Gee, I'd better tell my financial services and telecommunications clients to put all their mission critical application development on hold while you make up your mind.
I mean, any OS that uses CDE and comes with csh and ksh as the shells
Right, because these are integral parts of the operating system. I see.
While I would like to believe that this is a pure genuinely "nice" move on the part of Ford, my instinct and general distrust of corporate America tells me otherwise, but I have no solid basis for any argument.
Does anyone know what Dell are doing to address things like USB and IrDA support from Linux? Will they merge their drivers into commercial distributions? Will they subsequently only work on Dell equipment?
Keyword matching searches, even with Alta Vista's context database, are clumsy and commoditised. There is simply no business value in the company considering what is now a non strategic asset (i.e. very hard to prevent a rival duplicating) as a key piece of intellectual property, when products such as Autonomy are using AI and Bayesian Inference to perform searches on large document sets at an accuracy Alta Vista can't touch.
Having said that, note that Alta Vista are keeping their actual database to themselves - this is the one real asset other than their brand which they possess. Taking these two together, we see a core competence (i.e. leveraging them provides a return disproportionate to effort in relation to the market sector), which is now the basis of their revenue plan.
In his book "Silicon Snake Oil", Clifford Stoll talks of a similar subject. His point was that all our media is essentially perishable and quickly becomes obsolete: for example, there are magnetic tape and punched card formats which can no longer be read, because there are no surviving readers (or if there are, there is nothing to connect them to). His point was that our society would leave little behind in terms of data to be discovered by future archaeologists, and even if we didn, they couldn't access it.
However, I think he was mistaken. Ancient societies left stone tablets, cave paintings and the like behind, and there's no-one who fully understands the languages or the contexts (when an archaeologist says an object is of "ritual significance" he actually means he doesn't know what it's for). We do have the technology now, as the poster says, to migrate our data ever forwards into new storage, assuming no cataclysm occurs. And even if it does, it is far more important, in terms of recovering data, that the language (source code) survives, rather than CD ROM drives, Minidisc players etc (the binaries), because then data recovery is an essentially straightforward task.
I expect acid-free paper to survive long enough after an ecological catastrophe or, say, a meteor strike, to be useful to the survivors (better start moving the engineering textbooks down into the bunkers). And of course, Ship-It awards will outlast the end of time, not to mention non-biodegradeable shopping bags.
As a civilisation, if we wish to preserve a legacy, we currently posess the skills and technologies to do so - if we choose to.
There's an interesting article in this month's Harvard Business Review discussing the strategic use of patents, particularly clustering (interlocking patents to prevent duplication of an IP- or brand-intensive product) and bracketing (obtaining patents for complementary technologies to your rival's products to lock them out of the market.
Is it legal? Yes. Is it ethical...
I didn't make the rules of the game. And I've no choice but to play. So I can only do my best to win.
And even worse, technologies are often driven by management needs
The sole purpose of corporate IT is to enable and support management objectives. It serves no purpose otherwise, and wouldn't even exist.
Software costs too much, so all the managers want to get some of that good object orientated stuff on the project.
It is management's responsibility to both ensure that sufficient resources are available, and to ensure that the resources are employed most efficiently.
So, the programmers dutifully build the system to be as re-usable as possible.
If the programmers think they could manage the company better, there's nothing stopping them moving into management themselves.
You're writing software for a medical practice, and you want to use your own flat file mechanism rather than a proven database? This is highly irresponsible and unprofessional, you are letting your own linux bigotry stand in the way of your duty of care.
*shrug* Novell have about one product worth mentioning, and that's NDS, which is actually very good. But other than that, NetWare is nothing more than a file and print server - people often mock Microsoft for running their GUI in kernel mode - NetWare runs entire applications in kernel mode, using NLM. Notice how almost every rebuttal published by Novell involves NDS, and also note that NDS is available for NT. Realistically, unless you're a legacy site, there are few reasons to choose NetWare.
What scares me is that there are a shitload of people out there who just want their info shovel fed to them. They don't want freedom of choice, they want freedom from choice.
It's not denying choice, it's choosing the guidance of a third party. You do it every time you consult a map rather than guess the route.
If you deny this choice, that makes you a hypocrite.
Y'know, we had a sign above the roll of toilet paper in the dorm back at college: "liberal arts degrees... please take one". I pity the poor students who've paid their dollars to take this course, but that choice would indicate they probably weren't bright enough for a real education anyway.
