I find this to be remarkably similar to what Microsoft did with Sybase and SQL Server. Eventually, you're likely to see RH with literally their own product such that it's unrecognizable as being postgres.
But then there's a huge difference. When M$ supplied Sybase with the kiss of death (nearly so) you as a customer had exactly two choices, provided you wanted to stick with the Sybase engine:
Buy Micr$oft SQLServer for a lot of money
Purchase Sybase SQLServer (Adaptive Server Enterprise as of today) for a helluva lot of money
Both database engines where quite comparable and both where propriatery.
This is the beauty of the Open Source model:
While Red Hat can fork it of course, or theoretically could even make a propriatery, binary version only, this is very unlikely to happen. And even if it would, it would probably be a failure and allienate a hell of a lot of key people.
If Red Hat however develops cool features, those are very likely to wind up in the code if the Postgresql user community also deems them cool.
I think this announcement is a very good thing and will benefit all: Postgresql development, Red Hat software and the rest of us in need for an industrial strength, kick ass database engine.
PostgreSQL is a reliable but complex piece of software that requires knowledgeable people to support.
Actually I always admired PsotgreSQLs simplicity compared for example with Oracle (which is a big blob of files scattered among various disks) or even Sybase, which bells and whistles appear to be a tad overwhelming since 11.9.2
You're right of course that a database engine is a complex piece of software by definition.
The really difficult part is to transfer the GIMP source code to punch cards, which is very environmentally unfriendly.
Next, you'll have to write a C compiler for OS1100 (or whatever it's called nowadays). Hey maybe you could port GCC and upload it to source forge ?
Next is some sort of clustering software, I suggest that you steal the microfiches of the VMS operating system from somebodies desk. They have really good clustering and you might be able to adapt some tricks.
Of course, most of it is written in MACRO32 or BLISS, which leads to another small effort:
Porting BLISS to the UNIVAC (Don't forget to upload to Source Forge, provided they're still in business then).
If airlines had to sell all their seats at the same price, it would hurt the poor and help the rich - but instead, they can charge vacationers less and business people more due to the fact that vacationers book long in advance, while business often books a few days before they fly.
But then, this analogy is flawed.
You see, a specific flight on a given route has a finite amount of space. If there are 300 seats for sale, it is just damn well impossible to stuff 350 people into a plane. (OK, theoretically it's possible, but you won't be in business very long).
This also applies when you combine the capacity of all given carriers. There is so-and-so much capacity for a given route and if there is a lot of (over-)capacity, this potentially drives prices down. That's the reason why you fly cheaper from Los Angeles to New Yourk, then from Hicksville to Muskogee. Even if it's 8 time the distance.
You also conveniently forget the restrictions attached to cheaper flight tickets. If I pay up to 5 times the price for a full fare business class ticket, that gives me the right to board or not board the booked flight at my convenience. I don't even have to call the airline to cancel and I can change my schedule at any time and at no charge.
Now, the more cheapo an airline ticket is, the more strings are attached: Minimum/maximum stay, Sunday stay-over, No refunds, schedules can not be changed, or changes carry a stiff penalty, etc.
What a business person needs is flexibility more then any thing else. Not only the flexibility to book four hours in advance, but also to change her plans at whim.
This is very different with medias. Be it software, music or motion pictures. Once you payed for the production and/or development costs, the cost of a copy is marginal.
Don't get me wrong; huge amounts where invested into those products and the production entities certainly have a right to make a fair profit on their investments.
They definitely don't have the right to exploit customers, based on rules and backed by laws which are convenient only to them.
Unless of course they can obtain the best politicians money can buy...
You know, it's posts like yours that make/. still very much an interesting place.
While one is tempted to join in wailing with the crowd, one is reminded sometimed, that there are very good reasons why certain actions are taken, or why something might be deemed offensive in a different cultural context.
Yeah, matrix; I more or less agree with your assessment, save for a few details.
The only dawn I see on this nightmare of corporate-monarchy is that for now the common person can purchase stock and have a meager say in policy.
I fear, that this only holds up in theory. One of the things that really bug me (and that's a worldwide issue with corporations), is that corporate management is not really held responsible, nowadays. You don't really have personalities anymore; personalities like Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Henry T Ford, Kenneth Olson, or even Thomas J Watson. Founders and enterpreneurs, visionaries that actually cared about their people, their community and society (not that they are above dirty tricks in all instances).
