I honestly don't think this has anything to do with merging with Apple (a stupid rumour) or for that matter, even leveraging Linux over Windows. It's really just shedding an expensive division, saving money and increasing profitability.
It's explained within the first page of the article:
"If it goes through, the deal would allow IBM to continue its shift from selling so-called commodity products toward selling services, software and high-end computers. Although it helped make PCs a global phenomenon, IBM makes little profit from PCs and often loses money, despite the fact that it's an $11 billion business for the company."
IBM's profits come from consulting and integration services, not from selling desktop machines. The price of Windows, Linux or otherwise, or what strategy they push on the desktop is not a big deal in this case.
What I think it comes down to is they're holding onto a division that is building commodity boxes and that's a tough game with competition like Dell. With ODM's and OEM's doing more and more of the design work these days, really all IBM needs is to pitch the stuff, which isn't affected by the sale of this division. The consulting and sales groups already push the hardware in major deals.
If you read the article, the market is slowing:
"That period will see average annual unit shipments slow to 5.7 percent and revenue growth subside to 2 percent, Gartner predicted."
Hence, you're not going to see any more profits from an area which already has razor thin margins. Give the business to the Chinese, since they know how to reduce costs. The biggest problem Asian manufacturers have today is not engineering skill or manufacturing capability. It's branding and marketing. Lenovo bought the IBM brand for five years and it's worth every penny.
It's pretty obvious the American part of the company will be cut, probably because they're expensive:
"It is going to take quite a long time to consummate, and the only way I see this running properly is that if a lot of blood is shed at IBM PC."
The desktops are already made and built by a Chinese firm (as noted in the article) while the money in laptops is made by large corporate sales contracts, not individual units.
In the end, I think it's just getting rid of an unprofitable part of the business, not some super strategic technology move.
I think that Wil is respected here, because he is an intelligent person who is famous, and hasn't let it go to his head. He is a 'home town nerd, that made good'.
Of course, Hitler himself could post to/., and if he admitted to using *NIX, he would probably get modded up....
Well, that's the part I don't get.
I never claimed the guy was an idiot, just someone who I personally never considered to be particularly worthy of praise.
Now, admittedly, I'm just a member of the average television viewing public with a worthless opinion, but I wouldn't really think of Wil Wheaton as being that famous or interesting. Nor would I consider him a particularly good writer. There are more interesting people, whether they be better actors, are more famous/infamous, or have intelligent things to say.
Is it the combination of the all of the above? He's seems like a "normal" guy, who also happened to be on a big scifi show? These attributes appeal to the Slashdot audience because they fit really well with the demographic here?
As for being ignorant, well, if ignorance of Wil Wheaton fandom is such a bad thing, then I guess I'll have to stay unenlightened. I suppose I just don't see the big deal of having a celebrity that has something to say. It's like the hoopla with Natalie Maines and her anti-George Bush commentary: There are people with better, more insightful things to say about that topic, so why should I care what she says?
When did Wil Wheaton become cool? Back when TNG ran, everyone I knew thought of him as some loser. Maybe it was the character, but Wil Wheaton was never anyone special.
Now whenever I see his name on Slashdot, I see everyone praising his hipness. Is it because he posts on Slashdot? Has a blog? Is a role model to countless nerd teenagers? I don't get it. Seriously.
not that i like her - i think that engineering organizations should be run by engineers and not marketters or MBA's without engineering experience...
You mean, run into the ground? There's a need for both engineering and marketing. If you left a bunch of engineers to themselves, there's a high probability they'd waste R&D budget on things no one needs or aren't profitable.
So you'd say they do some research on what customers want? Hey, that's called marketing, isn't it?
We do video between labs for overflow (more students than a lab can hold). Thing is, normal DV cams just don't have the resolution to capture the professor and screens without looking totally blurry. This would go a long way to fixing that. It still wouldn't give a crystal clear image, but much better than what we have now.
The problem is how you'd link it to the projector, and what the native resolution and quality of the projector is.
