The things I enjoy in my job are delivering solutions that work to customers that have cash. Anything that gets in the way of that I destroy.
Man, you are just pathetic.
Sorry if my original post gave you the wrong impression.
No, I believe it gave the correct impression. 1) a company that hires you I will run from, because it is going down 2) you have a serious problem, consider getting professional counselling --
Ahh, but now you want to argue efficiency.
What is more efficient, spending $1 million rolling your own software.
Or buying it from someone else for $1,000.
Getting it for free.
That's the problem with the Linux paradigm, it's a belief by some people that commercial software is evil and it is much better to write your own than succumb to their evilness.
That's the problem with Microsoft astroturfers, 1) tell a lie 2) draw several conclusions from their own lie.
Again, the GPL does not cater towards efficiency, nor does it fuel the economic spending.
See? I knew you were going to do that. Why do you bother, haven't you learned yet that every time you FUD the open source movement you just create an opportunity for one of us to get up on the soapbox and tell the truth. This always backfires - the more you do it, the sooner you are going extinct. So, see, your best strategy is to sit down and shut up. Heh, especially on slashdot, where the only person you will impress is your boss, and that's only if he doesn't read *this* comment. --
Microsoft sells GM 40,000 copies of Windows 2000 for several million dollars.
Microsoft in turn takes this money and gives salaries to many of it's employees.
Employees take money home and decide to buy Chevy Tahoe trucks.
The same millions of dollars would have been spent better spent by companies operating efficiently, trying to do the best thing for their customers, instead of by Microsoft, which just spends it trying to defend its monopoly.
It's a big cylical thing, the economy.
Common misconception. Some people believe that an economy will expand by the mere act of having money circulate in it. Nope, sorry, if you believe that I have this here perpetual motion machine to sell you. An economy is fueled by efficiently carrying out the work that needs to be done and generates luxury as a dividend. The act of rebooting a computer does not fuel an economy, it drags it down, and paying a 10-times inflated price for the privilege drags it down further. That's money that Joe could have spent on a new truck;-)
Think of two countries, in all respects equal, but in one of them all businesses are monopolies, in the other, all businesses compete freely with each other. Both arrangements sound pretty good don't they? All the usual arguments we are used to hearing from you and other Microsoft employees apply to why monopoly-land should outperform competition-land, but guess what? History tells us that competition-land will win in the end. Yes, you know what I'm talking about, think about how America finally won the cold war.
I realize that's overly simplistic, but it ought to help you on the path to enlightenment.:)
Quit your job at microsoft and feel like a man again.:) --
"If the source code is placed under a less restrictive license such as the BSD license where the code can be integrated into proprietary products such as Microsoft Windows, then the customer will be forced to pay the vendor of the proprietary software for something they have in fact already paid for when they paid their tax to the government."
How many times do we have to go over this?
Until you astroturfers understand it.
Your taxes paid for the original software to be written, not whatever Microsoft writes. If you want their program over the free version that is still available from the government, then obviously Microsoft has ADDED VALUE to the software... and thus you should pay for it.
You *should* only pay you for the added value but Microsoft will make you pay for the whole thing, including the part you already paid for. Moreover, Microsoft will attempt to "add value" in such a way that you are forced to use only their modified version. In fact, such "added value" may consist of nothing more than a proprietary lock-in. What kind of value is that?
In what way does Microsoft sucking $26 billion out of the pockets of comsumers and businesses each year fuel the economy? Given that the GPL allows these customers to get the same benefits in terms of productivity as Microsoft products do but without the costs, don't you think that fuels the econonmy? To put it more bluntly, imagine how 'fueled' the economy would be with an extra $26 billion in it doing real work instead of just building castles for Bill Gates. Oh, and how does rebooting twice a day fuel the economy? --
...It will actually do us some good, showing that net distribution controlled by the broadcasting/distribution monopolists is not a viable business model. --
CE costs about 15-25 per license in bulk, so the difference is negligable.
