Folks are working on the multihoming issues now, and it's possible they may come up with a method that doesn't have the scaling problems inherent in the current method of IPv4 multihoming (advertising the same prefix through multiple uplinks).
In Asia, the situation is pretty bad, and has been for a while. It's extremely difficult to get more than a handful of IP addresses from your ISP, and NAT is more common than in the US. This is one of the reasons why folks in Japan are further ahead with IPv6.
IIJ has been offering IPv6 service (not tunnelled over IPv4) for a while, and some vendors in the US (such as Panix in NYC, I believe) are also starting to offer this.
The amazing thing about the Japanese girls is that they can
do it in Kanji! A friend I met there demonstrated: you enter what you want to say in a phonemic form, then the 'phone offers you
several ways to say the same thing in Kanji script. That, combined with the larger screens of the iMode phones, means it's
convenient to receive much longer messages.
It's not amazing that they can do it in kanji, because it's easier! On phones you do the input directly in hiragana, rather than in romaji as you (usually) do on a computer. So you're probably averaging 3-4 button presses per syllable, rather than the 2-3 presses per letter you need in English. Once you've got the hiragana there, you can just scroll through a list of the matching kanji (produced via dictionary lookup--yes, all Japanese phones have a Japanese dictionary inside them).
Combine this with the fact that in Japanese you can (and usually do) leave out a lot of "known" information, and you end up saving a lot of button-presses when writing in Japanese rather than English. I can probably enter "kaato desu. doko ni desuka." (about 13 hiragana "characters", including the two periods; no spaces are used in Japanese) in about two thirds the time I can enter "It's Curt. Where are you?" (25 characters). And if they have my number in their address book (so they see my name), that whole message might be shortened to "dokoni" (3 hiragana; 13 button-presses due to particularly bad luck with there being two 'o'-row hiragana in it, at 5 presses each).
And yes, the larger displays (mine displays 16 chars/8 kanji by 6 lines of the e-mail text) combined with the much higher per-character information density of Japanese makes e-mail much more comfortable to read on a phone.
Um...."no." I used to live in Vancouver, and I now live in Tokyo. Vancouver is definitely not an inspiring place, and, aside from a lot of sushi restaurants and a Japanese convenience store on Robson St., there's little Japanese culture in Vancouver. (Nothing at all in Vancouver is even remotely comparable to St. Mark's between second and third avenues in New York, for example.)
Also, the Asians in Vancouver are predominantly Chinese. Chinese culture is closer to American or Canadian or almost any other Western culture than it is to Japanese culture. (I lived in China for a year, too.) The Japanese are really mindblowingly different, in terms of their culture. And I expect that they will always remain that way; even as they import Western culture wholesale, they change it and make it their own. Being here is like viewing Western culture through a fun-house mirror. I recognise things, but I don't.
I'm one of the developers working on www.blink.com (we do a web-based bookmarking system), and the system's gotten large enough (thousands of concurrent sessions at any particular time, and many gigs of stuff in the database--sorry I can't be more specific) that I think I can comment on the performance concerns.
First of all, I think java servlets are easily ready for prime time for large, complex sites, much more so than other technologies I've seen. Blink has a huge number of features (even I don't know them all:-)) and there's no way something like this would have worked in perl or php3. We're not at 100K lines of code yet, but we're certainly headed in that direction, and a less rigid language would probably have left us with an unmaintainable system at this point.
Speed hasn't been a problem, at least on the web server and java side. Apache runs on its own machine, and that's hardly ticking over. We have to make sure we've got enough java servers behind it, but that's not a big problem. We use, for the most part, what I regard as fairly low-end PC-type boxes running Linux, not 8-CPU Xeons or E4500s or anything like that.
The database is what kills you, especially when you're highly transactional, as we are. To be able to do things like tell you if there's new (to you) content on a page, we need to know when you last clicked on it, which means we need to update the time last visited every time you click on one of your links. So our write load makes it very difficult to use multiple servers.
