My kids are really enjoying Peanuts right now from Boom/Kaboom... mix of old and new material, but most important for a 3 year old many of the strips can be "read" without reading (such as Woodstock/Snoopy stories), or with just a little help from parents/siblings.
Trial and error is key -- once you narrow the cost/feature choices then MUST actually try it out in your circumstances, especially for "difficult" environments like commuter trains. Remember they all have return policies for good reason!
Example: Metro North commuter train in NYC:
first tried AT&T, which worked great at my house but had a major dead zone on the commuter train -- the connection would always break at that location and have to be restarted... unacceptable. Returned everything to AT&T store for a full refund.
consulted a map of cell towers (do your own search), found that Sprint had the closest tower to the difficult dead zone
tried Sprint Mobile Broadband, which worked much better -- no dead zone, smooth continuous connection for the entire commute (at least until the train goes underground near Grand Central), pleased with service
Notes about using Sprint Mobile Broadband:
Sprint somewhat supports linux -- I was able to get the Pantech PX-500 card working on my linux laptop in no time using documentation from the Sprint web site
don't expect blazing speeds -- realistically get several hundred kbps, which is more than fine if your expectations are reasonable
latency is good enough -- I do e-mail with a shell account, and latency is generally no problem
coverage is quite good -- every reasonable location I have tried has had reasonable coverage, including a farm in upstate New York
SUMMARY: I had a bias against being a Sprint customer, but coverage and linux led me there, and I have been quite satisfied with Sprint Mobile Broadband.
After a large project making extensive use of CDK my conclusion is that CDK is half-baked as a windowing toolkit -- it lacks a cohesive philosophy for redrawing the screen that you expect in a windowing toolkit. It needs somebody with real GUI experience to re-engineer it. TurboVision looks interesting and refined, though I've never used it.
After observing the range of problem I hacked up CDK and produced a version that at least behaves sanely for layering components on top of each other and having them refresh properly to the screen.
However, my patch submissions were ignored by the CDK maintainer -- if anybody wants to do something with them just ask.
Where is the data to back Oracle's claim that they are better than Red Hat at supporting linux? The essence of Oracle's claim is that Red Hat has failed to provide true enterprise level support, and now Oracle is going to step in and do it right (and cheaper too).
But remember that CentOS already provides bug fixes and updates for free, so the part about being cheaper is basically irrelevant -- anybody who cares about cost can already get basic support for free with CentOS.
Also remember any good changes Oracle comes up with must be GPL'ed, so Red Hat can pick them up immediately and use them as appropriate. (this is a good thing in both directions!)
So we're really talking here about extended support -- complex problems where you have to pay somebody to care about your twisted problem and help you figure it out in detail.
My experience with both companies is that you have to pay big $$$$ to get anybody to personally care about you in any way -- even a hundred Red Hat licenses don't amount to squat in getting somebody personally involved to help solve your problem, and I have no idea what level of $$$$ you have to pay to get somebody from Oracle to care (at least metalink makes no claims to care about you).
So I rate both companies about equally poor in serving my mid-sized company when complex problems arise.
In terms of interactions we do have, Red Hat seems generally earnest and honest, while Oracle seems arrogant and greedy. We get shaken down by Oracle once per year -- basically the sales guy shows up once a year with a baseball bat aimed at your kneecaps, asks how much you can afford to pay, and then invents some ridiculously large number that we now have to pay.
So the background summary is nobody can do complex support cheap, and in general attitude I prefer Red Hat.
The particular question that comes up here, though, is why would anybody believe Oracle has any specific expertise to support linux at any complex advanced level? This is a hard thing, and Oracle has no demonstrated competence at it... who would bet an enterprise production server on that?
Red Hat has built up its reputation and competence over a dozen years, and devotes 100% of its energies to doing linux well. Oracle has an egomaniac leader whose company has developed exactly one good product (not counting recent acquisitions) and who claims without proof a world class expertise in supporting linux, a task he claims is trivial and therefore clearly does not understand.
