Re:Before the inevitable Stallman bashing starts .
on
RMS On 'Open' Motif
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· Score: 1
Except when you own the trademark, you also control the definition, and the way in which a term can be used. It's in the OSI's best interest to defend abuse of their trademark, or they will lose it.
Re:Encrypting one's hard drive
on
DeCSS Update
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· Score: 1
To insure a MY2000 Integra (value ~$24k) with full comprehensive($100 ded)/collision ($500 ded)/liability (500k limits!) in California (Bay Area, with its supposedly very high insurance rates) is $950/yr. Same params as you almost (25 yr old male, 0 accidents, 0 convictions, 0 DUI, no claims). The cars would be about the same value, I think (used Accord vs new Integra), and I have outrageously high limits and low deductibles.
I suggest maybe that your insurance company is not exactly doing right by you. FYI I use 21st century insurance, which I think only does california and AZ policies at the moment, but has (some) discounts for engineers, teachers, etc...:-)
I used to have state farm and it was at least 2x the cost (though I was also younger and probably more expensive to insure). Maybe that is what you are running into.
So I always wonder about the gas price problem when people yell about it. I think it's some sort of purely psychological thing:
I drive a small, sporty car (integra aka honda civic) like a f@#$%ing maniac, so I get about 22-24mpg, depending on city/fwy mix. I normally fill up 10-11/gal once/week to once/6 days. so let's take the worst case that I am buying 11 gal every 6 days to go 11*22=242 miles. That means I will go 242*365/6 = 14.2k miles/year. I think that is just slightly below average (15k/year?).
To do that I will need to buy 11/6*365=669 gallons of gas in a year. Since I need to buy 92-octane in the bay area I am paying about 2.05 at choose-any-chevron in mountain view (dead-center SV): 2.05 * 669 = $1372
If it was 1.75, 1.75 * 669 = $1170 (save $200/yr = 55 cents/day)
and if it was 1.45, 1.45 * 669 = $970 (save $400/yr = 1.10/day)
And at 2.05 I am certainly on the high end of gas prices (yes there are higher like sand hill road shell, and just-off-101 in SF, but those are location-related prices). And this is for 92 octane. 87 octane you everything will fall 20-30 cents/gal, so as a percentage the amount saved will be even smaller.
So, when you are making $70k (or more), can you honestly tell me that the ~1 dollar/day difference that it would make is "fucking absurd"? The only people that are being killed by the gas prices are the service-industry people who live here, for whom that $1/day is a big deal.
Ug. EDA is a tough nut to crack, and a hard industry to be profitable in. I deal with Cadence/Synopsys/Mentor all the time, and a bazillion startups. The startups are constantly rising and folding, but the big 3 never move.
What do you know, an article with actual facts in it. I have been wondering when people were going to catch on about the pincount aspect of this.
I am an ASIC (chipset) designer by trade and the only reason we ever looked at Rambus parts was because a high-pincount package (anything fancier than intel's 256/272-pin BGA or whatever the current BGA-du-jour is) costs a lot. Trying to get a ton of memory bandwidth using SDR or DDR SDRAM means using lots of pins, which in turn burn a lot of power and require a lot of additional power and ground pins to support them.
We ended up using SDR SDRAM for our parts but that was almost 24 months ago that a decision was made, and we were worried about constrained availability on C-RDRAM or D-RDRAM. Guess we were right about that one.
RDRAM is not the antichrist, everyone. It's just ridiculously expensive at the moment. So are 1GHz pentiums and SRAM-based disk drives, but no one complains about those facts. The price _will_ come down. Will DDR or QDR SDRAM already own the market by that point? Who knows. Just don't count out RDRAM, since the pincount requirements are a very important part of optimizing overall system costs.
"Really, how much of a difference will it make to use a full-clock cache on chip over, say, a half-clock cache off-chip?"
A huge difference. Most x86 chips are memory bandwidth starved, so faster L2-to-L1 fills are always a big deal. Remember how much better the ATC (advanced transfer cache) P3's were? All they did was widen the L2 (?) cache bus.
UltraSparcs wouldn't care as much since they have a nice very wide path to core memory (and cache), and I bet they have more load/store functional units (or hit-under-miss capability), so are less bottlenecked on memory accesses (get to know modern processor design!).
Agreed. I don't see the actual "fair use" claim in the letter from Slashdot to Microsoft either.
