Mainframes have always operated with this kind of license. What's more, the more CPU the machine has the more the software costs. This allowed smaller customers to afford the software and push the cost onto bigger customers. The funny thing is that if you run Linux on S/390 they follow traditional client-server licensing (a flat charge per CPU).
While I agree that it's a pain to rent software it does have some good points in a corporate environment.
1.) It forces upgrades. You don't need to worry about that one person running WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS or that ancient copy of AutoCad. Old version of the software typically can't be licensed so you are forced to upgrade.
2.) On mainframe software the support comes with the license so getting support is easy. They want you to continue to pay so they are responsive (usually).
3.) Since upgrades will be foced every few years everyone will need a new PC every few years because MS Office will continue to expand to fill up all available hard disk space and memory. That means there will be a flood of old PCs which will run Linux just fine.
4.) It makes a "free" operating system that much more attractive.
5.) It gurantees MS a constant stream of revenue.
I doubt the average home user would appreciate it and I don't think most companies would swallow it either unless it saves them money in the long run. MS Office may be the leader, but there are other products which can perform the same basic functions that 90% of the population uses.
This was published by IBM some months ago, but this matches actual release of z/OS. From my reading on this there are a few differences between OS/390 and it's successor z/OS. Nothing earth shattering but some cool stuff.
1.) Software cost. On traditional mainframes the amount you paid depended upon the size of the machine. The larger the box the more the cost. To combat this most companies run there mainframes at a very high CPU usage. I've been at places where 100% usage on the CPUs are not at all uncommon. I believe with z/OS this will change and you will be able to purchase based upon usage of the software. This makes it a much more affordable for things like internet business where sudden spikes in usage cause problems. No you can buy a huge box but pay for a small CPU usage. If other mainframe software vendors (like CA) follow this lead it could be a huge reduction in software cost for businesses.
2.) CPU clustering. I believe OS/390 could only have a maximum of 16 CPUs. I've heard that z/OS can have up to 64.
3.) IBM is going trying to force the n-3 upgrade restriction again. Basically IBM releases a new version of the OS every 6 months. If you keep current on maintenance they will assist in an upgrade from any version 3 levels old. For example, if you are going to OS/390 R10 they will help if your current version is R7 or later. IBM always pushed this but Y2K made them make this a strong recomendation rather than a requirement. This is still going to be a tough sell because most companies don't like doing OS upgrades every 2 years.
4.) z/OS is designed to work on there zSeries processors to use all of the new features. I believe you can still run it on a later 9672 machine but you can't do all of the new stuff. That means most companies are going to be forced to buy new hardware and with Amdahl & Hitachi no longer selling IBM compatible mainframes, Big Blue is in a nice position. OS/390 R9 is the last release which will run on the old water-cooled bi-polar boxes. Everything now needs CMOS technology.
6.) 64 bit address spaces have improved. 64 bit was introduced in OS/390 R10 (if you run a new zSeries machine). This really isn't a huge deal to me. The biggest advantage will be DB2 and other databases who will no longer need to use hyperspace to store there data. The average program will probably never need 64 bit addressability (some don't need the current 31 bit addressability). I think the main benefit of the zSeries machine's support of 64 bit is for non-z/OS operating systems (like Linux). The really wierd thing is that you can have one LPAR running 31 bit and another on the same box running 64 bit. It's one line in your LOADxx member to switch back and forth.
7.) TCP/IP got another overhaul to, among other things, make it faster to communicate across LPARS on the same box.
8.) In either z/OS or OS/390 R10 Work Load Manager gained the ability to manage resources across different LPARS instead of just managing an individual LPAR. For those of you who don't know what Work Load Manager (WLM) is, it is a cool little tool that allows you to define what your business goals are and it will manage CPU consumption accordingly. For example, if you can say that you want 90% of a specific transaction to complete within 1 second and 99% of them to complete within 5 seconds. WLM will then increase & decrease CPU accordingly to meet your goals. If it can't meet the goals it will report saying that it's time for either a new box of for you to get realistic about your goals. Its a really nice tool.
There are others, but these struck me as the biggies.
Too often are people bombarded with "respect belief" and "respect others right to choose"
WOW! Nothing like being open minded and fair to other peoples beliefs. Remember that not everyone is you. I have an idea, let's round up all of the people who don't think like you and shoot them.
As for your less than rational explanation for the proof of God let me point out a few things.
First, nature didn't happen by chance. The process is called "evolution" and "survival of the fittest". One species evolves from another and if that evolution is successful the new species survives, otherwise they don't. Look at the Neanderthals. They were very close to us but they were not able to compete with our ancestors so they died out. If you want to believe God had a hand it this or not that's up to you and your personal belief system.
Second, let's assume for the sake of argument that if there is a GOD and it is the same GOD as you believe in. My Catholic education has always tought me that GOD gave us a free will. To me it seems like if GOD didn't want us to do something he would simply make it impossible or would defer to our free will. Aparently GOD has no trouble making things almost impossible for us. Time travel & going faster than the speed of light would be nice, but I don't think GOD wants us to do that (or not yet) so I would say that either he believes that it's our choice or we're ready for it.
Personally I believe that cloning is very premature. The success rate is so low that we should test on other animals to refine the process. I also have a problem because the person taking all of the risks has no choice in the matter. I do however realize that other poeple may not have the same beliefs and may not feel the same way.
Of course there's always a price to pay. Nothing in life is free. When you get up in the morning every action you do has both positive & negative consequences.
If Dr. Gatling did intend his gun to end warfair (I've never heard this before), I'd say that he didn't study his history or human nature very well. The Pope (I forget which one) in the middle ages thought the crossbow was a good invention because it was so horrible that it would certainly end warfair for all time. Both were wrong and, believe it or not, people are aloud to make mistakes. Society has survived the crossbow and the gatling gun. Cloning isn't even designed to be a "weapon", but a medical advance.
True, Dr. Guillotin did intend for his invention to be a merciful form of killing and, for it's day, that's exactily what it was. Hanging at the time was a very messy ordeal and very painful. Given the technology of the time he saw his invention as being a more merciful way of execution. If he hadn't invented it people would still have been hung. He didn't invent his device and say "he look, now we can kill people", he simply said "if we're going to do it let's do it as painless as possible".
Heroin does eliminate suffering. The problem with it is that it's extremely addictive and we now have better methods of controlling pain. Would you rather suffer in pain?
As for the "fools who went down on the Titanic", where do you live? Every action of every day has risks. More people have died in car accidents than the people on the Titanic and yes some good did come of that tragedy. Because of the Titanic most countries force commercial ship lines to have enough life boats for every person on the ship. If the Titanic had not sunk this may not have happened. Society always tries to learn from it's mistakes as well as it's successes. The Challenger accident was another case where the proper safety methods were not in place and, as a result of the tragedy, we now have a more safe space program.
Now we come to your argument of calling people ignorant and imoral. All I have to say on this is that it must be so easy to stand back and enjoy all of the fruits of other people's labor and still say "I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!!!" when something get's misused or an accident happens. When's the last time you were sick and took a sulfer pill? When's the last time you went to the doctor and he put leaches on your body to "drain the evil spirits away"? When's the last time someone you know contracted Polio or Small Pox? We don't even give these things a second thought because Science has given us a way to combat them. It's no accident that the average life span has almost doubled in the last 100 years.
