I think many of the comments about Linus and Richard are essentially correct with regards to the important stuff. Free Software as a Platform (Richard M. Stallman) and how to deploy that said software which is what I think Linux is ala (Linux Torvalds).
What is left is arguing what is important. The software and applications or the OS kernel?
Pointless, really.
Which would you rather throw away? The OS Kernel that runs your applications or the applications that make your OS kernel useful?
Does it matter which guy created the OS kernel or application software: gcc, sendmail, libc's, ld...etc. ????
However...I must agree with Linus.
On a technical point, I can't see the benefits of Mach software technology. Besides, I see many of those supposed benefits in how the existing, now semi-monolithic 2.4 kernel, and even less monolithic up N comming 2.6 kernel, are packaged.
But we have many of those benefits already in my opinion in both the packaging and distribution of Linux. Some of the better ones are NOT GNU based. (VMware for example), but...
WHO CARES? That (MACH) certainly is not a technically valid engineering reason to ditch the Linux kernel for HURD, or to even join the Hurd cause.
I am not sure it makes sense to base an engineering strategy on whether or not software requires reengineering simply because it is not GNU, and if it isn't it must be defective in some way as to require it.
Obviously not all commercial software is crap. (Although I must admit a large portion of it is...)
There are features of the OS kernel that many think shouldn't be part of the base requirements or engineering of a OS kernel anyway. (i.e. the whole idea of virtual machines/processor contexts...etc).
Here is where I have problems with Stallman and find many of the arguments for his replacement of the Linux kernel with HURD postively, absolutely bogus. Many of his statements I have read usually go along the lines that everything must be entirely GNU License compliant in the kernel distro.
They certainly must be if we are ever to have a fully GNU implementation of OS Kernel and Applications. However will that buy us anything more than what we already have?
Free software does not gurantee well engineered software. Lots of free stuff is crap, both in specification, implementation and final engineering/deployment. Don't believe me? Wander over to FreshMeat and look at some of the poor cuts in that meat market!
Engineering decisions in software and politics are best kept apart. Seldom does politics yield good software.
Which is what I think the Hurd project IS, politics, not smart engineering.
Depending on what they use the patents for, is really the question. If they use Patents the way they are currently being used, to lock out competition and make software technology come to a stand still, obviously we have to re-evaluate RedHat and perhaps stick/migrate with Debian only installations or other distro's that do not patent.
Software Patents/Patents are a bad idea. They will eventually cause economic wars, the US I believe will not be able to win.
Unless of course, we threaten to bomb our neighbors into accepting our market laws, which by thier very structure of patents, will lock them out!
Patents and other "arcane" methods of market monopoly building will not be accepted, mark my words, by our up N comming third world friends.
China and Russia will not be bullied. They will take advantage of the fact that corporations in the US and Europe can only devote a small segment of thier populations to scientific and technological research. Simply because patents do not allow large numbers of people to advance a problem or develop a market to maturity as quickly as those markets that do not recognize patents.
Imagine cures for cancer accelerated for example by CENTURIES simply because China allows and shares information economically without restrictions, to billions of potential researchers, investors, and government research institutes. Compare this where any advance in technology in Biotech for example in the US only a handful of people can work on a problem legally.
I predict the best software advances in computer technology will come from the far east in the 21st century.
Lets not forget, where we got Linux from. It came from outside markets that do not recognize software patents.
I don't think this is a cooincedence and I predict advances in software technology will advance far more quickly outside those markets and countries which do not recognize patents.
Fundamentally, IP laws cannot work in a global market place that doesn't recognize IP laws from country to country.
Given the fact that the sole purpose of IP laws are to restrict commerce by imposing a levy on any idea or product reproduced, those countries not under the same restrictions will kill those countries that are in the marketplace.
If the US and its allies are to make IP property work, they will need to consider military action, or economic action against those countries who feel certain IP laws in our country don't apply to operating thier economies, or who simply develop a different economy altogether.
Especially when you consider the fact that developing "mega" economies such China, and Russia who could dwarf anything Europe or the US could output in sheer GNP, cannot at this stage pay such levies.
Not only that, but IP rights in the US and Europe, are increasingly laws on the books that enforce legal monopolies by corporate entities rather than what they are really meant to be: a way to reimburse the development costs of the idea to the inventor. As we see with DMCA and other such legislation, these rights are actually methods to lock in markets and prevent new competition or development of technology that renders the patented technology obsolete.
Regardless if it is in the consumers, or our countries technology markets best interests.
I don't believe given these facts, and if we are to remain friends with these nations who are up and comming, that IP laws as written are a good idea.
IP laws should be changed so that the idea of reimbursement is a very very VERY small percentage of the market place and allow the iventor to sell his product and make his profits like everyone else.
I can't see why the Linux kernel is not using CVS.
Technically, could someone point out the reasons?
Mozilla is far larger I believe than the Linux kernel, has a vast array of CVS hookups readily available for coordinating even the most complex relationships with developers.
Has Linus ever stated exactly the technical details of why cvs is not used? I know Linux many times uses and does things according to his preference, with debatable excuses for using a particular algorithm or code for one thing, or a particular piece of software for development.
Exactly what preferences did he use personally to apply the use of Bitkeeper over CVS?
The idea of creating and using a independant language based development facility to create software has no basis in reality.
I for one don't care about language independance as there is no use for a application written in X different languages. US Military tried that two decades ago and said enough is enough, and created ADA to solve that problem.
It would seem Microsoft hasn't kept up to date on the historic research in antiquidated software development practices.
Not surprising, it hasn't kep up to date with MODERN practices either!!
.Net was created with one thing and one thing in mind only, to destroy Java and to sell more software, not because it solves a pressing problem in the market place. (Beyond people flocking to Java to solve the decade old problem of keep software alive and well between hardware upgrades.)
.Net was not created because it offers something of value to the market place.
.Net was not created because it solves a technology problem in our industry like Java. (i.e. Truly portable code over target machine hardware)
.Net in short is a solution looking for a problem.
It offfers NO advantage over its target market it wants to kill, (i.e. Java developers) and actually restricts your organization by not allowing your software to run anywhere but on Microsoft's own limited vision of what computing power is, (i.e. PC hardware).
Like so many other times I have commented on.Net, it is a ludicrously expensive software API to develop on, and offers no real value in developing internet based applications as a result.
I have been saying this for a long time, especially to those over at SETI, to stop wasting thier money.
The requirements for deep time, that is, a planet that provides a terrestrial environment for many billions of years that is stable is unheard of, in most star systems we observe.
That is, many star systems are either double, have fairly irregular cycles (unstable environments) or lives that prevent long expanses of time too pass with very little variation in solar output.
Remember, it took many billions of years too pass before an organism arose here on earth that could do poetry, go to the moon and otherwise build instruments too look for other sentient beings. Hundreds of millions of organisms came and went in that time.
After all, the dinosaurs, arguably the most successful species EVER, had pea brains, and no intelligence, and they did far better than we have. Intelligence it would seem is not a very good predictor for survival. So it isn't very useful, from an evolutionary model.
In fact, intelligence, may even by a very very bad DISADVANTAGE to a species long term survival. We certainly haven't been around very long, and look at how well the dino's did with far less intelligence than us!
I don't think the physical laws that gave rise to us, are any different here than anyplace else in the Universe. Therefore, I think we can make a safe assumption that intelligent life requires BILLIONS AND BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of years to evolve, MINIMALLY. Even when we look at the fossil record, only ONE species evolved in all that deep time, us.
Intelligent life must be a rare "evolutionary" event, given this evidence.
The money that SETI is spending is wasteful given what we know about stellar topography, which is currently forming a picture of what the average star is, how stable it is, and where its position in the Galaxy is. Even, what kinds of solar systems are "typical", so far bear very little resemblence to our own.
More research is needed, and much more money. About a billion or more would do.
So far most of the evidence, suggests that if we use the Earth as a model, and make the assumption that the same physical laws, and therefore, same possibilities and probabilities exist in the same way elsewhere, civilizations that might exist probably number in the 2-3 range in our galaxy.
We would be one of them.
You can also bet, that because of the amount of time involved, that we are probably many millions of years behind in both our understanding of physical laws, what we think is possible technologically, than this other race.