Oracle has a long trail of failed initiatives behind it, and this smacks of another -- dabbling in a field where it claims expertise but truly has none.
What big company is going to place a critical bet based solely on Oracle's reputation in a field where Oracle has no expertise? Anybody sensible is going to wait a couple years and see if Oracle can pull this off.
The people trashing Red Hat's stock right now are forgetting that this is a hard business, and Oracle is just a dilettante.
There is nothing magic about Red Hat that makes them a market leader -- the company has simply put in the hard work over the years and developed the expertise and critical mass to be the leading commercial linux distribution and support company. Oracle is not going to out-do Red Hat on any of those points because it's not their core business and never will be.
I predict utter failure for Unbreakable Linux beyond the Oracle software stack -- after a couple years of dismal sales (hello Novell) Oracle will end up supporting linux internally as part of its own bundled software stack.
I can't think of a single reason why anybody outside the Oracle stack would go with Oracle linux over a combination of CentOS (price) and Red Hat (expertise).
Dude, you switched the OS software, but you forgot the wetware -- you need to switch to open source parents ASAP! Your proprietary parents with their hard-coded old fashioned ideas just aren't getting the job done! With open source parents you can rip out their "morals" and "values" and start from scratch. Wanna smoke up at the dinner table? No problem! Wanna have sex with your girlfriend on the family vacation? Go for it! The household can be slacker-safe in no time with open source parents.
Wow, it's rare to see such a blatant case of sweeping danger under the carpet. As soon as Microsoft's cash cow trademark came in danger you just knew the case would be settled quickly. You have to believe people will see this weakness and pounce on the opportunity... at least that's what's supposed to happen in a capitalistic society. Wonder whose greed will win out?
The idea of this post needs to be strengthened: this is how the standard software development cycle works; first make it work, then make it work better. In this case the 'it' seems to be catching up to the Windows desktop; we can argue whether this is a good goal, but it seems to be a necessary goal that is getting a lot of broad attention.
Think about how open source development works -- the single most important issue is 'Is there a way to do it?' That's what matters -- you're cool if you find a way to solve a problem. Initially nobody cares if the solution is inefficient. Only later, when things are more stable and there are relatively few complaints about lack of features, do performance and efficiency become important.
Let's face it... the linux kernel is much farther along the optimization curve than the GNOME/KDE projects and OpenOffice; GNOME/KDE and OpenOffice are still throwing out major new functionality left and right with all the inefficiencies inherent in that process. Only when the user interface issues stabilize, meaning all the necessary functionality is basically there to compete with Windows, will thoughts turn to issues of performance and efficiency. For me personally, the point where the Open Source desktops were good enough was passed several years ago; perhaps this thread indicates it's been passed for a much larger number of people as well.
Here's an idea specifically for GNOME/KDE to chew on: the UI should be like a typical game and adjust its behavior to the resources available on the machine -- an old machine with few resources should not even attempt animations or textures, while a new machine with many resources could. A mature UI should be able to adjust to available resources to optimize the user experience.
Similarly, the OpenOffice people are aware of the speed problems, and are balancing them with cries for important features.
More generally, this is just standard software development -- get it working, then get it working well.
The only reason we can even hope that Open Source will work better than Windows in the long run is that ideally Open Source will settle around proven long term stable solutions which will be polished to work very well (such as the Unix-style influences with the proven 30 year track record), rather than the Windows world which requires the upgrade treadmill to generate revenues and constantly writing new code for solutions in search of problems. If Open Source development continually thrashes around on the feature treadmill and never settles on stable solutions, there is no reason to expect Open Source to be any better than commercial. Let's hope that GNOME/KDE are simply in the process of converging toward a fairly stable idea of what a 'modern desktop' is, and OpenOffice is converging toward a fairly stable idea of what a 'modern office suite' is. Beware the Microsoft strategy of competition by feature war and constant distraction with new technologies -- not every feature and technology is important.
The lowest-common-denominator design (or less politely designed for idiots) guarantees you'll run into limitations of the design -- "Windows isn't designed to do that". Since "Windows" now includes numerous programs formerly known as applications, this is quite a serious problem. Been burned many times over the years; no more.
