I would have to agree completely with the point of not being able to tell how many closed source projects die. While we can see (although probably wouldn't notice) products that are released and flounder, we have no way of seeing projects that are killed before being released.
The point about when OSS projects die, the code and/or ideas can live on is a good one. If an OSS project dies, then any good code and/or ideas can be recycled in another OSS project.
Another point I'd like to add is that OSS projects seem to die for reasons other than being beat by a commercial product. They tend to die by either being replaced by another OSS project, or because for one reason or another the developers lose interest in continuing the project. Most closed source projects die because they are either killed by a competing product, the company thinks that they will be killed by a competing product or something similar. There are some important differences.
You make a very interesting assumption. You assume that I believe in a non-benevolent monopoly in a true free-enterprise system.
I don't believe there is a true free-enterprise system. Unfortunately, there is, and always will be a certain level of government regulation. I don't like it, personally, but I begrudgingly accept that a certain amount of anti-trust regulation is necessary to insure a mostly-free-enterprise system.
While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, if you don't believe in the existance of non-benevolent monopolies in the real world then I would certainly accuse you of either looking at the world through rose colored glasses or being ignorant of history.
It takes two to tango. Nobody *ever* had to agree to Microsoft's restrictive licensing terms. Compaq, Dell, etc. all *agreed* to the license. Why? Because they felt Microsoft was worth going with, even if it meant sacrificing the offer of another (perhaps superior) operating system.
You assume that Microsoft didn't use any coercive tactics to ensure that nobody dared to not accept their licensing terms. In reality they did both. They offered a carrot, but threatened with a stick. They offered fairly reasonable and non-restrictive licensing in the early days, but gradually tightened things down as they achieved market lock-in. Once they had solidified their market share look at the history of their practices against such competitors as DR-DOS, Novell-DOS and OS/2.
Market share does *not* a monopoly make. The only time that a monopoly can truly exist is when the company is the only one *allowed by law* to offer the services.
That definition of a monopoly is far more restrictive than is realistic. In fact then there have been very few monopolies ever in existance in the U.S. The anti-trust laws were enacted to combat abuses from first the railroad robber-barrons and then the abuses of monopolists like the Rockefellers (Standard Oil). None of these businesses had a government sanctioned exclusive monopoly, and yet all exercised monopoly powers to the point where the government felt a need to act against them. In short I completely disagree. Market share can certainly make a monopoly.
AT&T had a monopoly. So did NSI, until their special status was taken away.
Those are examples of a specific type of monopoly, not necessarily of the only type of monopoly.
If Microsoft had a market-share monopoly at any given time, it's because enough people agreed to their terms, indicating that people thoutght the product was good enough. If the products were *shit*, companies would have begun offering other options-- gee, Microsoft now sells shit, and Dell, Compaq, etc. are all offering Linux.
The only reason that companies like Dell and Compaq feel they can offer Linux is because Microsoft is under intense governmental scrutiny. There is no way they would dare to defy Microsoft otherwise, no matter how good a competing product was.
I agree that having a monopoly isn't a bad thing,
since (in a truly open arena), the company has to be giving the majority of people what they want, lest they lost their market share. If the company doesn't give people what they want, another company will offer something that people would rather use. You can't get away with giving people shit and making them pay through the nose for it-- they'll find something cheaper, better, or both.
That view assumes that companies can't or won't use unfair and/or illegal practices to protect their market share.
The idea that Microsoft used its power to destroy its competition is not so much invalid, but irrelevant.
Its incredibly relevant given the way they used such power. It is one thing to build a better product, advertise better, offer better pricing or better distribution to win. It is totally another to use exclusive contracts, intimidation tactics and other questionable methods.
All companies are based on the idea of making money, and you have to beat your competition to make money.
This is so drastically oversimplified it is silly. You don't have to beat all of your competitors 100% of the time to make money. The company I work for is tremendously profitable (we are the 2nd or 3rd largest in most segments of our industry), yet we control only about 7% of our market. The largest company is only slightly larger than us. The top ten companies in our business control only about 1/2 of the market. The other 1/2 of the market is split amongst dozens of smaller players. While we are seeing consolidation in our business, nobody expects the number of players to be reduced below ten to fifteen anytime in the forseeable future.
Many other markets are alive, profitable and have at least three or four competitors with well less than 50% market share each. In most cases not only would it be virtually impossible for any of them to 'destroy' their competitors, it would probably upset the market if it did. Competition is a good thing, not only for consumers, but also for the company by keeping them from getting complacent.
What was Microsoft supposed to do? Ignore common business sense and *not* try to beat the competition? Jesus Christ, that's against the entire fucking idea of capitalism!
That isn't what I've been asking for. I don't think anyone other than the most far left people would say that is what they wanted.
What I do want is for Microsoft to play fairly. Frankly, they haven't needed to cheat for a long time, yet they still seem driven to be dishonest. Other companies manage to be successful and profitable while still staying within the bounds of the law and the rules of fair play. Why should we let Microsoft get by easily?
Microsoft isn't the only company that is using or has used the same unfair and/or illegal tactics. Most of what they do are things they learned either from IBM or the japanese electronics companies. Even in market tactics, Microsoft is a follower rather than a leader. But also IBM and the japanese electronic companies have run afoul of the DoJ, so the fact that Microsoft is being pursued is nothing unique to them.
That's not to say I think Linux is anti-capitalist, though-- it's simply a better product. The developers don't work "for free". Linux developers are given a cleaner, more reliable operating system in return for their efforts. This is the price they pay. The fact that the rest of the world gets the results at a minimal cost is just the way it pans out. I think, in fact, that Linux is the *ultimate* example of capitalism in more ways than one.
On this point I agree with you. Although the fact that the only thing making major inroads against Microsoft is Linux, which is a free product is evidence that there is some anti-competitive pressure in the marketplace.
So go on and complain that Microsoft has a monopoly. I'll continue to believe that Microsoft will die because Linux is a better product, not because of the DoJ. And *that*, my friend, is a powerful indicator of just how good Linux is.
