Why's that? With Windows, I just run an executable, and 99% of the time the drivers install correctly and work fine (in my experience). Of course, that 1% is the rub - then, you're reduced to completely uninstalling them, rebooting, reinstalling from scratch, sacrificing chickens, etc.
In my experience of linux, though, if you actually have to start loading kernel modules or hacking config files yourself, that figure goes to more like 80%, *and* you're going to be searching for and reading HOW-TOs and other docs, that weren't always written with the end user in mind.
Oh, and to stop the useless "Linux newbie! M$ sux0rz, Linux rox0rz!!!" replies, note that my first Linux install was Slackware 3 off floppies 5 or so years ago. I know what I'm doing, mostly, and it's still not easy if there isn't an install script or similar *for your exact distro*.
Well, I am a programmer, and while I've not (yet) contributed to any open source projects (precious little spare time as it is), I can imagine I wouldn't be too quick to sign my copyrights over to the FSF (or anyone else, for that matter). There's no legal reason why not, afaik, I'd just rather keep hold of it, even on stuff I've open sourced. Never know when it might come in handy.
. Oh, by the way, is there any reason you don't want to Open Source your drivers?
NOTE: I am NOT the original poster, this is pure speculation, but...
It may be that they are under an NDA from a third party whose technology they incoporate in their product. Alternatively, it may be that (they feel that) the only thing that really gives their product(s) an edge over the competition is the quality and/or featureset of the accompanying software and drivers. That's two possible reasons off the top of my head, but like I said, I'm not the OP, and I don't work in his field, so this is pure speculation.
That said, though, there can be definite advantages to keeping core aspects of your software closed source if your revenue stream depends on it, wholly or in part. The possibilty of free bug fixes is no recompense for helping your competitors to catch up with you.
Open source debugging is more efficient because people have a tendancy to be blind to bugs in code they are familiar with.
Easily countered by performing regular code reviews, or having a "you found it, you fix it" culture/attitude towards bug-hunting.
Remember, closed source is only closed to the general public - within the organisation, or at the very least the project team, it's open. Where I work, I can view any code written on any project by anyone, and we have no real concept of "code ownership".
Also, communication difficulties (language barriers, prima-donnas refusing to accept constructive criticism, etc), unnecessary duplication of effort (both within and across projects), etc.
Closed source is hardly a silver bullet, but neither is open source. Both have their advantages and their disadvantages.
I don't understand the "forced to use Microsoft products" part.
Nor do I - I choose to use them. Well, some of them - not IE, as Mozilla is better suited to my needs, butI certainly chose to buy and use XP Pro.
Still, I can't really blame him, I guess - after all, it must be confusing for someone to think that their way is best, and yet people still refuse to follow...
responsability belongs to the sysadmin
No, it rests with the manager who dictated the approved list of software. 90% of the time sysadmins have little or no say in what can and cannot be used on the desktop.
In reality it is just a result of web page developer not understanding how to create web content using anything other than frontpage and MS SQL.
Neither of which require the user to be running IE in order to use the website, of course. In fact, in ASP.NET, MS has gone out of its way to make sure that all the controls they provide work in any modern browser. Even in the (rare) cases where IE-specific features are used, the code produced degrades gracefully and is usable in Mozilla.
Only knowing SQL Server and Frontpage is no excuse and no reason to produce websites that require IE.
you can get minimally trained devlopers to do the work cheaply
Now we get to the real reason - "developers" who don't know how to make a proper, cross-browser website. Don't blame the tools, blame the monkeys using them.
That's true enough, but IIS costs and apache doesn't, and parked domains don't tend to make a lot of money for the owners or hosts. Therefore, you're more likely to park a domain as cheaply as possible - which rules out IIS, unless you happen to have it installed to host other sites, and can use that machine to park the domains. I work at a web agency/host, and I can't think of too many of our customers who'd be happy with us reusing their machine in that way.
even my Pentium II 433 laptop is plenty powerful to replace a desktop
Well, that depends on what you're using your machine for, doesn't it? I'd hate to try to play any modern (3d) game on a P2 (or a laptop, really...), or do any serious number crunching, develop in Java or.NET, etc - basically, 90% of the stuff I do for fun. Email and web surfing, sure - almost everything else I want to do with a PC, forget it.