I was merely pointing out for those with their flamethrowers on ("Slashdot is CLEARLY in VIOLATION, take it down NOW", "Slashdot is such a bunch of hypocrites", etc) that there are definite defenses possible, and that a lot of these issues will get negotiated now -- before we even start talking about an actual lawsuit/court appearance.
Basically, nothing works in black and white. There are always exceptions and shadings of meanings, even in "The Law".
Two words for you: "Fair Use". Even copyrighted materials can be used in other contexts. The problem is the DMCA is an end-around fair use, which requires that the information be "trade secrets".
Microsoft made a point to use the DMCA as their lever for action -- the response is merely asking Microsoft to justify the applicability of the DMCA in this scenario.
If you are talking about the MSM (RSM, whatever), yeah probably. I got a little confused.
The MSFC/PFC is the daughtercard for the Sup module that should be directly connected to the backplane, using custom circuitry instead of the CPU-based RSP stuff.
What exactly do you think is different between a 6509/RSM and a 7206?
All 72xx use PCI backplanes/interfaces, max of around 1Gbps of throughput, and the VXR have some higher speed cpus to throw at your interfaces.
A 6509 has something like a 16Gb full-duplex (marketroid-speak == 32Gbit) backplane, with the RSM/PFC/MSFC/whatever sitting on a very fast bus, and processing the packets at L3/L4 with dedicated ASICs, as opposed to general purpose CPUs.
Which do you think will work under load better?
I am honestly curious to hear your technical reasoning for arguing against a 6509.
"If you legitimately are curious about actual network setups and why things like firewalls are necessary and aren't just trying to be an ignorant troll, I'd suggest you take some networking classes at your local university."
Do you know who Russ Nelson is??!! Ever hear of packet drivers? (www.crynwr.com) Russ has been doing network design/development since I have been on the net (circa 1992). I think he knows what he is doing, since his code sits in the linux kernel in various places, for crying out loud.
I went to their.com party in SF a month/two ago via a friend-of-a-friend. Seemed like pretty nice people (good m/f ratio too - that's what you get for biotech, I guess).
This article started off looking very promising. I really, really try to like your writing Jon, but the conclusions you come to, and the way you get to them remind me of my failed efforts to write college-level history papers. I didn't usually have a clear thesis, so I just pushed a bunch of ideas together and hoped the reader could sort them out. Usually the conclusions didn't follow, or weren't logically thought out.
The notion of corporatism is powerful. We experience it every day. Some aspects of it I embrace, others I detest. But WAVE and Napster are not good examples for your supporting argument (particularly Napster!). Don't weaken your original premise with current-events pandering. Use fresh examples, not re-hashes of what you have said before. Please!
I have a limited tolerance for bad writing. I've given your stuff a lot of chances, and I think maybe you are running out of those chances with me, which is just frustrating, because I can tell that you at least start with something you want to say.
5) Currently, they all come in black, however we can change the color to your liking, we will need either CMYK # or Pantone #. An extra fee of $400 U.S per unit will be added, unless your order is big, then we can discuss discount.
4) Depends on the number of units ordered, all the 18" line is ready to be shipped with a two weeks from day of order.
3) Single 18" has 1280 X 1024 resolution, if you meant aggregate resolution, then dual 18" will display 2560 X 1024 horizontal. For the triple 18", total aggregate resoultion will be 3840 X 1024
2) Dual 18" is $6,695.00 Triple 18" $9,995.00 Dual 15" is $2,995.00 (four weeks lead time) Triple 15" $4,895.00 (also four weeks lead time) ALL PRICES ARE IN U.S
1) If the sun graphics cards have VGA (2 X 15-pin D-sub for analog RGB) then it will work. You will need a dual video card or two separate video card.
That would be fine and all, but the problem here is that tickets.com was using ticketmaster's content as part of their business strategy.
(Good lord, I am defending ticketmaster. I think I am going to be sick!)
I kinda recall people being up in arms last year, or two years ago, about one of the "Learn Perl in 21 days" books that copied blatantly and heavily from the perl FAQ's, unattributed. That's because it's called plagiarism. Now, if the FAQ is under "Open Content Licensing", probably you would be OK if you at least attributed the source. But to take someone else's work and use it as your own, probably isn't OK.
(Good lord, I am defending ticketmaster. I think I am going to be sick!)
