Linus Torvalds was a college student when he wrote Linux. Marc Andreesen was a college student when he wrote Netscape. Tridge was an administrative employee of Australian National University when he wrote Samba. He later went on to teach & lecture, but that was after he reverse engineered SMB. Of Larry Wall, I'm not entirely certain, however given his training is as a linguist, I doubt any employer in that field was interested in underwriting Perl.
"What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?" - Linus Torvalds and another couple hundred - Andrew Tridgell and another couple dozen - Larry Wall and another couple thousand - Marc Andreessen and who knows how many - Repeat for several thousand other projects...
"The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software" Until 1991.
Guess that's why he hates Linux so much, they blew his whole argument.
Heh OK I'm a bit late with a reply, but better late than never:)
I've worked closely with a half dozen CEOs in my career, and I can say from experience that regardless of what Bonhomie Snoutintroff says, a lawsuit is a lawsuit is a lawsuit, and no CEO welcomes them. They have to declare them in their SEC statements. They have to hire and pay people to defend them. And sometimes runaway juries do things that you never expected. Litigation is a crapshoot that you can't control with (in America) almost unlimited downside and no upside for them.
You don't know how right you are, if the EFF keeps it up. I, for one, amd going to make a cash donation to the EFF now, and tell them that my donation is intended to keep the illegal wiretapping lawsuits coming.
EFF has a long road ahead of it... it needs to get RIAA with telecom companies. One or two actions will raise eyebrows, but when the fear of a lawsuit tingles CEOs backsides whenever the government whispers in their ear, those whispers are going to start falling on deaf ears. So it's going to take many more lawsuits (and of course some wins). But once that investment is made... CEOs are far more powerfull than the President and David Addington can ever dream of.
Indeed. It occurs to me that editing a Wikipedia bio could be construed as campaigning. It seems to me like there are a lot more tricky laws about illegal campaigning than having a staffer squander money. Bringing up the staffer on illegal campaigning charges would go a long way toward opening the voters eyes.
How do you do that? I dunno, I guess if you're a Massachusetts resident, call the Attorney General's office and file a complaint.
The problem with that argument is, while it's true from the perspective of the Wikipedia reader, alternately from the standpoint of a taxpayer, there is some question as to whether paying an elected official's staff to edit their online bio may be illegal. If you are a Massachusetts taxpayer, you are probably paying for his staffers. If his staffers have enough time to ponder his Wikipedia bio, then he's probably overstaffed, and you're paying for it. And, even if you are opposed to that elected official, you have to pay for his staffer to blow sunshine up people's arses in his bio.
Think about it. Your comment may have been intended as humorous, but the opposite side is more likely true. Bill Gates, whether he recognizes that he's evil or not, surely knows that when Google says "Do No Evil," they are contrasting themselves from him.
In one fell swoop, Bill Gates has now placed Google into the same group he is in. From his perspective, if he's evil, so be it... now he's in good company. Bill Gates may have just precipitated the destruction of it's arch nemesis, Google.
In most instances, it's OK to search at work. Unless you're worried that your employer is going to fire you if they catch you, there's no ethical or legal issues with searching for a job at work.
Head hunters (if you're into that) are fine with calling you at work. Let me rephrase that. If you represent potential income, Head Hunters would be fine with calling you in an opium den.
Even many direct employers are fine with this. Most understand that you are expected to work overtime and that's where they can reach you, at your current employer. You will probably have to answer a few questions about why you're leaving, but otherwise most companies are pretty cool with it.
I'm speaking from experience, and I'm sure anecdotally there will be one or two out there who have opposite experiences. But I will say that 100% of the time that I've searched for a new job, I've had an exisiting job, that required overtime, and potential employers had to call me at work. Not one ever complained.
And the cool thing is, even if you don't get caught, word will get around, and your employer might get scared and start making counter offers. I used to love this, because I never went searching for a new job until I was completely disgusted and had it with my current employer, and no amount of "counters" would change my mind. So it was fun, once I made up my mind to leave, to see them suddenly start asking things like "Is there any thing we can do for you to ensure that you're happy here?" LOL.
Dude, that thinking is the difference between an SA and an Engineer. Thinking like that would have us all running MFM drives, and these newfangled "SCSI" disks would be too risky random equipment to test out on a server.
Wot a bunch of crap. So they make $1 and their primary income is from selling stock. They live in California for crying out loud, not some cradle-to-grave welfare state. They built a $130 billion company from nothing. Most execs get lucrative salaries AND stock. So they get some long term hold tax breaks, boo hoo. You go build a $130 billion dollar company from your own brain power and you can get some tax breaks and stock options too.