The idiocy, greed, and outright contempt for human decency and welfare disgusts me more than my acid keyboard can relate.
A biotech company may have spent tens of years and billions of dollars on a discovery of that magnitude, and you expect them to just give it away?
well if that's the case, where's the ROI? and, if researcher's know their work will be essentially stolen from them (let's not mince words, that is what you propose) why would they even begin?
Although i'm not a particularly big fan of the codewarrior interface, i think that the more choices for development environments we can get, the better off we are.
You might consider yourself better off merely because you have choices that you don't want to exercise anyway, however given than Metrowerks are actually investing their time and money in this, they need to also be "better off".
If they've decided that their strategy lies in another direction, it will be for sound reasons. An attempt by the linux community to sway them by any other means than a business case is unacceptable.
So more power to the people pressing this suit. I think they're doing it for the right reasons -- they've done the work of permanents, held the term of permanents and all they've gotten in return is a sort of lofty disdain from proper (Salaried and optioned) Microsoft employees.
nonsense - if they wanted full time jobs at microsoft, why didn't they apply for them? they want all the benefits of temporary work, and all the benefits of permanent work too. essentially, the US government is saying it's ok to violate a contract if you change your mind after freely signing it - is is a mockery of law and justice. microsoft has a reputation of being an excellent employer, offering many perks and benefits.
don't let your irrational hatred of microsoft blind you.
Out of curiousity, how would bioweapons target 'racial characteristics'
The technology doesn't exist yet, as far as I know. But theoretically, it is possible to create a virus that would be benign unless specific markers were present in the DNA of its host, at which point it would become actively hostile.
The problem with any deployment of bioweapons is simply that the science to accurately predict the outcome hasn't matured yet. So, quite sensibly, germ warfare isn't commonly used by the major (Western) powers, because it's just as likely to affect your own population as much as the enemy's. (Of course, we keep it stockpiled just in case, because that's why mutually assured destruction has resulted in peace between the two most powerful military factions that have ever existed for the last 55 years).
So this leads me down two avenues of thought which, since this is/., I'll share with you all.
Because of the unpredictability of the outcome, you'd have to be crazy to deploy bioweapons. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of people in the world who are by most of our standards, crazy, for example those who believe that if they die killing the infidel they go straight to heaven. And there are people who are crazy by anyone's standards. All this means that sanctions (jail sentences, even the death penalty) and retaliation are not effective in deterring attack. Not to mention that bioweapons are a lot easier to manufacture after initial development than nuclear or conventional weapons, and that biological knowledge is widespread.
Bioweapons that attack food supplies are far more likely to be used. if country A eats wheat and potatoes, and country B eats rice and soy, they can attack each others food without fear of contaminating their own supply (assuming of course that your enemy doesn't turn around and do the same thing to you).
It's only a matter of time before bioweapons are invented that can target racial characteristics. That's the #1 nightmare scenario to worry about.
Bottom Line? Attention MBA's: Leave the IT depts alone! We know what the fuck we are doing, YOU DO NOT, if you did, youd be a member of the IT DEPT
Umm, you seem to have forgotten something. The IT department is not there to give a warm home to a horde of unwashed nerds with no social skills. It's there to support a business. That's it - if it wasn't for the business, there would be no IT. End of story. If you aren't supporting the business, you aren't doing your job, no matter how many MP3's on your hard drive or how many times you've recompiled your kernel.
If the MBA says you're doing something wrong in your shell scripts, ignore him/her. If the same person says you aren't giving the business the support it needs, then shut the hell up and pay attention, you might learn something.
Honestly, I'm sick of geeks thinking that knowing how to program is the only skill that matters. What would the world be like if railroad track layers thought they knew better than anyone where the trains should stop?
Stenography is often raised as a solution to the covert exchange of data, but I question its validity. There are a group of very bright people employed by governments who have spent 30 years studying ways to detect hidden information, and the government has almost unlimited resources and the root password to the Constitution at its disposal.
Let me give you an example. During WW2, the English developed a technology for decrypting the communications of the German military. One of these messages revealed that the city of Coventry was to be attacked. This presented a problem: if Coventry was defended or evacuated, the enemy would realise that their cryptosystems had been compromised, which would cost the English a key strategic advantage. So the city was sacrificed.