We all will forge the "Brave New World" to come. Including you unless you die or become a self sufficient hermit. If you really want to be productive do more than just bellow negatives.
Here are several reasons that Gasoline is still being used and I doubt any of these will be overcome any time soon.
1.) Gasoline is cheep. Considering that a galon milk costs more in most US areas than a galon of gasoline there's no economic incentive to convert to another fuel. Any new fuel will be expensive until it becomes widely available. Does anyone remember when unleaded gasoline was first introduced? The gasoline was more expensive so people removed the catalytic converter from there cars and used leaded gasoline.
2.) It's relatively safe. Despite what the movies say, gasoline cars don't explode that easily and they don't burst into flames very often (except perhaps Gremlins). Methanol, Hydrogen, and Natural Gas are more combustable than gasoline.
3.) There's a huge infrastructure for the internal combustion engine. Gasoline pumps are only the most visible piece of the infrastructure. There are refineries for the fuel, and mechics to fix the cars when they break. There aren't too many mechanics who know how to fix a car running on a fuel cell. This can be fixed over time but, like all new technology, the first people to use the technology will pay a premium.
4.) The cost to manufacture newer types of cars is expensive. How much money was poured into air bags before they became mainstream in cars? That was just a safety item to get the glitches worked out. Imagine how much it would cost to get the kinks worked out of new engines. Don't forget, the US Federal Government holds car manufactures very responsible for cars. "Lemon Laws" force manufactures to buy back bad cars and I don't think that a new type of engine would be exempt from the laws.
5.) The US is a lawsuit happy country. In a time where you can be sued a cup of hot chocolate which is too hot imagine what an accidental fatality in an experimental car would cost.
6.) The gasoline car is reliable. The technology is solid and dependable. Nobody want's to be stranded at 2:00am in cold weather because of a glitch in a new engine.
7.) People are comfortable with the internal combustion engine. Never underestimate the comfort factor of the consumer.
That's why IBM has has had a record number of sales.
>>... old-technology dinosaurs
Actually mainframes are a good development ground for new technology. Large businesses can afford to pay for expensive stuff. Things like copper processors and fiber channels are not uncommon on mainframes. The last time I checked my PC wasn't even using dedicated I/O channels. When the technology becomes less expensive then it generally goes to lower end processors. Simple economics.
>>VMWare can do exactly the same thing. As could SoftPC from Insignia.
Except I believe that VMWare & SoftPC need to accomplish a lot of this through software emulation due to processor limitations. Most of VM is done at the hardware level to avoid the emulation slowdown. And, of course, VM has been doing this for decades.
Actually I'm a 28 year old OS/390 Systems Programmer who doesn't like the Grateful-dead and really dislikes COBOL. I've never even had a beard. I will admit I have a few grey hairs (darned kid).
>>...themselves seem "sexy"...
My wife thinks I'm sexy. So there.
>>...hot new IPOs they think of Linux, NOT IBM.
I would hope the public they don't think of IBM. After all, the I stands for INITIAL and IBM has been a backbone in the stock market for decades. I am curious, when is Linux going to have an IPO? I must be too ignorant because I wasn't even aware that Linux was a company.
>>...shave off those beards, come out from behind the glass wall and start interacting like normal human beings.
As I said, I don't have a beard and my data center doesn't have a glass wall. I guess I deprived. When I want to interact like a normal human being I'll be sure to do it as an Anonymous Coward on a web site.
>>...pretending they are "Scottie" on the Starship Enterprise, and acting like nobody understands computers except them.
I don't pretend I'm scotty. I've always been partial to Mr. Spock. I don't pretend that nobody else understands computers. I just pretend that nobody understands MY computers like me (and most people don't). A subtile difference, but a difference never the less.
>>...centralising...
Unless you work in a small peer-to-peer network, every server is a "central" place. That's the whole definition of "server".
>>..."technical experts"...
I prefer the term "technical specialist" because few people are true experts. Most are like doctors in that they are good in a specific area. Running a linux server doesn't make you a technical expert, just a specialist.
>>...but no, they refuse to go away
As soon as all the work goes away, I can assure you that we won't be around. So far I've seen nothing but large growth in my regions.
>>...refused to create me an account...
If it's obsolete, why do you need an account? Just run the work from your Sun box.
>>What century is this ?
The same century as it's been for the last 99 years. The 20th century. The 21st doesn't start for about 9 months.
>>Forms ?
Those are those pieces of paper you actually write on and place them in the mail because workflow management hasn't been implemented in a reliable fashion at your place of work. This isn't a mainframe issue, but a process issue.
>>Please spare me!!!
Sounds like since you didn't fill out the correct forms, you spared yourself.
>>...Solaris as the OS of choice for high-volume OLAP and OLTP applications...
Most of the worlds data still resides on mainframes. The vast majority of business critical transactions still run inside CICS. When large amounts of money or resources are on the line most large companies still reside on the mainframe because it's too reliable to replace.
>>...the death knell for these anachronistic monsters...
The mainframe has been declared dead more times than the Amiga (and that's a lot). Most of this took place in the 80s & early 90s when midrange & PCs were going to kill it. We're still here. Now with the Internet mainframes are growing again because on the backend nobody cares what the OS is as long as you can get to it through a browser. >>thank you
No, thank you for posting such a biased, well thought out, resarched post.
No operating system runs "natively" on S/390 hardware. OS/390 and VM itself are controlled by the LPAR microcode in the machine itself. This code is primarily an offshoot of VM and allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time in logical partitions. Linux will run in an LPAR as a primary OS. The overhead in this is really minimal and if you were to dedicate an entire box to Linux you would see almost zero overhead for the LPAR microcode.
Probably not effective for 24 low end machines, but when it comes to bang for the buck most articles I've read state the S/390 is among the most cost effective form of computing. If you're a very large company and you have a few hundred expensive Sun or HP servers, your numbers might be a little different.
Again, if you work for a large company you've probably got a S/390 sitting and running some pretty critical stuff. This is really targeting those companies who already have a S/390 and have the experience to maintain it or those companies whose server farm has grown too fast to manage.
Not to be a doubting Thomas, but I really doubt this will happen in the near future. There are really quite a number of reasons which would prevent this from happening:
- The port would difficult because there is almost certainly a lot of Windows and/or Mac specific code in Office.
- They would need to actually support Office on Linux and train their support people to use Linux. This would mean more people and more code to track.
- They would probably catch all kinds of flack if they didn't support Office on non-Intel processors.
- They would take a serious PR hit by formally recognizing a competitor in the desktop space.
- WordPerfect for Linux, Star Office, K-Office and a lot of other word processors are free (at least for home use). MS couldn't compete completely with this model unless they made Office for Linux free for home use. If they made Office for Linux free for home use, they would probably catch bad PR if they charged for Office for Windows. This is a lot of money to MS.
- The Linux port would almost certainly cost more than it's Windows counterpart to offset the porting & support cost. Would you spend 2x as much as a Windows version for the same thing? Especially since most people get Windows for "free" with their PC.
- They would actually face competition in this market from the existing install base. The existing distros tend to include competing products to Office.
Don't get me wrong, I think if MicroSoft is broken up that it could possibly happen, but I just think that by the time it does happen it won't matter any more.
I guess I'm a purist, but Office Suites are getting close to saturation with features. How many of the new features in Office does the average person use? I really don't use my word processor for anything more complex than I did 5 years ago. Eventually people will become tired of the forced upgrade and the useless features. When this happens the office suites will become more like a commodity than a product.
