Who said that? I sure didn't. I used the DC snipers as an example of someone who fit your criteria for justifying gun ownership and yet should not have had access to a gun.
And I can give a dozen more examples of people who drive cars, yet shouldn't. People do stupid things with whatever tools are available to them. Yes, they have every right to have access to a gun. They do not have a right to kill people. That is the difference.
No, you don't necessarily have a "right to a gun".
Oh, I don't? Sorry, pal, in my country I do.
Unless your firearm is to be used as a well-regulated militiaman, you do not have a literal "right" to it. But then again, it's also not criminal or necessarily "wrong" to have that firearm either. If your skewed view of the 2nd Amendment were true, then why not take away an ex-criminal's 4th amendment rights as well. If we're throwing away people's "rights", they should all be up for grabs...or isn't that the exact same reasoning that gun lobbyists used to defend why we should not infringe on the 2nd Amendment by continually outlawing more and more firearms?
Why guns are good: It protects you. It protects you from burglars, nasty governments, invaders, and anything you need to be protected from.
What isn't told is how often guns stop crimes. Only how they are used to commit crimes. You realize that one of the school shootings a few years back was stopped because a kid ran to his car and got his gun? If I have someone try to break into my house, and they happen to catch a glance of me walking with a desert eagle in my hand they are probably going to walk away. If they don't, well, not my problem.
Guns are not bad. People are bad.
Also, please don't use such specious logic as "fists and bombs...why not outlaw those". I said I don't necessarily advocate the criminalization of the tool. If you're simply trolling for a fight, there's nothing left to be said.
You are saying that guns are used to commit crimes. Guns stop crimes. Canada has more guns per capita, and much less violent crime than the US. The US is just more violent. US brings violence out in people. It's not video games, it's just life. By the time I was 18 I had 4 guns shoved in my face. One was because I was in Morocco and accidently wandered onto the kings beach house, so that's excusable. If I would have had a gun, I wouldn't have pulled it the other 3 times. If you are breaking into my house, or trying ot mug me, it's Mr. Pistol time.
My right is to defend my home. Defend myself. Defend my family. My gun helps with that. If you don't want to protect your family, and believe that the cops can do it for you, than lots of luck to you pal. Don't pass your delusional hope onto me.
I have had a family member murdered by somone breaking into her home... He got 7 years in prison.
Just wanted to disagree with you on this one point. I think Content Management is where an open source solution could happen, or possibly a closed source solution on top of open source software. A lot of the pieces already exist, but need to be assembled into a useable framework.
They still (in the current moment) would require a lot of development effort to get it to that point. All the different pieces are there, but that doesn't mean it works. I mean, I could build about 5 computers from the parts I have in my closet. It doesn't mean I have a 5 node cluster:)
So you should be allowed to keep nuclear weapons, then?
Nuclear weapons require special housing, and much safety regulations or they will harm your neighbors. Having any gun won't harm your neighbors unless you do something stupid.
I think you typed this a little quick. So, I will try to reinterpret. You are saying that VC's would laugh at getting an investment to develop a product as Open Source, then profit from support would laugh. I agree. I was thinking more along the lines of providing large scale support for an already mostly developed open source product such as the example of Postgres we have been using. So, the initial investment would be to get through training, and get the first few support/consulting contracts.
Yeah, I typed it quick. Friday Idiocy is setting in:) If you could take a package, like Apache, that is already in production, and form a real support setup that has software additions and consultants to provide on-site installation you could probably get some level of funding. It'd be hard to pull off, but you could.
And, my mistake I was also using the term VC incorrectly to encompass Angel investors as well.
When I started playing with investors, I learned they are very different. VC firms will setup your company, help appoint CEOs, meet with you to make sure you aren't doing something really fucking dumb. Angel Investors are mostly just guys who got lucky, or worked in the field for a long time, who are trying to find something "fun." It's kind of like SCORE, except with money:)
Well, in terms of Open Source business models I think the customization, support, and development of applications to run with all that database, application server, web server, and other infrastructure is the way to go.
It is the way to go, but a lot of work goes into it. You have to find several people willing to work for free in the hopes of in 6 months to a year, work for themselves. That's the problem that I run into a lot. Stock options are great to sign them in, but in 6 months if the project isn't finished, they bail because they don't feel they have a commitment. I've had bad luck with a lot of people I try to bring on board. Even if I buy hardware for them, and such. I'm not a CEO though, and I don't want to be. I know more about business than I would ever want to, just because I want to have my own firm. Pain in the ass, I tell ya. But, I think it will be worth it.
I was thinking more along the lines of a company saying, "I don't want to support this anymore because it isn't worth it." I am sure there is a price where they will support it, but that price could be prohibitive because of resource choices that company makes. i.e. I get a ROI of 60% by spending that money on this product, therefore if I am going to use that money to support you I want a 60% ROI, making the cost prohibitive.
When systems are auctioned off at liquidation, usually they only have one or two customers anyway. Sometimes their previous customers will form a cooperative agreement and buy it together, and then fork development and support. Usually no one wants to buy it, though. If it was in hot demand, they wouldn't have gone out of business:)
No, the major difference is that with closed source the initial investment goes to making the software. In open source the initial investment goes towards training the support staff. I have no idea whether the difficulty of convincing a VC to make an initial investment that gets used to train and pay support staff vs getting a VC to provide initial investment to pay programmers to create a closed source product is different. But, is this problem really an Open Source problem, or a VC problem?
I can tell you with much certainty, but not 100% that trying to secure VC for something like this would be a pipe dream. VC firms aren't going to look at the burn-rate for how long it takes to get the product done, and the expected revenues from support and laugh. Now that VC firms are back to somewhat sane organizations, they don't throw money at anything with.com in the name. Convincing a VC now will involve a 5 year plan, expected revenues that better be much more than the initial investment by the end of the next business year. If you aren't going to turn a good revenue within 12 months, your chances of getting VC are slim.