And yes, ticketmaster probably should use a more "secure" means of allowing access to those pages (the "lion at the gate" referred by others), but should they have to?
(Good lord, I am defending ticketmaster. I think I am going to be sick!)
The primary problem is that we are all suspect of ticketmaster's ability to "play nice" because they are a monopoly, and they are accustomed to their artificially created power over all tickets in the world. They don't like it when some upstart draws back the curtain and proves that there is nothing magical about what they are doing.
I can't come with an alternate example that would placate the slashdot masses, because very few businesses work like ticketmaster, but I have the sinking feeling that they might have a right to sue for what they are suing for. Now, the deep linking, as an academic point, well that clearly can't be illegal. I think we will need a legal standard similar to the one in academia, that unattributed copying is bad, n'kay?
As someone who works at cisco, I don't know where you got all your info. Some points:
1) EIGRP etc are patented. True. We don't sue over patents. They are defensive (like when we were sued by Lucent 1-2 years ago) -- not offensive weapons used to prevent entry. Typically if someone has cool technology that they have patented, Cisco will swap patent rights with them. Seems fair to me, we developed a lot of cool stuff over the last decade.
2) Saying IOS is kinda buggy is like saying linux is kinda buggy. That's a big freakin' code base! And there aren't nearly as many good testers and debuggers out there for IOS as for Linux. But I think you have conceded (and other posters on this thread confirm) that for the most part, IOS works and is pretty stable as long as you aren't doing crazy stuff. Of course, if you find a bug, it probably feels like the biggest bug ever to you, since it probably affects you. Also, we subscribe to release-early, release-often. 5.2.12(4) for release numbers anyone?
3) Your 6-month project restriction comment. I have no idea where you heard that. Totally not true. Maybe that was one particular manager in one particular group. In any case, wouldn't you expect a company to hire a person to do a specific thing? It's not like we just bring you in and let you make things up... there's a plan and a strategy that has be executed on.
4) Not everything runs IOS. Maybe some people don't know this but all the switches run something called CatOS (Catalyst OS). That's not IOS. It's another parallel OS designed for switches (not routers). Similar looking CLI, but different nonetheless.
5) As far as only supporting Cisco equipment, again not true. For our FAEs, the only point is to get the customers network working. There are lots of stories of tech support fixing 3Com/Bay/Ascend/Livingston/Lucent/whatever gear to get the customer up and running. As others have commented, sometimes we don't make a piece of equipment for a specific purpose. We're not going to stop you from buying it, and we're going to support your network.
6) Stomping on companies. Cisco has the advantage of providing the total picture. Cisco will stomp on companies that can provide only part of the picture, simply because they are limited. All these hot terabit-router startups, think about it. If you are UUNet, are you going to stick this router from a company with 100 people in the center of your backbone? Or would you rather have Cisco with 25000 employees, 3 world-wide 24x7 technical support centers, field-swap agreements, etc? What do you think happens?
7) The DOJ. Why break up Cisco? We have to implement the same IEEE 802.3 Ethernet as everyone else... We implement the same T1/E1 signalling. If we don't, it won't work with your ISP/carrier/other business unit/whatever, and the customer will be angry. God forbid that the customer buys the whole kit and kaboodle from Cisco because it's one vendor to deal with who seems to be pretty competent. Oh, the horror!
Cisco is a pretty cool place to work, all in all. I tend to agree with the poster that maybe we don't make the absolute _best_ equipment (or maybe we don't have it _first_), but what we make is pretty damn good, stable, and interoperable. And that is really what matters for most network ops folks. Plus, it's really nice to be able to think that most of the packets you push out to the internet go through something you worked on/built.
The funny thing is that the RIAA had two choices 3-4 years ago, if they were paying attention:
1) Try to beat back the tide (the path they chose, with the inevitable consequences we are seeing today).
or
2) Embrace and promote a new business model. Anyone remember Millicent, a DEC project for micropayment that would have made it easy to fund an account with 10 bucks and conduct transactions in a lightweight transparent way with amounts down to 0.001 cents (thus the name)?
Think about paying 1 cent per track on napster. Would this kill you? What about 10 cents? Is it fatal? Is it worth it to checkout a new band you have never heard of now? What would it be like if the RIAA had chosen this path and rolled with the punches? Basic economics says that if the prices go down this much, the volumes should go up. Will the result be the same amount of revenue? I don't know... that's what you have businesspeople for, to set the prices.