But then again, maybe I'm living in a dream world.
You're comparing apples & oranges. If you need 24x7 then 1 S/390 won't do the job (but neither will 1 PIII). With Parallel Sysplex you can easily get 24x7 reliability with 2 mainframes (both of which may run on the same box).
What's more, if you run a little piece of software called Work Load Manager and you run OS/390 you have the best scalability available. With Work Load Manager you can define performance directives for your web server. What's more, different areas of the web server can have different priorities so you can manage your web site more effectively.
While this may not sound impressive (it didn't to me the first time I heard it), someone put it into perspective with this example:
Imagine that you're a large company. You not only need reliability, but you also need scalability. The majority of your data resides on OS/390 and you provide web access to it running IBM's HTTP server on OS/390.
You have 2 customers sign on at about the same time. Customer #1 does a very small amount of business with you. Customer #2 is one of your biggest ones and you need to keep them happy. Customer #2 is also the typical 900 pound gorilla who demands responsiveness or they'll take their business somewhere else. With any other web server both customers would typically have the same priority and you need to build an infrastructure capable of meeting the needs of Customer #2 at all times. With OS/390 you can declare performance directives so that Customer #2 gets higher response time than Customer #1. Both customers are happy and you can manage your system resources more efficiently.
I don't know of any other system which can do this. If you think it's worthless, you'll probably encounter it. I bet it won't be too long before on-line banks start doing this based upon the amount of money in your account. If you have $10.00 in your account then you'll get crappy response from the bank. If you have $10,000 the bank's web site will probably be much more responsive.
Actually it depends on what you're doing. I can't comment on Linux specifically on S/390 but I can comment on OS/390 running on S/390.
One of the problems that server farms can face is the issue of support. If you install 8 intel boxes you must support 8 intel boxes. Generally speaking, supporting server is easier than multiple smaller boxes. The problem also isn't with making a 99.99999% availablility, but with making a site scalable for a large amount of traffic. If you need a few dozen servers to handle the traffic and availability, a single S/390 platform may give you better response and reliability.
The other issue that makes S/390 a good platform is that the hardware is extremely reliable. I read that the CPUs have an average failure rate of 1 failure every 30 years. Not too shabby and if it does fail the entire box doesn't crash, the underlying microcode just makes that CPU unavailable and will notify IBM support. If you have a spare CPU available it will even turn the spare on so you don't loose processing power. I've also heard rumors that future releases of S/390 will allow you to dynamically turn on CPUs so if you run out of processing power you can perform an upgrade with one command and never taking down the box.
Another advantage (as the article mentions) is disaster recovery situations. Mainframe DR plans have been in place for decades. Again backing up and restoring 1 system is typically much easier than multiple smaller servers. The hardware is also much more standardized than PC platforms so finding a DR site is not terribly difficult.
Also, don't let the cost of the mainframe fool you. They are a lot cheaper than you might believe. The old style of mainframes needed plumbing for the water which made the costs very expensive. The newer CMOS boxes don't require external plumbing and have a footprint the size of a large filing cabinet. So size & plumbing are no longer a problem like they were 15 years ago.
I'm not saying that S/390 will make other servers obsolete, but if you have the need and the money it definitely gives you an attractive alternative. Also don't forget that some people estimate that 60-80% of the world's data still resides on these old boxes.
As for the rational of running a free OS on a mainframe, that would be attractive to some because the software costs can quickly add up on a mainframe. Generally speaking the faster the mainframe you have, the more expensive the software becomes. A free OS could result in a huge budget savings for a company.
Again, it won't be for everyone (heck it won't be attractive to most people), but for some this will definitely be a good solution to a difficult problem.
My understanding is that Linux doesn't currently run under OS/390, but rather it is able to run in it's own LPAR on S/390 or as a guest under VM. If I'm wrong please correct me. I'd love it if IBM makes Unix System Services under OS/390 compatible with Linux. That and some way to have USS be an ASCII character set would be great.
How about telling us what all those machines are used for. Anyone can start up a server and sit it in a closet for a year. If nobody uses the server it will probably stay up until the power is interrupted. Now, get a big box with a lot of DB activity & users pounding away at it and let's see how strong it is. It's also worth noting that some people believe that theraputic reboots can help prevent problems before they occur. I'd rather take a planned outage window every Saturday night than crash one Monday morning.
Uptime means nothing. It's what you do with the box that counts.
Nothing really runs on "bare metal" anymore. Even OS/390 is serviced by the microcode which is a stripped down version of VM.
As far as revealing the inner workings, if someone really wants to know that they could read the OS/390 Principles of Operations on IBM's bookmanager site. That reveals a lot on how OS/390 interacts with the hardware. From that you could learn a lot.
But I digress... I also doubt IBM will release a version of Linux without it being dependent upon another OS because of the enormous effort in a direct port. Think of all of the hardware interfaces that would need to be written. The effort would be enormous.
I bet they: 1.) port the gnu compiler and allow for direct compilation of Linux programs to work within OS/390 Unix Services, and/or 2) Offer Linux under VM as a standalone OS. VM runs other operating systems really well. Both of these would reduce the porting effort because the actual hardware would be hidden. Of course a good port would provide the S/390 platform new applications, something it needs very badly.
I believe that this could be good for IBM and Linux.
OS/390 which runs on the S/390 platform currently has a Unix variant running along with "traditional" MVS. A cross compiler which runs Linux programs under this environment would be a tremendous advantage. It would open a lot of programs to the mainframe which would be a real big plus to IBM. As someone who's used Unix System Services, I can say it's not bad but it is definitely suffering from a lack of native applications.
I doubt IBM would sell a whole lot more S/390 boxes running Linux only. They tried something similar to this by offering a S/390 machine running OS/390 Unix System Services only. They stopped offering it because most traditional mainframe shops are not going to buy a unix mainframe at the expense of their existing programs. Buying another box for Unix is also a rather expensive alternative. Running both would definitely be a plus.
Regardless of if Microsoft is a monopoly in the desktop market, can they win every battle they've chosen to fight?
In the handheld market Palm is not only surviving against Windows CE, but thriving. A few years ago a lot of people took it for granted that Palm would be road kill. Now if you were developing for the handheld market you wouldn't think about ignoring Palm's huge market.
In the low-end server market NT continues to be strong, but Linux & the BSDs are making progress in shops which a few years ago wouldn't have chosen anything but NT. Cost of the OS and the lower system requirments make NT a less attractive alternative to a lot of people.
In the high-end server where cost is less of an issue, the commercial Un*x makers & OS/390 continue to be the standard. They've got amazing reliability and can deal with many more users than NT currently can.
In the gaming market Microsoft is aparently fearing the growing power of game consoles like the PS2. Now they're reportedly making an entry into that market as well.
The desktop is one area where Microsoft really isn't facing a competative threat. Here the government & Caldera are persuing them for antitrust violations.
On the portal phase I don't think MSN has ever turned a profit despite a large amount of investment by MS.
Sure, MS makes tons of money and they certainly won't disappear from the market, but can even they fight so many battles? How much money can they spend on new markets, lawyers, & unprofitable segments before the markets they currently dominate start to suffer?
