That is just the way Xerox is. They had a chance to own the entire personal computing market, but the ignorant freaks who run the company thought it would be a waste of time and money to venture into the "PC" world. Sounds a lot like the business decision by Western Union to turn down that stupid "Telephone" invention that crack Alexander Graham Bell invented. They said telegraph is the future, you won't ever need anything more.
The problem is that company execs go more for the Reader's Digest version of the world because it makes decision making easier. Ignore the people screaming below you and it will all go away. Their only real goal is to keep the stock value up.
The Open Source movement has lost some of its momentum with the latest mindcraft study. Not because of any true validity (not for me to decide as I haven't read all of the details), but because of its perceived validity to "Reader's Digest" company exec drones. The most important thing is to realize that no ONE solution is the best. Xerox has shot itself in the foot again by cutting off access to their printers to anyone but NT. Thank GOD we have other printing options. We just got the HP 8100 in our office and man do I love it. HP's got this platform independent concept called "Jet Direct" that can adapt to any platform as long as it uses any one of several common protocols (TCP/IP, IPX etc etc).
Please please please continue to build momentum for the open source movement! It is the only weapon we have against the "Pointy Haired" people!
This is exactly why I went back to school. I was working two jobs for a while. A day job at a major aerospace company and a contract job at a fast rising internet company. I got fed up with it, and even though I was making more money than I knew what to do with, I saw my family and myself suffering. I quit my contract job and went back to school to work on my PhD. When I feel I am ready, I will find a niche idea, develop it into a product, sell it for a boatload of money and retire at 35. Anyone interested in this? Drop me a line.
Do we really need another one of those? It's called an ORB - "Object Request Broker". App1 wants to send a message to App2, so it uses an ORB. The ORB takes care of everything else. All possible possible permutations of communication take place through an orb. There are quite a few out there.
I wrote the following to my senators, I encourage all of you to go to www.senatevote.com, get your senator's e-mail address and do the same!!!
-------BEGIN LETTER---------------- Dear Senator,
The purpose of this message is to encourage you carefully consider any reaction to the events that occurred in Littleton Colorado. To help you understand what really happened in the minds of those two individuals I point you to the following article:
I must underscore the fact that I in no way condone their actions. This event was horrible. I have a 7 month old son and all I can think about is what things will be like for him in the future. I am not necessarily afraid of this happening to him though, I feel that the necessary precautions will begin to form themselves through the work of concerned citizens (although nothing will ever be 100% perfect). Violent acts of crime are decreasing and I have a feeling that the general population is getting the idea that they are no longer autonomous and that their actions really DO have a profound effect on everyone else. This does not mean all of our problems will magically go away (as you are probably all too aware of). New problems will crop up and old ones will haunt us until we properly solve them. What I fear the most is this event being used as an impetus to slowly add more and more legislation that restricts aspects of our lives. I value my personal freedom. Although I disagree with many many things I see in the world, I would fight to the death to preserve the right to do those things. Yes, a line has to be drawn somewhere. Things that adversely affect other people, such as murder, theft and destruction of property cannot be allowed. However that line changes with every generation. What I am hoping is that you leave the freedom to move that line forward or backward to the people who live it every day, the citizens of this great country.
I recently installed a network for a guy who is making millions selling patented and protected stuff to the US government. Seems that anyone can legally pirate a protected item as long as the federal government is your only customer. He takes the plans to complex objects, finds a simple part, orders the part under a different company name and then uses his micrometer and AutoCad setup to reverse engineer it. He knows exactly how to label his blueprints to get them accepted and how to watch the government supply request lines and just waits for the part to be ordered. As long as his price is even 1 cent below what the company is offering it for, he wins the bid and contracts the part out to a machine shop to be built. He also has a way (that he wouldn't describe to me) to eliminate the original company from being able to sell that part to the government. He calls it bootlegging and he's particularly well suited for it, very meticulous and very paranoid. From what I understand he is actually saving the government money because he can sell this stuff cheaper than the big companies. There's a LOT more to it than I explain here, he took a few years to sort it all out. You can argue the morals of such a thing, but have no illusions, this does work!