The projector either needs a Firewire transceiver and the HDV codec, OR the camera has to put the data out in something high resolution, perhaps RGB (which I think the JVC HDV camera has) or HDMI/DVI. I'm not sure what the Sony cameras has.
Then there's the issue of getting it to the projector. Transmitting regular RGB for VGA is already a pain, requiring all sorts of Extron extenders and the like.
And when you get it there, there's the issue of focusing and all that, assuming your projector has a native resolution high enough. Most of the projectors at the university I went to were severely out of focus and didn't get regularly serviced enough.
The issue of overflow rooms may be better addressed with something like a SMARTboard which digitizes whiteboard markings. It can be linked via screensharing to a second machine in another room.
think that we are stepping into a creative boon as a result of this.
The idealist in me wants to agree, but realistically, what we'll see is more crap:
-More angsty rich kids making "indie films" that make no damned sense.
-More HD/DVD wedding videos filled with tacky transition effects and shaky handheld underlit shots.
-More slanted special interest group propaganda, filled with hate, revisionism or evangelism.
Now, all of you are probably sharpening your keyboards, saying "who are you to judge"? If publishing a book, presenting a scientific paper, writing a screenplay twenty years ago had one merit, it was the fact you had to get it through some sort of editorial process. Someone did judge, and usually it was someone in the know. You couldn't spout hate on digital video and expect it broadcast on community cable. You couldn't make up pseudo science and have it published to an audience because real scientists would review your paper. But today, there is no review. You're free to host PDFs of your cracknut theories of science, or stream videos of you in your bedsheet over your head burning people at the stake.
Part of me wants to believe that the result of today's technologies (desktop publishing, digital video, the web) means that stories that are underrepresented will be told, that we'll all benefit, but for the time being, I suspect all we'll get is more trash.
...that HDV's recorded bitrate is still 25Mbit/sec. While you might think that is a lot compared to terrestrial HDTV's 18Mbit stream, in fact, it's very little. In production you generally want to record MORE in acquisition than distribution.
The defacto HD production format, HDCAM, records something like 140-180MBit/sec, the uncompressed signal is something like 996MBit/sec.
The most likely market for this camera will be indie filmmakers, documentaries, and industrial/corporate promotional use. The price makes complete sense--and most of the market buying VX2100's and XL1's will probably look seriously at this.
Most broadcast/network HD will still be HDCAM, DVCPRO HD (off the popular Panasonic Varicam) or 35mm transfer.
Yes, for what you're getting, in comparison to a regular corporate desktop. You're also getting a second machine if the Sun workstation goes down, the user isn't unproductive for the rest of the day, they can still do administrative functions, nontechnical work etc.
It's Sun product, supported and serviced by Sun.
Right, which is not the preferred vendor of regular PCs for the other 90% of a company which will be using regular Windows PCs. Say Dell is my preferred vendor. Will Dell support these unusual cards? No. Will Sun help you load the corporate OS and line of business applications already set up for the rest of your enterprise? Probably not for free.
"Global" OS image loads with their driver sets have to be redone. Technical support routines have to be established with the local desktop support groups--(Remember, you're usually running through an emulation layer of some sort--an extra layer to troubleshoot, even if it's a GUI thing or disk sharing) Applications, especially internal ones, have to be requalified for each platform.
they might not be able to use the card Sun's been selling some version of the card for almost a decade
That's no guarantee it'll work tomorrow when newer Suns might use PCI-X or whatever comes down the pipe. Or if they decide to go with SGI or IBM workstations instead. With a dedicated card, it's an investment tied to that workstation.
From a corporate perspective, these things never make any sense. They're very cool, but they never provide the same performance for the price of a regular desktop machine, and only very specialized applications usually demand their use. These days, corporate PCs need to be standardized, straight across the enterprise to be cost effective; and at that, they need to be fluid (ie, quickly redeployable to other workers) given the fact people get laid off, reorg'd or otherwise.
