They should have used a control for this test. Put each of these unified conglomerations up against one good Sysadmin with a clue.
No one tool will ever be "THE Solution". No matter how many doodads are attached to a Swiss knife, some sack of warm tissue has to fire a few synapsis to put the knife to use. If the sack of warm tissue is lacking in the synapse department, he fails.
Your Gnu box is missing something - let me poke around here - hmmmm - Gnu, Gnu, Gnu............ OH WAIT!!! WHERE'S YOUR OS KERNEL!?!?!??
There's your mistake. Gnu is not an operating system. Gnu is only a collection of applications that will run fine IF implemented on an operating system, such as Linux.
"I'm not quite sure where the author got that idea. The US has always been based on the idea that the individual is paramount. In our popular culture, we have always derived our strength from the individual and his willingness to help others."
Those ideas are being smothered and weeded out of society today. Seat belt laws came about because big brother (primarily insurance companies) knows better than the individual. The "proper" use of Personal Protection Equipment isn't an individual choice (either for the individual worker, or the individual company) instead being mandated by both law and insurance policies. Individual choice is being assaulted when it comes to health/life insurance in general - laws are being authored that REQUIRE an individual to have insurance, along with minimum requirements for that insurance. An individual cannot decide to save a few dollars on an automobile purchase by dropping the 6 airbags, shock absorbers in the bumpers, shatterproof glass, and all the other innovations designed to save lives.
Individual choice in education is limited in this day and age - the government mandates the curriculum to a large extent, and local schoolboards have little choice in the matter.
I AM an individualist, and I am keenly aware of the restrictions placed on me by society. Any time I do the "unexpected", thus standing out from the crowd, there is a policeman nearby to question me.
No, the US is definitely moving toward collectivism, there is no denying that. The law of the land is "Conform, or be rehabilitated."
No longer do people take pride in local culture - instead, one homogenous people from sea to shining sea watches the same drivel that Hollywood calls "entertainment", eats the same pablum pushed by McDonald's and other corporate food chains, and puts themselves in debt trying to keep up with role models held out by Corporate America.
Need an example of the loss of individualism? Go down to any street corner in the cities. Watch the white boys who are trying to look/sound black. Watch the black and the latin ladies who are trying to look/sound white.
Individuals are looking at extinction in the not-so-distant future. It ain't cool to be black, or white, or Mexican. It ain't cool to be Southern, Northern, or Mid-Western. It certainly ain't cool to be proud of your German ancestry, your Polish ancestry, or whichever land our grandparents came from. It is very UNCOOL to proclaim your religious background with your dress, actions, or words - you will be accused of some kind of intolerance.
"It takes a village to raise an idiot" is the wisdom today....... and they aren't far from wrong.
The forms of government are "different". Maybe one or both are "bad", maybe one or both are "good", but they are certainly "different".
Besides which - I'm feeling more and more that the voters have been usurped by lobbyists and special interest groups in the US. Our vote really doesn't seem to mean much these days........
Oh, most definitely, it is necessary to have a czar!! It gives politicians a warm fuzzy feeling to think that they are in control!! What would this world be without warm fuzzies? What would they have to brag about, without some nearly all-powerful talking head making up goals, benchmarks, and charts? Oh PLEASE, allow us a few more czars!! I think that the next czar should be "Schoolchildren's playground equipment czar". This world is a nasty place for toddlers, and small children. We really need a czar to make sure the children are safe on the playground!
"Without Sony, we wouldn't have classic movies like Angels and Demons, Fired Up!, Obsessed, The Pink Panther 2, Quantum of Solace, or the International."
You say that as if it might be a BAD THING???
I propose that if America's youth weren't sitting entranced in front of the boob tube, that youth might produce something superior to the trash they are watching. Not necessarily so, but "might". It wouldn't take a whole lot of effort, after all.
An earthquake that swallowed Hollywood would probably world culture. Just my opinion....