YMMV of course, but me, I'll take all the power you can throw at me and still complain that it's not fast enough.
I seem to remember from a recent/. article that the RIAA takes the vast majority (all?) of the money that Apple takes through iTMS. Now, it may not be the RIAA itself that's operating the store, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like they're "unwilling to make a profit off internet based content distribution" to me...
The only things I've seen it reported that the RIAA objects to, in fact, is illegal distribution of works for which their members hold the copyright, which frankly sounds reasonable to me. (No, the penalties they're pushing for aren't, but that's a different matter entirely).
I'd agree that they're not doing enough to pursue the net as a distribution medium, but they don't appear to be standing in the way of legitimate channels, either.
I'm in exactly the same situation as you where I work. Sales, mercifully, have a separate office. There's a team working on a separate project in another. Directors, of course have their own offices. Everyone else - programmers, support, systems, designers, etc are all in one, huge office.
It's a complete nightmare, noise-wise. A lot of us wear headphones too, and listen to music to block out some of the noise, but it's no solution - you're just swapping one noise for another. If I need peace and quiet, tough - I can't have it. There's nowhere I can go, even if I wanted to move my PC and 21" monitor.
I agree with you about Peopleware. I've not read it, but I've read up on good office design in a number of similar books, and it is depressing. Our office is about as far removed as you can get and still call it an office, and there isn't a damn thing I can do to get it changed. We're moving in June next year, but I have very little hope of it getting any better.
The gratuitous UI changes from one windows flavor to another are deeply frustrating. Finding a particular admin applet is like playing whack-a-mole.
That can probably be argued to be a good thing. Each major release of Windows is sufficiently different from the previous ones, I think, to warrant making it a little difficult for an admin to make the transition. That way, they're forced to actually read about the new capabilities, config options, etc, rather than just going in blind and potentially missing some new gotcha or essential option.
As I recall in NT 3.51 the hard disk management applet was easily reached. Every generation hides it deeper.
I don't know about NT, but it's in the same place in both 2k and XP - right click "My Computer", choose "Manage" - it's one of the tools in the tree list on the left.
And the default XP screen is really infantile
No arguments there. It's easily changed, though; that's hardly a reason not to use an OS, just because you don't like the default theme:-)
That's the way it works, though. If I go walking with a crowbar and some lockpicks, that's fine. If I then break into someone's house, or car, and steal some stuff, I'm probably going to be charged with "going equipped" as well as breaking and entering, theft, etc.
Same thing here - because the "theft of communications" was central to the rest of the crime, he's getting hit with that, too. You can bet that ordinarily, no-one would care in the slightest, unless the owner of the wireless setup got arsey about it.
Ya know, technically, the sept11 attacks used plane fuel (a derivative of crude oil) as a weapon of mass destruction.
Well, while I'm not disputing the enormity of what took place, at the end of the day it was "only" two buildings that was destroyed; I'm not sure that qualifies as "mass destruction".
By the same token, I'm not convinced that biological or chemical weapons count as being "destructive", as they (presumably) only kill animals. I personally don't like thinking of killing as "destruction"; it seems a little too dehumanising, as though you're trying to ignore the fact that it's people we're talking about, not buildings. (Not you personally, obviously)
Five years in prison, and potentially up to $6 million in damages, all for spamming?
Now, I appreciate that spam, for a lot of people, is a major problem. I know that as a user, rather than an admin, and a careful one at that, I don't see the true extent of the problem. I get perhaps a couple of dozen spams a week to a single address that I was foolish enough to have in plaintext on a website a couple of years ago. To me, it's no big problem - Mozilla Mail's junk tools catch 95% of them. Still, I'm aware that spam is a serious problem for a lot of people.
But five years in jail? That seems somewhat excessive to me. I condemn the RIAA's lobbying partly because of the excessive penalties they seek; I cannot, in all conscience, support similar penalties for a crime which, to me at least, doesn't seem a great deal more heinous.
The various P2P networks are a major source of online piracy.
Now, I'm not saying that that's all they're used for, or that they don't have legitimate uses (distribution of Linux iso images is one that springs immediately to mind), or that the various lobbying groups should succeed. But I can't see how anyone can deny that P2P is used a lot by pirates, both casual and probably organised.
Of course, so is ftp, http, etc, and I'm not saying that they should be banned either. I'm just questioning the tone of that part of the summary, is all.
