Underwriters have found that presidential elections negatively affect IPOs and so discourage them, regardless of market sector. I'm sure this is a factor in what's going on.
In my experience raises are tied to successes more than they are tied to office politics. The guys at the top only understand one thing: money. It's up to the IT department to translate everything it does into that lingua franca correctly and to argue effectively for its initiatives in terms of the organization's bottom line. What usually happens is technical people go with what they know, rather than doing their homework to fairly analyze all options, no matter how unfamiliar. Thus biased, they attempt to justify major capital expenditure to migrate to their favorite platforms and languages. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. Their raises are tied to how well they did what they said they would do, not if they choose the best approach.
Therefore, I cannot tell you whether or not you will get a raise, but I could make a guess...
Regarding obsolete hardware in the glass house, you seem to be describing an organization has not upgraded a platform and is having problems "right-sizing" it out of existance. Some of those applications must be starved for migration resources for this to be true, n'est pas? It's a pity you can't finish the job and start saving all that money the mainframe's costing you.
BTW, how big was your last raise? Or was this all hypothetical? If so, what was the point you were trying to make?
Yes, indeed! The author doesn't seem to understand the value of I/O bandwidth and DASD sharing in loosely-coupled environments. Price/performance and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) have a lot to do with why the "dinosaurs" are still very much with us.
I've noticed most of these S/390 discussions go round and round again on the same things. To me this indicates different people are speaking up each time and haven't read prior threads. I recommend you folks read those articles and discussions. Here's a link to a reply I made to an earlier discussion to help you get started.
You don't need S/390 hardware to try this stuff out. There's a wonderful S/390 emulator for I86 Linux called Hercules that you can run S/390 Linux under. So rather than throw bricks at what you don't understand, try getting your feet wet. Linux on big iron is going to be significant. Start getting ready now.
The nerds who have been conditioned by { COBOL | IBM }-hating professors need to wake up to business IT realities.
Over a decade ago the demise of the mainframes was supposed to be imminent. The demise that actually occurred was SNA's plan for world domination. With the reduction of the central system to mere server status, lots of people decided "right-sizing" would finish the extinction process. However, that didn't happen.
Common sense should tell you there's too much money (CEOs and CFOs and COBs favorite word) needed for these platforms for PHBs to justify--there must be something more to them in terms of TCO and price/performance and so forth than was meeting a lot of peoples' eyes.
Well, 41,400 unique, actively processing, multi-user Linux systems running on a single piece of big iron should give you a clue.
IBM is serious about Linux. There are going to be God knows how many Linux-only shops in the world that will grow to the point of needing that kind of performance. IBM wants to sell them iron. If potential customers experience MVS and/or VM sticker shock, or aren't interested in funding the huge training budget those operating systems require, do you think that's going to stop IBM's marketing reps from closing hardware sales? Not on your life!
So find out what you've been missing, expand your horizons, and get ready for the increasing market penetration of the S/390 Linux platform. If you can't get access to a box, install the Hercules S/390 emulator on a fast I86 box and install Linux S/390 on that. If you know nothing about the hardware, you have a monster of a learning curve ahead of you, but as the riddle goes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. And there are a lot of great people available to help you (provided you RTFM first).
If you want to learn about this architecture and play with the Linux ports, but don't have access to the proper hardware, you're not out of luck. Check out Hercules, a S/390 emulation program for I86 boxen. No, I'm not going to give you the link--RTF articles |threads | etc. If you really want to learn, that is.
Guess again. Or try reading the stories and threads. Better, subscribe to the LINUX-VM mailing list (now renamed to LINUX-390). With over 550 subscribers, active participants include Alan Cox, IBM technical heavies, 3rd party software vendor technical heavies, and customer technical heavies, all of whom are working to make Linux installations on S/390's better in the best Open Source traditions (also according to the original S/360 traditions, before the laywers and bean counters convinced the execs to go the way of OCO). Under the new management, Linux has become a strategic initiative; i.e., IBM "gets" open source. They are committed to getting Linux working on all their hardware.
Absolutely! By all means, read that thread if you haven't already. Note, however, this article's story is a different piece, also very much worth reading.