This is probably what they will have to do now -- beat Napster at their own game, if they cannot win the legal war to shut it down entirely. And, in about 10 years I would expect that the RIAA member-co's P&Ls will look radically different than today, just as Disney and all the studios found they could make money off VHS. Go figure, there's more than one way to make money.
ObBias: I think I have a total of 4 MP3s, all burned from stuff I own. I own 600+ CDs and have settled on CD as my archival/storage method for music. I love music (and the RIAA probably loves to see me walking into Tower Records!), but I find the appeal of sampling new music to be what is pulling me towards Napster, plus the completist part of having all the mixes/dubs/promos/weird-o tracks of bands that I really do like. I am more than likely to end up buying the actual CD so I can listen to it in any room of my house, my car, at work, my friend's house, whatever. The commonality of the format is the major boon to me.
Well, not exactly. What I find annoying is when you go to a store like Fry's and look at the price placards in front of the laptops thinking "Wow that is a kick-ass deal" only to get within 10cm of it and find out that they have "pre-applied" the $400 Compuserve/AOL/MSN credit and stuck that price up in 72-point bold font. Once you add the $400 back on, they are usually $150-$200 over the lowball internet-retailer prices.
Yeah, I have to agree. Bronson is not in the league of Coupland. Microserfs was far, far better than The First $20 Million..., so much so that I didn't even want to go back and read Bronson's Bombardiers. Although, a year later, I think I have forgotten how annoyed by The First $20 Million I was, and I probably will read Bombardiers, and/or this new book, since the excerpt in Wired was reasonably interesting.
If you want to read something humorous (and a touch scary), Michael Wolff's Burn Rate is now in paperback. It describes the founding of Wired in one section, which I thought was pretty funny. Most of the book focuses on how anyone who has the money to get a company going on the internet has no idea what the internet is really about. I found it to be an interesting read.
Slashdot Mirror
Except when you own the trademark, you also control the definition, and the way in which a term can be used. It's in the OSI's best interest to defend abuse of their trademark, or they will lose it.
Uhh... maybe you are thinking of Kevin Mitnick?
That is truly bizarre.
:-)
To insure a MY2000 Integra (value ~$24k) with full comprehensive($100 ded)/collision ($500 ded)/liability (500k limits!) in California (Bay Area, with its supposedly very high insurance rates) is $950/yr.
Same params as you almost (25 yr old male, 0 accidents, 0 convictions, 0 DUI, no claims). The cars would be about the same value, I think (used Accord vs new Integra), and I have outrageously high limits and low deductibles.
I suggest maybe that your insurance company is not exactly doing right by you. FYI I use 21st century insurance, which I think only does california and AZ policies at the moment, but has (some) discounts for engineers, teachers, etc...
I used to have state farm and it was at least 2x the cost (though I was also younger and probably more expensive to insure). Maybe that is what you are running into.
So I always wonder about the gas price problem when people yell about it. I think it's some sort of purely psychological thing:
/day)
I drive a small, sporty car (integra aka honda civic) like a f@#$%ing maniac, so I get about 22-24mpg, depending on city/fwy mix. I normally fill up 10-11/gal once/week to once/6 days. so let's take the worst case that I am buying 11 gal every 6 days to go 11*22=242 miles. That means I will go 242*365/6 = 14.2k miles/year. I think that is just slightly below average (15k/year?).
To do that I will need to buy 11/6*365=669 gallons of gas in a year. Since I need to buy 92-octane in the bay area I am paying about 2.05 at choose-any-chevron in mountain view (dead-center SV):
2.05 * 669 = $1372
If it was 1.75,
1.75 * 669 = $1170 (save $200/yr = 55 cents/day)
and if it was 1.45,
1.45 * 669 = $970 (save $400/yr = 1.10
And at 2.05 I am certainly on the high end of gas prices (yes there are higher like sand hill road shell, and just-off-101 in SF, but those are location-related prices). And this is for 92 octane. 87 octane you everything will fall 20-30 cents/gal, so as a percentage the amount saved will be even smaller.
So, when you are making $70k (or more), can you honestly tell me that the ~1 dollar/day difference that it would make is "fucking absurd"? The only people that are being killed by the gas prices are the service-industry people who live here, for whom that $1/day is a big deal.