Thank you for that observation. Having traveled the world over the past 4 decades, I can assure you that we have lost a lot of culture, when we sold our collective souls to "commerce". In the US especially, entire neighborhoods are torn down, to be replaced with yet another plastic mall, complete with McDonald's, WalMart, Starbuck's, and all the other senseless trash. American culture has been concreted over, from coast to coast, from border to border. Genuine Mexican restaurants have been replaced with something called Taco Bell in the south, the last distributor of ale has been converted to piss-water beer in the north, and both coasts look very much the same from the driver's seat of a car.
Culture. We've lost far more than we've gained since I was a child.......
How can people make stuff up, like this? I mean, really, HOW?
Supposing that they go with BSD. It is ALREADY standards compliant, and secure. The government need only decide which programs are necessary for their uses, and MAYBE have them tailored and tweaked for thier purposes. Nothing more than what is necessary for any MS system.
Every single step required to put that BSD system to work for the government, would be required for an "equivalent" MS system. Or, Solaris, or Linux, or whatever. You seem to suggest that using MS systems eliminates some of the tedious work? I hardly think so.
Training is the single expense that will probably be higher with an open source system - but that is a ONE TIME expense, which is more than offset by the money saved (ie, not sent to Redmond)
That seems damned silly. I grew up with an Anglo background, and many African names sound "odd" to my ears. Some eastern European names do as well. Ditto with Asian and Arab names. I should make fun of, and dismiss, anyone with a name that I'm not accustomed to? You suggest that a scientific discovery made by someon in India may not have much value, simply because I have no idea how to pronounce his name? Ethnocentrism really has little value in today's world..... I haven't even looked to see just who Smedley is, but I already know that he's a marine from the rest of this article. A US Marine with any serious rank is someone to take seriously, no matter what his Mama named him. (For that matter, the same goes for the United States' Commander in Chief - he's a funny looking bastid, but you had better take him seriously.)
Somehow, you seem to miss the point that oftentimes, a state and it's people choose to do one thing, which is their RIGHT, but the federal government decides what is "good" for them instead. The method of ensuring compliance with federal law oftentimes amounts to nothing more than blackmail. State A wants to build a new highway, and turn it into a toll road to pay for itself. The fed doesn't want to see a toll road put in place. So - the fed tells the state, "You can have your toll road, but you will lose federal funding not only for your highways, but for education, medicaid, - - - " The list will go on as far as necessary to ensure that the state sees the "wisdom" of following federal mandate.
A better example might be affirmative action plans. Much can be said about AA, both good and bad - but it was shoved down the throats of the states as the only possible solution to a rather poorly defined problem. Today, we have a black president who questions the value of that plan. It doesn't benefit the blacks as much as it is touted to, it certainly doesn't benefit non-blacks, and it is an administrative nightmare for business and the government. Affirmative action needs to be discarded, or replaced with something better - but no state has the power to reject something that doesn't work. Only the fed can change it, or end it.
This is simply WRONG. The fed has far to much power to interfere in state's affairs.
Stallman isn't Linux - he's part of the Gnu herd....... Good God, not only did you flub the url, but you don't even know who the hell you're talking about.
Let's try this - Linux - Linus - Linux - Linus. Linux was created by Linux Torvalds, NOT by the old bearded bull with nasty feet.
Computers crunch numbers, and store and retrieve data. In no instance does Windows do a better job than *nix. Any entity that is required to accept public bids should be REQUIRED to publish their requirements that numbers crunch and data stores in a particular way. Red Hat, Suse, Solaris, Debian, EVERYONE should have the opportunity to examine the requirements, then submit a bid based on their ability to meet those requirements.
No-bid contracts were wrong when George Bush was paying off his debts to contributors, no-bid contracts are just as wrong in Switzerland.
Uhhh, prectically speaking, there may not be a LOT of difference between a federation and a republic. But, the US is not a federation. It IS a republic. Often touted to be a democratic republic, but a republic all the same. Member states do not enjoy the right to secede, nor do they enjoy any right of veto, or other useful tools that might block the republic's goals or actions.