Because they're expensive. That and it's easier to order a standard corporate PC from their preferred vendor and support contract, instead of trying to work some bridgeboard thing. If the Sun gets upgraded, they might not be able to use the card, while a separate machine can be left alone, repurposed to an accountant or returned from lease to the vendor.
You missed the biggie, which is that the workstation products come in dual proc configs. SCSI is usually also an option.
You're right--I think the original poster though was commenting on the low end single proc Precision vs the Dimension/Optiplex desktops.
As for SCSI, unfortunately Dell no longer integrates SCSI on the motherboard AFAIK. They just slap in an Adaptec controller over PCI. I'm also pretty sure you can get SCSI on Optiplex corporate desktops as well.
The desktop precision systems are the same as well. Just a Optiplex or Dimension with a good video card.
The difference between Precision Workstation (and similar products from Compaq and IBM) and other systems, are that they are qualified platforms for specialized applications. So if you want to run a specific MCAD/CAE suite, nonlinear editing tool or scientific visualization system, the fact that your application vendor has already qualified the machine is a major benefit, since the platform has already been integrated and tested and incompatibilties have been ruled out. Especially with vertical market applications.
You may be able to buy Dimension cheaper (though I found the Precisions in fact were cheaper because you could unbundle the home/small office items like speakers and "internet" keyboards) but you'll pay for it in the time you spend sourcing the video card, installing the driverset, and explaining to the support engineer from your app vendor what system you have and why you're not running a qualified platform.
For you, maybe not. But, like any market driven enterprise, there is certainly an audience for television--whether it's high brow or low brow, mainstream or narrowcast.
What Slashdotters need to realize is the world doesn't revolve around them. They're the same people who will walk into a Best Buy and complain none of their prepackaged PCs come with Debian distros--probably with the exact same sentiment.
You don't have to watch if you don't want to, but understand, there are plenty of people who enjoy what IS on television. You're just not the target market.
I see a lot of complaints here that this fellow didn't invent the technology, but I don't think people are giving enough credit for what he DID do.
First, he aligned several multibillion dollar international companies (both content and hardware) to agree on a standard. Many of technically minded here often disparage "PHB" type activities such as negotiation or selling because they don't understand how difficult it is or the nuance and diplomacy (or aggressiveness) it requires. It's tough work yet this guy's efforts at such high level meetings obviously paid off. I don't think anyone should minimize this accomplishment. It's harder than you think.
Second, it's often vision that is much more important that technology. It's really easy to think of the next evolution of a product, to make it faster, or cheaper, but it's difficult to see the next "revolution", especially the business model that comes with it. Again, this is one of those Slashdot things that gets ridiculed to Underpants Gnomes references--it's simply not as obvious as "3. Profit!". Finding the use or market for a technology is as tough as creating the technology itself. Often, it's harder, especially to make the link to established markets or models. This fellow figured out a way to make money off of DVD and to revive a sagging distribution channel.
I thankyou for the link, but $188 for a book about Apples design history? I wouldn't mind so much if there was an ipod mini that comes with it. It's even worse for price when it got so many negative reviews. I'm a mac user and it could be an interesting read, but i think only the die hards would get this to fuel their showboating skills towards other mac users.
It wasn't $188 when I bought it a few years ago...more like $48 Canadian. About right for a design/architecture book.
I don't even own a Macintosh, but personally, it was worth the $50 (but not $188). Not a "collectors item" like a 20th Anniversary Macintosh or a Cube, but enjoyable if you have some interest in product/industrial design and want to learn some of the history/backstory of the design decisions.
You seem to have missed the point I was trying to make. One of the best things about open source software is that the really experienced coders, some of the best in the field, are the ones making the software.
I don't think you understand the vast differences between biotech and software.
First, software development is cheap because the price of entry for the tools required is very low. That's why some Finnish hacker can write his own OS in his spare time.
Biotech on the other hand requires lots of expensive equipment-gene sequencers, centrifuges etc, to do research.