Well, on this point I honestly hope you are correct, because I doubt the DoJ will be able to get enough corrective action done against Microsoft to right the decades of wrongs they have committed.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that it may take both governmental action against Microsoft and the community building a better product to ensure long term freedom of choice for consumers and a healthy, competitive market.
I am not one that really believes that Microsoft should just be utterly destroyed (although occasionally it is a tempting thought), but I do want to see a market where no company controls more than about 40% or so of the market. I don't even necessarily want to see Linux control 90% of the market. I think Linux needs competition (such as from the *BSDs) to stay a dynamic, growing environment.
The dismissal of CatB as being 'oversimplified' without taking into account that ESR is still writing new essays (such as the NooSphere article) which expand on the ideas presented in CatB. Its pretty obvious that CatB was intended just as a beginning, not as an end unto itself. CatB is also not frozen in stone, as ESR has occasionally revised and expanded it.
Perhaps most troubling is dismissal of CatB as being socialist rhetoric. Since ESR is, if anything obviously much more predisposed towards capitolism than much of the rest of the free/open software world, this seems tome come from way out in right field.
Which is what, 80,000 or so? Hardly conclusive proof of anything more than that there is a vocal minority of Linux and *BSD users in the world.
is any indication, there are enough people using Linux, *BSD, and other operating systems to show that Microsoft *can't* have a monopoly. It's self-contradictory.
There are maybe 7-12 million Linux and/or *BSD users according to estimates. There are also the Mac users, the few OS/2 holdouts other *nix variants and the other odd assorted people out there. This is not proof that Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly.
You do not have to have 100% of a market to be a monopoly, this is a misunderstanding caused by the AT&T breakup. Even AT&T didn't have a 100% share of local phone service, only long distance service. In non-government sanctioned and regulated monopolies you can have less than 100% of a market and still be a monopoly.
Microsoft controls approximately 90% of the desktop computer operating system market, and about 93% of the office productivity software markets according to what I've read. It seems obvious that this is sufficient market share to allow them to have monopoly powers in those markets.
Their market share in the NOS and server software markets are significantly smaller, and they probably don't (yet) have a monopoly there. This is the main area where Linux and the *BSDs are challenging Microsoft so far, and Microsoft also faces stiffer competition from other *nixes, Novell, etc in that market.
The problem is that they are attempting to leverage their desktop monopoly power to build a monopoly in the server and NOS markets just as they used their monopoly power in the desktop OS market to build a monopoly in office productivity software.
Merely having a monopoly isn't really the worst thing, it is using that power to run roughshod over competitors in other markets that is really bad.
The answer is that Sun violates the standards, and has a MAC address per machine rather than per card...
The answer is you are wrong. The NVRAM stores the MAC address for the built in Ethernet on SparcStations. If you have additional Ethernet interfaces (usually on SBus cards), they have their own MAC number that is settable seperately. People who have multiple Ethernet cards on Sparcs (which is not uncommon) in combination with certain other sorts of hardware, would have serious problems on their networks if this wasn't the case.
Not on devices that ROM it... However, for example, Sun SparcStations (of which I own 3), hold their MAC address in a NVRAM (battery backed CMOS static RAM), which is quite readily modifyable (at least the last 32 bits or so of it is).
I am sure that SparcStations aren't the only networking devices where the MAC address is so easily changed. Even in cases where it is ROMed, there are ways to reprogram EPROMs or burn replacement PROMs for most types of components if they are suitably socketed.
I wouldn't consider myself a typical user. For one, I have never personally used MS-DOS or Windows on any of my computers on any sort of regular basis. I never really took an interest in x86 hardware until the first x86 *BSD's came out around 1992/1993 (and I ran into hardware compatibility trouble with them too -- which is why I went to Linux in the first place). As a matter of fact, I don't own a copy of Windows. I also own no less than 3 SparcStations at home and several Macs in addition to the numerous Linux boxes.
I use mainly SuSE and Red Hat these days. Both of them provide a fairly granular level of options at install time compared to what some other distributions (like Caldera) do.
I am not normally someone who is intimidated by user unfriendly or poorly documented install processes either. In the late 80's I installed 4.3BSD-Tahoe from source code on a VAX 82xx machine, which was completely undocumented and had to be done totally by hand and trial and error. I had to hand-hack several device drivers to work with unsupported 3rd party (Emulex) plug-compatible devices.
I was able to figure out how to get my WD/SMC 8013 card to work with FreeBSD, but it took a lot of fiddling around to figure it out (just like things used to do in the old days).
As for the books you are looking for, I noticed when visiting the local Borders (and I live in a backwoods midwestern town) that they now have over 60 Linux specific titles including at least a dozen new titles since my previous visit. Several of the books fit the "How to use" rather than "How to install" criteria you are looking for.
Make no mistake that I wish no ill toward any of the *BSD's. I hope you are right about the *BSD's being able to leverage some of Linux's momentum to get better hardware support.
NE2000's are notoriously quirky, especially the PCI versions. I personally try to avoid them like the plague. On the other hand, I had significant trouble getting a WD/SMC 8013 to work with FreeBSD 3.1 on a machine I have, and that card is a very standard item that is autodetected by most recent Linux installs. I have to say that in general most of the Linux distribution installs are easier than FreeBSD, and FreeBSD is purportedly the easiest of the *BSDs to install. FreeBSD reminds me a little bit of older versions of Slackware in terms of its install. Linux installs may not be perfectly easy yet, but nothing is. Your milage may vary, but I'd have to say that in general Linux is on-par with anything other than MacOS in ease of installs. Unfortunately, MacOS is what Katz is used to. Then again, MacOS has it easy, due to the rigid levels of standardization on Apple's proprietary hardware.
You are right up to a point. Sun isn't going to be a truly 'open source' vendor. And Sun may never be able to match truly open sourced products in terms of speed to respond with fixes (although it seems like for a proprietary company, they are faster than average). However, it does mean that bugs will likely get found and reported quicker, and legitimate people who find said bugs can not only point out the problem, they can point out a solution. Also, they can probably release small source level patches without running afoul of Sun's licensing if they don't include any significant parts of Sun's source.