That observation seems a bit silly. Yes, there ARE a number of ultra-leet who won't consider using an OS that they don't compile to their own custom needs. But, there are an even larger number of people who can't or won't go to that extreme.
Face it - Joe Sixpack can download the binaries, install them, then do a relative minimal customization, and have a machine that does JUST WHAT HE NEEDS. And, that is precisely what the world at large needs to know. One doesn't have to be the ultimate geek to use Linux - instead one only needs to troubleshoot a handful of problems, most of the time, to find why the "defaults" don't work on THIS ONE machine.
Are you a veteran? It is accepted procedure to make words up on the fly. Dilligaf is one that was made up, and passed down. Today, it is an important part of military speech. And, yes, we permit lowly civilians to use our speech as well. There are dozens more. Out of consideration for those more sensitive than I, I'll not list them here, but Google is your freind.
Let Japan acknowledge their prejudicial practices, and pass laws similar to our own Affirmative Action. Any company that fails to employ Bakunin pays penalties. A company that employs Bakunin, but prevents them from entering management ranks pays penalties. There is a problem, which is tacitly approved by the government. The government needs to make it clear that the conduct is unacceptable, and will be penalized.
Where is the Emporer on this issue? The same people who look to the past for excuses be bigots are probably the same people who would profess loyalty to the Emporer. Let that *divine* individual speak out against the practice. Japan may not even NEED our not_so_perfect affirmative action laws if he speaks!
Sorry, that makes little sense. OSS isn't a genetically challenged underclass, held down by a bunch of bigot of another race. No affirmative action here.
OSS is a competitive alternative that saves big bucks in the long run. Open source standards documents are sufficient for transmitting and storing any type of data that government needs to transmit or store. There is no NEED to pay the monopoly hundreds of thousands each and every year for the privilege of using - what, exactly? A bunch of macros that are designed NOT to run on any other office suite?
We have a vicious cycle here, really. Microsoft designs such things, and hard sells them to business, business grows to rely on them, OSS begins to offer similar features, so Microsoft alters the features sufficiently to prevent compatibility, at the same time promising business that failure to upgrade will break compatibility with future MS offerings.
It just doesn't end.
If government and business decide to adopt open source standards, eventually MS will be forced to adopt those same standards, or find themselves out of the market entirely.
And, if EVERYONE is using open standards, MS can STILL SELL their product! Probably not at the inflated prices they charge today, but hey, they can still sell. All they have to do is become compatible. No one needs preferred treatment, just the same standards applied to everyone.
Interesting. I have never heard of anyone being compensated - this is worth looking at. Certainly, our local county jail compensates NO ONE. State prison system? I highly doubt it. Thanks for the links.
Knowledge is knowledge. How a bunch of inbred tribals use that knowledge isn't the responsibility of the people who discover and/or make it available.
The Japanese have a problem with discrimination, not Google, not the web, and not the United States. Let Japan solve the problem, don't make it a Google problem, a web problem, or a United States problem.
"Trying to make do with less governance isn't the solution to problems with government"
You've lost me there. You have no problem with government interference in every aspect of life? On the job, off the job, in school, on the road, on the web, EVERYWHERE!!
Government is to big, far to pervasive. Every year there are new laws passed, enabling government to scrutinize people more closely, accompanied by requests for more money to hire more personnel.
Phhht. Less governance would be a wonderful thing in the United States today.
The lost time thing won't fly, period. People aren't even compensated for time spent in a jail cell! Forget about compensation for lost computer time, or anything remotely similar for automobiles, apartments, homes, tools and equipment.
But, yes, the automobile, apartment, tools, equipment, AND COMPUTERS should be returned in working order. If not, the state SHOULD BE LIABLE.
Slashdot Mirror
They should have used a control for this test. Put each of these unified conglomerations up against one good Sysadmin with a clue.
No one tool will ever be "THE Solution". No matter how many doodads are attached to a Swiss knife, some sack of warm tissue has to fire a few synapsis to put the knife to use. If the sack of warm tissue is lacking in the synapse department, he fails.
