I suggest your problem is not with Jon Katz, Juuri. It's with CmdrTaco. He clearly thinks Jon's writing has some value for/. So why don't you take it up with him.
Jon's stuff is clearly the best traffic-builder for/. since the Halloween Documents or even before. A lot of the response certainly shows what a hermetically sealed little world some people would like/. and open software to be.
This was the subject of a New York Times article on January 22, which I submitted here at that time.
NSI is doing everything in their power to keep control while having what is in effect mock competition. This is the same position the RBOCs took when the Telecom Act passed two years ago. Remember "colocation"? Hahahahahahah.
This is a significant test of ICANN's ability to develop and maintain an equitable system. They *have* to deal with NSI firmly now, or they will lose their grip. Whether we like it or not, domain names have become a commodity as well as an operational issue for the net. This puts ICANN in the position of being a mini-SEC.
So, in this first round, look carefully at the details, because that is where NSI will exercise its influence.
They always talk about the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Zone. The same holds true for Scott McNealy. "Don't Let Technology Divide Us"! Oh really? In his world you have the choice between the frying pan (Microsoft) and the fire (Sun). I have some respect for Sun and even ran a dandy 3/160 box in the past. But Solaris sets no standards for security and Sun's licensing and support are (being polite here) aimed at the corporate market. Remember the 386i? hahahahah
"You have no privacy" is typical cynicism from CEOworld. Well, privacy is eroding, but it's not like the game is over. It does seem like this raises some fundamental issues, though. If the problem is false speech, is the solution to say, "there's no more truth" or to say, "we need more free speech to help reveal the truth." And of course, one possible road to protecting privacy is better security.
How much has Sun contributed to *that* effort? --------
Neither GeoCities nor Yahoo has had a new idea in ages.
The big idea GeoCities came up with was the popup ad banner. I hate those things. If I go to a GeoCities site by mistake, first I close the banner window, then I look at the site for 5 seconds and realize there is little content there (typically, though not always), then I hit Back and voila, not a problem.
Yahoo invented using the word "My" before anything having to do with the Internet. Need I say more.
I owe a lot to Ed Yourdon for his one truly great book: Managing the System Life Cycle. I unreservedly recommend it still, and wish he would update it.
Decline and Rise both had some interesting history and surveys of the big iron software world, and I think his emphasis on software quality, SEI and the like are good, but frankly he's missed out on all the important new things happening since 1980, including but not limited to freeware/open source.
Rise was published in 1996 and was out of touch even then. Why are we even bothering?
This thread is the sound of numerous/. chains being yanked with predictable results.
I mean, if the clues haven't already been evident in Episodes I, II and III of "Jon's Adventures in Linux Land," then the part about Stanley the Yellow Lab slobbering all over the forlorn mobo ought to be a dead giveaway.
Or haven't you noticed, as Jon stated several times quite loudly, that he is Writing a Book.
Amazingly enough, since I generally detest the company we love to call US Worst, the Megabit offer is a good deal. I keep waiting for them to wake up and kill it off. (Just kidding, it's a tariffed service and they can't do that.)
What is interesting is that they started offering this *after* snuffing out any possibility of colocation by CLECs in their COs (remember that picture of the empty cage at a US West facility on the front cover of DataComm a while back?!), and then several false starts. "No really, this time we *really* mean it!" And then amazingly enough, the systemwide rollout actually seems to be happening.
I ordered in early December. I called the op center and they checked my line quality while I waited. It passed (it better, I'm five blocks from the downtown Portland switch and the US West business office is right across the street from mine). They scheduled me for service on January 4.
I received a box with the current offer -- the free Cisco 675 and a 3c590 (which I promptly gave to a friend, I think the 590s are dogs). The 675 is a relabeled Netrunner 204 with supposedly a better power supply. I hooked everything up.
The installer showed up exactly as promised on January 4. That alone is a close enough to a miracle. He didn't have much to do, though he checked the line quality again. Mostly I wanted to pump him for information about technical issues at the switch. I didn't learn much, just that the voice band is stripped off and put into the usual POTS side at the switch, and the data stuff goes off into an ATM cloud.
I have the 675 plugged into a Linksys 4 port hub, with my three systems connected to Linksys Fast Ethernet cards (use the Tulip driver for Linux).
It all Just Works. Life is good.
I'm even willing to grant US Worst a little slack now. But just a little, since at the same time they are pushing a really nasty plan in the Oregon legislature to reverse a regulatory judgment requiring $150 million in consumer refunds in exchange for about $10 million in rural capacity expansion.
You certainly learn how fast the Web *really* goes when you're on a 256K line. Local sites and ones close to the big pipes max out my line, but the average is much lower, particularly on peak which goes from about 5 to 11 pm.
The slow sites have the usual signs of lossage due to the usual poor choices of OS and web server./. of course is quite speedy.
PacBell's finally thrown in the towel and their current offer is about the same as US West. Frankly, I can't justify the extra $40 a month for home use, but it doesn't make sense *not* to do it for my office.