I strongly recommend getting hold of a guy who knows SQL very well when you put together your site. Doing schema changes later rather than earlier is more painful (as I know from experience) and the right schema can make you many, many times faster than the wrong one (as I also know from experience:-)). And at this point, if you're doing fairly sophisticated stuff, I'd recommend a good transactional server over something like MySQL. Surprisingly, MS SQL server is a great product, and fairly cheap compared to Oracle (though it comes along with the usual miseries of anything running on Windows).
Delivering real applications over the web is pretty difficult. It's really, really important to think about where you keep state, and where you can avoid keeping state. This can make a noticable difference in efficiency, too.
In the end, there's no substitute for experience; there's a lot to learn in this field, and it's quite different from traditional applicatons programming. So get it wherever you can, whether it be by writing a prototype or finding someone who's done it before and describing your project over a couple of beers.
Just because you pay a fee for your connection does not mean they waive the right to determine how it may be used. If you don't like the fee, the conditions, or whatever else, you can always find an alternate method of connecting.
Personally, I don't see what people are bitching about. $80/semester is a fantastic deal for high-speed acccess. My cablemodem costs me $240 per semester.
Now, customers will potentially be able to run EXACTLY the same software on their hand-helds and laptops as the backroom boys are running on their mainframes and supercomputers.
What do you mean, `now'? This has been the case for a while now. For the last few years IBM has been running NetBSD on these same NCs that we've been talking about, and NASA has been running NetBSD a AlphaServer 8400s with gigabytes of memory and terrabytes of disk. And now you can run NetBSD on a handheld.
I'm finding this whole Linux revolution rather depressing, now, because it is, quite obviously just a Linux revolution and not an open source revolution at all. IBM built its NCs around an open-source OS and has been providing full support for it for a couple of years now, but nobody (except for a handful of NetBSD developers) cares. They now are either ditching it for Linux or are porting Linux just for show and not to use, either of which is just a fashon statement. And I don't think Linux users really care that IBM couldn't give a damn about open source so long as IBM keeps mentioning the word `Linux' in their press releases.
It seems to me that various interests, including many in the Open Source community itself, are pushing things toward homogenity rather than diversity. I suppose this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since that tendency has been there from the start: Richard Stallman, for example, makes it quite clear that he wants to see a world where nobody would ever use or write non-GNU software because there would already be a GNU package that is better.
I'm starting to suspect that one day indeed Linux will rule the world. Unfortunately, things won't change much for those who are not part of the ruling class, old or new. Instead of a large company like HP or MS getting special licencing terms for Sun's JVM or Digital's proprietary boot code for the Alpha, it will be Linux, but the other open source operating systems will still be left out. (I use these examples because they have already happened.) And I'll be using Linux instead of Windows, not because it's the OS I want to use, but because I can get drivers for proprietary hardware for it when I can't get enough information to write that driver for my preferred OS. How is the Linux monopoly going to be a change from the Windows monopoly?
PS - I actually quite like SQL Server. Every time a client specifies a really slow, memory intensive RDBMS, I specify SQL Server. It hasn't happened yet.
So you really find MS SQL server to be that much worse than Oracle, or any of the other products out there? What were you using it for? Or have you even used it?
This looks to me like a prime example of someone from the Linux community happily spreading FUD or just generally spouting ignorance. I've had a fair amount of experience with MS SQL Server recently, and, being a long-time MS-hater, I certainly didn't come to it with an open mind. But I have to say that MS SQL Server is a damn good database; I'm very, very impressed with it. It's certainly as solid and as featureful as anything else out there.
Unfortunately, it is somewhat crippled by running only under NT. This limits its reliability and security, in that the OS underneath it is not terribly reliable or secure. It also limits its scalability in that NT simply doesn't run on big machines. And, of course, I find NT system administration a complete PITA.
But there are a lot of database systems out there than can get by just fine on a 4 x 500 MHz PIII system with a gig of RAM, and under many circumstances the MS SQL Server system will be rather cheaper than the Unix options. If you've got an NT admin handy to keep the server running, it can be a worthwhile choice.
how's the performance in the cold/snow? How many people or how much "stuff" can I haul? Can I get 3 hours of drive time on the highway out of a charge?