So while a true open source commitment from Sun would be better, it is hard to see even a partial opening up from Sun as anything other than a good thing.
will this make it easier to get linux in the door?
By itself, no. Or at least not most of the time. But it does seem to be part of a general trend towards a loosening up on 'source code available' projects be they truly 'open source' or not.
will it alienate some segments of solaris users?
I doubt it. The fact that source wasn't readily available for commercial products like Solaris never really comes up except as brought by open source advocates. I don't think that any arguments that closed source is more secure are going to carry enough weight with any significant number of PHB's to make a difference.
Re:not much info about the chip
on
K8 Details
·
· Score: 2
You are quibbling about details. I am sure that IA-64 goes beyond PA-RISC (otherwise why bother doing anything more than sticking a 32-bit x86 core in for backwards compatibility and calling it good). However, if AMD wants to clone IA-64, they would have to start by basically cloning PA-RISC and adding the same extentions to that architecture as Intel is. My point was that cloning PA-RISC is far more logical starting point for them in building an IA-64 than licensing Alpha would be. I did not mean to imply that it was everything they had to do, nothing is ever quite that simple.
I would agree about 64-bit x86 being an abomination (and I think it would be a marketing flop as well). I don't, however, think that splitting the market with an Alpha variant would be successful for AMD either. If for no other reason than I doubt that AMD could do much differently in getting long-term cooperation from Microsoft for an Alpha derived architecture than Compaq did.
Not only do I think that the abandonment of the desktop and server MPU market by AMD would be disasterous for the industry (competition for Intel has been a very good thing for consumers and system vendors), I think it would be disasterous in the long run for AMD, as it would permanently relegate them to being only a niche player. I think AMD's only option in the long run is to take Intel on directly with an IA-64 clone. There are ways of getting around the patent issues, although they certainly won't be easy and probably not cheap either. There are a lot of features of the current and previous generations of x86 designs that are the subjects of patents, and it hasn't stopped companies from building clones (AMD, Cyrix and IDT).
It may at some point become not so advantageous for Intel to have all of the clone chip builders drop out of the market, as it could start or re-start a move against them on anti-trust grounds. There are other ways that having a certain amount of healthy competition is good for a company too.
Re:not much info about the chip
on
K8 Details
·
· Score: 2
Actually if they want to be compatible with the Merced (IA-64), then instead of using Alpha technology they will need to clone HP PA-RISC, which is what the 64 bit part of IA-64 is largely based on. If AMD chooses for the K8 not to be IA-64 compatible, then they may have a lot of problems competing with the IA-64, since it is unlikely that Microsoft will be able to support the K8, and they will still be in direct competition with other 64-bit RISC architectures in the *nix market (UltraSparc, PA-RISC, Alpha, MIPS, etc).
Of course access to the source helps in the short term developing exploits, but as quickly as those exploits appear in open source they are fixed, making the code stronger. Its a bit of short term pain for long term gain. In closed source such exploits can exist in code for years before anyone finds them, and generally it takes a lot longer for closed source vendors to fix the problems and distribute them once the exploits are publicized.
You've got to be very careful here to avoid even the appearance of plagarism. The best thing to do would be to use a 'non-coding' person or group to scrutinize the code in question and put together a specification document describing how it works. Then the coder(s) can write to that specification without being 'tainted' by exposure to the original source code. Also it is important to document this walled-off approach so that you would have evidence if challenged by owners of the original source code.
The difference between archie->download.com and NCSA httpd->Apache is that the Apache project really did start out as a descendant of NCSA httpd. download.com and archie are totally unrelated code bases that kinda fill the same niche. Although the Apache developers have rewritten just about all of Apache by now, originally it was A-patch-y version of NCSA httpd. As NCSA httpd died, Apache grew to fill in the gap just as organic offspring live on to further their species as their parents die.
I think that the three arguments (that Microsoft bought Softway just to bury Interix, Microsoft bought them just to get developers for 64-bit-Windows or that they bought them to really improve POSIX compliance for the federal marketplace) all have a certain amount of merit, but none alone are the total reason. Microsoft wants this type of technology to exist when it benefits them (so they don't want to see Softway go belly up), but they feel a need to control this type of technology so that people will only use it in a single direction -- to Windows instead of away from it.
Most of the non-technically literate will be installing from EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drives, which are much easier than SCSI to auto-detect.
Your milage may vary if you have some kind of wonky SCSI card, but if you have a normal type of Adaptec card you shouldn't have the kind of problems you describe. The only normal Adaptec model I've heard of problems with is the 294x, due to the incredibly large number of firmware changes that Adaptec made during the lifespan of that card. I've heard a few complaints about some of the cheapo Adaptec models that don't have a BIOS on them, but from your description, that doesn't sound like your situation. There are also a number of off-brand SCSI controllers or sound cards that use Adaptec chipsets, and I've heard of a few problems with some of those. In general, most people say to avoid such things. Personally, I have several machines with SCSI CD-ROM drives on several different types of SCSI controllers, Future Domain 950 (8-bit ISA), Adaptec 154x (ISA), Future Domain 1860 (ISA), Adaptec 284x (VLB) and NCR/Symbios Logic 538xx (PCI). I've never had trouble with Red Hat's installer (5.0, 5.1 or 5.2) not correctly identifying and supporting any of my SCSI CD-ROM drives (Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba). For that matter, I've never had trouble installing Red Hat with the two wonky proprietary interface CD-ROM drives I've got (Aztech and Phillips/LMS-CM205).
Another suggestion if you have sufficient hard drive space is to copy the Red Hat distribution under MS-DOS to your hard drive and then do the install from there. Or if you have a network card and another machine with a CD-ROM drive that is running something that can export it under NFS you can do a network install, I do that with my laptops that don't have a CD-ROM on them and it works great. There are ways to get around your problem without having to resort to a floppy install.
But if you think about it, all 'living things' die. But NCSA httpd's 'offspring', Apache, lives on. Seems like a pretty normal sort of life cycle to me I guess.
