I find most of you on Slashdot, say one of two things about Google and China:
1) Google is fine, it is not thier fault, blame the Chinese govt.
2) A corporation exists within the law, to maximize profit, and since google is following the law of the land, they are fine.
I think I have a problem with the large number of these posts due to the following:
1) Enabling th Chinese government to execute these laws, and by Google following them, does not make them right. In fact it sets a bad precedent, which I consider Cisco a far more insidious company than google which started most of these problems.
(i.e. If Cisco can sell high tech equipment to Chinese to hunt down people, why can't we?)
But, the problem remains. Defining corporate responsibility simply by a small set of laws, doesn't work. It doesn't work for coal miners, Nuclear Power Plants and it will not work for the Chinese people.
Google is enabling the Chinese government to torture, imprison and possibly kill polical leaders that who do not like the human rights track record of the Chinese government.
By ignoring these facts somehow doesn't fit quite well with the excuse that Google is a corporation and just exists out there innocently to make money.
It doesn't fit well with my conscious, anyway.
2) I think it is laughable, that Google excuses itself by saying "Oh we just obey the local return results of the country we are in.".
I also do not believe that informing people that the government is watching makes it fine and good.
The government could care less if you can see what they are doing, they only care whether or not they control WHAT you are seeing.
If you cannot see anything else, how does that make you any more powerful?
It does not.
In general, it looks like as long as the company makes money it is "OK" to do these things.
No law in China exists that says this is wrong, so that makes it OK right?
We have some serious issues on this web site if the majority of the posts I am reading are taking the naive position that because Google is obeying the local laws of the Chinese govt, and that because a corporation exists to make money for shareholders it is not responsible for anything else for the society in which it serves.
Serious kinds of bad mojo has historically come of this kind of line of thinking, and when you start involving governments with big tanks and nuclear weapons, nothing good can come of it.
"Why they celebrate birthdays and not conception days (they're so adamant at trying to control non-believers definitions of "life")."
Because BIRTHDAY means exactly that. It is not named concievedday.
"Why they believe one ascends to heaven immediately upon a man saying they are dead."
Because when the doctor says you have no brain activity, and your not breathing, you ARE dead.
"Why they believe that one who has no brain activity but body life might still be considered alive on this earth."
Well this situation is created by Man, not God. You should ask the people keeping the person on life support or the Doctor. (Contradictions in nature usually result from people trying to play God or looking at the universe, and changing the order of things unnaturally...then wondering why shit happens or they can't makse sense of things.)
Numerous articles are available on Slashdot.org about Cisco selling network software to hunt down, jail or "capture and pursuade" people who dare oppose the state on the internet.
Tanks in the Square be damned all in the name of profits.
Even now we are funding a state, that does not recognize the freedoms these corporations must have to even exist. The Chinese will be the next super power in the 21st century.
I only hope they consider the "serfs" who service the Chinese economy (The West) as worthy to keep around after they have economically conquored the west.
Of course, by then the CEO and shareholders will be dead, thier shares confiscated by the Chinese government in the name of "Security of the State".
Better start learning Chinese, the world is going to be a lot different place, thanks to Cisco and Microsoft and whole host of Western companies willing to chuck it all, in the name of a share price.
Most of the time Free Trade and Capitalism bring great benefits, but it does have it is by no means perfect by appealing to some of the baser instincts of individuals.
Finally, it represents the future of security protocols.
None of these things are equivalent when discussing C# except when talking about Windows.
All of the major research in software engineering and OS design will be in Open Source. If it is not, it is probably due to the fact it is esoteric and worthless to 99% of computing problems, will be patented and you will have to sign a license to understand it.
(i.e. worthless)
Java has a very active community that is building equivalent structures that are more effective than the Sun model of Java, and you get too look at the source code. (Open Virtual machines and native compilation libraries if your not interested in a VM to run your code.)
Especially the part about stating the obvious to those here already very familair with the scientific method.
Religion has nothing to do with "idiocy" willful or otherwise.
Idiocy is a lack of fact or ignorance of the facts with action indifferent to those facts.
You dear sir fit that incredibly well with the diatribe above stating every religion on this planet that people follow, make them willful idiots.
Every scientific model about "how" the world works is a work of "faith" based on observed results.
We do not know or understand how Gravity works, or even what gravity is, yet we claim to have a complete understanding of it simply because we observe it acting on other objects. I can even create "real" experiments to confirm my model.
I can construct several completely independant models of string theory, all describing the same outcome in all spheres of basic geometrodynamic theory.
With just one problem.
They all work.
So which one will you put YOUR faith into when the facts are equal and we proclaim we understand exactly what gravity it and how it works?
We cannot even do that with fundamental atomic physics!
We are on the verge of replacing atoms with strings!
I can do the same with any physical model from the atom, to even simple Newtonian physics, and replace them with mathematical processes called strings. I can also test and confirm my hypothesis.
Models can be constructed, tested and confirmed.
Yet, they are more than likely all wrong.