Edmonton, Alberta, has several hundred electrically powered vehicles. It doesn't get all that cold there (rarely below -25 C), but I doubt many places in the US get any colder than that, either. The vehicles function just as well as or better than their diesel-powered equivalants, even in the snow (of which there's often a fair amount). They carry reasonable loads as well, up to 80 people or so (something over four tonnes).
The only unfortunate part about these is that they're not usually battery-driven; they have batteries good for short periods, but the main source of power is overhead wires.
`Fools' is perhaps a bit strong a word here, but I'm not surprised that some BSD advocates didn't realise some of the implications of the licence. Certainly some GPL advocates have shown from time to time that they don't realise the implications of the GPL, as well.
But a lot of us have chosen the BSD licence (or something even more free--personally, I put my code into the public domain) specifically because we want you to be able to take it and GPL it if you like.
BSD folks say to GPL folks, `Take our code and do what you like with it. If it helps you, great!' GPL folks say to BSD folks, `you can't use our code unless you GPL all of your code.' Now what does this say about the spirit of sharing on each side?
he GPL does not tell a copyright holder what to do with his own code.
Well, obviously what I'm saying is that the GPL tells you what to do with your code should you try to combine it with any GPL'd code.
This makes the GPL different from other free software licenses in that the GPL is a weapon: its purpose is to help Stallman in his fight to purge the world of all non-GNU software. (Yes, all, including other free software. Read his disucssion of the readline library and the LGPL if you don't believe me.)
I don't mind the GNU license otherwise, but the stance against pluralism really disturbs me. And even if I accepted the argument some people make that Stallman's really only out to get proprietary software, his willingness for free software to be collateral damage in that war is just as bad.
Sorry to break it to you, but you're not the only one on Slashdot that wears a tie every day. I wear a suit and tie every day, though on Fridays I give in to casual day and wear just a jacket and tie. And of course I never go out without a hat on.
And I'd never be caught dead in anything from Old Navy.
OK, so write an n-tier application. You can do that in mod_perl or servlets.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how does execute the perl code on a different machine from the web server when using mod_perl? After all, mod_perl is an apache module.
The thing I like about servlet engines (such as Apache JServ), is that the Apache module simply checks the cookie and passes the request on to a separate java server. This can be a process running on the same machine, or one running on another machine across the network. It will deal with distributing the requests to multiple servers if you have several servers running your servlets. This does a lot for the scalability of the application; no matter how big your application, you can simply add more java server machines, and your web server sees no more compute load.
You can expect to get flamed if you ask one of the current BSDs to switch to the GPL; you won't get flamed if you simply fork off your own and GPL it (or, rather, GPL the bits that don't have a clause 3 in the licence; UCB is only one of hundreds of contributors to the kernel code).
As for `resent[ing] the fairness [you] insist on,' well, yes, because a) it's certainly not fair to anyone who wants to incorporate ten lines of GPL'd code into ten thousand of his own, b) I don't believe it's fair to anyone to tell him what he can do with the code he writes, which is what the GPL does, and c) the FUD that Linux folks love to spread about how all non-GPL'd software is being taken proprietary and disappearing forever from public view is getting a bit old.
Yes, Europe has strong consumer protection laws, but all they do is reassert the power of the political structure (government) over private entities. I am much more worried, Gibson's future nonwithstanding about the government power, than about the power of corporations.
I feel just the opposite way. Governments at least have some responsibility to the populace, and this is enforced through the elections and the political pressure that can be brought to bear against them by advocacy groups and individuals. Corporations, on the other hand, don't give a damn; their responsibility is only to their stockholders, who generally care about nothing but making money.
I've just moved from Canada to the US, and I'm amazed at how much worse off I am in the US in terms of privacy. There's a lot of tracking of individuals going on in the US, and much of that is driven not by the government (though they do their share, e.g., mandatory placement of SSNs on drivers licenses), but by corporations. The US has slowly been building a national identity system (based on Social Security Numbers) for a couple of decades now, and much of that is driven by corporations. (It's not only perfectly legal, but perfectly usual in the US for a corporation that has no tax-related relationship with you at all to refuse you service unless you supply an SSN.)