Mattel could be doing us all a favor by pursuing this. We've been waiting for a GPL test case quite a while. This one would even test the 17 U.S.C. 205e issue. Maybe we should consider funding Mattel's legal beagles?:-)
The press release isn't specific about the software products to be released. Can anyone comment about this?
The SAS C Compiler is used quite extensively in the IBM mainframe world. It would be interesting to know if porting between Linux and MVS would be impacted by this announcement.
I appreciate the reference and did read it completely. In fact, I recollected having read it before.
I asked a question seriously and probably should have made that clear. I was curious why folks would think so. One post was helpful. The rest figured I was complaining. Oh, well...
I had no problem with the "News For Nerds" attribute for this article. I understand number and word play. I just think this particular item doesn't matter a whole lot in the scheme of things.
I also think this communication attempt was not worth the effort (although I accept the blame for not explaining the question); however, I do thank you for your considered response.
Last time I checked The Counter, I still couldn't do that, so I had more machines registered than were valid. I had requested the ability to retire records but never got back e-mail saying that was implemented.
I just retired machine 353 (sniff), a 486 I had loaded SLS 1.02 onto at a client site in May 1993, among others.
Everybody should check their machine records and delete any you've lost to some other OS or just lost track of.
...it appears the SEC and regulation were basically regulatory mechanisms that arose into place to prevent abuses occurring during this transaction. Somehow, regulatory mechanisms have a way of becoming default laws, irrespective of how relevant they are.
Indeed. The 1929 crash precipitated the bulk of the regulation, leading to the formation of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). In conjunction with the SEC, they are charged with making sure such a crash, generally understood to be a Bad Thing for Everybody Worldwide, cannot recur. The NASD licenses all securities dealers in the USA, and the examinations are not trivial.
It wouldn't surprise me if the stock market underwent as earth shaking a change as the retail world is undergoing, simply due to the unleashing of millions of people being able to freely trade with each other. It also wouldn't surprise me if the powers that be try to hold this back.
Well, the NASDAQ is very, maybe too closely affiliated with NASD. However, the competition between the different exchanges is fierce, and could well lead to newer technology being utilized to achieve competitive advantage, just like NASDAQ revolutionized over-the-counter trading with its computerized "stock floor." But due to the stakes of worldwide economic stability, you can be really sure such developments will occur within the existing regulatory frameworks.
Also, IBM has some excellent bottom line reasons for wanting MS's lock on the desktop to be broken, not the least of which are all those license fees they're paying MS. I'll bet IBM is one of Bill's biggest customers, and perhaps the most reluctant.
They've figured out this Open Source thing pretty quickly, not that they only learned about it in the last five years, of course. This never could have happened under the Watsons or Akers, BTW.
I haven't gotten into the company's Web site, so I don't know if they discuss engine out characteristics. Helicopters can generate enough lift out of the windmilling rotor to cushion an emergency landing IF the engine failure occurs at a high enough altitude. This contraption looks like it would just fall out of the sky. Well, so does any heavier than air aircraft, come to think of it. Anyway, inquiring minds want to know...
Give him a break. He's old, for crying out loud. He probably aches physically and wishes like anything these "fans" were familiar with his career BSW (Before Star Wars). Not that I think this behavior is commendable, but I can cut him a lot of slack by coming from this perspective.
Just because we have this nifty Internet communications medium doesn't turn the rules of human interactions on their heads. Do you think everything is discussed via postings? Of course not--there's a lot of e-mail between folks to resolve things privately.
Like it or not, the open source/freeware community is a sort of government, with attendant parliamentary rules. It's still too new for those rules to have firmed up to the point where most folks abide by them, but rest assured, they will not differ radically from other rules for deliberation, because this community is composed of free people, and people have been debating weighty matters for a lot longer than we've been writing code.
Now on the subject of the Apple license debate, I think Eric hit the nail on the head. How has it been better for the community to have the universe observe this explosion of disagreement versus having Eric privately explain what was up to those who had questions? Come on, can't you see how it looks to reasonable people: There's some serious agenda pushing going on. These folks are unable to overcome their ideological differences and work together for their common good. Why, this open source/freeware thing is just what UNIX has always been, with lots of incompatible versions all over the map. We're talking about PHBes who unfortunately wield power and influence suits who wield even more power, as well as investment fund managers, and even potential users!
