Saw this little gadget and instantly thought "Finally! I can get my caffeine with out all that bothersome coffee and Mountaing Dew making me pee all the time."
Or, may be not...
Soko
Re:Prettier outside, same junk inside
on
Concept PC 2001
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Yup.
No one realises that if the PC is going to be an information appliance, then it's not likely going to be very upgradeable. How many times have you swapped out parts on your toaster, or even your TV? Likely, you just go buy a new, better one that's already the way you want it. Only chipheads like us want an appliance that we can hot-rod for next to nothing. Welcome to the world of disposable goods.
There's also the argument that things like batter memory architectures and CPU-Perepheral interconnects are rapidly improving and changing, and it's WAY expensive to future proof a PC against changes in foundation architectures. A valid argument, it would seem.
However, when you think about it, why would a manufacturer make a PC that someone would want to keep for years and years by getting simple, cheap upgrades? The perpetual upgrade cycle keeps the PC makers (and the toxic waste disposal companies) in business. Supply/demand in action. Meh.
I want this discussion to end. Not because it's not a valid discussion, but because conclusions have already been made.
Yup. Every time you use and/or improve an Open Source software package, you're drawing that conclusion nearer. As one William H. Gates III put it, "There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle (of freely developed software being commercialised) called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle."
Bill's right - we're breaking the system by accepting the validity (some would say neccesity) of giving away our time and intellectual resources to create things that cannot be forced into artificial scarcity, any who wish to use the fruits of this labour can do so - as long as they agree to only use it for the same purpose. IMHO, Richard Stallman didn't forsee or count on this, it's just a happy accident it turned out this way. There are many people who are (understandably, IMHO) terrified of the GPL - they think that they won't be able to put bread on the table if all software were open sourced, thier creativity would be squashed due to lack of funding and the world as they know it would generally come to an end. And as luck would have it, they're right.
The EFF is a wonderful organization, but look at what they're up against. Look at how hard it is for the ACLU to influence lawmaking, and they've got a support base that's much larger than the EFF. The ACLU has written scathing reports on the threats to civil liberties that the USA-PATRIOT ACT (and the even scarier Illinois version), yet these are being pushed through without any consideration.
I think in order to properly preserve our rights, and more importantly, greatly *EXPAND* them, we need to abandon all notions that the market and the state are on our side, in any way shape or form.
I'm Canadian, and can serve as a willing nom-de-plume for publishing code that's not allowed in the US. See how much US laws affect the process in reality? The laws the state makes are ineffectual, unless they can succesfully stifle communications in some way. And those are usually circumvented in short order, aren't they?
Think about it. I hate to use the cliche, but we're gonna have to fight back. Sitting around on Slashdot, complaining about how we're losing our rights doesn't solve anything.
Fine. Don't fight though - just continue on your merry OSS way then, but purposefully move along your way. Never mind the threats hurled at you, nor the corpses of any combatants you see along the way. To paraphrase someone, if you see damage, route around it. If we all move towards a goal with purpose, and never shy from obtaining the goal, who's to stop us?
Maybe we should, to use the old syndicalist slogan, start building the new world in the shell of the old...
Nope. We will just slowly replace the old world piece by piece, and push anything that doesn't fit in off the edge. The GPL puts software into the commons, kicking and screaming if needs be. Some will definately suffer huge economic losses - very unfortunate, but when you tear down a world to replace it with another, however slowly and carefully, damage happens. The world has already changed - the first bricks of the wall that has been built between a user, thier data and the ways to communicate thier data have already been chipped off. It is this scarcity of easy, inexpensive communications channels that has kept our world from being more about one to one than many to many. When we take control of these channels, and open them to any and all who have the curiosity to try, we put more people on the other side of the wall, and more bricks are chipped off. Eventually, the wall will give. We just need to make sure it comes down on the right heads.
As I've said before, we are the competition to the old economy - and competition at this level at times can get very, very ugly.
would you extend these arguments to support it in non-virtual security?
Depends on the circumstances. See below.
Should the CIA and other international organizations use full exposure? Should they publish something titled, "This is the vulnerability of our Nuclear Piles"? "This is where you can cross the border undetected", "This is how to make a Fake ID?"
To the general public? That would serve no beneficial purpose what-so-ever. To qualified people or professionals who may be able to help withn the problem at hand and/or counter the exploit? Youbetcherass they should. If they refuse to fix any of the problems discovered, in a reasonable amount of time, the whistle should be blown on them in full. The problem comes with the "Qualified Professional" part. IMHO, Culp does have a point (and Schneier seems to agree with me) that dangerous tools need to be kept out of hands that can and will do damage as much as possible. Would you just give a loaded gun to an angry child? (Turnabout is fair play, dude.)