It's how to handle the waste. That represents a real engineering challenge - some of that stuff is going to remain toxic for tens of thousands of years. Not only does it have to be stored safely and securely, but you have to work out some way of marking it so that should anyone stumble across it in a couple of thousand years, they understand not to touch it. The amount languages and cultures change, you can't just write on it, and even things like skull pictures could be interpreted as meaning "burial chamber - archaelogists, get digging!".
That said, I'm not against nuclear power (from fusion) per se. Of the options we have, it's one of the best at the moment. "Alternative" power sources need a lot more work, and fusion, whilst extrememly promising, just isn't practicable yet (unless I've missed a major breakthrough in the last couple of years). I'm just pointing out that there are still other problems that need to be addressed.
Microsoft don't want to have friends in the business ?
Perhaps they think that they're big enough and powerful enough on their own to not need friends in the business. After all, why split profits with others, if you can take them all for yourself?
Woah there - the service hasn't even launched, and already you're calling it "inferior". How about waiting to see what it's actaully like, before wading in with comments like that?
Well, I'm running XP, and I'll warrant that my machine is just as secure as yours, but with the added bonus of not crashing a couple of times a week...
SuSE, Mandrake, and others have been doing that for years.
I can only speak for Mandrake, but it tends to turn on most of the services that you install. True, it warns you about ones such as httpd and sshd, but only gives you an install/don't install option at that point. It's not until later in the install that you get to choose whether or not they run. Everytime I install it (admittedly not that often) I have to turn off a bunch of services.
When you type in "Bob Smith" it can auto-fill in the rest of Bob's info (like phone number, address, etc). I know from first hand experience that this is a very difficult thing to do with a web-based form.
I must be missing something - this is hard? Unless you're talking about actually doing it real-time, as in literally while I'm typing in "Bob Smith", then it's trivial.
Of course, if I'm not allowed to submit the form first, then you're right, it's very hard and I'll shut up now:-)
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Id take modprobe over windows drivers anyday ;)
Why's that? With Windows, I just run an executable, and 99% of the time the drivers install correctly and work fine (in my experience). Of course, that 1% is the rub - then, you're reduced to completely uninstalling them, rebooting, reinstalling from scratch, sacrificing chickens, etc.
In my experience of linux, though, if you actually have to start loading kernel modules or hacking config files yourself, that figure goes to more like 80%, *and* you're going to be searching for and reading HOW-TOs and other docs, that weren't always written with the end user in mind.
Oh, and to stop the useless "Linux newbie! M$ sux0rz, Linux rox0rz!!!" replies, note that my first Linux install was Slackware 3 off floppies 5 or so years ago. I know what I'm doing, mostly, and it's still not easy if there isn't an install script or similar *for your exact distro*.
Well, I am a programmer, and while I've not (yet) contributed to any open source projects (precious little spare time as it is), I can imagine I wouldn't be too quick to sign my copyrights over to the FSF (or anyone else, for that matter). There's no legal reason why not, afaik, I'd just rather keep hold of it, even on stuff I've open sourced. Never know when it might come in handy.
. Oh, by the way, is there any reason you don't want to Open Source your drivers?
NOTE: I am NOT the original poster, this is pure speculation, but...
It may be that they are under an NDA from a third party whose technology they incoporate in their product. Alternatively, it may be that (they feel that) the only thing that really gives their product(s) an edge over the competition is the quality and/or featureset of the accompanying software and drivers. That's two possible reasons off the top of my head, but like I said, I'm not the OP, and I don't work in his field, so this is pure speculation.
That said, though, there can be definite advantages to keeping core aspects of your software closed source if your revenue stream depends on it, wholly or in part. The possibilty of free bug fixes is no recompense for helping your competitors to catch up with you.
Open source debugging is more efficient because people have a tendancy to be blind to bugs in code they are familiar with.
Easily countered by performing regular code reviews, or having a "you found it, you fix it" culture/attitude towards bug-hunting.
Remember, closed source is only closed to the general public - within the organisation, or at the very least the project team, it's open. Where I work, I can view any code written on any project by anyone, and we have no real concept of "code ownership".
Also, communication difficulties (language barriers, prima-donnas refusing to accept constructive criticism, etc), unnecessary duplication of effort (both within and across projects), etc.