We must have different definitions of neglible. The $25 will have to be marked up by the time it gets into your hands so then it's $50, sounds like 10% of the retail cost to me. They also have to worry about the costs of complying with Microsoft's ever-more-stringent license requirements, including the risk of having to submit to the corporate equivalend of a strip-search on a moment's notice. These costs also have to be passed along to you.
They probably hope to make a slightly larger margin on that one maybe?
They'd be a lot better off passing the savings along to the customer and building up some goodwill/volume. In no time, their user community will be doing the Linux support for them, not to mention advertising. --
I don't know of many, but Caldera is a driving force behind Linux - NetWare connectivity...
Oh, I don't know about that. I'd say Jeff Merkey (one of the original designers of Netware and now confirmed Linux evangelist) has a lot better chance of actually delivering it. --
As much as I hate to admit it, you must concur that the optimal web-browsing experience to be had today is on IE.
I don't concur. I am running Linux.
p.s., does it feel good to be an astroturfer? I've always wondered if anybody could feel good being one. If it does make you feel good, don't feel bad about it, there is no point, you are lost.;-) --
The boring folks out there will bitch that there are patents
involved but they just want to complain or get off their one track minds.
This was completely gratuitious and I found it offensive. Thanks a lot for showing gratitude to the boring folks who keep your software free-as-in-speech for you.
Rob, I often feel that you are just along for the ride. --
This is the wrong design. It should index if you're idle *and* you have moved/created/deleted files, and it should examine only the directories involved. This should take a fraction of a second.
Also the hard disk doesn't really goes crazy on my system like you say, much more the same effect as when I
execute "find/".
I agree with the original poster that this kind of disk activity is annoying, especially on a laptop. The same applies to period dbupdate runs under cron. It's about time to remove these warts. --
The "new" comes from the application of over thirty patents covering data transmission, computing models, and wire characteristics over long distances.
Translation: as soon as we get our customer base guess what? Up goes the price, hah hah, we're the only supplier, you can't affort\d to back out of this now. Imagine for a moment what life would be like if Microsoft had patents on the PC.
A far superior solution is to run a nice fast fanless PC, a laptop say, with an ethernet cable. All standard, all open. That's what I'm doing right now and I'm perfectly happy.
What this company's promo says to me is: hey, we don't have a clue how to provide the best solution at the lowest price, so we're going to rely on our patents and hype. --
Every time there's and AOL vs GAIM article the same comments arise.
Interesting remark. No, I think every time this comes up we get more PO'd and more motivated to do something about it. OK, here's an idea: how do we hit AOL where it hurts? Lets route their traffic for them. We write routers that run on the client machines (yes, somebody has to put on their toxic waste suit and write some Windows code) and these routers put the normal ICQ/AIM OSCAR traffic through our own P2P network of servers. We write it so it's more reliable and provides smoother connectivity than AOL's servers (should not be hard) and in return for our network carrying their traffic, the user lets us use their client as a proxy for doing things like searching AOL's user list. We could, for example, shadow AOL's entire user base on a global P2P network, and I bet we could cut average search times down to the sub-second level.
What happens next is pretty obvious isn't it? AOL has to start worrying about *us* pulling the plug. --
AOL has no oligation of playing nice with the OSS community.
Nobody does, but the smart companies are playing nice. We have long memories, and it will take AOL far longer to rebuild their reputation than it is currently taking to destroy it.
Given a choice, do we:
(a) create messaging systems that interoperate seamlessly with AOL's
(b) rebuild the whole network presence infrastructure from the bottom up, get our own open protocols in place, lean on every ISP to run our servers, and turn AOL's messaging system into a second-class citizen
Im sure we will all work out a deal or arrangement
Yes, the obvious arrangement would be for you to supply the LUG's under the LUG arrangement so that your higher volume gets you a big enough discount to make it worth your while. To put things in perspective, you're looking at a situation here where your main supplier has to take steps to keep itself viable - that's as much your concern as theirs.
I agree you deserve an apology for having heard about this move first in the news. I'd try to interpret that as thoughtless as opposed to malicious. --
I guess I don't understand why there's such squawking over the need for games under Linux. I have a Linux box at home for my network server needs, and I have a Windows box for
my gaming.