In short, they are, probably do or have spread throughout the galaxy. Furthermore, they probably can harness the energies of time and matter on a galactic scale, and will not be using anything so stupid as Radio waves, or Laser beams, or other stupid conceptions of how to transmit information.
The whole idea is quaint, and quite ridiculous.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that since they have survived for so long with each other, they are probably watching us right now, asking themselves, "Will this species discover how to live together, and take the first steps out into the void? Or will it destroy itself?" All along, taking very good steps to insure we cannot detect them in anyway, shape or form.
Given the growing body of this evidence, I would suggest to SETI to spend its money in donating it to new initiatives that look for other Earth like planets, which very well could number in the thousands in our galaxy. In fact, there could be a good probability such a planet within 200-300 light years.
We won't know however, if we can't build the space based facilities and technologies to do the searching.
SETI has collected just about 1 Billion or more dollars so far. Ironically, that figure is about how much would be required to build a space based system to answer these sorts of questions, definitivly.
Although intelligent life is probably very very rare, we are quickly finding out, that life evolved very quickly after the Earth formed. It is not unreasonable to assume that many planets have life on them, and I think Rare Earth points that out.
Intelligent Life is Rare, Life is probably not so rare, or is much less rare by an order of magnitude. There really could be millions of worlds out there with pretty strange critters running around!
SETI should assist financially in space based building of such facilities instead of wasting thier time looking for laser beams and radio waves and other such NONSENSE which is not supported by the astronomical evidence.
I thought Nvidia was in the pocket of MS? (i.e. Graphics Engine Hardware for Xbox)
Then they want to use AMD as a method of exactly WHAT? Getting around the licensing and technology exclusion contracts they already have with MS on a different OS platform?
It almost makes sense for AMD now to start manufacturing chipset designs for its CPU/Graphics hardware. In essence, making thier own motherboard products.
I don't believe AMD makes thier own motherboards like iNTEL does.
Do they?
I have never used anything but intel CPU's and chipsets in all my server designs. (Almost all of which are SuperMicro P4DC6 variety.)
Guy, I buy HP printing equipment and one of the requirements is a soundly built product.
If you think guys like me and millions of other IT people don't care if they have to manage 100 printers on thier network and have to call a repair guy every other day to fix them you are not living in reality.
Go jump off a bridge and take Carly and her crappy ideas with her. You know, some people actually have to apply deal with technology to make peoples lives at work fulfilling.
Not sit in a finely leathered office chair all by themselves and have Prozac fantasy mergers all day long!
The HP way has EVERYTHING TO DO with business, and if you will notice in these rough economic times is one of the only divisions at HP that is turning a profit at the moment.
BECAUSE OF THE HP WAY.
I suppose you are also going to tell me that my HP III printers I have on my network, which are built like tanks and working just fine 8 YEARS LATER, is also in need of major repair?
Up yours.
I hope you have too manage a whole network of products made by this "new merger".
Just what an unhealthy industry needs, bigger monolithic corporations with vision that stretches about 30 seconds into the future.
What I am concerned about is the HP printing business. A small lean company almost always does better than a huge monolithic crap company that HP and Compaq will become, sucking up dollars in areas the HP printing division will probably get less of anyway.
I don't buy the crap that they will have a larger resource pool. By definition if you keep the slice the same size and increase the pie you get LESS of the pie, not more.
Sounds like more Arthur Andersen accounting logic too me.
HP has(had?) great printers, in my opinion. I wholeheartedly accepted Walter Hewlitt's assessment that a stronger HP is to concede the commodities based PC business for shareholders and to concentrate on the printing, publishing, consulting industries in its computing division.
It also makes common sense.
PC's are a commodity item, making a larger corporation isn't going to help profit margins and actually further creates problems that will make the stock price more diluted.
I am very worried they won't have for much longer. If this merger fails, and creates a stock meltdown, HP's printer division will meltdown with it.
The physical mass, of the ice in question suggests that this warming trend is not going to go away anytime soon, and is not a "hiccup" event.
Within 30 years at this rate of Ice elimination, the sheer size of it all is mind boggling, New York and coastal cities will have far more too worry about than terrorists attacks.
The worlds entire financial center is in New York, and the cost of a barrier to prevent the ocean from flooding downtown Manhatten is going to be enourmous.
I had NO IDEA that the data I was looking at 5 years ago, would actually be realized in so short a time!
This sheet is the size of the country Luxemburg and will totally disintegrate, becomming part of the Earths ocean.
If it gets caught in any sort of outgoing current, it will pose a great hazard to any sort of shipping in the those areas it passes through.
I still couldn't believe it when I seen the photos.
I STILL don't believe it. The size and enormity is incredible!
I guess Global Warming skeptics will say the pictures are artificial and they will probably say the shelf is still there all frozen up, like we see in the photos, just a mere 2-3 years ago.
I certainly HOPE they are artificial and part of some left wing plot by Green Peace!
Quite a shocking discovery, and one that does not bode well for a generic species such as homo sapiens which doesn't take to well to climate change.
World stability is already at a crisis level. Weather and climate changes at this magnitude if sustained will cause wars over crop failures, loss of key financial centers in the world economy, and worse, shift valuable political power to terrorists states, who may find themselves now commanding a large proportion of the worlds crops!
Whole cities disapearing in a suitecase bomb flash of white light all because no one can afford to buy beans at the local market.
What a way to end 100,000 years of struggle to get out of the cave...
It also is interesting to note, that we are now terraforming the Earth. We may not know exactly what we are terraforming it INTO, but you can be rest assured if it isn't good, we won't be around long enough to try it someplace else. (i.e. Mars.)
We have no idea HOW we are raising the temperature, so by the time it reaches a crisis, we probably won't know how to reduce the temperature either.
Wow, that is a killer. You know, in my experience since the dot com crash, most ISP's are looking for customers and you could probably get a better deal.
I mean, my entire home cable setup is only going for about $50 bucks a month I am doing 250KB/s downloads and 180KB/s uploads.
I have no idea what the real bandwidth is, but it must be pretty damn huge to charge that kind of dough strictly for a pipe.
Perhaps Slashdot.org should do some shopping around???
It is a buyers market right now for bandwidth, not the other way around. If your ISP thinks so, time to walk!
Who is slashdot getting this big pipe from anyway?
(i.e. What ISP?)
I think centralized open source projects in working developer format, especially concentrating them all in one organization, is a bad idea.
1) Break ins.
2) Sourceforge is bought by Microsoft.
3) Disruption to work to SO MANY projects at once, due to break ins.
The disruption and dependance of the Open Source way on one organization is probably a bad idea. Not that SourceForge is the one stop and only place on the net, but it has a large enough number of projects to be of concern.
I don't know why or what sourceforge is that is is such a big deal to have projects here. Big fat Pipe perhaps?
There are plenty of tools for individual projects and group projects that work just fine and are free for everyone too use.
There are too many gotcha's that could impact too many projects if someone got in and decided to spend the next 5-10 months secretly writing small back doors into fairly large projects, that just perhaps not many would notice.
Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.
I think source forge should probably be a "BinaryForge" with MD5 and CRC signatures with perhaps the ability to sign out certs for binarys that are extremely critical.
Perhaps a mechanism to post builds from CVS systems authors maintain themselves to sourceforge of binaries would be OK.
At least that would maintain the ease of use of getting all your goodies from one location.
But in general I don't think it is a good idea to have so many open source source code trees in one place on the net.
Right now patents in the software industry represent a security threat to the US economic interests long term. Countries who do not recognize software patents (or for that matter EULA's) will arguably have a faster rate of innovation than the US.
I can name a few that already are on thier way to killing our home grown software industries:
Linux
Linux wasn't invented in the US, and it is fast becomming a economic boost to those countries that can't afford to pay patents to Microsoft or the licensing fees. Linux does not recognize patents as a viable way to obtain money for software. No one in thier right mind would invest the kind of money required to obtain a better OS than Microsoft's in the US market with the current monopoly.
Which is my point, innovation has basically stopped in the OS market for the past 8 years in the United States.
Is this healthy for the market with 1 or two competitors?
Is this healthy long term for the US goverment that relies on economic activity to fund its Armed forces?