Now, the spiritual descendants of these early cryptanalysts work for the NSA. If they have the technology to scan for stenographically concealed data (or even to decrypt PGP) don't expect them to announce the fact. The UK goverment have recently decided that they want to be able to read every packet on the UK Internet backbone: why would they bother if it was that easy to conceal information?
In other words, don't rely too heavily on technology, because it's a two edged sword.
Any sysadmin worth his/her salt would know that you should only bring down a production server if NEEDED.
Quite. And you'd do it in a quiet period, as quickly as possible, having given as much notice as possible, and moved as many services as possible to alternative nodes.
If I wanted to win idiotic uptime competitions, i'd just leave a box in the corner doing nothing save being up. But uptime by itself is not a valid measure of the reliability of a system.
I think the answer is that the average Solaris admin comes from an NT background and believes that reboots solve a problem.
And you base this on what evidence? Your own, perhaps? A clueless sysadmin will be clueless on any platform.
These are the kind of people for whom uptime is a point of pride, who take it as a grave personal failing if they have to reboot to solve a software problem.
And anyway, no sysadmin worth his salt will place high uptime ahead of keeping up to date with kernel patches.
FACT: Carmack is one of the most talented coders in the world today. FACT: ESR has written a few trivial pieces of sortware, but mostly, he just talks.
Slashdot Mirror
Gee, I'd better tell my financial services and telecommunications clients to put all their mission critical application development on hold while you make up your mind.
I mean, any OS that uses CDE and comes with csh and ksh as the shells
Right, because these are integral parts of the operating system. I see.
One word: Tax.
Thanks!
Having said that, note that Alta Vista are keeping their actual database to themselves - this is the one real asset other than their brand which they possess. Taking these two together, we see a core competence (i.e. leveraging them provides a return disproportionate to effort in relation to the market sector), which is now the basis of their revenue plan.
Privatize Mars Exploration Now!
However, I think he was mistaken. Ancient societies left stone tablets, cave paintings and the like behind, and there's no-one who fully understands the languages or the contexts (when an archaeologist says an object is of "ritual significance" he actually means he doesn't know what it's for). We do have the technology now, as the poster says, to migrate our data ever forwards into new storage, assuming no cataclysm occurs. And even if it does, it is far more important, in terms of recovering data, that the language (source code) survives, rather than CD ROM drives, Minidisc players etc (the binaries), because then data recovery is an essentially straightforward task.
I expect acid-free paper to survive long enough after an ecological catastrophe or, say, a meteor strike, to be useful to the survivors (better start moving the engineering textbooks down into the bunkers). And of course, Ship-It awards will outlast the end of time, not to mention non-biodegradeable shopping bags.
As a civilisation, if we wish to preserve a legacy, we currently posess the skills and technologies to do so - if we choose to.
Is it legal? Yes. Is it ethical...
I didn't make the rules of the game. And I've no choice but to play. So I can only do my best to win.
The sole purpose of corporate IT is to enable and support management objectives. It serves no purpose otherwise, and wouldn't even exist.
Software costs too much, so all the managers want to get some of that good object orientated stuff on the project.
It is management's responsibility to both ensure that sufficient resources are available, and to ensure that the resources are employed most efficiently.
So, the programmers dutifully build the system to be as re-usable as possible.
If the programmers think they could manage the company better, there's nothing stopping them moving into management themselves.
As a profession, one of our worst mistakes was to permit words like "design" and "creative" to be appropriated by graphic illustrators.
You're writing software for a medical practice, and you want to use your own flat file mechanism rather than a proven database? This is highly irresponsible and unprofessional, you are letting your own linux bigotry stand in the way of your duty of care.
*shrug* Novell have about one product worth mentioning, and that's NDS, which is actually very good. But other than that, NetWare is nothing more than a file and print server - people often mock Microsoft for running their GUI in kernel mode - NetWare runs entire applications in kernel mode, using NLM. Notice how almost every rebuttal published by Novell involves NDS, and also note that NDS is available for NT. Realistically, unless you're a legacy site, there are few reasons to choose NetWare.
It's not denying choice, it's choosing the guidance of a third party. You do it every time you consult a map rather than guess the route.
If you deny this choice, that makes you a hypocrite.
Sure you can. Just buy yourself a copy of Maya and build it yourself, if you think there's a market.
If you don't like what's for sale, don't buy it, but don't expect to get what you want if you're not willing to pay.
Sure you can. Just buy yourself a copy of Maya and build it yourself, if you think there's a market.
If you don't like what's for sale, don't buy it, but don't expect to get what you want if you're not willing to pay.