How many of you remember back when M$ only had BASIC and DOS? They targeted applications, realizing that was the means of establishing their lock on the desktop. They took on a product named WordPerfect, holder of the lion's share of the word processing market. They displaced WordPerfect through fierce competition in conjunction with the ability of Word to mimic WordPerfect. It read the competition's files, it provided their metaphors and keystrokes. Gradually, they succeeded--millions of WordPerfect users endured another learning curve and now are Word users.
Points:
History can repeat itself. Given a compelling reason, users will endure another learning curve (if it's not too frustrating).
The Linux word processor that will succeed is the one that mimics Word best.
On the matter of culture, I am in agreement with the author. Here's a poll: Degree of Familiarity/Amount of Use of Word. I expect we're all facile with it and most of us use it daily (and hate being forced to). I keep M$ products on my family PC because my wife and kids need to be able to move within the culture. Changing the culture will take years, but it is possible, and even necessary.
Take these with a grain of salt or two. Speaking for myself (2419), I found they had me owning two machines (353 and 899) that were really the same machine at different points in time (SLS 1.02, Slackware 1.1.1), and the box has subsequently been recycled within the company into a Windoze platform. But I registered my current home and work boxes, both running Debian, while attempting to retire the others.
This is wonderful! I can't believe nobody else has mentioned it. Or maybe they're waiting for www.amazon.com to go down from book orders from the/. community first.
Don't blame the author until you know what the editor changed.
I can't imagine Linus accepted this position without the belief that it was an opportunity to do something significantly beyond providing for Tove and the kids. I'm patiently waiting for the announcements to commence and expect to be pleased with the concepts and potential.
Well, this is off topic, but your Web page reference is no good and your e-mail address is not available, so this is the only means I have to respond to your question.
Every person, whether geek or non-geek, has hangups to work out. Like being behind the wheel of a car, it's a lot easier to be agressive in cyberspace--you don't believe you'll be held significantly accountable or jeopardized for your antisocial behavior. Geeks in general are socially challenged and are probably statistically more likely to be flamethrowers. I submit parents have more to do with it than anything, with personality and negative schoolyard experiences secondary influences. The resolution is individual maturation combined with inner healing, an incredibly difficult goal given the number of individuals in this condition. Have you read the non-glossary material in the Hacker's Dictionary yet?
If you wish to respond, please do it via e-mail, don't post, and consider modifying your contact info.
Well, I called IIS, since it's a local call and there was no contact info on the Web site other than the Webmaster, and talked to Larry, who claimed to be "in charge". They were aware of Katz' experience but unaware of his second article's publishing and the ensuing discussion. I suggested they take a look and post a response. So we'll see...
Slashdot Mirror
Underwriters have found that presidential elections negatively affect IPOs and so discourage them, regardless of market sector. I'm sure this is a factor in what's going on.
In my experience raises are tied to successes more than they are tied to office politics. The guys at the top only understand one thing: money. It's up to the IT department to translate everything it does into that lingua franca correctly and to argue effectively for its initiatives in terms of the organization's bottom line. What usually happens is technical people go with what they know, rather than doing their homework to fairly analyze all options, no matter how unfamiliar. Thus biased, they attempt to justify major capital expenditure to migrate to their favorite platforms and languages. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. Their raises are tied to how well they did what they said they would do, not if they choose the best approach.
Therefore, I cannot tell you whether or not you will get a raise, but I could make a guess...
Regarding obsolete hardware in the glass house, you seem to be describing an organization has not upgraded a platform and is having problems "right-sizing" it out of existance. Some of those applications must be starved for migration resources for this to be true, n'est pas? It's a pity you can't finish the job and start saving all that money the mainframe's costing you.
BTW, how big was your last raise? Or was this all hypothetical? If so, what was the point you were trying to make?
I've noticed most of these S/390 discussions go round and round again on the same things. To me this indicates different people are speaking up each time and haven't read prior threads. I recommend you folks read those articles and discussions. Here's a link to a reply I made to an earlier discussion to help you get started.