Far be it from anyone to think that the NCSA web server wasn't successful, but it has fell to demise. It's a project that failed to survive, even in the dawn of opensource times.
OTOH, the NCSA web server has died out mainly because it was superceeded by Apache, which on a certain level can be viewed as the obvious heir to the NCSA throne (being originally based on the NCSA source, and being mostly upwardly compatible with NCSA). Given that, did NCSA really fail, or not?
We also applied CF to a legacy client server system running 300,000 lines of custom C code under SunOS and Sybase 4. The system had not been maintained and was due for a $1.4m upgrade for Y2K. This money was to port the code to Solaris 2.7 and Sybase 11.4 with no new functions or upgrades for the users. Yet another example of Y2K money squandered foolishly.
No kidding. I wish I could find a few contracts like that. $1.4M for such an easy porting job (I do stuff like that all the time) is basically highway robbery.
Porting 300,000 lines of C code to such similar platforms is at most a nice mid sized project that should take 1-3 decent developers 3 to 6 months including debugging and testing, assuming your contention of no new functionality. That comes out to something like $333 per man hour figuring conservatively.
Frankly, I think one well experienced developer could do all of the porting work in a few weeks, and get a couple of people to help with testing. I've done jobs like that in that kind of time on code I didn't even write to begin with, so this vendor with presumably familiarity with their own code should have a leg up on it.
We quickly prototyped a CF solution and determined that the entire baseline could be completed, with major enhancements, with 30,000 lines of HTML and CF "code" in approximately 6 months. The original vendor concurred, but still wanted the $1.4m, and another $1m and a year to upgrade.
$1M for only 28,000 lines of CF code should yield a pretty damned good profit too, for that matter.
Hmmm.. If you look further below on here I'm going to be freeing up the code soon:)
That is very cool. I did notice your post yesterday but didn't have a chance to respond.
I'm also breaking up the source code so it's easier to read..
As far as comments go.. who needs comments?:) well I can add those in too.
I will try to grab a copy of your source when it is released and see if I can make any contributions as far as comments go. I've found that it is sometimes most useful for someone who isn't familiar with the code to figure out what sections need comments based on what isn't apparently obvious. Getting the benefit of not being too close to the code I guess you could say. I also have some interest in adding support for more of the databases that are supported by PHP.
Since no one is paying for it I'd rather see it has a problem for Microsoft than just a program no one uses so I am making the next release free...
I think that being able to free people of the shackles of ASP proprietariness is an important enough thing that I'd be willing to help out even with something that I don't have a personal need for. I also think that PHP is cool enough that anything that helps it become more popular is a good thing.
I think that there are still some opportunities to make money with this thing if it becomes popular. Perhaps writing a book or charging for support. You might even just be able to personally write your own ticket into a really cool job somewhere if that is what you want.
I have corresponded with the author of ASP2PHP (which did seem to do a good job of converting some ASP code a friend of mine had -- I don't use ASP, so I can't give that much of a testimonial there). Although some people will probably not like his (definitely not open source) licensing for ASP2PHP, he did release the source a while back, so it may be possible for you to fix the problems you encountered. Getting him to accept the changes back may be somewhat more problematic, as he is a bit picky about how he will take things (he doesn't like diffs). Also the code isn't commented as well as I'd like to see for other people to work with it (something the author did not dispute, as he hadn't intended originally to release the source). He also offered to look at ASP code that wasn't converting properly, so if you are willing to send him examples, he may be able to enhance the product so it would work better for you.
Well, you don't have Ga. Tech, Univ. of S. Carolina, Clemson, and Univ. of Georgia (plus over a dozen small colleges within a 120 miles from here) pumping out new engineers and CS majors at twice the rate that new tech jobs are created
You think there are no engineering/CS schools in the midwest? There are quite a few within a 250 mile radius or so from where I live. While the oversupply phenomenon you mention happens in the specific college town in question, it doesn't seem to extend much past 20-25 miles outside them.
Perhaps the university sponsored/affiliated 'development park'/'incubator' office park/environments around the universities in this area are working better than I thought they were.
Half as much? I doubt that.
Actually, the half as much was in response to the original poster, who lives in the SF Bay Area. The cost of living in the midwest where I live is about 1/2 that of the Bay Area. Georgia is probably actually pretty comparable to where I live in terms of cost of living.
This is one of the annoyances of anonymous posting, you can't always tell who you are responding to in a long thread.
lots of chicken farms around here, and they smell extremely bad
Quitcher bitchin. We have lots of hog farms around here, and they smell just as bad if not worse than chickens...:-(
There is a large front page article in the local paper about the 'crisis' of lack of skilled workers (and even unskilled workers) in the state. Unemployment nationally is just over 4%. Locally it is under 3%. They are saying that it is so bad its going to start causing a slowdown in the economy due to causing limited production or forcing companies to look out of state for workers or new plant locations.
he can hire all the ME's and CS's (yes, there are *lots* of processors in the machinary) he needs for less than $30K/year
Crazy, you can easily get twice that where I live and the cost of living is half as much. I can't believe anyone with 1/4 of a brain would put up with that.
No kidding. If you were in a decent position, then you would get the same group rate regardless of your medical history (like I do). Where I work we can choose between four different health plans, and everyone who is enrolled in a given plan pays the same amount. You do have to pay extra to put a spouse on (its typically a little over double what the price is for the single rate), and you have to pay extra for children (a little more than the spouse additional price -- but that covers multiple kids if you have them). I think the worst price you would have to pay on the most expensive plan for employee, spouse and kids coverage would still be less than $150 per month.
The plan I am on costs me roughly $75 per month (medical, dental and vision), and has a $2500 deductible with a $10 copay on office visits and for prescriptions. I'd say it is better than the plan most of the schools around here use (I used to have that company a long time ago, and their service stank).
My previous employer paid 100% of my health care insurance (you had to pay extra for spouse or kids, but I don't know how much since I wasn't married back then and don't have kids). I was offered a job with a different company recently which was a similar sort of deal. My overall compensation where I am at now is better than those other jobs though, which is why I don't mind paying a little for health insurance.