Sure, governments can and do abuse their power. But in democracies they are, to some degree, responsible to the people. Corporations never are.
Also, I'd like to note that this fear of government is a particularly American fear. (Perhaps some of it comes from those same Republican party politicians who, during the Regan years, more than doubled the size of the US government.) There are a lot of countries in the world that have had `big govenment' that do quite well, and do a much better job of protecting their citizens' rights and privacy.
Personally, I'd go with the Bell Atlantic AirBridge solution instead. For $55/month with a one year contract ($40/month with a two year contract), you're always connected and you get unlimited traffic at 19.2 Kbps anywhere between about Boston and Washington on the east cost. As well as the $240 cradle for the Palm III, for $150 or so you can get an external or a PCMCIA wireless modem for your laptop or other device.
I'd like to see your analysis that shows that these people are costing the companies money. I've run an ISP, and I can tell you that it is indeed expensive to support users of systems other than Windows. We did it, but in the end we lost money on those customers.
A company certainly does have the right to chose which OSes they want to support and which they don't. What makes you believe that 3Com specifically decided to deny the use of their code to the BSD crowd, though? Often I find that companies and individuals chosing the GPL their code do so without the knowledge that they are cutting off part of the free software crowd by doing so.
Just because thin client costs less does not mean that Sun makes less money on it. Thin client tends to sell bigger servers, and the main savings are in on-site administrative costs, which means your big saving is getting rid of six or eight junior sysadmins (at, when all costs are factored in, probably around $100K/year on Wall Street).
Also note that you can still run most of your Linux applications on a NetBSD or FreeBSD box; I run Linux Communicator and RealAudio/Video player, for example. So you might lose no functionality at all by moving to a BSD in this particular scenario.
I thought the US system was summed up well many years ago, when the Beyond the Fringe gang explained the political system in the US to a UK person: ``There are two parties in the US: the Republican party, which is the equivalant of our Tory party, and the Democratic party, which is the equivalant of our Tory party.''
Well, of course we point out that they're excluding the non-GPL'd OSes. You appear to think that they've gone part way, so we should just shut up and be happy with it. If that's the case, we should shut up and be happy with the Sun license, because it goes part-way, too. And the same for licenses that are even worse than Sun's. Or is part way only good enough if it lets the Linux community import the code?
Do you have some hard evidence of this? NetBSD's driver model, for example, is quite different (and far, far superior to) the one that Linux uses; moving a driver across is not just a matter of a few minor code changes. What changes was he requesting that would make it possible to easily port drivers?
Also, keep in mind that a lot of people who are fairly good hackers otherwise tend to criticise systems they're not familiar with before finding out the (often good) reasons behind certain design decisions. An experienced FreeBSD hacker I quite respect was convinced that some of the things NetBSD was doing in terms of driver interface were a waste of time, until he had a closer look at them and eventually came around. Given that Linux has basically no orientation toward multiple-architecture device independence, I would not be surprised if many Linux developers don't understand why we would do things a certain way in NetBSD.
Anyway, if you want to point out the specific things you or DB think should be changed in NetBSD, I'm happy to look at getting them implemented, or I'll give you a good technical argument why they shouldn't be. That should put an end to accusations of ego being the problem, at any rate.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an IETF working group with a charter for this: Site Multihoming in IPv6 (multi6)
cjs
In Asia, the situation is pretty bad, and has been for a while. It's extremely difficult to get more than a handful of IP addresses from your ISP, and NAT is more common than in the US. This is one of the reasons why folks in Japan are further ahead with IPv6.
IIJ has been offering IPv6 service (not tunnelled over IPv4) for a while, and some vendors in the US (such as Panix in NYC, I believe) are also starting to offer this.
It's not amazing that they can do it in kanji, because it's easier! On phones you do the input directly in hiragana, rather than in romaji as you (usually) do on a computer. So you're probably averaging 3-4 button presses per syllable, rather than the 2-3 presses per letter you need in English. Once you've got the hiragana there, you can just scroll through a list of the matching kanji (produced via dictionary lookup--yes, all Japanese phones have a Japanese dictionary inside them).
