While (as you rightly pointed out) it is quite clear there are advantages for and against individual opensource an proprietry products, there is also an argument to be made for opensource in general.
This is not to say that every open source product has better (or even equivilent in some cases) functionality, but that the very fact that it is open source has benefits. For a large multinational such as the submitter is enquiring for, one of the big wories must be ownership and continuity of support for whatever product / projects they use in their IT infrastructure.
Pick a proprietry product, and a company going bust or mearly becoming uncooperative could result in a large risk to your ability to maintain your internal infrastructure - be it through bug fixes or introducing new features.
By choosing an opensource strategy, it will always be possible to either maintain such systems internally, or shop around for someone appropriately qualified to make the changes you need. Purchase and maintainance TCO are good arguments, but IMHO the biggest factor to large multinationals will be one of reduced risk, and therefore there can be a benefit by choosing a lower featured opensource product over a traditional proprietry one.
Either you and the company reach a joint compromise on the terms of your employment, or one of you compromises on your conditions, or you or the company decide the contract (and therefore the sale or job) are not worth the compromises.
We may not like the alternatives (i.e. being unemployed) and therefore may make compromises which we are not happy with - but there was still a choice there. Frankel wasn't forced to sell Nullsoft to AOL - it was a choice based on the offer put in front of him (including terms & conditions, and contracts for his employment) and the compromises he would have to make (i.e. not owning the company and whatever restrictions AOL put on him - like not owning his code)
If Frankel didn't realise what he was getting himself in to, he was naive at best and utterly stupid at worst - but i don't believe either to be the case. I suspect (with no evidence what so ever to back me up) that he knew exactly what he was doing, and thought he could cope. Now he's found that he's not enjoying the freedom he wants, and so he's planning to leave.
Simple, fair, and sensible.
Hopefully he will be able to bring more great GPL'd code to the community once he has left AOL.
This is a simple matter of writing code in your own time if you want to own it.
Unfortunately, not always the case. It depends on the contract you have signed.
It has been supprisingly common for many years that some companies clame IP rights to all your "inventions" while you are employed by them, whether you worked on / developed those inventions during work hours or on your own time.
I'm in the beta, and eve is one person per ship. (but each character can own mulitple ships - but only use one at once)
But the intereasting thing about eve is the corporations. Anyone can form a corporation and attract members. Most of the benefit and enjoyment of eve is through working alongside others in a corporation - for mutual gain.
Corporations exist kinda in and kinda outside of eve, and there is lots of political negotiations between the different corps.
Eve is definately a game for teams of players - it is possible to play on your own, but you largely miss the point unless you sign up with one of the corps, work within a team, for the benefit of that team. That's when you get the really intereasting dynamics of the game, and you answer the "what shall i do now?" question.
mythtv does have quite a few dependancies - but it's really not that difficult. Using gentoo or debian its a two or three command install.
If it's a pain to install with your particular distribution - get your distribution to produce a package for it. I'm sure when myth gets up to a 1.0 release it will be nice and packaged up with those packages tested and dependancies fixed for most of the common distributions. But until then, time spent packaging is time not coding - and i'd rather have them coding:)
Alternatively - use gentoo or debian. They seem to have pretty good user submitted packages with dependacies solved.
Not my experiance at all. They've been very helpful and intereasted with fixing bugs all the time i've been hanging out on the list (~6 months).
Some responces are terse - but not to the extent of rudeness, but that is generally reserved for people that haven't made the effort to fully read the docs.
I don't think i've seen any new "bug" reported to those lists that hasn't been investigated and fixed a few days later.
It's the basic law of free support - if you dash in, demand an answer and are abusive to those that try to help - you won't get very far. If you put in the time, read the documentation, search the archives, read the documentation again - and _then_ post, you'll be a lot happier (90% + of the installation questions asked on the myth list _are_ covered by the documentation.)
Take the time to help yourself, and others will take the time to help when you get stuck.
Have a look at mythtv - It does pretty much all of the things mentioned above, more than MCE - and acording to the review anandtech gave of MCE, my mythbox preforms far better on lower priced hardware.
All credit really should go to Issac and the other guys contributing to this project.
Recent CVS additions include a mythweather module and support for running decoding and encoding on different machines on the network (for a truly connected home;p)
I think there is the chance for precedence here, from the judges instructions to the jury
Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction
ianal but my understanding is that this is contrary to the DMCA - ie the DMCA says that _any_ copy-circumvention tool is an infringement, no matter what it was intended to be used for, or what it's primary use is.
If it circumvents, acording to the DMCA it's illegal - the judge is saying that this isn't enough, and we have to take intent into account.
Firstly, i'm not sure your right - call me an interfering Brit if you want, but my understanding of the DMCA was that all you had to do to fall fool was provide a copy-protection circumvention tool. The DMCA doesn't care about what uses it is put to, and whether the intended use was legal or not - if it circumvents, it's illegal.
That's one of the things that makes the DMCA sucketh so much.
i use windows 2000 at work and i install windows for my relatives. I use linux my self.