Your friend is an idiot. Connection bandwidth and persistence has nothing to do with security. It only takes a few minutes for someone to attack your computer, and if you're unprotected it doesn't matter whether your connection is dial-up or always on or what speed it runs at.
>If you can convince a business that OSS will do more of what they need, will be more >cheaply repaired if it breaks, and they won't hemorrhage money through security holes, >they'll go with OSS
I'm afraid that most enterprise experience with OSS is that there are just as many, if not more, reported security holes in (for instance) Linux than (for instance) Windows. I spend a good deal of my time explaining to management why that is a good thing - more reported security vulnerabilities means the OS is more transparent. I always leave them with the parting thought... "Do you really believe that just because MS and Sun report fewer security bugs, that their software has fewer security bugs?"
You are right, the benefits of OSS need to be presented as a TCO argument. But it's mistaken to expect to sell that on the basis of "they won't hemorrhage money through security holes", they'll still spend a lot of money updating their infrastructures with every new security patch, the point is that if they follow through, they won't end up in the headlines for letting some script kiddie compromise their systems.
I see one potential problem, this guy's probably working in a shop where every new project test bed is the latest el-cheapo-kit-du-jour, and keeping spare parts on hand from older inventory won't help get the newest, latest greatest kit get running again.
Yeah. I'm with you on that.
But it's the same answer. You dig your own grave. I was there, I lived it 24/7. I worked for a guy who was too cheap to buy decent hardware but not too embarrased by his own stupid decisions to ask me to work over the weekend to get it fixed. One time I actually had to go to a computer store in the Chicago Loop (when they had them there) and buy a brand new server to replace one I couldn't revive.
What did I do? I left. I work for a real shop now. If they can't provide me with the proper tools to do my job, then they are not providing me with a job in which I can realize my potential, and that's worse than underpaying me. I'm much happier now. I do think about the guy who took my job though, I hope he's gotten out.
What I don't get about the article is it seems to be saying that since there is little veritcal movement, lightening doesn't develop. But lightening is developed by the friction of droplets of water moving against each other.
So my point is, what... horizontally moving droplets of water don't brush up against each other?
You get the same static charge whether you rub your feet on a wool carpet or a wool wall decoration. Why wouldn't droplets of water do the same thing?
If it's just all about market share to Google, then why are they bothering to make such a big presence at OSCON and Linux World? If they're only interested in the highest market share OS's, then they should stay away from those shows, AFAIC. Spend their money on Tech Ed and Windows World for all I care.
The point is, it's not just all about market share. But I don't know what it *is* about. I think next time I'm at OSCON I'll try to nail 'em down on it.
Umm, I hate to say it, but a tape missing since last November constitutes a cover-up. Marriott only came out and admitted to the loss because their internal investigation turned up nothing.
ABN Amro lost a tape with my data on it. The news was out that week. DHL found it, and even though the news agencies didn't cover it much, I got a follow-up letter from ABN Amro AND they extended the free credit tracking service from 3 months to 1 year.
Marriott on the other hand waited over a month before they even notified the Secret Service, for crying out loud.
No kudos to Marriott for this one. They're lucky that their month-long cover-up isn't criminal (yet).
So if you're right about that (and I don't doubt it) the/. article is completely wrong... they aren't getting rid of "Intel Inside" at all, just a new Intel logo and some rebranding.
> I guess now all thats left to update is the 'Idiot Outside' that doesn't know anything about using > a computer.
Oh, how droll. And I suppose we all are just so much better than everyone else.
Given the way accounting worked in the early 2000's in corporate America, it was probably "cooperate and we won't look very deeply into your books..."
Democracy is indeed in sad shape now, but fortunately democracy only truly dies behind closed doors over a long period of time. Ultimately the 22nd Amendment fixes that problem.
You are absolutely correct, however, a good manager knows his team, and whether they can handle poking fun at themselves without getting bent out of shape. I work in a shop where if you are thin-skinned, no matter how many trips to HR you make to complain, you'll be gone soon enough. I've been there ten years, and I'm the low man on the totem pole seniority-wise.
I don't think any manager should expect to look at a book or read slashdot for ideas about how to make their shop fun. If they can't figure it out, they're too out of touch and shouldn't try.
First, you say that even though the hobbyist IS manager left a few years ago, and although you now are the sole IS staff, your dream of being day-to-day IS manager has not come to pass. Hmm, what, do you want them to put a crown on you and bow down? Do your job, and you will be day-to-day IS manager.
1) The main job of IS is connectivity. Connectivity is the core of why we have IS. Anything else is extraneous, and I shouldn't be dealing with it.