Better to start with a system where you're not guaranteed to be constrained from the get-go.
The software savings are negligible because, as Auger points out, it's almost impossible to buy a new PC without getting Windows on it.
Having assembled several white box PCs, it's obviously possible to do that way. I assume there are white box companies out there you can buy from and avoid the Microsoft tax, but I've never checked. Can anyone comment/confirm?
It doesn't really explain why they feel the need to reinvent the wheel
Why do you say the LTSP is reinventing the wheel? I understand how to run applications remotely using X (for example through SSH window), but I don't understand how to do an entire managed desktop remotely, which is what I thought LTSP was doing.
Microsoft ramping up patents also ramps up the chances for reform; either:
Microsoft abuses patent system in ways that are obviously counter-productive to everybody but Microsoft
Microsoft patents are found to be innovative, company deserves 17 year monopoly on technology
Either way would serve to focus the patent debate; the bigger the companies involved and the more the issues get into the public consciousness, the greater the chances for reform.
The cable vs satellite issue is like Microsoft Word feature bloat:
Word processors inspire complaints of too many useless features, but everybody wants their few particular features included
Cable/satellite inspire complaints of 500 channels of crap, but everybody has a few particular channels they want.
In my experience, satellite has a wider selection of niche channels than cable, so satellite wins. For me it was SpeedVision (now Speed Channel) for Formula One and Fox Sports World for soccer -- only available on satellite in my area (part of an extra sports package, but available). My wife loves BBC America; I'm constantly tempted by the NHL Center Ice package. We get local channels; the only thing missing is the local cable access channels, so we can't watch town board meetings and so on.
On a related but unasked tangent, DirecTiVo (DirecTV w/ TiVo built in) is the best overall TV watching experience; just listen to me and get it -- my personal 100% satisfaction guarantee.
There will always be support incidents, for example from needs that stray beyond the packaged product, from unusual hardware, or from confusion on the part of the user. The point is to have this metered so you pay by usage.
Distributing security updates has two costs: manpower for monitoring updates / packaging them correctly into the distribution, and bandwidth for disseminating the updates. Manpower is a fixed cost (spread equally over all customers), and bandwidth should be metered by usage. So yes I would pay for each download.
The manpower part is a fixed cost for me being a customer, regardless of how many machines I run. It could be a large number, it could be a small number, whatever it works out to it's my contribution to the fixed costs of the company doing business that can't be avoided and is independent of how many machines I run.
I would try to minimize the bandwidth part (and my costs) by running a local package caching server, and I would pay for all activity between the cache and the update server. This means a huge company could pay usage for 1 machine and run 10,000 machines from the cache, but frankly that is an accurate reflection of the costs to Red Hat.
Extra revenue would be generated by additional services such as inexpensive per-machine monitoring, support incidents, distribution customization, training, and support instruction for internal staff. Large companies would clearly create more revenue for Red Hat in this category, quite in line with needs and usage.
Monitoring these complex issues refers to monitoring security, errata and feature updates (which I don't have time for), and most of all integrating them correctly into the distribution (which I don't have expertise for -- library versioning, build requirements, etc).
Red Hat Network already sends out e-mails when updates are available; this feature is completely automated and is not that complex/expensive to implement.
It's a viable revenue stream, different from the traditional software model, but one that plays to the advantages of linux and provides tremendous value to the customers.
My theory is that it isn't profitable enough at the current level of linux users; Red Hat views the Red Hat Network as a failed experiment and has decided to focus on the enterprise market where it can make money now. To me this seems very unwise given the tremendous growth curve that linux is still on (under 1% on desktops gives quite a lot of room for future growth even if it is slow in coming). There are a LOT of small businesses, and they're always looking for ways to save money. If you have a good value proposition I'll always listen.
Question: Why has Red Hat never articulated a strategy appropriate for the small business market?