Combine this with the fact that in Japanese you can (and usually do) leave out a lot of "known" information, and you end up saving a lot of button-presses when writing in Japanese rather than English. I can probably enter "kaato desu. doko ni desuka." (about 13 hiragana "characters", including the two periods; no spaces are used in Japanese) in about two thirds the time I can enter "It's Curt. Where are you?" (25 characters). And if they have my number in their address book (so they see my name), that whole message might be shortened to "dokoni" (3 hiragana; 13 button-presses due to particularly bad luck with there being two 'o'-row hiragana in it, at 5 presses each).
And yes, the larger displays (mine displays 16 chars/8 kanji by 6 lines of the e-mail text) combined with the much higher per-character information density of Japanese makes e-mail much more comfortable to read on a phone.
Now if only there were i-mode slashdot....
Also, the Asians in Vancouver are predominantly Chinese. Chinese culture is closer to American or Canadian or almost any other Western culture than it is to Japanese culture. (I lived in China for a year, too.) The Japanese are really mindblowingly different, in terms of their culture. And I expect that they will always remain that way; even as they import Western culture wholesale, they change it and make it their own. Being here is like viewing Western culture through a fun-house mirror. I recognise things, but I don't.
I'm one of the developers working on www.blink.com (we do a web-based bookmarking system), and the system's gotten large enough (thousands of concurrent sessions at any particular time, and many gigs of stuff in the database--sorry I can't be more specific) that I think I can comment on the performance concerns.
First of all, I think java servlets are easily ready for prime time for large, complex sites, much more so than other technologies I've seen. Blink has a huge number of features (even I don't know them all :-)) and there's no way something like this would have worked in perl or php3. We're not at 100K lines of code yet, but we're certainly headed in that direction, and a less rigid language would probably have left us with an unmaintainable system at this point.
Speed hasn't been a problem, at least on the web server and java side. Apache runs on its own machine, and that's hardly ticking over. We have to make sure we've got enough java servers behind it, but that's not a big problem. We use, for the most part, what I regard as fairly low-end PC-type boxes running Linux, not 8-CPU Xeons or E4500s or anything like that.
The database is what kills you, especially when you're highly transactional, as we are. To be able to do things like tell you if there's new (to you) content on a page, we need to know when you last clicked on it, which means we need to update the time last visited every time you click on one of your links. So our write load makes it very difficult to use multiple servers.
I strongly recommend getting hold of a guy who knows SQL very well when you put together your site. Doing schema changes later rather than earlier is more painful (as I know from experience) and the right schema can make you many, many times faster than the wrong one (as I also know from experience :-)). And at this point, if you're doing fairly sophisticated stuff, I'd recommend a good transactional server over something like MySQL. Surprisingly, MS SQL server is a great product, and fairly cheap compared to Oracle (though it comes along with the usual miseries of anything running on Windows).
Delivering real applications over the web is pretty difficult. It's really, really important to think about where you keep state, and where you can avoid keeping state. This can make a noticable difference in efficiency, too.
In the end, there's no substitute for experience; there's a lot to learn in this field, and it's quite different from traditional applicatons programming. So get it wherever you can, whether it be by writing a prototype or finding someone who's done it before and describing your project over a couple of beers.
cjs
Just because you pay a fee for your connection does not mean they waive the right to determine how it may be used. If you don't like the fee, the conditions, or whatever else, you can always find an alternate method of connecting.
Personally, I don't see what people are bitching about. $80/semester is a fantastic deal for high-speed acccess. My cablemodem costs me $240 per semester.
cjs
I'm finding this whole Linux revolution rather depressing, now, because it is, quite obviously just a Linux revolution and not an open source revolution at all. IBM built its NCs around an open-source OS and has been providing full support for it for a couple of years now, but nobody (except for a handful of NetBSD developers) cares. They now are either ditching it for Linux or are porting Linux just for show and not to use, either of which is just a fashon statement. And I don't think Linux users really care that IBM couldn't give a damn about open source so long as IBM keeps mentioning the word `Linux' in their press releases.