It's not about "windows being better" for somethings - but more about the applications being available.
If everyone wrote for linux, everyone would use linux. (a bit simplistic maybe - but 90% true)
So i can still say "windows sucks" so long as i can justify that with why (poor design, lack of security) Just because more applications are available does not make a platform "better" - it makes it might make it a more appropriate choice, but not a better platform.
Although the game dynamics don't specificaly require the features you commented on (supply lines & strongohlds etc), to do well at this game you must build strategic alliances and pacts with other players.
This has resulted in the creation of a community the likes of which i have never seen in any other online game, where intelligence (spying on other players) and "political" aims are the main draw of the game.
Unfortunately they have just made the mistake of switching to a pay 2 play system, although this is still cheap at $10 for a single (roughly 3 month long) game
As far as i see it, the value of the availability of a Linux based PDA at the moment is that it allows developers and geeks to play with it, and possibly _write_ those applications
No PDA is yet "ideal" some are better at somethings than others (palm/psion) but with the availability of a PDA with not only full source code available, but also a known and liked set of programing interfaces, surely there must be a rapid growth in the number of third party apps for it?
Untill someone took the challenge and actually produced one of these there was no standard for Linux based PDA apps, now there is and i think it's great that the community will be able to build apps specifically for PDA's based on linux (even though these apps will still run elsewhere)
The tags contain nothing but an id (not stricktly true but hey), they mean nothing untill linked to a backaend database, which can then be used for tracking. Unfortunately this already happens, just not with the tags. Companies are already using snipits of information about each purchase (credit card number, name & address for warenty info) to build up profiles of individuals.
The tags won't do anything new, just make it easier for people that already track us to identify A PIECE OF EQUIPMENT. not a person.
RFID tags are only really usefull until the item is sold (for tracking batches from production to sale), the read distance is only short (I think the current max is 3 meters) and so cannot realisticaly be read once the item has left the shop. So what ties that item to an idividual? nothing we're not already giving them. Only if a name or bank number or other peice of info which uniquly identifies the person is given over as anyone got any chance of tracking YOU.
Simple solution - never give your name or bank details out (!?!) then no one can link the purchase to you, whether the tags are used or not.
I don't believe there has been any suggestion of using these tags as bank cards etc.
DaveB
btw, they can do other things than just store a number, some can be reprogramable, and it is perfectly feasable to have limited processing onboard too. Perhaps to allow traffic to be incrypted?
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While (as you rightly pointed out) it is quite clear there are advantages for and against individual opensource an proprietry products, there is also an argument to be made for opensource in general.
This is not to say that every open source product has better (or even equivilent in some cases) functionality, but that the very fact that it is open source has benefits. For a large multinational such as the submitter is enquiring for, one of the big wories must be ownership and continuity of support for whatever product / projects they use in their IT infrastructure.
Pick a proprietry product, and a company going bust or mearly becoming uncooperative could result in a large risk to your ability to maintain your internal infrastructure - be it through bug fixes or introducing new features.
By choosing an opensource strategy, it will always be possible to either maintain such systems internally, or shop around for someone appropriately qualified to make the changes you need. Purchase and maintainance TCO are good arguments, but IMHO the biggest factor to large multinationals will be one of reduced risk, and therefore there can be a benefit by choosing a lower featured opensource product over a traditional proprietry one.
Indeed - unfortunately "thought" is not a right we are guaranteed to be able to keep.
There is still a compromise and a choice
Either you and the company reach a joint compromise on the terms of your employment, or one of you compromises on your conditions, or you or the company decide the contract (and therefore the sale or job) are not worth the compromises.
We may not like the alternatives (i.e. being unemployed) and therefore may make compromises which we are not happy with - but there was still a choice there. Frankel wasn't forced to sell Nullsoft to AOL - it was a choice based on the offer put in front of him (including terms & conditions, and contracts for his employment) and the compromises he would have to make (i.e. not owning the company and whatever restrictions AOL put on him - like not owning his code)
If Frankel didn't realise what he was getting himself in to, he was naive at best and utterly stupid at worst - but i don't believe either to be the case. I suspect (with no evidence what so ever to back me up) that he knew exactly what he was doing, and thought he could cope. Now he's found that he's not enjoying the freedom he wants, and so he's planning to leave.
Simple, fair, and sensible.
Hopefully he will be able to bring more great GPL'd code to the community once he has left AOL.
It has been supprisingly common for many years that some companies clame IP rights to all your "inventions" while you are employed by them, whether you worked on / developed those inventions during work hours or on your own time.
Read your contract carefully!
I'm in the beta, and eve is one person per ship. (but each character can own mulitple ships - but only use one at once)
But the intereasting thing about eve is the corporations. Anyone can form a corporation and attract members. Most of the benefit and enjoyment of eve is through working alongside others in a corporation - for mutual gain.
Corporations exist kinda in and kinda outside of eve, and there is lots of political negotiations between the different corps.