In todays modern world you have marketing-slicked-mba-steeled-ruthlesness on the search for the fast buck, without having a horizon any further then the quarterly report, or the stock price.
Of course there are exceptions, but they are rare and few.
If a corporation through careless action or by soulless disregard ruins the lives of its workers or townsfolk...
It's partially worse then that. Remember companies like United Fruit, who where directly responsible for the deaths of 1000s of indios, to pursue their fucking banana growing interests. They wisely changed their name to United Brands (Chiquita) and are probably soon to be extinct.
Or remember Chile 1973, where the CIA gracefully assisted in the murder of a democratically elected, albeit rather darkpink president. Being responsible for Mr. Pinochet and his reign of terror, murder and torture. All in the interest of Americas finest corporations.
Do not allow apathy to ruin our nation. Refuse, Resist, & Do Not Allow Yourself to be Enslaved.
Well yeah, I'd extend that to the whole world. But guess what: We - the consumer - can make a great start! We can cease buying from companies that behave unethical. The problem is that people are so fucking lazy and ignorant.
Let's call Linux a tumor in the IT world (actually he once again confuses the GPL with Linux, but what the hell; let it stand for the sake of the analogy). Sure as hell it's a rotten bad tumor from the evil empires' perspective.
Personally I actually believe it's a benevolent tumor. At least, since I use it as my primary OS, my computer pains are more or less gone.
How would you like it if that medic sold your coedine allergy to Bayer, who turned around and flooded your mailslot with ads for Coedine free painkillers?
The more important question to ask, is:
How do you feel if that medic sells your information to your insurance company, which in turn either doesn't renew your policy, or jacks up your premiums 15 fold?
Or (granted, this is far-fetched right now), how about two government thugs, trampling in your door and pulling you away from your loved ones to [insert-transmittable-desease]-camp, based on (potentially false) medical information?
Well, it could reasonably have been construed to be a guarantee until those online-thugs went and changed their privacy policy. The old policy stated that you had an option that your data will never be sold to third parties.
That as such is not that bad, if there would have been an option for those signing up with the old rules to have their data removed.
It's just another chilling reminder that any kind of contract isn't worth much more than the paper (the screen) it's printed on if someone with a lot of money wants to break it and some little person like me doesn't have the resources to fight it.
Well, of course the situation is very different if you clicked on one of those infamous Micro-show-us-the-money-soft EULAs.
Although it might have been a tough call to sue Amazon.com for its deceptive practices it's very disturbing that no action at all is taken.
It seems that as long as you are a corporation in America you can get away with just about everything short of murder.
I don't really want to stretch the EU is great type of argument. But when Volkswagen for example violated EU laws, by threatening their Italian dealers to yank their franchises if they sold (cheaper) to German and Swiss customers they where fined dozens of millions Euros for that. Same happened to Tetra Pack a decade ago for abusive monoplistic practices. Oh yes, and they payed up too.
The disregard for the rights of the individuals in the US is frightening. And when such an industry comes around with the self policing party line, they have about the credibility of Joseph Stalin preaching human right.
You know, I sent them email too. Asking them to delete my data, forget that we ever did business and just reply as an acknowledgment of reception.
I sent mail to never@amazon.com after all.
Guess what, Save for one of those automatic "we value your input very much" garbage-auto-replies nobody ever bothered to actually respond.
A month later that forced me to send snail-mail, certified. Needless to say that I never received a reply either.
On a sidenote: My communication was never offensive or hostile.
Their customer treatment reminds me of the lame old joke: How do you know if an Amazon representative lies ? Well, when he opens his mouth, of course...
Dr. Allgor's analysis is simple, but to Amazon veterans it is heretical: Amazon should increase its holdings of best sellers and stop holding slow-selling titles.
Man, I'm so impressed about the 800k equation guy cranking out such a word of wisdom.
Instead of stating the obvious, Amazon management should better consider the pissing-customers-off factor.
When they lied to me (and 10'000'000 others of their customers) - forcing me in the process to send a certified letter - they sure as hell lost my business for all eternity.
You get precisely one chance to screw - or even be dishonest with - your customers.
I always considered the Swiss Army trademark (which is of course not held by the Swiss Army) to be pretty stupid.
For starters: They don't distribute tacky watches, let alone bad smelling perfumes and if you've ever had the doubtful pleasure to be a member in this Kinderkarten-Club, you wouldn't necessarily consider this brand a commercial endorsement.