No I don't think it is.
Linux is based on an entirely new economic concept of "writing software is more important than the software itself." Therefore, people are at the center of this new economic model, not the software end product.
My concern, is that we defeated the USSR through economic means, as they represented a view of the world we didn't like. The US and such nations as up and comming China and India, who do not recognize patents or licensing, and who do not enforce it, could easily defeat the US eventually with a free market in those countries that do not have our limitations of doing business.
Long term monopolies represent stagnation both in invester stock evaluations and a very dangerous threat if something is introduced from the outside into a monopoly market that we have no control over and changes the rules to that market.
I suppose we could resort to bombing 1/3rd of the worlds population (India and China) if they don't accept our ways of doing business, but I do not think that would be wise if the US wants to stay an economic power.
In the end, patents and licensing are not in themselves bad, as long as they don't put up walls in the market place, and as long as the laws of the country in which they reside recognize this fact and enforce them to the ends of creating a competitive market.
This is where AntiTrust laws come into play over monopolies and this is no longer the case in the United States. These laws have failed in the past decade with respect to the US software industry. As a result we have a very unhealthy market, where value is low, and prices are very very high.
Why have these laws failed?
In the US, increasing business buyouts of government elected officials and thier cohesion with the wheels of business, are proving to be a real long term business threat to the US economy. Patent laws are not being used to the ends in which they were designed and AntiTrust laws are being blatently ignored.
The Enron scandal in the US is the tip of the Iceberg, in my opinion. Our government's unwilling recognition of the "Microsoft problem" and what to do about is are far more telling about how money and the US government are intertwined now days with business.
Patents are now a tool that:
1) Is designed to stamp out any startup capital that creates or designs new innovative solutions that would invalidate an existing patent.
Legally, most startups fold immediately. The tax revenue and the job's lost are incalcuable to the United States long term tax base.
I read about it all the time. X number of employees leave Y company and Z company is gone in 14 months because Y company killed Z in court.
2) It is very difficult to invest in such a patent world because you don't know if your money is going to be safe in a company attempting to break into an existing market. (Beyond what you think is a good idea of a product or not. You essentially have to have a lawyer to be an investor. Investing shouldn't be that hard.)
Patents do not encourage investment in a monopoly market. Worse, it would be better not to invest in the US, I think I will put my money over in China or India. (etc...)
3) Prices are cheaper in a monopoly market? Of course not. Long term, the interests of consumers are affected.
It is increasingly becomming clear that the US is heading for a collapse of Titanic proportions in my mind. Increasinging stagnation in a variety of industries from software to hardware business is increasingly becomming entangled in politics.
Influencing government to keep markets static, keeping conditions poor for long term growth.
(i.e. Compaq and HP merger is just another example of real BAD ideas...being endorsed on a wide scale from Washington.)
Long term the Giant will awaken and squash the US high tech software industry like a bug if we don't start waking up ourselves and realize that our long term safety as a country is at stake.
The US government always has exceptions to rules of its "Hands Off" policies with regards to business. But in the end, when monopolies drive up prices, and squash long term new technologies in the name of keep the market "business as usual", one must realize exceptions to these rules need to be enforced for the betterment and health of the market place.
The government exists to level the playing field in business, to make it fair, to insure everyone plays by the rules and opportunity abounds.
Not too close markets too a few individuals in business.
In the end IP rights I believe are an archaic view of the world of technology. They will be increasingly hard to enforce as nations shuch as China and India grow up and learn that they can change the rules very quickly, without our help.
IP rights focus the importance of doing business and what is of value on the end product instead of the company or people creating the IP. I don't believe this way of doing business will survive long term, given the fast maturity rates of China and India in the free trade block, high tech sector.
Once you had a taste of Linux as they say, you never go back.
I am not exactly, totally enthusiastic about this idea of being able to use ANY language for a given programming project or combination thereof.
I have these reasons, personally, as a matter of observation in the software engineering of large complicated systems.
But I would like to make some observations:
1) The US Military in the early 80's and 90's had enourmous problems with private sector bids and implementation, of software in defense systems.
Namely, every vendor delivered a portion of the system in a different language. Some languages were specifically invented to deliver the final product.
These systems were large and complex, and non trivial engineering problems developed between vendors who needed to integrate thier combined efforts to deliver the product.
2) As systems were delivered the cost too maintain them was very high due to the fact there was no common reference for the software implementation.
What I mean by this is, if you have a flight control system, or launch control system, and it has a bug or engineering issue. It is very difficult to see exactly what the problem is if it incorporates or was delivered with 8 different computer grammars.
3) These systems had artificially short life spans due to the fact they could not be easily upgraded. That is too say, for example, the above flight control system coulnd't be upgraded because the target language(s) could not be reimplemented on new hardware.
My point about MONO and CLI?
Which is:
1) If we accept the historical data on building complicated pieces of software, we can reduce the costs of a implementation if it is reduced to one language or computer grammar to build its entire scope.
The military's solution to this was to produce key critical compenents of a defense system project using one reference specification. The computer grammar they picked was called ADA.
I question if the CLI is actually a good idea in a concept that allows or permits multiple language platforms to cooperate, if the goal is to produce software that is easy to use, is of low defects and is cost effective.
Historically the military with budgets far beyond anything commercially accesible couldn't do it and produce quality defense systems.
2) If the CLI provides a capability to produce a GNOME vision of support for multiple language platforms, given historic research in the software engineering areas, CLI suggests that anything built with a.Net architecture with a CLI as envisioned by Microsoft should produce software with unessacarily high engineering requirements than a single language platform.
3) Considering the fact that such a system would produce diverse computer grammars in any authors favorite language, for contributing authors, a future.Net MONO vision for a Linux app would quite possible require COBOL, C, Java, PERL, FORTRAN etc programmers to cooperate in building a new desktop app or feature.
If we accept that historic software engineering suggests multiple computer grammars result in systems that:
1) Require a very high engineering cost.
2) Quality of the software suffers because fewer individuals can access the entire code base to make corrections.
Personally, in IMHO organizational scalability and human productivity issues in building this sort of software are problems with N different grammars being used to build a single piece of software.
Therefore, I believe CLI is really not a positive addition to an Open Source Project.
But Microsoft is making it clear it is going to happen with all thier software.
This is just release 1.OH of.Net.
But they are moving in that direction. They have said many times, and they are demonstrating that with XP, which is an OS that requires a centralized Broker to even install guy.
Do you serious think this is FUD when:
1) Microsoft has stated they want a framework for building subscription based software?
2) Thier latest release of thier OS can't even be installed out of the box without a centralized broker to produce a license key?
3) Microsoft has many times endorsed the ASP (Application Service Prodivder) business model and have said they wish to sell development and application services on a subscription basis!
Yes,.Net includes the foundation for writing Java, err, Microsoft Java, and I DO MEAN Microsoft Java.
You are confused guy if you think you are going to write Java core.Net services on a Linux box or any other box except one that is licensed by Microsoft.
Fat chance in.Net hell, on the Java 2 platform.
You might be able to write the client based portions of a, say,.Net for Payment services, but THAT IS ALL.
I am also NOT confusing passport, either. Passport is a.Net service and it WILL RUN as a core service for ALL.Net applications that require authentication in the.Net API.
If you don't think this API will be tied to a pay as you go, or subscription basis you are very naive.
Microsoft is testing this framework out in this current release of XP. If successful it will do this with its next release of the OS and then with the rest of its products, all the way down to the developer API's.
You can't be serious that Microsoft is not going to eventually do this after they have stated in public forums, conferences and on slashdot many times that net services/subscription based software is the future of thier revenue streams?
And pleazzze, do you realize what version of Java comes with.Net? The last license Microsoft got was Java 1.1.7, from Sun.
There is NO WAY I would or anyone else for that matter would use a 1.1.7 API to program against now days for Java apps.
So YES, go ahead and be stuck in the Microsoft Java 1.1.7 world with.Net. With such an ancient API, you can't do any of the JDBC 3.0, SWING advanced call backs and graphics acceleration features!!!
You are sadly mistaken if you think you are going to be using Java 2 in a.Net context.