I've personally found it better to just work on it on your own, going slowly, and get the system ready then get micro-loans or talk to Angel investors who aren't worried about quick return. If you can find a early-retired CEO who wants to sink his teeth into something part time and has a few hundred thousand to blow, you are a very lucky person.
I'm still trying to fund my start-up, and it's a huge undertaking. I talked with several VC firms, and after refusing to take it to a quick revenue path, get rejected. I have two tangible goods ideas that I'm going to try to get into the market to get money (How ironic is that, easier to build a device and market it than it is to start a freaking software company?)
No, but someone is going to. With millions of people using the software, it's almost a statistical certainty.
Millions.. of.. people. What are these millions that you are speaking of? A million people using Postgres, or one function that contains rogue code? You know why you are more likely to see rogue code in open source, than in a proprietary system that is purchased? Legal Liability. Even though a EULA will state they are not responsible for damages, if there is proven negligability in application security leading to data loss, they are still liable and any judge will rule that.
God, you are a moron. That lawsuite is a pathetic joke. No-one anywhere takes that bullshit seriously. It is difficult to comprehend why SCO has made such stupid movies, but that seems to be their history. The only possible explanation is that they want to be bought out by IBM -- more enterprise-level extortion. That lawsuite won't be posing any problems for anyone anywhere. It's a fine example of where some secretary should have just read the thing and said, "That's fucking bullshit," and thrown it in the trash.
Just because the lawsuit isn't going anywhere meaningful, it is still going to court. It's an inconvenience over licensing issues. What's the matter, can't back up your statement? Didn't think so. License disputes happen when two parties get together to work, in some regard. I guess in your under-developed mind it only matters if someone wins billions of dollars, or something.
Typical short-sighted thoughts of those in the industry thinking maybe 5 years ahead. In the long-run, it would be cheaper for companies needing a service like Oracle to band together and jointly pay for the development of such, as opposed to everyone paying Oracle continuously.
Ok, so they pay to create a competeting database and then who owns the copyrights? What if someone wants to take parts of that code in another proprietary application? What happens after? A new company is formed to handle support that bills out to the original companies? It's not short-sighted, it's realistic thinking. In your world, the trees must be purple and the sky sings songs all night long.
Paying an external company for this software necessarily means they're (everyone who's paying for it cummulatively) paying for more than it costed to develop it, which means they're getting fucked over, compared to if they'd banded together and jointly funded it's production.
Oh, ok! So as long as they band together and keep the same agenda they all will be fine. Except who then pays for support? Who pays the support peoples salaries? What happens when someone opens up a competing support-house that slaughters what the original companies do causing huge losses in revenue and showing the original work was a waste of money because they don't get any subsidized revenue off of support?
I'm actually inclined to think that you just don't think.
Regarding the limiations of FS/OSS: yep, that's exactly why we need to continue using FS/OSS and not be tempted into using proprietary software. So that people feel the need to develop these solutions, because they need to use them.
In case you failed to look around in the real world, people need these systems now. Not in 5 years. Not in 10 years. Now. Don't worry, by the time you graduate high school I'm sure a lot of the open source alternatives will be ready. When is that, another 10 years?
Too simplistic. You always pay for development, the question is only what portion you get allocated. Open source and software companies are simply two different means of aggregating the resources of many users in order to produce software the users need. The users always pay for development one way or another. Purchased software has the development cost in the license fees, open source software has the development costs in the support contract, the hardware purchase, the programmer on staff, or whatever other means you can think of. The question is which gets you the most productivity for your dollar.
It was too simplistic, I'll agree with you. The best example of this is setting up an enterprise reporting engine. You will need "programmers" to get it running. Someone to code the reports and keep the system maintained. There is not one open source reporting engine that can come close to this, though. Same goes with search engines, and Content Management Systems. Those 3 are one of the biggest expenses in enterprise infastructure.
All software can potentially die, closed source or open source. The advantage of open source is because the source is available, if you can afford it, some one will maintain it for you. This should theoretically work for closed source software as well, but other factors come in that can push the cost above what an OSS support contract might cost. One of those factors is competition.
If a proprietary company goes under, it files for bankruptcy and it's assetts are auctioned off. Including IP. Nothing is stopping you, or another company, from buying it.
Actually, it's an understatement of what the RIAA thinks. They see a computer as a Weapon of Mass Infringement, something like an economic WMD against their profit line. And they'd reaaaaaaally like to send in the marines (lawyers) and DisaRM us. No, there's nothing wrong with my shift key.
I really like that term. "Weapon of Mass Infringement" Freaking awesome, man. Because of my views I can't say that DRM is wrong. DRM is a tool, and the copyright holders can make it evil, or good. In other words, I'm with Linus on that one..
Totally. This would fit nicely into my Camaro's DIN slot. If anyone would like to buy it for me, I'll be happy to pay you back with a harrowing thrill ride, accompanied by any music you'd like.
Hmm.. sounds tempting, but do I need a mullet first?
Obviously they did this. If a return on investment is there some one will make the investment. Now convincing some one to take that kind of risk to compete against a company with Oracle's reputation may never happen with out gradually building a reputation for quality support from the bottom up. Note this has nothing to do with Closed Source or Open Source. It is Oracle's reputation and talent in this area.
This is why I said, "unless they receive heavy investments." It wont happen because they are broke ass. They are a free software providor operating on a limited scope. Postgres has a good reputation, but it isn't going to hit Oracles popularity without external investment, or unless they start charging for it and build capital that way.
I am not saying it will happen, but that the factors in the decision have little to do with open source or closed source.