Y'know, we had a sign above the roll of toilet paper in the dorm back at college: "liberal arts degrees... please take one". I pity the poor students who've paid their dollars to take this course, but that choice would indicate they probably weren't bright enough for a real education anyway.
A biotech company may have spent tens of years and billions of dollars on a discovery of that magnitude, and you expect them to just give it away?
well if that's the case, where's the ROI? and, if researcher's know their work will be essentially stolen from them (let's not mince words, that is what you propose) why would they even begin?
You might consider yourself better off merely because you have choices that you don't want to exercise anyway, however given than Metrowerks are actually investing their time and money in this, they need to also be "better off".
If they've decided that their strategy lies in another direction, it will be for sound reasons. An attempt by the linux community to sway them by any other means than a business case is unacceptable.
nonsense - if they wanted full time jobs at microsoft, why didn't they apply for them? they want all the benefits of temporary work, and all the benefits of permanent work too. essentially, the US government is saying it's ok to violate a contract if you change your mind after freely signing it - is is a mockery of law and justice. microsoft has a reputation of being an excellent employer, offering many perks and benefits.
don't let your irrational hatred of microsoft blind you.
The technology doesn't exist yet, as far as I know. But theoretically, it is possible to create a virus that would be benign unless specific markers were present in the DNA of its host, at which point it would become actively hostile.
So this leads me down two avenues of thought which, since this is /., I'll share with you all.
- Because of the unpredictability of the outcome, you'd have to be crazy to deploy bioweapons. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of people in the world who are by most of our standards, crazy, for example those who believe that if they die killing the infidel they go straight to heaven. And there are people who are crazy by anyone's standards. All this means that sanctions (jail sentences, even the death penalty) and retaliation are not effective in deterring attack. Not to mention that bioweapons are a lot easier to manufacture after initial development than nuclear or conventional weapons, and that biological knowledge is widespread.
- Bioweapons that attack food supplies are far more likely to be used. if country A eats wheat and potatoes, and country B eats rice and soy, they can attack each others food without fear of contaminating their own supply (assuming of course that your enemy doesn't turn around and do the same thing to you).
- It's only a matter of time before bioweapons are invented that can target racial characteristics. That's the #1 nightmare scenario to worry about.
Well, OK, so that was about 2.5 thoughtsUmm, you seem to have forgotten something. The IT department is not there to give a warm home to a horde of unwashed nerds with no social skills. It's there to support a business. That's it - if it wasn't for the business, there would be no IT. End of story. If you aren't supporting the business, you aren't doing your job, no matter how many MP3's on your hard drive or how many times you've recompiled your kernel.
If the MBA says you're doing something wrong in your shell scripts, ignore him/her. If the same person says you aren't giving the business the support it needs, then shut the hell up and pay attention, you might learn something.
Honestly, I'm sick of geeks thinking that knowing how to program is the only skill that matters. What would the world be like if railroad track layers thought they knew better than anyone where the trains should stop?
Let me give you an example. During WW2, the English developed a technology for decrypting the communications of the German military. One of these messages revealed that the city of Coventry was to be attacked. This presented a problem: if Coventry was defended or evacuated, the enemy would realise that their cryptosystems had been compromised, which would cost the English a key strategic advantage. So the city was sacrificed.
Now, the spiritual descendants of these early cryptanalysts work for the NSA. If they have the technology to scan for stenographically concealed data (or even to decrypt PGP) don't expect them to announce the fact. The UK goverment have recently decided that they want to be able to read every packet on the UK Internet backbone: why would they bother if it was that easy to conceal information?
In other words, don't rely too heavily on technology, because it's a two edged sword.
Quite. And you'd do it in a quiet period, as quickly as possible, having given as much notice as possible, and moved as many services as possible to alternative nodes.
If I wanted to win idiotic uptime competitions, i'd just leave a box in the corner doing nothing save being up. But uptime by itself is not a valid measure of the reliability of a system.
And you base this on what evidence? Your own, perhaps? A clueless sysadmin will be clueless on any platform.
These are the kind of people for whom uptime is a point of pride, who take it as a grave personal failing if they have to reboot to solve a software problem.
And anyway, no sysadmin worth his salt will place high uptime ahead of keeping up to date with kernel patches.
FACT: Carmack is one of the most talented coders in the world today. FACT: ESR has written a few trivial pieces of sortware, but mostly, he just talks.