So if this conversation was being held 3 years ago, you are right, all of what I said would be untrue. But the Microsoft VM is WORTHLESS now and your counter arguments are based on an outdated Java platform that NOBODY uses anymore to develop with!!!
So you point is? That I can use a old antiquidated VM to port my.Net apps? That is suppose to be a solution??
It is hoped that with enough.Net servers, internet services will or MUST pass through some sort of.Net backend driven by a Microsoft Passport authentication scheme that stores your credit card information and banking information on a server a.Net "approved" service provider.
Then, when the next version of Windows comes out, Redmond can force the entire internet through a.Net server with Passport, and you pay for thier software online, for installation, then each time you boot up any.Net app, you are billed on a monthly basis for it, including:
Games, Word Processing, Operating System software.
Isn't that great?
You are paying a monthly fee for these things now aren't you?
Oh wait, I am sorry, you are not doing that are you? Well, no matter, if your an IT guy, you won't have a choice because Microsoft will force the upgrade eventually on you...
What a great future "Vision" microsoft has for your wallet.
For many years Microsoft's marketing department was calling this and that "Object Oriented" like ASP, their OS framework, etc.
When in fact the actual products/API's/software wasn't even CLOSE to being OOP, at best it was a typical Structured Design Appoach from the top down.
One of my guys I worked with at a MS shop said he was building a OOD/OOP ASP page.
I then asked him, how he plans to do inheritance.
"Whats that?" was the reply.
:-)
There really isn't anything new here. I think the biggest advance to thier latest IDE for.net is the ability to do source debugging of asp pages.
But that is all I can think of that would be classified as something unique or new to the IDE, which is also being called a.Net development tool now.
WHATEVER Bill and Co. Call it what you want, I will stic with Java, get a real OOD framework, and run my application I write on my cell phone, pda, servers in te computer room or any other place I dam well please.
.Net is at the moment, still crystallizing into a vision/API of "pay as you go" services.
That means when you build a.net app, Redmond gets a percentage of your use time out of it.
The API in many ways attempts to replicate everything the J2EE services platform (Java Enterprise Platform 2).
However, unlike.Net, Java solves a very expensive software engineering quandry for business, scientific applications:
"How can I keep my investment in my software when my company gets bought out, or I upgrade my computer hardware?"
With Java, you simply get a JVM for the target machine you upgrade too.
.Net does not solve this problem, and in many ways makes it worse:
1) It allows a god aweful number of different languages to build a single application. Just think, you can use a COBOL, C#, RPG programmer to build a web app...then you can pay 3 TIMES the maintance cost in supporting 3 different language platforms to do so.
Hopefully, all of them Microsoft licenses.
2) You are literally stuck on PC hardware. You can't get anywhere further than that without a.Net core services server too approve and monitor your use of.Net services. (After all, Uncle Bill needs to get his cut when you pay as you go, minute by minute, transaction by transaction, or month to month...)
These are some of the Cutting Edge ideas comming out of Redmond now days.
Can't you wait to get your hands on that just released.Net API and development IDE?
You are obviously not aware of the poor bastards in our faultering economy that have to deal with the license or upgrade taxes from Microsoft.
IT managers had a taste this year of a slow economy, and when things are bad, the Microsoft tax treadmill on say, 200-300 desktops is a significant piece of money employers would like to use to pay raises, bonuses, health insurance and business opportunities to expand upon. Which, I would like to note, their competitors can't if they have to ship that money to Microsoft.
My entire company in fact, BETS that my competitors will buy into.Net and Microsoft. As long as I know my competitors are sending money to Redmond, I know when times get bad, thier customers...
WILL BE MY CUSTOMERS.
The desktop battle, was won by Microsoft, true, but anyone who says the war is over has never worked in a all IT Microsoft shop in a bad business climate.
The server room battle is now going on, and Linux is winning this battle. Once Linux is firmly entrenched in the enterprise server room...
THEN we will turn our expertise and knowledge and better value all around, towards the desktop.
Uncle Bill and Stevey boy are going to wake up one day and find themselves in a world dominated by Java virtual machines that run everywhere and typically more than not, servers, pda's, cell phones, etc are also running some form of Linux underneath them.
It is already happening.
Those companies that refuse to follow suit will not be able to stay in business against those companies who adopt open source technologies and processes.
Ultimately the new business model for IT is based around people and not hardware or software like it has been for the past 10 years. That is what open source is about.
There are some seemingly odd probabilities at play here, one of those that I am interested personally in is due to the fact that, we human beings, intelligent life, are really RARE. Even on a world that has had a very nurturing Sun, and very ULTRA stable periods of time with regards to ideal conditions for life to evolve.
I am using the Earth as a model, but out of the billions of years, and the millions of species, only one became intelligent, to be using slashdot today. I think that speaks VOLUMES about the probability of intelligent life out there in the Galaxy.
We are talking about galactic time, as well in terms of intelligent life and its probability on a very very nurturing planet, which I think the Earth is an ideal model of.
If intelligent life is so common, it would seem to me you can't make the same argument about given enough time (Billions of years) and simply because there are "so many" of those possibilities, doesn't make it common. Intelligent life isn't common on earth, only one species has it. It is very very VERY uncommon.
There was huge amounts of time, Galactic time, on earth and only ONE intelligent life form evolved. I think that speaks volumes about what we can expect out there we we explore space. We may very well be alone, or if we are not, the other race is so far advanced I would think we would have very little in common to initiate communication.
(All this thinking about lasers, and radio waves is so quaint. SETI and the people who run it are pretty naive about research into these sorts of areas. Nobody in thier right mind would use radio waves to communicate, or any sort of electro magnetic wave. The distances that a space faring race would have to cover, would solve the problem using a form and method of communcation that doesn't have these issues. You can bet it is a science far beyond our understanding, and methods to detect.)
If we are to use the Earth as a model, and assume it represents the normal progression of life, if given the right conditions, habitable earth like planets are probably very rare.
If we use the Earth as a model, intelligent life takes galactic time to come about. That would mean there may be only 1 or two other intelligent races in our galaxy.
I don't buy into the belief that habitable earths are common place. We have 9 planets in our solar system, only one is habitable, not all nine. We also know that life zones around stars are very fragile, and stable computable orbits in these zones only allow at most one planet during the lifetime of a star. Please note. Life zones around stars change as they go through stellar evolution.
We also know our sun is not an "ordinary star" as we are lead to believe in our physics text books only published 5 years ago. It is FAR too stable as far as its output goes. Most stars observed are NOT AS stable in stellar output as our sun, but go through cycles of instability, or are just unstable due to thier composition as they evolve.
It requires, many many MANY things to come together to make a habitable planet, and just counting stars that have similair stellar output as our sun doesn't equal large numbers of habitable planets out there.
In fact, you may even need a certain CONFIGURATION of a solar system for life, let alone intelligent life too come about otherwise, you have impact events that snuff it out totally. Jupitor reduces the large impact bodies in our solar system for example, because of its large gravity. Sucking up big rocks that would otherwise destroy all life on earth in an instant of galacitc time should they impact earth. Solar systems without large planets like Juptitor, life probably won't get the chance to take root because there is nothing to stop large impact events from frequenting the planet in the habitable zone.
It is clear you need galactic time spans of stability to bring about intelligent life.
There are so many unique, and very unlikely things about our solar system that the more systems we look at, I would be willing to bet, probably seem very alien too our own solar system configuration, but probably represent the statistical average "Joe" solar system.
Slashdot Mirror
I think many of the comments about Linus and Richard are essentially correct with regards to the important stuff. Free Software as a Platform (Richard M. Stallman) and how to deploy that said software which is what I think Linux is ala (Linux Torvalds).
What is left is arguing what is important. The software and applications or the OS kernel?
Pointless, really.
Which would you rather throw away? The OS Kernel that runs your applications or the applications that make your OS kernel useful?
Does it matter which guy created the OS kernel or application software: gcc, sendmail, libc's, ld...etc. ????
However...I must agree with Linus.
On a technical point, I can't see the benefits of Mach software technology. Besides, I see many of those supposed benefits in how the existing, now semi-monolithic 2.4 kernel, and even less monolithic up N comming 2.6 kernel, are packaged.
But we have many of those benefits already in my opinion in both the packaging and distribution of Linux. Some of the better ones are NOT GNU based. (VMware for example), but...