You don't need S/390 hardware to try this stuff out. There's a wonderful S/390 emulator for I86 Linux called Hercules that you can run S/390 Linux under. So rather than throw bricks at what you don't understand, try getting your feet wet. Linux on big iron is going to be significant. Start getting ready now.
The nerds who have been conditioned by { COBOL | IBM }-hating professors need to wake up to business IT realities.
Over a decade ago the demise of the mainframes was supposed to be imminent. The demise that actually occurred was SNA's plan for world domination. With the reduction of the central system to mere server status, lots of people decided "right-sizing" would finish the extinction process. However, that didn't happen.
Common sense should tell you there's too much money (CEOs and CFOs and COBs favorite word) needed for these platforms for PHBs to justify--there must be something more to them in terms of TCO and price/performance and so forth than was meeting a lot of peoples' eyes.
Well, 41,400 unique, actively processing, multi-user Linux systems running on a single piece of big iron should give you a clue.
IBM is serious about Linux. There are going to be God knows how many Linux-only shops in the world that will grow to the point of needing that kind of performance. IBM wants to sell them iron. If potential customers experience MVS and/or VM sticker shock, or aren't interested in funding the huge training budget those operating systems require, do you think that's going to stop IBM's marketing reps from closing hardware sales? Not on your life!
So find out what you've been missing, expand your horizons, and get ready for the increasing market penetration of the S/390 Linux platform. If you can't get access to a box, install the Hercules S/390 emulator on a fast I86 box and install Linux S/390 on that. If you know nothing about the hardware, you have a monster of a learning curve ahead of you, but as the riddle goes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. And there are a lot of great people available to help you (provided you RTFM first).
Come on in, the water's fine!
If you want to learn about this architecture and play with the Linux ports, but don't have access to the proper hardware, you're not out of luck. Check out Hercules, a S/390 emulation program for I86 boxen. No, I'm not going to give you the link--RTF articles |threads | etc. If you really want to learn, that is.
In short, you couldn't be more wrong.
Absolutely! By all means, read that thread if you haven't already. Note, however, this article's story is a different piece, also very much worth reading.
Mattel could be doing us all a favor by pursuing this. We've been waiting for a GPL test case quite a while. This one would even test the 17 U.S.C. 205e issue. Maybe we should consider funding Mattel's legal beagles? :-)
The SAS C Compiler is used quite extensively in the IBM mainframe world. It would be interesting to know if porting between Linux and MVS would be impacted by this announcement.
I appreciate the reference and did read it completely. In fact, I recollected having read it before.
I asked a question seriously and probably should have made that clear. I was curious why folks would think so. One post was helpful. The rest figured I was complaining. Oh, well...
I had no problem with the "News For Nerds" attribute for this article. I understand number and word play. I just think this particular item doesn't matter a whole lot in the scheme of things.
I also think this communication attempt was not worth the effort (although I accept the blame for not explaining the question); however, I do thank you for your considered response.
'Nuff said.
I just retired machine 353 (sniff), a 486 I had loaded SLS 1.02 onto at a client site in May 1993, among others.
Everybody should check their machine records and delete any you've lost to some other OS or just lost track of.
I wonder what's the oldest active box...
Indeed. The 1929 crash precipitated the bulk of the regulation, leading to the formation of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). In conjunction with the SEC, they are charged with making sure such a crash, generally understood to be a Bad Thing for Everybody Worldwide, cannot recur. The NASD licenses all securities dealers in the USA, and the examinations are not trivial.
Well, the NASDAQ is very, maybe too closely affiliated with NASD. However, the competition between the different exchanges is fierce, and could well lead to newer technology being utilized to achieve competitive advantage, just like NASDAQ revolutionized over-the-counter trading with its computerized "stock floor." But due to the stakes of worldwide economic stability, you can be really sure such developments will occur within the existing regulatory frameworks.
Also, IBM has some excellent bottom line reasons for wanting MS's lock on the desktop to be broken, not the least of which are all those license fees they're paying MS. I'll bet IBM is one of Bill's biggest customers, and perhaps the most reluctant.
They've figured out this Open Source thing pretty quickly, not that they only learned about it in the last five years, of course. This never could have happened under the Watsons or Akers, BTW.
Floppy disk?!?! You had a floppy disk?!