Closed source is hardly a silver bullet, but neither is open source. Both have their advantages and their disadvantages.
You've not played Daikatana, I take it?
Open Source isn't more efficient, it's just cheaper, because (almost) no one is being paid.
I don't understand the "forced to use Microsoft products" part.
Nor do I - I choose to use them. Well, some of them - not IE, as Mozilla is better suited to my needs, butI certainly chose to buy and use XP Pro.
Still, I can't really blame him, I guess - after all, it must be confusing for someone to think that their way is best, and yet people still refuse to follow...
responsability belongs to the sysadmin
No, it rests with the manager who dictated the approved list of software. 90% of the time sysadmins have little or no say in what can and cannot be used on the desktop.
In reality it is just a result of web page developer not understanding how to create web content using anything other than frontpage and MS SQL.
Neither of which require the user to be running IE in order to use the website, of course. In fact, in ASP.NET, MS has gone out of its way to make sure that all the controls they provide work in any modern browser. Even in the (rare) cases where IE-specific features are used, the code produced degrades gracefully and is usable in Mozilla.
Only knowing SQL Server and Frontpage is no excuse and no reason to produce websites that require IE.
you can get minimally trained devlopers to do the work cheaply
Now we get to the real reason - "developers" who don't know how to make a proper, cross-browser website. Don't blame the tools, blame the monkeys using them.
That's true enough, but IIS costs and apache doesn't, and parked domains don't tend to make a lot of money for the owners or hosts. Therefore, you're more likely to park a domain as cheaply as possible - which rules out IIS, unless you happen to have it installed to host other sites, and can use that machine to park the domains. I work at a web agency/host, and I can't think of too many of our customers who'd be happy with us reusing their machine in that way.
You killed Penny Arcade, you bastards!
even my Pentium II 433 laptop is plenty powerful to replace a desktop
.NET, etc - basically, 90% of the stuff I do for fun. Email and web surfing, sure - almost everything else I want to do with a PC, forget it.
Well, that depends on what you're using your machine for, doesn't it? I'd hate to try to play any modern (3d) game on a P2 (or a laptop, really...), or do any serious number crunching, develop in Java or
YMMV of course, but me, I'll take all the power you can throw at me and still complain that it's not fast enough.
I seem to remember from a recent /. article that the RIAA takes the vast majority (all?) of the money that Apple takes through iTMS. Now, it may not be the RIAA itself that's operating the store, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like they're "unwilling to make a profit off internet based content distribution" to me...
The only things I've seen it reported that the RIAA objects to, in fact, is illegal distribution of works for which their members hold the copyright, which frankly sounds reasonable to me. (No, the penalties they're pushing for aren't, but that's a different matter entirely).
I'd agree that they're not doing enough to pursue the net as a distribution medium, but they don't appear to be standing in the way of legitimate channels, either.
I'm in exactly the same situation as you where I work. Sales, mercifully, have a separate office. There's a team working on a separate project in another. Directors, of course have their own offices. Everyone else - programmers, support, systems, designers, etc are all in one, huge office.
It's a complete nightmare, noise-wise. A lot of us wear headphones too, and listen to music to block out some of the noise, but it's no solution - you're just swapping one noise for another. If I need peace and quiet, tough - I can't have it. There's nowhere I can go, even if I wanted to move my PC and 21" monitor.
I agree with you about Peopleware. I've not read it, but I've read up on good office design in a number of similar books, and it is depressing. Our office is about as far removed as you can get and still call it an office, and there isn't a damn thing I can do to get it changed. We're moving in June next year, but I have very little hope of it getting any better.
The gratuitous UI changes from one windows flavor to another are deeply frustrating. Finding a particular admin applet is like playing whack-a-mole.
:-)
That can probably be argued to be a good thing. Each major release of Windows is sufficiently different from the previous ones, I think, to warrant making it a little difficult for an admin to make the transition. That way, they're forced to actually read about the new capabilities, config options, etc, rather than just going in blind and potentially missing some new gotcha or essential option.
As I recall in NT 3.51 the hard disk management applet was easily reached. Every generation hides it deeper.
I don't know about NT, but it's in the same place in both 2k and XP - right click "My Computer", choose "Manage" - it's one of the tools in the tree list on the left.