Example: My small business has 8 workstations and 2 servers; here's what's important to me:
Moderate release cycle -- small businesses don't care about bleeding edge features
Security/errata updates -- small businesses need someone else to monitor these complex issues
Support available for at least 3 years -- small businesses do care about stability and hate forced upgrades
No per-machine licensing restrictions -- small businesses look to linux for cost savings and will not tolerate per-machine licensing; product must be installable on multiple machines to realize cost savings
Metered support options -- small businesses are willing to pay for actual support services used
No compliance audits -- small businesses do not have time for that type of crap
I'm willing to pay roughly $200/year for standard support services for these machines plus per-incident costs if they arise. I have been running Red Hat 7.3 with 2 Red Hat Network subscriptions and manually propagating updates to the other machines (which is annoying but tolerable since N is small).
I have been a paying customer, and I'm basically amenable to any sort of metered service system where payment is for services used. However, now I am being jettisoned as a Red Hat customer: Fedora has no support, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is too expensive. Red Hat has all the resources already in place to support my needs, yet is unwilling to do so.
Why is Red Hat unable to support this type of revenue stream which seems perfect for linux?
Subscription channels will stay up for a while after April 2004 but will have no new content
Beginning 11/03/03 (today) subscriptions will NOT be autorenewed; credit card won't be charged again
As far as I can tell Fedora will have nothing to with RHN, but I might be wrong as this is very confusing
Well, it looked like a marketing document trying to bait-and-switch you to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but there actually was some useful information toward the end.
I've paid my $65 (or was it $60? I forget) for Red Hat Network (RHN) -- what do I get for my $$ after April 2004? Will they automatically stop my subscription? Will they keep charging my credit card every year but give me nothing? Is Fedora going to be part of RHN?
Many questions about all this... all I know is confusion is bad for Red Hat and bad for me (and my small business). Personally, I'm experimenting with Debian.
Why do none of these digital music appliances offer capabilities for analog recording? The PC is a noisy electrical environment and trying to record high-quality audio with a sound card gives poor quality. Why don't these appliances offer high-quality A/D for creating digital content for later streaming (radio, records, TV, etc)? Sounds really useful to me, and none of them do it.
My first reaction to the Microsoft quote: Why is Microsoft bashing an application written for Windows? iTunes is a novel application, Microsoft should applaud the port to Windows.
This is a perfect example (previously Netscape) of what's wrong with Microsoft's OS-encompasses-all-applications crap-ovation.
Obvious question: Why would any business ever write a commercial application for Windows, knowing that if it's successful Microsoft will muscle in and take the business? Microsoft has a proven track record of this, and fervently demands the right to leverage Windows into any market it desires (innovation). Microsoft's biggest PR efforts try to cloak how utterly hostile this company is to the competitive business environment.
This hostility more than anything else lights the path to Microsoft's inevitable decline.
Also, the failure of the Dept of Justice to prosecute Microsoft in this regard is still galling; history will not be kind.
Microsoft tested Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Windows NT Server 4.0, Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to assess whether they are affected by this vulnerability.
Previous versions are no longer supported, and may or may not be affected by these vulnerabilities.
Great. Is my Windows 98 machine affected or not? Thanks for the info, Microsoft.
It would be useful (to me!) for replies to mention which cards have hardware alarms (audible or visible) and software alarms, and whether these alarms worked and were noticed in the event of drive failures.
I'm considering a mirroring controller for linux, but it's only good if you are notified when there is a problem!
This report is meaningless for enterprise management -- they are already very cautious with their mission critical deployments, and were not and are not rushing headlong onto linux even before SCO.
There is linux migration, but it is already cautious and measured and driven by a complex calculation of licensing costs, security risks, training issues, partner compatibility, and so on. For all the press SCO gets, it is barely a blip on this larger radar.
Furthermore, these are the people who are willing to pay Red Hat Enterprise product fees, and another license from SCO would hardly matter in the grand equation.
Further furthermore, people who are actually considering these issues in a serious way are no doubt aware that the various BSD's are immune to SCO nonsense and in many cases could be freely substituted.
Further further furthermore, I believe people are generally aware that SCO can't possibly put the squeeze on linux; no matter what they have after everything shakes out, if anything, linux and open source in general will simply throw it out and replace it with something free.