OK, I'll bite. I don't have a windows box, and I haven't had a windows box for almost 2 years. I have a few great Linux boxes, and I like to play games. Please put 2+2 together. --
I'd like to see the Looking Glass team reunited, the guys who built Ultima Underworld, one of the best first person role players ever. (Update the graphics and re-release please:-)
I believe Seamus Blackley was one of the original members, but I could be wrong, maybe he joined later. Now of course he's under the mind control of billg, and will attempt to further the interests of the dark side by devoting all his talent to xboxing.
Looking Glass had some kind of close relationship with Origin when they did Ultima Underworld. I suspect the Origin guys did much of the game design and QA, because I never did see anything quite like it in terms of play value, even later from Looking Glass/Blue Sky. I guess there must have been friction too, because after UW2 I don't think they ever worked together again.
I am really unable to see how this would work. It is a great idea, but if it was just you and some others that started handing these to prospective employers, they simply
wouldn't hire you
Not true. I insisted on something very much like that in my most recent contract. It depends how much they want you, and for tech people with any skill at all, remember you're in the driver's seat. Think of this little freedom as a benefit the company can give you for free. If you had two equivalent offers but one of them explicitly acknowledged your rights to your off hours, non-company related work, which one would you choose? In my case, and I think this is a technique that will work generally, I said that I was involved in a number of open-source projects and I needed written assurance that my employer would not make any claim on the work I was doing there. Since your employer is most probably benefitting from the open source work you're doing you'll find it an easy argument to make, and it doesn't sound like you're planning to run off with the company's IP. Finally, if you don't ask, you won't get. --
I have been using Progeny Linux on my Thinkpad since RC2, and I have been very happy with it. I am starting to become a convert to apt-get, even though it does have
some very odd little quirks. I think that Progeny needs a little bit of work before it becomes as user friendly as Mandrake 7.2.
Well I am very much a convert to apt-get. There's nothing like thinking of a package you don't have and just apt-get install'ing it. Works very reliably. My main beef is apt-get upgrade asking you every time if you really want to do it - that's just silly and there should at least be a way to configure that feature off.
I briefly used progeny before switching to debian unstable, and I'd recommend it for someone who wants a little handholding. It's a pretty safe way to be close to the bleeding edge. Personally, I like having the 100's of debian maintainers backing me up so I go with the real thing but if you aren't really hard core, Progeny is probably a better idea.
I agree with you about Mandrake - it's really easy to get started with, but doesn't have apt-get. You probably never considered Conectiva, the Brazilian distro but actually I think it's about the smoothest installing and best-configured Linux I've used so far, and it has a version of apt-get modified to use rpm's. Recommended. --
Slashdot Mirror
Man, you are just pathetic.
Sorry if my original post gave you the wrong impression.
No, I believe it gave the correct impression. 1) a company that hires you I will run from, because it is going down 2) you have a serious problem, consider getting professional counselling
--
Getting it for free.
That's the problem with the Linux paradigm, it's a belief by some people that commercial software is evil and it is much better to write your own than succumb to their evilness.
That's the problem with Microsoft astroturfers, 1) tell a lie 2) draw several conclusions from their own lie. Again, the GPL does not cater towards efficiency, nor does it fuel the economic spending.
See? I knew you were going to do that. Why do you bother, haven't you learned yet that every time you FUD the open source movement you just create an opportunity for one of us to get up on the soapbox and tell the truth. This always backfires - the more you do it, the sooner you are going extinct. So, see, your best strategy is to sit down and shut up. Heh, especially on slashdot, where the only person you will impress is your boss, and that's only if he doesn't read *this* comment.
--
The same millions of dollars would have been spent better spent by companies operating efficiently, trying to do the best thing for their customers, instead of by Microsoft, which just spends it trying to defend its monopoly.
It's a big cylical thing, the economy.