Some sort of professional org should be set up that distributes PGP keys (or some other security system) only to people who show they have the qualifications and need to access exploit and/or exploitable code. Then tools could be written that only are sent via secure, encrypted channels to those with the right keys - and hopefully kept out of the hands of script kiddies.
And before you go off singleing out and bashing Microsoft yet again, remember all systems can have potentially dangerous and destructive security flaws. We need to do this as an industry, including everyone and anyone - even those in the industry we, ummm, have a few problems with.
...ONLY important remedy in the M$-DOJ case is to force open protocols and open data exchange formats. Everything else is just a bonus or bogus
This is the remedy for all companies in the IT industry - not just Microsoft. This would protect consumers, since they would have a choice of tools to use in order to get at thier data. That's really what's at stake here - having some one or some thing get between the user and thier data. Some extract money, some extract code, some extract pain.
With known open standards being enforced by the industry on the industry, we get a level playing field. Then, the company/project/whatever who interacts with the user best and meets thier needs gets the prize, not the one who duped the user into a proprietary format.
(note: The Government may have to enforce this at first since getting the industry to agree on a standard is a daunting task, at best. Having Gates, McNealy and Elliston all in one room at one time may provide enough ego to reach critical mass and create a thermo-nuclear type explosion)
Finally, Bunner submitted his own declaration. He admitted that he had become aware of DeCSS by "reading and participating in discussions held on a news web site entitled 'slashdot.org.'"
This "slashdot.org" is full of people who have no regard whatsoever for traditional IP laws and rights and discuss ways to subvert them at every turn.
The DOJ thing did a very important thing - it showed that Microsoft is fallable, and made IT people all over the globe question why they were using Microsoft's products, and what it really meant for their customers and businesses. Now they are demanding Microsoft actually adhere to industry standards, so they can choose something else if it's a better fit. That is what a Free Market should be.
It made companies brave enough to piss of Microsoft by trying out alternatives. The IT industry is once again interested in investigating other solutions, some of which Microsoft can't destroy or bury through anything else but providing value per $ spent on thier products.
I'm happy - I'm Microsoft's customer again, not thier biatch-yesman-mouthpeice to my companys upper management. I have a choice again - and more choices coming with each passing day, when new code gets posted on myriad CVS servers across the Internet. More choices coming with companies that were heartened enough by the DOJ case to actually develop new, great products that don't require Windows and in some cases directly compete with Windows.
Roll up your sleeves, people, and get back to work. We are the competition.
Is there any way you can think of that would help convince people (based on scientific principles) that centralised security services are a bad idea? That convenience should not come before security?
Think RIAA and MPAA like cabal, bud. These "associations" are comprised of competing companies, yet they seem to work together enough to get what they all want - especially from the companies who make the hardware that consumers need to get at thier wares.
I said nothing about code either - just API specs that game deveolpers all agreed on and would develop to, then ram it down the throats of the OS developers. The $ in savings of basically coding a game once and then supporting that single code base will likely make them co-operate with each other until the spec is done.
All the "normal stuff" is thought to have been made in two steps, one occurring when the universe was roughly three minutes old, and the other some 300,000 years later.
See? Even "God" needs to get it in production, then issue a revision some time later before it's really running right.:0)
(P.S.- My first thought was of "Dork Matter", but then I saw the StarWars DVD ad on the page. *sigh* Too easy...)
Game developers write the specs of gaming APIs they would die for and publish them, so they can be implemented by OSS, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and any other person/entity that cares to implement them?
They would then control thier own destiny - as long as they could resist $ from marketing deptartments - and would have a common set of APIs to support in thier games.
If a game didn't run on PlatformX because of a malformed API, the author of the API implemenation would be on the hook, not the gaming company. IOW, the game authors hold all the trump cards, no one else.
SDL seems to be an atempt at this already, but is it coming from OSS developers or game developers? The difference is important.
"Linux wins, hands-down." A rather glib statement to make with no supporting evidence, don't you think?
No, it's not the type of technical article you're used to or care about, but it does show some of the financial technicalities we may be faced with. What are these articles good for? Changing mindsets and causing businesses to question things, that's all. If *nix is to fend off challenges in the server room and make headway in the application space, it needs more of these.