The ONLY reason why you have faith, is if you can make a better faster computer, a stronger engineering material for a better way of life with the results of science. We call this reality.
Of course, it is a lie.
To suggest we know ultimately what reality is simply because science as a method allows us to describe a process to go to the moon, is quite a leap.
A leap of faith that is. Especially when most of 20th century physics is on the verge of being turned upside down on its head.
It will begin with the detection of Gravity Waves, and rapidly progress once the a number of experiments can be launched into space to confirm the results, far away from the influences of a large mass such as the Earth.
Your NEW sanity will then seperate the insane people of the 20th century, who were just idiots, to those of us living in the new String theory world who are now PERFECTLY SANE.
There is no reality, and your "faith" is misplaced dear sir if you think science is the answer to "realism, sanity or a definition to seperate the sane from the insane".
In my view, given the consequences of what could have been disasterous for the open source community if even half of the wild claims that McBride and CO we know as SCO claimed, MySQL's CEO has made a very bad decision.
SCO should be made an example of, in fact. Long after SCO blows away in the wind, please avoid buying any products from any company McBride latches onto...like a leach that is.
I do not see how this helps the MySQL community, but I do see how it could help SCO with McBride at the wheel to sell even more copies of SCO to funnel into its legal claims to attack the open source community.
The first thing I am doing next quarter is moving to PostGRES, which isn't saying much because we are half way there already.
MySQL can die a prolonged and agonizing death as far as I am concerned, as there is no way I am supporting any project that brings incentives to companies who attack open source projects.
1) How to Design and Build Infrastructure you understand.
Teach your students that building computing infrastructure through source code, instead of hitting clicking on the setup button.
2) Attack security and loopholes all software has by teaching your students to own the infrastructure they build, through the use of source code and the GPL IP way.
Teach your students the that if you understand your infrastructure, you can correct its problems in a proactive way, if you have the source. Not, waiting for vendors to decide if it is economically advantageous.
3) Teach your students key refresher courses in good software engineering practices for managing source code. Using source code debuggers, and IDE's such as Eclipse and version control to track and secure auditing of the security of that source code using subversion/cvs.
Review the fundamentals in software construction and begin with William Glass, and of course Edsger Dijkstra.
4) Finally, tell them you can make millions of dollars managing and selling source code for customers who want to buy your services, labor and peace of mind.
Make them see how software constructed by an organization allows business processes and methods to be unique. Why? What you own is much more flexible per dollar, than buying whole business methods off the shelf like any of your competitors can with huge money sink holes in the existing CRM, ERP markets.
After all, if your competitor can buy the same methods of doing business simply by writing a check too, what does that buy you?
It took me 20 years to come around to seeing the errors of my ways and many millions wasted.
Furthermore with RedHat's latest quarterlies I do not think there is any credence in the fact the GPL cannot make money either.
I think what is striking though, is the societies that the GPL inhabits, such as the US and Europe, and the kinds of software that is comming out of either one.
With Europe WAY in the lead.
I think that speaks volumes about Linux and the GPL in general, and of course the US software industries health.
There was nothing in your course lists, that would suggest finding a job is going to be a problem.
I think it is going to be a problem, in fact a much larger and more difficult problem than what you will face in your 4 year degree program.
I would also like to point out, that do to the technology and nature of this industry, millions of extremely qualified graduates in India, China are going to be competing for your job as well.
Don't forget, as well. That unless you are going to a little community college, the bank is going to want its money fairly soon out of college.
Right now, it takes about 2-3 YEARS for college grads to find jobs when they graduate from tech fields such as CS in the USA, worst case.
I wouldn't want to be a 20-25 year old and certainly not anyone over 40 in that field looking for a job in the next 10 years thats for sure.
Quite frankly, we wouldn't have to speak about whos or whats. It is common sense actually to expect any purchaser of software to audit the systems it puts in place.
Which is one of the reasons we audit all of our software on our network, for our ERP and accounting to our Warehousing.
Obviously, you can't do this with proprietary software.
Too bad for you, you got ripped.
For us, we do our own security audits because we can, and because it makes sense to do so.
After all, the manufacturer of the software doesn't use actually use the software, we do.
Ironic that most places who write accounting software, like Microsoft, don't use the same software they write to do the accounting to run the business.
We the customer are in the position to fix bugs, correct security flaws because we use the software.
Personally, I see the embryonic question of ethics of should or shouldn't we, purely a temporal one.
There are those of you who do not see embryonic cells as "people" or humans, just cells.
I think the problem with this perception is that it is purely a temporal one, not an ethical one.
Given enough time, those cells will be a human being, that is a fact.
Simply because these cells are not given the time to be a productive, thinking human person, doesn't close the ethics arguments.
What do we do with old people for example? There aer many elderly in our society who are just a productive as these embryos.
Do we experiment on them as well?
What it really comes down to is time. If you judge or take control of any persons destiny, during any point in there existence, whether they be an embryo or a elderly frail individual, you are playing God.