WHO CARES? That (MACH) certainly is not a technically valid engineering reason to ditch the Linux kernel for HURD, or to even join the Hurd cause.
I am not sure it makes sense to base an engineering strategy on whether or not software requires reengineering simply because it is not GNU, and if it isn't it must be defective in some way as to require it.
Obviously not all commercial software is crap.
(Although I must admit a large portion of it is...)
There are features of the OS kernel that many think shouldn't be part of the base requirements or engineering of a OS kernel anyway. (i.e. the whole idea of virtual machines/processor contexts...etc).
Here is where I have problems with Stallman and find many of the arguments for his replacement of the Linux kernel with HURD postively, absolutely bogus. Many of his statements I have read usually go along the lines that everything must be entirely GNU License compliant in the kernel distro.
They certainly must be if we are ever to have a fully GNU implementation of OS Kernel and Applications. However will that buy us anything more than what we already have?
Free software does not gurantee well engineered software. Lots of free stuff is crap, both in specification, implementation and final engineering/deployment. Don't believe me? Wander over to FreshMeat and look at some of the poor cuts in that meat market!
Engineering decisions in software and politics are best kept apart. Seldom does politics yield good software.
Which is what I think the Hurd project IS, politics, not smart engineering.
-Hack
Depending on what they use the patents for, is really the question. If they use Patents the way they are currently being used, to lock out competition and make software technology come to a stand still, obviously we have to re-evaluate RedHat and perhaps stick/migrate with Debian only installations or other distro's that do not patent.
Software Patents/Patents are a bad idea. They will eventually cause economic wars, the US I believe will not be able to win.
Unless of course, we threaten to bomb our neighbors into accepting our market laws, which by thier very structure of patents, will lock them out!
Patents and other "arcane" methods of market monopoly building will not be accepted, mark my words, by our up N comming third world friends.
China and Russia will not be bullied. They will take advantage of the fact that corporations in the US and Europe can only devote a small segment of thier populations to scientific and technological research. Simply because patents do not allow large numbers of people to advance a problem or develop a market to maturity as quickly as those markets that do not recognize patents.
Imagine cures for cancer accelerated for example by CENTURIES simply because China allows and shares information economically without restrictions, to billions of potential researchers, investors, and government research institutes. Compare this where any advance in technology in Biotech for example in the US only a handful of people can work on a problem legally.
I predict the best software advances in computer technology will come from the far east in the 21st century.
Lets not forget, where we got Linux from. It came from outside markets that do not recognize software patents.
I don't think this is a cooincedence and I predict advances in software technology will advance far more quickly outside those markets and countries which do not recognize patents.
-hack
Fundamentally, IP laws cannot work in a global market place that doesn't recognize IP laws from country to country.
Given the fact that the sole purpose of IP laws are to restrict commerce by imposing a levy on any idea or product reproduced, those countries not under the same restrictions will kill those countries that are in the marketplace.
If the US and its allies are to make IP property work, they will need to consider military action, or economic action against those countries who feel certain IP laws in our country don't apply to operating thier economies, or who simply develop a different economy altogether.
Especially when you consider the fact that developing "mega" economies such China, and Russia who could dwarf anything Europe or the US could output in sheer GNP, cannot at this stage pay such levies.
Not only that, but IP rights in the US and Europe, are increasingly laws on the books that enforce legal monopolies by corporate entities rather than what they are really meant to be: a way to reimburse the development costs of the idea to the inventor. As we see with DMCA and other such legislation, these rights are actually methods to lock in markets and prevent new competition or development of technology that renders the patented technology obsolete.
Regardless if it is in the consumers, or our countries technology markets best interests.
I don't believe given these facts, and if we are to remain friends with these nations who are up and comming, that IP laws as written are a good idea.
IP laws should be changed so that the idea of reimbursement is a very very VERY small percentage of the market place and allow the iventor to sell his product and make his profits like everyone else.
-Hack
I can't see why the Linux kernel is not using CVS.
Technically, could someone point out the reasons?
Mozilla is far larger I believe than the Linux kernel, has a vast array of CVS hookups readily available for coordinating even the most complex relationships with developers.
Has Linus ever stated exactly the technical details of why cvs is not used? I know Linux many times uses and does things according to his preference, with debatable excuses for using a particular algorithm or code for one thing, or a particular piece of software for development.
Exactly what preferences did he use personally to apply the use of Bitkeeper over CVS?
-Hack
The idea of creating and using a independant language based development facility to create software has no basis in reality.
.Net, it is a ludicrously expensive software API to develop on, and offers no real value in developing internet based applications as a result.
I for one don't care about language independance as there is no use for a application written in X different languages. US Military tried that two decades ago and said enough is enough, and created ADA to solve that problem.
It would seem Microsoft hasn't kept up to date on the historic research in antiquidated software development practices.
Not surprising, it hasn't kep up to date with MODERN practices either!!
.Net was created with one thing and one thing in mind only, to destroy Java and to sell more software, not because it solves a pressing problem in the market place. (Beyond people flocking to Java to solve the decade old problem of keep software alive and well between hardware upgrades.)
.Net was not created because it offers something of value to the market place.
.Net was not created because it solves a technology problem in our industry like Java. (i.e. Truly portable code over target machine hardware)
.Net in short is a solution looking for a problem.
It offfers NO advantage over its target market it wants to kill, (i.e. Java developers) and actually restricts your organization by not allowing your software to run anywhere but on Microsoft's own limited vision of what computing power is, (i.e. PC hardware).
Like so many other times I have commented on
-Hack
This is nothing new.
I have been saying this for a long time, especially to those over at SETI, to stop wasting thier money.
The requirements for deep time, that is, a planet that provides a terrestrial environment for many billions of years that is stable is unheard of, in most star systems we observe.
That is, many star systems are either double, have fairly irregular cycles (unstable environments) or lives that prevent long expanses of time too pass with very little variation in solar output.
Remember, it took many billions of years too pass before an organism arose here on earth that could do poetry, go to the moon and otherwise build instruments too look for other sentient beings. Hundreds of millions of organisms came and went in that time.
After all, the dinosaurs, arguably the most successful species EVER, had pea brains, and no intelligence, and they did far better than we have. Intelligence it would seem is not a very good predictor for survival. So it isn't very useful, from an evolutionary model.
In fact, intelligence, may even by a very very bad DISADVANTAGE to a species long term survival. We certainly haven't been around very long, and look at how well the dino's did with far less intelligence than us!
I don't think the physical laws that gave rise to us, are any different here than anyplace else in the Universe. Therefore, I think we can make a safe assumption that intelligent life requires BILLIONS AND BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of years to evolve, MINIMALLY. Even when we look at the fossil record, only ONE species evolved in all that deep time, us.
Intelligent life must be a rare "evolutionary" event, given this evidence.
The money that SETI is spending is wasteful given what we know about stellar topography, which is currently forming a picture of what the average star is, how stable it is, and where its position in the Galaxy is. Even, what kinds of solar systems are "typical", so far bear very little resemblence to our own.
More research is needed, and much more money. About a billion or more would do.
So far most of the evidence, suggests that if we use the Earth as a model, and make the assumption that the same physical laws, and therefore, same possibilities and probabilities exist in the same way elsewhere, civilizations that might exist probably number in the 2-3 range in our galaxy.
We would be one of them.
You can also bet, that because of the amount of time involved, that we are probably many millions of years behind in both our understanding of physical laws, what we think is possible technologically, than this other race.
In short, they are, probably do or have spread throughout the galaxy. Furthermore, they probably can harness the energies of time and matter on a galactic scale, and will not be using anything so stupid as Radio waves, or Laser beams, or other stupid conceptions of how to transmit information.
The whole idea is quaint, and quite ridiculous.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that since they have survived for so long with each other, they are probably watching us right now, asking themselves, "Will this species discover how to live together, and take the first steps out into the void? Or will it destroy itself?" All along, taking very good steps to insure we cannot detect them in anyway, shape or form.
Given the growing body of this evidence, I would suggest to SETI to spend its money in donating it to new initiatives that look for other Earth like planets, which very well could number in the thousands in our galaxy. In fact, there could be a good probability such a planet within 200-300 light years.