Your Gnu box is missing something - let me poke around here - hmmmm - Gnu, Gnu, Gnu............ OH WAIT!!! WHERE'S YOUR OS KERNEL!?!?!??
There's your mistake. Gnu is not an operating system. Gnu is only a collection of applications that will run fine IF implemented on an operating system, such as Linux.
Download a real OS distro, dumbass.
"I'm not quite sure where the author got that idea. The US has always been based on the idea that the individual is paramount. In our popular culture, we have always derived our strength from the individual and his willingness to help others."
Those ideas are being smothered and weeded out of society today. Seat belt laws came about because big brother (primarily insurance companies) knows better than the individual. The "proper" use of Personal Protection Equipment isn't an individual choice (either for the individual worker, or the individual company) instead being mandated by both law and insurance policies. Individual choice is being assaulted when it comes to health/life insurance in general - laws are being authored that REQUIRE an individual to have insurance, along with minimum requirements for that insurance. An individual cannot decide to save a few dollars on an automobile purchase by dropping the 6 airbags, shock absorbers in the bumpers, shatterproof glass, and all the other innovations designed to save lives.
Individual choice in education is limited in this day and age - the government mandates the curriculum to a large extent, and local schoolboards have little choice in the matter.
I AM an individualist, and I am keenly aware of the restrictions placed on me by society. Any time I do the "unexpected", thus standing out from the crowd, there is a policeman nearby to question me.
No, the US is definitely moving toward collectivism, there is no denying that. The law of the land is "Conform, or be rehabilitated."
No longer do people take pride in local culture - instead, one homogenous people from sea to shining sea watches the same drivel that Hollywood calls "entertainment", eats the same pablum pushed by McDonald's and other corporate food chains, and puts themselves in debt trying to keep up with role models held out by Corporate America.
Need an example of the loss of individualism? Go down to any street corner in the cities. Watch the white boys who are trying to look/sound black. Watch the black and the latin ladies who are trying to look/sound white.
Individuals are looking at extinction in the not-so-distant future. It ain't cool to be black, or white, or Mexican. It ain't cool to be Southern, Northern, or Mid-Western. It certainly ain't cool to be proud of your German ancestry, your Polish ancestry, or whichever land our grandparents came from. It is very UNCOOL to proclaim your religious background with your dress, actions, or words - you will be accused of some kind of intolerance.
"It takes a village to raise an idiot" is the wisdom today....... and they aren't far from wrong.
The forms of government are "different". Maybe one or both are "bad", maybe one or both are "good", but they are certainly "different".
Besides which - I'm feeling more and more that the voters have been usurped by lobbyists and special interest groups in the US. Our vote really doesn't seem to mean much these days........
Sorry, I failed to be funny..... Yes, the sarcasm was noted
Oh, most definitely, it is necessary to have a czar!! It gives politicians a warm fuzzy feeling to think that they are in control!! What would this world be without warm fuzzies? What would they have to brag about, without some nearly all-powerful talking head making up goals, benchmarks, and charts? Oh PLEASE, allow us a few more czars!! I think that the next czar should be "Schoolchildren's playground equipment czar". This world is a nasty place for toddlers, and small children. We really need a czar to make sure the children are safe on the playground!
"Without Sony, we wouldn't have classic movies like Angels and Demons, Fired Up!, Obsessed, The Pink Panther 2, Quantum of Solace, or the International."
You say that as if it might be a BAD THING???
I propose that if America's youth weren't sitting entranced in front of the boob tube, that youth might produce something superior to the trash they are watching. Not necessarily so, but "might". It wouldn't take a whole lot of effort, after all.
An earthquake that swallowed Hollywood would probably world culture. Just my opinion....