Eve is definately a game for teams of players - it is possible to play on your own, but you largely miss the point unless you sign up with one of the corps, work within a team, for the benefit of that team. That's when you get the really intereasting dynamics of the game, and you answer the "what shall i do now?" question.
mythtv does have quite a few dependancies - but it's really not that difficult. Using gentoo or debian its a two or three command install.
:)
If it's a pain to install with your particular distribution - get your distribution to produce a package for it. I'm sure when myth gets up to a 1.0 release it will be nice and packaged up with those packages tested and dependancies fixed for most of the common distributions. But until then, time spent packaging is time not coding - and i'd rather have them coding
Alternatively - use gentoo or debian. They seem to have pretty good user submitted packages with dependacies solved.
Not my experiance at all. They've been very helpful and intereasted with fixing bugs all the time i've been hanging out on the list (~6 months). Some responces are terse - but not to the extent of rudeness, but that is generally reserved for people that haven't made the effort to fully read the docs. I don't think i've seen any new "bug" reported to those lists that hasn't been investigated and fixed a few days later. It's the basic law of free support - if you dash in, demand an answer and are abusive to those that try to help - you won't get very far. If you put in the time, read the documentation, search the archives, read the documentation again - and _then_ post, you'll be a lot happier (90% + of the installation questions asked on the myth list _are_ covered by the documentation.) Take the time to help yourself, and others will take the time to help when you get stuck.
All credit really should go to Issac and the other guys contributing to this project.
Recent CVS additions include a mythweather module and support for running decoding and encoding on different machines on the network (for a truly connected home ;p)
I think there is the chance for precedence here, from the judges instructions to the jury
Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction
ianal but my understanding is that this is contrary to the DMCA - ie the DMCA says that _any_ copy-circumvention tool is an infringement, no matter what it was intended to be used for, or what it's primary use is.
If it circumvents, acording to the DMCA it's illegal - the judge is saying that this isn't enough, and we have to take intent into account.
ok, a couple of things
Firstly, i'm not sure your right - call me an interfering Brit if you want, but my understanding of the DMCA was that all you had to do to fall fool was provide a copy-protection circumvention tool. The DMCA doesn't care about what uses it is put to, and whether the intended use was legal or not - if it circumvents, it's illegal.
That's one of the things that makes the DMCA sucketh so much.
i use windows 2000 at work and i install windows for my relatives. I use linux my self.
It's not about "windows being better" for somethings - but more about the applications being available.
If everyone wrote for linux, everyone would use linux. (a bit simplistic maybe - but 90% true)
So i can still say "windows sucks" so long as i can justify that with why (poor design, lack of security) Just because more applications are available does not make a platform "better" - it makes it might make it a more appropriate choice, but not a better platform.
I think the point being made is that by supporting C# and the .net development environment, you give credability to those "products".
I won't try to argue whether they would suceed or not without this extra help, but might it not be better to convince people to use java over c#?
C# succeding means MS still has oportunities to extend beyond the published specs. Sun has already shown that they won't tolerate that with Java.
Surely the future accesibility of the dev environment is safer under suns controll than evul M$????
www.planetarion.com
Although the game dynamics don't specificaly require the features you commented on (supply lines & strongohlds etc), to do well at this game you must build strategic alliances and pacts with other players.
This has resulted in the creation of a community the likes of which i have never seen in any other online game, where intelligence (spying on other players) and "political" aims are the main draw of the game.
Unfortunately they have just made the mistake of switching to a pay 2 play system, although this is still cheap at $10 for a single (roughly 3 month long) game
As far as i see it, the value of the availability of a Linux based PDA at the moment is that it allows developers and geeks to play with it, and possibly _write_ those applications
No PDA is yet "ideal" some are better at somethings than others (palm/psion) but with the availability of a PDA with not only full source code available, but also a known and liked set of programing interfaces, surely there must be a rapid growth in the number of third party apps for it?
Untill someone took the challenge and actually produced one of these there was no standard for Linux based PDA apps, now there is and i think it's great that the community will be able to build apps specifically for PDA's based on linux (even though these apps will still run elsewhere)
The tags contain nothing but an id (not stricktly true but hey), they mean nothing untill linked to a backaend database, which can then be used for tracking. Unfortunately this already happens, just not with the tags. Companies are already using snipits of information about each purchase (credit card number, name & address for warenty info) to build up profiles of individuals.
The tags won't do anything new, just make it easier for people that already track us to identify A PIECE OF EQUIPMENT. not a person.
RFID tags are only really usefull until the item is sold (for tracking batches from production to sale), the read distance is only short (I think the current max is 3 meters) and so cannot realisticaly be read once the item has left the shop. So what ties that item to an idividual? nothing we're not already giving them. Only if a name or bank number or other peice of info which uniquly identifies the person is given over as anyone got any chance of tracking YOU.
Simple solution - never give your name or bank details out (!?!) then no one can link the purchase to you, whether the tags are used or not.
I don't believe there has been any suggestion of using these tags as bank cards etc.
DaveB
btw, they can do other things than just store a number, some can be reprogramable, and it is perfectly feasable to have limited processing onboard too. Perhaps to allow traffic to be incrypted?