The difference is, after initial development, you have capital from sales to support service agreements. If you charge $5K a year for support, and someone buys that and immediately asks for help, but your support staff is in the first day of training, the help they'll receive will be roughly shit. Where as offering shitty support for free, while building capital, then offering it after your people are adequately trained, works. That's the major difference between a closed-source startup and an open-source startup. John Draker's start-up is bypassing the need to train people but doing it himself. A lot of people aren't up for that task.
Obviously not well trained enough to know that most AK47s are not fully automatic weapons (without modification) and that fully auto is fucking stupid anyway unless you have a decent mounting and/or biceps the size of a small city.
Have you ever shot any modern automatic assault rifle? They aren't hard to support. Also, submachine guns in full auto aren't hard to support, but have shitty accuracy. I personally don't like rifles, just pistols.
Before the DC snipers shot their first person, they were not felons and were well-trained in the handling and marksmanship of their weapons.
Ack! Since one person was a criminal, everybody who has a Bushmaster hunting rifle.
I am not advocating the criminalization of a tool, I'm just pointing out that your criteria above for "what should justify my ability to have a firearm just because I want to" is wrong.
No, it isn't wrong. I have every right to have a gun, just because I want to. My possession of a gun has nothing to do with anybodies safety, as long as they don't try to break into my house. Someone could kill just as many people as the DC sniper if they took a knife inside of a crowded mall and started stabbing everybody in sight. Or an explosive. Hell, some people can do it with just their fists. I guess we better get rid of fists, too.
Uhm, right. Delusions must be great. Just because you can look at the code, doesn't mean you are going to. This entire discussion has been had several dozen times over, and the end result is that there can still be obnoxious code.
No worry of BSA-auditing and multimillion dollar extortion schemes.
Wrong. The BSA can still audit you.
No licensing headaches.
Uhm, SCO ring a bell? SCO vs. IBM. Keep dreaming.
Infinite scaleability per each individually bought copy (as in, you can install an infinite number of copies with one purchased [or downloaded] CD).
Please go look up what "scalability" means. Then get back to me.
Due to #4, ever-increasing savings as the number of computers onto which you install the software grows.
You just really need to go work for a few years.
Assurance that the product will not die off simply because a company goes out of business, as it is FS/OSS. Any worthy project will be taken up by others if it's original developers move on.
As opposed to FS/OSS, which just forks, or the maintainers leave it to die and nobody picks it up. Right... your idiocy knows no bounds.
Related to #6, ability to develop/implement your own features for your specific needs.
Or just buy a product that meets your needs, save development costs, have them come in and install and support it and not have to pay extraneous developers money you don't need to spend.
On another note regarding Oracle, it is basically slow crap.
Right. If your experience with Oracle is that it is slow, than it is because you are an idiot.
The executable alone is 18MB, so it naturally has poor performance;
What the fuck? I mean.. what the fuck.. this has fuck-all to do with anything. Because this car is yellow, it must go fast! You do realize that a lot of binaries are larger than 18MB and are extremely fast. An Oracle footprint can go to over 512MB on a decent sized database.. does that mean it has poor performance, too?
specialized database-systems will outperform it.
Not a properly tuned Oracle system. You just don't know shit about Oracle.
Btw, data assurance from Oracle doesn't come for free. It costs quite a bit. And for that extra money you spend on it, it'd be better just spending that money doing an audit of FS/OSS code to insure that it won't lose data, and creating backup systems. Using journaling file systems like ReiserFS and XFS is also useful.
Uh, right. Buying a platinum support contract from Oracle is much cheaper than buying a few developers and have them implement the features Oracle has, right after they do a code audit of an open source system. It must be nice to be so delusional. I bet you can have conversations with your spoon while you are watching saturday morning cartoons.
Where have you been the last five years? Some of the world's most powerful supercomputers are Beowulf clusters, using GNU/Linux. See an O'Reilly article [oreillynet.com] for an overview. In particular, GNU/Linux Beowulf clusters are being used for:
Ok, now you get to go look up a few more terms. A beowulf cluster couples the CPU power of all the systems together. If I have a compile farm, that is a type of cluster that is easily supported by open source. If I have a database cluster, that will not be supported by open source. The type of clustering that Sun does is have each server keep in sync with each other, on a kernel level. You can't do that with open source. Your problem is the only thing you know about is open source, so you think it can solve everything. Go into the field for a few years, and you'll realize you are just being an idiot right now.
Yep, this FS/OSS stuff is really useless. It's only made the movie industry more money then from any other movie (see Titanic), assisted
You cannot honestly label water as "waste". For as you and I are 90+% waste then;)
Some would argue that to be a higher number. I personally find most people I interact with can be replaced by a small shell script, and thereby be a 100% waste (from my frame of reference).
I'm more interested in technology to remove stupid people from driving on freeway systems. Smart drive systems can save more resources because there will be less traffic jams. They aren't mutually exclusive, and I'd like to see both being developed, but that's where my interests lie.
If I wanted an unofficial install that may or may not work and would certainly not be supported, Id' run NWN in Winex3. But you would know that if you didn't assume I was an idiot.
Information wants to be free. You bitch about the installation procedure, someone gives you insight that in the forums there was an alternate method to installing it, and you turn into an asshole.
Correct Open Source is not the end all solution, but your Oracle Support contract has nothing to do with Open Source or Closed Source. It has to do with what your support provider is willing to provide. There is no reason some one could not offer the same level of support you get from Oracle for Postgres.
Because Postgres doesn't have the infastructure due to high costs for software licenses. That is what stops Postgres from offering that type of support. Hiring and training support staff to provide support requires a good amount of investment. Postgres, unless they received heavy investments, will never be able to do this.