Thank you for that observation. Having traveled the world over the past 4 decades, I can assure you that we have lost a lot of culture, when we sold our collective souls to "commerce". In the US especially, entire neighborhoods are torn down, to be replaced with yet another plastic mall, complete with McDonald's, WalMart, Starbuck's, and all the other senseless trash. American culture has been concreted over, from coast to coast, from border to border. Genuine Mexican restaurants have been replaced with something called Taco Bell in the south, the last distributor of ale has been converted to piss-water beer in the north, and both coasts look very much the same from the driver's seat of a car.
Culture. We've lost far more than we've gained since I was a child.......
How can people make stuff up, like this? I mean, really, HOW?
Supposing that they go with BSD. It is ALREADY standards compliant, and secure. The government need only decide which programs are necessary for their uses, and MAYBE have them tailored and tweaked for thier purposes. Nothing more than what is necessary for any MS system.
Every single step required to put that BSD system to work for the government, would be required for an "equivalent" MS system. Or, Solaris, or Linux, or whatever. You seem to suggest that using MS systems eliminates some of the tedious work? I hardly think so.
Training is the single expense that will probably be higher with an open source system - but that is a ONE TIME expense, which is more than offset by the money saved (ie, not sent to Redmond)
More and more governments are switching to open source. Those that insist on proprietary continue to be embarassed. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10129373-42.html http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Royal-Navy-Catches-a-Virus-from-Russia-With-Love-05256/
That seems damned silly. I grew up with an Anglo background, and many African names sound "odd" to my ears. Some eastern European names do as well. Ditto with Asian and Arab names. I should make fun of, and dismiss, anyone with a name that I'm not accustomed to? You suggest that a scientific discovery made by someon in India may not have much value, simply because I have no idea how to pronounce his name? Ethnocentrism really has little value in today's world..... I haven't even looked to see just who Smedley is, but I already know that he's a marine from the rest of this article. A US Marine with any serious rank is someone to take seriously, no matter what his Mama named him. (For that matter, the same goes for the United States' Commander in Chief - he's a funny looking bastid, but you had better take him seriously.)
Somehow, you seem to miss the point that oftentimes, a state and it's people choose to do one thing, which is their RIGHT, but the federal government decides what is "good" for them instead. The method of ensuring compliance with federal law oftentimes amounts to nothing more than blackmail. State A wants to build a new highway, and turn it into a toll road to pay for itself. The fed doesn't want to see a toll road put in place. So - the fed tells the state, "You can have your toll road, but you will lose federal funding not only for your highways, but for education, medicaid, - - - " The list will go on as far as necessary to ensure that the state sees the "wisdom" of following federal mandate.
A better example might be affirmative action plans. Much can be said about AA, both good and bad - but it was shoved down the throats of the states as the only possible solution to a rather poorly defined problem. Today, we have a black president who questions the value of that plan. It doesn't benefit the blacks as much as it is touted to, it certainly doesn't benefit non-blacks, and it is an administrative nightmare for business and the government. Affirmative action needs to be discarded, or replaced with something better - but no state has the power to reject something that doesn't work. Only the fed can change it, or end it.
This is simply WRONG. The fed has far to much power to interfere in state's affairs.
What swillden says. The states have no clearly defined rights on which the US federal government cannot encroach. Our civil war established that fact.
Stallman isn't Linux - he's part of the Gnu herd....... Good God, not only did you flub the url, but you don't even know who the hell you're talking about.
Let's try this - Linux - Linus - Linux - Linus. Linux was created by Linux Torvalds, NOT by the old bearded bull with nasty feet.
Computers crunch numbers, and store and retrieve data. In no instance does Windows do a better job than *nix. Any entity that is required to accept public bids should be REQUIRED to publish their requirements that numbers crunch and data stores in a particular way. Red Hat, Suse, Solaris, Debian, EVERYONE should have the opportunity to examine the requirements, then submit a bid based on their ability to meet those requirements.
No-bid contracts were wrong when George Bush was paying off his debts to contributors, no-bid contracts are just as wrong in Switzerland.
Uhhh, prectically speaking, there may not be a LOT of difference between a federation and a republic. But, the US is not a federation. It IS a republic. Often touted to be a democratic republic, but a republic all the same. Member states do not enjoy the right to secede, nor do they enjoy any right of veto, or other useful tools that might block the republic's goals or actions.