Next, the cost of educating yourself can be low to nil to write some sort of code--buy a book, sign up for a night class etc. You may not be doing full lifecycle software engineering, but you can write scripts, small utilities etc.
Biology on the other hand, requires a LOT of education. Most university or commercial labs require at least a masters degree or even a PhD. People with four year degrees are mostly doing lab rat technician stuff.
Sure there's all the crap out there as well, but people tend to be able to spot which is good and bad.
Your next problem is that it's easy to spot bad software. gnuWhatever crashes? Oh, I guess that's a flaky project. There is no such thing as software regulation either, except for in niche industries. Want to release your code to the world? Just click the mouse. Anyone complains? Route to/dev/null. The cost of bad (open source) software is similarly trivial: Most people shrug, say, well, we didn't pay anything for it anyways, and go to the next package available. (Unlike in enterprise or mission critical software)
Contrast this with clinical testing, which requires a lot of statistical and point of care evaluation by trained professionals, in an environment where regulation is strict and FDA approval costs millions. That's because the end result could be people dying. No government, even the most poor, would take that in exchange.
Anyone who thinks "open source" biotech is ill informed. It's called university or government sponsored research. The "sourceforge" for this is called journal publication.
800 faculty years of almost anyone in the world, or one building. Good going UIUC
I can't see how this comment was modded interesting.
First, faculty and students need buildings to work and learn in. You can hire all the people in the world, but if they don't have a place to run their labs, teach classes etc in, what's the point?
Second, having the best facilities in the world is a draw for leading researchers and students. You can't expect to attract the best with some beat up old building from 1970, can you? This is an investment in the staff and students as much as hiring more TA's or buying new lab equipment.
Third, do you know much UIUC spends overall on their budget for professors salaries? We don't know if this is a fraction of their budget or half of it.
Finally, $80 million is not a lot of money for a university building. It's about average.
Libraries without enough books could always have a link to Project Gutenberg on their start up page.
Except that at the college or university level, especially in higher years, the book requirements are much more obscure-they tend to be very specific, especially in science and engineering fields.
Project Gutenberg has a lot of stuff, but it's general purpose. If you need a specific reference handy, it ain't going to do you a whit of good. That's why universities are still judged on the number of titles available for borrowing at their libraries.
Slashdot Mirror
I honestly don't think this has anything to do with merging with Apple (a stupid rumour) or for that matter, even leveraging Linux over Windows. It's really just shedding an expensive division, saving money and increasing profitability.
It's explained within the first page of the article:
"If it goes through, the deal would allow IBM to continue its shift from selling so-called commodity products toward selling services, software and high-end computers. Although it helped make PCs a global phenomenon, IBM makes little profit from PCs and often loses money, despite the fact that it's an $11 billion business for the company."
IBM's profits come from consulting and integration services, not from selling desktop machines. The price of Windows, Linux or otherwise, or what strategy they push on the desktop is not a big deal in this case.
What I think it comes down to is they're holding onto a division that is building commodity boxes and that's a tough game with competition like Dell. With ODM's and OEM's doing more and more of the design work these days, really all IBM needs is to pitch the stuff, which isn't affected by the sale of this division. The consulting and sales groups already push the hardware in major deals.
If you read the article, the market is slowing:
"That period will see average annual unit shipments slow to 5.7 percent and revenue growth subside to 2 percent, Gartner predicted."
Hence, you're not going to see any more profits from an area which already has razor thin margins. Give the business to the Chinese, since they know how to reduce costs. The biggest problem Asian manufacturers have today is not engineering skill or manufacturing capability. It's branding and marketing. Lenovo bought the IBM brand for five years and it's worth every penny.
It's pretty obvious the American part of the company will be cut, probably because they're expensive:
"It is going to take quite a long time to consummate, and the only way I see this running properly is that if a lot of blood is shed at IBM PC."
The desktops are already made and built by a Chinese firm (as noted in the article) while the money in laptops is made by large corporate sales contracts, not individual units.
In the end, I think it's just getting rid of an unprofitable part of the business, not some super strategic technology move.