Why? Well, a CIO may be a real hacker like you and know that *nix is better under the hood, but he needs concrete proof that it will speak the language of his boss, the CEO (or *shudder* the CFO). That language is that of business - the almighty buck, black ink, Shareholder value, whatever you call it, my friend, it's the bottom line. In order to win over those executive or business types who are blinded by the FUD surrounding *nix (that it's hard to use and expensive to admin) it has to be shown that it puts a significant amount of money back in the hands of his company's stakeholders (shareholders or taxpayers) and out of someone elses greedy little paws. Then they will start to seriously look at a *nix solution since the Return On Investment can be shown to be significant.
I personally appreciated this article (e-mail to my CIO leaving soon) from a business standpoint, since it creates the weapons that IT people need to fight and win boardroom battles. The only thing the article missed was the following:
1. Shelving active Windows licenses and software is essentially throwing away pretty valuable assets. Though, with Microsoft's recent licensing changes, they themselves may have made these assets worthless already.
2. Un-brainwas^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HRe-training people to use a different system than they're used to. Always difficult and expensive to get the whole herd pointed in - and all going together in - another direction. Selecting the appropriate apps and proper user education can take care of that for the most part.
3. Business process re-tooling/re-structuring. You change the basis of the tools your employees use, you're going to have to change some of your processes as well - fact of life. This may be a significant cost.
Other than that, the article looks pretty much spot on. There will be times (not many, I'd wager) when the ROI of using a big *nix solution is so small that it won't be worth risking any productivity that exists with Windows, or Windows itself may be a better choice in the end. It comes down to performing due dillegence in order to truly find out. This article just may cause some businesses to question "conventional wisdom", and actually do true due dillegence in selecting the tools thier employees use.
Soko
Re:Somewhat naive - so am I
on
Tiny Apps
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
OK, but why objects and not actual programs? IANAP (I Am Not A Programmer), but an idea I've recently subscribed to is using several small, fast programs that work together in concert be roughly the equivelent of a bigger app. It would work like so (apply NaCl liberally):
A stand alone, plain, small generic text editor knows when there's a spellchecker, font manager etc. available, and would spin them up as separate processes and let them modify the data as needed. These too would be stand alone apps - you could use
"[user@machine MyDir]spellchk Mydoc.txt -lang USEnglish" and it would open the doc and spell check it outside the Text Editor, if you wish. Inserting a spreadsheet into a document would cause the program to context switch to a generic spreadsheet, which would do the calculations and then spin up the layout/font manager, which would tag the spreadsheet data with appropriate formatting info and then pass it back to the Text editor/Word Processor program.
Registering one of these mini apps with the application broker (not an object broker!) means that any other mini app can call on it to do a task - this would make things totally pluggable, and allow for infinite customisation options. You like the KDE interface best, but wish you could use the GNOME spreadsheet? Yank KDEs spreadsheet app and plug in GNOMEs. Need a funtion that you don't have? Go download it and plug it in. Have a function that you don't ever want to see again? Un-plug it and toss it. Want bloat? Use 100s of plugins. Want Speed? Use 10. Get the idea?
Sounds a lot like the development today from KDE, GNOME et. al, but the difference is in the object libraries - those huge, incompatible obfuscated buckets of code snippets (on both Windows and *nix) that always seem to cause problems for each other. Why can't we single purpose them all, and tie them to a mini app? Instead of a library of widgets to edit text that any program can use, why not limit the use of text editing widgets to a single program - the registered text editor. Program then calls test editor program already running. IMHO, development teams would then be able to concentrate on a single function, not 20, and would likely be able to produce small, fast quality code by throwing everything out of thier libraries not pertaining to the function of thier mini app. And if a mini-app is un-installed, the library goes with it, period full stop.
Perhaps then we would end up with code of reasonable size and quaility?
P.S. - Please don't flame me for careless suggestions of shared memory amongst other transgressions, but I'm interested in why the object model is better than programs that communicate actions on data, not just data. Like I said, I don't really know the nitty gritty technicalities of what I'm talking about, but I'm interested. (I'm wearing my asbestos jammies, too.:-] )
My group is has ultimate responsibility for our company's Canada wide WAN based on Cisco equipment. We need to be able to see what the hell is going on when Joe Backhoe digs up the fiberlink in DucksAss Manitoba and knocks out Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria. We need remote access to verify that the telco is indeed down. Since we are also responsible for this WAN, we require the ability to completely control the routers at all times. Without a remote login, we would spend an awful lot on plane tickets. As well, we sometimes need to be able to get to our core routers while we're on the road. That's why remote login exists on this type of equipment - so we can do our job no matter where we are. It's only convenient in very few circumstatnces.
Dial in only to a modem connected to the aux port, you say? That's just another telnet when it comes down to it - you use the same user/password combo across an untrusted network. Call-back from the router? Again, limits us to one or 2 spots - unworkable.