Bullshit. DO your homework. HP printers/scanners all work under Linux. I've not had a need to search for other drivers, but I'm sure there are more.
got me again......... :-(
That observation seems a bit silly. Yes, there ARE a number of ultra-leet who won't consider using an OS that they don't compile to their own custom needs. But, there are an even larger number of people who can't or won't go to that extreme.
Face it - Joe Sixpack can download the binaries, install them, then do a relative minimal customization, and have a machine that does JUST WHAT HE NEEDS. And, that is precisely what the world at large needs to know. One doesn't have to be the ultimate geek to use Linux - instead one only needs to troubleshoot a handful of problems, most of the time, to find why the "defaults" don't work on THIS ONE machine.
Are you a veteran? It is accepted procedure to make words up on the fly. Dilligaf is one that was made up, and passed down. Today, it is an important part of military speech. And, yes, we permit lowly civilians to use our speech as well. There are dozens more. Out of consideration for those more sensitive than I, I'll not list them here, but Google is your freind.
Let Japan acknowledge their prejudicial practices, and pass laws similar to our own Affirmative Action. Any company that fails to employ Bakunin pays penalties. A company that employs Bakunin, but prevents them from entering management ranks pays penalties. There is a problem, which is tacitly approved by the government. The government needs to make it clear that the conduct is unacceptable, and will be penalized.
Where is the Emporer on this issue? The same people who look to the past for excuses be bigots are probably the same people who would profess loyalty to the Emporer. Let that *divine* individual speak out against the practice. Japan may not even NEED our not_so_perfect affirmative action laws if he speaks!
Sorry, that makes little sense. OSS isn't a genetically challenged underclass, held down by a bunch of bigot of another race. No affirmative action here.
OSS is a competitive alternative that saves big bucks in the long run. Open source standards documents are sufficient for transmitting and storing any type of data that government needs to transmit or store. There is no NEED to pay the monopoly hundreds of thousands each and every year for the privilege of using - what, exactly? A bunch of macros that are designed NOT to run on any other office suite?
We have a vicious cycle here, really. Microsoft designs such things, and hard sells them to business, business grows to rely on them, OSS begins to offer similar features, so Microsoft alters the features sufficiently to prevent compatibility, at the same time promising business that failure to upgrade will break compatibility with future MS offerings.
It just doesn't end.
If government and business decide to adopt open source standards, eventually MS will be forced to adopt those same standards, or find themselves out of the market entirely.
And, if EVERYONE is using open standards, MS can STILL SELL their product! Probably not at the inflated prices they charge today, but hey, they can still sell. All they have to do is become compatible. No one needs preferred treatment, just the same standards applied to everyone.
Interesting. I have never heard of anyone being compensated - this is worth looking at. Certainly, our local county jail compensates NO ONE. State prison system? I highly doubt it. Thanks for the links.
Knowledge is knowledge. How a bunch of inbred tribals use that knowledge isn't the responsibility of the people who discover and/or make it available.
The Japanese have a problem with discrimination, not Google, not the web, and not the United States. Let Japan solve the problem, don't make it a Google problem, a web problem, or a United States problem.
"Trying to make do with less governance isn't the solution to problems with government"
You've lost me there. You have no problem with government interference in every aspect of life? On the job, off the job, in school, on the road, on the web, EVERYWHERE!!
Government is to big, far to pervasive. Every year there are new laws passed, enabling government to scrutinize people more closely, accompanied by requests for more money to hire more personnel.
Phhht. Less governance would be a wonderful thing in the United States today.
The lost time thing won't fly, period. People aren't even compensated for time spent in a jail cell! Forget about compensation for lost computer time, or anything remotely similar for automobiles, apartments, homes, tools and equipment.
But, yes, the automobile, apartment, tools, equipment, AND COMPUTERS should be returned in working order. If not, the state SHOULD BE LIABLE.
Most definitely.