What, is this GE? Chase? You work for SBC? I got news for you buddy, in a one-man IS shop, nothing is extraneous and you should be dealing with everything. Lifes a bitch, get on with it.
2) IS involvement in other divisions isn't necessary. IS is involved with other divisions when physical products get connected to the network, but not before. Software should be evaluated by IS only when it becomes necessary for purchase and implementation, not before. Any developed piece of software (we have an in-house programmer in accounting who uses Access -- I know, I know...) should be evaluated by IS when the software is ready to install.
Is this your position, or theirs? If theirs, you are absolutely right, it's dead wrong. If it's yours, well then, I can see why you haven't gone any further in this company. Maybe IS isn't quite your calling.
Orlowski makes reference to a utopian era (ten years ago???) when we anticipated plentiful free information from the WWW, and what he misses completely is that over ten years ago we were already in utopia - everyone then trusted the information they got from.edu's, and indeed it was generally usefull (and trustworthy) information - well, as trustworthy as the biased textbooks you paid for, but not neccessarily *factually* incorrect.
The irony is that back then, we regarded.edu's as the prime source of information, and.com's (and by extension.co's) were largely untrusted, being owned by non-academic commercial enterprises.
It's still a shell game. They play games with the requirements to obtain the rebate (like, you must submit it within three days of purchase, even though they can take their own sweet time to pay you), they bet that you won't have time to submit it, they deny rebates without notifying you and then figure you won't call to press for it, and the best one so far - Cingular just sent me two $50 Visa gifts cards (which cannot be redeemed for cash) as payment of my $100 rebate on a phone I bought. It's all a shell game.
If all they were interested in was quickly stimulating sales of product already in the pipe, they could do away with the draconian submission requirements. But they don't. So they suck. And no moron scammer shill is going to convince me that it's "not so bad".
Read the subject. Silicon Valley != the rest of the world. Just because one company hires up a bunch of heretofore out-of-work PHDs in Silicon Valley doesn't mean there will be a hiring frenzy anywhere else. And if there is, it won't be because of Google. And it won't be at the wages that college students today want when they graduate.
Time to let go. IT is just a regular job now. Get used to it, or move on.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm...
Linus Torvalds was a college student when he wrote Linux.
Marc Andreesen was a college student when he wrote Netscape.
Tridge was an administrative employee of Australian National University when he wrote Samba. He later went on to teach & lecture, but that was after he reverse engineered SMB.
Of Larry Wall, I'm not entirely certain, however given his training is as a linguist, I doubt any employer in that field was interested in underwriting Perl.
"What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"
- Linus Torvalds and another couple hundred
- Andrew Tridgell and another couple dozen
- Larry Wall and another couple thousand
- Marc Andreessen and who knows how many
- Repeat for several thousand other projects...
"The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software"
Until 1991.
Guess that's why he hates Linux so much, they blew his whole argument.
Heh OK I'm a bit late with a reply, but better late than never :)
:)
I've worked closely with a half dozen CEOs in my career, and I can say from experience that regardless of what Bonhomie Snoutintroff says, a lawsuit is a lawsuit is a lawsuit, and no CEO welcomes them. They have to declare them in their SEC statements. They have to hire and pay people to defend them. And sometimes runaway juries do things that you never expected. Litigation is a crapshoot that you can't control with (in America) almost unlimited downside and no upside for them.
Still, nice segue
You don't know how right you are, if the EFF keeps it up. I, for one, amd going to make a cash donation to the EFF now, and tell them that my donation is intended to keep the illegal wiretapping lawsuits coming.
EFF has a long road ahead of it... it needs to get RIAA with telecom companies. One or two actions will raise eyebrows, but when the fear of a lawsuit tingles CEOs backsides whenever the government whispers in their ear, those whispers are going to start falling on deaf ears. So it's going to take many more lawsuits (and of course some wins). But once that investment is made... CEOs are far more powerfull than the President and David Addington can ever dream of.
Indeed. It occurs to me that editing a Wikipedia bio could be construed as campaigning. It seems to me like there are a lot more tricky laws about illegal campaigning than having a staffer squander money. Bringing up the staffer on illegal campaigning charges would go a long way toward opening the voters eyes.
How do you do that? I dunno, I guess if you're a Massachusetts resident, call the Attorney General's office and file a complaint.
The problem with that argument is, while it's true from the perspective of the Wikipedia reader, alternately from the standpoint of a taxpayer, there is some question as to whether paying an elected official's staff to edit their online bio may be illegal. If you are a Massachusetts taxpayer, you are probably paying for his staffers. If his staffers have enough time to ponder his Wikipedia bio, then he's probably overstaffed, and you're paying for it. And, even if you are opposed to that elected official, you have to pay for his staffer to blow sunshine up people's arses in his bio.
