Verio bought my local ISP (ClarkNet) and then proceeded to gut them like a fish. Very bad service, dropping shell accounts, etc. I remember distinctly Jamie Clark (the ClarkNet founder) announcing the acquisition, saying what a great thing it would be for everybody.
Kinda reminds me of what CmdrTaco said about being bought out...
While I like both VA Linux and Andover.Net, this is not a good thing for Linux consumers. Did anybody besides me notice that once Andover.Net took control of Slashdot that the ads for Copyleft disappeared and were replaced by ThinkGeek (which is owned by Andover). Now that VA Linux owns Slashdot what are the chances that we will ever see another ad for SGI or Penguin Computing? -- Howard Roark, Architect
I got my CD drom Sun on Friday and have been playing with StarOffice all weekend. While working with it I discovered a number of very ugly bugs, but to its credit I have not crashed it yet.
For Sun's strategy to work (and by strategy, I mean get the productivity product standards out of M$ control), Sun has to only one thing - get as many people to use StarOffice as possible.
But that is not going to happen unless StarOffice works really well. I like the product and it's about 85% there but unless Sun devotes a lot of resources to fixing things, it's not going to happen.
I can't think of any reason why Sun should not put the thing out as a GPL product. The wider it spreads the more control of standards it will achieve. The ownership problem can be solved the same way that Red Hat does it, by building strong brand loyalty.
I doubt that Sun intends to make much, if any, money by restricting the distribution of StarOffice, but it will have to spend a lot of money to fix it up and keep it up to date unless they get a development community built. I don't think they can do it without the GPL. -- Howard Roark, Architect
I used to supervise a staff of sysadmins on a government contract for the FBI. While it was my first job with that responsibility (I had to make things up as I went along), I encountered a similar issue when I caught one of my sysadmins reading other people's mail since he had the technical ability to do so.
The way I look at this is that a system administrator has a professional responsibility to to insure the integrity of the systems under his control. This means doing backups, deleting growing log files, installing security patches, and not prying into the private files of others. While it is true that the company owns the computers and the data, you have a professional responsibility to protect the data on the system.
You should politely inform Human Resources that while you have the technical means to perform such monitoring, it would be unethical to do so since you would be risking the integity of the system.
Your monitoring might pry into sensitive company matters, personnel issues, business plans, customer lists, accounting information, and other data you have the responsibility to protect.
I feel that like doctors, lawyers, and clergy, we have the duty to keep things private and to protect data. -- Howard Roark, Architect
And finally "Linux will be destroyed by Wall Street."
Really?
While I am the proud owner of some Redhat stock, the money has very little to do with Linux. There is more to economic reward than just money. What about the reward of not having your computers held hostage by the bandits in Redmond? What about the reward of uptime? What about the reward of your freedom?
Wars are fought over economic freedom. Freedom like you get from free software. As Eric Raymond points out, programmers write code not just because they can sell it (and how many actually get to sell it?) but also because there is a problem that annoys them and they want to fix it.
I don't care if somebody makes a pile of money off of Linux. Bob Young deserves his money, he earned it. Hell, Bill Gates deserves his money. He earned his by, amazingly, convincing the world that they should pay lots of money for crap.
What they do makes no difference. We just want our freedom.
I have RH 6.0 installed on three machines. 2 old 486s and a Sparc SS1. I did not have any problems on the Intel iron (other than the new version being big and slow) but the Sparc version is a mess. X wouldn't even work out of the box and a lot of the installation features are broken.
Now I won't excuse Red Hat for the quality problems in 6.0 but I can understand them. 6.0 is a big new version with a new kernel (that isn't mature by the way) and a lot of other new stuff. I expect the next good release from Red Hat will be 6.2.
I bought my CDs from Cheap Bytes this time as the $79.99 price is more than I am willing to pay. Previously I bought the "Official" Red Hat version (since my first 4.1) but the new price is a mistake.
I have never used Red Hat tech support and I doubt if I ever would. I run a technical support department for a proprietary software company and I know that, by definition, technical support always sucks. There just isn't any way that a technician (not the programmer) talking to a customer on the phone can magically devine the solutions to many problems. Real support means flying an engineer to your site and working on the problem hands-on. But you can't get that for $80.
Now for as much as Red Hat is the company we all love to hate, I have to point out that the others are so much worse. Please remember that Red Hat is the only leading commercial distribution that is freely redistributable. This is very important to us all and we should support Red Hat.