BTW, it's not only rsh, telnet or even ssh that can be a problem - IIRC, there was a Cisco exploit based on SNMP. Something about the RW community string set to public? Like CodeRed, traceable to less than knowlegeable admins, but another backdoor none the less. If any device is connected to an untrusted network at all, it is susceptible to attack - period.
We're contemplating RADIUS or other authentication for the router and switch gear, but that introduces other risks and complications ($). Physical access only would be more secure to be sure, but real world demands kinda toss it out the ethernet port. Sorry.
A plain, un-informed anti-union rant gets +1 Informative? I see this as a troll. Though I may be feeding said troll, I couldn't let this slip by.
Sure, the reason Ford et. al. have all the automation they do is because of the high cost of labour. You think they'd buy a $3M robot to do a job if they could pay a person $5/Hr to do it? It wouldn't make sense, since the robot would likely cost $5M (price+maintenance) over it's useful lifetime of 5 years, and even paying the average person $5/Hr would cost Ford $350K for 35 years. So they would get 10 people for 7 times as long and still pay less money in the end. Oh, why $3M? Because there isn't a computer anywhere that can make decisions better than a human brain of any stature. Computers can crunch data easily, as long as the data is fairly constatnt - humand excell at dealing with dynamic data. It would take a major beowulf cluster to deal with all of the dynamics on an assembly line the way a single human being could deal with them.
Now, since people cost more than machines to use for a lot of the repeditive/boring/dangerous jobs, Ford uses machines for those jobs instead. It's a business - they use it if it contributes to the bottom line. Even the reason for most businesses keeping employees happy is not because of altruism, it's because happy workers are productive workers. Productive workers are cost-effective workers, and cost-effective = more profits.
As far as the price of vehicles go, it's not just Joe Sixpack turning bolts that's getting paid big $, you know - Ford does have a huge salaried contingent as well. All of thier employees contribute to overhead, not just the Unionised staff. I'd make a wild guess that if Union jobs were worth $5/hr, you'd only see the price of a car drop maybe $700.
IOW, it's not as simple as you make it sound, bub. Any economist (as long as they're not a big C conservative) will tell you the same thing - higher wages in one area lead to more jobs in other areas since the people getting more tend to spend more.
Unions have thier place even today (though I do wish they'd try to modernise some of thier attitude just a bit).
Of course Bill & Co. are trying to take over the Internet - they get paid to make as much money as possible for thier shareholders, and the best way to do that for them at this point is to commandeer as much of the Internet as possible. I certainly don't like it either, but it's the reality of a company being too sucessful in a Capitalist economy. Bill Gates is not Satan, he's just a really successful player in the Business Game - he's a symptom, not a disease.
Until we can convince the unwashed masses that the Internet can be a force for world change of the benevolent kind and is not just for businesses and pr0n, crap like this will continue. If it's not Gates, look out for Elliston and/or McNealy - any one of them would co-opt the Internet in a second, given the chance.
1. Some QWest customers do not own Microsoft Windows.
2. Because of an MSN initiative, current customers require Windows to access thier paid for e-mail accounts
3. Windows is a Microsoft product
4. MSN is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft
Microsoft is therefore requiring thier customers who currenlty do not own Windows to buy a in order to continue a service. If there are no other DSL providers in the area, Microsoft is - wittingly or not - leveraging another monopoly to stiffle compeditive products.
"You know the Panasonic or Yamaha CD burners you want to get this Christmas? Well, I've got news for you - save your money. After Christmas all new releases will be encoded and you won't be able to burn your own - and it's about time"
This is really paraphrased, but I have the gist of the quotation. I guess our fair use rights are supposedly forfeited because of the evil Napster. I wish these people would realise it's the price of a CD that was driving the Napster thing, not a willingness to steal. I alomst feel sorry for the record stores, though, since they take orders from the RIAA cabal.
Slashdot Mirror
Saw this little gadget and instantly thought "Finally! I can get my caffeine with out all that bothersome coffee and Mountaing Dew making me pee all the time."
Or, may be not...
Soko
Yup.
No one realises that if the PC is going to be an information appliance, then it's not likely going to be very upgradeable. How many times have you swapped out parts on your toaster, or even your TV? Likely, you just go buy a new, better one that's already the way you want it. Only chipheads like us want an appliance that we can hot-rod for next to nothing. Welcome to the world of disposable goods.
There's also the argument that things like batter memory architectures and CPU-Perepheral interconnects are rapidly improving and changing, and it's WAY expensive to future proof a PC against changes in foundation architectures. A valid argument, it would seem.