Common misconception. Some people believe that an economy will expand by the mere act of having money circulate in it. Nope, sorry, if you believe that I have this here perpetual motion machine to sell you. An economy is fueled by efficiently carrying out the work that needs to be done and generates luxury as a dividend. The act of rebooting a computer does not fuel an economy, it drags it down, and paying a 10-times inflated price for the privilege drags it down further. That's money that Joe could have spent on a new truck ;-)
Think of two countries, in all respects equal, but in one of them all businesses are monopolies, in the other, all businesses compete freely with each other. Both arrangements sound pretty good don't they? All the usual arguments we are used to hearing from you and other Microsoft employees apply to why monopoly-land should outperform competition-land, but guess what? History tells us that competition-land will win in the end. Yes, you know what I'm talking about, think about how America finally won the cold war.
I realize that's overly simplistic, but it ought to help you on the path to enlightenment. :)
Quit your job at microsoft and feel like a man again. :)
--
Do we have that in writing? ;-)
--
No, you are only ensuring that no profit will be made through secret modifications to taxpayer funded software.
--
How many times do we have to go over this?
Until you astroturfers understand it.
Your taxes paid for the original software to be written, not whatever Microsoft writes. If you want their program over the free version that is still available from the government, then obviously Microsoft has ADDED VALUE to the software ... and thus you should pay for it.
You *should* only pay you for the added value but Microsoft will make you pay for the whole thing, including the part you already paid for. Moreover, Microsoft will attempt to "add value" in such a way that you are forced to use only their modified version. In fact, such "added value" may consist of nothing more than a proprietary lock-in. What kind of value is that?
The original poster was correct.
--
In what way does Microsoft sucking $26 billion out of the pockets of comsumers and businesses each year fuel the economy? Given that the GPL allows these customers to get the same benefits in terms of productivity as Microsoft products do but without the costs, don't you think that fuels the econonmy? To put it more bluntly, imagine how 'fueled' the economy would be with an extra $26 billion in it doing real work instead of just building castles for Bill Gates. Oh, and how does rebooting twice a day fuel the economy?
--
...It will actually do us some good, showing that net distribution controlled by the broadcasting/distribution monopolists is not a viable business model.
--
We must have different definitions of neglible. The $25 will have to be marked up by the time it gets into your hands so then it's $50, sounds like 10% of the retail cost to me. They also have to worry about the costs of complying with Microsoft's ever-more-stringent license requirements, including the risk of having to submit to the corporate equivalend of a strip-search on a moment's notice. These costs also have to be passed along to you.
They probably hope to make a slightly larger margin on that one maybe?
They'd be a lot better off passing the savings along to the customer and building up some goodwill/volume. In no time, their user community will be doing the Linux support for them, not to mention advertising.
--
Uh yeah, no rheostats, that's it. ;-)
--
Korean is commonly classed as an 'altaic' language, related to turkish and finnish, as well as other languages in northern asia.
--
Oh, I don't know about that. I'd say Jeff Merkey (one of the original designers of Netware and now confirmed Linux evangelist) has a lot better chance of actually delivering it.
--
I don't concur. I am running Linux.
p.s., does it feel good to be an astroturfer? I've always wondered if anybody could feel good being one. If it does make you feel good, don't feel bad about it, there is no point, you are lost. ;-)
--
This was completely gratuitious and I found it offensive. Thanks a lot for showing gratitude to the boring folks who keep your software free-as-in-speech for you.
Rob, I often feel that you are just along for the ride.
--
This is the wrong design. It should index if you're idle *and* you have moved/created/deleted files, and it should examine only the directories involved. This should take a fraction of a second.
Also the hard disk doesn't really goes crazy on my system like you say, much more the same effect as when I execute "find /".
I agree with the original poster that this kind of disk activity is annoying, especially on a laptop. The same applies to period dbupdate runs under cron. It's about time to remove these warts.
--
Because I erased it from my hard disk and there's no compelling reason to put it back.
Flamebait as I may seem...
Err, no. More like astroturfing
--
Translation: as soon as we get our customer base guess what? Up goes the price, hah hah, we're the only supplier, you can't affort\d to back out of this now. Imagine for a moment what life would be like if Microsoft had patents on the PC.