I wish that Red Hat would improve the printed documentation that is included with the Official version since that adds value and reduces their support costs. Right now the manuals do not warrant the $80 price of the product.
In reading about the IPO filing, Red Hat plans to become less relient on sales of the distribution and wants instead to become a "Linux portal". This is a really bad idea. Look at their site. Does anybody go there for the priviledge of reading censored editions of Slashdot? No, you go there looking for product and support for product. Red Hat should become a service company that supports Linux for paying customers. They should give away the distribution to make sure the Linux they get to support is the one they control.
My computer, my way.Linux -- Howard Roark, Architect
Pacific HiTech is putting this out as closed source. Pretty neat. The community does all the testing and they get to keep all the source. Not very friendly.
My computer, my way. Linux -- Howard Roark, Architect
These are just the words of a very desperate man. The Linux movement is sucking the air completely out of SCO. This happened before. Remember the Mark Williams Co.? They made Coherent which was the first x86 Unix clone I used. An interesting product, they actually had a version that would work on a 286! But Linux came along and ran over them like a freight train.
The same thing is happening to SCO. They cannot compete with Linux so insane ranting is about the only business option left to them.
Don't worry, they will be out of business soon and everybody knows it.
My computer, my way. Linux. -- Howard Roark, Architect
First off, Red Hat is a tiny company. Anybody who compares Red Hat to Microsoft does not have a good grip on history. Microsoft from the day it was born was a mean, vicious company. As an example, in the TRS-80 days (yes, I am that old!) they offered a BASIC compiler and if you wrote applications with it you had to pay Microsoft a 9% royalty on your sales to license the runtime libraries! At the time, Microsoft was about the same size as Red Hat is today.
Red Hat by comparison has commited to only having free software in their distribution. They fund important work for the community like GNOME, Rasterman, and Alan Cox.
Second, what else could Red Hat certify? They only know Red Hat. What if you wanted a Red Hat centric certification? How else could you get it?
Lastly, there is nothing wrong with certification. A license to practice medicine is a certification, a college degree is a certification, a driver's license is a certification. The world is full of them. It doesn't mean everything, but it does mean something. If I see that you are certified, I know that you at least attended some classes. It doesn't mean that you know everything, but it does mean that you know something.
My computer, my way. Linux -- Howard Roark, Architect
In the early 1970's (if I recall correctly) General Motors was also facing anti-trust pressure from the gonvernment. It was proposed that the various car divisions (such as Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, etc.) be split off into separate companies. GM's response to this was to reorganize away from separate car divisions into divisions that designed cars, divisions that built cars, etc. This made the company much harder to divide up. Since the DOJ must be the most pressing "threat" to the Microsoft at this time, I'm sure that this is an important goal of the plan.
My computer. My way. Linux -- Howard Roark, Architect
Well, I happen to live nearby...
on
YABOQs
·
· Score: 1
I live about 10 minutes from where DCLUG does the installfests and if the guys from RedHat can drive up from North Carolina to attend, then surely some of you sorry bastards could get there too.
My computer. My Way. Linux. -- Howard Roark, Architect
As was discussed several years ago when M$ began to expand beyond OS products into office products, MS should be broken up into an OS company and a Applications company. The OS company would be forbidden from developing Application products.
Is the public relations disaster Intel created by claiming this feature was for securing e-comerence.
The ID scheme is clearly for software copy protection support and really has nothing to do with privacy or security, but they could not possibly convince consumers that this was a desirable feature so they invented this ploy and it backfired terribly. -- Howard Roark, Architect
The only real advantage (which Intel fails to mention) is to enable software license managers to work and to prevent software from running on systems that do not match the license key. This has been the holy grail of the commercial software industry for years.
Even worse, many commercial software products will require its use and you will be forced to run with it enabled all the time. So much for privacy.
My Computer. My Way.Linux. -- Howard Roark, Architect
Look at it this way. Your air supply is the free flow of information (like song lyrics). Their air supply is the money they charge for music. If they cut off your air supply, it's only fair that you cut of theirs in exchange. -- Howard Roark, Architect
Slashdot Mirror
Verio bought my local ISP (ClarkNet) and then proceeded to gut them like a fish. Very bad service, dropping shell accounts, etc. I remember distinctly Jamie Clark (the ClarkNet founder) announcing the acquisition, saying what a great thing it would be for everybody.
Kinda reminds me of what CmdrTaco said about being bought out...