Slashdot Mirror
I would have to agree completely with the point of not being able to tell how many closed source projects die. While we can see (although probably wouldn't notice) products that are released and flounder, we have no way of seeing projects that are killed before being released.
The point about when OSS projects die, the code and/or ideas can live on is a good one. If an OSS project dies, then any good code and/or ideas can be recycled in another OSS project.
Another point I'd like to add is that OSS projects seem to die for reasons other than being beat by a commercial product. They tend to die by either being replaced by another OSS project, or because for one reason or another the developers lose interest in continuing the project. Most closed source projects die because they are either killed by a competing product, the company thinks that they will be killed by a competing product or something similar. There are some important differences.
You make a very interesting assumption. You assume that I believe in a non-benevolent monopoly in a true free-enterprise system.
I don't believe there is a true free-enterprise system. Unfortunately, there is, and always will be a certain level of government regulation. I don't like it, personally, but I begrudgingly accept that a certain amount of anti-trust regulation is necessary to insure a mostly-free-enterprise system.
While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, if you don't believe in the existance of non-benevolent monopolies in the real world then I would certainly accuse you of either looking at the world through rose colored glasses or being ignorant of history.
It takes two to tango. Nobody *ever* had to agree to Microsoft's restrictive licensing terms. Compaq, Dell, etc. all *agreed* to the license. Why? Because they felt Microsoft was worth going with, even if it meant sacrificing the offer of another (perhaps superior) operating system.
You assume that Microsoft didn't use any coercive tactics to ensure that nobody dared to not accept their licensing terms. In reality they did both. They offered a carrot, but threatened with a stick. They offered fairly reasonable and non-restrictive licensing in the early days, but gradually tightened things down as they achieved market lock-in. Once they had solidified their market share look at the history of their practices against such competitors as DR-DOS, Novell-DOS and OS/2.
Market share does *not* a monopoly make. The only time that a monopoly can truly exist is when the company is the only one *allowed by law* to offer the services.
That definition of a monopoly is far more restrictive than is realistic. In fact then there have been very few monopolies ever in existance in the U.S. The anti-trust laws were enacted to combat abuses from first the railroad robber-barrons and then the abuses of monopolists like the Rockefellers (Standard Oil). None of these businesses had a government sanctioned exclusive monopoly, and yet all exercised monopoly powers to the point where the government felt a need to act against them. In short I completely disagree. Market share can certainly make a monopoly.
AT&T had a monopoly. So did NSI, until their special status was taken away.
Those are examples of a specific type of monopoly, not necessarily of the only type of monopoly.
If Microsoft had a market-share monopoly at any given time, it's because enough people agreed to their terms, indicating that people thoutght the product was good enough. If the products were *shit*, companies would have begun offering other options-- gee, Microsoft now sells shit, and Dell, Compaq, etc. are all offering Linux.
The only reason that companies like Dell and Compaq feel they can offer Linux is because Microsoft is under intense governmental scrutiny. There is no way they would dare to defy Microsoft otherwise, no matter how good a competing product was.
I agree that having a monopoly isn't a bad thing,
since (in a truly open arena), the company has to be giving the majority of people what they want, lest they lost their market share. If the company doesn't give people what they want, another company will offer something that people would rather use. You can't get away with giving people shit and making them pay through the nose for it-- they'll find something cheaper, better, or both.
That view assumes that companies can't or won't use unfair and/or illegal practices to protect their market share.
The idea that Microsoft used its power to destroy its competition is not so much invalid, but irrelevant.
Its incredibly relevant given the way they used such power. It is one thing to build a better product, advertise better, offer better pricing or better distribution to win. It is totally another to use exclusive contracts, intimidation tactics and other questionable methods.
All companies are based on the idea of making money, and you have to beat your competition to make money.
This is so drastically oversimplified it is silly. You don't have to beat all of your competitors 100% of the time to make money. The company I work for is tremendously profitable (we are the 2nd or 3rd largest in most segments of our industry), yet we control only about 7% of our market. The largest company is only slightly larger than us. The top ten companies in our business control only about 1/2 of the market. The other 1/2 of the market is split amongst dozens of smaller players. While we are seeing consolidation in our business, nobody expects the number of players to be reduced below ten to fifteen anytime in the forseeable future.
Many other markets are alive, profitable and have at least three or four competitors with well less than 50% market share each. In most cases not only would it be virtually impossible for any of them to 'destroy' their competitors, it would probably upset the market if it did. Competition is a good thing, not only for consumers, but also for the company by keeping them from getting complacent.
What was Microsoft supposed to do? Ignore common business sense and *not* try to beat the competition? Jesus Christ, that's against the entire fucking idea of capitalism!
That isn't what I've been asking for. I don't think anyone other than the most far left people would say that is what they wanted.
What I do want is for Microsoft to play fairly. Frankly, they haven't needed to cheat for a long time, yet they still seem driven to be dishonest. Other companies manage to be successful and profitable while still staying within the bounds of the law and the rules of fair play. Why should we let Microsoft get by easily?
Microsoft isn't the only company that is using or has used the same unfair and/or illegal tactics. Most of what they do are things they learned either from IBM or the japanese electronics companies. Even in market tactics, Microsoft is a follower rather than a leader. But also IBM and the japanese electronic companies have run afoul of the DoJ, so the fact that Microsoft is being pursued is nothing unique to them.
That's not to say I think Linux is anti-capitalist, though-- it's simply a better product. The developers don't work "for free". Linux developers are given a cleaner, more reliable operating system in return for their efforts.
This is the price they pay. The fact that the rest of the world gets the results at a minimal cost is just the way it pans out. I think, in fact, that Linux is the *ultimate* example of capitalism in more ways than one.
On this point I agree with you. Although the fact that the only thing making major inroads against Microsoft is Linux, which is a free product is evidence that there is some anti-competitive pressure in the marketplace.
So go on and complain that Microsoft has a monopoly. I'll continue to believe that Microsoft will die because Linux is a better product, not because of the DoJ. And *that*, my friend, is a powerful indicator of just how good Linux is.