Whether anyone ever does has more to do with business and competetive issues than technical reasons. i.e. an equivalent support contract would not cost that much less for Postgres than Oracle support + licenses.
True, but you have burn rate for paying consultants in training. Burn rate is offset by investments and license costs.
Because the Postgres supporter will still have to stress test code to make sure they don't get hammered. After that, the discount would still have to be enough to overcome Oracle's reputation in this area.
I honestly believe that Oracle could open source their database, and still make a fortune. Now that they have their support contracts going. They will never do it, because it's a freaking cash cow. Easy to pop down $1M+ on an Oracle installation, without support. Giving up that type of money isn't going to happen.
Look at the AK-47. Name a particularly good reason why you need a fully automatic (automagic) weapon. Having a firearm is enough, no?
Because I want to. Now, name a particularly good reason why I shouldn't. I'm trained in handling, marksmanship, and am not a felon.
THe problem is, everyone, everwhere see's computers and various technologies as AK-47's. No depth perception.
Uh, aside from having an extra comma, this doesn't make sense. Likening a computer to an AK-47 is like.. wait.. it's likening a computer to an AK-47. One is a piece of silicon that does logical analysis and the other is a fucking gun.
Dang, Microsoft bought Oracle now too? Or did you not notice that he was saying Microsoft doesn't give you the assurances they seem to imply?
We're not a Microsoft shop, but I do know of certain insurance packages available for data integrity. Whether they are actually based by Microsoft or implementation houses, they exist. When you compare open source to enterprise level services, it's not a fair comparison. Enterprise databases come with support packages open source software can't compete with. His claims about the assurances that open source software provides are unsubstantiated and completely false.
First Oracle, now Sun too? This must have been a busy week. That's too bad because Sun had some really good products, but now that MS bought them out, I guess they'll just be selling slapped together Wintel servers with no guarantees on reliability.
He was comparing his Gateway support, and that's ok, but I can't compare Sun to open source? Riight. If you are going to be an open source zealot, you have to take into account that Microsoft is not the only providor of proprietary systems.
Open source is not the end-all solution. You cannot do everything with open source. His gentoo forums may provide all the service he needs, but when it comes to my databases, our Oracle support contract is worth more than anything Postgres or MySQL can hope to provide.
Ok Let's pit your el-cheapo olympus against my Canon Xl1... let's see what has video worthy of broadcast. your toy or my low-end pro camera.
$450 isn't "cheap" but it's consumer-geared. The point is it's purely solid-state driven, and records QuickTime video. That's pretty neat, especially when I just want 4megapixel image capture.
You are comparing a MiniDV camera, to a solid state consumer end camera. Nice job! I have a miniDV camera, too. Lets swing our dicks together!
All of which FS/OSS offers at competitve prices, which is much better deal than you can get from MS. Btw, you get no assurance with MS software -- all software licenses explicitly deny any assurance. So that's just fuzzy buzzword thinking on the part of stupid executives who don't really know wtf they're talking about.
Sorry, but what assurances does open source give you? And you are wrong. Go look at some Oracle assurances. If you lose data at the fault of Oracle, you get assurances for free retrieval, as well as different packages to get paid for data loss. Lets see Postgres offer that.
On a personal note, I get better support for free from Gentoo Forums than I get from Gateway for $300.
Enterprise != Personal systems. Most slashdotters don't realize this. Your $300 sale from Gateway doesn't mean shit. A $3M sale, does. They don't give a shit about you. Deal with it.
The benefits of using FS/OSS also scale very well, in that the more computers you use an FS/OSS product on, the more money you save, compared to using MS NT/2k/XP/2.003k. Oh yea, and there's also the fact that you don't have to worry about hundred-million dollar extortion-attempts from the BSA. These benefits -- though providing the most savings for large companies -- are extremely crucial for smaller companies.
Lets see some open source clusters, then. True enterprise level clusters, like what Sun provides. Oh wait, that's right, you can't. What about SAN support? Oops, something else open source doesn't do. You really need to get out into the real enterprise world. It must be nice to be so ideological to just ignore reality... I wish I could do that.
At first, I thought spamming spammers might be a good thing. Then I discovered spamming a spammer, made me a spammer.
This isn't spamming spammers though. This is requesting more information of the product advertised through automated means. Spam requires unsolicited email, right? This is very solicited, regardless if it is automated or not. This is why I think it's much more ethically "pure" than spamming them.
The thing you're missing is that this records full resolution, 60 fields-per-second video with 48k/16 bit 2-channel audio. IOW, a REAL videocamera.
The only difference is the storage size. The reason why the Olympus doesn't do that (aside from not having a microphone) is because the largest Xd card is 512mb. A far cry from 2GB cards. I'm looking for innovation, not bigger solid-state media.
Sure, and many mini-DV camcorders will shoot still pictures as well. The problem is that the cameras usually don't shoot more than 30 seconds of video and the camcorders take pictures at 1 megapixel. There isn't a device that is at least average at both tasks.
I'm not talking about a shitty 1 megapixel camera. This shoots QuickTime video, granted it's final resolution is only at 320x200. It's still solid state, and the limitation there is lack of hardware encoding that's efficient. If you added hardware encoding, or enough storage for a raw capture, than it would be the same camera. This camera costs $450. The media for that camera runs over $2K. If you had 2GB Xd or SmartMedia cards, there would be raw video dumps at 1280x1024@24+fps, but until the cards get to consumer pricing, consumers cameras will not add that feature. Solid state storage for digital motion video capture isn't some new Panasonic technology.
MiniDV cameras aren't solid state, so it's apples and oranges.
Yeah, have a pool of letters requesting for information. Make sure to have the letters in HTML, with lots of annoying widgets, and slot to load images. Then become... Well a spammer.