It seems to me that various interests, including many in the Open Source community itself, are pushing things toward homogenity rather than diversity. I suppose this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since that tendency has been there from the start: Richard Stallman, for example, makes it quite clear that he wants to see a world where nobody would ever use or write non-GNU software because there would already be a GNU package that is better.
I'm starting to suspect that one day indeed Linux will rule the world. Unfortunately, things won't change much for those who are not part of the ruling class, old or new. Instead of a large company like HP or MS getting special licencing terms for Sun's JVM or Digital's proprietary boot code for the Alpha, it will be Linux, but the other open source operating systems will still be left out. (I use these examples because they have already happened.) And I'll be using Linux instead of Windows, not because it's the OS I want to use, but because I can get drivers for proprietary hardware for it when I can't get enough information to write that driver for my preferred OS. How is the Linux monopoly going to be a change from the Windows monopoly?
cjs
This looks to me like a prime example of someone from the Linux community happily spreading FUD or just generally spouting ignorance. I've had a fair amount of experience with MS SQL Server recently, and, being a long-time MS-hater, I certainly didn't come to it with an open mind. But I have to say that MS SQL Server is a damn good database; I'm very, very impressed with it. It's certainly as solid and as featureful as anything else out there.
Unfortunately, it is somewhat crippled by running only under NT. This limits its reliability and security, in that the OS underneath it is not terribly reliable or secure. It also limits its scalability in that NT simply doesn't run on big machines. And, of course, I find NT system administration a complete PITA.
But there are a lot of database systems out there than can get by just fine on a 4 x 500 MHz PIII system with a gig of RAM, and under many circumstances the MS SQL Server system will be rather cheaper than the Unix options. If you've got an NT admin handy to keep the server running, it can be a worthwhile choice.
cjs
The only unfortunate part about these is that they're not usually battery-driven; they have batteries good for short periods, but the main source of power is overhead wires.
cjs
`Fools' is perhaps a bit strong a word here, but I'm not surprised that some BSD advocates didn't realise some of the implications of the licence. Certainly some GPL advocates have shown from time to time that they don't realise the implications of the GPL, as well.
But a lot of us have chosen the BSD licence (or something even more free--personally, I put my code into the public domain) specifically because we want you to be able to take it and GPL it if you like.
BSD folks say to GPL folks, `Take our code and do what you like with it. If it helps you, great!' GPL folks say to BSD folks, `you can't use our code unless you GPL all of your code.' Now what does this say about the spirit of sharing on each side?
cjs
This makes the GPL different from other free software licenses in that the GPL is a weapon: its purpose is to help Stallman in his fight to purge the world of all non-GNU software. (Yes, all, including other free software. Read his disucssion of the readline library and the LGPL if you don't believe me.)
I don't mind the GNU license otherwise, but the stance against pluralism really disturbs me. And even if I accepted the argument some people make that Stallman's really only out to get proprietary software, his willingness for free software to be collateral damage in that war is just as bad.
cjs
Sorry to break it to you, but you're not the only one on Slashdot that wears a tie every day. I wear a suit and tie every day, though on Fridays I give in to casual day and wear just a jacket and tie. And of course I never go out without a hat on.
And I'd never be caught dead in anything from Old Navy.
cjs
The thing I like about servlet engines (such as Apache JServ), is that the Apache module simply checks the cookie and passes the request on to a separate java server. This can be a process running on the same machine, or one running on another machine across the network. It will deal with distributing the requests to multiple servers if you have several servers running your servlets. This does a lot for the scalability of the application; no matter how big your application, you can simply add more java server machines, and your web server sees no more compute load.
cjs
It's very simple really. Check out this article in Salon for details.
cjs
cjs
You can expect to get flamed if you ask one of the current BSDs to switch to the GPL; you won't get flamed if you simply fork off your own and GPL it (or, rather, GPL the bits that don't have a clause 3 in the licence; UCB is only one of hundreds of contributors to the kernel code).