However, when you think about it, why would a manufacturer make a PC that someone would want to keep for years and years by getting simple, cheap upgrades? The perpetual upgrade cycle keeps the PC makers (and the toxic waste disposal companies) in business. Supply/demand in action. Meh.
Soko
Nice post. Good points for discussion:
I want this discussion to end. Not because it's not a valid discussion, but because conclusions have already been made.
Yup. Every time you use and/or improve an Open Source software package, you're drawing that conclusion nearer. As one William H. Gates III put it, "There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle (of freely developed software being commercialised) called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle."
Bill's right - we're breaking the system by accepting the validity (some would say neccesity) of giving away our time and intellectual resources to create things that cannot be forced into artificial scarcity, any who wish to use the fruits of this labour can do so - as long as they agree to only use it for the same purpose. IMHO, Richard Stallman didn't forsee or count on this, it's just a happy accident it turned out this way. There are many people who are (understandably, IMHO) terrified of the GPL - they think that they won't be able to put bread on the table if all software were open sourced, thier creativity would be squashed due to lack of funding and the world as they know it would generally come to an end. And as luck would have it, they're right.
The EFF is a wonderful organization, but look at what they're up against. Look at how hard it is for the ACLU to influence lawmaking, and they've got a support base that's much larger than the EFF. The ACLU has written scathing reports on the threats to civil liberties that the USA-PATRIOT ACT (and the even scarier Illinois version), yet these are being pushed through without any consideration.
I think in order to properly preserve our rights, and more importantly, greatly *EXPAND* them, we need to abandon all notions that the market and the state are on our side, in any way shape or form.
I'm Canadian, and can serve as a willing nom-de-plume for publishing code that's not allowed in the US. See how much US laws affect the process in reality? The laws the state makes are ineffectual, unless they can succesfully stifle communications in some way. And those are usually circumvented in short order, aren't they?
Think about it. I hate to use the cliche, but we're gonna have to fight back. Sitting around on Slashdot, complaining about how we're losing our rights doesn't solve anything.
Fine. Don't fight though - just continue on your merry OSS way then, but purposefully move along your way. Never mind the threats hurled at you, nor the corpses of any combatants you see along the way. To paraphrase someone, if you see damage, route around it. If we all move towards a goal with purpose, and never shy from obtaining the goal, who's to stop us?
Maybe we should, to use the old syndicalist slogan, start building the new world in the shell of the old...
Nope. We will just slowly replace the old world piece by piece, and push anything that doesn't fit in off the edge. The GPL puts software into the commons, kicking and screaming if needs be. Some will definately suffer huge economic losses - very unfortunate, but when you tear down a world to replace it with another, however slowly and carefully, damage happens. The world has already changed - the first bricks of the wall that has been built between a user, thier data and the ways to communicate thier data have already been chipped off. It is this scarcity of easy, inexpensive communications channels that has kept our world from being more about one to one than many to many. When we take control of these channels, and open them to any and all who have the curiosity to try, we put more people on the other side of the wall, and more bricks are chipped off. Eventually, the wall will give. We just need to make sure it comes down on the right heads.
As I've said before, we are the competition to the old economy - and competition at this level at times can get very, very ugly.
Soko
would you extend these arguments to support it in non-virtual security?
Depends on the circumstances. See below.
Should the CIA and other international organizations use full exposure? Should they publish something titled, "This is the vulnerability of our Nuclear Piles"? "This is where you can cross the border undetected", "This is how to make a Fake ID?"
To the general public? That would serve no beneficial purpose what-so-ever. To qualified people or professionals who may be able to help withn the problem at hand and/or counter the exploit? Youbetcherass they should. If they refuse to fix any of the problems discovered, in a reasonable amount of time, the whistle should be blown on them in full. The problem comes with the "Qualified Professional" part. IMHO, Culp does have a point (and Schneier seems to agree with me) that dangerous tools need to be kept out of hands that can and will do damage as much as possible. Would you just give a loaded gun to an angry child? (Turnabout is fair play, dude.)
Some sort of professional org should be set up that distributes PGP keys (or some other security system) only to people who show they have the qualifications and need to access exploit and/or exploitable code. Then tools could be written that only are sent via secure, encrypted channels to those with the right keys - and hopefully kept out of the hands of script kiddies.
And before you go off singleing out and bashing Microsoft yet again, remember all systems can have potentially dangerous and destructive security flaws. We need to do this as an industry, including everyone and anyone - even those in the industry we, ummm, have a few problems with.
Soko
Especially when they use a new bio-terror weapon called "Smart Moth".
BTW, could Windows be considered Chlorine bleach?
(I'll be dragged down with you by the mods for those.)