If I understand the topic correctly, a mollecular computer should be make todays computer look like a turtle racing a ferrari. Current encryption methods are based on the theory that there isn't enough CPU power to use the brute force method of breaking the key. These would change that and could make e-commerce much less secure. I guess 56 bit encryption in the face of this would be laughable. Yes, I know we're talking about years before this is ready, but it's still exciting stuff.
A while ago our local news did a story on this. They interviewed our local Congressman and he claimed that this was a total hoax. He said there is no legislation being proposed to tax email and that this is a total internet rumor to try and discourage the government from taxing internet commerce (which they probably will do). Anyway, how could they tax email? The effort in tracking it would be enormous given the fact that lots of email is inter-country. I really don't care if they would put a tiny tax on email (maybe $0.01 per message). It would sure stop a good number of spam messages.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I think it's about time for a reality check here folks. First let's keep in mind what Sun's business is. It isn't selling software or hardware, it's making there shareholders money. Shareholders probably don't care where the money comes from, as long as it's a steady stream of nice positive numbers. If that offends you I urge you to sell any stock you hold in Sun, IBM, Microsoft, or the majority of other publically traded companies. I'm not saying that I agree with it, I'm just saying that this is the way it works. Now, Sun decided not to ship NAS on Linux. If you don't agree with it I would suggest that you either sell your stock in Sun or you sign a petition that you would be willing to purchase a copy of NAS if it is available for Linux. If you get enough people to do either of these situations then you could impact Sun's ability to make money so they would probably listen. IBM did with VisualAge for Java, I'll be willing to bet that Sun will too. For those who think that Sun's the next evil empire and anyone using Java, you are may be correct, but what you don't appear to realize is that almost every company wants to be in Microsoft's position. Think about it, if Bill G. even mentions a new product (regardlessn if it ever sees the light of day), Microsoft and its shareholders make money. IBM was once in this position and it was once an extremely hated company. Microsoft is now. Sun wants it's turn. Yes, Sun will probably use Java for this (if it is ever strong enough). Right now I continue to beleive that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If Sun ever makes Java a viable application platform (instead of it's middle tier position now), then perhaps it can make ISVs port their applications to Java. If it runs in Java it runs on Linux. If it runs on Linux it helps Linux gain popularity. We can deal with Sun when/if Sun becomes the next evil empire. I've also read a whole lot of commenting about the Sun-AOL purchase of Netscape. We all really have nobody but ourselves to blame for this, and we should all be ashamed. When Netscape opened it's source it was the first real honest attempt to show that there was a better way of developing software and it was possible to make money. What happened, unfortunately, is few people took the time to contribute. As a result Netscape 5.0 was behind and they never retgained much market share from IE. If we had all contributed maybe Netscape 5.0 would have been out last year and it would have blown the socks of Internet Explorer. What's worse than Netscape going under is now other companies will say "Why open up the source? Look at how it helped Netscape."
It's a nice idea if it's possible. If you're a single parent (either through divorce/death/otherwise) it's a little hard to be a stay-at-home parent. I think the more important aspect of raising a child is to just be involved and be a parent as opposed to a roommate. Listen to them and don't dismiss them as a "stupid kid". Please don't get me wrong, if it's at all possible to have a parent stay with a child it's a good idea. My wife and I tried to both stay working after my son was born and she wound up quitting because it wasn't worth the money. Now we just won't buy a new car for a while or go out to eat as often or have cable TV (but that's another story). I played Doom, and D&D. I listened to heavy-metal music. I wore black cloths. I definitely wasn't the most popular person in school. I wasn't a "jock". I had easy access to guns. But my parents listened, talked, disiplined, and knew what I was doing. Well at least they new 95% of what I was doing:)
Hopefully this will push other vendors to support Linux development tools as well. Once a few DB products were released on Linux others quickly followed, it would be nice if this happened again (VisualAge Java is one of the 2 products I still regularly use Windows for). The more application tools that are avaiilable, the more applications that will be written. I hope Borland gets back some market share with this.
If they actually made the Windows kernel open & free I'd be very cautious. I wouldn't be suprised if MicroSoft put a clause that if you downloaded a MicroSoft kernel you couldn't work on another kernel without being in violation of a NDA. As for the WINE folks, I'd almost gurantee that MicroSoft would put a restriction on porting their APIs to other operating systems. Call me a cynic, but this is probably just a PR stunt. What I could see happening more readily is MicroSoft selling you the rights to look at pieces of the code as long as you sign 30,000 pages of legal contracts.
Slashdot Closed due to legal action
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I personally liked the User Friendly joke. The coordination effort involved was impressive and it had just enough panic about it to be believable. When you expanded it to other cartoons, though, it lost some credability. Nicely done. When I read it I was upset for a few seconds before I realized it was April Fools. I wonder how many more people would have paniced if you had said that Slashdot was closed due to legal actions brought about by the some anonymous user comments. Then again, that may have hit a little too close to reality. 8^)
I for one am not worried about this. I really doubt MicroSoft would do this for several reasons.
1.) Porting it would probably be a real pain. They would need to play by the same rules as everyone else. If they decided to move the Windows API to Linux to accomplish this, it would be another layer of complexity and failure points which they would need to support. Not to mention the speed loss that would happen by going from Office->Win API->Linux.
2.) It could hurt NT. Don't forget Bill's other cash cow. If they support Linux it would reduce the "lack of user applications" argument. That is a large reason Linux isn't killing Windows today.
3.) It could cost them revenue. Think about it. If I want to use an Office application for Linux, am I going to buy Office or download WordPerfect for free? Granted it's only allowed for personal use, but MS does get a large chunk of change from the home users who purchase a new version of Office when it is released.
4.) It could prompt others ISVs to port to Linux. A large portion of the Windows community seems to use Windows as a guage. If MS appears to be running to Linux, others might follow.
5.) The Linux community is a lot more anti-MicroSoft than the Windows community. MicroSoft would have a rather harsh interaction with these people.
If they do anything with Linux it would probably be something like "This piece runs on a Linux server but requires a NT workstation". Most likely they just want to cover their bases and find more potential revenue sources.
This argument is similar to when Corel announced WP for Linux. Corel, in my opinion, has done Linux a favor. Not only did they provide a port to Linux but they provided corporate resources to Wine. I think that really helped calm a lot of fears about their intention. I don't think MS will be so kind and they'll eventually fail.
But then again, what do I know. I still love OS/390.
If the Y2K was even close to as big of a problem as was hyped, then we should already be seeing a large amount of problems.
Things won't magically stop working at 00:00:01 01/01/2000. The closer we get the more problems we should encounter because a lot of programs which use dates also look forward in time for predictions & scheduling. A few articles commented on this around Jan 1, 99. They said how amazingly smooth the last new year was and there were a lot fewer Y2K problems encountered than anyone expected.
I've talked with reps from my local power company. He can says that they are ready. The telephone company says the same thing. I've talked to a gasoline company and they say the exact same thing. If I remember correctly, Wall Street did a Y2K test and it passed. And don't withdrawl your money from the banks. For one thing, banks are insured so you'll get your money and for another, I think I remember reading financial institutions have had to prove their Y2K compliant months ago or face serious fines from the US government.
And IF we loose power, how long does anyone believe it will be out? Power outages happen all of the time (car accidents, storms, & brown-outs) and nobody freaks out.
The major stuff will keep working and the minor stuff will probably just be an annoyance. The really interesting thing will be how many small companies go belly-up from not being prepared.