As for `resent[ing] the fairness [you] insist on,' well, yes, because a) it's certainly not fair to anyone who wants to incorporate ten lines of GPL'd code into ten thousand of his own, b) I don't believe it's fair to anyone to tell him what he can do with the code he writes, which is what the GPL does, and c) the FUD that Linux folks love to spread about how all non-GPL'd software is being taken proprietary and disappearing forever from public view is getting a bit old.
cjs
I've just moved from Canada to the US, and I'm amazed at how much worse off I am in the US in terms of privacy. There's a lot of tracking of individuals going on in the US, and much of that is driven not by the government (though they do their share, e.g., mandatory placement of SSNs on drivers licenses), but by corporations. The US has slowly been building a national identity system (based on Social Security Numbers) for a couple of decades now, and much of that is driven by corporations. (It's not only perfectly legal, but perfectly usual in the US for a corporation that has no tax-related relationship with you at all to refuse you service unless you supply an SSN.)
Sure, governments can and do abuse their power. But in democracies they are, to some degree, responsible to the people. Corporations never are.
Also, I'd like to note that this fear of government is a particularly American fear. (Perhaps some of it comes from those same Republican party politicians who, during the Regan years, more than doubled the size of the US government.) There are a lot of countries in the world that have had `big govenment' that do quite well, and do a much better job of protecting their citizens' rights and privacy.
cjs
Personally, I'd go with the Bell Atlantic AirBridge solution instead. For $55/month with a one year contract ($40/month with a two year contract), you're always connected and you get unlimited traffic at 19.2 Kbps anywhere between about Boston and Washington on the east cost. As well as the $240 cradle for the Palm III, for $150 or so you can get an external or a PCMCIA wireless modem for your laptop or other device.
cjs
I'd like to see your analysis that shows that these people are costing the companies money. I've run an ISP, and I can tell you that it is indeed expensive to support users of systems other than Windows. We did it, but in the end we lost money on those customers.
cjs
A company certainly does have the right to chose which OSes they want to support and which they don't. What makes you believe that 3Com specifically decided to deny the use of their code to the BSD crowd, though? Often I find that companies and individuals chosing the GPL their code do so without the knowledge that they are cutting off part of the free software crowd by doing so.
cjs
Just because thin client costs less does not mean that Sun makes less money on it. Thin client tends to sell bigger servers, and the main savings are in on-site administrative costs, which means your big saving is getting rid of six or eight junior sysadmins (at, when all costs are factored in, probably around $100K/year on Wall Street).
cjs
Also note that you can still run most of your Linux applications on a NetBSD or FreeBSD box; I run Linux Communicator and RealAudio/Video player, for example. So you might lose no functionality at all by moving to a BSD in this particular scenario.
cjs
I thought the US system was summed up well many years ago, when the Beyond the Fringe gang explained the political system in the US to a UK person: ``There are two parties in the US: the Republican party, which is the equivalant of our Tory party, and the Democratic party, which is the equivalant of our Tory party.''
cjs
Well, of course we point out that they're excluding the non-GPL'd OSes. You appear to think that they've gone part way, so we should just shut up and be happy with it. If that's the case, we should shut up and be happy with the Sun license, because it goes part-way, too. And the same for licenses that are even worse than Sun's. Or is part way only good enough if it lets the Linux community import the code?
cjs
Do you have some hard evidence of this? NetBSD's driver model, for example, is quite different (and far, far superior to) the one that Linux uses; moving a driver across is not just a matter of a few minor code changes. What changes was he requesting that would make it possible to easily port drivers?
Also, keep in mind that a lot of people who are fairly good hackers otherwise tend to criticise systems they're not familiar with before finding out the (often good) reasons behind certain design decisions. An experienced FreeBSD hacker I quite respect was convinced that some of the things NetBSD was doing in terms of driver interface were a waste of time, until he had a closer look at them and eventually came around. Given that Linux has basically no orientation toward multiple-architecture device independence, I would not be surprised if many Linux developers don't understand why we would do things a certain way in NetBSD.
Anyway, if you want to point out the specific things you or DB think should be changed in NetBSD, I'm happy to look at getting them implemented, or I'll give you a good technical argument why they shouldn't be. That should put an end to accusations of ego being the problem, at any rate.
cjs