Slashdot Mirror
But then there's a huge difference. When M$ supplied Sybase with the kiss of death (nearly so) you as a customer had exactly two choices, provided you wanted to stick with the Sybase engine:
Buy Micr$oft SQLServer for a lot of money
Purchase Sybase SQLServer (Adaptive Server Enterprise as of today) for a helluva lot of money
Both database engines where quite comparable and both where propriatery.
This is the beauty of the Open Source model:
While Red Hat can fork it of course, or theoretically could even make a propriatery, binary version only, this is very unlikely to happen. And even if it would, it would probably be a failure and allienate a hell of a lot of key people.If Red Hat however develops cool features, those are very likely to wind up in the code if the Postgresql user community also deems them cool.
I think this announcement is a very good thing and will benefit all: Postgresql development, Red Hat software and the rest of us in need for an industrial strength, kick ass database engine.
Actually I always admired PsotgreSQLs simplicity compared for example with Oracle (which is a big blob of files scattered among various disks) or even Sybase, which bells and whistles appear to be a tad overwhelming since 11.9.2
You're right of course that a database engine is a complex piece of software by definition.
No need mate, you can send e-mail to gephardt@mail.house.gov.
As anybody else can send e-mail to gephardt@mail.house.gov
Actually every spambot from some sleazebag marketers can pick up the e-mail address of gephardt@mail.house.gov right here @ /.
Of course, so can every reputable company wanting to contact gephardt@mail.house.gov.
No need to thank me.
(Instead you might want to thank gephardt@mail.house.gov protecting your consitutional rights. Thank you Mr. gephardt@mail.house.gov )
Chapeau
You probably know that, but here's a word of warning:
If you live in Europe and don't get a multi-mode (NTSC/PAL/SECAM) recorder you're just damn out of luck.
Same goes for videos purchased in the US (DVDs are a whole other issue)
The really difficult part is to transfer the GIMP source code to punch cards, which is very environmentally unfriendly.
Next, you'll have to write a C compiler for OS1100 (or whatever it's called nowadays). Hey maybe you could port GCC and upload it to source forge ?
Next is some sort of clustering software, I suggest that you steal the microfiches of the VMS operating system from somebodies desk. They have really good clustering and you might be able to adapt some tricks.
Of course, most of it is written in MACRO32 or BLISS, which leads to another small effort:
Porting BLISS to the UNIVAC (Don't forget to upload to Source Forge, provided they're still in business then).
And presto! You're all set.
No need to thank me...
It looks like M$ is killing off MP3 support for good.
Of course you can still use 3rd party products. However, that could also have been said for Netscape (RIP) as an alternative to M$-Internet Explorer.
Now combine that with their brown tonguing of the recording industry and Microsoft is well posed to obtain yet another monopoly.
Well mate, I fear this is utter rubish. You may want to check out this link in order to deliver your web pages precisely as you wish to deliver them.
Thatswhy we integrate digital rights management and kill MP3 in our fine new OS.
Wankers!
But then, this analogy is flawed.
You see, a specific flight on a given route has a finite amount of space. If there are 300 seats for sale, it is just damn well impossible to stuff 350 people into a plane. (OK, theoretically it's possible, but you won't be in business very long).
This also applies when you combine the capacity of all given carriers. There is so-and-so much capacity for a given route and if there is a lot of (over-)capacity, this potentially drives prices down. That's the reason why you fly cheaper from Los Angeles to New Yourk, then from Hicksville to Muskogee. Even if it's 8 time the distance.
You also conveniently forget the restrictions attached to cheaper flight tickets. If I pay up to 5 times the price for a full fare business class ticket, that gives me the right to board or not board the booked flight at my convenience. I don't even have to call the airline to cancel and I can change my schedule at any time and at no charge.
Now, the more cheapo an airline ticket is, the more strings are attached: Minimum/maximum stay, Sunday stay-over, No refunds, schedules can not be changed, or changes carry a stiff penalty, etc.
What a business person needs is flexibility more then any thing else. Not only the flexibility to book four hours in advance, but also to change her plans at whim.
This is very different with medias. Be it software, music or motion pictures. Once you payed for the production and/or development costs, the cost of a copy is marginal.
Don't get me wrong; huge amounts where invested into those products and the production entities certainly have a right to make a fair profit on their investments.