Ug. EDA is a tough nut to crack, and a hard industry to be profitable in. I deal with Cadence/Synopsys/Mentor all the time, and a bazillion startups. The startups are constantly rising and folding, but the big 3 never move.
Best of luck to you, but be careful!!!
What do you know, an article with actual facts in it. I have been wondering when people were going to catch on about the pincount aspect of this.
I am an ASIC (chipset) designer by trade and the only reason we ever looked at Rambus parts was because a high-pincount package (anything fancier than intel's 256/272-pin BGA or whatever the current BGA-du-jour is) costs a lot. Trying to get a ton of memory bandwidth using SDR or DDR SDRAM means using lots of pins, which in turn burn a lot of power and require a lot of additional power and ground pins to support them.
We ended up using SDR SDRAM for our parts but that was almost 24 months ago that a decision was made, and we were worried about constrained availability on C-RDRAM or D-RDRAM. Guess we were right about that one.
RDRAM is not the antichrist, everyone. It's just ridiculously expensive at the moment. So are 1GHz pentiums and SRAM-based disk drives, but no one complains about those facts. The price _will_ come down. Will DDR or QDR SDRAM already own the market by that point? Who knows. Just don't count out RDRAM, since the pincount requirements are a very important part of optimizing overall system costs.
"Really, how much of a difference will it make to use a full-clock cache on chip over, say, a half-clock cache off-chip?"
A huge difference. Most x86 chips are memory bandwidth starved, so faster L2-to-L1 fills are always a big deal. Remember how much better the ATC (advanced transfer cache) P3's were? All they did was widen the L2 (?) cache bus.
UltraSparcs wouldn't care as much since they have a nice very wide path to core memory (and cache), and I bet they have more load/store functional units (or hit-under-miss capability), so are less bottlenecked on memory accesses (get to know modern processor design!).
Agreed. I don't see the actual "fair use" claim in the letter from Slashdot to Microsoft either.
I was merely pointing out for those with their flamethrowers on ("Slashdot is CLEARLY in VIOLATION, take it down NOW", "Slashdot is such a bunch of hypocrites", etc) that there are definite defenses possible, and that a lot of these issues will get negotiated now -- before we even start talking about an actual lawsuit/court appearance.
Basically, nothing works in black and white. There are always exceptions and shadings of meanings, even in "The Law".
Two words for you: "Fair Use". Even copyrighted materials can be used in other contexts. The problem is the DMCA is an end-around fair use, which requires that the information be "trade secrets".
Microsoft made a point to use the DMCA as their lever for action -- the response is merely asking Microsoft to justify the applicability of the DMCA in this scenario.
If you are talking about the MSM (RSM, whatever), yeah probably. I got a little confused.
The MSFC/PFC is the daughtercard for the Sup module that should be directly connected to the backplane, using custom circuitry instead of the CPU-based RSP stuff.
What exactly do you think is different between a 6509/RSM and a 7206?
All 72xx use PCI backplanes/interfaces, max of around 1Gbps of throughput, and the VXR have some higher speed cpus to throw at your interfaces.
A 6509 has something like a 16Gb full-duplex (marketroid-speak == 32Gbit) backplane, with the RSM/PFC/MSFC/whatever sitting on a very fast bus, and processing the packets at L3/L4 with dedicated ASICs, as opposed to general purpose CPUs.
Which do you think will work under load better?
I am honestly curious to hear your technical reasoning for arguing against a 6509.
Dude, I am now ROFLMAO...
"If you legitimately are curious about actual network setups and why things like firewalls are necessary and aren't just trying to be an ignorant troll, I'd suggest you take some networking classes at your local university."
Do you know who Russ Nelson is??!! Ever hear of packet drivers? (www.crynwr.com) Russ has been doing network design/development since I have been on the net (circa 1992). I think he knows what he is doing, since his code sits in the linux kernel in various places, for crying out loud.
To those about to flame, I salute you!
I wish I had moderator points to mark that as Funny. No one here gets it though, apparently ...
I went to their .com party in SF a month/two ago via a friend-of-a-friend. Seemed like pretty nice people (good m/f ratio too - that's what you get for biotech, I guess).
This article started off looking very promising. I really, really try to like your writing Jon, but the conclusions you come to, and the way you get to them remind me of my failed efforts to write college-level history papers. I didn't usually have a clear thesis, so I just pushed a bunch of ideas together and hoped the reader could sort them out. Usually the conclusions didn't follow, or weren't logically thought out.