That game, jusding from the history of the 20th century, is a VERY dangerous game indeed.
Human Exploration of space stopped in the 70's. I think that is the true failure here.
That doesn't mean however the shuttle was a failure.
We have learned a great deal with how to design vehicles that can interoperate between low earth orbit and on the ground.
Two of the most difficult aspects that needed to be understood before taking our next step.
NASA seems to have a problem deciding though what that is going to be.
I personally think we need to get rid of this idea of rockets, and start thinking about more fundamental engines built around magnetic/gravity principles.
Rockets where OK because they are fairly easy to understand, build and use while learning about airfoil design and basic mechanics.
What we need is better propulsion system for this stuff.
Congrats by the way on you EURO's for continuing to strike down Software Patents and turning your software engineering economies into the disaster they are in the US.
Keep that up and I just might move over there after I get my MS degree work done.:-)
Degrees and learning by institutionalized methods doesn't prove you are smart.
It really is a question of priorities.
I just recently had a chance to either continue owning my own IT business and growing it from 1.5 million in sales laster year to whatever I wanted or selling it and going back to school for my degree work.
I decided to go back to school to finish my BA and eventually get a MA.
I decided to do that, and it has nothing to do with how much Bill Gates makes.
Likewise, you THINK your so smart, start your own company and put the bastard you work for out of business, in the same industry.
But don't whine about your degrees hanging on your wall like they entitle you to the world.
1) Can I download the entire tree and make changes to the source code, and run my own versions of Solaris, and allow people to download them and improve upon my improvements?
How about the build chain, do they publish the tools to compile the OS?
If you can't do that, this intiative will die, or wither as it will not be able to compete against the Penguin Armamda in Suns skies. (i.e. most Linux engineers just don't care.)
2) Can you redistribute the code you modify under the GNU License.
GNU=Why Linux is Great.
At least in my opinion from the stand point of insuring copyrights are enforced by authors who contribute AND no single entity can take over the OS and screw its user community.
3) What sort of support is SUN planning for those who run a different version of the OS and deploy it in there organizations?
DRM due to its implications and to make it work widespread, accross many media types, would require a vast change in the perceptions of fair use.
The choice for the media giants would be to phase it in slowly. But technology changes so quickly, that obviously the formats for the DRM would hold, I think, storage media and systems behind.
I think this will fail.
I know there is no way I am buying equipment with secret backdoors plugged into its hardware so the media giants can have thier way with my budgets and systems that have my data on them.
You can also bet, the far east won't buy a single computer manufactured by an American company. The Chinese are incredibly paranoid about data and fair use as is.
So, to gain that extra 10% of revenue lost by copyright infringement, they will sacrifice billions of customers?
Obviously this won't work, and I am not scared about it.
Sorry, you only get one license and it isn't transferable.
Besides, how many quacks have been saying this sort of thing over the past 50 years???
I thinks Mother Natures copy protection is quite effective. Although I have no doubt we will be able to genetically modify the human race to extend lifespan significantly (i.e. the wealthy and the powerful that is...), I doubt forever.
Thinking we can build a machine to do it I think speaks volumes of our ignorance about how the brain really works and if it truly is the part that provides "conscious" thought.
Note, I am not sure if we REALLY understand the difference from conscious thought and intelligence.
Do the two require each other for example?
Exactly what IS UN conscious thought if so?
We have lots of crack pot organizations right now that measure intelligence for example, like MENSA.
I am not even sure we know what intelligence is let alone how to measure it.
I have a PhD sitting next too me who I think is clueless half the time and I do not find him intelligent. Meanwhile, the guy who use to do Tattoo's for people has written genuinely interesting and useful software for our customers and is self taught. His work pays for the over inflated EGO and salary of the PhD guy.
???
So what is intelligence?
I think it is any organisms ability to modify its environment to an extreme (i.e. make its own environment to sustain itself even when the outside environment would kill it.)
So if you build a house in response to winter, or air conditioning units in response to heat I would consider that intelligent. (if you move into outer space and do it, your not just intelligent, your going to likely live forever...)
However, I do not think you need to be conscious to do these thinks and explore the Universe, simply intelligent.
Sort of like the creatures in the new War of the Worlds remake.
1) The future financial stability of SUN Microsystems I think is pretty Dark. I think that because SUN is losing on all fronts with its RISC hardware to AMD/IBM's/Motorola's efforts in 64 bit computing during the past couple of years.
2) Although the best thing I love from SUN is the JCP org, it is not a gurantee that it will continue if SUN is purchased by another corporate entity.
Quite frankly, as SUN's financial posture has weakened over the years, as a Java developer that thought has given me and my customers the willies.
3)The impact of 2 on the OS community would allow a major frontal assualt to free corporate data from Microsoft to collapse in server rooms all over the world.