Slashdot Mirror
Who said that? I sure didn't. I used the DC snipers as an example of someone who fit your criteria for justifying gun ownership and yet should not have had access to a gun.
And I can give a dozen more examples of people who drive cars, yet shouldn't. People do stupid things with whatever tools are available to them. Yes, they have every right to have access to a gun. They do not have a right to kill people. That is the difference.
No, you don't necessarily have a "right to a gun".
Oh, I don't? Sorry, pal, in my country I do.
Unless your firearm is to be used as a well-regulated militiaman, you do not have a literal "right" to it. But then again, it's also not criminal or necessarily "wrong" to have that firearm either. If your skewed view of the 2nd Amendment were true, then why not take away an ex-criminal's 4th amendment rights as well. If we're throwing away people's "rights", they should all be up for grabs...or isn't that the exact same reasoning that gun lobbyists used to defend why we should not infringe on the 2nd Amendment by continually outlawing more and more firearms?
Why guns are good: It protects you. It protects you from burglars, nasty governments, invaders, and anything you need to be protected from.
What isn't told is how often guns stop crimes. Only how they are used to commit crimes. You realize that one of the school shootings a few years back was stopped because a kid ran to his car and got his gun? If I have someone try to break into my house, and they happen to catch a glance of me walking with a desert eagle in my hand they are probably going to walk away. If they don't, well, not my problem.
Guns are not bad. People are bad.
Also, please don't use such specious logic as "fists and bombs...why not outlaw those". I said I don't necessarily advocate the criminalization of the tool. If you're simply trolling for a fight, there's nothing left to be said.
You are saying that guns are used to commit crimes. Guns stop crimes. Canada has more guns per capita, and much less violent crime than the US. The US is just more violent. US brings violence out in people. It's not video games, it's just life. By the time I was 18 I had 4 guns shoved in my face. One was because I was in Morocco and accidently wandered onto the kings beach house, so that's excusable. If I would have had a gun, I wouldn't have pulled it the other 3 times. If you are breaking into my house, or trying ot mug me, it's Mr. Pistol time.
My right is to defend my home. Defend myself. Defend my family. My gun helps with that. If you don't want to protect your family, and believe that the cops can do it for you, than lots of luck to you pal. Don't pass your delusional hope onto me.
I have had a family member murdered by somone breaking into her home... He got 7 years in prison.
Just wanted to disagree with you on this one point. I think Content Management is where an open source solution could happen, or possibly a closed source solution on top of open source software. A lot of the pieces already exist, but need to be assembled into a useable framework.
:)
They still (in the current moment) would require a lot of development effort to get it to that point. All the different pieces are there, but that doesn't mean it works. I mean, I could build about 5 computers from the parts I have in my closet. It doesn't mean I have a 5 node cluster
So you should be allowed to keep nuclear weapons, then?
Nuclear weapons require special housing, and much safety regulations or they will harm your neighbors. Having any gun won't harm your neighbors unless you do something stupid.
I think you typed this a little quick. So, I will try to reinterpret. You are saying that VC's would laugh at getting an investment to develop a product as Open Source, then profit from support would laugh. I agree. I was thinking more along the lines of providing large scale support for an already mostly developed open source product such as the example of Postgres we have been using. So, the initial investment would be to get through training, and get the first few support/consulting contracts.
:) If you could take a package, like Apache, that is already in production, and form a real support setup that has software additions and consultants to provide on-site installation you could probably get some level of funding. It'd be hard to pull off, but you could.
:)
Yeah, I typed it quick. Friday Idiocy is setting in
And, my mistake I was also using the term VC incorrectly to encompass Angel investors as well.
When I started playing with investors, I learned they are very different. VC firms will setup your company, help appoint CEOs, meet with you to make sure you aren't doing something really fucking dumb. Angel Investors are mostly just guys who got lucky, or worked in the field for a long time, who are trying to find something "fun." It's kind of like SCORE, except with money
Well, in terms of Open Source business models I think the customization, support, and development of applications to run with all that database, application server, web server, and other infrastructure is the way to go.
It is the way to go, but a lot of work goes into it. You have to find several people willing to work for free in the hopes of in 6 months to a year, work for themselves. That's the problem that I run into a lot. Stock options are great to sign them in, but in 6 months if the project isn't finished, they bail because they don't feel they have a commitment. I've had bad luck with a lot of people I try to bring on board. Even if I buy hardware for them, and such. I'm not a CEO though, and I don't want to be. I know more about business than I would ever want to, just because I want to have my own firm. Pain in the ass, I tell ya. But, I think it will be worth it.
I was thinking more along the lines of a company saying, "I don't want to support this anymore because it isn't worth it." I am sure there is a price where they will support it, but that price could be prohibitive because of resource choices that company makes. i.e. I get a ROI of 60% by spending that money on this product, therefore if I am going to use that money to support you I want a 60% ROI, making the cost prohibitive.
:)
When systems are auctioned off at liquidation, usually they only have one or two customers anyway. Sometimes their previous customers will form a cooperative agreement and buy it together, and then fork development and support. Usually no one wants to buy it, though. If it was in hot demand, they wouldn't have gone out of business
No, the major difference is that with closed source the initial investment goes to making the software. In open source the initial investment goes towards training the support staff. I have no idea whether the difficulty of convincing a VC to make an initial investment that gets used to train and pay support staff vs getting a VC to provide initial investment to pay programmers to create a closed source product is different. But, is this problem really an Open Source problem, or a VC problem?
.com in the name. Convincing a VC now will involve a 5 year plan, expected revenues that better be much more than the initial investment by the end of the next business year. If you aren't going to turn a good revenue within 12 months, your chances of getting VC are slim.