Think about it. Your comment may have been intended as humorous, but the opposite side is more likely true. Bill Gates, whether he recognizes that he's evil or not, surely knows that when Google says "Do No Evil," they are contrasting themselves from him.
In one fell swoop, Bill Gates has now placed Google into the same group he is in. From his perspective, if he's evil, so be it... now he's in good company. Bill Gates may have just precipitated the destruction of it's arch nemesis, Google.
In most instances, it's OK to search at work. Unless you're worried that your employer is going to fire you if they catch you, there's no ethical or legal issues with searching for a job at work.
Head hunters (if you're into that) are fine with calling you at work. Let me rephrase that. If you represent potential income, Head Hunters would be fine with calling you in an opium den.
Even many direct employers are fine with this. Most understand that you are expected to work overtime and that's where they can reach you, at your current employer. You will probably have to answer a few questions about why you're leaving, but otherwise most companies are pretty cool with it.
I'm speaking from experience, and I'm sure anecdotally there will be one or two out there who have opposite experiences. But I will say that 100% of the time that I've searched for a new job, I've had an exisiting job, that required overtime, and potential employers had to call me at work. Not one ever complained.
And the cool thing is, even if you don't get caught, word will get around, and your employer might get scared and start making counter offers. I used to love this, because I never went searching for a new job until I was completely disgusted and had it with my current employer, and no amount of "counters" would change my mind. So it was fun, once I made up my mind to leave, to see them suddenly start asking things like "Is there any thing we can do for you to ensure that you're happy here?" LOL.
Dude, that thinking is the difference between an SA and an Engineer. Thinking like that would have us all running MFM drives, and these newfangled "SCSI" disks would be too risky random equipment to test out on a server.
Wot a bunch of crap. So they make $1 and their primary income is from selling stock. They live in California for crying out loud, not some cradle-to-grave welfare state. They built a $130 billion company from nothing. Most execs get lucrative salaries AND stock. So they get some long term hold tax breaks, boo hoo. You go build a $130 billion dollar company from your own brain power and you can get some tax breaks and stock options too.
Your friend is an idiot. Connection bandwidth and persistence has nothing to do with security. It only takes a few minutes for someone to attack your computer, and if you're unprotected it doesn't matter whether your connection is dial-up or always on or what speed it runs at.
>If you can convince a business that OSS will do more of what they need, will be more
>cheaply repaired if it breaks, and they won't hemorrhage money through security holes,
>they'll go with OSS
I'm afraid that most enterprise experience with OSS is that there are just as many, if not more, reported security holes in (for instance) Linux than (for instance) Windows. I spend a good deal of my time explaining to management why that is a good thing - more reported security vulnerabilities means the OS is more transparent. I always leave them with the parting thought... "Do you really believe that just because MS and Sun report fewer security bugs, that their software has fewer security bugs?"
You are right, the benefits of OSS need to be presented as a TCO argument. But it's mistaken to expect to sell that on the basis of "they won't hemorrhage money through security holes", they'll still spend a lot of money updating their infrastructures with every new security patch, the point is that if they follow through, they won't end up in the headlines for letting some script kiddie compromise their systems.
I see one potential problem, this guy's probably working in a shop where every new project test bed is the latest el-cheapo-kit-du-jour, and keeping spare parts on hand from older inventory won't help get the newest, latest greatest kit get running again.
Yeah. I'm with you on that.
But it's the same answer. You dig your own grave. I was there, I lived it 24/7. I worked for a guy who was too cheap to buy decent hardware but not too embarrased by his own stupid decisions to ask me to work over the weekend to get it fixed. One time I actually had to go to a computer store in the Chicago Loop (when they had them there) and buy a brand new server to replace one I couldn't revive.
What did I do? I left. I work for a real shop now. If they can't provide me with the proper tools to do my job, then they are not providing me with a job in which I can realize my potential, and that's worse than underpaying me. I'm much happier now. I do think about the guy who took my job though, I hope he's gotten out.
What I don't get about the article is it seems to be saying that since there is little veritcal movement, lightening doesn't develop. But lightening is developed by the friction of droplets of water moving against each other.
So my point is, what... horizontally moving droplets of water don't brush up against each other?
You get the same static charge whether you rub your feet on a wool carpet or a wool wall decoration. Why wouldn't droplets of water do the same thing?