The notion of corporatism is powerful. We experience it every day. Some aspects of it I embrace, others I detest. But WAVE and Napster are not good examples for your supporting argument (particularly Napster!). Don't weaken your original premise with current-events pandering. Use fresh examples, not re-hashes of what you have said before. Please!
I have a limited tolerance for bad writing. I've given your stuff a lot of chances, and I think maybe you are running out of those chances with me, which is just frustrating, because I can tell that you at least start with something you want to say.
I asked a while ago. Here is some info
5) Currently, they all come in black, however we can change the color to your liking, we will need either CMYK # or Pantone #. An extra fee of $400 U.S per unit will be added, unless your order is big, then we can discuss discount.
4) Depends on the number of units ordered, all the 18" line is ready to be shipped with a two weeks from day of order.
3) Single 18" has 1280 X 1024 resolution, if you meant aggregate resolution, then dual 18" will display 2560 X 1024 horizontal. For the triple 18", total aggregate resoultion will be 3840 X 1024
2) Dual 18" is $6,695.00
Triple 18" $9,995.00
Dual 15" is $2,995.00 (four weeks lead time)
Triple 15" $4,895.00 (also four weeks lead time)
ALL PRICES ARE IN U.S
1) If the sun graphics cards have VGA (2 X 15-pin D-sub for analog RGB) then it will work.
You will need a dual video card or two separate video card.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the exact same thing about the supposed "conspiracy theory".
Self-selection is a powerful tool.
(Good lord, I am defending ticketmaster. I think I am going to be sick!)
I kinda recall people being up in arms last year, or two years ago, about one of the "Learn Perl in 21 days" books that copied blatantly and heavily from the perl FAQ's, unattributed. That's because it's called plagiarism. Now, if the FAQ is under "Open Content Licensing", probably you would be OK if you at least attributed the source. But to take someone else's work and use it as your own, probably isn't OK.
(Good lord, I am defending ticketmaster. I think I am going to be sick!)
And yes, ticketmaster probably should use a more "secure" means of allowing access to those pages (the "lion at the gate" referred by others), but should they have to?
(Good lord, I am defending ticketmaster. I think I am going to be sick!)
The primary problem is that we are all suspect of ticketmaster's ability to "play nice" because they are a monopoly, and they are accustomed to their artificially created power over all tickets in the world. They don't like it when some upstart draws back the curtain and proves that there is nothing magical about what they are doing.
I can't come with an alternate example that would placate the slashdot masses, because very few businesses work like ticketmaster, but I have the sinking feeling that they might have a right to sue for what they are suing for. Now, the deep linking, as an academic point, well that clearly can't be illegal. I think we will need a legal standard similar to the one in academia, that unattributed copying is bad, n'kay?
As someone who works at cisco, I don't know where you got all your info. Some points:
1) EIGRP etc are patented. True. We don't sue over patents. They are defensive (like when we were sued by Lucent 1-2 years ago) -- not offensive weapons used to prevent entry. Typically if someone has cool technology that they have patented, Cisco will swap patent rights with them. Seems fair to me, we developed a lot of cool stuff over the last decade.
2) Saying IOS is kinda buggy is like saying linux is kinda buggy. That's a big freakin' code base!
And there aren't nearly as many good testers and debuggers out there for IOS as for Linux. But I think you have conceded (and other posters on this thread confirm) that for the most part, IOS works and is pretty stable as long as you aren't doing crazy stuff. Of course, if you find a bug, it probably feels like the biggest bug ever to you, since it probably affects you. Also, we subscribe to release-early, release-often. 5.2.12(4) for release numbers anyone?
3) Your 6-month project restriction comment. I have no idea where you heard that. Totally not true. Maybe that was one particular manager in one particular group. In any case, wouldn't you expect a company to hire a person to do a specific thing? It's not like we just bring you in and let you make things up... there's a plan and a strategy that has be executed on.
4) Not everything runs IOS. Maybe some people don't know this but all the switches run something called CatOS (Catalyst OS). That's not IOS. It's another parallel OS designed for switches (not routers). Similar looking CLI, but different nonetheless.