In the political world it's the ridiculous cases that often drive forward change, and in the legal world they help flesh out the vague boundaries of the law.
Whether it's the cost of AIDS drugs in Africa or some patent portfolio company pulling the rug out from Microsoft, it's things that this the illustrate the societal implications of patent silliness and make people question whether the status quo is desirable. The more big headlines get generated by ridiculous patent cases the more likely it is for something in the patent world to change.
I predict Red Hat will round out it's product line with a Small Business Edition with the following features:
Slow releases -- small businesses don't care about bleeding edge features
Security/errata updates -- small businesses need someone else to monitor these complex issues
Support available for at least 3 years -- small businesses do care about stability
No per-machine licensing restrictions -- small businesses look to linux for cost savings and will not tolerate per-machine licensing; product must be installable on multiple machines to realize cost savings
Metered support options -- small businesses are willing to pay for actual support services used
No compliance audits -- small businesses do not have time for that type of crap
Why will Red Hat do this?
Already producing slow releases for Enterprise Editions
Already producing security/errata updates for other products
Already doing long-lived support for Enterprise Editions
No per-machine licensing because small businesses absolutely demand it
Metered support is a compromise on support costs acceptable to small business
Small businesses will not tolerate compliance audits
This is a warning to Red Hat: you are alienating your small business customers! Give me a product that meets my business needs as outlined above, or I am going to take my business elsewhere.
Can anyone clarify for me whether these "subscriptions" are explicitly licensed for exactly one machine? Am I allowed to download the workstation product for $179, create CD's, and then install it on 100 machines? I understand the problem of only having purchased 1 entitlement for the Red Hat Network; the question is am I permitted to install it on N machines for $179, or am I required to pay N times $179?
The Red Hat WWW site is surprisingly uninformative about this question.
Slashdot Mirror
My kids are really enjoying Peanuts right now from Boom/Kaboom... mix of old and new material, but most important for a 3 year old many of the strips can be "read" without reading (such as Woodstock/Snoopy stories), or with just a little help from parents/siblings.
Example: Metro North commuter train in NYC:
Notes about using Sprint Mobile Broadband:
- Sprint somewhat supports linux -- I was able to get the Pantech PX-500 card working on my linux laptop in no time using documentation from the Sprint web site
- don't expect blazing speeds -- realistically get several hundred kbps, which is more than fine if your expectations are reasonable
- latency is good enough -- I do e-mail with a shell account, and latency is generally no problem
- coverage is quite good -- every reasonable location I have tried has had reasonable coverage, including a farm in upstate New York
SUMMARY: I had a bias against being a Sprint customer, but coverage and linux led me there, and I have been quite satisfied with Sprint Mobile Broadband.After a large project making extensive use of CDK my conclusion is that CDK is half-baked as a windowing toolkit -- it lacks a cohesive philosophy for redrawing the screen that you expect in a windowing toolkit. It needs somebody with real GUI experience to re-engineer it. TurboVision looks interesting and refined, though I've never used it.
After observing the range of problem I hacked up CDK and produced a version that at least behaves sanely for layering components on top of each other and having them refresh properly to the screen.
However, my patch submissions were ignored by the CDK maintainer -- if anybody wants to do something with them just ask.
Where is the data to back Oracle's claim that they are better than Red Hat at supporting linux? The essence of Oracle's claim is that Red Hat has failed to provide true enterprise level support, and now Oracle is going to step in and do it right (and cheaper too).
But remember that CentOS already provides bug fixes and updates for free, so the part about being cheaper is basically irrelevant -- anybody who cares about cost can already get basic support for free with CentOS.
Also remember any good changes Oracle comes up with must be GPL'ed, so Red Hat can pick them up immediately and use them as appropriate. (this is a good thing in both directions!)
So we're really talking here about extended support -- complex problems where you have to pay somebody to care about your twisted problem and help you figure it out in detail.
