -- heck, if it was 2M/day it'd still be an impressive amount -- how will collecting even more information eliminate the terrorist threat?
Oh if only you knew what you were talking about... I should know better than to respond to such an obvious piece of astroturf but here goes...
First of all, I don't know what part of the country you in but I've never seen salaries for people doing pure Linux that I'd call ``high'', except, maybe, when compared to some entry level IT salaries but then I suppose I haven't been looking as hard as you. I know I'd never be able to support a family too well on what I've seen offered.
Second, based on what do you make the claim that Linux requires lots of maintenance? I've seen Linux systems set up and not had any downtime required for maintenance. Of course, these were systems that weren't facing the Internet. If you have Linux systems in your organization that have to undergo all this maintenance you should be looking deeper. You might have an idiot for an administrator or it may be that someone's trying to run Linux on a system that should be in the dumpster. Faulty hardware would make any operating system look bad.
I guess I;ve been leading a particularly charmed life. I've been running Linux for at least six years (at home, somewhat shorter at work) and have never (read: number_of_times = 0) lost any files due to an improperly unmounted ext2 filesystem. Having said that, however, I should point out that I am looking forward to ext3 since the elimination of having to run e2fsck following a power failure (need to get a UPS at home) will certainly be welcome.
Gee... It appears that you have a crappy Linux setup which crashes therefore all Linux system are prone to mysterious crashes. Go find out how surveys work before you try to extraplote from a single data point. Your experience is certainly not my experience. (Hint: Supply a URL showing the credible data to back up your assertion if you want anyone to take you seriously.) As for cost, how do you account for all those people who report uptimes of months and months on their Linux systems? We are currently experiencing an outage of some Windows-based services here at work that have all the people in our Northern Illinois offices dependent on Windows sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Talk about cost... (I'm composing this reply on a UNIX box, BTW.)
Steep learning curve? Perhaps to some. Those who do not wish to learn will find a problem when encountering anything new. At least Linux's (and UNIX, in general) learning curve is worth the climb; something like Windows penalizes you for becoming proficient when it offers no way to perform simple tasks that don't require navigating a slew of menues. And, contrary to your assertion, learning Linux is not significantly different than learning other UNIX implementations. I found it quite easy to pick up AIX, HP/UX, and SVR4 after learning on Coherent and Linux was not any more difficult than any of these. There are slight differences but the same could have been said about HP/UX versus AIX versus BSD. You an old SunOS user still P.O.d about the SVR4 switch or something?
I find the tools on Linux to be top-notch. They may not be as ``pretty'' as those you find on, say, Windows. However, they get the job done and have equal if not better performance than I've encountered on other systems. What you don't like the messages you get from the software? The totally useless messages I see issued from Windows systems take the cake. Personally, if I were you I'd move to an IBM mainframe. I'm sure you'll find ``IHC240'' a lot more satisfying. BTW, my current favorite error message is: ``WARNING: preposterous time in TOY clock -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!!'' (from Tru64 - hardly a rinky-dink operating system). If that's one of the more serious criticisms you have of Linux, well, get a life.
As for random data munging that you've been encountering under Linux? You really should have someone look at your hardware. (Oh, there I go blaming the hardware again.) You are aware that just because a given hardware configuration works under a Windows desktop OS is no gaurantee that it'll necessarily run error-free under Linux? Or under a Windows server OS? (Yes, Redmond puts out a hardware compatibility list as well.)
Hmm... I'll have to tell those paranoid Oracle DBAs at work that they should stop considering Linux right now!
I've often used IETF documents (RFCs) to better understand Linux services. Odd that they appear to adhere to those standards quite nicely. This, of course, is different than the way a commercial software producer, say Microsoft, adheres to standards. They write the quirky software, sell a whole bunch of it, and proclaim it a standard. (Then patent something in their proprietary software and extort licensing fees from any vendor that has the gaul to attempt to interoperate with said software.)
Your ``cost-benefit analysis'' was nothing more than a lot of pissing and moaning about things that I suspect were not your direct experiences. If you feel that Linux is not an option for you, then don't use it. I doubt that there's a gun to your head. The rest of us will just go on watching our uptime get higher, and higher, and higher...
``TECO debs and rpms are made (if this has already happened, I don't want to know).''
Well not yet. But there are versions of TECO written in C. Any bets on whether I could get it to run under Linux in my copious spare time? Would RPMs by Christmas do?
``Somebody writes a kernel module to accept input (through serial I'd guess, not that I'm advocating this) from handmade front panel switches...''
This'd mean I could actually find something neat to do with the PDP/8 and 11/70 front panels I have down in the basement!
``Two words: PDP port. (tech sidenote: yeah yeah, I know)''
Sort of like getting back to one's roots, eh?
``Termcap gets an entry for "asr33".''
I've seen this already (on a SVR4.2 for the PC and, if memory serves, on Coherent) but not on a Linux box.
``The man page for ed(1) gets updated.''
You mean people are still making tweaks to ed?
Well I certainly hope this doesn't mean that PostgreSQL is in any danger. It's a great piece of code.
Anyone know how many, if any, of the development team were employed by Great Bridge?
I'll bet that there's still quite a few EISA systems alive and kicking out there (maybe hidden behind some drywall :-) ).
I had one on the home network up until just last month. It was, alas, decommissioned it after ten years of service and replaced with a PIII/733. Originally, purchased with an Adaptec 1740 adapter (later switched to a 2740) and 420MB of disk space (later up to 12GB) to run Coherent and SVR4.2, it ran various flavors of Linux (mostly Slackware and RedHat) beginning in 1996. If it weren't for what appeared to be problems developing with the memory (hard to find that old stuff) it'd probably still be performing some useful function on the home network. (I haven't tossed it yet so there's still that possibility.)
Cheers...
It stopped meaning that much at least as far back as when you could drop in (what was it again?) an NEC processor in place of your 8088 and see a performance gain for some software because of the improvements in certain addressing modes in the NEC chip. That was back in '85 or so. And it was most likely true far earlier than that.
Why the heck has it started making a difference again?
...to pull another one of these fake grasroots support stunts when you've been found out before?
Just another one for the ``Help Me! I still have four bullets and I'm all out of feet'' folder.
Oh, I don't know. I can still picture Chevy Chase on SNL doing the ``Generalissimo Franco is still dead.'' bit.
Great question! Every time I hear some goof talking about how children are supposed to learn ``the standard'', I wonder whether this is supposed to be a general education or is it supposed to be vocational training. And you never hear a decent argument about why teaching a vendor-specific product is the correct thing to be included in a school curriculum. Heck, when you hear any arguments at all that attempt to support it, they all boil down to ``we got a donation from the vendor'', blah, blah, blah.
What was that Isaac Asimov novella again? Oh, yes: ``Profession''. Should be required reading for any numbnuts that proposes teaching a vendor-specific technology in schools.
Years ago, on long drives, we'd sometimes be able to pick up distant radio stations in the crummy radio in our Dart. The record was a New Orleans station we picked up in central Indiana. Getting to hear Wolfman Jack (before his death) doing an oldies show [what else!] was better than the bad country or Bible-thumping you'd normally have to listen to.
Rubes. Concrete shoes went out of fashion is big cities like Chicago and New York decades ago. :-)
To make it even more interesting, just pack your employees into The Cube. Just think how you can cut down on all those unproductive breaks that your employees take. They'll sure think twice if they know that could very well be julienned or incinerated on the way to their coworker's cube.
Haven't you heard? Fair Use is dead.