We won't know however, if we can't build the space based facilities and technologies to do the searching.
SETI has collected just about 1 Billion or more dollars so far. Ironically, that figure is about how much would be required to build a space based system to answer these sorts of questions, definitivly.
Although intelligent life is probably very very rare, we are quickly finding out, that life evolved very quickly after the Earth formed. It is not unreasonable to assume that many planets have life on them, and I think Rare Earth points that out.
Intelligent Life is Rare, Life is probably not so rare, or is much less rare by an order of magnitude. There really could be millions of worlds out there with pretty strange critters running around!
SETI should assist financially in space based building of such facilities instead of wasting thier time looking for laser beams and radio waves and other such NONSENSE which is not supported by the astronomical evidence.
-hack
This is interesting.
I thought Nvidia was in the pocket of MS? (i.e. Graphics Engine Hardware for Xbox)
Then they want to use AMD as a method of exactly WHAT? Getting around the licensing and technology exclusion contracts they already have with MS on a different OS platform?
It almost makes sense for AMD now to start manufacturing chipset designs for its CPU/Graphics hardware. In essence, making thier own motherboard products.
I don't believe AMD makes thier own motherboards like iNTEL does.
Do they?
I have never used anything but intel CPU's and chipsets in all my server designs.
(Almost all of which are SuperMicro P4DC6 variety.)
Makes a hell of a Oracle server. Vrrrrroooooom!
-hack.
Bull Crap.
Guy, I buy HP printing equipment and one of the requirements is a soundly built product.
If you think guys like me and millions of other IT people don't care if they have to manage 100 printers on thier network and have to call a repair guy every other day to fix them you are not living in reality.
Go jump off a bridge and take Carly and her crappy ideas with her. You know, some people actually have to apply deal with technology to make peoples lives at work fulfilling.
Not sit in a finely leathered office chair all by themselves and have Prozac fantasy mergers all day long!
The HP way has EVERYTHING TO DO with business, and if you will notice in these rough economic times is one of the only divisions at HP that is turning a profit at the moment.
BECAUSE OF THE HP WAY.
I suppose you are also going to tell me that my HP III printers I have on my network, which are built like tanks and working just fine 8 YEARS LATER, is also in need of major repair?
Up yours.
I hope you have too manage a whole network of products made by this "new merger".
-Hack
Great!
Just what an unhealthy industry needs, bigger monolithic corporations with vision that stretches about 30 seconds into the future.
What I am concerned about is the HP printing business. A small lean company almost always does better than a huge monolithic crap company that HP and Compaq will become, sucking up dollars in areas the HP printing division will probably get less of anyway.
I don't buy the crap that they will have a larger resource pool. By definition if you keep the slice the same size and increase the pie you get LESS of the pie, not more.
Sounds like more Arthur Andersen accounting logic too me.
HP has(had?) great printers, in my opinion. I wholeheartedly accepted Walter Hewlitt's assessment that a stronger HP is to concede the commodities based PC business for shareholders and to concentrate on the printing, publishing, consulting industries in its computing division.
It also makes common sense.
PC's are a commodity item, making a larger corporation isn't going to help profit margins and actually further creates problems that will make the stock price more diluted.
I am very worried they won't have for much longer. If this merger fails, and creates a stock meltdown, HP's printer division will meltdown with it.
-hack
This is a very very bad sign.
The physical mass, of the ice in question suggests that this warming trend is not going to go away anytime soon, and is not a "hiccup" event.
Within 30 years at this rate of Ice elimination, the sheer size of it all is mind boggling, New York and coastal cities will have far more too worry about than terrorists attacks.
The worlds entire financial center is in New York, and the cost of a barrier to prevent the ocean from flooding downtown Manhatten is going to be enourmous.
I had NO IDEA that the data I was looking at 5 years ago, would actually be realized in so short a time!
This sheet is the size of the country Luxemburg and will totally disintegrate, becomming part of the Earths ocean.
If it gets caught in any sort of outgoing current, it will pose a great hazard to any sort of shipping in the those areas it passes through.
I still couldn't believe it when I seen the photos.
I STILL don't believe it. The size and enormity is incredible!
I guess Global Warming skeptics will say the pictures are artificial and they will probably say the shelf is still there all frozen up, like we see in the photos, just a mere 2-3 years ago.
I certainly HOPE they are artificial and part of some left wing plot by Green Peace!
Quite a shocking discovery, and one that does not bode well for a generic species such as homo sapiens which doesn't take to well to climate change.
World stability is already at a crisis level. Weather and climate changes at this magnitude if sustained will cause wars over crop failures, loss of key financial centers in the world economy, and worse, shift valuable political power to terrorists states, who may find themselves now commanding a large proportion of the worlds crops!
Whole cities disapearing in a suitecase bomb flash of white light all because no one can afford to buy beans at the local market.
What a way to end 100,000 years of struggle to get out of the cave...
It also is interesting to note, that we are now terraforming the Earth. We may not know exactly what we are terraforming it INTO, but you can be rest assured if it isn't good, we won't be around long enough to try it someplace else. (i.e. Mars.)
We have no idea HOW we are raising the temperature, so by the time it reaches a crisis, we probably won't know how to reduce the temperature either.
Not a pleasant picture.
-hack
Oh No, how high will it go?
6 MILLION dollars?
Something smells...VERY BAD.
-hack
Looks like they are blocking the referral downloads from Slashdot.org.
Gee. I wonder why that is?
:-)
-hack
I was wondering how much that must cost.
80K a year eh?
Wow, that is a killer. You know, in my experience since the dot com crash, most ISP's are looking for customers and you could probably get a better deal.
I mean, my entire home cable setup is only going for about $50 bucks a month I am doing 250KB/s downloads and 180KB/s uploads.
I have no idea what the real bandwidth is, but it must be pretty damn huge to charge that kind of dough strictly for a pipe.
Perhaps Slashdot.org should do some shopping around???
It is a buyers market right now for bandwidth, not the other way around. If your ISP thinks so, time to walk!
Who is slashdot getting this big pipe from anyway?
(i.e. What ISP?)
-hack
I think centralized open source projects in working developer format, especially concentrating them all in one organization, is a bad idea.
1) Break ins.
2) Sourceforge is bought by Microsoft.
3) Disruption to work to SO MANY projects at once, due to break ins.
The disruption and dependance of the Open Source way on one organization is probably a bad idea. Not that SourceForge is the one stop and only place on the net, but it has a large enough number of projects to be of concern.
I don't know why or what sourceforge is that is is such a big deal to have projects here. Big fat Pipe perhaps?
There are plenty of tools for individual projects and group projects that work just fine and are free for everyone too use.
There are too many gotcha's that could impact too many projects if someone got in and decided to spend the next 5-10 months secretly writing small back doors into fairly large projects, that just perhaps not many would notice.
Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.
I think source forge should probably be a "BinaryForge" with MD5 and CRC signatures with perhaps the ability to sign out certs for binarys that are extremely critical.
Perhaps a mechanism to post builds from CVS systems authors maintain themselves to sourceforge of binaries would be OK.
At least that would maintain the ease of use of getting all your goodies from one location.
But in general I don't think it is a good idea to have so many open source source code trees in one place on the net.
-hack
Right now patents in the software industry represent a security threat to the US economic interests long term. Countries who do not recognize software patents (or for that matter EULA's) will arguably have a faster rate of innovation than the US.
I can name a few that already are on thier way to killing our home grown software industries:
Linux
Linux wasn't invented in the US, and it is fast becomming a economic boost to those countries that can't afford to pay patents to Microsoft or the licensing fees. Linux does not recognize patents as a viable way to obtain money for software. No one in thier right mind would invest the kind of money required to obtain a better OS than Microsoft's in the US market with the current monopoly.
Which is my point, innovation has basically stopped in the OS market for the past 8 years in the United States.
Is this healthy for the market with 1 or two competitors?
Is this healthy long term for the US goverment that relies on economic activity to fund its Armed forces?
No I don't think it is.
Linux is based on an entirely new economic concept of "writing software is more important than the software itself." Therefore, people are at the center of this new economic model, not the software end product.