A far superior solution is to run a nice fast fanless PC, a laptop say, with an ethernet cable. All standard, all open. That's what I'm doing right now and I'm perfectly happy.
What this company's promo says to me is: hey, we don't have a clue how to provide the best solution at the lowest price, so we're going to rely on our patents and hype.
--
Interesting remark. No, I think every time this comes up we get more PO'd and more motivated to do something about it. OK, here's an idea: how do we hit AOL where it hurts? Lets route their traffic for them. We write routers that run on the client machines (yes, somebody has to put on their toxic waste suit and write some Windows code) and these routers put the normal ICQ/AIM OSCAR traffic through our own P2P network of servers. We write it so it's more reliable and provides smoother connectivity than AOL's servers (should not be hard) and in return for our network carrying their traffic, the user lets us use their client as a proxy for doing things like searching AOL's user list. We could, for example, shadow AOL's entire user base on a global P2P network, and I bet we could cut average search times down to the sub-second level.
What happens next is pretty obvious isn't it? AOL has to start worrying about *us* pulling the plug.
--
Nobody does, but the smart companies are playing nice. We have long memories, and it will take AOL far longer to rebuild their reputation than it is currently taking to destroy it.
Given a choice, do we:
(a) create messaging systems that interoperate seamlessly with AOL's
(b) rebuild the whole network presence infrastructure from the bottom up, get our own open protocols in place, lean on every ISP to run our servers, and turn AOL's messaging system into a second-class citizen
tough decision huh?
--
Yes, the obvious arrangement would be for you to supply the LUG's under the LUG arrangement so that your higher volume gets you a big enough discount to make it worth your while. To put things in perspective, you're looking at a situation here where your main supplier has to take steps to keep itself viable - that's as much your concern as theirs.
I agree you deserve an apology for having heard about this move first in the news. I'd try to interpret that as thoughtless as opposed to malicious.
--
OK, I'll bite. I don't have a windows box, and I haven't had a windows box for almost 2 years. I have a few great Linux boxes, and I like to play games. Please put 2+2 together.
--
Is inviting some friends over to see a movie illegal? After all, they may not buy the movie after they've already seen it...
--
I believe Seamus Blackley was one of the original members, but I could be wrong, maybe he joined later. Now of course he's under the mind control of billg, and will attempt to further the interests of the dark side by devoting all his talent to xboxing.
Looking Glass had some kind of close relationship with Origin when they did Ultima Underworld. I suspect the Origin guys did much of the game design and QA, because I never did see anything quite like it in terms of play value, even later from Looking Glass/Blue Sky. I guess there must have been friction too, because after UW2 I don't think they ever worked together again.
*Sigh*
--
Not true. I insisted on something very much like that in my most recent contract. It depends how much they want you, and for tech people with any skill at all, remember you're in the driver's seat. Think of this little freedom as a benefit the company can give you for free. If you had two equivalent offers but one of them explicitly acknowledged your rights to your off hours, non-company related work, which one would you choose? In my case, and I think this is a technique that will work generally, I said that I was involved in a number of open-source projects and I needed written assurance that my employer would not make any claim on the work I was doing there. Since your employer is most probably benefitting from the open source work you're doing you'll find it an easy argument to make, and it doesn't sound like you're planning to run off with the company's IP. Finally, if you don't ask, you won't get.
--
Well I am very much a convert to apt-get. There's nothing like thinking of a package you don't have and just apt-get install'ing it. Works very reliably. My main beef is apt-get upgrade asking you every time if you really want to do it - that's just silly and there should at least be a way to configure that feature off.
I briefly used progeny before switching to debian unstable, and I'd recommend it for someone who wants a little handholding. It's a pretty safe way to be close to the bleeding edge. Personally, I like having the 100's of debian maintainers backing me up so I go with the real thing but if you aren't really hard core, Progeny is probably a better idea.
I agree with you about Mandrake - it's really easy to get started with, but doesn't have apt-get. You probably never considered Conectiva, the Brazilian distro but actually I think it's about the smoothest installing and best-configured Linux I've used so far, and it has a version of apt-get modified to use rpm's. Recommended.
--