Slashdot Mirror
That is just the way Xerox is. They had a chance to own the entire personal computing market, but the ignorant freaks who run the company thought it would be a waste of time and money to venture into the "PC" world. Sounds a lot like the business decision by Western Union to turn down that stupid "Telephone" invention that crack Alexander Graham Bell invented. They said telegraph is the future, you won't ever need anything more.
The problem is that company execs go more for the Reader's Digest version of the world because it makes decision making easier. Ignore the people screaming below you and it will all go away. Their only real goal is to keep the stock value up.
The Open Source movement has lost some of its momentum with the latest mindcraft study. Not because of any true validity (not for me to decide as I haven't read all of the details), but because of its perceived validity to "Reader's Digest" company exec drones. The most important thing is to realize that no ONE solution is the best. Xerox has shot itself in the foot again by cutting off access to their printers to anyone but NT. Thank GOD we have other printing options. We just got the HP 8100 in our office and man do I love it. HP's got this platform independent concept called "Jet Direct" that can adapt to any platform as long as it uses any one of several common protocols (TCP/IP, IPX etc etc).
Please please please continue to build momentum for the open source movement! It is the only weapon we have against the "Pointy Haired" people!
This is exactly why I went back to school. I was working two jobs for a while. A day job at a major aerospace company and a contract job at a fast rising internet company. I got fed up with it, and even though I was making more money than I knew what to do with, I saw my family and myself suffering. I quit my contract job and went back to school to work on my PhD. When I feel I am ready, I will find a niche idea, develop it into a product, sell it for a boatload of money and retire at 35. Anyone interested in this? Drop me a line.
Do we really need another one of those? It's called an ORB - "Object Request Broker". App1 wants to send a message to App2, so it uses an ORB. The ORB takes care of everything else. All possible possible permutations of communication take place through an orb. There are quite a few out there.
I wrote the following to my senators, I encourage all of you to go to www.senatevote.com, get your senator's e-mail address and do the same!!!
h tml
-------BEGIN LETTER----------------
Dear Senator,
The purpose of this message is to encourage you carefully consider any reaction to the events that occurred in Littleton Colorado. To help you understand what really happened in the minds of those two individuals I point you to the following article:
http://slashdot.org/features/99/04/27/0310247.s
I must underscore the fact that I in no way condone their actions. This event was horrible. I have a 7 month old son and all I can think about is what things will be like for him in the future. I am not necessarily afraid of this happening to him though, I feel that the necessary precautions will begin to form themselves through the work of concerned citizens (although nothing will ever be 100% perfect). Violent acts of crime are decreasing and I have a feeling that the general population is getting the idea that they are no longer autonomous and that their actions really DO have a profound effect on everyone else. This does not mean all of our problems will magically go away (as you are probably all too aware of). New problems will crop up and old ones will haunt us until we properly solve them. What I fear the most is this event being used as an impetus to slowly add more and more legislation that restricts aspects of our lives. I value my personal freedom. Although I disagree with many many things I see in the world, I would fight to the death to preserve the right to do those things. Yes, a line has to be drawn somewhere. Things that adversely affect other people, such as murder, theft and destruction of property cannot be allowed. However that line changes with every generation. What I am hoping is that you leave the freedom to move that line forward or backward to the people who live it every day, the citizens of this great country.
Thank you for your time,
------------ END LETTER ---------------------
I recently installed a network for a guy who is making millions selling patented and protected stuff to the US government. Seems that anyone can legally pirate a protected item as long as the federal government is your only customer. He takes the plans to complex objects, finds a simple part, orders the part under a different company name and then uses his micrometer and AutoCad setup to reverse engineer it. He knows exactly how to label his blueprints to get them accepted and how to watch the government supply request lines and just waits for the part to be ordered. As long as his price is even 1 cent below what the company is offering it for, he wins the bid and contracts the part out to a machine shop to be built. He also has a way (that he wouldn't describe to me) to eliminate the original company from being able to sell that part to the government. He calls it bootlegging and he's particularly well suited for it, very meticulous and very paranoid. From what I understand he is actually saving the government money because he can sell this stuff cheaper than the big companies. There's a LOT more to it than I explain here, he took a few years to sort it all out. You can argue the morals of such a thing, but have no illusions, this does work!