you're missing the point, really. You don't work for free. You draw a salary, just as if you worked for a non-free software company. The company is able to pay you to (write new code | fix bugs | add features) because people pay your company for those services.
I think your perspective is typical of a casual computer user. Maybe a CS student, fan of linux, host your own website, etc. If you've ever been in a position where the hardware and software you run has a business impact: an Oracle DB that runs your warehouse, or your company email, or a profit-generating website, your argument is nonsense. I (nor any IT person worth their salary) would ever even *consider* letting something important exist in my department without support from the vendor appropriate to how important the system is. Yeah, Sun maintenance is expensive. A year of Oracle support costs more than a nice BMW Z4 if running on a big SMP box. My rule is unless I wrote the application, yes every single line, then someone more knowlegable than I has to be available to support me if the shite hits the fan.
I think that hack-it-till-you-get-it-right attitude is why lots of PHB's don't take open source seriously. If the vendor doesn't support it than it has no place in my datacenter. If you want open source to win, you have to have the infrastructure to make it REALLY an alternative, and that includes support.
That's just my penguin's opinion, I could be wrong.
the product should be free. all the tools to tinker with it and make it better, too. The source, the FAQ, the makefile, the documentation, the specs. You make money though:
Professional Services: we'll come and install/modify/customize for you, because we're the experts
Support: email, chat, phone.
Training: webcasts, onsite, etc
It takes a long time to beat the closed-source mindset out of people, but in the end, the value proposition from free software + paid addons works, and everybody (authors, users, community) wins.
Perhaps we could somehow throttle Microsoft and limit them to releasing one new OS every 5 years or so. Maybe that would give us enough time to patch all the Gaping Security Holes.
I'm not a marketing expert, im just a lowly UNIX sys admin, but I know for a fact that film makers generate revenue by placing ads in their movies. Honda will pay for a director to feature a Honda in a fast getaway, Pepsi will pay for the star to walk around with a can of Pepsi. Conversely, I remember John Waters being interviewed and saying that several companies said they would SUE him if he didn't remove shots of their products out of his controversial movies.
The point is, the artist gets to decide who and what he or she supports and endorses. There is NO interetance propery for advertising space.
I hope this will help SGI turnaround their company. I know a lot of the intense CGI stuff is being farmed out to linux boxes for rendering, but massive stuff like this is still where SGI really rocks. They're hardware is so damn cool, I'd love to see them come back in style (and see their stock rise above a dollar!)
I was thinking about this last night. Internet access is pretty much ubiqitous in our lives, and (at least for me) is absolutely essential in order to function. Certain resources, like gas, electricity, and telephone service are considered essential, and the gov't sets standards and requires availibility of these services. These services are required to be availible all the time. However, IPS's can get away with spotty QoS, ninexistant customer support, and can just close up shop when they go broke. Shouldn't internet access be provided, subsidized, or regulated by the gov't as is any essential utility?
ironic - their trailer is coded with quicktime
on
Antitrust
·
· Score: 1
How about coding the trailer in a format that can actually be viewed on open source systems.
I assume you're the sysadmin for this place.
That drops you into the role of implimentor. Someone with policy-making authority (the owner, the MIS manager, etc.) made a decision about what she wants done, and it seems that your job is to do it. I wouldn't have any moral issues about evil proxy settings if that is what was told to do. If I was the policy maker...
Mandrake rocks. I like it. I installed 7.0 beta on the old Sun Ultra 1. It worked. Kind of. About 1/4 of the extras (other than kernel,sh-utils, etc.) were INTEL binaries. Mandrake has found a new level of "beta-ness". Does anyone know if that's fixed in this release?
shame on you for suggesting Win2k to "fix" a problem with linux. We are preparing for a Win2k migration and everybody is banging their head against the wall because Windows 2000 server is so unbelievably obtuse and difficult to work with. Its to the point where our dept (an NT shop!) is pouring over samba books to figure out how we can avoid win2k as much as possible. Windows 2000 is cool and unbelievably verstile. A.D. has some incredible potential in the enterprise. But linux makes it easier, more stable, and more fun.