It would be a new DARK AGE in computing. Dogs and cats would be sleeping with each other and regular reboot scripts for servers and 3AM calls for network admins would become common place.:-)
The loss of the JCP and license restructuring would kill a major reason to deploy build and utilize corporate data in a free way with trading partners by imposing possible licensing fees on existing projects.
4) Java and Linux are so "synergistic" (Can I say that?) in how they complement each other in so many ways in our fight to free corporate data from microsoft, that I can't begin to describe them all.....OK well, I will try.:-)
Axis Web Services: I can deploy a axis sql query service on a old Fox pro app server and use it free of charge through a Linux app server. Saving corporate HQ in the process by getting data that was otherwise locked up to customers 24/7.
Hurray!
I don't need to budget to get data where it needs to go, just add another button on a web page and repatriot a OLD windows 2000 server to the cause of running Apache Tomcat/Axis and we are good to go. (Did I mention the old server all of a sudden Microsoft refuses to support with 2K runs twice as fast just with Linux on it??? Did I mention it is more secure? Did I mention I have the source code?)
Why, why OF COURSE I did!
Hurray!
Then of course, there are the hero moments in all this where everyone says:
Hackus? Hackus help us please!!
Why of course I will, lets format the windows partition and begin...
Yeah, I read my message over and it sounds like i meant they were already using cvs. But in fact what I meant was when they initially considered using source code management at all, cvs was considered then "excommunicated" fom the available candidates from which BitKeeper arose as the final selection.
As a couple of people have pointed out, I too found the whole BK thing with Torvalds, exceedingly bizarre.
Furthermore, I think cvs has some issues, but the decentralized approach bitkeeper portends, is some sort of super secret to doing offline cooperative source code management?
My whole impression with the excommnication of the kernel source code from cvs, was that they had to totally dump cvs for what reason? Kind harsh, period.
What I couldn't understand is why didn't they design or modify cvs to do disconnected distributed updates with similair capabilities such as BK.
Is it NOT logical, to have a tool with source available to modify should it not do what you need it too do? (i.e. if cvs really was deficient, it is open source so it can be fixed.)
Is that not the whole point to this endeavor we Open Source guys are exercising in our daily professional lives?
Revolting against closed source systems because they break far too easily, can't be fixed without going to jail and are owned by companies who have no interest in solving our problems just creating features to keep the upgrade cash cow machine milking continuously?
Whether we like it or not?
?
Instead, they just totally dumped cvs which manages some of the largest projects on the internet that easily rivals the size scope and complex code base of the Linux Kernel, (Mozilla)
Mozilla developers are pretty happy with cvs, and judging from the results, I use Mozilla everyday.
So why did they dump cvs again?
Something else must be going on here and unfortunately, the true reason why Linus would use BK is probably something he is keeping too himself.
We probably wouldn't like the answer anyway, so I am fine with that.:-)
Just for the record, I am in the camp that thinks it is a fundamental error to architect a piece of software that is open like the Linux Kernel number one, number two being its primary proponent of open engineering practices in general like Linus Torvalds, number three then turn around and close off the technology process that builds it and suggest it is a better way to manage the process than the one your using to build number 1.
They simply refuse to do so, some of them taking as long as 60 days to pay on a invoice.
Doesn't matter the time on the invoice due date.
Handling this sort of thing is still dicey and although I am sensitive to customers needs, I still have to pay the bills on time as well.
Some tips not mentioned in the article:
1) Although shortening your invoice schedule may have worked for this gent, I can say that is rarely has any impact on my customers.
2) If you are going to start a consulting business, insure you have about 90 days of operating income (complete business quarter) to start with.
3) Projects should be divided up into your invoice scheduling if that is what your invoice shcedule is.
If you really have certain customers that are really bad, work with them for a long time on timely bill payment (say 6 months). That means continually sending them letters, discuss it with a variety of people in the organization, not just your contact there.
If they continue to be greviously late, then drop them or stop work citing a long history late payment history.
I did this with one customer and all sorts of people started asking where Hackus was??? When they found out they were late on a payment AGAIN by 90 days, they paid and offerred me a job.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I find most of you on Slashdot, say one of two things about Google and China:
1) Google is fine, it is not thier fault, blame the Chinese govt.
2) A corporation exists within the law, to maximize profit, and since google is following the law of the land, they are fine.
I think I have a problem with the large number of these posts due to the following:
1) Enabling th Chinese government to execute these laws, and by Google following them, does not make them right. In fact it sets a bad precedent, which I consider Cisco a far more insidious company than google which started most of these problems.
(i.e. If Cisco can sell high tech equipment to Chinese to hunt down people, why can't we?)
But, the problem remains. Defining corporate responsibility simply by a small set of laws, doesn't work. It doesn't work for coal miners, Nuclear Power Plants and it will not work for the Chinese people.
Google is enabling the Chinese government to torture, imprison and possibly kill polical leaders that who do not like the human rights track record of the Chinese government.
By ignoring these facts somehow doesn't fit quite well with the excuse that Google is a corporation and just exists out there innocently to make money.