My experience with both companies is that you have to pay big $$$$ to get anybody to personally care about you in any way -- even a hundred Red Hat licenses don't amount to squat in getting somebody personally involved to help solve your problem, and I have no idea what level of $$$$ you have to pay to get somebody from Oracle to care (at least metalink makes no claims to care about you).
So I rate both companies about equally poor in serving my mid-sized company when complex problems arise.
In terms of interactions we do have, Red Hat seems generally earnest and honest, while Oracle seems arrogant and greedy. We get shaken down by Oracle once per year -- basically the sales guy shows up once a year with a baseball bat aimed at your kneecaps, asks how much you can afford to pay, and then invents some ridiculously large number that we now have to pay.
So the background summary is nobody can do complex support cheap, and in general attitude I prefer Red Hat.
The particular question that comes up here, though, is why would anybody believe Oracle has any specific expertise to support linux at any complex advanced level? This is a hard thing, and Oracle has no demonstrated competence at it... who would bet an enterprise production server on that?
Red Hat has built up its reputation and competence over a dozen years, and devotes 100% of its energies to doing linux well. Oracle has an egomaniac leader whose company has developed exactly one good product (not counting recent acquisitions) and who claims without proof a world class expertise in supporting linux, a task he claims is trivial and therefore clearly does not understand.
Oracle has a long trail of failed initiatives behind it, and this smacks of another -- dabbling in a field where it claims expertise but truly has none.
What big company is going to place a critical bet based solely on Oracle's reputation in a field where Oracle has no expertise? Anybody sensible is going to wait a couple years and see if Oracle can pull this off.
The people trashing Red Hat's stock right now are forgetting that this is a hard business, and Oracle is just a dilettante.
There is nothing magic about Red Hat that makes them a market leader -- the company has simply put in the hard work over the years and developed the expertise and critical mass to be the leading commercial linux distribution and support company. Oracle is not going to out-do Red Hat on any of those points because it's not their core business and never will be.
I predict utter failure for Unbreakable Linux beyond the Oracle software stack -- after a couple years of dismal sales (hello Novell) Oracle will end up supporting linux internally as part of its own bundled software stack.
I can't think of a single reason why anybody outside the Oracle stack would go with Oracle linux over a combination of CentOS (price) and Red Hat (expertise).
Dude, you switched the OS software, but you forgot the wetware -- you need to switch to open source parents ASAP! Your proprietary parents with their hard-coded old fashioned ideas just aren't getting the job done! With open source parents you can rip out their "morals" and "values" and start from scratch. Wanna smoke up at the dinner table? No problem! Wanna have sex with your girlfriend on the family vacation? Go for it! The household can be slacker-safe in no time with open source parents.
Wow, it's rare to see such a blatant case of sweeping danger under the carpet. As soon as Microsoft's cash cow trademark came in danger you just knew the case would be settled quickly. You have to believe people will see this weakness and pounce on the opportunity... at least that's what's supposed to happen in a capitalistic society. Wonder whose greed will win out?
The idea of this post needs to be strengthened: this is how the standard software development cycle works; first make it work, then make it work better. In this case the 'it' seems to be catching up to the Windows desktop; we can argue whether this is a good goal, but it seems to be a necessary goal that is getting a lot of broad attention.
Think about how open source development works -- the single most important issue is 'Is there a way to do it?' That's what matters -- you're cool if you find a way to solve a problem. Initially nobody cares if the solution is inefficient. Only later, when things are more stable and there are relatively few complaints about lack of features, do performance and efficiency become important.
Let's face it... the linux kernel is much farther along the optimization curve than the GNOME/KDE projects and OpenOffice; GNOME/KDE and OpenOffice are still throwing out major new functionality left and right with all the inefficiencies inherent in that process. Only when the user interface issues stabilize, meaning all the necessary functionality is basically there to compete with Windows, will thoughts turn to issues of performance and efficiency. For me personally, the point where the Open Source desktops were good enough was passed several years ago; perhaps this thread indicates it's been passed for a much larger number of people as well.