How many of you have read that Silicon Valley semi-classic of marketing (I will stipulate that there can be no "classics of marketing") called "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Moore.
Given that it's ancient (predates Linux even), having first been published in 1991, and that it really doesn't break much new ground, it basically makes an important point in an accessible way.
There is the sense that new technology or services or products proceed from initial acceptance to a broad market in a very smooth way. The old marketing paradigm is that it moves from "innovators" to "early adopters" to the "middle market" to "late adopters." What Moore's book clarifies is the "chasm" between the early adopters and the middle market. The early adopters can tolerate less than perfect performance because they don't mind tinkering with parts and getting new features that they want. The middle market wants a "whole product" that comes prepackaged and with sufficient technical support and training to make use of the features without a great deal of digging into the insides.
But Linux is basically just entering the early adopter phase. Along comes Jon Katz, a staunch member clearly identifying himself as part of the middle market. All of the/. self-identified innovators are upset that he won't at least behave like a proper early adopter. If he won't hack the kernel or submit a package any time soon, well, by golly, at least he owes it to us to try and install the damn thing. I mean, RH 5.2 practically takes your order and does the dishes afterwards too. I mean, really.
Well, Jon Katz isn't going to be an early adopter type like some feel he should be. He is an early look-see-er from the middle market -- *across* the chasm from where we are now. There are some important lessons here for those of you who believe, as I do, that Linux and *BSD ought to cross that chasm at some point.
In the meantime, for those who can't tolerate the thought that Jon Katz' ongoing tales don't deserve a featured slot on/., consider two things: (1) CmdrTaco puts him there; and (2) the mouse or scroll key on your desk work very well to move right along to the next thing.
Maybe I should revise and post the article I wrote nearly two years ago called "Solutions Considered Harmful" which was written partly in homage to Dijkstra's famed ACM paper and partly in shock horror to the reality of what Windows 95 has done to computing.
The essence of my paper is that in a computer industry mad to sell boxes -- whether hardware or software -- solutions are merely a problem's way of creating another problem. --------
OK, to be fair, it's not the ad banners that make the Dejanews redesign Really Suck, it's the repurposing of the site as "The Discussion Network." Yahoo Lite, anyone? You'll see what I mean if you check it out.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread. --------
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest your problem is not with Jon Katz, Juuri. It's with CmdrTaco. He clearly thinks Jon's writing has some value for /. So why don't you take it up with him.
/. since the Halloween Documents or even before. A lot of the response certainly shows what a hermetically sealed little world some people would like /. and open software to be.
Jon's stuff is clearly the best traffic-builder for
-------
Duly noted.
:)
--------
This was the subject of a New York Times article on January 22, which I submitted here at that time.
NSI is doing everything in their power to keep control while having what is in effect mock competition. This is the same position the RBOCs took when the Telecom Act passed two years ago. Remember "colocation"? Hahahahahahah.
This is a significant test of ICANN's ability to develop and maintain an equitable system. They *have* to deal with NSI firmly now, or they will lose their grip. Whether we like it or not, domain names have become a commodity as well as an operational issue for the net. This puts ICANN in the position of being a mini-SEC.
So, in this first round, look carefully at the details, because that is where NSI will exercise its influence.
--------
They always talk about the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Zone. The same holds true for Scott McNealy. "Don't Let Technology Divide Us"! Oh really? In his world you have the choice between the frying pan (Microsoft) and the fire (Sun). I have some respect for Sun and even ran a dandy 3/160 box in the past. But Solaris sets no standards for security and Sun's licensing and support are (being polite here) aimed at the corporate market. Remember the 386i? hahahahah
"You have no privacy" is typical cynicism from CEOworld. Well, privacy is eroding, but it's not like the game is over. It does seem like this raises some fundamental issues, though. If the problem is false speech, is the solution to say, "there's no more truth" or to say, "we need more free speech to help reveal the truth." And of course, one possible road to protecting privacy is better security.
How much has Sun contributed to *that* effort?
--------
Neither GeoCities nor Yahoo has had a new idea in ages.
The big idea GeoCities came up with was the popup ad banner. I hate those things. If I go to a GeoCities site by mistake, first I close the banner window, then I look at the site for 5 seconds and realize there is little content there (typically, though not always), then I hit Back and voila, not a problem.
Yahoo invented using the word "My" before anything having to do with the Internet. Need I say more.
--------
Why are we even discussing this?
I owe a lot to Ed Yourdon for his one truly great book: Managing the System Life Cycle. I unreservedly recommend it still, and wish he would update it.
Decline and Rise both had some interesting history and surveys of the big iron software world, and I think his emphasis on software quality, SEI and the like are good, but frankly he's missed out on all the important new things happening since 1980, including but not limited to freeware/open source.
Rise was published in 1996 and was out of touch even then. Why are we even bothering?
--------
"high quality software can't be produced without commercial backing"
This is so stupid it made me laugh!
Sure, it's cool that the problem was identified and snuffed in a day or so.