5) As far as only supporting Cisco equipment, again not true. For our FAEs, the only point is to get the customers network working. There are lots of stories of tech support fixing 3Com/Bay/Ascend/Livingston/Lucent/whatever gear to get the customer up and running. As others have commented, sometimes we don't make a piece of equipment for a specific purpose. We're not going to stop you from buying it, and we're going to support your network.
6) Stomping on companies. Cisco has the advantage of providing the total picture. Cisco will stomp on companies that can provide only part of the picture, simply because they are limited. All these hot terabit-router startups, think about it. If you are UUNet, are you going to stick this router from a company with 100 people in the center of your backbone? Or would you rather have Cisco with 25000 employees, 3 world-wide 24x7 technical support centers, field-swap agreements, etc? What do you think happens?
7) The DOJ. Why break up Cisco? We have to implement the same IEEE 802.3 Ethernet as everyone else... We implement the same T1/E1 signalling. If we don't, it won't work with your ISP/carrier/other business unit/whatever, and the customer will be angry. God forbid that the customer buys the whole kit and kaboodle from Cisco because it's one vendor to deal with who seems to be pretty competent. Oh, the horror!
Cisco is a pretty cool place to work, all in all. I tend to agree with the poster that maybe we don't make the absolute _best_ equipment (or maybe we don't have it _first_), but what we make is pretty damn good, stable, and interoperable. And that is really what matters for most network ops folks. Plus, it's really nice to be able to think that most of the packets you push out to the internet go through something you worked on/built.
The funny thing is that the RIAA had two choices 3-4 years ago, if they were paying attention:
1) Try to beat back the tide (the path they chose, with the inevitable consequences we are seeing today).
or
2) Embrace and promote a new business model. Anyone remember Millicent, a DEC project for micropayment that would have made it easy to fund an account with 10 bucks and conduct transactions in a lightweight transparent way with amounts down to 0.001 cents (thus the name)?
Think about paying 1 cent per track on napster. Would this kill you? What about 10 cents? Is it fatal? Is it worth it to checkout a new band you have never heard of now? What would it be like if the RIAA had chosen this path and rolled with the punches? Basic economics says that if the prices go down this much, the volumes should go up. Will the result be the same amount of revenue? I don't know... that's what you have businesspeople for, to set the prices.
This is probably what they will have to do now -- beat Napster at their own game, if they cannot win the legal war to shut it down entirely. And, in about 10 years I would expect that the RIAA member-co's P&Ls will look radically different than today, just as Disney and all the studios found they could make money off VHS. Go figure, there's more than one way to make money.
ObBias: I think I have a total of 4 MP3s, all burned from stuff I own. I own 600+ CDs and have settled on CD as my archival/storage method for music. I love music (and the RIAA probably loves to see me walking into Tower Records!), but I find the appeal of sampling new music to be what is pulling me towards Napster, plus the completist part of having all the mixes/dubs/promos/weird-o tracks of bands that I really do like. I am more than likely to end up buying the actual CD so I can listen to it in any room of my house, my car, at work, my friend's house, whatever. The commonality of the format is the major boon to me.
Well, not exactly. What I find annoying is when you go to a store like Fry's and look at the price placards in front of the laptops thinking "Wow that is a kick-ass deal" only to get within 10cm of it and find out that they have "pre-applied" the $400 Compuserve/AOL/MSN credit and stuck that price up in 72-point bold font. Once you add the $400 back on, they are usually $150-$200 over the lowball internet-retailer prices.
Ahh... Fry's.
Yeah, I have to agree. Bronson is not in the league of Coupland. Microserfs was far, far better than The First $20 Million ..., so much so that I didn't even want to go back and read Bronson's Bombardiers. Although, a year later, I think I have forgotten how annoyed by The First $20 Million I was, and I probably will read Bombardiers, and/or this new book, since the excerpt in Wired was reasonably interesting.
If you want to read something humorous (and a touch scary), Michael Wolff's Burn Rate is now in paperback. It describes the founding of Wired in one section, which I thought was pretty funny. Most of the book focuses on how anyone who has the money to get a company going on the internet has no idea what the internet is really about. I found it to be an interesting read.
Andy Bechtolsheim was in the EE PhD program at Stanford when he built the Sun 1 (68k, ethernet, VME bus (I think)). He was the "hardware guy".
Vinod Khosla and Scott McNealy were in the business school.
Bill Joy was at Berkeley, and as others have alluded, was the (first) "software guy".
I sent a correction to ESR, he said it may or may not make it into the book.