Soko
...ONLY important remedy in the M$-DOJ case is to force open protocols and open data exchange formats. Everything else is just a bonus or bogus
This is the remedy for all companies in the IT industry - not just Microsoft. This would protect consumers, since they would have a choice of tools to use in order to get at thier data. That's really what's at stake here - having some one or some thing get between the user and thier data. Some extract money, some extract code, some extract pain.
With known open standards being enforced by the industry on the industry, we get a level playing field. Then, the company/project/whatever who interacts with the user best and meets thier needs gets the prize, not the one who duped the user into a proprietary format.
(note: The Government may have to enforce this at first since getting the industry to agree on a standard is a daunting task, at best. Having Gates, McNealy and Elliston all in one room at one time may provide enough ego to reach critical mass and create a thermo-nuclear type explosion)
Soko
Finally, Bunner submitted his own declaration. He admitted that he had become aware of DeCSS by "reading and participating in discussions held on a news web site entitled 'slashdot.org.'"
This "slashdot.org" is full of people who have no regard whatsoever for traditional IP laws and rights and discuss ways to subvert them at every turn.
Good work, Rob.
Soko
The DOJ thing did a very important thing - it showed that Microsoft is fallable, and made IT people all over the globe question why they were using Microsoft's products, and what it really meant for their customers and businesses. Now they are demanding Microsoft actually adhere to industry standards, so they can choose something else if it's a better fit. That is what a Free Market should be.
It made companies brave enough to piss of Microsoft by trying out alternatives. The IT industry is once again interested in investigating other solutions, some of which Microsoft can't destroy or bury through anything else but providing value per $ spent on thier products.
I'm happy - I'm Microsoft's customer again, not thier biatch-yesman-mouthpeice to my companys upper management. I have a choice again - and more choices coming with each passing day, when new code gets posted on myriad CVS servers across the Internet. More choices coming with companies that were heartened enough by the DOJ case to actually develop new, great products that don't require Windows and in some cases directly compete with Windows.
Roll up your sleeves, people, and get back to work. We are the competition.
Soko
Is there any way you can think of that would help convince people (based on scientific principles) that centralised security services are a bad idea? That convenience should not come before security?
Soko
Think RIAA and MPAA like cabal, bud. These "associations" are comprised of competing companies, yet they seem to work together enough to get what they all want - especially from the companies who make the hardware that consumers need to get at thier wares.
I said nothing about code either - just API specs that game deveolpers all agreed on and would develop to, then ram it down the throats of the OS developers. The $ in savings of basically coding a game once and then supporting that single code base will likely make them co-operate with each other until the spec is done.
Soko
All the "normal stuff" is thought to have been made in two steps, one occurring when the universe was roughly three minutes old, and the other some 300,000 years later.
:0)
See? Even "God" needs to get it in production, then issue a revision some time later before it's really running right.
(P.S.- My first thought was of "Dork Matter", but then I saw the StarWars DVD ad on the page. *sigh* Too easy...)
Soko
Game developers write the specs of gaming APIs they would die for and publish them, so they can be implemented by OSS, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and any other person/entity that cares to implement them?
They would then control thier own destiny - as long as they could resist $ from marketing deptartments - and would have a common set of APIs to support in thier games.
If a game didn't run on PlatformX because of a malformed API, the author of the API implemenation would be on the hook, not the gaming company. IOW, the game authors hold all the trump cards, no one else.
SDL seems to be an atempt at this already, but is it coming from OSS developers or game developers? The difference is important.
Soko
"Linux wins, hands-down."
A rather glib statement to make with no supporting evidence, don't you think?
No, it's not the type of technical article you're used to or care about, but it does show some of the financial technicalities we may be faced with. What are these articles good for? Changing mindsets and causing businesses to question things, that's all. If *nix is to fend off challenges in the server room and make headway in the application space, it needs more of these.
Why? Well, a CIO may be a real hacker like you and know that *nix is better under the hood, but he needs concrete proof that it will speak the language of his boss, the CEO (or *shudder* the CFO). That language is that of business - the almighty buck, black ink, Shareholder value, whatever you call it, my friend, it's the bottom line. In order to win over those executive or business types who are blinded by the FUD surrounding *nix (that it's hard to use and expensive to admin) it has to be shown that it puts a significant amount of money back in the hands of his company's stakeholders (shareholders or taxpayers) and out of someone elses greedy little paws. Then they will start to seriously look at a *nix solution since the Return On Investment can be shown to be significant.