My concern, is that we defeated the USSR through economic means, as they represented a view of the world we didn't like. The US and such nations as up and comming China and India, who do not recognize patents or licensing, and who do not enforce it, could easily defeat the US eventually with a free market in those countries that do not have our limitations of doing business.
Long term monopolies represent stagnation both in invester stock evaluations and a very dangerous threat if something is introduced from the outside into a monopoly market that we have no control over and changes the rules to that market.
I suppose we could resort to bombing 1/3rd of the worlds population (India and China) if they don't accept our ways of doing business, but I do not think that would be wise if the US wants to stay an economic power.
In the end, patents and licensing are not in themselves bad, as long as they don't put up walls in the market place, and as long as the laws of the country in which they reside recognize this fact and enforce them to the ends of creating a competitive market.
This is where AntiTrust laws come into play over monopolies and this is no longer the case in the United States. These laws have failed in the past decade with respect to the US software industry. As a result we have a very unhealthy market, where value is low, and prices are very very high.
Why have these laws failed?
In the US, increasing business buyouts of government elected officials and thier cohesion with the wheels of business, are proving to be a real long term business threat to the US economy. Patent laws are not being used to the ends in which they were designed and AntiTrust laws are being blatently ignored.
The Enron scandal in the US is the tip of the Iceberg, in my opinion. Our government's unwilling recognition of the "Microsoft problem" and what to do about is are far more telling about how money and the US government are intertwined now days with business.
Patents are now a tool that:
1) Is designed to stamp out any startup capital that creates or designs new innovative solutions that would invalidate an existing patent.
Legally, most startups fold immediately. The tax revenue and the job's lost are incalcuable to the United States long term tax base.
I read about it all the time. X number of employees leave Y company and Z company is gone in 14 months because Y company killed Z in court.
2) It is very difficult to invest in such a patent world because you don't know if your money is going to be safe in a company attempting to break into an existing market. (Beyond what you think is a good idea of a product or not. You essentially have to have a lawyer to be an investor. Investing shouldn't be that hard.)
Patents do not encourage investment in a monopoly market. Worse, it would be better not to invest in the US, I think I will put my money over in China or India. (etc...)
3) Prices are cheaper in a monopoly market? Of course not. Long term, the interests of consumers are affected.
It is increasingly becomming clear that the US is heading for a collapse of Titanic proportions in my mind. Increasinging stagnation in a variety of industries from software to hardware business is increasingly becomming entangled in politics.
Influencing government to keep markets static, keeping conditions poor for long term growth.
(i.e. Compaq and HP merger is just another example of real BAD ideas...being endorsed on a wide scale from Washington.)
Long term the Giant will awaken and squash the US high tech software industry like a bug if we don't start waking up ourselves and realize that our long term safety as a country is at stake.
The US government always has exceptions to rules of its "Hands Off" policies with regards to business. But in the end, when monopolies drive up prices, and squash long term new technologies in the name of keep the market "business as usual", one must realize exceptions to these rules need to be enforced for the betterment and health of the market place.
The government exists to level the playing field in business, to make it fair, to insure everyone plays by the rules and opportunity abounds.
Not too close markets too a few individuals in business.
In the end IP rights I believe are an archaic view of the world of technology. They will be increasingly hard to enforce as nations shuch as China and India grow up and learn that they can change the rules very quickly, without our help.
IP rights focus the importance of doing business and what is of value on the end product instead of the company or people creating the IP. I don't believe this way of doing business will survive long term, given the fast maturity rates of China and India in the free trade block, high tech sector.
Once you had a taste of Linux as they say, you never go back.
[:-)]
-hack
I am not exactly, totally enthusiastic about this idea of being able to use ANY language for a given programming project or combination thereof.
.Net architecture with a CLI as envisioned by Microsoft should produce software with unessacarily high engineering requirements than a single language platform.
.Net MONO vision for a Linux app would quite possible require COBOL, C, Java, PERL, FORTRAN etc programmers to cooperate in building a new desktop app or feature.
I have these reasons, personally, as a matter of observation in the software engineering of large complicated systems.
But I would like to make some observations:
1) The US Military in the early 80's and 90's had enourmous problems with private sector bids and implementation, of software in defense systems.
Namely, every vendor delivered a portion of the system in a different language. Some languages were specifically invented to deliver the final product.
These systems were large and complex, and non trivial engineering problems developed between vendors who needed to integrate thier combined efforts to deliver the product.
2) As systems were delivered the cost too maintain them was very high due to the fact there was no common reference for the software implementation.
What I mean by this is, if you have a flight control system, or launch control system, and it has a bug or engineering issue. It is very difficult to see exactly what the problem is if it incorporates or was delivered with 8 different computer grammars.
3) These systems had artificially short life spans due to the fact they could not be easily upgraded. That is too say, for example, the above flight control system coulnd't be upgraded because the target language(s) could not be reimplemented on new hardware.
My point about MONO and CLI?
Which is:
1) If we accept the historical data on building complicated pieces of software, we can reduce the costs of a implementation if it is reduced to one language or computer grammar to build its entire scope.
The military's solution to this was to produce key critical compenents of a defense system project using one reference specification. The computer grammar they picked was called ADA.
I question if the CLI is actually a good idea in a concept that allows or permits multiple language platforms to cooperate, if the goal is to produce software that is easy to use, is of low defects and is cost effective.
Historically the military with budgets far beyond anything commercially accesible couldn't do it and produce quality defense systems.
2) If the CLI provides a capability to produce a GNOME vision of support for multiple language platforms, given historic research in the software engineering areas, CLI suggests that anything built with a
3) Considering the fact that such a system would produce diverse computer grammars in any authors favorite language, for contributing authors, a future
If we accept that historic software engineering suggests multiple computer grammars result in systems that:
1) Require a very high engineering cost.
2) Quality of the software suffers because fewer individuals can access the entire code base to make corrections.
Personally, in IMHO organizational scalability and human productivity issues in building this sort of software are problems with N different grammars being used to build a single piece of software.
Therefore, I believe CLI is really not a positive addition to an Open Source Project.
-hack
At the moment, you are right.
.Net.
But Microsoft is making it clear it is going to happen with all thier software.
This is just release 1.OH of
But they are moving in that direction. They have said many times, and they are demonstrating that with XP, which is an OS that requires a centralized Broker to even install guy.
Do you serious think this is FUD when:
1) Microsoft has stated they want a framework for building subscription based software?
2) Thier latest release of thier OS can't even be installed out of the box without a centralized broker to produce a license key?
3) Microsoft has many times endorsed the ASP (Application Service Prodivder) business model and have said they wish to sell development and application services on a subscription basis!
Please, have you been in a cave?
-hack
Yes, .Net includes the foundation for writing Java, err, Microsoft Java, and I DO MEAN Microsoft Java.
.Net services on a Linux box or any other box except one that is licensed by Microsoft.
.Net hell, on the Java 2 platform.
.Net for Payment services, but THAT IS ALL.
.Net service and it WILL RUN as a core service for ALL .Net applications that require authentication in the .Net API.
.Net? The last license Microsoft got was Java 1.1.7, from Sun.
.Net. With such an ancient API, you can't do any of the JDBC 3.0, SWING advanced call backs and graphics acceleration features!!!
.Net context.
.Net apps? That is suppose to be a solution??
You are confused guy if you think you are going to write Java core
Fat chance in
You might be able to write the client based portions of a, say,
I am also NOT confusing passport, either. Passport is a
If you don't think this API will be tied to a pay as you go, or subscription basis you are very naive.
Microsoft is testing this framework out in this current release of XP. If successful it will do this with its next release of the OS and then with the rest of its products, all the way down to the developer API's.
You can't be serious that Microsoft is not going to eventually do this after they have stated in public forums, conferences and on slashdot many times that net services/subscription based software is the future of thier revenue streams?
And pleazzze, do you realize what version of Java comes with
There is NO WAY I would or anyone else for that matter would use a 1.1.7 API to program against now days for Java apps.
So YES, go ahead and be stuck in the Microsoft Java 1.1.7 world with
You are sadly mistaken if you think you are going to be using Java 2 in a
So if this conversation was being held 3 years ago, you are right, all of what I said would be untrue. But the Microsoft VM is WORTHLESS now and your counter arguments are based on an outdated Java platform that NOBODY uses anymore to develop with!!!