How the hell did it happen to begin with? CERT is always so coy about *that*.
Dropping this into tcpd is like tugging on Superman's cape. Someone is gonna get serious props from the kiddieZ for this one.
--------
This thread is the sound of numerous /. chains being yanked with predictable results.
I mean, if the clues haven't already been evident in Episodes I, II and III of "Jon's Adventures in Linux Land," then the part about Stanley the Yellow Lab slobbering all over the forlorn mobo ought to be a dead giveaway.
Or haven't you noticed, as Jon stated several times quite loudly, that he is Writing a Book.
--------
Amazingly enough, since I generally detest the company we love to call US Worst, the Megabit offer is a good deal. I keep waiting for them to wake up and kill it off. (Just kidding, it's a tariffed service and they can't do that.)
/. of course is quite speedy.
What is interesting is that they started offering this *after* snuffing out any possibility of colocation by CLECs in their COs (remember that picture of the empty cage at a US West facility on the front cover of DataComm a while back?!), and then several false starts. "No really, this time we *really* mean it!" And then amazingly enough, the systemwide rollout actually seems to be happening.
I ordered in early December. I called the op center and they checked my line quality while I waited. It passed (it better, I'm five blocks from the downtown Portland switch and the US West business office is right across the street from mine). They scheduled me for service on January 4.
I received a box with the current offer -- the free Cisco 675 and a 3c590 (which I promptly gave to a friend, I think the 590s are dogs). The 675 is a relabeled Netrunner 204 with supposedly a better power supply. I hooked everything up.
The installer showed up exactly as promised on January 4. That alone is a close enough to a miracle. He didn't have much to do, though he checked the line quality again. Mostly I wanted to pump him for information about technical issues at the switch. I didn't learn much, just that the voice band is stripped off and put into the usual POTS side at the switch, and the data stuff goes off into an ATM cloud.
I have the 675 plugged into a Linksys 4 port hub, with my three systems connected to Linksys Fast Ethernet cards (use the Tulip driver for Linux).
It all Just Works. Life is good.
I'm even willing to grant US Worst a little slack now. But just a little, since at the same time they are pushing a really nasty plan in the Oregon legislature to reverse a regulatory judgment requiring $150 million in consumer refunds in exchange for about $10 million in rural capacity expansion.
You certainly learn how fast the Web *really* goes when you're on a 256K line. Local sites and ones close to the big pipes max out my line, but the average is much lower, particularly on peak which goes from about 5 to 11 pm.
The slow sites have the usual signs of lossage due to the usual poor choices of OS and web server.
PacBell's finally thrown in the towel and their current offer is about the same as US West. Frankly, I can't justify the extra $40 a month for home use, but it doesn't make sense *not* to do it for my office.
--------
How many of you have read that Silicon Valley semi-classic of marketing (I will stipulate that there can be no "classics of marketing") called "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Moore.
/. self-identified innovators are upset that he won't at least behave like a proper early adopter. If he won't hack the kernel or submit a package any time soon, well, by golly, at least he owes it to us to try and install the damn thing. I mean, RH 5.2 practically takes your order and does the dishes afterwards too. I mean, really.
/., consider two things: (1) CmdrTaco puts him there; and (2) the mouse or scroll key on your desk work very well to move right along to the next thing.
Given that it's ancient (predates Linux even), having first been published in 1991, and that it really doesn't break much new ground, it basically makes an important point in an accessible way.
There is the sense that new technology or services or products proceed from initial acceptance to a broad market in a very smooth way. The old marketing paradigm is that it moves from "innovators" to "early adopters" to the "middle market" to "late adopters." What Moore's book clarifies is the "chasm" between the early adopters and the middle market. The early adopters can tolerate less than perfect performance because they don't mind tinkering with parts and getting new features that they want. The middle market wants a "whole product" that comes prepackaged and with sufficient technical support and training to make use of the features without a great deal of digging into the insides.
But Linux is basically just entering the early adopter phase. Along comes Jon Katz, a staunch member clearly identifying himself as part of the middle market. All of the
Well, Jon Katz isn't going to be an early adopter type like some feel he should be. He is an early look-see-er from the middle market -- *across* the chasm from where we are now. There are some important lessons here for those of you who believe, as I do, that Linux and *BSD ought to cross that chasm at some point.
In the meantime, for those who can't tolerate the thought that Jon Katz' ongoing tales don't deserve a featured slot on
--------
Maybe I should revise and post the article I wrote nearly two years ago called "Solutions Considered Harmful" which was written partly in homage to Dijkstra's famed ACM paper and partly in shock horror to the reality of what Windows 95 has done to computing.
The essence of my paper is that in a computer industry mad to sell boxes -- whether hardware or software -- solutions are merely a problem's way of creating another problem.
--------
OK, to be fair, it's not the ad banners that make the Dejanews redesign Really Suck, it's the repurposing of the site as "The Discussion Network." Yahoo Lite, anyone? You'll see what I mean if you check it out.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.
--------