--
Howard Roark, Architect
While I like both VA Linux and Andover.Net, this is not a good thing for Linux consumers. Did anybody besides me notice that once Andover.Net took control of Slashdot that the ads for Copyleft disappeared and were replaced by ThinkGeek (which is owned by Andover). Now that VA Linux owns Slashdot what are the chances that we will ever see another ad for SGI or Penguin Computing?
--
Howard Roark, Architect
I got my CD drom Sun on Friday and have been playing with StarOffice all weekend. While working with it I discovered a number of very ugly bugs, but to its credit I have not crashed it yet.
For Sun's strategy to work (and by strategy, I mean get the productivity product standards out of M$ control), Sun has to only one thing - get as many people to use StarOffice as possible.
But that is not going to happen unless StarOffice works really well. I like the product and it's about 85% there but unless Sun devotes a lot of resources to fixing things, it's not going to happen.
I can't think of any reason why Sun should not put the thing out as a GPL product. The wider it spreads the more control of standards it will achieve. The ownership problem can be solved the same way that Red Hat does it, by building strong brand loyalty.
I doubt that Sun intends to make much, if any, money by restricting the distribution of StarOffice, but it will have to spend a lot of money to fix it up and keep it up to date unless they get a development community built. I don't think they can do it without the GPL.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
I used to supervise a staff of sysadmins on a government contract for the FBI. While it was my first job with that responsibility (I had to make things up as I went along), I encountered a similar issue when I caught one of my sysadmins reading other people's mail since he had the technical ability to do so.
The way I look at this is that a system administrator has a professional responsibility to to insure the integrity of the systems under his control. This means doing backups, deleting growing log files, installing security patches, and not prying into the private files of others. While it is true that the company owns the computers and the data, you have a professional responsibility to protect the data on the system.
You should politely inform Human Resources that while you have the technical means to perform such monitoring, it would be unethical to do so since you would be risking the integity of the system.
Your monitoring might pry into sensitive company matters, personnel issues, business plans, customer lists, accounting information, and other data you have the responsibility to protect.
I feel that like doctors, lawyers, and clergy, we have the duty to keep things private and to protect data.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
And wouldn't you know it... I bought some this morning. Hi Bowie! Nice site (one of my al time favorites)!
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Actually, I can think of two:
Phil Kerns (PKZip)
John McAfee (Viruscan)
--
Howard Roark, Architect
First it was "Linux is not ready for business."
Then, "Linux is not ready for the enterprise."
Next, "Linux is not ready for the desktop."
Then, "Linux is going to fragment."
And finally "Linux will be destroyed by Wall Street."
Really?
While I am the proud owner of some Redhat stock, the money has very little to do with Linux. There is more to economic reward than just money. What about the reward of not having your computers held hostage by the bandits in Redmond? What about the reward of uptime? What about the reward of your freedom?
Wars are fought over economic freedom. Freedom like you get from free software. As Eric Raymond points out, programmers write code not just because they can sell it (and how many actually get to sell it?) but also because there is a problem that annoys them and they want to fix it.
I don't care if somebody makes a pile of money off of Linux. Bob Young deserves his money, he earned it. Hell, Bill Gates deserves his money. He earned his by, amazingly, convincing the world that they should pay lots of money for crap.
What they do makes no difference. We just want our freedom.
My computer, my way. Linux.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
It opened at 5pm and is taking questions from customers. I have this funny feeling that some people here may have a few comments to make.
Let her rip!
--
Howard Roark, Architect
I have RH 6.0 installed on three machines. 2 old 486s and a Sparc SS1. I did not have any problems on the Intel iron (other than the new version being big and slow) but the Sparc version is a mess. X wouldn't even work out of the box and a lot of the installation features are broken.
Now I won't excuse Red Hat for the quality problems in 6.0 but I can understand them. 6.0 is a big new version with a new kernel (that isn't mature by the way) and a lot of other new stuff. I expect the next good release from Red Hat will be 6.2.
I bought my CDs from Cheap Bytes this time as the $79.99 price is more than I am willing to pay. Previously I bought the "Official" Red Hat version (since my first 4.1) but the new price is a mistake.
I have never used Red Hat tech support and I doubt if I ever would. I run a technical support department for a proprietary software company and I know that, by definition, technical support always sucks. There just isn't any way that a technician (not the programmer) talking to a customer on the phone can magically devine the solutions to many problems. Real support means flying an engineer to your site and working on the problem hands-on. But you can't get that for $80.