They have parking lot displays all over. Toronto's new airport parking structure has them, they've had it in Copenhagen for a while now.
I think that Wil is respected here, because he is an intelligent person who is famous, and hasn't let it go to his head. He is a 'home town nerd, that made good'.
Of course, Hitler himself could post to
Well, that's the part I don't get.
I never claimed the guy was an idiot, just someone who I personally never considered to be particularly worthy of praise.
Now, admittedly, I'm just a member of the average television viewing public with a worthless opinion, but I wouldn't really think of Wil Wheaton as being that famous or interesting. Nor would I consider him a particularly good writer. There are more interesting people, whether they be better actors, are more famous/infamous, or have intelligent things to say.
Is it the combination of the all of the above? He's seems like a "normal" guy, who also happened to be on a big scifi show? These attributes appeal to the Slashdot audience because they fit really well with the demographic here?
As for being ignorant, well, if ignorance of Wil Wheaton fandom is such a bad thing, then I guess I'll have to stay unenlightened. I suppose I just don't see the big deal of having a celebrity that has something to say. It's like the hoopla with Natalie Maines and her anti-George Bush commentary: There are people with better, more insightful things to say about that topic, so why should I care what she says?
Except for most people make changes right before a presentation, or have to show something in Excel, in a web browser, on a specific app etc, live.
Now whenever I see his name on Slashdot, I see everyone praising his hipness. Is it because he posts on Slashdot? Has a blog? Is a role model to countless nerd teenagers? I don't get it. Seriously.
You mean, run into the ground? There's a need for both engineering and marketing. If you left a bunch of engineers to themselves, there's a high probability they'd waste R&D budget on things no one needs or aren't profitable.
So you'd say they do some research on what customers want? Hey, that's called marketing, isn't it?
Well put!
The problem is how you'd link it to the projector, and what the native resolution and quality of the projector is.
The projector either needs a Firewire transceiver and the HDV codec, OR the camera has to put the data out in something high resolution, perhaps RGB (which I think the JVC HDV camera has) or HDMI/DVI. I'm not sure what the Sony cameras has.
Then there's the issue of getting it to the projector. Transmitting regular RGB for VGA is already a pain, requiring all sorts of Extron extenders and the like.
And when you get it there, there's the issue of focusing and all that, assuming your projector has a native resolution high enough. Most of the projectors at the university I went to were severely out of focus and didn't get regularly serviced enough.
The issue of overflow rooms may be better addressed with something like a SMARTboard which digitizes whiteboard markings. It can be linked via screensharing to a second machine in another room.
You're right, the 996MBit stat is think is post HDCAM's (or the early HDW camera's) "filtering".
The idealist in me wants to agree, but realistically, what we'll see is more crap:
-More angsty rich kids making "indie films" that make no damned sense.
-More HD/DVD wedding videos filled with tacky transition effects and shaky handheld underlit shots.
-More slanted special interest group propaganda, filled with hate, revisionism or evangelism.
Now, all of you are probably sharpening your keyboards, saying "who are you to judge"? If publishing a book, presenting a scientific paper, writing a screenplay twenty years ago had one merit, it was the fact you had to get it through some sort of editorial process. Someone did judge, and usually it was someone in the know. You couldn't spout hate on digital video and expect it broadcast on community cable. You couldn't make up pseudo science and have it published to an audience because real scientists would review your paper. But today, there is no review. You're free to host PDFs of your cracknut theories of science, or stream videos of you in your bedsheet over your head burning people at the stake.
Part of me wants to believe that the result of today's technologies (desktop publishing, digital video, the web) means that stories that are underrepresented will be told, that we'll all benefit, but for the time being, I suspect all we'll get is more trash.
...that HDV's recorded bitrate is still 25Mbit/sec. While you might think that is a lot compared to terrestrial HDTV's 18Mbit stream, in fact, it's very little. In production you generally want to record MORE in acquisition than distribution.