Well, on this point I honestly hope you are correct, because I doubt the DoJ will be able to get enough corrective action done against Microsoft to right the decades of wrongs they have committed.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that it may take both governmental action against Microsoft and the community building a better product to ensure long term freedom of choice for consumers and a healthy, competitive market.
I am not one that really believes that Microsoft should just be utterly destroyed (although occasionally it is a tempting thought), but I do want to see a market where no company controls more than about 40% or so of the market. I don't even necessarily want to see Linux control 90% of the market. I think Linux needs competition (such as from the *BSDs) to stay a dynamic, growing environment.
The dismissal of CatB as being 'oversimplified' without taking into account that ESR is still writing new essays (such as the NooSphere article) which expand on the ideas presented in CatB. Its pretty obvious that CatB was intended just as a beginning, not as an end unto itself. CatB is also not frozen in stone, as ESR has occasionally revised and expanded it.
Perhaps most troubling is dismissal of CatB as being socialist rhetoric. Since ESR is, if anything obviously much more predisposed towards capitolism than much of the rest of the free/open software world, this seems tome come from way out in right field.
Yet, if the number of people on Slashdot
Which is what, 80,000 or so? Hardly conclusive proof of anything more than that there is a vocal minority of Linux and *BSD users in the world.
is any indication, there are enough people using Linux, *BSD, and other operating systems to show that Microsoft *can't* have a monopoly. It's self-contradictory.
There are maybe 7-12 million Linux and/or *BSD users according to estimates. There are also the Mac users, the few OS/2 holdouts other *nix variants and the other odd assorted people out there. This is not proof that Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly.
You do not have to have 100% of a market to be a monopoly, this is a misunderstanding caused by the AT&T breakup. Even AT&T didn't have a 100% share of local phone service, only long distance service. In non-government sanctioned and regulated monopolies you can have less than 100% of a market and still be a monopoly.
Microsoft controls approximately 90% of the desktop computer operating system market, and about 93% of the office productivity software markets according to what I've read. It seems obvious that this is sufficient market share to allow them to have monopoly powers in those markets.
Their market share in the NOS and server software markets are significantly smaller, and they probably don't (yet) have a monopoly there. This is the main area where Linux and the *BSDs are challenging Microsoft so far, and Microsoft also faces stiffer competition from other *nixes, Novell, etc in that market.
The problem is that they are attempting to leverage their desktop monopoly power to build a monopoly in the server and NOS markets just as they used their monopoly power in the desktop OS market to build a monopoly in office productivity software.
Merely having a monopoly isn't really the worst thing, it is using that power to run roughshod over competitors in other markets that is really bad.
The answer is that Sun violates the standards, and has a MAC address per machine rather than per card...
The answer is you are wrong. The NVRAM stores the MAC address for the built in Ethernet on SparcStations. If you have additional Ethernet interfaces (usually on SBus cards), they have their own MAC number that is settable seperately. People who have multiple Ethernet cards on Sparcs (which is not uncommon) in combination with certain other sorts of hardware, would have serious problems on their networks if this wasn't the case.
However, since you can't really modify MACs
Not on devices that ROM it... However, for example, Sun SparcStations (of which I own 3), hold their MAC address in a NVRAM (battery backed CMOS static RAM), which is quite readily modifyable (at least the last 32 bits or so of it is).
I am sure that SparcStations aren't the only networking devices where the MAC address is so easily changed. Even in cases where it is ROMed, there are ways to reprogram EPROMs or burn replacement PROMs for most types of components if they are suitably socketed.
I wouldn't consider myself a typical user. For one, I have never personally used MS-DOS or Windows on any of my computers on any sort of regular basis. I never really took an interest in x86 hardware until the first x86 *BSD's came out around 1992/1993 (and I ran into hardware compatibility trouble with them too -- which is why I went to Linux in the first place). As a matter of fact, I don't own a copy of Windows. I also own no less than 3 SparcStations at home and several Macs in addition to the numerous Linux boxes.
I use mainly SuSE and Red Hat these days. Both of them provide a fairly granular level of options at install time compared to what some other distributions (like Caldera) do.
I am not normally someone who is intimidated by user unfriendly or poorly documented install processes either. In the late 80's I installed 4.3BSD-Tahoe from source code on a VAX 82xx machine, which was completely undocumented and had to be done totally by hand and trial and error. I had to hand-hack several device drivers to work with unsupported 3rd party (Emulex) plug-compatible devices.
I was able to figure out how to get my WD/SMC 8013 card to work with FreeBSD, but it took a lot of fiddling around to figure it out (just like things used to do in the old days).
As for the books you are looking for, I noticed when visiting the local Borders (and I live in a backwoods midwestern town) that they now have over 60 Linux specific titles including at least a dozen new titles since my previous visit. Several of the books fit the "How to use" rather than "How to install" criteria you are looking for.
Make no mistake that I wish no ill toward any of the *BSD's. I hope you are right about the *BSD's being able to leverage some of Linux's momentum to get better hardware support.
NE2000's are notoriously quirky, especially the PCI versions. I personally try to avoid them like the plague. On the other hand, I had significant trouble getting a WD/SMC 8013 to work with FreeBSD 3.1 on a machine I have, and that card is a very standard item that is autodetected by most recent Linux installs. I have to say that in general most of the Linux distribution installs are easier than FreeBSD, and FreeBSD is purportedly the easiest of the *BSDs to install. FreeBSD reminds me a little bit of older versions of Slackware in terms of its install. Linux installs may not be perfectly easy yet, but nothing is. Your milage may vary, but I'd have to say that in general Linux is on-par with anything other than MacOS in ease of installs. Unfortunately, MacOS is what Katz is used to. Then again, MacOS has it easy, due to the rigid levels of standardization on Apple's proprietary hardware.
You are right up to a point. Sun isn't going to be a truly 'open source' vendor. And Sun may never be able to match truly open sourced products in terms of speed to respond with fixes (although it seems like for a proprietary company, they are faster than average). However, it does mean that bugs will likely get found and reported quicker, and legitimate people who find said bugs can not only point out the problem, they can point out a solution. Also, they can probably release small source level patches without running afoul of Sun's licensing if they don't include any significant parts of Sun's source.