I can tell you with much certainty, but not 100% that trying to secure VC for something like this would be a pipe dream. VC firms aren't going to look at the burn-rate for how long it takes to get the product done, and the expected revenues from support and laugh. Now that VC firms are back to somewhat sane organizations, they don't throw money at anything with
I've personally found it better to just work on it on your own, going slowly, and get the system ready then get micro-loans or talk to Angel investors who aren't worried about quick return. If you can find a early-retired CEO who wants to sink his teeth into something part time and has a few hundred thousand to blow, you are a very lucky person.
I'm still trying to fund my start-up, and it's a huge undertaking. I talked with several VC firms, and after refusing to take it to a quick revenue path, get rejected. I have two tangible goods ideas that I'm going to try to get into the market to get money (How ironic is that, easier to build a device and market it than it is to start a freaking software company?)
No, but someone is going to. With millions of people using the software, it's almost a statistical certainty.
.. people. What are these millions that you are speaking of? A million people using Postgres, or one function that contains rogue code? You know why you are more likely to see rogue code in open source, than in a proprietary system that is purchased? Legal Liability. Even though a EULA will state they are not responsible for damages, if there is proven negligability in application security leading to data loss, they are still liable and any judge will rule that.
Millions.. of
God, you are a moron. That lawsuite is a pathetic joke. No-one anywhere takes that bullshit seriously. It is difficult to comprehend why SCO has made such stupid movies, but that seems to be their history. The only possible explanation is that they want to be bought out by IBM -- more enterprise-level extortion. That lawsuite won't be posing any problems for anyone anywhere. It's a fine example of where some secretary should have just read the thing and said, "That's fucking bullshit," and thrown it in the trash.
Just because the lawsuit isn't going anywhere meaningful, it is still going to court. It's an inconvenience over licensing issues. What's the matter, can't back up your statement? Didn't think so. License disputes happen when two parties get together to work, in some regard. I guess in your under-developed mind it only matters if someone wins billions of dollars, or something.
Typical short-sighted thoughts of those in the industry thinking maybe 5 years ahead. In the long-run, it would be cheaper for companies needing a service like Oracle to band together and jointly pay for the development of such, as opposed to everyone paying Oracle continuously.
Ok, so they pay to create a competeting database and then who owns the copyrights? What if someone wants to take parts of that code in another proprietary application? What happens after? A new company is formed to handle support that bills out to the original companies? It's not short-sighted, it's realistic thinking. In your world, the trees must be purple and the sky sings songs all night long.
Paying an external company for this software necessarily means they're (everyone who's paying for it cummulatively) paying for more than it costed to develop it, which means they're getting fucked over, compared to if they'd banded together and jointly funded it's production.
Oh, ok! So as long as they band together and keep the same agenda they all will be fine. Except who then pays for support? Who pays the support peoples salaries? What happens when someone opens up a competing support-house that slaughters what the original companies do causing huge losses in revenue and showing the original work was a waste of money because they don't get any subsidized revenue off of support?
I'm actually inclined to think that you just don't think.
Regarding the limiations of FS/OSS: yep, that's exactly why we need to continue using FS/OSS and not be tempted into using proprietary software. So that people feel the need to develop these solutions, because they need to use them.
In case you failed to look around in the real world, people need these systems now. Not in 5 years. Not in 10 years. Now. Don't worry, by the time you graduate high school I'm sure a lot of the open source alternatives will be ready. When is that, another 10 years?
Too simplistic. You always pay for development, the question is only what portion you get allocated. Open source and software companies are simply two different means of aggregating the resources of many users in order to produce software the users need. The users always pay for development one way or another. Purchased software has the development cost in the license fees, open source software has the development costs in the support contract, the hardware purchase, the programmer on staff, or whatever other means you can think of. The question is which gets you the most productivity for your dollar.
It was too simplistic, I'll agree with you. The best example of this is setting up an enterprise reporting engine. You will need "programmers" to get it running. Someone to code the reports and keep the system maintained. There is not one open source reporting engine that can come close to this, though. Same goes with search engines, and Content Management Systems. Those 3 are one of the biggest expenses in enterprise infastructure.
All software can potentially die, closed source or open source. The advantage of open source is because the source is available, if you can afford it, some one will maintain it for you. This should theoretically work for closed source software as well, but other factors come in that can push the cost above what an OSS support contract might cost. One of those factors is competition.
If a proprietary company goes under, it files for bankruptcy and it's assetts are auctioned off. Including IP. Nothing is stopping you, or another company, from buying it.
Actually, it's an understatement of what the RIAA thinks. They see a computer as a Weapon of Mass Infringement, something like an economic WMD against their profit line. And they'd reaaaaaaally like to send in the marines (lawyers) and DisaRM us. No, there's nothing wrong with my shift key.
I really like that term. "Weapon of Mass Infringement" Freaking awesome, man. Because of my views I can't say that DRM is wrong. DRM is a tool, and the copyright holders can make it evil, or good. In other words, I'm with Linus on that one..
Totally. This would fit nicely into my Camaro's DIN slot. If anyone would like to buy it for me, I'll be happy to pay you back with a harrowing thrill ride, accompanied by any music you'd like.
Hmm.. sounds tempting, but do I need a mullet first?
Obviously they did this. If a return on investment is there some one will make the investment. Now convincing some one to take that kind of risk to compete against a company with Oracle's reputation may never happen with out gradually building a reputation for quality support from the bottom up. Note this has nothing to do with Closed Source or Open Source. It is Oracle's reputation and talent in this area.
This is why I said, "unless they receive heavy investments." It wont happen because they are broke ass. They are a free software providor operating on a limited scope. Postgres has a good reputation, but it isn't going to hit Oracles popularity without external investment, or unless they start charging for it and build capital that way.
I am not saying it will happen, but that the factors in the decision have little to do with open source or closed source.