The defacto HD production format, HDCAM, records something like 140-180MBit/sec, the uncompressed signal is something like 996MBit/sec.
The most likely market for this camera will be indie filmmakers, documentaries, and industrial/corporate promotional use. The price makes complete sense--and most of the market buying VX2100's and XL1's will probably look seriously at this.
Most broadcast/network HD will still be HDCAM, DVCPRO HD (off the popular Panasonic Varicam) or 35mm transfer.
Calum
Yes, for what you're getting, in comparison to a regular corporate desktop. You're also getting a second machine if the Sun workstation goes down, the user isn't unproductive for the rest of the day, they can still do administrative functions, nontechnical work etc.
It's Sun product, supported and serviced by Sun.
Right, which is not the preferred vendor of regular PCs for the other 90% of a company which will be using regular Windows PCs. Say Dell is my preferred vendor. Will Dell support these unusual cards? No. Will Sun help you load the corporate OS and line of business applications already set up for the rest of your enterprise? Probably not for free.
"Global" OS image loads with their driver sets have to be redone. Technical support routines have to be established with the local desktop support groups--(Remember, you're usually running through an emulation layer of some sort--an extra layer to troubleshoot, even if it's a GUI thing or disk sharing) Applications, especially internal ones, have to be requalified for each platform.
they might not be able to use the card Sun's been selling some version of the card for almost a decade
That's no guarantee it'll work tomorrow when newer Suns might use PCI-X or whatever comes down the pipe. Or if they decide to go with SGI or IBM workstations instead. With a dedicated card, it's an investment tied to that workstation.
From a corporate perspective, these things never make any sense. They're very cool, but they never provide the same performance for the price of a regular desktop machine, and only very specialized applications usually demand their use. These days, corporate PCs need to be standardized, straight across the enterprise to be cost effective; and at that, they need to be fluid (ie, quickly redeployable to other workers) given the fact people get laid off, reorg'd or otherwise.
Because they're expensive. That and it's easier to order a standard corporate PC from their preferred vendor and support contract, instead of trying to work some bridgeboard thing. If the Sun gets upgraded, they might not be able to use the card, while a separate machine can be left alone, repurposed to an accountant or returned from lease to the vendor.
You're right--I think the original poster though was commenting on the low end single proc Precision vs the Dimension/Optiplex desktops.
As for SCSI, unfortunately Dell no longer integrates SCSI on the motherboard AFAIK. They just slap in an Adaptec controller over PCI. I'm also pretty sure you can get SCSI on Optiplex corporate desktops as well.
The desktop precision systems are the same as well. Just a Optiplex or Dimension with a good video card.
The difference between Precision Workstation (and similar products from Compaq and IBM) and other systems, are that they are qualified platforms for specialized applications. So if you want to run a specific MCAD/CAE suite, nonlinear editing tool or scientific visualization system, the fact that your application vendor has already qualified the machine is a major benefit, since the platform has already been integrated and tested and incompatibilties have been ruled out. Especially with vertical market applications.
You may be able to buy Dimension cheaper (though I found the Precisions in fact were cheaper because you could unbundle the home/small office items like speakers and "internet" keyboards) but you'll pay for it in the time you spend sourcing the video card, installing the driverset, and explaining to the support engineer from your app vendor what system you have and why you're not running a qualified platform.
For you, maybe not. But, like any market driven enterprise, there is certainly an audience for television--whether it's high brow or low brow, mainstream or narrowcast.
What Slashdotters need to realize is the world doesn't revolve around them. They're the same people who will walk into a Best Buy and complain none of their prepackaged PCs come with Debian distros--probably with the exact same sentiment.
You don't have to watch if you don't want to, but understand, there are plenty of people who enjoy what IS on television. You're just not the target market.
It's called the ATI eHome Wonder, a MCE2004 class (Connexant Blackbird MPEG2) card:
http://www.ati.com/products/ehome/
Not an AIW Tuner+graphics combo, but an individual tuner. It's quite well done. Hardware seems okay and it's cheap.