Here's an idea specifically for GNOME/KDE to chew on: the UI should be like a typical game and adjust its behavior to the resources available on the machine -- an old machine with few resources should not even attempt animations or textures, while a new machine with many resources could. A mature UI should be able to adjust to available resources to optimize the user experience.
Similarly, the OpenOffice people are aware of the speed problems, and are balancing them with cries for important features.
More generally, this is just standard software development -- get it working, then get it working well.
The only reason we can even hope that Open Source will work better than Windows in the long run is that ideally Open Source will settle around proven long term stable solutions which will be polished to work very well (such as the Unix-style influences with the proven 30 year track record), rather than the Windows world which requires the upgrade treadmill to generate revenues and constantly writing new code for solutions in search of problems. If Open Source development continually thrashes around on the feature treadmill and never settles on stable solutions, there is no reason to expect Open Source to be any better than commercial. Let's hope that GNOME/KDE are simply in the process of converging toward a fairly stable idea of what a 'modern desktop' is, and OpenOffice is converging toward a fairly stable idea of what a 'modern office suite' is. Beware the Microsoft strategy of competition by feature war and constant distraction with new technologies -- not every feature and technology is important.
The lowest-common-denominator design (or less politely designed for idiots) guarantees you'll run into limitations of the design -- "Windows isn't designed to do that". Since "Windows" now includes numerous programs formerly known as applications, this is quite a serious problem. Been burned many times over the years; no more.
Better to start with a system where you're not guaranteed to be constrained from the get-go.
Windows equals handicap. Avoid the handicap.
Having assembled several white box PCs, it's obviously possible to do that way. I assume there are white box companies out there you can buy from and avoid the Microsoft tax, but I've never checked. Can anyone comment/confirm?
Why do you say the LTSP is reinventing the wheel? I understand how to run applications remotely using X (for example through SSH window), but I don't understand how to do an entire managed desktop remotely, which is what I thought LTSP was doing.
I'm probably confused, so please enlighten!
Microsoft ramping up patents also ramps up the chances for reform; either:
Either way would serve to focus the patent debate; the bigger the companies involved and the more the issues get into the public consciousness, the greater the chances for reform.
The cable vs satellite issue is like Microsoft Word feature bloat:
In my experience, satellite has a wider selection of niche channels than cable, so satellite wins. For me it was SpeedVision (now Speed Channel) for Formula One and Fox Sports World for soccer -- only available on satellite in my area (part of an extra sports package, but available). My wife loves BBC America; I'm constantly tempted by the NHL Center Ice package. We get local channels; the only thing missing is the local cable access channels, so we can't watch town board meetings and so on.
On a related but unasked tangent, DirecTiVo (DirecTV w/ TiVo built in) is the best overall TV watching experience; just listen to me and get it -- my personal 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Several points:
It's a viable revenue stream, different from the traditional software model, but one that plays to the advantages of linux and provides tremendous value to the customers.
My theory is that it isn't profitable enough at the current level of linux users; Red Hat views the Red Hat Network as a failed experiment and has decided to focus on the enterprise market where it can make money now. To me this seems very unwise given the tremendous growth curve that linux is still on (under 1% on desktops gives quite a lot of room for future growth even if it is slow in coming). There are a LOT of small businesses, and they're always looking for ways to save money. If you have a good value proposition I'll always listen.
Question: Why has Red Hat never articulated a strategy appropriate for the small business market?
Example: My small business has 8 workstations and 2 servers; here's what's important to me:
I'm willing to pay roughly $200/year for standard support services for these machines plus per-incident costs if they arise. I have been running Red Hat 7.3 with 2 Red Hat Network subscriptions and manually propagating updates to the other machines (which is annoying but tolerable since N is small).
I have been a paying customer, and I'm basically amenable to any sort of metered service system where payment is for services used. However, now I am being jettisoned as a Red Hat customer: Fedora has no support, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is too expensive. Red Hat has all the resources already in place to support my needs, yet is unwilling to do so.