The difference is, after initial development, you have capital from sales to support service agreements. If you charge $5K a year for support, and someone buys that and immediately asks for help, but your support staff is in the first day of training, the help they'll receive will be roughly shit. Where as offering shitty support for free, while building capital, then offering it after your people are adequately trained, works. That's the major difference between a closed-source startup and an open-source startup. John Draker's start-up is bypassing the need to train people but doing it himself. A lot of people aren't up for that task.
Obviously not well trained enough to know that most AK47s are not fully automatic weapons (without modification) and that fully auto is fucking stupid anyway unless you have a decent mounting and/or biceps the size of a small city.
Have you ever shot any modern automatic assault rifle? They aren't hard to support. Also, submachine guns in full auto aren't hard to support, but have shitty accuracy. I personally don't like rifles, just pistols.
Before the DC snipers shot their first person, they were not felons and were well-trained in the handling and marksmanship of their weapons.
Ack! Since one person was a criminal, everybody who has a Bushmaster hunting rifle.
I am not advocating the criminalization of a tool, I'm just pointing out that your criteria above for "what should justify my ability to have a firearm just because I want to" is wrong.
No, it isn't wrong. I have every right to have a gun, just because I want to. My possession of a gun has nothing to do with anybodies safety, as long as they don't try to break into my house. Someone could kill just as many people as the DC sniper if they took a knife inside of a crowded mall and started stabbing everybody in sight. Or an explosive. Hell, some people can do it with just their fists. I guess we better get rid of fists, too.
No worry of obnoxious code, as it's FS/OSS.
Uhm, right. Delusions must be great. Just because you can look at the code, doesn't mean you are going to. This entire discussion has been had several dozen times over, and the end result is that there can still be obnoxious code.
No worry of BSA-auditing and multimillion dollar extortion schemes.
Wrong. The BSA can still audit you.
No licensing headaches.
Uhm, SCO ring a bell? SCO vs. IBM. Keep dreaming.
Infinite scaleability per each individually bought copy (as in, you can install an infinite number of copies with one purchased [or downloaded] CD).
Please go look up what "scalability" means. Then get back to me.
Due to #4, ever-increasing savings as the number of computers onto which you install the software grows.
You just really need to go work for a few years.
Assurance that the product will not die off simply because a company goes out of business, as it is FS/OSS. Any worthy project will be taken up by others if it's original developers move on.
As opposed to FS/OSS, which just forks, or the maintainers leave it to die and nobody picks it up. Right... your idiocy knows no bounds.
Related to #6, ability to develop/implement your own features for your specific needs.
Or just buy a product that meets your needs, save development costs, have them come in and install and support it and not have to pay extraneous developers money you don't need to spend.
On another note regarding Oracle, it is basically slow crap.
Right. If your experience with Oracle is that it is slow, than it is because you are an idiot.
The executable alone is 18MB, so it naturally has poor performance;
What the fuck? I mean.. what the fuck.. this has fuck-all to do with anything. Because this car is yellow, it must go fast! You do realize that a lot of binaries are larger than 18MB and are extremely fast. An Oracle footprint can go to over 512MB on a decent sized database.. does that mean it has poor performance, too?
specialized database-systems will outperform it.
Not a properly tuned Oracle system. You just don't know shit about Oracle.
Btw, data assurance from Oracle doesn't come for free. It costs quite a bit. And for that extra money you spend on it, it'd be better just spending that money doing an audit of FS/OSS code to insure that it won't lose data, and creating backup systems. Using journaling file systems like ReiserFS and XFS is also useful.
Uh, right. Buying a platinum support contract from Oracle is much cheaper than buying a few developers and have them implement the features Oracle has, right after they do a code audit of an open source system. It must be nice to be so delusional. I bet you can have conversations with your spoon while you are watching saturday morning cartoons.
Where have you been the last five years? Some of the world's most powerful supercomputers are Beowulf clusters, using GNU/Linux. See an O'Reilly article [oreillynet.com] for an overview. In particular, GNU/Linux Beowulf clusters are being used for:
Ok, now you get to go look up a few more terms. A beowulf cluster couples the CPU power of all the systems together. If I have a compile farm, that is a type of cluster that is easily supported by open source. If I have a database cluster, that will not be supported by open source. The type of clustering that Sun does is have each server keep in sync with each other, on a kernel level. You can't do that with open source. Your problem is the only thing you know about is open source, so you think it can solve everything. Go into the field for a few years, and you'll realize you are just being an idiot right now.
Yep, this FS/OSS stuff is really useless. It's only made the movie industry more money then from any other movie (see Titanic), assisted
You cannot honestly label water as "waste". For as you and I are 90+% waste then ;)
Some would argue that to be a higher number. I personally find most people I interact with can be replaced by a small shell script, and thereby be a 100% waste (from my frame of reference).
I'm more interested in technology to remove stupid people from driving on freeway systems. Smart drive systems can save more resources because there will be less traffic jams. They aren't mutually exclusive, and I'd like to see both being developed, but that's where my interests lie.
If I wanted an unofficial install that may or may not work and would certainly not be supported, Id' run NWN in Winex3. But you would know that if you didn't assume I was an idiot.
Information wants to be free. You bitch about the installation procedure, someone gives you insight that in the forums there was an alternate method to installing it, and you turn into an asshole.
Nice job.
Correct Open Source is not the end all solution, but your Oracle Support contract has nothing to do with Open Source or Closed Source. It has to do with what your support provider is willing to provide. There is no reason some one could not offer the same level of support you get from Oracle for Postgres.
Because Postgres doesn't have the infastructure due to high costs for software licenses. That is what stops Postgres from offering that type of support. Hiring and training support staff to provide support requires a good amount of investment. Postgres, unless they received heavy investments, will never be able to do this.