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Mainframes have always operated with this kind of license. What's more, the more CPU the machine has the more the software costs. This allowed smaller customers to afford the software and push the cost onto bigger customers. The funny thing is that if you run Linux on S/390 they follow traditional client-server licensing (a flat charge per CPU).
While I agree that it's a pain to rent software it does have some good points in a corporate environment.
1.) It forces upgrades. You don't need to worry about that one person running WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS or that ancient copy of AutoCad. Old version of the software typically can't be licensed so you are forced to upgrade.
2.) On mainframe software the support comes with the license so getting support is easy. They want you to continue to pay so they are responsive (usually).
3.) Since upgrades will be foced every few years everyone will need a new PC every few years because MS Office will continue to expand to fill up all available hard disk space and memory. That means there will be a flood of old PCs which will run Linux just fine.
4.) It makes a "free" operating system that much more attractive.
5.) It gurantees MS a constant stream of revenue.
I doubt the average home user would appreciate it and I don't think most companies would swallow it either unless it saves them money in the long run. MS Office may be the leader, but there are other products which can perform the same basic functions that 90% of the population uses.
This was published by IBM some months ago, but this matches actual release of z/OS. From my reading on this there are a few differences between OS/390 and it's successor z/OS. Nothing earth shattering but some cool stuff.
1.) Software cost. On traditional mainframes the amount you paid depended upon the size of the machine. The larger the box the more the cost. To combat this most companies run there mainframes at a very high CPU usage. I've been at places where 100% usage on the CPUs are not at all uncommon. I believe with z/OS this will change and you will be able to purchase based upon usage of the software. This makes it a much more affordable for things like internet business where sudden spikes in usage cause problems. No you can buy a huge box but pay for a small CPU usage. If other mainframe software vendors (like CA) follow this lead it could be a huge reduction in software cost for businesses.
2.) CPU clustering. I believe OS/390 could only have a maximum of 16 CPUs. I've heard that z/OS can have up to 64.
3.) IBM is going trying to force the n-3 upgrade restriction again. Basically IBM releases a new version of the OS every 6 months. If you keep current on maintenance they will assist in an upgrade from any version 3 levels old. For example, if you are going to OS/390 R10 they will help if your current version is R7 or later. IBM always pushed this but Y2K made them make this a strong recomendation rather than a requirement. This is still going to be a tough sell because most companies don't like doing OS upgrades every 2 years.
4.) z/OS is designed to work on there zSeries processors to use all of the new features. I believe you can still run it on a later 9672 machine but you can't do all of the new stuff. That means most companies are going to be forced to buy new hardware and with Amdahl & Hitachi no longer selling IBM compatible mainframes, Big Blue is in a nice position. OS/390 R9 is the last release which will run on the old water-cooled bi-polar boxes. Everything now needs CMOS technology.
6.) 64 bit address spaces have improved. 64 bit was introduced in OS/390 R10 (if you run a new zSeries machine). This really isn't a huge deal to me. The biggest advantage will be DB2 and other databases who will no longer need to use hyperspace to store there data. The average program will probably never need 64 bit addressability (some don't need the current 31 bit addressability). I think the main benefit of the zSeries machine's support of 64 bit is for non-z/OS operating systems (like Linux). The really wierd thing is that you can have one LPAR running 31 bit and another on the same box running 64 bit. It's one line in your LOADxx member to switch back and forth.
7.) TCP/IP got another overhaul to, among other things, make it faster to communicate across LPARS on the same box.
8.) In either z/OS or OS/390 R10 Work Load Manager gained the ability to manage resources across different LPARS instead of just managing an individual LPAR. For those of you who don't know what Work Load Manager (WLM) is, it is a cool little tool that allows you to define what your business goals are and it will manage CPU consumption accordingly. For example, if you can say that you want 90% of a specific transaction to complete within 1 second and 99% of them to complete within 5 seconds. WLM will then increase & decrease CPU accordingly to meet your goals. If it can't meet the goals it will report saying that it's time for either a new box of for you to get realistic about your goals. Its a really nice tool.
There are others, but these struck me as the biggies.
Later...FJ
Too often are people bombarded with "respect belief" and "respect others right to choose"
WOW! Nothing like being open minded and fair to other peoples beliefs. Remember that not everyone is you. I have an idea, let's round up all of the people who don't think like you and shoot them.
As for your less than rational explanation for the proof of God let me point out a few things.
First, nature didn't happen by chance. The process is called "evolution" and "survival of the fittest". One species evolves from another and if that evolution is successful the new species survives, otherwise they don't. Look at the Neanderthals. They were very close to us but they were not able to compete with our ancestors so they died out. If you want to believe God had a hand it this or not that's up to you and your personal belief system.
Second, let's assume for the sake of argument that if there is a GOD and it is the same GOD as you believe in. My Catholic education has always tought me that GOD gave us a free will. To me it seems like if GOD didn't want us to do something he would simply make it impossible or would defer to our free will. Aparently GOD has no trouble making things almost impossible for us. Time travel & going faster than the speed of light would be nice, but I don't think GOD wants us to do that (or not yet) so I would say that either he believes that it's our choice or we're ready for it.
Personally I believe that cloning is very premature. The success rate is so low that we should test on other animals to refine the process. I also have a problem because the person taking all of the risks has no choice in the matter. I do however realize that other poeple may not have the same beliefs and may not feel the same way.
Of course there's always a price to pay. Nothing in life is free. When you get up in the morning every action you do has both positive & negative consequences.
If Dr. Gatling did intend his gun to end warfair (I've never heard this before), I'd say that he didn't study his history or human nature very well. The Pope (I forget which one) in the middle ages thought the crossbow was a good invention because it was so horrible that it would certainly end warfair for all time. Both were wrong and, believe it or not, people are aloud to make mistakes. Society has survived the crossbow and the gatling gun. Cloning isn't even designed to be a "weapon", but a medical advance.
True, Dr. Guillotin did intend for his invention to be a merciful form of killing and, for it's day, that's exactily what it was. Hanging at the time was a very messy ordeal and very painful. Given the technology of the time he saw his invention as being a more merciful way of execution. If he hadn't invented it people would still have been hung. He didn't invent his device and say "he look, now we can kill people", he simply said "if we're going to do it let's do it as painless as possible".
Heroin does eliminate suffering. The problem with it is that it's extremely addictive and we now have better methods of controlling pain. Would you rather suffer in pain?
As for the "fools who went down on the Titanic", where do you live? Every action of every day has risks. More people have died in car accidents than the people on the Titanic and yes some good did come of that tragedy. Because of the Titanic most countries force commercial ship lines to have enough life boats for every person on the ship. If the Titanic had not sunk this may not have happened. Society always tries to learn from it's mistakes as well as it's successes. The Challenger accident was another case where the proper safety methods were not in place and, as a result of the tragedy, we now have a more safe space program.
Now we come to your argument of calling people ignorant and imoral. All I have to say on this is that it must be so easy to stand back and enjoy all of the fruits of other people's labor and still say "I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!!!" when something get's misused or an accident happens. When's the last time you were sick and took a sulfer pill? When's the last time you went to the doctor and he put leaches on your body to "drain the evil spirits away"? When's the last time someone you know contracted Polio or Small Pox? We don't even give these things a second thought because Science has given us a way to combat them. It's no accident that the average life span has almost doubled in the last 100 years.
We all will forge the "Brave New World" to come. Including you unless you die or become a self sufficient hermit. If you really want to be productive do more than just bellow negatives.