Why is Red Hat unable to support this type of revenue stream which seems perfect for linux?Oops, my bad... looking in the Red Hat Migration FAQ https://rhn.redhat.com/help/rhlmigrationfaq/ I see my questions are answered:
Well, it looked like a marketing document trying to bait-and-switch you to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but there actually was some useful information toward the end.
I've paid my $65 (or was it $60? I forget) for Red Hat Network (RHN) -- what do I get for my $$ after April 2004? Will they automatically stop my subscription? Will they keep charging my credit card every year but give me nothing? Is Fedora going to be part of RHN?
Many questions about all this... all I know is confusion is bad for Red Hat and bad for me (and my small business). Personally, I'm experimenting with Debian.
Why do none of these digital music appliances offer capabilities for analog recording? The PC is a noisy electrical environment and trying to record high-quality audio with a sound card gives poor quality. Why don't these appliances offer high-quality A/D for creating digital content for later streaming (radio, records, TV, etc)? Sounds really useful to me, and none of them do it.
Sure would be nice if the review happened to mention what .NET remoting is.
Also why it's so important that a book was written about it.
My first reaction to the Microsoft quote: Why is Microsoft bashing an application written for Windows? iTunes is a novel application, Microsoft should applaud the port to Windows.
This is a perfect example (previously Netscape) of what's wrong with Microsoft's OS-encompasses-all-applications crap-ovation.
Obvious question: Why would any business ever write a commercial application for Windows, knowing that if it's successful Microsoft will muscle in and take the business? Microsoft has a proven track record of this, and fervently demands the right to leverage Windows into any market it desires (innovation). Microsoft's biggest PR efforts try to cloak how utterly hostile this company is to the competitive business environment.
This hostility more than anything else lights the path to Microsoft's inevitable decline.
Also, the failure of the Dept of Justice to prosecute Microsoft in this regard is still galling; history will not be kind.
This is my favorite part of the article:
Great. Is my Windows 98 machine affected or not? Thanks for the info, Microsoft.
It would be useful (to me!) for replies to mention which cards have hardware alarms (audible or visible) and software alarms, and whether these alarms worked and were noticed in the event of drive failures.
I'm considering a mirroring controller for linux, but it's only good if you are notified when there is a problem!
This report is meaningless for enterprise management -- they are already very cautious with their mission critical deployments, and were not and are not rushing headlong onto linux even before SCO.
There is linux migration, but it is already cautious and measured and driven by a complex calculation of licensing costs, security risks, training issues, partner compatibility, and so on. For all the press SCO gets, it is barely a blip on this larger radar.
Furthermore, these are the people who are willing to pay Red Hat Enterprise product fees, and another license from SCO would hardly matter in the grand equation.
Further furthermore, people who are actually considering these issues in a serious way are no doubt aware that the various BSD's are immune to SCO nonsense and in many cases could be freely substituted.
Further further furthermore, I believe people are generally aware that SCO can't possibly put the squeeze on linux; no matter what they have after everything shakes out, if anything, linux and open source in general will simply throw it out and replace it with something free.
SUMMARY: Chill out. Move along.
In the political world it's the ridiculous cases that often drive forward change, and in the legal world they help flesh out the vague boundaries of the law.
Whether it's the cost of AIDS drugs in Africa or some patent portfolio company pulling the rug out from Microsoft, it's things that this the illustrate the societal implications of patent silliness and make people question whether the status quo is desirable. The more big headlines get generated by ridiculous patent cases the more likely it is for something in the patent world to change.
Bring on the comedy!
I predict Red Hat will round out it's product line with a Small Business Edition with the following features:
Why will Red Hat do this?
This is a warning to Red Hat: you are alienating your small business customers! Give me a product that meets my business needs as outlined above, or I am going to take my business elsewhere.
You have been warned.
Can anyone clarify for me whether these "subscriptions" are explicitly licensed for exactly one machine? Am I allowed to download the workstation product for $179, create CD's, and then install it on 100 machines? I understand the problem of only having purchased 1 entitlement for the Red Hat Network; the question is am I permitted to install it on N machines for $179, or am I required to pay N times $179?
The Red Hat WWW site is surprisingly uninformative about this question.