So while a true open source commitment from Sun would be better, it is hard to see even a partial opening up from Sun as anything other than a good thing.
will this make it easier to get linux in the door?
By itself, no. Or at least not most of the time. But it does seem to be part of a general trend towards a loosening up on 'source code available' projects be they truly 'open source' or not.
will it alienate some segments of solaris users?
I doubt it. The fact that source wasn't readily available for commercial products like Solaris never really comes up except as brought by open source advocates. I don't think that any arguments that closed source is more secure are going to carry enough weight with any significant number of PHB's to make a difference.
You are quibbling about details. I am sure that IA-64 goes beyond PA-RISC (otherwise why bother doing anything more than sticking a 32-bit x86 core in for backwards compatibility and calling it good). However, if AMD wants to clone IA-64, they would have to start by basically cloning PA-RISC and adding the same extentions to that architecture as Intel is. My point was that cloning PA-RISC is far more logical starting point for them in building an IA-64 than licensing Alpha would be. I did not mean to imply that it was everything they had to do, nothing is ever quite that simple.
I would agree about 64-bit x86 being an abomination (and I think it would be a marketing flop as well). I don't, however, think that splitting the market with an Alpha variant would be successful for AMD either. If for no other reason than I doubt that AMD could do much differently in getting long-term cooperation from Microsoft for an Alpha derived architecture than Compaq did.
Not only do I think that the abandonment of the desktop and server MPU market by AMD would be disasterous for the industry (competition for Intel has been a very good thing for consumers and system vendors), I think it would be disasterous in the long run for AMD, as it would permanently relegate them to being only a niche player. I think AMD's only option in the long run is to take Intel on directly with an IA-64 clone. There are ways of getting around the patent issues, although they certainly won't be easy and probably not cheap either. There are a lot of features of the current and previous generations of x86 designs that are the subjects of patents, and it hasn't stopped companies from building clones (AMD, Cyrix and IDT).
It may at some point become not so advantageous for Intel to have all of the clone chip builders drop out of the market, as it could start or re-start a move against them on anti-trust grounds. There are other ways that having a certain amount of healthy competition is good for a company too.
Actually if they want to be compatible with the Merced (IA-64), then instead of using Alpha technology they will need to clone HP PA-RISC, which is what the 64 bit part of IA-64 is largely based on. If AMD chooses for the K8 not to be IA-64 compatible, then they may have a lot of problems competing with the IA-64, since it is unlikely that Microsoft will be able to support the K8, and they will still be in direct competition with other 64-bit RISC architectures in the *nix market (UltraSparc, PA-RISC, Alpha, MIPS, etc).
Of course access to the source helps in the short term developing exploits, but as quickly as those exploits appear in open source they are fixed, making the code stronger. Its a bit of short term pain for long term gain. In closed source such exploits can exist in code for years before anyone finds them, and generally it takes a lot longer for closed source vendors to fix the problems and distribute them once the exploits are publicized.
You've got to be very careful here to avoid even the appearance of plagarism. The best thing to do would be to use a 'non-coding' person or group to scrutinize the code in question and put together a specification document describing how it works. Then the coder(s) can write to that specification without being 'tainted' by exposure to the original source code. Also it is important to document this walled-off approach so that you would have evidence if challenged by owners of the original source code.
The difference between archie->download.com and NCSA httpd->Apache is that the Apache project really did start out as a descendant of NCSA httpd. download.com and archie are totally unrelated code bases that kinda fill the same niche. Although the Apache developers have rewritten just about all of Apache by now, originally it was A-patch-y version of NCSA httpd. As NCSA httpd died, Apache grew to fill in the gap just as organic offspring live on to further their species as their parents die.
I think that the three arguments (that Microsoft bought Softway just to bury Interix, Microsoft bought them just to get developers for 64-bit-Windows or that they bought them to really improve POSIX compliance for the federal marketplace) all have a certain amount of merit, but none alone are the total reason. Microsoft wants this type of technology to exist when it benefits them (so they don't want to see Softway go belly up), but they feel a need to control this type of technology so that people will only use it in a single direction -- to Windows instead of away from it.
Most of the non-technically literate will be installing from EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drives, which are much easier than SCSI to auto-detect.
Your milage may vary if you have some kind of wonky SCSI card, but if you have a normal type of Adaptec card you shouldn't have the kind of problems you describe.
The only normal Adaptec model I've heard of problems with is the 294x, due to the incredibly large number of firmware changes that Adaptec made during the lifespan of that card.
I've heard a few complaints about some of the cheapo Adaptec models that don't have a BIOS on them, but from your description, that doesn't sound like your situation.
There are also a number of off-brand SCSI controllers or sound cards that use Adaptec chipsets, and I've heard of a few problems with some of those. In general, most people say to avoid such things.
Personally, I have several machines with SCSI CD-ROM drives on several different types of SCSI controllers, Future Domain 950 (8-bit ISA), Adaptec 154x (ISA), Future Domain 1860 (ISA), Adaptec 284x (VLB) and NCR/Symbios Logic 538xx (PCI). I've never had trouble with Red Hat's installer (5.0, 5.1 or 5.2) not correctly identifying and supporting any of my SCSI CD-ROM drives (Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba).
For that matter, I've never had trouble installing Red Hat with the two wonky proprietary interface CD-ROM drives I've got (Aztech and Phillips/LMS-CM205).
Another suggestion if you have sufficient hard drive space is to copy the Red Hat distribution under MS-DOS to your hard drive and then do the install from there. Or if you have a network card and another machine with a CD-ROM drive that is running something that can export it under NFS you can do a network install, I do that with my laptops that don't have a CD-ROM on them and it works great.
There are ways to get around your problem without having to resort to a floppy install.
But if you think about it, all 'living things' die. But NCSA httpd's 'offspring', Apache, lives on. Seems like a pretty normal sort of life cycle to me I guess.
Far be it from anyone to think that the NCSA web server wasn't successful, but it has fell to demise. It's a project that failed to survive, even in the dawn of opensource times.