I personally appreciated this article (e-mail to my CIO leaving soon) from a business standpoint, since it creates the weapons that IT people need to fight and win boardroom battles. The only thing the article missed was the following:
1. Shelving active Windows licenses and software is essentially throwing away pretty valuable assets. Though, with Microsoft's recent licensing changes, they themselves may have made these assets worthless already.
2. Un-brainwas^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HRe-training people to use a different system than they're used to. Always difficult and expensive to get the whole herd pointed in - and all going together in - another direction. Selecting the appropriate apps and proper user education can take care of that for the most part.
3. Business process re-tooling/re-structuring. You change the basis of the tools your employees use, you're going to have to change some of your processes as well - fact of life. This may be a significant cost.
Other than that, the article looks pretty much spot on. There will be times (not many, I'd wager) when the ROI of using a big *nix solution is so small that it won't be worth risking any productivity that exists with Windows, or Windows itself may be a better choice in the end. It comes down to performing due dillegence in order to truly find out. This article just may cause some businesses to question "conventional wisdom", and actually do true due dillegence in selecting the tools thier employees use.
Soko
OK, but why objects and not actual programs? IANAP (I Am Not A Programmer), but an idea I've recently subscribed to is using several small, fast programs that work together in concert be roughly the equivelent of a bigger app. It would work like so (apply NaCl liberally):
:-] )
A stand alone, plain, small generic text editor knows when there's a spellchecker, font manager etc. available, and would spin them up as separate processes and let them modify the data as needed. These too would be stand alone apps - you could use
"[user@machine MyDir]spellchk Mydoc.txt -lang USEnglish"
and it would open the doc and spell check it outside the Text Editor, if you wish. Inserting a spreadsheet into a document would cause the program to context switch to a generic spreadsheet, which would do the calculations and then spin up the layout/font manager, which would tag the spreadsheet data with appropriate formatting info and then pass it back to the Text editor/Word Processor program.
Registering one of these mini apps with the application broker (not an object broker!) means that any other mini app can call on it to do a task - this would make things totally pluggable, and allow for infinite customisation options. You like the KDE interface best, but wish you could use the GNOME spreadsheet? Yank KDEs spreadsheet app and plug in GNOMEs. Need a funtion that you don't have? Go download it and plug it in. Have a function that you don't ever want to see again? Un-plug it and toss it. Want bloat? Use 100s of plugins. Want Speed? Use 10. Get the idea?
Sounds a lot like the development today from KDE, GNOME et. al, but the difference is in the object libraries - those huge, incompatible obfuscated buckets of code snippets (on both Windows and *nix) that always seem to cause problems for each other. Why can't we single purpose them all, and tie them to a mini app? Instead of a library of widgets to edit text that any program can use, why not limit the use of text editing widgets to a single program - the registered text editor. Program then calls test editor program already running. IMHO, development teams would then be able to concentrate on a single function, not 20, and would likely be able to produce small, fast quality code by throwing everything out of thier libraries not pertaining to the function of thier mini app. And if a mini-app is un-installed, the library goes with it, period full stop.
Perhaps then we would end up with code of reasonable size and quaility?
P.S. - Please don't flame me for careless suggestions of shared memory amongst other transgressions, but I'm interested in why the object model is better than programs that communicate actions on data, not just data. Like I said, I don't really know the nitty gritty technicalities of what I'm talking about, but I'm interested. (I'm wearing my asbestos jammies, too.
Soko
Thanks - ACLs are always good. Already done on all our gear.
However, if the IOS has a security flaw, or the password is weak, well, you know the rest.
Soko
My group is has ultimate responsibility for our company's Canada wide WAN based on Cisco equipment. We need to be able to see what the hell is going on when Joe Backhoe digs up the fiberlink in DucksAss Manitoba and knocks out Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria. We need remote access to verify that the telco is indeed down. Since we are also responsible for this WAN, we require the ability to completely control the routers at all times. Without a remote login, we would spend an awful lot on plane tickets. As well, we sometimes need to be able to get to our core routers while we're on the road. That's why remote login exists on this type of equipment - so we can do our job no matter where we are. It's only convenient in very few circumstatnces.
Dial in only to a modem connected to the aux port, you say? That's just another telnet when it comes down to it - you use the same user/password combo across an untrusted network. Call-back from the router? Again, limits us to one or 2 spots - unworkable.
BTW, it's not only rsh, telnet or even ssh that can be a problem - IIRC, there was a Cisco exploit based on SNMP. Something about the RW community string set to public? Like CodeRed, traceable to less than knowlegeable admins, but another backdoor none the less. If any device is connected to an untrusted network at all, it is susceptible to attack - period.
We're contemplating RADIUS or other authentication for the router and switch gear, but that introduces other risks and complications ($). Physical access only would be more secure to be sure, but real world demands kinda toss it out the ethernet port. Sorry.