I haven't gotten into the company's Web site, so I don't know if they discuss engine out characteristics. Helicopters can generate enough lift out of the windmilling rotor to cushion an emergency landing IF the engine failure occurs at a high enough altitude. This contraption looks like it would just fall out of the sky. Well, so does any heavier than air aircraft, come to think of it. Anyway, inquiring minds want to know...
It sounds like this is the primary issue for them. If they can easily port their apps, it becomes a no brainer.
Give him a break. He's old, for crying out loud. He probably aches physically and wishes like anything these "fans" were familiar with his career BSW (Before Star Wars). Not that I think this behavior is commendable, but I can cut him a lot of slack by coming from this perspective.
Just because we have this nifty Internet communications medium doesn't turn the rules of human interactions on their heads. Do you think everything is discussed via postings? Of course not--there's a lot of e-mail between folks to resolve things privately.
Like it or not, the open source/freeware community is a sort of government, with attendant parliamentary rules. It's still too new for those rules to have firmed up to the point where most folks abide by them, but rest assured, they will not differ radically from other rules for deliberation, because this community is composed of free people, and people have been debating weighty matters for a lot longer than we've been writing code.
Now on the subject of the Apple license debate, I think Eric hit the nail on the head. How has it been better for the community to have the universe observe this explosion of disagreement versus having Eric privately explain what was up to those who had questions? Come on, can't you see how it looks to reasonable people: There's some serious agenda pushing going on. These folks are unable to overcome their ideological differences and work together for their common good. Why, this open source/freeware thing is just what UNIX has always been, with lots of incompatible versions all over the map. We're talking about PHBes who unfortunately wield power and influence suits who wield even more power, as well as investment fund managers, and even potential users!
How many of you remember back when M$ only had BASIC and DOS? They targeted applications, realizing that was the means of establishing their lock on the desktop. They took on a product named WordPerfect, holder of the lion's share of the word processing market. They displaced WordPerfect through fierce competition in conjunction with the ability of Word to mimic WordPerfect. It read the competition's files, it provided their metaphors and keystrokes. Gradually, they succeeded--millions of WordPerfect users endured another learning curve and now are Word users.
Points:
On the matter of culture, I am in agreement with the author. Here's a poll: Degree of Familiarity /Amount of Use of Word. I expect we're all facile with it and most of us use it daily (and hate being forced to). I keep M$ products on my family PC because my wife and kids need to be able to move within the culture. Changing the culture will take years, but it is possible, and even necessary.
Take these with a grain of salt or two. Speaking for myself (2419), I found they had me owning two machines (353 and 899) that were really the same machine at different points in time (SLS 1.02, Slackware 1.1.1), and the box has subsequently been recycled within the company into a Windoze platform. But I registered my current home and work boxes, both running Debian, while attempting to retire the others.
This is wonderful! I can't believe nobody else has mentioned it. Or maybe they're waiting for www.amazon.com to go down from book orders from the /. community first.
How about a meaningful poll: AC postings.
Don't blame the author until you know what the editor changed.
I can't imagine Linus accepted this position without the belief that it was an opportunity to do something significantly beyond providing for Tove and the kids. I'm patiently waiting for the announcements to commence and expect to be pleased with the concepts and potential.
Well, this is off topic, but your Web page reference is no good and your e-mail address is not available, so this is the only means I have to respond to your question.
Every person, whether geek or non-geek, has hangups to work out. Like being behind the wheel of a car, it's a lot easier to be agressive in cyberspace--you don't believe you'll be held significantly accountable or jeopardized for your antisocial behavior. Geeks in general are socially challenged and are probably statistically more likely to be flamethrowers. I submit parents have more to do with it than anything, with personality and negative schoolyard experiences secondary influences. The resolution is individual maturation combined with inner healing, an incredibly difficult goal given the number of individuals in this condition. Have you read the non-glossary material in the Hacker's Dictionary yet?
If you wish to respond, please do it via e-mail, don't post, and consider modifying your contact info.
Well, I called IIS, since it's a local call and there was no contact info on the Web site other than the Webmaster, and talked to Larry, who claimed to be "in charge". They were aware of Katz' experience but unaware of his second article's publishing and the ensuing discussion. I suggested they take a look and post a response. So we'll see...