OTOH, the NCSA web server has died out mainly because it was superceeded by Apache, which on a certain level can be viewed as the obvious heir to the NCSA throne (being originally based on the NCSA source, and being mostly upwardly compatible with NCSA). Given that, did NCSA really fail, or not?
We also applied CF to a legacy client server system running 300,000 lines of custom C code under SunOS and Sybase 4. The system had not been maintained and was due for a $1.4m upgrade for Y2K. This money was to port the code to Solaris 2.7 and Sybase 11.4 with no new functions or upgrades for the users. Yet another example of Y2K money squandered foolishly.
No kidding. I wish I could find a few contracts like that. $1.4M for such an easy porting job (I do stuff like that all the time) is basically highway robbery.
Porting 300,000 lines of C code to such similar platforms is at most a nice mid sized project that should take 1-3 decent developers 3 to 6 months including debugging and testing, assuming your contention of no new functionality. That comes out to something like $333 per man hour figuring conservatively.
Frankly, I think one well experienced developer could do all of the porting work in a few weeks, and get a couple of people to help with testing. I've done jobs like that in that kind of time on code I didn't even write to begin with, so this vendor with presumably familiarity with their own code should have a leg up on it.
We quickly prototyped a CF solution and determined that the entire baseline could be completed, with major enhancements, with 30,000 lines of HTML and CF "code" in approximately 6 months. The original vendor concurred, but still wanted the $1.4m, and another $1m and a year to upgrade.
$1M for only 28,000 lines of CF code should yield a pretty damned good profit too, for that matter.
Hmmm.. If you look further below on here I'm going to be freeing up the code soon :)
:) well I can add those in too.
That is very cool. I did notice your post yesterday but didn't have a chance to respond.
I'm also breaking up the source code so it's easier to read..
As far as comments go.. who needs comments?
I will try to grab a copy of your source when it is released and see if I can make any contributions as far as comments go. I've found that it is sometimes most useful for someone who isn't familiar with the code to figure out what sections need comments based on what isn't apparently obvious. Getting the benefit of not being too close to the code I guess you could say.
I also have some interest in adding support for more of the databases that are supported by PHP.
Since no one is paying for it I'd rather see it has a problem for Microsoft than just a program no one uses so I am making the next release free...
I think that being able to free people of the shackles of ASP proprietariness is an important enough thing that I'd be willing to help out even with something that I don't have a personal need for. I also think that PHP is cool enough that anything that helps it become more popular is a good thing.
I think that there are still some opportunities to make money with this thing if it becomes popular. Perhaps writing a book or charging for support. You might even just be able to personally write your own ticket into a really cool job somewhere if that is what you want.
I have corresponded with the author of ASP2PHP (which did seem to do a good job of converting some ASP code a friend of mine had -- I don't use ASP, so I can't give that much of a testimonial there).
Although some people will probably not like his (definitely not open source) licensing for ASP2PHP, he did release the source a while back, so it may be possible for you to fix the problems you encountered. Getting him to accept the changes back may be somewhat more problematic, as he is a bit picky about how he will take things (he doesn't like diffs). Also the code isn't commented as well as I'd like to see for other people to work with it (something the author did not dispute, as he hadn't intended originally to release the source).
He also offered to look at ASP code that wasn't converting properly, so if you are willing to send him examples, he may be able to enhance the product so it would work better for you.
Well, you don't have Ga. Tech, Univ. of S. Carolina, Clemson, and Univ. of Georgia (plus over a dozen small colleges within a 120 miles from here) pumping out new engineers and CS majors at twice the rate that new tech jobs are created
:-(
You think there are no engineering/CS schools in the midwest? There are quite a few within a 250 mile radius or so from where I live. While the oversupply phenomenon you mention happens in the specific college town in question, it doesn't seem to extend much past 20-25 miles outside them.
Perhaps the university sponsored/affiliated 'development park'/'incubator' office park/environments around the universities in this area are working better than I thought they were.
Half as much? I doubt that.
Actually, the half as much was in response to the original poster, who lives in the SF Bay Area. The cost of living in the midwest where I live is about 1/2 that of the Bay Area. Georgia is probably actually pretty comparable to where I live in terms of cost of living.
This is one of the annoyances of anonymous posting, you can't always tell who you are responding to in a long thread.
lots of chicken farms around here, and they smell extremely bad
Quitcher bitchin. We have lots of hog farms around here, and they smell just as bad if not worse than chickens...
There is a large front page article in the local paper about the 'crisis' of lack of skilled workers (and even unskilled workers) in the state. Unemployment nationally is just over 4%. Locally it is under 3%. They are saying that it is so bad its going to start causing a slowdown in the economy due to causing limited production or forcing companies to look out of state for workers or new plant locations.
he can hire all the ME's and CS's (yes, there are *lots* of processors in the machinary) he needs for less than $30K/year
Crazy, you can easily get twice that where I live and the cost of living is half as much. I can't believe anyone with 1/4 of a brain would put up with that.
I'm just stuck in a bad position.
No kidding. If you were in a decent position, then you would get the same group rate regardless of your medical history (like I do). Where I work we can choose between four different health plans, and everyone who is enrolled in a given plan pays the same amount. You do have to pay extra to put a spouse on (its typically a little over double what the price is for the single rate), and you have to pay extra for children (a little more than the spouse additional price -- but that covers multiple kids if you have them). I think the worst price you would have to pay on the most expensive plan for employee, spouse and kids coverage would still be less than $150 per month.
The plan I am on costs me roughly $75 per month (medical, dental and vision), and has a $2500 deductible with a $10 copay on office visits and for prescriptions. I'd say it is better than the plan most of the schools around here use (I used to have that company a long time ago, and their service stank).
My previous employer paid 100% of my health care insurance (you had to pay extra for spouse or kids, but I don't know how much since I wasn't married back then and don't have kids). I was offered a job with a different company recently which was a similar sort of deal. My overall compensation where I am at now is better than those other jobs though, which is why I don't mind paying a little for health insurance.