They definitely don't have the right to exploit customers, based on rules and backed by laws which are convenient only to them.
Unless of course they can obtain the best politicians money can buy...
It has a lot to say about police brutality in the US.
I'm also sure, that The LAPD very much appreciates your view.
While one is tempted to join in wailing with the crowd, one is reminded sometimed, that there are very good reasons why certain actions are taken, or why something might be deemed offensive in a different cultural context.
Thanks for that...
Linux: Ho!ho!ho!
I fear, that this only holds up in theory. One of the things that really bug me (and that's a worldwide issue with corporations), is that corporate management is not really held responsible, nowadays. You don't really have personalities anymore; personalities like Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Henry T Ford, Kenneth Olson, or even Thomas J Watson. Founders and enterpreneurs, visionaries that actually cared about their people, their community and society (not that they are above dirty tricks in all instances).
In todays modern world you have marketing-slicked-mba-steeled-ruthlesness on the search for the fast buck, without having a horizon any further then the quarterly report, or the stock price.
Of course there are exceptions, but they are rare and few.
It's partially worse then that. Remember companies like United Fruit, who where directly responsible for the deaths of 1000s of indios, to pursue their fucking banana growing interests. They wisely changed their name to United Brands (Chiquita) and are probably soon to be extinct.
Or remember Chile 1973, where the CIA gracefully assisted in the murder of a democratically elected, albeit rather darkpink president. Being responsible for Mr. Pinochet and his reign of terror, murder and torture. All in the interest of Americas finest corporations.
Well yeah, I'd extend that to the whole world. But guess what: We - the consumer - can make a great start! We can cease buying from companies that behave unethical. The problem is that people are so fucking lazy and ignorant.
Let's call Linux a tumor in the IT world (actually he once again confuses the GPL with Linux, but what the hell; let it stand for the sake of the analogy). Sure as hell it's a rotten bad tumor from the evil empires' perspective.
Personally I actually believe it's a benevolent tumor. At least, since I use it as my primary OS, my computer pains are more or less gone.
The more important question to ask, is :
How do you feel if that medic sells your information to your insurance company, which in turn either doesn't renew your policy, or jacks up your premiums 15 fold?
Or (granted, this is far-fetched right now), how about two government thugs, trampling in your door and pulling you away from your loved ones to [insert-transmittable-desease]-camp, based on (potentially false) medical information?
That as such is not that bad, if there would have been an option for those signing up with the old rules to have their data removed.
Well, of course the situation is very different if you clicked on one of those infamous Micro-show-us-the-money-soft EULAs.
It seems that as long as you are a corporation in America you can get away with just about everything short of murder.
I don't really want to stretch the EU is great type of argument. But when Volkswagen for example violated EU laws, by threatening their Italian dealers to yank their franchises if they sold (cheaper) to German and Swiss customers they where fined dozens of millions Euros for that. Same happened to Tetra Pack a decade ago for abusive monoplistic practices. Oh yes, and they payed up too.
The disregard for the rights of the individuals in the US is frightening. And when such an industry comes around with the self policing party line, they have about the credibility of Joseph Stalin preaching human right.
Guess what, Save for one of those automatic "we value your input very much" garbage-auto-replies nobody ever bothered to actually respond.
A month later that forced me to send snail-mail, certified. Needless to say that I never received a reply either. On a sidenote: My communication was never offensive or hostile.
Their customer treatment reminds me of the lame old joke: How do you know if an Amazon representative lies ? Well, when he opens his mouth, of course...
Unfortunately they - and all Amazon ventures and subsidiaries - lost my business for the rest of my life.
That is because they turned out to be a bunch of lying, corporate greed freaks, that's why
Man, I'm so impressed about the 800k equation guy cranking out such a word of wisdom.
Instead of stating the obvious, Amazon management should better consider the pissing-customers-off factor.
When they lied to me (and 10'000'000 others of their customers) - forcing me in the process to send a certified letter - they sure as hell lost my business for all eternity.
You get precisely one chance to screw - or even be dishonest with - your customers.
This is strange: Roaming works actually quite well here, but you have to put the chip into your cellphone.
Which begs the question if this is to be considered defrauding a Coke machine.
For starters: They don't distribute tacky watches, let alone bad smelling perfumes and if you've ever had the doubtful pleasure to be a member in this Kinderkarten-Club, you wouldn't necessarily consider this brand a commercial endorsement.