Now for as much as Red Hat is the company we all love to hate, I have to point out that the others are so much worse. Please remember that Red Hat is the only leading commercial distribution that is freely redistributable. This is very important to us all and we should support Red Hat.
I wish that Red Hat would improve the printed documentation that is included with the Official version since that adds value and reduces their support costs. Right now the manuals do not warrant the $80 price of the product.
In reading about the IPO filing, Red Hat plans to become less relient on sales of the distribution and wants instead to become a "Linux portal". This is a really bad idea. Look at their site. Does anybody go there for the priviledge of reading censored editions of Slashdot? No, you go there looking for product and support for product. Red Hat should become a service company that supports Linux for paying customers. They should give away the distribution to make sure the Linux they get to support is the one they control.
My computer, my way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Pacific HiTech is putting this out as closed source. Pretty neat. The community does all the testing and they get to keep all the source. Not very friendly.
My computer, my way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
These are just the words of a very desperate man. The Linux movement is sucking the air completely out of SCO. This happened before. Remember the Mark Williams Co.? They made Coherent which was the first x86 Unix clone I used. An interesting product, they actually had a version that would work on a 286! But Linux came along and ran over them like a freight train.
The same thing is happening to SCO. They cannot compete with Linux so insane ranting is about the only business option left to them.
Don't worry, they will be out of business soon and everybody knows it.
My computer, my way. Linux.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
All this paranoia about Red Hat is absurd.
First off, Red Hat is a tiny company. Anybody who compares Red Hat to Microsoft does not have a good grip on history. Microsoft from the day it was born was a mean, vicious company. As an example, in the TRS-80 days (yes, I am that old!) they offered a BASIC compiler and if you wrote applications with it you had to pay Microsoft a 9% royalty on your sales to license the runtime libraries! At the time, Microsoft was about the same size as Red Hat is today.
Red Hat by comparison has commited to only having free software in their distribution. They fund important work for the community like GNOME, Rasterman, and Alan Cox.
Second, what else could Red Hat certify? They only know Red Hat. What if you wanted a Red Hat centric certification? How else could you get it?
Lastly, there is nothing wrong with certification. A license to practice medicine is a certification, a college degree is a certification, a driver's license is a certification. The world is full of them. It doesn't mean everything, but it does mean something. If I see that you are certified, I know that you at least attended some classes. It doesn't mean that you know everything, but it does mean that you know something.
My computer, my way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
In the early 1970's (if I recall correctly) General Motors was also facing anti-trust pressure from the gonvernment. It was proposed that the various car divisions (such as Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, etc.) be split off into separate companies. GM's response to this was to reorganize away from separate car divisions into divisions that designed cars, divisions that built cars, etc. This made the company much harder to divide up. Since the DOJ must be the most pressing "threat" to the Microsoft at this time, I'm sure that this is an important goal of the plan.
My computer. My way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
I live about 10 minutes from where DCLUG does the installfests and if the guys from RedHat can drive up from North Carolina to attend, then surely some of you sorry bastards could get there too.
My computer. My Way. Linux.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Ouch! You cut me to the quick.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
As was discussed several years ago when M$ began to expand beyond OS products into office products, MS should be broken up into an OS company and a Applications company. The OS company would be forbidden from developing Application products.
My Computer. My Way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Yes, inquiring minds want to know... Too spicy for slashdot?
My computer. My Way. Linux.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
I enjoyed in particular that the burden must be off of Linus as 2.2 has "shipped" and "is out the door".
My Computer. My way. Linux.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Is the public relations disaster Intel created by claiming this feature was for securing e-comerence.
The ID scheme is clearly for software copy protection support and really has nothing to do with privacy or security, but they could not possibly convince consumers that this was a desirable feature so they invented this ploy and it backfired terribly.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
The only real advantage (which Intel fails to mention) is to enable software license managers to work and to prevent software from running on systems that do not match the license key. This has been the holy grail of the commercial software industry for years.
Even worse, many commercial software products will require its use and you will be forced to run with it enabled all the time. So much for privacy.
My Computer. My Way. Linux.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Actually, the Internet became stupid when AOL let all the stupid people in.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Look at it this way. Your air supply is the free flow of information (like song lyrics). Their air supply is the money they charge for music. If they cut off your air supply, it's only fair that you cut of theirs in exchange.
--
Howard Roark, Architect