And the default XP screen is really infantile
No arguments there. It's easily changed, though; that's hardly a reason not to use an OS, just because you don't like the default theme
That's the way it works, though. If I go walking with a crowbar and some lockpicks, that's fine. If I then break into someone's house, or car, and steal some stuff, I'm probably going to be charged with "going equipped" as well as breaking and entering, theft, etc.
Same thing here - because the "theft of communications" was central to the rest of the crime, he's getting hit with that, too. You can bet that ordinarily, no-one would care in the slightest, unless the owner of the wireless setup got arsey about it.
They intruded into his home and refused to leave his personal property alone.
Wow - the spammers actually entered his house, and refused to stop messing around with his stuff? No wonder he went a bit nuts on them...
Ya know, technically, the sept11 attacks used plane fuel (a derivative of crude oil) as a weapon of mass destruction.
Well, while I'm not disputing the enormity of what took place, at the end of the day it was "only" two buildings that was destroyed; I'm not sure that qualifies as "mass destruction".
By the same token, I'm not convinced that biological or chemical weapons count as being "destructive", as they (presumably) only kill animals. I personally don't like thinking of killing as "destruction"; it seems a little too dehumanising, as though you're trying to ignore the fact that it's people we're talking about, not buildings. (Not you personally, obviously)
Five years in prison, and potentially up to $6 million in damages, all for spamming?
Now, I appreciate that spam, for a lot of people, is a major problem. I know that as a user, rather than an admin, and a careful one at that, I don't see the true extent of the problem. I get perhaps a couple of dozen spams a week to a single address that I was foolish enough to have in plaintext on a website a couple of years ago. To me, it's no big problem - Mozilla Mail's junk tools catch 95% of them. Still, I'm aware that spam is a serious problem for a lot of people.
But five years in jail? That seems somewhat excessive to me. I condemn the RIAA's lobbying partly because of the excessive penalties they seek; I cannot, in all conscience, support similar penalties for a crime which, to me at least, doesn't seem a great deal more heinous.
The various P2P networks are a major source of online piracy.
Now, I'm not saying that that's all they're used for, or that they don't have legitimate uses (distribution of Linux iso images is one that springs immediately to mind), or that the various lobbying groups should succeed. But I can't see how anyone can deny that P2P is used a lot by pirates, both casual and probably organised.
Of course, so is ftp, http, etc, and I'm not saying that they should be banned either. I'm just questioning the tone of that part of the summary, is all.
It's how to handle the waste. That represents a real engineering challenge - some of that stuff is going to remain toxic for tens of thousands of years. Not only does it have to be stored safely and securely, but you have to work out some way of marking it so that should anyone stumble across it in a couple of thousand years, they understand not to touch it. The amount languages and cultures change, you can't just write on it, and even things like skull pictures could be interpreted as meaning "burial chamber - archaelogists, get digging!".
That said, I'm not against nuclear power (from fusion) per se. Of the options we have, it's one of the best at the moment. "Alternative" power sources need a lot more work, and fusion, whilst extrememly promising, just isn't practicable yet (unless I've missed a major breakthrough in the last couple of years). I'm just pointing out that there are still other problems that need to be addressed.
Microsoft don't want to have friends in the business ?
Perhaps they think that they're big enough and powerful enough on their own to not need friends in the business. After all, why split profits with others, if you can take them all for yourself?
Woah there - the service hasn't even launched, and already you're calling it "inferior". How about waiting to see what it's actaully like, before wading in with comments like that?
Well, I'm running XP, and I'll warrant that my machine is just as secure as yours, but with the added bonus of not crashing a couple of times a week...
SuSE, Mandrake, and others have been doing that for years.
I can only speak for Mandrake, but it tends to turn on most of the services that you install. True, it warns you about ones such as httpd and sshd, but only gives you an install/don't install option at that point. It's not until later in the install that you get to choose whether or not they run. Everytime I install it (admittedly not that often) I have to turn off a bunch of services.
When you type in "Bob Smith" it can auto-fill in the rest of Bob's info (like phone number, address, etc). I know from first hand experience that this is a very difficult thing to do with a web-based form.
:-)
I must be missing something - this is hard? Unless you're talking about actually doing it real-time, as in literally while I'm typing in "Bob Smith", then it's trivial.
Of course, if I'm not allowed to submit the form first, then you're right, it's very hard and I'll shut up now