*NIXes aren't tougher than any other OS-- they just require a different mentality. One company doesn't control the entire market. *NIX is the end result of thousands of code hackers' work over the course of several deacades of use. We all have the ability to improve on an app when we think we can do better. This has good and bad results- Good: they evolve quickly, they are scalable and rock solid due to the continuous decentralized development, and bug fixes occur quickly. The bad part is that its not like Windows- it is not uniform and consistent from one distro to another. I'd rather buy the O'Reilly book and master a few esoteric commands than be forced into doing it ONE way. I'd rather have the luxury of being able to develop a solution for my needs than have that right taken away with reverse engineering copyright laws all for the convenience of a consistent interface.
Slashdot Mirror
you're missing the point, really. You don't work for free. You draw a salary, just as if you worked for a non-free software company. The company is able to pay you to (write new code | fix bugs | add features) because people pay your company for those services.
I think that hack-it-till-you-get-it-right attitude is why lots of PHB's don't take open source seriously. If the vendor doesn't support it than it has no place in my datacenter. If you want open source to win, you have to have the infrastructure to make it REALLY an alternative, and that includes support.
That's just my penguin's opinion, I could be wrong.
It takes a long time to beat the closed-source mindset out of people, but in the end, the value proposition from free software + paid addons works, and everybody (authors, users, community) wins.
But then again, i'm just a robot.
Perhaps we could somehow throttle Microsoft and limit them to releasing one new OS every 5 years or so. Maybe that would give us enough time to patch all the Gaping Security Holes.
I'm not a marketing expert, im just a lowly UNIX sys admin, but I know for a fact that film makers generate revenue by placing ads in their movies. Honda will pay for a director to feature a Honda in a fast getaway, Pepsi will pay for the star to walk around with a can of Pepsi. Conversely, I remember John Waters being interviewed and saying that several companies said they would SUE him if he didn't remove shots of their products out of his controversial movies. The point is, the artist gets to decide who and what he or she supports and endorses. There is NO interetance propery for advertising space.
I hope this will help SGI turnaround their company. I know a lot of the intense CGI stuff is being farmed out to linux boxes for rendering, but massive stuff like this is still where SGI really rocks. They're hardware is so damn cool, I'd love to see them come back in style (and see their stock rise above a dollar!)
I was thinking about this last night. Internet access is pretty much ubiqitous in our lives, and (at least for me) is absolutely essential in order to function. Certain resources, like gas, electricity, and telephone service are considered essential, and the gov't sets standards and requires availibility of these services. These services are required to be availible all the time. However, IPS's can get away with spotty QoS, ninexistant customer support, and can just close up shop when they go broke. Shouldn't internet access be provided, subsidized, or regulated by the gov't as is any essential utility?
How about coding the trailer in a format that can actually be viewed on open source systems.
I assume you're the sysadmin for this place. That drops you into the role of implimentor. Someone with policy-making authority (the owner, the MIS manager, etc.) made a decision about what she wants done, and it seems that your job is to do it. I wouldn't have any moral issues about evil proxy settings if that is what was told to do. If I was the policy maker ...
Mandrake rocks. I like it. I installed 7.0 beta on the old Sun Ultra 1. It worked. Kind of. About 1/4 of the extras (other than kernel,sh-utils, etc.) were INTEL binaries. Mandrake has found a new level of "beta-ness". Does anyone know if that's fixed in this release?
shame on you for suggesting Win2k to "fix" a problem with linux. We are preparing for a Win2k migration and everybody is banging their head against the wall because Windows 2000 server is so unbelievably obtuse and difficult to work with. Its to the point where our dept (an NT shop!) is pouring over samba books to figure out how we can avoid win2k as much as possible. Windows 2000 is cool and unbelievably verstile. A.D. has some incredible potential in the enterprise. But linux makes it easier, more stable, and more fun.
*NIXes aren't tougher than any other OS-- they just require a different mentality. One company doesn't control the entire market. *NIX is the end result of thousands of code hackers' work over the course of several deacades of use. We all have the ability to improve on an app when we think we can do better. This has good and bad results- Good: they evolve quickly, they are scalable and rock solid due to the continuous decentralized development, and bug fixes occur quickly. The bad part is that its not like Windows- it is not uniform and consistent from one distro to another. I'd rather buy the O'Reilly book and master a few esoteric commands than be forced into doing it ONE way. I'd rather have the luxury of being able to develop a solution for my needs than have that right taken away with reverse engineering copyright laws all for the convenience of a consistent interface.