If it's just all about market share to Google, then why are they bothering to make such a big presence at OSCON and Linux World? If they're only interested in the highest market share OS's, then they should stay away from those shows, AFAIC. Spend their money on Tech Ed and Windows World for all I care.
The point is, it's not just all about market share. But I don't know what it *is* about. I think next time I'm at OSCON I'll try to nail 'em down on it.
ABN Amro lost a tape with my data on it. The news was out that week. DHL found it, and even though the news agencies didn't cover it much, I got a follow-up letter from ABN Amro AND they extended the free credit tracking service from 3 months to 1 year.
Marriott on the other hand waited over a month before they even notified the Secret Service, for crying out loud.
No kudos to Marriott for this one. They're lucky that their month-long cover-up isn't criminal (yet).
So if you're right about that (and I don't doubt it) the /. article is completely wrong... they aren't getting rid of "Intel Inside" at all, just a new Intel logo and some rebranding.
> I guess now all thats left to update is the 'Idiot Outside' that doesn't know anything about using
> a computer.
Oh, how droll. And I suppose we all are just so much better than everyone else.
> To stay on the topic
Yeah, because the rest of your post was just a tirade about how little you respect and value your IT staff.
Given the way accounting worked in the early 2000's in corporate America, it was probably "cooperate and we won't look very deeply into your books..."
:)
Democracy is indeed in sad shape now, but fortunately democracy only truly dies behind closed doors over a long period of time. Ultimately the 22nd Amendment fixes that problem.
(The rest of you can go look it up on Google.
You are absolutely correct, however, a good manager knows his team, and whether they can handle poking fun at themselves without getting bent out of shape. I work in a shop where if you are thin-skinned, no matter how many trips to HR you make to complain, you'll be gone soon enough. I've been there ten years, and I'm the low man on the totem pole seniority-wise.
I don't think any manager should expect to look at a book or read slashdot for ideas about how to make their shop fun. If they can't figure it out, they're too out of touch and shouldn't try.
First, you say that even though the hobbyist IS manager left a few years ago, and although you now are the sole IS staff, your dream of being day-to-day IS manager has not come to pass. Hmm, what, do you want them to put a crown on you and bow down? Do your job, and you will be day-to-day IS manager.
1) The main job of IS is connectivity. Connectivity is the core of why we have IS. Anything else is extraneous, and I shouldn't be dealing with it.
What, is this GE? Chase? You work for SBC? I got news for you buddy, in a one-man IS shop, nothing is extraneous and you should be dealing with everything. Lifes a bitch, get on with it.
2) IS involvement in other divisions isn't necessary. IS is involved with other divisions when physical products get connected to the network, but not before. Software should be evaluated by IS only when it becomes necessary for purchase and implementation, not before. Any developed piece of software (we have an in-house programmer in accounting who uses Access -- I know, I know...) should be evaluated by IS when the software is ready to install.
Is this your position, or theirs? If theirs, you are absolutely right, it's dead wrong. If it's yours, well then, I can see why you haven't gone any further in this company. Maybe IS isn't quite your calling.
>ugh. Well we all know what that means.
Sigh. Yes. Everyone will just sit around slashdot whining about it, and not lift one finger to get control of it via their elected officials.
Orlowski makes reference to a utopian era (ten years ago???) when we anticipated plentiful free information from the WWW, and what he misses completely is that over ten years ago we were already in utopia - everyone then trusted the information they got from .edu's, and indeed it was generally usefull (and trustworthy) information - well, as trustworthy as the biased textbooks you paid for, but not neccessarily *factually* incorrect.
.edu's as the prime source of information, and .com's (and by extension .co's) were largely untrusted, being owned by non-academic commercial enterprises.
The irony is that back then, we regarded
Does anybody else see the irony here???
It's still a shell game. They play games with the requirements to obtain the rebate (like, you must submit it within three days of purchase, even though they can take their own sweet time to pay you), they bet that you won't have time to submit it, they deny rebates without notifying you and then figure you won't call to press for it, and the best one so far - Cingular just sent me two $50 Visa gifts cards (which cannot be redeemed for cash) as payment of my $100 rebate on a phone I bought. It's all a shell game.
If all they were interested in was quickly stimulating sales of product already in the pipe, they could do away with the draconian submission requirements. But they don't. So they suck. And no moron scammer shill is going to convince me that it's "not so bad".
Read the subject. Silicon Valley != the rest of the world. Just because one company hires up a bunch of heretofore out-of-work PHDs in Silicon Valley doesn't mean there will be a hiring frenzy anywhere else. And if there is, it won't be because of Google. And it won't be at the wages that college students today want when they graduate.
Time to let go. IT is just a regular job now. Get used to it, or move on.