Here are several reasons that Gasoline is still being used and I doubt any of these will be overcome any time soon.
1.) Gasoline is cheep. Considering that a galon milk costs more in most US areas than a galon of gasoline there's no economic incentive to convert to another fuel. Any new fuel will be expensive until it becomes widely available. Does anyone remember when unleaded gasoline was first introduced? The gasoline was more expensive so people removed the catalytic converter from there cars and used leaded gasoline.
2.) It's relatively safe. Despite what the movies say, gasoline cars don't explode that easily and they don't burst into flames very often (except perhaps Gremlins). Methanol, Hydrogen, and Natural Gas are more combustable than gasoline.
3.) There's a huge infrastructure for the internal combustion engine. Gasoline pumps are only the most visible piece of the infrastructure. There are refineries for the fuel, and mechics to fix the cars when they break. There aren't too many mechanics who know how to fix a car running on a fuel cell. This can be fixed over time but, like all new technology, the first people to use the technology will pay a premium.
4.) The cost to manufacture newer types of cars is expensive. How much money was poured into air bags before they became mainstream in cars? That was just a safety item to get the glitches worked out. Imagine how much it would cost to get the kinks worked out of new engines. Don't forget, the US Federal Government holds car manufactures very responsible for cars. "Lemon Laws" force manufactures to buy back bad cars and I don't think that a new type of engine would be exempt from the laws.
5.) The US is a lawsuit happy country. In a time where you can be sued a cup of hot chocolate which is too hot imagine what an accidental fatality in an experimental car would cost.
6.) The gasoline car is reliable. The technology is solid and dependable. Nobody want's to be stranded at 2:00am in cold weather because of a glitch in a new engine.
7.) People are comfortable with the internal combustion engine. Never underestimate the comfort factor of the consumer.
>>Unix has KILLED the mainframe market.
That's why IBM has has had a record number of sales.
>>... old-technology dinosaurs
Actually mainframes are a good development ground for new technology. Large businesses can afford to pay for expensive stuff. Things like copper processors and fiber channels are not uncommon on mainframes. The last time I checked my PC wasn't even using dedicated I/O channels. When the technology becomes less expensive then it generally goes to lower end processors. Simple economics.
>>VMWare can do exactly the same thing. As could SoftPC from Insignia.
Except I believe that VMWare & SoftPC need to accomplish a lot of this through software emulation due to processor limitations. Most of VM is done at the hardware level to avoid the emulation slowdown. And, of course, VM has been doing this for decades.
>>...old-fashoned Grateful-dead listening gray haired bearded mainframe COBOL gurus...
Actually I'm a 28 year old OS/390 Systems Programmer who doesn't like the Grateful-dead and really dislikes COBOL. I've never even had a beard. I will admit I have a few grey hairs (darned kid).
>>...themselves seem "sexy"...
My wife thinks I'm sexy. So there.
>>...hot new IPOs they think of Linux, NOT IBM.
I would hope the public they don't think of IBM. After all, the I stands for INITIAL and IBM has been a backbone in the stock market for decades. I am curious, when is Linux going to have an IPO? I must be too ignorant because I wasn't even aware that Linux was a company.
>>...shave off those beards, come out from behind the glass wall and start interacting like normal human beings.
As I said, I don't have a beard and my data center doesn't have a glass wall. I guess I deprived. When I want to interact like a normal human being I'll be sure to do it as an Anonymous Coward on a web site.
>>...pretending they are "Scottie" on the Starship Enterprise, and acting like nobody understands computers except them.
I don't pretend I'm scotty. I've always been partial to Mr. Spock. I don't pretend that nobody else understands computers. I just pretend that nobody understands MY computers like me (and most people don't). A subtile difference, but a difference never the less.
>>...centralising...
Unless you work in a small peer-to-peer network, every server is a "central" place. That's the whole definition of "server".
>>..."technical experts"...
I prefer the term "technical specialist" because few people are true experts. Most are like doctors in that they are good in a specific area. Running a linux server doesn't make you a technical expert, just a specialist.
>>...but no, they refuse to go away
As soon as all the work goes away, I can assure you that we won't be around. So far I've seen nothing but large growth in my regions.
>>...refused to create me an account...
If it's obsolete, why do you need an account? Just run the work from your Sun box.
>>What century is this ?
The same century as it's been for the last 99 years. The 20th century. The 21st doesn't start for about 9 months.
>>Forms ?
Those are those pieces of paper you actually write on and place them in the mail because workflow management hasn't been implemented in a reliable fashion at your place of work. This isn't a mainframe issue, but a process issue.
>>Please spare me!!!
Sounds like since you didn't fill out the correct forms, you spared yourself.
>>...Solaris as the OS of choice for high-volume OLAP and OLTP applications...
Most of the worlds data still resides on mainframes. The vast majority of business critical transactions still run inside CICS. When large amounts of money or resources are on the line most large companies still reside on the mainframe because it's too reliable to replace.
>>...the death knell for these anachronistic monsters...
The mainframe has been declared dead more times than the Amiga (and that's a lot). Most of this took place in the 80s & early 90s when midrange & PCs were going to kill it. We're still here. Now with the Internet mainframes are growing again because on the backend nobody cares what the OS is as long as you can get to it through a browser.
>>thank you
No, thank you for posting such a biased, well thought out, resarched post.
No operating system runs "natively" on S/390 hardware. OS/390 and VM itself are controlled by the LPAR microcode in the machine itself. This code is primarily an offshoot of VM and allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time in logical partitions. Linux will run in an LPAR as a primary OS. The overhead in this is really minimal and if you were to dedicate an entire box to Linux you would see almost zero overhead for the LPAR microcode.
Probably not effective for 24 low end machines, but when it comes to bang for the buck most articles I've read state the S/390 is among the most cost effective form of computing. If you're a very large company and you have a few hundred expensive Sun or HP servers, your numbers might be a little different.
Again, if you work for a large company you've probably got a S/390 sitting and running some pretty critical stuff. This is really targeting those companies who already have a S/390 and have the experience to maintain it or those companies whose server farm has grown too fast to manage.
Not to be a doubting Thomas, but I really doubt this will happen in the near future. There are really quite a number of reasons which would prevent this from happening:
- The port would difficult because there is almost certainly a lot of Windows and/or Mac specific code in Office.
- They would need to actually support Office on Linux and train their support people to use Linux. This would mean more people and more code to track.
- They would probably catch all kinds of flack if they didn't support Office on non-Intel processors.
- They would take a serious PR hit by formally recognizing a competitor in the desktop space.
- WordPerfect for Linux, Star Office, K-Office and a lot of other word processors are free (at least for home use). MS couldn't compete completely with this model unless they made Office for Linux free for home use. If they made Office for Linux free for home use, they would probably catch bad PR if they charged for Office for Windows. This is a lot of money to MS.
- The Linux port would almost certainly cost more than it's Windows counterpart to offset the porting & support cost. Would you spend 2x as much as a Windows version for the same thing? Especially since most people get Windows for "free" with their PC.
- They would actually face competition in this market from the existing install base. The existing distros tend to include competing products to Office.
Don't get me wrong, I think if MicroSoft is broken up that it could possibly happen, but I just think that by the time it does happen it won't matter any more.