It doesn't fit well with my conscious, anyway.
2) I think it is laughable, that Google excuses itself by saying "Oh we just obey the local return results of the country we are in.".
I also do not believe that informing people that the government is watching makes it fine and good.
The government could care less if you can see what they are doing, they only care whether or not they control WHAT you are seeing.
If you cannot see anything else, how does that make you any more powerful?
It does not.
In general, it looks like as long as the company makes money it is "OK" to do these things.
No law in China exists that says this is wrong, so that makes it OK right?
We have some serious issues on this web site if the majority of the posts I am reading are taking the naive position that because Google is obeying the local laws of the Chinese govt, and that because a corporation exists to make money for shareholders it is not responsible for anything else for the society in which it serves.
Serious kinds of bad mojo has historically come of this kind of line of thinking, and when you start involving governments with big tanks and nuclear weapons, nothing good can come of it.
-Hack
Ok, I will bite:
"Why they celebrate birthdays and not conception days (they're so adamant at trying to control non-believers definitions of "life")."
Because BIRTHDAY means exactly that. It is not named concievedday.
"Why they believe one ascends to heaven immediately upon a man saying they are dead."
Because when the doctor says you have no brain activity, and your not breathing, you ARE dead.
"Why they believe that one who has no brain activity but body life might still be considered alive on this earth."
Well this situation is created by Man, not God. You should ask the people keeping the person on life support or the Doctor.
(Contradictions in nature usually result from people trying to play God or looking at the universe, and changing the order of things unnaturally...then wondering why shit happens or they can't makse sense of things.)
-Hack
Microsoft is not the only one.
Numerous articles are available on Slashdot.org about Cisco selling network software to hunt down, jail or "capture and pursuade" people who dare oppose the state on the internet.
Tanks in the Square be damned all in the name of profits.
Even now we are funding a state, that does not recognize the freedoms these corporations must have to even exist. The Chinese will be the next super power in the 21st century.
I only hope they consider the "serfs" who service the Chinese economy (The West) as worthy to keep around after they have economically conquored the west.
Of course, by then the CEO and shareholders will be dead, thier shares confiscated by the Chinese government in the name of "Security of the State".
Better start learning Chinese, the world is going to be a lot different place, thanks to Cisco and Microsoft and whole host of Western companies willing to chuck it all, in the name of a share price.
Most of the time Free Trade and Capitalism bring great benefits, but it does have it is by no means perfect by appealing to some of the baser instincts of individuals.
-Hack
I would encourage you to pursue Java:
1) It is hardware independant.
2) It uses virtual machine technology.
3) You can use any OS to study it.
Finally, it represents the future of security protocols.
None of these things are equivalent when discussing C# except when talking about Windows.
All of the major research in software engineering and OS design will be in Open Source. If it is not, it is probably due to the fact it is esoteric and worthless to 99% of computing problems, will be patented and you will have to sign a license to understand it.
(i.e. worthless)
Java has a very active community that is building equivalent structures that are more effective than the Sun model of Java, and you get too look at the source code. (Open Virtual machines and native compilation libraries if your not interested in a VM to run your code.)
So it is a win win situation.
-Hack
What a bunch of Jibberish.
Especially the part about stating the obvious to those here already very familair with the scientific method.
Religion has nothing to do with "idiocy" willful or otherwise.
Idiocy is a lack of fact or ignorance of the facts with action indifferent to those facts.
You dear sir fit that incredibly well with the diatribe above stating every religion on this planet that people follow, make them willful idiots.
Every scientific model about "how" the world works is a work of "faith" based on observed results.
We do not know or understand how Gravity works, or even what gravity is, yet we claim to have a complete understanding of it simply because we observe it acting on other objects. I can even create "real" experiments to confirm my model.
I can construct several completely independant models of string theory, all describing the same outcome in all spheres of basic geometrodynamic theory.
With just one problem.
They all work.
So which one will you put YOUR faith into when the facts are equal and we proclaim we understand exactly what gravity it and how it works?
We cannot even do that with fundamental atomic physics!
We are on the verge of replacing atoms with strings!
I can do the same with any physical model from the atom, to even simple Newtonian physics, and replace them with mathematical processes called strings. I can also test and confirm my hypothesis.
Models can be constructed, tested and confirmed.
Yet, they are more than likely all wrong.
The ONLY reason why you have faith, is if you can make a better faster computer, a stronger engineering material for a better way of life with the results of science. We call this reality.
Of course, it is a lie.
To suggest we know ultimately what reality is simply because science as a method allows us to describe a process to go to the moon, is quite a leap.
A leap of faith that is. Especially when most of 20th century physics is on the verge of being turned upside down on its head.
It will begin with the detection of Gravity Waves, and rapidly progress once the a number of experiments can be launched into space to confirm the results, far away from the influences of a large mass such as the Earth.
Your NEW sanity will then seperate the insane people of the 20th century, who were just idiots, to those of us living in the new String theory world who are now PERFECTLY SANE.