So you point is? That I can use a old antiquidated VM to port my
-hackus
Basically.
.Net servers, internet services will or MUST pass through some sort of .Net backend driven by a Microsoft Passport authentication scheme that stores your credit card information and banking information on a server a .Net "approved" service provider.
.Net server with Passport, and you pay for thier software online, for installation, then each time you boot up any .Net app, you are billed on a monthly basis for it, including:
It is hoped that with enough
Then, when the next version of Windows comes out, Redmond can force the entire internet through a
Games, Word Processing, Operating System software.
Isn't that great?
You are paying a monthly fee for these things now aren't you?
Oh wait, I am sorry, you are not doing that are you? Well, no matter, if your an IT guy, you won't have a choice because Microsoft will force the upgrade eventually on you...
What a great future "Vision" microsoft has for your wallet.
:-)
-gc
I also agree it is not that amazing.
.net is the ability to do source debugging of asp pages.
.Net development tool now.
.Net can't reach.
For many years Microsoft's marketing department was calling this and that "Object Oriented" like ASP, their OS framework, etc.
When in fact the actual products/API's/software wasn't even CLOSE to being OOP, at best it was a typical Structured Design Appoach from the top down.
One of my guys I worked with at a MS shop said he was building a OOD/OOP ASP page.
I then asked him, how he plans to do inheritance.
"Whats that?" was the reply.
:-)
There really isn't anything new here. I think the biggest advance to thier latest IDE for
But that is all I can think of that would be classified as something unique or new to the IDE, which is also being called a
WHATEVER Bill and Co. Call it what you want, I will stic with Java, get a real OOD framework, and run my application I write on my cell phone, pda, servers in te computer room or any other place I dam well please.
Far away where
-gc
.Net is at the moment, still crystallizing into a vision/API of "pay as you go" services.
.net app, Redmond gets a percentage of your use time out of it.
.Net, Java solves a very expensive software engineering quandry for business, scientific applications:
.Net core services server too approve and monitor your use of .Net services. (After all, Uncle Bill needs to get his cut when you pay as you go, minute by minute, transaction by transaction, or month to month...)
.Net API and development IDE?
That means when you build a
The API in many ways attempts to replicate everything the J2EE services platform (Java Enterprise Platform 2).
However, unlike
"How can I keep my investment in my software when my company gets bought out, or I upgrade my computer hardware?"
With Java, you simply get a JVM for the target machine you upgrade too.
.Net does not solve this problem, and in many ways makes it worse:
1) It allows a god aweful number of different languages to build a single application. Just think, you can use a COBOL, C#, RPG programmer to build a web app...then you can pay 3 TIMES the maintance cost in supporting 3 different language platforms to do so.
Hopefully, all of them Microsoft licenses.
2) You are literally stuck on PC hardware. You can't get anywhere further than that without a
These are some of the Cutting Edge ideas comming out of Redmond now days.
Can't you wait to get your hands on that just released
I sure can, they can stuff it up thier wazooey.
-hack
Miguel has lost his way.
Too bad, too because along with him are lots of other people that could be working on improving GNOMES glaring defects, with respect to KDE.
Instead, they are following the path that is dividing, and ultimately conquoring the GNOME org by the beast.
-hack
"Behold a third of the stars in the sky fell to earth as Lucifer and his armies were defeated and cast down."
The battle is won, but not the war by any means.
.Net and Microsoft. As long as I know my competitors are sending money to Redmond, I know when times get bad, thier customers...
You are obviously not aware of the poor bastards in our faultering economy that have to deal with the license or upgrade taxes from Microsoft.
IT managers had a taste this year of a slow economy, and when things are bad, the Microsoft tax treadmill on say, 200-300 desktops is a significant piece of money employers would like to use to pay raises, bonuses, health insurance and business opportunities to expand upon. Which, I would like to note, their competitors can't if they have to ship that money to Microsoft.
My entire company in fact, BETS that my competitors will buy into
WILL BE MY CUSTOMERS.
The desktop battle, was won by Microsoft, true, but anyone who says the war is over has never worked in a all IT Microsoft shop in a bad business climate.
The server room battle is now going on, and Linux is winning this battle. Once Linux is firmly entrenched in the enterprise server room...
THEN we will turn our expertise and knowledge and better value all around, towards the desktop.
Uncle Bill and Stevey boy are going to wake up one day and find themselves in a world dominated by Java virtual machines that run everywhere and typically more than not, servers, pda's, cell phones, etc are also running some form of Linux underneath them.
It is already happening.
Those companies that refuse to follow suit will not be able to stay in business against those companies who adopt open source technologies and processes.
Ultimately the new business model for IT is based around people and not hardware or software like it has been for the past 10 years. That is what open source is about.
People/technology not a gadget or a widget.
It is comming, be ready for it.
-hack
There are some seemingly odd probabilities at play here, one of those that I am interested personally in is due to the fact that, we human beings, intelligent life, are really RARE. Even on a world that has had a very nurturing Sun, and very ULTRA stable periods of time with regards to ideal conditions for life to evolve.
I am using the Earth as a model, but out of the billions of years, and the millions of species, only one became intelligent, to be using slashdot today. I think that speaks VOLUMES about the probability of intelligent life out there in the Galaxy.
We are talking about galactic time, as well in terms of intelligent life and its probability on a very very nurturing planet, which I think the Earth is an ideal model of.
If intelligent life is so common, it would seem to me you can't make the same argument about given enough time (Billions of years) and simply because there are "so many" of those possibilities, doesn't make it common. Intelligent life isn't common on earth, only one species has it. It is very very VERY uncommon.
There was huge amounts of time, Galactic time, on earth and only ONE intelligent life form evolved. I think that speaks volumes about what we can expect out there we we explore space. We may very well be alone, or if we are not, the other race is so far advanced I would think we would have very little in common to initiate communication.
(All this thinking about lasers, and radio waves is so quaint. SETI and the people who run it are pretty naive about research into these sorts of areas. Nobody in thier right mind would use radio waves to communicate, or any sort of electro magnetic wave. The distances that a space faring race would have to cover, would solve the problem using a form and method of communcation that doesn't have these issues. You can bet it is a science far beyond our understanding, and methods to detect.)
If we are to use the Earth as a model, and assume it represents the normal progression of life, if given the right conditions, habitable earth like planets are probably very rare.
If we use the Earth as a model, intelligent life takes galactic time to come about. That would mean there may be only 1 or two other intelligent races in our galaxy.
I don't buy into the belief that habitable earths are common place. We have 9 planets in our solar system, only one is habitable, not all nine. We also know that life zones around stars are very fragile, and stable computable orbits in these zones only allow at most one planet during the lifetime of a star. Please note. Life zones around stars change as they go through stellar evolution.
We also know our sun is not an "ordinary star" as we are lead to believe in our physics text books only published 5 years ago. It is FAR too stable as far as its output goes. Most stars observed are NOT AS stable in stellar output as our sun, but go through cycles of instability, or are just unstable due to thier composition as they evolve.
It requires, many many MANY things to come together to make a habitable planet, and just counting stars that have similair stellar output as our sun doesn't equal large numbers of habitable planets out there.
In fact, you may even need a certain CONFIGURATION of a solar system for life, let alone intelligent life too come about otherwise, you have impact events that snuff it out totally. Jupitor reduces the large impact bodies in our solar system for example, because of its large gravity. Sucking up big rocks that would otherwise destroy all life on earth in an instant of galacitc time should they impact earth. Solar systems without large planets like Juptitor, life probably won't get the chance to take root because there is nothing to stop large impact events from frequenting the planet in the habitable zone.
It is clear you need galactic time spans of stability to bring about intelligent life.
There are so many unique, and very unlikely things about our solar system that the more systems we look at, I would be willing to bet, probably seem very alien too our own solar system configuration, but probably represent the statistical average "Joe" solar system.
-hack
A perfect method of truly making my currently Virus free UNIX systems totally VIRUS COMPATIBLE with Microsoft applications!!!
.Net development kit!!!
SIGN ME UP NOW. I WANT A
Go MONO!!!
Yahoo!!!
-hack