I guess I'm a purist, but Office Suites are getting close to saturation with features. How many of the new features in Office does the average person use? I really don't use my word processor for anything more complex than I did 5 years ago. Eventually people will become tired of the forced upgrade and the useless features. When this happens the office suites will become more like a commodity than a product.
But then again, maybe I'm living in a dream world.
You're comparing apples & oranges. If you need 24x7 then 1 S/390 won't do the job (but neither will 1 PIII). With Parallel Sysplex you can easily get 24x7 reliability with 2 mainframes (both of which may run on the same box).
What's more, if you run a little piece of software called Work Load Manager and you run OS/390 you have the best scalability available. With Work Load Manager you can define performance directives for your web server. What's more, different areas of the web server can have different priorities so you can manage your web site more effectively.
While this may not sound impressive (it didn't to me the first time I heard it), someone put it into perspective with this example:
Imagine that you're a large company. You not only need reliability, but you also need scalability. The majority of your data resides on OS/390 and you provide web access to it running IBM's HTTP server on OS/390.
You have 2 customers sign on at about the same time. Customer #1 does a very small amount of business with you. Customer #2 is one of your biggest ones and you need to keep them happy. Customer #2 is also the typical 900 pound gorilla who demands responsiveness or they'll take their business somewhere else. With any other web server both customers would typically have the same priority and you need to build an infrastructure capable of meeting the needs of Customer #2 at all times. With OS/390 you can declare performance directives so that Customer #2 gets higher response time than Customer #1. Both customers are happy and you can manage your system resources more efficiently.
I don't know of any other system which can do this. If you think it's worthless, you'll probably encounter it. I bet it won't be too long before on-line banks start doing this based upon the amount of money in your account. If you have $10.00 in your account then you'll get crappy response from the bank. If you have $10,000 the bank's web site will probably be much more responsive.
Actually it depends on what you're doing. I can't comment on Linux specifically on S/390 but I can comment on OS/390 running on S/390.
One of the problems that server farms can face is the issue of support. If you install 8 intel boxes you must support 8 intel boxes. Generally speaking, supporting server is easier than multiple smaller boxes. The problem also isn't with making a 99.99999% availablility, but with making a site scalable for a large amount of traffic. If you need a few dozen servers to handle the traffic and availability, a single S/390 platform may give you better response and reliability.
The other issue that makes S/390 a good platform is that the hardware is extremely reliable. I read that the CPUs have an average failure rate of 1 failure every 30 years. Not too shabby and if it does fail the entire box doesn't crash, the underlying microcode just makes that CPU unavailable and will notify IBM support. If you have a spare CPU available it will even turn the spare on so you don't loose processing power. I've also heard rumors that future releases of S/390 will allow you to dynamically turn on CPUs so if you run out of processing power you can perform an upgrade with one command and never taking down the box.
Another advantage (as the article mentions) is disaster recovery situations. Mainframe DR plans have been in place for decades. Again backing up and restoring 1 system is typically much easier than multiple smaller servers. The hardware is also much more standardized than PC platforms so finding a DR site is not terribly difficult.
Also, don't let the cost of the mainframe fool you. They are a lot cheaper than you might believe. The old style of mainframes needed plumbing for the water which made the costs very expensive. The newer CMOS boxes don't require external plumbing and have a footprint the size of a large filing cabinet. So size & plumbing are no longer a problem like they were 15 years ago.
I'm not saying that S/390 will make other servers obsolete, but if you have the need and the money it definitely gives you an attractive alternative. Also don't forget that some people estimate that 60-80% of the world's data still resides on these old boxes.
As for the rational of running a free OS on a mainframe, that would be attractive to some because the software costs can quickly add up on a mainframe. Generally speaking the faster the mainframe you have, the more expensive the software becomes. A free OS could result in a huge budget savings for a company.
Again, it won't be for everyone (heck it won't be attractive to most people), but for some this will definitely be a good solution to a difficult problem.
Just my $0.02
My understanding is that Linux doesn't currently run under OS/390, but rather it is able to run in it's own LPAR on S/390 or as a guest under VM. If I'm wrong please correct me. I'd love it if IBM makes Unix System Services under OS/390 compatible with Linux. That and some way to have USS be an ASCII character set would be great.
How about telling us what all those machines are used for. Anyone can start up a server and sit it in a closet for a year. If nobody uses the server it will probably stay up until the power is interrupted. Now, get a big box with a lot of DB activity & users pounding away at it and let's see how strong it is. It's also worth noting that some people believe that theraputic reboots can help prevent problems before they occur. I'd rather take a planned outage window every Saturday night than crash one Monday morning.
Uptime means nothing. It's what you do with the box that counts.
Nothing really runs on "bare metal" anymore. Even OS/390 is serviced by the microcode which is a stripped down version of VM.
As far as revealing the inner workings, if someone really wants to know that they could read the OS/390 Principles of Operations on IBM's bookmanager site. That reveals a lot on how OS/390 interacts with the hardware. From that you could learn a lot.
But I digress... I also doubt IBM will release a version of Linux without it being dependent upon another OS because of the enormous effort in a direct port. Think of all of the hardware interfaces that would need to be written. The effort would be enormous.
I bet they: 1.) port the gnu compiler and allow for direct compilation of Linux programs to work within OS/390 Unix Services, and/or 2) Offer Linux under VM as a standalone OS. VM runs other operating systems really well. Both of these would reduce the porting effort because the actual hardware would be hidden. Of course a good port would provide the S/390 platform new applications, something it needs very badly.
I believe that this could be good for IBM and Linux.
OS/390 which runs on the S/390 platform currently has a Unix variant running along with "traditional" MVS. A cross compiler which runs Linux programs under this environment would be a tremendous advantage. It would open a lot of programs to the mainframe which would be a real big plus to IBM. As someone who's used Unix System Services, I can say it's not bad but it is definitely suffering from a lack of native applications.
I doubt IBM would sell a whole lot more S/390 boxes running Linux only. They tried something similar to this by offering a S/390 machine running OS/390 Unix System Services only. They stopped offering it because most traditional mainframe shops are not going to buy a unix mainframe at the expense of their existing programs. Buying another box for Unix is also a rather expensive alternative. Running both would definitely be a plus.
Regardless of if Microsoft is a monopoly in the desktop market, can they win every battle they've chosen to fight?
In the handheld market Palm is not only surviving against Windows CE, but thriving. A few years ago a lot of people took it for granted that Palm would be road kill. Now if you were developing for the handheld market you wouldn't think about ignoring Palm's huge market.
In the low-end server market NT continues to be strong, but Linux & the BSDs are making progress in shops which a few years ago wouldn't have chosen anything but NT. Cost of the OS and the lower system requirments make NT a less attractive alternative to a lot of people.
In the high-end server where cost is less of an issue, the commercial Un*x makers & OS/390 continue to be the standard. They've got amazing reliability and can deal with many more users than NT currently can.
In the gaming market Microsoft is aparently fearing the growing power of game consoles like the PS2. Now they're reportedly making an entry into that market as well.
The desktop is one area where Microsoft really isn't facing a competative threat. Here the government & Caldera are persuing them for antitrust violations.
On the portal phase I don't think MSN has ever turned a profit despite a large amount of investment by MS.
Sure, MS makes tons of money and they certainly won't disappear from the market, but can even they fight so many battles? How much money can they spend on new markets, lawyers, & unprofitable segments before the markets they currently dominate start to suffer?