There is no reality, and your "faith" is misplaced dear sir if you think science is the answer to "realism, sanity or a definition to seperate the sane from the insane".
-Hack
In my view, given the consequences of what could have been disasterous for the open source community if even half of the wild claims that McBride and CO we know as SCO claimed, MySQL's CEO has made a very bad decision.
SCO should be made an example of, in fact. Long after SCO blows away in the wind, please avoid buying any products from any company McBride latches onto...like a leach that is.
I do not see how this helps the MySQL community, but I do see how it could help SCO with McBride at the wheel to sell even more copies of SCO to funnel into its legal claims to attack the open source community.
The first thing I am doing next quarter is moving to PostGRES, which isn't saying much because we are half way there already.
MySQL can die a prolonged and agonizing death as far as I am concerned, as there is no way I am supporting any project that brings incentives to companies who attack open source projects.
You should not either.
-Hack
1) How to Design and Build Infrastructure you understand.
Teach your students that building computing infrastructure through source code, instead of hitting clicking on the setup button.
2) Attack security and loopholes all software has by teaching your students to own the infrastructure they build, through the use of source code and the GPL IP way.
Teach your students the that if you understand your infrastructure, you can correct its problems in a proactive way, if you have the source. Not, waiting for vendors to decide if it is economically advantageous.
3) Teach your students key refresher courses in good software engineering practices for managing source code. Using source code debuggers, and IDE's such as Eclipse and version control to track and secure auditing of the security of that source code using subversion/cvs.
Review the fundamentals in software construction and begin with William Glass, and of course Edsger Dijkstra.
4) Finally, tell them you can make millions of dollars managing and selling source code for customers who want to buy your services, labor and peace of mind.
Make them see how software constructed by an organization allows business processes and methods to be unique. Why? What you own is much more flexible per dollar, than buying whole business methods off the shelf like any of your competitors can with huge money sink holes in the existing CRM, ERP markets.
After all, if your competitor can buy the same methods of doing business simply by writing a check too, what does that buy you?
It took me 20 years to come around to seeing the errors of my ways and many millions wasted.
Don't let your students do the same.
-Hack
I don't think so.
Furthermore with RedHat's latest quarterlies I do not think there is any credence in the fact the GPL cannot make money either.
I think what is striking though, is the societies that the GPL inhabits, such as the US and Europe, and the kinds of software that is comming out of either one.
With Europe WAY in the lead.
I think that speaks volumes about Linux and the GPL in general, and of course the US software industries health.
-Hack
There was nothing in your course lists, that would suggest finding a job is going to be a problem.
I think it is going to be a problem, in fact a much larger and more difficult problem than what you will face in your 4 year degree program.
I would also like to point out, that do to the technology and nature of this industry, millions of extremely qualified graduates in India, China are going to be competing for your job as well.
Don't forget, as well. That unless you are going to a little community college, the bank is going to want its money fairly soon out of college.
Right now, it takes about 2-3 YEARS for college grads to find jobs when they graduate from tech fields such as CS in the USA, worst case.
I wouldn't want to be a 20-25 year old and certainly not anyone over 40 in that field looking for a job in the next 10 years thats for sure.
-Hack
Quite frankly, we wouldn't have to speak about whos or whats. It is common sense actually to expect any purchaser of software to audit the systems it puts in place.
Which is one of the reasons we audit all of our software on our network, for our ERP and accounting to our Warehousing.
Obviously, you can't do this with proprietary software.
Too bad for you, you got ripped.
For us, we do our own security audits because we can, and because it makes sense to do so.
After all, the manufacturer of the software doesn't use actually use the software, we do.
Ironic that most places who write accounting software, like Microsoft, don't use the same software they write to do the accounting to run the business.
We the customer are in the position to fix bugs, correct security flaws because we use the software.
-Hack
Personally, I see the embryonic question of ethics of should or shouldn't we, purely a temporal one.
There are those of you who do not see embryonic cells as "people" or humans, just cells.
I think the problem with this perception is that it is purely a temporal one, not an ethical one.
Given enough time, those cells will be a human being, that is a fact.
Simply because these cells are not given the time to be a productive, thinking human person, doesn't close the ethics arguments.
What do we do with old people for example? There aer many elderly in our society who are just a productive as these embryos.
Do we experiment on them as well?
What it really comes down to is time. If you judge or take control of any persons destiny, during any point in there existence, whether they be an embryo or a elderly frail individual, you are playing God.
That game, jusding from the history of the 20th century, is a VERY dangerous game indeed.
-Hack
Human Exploration of space stopped in the 70's. I think that is the true failure here.
That doesn't mean however the shuttle was a failure.
We have learned a great deal with how to design vehicles that can interoperate between low earth orbit and on the ground.
Two of the most difficult aspects that needed to be understood before taking our next step.
NASA seems to have a problem deciding though what that is going to be.
I personally think we need to get rid of this idea of rockets, and start thinking about more fundamental engines built around magnetic/gravity principles.