Whether anyone ever does has more to do with business and competetive issues than technical reasons. i.e. an equivalent support contract would not cost that much less for Postgres than Oracle support + licenses.
True, but you have burn rate for paying consultants in training. Burn rate is offset by investments and license costs.
Because the Postgres supporter will still have to stress test code to make sure they don't get hammered. After that, the discount would still have to be enough to overcome Oracle's reputation in this area.
I honestly believe that Oracle could open source their database, and still make a fortune. Now that they have their support contracts going. They will never do it, because it's a freaking cash cow. Easy to pop down $1M+ on an Oracle installation, without support. Giving up that type of money isn't going to happen.
Look at the AK-47. Name a particularly good reason why you need a fully automatic (automagic) weapon. Having a firearm is enough, no?
Because I want to. Now, name a particularly good reason why I shouldn't. I'm trained in handling, marksmanship, and am not a felon.
THe problem is, everyone, everwhere see's computers and various technologies as AK-47's. No depth perception.
Uh, aside from having an extra comma, this doesn't make sense. Likening a computer to an AK-47 is like.. wait.. it's likening a computer to an AK-47. One is a piece of silicon that does logical analysis and the other is a fucking gun.
Dang, Microsoft bought Oracle now too? Or did you not notice that he was saying Microsoft doesn't give you the assurances they seem to imply?
We're not a Microsoft shop, but I do know of certain insurance packages available for data integrity. Whether they are actually based by Microsoft or implementation houses, they exist. When you compare open source to enterprise level services, it's not a fair comparison. Enterprise databases come with support packages open source software can't compete with. His claims about the assurances that open source software provides are unsubstantiated and completely false.
First Oracle, now Sun too? This must have been a busy week. That's too bad because Sun had some really good products, but now that MS bought them out, I guess they'll just be selling slapped together Wintel servers with no guarantees on reliability.
He was comparing his Gateway support, and that's ok, but I can't compare Sun to open source? Riight. If you are going to be an open source zealot, you have to take into account that Microsoft is not the only providor of proprietary systems.
Open source is not the end-all solution. You cannot do everything with open source. His gentoo forums may provide all the service he needs, but when it comes to my databases, our Oracle support contract is worth more than anything Postgres or MySQL can hope to provide.
Ok Let's pit your el-cheapo olympus against my Canon Xl1... let's see what has video worthy of broadcast. your toy or my low-end pro camera.
$450 isn't "cheap" but it's consumer-geared. The point is it's purely solid-state driven, and records QuickTime video. That's pretty neat, especially when I just want 4megapixel image capture.
You are comparing a MiniDV camera, to a solid state consumer end camera. Nice job! I have a miniDV camera, too. Lets swing our dicks together!
All of which FS/OSS offers at competitve prices, which is much better deal than you can get from MS. Btw, you get no assurance with MS software -- all software licenses explicitly deny any assurance. So that's just fuzzy buzzword thinking on the part of stupid executives who don't really know wtf they're talking about.
Sorry, but what assurances does open source give you? And you are wrong. Go look at some Oracle assurances. If you lose data at the fault of Oracle, you get assurances for free retrieval, as well as different packages to get paid for data loss. Lets see Postgres offer that.
On a personal note, I get better support for free from Gentoo Forums than I get from Gateway for $300.
Enterprise != Personal systems. Most slashdotters don't realize this. Your $300 sale from Gateway doesn't mean shit. A $3M sale, does. They don't give a shit about you. Deal with it.
The benefits of using FS/OSS also scale very well, in that the more computers you use an FS/OSS product on, the more money you save, compared to using MS NT/2k/XP/2.003k. Oh yea, and there's also the fact that you don't have to worry about hundred-million dollar extortion-attempts from the BSA. These benefits -- though providing the most savings for large companies -- are extremely crucial for smaller companies.
Lets see some open source clusters, then. True enterprise level clusters, like what Sun provides. Oh wait, that's right, you can't. What about SAN support? Oops, something else open source doesn't do. You really need to get out into the real enterprise world. It must be nice to be so ideological to just ignore reality... I wish I could do that.
At first, I thought spamming spammers might be a good thing. Then I discovered spamming a spammer, made me a spammer.
This isn't spamming spammers though. This is requesting more information of the product advertised through automated means. Spam requires unsolicited email, right? This is very solicited, regardless if it is automated or not. This is why I think it's much more ethically "pure" than spamming them.
The thing you're missing is that this records full resolution, 60 fields-per-second video with 48k/16 bit 2-channel audio. IOW, a REAL videocamera.
The only difference is the storage size. The reason why the Olympus doesn't do that (aside from not having a microphone) is because the largest Xd card is 512mb. A far cry from 2GB cards. I'm looking for innovation, not bigger solid-state media.
Sure, and many mini-DV camcorders will shoot still pictures as well. The problem is that the cameras usually don't shoot more than 30 seconds of video and the camcorders take pictures at 1 megapixel. There isn't a device that is at least average at both tasks.
I'm not talking about a shitty 1 megapixel camera. This shoots QuickTime video, granted it's final resolution is only at 320x200. It's still solid state, and the limitation there is lack of hardware encoding that's efficient. If you added hardware encoding, or enough storage for a raw capture, than it would be the same camera. This camera costs $450. The media for that camera runs over $2K. If you had 2GB Xd or SmartMedia cards, there would be raw video dumps at 1280x1024@24+fps, but until the cards get to consumer pricing, consumers cameras will not add that feature. Solid state storage for digital motion video capture isn't some new Panasonic technology.
MiniDV cameras aren't solid state, so it's apples and oranges.
Yeah, have a pool of letters requesting for information. Make sure to have the letters in HTML, with lots of annoying widgets, and slot to load images. Then become... Well a spammer.
If spam is outlawed, only outlaws will have spam!