If I understand the topic correctly, a mollecular computer should be make todays computer look like a turtle racing a ferrari. Current encryption methods are based on the theory that there isn't enough CPU power to use the brute force method of breaking the key. These would change that and could make e-commerce much less secure. I guess 56 bit encryption in the face of this would be laughable. Yes, I know we're talking about years before this is ready, but it's still exciting stuff.
A while ago our local news did a story on this. They interviewed our local Congressman and he claimed that this was a total hoax. He said there is no legislation being proposed to tax email and that this is a total internet rumor to try and discourage the government from taxing internet commerce (which they probably will do). Anyway, how could they tax email? The effort in tracking it would be enormous given the fact that lots of email is inter-country. I really don't care if they would put a tiny tax on email (maybe $0.01 per message). It would sure stop a good number of spam messages.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I think it's about time for a reality check here folks. First let's keep in mind what Sun's business is. It isn't selling software or hardware, it's making there shareholders money. Shareholders probably don't care where the money comes from, as long as it's a steady stream of nice positive numbers. If that offends you I urge you to sell any stock you hold in Sun, IBM, Microsoft, or the majority of other publically traded companies. I'm not saying that I agree with it, I'm just saying that this is the way it works. Now, Sun decided not to ship NAS on Linux. If you don't agree with it I would suggest that you either sell your stock in Sun or you sign a petition that you would be willing to purchase a copy of NAS if it is available for Linux. If you get enough people to do either of these situations then you could impact Sun's ability to make money so they would probably listen. IBM did with VisualAge for Java, I'll be willing to bet that Sun will too. For those who think that Sun's the next evil empire and anyone using Java, you are may be correct, but what you don't appear to realize is that almost every company wants to be in Microsoft's position. Think about it, if Bill G. even mentions a new product (regardlessn if it ever sees the light of day), Microsoft and its shareholders make money. IBM was once in this position and it was once an extremely hated company. Microsoft is now. Sun wants it's turn. Yes, Sun will probably use Java for this (if it is ever strong enough). Right now I continue to beleive that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If Sun ever makes Java a viable application platform (instead of it's middle tier position now), then perhaps it can make ISVs port their applications to Java. If it runs in Java it runs on Linux. If it runs on Linux it helps Linux gain popularity. We can deal with Sun when/if Sun becomes the next evil empire. I've also read a whole lot of commenting about the Sun-AOL purchase of Netscape. We all really have nobody but ourselves to blame for this, and we should all be ashamed. When Netscape opened it's source it was the first real honest attempt to show that there was a better way of developing software and it was possible to make money. What happened, unfortunately, is few people took the time to contribute. As a result Netscape 5.0 was behind and they never retgained much market share from IE. If we had all contributed maybe Netscape 5.0 would have been out last year and it would have blown the socks of Internet Explorer. What's worse than Netscape going under is now other companies will say "Why open up the source? Look at how it helped Netscape."
It's a nice idea if it's possible. If you're a single parent (either through divorce/death/otherwise) it's a little hard to be a stay-at-home parent. I think the more important aspect of raising a child is to just be involved and be a parent as opposed to a roommate. Listen to them and don't dismiss them as a "stupid kid". Please don't get me wrong, if it's at all possible to have a parent stay with a child it's a good idea. My wife and I tried to both stay working after my son was born and she wound up quitting because it wasn't worth the money. Now we just won't buy a new car for a while or go out to eat as often or have cable TV (but that's another story). I played Doom, and D&D. I listened to heavy-metal music. I wore black cloths. I definitely wasn't the most popular person in school. I wasn't a "jock". I had easy access to guns. But my parents listened, talked, disiplined, and knew what I was doing. Well at least they new 95% of what I was doing :)
Hopefully this will push other vendors to support Linux development tools as well. Once a few DB products were released on Linux others quickly followed, it would be nice if this happened again (VisualAge Java is one of the 2 products I still regularly use Windows for). The more application tools that are avaiilable, the more applications that will be written. I hope Borland gets back some market share with this.
If they actually made the Windows kernel open & free I'd be very cautious. I wouldn't be suprised if MicroSoft put a clause that if you downloaded a MicroSoft kernel you couldn't work on another kernel without being in violation of a NDA. As for the WINE folks, I'd almost gurantee that MicroSoft would put a restriction on porting their APIs to other operating systems. Call me a cynic, but this is probably just a PR stunt. What I could see happening more readily is MicroSoft selling you the rights to look at pieces of the code as long as you sign 30,000 pages of legal contracts.
I personally liked the User Friendly joke. The coordination effort involved was impressive and it had just enough panic about it to be believable. When you expanded it to other cartoons, though, it lost some credability. Nicely done. When I read it I was upset for a few seconds before I realized it was April Fools. I wonder how many more people would have paniced if you had said that Slashdot was closed due to legal actions brought about by the some anonymous user comments. Then again, that may have hit a little too close to reality. 8^)
I for one am not worried about this. I really doubt MicroSoft would do this for several reasons.
1.) Porting it would probably be a real pain. They would need to play by the same rules as everyone else. If they decided to move the Windows API to Linux to accomplish this, it would be another layer of complexity and failure points which they would need to support. Not to mention the speed loss that would happen by going from Office->Win API->Linux.
2.) It could hurt NT. Don't forget Bill's other cash cow. If they support Linux it would reduce the "lack of user applications" argument. That is a large reason Linux isn't killing Windows today.
3.) It could cost them revenue. Think about it. If I want to use an Office application for Linux, am I going to buy Office or download WordPerfect for free? Granted it's only allowed for personal use, but MS does get a large chunk of change from the home users who purchase a new version of Office when it is released.
4.) It could prompt others ISVs to port to Linux. A large portion of the Windows community seems to use Windows as a guage. If MS appears to be running to Linux, others might follow.
5.) The Linux community is a lot more anti-MicroSoft than the Windows community. MicroSoft would have a rather harsh interaction with these people.
If they do anything with Linux it would probably be something like "This piece runs on a Linux server but requires a NT workstation". Most likely they just want to cover their bases and find more potential revenue sources.
This argument is similar to when Corel announced WP for Linux. Corel, in my opinion, has done Linux a favor. Not only did they provide a port to Linux but they provided corporate resources to Wine. I think that really helped calm a lot of fears about their intention. I don't think MS will be so kind and they'll eventually fail.
But then again, what do I know. I still love OS/390.
If the Y2K was even close to as big of a problem as was hyped, then we should already be seeing a large amount of problems.
Things won't magically stop working at 00:00:01 01/01/2000. The closer we get the more problems we should encounter because a lot of programs which use dates also look forward in time for predictions & scheduling. A few articles commented on this around Jan 1, 99. They said how amazingly smooth the last new year was and there were a lot fewer Y2K problems encountered than anyone expected.
I've talked with reps from my local power company. He can says that they are ready. The telephone company says the same thing. I've talked to a gasoline company and they say the exact same thing. If I remember correctly, Wall Street did a Y2K test and it passed. And don't withdrawl your money from the banks. For one thing, banks are insured so you'll get your money and for another, I think I remember reading financial institutions have had to prove their Y2K compliant months ago or face serious fines from the US government.
And IF we loose power, how long does anyone believe it will be out? Power outages happen all of the time (car accidents, storms, & brown-outs) and nobody freaks out.
The major stuff will keep working and the minor stuff will probably just be an annoyance. The really interesting thing will be how many small companies go belly-up from not being prepared.
After all, it's just ones & zeros.