Rockets where OK because they are fairly easy to understand, build and use while learning about airfoil design and basic mechanics.
What we need is better propulsion system for this stuff.
-Hack
Well, mmmm.....
Morality of the flesh, doesn't require a theology.
If you are going to talk about humanism, lets not dice words, shall we?
Quite simply, if you believe that science and technology can explain everything, so that your nice little 9-5 world isn't upset.
More power to you.
-Hackus
Congrats by the way on you EURO's for continuing to strike down Software Patents and turning your software engineering economies into the disaster they are in the US.
:-)
Keep that up and I just might move over there after I get my MS degree work done.
-Hack
That is a bunch of bull.
Degrees and learning by institutionalized methods doesn't prove you are smart.
It really is a question of priorities.
I just recently had a chance to either continue owning my own IT business and growing it from 1.5 million in sales laster year to whatever I wanted or selling it and going back to school for my degree work.
I decided to go back to school to finish my BA and eventually get a MA.
I decided to do that, and it has nothing to do with how much Bill Gates makes.
Likewise, you THINK your so smart, start your own company and put the bastard you work for out of business, in the same industry.
But don't whine about your degrees hanging on your wall like they entitle you to the world.
What have you do for the world LATELY?
-Hack
Mmmm.....
I guess some questions I have:
1) Can I download the entire tree and make changes to the source code, and run my own versions of Solaris, and allow people to download them and improve upon my improvements?
How about the build chain, do they publish the tools to compile the OS?
If you can't do that, this intiative will die, or wither as it will not be able to compete against the Penguin Armamda in Suns skies.
(i.e. most Linux engineers just don't care.)
2) Can you redistribute the code you modify under the GNU License.
GNU=Why Linux is Great.
At least in my opinion from the stand point of insuring copyrights are enforced by authors who contribute AND no single entity can take over the OS and screw its user community.
3) What sort of support is SUN planning for those who run a different version of the OS and deploy it in there organizations?
-Hack
DRM due to its implications and to make it work widespread, accross many media types, would require a vast change in the perceptions of fair use.
The choice for the media giants would be to phase it in slowly. But technology changes so quickly, that obviously the formats for the DRM would hold, I think, storage media and systems behind.
I think this will fail.
I know there is no way I am buying equipment with secret backdoors plugged into its hardware so the media giants can have thier way with my budgets and systems that have my data on them.
You can also bet, the far east won't buy a single computer manufactured by an American company. The Chinese are incredibly paranoid about data and fair use as is.
So, to gain that extra 10% of revenue lost by copyright infringement, they will sacrifice billions of customers?
Obviously this won't work, and I am not scared about it.
-hack
Sorry, you only get one license and it isn't transferable.
Besides, how many quacks have been saying this sort of thing over the past 50 years???
I thinks Mother Natures copy protection is quite effective. Although I have no doubt we will be able to genetically modify the human race to extend lifespan significantly (i.e. the wealthy and the powerful that is...), I doubt forever.
Thinking we can build a machine to do it I think speaks volumes of our ignorance about how the brain really works and if it truly is the part that provides "conscious" thought.
Note, I am not sure if we REALLY understand the difference from conscious thought and intelligence.
Do the two require each other for example?
Exactly what IS UN conscious thought if so?
We have lots of crack pot organizations right now that measure intelligence for example, like MENSA.
I am not even sure we know what intelligence is let alone how to measure it.
I have a PhD sitting next too me who I think is clueless half the time and I do not find him intelligent. Meanwhile, the guy who use to do Tattoo's for people has written genuinely interesting and useful software for our customers and is self taught. His work pays for the over inflated EGO and salary of the PhD guy.
???
So what is intelligence?
I think it is any organisms ability to modify its environment to an extreme (i.e. make its own environment to sustain itself even when the outside environment would kill it.)
So if you build a house in response to winter, or air conditioning units in response to heat I would consider that intelligent.
(if you move into outer space and do it, your not just intelligent, your going to likely live forever...)
However, I do not think you need to be conscious to do these thinks and explore the Universe, simply intelligent.
Sort of like the creatures in the new War of the Worlds remake.
-Hack
Anyone working on MultiCore CPU's on a single chip yet?
:-)
Is there a way to access registers on one core directly from another without a supervisor bit requirements?
Vector based systems I have been familair with use a sharded memory context exception handler for that sort of thing.
I think multicore CPU instruction sets are going to be interesting to look at as soon as I get my hands on one.
One more 4U chassis to add to the rack of equipment in my living room.
-hack
I keep testing the batch file.exe exploit it says and just can't seem to get it too work??
-Hack
-Fedora Core Test 4
I just did a backflip. :-)
:-)
:-)
:-)
This is great news!
I have several reasons why I like it:
1) The future financial stability of SUN Microsystems I think is pretty Dark. I think that because SUN is losing on all fronts with its RISC hardware to AMD/IBM's/Motorola's efforts in 64 bit computing during the past couple of years.
