I'm friends with people involved fairly heavily in providing streaming video, and I've discovered some disturbing things.
Suppose I want to provide streaming video content. If I go the Real Networks route, I will have to pay $20,000 for a 200 stream server. Microsofts server costs me $0. This has been true for awhile.
Now, however, MS has a new program: they will pay for the bandwidth of content providers as long as they exclusively use MS's media server.
Now, in addition to the one time fee for the server software, I have to consider that MS will pay my $50,000/month bandwidth charge?
How can an open source solution compete with this?
I don't have any personal experience, but the University of Maryland University College has a well developed distance education program. They offer a Bachelor's degree in "Computer and Information Sciences" and also one in "Computer Studies".
There's a shockwave plugin for Linux, too. Just go to Macromedia's web site. I used it successfully to navigate the site (and download bartrek and the maps)
Here's the problem. What if they decide to change the way a system call works? Yes, you can do a diff, but that's not the whole story. They may make incompatible changes.
Suppose it's November of 2000, and Microsoft produces their incompatible version of the kernel (and yes, of course they have to make the source available -- that's not the concern). Now, Corel, say, or Caldera, or whoever, has a problem. Most of their users have deployed Linux in production systems, and are happily using MS Office. Corel must make a decision. Do they package the "Torvalds" kernel in their next distro, or do they use the "MS" kernel, so that their users can use the new version of Office?
[Yes, you could take the "Torvalds" kernel, and apply a diff to get the "MS" kernel, but then you have the "MS" kernel ].
Let's say Corel, etc. go with the "MS" kernel. This is the thin edge of the wedge. These two kernels will begin to diverge. This is the "fork" that frightens me.
Here's a frightenning scenerio. What if they release Office for Linux, and it becomes the standard office suite for Linux. A significant number of corporate users put this into production.
With the next release of Office, though, MS explains that in order to implement certain features, they had to make some modifications to the Linux kernel. So, if you want to use Office 2000, you need to install Microsoft Linux 2.2.7.
They're obligated to release their modified version under the GNU GPL, of course, but what this does is effectively fork the code tree. This would be a Bad Thing.
Granted, it's just a paranoid scenerio, but after reading the Halloween memos, it seems like the kind of thing they might try.
Regardless of how difficult or easy it is to install (I installed from tarballs, it was a bit involved, but it did work), I found GNOME to be rather disappointing. It was very unstable, almost embarassingly so.
What bothers me is that one of the dominant distributions has made such an unstable desktop their default.
As Linux is gaining more attention, and as people begin to learn that there's an alternative to Windows, they're more than likely to try RedHat and discover, "Hey! This is worse than Windows! It crashes all the time! Whatever." and go back to 98/NT.
Slashdot Mirror
One answer: 24/7 live video. Check out www.hereandnow.net.
I'm friends with people involved fairly heavily
in providing streaming video, and I've discovered
some disturbing things.
Suppose I want to provide streaming video content.
If I go the Real Networks route, I will have
to pay $20,000 for a 200 stream server. Microsofts server costs me $0. This has
been true for awhile.
Now, however, MS has a new program: they will
pay for the bandwidth of content providers as
long as they exclusively use MS's media server.
Now, in addition to the one time fee for the
server software, I have to consider that
MS will pay my $50,000/month bandwidth charge?
How can an open source solution compete with
this?
-David
I know it's not strictly on topic, but has anybody else noticed that the stories in the Slashdot Ars-Technica box haven't been updated in weeks?
See their main page, and also the Distance Education page.
There's a shockwave plugin for Linux, too. Just
go to Macromedia's web site. I used it successfully to navigate the site (and download bartrek and the maps)
It's even threatening to break Microsoft's deadlock on the server OS market.
Dear CNET: What color is the sky in YOUR world?
This demonstrates that Slashdot does more than simply direct readers to organizations that do the reporting.
I know one of the people who work at
Sensar, and he indicated that the
scanner will reject dead eyes and the like.
Here's the problem. What if they decide to change the way a system call works? Yes, you can do a diff, but that's not the whole story. They may make incompatible changes.
Suppose it's November of 2000, and Microsoft produces their incompatible version of the kernel (and yes, of course they have to make the source available -- that's not the concern). Now, Corel, say, or Caldera, or whoever, has a problem. Most of their users have deployed Linux in production systems, and are happily using MS Office. Corel must make a decision. Do they package the "Torvalds" kernel in their next distro, or do they use the "MS" kernel, so that their users can use the new version of Office?
[Yes, you could take the "Torvalds" kernel, and apply a diff to get the "MS" kernel, but then you have the "MS" kernel ].
Let's say Corel, etc. go with the "MS" kernel. This is the thin edge of the wedge. These two kernels will begin to diverge. This is the "fork" that frightens me.
With the next release of Office, though, MS explains that in order to implement certain features, they had to make some modifications to the Linux kernel. So, if you want to use Office 2000, you need to install Microsoft Linux 2.2.7.
They're obligated to release their modified version under the GNU GPL, of course, but what this does is effectively fork the code tree. This would be a Bad Thing.
Granted, it's just a paranoid scenerio, but after reading the Halloween memos, it seems like the kind of thing they might try.
it was a bit involved, but it did work), I found GNOME to be rather disappointing.
It was very unstable, almost embarassingly so.
What bothers me is that one of the dominant distributions has made
such an unstable desktop their default.
As Linux is gaining more attention, and as people begin to learn that there's an
alternative to Windows, they're more than likely to try RedHat and discover, "Hey!
This is worse than Windows! It crashes all the time! Whatever." and go back to 98/NT.