I see a lot of complaints here that this fellow didn't invent the technology, but I don't think people are giving enough credit for what he DID do.
First, he aligned several multibillion dollar international companies (both content and hardware) to agree on a standard. Many of technically minded here often disparage "PHB" type activities such as negotiation or selling because they don't understand how difficult it is or the nuance and diplomacy (or aggressiveness) it requires. It's tough work yet this guy's efforts at such high level meetings obviously paid off. I don't think anyone should minimize this accomplishment. It's harder than you think.
Second, it's often vision that is much more important that technology. It's really easy to think of the next evolution of a product, to make it faster, or cheaper, but it's difficult to see the next "revolution", especially the business model that comes with it. Again, this is one of those Slashdot things that gets ridiculed to Underpants Gnomes references--it's simply not as obvious as "3. Profit!". Finding the use or market for a technology is as tough as creating the technology itself. Often, it's harder, especially to make the link to established markets or models. This fellow figured out a way to make money off of DVD and to revive a sagging distribution channel.
It wasn't $188 when I bought it a few years ago...more like $48 Canadian. About right for a design/architecture book.
I don't even own a Macintosh, but personally, it was worth the $50 (but not $188). Not a "collectors item" like a 20th Anniversary Macintosh or a Cube, but enjoyable if you have some interest in product/industrial design and want to learn some of the history/backstory of the design decisions.
If you're interested in Apple's corporate design, there's an excellent book called Apple Design: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group--
8 88 001259/103-7823380-3150263?v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1
I found it while ago at a bookstore and it's quite good.
I don't think you understand the vast differences between biotech and software.
First, software development is cheap because the price of entry for the tools required is very low. That's why some Finnish hacker can write his own OS in his spare time.
Biotech on the other hand requires lots of expensive equipment-gene sequencers, centrifuges etc, to do research.
Next, the cost of educating yourself can be low to nil to write some sort of code--buy a book, sign up for a night class etc. You may not be doing full lifecycle software engineering, but you can write scripts, small utilities etc.
Biology on the other hand, requires a LOT of education. Most university or commercial labs require at least a masters degree or even a PhD. People with four year degrees are mostly doing lab rat technician stuff.
Sure there's all the crap out there as well, but people tend to be able to spot which is good and bad.
Your next problem is that it's easy to spot bad software. gnuWhatever crashes? Oh, I guess that's a flaky project. There is no such thing as software regulation either, except for in niche industries. Want to release your code to the world? Just click the mouse. Anyone complains? Route to
Contrast this with clinical testing, which requires a lot of statistical and point of care evaluation by trained professionals, in an environment where regulation is strict and FDA approval costs millions. That's because the end result could be people dying. No government, even the most poor, would take that in exchange.
Anyone who thinks "open source" biotech is ill informed. It's called university or government sponsored research. The "sourceforge" for this is called journal publication.
You could make some MBAesque comment about crossing the chasm or the inventor's dilemma, but it's easier to remind everyone, hindsight is 20/20.
I can't see how this comment was modded interesting.
First, faculty and students need buildings to work and learn in. You can hire all the people in the world, but if they don't have a place to run their labs, teach classes etc in, what's the point?
Second, having the best facilities in the world is a draw for leading researchers and students. You can't expect to attract the best with some beat up old building from 1970, can you? This is an investment in the staff and students as much as hiring more TA's or buying new lab equipment.
Third, do you know much UIUC spends overall on their budget for professors salaries? We don't know if this is a fraction of their budget or half of it.
Finally, $80 million is not a lot of money for a university building. It's about average.
Except that at the college or university level, especially in higher years, the book requirements are much more obscure-they tend to be very specific, especially in science and engineering fields.
Project Gutenberg has a lot of stuff, but it's general purpose. If you need a specific reference handy, it ain't going to do you a whit of good. That's why universities are still judged on the number of titles available for borrowing at their libraries.
Second, the ABL is not used for homeland defense, but for theatre defense:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/abl/