Soko
As long as you can find the program and it's not an early beta. And the developers actually finish it, so you don't have to.
You did what the parent to your post states - you skirted around the issue by blaming OSS shortcomings on poor marketing.
I'd say you proven him right.
Soko
A plain, un-informed anti-union rant gets +1 Informative? I see this as a troll. Though I may be feeding said troll, I couldn't let this slip by.
Sure, the reason Ford et. al. have all the automation they do is because of the high cost of labour. You think they'd buy a $3M robot to do a job if they could pay a person $5/Hr to do it? It wouldn't make sense, since the robot would likely cost $5M (price+maintenance) over it's useful lifetime of 5 years, and even paying the average person $5/Hr would cost Ford $350K for 35 years. So they would get 10 people for 7 times as long and still pay less money in the end. Oh, why $3M? Because there isn't a computer anywhere that can make decisions better than a human brain of any stature. Computers can crunch data easily, as long as the data is fairly constatnt - humand excell at dealing with dynamic data. It would take a major beowulf cluster to deal with all of the dynamics on an assembly line the way a single human being could deal with them.
Now, since people cost more than machines to use for a lot of the repeditive/boring/dangerous jobs, Ford uses machines for those jobs instead. It's a business - they use it if it contributes to the bottom line. Even the reason for most businesses keeping employees happy is not because of altruism, it's because happy workers are productive workers. Productive workers are cost-effective workers, and cost-effective = more profits.
As far as the price of vehicles go, it's not just Joe Sixpack turning bolts that's getting paid big $, you know - Ford does have a huge salaried contingent as well. All of thier employees contribute to overhead, not just the Unionised staff. I'd make a wild guess that if Union jobs were worth $5/hr, you'd only see the price of a car drop maybe $700.
IOW, it's not as simple as you make it sound, bub. Any economist (as long as they're not a big C conservative) will tell you the same thing - higher wages in one area lead to more jobs in other areas since the people getting more tend to spend more.
Unions have thier place even today (though I do wish they'd try to modernise some of thier attitude just a bit).
Soko
Tmiothy,
;-)
OK, I'll tpye.
How long do I have, BTW?
TIA
Soko
I have a couple of neodymium magnets and yes, they are much fun. Never played with magnetic fluid though.
That explains the form errors trying to reply to this story.
Umm, Michael? Could you keep your fscking magnets away from the fscking servers? Thanks.
Soko
So, you think Windows will be able to detect a virus? Riiiiiiggghttt....
Soko
Of course Bill & Co. are trying to take over the Internet - they get paid to make as much money as possible for thier shareholders, and the best way to do that for them at this point is to commandeer as much of the Internet as possible. I certainly don't like it either, but it's the reality of a company being too sucessful in a Capitalist economy. Bill Gates is not Satan, he's just a really successful player in the Business Game - he's a symptom, not a disease.
Until we can convince the unwashed masses that the Internet can be a force for world change of the benevolent kind and is not just for businesses and pr0n, crap like this will continue. If it's not Gates, look out for Elliston and/or McNealy - any one of them would co-opt the Internet in a second, given the chance.
Soko
Of first glance, you would seem correct.
However, the logical challenge is not that great.
1. Some QWest customers do not own Microsoft Windows.
2. Because of an MSN initiative, current customers require Windows to access thier paid for e-mail accounts
3. Windows is a Microsoft product
4. MSN is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft
Microsoft is therefore requiring thier customers who currenlty do not own Windows to buy a in order to continue a service. If there are no other DSL providers in the area, Microsoft is - wittingly or not - leveraging another monopoly to stiffle compeditive products.
Soko
Thanks. .sig.
;-)
Nice way to kill a story - provide the entire answer in one small, compact link. You've earned your Karma with barely a
Geez.
It's over folks - nothing left to see here, move along.
Oh well - at least I've got some ammo for this ArsTechnica Battlefront thread.
Soko
From Tim Baker of Sunrise Records during MusicNotes @ 6 on my local radio station CHTZ-FM, best as I can remember the quote:
"You know the Panasonic or Yamaha CD burners you want to get this Christmas? Well, I've got news for you - save your money. After Christmas all new releases will be encoded and you won't be able to burn your own - and it's about time"
This is really paraphrased, but I have the gist of the quotation. I guess our fair use rights are supposedly forfeited because of the evil Napster. I wish these people would realise it's the price of a CD that was driving the Napster thing, not a willingness to steal. I alomst feel sorry for the record stores, though, since they take orders from the RIAA cabal.
Soko