2) Although the best thing I love from SUN is the JCP org, it is not a gurantee that it will continue if SUN is purchased by another corporate entity.
Quite frankly, as SUN's financial posture has weakened over the years, as a Java developer that thought has given me and my customers the willies.
3)The impact of 2 on the OS community would allow a major frontal assualt to free corporate data from Microsoft to collapse in server rooms all over the world.
It would be a new DARK AGE in computing. Dogs and cats would be sleeping with each other and regular reboot scripts for servers and 3AM calls for network admins would become common place.
The loss of the JCP and license restructuring would kill a major reason to deploy build and utilize corporate data in a free way with trading partners by imposing possible licensing fees on existing projects.
4) Java and Linux are so "synergistic" (Can I say that?) in how they complement each other in so many ways in our fight to free corporate data from microsoft, that I can't begin to describe them all.....OK well, I will try.
Axis Web Services: I can deploy a axis sql query service on a old Fox pro app server and use it free of charge through a Linux app server. Saving corporate HQ in the process by getting data that was otherwise locked up to customers 24/7.
Hurray!
I don't need to budget to get data where it needs to go, just add another button on a web page and repatriot a OLD windows 2000 server to the cause of running Apache Tomcat/Axis and we are good to go. (Did I mention the old server all of a sudden Microsoft refuses to support with 2K runs twice as fast just with Linux on it??? Did I mention it is more secure? Did I mention I have the source code?)
Why, why OF COURSE I did!
Hurray!
Then of course, there are the hero moments in all this where everyone says:
Hackus? Hackus help us please!!
Why of course I will, lets format the windows partition and begin...
Hurray!
-Hack
Yeah, I read my message over and it sounds like i meant they were already using cvs. But in fact what I meant was when they initially considered using source code management at all, cvs was considered then "excommunicated" fom the available candidates from which BitKeeper arose as the final selection.
-hack
As a couple of people have pointed out, I too found the whole BK thing with Torvalds, exceedingly bizarre.
:-)
:-)
Furthermore, I think cvs has some issues, but the decentralized approach bitkeeper portends, is some sort of super secret to doing offline cooperative source code management?
My whole impression with the excommnication of the kernel source code from cvs, was that they had to totally dump cvs for what reason? Kind harsh, period.
What I couldn't understand is why didn't they design or modify cvs to do disconnected distributed updates with similair capabilities such as BK.
Is it NOT logical, to have a tool with source available to modify should it not do what you need it too do? (i.e. if cvs really was deficient, it is open source so it can be fixed.)
Is that not the whole point to this endeavor we Open Source guys are exercising in our daily professional lives?
Revolting against closed source systems because they break far too easily, can't be fixed without going to jail and are owned by companies who have no interest in solving our problems just creating features to keep the upgrade cash cow machine milking continuously?
Whether we like it or not?
?
Instead, they just totally dumped cvs which manages some of the largest projects on the internet that easily rivals the size scope and complex code base of the Linux Kernel, (Mozilla)
Mozilla developers are pretty happy with cvs, and judging from the results, I use Mozilla everyday.
So why did they dump cvs again?
Something else must be going on here and unfortunately, the true reason why Linus would use BK is probably something he is keeping too himself.
We probably wouldn't like the answer anyway, so I am fine with that.
Just for the record, I am in the camp that thinks it is a fundamental error to architect a piece of software that is open like the Linux Kernel number one, number two being its primary proponent of open engineering practices in general like Linus Torvalds, number three then turn around and close off the technology process that builds it and suggest it is a better way to manage the process than the one your using to build number 1.
WTF?
However, Linus is still my hero.
-hack
You are forgetting that most providers will not accept delivery from a dynamic IP address space.
So using Dynamic DNS is probably a stupid idea for general mail.
However, it is a great way for corporate to corporate Email systems to communicate using cheap consumer lines with high speed capability.
We do that with EDI right now and send XML mail messages S/MIME.
-Hack
Was my biggest problem.
:-)
They simply refuse to do so, some of them taking as long as 60 days to pay on a invoice.
Doesn't matter the time on the invoice due date.
Handling this sort of thing is still dicey and although I am sensitive to customers needs, I still have to pay the bills on time as well.
Some tips not mentioned in the article:
1) Although shortening your invoice schedule may have worked for this gent, I can say that is rarely has any impact on my customers.
2) If you are going to start a consulting business, insure you have about 90 days of operating income (complete business quarter) to start with.
3) Projects should be divided up into your invoice scheduling if that is what your invoice shcedule is.
If you really have certain customers that are really bad, work with them for a long time on timely bill payment (say 6 months). That means continually sending them letters, discuss it with a variety of people in the organization, not just your contact there.
If they continue to be greviously late, then drop them or stop work citing a long history late payment history.
I did this with one customer and all sorts of people started asking where Hackus was??? When they found out they were late on a payment AGAIN by 90 days, they paid and offerred me a job.
Your milage may vary.
-Hack